AMY GOODMAN: I also want to ask you as the former New Jersey attorney general — President Trump has named the MAGA loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her resignation recently. Pulte has no known background in intelligence. He’s been serving, and apparently will continue to, as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he used his position to join Trump’s campaign of retribution against his political enemies, making criminal referrals over claims of mortgage fraud. Among those targeted, California Senator Adam Schiff, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve officials Jerome Powell and Lisa Cook. So, who is Pulte, from the same state as you, Matt Platkin? And I’m wondering if you can give us a little background. Right? Is a major developer — I didn’t say intelligence official — a housing developer in New Jersey, right around Bedminster, the golf course, and all over New Jersey, Pulte Homes, etc.. Can you tell us anything about him, from your perspective as another person from New Jersey who was the attorney general?

MATT PLATKIN: Well, I’ve never met Mr. Pulte, but I certainly know his work. And I have to say this is yet another deeply alarming appointment. As you noted, no background in law enforcement, no background in intelligence, never served in Congress, not somebody who has any of the requisite experience for this incredibly important office. And apparently he’s going to continue doing a whole bunch of other jobs, jobs which, by the way, he has used, as you noted, to weaponize his position against public servants, including my very good friend, Attorney General Tish James, who they tried, baselessly, to prosecute because she did her job in New York. So, this is somebody who should concern everyone. There’s been bipartisan backlash against this appointment already. It’s only a day old. And I predict it’s somebody who’s going to face some real challenge through the confirmation proceedings.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, I wanted to put this question to Judge Nancy Gertner, the retired federal judge. We’re talking to you at a time of mass deportations, heightened abuses by federal ICE and immigration agents. You’ve written about this and described many federal immigration enforcement tactics as, quote, “plainly illegal.” Your final comments today? And given where we are today, what are the legal options to hold ICE accountable?

NANCY GERTNER: There are numbers of cases across the country in which ICE tactics have been targeted, in varying degrees of success, you know, the challenges to the, essentially, stopping people who are speaking Spanish or look Hispanic in California. There have been challenges to the detention facilities. There have been challenges to the deportation of individuals without holding bond hearings. The Supreme Court is going to get some of these challenges. But what is significant to your listeners is that the Supreme Court can’t get them all. And the lower courts have been — the district courts have been extraordinary in standing up to these abuses.

The problem is that for — the law really did not match the — didn’t match how — what was going on, what’s going on with respect to the Trump ICE agents. In other words, when I was on the bench, there were very limited causes of action against ICE agents, limited ways in which the federal courts could affect them, and that was because ICE was a different agency, because ICE was not effecting mass deportations, ICE was not ignoring judges’ orders.

What we’re seeing now is an effort for the courts to catch up to those abuses, and they are. Legislation is going to be needed to make this even more clear, so that people can — so that, essentially, people can sue for damages against ICE agents. But we’re seeing actions across the country in the district courts, which ICE sometimes follows and sometimes doesn’t. It’s an extraordinary situation. And I didn’t confront this when I was on the bench, because I wasn’t dealing with an administration whose goal was to deport people who have asylum claims, who may even be green card holders, efforts to denaturalize people. I wasn’t facing that, and the law has to catch up.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner, one of 35 former federal judges who filed a motion to reopen the Trump v. IRS case, a professor at Harvard Law School, and former New Jersey state Attorney General Matt Platkin, serving as co-counsel to the former judges in this case.

Coming up, calls are growing for the U.S. attorney in Chicago to resign over his mishandling of the prosecution of the so-called Broadview 6 immigration rights protesters who took part in a protest outside the Broadview ICE jail in Chicago. Charges were dismissed after the case collapsed in court due to widespread prosecutorial misconduct. We’ll speak with two of the Broadview 6, but first with the lawyer representing another. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “People Have the Power” by Patti Smith, joined by Michael Stipe.