it is our ruling that could have a wide reaching effect on immigration policies in the united states. justices tossed out a number of parts of arizona is controversial law, but they kept the provision that requires police to check the immigration status of suspect pulled over for other violations. more on a ruling and reaction from both sides. >> there is some disagreement on whether or not it is working. >> monday's decision by the u.s. supreme court on the controversial portion of arizona's immigration law was followed very closely in virginia. the portion of a lot of help is modeled after similar policy adopted five years ago in prince william county. >> crime has come down more than 50%. >> he said monday's ruling is vindication. but this is common sense immigration enforcement that focuses in on those illegal aliens who are committing crimes. it is good law enforcement policy that will ultimately make all of us more safe. >> police have handed over nearly 5000 illegal aliens to federal officials for deportation. x the crime rate here in prince william county was going down every single ye

was in law school, you know, the most exciting thing you could do would be to work for the united states justice department and be on the front lines of fighting civil rights and all of those things. now, no, they want to go to the biggest law firm and make the most money. and money has kind of overtaken some of that passion. there's a friend of mine, and i say it all the time, and i don't mean to offend anyone. they say, the trouble is, in the '70s we were very proud of our chevrolets and fords and our parks and our public schools and this was great. and now, we live in gated communities. where the new thing is, get what you can, can what you get, and sit on the can behind gates. we have gated our hearts and our wallets and we're not interested in public schools because we have our private one, we're not interested in parks because we have our golf club, we're not interested -- why would we want to pay for that stuff? that's really concerning to me because that's really tearing at the fabric of society. you know. my kids talk about that. but they have lots of friends who are living very happily

the constitution that are controlling in this area. >> what did we learn about the chief justice of the united statesustice kennedy is often viewed as the swing vote. he was a dissenter here. he thinks the law is unconstitutional. it is chief justice, a republican appointee, the current president of the united states voted against his confirmation when he was in the senate, yet it is this republican chief justice who upholds the initiative of the president. what do we learn about the chief justice roberts court today? >> i believe the chief justice, and the court itself in many ways, is trying to be more conciliatory. i say this because the last few opinions have shown that they have not cut across the board in finding prohibitions. the immigration case, it wasn't totally a prohibition against what arizona was doing, it was a wait-and-see. even with the miller case, involving the 14-year-old who had been sentenced to life without possibility of parole, justice kagan delivered the opinion in that particular case. even then they didn't close the door completely to the states using life without possibil

cartel after the crime scene was at least one firearm deliberately allowed into mexico by the united states justice to. president obama recounted calling the president tell him to fire the recall paid for by the men and women of the national rifle association. so basically the n.r.a. claims holder knew the government was giving guns to the cartels and didn't stop it democrats countered that it was a routine operation gone awry due to poor oversight and a lack of resources and it's already general eric holder knew very little about it so republicans in the house have been investigating the scandal thousand oversight committees subpoenaed documents at the department refused to release them claiming they pertain to on an ongoing criminal investigation we're getting the notion that holder lied about what he knew and when he knew about the operation and this was after president obama asserted executive privilege to keep them classified a move that ratcheted up the tension so this afternoon in a historic vote the house voted to hold eric holder in criminal and civil contempt of congress it was the first

so i want to talk about the united states department of justice and their pattern of practice authority. the united states department of justice has the authority to sue and seek injunctive relief against police departments that are engaging in patterns of unconstitutional behavior of which racial profiling is one of many things that police departments could be doing and so one of these and doj has used this authority in washington, d.c., pittsburgh, los angeles and a lot of the reforms that have been gained through this were the forms that the department is seeking to gain an early warning tracking system. so if there is one thing that we know about police agencies is that when there's a problem there's generally a problem with the small number of officers who have repeated instances of misconduct. so if we can implement an early warning tracking system and identify these officers for retraining or retraining discipline that might help our department. we can see how that would also, by making those officers accountable might also engender some trust or legitimacy among the community. o

united states supreme court. a 5-4 decision. the chief justice of the united states, john roberts, siding with the majority, saying that under the tax writing provisions of the constitution, the individual mandate is in fact constitutional. we're getting reaction from all over the country. i want to go to atlanta, cnn's fredricka whitfield is over at grady memorial hospital. what are they saying, fred, over there? >> well, of course, wolf, the white house will say this is a victory. you heard from tom daschle saying this is a green light. republicans calling it a defeat, mitch mcconnell saying the cure is worse than the disease. just what this ruling means, i'm with dr. curtis lewis, who is the chief of staff. you make the rounds, you have the patients, you see what the care and what the need is. you're also overseeing all of the medical doctors. what does this ruling mean, this point forward, for this hospital? a hospital that cares in large part for the uninsured and underinsured. >> i think it means a couple of things. one thing, it means that

he is the founder of the united states justice foundation which takes on conservative causes includingchallenging president obama's birth in the u.s. he also represented a marine booted from service after he made anti-obama statements on quasi-military social media site and has represented members of the minutemen. this man's about to become a judge. and last week as you know, the president was heckled by a reporter in the rose garden of the white house. watch this. >> it is the -- it is the right things to do. excuse me, sir. it's not time for questions, sir. and the answer to your question, sir -- and the next time i prefer you let me finish my statements before you ask that question. i didn't ask for an argument. i'm answering your question. it is the right thing to do for the american people. and here's why. >> so we're not just talking about nut cases on the fringe of either party. we're talking about people who will become judges. we're talking about people standing up in the rose garden of the white house and using a press badge to heckle the president of the united states in th

also, you can help the united states justice foundation in their efforts to force president obama to produce his birth certificate by making a gift of $30 that will enable us to send a fax on your behalf to all 50 state attorney generals and attorney general eric holder to force president obama to supply his official state of hawaii biffert certificate. >> and in addition, we petitioned congress to block the certifying of the electoral college results until after our lawsuit had a chance to be heard or mr. obama had produced proof he was a natural-born citizen. unfortunately, congress refused to do anything about that, despite rumors that at least one congressman was going to challenge the results, no one in congress did it. >> that was gary kreep. so orly taitz may not have made the cut as the republican nominee for senate in california this week. close, but he didn't make it. but that guy, the guy from the birther infomercial looks like he has gotten mighty, mighty close to being elected as a judge isn't the same state. in a superior judge race, gary kreep has been narrowly ahead si

we saw it it in 2007 with regard to the united states firing scandal in the justice department under president bush. we've seen it recently with regard to the obama justice department. both of which drew the attention of political opposition in congress. now, the theme, i think, is sensible as far as it goes. of course we don't want politically motivated criminal prosecutions. that is we don't want prosecutors to exercise their discretion based upon whether the suspect is a republican or a democrat or a political rival. we don't want prosecutors to decline prosecutions merely for political reasons. but beyond this, the vision of an apolitical federal criminal enforcement regime is clouded for there are many ways in which politics and political considerations affect the role, scope and function of the prosecutor. we often hear about the criminalization of politics. but i'm also interested in the politics of criminalization, or to be more precise, the politics of lawmaking and prosecution. so perhaps the ultimate question is about who really controls the exercise of prosecutorial power

from 2005 do 2008 he was in the division of the united states department of justice where he received both the service award and the special achievement award. his scholarship focuses on american politics and institutions and the intersection of politics, constitutionalism, and criminal justice. his articles have been cited in all courts and the supreme court on down and, of course, in many law reviews and journals throughout the country. our first speaker, professor brauton. >>> thank you. there are no unique lessons to watergate. it's not as if political scandal or corruption was new to american politics. still, i would suggest that there is something about watergate that if not different at least am fews our understanding about the institutional forces at work when government officials seek to extend their authority or engage in scandalous or even criminal behavior. it has been said that watergate ushered in an era of skepticism about the competence of government and about generally speaking particularly when combined with the vietnam war the uses of executive power in particular.

the chief justice of the united states, the guy with delicious irony barack obama voted against, sides justices and says the only reason it can stand is it has become a tax. go back in time. george stef nop loss interview in 2009 saying this is not a tax. >> for us to say you've got to take responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. what it's saying is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you any more than the fact that right now everybody in america just about has to get auto insurance. nobody considers that a tax increase. >> the chief justice says this law can go into effect, the president should send a thank you note to, says it is a tax. >> first of all, i don't think he should send a thank you note. this is the right thing for the country. we like to get into partisanship, she's wearing red, i am not wearing my blue tonight. the truth is mitt romney who fathered that individual mandate provisions of the obama care law also have a videotape saying this is an assessment for those that can afford to have health insurance,

reasoning that caught many observers offguard as well as the surprise split that saw the chief justice of the united states, john roberts, siding with the courts' four liberal justices. kate bolduan begins outside. >> reporter: absolutely, wolf. a bombshell ruling. the individual mandate, the centerpiece, but getting to that conclusion was a surprising revelation. the chief justice writing for first unconstitutional under the commerce clause and later writing it would be upheld under the taxes cause. congress' power to tax a very unexpected legal route and reasoning barely got any attention in oral arguments when they were hearing this case. now, here's a little bit of the chief justice writing in the majority opinion explaining the reasoning here, chief justice writes "the federal government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. the mandate would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command." . he's talking about the commerce clause but goes onto say, the federal government does have power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. it can be reasonably read as a ta

prosecutorial position in the united states involved in creating a situation in which an agent of the united states was murdered with weapons supplied by the department of justice and a scheme that went unbelievably sour, as i said. now for the first 11 month, the administration denied -- they denied participation in this to this committee, the investigative arm of the house of representatives. for eight months we've had a subpoena out there and they denied providing us the information. at the -- at the -- last hour last night they offered a deal to provide us some information and tried to close down the case. this is absolutely absurd. then this morning the white house and in an attempt to thwart the committee's lawful investigation tries to throw out executive privilege, a complete fiasco. mr. burton and i, we've been on this committee a long time and there are reasons to exert executive privilege and to stop and try to stop the investigation of this committee into the department of justice, bringing about one of the worst besmirchments on the history of the department of justice is indeed an injustice to the congress, and to the american people and this impo

. >> today the united states supreme court did what none of us expected. justice scalia revealed that the whole time he's just been four raccoons in a black garbage bag. sad news from washington as the united states supreme court has committed octuple murder suicide. am leaving only clarence thomas to rule on obama care. he has remained silent. the united states supreme court surprised many analysts today when justice alito announced he will be stepping down from the bench to become the base player for iron maiden. >> today the long-awaited decision on obamacare came down-- excuse me, excuse me, i said nobody in the break room, okay. get out, out. >> stephen: we'll stay on top of this breaking story. fingers crossed. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: now nation-- in the past few months our economy has been a sluggish as a slug in a slug convention. it's gotten so bad i had to fire my metaphor writer. well, folks,-- (laughter) i've got some good news and some bad news. the good news is there's plenty of bad news which is great news for mitt romney. (laughter) you s

this is about the department of justice and justice in the united states of america. and i would, hen back to the june 3, 2011 letter that 31 democrats, brave democrats, sent to the white house. i read part of this. quote, iis equally troubling, remember, this is over a year ago, it is equally troubling that the department of justice has delayed action and withheld information from congressional inquiry, end quote. you went on to say, quote, while the department of justice can and should continue its investigation, those activities should not curta the ability of congress to fulfill its overght duty. we urge you to instruct the department of justice to promptly provide complete answers to all congressional -- mr. issa: i yield the gentleman 15 seconds. mr. chfetz: nothing has changed in over a year but i can tell you this, brian terry doesn't have answers you don't have answers, i don't have answers. i want all the factings. that's what we're asking for today, the facts, all of them i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman

it is about the department of justice and justice in the united states of america. have the guts, i hope we have the guts and the perseverance to get to the bottom of this. we have nearly 2,000 weapons purposely given to drug cartels. we have hundreds of dead people in mexico. we have a dead united states border parole agent. we have a government that's withholding information so that we can not only get to the bottom but that we can fix it and make sure it never happens again. when we're issued a letter and ten months later they have to pull it back and say that's not true, something is fundamentally wrong. it is also not about 140,000 documents that the department of justice knowingly says they have and we have less than 8,000 of them. it is not about the numbers. it is the fact we don't have all of them, whatever that number is. when you have somebody like the former acting director of the atf say under oath, quote, it was very frustrating to all of us and appears thoroughly to us that the department is really trying to figure out a way to push information away f

for those students of criminal procedure, you might remember dicker sorn verses united states where chief justice rehnquist departed from his previous pattern of casting doubt on miranda when congress had entered into the debate and said that, you know, miranda is only suggestive, it isn't compelled. we, congress, hereby pass an alternative to miranda. judge rehnquist said, well, this is a constitutional rule. it's not a constitutional requirement. it's a constitutional rule. having created it, we, the supreme court having created it, i will not broke the congress undoing it. my thesis is that water gate was special in that it was like the congress attempting to take the miranda power or undo what the court had done. it was here the president directly challenging the judicial power, precisely in the context of a grand jury which was more sdwru dishl branch than executive branch and in a direct challenge that president nixon i suspect regretted that he gave to the supreme court. i could have burned the tapes, i won't because you're going to uphold me by a definitive ruling. consequences for our ti

united states supreme court. and tom, just for audience's perspective, over 99% of the american lawyers never get the chance to argue one case before the united states supreme court. but to justicery peculiar dissent today, i've never read anything like it. he is pretending that it boggles the mind that local law enforcement don't have the same legal authorities as federal law enforcement? >> well, justice scalia's opinion kind of spoke for itself in the sense that one else wanted to join him. he has an incredibly strong view about immigration. he made it clear in the oral arguments for the case that he thinks sovereignty for a state means the ability to defend its borders. and the rest of the court has a very different view about this. you know, it says, you joined a union and this is the responsibility of the federal government's. the other thing that was unusual, the most strident parts of the opinion you were reading from weren't in the written opinion that was issued. his discussion of the new administration policy on deportations was in his bench statement. so it was a little strange to have him make such important points to him that aren't actually in the opinion that he

and that the united states department of justice, the u.s. department of justice, actually cares about protecting the constitutional rights, the constitutional rights of american citizens that are now being threatened by this illegal voter purge in florida. isn't that correct? >> that's correct. a base, we have to enforce the law, a law that was designed by this congress, or its predecessor, to protect the rights of american citizens. that's what our action is all about. to protect the rights of american citizens. >> thank you. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back his time. the gentleman from arizona, mr. quayle, is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for being here, mr. attorney general. i want to get back to how the wiretap application is approved in the process that it is. you said that basically whoever it was just reads the summary, determines whether there's probable cause, and if there is probable cause, then they send it off to get approval by the courts. is that basically what you're saying the process is? >> yeah

justice kennedy who said that, quote. as a general rule, it is not a crime for a alien to remain in the united states had you can i not be hopeful? from that line it says that the ruling says i'm not illegal. >> laura: if i'm you and i'm reading justice kennedy today and i heard president obama 12 days ago i'm not particularly worried about my status in the united states. jose, let's play devil's advocate here though there is a lot of people from nigeria in nigeria, pakistan, other countries who have been laboring for years and years to come here. they have been filing forms. they have been spending a lot of money. they don't have fraudulent social security numbers. they don't lie on their forms. like you did. how do you think they feel today? do you think they feel ghood they are still back in nigeria or pakistan. should everybody be allowed to come in or just the people here illegally. >> i'm so glad you asked that question. what we really need is a process. i'm not looking to bump the african-american nigeria. >> laura: have you bumped. someone could argue you have bumped them. >> again, if we create a process so that

apparently one of his big moves at the end is to say, look, the united states versus my defendant but the united states still wins if justice is done. in this case the jury shows united states argument over this. >> it's an extraordinary situation. have you ever seen a man in this position or this reputation going down this way? >> no. the last couple of years as we've watched throughout the crisis, financial crisis, that's obviously elevated everybody's attention to what's going on in the marketplace. a lot of folks over the years have been calling for somebody's head. this is another example of going for somebody, seeing somebody go away like this. obviously the decisions along the way are very, very tragic and unfortunate. >> we wait to see if his lawyer, his attorney makes a statement to the press. this an extraordinary situation, part of a big drive, of course, from the federal government into the hedge fund industry, steve. >> it's always shocking to see poor judgment when you see professionals at this caliber. i think all of us on this panel are extremely shocked at it. i've never seen anything like it before. there'

united states government. i -- i felt good about that. but i -- now chief justice roberts and other members concluded, well, it may look like a mandate but we called it a tax -- and i haven't don't technical analysis that they went through to reach that opinion, but that doesn't seem correct to me. it seemed like it's still a mandate, a mandate to buy something you don't want to buy. that doesn't sound like a tax to me. maybe it is. maybe they can defend it that way. but i don't see how that's a tax. sounds like a mandate and a penalty. so scholars will be reading that opinion for some time and we'll know whether chief justice roberts' analysis that this apparent mandate, apparent requirement that the president said was not a tax, now is a tax and that the law is constitutional because of it, we'll wrestle with that. but it doesn't deal with the fundamental question, can we afford this legislation? i say we cannot. i believe the facts are crystal clear that we cannot. we absolutely have to reform it, start over, create a health care system that works at a reasonabl

prosecutorial position in the united states involved in creating a situation in which an agent of the united states was murdered with weapons supplied by the department of justice in a scheme that went unbelievably sour, as i said. for the first 11 months, the administration denied participation in this to this committee, the investigative arm of the house of representatives. for eight months, the chairman -- we have had a subpoena out there and they have denied providing us the information. at the last hour last night, they offered a deal to provide us some information and tried to close down the case. this is absolutely absurd. then this morning, the white house in an attempt to thwart of the committee puzzle all investigation tries to throw out executive privilege, a complete fiasco. mr. burton and i have been in on this committee long time. there are reasons to exert executive privilege and tried to stop the investigation of this committee and to the department of justice, bringing about one of the worst is indeed an injustice to the congress, to the american people, and this important investigative arm of the house of representatives. this is a very sad da

nixon improperly attempted to obstruct an investigation by the united states department of justice of an unlawful entry into the offices of dr. lewis fielding, a psychiatrist who had treated daniel elsberg, improperly consealed and encouraged others to conceal evidence relating to unlawful activities of members of his staff and of the committee to re-elect the president and improperly engaged in conduct which he knew or should have known would have interfered with the legal defense of daniel elsberg. so he was not in -- acting in a lawyer role, but because of that conduct, he lost his law license, and he actually tried to voluntarily resign his license to the new york bar and they really wanted to write the order disbarring him so they declined his voluntarily r resignation and proceeded with disbarring proceedings. >> if i could maining a point here. the whole reason we're here today is because when john testified in front of the senate, he had created a document which he was asked who was involved pre break-in and post break-in, and he wrote it out for his lawyer, and he put stars o

united states. little did we know that they were actually being supplied by the department of justice. scheme that the taxpayers of the united states were funding. and would end up killing our agent, brian terry, and hundreds of mexicans. so, yes, they laid the groundwork for this. and the whole thing backfired. but it's pretty sad. this is a very sad day. we didn't want to do this. we asked. we could have stopped this whole proceeding if the attorney general had replied with a request from our lawful subpoenas that were delivered to him. >> so, where does it go from now? he's been held in contempt by the house of representatives. which may be a public embarrassment to him. you heard his statement coming back to you. you don't still have these documents. will there be any effort to work this out? >> well, there was two things that passed. he was held in contempt on a civil charge. he was held in contempt also on a criminal charge. he is interfering with a lawful investigation of an investigative committee of congress. he, again, is standing in the way of our pursuing what took place in

united states supreme court. that's simply not true. the vote on constitutionality in that case in the supreme court of the united states was 7-2. justice breyer, a democrat, voted with the republicans and justice souter voted -- voted with a dissenting democrat, i think justice ginsberg, so in effect you had a bipartisan decision on constitutionality and then they took up the question of remedy after they said that the scheme that the florida legislature has put in place for recount is -- is illegal, unconstitutional, and then they said the time has expired for further recount because by gore's own admission, the critical date was december 12th and this was december 11th. they said there's no longer any time to count. the gore campaign made a big mistake when they asked for recounts in only four counties, and they were pro-democratic counties, all of them, very heavy democratic counties, and they asked for a recount instead of a statewide recount that should have come in. when they did that, that gave us the high ground, and their mantra was count every vote, count every vote. our mantra was, look, we've counted them five times, six ti