Could a president deploy wartime law against the Beatles? Trump administration says ‘yes’

3 weeks ago 3

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press

A federal judge hearing arguments Thursday over President Donald Trump’s use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan gang members had a question: Could a president use the same law against a “British invasion” that was corrupting young minds?

Jennifer Walker Elrod, chief judge of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, said her query — a reference to the moral panic in the 1960s over the arrival of the Beatles and other British bands — was “fanciful,” but a government attorney responded that the president did have that power and courts could not stop him.

“These sort of questions of foreign affairs and the security of the nation are specifically political issues,” said Drew Ensign, an assistant attorney general who was arguing the administration’s case before the full 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ensign said it would be up to Congress to check the president in that scenario.