In their rulings blocking President Trump’s travel ban from taking effect, at least two federal judges have cited statements by the president and his surrogates as evidence that the White House sought to prevent Muslims from visiting the U.S. in violation of the Constitution.
Among the statements is one by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told Fox News in January that Trump had asked him to “put a commission together” to advise on a ban and to show the president “the right way to do it legally.”
Now District Judge Victoria Roberts in Detroit has ordered the White House to turn over to the Arab American Civil Rights League and others suing to invalidate the ban a memo from Giuliani and several Trump advisers, including strategist Stephen Bannon and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, before they were in their current posts, as well as Michael Flynn, the former national security director.
“We believe these documents will show exactly how the Muslim ban that Donald Trump called for on the campaign trail turned into the executive order he issued a week after taking office,” Miriam Aukerman, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said in a statement.
Giuliani says his comments to Fox have been misconstrued and that Trump had not asked him to formulate a ban on Muslims that could pass muster with the courts but instead asked “what can he do legally to keep the country safe.”
The commission sought to focus on “the areas of the world that create danger for us” and not religion, the former mayor said.
In a ruling in February that prevented the travel ban from taking effect, District Judge Leonie Brinkema noted that “the evidence in this record focuses on the president’s statements about a ‘Muslim ban’ and the link Giuliani established between those statements and the [executive order.]”