[00:00:57] Speaker 02:
I was waiting for them to figure out.

[00:01:14] Speaker 02:
Thank you so much for your patience.

[00:01:16] Speaker 04:
Oh, your honor, my pleasure.

[00:01:20] Speaker 04:
May it please the court?

[00:01:22] Speaker 04:
I am unaware of any case in this judicial circuit or in any other judicial circuit that holds that a federal court's mandamus jurisdiction is withdrawn unless there is a specific statute expressly stripping the court of its jurisdiction.

[00:01:43] Speaker 04:
Moreover, in this case, the Attorney General's enforcement authorities under the Ethics in Government Act

[00:01:51] Speaker 04:
are limited to situations in which there is a willful or knowing nondisclosure and in this case there is no willful or knowing nondisclosure and as such the Attorney General's authority in this case is essentially inapplicable.

[00:02:14] Speaker 04:
With respect to the standing issue I think that NTEU is

[00:02:20] Speaker 04:
remains valid, controlling authority in this judicial circuit.

[00:02:26] Speaker 01:
I just want to be clear on one thing.

[00:02:27] Speaker 01:
You're not asserting any statutory cause of action other than the mandamus.

[00:02:34] Speaker 04:
Yes, a mandamus act and a non-statutory.

[00:02:37] Speaker 01:
You can see you don't have any other cause of action other than coming to this issue through the mandamus act.

[00:02:40] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:02:43] Speaker 04:
With respect, Your Honor, to the issue of the

[00:02:47] Speaker 04:
Disclosure of debts, in this case it seems evident that in this case there was no full and open disclosure, or full and complete disclosure.

[00:02:57] Speaker 01:
But do you dispute that they were all disclosed?

[00:03:00] Speaker 01:
You just, your concern is that they were, other things were disclosed too, which makes it harder to identify?

[00:03:08] Speaker 04:
Well, it makes it impossible to identify.

[00:03:10] Speaker 01:
But do you dispute that all, I didn't read you anywhere as disputing that in fact all of the personal liabilities were disclosed?

[00:03:17] Speaker 04:
I am not disputing the fact that there were personal liabilities that the president has that were not listed on the financial disclosure statement.

[00:03:27] Speaker 01:
You're not raising that.

[00:03:28] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:03:29] Speaker 04:
My dispute is that to me a disclosure means to make clear.

[00:03:34] Speaker 04:
And in this case it is entirely unclear from the president's financial disclosure statement whether or not he is liable for these debts.

[00:03:45] Speaker 04:
And as such, there is no disclosure, let alone a full and complete disclosure.

[00:03:52] Speaker 01:
I had thought you had argued in your brief that they're all there.

[00:03:55] Speaker 01:
He just needs to go through with asterisks and identify which is which.

[00:03:58] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:03:59] Speaker 01:
Okay, so they're all there.

[00:04:00] Speaker 01:
You just want asterisks.

[00:04:02] Speaker 04:
I don't know that they're all there.

[00:04:03] Speaker 04:
I'm not challenging.

[00:04:04] Speaker 01:
Okay, right.

[00:04:05] Speaker 01:
As far as you know, you're not claiming that he shorted you on disclosing or that the form shorted you on disclosing all of the debts.

[00:04:13] Speaker 01:
It's just that it's the formatting.

[00:04:17] Speaker 04:
Well, I don't want to quibble.

[00:04:18] Speaker 01:
Presentation.

[00:04:18] Speaker 01:
I don't want to go into it, but it's sort of the presentation of it.

[00:04:21] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:04:21] Speaker 04:
I don't want to quibble with semantics too much, but in my opinion, there was no disclosure of personal debts.

[00:04:28] Speaker 04:
because I don't know which of the debts listed in the financial disclosure statements are personal.

[00:04:33] Speaker 01:
What in the statute entitles you to police

[00:04:40] Speaker 01:
the accuracy of his disclosure, as opposed to get a copy of such report filed.

[00:04:46] Speaker 04:
I don't believe, Your Honor, Congress went through the entire purpose of these financial disclosure statements is essentially to give information to the public, not to agency ethics officials.

[00:04:56] Speaker 04:
I mean, that's important too.

[00:04:58] Speaker 01:
Really?

[00:04:58] Speaker 01:
I don't know.

[00:04:58] Speaker 01:
I can't decide that.

[00:04:59] Speaker 01:
Maybe it's both.

[00:05:01] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:05:01] Speaker 04:
Fair enough.

[00:05:01] Speaker 04:
Maybe it's both.

[00:05:03] Speaker 01:
But what you have a right to is such report under the Section 105.

[00:05:10] Speaker 01:
I think it's just illogical to believe that Congress would- I'm just asking textually when you're inserting an informational injury here, right?

[00:05:18] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:05:20] Speaker 01:
And so that's a creature of statute, your informational injury.

[00:05:24] Speaker 01:
It wouldn't exist if Congress didn't say you get this information.

[00:05:27] Speaker 04:
Correct.

[00:05:28] Speaker 01:
And what Congress said is you get a copy of such report.

[00:05:32] Speaker 04:
With the information that's supposed to be in the report.

[00:05:35] Speaker 01:
It just says you get a copy of such report.

[00:05:38] Speaker ?:
Such report.

[00:05:39] Speaker 04:
I don't see what the purpose is of giving somebody a blank piece of paper and saying, well, that complies with public disclosure.

[00:05:49] Speaker 01:
The question is whether it's an informational injury to say, I got such report, but I don't think its content complies with the law.

[00:06:02] Speaker 01:
That's a different argument than I didn't get such report.

[00:06:05] Speaker 04:
Fair enough.

[00:06:06] Speaker 01:
It is.

[00:06:06] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:06:06] Speaker 01:
But you need to show that you didn't get such report to have an informational injury.

[00:06:11] Speaker 01:
Don't you?

[00:06:12] Speaker 04:
No, I don't think so because I think your honor that the statute provides that there's certain information, not just giving a copy of whatever is thrown together in a report that doesn't serve at the public disclosure provisions of the statute at all.

[00:06:28] Speaker 01:
How do I know that?

[00:06:30] Speaker 01:
Because Congress didn't say you're entitled to get a copy of a report that's in full compliance with every jot and tittle of the statute.

[00:06:41] Speaker 01:
It said you're entitled to get such report, and such report refers to the filed report.

[00:06:46] Speaker 04:
Well, I think Congress is fairly specific as to exactly what is supposed to be in these reports.

[00:06:51] Speaker 01:
What's supposed to be in the report.

[00:06:53] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:06:53] Speaker 01:
And it also said who polices that issue.

[00:06:57] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry.

[00:06:58] Speaker 01:
It also says who polices whether there wasn't enough stuff in the report.

[00:07:03] Speaker 01:
And it's not you.

[00:07:05] Speaker 04:
Well, in this case, Your Honor, I would suggest to you that the agency, whoever's policing it doesn't have authority to waive the requirements of the statute, number one.

[00:07:15] Speaker 01:
Number two, the policing... That may be, but I don't know that you have standing to bring a lawsuit that says they haven't been enforcing the Ethics in Government Act.

[00:07:22] Speaker 01:
Well, I have standing... Well, Your Honor, my... You have standing to get such report, which you did.

[00:07:27] Speaker 04:
Well, I think I have an informational injury here, Your Honor.

[00:07:30] Speaker 04:
I need the information for voting purposes.

[00:07:32] Speaker 04:
That's standing enough.

[00:07:36] Speaker 01:
You only get what Congress authorized you to get, correct?

[00:07:39] Speaker 01:
And Congress authorized... I just want to be crystal clear on it, but you agree that you get, and we're fighting now about what Congress authorized, but you would agree that an informational injury is something created by, this one at least, is created by statute.

[00:07:51] Speaker 01:
And so your informational injury is to get what Congress authorized you to get.

[00:07:57] Speaker 04:
What Congress authorized me to get was a report which contains certain information.

[00:08:09] Speaker 04:
That's what Congress authorizes.

[00:08:11] Speaker 04:
That's what Congress requires.

[00:08:14] Speaker 02:
But I think your argument goes a step further, doesn't it?

[00:08:17] Speaker 02:
You're saying the whole purpose of the statute in terms of disclosing personal liabilities

[00:08:27] Speaker 02:
was so an informed person who gets the report can determine whether or not there's a potential or an actual conflict of interest.

[00:08:41] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:08:41] Speaker 02:
And if it's all mixed together and say the President's liabilities are $500, but the corporate liabilities are $5 billion, that doesn't tell you anything.

[00:08:55] Speaker 02:
That's correct.

[00:08:56] Speaker 02:
You can't figure out which is which.

[00:08:58] Speaker 03:
Does it tell you anything?

[00:08:59] Speaker 02:
So my point is, that's if you knew that, but you don't know whether it's 500 or much more.

[00:09:08] Speaker 02:
That's your argument.

[00:09:09] Speaker 02:
But I didn't see that in the statute, all right, that prohibiting what has happened here.

[00:09:17] Speaker 02:
I didn't see that in the specific language of the statute.

[00:09:21] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:09:22] Speaker 02:
And you make that statement twice in your brief, but you don't give me a citation that shows that.

[00:09:30] Speaker 04:
No, Your Honor, I am not asserting that the President is prohibited from disclosing as much as he wants.

[00:09:36] Speaker 04:
I mean, maybe it should even be encouraged.

[00:09:38] Speaker 04:
I don't know.

[00:09:39] Speaker 04:
That is not the case.

[00:09:40] Speaker 04:
It's not the issue here is not what is prohibited.

[00:09:43] Speaker 04:
The issue here is what is expressly required.

[00:09:46] Speaker 02:
I understand, but if Congress said, report everything,

[00:09:52] Speaker 02:
And you say, but if he does that, I can't figure out potential or actual conflicts of interest.

[00:09:59] Speaker 04:
Except your honor, Congress didn't say report everything.

[00:10:02] Speaker 04:
Congress said report personal liabilities in excess of $10,000.

[00:10:06] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:10:08] Speaker 01:
What if it said report at least personal liabilities?

[00:10:13] Speaker 01:
At a minimum, you must report personal liabilities.

[00:10:18] Speaker 01:
If you want to report more, you can.

[00:10:20] Speaker 04:
there enough to report as much as you want.

[00:10:23] Speaker 01:
Then you would have no case.

[00:10:25] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry?

[00:10:26] Speaker 01:
You would have no case under that statute.

[00:10:28] Speaker 01:
A statute that says you must disclose, at a bare minimum, his personal liabilities, as you talk about the statute doing.

[00:10:36] Speaker 01:
And if the statute then added a sentence that said, if you want to go disclose more, you may.

[00:10:41] Speaker 01:
If that's what the statute... You know... Just to be clear.

[00:10:46] Speaker 01:
I'm just saying assume that hypothetical statute.

[00:10:48] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:10:48] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:10:48] Speaker 01:
Then you would not have this argument.

[00:10:51] Speaker 04:
I think that's fair.

[00:10:53] Speaker 04:
I think that's right.

[00:10:53] Speaker 04:
I think that's right.

[00:10:54] Speaker 04:
In other words, I am not saying that the statute prohibits him from reporting more than is required.

[00:10:59] Speaker 04:
I think that's true.

[00:11:02] Speaker 04:
But under the way the statute is currently structured, the president has a certain obligation to advise the public of what are his personal liabilities in excess of $10,000.

[00:11:14] Speaker 03:
And that didn't happen here.

[00:11:16] Speaker 03:
The material in the appendix that's been filed on page 174 has a list of all the deaths.

[00:11:23] Speaker 03:
Is that correct?

[00:11:25] Speaker 04:
I'd have to look at 174, Your Honor.

[00:11:29] Speaker 03:
I don't know what year this is.

[00:11:30] Speaker 03:
174.

[00:11:35] Speaker 03:
That's correct, Your Honor.

[00:11:37] Speaker 04:
I believe that's for year of 2019.

[00:11:38] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:11:42] Speaker 03:
These other attachments here, were they filed with the report, the actual loan documents?

[00:11:49] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:11:50] Speaker 03:
Where did they come from?

[00:11:51] Speaker 04:
I did my own research.

[00:11:54] Speaker 03:
You got these loan documents not from the financial report but from other sources?

[00:12:00] Speaker 03:
Right.

[00:12:01] Speaker 03:
I did my own research to get these documents.

[00:12:03] Speaker 03:
Well, when you did that research, didn't you find that you could identify which was a corporate loan?

[00:12:09] Speaker 03:
Not really.

[00:12:09] Speaker 03:
Simply by the loan documents.

[00:12:11] Speaker 03:
I've looked through them.

[00:12:11] Speaker 03:
If it's an LLC that's taking the loan out, then we know it's a corporate document.

[00:12:17] Speaker 04:
Well, fair enough, Your Honor, but the problem is we don't have the loan documents underlying which these mortgages secure.

[00:12:24] Speaker 04:
In other words, I got copies of the mortgage documents, but not the loan documents, which are secured by the mortgages.

[00:12:32] Speaker 04:
So unless you have the loan documents, it's impossible to discern exactly to what extent the President is liable.

[00:12:39] Speaker 04:
for any of these loans.

[00:12:41] Speaker 03:
What would be in addition to the mortgage?

[00:12:42] Speaker 03:
If it's listed, you know, I looked up a number of these, but 1094 South Ocean Boulevard Mortgage, right?

[00:12:52] Speaker 03:
And the loan documents there.

[00:12:55] Speaker 03:
In that case, it is there.

[00:12:56] Speaker 04:
That's true.

[00:12:57] Speaker 04:
But with respect to the corporate debts, the loan documents are separate documents from the mortgage documents.

[00:13:06] Speaker 03:
But if it's listed as Trump Park Avenue LLC mortgage, we know that's not a personal loan.

[00:13:17] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:13:18] Speaker 04:
That's not correct, Your Honor, because the loan documents may have provisions requiring unconditional guarantees from the President under which

[00:13:26] Speaker 03:
Your theory bothers me, the validity of it, which is that we have to separate out the personal loans because that will reveal potential conflicts of interest, which is what you told Judge Rogers.

[00:13:39] Speaker 03:
The same is true if you've got a closely held corporation.

[00:13:44] Speaker 03:
These are not public companies, a closely held corporation.

[00:13:48] Speaker 03:
If Donald Trump is the only shareholder and he's got $10 million at stake with Deutsche Bank,

[00:13:54] Speaker 03:
for a particular, for Trump-Doral, the same argument, namely that we have to know that in order to prevent conflicts of interest supplies, doesn't it?

[00:14:04] Speaker 04:
Good point, and there's two responses, Your Honor.

[00:14:06] Speaker 04:
First, number one, not all of the loan documents are, the loans are to entities, some of those loans are to entities which aren't disclosed as assets on the financial disclosure statement.

[00:14:19] Speaker 04:
I mean, for example, there's a loan to TIHT Chicago.

[00:14:23] Speaker 04:
You will not find on the financial disclosure statement an entity called TIHT Chicago.

[00:14:29] Speaker 04:
You'll find something kind of sounds like that, but I have no way of knowing whether it's the same.

[00:14:34] Speaker 03:
Who in the executive branch polices the

[00:14:40] Speaker 03:
these particular disclosure requirements?

[00:14:44] Speaker 04:
Your Honor, they are reviewed by the agency, the White House Ethics Council, and again by the OGE Ethics Council, but the point is this... Is it OPM?

[00:14:54] Speaker 04:
No, OGE, Office of Government Ethics.

[00:14:56] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:14:59] Speaker 03:
Judges have a similar obligation.

[00:15:02] Speaker 03:
It's policed by the Administrative Office of U.S.

[00:15:05] Speaker 03:
Courts.

[00:15:06] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:15:06] Speaker 03:
Did you file a complaint with that particular agency?

[00:15:12] Speaker 04:
No, Your Honor.

[00:15:12] Speaker 04:
I filed actually to begin with, when this case started, I sent a letter to the White House Consul advising them of my concerns, in addition to which

[00:15:23] Speaker 04:
the OGE, Office of Government Ethics, there is no complaint procedure for a member of the public to file complaints with the Office of Government Ethics.

[00:15:34] Speaker 04:
No such procedure exists.

[00:15:36] Speaker 04:
There's no regulations, no guidance, and it just doesn't exist.

[00:15:40] Speaker 03:
And if I may say... You're not barred from doing that, are you?

[00:15:42] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry, Your Honor?

[00:15:42] Speaker 04:
You're not barred from doing that, are you?

[00:15:44] Speaker 04:
Not barred, no.

[00:15:45] Speaker 04:
But the second point I would make in response to your question, Your Honor, is that with respect to the issue of

[00:15:53] Speaker 04:
We know, in as many of these cases, you're right.

[00:15:56] Speaker 04:
These are closely held financial corporations, and in some cases, the president does have a financial interest in them.

[00:16:03] Speaker 04:
But still, we don't know the extent to which the president's financial interests exist, whereas if it's personal liability, we know the president's potentially liable for the whole amount of the loan.

[00:16:19] Speaker 03:
He's potentially liable for the entire amount of the loan, even in a closely held corporation.

[00:16:23] Speaker 03:
if he appears to the corporate veil.

[00:16:26] Speaker 03:
Fair enough.

[00:16:26] Speaker 04:
He could be.

[00:16:27] Speaker 04:
But the point is, you've got to remember, in this case, we're still in a motion to dismiss stage of the litigation.

[00:16:32] Speaker 04:
And we haven't had a chance yet to get into the facts and the meat of what the president is liable for, what he's not liable for.

[00:16:39] Speaker 03:
The questions I'm asking don't go to that so much as to the question whether there's some clear duty on that part of the president that he failed to satisfy.

[00:16:50] Speaker 04:
I understand, Your Honor, and the President's clear duty is to let the public know which liability, any personal liabilities, advise the public of any personal liabilities of him, his spouse, or independent child in excess of $10,000.

[00:17:04] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:17:04] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:17:16] Speaker 02:
Good morning.

[00:17:21] Speaker 00:
Good morning and may it please the court, I'm Matthew Glover and I represent the President of the United States.

[00:17:27] Speaker 00:
I think as the discussion with my friend, Mr. Levick, he evinces there are a raft of issues with his claim, not least of which is the statute doesn't provide him a clear and indisputable right for the relief he seeks, which is to have the President put an asterisk next to personal and non-personal liabilities in his ethics form, and nor does the statute impose a duty on the President to do so, to add those asterisks, nor does it limit

[00:17:53] Speaker 00:
you to only disclosing certain things.

[00:17:54] Speaker 00:
I think we pointed in our brief to a few places where the statute says you need not list something or you are not required to list something.

[00:18:01] Speaker 00:
And it doesn't say, but if you do, here's what you need to do for those procedures.

[00:18:07] Speaker 00:
I'd be happy to touch.

[00:18:08] Speaker 01:
Do you agree he has informational standing?

[00:18:11] Speaker 01:
I didn't see you raising it.

[00:18:13] Speaker 00:
No, we didn't raise that in this court.

[00:18:15] Speaker 00:
We argued that below and the district court viewed Friends of Animals versus Jewel and those two cases in this court saying if on your reading of the statute, I think there is a line to that effect.

[00:18:26] Speaker 00:
We cited some contrary precedent below.

[00:18:28] Speaker 00:
We didn't prevail and we think we have a lot of strong arguments.

[00:18:31] Speaker 00:
Obviously, we can't concede standing by not arguing, but I hesitate to .

[00:18:37] Speaker 00:
.

[00:18:37] Speaker 00:
.

[00:18:37] Speaker 00:
I'm happy if you have questions to sort of let you know what we argued below, but I hesitate to make it at the podium.

[00:18:42] Speaker 01:
I'm just curious, and maybe it's a difficult question.

[00:18:45] Speaker 01:
It's just usually informational injuries.

[00:18:48] Speaker 01:
Nobody can claim under FOIA that I asked for the report, they get the report, and they go, wow, you all didn't fill out the report properly.

[00:18:57] Speaker 01:
So I still have an informational injury.

[00:18:58] Speaker 01:
No one would allow that under FOIA, right, if they get whatever the government has.

[00:19:04] Speaker 01:
And so, and the statutes, just as I read it, maybe I'm all wrong, says they get such report, the one that's filed.

[00:19:11] Speaker 01:
And that's their informational right.

[00:19:15] Speaker 01:
But it's not a right to go, oh, I've got it, hand it back and go do it over, you didn't do it right.

[00:19:21] Speaker 00:
I agree, Your Honor, and we had argued below, relying on some cases dealing with the FEC, that in that statutory scheme, the court had held, or I believe it was this court, it may have had some district courts, had held there was no informational injury when what you were asking for, the statute didn't produce, but the district court here read the line, Friends of Animals versus Jewel that described.

[00:19:40] Speaker 03:
What about Zivitosky?

[00:19:42] Speaker 03:
Zivitosky held that if government gives an individual a right to receive particular information,

[00:19:50] Speaker 03:
and the individual doesn't get that information, that that's sufficient for standing under Article 3.

[00:19:58] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, yeah, I suppose that would conflict with our informational injury arguments below.

[00:20:04] Speaker 00:
Again, we didn't raise those on appeal.

[00:20:06] Speaker 03:
And specifically mentioned FOIA cases as an example of that.

[00:20:10] Speaker 03:
Also government in the Sunshine case.

[00:20:13] Speaker 03:
Yeah.

[00:20:15] Speaker 00:
Yeah, again, we didn't address that on appeal, and I don't think we relied on Zivotovsky below, at least to my memory, and we didn't prevail.

[00:20:22] Speaker 00:
We do think there are other problems, jurisdictional and authority or judicial authority problems with the case.

[00:20:29] Speaker 01:
It's agreed by all that there's no other statutory cause of action at issue here.

[00:20:34] Speaker 01:
This is just all mandamus.

[00:20:35] Speaker 01:
There's nothing in the

[00:20:36] Speaker 01:
Office of Government Ethics Act or anything?

[00:20:39] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor.

[00:20:40] Speaker 00:
The Office of Government or the Ethics Act, as I call it, the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, points out in provision 105, as you described with my colleague, that the custody has to be held by OGE.

[00:20:53] Speaker 00:
Under 105A, they need to make things available for you to view there.

[00:20:56] Speaker 00:
And then under 105B, if you follow certain procedures, which there's no dispute Mr. Levick, he followed, you're entitled to receive the report, and there's also no dispute he received it.

[00:21:05] Speaker 00:
Again, I would emphasize, and I think that some of the questions to Mr. Levy can emphasize this, the statute has a procedure for enforcement by the Attorney General in 104.

[00:21:14] Speaker 00:
It has a procedure for review in 106.

[00:21:17] Speaker 00:
It has built-in mechanisms, and it doesn't contemplate a personal duty to receive anything other than the completed report, or it doesn't contemplate.

[00:21:26] Speaker 02:
So you heard counsel say why he's not urging anything that the Attorney General would have authority to proceed on.

[00:21:35] Speaker 02:
To the extent there's an internal procedure, it doesn't exist.

[00:21:42] Speaker 02:
There are no regulations.

[00:21:43] Speaker 02:
There's no nothing.

[00:21:47] Speaker 00:
You heard what he said.

[00:21:49] Speaker 00:
Yeah.

[00:21:51] Speaker 00:
So I took him to say that the Attorney General's 104 authority is that you can bring a civil enforcement.

[00:21:55] Speaker 00:
No, no.

[00:21:56] Speaker 02:
He said he's not making a claim that there was any willfulness involved.

[00:22:01] Speaker 02:
And that's what the Attorney General's authority is limited to.

[00:22:05] Speaker 02:
All right?

[00:22:06] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:22:06] Speaker 02:
So then you look for the administrative review, and he says there are no procedures.

[00:22:11] Speaker 00:
Well, the Office of Government Ethics has imposed procedures on itself in terms of reporting.

[00:22:17] Speaker 00:
For the president, it does go to the director of the office himself.

[00:22:20] Speaker 02:
No, no, counsel.

[00:22:22] Speaker 02:
He gets the report.

[00:22:24] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:22:24] Speaker 02:
He thinks it fails to conform to the statute.

[00:22:30] Speaker 02:
So the argument is, well,

[00:22:34] Speaker 02:
We ought to proceed, seek review by the Office of Government Ethics.

[00:22:41] Speaker 02:
But he said there's no procedure for that.

[00:22:45] Speaker 00:
That's true, Your Honor, and that's because the statute isn't contemplating individuals being involved in reviewing and asking for changes to reports.

[00:22:55] Speaker 02:
So if I get a report, and it's just gibberish, I can't

[00:23:03] Speaker 02:
ask the Office of Government Ethics to look that over and see whether they, in its view, this report is satisfactory.

[00:23:17] Speaker 02:
That's all I'm getting.

[00:23:17] Speaker 02:
There's no motion procedure for reconsideration.

[00:23:22] Speaker 00:
Correct, Your Honor.

[00:23:22] Speaker 00:
There's no formal procedure.

[00:23:24] Speaker 00:
I would note, and I think this is noted at least in the briefing in Mazers, I believe it's in the opinion that there has been an entity that has written a letter to the Office of Government Ethics saying, you know, we think this father's report was not completed.

[00:23:36] Speaker 02:
So he just wrote to the wrong person.

[00:23:40] Speaker 02:
He wrote White House counsel.

[00:23:42] Speaker 02:
He should have written to the head of the

[00:23:43] Speaker 02:
the Office of Government Ethics?

[00:23:45] Speaker 00:
Given that there's no procedure, the Office of Government Ethics isn't under an obligation to respond to that.

[00:23:49] Speaker 00:
He came into this court and he needs to show that there's a clear right to relief and that the president had a clear duty to do what he's asking for to asterisk the liabilities.

[00:23:59] Speaker 02:
I understand that.

[00:24:00] Speaker 02:
I was just trying to understand the process.

[00:24:02] Speaker 02:
So the review is by the Office of Government Ethics.

[00:24:04] Speaker 02:
That's it.

[00:24:06] Speaker 02:
And that's it.

[00:24:09] Speaker 02:
So unless you show mandamus.

[00:24:12] Speaker 00:
Yes, if I can just, depending on the filer, typically you have an initial review with the ethics officer for your specific office and then to the Office of Government Ethics.

[00:24:21] Speaker 02:
No, but that's all internal.

[00:24:22] Speaker 02:
He's talking about the end result.

[00:24:24] Speaker 02:
He gets such report.

[00:24:26] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:24:28] Speaker 02:
He's stuck with it.

[00:24:29] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:24:29] Speaker 02:
Unless he can show he's entitled to mandamus.

[00:24:32] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:24:33] Speaker 02:
Your point is he can show that.

[00:24:35] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:24:38] Speaker 01:
filed this report and a hypothetical, not this case, somebody who really wanted to hide some things.

[00:24:46] Speaker 01:
And so they put their personal liability in there and then voluntarily included the liabilities of every liability this person has, every liability a family member has, every liability friends have.

[00:25:04] Speaker 01:
And so it went on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages.

[00:25:08] Speaker 01:
resulting in completely obscuring what the statute requires to be disclosed.

[00:25:15] Speaker 01:
Would that violate a clear duty?

[00:25:19] Speaker 01:
And in my hypothetical, it's done willfully, which is not alleged here at all.

[00:25:23] Speaker 01:
If it were done willfully, and they larded this thing up so that it's unreadable, would that violate a clear statutory duty?

[00:25:32] Speaker 00:
It would violate section, or it would violate, Section 104 says it would

[00:25:37] Speaker 00:
Let me step back, I apologize.

[00:25:38] Speaker 00:
It would violate section 102A4, which requires you to state your liabilities if you're doing this willfully.

[00:25:45] Speaker 01:
Well, they've stated, in my hypothetical, they have stated the liabilities.

[00:25:49] Speaker 01:
They've just stated a lot of other liabilities to obscure.

[00:25:53] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, that might be a closer case.

[00:25:56] Speaker 01:
No, no, I'm just trying to ask whether that would violate a duty under the statute or not, because I thought your theory was there's nothing in the statute that prevents adding in everybody in the room's debts.

[00:26:05] Speaker 00:
There's nothing in the statute that limits you to solely the liabilities that are required to be disclosed under 102A4.

[00:26:13] Speaker 01:
So it wouldn't be a harder case in your view then.

[00:26:16] Speaker 00:
It may be a case for the ethics officer to inquire and say, are you willfully violating this, or are you trying to .

[00:26:22] Speaker 00:
.

[00:26:22] Speaker 00:
.

[00:26:23] Speaker 01:
I don't know how you can .

[00:26:23] Speaker 01:
.

[00:26:23] Speaker 01:
.

[00:26:23] Speaker 01:
I mean, they willfully did.

[00:26:24] Speaker 01:
They can't willfully violate if the statute doesn't forbid it, can they?

[00:26:28] Speaker 00:
I think the statute envisions a process in which if you produce .

[00:26:31] Speaker 00:
.

[00:26:31] Speaker 00:
.

[00:26:31] Speaker 00:
I think your hypothetical said hundreds, but maybe you said dozens of pages.

[00:26:34] Speaker 01:
We'll say hundreds, that's fine.

[00:26:35] Speaker 00:
Hundreds of pages that your ethics officer might sit down with you and say, this seems

[00:26:40] Speaker 00:
Odd to me.

[00:26:41] Speaker 00:
Can we go through and discuss each of these liabilities?

[00:26:44] Speaker 00:
I'm looking at your assets.

[00:26:45] Speaker 00:
I don't see a ton of app, you know, or maybe you gave hundreds of pages of both.

[00:26:49] Speaker 01:
Um, but the statute, the person just says, no, I felt nothing forbids me from disclosing more.

[00:26:54] Speaker 01:
So I disclose more.

[00:26:55] Speaker 00:
There would still be no right for Mr. Levitki to ask that file or to change their reports because whether that would be a clear violation of the statute.

[00:27:05] Speaker 00:
I don't think it would be a clear violation of the statute on its face, because it does not prohibit you from listing additional liabilities.

[00:27:12] Speaker 00:
But I think that's far afield from where we are here.

[00:27:16] Speaker 00:
And that would, you know, the ethics office, if it raised a red flag with them, would discuss it with you.

[00:27:21] Speaker 00:
I see that I'm over time.

[00:27:23] Speaker 02:
See, I was thinking about previous presidents.

[00:27:27] Speaker 02:
And they either put their assets in a blind trust or something like that.

[00:27:34] Speaker 02:
And so when the disclosure form came, it was very limited as to what needed to be disclosed that was still a personal liability.

[00:27:49] Speaker 02:
This president has taken, according to what I read in the press, and that's all I know, he's taken a different attitude toward continuing involvement in various corporate activities.

[00:28:05] Speaker 02:
his disclosure might be necessarily more detailed, lengthy.

[00:28:15] Speaker 02:
And I guess the way I was reading this was there's nothing that prevents him from doing what Judge Millett just described.

[00:28:29] Speaker 02:
Although the statute, when it was passed and as it's

[00:28:34] Speaker 02:
been applied for a number of years has focused on the president's individual personal liabilities.

[00:28:48] Speaker 02:
And so this disclosure may be a little different, but there's nothing in the plain text of the statute that prevents the type of

[00:29:02] Speaker 02:
Folsom disclosure that occurred here.

[00:29:09] Speaker 00:
Yes, I would agree, Your Honor, and if I could just qualify briefly.

[00:29:14] Speaker 00:
Section 102 F regards when you have a blind trust, and so when you have a blind trust, you're not required to disclose all of those assets.

[00:29:23] Speaker 02:
That's my point.

[00:29:23] Speaker 00:
Yes, you could.

[00:29:24] Speaker 00:
The President has disclosed under 102 A1 for his assets and A2 and A4 for the liabilities, so yes, Your Honor.

[00:29:36] Speaker 00:
If there are no further questions, we would ask the court to affirm the district court.

[00:29:40] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:29:47] Speaker 04:
I just have two points briefly I'd like to make.

[00:29:50] Speaker 04:
One on informational standing, with respect to standing and informational injury cases.

[00:29:55] Speaker 04:
It's quite clear that standing should be based on the appellant's interpretation of the statute.

[00:30:01] Speaker 04:
That's number one.

[00:30:03] Speaker 04:
And the court just accepts that interpretation and presumes the merits in standing, with respect to standing.

[00:30:11] Speaker 02:
Second... No, I think we have an adverb in there somewhere, but I agree.

[00:30:16] Speaker 04:
Okay, thank you.

[00:30:17] Speaker 02:
It's hard to be plausible or something like that.

[00:30:19] Speaker 04:
Something like that.

[00:30:21] Speaker 04:
Secondly, I just would like to reiterate, Your Honor, that the President should not be allowed to bury his personal, informant disclosure of his personal liabilities.

[00:30:30] Speaker 04:
in a disclosure statement which contains a lot of information that he was not prohibited from disclosing correct.

[00:30:38] Speaker 04:
But when the disclosure itself, when the information he voluntarily discloses obscures the information that he is required to report, he has fundamentally not complied with the statute.

[00:30:51] Speaker 02:
So you don't think that's an issue for Congress or the Office of Government Ethics to promulgate a regulation that clarifies that?

[00:31:00] Speaker 04:
You see, I think, Your Honor, it's clear from the statute that it's clear that the President has an unambiguous duty to disclose personal liabilities in excess of $10,000.

[00:31:08] Speaker 02:
And nothing more.

[00:31:10] Speaker 04:
Nothing more.

[00:31:11] Speaker 02:
That's all he's required.

[00:31:12] Speaker 02:
He doesn't say that.

[00:31:13] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry?

[00:31:14] Speaker 02:
He does not say that.

[00:31:16] Speaker 04:
Well, this regulations certainly say that he has an unambiguous defiler of liabilities or what has to be.

[00:31:23] Speaker 04:
I understand.

[00:31:23] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:31:24] Speaker 03:
May I ask you, before you sit down, that you mentioned Congress.

[00:31:30] Speaker 03:
Do I recall correctly when I was reading the statute that I thought I saw a provision that permitted congressional committees to

[00:31:39] Speaker 03:
review the disclosures and then report back to the Office of Government Ethics if they have problems with it.

[00:31:48] Speaker 03:
Is that right?

[00:31:49] Speaker 03:
It doesn't exist with respect to the Executive Branch, Your Honor.

[00:31:53] Speaker 04:
That is, I think the disclosures forms you're referring to, those situations do come up, for example, when members of Congress do not make the disclosures they're required to make.

[00:32:04] Speaker 04:
In that case, the House Ethics Committee or the Senate Ethics Committee is required in that case to take the issue and look at it and resolve it.

[00:32:11] Speaker 04:
But with respect to the executive branch,

[00:32:14] Speaker 04:
Disclosures, it's all handled within the executive branch.

[00:32:17] Speaker 04:
And as I said in my briefs, there is no internal procedure in the executive branch to police the president's disclosures.

[00:32:25] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry.

[00:32:25] Speaker 03:
A couple more little details.

[00:32:27] Speaker 03:
Are these reports, these financial reports, put online, or do you have to make a specific request for them?

[00:32:34] Speaker 04:
These are put online, Your Honor.

[00:32:35] Speaker 03:
They're online?

[00:32:36] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:32:40] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:32:40] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:32:41] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:32:41] Speaker 02:
It takes a case under advisement.