Jeffrey Toobin Shreds Stephen Miller for ‘Wild’ Suggestion Trump Will Suspend Habeas Corpus

Former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin blasted comments by White House adviser Stephen Miller, who said the Trump administration is considering suspending habeas corpus.

Miller took questions from reporters, one of whom explicitly asked if President Donald Trump is considering taking the rare step.

“Well, the Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller said. “So, I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

Hours later on CNN’s AC360, Anderson Cooper played the soundbite from Miller and asked Toobin for his reaction. The host noted that earlier in the day, a Tufts University graduate student was released from federal detention after a judge ordered her freed. Rumeysa Ozturk was in the country legally when she was arrested on the street in March after she wrote an op-ed criticizing Israel in the school newspaper.

The former prosecutor responded:

Talking about suspending habeas corpus is such a wild step. The only time a president has done it unilaterally without the authorization of Congress was Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, when Congress wasn’t even in session and couldn’t ratify what he was doing.

I mean, habeas corpus goes back to the Magna Carta in the 13th century. The idea that someone in custody has the right to go to court to challenge their incarceration, that is so basic to Anglo-American law. And that’s one reason why suspending habeas corpus is considered such an extreme, extreme step. This is an example of how losses in court is causing this administration to escalate its rhetoric. And we’ll see where it goes.

Watch above via CNN.