Transcripts For CSPAN3 Kelly V. United States Oral Argument

This theory turns the integrity of every official action at every level of government into a potential federal fraud investigation. It end runs mcnally and skilling by subsuming Honest Services fraud within property fraud and by criminalizing ulterior motives, even without bribes or kickbacks. It would affect a sweeping expansion of federal criminal jurisdiction into a particularly fraught area. This is not the law. This court in cleveland held that Regulatory Authority is not property. So an official who induces a sovereign decision through deceit has not obtained property by fraud. Only when the official lies to divert state resources to private use has he stepped out of the regulatory realm and committed property fraud. This rule distinguishes property fraud from Honest Services fraud and from routine political conduct. Here because the defendants simply reallocated the traffic lanes from one public use to another, the Port Authority at most was deprived of regulatory control, not property. And thats true for regardless of whether the government as they now allege the defendants laced the authority in some sense to order the realignment. Mr. Levy will explain why the government is wrong to say that, but its ultimately legally irrelevant because it does not prohibit lying to authority taking state action. They prohibit lying to obtain property and thats simply not what occurred in this case. You said that if the resources were diverted to private use, then the prosecution would be okay. But why isnt it private use to benefit defendants politically . Your honor, im trying to distinguish the use of the property from the motive for the decision. So here the decision was to realign the lanes from one set of public drivers to another set of public drivers. Both are public uses of the lanes. Its true the motive, the alleged motive for that regulatory decision was improper. It was political, right . Thats the allegation in the case. But that doesnt mean that its the use of the lanes was private. Its not your honor, the typical case in which the government has prosecuted property fraud against the public official is where the official lies to take property from the government for his own use. So situation where you lie on your expense report. You say you incurred this expense for business reasons and you did not. In that situation, youre lying. And you are taking the property out away from the government for yourself. Thats obtaining property. Here what the defendants influenced through their deceit was the decision about the alignment of the lanes. And if there is anything that is regulatory in nature so mr. Roth, on that theory, would it or would it not make a difference if the defendants here, rather than doing everything that they did for a political reason, if they had done it to make their commutes easier or their families commutes easier . So it wasnt anything about politics. It was their own personal interests. But they did exactly the same things. Is that covered or is that not covered on your theory . On my theory, that is certainly not property fraud. The officials, even in that case have not obtained property youre not just making a distinction between private uses and public uses. You know, private purposes and Public Purposes maybe . Im certainly not making a distinction between the type of purpose. What im trying to distinguish is the use of the property. And is it a regulatory decision to realign the lanes for whatever purpose because if were if what were concerned about is the integrity of the purpose behind the decision, that really sounds Honest Services fraud because what were concerned about is not the government being cheated out of property that it has, that it owns. Were concerned about the good faith of the official in making the decision. Thats a hard it can be a hard line to draw. I mean, if the rerouting of the traffic is done for commercial benefit of the individual in whatever way, that would be a violation, right . Your honor if hes got a development or something, hes building a hotel in ft. Lee and he wants the traffic redirected there or directed away from, whichever because he thinks it will increase business at his hotel. Your honor, if the court would consider that as a kickback, then that would be Honest Services fraud. It would not be property fraud because again, the decision there is a decision about allocating scarce Public Resources among public uses. Again, the concern in your hypothetical is, was is a good reason . Was it to benefit the public or to benefit himself . And what this court said in skilling is, if you make the decision because you were paid a bribe or because youre going to be getting a kickback, that is a violation of your Honest Services, your duty to provide Honest Services to the public. What were doing here is interpreting a statute. And its not quite clear to me how your argument fits into the language of this statute. So property money is property. And money was lost. So how does this fit into the language of the mail fraud statute the wire fraud statute . The relevant word is property and the second is obtain. And this court in cleveland explained that when the government is making sovereign decisions in its capacity is soench, implicating its regulatory interest, that is not property within the meaning that congress had when it enacted. Was there a loss of money in cleveland . There wasnt its not clear if there was lost property. Certainly, i would say there was an official in that case who was processing the fraud lent application. And if he had not been given the fraudulent application to proerks he would have been doing useful work for the agency. And maybe he would have gone home an hour earlier and been paid a little less. I dont think any of that would have mattered to the result in cleveland. Because its all of that is how does it fit in this statute . Is there that there isnt property isnt obtained when it is simply wasted . Is it does it is it a gloss on the word defraud . I think its two steps, your honor. The first step is to establish that the decision, the realignment is not property because thats control. Thats regulatory power. The second step is to say, what about the costs of implementing it . And i would say the cost of implementing that regulatory decision are part and parcel of it, and its the scheme is not to obtain that property. The object of the scheme is to effect the policy decision, this regulatory decision in the way the officials want. In the case of sending city snow plows to clear your own house first or sending city maintenance people to paint your own house, if youre a public official, i was under the impression you thought that would be a crime. Is that right . If you are sending the Public Employees to do private work . Yes, absolutely. Thats not regulatory. Youre just taking the City Property and using it for private use, which is not thats your so even though both are diversions of city or state resources, whatever it is, its just one is regulatory and one is not because one involves personal benefit . Personal use. Yes, your honor. Every regulatory decision diverts resources in some way. Every time a public official makes a decision, there are implications for the bureaucracy and for public property. So there is diversion going on and maybe the decision was made for a bad reason. If its a bad enough reason its an Honest Services resolution. Is it your thought that the word obtain is what does the work in justice kagans hypothetical. Its obtaining property. I dont think its one or the other. Cleveland focused on property. And what did congress mean when it said property . I think it said we are concerned with cheating people out of their property rights. And you can do that with a government entity. You can cheat the government out of its property. Pasquentino said you owe taxes to the government, you lie to avoid paying your taxes. Youve committed property fraud. The same could occur in a Port Authority situation. You owe a toll and lie to evade paying the toll. You have cheated the government out of property that its owed. Youre making a regulatory decision like allocating Public Resources among public uses, and theres no question that the main line is a public use just as much as the special access roads are a public use of the property, that is not obtaining property. I can understand the distinction between a regulatory decision and deprivation of property when the regulatory decision doesnt cause a loss of property. When the regulatory decision caused a loss of property, i find it more difficult to see the distinction. Explain it to me. I think that every regulatory decision is going to have some consequences for Public Employee time, for example, which is the species and property that the government has invoked. But in this case lets take this case as an example. What they focus on, the additional money that was spent was the toll keeper. The toll keeper had to do an additional shift. But the toll keeper was doing her job of collecting tolls for the public. The Port Authority was not deprived of her salary. She was earning her salary. The objection is, if this regulatory decision had not been made, we would not have had to hire that toll keeper for that work. Ill try this one last time. Tell me how this fits. When we write the opinion, if we were to write one in your favor, how would we explain your result within the language of the statute . I think the court would say, the statute prohibits schemes to obtain property when you are using deceit to influence a regulatory decision to change a regulatory decision that is not obtaining property and the corollary is the costs of imaccomplishmei implementing a regulatory decision dont change the result. I think ill try mine once more, too, mr. Roth. Why when a public official says you do a city Maintenance Worker, you should paint my house before you do anything else, why isnt that similarly an allocation of resources . Because its not the job of it benefits me, but, you know, i got to send whether its painting or snow plows, you go plow my street first. Why isnt that an allocation of city resources . Let me try to clarify. I may have led to some confusion. If you are plowing public roads and you say, i want to plow my street first or my neighborhood first, that is not obtaining property by fraud. Because that is an allocation of resources to a public use. Its a public use that happens to benefit you and maybe that was your motive, and thats very bad, but its not obtaining property by fraud. If you instead trick the Public Employees not into plowing the public road but into plowing your private driveway, which is not the job of the government, right, thats not what the government does. The government is concerned with public property and clearing public property. If you trick the employees into plowing your private driveway, then you have taken their services for your personal use sch is fundamentally different. Thats no different from saying i worked overtime when you didnt. Please pay me, you know, my hourly wage for the overtime that i didnt work. And that difference, just to go back to Justice Alitos question, where in the statute . The difference is in the scheme to obtain property. Thats where it is in the statute. So you look at what is the object of the scheme. And if the object of the scheme is to influence a regulatory decision, its not a scheme to obtain property. Thats just follows from cleveland. Otherwise, every decision that public official makes is on the table and the only thing that im sorry. I thought the scheme was to make life difficult for ft. Lee. If that was the scheme, and you defrauded the use of Government Property to accomplish your goal, why is that any different than taking the Maintenance Worker to plow your road, your private street . Your honor, the difference is that here the alleged purpose, the alleged motive was what your honor said, right, to increase that was the scheme. The scheme was to do that through a regulatory decision, right, by realigning the lanes from one public use to another public use. So what were what the objection is to the conduct here san objection to the purpose. Not the objective use of the property. My problem is, i dont think i can see a headline that would say, its okay for officials to use government public money in a way that is plainly unauthorized, not just in its motives but its end use. An official can and should never be liable for that. Our Public Officials now can use Government Resources for their private ends. Your honor not mixed motive which is the interesting question here with the traffic study and whether you have enough whether they have enough evidence that there wasnt a traffic study. But youre saying when what the government has said, youre not authorized to do it. Theres a question about that. Yeah. And you didnt have even a mixed motive. You had only a personal one. Ill let mr. Levy speak a little more about unauthorized because actually the governments theory throughout the case was that he did have the authority and he abused his power by making the decision. A much more difficult question. Yes. But what i will say is, im not trying to suggest this is okay. We dont want Public Officials acting for personal reasons. We dont want them acting necessarily for partisan or political reasons. But what im saying is the remedy for that is not a federal property fraud statute. We have certainly political remedies that were very much had substantial repercussions here. There may also be state law constraints on official abuses of authority. In fact, new jersey has a statute called official misconduct that is specifically directed toward unauthorized decisions with bad purposes. Thats not what the federal property fraud statute is concerned with. Federal property fraud statute is concerned with cheating the government out of its property rights. And thats just not what we have here. What we have here is an abuse of power, a political abuse of power, and thats if anything, again, that sounds an Honest Services fraud which this court has limited thanks to vagueness concerns to bribes and kickbacks. Your honor if there nor further questions, thank you. Thank you, counsel. Mr. Levy . Mr. Chief justice and may it please the court. A public official who is acting politically and not for personal gain does not commit fraud by lying about his reason for an official decision. If the decision was generally within his authority. The government disputed that below, but now urges that as the rule in this court. That concession requires reversal. The government alleged and proved that mr. Baroni was the cohead of the Port Authority responsible for supervising all aspects of its operations. The government itself elicited there was never any policy that precluded mr. Baroni from using his Plenary Authority to alter a traffic pattern. This court should require an objectively clear lack of authority, something not even arguably shown here. Otherwise, any official who conceals his political motivation risks being convicted of fraud if a prosecutor or jury later disagrees about the scope of his authority. If the governments role is to provide any limits, this case must lie beyond those limits. Id like to begin by discussing what the government alleged, argued and proved below about mr. Baronis authority before it decided in this court that an Officials Authority is the line between guilt and innocence under the fraud statutes. In the District Court, the government alleged in the indictment that mr. Baroni was responsible for the general supervision of all aspects of Port Authority business, including the operations of its transportation facilities. From its main cooperating witness, mr. Wildstein, the government elicited that exact statement precisely ticking off one of the allegations from the indictment. It elicited from mr. Wildstein that the title deputy executive director was a misnomer. That within the Port Authority structure, the deputy executive director and the executive director had a 50 50 split in terms of power sharing that the deputy executive director was not the number two position within the Port Authority. Thats from the governments eliciting from its own cooperating witness. The government also the arrangement is always that the new theres a new york representative who is the executive director and the new jersey representative who is the deputy. Is that right . That was at the time the arrangement. It was always appointed by the governor of new jersey for the deputy executive director and the governor of new york for the executive director. And it was understood within the agency by everyone. The all the witnesses the government called testified that that was the arrangement. They called mr. Baronis successor who testified that that was the arrangement. That the one did not report to the other. And that this is a bistate agency. Why would new jersey agree to an arrangement like that where its representative is always in the second seat at least nominally . Just the big brother across the river . Is that the i dont know the answer to that except that the structure within the Port Authority was that that was not the case. So they, in fact, as it actually played out, didnt agree to play second fiddle. It was understood that within the Port Authority, the deputy executive director had equal authority. The vice chairman testified about these parallel chains of command that were understood. Particularly for decisions made within new jersey, it was understood that would fall within the deputy executive directors scope of authority. I think one of the governments main arguments for on the sufficiency of the evidence, which is fairly progovernment and in this situation, was that mr. Wildstein had to lie to the Honest Services<\/a> fraud within property fraud and by criminalizing ulterior motives, even without bribes or kickbacks. It would affect a sweeping expansion of federal criminal jurisdiction into a particularly fraught area. This is not the law. This court in cleveland held that Regulatory Authority<\/a> is not property. So an official who induces a sovereign decision through deceit has not obtained property by fraud. Only when the official lies to divert state resources to private use has he stepped out of the regulatory realm and committed property fraud. This rule distinguishes property fraud from Honest Services<\/a> fraud and from routine political conduct. Here because the defendants simply reallocated the traffic lanes from one public use to another, the Port Authority<\/a> at most was deprived of regulatory control, not property. And thats true for regardless of whether the government as they now allege the defendants laced the authority in some sense to order the realignment. Mr. Levy will explain why the government is wrong to say that, but its ultimately legally irrelevant because it does not prohibit lying to authority taking state action. They prohibit lying to obtain property and thats simply not what occurred in this case. You said that if the resources were diverted to private use, then the prosecution would be okay. But why isnt it private use to benefit defendants politically . Your honor, im trying to distinguish the use of the property from the motive for the decision. So here the decision was to realign the lanes from one set of public drivers to another set of public drivers. Both are public uses of the lanes. Its true the motive, the alleged motive for that regulatory decision was improper. It was political, right . Thats the allegation in the case. But that doesnt mean that its the use of the lanes was private. Its not your honor, the typical case in which the government has prosecuted property fraud against the public official is where the official lies to take property from the government for his own use. So situation where you lie on your expense report. You say you incurred this expense for business reasons and you did not. In that situation, youre lying. And you are taking the property out away from the government for yourself. Thats obtaining property. Here what the defendants influenced through their deceit was the decision about the alignment of the lanes. And if there is anything that is regulatory in nature so mr. Roth, on that theory, would it or would it not make a difference if the defendants here, rather than doing everything that they did for a political reason, if they had done it to make their commutes easier or their families commutes easier . So it wasnt anything about politics. It was their own personal interests. But they did exactly the same things. Is that covered or is that not covered on your theory . On my theory, that is certainly not property fraud. The officials, even in that case have not obtained property youre not just making a distinction between private uses and public uses. You know, private purposes and Public Purposes<\/a> maybe . Im certainly not making a distinction between the type of purpose. What im trying to distinguish is the use of the property. And is it a regulatory decision to realign the lanes for whatever purpose because if were if what were concerned about is the integrity of the purpose behind the decision, that really sounds Honest Services<\/a> fraud because what were concerned about is not the government being cheated out of property that it has, that it owns. Were concerned about the good faith of the official in making the decision. Thats a hard it can be a hard line to draw. I mean, if the rerouting of the traffic is done for commercial benefit of the individual in whatever way, that would be a violation, right . Your honor if hes got a development or something, hes building a hotel in ft. Lee and he wants the traffic redirected there or directed away from, whichever because he thinks it will increase business at his hotel. Your honor, if the court would consider that as a kickback, then that would be Honest Services<\/a> fraud. It would not be property fraud because again, the decision there is a decision about allocating scarce Public Resources<\/a> among public uses. Again, the concern in your hypothetical is, was is a good reason . Was it to benefit the public or to benefit himself . And what this court said in skilling is, if you make the decision because you were paid a bribe or because youre going to be getting a kickback, that is a violation of your Honest Services<\/a>, your duty to provide Honest Services<\/a> to the public. What were doing here is interpreting a statute. And its not quite clear to me how your argument fits into the language of this statute. So property money is property. And money was lost. So how does this fit into the language of the mail fraud statute the wire fraud statute . The relevant word is property and the second is obtain. And this court in cleveland explained that when the government is making sovereign decisions in its capacity is soench, implicating its regulatory interest, that is not property within the meaning that congress had when it enacted. Was there a loss of money in cleveland . There wasnt its not clear if there was lost property. Certainly, i would say there was an official in that case who was processing the fraud lent application. And if he had not been given the fraudulent application to proerks he would have been doing useful work for the agency. And maybe he would have gone home an hour earlier and been paid a little less. I dont think any of that would have mattered to the result in cleveland. Because its all of that is how does it fit in this statute . Is there that there isnt property isnt obtained when it is simply wasted . Is it does it is it a gloss on the word defraud . I think its two steps, your honor. The first step is to establish that the decision, the realignment is not property because thats control. Thats regulatory power. The second step is to say, what about the costs of implementing it . And i would say the cost of implementing that regulatory decision are part and parcel of it, and its the scheme is not to obtain that property. The object of the scheme is to effect the policy decision, this regulatory decision in the way the officials want. In the case of sending city snow plows to clear your own house first or sending city maintenance people to paint your own house, if youre a public official, i was under the impression you thought that would be a crime. Is that right . If you are sending the Public Employees<\/a> to do private work . Yes, absolutely. Thats not regulatory. Youre just taking the City Property<\/a> and using it for private use, which is not thats your so even though both are diversions of city or state resources, whatever it is, its just one is regulatory and one is not because one involves personal benefit . Personal use. Yes, your honor. Every regulatory decision diverts resources in some way. Every time a public official makes a decision, there are implications for the bureaucracy and for public property. So there is diversion going on and maybe the decision was made for a bad reason. If its a bad enough reason its an Honest Services<\/a> resolution. Is it your thought that the word obtain is what does the work in justice kagans hypothetical. Its obtaining property. I dont think its one or the other. Cleveland focused on property. And what did congress mean when it said property . I think it said we are concerned with cheating people out of their property rights. And you can do that with a government entity. You can cheat the government out of its property. Pasquentino said you owe taxes to the government, you lie to avoid paying your taxes. Youve committed property fraud. The same could occur in a Port Authority<\/a> situation. You owe a toll and lie to evade paying the toll. You have cheated the government out of property that its owed. Youre making a regulatory decision like allocating Public Resources<\/a> among public uses, and theres no question that the main line is a public use just as much as the special access roads are a public use of the property, that is not obtaining property. I can understand the distinction between a regulatory decision and deprivation of property when the regulatory decision doesnt cause a loss of property. When the regulatory decision caused a loss of property, i find it more difficult to see the distinction. Explain it to me. I think that every regulatory decision is going to have some consequences for Public Employee<\/a> time, for example, which is the species and property that the government has invoked. But in this case lets take this case as an example. What they focus on, the additional money that was spent was the toll keeper. The toll keeper had to do an additional shift. But the toll keeper was doing her job of collecting tolls for the public. The Port Authority<\/a> was not deprived of her salary. She was earning her salary. The objection is, if this regulatory decision had not been made, we would not have had to hire that toll keeper for that work. Ill try this one last time. Tell me how this fits. When we write the opinion, if we were to write one in your favor, how would we explain your result within the language of the statute . I think the court would say, the statute prohibits schemes to obtain property when you are using deceit to influence a regulatory decision to change a regulatory decision that is not obtaining property and the corollary is the costs of imaccomplishmei implementing a regulatory decision dont change the result. I think ill try mine once more, too, mr. Roth. Why when a public official says you do a city Maintenance Worker<\/a>, you should paint my house before you do anything else, why isnt that similarly an allocation of resources . Because its not the job of it benefits me, but, you know, i got to send whether its painting or snow plows, you go plow my street first. Why isnt that an allocation of city resources . Let me try to clarify. I may have led to some confusion. If you are plowing public roads and you say, i want to plow my street first or my neighborhood first, that is not obtaining property by fraud. Because that is an allocation of resources to a public use. Its a public use that happens to benefit you and maybe that was your motive, and thats very bad, but its not obtaining property by fraud. If you instead trick the Public Employees<\/a> not into plowing the public road but into plowing your private driveway, which is not the job of the government, right, thats not what the government does. The government is concerned with public property and clearing public property. If you trick the employees into plowing your private driveway, then you have taken their services for your personal use sch is fundamentally different. Thats no different from saying i worked overtime when you didnt. Please pay me, you know, my hourly wage for the overtime that i didnt work. And that difference, just to go back to Justice Alitos<\/a> question, where in the statute . The difference is in the scheme to obtain property. Thats where it is in the statute. So you look at what is the object of the scheme. And if the object of the scheme is to influence a regulatory decision, its not a scheme to obtain property. Thats just follows from cleveland. Otherwise, every decision that public official makes is on the table and the only thing that im sorry. I thought the scheme was to make life difficult for ft. Lee. If that was the scheme, and you defrauded the use of Government Property<\/a> to accomplish your goal, why is that any different than taking the Maintenance Worker<\/a> to plow your road, your private street . Your honor, the difference is that here the alleged purpose, the alleged motive was what your honor said, right, to increase that was the scheme. The scheme was to do that through a regulatory decision, right, by realigning the lanes from one public use to another public use. So what were what the objection is to the conduct here san objection to the purpose. Not the objective use of the property. My problem is, i dont think i can see a headline that would say, its okay for officials to use government public money in a way that is plainly unauthorized, not just in its motives but its end use. An official can and should never be liable for that. Our Public Officials<\/a> now can use Government Resources<\/a> for their private ends. Your honor not mixed motive which is the interesting question here with the traffic study and whether you have enough whether they have enough evidence that there wasnt a traffic study. But youre saying when what the government has said, youre not authorized to do it. Theres a question about that. Yeah. And you didnt have even a mixed motive. You had only a personal one. Ill let mr. Levy speak a little more about unauthorized because actually the governments theory throughout the case was that he did have the authority and he abused his power by making the decision. A much more difficult question. Yes. But what i will say is, im not trying to suggest this is okay. We dont want Public Officials<\/a> acting for personal reasons. We dont want them acting necessarily for partisan or political reasons. But what im saying is the remedy for that is not a federal property fraud statute. We have certainly political remedies that were very much had substantial repercussions here. There may also be state law constraints on official abuses of authority. In fact, new jersey has a statute called official misconduct that is specifically directed toward unauthorized decisions with bad purposes. Thats not what the federal property fraud statute is concerned with. Federal property fraud statute is concerned with cheating the government out of its property rights. And thats just not what we have here. What we have here is an abuse of power, a political abuse of power, and thats if anything, again, that sounds an Honest Services<\/a> fraud which this court has limited thanks to vagueness concerns to bribes and kickbacks. Your honor if there nor further questions, thank you. Thank you, counsel. Mr. Levy . Mr. Chief justice and may it please the court. A public official who is acting politically and not for personal gain does not commit fraud by lying about his reason for an official decision. If the decision was generally within his authority. The government disputed that below, but now urges that as the rule in this court. That concession requires reversal. The government alleged and proved that mr. Baroni was the cohead of the Port Authority<\/a> responsible for supervising all aspects of its operations. The government itself elicited there was never any policy that precluded mr. Baroni from using his Plenary Authority<\/a> to alter a traffic pattern. This court should require an objectively clear lack of authority, something not even arguably shown here. Otherwise, any official who conceals his political motivation risks being convicted of fraud if a prosecutor or jury later disagrees about the scope of his authority. If the governments role is to provide any limits, this case must lie beyond those limits. Id like to begin by discussing what the government alleged, argued and proved below about mr. Baronis authority before it decided in this court that an Officials Authority<\/a> is the line between guilt and innocence under the fraud statutes. In the District Court<\/a>, the government alleged in the indictment that mr. Baroni was responsible for the general supervision of all aspects of Port Authority<\/a> business, including the operations of its transportation facilities. From its main cooperating witness, mr. Wildstein, the government elicited that exact statement precisely ticking off one of the allegations from the indictment. It elicited from mr. Wildstein that the title deputy executive director was a misnomer. That within the Port Authority<\/a> structure, the deputy executive director and the executive director had a 50 50 split in terms of power sharing that the deputy executive director was not the number two position within the Port Authority<\/a>. Thats from the governments eliciting from its own cooperating witness. The government also the arrangement is always that the new theres a new york representative who is the executive director and the new jersey representative who is the deputy. Is that right . That was at the time the arrangement. It was always appointed by the governor of new jersey for the deputy executive director and the governor of new york for the executive director. And it was understood within the agency by everyone. The all the witnesses the government called testified that that was the arrangement. They called mr. Baronis successor who testified that that was the arrangement. That the one did not report to the other. And that this is a bistate agency. Why would new jersey agree to an arrangement like that where its representative is always in the second seat at least nominally . Just the big brother across the river . Is that the i dont know the answer to that except that the structure within the Port Authority<\/a> was that that was not the case. So they, in fact, as it actually played out, didnt agree to play second fiddle. It was understood that within the Port Authority<\/a>, the deputy executive director had equal authority. The vice chairman testified about these parallel chains of command that were understood. Particularly for decisions made within new jersey, it was understood that would fall within the deputy executive directors scope of authority. I think one of the governments main arguments for on the sufficiency of the evidence, which is fairly progovernment and in this situation, was that mr. Wildstein had to lie to the Port Authority<\/a> employees about the executive director knowing about this lane change. If, in fact, the reality of the situation was that mr. Baroni couldnt do this without the executive directors acquiescence or acceptance, doesnt that show his lack of authority . Isnt that why isnt that sufficient . So two things, your honor. First of all, i dont believe were here on a sufficiency ground and for reasons weve argued on our reply brief. Even within that, were not saying that the lie might not be a piece of evidence. But even the government concedes in this case that the lie does not show the lack of authority. The government concedes that an authorized official is permitted to lie to their subordinates and so it cannot be that circularly that lie automatically establishes the lack of authority. Here, all of the evidence at trial was that mr. Baroni had Plenary Authority<\/a> over the operations of the Port Authority<\/a>. When asked why did you come up with this traffic study, his first answer was for purposes of the media and for purposes of explaining it to local officials. When pressed by the government, he said also to give a reason to career officials. But the fact that he has to not that he has to, chat he chooses to tell a lie to career officials to make this go over more smoothly in the same way that a public official wouldnt tell the world that theyre doing something for a political reason. Would you spend a moment on the traffic study. Certainly, your honor. The government has conceded that if mr. And again, this is new in this court. All of these concessions. That if mr. Baroni had authority to order a traffic study, he could do so even with the intention of causing traffic in ft. Lee. And they concede that he had the authority to order a traffic study. So all of that is conceded. What they say is, he lied about the existence of a traffic study. And as we point out in our reply brief there was no representation at all about the existence of a traffic study. Mr. Wildstein went to the breach supervisors and told them i would like to know what will happen, what the effect on traffic will be if we switch these three lanes, to please switch these three lanes or maybe not with the please, and study the results. Tell me what the results are. The only part of that say representation is the first part. I would like to know. My motivation is. My purpose is. And the government agrees thats not capable of being the lie for purposes of a fraud conviction, a money and property fraud conviction. The other parts are an instruction to do a traffic study, and the employees of the Port Authority<\/a> did that. Thats what the government spent a great deal of time at trial proving is that money was spent on a traffic study that they say was illegitimate because nobody ever cared about the results. But the government agrees now that caring about the results is not an issue. They say the traffic study didnt exist, and thats just flatly contrary to what is proved. Is it your position that suppose mr. Baroni had said, im giving you no reason at all. Or suppose mr. Baroni had said were going to do a traffic study but its going to be a sham traffic study. Would he still have had authority. Certainly the first one. He certainly had at any point the discretion to say, as somebody had done very early on in creating these three traffic lanes, they werent required by anything, at any point in time could have said, i think they should have a fourth or i think they should have only two or only one and that was fully within his authority and as the government argued and proved this case below, that was their point. That was their summation was he abused the authority he was entrusted. And the second . Were going to do a sham traffic study. I think he can do that. I think as a functional matter. Who knows what actually results from that. But, yes, he has the authority to say were going to do a traffic study because i want to do this thing and for public reasons, its easier to do a traffic study. You said this was not a sufficiency question. But what is it if its not a sufficiency question . Because as i understand your arguments, youre not pointing to any instruction that was incorrect or to the rejection of an instruction that you offered. So how are we to look at this other than through a sufficiency lens . Frankly, the most obvious way to do it is as a government forfeiture of the issue. The defendants in the District Court<\/a> said the line is authority and if we were authorized, then that is a complete defense and they told the court do not give that instruction and the District Court<\/a> said im not giving that instruction because its not a defense and i dont want to confuse the jury into believing it is. Now in this court, the government is saying, actually, it turns out the hinge between guilt and innocence is whether or not he was authorized and we get the ben 50efit of the sufficiency of evidence, even though we told the District Court<\/a> this issue doesnt matter at all. The government forfeited the opportunity to prove that mr. Baroni lacked authority. Now in this court, this court should assume that there was no lack of authority. Is there any reason to think that the jury actually made a finding about baronis authority . No, no reason whatsoever. The District Court<\/a> was attempting to make sure that they didnt consider that to be relevant. That was what we pressed was that this is the relevant distinction and the District Court<\/a> wanted to be sure that the jury did not believe that it would be a defense. And nothing in the jury instructions suggested that it would be a defense. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. Mr. Feigin . Thank you, mr. Chief justice. May it please the court. The defendants in this case committed fraud by telling a lie to take control over the physical access lanes to the George Washington<\/a> bridge and employee resources necessary to realign them. Unless they lied about the existence of a Port Authority<\/a> traffic study, none of them have the power to redirect the resources and realign the lanes. Because they told that lie, those resources were answering to them, to their own private purposes, rather than to the Public Officials<\/a> who were duly appointed to decide what those resources should be allocated to do. Their actions in this case were fraud in just the same way it would be fraud for someone with no connection to the Port Authority<\/a> to impersonate Port Authority<\/a> supervisors and order Port Authority<\/a> employees to realign Port Authority<\/a> lanes. Or if we want to put this in the private context. For someone to usurp the authority by deception of a taxicab companys dispatcher and order the cabs and the drivers to go wherever the fraud ster pleases. They dont get a free pass because baroni worked for the Port Authority<\/a> when the evidence showed that he didnt have the power to direct these resources in this way without telling the lie. They dont get a free pass because theyre hypothesizing that legitimate decisionmakers might, in theory, have decided to realign the lanes when the precise point of their scheme was to take these resources out of the legitimate decisionmakers hands and put them into their own hands. And they dont get a free pass because their motive happened to be political. Let me start with the legal argument made by kellys counsel which draugs a distinction between public and private uses. Theres two main problems. I dont see where a license is for that in the statute and the second problem is that it seems to draw a distinction between fraud where the victim is a Public Entity<\/a> and fraud where the victim say private entity. I dont know if the taxicab hypothetical what it means to say its only fraud if those cabs then go to private use. Were talking about a private company in that context. And the third problem is, i dont know how a jury, i think some justices on this court were grappling with this. I dont know how a jury decides the difference between a public and a private use. You have two separate points, i think. One is your statement now which i think is stronger than in your brief that if you have authority and you work for a government, only if you say tell them a lie, an untruth, then you dont have authority. My goodness. The code of federal regulations, the rules of any department, the i mean, the government is filled with rules. And there are numerous instances where a person might Say Something<\/a> untrue about something related to a rule that gives them authority for that. Thats enough to were back to Honest Services<\/a>. And thats also true of the second. If, in fact, i can do two separate parts to the second, i might as well get both questions out. Is that fair . The one on authority is i dont know where that comes from. If you have authority to do something in government, but you cant, or you lie about some anything that wouldnt you wouldnt without it then youre in the property stealing statute. And the second problem with your second claim is, if you dont have authority, but you put what you take to a public use. Now either that is, does, is a conversion of property and obtaining of property within the statute or it isnt. If it is, i dont see how Honest Services<\/a> fraud is not back in the statute which has been ruled out since mcnally. And if it isnt, i dont see how this case works. Your honor, let me answer the second part of your question first, and then ill try to get back to the first part. To answer the second part of your question, i dont as i was saying, i dont think theres a distinction between public and private uses works because thats not a distinction the statute draws. Its not a distinction then were back my point was why then, were back to Honest Services<\/a>. There is no deprivation of Honest Services<\/a> that no depriva Honest Services<\/a> that does not require somebody in the government to spend some time or use some paper or use a telephone in order to achieve that dishonest thing, all right . If youre going to count that as property, well, fine. You could do it, i guess, under some statute. But if you do it under this statute, this statute then prohibits the taking of disHonest Services<\/a>, exactly what the court has held it doesnt do. Your honor, if i might answer this, it will take a second to play out, but its an important distinction. Theyre trying to lump a bunch of different kinds of frauds together and make them all sound as if theyre the same. This case is about a very specific kind of fraud, commandeering fraud. It is when the defendant tries to take over property that is in the hands of the victim and manage it as if it is his own property. Thats what they were doing with the lanes on the bridge and the employee resources. For example, if theres a snowplow sitting there and i take the keys to the snowplow and drive off in the snowplow, everyone would agree ive obtained the snowplow. If i put on a mask like from Mission Impossible<\/a> and impersonate the boss of the snowplow driver and tell the snowplow driver to drive around in the snowplow and do the exact same thing i wanted to do, i have obtained it by fraud. Sometimes there are deceptive schemes in which somebody simply wants an agency to do something or wants a private victim to do something on his behalf. And then you have to look at what is actually the object of the scheme and how the scheme works to see if the agencys deprived of property. But the basic difference between the taking the snowplow is that the official has no authority to take the snowplow for his private uses. The official does have authority to regulate how used are used on the highway and say these are going to be used for fort lee, these arent. First of all, your honor, baroni did not have that authority in this case. Thats disputed. I can get to the evidence of that in a second. But also i dont think its fair to call this a public use. What we would say is a public use is the use to which the legitimate supervisors of the Port Authority<\/a> have decided to put the Port Authority<\/a> youre saying your theory is that by the actions in this case they have comen deered the lanes on the expressway. Yes, your honor. They kmen deered the lanes. Theyre being used for Public Purposes<\/a>. Im not sure what they mean by using Public Purposes<\/a>. If people want to use the lanes to get to fort lee, they can. It has nothing to do with the scheme at all. I would push back, if they decided to close the bridge is that a public use or private use. If they decide that only kelly can use the bridge, is that public or private use. They didnt do any of those things. It was quite a problem, i grant you, quite a problem. But they used it for cars going down. Well, snowplow. Theres a law here, a rule no, a rule. Treat every street alike. And you know what the snowplow operator did . He snowplowed the mayors street first. Now, that is not a good thing to do. It is really undesirable and maybe it should be a crime. But 30 years in prison . That, im not sure. And thats this statute has to do with property fraud and is taking the snowplow and putting it to the use of the public streets in violation of a rule, treating the mayor better . Is that a property crime . Your honor, in that hypothetical, there is we would not say that is fraud. Theres no lie. Theres nothing material. Of course, there is. Where are you going . I am going to fifth street first and then i will go to the grocery and then i ah, and you know what he did . He went to the city councilmans street. All right. Theres a lie. Its easy to make up cases that theres a lie in, and thats my problem. Same problem. Were back into Honest Services<\/a> fraud which is fraud and bad. And the question is does this statute get it . We are not in on the services fraud, your honor. First of all, the lie in your hypothey will cal was not a lie told to obtain property. It was just a lie about what he was going to do. They wouldnt have given it to him. In the Honest Services<\/a> fraud cases, in mcnally, for example, there was no dispute that the defendants in nally had the authority to decide who was going to ensure the state of kentucky. This is what troubles me about your argument. Your argument is that if baroni was authorized, he could not be convicted. Am i right . Yes. Baroni had the authority to do what he did, then hes not committing fraud. All right. And you say okay. And you say that takes care of a lot of these hypotheticals that seem that are disturbing to some people. You say but the jury found that he was authorized and theres sufficient evidence to support that finding. The jury found he wasnt authorized im sorry. The jury found he was not authorized thats correct. And theres evidence to support the finding. But i see no indication whatsoever, no reason to believe that the jury made any such finding. Ive read these jury instructions several times. Theres nothing in there that would alert a jury, a juror, to the obligation to find that baroni was unauthorized unless i missed something. Your honor, let me say a couple of things about that. One, thaw did not make an objection to the jury instructions properly in the court of appeals. Its not part of the question here i know that. Okay. But ive never seen a criminal cased where were asked to defer to a jurys finding on something that the jury didnt find. Putting aside the question of whether theres any evidence to show that he lacked authority. So, let me point you to a couple of places then talk about the evidence of lack of authority. First of all theres the instruction that the court of appeals deemed adequate, and thats page 875 of joint appendix which is the instruction on obtaining property which the court of appeals deemed sufficient to notify the jury that when someone is acting on behalf of an organization, acting as the agent of that organization, hes not obtaining property when he exercises the authority that the agencies dually conferred on him. Better than that is the materiality instruction from 875 to 876 which says if you find the representation that the lane and toll booth reductions was for the purpose of the traffic study was false, you must determine whether that representation was one that a reasonable person might have considered important in making his or her decision to commit Port Authority<\/a> resource frs that endeavor including services of Port Authority<\/a> personnel. What does that say about authority to reallocate the lanes . Your honor, if baroni had the authority to reallocate the lanes for any reason or no reason as his counsel stated to the court he did, i dont see how the jury could have found the lies were material. Everybody has authority to spend or do their act on behalf of the agency. Anybody who does it for their own personal purposes is unauthorized. So, its meaningless to say is he authorized or not. Did he have the authority to close the lanes under certain circumstances . Well, your honor, i dont did he have the authority to close the lanes on his own say . He might have, your honor. Did you prove that he had limited authority . Where did you prove that . We proved that he did not have the authority to close the lanes under these circumstances without telling the lie. And i can explain why, if you would like. In when wilesteen first proposed the idea, he was asked how he was going to do that. He came up with the idea they would have a traffic cover story, the cover story of a traffic study. And he explained at the time to kelly that one purpose of the traffic study cover story was in order to enlist the Port Authority<\/a> officials that they would need in order to realign the lanes. He then had to lie to both the manage of the George Washington<\/a> bridge and the manager of tunnels bridges and tunnels, that the executive director was aware of this, and the tacitly approv approved of it where theyre concealing it from the executive director. By the way, if contrary to their expectations there had been no slowing of traffic and in fact the lanes on onelane traffic remained the same or maybe improved, would you still have a case here . Yes, your honor. Thats the point. The effect was catastrophic and that was a reason why the prosecution was brought because of the incredible danger in which they put the citizens and commuters of fort lee. But they would still have committed the same crime. And they were hiding it from the executive director. He testified directly there were processes in place to use the Port Authority<\/a> resource and he didnt follow him. And when the executive director found out, he immediately cancelled it and stated that the process had been, quote, subverted. Baroni had significant authority within the Port Authority<\/a> organization. But when someone questions how theyre going to do something, has no idea how theyre going to do something, has to lie in order to accomplish it, has to lie that his boss approved it isnt that often the case that somebody who has the authority to do something may lie about why the person is doing the thing because if the real reason was exposed, it would cause a furor. People would be angry. But that doesnt show the person doesnt have the authority to do it. A person hires his brotherinlaw for a position. Why did you hire this particular person . This person is the very best qualified person for this job. The real reason is his wife wanted him to do. Does that show he doesnt have the authority. No, your honor. This is a lie that wildsteen directly testified they needed to tell in order to get the resources they needed. It was clearly important to the George Washington<\/a> bridge manager and the manager of tunnels bridges and terminals that this was something that the executive director knew about. They testified they would expect to be notified about something that was even in order of magnitude less disruptive than this was ever going to be and they werent notified. I dont want to lose what the question was in light of the instructions given. And what i have so found is that the defense did ask the jury to be instructed to do just what you want. They asked the jury, they said, judge, tell the jury that if the Port Authority<\/a> granted or bestowed on the defendants the power or authority to control the property, the bridge, et cetera, and that they acted within the bounds of that authority, then you cant find the scheme to defraud. I think you agree with that. And the problem was the judge said no, i wont give that instruction. Then what the judge gave as the instruction in so far as the court of appeals and reviewing the court of appeals, in so far as the court of appeals said they gave the essence of it, to establish a scheme to defraud, the government must also prove the Port Authority<\/a> of money and property. What . Thats the essence of what he didnt give . Now, i havent read the two instructions you read, but the one that i read i think is the one that the court of appeals relied upon. What do we do about that . That isnt what the court of appeals relied on. I think if the court of appeals got the substance right and you dont agree with the reasoning, theres no reason to reverse, particularly when the question wasnt presented to the court. This point was raised in the reply brief of baroni that didnt petition. Let me address the authority and instruction that was addressed by the court directly. That instruction was proposed in the context primarily of an instruction on 18 usc 666 which is the more general misappropriation of federal funds statute. And the instruction on that which appears on page 870 of the joint appendix already itself contains reference to authority. Both the government and the District Court<\/a> were quite clear in the District Court<\/a> and youll see this finding by both the court of appeals and the District Court<\/a> that baroni and kelly were free to argue the authority issue. The only question was whether the jury was going to get a specific instruction on that point. And the government believed the instruction was unnecessary. It would have been a novel addition to the Third Circuit<\/a>s pattern jury instruction on section 666 and moreover, i dont know that their instruction was in fact correct because it might have confused the jury into thinking and this goes back to my colloquy with Justice Sotomayor<\/a> you say you thought the instruction was unnecessary. That may have been the case in light of your theory at the time. Surely after your focus here on the Authority Point<\/a> you wouldnt make that same statement. Your honor, i think that in retrospect it may have been better to instruct the jury more specifically on authority. More specifically on the Central Point<\/a> of your argument before us today. I dont know their specific instruction would have accomplished it and i dont know the instructional issue is before the court today. But we are defending these convictions on the precise same ground they were found to be valid on both the court of appeals and the District Court<\/a> which addressed the authority issue. The District Court<\/a> addressed the issue before trial telling the defendants it could argue it before trial. It addressed it after trial saying they believed authority had been proven. And the Third Circuit<\/a> addressed it. We have never argued to my knowledge, and i havent identified a place we argued, that if baroni had the authority his counsel claimed he had which was to realign the lanes mr. Feigin, nobody, no Decision Maker<\/a> has the authority to make any decision for no reason. Thats a misnomer in terms. People have authority to do things only in the interest of the agency. So, give me a line drawing of for reason or no reason, meaning i dont think anybody in the Port Authority<\/a>, including the executive director would on a whim say, ah, you know, i like playing on a board. Lets change it to one lane because i just like to see a different pattern today. My apologies, your honor. So, give me your definition of what authorized means. If he had the ability when i first read your brief, it was if he had the ability to change the lanes on his own, that he had authority. Yes. All right. Now, what the limits of that authority are is where i where im trying to get you. So, your honor, if he were how but it cant be no authority. So, i apologize. I was simply repeating the language that the court of appeals used which might have been a little hyperbolic. If he were the person to whom the Port Authority<\/a> trusted the decisionover whether there should be three lanes or ones such that his decision under the these circumstances would govern, then he had the authority. I think the evidence showed he was not that person. The fact that the executive director could overturn him doesnt prove the positive. Thats right, your honor. We wouldnt rely on that piece of evidence alone, just like justice alito, were not relying alone on the fact that he had that he told a lie. Were relying on a combination of circumstances. Again, as i was saying earlier. If when an idea of something to do with my organizations resources is raised to me and my initial reaction is how are we going to do that and then the idea is to tell a lie that will get everyone on board with it and then we lie about the fact that my boss is aware of it and tacitly approves of it, we avoid every process and conceal it from my boss, i think a reasonable jury could rationally conclude that im doing something that i dont have the authority to do. Please, finish. Sorry. I was just going to say thats what baroni did here. Can i switch . Because the statute clearly says that a scheme of deception has to the object of it has to be to obtain property. So, could we talk about that for a minute because if i look at this and im an ordinary juror, im thinking the object of this deception was not to obtain property. The object was to create a traffic jam. The object was to benefit people politically. You can frame the object in lots of ways, but not withstanding that some employee time was given over to this scheme. That was not the object of this scheme, was it, to appropriate that employee time . Well, your honor, i think it was because this was this gets back to what i was saying to Justice Bryer<\/a> earlier. This is a particular type of fraud where its commandeering fraud. Theyre trying to take property and convert it to their own uses. It may be if i take a knife off a table that doesnt belong to me and stab someone, my end goal was to stab someone, but ive still stolen the knife. Wasnt it unnecessary to the scheme being carried out. In other words, there was a little bit of time for an extra toll person actually to mitigate the problems of the traffic jam or there were some people running around counting cars to conceal the purpose for what they were doing . But that was not the object of the scheme. No, your honor. The object of the scheme was for them to take control of real property, physical lanes accessing the George Washington<\/a> bridge and have those lanes be allocated the way they want. Okay. Thats a different theory. Thats not the employee time and labor. Thats something about appropriating the George Washington<\/a> bridge. Is that right . Thats not appropriating the George Washington<\/a> bridge. Its reallocating lanes on the George Washington<\/a> bridge. And i would have thought cleveland makes clear thats not appropriation of property either. Your honor, i think its both because they needed the employee resources in order to accomplish what they were trying to do with the bridge. If i could address cleveland for a second, this case and cleveland do both involve governmental decision making, but thats where the similarities end. In cleveland, the object of the scheme was to obtain a license under regulatory scheme that had no private analog whatsoever. The court rejected every private analog the government offered for it. And the license wasnt property in the governments hands. Here youre talking about real property, physical lanes, and who can access those lanes. And access rights to physical property are quintessential forms of private property, probably one of the oldest forms of property we have. Then you have the employee resources necessary to reallocate the lanes which i think even they acknowledge are property under the fraud statute. They acknowledge that if you send painters to paint the mayors house that thats going to be property fraud because youre taking the employee services. Thats because the object of the scheme is to use the employee labor to get your house painted. But i dont think that you can say the same thing here. Your honor you are not using the employee labor to create the traffic jam. They are using the employee labor as if it were theirs, not as if it were something that the Port Authority<\/a> gets to use. Again, in the private context, if i were to impersonate the boss and start ordering around the company jet, i think i have obtained the company jet and the time as well. But you picked an example that is easy for you. The example thats hard for you, i think, is you tell the employee to pick up the phone and call somebody and say this. Thats a bad thing. And then immediately you say okay, its property fraud because ive used the the employee has used the telephone or ive used the four minutes of that employees time to convey the message. Your theory is saying thats taking of property. We wouldnt, your honor. Im glad to have a chance to make this perfectly clear. This gets back to justice kaigans question as well. Incidental uses of property that are not the object of scheme are not going to be sufficient for property fraud. I think the easiest place to look for that is this courts decision in lofgren. If you obtain money, its not bank fraud simply because unrelated to your lie you didnt really care how the money came to you, the money comes to you in the form of a check which is Bank Property<\/a> as opposed to in the form of cash which isnt. If someone is if someone tells a lie and the object is to obtain a license from the state of louisiana to operate a video poker machine which is not property, theyre not committing property fraud just because some employee needs to spend time processing the line here the object of the scheme was not to commandeer lanes on the bridge. The object was to cause a traffic jam in fort lee. If they could have done it in some other way, they would have done it in some other way. The use of altering the traffic lane configuration was the incidental means of achieving the objective. I dont think thats right, your honor. The lie they told to the Port Authority<\/a> to get the Port Authority<\/a> resources was a lie they told in order to get those resources. The closing of the traffic jam was what they wanted to accomplish with those resources f. I tell a lie to get access to the company jet, it may be that my goal is to take it on a vacation trip to macao, but thats not the object of the scheme as far as the frauds concerned and the victim of the fraud. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. Two minutes, mr. Roth. Thank you. The federal statute prohibits schemes to obtain property. The governments theory of property here is that the officials by making the lane alignment commandeered the control over the George Washington<\/a> bridge. That is exactly the type of regulatory control that cleveland said is not property. Cleveland referred to the intangible rights of allocation, exclusion, and control. And the sovereigns rights are not property for purposes of this statute. And therefore, if what the officials did was used a seat to influence the exercise of those rights, they have not obtained property from the Port Authority<\/a>. If that is not correct, then everything an official does falls within the scope of this statute. And the only question that is open is was there some deceit involved. And that is right, i think the Chilling Effect<\/a> on honest Public Servants<\/a> is going to be severe. Mr. Roth, you responded to onehalf of their theory. Onehalf is allocation of lanes yes. And the other half is employee time. Whats your response . My response is the incidental costs are not the object. Its what your honor asked in earlier question. The implementation of the regulatory question is going to use some Public Resources<\/a>. That cannot change the result or cleveland is why do you call it incidental . I mean, it was essential to the scheme . Because its incidental in that it was the implementation cost. It flowed as a result of the regulatory decision. That required some employee time in terms of taking tolls and studying the traffic effect. But that was not the object. That was how it got done. What if it cost a Million Dollars<\/a> . Would it be incidental . Yes, your honor. It would still be incidental. Its a question of what is the object. Thank you, counsel. The case is submitted. Democratic president ial candidate Bernie Sanders<\/a> holds out a get out the early vote today at 5 30 eastern on the campus of university of nevada las vegas. The caucus will be held saturday. The nevada caucus is often called the first in the west, sending 36 buttigieg delegates to the convention. South carolina primary is the following saturday, february 29th. Its an open primary with 54 pledge delegates. And on march 3, 15 states and one territory allocate about a third of the democratic pledge delegates. Youll find live coverage on the cspan networks. During this election season, the candidates beyond the talking points are only revealed over time. But since you cant be everywhere, theres cspan. Our campaign 2020 programming differs from all other political coverage for one simple reason its cspan. Weve brought you your unfiltered view of government every day since 1979, and this year were bringing you an unfiltered view of the people seeking to steer that government this november, in other words, your future. So, this election season, go deep, direct, and unfiltered. See the biggest picture for yourself and make up your own mind with cspans campaign 2020, brought to you as a Public Service<\/a> by your television provider. Up next, the Transportation Research<\/a> board holds a discussion on the trump administrations transportation and infrastructure policy. Officials with the federal transit and highway and Railway Administrations<\/a> outlined their agencys agenda and goals for 2020. This is an hour and a half. Well, great. I want to welcome everyone to this panel. Again, thank you all","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia802805.us.archive.org\/33\/items\/CSPAN3_20200218_211700_Kelly_v._United_States_Oral_Argument\/CSPAN3_20200218_211700_Kelly_v._United_States_Oral_Argument.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20200218_211700_Kelly_v._United_States_Oral_Argument_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}