For a few hours, we didn’t know why several top prosecutors, including the recent acting head of the office, Joe Thompson, resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota in the wake of the shooting of Renee Good. As David Kurtz explains here, it appears to have been a reaction to freezing local authorities out of the investigation into Good’s death combined with an order to open a criminal investigation into the activism of Good’s widow, Rebecca Good. So we know what this was about, or we’re as close as we’re going to get to knowing. But often in these cases, we don’t ever find out the full picture. Or we don’t find out precisely why the person resigned. I’ve been thinking about this. And the whole terrain is similar to the gravitation surrounding other big scandals. At the beginning, at least, you can’t really see what’s at the center of the scandal, but you can see the force of the gravity around it. There’s something similar to these firings
Continue reading “The Landmines Under the Water”Trump Yells and Jeanine Pirro Listens
The DC US Attorney’s Office Takes Up Trump Retribution
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that when a group of U.S. attorneys gathered at the White House last week for an event, President Trump berated the group for being “weak” and not “moving fast enough to prosecute his favored targets,” in WSJ’s words. Trump’s outburst, during which he also called the group of U.S. attorneys ineffective, happened during a photo shoot, according to the Journal. He reportedly told the group gathered that they weren’t doing enough to help Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche do their work. It’s been clear for some time that Trump believes DOJ leadership’s job is to serve as his personal lawyers and, as such, to enact his own personal retribution.
Continue reading “Trump Yells and Jeanine Pirro Listens”Jackson Takes a Swipe at ‘Kavanaugh Stops’ in Dissent Over Candidates’ Ability To Challenge Voting Laws
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson bemoaned in a dissent that the Court’s majority had, in a Wednesday opinion, crafted a “bespoke” doctrine allowing candidates to challenge voting laws with far more leeway than it had even been willing to give victims of law enforcement violence.
Continue reading “Jackson Takes a Swipe at ‘Kavanaugh Stops’ in Dissent Over Candidates’ Ability To Challenge Voting Laws”Mass Resignations Rock DOJ in Wake of Fatal ICE Shooting
Programming Note
Join me for the first Morning Memo Live event on Jan. 29 in Washington, D.C. Find details and tickets here.
A Dozen Resignations Since Friday
Mass resignations at the Justice Department over its handling of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good extended into a second day and spread from Washington, D.C., to Minnesota.
In D.C., the number of reported resignations in the criminal section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division rose from four to six — a reaction to the decision by assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon not to investigate the Minneapolis shooting. Most of the resignations were by supervisor-level prosecutors, according to CBS News, which had previously reported that career prosecutors in the section had offered to drop all of their work to help investigate the shooting. The Civil Rights Division had already been decimated under Dhillon.
In the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office, an additional six career prosecutors — a majority of the leadership team — resigned over the decision to squeeze state investigators out of the federal investigation into the incident and a related DOJ request to investigate Good’s widow for her protest activities, according to the Star Tribune.
Among the resignations in Minnesota was Joe Thompson, who as the first assistant U.S. attorney was the No. 2 in the office and had previously served as acting U.S. attorney. Ironically, Thompson was the lead prosecutor on the big fraud case in the state that had swept up a number of Somali-Americans and was loudly trumpeted by President Trump and the right wing. The chief of the criminal division also resigned.
Of particular concern is the Trump DOJ’s decision to launch an investigation into the political protest activities of Rebecca Good for possible federal charges. According to the NYT:
Mr. Thompson strenuously objected to the decision not to investigate the shooting as a civil rights matter, and was outraged by the demand to launch a criminal investigation into Becca Good, according to the people familiar with the developments, who were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
The resignation of Thompson and the others is all but certain to cripple the fraud prosecution in similar fashion to how key resignations in the Eastern District of Virginia hobbled the attempts to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James.
Mass Deportation Watch: Somali Edition
Somali refugees in Minnesota legally in the country are being rounded up and shipped to detention centers in Texas, according to reports and refugee advocates.
Good Read
Journalist Laura Jedeed applied to work for ICE and after minimal vetting was offered a job.
Fed Subpoenas Came After Trump Blasted US Attorneys
D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s subpoenas to the Federal Reserve on Friday came the day after President Trump blasted a roomful of U.S. attorneys at the White House for being weak and slow in pursuing his vindictive prosecutions, the WSJ reports.
In related news, the NYT reports that Main Justice was “stunned” by Pirro’s Fed subpoeanas:
Senior officials at the department were stunned, and annoyed, that Ms. Pirro did not consult them on an investigation of such international importance, the officials with knowledge of her actions said. …
Ms. Pirro’s decades-long relationship with Mr. Trump gives her the self-confidence to make consequential decisions without first seeking sign-off from her superiors.
Pirro continues to act like the subpoena is all the Feds’ fault for not responding to her earlier demand for documents, telling the NYT: “The drama is all Powell.”
DOJ Defends Halligan in Screed Against Judge
In an unhinged filing in response to a direct court order, the Trump DOJ went off on U.S. District Judge David J. Novak, a Trump appointee in Richmond, Virginia.
Novak had ordered former Trump personal attorney Lindsey Halligan to explain why she persists in identifying herself as U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia even after another federal judge had ruled her appointment invalid.
In its response — over the names of Attorney General Pam Bondi, deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Halligan, among others — the Justice Department savaged Novak, accusing him of:
- violating the Rules of Criminal Procedure;
- launching a “quest”;
- fundamentally “misunderstanding” the ruling invaliding Halligan’s appointment;
- flouting Supreme Court precedent and “elementary” legal principles;
- engaging in “a gross abuse of power and an affront to the separation of powers”;
- being “flat wrong”;
- operating under a “misimpression”;
- making a “rudimentary legal error”;
- blinded by a “fixation” that is is “untethered from how federal courts actually operate”;
- making “a fundamental category error.”
I eagerly await Novak’s response to this scorched-earth approach to willfully refusing to abide by court orders.
Quote of the Day
“If you told him Martians came and stole votes, he’d be inclined to believe it.”—Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, in transcripts of secret grand jury testimony from the Georgia election interference case obtained by the NYT
Oops …
A Trump administration effort to prove widespread illegal voting by undocumented immigrants is coming up short.
The Retribution: Elissa Slotkin Edition
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said prosecutors are now involved in investigating the video she and other members of Congress made urging members of the military and the intelligence community to abide by their legal obligation not to follow unlawful orders.
Slotkin had previously announced in November that she had learned she and the others were the target of an FBI counterterrorism investigation over the video she organized. On Tuesday, Slotkin said the Senate sergeant-at-arms was approached by D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office about scheduling an interview with her or her private counsel.
“I’ve studied this kind of political authoritarianism in other countries my entire professional life,” Slotkin told the NYT. “I just can’t believe I am talking about it in my own country.”
Thread of the Day
A quick assessment of the Office of Legal Counsel permission slip for U.S. military action in Venezuela — without a congressional approval — a redacted version of which was released yesterday:
SCOTUS Hears Trans Athletes Case
If you’re piecing together how the oral arguments went yesterday in the two trans athletes cases before the high court, let me recommend:
- TPM’s Kate Riga: Right-Wing Justices Warm to Idea that Trans Minority Too Small to Challenge Sports Ban
- LawDork Chris Geidner: SCOTUS likely to allow state trans sports bans, but a changed tone could signal a narrow ruling
RIP
The Post-Gazette’s announcement that it will cease operations in May threatens to make Pittsburgh the largest city in the country without a real daily newspaper, Joshua Benton writes:
While there are debates to be had about what it means to be a “city without a newspaper,” the largest thus far is probably Youngstown, Ohio — another Rust Belt burg just across the Ohio line. But metro Pittsburgh’s almost six times the size of metro Youngstown — this would be a new scale of loss.
To be clear, the Post-Gazette will shut down entirely, not merely cease printing and shift to digital publishing.
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
How the Supreme Court’s Corruption Is Locking Down Reform Public Policy in Its Tracks
I’ve written again and again that reforming the Supreme Court — neutralizing the corruption represented by the current rogue majority — is the sine qua non of any good future for the American republic. I want to give you another example of this centrality.
Recently I was talking to someone very versed in federal employment law, the framework that undergirds the employment of the people who make the federal government run. There’s a neverending stream of proposed regulations and rules. We were discussing some new news on this front, how it might play out in the future, etc. When I have these kinds of conversations with knowledgable people, I’ll generally ask what they are hearing about groups emerging in their area for the purpose of creating Project 2029-like lists of reforms to undo the damage we are seeing today. It’s not just turning things back to the status quo ante, as we’ve discussed. We’re in an era in which it’s critical to make major structural changes when the opportunity arises and build new structures that are more durable than the ones which have fallen so quickly over the last decade and specifically the last year. So you need smart people putting time into this work during the next three years, really thinking it through and having that list of reforms ready, support built them, etc. You get the idea. We’ve discussed this before.
Continue reading “How the Supreme Court’s Corruption Is Locking Down Reform Public Policy in Its Tracks”Trump Is Now Framing His Blue State Retribution Campaign as Some Sort Of Deliverance
‘Fear Not’
The Trump administration is continuing to escalate in Minnesota.
It has mobilized thousands of ICE agents to carry out its occupation of Minneapolis, and this week is sending still more. An ICE officer shot and killed a mother of three there last week, and the Trump administration has smeared her as a “domestic terrorist.” The administration has, today, sparked a slew of high profile resignations from career federal prosectors over its decision to cut Minnesota authorities out of DOJ investigations into the shooting and by pushing to investigate the woman’s widow. It also has seized on legitimate fraud investigations in the state to justify freezing $10 billion in congressionally-approved federal funding for child welfare programs in Minnesota and four other blue states, a directive a federal judge promptly blocked.
The ways in which the Trump administration is carrying out its immigration enforcement agenda — attempts at shock and awe and provocation, aimed at protestors and people of color — are demonstrative of how closely it is intertwined with another top goal of the president’s second term: retribution. Specifically, looking for ways to exert control over the blue pockets of America that he believes to be populated by his political enemies. Blue state governors and mayors have always fallen into that category, whether he has personal beef with the elected Democrat or not. It’s something we’ve been discussing since Trump began federalizing the National Guard early last year to clamp down on the protests and unrest that he created with his ICE operations in blue cities like Los Angeles and Chicago last year.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump made his “retribution” objective explicit, and spun his administration’s plans to clamp down on First Amendment rights and his withholding of federal funding as some sort of deliverance for the “GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA” from their duly-elected leaders.
“Minnesota Democrats love the unrest that anarchists and professional agitators are causing because it gets the spotlight off of the 19 Billion Dollars that was stolen by really bad and deranged people,” he wrote, inflating the figure by an order of magnitude. “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”
Hours later, he alluded to more potential attempts to freeze federal funding for municipalities or states that have sanctuary policies in place to provide services to undocumented immigrants.
The “RETRIBUTION” is upon us, alright.
— Nicole LaFond
The Irony of Prosecutor Joseph Thompson’s Resignation in Minnesota
The federal prosecutor behind the prominent Minnesota social services fraud investigations resigned Tuesday, reportedly due to the Trump administration’s push to investigate the widow of Renee Good, the woman killed in Minnesota by ICE agents last week, according to the New York Times.
Joseph Thompson is a career prosecutor appointed by Trump to help lead the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Minnesota after Thompson’s prosecution of Minnesota fraud rings during Biden’s administration, including investigating the Feeding Our Future group at the heart of the ongoing fraud scandal in Minnesota. At least five other attorneys resigned along with Thompson Tuesday.
Thompson’s resignation seems like an ironic self-own for the Trump administration which latched on to Thompson’s legitimate legal investigations to advance its own anti-immigrant political aims. At a time when you’d think the Trump administration would want to laud his work, just weeks after he announced an investigation into the theft of potentially more than $9 billion federal dollars, Thompson chose to step down rather than carry out the Trump administration’s directives to weaponize the rule of law. The Times reports:
Mr. Thompson’s resignation came after senior Justice Department officials pressed for a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE agent on Wednesday.
Mr. Thompson, 47, a career prosecutor, objected to that approach, as well as to the Justice Department’s refusal to include state officials in investigating whether the shooting itself was lawful, the people familiar with his decision said.
In the process, the administration has now lost its star resource for accomplishing its purported top goal: “rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.”
A quote from Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara to the Minnesota Star Tribune summarizes the contradiction of Thompson’s actual work in Minnesota, versus the administration’s cartoonish takeover and subsequent violent immigration enforcement.
“When you lose the leader responsible for making the fraud cases, it tells you this [immigration enforcement] isn’t really about prosecuting fraud,” O’Hara said.
— Layla A. Jones
Bipartisan Senate Group Punts Release of Plan to Address Expired Obamacare Subsidies
The bipartisan group of senators who have been negotiating a health care plan to revive the expired Affordable Care Act subsidies will punt the release of their legislative text until the last week of January — after the previously scheduled, upcoming Senate recess.
“We have to make sure we get it right,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) said Tuesday morning, per Politico.
The group had previously indicated they would release a plan sometime this week.
The punt comes less than a week after the House passed a Democratic-led bill that would revive the expired Obamacare subsidies for three years. Seventeen House Republicans, who are largely in a vulnerable position in the upcoming midterms, rebelled against President Donald Trump and House GOP leadership and joined all House Democrats to pass the bill, seemingly in an attempt to save face with voters.
The Senate is unlikely to take up the bill with a simple three year extension which is why a bipartisan Senate group has been negotiating for months on the issue. Though negotiations continue, the urgency around the issue — which Democrats relied on during and before the recent historic shutdown — has dampened significantly, especially after the subsidies expired at the end of 2025.
Moreno told reporters that the bipartisan group would continue their meetings in order to iron out the details of the proposal, adding that the senators who have been negotiating need to “make sure that everybody’s all set with all the framework elements, see if there’s any still areas of angst we still have to resolve.”
One sticking point for the negotiations are reportedly on how to address the amendment that mandates federal funding can’t cover abortions.
— Emine Yücel
In Case You Missed It
Josh Kovensky: How a Grainy Video of Renee Good’s Anguished Wife Convinced Right-Wing Media to Blame the Widow
Kate Riga’s coverage of today’s SCOTUS oral arguments in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.: Right-Wing Justices Warm to Idea that Trans Minority Too Small to Challenge Sports Bans
Alito and Kavanaugh Give Fox News-esque Recitation of Anti-Trans Talking Points
Morning Memo: Career DOJers Resign Over Handling of Fatal ICE Shooting
NEW this morning from Khaya Himmelman and Emine Yücel: How Redistricting and the Fate of the Voting Rights Act Might (Not) Impact the Midterms
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Five Points on the Trump DOJ’s Attack on Fed Chair Jerome Powell
What We Are Reading
US national parks staff say new $100 fee for non-residents risks ‘alienating visitors for decades’
Overseas Travel to the U.S. Slumps for 8th Straight Month
Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors at White House Event, Calling Them Weak
How a Grainy Video of Renee Good’s Anguished Wife Convinced Right-Wing Media to Blame the Widow
In the days before the Trump Justice Department asked Minnesota federal prosecutors to investigate Renee Good’s wife over her death, right-wing media pushed to blame the widow for the killing.
Continue reading “How a Grainy Video of Renee Good’s Anguished Wife Convinced Right-Wing Media to Blame the Widow”Alito and Kavanaugh Give Fox News-esque Recitation of Anti-Trans Talking Points
The Supreme Court majority’s radicalization on trans issues has become apparent not just in its unusual willingness to take up so many cases on the topic, but in its eagerness to shoehorn anti-trans refrains into unrelated cases.
Continue reading “Alito and Kavanaugh Give Fox News-esque Recitation of Anti-Trans Talking Points”Right-Wing Justices Warm to Idea that Trans Minority Too Small to Challenge Sports Bans
On the heels of its landmark 2025 decision allowing red states to deny trans youth medical care, the Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments on another right-wing fixation: state laws that block trans girls and women from playing on women’s sports teams.
Continue reading “Right-Wing Justices Warm to Idea that Trans Minority Too Small to Challenge Sports Bans”Career DOJers Resign Over Handling of Fatal ICE Shooting
Programming Note
Join me for the first Morning Memo Live event on Jan. 29 in Washington, D.C. Find details and tickets here.
Civil Rights Division Sidelined
A least four top career officials in the criminal section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division have resigned in protest over the department’s handling of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon decided not to investigate the shooting even though law enforcement shootings are the bread-and-butter work of that unit.
“The departures — including that of the chief of the section, as well as the principal deputy chief, deputy chief and acting deputy chief — represent the most significant mass resignation at the Justice Department since February,” MS Now reports. They reportedly had concerns about other Trump DOJ decisions too.
DOJ insisted that the officials in question had already decided to take early retirement before the ICE shooting.
RED ALERT
The DOJ resignations come as the NYT reports that the federal probe in the fatal ICE shooting is looking into Renee Good’s possible ties to activist groups protesting Trump’s mass deportation policies, opening a Pandora’s box of First Amendment concerns:
The decision by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department to scrutinize Ms. Good’s activities and her potential connections to local activists is in line with the White House’s strategy of deflecting blame for the shooting away from federal law enforcement and toward opponents they have described as domestic terrorists, often without providing evidence.
Justice Department officials under Mr. Trump have long maintained that investigating and punishing protesters who organized efforts to physically obstruct or disrupt immigration enforcement is a legitimate subject of federal inquiries. But casting a broad net over the activist community in Minneapolis, former department officials and critics of the administration said, raises the specter that forms of political protest traditionally protected by the First Amendment could be criminalized.
Minneapolis Mass Deportation Watch
- Charges in Fatal ICE Shooting Unlikely: “It seems increasingly unlikely that the agent who fired three times at the unarmed woman, Renee Nicole Good, will face criminal charges, although that could change as investigators collect new evidence,” the NYT reports, citing people familiar with the situation.
- Surging More Officers to MN: DHS is sending 1,000 more Customs and Border Patrol officers to Minnesota, joining 2,000 federal agents already in the blue state for the mass deportation operation.
- Minnesota Sues: The state of Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to end the surge of federal agents into the state for the mass deportation operation.
- U.S. Citizens Detained: Immigrations enforcement agents detained two employees of a Minnesota-based Target while they were on the job in company stores, even though both were U.S. citizens.
- Kavanaugh Stops: “On Monday, an NPR reporter witnessed multiple instances where immigration agents drove around Minneapolis and questioned people about their immigration status. Some took place in the parking lots of big box stores,” NPR reported.
Quote of the Day
“You’ve turned Montessori school teachers and stay-at-home moms into Timothy McVeigh in the minds of these agents, so of course their first reaction is to shoot.”—Christopher Parente, an attorney for a Chicago woman shot by CBP, commenting on the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good
Trump DOJ Watch
- Pam Bondi: President Trump has repeatedly complained in private that Attorney General Pam Bondi is weak and ineffective in using the Justice Department to exact retribution against his political foes, the WSJ reports. But rather than being run-of-the-mill palace intrigue, the complaints are themselves part of Trump’s intense pressure campaign to force the DOJ to do his bidding, according to the newspaper.
- Jack Smith: The former special counsel will testify publicly on Jan. 22 before the House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) announced.
- Robert K. McBride: The first assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia was abruptly fired after only about two months on the job. McBride, who had been a federal prosecutor earlier in his career, was lured out of private practice to backstop interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan as she pursued the Trump-ordered prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James. Halligan was subsequently ruled invalidly appointed but has refused to step down, drawing the ire of federal judges. McBride was reportedly fired after “several disagreements with Halligan, including over how to proceed with the Comey case after the indictment against him was dismissed,” the WaPo reported.
Was Jeanine Pirro Freelancing in Powell Case?
A strange twist in the use of the weaponized Trump DOJ against Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell that strains the imagination: “Jeanine Pirro didn’t seek sign-off from her bosses at the Justice Department before subpoenaing the Federal Reserve,” Bloomberg reports.
Both President Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte denied any involvement in the Federal Reserve subpoenas, but you could be forgiven for not taking those denials at face value. Still, the Bloomberg report suggests that Pirro may have been freelancing, though given the president’s open animosity toward Powell, it may be more likely that she thought she was currying favor with the White House by issuing the subpoenas.
If the Bloomberg report isn’t enough evidence for you, Pirro posted a strange defense of the subpoenas on X only 20 minutes before the Bloomberg story was first published:
The United States Attorney’s Office contacted the Federal Reserve on multiple occasions to discuss cost overruns and the chairman’s congressional testimony, but were ignored, necessitating the use of legal process—which is not a threat.
— US Attorney Pirro (@USAttyPirro) January 13, 2026
The word “indictment” has come out of Mr.…
The notion that this was just a friendly request for information and that the target of the subpoena is overreacting by referencing potential future indictments is comically disingenuous of Pirro.
Powell Blowback
Widespread opposition rose up to Trump’s attempt to neuter the Fed:
- Former Fed chairs issued a joint statement calling it an “unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine” the Fed’s independence.
- Central bankers worldwide issued a joint statement in support of Powell’s independence.
- Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): “After speaking with Chair Powell this morning, it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion. If the Department of Justice believes an investigation into Chair Powell is warranted based on project cost overruns—which are not unusual—then Congress needs to investigate the Department of Justice.”
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told President Trump in a call late Sunday that the federal investigation into the Federal Reserve chair “made a mess.” Another Trump adviser called the blowback from the investigation a “huge cluster.”
Trump Admin Stymies Judge in AEA Case
In a remarkable new filing late last night, the Trump administration told U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to, in essence, pound sand in the original Alien Enemies Act case.
Boasberg had ordered the Trump administration to come up with a proposal for how to provide due process after the fact to the Venezuelan men deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. Boasberg had offered examples of what the government might propose, like remote hearings from Venezuela, where the men were ultimately repatriated, or allowing the men to return to the United States for court proceedings.
After asking for and being granted an extension, the Trump administration refused to make any proposals to Boasberg, instead re-litigating his initial order and claiming that its own operation to remove President Maduro and his wife from the country now made it impossible to conduct remote hearings or negotiations for the men to come to the United States.
“In my considered judgment as the Nation’s chief diplomat, I assess that introducing the matter of the disposition of the 137 class members into these discussions at this time would risk material damage to U.S. foreign policy interests in Venezuela. This assessment holds true whether the proposal is to transport class members to a U.S. jurisdiction or to arrange remote hearings from Venezuela,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a new sworn declaration filed in the case.
Word of the Day: ‘Perfidy’
NYT:
The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.
The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.
But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called “perfidy.”
The subtext to this important report (separately confirmed by the WaPo) is that the Trump administration keeps trying to avoid being consistently subject to any one legal regimen for its boat strikes. It insists that the boat strikes are not murder because they’re not law enforcement operations but rather part of an armed conflict with non-state actors; and yet it is not abiding by the rules of armed conflict either.
BREAKING: Synagogue Had ‘Jewish Ties’
We may not be dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer here.
The man charged with arson for setting fire to a synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, allegedly confessed to the weekend attack, saying he was driven by the synagogue’s “Jewish ties.” The 19 year old was arrested at the hospital, where he was recovering from burns suffered during the attack, after being turned in by his father.
Related: In the aftermath of the attach, Anya Kamenetz reflects on the experience of southern Jews.
Trump Turbocharges Climate Change
Lisa Friedman: “In recent days his administration has slammed the door on every possible avenue of global cooperation on the environment. At the same time, it is sending the message that it wants the world to be awash in fossil fuels sold by America, no matter the consequences.”
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.