Secret Internal Memo Exposes the Scale of ICE’s Lawlessness

Posted on January 22, 2026January 22, 2026 by David Kurtz

Morning Memo Live!

Details and tickets here for the Jan. 29 event in D.C. (TPM members should look out for a special discount code in your inboxes. Reach out to talk@talkingpointsmemo.com if you didn’t receive or can’t find it.)

What 4th Amendment?

A secret internal ICE memo dated May 12, 2025 gave unconstitutional guidance allowing federal agents to forcibly enter homes without judicial warrants to detain undocumented immigrants.

“The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities,” according to the AP, which first obtained the memo. It was a part of a whistleblower complaint to senators from two anonymous government officials.

DHS did not contest the authenticity of the memo, which was signed by Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE. A DHS official told the NYT that “their understanding was that the idea was piloted in one or two locations earlier this year.” (It wasn’t clear if the official meant 2025 or 2026.)

The memo acknowledged that it was offering different legal guidance than DHS had given in the past:

Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of the General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.

Administrative warrants are barely worth the paper they’re printed on. In contrast to arrest warrants issued by a judge based on finding of probable cause that a crime has been committed, administrative warrants are a product of the executive branch and not subject to judicial review.

Legal experts were aghast at the ICE memo and its implications.

“An ICE whistleblower just revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE officers to break into homes without a judicial warrant, which DHS’s own legal training materials say is unconstitutional!” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, posted.

“I try to avoid hyperbole when it comes to Trump policies, but this is absolutely frickin’ insane—on about eleventy different levels,” Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck said. “Massive, systemic Fourth Amendment violations because … reasons.”

In a sign that ICE knew how controversial and potentially illegal the new guidance was, the memo was not widely distributed within ICE, according to Whistleblower Aid, the group representing the whistleblowers:

While addressed to “All ICE Personnel,” in practice the May 12 Memo has not been formally distributed to all personnel. Instead, the May 12 Memo has been provided to select DHS officials who are then directed to verbally brief the new policy for action. Those supervisors then show the Memo to some employees, like our clients, and direct them to read the Memo and return it to the supervisor.

Stanford University law professor Orin Kerr took an early and speculative stab at sussing out the underlying legal rationale the administration might be using for the memo.

The Latest From Minnesota …

In her deadly Jan. 7 encounter with an ICE agent, Renee Good sustained three gunshots wounds, the third of which was a fatal shot to the head, according to the findings of a private autopsy described but not released by her attorneys.
A 5 year old detained by federal agents was the fourth student in the same Minneapolis-area school district picked up by ICE in recent weeks, district leaders said. After the child and his father were detained Tuesday when they arrived home from preschool, the child was reportedly used as “bait,” the school district said, to knock on the door of his own home so agents could see if anyone was inside. ICE reportedly declined to leave the child with an adult present in the home, and the school district believes the father and child were transferred to a detention facility in Texas.
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, almost exclusively stacked with GOP appointees, issued an administrative stay of a lower court order that barred federal agents from arresting or tear-gassing peaceful protesters in Minneapolis.

Mass Deportation Watch

A medical examiner has officially deemed the death of 55-year-old Cuban Geraldo Lunas Campos at a detention camp in Texas a homicide.
Illinois officials have opened a investigation into claims that a notorious immigration raid last fall on a Chicago apartment building was prompted by a tip from building managers about Venezuelan immigrants not authorized live in the building in a potentially illegal attempt to force out Black and Hispanic tenants.

Greenland: Trump’s Damage Already Done

While there was a collective sigh of relief in Davos that President Trump seemed to temporarily back away from his most aggressive threats against Greenland, he has already unleashed a new world disorder that sets geopolitics on a dangerous new course. At the same time, there is no assurance that Trump — who doesn’t adhere to handshakes, contracts, treaties, or agreements — won’t re-up his threats against Greenland or other sovereign territories at his whim:

“While we may no longer be literally staring down the barrel of a gun on the trans-Atlantic relationship, we are still in a very rocky place,” Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a research institute in Brussels, told the NYT.
“The shift in the international order is not only seismic — but it is permanent,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said in a speech.
“Our American Dream is dead,” an EU diplomat from a country that has been among the bloc’s transatlantic champions told Politico. “Donald Trump murdered it.”

Meanwhile, Greenland published a crisis preparedness brochure urging households to stock at least five days’ worth of supplies in case of a crisis.

Firing Lisa Cook Too Much Even for SCOTUS

Like Trump’s sorta, kinda, maybe step-down on Greenland, the Roberts Court’s hesitation to destroy the independence of the Federal Reserve leaves a weird feeling of not-quite relief, wariness about what comes next, irritation that it even got to this point, and frustration that the world is on bended knee hoping that malevolent actors will show a modicum of restraint.

It’s clear that whatever dispensation the Supreme Court gives to the Federal Reserve will be a special carveout, inapplicable to the entire apparatus of independent agencies constructed over the last 90 years, of which the central bank is only a part. The limits of the conservative justices’ ideological coherence has been reached, but it will not prompt a moment of reflection to rethink the entire enterprise — just a once-off exception to avoid any financial unpleasantness for the most prosperous Americans. The rest of us will benefit only incidentally.

Keep an Eye on This

The same federal magistrate judge who signed off on the search of the home, car, and person of WaPo reporter Hannah Natanson has now directed the Justice Department not to review the contents of her seized electronic devices, which her lawyers argue “contain essentially her entire professional universe.”

Magistrate William B. Porter of the Eastern District of Virginia issued the order after Natanson and the Washington Post company moved to intervene in the matter, which arises from an investigation into the allegedly improper handling of national defense information by a government contractor.

An interesting observation from Politico: “The newly released court records do not indicate whether Porter was informed that Natanson is a journalist or whether the judge determined that the 1980 law limiting searches of reporters, the Privacy Protection Act, did not apply in this instance.”

Trump Unleashes FCC on TV Talk Shows

The weaponized Federal Communications Commission is now targeting network talk shows, contending that they no longer enjoy a carveout for news programs and must provide equal airtime to political candidates.

Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.

What Does It Mean That SCOTUS Hasn’t Ruled on IEEPA Tariffs? Nothing, Experts Said.

Posted on January 22, 2026January 22, 2026 by Layla A. Jones

When, on Jan. 9, a Supreme Court decision day came and went without an opinion on the legality of President Donald Trump’s signature economic policy, deep and wide tariffs, observers exhaled.

The justices’ decision on whether Trump can levy widespread, global and indefinite tariffs using the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA, had been expected as early as the end of last year, an expedited ruling following oral arguments in the case on Nov. 5. But no tariffs decision came in December. When the Court announced it would release opinions on Jan. 9, many predicted that the decision in question was sure to be IEEPA. It wasn’t. The Court released another slate of SCOTUS opinions on Jan. 14. Still no tariffs ruling.

The case is about whether Trump has the power under the law to tariff countries for an indefinite period of time after making a national emergency declaration. Lawyers opposing the administration argued, among other things, that tariffs were not explicitly mentioned as a power afforded to the administration under the law in question, and that they amount to a tax on U.S. consumers. Congress holds the power of the purse and is the only body that can tax Americans; it’s a responsibility that, opponents argued, Congress would have had to have explicitly delegated.

Jan. 20, the third decision day of the year, arrived. Corporations and small businesses, global financial markets, industry attorneys and legal scholars watching the Court closely still have no decision in the Trump IEEPA tariffs case.

What gives?

There are many theories bouncing around about what is going on here: Are conservative justices, who’ve been apt to rule in a way favorable to Trump’s administration but were skeptical of the government’s legal case during November oral arguments, giving the president more time to apply his tariffs using other, more constitutionally sound statutes? Are justices amenable to Trump’s overreach preparing to give him roundabout access to Congress’ power of the purse and taking time to concoct a legal theory that supports this perversion of the roles of different branches of government? Is aparticular justice (feel free to choose which one you think it could be) strategically dragging their feet as they write a long, drawn-out dissent?

Supreme Court scholars and constitutional law experts told TPM observers shouldn’t lend much credence to any such theories. Their biggest takeaway from the SCOTUS nondecision is that there is really no takeaway.

Four constitutional law scholars shared with TPM how they’re thinking about the timing of the Supreme Court’s IEEPA tariffs decision.

Don’t Expect a Decision Quite Yet

“I don’t think the Court is ‘pushing off’ a ruling on the tariffs case; to the contrary, the norm for the Court historically has been to take its time, especially with big cases,” Stephen Vladeck, Supreme Court scholar and Georgetown University law professor, told TPM in an email. “I suspect the same is happening here — where the separate opinions just aren’t finalized yet. I’d thought all along that late February was probably the sweet spot for a decision here, and continue to believe the same.”

‘Nothing to See Here’

“If this was a normal case, I’d say there’s nothing to see here,” Michael C. Dorf, a constitutional law professor at Cornell University, told TPM. “So I suspect that they’re treating it as not presenting a kind of emergency.”

That SCOTUS hasn’t issued a decision in the IEEPA case, just over two months after hearing oral arguments, is in line with the Court’s normal timing on large, complex and consequential cases, Dorf said.

Because the administration has expressed in public its ability and plan to impose tariffs using other, less controversial statutes, Dorf posited justices might not feel rushed to rule on this case. And about the theories swirling around regarding a perceived delay by the justices?

“It’s only speculation. I think these are plausible accounts, but until they do what they’re going to do, nobody really knows,” Dorf said.

In the end, regardless of timing, “I think they probably will vote to invalidate the tariffs,” Dorf said.

Court ‘Resists’ The Idea That It’s Involved In Day-to-Day Politics

Constitutional law scholar Carolyn Shapiro put it plainly.

“I read nothing into the timing at this stage,” she told TPM.

Tariffs are a defining political issue of Trump’s second term, and, because of the way they tend to inflate prices for U.S. consumers, they were a critical aspect of the “affordability” conversation that was central to the 2025 off year election and may be key to the 2026 midterms. The Supreme Court, however, sometimes makes a point of not caring about such things, said Shapiro, founder and co-director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

“The Court very much resists the idea that what it’s doing is political in a number of senses, but one sense is in the kind of daily work of politics,” Shapiro said. “So I think that also could be some of it, that for some of them they want to convey this view of themselves as being somehow writing ‘for the ages,’” she continued, quoting a phrase Justice Neil Gorsuch used during oral arguments in the 2024 presidential immunity case.

The view that the Court’s actions are detached from daily politics isn’t necessarily rooted in reality, Shapiro emphasized.

“I want to be clear that they are, of course, in the middle of the daily politics and they’re putting themselves there more and more with all the stuff they’re doing on the shadow docket,” she said.

Shapiro said it’s hard to know exactly how justices would rule, but highlighted that skepticism from justices during November oral arguments suggested Trump could lose the case.

“I don’t think it’s been that long, honestly. I just don’t,” she said. “They sometimes move quickly and, often when we think that they should, they don’t.”

Despite the Significant Economic Consequences, ‘This Is Not at All an Unusual Delay’

Eric Berger, a constitutional law professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law, does not view the Supreme Court’s failure to publish an opinion on this case as a “delay.”

“Oftentimes, the Court can hear arguments on a case in October or November and not issue a decision until May or June or even early July,” Berger, who studies judicial decision-making, told TPM. “So, ordinarily, this would not be considered a delay.”

The implications of a case that could see billions of dollars collected by the U.S. government returned to businesses, however, are not ordinary, Berger acknowledged.

“But again, given the complexity of the case and the schedule on which [the Supreme Court] normally operates, this is not at all an unusual delay.”

He said it’s hard to tell whether SCOTUS’ decision not to rule more quickly favors either side. The time it takes to write and finalize majority decisions, concurrent opinions, and dissents are regular procedural obligations that impact the timing of the justices’ ruling.

“It’s certainly possible that the delay signals that the Court might rule for the administration,” Berger said. “On the other hand, it’s always dangerous to read too much into oral arguments, but at oral arguments some of the justices who often vote with this administration seemed pretty skeptical of their position.”

House Dems Rally Against DHS Funding Bill, But the Senate Is Where the Real Fight Happens

Posted on January 21, 2026January 21, 2026 by Nicole LaFond

Dems ‘Overwhelmingly’ Opposed

House Democrats are expected to vote against an upcoming appropriations bill funding the Department of Homeland Security because it doesn’t go far enough in restraining Immigration and Customs Enforcement after an agent killed a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis this month.

Congressional appropriators released a big bipartisan package on Tuesday that would fund the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security ahead of Congress’ deadline to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, at the end of January. The House is expected to vote on the funding package Thursday, and Republican leadership has reportedly agreed to allow a separate vote on the DHS section of the bill so Democrats can express their dismay. But absent GOP opposition, the legislation is still expected to pass the House if the Republican conference doesn’t have absentee issues.

While House Democratic leadership has come out saying it’ll vote against the DHS portion of the package — and a sweeping chunk of the House Democratic caucus is expected to do the same, including many Democratic appropriators in the House — those who plan to support the measure claim that the stuff the bill does to curtail ICE is better than nothing. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat on the House Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, has suggested voting for the bill is better than giving DHS a “blank check” in the form of a continuing resolution that Republicans would likely try to push through.

The details of the bill, per NBC News:

The package would keep ICE funding essentially flat at $10 billion for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, even as the agency received $75 billion of additional money for detention and enforcement from Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriator, acknowledged that the package did not include broad reforms to rein in ICE in a statement from her office announcing the bill. But she endorsed the package, saying it would prevent a partial shutdown and arguing that it did include some Democratic priorities.

Those supposed priorities include funding to force ICE agents to wear body cams and language that “encourages” DHS to create a new uniform policy that would “ensure that law enforcement officers are clearly identifiable as Federal law enforcement.” It also includes some cuts to Trump’s sweeping deportation budget: it “would also cut funding for ICE enforcement and removal operations by $115 million and reduce the number of ICE detention beds by 5,500.”

What really matters is how Senate Democrats respond once the legislation is brought up for a vote in the upper chamber, as Republicans will need support from at least seven Democrats to pass the bill. The Senate does not return until next week, so how exactly individual senators and Democratic leadership in the upper chamber plans to approach the appropriations bill will be clearer then.

But a few Senate Democrats have spoken out against the DHS portion of the bill. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has been calling for Democrats to oppose funding for DHS since at least last week. After the bill text was released Tuesday, he issued a statement saying it “puts no meaningful constraints on the growing lawlessness of ICE, and increases funding for detention over the last Appropriations bill passed in 2024.”

Over the weekend some other Senate Democrats followed his lead, with Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) telling CNN Sunday that Democrats should withhold their votes on DHS funding even if it means shutting down that portion of the government.

“We cannot vote for anything that actually adds more money and doesn’t constrain ICE,” he said. “I can’t speak for everybody else, but if I have to shut down the portion of ICE — just to be clear, we’re not shutting down the rest of the government — the portion of ICE that is causing this kind of harm, racially profiling people, terrorizing our cities, I know the implications of that. I know the political implications potentially of that.

“But we cannot keep funding this type of goon squads that are just spreading throughout the whole country just to enforce some weird policy position that Stephen Miller has, where he thinks that we have to punish blue cities,” he continued.

Those who support the legislation in the Senate, like top Democratic appropriator Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), are selling it as a way to claw back some of the funding cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency last year. Murray also suggested protesting the DHS portion of the bill is useless.

“ICE must be reined in, and unfortunately, neither a (continuing resolution) nor a shutdown would do anything to restrain it, because, thanks to Republicans, ICE is now sitting on a massive slush fund it can tap whether or not we pass a funding bill,” Murray told NBC. “The suggestion that a shutdown in this moment might curb the lawlessness of this administration is not rooted in reality.”

ICE Descends on Maine

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed reports that ICE agents are conducting a large scale immigration enforcement operation in Maine this week. They confirmed reports in a press release announcing its new “Operation Catch of the Day” in Maine. Several mayors have criticized the uptick in arrests and, according to local reports, some school districts have locked down their schools in order to protect students from ICE’s presence.

Bessent Unconcerned!

“Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.”

“That is less than $100 million. They’ve been selling Treasurys for years, I’m not concerned at all,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos Wednesday when asked about European investors pulling money out of U.S. Treasurys, a move many have made in response to Trump’s plans to impose 10 percent tariffs on a handful of European countries as he tries to take over Greenland.

In Case You Missed It

Check out our coverage of SCOTUS oral arguments on Fed independence today. We’ve got live coverage: SCOTUS Forced To Decide Whether It Will Keep Fed Independent of Trump

Plus key takeaways from Layla A. Jones: SCOTUS Skeptical Trump’s Truth Social Posts Count As Due Process

And Kate Riga: Kavanaugh: Trump’s Position Would ‘Weaken If Not Shatter The Independence Of The Federal Reserve’

Morning Memo: The Judicial Branch Didn’t Cover Itself In Glory In the Lindsey Halligan Saga

VIDEO: Josh Marshall and David Kurtz on What the Heck the DOJ Is Up to in Minneapolis

Yesterday’s Most Read Story

Trump Marks First Year Iin Office With Unhinged Racist Rant Targeting ‘Very Low IQ’ Somalis

What We Are Reading

America vs. the World

Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News

24 Hours Alongside an ICE Protester in Minneapolis

SCOTUS Skeptical Trump’s Truth Social Posts Count As Due Process

Posted on January 21, 2026January 21, 2026 by Layla A. Jones

Justice Sonia Sotomayor summed up Wednesday morning’s two-hour oral arguments on whether or not Trump could fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in one line.

“This whole case isn’t regular.”

While Cook’s case isn’t explicitly about the Federal Reserve’s right to freedom from political manipulation, the court’s ruling will have resounding implications for U.S. central bank independence, which has been preserved since the body was created 112 years ago.

Cook’s lawyers’ arguments revolved around two contentions: that Cook wasn’t provided due process between the time members of the Trump administration accused her of criminal mortgage fraud and Trump’s attempt to remove her, and that the standard for “for cause” removal as outlined in the law had not been met. The Trump administration argued the president gave Cook adequate notice in an unconventional way: A Truth Social post.

The justices were skeptical. The elephant in the room, throughout, was how to assess actions by a president who relies on social media to make and announce policy decisions that may, for example, upend international trade, or send the military into cities and states. How much weight can and should courts put on a president’s social media posts as official action?

Cook has denied wrongdoing in this case, and the Trump administration has regularly cooked up unfounded mortgage fraud allegations against the president’s perceived enemies as part of a systematic retribution machine. A lower court and an appeals court stayed the removal until Cook’s case was fully litigated.

Cook’s lawyers hold she wasn’t afforded adequate notice and a hearing, as required by law, before Trump tried to remove her. And on Wednesday, at least some justices seemed to agree.

The case’s irregularity began “starting with the Truth Social notice, or thinking of it as notice at all,” Sotomayor said in the final moments of oral arguments, laughing. The Truth Social post, she said, “certainly didn’t invite an opportunity to be heard.”

A crux of the government’s case, as presented by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, is that Cook did actually receive notice and time to respond via Trump’s prolific Truth Social presence. His post about firing Cook for mortgage fraud and screenshots of alleged evidence posted online launched the five-day period Cook had to respond, Sauer contended. Many of the justices didn’t appear convinced.

When Sauer said the administration had followed the legal process and given Cook sufficient opportunity to state her case in public, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked facetiously if Cook’s own public presentation was to be a social media post. Sauer answered simply: “Yes.”

Moments later, Justice Neil Gorsuch pushed on the government’s argument that the president had to afford Cook only minimal process. How minimal? Sauer reiterated that Trump’s Truth Social post, specifically “the five day window between the Truth Social post and the removal letter,” was enough to inform Cook of the allegations against her.

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett emphasized at separate times during the proceeding Cook’s right to due process, leading Sauer again and again to restate that Trump’s online behavior was key to the Fed governor’s firing, and add a wrinkle that it’s ultimately up to the president to determine what process is.

It’s a bizarre and almost unserious case with dead serious consequences. Justices on Wednesday contended with the idea that a president who virtually lives online and issues some of his most important pronouncements via the social media platform he owns need only post to that platform to kick off the due process required under law for removing a Federal Reserve governor “for cause.” And even those most amenable to Trump’s executive branch expansion didn’t seem to buy into the philosophy.

Asking whether the mortgage documents that would purportedly reveal any alleged fraud were in the record in this case, conservative Justice Samuel Alito forced Sauer to admit they might not be, instead pointing back to social media.

“I know that the text of the social media post that screenshots the mortgage applications is in the record, but I don’t recall if the paperwork itself is in the District Court’s record,” Sauer said.

The admission led Alito, normally a reliable vote for Trump’s agenda, to concede the administration’s handling of Cook’s case was done so in a “cursory manner.”

The whole case tees up the Supreme Court justices to come face-to-face with the contradiction they created, holding Trump had the right to fire officers from independent agencies including the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Trade Commission, but maybe not from another, extremely important independent agency: the Federal Reserve. The Fed, some justices have opined in other independent agency cases, is a unique entity shielded from presidential overreach because of its historical background and monetary policy role.

Experts told TPM it’s a tough needle to thread, given the Court’s 2025 agency rulings.

Kavanaugh: Trump’s Position Would ‘Weaken If Not Shatter The Independence Of The Federal Reserve’

Posted on January 21, 2026January 21, 2026 by Kate Riga

As the Supreme Court cosigned President Trump and Elon Musk’s massacre of independent executive branch agencies last year, experts prayed that the justices would concoct some way to protect the Federal Reserve. Wednesday’s arguments bolstered those hopes.

Continue reading →

The Supreme Court’s ‘History and Tradition’ Test Has Now Run Into America’s History and Tradition of Anti-Black Racism

Posted on January 21, 2026January 21, 2026 by Allegra Kirkland

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Tuesday in Wolford v. Lopez, a case about whether states can ban people from carrying concealed firearms on private property without getting the owner’s consent. Under the Hawaii law at issue, any armed person who wants to enter a shopping center, restaurant, or other privately owned property that is open to the public needs “express authorization” first—for example, a sign at a store’s entrance or a verbal “okay” from an employee. Gun laws like Hawaii’s are often called “vampire rules” because, like the rules that applied to vampires in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, they keep out a deadly threat unless the deadly threat receives an explicit invitation to enter.

Hawaii enacted its law in 2023 in response to New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a 2022 Supreme Court case that created a new test for determining the constitutionality of gun control laws. Under Bruen, laws that regulate “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” violate the Second Amendment unless there is a “well-established and representative historical analogue.” This rigid standard calls on courts to invalidate all gun laws unless, in a judge’s estimation, people in the Founding era imposed similar restrictions for similar reasons.

Bruen immediately caused chaos in the lower courts, as it called the legality of previously uncontroversial gun laws into question. And in July 2024, after a federal appeals court ruled that laws disarming domestic violence offenders are unconstitutional because the country did not historically disarm domestic abusers, the Court began to backpedal. Writing for the eight-justice majority in United States v. Rahimi, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that lower courts had “misunderstood” Bruen, and that modern gun safety laws need only a historical “analogue,” not a historical “twin.” (For what it’s worth, the author of Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented in Rahimi to say that the lower court had understood his opinion just fine.)

Continue reading →

SCOTUS Forced To Decide Whether It Will Keep Fed Independent of Trump

The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this morning on whether President Donald Trump can lawfully remove Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook while a criminal investigation against Cook, brought by Trump’s retribution-seeking Department of Justice, is pending in court.

The case is about whether the administration provided Cook with adequate due process before attempting to fire her, and whether a claim of personal mortgage fraud, which Cook has denied, is even grounds for a Fed governor’s dismissal. Observers can also expect to hear arguments about the global financial importance of an independent central bank.

The Supreme Court has allowed Trump to run roughshod over other independent executive branch agencies, but appears to want to protect the Fed as a uniquely independent body.

Follow along below.

The Judicial Branch Didn’t Actually Cover Itself In Glory in the Lindsey Halligan Saga

Posted on January 21, 2026January 21, 2026 by David Kurtz

Judges Sidestep Halligan Confrontation

On the surface it looks like the federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia tackled the Lindsey Halligan problem head on. But if you look a little closer, the judges went out of their way to avoid a direct confrontation with the White House.

Continue reading →

VIDEO: Josh Marshall and David Kurtz on What the Heck the DOJ Is Up to in Minneapolis

Posted on January 21, 2026January 21, 2026 by Allegra Kirkland

We’re just days out from our first Morning Memo Live event on the weaponization and politicization of the Justice Department under Trump II. To preview the kinds of topics we’ll be digging into, Josh Marshall joined David Kurtz on Substack Live to talk about the aftermath of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

“There’s no longer any independence between the White House and the Justice Department,” David told Josh. “And it’s been made abundantly clear that what the White House says is what goes.”

Join us on Jan. 29 at the National Union Building in Washington, D.C. to talk about what’s going on at Main Justice, Pam Bondi, Trump’s retribution campaign against his political enemies, and where things go from here.

All TPM members should have a special discount code in their inboxes. And 2 for 1 tickets available now at checkout (even for those who already purchased a ticket!).

We’ll see you there.

Continue reading →

White House Uses Shutdown to Carry Out Trump’s Retribution Agenda

The government is shut down and the Trump administration has begun its retribution campaign against Democrats. President Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought are engaging in a blatant attempt to squeeze Democrats into helping pass a continuing resolution to reopen the government, instead of engaging with their requests to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies and restore Medicaid coverage.

Follow along with our coverage here: