Is Trump Now Personally Dictating DOJ’s Filings?

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Vanity Ballroom Jumps the Shark

I’ve spent years now warning of the dangers of Donald Trump taking over the Department of Justice, and yet I feel like I’m stuck in the denial stage of grief.

What I initially envisioned — Trump obliterating the Chinese wall between the White House and DOJ and putting undue pressure on DOJ leadership to do his corrupt bidding — certainly came to pass but now seems quaint.

If you can get away with that, Trump reasoned, why not run the Justice Department out of the White House. So he proceeded to check that box.

Once you cross the line of running the DOJ out of the White House, then who really needs DOJ leaders other than as figureheads. And if they’re only figureheads, then why not dictate to them the exact words to use in their legal filings on your behalf.

That seems to be the line we crossed last night with a new filing in the vanity ballroom case that reads like a Trump Truth Social post or one of those interminable digressions in his two-hour campaign speeches.

For context, the plaintiff challenging the legality of demolishing the East Wing of the White House and constructing a ballroom-bunker without approval from Congress using corruption-prone private donations is the do-good National Trust for Historic Preservation, an exemplary organization.

The Trump-dictated filing, which Chris Geidner was all over last night when it was first filed, begins by calling the the National Trust’s name “FAKE” in all caps, declares it “very bad for our Country,” and accuses it of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly called TDS”:

It goes on like this for two pages, much of it devoted to leveraging Saturday night’s assassination attempt into a new justification for the ballroom, before turning to anything that purports to be actual legal arguments.

The filing is over the signature of the No. 3 official at DOJ, Stanley Woodward, who was a Trump world criminal defense attorney before Trump II, who had not previously appeared in the ballroom case. It is extraordinary for the associate attorney general to get involved directly in a case, but this isn’t the first time. He’s also personally defending Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s vindictive prosecution claim.

Clearly, the thwarted attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner has catalyzed Trump’s pre-existing obsession with the ballroom. Woodward does what he can to integrate Trump’s bombast into the staid confines of a legal filing, but fails miserably.

One tell of Trump’s contributions: exclamation points. They pop up three times, and bear the unmistakeable Trump tone:

• “It is all one highly integrated unit!”
• “What he did on Saturday night could not have taken place in this new and highly secure facility!”
• “Congress has never dictated or tampered with the zoning, permitting, or architectural aspects of any Project, especially one being given FREE OF CHARGE AS A GIFT TO THE COUNTRY!”

All caps are the other Trumpian giveaway:

• “FAKE”
• “STANDING”
• “FREE OF CHARGE AS A GIFT TO THE COUNTRY!”
• “DONALD J. TRUMP”
• “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME”

After giving over the introduction of the filing to Trump, Woodward seems to have given him the conclusion, too:

As Geidner puts it: “It was yet another dark, embarrassing moment for DOJ — one that summed up the destruction that Trump and his sycophants have unleashed on the institution.”

Just a reminder that the issue here isn’t the grotesqueness of the monstrosity Trump wants to build or the safety and security of the head of state. It’s the constitutional allocation of the spending power to Congress, and the related issue that the president doesn’t own the White House or any other federal property. He is merely a caretaker, at most.

Quote of the Day

Garrett Graff, on the ballroom-bunker mentality:

I do think a major reason that White House construction and renovations should unfold with the assent and understanding of Congress and through the appropriations system is so that Congress as a separate-and-equal branch has a check-and-balance in just how extensive the fortifications of the White House end up being. Strong enough to sustain a hostile attack? Absolutely! Strong enough to withstand the end of democracy? Absolutely not.

IMPORTANT

Read Steve Vladeck to understand why the Supreme Court’s summary reversal yesterday of a three-judge panel’s ruling on Texas’ congressional district map was so important.

(One note, because it may not be obvious to lay readers: Unlike most cases seeking Supreme Court intervention, appeals from three-judge redistricting panels skip the intermediate circuits courts of appeals and go straight to the Supreme Court, which must consider them.)

Trump DOJ Watch

Lawfare reviewed dozens of hours of media appearances by new “grand conspiracy” prosecutor Joseph diGenova. Their conclusion, in summary: He has spent years accusing President Trump’s perceived enemies of crimes, attacking their character and even demanding their imprisonment — all of which casts real doubt on his ability to act as an independent or impartial prosecutor.

Jan. 6 Never Ends

HuffPo: “All 40 of his nominees to lifetime federal judgeships so far have given misleading or false responses to questions about the 2020 election in the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Another Mike Flynn Settlement

Anna Bower: The Trump administration has agreed to a second settlement with former national security adviser and Trump ally Michael Flynn.

A Friendly Public Service Announcement

This is the kind of “news you can use” that I share with loved ones (and did this morning), so I’ll end today with a gentle nudge on your personal cybersecurity:

The gist: “If there was ever a time to finally take your cybersecurity practices seriously, it’s now.”

The action items: “Use strong passwords that are unique across every site, preferably through a trusted password manager. Better yet, when a site offers a passkey, take it. A passkey lets you sign in with your face or fingerprint — no typed password that could be stolen by phishing. For accounts without passkeys, use an authenticator app for two-factor authentication, not text messages. Always keep all your software up to date, and uninstall unnecessary apps.”

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