A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
An Attack on the Constitutional Order
Over the course yesterday afternoon and into the evening, the full extent of the Trump Justice Department’s deterioration into thuggery came into clearer view.
First came the release of the preposterous affidavit in support of the search warrant for 2020 election ballots and records in Fulton County, Georgia, which revealed that the FBI became involved after a “referral” from Kurt Olsen, a Stop the Steal lawyer who was hired last year by the administration to investigate the 2020 election. Olsen works in the Trump White as a “Presidentially appointed Director of Election Security and Integrity,” according to the affidavit.
Then came the news the the Trump DOJ had unbelievably sought indictments of six sitting Democratic members of Congress for participating in a video that reminded service members of their duty not to follow unlawful orders. A D.C. grand jury mercifully declined to indict Sens. Mark Kelly (AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (MI) and Reps. Jason Crow (CO), Maggie Goodlander (NH), Chrissy Houlahan (PA), and Chris Deluzio (PA).
The NYT put it succinctly: “The president, emboldened by his success in bending the Justice Department and F.B.I. to his will, has intensified his effort to deploy the vast arsenal of federal law enforcement to pursue his political agenda and personal grievances.”
This is what a fully politicized and weaponized Justice Department looks like. It is not a pretty thing. I am not by nature an alarmist, but caution is a luxury right now. This is a five-alarm fire. Every single American is in jeopardy when federal law enforcement operates outside the rule of law at the beck and call of any president, let alone a deranged mad king like Donald Trump.
A few thoughts on the latest developments:
- I am baffled how the flimsy and obviously politicized search warrant application made it past federal magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas. One way of looking at the affidavit by FBI special agent Hugh Raymond Evans is that it conspicuously included everything a judge needed NOT to sign off on the search warrant.
- This is probably the former lawyer in me speaking, but one of the most striking things about the worst of the Trump DOJ’s cases is how quickly they bring them. Clearly DOJ is under orders from the White House to act and act now. Careful investigation, extensive legal research, strategic decision-making about the long-term institutional impacts of bringing certain cases or taking particular positions in court — things DOJ would normally do, often at a pace that to outsiders looked ridiculously slow — are all out the window.
- Grand juries are the surprise bulwark against fascism, but I’d hesitate before taking much solace from it or placing much reliance on it. First, targets of bogus investigations are still subject to harassment, threat, expense, and emotional distress during the investigation phase even if it doesn’t lead to an indictment. Second, grand juries remain easily manipulated and in a bad position to reject bogus prosecutions when prosecutors and investigators are not acting in good faith. The no-true bills returned of late remain the exception and not the rule.
- It is hard to convey the extent to which both of yesterday’s cases defy the ethical obligations prosecutors have to do justice and to only bring cases they think they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt and win conviction. A grand jury rejection of an indictment isn’t no harm/no foul. D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to bring that particular case is a travesty, especially given the First Amendment and Speech or Debate Clause protections for members of Congress.
A final overarching point: Both of these cases are attacks on the constitutional framework. The Georgia case is a threat to states’ power to conduct federal elections, and targeting members of Congress with politicized prosecutions is direct attack on the separation of powers. So when I say that every American is in jeopardy from a lawless DOJ, that’s true both in sense of you could be next and in the peril it poses to the constitutional order.
Quote of the Day
“If these fuckers think that they’re going to intimidate us and threaten and bully me into silence, and they’re going to go after political opponents and get us to back down, they have another thing coming.”—Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a former Army Ranger, reacting to the Trump DOJ’s attempted prosecution of him and five other Democratic members of Congress
A Pattern Is Emerging …
In the third such case recently, U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou of Lansing rebuffed the Trump DOJ’s request for Michigan’s voter data.
Mass Deportation Watch
- Chicago: In an email, CBP commander Gregory Bovino praised the agent who shot a Chicago woman five times: “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!”
- Nationwide: The Trump administration’s initial bold claims about shootings by federal agents are repeatedly falling apart in court.
- Minnesota: Despite all the administration’s big talk, the Trump DOJ is charging many of the alleged assaults on federal agents in Minnesota as misdemeanors.
Faces of the Resistance
- Joseph H. Thompson, a former senior federal prosecutor who resigned from the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota in January over Operation Metro Surge, has joined the legal defense team of former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who faces charges arising from his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a St. Paul church.
- J.P. Cooney, a former top deputy to the special counsel Jack Smith, plans to run for Congress as a Democrat in a newly drawn district in Virginia.
DHS Withdraws Bogus Subpoena
The Trump administration has withdrawn a retaliatory administrative subpoena targeting a WaPo reader who emailed a DHS lawyer after seeing him quoted in a newspaper article.
FAA Madness
Without any advance notice, the FAA overnight closed the airspace around El Paso’s airport through Feb. 20, citing nonspecific “national security reasons.” Then this morning, it just as abruptly, reopened it.
The airport is adjacent to the Army’s Ft. Bliss, which includes Biggs Army Airfield and Camp East Montana, the newly constructed ICE tent detention facility.
“The brief shutdown was related to a test of new military technology at nearby Fort Bliss Army base,” the NYT reports, thought that hardly begins to explain the mishandling of the closing of a major metro area’s airport.
The Destruction: Vaccine Edition
The FDA under Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., refused to even accept Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu vaccine, baffling the company, which had spent years and millions of dollars on the vaccine, including conducting a clinical trial with 41,000 participants.
The Corruption: Bridge to Nowhere Edition
President Trump’s extortionist threat to shut down the U.S. end of the soon-to-be-opened Canadian bridge to Michigan came after a phone call Monday from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who had just met with Matthew Moroun, the billionaire Detroit trucking magnate whose family — which operates an existing bridge between Michigan and Canada — has fought the new bridge for years, the NYT reports.
Taking the Gay Out of Stonewall
In what appears to be part of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI historical revisionism, the Interior Department removed a Pride flag from NYC’s Stonewall Inn National Monument, which commemorates the cradle of the gay rights movement.
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