A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
A Helluva Timeline
The remarkable reporting by the NYT that the Trump White House hired a disgruntled Harvard Law student who was also serving as a would-be “whistleblower” in the Justice Department’s investigation of the law review is a little hard to follow, but a quick timeline helps to bring it into better focus.
Briefly, the Trump DOJ “appeared eager,” as the Times put it, to escalate its bogus civil investigation of the Harvard Law Review for allegedly discriminating against white men into a criminal probe with allegations of obstruction of justice. Even though the law review is independent of the university, top DOJ civil rights officials tried to use the investigation to put added pressure on Harvard as part of its broader attack on the school, the NYT reports, relying on previously unreported letters.
Those letters disclosed that the government had a cooperating witness on the law review. The witness is Daniel Wasserman, who is now working under Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy.
Here’s the timeline culled from the NYT piece:
April 25: Wasserman is offered a job at the White House, the same day the conservative Washington Free Beacon publishes a story with the headline: “Exclusive: Internal Documents Reveal Pervasive Pattern of Racial Discrimination at Harvard Law Review”
April 28: The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announce a civil rights investigation citing the Washington Free Beacon story.
May 13: The first Trump DOJ letter is sent to Harvard regarding the law review allegations.
May 21: In the second letter to Harvard, the Trump DOJ first discloses that Wasserman was providing information to the government and accuses the law review of retaliating against him and ordering him to destroy evidence.
May 22: Wasserman’s first day of work at the White House
May 23: The third Trump DOJ letter is sent to to Harvard regarding the law review.
May 28: Wasserman graduates from Harvard Law School.
A senior administration official told the Times that Wasserman’s hiring was unrelated to the government investigation and that Miller was not involved in hiring him and did not meet him until he started working at the White House.
Understatement Of The Day
“Legal experts said it was highly unusual for an administration to give a cooperating witness in an ongoing investigation a White House job.”–the NYT, on the Trump White House’s hiring of Daniel Wasserman
Big First Amendment Case On Track For July Trial
“The Trump administration failed on Monday in its effort to avert a trial next month to determine whether a federal judge should block the government from retaliating against pro-Palestinian students based on speech,” All Rise News reports.
The Latest On The Big Anti-Immigrant Cases
Abrego Garcia: In a new filing opposing the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the case, the lawyers for the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia framed up the stakes starkly: “The Government asks this Court to accept a shocking proposition: that federal officers may snatch residents of this country and deposit them in foreign prisons in admitted violation of federal law, while no court in the United States has jurisdiction to do anything about it.”
South Sudan: In the third country deportations case out of Massachusetts, the Trump administration told the court that the eight detainees who were originally bound for South Sudan remain in Djibouti and that DHS has provided Microsoft Teams, a satellite phone, and a private interview room for the detainees to speak with their attorneys.
Cristian: Two related developments in the Maryland case of the wrongfully deported Cristian:
- His lawyers took the judge’s invitation and in a new filing say they are likely to file a motion for contempt of court and other sanctions against the Trump administration for “blatant violations” of the court’s orders. As a prelude to that move, they are asking U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher to order expedited discovery similar to that undertaken in the Abrego Garcia case.
- The Trump administration attempted to cure last week’s violation of the judge’s order by filing an updated declaration by an ICE official on the steps the government has and will take to facilitate Cristian’s return. The updated declaration is still remarkably thin and not based on personal knowledge of the government’s actions, as the judge ordered. It also appears to be an attempt to place the entire case more firmly in the foreign policy realm and out of the reach of the judiciary by highlighting Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s personal involvement in “handling the discussions” with the government of El Salvador:
‘I Didn’t Know That Many People Loved Me’
Greg Sargent interviewed an at times tearful Carol Hui, the woman originally from Hong Kong whose detention by the Trump administration shocked the deep-red Missouri town where she has lived and worked for 20 years.
Government-Sponsored Discrimination Alert
The Trump administration’s use of state power to target minorities and marginalized groups continues apace, but it’s almost become background noise in the Trump II presidency. A few examples from just the past 24 hours:
- In a little-noticed memo in March, the Trump administration ordered federal border agents and customs officers not to attend events hosted by organizations that support women or minority groups in law enforcement, a senior border official who retired over the policy told the NYT.
- Harmeet K. Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, sent a letter Monday to public school districts in California threatening legal action if they continue to allow trans athletes to compete in high school sports.
- On what is clearly a pretextual basis, the National Park Service has denied next weekend’s WorldPride celebration access to D.C.’s Dupont Circle park, which is the center of the city’s historic LGBTQ+ neighborhood.
Oh Boy …
The new acting chief of the Trump DOJ’s voting section is Maureen Riordan, who until recently was a lawyer for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, Democracy Docket reports. PILF has been a leading group in the voter fraud bamboozlement movement and has succeeded in purging voter roles, introducing new voter restrictions, and limiting the reach of voting rights laws. Voter suppression luminaries Hans von Spakovsky, J. Christian Adam, and John Eastman either are or have been associated with the group.
The Trump II Clown Show
- FEMA: Acting FEMA Director David Richardson – in the role since May, when the previous director was forced out for defending FEMA’s existence before Congress – told his staff Monday that he didn’t know there was a hurricane season, remarks a FEMA spokesperson dismissed as meant to be a joke.
- NWS: After downsizing some 600 workers, decimating its operational capabilities, the National Weather Service is now planning to hire 100 new people.
- Forest Service: Tech billionaire Michael Boren is alleged to have built an airstrip on protected land without a permit, flown a helicopter dangerously close to a crew building a Forest Service trail, and constructed a cabin on federal property. Today the Senate Agriculture Committee holds a hearing on his confirmation to be the under secretary of agriculture for natural resources and environment, which oversees the Forest Service.
Weaponizing The Federal Trade Commission
Under new FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson, the commission is continuing the bogus right-wing crusade against censorship of conservatives on social media by targeting watchdog groups and other organizations in a new investigation into whether they improperly colluded by coordinating boycotts among advertisers. Among the targeted groups are Media Matters, Ad Fontes Media, and at least a dozen other groups, the NYT reports. The FTC’s letters of inquiry into the internal operations of the groups and their business practices.
Pentagon Puts Greenland On Notice
In a symbolic but aggressive move, the Pentagon under Donald Trump is preparing to shift Greenland from the jurisdiction of the European Command to U.S. Northern Command.
Why Timothy Snyder Left For Canada
The former Yale historian, with some reluctance, wades into the public discourse around his decision to leave New Haven for Toronto:
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Josh Marshall’s Edblog from the weekend:
Democrats’ Hamlet Moment Isn’t the Start of a Solution But the Heart of the Problem
He was absolutely on point in expressing frustration with congressional Democrats and their coat holders (Dem pollsters, fundraisers, et al.) for their pearl-clutching and self-flagellation rather than doing something. I suspect 90+ percent of the readership here would agree with Marshall that Democratic politicians (not all, but the majority, esprcially the leadership) are effectively playing dead.
I think there’s a reason that is so obvious that it’s hiding in plain sight. Just watch C-SPAN broadcasts of the House or Senate floor, or committee hearings, and see the interaction. Watch press conferences of the Democratic leadership. What do you see?
Folks, Democrats are afraid of Republicans. Nothing will change until that ceases.
Of course they will. Every one of these incidents is a little “Reichstag Fire” to use as a pretext to accelerate the despotism.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say they welcome these incidents. Perhaps they even turn their gaze aside to let them happen, or at least increase the probability of occurrence.
If I were a historian of this 2nd Trump administration, or of the decline of the United States in the early to mid 21st century, or a filmmaker trying to capture what happened during this period, I think I would need to compile TPM’s Morning Memos and just keep reading them and re-reading them to find the patterns of absurdity, criminality, cruelty, and decadence of the age.
Every day.
Gramps woke up cranky this morning. Old man yells at Rand!