What Happened to Promised Federal Charges Against That Freed ICE Agent?

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

Deep-Sixed

One of the weirder side plots last week in the extradition fight between Minnesota and Texas over ICE agent Christian Castro was news that the Trump DOJ was considering bringing federal charges against him for the same shooting for which Minnesota had already indicted him.

It was weird for a lot of reasons:

• The Trump administration hasn’t pursued criminal charges against federal agents for the high-profile shootings during Operation Metro Surge (or for misconduct during similar blue-city invasions in Los Angeles and Chicago).
• The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office had already charged Castro’s victims within two days of the shooting before later dropping the case when evidence emerged that Castro had lied about the incident and was suspended by ICE.
• At the same time the Justice Department was reportedly considering charging Castro, it was coming to his defense in the extradition fight, albeit indirectly. In a move that showed the Trump DOJ was clearly colluding with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, it inserted itself into the extradition case by providing factual confirmation for one of Abbott’s legal arguments for why he was slow-rolling Minnesota’s request for Castro.

Against this backdrop it was hard to take seriously the reports — from CNN and CBS News — that federal charges against Castro were imminent. CNN went so far as to suggest charges could come down that day, before the federal judge ruled on the extradition request, as a way of making sure Castro stayed in custody even if Minnesota lost in court. “The tight timeline puts pressure on both federal and state prosecutors to keep Castro in custody,” CNN reported.

But no charges came that day or the next day or in the nearly full week since. Castro was released from jail in Brownsville on Thursday amid fears by law enforcement that he would flee to Mexico.

Subsequent reporting by the New York Times and Minnesota Public Radio is a bit opaque on what happened to the supposed federal case. As the NYT put it over the weekend, “those plans unraveled” and “fell apart in the final hours for reasons that remain unclear.”

Piecing together the reporting and what we know after 18 months of watching the Trump DOJ do President Trump’s bidding, what seems most likely to have happened is that Main Justice scotched the effort by the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office to bring charges against Castro.

I want to be clear that’s not confirmed, but it’s what the available evidence points to.

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota were preparing charges against Castro of deprivation of rights under color of law, MPR and the NYT report. That’s the go-to civil rights charge for excessive force by law enforcement officers.

The federal case was far enough along that prosecutors early last week told the lawyer for Castro’s shooting victim that charges were coming. “Mr. Sosa-Celis put his trust in federal prosecutors in Minnesota who promised him, as a victim and a witness, that they would finally pursue justice by indicting Christian Castro,” attorney Robin Wolpert told the NYT.

Frederick J. Goetz, a lawyer for another victim, apparently received similar assurances. The NYT also had an anonymous third source.

As I warned last week when flagging the CNN report on federal charges, a key figure stood between Castro and any federal charges: Harmeet Dhillon. She is the assistant attorney general who oversee the DOJ Civil Rights Division, which is usually involved in these kinds of use of force cases. Civil rights cases are not typically run solely out of U.S. attorney’s offices because the Civil Rights Division, at least before it was purged under Trump II, had experienced lawyers and resources to assist with these specialized cases and to ensure uniformity and consistency in how these case were handled nationwide.

It put Dhillon in a prime position to meddle, interfere, block, stonewall, etc., the charges against Castro. What exactly happened? Was Dhillon involved? Directly or indirectly? We don’t know. But it’s hard to imagine that prosecutors in Minneapolis went as far as alerting victims’ lawyers of impending charges without U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen being aware of it and at least tentatively signing off on it. So that shifts suspicion to Main Justice and the White House — which in mid-2026 are virtually indistinguishable.

We should allow for the possibility, though remote, that federal charges may still come. A DOJ official told the NYT in a statement that the agency had “not yet reached a conclusion on this matter and will never rush an investigative process and the thorough review of all evidence.”

Trump DOJ Watch

• FBI: Under Director Kash Patel, the FBI will no longer automatically disqualify job applicants who hired sex workers, stole from an employer, or engaged in bestiality, CBS News reports.
• IRS “Settlement”: In federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, the Trump DOJ is balking at demands that it cough up details on the bogus settlement of President Trump’s collusive lawsuit against the IRS which yielded the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund and IRS immunity for Trump, some of his family members, and his business.
• Kennedy Center: The Trump DOJ is running out of ways to humiliate itself in public, Jay Willis writes at Balls & Strikes.

Autopsy: National Guard Shot Man in Back

Tyrin Johnson, 20, was shot in the back last month by National Guard troops assigned to a federal anti-crime task force in Memphis, according to an autopsy report obtained by the AP that contradicts police accounts.

Mass Deportation Watch

• Another Wrongful Deportation: U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Domenico, the chief federal judge in Colorado, has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of a Mexican national who was deported to his home country earlier this month in violation of the court order barring his removal.
• And Yet Another: U.S. District Judge Michelle Williams Court of Los Angeles took the first steps towards ordering the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Nigerian man who remains in hiding in Togo without legal status. The Trump administration was barred from deporting the man to Nigeria under the Convention Against Torture because he was a former member of Boko Haram who was likely to be tortured by the Nigerian government and Boko Haram. So instead the administration deported him in May to Ghana, which quickly put him on bus to Nigeria and then abandoned him when he refused to continue after crossing the border into Togo. The man is reportedly now seriously ill with malaria.
• Third-Country Deportations: Deportees recount harrowing, abusive ICE flights to African countries.

Clyburn Comes Out for SCOTUS Expansion

In the wake of the Roberts Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais decimating the Voting Rights Act and setting back Black political power at least two generations, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said over the weekend that he favors expanding the court by four justices to match the 13 appellate courts:

Rep. James Clyburn says he supports expanding the Supreme Court: "13 is a pretty good number. A baker's dozen would be a good number to have on the Court."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-08-30T14:44:47.878Z

Pete Hegseth Watch

• Iran: Senior U.S. military leaders have warned Defense Secretary Pete Hegeth that it is not sustainable to continue large-scale operations against Iran without jeopardizing U.S. security interests elsewhere in the world, the WaPo reports: “Leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Southern Command, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with what is characterized in the SDOB as a “non-concur,” those familiar with the assessment said — meaning they disagree with the secretary’s order to extend their forces but will execute it nevertheless.”
• More Pentagon Purges: In a highly unusual move, Hegseth is blocking the promotions of four Army officers to one-star rank apparently because they worked for generals he does not like, current and former defense officials told the NYT.
• Influencers on Pentagon Payroll: The Pentagon has secretly installed military-veterans-turned-social-media-influencers in civilian roles to defend Hegseth and attack administration critics, according to the WaPo.

Trump’s Scheme to Take Venezuela’s Oil

The devil will be in the details of whatever yet-to-be-released written agreement memorializes this scheme, but for now the WSJ has the most detailed account of the Trump administration’s plan to give the Pentagon a direct 35% stake in North American Blue Energy Partners, a private company led by controversial Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt: “It would give Washington a direct financial stake in a private company that would be granted centurylong rights to some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves—and tie the U.S. more closely to the unelected government that is granting those rights.”

Teddy Roosevelt Is Rolling in His Grave

The Trump administration is pushing the National Park Service to trade away a 1/4-mile strip of land in a corner of Yosemite National Park so that a developer can develop adjoining property it owns outside the park, NOTUS reports.

Thanks, Google

Google Maps now shows Lake Ontario as “Lake America” to U.S. users:

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