Trump Admin Signals It Will Return One Wrongfully Deported Man

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Major Breakthrough Or More Endless Stonewalling?

In what could be a major breakthrough, the Trump administration told a federal court Wednesday that it has taken affirmative steps to retrieve an unlawfully deported Guatemalan man and return him to the United States so that he can receive the due process he was initially denied.

It was the first concession of its kind that the Trump administration has made in the handful of cases where courts have ordered it to facilitate the return of wrongfully deported foreign nationals and which have become the focal point of a constitutional clash between President Trump and the judiciary.

The concession comes in the case of O.C.G., a gay man who had succeeded in U.S. immigration court at not being deported to his home country but whom the Trump administration them immediately deported to Mexico., which in turn sent him to Guatemala. In his immigration court hearing, the man claimed to have been previously kidnapped and raped in Mexico, but the immigration judge (probably correctly, under current law) said the case at hand was limited to Guatemala.

O.C.G.’s situation emerged in a larger case in federal court in Massachusetts challenging third country deportations without notice and hearing. It’s the same case where the Trump administration tried to get around a court order with last week’s deportation flight to South Sudan.

The government alerted the court of its efforts to return O.C.G. in a filing that said certain paperwork had already been completed and that the administration “is currently working with ICE Air to bring O.C.G. back to the United States on an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg.”

A few words of caution about what this means for O.C.G. and the other “facilitate” cases:

  • O.C.G. is not back yet. Throughout his business and political life President Trump has dragged his feet at every step of litigation, including later stages after concessions have been made or a settlement reached. While this is a significant step compared to the previous defiance, it’s not a done deal yet.
  • Unlike Kilmar Abrego Garcia and “Cristian,” the other two major “facilitate” cases, O.C.G. was not incarcerated after his deportation. He has remained in hiding in Guatemala, not in prison. That distinction is one that the administration may use to justify not similarly returning other wrongfully deported migrants.
  • Unlike Cristian and the dozens of others incarcerated at CECOT in El Salvador, O.C.G. wasn’t deported under the Alien Enemies Act, which the Trump administration has sought to use as an entirely separate legal basis for removals and will likely use to distinguish O.C.G.’s case.

All of which is to say that while the administration’s signal that it will abide by the court order to facilitate O.C.G.’s return is a potential breakthrough that undermines its legal position in other cases, I’d caution against leaping to the conclusion that it is the beginning of a wholesale walk-back of the administration’s outrageous conduct in these key anti-immigration cases.

Judge Rules In Favor Of Khalil … Sorta

In one of the most obtuse judicial opinions you’ll ever encounter, U.S. District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz of New Jersey ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist, was likely unconstitutional, but stopped short of ordering Khalil’s release until both parties can file further briefs.

Shouting The Quiet Part

Education Secretary Linda McMahon provided valuable evidence on national TV that the Trump administration is targeting universities for illegitimate political reasons:

Linda McMahon: "Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they're abiding by the laws and in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 28, 2025 at 10:54 AM

Trump Wants Loyalist On Appeals Court

President Trump announced his plan to nominate his former criminal defense attorney, now serving as the No. 3 at the Justice Department to a coveted seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit (which covers PA, NJ, DE, and the USVI).

Bove has been a leading figure in rapidly bringing the Justice Department firmly under Trump White House control, erasing its storied independence and eroding its professional reputation.

Trump’s social media post announcing Bove’s nomination to the lifetime seat on the appeals court described the job in startling political terms: “He will end the Weaponization of Justice, restore the Rule of Law, and do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

Pardonpalooza

  • Following on remarks from U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin, President Trump confirmed he is considering pardoning the violent extremists convicted in the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), falsely claiming that they “got railroaded.”
  • President Trump pardoned former Rep. Michael Grimm, the Staten Island Republican who resigned from Congress in 2015 and did prison time for tax fraud. Grimm was paralyzed last year in a horseback riding accident. Trump has now pardoned a total of nine members of Congress convicted of corruption and/or tax crimes.
  • Grimm wasn’t the only corrupt politician among the more than two dozen people Trump pardoned yesterday, a list that included political allies of his.

The kicker to Trump’s pardonpalooza: Trump is exacting retribution against more than three dozen former death row inmates whose sentences President Biden commuted by sending them to the nation’s only “supermax” prison. A judge has cleared the way for those transfers, saying the inmates had not yet exhausted their administrative remedies with the Bureau of Prisons, a necessary predicate to filing their federal lawsuits.

For The Record

Nancy Marks, one-time campaign manager to ousted Rep. George Santos (R-NY), avoided jail time for her role in his campaign finance schemes. The ousted fabulist congressman was sentenced last month to seven years in prison. Her possible cooperation with investigators against Santos has never been confirmed. “I’m going to leave that an enigma,” her lawyer said.

The Corruption Is Obvious Even To Them

CBS News parent Paramount has offered $15 million to settle Donald Trump’s bogus lawsuit against it for how it edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign. Trump is holding out for $25 million and an apology, but Paramount executive are leery of paying more than the going rate for these corrupt settlements of spurious Trump lawsuits because it might expose them to legal liability, the WSJ reports:

During the Trump-suit negotiations, one sticking point for Paramount executives has been whether a settlement could expose directors and officers to liability in potential future shareholder litigation or criminal charges for bribing a public official, according to people familiar with the conversations. By settling within the range of what other companies have paid to end litigation with Trump, some Paramount executives hope to minimize such liability, some of the people said.

Paramount is eager to settle for its own corrupt purpose: winning government approval for a planned merger.

Huge Blow To Trump’s Illegal Tariff War

The Court of International Trade blocked major elements of President Trump’s regimen of massive tariffs, ruling that he had exceeded his statutory authority and usurped Congress’ role.

RFK Jr. Watch

  • HHS has undermined the county’s capacity to fight future influenza pandemics by cancelling a $600 million contract with Moderna to develop flu vaccines.
  • HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blindsided CDC officials with his surprise announcement on social media that he was unilaterally changing the government’s guidance on who should get COVID vaccines and when.

The Toils Of Climate Change

A massive chunk of Switzerland’s Birch Glacier – destabilized by climate change – came loose, unleashing a debris flow that almost completely wiped out an already-evacuated Alpine village. The BBC has video of the shock wave advancing across the valley floor.

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Death, Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking: Fallout From US Aid Withdrawal Hits the World’s Most Fragile Locations

Posted on by John Light

This post first appeared at ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

American diplomats in at least two countries have recently delivered internal reports to Washington that reflect a grim new reality taking hold abroad: The Trump administration’s sudden withdrawal of foreign aid is bringing about the violence and chaos that many had warned would come.

The vacuum left after the U.S. abandoned its humanitarian commitments has destabilized some of the most fragile locations in the world and thrown refugee camps further into unrest, according to State Department correspondence and notes obtained by ProPublica.

The assessments are not just predictions about the future but detailed accounts of what has already occurred, making them among the first such reports from inside the Trump administration to surface publicly — though experts suspect they will not be the last. The diplomats warned in their correspondence that stopping aid may undermine efforts to combat terrorism.

In the southeastern African country of Malawi, U.S. funding cuts to the United Nations’ World Food Programme have “yielded a sharp increase in criminality, sexual violence, and instances of human trafficking” within a large refugee camp, U.S. embassy officials told the State Department in late April. The world’s largest humanitarian food provider, the WFP projects a 40% decrease in funding compared to last year and has been forced to reduce food rations in Malawi’s sprawling Dzaleka refugee camp by a third.

To the north, the U.S. embassy in Kenya reported that news of funding cuts to refugee camps’ food programs led to violent demonstrations, according to a previously unreported cable from early May. During one protest, police responded with gunfire and wounded four people. Refugees have also died at food distribution centers, the officials wrote in the cable, including a pregnant woman who died under a stampede. Aid workers said they expected more people to get hurt “as vulnerable households become increasingly desperate.”

“It is devastating, but it’s not surprising,” Eric Schwartz, a former State Department assistant secretary and member of the National Security Council during Democratic administrations, told ProPublica. “It’s all what people in the national security community have predicted.”

“I struggle for adjectives to adequately describe the horror that this administration has visited on the world,” Schwartz added. “It keeps me up at night.”

In response to a detailed list of questions, a State Department spokesperson said in an email: “It is grossly misleading to blame unrest and violence around the world on America. No one can reasonably expect the United States to be equipped to feed every person on earth or be responsible for providing medication for every living human.”

The spokesperson also said that “an overwhelming majority” of the WFP programs that the Trump administration inherited, including those in Malawi and Kenya, are still active.

But the U.S. funds the WFP on a yearly basis. For 2025, the Trump administration so far hasn’t approved any money in either country, forcing the organization to drastically slash food programs.

In Kenya, for example, the WFP will cut its rations in June down to 28% — or less than 600 calories a day per person — a low never seen before, the WFP’s Kenya country director Lauren Landis told ProPublica. The WFP’s standard minimum for adults is 2,100 calories per day.

“We are living off the fumes of what was delivered in late 2024 or early 2025,” Landis said. On a recent visit to a facility treating malnourished children younger than 5, she said she saw kids who were “walking skeletons like I haven’t seen in a decade.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has pledged to restore safety and security around the world. At the same time, his administration, working alongside Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, swiftly dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, canceling thousands of government-funded foreign aid programs they considered wasteful. More than 80% of USAID’s operations were terminated, which crippled lifesaving humanitarian efforts around the world.

Musk, who did not respond to a request for comment, has said that DOGE’s cuts to humanitarian aid have targeted fraudulent payments to organizations but are not contributing to widespread deaths. “Show us any evidence whatsoever that that is true,” he said recently. “It’s false.”

For decades, American administrations run by both parties saw humanitarian diplomacy, or “soft power,” as a cost-effective measure to help stabilize volatile but strategically important regions and provide basic needs for people who might otherwise turn to international adversaries. Those investments, experts say, help prevent regional conflict and war that may embroil the U.S. “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition,” Jim Mattis, who was defense secretary during Trump’s first administration, told Congress in 2013 when he led U.S. Central Command.

Food insecurity has long been closely linked with regional turmoil. But despite promises from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that lifesaving operations would continue amid widespread cuts to foreign aid, the Trump administration has terminated funding to WFP for several countries. Nearly 50% of the WFP’s budget came from the U.S. in 2024.

Since February, U.S. officials throughout the developing world have issued urgent warnings forecasting that the Trump administration’s decision to suddenly cut off help to desperate populations could exacerbate humanitarian crises and threaten U.S. national security interests, records show. In one cable, diplomats in the Middle East communicated concerns that stopping aid could empower groups like the Taliban and undermine efforts to address terrorism, the narcotics trade and illegal immigration. The shift may also “significantly de-stabilize the transitioning” region and “only serve to benefit ISIS’ standing,” officials warned in other correspondence. “It could put US troops in the region at risk.”

Embassies in Africa have delivered similar messages. “We are deeply concerned that suddenly discontinuing all USAID counter terrorism-focused stabilization and humanitarian programs in Somalia … will immediately and negatively affect U.S. national security interests,” the U.S. embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia, wrote in February. USAID’s role in helping the military prevent newly liberated territory — “purchased at a high cost of blood and treasure” — from getting back into the hands of terrorists “is indisputable, and irreplaceable,” the officials added.

The embassy in Nigeria described how stop-work orders had caused lapses in oversight that put U.S. resources at risk of being diverted to criminal or terrorist groups. (A February whistleblower complaint alleged USAID-purchased computers were stolen from health centers there.) And U.S. officials said the Kenyan government “faces an impending humanitarian crisis for over 730,000 refugees” without additional resources, as local officials struggle to confront al-Shabaab, a major terrorist threat in the region, while also maintaining security inside the country’s refugee camps.

In early April, Jeremy Lewin — an attorney in his late 20s with no prior government experience who is currently in charge of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance and running USAID operations — ordered the end of WFP grants altogether in more than a dozen countries. (Amid outcry, he later reinstated a few of them.) The State Department spokesperson said the agency was responding on Lewin’s behalf.

In Kenya, the WFP expects a malnutrition crisis after rations are cut to a fourth of the standard minimum, Landis said. She is also concerned about the security of her staff, who already travel with police escorts, given the likelihood that there will be more protests and that al-Shabaab might make further incursions into the camps.

In order for the U.S. to deliver its usual food aid to Kenya by the end of the year, it needed to be put on a boat already, Landis said. That has not happened.

A nurse evaluates a child for malnourishment at a WFP-supported health clinic in Turkana County, Kenya, in April 2025. Credit:Courtesy of World Food Program/Kevin Gitonga

In recent days, South Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia have begged a visiting government delegation from the U.S. not to cut food rations any further, according to a cable documenting the visit. Aid workers in another group of camps in North Africa reported that they expect to run out of funding by the end of May for a program that fights malnutrition for 8,600 pregnant and nursing mothers.

Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, Malawi has been a relative beacon of stability in a region that’s seen numerous civil wars and unrest in recent decades. Yet in early March, officials there warned Washington counterparts that cuts to the more than $300 million USAID planned to provide to the country in aid a year would dramatically increase “the effects of the worsening economy already in motion.”

At the time, 10 employees from a USAID-funded nonprofit had recently shown up unannounced at USAID’s offices in the capital Lilongwe asking for their unpaid wages after the U.S. froze funding. The group left without incident, and it’s unclear if they were paid, but officials reported that they expected countries around the world would face similar issues and were closely monitoring for “increased risks to the safety and security of Embassy personnel.” (Former employees at another nonprofit in a nearby country also raided their organization “out of desperation for not being paid,” according to State Department records.)

An hour’s drive from the nation’s capital, Dzaleka is a former prison that was transformed into a refugee camp in the 1990s to house people fleeing war in neighboring Mozambique. In the decades since, it has ballooned, filling with people running from conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The camp, which was built to hold around 10,000, is now home to more than 55,000 people.

Iradukunda Devota, a refugee from Burundi, came to Malawi when she was 3 and has lived at Dzaleka for 23 years. She now works for Inua Advocacy, which provides legal services and advocates on behalf of refugees in the camp. She said tension is high amid rumors that food and other aid will be cut further. Since 2023, the Malawi government has prohibited refugees from living or working outside the camp, and there has already been an increase in crime and substance abuse after food was cut earlier this year. “This is happening because people are hungry,” Devota told ProPublica. “They have nowhere to turn to.”

Now, the Malawi government is likely to close its borders to refugees in response to the funding crisis and congestion in Dzaleka, the WFP’s country representative told the State Department, according to agency records.

Diplomats continue to warn the Trump administration of even worse to come. The WFP expects to suspend food assistance in Dzaleka entirely in July.

“The WFP anticipates violent protests,” the embassy told State Department officials, “which could potentially embroil host communities and refugees, and targeting of UN and WFP offices when the pipeline eventually breaks.”

ProPublica plans to continue covering USAID, the State Department and the consequences of ending U.S. foreign aid. We want to hear from you. Reach out via Signal to reporters Brett Murphy at +1 508-523-5195 and Anna Maria Barry-Jester at +1 408-504-8131.

The Sad Trombones Are Playing on Trump’s Tariff Parade

Posted on by Josh Marshall

You have probably seen that a three judge panel of the  U.S. Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s tariffs are unlawful. So done and done, subject to appeal of course. Trump imposed the tariffs under a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The three judge panel said he greatly exceeded his powers. That means that most of the tariffs which have dominated American and even global politics for the last couple months are out, subject to appeal. I need to dig a bit more into this but I believe some of the tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico were under separate legal authorities in which the President has clearer power. So I don’t know precisely which is which. But the gist is that most of the tariffs are out and all the “reciprocal” ones.

Continue reading “The Sad Trombones Are Playing on Trump’s Tariff Parade” →

The Rollercoaster Over When To Force Congress To Write DOGE Cuts Into Law Continues

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

On the same day that the clip of Elon Musk trashing House Republicans’ “big, beautiful” bill has been making the rounds, Politico is reporting that the White House has picked back up its effort to force congressional Republicans to choke down some of the DOGE cuts.

Continue reading “The Rollercoaster Over When To Force Congress To Write DOGE Cuts Into Law Continues” →

Trump Nominates His Defense Lawyer-Turned-DOJ Yes Man For Federal Appeals Court

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

It’s indoor work, and there’s no heavy lifting: a top former personal attorney and bagman for the President — and current DOJ official — is now the nominee for a seat on a federal appeals court.

Continue reading “Trump Nominates His Defense Lawyer-Turned-DOJ Yes Man For Federal Appeals Court” →

Voters Were Super Relieved Trump Caved on Tariffs. That’s Important.

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Yesterday, the Conference Board reported that in May consumer confidence surged by 12.3, the largest monthly increase in four years. Bloomberg said the surge was bigger than the estimates of any private-sector economists Bloomberg contacted for its survey. The data suggests consumer confidence was already moving up and then surged forward after Donald Trump made a series of “deals,” most notably with China, reducing the fear of tariffs or an economic slowdown tied to them. It’s important to note that these weren’t “deals” in any meaningful sense. He just agreed with the countries in questions, most importantly with China, to go back to the way things were before he introduced his tariffs, with small, continual, residual tariffs. In a way Trump is getting credit for caving. But in reality these shifts in consumer sentiment are rational reactions to Trump’s actions. The strangling tariffs were the problem. Trump decided to mostly get rid of them, at least for now. So people’s expectations about the economy improved. It makes perfect sense.

Continue reading “Voters Were Super Relieved Trump Caved on Tariffs. That’s Important.” →

Trump Stonewalls Federal Judges In New Round Of Brazen Defiance

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

A Constitutional Clash In Three Acts

In three closely watched anti-immigration cases, the Trump administration continued its slo-mo constitutional defiance of the judicial branch …

Act I: Non-Responsiveness

After the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld her order that the Trump administration facilitate the return of a Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act in violation of a court approved settlement agreement, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland set a deadline of 5 p.m. ET yesterday for the administration to provide a status update on Cristian, a pseudonym for the man.

The Trump DOJ missed the deadline, and what it did file later in the evening was largely non-responsive to the judge’s questions. It mirrors the pattern in the other Maryland case, of Abrego Garcia, who has also been imprisoned in El Salvador since March 15.

Gallagher had three questions for the Trump administration. Here’s how it responded in a declaration by ICE official Mellissa Harper that went on at length about Cristian’s January criminal conviction in Texas for cocaine possession but barely addressed, if at all, what the judge had asked for:

(1) Cristian’s current physical location and custodial status

Gov’t Response: “It is DHS’s understanding that Cristian is in the custody of El Salvador.”

(2) What steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States

Gov’t Response: “DHS has informed the Department of State (DOS) of the Court’s order and requested DOS assistance in complying with the Court’s order. DOS has acknowledged DHS’s request.”

(3) What additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate Cristian’s return.

Gov’t Response: Nada

That’s the full extent of the government’s substantive response to the judge’s questions. No dates, no place names, no next steps. No declaration from the State Department. Nothing that engages in good faith with the judge’s order.

I should note that because the government missed the deadline for the required filing, it had to ask the judge for leave to file late. She hasn’t yet granted leave. Stay tuned.

Act II: Delay Shenanigans

In the adjacent case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Trump DOJ pulled a bullshit move and was called out on it by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland. As the clock neared 5 p.m. ET yesterday on the day the administration’s substantive answer to the lawsuit was due, the Trump DOJ filed a motion asking for 30 more days to file. It’s not the extension request itself but the sloppiness and disrespect of asking for the extension on the day the filing was due, and late in the business day at that.

Xinis denied the extension request, noting that it came on “the very day Defendants’ answer or response to the Complaint is due.” She brought the administration up short because it “expended no effort in demonstrating good cause” and through a total of five hearings had not “even intimated they needed more time to answer or otherwise respond.”

But it was the administration’s claim that expedited discovery in the case had taken up time it would have used to file a timely answer that really set Xinis off:

[Defendants] vaguely complain, in two sentences, to expending “significant resources” engaging in expedited discovery. But these self-described burdens are of their own making. The Court ordered expedited discovery because of Defendants’ refusal to follow the orders of this Court as affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

Later in the evening, the Trump DOJ met its deadline by filing a weak motion to dismiss the case, arguing the Xinis has no jurisdiction.

Act III: Misdirection And Mischaracterization

The Trump administration took the South Sudan deportations case to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis rather than comply with a lower court order to provide the deportees due process on the ground in Africa, which it had urged the trial judge to allow it to do. Its application to the high court was deeply misleading about what had transpired in the lower court and what the administration had agreed to and been ordered to do.

WilmerHale Wins Battle Over Trump EO

In a colorful opinion sprinkled with more than two dozen exclamation points and an unfortunate footnote reference to a bastardized gumbo recipe, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of DC nullified President Trump’s executive order against WilmerHale as unconstitutional.

Threats Against Federal Judges Spike

The number of threats against federal judges has spiked since President Trump took office, according to data from the U.S. Marshals Service that was provided to the NYT by U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, whose son was killed in a 2020 attack at her New Jersey home.

Trump’s Rolling Pardon Scandal

  • Trump pardoned tax cheat Paul Walczak after his mother attended a $1 million fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
  • Trump is pardoning reality TV fraudsters Todd and Julie Chrisley.
  • U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin has personally reviewed the pardon application of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, one of several new applications by convicted seditionist conspiracists who already had their sentences commuted by Trump to time served but are now seeking full pardons.
  • In an interview about Trump’s pardon of a convicted Virginia sheriff, Ed Martin told the WSJ: “He’s a guy that was on the right side of a lot of issues …”

DOGE Watch

  • Treasury: U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas of New York lifted her final restrictions on DOGE staffers’ access to sensitive Treasury Department payments systems after concluding that they have been properly vetted and trained.
  • BLM: A veteran official at the Bureau of Land Management was escorted out of headquarters yesterday after resisting orders from a DOGE staffer who became the Interior Department’s acting chief human capital officer.

Trump’s Attack on Higher Ed: California Edition

Leo Terrell, the Trump DOJ official leading a bogus anti-semitism task force, went on Fox News to threaten the University of California system with “massive lawsuits.”

“We are going to go after them where it hurts them financially,” Terrell said.

In a sign that universities are still fighting the Trump administration on the terms it sets, a UC spokesperson responded to the Terrell threat by denouncing anti-semitism.

RFK Jr. Watch

  • The CDC will no longer recommend routine Covid shots for healthy children and pregnant women, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a post on X.
  • RFK Jr. threatened that unless three prestigious medical journals – the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet – “change dramatically” he would bar government scientists from publishing in them.

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Republican Attacks On GAO Escalate After Office Condemns DOGE Cuts

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

A top Trump administration official and Republicans in Congress are upping their attacks on the Government Accountability Office in light of its finding last week that one element of the Trump administration’s DOGE rampage was done in violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

Continue reading “Republican Attacks On GAO Escalate After Office Condemns DOGE Cuts” →

The Trump White House and The Great Quieting

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I want to start this week with a comment about the meta-news environment. It’s a point that may not surprise you. But it shapes everything we’re seeing today and does so with an uncanny silence. Quite simply, lots and lots of things are not being said or reported because people are afraid to say them. “Afraid” may be too strong a word in some cases, though the fuzzy, murky spectrum separating “fear” from something more like calculation is a key feature of what is happening. I’m far from the first to note this. But when people do note it it doesn’t get a lot of attention because there’s not a clear empirical basis for it. What’s your basis for noting, at a society-wide level, what people aren’t saying? How do you prove — or, perhaps better to say, illustrate — that reality? And yet it is happening and it’s not difficult to see it observationally if you look closely in any one place.

Continue reading “The Trump White House and The Great Quieting” →

Trump’s Weaponization Of DOJ Takes An Even More Sinister Turn

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Off The Charts Crazy

I’ll catch you up on the rest of the news from over the long weekend in a moment, but first I wanted to give you just a taste of the level of insanity that the Justice Department and the FBI have already descended to four months into Trump’s second term.

We were steeled for the retributive attacks on the Trump and Jan. 6 prosecutions, but what is also beginning to emerge is a three-prong revisionist attack on the rule of law that attempts to target: (i) other past prosecutions of right-wing extremists; (ii) public corruption convictions of every style and flavor; and (iii) other MAGA hobby horses and conspiracy theories.

A quick rundown of the latest extreme developments:

In a social media post on Memorial Day, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced the bureau is either re-opening or giving new resources and attention to:

  • the 2023 discovery of cocaine in the Biden White House;
  • the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s draft Dobbs decision; and
  • the Jan. 5-6, 2021 Capitol pipe bombs outside the two party HQs.

(Astute readers will note that those last two probes aren’t necessarily going to yield right-wing friendly storylines.)

In a recent podcast, senior Trump DOJ official Ed Martin, who is now the U.S. pardon attorney, said that he is going to take a “hard look” at pardoning two men convicted in the 2020 conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). “In my opinion these are victims just like January 6,” Martin said.

In the same vein, Martin trumpeted the Memorial Day pardon of a Virginia sheriff convicted of federal bribery charges who was set to report to jail today. In a measure of the madness, Martin reposted celebratory tweets from notorious Trump pardon recipients Roger Stone and Mike Flynn.

Recall that Martin is also serving as the chieftain of the DOJ “Weaponization Working Group,” which makes this rah-rah tweet about the sheriff’s pardon particularly revealing about the weaponization that is really going on:

Still Reeling Over SCOTUS Decimating Indy Agencies

  • Kate Shaw: “The court may believe that it retains the ultimate authority to check presidential lawlessness, even as it signs off on the elimination of many other constraints on presidential power. The danger is that by the time the court tries to exercise that authority, it may be too late.”
  • Steve Vladeck: “And if the unitary executive theory is subject to exceptions for contexts in which the practical consequences of eliminating an agency’s independence would be too extreme, then it’s not much of a theory. Rather, it’s just a balancing test—for those agencies that are “too important” to be subject to direct, partisan political control and those that aren’t. Conceding that point would suggest that agency independence is not presumptively unconstitutional; and that one must do more than just wave their hands at the “unitary executive theory” to explain why dozens of statutes Congress has enacted over more than a century protecting different agencies and officers from direct presidential control are unconstitutional.”

Even Willing Courts Can Only Do So Much

  • WSJ: Judges Weigh Taking Control of Their Own Security Amid Threats
  • Charlie Savage: Judges Keep Calling Trump’s Actions Illegal, but Undoing Them Is Hard
  • Sam Bagenstos: “In many of the cases in which Trump has acted unlawfully, there is no single, discrete decision that demonstrates the violation. Rather, the violation emerges from a very large series of decisions — mass firings of employees, mass terminations of grants, widespread failures to spend appropriated money. The administration may say that each of these decisions was made on its own merits, but the fact that the government made the same decision over and over belies that assertion; the mass decision-making itself demonstrates that the administration was unlawfully refusing to carry out the programs created and funded by Congress.”

Jenner & Block Prevails In EO Fight

U.S. District Judge John Bates of Washington, D.C. offered a rousing defense of the First Amendment in knocking down the Trump executive order targeting Jenner & Block.

Schadenfreude Alert

Some of the big law firms who struck deals with President Trump are now being inundated with pro bono requests from MAGA world, the NYT reports.

Latest Updates In The Major Immigration Cases

  • Boston, Part I: In a closely watched case, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy on Friday ordered the Trump administration to arrange the return of a gay Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico without notice or hearing.
  • Boston, Part II: In the fight over the deportation flight to South Sudan, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued a scathing rebuke Monday of the Trump administration for asking him to reconsider and pause his order requiring due process for the deportees (emphasis his): “[T]he Court accepted Defendants’ own suggestion that they be allowed to keep the individuals out of the country and finish their process abroad.”
  • Texas: After the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay that shielded the Trump administration from answering tough questions from a federal judge in an Alien Enemies Act case, the family of the Venezuelan man who brought the lawsuit voluntarily dismissed it for reasons that remain unclear.

Trump’s Attack On Higher Ed: Harvard Edition

In Trump’s latest attack, a draft letter obtained by the NYT shows the administration is set to cancel all remaining federal funding for Harvard. This comes after a federal judge on Friday immediately blocked the administration’s attempt to ban international students at the university, part of a larger dispute over unprecedented demands by the government for data on international students.

Texas Follows Florida’s Lead On Higher Ed

The Texas Legislature has taken another step closer to bringing higher education in the state more firmly under partisan political control.

Trump Attacks: Public Broadcasting Edition

  • Breaking … NPR sued President Trump this morning over his executive order purporting to block federal funding for public broadcasting.
  • The executive producer of the PBS series “American Masters” insisted on removing a scene critical of President Trump from a documentary about the comic artist Art Spiegelman two weeks before it was set to air, the NYT reports.

All The Best People

The Pentagon has promoted Kingsley Wilson to press secretary despite her history of antisemitic comments, the Jewish Insider reports.

Good Catch

USA Today: “President Donald Trump used the presidential seal at his multi-million-dollar dinner with crypto investors despite the White House saying it was a private rather than official event, according to a social media post from a Chinese billionaire who attended the event.”

A Coda To Jan. 6

A bronze plaque intended to honor law enforcement who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack is instead gathering dust in a Capitol basement utility room.

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