Rogue DOJ Investigation Of Columbia Protestors Alarmed Federal Judge

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.

Never Seen This Before

In an important new story, the NYT reveals for the first time that senior Trump DOJ official Emil Bove directed the Civil Rights Division to investigate pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia University. The bulk of the article focuses on the “anger and alarm” of career prosecutors over the politically motivated and meritless investigation.

But the episode from the story that most stands out is the refusal of a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan to approve a search warrant against the protestors. After the search warrant application had already been denied once for an insufficient showing of probable cause, chief magistrate judge Sarah Netburn gave it a second look. What she did next shows a real breakdown at DOJ:

Judge Netburn not only rejected the request for a search warrant, but she also ordered the government to abide by a special condition: Should prosecutors ever try to refile such an application before another federal judge, they had to include a transcript of the sealed discussions in her court, these people said.

Netburn’s unusual condition suggests she had found the Trump DOJ’s submission of probable cause not just lacking but egregious in either its form or substance. Not only that, but the proceedings in her court must have gone so far off the rails that she wanted any other judge who later got involved to have the benefit of reading the transcript of what transpired. The implication, as I take it, is that there’s nothing the Trump DOJ can do to wash away the stink of its initial search warrant application.

The one-the-record response to the NYT story from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is also highly unusual and deeply disturbing. He managed to confirm the investigation, discuss evidence, and impugn career prosecutors in a single statement.

“This is a false story fabricated by a group of people who allowed antisemitism and support of Hamas terrorists to fester for several years, standing by but doing nothing,” Blanche said, while denouncing DOJ attorneys as “deep state terrorist sympathizers who stood by as members of the Jewish faith were targeted across the country.”

Nothing about this story is normal.

The Retribution: Chris Krebs Edition

The first inkling that something was up came when Chris Krebs lost his Global Entry status. Now the Trump administration is confirming that Kreb’s membership in the program was revoked because he is under federal investigation of some kind. The public confirmation of the investigation is itself unusual and fits into the pattern of retribution.

Earlier this month, Krebs had the dubious distinction of being targeted by a Trump executive order devoted exclusively to him. It revoked his security clearance and directed a “review” of Krebs by the attorney general and secretary of homeland security. It is not clear whether the current investigation is an outgrowth of the executive order.

Krebs served as the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency until President Trump fired him in the aftermath of the 2020 election for declaring it to have been the most secure in history.

Will Senate GOP Balk At The Ed Martin Nom?

Some signs have emerged that Senate Republicans are feeling less than enthusiastic about the nomination of acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin to the permanent position. Martin, a GOP political operator with no experience as a prosecutor, has run amok as acting U.S. attorney in one of the country’s most important jurisdictions, violating traditional DOJ guidelines, engaging in ethically questionable behavior for a prosecutor, and using the office for political ends. Still, no GOP senator has come out against the nomination.

Alien Enemies Act: A Big But Limited Decision

In a historically significant decision, U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. of Brownsville became the first judge to rule on the substance of President Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act against Venezuelan nationals who are members of the transnational Tren de Aragua gang.

But while Rodriguez, a Trump appointee, found that Trump had exceeded the scope of the wartime statute, he did so in a relatively narrow way that showed considerable deference to the President and potentially left the door open to this or future presidents being able to craft AEA invocations in a way that would avoid judicial scrutiny.

Rodriguez ultimately found that the the activities of Tren de Aragua in the United States as described in Trump’s proclamation failed to constitute an “invasion” or “predatory incursion,” as required by the statute. But he declined to look behind the proclamation’s claim that Tren de Aragua is controlled by Venezuela, accepting the assertion at face value, and thus finding that it satisfied the requirement that the invasion be “by any foreign nation or government.”

This was one trial judge in one district in Texas. The Fifth Circuit and then likely the Supreme Court will get their own bites at the apple in either this case or some combination of other AEA case.

Deep Dive: Kilmar Abrego Garcia

I am very hesitant to center coverage of due process violations on the victim because the merits or demerits of any particular victim is beside the point. While some victims are more sympathetic than others, the rule of law protects everyone. It’s not earned or deserved. Especially while the Trump administration is engaging in a vicious propaganda campaign against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, focusing on the particulars of his life story can inadvertently accept the premise that his worthiness, as we judge it, matters. With this preamble out of the way, the NYT does have a well-reported deep dive on Abrego Garcia and his legal case.

KBJ Denounces Attacks On Judiciary

Without naming President Trump, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson defended the judiciary against political attack last night at a conference in Puerto Rico, telling the audience: “The attacks … impact more than just individual judges who are being targeted. Rather, the threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government and they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”

The Destruction: Liberal Targets Edition

  • Public Broadcasting: After attempting to remove three of the five board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting earlier, President Trump issued a new executive order Thursday purporting to cut off federal funding for PBS and NPR.
  • USAID: Assessing the real-world toll of the dismantling of U.S. foreign aid
  • IMLS: Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

All By Himself

A new Ben Terris profile offers a disturbing look at the deterioration of Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA).

You Can’t Set This To Disappear

The Pentagon inspector general has expanded its investigation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth misuse of Signal (and mishandling of national defense information) to the second group chat that included his wife and brother, the WSJ reports. 

We’ll Still Have Mike Waltz To Kick Around

Shuffling Signal-addict Mike Waltz out of his role as national security adviser and into the gauntlet of a Senate confirmation hearing to be UN ambassador is one twist in this reality TV presidency I can get on board with:

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It Appears Ed Martin ‘Doesn’t Have The Votes’ To Be Confirmed—At Least Not Right Now

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

President Trump’s nominee for D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin appears to be facing skepticism from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Republican members of which met this week to discuss the seemingly endless baggage and politically motivated acts that Martin has and will likely continue to mix into his work if officially confirmed to the position. Republicans on the panel also reportedly discussed whether to consider their Democratic colleagues’ requests to hold a hearing on Martin’s confirmation. 

Continue reading “It Appears Ed Martin ‘Doesn’t Have The Votes’ To Be Confirmed—At Least Not Right Now” →

Grinder Rubes

Posted on by Josh Marshall

When I got word this morning that Mike Waltz was making his final swirl around the National Security Advising bowl I set myself to thinking: what’s the stupidest way this could play out. I tried, readers, and I failed as we’ve now learned that Marco Rubio will be taking over as interim National Security Advisor. I should point out that Marco Rubio is now Secretary of State, Administrator of USAID, National Security Advisor and Archivist of the United States (head of the National Archives). I’m not at all joking about any of that. It’s possibly there are yet other jobs I’ve forgotten.

A Semi-Correction

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Yesterday I excoriated Politico for a deeply ingenuous report on GOP Medicaid cuts, now presenting the matter as something congressional Republicans are trying to foist on a skeptical Trump. I also said that they were making up the idea that Trump has repeatedly pledged never to touch Medicaid as he has repeatedly promised not to tamper with Social Security and Medicare.

Continue reading “A Semi-Correction” →

North Carolina Appeals Court Allows Republican Power Grab On State Election Board

Posted on by Khaya Himmelman

In a win for Republicans, a North Carolina Appeals court panel ruled on Wednesday that a piece of legislation designed to strip power from state level elected Democrats and give Republicans control of the state election board in an overt power grab, can take effect. 

Continue reading “North Carolina Appeals Court Allows Republican Power Grab On State Election Board” →

A Judge Finally Rules Trump Can’t Apply Alien Enemies Act To Alleged Gang Members In The First Place

Posted on by Kate Riga

Despite the reams of documents, hours of hearings and the unlawful expulsion of Venezuelan detainees, no judge had ruled on whether the Trump administration can even apply the Alien Enemies Act to these alleged gang members — until Thursday. 

Continue reading “A Judge Finally Rules Trump Can’t Apply Alien Enemies Act To Alleged Gang Members In The First Place” →

Republicans Coalesce Around Medicaid Work Requirements, Pretending It Won’t Impact Millions Of Enrollees 

Posted on by Emine Yücel

House Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans have begun their work of finding $880 billion in cuts to programs under the committee’s jurisdiction — which includes popular social safety nets like Medicare, Medicaid and Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — as House Republicans attempt to put together a reconciliation package.

For months now, congressional Republicans have been insisting that they won’t touch Medicare. If that holds true, a massive chunk of their targeted cuts will have to come from Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office already put out a report in March to that effect, saying it won’t be possible to reach the goal in the House’s budget resolution without cuts to the program that provides health coverage for more than 70 million low income and disabled Americans.

Republicans have floated a handful of ways in which they can cut the cost of the program while effectively gutting Medicaid as we know it.

Aware of how unpopular cuts to Medicaid will be back home, vulnerable House Republicans have been loudly insisting they don’t want to consider options such as  reducing federal funding for Medicaid expansion coverage, including reducing the federal match rate or implementing per capita caps.

But there is one option, among the many being considered, that even the most performatively anti-cut Republicans are saying they would go along with: Medicaid work requirements. 

“I’m all for work requirements,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told reporters on Wednesday as he walked down the tunnel connecting the Senate basement to the office buildings.

When asked about whether he would support exceptions to those work requirements, Hawley told TPM: “I need to see a specific proposal. But in general, I’m fine with work requirements.”

The Missouri Republican has been insisting for weeks that he will not support a reconciliation package that would “result in cutting benefits or denying eligibility for people who are otherwise working” or, as he has described it to reporters before, “for people who I think are qualified.”

Hawley is not the only congressional Republican who considers the implementation of work requirements a separate issue from slashing the program so many in his state depend on.

“They should be seeking the skill sets for better jobs,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who recently joined a group of House Republicans in saying he won’t support a reconciliation package that includes sweeping cuts to Medicaid, told HuffPost on Tuesday. “I think most Americans support this. If you’re an able-bodied adult with no children, you should be seeking the skills or seeking a better job.”

Attaching work requirements to entitlement programs has been a popular refrain among Republican lawmakers for decades.

But implementing Medicaid work requirements would actually lead to cuts to the widely used program, as eligible individuals would lose their healthcare coverage.

“Let’s be clear: Republicans’ so-called ‘work requirements’ are not about work at all — the reality is the vast majority of people on Medicaid who can work already do,” Energy & Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said in a Wednesday statement shared with TPM. “In fact, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found these burdensome red tape requirements do not increase employment at all … these requirements are not about jobs but are a cruel way for Republicans to take health care away from millions of people to give tax breaks to billionaires and corporations.”

Republicans Have Long Pushed For Medicaid Work Requirements

Most recently, some red states experimented with work requirements for Medicaid enrollment during President Trump’s first administration. 

“We’ve seen from past experiences that work requirements are more effective at keeping people out of coverage than they are at increasing employment,” Allison Orris, Director of Medicaid Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told TPM.

In 2018, Arkansas implemented work requirements with exemptions under a waiver granted by the first Trump administration. The policy was applied for nine months, from June 2018 to February 2019, before it was halted by a court ruling.

Research has shown that the Arkansas policy reduced Medicaid enrollment and increased uninsurance among low-income adults. In the first seven months of Arkansas’ Medicaid work-reporting requirement, 18,000 people — one in four subject to the requirement — lost coverage. 

On top of that, Orris told TPM: “What we saw in Arkansas was how exemptions on paper don’t actually protect people. More people lost coverage than had been projected because exemptions were not as foolproof.”

The number of enrollees Arkansas deemed non-compliant was much higher than the number of enrollees who did not qualify for an exemption or were not engaged in the implemented work requirements. Many lost coverage not because they were non compliant but simply due to red tape. Many faced challenges in fulfilling the state’s paperwork requirements and reporting the necessary information, experts told TPM.

And a recent Brookings report found “no evidence that the Arkansas requirement increased employment among the population subject to the policy.”

House Republicans also tried to include work requirements for Medicaid recipients between the ages 19 to 55 under their Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023. That legislation failed to pass. But the Congressional Budget Office did estimate at the time that the policy would have led to around 1.5 million people losing their Medicaid benefits and hundreds of thousands being left uninsured in the process.

Implementing Work Requirements Is Expensive 

Currently Georgia is the only state that imposes Medicaid work requirements. After a federal judge vacated the Biden Administration’s decision to revoke the Peach State’s Medicaid work requirements program the state began implementing its policy in July 2023. 

The waiver program, called Pathways to Coverage, requires adults with low incomes to report at least 80 hours of work or volunteer activities each month as a condition of getting and keeping their coverage.

Orris told TPM that the work requirements have created strains, causing only a small fraction of eligible people to enroll in the program. Requiring work reporting at the time of application also makes the already complex application process more difficult, deterring eligible people from applying in the first place.

Energy & Commerce Committee Democrats released a report Thursday morning, to emphasize the point that despite Republicans’ claims that they will only cut “waste, fraud and abuse” from Medicaid, the burdensome red tape that come with work requirements would slash the program by allowing states to kick people off their Medicaid coverage in order to reduce spending.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on Tuesday that no one will miss the hundreds of billions of dollars they want to slash from the program.

“We’re not gutting Medicaid. We’re going to reduce fraud, waste and abuse, which every single American should be applauding,” Johnson said.

But analysis shows, in Georgia, even though only a small fraction of eligible people have enrolled in the program, the program has cost about $13,360 per enrollee in the first year. That’s significantly higher than the initially estimated cost of about $2,490 per enrollee, according to the CBPP. About 35% of the spending went towards covering healthcare but a large chunk went to systems modifications to implement the new work reporting requirements. 

“There’s an upfront and ongoing cost to states to implement work requirements,” Orris told TPM. “Their eligibility workers will need to be trained. They’ll need new systems. And so certainly, I think states that are looking at what Congress is considering should be thinking hard about how they would operationalize this kind of a policy and talking to their federal lawmakers about the challenges.”

Despite Republicans’ claims, work requirements would actually increase spending on operations while cutting people’s benefits.

“Republicans love to talk about ‘waste, fraud, and abuse,’ but these red tape requirements on Medicaid are leading to massive amounts of money being spent on wasteful administrative costs rather than health care,” Ranking Member Pallone said in a statement shared with TPM.

The Other Side of the Trump DOJ’s House of Corruption

Posted on by Josh Marshall

There’s been an emerging scandal in Florida for a few weeks now that directly affects not only Ron DeSantis but also his wife, Casey DeSantis, who is weighing a run to succeed Ron as governor. The gist of the scandal is the state of Florida settled an over-billing case against a major Medicaid contractor and then laundered a portion of the funds from the settlement through a series of foundations until … well, until somehow over $10 million ended up in the bank account of the Florida GOP and another $1.1 million ended up in Ron’s personal political committee. It’s good to be the king, right?

This story has been percolating for a few weeks. It got new life when a Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Alex Andrade (R), who has been leading a state House investigation into the issue, accused two top DeSantis associates of money laundering and wire fraud. What got my attention this morning is that the Miami Herald talked to four former federal prosecutors, of both political parties, who told the Herald that by normal standards there’s more than enough evidence to start a federal criminal investigation at least into the associates who directly made the relevant transfers if not the DeSantises themselves. (One of the associates who directly arranged things is then-DeSantis chief of staff and current Florida AG James Uthmeier.) The former prosecutors the Herald spoke to say that the question of whether this meets the bar for a federal investigation is not remotely a close call.

Continue reading “The Other Side of the Trump DOJ’s House of Corruption” →

MAGA Marco Puts On A SCOTUS-Defying Show For Trump

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.

The Hollow Man

During his 15 years on the national political stage, Marco Rubio has never come across as a man with a consolidated moral center or core. It takes a lot for that kind of inner emptiness to stand out in Congress, but Rubio always did. Still, his self-reinvention as MAGA Marco is an incarnation that I could not have imagined when he first ran for the Senate in 2010.

While MAGA Marco remains susceptible to deserving mockery, the newest version of himself is unmistakably dark, sinister, and menacing in ways that aren’t so easily dismissed. To show his MAGA bona fides, Rubio has destroyed USAID, revoked international student visas and green cards, negotiated with El Salvador to use its notorious prison for American citizens, and is now openly defying a Supreme Court order, putting him at the forefront of a historic constitutional clash between the executive and judicial branches.

The display Rubio put on during yesterday’s interminable reality TV Cabinet meeting was astonishing to watch. He didn’t just put the Trump administration on a more direct collision course with the Supreme Court in the case of the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He did so with contempt for the judicial branch, a cavalier disregard of the rule of law, and a glass-jawed swagger that begs for a court to take him down a few pegs:

Q: “Have you been in touch with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia? Has a formal request from this administration been made?” Rubio: “I would never tell you that. And you know who else I'd never tell? A judge.”

[image or embed]

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) April 30, 2025 at 1:51 PM

If there was any doubt that the Trump administration’s reported move to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release was mere window dressing as it faces possible contempt of court proceedings, Rubio’s cocky defiance erased it. (I have a full rundown of the day’s other developments in the Abrego Garcia case here.)

Nothing about the Trump administration’s conduct since it deported Abrego Garcia on March 15 reflects a good faith effort to correct its mistake. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is no fool; he knows what’s up. A feeble inquiry from Rubio about releasing Garcia is a fig leaf for them both, an effort to paper over the weeks of defiance of court orders in hopes enough justices are willing to look the other way and deem it sufficient compliance.

For more …

  • NYT: El Salvador Is Said to Have Spurned U.S. Request for Return of Deported Migrant
  • The Guardian: Trump officials contacted El Salvador president about Kilmar Ábrego García
  • NYT: Behind Trump’s Deal to Deport Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Most Feared Prison

Who Hurt MAGA Marco?

During Wednesday’s performative Cabinet meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that the administration is trying to negotiate deals with additional countries to use their prisons for mass deportations – but he did so with some of the most toxic language he’s used publicly to date: “Not just El Salvador,” Rubio said. “We are working with other countries to say ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries.'”

Rubio-Targeted Mohsen Mahdawi Set Free

In a strongly worded ruling comparing the current moment to the Red Scare, the Palmer Raids, and the McCarthy period, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford of Vermont ordered the immediate release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University targeted for deportation as part of the Trump administration’s broader retaliation against pro-Palestinian international students who are legally studying in the United States.

“The court also considers the extraordinary setting of this case and others like it. legal residents – not charged with crimes or misconduct – are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day,” Crawford wrote.

Mahdawi, who will remain free while his deportation case proceeds, was swept up in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s unilateral revocation of legal status for some international students, who were given no notice before being taken into custody and scheduled for immediate deportation.

Why Louisiana?

Tulane immigration law professors Laila Hlass and Mary Yanik on why Louisiana has become a center of the detention industrial complex:

Louisiana is notorious for a trifecta of compounding barriers to effectuate the rights of immigrants: conservative courts, scarce access to legal support and horrific detention conditions. The resulting black hole, as civil and human rights groups have called it, threatens to erode America’s rule of law well beyond the immigration legal system.

I first covered the emergence of politically connected private prisons in Louisiana in the mid-90s, driven by mass incarceration policies. It’s a savage irony that criminal justice reform in Louisiana over the past decade opened up more prison space for undocumented detainees.

The Corruption: Paramount Edition

As mediation began yesterday between Donald Trump and CBS News-parent Paramount over his bogus lawsuit objecting to how 60 Minutes edited a 2024 campaign interview with Kamala Harris, the WSJ reports company executives have discussed a settlement in the $15 million to $20 million range.

The Destruction: RFK Jr. Edition

  • Wired: HHS Orders Lab Studying Deadly Infectious Diseases to Stop Research
  • WSJ: RFK Jr. shifts massive $500 million in funding from next-generation Covid-19 vaccines to research for universal vaccines touted by two new acting Trump appointees.
  • Stat News: NIH cancels participation in Safe to Sleep campaign that decreased infant deaths
  • WaPo: RFK Jr. will require shift in how new vaccines are tested

Good Catch

The indispensable Chris Geidner points out that the Trump DOJ is using increasingly attenuated language in legal filings to avoid validating the existence of transgender people.

The Retribution: BLM Edition

At least four FBI agents who were photographed kneeling with protestors in DC during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests have been reassigned to positions generally considered demotions, the WaPo reports.

Judge Refuses To Release Alexander Smirnov

A federal judge in California rejected the Trump DOJ’s about-face in the case of Alexander Smirnov and refused to release the former FBI informant who pleaded guilty to lying about the Biden family. The judge’s denial came as the Trump DOJ has said it is reevaluating the case, which was pursued by Hunter Biden Special Counsel David Weiss.

The Trump Economy Quickly Tanks

Driven down by the Trump’s tariffs, the U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter of 2025 for the first time since Q1 2022.

Quote Of The Day

“You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”–President Donald J. Trump, April 30, 2025

‘It’s An Emergency’

Jason Stanley, the Yale philosophy professor and expert on fascism who is relocating his family to Canada because of the deteriorating political situation in the United States, offers a parting warning: “We seem to be facing the destruction of the United States. I don’t see anyone articulating that this is an attack on what it means to be American, on the very idea of America, and it’s an emergency.”

Welcome To The Resistance

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