Morning Memo comes to you today from Pittsburgh, where my son – whose harrowing path through his college years I’ve previously shared with you – graduated yesterday.

Not Normal

Three career prosecutors resigned from the Justice Department over a highly unusual post-verdict plea agreement struck by the Trump-appointed acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. The plea agreement comes in a case where a sheriff’s deputy was convicted back in February of using excessive force against a Black woman.

“A plea agreement filed late Thursday says if Trevor Kirk pleads guilty to misdemeanor deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will ‘move to strike the jury’s finding’ that he injured his victim, which made his crime a felony,” Meghann Cuniff first reported.

On Friday, the four federal prosecutors who handled the case and did not sign the plea agreement withdrew from the case. It was signed on behalf of acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli by an assistant U.S. attorney not previously involved in the case.

On Saturday, the LA Times reported that three of the prosecutors – assistant U.S. Attorneys Eli A. Alcaraz, Brian R. Faerstein, and section chief Cassie Palmer – had resigned from the Justice Department entirely.

The plea deal sets up a dramatic downward departure in sentencing from what Kirk faced with the felony conviction, Cuniff reports:

Kirk faced about nine years in prison under U.S. Sentencing Commission guidelines for his felony conviction, but his misdemeanor conviction carries a maximum of one year. However, Essayli and Keenan agreed to recommend only one year of probation. They also aren’t barring him from working in law enforcement.

A judge must still approve the plea agreement.

Judges Skeptical Of Trump DOJ

The rapid deterioration of the quality of the Justice Department’s work under President Trump has not been lost on federal judges, the WaPo reports.

Judge Strikes Down Trump EO Against Perkins Coie

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell declared “null and void” the Trump executive order targeting Perkins Coie, the first time a judge has permanently enjoined enforcement of one of President Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms.

In a 102-page opinion clearly written to be judged by history, Howell invoked Shakespeare, John Adams, and Alexis de Tocqueville in finding the executive order sent a constitutionally impermissible message: “lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.”

In an important footnote, Howell was critical of the law firms who struck deals with President Trump rather than risk being targeted by an executive order:

[S]ome clients may harbor reservations about the implications of such deals for the vigorous and zealous representation to which they are entitled from ethically responsible counsel, since at least the publicized deal terms appear only to forestall, rather than eliminate, the threat of being targeted in an Executive Order.

Only when lawyers make the choice to challenge rather than back down when confronted with government action raising non-trivial constitutional issues can a case be brought to court for judicial review of the legal merits, as was done in this case … If the founding history of this country is any guide, those who stood up in court to vindicate constitutional rights and, by so doing, served to promote the rule of law, will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.

TPM Exclusive: A New Attack On Judicial Branch

TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports on the implications of a lawsuit by the Stephen Miller-founded America First Legal Foundation against Chief Justice John Roberts and the head of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts. While ostensibly a FOIA lawsuit, it is asking a federal judge to declare that the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and the Judicial Conference of the United States are independent agencies of the executive branch. It’s a troll-ish argument but seems designed to lay the legal groundwork for President Trump to assert control over the administration of the federal judiciary.

Second Amendment Trumps Everything

The Trump administration has removed a memorial at ATF headquarters honoring victims of gun violence.

Jan. 6 Revisionism Alert

• In a remarkable encounter over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio – convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in Jan. 6. – personally thanked President Trump for pardoning him.
• In a reversal of the Justice Department’s legal position, the Trump administration has reached a settlement in principle in the $30 million wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbit, the Jan. 6 rioter who Trump has turned into a martyr. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
• Senate Judiciary Democrats are blasting the Trump DOJ for taking the position that the government must refund the restitution paid by Trump-pardoned Jan. 6 defendants.

Good Read

Greg Sargent: How Trump Inadvertently Sabotaged His Own Case Against Abrego Garcia

Quote Of The Day

“In this country, the federal government doesn’t get to arrest American citizens who have not committed a crime. In this country, we don’t threaten to persecute people just because they belong to a different political party.”–Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D), after border czar Tom Homan alluded to criminal charges over a memo issued to state employees confronted by federal immigration authorities

IMPORTANT

While President Trump backed away in recent days from targeting the tax-exempt status of nonprofits beyond Harvard, Trump administration officials at the IRS continue to explore whether to alter the rules governing how nonprofit groups can be denied tax-exempt status, the WSJ reports.

The Destruction: LGBTQ Health Edition

NYT: “Of the 669 grants that the National Institutes of Health had canceled in whole or in part as of early May, at least 323 — nearly half of them — related to L.G.B.T.Q. health, according to a review by The Times of every terminated grant.”

The Destruction: Arts And Humanities Edition

• NEA: On Friday night, the National Endowment for the Arts sent out notifications cancelling grants nationwide.
• NEH: A lawsuit reveals new details of DOGE’s role in mass termination of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For The Record …

pic.twitter.com/x2HrR939tn

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025

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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:

Photos show Mike Waltz literally checking Signal during the cabinet meeting (via Reuters) pic.twitter.com/XCxn6Tja4I

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) May 1, 2025

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