Corey Lewandowski, who has long served as an adviser and ally to President Trump and who worked closely with now-fired Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem may have, according to NBC News, been requesting a “success fee” as part of his work securing contracts for the department’s immigration and deportation work.
Continue reading “In Surprise to No One, Lewandowski Was Reportedly Doing Shady Stuff With DHS Contracts”EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Wrongfully Deported More Than 100 Asylum Seekers
BALTIMORE—In surprise testimony in federal court Thursday, an immigration officer revealed that more than 100 asylum seekers were wrongfully deported in violation of a court-ordered settlement agreement in a long-running case that has gotten national attention.
Before today, the number of wrongfully deported asylum seekers in the case was thought to be less than a dozen. But under persistent questioning from plaintiff’s counsel, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officer Kimberly Sicard testified that in the past three to four weeks it had come to her attention that more than 100 asylum seekers covered by the settlement agreement have been removed. She put the number in the “low 100s.”
The revelation prompted an immediate reaction from U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, who has been tightly managing the case of J.O.P. v. DHS since early 2025, when the Venezuelan asylum seeker only known in court filings as “Cristian” was deported under the Alien Enemies Act in violation of the settlement agreement.
“It’s certainly news to me that there with this many removals,” Gallagher interjected. “I am very concerned having that number.”
The timing of the discovery of the additional, not-previously-disclosed removals appears to roughly line up with when Gallagher issued a Feb. 23 order setting today’s evidentiary hearing and demanding the government produce witnesses who could testify about the circumstances of the removals of eight asylum seekers and possibly a ninth.
Ironically, the day’s hearing kicked off with the revelation that two more asylum seekers were wrongfully removed in February, although the government disputes that one of them is covered by the settlement agreement. That brought the total number of wrongful deportations in the case to at most a dozen, including “Cristian.” But bigger revelations were still to come.
Sicard was deep into her testimony when the revelation spilled out. It came after Gallagher had put up numerous roadblocks to further questioning of Sicard from class counsel Michelle Mendez of the National Immigration Project, primarily because of Sicard’s limited personal knowledge of the case of the nine deported asylum seekers at issue today.
The testimony was interrupted by a long back and forth between the judge and counsel for both sides about what Sicard could meaningfully testify about, during which Mendez was visibly frustrated by the constraints Gallagher had imposed. When testimony resumed, Mendez took another shot, and Sicard made the big reveal.
Asked how the additional removals had come to her attention, Sicard said she wasn’t sure of the exact process but that officials had “queried systems.” As part of the process of notifying ICE of the wrongful removals, the matter went to the office of chief counsel at USCIS three to four weeks ago, Sicard said.
In a statement to TPM after the hearing, Mendez said: “We are concerned that these removals are just the tip of the iceberg.”
Gallagher called the revelation of the more than 100 wrongful removals “extremely troubling to the court.”
The revelation was the pinnacle of a day of frustration for Gallagher. She had listed in her order calling the hearing five topics on which she expected the Trump administration to produce witnesses “with personal knowledge” to testify. The government failed to produce such witnesses.
“We are no farther in figuring out what happened to these people than when the hearing started,” an exasperated Gallagher said toward the end of five-hour hearing after hearing from five of the approximately 11 witnesses the government expected to call.
“I am not happy with where we are,” Gallagher said more than once. At one point, she warned the government, “You might want to start preparing more witnesses for tomorrow.”
The 2024 settlement agreement in the class action case barred the removal of a subset of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the United States. The removal of “Cristian” last March set off a yearlong effort to enforce the settlement agreement. In a case with echoes of the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Gallagher ordered the recalcitrant Trump administration to facilitate the return of “Cristian” and was upheld on appeal. Things did not go well for “Cristian,” whose whereabouts remain unknown.
The evidentiary hearing, which was expected to last one day, will continue tomorrow.
“There are ways to get this information,” Gallagher said at the end of the day, her voice rising to nearly a shout. “We need to know what happened to these people.”
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Listen To This: Markwayne’s Rodeo
Kate and Josh discuss the DHS secretary confirmation hearings, a big defection on Iran and the Illinois primaries.
Continue reading “Listen To This: Markwayne’s Rodeo”The Pentagon is Setting Congress Up For a Vote That Could Provide Backdoor War Authorization
Since President Donald Trump started to wage war against Iran without authorization from Congress and seemingly without much logistical or financial planning, there have been reports that the White House may request that congressional lawmakers authorize emergency supplemental funding to bolster his unauthorized war.
Early reporting on the possible supplemental request suggested that the White House may ask for up to $50 billion in new money. But, according to new reporting by the Washington Post, the Pentagon asked the Trump White House to approve a more than $200 billion request that it wants to send to Congress amid the ongoing war in Iran. The New York Times also separately reported on the details of a $200 billion funding request.
Approving the money could allow the Trump administration to argue that Congress had retroactively authorized the war, legal experts told TPM this month. President Bill Clinton made a similar argument about the war in Kosovo, which began absent Congressional authorization. The Clinton White House argued that funding Congress passed for that conflict doubled as authorization.
Continue reading “The Pentagon is Setting Congress Up For a Vote That Could Provide Backdoor War Authorization”Maricopa County’s GOP Recorder Won’t Block DOJ Overreach
Hello, and welcome back to The Franchise!
This week we’ll unpack the latest developments and the crucial backstory behind the Trump administration’s Maricopa County 2020 election probe. We’ve also got Cleta Mitchell celebrating (and taking credit for) Senate Republican leadership finally caving to Trump and opening a marathon debate of the SAVE America Act, and, relatedly, Florida, taking a cue from the Trump administration and passing its own version of the SAVE America Act.
Let’s dig in.
Continue reading “Maricopa County’s GOP Recorder Won’t Block DOJ Overreach”The Leaks Come for Corey—and Maybe Joe Kent Too
Semafor reported last night that Joe Kent, momentary half-resistance hero and full-time white nationalist weirdo, is being investigated by the FBI for leaking classified information. According to Semafor, at least, the investigation predates his high-profile, news-driving resignation. We don’t know many details of this investigation. It’s at least possible that, rather than being retaliation for the resignation, it was actually the cause of it. In other words, maybe Kent saw the investigation was building, that the moment was right, and made his push to clothe the investigation and any possible future charges as retaliation. But let’s set that possibility aside for the moment. Because there’s another possibility I want to explore, one that goes to the heart of how Trump II works.
Continue reading “The Leaks Come for Corey—and Maybe Joe Kent Too”How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Vaccine Agenda Risks a Resurgence of Deadly Childhood Plagues
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Dr. Adam Ratner hovered over a gravely ill infant in a New York City intensive care unit on a grim day in 2022. The 3-month-old girl spiked a fever two days earlier and had become lethargic. Soon she was having seizures and struggling to breathe.
She didn’t register Ratner’s towering frame or the bright hospital lights. Her eyes stared up and to the right, eerily frozen.
He ran his hand over the soft spot on her head, which should have been flat. Instead, it bulged, a sign that too much fluid was building up inside her skull.
The baby’s life was in danger, and Ratner needed to figure out why. He worried the culprit was bacterial meningitis, an infection of the membranes that protect the brain.
What came back on her lab tests was something out of the history books.
Continue reading “How Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Vaccine Agenda Risks a Resurgence of Deadly Childhood Plagues”Mullin Nomination Moves Out of Senate Committee With Assist From Fetterman
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to support Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) nomination as Department of Homeland Security secretary on Thursday morning.
The Republican committee chair, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), voted against Mullin’s nomination, as he said he would after the hearing yesterday. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) supported it. The vote means Mullin has cleared the first and most significant hurdle towards becoming the leader of the department that is currently shutdown as Republicans largely refuse to engage in Immigration and Customs Enforcement reform discussions with Democrats.
Paul made his opposition to Mullin’s nomination clear during the hearing yesterday.
During his opening remarks, Paul tore into Mullin for a past comment the Oklahoma senator had apparently made about Paul not long after the two had met. Paul claimed that Mullin said that he “understood” why Paul’s neighbor had attacked him in 2017, a reference to an assault that took place when Paul’s neighbor tackled him in his yard during President Trump’s first term. Paul suffered broken ribs and serious lung injuries. His neighbor was sentenced to a little less than a year in prison for the incident.
Throughout the hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Mullin was mostly unapologetic toward Paul — both for his remarks about the violence that Paul was subjected to and his belief that Paul, the committee chair, was using the hearing to engage in “character assassination.” Paul, at one point, told Mullin that he thought he had “low impulse control” and a strong “pattern” of “machismo” that’s not suitable for the Department of Homeland Security leadership position. Paul also joined with his Democratic colleagues to question Mullin about supposed classified trips that Mullin claims he took while serving in the House. After discussion with Mullin, a Republican senator later yesterday seemed to suggest the trips were covered by an NDA, raising more questions than answers.
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It’s My War and I’ll Cry If I Want To
Denial and Self Pity
With oil briefly topping at over $119 per barrel, Israel attacking Iranian oil facilities, and Iran retaliating against LNG facilities in Qatar, while the Strait of Hormuz remains bottled up except for select Iranian-approved shipments, President Trump is on social media offering his hot takes like an online troll — and with about as much credibility
After disparaging Israel’s earlier attack on oil tanks in Tehran, Trump took to social media last evening to distance himself from the latest Israeli attack, on the South Pars Gas Field in Iran. The post is a mix of special pleading, dubious assertions, and self pity. Trump pretends to calm the waters by pouring oil on them while simultaneously threatening to light the oil on fire:
More importantly, however, there’s reporting that Trump is full of shit when he claims the United States knew nothing about the impending Israeli attack. Under the headline “Israel strikes Iran natural gas facility in coordination with U.S.”, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that the Israeli strike was done not just with the knowledge of the Trump administration but with its approval.
“The Israeli officials said the strike was coordinated with and approved by the Trump administration,” Ravid reports. “A U.S. Defense official confirmed that.”
The coordination took place between the White House and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, according to officials Ravid spoke to. “The U.S. was aware, but was not part of the attack,” a source told him.
Perhaps you find yourself bedeviled trying to following the Middle East conflict in a serious and sober way while the President is poorly play-acting as commander in chief.
Latest on the Middle East …
- WSJ: Escalating Attacks on Gulf Energy Assets Plunge Iran War Into New Phase
- WaPo: Pentagon seeks more than $200 billion in budget request for Iran war
- WSJ: Short-range U.S. missiles are likely being launched from Persian Gulf countries, though none of them has admitted to allowing their land or airspace to be used to attack Iran.
Quote of the Day
“We’re over here just grinding away on banger memes, dude. There’s an entertainment factor to what we do. But ultimately, it boils down to the fact that no one has ever attempted to communicate with the American public this way before.”—a senior White House official involved in producing TikTok-style mash-up videos to promote the Iran war
Joe Kent Under FBI Investigation
Joe Kent, the right-wing influencer who just resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over the Iran war, was already under FBI investigation for allegedly improperly sharing classified information, Semafor reports.
While the investigation, which predates his resignation, doesn’t appear to have been in retaliation for his opposition to the Iran war, the revelation of the investigation “came after a coordinated Trump administration effort to discredit Mr. Kent as untrustworthy and disloyal,” as the NYT put it.
‘Just the Beginning’
A top Pentagon official told Congress this week that the Trump administration’s campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats is “just the beginning” of a war against Latin American drug cartels which could include unilateral strikes on foreign territories.
Sobering Read
A years-long NYT investigation uncovered credible allegations that United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez groomed and sexually abused girls who worked in the labor movement.
Following yesterday’s publication of the investigation, 95-year-old Dolores Huerta — who co-founded the UFW with Chavez — came forward to say she too had been sexually abused by him in two encounters. “Both encounters led to pregnancies, which she hid,” the NYT reports. “She later arranged for the children to be raised by other families.”
Jeffrey Epstein Watch
- Democrats on the House Oversight Committee stormed out of a Capitol Hill meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche after Bondi would not commit to complying with a subpoena for her sworn testimony about the Epstein files.
- In a letter, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) accused Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche of blocking the Drug Enforcement Administration from releasing an unredacted document from the Epstein files about an investigation involving drug trafficking and money laundering, Bloomberg reports.
- British authorities are seeking the cooperation of the Justice Department as they pursue Epstein-related investigations of Prince Andrew and former ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police told Politico.
The Corruption: Pardon Edition
- NYT: Across his two terms, President Trump has granted clemency to more than 70 allies, donors and others convicted in fraud cases, three dozen of those since returning to office.
- CBC: Canadian crypto fugitive Andean Medjedovic paid far-right hoaxsters Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman a $300,000 retainer to seek a presidential pardon.
US Downgraded in Democracy Index
The Swedish research group Varieties of Democracies Institute has downgraded the United States in its annual democracy index: “The speed with which American democracy is currently dismantled is unprecedented in modern history.”
Correction
Yesterday’s Morning Memo misidentified the assistant U.S. attorney thrown out of court by U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi as one of the trio of leaders of the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office installed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. It was in fact the office’s head of appeals, who is not one of the trio.
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