So I mentioned in today’s BackChannel that it kind of beggared belief we were only hearing about these Wolff/Epstein interview tapes and their contents now. But then I heard from TPM Reader MH who said he remembered hearing some of the tapes. What? Readers get so confused. But then MH comes up with a link and it turns out the Daily Beast actually had a lot of this from Wolff and actually snippets of the audio tapes themselves. That came out just a few days before the 2024 election. Then I heard from TPM Reader JW about a podcast Wolff was doing at the time that went into the same stuff. (Okay, so part of my theory or reason for caution is out, I guess.) From what I can tell, all of this was sort of lost in the mad rush of the final days before the election and sort of became moot after it. In the standard way, the campaign said it was fake news and “election interference” and that was kind of it.
All this said, the Epstein wildfire engulfing MAGA just continues apace.
The prospect that the Trump-appointed attorney general, FBI director, and his top deputy could be dragged down over Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories makes my head hurt.
None of them is fit for office. They’ve ransacked the Justice Department. They remain eager to abuse their offices to curry favor with the White House. But in this era that’s not enough to run them out of town. What might be enough is failing to properly perform one of the MAGA cult’s ritualistic dances. Suddenly Attorney General Pam Bondi is on the outs, with her two top FBI underlings threatening to turn on her and join the mob.
For those of us on the outside looking in, it’s not just baffling but enervating. Watching President Trump try to call off the MAGA mob is surreal.
What’s most important about this whole sordid episode is likely to be the lengths Bondi will go to shore up her position in MAGA world. She seems perfectly willing to and entirely capable of committing further transgressions of the rule of law in order to demonstrate her MAGA bona fides and stave off demands that she be sacked.
It’s difficult to parse which of Bondi’s latest outrages were already in the works and which are self-protective. But credit the national political coverage over the past few days with at least acknowledging that there might be a connection between the Epstein blowback and unusual DOJ moves like confirming the criminal investigations of John Brennan and James Comey.
In addition, Bondi has:
fired another 20 DOJ employees, including prosecutors, support staff, and U.S. marshals, who were involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Trump prosecutions
fired without explanation DOJ’s most senior ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, a career employee who had been with the department for nearly 20 years
dropped charges against a Utah plastic surgeon who had become a MAGA darling even though jury selection was already underway for a trial on charges he sold fake Covid-19 vaccine cards.
The traditional tools of the Justice Department are now just baubles to be used for self-preservation by the attorney general and ultimately by the president. We are so deep into not normal.
Big Week for Emil Bove Nomination
Former Trump personal lawyer Emil Bove, who spearheaded some of the worst DOJ transgressions in the first months of Trump II, is expected to get a Senate Judiciary Committee vote this week on his nomination to the federal appeals court:
CBS News obtained the 165-page questionnaire that Bove submitted to the committee and found that he declined to rule out third term for Trump or to denounce the Jan. 6 attack.
Just Security carefully sifts through the internal DOJ documents released by career DOJ lawyer-turned-whistleblower Erez Reuveni and examines how they implicate Bove in violating U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order in the original Alien Enemies Act case — conduct the judge has already found probable cause to deem in contempt of court.
Speaking of Boasberg’s Contempt of Court Finding …
We’re coming up on three months since a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals put Boasberg’s contempt proceedings on ice with an administrative stay on April 18. That’s an extraordinary delay. It’s not only delayed accountability in the Alien Enemies Act case, but it has enabled Trump administration defiance of court orders across a range of other cases.
Correction: The three-judge panel was composed of two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee (who would not have granted the stay), not all Trump appointees as this item originally reported.
Give This a Listen
I joined Greg Sargent Friday on The Daily Blast podcast where we talked about, among other things, how bad things are at the Trump DOJ and the overall pattern of authoritarian escalation: Backlash against one authoritarian move begets more extreme authoritarian moves to stifle the backlash. Rinse and repeat.
‘The Evidence Is Not Credible’
I spent parts of three days last week in court in the Abrego Garcia case and tried to capture in a piece I wrote Friday the more subtle, less obvious ways that the Trump DOJ continues to stonewall the judge’s orders and show contempt for her proceedings.
For a quicker but still substantive reaction to the hearing Friday, a good thread from attorney Joe Dudek:
1. I cannot adequately describe how unprepared the government is for this case. Abrego Garcia's six-lawyer team was there the moment the courtroom opened. They were reading and verifying documents; they were working through arguments; and they were planning. DOJ got there with two minutes to spare.
In a ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong blocked the Trump administration’s large-scale immigration crackdown in Los Angeles.
The Trump administration gave a green light for providing as little as six hours’ notice to migrants before they’re deported to third countries, even if the countries haven’t provided assurance that the migrants will be safe from persecution or torture, according to a government memo obtained by the WaPo.
The four U.S.-born children — 9-year-old triplets and a 7-year-old son — of an apparently undocumented woman have remained in federal detention in Washington state for more than two weeks.
The Death of USAID
University of Michigan political scientist Don Moynihan goes deep on the Trump administration’s unprecedented destruction of the primary vehicle for U.S. foreign aid:
The destruction of USAID had less to do with the actions of the agency than with the broader governing context of an American presidency that has embraced an authoritarian, conspiracy-driven and populist approach to governing. USAID may be the first case of a government agency killed by conspiracy theories.
Sign of the Times
WASHINGTON DC, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES – 2021/01/06: Rioters clash with police using big ladder trying to enter Capitol building through the front doors. Rioters broke windows and breached the Capitol building in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Police used batons and tear gas grenades to eventually disperse the crowd. Rioters used metal bars and tear gas as well against the police. (Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Jan. 6 rioters are now the toast of the town at local GOP events around the country.
Three thoughts on the delicious and deserved Jeff Epstein wildfire currently engulfing MAGA world.
First, a follow up on my post from last week. I stand by what I said about general skepticism about the whole Epstein meta story — the belief that some significant number of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men slept with teenaged girls procured by Jeff Epstein and have used their power to keep the truth of their crimes secret. But some of you said I was either letting Epstein, his purported co-rapists or the MAGA movement off the hook. Not at all. I expressed something very specific which is that there are a lot of things that seem widely accepted about Epstein and his world for which there seems to be pretty thin actual evidence. But that’s totally consistent with wanting to turn over every stone to find out what’s real and what’s not. It is even more consistent with putting MAGA to its task. They created this. They ran on this. They used it to tarnish countless of their enemies based on little or no evidence. So there’s zero way anyone should let them just take a mulligan on the whole thing now. “Hey, so we took a look at all the secret information and it turns out it’s all fine. So we’re moving on.” No way.
President Donald Trump is pushing hard to get his $9.4 billion rescissions request — $8.3 billion in cuts to foreign aid and $1.1 billion from public broadcasting — over the finish line.
GREENBELT, MARYLAND – In a saga that has dragged on for four months that feel like four years, the Trump administration continues to stonewall the judge in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case with dilatory tactics and bad faith responses to her inquiries. Unlike the in-your-face defiance of a few weeks ago, the tactics have become a little more subtle and perhaps less obvious to non-lawyers, but they’re not lost on U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.
The Department of Homeland Security posted an explicitly Christian nationalist and violent video on Facebook Reels captioned “Here I am, send me” about how Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol are delivering the Lord’s justice. Special thanks to TPM Reader DC for bringing this to our attention.
We went into this administration with a seemingly durable baseline assumption that, whatever his unpopularity in other areas, President Trump had durable if not overwhelming support for his hardline immigration policies. But something started to show up in polls in the late spring or early summer.
While his numbers on “immigration” were still reasonably robust, we saw a dramatically different picture when pollster’s asked about “deportation” or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Not surprisingly, “immigration” is a very big word and covers a vast range of policy territory. Looked at from a different vantage point, Trump retained a bare majority of public support on “border security” but his “deportation” policy had the support of barely one-third of the population.
Newly released emails and texts provide an extraordinary glimpse of internal government communications during some of the most consequential legal cases of the early months of the Trump II presidency.
The internal communications come from Erez Reuveni, a career Justice Department lawyer who was fired by the Trump administration for being too candid with the court in the Abrego Garcia case. The emails and texts bolster previous allegations Reuveni had made in seeking whistleblower protections.
For our purposes, the most important element of the Reuveni revelations is the planned defiance of federal courts, including misleading, if not downright false, representations to judges, indefensible legal positions, and violations of court orders. The primary villain in the account provided by Reuveni continues to be DOJ official Emil Bove, the former personal attorney for President Trump who was riding herd on the most controversial early Trump II cases and who Reuveni has alleged told DOJ personnel that they might have to tell the courts “fuck you.”
Among the highlights:
In the Alien Enemies Act case before Judge James Boasberg in DC, Reuveni texted a colleague about Bove’s alleged comment: “Guess we are going to say ‘fuck you’ to the court. Super,” he wrote. The colleague responded: “Well, Pamela Jo Bondi is. Not you.”
In the AEA case, it was Bove, according to the internal communications, who said it was legally permissible to deplane the Venezuelan detainees in El Salvador despite Judge Boasberg’s order.
In the Abrego Garcia case, the internal communications show a race by the Trump administration to find evidence to support calling him a MS-13 “leader” as a larger public smear campaign of the wrongly deported Salvadoran was getting into full swing.
For his part, Bove has denied proposing to defy the courts and has said he doesn’t recall saying “fuck you.”
Why It’s All About Emil Bove
The timing of the Reuveni revelations is strategic, which isn’t to say they’re somehow compromised or not credible. The chief culprit in Reuveni’s account is about to get a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court, so waiting until later to tell his story in full would be too little, too late.
Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to come to a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee next week. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said this week that he would “probably” vote to confirm Bove in committee, virtually assuring the nomination will make it to the floor, where it’s not clear enough GOP senators will stand up to block Bove’s lifetime appointment.
Low-Key Purges Continue at DOJ
Beyond the early round of mass firings at the DOJ and FBI, a steady drumbeat of firing, demotions, and resignations continues, the WaPo reports:
The Trump administration is firing and pushing out employees across the Justice Department and FBI, often with no explanation or warning, creating rampant speculation and fear within the workforce over who might be terminated next, according to multiple people with knowledge of the removals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.
FBI Uses Polygraphs to Test Loyalty to Patel
Dozens of FBI personnel have been subjected to polygraphs to try to sniff out news leaks and disloyalty to FBI Director Kash Patel, the NYT reports:
The use of the polygraph, and the nature of the questioning, is part of the F.B.I.’s broader crackdown on news leaks, reflecting, to a degree, Mr. Patel’s acute awareness of how he is publicly portrayed. The moves, former bureau officials say, are politically charged and highly inappropriate, underscoring what they describe as an alarming quest for fealty at the F.B.I., where there is little tolerance for dissent. Disparaging Mr. Patel or his deputy, Dan Bongino, former officials say, could cost people their job.
The Trump DOJ’s Big Lurch Against Voting Rights
The Democracy Docket has compiled a timeline of the key steps in the Trump DOJ’s sharp anti-voting shift.
Trump’s Anti-Trans Jihad Takes New Turn
The Trump DOJ has subpoenaed confidential patient information from more than 20 doctors and hospitals that provide gender-related treatments to minors, the NYT reports.
Judge Blocks Birthright Citizenship EO
A federal judge in New Hampshire quickly seized on the opening left by the Supreme Court in its birthright citizenship case by certifying a national class action case that enjoins President Trump’s executive order. He paused his decision for seven days to give the Trump administration time to appeal it.
Khalil Sues Federal Gov’t for $20 Million
Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian Columbia University graduate student targeted by the Trump administration for his political views, has begun the process of filing a lawsuit against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Khalil is seeking $20 million for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and other claims. Khalil has been released from detention but his immigration case is still pending.
Harvard Tries (in Vain) to Placate Trump Administration
WSJ: “Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.”
Brutal and Self-Defeating
The Trump administration moved to change decades-old policy and deny undocumented immigrants access to Head Start and other federal benefits programs.
2026 Ephemera
The GOP primary for Senate in Texas ain’t for the faint of heart.
State Sen. Angela Paxton (R), the wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who is challenging incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R), announced she is filing for divorce:
Today, after 38 years of marriage, I filed for divorce on biblical grounds.
I believe marriage is a sacred covenant and I have earnestly pursued reconciliation. But in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to…
— Senator Angela Paxton (@AngelaPaxtonTX) July 10, 2025
Lot going on there.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm which is desperate to losing Cornyn’s seat, quickly pounced on the news. “What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting, a spokesperson said.
While a recent Justice Department memo prioritizes national security cases, it directs the department to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence” across 10 broad priority categories.
Denaturalization is different from deportation, which removes noncitizens from the country. With civil denaturalization, the government files a lawsuit to strip people’s U.S. citizenship after they have become citizens, turning them back into noncitizens who can then be deported.
The government can only do this in specific situations. It must prove someone “illegally procured” citizenship by not meeting the requirements, or that they lied or hid important facts during the citizenship process.
The Trump administration’s “maximal enforcement” approach means pursuing any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, regardless of priority level or strength of evidence. As our earlier research documented, this has already led to cases like that of Baljinder Singh, whose citizenship was revoked based on a name discrepancy that could easily have resulted from a translator’s error rather than intentional fraud.
A brief history
For most of American history, taking away citizenship has been rare. But it increased dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s during the Red Scare period characterized by intense suspicion of communism. The United States government targeted people it thought were communists or Nazi supporters. Between 1907 and 1967, over 22,000 Americans lost their citizenship this way.
Everything changed in 1967 when the Supreme Court decided Afroyim v. Rusk. The court said the government usually cannot take away citizenship without the person’s consent. It left open only cases involving fraud during the citizenship process.
After this decision, denaturalization became extremely rare. From 1968 to 2013, fewer than 150 people lost their citizenship, mostly war criminals who had hidden their past.
Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) stokes the Red Scare during the 1950s. (Getty Images)
How the process works
In criminal lawsuits, defendants get free lawyers if they can’t afford one. They get jury trials. The government must prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” — the highest standard of proof.
People facing denaturalization get no free lawyer, meaning poor defendants often face the government alone. There’s no jury trial — just a judge deciding whether someone deserves to remain American. The burden of proof is lower — “clear and convincing evidence” instead of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Most important, there’s no time limit, so the government can go back decades to build cases.
The Supreme Court has called citizenship a fundamental right. Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1958 described it as the “right to have rights.”
In our reading of the law, taking away such a fundamental right through civil procedures that lack basic constitutional protection — no right to counsel for those who can’t afford it, no jury trial, and a lower burden of proof — seems to violate the due process of law required by the Constitution when the government seeks to deprive someone of their rights.
The bigger problem is what citizenship-stripping policy does to democracy.
When the government can strip citizenship from naturalized Americans for decades-old conduct through civil procedures with minimal due process protection — pursuing cases based on evidence that might not meet criminal standards — it undermines the security and permanence that citizenship is supposed to provide. This creates a system where naturalized citizens face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives, potentially chilling their full participation in American democracy.
The Justice Department memo establishes 10 priority categories for denaturalization cases. They range from national security threats and war crimes to various forms of fraud, financial crimes and, most importantly, any other cases it deems “sufficiently important to pursue.” This “maximal enforcement” approach means pursuing not just clear cases of fraud, but also any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, no matter how weak or old the evidence is.
This creates fear throughout immigrant communities.
About 20 million naturalized Americans now must worry that any mistake in their decades-old immigration paperwork could cost them their citizenship.
A two-tier system
This policy effectively creates two different types of American citizens. Native-born Americans never have to worry about losing their citizenship, no matter what they do. But naturalized Americans face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives.
This has already happened. A woman who became a naturalized citizen in 2007 helped her boss with paperwork that was later used in fraud. She cooperated with the FBI investigation, was characterized by prosecutors as only a “minimal participant,” completed her sentence, and still faced losing her citizenship decades later because she didn’t report the crime on her citizenship application — even though she hadn’t been charged at the time.
The Justice Department’s directive to “maximally pursue” cases across 10 broad categories — combined with the first Trump administration’s efforts to review over 700,000 naturalization files — represents an unprecedented expansion of denaturalization efforts.
The policy will almost certainly face legal challenges on constitutional grounds, but the damage may already be done. When naturalized citizens fear their status could be revoked, it undermines the security and permanence that citizenship is supposed to provide.
The Supreme Court, in Afroyim v. Rusk, was focused on protecting existing citizens from losing their citizenship. The constitutional principle behind that decision — that citizenship is a fundamental right which can’t be arbitrarily taken away by whoever happens to be in power — applies equally to how the government handles denaturalization cases today.
The Trump administration’s directive, combined with court procedures that lack basic constitutional protections, risks creating a system that the Afroyim v. Rusk decision sought to prevent — one where, as the Supreme Court said, “A group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship.”
Earlier today, I read this piece by TPM fave Will Sommer which explained that Hugh Hewitt, one-time Josh antagonist, has been pitching his listeners on giving their money to what might be generously described as a fake bank which promised a totally credible 13% annual return when Hugh’s listeners purchased “First Liberty Notes” for a minimum purchase of $25,000. It was all a way to get out from under the “woke” banking system and build a “patriot economy” and do a lot of other cool stuff. It was all the work of a right-wing darling by the name of Brant Frost IV. Apparently the fake bank, First Liberty Building & Loan (no FDIC insurance), was a key part of the Georgia GOP ecosystem.
In any case, as Will explained, things had taken an unexpected turn — at least for the purchasers of “Liberty Notes” — when the company’s website suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a notice which announced that the owners were cooperating with federal authorities to close the business down. (Doesn’t sound promising!) Now, just a few moments ago, I got an alert about this article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution which reports that the SEC has charged First Liberty with running a $140 million Ponzi scheme.
