The Supreme Court tossed on Monday a series of restraining orders that barred the Trump administration from removing people under the Alien Enemies Act, in a 5-4 decision decided largely over whether the case was brought in the right place and form.
Continue reading “Bitterly Divided Roberts Court Hands Trump Early Win On Alien Enemies Act”Johnson Already Doing Trump’s Veto Work For Him On Senate’s Bipartisan Tariff Bill
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) came out against even entertaining the idea of bringing to the House floor a Senate bill that would limit the President’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs.
Continue reading “Johnson Already Doing Trump’s Veto Work For Him On Senate’s Bipartisan Tariff Bill”Fired DOJ Attorney Testifies In Wake Of Trump Intimidation: I Won’t Be ‘Bullied’ To Hide ‘Corruption’
Former U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oyer, who was fired last month for refusing to comply with an order to restore Mel Gibson’s gun rights, spoke before congressional Democrats Monday on her recent termination and efforts by some in the DOJ and Trump’s administration to intimidate her out of showing up for that very testimony.
Continue reading “Fired DOJ Attorney Testifies In Wake Of Trump Intimidation: I Won’t Be ‘Bullied’ To Hide ‘Corruption’ “Senate Tariff Bill Must Become the Focus
This isn’t ripe yet. But it’s important to watch. Senators Cantwell and Grassley have a bill that would significantly reduce the president’s unilateral ability to impose tariffs. So far they have seven Republican co-sponsors. Axios has a piece up reporting that the White House has now issued a veto threat over the bill. That’s hardly surprising. The bill would radically, though not completely, scale back Trump’s power on what he is making the centerpiece of his presidency.
Continue reading “Senate Tariff Bill Must Become the Focus”All Power Is Unitary
I want to take a moment to reiterate and explain an idea I’ve discussed many times here but which is particularly relevant in this moment: all power is unitary. What does this mean? Basically it means that a political actor’s relative power is the same everywhere. It’s not divided up into different buckets. You’re not losing power on one front and maintaining or increasing it everywhere else. That’s not how it works. Losses and gains in one place show up everywhere else. So Trump taking hits on the economy weakens him in the courts and with DOGE, Congress and everywhere else. It applies the same on the upside. If Trump is winning big battles in the courts, that empowers him everywhere else, even in areas that have nothing to do with the courts or the particular legal issue in question.
Continue reading “All Power Is Unitary”Trump Admin Faces Deadline To Return Wrongly Deported Man
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. ET
In a dramatic series of court rulings and reactions Friday and into the weekend, the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia leapfrogged the Alien Enemies Act deportations as the case most likely to lead to President Trump defying the judicial branch.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has set a deadline of 11:59 p.m. ET today for the Trump administration to arrange the return of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was deported to his home country despite an order by an immigration judge barring his removal. Abrego Garcia was on one of the three March 15 flights that hauled deportees to a notorious El Salvadoran prison; his was the only flight not carried out under the Alien Enemies Act.
The White House reacted with sass and fury at the court order. “We suggest the Judge contact President Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The Justice Department immediately appealed the order to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had not yet intervened as of this morning.
In an opinion Saturday explaining her Friday ruling, Judge Xinis wrote:
“Defendants seized Abrego Garcia without any lawful authority; held him in three separate domestic detention centers without legal basis; failed to present him to any immigration judge or officer; and forcibly transported him to El Salvador in direct contravention of the INA. Once there, U.S. officials secured his detention in a facility that, by design, deprives its detainees of adequate food, water, and shelter, fosters routine violence; and places him with his persecutors, Barrio 18. In short, the public interest and companion equities favor the requested injunctive relief.
Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck takes a closer look at the power the judicial branch has in this situation: “Federal courts may not have the power to compel the release of an individual from a foreign prison, but they unquestionably have the power to order the U.S. government to take whatever steps it can to effectuate the same result.”
DOJ Attorneys Punished For Keeping Their Integrity
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche quickly moved to suspend the DOJ lawyer who argued the Abrego Garcia case Friday. Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigatio, and his supervisor, August Flentje, were both put on administrative leave.
Reuveni was quite candid with Judge Xinis during Friday’s hearing, the way lawyers sometimes have to be when they have a recalcitrant or problematic client who is either being uncooperative, lacks candor, or is otherwise hiding the ball from their own counsel.
At one point Reuveni told the judge he couldn’t figure out either why the Trump administration had not sought Abrego Garcia’s return: “When this case landed on my desk, I asked my clients that very question. I have not received to date an answer that I find satisfactory.”
“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told the NYT. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
Judge Spares Tufts Student From Louisiana Trial
U.S. District Judge Denise Casper of Massachusetts ruled Friday that the high-profile case of Rumeysa Ozturk, whose detention by plainclothes federal agents was caught on video, should be heard in Vermont, not Louisiana, where Ozturk is now detained.
Scope Of Students Visa Revocations Comes Into Focus
Since Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly stated that he has unilaterally revoked more than 300 visas, including those of foreign students, news reports from campuses across the country have started to provide a sense of the scale of the impacts:
- California: UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine and Stanford
- Ivies: Harvard, Cornell, and Penn
- State universities: Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan, among others
Message Sent
Columbia University’s ex-interim president Katrina Armstrong was dragged into a three-hour deposition last week in Washington, D.C., by the Department of Health and Human Services, about incidents of anti-semitism on campus, the WSJ reports: “The government called Armstrong in for questioning to send a message to higher-education officials broadly beyond Columbia that they will have to answer for their words and actions under oath, people familiar with the matter said. “
Quote Of The Day
“As the first Jewish president of a formerly Methodist university, I find no comfort in the Trump administration’s embrace of my people, on college campuses or elsewhere. Jew hatred is real, but today’s anti-antisemitism isn’t a legitimate effort to fight it. It’s a cover for a wide range of agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of Jewish people.”–Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University
Good Read
The NYT’s Michael Schmidt: In Trump’s Second Term, Retribution Comes in Many Forms
Ed Martin Expands Investigation Of Investigators
In an internal office email that was widely leaked, acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin announced he was broadening his probe of the Jan. 6 prosecutions and compared the use of an obstruction statute against the rioters to the internment of Japanese Americans.
Martin’s email came the day after he was savaged by Jack Goldsmith, who headed the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel under Bush II: “Martin even in his temporary role has proven to be the most openly politicizing and weaponizing figure in the most politicized and weaponizing department in our history.”
Hands Off!
BREAKING: DC Circuit Reinstates NLRB And MSPB Members
The full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this morning reinstated fired NLRB member Gwynne A. Wilcox and MSPB member Cathy A. Harris. The court also declined to stay the case while the Trump administration seeks Supreme Court intervention.
In related courtroom developments:
- A 5-4 Supreme Court – Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three liberal justices in voting against the decision – cleared the way for the Trump administration to cancel Department of Education grants for teacher training programs as part of its anti-DEI jihad, ruling that the plaintiffs had filed their claims in the wrong court.
- U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley of Massachusetts permanently barred the Trump administration from unilaterally limiting NIH funding, restoring billions of dollars in grant money to universities and academic medical centers.
- U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island slammed the Trump administration for “covertly” withholding FEMA funds from blue states in violation of his preliminary injunction halting the federal funding freeze.
DOGE Watch
- Wired: DOGE Is Planning a Hackathon at the IRS. It Wants Easier Access to Taxpayer Data
- WaPo: Social Security website keeps crashing, as DOGE demands cuts to IT staff
- The Verge: DOGE has arrived at the FTC
- CNN: DOGE expected to take aim at DHS with staffing cuts, including at US Secret Service
The Destruction: Cancer And STI Edition
- NYT: A Federal Lab That Tracked Rising S.T.I.s Has Been Shuttered
- WaPo: NIH scientists have a cancer breakthrough. Layoffs are delaying it.
- NYT: Trump Administration Fires U.S. Aid Workers in Quake Zone in Myanmar
The Destruction: Down The Memory Hole Edition
- The NYT has the full list of 381 books removed from the Naval Academy library, including Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.”
- WaPo: Amid anti-DEI push, National Park Service rewrites history of Underground Railroad
- NYT: The White House Frames the Past by Erasing Parts of It
The Destruction: Self-Inflicted Recession Edition
The financial markets showed few signs of calming over the weekend and into this morning. But the larger issue than declining the equity values themselves is that the market is starting to price in the growing risk of a Trump-tariff-driven recession – a truly unprecedented self-inflicted economic catastrophe.
An Ominous Sign Out Of North Carolina
In a startling decision, a North Carolina state appeals court has sided with Republican Jefferson Griffin in his legal battle to overturn state Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’ narrow victory in the 2024 election.
Accountability Is Slow
- Federal prosecutors are seeking a 87-month prison sentence for disgraced former Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
- Four former aides to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who were fired after reporting him to federal investigators and accusing him of corruption won a $6.6 million civil judgment against the state for violating a whistleblower law.
See You In Chicago!
The Josh Marshall Podcast Featuring Kate Riga is hitting the road for a live show in Chicago on May 14. Tickets are on sale here.
This is first TPM event outside of NYC or DC. Hope to see you there!
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Rule Of Law Or Rule By Law? SCOTUS Gets Its Chance To Halt Trump’s Rampage—Or Greenlight It
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
Four critical cases have reached the Supreme Court via its shadow docket in recent weeks. They touch on everything from birthright citizenship and unconstitutional deportations to funding cuts to programs the administration has labeled as “DEI” and the firing of federal employees without cause.
Continue reading “Rule Of Law Or Rule By Law? SCOTUS Gets Its Chance To Halt Trump’s Rampage—Or Greenlight It”Full DC Circuit Unfires—For Now—NLRB, MSPB Board Members That Trump Lawlessly Axed
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for DC has reinstated a member of the National Labor Relations Board and a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board that President Donald Trump tried to fire earlier this year. The court split 7-4.
Continue reading “Full DC Circuit Unfires—For Now—NLRB, MSPB Board Members That Trump Lawlessly Axed”Notes on Civil Society’s Quasi-War with A Renegade President
This post isn’t quite a post in the way I normally do them, more jotting down some of my brainstorming over the weekend.
Universities are a core pillar of civil society. Law firms are not. Observers have been waiting to see what would come of an amicus-brief-organizing campaign in support of Perkins Coie, the Seattle-based firm which was the first to be targeted by the Trump administration. Perkins Coie is also, significantly, the law firm for much of the institutional Democratic Party. It finally came out, and the brief was signed by more than 500 firms across the country. But it was not signed by any of the nation’s Top 20 firms, measured by revenue. I don’t know enough about the internal finances of the nation’s top-grossing firms. But I suspect they’re mostly like Paul, Weiss, which is to say they’re largely M&A firms, at least in terms of where they make their money — M&A and the management of other corporate transactions I don’t know acronyms for. It’s basically impossible to be in that business if you’re at war with the state that regulates mergers and acquisitions.
Just after Paul, Weiss cut their deal with President Trump, I spoke to a number of people either at the firm or proximate to it. One thing they helped me understand is that for firms like that, with a big M&A practice centered on partners with books of business ranging well into the tens of millions of dollars, it’s not just the clients who disappear in a flash. The money-making partners can too. So these vast, hugely money-making entities are actually quite fragile in their own way. The equivalent of a bank run dynamic and poof, they’re gone. But law firms come and law firms go. It is what it is.
Continue reading “Notes on Civil Society’s Quasi-War with A Renegade President”The Lawlessness Of The Alien Enemies Removals Come Into Focus
Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
Weeks have gone by since the Trump administration rushed three planeloads of deportees to an El Salvadorian labor camp. And yet, there are reams of basic questions about what happened to which we do not have answers.
Continue reading “The Lawlessness Of The Alien Enemies Removals Come Into Focus”