A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Where Does This Leave Us?

A rapid-fire series of Supreme Court interventions in two of the most pressing early Trump II cases has slowed down for now the prospect of a direct confrontation between President Trump and the judicial branch.

In the most urgent case, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay that lifted the deadline of midnight last night for the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported to an El Salvadoran prison despite a court order explicitly barring his removal. Roberts’ move came as the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Abrego Garcia and set the Trump administration on a collision course with the judiciary. Still, Roberts set a tight briefing schedule (Abrego Garcia’s lawyers immediately filed their response), and the Supreme Court could rule at any moment.

Later in the day, the Supreme Court issued a very muddled and confusing decision in the adjacent Alien Enemies Act case – the other case that seems most likely to provoke Trump into an extra-constitutional showdown with the courts. By a 5-4 margin, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the three liberal justices, the court threw U.S. District Judge James Boasberg under the bus with a hasty, procedurally irregular decision that brought withering retorts from the dissenters.

The particulars gets weedy pretty quick, but the high court said no one should be removed under the Aliens Enemies Act without notice and the opportunity for a hearing. Judging the justices on a curve, it’s hard not to feel some relief that the Supreme Court still finds value in notice and hearing as the bedrock of due process. That was the big takeaway from the decision, even if it carried all sorts of caveats and practical limitations.

Left undecided: the fate of the Venezuelan nationals already deported to the El Salvadoran prisons, whether the Alien Enemies Act properly applies to a criminal gang in peacetime, and whether those swept up in the deportations actually meet the requirements for removal. Those decisions will be left to individual judges to decide case by case, in Texas (in the most conservative federal circuit), where most of the habeas cases will have to be brought.

The high agitation of the dissenters suggests, however, that the way the majority got there had the effect of throwing open the barn door to further Trump depredations even as it overlooked the government’s egregious conduct in the case to this point.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the dissenting justices had already gotten a taste of what the majority has in store for the wrongfully deported Abrego Garcia. The two cases aren’t directly related, but they each overshadow the other in ways that put a finer point on the underlying legal and moral issues.

For more analysis:

• Steve Vladeck: “But the more I read the Court’s Monday night ruling in Trump v. J.G.G., in which a 5-4 majority vacated a pair of temporary restraining orders entered by Chief Judge Boasberg in the Alien Enemy Act case, the more I think that this ruling really is a harbinger, and a profoundly alarming one, at that.”
• Lee Kovarsky: “THE SUPREME COURT’S TdA OPINION IS TERRIFYING. Not because it’s wrong, although it is, but because of how comfortable the Court seems in abusing authority to get to what it must see as an institutionally desirable outcome.”

What About Boasberg’s Contempt Proceeding?

The Justice Department filed a snotty notice of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Alien Enemies Act to Judge Boasberg and asked him to end his inquiry into whether the Trump administration violated his order blocking the deportations and should be held in contempt. Boasberg’s initial response did not tip his hand on the contempt proceedings. The Supreme Court did Boasberg no favors in depriving him of jurisdiction, but that alone should not be enough – in theory – to end the contempt proceeding.

DOJ Is Now Trump’s Personal Law Firm

The NYT has a pretty good rundown on how President Trump via Attorney General Pam Bondi is grinding down Justice Department attorneys. It’s written from the point of view of DOJ lawyers caught in the squeeze between their ethical obligations and threats to their careers.

‘I Will Not Be Bullied’

Fired U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oyer testified Monday at a shadow hearing held by congressional Democrats – but only after DOJ warned her not to testify and dispatched armed U.S. special marshals to her home to deliver the message.

Photo Of The Day

In case you missed it, acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin gave the keynote address last month at an event attended by some of Jan. 6 seditionists who are appealing their convictions, Mother Jones reports:

Here is a photo from the event, to help give you a visual.

[image or embed]

— amanda moore 🐢 (@noturtlesoup17.bsky.social) April 7, 2025 at 1:05 PM

ONGOING: Trump’s Attack On Big Law

NYT: “One of Mr. Trump’s advisers has been in touch with [Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft] to suggest that it sign a deal in which it would offer tens of millions of dollars in pro bono legal services to causes that the Trump administration supports.

DC Circuit: We Can’t Overturn SCOTUS Precedent

More on yesterday’s big decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate the fired members of two independent agencies: Cathy Harris of the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board.

Maine Is On The Frontline Of Trump’s Blue State Jihad

In the Trump administration’s ongoing bullying of Maine over trans athletes, the state is now suing the federal government over the Department of Agriculture’s move to freeze funding for the state, threatening the provision of school lunches.

The Destruction: Refugees And Fluoride Edition

• Citing “drastic” government funding cuts, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, the largest refugee resettlement agency in the world, is ending its century-old program of resettling refugees fleeing war or persecution, the WaPo reports.
• RFK Jr. is directing the CDC to change its recommendation supporting fluoride in drinking water.
• REVERSAL: The National Park Service restored its original webpage on the Underground Railroad that included a previously deleted photo of Harriet Tubman.

DOGE Watch

DOGE will be able to access personal information of millions of union workers at the Education Department and OPM under a new order from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

N.C. Supreme Court Intervenes In Election Case

The North Carolina Supreme Court paused a lower court order that would has the potential to reverse the outcome of the closely-watched and still unresolved 2024 election to the high court. Justice Allison Riggs and the State Election Board had filed an appeal seeking the stay.

Couldn’t Happen To A Nicer Guy

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman has agreed to give up his law license for three years over his repeated misconduct during his Big Lie-adjacent review of the state’s 2020 election for GOP lawmakers eager to find election fraud.

In Defense of Temporary Obsessions

From a delightful little essay by Ankita Shah: “In a world that wants mastery or monetisation as the outcome of every fleeting interest, temporary obsessions are little rebellions. Their purpose is to restore order in the playground that is your life.”

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

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!

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!