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

Rule By Fait Accompli

The speed with which the Trump administration is moving to break laws, erode the powers of the legislative branch, and execute the most aggressive elements of its agenda is outpacing the judicial branch in case after case, effectively mooting efforts to secure due process, judicial review, and remedy the legal wrongs.

In Washington, D.C. yesterday, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell dismissed a motion by remnant elements of the U.S. Institute of Peace that sought to block the transfer of its privately owned headquarters to the federal government. Howell’s reasoning? The property had already been transferred on Saturday. Too bad for you.

In the case of the visa revocation of Rumeysa Ozturk, the pro-Palestinian Turkish national who is a student at Tufts University, a new government filing yesterday revealed that in the first 24 hours after her detention in suburban Boston she’d been moved through New Hampshire and Vermont before being flown to Louisiana. The law requires that a writ of habeas corpus to secure her release must be filed where she is physically held in detention at the time of the filing. Her swift movement through four different judicial districts left her lawyers guessing as to which court to go to try to secure her release and gave the government the chance to pick its preferred jurisdiction, far from where Ozturk lived and studied.

Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian Columbia University graduate, was subjected to similar jurisdiction-hopping immediately after his detention by the government before landing in Louisiana. It wasn’t quite fast enough. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that Khalil’s lawyers moved quickly enough for his case to be heard in New Jersey, not Louisiana, as the Trump administration had sought, but also not New York, where he was picked up. A win of sorts for Khalil.

Even in cases where judges have moved fast, it’s not alway been enough. Perhaps the most dramatic example came with the Alien Enemies Act deportations. Weeks of planning and preparation nearly managed to avoid any judicial review until the deportation flights landed in El Salvador, as TPM’s Josh Kovensky extensively reported. The ACLU nonetheless managed to get wind of what was afoot and filed its case in the middle of the night to try to preempt the deportations. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of DC moved quickly to order the deportations put on hold. The Trump administration completed the flights and the transfer of the deportees to El Salvador anyway. Boasberg holds a hearing tomorrow on whether the administration violated his order.

Surveying the wreckage of the last two months – the mass purges of federal workers, the shuttering of entire agencies and departments, the impoundment of hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding – the same pattern emerges. Judges are slowly awakening to it. At the margins, they may be able to counteract some it on a piecemeal basis. But for the most part, the courts are left to sift through the rubble after the fact. It’s why the judicial branch alone can’t save us. An independent judiciary is a necessary but insufficient bulwark against an authoritarian like Donald Trump.

Due Process Only Gets You So Far

The mistaken removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was aboard one of the three deportation flights from Texas to El Salvador on March 15, occurred despite a standing 2019 order by an immigration judge blocking his removal. The Trump administration has admitted in court that his removal was an “error,” attributed to “administrative error” and “oversight.”

In Related Immigration News …

• Momodou Taal, the pro-Palestinian student activist at Cornell University who had preemptively sued to block his deportation, voluntarily left the country after losing in court.
• Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias, a former president of Costa Rica, says the Trump administration has revoked his visa after his public comments critical of the U.S. president.
• The Trump administration is pursuing agreements with several more third-party countries to accept U.S. deportees, the WSJ reports.

Good Read

The NYT’s Charlie Savage reports on the statutory provision that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is using to unilaterally revoke visas and the ways in which Congress had already reined in this power, to little apparent effect.

The Retribution: Ed Martin’s Troll-ish Probe Of Biden Pardons

For the last two months, acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin has been “investigating” whether President Joe Biden was competent at the time he issued pardons in the final days of his presidency, the NYT reports. Among the overt acts by Martin have been letters of inquiry to former Biden White House chief of staff Jeffrey D. Zients, Biden brother James Biden, and Biden sister-in-law Sara Biden.

Adam Schiff Puts A Hold On Ed Martin Nomination

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has placed an indefinite hold on the nomination of Ed Martin to be U.S. attorney in DC. Martin is currently the acting U.S. attorney.

Princeton Is The Latest Ivy Targeted By Trump

Princeton University says the Trump administration has suspended its research grant funding from the federal government. 

Another Major Law Firm Strikes ‘Deal’ With Trump

The law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher – where former Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff works – has struck a preemptive deal with President Trump to avoid being targeted by another one of his executive orders. It’s not clear if Willkie was in Trump’s sights because of Emhoff’s presence or for other vindictive reasons.

Cory Booker Breaks Record For Longest Senate Stemwinder

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) finally yielded the Senate floor Tuesday evening, 25 hours and five minutes after he began his protest speech against the ravages of the Trump II presidency. In doing so, Booker surpassed the filibuster by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) of the 1957 Civil Rights Act for the longest Senate speech ever.

Musk’s Effort To Buy Wisconsin Supreme Court Falls Short

Liberal Judge Susan Crawford scored an easy victory over conservative Judge Brad Schimel in the high-profile Wisconsin Supreme Court race – the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history. The state’s high court will retain a liberal-leaning majority despite – or perhaps because of – the big spending and personal campaigning of Elon Musk.

GOP Holds Two House Seats

Two closely watched House races in Florida stayed in the Republican column, but by substantially narrower margins than Trump won those districts by in 2024:

• FL-01: Republican Jimmy Patronis won the seat held by former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) over Democrat Gay Valimont
• FL-06: State Sen. Randy Fine (R) prevailed over Democrat Josh Weil for the seat previously held by Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz.

Musk Revealed Criminal Probe At Campaign Rally

ABC News:

Tech billionaire and senior Trump adviser Elon Musk appeared to boast of advance knowledge of a planned arrest related to alleged Social Security fraud during an appearance on a live stream Monday night promoted to his more than 200 million social media followers, frustrating top law enforcement officials, multiple sources told ABC News.

The Purges

• HHS: Widespread purges across the varied agencies under the umbrella of HHS – including the CDC, FDA, and NIH – were implemented on Tuesday.
• NEH: DOGE is demanding cuts of as much as 70 to 80 percent of existing staff at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar of Maryland narrowed his order blocking the Trump administration from firing probationary employees. It now covers only 19 states and DC instead of applying nationwide.
• The Trump administration has issued a new “deferred resignation” offer to government workers at at least six federal agencies.

EXCLUSIVE

WaPo: “Members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and interviews with three U.S. officials.”

The Trump II Clown Show

Former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. ambassador to NATO in a 52-45 vote.

Makes My Head Explode

The Trump White House is preparing a report on the cost of administering Greenland as a U.S. territory, the WaPo reports.

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

Who Can Say, Really?

The Trump administration on Sunday sent another plane – this one with 17 alleged gang members – to a prison in El Salvador. The detainees were a mix Venezuelan and El Salvadoran citizens.

It raised the question of whether more deportation were being carried out under the Alien Enemies Act despite U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order temporarily blocking such deportations.

The administration eventually took the line yesterday that the deportations were not carried out under the Alien Enemies Act, according to the NYT: “The official said the deportees were removed under the executive branch’s traditional legal authority to enforce immigration laws against illegal entry, not the Alien Enemies Act.”

But the information about what legal authority the administration purported to rely on apparently didn’t make it to the State Department before this awkward display by spokesperson Tammy Bruce:

Unbelievable in a democracy. The Secretary of State boasts in a press statement that the United States has deported alleged TdA gang members to El Salvador. And the State Department spokesperson refuses to say under what authority and if Alien Enemies Act used.⬇️

[image or embed]

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw.bsky.social) March 31, 2025 at 2:49 PM

In other developments:

• In the Alien Enemies Act case in front of Judge Boasberg, the ACLU filed a sharp, well-written retort to the Trump administration’s invocation of the state secrets privilege.
• The ACLU has a deadline this morning to file its objection to the Supreme Court reviewing Boasberg’s order blocking Alien Enemies Act deportations.
• Judge Boasberg set a hearing for Thursday for the Trump administration to show cause that it didn’t violate his order blocking Alien Enemies Act deportations.

More About The Tattoos …

• NYT: U.S. Tied Migrants to Gang Based Largely on Clothes or Tattoos, Papers Show
• Popular Information: Trump claims a Michael Jordan tattoo is evidence of Venezuelan gang membership
• TPM: The Random Assortment Of Excuses ICE Used To Send Venezuelan Detainees To El Salvador Hellhole

IMPORTANT

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending a Biden-era program that gave legal status to some 600,000 Venezuelan migrants. Chen found that the administration had sweeping unfounded generalizations about Venezuelan migrants. “Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism,” Chen wrote.

Harvard Next In Trump’s Crosshairs

Invoking its bogus version of anti-antisemitism, the Trump administration took aim at Harvard University, saying it would review $9 billion in federal funding for school. The initial email response from university President Alan Garber was tepid, focusing on what the school has already done to combat antisemitism and vowing to learning from mistakes, with a single passing reference to academic freedom.

What Happened To Columbia’s Katrina Armstrong?

Columbia Law School professor David Pozen on the resignation of interim Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong: “It doesn’t take much political savvy or hermeneutical skill to draw one conclusion from this sequence of events, although no one thus far seems to have acknowledged the point outright: President Armstrong did not resign voluntarily; she was forced out because she was seen as insufficiently committed to a particular vision of how antisemitism ought to be combated on campus.”

Democratic Party Sues Over Trump’s Elections EO

The national Democratic Party and its campaigns and elections committees have sued in federal court in DC to block President Trump’s executive order on elections.

“Although the Order extensively reflects the President’s personal grievances, conspiratorial beliefs, and election denialism, nowhere does it (nor could it) identify any legal authority he possesses to impose such sweeping changes upon how Americans vote,” Democrats alleged in the complaint filed by attorney Marc Elias, a longtime Trump nemesis.

DOGE Watch

• WaPo: Elon Musk visits the CIA to discuss DOGE cuts.
• AP: A DOGE employee is put in charge of the US Institute of Peace
• Wired: “The DOGE-affiliated acting president of the United States Institute of Peace, a Congressionally funded, independent think tank, has moved to transfer the agency’s $500 million headquarters building to the General Services Administration free of charge, according to court documents revealed in a recently filed lawsuit.”

The Purges

• FDA: “Commissioner Marty Makary signed off on the ouster of top vaccine official Peter Marks shortly after being quietly sworn in as the agency’s new leader late last week,” Politico reports.
• HHS: Internal tensions within DOGE has delayed the layoffs of some 10,000 government workers.
• IMLS: The Trump administration gutted the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
• CIA: A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s firings of intelligence workers in DEI roles.

Making Life Easier For Fraudsters And Charlatans

Former HHS general counsel Samuel Bagenstos on RFK Jr.’s purported “reorganization” of the department:

The restructuring announced last week is part of Trump, Musk, and RFK’s sustained assault on HHS and public health generally–an assault that will ensure that people lead shorter lives, that their lives will be worse, and that they will be easier pray (sic) for fraudsters and charlatans selling products with bogus health claims.  The restructuring is yet another gratuitous insult to the hard-working HHS career staff who have been serving the people in extremely difficult conditions.  These are highly skilled people who have sacrificed enormously of time and money so they can serve the public in some of the most essential ways, in some of the most stressful conditions imaginable.  They deserve our thanks and praise, not mass firings.

The Trump II Clown Show

After kicking off his second term with the mass firings of inspectors general, President Trump is beginning to replace them with nominees like former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), who lost his re-election bid last year after the NYT reported that he had put both his fiancée’s daughter and a woman with whom he was having an affair on his congressional payroll.

A Last-Ditch Effort To Stop Ed Martin

A push is afoot to try to pressure the Senate Judiciary Committee into holding a confirmation hearing on Ed Martin’s nomination to be the U.S. attorney in DC, rather than send his nomination straight to the Senate floor for a vote, as usually happens for U.S. attorneys.

The Corruption: Trump Pardon Edition

President Trump quietly commuted the prison sentence of another former business associate of Hunter Biden’s who had turned into a witness against the Biden family. “Jason Galanis was sentenced in 2020 to 189 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $162 million in forfeiture and restitution after pleading guilty to his role in two securities fraud schemes,” the NYT reports.

Trump Admin Screws With Planned Parenthood Funding

Using anti-DEI and anti-immigration pretexts, the Trump administration has blocked tens of millions of dollars of federal funding to Planned Parenthood chapters.

Hegseth Targets Women In Combat

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has long opposed women serving in combat, took a major step toward limiting their access to such roles by ordering the elimination of lower physical fitness standards for women in combat units.

Cory Booker Talks All Night

As TPM’s Hunter Walker first reported, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) embarked on a marathon Senate floor speech overnight to draw attention to President Trump’s threat to American democracy.

From Across The Pond …

British journalist Ian Dunt:

We should all take a good hard look at what’s happening in the US. Not the noise or the clamour, but the bleak constitutional reality of it. This is what happens when you give up on the rule of law. A president who talks openly about going for a third term, who signs executive orders which contradict his country’s constitution, who got a rigged supreme court to grant him immunity, who ignores court orders, who has his underlings hand out massive million dollar cheques to people to induce them to vote, even though it is explicitly against state law. To watch the United States is to watch the law dissolve into authoritarian government.

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