A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
‘My Offer Is This: Nothing’
The Trump administration took the extraordinary step of invoking the state secrets privilege rather than answer a federal judge’s questions about whether it violated his order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
“The Executive Branch hereby notifies the Court that no further information will be provided in response to the Court’s March 18, 2025 Minute Order based on the state secrets privilege,” the administration asserted in a bumptious filing over the names of top DOJ officials.
Although it is a weak and probably not viable privilege claim, the state secrets invocation escalates President Trump’s series of attacks on the judicial branch and its independent sources of power under the Constitution. It did so with unusually sharp language that showcased a sneering contempt for the judiciary in refusing to even provide the allegedly privileged information to a judge for his review.
“The Court has all of the facts it needs” the administration argued as it objected to “[f]urther intrusions on the Executive Branch.” It asserted that it would no longer entertain “further demands for details that have no place in this matter.” It contended that the court “owes President Trump ‘high respect’ … but to this point has not” given it to him. The administration repeatedly stated that “there is no need for the requested disclosures” without engaging in actual argument.
Judge Boasberg, a former FISA court judge with deep experience in national security law, had already expressed skepticism in open court about the applicability of the state secrets privilege in this case. But the Trump DOJ forged ahead with a distinctly derisive tone:
“The information sought by the Court is irrelevant to plaintiffs’ claims and to the Executive Branch’s compliance with the Court’s operative order. The Court has already devoted more time to these inquiries than it did to evidence and argument on the issue of whether a class should be certified.”
At issue is whether the Trump administration complied with Boasberg’s order to stop deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, including flights of Venezuelan nationals alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang from Texas to a prison in El Salvador. For more than a week, the Justice Department has dodged Boasberg’s demands for more information on the timing of the flights as he seeks to determine whether his order was violated.
“The need for additional information here is not merely ‘dubious,’ or ‘trivial,’ it is non-existent. The Executive Branch violated no valid order through its actions, and the Court has all it needs to evaluate compliance. Accordingly, the Court’s factual inquiry should end,” the Justice Department concluded.
The invocation of the state secrets privilege came at the end of a long day in the case that began with Boasberg issuing an opinion detailing the legal basis for his temporary restraining order barring the Alien Enemies Act deportations and included feisty oral arguments on the TRO before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
Must Read
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
‘Houthi PC Small Group’ Makes Headlines
- Politico: ‘Amateur hour’: Washington aghast at Trump administration’s war plan group chat
- WSJ: Top Trump Officials Debated War Plans on Unclassified Chat Shared With Journalist
- WaPo: Trump officials shared war planning in unclassified chat with journalist
- The Guardian: White House inadvertently texted top-secret Yemen war plans to journalist
- NYT: Hegseth Disclosed Secret War Plans in a Group Chat
A Denial For The Ages
"Nobody was texting war plans" — Pete Hegseth
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 24, 2025 at 7:15 PM
New Backstory On Student Deportations?
The WaPo has a new story out suggesting a possible precursor to the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestinian international students at American universities. Back in February when the Trump Education Department launched its ‘antisemitism’ investigations at universities, it “told the attorneys working on the cases to also collect the names and nationalities of students who might have harassed Jewish students or faculty,” the newspaper reports.
Meanwhile, a Columbia University student and a Cornell University student are trying to evade being detained while they each sue the Trump administration to block their possible deportations, claiming they’re being retaliated against for participating in pro-Palestinian protests.
The Retribution: Hill Republicans Take Trump’s Cue
While Senate Republicans are blacklisting the lobbying clients of the law firms targeted by the President Trump’s executive orders, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan is considering punishing the judicial branch by cutting its funding.
No Law But Trump
“Mr. Trump’s tactics against Big Law and other legal institutions seem clearly aimed at demonstrating there is no law but whatever deal the president is personally willing to strike, indeed no law but Trump. Such a vision cannot be reconciled with the idea of individual rights nor with the idea that ordered rules, not raw power, constrain the behavior of the people and their governors alike.”–Deborah Pearlstein, visiting professor of law and public affairs at Princeton and the director of its Program in Law and Public Policy
The Imperative Of Solidarity
“Each time Trump succeeds in subordinating his target, his power ricochets far beyond the particular organization in question, affecting the risk-taking calculus of those who fear they might be added to his list. Acting in isolation, it is hard for a single news outlet, firm, or university to withstand an attack backed by the power of the state. Collectively, though, their extraordinary human, political, and financial resources are a force to be reckoned with. Trump currently seems to understand this better than they do.”–Rebecca Hamilton, an executive editor of Just Security and professor of law at American University Washington College of Law
The Destruction: Social Security
- WaPo: Long waits, waves of calls, web crashes: Social Security is breaking down
- Axios: Social Security rushing service cuts at White House request, sources say
- The NYT has this unbelievable anecdote:
In another instance, the Social Security Administration briefly ended a contract that had allowed parents of newborn babies in Maine to sign their children up for a Social Security number at the hospital, instead requiring them to do so in person at an office. Mr. Dudek said he had ordered the move after watching Janet Mills, Maine’s Democratic governor, clash with Mr. Trump at the White House. He quickly reversed that decision, as well as another to end electronic death reporting in the state.
“I was ticked at the governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the president,” Mr. Dudek said in the interview. “I screwed up. I’ll admit I screwed up.”
The Corruption
- Personnel: President Trump announced he’s making Alina Habba, who was sanctioned and reprimanded while representing him personally, the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey. She will replace John Giordano, who had been in the role for a mere three weeks and is being nominated for ambassador to Namibia.
- Favors: Boeing wants the Trump DOJ to let it out of its Biden-era agreement to plead guilty plea in the 737 MAX case, the WSJ reports. The deal with the Biden DOJ was sabotaged in December by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of Texas who balked at a DEI provision in the agreement that applied to the court appointment of an outside monitor. In short: A notorious right-wing judge blocked a plea deal over DEI late in Biden’s term, which kicked the can down the road until a much-more malleable Trump DOJ was in office and now Boeing is trying to back out of its agreement to plead guilty.
- Leverage: The Trump administration is using its anti-DEI executive order as a sword to go after federal contractors who previously submitted government-required anti-discrimination plans. “What’s unusual is that the office will look for evidence of unlawful practices in the plans that contractors had been required to submit before Trump took office to demonstrate they didn’t discriminate in their hiring and promotions,” the WSJ reports.
Good Read
NYT: In His Second Term, Trump Fuels a ‘Machinery’ of Misinformation
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