A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
The Day The Federal Courts Stood Tall
The showdown between President Trump and the federal judiciary came to a head Tuesday in a more dramatic and direct way that Morning Memo had anticipated.
With Trump dangerously but also absurdly calling for the impeachment of the federal judge who ruled against him in the Alien Enemies Act case, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stirred from his torpor long enough to issue a rare rebuke of the president, though not by name (as Trump himself pointed out). Roberts’ decision to come to the defense of district judges who have been on the front lines of this constitutional battle keeps them from being marooned on an island while their decisions wind their way up through the lengthy appeals process.
“The Chief Justice’s statement now renders the Trump confrontation one with the entire federal judiciary, and not just the lower federal courts,” Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith observed.
What followed over the course of the day was a series of significant court rulings against the Trump administration. While the compressed timing of the rulings was mostly coincidental, the thrust of the decisions all pointed in the same direction: Two months into his second term, President Trump has wildly exceeded his constitutional authority on numerous fronts.
I wish I could say that the combination of the chief justice’s rebuke and the multiple legal setbacks suggests that the federal judiciary is girding for a fight over the rule of law and its own constitutional powers. I hope that’s the case. I want that to be the case. But we need to see appeals courts and the high court itself weighing in on the substance of these cases in the weeks and months to come before we can assess whether the judicial branch will hold the line. There’s no doubt that Trump is itching to coopt the judiciary.
It bears repeating that the courts alone can’t save us from autocracy. But losing the courts entirely would be a devastating blow that would make additional areas of American public and private life vulnerable to Trump’s rampage and would add immeasurably to the future workload of rebuilding what Trump has broken.
For one day, though, the judicial branch stood tall.
Trump Suffers Big Setbacks In Court
In a series of major court decisions, President Trump was rebuffed on some of the biggest early initiatives of his second term:
USAID: U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of Maryland rendered the most sweeping decision yet in reeling in Elon Musk and his DOGE outfit. The dismantling of USAID likely violated the Constitution in two critical ways that have bearing on numerous other cases, as Politico notes:
The effort was likely illegal for two reasons, the judge wrote. First, it appeared to violate the Constitution’s “appointments clause,” which says that government officials wielding significant power must be appointed by the president — and confirmed by the Senate — to offices established by Congress. Musk has not gone through that process. Second, the judge wrote, DOGE’s bid to effectively eliminate USAID appeared to violate laws passed by Congress that dictate the agency’s functions.
One additional note via the WaPo: The order only applies to Musk and DOGE — not to USAID officials themselves, who were not party to the case.
Trans in military: U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes of Washington, D.C., blocked the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people serving in the military, in a blistering ruling that held:
The Military Ban is soaked in animus and dripping with pretext. Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.
EPA: U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of Washington, D.C., blocked at least temporarily the Trump administration’s effort to claw back $20 billion in Biden-era grants. Remember this was part of an effort that led to the forced resignation of veteran federal prosecutor Denise Cheung, who was forced out by Acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin when she refused to play ball in using criminal process to go after the funds.
DEI: U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin of Maryland ruled that the Department of Education acted arbitrarily and illegally when it terminated grants as part of the Trump administration’s purge of DEI programs. She ordered the grants restored.
Trump DOJ Makes Concession In Alien Enemies Act Case
In the closely watched Alien Enemies Act case, the Trump Justice Department grudgingly conceded that it could not refuse to answer a federal judge’s questions about last weekend’s deportation flights carrying Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador.
While the Trump DOJ is still kicking and screaming about its dubious contention that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is engaging in judicial interference with the President’s conduct of foreign affairs, it said that if forced to it could provide answers to his questions in camera and ex parte, meaning only to the judge in private and without providing them to the other side.
Boasberg took the opening to order the government to provide him with answers to his questions by noon ET today. Stay tuned …
BREAKING …
U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman of Manhattan split the baby in a ruling just out this morning, declining to dismiss detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s case against the Trump administration but transferring it to federal court in New Jersey, where Khalil was being held when the case was filed – not Louisiana, where he is now held and where the Trump administration argued the case should have been filed.
Quote Of The Day
“To assert, against the plain text of the Constitution, the power to seize appropriations and destroy the work of the legislature is to break a core premise of constitutionalism. It is anti-constitutional.”–Jamelle Bouie
Not Ready For Primetime
WATCH: Schumer says "our democracy will be at stake" if Trump disobeys the Supreme Court—but "we're not there yet."
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris.bsky.social) March 18, 2025 at 9:16 PM
[image or embed]
IMPORTANT
NYT: “Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come.”
Another Dangerous Line Crossed
An important new story from the WaPo that contains allegations the Trump administration used threats of criminal prosecution and of cancelled contracts to force compliance with its takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which began Friday and concluded Monday:
- The security contractor for USIP was allegedly threatened by DOGE that it would lose all of its government contracts if it didn’t allow DOGE into the USIP building.
- Two FBI agents showed up at the home of a USIP employee on Sunday asking about USIP’s contract with its security contractor.
- USIP’s security chief received a call from an FBI agent asking him to come in for questioning because he was a subject of a criminal investigation, apparently over the effort to keep DOGE from entering USIP on Friday.
- USIP’s outside counsel was told in a call from Jonathan Hornok, head of the criminal division of the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s, that USIP was under criminal investigation. (Hornok replaced Cheung, referenced in the EPA item above.)
The alleged lashing of criminal process to DOGE’s rampage has not been this clear or concrete – at least not publicly – until now.
DOGE Watch
- Amy Gleason, the person the White House has been unconvincingly telling courts is leading DOGE, has been working at HHS, it was revealed in a court filing the Trump administration tried to keep secret, Politico reports.
- DOGE’s rampage at GSA may have “immediate” and “long-term” effects on the operations of the federal courts, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts warned in a letter obtained by TPM.
- DOGE reverses a move that had made its claims about cost savings nearly impossible to check, the NYT reports.
An Illuminating Hypothetical
The Trump DOJ asserted that the President’s removal power is so all-encompassing that he could fire all female agency heads or those over 40 years old, without recourse. The assertion came in oral arguments at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in a consolidated case on the without-cause firings of members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.
The Purges
- FTC: In his ongoing attack on the independence of independent agencies, President Trump purported to unilaterally fire two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission without cause in violation of statutory protections.
- IRS: Emails obtained by ProPublica reveal a top IRS lawyer warning that language about poor performance in the agency’s purge letters was “a false statement” that amounted to “fraud.”
- Gov’t-wide: “The Trump administration’s placement of thousands of federal workers on administrative leave drew mixed reactions this week from judges who had ordered those employees back in their jobs after they were initially fired,” Bloomberg reports.
The Retribution
- Investigate the investigators: House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) is demanding the testimony of former and current career DOJ prosecutors who were involved in cases that the political right has turned into bugaboos. The list of Jordan targets includes J.P. Cooney and Thomas Windom, who worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team. Jordan also wants to haul Hunter Biden Special Counsel David Weiss back in for additional testimony.
- To the victor, the spoils: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced he is promoting two IRS agents – who became darlings of the political right when they claimed the agency was slow-rolling its investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes – to help “drive much-needed cultural reform within the I.R.S.”
- Fear and loathing in Big Law: Major law firms are struggling to respond to Trump’s attacks.
TPM Exclusive
TPM’s Josh Kovensky: Pentagon Removes Webpages Celebrating Racial Integration of the Armed Forces
Stranded Astronauts Return To Earth
American astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, whose eight-day mission turned into an unexpected nine-month excursion when they were stranded at the International Space Station, splashed down successfully in the Gulf of Mexico:
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