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

The Corruption: The Guardrails Are Gone

Attorney General Pam Bondi has eviscerated the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, NBC News reports, in another sign that rampant unrestrained public corruption will be a defining feature of the Trump era.

We didn’t get here overnight. A social, political, and legal transformation over the past decade has removed many of the most important guardrails to contain public corruption. The 2016 Supreme Court decision in McDonnell v. United States was the most overt early sign that democracy’s endemic but manageable corruption was going to be allowed to run free.

The implications of that and similar subsequent decisions are hard to isolate from the wholesale corruption that Donald Trump brought to the table beginning that same year. But the rank corruption of his first term pales next to the structural changes he’s already wrought less than two months into his second term.

The Trump White House’s takeover of the Justice Department writ large is the greatest boon to public corruption, but there have been a series of particularly egregious actions – like Trump’s executive order crapping all over the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – that have cleared the way for more wrongdoing and less accountability for wrongdoers.

Bondi’s decision to strip the Public Integrity Section bare leaves Main Justice’s experienced career prosecutors on the sidelines in public corruption cases, shifts the onus to bring (and not to bring) such cases to more politically malleable U.S. attorneys, and weakens the mechanism for ensuring nationwide consistency across investigations and cases.

Unrestrained public corruption creates its own perverse political culture. It feeds into cynicism and nihilism about government that in turn is exploited by figures like Trump to justify further weakening and undermining the rule of law. It’s a death spiral and we’re now firmly in the grips of it.

Ed Martin Threatens Another Dem In Congress

Acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin now appears to be harassing people involved in the first impeachment of Donald Trump, sending one of his inappropriate letters of inquiry to Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA), the twin brother of former Trump national security aide Alex Vindman.

Martin purports to be seeking information about a company the brothers founded to help arm Ukraine against Russia and about the congressman’s personal financial disclosures, the WaPo reports.

Perkins Coie Sues Over Trump Executive Order

In a full-throated defense of itself and the legal profession, Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., to block President Trump’s executive order targeting it and its clients.

Appeals Court Judges Warn Of Threats To The Judiciary

Two GOP-appointees to the federal appeals court warned publicly of the increasing threats to judges not just as a safety concern but as an attack on judicial independence.

Judge Takes Up Mahmoud Khalil Case Today

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman of Manhattan will hold a hearing this morning on the Trump administration’s detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal resident of the United States.

The first order of business will likely be whether Furman has jurisdiction over the case or whether the government spirited Khalil to Louisiana fast enough to avoid jurisdiction in the Southern District of New York.

The case has roiled Columbia University but has national implications for free speech, the rule of law, and the legal protections afforded green card holders.

Judge To Trump: What About The Appointments Clause?

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of Washington, D.C., declined to block the Trump White House’s takeover of the U.S. African Development Foundation – but he zeroed in on the most concerning aspect of the episode: Whether President Trump can bypass the Senate in appointing a new board for the foundation after he fired the old one.

“Where is the president’s authority to appoint without Senate confirmation?” Leon asked during Tuesday’s hearing. “How is that possible?”

Leon quickly issued a ruling in the case denying a temporary restraining order but putting the government on notice he would expect testimony from the DOGE representatives dispatched to take over the foundation and strip it bare.

Document Destruction At USAID Paused For Now

A highly unusual email to remaining USAID workers with instructions to shred and burn classified materials and personnel records set off a scramble Tuesday to try to stop the destruction of documents.

Lawyers involved in some the pre-existing USAID lawsuits raced to obtain court orders to halt the shredding and burning of the documents, with a particular focus on those that would be relevant to the ongoing litigation over the purging of workers and the dismantling of the agency.

By the end of the day, the Trump administration had agreed to stop any further destruction of documents at USAID headquarters without first notifying opposing counsel and giving them a chance to take the matter before a judge. The administration denied it had destroyed any personnel records and said it would provide later today a sworn accounting of what exactly happened.

Sanctions Time

Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell is willing to endure promised sanctions by a federal judge in San Francisco rather than comply with a court order to provide testimony about the Trump administration’s purges of the federal workforce.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup had ruled Monday that Ezell couldn’t have his cake and eat it too by submitting a sworn declaration but declining to be cross-examined about it. “[T]he Trump administration Tuesday evening informed the court Ezell would not testify and withdrew his written declaration suggesting he did not order the probationary firings across government,” Government Executive reports.

Musk Watch

• NYT: “Elon Musk has signaled to President Trump’s advisers in recent days that he wants to put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.”
• Wired: “Sources also tell WIRED that Musk has wanted a government shutdown—an aim that runs contrary to the White House’s stated desire to avoid one—in part because it would potentially make it easier to eliminate the jobs of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, essentially achieving a permanent shutdown.”
• NBC News: “President Donald Trump turned the South Lawn of the White House into a temporary Tesla showroom Tuesday in a conspicuous favor to his adviser Elon Musk, the car company’s billionaire CEO.”

The Purges

• DoE: The Trump administration is purging the Department of Education of half of its staff
• NASA: The space agency has begun purging scientists ahead of a Trump administration deadline.
• NOAA: The Trump administration began cutting the chronically understaffed NOAA workforce by 10%, or more than 1,000 people.
• HHS: The Trump Administration is shuttering a half dozen regional legal offices at HHS that target fraud.
• EPA: The EPA plans to close all of its environmental justice offices, according to an internal memo obtained by the NYT.

The Destruction

• “The whole system of finding, diagnosing and treating tuberculosis — which kills more people worldwide than any other infectious disease — has collapsed in dozens of countries across Africa and Asia” since President Trump froze foreign aid, the NYT reports.
• Johns Hopkins University is planning layoffs after the Trump administration cancelled $800 million in grants to the school, mostly through USAID, the WSJ reports.
• The Trump administration is considering cancelling the government’s lease of the main support office for the Mauna Loa Observatory, which maintains the longest continuous record of measurements of atmospheric CO2 and contributed the data for the Keeling Curve, Reuters reports. 
• The Trump administration has slashed the GSA division in charge of preserving and maintaining some 26,000 pieces of public art, the WaPo reports.

CDC Nominee Trafficking In Anti-Vax Disinformation

Dave Weldon, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the CDC, was still pushing the debunked link between vaccines and autism as recently as last month in a meeting with Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), she told Bloomberg.

Quote Of The Day

“Johns Hopkins has bet very heavily on a century and a quarter of partnership with the federal government. If the federal government decides it doesn’t want to know things anymore, that would be bad for Johns Hopkins and devastating for Maryland.”–Dr. Theodore Iwashyna, a critical-care physician at Johns Hopkins University

House-Passed CR Heads To The Senate

With a Friday deadline to fund the government, the GOP-controlled House passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. Attention now turns to the Senate, where Democrats are divided over whether to filibuster the CR and shut down the government to try to extract some concessions from the Trump White House.

The Scale Of The Trump Carnage Is Staggering

I find it useful to use longtime foreign policy and national security reporters whose voices are familiar as a gauge for how far and fast things are eroding:

• David Sanger:

In a span of only 50 days, President Trump has done more than any of his modern predecessors to hollow out the foundations of an international system that the United States painstakingly erected in the 80 years since it emerged victorious from World War II. …

But perhaps the more remarkable thing is that Mr. Trump is eroding the old order without ever describing the system he envisions replacing it with. His actions suggest he is most comfortable in the 19th-century world of great-power politics, where he, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China, negotiate among themselves, and let lesser powers fall in line.

• David Ignatius:

Here’s the big question: As Trump takes the wrecking ball to the old version of American foreign policy, what does he intend to construct in its place? His career shows little evidence of strategic thinking. He has been a disrupter and dealmaker rather than a builder. His first term was marked by constant changes in personnel and policies, with few enduring achievements. …

Trump seems to envision a new balance of power with three poles: the United States plus Russia and China, whose leaders he sees as kindred spirits. The rest of the world, including the United States’ oldest allies, must fend for itself.

Neo-Manifest Destiny: Go North, Young Man

President Trump’s saber-rattling, bullying, expansionist rhetoric toward Canada might offer a glimpse of the ultimate destination for the runaway MAGA train: a neocolonial world with geographic spheres dominated by the United States, China, and Russia.

But, as sobering as that prospect is, it comes with an insane level of stupidity and ignorance, not the least of which is a 21st century president cosplaying as William McKinley, the last president of the 19th century who oversaw American expansionism abroad at the height of the last Gilded Age:

Trump: "When you take away that artificial line that looks like it was done by a ruler … you look at that beautiful formation of Canada and the US, there is no place anywhere in the world that looks like that. And then if you add Greenland, that's pretty good."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 11, 2025 at 4:06 PM

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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.

Another Lethal Weapon Sequel

We knew that the U.S. pardon attorney was fired by the Trump Justice Department on Friday in a new purge of senior attorneys. Now we know why.

In a interview with the NYT, Elizabeth G. Oyer says she was terminated hours after she refused to go along with a rushed, last-minute attempt to put actor Mel Gibson on a list of people who would have their gun rights restored.

Gibson cannot legally carry a firearm after a 2011 domestic violence misdemeanor conviction.

Oyer describes a careful deliberative process to come up with a list of people whose gun rights could be safely restored then her growing dismay as that process was circumvented to try to add Gibson, who had not been vetted.

Oyer said she came under increasing pressure to sign off on Gibson, culminating in a call from a senior official in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche: “He then essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with President Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation and that I would be wise to make the recommendation,” she said.

Oyer still declined to endorse adding Gibson to the list.

The entire episode took place over two days: The list was submitted Thursday and later that day the pressure began on Oyer to add Gibson to it. She resisted. Blanche fired her Friday. DOJ told the NYT that the Gibson incident played no role in Oyer’s firing.

The rule of law has eroded to the barest standard: “a personal relationship with President Trump.”

What’s Ed Martin Up To Now?

A quick update that I had missed from the weekend: Politico reports that acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin has apparently gotten some traction in his corrupt effort to use criminal process to claw back some $20 billion in Biden EPA funds.

You’ll recall that a senior prosecutor in Martin’s office resigned rather than go along with his gambit, and a federal magistrate rejected Martin’s search warrant application.

Martin has now sent letters to two groups that were receiving the EPA funds before they were frozen by Citibank and directed them to provide documents to the FBI. “The groups also received a summons to provide testimony in federal court later this month, the two people said,” according to Politico.

That suggests, though the way it is written remains a bit opaque, that Martin has empaneled a grand jury to pursue the matter.

Perkins Coie Fights Back

NYT: “Perkins Coie, the law firm that President Trump targeted for punishment with an executive order last week for its role representing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, has hired an elite Washington firm, Williams & Connolly, to fight the order, according to four people briefed on the matter.”

Federal Judge Halts Deportation Of Mahmoud Khalil

The Trump administration’s detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil not because he broke any laws – at least not that’s been yet alleged – but because they disagree with his politics marks a seismic shift in American political life.

In a rapid series of events over the weekend and into Monday:

• Khalil was detained in NYC and the quickly transferred to a detention center in a remote area of Louisiana.
• Khalil’s lawyers alleged that they filed for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court in Manhattan before Khalil was transferred to Louisiana, meaning jurisdiction should remain in New York. They are clearly trying to avoid having the case heard in Louisiana, which is in the Fifth Circuit, the most conservative circuit in the country.
• U.S. District Jesse Furman of Manhattan ordered that Khalil not be deported and set a hearing in the case for Wednesday.

The Trump administration confirmed that Khalil was in custody but did not provide a coherent legal basis for his detention. On social media, President Trump celebrated Khalil’s detention and smeared him as “pro-Hamas” and “terrorist sympathizer.” “This is the first arrest of many to come,” the President promised.

For more context and analysis:

• Steve Vladeck: “To spoil the punchline, although what the government has done to this point is profoundly disturbing, and is, in my view, unconstitutional retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech, I’m not sure it is as clearly unlawful as a lot of folks online have suggested. And that’s a pretty big problem all by itself.”
• Michelle Goldberg: “If someone legally in the United States can be grabbed from his home for engaging in constitutionally protected political activity, we are in a drastically different country from the one we inhabited before Trump’s inauguration.”
• John Ganz: “Here’s the most important thing about this whole affair: The state cannot make it up as it goes along. It can’t seize people in the night and invent flimsy pretexts later. And if it does, then we no longer live under the rule of law, we live under a police state. And don’t kid yourself: They will not stop at non-citizens.”

Trump’s Attack On The University

We often talk about the authoritarian playbook to weaken and co-opt other power centers in a civil society – the press, the university, professional experts, religious entities. The combination of the bogus attacks on universities as nothing but wellsprings of antisemitism plus the anti-DEI crusade on campus plus the attacks on science and research funding add up to a multi-front assault on higher ed:

• The Trump administration warned 60 universities that they could face penalties from pending “investigations” into “antisemitism” on campus.
• State Department funding freeze strands Fulbright and study-abroad scholars.
• Harvard and Penn joined a number of other universities, including Notre Dame, Vermont, Emory, and Pitt, in instituting hiring freezes amidst the funding uncertainty created by the Trump administration.

Judge Rules USAID Spending Freeze Was ‘Unlawful’

In a blistering opinion that generously cited Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali ruled that the Trump administration had likely violated the separation of powers by unilaterally cutting off USAID spending:

Congress, exercising its exclusive Article I power of the purse, appropriates funds to be spent toward specific foreign policy aims. The President, exercising a more general Article II power, decides how to spend those funds in faithful execution of the law. And so foreign aid has proceeded over the years

This case involves a departure from that firmly established constitutional partnership. Here, the Executive has unilaterally deemed that funds Congress appropriated for foreign aid will not be spent. The Executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place. In advancing this position, Defendants offer an unbridled view of Executive power that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected …

The Supreme Court last week declined to intervene in the case, but it is likely to wind up back at the high court in relatively short order. Anticipating that, Ali larded his opinion with citations to opinions by sitting justices that support his ruling.

Elon Musk Watch

• Musk went on national TV with false and baseless claims about widespread fraud in Social Security and Medicare while calling the programs key targets for spending cuts.
• Musk assigned three private equity veterans – Antonio Gracias, Scott Coulter, and Michael Russo – to the DOGE team rampaging through the Social Security Administration.
• U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of Washington, D.C., ruled that Elon Musk’s DOGE is likely subject to FOIA and must preserve and produce documents to a watchdog group.

Federal Judge Orders Testimony Of OPM Acting Director

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco has overruled the government’s objection and ordered the testimony of acting OPM Director Charles Ezell in a case brought by labor unions challenging OPM’s mass layoffs of probationary workers. Ezell was a low-level OPM bureaucrat before being plucked from obscurity for the acting director role.

RFK Jr. Lets His Freak Flag Fly In Midst Of Measles Outbreak

• NYT: Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet and Health, Citing Fringe Theories
• NPR: RFK Jr. says most vaccine advisers have conflicts of interest. A report shows they don’t
• WaPo: NIH will cancel or cut back dozens of grants for research on why some people are reluctant to be vaccinated and how to increase acceptance of vaccines, according to an internal email obtained by the WaPo.

SCOTUS Takes Conversion Therapy Case

In an ominous sign, the Supreme Court is taking up a case challenging a Colorado law banning conversion therapy after it previously sidestepped a series of similar cases.

Ruth Marcus Resigns From Bezos’ WaPo

Longtime WaPo columnist Ruth Marcus resigned after CEO Will Lewis spiked a column she wrote critical of owner Jeff Bezos’ new direction for the newspaper’s opinion section. Marcus had been with the WaPo for more than 40 years.

RIP Kevin Drum

Kevin Drum, one of the OG political bloggers, has died at the age of 66 after a long illness. TPM’s Josh Marshall offers his remembrance of Kevin.

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