A Note on Our Membership Drive, Which Kicks Off Next Week

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I had been planning, today or tomorrow, to write a post giving everyone a heads up that next week we kick off our annual TPM membership drive. I like to do that because when the drives coincide with major news events, or even public crises, I want to remind people that these are fixed annual events, a key part of our business model, etc. We’re not dropping one in just because it’s a period of high news interest. But my thinking about this changed a bit when I saw the news this morning that Jeff Bezos appears to be taking direct control of the paper’s opinion pages, saying they will now focus on promoting “personal liberties” and “free markets,” and will not publish contrary opinions. As I’ve noted before, the editorial page is literally where the paper itself speaks. It speaks for the ownership. Owners bringing those voices into line with their personal beliefs isn’t a crazy thing — entirely different from putting a thumb on the direction and integrity of news reporting.

I took a moment to think what “personal liberties” meant. If the line were “democracy and free markets” or “the rule of law and free markets” or even “freedom and free markets,” that reads quite different. In context, it’s pretty clear the meaning of this is a hard right/libertarian kind of politics. Bezos is the owner. He calls the shots. But if we are now moving into a world and a politics of the oligarchs vs. the people, it’s pretty clear that the Washington Post as an institution is firmly attached to Team Oligarch.

Which brings us back to our drive, kicking off next week. We’re in a new era. We’re not new. But the ways we differ from other news organization are much more consequential now than they have been at really any other point in our history. So when we kick off this year’s drive, please keep that in mind. Please consider subscribing if you don’t already. Consider suggesting it to your friends.

BIG: Federal Board Agrees With OSC Order to Halt Firings

Posted on by Josh Marshall

We mentioned on Monday that the Office of Special Counsel had found that six federal civil servants from six separate agencies had been unlawfully terminated from their positions. Now the Merit Systems Protection Board has granted the request to halt those terminations. Needless to say, this all sounds very technical and bureaucratic, and it’s not at all clear just what it means. I’m kind of there too. I think the best way to put it is that there are agencies within the federal government charged with deciding what kinds of dismissals are and are not okay. The OSC is a sort of finder of fact. It decided these terminations were unlawful. Then it brings it to this board and ask them to reinstate these people. That’s what just happened.

Continue reading “BIG: Federal Board Agrees With OSC Order to Halt Firings” →

Imperious Trump Retaliates Against Jack Smith’s Lawyers

Posted on by David Kurtz

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

Authoritarian Watch

In an alarming new executive order, President Trump ordered the security clearances revoked for the lawyers at the prominent Covington & Burling law firm who are representing former Special Counsel Jack Smith – the Trump prosecutor who needs legal representation precisely to defend himself from Trump’s promised attacks.

Trump also ordered all federal government contracts with Covington & Burling ended, though it doesn’t appear to currently have any such contracts.

Covington & Burling has been providing pro bono legal services to Smith since last fall, presumably around the time it became apparent that Trump would retake the White House and have the chance to exact the retribution he has promised.

The language of the executive order is a little fuzzy on whether the security clearances are to be revoked immediately (my emphasis):

I hereby direct the Attorney General and all other relevant heads of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to immediately take steps consistent with applicable law to suspend any active security clearances held by Peter Koski and all members, partners, and employees of Covington & Burling LLP who assisted former Special Counsel Jack Smith during his time as Special Counsel, pending a review and determination of their roles and responsibilities, if any, in the weaponization of the judicial process.

What that review looks like, who conducts it, whether it’s one of the tasks of the “Weaponization Working Group” that Attorney General Pam Bondi has convened all remain unclear.

What is clear is that Trump’s retribution against those who have crossed him includes trying to deprive them of the means and tools to defend themselves against his attacks. He wants their arms pinned behind them so he can swing freely with no repercussions for him or his abusive conduct.

Trump Loss #1: Judge Orders USAID Payments Unfrozen

In a big development, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali of Washington, D.C., gave the Trump administration until 11:59 p.m. ET today to resume hundreds of million of dollars in USAID payments that had remained frozen despite his earlier order. The Trump administration immediately appealed the ruling.

Quote Of The Day

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali: “I don’t know why I can’t get a straight answer from you. Are you aware of an unfreezing of the disbursement of funds for those contracts and agreements that were frozen before Feb. 13?”

DOJ lawyer: “I’m not in a position to answer that.”

–a frustrated judge during a telephone hearing over whether the Trump administration has been ignoring his order to unfreeze foreign aid

Trump Loss #2: Judge Blocks OMB Spending Freeze

U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan converted her temporary restraining order into an appealable preliminary injunction extending her block of the OMB’s purported spending freeze. In a strongly worded opinion, the judge declined to give the Trump administration  “a presumption of good faith,” citing that notorious tweet from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claiming that the administration hadn’t really rescinded the spending freeze after it told the judge that it had.

Trump Loss #3: Judge Accuses Trump Of ‘Nullification’

U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead of Seattle blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order pausing refugee admissions, saying that while the president has substantial discretion in this area, Trump’s directive appeared to amount to a “nullification” of federal law.

The World’s Richest Authoritarian

With three judges issuing important rulings yesterday (see above) blocking key elements of President Trump’s opening salvo of executive orders and spending freezes, Elon Musk went on a rampage against the federal judiciary:

IMPORTANT

The Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office of Special Counsel are making a genuine effort to perform their roles despite the attack on them by President Trump:

Some federal employees fired by the Trump administration while in their probationary periods have at least temporarily won back their jobs, a federal board that hears appeals from civil servants has ruled. 

The Merit Systems Protection Board has granted a 45-day stay requested by another independent agency, the Office of Special Counsel, which had deemed the Trump administration’s mass firings as likely unlawful. The case involved six federal workers, each at different agencies, who must now be placed back into their positions. 

The Purges

  • VA: The Department of Veterans Affairs dismissed more than 1,400 additional probationary employees on Monday evening.
  • NYT: Why ‘Probationary’ Employees Are a Target in Federal Job Cuts
  • SSA: TPM’s Josh Marshall: Trump’s acting administrator of the Social Security Administration has abolished its Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Division and put all of its employees on leave.
  • The next wave of the purge is underway, with the Trump administration explicitly calling them layoffs, which triggers certain protections and protocols for workers.

DOGE Watch: Mystery Only Kinda Solved

After days of refusing to answer the question and leaving DOJ lawyers twisting in the wind, the White House finally identified the current administrator of DOGE, a seemingly hapless low-level government employee reported to be on vacation in Mexico this week.

What remains unanswered is when Amy Gleason became the DOGE administrator and who, if anyone, served in that role before her:

Reporter: When exactly did Amy Gleason start her job as DOGE administrator? WH Press Secretary: “Amy Gleason has been the DOGE administrator for quite some time, I believe several weeks, maybe a month, I’m not actually sure of the specific timeline…”

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— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) February 26, 2025 at 9:34 AM

I’m not saying it’s an elaborate ruse to disguise that (as President Trump has repeatedly said but which his administration has denied to courts) Elon Musk was running DOGE, but I’m also not not saying that.

In other DOGE developments:

  • NYT: DOGE Quietly Deletes the 5 Biggest Spending Cuts It Celebrated Last Week
  • More than 20 employees of the legit forerunner of DOGE jointly resigned rather than participate in Elon Musk’s effort to “dismantle critical public services.”

Unfettered Corruption

WSJ: The Trump Staffers Who Get Paid by Private Clients

House GOP Barely Gets Its Act Together

A crazy sequence of events last night in the House as Speaker Mike Johnson sent everyone packing for the night after he failed to muster enough votes to bring his big budget resolution to a vote – then quickly reversed himself after picking up the needed votes and summoning everyone back. It passed on a narrow 217-215 party line vote, and means Republicans have managed to get their skinny-no-tax-cuts version through the Senate and the mammoth tax-cuts-included version through the House. Now the real work begins to square the many circles they are still juggling, including massive cuts to Medicaid. Meanwhile, in related news, the clock is still ticking to fund the government past March 14.

House GOP Hightails It For The Hills

House GOP leaders are reportedly urging their members to stop holding town halls in light of the blowback some of them have been getting back home.

White House Will Pick White House Press Pool

The White House announced that it will now decide which reporters serve in the press pool:

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announces that the White House Correspondents' Association will no longer choose the pool reporter. "Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team."

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— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) February 25, 2025 at 1:28 PM

The move was an apparent response to comments from a federal judge Monday in the Associated Press’ lawsuit against the Trump White House for retaliating against its failures to use “Gulf of America” in its new stories by denying it access to the president.

Let’s Check In On Trump’s DOJ …

  • TPM’s Josh Kovensky: The Trump DOJ has hired as a senior adviser in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General a former Oregon state judge who was once suspended.
  • TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: New FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has long pushed conspiracy theories about an “irredeemably corrupt” FBI in need of a purge.

Meh, What’s A Couple Of Grenades And An Assault Rifle?

The Trump Justice Department continues to interpret the President’s Jan. 6 act of clemency dangerously broadly, taking the position in one case that it covers a conviction related to an illegal firearm, grenades, and classified information found during the FBI’s search of the man’s home. The man is serving a seven-year sentence on those charges, but the Justice Department wants him immediately released.

Kicking Canada For The Fun Of It

Financial Times: “Peter Navarro, one of the US president’s closest advisers, is pushing for the US to remove Canada from the Five Eyes — which also includes the UK, Australia and New Zealand — according to people familiar with his efforts inside the administration.”

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

House GOP Passes Trump’s Budget Resolution As Admin Takes Sledgehammer To Separation Of Powers

Posted on by Emine Yücel

After a dizzying back and forth that involved House Republican leadership delaying, pulling and abruptly restarting a vote on the conference’s budget blueprint Tuesday evening, Republicans’ “big, beautiful” budget resolution narrowly passed the House in a 217-215 vote. 

Continue reading “House GOP Passes Trump’s Budget Resolution As Admin Takes Sledgehammer To Separation Of Powers” →

Youngkin Offers Constituents Insulting ‘Job Fair’ As Musk Purges Virginian Federal Workers

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin is trying to figure out how to help his party keep the governor’s mansion when his term is up this year — a challenge that may become more difficult as Elon Musk’s lawless DOGE rampage continues to directly impact the more than 140,000 federal workers who live in the state.

Continue reading “Youngkin Offers Constituents Insulting ‘Job Fair’ As Musk Purges Virginian Federal Workers” →

DOJ Hires A State Judge Who Was Once Suspended To Advise The Deputy AG

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

A new top Justice Department appointee brings a bizarre past to the job: he was a state judge in Oregon but was, in 2018, suspended by a state ethics board over misconduct allegations.

Continue reading “DOJ Hires A State Judge Who Was Once Suspended To Advise The Deputy AG” →

BREAKING: SSA Division Abolished

Posted on by Josh Marshall

A short time ago, I broke the news that the acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration has abolishing CREO, the SSA’s statutory civil rights and equal opportunity division. He also put all employees of the division on immediate leave; that’s the standard DOGE approach, the closest you can get to firing those people, which will presumably become formal soon. Acting Commission Leland Dudek was a mid-level SSA staffer until about a week ago, when he was caught making unauthorized leaks of SSA information to DOGE. He was in the process of being fired when he was elevated over at least one hundred more senior agency executives to running the whole agency.

I am told that other steps of similar gravity and equally questionable legality are also either in process or expected.

This is a developing story.

What To Tell Your Member of Congress

Posted on by Josh Marshall

In response to last night’s “red alert” post, a number of TPM Readers have written in to say, okay, okay, fine but what exactly do I tell my member of Congress? This takes me a bit out of my lane. I’m not a strategist. But I can say how I see the situation, where the weak points seem to be.

So here’s my take.

Republicans control the White House and Congress. They’re the majority. The current “continuing resolution” that’s funding the government runs out on March 14th. They’re also trying to put together a budget to take away your health care coverage and give Elon a huge tax cut. But that new budget won’t kick in until later this year. They’re just starting that budget process. But they need to fund the government in the meantime. They’re in the majority. So they need to do that. But they only have a tiny majority and they’re clowns and they can’t manage to do this simple thing — basically because they can’t get the Freedom Caucus freaks to vote for something that their few moderates will also support. So they’re coming to Democrats basically hat in hand: “Friends, we are clowns. And we are about to do a shut down the government on ourselves. Can you help us?”

Continue reading “What To Tell Your Member of Congress” →

BREAKING: Elon’s Epic Email Rake-Stomp Finally Explained!

Posted on by Josh Marshall

Winston Churchill once said, “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” One might also say there’s nothing so fun as being right about a big story totally by accident. Or rather, in this case, I actually knew about what I’m about to describe to you but forgot. Early February was at least a hundred years ago and I’ve been working on a million different stories since then — and, so, I’d totally forgotten about these details. But seriously, people, let’s not make it about me.

Here’s the story.

As you know, Elon Musk went on Twitter on Saturday and said federal workers had to list their accomplishments for him or else. The email was sent out over something called The Government-Wide Email System (GWES), a DOGE creation from the first days after the takeover of the Office of Personnel Management. (This will be a key point.) The email itself didn’t include Elon’s threat of termination (or, technically, a constructive resignation). But the message was heard loud and clear. Then pretty much the entire federal government spent 72 hours trying to figure out whether compliance was or wasn’t required. On Sunday morning, I flagged this Privacy Impact Statement (PIA) which OPM prepared for the GWES system back on February 5th. That document was flagged to me by a government tech. And as I noted, it states very clearly that compliance with any requests you receive via GWES is totally voluntary. You can respond to these emails or not. You can share information or not. It’s totally up to you. It’s very clear.

But I didn’t really have any clear idea of why this document existed or why it made such strong representations about the voluntariness of anything tied to GWES. (As is often the case, Marcy Wheeler had already put it a lot of this together even though I hadn’t.)

Well, here’s the story.

Continue reading “BREAKING: Elon’s Epic Email Rake-Stomp Finally Explained!” →