MAGA conspiracy theorist and podcaster Dan Bongino, who was recently announced as deputy director of the FBI, has for years publicly signaled his commitment to rooting out Trump’s perceived political enemies from the bureau.
Continue reading “Bongino Has Long Pushed Conspiracy Theories About An ‘Irredeemably Corrupt’ FBI In Need Of A Purge”It’s Taking Judges An Awfully Long Time To Get To The Bottom Of Who’s Running DOGE
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Who Is Running DOGE???
The Trump White House won’t say exactly, the Trump Justice Department professes not to know, and so far federal judges have not been able to obtain an answer to the most basic question: Who is the administrator of Elon Musk’s DOGE?
The judge to confront the question most directly has been U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington, D.C. During a surreal hearing Monday in which the judge called into question the constitutionality of DOGE, Justice Department lawyers still could not tell her who the official administering DOGE is.
It led to Kafkaesque exchanges like these, helpfully posted by Lawfare’s Anna Bower:
[Silence.]
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) February 24, 2025 at 10:57 PM
[image or embed]
BY WHOM INDEED
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) February 24, 2025 at 7:15 PM
[image or embed]
Kollar-Kotelly is hearing a case seeking to bar DOGE from accessing sensitive records maintained by the Treasury Department. Meanwhile, in a new ruling, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland blocked DOGE’s access to personally identifiable information at the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management.
It’s an answerable question, but still nada from the Trump administration.
The Great ‘5 Things’ Email Fiasco Of 2025
It was impossible to find a clear through-line in the messaging coming out of the Trump administration about Elon Musk’s ridiculous weekend email:
- President Trump, famous for his reality TV “You’re fired,” tepidly said workers would be “semi-fired” if they did not respond.
- OPM said workers were not required to respond after various government components had wrestled all day with what to tell their employees, in some cases sending mixed messages
- By the end of the day, Musk himself had re-upped his demand and threatened firings yet again:
Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2025
Failure to respond a second time will result in termination. https://t.co/04xzgScXfj
IMPORTANT
An independent federal oversight agency has deemed at least some of President Trump’s mass firings of probationary period employees unlawful, creating a pathway for those employees to regain their jobs.
The Office of Special Counsel, the agency responsible for investigating illegal actions taken against federal employees, issued its decision for six employees, each at different agencies. While the decision was technically limited in scope, it could have immediate impact on all terminated staff at those six agencies and could set a wide-ranging precedent across government. It has not been made public and was provided to Government Executive by a source within the government. OSC, which did not provide the document to Government Executive, verified its authenticity.
The Unpurging
Another example of the Trump clusterfuckery: The FDA has reinstated dozens of specialists involved in food safety, review of medical devices and other areas who were laid off last week.
Go Deeper On The Trump Purges
University of Minnesota Law School professor Nick Bednar has some helpful backgrounders on the existing legal frameworks that the DOGE-driven purges of federal workers are running hard up against:
Trump’s Attack On Independent Agencies
A key element of President Trump’s executive power grab is disregarding any congressional limitations imposed on firing the people who sit atop the independent agencies of the executive branch. We’re talking a host of key agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Merit Systems Protection Board. It will be a defining legal battle of his second presidency and one that the Supreme Court will likely weigh in on sooner than later, with implications for the Federal Reserve as well. TPM’s Kate Riga has an early primer on the structural power dynamics and the legal landscape.
Everything You Need to Know About Dan Bongino
The FBI is reeling from the one-two punch of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino as the new director and deputy director:
- NYT: Before Ascending to Top Tier of F.B.I., Bongino Fueled Right-Wing Disbelief
- WSJ: Dan Bongino Called the FBI ‘Irredeemably Corrupt.’ Now He’ll Help Run It.
We’ve Seen This Type Before
I’ve long been fascinated by how scattered through the federal government are just enough misguided, disenchanted, peevish, grievance-filled, and maladaptive personalities for bad actors to raise up for their own corrupt ends when they take power.
It’s a recurring theme of our coverage over the years how these willing stooges get their chance to “shine” and try to make the most of it. Former Trump DOJer Jeffrey Clark is a classic of the genre. It almost always ends badly, but not as badly as it should (Clark is now back in the new Trump administration).
Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove appears to be the latest in the long line of these passed-over and overlooked opportunists who seize on suddenly no longer being the odd man out. And, yes, they seem chronically to be men.
How Screwed Are We? This Screwed …
Acting DC U.S. attorney Ed Martin proudly tweeting his corrupt notion of the role of the Justice Department as a defender and weapon of President Donald Trump:
— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) February 24, 2025
The Best Of The Best
Former West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner – who as recently as last year claimed that the CIA stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump – is now overseeing the Justice Department’s vaunted Civil Rights Division on an acting basis.
‘Uniformly Unhelpful’
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden of Washington, D.C., declined to restore immediately the Associated Press’ access to presidential events, but he urged the Trump White House to reconsider its ban over the wire service’s refusal to use “Gulf Of America,” saying the case law “is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.”
Retribution In Action
Within hours of President Trump publicly threatening to end the political career of Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D), his Department of Education initiated a purported Title IX investigation of the University of Maine of transgender women in sports.
EXCLUSIVE
A group of prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has pitched the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of “processing camps” on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a “small army” of private citizens empowered to make arrests.
The blueprint — laid out in a 26-page document President Donald Trump’s advisers received before the inauguration — carries an estimated price tag of $25 billion and recommends a range of aggressive tactics to rapidly deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterms, including some that would likely face legal and operational challenges, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO.
Surreal Headline Of The Day
CNN: US joins Russia to vote against UN resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine
‘Long Live The Real King’
Pranksters had a memorable stunt waiting for workers returning to mandatory in-office work at HUD headquarters:
This morning at Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HQ in DC as mandatory return to office began, this video played on loop for ~5 mins on screens throughout the building, per agency source. Building staff couldn’t figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs.
— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) February 24, 2025 at 9:51 AM
[image or embed]
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
RED ALERT: Now Is the Moment, Folks
Over recent weeks I’ve told you several times that while Democrats are shut out of power in Washington and have few means of arresting the Trump-Musk spree of criminal conduct across the executive branch, they do have two points of leverage: the need for a new “continuing resolution” by March 14th to keep the government funded, and the need to raise the debt ceiling at some point in the coming months — the exact date on that isn’t clear. At present, Republicans are on course to shut down the government on March 14th. Essentially, the Freedom Caucus is holding them hostage, demanding not the draconian budget cuts favored by most of the GOP caucus but draconian-plus cuts, the kind that they fear will get their members in swing districts defeated. So Republican leadership is coming to Democrats, hat in hand, asking for help. I’ve explained in probably a dozen posts over the last month that this is the line not just on policy and anti-constitutional actions but also a key moment in the drama of performative power between President Trump and the opposition that will have repercussions and reverberations for months and perhaps years to come. There are already plenty of signs the public is turning against Musk’s wilding spree of criminal conduct through the federal government. To put it in the vulgar and rapacious terms that are the only ones that do it justice, Donald Trump and Elon Musk have spent the last month slapping around like bitches the Constitution, federal workers, the Democrats and really the sovereignty of the American people. Democrats have this moment to decide whether they’ll not only arrest the damage but change the tone through the idiom of power.
Well, now we appear to be at the crunch moment.
Continue reading “RED ALERT: Now Is the Moment, Folks”GOPer Now Doubting Elon After Raucous Townhall
After getting rocked at a highly publicized town hall in Roswell, Georgia, last week, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) is deciding that Elon may have been a bit hasty about things. McCormick tells the AJC’s “Politically Georgia” podcast …
Continue reading “GOPer Now Doubting Elon After Raucous Townhall”Big, Big Scandal Brewing at DC US Attys Office
There’s a big, big scandal brewing beneath the already big scandal of the alleged assault by Florida congressman Corey Mills (R). But as yet no one seems inclined to pull on the dangling thread. As you’ve probably already seen, Mills is accused of assaulting a woman, who is not his wife, at his home in Washington, DC. DC’s Metropolitan Police Department thought it was serious enough to send to U.S. Attorney’s Office, which handles both federal and “local” crimes in Washington, DC, a warrant for Mills’ arrest. But as Politico puts it, “that warrant was never signed.”
Continue reading “Big, Big Scandal Brewing at DC US Attys Office”“Acting” Thunderdome Continues – Now IRS
I hear Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell will be announcing his “retirement” tomorrow. Next up in the hot seat, Melanie Krause.
Acting Commissioner Thunderdome continues.
The Obscuring Is The Point
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is barreling ahead with his plans to hold a vote on House Republicans’ budget blueprint Tuesday evening, despite the fact that at least two House Republicans have said they will oppose the measure, making its chances of passing questionable at best. (And, in a meta sense, despite another, much larger issue — that President Donald Trump’s administration does not seem to care about or recognize Congress’s authority over the federal budget.)
Continue reading “The Obscuring Is The Point”BIG: DOGE Firings Found Unlawful by Office of Special Counsel
There was a very important development today, still only little-noted in the national press. Government Executive magazine has a good piece on it. The news turns on a decision by the Office of Special Counsel, the head of which, Hampton Dellinger, Trump had only recently tried to fire before being blocked from doing so by a federal judge. The decision specifically deals with six federal employees, each from a different agency, who were recently fired as probationary employees as part of the DOGE purge. Technically, the decision only applies to those six employees. But in a way that is analogous, though not identical, to the way a court ruling works, the findings would likely apply to many other recent DOGE-terminated employees across the federal government.
Continue reading “BIG: DOGE Firings Found Unlawful by Office of Special Counsel”IRS Employees Told To Comply With DOGE ‘Accomplishments’ Demand
IRS employees must comply with Elon Musk’s demand for five “accomplishments” by tonight, the Treasury Department told employees in a Monday email obtained by TPM.
Continue reading “IRS Employees Told To Comply With DOGE ‘Accomplishments’ Demand”S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G
After turning the entire Social Security Administration upside-down over this Elon Threat email, which I described barely a half hour ago in this post, an email was just sent out basically saying “never mind.”
“Pursuant to updated OPM guidance, responses to the email from sender “HR” dated Saturday, February 22, are voluntary. Non-responses are not considered a resignation.”
This seems to follow the OPM guidance memo issued on February 5th, which I described here this morning.