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

DOJ Run Amok

The Justice Department under new Attorney General Pam Bondi continues its steep decline, setting new precedents almost daily for supplication to the White House, corrupt and unethical conduct, and dubious representations to judges.

Yesterday was its own special, to use the legal term of art, shitshow.

The acting deputy attorney general appeared all alone in federal court in Manhattan to try to seal the deal on his corrupt scheme to dismiss criminal charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. The deputy attorney general runs the Justice Department on a day to day basis; yet here was Emil Bove by himself at the counsel table, with apparently no other DOJ lawyer willing to sit with him. Behind him providing visible support was Todd Blanche, the nominee for deputy attorney general who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. Both men until last month were personal attorneys to Donald Trump.

After the hearing (no ruling yet on the motion to dismiss from U.S. District Judge Dale Ho), Bove sent a tone-deaf, Trumpian message to DOJ employees trying to turn his solo appearance in court from a personal humiliation into a model of diehard MAGA-tude. In a snarky conclusion that is astonishing coming from a DAG, Bove said that anyone who wasn’t onboard the Trump train could resign and pointed them to the letters penned by their colleagues who resigned over Bove’s order to dismiss the Adams case:

NEW: Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to DOJ employees: “For those who do not support our critical mission, I understand there are templates for resignation letters available on the websites of the New York Times and CNN.”

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— Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” (@ryanjreilly.com) February 19, 2025 at 4:12 PM

As that unprecedented scene was playing out in NYC, President Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. attorney in DC was further showering himself in disgrace. Ed Martin, who is the acting USA for the moment, sent another one of his wildly inappropriate emails to colleagues that was apparently promptly leaked again.

Martin for the third time that we know of made grand and obsequious gestures toward Elon Musk’s DOGE: “We will protect DOGE,” he declared:

"We will protect DOGE." This morning, Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin — a "stop the steal" organizer and Jan. 6 defendant advocate — sent an email titled "Operation Whirlwind" in which he said he's personally launched an investigation into Sen. Chuck Schumer. The text:

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— Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” (@ryanjreilly.com) February 19, 2025 at 10:48 AM

Most alarming was Martin’s willingness to launch pseudo-investigations of prominent Democrats and to castigate them in politicized terms while touting his own bonafides in going after them. Among the Democrats targeted by Martin: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA).

“Operation Whirlwind” is what Martin is calling his effort to prosecute anyone who targets public officials, but it appears to be more of an effort to stifle First Amendment expression and intimidate opposition leaders than to protect officials from the wave of actual threats that Trump himself has stirred up in recent years.

Tracking The Purges

• Pentagon: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is considering firing or removing generals and senior officers as early as this week, according to multiple reports.
• IRS: Roughly 6,000 employees will be laid off, the NYT reports.
• FEMA: Another round of firings are coming, this time targeting employees who have worked on DEI or climate change.

Thread Of The Day

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

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— Adam Bonica (@adambonica.bsky.social) February 19, 2025 at 9:18 PM

Purges Are HARD

• Forked Up: Some federal workers accepted the deferred resignation offer in the notorious “Fork in the Road” email and were fired anyway, the WaPo reports.
• U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga of Virginia temporarily blocked the CIA and DNI from firing intelligence officers assigned to do DEI work.
• An official at the U.S. Digital Service, which was renamed U.S. DOGE Service, has resigned rather than abide the destruction.

Quote Of The Day

“Good luck with that, they just fired the whole privacy team.”–an email from OPM to CNN responding to a FOIA request

Trump Screws Up His Own Shell Game

As the White House continues to refuse to say who is heading up DOGE, except to insist to judges and the press that is most definitely not Elon Musk, President Trump outright said it is Elon Musk.

DOGE Watch

• President Trump issued a new executive order putting DOGE in charge of a sweeping effort to weaken federal regulations.
• DOGE is now reportedly ensconced at the Pentagon, CISA, and FAA.
• The data DOGE released about federal contract savings doesn’t add up, NPR reports.

USAID Crisis May Be Coming To A Head In Court

The latest on the two USAID lawsuits in DC:

• U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols has given the Trump administration until noon today to clean up the “mess” created by contradictory statements to the court by Trump official Peter Marocco about how overseas aid workers would be treated.
• U.S. District Judge Amir Ali has given the Trump administration until 1 p.m. ET to respond to a motion seeking to hold it in contempt for failing to abide by his temporary restraining order that lifted the USAID spending freeze.

IMPORTANT

Charlie Savage:

The Trump administration is systematically exploiting loopholes to effectively keep much of the president’s blanket spending freezes in place, accounts by officials and court filings show, despite restraining orders from judges who have told agencies to disregard the directives.

The administration’s strategy is to have political appointees embedded in various agencies invoke other legal authorities to pause spending, while posturing as if those officials had undertaken the efforts independent of President Trump’s original directives.

It Could Be Worse?

President Trump said he has offered his disgraced former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn “about ten jobs” in his new administration.

Trump Loses Again On Ending Birthright Citizenship

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift a lower court injunction that has been blocking President Trump executive order purporting to end the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship.

EXCLUSIVE

Texas Observer: ICE Prosecutor in Dallas Runs White Supremacist X Account

‘It Looks Like A Zoo, There Are Fenced Cages’ 

NYT: Migrants, Deported to Panama Under Trump Plan, Detained in Remote Jungle Camp

Trump’s Ukraine Travesty

As President Trump lays the groundwork to surrender Ukraine to Russia, he continues to lob undermining verbal potshots at President Volodymyr Zelensky: “A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

Over the past few days, Trump has adopted Russia propaganda as his own rhetoric, threatened Ukraine’s sovereign integrity, abandoned a longtime ally, and sided with its authoritarian invaders while gaslighting the world into thinking Ukraine itself started the war.

Some perspectives on Trump’s march of folly:

• TPM’s Josh Marshall: Russia and the US Begin to Divvy up Ukraine at Riyadh Confab
• David Ignatius: A Trump outrage that stands apart
• Elizabeth N. Saunders: Why high-level U.S.-Russia talks are bad diplomacy

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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.

Stay Focused On The Real Power Dynamic

Accretion of power is the core goal of Trump’s Project 2025 opening blitz. Since power in the tripartite federal government is finite, the accrual of power by the executive branch necessarily comes at the expense of the legislative and/or judicial branches. But that highfalutin constitutional framework doesn’t quite capture the petty transactional nature of what Trump is up to. 

The WaPo has a story out this morning that begins to capture this new dynamic: Members of Congress going hat in hand to the Trump administration asking for special dispensation from the latest degradations, purges, shutdowns, and freezes.

Trump II’s opening month blitzkrieg has wreaked all manner of damage and destruction – some of that undoubtedly for the pure sake of doing it – but the real power dynamic is in converting the vast array of government goods and services into a political currency that Trump can exchange for favors, leverage, control, and obedience.

What were democratically agreed upon government programs now become baubles to be awarded friends and denied foes. Congress is reduced to a supplicant trying to secure exceptions, carveouts, and special treatment for themselves and their constituents. Even if Trump succeeds ultimately in wrecking only a portion of the federal government, he will have accrued vast new power not just by stripping it from Congress but apportioning the spoils back to individual members at the time, place, and manner of his choosing, on his terms, however corrupt they may be.

Tracking The Purges

• DOD is next.
• U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras of DC has reinstated Cathy Harris as chair of the Merit Systems Protection Board after she was fired by the Trump administration.

IMPORTANT

President Trump issued a new executive order purporting to rein in independent agencies and expand White House power and control over, among others, the FTC, SEC, and FCC.

Keep An Eye On This Case

President Trump’s attempted removal of Hampton Dellinger as U.S. special counsel is the first Trump II case to make it to the Supreme Court. A federal district judge last week ordered Dellinger reinstated, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals over the weekend denied the Trump administration’s request for relief. The administration immediately sought Supreme Court intervention, and the high court out the case on a quick schedule. Dellinger has already filed his brief with the court. Steve Vladeck explains why this case is unique and not representative of the other coming battles over independent agencies and executive power.

DOGE Watch

On the same day that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled there was an insufficient legal basis to issue a temporary restraining order against DOGE,

• Elon Musk’s role and what DOGE is actually doing remain clouded in secrecy and government misdirection.
• DOGE’s access to Americans’ personal data now includes the IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• D’OH! DOGE claimed $8 billion in savings on a cancelled contract that was actually worth only $8 million.
• The GSA’s lead engineer for a government text-messaging service resigned Tuesday after DOGE requested access to sensitive data, including personal identifying information, the WaPo reported.

What Elon Musk Is Really About

Now that musk is saying he’s doing the DOGE stuff “because the globalists have plotted a Great Replacement in which they use government handouts to buy votes from illegal immigrants and urban blacks” maybe we don’t have to act like this is about deficits or cost cutting anymore

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— Jake Grumbach (@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 6:03 PM

Cruel But Also Dumb

Errors, mistakes, screwups, and boneheadedness are part and parcel of the Trump II reign of terror:

• The Trump administration was considering destroying a stockpile of free-to-the-public COVID tests but reversed itself after the WaPo came asking questions.
• The Trump administration “accidentally” fired officials working on bird flu, and the USDA is now scrambling to try to rehire them.

An Awkward Day In Court For DOJ

The Justice Department will for the first time have to defend to a federal judge its corrupt bargain to drop criminal charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. U.S. District Judge Dale Ho set a hearing for 2 p.m. ET this afternoon on the government’s motion to dismiss that prompted an unprecedented wave of DOJ resignations. TPM’s Josh Kovensky will be in courthouse and file his report late this afternoon.

Harmonic Convergence: DOJ, Project Veritas, EPA

DOJ politicization collided with Trump’s impoundment effort thanks to a bogus Project Veritas video. It led to the forced resignation of a senior prosecutor in the DC U.S. Attorney’s Office who could not abide using criminal process to try to claw back $20 billion appropriated to the EPA and already sent out the door to Citibank.

Jeffrey Clark Is Back

Jeffrey Clark, the Trump I DOJ official who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Jan. 6 case against Donald Trump and a one-time co-defendant of Trump’s in the Georgia RICO case has popped up as a senior adviser to Mark Paoletta in his role as the CFPB’s new chief legal officer. Paoletta is also the OMB general counsel. Both OMB and CFPB are currently being run by Russell Vought.

Thread Of The Day

🧵Who is opposing the Trump administration? I analysed 76 actions of the administration since inauguration and then searched for *meaningful* opposition to each. I grouped the types of opposition and considered what we can learn from both them & actions where opposition has been lacking 1/24

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— Prof Christina Pagel (@chrischirp.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 1:42 PM

Great Read

Come for Jamison Foser’s Drive-By Truckers lede and stay for the political analysis:

We aren’t in a situation in which we can pick only the “right” fights; only fights we can clearly win. Things are so much worse than that, and will be for a very long time. The cold hard truth is there aren’t very many fights we can have a high degree of confidence we can win; there’s too much stacked against us. We have to be willing to pick some fights we will probably lose, because those are pretty much the only kinds of fights we have.

Trump Shits On Ukraine As He Walks Away From It

The painful abandonment of Ukraine by the Trump administration began in earnest with Russia-U.S. talks sans Ukraine producing a process to end the war that also sidelines the victim of Russian aggression.

As if that capitulation weren’t grim enough, President Trump took the occasion to blame Ukraine for being invaded. “You should have never started it,” Trump said, lashing out at Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in comments that also sought to undermine him politically at home. At a press conference in his office in Kyiv, Zelensky responded: “I would like to have more truth with the Trump team.” 

As Farah Stockman notes, “Europeans are waking up to the fact that they are entirely dependent on a foreign power that is no longer acting like itself. America, which once championed the liberal democratic world order, is now turning against it in ways that are shocking to its allies.”

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