DOGE is now requesting and appears soon to receive access to everyone’s and every non-human entities’ tax returns at the IRS, according to a new report out from WaPo.
Job Cuts Hit Medicare
Critical development overnight both in terms of immediate impact on tens of millions of Americans and the political dynamics of the moment. Overnight, big rounds of firings got underway at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the folks who run the Medicare system — as well as the FDA. Those who evaluate medical devices and administer Obamacare were also hit. More here.
Trump Can’t Be Allowed to Control Almost Half Of New York State
I said last week that after the events of last Monday it was important for New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) to remove Mayor Eric Adams (D) from office. The voters of New York City are entitled to a mayor who is not being held hostage by a President most New Yorkers don’t support. The argument is straightforward; I make it here. But this is part of broader necessity. As long as the sitting President persists in governing in defiance of the federal Constitution, the power and autonomy of state governments become critical bases of legitimate political power. Blue states need to be expanding ways to work together to protect the liberties of their residents against unlawful uses of power, harassment and abuse. This is a difficult challenge since the supremacy of federal law is a cornerstone of the constitutional system. But state governments are not subordinate to the federal government in the way that regional and local governments are in unitary states. There are many areas where the federal government has no say in state action. And at the most basic level, state officials do not answer to federal officials. The tether binding one to another is at best through the courts. With Democrats for the moment excluded from power in Washington, Democratic power at the state level becomes a critical hold on power and executive authority. It’s in that context that removing Adams from power becomes even more critical. The federal government is now run by a lawless President enabling criminal conduct across the executive branch. He can’t be allowed to extend that power within New York state — or in any other state for that matter. New York City, after all, has a larger population than all but about a dozen states.
Mike Johnson Is Caught Between His Hardliners And A Hard Place
Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️
On Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had won over the right flank of his conference by promising at least $2 trillion in spending cuts to pay for the Trump tax cuts.
Continue reading “Mike Johnson Is Caught Between His Hardliners And A Hard Place”Two Jan. 6 Boosters Are Now Trump Appointees Strangling USAID From The Inside
For some of the thousands of USAID employees left in limbo after the Trump administration nuked their agency, there are few ways to get back to work.
Continue reading “Two Jan. 6 Boosters Are Now Trump Appointees Strangling USAID From The Inside”Inside The ‘Bizarre’ Meeting Where DOGE Requested ‘Extensive System Access’ At IRS
The Internal Revenue Service has now joined the list of federal agencies and offices experiencing life on the “DOGE” side. Two sources told TPM that a staffer affiliated with President Trump and Elon Musk’s controversial “efficiency” initiative left some bewildered and concerned on Thursday as they held their first meeting at the Washington headquarters of the tax agency.
Continue reading “Inside The ‘Bizarre’ Meeting Where DOGE Requested ‘Extensive System Access’ At IRS “Important Note for Federal Civil Servants
There are probationary employees who are new in government service and those who are labeled as probationary because of a job switch but who have continuous government service prior to their current job. If you are in that latter category, and if you are fired as a probationary employee in these category terminations taking place now, there is a good chance your termination was illegal. And it is illegal in a way that courts will vindicate. Obviously there are details and nuances about how this works. But if this applies to you you should at least speak with an attorney who knows this area of law. There’s a good chance you have a case and can receive compensation and/or reinstatement.
Needless to say I am not a lawyer and I am certainly not your lawyer. But I say the above after conferring with someone who has relevant expertise and experience in this area of law.
National Cancer Institute
This afternoon termination notices are going out to more than 300 employees at the National Cancer Institute. Locked out of access by the end of the day, four weeks paid leave, and that’s that.
NIH and Its Agencies Are Being Smothered
In recent days I have been inundated by reports out of HHS and particularly NIH (National Institutes of Health) and NCI (National Cancer Institute). I hope you will keep inundating me. You can find out how to contact me through encrypted channels in the footer of this post. Since it’s time consuming to dig in and confirm each individual thread of the story, which I’m in the process of doing, I want now to give you the broad picture. And the broad picture is bad. It’s nothing less than a very concerted attempt to shut down medical research across the United States.
Continue reading “NIH and Its Agencies Are Being Smothered”DOJ Enters The Darkest Period In Its Long History
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Worse Than The Saturday Night Massacre
The mass resignations at the Justice Department mark the most serious crisis in its history, a darker moment than its previous low point during Watergate.
By this point, you know the gist of what happened. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York resigned Thursday afternoon rather than follow an order from Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to drop the criminal case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the case was kicked back to Main Justice to do the dirty work of dismissing the Adams case, but at least five senior attorneys also resigned rather than participating in the nakedly political scheme.
I’d argue that yesterday’s Valentine’s Eve Massacre is worse than 1973’s Saturday Night Massacre, not out of some prurient obsession with ranking political scandals but as a way of highlighting the seriousness of what is happening right now.
Unlike the Saturday Night Massacre, when the top officials at the Justice Department held the line and resigned rather than carry out President Nixon’s corrupt order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, here the higher-ups have acquiesced to and are furthering the corrupt scheme. This time, the resignations are coming from lower down in the chain of command because Bondi and Bove are doing President Trump’s bidding rather than holding the line in defense of the law, DOJ guidelines, and their own ethical obligations as lawyers.
All of this is happening in the broader context of political purges at DOJ and FBI even as Bondi and the White House tear down the walls meant to protect the Justice Department from improper political influence. The bad things are all happening, and they’re happening now.
Who Resigned
- Danielle R. Sassoon, 38, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a career prosecutor who has been with the office since 2016. She has sterling credentials: Harvard undergrad, Yale law, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She is a Federalist Society member who was named to the acting role just last month by the Trump administration to fill the post until Jay Clayton is confirmed.
- Kevin Driscoll, the acting head of the department’s Criminal Division who previously had been in the Public Integrity Section;
- John Keller, the acting head of the Public Integrity Section;
- Rob Heberle, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section;
- Jenn Clarke, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section;
- Marco Palmieri, a prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section.
The Thuggery
Bove’s letter responding to Sassoon’s resignation is as dastardly and villainous as anything I’ve ever seen come out of the Justice Department. It’s comic book villain material. Among the snarling remarks and acts of retaliation:
- Bove put on administrative leave at least two other line prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan who had worked the Adams case, claiming without basis that the entire prosecution was politically motivated (improbably by a Democratic president against a Democratic mayor in a Democratic city).
- Bove threatened Sassoon and the line prosecutors with internal investigation, by both the attorney general’s bogus “weaponization” group and the Office of Professional Responsibility.
- Bove suggested that Sassoon’s oath to uphold the Constitution was superseded by “the policies of a democratically elected President and a Senate-confirmed Attorney General.
In her letter, Sassoon had revealed: (i) Bove cut her out of his negotiations with Adams’ lawyers of what she alleged was a quid pro quo arrangement; (ii) scotched one of the prosecutors from taking notes of the meeting with Adams’ lawyers; (iii) made his decision to drop the case despite knowing that a superseding indictment was in the works to add additional obstruction charges against Adams.
MUST READ: The Dueling DOJ Letters
Feb. 12: Danielle Sassoon’s letter to Bondi
Feb. 13: Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s response letter to Sassoon
The Other DOJ Travesty
In another flagrant disregard of the law, Attorney General Pam Bondi gave an affirmative green light to Google and Apple to ignore the plain language of the statutory TikTok ban upheld by the Supreme Court.
Emil Bove’s Dirty Secret: He Investigated Jan. 6
Former co-workers from Emil Bove’s brief time as an aggressive investigator of Jan. 6 spill the tea.
TPM Exclusive
TPM’s Josh Kovensky on the judicial branch scrambling to limit the spillover effects from Trump’s executive branch rampage on its own operations.
Will The Courts Stand Firm Against Trump Lawlessness?
Among the at least 70 lawsuits against the Trump administration and 14 court orders blocking executive actions, we’re tracking the most important rulings:
- USAID: In the first USAID case, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols extended his order blocking the Trump administration from pulling workers worldwide off the job.
- USAID: In a second USAID case, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered an end to the spending freeze.
- Trans Care: U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson of Maryland blocked Trump’s executive order banning the federal government from offering gender-affirming care for trans kids.
The Purges
- Government-wide: Some 200,000 government workers on probationary status are being purged.
- CFPB: Dozens of workers fired in after-hours blitz.
- CFPB: Acting head Russell Vought established a “tip line” to snitch on financial regulators who are still doing their jobs despite a White House “stand down” order.
- U.S. Forest Service: Some 3,400 federal employees still within their probationary period purged across every level of the agency beginning yesterday.
Trump II Clown Show
- The Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was the sole Republican to vote no.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Kash Patel‘s nomination as FBI director despite his potential perjury problem.
The Corruption
WSJ: How the Trumps Turned an Election Victory Into a Cash Bonanza
‘You’ve Blown a Hole in the Family’
The NYT goes inside Rupert Murdoch’s succession drama after obtaining some 3,000 documents from a court case in Nevada.
Quote Of The Day
“Hegseth is going to be a great defense secretary, although he wasn’t my choice for the job. But he made a rookie mistake in Brussels and he’s walked back some of what he said but not that line. I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool.”–Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), lamenting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table and saying it cannot return to its pre-2014 borders
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Enjoy your long weekend. Morning Memo will be back Tuesday.
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