This is a quick follow up to yesterday’s post about the “pause” on funding for essentially all medical research in the United States. This is a big, big deal and our team, notwithstanding its very small size, is very much on it. And if you’re in that community your tips are very important.
Continue reading “The Medical Research Hiatus”Jan. 6 Judges Let Out A Collective Primal Scream Over Trump Pardons
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Appealing To History
In blistering court orders, three separate federal judges in Washington, D.C., with an eye toward history decried the dismissals of Jan. 6 cases in the wake of President Trump’s sweeping pardons of those convicted for the attack on the Capitol.
In each instance, the judges were being asked by the Trump Justice Department to dismiss still pending cases against Jan. 6 defendants, a result of a direct order from Trump that squarely flies in the face of decades of DOJ independence.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who most famously handled the now-dismissed Jan. 6 case against Trump himself, issued a brief order in another case that tersely refused to whitewash the record:
[N]o pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021. … And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power. In hundreds of cases like this one over the past four years, judges in this district have administered justice without fear or favor. The historical record established by those proceedings must stand, unmoved by political winds, as a testament and as a warning.
A pained U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, asked to dismiss a Jan. 6 after conviction but before sentencing, wrote that history will ultimately judge:
Dismissal of charges, pardons after convictions, and commutations of sentences will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021. What occurred that day is preserved for the future through thousands of contemporaneous videos, transcripts of trials, jury verdicts, and judicial opinions analyzing and recounting the evidence through a neutral lens. Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies.
U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell was breathing fire in her order, tolerating neither the Big Lie nor the subsequent historical revisionism:
No “national injustice” occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. No “process of national reconciliation” can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity. That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.
In all three instances, the judges had no choice under the law but to grant the dismissals.
Stewart Rhodes Revisits The Scene Of The Crime
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was back on Capitol Hill within hours of Trump’s pardon and his release from prison for seditious conspiracy. Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio of the Proud Boys, who was also pardoned and released, each called for retribution against those who prosecuted them.
Quote Of The Day
“I went through four years of hell by this scum that we had to deal with. I went through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars on legal fees and I won, but I did it the hard way. It’s really hard to say that they shouldn’t have to go through it also.”–President Donald Trump, threatening retribution for his criminal prosecutions, in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity
House GOP Wants To Investigate Everything But Jan. 6
In announcing the creation of a bogus new Jan. 6 committee to investigate the legit old Jan. 6 committee, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) more or less gave up the game, saying it would probe “the events preceding and following January 6″– but apparently not Jan. 6 itself. (h/t @ericcolumbus.bsky.social)
Trump II Destruction Watch
- Trump hits NIH with “devastating” freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring.
- Trump administration orders health agencies to halt all external communications.
- Trump cripples Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
- National security adviser Mike Waltz sent home dozens of National Security Council staffers, the non-political experts who advise the President.
- DOJ orders its civil rights division to halt its investigative activity and not pursue new indictments, cases or settlements, according to a memo obtained by WaPo.
DEI Crackdown Comes With Threat Of Retaliation
As the Trump administration shut down DEI initiatives across the federal government, it also threatened employees with adverse consequences if they didn’t report any concealed, hidden, or relabeled DEI activity within 10 days.
More Than Just DEI
In addition to the DEI crackdown, Trump’s revoked an LBJ-era order that sought to combat workplace discrimination and promote affirmative action among federal contractors.
It’s Not About Immigration. It’s About Othering.
- In new memo, DOJ threatens to prosecute state and local officials who refuse to enforce Trump’s hard-line anti-immigration policies.
- In a move echoing decades of racist tropes, the Trump administration is denying asylum seekers access to the United States on the flimsy grounds that they have passed through countries where communicable diseases are present, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection briefing document obtained by WaPo.
- The Trump administration is giving deportation powers to the ATF, DEA, and the U.S. Marshals Service, according to an internal memo seen by the WSJ.
Trump II Clown Show
- Ed Martin, the Missouri Republican installed as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. to end the Jan. 6 prosecutions, has spent the past several years outside of government pushing for exactly that.
- Tulsi Gabbard‘s nomination as DNI is on shaky ground.
- Media Research Center founder L. Brent Bozell III — a nephew of William F. Buckley, Jr., and the father of a convicted Jan. 6 rioter — is President Trump’s pick to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees, among other things, Voice of America, where Trump wants to install election denier Kari Lake.
- The WaPo’s Aaron Blake parses the latest allegations against Pete Hegseth, from his brother’s ex-wife.
- The Bulwark: What Kash Patel Doesn’t Want the Senate to Know About the ‘J6 Prison Choir’
Coast Guard Officially Calls It ‘Gulf of America’
After President Trump fired the head of the Coast Guard, its new acting commandant issued a statement dutifully adopting the jingoistic “Gulf of America” moniker.
(Ed. Note: A Gulf Coast friend wryly suggested that the Gulf of America is the wealth gap, and I can’t unthink that every time I see it. You’re welcome.)
Not Off To A Good Start
Amid Democratic disunity in both chambers, the House gave final passage to the anti-immigration Laken Riley Act, which now heads to President Trump signature.
Senate Dems Gum Up The Works A Little
- “Senate Republicans had hoped to rush through confirmation of a flurry of Cabinet nominees in the days immediately after President Trump assumed office. But Democrats, expressing reservations about some picks, are slowing the push, frustrating Republicans and denying the new president the quick action he demanded.”–NYT
- “Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-written bill on Wednesday that could subject some doctors who perform abortions to criminal penalties, thwarting the G.O.P.’s first attempt to restrict reproductive rights since the party has secured its governing trifecta.”–NYT
Creeping Reactionism
- A Milwaukee TV weather forecaster has been fired after she criticized Elon Musk on social media for his “straight-arm gesture.”
- An LSU law professor has been removed from teaching classes for reportedly making political comments in the classroom.
I Laughed, I Cried, It Was Better Than Cats
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
The Purported DEI Rollback
One more point to keep an eye on. You’ve likely seen that the White House is doing a series of executive orders and sending letters to employees demanding “DEI” be rooted out of agencies. News organizations have mostly used this terminology. But whatever you think about DEI, this is deeply and intentionally misleading. This gives the impression that they’re clawing back various #MeToo and post-George Floyd government policies. But they’re actually repealing a host of executive orders and departmental policies going all the way back to the Johnson administration. A lot of it is very basic employment non-discrimination rules and contracting non-discrimination rules.
For the purposes of this post I’m not trying to get into what “DEI” is or whether it’s good or bad. I’m focused on this more general point that under the pretext of a DEI rollback they’re basically stripping out non-discrimination policies across the government.
Creeping RFKJrism at HHS
It’s still uncertain precisely how long the duration will be, but we’re getting fast emerging information that there appears to be an indefinite halt on the various meetings, review panels and so forth that keep the pipeline of medical research funding going in the U.S. This article in Science gives a broad overview. Put simply this just turns off the spigot of funding for a huge amount of cancer research as well as research across various other health fields and diseases. The article makes clear that there have been brief pauses before when a new administration takes office. But all signs suggest this is far more thorough-going and draconian. This comes after a similar halt to the weekly MMWR report which CDC sends to hospitals and doctors every week with information on flu, COVID and other infectious diseases.
I think we’re at the point in this where you can’t yet categorically say that this is being done for RFK Jr.-adjacent anti-research nuttery, but basically all signs point in that direction. And there is at least a temporary and disruptive halt to how health research gets funded in this country.
Meanwhile, on a totally different front, Jessica Valenti says that in the last two days Instagram has begun blocking the account of an organization focused on helping women find access to abortion medication.
Trump’s Long, Not Terribly Convincing Con On Abortion Policy Is Over
Donald Trump’s Week One actions on abortion appear to be just as brazen and trollish as his attempts on the campaign trail to convince voters he’d moderated on abortion. (And that is not to suggest that things won’t take a yet more sinister — and substantive — turn in the days to come.)
Continue reading “Trump’s Long, Not Terribly Convincing Con On Abortion Policy Is Over”Democrats are Surrounded by Low Hanging Fruit: Get To It
Yesterday my colleague Kate Riga noted a trap Senate Democrats keep falling into: in an effort to court Republican defectors they temper their criticism of the various Trump nominees. But since there are and will be no defectors they lose on both sides of the equation, gaining no defectors and making their critiques tepid and forgettable. This is unquestionably true. But we can go a step further still. Far from courting potential defectors, they should be attacking them.
Potential defectors are almost always those from marginal states, and some are senators from marginal states who face voters at the next election. 2026 doesn’t have a lot of great prospects. But there are some. So Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, possibly Joni Ernst and new Florida senator Ashley Moody. The criticisms of the bad nominees should be as intense as possible and all focused on the support of these senators. No one does you a favor in these settings for being nice: senators defect when they think they may pay a price at the ballot box. That is the only way to have messaging that takes the initiative and stays on the attack. If things get too hot and the senator pulls their support, great. If not, that just lays the groundwork for beating that senator in the next election. Those two possibilities are the only outcomes of any consequence and the same game plan advances both goals. It’s simple. When they’re upset or hiding you’ll know you’re doing it right. One more point: no one cares about press releases. Getting on camera or activity on social media matter.
Continue reading “Democrats are Surrounded by Low Hanging Fruit: Get To It”Trump Installs Stop The Steal Booster To End Cases Against Jan. 6 Defendants
The U.S. attorney who Trump installed in Washington, D.C. to end Jan. 6 prosecutions has spent the past several years outside of government pushing for exactly that.
Continue reading “Trump Installs Stop The Steal Booster To End Cases Against Jan. 6 Defendants”The Trump II Retribution Begins In Earnest
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
We Saw It Coming
While Trump’s retribution tour is performative, it is also substantive. Real people and real values hurt by the vengeful and vindictive policies and actions that thrill his supporters. A quick rundown of the most notable developments:
- “The Trump administration has removed and reassigned several top career officials in the Justice Department’s national security and criminal divisions, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.”–WaPo
- “Within hours of taking office, President Donald Trump terminated the Secret Service detail that was assigned to his former national security adviser John Bolton, Bolton confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.”–CNN
- Coast Guard commandant terminated over border lapses, recruitment, DEI focus”–Fox News
- “Trump orders all federal diversity, equity and inclusion employees placed on paid leave starting Wednesday.”–NBC News
It is way too early to know what else has transpired across the vast expanse of the federal government in the first 36 hours since Trump took office. Stay tuned.
Jan. 6 Pardons: Day 1
Simply an astounding reversal to the rule of law, the constitutional order, and civil society, with the mass release of hundreds of people convicted of what amounts to political violence:
- “As of Tuesday, 211 people—every clemency recipient—who had been in federal Bureau of Prisons custody had been released, officials said, a process that took roughly 12 hours.”–WSJ
- A rogue’s gallery of some of the most violent Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump via NBC News
- Trump’s pardons led to the dismissal of a pending case against an alleged rioter who harassed police officers testifying in Jan. 6 cases.
- Witnesses in the Jan. 6 cases, including police officers, began getting automatic notifications from the Justice Department that the defendants they had testified against are being released from prison. In some instances, that meant multiple notifications for a single witness.
- Outside the DC jail, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) angled to be the first member of Congress to offer released Jan. 6 rioters “a guided tour of the Capitol.”
Reax To The Jan. 6 Pardons
- NBC News: “People in the Justice Department and legal scholars are calling the move an unprecedented and dangerous use of the pardon power that dealt a crushing blow not just to federal law enforcement, but also to the U.S. justice system. They say it makes a mockery of years of work by FBI agents, prosecutors and federal judges, some of whom Trump appointed, after an effort that included charges against 1,583 defendants, more than 1,000 guilty pleas and more than 200 convictions at trial. Some worry it signals open season for political violence — given that 608 of those charged were accused of assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement agents or officers — while others fret about the marker laid down for future presidents.”
- Randall Eliason: “This is a blueprint for a lawless administration that knows it will not be held accountable for criminal acts. That would include, of course, crimes committed to interfere with the next presidential election to allow the party, if not Trump himself, to stay in power. Trump’s team came very close to overturning the 2020 election. No doubt they have learned some lessons and will not repeat the same mistakes.”
Mapping The Jan. 6 Cases
A final rundown on the geographic dispersion of the Jan. 6 defendants.
A New Corrupt Trump Pardon
In pardoning Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the illegal online drug marketplace the Silk Road, Donald Trump openly admitted to ill motives, declaring that he was doing it in part to honor the “Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly.”
The Proud Boys Are Back
“The cascading effects of pardoning some 1,500 insurrectionists remain to be seen. But to researchers, activists and reporters covering extremism in America, the implication was clear: Political violence will be tolerated, and even rewarded, when it’s carried out on behalf of Trump.”–HuffPost
Elon Musk Watch
Take it from right-wing extremists: They loved, in the muted language of the Associated Press, Elon Musk’s “straight-arm gesture.”
Aileen Cannon Still At It
On the first full day of the Trump administration, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon blocked the Justice Department from sharing the Mar-a-Lago volume of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report with members of Congress.
Trump II Clown Show
- WSJ: Hegseth Routinely Passed Out From Alcohol Abuse, Witness Says
- NYT: Senate Questionnaire Sheds Light on Kash Patel’s Early Years
Quote Of The Day
“We are, quite frankly, the dominant predator…”–Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), on Fox Business talking about America’s Manifest Destiny to obtain Greenland
Making Sense Of The Trump Executive Orders
- Mark Nevitt at Just Security: Unpacking Trump’s Executive Order on National Emergency at the Southern Border
- Charlie Savage: “[Trump] not only revived some of the same expansive understandings of executive authority that were left unaddressed [from Trump I], but went even further with new claims of sweeping and inherent constitutional clout.”
- WSJ: “Pentagon officials are planning options for using federal troops to secure the U.S.-Mexico border against drug traffickers, human smugglers and migrants, a potentially major shift in military priorities ordered by President Trump, officials said Tuesday.”
Pushing Back Against Trump
- States and advocacy groups have already filed four lawsuits to block implementation of Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship.
- The first hearing in those cases is likely to be in Seattle in front of U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, an 83-year-old Reagan appointee.
- The National Treasury Employees Union has sued to block Trump’s executive order reimposing Schedule F and limiting civil service protections.
Memorable
Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., addressed President Trump directly during a prayer service Tuesday at National Cathedral, beseeching him to show mercy to the people he is marginalizing, including immigrants and people who identify as LGBTQ:
Vice President J.D. Vance’s squirming and sneering was notable, as was the refusal of his wife to engage with him.
Trump went off on the bishop overnight, calling her “ungracious,” “nasty,” and “not compelling or smart.”
It was the reaction of Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), though, that was most indicative of the current moment: He publicly called for the bishop to be deported.
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Inside The Farce Of Swaying Republican Senators On Trump’s Nominees
The “blockbuster” hearings on Donald Trump’s most unavoidably unfit Cabinet nominees feel completely hollow.
Continue reading “Inside The Farce Of Swaying Republican Senators On Trump’s Nominees”Day Two
After a morning meeting, I sat down to my computer around 11:30 a.m. ET and read two reader emails picked more or less at random out of my inbox. The first was from an American expat. The gist of his email was that American liberals — Blue America, for lack of a better descriptor — are totally unprepared for what’s coming down the pike toward them. The second was from a federal government employee reviewing the executive orders relevant to the federal workforce and explaining to me in so many words, ‘yeah, good luck with that.’ The expat’s email was generally more pessimistic and totalizing than I’m inclined to be. You may differ and you may be right; who knows? But in general the two emails together captured the moment as well or better than any report, essay or interview I might have read — a mix of actions and red flags almost unimaginable by any normal standard (though in virtually every case unsurprising) mixed with an underbrush of the sheer size, inertia and difficulty of whatever changes Trump is trying to make. They’re both true. Both true at once.
Continue reading “Day Two”