We went into this administration with a seemingly durable baseline assumption that, whatever his unpopularity in other areas, President Trump had durable if not overwhelming support for his hardline immigration policies. But something started to show up in polls in the late spring or early summer.
While his numbers on “immigration” were still reasonably robust, we saw a dramatically different picture when pollster’s asked about “deportation” or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Not surprisingly, “immigration” is a very big word and covers a vast range of policy territory. Looked at from a different vantage point, Trump retained a bare majority of public support on “border security” but his “deportation” policy had the support of barely one-third of the population.
Newly released emails and texts provide an extraordinary glimpse of internal government communications during some of the most consequential legal cases of the early months of the Trump II presidency.
The internal communications come from Erez Reuveni, a career Justice Department lawyer who was fired by the Trump administration for being too candid with the court in the Abrego Garcia case. The emails and texts bolster previous allegations Reuveni had made in seeking whistleblower protections.
For our purposes, the most important element of the Reuveni revelations is the planned defiance of federal courts, including misleading, if not downright false, representations to judges, indefensible legal positions, and violations of court orders. The primary villain in the account provided by Reuveni continues to be DOJ official Emil Bove, the former personal attorney for President Trump who was riding herd on the most controversial early Trump II cases and who Reuveni has alleged told DOJ personnel that they might have to tell the courts “fuck you.”
Among the highlights:
In the Alien Enemies Act case before Judge James Boasberg in DC, Reuveni texted a colleague about Bove’s alleged comment: “Guess we are going to say ‘fuck you’ to the court. Super,” he wrote. The colleague responded: “Well, Pamela Jo Bondi is. Not you.”
In the AEA case, it was Bove, according to the internal communications, who said it was legally permissible to deplane the Venezuelan detainees in El Salvador despite Judge Boasberg’s order.
In the Abrego Garcia case, the internal communications show a race by the Trump administration to find evidence to support calling him a MS-13 “leader” as a larger public smear campaign of the wrongly deported Salvadoran was getting into full swing.
For his part, Bove has denied proposing to defy the courts and has said he doesn’t recall saying “fuck you.”
Why It’s All About Emil Bove
The timing of the Reuveni revelations is strategic, which isn’t to say they’re somehow compromised or not credible. The chief culprit in Reuveni’s account is about to get a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court, so waiting until later to tell his story in full would be too little, too late.
Bove’s nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to come to a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee next week. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said this week that he would “probably” vote to confirm Bove in committee, virtually assuring the nomination will make it to the floor, where it’s not clear enough GOP senators will stand up to block Bove’s lifetime appointment.
Low-Key Purges Continue at DOJ
Beyond the early round of mass firings at the DOJ and FBI, a steady drumbeat of firing, demotions, and resignations continues, the WaPo reports:
The Trump administration is firing and pushing out employees across the Justice Department and FBI, often with no explanation or warning, creating rampant speculation and fear within the workforce over who might be terminated next, according to multiple people with knowledge of the removals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.
FBI Uses Polygraphs to Test Loyalty to Patel
Dozens of FBI personnel have been subjected to polygraphs to try to sniff out news leaks and disloyalty to FBI Director Kash Patel, the NYT reports:
The use of the polygraph, and the nature of the questioning, is part of the F.B.I.’s broader crackdown on news leaks, reflecting, to a degree, Mr. Patel’s acute awareness of how he is publicly portrayed. The moves, former bureau officials say, are politically charged and highly inappropriate, underscoring what they describe as an alarming quest for fealty at the F.B.I., where there is little tolerance for dissent. Disparaging Mr. Patel or his deputy, Dan Bongino, former officials say, could cost people their job.
The Trump DOJ’s Big Lurch Against Voting Rights
The Democracy Docket has compiled a timeline of the key steps in the Trump DOJ’s sharp anti-voting shift.
Trump’s Anti-Trans Jihad Takes New Turn
The Trump DOJ has subpoenaed confidential patient information from more than 20 doctors and hospitals that provide gender-related treatments to minors, the NYT reports.
Judge Blocks Birthright Citizenship EO
A federal judge in New Hampshire quickly seized on the opening left by the Supreme Court in its birthright citizenship case by certifying a national class action case that enjoins President Trump’s executive order. He paused his decision for seven days to give the Trump administration time to appeal it.
Khalil Sues Federal Gov’t for $20 Million
Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian Columbia University graduate student targeted by the Trump administration for his political views, has begun the process of filing a lawsuit against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Khalil is seeking $20 million for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and other claims. Khalil has been released from detention but his immigration case is still pending.
Harvard Tries (in Vain) to Placate Trump Administration
WSJ: “Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal.”
Brutal and Self-Defeating
The Trump administration moved to change decades-old policy and deny undocumented immigrants access to Head Start and other federal benefits programs.
2026 Ephemera
The GOP primary for Senate in Texas ain’t for the faint of heart.
State Sen. Angela Paxton (R), the wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who is challenging incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R), announced she is filing for divorce:
Today, after 38 years of marriage, I filed for divorce on biblical grounds.
I believe marriage is a sacred covenant and I have earnestly pursued reconciliation. But in light of recent discoveries, I do not believe that it honors God or is loving to myself, my children, or Ken to…
— Senator Angela Paxton (@AngelaPaxtonTX) July 10, 2025
Lot going on there.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm which is desperate to losing Cornyn’s seat, quickly pounced on the news. “What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting, a spokesperson said.
While a recent Justice Department memo prioritizes national security cases, it directs the department to “maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence” across 10 broad priority categories.
Denaturalization is different from deportation, which removes noncitizens from the country. With civil denaturalization, the government files a lawsuit to strip people’s U.S. citizenship after they have become citizens, turning them back into noncitizens who can then be deported.
The government can only do this in specific situations. It must prove someone “illegally procured” citizenship by not meeting the requirements, or that they lied or hid important facts during the citizenship process.
The Trump administration’s “maximal enforcement” approach means pursuing any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, regardless of priority level or strength of evidence. As our earlier research documented, this has already led to cases like that of Baljinder Singh, whose citizenship was revoked based on a name discrepancy that could easily have resulted from a translator’s error rather than intentional fraud.
A brief history
For most of American history, taking away citizenship has been rare. But it increased dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s during the Red Scare period characterized by intense suspicion of communism. The United States government targeted people it thought were communists or Nazi supporters. Between 1907 and 1967, over 22,000 Americans lost their citizenship this way.
Everything changed in 1967 when the Supreme Court decided Afroyim v. Rusk. The court said the government usually cannot take away citizenship without the person’s consent. It left open only cases involving fraud during the citizenship process.
After this decision, denaturalization became extremely rare. From 1968 to 2013, fewer than 150 people lost their citizenship, mostly war criminals who had hidden their past.
Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) stokes the Red Scare during the 1950s. (Getty Images)
How the process works
In criminal lawsuits, defendants get free lawyers if they can’t afford one. They get jury trials. The government must prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” — the highest standard of proof.
People facing denaturalization get no free lawyer, meaning poor defendants often face the government alone. There’s no jury trial — just a judge deciding whether someone deserves to remain American. The burden of proof is lower — “clear and convincing evidence” instead of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Most important, there’s no time limit, so the government can go back decades to build cases.
The Supreme Court has called citizenship a fundamental right. Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1958 described it as the “right to have rights.”
In our reading of the law, taking away such a fundamental right through civil procedures that lack basic constitutional protection — no right to counsel for those who can’t afford it, no jury trial, and a lower burden of proof — seems to violate the due process of law required by the Constitution when the government seeks to deprive someone of their rights.
The bigger problem is what citizenship-stripping policy does to democracy.
When the government can strip citizenship from naturalized Americans for decades-old conduct through civil procedures with minimal due process protection — pursuing cases based on evidence that might not meet criminal standards — it undermines the security and permanence that citizenship is supposed to provide. This creates a system where naturalized citizens face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives, potentially chilling their full participation in American democracy.
The Justice Department memo establishes 10 priority categories for denaturalization cases. They range from national security threats and war crimes to various forms of fraud, financial crimes and, most importantly, any other cases it deems “sufficiently important to pursue.” This “maximal enforcement” approach means pursuing not just clear cases of fraud, but also any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, no matter how weak or old the evidence is.
This creates fear throughout immigrant communities.
About 20 million naturalized Americans now must worry that any mistake in their decades-old immigration paperwork could cost them their citizenship.
A two-tier system
This policy effectively creates two different types of American citizens. Native-born Americans never have to worry about losing their citizenship, no matter what they do. But naturalized Americans face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives.
This has already happened. A woman who became a naturalized citizen in 2007 helped her boss with paperwork that was later used in fraud. She cooperated with the FBI investigation, was characterized by prosecutors as only a “minimal participant,” completed her sentence, and still faced losing her citizenship decades later because she didn’t report the crime on her citizenship application — even though she hadn’t been charged at the time.
The Justice Department’s directive to “maximally pursue” cases across 10 broad categories — combined with the first Trump administration’s efforts to review over 700,000 naturalization files — represents an unprecedented expansion of denaturalization efforts.
The policy will almost certainly face legal challenges on constitutional grounds, but the damage may already be done. When naturalized citizens fear their status could be revoked, it undermines the security and permanence that citizenship is supposed to provide.
The Supreme Court, in Afroyim v. Rusk, was focused on protecting existing citizens from losing their citizenship. The constitutional principle behind that decision — that citizenship is a fundamental right which can’t be arbitrarily taken away by whoever happens to be in power — applies equally to how the government handles denaturalization cases today.
The Trump administration’s directive, combined with court procedures that lack basic constitutional protections, risks creating a system that the Afroyim v. Rusk decision sought to prevent — one where, as the Supreme Court said, “A group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship.”
Earlier today, I read this piece by TPM fave Will Sommer which explained that Hugh Hewitt, one-time Josh antagonist, has been pitching his listeners on giving their money to what might be generously described as a fake bank which promised a totally credible 13% annual return when Hugh’s listeners purchased “First Liberty Notes” for a minimum purchase of $25,000. It was all a way to get out from under the “woke” banking system and build a “patriot economy” and do a lot of other cool stuff. It was all the work of a right-wing darling by the name of Brant Frost IV. Apparently the fake bank, First Liberty Building & Loan (no FDIC insurance), was a key part of the Georgia GOP ecosystem.
In any case, as Will explained, things had taken an unexpected turn — at least for the purchasers of “Liberty Notes” — when the company’s website suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a notice which announced that the owners were cooperating with federal authorities to close the business down. (Doesn’t sound promising!) Now, just a few moments ago, I got an alert about this article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution which reports that the SEC has charged First Liberty with running a $140 million Ponzi scheme.
On Oct. 12, 2023, the MAGA influencer turned to the site formerly known as Twitter to regale his followers with a 685 word post about a very real date with a woman that he supposedly went on. According to Adams, he ordered his usual and totally believable two-and-a-half plus pounds of meat and, as he settled in to enjoy the massive portion, there was a problem. As he put it, “the girl would not stop talking.” Adams said he had a waiter move his date to another location.
“I am an alpha male, and I would like to enjoy this stunning piece of meat in peace,” he said.
As more than a hundred fatalities have been confirmed in Texas flash floods and some 170 remain missing, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has both denied that DOGE cuts to the National Weather Service played a role in the tragedy and also focused on the importance of timely and effective communications about extreme weather events, which she says wasn’t up to par. Coverage of the Texas flash flood calamity has made clear that it’s not just the work of forecasters that is critical. You can have a timely and accurate forecast but it does little good if it isn’t effectively communicated to local authorities in the effected areas. That “last mile” communication is critical and it seems like there were breakdowns on that front both with county officials and possibly on the National Weather Service side, where a senior position in charge of liaising with local officials was vacant at the time of the floods. But even as the rescue workers were searching for bodies in Texas on Tuesday, DHS canceled a $3 million grant aimed at ensuring precisely those kinds of “last mile” communications.
Senate Republican leadership is trying to shore up votes for President Donald Trump’s $9.4 billion rescission request — the White House’s attempt to give some legitimacy to the Department of Government Efficiency’s rampage through the federal government.
But not everyone in the Senate Republican conference is on board with the cuts the White House is trying to force feed Congress via a constitutionally backwards rescissions package. A handful of senators are hoping to amend the package and water down the proposed cuts to make it more palatable.
I wanted to give you just a quick heads up. Next week we’re kicking off this year’s annual drive for the TPM Journalism Fund. This is always a critical effort for us every year. This is our sixth annual drive. This is, as you of course know, a bonkers years and a terrible one for the American Republic. But it’s focused us on our unique role in the news ecosystem, one that is even more critical in many ways since independence from any corporate overlord has become central to how an American news organization works in 2025. No news organization owned by a big, diversified corporation can be truly independent today because a big corporation is prey to the kind of regulatory harassment that is a central feature of Trumpism. In any case, more on that when we officially kick things off. But I just wanted you to keep an eye out for it next week.
Back when banner headlines mattered, this would have been plastered across the top of the every front page in America: President Trump is exacting decade-old retribution against former top government officials who now face criminal investigations by a Justice Department run out of the White House.
I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that.
As Fox News first reported, former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey are now the targets of federal criminal investigations related to their work probing Russia’s connections to the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. The Justice Department confirmed the investigations Wednesday in a highly unusual move in which it announced the probes before retreating behind the longstanding policy that it had just violated of not commenting on active investigations.
The purported wrongdoing by Brennan is allegedly lying to Congress about a 2017 intel community assessment of Russia’s pro-Trump role in the 2016 election and reportedly comes after a criminal referral by current CIA Director John Ratcliffe. It’s not clear what the spurious predicate is for the Comey investigation, assuming there is an ostensible “reason” for it.
Asked about the investigations, Trump denied any knowledge of them, before piling on:
But I will tell you, I think they’re very dishonest people. I think they’re crooked as hell. And maybe they have to pay a price for that. I believe they are truly bad people and dishonest people … So whatever happens, happens.
The White House press secretary lauded the investigations in a Fox News appearance. “I am glad to see that the Department of Justice is opening up this investigation,” Karoline Leavitt said.
If you’re waiting to draw your own conclusions until you see the outcome of these bogus investigations, you’ve been lulled into a sense of complacency. The trumped-up investigations are the wrongdoing. Bringing criminal charges would be an additional layer of wrongdoing, but, at this stage, the harassment, intimidation, and threat are the point. Brennan and Comey are the immediate targets, but it’s a warning to government officials past and present not to cross Trump.
We’re way past the threshold now and deep into the lawlessness.
Comey Targeted in Another Way
“The Secret Service had the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey followed by law enforcement authorities in unmarked cars and street clothes and tracked the location of his cellphone the day after he posted an image on social media in May that President Trump’s allies said amounted to a threat to assassinate the president,” the NYT reports.
OK, It’s ON!
The Trump White House’s push for a mid-decade redistricting in Texas to try to squeeze out a few more GOP seats and save the House in the 2026 election has succeeded. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) included redistricting in the legislative agenda he released yesterday for a special session set for later this month.
Sign of the Times
A new survey by the Brennan Center reports that 46% of local election officials are concerned about political motivated investigations into election administration.
Trump Zeros in on Harvard’s Accreditation
The Trump administration told Harvard’s accreditor that it had concluded the university violated civil-rights laws by allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment, in a move that poses an existential threat to the school. The latest attack on higher ed came the same day that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it will subpoena Harvard for records about the enforcement of immigration laws with respect to its international students.
Canary Mission Used to Target Pro-Palestinian Students
The anonymous pro-Israel website Canary Mission was used by the Trump administration to identify pro-Palestinian students to target for deportation, according to documents and testimony that have emerged in the ongoing trial over the deportation policy.
Wrongfully Deported Man Confirmed at CECOT
In one of the lower-profile wrongful deportation cases, the Trump administration for the first time confirmed that Jordin Alexander Melgar-Salmeron is being detained at CECOT in El Salvador.
What stands out about the wrongful deportation of Melgar-Salmeron, a Salvadoran national, is that he was removed in violation of an appeals court order. His removal on May 7 within minutes of the Second Circuit’s order was the result of a confluence of administrative errors, the Trump administration has told the court.
But until yesterday, the administration had not been able to provide information on Melgar-Salmeron’s exact whereabouts
Jan. 6 Rally Organizer Found in Contempt of Court
Stop the Steal rally organizer Caroline Wren, a longtime GOP fundraiser, was found in contempt of court and fined $2,000 a day until she complies with a subpoena for records about the Jan. 6 event that preceded the attack on the Capitol. The subpoena arises in a lawsuit by Capitol police against Donald Trump, and Wren is a witness. “I don’t want to resort to incarceration if at all possible,” U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks of South Florida said Wednesday in court, where Wren was a no-show.
Thread of the Day
What's up with Justice Jackson? She started making her mark and speaking out early, and some of her dissents are so pointed Kagan and Sotomayor don’t even join them. The far right is out for her, and even Republican justices are getting snarky. So what's up? Here’s my take 🧵
A new DHS policy that Secretary Kristi Noem must personally sign off on every contract and grant over $100,000 has hamstrung FEMA’s response to the devastating floods in Texas. “Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday, more than 72 hours after the flooding began,” CNN reports.
Extremist Group Targets Weather Radars
After an Oklahoma TV station’s weather radar was vandalized Sunday night, the founder of an anti-government militia group confirmed that it was targeting Doppler radars.
“Absolutely,” Michael Meyer, the founder of Veterans On Patrol, told News9, the CBS affiliate in Oklahoma City.
Meyer told the station he had posted a warning sign that weather radars were being “targeted for elimination by victims of U.S. weather experimentation.”
A suspect was arrested Tuesday on unrelated charges but has not been charged for the radar sabotage.
Asked if his group was responsible for vandalizing News9’s radar, Meyer responded: “Veterans On Patrol is responsible for a lot more than that.”
Neil Jacobs, the nominee to run National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which includes the National Weather Service), pledged to work to undo the DOGE Weather Service staffing cuts in testimony today before the Senate. To quote Government Executive magazine: “Nominee says he would work to undo the workforce cuts from the last few months, though the process could take time.”
