A federal judge in Nashville has dismissed the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, ruling that he was the victim of vindictive prosecution by the Trump Justice Department.
Continue reading “BREAKING: Abrego Garcia Prevails on Vindictive Prosecution Claim”Broadview Fallout Reaches DC
More fallout from yesterday’s courtroom drama in Chicago. The original prosecutor in the Broadview Six case, Sheri Mecklenberg, withdrew from the case with little or not advance notice in late February and announced she was taking a position as a DOJ detailee working for the Senate Judiciary committee under Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). The hearing yesterday pointed to her as the source of most or all of the grand jury misconduct though not the redactions part of the misconduct, which took place after her departure.
Durbin’s office said this morning she’s been dismissed from her position.
In the Trenches with the Law — Thoughts on the Broadview Six Case
I was thinking last night about the denouement of the Broadview Six case, a collapse which I’m told by some legal observers stands a non-trivial chance of seeing some of the prosecutors disbarred. And I contrasted it with the series of TPM Reader emails about the “fancy lawyers.” A number of these emails start out with some version of, I’m not part of the legal elite, I’m just working here in the trenches as a lawyer in [this or that mid-sized city in the United States]. Or maybe, my background is in elite law but I’m down here in the trenches, etc.
Continue reading “In the Trenches with the Law — Thoughts on the Broadview Six Case”Craven Self-Preservation Puts Senate GOP at Odds With Trump
‘Our Majority Is Melting Down Before Our Eyes’
Senate Republicans have always felt like the weakest of the political bulwarks protecting Trump and Trumpism, but real signs of senators crumbling en masse have remained few and fleeting. Yesterday’s developments were more real and may not be so fleeting.
Resistance within John Thune’s conference to Trump’s vanity ballroom and the travesty of the anti-Weaponization Fund coupled with House GOP leaders yanking a vote to rein in the Iran War because they were going to lose on the floor gave the real sense that Republicans see their own midterm prospects as dim.
“Our majority is melting down before our eyes,” a GOP senator told Punchbowl.
But there’s a lot of nuance here that suggests something less than a sea change in the underlying political dynamics. Our eagerness to see real change, real opposition to Trump, and a real erosion of his political support is so overwhelming that it can skew our perspective.
Nearly half of GOP senators reportedly spoke out against the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s face in a contentious Senate lunch yesterday, but the only senators going on the record with their criticisms are the usual suspects: lame duck senators already on the outs with Trump, Punchbowl notes:
In most cases, the only Republicans who are publicly speaking out against these initiatives are the victims of Trump’s revenge tour or otherwise not seeking reelection. But GOP leaders’ decisions on both the ballroom and weaponization fund make clear that they feel the same way.
Another dynamic in play: Senators may feel emboldened now not just because things are looking bleak electorally in the fall but because the window for Trump to primary them has mostly closed. That’s not a mark of courage, but it does inform the underlying politics.
What isn’t happening is important, too. Senate Republicans still aren’t keen to defend Congress as an institution against a rogue executive intent on stealing its powers as his own. They’re not rising up in defense of the rule of law. They’re not drawing a line in the sand: This far, no further.
Rather, they’re trying to nickel and dime their way to something that is more politically palatable. It’s about the “optics.” This gives rise to half-measures like the proposal being floated to prohibit “Anti-Weaponization Funds” from going to those who assaulted cops on Jan. 6. That’s great as far as it goes, but it still leaves $1.776 billion in unappropriated funds in the hands of an unchecked president for him to use to prop up his political machine.
Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) was an exception, saying he didn’t think any guardrails could fix the fund: “I don’t like the fund at all.”
In normal times, craven self-preservation is sometimes all the democratic system offers as a means of course correction, but so long as one of the two major parties is on an authoritarian bender, these will not be normal times.
The Tax Side of the Corruption
It’s been interesting to observe the world of tax professionals and former IRS officials entering the debate, agog over the sweeping release granted to Trump et al. in the deal for the “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
At its core is the immense disconnect between the I.R.S.’ wrongful leak of Trump’s tax returns and the reward of absolving Trump from complying with the tax laws at any point prior to the signing date of this week’s corrupt bargain.
“It’s just completely contrary to the notion that you’re supposed to comply with the law and the I.R.S. is there to make sure you do that,” George Yin, a tax law professor and former chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, told the NYT. “The idea that you can get a free pass from the I.R.S. or anyone can get a free pass from the I.R.S. is just completely ridiculous.”
Quote of the Day
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.”—Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Get in Line
MAGA World figures are already posturing about why they deserve a portion of what Sen. Thom Tills (R-NC) called a “payout pot for punks.”
Among the notable figures, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio says he expected to get between $2 million and $5 million from the fund. “I’m not greedy,” Tarrio told Reuters. “But my life was all fucked up because of this.”
It’s not just insurrectionists and those once criminally charged seeking compensation but a whole cross-section of right-wing groups and Trump allies, ranging from abortion foes (who the settlement specifically invited to apply) to “millions of Americans whose online speech was censored at the behest of the government, parents silenced at schoolboards, senators whose records were secretly subpoenaed, churchgoers targeted by the FBI, and so on,” according to a DOJ overview given to GOP senators.
Down the Memory Hole!
While President Trump is corruptly accruing funds to pay off his insurrectionist allies, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued orders yesterday without explanation clearing the way for the Trump DOJ to dismiss the seditionist conspiracy and related indictments arising out of Jan. 6.
Pardons and commutations aren’t good enough. Convictions by juries can’t be allowed to stand on the record. It will be as if the indictments themselves never happened.
Broadview Six Case Collapses
The Trump DOJ dropped all remaining charges in the prosecution of the ICE protestors in the Broadview Six case in Chicago during an extraordinary day in court that revealed extensive prosecutorial misconduct and irregularities in front of the grand jury.
“I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts,” U.S. District Judge April Perry said, after reviewing grand jury transcripts behind closed doors and without defense counsel present.
Redacted grand jury transcripts that had been previously been produced to the judge left out the most damaging and incriminating parts of the proceedings, and DOJ prosecutors had not revealed that fact to her, even as she had openly surmised that the redactions were probably just IT glitches.
“And frankly, it is that that I find the most problematic,” the judge said, adding, “I do believe deeply in the presumption of regularity and that most government attorneys are doing the best they can to do the right thing. That trust has been broken.”
Thread of the Day
Criminal defense attorney Ken White goes through the transcript of the highly irregular hearing yesterday in the Broadview Six case:
ICE Agent Will Surrender on State Charges
The ICE agent facing state charges in Minnesota for a road-rage-style incident during Operation Metro Surge will surrender after Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty issued a nationwide warrant last month for his arrest.
Colbert’s Last Late Night Show
The cancellation of a late night show doesn’t rank with the losses of the last 16 months, but the underlying principles under attack are as important as any that Trump has assailed, and the capitulation by CBS mirrors the other cases where institutions and corporations have crumpled rather than stand strong.
Stephen Colbert closed it out with a singalong led by Paul McCartney, who famously first performed in America on the same stage 62 years ago:
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
Their Loved Ones Died for the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court’s Ruling Is a New Injustice.
Dennis Dahmer was 12 years old in January 1966 when Klansmen stormed his family home and set it on fire, murdering his father, Vernon. He still remembers the shootout; he remembers watching his father die from smoke inhalation. The trauma lingers to this day, 60 years later.
Vernon Dahmer had been a fixture in the African American community near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He ran a successful local grocery, and, after the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, obtained the right to register voters and collect poll taxes, which were still in effect, at his store. Members of the local White Citizens’ Council started to appear at the family farm, warning his father to stop, Dahmer told TPM, but that didn’t deter him. He recorded a radio announcement in January 1966 offering to cover the cost of poll taxes for African Americans who couldn’t afford to pay. The KKK attacked the next day.
“He would always say to us, ‘do something, dammit,’” Dahmer recalled. “‘Don’t just stand there.’”
With all that in mind, Dennis Dahmer decided late last year to listen in to oral arguments in Callais v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court case that would ultimately gut the remnants of the Voting Rights Act. The law had provided a framework for protecting minority votes in the South for decades.
“It was apparent to me that they had already made up their mind — talking about the MAGA ones for sure,” he said. “They were just laying the groundwork to justify what they were going to do.”
Continue reading “Their Loved Ones Died for the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court’s Ruling Is a New Injustice.”And There’s More …
Following up on the points outlined in the immediately previous post, this evening House leadership abruptly canceled a war powers vote because they realized it might pass.
All power is unitary. Every victory or defeat in one area strengthens or weakens you everywhere else.
Democrats Flirt with Radical Reforms Needed to Dethrone Supreme Court
Choking on the blistering injustice of the Callais decision, even normie Democrats are starting to make noise about drastically remaking the Supreme Court.
Continue reading “Democrats Flirt with Radical Reforms Needed to Dethrone Supreme Court”The Retribution Tour Collides with the Ballroom and the Slush Fund
It is important to see a few different developments coming together today up on Capitol Hill. As you likely saw there was a mini-revolt today among Senate Republicans over Trump’s slush fund and, to a secondary degree, over the ballroom. Because they wouldn’t agree to back the slush fund, they just left and went on recess. Not exactly a huge profile in courage. But it’s also at least delayed Trump’s new ICE funding bill. The ballroom, the slush fund, the ongoing retribution tour — these are all Trump’s big obsessions right now, as I noted this morning. But in something like a meta-ten-car pile-up, the different self-soothing efforts are bumping into each other. Trump just knee-capped Sen. Cassidy in Louisiana (he lost his primary) and Sen. Cornyn (endorsed primary challenger Ken Paxton). Two careers ended. Two senators who are really embittered. Trump also blindsided other Republican senators when he endorsed Paxton. They had no advance warning. Totally out of the blue. Party discipline is a thing. But you do it wisely. Trump’s made Cassidy, Tillis and perhaps now even Cornyn into chaos agents going into the midterms.
The point is, the retribution tour is colliding with the building spree and the Deserving Fascists Slush Fund. None of them have anything to do with helping the GOP in the midterms. The wheels are coming off.
Continue reading “The Retribution Tour Collides with the Ballroom and the Slush Fund”Senate GOP Doesn’t Like Trump’s Slush Fund So They’re Going Home Instead of Doing Anything About It
‘It Makes Everything Way Harder’
“We will pick up where we left off,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters after a lengthy private Republican conference lunch on Thursday, which reportedly ended with Thune telling Senate Republicans that they were being sent home to start their Memorial Day recess early.
The House quickly followed suit, dropping its plans for a Friday vote on the reconciliation package that includes funding for immigration enforcement. As of this morning, the Senate was scheduled to send the legislation to the House after a vote in the upper chamber today.
But President Trump’s vanity and corruption scuttled those plans, according to multiple reports from Capitol Hill this afternoon.
Some Senate Republicans were already wary about including about $1 billion in additional Secret Service and White House funding tied to Trump’s ballroom project in the upcoming reconciliation package that is expected to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Border Patrol into 2029. A handful had indicated publicly that they wouldn’t vote in favor of the immigration package if it also included the ballroom funding, and more, according to reports, supposedly privately had heartburn about it.
The Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the ballroom proposal could not be included in the package and, as of Wednesday, Senate Republican leadership had decided to remove the provision from the bill in order to pass the immigration funding. (Trump went ballistic, of course, and used his Truth Social platform to call on Republicans to punish the parliamentarian.)
But then Trump’s comedically corrupt settlement agreement between his own IRS, which he sued, and his Justice Department came to light. The settlement purported to establish a $1.7 billion slush fund — dubbed the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” by the DOJ — to be used to compensate people who feel they’ve been wronged by the judicial system, aka Trump’s allies and supporters who were charged as part of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the broader effort to overturn the election, as well as people who assisted with Trump’s various other misdeeds. Some Senate Republicans, during a hearing with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, vocalized concerns about who might be eligible for compensation. Specifically, they had concerns about whether those who attacked police officers on Jan. 6 would qualify. Blanche would not say for sure. Politico reported on Wednesday that there might even be enough GOP support for a planned Democratic amendment targeting the slush fund to be attached to the reconciliation package.
During a private briefing between GOP senators, Blanche and other DOJ officials on Thursday, Blanche reportedly faced a grilling from Senate Republicans about the slush fund of taxpayer dollars, which will have to be approved by Congress. Per NBC News:
The Justice Department has said it plans to make $1.776 billion in taxpayer money available for the fund. Given Democratic opposition, the only method of passing that through Congress would be to add it to the immigration “reconciliation” package, which can pass with only Republican votes.
Republicans were apparently specifically trying to nail Blanche down on potential guardrails for the fund’s disbursement. Blanche reportedly committed behind closed doors that settlement funds would not be given to those who assaulted police officers on Jan. 6 — something he was not willing to do publicly. Senate Republicans also received a one-page fact sheet from the White House that outlined details like where the money would come from, who would be in charge of pay outs and who might be eligible. (The memo reportedly did not mention that people who assaulted law enforcement would be ineligible.) Per NBC News:
“This is about seeking accountability for all Americans who were victims of lawfare and weaponization: millions of Americans whose online speech was censored at the behest of the government, parents silenced at schoolboards, Senators whose records were secretly subpoenaed, churchgoers targeted by the FBI, and so on,” the fact sheet said.
“There is no partisan restriction: Democrats can submit claims, too,” according to DOJ.
As he exited the meeting Thursday, Thune was candid with reporters about the lack of progress that was made during the meeting and the roadblock the slush fund has created for the passage of the immigration reconciliation package.
“They need to help with this issue, because we have a lot of members who are concerned obviously about the timing but also about the substance,” Thune said, referencing the slush fund and the help he needs from the administration to organize his conference around it. Per Politico:
Asked about the internal furor over the settlement fund, Thune told reporters that “it makes everything way harder than it should be” and that it “would have been nice if they had consulted” senators.
— Nicole LaFond
Blanche Clearly Struggling With the Assaulting Police Question
His attempts to clean this up have not gone well.
There’s More 👀👀👀
First of Many Ex-Trump Officials Running for Office Wins Dem Primary
An ex-federal prosecutor who said he resigned from the Justice Department after Trump began weaponizing it against his perceived political enemies, Zach Dembo, won the Democratic primary in the race to represent Kentucky’s 6th House District and replace Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY), who’s running for Senate.
Dembo is part of a slate of ex-DOJ attorneys and other former Trump administration officials who launched Democratic bids for office this year after leaving or being kicked out of the administration. Fired-FBI official David Sundberg is running for Congress in Maryland. An ex-Capitol police officer who fought off rioters during the January 6 insurrection is also running for a Maryland congressional seat. And former DOJ deputy to prosecutor Jack Smith is running for Congress in Virginia.
Dembo worked as a U.S. Navy JAG before heading to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. He worked in policy for Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear before returning to the DOJ as a prosecutor in Lexington.
“When Donald Trump started using your Justice Department to go after his political enemies, I resigned,” Dembo said in a campaign ad released earlier this month.
Dembo’s chance at beating his GOP opponent in November looks like a long shot right now, according to the Cook Political Report, which rates Kentucky’s 6th District as “solidly Republican.” According to state data, registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in the district by just over 1,000 voters.
— Layla A. Jones
Tariff Watch: Court Denies Admin’s Request for Stay After Blocking New Levies
The Trump administration has to stop collecting its newest set of tariffs, refund the importers who sued the government, and carry out a court’s orders blocking the tariffs even as it appeals the decision.
After the administration scrambled to replace Trump’s widespread tariffs, which were blocked by the Supreme Court, with some new levies under a different statute, a couple of small businesses and two dozen states sued the government afresh. In early May, the Court of International Trade struck down those new import taxes. The court ordered the administration to repay the harmed plaintiffs, which were the small businesses and the state of Oregon. As expected, the administration immediately appealed and asked for a stay of judgement in the meantime. Wednesday evening, the court denied the administration’s request for a stay while it appeals the ruling, dealing another blow to Trump’s unceasing attempt at reordering global trade.
— Layla A. Jones
In Case You Missed It
The latest edition of The Franchise from Khaya Himmelman: South Carolina Republicans Advance Map That Aims to Eliminate Jim Clyburn’s Seat
Morning Memo: New Frontiers in Venality, Graft, and Abuse of Power
ICYMI: Louisiana Governor Heckled, Rejected During Tour of Greenland
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
What Will Drop Next in the Corrupt Trump-IRS Deal?
What We Are Reading
A Department of Justice for an Age of Conspiracy Theories
Hand in the Cookie Jar
Here’s a story you should pay close attention to. You may have heard of the “Broadview Six” (later reduced to “Four”). It was a case focused on prominent local Democrats protesting at a Chicago-area ICE facility. (One was congressional candidate and influencer Kat Abughazaleh, who lost her primary this spring.) It was a classic over-charging case: A brief chaotic moment around the vehicle of an ICE employee ratcheted up to be a federal felony conspiracy charge. The case has been moving toward trial for like eight months and it was scheduled to go to trial next week.
For the last month, however, questions about the underlying grand jury proceeding have been roiling the case. First that prompted the government to drop the felony conspiracy charge rather than show the judge the grand jury testimony. (It thus went from a felony trial to a federal trial on one misdemeanor charge.) The judge finally saw those transcripts Tuesday night. That led to a closed-door emergency hearing this morning. In rapid succession today, the remaining charges were dropped and Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Boutros appeared in court personally to apologize to the judge and deny all knowledge of what had happened.
Continue reading “Hand in the Cookie Jar”