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

A Constitutional Collision In Slow Motion

With a defiant new filing last night from the Trump DOJ, the stage is now set for what is shaping up to be the most direct constitutional confrontation yet between President Trump and the judicial branch.

It comes in the Alien Enemies Act case before U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., where the issue is whether the Trump administration violated his order blocking deportations under the act. But it’s critical to understand that whether the administration complied with the judge’s order is a separate issue from the extent of the powers of the president under the Alien Enemies Act, the deportations themselves, and whether any of the president’s conduct in this regard is subject to judicial review.

Where things now stand is that Judge Boasberg has been trying to ascertain whether the Trump administration violated his order. The Trump DOJ has gone to extraordinary lengths to foil that inquiry:

• It has sent junior lawyers into court with insufficient factual information.
• It has delayed, stalled, and deflected answering the judge’s questions.
• It has rebuked the judge for having the temerity to ask for more details.
• It has suggested the judge, a former FISA judge with deep experience in national security matters, can’t be trusted with the answers to his questions.
• It has invoked the state secrets privilege to shield itself from his inquiries.

Along the way the Trump DOJ has taken a sneering tone with the judge, made absurd arguments – verbal orders from the bench don’t count! – and given the court the runaround in various other ways. To be clear, the administration insists it didn’t violate the judge’s order, but it is persisting in refusing to answer his questions so that he can make his own determination as to what happened and when and whether the failure to turn around airplanes loaded with detainees before they reached El Salvador was a violation of his order.

I can’t emphasize enough that this is all happening not in the context of the Alien Enemies Act itself but in a contempt of court proceeding, where the court’s inherent authority to enforce its own orders, sanction lawyers for misconduct and misbehavior, and ensure the integrity and orderliness of its own proceedings is at stake. That’s what heightens this constitutional clash and sets it apart from what we might think of as “normal” line-drawing exercises between executive and judicial authority.

It’s also important to keep in mind that, as TPM’s Josh Kovensky groundbreaking reporting yesterday showed, the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was designed and implemented in the dark to avoid judicial oversight. The ACLU managed to suss out enough of what was going on to get into court before the operation was entirely complete, but that was precisely what the administration was trying avoid. Under those circumstances, a violation of the judge’s emergency order is even more pungent.

The next step in this matter isn’t exactly clear to me. The ball is now in Boasberg’s court, with the administration adamant that there are no grounds to hold it in contempt while refusing to recognize the judge’s authority to inquire into the matter. Something’s got to give.

Judge Blocks Deportation of Columbia Student

U.S. District Judge Naomi Buchwald blocked the Trump administration from arresting and deporting a Columbia University student Yunseo Chung, a legal permanent resident of the United States who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Trump Says Jump, Columbia Asks How High

At the insistence of the Trump administration, Columbia University publicly reiterated that it is still complying with the agreement it reached to try to get some $400 million in federal funding reinstated.

Trump Targets Another Law Firm

President Trump issued a new executive order targeting Jenner and Block, a major law firm that used to employ Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team who became an outspoken Trump critic. “He’s a bad guy,” Trump said after signing the order.

The executive order mirrored the ones Trump has used to target other major law firms, which has now resulted in some of them declining to represent Trump targets and pulling back on their pro bono work for the advocacy groups leading the charge to challenge the Trump administration in court, the WaPo reports.

Meanwhile, some major law firms have seized on Trump’s attacks on their competitors to try to poach lawyers at the weakened firms, the NYT reports.

The Retribution: 2020 Election Version

• IMPORTANT: President Trump issued what election law expert Rick Hasen is calling a “dangerous” executive order purporting to impose a wide range of new regulations on the conduct of federal elections, including citizenship requirements, prosecuting the GOP’s great white whale of election fraud, and prohibiting the counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day. Most alarmingly, it gives DOGE a role in policing voter registration rolls.
• Jan. 6 Reparations: President Trump floated the possibility of financial compensation for the Jan. 6 rioters who were prosecuted, Politico reports.
• Rewards And Inducements: “President Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon on Tuesday for Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden whose congressional testimony two years ago helped fuel House Republicans’ investigation into the Biden family,” the NYT reports.

Will Trump DOJ Bury The Signal Fiasco?

The question may answer itself. But before we give way to cynicism, a close look at the legal implications of using Signal for planning U.S. military attacks:

• Just Security: The Criminal Law Precedents That Are Most Relevant
• Politico: The Potential Legal Fallout of the Signal Group Chat Leak
• NYT: Signal Chat Disclosure Poses Early Test for F.B.I. and Justice Dept.

Signal Fiasco Is A Complete Shitshow

From the Hill to the White House, the Trump administration flailed in it response to the revelation that top officials – including the vice president, secretary of defense, national security adviser, DNI, and CIA director, among others – were using a commercial app to engage in war-planning. The accidental addition of The Atlantic executive editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the group chat was just the cherry on top of the shit sundae.

Of note: One watchdog group filed a lawsuit to try to enforce the Federal Records Act, which the use of Signal suggests the Trump administration is evading, though to what extent, who knows?

Trump II Clown Show

• President Trump will nominate conservative firebrand L. Brent Bozell III as U.S. ambassador to South Africa after withdrawing his nomination to lead the now partially dismantled U.S. Agency for Global Media.
• DHS has hired David Geier, a vaccine skeptic who has long promoted false claims about the connection between immunizations and autism, to conduct a critical study of possible links between the two, the WaPo reports.

The Purges

• Bloomberg: Treasury Plans ‘Substantial’ Layoffs as Part of Musk’s DOGE Push
• Inside Higher Ed: Education Department Reeling After Layoffs

The Destruction

• EPA: Trump officials knew their legal justification for terminating dozens of Environmental Protection Agency grants was flawed, according to documents and internal emails reviewed by The Washington Post.
• RFE/RL: In a new ruling, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked President Trump’s push to close down Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Trump’s Anti-DEI Crusade Claims New Victims

• The Trump administration is threatening to use a review of the DEI efforts by groups like Planned Parenthood to freeze tens of millions of dollars in federal funding for family planning, the WSJ reports.
• Corporate America is retreating from providing financial support for pride events in the face of Trump’s anti-DEI rampage.

For Your Radar …

In response to Greenland’s ire over visits this week by high-level Trump administration figures, including second lady Usha Vance, Vice President JD Vance has escalated the situation by announcing he will now join and lead the U.S. delegation.

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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.

‘My Offer Is This: Nothing’

The Trump administration took the extraordinary step of invoking the state secrets privilege rather than answer a federal judge’s questions about whether it violated his order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.

“The Executive Branch hereby notifies the Court that no further information will be provided in response to the Court’s March 18, 2025 Minute Order based on the state secrets privilege,” the administration asserted in a bumptious filing over the names of top DOJ officials.

Although it is a weak and probably not viable privilege claim, the state secrets invocation escalates President Trump’s series of attacks on the judicial branch and its independent sources of power under the Constitution. It did so with unusually sharp language that showcased a sneering contempt for the judiciary in refusing to even provide the allegedly privileged information to a judge for his review.

“The Court has all of the facts it needs” the administration argued as it objected to “[f]urther intrusions on the Executive Branch.” It asserted that it would no longer entertain “further demands for details that have no place in this matter.” It contended that the court “owes President Trump ‘high respect’ … but to this point has not” given it to him. The administration repeatedly stated that “there is no need for the requested disclosures” without engaging in actual argument.

Judge Boasberg, a former FISA court judge with deep experience in national security law, had already expressed skepticism in open court about the applicability of the state secrets privilege in this case. But the Trump DOJ forged ahead with a distinctly derisive tone:

“The information sought by the Court is irrelevant to plaintiffs’ claims and to the Executive Branch’s compliance with the Court’s operative order. The Court has already devoted more time to these inquiries than it did to evidence and argument on the issue of whether a class should be certified.”

At issue is whether the Trump administration complied with Boasberg’s order to stop deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, including flights of Venezuelan nationals alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang from Texas to a prison in El Salvador. For more than a week, the Justice Department has dodged Boasberg’s demands for more information on the timing of the flights as he seeks to determine whether his order was violated.

“The need for additional information here is not merely ‘dubious,’ or ‘trivial,’ it is non-existent. The Executive Branch violated no valid order through its actions, and the Court has all it needs to evaluate compliance. Accordingly, the Court’s factual inquiry should end,” the Justice Department concluded.

The invocation of the state secrets privilege came at the end of a long day in the case that began with Boasberg issuing an opinion detailing the legal basis for his temporary restraining order barring the Alien Enemies Act deportations and included feisty oral arguments on the TRO before the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

Must Read

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

‘Houthi PC Small Group’ Makes Headlines

• Politico: ‘Amateur hour’: Washington aghast at Trump administration’s war plan group chat
• WSJ: Top Trump Officials Debated War Plans on Unclassified Chat Shared With Journalist
• WaPo: Trump officials shared war planning in unclassified chat with journalist
• The Guardian: White House inadvertently texted top-secret Yemen war plans to journalist
• NYT: Hegseth Disclosed Secret War Plans in a Group Chat

A Denial For The Ages

"Nobody was texting war plans" — Pete Hegseth

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 24, 2025 at 7:15 PM

New Backstory On Student Deportations?

The WaPo has a new story out suggesting a possible precursor to the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestinian international students at American universities. Back in February when the Trump Education Department launched its ‘antisemitism’ investigations at universities, it “told the attorneys working on the cases to also collect the names and nationalities of students who might have harassed Jewish students or faculty,” the newspaper reports.

Meanwhile, a Columbia University student and a Cornell University student are trying to evade being detained while they each sue the Trump administration to block their possible deportations, claiming they’re being retaliated against for participating in pro-Palestinian protests.

The Retribution: Hill Republicans Take Trump’s Cue

While Senate Republicans are blacklisting the lobbying clients of the law firms targeted by the President Trump’s executive orders, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan is considering punishing the judicial branch by cutting its funding.

No Law But Trump

“Mr. Trump’s tactics against Big Law and other legal institutions seem clearly aimed at demonstrating there is no law but whatever deal the president is personally willing to strike, indeed no law but Trump. Such a vision cannot be reconciled with the idea of individual rights nor with the idea that ordered rules, not raw power, constrain the behavior of the people and their governors alike.”–Deborah Pearlstein, visiting professor of law and public affairs at Princeton and the director of its Program in Law and Public Policy

The Imperative Of Solidarity

“Each time Trump succeeds in subordinating his target, his power ricochets far beyond the particular organization in question, affecting the risk-taking calculus of those who fear they might be added to his list. Acting in isolation, it is hard for a single news outlet, firm, or university to withstand an attack backed by the power of the state. Collectively, though, their extraordinary human, political, and financial resources are a force to be reckoned with. Trump currently seems to understand this better than they do.”–Rebecca Hamilton, an executive editor of Just Security and professor of law at American University Washington College of Law

The Destruction: Social Security

• WaPo: Long waits, waves of calls, web crashes: Social Security is breaking down
• Axios: Social Security rushing service cuts at White House request, sources say
• The NYT has this unbelievable anecdote:

In another instance, the Social Security Administration briefly ended a contract that had allowed parents of newborn babies in Maine to sign their children up for a Social Security number at the hospital, instead requiring them to do so in person at an office. Mr. Dudek said he had ordered the move after watching Janet Mills, Maine’s Democratic governor, clash with Mr. Trump at the White House. He quickly reversed that decision, as well as another to end electronic death reporting in the state.

“I was ticked at the governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the president,” Mr. Dudek said in the interview. “I screwed up. I’ll admit I screwed up.”

The Corruption

• Personnel: President Trump announced he’s making Alina Habba, who was sanctioned and reprimanded while representing him personally, the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey. She will replace John Giordano, who had been in the role for a mere three weeks and is being nominated for ambassador to Namibia.
• Favors: Boeing wants the Trump DOJ to let it out of its Biden-era agreement to plead guilty plea in the 737 MAX case, the WSJ reports. The deal with the Biden DOJ was sabotaged in December by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of Texas who balked at a DEI provision in the agreement that applied to the court appointment of an outside monitor. In short: A notorious right-wing judge blocked a plea deal over DEI late in Biden’s term, which kicked the can down the road until a much-more malleable Trump DOJ was in office and now Boeing is trying to back out of its agreement to plead guilty.
• Leverage: The Trump administration is using its anti-DEI executive order as a sword to go after federal contractors who previously submitted government-required anti-discrimination plans. “What’s unusual is that the office will look for evidence of unlawful practices in the plans that contractors had been required to submit before Trump took office to demonstrate they didn’t discriminate in their hiring and promotions,” the WSJ reports.

Good Read

NYT: In His Second Term, Trump Fuels a ‘Machinery’ of Misinformation

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