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

Everyone In Trump World Got The Same Memo

The Trump administration quickly got in line Thursday to denounce, threaten, and investigate former FBI Director James Comey, whose firing by President Trump in his first term triggered the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel. The rest, as they say, is history.

Here’s what happened.

Comey became a target of opportunity after he posted on social media an image of shells arrayed on sand to read “86 47.” I associate “86” with restaurant kitchens from my days waiting tables: items missing from the menu or the pantry. Also used as a verb, meaning “to strike,” as in “86 the chateaubriand.”

Trump is the 47th president. So it’s shorthand for getting rid of the guy. But “getting rid of” in the mob sense? That’s the high dudgeon Trump administration officials from the White House on down immediately mustered yesterday to try turn Comey’s post into a right-wing firestorm.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich posted that it “can clearly be interpreted as ‘a hit’ on the sitting President of the United States.” Current FBI Director Kash Patel weighed in. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees the Secret Service, which typically is responsible for investigating real threats against the president, announced that DHS and the Secret Service are investigating Comey’s “threat.”

But no Trump official would outdo Tulsi Gabbard, who called for Comey to be jailed:

Jesse Watters: Do you believe Comey should be in jail? Tulsi Gabbard: I do. […] I'm very concerned for the president's life. We've already seen assassination attempts. I'm very concerned for his life, and James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this.

[image or embed]

— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 10:55 PM

Comey eventually took down his post, not that it mattered much.

Covering this kind of right-wing indignation eruption in a “straight” way misses wide of the mark. The NYT headline – “Ex-F.B.I. Chief Being Investigated Over Social Media Post About Trump” – is literally true, but it misses all of the levels of intimidation, cultish displays of loyalty, and pure absurdism. And straight reporting has to pretend to believe that Trump world is truly horrified, which no one in their right mind really thinks is true.

In Trump DOJ News …

• If You Don’t Look For Public Corruption, You Won’t Find It: The FBI has dismantled an elite public corruption unit run out of its Washington Field Office. NBC News was first to report the move.
• Sword Faller: Danielle Sassoon, the acting U.S. Attorney in Manhattan who resigned when the Trump DOJ corruptly abandoned the prosecution of NYC Mayor Eric Adams, made a muted first public appearance this week.
• Ed Martin lolz: When Trump DOJ official Ed Martin oddly used a farewell email to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in DC to reveal that he was under an ethics investigation, he complained loudly that the DC ethics investigator had sent notice of the probe to his home and office in order to embarrass him. Now the WaPo reports that sources say the kind of notification Martin received typically happens after a lawyer had failed to respond to an ethics complaint as required.

The Destruction: Truth-Tellers Edition

• VOA purge: The Trump Administration fired hundreds of Voice of America employees – and put the VOA building up for sale – despite a court order blocking the dismantling of the government broadcaster.
• Misinformation: “The Trump administration has sharply expanded its campaign against experts who track misinformation and other harmful content online, abruptly canceling scores of scientific research grants at universities across the country,” the NYT reports.
• Quote Of The Day: “Firing the leadership of the National Intelligence Council because its analysis does not support policy is a serious error in judgment. The message to the workforce is one of intimidation. In the future, the president will not get the quality of intelligence every president deserves.”–former NIC chairman Christopher Kojm, on DNI Tulsi Gabbard firing top intel officials over an assessment that contradicted President Trump’s rationale for invoking the Alien Enemies Act

Wisconsin Judge Dugan Pleads Not Guilty

A quick update on the criminal prosecution of Wisconsin state Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant briefly evade capture by federal agents:

• Dugan entered a plea of not guilty during a brief appearance Thursday in federal court in Milwaukee.
• The judge set a trial date of July 21.
• Dugan has already filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against her, arguing among other things that judicial immunity bars her prosecution.

The Women On SCOTUS Seem To Get It

The conservative majority on the Roberts Court showed few qualms about seizing on President Trump’s blatantly unconstitutional executive order on birthright citizenship to advance its own pre-existing agenda on limiting nationwide injunctions.

The only question remaining after oral arguments was what kind of new rules the majority would fashion for injunctions. The one leveling influence among the conservative majority seemed to be Justice Amy Coney Barrett, but they have a decisive five votes without her.

TPM’s coverage:

• Live Blog: SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments In Birthright Citizenship Nationwide Injunction Case
• Kate Riga: Birthright Citizenship Is Safe For Now. Nationwide Injunctions Are Not.
• Josh Kovensky: Trump Administration Admits It Could Game Court System Without Nationwide Injunctions

Sharp analysis:

• Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern: “[T]he growing gender divide emerged once again: The four women seemed concerned that the president is trying to undo the final restraints on his exercise of unconstitutional power, and doing so in ways that include breaking norms and defying courts. The five men, in contrast, sounded irked at allegedly monarchical district court judges who dare issue broad orders blocking the White House’s policies, even when they’re blatantly unconstitutional.”
• Chris Geidner: “[T]he court seemed more aligned on the unconstitutionality of Trump’s order — and in agreement with all of the lower courts to consider the question — than on any solution about how to deal with nationwide injunctions.”

IMPORTANT

For the second time, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has held that minority voters do not have the authority to sue to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Rick Hasen explains “why this latest ruling is not just a devastating blow to the law, but also an entirely ahistorical judicial power grab.”

The Corruption: Elon Musk’s Starlink Edition

ProPublica:

Since Trump’s inauguration, the State Department has intervened on behalf of Starlink in Gambia and at least four other developing nations, previously unreported records and interviews show.

As the Trump administration has gutted foreign aid, U.S. diplomats have pressed governments to fast-track licenses for Starlink and arranged conversations between company employees and foreign leaders. In cables, U.S. officials have said that for their foreign counterparts, helping Starlink is a chance to prove their commitment to good relations with the U.S.

“This Isn’t ‘The Hunger Games’ For Immigrants”

Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security is considering being part of a television show in which immigrants would compete for potential U.S. citizenship, the WSJ confirms.

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

Morning Memo comes to you today from Chicago, where Josh Marshall and Kate Riga did their podcast in front of a live audience last night. Thanks to everyone who came out for the first TPM event outside of NYC and DC. Sign up for the email version of Morning Memo.

The Retribution: Jack Smith Edition

Two seemingly disparate developments came together yesterday to show that, despite court setbacks, President Trump and his MAGA supporters in Congress remain hellbent on exacting retribution against the prosecutors involved in investigating him.

Jay Bratt, a member of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team who led the prosecution of Trump in the Mar-a-Lago case, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination rather than be deposed by House Judiciary Committee Republicans as part of their investigate the investigators vendetta.

To be clear, there are no credible allegations of wrongdoing against Bratt. Rather, his invocation of the Fifth Amendment shows that even a longtime DOJ prosecutor has no confidence that the Trump DOJ will conduct itself in a lawful manner, putting him at risk of baseless and vindictive prosecution.

“This administration and its proxies have made no effort to hide their willingness to weaponize the machinery of government against those they perceive as political enemies” said Bratt spokesperson Peter Carr, a former DOJ spokesperson fired by the new administration. “That should alarm every American who believes in the rule of law. In light of these undeniable and deeply troubling circumstances, Mr. Bratt had no choice but to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.”

Faced with the specter of Trump retribution, Bratt left DOJ in January before the inauguration, anticipating things like getting called up to the Hill for show trials and other forms of harassment and intimidation. I sometimes wonder if I need to spell it out more clearly to drive the point home: career derailed, forced to retain counsel, made a public pariah … it starts to add up, financially, emotionally, and otherwise.

It also serves as a threat to civil servants everywhere.

The Retribution: Robert Mueller Edition

A lawyer at the firm Jenner and Block has had his security clearance suspended in another prong of President Trump’s attack on major law firms – but, more importantly for our purposes, retribution against his prosecutors. The unnamed lawyer apparently learned he had lost his security clearance when the Justice Department alerted the judge in a criminal case the lawyer was defending.

A few observations:

• This is the second time this week that lawyers at Trump-targeted law firms have lost security clearances even as law firms have been mostly successful at winning their cases against the Trump executive orders.
• The Jenner and Block lawyer appears crippled from representing his client in what is apparently a case that involves classified information.
• The defendant’s own defense is crippled by the loss or at least the impairment of his lawyer’s ability to represent him.

This all adds up to insidious retaliatory behavior that strikes at the heart of the legal system and the right to counsel.

But perhaps most significantly, this is part of the larger retaliation against former Trump prosecutors like Jay Bratt above. The Jenner and Block executive order explicitly targeted the firm for having hired Andrew Weissmann when he left Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

One Trump Retribution Thwarted

The Trump DOJ unconstitutionally retaliated against the American Bar Association when it terminated a grants program for victims of domestic violence, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled. Cooper concluded that the Justice Department failed to show that it had a basis for terminating the grants other than retaliation against the ABA for being involved in suing the Trump administration.

Tulsi Gabbard Fires Intel Officials Over TdA Report

NBC News: “Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has fired two top intelligence officials who oversaw a recent intelligence assessment which contradicted President Donald Trump’s assertions that the gang Tren de Aragua is operating under the direction of the Venezuelan regime, two officials said Wednesday.”

Latest On Trump’s Lawless Immigration Policies

• In a new filing in the case seeking to retrieve the Venezuelan nationals incarcerated in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, the Trump administration is fighting hard to prevent any discovery into whether they are effectively in constructive custody of the United States.
• Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck takes a close look at the state of play of the Alien Enemies Act cases across the country:
• While Kilmar Abrego Garcia marks three two months in prison in El Salvador as of today, the Trumpian absurdism plays out in DC:

This is absolutely incredible — Kristi Noem repeatedly refuses to acknowledge that Trump brandished an doctored image of Abrego Garcia's tattoos, prompting Eric Swalwell to have a staffer of his brandish an image of them right in her face. Totally dystopian.

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 14, 2025 at 10:15 AM

Georgetown Scholar Ordered Released

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia ordered the release of Indian-born Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University researcher whose legal status was unilaterally revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian academics. His deportation proceedings will still proceed in immigration court.

Thread Of The Day

We have a govt that’s engaged in human trafficking, that’s openly allowing a gulf petrostate to bribe its leadership, that’s reshaping the refugee program in overtly racist terms, that’s almost ended American foreign aid entirely, that’s doing its level best to crash the economy from the rose garden

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 11:05 PM

Ed Martin Under Disciplinary Investigation In D.C.

Trump DOJ official Ed Martin revealed that he is under investigation by D.C.’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel. While he didn’t make the details of the investigation public, Martin is presumably the subject of a bar complaint from his just concluded tenure as acting U.S. attorney in D.C.

The Library Of Congress Was A Bridge Too Far?

I don’t want to overplay the significance of this sign of resistance from Republicans on the Hill, but after nearly four months of being run over roughshod by the President, they seem to have stiffened every so slightly in the face of this intrusion on legislative branch entities.

Via Politico:

A White House push to seize control of the Library of Congress over the past week has run temporarily aground due to quiet but firm resistance from Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the sensitive situation.

While they have not challenged Trump’s abrupt firing last week of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, they have questioned his power to name an acting successor and other library officials, including the nation’s top copyright official. That opposition has left Trump’s intended leader for the library, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in at least temporary limbo.

The interplay of executive and legislative powers plus the overlapping and confusing vacancy laws make this is a thorny legal issue.

DOGE Watch

• DOGE must resume responding to a FOIA request from the government watchdog CREW, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.
• The Trump White House plan to have Congress retroactively bless the DOGE cuts is running into stiff headwinds on the Hill.
• DOGE has stopped claiming credit for killing dozens of federal contracts after the NYT reported that they had already been reinstated.

Join Us

TPM will liveblog the Supreme Court oral arguments today in the birthright citizenship/nationwide injunctions case beginning at 10 a.m. ET.

Quote Of The Day

“I will not yield to disrespectful men.”–Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a late night exchange with Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!