Not Possible in a Functioning Democracy

A whirlwind of developments closed the deal yesterday on what is arguably the single most corrupt scheme of the Trump II presidency to date.

In broad daylight, President Trump raided the U.S. treasury to the tune of $1.776 billion, to be disbursed at his discretion to an assortment of insurrectionists, pardoned criminals, and disgraced former officials whom he counts among his political allies.

The day unfolded like this:

• A settlement agreement is signed by Trump’s personal attorney, the DOJ’s No. 3, and the IRS commissioner to resolve Trump’s collusive lawsuit against the IRS in federal court in Miami and establish an “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
• Trump dismisses his lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams can weigh in on whether the IRS and Treasury Department are under Trump’s effective control, which would have ended the lawsuit and prevented any “settlement.”
• The DOJ touts the settlement in a press release and issues a bare-bones summary of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
• With obvious reluctance, Williams, whose hands are tied by court rules, orders the Trump case closed.
• The DOJ releases the settlement agreement itself.
• Brian Morrissey, the general counsel of the Treasury Department, resigned Monday just hours after the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was announced and only seven months after he was confirmed as the department’s top lawyer.

A few observations:

Six pages! The settlement agreement, at a mere six substantive pages, has to be among the skimpiest legal documents ever drafted for a settlement of this scale. The ratio of settlement agreement pages drafted to dollars committed is off the charts.

How convenient! The settlement agreement contains a nifty provision that purports to allow only the collusive parties to the agreement — and no one else — to challenge it.

Conflict of interest much? The No. 3 at DOJ, Stanley Woodward, represented a host of clients, including Jan. 6 defendants, who stand to be beneficiaries of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”

A free-for-all! None of the documents released by the DOJ, including the settlement agreement itself, defines “weaponization,” provides clear standards for reviewing claims, or otherwise establishes any guardrails for transparency of accountability.

In a normal, functioning democracy, none of this would be possible. If it were attempted, the legal and political blowback would ruin careers, lead to prosecutions, end in impeachments, and might shift the balance of power away from those associated with the culprits for a generation for more.

The importance of what happened yesterday is that Trump and his cabinet declared to the world that they can do anything they want — and they will. Unshackled by the Roberts Court before he was even sworn in and backed since then by a supine Republican Congress, Trump is free to raid the Treasury, to use public funds to prop up his political machine, to use the federal courts to launder his schemes, and to unleash upon civil society domestic terrorists, insurrectionists, and other bad actors to perpetuate his regime.

Only the Best: Trump DOJ Edition

In a stunning decision late last week, three federal judges in Wyoming dismissed felony indictments in nine different cases due to prosecutorial misconduct in front of the grand jury by then-interim U.S. Attorney Darin Smith of Wyoming.

The dismissed indictments, which can be resubmitted to a new grand jury, included murder, weapons possession, drug distribution, and possession of child pornography.

In their joint order dismissing the indictments, the judges describe an avalanche of errors by Smith in a March 16 grand jury session, which they grouped into two categories: (i) “conclusive statements about the bad character of the Defendants and the weight of the evidence”; and (ii) “statements and conduct that erode the independence of the grand jury.”

Despite this fiasco, Senate Republicans took the interim tag off of Smith last night by confirming him as U.S. attorney.

Minnesota Charges ICE Agent in Shooting

For the second time, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has brought criminal charges against a federal agent involved in Operation Metro Surge. The latest charge comes in a notorious shooting incident after a pursuit, where the ICE agent allegedly fired his gun through the closed front door of a home, striking a Venezuelan national. Moriarty identified the ICE agent publicly for the first time as she brought assault charges against him and obtained a nationwide warrant for his arrest.

Midterms Money Business Watch

• President Trump seized on a legitimate error in the distribution of mail-in ballots for Maryland’s upcoming primaries to order a Justice Department investigation and to make wild and unfounded allegations on social media that the state “sent out 500,000 Illegal Mail In Ballots, and they got caught!” adding that “nobody knows what’s happening with the first 500,000 they sent.” The state caught the error by a vendor, which led to some voters receiving ballots for the wrong party, and is working to resend the correct ballots.
• A coalition of 10 big city district attorneys are expected to announce as soon as today that they will investigate and prosecute any suspected voter intimidation by federal agents during the midterms.

Judges Duel Over Anti-Trans Subpoena

In dueling court cases in Rhode Island and Texas, two federal judges have issued conflicting rulings over a Trump DOJ administrative subpoena served on Rhode Island Hospital for records of its transgender care program.

In the most recent development yesterday, notorious right-wing federal judge Reed O’Connor of Fort Worth, who previously upheld enforcement of the subpoena, ordered the hospital to begin producing the subpoenaed records beginning today for him to hold in chambers while various appeals proceed.

O’Connor’s order — which comes after U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy of Rhode Island last week blocked enforcement of the subpoena — includes a highly unusual injunction that prohibits the hospital from seeking relief from his order except at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court:

[The hospital] is hereby ENJOINED from seeking relief, encouraging others to seek relief, or cooperate with others in seeking relief from any other court related to these proceedings, and from aiding and abetting others or encouraging others from seeking relief from any other court but those identified …

At least seven other federal courts have agreed to quash or limit the expansive civil subpoenas sent to more than 20 doctors and hospitals last summer, the AP reports.

Anti-Trans Watch

• Colorado: The state Supreme Court ordered Children’s Hospital Colorado to resume providing transgender care for minors. The hospital had paused such care after the Trump administration moved to block federal funding for hospitals that provide such care.
• Kansas: A state judge blocked the state’s ban on transgender care for minors, finding that it ran afoul of the state Constitution’s expansive Bill of Rights.
• Texas: Under an agreement coordinated with the Trump DOJ to settle a state investigation by state Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas Children’s Hospital will create the nation’s first “detransition” clinic focused on medical care for young people who stop or reverse their gender transitions.

Pentagon IG Investigates Boat Strikes

The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating the Trump administration’s high seas campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, according to a May 11 IG memorandum.

Ebola Watch

• The death toll from the ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, which raged for weeks before the alarm was sounded, has risen to more than 130 people, with more than 500 suspected cases.
• An American doctor working for a missionary group in the DRC tested positive for ebola after treating patients. He is being transported to Germany for treatment, along with six other Americans who had high-risk exposure to the virus.
• In response to the outbreak, the Trump administration limited entry to the United States from the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan.

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BREAKING …

In a new filing this morning, President Trump attempted an end run around a federal judge by purporting to dismiss his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

The move comes just days before this week’s deadline set by the judge in the case for Trump and the government defendants to explain how they are truly adverse, rather than all on Trump’s side.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami had expressed concern that without a true dispute between adverse parties she lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. With no one to argue the other side, she had appointed highly regarded outside attorneys as friends of the court to advise her on the legal issues involved.

Late last week, perhaps anticipating an effort to end-run the judge, they submitted their memo more than a week ahead of their deadline, making a compelling case for why “President Trump enjoys ample actual and practical authority to control the Defendants.”

Trump’s latest filing is a notice of dismissal with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled, but most importantly it contends that the right to dismiss the case is not subject to judicial review under the procedural rules since neither the IRS nor the Treasury Department had yet filed an answer or other responsive motion to the lawsuit.

“Accordingly, voluntary dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) is available as of right, and requires neither leave of Court nor the consent of any party,” Trump’s lawyers argue. They go farther in a footnote, in telling the judge that they are filing a notice of dismissal, not a motion to dismiss, because she has no say in the matter under appeal court precedent: “dismissal is self-executing, terminates the action upon filing, and divests the district court of jurisdiction.”

The bulk of the notice is dedicated to telling Judge Williams to back off: “Upon the filing of this Notice, no judicial analysis is appropriate, and any ‘subsequent order purporting to dismiss ‘all claims’ . . . [would be] a nullity,’” it contends, citing case law.

The notice also cheekily purports to assess fees and costs: “Each party shall bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs.”

The dismissal comes after significant new reporting over the weekend that built on ABC News’ blockbuster on Thursday that the case was on the verge of being settled through a unprecedentedly corrupt agreement where the U.S. government would set up a $1.7 billion slush fund under Trump’s purview to pay out “damages” to his allies who purport to be victims of the Deep State, including the Trump-pardoned Jan. 6 defendants.

In a followup story, ABC News reported that the exact settlement amount would be the historically resonant figure of 1,776,000,000 to be overseen by the “President Donald J. Trump Truth and Justice Commission.” It would be composed of five commissioners, four of them appointed by the attorney general, all of whom would be subject to removal by Trump without cause. “The commission would also be under no obligation to disclose the process for awarding the nearly $2 billion,” ABC News reported.

In another dark and cynical twist, the Trump DOJ modeled the proposed slush fund “on a landmark $760 million settlement fund the Obama administration created to compensate Native American farmers and ranchers who were deprived access to federal subsidies for decades,” the NYT reported.

It has been apparent for a couple of weeks that Trump officials were racing to settle the IRS case (while bundling two other Trump claims against the government into the settlement agreement) before Judge Williams could weigh in. “A compensation fund for Trump allies but not for the president himself would offer a short-term fix, allowing the president to receive a deliverable benefit from the lawsuit before the judge could dismiss it, according to officials briefed on its details,” the NYT reports.

Now that Trump has dropped his lawsuit, it’s not clear that Judge Williams has any remaining power to probe the terms of the settlement agreement. It’s also not clear-cut who might have standing to challenge the settlement agreement in court.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) raised one potential avenue of attack in an interview last week with The New Republic, arguing that the 14th Amendment bars the federal government from assuming any “obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” 

“Raskin said that if this fund hands money to the January 6 rioters, Trump will be ‘using federal taxpayer dollars to compensate people who participated in insurrection,'” TNR reported.

Jan. 6 Never Ends

I doubt Morning Memo readers need the point driven home for them, but there is a tendency to see some of the developments of the past 72 hours as discrete events rather than as a singular story of a post-coup reckoning that is pushing a revisionist history of Jan. 6, subverting the rule of law, and setting the stage for future attacks on democracy.

The creation of “The President Donald J. Trump Truth and Justice Commission” funnels public funds to former insurrectionists. The GOP primary defeat of incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is payback for his voting to impeach President Trump over Jan. 6. The commutation of the sentence of former election official Tina Peters by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) on state charges related to her actions in support of the Big Lie comes after Trump retaliated against the state and threatened further adverse action.

It’s all of a piece, and unfolding in broad daylight.

The Corruption: Trump Stock Trades Edition

A sampling of some of the better coverage of the President Trump’s newly disclosed stock trades from the first quarter of 2026:

• Bloomberg: Trump’s More Than 3,700 Trades Astonish Wall Street Insiders
• Judd Legum: The smoking guns in Trump’s new financial disclosure
• CNBC: Trump touted Palantir on Truth Social after buying the company’s stock, records show

The Great Whitening

• South Carolina: Sitting in special session, the legislature will begin debate this week on eliminating the state’s sole majority-Black House district, held by Rep. James Clyburn (D).
• Virginia: With no noted dissents, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected state Democrats’ long-shot bid to pause the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling that threw out their voter-approved redistricting plan.
• Tennessee: After state Republicans redrew the congressional district map to eliminate his majority-Black district, longtime Rep. Steve Cohen (D) decided not to run for re-election this year.

Quote of the Day

“People are expecting overt violence and clubs and fire hoses and pitbulls. You don’t need that when you have the current Supreme Court that we have, when you have legislative bodies that do not want Black people to have representation.” —State Sen. Natalie Murdock (D-NC)

ICE Protestors Go on Trial in Spokane

In a closely watched case that prompted the acting U.S. attorney to resign, the Trump DOJ is bringing to trial this week three ICE protestors on unusual conspiracy charges, a move that legal experts says threatens to criminalize political dissent.

Televangelist-in-Chief

Sarah Posner, on Sunday’s nine-hour prayer marathon on The National Mall:

Trump’s evangelical supporters, who falsely contend America was founded by divine providence as a Christian nation, are trying to turn the anniversary of our independence from a king into a spectacle of worship of their wannabe king who compares himself to Jesus Christ. If there was any “rededication” going on at Sunday’s marathon on the Mall, it was not to the divine, but to the grift of Trump as the God-anointed savior of the “real” Christian America.

Trump Ballroom Funding in Jeopardy

The Senate parliamentarian ruled Saturday that funding for Trump’s vanity ballroom as currently written cannot be included in a reconciliation bill, meaning it cannot pass with a simple majority vote. Republicans are working on redrafting the ballroom funding language.

Greenland Talks

The NYT has a grim progress report after four months of talks in D.C. among the United States, Denmark, and Greenland over President Trump’s demands for a greater role on the island territory: “The American demands are so steep, Greenlandic officials fear, that they amount to a major imposition on their sovereignty.”

U.S. Conducts Military Strikes in Nigeria

A joint U.S.-Nigeria operation on Saturday killed a senior ISIS leader. Followup strikes on Sunday killed additional Islamist militants.

WHO Declares Ebola Emergency

On Friday, the World Health Organization announced an ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. By Saturday, it had declared ebola to be a global health emergency, with two cases confirmed in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

The re-emergence of the ebola threat comes after the Trump administration dismantled USAID, cut funding for the CDC, and withdrew from the WHO — all of which play significant roles in monitoring, containing, and responding to infectious disease outbreaks around the world.

An undetermined number of American citizens on the ground in the DRC have been exposed to suspected cases of the virus. The U.S. government is reportedly arranging transport for them out of the country to be quarantined elsewhere, though where remains unclear.

Most ebola outbreaks are small, but this one has been spreading for weeks, experts say. “The first known case was a nurse who developed symptoms on April 24,” according to the BBC. “It has since taken three weeks to confirm an outbreak is happening.”

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