WASHINGTON, DC—After months of delays, a federal judge is prepared to swiftly proceed with a contempt of court inquiry in the original Alien Enemies Act case.
Continue reading “Contempt Proceedings in the Original AEA Case Are Back On … For Now”Gov. Greg Abbott Was Ordered to Release Some of His Emails With Elon Musk. Most Are Blacked Out.
This article was first published as a collaboration between ProPublica, The Texas Newsroom and The Texas Tribune as part of an initiative to report on how power is wielded in Texas.
Months after fighting to keep secret the emails exchanged between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s companies, state officials released nearly 1,400 pages to The Texas Newsroom.
Continue reading “Gov. Greg Abbott Was Ordered to Release Some of His Emails With Elon Musk. Most Are Blacked Out.”Release the Trump-MBS Call About Khashoggi?
Yesterday President Trump met in the Oval Office with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and, in the midst of defending him over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, said that MBS “knew nothing about it.” Last night Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) went to the well of the House and gave a brief speech in which he said that the two most troubling presidential calls he had reviewed while serving on the National Security Council staff were the infamous one with President Zelenskyy and another heretofore unknown call with MBS. Vindman then goes on to imply that the call showed Trump not knew MBS ordered the murder but likely supported it. Vindman first posted the video on Twitter last night. This morning he posted the same video on Bluesky. But in the caption he writes in the post — as opposed to the video — he zeroes in specifically on Trump’s claim that MBS “knew nothing about it.”
Continue reading “Release the Trump-MBS Call About Khashoggi?”PHOTOS: TPM Celebrates Our 25-Year Anniversary in NYC
We rang in our 25th anniversary in style last week, hosting a two-day celebration in New York City with TPM staff, alums, readers and some of our favorite journalists.
Continue reading “PHOTOS: TPM Celebrates Our 25-Year Anniversary in NYC”Due to Botched Paperwork, Comey May Never Have Been Properly Indicted
ALEXANDRIA, VA—In a stunning admission, prosecutors in the James Comey case conceded that the two-count indictment against the former FBI director was never presented to or voted on by a grand jury.
Continue reading “Due to Botched Paperwork, Comey May Never Have Been Properly Indicted”Judges Are Finding Ways to Deal With the Supreme Court’s Disastrous Shadow Docket
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes.
On Thursday, a federal district judge allowed a lawsuit challenging the Department of Education’s mass cancellation of grants related to “diversity” to move forward, rejecting the Trump administration’s argument that recent Supreme Court precedent required dismissal of the case.
Continue reading “Judges Are Finding Ways to Deal With the Supreme Court’s Disastrous Shadow Docket”Trump’s Gerrymandering Push In Indiana Continues to Fall Apart
Standing up to pressure from the Trump administration to approve new mid-cycle congressional maps, several Republicans in the Indiana state Senate voted on Tuesday to adjourn until 2026, instead of convening in December for a special session on redistricting as previously expected.
Continue reading “Trump’s Gerrymandering Push In Indiana Continues to Fall Apart”Trump Wants to Talk ‘Affordability,’ But Is Stuck in a Gilded White House Bubble
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
Americans are in a cost-of-living crisis, and in this month’s Democratic landslide elections, they sent President Trump a wake-up call. Utility rates are up 11% since he took office, health care premiums are about to surge for millions — and just as grocery prices were finally stabilizing after pandemic inflation, Trump’s tariffs have driven them up again.
But you wouldn’t know it by watching our president, who has barely uttered a word about this since the start of his second term, apparently lost in a gold-plated version of the White House bubble that traps so many presidents.
Continue reading “Trump Wants to Talk ‘Affordability,’ But Is Stuck in a Gilded White House Bubble”What Is Lindsey Halligan Hiding From Letitia James?
The Retribution: Letitia James Edition
A quick update on the big coverup in the Letitia James case that Morning Memo featured last week:
In a new filing Monday, James lawyers asked the judge in the case to order the Justice Department to produce the documents reportedly turned over to prosecutors by former FHFA acting Inspector General Joe Allen.
More intriguingly, James’ attorneys say the discovery they’ve already received from the government contains a gap in the Bates-stamp sequence that suggests “over 100 pages of discovery likely turned over by the former FHFA Acting Inspector General has not been produced.”
Allen and about a dozen officials within Fannie Mae’s ethics and internal investigations unit were fired after looking into complaints about FHFA director Bill Pulte’s access to the personal mortgage records of prominent Democrats, including James. Before he was ousted, Allen turned over to U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s office some of what he had unearthed that, according to news reports, he felt legally obligated to provide, suggesting it may have been exculpatory evidence favorable to James.
It’s not clear what makes James’ attorney suspect that the gap represents the IG’s documents, but they are requesting a court order for Halligan to provide them with a specific set of documents that have a common Bates stamp signature.
CNN and Marcy Wheeler were among the first to note James’ claims about a hole in the Bates stamp sequence.
Senate Makes Quick Work Of Epstein Files
After the House on a 427-1 vote passed a measure mandating the disclosure of the government’s Epstein files, the Senate quickly adopted it by unanimous consent and sent it to President Trump for his signature. With Trump acquiescing to the legislation, Senate Republicans figured it was more politically expedient to pass it immediately rather than drag it out and be forced into a roll vote.
Harvard Probes Summers’ Epstein Ties
Harvard University is opening a new probe into the connections between convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and former President Larry Summers and others affiliated with the school. This comes the day after Summers announced he was stepping back from public commitments but would still fulfill his teaching obligations.
Trump’s Big Redistricting Fail
President Trump and the House GOP suffered a potentially existential setback when a three-judge panel rejected their new Texas redistricting scheme as racially discriminatory. While the Supreme Court — which under the law will hear the state’s appeal directly — might revive the new Texas map, the GOP faces the real prospect of its aggressive mid-decade redistricting push backfiring and leaving it potentially worse off going into the 2026 midterms:
- Politico: “Now, if the Texas ruling withstands an already-filed appeal and hesitant Republicans across the country don’t budge, Trump stands to end the fight he began behind or near a draw.”
- Punchbowl: “At the outset of this redistricting contest, Democrats started in a hole, in part because they had redistricting commissions in place in so many blue states. But it’s not impossible to imagine that they end up netting more seats than the GOP in these mid-decade redraws, a stunning change of circumstances that didn’t seem possible only a few months ago.”
- Slate: Trump’s Scheme to Give the GOP Extra House Seats Just Blew Up in His Face
Trump Loses Appeal of ‘Big Lie’ Lawsuit Against CNN
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reverse the dismissal of President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against CNN for using the term “Big Lie” to describe his effort to subvert the 2020 election with false claims of voting fraud.
For Your Radar …
A coalition of 10 Democratic state election officials are demanding to know what DOJ and DHS are doing with the private voter data the Trump administration has been collecting.
Defeat for 10 Commandments In Texas Schools
U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia of San Antonio has ordered 14 public school districts at least temporarily to take down posters of the Ten Commandments in a case challenging the new Texas law that requires them to be displayed in all classrooms.
Another Lawless Deportation Case
The Trump administration deported a transgender woman to Mexico last week despite an an immigration judge’s order barring her removal to her home country because she was likely to face torture. ICE says she was removed “inadvertently.” The Trump administration says it will allow her to re-enter the United States but that it will continue to try to find a third country to accept her.
Venezuela Watch
President Trump has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela “that could be meant to prepare a battlefield for further action,” the NYT reports, while also re-opening back-channel negotiations with the Maduro regime.
‘Don’t Give Up The Ship’
Six Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence experience have released a video urging active duty military and intel personnel to fulfill their obligation to refuse to follow unlawful orders:
‘It Was Like a Horrific Nightmare’
This is a difficult story and a graphic photo essay, but the WSJ does essential work in documenting the slow, painful task of identifying mass graves in Syria after years of civil war, authoritarian rule, and natural and humanitarian disasters.
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Trump Dismissed MBS’ Role in Khashoggi Murder When It Happened, Too
Demented Blast From the Past
There are few things that President Trump says that are shocking to me, or anyone else stuck in this warped doom loop that is paying attention to American politics in 2025. But Trump’s remarks today demonizing murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and defending the crown prince of Saudi Arabia from the Oval Office were an exception, and inspired a sense of déjà vu among those of us who covered the disturbing details of Khashoggi’s brutally violent murder in 2018.
Continue reading “Trump Dismissed MBS’ Role in Khashoggi Murder When It Happened, Too”