NEW YORK – At least five federal agencies were involved in a massive immigration raid on Canal Street in Manhattan on Tuesday. The huge, heavily armored federal law enforcement presence included masked agents who arrested a mix of migrants and protesters in what both activists and local elected officials are calling an ominous escalation.
“The coordinated effort of having federal agents en masse in New York City should worry everyone,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D) told TPM in an interview on Wednesday morning.
My favorite political blog post of all time was published by Jim Newell on the manic site Wonkette.com on September 12, 2008, at the height of the hope-and-change era preceding Obama’s first election. Its headline is, “Typical Florida Person Creates Year’s Best Campaign Sign.” The entire body of the post, cribbed from a long-disappeared local news story, consists of a closeup photo of a handmade plywood yard sign that reads “OBAMA HALF-BREED MUSLIN,” accompanied by two sentences of the news story: “Lacasse put the sign in his front yard four days ago. ‘If I see anybody touching that sign, I got a club sitting right over there,’ Lacasse said.”
The original story, to be sure, had the name and age of the man and relevant background facts and context. But the blog post had everything you really needed to know. He got a club sitting right over there.
When the blog era really got rolling in the late aughts, much of the traditional media dismissed bloggers as amateurish and borderline unethical pretenders to the title of “journalists.” Bloggers, the traditional wisdom went, were young, snide purveyors of dashed-off riffs on the weightier work of Real Reporters, a band of irresponsible little shits making fun of writers whose prestige they would never match.
Well. Not all of us were so young. The rest of the criticism was kind of true. Still, as the golden age of blogs recedes in the rearview mirror, one point about the editorial legacy of bloggers demands to be made. For all of the derision that traditional journalism heaped upon them, I’d argue that good bloggers have better editorial judgment than any other type of writer.
Paul Ingrassia, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, withdrew his name from consideration after texts surfaced in which he said he had a “bit of a Nazi streak.”
President Trump and White House officials have been picking and choosing what programs to fund while the federal government is shut down — and they’re doing it without permission from Congress.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) and Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva (D) sued on Tuesday to force House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to finally swear her in formally.
Here’s a funny little nugget about the Pat Fitzgerald/James Comey relationship.
You’ll remember that Pat Fitzgerald first came to be known by the broad politically-attuned public when he was special counsel investigating and eventually convicting Bush White House advisor Scooter Libby over the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. James Comey first became known to this broader politically-attuned public because of a series of actions he took during the Bush administration, stuff like the so-called “hospital bed” showdown over the admin’s domestic surveillance program. Now move forward to early 2007 and we at TPM were in the thick of the so-called US Attorney firings scandal, for which TPM eventually won a Polk Award.
Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan initiated a Signal chat two weekends ago with Lawfare reporter Anna Bower in which the newly-appointed federal prosecutor tiptoed to the verge of revealing grand jury information in the Letitia James case.
After Bower started reporting out the Signal exchange, including by calling Main Justice, Halligan sent Bower a final message late yesterday, more than a week after starting the chat: “By the way – everything I ever sent you is off record. You’re not a journalist so it’s weird saying that but just letting you know.”
The entire episode is madness. Halligan — who has no prior experience as a prosecutor — comes off as even less sophisticated than expected. She also seems peevish, self-consciousness, and in utterly over her head, in every possible way. You can read the entire exchange here.
Ironically, Halligan’s prosecution of former FBI Director Jim Comey is, in part, about Comey’s alleged contacts with the media, in his case through intermediaries. No intermediary here! Just Halligan herself recklessly bumping up against criminal case particulars with a reporter.
Bower recounted the whole crazy episode last evening:
The Retribution: Jim Comey Edition
Comey has filed the first two major challenges to his politicized indictment. The former FBI director is trying to get the indictment dismissed with prejudice (meaning it cannot be refiled by the government) on two primary grounds:
that Halligan wasn’t properly appointed as U.S. attorney. The filing happened to come the same day that the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals seemed quite skeptical of the appointment of Alina Habba as U.S. attorney for New Jersey after similarly questionable machinations designed to bypass Senate confirmation and local federal judges.
that the prosecution is vindictive and selective. Comey filed a 60-page exhibit containing an exhaustive list of Trump’s rhetorical attacks on him
Both of Comey’s motions were well-written, tightly structured, and compelling. But more importantly, taken together they mount the first wholesale challenge to President Trump’s use of the Justice Department to conduct reprisals by prosecution. Some of the arguments are designed to appeal to conservative justices on the Supreme Court, and others are designed to appeal to the rule of law and long-standing DOJ traditions and norms. The effect, undoubtedly intended, is to make a Comey victory here have implications beyond this particular political prosecution.
Meanwhile, in a bit of gamesmanship, prosecutors fired a shot across the bow of Comey lead attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, suggesting he might need to be disqualified from the case because Comey allegedly used him “to improperly disclose classified information.” Comey fired right back against what it called the government’s effort to “defame” Fitzgerald, calling the allegation “provably false.” The judge in the case quickly denied prosecutors’ effort to expedite the briefing on this sideshow.
The Retribution: Fani Willis Edition
The Trump DOJ is scrutinizing a trip that Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis, the disqualified Trump prosecutor, made to the Bahamas in November, according to a subpoena obtained by the NYT.
It’s not clear if the trip is a focus of the investigation or if Willis herself is a target. The investigation is being led by Atlanta U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg.
The Retribution: IWWG Edition
Officials from across the Trump administration have been meeting since May under the auspices of what is called the Interagency Weaponization Working Group to coordinate the president’s retribution against perceived political foes, Reuters reports. The group draws from the White House, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Defense, CIA, DOJ, and FBI, according to the report:
The existence of the interagency group indicates the administration’s push to deploy government power against Trump’s perceived foes is broader and more systematic than previously reported. Interagency working groups in government typically forge administration policies, share information and agree on joint actions.
Trump DOJ official Ed Martin, who is the U.S. pardon attorney and leads the Justice Department’s own weaponization working group, is “an important player in the interagency group,” a source told Reuters.
Only the Best People
A Trump-pardoned Jan. 6 rioter has been charged with threatening to kill House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) ahead of his a Monday speech to the Economic Club of New York.
GOP Senators Abandon Ingrassia Nom
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) sounded the death knell for the nomination of Paul Ingrassia as U.S. special counsel after Politico published texts in which Ingrassia admitted he had “a Nazi streak,” said the MLK holiday should be ““tossed into the seventh circle of hell,” and used an Italian slur for Black people. “He’s not gonna pass,” said Thune, who was one of at least four GOP senators to come out against the nomination.
National Guard Cases Moving Swiftly
A judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has already moved to hear the Oregon National Guard case en banc after a three-judge panel of the court ruled in favor of the Trump administration on Monday
In a powerful dissent, Judge Susan Graber essentially begged for patience from the public as she implored the full appeals court to act: “I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur. Above all, I ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer.”
A Symbol of Lawlessness
WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 20: The facade of the East Wing of the White House is demolished by work crews on October 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. The demolition is part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to build a ballroom reportedly costing $250 million on the eastern side of the White House. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Despite assurances that construction of President Trump’s unauthorized ballroom would not touch the White House, work crews began demolishing portions of the East Wing Monday. The ballroom is being constructed between the White House and Treasury building, where employees with a bird’s-eye view were told not to take or share photos of the project.
When I started Jacobin in 2010, my first milestone of the magazine “making it” wasn’t a glossy cover or a TV hit. It was landing on a Crooked Timber sidebar.
One of President Donald Trump’s final actions in his first administration was a last-ditch attempt to confront the impermanence of a four-year term by leaving his mark on something that could last much longer: federal architecture.
The “No Kings” protests this weekend drew a massive, nationwide turnout. As I’m sure many are, I found myself wondering about the impact of these demonstrations and, more broadly, about the future for our country as it continues a speedrun into full-on authoritarianism. In conversations with friends and colleagues, I came across an academic theory that, I think, offers an interesting and productive rubric for analyzing mass protest.
