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

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli Under Pressure From Bondi

A major new development out of Los Angeles, where the LA Times reports that U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli has been no-billed by grand juries in some attempted prosecutions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protestors:

The three officials who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity said prosecutors have struggled to get several protest-related cases past grand juries, which need only to find probable cause that a crime has been committed in order to move forward. That is a much lower bar than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard required for a criminal conviction.

But among the most damning revelations in the LA Times article is Essayli ordering a subordinate to ignore the DOJ’s Justice Manual:

On the overheard call, according to the three officials, Essayli, 39, told a subordinate to disregard the federal government’s “Justice Manual,” which directs prosecutors to bring only cases they can win at trial. Essayli barked that prosecutors should press on and secure indictments as directed by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, according to the three officials.

The Trump administration targeted Los Angeles for heavy-handed immigration enforcement, including deploying the National Guard and active duty marines to the Democratic-run city, that set off mass protests and some street clashes with law enforcement.

Fired Immigration Judge: I Was Pressured To Dismiss Cases

An immigration judge fired by the Trump administration says he came under pressure to dismiss cases to facilitate the immediate detention of immigrants who had shown up in court, WBUR reports:

[George] Pappas said that in April, his assistant chief judge told him to grant motions to dismiss when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were at the courthouse.

“If the case was dismissed, more likely than not, as soon as that person would exit the courtroom, he would be arrested by the ICE officers in the hallway,” he said.

Abrego Garcia Wins Two Key Court Rulings

As I reported yesterday, a federal judge in Tennessee ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from DOJ custody pending his criminal trial and a federal judge in Maryland said DHS can’t immediately detain him once he’s freed by DOJ. Abrego Garcia won’t be released right away because he’d asked for a 30-day delay in the effective date of his release, which was granted. District judges are holding the line against the worst of the Trump depredations.

Appeals Court Blocks Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found President Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship to be an unconstitutional violation of the 14th Amendment and affirmed a nationwide injunction blocking its enforcement.

Must Listen

Career DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, who was fired by the Trump administration for being too candid and ethical in the major anti-immigration case, continues his blistering whistleblower tour with a NYT podcast interview (a transcript is also available for those too busy to listen).

Judge-Appointed USA Asserts Her Hold on Position

In a post on Linkedin, Desiree Grace, the career DOJ prosecutor appointed by federal judges to replace New Jersey acting U.S. attorney Alina Habba, asserted she will serve in the role despite claims from the Trump administration that it had fired her:

Yesterday the District Judges for the District of New Jersey selected me to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. It will forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit, and I’m prepared to follow that Order and begin to serve in accordance with the law.

At the moment it’s not clear who leads the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office: Habba, whose 120-day term ends, depending on your math, at some point this week; or Grace, who the judges appointed to succeed Habba whenever the 120 days are up. It’s possible the administration will name someone else to the role, setting up dueling papacies, Avignon-style.

Trump Caught in Epstein Undertow

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump’s name appears in the investigative files related to the prosecution of his longtime friend Jeffrey Epstein. Attorney General Pam Bondi told him so in May, after she made it one of her first priorities to shift massive DOJ resources into reviewing the Epstein files.

In other developments:

• A federal judge in Florida denied the Trump DOJ’s request to unseal the Epstein grand jury transcripts.
• Three House GOPers defected to support a subpoena of the Justice Department for its Epstein files.

The Retribution: Distraction Edition

Expect more performative responses to the Epstein furor like this one: “The Justice Department announced on Wednesday the formation of a task force to look into unsubstantiated allegations by President Trump that President Barack Obama and his aides ordered an investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s connections to Russia to destroy Mr. Trump.”

Columbia Settles With Trump Admin for $200M

Under enormous financial and political pressure from the Trump administration, Columbia University entered into a $200 million settlement agreement with the federal government to resolve claims it violated anti-discrimination laws. In return, the Trump administration will restore the university’s federal funding.

The settlement marks an extraordinary federal intervention into the operation of a private university, is a template for future Trump administration shakedowns of higher education institutions, and may yet leave Columbia vulnerable to future Trump demands.

Some reactions from Columbia University faculty:

• Suresh Naidu: “[T]his deal is unlikely to end the attacks. The federal government, and this administration, is simply too powerful and too arbitrary to be credibly bargained with. Do we really think this arrangement, however destructive of academic autonomy it is, will prevent the Trump administration from stopping the money again? Anyone who thinks the administration will mutely walk away after the ink is dry needs to look at both the past behavior of autocratic regimes in general and this administration’s in particular.”
• David Pozen: “Deals like Columbia’s enhance the power of presidents and their allies within targeted universities; sideline Congress, the courts, and most faculty; and sow fear and uncertainty throughout civil society. They are fundamentally inconsistent with the logic of academic freedom.”

SCOTUS Again Signs Off on Trump Purges

Over a dissent from the three liberal justices, the Roberts Court allowed President Trump to fire the three Democratic members of the previously independent Consumer Product Safety Commission.

‘Grab ‘em by the Institutions’

Don Moynihan:

A couple of months ago, the major concern was what would happen when Trump defied the courts. A more complicated picture is now emerging. One that mixes quiet but unmistakable defiance of court decisions by the Trump administration with encouragement from the six Republican-appointed Justices who sit atop the judicial branch. This is an arguably worse scenario, since it provides a veneer of legalism even as it replaces the rule of law with rule by law, where Trump is allowed to determine the nature of that law.

The emerging pattern is that the Trump administration is checked by the lower courts, slow-walks compliance, and sometimes asks SCOTUS for help, which they usually provide via poorly reasoned opinions or no opinions at all. The Supreme Court often does not feel the need to explain what are effectively constitutional amendments that rebalance the separation of powers, feeding perceptions of the court as a partisan actor.

Hegseth Probe Turns Up Damaging New Evidence

WaPo:

The Pentagon’s independent watchdog has received evidence that messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal account previewing a U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen were derived from a classified email labeled “SECRET/NOFORN,” people familiar with the matter said.

The revelation appears to contradict long-standing claims by the Trump administration that no classified information was divulged in unclassified group chats that critics have called a significant security breach.

Only the Best People: Paul Ingrassia Edition

“Paul Ingrassia’s nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel is at risk because of his history of scorched-earth rhetoric and extremist associations,” the WaPo reports.

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!

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

When the Scandal Isn’t the Scandal …

As scandalous and horrible as Jeffrey Epstein’s crime were, that’s not what’s giving the story legs or Democrats political leverage in this crazy moment. It’s the conspiracy-addled MAGA backlash against President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi that is undergirding the politics of this. Without that fundamental weak spot, this story probably follows the familiar track of so many other would-be scandals of the Trump era. In fact, it had been following that trajectory for years until MAGA’s barking-dog-catches-car epiphany.

The madcap events of yesterday showed that the administration is still trying to placate the pressure from the right while protecting Trump from whatever investigative files may contain:

• In a bizarre and troubling move, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced he is seeking a meeting with imprisoned Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The astounding conceit of Blanche’s announcement was that he was finally going to get to the bottom of this whole thing, another way of feeding the MAGA conspiracists.
• Not to get left behind, the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Maxwell.
• Maxwell’s lawyer, no doubt sensing the opportunity to win leniency for his client, ingratiated her to Trump: “We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”
• Two federal judges in Manhattan ordered the Trump administration to provide much more robust factual and legal bases for unsealing grand jury transcripts from the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell.
• Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) kept the Democratic pressure on with a letter to Bondi urging her to explore the financial angle to Epstein’s criminal conduct. Wyden’s office tells Greg Sargent that the senator attempted to investigate this angle last year via subpoena but was stymied by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee. You can see the trolling here to feed the MAGA fire: more Epstein coverups!
• An agitated President Trump blamed anyone and everyone else, trying to pivot to false claims that Democrats engaged in a “treasonous coup” in 2016, when he … WON:

REPORTER: Gabbard has submitted a criminal referral. Who should the DOJ target?TRUMP: It would be President Obama. And Biden was there with him … the leader of the gang was Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. He's guilty. This is treason.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-07-22T15:57:47.596Z

The Biggest News of the Whole Year

As it promised back in March, the Trump EPA is poised to overturn the agency’s own 2009 “endangerment finding” that gave it legal justification to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. As Lisa Friedman writes: “That finding is the foundation of the federal government’s only tool to limit the climate pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industries that is dangerously heating the planet.”

Bondi Fires Judges’ Replacement for Alina Habba

Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately canned the career federal prosecutor New Jersey federal judges had named U.S. attorney to succeed Alina Habba when her 120-day interim term ended. In explosive language, Bondi ripped the “rogue” judges, even though the chief judge was a Bush II appointee and the practice of judges naming U.S. attorney replacements is enshrined in the law. Bondi deputy Todd Blanche went farther, accusing the judges of “backroom” collusion and pursuing a “left-wing agenda.”

Habba’s nomination for the permanent position is stalled in the Senate. It’s not clear what the White House’s next move will be to fill the position. The interplay of various laws that govern filling the U.S. attorney position is exceedingly complicated. If you’re wanting the full explanation, the leading expert on vacancies weighs in here.

Desiree Leigh Grace was the first assistant U.S. attorney under Habba before the judges elevated her to the top spot. She wasn’t just removed as U.S. attorney by Bondi but fired from the Justice Department entirely, Politico reports.

AEA Detainees at CECOT Recount Beatings

Three of the Venezuelan nationals deported by the Trump administration to CECOT and now repatriated to their home country are describing beatings, lack of medical attention, and other mistreatment while in the notorious Salvadoran detention center.

Wrongfully Deported ‘Cristian’ Pushes for Contempt Finding

In a hearing Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland, lawyers for Venezuelan national “Cristian” — who was wrongfully deported under the Alien Enemies Act in violation of a pre-existing settlement agreement — said they will ask her to open criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for its conduct in the case.

Trump Attack on Higher Ed: George Mason Edition

The Trump administration has launched its fourth investigation of George Mason University in the last month over its DEI practices. The focus on GMU comes while it is led by its first Black president and follows the ouster of the superintendent of VMI, who was also Black, and the president of UVa.

Sign of the Times

The publisher of the Harvard Educational Review has spiked an issue on Palestine, the Guardian reports.

Still Awaiting a Verdict

The Guardian’s Alice Speri offers these takeaways from the just-concluded trial challenging the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestinian international students for their political views:

1. The Trump administration relied on lists from shadowy pro-Israel groups 
2. Immigration officials admitted to the unprecedented nature of the arrests 
3. The government tried to block the release of documents
4. A huge chilling effect 

Quiet Capitulation

• To comply with President Trump’s anti-trans executive order, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly banned transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports, tucking a vaguely worded paragraph that doesn’t include the word “transgender” into its “Athlete Safety Policy,” the NYT reports.
• Under pressure from the Trump administration, blue state hospitals are cutting back on gender-affirming care for transgender minors:
  • Children’s National Hospital in D.C. is discontinuing the prescription of transition medications;
  • The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will no longer provide puberty blockers and hormone therapy for those under the age of 19;
  • UChicago Medicine is ending all pediatric transition care;
  • Children’s Hospital Los Angeles closed its Center for Transyouth Health and Development;
  • Stanford Medicine in the Bay Area paused surgical procedures, including new puberty blocker implants, for under-19 patients.

Rationalizing Capitulation

David Pressman, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 2022-25, writes that the key similarity between Hungary and the United States isn’t Orban and Trump but how elites have responded to the authoritarian threat:

After years watching Hungary suffocate under the weight of its democratic collapse, I came to understand that the real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence. …

Here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray.

Quote of the Day

“We keep talking about an imperial court that is slowly but certainly constructing an imperial executive, but none of that can happen without the learned helplessness of an American public that was intended to be sovereign.” —Dahlia Lithwick, on the Supreme Court and the unitary executive

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!