President Joe Biden is hosting an event with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Friday afternoon on the South Lawn of the White House to celebrate her successful Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Jackson is technically a “justice-in-waiting” until she’s sworn in to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, expected to happen when the Court takes its summer recess in June or July. Still, Biden said he intends to officially introduce “the next Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.”
We’re following various leads on the DC Secret Service/impersonation caper. Some of them are quite, quite weird. But the most interesting thing about this case so far is how little information we know. The raids in this story happened two days ago, Wednesday afternoon. Normally in a case like this — apparent espionage, probable corruption involving the Secret Service — we’d be seeing a steady stream of articles revealing new details of the plot. But there’s close to nothing. I get the sense that’s because the DOJ and the FBI don’t really know themselves. Or at least, they didn’t yesterday.
Continue reading “Weirder and Weirder”D.C. federal prosecutors on Friday outlined their arguments for why two men charged with impersonating Homeland Security agents should be detained pending trial, again without providing much explanation of who might have directed what the government described as a scheme to “infiltrate networks of federal law enforcement officers.”
Continue reading “Prosecutors Detail Argument To Detain DHS-Impersonating DC Duo”Anti-government extremist and Idaho gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy was sentenced to 10 days in jail on Thursday after a county judge found him in contempt of court.
Continue reading “Ammon Bundy Jailed For 10 Days After Arguing His Campaigning Counts As Community Service”This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
Denise Keehner is expected to start on Monday as the Environmental Protection Agency’s new director of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), Bloomberg Law reported last week. Keehner is a former EPA official currently employed by Maryland’s Department of the Environment.
This announcement is extremely welcome and long-overdue — OPPT has been without a director since May 2021, and Americans have suffered extensively because of it.
The role of OPPT, and the New Chemicals and Existing Chemicals Divisions within, is to review chemicals, assess their risks and find ways to prevent and reduce both environmental pollution and human health impacts, including by managing which chemicals are allowed to go to the market. But if you live in the United States, odds are high that you are currently moving through everyday life with hundreds of industrial chemicals contaminating your blood and other organs. Not all of these chemicals are safe, and many of them should never have been allowed through the federal government’s chemical review process.
So, how did this happen?
Continue reading “The Stakes Are High For The EPA’s Newly Appointed Chemical Review Director”A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Clearly sick of being pushed on the criminal investigation into the Trump Organization that he seemed to have unraveled, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg put out a somewhat irritated announcement on Thursday clarifying that the probe is still going on.
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) asked a state judge to hold Trump in contempt yesterday, saying the former president has refused to give her the documents she requested eight times in her civil investigation into the Trump Organization.
After enduring a series of long and truly ugly Senate hearings, Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as the first Black woman Supreme Court.
Free Speech For People, the nonpartisan good governance group that’s been leading voters’ lawsuits to get several Trump goons in Congress kicked off the ballot for helping Trump fuel the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, has expanded the effort. It’s focused on trying to enforce 14th Amendment’s Disqualification Clause for members of Congress who engage in insurrection.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) took to the Senate floor and ripped Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) a new one on Thursday for holding up Biden’s civilian nominations to the Pentagon and State Department until Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken resign:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told Axios on Thursday that he has an “obligation” to support a Republican presidential nominee, including Trump, who by McConnell’s own admission was “morally responsible” for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
The Justice Department is gearing up to investigate Trump taking 15 boxes of White House records, which included classified material, to his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida, according to the Washington Post and the New York Times.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tested positive for COVID-19 but is asymptomatic, her deputy chief of staff announced on Thursday.
“Yakuza Boss Arrested at Manhattan Steakhouse for Alleged Rockets-for-Heroin Scheme” – The Daily Beast
Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!
Desperate to distract the public from ongoing turmoil over at former President Trump’s off-brand Twitter, former congressman and TRUTH Social CEO Devin Nunes on Thursday tried his very best to let everyone know there’s nothing to see here!
Continue reading “Nunes Desperately Defends Trump’s Faltering Social Media App: Twitter Is ‘A Ghost Town’”If Roe v. Wade is overturned as conservative justices have signaled it might be this summer, abortion will become near-illegal almost instantly in 17 states.
As my colleague Kate Riga reported back in December, a large chunk of those states, including Michigan, have old laws on the books that were put in place before Roe gave people who can become pregnant the national right to an abortion. A few of those states have what’s referred to as a “trigger law” in place meant to be enacted as soon as Roe falls that would ban most or all abortions in the state. Some of those 17 states have both measures in place.
Continue reading “Where Things Stand: Whitmer Preemptively Sues To Stop State’s 1930s Abortion Ban From Springing Back To Life Post-Roe”A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss the Republican party going full QAnon and the latest follies of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC).
You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.
Prosecutors are considering leveling additional charges at two men who they accuse of impersonating Department of Homeland Security agents, an assistant U.S. attorney said on Thursday.
Continue reading “Prosecutors Seek Detention For DC Duo Who Allegedly Posed As Federal Officers, Citing Foreign Travel”
