Courts Rush To Beat Back A New Round Of Trump Lawlessness
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM's Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
The historic constitutional clash over President Trump's lawless immigration policies continues at a pace that is difficult for casual observers to follow on daily basis, but a burst of new activity Wednesday offers a chance to frame up where things now stand and where they're likely headed.
The Contempt Proceedings
The two cases in which a constitutional clash is ripest are already in the early stages of contempt of court proceedings, but they have been either slowrolled by the Trump administration or put on hold by an appeals court:
Abrego Garcia: U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland has ordered expedited discovery into what the Trump administration has done and and plans to do to facilitate the return the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. She plans to use the information gathered to determine whether the Trump administration has acted in good faith or stonewalled her orders. But the Trump administration has slowrolled the discovery process, too. Just yesterday, the parties filed a sealed joint motion over a discovery dispute. While the exact nature of the dispute is unclear, Xinis issued a public order later in the day that revealed the administration is invoking state secrets and deliberative process privileges to thwart discovery requests, forcing another round of delays in the case.
AEA deportation flights: U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of DC has already found probable cause that the Trump administration is in criminal contempt of court for ignoring his order not to deport detainees to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. This is the original AEA case, brought in a late night rush the weekend of March 15. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has imposed an administrative stay on the contempt proceedings, but has been fully briefed since last week and could rule at any time.The Trump administration filed notice yesterday that it is appealing U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher's order that it facilitate the release from El Salvador's CECOT prison a Venezuelan man deported there on March 15 in violation of a 2024 settlement agreement protecting asylum seekers like him.The original Alien Enemies Act case in front of Judge Boasberg has now morphed into a case focused on returning the AEA detainees in El Salvador and providing them with the due process they never received.
In a hearing yesterday, President Trump's own words came back to haunt him. Boasberg repeatedly pressed a DOJ lawyer on Trump's admission that he could pick up the phone and secure Abrego Garcia's release and on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's public remarks at the Salvadoran prison that it was one of the 'tools' in the administration's toolbox. Those statements undermine the administration's already flimsy argument that the detainees are not in its control but rather the control of El Salvador.
Boasberg seemed inclined to rule that the detainees are in the constructive custody of the United States and therefore can be returned and provided due process, though the exact contours of how that would work remain unclear. Boasberg ordered expedited discovery before ruling in the case, though he acknowledged that the Trump administration may slowroll him just like it's done in discovery in the Abrego Garcia case.With news reports and evidence on the ground suggesting that the Trump administration was about to deport a group of Asian detainees to Libya yesterday aboard a U.S. military plane, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of Massachusetts issued an extraordinary emergency clarification affirming that his existing order barring removals to third countries applied to Pentagon flights, too. On his own initiative, Murphy also told the parties he is considering adding the Defense Department as a party to the case.
All of this comes after the administration seemed to violate his original order in March that barred third-country removals by using a military plane to transport detainees from Gitmo to El Salvador. Murphy has ordered limited discovery to probe the circumstances of that flight, and this case could yet yield a contempt of court finding, but it's not quite as far along as the contempt proceedings highlighted above.
The 1st Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk can challenge her detention in federal court in Vermont rather than Louisiana, where she is being currently held.
Some major law firms have backed away from the kind of pro bono work in challenging President Trump's immigration policies that they engaged in during his first term, the NYT reports.
The Trump administration is making plans to release the audio of the investigative interview Special Counsel Robert Hur did with President Biden in his classified documents probe, Politico reports. This was the interview that famously led Hur to conclude Biden was an 'elderly man with a poor memory.' The transcript of the interview has already been released.
All 10 NEA arts directors are leaving the agency, according to the WaPo.
Jeh Johnson, secretary of homeland security under President Obama, is retiring from Paul Weiss – which notoriously struck a deal with President Trump to get out from under his executive order targeting the firm – after being elected co-chair of the Columbia University board of trustees.
I've seen a lot of coverage of Trump's attack on higher ed that blames the victims for becoming overdependent on government funding for research, as if universities are piglets sucking at the federal teat. The much more accurate description is of a mutually dependent relationship. But if I had to say who has the upper hand, it's much closer to the other way around: government – which is to say all of us – is dependent on higher end.
Josh Marshall makes this point well: 'To listen to a lot of news reporting, and by no means only Trump-friendly coverage, you might think that the big research universities got here like so many academic Amtraks. Down on their luck industries that were falling apart and needed federal support to survive.'
Only in a down-is-up world would anyone assess higher ed's contributions in the post-World War II era in pure science, research, and development across the whole range of technical and scientific disciplines and conclude that universities got a sweetheart deal and the federal government got rooked.
The day before the publication of last week's disturbing NY Mag piece about Sen. John Fetterman's health, the Democratic senator broke down in a meeting at his DC office with teachers union representatives, the AP reports:
Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why 'everybody is mad at me,' 'why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do' and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.
As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman's behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.
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CNN
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'Our obligation as journalists,' Tapper continued, 'is not to praise President Trump, or protect his feelings, or to disparage him,' it's 'to report facts.' The Times responded to Trump's all-caps assertion that it teamed up with CNN to 'demean one of the most successful military strikes in history' by pointing out the White House's inconsistency on the subject. 'Yesterday,' The Times said, 'President Trump called this 'fake news.' But he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce the preliminary assessment described in a report by The Times and others. So their statement was fake, not The Times's reporting.' CNN also issued a statement after Trump called for Natasha Bertrand, one of three correspondents who broke the initial story, to be fired. 'We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand's journalism and specifically her and her colleagues' reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities,' the network said. 'CNN's reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump's own deep skepticism about it.' 'However,' CNN said, 'we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.'
CNN
an hour ago
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Analysis: Trump claims the press is demeaning the military. But questioning power is patriotic
Journalists ask questions, vet the answers and report the results to the public. That's pretty much the job description. But the Trump administration is claiming that it's unpatriotic to do so. Several days after the US conducted airstrikes in Iran, as the public awaits a clearer picture of the strikes' impact, President Trump is attacking CNN for reporting on an early US intel assessment that undercut his claims about Iran's nuclear enrichment sites being 'totally obliterated.' The New York Times is also being targeted by Trump because it matched CNN's reporting. 'They tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. CNN and The Times have not demeaned any pilots. But the administration is casting 'any questioning of the success of an incredibly difficult military operation as fake, as unappreciative, and as disrespectful to servicemembers,' CNN's Jake Tapper said on 'The Lead' Wednesday evening. 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'The truth, which literally hurts, is that every administration lies about war, particularly (though not only) about its reasons for initiating deadly force,' Matt Welch wrote for Reason magazine in 2020. Welch warned that 'too many people turn off their brains once the battle bugle calls' when the opposite response is actually needed. Trump clearly thinks it is politically advantageous to claim that scrutiny of the Iran strike's outcome is insulting to the US military and to the country. At a NATO summit press conference on Wednesday, Trump asserted that the B-2 pilots were 'devastated' by Tuesday's reports about the early intel assessment. 'You should be proud of those pilots and you shouldn't be trying to demean them,' Trump said in response to a question from NBC's Kelly O'Donnell. 'There's a difference, sir, between asking about an assessment' and doubting the pilots, O'Donnell responded, although she was barely audible over the president's mic. 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'Our obligation as journalists,' Tapper continued, 'is not to praise President Trump, or protect his feelings, or to disparage him,' it's 'to report facts.' The Times responded to Trump's all-caps assertion that it teamed up with CNN to 'demean one of the most successful military strikes in history' by pointing out the White House's inconsistency on the subject. 'Yesterday,' The Times said, 'President Trump called this 'fake news.' But he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce the preliminary assessment described in a report by The Times and others. So their statement was fake, not The Times's reporting.' CNN also issued a statement after Trump called for Natasha Bertrand, one of three correspondents who broke the initial story, to be fired. 'We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand's journalism and specifically her and her colleagues' reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities,' the network said. 'CNN's reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump's own deep skepticism about it.' 'However,' CNN said, 'we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.'
