Trump's Weaponization Of DOJ Takes A Even More Sinister Turn
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM's Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
I'll catch you up on the rest of the news from over the long weekend in a moment, but first I wanted to give you just a taste of the level of insanity that the Justice Department and the FBI have already descended to four months into Trump's second term.
We were steeled for the retributive attacks on the Trump and Jan. 6 prosecutions, but what is also beginning to emerge is a three-prong revisionist attack on the rule of law that attempts to target: (i) other past prosecutions of right-wing extremists; (ii) public corruption convictions of every style and flavor; and (iii) other MAGA hobby horses and conspiracy theories
A quick rundown of the latest extreme developments:
In a social media post on Memorial Day, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced the bureau is either re-opening or giving new resources and attention to:
the 2023 discovery of cocaine in the Biden White House;
the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court's draft Dobbs decision; and
the Jan. 5-6, 2021 Capitol pipe bombs outside the two party HQs.
(Astute readers will note that those last two probes aren't necessarily going to yield right-wing friendly storylines.)
In a recent podcast, senior Trump DOJ official Ed Martin, who is now the U.S. pardon attorney, said that he is going to take a 'hard look' at pardoning two men convicted in the 2020 conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). 'In my opinion these are victims just like January 6,' Martin said.
In the same vein, Martin trumpeted the Memorial Day pardon of a Virginia sheriff convicted of federal bribery charges who was set to report to jail today. In a measure of the madness, Martin reposted celebratory tweets from notorious Trump pardon recipients Roger Stone and Mike Flynn.
Recall that Martin is also serving as the chieftain of the DOJ 'Weaponization Working Group,' which makes this rah-rah tweet about the sheriff's pardon particularly revealing about the weaponization that is really going on:
Kate Shaw: 'The court may believe that it retains the ultimate authority to check presidential lawlessness, even as it signs off on the elimination of many other constraints on presidential power. The danger is that by the time the court tries to exercise that authority, it may be too late.'
Steve Vladeck: 'And if the unitary executive theory is subject to exceptions for contexts in which the practical consequences of eliminating an agency's independence would be too extreme, then it's not much of a theory. Rather, it's just a balancing test—for those agencies that are 'too important' to be subject to direct, partisan political control and those that aren't. Conceding that point would suggest that agency independence is not presumptively unconstitutional; and that one must do more than just wave their hands at the 'unitary executive theory' to explain why dozens of statutes Congress has enacted over more than a century protecting different agencies and officers from direct presidential control are unconstitutional.'
WSJ: Judges Weigh Taking Control of Their Own Security Amid Threats
Charlie Savage: Judges Keep Calling Trump's Actions Illegal, but Undoing Them Is Hard
Sam Bagenstos: 'In many of the cases in which Trump has acted unlawfully, there is no single, discrete decision that demonstrates the violation. Rather, the violation emerges from a very large series of decisions — mass firings of employees, mass terminations of grants, widespread failures to spend appropriated money. The administration may say that each of these decisions was made on its own merits, but the fact that the government made the same decision over and over belies that assertion; the mass decision-making itself demonstrates that the administration was unlawfully refusing to carry out the programs created and funded by Congress.'
U.S. District Judge John Bates of Washington, D.C. offered a rousing defense of the First Amendment in knocking down the Trump executive order targeting Jenner & Block.
Some of the big law firms who struck deals with President Trump are now being inundated with pro bono requests from MAGA world, the NYT reports.
Boston, Part I: In a closely watched case, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy on Friday ordered the Trump administration to arrange the return of a gay Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico without notice or hearing.
Boston, Part II: In the fight over the deportation flight to South Sudan, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued a scathing rebuke Monday of the Trump administration for asking him to reconsider and pause his order requiring due process for the deportees (emphasis his): '[T]he Court accepted Defendants' own suggestion that they be allowed to keep the individuals out of the country and finish their process abroad.'
Texas: After the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay that shielded the Trump administration from answering tough questions from a federal judge in an Alien Enemies Act case, the family of the Venezuelan man who brought the lawsuit voluntarily dismissed it for reasons that remain unclear.
In Trump's latest attack, a draft letter obtained by the NYT shows the administration is set to cancel all remaining federal funding for Harvard. This comes after a federal judge on Friday immediately blocked the administration's attempt to ban international students at the university, part of a larger dispute over unprecedented demands by the government for data on international students.
The Texas Legislature has taken another step closer to bringing higher education in the state more firmly under partisan political control.
Breaking … NPR sued President Trump this morning over his executive order purporting to federal funding for public broadcasting.
The executive producer of the PBS series 'American Masters' insisted on removing a scene critical of President Trump from a documentary about the comic artist Art Spiegelman two weeks before it was set to air, the NYT reports.
The Pentagon has promoted Kingsley Wilson to press secretary despite her history of antisemitic comments, the Jewish Insider reports.
USA Today: 'President Donald Trump used the presidential seal at his multi-million-dollar dinner with crypto investors despite the White House saying it was a private rather than official event, according to a social media post from a Chinese billionaire who attended the event.'
A bronze plaque intended to honor law enforcement who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack is instead gathering dust in a Capitol basement utility room.
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