It's Taking Judges An Awfully Long Time To Get To The Bottom Of Who's Running DOGE
The Trump White House won't say exactly, the Trump Justice Department professes not to know, and so far federal judges have not been able to obtain an answer to the most basic question: Who is the administrator of Elon Musk's DOGE?
The judge to confront the question most directly has been U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington, D.C. During a surreal hearing Monday in which the judge called into question the constitutionality of DOGE, Justice Department lawyers still could not tell her who the official administering DOGE is.
It led to Kafkaesque exchanges like these, helpfully posted by Lawfare's Anna Bower:
Kollar-Kotelly is hearing a case seeking to bar DOGE from accessing sensitive records maintained by the Treasury Department. Meanwhile, in a new ruling, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman of Maryland blocked DOGE's access to personally identifiable information at the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management.
It's an answerable question, but still nada from the Trump administration.
It was impossible to find a clear through-line in the messaging coming out of the Trump administration about Elon Musk's ridiculous weekend email:
President Trump, famous for his reality TV 'You're fired,' tepidly said workers would be 'semi-fired' if they did not respond.
OPM said workers were not required to respond after various government components had wrestled all day with what to tell their employees, in some cases sending mixed messages
By the end of the day, Musk himself had re-upped his demand and threatened firings yet again:
Government Executive:
An independent federal oversight agency has deemed at least some of President Trump's mass firings of probationary period employees unlawful, creating a pathway for those employees to regain their jobs.
The Office of Special Counsel, the agency responsible for investigating illegal actions taken against federal employees, issued its decision for six employees, each at different agencies. While the decision was technically limited in scope, it could have immediate impact on all terminated staff at those six agencies and could set a wide-ranging precedent across government. It has not been made public and was provided to Government Executive by a source within the government. OSC, which did not provide the document to Government Executive, verified its authenticity.
Another example of the Trump clusterfuckery: The FDA has reinstated dozens of specialists involved in food safety, review of medical devices and other areas who were laid off last week.
University of Minnesota Law School professor Nick Bednar has some helpful backgrounders on the existing legal frameworks that the DOGE-driven purges of federal workers are running hard up against:
The Use and Abuse of Administrative Leave
A Primer on Reductions in Force
A key element of President Trump's executive power grab is disregarding any congressional limitations imposed on firing the people who sit atop the independent agencies of the executive branch. We're talking a host of key agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Merit Systems Protection Board. It will be a defining legal battle of his second presidency and one that the Supreme Court will likely weigh in on sooner than later, with implications for the Federal Reserve as well. TPM's Kate Riga has an early primer on the structural power dynamics and the legal landscape.
The FBI is reeling from the one-two punch of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino as the new director and deputy director:
NYT: Before Ascending to Top Tier of F.B.I., Bongino Fueled Right-Wing Disbelief
WSJ: Dan Bongino Called the FBI 'Irredeemably Corrupt.' Now He'll Help Run It.
I've long been fascinated by how scattered through the federal government are just enough misguided, disenchanted, peevish, grievance-filled, and maladaptive personalities for bad actors to raise up for their own corrupt ends when they take power.
It's a recurring theme of our coverage over the years how these willing stooges get their chance to 'shine' and try to make the most of it. Former Trump DOJer Jeffrey Clark is a classic of the genre. It almost always ends badly, but not as badly as it should (Clark is now back in the new Trump administration).
Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove appears to be the latest in the long line of these passed-over and overlooked opportunists who seize on suddenly no longer being the odd man out. And, yes, they seem chronically to be men.
Acting DC U.S. attorney Ed Martin proudly tweeting his corrupt notion of the role of the Justice Department as a defender and weapon of President Donald Trump:
Former West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner – who as recently as last year claimed that the CIA stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump – is now overseeing the Justice Department's vaunted Civil Rights Division on an acting basis.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden of Washington, D.C., declined to restore immediately the Associated Press' access to presidential events, but he urged the Trump White House to reconsider its ban over the wire service's refusal to use 'Gulf Of America,' saying the case law 'is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.'
Within hours of President Trump publicly threatening to end the political career of Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D), his Department of Education initiated a purported Title IX investigation of the University of Maine of transgender women in sports.
Politico:
A group of prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has pitched the Trump White House on a proposal to carry out mass deportations through a network of 'processing camps' on military bases, a private fleet of 100 planes, and a 'small army' of private citizens empowered to make arrests.
The blueprint — laid out in a 26-page document President Donald Trump's advisers received before the inauguration — carries an estimated price tag of $25 billion and recommends a range of aggressive tactics to rapidly deport 12 million people before the 2026 midterms, including some that would likely face legal and operational challenges, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO.
CNN: US joins Russia to vote against UN resolution condemning Russia's war against Ukraine
Pranksters had a memorable stunt waiting for workers returning to mandatory in-office work at HUD headquarters:
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San Francisco Chronicle
14 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
By sending troops to D.C. and eyeing Oakland, Trump continues targeting Black-led cities
When President Donald Trump announced Monday that he will deploy National Guard troops to the streets of Washington D.C. to combat crime, he named several other cities where he might take similar action. 'We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad,' Trump said during the White House news conference. 'You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore there.' Trump and other members of his administration, while often using false or misleading statistics, have cited rampant crime as the justification for deploying federalized troops within U.S. cities. But these cities share another commonality: They're led by Black mayors. Critics don't think that's a coincidence. Trump's focus on Washington D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, New York and Oakland is part of a larger pattern in which the president has suggested cities with majority-Black populations, or those led by Black leaders, are hotbeds of crime and corruption and symbols of American decline. 'I see this as a political dog whistle to his base, evoking long-running stereotypes that Black mayors cannot adequately govern or are soft on crime in their cities,' said Jordie Davies, a professor of political science at UC Irvine. 'Donald Trump is engaging in political theater so he can be seen as responding to the racist ideas that these cities are poorly run and overrun with crime — even as statistics demonstrate that violent crime in major U.S. cities, including D.C., is down this year.' Reports of violent crimes — homicides, robberies, assaults and sexual abuse —have seen steep declines over the last two years, the Washington Post reported. 'If he is going to start lying about major American cities to justify sending the military there, it is not surprising to me that he would pick cities with Black leadership and significant Black populations,' state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said Monday. 'That is straight up Donald Trump's alley and straight out of his racist playbook.' Crime is also falling in Oakland, a trend that Mayor Barbara Lee cited Monday in arguing that Trump was less interested in facts than in scoring 'cheap political points by tearing down communities he doesn't understand.' Oakland experienced a 6% increase in reported violent crimes in 2024, but saw a decrease in homicides and property crimes, according to a Chronicle analysis. So far in 2025, violent crimes including homicides are down significantly in the city. 'We're making real progress on public safety in Oakland, and while we acknowledge we have more work to do, we are doing this work each and every day,' Lee said. 'Our comprehensive public safety strategy is working — crime rates are coming down even though we still face many challenges. And let me repeat, President Trump is wrong.' Before Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last year, he reportedly called the city 'horrible.' 'Trump is a lot of things but he certainly isn't subtle—all of the cities he denigrates have one important thing in common: they all have significant Black populations,' DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement to the Daily Beast at the time. In 2020, Trump said of Detroit, Oakland and Baltimore, 'these cities, it's like living in hell.' 'And everyone gets upset when I say it, they say, 'Is that a racist statement? ' It's not a racist,' Trump told Fox News. 'Frankly, Black people come up to me, they say, 'Thank you. Thank you sir for saying it.'' Davies, the UC Irvine professor, said using the fear of crime — especially the idea of 'Black crime' — has always been an effective political message in the U.S. It was a message Trump hammered consistently in the 2024 election, a race in which he doubled his share of Black voters from 2020. (still, Trump's opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, won 83% of Black voters.) 'Crime evokes fear and fear provides a political vacuum that can be filled with state violence,' Davies said. 'It will be important for experts, politicians, and journalists to call out Trump's lies about crime in these places and name this for what it is: a racist attempt to dominate Black cities and a performance of power for his base.'
New York Post
14 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump, Newsom square off in court over deployment of troops to quell LA riots
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The Hill
14 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump-Putin talks ‘painful' for Ukraine's former POWs
As President Trump seeks a breakthrough in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, former Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) are torn. A ceasefire deal could finally free thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who remain in Russian prisons, but it could also mean ceding land that thousands have died fighting to defend. 'The guys who have been there have been rotting,' said Oleksandr Didur, a service member in Ukraine's 36th Separate Marine Infantry Brigade who spent 15 months in Russian captivity after being captured in April 2022. Speaking through a translator last week, Didur said POWs are under 'inhumane conditions, such as torture, psychological pressure.' Yuliia Horoshanska, another former soldier who spent four months in Russian captivity, said it was 'incredibly painful' to think about the terms being discussed to end the war. Trump has floated 'swapping lands' between Russia and Ukraine, which apparently would cede much of eastern Ukraine to Russia in exchange for Russian forces withdrawing from other parts of the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday the Ukrainian Constitution would not allow such concessions. 'I don't want any more deaths, but I want everything that was taken away from us, given back,' Horoshanska said. Both Didur and Horoshanska were taken captive during Russia's siege of the southern port city of Mariupol, which has become a symbol of Putin's cruelty and the devastation in Ukraine. Hundreds were killed in the bombing of a theater sheltering children and civilians from the war. A maternity ward was targeted in a Russian attack. At least 8,000 people are estimated to have been killed during the nearly three-month siege. The former Mariupol POWs traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to raise awareness of the fate of their brothers- and sisters-in-arms. They are ambassadors for the Heart of Azovstal organization, an initiative helping former prisoners of war rehabilitate and reintegrate into society and the workforce. 'We've [been] very lucky because we are the people who came here specifically to talk about Ukrainian veterans and to remind people that there are still Mariupol defenders in Russian captivity,' Didur said. 'And that we believe and hope that the United States will help us and that our brothers- and sisters-in-arms will come back.' Russia was reported to hold about 4,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war in 2024, although the exact number is not acknowledged by either Moscow or Kyiv. Of those POWs, between 1,500 and 2,000 are soldiers who were captured defending Mariupol more than three years ago. The war transformed the city of half a million people 'into something unrecognizable: a tangled mess of crumpled buildings and a place of shallow graves,' a 2024 Human Rights Watch report noted. As the city fell under Russian occupation, civilians and Ukraine's armed forces took shelter and set up defenses in the Azovstal Steel Works, a sprawling industrial compound that stretched more than 4 square miles. While some evacuations took place under siege, Russia captured thousands of soldiers in its takeover of the plant in May 2022. Didur was severely injured during an attack from a Russian tank during that time. He was knocked unconscious and injured so gravely he was initially marked as dead. But when showing signs of life, Russian captors transferred him for medical care. He lost his left eye; three fingers on his right hand were amputated, and his left hand is nonfunctional, smashed by flying debris. A shockwave broke his teeth. In captivity, he said he suffered physical and psychological abuse. He said his captors never bothered to set his broken arm. 'That's talking about the medical help that Russians are providing to Ukrainian prisoners of war when they're claiming to do so,' he told The Hill through a translator. To keep his sanity over the months of captivity, he relied on his athletic training, he told The Hill. Heart of Azovstal was launched by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man and head of the business group that owns the Illich Steel and Iron works and Azovstal Steel plant in Mariupol. The company made the decision to suspend the factory's operations and open up the plants to civilians in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion. Azovstal was described at the time as a 'fortress in a city' by a Russian separatist deputy commander. In addition to Ukrainian soldiers, Russia also holds Ukrainian civilians in captivity and has abducted tens of thousands of Ukrainian children in what the International Criminal Court has deemed a war crime. 'We have to remind you that not only [Ukrainian] soldiers are in captivity. There are a lot of civilians [in captivity]. They [Russians] are kidnapping kids and civilians. They are in the same conditions [as POWs],' said Dmytro Morozov, also an ambassador for Heart of Azovstal. Morozov said he lost close to 90 pounds in Russian captivity, a shocking amount for his 6-foot frame. Morozov was in the infantry for the National Guard, wounded during the Russian siege on Mariupol. Morozov said he was determined not to surrender to the Russians, who pressured him to turn on his country. He drew strength from knowing his wife and child had escaped Mariupol for Kyiv. 'Russia killed my wife's parents, my brother, and a lot of people in my family. My mom is alive. And I didn't care what they would do to me, I mean, to pressure me to flip sides. I told myself no matter what my family is safe and whatever happens, happens. So that kept me going,' he said. Morozov was released in one of the first prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia, which prioritized the severely wounded, sick and women. Over three years of war, the Ukrainian government has succeeded in carrying out some 60 prisoner swaps — the largest in mid-May, with 1,000 Ukrainians brought back from Russia, including civilians. That exchange was made possible through direct negotiations that were instigated by the Trump administration in May, in its push to end the war. The physical state of the returning Ukrainian soldiers — heads shaved, emaciated bodies, signs of torture and abuse — only added to the urgency for more swaps. Horoshanska said she almost lost her will to live during her months in Russian prison, 'because I lost everything that was important to me.' Horoshanska was injured in a Russian airstrike and was receiving medical treatment in Azovstal when it came under Russian occupation. 'The day I was injured, my whole platoon was killed. … Often I was thinking it was a mistake I stayed alive, but I was thinking about my daughter and understood she needs me.' Mariupol is in the southeastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, which remains largely under Russian control, making it likely part of the 'land swap' Trump is pushing. Russia controls about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, including a large portion of the country's east, the Crimean Peninsula in the south, and pockets in the northeast, the areas of Sumy and Kharkiv. In a video address on Saturday, Zelensky said Ukraine's Constitution bars him from relinquishing territory. But just more than half of Ukrainians agreed that Kyiv should be open to making some territorial concessions as part of a peace deal to end the war, according to a recent Gallup poll. Putin has proposed ending the fighting in exchange for Ukraine handing over roughly one-third of the eastern Donetsk region that Kyiv still controls, The Wall Street Journal reported. The front line would be frozen elsewhere, including in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions that Russia also claims as its own. A counterproposal from Europe, according to the Journal, would have Ukraine hand over the entire Donetsk region in exchange for Russia withdrawing from occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south. The European plan also calls for ironclad security guarantees for Ukraine, including potential NATO membership. Horoshanska reflected on the tough choices for Ukraine and all that has been lost. 'I want to go back home, this is true that the building, as my home, does not exist. But I want to go back to the region where I was born and raised and visit the graves where my relatives are,' she said.
