A Humiliating Reversal for the Sad-Sack Trump DOJ
INSIDE: James Talarico ... Pete Hegseth ... Gregory Bovino
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
More Proof the White House Runs DOJ
One day after it asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow it to voluntarily withdraw its appeal of its losses in the law firm executive order cases, the Trump DOJ reversed course in humiliating fashion. In an extraordinary glimpse into who really runs the Justice Department, its No. 3 official asked the appeals court to let him withdraw his request to withdraw the appeal.
The level of mismanagement, poor communication, bad faith, and ineptitude involved in something like this happening is staggering and hard to even begin to explain.
As a threshold matter, this never happens. Decisions like this were, in the past, made at the highest levels of the Justice Department, including the attorney general, the solicitor general, and multiple other senior leaders, in close consultation with the White House Counsel’s Office. Once made, after a thorough and well-trod process, and then presented to a court, decisions were not willy nilly reversed.
The sheer disorder and chaos that runs through the Trump administration — subject as it is to the whims of one man — makes it nearly impossible to reconstruct what happened in this instance based on past practice, formal hierarchies, and the players involved. It is truly a shitshow. So much so, that those involved, all the way up to and including the Oval Office, care not whether they befool themselves in public and further damage their standing with an increasingly incredulous judicial branch.
The Trump administration went 0-4 in the law firm cases. It’s going to lose on appeal, too. For a brief moment, some sense prevailed somewhere in the Justice Department — probably the Solicitor General’s Office, but not necessarily only there — and the decision was made to cut the administration’s losses. But it was clear that some tensions already existed because that decision either wasn’t made or those involved were unable to persuade their higher-ups of its validity in time not to appeal in the first place.
The filing yesterday was bare bones and offered nothing in the way of a real explanation for what went down behind the scenes. It was over the signature of Stan Woodward, Jr., a former Jan. 6 defense lawyer and now the DOJ’s No. 3 official. He’s been put in numerous untenable situations before, including as recently as last week, when he appeared in person to defend against Abrego Garcia’s vindictive prosecution claim. Yet he soldiers on, inexplicably.
This reversal here is so unusual that it’s difficult to find perfectly comparable incidents in the DOJ’s history. But it’s of the caliber of unprofessionalism, political interference, and personal embarrassment that you’d expect to lead to multiple resignations rather than be involved with such nonsense. So far, crickets.
Liberty Law School’s Career Advice
From Above the Law:
An email sent to Liberty University School of Law students over the weekend lays out, in refreshingly unvarnished terms, what the administration’s hiring pipeline actually looks like. And it’s exactly as bad as everyone suspected:
“The two most important requirements are you MUST be aligned politically with President Trump and his administration and you must be willing to work hard. Don’t be scared off by the transcript requirement. GPA is not a strong factor. If you meet those two requirements, you have a shot.”
Election 2026: All Eyes On Texas
TX-Sen: Sen. John Cornyn (R) wound up in a runoff for the GOP nomination against state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), as expected, but Cornyn did manage to pull a plurality of votes. In the Democratic primary, despite a hard-fought race, state Rep. James Talarico (D) won comfortably over Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D).
TX-23: Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who allegedly had an affair with a former staffer who took her own life, has been forced into a runoff against YouTuber and pro-gun influencer Brandon Herrera.
TX-02: Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R), a right-winger who nevertheless took issue with the Jan. 6 attack and didn’t vote to overturn the 2020 election, was swept out of office by state Rep. Steve Toth (R), a megachurch pastor. Crenshaw was the first House incumbent to lose in a primary this cycle.
Not Going According to Plan In Iran
By President Trump’s own admission, Iran regime replacement is not going according to the original overly optimistic plan:
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The CIA is working to arm Kurdish forces in Iraq with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran, CNN reports.
Latest from the Middle East …
A U.S. submarine sank an Iranian Navy destroyer in international waters off Sri Lanka, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed. The attack came as the head of U.S. Central Command warned that U.S. forces are sinking the “entire” Iranian Navy and had already destroyed 17 vessels. Sri Lanka authorities rescued 32 sailors, all of them reported to be in critical condition. The Iris Dena sailed with a crew of 180. A search continues for additional survivors. (On quick inspection, this appears to be the first time a U.S. submarine has sunk an enemy ship since the USS Torsk torpedoed a Japanese vessel on Aug. 14, 1945, the day before Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender in World War II.)
In a possible widening of the conflict in the region, NATO forces in the eastern Mediterranean shot down an Iranian ballistic missile that had crossed Iraqi and Syrian air space apparently en route to Turkey, though there was no immediate confirmation that the NATO country was the target.
A container ship was abandoned off the coast of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz after being set ablaze by an unknown projectile just above the waterline. All crew were accounted for. No one claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but Iran has threatened international shipping in the strait in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli air strikes.
For Your Radar …
A Russian-flagged LNG tanker exploded and sank in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya. The cause of the explosion is not yet publicly known. All 30 crew members were rescued.
Meanwhile, in the Western Hemisphere …
President Trump has repeatedly promised that the U.S. campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats on the high seas would expand to include land-based attacks, and it appears Ecuador is the first place the U.S. is carrying out such strikes.
U.S. Special Forces are advising and supporting Ecuadorean commandos in raids against traffickers, who the Trump administration has rebranded as terrorists, the NYT reports. The extent of the U.S. involvement remains murky. “Believed” is doing a lot of work here: “The Americans are not believed to be participating in the actual raids, but are helping the Ecuadorean troops plan their operations, and are providing intelligence and logistics support, the official said.”
Quote of the Day
In a new ruling, U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York ripped ICE’s conduct in detaining a man — who was lawfully admitted to the United States under a special program for abused minors and then later graduated from college and was legally working in theatrical lighting design — “simply because he looked like someone else for whom the agents were purportedly searching”:
Unquestionably, the laws of human decency condemn such villainy. Equally, the laws of this nation, including the Constitution, statutory law and regulations, proscribe the illegal arrest and detention of the petitioner as well as the retaliatory termination, without notice, of the privileges associated with his SIJ status. While the Executive Branch retains the right – as it has done – to set policy regarding immigration matters, it is forbidden from trampling our system of laws – a system which has safeguarded this nation for close to 250 years.
Mass Deportation Watch
Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen and one of his top deputies were forced to take the witness stand during an eight-hour hearing Tuesday as U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan of St. Paul considers finding them in contempt of court for violating court orders related to the return of personal property of immigrant detainees who won their releases after filing habeas claims. Several of the dozens of cases in dispute were reportedly resolved over the course of the day in court. Bryan did not immediately rule on whether to hold anyone in contempt.
Close to 650 federal agents remain in Minnesota, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told a Senate hearing, which conflicts with numerous Trump administration claims of a substantial drawdown in the number of immigration enforcement agents since the announced end of Operation Metro Surge.
At least 14 active measles cases have been reported at Camp East Montana, the tent encampment on the Fort Bliss U.S. Army base near El Paso.
Bovino Under Internal Investigation
CBP commander Gregory Bovino is under internal DHS investigation for disparaging remarks he reportedly made on a phone call with federal prosecutors about the Jewish faith of Minnesota U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen.
The investigation, which is being conducted by the Office of Professional Responsibility for CBP, came to light when one of its investigators contacted the NYT for help in contacting the sources for its story on the phone call in question.
The Corruption: DHS Edition
DHS under Kristi Noem has “systematically obstructed” the department’s inspector general, he wrote in a letter to Congress on Monday and obtained by the WSJ. Joseph Cuffari, who was appointed as IG in Trump I, cited 11 instances in which he was blocked from accessing records and information, including a “particularly egregious” case in which he continues to be denied access to a DHS database as part of a criminal investigation with national security implications.
Polis Poised to Grant Tina Peters Clemency
Under pressure and threats from President Trump, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) continues to signal that he will grant some form of clemency to convicted election denier Tina Peters:
A Rare Spot of Good News
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to kill NYC’s wildly successful first-in-the-country congestion pricing program in Manhattan.
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Polis is trying to kiss ass. it won’t work.
I hope to hear Hegseth’s words read aloud at his war crimes trial. It makes me ill to think that ever more of the money I send to the federal government in my taxes, money that could be spent for services to underserved people, is going to be spent on weapons of war under the direction of fools and power hungry men such as Hegseth and tRump.