Appeals Court Tries To Get To The Bottom Of A 4th Wrongful Deportation

INSIDE: Kash Patel ... RFK Jr. ... Joni Ernst

(Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Trump Officials Blamed ‘Administrative Errors’

On May 7, just 28 minutes after a U.S. appeals court ordered that a Salvadoran man not be removed from the United States, the Trump administration deported him to El Salvador. The Trump administration told the Second Circuit in a filing last week that the wrongful deportation was the result of “a confluence of administrative errors.”

The fourth known wrongful deportation in the opening months of Trump’s anti-immigration jihad was first reported by the nonprofit news outlet Investigative Post.

The Trump administration’s admission that the deportation of Jordin Alexander Melgar-Salmeron was in error came only after the appeals court had ordered the government to respond to a list of nine questions about what had happened in the case. Among the pointed questions posed by the appeals court:

8. What is the Government’s overall understanding as to why Petitioner was removed on May 7, 2025 despite an express assurance made to this Court that the Government would forbear from removing Petitioner until May 8, 2025?

9. What is the Government’s overall understanding as to why Petitioner was removed at 10:20 a.m. EST on May 7, 2025 despite an existing order from this Court staying removal pending consideration of his Petition for Review?

Politico has a good rundown on the specific details of the underlying case. But for our purposes, the apparent violation of the appeals court order (the administration argues it was not a violation because it was an error …) is front and center. The appeals court has given both sides additional time to propose what the next steps in the case should be.

A lawyer for Melgar-Salmeron told Politico that he intends to ask the court to order his client’s return from El Salvador and to hold Trump administration officials in contempt.

Leave No Paper Trail Behind

With the Kash Patel era at the FBI in full swing, the bureau is shifting significant resources to immigration enforcement and away from other high priority cases, but agents have been told by higher-ups not to document the shift in order to avoid creating a paper trail, CNN reports.

Oops …

AP: Kristi Noem said an immigrant threatened to kill Trump. The story quickly fell apart

Trump’s Bogus Invocation Of The State Secrets Privilege

NYU law professor Ryan Goodman goes deep on the Trump administration’s invocation of the state secrets privilege. The TL;DR: “It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Trump administration is invoking the doctrine here to impede accountability and judicial remedies for official conduct that courts have found unlawful.”

For Your Radar …

As the House GOP megabill that enshrines the Trump II agenda heads to the Senate, a closer look at the provision that appears intended to weaken the federal judiciary by making it harder to enforce contempt of court violations.

Good Read

Henry Farrell, on the apparent rupture between President Trump and the Federalist Society:

I am not the kind of expert who can provide plausible predictions about whether the Federalist Society will prevail over the Trump administration, or vice-versa, or what terms they might meet if they find some compromise. My best guess – and it is just a guess – is that Emil Bove’s confirmation process will tell us a lot about what happens afterwards. But which side wins and which loses in the bigger contest will have important consequences for the kind of conservatism that prevails, and for the kind of America that we’re going to live in.

Law Firms Paying A Price For Capitulation

WSJ: “At least 11 big companies are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving—or intend to give—more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals, according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisions.”

Higher Ed Capitulation Watch

CNN:

The White House is looking to strike a deal with a high-profile school, said the first source, who is involved in the higher education response.

“They want a name-brand university to make a deal like the law firms made a deal that covers not just antisemitism and protests, but DEI and intellectual diversity,” this person said.

“They want Trump to be able to stand up and say he made a deal with so-and-so – an Ivy League school, some sort of name-brand school that gives them cover so they can say, ‘We don’t want to destroy higher education.’”

Asked if any of the schools are inclined to make such a deal, the source said, “Nobody wants to be the first, but the financial pressures are getting real.”

The Purges, Step 2: Install Cronies

We always knew the Trump purges were merely the first step in a plan to install loyalists throughout government, though “loyalist” doesn’t fully capture the mix of unqualified, deeply compromised, and/or unfit candidates Trump is selecting:

• Inspectors General: After his mass purge of inspectors general, President Trump is turning to people like former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), who was defeated for re-election in 2024 after he was accused of putting his mistress and his fiancée’s daughter on his payroll. D’Esposito is Trump’s nominee for Labor Department inspector general.

• State: “If you want to know who’s running the State Department these days, it helps to peruse the website of a relatively new, conservative-leaning organization called the Ben Franklin Fellowship,” Politico reports.

• U.S. Office of Special Counsel: After terminating the U.S. special counsel without cause, Trump has nominated conservative lawyer Paul Ingrassia, 30, who has ties to antisemitic extremists.

What Comes After The Initial Trump II Blitz

A thoughtful reflection by M. Gessen as we settle in for the long haul: “As in a country at war, reports of human tragedy and extreme cruelty have become routine — not news.”

CDC Contradicts RFK Jr. On COVID Vax

The COVID vaccine remained on the CDC’s schedule for healthy children 6 months to 17 years old despite Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s earlier public announcement.

War On Science

The Guardian: “Senior officials at the US Department of Veterans Affairs have ordered that VA physicians and scientists not publish in medical journals or speak with the public without first seeking clearance from political appointees of Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned.”

Beyond Weird

After her epic town hall face plant dismissing concerns about Republican Medicaid cuts with the memorable line – “Well, we all are going to die.” – Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) doubled down with a creepy af video shot in a cemetery: