SHOWTIME: Boasberg Summons Key DOJ Witnesses in Contempt Inquiry
INSIDE: Erez Reuveni ... Drew Ensign ... Emil Bove
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
DOJ Whistleblower to Take Center Stage
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg has ordered testimony next week from Justice Department whistleblower Erez Reuveni and deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign in the criminal contempt of court inquiry in the original Alien Enemies Act case.
Not satisfied with what he called the “cursory declarations” from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and top DOJ officials involved in the decision to continue with the AEA deportations in March despite his court order, Boasberg is taking his inquiry to the next level with the first live testimony.
Testimony from Reuveni is likely to be especially probative as he as already gone public with his account of his efforts to urge DOJ and DHS to abide by Boasberg’s order to stop the AEA deportations of Venezuelan nationals and turn around the planes en route to El Salvador. Reuveni also produced extensive internal DOJ communications that buttressed his account of that fateful weekend in mid-March that quickly became a flashpoint between the executive and judicial branches.
It was Reuveni who famously quoted then-DOJ official Emil Bove as telling attorneys under him that they might have to tell the courts “fuck you” if they tried to block the AEA deportations. Bove — now a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeal — unexpectedly filed his own declaration yesterday in the contempt of court inquiry. Like the others filed Friday, Bove’s declaration was cursory and raised the prospect of using attorney-client privilege as a shield to block further inquiry from Boasberg.
For his part, Ensign has been a willing pawn in an ongoing DOJ effort to stonewall, obfuscate, and mislead judges in some of the key Trump II deportation cases. Ensign was the lead DOJ attorney in front of Boasberg as the AEA deportations unfolded and much of Boasberg’s initial ire was directed at him.
The Trump DOJ may yet rush to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to try to avoid allowing Reuveni and Ensign to testify, citing various privileges, including attorney-client privilege, but the appeals court in a muddled opinion last month already seemed to clear the way for Boasberg to proceed with his inquiry, after it delayed him for seven months.
Boasberg is zeroing in on whether Noem’s decision to continue with the AEA deportations despite his order was willful, a necessary element of a finding probable cause for criminal contempt.
GOP Congress Has Had Its Fill of Hegseth
In perhaps the most robust oversight this GOP-controlled Congress has yet conducted, the must-pass annual defense policy bill contains a new provision compelling the Pentagon to turn over (i) the specific orders for the U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats; and (ii) unedited video of the attacks.
The provision includes some teeth, too, the NYT reports: “It would withhold 25 percent of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if he failed to give the congressional national security committees a copy of the execute orders behind the strikes, or to outline how he planned to facilitate future briefings about the operation with lawmakers in accordance with federal law.”
SCOTUS Might Surprise on Birthright Citizenship
Steve Vladeck, on the way in which the Roberts Court accepted the birthright citizenship case last week: “That particular tea leaf is significant because it reinforces something I’ve believed since the Court first ruled on the emergency applications relating to the birthright citizenship cases back in June—that a majority of the justices are likely to rule against the administration on the merits and invalidate Trump’s executive order.”
No More Habba to Kick Around in New Jersey
Alina Habba has dropped her claim to be the U.S. attorney for New Jersey after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court decision that she was invalidly appointed. Habba will move to a new position as an advisor to Attorney General Pam Bondi on U.S. attorneys. Bondi indicated that she would continue to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
An EDVA Clash Seems Inevitable
With the Trump DOJ continuing to pretend that Lindsey Halligan is the interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia despite a court ruling that she was invalidly appointed, I don’t know how the district judges can continue not to appoint an interim U.S. attorney, especially with ongoing public attacks on them like this from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche:
Reax to SCOTUS
The Roberts Court gleefully took a sledgehammer not just to independent agencies yesterday in oral arguments, but to the Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence. For help sorting through the implications of the historic case:
Kate Shaw, William Baude and Stephen I. Vladeck chew over the oral arguments under the clever headline: “Looks Like the Supreme Court Will Continue to Overturn the 20th Century.”
Public policy professor Don Moynihan looks at the bigger political picture:
[T]he risks of a partisan public personnel system is not just poor public services, but that it worsens our democracy. Many of the points of friction between Trump and federal employees are about democratic values: the rule of law, how Congressional statute is to be interpreted, avoiding abuses of the power, and transparency. Again and again, the logic for Trump’s personnel actions is the logic of a personalist regime: loyalty to the leader above all else, removing individuals or downgrading agencies that are disfavored.
Sandwich Thrower Jurors Recount Deliberations
While they expected it to be an open-and-shut case, three jurors in the case of the D.C. sandwich thrower Sean Dunn told CBS News that they had to overcome an initial 10-2 split that led to some seven hours of deliberations before acquitting Dunn.
2026 Ephemera
TX-Sen: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) is in and former Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) is out of the Democratic primary to seek the seat held by Sen. John Cornyn (R). State Rep. James Talarico (D) of Austin is the other major candidate in the Democratic primary field.
Very on Brand
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) announced a plan to open Turning Point USA chapters in every high school in Texas. The high school chapters are called “Club America.” I’m told “club” is not a verb.
Good Read
The Guardian: What activists from authoritarian regimes wish they’d known sooner.
Nancy Mace Went Full Karen on Airport Staff
The WaPo obtained the investigation report, transcripts of interviews with officers and officials, and video from the Oct 30. incident involving Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the Charleston airport. Upon arriving for a flight, Mace went ballistic when her vehicle was not met curbside at the airport by a police escort, the WaPo reports:
The airport holds “a certain level of responsibility” for a “minor miscommunication” about the color of the vehicle that Mace would arrive in, airport police chief James A. Woods wrote in the new report. But Mace’s “continued failure to follow established procedures at the checkpoint” escalated the situation into “a spectacle” and negatively affected airport staff, the report concluded.
After her arrival hiccup, Mace became enraged:
The investigation, which included several interviews with TSA staff and police officers, found Mace told officers “I’m sick of your s—,” said that they were “f—ing idiots” and “f—ing incompetent” and yelled in front of TSA officers and police using similar expletives as she proclaimed that she is a “f—ing representative.”
The incident left some airport employees “visibly upset” and “downtrodden,” according to the WaPo report.
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Okay, laugh out loud: "The high school chapters are called “Club America.” I’m told “club” is not a verb." Amazing! Excellent!
sounds like a couple a MAGATs slipped into the jury for the sandwich case. it should not have taken more than 5 minutes to reach a verdict.