State Dept. Spox Bungles Questions On New Deportations To Salvadoran Jail

INSIDE: Elon Musk ... Ed Martin ... Pete Hegseth

Spokesperson for the US Department of State Tammy Bruce holds a press briefing and takes a handful of questions in Washington, D.C., U.S. on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Thomas / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by ANDREW THOMAS/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

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

Who Can Say, Really?

The Trump administration on Sunday sent another plane – this one with 17 alleged gang members – to a prison in El Salvador. The detainees were a mix Venezuelan and El Salvadoran citizens.

It raised the question whether more deportation were being carried out under the Alien Enemies Act despite U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s order temporarily blocking such deportations.

The administration eventually took the line yesterday that the deportations were not carried out under the Alien Enemies Act, according to the NYT: “The official said the deportees were removed under the executive branch’s traditional legal authority to enforce immigration laws against illegal entry, not the Alien Enemies Act.”

But the information about what legal authority the administration purported to rely on apparently didn’t make it to the State Department before this awkward display by spokesperson Tammy Bruce:

In other developments:

• In the Alien Enemies Act case in front of Judge Boasberg, the ACLU filed a sharp, well-written retort to the Trump administration’s invocation of the state secrets privilege.

• The ACLU has a deadline this morning to file its objection to the Supreme Court reviewing Boasberg’s order blocking Alien Enemies Act deportations.

• Judge Boasberg set a hearing for Thursday for the Trump administration to show cause that it didn’t violate his order blocking Alien Enemies Act deportations

More About The Tattoos …

• NYT: U.S. Tied Migrants to Gang Based Largely on Clothes or Tattoos, Papers Show

• Popular Information: Trump claims a Michael Jordan tattoo is evidence of Venezuelan gang membership

• TPM: The Random Assortment Of Excuses ICE Used To Send Venezuelan Detainees To El Salvador Hellhole

IMPORTANT

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending a Biden-era program that gave legal status to some 600,000 Venezuelan migrants. Chen found that administration had sweeping unfounded generalizations about Venezuelan migrants. “Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism,” Chen wrote.

Harvard Next In Trump’s Crosshairs

Invoking its bogus version of anti-antisemitism, the Trump administration took aim at Harvard University, saying it would review $9 billion in federal funding for school. The initial email response from university President Alan Garber was tepid, focusing on what the school has already done to combat antisemitism and vowing to learning from mistakes, with a single passing reference to academic freedom.

What Happened To Columbia’s Katrina Armstrong?

Columbia Law School professor David Pozen on the resignation of interim Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong: “It doesn’t take much political savvy or hermeneutical skill to draw one conclusion from this sequence of events, although no one thus far seems to have acknowledged the point outright: President Armstrong did not resign voluntarily; she was forced out because she was seen as insufficiently committed to a particular vision of how antisemitism ought to be combated on campus.”

Democratic Party Sues Over Trump’s Elections EO

The national Democratic Party and its campaigns and elections committees have sued in federal court in DC to block President Trump’s executive order on elections.

“Although the Order extensively reflects the President’s personal grievances, conspiratorial beliefs, and election denialism, nowhere does it (nor could it) identify any legal authority he possesses to impose such sweeping changes upon how Americans vote,” Democrats alleged in the complaint filed by attorney Marc Elias, a longtime Trump nemesis.

DOGE Watch

• WaPo: Elon Musk visits the CIA to discuss DOGE cuts.

• AP: A DOGE employee is put in charge of the US Institute of Peace

• Wired: “The DOGE-affiliated acting president of the United States Institute of Peace, a Congressionally funded, independent think tank, has moved to transfer the agency’s $500 million headquarters building to the General Services Administration free of charge, according to court documents revealed in a recently filed lawsuit.”

The Purges

• FDA: “Commissioner Marty Makary signed off on the ouster of top vaccine official Peter Marks shortly after being quietly sworn in as the agency’s new leader late last week,” Politico reports.

• HHS: Internal tensions within DOGE has delayed the layoffs of some 10,000 government workers.

• IMLS: The Trump administration gutted the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

• CIA: A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s firings of intelligence workers in DEI roles.

Making Life Easier For Fraudsters And Charlatans

Former HHS general counsel Samuel Bagenstos on RFK Jr.’s purported “reorganization” of the department:

The restructuring announced last week is part of Trump, Musk, and RFK’s sustained assault on HHS and public health generally–an assault that will ensure that people lead shorter lives, that their lives will be worse, and that they will be easier pray for fraudsters and charlatans selling products with bogus health claims. The restructuring is yet another gratuitous insult to the hard-working HHS career staff who have been serving the people in extremely difficult conditions. These are highly skilled people who have sacrificed enormously of time and money so they can serve the public in some of the most essential ways, in some of the most stressful conditions imaginable. They deserve our thanks and praise, not mass firings.

The Trump II Clown Show

After kicking off his second term with the mass firings of inspectors general, President Trump is beginning to replace them with nominees like former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), who lost his re-election bid last year after the NYT reported that he had put both his fiancée’s daughter and a woman with whom he was having an affair on his congressional payroll.

A Last-Ditch Effort To Stop Ed Martin

A push is afoot to try to pressure the Senate Judiciary Committee into holding a confirmation hearing on Ed Martin’s nomination to be the U.S. attorney in DC, rather than send his nomination straight to the Senate floor for a vote, as usually happens for U.S. attorneys.

The Corruption: Trump Pardon Edition

President Trump quietly commuted the prison sentence of another former business associate of Hunter Biden’s who had turned into a witness against the Biden family. “Jason Galanis was sentenced in 2020 to 189 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $162 million in forfeiture and restitution after pleading guilty to his role in two securities fraud schemes,” the NYT reports.

Trump Admin Screws With Planned Parenthood Funding

Using anti-DEI and anti-immigration pretexts, the Trump administration has blocked tens of millions of dollars of federal funding to Planned Parenthood chapters.

Hegseth Targets Women In Combat

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has long opposed women serving in combat, took a major step toward limiting their access to such roles by ordering the elimination of lower physical fitness standards for women in combat units.

Cory Booker Talks All Night

As TPM’s Hunter Walker first reported, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) embarked on a marathon Senate floor speech overnight to draw attention to President Trump’s threat to American democracy.

From Across The Pond …

British journalist Ian Dunt:

We should all take a good hard look at what’s happening in the US. Not the noise or the clamour, but the bleak constitutional reality of it. This is what happens when you give up on the rule of law. A president who talks openly about going for a third term, who signs executive orders which contradict his country’s constitution, who got a rigged supreme court to grant him immunity, who ignores court orders, who has his underlings hand out massive million dollar cheques to people to induce them to vote, even though it is explicitly against state law. To watch the United States is to watch the law dissolve into authoritarian government.

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