Trump DOJ Hit With a Wild Series of Bench Slaps
INSIDE: Kyle Dudek ... James Boasberg ... Donald Trump
Trump Judge to DOJ: ‘Give Me a Break’
The judicial branch’s response to the Trump rampage has been slow but as The Atlantic’s Quinta Jurecic suggests, there are signs that it’s gathering steam. The more judges that dispense with the government’s presumption of regularity, the wider the door opens to investigating irregularities.
Still, the pace is halting and often hard to visualize because it comes in so many different flavors across so many different courts. But the past 24 hours have seen a flurry of examples of judicial pushback against the Trump administration that offers a good snapshot of the emerging moment:
In Florida: U.S. District Judge Kyle Dudek of Ft. Myers, a Trump appointee, issued an apoplectic order in a habeas case after the Trump administration failed to abide by his order to give an ICE detainee a bond hearing.
The Trump DOJ had originally conceded that the detainee was entitled to a bond hearing in front of an immigration judge. “What happened next borders on the surreal,” Dudek wrote in an order first flagged by Joyce Vance.
The immigration judge refused to hold a bond hearing, the administration went along with it, waiving its right to appeal, and then came back to Dudek saying its original concession “was in error.”
Dudek was not having any of it:
The Government was right the first time. And its request for a do-over here is not just legally unsupportable, it is a masterclass in litigation cynicism. A federal court is not a testing lab where the Executive branch can pilot a concession to get a case closed, stand by silently while its own administrative process flouts the resulting mandate, and then stroll back in demanding a clean slate. Give me a break.
But Dudek wasn’t done.
Rather than just re-order a bond hearing, he ordered the detainee released within 48 hours “because the Government has shown a complete inability to follow judicial directions.”
In Rhode Island: Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. popped the Trump administration for not immediately complying with his order to resume making asylum decisions and restart immigration processing.
“It should almost go without saying—but the Court will say it anyway for the sake of ‘clarify[ing]’ the Government’s ‘current obligations’ — that court orders vacating and setting aside agency policies have immediate effect once they are issued,” McConnell wrote.
McConnell gave the administration 24 hours to file a status report on the “specific steps” it’s taken to comply with his order: “There is no excuse this time; the Government has an obligation to immediately comply with this Order.”
In Illinois: After a federal judge ordered an evidentiary hearing into possible grand jury improprieties in an unrelated fraud case by the same prosecutor implicated in grand jury misconduct in the Broadview Six case, the Trump DOJ folded.
It moved to dismiss charges against two defendants in the rather serious fraud case rather than see its prosecutors, including potentially Chicago U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, hauled to the stand to give sworn testimony about the grand jury proceedings.
In D.C.: Chief Judge James Boasberg rejected a revisionist move by the Trump DOJ to vacate his earlier order quashing grand jury subpoenas in the politicized investigation of the Federal Reserve and its then-chairman Jay Powell. In revisiting his earlier ruling, Boasberg colorfully summarized it thusly:
This Court found that the subpoenas were meant to harass Powell and to pressure him to truckle to the President’s policy preferences. It also concluded that the Government had no good-faith basis to believe that Powell was guilty of any crime other than displeasing the President and that the Government’s justifications were mere pretexts.
As he rejected the latest move, Boasberg dryly called it “a creative way to clear its loss from the books.”
Trump’s Ultimate Revisionism
It sounds like Republicans will make a push in the lame-duck session of Congress after the midterm elections to expunge Donald Trump’s two first-term impeachments.
“I think it makes a lot of sense the more the evidence comes out, the more we know they really were sham impeachments,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) told the WSJ.
Slush Fund Ain’t Dead Yet
Behind the scenes, Justice Department and other Trump-administration officials have quietly assured allies that plans for some form of payout remain on track. I spoke with eight people familiar with the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund—including current and former Justice Department officials, current and former members of Congress, a defense attorney, and political operatives close to the administration. All said that Justice Department officials and people close to the White House have indicated that the payout idea has not actually been scrapped. Rather, they say, officials are exploring whether elements of the fund can be reactivated while also examining alternative arrangements to make sure loyalists get compensated.
Programming alert: I’ll be in court this morning in Alexandria, Virginia, in the case challenging the slush fund where the judge has already ordered the administration temporarily to pause any movement on the fund. Stay tuned …
Kennedy Center Deadline Is Today
Under court order to remove Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center by today, the performing arts venue’s Trump-aligned board made a last-ditch effort to buy more time, asking the judge to pause his order while it appeals his ruling. The move to appeal the ruling came on the 13th day of a 14-day window to remove Trump’s name, setting the stage for a series of last-minute rulings today from the trial court and possibly the appeals court.
Live Today at 3 p.m. ET: Chris Geidner
I can’t count the number of times that the Trump administration’s crusade against transgender Americans was the last item to miss the cut for that day’s Morning Memo.
Since it’s been a recurring frustration that I haven’t been able to give this important story more consistent attention, I’ve invited Chris Geidner, the nation’s leading reporter on it, to join me this afternoon for a catch-up session.
We’ll be live here at 3 p.m. ET. I hope you can join us.
Photo of the Day: 8647 Edition
You have to squint, but it’s mostly there. The WaPo paints a vivid picture of the Keystone Cops reaction to protest: “Multiple emergency vehicles could be seen encircling the grass about 1 p.m. A team of officers stood over brown patches in the grass, wearing gloves, and collected samples for testing from the grass with materials from a yellow case. Pedestrians were not permitted to walk on the grass, and a Park Service helicopter circled overhead.”
So Busted
A close friend texted me yesterday: “Hi, MM today is like Very Terrible, Very Terrible, Very Terrible, War Crimes, Ebola, THE END.”
It’s been like that a lot lately.
Over the past 18 months, I’ve drifted away from the practice of sprinkling into Morning Memo some nonpolitical reminders of our common humanity, the larger world, and … dare I say it? … joy.
So this is my pledge to try to get back to that practice and offer the occasional respite from the nonstop American carnage.
See Ya Back Here Monday
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
Paul Krugman also ends his daily commentary with an appropriate musical coda to lighten the usual grim mood...nice touch here, and more of the same, please!
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast".
Joe Ely (RIP) is a fantastic way to end the MM today! Thanks!