A Quick Heads Up
For transparency reasons, I like peeling back the curtain on any changes we make to Morning Memo — but doing so always runs the risk of creating some confusion. So let me be really clear upfront: The change I’m about to mention doesn’t require you to do anything differently on your end.
Beginning next week, we’re going to be using a new email provider to send out Morning Memo each day. If you already receive Morning Memo by email, it will still come to you the same as usual, but it will come directly from TPM instead of from Substack. It might look a tad different in your inbox — and the email itself will look more like TPM — so I wanted you to be aware in advance.
You’ll still be able to read Morning Memo in the email version or on Substack or at TPM. Your choice.
We’re making this change because in this deeply fractured media world, we’re trying to build out the TPM ecosystem and not be overly reliant on outside platforms. Better to live and die on our own merits than be subject to the vagaries of third parties.
OK, let’s get to today’s news.
A Hugely Important Distinction
As I feared, the developing story on the Trump DOJ targeting actual ballots in Los Angeles County is creating some confusion.
I tried in yesterday’s Morning Memo to make clear that this was different in kind and degree from the Trump administration’s previous efforts to purge voter rolls in advance of the election. But the reactions I’ve seen since, both to what I wrote and in the larger coverage, suggest that’s still not coming across entirely clearly.
Ironically, the Trump DOJ turns out to be helpful in this regard because it’s now admitted to NBC News that this is in fact different from a purge of voter rolls: “A DOJ spokesperson said the department is asking California to sequester ballots, not change their voter list.”
Now, the Trump DOJ has its own reasons for making that distinction, among them trying to get around the federal statute that bars the mass purging of voter rolls in the 90 days before the election. But in this instance what the Trump DOJ is saying also happens to be true — and the truth is even more damning. Its election interference is no longer hypothetical; it’s happening now while real ballots are being cast.
Once you make the category distinction between voter rolls and actual ballots already cast or soon to be cast, the seriousness of the threat from the federal government becomes a lot more obvious. The Trump DOJ is demanding that a specific batch of ballots be sequestered and not counted until citizenship is confirmed — an additional step in the tabulation process not provided for by law and which experts say would lead to a rushed and sloppy process that likely to disenfranchise legal voters.
The threat is serious even if the Trump DOJ is unable to cite any lawful authority for its demand to California and even if there is no legal basis for it to order states to sequester ballots of people the Trump DOJ claims to have identified as “likely noncitizen voters.”
With that framework in mind, let’s run through the latest developments and the big questions still outstanding …
The Latest From California …
READ: The Oct. 13 demand letter that acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter (the No. 2 official at DOJ!) sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.
READ: McCotter sent a virtually identical letter to Dean Logan, the top election official in Los Angeles County.
A “Sticky Note”!?! In a statement, Secretary of State Weber revealed that the “password-protected thumb drive” containing the Trump DOJ’s list of “likely noncitizen voters” that McCotter references in his letters was accompanied by … wait for it … a sticky note with the password on it. Top notch information security going on there at the Trump DOJ.
Say More About “Election Integrity”: Popping an unsecured thumb drive (see sticky note above) into a USB port in your election office is just not something election administrators not named Tina Peters would dream of doing. “We have not accessed the drive because doing so would conflict with established data privacy and information security protocols,” Logan, the Los Angeles County election official, said in a statement. “We do not consider the device a secure medium.” This is not the first time that the “election integrity” crowd has revealed how little regard it has for actual secure processes and procedures.
JUST IN: Trump DOJ List Challenged in Court
This morning, the UCLA Voting Rights Project, on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and a Los Angeles resident, sought a temporary restraining order to preempt the Trump DOJ’s actions in California.
The requested TRO, filed in an existing case in D.C. against Attorney General Todd Blanche and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, seeks to block the Trump DOJ from coercing California officials into using its purported list of “likely noncitizen voters” to withhold ballots from voters or to segregate and not count ballots already cast.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan did not immediately scheduled a hearing on the TRO but set a deadline of 5 p.m. ET Friday for the parties to file a proposed briefing schedule.
What We Still Don’t Know
The big outstanding questions include:
How many people are on the Trump DOJ list? Since McCotter doesn’t say in his letters and California officials haven’t even opened the file, we don’t know how long the Trump DOJ’s list of “likely noncitizen voters” actually is. A DOJ spokesperson allowed to the LA Times that the number is “in the thousands.” That’s a pretty big range.
Did all or just some California counties receive a similar letter from the Trump DOJ? Similar letters were mailed out to other California counties, CBS News reports, but it’s not clear if it went to all or just some of them.
Has the Trump DOJ targeted other states with similar demand letters? While the thrust of the Trump DOJ’s election-chaos has been aimed at blue states, there are tight House races in red states, too, where chaos might serve to delegitimize election results unfavorable to the GOP. Also worth noting that red state officials might be cooperative and not as quick to go public as California officials were.
If you know of similar efforts by the Trump DOJ in other states, please get in touch with me via the encrypted methods here.
‘Amateur Hour at the Department of Justice’
UCLA election law expert Rick Hasen, in a not-so-succinct headline: “DOJ’s Threat Letter to California Voting Officials with a 48-Hour Deadline is Amateurish Political Theater Aimed at Sowing Chaos, Not to Mention a Demand That Likely Violates Federal Law and Election Security Practices”
The Retribution: Ilhan Omar Edition
The one-two punch of retributive investigations of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) by both the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice is looking worse the more that comes out:
Denaturalization Is Trump’s Goal: The WSJ confirms that the investigation of Omar is “aimed at building a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her.”
Flashback: D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who touted her office’s role in the DOJ investigation of Omar during a Fox News appearance this week, was suspended by the same network in 2019, when she hosted a show there, for on-air comments about Omar: “Omar wears a hijab, which, according to the Quran 33:59, tells women to cover so they won’t get molested.” Pirro said at the time. “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?”
Speech or Debate Clause: U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh of D.C. did in fact limit the scope of the search warrant for Omar’s D.C. home after a protracted back and forth, CNN reports. In doing so, Sharbaugh reportedly cited precedent that preserves the protections for member of Congress contained in the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. Nonetheless, Omar’s phone was among the items seized during the search of her home, NBC News reports.
Trump: Execute the Leakers
News? Tips? Feedback? Please let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
Jesus Mary and Joseph! As a Canadian watching all this abuse happening day after day with fingers crossed my hope is dwindling the closer election day gets - and I’m a mere onlooker. I just can’t believe my own damn eyes and ears. Thank god for the lower court judges that are holding firm; forgive me for GOD DAMN the american Supreme Court for their complicity. 😭
Re: Changes in getting out an email version of MM: I presume that TPM will be using MM Substack subscribers' email addresses for reference, or does one have to sign up separately at the TPM's website? I am a paid TPM subscriber.