Trump Stonewalls Federal Judges In New Round Of Brazen Defiance

INSIDE: Abrego Garcia ... Ed Martin ... RFK Jr.

(Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

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

A Constitutional Clash In Three Acts

In three closely watched anti-immigration cases, the Trump administration continued its slo-mo constitutional defiance of the judicial branch …

Act I: Non-Responsiveness

After the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld her order that the Trump administration facilitate the return of a Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act in violation of a court approved settlement agreement, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland set a deadline of 5 p.m. ET yesterday for the administration to provide a status update on Cristian, a pseudonym for the man.

The Trump DOJ missed the deadline, and what it did file later in the evening was largely non-responsive to the judge’s questions. It mirrors the pattern in the other Maryland case, of Abrego Garcia, who has also been imprisoned in El Salvador since March 15.

Gallagher had three questions for the Trump administration. Here’s how it responded in a declaration by ICE official Mellissa Harper that went on at length about Cristian’s January criminal conviction in Texas for cocaine possession but barely addressed, if at all, what the judge had asked for:

(1) Cristian’s current physical location and custodial status

Gov’t Response: “It is DHS’s understanding that Cristian is in the custody of El Salvador.”

(2) What steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States

Gov’t Response: “DHS has informed the Department of State (DOS) of the Court’s order and requested DOS assistance in complying with the Court’s order. DOS has acknowledged DHS’s request.”

(3) What additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate Cristian’s return.

Gov’t Response: Nada

That’s the full extent of the government’s substantive response to the judge’s questions. No dates, no place names, no next steps. No declaration from the State Department. Nothing that engages in good faith with the judge’s order.

I should note that because the government missed the deadline for the required filing, it had to ask the judge for leave to file late. She hasn’t yet granted leave. Stay tuned.

Act II: Delay Shenanigans

In the adjacent case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Trump DOJ pulled a bullshit move and was called out on it by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland. As the clock neared 5 p.m. ET yesterday on the day the administration’s substantive answer to the lawsuit was due, the Trump DOJ filed a motion asking for 30 more days to file. It’s not the extension request itself but the sloppiness and disrespect of asking for the extension on the day the filing was due, and late in the business day at that.

Xinis denied the extension request, noting that it came on “the very day Defendants’ answer or response to the Complaint is due.” She brought the administration up short because it “expended no effort in demonstrating good cause” and through a total of five hearings had not “even intimated they needed more time to answer or otherwise respond.”

But it was the administration’s claim that expedited discovery in the case had taken up time it would have used to file a timely answer that really set Xinis off:

[Defendants] vaguely complain, in two sentences, to expending “significant resources” engaging in expedited discovery. But these self-described burdens are of their own making. The Court ordered expedited discovery because of Defendants’ refusal to follow the orders of this Court as affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

Later in the evening, the Trump DOJ met its deadline by filing a weak motion to dismiss the case, arguing the Xinis has no jurisdiction.

Act III: Misdirection And Mischaracterization

The Trump administration took the South Sudan deportations case to the Supreme Court on an emergency basis rather than comply with a lower court order to provide the deportees due process on the ground in Africa, which it had urged the trial judge to allow it to do. Its application to the high court was deeply misleading about what had transpired in the lower court and what the administration had agreed to and been ordered to do.

WilmerHale Wins Battle Over Trump EO

In a colorful opinion sprinkled with more than two dozen exclamation points and an unfortunate footnote reference to a bastardized gumbo recipe, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of DC nullified President Trump’s executive order against WilmerHale as unconstitutional.

Threats Against Federal Judges Spike

The number of threats against federal judges has spiked since President Trump took office, according to data from the U.S. Marshals Service that was provided to the NYT by U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, whose son was killed in a 2020 attack at her New Jersey home.

Trump’s Rolling Pardon Scandal

• Trump pardoned tax cheat Paul Walczak after his mother attended a $1 million fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

• Trump is pardoning reality TV fraudsters Todd and Julie Chrisley.

• U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin has personally reviewed the pardon application of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, one of several new applications by convicted seditionist conspiracists who already had their sentences commuted by Trump to time served but are now seeking full pardons.

• In an interview about Trump’s pardon of a convicted Virginia sheriff, Ed Martin told the WSJ: “He’s a guy that was on the right side of a lot of issues …”

DOGE Watch

• Treasury: U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas of New York lifted her final restrictions on DOGE staffers’ access to sensitive Treasury Department payments systems after concluding that they have been properly vetted and trained.

• BLM: A veteran official at the Bureau of Land Management was escorted out headquarters yesterday after resisting orders from a DOGE staffer who became the Interior Department’s acting chief human capital officer.

Trump’s Attack on Higher Ed: California Edition

Leo Terrell, the Trump DOJ official leading a bogus anti-semitism task force, went on Fox News to threaten the University of California system with “massive lawsuits.”

“We are going to go after them where it hurts them financially,” Terrell said.

In a sign that universities are still fighting the Trump administration on the terms it sets, a UC spokesperson responded to the Terrell threat by denouncing anti-semitism.

RFK Jr. Watch

• The CDC will no longer recommend routine Covid shots for healthy children and pregnant women, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a post on X.

• RFK Jr. threatened that unless three prestigious medical journals – the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet – “change dramatically” he would bar government scientists from publishing in them.

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