Trump Targets Higher Ed In Pure Authoritarian Move
INSIDE: Elon Musk ... Ed Martin ... Pete Hegseth
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Columbia University Is Ground Zero For Trump Extortion
If you still harbored any doubt that President Trump’s ongoing attack on Columbia University – a private institution – is drawn straight from the authoritarian playbook, then the latest development should be clarifying.
The Trump administration – specifically the Department of Education, HHS, and GSA – sent a letter yesterday to Columbia attempting to extort an array of concessions in how the university is run before it may consider restoring some $400 million in frozen federal funding.
Imposing an arbitrary March 20 deadline, the Trump administration demanded that Columbia complete a laundry list of internal restructurings, policy changes, and submissions to federal authority. Among the most alarming demands: put the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department in what it calls “academic receivership” for at least five years.
If Columbia complies by the deadline, then and only then will the Trump administration “open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms” at the university. If it’s not clear, it sure should be: Even if Columbia submits to this extortion letter, it doesn’t get federal funding restored. It merely sets itself up for a later round of bullying, exorbitant demands, and more extortion.
The extortion letter came the same day DHS agents executed search warrants at the residences of two Columbia students. “According to the sources, it was part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on individuals it has described as espousing the views of Hamas and threatening the safety of Jewish students,” ABC News reported.
This all transpired as Columbia graduate and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil remained in federal detention as the Trump administration attempts to deport him even though he’s a legal permanent resident. His lawyers amended their filings as they obtained new information about his detainment. In an interview with NPR, a top DHS official could not articulate what wrongdoing Khalil was being accused of.
Meanwhile, The Atlantic reported that the Trump administration had targeted at least one other person at the same time as Khalil:
It turns out Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified a second individual to be deported, and included that person alongside Khalil in a March 7 letter to the Department of Homeland Security. Both were identified in the letter as legal permanent residents, The Atlantic has learned. …
The officials did not disclose the name of the second green-card holder, and did not know whether the person is a current or former Columbia student, or had been singled out for some other reason. The person has not been arrested yet, the U.S. official said.
The Trump administration’s bullying of a private university is being done under the guise of rooting out antisemitism. But the real authoritarian move here is to bring higher education under the thumb of the president. Columbia’s not the only example, but it’s the most extreme.
“So far, America’s leading universities have remained virtually silent in the face of this authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education,” the Harvard student newspaper editorialized.
Biggest Anti-Purge Developments Yet
Two federal judges on opposite coasts threw up big stop signs Thursday to President Trump’s mass purges of government workers.
In the morning, a clearly irate U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco ordered purged probationary employees to be reinstated. His order covered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments.
Later in the day, U.S. District Judge James Bredar of Maryland issued an even broader order to reinstate probationary employees at 18 major agencies, ruling that the government hadn’t followed the proper procedures for layoffs.
The Purges
Gov’t Wide: Government agencies had a deadline yesterday to submit plans to the White House for a “mass reduction” of the federal workforce but few details on those plans have been made public.
IRS: DOGE officials instructed the acting IRS commissioner to eliminate 18,141 jobs across the agency by May 15, according to records obtained by the WaPo.
Collateral Damage: Johns Hopkins University will cut more than 2,000 workers in the United States and abroad funded by federal aid.
Doge Watch
The Trump administration sacked the top lawyer at the IRS in a clash over getting access to the agency’s highly sensitive date to use to deport immigrants. William Paul, a career employee, had been serving as the acting chief counsel at the IRS since the end of Biden’s term.
Elon Musk visited the National Security Agency on Wednesday to meet with its leadership on staff reductions and operations.
The AP has obtained a list of which government office leases will be canceled this year and when.
Trump II Clown Show
The Trump White House withdrew the nomination of former Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) to head the CDC because he was apparently too anti-vax for some senators and not ready for primetime. Weldon learned his nomination was being withdrawn from a WSJ reporter while en route to his Senate confirmation hearing.
Gov’t Shutdown Watch: Senate Expected To Pass CR Today
The GOP-controlled Senate is expected to pass a continuing resolution today before the midnight deadline for a traditional government shutdown. While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declined to lead a filibuster, it’s still unclear how many Democratic senators will ultimately vote for the CR itself on a straight up-or-down simple majority vote. TPM’s liveblog yesterday offered a good window into a fluid day on the Hill. Our team is back at it today and you can follow them here. Meanwhile, the nontraditional Trump-Musk government shutdown continues apace.
Raskin Asks DOJ IG To Investigate Ed Martin
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has sent a nine-page broadside against acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin to the Department of Justice’s inspector general requesting that he open an investigation Martin’s outrageous conduct.
Jan. 6 Never Ends
As if to demonstrate that he has brought the Justice Department to heel, President Trump is heading to Main Justice today for a triumphant speech in the building’s Great Hall.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee in DC, is the first judge to reject outright the Trump DOJ’s position that the Jan. 6 pardons covered crimes committed after that date.
Newsmax revealed publicly for the first time that it paid $40 million in the September settlement of Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against it arising from the right-wing outlet’s coverage of the 2020 election.
Nothing To See Here
The White House halted the FBI background checks of dozens of top Trump staffers because they deemed them too intrusive and quietly turned the vetting over to the Pentagon, ABC News reports.
IMPORTANT
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is planning a sweeping overhaul of the judge advocate general’s corps “to make the US military less restricted by the laws of armed conflict,” The Guardian reports.
As part of that effort, The Guardian notes: “on Friday commissioned his personal lawyer and former naval officer Tim Parlatore as a navy commander to oversee the effort carrying the weight and authority of the defense secretary’s office.”
Parlatore, who was part of the Trump’s personal legal team back in 2023, posted pictures on Linkedin of his swearing-in last week by Hegsteth.
Planning Underway For Trump’s Panama Canal Extortion
U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to the less likely option of U.S. troops’ seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said. Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much Panamanian security forces agree to partner with the United States.
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Speechless. But donating to causes. Thank you for confirming sanity.
How about before the admin worries about "antisemites" in universities they root out the Neo-Nazis in their own government!
Billionaires and bigots, it's not like we haven't seen them ally before in history but what makes this so horrific is have they ever done so without causing brutal violence and terrible corruption? Has there ever been a peaceful alliance of the rich and racists?