We’re Now On The Fast Track To A Historic Constitutional Clash
INSIDE: James Boasberg ... Pam Bondi ... Abrego Garcia
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
The Stakes Could Hardly Be Higher
Yesterday’s Morning Memo asserted that the case of the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia had supplanted the Alien Enemies Act case at the nexus of the constitutional clash between a renegade executive branch and the federal judiciary. Within just of couple of hours that proved no longer to be true.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge in D.C., issued a blistering ruling against the Trump administration, finding probable cause that it had committed criminal contempt of court by violating his order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
Boasberg set in motion a process that gives the Trump administration a chance to correct its error by affirming that it has custody of the deportees currently being held in a Salvadoran prison or otherwise face a criminal contempt proceeding that could conclude with Boasberg appointing a lawyer to prosecute the case if the Justice Department, as expected, refuses to do so. He gave the administration an April 23 deadline.
It now looks like potential contempt proceedings in the Alien Enemies Act case and the Abrego Garcia case will be running in parallel, leapfrogging each other from time to time for the right to be the Supreme Court’s biggest test so far of the Trump II presidency.
The Trump administration moved yesterday to appeal both cases before the preliminaries of the contempt proceedings could even get under way. In a normal world, neither appeal would find any purchase. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ revised order in the Abrego Garcia case contains precisely the language the Supreme Court already ratified. Boasberg’s order isn’t even appealable: He hasn’t found anyone in contempt yet. But the Trump administration is looking to gum up the works and delay any reckoning for itself so expect dubious procedural maneuvering from the Trump DOJ to avoid confronting the bad facts and bad law it has created for itself.
At the same time that the Trump Justice Department is frittering away in court the good will and presumption of fair dealing that it had earned over many decades, Attorney General Pam Bondi is personally participating in the White House-led scorched-earth propaganda campaign to smear Abrego Garcia. Bondi has publicly made allegations about him that she hasn’t dared make in court, and once again she’s done it from the White House proper, demonstrating the complete erosion of Justice Department independence in her few weeks on the job:
Your occasional reminder that both these cases – which grew out of the three hastily arranged flights of deportees from Texas to a Salvadoran prison on March 15 – have taken on the highest significance because they are poised to test whether President Trump will abide limitations imposed by the judicial branch and what the judiciary will do if he doesn’t. These cases tee up the broader constitutional issues not because of the underlying legal issues involved but because of the executive branch’s utter brazenness in defying, stonewalling, dismissing, and disregarding Article III judges. It’s not just what the administration is doing but how it’s doing it that is setting up a constitutional showdown.
With the Roberts Court having already blanketed the President with immunity from prosecution and the Justice Department firmly in his pocket, it is difficult to envision a scenario where the judicial branch is able to effectively enforce its orders in face of Trump’s defiance or to impose enforceable consequences for his failure to comply. For instance, while Judge Boasberg cited a rule of criminal procedure that explicitly mandates that he must appoint an attorney to prosecute criminal contempt if the Justice Department refuses to do so, Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck suggests there are constitutional infirmities with the rule itself that may foreclose this path to accountability.
Trump is acting as if he knows the judiciary is bringing a knife to a gunfight. He may not be wrong.
White House Defies Another Court Order
Despite a federal court order prohibiting the Trump White House from punishing the Associated Press for not using “Gulf of America” in its stories, it has continued to block the wire service from accessing events it has typically covered, the AP alleged in a new court filing.
Trump Moves To Revoke Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status
As first reported by CNN, the IRS is making plans to rescind Harvard University’s tax-exempt status in a potentially existential threat to the Ivy League school. “Officials at the Treasury Department asked the IRS’s acting chief legal counsel, Andrew De Mello, to move ahead with a plan to revoke Harvard’s key status,” the WSJ reported.
Who Couldn’t See This Coming?
Having secured deals with several major U.S. law firms, President Trump is now turning the screws on those same firms further by suggesting the pro bono services they agreed to provide can now be used on a variety of Trump administration’s priorities and as a legal war chest he could tap himself.
This Is Nuts
I had to read this NYT story twice to fully get that acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin hasn’t just enlisted the help of uber-Trumpist Michael R. Caputo for his Senate confirmation battle but has actually hired Caputo within the U.S. attorney’s office.
DOGE Watch
Politico: DOGE comes for AmeriCorps staff in Washington and across the country
WaPo: ICE, DOGE seek sensitive Medicare data as immigration crackdown intensifies
NYT: Musk’s Team Is Building a System to Sell ‘Gold Card’ Immigrant Visas
Rise Up
Organized labor has formed a pro bono legal network to assist federal workers who have been purged.
The Destruction: Medical Science Edition
NYT: Leading Nutrition Scientist Departs N.I.H., Citing Censorship
WSJ: Drug Development Is Slowing Down After Cuts at the FDA
WaPo: Internal budget document reveals extent of Trump’s proposed health cuts
Trump Target: Maine
The Trump administration escalated its attack on the state of Maine by filing a lawsuit against the state’s Education Department for not banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.
Quote Of The Day
“I’m not screaming, ‘aliens!’ But I always reserve my right to scream ‘aliens!’”–Nikole Lewis, an exoplanetary scientist at Cornell University, on the discovery of a possible signature of extraterrestrial life on a planet 120 light-years from Earth
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Another chilling daily summary of tRump 2.0, and where it's driving this beleaguered country and its judiciary. Steve Vladeck's argument re: "Rule 42", while behind a paywall, leads the reader to a just conclusion in the Roberts Court era: the "sanctity" of separation of powers, and probable unconstitutionality of a "private prosecutor" appointed by a federal judge if DOJ refuses to take up a case as mandated by a court decision.
So, essentially, no "contempt of court" citation directed toward DOJ, or DHS, or whoever is representing the government, will stick, so "contumacious conduct" WILL continue without penalty, as will defiance of the courts.
Thank you, CJ Roberts, for your part in enabling a scofflaw, authoritarian administration.
I never thought I might be pleased at the idea of extraterrestrial aliens being discovered.