Programming Note
Join me for the first Morning Memo Live event on Jan. 29 in Washington, D.C. Find details and tickets here.
A Dozen Resignations Since Friday
Mass resignations at the Justice Department over its handling of the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good extended into a second day and spread from Washington, D.C., to Minnesota.
In D.C., the number of reported resignations in the criminal section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division rose from four to six — a reaction to the decision by assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon not to investigate the Minneapolis shooting. Most of the resignations were by supervisor-level prosecutors, according to CBS News, which had previously reported that career prosecutors in the section had offered to drop all of their work to help investigate the shooting. The Civil Rights Division had already been decimated under Dhillon.
In the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office, an additional six career prosecutors — a majority of the leadership team — resigned over the decision to squeeze state investigators out of the federal investigation into the incident and a related DOJ request to investigate Good’s widow for her protest activities, according to the Star Tribune.
Among the resignations in Minnesota was Joe Thompson, who as the first assistant U.S. attorney was the No. 2 in the office and had previously served as acting U.S. attorney. Ironically, Thompson was the lead prosecutor on the big fraud case in the state that had swept up a number of Somali-Americans and was loudly trumpeted by President Trump and the right wing. The chief of the criminal division also resigned.
Of particular concern is the Trump DOJ’s decision to launch an investigation into the political protest activities of Rebecca Good for possible federal charges. According to the NYT:
Mr. Thompson strenuously objected to the decision not to investigate the shooting as a civil rights matter, and was outraged by the demand to launch a criminal investigation into Becca Good, according to the people familiar with the developments, who were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
The resignation of Thompson and the others is all but certain to cripple the fraud prosecution in similar fashion to how key resignations in the Eastern District of Virginia hobbled the attempts to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James.
Mass Deportation Watch: Somali Edition
Somali refugees in Minnesota legally in the country are being rounded up and shipped to detention centers in Texas, according to reports and refugee advocates.
Good Read
Journalist Laura Jedeed applied to work for ICE and after minimal vetting was offered a job.
Fed Subpoenas Came After Trump Blasted US Attorneys
D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s subpoenas to the Federal Reserve on Friday came the day after President Trump blasted a roomful of U.S. attorneys at the White House for being weak and slow in pursuing his vindictive prosecutions, the WSJ reports.
In related news, the NYT reports that Main Justice was “stunned” by Pirro’s Fed subpoeanas:
Senior officials at the department were stunned, and annoyed, that Ms. Pirro did not consult them on an investigation of such international importance, the officials with knowledge of her actions said. …
Ms. Pirro’s decades-long relationship with Mr. Trump gives her the self-confidence to make consequential decisions without first seeking sign-off from her superiors.
Pirro continues to act like the subpoena is all the Feds’ fault for not responding to her earlier demand for documents, telling the NYT: “The drama is all Powell.”
DOJ Defends Halligan in Screed Against Judge
In an unhinged filing in response to a direct court order, the Trump DOJ went off on U.S. District Judge David J. Novak, a Trump appointee in Richmond, Virginia.
Novak had ordered former Trump personal attorney Lindsey Halligan to explain why she persists in identifying herself as U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia even after another federal judge had ruled her appointment invalid.
In its response — over the names of Attorney General Pam Bondi, deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Halligan, among others — the Justice Department savaged Novak, accusing him of:
- violating the Rules of Criminal Procedure;
- launching a “quest”;
- fundamentally “misunderstanding” the ruling invaliding Halligan’s appointment;
- flouting Supreme Court precedent and “elementary” legal principles;
- engaging in “a gross abuse of power and an affront to the separation of powers”;
- being “flat wrong”;
- operating under a “misimpression”;
- making a “rudimentary legal error”;
- blinded by a “fixation” that is is “untethered from how federal courts actually operate”;
- making “a fundamental category error.”
I eagerly await Novak’s response to this scorched-earth approach to willfully refusing to abide by court orders.
Quote of the Day
“If you told him Martians came and stole votes, he’d be inclined to believe it.”—Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, in transcripts of secret grand jury testimony from the Georgia election interference case obtained by the NYT
Oops …
A Trump administration effort to prove widespread illegal voting by undocumented immigrants is coming up short.
The Retribution: Elissa Slotkin Edition
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said prosecutors are now involved in investigating the video she and other members of Congress made urging members of the military and the intelligence community to abide by their legal obligation not to follow unlawful orders.
Slotkin had previously announced in November that she had learned she and the others were the target of an FBI counterterrorism investigation over the video she organized. On Tuesday, Slotkin said the Senate sergeant-at-arms was approached by D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office about scheduling an interview with her or her private counsel.
“I’ve studied this kind of political authoritarianism in other countries my entire professional life,” Slotkin told the NYT. “I just can’t believe I am talking about it in my own country.”
Thread of the Day
A quick assessment of the Office of Legal Counsel permission slip for U.S. military action in Venezuela — without a congressional approval — a redacted version of which was released yesterday:
SCOTUS Hears Trans Athletes Case
If you’re piecing together how the oral arguments went yesterday in the two trans athletes cases before the high court, let me recommend:
- TPM’s Kate Riga: Right-Wing Justices Warm to Idea that Trans Minority Too Small to Challenge Sports Ban
- LawDork Chris Geidner: SCOTUS likely to allow state trans sports bans, but a changed tone could signal a narrow ruling
RIP
The Post-Gazette’s announcement that it will cease operations in May threatens to make Pittsburgh the largest city in the country without a real daily newspaper, Joshua Benton writes:
While there are debates to be had about what it means to be a “city without a newspaper,” the largest thus far is probably Youngstown, Ohio — another Rust Belt burg just across the Ohio line. But metro Pittsburgh’s almost six times the size of metro Youngstown — this would be a new scale of loss.
To be clear, the Post-Gazette will shut down entirely, not merely cease printing and shift to digital publishing.
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