A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
A Glimpse Inside the MAGA-fied DOJ
A top antitrust lawyer fired by the Trump Justice Department is not going quietly.
In a speech yesterday in Colorado, Roger Alford accused two senior aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi of corrupting DOJ’s usual process for dealing with antitrust lawsuits, the WSJ reports.
The two officials — chief of staff Chad Mizelle and Stanley Woodward, the nominee for the No. 3 slot at DOJ — were heavily involved in the proposed settlement of a lawsuit over the merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, Alford alleged.
“Chad Mizelle accepts party meetings and makes key decisions depending on whether the request or information comes from a MAGA friend,” Alford said. “Aware of this injustice, companies are hiring lawyers and influence peddlers to bolster their MAGA credentials and pervert traditional law enforcement.”
Alford and another DOJ official were fired last month after raising objections to the role lobbyists and politically connected lawyers played in the settlement talks in the merger case.
The Justice Department originally sued to block the merger earlier this year, which set off a scramble by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “HPE hired Trump political allies such as Mike Davis and Arthur Schwartz to fight back and help it reach a settlement that would allow the $14 billion deal to close,” the WSJ reported.
Responding to the WSJ story, DOJ defended the settlement while gratuitously attacking Alford, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise took umbrage at any suggestion that it behaved unethically or improperly. The rest of the players didn’t comment.
Alford is not a disgruntled career DOJ lawyer. He is a Notre Dame law professor who held a high-level DOJ antitrust position in Trump I and was brought back for Trump II as the No. 2 official in the DOJ antitrust division. In his speech Monday, Alford called on the federal court in California that is overseeing the case to “examine the surprising truth of what happened.”
“I hope the court blocks the HPE/Juniper merger,” Alford said in the speech. “If you knew what I knew, you would hope so too.”
Only the Best People
A roundup of some other DOJ shenanigans:
- The NYT has an extended rundown of Ed Martin’s unapologetic and very public performance as Letitia James’ tormentor. Come for the dueling letters between Martin and James’ defense counsel Abbe Lowell. Stay for the exploration of why Martin’s signature attire is a wrinkled trench coat, an homage to a long-deceased relative who was a character actor before Martin was born (Uncle Billy in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” among other credits).
- Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche personally ordered the May arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka at a migrant detention center in New Jersey, according to body cam footage of the arresting officer that is described in a new court filing by Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), who was charged with assaulting federal agents during the same incident. “We are arresting the mayor right now, per the deputy attorney general of the United States. Anyone that gets in our way, I need you guys to give me a perimeter so I can cuff him,” the officer is quoted as saying in the new filing.
- The Trump administration took the unusual step of naming a “co-deputy” FBI director, pulling in Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) to pair with current deputy director Dan Bongino, whose days in the position may be numbered. Until this year, the deputy FBI director has always been a seasoned career agent who runs the bureau day to day. The Trump administration has turned it into a political position. Neither Bongino nor Bailey has any prior FBI experience.
Unpacking Trump’s Anti-Voting Screed
President Trump went off in a wild social post Monday, claiming extraordinary powers to involve himself in election administration even though the presidency has no constitutional role in conducting elections:
- Josh Marshall: “Trump’s claims are so far from anything even remotely legal or constitutional that I doubt even the corrupted federal judiciary will have much truck with it.”
- Greg Sargent: “At bottom, Trump’s rant clearly signals his intent to use presidential power in every conceivable way he can to swing the midterm elections against Democrats.”
Texas Dems Get Police Escorts to Prevent Another Walkout
Things getting even weirder in Austin:
DC-as-Punching-Bag Watch
- Louisiana and Mississippi became the latest red states to deploy their national guards to plurality-Black D.C. in a show of force and loyalty to President Trump.
- Violating longstanding DOJ policies, the White House has embedded social media teams with the FBI while it executes arrest warrants in D.C., Reuters reports: “Reuters could not determine whether the people who produced the video are White House employees, nor could it determine on how many occasions the White House has sent people to film arrests since the operation began.”
Trump’s Xenophobic Anti-Immigration Juggernaut Grinds on
Just a sampling from the past 24 hours:
- HUD will no longer provide any materials in languages other than English, discontinuing translation services and taking down any non-English materials currently available, the NYT reports.
- The Trump State Department has cancelled more than 6,000 student visas this year, “primarily due to visa overstays or encounters with the law,” Fox News reports. It appears from the Fox News report that facing an arrest or charges is enough to lose a student visa, regardless of whether a conviction is obtained.
- “The Trump administration has signaled it will further scrutinize immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship by ordering authorities to double down on efforts to determine whether applicants have ‘good moral character,’ according to a recent policy memo issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,” the WaPo reports.
Newsmax Settles With Dominion for $67M
The right-wing cable news net Newsmax settled the defamation claim by Dominion Voting Systems over its coverage of the 2020 election for $67 million. Newsmax had already settled a similar defamation case by Smartmatic last year for $40 million.
Down the Memory Hole!
Wired has unearthed a deleted Twitter account that bears the name of E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The account, which was active at least between September 2019 and January 2021, trafficked heavily in the Big Lie but also embraced a host of other MAGA conspiracy theories:
The account’s persona was that of a deeply loyal Trump supporter engaging in conspiracy theories ranging from Covid denialism to attacks on Black Lives Matter, and even ones related to the death of Jeffrey Epstein. The posting, which was infused with a deeply hard-line Catholic worldview, at times displayed misogyny and a knowledge of Nazi military techniques.
Neither the White House nor Antoni respond substantively to Wired’s inquires.
Warning of the Day
“You can’t run a country, or any organization, without reliable data, and firing the head of a statistics agency because you don’t like the numbers it produces starts a path the United States does not want to go down. At the other end lies a ruined economy and a damaged democracy.”–Andreas V. Georgiou, the former president of the Greek national statistical office
The Purges: USAF Edition
Gen. David Allvin, the top Air Force general, is being ousted by the Trump administration halfway through his four-year term.
Quote of the Day
“Kennedy would be less hazardous if he decided to do cardiac surgery. Then he would kill people only one at a time rather than his current ability to kill by the thousands.”–former CDC Director William Foege, on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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