A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
So Far So Good
Two federal judges in DC late Friday blocked key provisions of President Trump’s executive orders targeting major U.S. law firms. The decisions came after WilmerHale and Jenner & Block rushed to court seeking temporary restraining orders to forestall some of the most egregious aspects of the executive orders targeting each firm.
“The retaliatory nature of the Executive Order at issue here is clear from its face,” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled in the WilmerHale case.
U.S. District Judge John Bates similarly ruled in favor of Jenner & Block. During a hearing in the case, Bates said from the bench: “The legal profession as a whole is watching and wondering if their courtroom activities … will cause the government to turn their eyes to them next.”
Leon and Bates are both Bush II appointees.
Skadden Strikes A Deal With Trump
Skadden Arps became the first major law firm to strike a preemptive deal with President Trump rather than risk being targeted by one of his executive orders. Unlike Skadden, Paul Weiss didn’t strike a deal with Trump until after he’d issued an executive order against it. In both cases, Trump loudly touted his success in winning fealty from the firms.
Alien Enemies Act Developments
- The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow it to continue deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.
- In the court proceedings over the Alien Enemies Act, the ACLU has obtained ICE’s subjective checklist for determining whether someone is a member of the Tren de Aragua gang.
- In a separate case, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy of Boston has issued a nationwide injunction blocking the Trump administration’s policy of deportations to third countries without a chance to challenge the removal in court.
More Reveals From The Signal Fiasco
- Mike Waltz: Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz has created and hosted multiple other sensitive conversations on Signal with Cabinet members, including separate threads on how to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine as well as military operations, two U.S. officials told the WSJ.
- Pete Hegseth: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, the WSJ reports.
IMPORTANT: A Blow To Indy Agencies
A three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals brushed aside Supreme Court precedent – while pretending otherwise – to allow President Trump’s firings of members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board to stand.
Judge Throws CFPB A Lifeline
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a blistering opinion and ordered the Trump administration to resume the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and rehire its fired workers.
“Absent an injunction freezing the status quo – preserving the agency’s data, its operational capacity, and its workforce – there is a substantial risk that the defendants will complete the destruction of the agency completely in violation of law well before the Court can rule on the merits, and it will be impossible to rebuild,” Jackson wrote.
In her ruling, Jackson also took the Trump administration defendants – acting CFPB Director Russell Vought and the CFPB itself – to the woodshed for not being forthcoming with the court. “[T]he Court is left with little confidence that the defense can be trusted to tell the truth about anything.”
A Photo For Our Times
Elon Musk gives out one of two $1 million check during a town hall in Wisconsin after a unanimous state Supreme Court declined to hear an attempt to block Musk from distributing the checks ahead of Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
Good Read
TPM’s Josh Marshall: Elon Musk and the Threat of the Over-Mighty Subject
DOGE Watch
- WaPo: DOGE fires nearly all staff at U.S. Institute of Peace headquarters
- NYT: Over the weekend, DOGE accessed a federal payroll system over the objections of career staff who have now been placed on administrative leave and under investigation.
- Politico: DOGE’s Marko Elez – fired from Treasury after racist social media posts — has been working for weeks on sensitive systems at HHS, new government disclosures revealed Saturday.
- Judd Legum: How the Social Security Administration and DOGE are gaslighting Americans
- Wired: DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Code Base in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse
The Destruction: Foreign Aid
- NYT: Trump’s USAID Cuts Hobble Earthquake Response in Myanmar
- Politico: Appeals Court clears the way for Musk and DOGE to resume cuts to USAID.
The Destruction: Public Health And Medical Science
- WaPo: The Trump administration pushed out Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine scientist and an architect of the U.S. program to rapidly develop coronavirus vaccines.
- Stat News: Both deputy directors at the key FDA center that oversees the regulation of cancer drugs plan on departing the agency.
For Your Radar …
TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: Trump’s executive order on elections includes a provision that could punish states for not sharing voter information with the Trump DOJ.
White House Crosses New Line In Corrupting DOJ
The Trump White House has taken the unprecedented step of directly firing at least two career DOJ prosecutors. The two known firings involved one line prosecutor in Los Angeles and another in Memphis, the NYT reports.
The Corruption: Trump’s Abuse Of The Pardon Power
- “President Trump pardoned Nikola founder Trevor Milton, who had been convicted of fraud in federal court for what prosecutors said were his lies to investors about his zero-emissions trucks,” the WSJ reported.
- President Trump commuted the sentence of Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the now-defunct digital media company Ozy Media, who was sentenced in December to almost 10 years in prison for trying to defraud investors and lenders by lying about the company’s finances, the NYT reports.
Naval Academy Purges Its Library Of ‘DEI’ Books
At the order of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Naval Academy has identified some 900 books that “run afoul” of President Trump’s anti-DEI order, including “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.,” “Einstein on Race and Racism,” and a biography on Jackie Robinson, the NYT reports.
So Gross
While President Trump has slammed the door shut on refugees, he has made a special exception for white Afrikaners from South Africa.
Unmasked
Jefferson Griffin, the state appeals court judge who continues to try to overturn his November loss in a North Carolina Supreme Court race, was photographed in 2001 wearing Confederate military garb and posing before a Confederate battle flag for his fraternity’s annual 2001 “Old South” ball, the AP reports.
The Gleeful Cruelty of the White House X Account
Charlie Warzel: “The official X account of the White House isn’t just full of low-rent 4chan musings, it’s an alarming signal of an administration that’s fluent in internet extremism and seemingly dedicated to pursuing its casual cruelty as a chief political export.”
As If Everything Wasn’t Bad Enough
WaPo: “President Donald Trump on Sunday declined to rule out seeking a third presidential term — an unconstitutional act explicitly barred under the 22nd Amendment — saying that ‘there are methods which you could do it.’”
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