A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Trump DOJ Gives Judge Runaround On Deportations
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg remained measured despite confronting a Trump Justice Department that was giving him the runaround.
President Trump’s constitution-shaking defiance of Boasberg’s order blocking deportations under the Alien Enemies Act could turn out to be one of the defining stories of our time. But the potentially titanic constitutional clash arrived in the form of penny-ante gamesmanship, unsubtle avoidance and misdirection, and less-than-stellar advocacy from the Justice Department.
A pattern has already developed of the highest echelons of the Justice Department plastering their names on important filings and even showing up to argue some cases themselves. But at the same time, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s department has swapped out lawyers, pushed attorneys with less experience in the case at hand in front of judges, and sent counsel into court unprepared to answer obvious questions.
Such was the case Monday when Judge Boasberg lamented that the government didn’t come prepared to provide the information he had set the hearing to obtain. In response, Boasberg set a new deadline for noon ET today for the government to answer some of his most basic questions. The hearing happened despite a last-minute effort by the Justice Department to cancel the hearing and a heavy-handed and sure-loser of a request to the appeals court to take Boasberg off the case entirely.
On top of the ill-preparedness and the gamesmanship, the quality of the Trump DOJ’s advocacy was poor. It’s not the first time that the Trump DOJ has brought a weak hand into court and tried to bluff its way through a hearing. The volume of legal challenges over the first two months, the speed of developments, and the apparent difficulty DOJ lawyers are having getting factual information from their government client have contributed to professionally humiliating moments that no previous Justice Department would have subjected its attorney to.
The contrast between the historically high stakes of these cases and the small ball being played by the Trump DOJ is striking. But there is a through-line that aligns the substance and the legal theatrics: In both, the Trump administration is sneering at the judicial branch and its status as a co-equal branch.
‘I Don’t Care What The Judges Think’
Acting ICE Director Tom Homan helpfully offering new evidence of the Trump administration defying court orders:
Homan: “We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think. I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming.”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 17, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Judge Backs Off In Second Deportation Case
The federal judge who issued an order blocking the deportation of a Brown University medical school professor seemed satisfied by the government’s explanation about why she was deported anyway. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin of Boston entered a minute order Monday that said in part:
The Court appreciates the prompt response by the government. Supported by an affidavit from the CBP Watch Commander, the government explains that CBP Officers at Logan did not receive notice of the Court’s Order from their legal counsel until after Dr. Alawieh “had already departed the United States” and that “[a]t no time would CBP not take a court order seriously or fail to abide by a court’s order.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration claimed that it refused Dr. Rasha Alawieh re-entry in the United States because she had attended the public funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last month while she was home in Lebanon. Customs officials apparently searched Alawieh’s phone and claimed she had deleted “sympathetic photos and videos” of prominent Hezbollah figures.
A Grim Sign Of The Times
Brown University is cautioning international students and staff to postpone travel abroad
‘Speech Acts And Keyboard Acts’
Timothy Snyder, on the Alien Enemies Act deportations:
The individuals involved are declaring their power to define reality, independently not only of judicial but of all verification. There is no basis for this deportation beyond speech acts and keyboard acts. The words (“foreign alien terrorists,” “monsters”) are doing the work. There are no procedures between the movement of mouths and the movement of bodies. If members of the executive branch are allowed to issue truth claims that have the consequence that human beings leave the United States, we are in a dictatorship. If we accept that the executive branch can simply deport anyone they call a “foreign alien terrorist,” then none of us has any rights.
The Constitution Is Not In Crisis. It’s Under Attack.
The problem with the language of “crisis” is that it simply doesn’t prepare supporters of the republic for the reality of the situation, which is a series of long fights, some high profile and some not, many of which will have unclear and complicated outcomes. …
The worst temptation — and I think a “crisis” framework encourages it by treating single conflicts as the final battle until it’s over and the next final battle approaches — is for supporters of the republic to declare defeat and even to mock those still fighting.
The Retribution
- In apparent compliance with the unprecedented Trump executive orders targeting three major law firms, the EEOC has sent letters to 20 big law firms inquiring about their use of DEI in hiring.
- President Trump declared he was pulling Secret Service protection from President Biden’s children Hunter and Ashley. The retaliatory move came after a New York Post story Saturday about Hunter Biden vacationing in South Africa with his Secret Service detail.
MUST READ
With apparent help from the FBI and DC police, DOGE took over the independent U.S. Institute of Peace on Monday in a surreal scene that spilled out onto city sidewalks:
Mr. Musk’s team did not get into the building until officers from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department showed up, Ms. Lin said. Institute officials had called the police to report that Department of Government Efficiency members were trespassing, she said, but the police instead cleared institute leaders from the building.
The takeover backed by law enforcement was reminiscent of an earlier standoff with the U.S. African Development Foundation.
The Purges
- IRS: “The Trump administration is set to cut more than 20 percent of the staff at the taxpayer help branch of the IRS,” the WaPo reports.
- EPA: “The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research arm, firing as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists,” the NYT reports.
- Gov’t-wide: Under court order, the Trump administration has moved to reinstate at least 24,000 federal probationary employees, but U.S. District Judge William Allsup of San Francisco is demanding that the government confirm by today whether those reinstated employees are being immediately placed on administrative leave en masse, as some new reports have suggested. Allsup said that such a move would be in violation of the preliminary injunction he issued ordering their reinstatement.
The Destruction Of Social Security
- Judd Legum: Memo details Trump plan to sabotage the Social Security Administration
- NYT: Social Security Employees Warn of Damage From DOGE
The Corruption
- NYT: Elon Musk’s Starlink Expands Across White House Complex
- WSJ: IRS Retreats From Some Audits as Agency Slashes Workforce
BRIGHT RED BLINKING LIGHT
Acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin announced a new push to investigate election fraud cases, creating a creating a new office called the “Special Unit Election Accountability,” Reuters reports.
Pentagon Sends People Of Color Down The Memory Hole
- Axios: Navajo Code Talkers disappear from military websites after Trump DEI order
- WaPo: Amid ‘DEI’ purge, Pentagon removes webpage on Iwo Jima flag-raiser who was Native American
The Trump II Clown Show
After sacking the governing boards of the service academics, President Trump is now stacking them with a mix of people that includes loyalists, conspiracists, and right-wing media figures. Among the notables:
West Point: retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX); Steve Bannon’s daughter Maureen Bannon; Medal of Honor winner David Bellavia; and retired Army Major Gen. Dan Walrath
Naval Academy: Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT); former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer; Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX); and former Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta.
Air Force Academy: Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL); Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk; and former deputy national security adviser Dina Powell.
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