A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Another Lethal Weapon Sequel
We knew that the U.S. pardon attorney was fired by the Trump Justice Department on Friday in a new purge of senior attorneys. Now we know why.
In a interview with the NYT, Elizabeth G. Oyer says she was terminated hours after she refused to go along with a rushed, last-minute attempt to put actor Mel Gibson on a list of people who would have their gun rights restored.
Gibson cannot legally carry a firearm after a 2011 domestic violence misdemeanor conviction.
Oyer describes a careful deliberative process to come up with a list of people whose gun rights could be safely restored then her growing dismay as that process was circumvented to try to add Gibson, who had not been vetted.
Oyer said she came under increasing pressure to sign off on Gibson, culminating in a call from a senior official in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche: “He then essentially explained to me that Mel Gibson has a personal relationship with President Trump and that should be sufficient basis for me to make a recommendation and that I would be wise to make the recommendation,” she said.
Oyer still declined to endorse adding Gibson to the list.
The entire episode took place over two days: The list was submitted Thursday and later that day the pressure began on Oyer to add Gibson to it. She resisted. Blanche fired her Friday. DOJ told the NYT that the Gibson incident played no role in Oyer’s firing.
The rule of law has eroded to the barest standard: “a personal relationship with President Trump.”
What’s Ed Martin Up To Now?
A quick update that I had missed from the weekend: Politico reports that acting D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin has apparently gotten some traction in his corrupt effort to use criminal process to claw back some $20 billion in Biden EPA funds.
You’ll recall that a senior prosecutor in Martin’s office resigned rather than go along with his gambit, and a federal magistrate rejected Martin’s search warrant application.
Martin has now sent letters to two groups that were receiving the EPA funds before they were frozen by Citibank and directed them to provide documents to the FBI. “The groups also received a summons to provide testimony in federal court later this month, the two people said,” according to Politico.
That suggests, though the way it is written remains a bit opaque, that Martin has empaneled a grand jury to pursue the matter.
Perkins Coie Fights Back
NYT: “Perkins Coie, the law firm that President Trump targeted for punishment with an executive order last week for its role representing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, has hired an elite Washington firm, Williams & Connolly, to fight the order, according to four people briefed on the matter.”
Federal Judge Halts Deportation Of Mahmoud Khalil
The Trump administration’s detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil not because he broke any laws – at least not that’s been yet alleged – but because they disagree with his politics marks a seismic shift in American political life.
In a rapid series of events over the weekend and into Monday:
- Khalil was detained in NYC and the quickly transferred to a detention center in a remote area of Louisiana.
- Khalil’s lawyers alleged that they filed for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court in Manhattan before Khalil was transferred to Louisiana, meaning jurisdiction should remain in New York. They are clearly trying to avoid having the case heard in Louisiana, which is in the Fifth Circuit, the most conservative circuit in the country.
- U.S. District Jesse Furman of Manhattan ordered that Khalil not be deported and set a hearing in the case for Wednesday.
The Trump administration confirmed that Khalil was in custody but did not provide a coherent legal basis for his detention. On social media, President Trump celebrated Khalil’s detention and smeared him as “pro-Hamas” and “terrorist sympathizer.” “This is the first arrest of many to come,” the President promised.
For more context and analysis:
- Steve Vladeck: “To spoil the punchline, although what the government has done to this point is profoundly disturbing, and is, in my view, unconstitutional retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech, I’m not sure it is as clearly unlawful as a lot of folks online have suggested. And that’s a pretty big problem all by itself.”
- Michelle Goldberg: “If someone legally in the United States can be grabbed from his home for engaging in constitutionally protected political activity, we are in a drastically different country from the one we inhabited before Trump’s inauguration.”
- John Ganz: “Here’s the most important thing about this whole affair: The state cannot make it up as it goes along. It can’t seize people in the night and invent flimsy pretexts later. And if it does, then we no longer live under the rule of law, we live under a police state. And don’t kid yourself: They will not stop at non-citizens.”
Trump’s Attack On The University
We often talk about the authoritarian playbook to weaken and co-opt other power centers in a civil society – the press, the university, professional experts, religious entities. The combination of the bogus attacks on universities as nothing but wellsprings of antisemitism plus the anti-DEI crusade on campus plus the attacks on science and research funding add up to a multi-front assault on higher ed:
- The Trump administration warned 60 universities that they could face penalties from pending “investigations” into “antisemitism” on campus.
- State Department funding freeze strands Fulbright and study-abroad scholars.
- Harvard and Penn joined a number of other universities, including Notre Dame, Vermont, Emory, and Pitt, in instituting hiring freezes amidst the funding uncertainty created by the Trump administration.
Judge Rules USAID Spending Freeze Was ‘Unlawful’
In a blistering opinion that generously cited Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali ruled that the Trump administration had likely violated the separation of powers by unilaterally cutting off USAID spending:
Congress, exercising its exclusive Article I power of the purse, appropriates funds to be spent toward specific foreign policy aims. The President, exercising a more general Article II power, decides how to spend those funds in faithful execution of the law. And so foreign aid has proceeded over the years
This case involves a departure from that firmly established constitutional partnership. Here, the Executive has unilaterally deemed that funds Congress appropriated for foreign aid will not be spent. The Executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place. In advancing this position, Defendants offer an unbridled view of Executive power that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected …
The Supreme Court last week declined to intervene in the case, but it is likely to wind up back at the high court in relatively short order. Anticipating that, Ali larded his opinion with citations to opinions by sitting justices that support his ruling.
Elon Musk Watch
- Musk went on national TV with false and baseless claims about widespread fraud in Social Security and Medicare while calling the programs key targets for spending cuts.
- Musk assigned three private equity veterans – Antonio Gracias, Scott Coulter, and Michael Russo – to the DOGE team rampaging through the Social Security Administration.
- U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of Washington, D.C., ruled that Elon Musk’s DOGE is likely subject to FOIA and must preserve and produce documents to a watchdog group.
Federal Judge Orders Testimony Of OPM Acting Director
U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco has overruled the government’s objection and ordered the testimony of acting OPM Director Charles Ezell in a case brought by labor unions challenging OPM’s mass layoffs of probationary workers. Ezell was a low-level OPM bureaucrat before being plucked from obscurity for the acting director role.
RFK Jr. Lets His Freak Flag Fly In Midst Of Measles Outbreak
- NYT: Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet and Health, Citing Fringe Theories
- NPR: RFK Jr. says most vaccine advisers have conflicts of interest. A report shows they don’t
- WaPo: NIH will cancel or cut back dozens of grants for research on why some people are reluctant to be vaccinated and how to increase acceptance of vaccines, according to an internal email obtained by the WaPo.
SCOTUS Takes Conversion Therapy Case
In an ominous sign, the Supreme Court is taking up a case challenging a Colorado law banning conversion therapy after it previously sidestepped a series of similar cases.
Ruth Marcus Resigns From Bezos’ WaPo
Longtime WaPo columnist Ruth Marcus resigned after CEO Will Lewis spiked a column she wrote critical of owner Jeff Bezos’ new direction for the newspaper’s opinion section. Marcus had been with the WaPo for more than 40 years.
RIP Kevin Drum
Kevin Drum, one of the OG political bloggers, has died at the age of 66 after a long illness. TPM’s Josh Marshall offers his remembrance of Kevin.
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