A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Three Cases to Watch
Friday’s repatriation of the Venezuelan nationals that the Trump administration had consigned to the hellishness of El Salvador’s CECOT isn’t the end of the story.
While a host of political, legal, and humanitarian issues remain unresolved, I want to flag three cases to watch:
The ‘Cristian’ Case
In the case of “Cristian,” the pseudonymous Venezuelan man deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) in violation of an earlier court-approved settlement agreement, his lawyers went to court Friday once they heard that the detainees were being transferred to Venezuela and asked the judge to intervene. U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher ordered an immediate status update from the Trump administration. Later in the day, the administration filed an affidavit from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official claiming the decision to release the detainees was entirely El Salvador’s “in the exercise of its sovereign authority” — clearly an effort to burnish the administration’s position that the detainees were under El Salvador’s control the entire time. The DHS official also stated:
A lot going on there, but what stands out is the stated ability of the Venezuelans to return to the U.S., at least for further court proceedings. In Cristian’s case, the administration was ordered weeks ago to “facilitate” his return to the United States, but it had stonewalled those efforts. In another filing in the case after Cristian was released from CECOT, the Trump administration said the State Department has pledged to help DHS in facilitating his return.
The original Alien Enemies Act Case
In the original Alien Enemies Act case, the Trump administration and plaintiffs agreed to postpone a key deadline in the appeal of the case to D.C. Circuit in light of the repatriations to Venezuela.
The plaintiffs also asked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to order the administration to provide an “immediate status update” on “whether it is prepared to bring the members of the class back to the United States for habeas proceedings.” Boasberg hasn’t issued such an order yet, and the administration hasn’t responded.
It’s not clear how the release of the detainees under the AEA will impact their habeas claims, what the process will look like, and what position the administration will take. A lot still to be worked out here.
The Case of Jordin Alexander Melgar-Salmeron
This is the least uncertain of three case I’ve highlighted. Melgar-Salmeron was removed to El Salvador in May in violation of an order by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which has ordered the government to facilitate his return. There’s no reason to think that Melgar-Salmeron, a Salvadoran national, would have been involved in the detainee transfer to Venezuela, but their release has implications for his case. The administration was already under order from the appeals court to provide weekly status updates beginning today. Stay tuned.
MUST READ
TPM’s Josh Kovensky spoke with the wife of Jesús Alberto Ríos Andrade, one of the Venezuelan nationals removed to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act who was reportedly freed Friday. Angie, a Trump supporter, recounts what the last few months have been like and her reaction to the news that the detainees were being released.
State Dept. Official Makes Stunning Admission
At the end of a two-week trial over whether the Trump administration targeted pro-Palestinian international students for their political views, a State Department officials confirmed that criticism of Israel was one of the considerations in revoking student visas. Taking the stand was John Armstrong, the senior bureau official in the Bureau of Consular Affairs.
“Pushed for examples of things he might consider in weighing whether to deny or revoke a student’s visa, Mr. Armstrong testified that calls for limiting military aid to Israel or ‘denouncing Zionism’ could all factor in his agency’s decisions,” the NYT reports.
Closing arguments in the trial are expected to begin today.
Trump Turns U.S. Into International Pariah
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio is yanking the visa of Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, his allies on the court, and their close family members in retaliation for the prosecution of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro for his attempted coup. Moraes is presiding over the trial of Bolsonaro.
- Rubio ordered the State Department to “stop commenting on the fairness, integrity and legitimacy of foreign elections, a major shift away from a decadeslong practice of promoting democratic elections abroad,” the WSJ reports.
- A federal judge in Maine ruled that President Trump’s executive order punishing people who work with the International Criminal Court likely violates the First Amendment.
Rule Of Law Under Siege
- WaPo: “President Donald Trump and his appointees have been accused of flouting courts in a third of the more than 160 lawsuits against the administration in which a judge has issued a substantive ruling, a Washington Post analysis has found, suggesting widespread noncompliance with America’s legal system.”
- NYT: “Mr. Trump has fired or demoted more than 20 inspectors general or acting inspectors general since he took office six months ago, hobbling offices that for years have served as a check on waste, fraud and abuse.”
- Politico: “Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called for several Obama administration officials to face criminal prosecution for participating in a ‘treasonous conspiracy’ surrounding the 2016 election … the latest example of the Trump administration targeting critics of the president.”
The Purges
- NYT: After months of denying it would do so, the Trump administration announced Friday it will eliminate the EPA’s scientific research arm and began firing hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists.
- WaPo: The Trump administration’s purge of the Justice Department has involved the firing of at least 200 career employees in violation of civil service rules protecting federal workers from political retaliation, according to an advocacy group for former DOJ employees.
- Government Executive: The Trump administration is arguing in the case of fired U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oyer that a subset of federal workers are at-will employees who can be fired at any time for any reason.
Judge Orders RFE/RL Funding Restored
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of DC on Friday ordered the Trump administration to restore funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, lambasting it for its “unprecedented” freezing of the congressionally appropriated funds and its “nonsensical” legal arguments.
Not Normal
NYT: “President Trump held a ceremonial swearing-in on Friday in the Oval Office for Billy Long, the new commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, in a sign of the unusually close relationship Mr. Trump has sought with the typically apolitical tax agency.”
Trump Sues WSJ for Defamation Over Epstein Connex
President Trump filed a federal defamation lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida against the WSJ, News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, Robert Thomson, and two WSJ reporters for its story from Thursday on the letter Trump allegedly penned to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday.
Meanwhile in a bit of showmanship the Trump DOJ asked the federal court in Manhattan to unseal the grand jury transcripts of the investigations into Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. As multiple legal experts have opined, the courts may not have a proper basis to make the secret grand jury proceedings public, and even if they do, the contents may be a relatively innocuous compared to the FBI investigative files.
Good Sleuthing
For the past several months, the small but persistent reporting team at Court Watch has been tracking a peculiar federal criminal case in Rhode Island that now turns out to be related to the earlier prosecution of two right-wing accelerationists for allegedly plotting to target the power grid in Baltimore in 2023. It’s a great bit of reporting that uncovers how the feds were able to to use participation in neo-Nazi group chats on Telegram to bring felon-in-possession charges against the defendant.
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