A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Questions His Allegiance
D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro savaged a sitting federal magistrate who had chastised her prosecutors for their conduct in yet another case where a grand jury declined to indict.
In a screed on X, Pirro said that Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui has “repeatedly indicated his allegiance to those who violate the law.”
The highly unusual remarks from a U.S. attorney came after Faruqui called prosecutors in Pirro’s office to task for overcharging cases in federal court as part of President Trump’s performative takeover of D.C. Pirro has ordered her office to charge cases in federal court that would previously have gone to D.C. Superior Court. In several instances, federal grand juries have refused to indict those cases.
“It’s not fair to say they’re losing credibility. We’re past that now,” Faruqui said, according to the AP. He later added, “There’s no credibility left.”
Faruqui was particularly incensed that criminal defendants were spending extended time in jail while prosecutors failed to secure indictments. In an order Thursday, he questioned whether the Trump DOJ was abiding by the long-standing principle that it should only bring winnable cases.
“Given that there have been an unprecedented number of cases that the U.S. Attorney dismissed in the past ten days, all of whom were detained for some period of time, the Court is left to question if this principle still applies,” Faruqui wrote.
The smackdown from Faruqui triggered Pirro’s over-the-top outburst on X: “This judge took an oath to follow the law, yet he has allowed his politics to consistently cloud his judgment and his requirement to follow the law. America voted for safe communities, law and order, and this judge is the antithesis of that.”
Trump Is Getting Exactly the Headlines He Wants
Major news outlets continue to struggle to distinguish their coverage of legitimate criminal investigations from the politically motivated “probes” of the Trump DOJ:
- WSJ: DOJ Opens Criminal Investigation Into Fed’s Cook, Issues Subpoenas
- ABC News: Justice Department opens criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
- NBC News: Justice Department takes new steps in Lisa Cook investigation
No, Trump Can’t Unilaterally Rename DoD
With President Trump reportedly set to “rebrand” the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the news coverage has overwhelmingly treated a name-change as something he can unilaterally do. It is not. The department was named by Congress, and Congress would need to authorize any name change.
As The Guardian reports:
A draft White House fact sheet on Trump’s rebranding initiative implicitly acknowledges that only Congress can formally change the department’s name, saying that the order would authorize the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to propose legislation that would make the change permanent. In the meantime, the order instructs Hegseth and the department to start using “Department of War” as a secondary title in official correspondence, public communications and executive branch documents. The order also authorizes Hegseth to refer to himself as the “secretary of war”.
Quote of the Day
“Those governments will help us find these people and blow them up. They might do it themselves, and we’ll help them do it.”–Secretary of State Marco Rubio, touting Trump’s lawless policy of unleashing the military against criminal gangs
More Removals of Children to Come This Weekend?
The lawyers who jumped in to stop the dead-of-night removals of unaccompanied Guatemalan children last weekend told a federal judge in a new filing Thursday night that they have reports that the Trump administration “may imminently seek to remove unaccompanied children of other nationalities” this coming weekend.
SCOTUS Watch: Facepalm Edition
- In a public appearance just two weeks after castigating district judges for not treating the Supreme Court’s shadow docket decisions as binding precedent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh admitted that the emergency rulings sometimes lack clarity because they’re a product of compromise and a lack of consensus among the justices. Criticizing district judges for not better divining the muddled, unexplained positions of the justices is precisely what has some federal judges in an uproar.
- On her book tour, Justice Amy Coney Barrett insisted to Bari Weiss that the country is not in a constitutional crisis: “I don’t know what a constitutional crisis would look like. I don’t think that we are currently in a constitutional crisis, however.”
- Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts is actively fighting off a lawsuit by a legal advocacy organization founded by Stephen Miller that seeks to declare that the administrative and policy-making arms of the federal court system are a part of the executive branch in a below-the-radar attempt to strengthen President Trump’s hand over the judicial branch.
Only the Best People
- E.J. Antoni, Trump’s controversial pick to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “operated a since-deleted Twitter account that featured sexually degrading attacks on Kamala Harris, derogatory remarks about gay people, conspiracy theories, and crude insults aimed at critics of President Donald Trump,” CNN reports.
- If confirmed, Federal Reserve nominee Stephen Miran plans to keep his job as a senior White House economic adviser, merely taking a leave of absence to serve on the Fed at a time when President Trump is trying to bring the central bank firmly under his thumb.
Rinse and Repeat: Loyalty Trumps Integrity
Navy Secretary John Phelan has restored former Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) to the rank of rear admiral, the WaPo reported based on a letter Jackson posted on social media. Jackson, who served as White House physician for Obama and Trump before he was elected to the House, was the subject of a withering 2021 inspector general report about misconduct allegations that had previously sunk his nomination to be secretary of Veterans Affairs. In response, he was demoted to captain, a move Jackson had long claimed was politically motivated because it came early in the Biden presidency, even though the allegations had arisen long before.
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