A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Peak Retribution Alert
It’s all coming together in President Trump’s push to find a way to bring criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James: the retribution, the denigration of the rule of law, the evisceration of the Justice Department, and the ultimate unbridled unitary executive.
In another important story, ABC News reported overnight that Trump is poised to fire U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert of the Eastern District of Virginia for not seeking an indictment of James on the bogus mortgage fraud claims the administration has drummed up.
The latest news comes after a deeply reported ABC News piece earlier in the week that prosecutors had turned up considerable exculpatory evidence in the case. So even though the investigation had begun on a pretextual predicate, it had done more to exonerate James than to implicate her in the supposed mortgage fraud. For that reason, Siebert wasn’t going to seek a grand jury indictment in the Virginia mortgage fraud case.
The refusal to bring a case against James apparently enraged Bill Pulte, the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, who pushed Trump to fire Siebert, ABC News previously reported. It appears now that Trump is expected to follow through on Pulte’s demand.
Siebert, a career prosecutor, became interim U.S. attorney earlier this year, and his tenure was extended by the judges of the Eastern District. He is Trump’s own nominee for the permanent position, with approval from both of Virginia’s Democratic senators.
If Trump cans Siebert as expected, it sets up a situation where Trump is likely to name someone to the role who has indicated, directly or indirectly, that they will proceed with a criminal prosecution against James. That would be an intolerable position for any fair-minded, ethical legal professional, so it all but guarantees that a political hack will take over the office.
The Eastern District of Virginia is one of the most politically and legally significant districts in the country. The case involving James originates in Hampton Roads, but the district sprawls from the southeastern Virginia metro area through Richmond into the northern Virginia suburbs, which include the Pentagon and CIA headquarters. Significant national security cases are often handled by this U.S. attorney’s office.
This U.S. attorney’s office in particular is not one you want run by a political hack eager to do the bidding of the Trump White House.
Trump Judge Lambastes Admin in Guatemala Kids Case
U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly of Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from deporting unaccompanied minor Guatemalan children, an operation that began in the dead of night over the Labor Day weekend.
In a surprisingly direct opinion, Kelly, a Trump appointee, was deeply skeptical of the administration’s claims about the removal operation and in particular of the representations made by Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign during an emergency hearing Labor Day weekend in front of a different judge:
Lawyers got wind of this hasty operation while it was unfolding and filed this lawsuit seeking emergency relief that Sunday at 1:00 a.m. The judge on emergency duty entered a temporary restraining order barring the agencies and their officials from removing or otherwise transporting the children from the United States. At a hearing later that day, counsel for Defendants explained why it was “fairly outrageous” for Plaintiffs to have sued: all Defendants wanted to do was reunify children with parents who had requested their return. But that explanation crumbled like a house of cards about a week later. There is no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return.
The case has echoes of the rushed weekend deportation under the Alien Enemies Act in March, which put federal judges on alert that the Trump administration is not acting in good faith and the Justice Department can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt.
Kirk Killing Fallout: No Criticism of Trump Allowed
- President Trump directly threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters who air criticisms of him.
- Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner on the FCC, tells Greg Sargent: “What the administration is doing violates the First Amendment and the Communications Act.”
- “Pentagon leaders are considering a new recruiting campaign that would encourage young people to honor the legacy of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk by joining the military,” NBC News reported.
How the Late Night Shows Responded to Kimmel’s Suspension
Quote of the Day
If you were writing a hackneyed novel or film about an authoritarian America, it would go exactly like this: a figure close to the regime is assassinated, a massive shrill and sanctimonious hue and cry rises over the martyred dead, hysteria is whipped up about terrorism and public disorder, leaders in the regime and movement promise vengeance, private citizens are mobbed and lose their jobs for expressing anti-regime sentiments at the encouragement of regime officials and regime-aligned demagogues, and, then, the power of the state is brought to bear against public figures who oppose and criticize the regime.
Can Trump Actually Designate Antifa a Terrorist Group?
No.
RFK Jr. Reaps Anti-Vax Results He Sowed
The CDC vaccine panel that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stacked with anti-vaxxers began revising the immunization schedule for kids in a meeting that continues today and is expected to yield even bigger rollbacks in childhood shots.
Trump’s Burgeoning Latin American Intervention
Draft legislation is circulating at the White House and on Capitol Hill that would give President Trump sweeping powers to wage war against drug cartels he deems to be “terrorists” and any nation he claims has harbored or aided them, the NYT is reporting.
The substance of the NYT report is significant in its own right — a dramatic expansion of presidential powers and previous U.S. law on the use of the force — but it also suggests that there is a realization within some corners of the administration that Trump’s unilateral attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats in recent days has insufficient legal authorization under current law.
In related news: The DEA went too far even for the Trump White House when earlier this year it urged military strikes in Mexico, the WaPo exclusively reports.
WTF?
Trump wants Bagram Air Base back and to re-establish a U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
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