Day by Day, Trump Brings DOJ More Fully Under His Thumb

Many things have happened. Here are some of the things. This is the morning memo of TPM. Register for the e-mail version.

The purges: Doj Edition

The successes continue to come to the Ministry of Justice, including the FBI:

• The dismissal of a second prosecutor at the American prosecutor’s office for the Virginia Oriental District was revealed. In addition to Michael Ben’ays, the career prosecutor Maya Song was dismissed since Trump’s lawyer Lindsey Halligan, became the new American lawyer. Song was the first deputy for the previous American lawyer Erik Siebert, who was forced by President Trump. Song had accepted a demotion to a line prosecutor’s role, but was then dismissed anyway.
• In the midst of speculations according to which the dismissal was linked to the internal resistance within the office of the American prosecutor to the indictment of the former director of the FBI James Comey, the WAPO notes a common thread connecting Ben’ary and Song: they worked as counselors superior to the general prosecutor of the time, Lisa Monaco, during the administration of Biden. Monaco, as N ° 2 of the DoJ, supervised Trump’s prosecution, which demanded last week that Microsoft dismiss her as president of world affairs.
• FBI director Kash Patel has dismissed a new agent trainee in Quantico for having displayed a gay pride flag on his desktop last year During a previous assignment as a member of FBI support staff – before Trump became president. Patel called it “an inappropriate demonstration of political signaling in your work field”, in the e-mail that draws the trainee and ending his FBI career.

Patel stops the FBI anti-extremism project with ADL

In an explosive article on social networks, Patel has ended a training and intelligence shareholder partnership with the anti-diploma league. In the process, he coated the ADL and the former director of the FBI, James Comey, saying that “James Comey wrote” love letters “at ADL and FBI agents integrated with them – a group that led shameful operations by spying on Americans,” said Patel. “This era is over. This FBI will not associate with political fronts pretending to be for childcare.”

Unpacking the threat of Trump’s domestic terrorism memo

Georgetown’s law professor Steve Vladeck, explains how President Trump’s executive action on domestic terrorism is both a blow and a threat to speeches and political activity protected by the Constitution: “This is why it is so important for groups that the target government … to fight against fear that they are not simply punished to do so. [it] Really made to change the potential legal consequences that these groups face. »»

Clarification: The action of Trump’s executive came via a presidential memo, not a decree, as I wrote originally.

A warning from Chris Murphy

In an interview with Podcast with Greg Sargent of the New Republic, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warns that we quickly approach the point where space for significant political opposition to President Trump is forced by authoritarian restrictions:

My conviction has never been that he will cancel the elections in 2026 or 2028 – he will not do it. Turkey still has elections, Hungary still has elections, Russia still has elections. The leaders of these countries force that the space in which the opposition can operate, so that they never have enough room to gain national elections. If we are not already there, we are really, very close. This is why the only way to get out of this is to make them pay a political price every time they increase the pressure on the opposition.

Mass Deportations Civil rights violations look

• The evidence produced during a trial which ended this week has shown that a transnational crime unit in the DHS has secretly targeted campus demonstrators, including TUFTS RUMEYSA OZTURK student, who was swept from a city street in front of her Massachusetts home in March, an incident captured on video. The trial of the bench before the American district judge William Young, who ended with his memorable decision against the government, also revealed that the Chief of the White House Staff, Stephen Miller, spoke with senior officials of the State Department and the DHS more than a dozen times in March to discuss the revocations of the student visa, reports the WAPO.
• Under intense pressure from the Trump administration, Apple deleted the ice tracking applications of its App Store, including Iceblock.
• Chris Hayes went deeply on “Kavanaugh Stops” last night:

Will universities remain together or do they hang separately?

The nine universities offered an illegal “compact” of President Trump to ensure federal funding in exchange for policies adapted to Trump are closely monitored before the deadline of October 20 to accept it to see how they react. In a bad sign, the president of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas praised the offer as an “honor”.

The other schools are:

• Brown
• Dartmouth
• Put
• Penn
• Uva
• Vander
• Arizona
• USC

Day quote

“It’s an extortion, clear and simple.” –Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Faculty of Law of UC Berkeley, on the “compact” proposed by President Trump with universities

NIH denunciator drawn

HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismissed Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institute of Infectious Allergies and Diseases that was put on administrative leave in March with two other directors of the Institute. Marrazzo filed a complaint denounced three weeks before the date of his termination letter, and his lawyer argues that the dismissal was late. The other two directors were also terminated.

Trump informs the “war” congress with drug cartels

The Trump administration has informed Congress that the United States is in an official “armed conflict” with drug cartels, adding what the NYT called “new details to barely articulated legal justification” for attacks on drugs of drugs on the high seas.

The legal justification remained thin in a briefing of the armed services committee of the classified Senate this week by the General Council of Pentagon Earl Matthews, WSJ reports (underlining mine):

Matthews has repeatedly referred to Trump’s designation of certain Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which, according to him, have granted the unilateral authority of the Department of Defense to use the military force against them, some people said. Matthews refused to provide a written justification for strikeswhich, according to legal experts, are necessary for transparency and responsibility.

Detail of choices on the fiasco of the Eisenhower sword

It is still not completely clear if Todd Arrington’s refusal to violate the law and put a sword from Eisenhower for President Trump to give to King Charles was the main factor or even contributing to his dismissal as director of the Presidential Library of Eisenhower. But the way in which the sword’s request came to him is an eyebrow breeding in itself:

The request for a gift for King Charles came from a link from the State Department who used the email address “Giftgirl2025” and first declared to the museum that she was looking for “like a sword or something”, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

I want to know more about “Giftgirl2025”. My signal information is below.

Hyper-masculinity in the Trump era

NYT: “Pete Hegseth’s plea for soldiers accused of war crimes, and Trump’s pardons have helped inaugurate an era of military assault and not take into account the rule of law.”

Woman named Archbishop of Canterbury for the first time

Sarah Mullally is the first woman to be named Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church in the world.

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