Renee Good Suffered Multiple Gunshot Wounds
A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.
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Conclusion of a dynamic week
I hope you’ll forgive a less-told Morning Memo today. Instead, I wanted to round up a series of developments on the mass deportation front and brush up on a few other important stories that I hadn’t covered this week. I think this still gives a striking insight into the current situation, nationally and internationally.
The murder of Renée Good
- Renee Good had two gunshot wounds to the right side of her chest, one to her left forearm and a possible fourth to the left side of her head, according to a fire department report released Thursday along with police reports and 911 transcripts.
- The New York Times did an in-depth video analysis of the Good shooting.
- A group of 33 former federal prosecutors in Minnesota are calling on the Trump administration to reconsider its decision to exclude the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from the investigation into Good’s shooting.
- Lawfare: Minnesota can prosecute Jonathan Ross, but it may not be easy
Latest news from Minnesota…
- The ACLU has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration in federal court in Minnesota, alleging it engages in racial profiling by targeting Latinos and Somalis for detention. The case was brought on behalf of three U.S. citizens of Latino/Somali descent who were detained by federal agents.
- “Listen. Haven’t you learned from the last few days?” A federal agent was recorded last week telling a bystander after a minor collision with concerned citizens following a federal convoy two days after the shooting of Renee Good.
- A Minneapolis couple accused ICE agents of deploying tear gas and stun grenades around them and their six children, causing their 6-month-old to lose consciousness and require CPR.
Topic of the day
Nobody is safe
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem suggests that virtually anyone could face a Kavanaugh shutdown.
Quote of the day
“These people who are arrested for interference or obstruction, assault, we’re going to make them famous. We’re going to put their faces on television. We’re going to let their employers, their neighborhoods and their schools know who these people are.”Tom Homan, the White House “border czar”
Potential homicide in ICE custody
A Texas medical examiner is reportedly close to ruling the Jan. 3 death of an ICE detainee a homicide, WaPo reports: “Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant, died following a struggle with detention staff, according to an eyewitness account and an internal ICE document reviewed by The Post. »
“Incredibly vindictive”
The fight for discovery over Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s vindictive prosecution continues in the Tennessee criminal case, with his lawyers now accusing federal prosecutors of “reneging” on earlier promises to provide evidence before a major hearing later this month.
Judge Slams Trump Admin’s Targeted Evictions
U.S. District Judge William Young of Boston, a Reagan appointee, condemned in open court the Trump administration’s policy of targeting pro-Palestinian activists for deportation:
I find it staggering that I have been forced, on the basis of evidence, to conclude that the conduct of senior officials in our government – cabinet secretaries – conspired to infringe on the First Amendment rights of people entitled to such rights here in the United States. These cabinet secretaries have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.
Young has not yet ruled on a remedy for the constitutional violations he found.
Mahmoud Khalil loses his appeal
In a significant setback for legal immigrants targeted by the Trump administration for their political views, an appeals court has ruled that federal district courts lack jurisdiction to hear the constitutional claims of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil until he has exhausted his claims in the executive branch immigration court system.
2026 Ephemeral
OH-09: Madison Sheahan resigns as deputy director of ICE to seek the GOP nomination against Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D), the longest-serving woman in Congress.
Judge blocks DOJ from obtaining voter rolls
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in Santa Ana blocked Trump’s DOJ from obtaining California’s voter rolls.
Just a coincidence?
This may be unrelated, but the following overt investigative moves in controversial cases came days after President Trump criticized federal prosecutors last week at the White House for being too slow and too weak in prosecuting his favorite cases:
- DCUS attorney Jeanine Pirro subpoenaed the Federal Reserve on January 9;
- Since late last week, Pirro has requested interviews with five Democratic members of Congress involved in the video urging the military to do their duty and not comply with illegal orders;
- The FBI raided WaPo reporter Hannah Natanson’s Virginia home Wednesday as part of an alleged leak case that included a subpoena to WaPo itself, all stemming from a Jan. 9 complaint against a government contractor in Maryland federal court for illegal possession of national defense information.
I would like to point out that the overt measures in the case of WaPo are more complicated, with a longer lead time and therefore more difficult to implement at the drop of a hat in response to the president’s diatribes.
Must read
The Purged: “Donald Trump’s destruction of public service is a tragedy not only for the nearly 300,000 workers who have been laid off, but for an entire nation. »
“The stupidest thing I’ve ever heard”
Watch NATO collapse in real time as President Trump continues to threaten to take back Greenland from Denmark, even as some Republicans on the Hill try to reassure the embattled U.S. ally.
A world without rules
At Foreign Affairs, Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro warn that President Trump is not only endangering the international legal system, but also the existence of any rules limiting state power:
In the short term, the world faces profound instability; Leaders can sometimes invoke postwar rules, but also increasingly ignore them, as suits them. This is a recipe for continued conflict, as states would doubt the rules and therefore would not know how to avoid provoking violence. Until a clear set of rules is in place, the world will be a profoundly dangerous place.
A longer-term possibility would be a world in which states are no longer prohibited from using force and at least one superpower acts as if no rules exist. In this world, not only would the rules be unpredictable, but they would depend entirely on the impulses of whoever holds the most coercive power at any given time.
What a big boy
President Trump accepted the Nobel Prize from his most recent winner, like the cheap club championships he awards himself on his own golf courses – and with equal self-awareness:
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