Showdown Over Interim US Attorneys Brewing In Seattle

A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.

Greetings from Nashville

It’s 4 a.m. as I begin writing here in Nashville, where I listen to Morning Memo before heading to the new federal courthouse for the vindictive prosecution hearing in the Abrego Garcia case.

Special thanks to The Hitchcock, a brand new bar about a block from the courthouse that kept Morning Memo well lubricated upon its arrival in Nashville last night. Ask Justin. He will take good care of you.

Before moving on to the news, a quick reminder of the special promotion we are offering to Morning Memo readers who are not TPM members: 40% off an annual TPM subscription. We’re gearing up for TPM’s annual membership drive, which begins next week, and this pre-offer is a great deal that I hope will inspire you to officially join the TPM community.

Keep an eye on Seattle

Seattle’s all-Biden-appointed federal district court could be where the Trump administration’s fight to block judges from appointing acting U.S. attorneys comes to a head, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

Some veterans of the Seattle U.S. Attorney’s Office are leading a push to have judges choose an acting U.S. attorney who is prepared to prosecute when Trump’s DOJ purports to fire him, as has already been done for judge-appointed acting U.S. attorneys in the Northern District of New York and the Eastern District of Virginia.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington currently finds itself without a U.S. attorney, after judges declined to extend the initial 120-day term of Charles Neil Floyd, who now leads the office as its first assistant designee.

The Bloomberg article does a good job of describing why – beyond the discomfort or the complex legal issues involved – the judges have so far not challenged the firings. It’s practical. For obvious reasons, finding a candidate willing to put his legal career on hold to fight the Trump administration is not easy:

Former U.S. attorneys said a surefire public firing narrows the pool of candidates for a traditionally highly coveted position. That leaves retirees, law professors, or people working in small law firms at the end of their careers as the most likely candidates. Finding someone willing to engage in legal dispute with the Trump administration narrows the list further.

Besides, even if you win, where does that leave you?

“It would probably only be worth the fight as a matter of principle,” said Mark Yancey, a former acting U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City who led the DOJ’s prosecutor training academy. “But even if you win this battle, have you lost the war if you are in power and have an unsupportive ministry that could make your life miserable?”

Among the contenders for the role who arguably meet the criteria for someone willing to challenge their alleged dismissal: John McKay, the former U.S. attorney and TPM favorite who was…wait for it…fired by the Bush II administration in the now-quaint U.S. attorney scandal where TPM took its first steps. McKay declined to comment to Bloomberg.

Retribution: Kash Patel CYA Edition

In hot water for his use of the FBI plane and his participation last weekend in the Winter Olympics in Italy, FBI Director Kash Patel appears to be using punitive purges to shore up his own position.

At least 10 FBI members, including at least a half-dozen agents, linked to the Mar-a-Lago search have been fired, NBC News reports.

Specifically, the fired staff were involved in a request during the Mar-a-Lago investigation regarding phone records of Patel and Susie Wiles, who later became White House chief of staff, the New York Times reports.

Abrego Garcia: Sub-pile live

I will be reporting on Substack Live immediately following today’s hearing in the Abrego Garcia criminal case in Nashville. It’s unclear how long the hearing will last, but if you’re signed up through Substack to receive Morning Memo by email, you should receive a notification when we begin. And of course we will publish the video so you can watch it at your leisure later.

I have previewed this entire hearing, so I won’t belabor this point except to reiterate that this is the primary challenge in vindictive prosecutions anywhere in the country right now. If you need additional insight:

• The Intercept: Trump Won’t Stop Trying to Punish Kilmar Abrego Garcia
• WaPo: Kilmar Abrego García prosecution faces critical test in court hearing

Major decision on returns to third countries

In a major ruling in a case in which the Trump administration repeatedly violated court orders, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of Boston declared DHS’s third-country removal policy illegal:

This case concerns whether the government can, without notice, deport a person to the wrong country or to a country where they are likely to be persecuted or tortured, thereby depriving that person of the opportunity to seek protections to which they would indisputably be entitled. The Department of Homeland Security has adopted a policy that it can take people and drop them off in unknown areas — in what are called “third countries” — and, “as long as the Department doesn’t already know that there’s someone out there waiting to shoot…that’s fine.”

This is neither good nor legal.

Murphy suspended the effect of his decision for 15 days to give the administration a chance to appeal, in a case that has already gone to the Supreme Court once and is likely to end up there again.

Must read

Investigative post: Blind refugee abandoned by border patrol dies

Monitoring mass deportations

• Texas: A state grand jury unanimously declined to indict a federal agent for the murder of a U.S. citizen last March. The involvement of a federal agent in the shooting was not made public until last week.
• New Jersey: Democratic state lawmakers have introduced a bill aimed at Curbing ICE: Combating Illegal Conduct and Keeping Individuals and Communities Empowered (FUCK ICE).

Thomas Goldstein found guilty

SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein, a former top Supreme Court lawyer, was found guilty on 12 of 16 counts in a tax and mortgage fraud case stemming from his double life as a globe-trotting, high-stakes poker player.

Any hot tips? A juicy scuttlebutt? Any interesting ideas? Let me know. For sensitive information, use encrypted methods here.