This Is What An Out-of- Control DOJ Looks Like

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

An attack on the constitutional order

Over the course of yesterday afternoon and well into the evening, the extent of the Trump Justice Department’s degradation to the point of brutality became clearer.

First there was the release of an absurd affidavit supporting the search warrant for 2020 election ballots and records in Fulton County, Georgia, which revealed that the FBI had been involved after a “referral” from Kurt Olsen, a Stop the Steal attorney who was hired last year by the administration to investigate the 2020 election. Olsen works at Trump White as a “appointed director Chairman of Election Security and Integrity,” according to the affidavit.

Then came the news that Trump’s DOJ had incredibly sought indictments against six sitting Democratic members of Congress for participating in a video reminding the military of their duty not to follow illegal orders. A DC grand jury fortunately declined to indict Senators Mark Kelly (AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (MI) as well as Representatives Jason Crow (CO), Maggie Goodlander (NH), Chrissy Houlahan (PA), and Chris Deluzio (PA).

The New York Times put it succinctly: “The president, emboldened by his success in bending the Justice Department and the FBI to his will, has intensified his efforts to deploy the vast arsenal of federal law enforcement to pursue his political agenda and personal grievances. »

This is what a fully politicized and weaponized Justice Department looks like. It’s not a pretty thing. I am not an alarmist by nature, but caution is a luxury these days. This is a five-alarm fire. Every American is in danger when federal law enforcement operates outside the rule of law, at the behest of any president, let alone a deranged and mad king like Donald Trump.

Some thoughts on the latest developments:

• I’m baffled by how the flimsy and blatantly politicized search warrant request managed to get past federal Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas. One way to look at the affidavit of FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans is that it ostensibly included everything a judge needed NOT to sign the search warrant.
• This is probably the former lawyer in me speaking, but one of the most striking things about Trump’s DOJ’s worst cases is how quickly they move through them. It is clear that the DOJ has received orders from the White House to act and act. NOW. Careful investigations, extensive legal research, strategic decision-making about the long-term institutional impacts of filing certain cases or taking particular positions in court – things the DOJ would normally do, often at a pace that seemed ridiculously slow to outsiders – are all out the window.
• Grand juries are the surprise bulwark against fascism, but I would hesitate before taking comfort or placing much confidence in them. First, targets of false investigations are still subject to harassment, threats, expenses, and emotional distress during the investigation phase, even if it does not result in a charge. Second, grand juries remain easily manipulated and poorly positioned to dismiss false prosecutions when prosecutors and investigators do not act in good faith. False invoices returned recently remain the exception and not the rule.
• It is difficult to express how yesterday’s two cases defy the ethical obligations of prosecutors to do justice and only bring cases they believe they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt and secure a conviction. The dismissal of an indictment by the grand jury is neither prejudice nor misconduct. DCUS attorney Jeanine Pirro’s decision to bring this particular case is a travesty, especially given the protections of the First Amendment and the Speech or Debate Clause for members of Congress.

One last essential point: these two cases constitute attacks on the constitutional framework. The Georgia case poses a threat to states’ power to conduct federal elections, and targeting members of Congress with politicized prosecutions constitutes a direct attack on the separation of powers. So when I say that all Americans are threatened by a lawless Justice Department, it is true both in the sense that you could be next and in the peril it poses to the constitutional order.

Quote of the day

“If these assholes think they’re going to intimidate us, threaten me, and silence me, and they’re going to go after our political opponents and make us back down, they’ve got another thing coming.”Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a former Army Ranger, reacts to Trump’s DOJ’s attempted prosecution of him and five other Democratic members of Congress.

A pattern is emerging…

Recently, in the third such case, U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou in Lansing denied Trump’s DOJ request for Michigan voter data.

Monitoring mass deportations

• Chicago: In an email, CBP Commander Gregory Bovino praised the officer who shot a Chicago woman five times: “In light of your excellent service to Chicago, you still have much work to do!! »
• All over the country: The Trump administration’s bold early claims about shootings by federal agents repeatedly fail in court.
• Minnesota: Despite all the administration’s big talk, Trump’s DOJ is charging many of the alleged assaults on federal agents in Minnesota as crimes.

Faces of the Resistance

• Joseph H. Thompsona former senior federal prosecutor who resigned from the Minnesota U.S. attorney’s office in January following Operation Metro Surge, has joined the legal defense team of former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who faces charges related to his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a St. Paul church.
• JP Cooneyformer deputy to special counsel Jack Smith, plans to run for Congress as a Democrat in a newly designated district in Virginia.

DHS withdraws false subpoena

The Trump administration has withdrawn a retaliatory administrative subpoena targeting a WaPo reader who emailed a DHS lawyer after seeing him quoted in a newspaper article.

FAA madness

Without any notice, the FAA overnight closed the airspace around the El Paso airport until February 20, citing non-specific “national security reasons.” Then this morning he opened it again just as abruptly.

The airport is adjacent to the Army Fort. Bliss, which includes Biggs Army Airfield and Camp East Montana, the new ICE tent detention center.

“The brief closure was linked to a test of new military technology at the nearby Fort Bliss military base,” reports the New York Times, saying that this is not enough to explain the mismanagement of the closure of the airport of a large metropolitan area.

Destruction: vaccine edition

The FDA, led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., refused to even accept Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu vaccine, baffling the company, which had spent years and millions of dollars on the vaccine, including conducting a clinical trial with 41,000 participants.

Corruption: Bridge to Nowhere edition

President Trump’s extortion threat to shut down the U.S. portion of Canada’s soon-to-be-opened bridge to Michigan came after a phone call Monday from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who had just met Matthew Moroun, the billionaire Detroit trucking magnate whose family — which operates an existing bridge between Michigan and Canada — has been fighting for years for the new bridge, the New York Times reports.

Getting the gays out of Stonewall

In what appears to be part of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI historical revisionism, the Interior Department removed a pride flag from the Stonewall Inn national monument in New York, which commemorates the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

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