Trump DOJ Appears Ready to Drop Case Against GOP Rep

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

Sword for enemies and shield for friends

It appears Trump’s DOJ is 86-ing the campaign finance investigation against Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), reports Phil Williams of Newschannel 5 in Nashville.

There were already signs that the investigation, begun before Trump’s re-election, had stalled since his second inauguration.

Then yesterday, Ogles informed the court that he was withdrawing his long-standing requests for the return of his phone and emails seized by the FBI because the Justice Department had agreed to voluntarily return them without even reviewing it.

“During discussions with the Office of the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice, the Government informed defense counsel that it would promptly return or destroy property and information obtained pursuant to the respective search warrants at issue,” Ogles’ attorneys said in the filing.

Ogles welcomed the apparent end to the criminal investigation.

“From the day the FBI arrived, I said this investigation should never have happened and that Biden’s DOJ had no right to pry into the legislative communications of a sitting member of Congress. Today, the Justice Department effectively admitted that I was right.”

Nashville’s career prosecutors withdrew from the case shortly after Trump took office, and the case was transferred to the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which has since been decimated by the Trump II purges.

Ogles had initially claimed that he personally loaned $320,000 to his 2022 congressional campaign. But in the wake of the fabulism and campaign finance fiasco surrounding ultimately expelled Rep. George Santos (R-NY), astute investigative reporting by Newschannel 5’s Williams revealed a number of Ogles’ fabrications and exaggerations and questioned whether Ogles had the financial resources to make such a loan, since his form financial declaration did not even mention a savings account.

Ogles later admitted the filing was erroneous and made an amended filing reducing the personal loan amount to $20,000. The FBI executed a search warrant in this case in August 2024, seizing, among other things, Ogles’ cell phone. He also obtained a warrant to seize his personal email records from Google.

As is not uncommon in criminal investigations against sitting members of Congress, Ogles objected on constitutional grounds to the seizure of his phone and emails. The Justice Department agreed not to review the seized documents until the court rules on the matter. The case has dragged on since then, without a court decision. The new deal between Ogles and Trump’s DOJ means the FBI will never review the documents, a sign that the criminal case has been dropped or is about to be dropped.

“This is a complete victory for the responsible exercise of prosecutorial discretion and respect for the constitutional separation of powers,” Ogles said in his statement.

A separate but related investigation by the House Ethics Committee has also dragged on since January 2025.

Quote of the day

“We can survive a lot of things: bad policies, weird elections. There are a lot of things we can overcome. We can’t overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system – the awesome power of the state. You can’t have a situation where whoever is in charge of government starts using it to go after their political enemies or reward their friends.”Former President Barack Obama in an interview with Stephen Colbert at the soon-to-open Obama Presidential Center in Chicago

Judge fires DOJ lawyer for possible disciplinary action

U.S. District Judge Melissa R. DuBose of Rhode Island said Tuesday she was referring a Trump Justice Department lawyer for possible disciplinary action after he hid from her the existence of an overseas arrest warrant on murder charges against an ICE detainee whose release she had ordered.

Kevin M. Bolan, chief of the civil division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Rhode Island, apologized to DuBose in court Monday for not disclosing the information in court, saying ICE had asked him not to disclose it.

“It’s the candor and lack of candor with this court that needs to be addressed,” DuBose said Tuesday in dismissing Bolan. “And this needs to be fully investigated, so that nothing like this happens again.”

DuBose was particularly infuriated because Trump’s DHS issued a press release (the link is still active) titled “Biden Activist Judge Releases Violent Criminal Alien Wanted for Murder,” even though the administration failed to inform her of the pending arrest warrant.

Monitoring mass deportations

• Illinois: State police said Tuesday they are investigating the fatal ICE shooting of Mexican national Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez last summer in suburban Chicago.
• Minnesota: The Department of Veterans Affairs has conducted internal investigations into employees who attended the vigil for VA intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal immigration agents.
• All over the country: The Trump administration is abandoning the accelerated training program it used to quickly deploy thousands of recently hired ICE agents and will instead provide them with additional training in this area, Politico reports.

2026 Ephemeral

• OH-09: Former ICE official Madison Sheahan lost the GOP primary to challenge Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D).
• OH-Guv: Vivek Ramaswamy won the GOP nomination for governor.
• MID: Democrats retained a narrow majority in the state Senate on Tuesday by winning a special election in a closely divided district.
• IN: In the Republican primary, President Trump successfully ousted five incumbent GOP senators who voted against his mid-decade redistricting proposal.

Lawless boat strike campaign: 190 dead

Three people were killed Tuesday in a US strike on a suspected drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific, bringing the death toll to at least 190 in the lawless high seas campaign.

We are almost there

Alright guys, TPM is getting closer to our goal of adding 1,000 new members during our annual membership drive. This morning we are at 9:15 a.m.

I know some of you want to join us but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I totally understand. My to-do list is always overloaded with latecomers that I keep putting off until the next day…the week…the month.

So I ask you to please check this box today. It will only take a moment, it will help us immensely and it will make you forget one more thing.

It’s important. Every additional membership helps. We run a tight ship. We feel the difference with each new registration.

For existing members, thank you for your support, especially in a time when politics are difficult to accept. Many people looked away from the daily carnage. Not Morning Memo readers. You are faced with difficult realities every day.

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