A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
Giant Oopsy in Protestor Prosecution
A new twist in the prosecution of anti-ICE protesters who entered a church in St. Paul, Minnesota in January: The Trump DOJ has dropped all charges against a woman who was mistakenly identified as a protestor but apparently wasn’t involved with the protest at all.
The charges were dropped with prejudice — meaning they cannot be refiled — Friday evening, which set off a vigorous reaction from attorney Abbe Lowell, who represents three journalists who were charged in the same case for covering the protest, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon.
In a new filing, Lowell accused the Trump DOJ of misleading the court by asking for an extension of discovery deadlines in the case, which the court partly granted, before revealing the charging goof to the judge, even though it already knew of its mistake.
In granting the extension earlier in the day, still unaware of the mistaken identity of one of the 39 defendants, the judge had chided the Trump DOJ for discovery delays in what has become a broader pattern of charging first and investigating later: “So, here we are, months into a case that the government had an intense appetite to initiate, but cannot seem to keep up the pace when it comes to discovery obligations. This is unacceptable.”
More Brutalization of Abrego Garcia
In another cruel development in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, the Trump administration swears that’s it for real this time in planning to deport the El Salvadoran national to Liberia.
It is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to reopen Abrego Garcia’s habeas case, which the judge has shut down repeatedly after evidence presented in court over multiple hearings showed the government had no real plan to deport him to a third country but was using the threat of removal as a pretext to keep him detained.
The wrongfully-deported-then-vindictively-indicted Abrego Garcia has said for months that he will agree to be deported to Costa Rica, but acting ICE Director Todd Lyons in a March 2 memo filed Friday in court formally rejected that option and declared Liberia (again) to be the only option.
In a weekend response to the new filing, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys asked the judge to pause the contempt of court and related proceedings in the original “facilitate” case while they fight the government’s latest move in the second case.
Back in Court Today
I’m back in federal court in Baltimore today for what will be Day 3 of what was supposed to be a one-day hearing in the wrongful deportation case of J.O.P. v. Department of Homeland Security. As I exclusively reported Thursday, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services witness testified that there were more than 100 previously unknown wrongful deportations in violation of the court-approve class action settlement involving unaccompanied minors seeking asylum.
In another exclusive report on Friday, I reported that the judge gave the Trump DOJ until today to get to the bottom of things, and for the first time raised concerns that either DOJ attorneys or agency attorneys (or both) had not been candid with the court. In response, DOJ trial attorneys told the judge the surprise testimony was news to them, too. Stay tuned …
Mass Deportation Watch
- NYT: Trump Friend Asked ICE to Detain the Mother of His Child
- Politico: “In dozens of cases over the past several weeks, Justice Department lawyers have declined to push back on detainees’ claims that they’re owed a chance to make a case for their release. In those cases, the administration has simply agreed to provide a bond hearing, or even outright release, telling judges that officials “do not have an opposition argument to present” or saying they couldn’t cobble together enough information to mount a defense.”
- NYT: How Corey Lewandowski Wielded Power Inside D.H.S.
- WSJ: Trump Administration Scrambles to Deploy ICE Agents at Airports as Lines Mount
46th Lawless Boat Strike
The death toll in the lawless U.S. campaign against alleged drug-smuggling boats rose to at least 159 on Thursday after a strike in the eastern Pacific killed two people and left one survivor, who was turned over to the Costa Rican Coast Guard, according to the Pentagon. It was the 46th such strike on the high seas.
Latest From the Middle East …
You can select from the individual bullet points below, or down a straight shot of absurdism, no chaser, over at Gold and Geopolitics:
- President Trump’s sole military objective in Iran now appears to be reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which is to say, returning to the status quo that existed before he launched his elective war. That is easier said than done.
- If the U.S. were to succeed in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the region’s oil and gas infrastructure remains seriously, though not irreparably, damaged by three weeks of air strikes.
- Iran’s first ever use of intermediate ballistic missiles Friday to target the U.S.-U.K. Diego Garcia military base, some 2,500 miles away, puts much of Europe within range of Iranian missile strikes.
Judge Blocks Pentagon Press Limits
In a lawsuit brought by the NYT, U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman of D.C. struck down the Trump Pentagon’s restrictions on journalists as unconstitutional, ruling: “Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”
Robert Mueller, 1944-2026
Garrett Graff memorializes the man who will be most remembered for his stint as special counsel in Trump I, while Marcy Wheeler takes the occasion of his death to refresh already-stale memories of his Russia investigation.
Trump DOJ Watch
- The WSJ examines the threats and bare-knuckle tactics of Mike Davis, who had no prior antitrust experience, but has positioned himself as MAGA’s antitrust fixer, threatening the top DOJ antitrust official Gail Slater — “If you don’t approve this settlement, I will destroy you. I will destroy your job at the DOJ” — according to deposition testimony by her deputy, a claim Davis denies. Neither Slater nor her deputy are any longer at the Justice Department.
- A new hire in the decimated Trump DOJ’s Civil Rights Division hire resigned from his Alabama law firm over a Facebook post following George Floyd’s murder, Chris Geidner reports.
The Corruption: Colorado Edition
In a corrupt bargain, President Trump has lured a GOP challenger out of the GOP primary for the CO-03 district by offering her and her husband roles in his administration, CNN reports. The move to sideline Hope Scheppelman was a triple flip-flop-flip by Trump, who had originally backed Rep. Jeff Hurd (R-CO), but pulled his support last month and threw his endorsement to Scheppelman before Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) convinced him there’s no playing around with such tight margins in the House.
Putting the White in White Nationalism
- Elon Musk gave a 💯 to a tweet on his X platform that concluded: “White solidarity is the only way to survive.”
- President Trump had installed on the White House grounds early Sunday morning a replica of a statue of Christopher Columbus that protesters in Baltimore tore down and dumped into the city’s Inner Harbor in the summer of 2020, the NYT reports. According to the WaPo, a panel affixed to the base of the sculpture reads: “Destroyed July 4, 2020. Resurrected 2022.”
The Absurdism: Hungary Edition
Fearing that next month’s election won’t go Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s way, Russian intel considered a plan to boost his prospects by staging an assassination attempt, according to an internal Russian intel report obtained and authenticated by a European intelligence service and reviewed by the WaPo. Russia denied the allegation.
Hot tips? Juicy scuttlebutt? Keen insights? Let me know. For sensitive information, use the encrypted methods here.
