Kash Patel Takes Over At FBI And DOJ As We Knew It Is Gone
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This...
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
It goes against my basic nature to overstate things, but I don’t think it’s overdramatic to observe that the Justice Department has already been lost to the Trump II rampage. There are no guardrails, limits, or independence any longer – and it’s going to take some time for us to internalize this new reality. Days like yesterday may help hasten our acceptance of the new reality:
Kash Patel was confirmed by the Senate, 51-49, as FBI director – words I can scarcely believe I’m typing. DOJ suddenly shifted its interpretation of President Trump’s Jan. 6 acts of clemency, broadening them to cover unrelated crimes – like illegal weapons possession – discovered in the course of the FBI’s investigation. DOJ deleted a database tracking federal police misconduct. In a mark of just how bad things are, the sitting attorney general, Pam Bondi, showed up at the annual right-wing confab CPAC and spewed vitriol against Joe Biden and his “drug addict son”:the CPAC crowd cheers when AG Pam Bondi is asked about prosecuting Joe Biden(i guess the immunity ruling only applies to Republican presidents … )
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 20, 2025 at 4:56 PMPresident Trump is close to crossing the line and openly defying courts in the USAID cases, but U.S. District Judge Amir Ali declined to hold the administration in contempt of court – at least for now. Within hours of that decision, the NYT reported that USAID funds remains frozen for emergency food, tuberculosis tests and HIV drugs.
President Trump is preparing to abolish the independence of the U.S. Postal Service and assert his own control over it by folding it into the Commerce Department, the WaPo reports. Unlike Trump’s other efforts to abolish agencies created by Congress via statute, this strikes directly at Congress’ explicit Article I power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”
FBI/CISA: The Trump administration is targeting government officials combatting foreign interference in U.S. elections NSF: The National Science Foundation provoked internal outcry when it cut staff beyond what was demanded by the Trump administration. The Big Picture: The AP offers comprehensive look at DOGE’s firings and layoffs. WaPo: “The Trump White House and Treasury Department officials have agreed to prohibit the U.S. DOGE Service from accessing personal taxpayer data.” ProPublica: “While Elon Musk and his underlings demand budget cuts and layoffs across the federal government, funding for their agency — the Department of Government Efficiency — has soared to nearly $40 million, ProPublica found in a review of Office of Management and Budget records.” Wired: DOGE put a $1 spending limit on most credit cards belonging to employees and contractors of the GSA. The U.S. Marshals Service has deputized members of Musk’s private security detail, CNN reports. Trump DOJ drops civil case against Musk’s SpaceX with prejudice and without any explanation. Musk showed up at CPAC – dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses indoors – where he was given a surprise gift by Argentinian President Javier Milei:having a normal one
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 20, 2025 at 5:19 PMMajor developments that at any other time would be top Morning Memo headlines:
RFK Jr.’s HHS ordered the CDC to stop some vaccine ads. DOJ declared that the president has the right and power to fire administrative law judges at will. President Trump is following through on his campaign trail threat against Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, by rolling back protections that had allowed many of them to remain in the country legally.Hill Republicans are beginning to make barely audible plaintive yelps about President Trump’s executive overreach:
Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH) told a Chamber of Commerce gathering back home that the Trump executive orders are “getting out of control.” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), who chairs the Veterans Affairs Committee, allows that he’s asking questions: “Certainly on the veterans side, we’re asking for information from the administration.” Rep. Nick Begich (R) told angry fired government workers back home to “put together some materials for me” so he could review their situations: “If there’s something that I think we can do, then I will do it.”Just before dawn, the Senate passed its narrower-than-the House’s budget bill that doesn’t attempt to tackle the extension of the Trump tax cuts. Ball now firmly in Speaker Mike Johnson’s court but who knows what he will be able to wrangle out of his conference.
The scourge of the Senate who paved the way for the Trump era and never had the courage to defy his party and rein in the reality TV star when he had the chance to do so will retire from the Senate at the end of his current term in 2027.
A Mississippi state judge ordered a local newspaper to remove an editorial from its website less than a week after the Clarksdale Board of Mayor and Commissioners sued the newspaper for defamation.
Susan Glasser compares the present moment to Putin’s initial takeover of Russia:
Washington today echoes with so many uncomfortable reminders of that transitional moment in Moscow—the sudden, fearful silence of critics who had previously spoken out, the business tycoons rushing to kiss the President’s ring, the lying and reality distortions to fit the official narrative. Trump’s consolidation of power this time has been fast and consequential.
The United States is declining to co-sponsor a pro-Ukraine UN resolution marking the third anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to try to extort Ukraine into coughing up its mineral wealth to the United States as “payback” for aiding it against Russia’s invasion – while declining to offer future security guarantees. The WSJ has cringey new details of the effort to strong-arm President Volodymyr Zelensky.
If all of that wasn’t bad enough, Axios channels a bunch of White House shit-talking about Zelensky while reporting that Trump in a personal pique over Zelensky’s failure to submit almost withdrew U.S. military support in recent days.
While Steve Bannon was at CPAC touting an extra-constitutional third term for Trump, the president himself toyed with the idea in a speech to Republcian governors:
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