A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
When the Scandal Isn’t the Scandal …
As scandalous and horrible as Jeffrey Epstein’s crime were, that’s not what’s giving the story legs or Democrats political leverage in this crazy moment. It’s the conspiracy-addled MAGA backlash against President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi that is undergirding the politics of this. Without that fundamental weak spot, this story probably follows the familiar track of so many other would-be scandals of the Trump era. In fact, it had been following that trajectory for years until MAGA’s barking-dog-catches-car epiphany.
The madcap events of yesterday showed that the administration is still trying to placate the pressure from the right while protecting Trump from whatever investigative files may contain:
- In a bizarre and troubling move, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced he is seeking a meeting with imprisoned Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The astounding conceit of Blanche’s announcement was that he was finally going to get to the bottom of this whole thing, another way of feeding the MAGA conspiracists.
- Not to get left behind, the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Maxwell.
- Maxwell’s lawyer, no doubt sensing the opportunity to win leniency for his client, ingratiated her to Trump: “We are grateful to President Trump for his commitment to uncovering the truth in this case.”
- Two federal judges in Manhattan ordered the Trump administration to provide much more robust factual and legal bases for unsealing grand jury transcripts from the prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell.
- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) kept the Democratic pressure on with a letter to Bondi urging her to explore the financial angle to Epstein’s criminal conduct. Wyden’s office tells Greg Sargent that the senator attempted to investigate this angle last year via subpoena but was stymied by Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee. You can see the trolling here to feed the MAGA fire: more Epstein coverups!
- An agitated President Trump blamed anyone and everyone else, trying to pivot to false claims that Democrats engaged in a “treasonous coup” in 2016, when he … WON:
The Biggest News of the Whole Year
As it promised back in March, the Trump EPA is poised to overturn the agency’s own 2009 “endangerment finding” that gave it legal justification to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. As Lisa Friedman writes: “That finding is the foundation of the federal government’s only tool to limit the climate pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industries that is dangerously heating the planet.”
Bondi Fires Judges’ Replacement for Alina Habba
Attorney General Pam Bondi immediately canned the career federal prosecutor New Jersey federal judges had named U.S. attorney to succeed Alina Habba when her 120-day interim term ended. In explosive language, Bondi ripped the “rogue” judges, even though the chief judge was a Bush II appointee and the practice of judges naming U.S. attorney replacements is enshrined in the law. Bondi deputy Todd Blanche went farther, accusing the judges of “backroom” collusion and pursuing a “left-wing agenda.”
Habba’s nomination for the permanent position is stalled in the Senate. It’s not clear what the White House’s next move will be to fill the position. The interplay of various laws that govern filling the U.S. attorney position is exceedingly complicated. If you’re wanting the full explanation, the leading expert on vacancies weighs in here.
Desiree Leigh Grace was the first assistant U.S. attorney under Habba before the judges elevated her to the top spot. She wasn’t just removed as U.S. attorney by Bondi but fired from the Justice Department entirely, Politico reports.
AEA Detainees at CECOT Recount Beatings
Three of the Venezuelan nationals deported by the Trump administration to CECOT and now repatriated to their home country are describing beatings, lack of medical attention, and other mistreatment while in the notorious Salvadoran detention center.
Wrongfully Deported ‘Cristian’ Pushes for Contempt Finding
In a hearing Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland, lawyers for Venezuelan national “Cristian” — who was wrongfully deported under the Alien Enemies Act in violation of a pre-existing settlement agreement — said they will ask her to open criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for its conduct in the case.
Trump Attack on Higher Ed: George Mason Edition
The Trump administration has launched its fourth investigation of George Mason University in the last month over its DEI practices. The focus on GMU comes while it is led by its first Black president and follows the ouster of the superintendent of VMI, who was also Black, and the president of UVa.
Sign of the Times
The publisher of the Harvard Educational Review has spiked an issue on Palestine, the Guardian reports.
Still Awaiting a Verdict
The Guardian’s Alice Speri offers these takeaways from the just-concluded trial challenging the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestinian international students for their political views:
- The Trump administration relied on lists from shadowy pro-Israel groups
- Immigration officials admitted to the unprecedented nature of the arrests
- The government tried to block the release of documents
- A huge chilling effect
Quiet Capitulation
- To comply with President Trump’s anti-trans executive order, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly banned transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports, tucking a vaguely worded paragraph that doesn’t include the word “transgender” into its “Athlete Safety Policy,” the NYT reports.
- Under pressure from the Trump administration, blue state hospitals are cutting back on gender-affirming care for transgender minors:
- Children’s National Hospital in D.C. is discontinuing the prescription of transition medications;
- The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center will no longer provide puberty blockers and hormone therapy for those under the age of 19;
- UChicago Medicine is ending all pediatric transition care;
- Children’s Hospital Los Angeles closed its Center for Transyouth Health and Development;
- Stanford Medicine in the Bay Area paused surgical procedures, including new puberty blocker implants, for under-19 patients.
Rationalizing Capitulation
David Pressman, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 2022-25, writes that the key similarity between Hungary and the United States isn’t Orban and Trump but how elites have responded to the authoritarian threat:
After years watching Hungary suffocate under the weight of its democratic collapse, I came to understand that the real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence. …
Here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray.
Quote of the Day
“We keep talking about an imperial court that is slowly but certainly constructing an imperial executive, but none of that can happen without the learned helplessness of an American public that was intended to be sovereign.” —Dahlia Lithwick, on the Supreme Court and the unitary executive
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