Many things have happened. Here are some of the things. This is the morning memo of TPM. Register For the e-mail version.
Trump II cancer metastasis at Doj
I hate you break it, but the failure of Ed Martin's appointment to become a DCUS lawyer has not produced any results that seems better better. This does not mean that Martin's appointment should not have been opposed or that it is useless to fight the right fight. It is simply a question of trying to preserve a little mental health by recognizing that in the dystopian world Trump II, things can always worsen and often do.
Instead of being an American lawyer confirmed by the Senate, Martin is now going socket Three important roles to the main justice which do not require a confirmation of the Senate:
- Associate deputy prosecutor;
- The American lawyer (the previous American lawyer was dismissed after refusing to pay the restoration of Mel Gibson's firearms following a condemnation for domestic violence); And
- Director of the Armament Working Group.
Do not leave the Orwellian name of this last role, which never existed at the Ministry of Justice until this presidency, confuse the problem. Martin will take his bag of stuff as an American lawyer – politicization, intimidation and threats – to direct the armament of the Ministry of Justice.
With the blessing of the president through his executive decree of arms and the Attorney General Pam Bondi through his armament memo executing this order, Martin will be up to the epicenter to transform the Ministry of Justice itself into a threat to the rule of law.
Do not standardize Jeanine Pirro
I am always shaken by the way in which people who are otherwise reasonable have dealt with the appointment of Pam Bondi as a attorney general as usual, calling him to be qualified and more traditional for the office. It was on the basis of her having been a prosecutor general of the state of Florida and, critically, she having replaced Matt Gaetz, incredibly inappropriate and unfit, as a candidate. These two attributes alone should not have been sufficient to obscure all the other ways in which Bondi was not normal, including its deeply alarming confirmation audience, but they did it.
The same dynamic is at stake with Trump decision has replace Martin with Jeanine Pirro, Fox News personality from Fox. This line of WSJ History On Pirro is literally true, but you can see the bar costume already underway: “However, Pirro, which has experience as a prosecutor, is a more conventional choice than Martin, 54, which was a lightning rod from the start.”
Pirro was not a prosecutor in two decades. Since then, she has become an unsuccessful political candidate, then a right -wing media personality whose brain has married in the Fox News ecosystem. All of his televised schtick is as an exaggerated blind launcher, and I concede that it may not be a SCHTICK. These are not the attributes that we are looking for in a prosecutor, not to mention the best federal prosecutor in the national capital.
Funny fact: in the decline minutes of his first mandate, Trump pardoned The ex-husband of Pirro, Albert, who had been sentenced in 2000 for federal tax accusations when they were still married and was still a prosecutor of the County of Westchester.
Is the appointment of Pirro valid?
By exchanging Martin for Pirro before the end of Martin's maximum mandate at 120 days as an acting official, President Trump seems to take the position he can avoid confirmation of the Senate indefinitely via a rotary casting of DCUS. It's a complicated and delicate Domain of law, with two different authorization statutes, so I will not unpack everything here. But the nyt briefly addresses the question And the risk that he poses criminal defendants contesting their prosecution on the grounds that Pirro is not validly appointed.
The armament of the Doj completely underway now
New York Prosecutor General, Letitia James seems to be the deepest initial objective of the new Doj led by Trump. Federal prosecutors have open A criminal investigation into the allegations of mortgage fraud that circulated online between the Trump allies for months:
- A great federal jury was unusual in the Oriental District of Virginia and started assign (One of the properties of James is in Norfolk);
- FBI agents in Virginia and New York are involved in the survey;
- To give you an idea of ​​the tone and the tenor of things, this is what American lawyer John A. Sarcone III of the Northern New York district – whose office is not Manage the case – must have said it at the same time as: “Unlike Letitia James, who has done a little ethically in the state campaigning to ensure that Donald Trump … My office behaves in an appropriate and professional manner.”
Trump diverts the Doj voting rights section
Devastating news in this Associated Press Exclusive: “The unity of the Ministry of Justice which guarantees compliance with the laws on voting rights will focus on the investigation into electoral fraud and the guarantee that the elections are not spoiled by” suspicion “, according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press.”
Day quote
For many citizens and American organizations, the cost of the opposition has therefore increased considerably. Although these costs are not as high as in dictatorships like Russia – where criticisms are regularly imprisoned, exiled or killed – America has, with astonishing speed, descended into a world in which opponents of the government fear criminal investigations, prosecution, former tax audits and other punitive and even republican politicians, Trump's administration, and even head of Trump administration, and even republican politicians, as a former administrative manager of Trump Trump, put“Frightened” outside their minds “on death threats”.
–political scientist Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt
Good reading
Josh Kovensky of TPM: inside an escape from the last minute of the Venezuelan of a flight to Cecot
The damage that Scotus has done
The decision of the Supreme Court to authorize the purge of the president of the soldiers of President Trump to proceed while the judicial dispute is on appeal is Already produced The easy to predict and hard result if not impossible for reissue: “The Pentagon will immediately start to move up to 1,000 people who openly identify the members of the Transgender Army services and give other 30 days to identify under a new directive published Thursday.”
The purges
- Congress Library: President Donald Trump licensee Carla Hayden as a librarian in the congress. She was there First woman and first African American to hold the position.
- Fema: Cameron Hamilton was licensee As an acting administrator from FEMA one day after having disputed to eliminate the agency during an appearance before the Congress.
A Creole Pope
Of all the deeply resonant agreements struck by the elevation of the first American to direct the Roman Catholic Church, none strikes as his mother being the product of a New Orleans Creole family::
The pope's maternal grandparents, both described as black or mulatto in various historic archives, lived in the seventh district of the city, an area which is traditionally Catholic and a crucible of people with African, Caribbean and European roots.
The grandparents, Joseph Martinez and Louise Baquié, finally moved to Chicago at the beginning of the 20th century and had a daughter: Mildred Martinez, the mother of the Pope.
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