Work in Progress: What Trump Took Away

One thing I’ve been attempting to track under Trump 2.0 are all the nice things Americans used to have that Trump has deliberately taken away. This is the running list, which will be a page (like my DOGE Debunking and lawsuit declaration pages) here.

I’m posting this now in super raw form for several reasons.

  1. I’m missing a ton! Especially datasets that have been taken down (some of the stuff that was memory-holed appears in the main list). Let me know what I’m missing below.
  2. I’m wondering how this will be most useful. Obviously, right now I’ve just been capturing links when I see stories. Are these links sufficient?
  3. Steal my work! I’m hoping someone with more resources can do a better version of this. So if you want to steal this list and expand on it, feel free!

General EOs

Lower drug prices

Infrastructure

Free wind energy

 

Health and Science

NIH matching funds

Immunotherapy cancer cures

VA research

VA mental health

Kidney transplants

Insulin

Bird flu (rehired)

Flu shots

mRNA research

Cancer research

Diabetes research

Food banks

Disabilities protections

Telehealth and cheaper broadband

Protections for the disabled

USAID programs targeting polio, malaria, TB, HIV, and malnourishment

Indian Health Services (rehired)

CHIPS Act

Fentanyl disruption in Mexico

Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam

Antarctica

Food inspections

Food safety

Gun violence warnings

Education

Teacher retention

Energy and Environmental

Grants for farmers in IRA

Renewable energy for farmers

Other farm grants

2.5 billion gallons of water

Halting EV plug-ins (including at government buildings)

Bonneville Power Service (rehired)

Dam safety

New oil drilling

Weather service

Weather forecasting stations

Volcano warnings

Keeping the Colorado River flowing

National Park Service (partly rehired, plus seasonal hires)

Michigan sea lamprey eradication

Prairie education

Food aid for schools

Environmental research

Financial

Investigations for rich tax cheats

Consumer protection from financial entities

Privacy protection from tech platforms

Easy tax returns

Taxpayer assistance

Experts on complex tax collection

Affordable housing

Security

National Security research

Terrorism research

FAA Litigation (tracking pilots who shouldn’t fly and flight schools who shoudn’t teach)

Union protections for TSA workers

Bird flu workers (attempted reversal)

NNSA (attempted reversal)

Justice

Corporate prosecutions

Integration

Complaints about tech companies

International

Finding kidnapped Ukrainian children

Human Rights reporting

Voice of America

Data

Libraries

Climate change

Air quality (internationally)

 

Personnel

Eight Inspectors General who found $183B in waste, fraud and abuse (from this complaint)

USAID economist Dean Karlan resigns

NIH principal deputy director Tabak resigns

NIH head Francis Collins resigns

Genome project lead Eric Green ousted

David Lebryk leaves Treasury

Doug O’Donnell leaves IRS

 

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CATO’s Missing DOGE Model: DOGE Is a Pro-Russian Intelligence Operation

CATO engaged in an interesting project: faced with all the uncertainty about what DOGE is up to, it attempted to lay out six possible models to explain what DOGE is doing.

Social science models simplify reality, spotlighting key variables that may shape DOGE’s actions in a way that can be tested. The models discussed above clearly simplify the complex endeavor of reforming the largest human organization ever by expenditures—the U.S. federal government. They help explain past decisions and anticipate future moves. The models above try to make sense of DOGE’s actions so far. They are not mutually exclusive, yet several can be informative together or alone, while some may only make sense temporarily. Other models not set out here might offer fresh insights, but scholars should try to develop them. Without doing so, one of the biggest policy initiatives of President Trump’s second term risks being under-analyzed or misunderstood.

It offered these six possible models:

  1. DOGE is seeking to purge progressive influence within the federal government.
  2. DOGE is a scaled-up public version of Musk’s style of corporate restructuring applied to the federal government.
  3. DOGE is the first step of a public relations campaign to build popular support for spending cuts.
  4. DOGE is an essential component of a Trump administration legal challenge to expand the president’s power of impoundment.
  5. DOGE provides political cover for Congress to be even more fiscally irresponsible.
  6. DOGE is about self-interest and cronyism.

Some of these — like the attempt to purge progressivism and cronyism — are partially convincing. Others, such as the claim that DOGE helps either the PR campaign or the legal one, are soundly rebutted by public facts. DOGE’s epic failures have increased pushback and provided legal bases to challenge cutbacks that wouldn’t exist if done more competently.

Even when it considers the possibility that Elon is self-dealing, CATO’s exercise is wildly credulous about DOGE’s own — Elon’s own — deceit. This piece, which they link, is far less so:

Elon Musk has many great strengths, but he is not a reliable narrator.

[snip]

As has been well covered in mainstream outlets, DOGE has been extremely sloppy about cutting contracts and reporting the numbers. Most of the biggest ticket savings have been the result of DOGE misreading federal contracting data, or killing contracts that were already dead. From the New York Times:

What’s more concerning than the sloppiness itself is that it does not appear to be getting resolved over time. The same kinds of data parsing errors and confusion about how federal contracts are awarded and then paid out have persisted over two months. Some of this comes back to the information environment: DOGE has instituted few if any ground-up mechanisms within the federal government to surface real savings opportunities.

Both pieces seem to treat the evolving explanation about what DOGE is (which CATO lays out in more depth and I’ve laid out here) as an evolving goal; neither considers whether it is an evolving cover story, necessitated, in part, by the inaptness of the USDS mission to what DOGE wants to do, exposed via various lawsuits.

Importantly, both ignore the most troubling aspect of DOGE: Its repeated rush to access the live data from these agencies. That has happened over and over — at OPM, at the Social Security Agency, at HHS. As Tiffany Flick wrote in a widely reported declaration, these boys are being granted access for which they have no obvious need to know, and they’re accessing that data in insecure ways, to use in rooms remotely with other DOGE boys.

You don’t need to access the Personally Identifiable Information of all Americans to cut costs. You don’t need to access the PII of all Americans to harmonize benefit programs across agencies, in the process making it easier to identify fraud. You don’t need to access the PII of all Americans to cash in (unless using it for extortion). Doing so doesn’t help your PR case or your impoundment case.

It certainly could be part of a totalitarian bid for power, a way to identify undocumented immigrants who were advised to pay their taxes, same sex married couples, or trans people who have changed their gender on official documents.

And that application might explain one of several troubling new details from recent weeks: the court filing that revealed that, before he left Treasury, Marko Elez emailed two unnamed people at GSA the name or names of people with transaction details.

12. The forensic analysis also revealed that Elez sent an email with a spreadsheet containing PII to two United States General Services Administration officials. The PII detailed a name (a person or an entity), a transaction type, and an amount of money. The names in the spreadsheet are considered low risk PII because the names are not accompanied by more specific identifiers, such as social security numbers or birth dates. Elez’s distribution of this spreadsheet was contrary to BFS policies, in that it was not sent encrypted, and he did not obtain prior approval of the transmission via a “Form 7005,” describing what will be sent and what safeguards the sender will implement to protect the information.

Over a month after the investigation into what Elez was up to, Treasury reveals that he was alerting others to specific details about entities, with no explanation of why. That has nothing to do with the optimization he was supposed to be doing!

So sure, that could arise from an effort to target specific adversaries of Elon or Trump.

But that doesn’t explain another alarming revelation about DOGE: That Elon set up Starlink for the White House and GSA (not coincidentally, where most of his DOGE boys are working with the PII of Americans).

Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is now accessible across the White House campus. It is the latest installation of the Wi-Fi network across the government since Mr. Musk joined the Trump administration as an unpaid adviser.

[snip]

White House officials said the installation was an effort to increase internet availability at the complex. They said that some areas of the property could not get cell service and that the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure was overtaxed.

[snip]

In recent weeks, Starlink was also set up at the General Services Administration, which has served as a hub for Mr. Musk’s government-shrinking efforts, according to documents and people familiar with the service.

[snip]

It was also unclear if Starlink communications were encrypted. At a minimum, the system allows for a network separate from existing White House servers that people on the grounds are able to use, keeping that data separate.

“It’s super rare” to install Starlink or another internet provider as a replacement for existing government infrastructure that has been vetted and secured, said Jake Williams, a vice president for research and development at Hunter Strategy, a cybersecurity consultancy. “I can’t think of a time that I have heard of that.”

“It introduces another attack point,” Mr. Williams said. “But why introduce that risk?”

It’s certainly true that these two details could just be consistent with Elon’s plan to adopt totalitarianism himself, using his own personal satellite network.

But taken in tandem with other priorities of DOGE, such as dismantling almost the entirety of USAID, starting with the programs that Russia and Hungary most loathe, but also including those Republicans cherish, you need to at least consider whether this is an intelligence operation. Elon, his sidekick installed at the White House, David Sacks, and the VP they foisted on Trump, JD Vance, all parrot Russian propaganda. Dangles for Elon — cooperation on Mars! — have been included in Russia’s efforts to cultivate Trump.

And Musk was cemented as part of the this team at the same time as two other people whose inclusion in the Administration only helps America’s adversaries, Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr.

DOGE has not been cost-cutting, though that has confused the good government types and libertarians for months. Rather, DOGE has been capacity-cutting, even while it conducts the most intrusive data dive into Americans this side of consumer profiling.

I’m not saying a Russian intelligence operation is the only explanation for DOGE’s actions (again, I think a totalitarian plan is another missed possibility, though question why an aspiring totalitarian would want to destroy so much capability in advance of solidifying power).

I’m saying that experts like those from CATO look at it and cannot tell what it is doing, even while ignoring evidence that its claimed goal — cost-cutting — is false. But no one has ruled out something far more sinister is hiding behind a cognitive (if evolving) model designed to look familiar.

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Trump’s Legal Blackballing Effort Selectively Protects Jones Day

I’m working on a post on the Administration’s efforts to blackball law firms with ties to Trump’s imagined enemies.

As I’ll show, the effort builds on Trump’s Orwellian “Weaponization” effort; the two fact sheets involved in this effort (Perkins CoiePaul Weiss) repeat Trump’s false claim that 51 spooks claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop “was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.” Each fact sheet then airs some personal grievances of Trump’s.

Then, Section 1 the Executive Orders (Perkins Coie; Paul Weiss) summarize that grievance. Based on that grievance, the order does the following:

Section 1: Purpose (airing of grievance)

Section 2: Security Clearance Review (in effect, suspension of any clearances held by firm attorneys)

Section 3: Contracting (stripping of federal contracts)

Section 4: Racial discrimination (accusing the firms of racial discrimination)

Section 5: Personnel (prohibiting the hiring of lawyers from targeted firms and prohibiting access to government facilities)

Most of scheme (and even more of DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle’s attempt to defend it in a hearing before Beryl Howell last week) rests on a national security claim, in turn built off the Section 2 Security Clearance order.

But a big part of it attempts to enforce Trump’s federal segregation efforts in private law firms. For each, the grievance section accuses the firm of “discriminat[ing] against its own attorneys and staff.”

In addition to undermining democratic elections, the integrity of our courts, and honest law enforcement, Perkins Coie racially discriminates against its own attorneys and staff, and against applicants. Perkins Coie publicly announced percentage quotas in 2019 for hiring and promotion on the basis of race and other categories prohibited by civil rights laws. It proudly excluded applicants on the basis of race for its fellowships, and it maintained these discriminatory practices until applicants harmed by them finally sued to enforce change.

My Administration is committed to ending discrimination under “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies and ensuring that Federal benefits support the laws and policies of the United States, including those laws and policies promoting our national security and respecting the democratic process. Those who engage in blatant race-based and sex-based discrimination, including quotas, but purposefully hide the nature of such discrimination through deceiving language, have engaged in a serious violation of the public trust. Their disrespect for the bedrock principle of equality represents good cause to conclude that they neither have access to our Nation’s secrets nor be deemed responsible stewards of any Federal funds.

Section 4 of the Perkins Coie order (which the Paul Weiss order incorporates), reads:

Sec. 4. Racial Discrimination. (a) The Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shall review the practices of representative large, influential, or industry leading law firms for consistency with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including whether large law firms: reserve certain positions, such as summer associate spots, for individuals of preferred races; promote individuals on a discriminatory basis; permit client access on a discriminatory basis; or provide access to events, trainings, or travel on a discriminatory basis

(b) The Attorney General, in coordination with the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and in consultation with State Attorneys General as appropriate, shall investigate the practices of large law firms as described in subsection (a) of this section who do business with Federal entities for compliance with race-based and sex-based non-discrimination laws and take any additional actions the Attorney General deems appropriate in light of the evidence uncovered.

In other words, Donald J. Trump has blackballed two law firms in significant part because they aim for diversity in their hiring practices.

Which led me to check the website for Jones Day, still the counterpart to what Perkins Coie used to be for Democrats, the law firm serving the Republican party.

And lo and behold, the Jones Day website looks like Federal government sites did until inauguration day.

Jones Day has a page celebrating its diversity firsts.

They have a page listing affinity groups the likes of which Trump has eliminated from Federal government.

And there are several other pages, including a 1L conference focused on diversity.

The documentation targeting Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss also target the firms for their pro bono work — the former for representing some trans service members challenging the DOD ban, and the latter because Jeannie Rhee represented DC in a lawsuit against January 6 culprits that DC recently dismissed with prejudice (in fact, there were three other Paul Weiss attorneys on the case, as well as a bunch from Dechart, but Rhee was the only one identified, even indirectly, in the backup to the blackballing attempt).

Laudably, Jones Day also does a great deal of pro bono work. It has a page boasting of its pro bono work including — among other things — “representing migrant minors and mothers with their children, many of whom were detained by the U.S. government after fleeing life-threatening, gender-based gang violence in their home countries.”

Jones Day and Our Pro Bono Culture

Ukraine

Immigration – The Border Project

Combatting Human Trafficking

Constitutional Policing and Civil Justice Reform, Standing Together

Advancing the Rule of Law in Africa

Hate Crimes Task Force

American Hospital Association (AHA) & Jones Day Human Trafficking Interview

Obviously, all of this is laudable! These firms are so powerful, it’s important that they remain accessible and give back.

But even the law firm to which Trump has remained loyal — a law firm at which Mizelle himself once worked as of counsel, a lawfirm whence Trump’s Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division as well as several top Civil Division lawyers came — engages in the same kind of laudable practices for which Trump is blackballing Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss. (Curiously, none of the Jones Day Civil Division personnel were at the Perkins Coie hearing last week.)

Update: EEOC sent out letters demanding info on DEI practices from 20 firms not named Jones Day.

The law firms that received letters from Acting Chair Lucas include:

  1. A & O Shearman
  2. Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
  3. Cooley LLP
  4. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
  5. Goodwin Procter LLP
  6. Hogan Lovells LLP
  7. Kirkland & Ellis LLP
  8. Latham & Watkins LLP
  9. McDermott Will & Emery
  10. Milbank LLP
  11. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
  12. Morrison & Foerster LLP
  13. Perkins Coie
  14. Reed Smith
  15. Ropes & Gray LLP
  16. Sidley Austin LLP
  17. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
  18. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
  19. White & Case LLP
  20. WilmerHale

Covington security clearance order

Perkins Coie blackball order

Perkins Coie Fact Sheet

Paul Weiss blackball order

Paul Weiss Fact Sheet

Weaponization

Hunter Biden laptop order

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“Dead Man Walking:” Magic Numbers Nine and Four

I’d like to look at a few things that Chuck Schumer said in a wildly counterproductive interview.

After a squishy exchange about the horrible people running for NYC Mayor, Lulu Garcia-Navarro challenged Schumer for his focus on upcoming elections. Schumer noted that the courts are our best bulwark against Trump’s abuses (something that factored heavily in his decision to let the Continuing Resolution get a vote). But then Garcia-Navarro asked what happens when Trump starts ignoring judges, as he did Friday when deporting hundreds of mostly Venezuelans to El Salvador in defiance of an order from James Boasberg. Schumer said he hoped the five to six Senators who’ve spoke up in support of the courts would do so — but then suggested they might be more likely to do so in a few months, assuming Trump will become less popular.

You know, I’ve heard you and other Democratic leaders talk about the next election as if it’s just going to be another election like any other election. But there has been all of this discussion about Trump auguring the end of democracy. I worry about this. When I say we’ll win the election, I’m assuming democracy stays, but that we have to fight to make sure that happens. I think that Trump is destroying norms that have preserved our democracy for centuries, certainly for decades, and he’s destroying them, and he doesn’t care. What is our best bulwark? It’s the courts. And one of the things we were able to do, which is proving very, very good, is we put in 235 new judges. And they’re now hearing so many of the cases that attorneys general, private citizens, unions and others are bringing. We’ve had preliminary success.

Are they going to respect those court orders, do you think? That is the $64,000 question. So let us say the courts uphold this. And one of the people who will determine that more than any other is probably John Roberts, who is very conservative. I didn’t vote for him. But I do believe that he believes in the courts. And so I think that even at the highest level, if you get the Supreme Court upholding the law, it will matter. What if Trump keeps going? That’s the question everybody’s asking. And I worry about this a lot. I wake up sometimes at 2, 3 in the morning thinking about this. I believe this, and it’s a little bit in concert with what I’ve said to you before: I believe Republican senators, on this issue, will stand up. I’ve talked to some of them. About five or six have said publicly they will work to uphold the courts, and to uphold the law if Trump tries to break it. And we can do that legislatively if we have to. That’s my hope. That’s what we’ve got to work toward. And I think there’s a decent chance that that would happen, particularly if Trump, three months from now, is less popular. [bold NYT’s, italics mine]

Those five to six Senators have been silent since Trump’s open defiance was revealed on Saturday.

Then, later, Schumer again pointed to his confidence that Republican Senators would like some distance from Trump.

The Republicans would like to have some freedom from Trump, but they won’t until we bring him down in popularity. That happened with Bush in 2005. It happened with Trump in 2017. When it happens, I am hopeful that our Republican colleagues will resume working with us. And I talk to them. One of the places is in the gym. When you’re on that bike in your shorts, panting away next to a Republican, a lot of the inhibitions come off.

These passages were among those mocked by those prioritizing Schumer over Trump and Elon Musk. In the rush to condemn Schumer (who has canceled the book tour at which there were sure to be loud protests), people mocked the very idea that Republicans in the Senate would ever oppose Trump.

I think Schumer has earned a good deal of the criticism he’s getting, even if I’m certain it is distracting from the focus on Trump and Musk.

I part ways with the claim that Senators will never split from Trump.

To be very sure, Trump has garnered near-total fealty, from the House and Senate, since his inauguration in January. His grip on the GOP has tightened year after year since he first sold his grievance narrative in 2018. The reason the Senate had this no-win choice in the first place is because, for the first time in recent memory, the GOP House stood together on a funding vote. Many of these Senators are veritable cult members, spouting the craziest nonsense that Trump told him to say.

But to suggest Senators will never split from Trump is counterproductive for two reasons.

First, to suggest you can never get Republicans to break with Trump is to concede.

It is to give up on one of just a few theories of change available — with just (successful) mass protest and revolution left — and to give up on the one that could bring results most quickly. In the short term, at least, it would take just nine members of the House or four Senators to completely stall Trump’s agenda on a particular issue, and fewer members of the House to cause gridlock. There are that many members who oppose Trump on discrete issues (most notably, Ukraine and Medicaid funding), and exploiting that reality is a tool, however inadequate. Even if you think a mass protest movement would be more successful, pressuring the Senators who’ve enabled Trump so far is a necessary (and fairly easy) step to push back against Trump.

In the interview, Schumer seems to too readily adopt James Carville’s theory of change, to do nothing to accelerate this process (note, Carville’s op-ed assumed House Republicans could not mount the unity to fund government). Perhaps he wants to avoid pissing off the men he’s panting away next to in shorts in the Senate gym.

There’s a great deal that people can do to make it more likely Senators will oppose Trump. I try to make a point of calling out Joni Ernst publicly every time Pete Hegseth disappears the accomplishments of women soldiers, or Thom Tillis every time Hegseth makes the military less safe, or Roger Wicker every time Hegseth has an embarrassing faceplant, or Bill Cassidy every time RFK Jr does something to exacerbate the measles outbreak, or Jerry Moran every time DOGE makes a stupid cut of VA benefits, or Todd Young every time Tulsi Gabbard repeats Russian disinformation, or John Cornyn every time Marco Rubio cuts back on PEPFAR, or Tom Cotton every time Trump does something that will help China. These people haven’t hidden their disagreement on key issues or appointees with Trump. Yet, in spite of those disagreements, these people have all done things to support people they knew were wrong. As the consequences of their cowardice pile up — as measles spreads across the country from Texas and veterans lose their jobs — their complicity should be front and center.

And while right wing members of Congress are not publicly confronting Trump, some of them are pushing back quietly, mitigating some of the damage Trump is doing — sometimes even in ways that extend benefits beyond their own jurisdiction. According to the NYT, for example, Deb Fischer was among those who pushed Trump to reverse some of the firings at National Nuclear Security Administration (though NYT also reports that NNSA lost many key experts nevertheless).

And GOP pushback will go largely unnoticed elsewhere. After succeeding in strong arming vaccine propagandist RFK Jr’s confirmation to lead HHS, Trump withdrew the nomination for vaccine propagandist Dave Weldon to lead CDC, minutes before his confirmation hearing this week, because Weldon didn’t have and wouldn’t get the votes.

That’s all we’ll see of GOP pushback until proof of consequences of their own complicity and pressure on them mounts. But in a world where any kind of friction can slow the march of authoritarianism, even that non-public pushback bit matters, and it could provide definitive down the road.

By all means, scoff at Carville’s outdated naivete and Schumer’s unwillingness to more directly confront those he pants next to on the exercise bike.

But don’t abstain from pressuring right wingers to show some courage against Trump’s outrages.

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Three Countries Formerly Known as Allies Reconsidering F-35 Purchases

First. Portugal:

Portugal is getting cold feet about replacing its U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets with more modern F-35s because of Donald Trump — in one of the first examples of the U.S. president undermining a potential lucrative arms deal.

The country’s air force has recommended buying Lockheed Martin F-35s, but when outgoing Defense Minister Nuno Melo was asked by Portugese media Público whether the government would follow that recommendation, he replied: “We cannot ignore the geopolitical environment in our choices. The recent position of the United States, in the context of NATO … must make us think about the best options, because the predictability of our allies is a greater asset to take into account.”

The defense ministry later sent a statement to POLITICO saying: “F-35s fighters were not ruled out from the F-16 replacement selection process.”

The ministry added a series of criteria that will be considered by Lisbon, including: “The geopolitical context” and “The extent of restrictions on the use of aircraft.”

Then, Canada:

Canada is actively looking at potential alternatives to the U.S.-built F-35 stealth fighter and will hold conversations with rival aircraft makers, Defence Minister Bill Blair said late Friday, just hours after being reappointed to the post as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new cabinet.

[snip]

There has been a groundswell of support among Canadians to kill the $19-billion purchase and find aircraft other than those manufactured and maintained in the United States.

And now Switzerland (Google Translate):

SP Switzerland demands from the new Federal Council and VBS Chairman Martin Pfister to stop the F-35 procurement immediately. In addition, a parliamentary commission of inquiry (PUK) is to clarify the chaos in the VBS and the RUAG scandal. In view of the growing international uncertainty and the dangerous solo efforts of US President Donald Trump, the Federal Council must finally show its position. Switzerland needs a security policy that is geared towards Europe and focuses on cooperation, peacebuilding and diplomacy.

«Since Trump took office, Swiss armaments purchases such as the US F-35 jet have increasingly proven to be major mistakes. Trump could block the jets at any time, blackmailing the countries concerned to submit to his dictation in foreign policy », says SP co-president Cédric Wermuth. «In addition, the costs for the F-35 rise to uncontrollable heights, while central questions about its usability and independence remain unanswered. It is therefore clear that the VBS must finally act and stop the procurement of this dysfunctional project. »

Since Trump cut intelligence sharing with Ukraine, thereby making certain military platforms unusable, this has been inevitable.

Trump has started destroying America’s best export: military toys.

Update: Turkey joins in:

Turkey has submitted a request to purchase 40 Typhoon fighter jets from BAE Systems.

This is reported by the publication Defense Security Asia.

The request has been sent to the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom, which is to make a decision on the sale of the aircraft and the export of British technology to Turkey.

The implementation of this potential export contract will be entrusted to the United Kingdom, namely to BAE Systems, which carries out partial production and final assembly of Typhoon fighters at the company in Wharton.

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Pete Hegseth’s DOD Says It Is Too Fragile to Make 16 New Badges

The government has filed a request that Judge William Alsup stay his order requiring six agencies to reinstate fired employees pending their appeal to the Ninth Circuit. In support, the six agencies submitted declarations — most of which appear to be based off the same template, making the same claims — talking about what a hardship it would be to have to reinstate those people.

A declaration from Timothy Dill, “performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs,” confesses to a truly shocking level of ineptitude at Pete Hegseth’s DOD. Though only 16 people were fired, Dill says it would cause great hardship — potentially even whiplash!!!! — to reinstate those 16 people.

8. Department records indicate that it fired 16 total probationary employees on or about February 13 and 14, 2025.

9. The Court’s order, requiring the Department to reinstate all probationary employees terminated on or about February 13 and 14, 2025, will impose substantial burdens on the Department, cause significant confusion, and potentially subject terminated employees to extreme whiplash.

10. Offers of reinstatement will impose significant administrative burdens on the Department. Among other things, all reinstated employees will require onboarding, including certain training, filling out human resources paperwork, obtaining new security badges, and re-enrolling in benefits programs.

Worse still, an agency that employs 950,000 people would have to make 16 new badges.

I absolutely expected DOD to degrade quickly under the leadership vacuum appointment of such an unqualified man as Pete Hegseth would create.

But holy hell!?!?!?

The Department of Defense would face significant hardship because they had to make 16 new badges?

How does Pete Hegseth expect to take on China if his department can’t manage making 16 new badges?

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Troy Edgar Implies We Should Deport Elon Musk

Most people pointing to this insane interview NPR did with DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar focus on the import it has for Mahmoud Khalil’s case. When pressed repeatedly, Edgar can offer no proof to back his increasingly escalating claims that Khalil didn’t disclose something when he entered the US on a student visa; he just offers the classic troll answer that everything is clear.

Edgar: I think if he would have declared he’s a terrorist, we would have never let him in.

Martin: And what did he engage in that constitutes terrorist activity?

Edgar: I mean, Michel, have you watched it on TV? It’s pretty clear.

Michel: No, it isn’t. Well, explain it to those of us who have not or perhaps others have not. What exactly did you do?

Edgar: Well, I think it’s clear or we wouldn’t be talking about it. I mean, the reality is that if you watch and see what he’s done on the university …

Martin: Do you not know? Are you telling us that you’re not aware?

Edgar: I find it interesting that you’re not aware.

But the interview is far more interesting for the logic Edgar offers for Khalil’s detention as a Green Card holder entitled to more due process, which would suggest even Elon Musk — especially Elon Musk — must be deported under Trump’s Executive Orders, right along with Khalil.

Repeatedly Edgar suggests that the reason they can deport Khalil is because he initially came into the US on a student visa, even though he now has a Green Card. He asserts over and over that because Khalil originally entered on a student visa, it means the Secretary of the State can indefinitely review his status and deport him.

Edgar: Well, like I said, when you apply for a visa, you go through the process to be able to say that you’re here on a student visa, that doesn’t afford you all the rights of coming in and basically going through this process, agitating and supporting Hamas. So, at this point, yeah, the Secretary of State and the State Department maintains the right to revoke the visa, and that’s what they’ve done.

Martin: How did he support Hamas? Exactly what did he do?

Edgar: Well, I think you can see it on TV, right? This is somebody that we’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.

Martin: He’s a permanent resident. He’s not a visa holder. He’s a legal permanent resident. He has the green card, at least he did, until it’s alleged that it was revoked.

If the allegation is that Mr. Khalil organized protests and made speeches after which other people engaged in prohibited activity, or, say, violent activity. Well, Mr. Trump gave a political speech on January 6, 2021, after which some individuals engaged in violent and illegal acts. How is this any different?

Edgar: President Trump’s a citizen and the president of the United States. This is a person that came in under a visa. And again, the secretary of state at any point can take a look and evaluate that visa and decide if they want to revoke it.

Martin: He’s a legal permanent resident. I have to keep insisting on that. He is a legal permanent resident.

So what is the standard? Is any criticism of the Israeli government a deportable offense?

Edgar: Like I said, I think that at this point when he entered into the country on a student visa, at any point we can go through and evaluate what his status is.

Martin: Is any criticism of the United States government a deportable offense?

Edgar: Like I said, if you go through the process and you’re a student and you’re here on a visa and you go through it, at any point …

Martin: Is any criticism of the government a deportable offense?

Edgar: Let me put it this way, Michel, imagine if he came in and filled out the form and said, ‘I want a student visa.’ They asked him, ‘What are you going to do here?’ And he says, ‘I’m going to go and protest.’ We would have never let him into the country. [my emphasis]

Edgar is wrong. This is not actually the basis on which the government claims to be relying to deport Khalil. A document published by WaPo confirms that the government is relying on the Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act as their basis to deport Khalil.

The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

On the basis of the foregoing, it is charged that you are subject to removal from the United States pursuant to the following provision(s) of law:

Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, in that the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

That document relies on the fact that Khalil is not a citizen, as does the law itself.

This document — dated March 9 — was filed the day after Khalil was detained. Like so much else, it could be an attempt to retcon a decision made off inaccurate information — though this Atlantic piece reveals that there was a second, still-unidentified Green Card holder on the same list targeting Khalil.

It turns out Secretary of State Marco Rubio identified a second individual to be deported, and included that person alongside Khalil in a March 7 letter to the Department of Homeland Security. Both were identified in the letter as legal permanent residents, The Atlantic has learned.

Rubio’s letter notified DHS that he had revoked both targets’ visas, setting in motion plans for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and attempt to deport them, according to a senior DHS official and another U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe how the operation against Khalil took shape.

In addition to the two names in Rubio’s initial letter, the State Department has also sent the names of “one or two” more students whose visas it has revoked, according to the DHS official, who described the first group of names as an opening move, with “more to come.”

The Atlantic also notes a key error in the form, as well as the claim that DHS claims not to know when Khalil first entered the country.

Perhaps there’s some way to reconcile Edgar’s views with all this (or perhaps Edgar, who was sworn in last week, simply missed some of this). But the claimed basis for Khalil’s deportation doesn’t rely on the fact that he first came in on a student visa. It’s that he remains a non-citizen. Though I think Rubio needs to apply two clauses: first, his finding that Khalil presents a foreign policy problem for the US.

(C) Foreign policy
(i) In general
An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.

And also a finding that the fact that he hadn’t broken any laws before he entered the country would still not matter; he’s still a problem for foreign policy.

(ii) Exceptions
The exceptions described in clauses (ii) and (iii) of section 1182(a)(3)(C) of this title shall apply to deportability under clause (i) in the same manner as they apply to inadmissibility under section 1182(a)(3)(C)(i) of this title.

(iii) Exception for other aliens
An alien, not described in clause (ii), shall not be excludable or subject to restrictions or conditions on entry into the United States under clause (i) because of the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States, unless the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.

So I think Edgar is wrong on the law and wrong on what DOJ and State are at least claiming went down.

But to understand how problematic this premise is, take Edgar’s claim — that anyone who ever came in on a student visa could always have his status reviewed — and apply them to Elon Musk.

The underlying framework under which Khalil is facing deportation is a claim that Trump is combatting antisemitism. It’s all based on an Executive Order holding that it is the policy of the United States to combat antisemitism … using all available and appropriate legal tools.

Sec. 2. Policy. It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.

The EO is focused exclusively on universities and defines antisemitism in the context of the October 7 attack.

Sec. 3. Additional Measures to Combat Campus Anti-Semitism. (a) Within 60 days of the date of this order, the head of each executive department or agency (agency) shall submit a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, identifying all civil and criminal authorities or actions within the jurisdiction of that agency, beyond those already implemented under Executive Order 13899, that might be used to curb or combat anti-Semitism, and containing an inventory and analysis of all pending administrative complaints, as of the date of the report, against or involving institutions of higher education alleging civil-rights violations related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023, campus anti-Semitism.

Trump wants every agency to find ways to deport students, and only students, implicitly those who support Palestine. (This is, I suspect, in significant part a Stephen Miller wet dream to use the tools of the Civil Rights movement against tolerance.)

He has done nothing to pursue his policy of combatting antisemitism, such as in DOGE, right there in the White House.

But the Civil Rights Act on which Trump is relying applies to all federal funding. It applies to government advisors. It applies to government contractors. It applies to government advertising or public statements, such as the ones that are being released only on Xitter.

It might even apply to some inauguration festivities.

And key government advisor Elon Musk is not only fostering antisemitism on his social media platform, he’s using his public government platform to adopt antisemitic symbols.

The clause State is using in an attempt to deport Khalil appears right between one targeting actual terrorists (remember that right wing hate groups have been deemed terrorists around the world) and those involved in Nazi genocide.

And yet Trump has no complaint about the former student visa holder Elon Musk using his platforms and government funding to defend the actual Neo-Nazis.

To be clear: Edgar is wrong. It’s not that Khalil entered on a student visa, it’s that he’s not a citizen. Elon was allowed to become a citizen, so is safe from this particular targeted persecution.

But his use of government funding to platform antisemitism should not be.

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Democrats Have to Stop Making Political Decisions with an Eye Towards 2026

I’ve been out of pocket as events moved towards today’s cloture vote on the dogshit continuing resolution Republicans have written. It’s not yet clear whether seven Democrats (in addition to John Fetterman) will join Chuck Schumer — who has said he’ll vote for cloture — in helping Republicans pass it, or whether a Democrat will buy some time.

It’s clear that Schumer’s excuse only emphasizes that there are no good options. He says if there’s a shutdown, Republicans will only reopen those parts of government they want. In the face of the shuttering of USAID and dismantlement of Department of Education, that seems like a futile worry.

Among the best arguments I’ve seen against a shutdown, laid out but dropped here by Josh Marshall, is that a shutdown would provide Trump a way to halt legal proceedings by deeming those lawyers non-essential.

I was told yesterday that a major driver for Dems was the fear that a shutdown would slow down or stop the various court cases against DOGE. Honestly, that sounded so stupid to me that I was skeptical. But this afternoon I heard it from other key directions. I don’t know if it’s the biggest driver but just on the basis of what I heard I get a sense that it’s a major one. That seems so wrongheaded, so lawyer-brained, that when I got the final piece of the puzzle in front of me and realized this was a real thing, it was hard for me to even process.

Schumer described it this way in his speech yesterday:

Justice, and the courts, extremely troubling, I believe. A shutdown could stall Federal court cases, one of the best redoubts against Trump’s lawlessness, and could require a furlough of critical staff at the courts, denying victims and defendants alike their day in court, dragging out appeals and clogging the justice system for months and even years.

I don’t think this is lawyer-brained at all. Trump could simply call the lawyers engaged in these suits non-essential, stalling legal challenges in their current status, and then finding new test cases to establish a precedent while judges were stymied.

In both Phoenix, where a reduction in force affected all the people running the courthouse, and in the Perkins Coie lawsuit, where a hearing the other day reviewed all the Executive Branch personnel, from Marshals to GSA, who keep the courthouse running, the Executive’s ability to limit the Judiciary via manipulation of facilities and staff has already become a live issue. Here’s how Beryl Howell described the way in which Trump’s attempt to exclude Perkins Coie from federal buildings could be enforced via Executive branch personnel.

THE COURT: I just want to make sure because we, in the judiciary — we’re the third branch. We are not the executive branch. We are not subject to this guidance. But our landlord, and all of the federal courthouses around the country is GSA —

MR. BUTSWINKAS: GSA.

THE COURT: — General Services Administration. And the people who do the security at our front doors, all across the country in federal courthouses, are DOJ-component employees from the U.S. Marshals Service or court security officers. So they are all executive branch employees.

Meanwhile the court cases are making progress. Just this week, we’ve had two judges order reinstatement of all the people fired, grant FOIA status to DOGE, and grant discovery to Democratic Attorneys General (plus in one of the two reinstatement cases, Judge Alsup ordered a deposition from an OPM person involved in the firing). As of this week, DOGE now has to answer for its actions in the courts.

Imagine, for example, if a shutdown made it easier for DHS to keep Mahmoud Khalil in Louisiana for the duration of a shutdown, even if they simply said moving him back to SDNY (or New Jersey) is not a priority. There are other cases where the government is being ordered to pay back payments; a shutdown would make such recourse unavailable to anyone who has not yet sued. In the financial clawback cases (where EPA and FEMA seized funds already awarded), a shutdown would give the FBI time to try to frame the case against plaintiffs they’re pursuing, while the plaintiffs get no protection in the meantime. A key flaw was revealed in the lawsuit against Perkins Coie in the hearing the other day (which I’ll return to); if given the time, I would expect Trump to try the same trick against another law firm, fixing that flaw, in an attempt to eliminate any anti-Trump legal teams in the country.

So the concern that a shutdown would eliminate one of two sources of power is real.

I’m agnostic about whether a shutdown brings more advantage than risks.

One thing I am absolutely certain of, however, is that Democrats on both sides of this debate are framing it in terms of 2026. Those justifiably furious at Chuck Schumer are thinking in terms of primaries against any Senator who supports cloture. They’re demanding a filibuster so that elected Democrats, as Democrats, be seen wielding some power, so the party doesn’t look feckless to potential voters. Those afraid of a shutdown are discussing electoral consequences in 2026. Polls are measuring who would be blamed in the polls.

This mindset has plagued both sides of Democratic debates for two months, with disastrous consequences.

Democracy will be preserved or lost in the next three months. And democracy will be won or lost via a nonpartisan political fight over whether enough Americans want to preserve their way of life to fight back, in a coalition that includes far more than Democrats. You win this fight by treating Trump and Elon as the villain, not by making any one Democrat a hero (or worse still, squandering week after week targeting Democratic leaders while letting Elon go ignored).

And Democrats, on both sides of this fight, are not fighting that fight. I’ve seen none of the most powerful voices — not AOC, not Bernie, not Jasmine Crockett, not Tim Walz, not Pete Buttigieg — put out a video talking about the fight over impoundment, about the stakes of having elected representatives of both parties fight for funding for their own constituents.

Democrats who want a shutdown have done none of the messaging to those already hurt by Trump’s power grab work to make it a short term political win, to explain the tie between right wing capitulation to Trump and services shutting down. Instead, they’ve been fighting among themselves, mobilizing politically active Democrats.

I get the anger with Schumer — though I do think his concerns about the courts need to be taken very seriously.

But until Democrats stop thinking in terms of their own leadership in Congress but instead think exclusively about winning the political fight with people being hurt, not as Democrats, but as people opposed to fascism, they’re going to be looking for power in the wrong places.

Update: Someone on Bluesky defending AOC, arguing that this appearance from her on CNN amounted to the explanation about impoundment I said is missing. It’s a great appearance, and makes the anti-CR case superbly. But I don’t think it gets through the jargon about how government is funded or why. Plus, it’s not viral!

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It’s Not the Shameless Executive Power Grab in Plain Sight, It’s the Attempt to Retcon It Afterwards

This, from Steve Vladeck, is a helpful piece on the plight of Mamoud Khalil, the Columbia student detained by ICE the other day whom Trump is trying to deport. As he describes, the case is clearly an attempt to police speech, but (as many things are in a counterterrorism frame) the Trump administration might well offer up some plausible legal justifications to defend their actions.

[A]lthough what the government has done to this point is profoundly disturbing, and is, in my view, unconstitutional retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech, I’m not sure it is as clearly unlawful as a lot of folks online have suggested. And that’s a pretty big problem all by itself.

[snip]

Third, what is the legal basis pursuant to which the government is seeking to remove Khalil?
This brings us to the central “merits” question. What is the exact basis on which Khalil, in the government’s view, is subject to removal from the United States? Suffice it to say, President Trump’s social media post is not exactly specific here, nor has Secretary of State Rubio provided much additional clarity.

For what it’s worth, my best guess (and it is only a guess) is that the government is going to rely upon one or both of two very specific provision of immigration law.

The first, 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(4)(C), provides that “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.” There’s a caveat protecting such a non-citizen from removal “because of the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States,” but only “unless the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s [continued presence] would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” Thus, if Secretary Rubio makes (or has made) such a personal determination, that would provide at least an outwardly lawful basis for pursuing Khalil’s removal—so long as Rubio has also made timely notifications of his determinations to the chairs of the House Foreign Affairs, Senate Foreign Relations, and House and Senate Judiciary Committees required by 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(C)(iv). (I’ve seen no evidence that he’s done so, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t.)

The second provision is 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)(i)(VII), which renders both inadmissible and removable any non-citizen who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization.” Perhaps the argument is going to be that, insofar as Khalil was involved in organizing pro-Palestinian protests on Columbia’s campus, he was “endors[ing] or espous[ing]” terrorist activity (to wit, by Hamas).

I know there’s a lot of technical language here. The key point is that it’s at least possible that the government has a non-frivolous case for seeking Khalil’s removal under one or both of these provisions—especially if Secretary Rubio invoked § 1227(a)(4)(C). And insofar as the government is relying upon those provisions to pursue Khalil’s removal, that might bring with it a sufficient statutory basis for his arrest and detention pending his removal proceeding. We’ll see what the government actually says when it files a defense of its behavior before Judge Furman; for present purposes, it seems worth stressing that there may well be a legal basis for its deeply troubling conduct. [my emphasis]

I of course don’t question Vladeck’s legal analysis (some immigration experts were pointing to the same immigration law provisions as well).

I instead want to suggest that with this case, as with several others, it appears that the Trump Administration made a shameless power grab without doing their investigative work first. So what we see going forward may be nothing more than an attempt to retcon it, to change their story after the fact to adjust for new facts.

Here are some ways Trump has been retconning (or attempting to) in the 50 days of this short term already.

  • After Elon Musk made exaggerated claims about NYC’s use of hotels to house migrants paid for by a FEMA grant, Kristi Noem loudly bragged that she had fired the people involved and had clawed back the money involved. In its lawsuit suing to get the money back, NYC disputes the underlying claim that the government had pointed to (that Roosevelt Hotel was being used to support crime and NYC knew it). One of the fired workers, Mary Comans, disputed Noem’s claim about her own firing in one declaration. And now she’s suing not just for her termination, but for the false claims made about her publicly. As that suit was being filed, a top FEMA lawyer was fired, and those involved suspect it had to do with a request that the lawyer make claims about the clawback to give it legal justification.
  • After Elon and others repeatedly claims made in a Project Veritas video about efforts to fund the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund at the end of the Biden Administration, Lee Zeldin bragged that he would claw back that funding, in such a way that may expose him to legal claims. In an attempt to do that, Emil Bove and Ed Martin pressured a senior DC USAO prosecutor, Denise Cheung, to not just freeze the funds, but do so with a claim of probable cause based on the PV video. That led her to quit and release her resignation statement. Only after that, the FBI interviewed the guy in the PV video; according to his attorney, Mark Zaid, he had nothing to do with the disbursements in question. And since then, Ed Martin has been jurisdiction shopping attempting to pursue this case. Zeldin is trying to get the Acting Inspector General to invent justification for this after the fact. One of the entities involved, Climate Fund, has sued the EPA, Zeldin, and Citibank (there will be a hearing on its request for a TRO tomorrow).
  • With a great many DOGE activities (but most obviously with the USAID closure), the government initially claimed that it had stopped funding pursuant to Trump’s first-day Executive Orders, but after providers got Temporary Restraining Orders, the government (as laid out in a series of court declarations by Pete Marocco, in the USAID case) claimed, instead, that everything was shut down pursuant to a contract review involving Marco Rubio. The shutdown of contracts by itself may be totally legal (or at least defensible), but the way they did so raises real questions about whether the government was lying about Rubio’s personal involvement in the review process, and therefore its legality. (I’ll return to this example, and Rubio’s agency — double entendre intended — more generally, in a follow-up.)

With all of these things, like the Khalil detention, there might be some legal argument that it was legal.

But along the way, because the government didn’t have their story straight when they took action, they subsequently took actions that may cause, at the very least, legal friction going forward, if not legal liability themselves. Noem made allegedly false claims about Comans. A FEMA lawyer resigned, potentially available to offer conflicting testimony about what happened. Cheung resigned, loudly, exposing her opinion that Martin didn’t have criminal probable cause to pursue the clawback. Martin jurisdiction shopped. Marocco has made claims in declarations that defy credulity (and even conflict with a tweet Rubio posted yesterday).

More judges have gotten dragged in, with the kinds of fact sets that tend to piss off judges.

In Khalil’s case, there are several details that suggest the Trump Administration may be trying to retcon their basis for detaining him.

First, there were several right wing groups who first doxed and then targeted him. As with the PV video, right wingers are running with allegations regardless of the evidence. Last year after Columbia booted Khalil, they reversed the decision for lack of evidence. A right wing dossier on Khalil doesn’t actually include examples of antisemitism — but it dies invoke Hamas relentlessly. More recently, State has been doing AI searches to target people; thus far, anything this government has done with AI has had ridiculous problem. So there’s good reason to believe there was shitty information that went in the front end of this effort.

Further, it appears that ICE didn’t know that Khalil was a Green Card holder when they came to arrest him. The habeas petition claims that the agents “looked confused” when he provided proof of status.

15. On the evening of March 8, 2025, at approximately 8:30 p.m., [redacted] and his wife were returning to their Columbia University-owned apartment from a friend’s home. When they arrived at their apartment building, [redacted] and his wife were approached by approximately four people who were dressed in plain clothes. All of them entered the lobby of the apartment building.

16. When the people approached and his wife, they asked, “Are you [redacted]? When [redacted] answered in the affirmative, the men identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and that they have to take into custody. The agents told [redacted]’s wife to go up to her apartment, and that if she would not leave they threatened to arrest her, too.

17. [redacted]’s wife retrieved s immigration documents to show the agent that is a lawful
permanent resident. She handed the documents to the agent, who was talking to someone on the
phone. The agent looked confused when he saw the documents and said, “He has a green card.”
[redacted]’s wife heard the agent repeat that they were being ordered to bring in anyways.

[snip]

Attorney Greer identified herself as s attorney and asked who she was speaking with. The agent identified himself as Special Agent Elvin Hernandez of Homeland Security. Attorney Greer asked if Agent Hernandez had a warrant, and he answered in the affirmative, stating that [redacted]’s student visa had been revoked by the U.S. Department of State and therefore they were detaining him. Attorney Greer advised Agent Hernandez that is a lawful permanent resident and has the right to due process. Agent Hernandez responded that the Department of State had revoked [redacted]’s green card, too, and that he would be brought in front of an immigration judge. The agent stated that he would be taking to 26 Federal Plaza.

19. The agents then handcuffed and brought him outside where there were multiple vehicles
waiting. [redacted]’s wife asked for the names of the agents, their contact information, and how to
reach them to follow up on her husband’s detention, but they only advised her that would be
taken to 26 Federal Plaza, and otherwise refused to speak with her. They left her no business card
or any information at all as to how to find out where her husband will be taken, on what grounds,
or who she can contact. [my emphasis]

If the backup to the warrant to detain Khalil was premised on him being a student visa holder (this Tweet targeting Khalil directly asks Rubio to strip his visa), then it’s almost impossible that Marco Rubio would have done the concerted review that stripping him of his Green Card would require (much less the notice to Congress, which Vladeck laid out above), just as it’s “implausible” that Rubio really reviewed the USAID contracts that got shut down.

That is, the ICE agent’s representation that State had stripped Khalil’s visa when they detained him may not yet have been true, whatever else State tries going forward.

Finally, while it is normal for ICE to whisk people off to Louisiana like they did Khalil and normal for it to take a day or so to show up in the system (meaning, he wasn’t specifically disappeared, but rather, America’s detention systems work in this Kafkaesque way normally), the current record suggests that ICE moved Khalil after his attorneys had submitted the habeas petition. As Vladeck notes, that should help Khalil to retain the jurisdiction in SDNY, before Jesse Fruman and in the Second rather than Fifth Circuits.

Kahlil is currently being held in Jena, Louisiana—which is in the Alexandria Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana (and, as importantly, the Fifth Circuit). It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the government tried to argue that the New York federal courts lack jurisdiction over Kahlil’s petition—because they lack jurisdiction over his “immediate custodian,” i.e., the head of the ICE detention facility in Jena. Indeed, this is the exact argument on which the Bush administration prevailed in the Supreme Court in the Jose Padilla case in 2004—when a U.S. citizen detained in South Carolina as an “enemy combatant” sought to challenge his detention in Manhattan, which is where he had last been before he was transferred to military custody.

But there are two potential grounds on which Padilla can be distinguished. First, in Padilla, the habeas petition wasn’t filed until after Padilla had been physically removed from the Southern District of New York. Here, Khalil’s lawyers have represented that they filed before he was transferred to Louisiana (at 4:40 a.m., no less!). If that’s true (and there’s no reason to believe that it isn’t), that would make this a very different case. After all, different line of Supreme Court precedent provides that the federal government can’t defeat jurisdiction in a habeas case by transferring the petitioner after the petition is filed.

But it also raised questions about whether ICE was trying to whisk him away to defeat the legal proceeding that was pending as soon as that petition was filed.

There’s that old adage, which seems inoperative since Nixon, that it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. With Trump and under expansive authorities of Article II, it often looks like it’s not the initial power grab that might create legal problems. It’s the attempt to retcon that power grab after it becomes clear the facts were not what Trump or others believed when the Administration took action.

Over and over, Trump 2.0 has taken aggressive steps based off bullshit, much of it coming from Elon or other far right propagandists. And over and over, Trump’s top people keep creating problems for themselves as they try to adjust the (legal) narrative to match their evolving understanding of the facts.

So as we go forward with discussions about Khalil, don’t necessarily assume that legal justifications that the government could have used were yet the legal justifications they may argue going forward.

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