A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s morning memo. Subscribe to the email version.
Here we go again?
A career federal prosecutor in Virginia would be willing to refuse to file charges against the New York Attorney General, the New York Attorney General, on false mortgage fraud charges.
Given President Trump’s push to charge James, Elizabeth Yusi’s denial in the Eastern District of Virginia has lawyers in the office preparing for her firing, MSNBC reports. Yusi oversees major criminal prosecutions in the Norfolk office; The James property under surveillance is in Norfolk. The Guardian later confirmed the gist of the MSNBC report that Yusi does not believe she has probable cause to charge James.
The exact timing of the unfolding confrontation remains unclear. MSNBC reported that Yusi expects to present his declination decision in the James case to U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan “in the coming weeks.”
Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Siebert, was coerced by Trump for refusing to pursue politically motivated prosecutions of former FBI Director Jim Comey and James. Facing a looming statute of limitations deadline, Halligan’s first act as U.S. Attorney was to immediately write Comey up on trumped-up charges of lying to Congress. Without pressing issues with prescribing limits, James’ case does not appear to be on a similar fast track.
As Molly Roberts writes at Lawfare, the James case is even weaker than the case against Comey: “It seems entirely unlikely that a prosecutor could reasonably expect to obtain a conviction on any of the charges included in the criminal referral – which explains why, after interviewing and presenting the Grand Jury witnesses, insurers did not think about the achievement of James’ Nichet at the birth of James, the shit from the Eas Prove that James knowingly made a false statement intended to influence a bank. »
John Durham undermined the case against Comey
ABC News reported that former special counsel John Durham “told federal prosecutors investigating James Comey that he was unable to uncover evidence that would support false statements or obstruction charges against the former FBI director.”
Durham’s controversial tenure as special counsel included the highly politicized investigation into investigators who probed Russian interference in the 2016 election. Durham met with federal prosecutors in August, according to the ABC News report: “[H]Do the findings increase the prospect that [he] could now become a key figure who helps Comey’s defense. »
Durham was not alone. Investigators from the DCUS Attorney’s Office examined Comey for years without finding any chargeable offenses.
After two months, Virginia prosecutors came to the same conclusions, ABC News reported.
But as we now know, Halligan pushed back against the decision not to indict Comey and personally took the case to a grand jury, which indicted him on two of the three charges she had sought.
The news Durham was interviewed recently by investigators came as a judge issued Comey’s indictment Wednesday to accommodate the large crowd expected at the Alexandria courthouse.
Correction: Durham had no involvement in the prosecution of Hunter Biden, as the original version of this article erroneously stated. Special counsel David Weiss handled the Biden case.
A new series of investigations into the investigators begins
The Republican noise machine is seizing on newly released information that in its early days the Jan. 6 criminal investigation sought phone records of several GOP senators, including Lindsey Graham (SC), Bill Hagerty (TN), Josh Hawley (MO), Ron Johnson (WI), Dan Sullivan (AK), Tommy Tuberville (AL), Cynthia Lummis (WY), and Marsha Blackburn (TN). Phone records for Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) were also obtained for the period just around the election certification, suggesting that investigators were looking into whether lawmakers were involved in the fake voter scheme.
To be clear, information about the January 6 investigation was released by Trump’s FBI to Republicans on the Hill to rewrite the story of the failed coup attempt and continue to attempt to cast it as a Biden-era abuse of power. Hill Republicans held a press conference yesterday to trumpet the new information.
Not all media saw through the charade. Punchbowl headlined “new January 6 controversy…”
Happy reading
TPM’s Josh Kovensky: The Trump Administration Is Mostly Unnoticed in Suppressing Opposition
Trump Assault on Rule of Law Even Worse Than Expected
Emily Bazelon returns to a group of former top officials in the D.C. legal establishment whom she interviewed last year before the election about the threat a Trump II presidency would pose to the rule of law. The group’s new assessment of what happened in the first months of Trump’s second term is extremely grim.
Abrego Garcia still twisting in the wind
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland continues to get a slow ride from the Trump administration in one of the Kilmar Abrego Garcia cases. But at a hearing yesterday in Abrego Garcia’s Habeas Corpus case, she gave the administration a deadline of this week to show that it plans to deport him to a third country or order his release from detention.
Illinois sues to block Trump’s National Guard deployment
A federal judge in Chicago refused to immediately rule on Illinois’ request for an injunction that blocks President Trump from deploying National Guard troops to the state.
Finally, some kind of legal justification for Trump’s cartel war?
Trump’s DOJ Office of Legal Counsel produced a classified legal memo “that justifies deadly strikes against a secret and vast list of suspected cartels and drug traffickers,” CNN reports:
The opinion is important, legal experts said, because it appears to justify open war against a secret list of groups, giving the president the power to designate drug traffickers as enemy combatants and have them summarily killed without legal review. Historically, those involved in drug trafficking were considered criminals with due process rights, the Coast Guard banned drug trafficking vessels, and arrested smugglers.
The administration has not provided a fully fleshed out legal justification for lawless and deadly attacks on suspected drug boats on the high seas. It has also rebuffed Congressional requests for the OLC memo.
Trump Pentagon supports worst of his press restrictions
After negotiations with national news organizations, the Pentagon withdrew a new rule that was interpreted as requiring it to sign off on reporting that included defense information it had not officially published, the NYT reports.
Uncle Walter is spinning in his grave
The new owners of CBS have officially installed Bari Weiss as the new editor-in-chief of CBS News.
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