A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.
The Retribution: Russia investigation edition
The New York Times previously hinted at the reasons for the abrupt resignation in August of former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert as acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, but the newspaper has now compiled a more comprehensive account of what happened.
Gilbert was forced to resign or be fired, the New York Times reported, for refusing to fire his office’s top career prosecutor, who had failed to find enough evidence to pursue a far-fetched theory to investigate investigators into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The unconvincing allegation is that the investigators themselves mishandled classified documents. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino seized burned bags at FBI headquarters that contained classified documents from the case as evidence that top officials were destroying documents to hide or protect former investigators. The most benign and plausible explanation – that classified documents remain stored digitally on FBI servers and that destroying hard copies is a routine security measure – has been ignored in favor of elaborate plots that save President Trump.
The case landed in Gilbert’s office ostensibly because his district includes an FBI classified document storage facility, but that appears to be at least partly a pretext to find a more favorable jury pool outside of Washington, D.C. or Northern Virginia.
Gilbert was ordered by top DOJ officials to open an investigation into the matter shortly after taking office, but he “told his superiors that he did not think there was enough evidence to warrant a grand jury investigation,” the New York Times reports.
From there, things “rapidly escalated,” as Gilbert put it in a memorable social media post of a Will Farrell meme. Presenter:
Frustrated by that response, aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, blamed a veteran career lawyer in the office who they said had influenced Mr. Gilbert: Zachary Lee, a veteran prosecutor with more than two decades of experience in public corruption and narcotics matters, among others.
Justice Department officials ordered Mr. Gilbert to replace Mr. Lee with Robert Tracci as his deputy, these sources said. After Mr. Lee’s demotion, senior department officials suspected that Mr. Gilbert still consulted primarily with Mr. Lee, whom they came to view as a holdover from the Biden administration, although he was hired during the George W. Bush administration and promoted during the first Trump administration, these people added. At one point, Mr. Blanche spoke directly to Mr. Gilbert and offered him more resources to pursue the case, according to a person familiar with the events.
When Gilbert still did not comply, he was told he would be fired, and so he resigned.
Tracci is now the acting U.S. attorney and Lee has left office, according to the New York Times.
The new revelations about Gilbert’s surprisingly stiff spine — he is a longtime Republican politician who has towed the party line, to put it mildly, for years — are another stark example of the militarization of the Justice Department. This is a particularly notable incident because Gilbert had been nominated for the permanent position, but he resisted coming to terms and was forced to resign after only a month on the job.
The Punishment: Jack Smith Edition
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter to former special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday asking him to testify. Jordan is taking advantage of another conspiratorial pretext to investigate investigators: GOP-dictated news that Smith obtained phone call recordings of some GOP lawmakers around January 6, 2021 as part of his investigation into the failed coup attempt.
Jordan’s decision came on the same day that video of some of Smith’s first public remarks about his work in the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations — in an interview last week in London with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann — was widely released.
Worst of the worst: “I love Hitler”
Politico has receipts from a Telegram group chat between leaders of the Young Republicans group who exchanged racist, misogynistic and anti-Semitic private messages with abandon between early January and mid-August of this year.
US revokes visas following Charlie Kirk comments
On the same day that President Trump posthumously presented Charlie Kirk with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House, the State Department announced that it had revoked the visas of six people who posted anti-Kirk comments on social media.
US illegally attacks fifth Caribbean boat
President Trump announced on social media a new US strike against a suspected drug trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela, saying the strike killed six men. Trump provided no evidence to support claims that it was a drug smuggling boat and very little other information about the attack. The administration continues to provide virtually no legal justification for this unprecedented series of attacks.
Since Mr. Trump and his Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, launched the operation last month, a wide range of legal scholars have called premeditated and summary extrajudicial killings illegal,” notes Charlie Savage. “They have noted that the military cannot legally target civilians – even criminal suspects – who do not currently pose a threat and are not directly participating to hostilities.”
Along the same lines, CNN reports how Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has sidelined Pentagon lawyers, including applying political litmus tests to senior JAG leaders, while pushing the legal boundaries of military action:
A recent flashpoint for the role of U.S. military lawyers has been the series of strikes against boats in the Caribbean, with several current and former JAGs telling CNN that the strikes did not appear legal. International law lawyers in the Defense Department’s attorney general’s office also raised concerns about the legality of the strikes, people familiar with the matter said.
Responding in a statement to CNN, the Pentagon spokesperson issued a challenge (emphasis mine):
The War Department categorically denies that Pentagon lawyers having knowledge of these operations have expressed their concerns about the legality of the strikes carried out so far, as they are aware that we have a solid legal basis. … “No lawyer implied questioned the legality of the strikes in the Caribbean and instead informed subordinate commanders and Secretary Hegseth that the proposed actions were authorized before they began.
Your casual reminder that strikes against suspected drug cartel boats, combined with the increased deployment of U.S. military assets to the region, appear largely intended as a bullshit exercise against Venezuela.
“Strap Up Cowboy”: a major scandal in another era
A Florida state judge has issued a restraining order against Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) prohibiting him from coming within 500 feet of his former girlfriend, a state Republican committeewoman who is also the reigning Miss United States. The judge in his decision called her a “victim of dating violence.”
Lindsey Langston ended their relationship earlier this year after the married Mills was linked to an alleged assault by a third woman in Washington, D.C. Mills allegedly continued to contact her after the breakup and threatened to blackmail her with nude photos, NBC News reports:
Mills allegedly sent a series of harassing communications to Langston in May and June, which are cited in the judgment: including a message he wrote to Langston on May 15 that she “might want to say this to all the men you date if we meet at some point.”[.]»
Mill has not commented on these latest developments.
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