May 9, 2025
Yesterday afternoon, President Donald Trump withdrew his nomination for interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin to become U.S. attorney in Washington D.C., the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital. A Missouri political operative with no experience as a prosecutor, Martin defended the January 6 rioters and fired the prosecutors who had worked on their cases, threatened to investigate Democrats and critics, and hosted a notorious antisemite on his podcast. His nomination proved too much for Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), who joined all the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose his confirmation, deadlocking the committee and blocking the nomination.
Trump announced he was moving Martin into three roles that do not require Senate confirmation. He will become the new director of the Weaponization Working Group at the Department of Justice, an associate deputy attorney general, and a pardon attorney. “In these highly important roles, Ed will make sure we finally investigate the Weaponization of our Government under the Biden Regime, and provide much needed Justice for its victims,” Trump posted on social media.
To replace Martin, Trump has tapped Fox News Channel host Jeanine Pirro, who is passionately loyal to him. He noted among her qualifications that she “hosted her own Fox News Show, Justice with Judge Jeanine, for ten years, and is currently Co-Host of The Five, one of the Highest Rated Shows on Television.”
Matt Gertz of Media Matters for America recalls that the Fox News Channel took Pirro off the air after the 2020 election because of her conspiracy-theory-filled rants. In emails turned up in the defamation suit against the Fox News Channel for pushing the lie that voting machines had tainted the election results, her executive producer called her “nuts” and a “reckless maniac,” who “should never be on live television.” That lawsuit cost the Fox News Channel $787 million.
A similar scenario played out earlier this week when Trump withdrew his nomination of former Fox News Channel contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat for surgeon general, the officer who oversees the nation’s public health professionals. Nesheiwat is the sister-in-law of former national security advisor Mike Waltz, let go after he admitted a journalist to a group chat about a military strike on the Houthis in Yemen. As Anthony Clark reported in The Last Campaign, she had falsely represented her “medical education, board certifications, and military service.”
Trump’s replacement pick for surgeon general, Casey Means, did not finish her residency and is not currently licensed as a doctor but has embraced the anti-vax positions of Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including his thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. Still, she is not extreme enough for some of Kennedy’s followers, who are unhappy with the nomination.
When asked yesterday why he had nominated her, Trump answered: “Because Bobby thought she was fantastic…. I don’t know her. I listened to the recommendation of Bobby.” Today, Casey Means’s brother Calley, a White House advisor, went after Trump ally Laura Loomer for opposing the nomination, posting on social media that he had “[j]ust received information that Laura Loomer is taking money from industry to scuttle President Trump’s agenda.” Loomer responded: “You’re so full of sh*t.”
The administration appears not to be able to attract the caliber of federal officials to which Americans have become accustomed.
Federal Bureau of Investigation director Kash Patel, who did not have experience in law enforcement when he took the job, has drawn criticism from current and former officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, for reducing FBI briefings, traveling frequently on personal matters, and appearing repeatedly at pro sporting events.
Yesterday Patel showed up at a hearing for the Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee on the FBI’s spending plan for 2025, but he had not produced the plan, which by law was supposed to have been turned over more than a week ago. When Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) called the absence of the plan “absurd” and asked Patel when they could expect the plan, he answered he did not have a timeline.
Stacey Young, a former DOJ lawyer who co-founded Justice Connection, which supports current and former DOJ employees under pressure from the administration, told NBC’s Ken Dilanian: “There’s a growing sense among the ranks that there’s a leadership void. And that the highest echelons of the bureau are more concerned about currying favor with the president, retribution, and leaks than the actual work.”
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) took Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even more fully to task. At a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security yesterday, Murphy told Noem: “[Y]our department is out of control. You are spending like you don’t have a budget,” he said. “You are on the verge of running out of money for the fiscal year…. You're on track to trigger the Anti-Deficiency Act. That means you are going to spend more money than you have been allocated by Congress. This is a rare occurrence, and it is wildly illegal. Your agency will be broke by July, over two months before the end of the fiscal year.”
The obsession with the border, he continued, “has left the country unprotected elsewhere…. To fund the border, you have illegally gutted spending for cybersecurity. As we speak, Russian and Chinese hackers are having a field day attacking our nation. You have withdrawn funds for disaster prevention. Storms are going to kill more people in this country because of your illegal withholding of these funds.”
On Wednesday, Customs and Border Patrol confirmed that it had been using the communication app TeleMessage, which was a clone of Signal and which was hacked earlier this week. On Tuesday, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate “the government’s use of TeleMessage Archiver,” which “seriously threatens U.S. national security.”
Last night, New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport suffered another 90-second radar blackout at 3:55 am. On May 6, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took to social media to blame his predecessor in the Biden administration for the troubles in the airline system.
Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported today that the White House is so fed up with the turmoil around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth it will not permit him to name his own new chief of staff after his first one resigned last month.
Tim Marchman of Wired reported yesterday that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard failed to follow basic cybersecurity protocol, reusing “the same weak password on multiple accounts for years.”
The administration appears chaotic, but far from taking the chaos in hand, President Trump appears happy to let others take the reins. As his tariffs are beginning to bite, today he suggested his worry about the economic fallout by posting “CHINA SHOULD OPEN UP ITS MARKET TO USA—WOULD BE SO GOOD FOR THEM!!! CLOSED MARKETS DON’T WORK ANYMORE!!!” Five minutes later, he posted: “80% Tariff on China seems right! Up to Scott B.”
The Constitution gives Congress alone the power to set tariffs. Trump seized that power for himself by declaring an emergency. Now he appears to be handing that power to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, likely so that he can blame Bessent when things go poorly.
Today, in the latest legal setback for the Trump regime on immigration, a federal judge in Vermont ordered the government to release Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk from custody. Agents arrested Öztürk, a Turkish national, on March 25, claiming that she had been engaged with associations that “may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students.” U.S. District Judge William Sessions III noted that the government provided no evidence for that assertion aside from a 2024 op-ed Öztürk wrote for the school newspaper criticizing the university’s response to the crisis in Gaza. She was freed this evening and will have to pursue her case before an immigration judge.
As the administration has lost repeatedly in court, officials appear to be upping the ante in their attempts to traumatize migrants and increase its power, but it remains unclear who is calling the shots. Amy McKinnon of Politico reported today that Trump has sat for only 12 “daily” intelligence briefing sessions since he took office, and does not read his written daily intelligence report.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the U.S. was preparing to send migrants to prison in Libya. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued an order stopping the removal, saying such renditions would clearly violate a court order. Migrants from Asia sat on a military plane on the tarmac in Texas for hours before being taken off the plane and bussed back to detention.
When a reporter asked Trump if his administration was sending migrants to Libya, he answered: “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask, uh, Homeland Security, please.”
Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Newark, New Jersey, mayor Ras Baraka when he and three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation stood outside a private ICE detention facility in Newark called Delaney Hall. New Jersey’s interim U.S. attorney, Trump loyalist Alina Habba, posted on social media that Baraka had “ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center…. He has willingly chosen to disregard the law.” But, as Tracey Tully, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, and Alyce McFadden of the New York Times reported, videos show him being arrested in a public area outside the facility.
Tully, Ferré-Sadurní, and McFadden report that in February, the administration signed a 15-year, $1 billion contract with GEO Group, which operates private prisons, to expand the Delaney Hall facility dramatically as an ICE prison. New Jersey officials have argued in federal court that GEO Group does not have the required permits to operate the expanded facility.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters today that voters elected Trump to “deport the illegals” and that “Marxist” judges frustrating that effort are attacking democracy. In fact, Trump convinced many voters that he would deport only violent criminals, and they are now aghast at the scenes unfolding as masked agents grab women and children from their cars and sweep up U.S. citizens.
In The Bulwark today, Adrian Carrasquillo explained how podcasters, sports YouTubers, and comedians, including Joe Rogan, have brought the rendition of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador onto the radar screen of Trump voters. Americans now disapprove of Trump’s immigration policies by 53% to 46%.
Miller made an even bigger power grab when he said “we’re actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus, a legal change that essentially establishes martial law by permitting the government to arrest people and hold them without charges or a trial. Legal analyst Steve Vladeck explains that Miller’s justification for such a suspension is dead wrong, and suggests Miller’s threat appears to be designed to put more pressure on the courts.
But in this chaotic administration, it seems worth asking who the “we” is in Miller’s statement. In the group chat about striking the Houthis, when administration officials were discussing—without the presence of either the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the president himself—what was the best course of action, it was Miller who ultimately decided to launch a strike simply by announcing what he claimed were Trump’s wishes.
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Notes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/us/politics/ed-martin-justice-department-republicans.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/janette-nesheiwat-surgeon-general-nomination-withdrawn-white-house/
https://www.wired.com/story/casey-means-surgeon-general-trump-rfk-controlled-opposition-vaccine/
https://www.wired.com/story/cbp-confirms-telemessage-use/
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/doj_letter_telemessage.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/09/newark-second-air-traffic-blackout
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/09/white-house-pentagon-hegseth-chief-of-staff
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/mopayzgnxpa/05072025murphy.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/nyregion/newark-ice-protest-arrest-ras-baraka.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/mayor-ras-baraka-arrested-new-jersey-ice-facility/
https://www.wired.com/story/tulsi-gabbard-dni-weak-password/
https://www.thejusticeconnection.org/
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/26/trump-immigration-polling-100-days-00311687
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/09/trump-intelligence-briefing-frequency-00338946
Donald J. Trump, posts on Truth Social, May 9, 2024, 7:21 a.m. and 7.26 a.m.
Bluesky:
annabower.bsky.social/post/3lop3fq7jks2l
thebulwark.com/post/3looccm6y6k2a
simonwdc.bsky.social/post/3lorfes3uoc2b
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lor5a6ppbs2f
annabower.bsky.social/post/3lori65uxmk2v
thebulwark.com/post/3lor6kiipqk2j
thebulwark.com/post/3lor5uhp4vk2j
The Trump administration now has at least 24 Fox News personalities in positions of responsibility. It's being run like a reality show rather than like a serious government.
The results are going to be disastrous.
Trump and his minions are simply evil writ large.
When sociopaths like Miller use the word ‘illegals’, there’s the not-so-subtle sneer behind the word that racists use openly when they say the N-word for Black folk, or the S-word for Latin folk. As a Jew himself, how he can countenance Trump’s support for White supremacists who profess that “Jews will not replace us” and other horrific ideologies?
The term ‘confederacy of dunces’ does not go far enough.
Nazis work well for me as an umbrella term for all of them.
Sadly, if habeas is relaxed, or cancelled, my comment here can be used to disappear me. Of this I have no doubt.