Todd Blanche Kicks Off His Tenure Chasing Leaks Implicating His Own Conduct
Around 8AM on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced an investigation of a leak to the NYT pertaining to Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
The Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation relating to the selective leak of inaccurate, but nevertheless classified, information from the Intelligence Community relating to Tren de Aragua (TDA). We will not tolerate politically motivated efforts by the Deep State to undercut President Trump’s agenda by leaking false information onto the pages of their allies at the New York Times. The Alien Enemies Proclamation is supported by fact, law, and common sense, which we will establish in court and then expel the TDA terrorists from this country.
While DHS and DOJ and FBI have made less formal announcements about leak investigations, most notably an evolving claim that leaks from the FBI or maybe DHS or who knows whether this is all a lazy excuse had tipped off alleged TdA members of imminent immigration operations, this was notable in its formality (which, admittedly, may stem exclusively from the fact that Blanche not a Xitter addict like Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and Kash Patel). The announcement was even more notable given Blanche’s claim that the leak was “inaccurate,” which would seem to undercut any claim it was classified.
This was, formally at least, maybe just the third public announcement that Blanche made as DAG (though he has already made a stink defending his client Donald Trump in court cases), with one of the others inviting people to claim they’ve been victims of DEI discrimination.
It appears, though no one has said explicitly, the investigation is into the leak claiming that the Intelligence Community disagrees with Trump about TdA’s ties to the Venezuelan government.
President Trump’s assertion that a gang is committing crimes in the United States at the direction of Venezuela’s government was critical to his invocation of a wartime law last week to summarily deport people whom officials suspected of belonging to that group.
But American intelligence agencies circulated findings last month that stand starkly at odds with Mr. Trump’s claims, according to officials familiar with the matter. The document, dated Feb. 26, summarized the shared judgment of the nation’s spy agencies that the gang was not controlled by the Venezuelan government.
The disclosure calls into question the credibility of Mr. Trump’s basis for invoking a rarely used wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to transfer a group of Venezuelans to a high-security prison in El Salvador last weekend, with no due process.
The intelligence community assessment concluded that the gang, Tren de Aragua, was not directed by Venezuela’s government or committing crimes in the United States on its orders, according to the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Analysts put that conclusion at a “moderate” confidence level, the officials said, because of a limited volume of available reporting about the gang. Most of the intelligence community, including the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency, agreed with that assessment.
Only one agency, the F.B.I., partly dissented. It maintained the gang has a connection to the administration of Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, based on information the other agencies did not find credible.
The story was published on March 20, before the investigation announcement, but only published in the dead tree NYT after it.
If that’s correct, the investigation that Blanche rushed to formally announce implicates his own behavior.
Blanche’s announcement came the same day that he filed an insolent declaration before Judge James Boasberg, adopting the claim made by a regional ICE official in a declaration submitted one day earlier: The government is considering invoking State Secrets to withhold from Boasberg even the most basic details of deportation flights that brought Venezuelans to El Salvador after he ordered them to turn.
2. On March 20, 2025, the Government submitted a declaration from Robert L. Cerna II, which stated: “I understand that Cabinet Secretaries are currently actively considering whether to invoke the state secrets privilege over the other facts requested by the Court’s order. Doing so is a serious matter that requires careful consideration of national security and foreign relations, and it cannot properly be undertaken in just 24 hours.”
3. I attest to the accuracy of those statements based on personal knowledge of the events described by Mr. Cerna, including my direct involvement in ongoing Cabinet-level discussions regarding invocation of the state-secrets privilege.
DOJ wants to withhold those details even though some details of which were leaked to Fox News Deportation Propagandist Bill Melugin right away, other details of which are readily available on flight tracker websites.
Judge Boasberg’s order demanding such a cabinet-level declaration came before Blanche’s leak investigation announcement.
Which is to say NYT was working on this intelligence assessment story even as DOJ was stonewalling Boasberg about why it deported two or three planeloads of Venezuelans after he ordered DOJ not to.
Whether or not Trump’s DOJ invokes State Secrets Tuesday, there’s plenty of information in the public record — including the NYT story — that would undercut, but also explain, such an invocation.
CBS published a list of the Venezuelans who were deported — the kind of leak that elicited heavy pushback when they involved Gitmo under George Bush, and almost certainly had to come from some kind of internal documentation but was not obviously implicated in Blanche’s investigation announcement.
The plaintiffs filed declarations debunking the government’s claims that the men deported or targeted to be were criminals, much less members of TdA. There was plenty of other reporting on missing family members who seem to have been deported based on soccer tattoos.
NYT and WaPo both have stories suggesting the underlying reason this trade happened: Because El Salvador’s authoritarian President Nayib Bukele is anxious to get MS-13 members who could implicate him in terrorism out of US custody. Here’s WaPo’s (later) story:
Some say Bukele is trying to hide his government’s own involvement with the gangs.
More than two dozen high-ranking Salvadoran gang leaders have been charged with terrorism and other crimes in a Justice Department investigation that has lasted years. Several of them are jailed in the United States. One of the indictments details how senior members of Bukele’s government held secret negotiations with gang leaders after his 2019 election. The gang members wanted financial benefits, control of territory and better jail conditions, the court documents say. In exchange, they agreed to tamp down homicides in public areas and to pressure neighborhoods under their control to support Bukele’s party in midterm elections, according to the 2022 indictment.
Bukele’s government went so far as to free a top MS-13 leader, Elmer Canales Rivera, or “Crook,” from a Salvadoran prison, according to the documents — even though the U.S. government had asked for his extradition. (He was later captured in Mexico and sent to the U.S.)
Last weekend, the Trump administration sent back one of the MS-13 leaders named in the indictments, César Humberto López Larios, alias “Greñas,” along with the 238 Venezuelans and nearly two dozen other Salvadorans allegedly tied to gangs.
Some Salvadoran analysts believe Bukele wants the gang leaders back so they won’t testify about his government’s involvement with them — and potentially put him in legal trouble.
“If these returns [of Salvadoran gang members] continue, it takes away the possibility that the U.S. judicial system will open a case against Bukele for negotiations and agreements with terrorist groups,” said Juan Martínez d’Aubuisson, an anthropologist who has studied the gangs.
The possibility that this effort to outsource detention and torture to Bukele is part of a quid pro quo helping a fellow authoritarian to cover up his own criminal ties is not dissimilar from details about Saudi complicity in 9/11 that the Bush Administration spent years invoking State Secrets to cover up.
And then finally, in plain sight, on Friday Trump disclaimed that he personally had signed the Alien Enemies Act declaration, that someone used an autopen for his signature. If true (I certainly don’t rule out Stephen Miller autosigning half the stuff that comes out under Trump’s name), that would undermine the Article II claims the government is making.
In other words, even as the government claims to be contemplating invoking State Secrets (which would require declarations to Boasberg I’m not sure they’re willing to provide), the following details have come out:
- Names and details of the detainees, debunking the claims of TdA affiliation on which Trump based their deportation, making it clear that Trump rushed these deportations to avoid disclosing that TdA isn’t what he says it is
- Good reason to question the underlying quid pro quo with Bukele
- Trump’s claim that the AEA order was not backed by the Article II authority DOJ has spent a week claiming it is.
- The likely subject of the leak investigation: Claims from spooks that any intelligence to support this AEA effort is based on flimsy intelligence
This is the kind of fact set that has the potential to snowball.
Meanwhile, just two months into this Administration, it’s already investigating leaks about purportedly internal spats. Unrelated to Venezuela, there was the NYT leak disclosing Pete Hegseth was about to brief Elon Musk about DOD’s plans for war with China, in response to which Elon called for leak prosecutions.
The chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, initially did not respond to a similar email seeking comment about why Mr. Musk was to receive a briefing on the China war plan. Soon after The Times published this article on Thursday evening, Mr. Parnell gave a short statement: “The Defense Department is excited to welcome Elon Musk to the Pentagon on Friday. He was invited by Secretary Hegseth and is just visiting.”
About an hour later, Mr. Parnell posted a message on his X account: “This is 100% Fake News. Just brazenly & maliciously wrong. Elon Musk is a patriot. We are proud to have him at the Pentagon.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also commented on X late on Thursday, saying: “This is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans.’ It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production. Gonna be great!”
Roughly 30 minutes after that social media post, The Wall Street Journal confirmed that Mr. Musk had been scheduled to be briefed on the war planning for China.
In his own post on social media early Friday, Mr. Musk said he looked forward to “the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT.”
The leak served a very important (and presumably, its intended) purpose: NYT subsequently reported that Trump had not known about the briefing.
Mr. Trump made clear he had been caught by surprise by The Times’s report, saying he called his White House chief of staff and Mr. Hegseth to ask about it; he said they said it was “ridiculous.” But he also said that Mr. Musk — who has extensive business in China — should not be made aware of such sensitive information. It was one of the first specific statements from the president about what he would consider a bridge too far for Mr. Musk, who has expansive potential conflicts of interest created by a portfolio as a part-time government staff member and adviser.
Yet CNN reported that DOD would conduct an investigation, using polygraphs, which the article explicitly suggests is a reference to this leak.
We’re used to these people doing suspect things to cover up Trump’s alleged crimes. But it took just days for Todd Blanche to involve himself personally in all this, even while siccing investigators on those who might debunk the legal claims he’s making in court. And the DOD leak suggests these are not just — as Blanche claimed in his investigation announcement — the Deep State undermining Trump.
These are, in part, people trying to prevent Trump from making bigger fuck-ups than he’s already making.
Update: Corrected date State Secrets declaration is due.
Update: I said the Todd Blanche announcement was 8AM, based off the time listed on the press release. But it was not sent out until hours later, after the status hearing.
Timeline
[docket]
March 14: Trump issues but does not publish AEA proclamation
March 15: Proclamation posted
March 15: Boasberg certifies class, issues TRO
March 15: Emergency hearing
March 15, 7:25: Boasberg order
March 17: NYT Bukele story
March 17: Boasberg orders briefing on post-order deportations by March 18 at noon
March 17, 5PM: Boasberg hearing
March 18: First Cerna declaration
March 18: Boasberg orders March 19 declarations on details of deportation
March 19: Boasberg partially grants request for extension
March 20, 12:11PM: Second Cerna declaration
March 20, 3:49PM: Boasberg orders a cabinet level declaration
March 20: WaPo Bukele story
March 20 (around 6PM?): NYT publishes intelligence assessment story
March 20, 8:18 PM: CBS publishes list of deported Venezuelans
March 21, AM, 8AM: Blanche announces the investigation
March 21, 12:18: Blanche submits a declaration
March 21, 2:30PM: Motion hearing
March 21: Trump disclaims signing AEA declaration
You hit on it above, but since when have we been classifying false information? Or maybe the better question is , since when have we admitted that the crap we are classifying is false?
Blanche referring to `inaccurate, but nevertheless classified, information’ would be hilarious if he didn’t have the ability and desire to ruin people’s lives.
Blanche is such a hamfisted idiot.
He could simply have written this more carefully eg
“The information published is plainly based upon leaked classified information and as such is the product of crime. Moreover the information as published has distorted the underlying information in material respects, obviously for partisan political purposes, which compounds the injury to the Government, and demonstrates malice of the leakers and/or the publishers.”
I actually think the logic is: We’re the absolute executive so we decide what is true. It doesn’t matter if mere intelligence tells us TdA has no tie to VZ, Trump has deemed it so and so whatever the IC tells us is inaccurate.
Same people that brought us “alternative facts”
Yes: “We’re the absolute executive so we decide what is true.”
AND tomorrow, we’ll AGAIN decide what is true.
From the very beginning. actually. The first state secret classification exercise was in the ’40s to cover up a DoD screwup on a bomber crash in the PNW.
FWIW, I would observe that all Blanche is actually doing is focusing attention on the screwups as well as other hinky behavior by trying to bury the evidence. Kind of like Kash Patel trying to redact the Epstein files to remove Convict-1 / Krasnov references. I would suspect when it’s done that the files will look like a bad Hogan’s Heroes prop of a letter from home. It also makes me wonder how Ghislaine Maxwell will be kept controlled, IMHO Biden really missed an opportunity for mischief when he didn’t pardon her after the election as well as releasing all of the files.
Since before you were born, probably. I heard jokes in the ’60s about bureaucrats classifying their mistakes.
The oldest one I am aware of was a UK, not US move that suppressed reports of mass killings of British soldiers in demobilization riots in France in 1919.
What do we suppose made Trump back down? Because “I didn’t sign it” is definitely backing down. Of course, he got in the cute swipe at autopens, but of course in doing so, he admitted that he uses them. How else would his signature be recorded?
Here’s a shot from the hip: maybe he’s finally tiring of Musk’s very apparent limelight-hogging.
IOW, it’s not that he’s at all worried about highly classified security protocols (you can finish reading this sentence when you stop laughing uncontrollably); it’s simply Trump’s deeply ingrained prima donna complex overriding his more recently developed deep-state-witch-hunt complex.
Trump both said he did not sign the proclamation and then threw Marco Rubio under the bus.
It’s in the Federal Register with his Sharpified signature so there is really no question Convict-1 / Krasnov signed it. IIRC C-1/K also crowed about the deportations contemporaneously as well as interference run by Bondi and Leavitt which did not mention that Rubio was the culprit at the time. One wonders how Marco feels about giving up his secure Senate seat for less than six months as Secretary of State in name only. He’s not even talking to Putin.
Will Marco resign or be fired? Will Marco spill the beans like so many of the 45 Administration minions have done?
It all feels like the Soviet system again with TASS and Pravda and knocks in the night.
So as a thought experiment, let’s consider that Convict-1 / Krasnov didn’t know he signed it. Was it because he’s so addled he can’t recall or was he using the autopen at the same time he was blasting Biden for allegedly using one for the pardons without any proof? Neither option is a good one, and the latter one proves the dictum that every accusation is a projection for the GOP.
Why not both? (He’s whined loudly about others using teleprompters, while using them himself.)
Wow, Marcy…this is a lot of great information! I’ve been trying to keep track of the
timing of [waves hands about wildly] ALL this, so, thank you very much!
I think Boasberg ordered the State Secrets declaration
by 3/25/25 [ie: not tomorrow]…?
TY, corrected.
What I don’t have in here, though, is all the details of the actual flight. I know Just Security and I think TPM have done that.
Yes…there is SO much to keep track of,
but I’ll try to use your TL here as a base for my work on this.
So, the Bill Melugin Xeet is from 3/16 at 9:08 PM UTC …
uh, so what time IS that in ET? [OY!]
@harpie: ET is 5 hrs earlier than UTC (Greenwich mean time), same as Marcy in Ireland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time#/media/File:World_Time_Zones_Map.png
Leaving time-issues aside momentarily: another aspect of this kidnapping/rendition gambit was photo-reported by, of all legacy publications, TIME:
https://time.com/7269604/el-salvador-photos-venezuelan-detainees/
I would be surprised if TIME isn’t in Trump’s crosshairs next. I hope Holsinger watches his back. This is very dark shit. Trump paid that crime-state to torture those “suspects.” That’s a collusion of the lowest type.
It’s like Pinochet on steroids down there. Brutal and demented.
To Bruce Cole:
The conditions shown in the Time photo essay may be news to many in an American setting, but that torture is common knowledge in Latin America. It even has an imitator in Ecuador under President Noboa, who seems to want in on the action – with Erik Prince (scroll down a bit):
https://nacla.salsalabs.org/mar_21_25?wvpId=0faced31-231d-4fc1-af4f-1edd67edd0dd
Thanks, Bruce… but I’m pretty sure this one is -4 hours
because daylight savings time started on 3/9.
You are correct about the timing.
Charlie Savage announced this article on NYT at Bluesky account here:
https://bsky.app/profile/charliesavage.bsky.social/post/3lktp5we37s2i
March 20, 2025 at 6:01 PM
The Venezuelan government says they shut down that gang in 2023.
Possible link:
https://apnews.com/article/tren-de-aragua-gang-venezuela-trump-40ec0390047c2b17e961dd029da02e65
Next steps seem to involve Blanche being called into Boasberg’s court to personally testify as to facts, followed by Bondi. Judges just love Calvinball when appointed officials are repeatedly contradicting their signed affidavits when they appear on Fox News and other friendly/captive media.
I can’t imagine either of them willingly stepping into that courthouse. By this point, it’s not just the legal liability. It’s that such an action will clearly be seen as weak by their boss who didn’t even try to roll with the “meddlesome priest” subtlety. And what then? Maybe the marshal assigned to enforce that can also ask them for his kid’s recital off in two weeks. There are arguably only two remedies for a runaway AG. And if they’re doing as their boss expects, that leaves impeachment. Not happening.
Then the judge rules against DoJ in default, meaning on merits, and makes the DOJ’s life miserable.
Wait, clarification…CHIEF JUDGE OF THE DC CIRCUIT COURT does this.
Next step is have the Supreme Court figure out how to resolve government officials ignoring the courts “because they’re Republican” or something obvious. It won’t move Suzy Collins’ “concerned” needle but it will move Democrats to act when they regain Senate.
I don’t see it willingly happening either. Judge Boasberg can hold them in contempt and get a US Marshal or a court-appointed alternate to haul them in (it doesn’t have to be a US Marshal under Bondi’s thumb). What isn’t clear to me is what a default judgement would do, because if a duly noticed defendant fails to offer any defense the judge can rule for the plaintiff if the judge feels the case has been proved by the papers in the docket.
That means a civil liability for anyone named in the lawsuit, and IIRC the defense will be hamstrung at the appellate levels because new evidence is not permitted there if it was available at time of trial. Blanche, et al did sort of preserve the claim of official immunity by citing it, but they also did not offer the proof (IANAL, so please correct me on this point) how it applies as well as who the war enemy was as declared by Congress, etc., all of which was available but Blanche and his underlings did not feel like revealing it to plaintiff scrutiny.
At the end, Blanche and his underlings may get sanctioned for poor lawyering, between trying to mislead the court on timelines, citing frivolous claims of authority in direct contradiction to the Constitution and precedent, and failing to preserve appellate options in their filings. In addition, Judge Boasberg is pissed off (among other judges) and at least one of them will decide to make an example of this crew. Remember Kobach, it can happen here too.
As noted in several comments, posts and the internet the whole point of this legalistic dreck is to get the case to the Supreme Court where they hope Sammy can pretzel up a precedent that protects only Republicans (or maybe he’ll invalidate the 14th Amendment in its entirety, not just the due process clause). We’ll also see how a single judge in Waco has the power to rule nationwide but a single judge in DC does not.
Kobach still thinks he was framed by woke judges.
Why does no one mention that the AEA requires a court hearing before a judge to prove that the accused is a member of the group to be removed? Trump completely skipped that step.
Many have in fact mentioned it, not least lawyers for the deported plaintiffs. The problem? Trump and his henchpersons have chosen to defy all legal process, including Judge Boasberg’s court orders. And Boasberg lacks his own Air Force to send after the illegally deported folks to remedy the law-breaking.
It’s the Andrew Jackson model! (Jackson’s defiance of the courts once made him Trump’s favorite president–excluding Trumpself. Now it’s McKinley, not known for his legal chicanery…or much of anything else, except tariffs. It’s a simpleton’s world.)
Borrowing an old saying, people who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Some 80ish years ago a certain German with the initials AH rounded up people based on external appearances (Stars of David) on their persons and shipped them off to prisons in a foreign country (Auschwitz, for example). There were no plans to repatriate them.
In 2025 a certain Donald Trump rounded up people based on external appearances (tattoos) and shipped them off to prisons in a foreign country. There were no plans to repatriate them.
The comparisons are too obvious to me. How much more history from this path will we repeat?
Although unity may be strength in the trump resistance movement, it must be noted someone in the trump circle learned from the noxious Cheney/Bush Iraqi War, deciding to job out the really bad torture and, certainly, don’t film it.
Operating costs at the Tamms Supermax prison in Illinois are $25M/yr for 200 prisoners but El Salvadore’s President Nayib Bukele is happy to receive $6M/yr for one year of services at the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. Bukele is building several supermax prisons designed to monopolize the global torture & housing prisoner market. trump drives a hard bargin-financially & morally.
What cost the soul of a nation…
If they are smart, they will *not* provide these declarations, but will instead make their best Emily Litella filing. “Never mind.”
Boasberg is not Aileen Cannon – he’s served a seven year term on FISC, including one year as the Chief FISC Judge. “You want to talk State Secrets? I’m good with that . . .”
Be afraid, Mr. Blanche. Be very afraid.
Origin of the leaks:
Would someone here please explain who Blanche and this current DOJ thinks is The Deep State.
Thanks.
They won’t identify the bogeyman here, just like they never did with the ‘ANTIFA organization’ or with all the cities / counties that were allegedly operating under Sharia law. It’s an old parlor game for them, recall how W and Darth Cheney let Osama Bin Laden escape at Tora Bora so he could remain useful as a bogeyman to justify restrictions on our freedoms.
The RWNM Wurlitzer will crank up long enough to keep the rubes scared.
Parlor Games to distract the rubes, while Donny Nero strums his lyre, America burns.
Or the claims about gang-ruled or destroyed cities. Of which there are none.
Or the elementary or HS districts teaching ‘critical race theory’. Strange we’re not hearing about that anymore… It’s a puzzlement…
Anyone who disagrees with them.
Trump actually loves a deep state, as long as it’s HIS deep state. Hence all the purges/sackings/threats/etc.
I believe the Deep State is comprised of Americans who believe in the America of the Constitution and the last 250 years, not counting slavery, women’s abridged rights, etc. Such people are a threat to the right-wing effort to make Amerika rich and white.
Via Marcy on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3ll4w2fuozq2k
March 24, 2025 at 9:58 AM [emphasis added]
harpie:
This whole thing is DISGUSTING.
EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has been
ARBITRARILY DETAINED in this GULAG
MUST be freed IMMEDIATELY.
[Sorry just had to get that out.]
BOASBERG at the link above [my emphsis]:
[I apologize for all that emphasis…just feel like screaming]
Marcy…THIS is what’s happening TODAY:
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3ll4wwkuwcs24
March 24, 2025 at 10:14 AM
https://bsky.app/profile/rgoodlaw.bsky.social/post/3ll4yl6n3e22w
March 24, 2025 at 10:43 AM
3/16/25 7:02 PM BUKELE:
WE, the People of the United States, have paid $6Million to have this horror done.
We, the people, in my opinion did not pay $6 million for this horror. It was money stolen from us by a criminally corrupt Administration and given to other criminals.
HOMAN, yesterday:
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ll2jjeuh722i
March 23, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Listening to this is VERY infuriating.
Riley wasn’t accused of anything, Tommy. Go back to grade school, as you clearly skipped the classes on the Constitution and government.
Here is Chris Geidner’s THREAD on this, with screenshots and links:
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3ll4xenme4k2k
March 24, 2025 at 10:22 AM [emphasis added]
According to Geidner’s LINK in this THREAD,
DC Circuit, 1:30 PM TODAY, 30 minutes.
Marcy just reposted this from Josh Kovensky:
https://bsky.app/profile/joshkovensky.bsky.social/post/3ll5dh6uffk2v
March 24, 2025 at 1:58 PM
The quote above happened on Saturday morning, 3/15/25
Marcy re: the above declaration in ACLU filing:
https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3ll5whrzius27
March 24, 2025 at 7:38 PM
TRUMP just made Alina HABBA interim US Attorney of NJ,
ie: where the Mahmoud KHALIL case now resides.
https://bsky.app/profile/paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3ll4ygijcnk25
March 24, 2025 at 10:41 AM [screenshot here]
The latest on that, from 3/19/25
https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3lkr7crbpoc24
March 19, 2025 at 6:12 PM
> immediately orders that Khalil “shall not be removed from the United States, unless and until the Court issues a contrary Order.”
Little does the judge know that today is “turn back the clock day,” and thus the plane flying Khalil to Guantanamo did NOT violate his order, though to provide any additional details would compromise national security. /s
Did you see this????? Speaking of leaking sensitive information…
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/
yeah, would be funny if it weren’t so dumb and sad
Couldn’t stop think omg…omg! […]
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.
Jeffrey Goldberg March 24, 2025, 12:06 PM ET
I hope to gods this isn’t related to a post I saw on social media that said reservists have been called up for deployment.
Somebody needs a reminder Congress has a role in authorizing military force.
William Shakespeare, Bard of Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/shakespeare.lol/post/3ll5azqvczc2a
March 24, 2025 at 1:15 PM
If national security principals are using signal, even more incumbent on judges to order a halt to their use by DOGE and to move more directly to depositions.
Marcy has a post up about this:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/24/the-classified-information-john-ratcliffe-pete-hegseth-and-mike-waltz-sent-to-journalist-jeffrey-goldberg/
DC Circuit LIVE [THREAD]:
https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3ll5c4sjzgc2j
March 24, 2025 at 1:34 PM
March 24, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Chris Geidner’s THREAD begins here:
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3ll5cau7vd22k
March 24, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Continuing directly:
March 24, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Geidner:
March 24, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Geidner:
March 24, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Geidner:
Geidner:
March 24, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Marcy at 3:02 PM:
https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3ll5gz3yqk22y
March 24, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Media Matters:
Fox’s Brian Kilmeade: “It’s not practical to think that we can do due process on 8 million people” Co-host Lawrence Jones: Constitutional rights “are afforded to illegals in this country. We should revisit that.” https://www.mediamatters.org/brian-kilmeade/foxs-brian-kilmeade-its-not-practical-think-we-can-do-due-process-8-million-people
Media Matters Staff 03/24/25 10:14 AM EDT [VIDEO][Transcript]
Chris Geidner at 3:04 PM
Geidner:
[harpie: YES!]
Where is the seat of US government: Texas or DC? Does Walker even know?
March 24, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Walker had 2 points that he pushed on
1 (as noted) file for Habeas in Texas
2 citing some foreign policy expert: the TRO embarrassed the US government delicate diplomatic, national security, and foreign policy negotiations with other sovereigns viz Venezuela and El Salvador.
To which the answer is: if US Government entered these negotiations, wilfully blind to or intent on avoiding due process for, determination of question whether individuals are each properly designated for removal under the proclamation, then the executive has embarrassed itself.
TRUMP invokes State Secrets privilege; [Plaintiffs also file Brief]
Joshua Friedman THREAD:
https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3ll5woiqtos2e
March 24, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick THREAD:
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3ll5wz5cicc2p
March 24, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Mark Joseph Stern:
https://bsky.app/profile/mjsdc.bsky.social/post/3ll5y32uw6k2w
March 24, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Chris Geiner and Anna Bower haven’t weighed in yet.
“Trump won the election so everything he does is legal,” in DOJ speak.
Most of us don’t buy that. Or that SCCOTUS decision.
Here’s Marcy:
https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3ll5xvcgags27
March 24, 2025 at 8:04 PM
‘Historical loss’: Alleged gang leader evades US justice with deportation to El Salvador https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/politics/ms-13-leader-deported-el-salvador-boasberg-order Evan Perez Priscilla Alvarez Updated 4:25 PM EDT, Mon March 24, 2025
POTUS CORRUPTUS MAXIMUS
This would funny… if it weren’t so serious and dangerous…
The ineptitude is stunning…