After Judge Paula Xinis granted discovery to Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, Trump ran to the Fourth Circuit.

Waiting less than a day, the conservative on the panel for the case, Harvie Wilkinson, wrote a scathing opinion rejecting Trump’s plea for help.

It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.

This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.

Read the rest.

You knew that sooner or later, this was coming. From the Guardian:

UK officials are tightening security when handling sensitive trade documents to prevent them from falling into US hands amid Donald Trump’s tariff war, the Guardian can reveal.

In an indication of the strains on the “special relationship”, British civil servants have changed document-handling guidance, adding higher classifications to some trade negotiation documents in order to better shield them from American eyes, sources told the Guardian.

[snip]

Before Trump’s inauguration, UK trade documents related to US talks were generally marked “Official – sensitive (UK eyes only)”, according to examples seen by the Guardian, and officials were allowed to share these on internal email chains. This classification stood while British officials attempted to negotiate with Joe Biden’s administration, even after a full-blown trade deal was ruled out by the White House.

Now, a far greater proportion of documents and correspondence detailing the negotiating positions being discussed by officials from No 10, the Foreign Office and the Department for Business and Trade come with additional handling instructions to avoid US interception, with some classified as “secret” and “top secret”, sources said. These classifications also carry different guidance on how documents may be shared digitally, in order to avoid interception.

Companies with commercial interests in the UK have also been told to take additional precautions in how they share information with the trade department and No 10, senior business sources said. These include large pharmaceutical companies with operations in the UK and EU.

Trump sure is succeeding with that “disruption” stuff, isn’t he?

Then consider this: if the Foreign Office and Department for Business and Trade are doing this, one can only imagine what the Ministry of Defence is doing along these lines, as well as MI5, MI6, and GCHQ.

Slowly but surely, the Special Relationship is becoming pretty damn ordinary.

Amid all the other news, the purge of suspected leakers Pete Hegseth announced last month has netted three targets — all white men, for a change! Politico has not only provided a roster, but described the scope of the leak investigation.

The Pentagon put a third top official on administrative leave Wednesday as part of a wide-ranging leak investigation, according to a defense official and a person familiar with the matter.

Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, was suspended a day after two other political appointees were placed on leave following a probe into potential leaks of sensitive information.

The leaks under investigation include [1] military operational plans for the Panama Canal, [2] a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, [3] Elon Musk’s controversial visit to the Pentagon to discuss China and a [4] pause in the collection of intelligence for Ukraine, according to the official.

[snip]

Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Darin Selnick, the Defense Department’s deputy chief of staff, were escorted out of the Pentagon by security officers and had their building access suspended pending further investigation, the official said. Caldwell and Selnick both previously worked at Concerned Veterans for America, the nonprofit that Hegseth once led. [my annotation]

An Air Force Special Forces Command Chief Master Sergeant was also removed on Monday, though no one has said the investigation described to be targeting him is Pete Hegseth’s purge.

When this investigation was first reported by CNN, it focused on the disclosure to NYT, for a story published on March 20  [1], that Hegseth was about to give Elon Musk a briefing on US war plans against China.

The memo comes after President Donald Trump pushed back on a New York Times report that DOGE head Elon Musk would be briefed on US military plans for a potential war with China while at the Pentagon on Friday. Trump said he wouldn’t show such plans “to anybody.”

And surely that’s a big focus of this investigation. As news of these ousters broke, Marc Caputo released a story ret-conning Trump’s unhappiness with the briefing, claiming, against all sense, that Trump got mad at Elon but not, also, Hegseth about it.

1. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended two top Pentagon officials, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, as part of an investigation into who leaked word of a planned top-secret briefing on China for Elon Musk.
2. Axios learned that Musk or Hegseth didn’t just decide to call off that briefing after the leak. President Trump himself ordered staffers to kill it.

• “What the f**k is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go,” Trump said, a top official recalled to Axios.

Why it matters: Musk has annoyed several administration officials with his constant presence at the White House, his haphazard social media posts and his slash-and-burn tactics at his Department of Government Efficiency.

• The planned Pentagon briefing, however, got him cross with the boss at the Resolute Desk.

Anyway, no one made sure Elon “doesn’t go;” the currently operative story is Elon went to the Pentagon, but didn’t get the briefing. If Trump were unhappy with the planned briefing, rather than its exposure, I doubt we’d have this kind of leak investigation, which purportedly prevented the briefing from happening.

But Politico mentions three more leaks targeted by the investigation:

• A widely disseminated story [1] disclosing that DOD had developed military plans targeting the Panama Canal; NBC’s story was published March 13.
• The deployment [2] of the USS Carl Vinson from Asia to the Red Sea; the Politico version, which noted USNI reported the news first, was like USNI’s report dated March 21. Both versions report the move first as a month-long extension of the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman, which was damaged and then repaired in February after being struck by a merchant ship, with the Vinson sailing from East China to the Red Sea to overlap with it. On March 16, the Houthis attempted to attack the Truman in retaliation for the strikes on March 15 ordered up by Pete Hegseth’s signal chat, and potential Houthi disinformation has very recently claimed the Truman has been struck.
• Stories [4] about a pause in intelligence sharing with Ukraine that were quickly and publicly confirmed by John Ratcliffe; here’s Politico’s March 5 version, bylined by one of the guys closely tracking the purge.

So in order, the leaks are:

• March 5 story on Ukraine intelligence sharing
• March 13 story on targeting Panama
• March 20 story on the Elon briefing
• March 21 story on the Vinson redeployment from the East China Sea to the Middle East

With that list in mind, let’s look at several aspects of the memo, dated the same day as the Vinson deployment, March 21, asking for the investigation.

It does, in fact, identify, “unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” plural. So while the coverage focused on the Elon briefing, it reportedly entailed the others from the start, including the seemingly routine report on the Vinson deployment.

It not only mentioned “sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense,” but it asked for cooperation from “those responsible for maintaining and overseeing information security systems and in coordination with federal partners as required.” At first, in the days before Jeff Goldberg revealed Pete Hegseth conducts these discussions (including discussions about the Middle East operations like the Vinson deployment) via Signal chat, it seemed this might have been an investigation into DOD’s secure communications.

But given the inclusion of Dan Caldwell — the guy whom Hegseth instructed Mike Waltz to add as his representative to the famous Signal chat — as the first guy purged suggests this leak investigation could also be about the Signal chat.

Or other Signal chats. Mike Waltz apparently did this all the time.

American Oversight’s lawsuit seeking to preserve the signal chats Goldberg published already disclosed that the actual content of the chats did not get preserved on John Ratcliffe’s personal phone, and that between March 26 and March 28 — after Congress was already investigating — participants changed message settings.

In a filing asking James Boasberg to find that Ratcliffe defied his order submitted yesterday, American Oversight included this timeline of what we know from filings in that suit:

March 24: Excerpts of the Signal chat appear in The Atlantic.1

March 25: American Oversight files this action. On the same day, Defendant Ratcliffe testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding his use of Signal.2

March 26: American Oversight files a motion for temporary restraining order. ECF No. 6. The same day, changes occur in the Signal chat “participants’ administrative settings . . . such as profile names and message settings.” Suppl. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-3. Also on the same day, The Atlantic publishes further excerpts from the Signal chat.3

March 27: This Court orders Defendants to “promptly make best efforts to preserve all Signal communications from March 11–15, 2025.” Min. Order, Mar. 27, 2025. The same day, the CIA’s Office of General Counsel reportedly issued a litigation hold notice. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 10-3.

March 28: Changes occur again in the Signal chat participants’ profile names and message settings. Suppl. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-3.

March 31: Defendant Ratcliffe’s Signal account is “reviewed” for the first time and found to contain no substantive messages from the Signal chat. Suppl. Blankenship Decl. ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-3.

1 See Jeffrey Goldberg, The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans, The Atlantic (Mar. 24, 2025), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trumpadministration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/.

2 Sen. Select Comm. on Intel. Hr’g to Examine Worldwide Threats Tr., Mar. 25, 2025, available at https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Images/News/DIA%20in%20the%20News/Committee_Hearing _2025.pdf.

3 See Jeffrey Goldberg & Shane Harris, Here Are the Attack Plans that Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal, The Atlantic (March 26, 2025), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegsethgoldberg/682176.

All of that took place after Hegseth himself ordered an investigation into leaks including the extension of the Harry S. Truman deployment to fight the Houthis on March 21, the kind of thing that might have been on that Signal chat.

While American Oversight didn’t ask for any other declarations, it did note that the existing declarations [docket] raise real questions about who else, including Whiskey Pete, might have deleted these texts from their devices.

For example, rather than specifying which messages were preserved, the Supplemental DoD Declaration vaguely references the preservation of “existing Signal application messages,” which, as shown by the Supplemental Blankenship Declaration, could be none. Suppl. Bennett Decl. ¶ 2, ECF No. 15-1. Similarly, without specifying whether any substantive messages were preserved, the Supplemental State Declaration merely states that “images of the Signal chat”—including “any” images captured from the Secretary’s devices—have been preserved. See Decl. of Timothy J. Kootz ¶ 4, ECF No. 15-4. As with CIA, those “images of the Signal chat” may simply be the title of the group chat. The Supplemental State Declaration also suggests that Secretary Rubio accessed the Signal chat from multiple devices. Id. More broadly, the evidentiary issues identified in the Supplemental Blankenship Declaration raise substantial questions regarding what these other Defendants actually preserved.

In forthcoming filings, American Oversight will probe the clear deficiencies in Defendants’ recordkeeping practices evidenced by these standout omissions of whether and what substantive messages from the Signal chat still exist, as well as when and how any such messages were lost. [my emphasis]

All of which brings me to the last detail of the original leak announcement that has always struck me: it was set up not as conventional leak investigations are, as a referral to the FBI based on stories that include classified information. That’s how you find out who leaked what if you want all possible culprits involved. Rather, it was set up such that Hegseth himself would get reports on the findings, and from that point, the criminal referrals would go out.

This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense. The report will include a complete record of unauthorized disclosures within the Department of Defense and recommendations to improve such efforts. I expect to be informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution. [my emphasis]

That is, this so-called leak investigation implicating the guy Hegseth would add to his inappropriate Signal chats was set up such that Hegseth himself gets to gatekeep who gets targeted by it.

He appears to have set it up that way, importantly, before he realized a journalist had witnessed him add Dan Caldwell to a Signal chat on which he himself would disseminate battle information to the personal cell phones of multiple list participants, including journalist Jeff Goldberg.

Update: Adding this for timeline considerations. Roger Wicker and Jack Reed asked DOD IG to investigate this on March 27, while participants in the Signal chat were altering names and retention.

[W]e ask that you conduct an inquiry into, and provide us with an assessment of, the following:

1. The facts and circumstances surrounding the above referenced Signal chat incident, including an accounting of what was communicated and any remedial actions taken as a result;

2. Department of Defense (DOD) policies and adherence to policies relating to government officers and employees sharing sensitive and classified information on non-government networks and electronic applications;

3. An assessment of DOD classification and declassification policies and processes and whether these policies and processes were adhered to;

4. How the policies of the White House, Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and other Departments and agencies represented on the National Security Council on this subject differ, if at all;

5. An assessment of whether any individuals transferred classified information, including operational details, from classified systems to unclassified systems, and if so, how;

6. Any recommendations to address potential issues identified.

A week ago, Scott Bessent attempted to calm a bunch of bankers by describing that he would take a lead role in negotiations with 70 countries in the wake of Trump’s tariff flip-flops.

He claimed the US still has things called “allies” who would be willing to reach quick deals that would allow him to isolate China.

Bessent said there was great interest in negotiating with the U.S. to lower tariffs, noting that Trump had already spoken with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, and U.S. officials would meet with a delegation from Vietnam on Wednesday.

“I think … at the end of the day that we can probably reach a deal with our allies, with the other countries that have been … good military allies and not perfect economic allies. And then we can approach China as a group,” Bessent said.

He added that the sweeping reciprocal tariffs announced by Trump last week represented a ceiling for tariffs if countries didn’t retaliate, but China had not heeded that advice.

“In terms of escalation, unfortunately, the biggest offender in the global trading system is China, and they’re the only country who’s escalated,” Bessent said.

Bessent is still trying to pitch that PR line — that he has a plan — as in this WSJ article (which among other things, suggests Bessent only came up with this thing he fancies is a “strategy” on April 6, after Trump had already started destroying American credibility).

The Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure U.S. trading partners to limit their dealings with China, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.

The idea is to extract commitments from U.S. trading partners to isolate China’s economy in exchange for reductions in trade and tariff barriers imposed by the White House. U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies.

Those measures are meant to put a dent in China’s already rickety economy and force Beijing to the negotiating table with less leverage ahead of potential talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The exact demands could vary widely by nation, given their degree of involvement with the Chinese economy.

[snip]

One brain behind the strategy is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has taken a leading role in the trade negotiations since Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most nations—but not China—on April 9.

Bessent pitched the idea to Trump during an April 6 meeting at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s club in Florida, said people familiar with the discussion, saying that extracting concessions from U.S. trading partners could prevent Beijing and its companies from avoiding U.S. tariffs, export controls and other economic measures, the people said.

The tactic is part of a strategy being pushed by Bessent to isolate the Chinese economy that has gained traction among Trump officials recently. Debates over the scope and severity of U.S. tariffs are ongoing, but officials largely appear to agree with Bessent’s China plan.

It involves cutting China off from the U.S. economy with tariffs and potentially even cutting Chinese stocks out of U.S. exchanges. Bessent didn’t rule out the administration trying to delist Chinese stocks in a recent interview with Fox Business.

Still, the ultimate goal of the administration’s China policy isn’t yet clear.

Bessent has also said there is still room for talks on a potential trade deal between the U.S. and China. Such talks would have to involve Trump and Xi.

In the time that Bessent has been pursuing this “strategy” to make deals with our “allies” that will isolate China, Xi Jinping had a showy appearance in Vietnam, where he posed as the guardian of “the multilateral trading system, … the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, and … the international environment for open cooperation.”

Xi also urged strengthening coordination and cooperation through regional initiatives such as the East Asia Cooperation and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, the ministry said, citing an article by the Chinese leader published in Vietnam media.

He called such efforts necessary to “inject more stability and positive energy into a chaotic and intertwined world”.

“There are no winners in trade wars and tariff wars, and protectionism has no way out,” Xi said, without mentioning the U.S. specifically.

“We must firmly safeguard the multilateral trading system, maintain the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, and maintain the international environment for open cooperation,” he said.

Last week, China sought to get ahead of U.S. negotiators, holding video calls with the EU and Malaysia, which is chairing ASEAN this year, as well as Saudi Arabia and South Africa, by way of reaching out to Gulf countries and the Group of 20 and BRICS nations.

And Trump has continued to destroy two important American markets that foster the kinds of friendship Bessent plans to exploit: tourism …

… And education:

President Donald Trump says he wants to reduce our trade deficit. Yet he’s destroying one of our winningest exports: higher education.

Colleges and universities are among America’s most competitive international exporters. In dollar terms, last year, the United States sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal combined.

We also run a huge trade surplus in this sector, meaning that foreigners buy much more education from the United States than Americans buy from other countries. In the 2022-2023 school year, more than three times as many international students were enrolled in the United States as there were American students studying abroad. Translated to cash: Our education-services trade surplus is larger than the trade surplus in the entire completed civilian aircraft sector.

Why? Regardless of what Trumpland claims, America is really, really good at higher education.

Sure, even in spite of the damage Trump has caused to US credibility, the US retains a lot of ways to coerce its, um, friends and allies. Trump and Bessent will have a showy meeting with Japan today — a Japan that might be behind the recent US bond sell-off.

But to get just a sense of the degree to which a lot of US coverage treats the US as the sole protagonist of this story, compare this really fascinating interview with Ursula Von der Leyen.

Sure, like US sources, she brags about the friends that keep calling, coyly denying she’s now the leader of the free world while assuming that mantel.

ZEIT: You have just given the question of whether you are the new leader of the Western world a wide berth. But don’t you have to accept that Europe – the EU, with you at its head – has recently become the most important guarantor of Western values in the world?

Von der Leyen: The West as we knew it no longer exists. The world has become a globe also geopolitically, and today our networks of friendship span the globe, as you can see in the debate about tariffs. A positive side effect is that I am currently having countless talks with heads of state and government around the world who want to work together with us on the new order. This is true from Iceland to New Zealand, from Canada to the United Arab Emirates, as it is for India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Mexico, and South America. Right now, I could have these conversations 24 hours a day. Everyone is asking for more trade with Europe – and it’s not just about economic ties. It is also about establishing common rules and it is about predictability. Europe is known for its predictability and reliability, which is once again starting to be seen as something very valuable. On the one hand, this is very gratifying; on the other hand, there is also of course a huge responsibility that we have to live up to.

But then, amid questions about whether Europe — the lever that Bessent imagines he’ll use against China — remains friends with the US, Von der Leyen describes “reality [as] a strong ally.”

ZEIT: You have said that you are still friends with America. The problem is, of course, that the Americans are not friends with themselves. Most don’t seem to like Europe very much either. So, what is the US: a friend, a former friend, an opponent?

Von der Leyen: I’m not a fan of these kinds of classifications. There are millions of transatlantic friendships and economic, private and cultural ties that have grown over decades, and you can’t put a label on them. Right now, our relationship with each other is complicated. What is crucial in this situation is that we Europeans know exactly what we want and what our goals are. So, then we are very well placed to deal with the Americans, because they are pragmatic and open and understand clear language well.

ZEIT: The tariff conflict with the US seems to escalate and abate, and we have to wonder what on earth the basis for the negotiations is.

Von der Leyen: Reality is a strong ally. I keep pointing out how much prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic has been created by trade and that tariffs are actually like taxes on businesses and consumers. There are four points that are important to us. The first is that we are seeking to negotiate a solution. In parallel to the negotiations, we are developing countermeasures that focus on trade in both goods and services. All options are on the table. The second point is that we must be very vigilant that Chinese goods do not flood our market now because of the trade war between the US and China. So, we have protective measures in place there. The third point is that we need to build new partnerships and establish broader trade relations. The fourth point is that we need to get rid of the barriers in the single market and deepen and harmonise it.

Then, after reiterating a threat against US digital services that you should click through to read, Von der Leyen contrasts European solidarity with America’s bro culture, the same bro culture that aims to destroy US universities and tourism.

Von der Leyen: Yes, I think people have realised that in times of crisis, solidarity within a strong community is something truly precious, and has helped everyone navigate serious crises better. So whenever we overcome a crisis, this is also a victory for Europe and the European ideal. May I sing Europe’s praises?

ZEIT: Absolutely. To my knowledge, self-exaltation isn’t banned under the European Constitution.

Von der Leyen: Europe is still a peace project. We don’t have bros or oligarchs making the rules. We don’t invade our neighbours, and we don’t punish them. On the contrary, there are twelve countries on the waiting list to become members of the European Union. That’s about 150 million people. In Europe, children can go to good schools however wealthy their parents are. We have lower CO2 emissions, we have higher life expectancy. Controversial debates are allowed at our universities. This and more are all values that must be defended, and which show that Europe is more than a union. Europe is our home. And people know that, people feel that.

There is posturing all around. But Von der Leyen looks so much more like a grown-up than Scott Bessent and his imaginary friends.

It’s not just me saying that.

Even some of Trump’s closest friends question whether Trump and Bessent have any.

While both equally destructive, Trump’s efforts to destroy America’s educational and scientific leadership are at odds with his attempt to gain some advantage out of destroying global trade.

As a result, Donald Trump has left poor Scott Bessent with increasingly imaginary friends.

Update: Paul Krugman focused on the same WSJ story I did and noted the same thing: The US has spoiled its opportunity to do the kind of negotiations Trump claims to want.

Second, even if U.S. negotiators are trying to cut deals with other countries that would isolate China, they will be unlikely to succeed because Trump has lost all credibility. After all, you can’t make deals with other countries unless foreign governments believe that you will honor the agreements you make. Trump has already destroyed U.S. credibility on that front, ripping up all our existing trade agreements, then making wild changes in his own tariffs every few days.

Third, even if Trump’s promises were credible, why would a European government want to join America’s trade war with China, destroying its own supply chains? If the argument is that it’s worth paying the cost of ruined supply chains because that will protect you from Trump’s tariffs, who trusts Trump not to reimpose punitive tariffs on our supposed allies the next time he thinks they’re looking at him funny?

The other day, I did a post of all the entities that have filed amicus curiae briefs in support of Perkins Coie’s fight against being blackballed by Trump.

I updated the post today with an amicus from six ethics law professors.

1. George M. Cohen, Brokaw Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Virginia School of Law.
2. Susan P. Koniak, Professor of Law, Emerita, Boston University School of Law.
3. Jonah E. Perlin, Associate Professor of Law, Legal Practice and Senior Fellow of the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center.
4. Nancy B. Rapoport, UNLV Distinguished Professor & Garman Turner Gordon Professor of Law at William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
5. Mitt Regan, McDevitt Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession, Georgetown University Law Center.
6. W. Bradley Wendel, Edwin H. Woodruff Professor of Law at Cornell Law School.

I’ll come back to the substance of the brief in a bit.

But first, I wanted to point to this story, confirming something I had begun to suspect based on who was getting scoops about upcoming agreements with law firms: That Boris Ephsteyn is at the heart of negotiating Trump’s kickback schemes with law firms.

The story has a rather curious emphasis (but not a surprising one from Trump whisperer Josh Dawsey).

In ¶3, it describes in passing that Epshteyn was indicted in the Arizona case charging Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election (but doesn’t mention that he was indicted for, among other things, fraud).

Trump’s personal lawyer Boris Epshteyn, who has been indicted in Arizona on charges related to Trump’s 2020 election loss, has emerged as the face of the Trump administration’s campaign against large law firms that it views as hostile to the president and his causes,

In ¶6, the story repeats dubious claims that some law firms had qualms about negotiating with someone who wasn’t in government — but made no mention of qualms about negotiating with someone indicted for fraud.

Some of the law firms privately worried about negotiating with a lawyer who wasn’t employed by the government and didn’t have a government email address, some of the lawyers said. But they decided talking with Epshteyn was their best path to avoid a government investigation or executive order, the people said, after determining he had serious sway with Trump.

Then finally, in ¶¶20-21, the story returns to Ephsteyn’s indictment and only then mentions that David Warrington tried to oust Ephsteyn for soliciting kickbacks — precisely the kinds of kickbacks at question here — from people seeking jobs in the new Administration, up to and including Scott Bessent (who did get the job) and Bill McGinley (who at first got the job of White House Counsel, then was demoted to DOGE counsel, then left altogether).

WSJ doesn’t mention a lot of details about the alleged shakedown that were reported last November, such as the report that was done. It describes mostly that David Warrington warned Trump to cut ties with Ephsteyn.

Epshteyn is a polarizing figure among Trump advisers, and many question his tactics, according to campaign and administration officials. He was indicted in Arizona last year following an investigation into efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state, and has pleaded not guilty there. He previously pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct as part of a bar incident. He was accused by Trump’s campaign lawyer of shaking down potential administration nominees for consulting contracts. Epshteyn has denied the allegations.

In a November email viewed by The Wall Street Journal, David Warrington, who was then-campaign counsel and is now the White House counsel, urged Trump to cut ties with Epshteyn.

And that’s it.

WSJ buried the Trump-friendly reports (including from John Solomon!) about this alleged shakedown, with no discussion of the import it would have for law firms — law firms!!! — to deal with someone indicted for felony fraud and alleged by Trump friendly insiders of unethical kickbacks.

How was that not the lead of the story? That Skadden (implicated in Paul Manafort’s corruption as well as an attack on US DNS experts) and Kirkland & Ellis (which represented Alfa Bank on related issues) — among other leading US law firms — were dealing with a guy accused by Trump’s own insiders of soliciting kickbacks in return for Administration jobs? Oh gosh, it’s unseemly, the WSJ story suggests the lawyers said, but what choice do we have?!?!?!

Which brings us back to the amicus from Legal Ethics professors. It raises several real concerns about conflicts and informed consent for law firm clients.

But it also raises a point I had been contemplating. How does this not raise concerns about bribery? How is exemption from these Executive Orders not an official act traded for millions in pro bono support?

Just as the President’s decision to issue executive orders that sanction certain law firms is an official act, so too is the President’s decision to withhold issuing executive orders that would sanction other law firms. See McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. 550, 574 (2016) (holding that for purposes of construing § 201, an “official act” essentially has two components: (1) “the public official must make a decision or take an action” on (2) “something specific and focused that is ‘pending’ or ‘may by law be brought’” before a public official). A law firm’s commitment to provide valuable pro bono services to the President’s preferred causes, made “with intent to influence” the decision whether to issue or withhold an executive order targeting those law firms, would appear to meet the quid pro quo requirement of federal bribery law.

The amicus notes, more politely than I have, that Pam Bondi’s DOJ is never going to prosecute bribery of any sort (aside from certain DC officials). Then it notes that DOJ used the threat of a bribery prosecution to coerce Eric Adams.

In the present circumstances, the Department of Justice likely would conclude that it is not in the public interest to prosecute law firms that offer pro bono services in exchange for avoiding the consequences of an executive order, even if that offer arguably constitutes a violation of § 201.3 Regardless, the President’s exertion of pressure on law firms to engage in conduct that could violate federal anti-bribery law further illustrates the ethical quandaries these executive orders create. Allowing Executive Order 14,230 to take effect would put more pressure on law firms to reach agreements with the President to avoid a similar fate, and in doing so compromise themselves to potential criminal liability.

3 Or perhaps not: the threat of criminal prosecution is a potent form of influence the federal government could exert to compel law firms to continue complying with the President’s demands. Cf. United States v. Adams, No. 24-CR-556, 2025 WL 978572, at *36 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 2, 2025) (stating that the government “extract[ing] a public official’s cooperation with the administration’s agenda in exchange for dropping a prosecution . . . would be ‘clearly contrary to the public interest’” because it “violate[s] norms against using prosecutorial power for political ends” (quoting United States v. Cowan, 524 F.2d 504, 513 (5th Cir. 1975))).

A guy already accused by Trump insiders of improper influence peddling is the guy offering these kickback settlements to white shoe law firms.

And the most concern they can muster, at least for the benefit of the WSJ, is a concern that Ephsteyn doesn’t have a government email address?

Donald Trump, Nayib Bukele, and Kristi Noem love to make fascist spectacle.

They did it with the video showing the arrival of hundreds of people Trump sent to Bukele’s concentration camp. Noem did it with her visit to the camp. And they did it with the planned theater yesterday, including the staged hot mic moment where Trump told Bukele he wanted to send “homegrowns” to the concentration camp at CECOT.

They do it because fascist spectacle inspires fear. They do it because fascist spectacle goes viral, including with the help of data mules who purport to oppose its content.

They do it because it short circuits rational thought, overwhelming such rational thought with emotion.

The effect of yesterday’s fascist spectacle led virtually everyone to focus on a detail that won’t help the immediate fight before us — Trump’s interest in deporting “homegrowns,” an interest he has stated openly over and over, starting during campaign — rather than on details that might help Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and in the process help to prevent similar treatment of other migrants and, ultimately, American citizens.

Few people raised any of the questions posed by Trump’s latest attempt to retcon a legal case he already blew. Let’s start with the big one:

Why did Trump free someone, Abrego Garcia, whom Stephen Miller insists is a dangerous terrorist?

The latest theory about Abrego Garcia — one DOJ first rolled out at the Fourth Circuit — is that when the Trump Administration designated MS-13 a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year, it meant Abrego Garcia was no longer eligible for the withholding of removal granted to him in 2019.

It is true that an immigration judge concluded six years ago that Abrego Garcia should not be returned to El Salvador, given his claims about threats from a different gang. Final Removal Order 7–10. That conclusion was dubious then (and increasingly so now). But it has become totally untenable, given the Secretary of State’s designation of MS-13 as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in February. 90 Fed. Reg. at 10030–31.

As a result of that designation, and Abrego Garcia’s membership in that terrorist organization, he would no longer be eligible for withholding relief under the federal immigration laws. 8 U.S.C. §§ 1231(b)(3)(B)(iv); 1227(a)(4)(B). And as even Plaintiffs admit, the Government had available a procedural mechanism under governing regulations to reopen the immigration judge’s prior order, and terminate its withholding protection. See Reply 8. To be sure, the Government did not avail itself of that procedure in this case. But through the lens of the public interest, the district court’s stunning injunction does not fit that error. A mistake of process does not warrant the unprecedented remedy ordered—one that demands the return of a foreign terrorist from the foreign sovereign that agreed to take him.

Before this claim, DOJ barely mentioned two earlier rulings from 2019 (one two) asserting Abrego Garcia could not be released because of hearsay ties to MS-13, relying instead on procedural arguments. In a footnote, Judge Xinis ruled that DOJ did not rely on it before her.

Defendants did not assert—at any point prior to or during the April 4, 2025, hearing—that Abrego Garcia was an “enemy combatant,” an “alien enemy” under the Alien Enemies Act, 50 U.S.C. § 21, or removable based on MS13’s recent designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under 8 U.S.C. § 1189. Invoking such theories for the first time on appeal cannot cure the failure to present them before this Court. In any event, Defendants have offered no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or to any terrorist activity. And vague allegations of gang association alone do not supersede the express protections afforded under the INA, including 8 U.S.C. §§ 1231(b)(3)(A), 1229a, and 1229b.

As Judge Stephanie Thacker noted in the Fourth Circuit opinion denying a stay the government thereby could not raise it before her.

Finally, I turn to the Government’s assertion that the public interest favors a stay because Abrego Garicia is a “prominent” member of MS-13 and is therefore “no longer eligible for withholding relief.” Mot. for Stay at 14–15. Whatever the merits of the 2019 determination of the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) regarding Abrego Garcia’s connection to MS-13,8 the Government presented “[n]o evidence” to the district court to “connect[] Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any other criminal organization.” Dis.t Ct. Op. at 22 n.19; see also id. at 2 n.2 (“Invoking such theories for the first time on appeal cannot cure the failure to present them before this Court.”). Indeed, such a fact cannot be gleaned from this record, which shows that Abrego Garcia has no criminal history, in this country or anywhere else, and that Abrego Garcia is a gainfully employed family man who lives a law abiding and productive life. Tellingly, the Government “abandon[ed]” its position that Abrego Garcia was “a danger to the community” at the hearing before the district court. Dist. Ct. Op. at 22 n.19. The balance of equities must tip in the movant’s favor based on the record before the issuing court. An unsupported — and then abandoned — assertion that Abrego Garcia was a member of a gang, does not tip the scales in favor of removal in violation of this Administration’s own9 withholding order. If the Government wanted to prove to the district court that Abrego Garcia was a “prominent” member of MS-13, it has had ample opportunity to do so but has not — nor has it even bothered to try.

The Government’s argument that there is a public interest in removing members of “violent transnational gangs” from this country is no doubt true, but it does nothing to help the Government’s cause here. As noted, the Government has made no effort to demonstrate that Abrego Garcia is, in fact, a member of any gang, nor did the Government avail itself of the “procedural mechanism under governing regulations to reopen the immigration judge’s prior order[] and terminate its withholding protection.” Mot. for Stay at 16–17. The Government may not rely on its own failure to circumvent its own ruling that Abrego Garcia could not be removed to El Salvador.

8 Even then, the Government’s “evidence” of any connection between Abrego Garcia and MS-13 was thin, to say the least. The Government’s claim was based on (1) Abrego Garcia “wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie,” and (2) “a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York—a place he has never lived.” S.A. 146 n.5; Mot. for Stay Add. at 10–11.

9 Of note, the IJ’s 2019 decision, which granted Abrego Garcia withholding of removal to El Salvador pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A) because he faced threats to his life from an El Salvadoran gang that had targeted him and his family, was during President Trump’s 2016–2020 term in office. That decision became final on November 9, 2019, and was not appealed by this Administration.

But let’s take this retcon on its face. Stephen Miller has now decided, with no evidence provided, that Abrego Garcia is a “prominent” leader of MS-13, a gang on which DOJ focused closely for the entirety of the first Trump Administration. Miller says that Abrego Garcia is a danger to the community. Miller keeps screeching about terrorism.

If what Miller is saying now is true, it means that Trump released a dangerous criminal back in 2019. Why did Trump leave this man on the street to do dangerous things like raising three American citizen children for six years?

Update: Roger Parloff has a good summary of the flimsy case that Abrego Garcia has ties to MS-13.

Why is Trump so weak that he can’t make requests of the dictator of a small country?

Next consider Pam Bondi’s claim that, notwithstanding public reports that the detainees are just being held in CECOT for a year, notwithstanding Kristi Noem’s visit to the concentration camp, notwithstanding that the government just sent another ten people down there, the government is helpless to get Abrego Garcia back.

What does this say about Trump’s weakness as a President?

What kind of weak ass man can’t even make a request of a small Central American nation?

How does Trump think he’ll negotiate with Xi Jinping if he can’t even make a simple request of Bukele?

Will Stephen Miller send adjudged terrorists like Stewart Rhodes and Joe Biggs to Bukele’s concentration camp? Will Miller send DC US Attorney Ed Martin there, for palling around with adjudged terrorist Kelly Meggs, the same kind of associational ties used to send at least one of the men on the flights on March 15 to CECOT?

Next, let’s take Trump at his word that he wants to send “homegrowns” to CECOT.

Should Stewart Rhodes and Joe Biggs — both adjudged to be terrorists, both radicalized in the United States — both be packing their bags for the concentration camp? If Ed Martin has been palling around with adjudged terrorist Kelly Meggs — the same kind of associational guilt used to send at least one of the Venezuelans in the March 15 flight — should he worry about packing his bags?

Will Stephen Miller send his terrorists to the concentration camp?

Is Miller using the designation of terrorism just as a way to criminalize brown people, or will he send terrorists from his own tribe to the concentration camp?

Why is Stephen Miller terrified of — why does he want you to be terrified of — loving fathers? 

Miller has been accusing journalists who describe the contributions Abrego Garcia has made as a loving father to three American citizen children of lying, because journalists refuse to repeat his bleated accusations of terrorism with no evidence. Miller and Pam Bondi are working hard to get people to dumbly adopt their accusations.

But why is Miller so afraid of journalists describing Abrego Garcia as what he is, a father from Maryland?

Why does Pam Bondi keep destroying the careers of DOJ attorneys because they tell the truth?

When DOJ decided to retcon this case, they scapegoated the lawyer from whom they had withheld any sound legal basis, Erez Reuvani, along with his supervisor, both of whom were put on leave.

This, in spite of the fact that Drew Ensign called Reuveni “top notched” when he promoted him just weeks earlier.

In a March 21 email announcing Mr. Reuveni’s promotion to acting deputy director of the department’s Office of Immigration Litigation, his boss, Drew C. Ensign, lauded him for working on cases filed against sanctuary cities accused of defying federal immigration laws, and for generally helping to expand the department’s litigation activities.

“I want to thank those who submitted interest for the acting positions — we had outstanding choices, which helps go to show the excellent caliber of our team,” Mr. Ensign wrote.

Mr. Ensign has been handling a separate immigration case, one in which he has been defending the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to summarily deport scores of Venezuelan migrants accused of belonging to the street gang Tren de Aragua.

As DOJ has provided increasingly contemptuous updates to Judge Xinis, the AUSA who had appeared before her, Tarra DeShields, has backed off vouching for the arguments DOJ has made, instead listing her involvement as “fil[ing]” updates.

Finally, Ensign filed a notice of appearance and, apparently, took on this dogshit argument himself, as he did the Alien Enemies Act before Judge Boasberg.

Obviously, even committed immigration lawyers are unwilling to make these arguments. How many career attorneys will Pam Bondi chase away while floating these arguments?? How many careers will she destroy because the actions of the Trump administration have no defense in the law?

Has Bondi’s DOJ lost all presumption of regularity?

And the whole process of admitting fault, suspending the person who (along with several others) told that truth, and then inventing new theories after the fact has to start destroying the entire concept of presumption of regularity for DOJ.

Even before DeShields started getting cold feet, even before Stephen Miller started disclaiming the error that everyone has admitted, Ben Wittes raised this question: At what point are judges entitled to demand proof from DOJ lawyers for their claims?

Will Xinis demand that DOJ document their new theory that Trump’s terrorist designations retroactively make judge’s orders disappear?

Would Marco Rubio deport his own grandfather to a concentration camp if Stephen Miller told him to?

Abrego Garcia’s story — of a man who came to the US to seek a better life without proper paperwork, but who was allowed to stay and build a life — is not all that different from the story of Marco Rubio’s own grandfather, who was almost denied entry in part because of suspicions he had communist sympathies and even then only allowed to stay as a parolee.

It had been almost three years since he had last set foot in the United States, and he no longer had the proper credentials to enter. They told him he could stay for the time being, but if he wanted to avoid deportation, he would have to plead his case.

“I always thought of being here in the United States as a resident, living permanently here,” the slight 62-year-old grandfather, speaking through an interpreter, said at a hearing five weeks later. He said that he had previously returned to Cuba because he did not want to be a burden on his family in the United States, but that the Cuban government had grown too oppressive and he feared what might happen if he stayed.

The immigration officer was unmoved. He did not see an exiled family man — just someone who had no visa, worked for the Castro government and could pose a security risk.

“It is ordered that the applicant be excluded and deported from the United States,” he said matter-of-factly, according to an audio recording of the proceedings stored by the National Archives. He stopped to ask if Mr. Garcia understood.

“Yes, I do,” Mr. Garcia said plaintively.

That easily could have been the end of his American story. But someone in the immigration office on Biscayne Boulevard that day — the paperwork does not make clear exactly who or why — had a change of heart. Mr. Garcia was granted status as a parolee, a gray area of the law that meant he would not get a green card but could remain in the United States.

[snip]

Despite Mr. Garcia’s insistence that he was fleeing oppression, immigration officials raised suspicions that he might harbor communist sympathies, the records reveal. That charge, had they pursued it, could have led to a conclusion that he was a national security threat. (Details of Mr. Garcia’s immigration odyssey were reported in 2012 by Manuel Roig-Franzia in his book “The Rise of Marco Rubio.”)

In an interview, Mr. Rubio acknowledged that some would see a conflict between the stricter immigration and refugee policies he supports and his grandfather’s experience. Immigration records also show that other members of Mr. Rubio’s family — two aunts and an uncle — were admitted as refugees.

But Mr. Rubio said the difference between then and now is how much more sophisticated foreign infiltrators like the Islamic State have become, and how dangerous they are.

“I recognize that’s a valid point,” the senator said, “But what you didn’t have was a widespread effort on behalf of Fidel Castro to infiltrate into the United States killers who were going to detonate weapons and kill people.”

Last month, Trump announced the cessation of various parole programs, including a recent one including Cubans, effective on April 24. Which means, within days, Cubans could be among the Hispanic migrants that Stephen Miller packages up to send to Bukele’s concentration camp.

How many Cubans will Marco Rubio send away to a concentration camp? How many lives like Rubio’s own will the Secretary of State doom with his enthusiasm to send send loving fathers to concentration camps?

For too long Trump’s lefty opponents (liberals and progressives and those further left; anti-Trump Republicans are, in my opinion, actually far better at this) have largely failed to make Trump’s fascism a political problem. And while lawyers have done a great job of humanizing their clients — including Abrego Garcia — in public opinion, the rest of it, the contradictions and confessions of pathetic weakness, has largely gone unmentioned.

Do not abdicate making Abrego Garcia a political, as well as a legal, case. Do not get distracted by the fascist spectacle from using the fragile story rolled out yesterday against Trump. The stakes in this moment are too high.

Stewart Rhodes remains an adjudged terrorist (having gotten a terrorism enhancement at sentencing, in a sentence that Trump commuted but did not pardon). Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not.

I start there because one of the biggest takeaways from the press conference Trump staged with Nayib Bukele today is that the claims that Abrego Garcia — and not the guy whom Trump freed on his first day on the job — is a terrorist went uncontested.

The entire press conference was staged, like a badly written play, and staged to set up tomorrow’s status hearing in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, and with it try to chip away at due process for undocumented people. Yes, in the longer run, Trump wants to set up the legal path to use CECOT as a concentration camp, including for Americans. But in the shorter term, I think Trump is trying to reverse two adverse SCOTUS decisions, the one ruling that everyone gets access to at least a habeas petition before being deported, and the other that would uphold the ruling that Abrego Garcia could be deported, but not to El Salvador.

As far as we know, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a unique fact set among the people deported in the March 15 flights, and my guess is that after John Sauer came in, he decided to reset how DOJ deals with Abrego Garcia because he 1) had a negative ruling in 2019 and 2) is an undocumented Salvadoran citizen.

And so the presser today was designed to present an entirely new argument in the Abrego Garcia case, one that negates the repeated admissions of error (including even from Sauer) already in the court record.

After Kaitlan Collins started asking questions, all the people who should be submitting sworn declarations before Judge Paula Xinis made comments not burdened by oaths or the risk of contempt, rehearsed comments for the cameras.

Pam Bondi misrepresented the two 2019 rulings as findings that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist (as distinct from a ruling that he was not safe to release), and said that she was helpless to get Abrego Garcia back.

Stephen Miller laid out the new game plan at length (one he previewed on Fox beforehand): a claim that the SCOTUS order says the opposite of what it does, a claim that SCOTUS said that so long as this all gets packaged as foreign policy, Trump can deprive Abrego Garcia of his rights. A lie that the plan always to send Abrego Garcia to CECOT for precisely the purpose they’re putting forth today.

Marco Rubio had his speaking part, in which he affirmed the claim that this was all about foreign policy.

And then Bukele claimed he is helpless to return Abrego Garcia because — accepting the unsubstantiated claim that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist — he couldn’t bring someone like that back into the US (never mind that countries, including El Salvador, extradite actual terrorists to the US all the time).

So Bondi claimed to be helpless to ask Buekele to return Abrego Garcia. Bukele claimed to be helpless to return him. Depending on how SCOTUS treats the clear contempt for their ruling, it could have the desired effect, to get John Roberts to claim impotence.

There was no discussion of the US payments to Bukele, or past claims that Bukele is only temporarily holding the US deportees. (Though without the claim that this is temporary, the deportations to be held indefinitely in a third country become far more problematic.) Andrew Weissmann noted that Trump’s hot mic comment that Bukele should build five more camps suggests this is all being done at the US’ behest.

And, of course, there was no discussion that Trump freed a number of adjudged terrorists on his first day in office, his terrorists, terrorists now running free.

The Trump Administration is, in my opinion, trying to move the bar on deportation to a concentration camp. Contrary to Trump’s staged comment (for Bukele’s videographers) that Bukele needs to build five more concentration camps, I don’t think this theater was designed to get all the way to deporting American citizens now, not without more sanction from SCOTUS. I have no doubt he does want to get there, but thus far Trump has given what he does the patina of legal sanction, and he seems to believe he’ll get it here.

But I do think the theater scene was designed to get a second bid on this case from SCOTUS. And until people start focusing on Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that these men — Abrego Garcia and the others — are terrorists, until that claim is defeated politically, then Trump will continue to make legal progress.

I keep writing about how Trump keeps retconning what he is doing legally, attempting to alter his explanations for what he’s doing, legally, when a first legal theory runs into trouble. The Trump administration has tried to retcon:

• The basis by which they smothered USAID
• The legal basis for revoking Mahmoud Khalil’s student visa green card
• Their opinion about the Eric Adams prosecution team
• Who leads DOGE and what her real day job is and Elon Musk’s role in it all

Trump has only accelerated these dizzying gyrations in attempting to explain how Kilmar Abrego Garcia ended up in a prison in El Salvador.

• We’re just lending Nayib Bukele detainees
• We fucked up
• We’ll comply with SCOTUS’ order
• Nope, Abrego Garcia is Bukele’s for keeps
• We fucked up but we’re declaring backsies on a 2019 decision
• It’s classified

Thus far, Trump has dodged repercussions for this Choose Your Own Adventure lawyering, thanks in part to SCOTUS’ disruption of the Alien Enemies Act class act before Judge James Boasberg before he could hold anyone in contempt. There is a pending contempt request before Judge Paula Xinis in the Abrego Garcia case, but she will need to dot some Is and cross some Ts before she imposes sanctions and even there it would take time to target the sanctions against the people who deserve them.

I first IDed this Administrative retconning in the legal context because in the legal context there are rules about saying one thing and then changing your mind (though actually, I first IDed Trump’s reliance on retconning after the Haitian dogs and cats attack during the election). That is, it matters in a legal context because it may blow a legal case even in a context — such as deportations — where the President has expansive authority. The Supreme Court vastly expanded Trump’s power with the immunity decision, but his DOJ is so feckless it may end up losing anyway because they do something stupid (or at least wildly inconsistent) legally.

That’ll take time, though. Xinis will not rule quickly to avoid giving the government easy cause for reversal, and so won’t deliver the immediate punishment the government deserves.

But Trump has been retconning policies elsewhere, most especially in his rollout of tariffs.

Over the course of the last week, Trump rolled out:

• Liberation day tariffs on everyone, including penguins, except the axis of authoritarians Trump idolizes
• A blink
• Tariffs on China
• More tariffs on China
• Still more tariffs on China
• Even more tariffs on China
• The Tim Apple exemption
• A seeming reversal of the Tim Apple exemption

This is the very same policy ineptitude as we see with DOGE and in the legal context, but this time with the world’s biggest economy, and just as importantly, the glue that holds the global economy together.

In the legal context, this fecklessness — and the public retaliation on government lawyers for admitting that they’re being compartmented from real information — results in the gradual erosion of presumption of regularity, the equivalent of a house advantage that lets the government make seemingly unreasonable claims without immediate consequence.

But the presumption of regularity dissolves much more quickly in the financial context.

Justin Wolfers, who doesn’t have a substack but does have TikTok, described how Trump’s attempts to retcon his tariff policy has created two economic crises: the first created by Trump’s tariffs themselves, the second created by the retconning itself.

One of the reasons you saw the markets respond so strongly is there this crisis of confidence. It’s a crisis of confidence in the competence of the Administration. They’ve rolled out tariffs based on formula that make no economic sense. They stick with a plan where they say it’s all about one thing and then they roll it all back and say, you know what? we’ve been lying to you since Sunday when they already decided to change paths. They — tariffs on China yesterday, we were told, were 125% and today they’re 145%. I want you to stick with that for just a moment. You’ve got tariffs between two of the world’s great economic powers and people in the White House couldn’t tell you the correct tariff within 20 percentage points, which would normally be the entire trade war and they forgot whether it was 125 or whether it was 145.

In his substack, Paul Krugman likens the response to the treatment of the US economy like a developing economy.

The obvious explanation is that crazy policies have shaken investors’ faith in America, which has traditionally been viewed as a safe haven.

The topic of how Trump’s policies have messed with the bond markets – including the market for US Treasuries — is too difficult for me to cover today, but here’s more. The key point is that massive tariffs have disrupted the plumbing of the financial system, leading to soaring interest rates on U.S. government debt. That’s abnormal: rising odds of a recession usually lead to falling long-term interest rates, because the prospect of a recession raises the likelihood of future cuts by the Fed, which controls short-term rates. This time, however, rates are spiking, especially for very-long-term instruments like 30-year bonds, shown at the top of this post.

The common thread in currency and bond markets is that, thanks to Trump, dollar assets — traditionally the foundation of the global financial system — are no longer perceived as safe.

The combination of interest rates soaring amid a slump and the currency plunging despite rising interest rates isn’t what we normally expect for advanced countries, let alone the owner of the world’s leading reserve currency. It is, however, what we often see in emerging-market economies. That is, investors have started treating the United States like a third-world economy.

Did I see this coming? No, not really. Unlike the sanewashers, I knew that Trump’s policies would be irresponsible and destructive. However, even I didn’t expect him to destroy credibility accumulated over 80 years in less than three months. But he has.

And even if Trump were to backtrack on everything he’s done, we wouldn’t get the lost credibility back. The whole world, sanewashers aside, now knows that America is run by a mad king, surrounded by enablers, who can’t be trusted to behave rationally.

In court, Trump may have ways of dodging the consequences of getting caught retconning his story.

In the economy, there’s no way to unring the bell — probably not even the replacement of Trump, if that were to happen in the near term.

American financial hegemony has been built on a decades of reliability. That financial hegemony has given the US, and even US consumers, privileges other people don’t have. Importantly, that financial hegemony is the basis for tools — such as sanctions on Russia on Iran — that Trump claims to be threatening if he doesn’t get his way.

Things go boom when you try to retcon your economic explanations.

I alluded to this on Friday’s podcast with Nicole. It was inevitable that bankers and hedgies would have less patience with Trump’s equivocations than judges do, partly because of judicial comity and partly because SCOTUS will go some lengths to protect Trump.

But these are related issues. The utter fecklessness of Trump’s policy logic is consistent between law and the economy (indeed, DOGE occupies the sweet spot between the two of them). That doesn’t mean the bankers will care about all the other damage Elon Musk has been doing to the US. But it means Trump’s claim to omnipotence will start to unravel in ways that may provide opportunities elsewhere, including with Republicans who actually understand the privilege that arises from the US economic hegemony Trump is squandering.

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Elon Musk has repeatedly said government functions should be privatized.

You already know how that works out for the U.S., because it’s one of the biggest single differences between the cost of living in other first world countries and the U.S.

It’s also one of the biggest differences in life expectancy between other first world countries and the U.S.

Healthcare in the EU, for example, costs much less than it does in the U.S., and outcomes measured in life expectancy are far better.

But healthcare in the EU is not fully privatized; though not identical across all EU members, it’s based on universal access and publicly subsidized.

Ditto for Canada and Greenland, the countries Trump wants to seize. Better that they seize us and bring their healthcare systems with them.

But this month has also demonstrated the risk of taking Elon Musk seriously when it comes to privatization.

Imagine this is our social security system:

 

Who’s not going to get their checks if the bottom drops out even further? Why should Americans who’ve paid into Social Security over a lifetime of work have to worry about additional risk to their futures because unelected and unconstitutionally appointed Musk believes exposure to the market is what Americans need?

It’s bad enough that Americans’ cost of daily living expenses is further exposed to market risks because of Trump’s misbegotten, ill-considered tariffs. Musk believes Americans’ retirement years should be even more deeply risky.

It makes zero sense to listen to a man who has no empathy for others’ concerns, who has no experience dealing with a limited income and trying to make ends meet. He doesn’t have adequate background let alone personal history to make such judgments about what will work best for the American people; he doesn’t even view his children’s health as personal obligations (ex. recent public pleas by two of his children’s mothers for assistance with healthcare matters).

~ ~ ~

What really takes the cake is the silence of the business world.

Of course the financial industry is silently slavering over the chance to get their grubby mitts on our Social Security, and they’re staying quiet about it because they know they dare not set off the American public.

But Jeff Bezos’ Amazon-derived fortune was made in no small part off the subsidy that the U.S. Postal Service has been to American business.

USPS is the fallback for shipping nearly anything nearly anywhere in the U.S.; Bezos didn’t have to worry about whether his books would sell in North Utter Remote, Outer Territory USA. There was a post office nearby where purchasers could pick up their orders if they couldn’t be delivered to their door by USPS carriers on foot.

Bezos didn’t have to negotiate that. Didn’t have to buy sorter equipment, trucks, hire and train personnel, build sorting facilities, so on. All of that was on our dime when it wasn’t paid for by postage, until Amazon was successful enough to consider reducing shipping and handling costs further with their own trucks.

Furthermore, Bezos knew what the competitive rate for shipping a majority of Amazon’s products would be based on USPS rates – rates set by USPS bidding out trucking and equipment purchases. When Amazon started buying its own trucks, Amazon knew its costs had to be no more than USPS’ costs to deliver.

In short, our tax dollars and our volume of postage helped underwrite Jeff Bezos’ billions.

And he’s just going to sit there smug and mum, enjoying his irrational wealth while Musk shoots off his mouth about privatizing government.

Because Bezos will probably ensure the next billions he makes off our backs is from Amazon Postal Service.

Can’t begin to imagine how much our health care will cost once Amazon has the contract both for postal delivery of medications and health care insurance.

You can only imagine when Musk takes his chainsaw to Amtrak what will happen next: he’ll claim only his vaporware Hyperloop is the alternative, and American people should pay him billions to implement it instead of a long-proven passenger rail system.

Privatization will not yield better outcomes for the American people and you already know that. Don’t wait until Musk uses DOGE to shut off funds to the USPS; he’s already targeted USPS personnel. Contact your representative and senators and insist that government should NOT be privatized.

Not our Social Security, not our mail delivery, not a single government service which could end up becoming a pricey-to-us privatized profit center for billionaires.

Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)