JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI -NOVEMBER 09: U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks throughout an interview on November 09, 2026 in Jackson, Mississippi. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche signed up with Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and other chosen authorities in revealing Jackson, Mississippi, as one of 4 districts chosen to get federal financing through the Model Cities Initiative (MCI). The effort intends to fight criminal offense and enhance public security. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
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INSIDE: Robert Tracci … Stephen Miller … Cleta Mitchell
A Two-Tiered Justice Department
Before delving into the news, I wished to frame up rapidly how to consider the existing structure of the Justice Department as we head into the 2nd half of Trump II.
The departures of some leading political appointees from the Trump DOJ considering that the GOP was burnt out in the midterms has actually gotten a great deal of attention, however it’s been otherwise miscast, misinterpreted, or mischaracterized.
The method the Justice Department traditionally worked resembled every other department: A slate of political appointees was layered on top of the profession staff members to run the department and execute the president’s broad policy program. Those political appointees differed in regards to ability, professionalism, experience, and determination to be independent versus do the White House’s bidding.
There were outliers– like Attorneys General John Mitchell and Bill Barr– however for one of the most part, the political appointees might be put within a variety that we may call” regular.”Along came Trump II, and whatever altered.
Lawyer General Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche exist far outside the typical variety and have actually redefined what outliers are. They eliminated DOJ self-reliance and took part in utilizing the department as a sword versus Trump’s enemies and a guard for his good friends.
They each surrounded themselves with a cadre of similar political appointees, however that circle is smaller sized than typical and has actually been getting gradually smaller sized. At this moment, it’s down to Blanche, acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter, Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward, and Aakash Singh, the primary partner deputy attorney general of the United States. A previous DOJer joked to the NYT that the Trump DOJ need to be called”Four Guys “– a play on the hamburger chain’s name– to show its small management cadre .
Unlike previous administration’s, the Trump II political appointees aren’t layered on top of the profession staff members in typical hierarchal style. They exist beyond that structure and in a posture not simply adversarial to profession staff members however to a few of the core functions of the department under the law, like public corruption and civil liberties.
After the comprehensive Trump II purges of profession staff member, the political appointees now supervise a department Swiss-cheesed with an absence of capability, deserted systems and areas, and absentee management. The only thing that keeps the department running in any identifiable type is that the majority of the daily performance of the DOJ takes place in the 94 U.S lawyer’s workplaces around the nation. They have not been spared either.
The rush for the exits amongst some political appointees post-election hasn’t actually altered the core dynamic; it simply more plainly shows what was currently going on. The department was currently being run by the relative couple of staying Trump real followers.
Little were there numbers and so unbelievable their legal arguments that it’s been left to senior political appointees like Woodward to in fact deal with cases themselves, appearing in court, and making the direct ire of federal judges. Woodward is safeguarding questions in different cases in D.C. and Chicago into whether the DOJ misinformed courts, and Woodward himself has actually come under withering criticism from judges.
The post-election departures have actually most likely zapped a few of the workforce that the political appointees need to manage cases straight themselves, although they’ve currently mixed in brand-new lawyers to assist. That’s a different concern from the purges of profession staff members leaving DOJ beleaguered and under staffed, specifically as it competes with a wave of immigrant habeas cases.
When Singh– the channel in between Main Justice and the 94 U.S. lawyers– alerted them after the election of shootings to come and prompted them to be on a”wartime footing, “it looked less like an effective hazard and more like flailing from a position of weak point.
While compromised, the Trump DOJ is no less unsafe after the election since it’s most likely a lot more inefficient, unforeseeable, and secondary to the Trump White House.
Trump DOJ Sanctions Alert
A federal judge in the Eastern District of New York today disallowed a Trump DOJ lawyer from ever once again appearing in a specific migration case in front of him, Just Security reports2 other DOJ lawyers in the event might suffer the very same fate, the judge alerted.
U.S. District Judge Sanket J. Bulsara stated that a letter to the court from Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Price remained in “bad faith, an intentional effort to misguide the Court, perpetuate a scams on the tribunal, and break commitments under Rule 11.”
The breach appears deadly to Price’s standing with the judge:
Judge Bulsara informed Richard Hayes, head of the civil department at the U.S. Attorney’s workplace, that he ought to think about getting rid of Price from other cases.”You must think of whether you wish to switch him out and have some other legal representative from your workplace appear in any of his cases before me,”Judge Bulsara cautioned. “Your workplace is on notification.”
Check out the complete story
U.S. Attorneys Scheme: WDVA Edition
A criminal offender is attempting to disqualify Robert Tracci from serving as the leading federal district attorney in the Western District of Virginia, Bloomberg reports. Tracci’s consultation as very first assistant U.S. Attorney followed the U.S. lawyer position
was currently uninhabited, a situation which other courts have actually discovered inadequate to legally raise the very first assistant into the leading post. It is among the systems that the Trump DOJ has actually utilized in its plan to set up patriots as leading federal district attorneys in blue states.
Stephen Miller Will Fail’Catastrophically’
Miles Taylor:”I invested the bulk of two-and-a-half years handling Stephen Miller nearly every day. And his choice is amongst the most hazardous, silly, and self-defeating actions we’ve ever seen an American president take. ”
Golf Course Case Heats Up
Ahead of an extremely controversial hearing today in the D.C. golf course case, the Trump DOJ informed U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes that it items to her strategy to select an unique master in the event. Reyes plans to have previous D.C. U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu examine whether the Trump DOJ or other federal government counsel deceived the court in the event as a precursor to a prospective contempt of court questions.
The hearing today began HOT — although the hearing was seemingly not about either the unique master visit or the DOJ’s supposed misbehavior in the event. The instant problem is that President Trump has actually purchased the closure of the majority of East Potomac Park, consisting of the golf course, on Nov. 15, and the National Park Service prepares to follow that instructions. Complainants are looking for a TRO to keep the park open.
Binding Some Loose Ends on the Election
TPM favorite Cleta Mitchell:”In the run-up to the midterms, members of Georgia’s State Election Board and much of its expert personnel were collaborating with an activist group led by Cleta Mitchell, the conservative lawyer who dealt with President Donald Trump to attempt to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election,”ProPublica reports.
The Big Lie of Noncitizen Voting: A federal magistrate judge in Wisconsin recently dismissed 2 citizen scams cases brought by the Trump DOJ. In each circumstances, the judge embraced a comparable thinking to a federal judge in Florida in a judgment last month. The essence is that the 40-year-old federal restriction on noncitizen ballot is unconstitutional due to the fact that the states alone have the power to set citizen certifications in federal elections. The Florida case is on appeal, and there’s a lot more lawsuits coming by this. It represents a huge hazard to Trump’s Big Lie of widespread noncitizen ballot.
Secretary Corey
Politico: DHS messages back up claims that Lewandowski ran as shadow secretary
Crazy Story Continues …
NYT:”A Mexican previous district attorney dealing with arrest after enabling Central Intelligence Agency officers to run in his state has actually gotten away to the United States and is now under the U.S. federal government’s security, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities.”
Next Week: Changes to Morning Memo
Tomorrow will mark 4 years considering that I took control of composing Morning Memo. I designated myself the job on what I believed would be a short-term basis till I discovered somebody else to do it. It didn’t exercise the method I anticipated.
That short-lived fill-in wound up being the start of among the most fulfilling stages of my time here at TPM. At that point, I had not composed routinely in more than a years, and I found just how much I delighted in the possibility to do something straight myself instead of managing the doing of it by others.
Ever since my function at TPM has actually progressed therefore has the function of Morning Memo. Those modifications sped up in the very first half of 2025 as we cruised into the teeth of the Trump II storm. Provided the significance of the historic minute, Morning Memo slowly moved far from being a one-stop buy all of the day’s vital political news and ended up being rather a chronicle of the depredations of the Trump II presidency, with an unique concentrate on the guideline of law.
You might have likewise discovered the publishing time returned better to midday as the focus of Morning Memo altered from a rundown of the news to establishing a taxonomy for and a shared story of the budding authoritarianism in America.
It ended up being clear well before the election that it was time to repackage Morning Memo to much better show what it has actually ended up being. With the election past us, now’s the time to make the modification. Starting next week, “Morning Memo “will be relabelled and its pledge to you fine-tuned and upgraded.
Please invite”Unsanctioned.”
I’ll be composing Unsanctioned every weekday. The compound of it will look quite like the Morning Memo of the previous 22 months( which looked a bit various than the pre-Trump II variation of Morning Memo that we began with). It will be repackaged and rebranded to show the brand-new name and the brand-new focus.
Amongst the modifications, Unsanctioned will likewise use additionals solely to TPM members. It may be an additional edition on a hectic news weekend or vacation. It may be a much deeper dive on a subject or story than there’s space for in the basic variation of Unsanctioned. It may be access to live interviews, extra news products, unique news signals, and other methods of serving you news and analysis.
If you were currently getting Morning Memo through e-mail, you do not require to do a thing to get Unsanctioned. It will turn up in your inbox beginning next week. If you have actually liked Morning Memo, you’ll feel right at home with Unsanctioned. And while I wish to supply TPM members with extra methods to get in touch with Unsanctioned, non-members will still have access to what you’ve pertained to anticipate from me each weekday.
I’m anticipating embarking together with you on this next stage for the nation and for what I do here at TPM. I’m delighted by the possibilities.
See You Back Here Monday
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