Tonight in Your Rights: TACO Monday
Trump cuts his losses: Greg Bovino gets a demotion. Tim Walz gets big concessions. Halligan leaves DOJ. Don Lemon takes another victory lap.
Reality-based optimism about the durability of popular pushback.
This Monday’s news cycle was the living embodiment of the acronym “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
Gov. Tim Walz reported a “productive” phone call with Donald Trump, who reportedly agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and ensuring the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension can conduct independent investigations into the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
This afternoon, multiple news outlets reported that soon-to-be-former Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino would be leaving the state with many of the agents under his command. Bovino reportedly will return to his previous job as a sector chief for El Centro, Calif., after being the face of two unpopular operations in Chicago and the Twin Cities. During his brief tenure, one federal judge in Chicago declared in open court and in a written opinion that Bovino “lied” in a sworn deposition.
In his absence, so-called Border Patrol czar Tom Homan traveled to Minnesota to give Operation Metro Surge a more professional gloss. Unimpressed social media users got the word “Cava” trending on Elon Musk’s X, a reference to the restaurant brand on the paper bag of his $50,000 payoff from undercover FBI agents.
Having been forced out of the Eastern District of Virginia, ex-Trump lawyer turned fake U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan is leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to NBC News.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Justice Department’s application to review the disqualification of Trump’s ex-lawyer turned U.S. Attorney Alina Habba before the full bench. The Supreme Court would be the next stop if the Justice Department wants to take it further.
Trump’s Justice Department also withdrew a pending application for the chief judge of the District of Minnesota to pursue arrest warrants for five more people tied to the recent St. Paul church protest, including independent journalist Don Lemon.
Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, doubted prosecutors had a case against the former CNN host, writing of Lemon and his producer on Saturday: “There is no evidence that those two engaged in any criminal behavior or conspired to do so.”
The Justice Department may also have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in a longshot case by the state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities to declare the ICE surge unlawful under the 10th Amendment.
Legal experts doubted a federal judge overseen by the conservative Eighth Circuit had the power to take such an unprecedented action, but Attorney General Pam Bondi’s letter demanding three policy changes from the state led a federal judge to ask whether the federal government was engaging in a “quid pro quo,” potentially implicating the anti-commandeering doctrine.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, a Joe Biden appointee, seems reluctant to take that opening because the Eighth Circuit paused a much more modest order to prevent civil rights abuses against peaceful protesters. A three-judge panel found today the government was “likely to succeed on the merits” of its appeal.
Even if Judge Menendez doesn’t end the surge, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security appears to be winding things down on their own amid friendly fire from conservative allies. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called for a pause in immigration operations. Second Amendment groups denounced Trump officials for justifying Alex Pretti’s execution-style shooting on his lawfully carrying a firearm.
Even MAGA podcaster Tim Pool rejected the White House rhetoric blaming Pretti: “I don’t see Trump winning this one.”
In the face of enormous protests, internal mutiny, and mounting legal defeats, Trump appears to be cutting his losses under pressure.
I don’t want to forget Renée Good simply because we were slow on the uptake of her murder. She deserves to be remembered and redeemed with the same degree of respect that Alex does, even if she was “only” a mother in a same-sex marriage! (This is a general comment, Adam, not directed at you. It is frustrating to me how quickly her death has become old news, while the federal charges against her wife still stand).
Thank you for today’s TACO summary!!