Inside The DHS Campaign Against U.S. Citizens

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Must Read

The Wall Street Journal over the weekend published an extensive new analysis of what it candidly called the “aggressive public-relations tactic” that the Trump administration is using against opponents of its mass deportation operation.

“Protesters, observers and passersby taken into custody by federal agents were declared terrorists and attackers in hundreds of social-media posts by U.S. officials and departments since the start of the immigration sweeps in cities,” according to the WSJ, which proceeded to analyze the social media posts and track the underlying individual cases.

It was a substantial undertaking, as the newspaper describes it: After reviewing more than 100,000 posts on X from 66 government and senior official accounts, it “identified 1,456 posts in which the government alleged an assault, impediment, attack or conspiracy or attempt to harm a federal officer.”

The bottom line: “Of the 279 people accused by officials on X of attacking federal officers in the past year, 181 were U.S. citizens, the Journal found. Close to half of those Americans were never charged with assault. None have been convicted at trial.” Ten of those accused have pleaded guilty to lesser charges, the newspaper’s analysis found. Two of those accused — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — were shot dead by federal agents.

Rinse and Repeat

• Texas: Newly released video of the fatal ICE shooting of U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez raises questions about the government’s claim that he “intentionally ran over” a federal agent.
• Minnesota: Federal agents lied about why they shot a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis. Their story quickly fell apart, as the Tribune reports.

Xinis Resumes Contempt of Court Inquiry

I just listened in on a conference call that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis convened this morning in the original Abrego Garcia case where she picked back up the contempt of court inquiry that has been on a back-burner for months.

It was a mostly a housekeeping exercise about setting a briefing schedule and cleaning up some long-pending motions, but make no mistake: She is returning to the issue of whether to find the Trump administration, including Trump DOJ lawyers, in contempt of court for violating her orders to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador. (She’s also considering a motion for discovery sanctions against the administration.)

One bit of news: In addition to contempt under the federal rules and under her own inherent power, Xinis specifically wants briefing on the applicability of one federal law that could potentially put Trump DOJ attorneys personally on the hook for financial penalties for their alleged misconduct: “Any attorney or other person admitted to conduct cases in any court of the United States or any Territory thereof who so multiplies the proceedings in any case unreasonably and vexatiously may be required by the court to satisfy personally the excess costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees reasonably incurred because of such conduct.”

Stay tuned.

Mass Deportation Watch

• Internal government documents reviewed by the NYT show that federal agents had been tracking Nashville reporter Estefany Maria Rodriguez Florez all morning before detaining her last week, raising fears that she was targeted because she’s a journalist who had reported on immigration arrests as recently as the day before her own.
• Federal judges keep ordering immigration hearings but say the results are often a sham, Politico reports.
• In Minnesota, DHS has pulled back from indiscriminate street sweeps and focused on conducting more targeted enforcement operations.
• ICE awards untested firms hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts to oversee new warehouse detention centers.

A New Low Even for Trump

With new evidence emerging that the United States was responsible for the strike on a school in southern Iran than killed scores of children, President Trump baselessly blamed Iran for the attack:

Boots on the Ground Watch

• The abrupt cancellation of a planned training exercise for the 82nd Airborne Division’s headquarters element fueled internal Pentagon speculation that the division’s Immediate Response Force may be deployed to the Middle East
• A classified National Intelligence Council report warned that even a large-scale U.S. assault on Iran would be unlikely to oust its entrenched military and clerical establishment.

Latest from the Middle East …

Iran selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as its new leader, and oil jumped to more than $100 a barrel as the flow of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed to a virtual stop. Plus:

• Donning a white baseball cap emblazoned with “USA” in gold, President Trump attended the ceremony in Dover for the returning remains of six U.S. service members killed in an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait. A seventh American service member died in Saudi Arabia after being injured in a March 1 retaliatory strike by Iran.
• The State Department ordered American employees of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Saudi Arabia to leave the country.
• In its first reported combat deaths in the Middle Eastern conflict, Israel announced that two soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon. The overall death toll in Lebanon has risen to nearly 400 people.

Quote of the Day

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago:

Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store. But, in the end, we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military. We become addicted to the “spectacle” of explosions. And the price of this habit is almost unnoticeable, as we become desensitized to the true costs of war. 

U.S. Conducts 45th Boat Strike

Six people were killed Sunday in another lawless U.S. strike against a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific, raising the campaign’s death toll to at least 156.

Cuba Next?

With President Trump openly touting regime change in Cuba, the Trump DOJ has established a working group led by Miami U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones to drum up possible federal charges against officials or entities within Cuba’s government.

Kari Lake’s Appointment Unlawful

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled over the weekend that Kari Lake’s appointment as chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. As a result, Lamberth voided many of Lake’s actions while purporting to be in the position, including mass layoffs at Voice of America.

2026 Ephemera

• TX-23: Brandon Herrera, the default GOP nominee after incumbent Rep. Tony Gonzales (R) dropped his bid for re-election, can be seen bragging about his copy of “Mein Kampf” and shooting Nazi-era weapons in clips that began circulating widely late last week. Check out Josh Kovensky’s piece for more on Herrera.
• CA-48: After serving in Congress for all but one term since 2001, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is retiring rather than running for re-election in a newly drawn district more favorable to Democrats.

Sign of the Times

NYT analysis: “300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion — 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees.”

Florida Bar: Never Mind on Halligan

In a weird, poorly explained reversal, the Florida Bar said in statement Friday that there is no pending investigation of former U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan.

Jan. 6 Never Ends

• Early Saturday morning, while it was still dark, the long-delayed bronze plaque honoring the law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 was bolted into place near an entrance on the west front of the building.
• Former Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio, convicted of sedition for his role in the Jan. 6 attack before being pardoned by President Trump, pals around with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the future viceroy of Cuba (both share Cuban ancestry):