Fucking amazing.
This begs the question: Who did Mike Waltz think he was inviting?
UPDATE 04:59 pm:
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
The ongoing Boasberg Battle
Precipitating? We are already there.The Trump administration told a federal judge on Monday night that it would not disclose any further information about two flights of Venezuelan migrants it sent to El Salvador this month despite a court order to turn back the planes, declaring that doing so would jeopardize state secrets.
The move sharply escalated the growing conflict between the administration and the judge — and, by extension, the federal judiciary — in a case that legal experts fear is precipitating a constitutional crisis.
NYT
Wow.For almost 10 days, the judge, James E. Boasberg of the Federal District Court in Washington, has been trying to get the Trump administration to give him information about the two flights in an effort to determine whether officials allowed them to continue on to El Salvador in violation of his order to have them return to the United States.
But in a patent act of defiance, the Justice Department told Judge Boasberg that giving him any further information about the flights — which the Trump administration maintains were carrying members of a Venezuelan street gang called Tren de Aragua — would “undermine or impede future counterterrorism operations.”
“The court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it,” the department wrote in a filing.
It used to be that the judge was the one who needed to be satisfied.The state secrets privilege is a legal doctrine that can allow the executive branch to block the use of evidence in court — and sometimes shut down entire lawsuits — when it says litigating such matters in open court would risk revealing information that could damage national security.
Typically, however, the executive branch confidentially provides a detailed description of the sensitive evidence to a judge to show why it is too sensitive to discuss in open court. The Trump administration’s move is extraordinary in part because it is refusing to provide information to Judge Boasberg — a former presiding judge of the nation’s national security surveillance court — even privately and in a secure facility for handling classified information.
Indeed, the administration has not even claimed the information at issue is classified.
[...]
Also on Monday, a federal appeals court in Washington held a nearly two-hour hearing on the Trump administration’s request to nullify Judge Boasberg’s underlying order, taking up many of the same issues.
The three-judge panel did not issue an immediate ruling. But during questioning, a Justice Department lawyer acknowledged that if the court were to reverse Judge Boasberg’s order, the administration could immediately resume transferring people to the Salvadoran prison.
[...]
During the hearing on Monday before the appeals court panel, two of the judges seemed to agree that the migrants the government wants to remove under the law could go to court to challenge whether they were actually members of Tren de Aragua.
But it was unclear what those challenges might look like.
One of the judges, Patricia A. Millett, a Democratic appointee, signaled skepticism with the government’s position that the panel should stay Judge Boasberg’s restraining order.
She grilled a Justice Department lawyer, suggesting that if the Venezuelans could be deported without due process, then anyone — herself included — could simply be declared a national security threat and flown out of the country. And Judge Millett pointed out that even German citizens arrested under the Alien Enemies Act during World War II had the opportunity to argue in hearings that the law did not apply to them.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act,” she said.
A second judge, Justin R. Walker, a Republican appointee, agreed that the migrants could challenge whether they were covered by Mr. Trump’s invocation of the wartime act, but he appeared to be skeptical of allowing Judge Boasberg’s order to stay in place for technical reasons.
He repeatedly suggested that if migrants wanted to challenge their removal they should do so not in Washington, but in places where they are being held, like Texas.
The third judge on the panel, Karen L. Henderson, a Republican appointee, said almost nothing at the hearing.
[...]
Attorney General Pam Bondi told Judge Boasberg in a filing that she was satisfied that the Trump administration’s new invocation of the privilege was “adequately supported and warranted.”
War plans chat group
[T]he Trump administration’s national security principals hold highly sensitive military planning discussions on Signal, the encrypted text-messaging app. And we know this because Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic, to a Signal group chat including JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, Tulsi Gabbard, Susie Wiles, and others. Without realizing a very prominent journalist was mistakenly added to the group, the principals breezily planned strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. Hegseth even sent the group highly detailed attack plans that turned out to be perfectly accurate.
[...]
Trump is likelier to order an investigation of Jeffrey Goldberg, or to raid his home, than to allow an investigation of his own national security principals.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has already blown the whole story off as a harmless oopsie, suggesting Republicans in Congress won’t be looking into this either (not that we should have expected them to)
Off Message
(See background post here.)
But not for any length of time.This is, thus, yet another story that’s principally about Republican enablement and complicity.
[...]
Instead of getting genuinely mad about Republican scandals, and trying to turn them into liabilities for Trump and Republican leaders, the way Republicans did with Hillary Clinton’s emails, they say “BUT HER EMAILS,” and then move on.
[...]
The lesson of the Clinton emails debacle is that the public can be made to care about many, many things more than they care about the price of eggs.
Off Message
Democrats: useless as tits on a boar.
And Republicans are furiously whitewashing, massaging the conscience of their MAGA followers who will mindlessly absorb and repeat.
How utterly ridiculous. Typical D'Souza. Can anyone help him out with this question of why Goldberg didn't share actual war plans publicly?
Trump Homeland Security Advisor and lackey Stephen Miller understood the issue in '22. What's he saying now?
But here we are.
UPDATE 08:18 am:
I guess being able to monitor in real time IS better than waiting for them to fill you in after the fact.
Howard Nutlick.
UPDATE 08:49 am:
UPDATE 01:23 pm:
UPDATE 04:59 pm:
Narrator: They can, and they will.
Yep. But only if Dems don't just walk away and "move on."
Or to admit ignorance like this:
Monday, March 24, 2025
Usha goes to Greenland
After the boner he pulled today accidentally including a journalist on an invitation to discuss war plans over Signal app, he should be relieved of his job by Thursday.Relations between Greenland and the United States sank further on Sunday as the Greenlandic prime minister erupted over what he called a “highly aggressive” delegation of senior officials the Trump administration said it would send to the island this week.
Usha Vance, the second lady, and Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, are among the officials headed to the island, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, though President Trump has vowed to make it part of the United States “one way or the other.”
Ms. Vance is scheduled to make a series of cultural stops after her arrival on Thursday, separate from Mr. Waltz. The national security adviser is supposed to be traveling earlier in the week with the U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright.
NYT
The prime minister, Mute B. Egede, said on Sunday that Greenlanders’ effort to be diplomatic just “bounces off Donald Trump and his administration in their mission to own and control Greenland.”
[...]
“What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland?” he asked. “The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us.”
“His mere presence in Greenland will no doubt fuel American belief in Trump’s mission — and the pressure will increase,” he added.
Other Greenlandic officials complained about the inopportune timing of the visit, pointing out that Greenland had just held parliamentary elections and that a new government has not even been formed.
“The fact that the Americans are well aware we are in the middle of negotiations,” said Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the leader of the most popular political party, “once again shows a lack of respect for the Greenlandic people.”
Yes, they WILL leave, and all their knowledge with them
America is being drained of its talent and expertise.
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