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tylermcbrien.bsky.social
Managing Editor at Lawfare @lawfare.bsky.social www.tylermcbrien.com Writing in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Slate, Mother Jones, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and more.
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this conversation helped me understand what's been happening at the Treasury Department, though I can't say I came away particularly reassured www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

NEW: Judge Dale Ho appoints Paul Clement to present “friend of the court” arguments on the government’s motion to dismiss Eric Adams’s charges.

submitted 1 day ago • 47 comments

Watchdog group @accountableorg.bsky.social filed a bar complaint w/ the Attorney Grievance Committee in NY, requesting an investigation into whether Emil Bove violated any professional conduct or ethics rules in his efforts to dismiss the Adams case at SDNY. www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

NEW letter from Mayor Adams' lawyer to Judge Ho argues "there can now be no doubt" that DOJ reached the conclusion "that this case should never have been brought on the merits" despite DOJ explicitly saying the opposite in the 2/10 memo, in which they requested dismissal without prejudice.

submitted 1 day ago • 7 comments

Read @lawfare.bsky.social? Share your thoughts! We're conducting a survey: lawfaremedia.org/survey

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

🚨 Want real-time updates for the many cases challenging or defending Trump administration executive actions? There's a bot for that. Follow @trumplitigation.bots.law, a collaboration between @lawfare.bsky.social and @free.law For the full list of the bot's cases: bots.law/little-cases...

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

This is a pretty extraordinary filing by the gov't in the USAID foreign assistance case. Long story short, in spite of the court's grant of a TRO last week, the USG is still freezing and canceling foreign assistance. www.courtlistener.com/docket/69627...

submitted 3 days ago • 5 comments

Did DOGE take credit for a "spending cut" that was actually just a Carter Center lease that was terminated after President Carter's Former Presidents Act benefits expired upon his death? @nicholasbednar.bsky.social takes a closer look at DOGE "savings" www.lawfaremedia.org/article/did-...

submitted 3 days ago • 5 comments

"SDNY has a well-earned reputation as the 'sovereign district,' immune to any pressures from Washington. But in the second Trump administration, there is no room for two sovereigns." @noahshachtman.bsky.social in @vanityfair.com www.vanityfair.com/news/story/t...

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Probationary employees are receiving termination notices today at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Notices have already started going out, per agency source.

submitted 4 days ago • 43 comments

The mass layoffs of your friends and colleagues will continue until morale improves

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Mayor Adams has said some wild things, but even I didn't expect him to go full on "getting a lot of 'Mein Kampf' vibes from this" about his corruption case

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Politics aside, without question the governor of New York has the authority to remove the mayor of NYC, writes @jerrygoldfeder.bsky.social in this journal article about the last time a governor brought a removal proceeding against a sitting mayor—1932 Gov. Franklin Roosevelt.

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

CHUTKAN: Mr Musk has not been confirmed, appointed, or nominated to anything...This is essentially a private citizen directing an organization that’s not a fed agency to have access to entire workings of the fed govt, hire/fire/contract, terminate programs essentially w/out congressional oversight.

submitted 5 days ago • 3 comments

From the Chutkan hearing just now: after defense counsel said he has "not been able to look into" whether the govt fired several 1000s of fed employees, the judge cuts him off and calls it "no small thing" then asks, incredulously: "You haven’t been able to confirm that??"...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Judge Chutkan just now: DOGE is moving in no predictable or orderly fashion. Sounds damning, but it might help the gov't, because this chaos may make it more difficult to demonstrate the immediate harm needed for the judge to issue a temporary restraining order—rather than just a generalized fear.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Today (2/17/25) at 11am Judge Tanya S. Chutkan will conduct a TRO (temporary restraining order) hearing in a challenge to the constitutionality of DOGE under the Appointments Clause (Art II, §2, cl 2). I’ll try to live-blog here for @lawfare.bsky.social . You can also phone-in yourself. ... /1

submitted 5 days ago • 61 comments

Bove empowered two aides with "substantial authority over ethics & employee discipline decisions previously reserved for most senior career official." In his great reporting, @benjaminpenn.bsky.social notes that Wharton served in a "junior capacity" in the MAL case. But that's not all. (1/5)

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

In declining to enter a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring DOGE from accessing data systems at the Dept of Labor, CFPB, & HHS, Judge Bates actually delivered a blow to DOGE—though it may only be felt in other cases. A thread. ... storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... 1/9

submitted 7 days ago • 22 comments

BREAKING: Justice Department seeks dismissal of Eric Adams’ criminal charges.

submitted 8 days ago • 81 comments

This should be interesting: Pete Marocco, a Trump admin member behind USAID’s dismantling, is hosting listening session on "How to Use Foreign Assistance to Make America Safer, Stronger, and More Prosperous" today from 2-4pm ET. Zoom details in reply below.

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments

At 4pm ET today, I'll be talking to @annabower.bsky.social, @tylermcbrien.bsky.social, @sranderson.bsky.social, and @rparloff.bsky.social about all of the legal challenges facing the Trump administration. Don't miss it: youtube.com/live/rHTeADG...

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

Scoop: The databases powering DOGE.gov are insecure, and people outside the government have already pushed their own updates to the site to prove it: www.404media.co/anyone-can-p...

submitted 8 days ago • 439 comments

NEW: Last night, Sen. Blumenthal’s office sent a letter to Sec. Rubio about the State Dept’s reported $400 million contract to purchase armored Tesla Cybertrucks—and subsequent removal of the word “Tesla” from procurement documents—by 2/21. (1/3)

submitted 8 days ago • 46 comments

Politics aside, without question the governor of New York has the authority to remove the mayor of NYC, writes @jerrygoldfeder.bsky.social in this journal article about the last time a governor brought a removal proceeding against a sitting mayor—1932 Gov. Franklin Roosevelt.

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

The Danielle Sassoon letter to AG Bondi is wow. If you have a tip about what’s going on in DOJ/SDNY, I can be reached on Signal at annabower.24 Read the letter: www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...

submitted 9 days ago • 212 comments

Danielle R. Sassoon, Manhattan’s acting U.S. attorney, resigned on Thursday rather than obey a Justice Department order that she drop a corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, that she had championed, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

submitted 9 days ago • 613 comments

Things may be bad, but @nicholasbednar.bsky.social is very good. His latest on the use and abuse of administrative leave—a central tool in DOGE’s war against the federal workforce—is up now on @lawfare.bsky.social www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Our group has been hard at work to release a new tool: The Data Rescue Tracker. The tool aims to provide a consolidated overview of who is downloading which dataset from which government websites. Please share! www.datarescueproject.org/data-rescue-...

submitted 10 days ago • 10 comments

BREAKING: D.C. Circuit rejects Trump administration's request to block a district court's administrative stay so that Trump can fire Hampton Dellinger as head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and install Doug Collins as the acting head.

submitted 10 days ago • 8 comments

Has anyone reported on who, exactly, the DOGE administrator is? Is it Elon? And who are the DOGE Team Leads that are supposedly being placed within each federal agency? (If you’re a federal employee who knows the answers to these questions, reach me on Signal at annabower.24)

submitted 10 days ago • 38 comments

A source tells me that Jeremy Lewin, one of the young DOGE aides ID'd by The Guardian, worked with Laurence Tribe on the report that the Biden admin leaned heavily leaned on for its judicial overhaul report. Acknowledgments on pg. 11: www.presidency.ucsb.edu/sites/defaul...

submitted 10 days ago • 4 comments

Trump appointed two leaders at Trump Media & Technology Group (which runs Truth Social), CEO Devin Nunes and General Counsel Scott Glabe, to the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Per a Truth Social press release, they will continue "in their roles at TMTG."

submitted 10 days ago • 2 comments

On Rational Security, @sranderson.bsky.social, @tylermcbrien.bsky.social, @lapatina.bsky.social, and Joel Braunold discussed the week's national security news stories, including President Trump's plans for the United States to “own” Gaza, SDNY dropping the charges against NYC Mayor Adams, and more.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Great to see @chrismurphyct.bsky.social pushing for something I called for in my NYT op-ed on state capture: for the GAO to investigate the “legality & scope” of agreement allowing Musk and DOGE aides to access sensitive/classified government info (via Zachary Cohen/CNN)

submitted 10 days ago • 3 comments

Today's episode of The Ezra Klein Show. @qjurecic.bsky.social discusses the potential constitutional crisis that the Trump Administration could trigger. open.spotify.com/episode/5Qv8... youtu.be/Ak8hLat0_-Q?...

submitted 11 days ago • 30 comments