As the WSJ reports, the unwinding of the alliance is already underway:

I'm afraid the MOU doesn't "dictate" anything. They've "agreed to resolve" the stockpile issue via a TBD "mechanism that will be mutually agreeable." It's all left to future negotiations of a final deal, which may or may not ever come to fruition.

Bonus Chicago scandal history, via the Trib: The prosecutor now handling what's left of the Broadview Six case, who took responsibility for the misleading redactions in the grand jury transcripts that enraged the judge, survived a scandal involving conjugal visits in govt offices 30 years ago.

I say raked over the coals b/ of these three footnotes in the order:

The federal lawsuit filed by police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 challenging President Trump's deeply corrupt "Anti-Weaponization Fund" has been assigned to senior U.S. District Richard J. Leon(!) of D.C. www.politico.com/news/2026/05...

Foremost among them: A thin, shoddily drafted single-page document dated May 19 and signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that purports to release any claims that the IRS might have against Trump, his family and his businesses:

Retired LEO Larry Bushart’s comment on a Facebook post promoting a Kirk vigil in Perry County, Tennessee recycled a Trump meme from a 2024 school shooting in Perry County, *Iowa.* Even though the sheriff later admitted he knew it was a preexisting meme about an out-of-state school shooting...

They note the extraordinary power Trump has exerted over the executive branch compared to past presidents, which I summarize here ... Then they assess whether in fact Trump is controlling the defense of his own litigation, and their assessment is striking:

In the original Alien Enemies act case, 174 former judges join in asking the entire DC Cir to rehear the appeal "in light of the profound implications" of the decision by a three-judge panel to "peremptorily halt" Judge Boasberg's contempt of court inquiry: www.courtlistener.com/docket/72029...

BOOM! We did it. Thanks so much to everyone who joined during TPM's annual membership drive, especially to readers of Morning Memo. We literally can't do it without you; and in a time of political and economic turmoil, you came through for us. Much appreciated! talkingpointsmemo.com/memberships

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It wasn’t just that the election was run with legally flawed maps. It was the difference maker in control of the House, as Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck points out:

The court’s procedural decision prompted a heated dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who noted the court had made a similar decision only two other times in the least 25 years:

To put it more plainly, if there’s not a true controversy between adverse parties, there’s no case here. To add to the irony, it’s Trump’s robust application of the unitary executive theory that is causing him trouble:

Coloring the weekend's news was the emergence of more authoritarian Trump II iconography. Behold Trump as an American Jesus and the Operation Metro Surge challenge coin that @hunterw.bsky.social first reported:

What emerges from the NYT story is that Gorka is pushing the myth of an all-encompassing global antifa with purported ties back to American leftists:

This morning’s social media effusion has all the elements of the late-stage Trump: violent, over the top, ignorant, wishful … while still leaving himself plenty of room to TACO:

The newly surfaced video, acquired via a public records request for a city-owned camera at a intersection half a block away, offers a limited view of the incident but some of what it shows further undermines elements of the original account by the federal agents involved:

The WSJ situates new news on Dan Bishop, the former rep tapped as interim USA, next to the FBI seizure of 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s seizure of voting machines in Puerto Rico, and the subpoena of 2020 Maricopa county voting materials from the Arizona Senate:

For his part, Buria denies the NYT account as a “made up story.” The coup de grace is the inclusion of this photo of Trump with Gen. Gant:

the promotion of Maj. Gen. Antoinette R. Gant as commander of the Military District of Washington, a command which includes many ceremonial functions in the nation’s capital:

Trump took to social media to distance himself from the latest Israeli attack, on Iran's South Pars Gas Field. The post is a mix of special pleading, dubious assertions, and self pity. Trump pretends to calm the waters by pouring oil on them while simultaneously threatening to light the oil on fire

In social media posts and news interviews, Trump concocted new and implausible rationales on the fly for why other nations owed it to him to pitch in to thwart Iran’s stranglehold on the vital shipping channel. The headlines were almost comical:

Just as true today as it was 10 years ago ... except the url is different now. talkingpointsmemo.com/memberships

In the original Abrego Garcia case, Judge Xinis today resumed her contempt of court inquiry into the govt's violation of her orders to facilitate his return. She wants briefing on 28 USC 1927, which could put Trump DOJ attorneys personally on the hook for excess costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees:

In one of the declarations filed in support of the contempt request, the legal director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project recounted several alleged examples of children being coerced to self-deport, including this one:

~The federal judge in Minnesota who last week found special assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Isihara in contempt and imposed a $500 fine until he complied with her order (he did) issued a scathing new rebuke in that case despite the government’s eventual compliance:

In yesterday’s order, Boasberg noted the pattern: “Apparently not interested in participating in this process, the Government’s responses essentially told the Court to pound sand.” Boasberg sprinkled similar admonitions throughout his ruling, which I’ve excerpted and condensed here:

From there it was a bloodbath for Noem, but Reyes wasn’t done. She concluded the 83-page opinion with a flourish by circling back to the scurrilous Noem tweet: