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If MTA Chair Janno Lieber was looking for more ammo in his fight to defend congestion pricing against the Trump administration, he just got an arsenal — courtesy of the Trump administration.

Not unlike when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent classified military plans to his friends on Signal, federal government lawyers fighting the MTA’s congestion pricing lawsuit posted a strategy memo detailing the deep flaws in their own case on the docket where anyone, including the public, could see.

The 11-page document amounts to a road map of the feds’ legal strategy – and also reveals the government’s lack of confidence in its own case.

The flub, which was taken down less than an hour after it was accidentally made public, is the latest example of the sloppiness engulfing the Trump administration. It also deepened the distrust between federal government officials in Washington and the fiercely independent Southern District of New York, which was laid bare through the indictment of Mayor Eric Adams.

On Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominika Tarczynska took responsibility for the mistake and asked the judge to seal it and ignore it. But the damage had already been done. The Southern District lawyers were pulled off the case. Attorneys at Justice Department headquarters in Washington, D.C. will handle it going forward. Federal transportation spokesperson Halee Dobbins wondered if the episode was an example of sabotage.

"Are SDNY lawyers on this case incompetent or was this their attempt to RESIST?" Dobbins wrote in a statement. "At the very least, it’s legal malpractice. It’s sad to see a premier legal organization continue to fall into such disgrace."

Lieber did not gloat during an appearance on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.”

“We have always been absolutely confident that congestion pricing could not be taken down unilaterally by the federal government, that they’re not entitled to terminate the program,” Lieber said.

The ordeal reminds us of the line from the 1976 classic, “All the President’s Men”: “Forget the myths the media’s created about the White House. The truth is these are not very bright guys, and things got outta hand.”

The screwup comes less than a week after the New York Times reported that the Trump administration sparked a legal fight with Harvard by sending a list of demands to the Ivy League institution prematurely. Hegseth shared detailed information about an imminent bombing campaign in Yemen in two Signal group chats – including one that mistakenly included the editor in chief of the Atlantic. And a Salvadoran man living in Maryland was mistakenly deported to a jail in his native country due to what government attorneys called “an administrative error.”

President Donald Trump has made clear that ending congestion pricing is one of his policy priorities. When Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the federal government would revoke its approval of the tolls charging drivers a base fare of $9 to travel south of 60th Street in Manhattan, Trump declared “LONG LIVE THE KING!”

But the letter submitted in the congestion pricing lawsuit shows that the attorneys are doubtful the judge on the case will buy some of their own legal arguments to kill the tolls. The government lawyers saw “considerable litigation risk” defending the case. It focused on two of Duffy’s legal reasons for revoking the tolls. “We have been unable to identify a compelling legal argument to support this position,” they wrote about one of those reasons.

Looking ahead, the government lawyers anticipated a ruling in the case “is exceedingly likely to be averse to the agency.”

So how bad of a mistake is this?

“ This is the kind of action that could get a lawyer fired," said Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School. “It was a real bonehead move to take a confidential strategy memo and accidentally load it on the court's website for the world to see. I'm sure they're deeply embarrassed about it.”

Gerrard said a lawyer should not tell a client in writing that they’re arguing a losing case. He speculated that the letter was perhaps an attempt by the assistant U.S. attorneys to give themselves cover when the expected legal defeat finally arrives.

“They may have been wanting to cover their butts to make it clear that if and when they lost the lawsuit, nobody could say, ‘Well, you should have warned us we were going to lose the case,’" Gerrard said. “I would feel very good if I were the MTA lawyers.”

Have a question about subway cars (or literally anything else NYC-transit related)? Use this form to submit yours and we may answer it in a future newsletter!

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Christian, from Brooklyn

Are the new open gangway G trains in addition to the open gangway C trains, or have they been pulled from the C line?

Answer

The MTA’s open gangway trains are the unicorns of the subway. They’re a delight for riders who yearn to walk freely between train cars without opening a door. But they’re also hard to find, even if you’re like Christian and track their whereabouts. The MTA currently has only 20 of the special train cars. There’s one 10-car train running on the C line. There are two five-car trains now running on the G line.

The latest NYC area transit headlines

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Cleaner ways to get your packages delivered. Thousands of diesel-burning trucks currently do the job. What if the city instead relied on barges and cargo bikes?

“For hundreds and hundreds of years … we moved goods by water every day in the city, whether it was construction materials or food, and that is what we are going to realize through this project,” said Economic Development Corporation President Andrew Kimball

The city’s transportation department this week unveiled three new curbside “microhubs” for cargo bikes on the Upper West Side. And up in the Bronx, the city’s Economic Development Corporation said it’s nearly ready to open a barge docking facility that aims to divert some bulk shipments off local roads and onto waterways.

New parking rules on the table. The City Council is considering three new bills: a “daylighting” initiative that that would ban parking right next to crosswalks; a bill to create overnight parking spots for commercial vehicles in industrial areas; and a bill to waive additional fees for parking tickets if the car owner responds between 45 and 90 days.

Someone was caught speeding in Andrew Cuomo’s Dodge Charger — twice. The former governor’s personal vehicle received two automated camera tickets over the last month for speeding in Manhattan school zones. (Streetsblog)

You get off the Staten Island Ferry. Then you wait … and wait … for a bus. An analysis of MTA data shows that excess wait times for local Staten Island buses were nearly double the citywide average last year. (The City)

It’s boat weather! The NYC Ferry system hit near-record ridership numbers last week. (amNewYork)

Reminder: This Saturday, we’re getting car-free streets. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., select streets and plazas across all five boroughs will be blocked off for pedestrians in honor of Earth Day.

Listen to us talk about all this! Download our app and tune in to “All Things Considered." And catch up on last week’s segment in case you missed it.