Trump Administration

Stephen Miller’s reign of terror marches on: The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Ron Vitiello, has resigned amid an agency-wide restructuring of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  Vitiello had originally been nominated to take over the post permanently, but his nomination was abruptly pulled last week by President Trump, who said he wanted to go …

Reuters reports: The federal government reported a $146.9 billion deficit in March, causing annual debt to rise 15% for the first half of the budget year compared to the same period in 2018. The Treasury Department said Wednesday in its monthly report that the fiscal year deficit has so far totaled $691 billion, up from nearly $600 billion in 2018. …

The Washington Post reports: Attorney General William P. Barr said Wednesday he thought “spying” on a political campaign occurred in the course of intelligence agencies’ investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election — a startling assertion by the nation’s top law enforcement official. At a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Barr was asked about his statement a day …

Josh Israel reports at Think Progress: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will testify before Congress on Wednesday about her priorities for the department, weeks after she proposed billions of dollars in cuts for education spending in fiscal year 2020. DeVos has labeled the cuts “tough choices,” but new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) shows DeVos’ personal …

ABC News reports: A Texas gun company that destroyed more than 73,000 bump stocks when a federal ban on the rapid-fire devices took effect has sued the U.S. government claiming millions of dollars in losses. RW Arms of Fort Worth on Monday announced the lawsuit and said the government took its property “without just compensation.” Co-founder Mark Maxwell said Tuesday …

The Kansas City Star reports: One of the GOP senators from Kris Kobach’s home state said Tuesday that the Senate would not be able to confirm the Kansas Republican if President Donald Trump tapped him for a cabinet post. Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, has been mentioned as a potential candidate for an array of immigration-related positions after …

Mediaite reports: Stephen Miller, the senior advisor to President Donald Trump, would have a sneaky way to ruin the day of Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and get her to stop resisting new immigration policy proposals. Quartz reports “former agency officials,” said Miller would leak the monthly number of immigrants apprehended at the border and those seeking asylum to …

CNN reports: White House senior adviser Stephen Miller wants to make sure that outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is only the first of a string of senior officials headed out the door, as he is given more authority over immigration policy. Trump administration officials say that Miller, who played key a role in Nielsen’s ouster, wants the President to …

Bloomberg Law reports: A Labor Department official who worked for a steel company in a lawsuit against a worker union after joining the Trump administration has stepped down from his post in the face of ethics questions. Associate Deputy Labor Secretary Michael Avakian resigned effective April 5, a Labor Department official told Bloomberg Law. The move comes less than one …

Bustle reports: The 2016 Democratic nominee for president has some thoughts on the Homeland Security secretary’s departure: that it won’t probably change all that much. Responding to Kirstjen Nielsen’s departure, Hillary Clinton rebuked the Trump administration’s immigration policy, saying the “administration’s dehumanization and cruelty toward migrants” won’t stop with the leadership shake-up. Nielsen was the public face of the Trump …

“Kirstjen Nielsen I think is a great example of what happens when you go to work for Donald Trump. He is the great reputation killer. Here is this woman who was a reasonably admired bureaucrat. For the rest of her life people will look at her and think, ‘Oh, that’s the woman who put children in cages. That’s the woman …

Axios reports: Don McGahn, who has kept his head down since leaving as White House counsel, shared some off-the-record thoughts on Thursday in a lunch with about 40 senior Republican Senate aides. Details: “I spent the last couple of years getting yelled at,” he said, per two sources at the lunch, held in the Capitol’s Strom Thurmond room. “And you …

CBS News reports: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is expected to offer her resignation at a meeting at the White House on Sunday, U.S. officials familiar with the matter say. Nielsen was set to meet with President Trump at 5 p.m., the officials said. Nielsen’s expected departure is a part of a massive DHS overhaul engineered and directed …

The Hill reports: Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Sunday that Democrats will “never” see President Trump’s tax returns. “Nor should they. That’s an issue that was already litigated during the election. Voters knew the president could have given his tax returns. They knew that he didn’t and they elected him anyway,” Mulvaney said during an appearance …

NBC News reports: Attorney General William Barr ordered an investigation into the Department of Justice’s treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender staff following a complaint from DOJ Pride, its LGBTQ employee resource group. In an April 4 letter to DOJ Pride released Friday, Barr said he was “troubled” by the group’s concerns, which were raised in a March 27 …

The New York Times reports: The United States has revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor because of her attempts to investigate allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan, including any that may have been committed by American forces. The visa revocation — confirmed on Friday by the office of the chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the State …

CNN reports: FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday that white supremacy presents a “persistent” and “pervasive” threat to the United States, breaking from President Donald Trump, who has sidestepped questions of whether white nationalists present a growing problem. “The danger. I think, of white supremacists, violent extremism or another kind of extremism is of course significant,” Wray said at a …

Axios reports: Vice President Mike Pence unleashed some of the most stinging criticisms of NATO allies Germany and Turkey yet from the Trump administration, contending that both countries’ recent actions threaten to undermine the alliance. Some NATO allies see President Trump as a threat to the alliance, with Trump himself having privately mused about withdrawing the U.S. from NATO on …

The Washington Post reports: White House spokesman Hogan Gidley twice referred to Puerto Rico as “that country” during a television appearance Tuesday in which he defended a series of tweets by President Trump lashing out at leaders of the U.S. territory. “With all they’ve done in that country, they’ve had a systematic mismanagement of the goods and services we’ve sent …

The Daily Beast reports: The Department of Homeland Security has disbanded a group of intelligence analysts who focused on domestic terrorism, The Daily Beast has learned. Numerous current and former DHS officials say they find the development concerning, as the threat of homegrown terrorism—including white supremacist terrorism—is growing. In the wake of this move, officials said the number of analytic …