Trump Administration

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 …

Via press release: This morning the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a request in the federal district court for the District of Columbia for an order that would authorize the public release of grand jury material that is “cited, quoted, or referenced” in the report submitted to Attorney General William Barr by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. On …

The Washington Post reports: A White House whistleblower told lawmakers that more than two dozen denials for security clearances have been overturned during the Trump administration, calling Congress her “last hope” for addressing what she considers improper conduct that has left the nation’s secrets exposed. Tricia Newbold, a longtime White House security adviser, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee …

The Daily Beast reports: Mike Pompeo, the U.S. secretary of state, and the State Department have declined to directly condemn a new law in Brunei stipulating the stoning to death of LGBT people. In follow-up questions, The Daily Beast then asked if Pompeo and the State Department specifically objected to the violently anti-LGBT law, set to take effect on April …

From the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal blog: The founder of an organization of community care clinics that cater to women praises the Trump administration for deciding to give her group $5.1 million over three years for use in California, a grant that once might have gone to Planned Parenthood. “With this grant, the administration has opened up a new avenue …

The right wing CNS News reports: The federal government spent $1,822,712,000,000 in the first five months of fiscal 2019, the most it has spent in the first five months of any fiscal year since 2009, which was the fiscal year that outgoing President George W. Bush signed a $700-billion law to bailout the banking industry and incoming President Barack Obama …

The Washington Post reports: A federal judge in Washington ruled late Thursday that the Trump administration’s push to make health insurance plans available outside the Affordable Care Act that avoid the requirements of the health care law was illegal, calling the efforts “clearly an end-run around the ACA.” The 43-page ruling, submitted by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of …

Dominic Holden reports at Buzzfeed News: The Justice Department has grown increasingly hostile toward its own LGBT workers, causing top talent to quit as they experience discrimination and “declining morale,” according to a group of LGBT employees who confronted Attorney General Bill Barr in a letter this week. Other workers cited in the letter said the FBI academy discriminates against …

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said Thursday it is charging Facebook with housing discrimination, alleging its targeted advertising platform violates the Fair Housing Act by “encouraging, enabling, and causing” unlawful discrimination by restricting who can view housing ads. The charges caught Facebook off guard, coming one week after the social media giant agreed …

Politico reports: The Trump administration’s surprising move to invalidate Obamacare on Monday came despite the opposition of two key cabinet secretaries: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Attorney General Bill Barr. Driving the dramatic action were the administration’s domestic policy chief, Joe Grogan, and the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, according to …

NBC News reports: Attorney General William Barr will make a version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report publicly available in “weeks not months,” a Justice Department official said on Tuesday. There are no plans to give a copy of the report to the White House in advance of the public release, the official said. Barr announced on Friday that Mueller …

USA Today reports: The Trump administration told a federal court late Monday that it would ask judges to toss out the entire Affordable Care Act, a decision that cast further uncertainty over the future of a federal law that has extended health insurance to millions of Americans. Justice Department attorneys said in a letter filed with the U.S. Court of …

Newsweek reports: White House counselor Kellyanne Conway appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday, delivering a fiery interview in response to a letter from Attorney General William Barr summarizing the final report of special counsel Robert Mueller. On the show frequently watched by President Donald Trump, Conway called for Democratic California Representative Adam Schiff – chairman of the House Intelligence …

The Hill reports: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that President Trump doesn’t have “any problem” with special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report being released. “I don’t think the president has any problem with it,” Sanders said on NBC News’s “Today Show” when asked about Trump supporting the release of the report. “He has been the most …

USA Today reports: The Justice Department will wait at least one more day to deliver the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Those conclusions reflect federal investigators’ answer to questions that have loomed over the first two years of President Donald Trump’s administration: Did his campaign coordinate with a Russian effort …

The Washington Examiner reports: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton mocked those who previously criticized Clinton’s use of a private email server Thursday after it was revealed President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner used a private messaging app for official White House business. The chairman of the House Oversight Committee said Thursday a lawyer for Kushner told …

The New York Post reports: President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business, a top House Democrat charged Thursday. The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which released the information in a letter Thursday. Chairman Elijah …

Mediaite reports: “My husband also has been very critical of the president publicly, which is unlike him,” Kellyanne said. “He’s traditionally been a very private person. In 2016, which was known as the year of the tweet, George Conway sent exactly zero tweets. So this is new. And what also is new is not supporting the agenda of the president …

The Guardian reports: In the first significant check on the Trump administration’s “energy-first” agenda, a federal judge has temporarily halted hundreds of drilling projects for failing to take climate change into account. The decision stems from an environmental lawsuit. WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center sued the BLM in 2016 for failing to calculate …