Trump Administration

CNN reports: Ex-top Trump Justice Department official Rod Rosenstein has told people in recent days he was not aware of a subpoena that targeted the data of Democratic members of Congress while he was deputy attorney general, a source familiar with Rosenstein told CNN on Saturday. The attorney general at the time of the Apple subpoena, Jeff Sessions, was recused …

The New York Times reports: As the Justice Department investigated who was behind leaks of classified information early in the Trump administration, it took a highly unusual step: Prosecutors subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides and family members. One was a minor. All told, the records of at …

Politico reports: Don McGahn is slated to testify before Congress today (sadly, behind closed-doors). It comes more than 25 months after House Democrats first sought to subpoena the former White House counsel for testimony related to his interviews with Robert Mueller that focused on the Russia interference probe and possible obstruction by Donald Trump. The White House sought to block …

The New York Times reports: The Trump Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of four New York Times reporters spanning nearly four months in 2017 as part of a leak investigation, the Biden administration disclosed on Wednesday. It was the latest in a series of revelations about the Trump administration secretly obtaining reporters’ communications records in an effort to …

Axios reports: The White House has a simple message for Trump appointees venting to the media about losing their jobs since President Biden took office: get over it. The White House has been methodically clearing house, a practice former President Trump followed when he was elected — most prominently at the State Department. The aim is to install staff more …

CNN reports: The White House has ousted several members of a prestigious arts commission in the nation’s capital, the latest move in the Biden administration’s purge of Trump-era appointees from government agencies and boards. Justin Shubow [photo], who was appointed in 2018 and later elected chairman, received a letter from the White House on Monday requesting he resign from the …

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump’s former ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is suing former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the U.S. government for $1.8 million to compensate for legal fees incurred during the 2019 House impeachment probe. The suit, filed Monday in federal court in the District of Columbia, alleges that Pompeo reneged on his …

The Washington Post reports: An obscure security unit tasked with protecting the Commerce Department’s officials and facilities has evolved into something more akin to a counterintelligence operation that collected information on hundreds of people inside and outside the department, a Washington Post examination found. The Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS) covertly searched employees’ offices at night, ran broad keyword …

NBC News reports: Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos must testify in a class-action lawsuit about her handling of student loan forgiveness claims, which involved delays in the administration’s decision-making and ultimate denial of a significant number of the applications, a federal judge ruled. In a 12-page ruling, Judge William Alsup denied a motion to quash a subpoena for the Cabinet …

The Washington Post reports: The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists’ phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia’s role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials. In three separate letters dated May 3 and addressed to Post reporters Ellen …

The Intercept reports: The U.S. Marshals Service flew unmanned drones over Washington, D.C., in response to last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, documents obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act show. The documents — two brief, heavily redacted emails — indicate the Marshals flew the drones over Washington on June 5 and 7, when nationwide protests against …

The Washington Post reports: The chief federal watchdog for the Secret Service blocked investigations proposed by career staff last year to scrutinize the agency’s handling of the George Floyd protests in Lafayette Square and the spread of the coronavirus in its ranks, according to documents and people with knowledge of his decisions. Both matters involved decisions by then-President Donald Trump …

ProPublica reports: A top adviser to former President Donald Trump pressured agency officials to reward politically connected or otherwise untested companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts as part of a chaotic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the early findings of an inquiry led by House Democrats. Peter Navarro, who served as Trump’s deputy assistant and …

Axios reports: Two senior members of former President Trump’s White House coronavirus task force accused former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in a CNN Special Report, broadcast Sunday, of political interference. Former CDC chief Robert Redfield told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta what he was “most offended by was the calls” from Azar’s office “that wanted me to pressure and …

The Associated Press reports: Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration’s head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, The Associated Press has learned. The intelligence value of the hacking of then-acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his staff is not …

Axios reports: Former White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx told CNN that she believes that the U.S. coronavirus deaths that occurred after the first surge of cases “could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.” “I look at it this way: There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge,” said Birx, who served under the Trump administration. “All …

Politico reports: Seven House committees launched a sweeping investigation Thursday into the federal government’s handling of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol — fueled by thousands of Donald Trump supporters who backed his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen — and the intelligence and security breakdowns that preceded it. In letters to 16 agencies across the Executive …

CNBC reports: Moncef Slaoui, who was chief scientist for the U.S government’s Covid vaccine development effort Operation Warp Speed during the Trump administration, was fired as Galvani Bioelectronics chairman over “substantiated” sexual harassment allegations by a woman, it was announced Wednesday. Slaoui’s dismissal by the board of Galvani majority shareholder GlaxoSmithKline came after GSK in February was sent a letter …

From the government watchdog group CREW: Betsy DeVos reported at least $225 million — and potentially well over $414 million — in outside income while working as Donald Trump’s education secretary, according to an analysis of DeVos’s financial disclosures by CREW. It is impossible to know the exact amount because DeVos’s income is reported in broad ranges, but we do …

The Washington Post reports: Federal health officials have identified several controversial pandemic recommendations released during the Donald Trump administration that they say were “not primarily authored” by staff and don’t reflect the best scientific evidence, based on a review ordered by its new director. The review identified three documents that had already been removed from the agency’s website: One, released …