Trump Administration

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration published an analysis Friday concluding that its rule easing companies’ liability for killing birds would not cause significant environmental harm, clearing the way for it to finalize a major rollback before the president’s term ends on Jan. 20. The administration, which is racing to lock in a series of regulatory changes before President-elect …

ABC News reports: The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal Wednesday as it seeks to intervene in the defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump by E. Jean Carroll. Last month, a federal judge in New York rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to substitute for President Trump as the defendant in a suit that claimed he defamed Carroll when he …

Politico reports: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for the Pebble Mine in Alaska on Wednesday, effectively killing plans to build the massive copper and gold project that opponents had warned could wipe out the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. The decision from the Trump administration, which had reversed course several times on the issue, comes just …

The New York Daily News reports: A pair of American women detained by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent after they were overheard speaking in Spanish at a Montana convenience store have reached an undisclosed settlement in their lawsuit against agency, the ACLU announced. Ana Suda and Martha “Mimi” Hernandez were out buying groceries in the city of Havre, …

ProPublica reports: One proposal has raced through the process with little notice but unusual speed — and deadly consequences. This rule could reintroduce firing squads and electrocutions for federal executions, giving the government more options for administering capital punishment as drugs used in lethal injections become unavailable. The Justice Department surfaced the proposal in August and accepted public comments for …

Reuters reports: The White House is considering rescinding entry bans for most non-U.S. citizens who recently were in Brazil, Britain, Ireland and 26 other European countries, five U.S. and airline officials told Reuters. The Trump administration imposed the bans in a bid to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic. It is not considering lifting separate entry bans on most non-U.S. citizens …

Chris Johnson reports at the Washington Blade: First lady Melania Trump said she wanted to light up the White House in rainbow colors for LGBTQ Pride Month in June, but the plan never came to fruition at a time when Mark Meadows as chief of staff played a role in blocking any sign of solidarity with the LGBTQ community, according …

Bloomberg News reports: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will put $455 billion in unspent Cares Act funding into an account that his presumed successor, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, will need authorization from Congress to use. Mnuchin plans to place the money into the agency’s General Fund, a Treasury Department spokesperson said Tuesday. That fund can only be tapped with …

The Washington Post reports: Indoor holiday celebrations like those being arranged at the White House can accelerate the spread of the coronavirus, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams said Monday after initially dodging a question about the Trump administration’s plans. “Americans have been told that we can’t even see our families for this holiday, and yet here’s the White House …

Posted this afternoon to Ben Carson’s Facebook page: Thank you everyone for your support and prayers as Candy and I battled COVID-19. I was extremely sick and initially took Oleander 4X with dramatic improvement. However, I have several co-morbidities and after a brief period when I only experienced minor discomfort, the symptoms accelerated and I became desperately ill. President Trump …

The Hill reports: Andrew Giuliani, the son of the president’s personal attorney and a staffer at the White House, tested positive for coronavirus, he tweeted Friday. Giuliani, a special assistant to the president, is the latest White House staffer to test positive for the highly contagious virus in recent weeks. He has worked as a liaison to sports leagues and …

Politico reports: Four senior House Democrats are demanding that GSA Administrator Emily Murphy brief them Monday on the reason she has yet to ascertain Joe Biden’s win in the presidential election, warning that her answers will determine whether they intend to haul her to Capitol Hill for a public hearing, along with other senior General Services Administration officials. “We have …

The Daily Beast reports: The official position of Donald Trump, his administration, and his reelection campaign is that he won the election that he just lost. But one of the campaign’s top surrogates bluntly says that Joe Biden indeed won, and he’s urging the president and the White House to focus on enshrining as many Trump policies as possible before …

CNBC reports: The White House coronavirus task force is slated to address the public on Thursday for the first time in months as the Covid-19 outbreak continues to worsen across the United States. he briefing comes just hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also broke its months-long silence, holding its first news briefing since August. The CDC …

The New York Times reports: Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, has privately hinted that President Trump would drop his objection to stripping Confederate leaders’ names from military bases, which is threatening to derail the annual military policy bill, if Democrats agreed to repeal an important legal shield for social media companies. Mr. Trump has threatened to veto …

The Washington Post reports: When Ben Carson, Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development, came down with covid-19 last week, the former surgeon wasn’t worried. He had a Guy for that. “I heard about the oleander extract from Mike,” Carson said in an interview. “Mike” is Mike Lindell, the pillow magnate who served as a Trump campaign chairman in Minnesota; …

The New Jersey Advance reports: New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics on Capitol Hill, is demanding the president and his aides be investigated and prosecuted after they leave office. Pascrell, D-9th Dist., said late Tuesday that a failure to do so would embolden “criminality by our national leaders” and continue “America down the path …

The Hill reports: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced that the State Department will ban funding any organization it determines participates in the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, labeling such activity as anti-Semitic. The secretary made the announcement alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while on travel in Jerusalem and said the State Department would …

The New York Times reports: The White House drew criticism from a prominent Jewish group on Wednesday, a day after it appointed a speechwriter it fired for attending a gathering with white nationalists to a commission that helps preserve sites related to the Holocaust. Darren Beattie, who was fired in 2018, was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of …

Media Matters reports: President Donald Trump has announced his intention to nominate author and former U.S. Air Force officer Scott O’Grady to be an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. O’Grady is a Trump adviser who has retweeted QAnon accounts, pushed right-wing conspiracy theories, and promoted other toxic rhetoric. The White House announced on November 17 that it …