Pedro Pardo / AFP / Getty Images

If Donald Trump’s tweets about Julian Assange this morning had a particularly gleeful quality, perhaps it’s because he has reason to celebrate: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday succeeded in blocking one of the most serious threats to Trump’s nascent presidency.

There had been two options. One is a Senate investigation primarily behind the closed doors of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, overseen by North Carolina’s Richard Burr, who endorsed Trump in May and served on his campaign's national security advisory council. The other is a select committee led Senator John McCain along the lines of the legendary 1970s investigations into Watergate and the CIA, and of the less legendary House investigation of Benghazi.

Tuesday, McCain and Lindsey Graham told Politico they didn’t think the Republican leader would support the higher-profile investigation.

“He said he doesn’t think we need it,” McCain said.

McCain and Graham played down the setback, and said they’ll give the existing committee structure a go. McCain has an Armed Services hearing on hacking planned tomorrow.

But while McCain has kept a level tone, a former top adviser of his offered a glimpse at the urgency some Republicans felt in convening the select committee.

“The American people are owed the information on what happened fully and completely,” John Weaver, a longtime McCain confidant, said in an interview just before the news that the select committee push had failed. “It’s really irresponsible that Leader McConnell and to a lesser degree [Speaker Paul Ryan] have not embraced a full select committee.”

Weaver has spent two decades in a prominent, if off-center, role in Republican presidential politics. He was the garrulous political adviser to McCain’s 2000 bid for the presidency and advised McCain again in 2008 before shaping two other center-right campaigns for the White House: Jon Huntsman’s and John Kasich’s. A lanky, looming background figure who still speaks to McCain, he emerged unexpectedly this summer on Twitter as a scathing #NeverTrump voice, and his warnings about the new president-elect have intensified even as some Republicans have come around to the idea.

But he says his old boss doesn’t carry an anti-Trump agenda.

McCain was “trying to do the right thing,” he said. “I think in these dark days he is willing and able to be a strong voice — a beacon of righteousness, a beacon of freedom, and I think he wants to look at this and let it lead to wherever it leads to. I think he’s outraged that a murderous thug KGB man was able to attack our democracy and so far be able to sit back in Moscow, very smug.”

Now, Weaver says, the question of who handles Russia investigation should be a central issue.

A select committee “puts it on a higher stage and gives it more importance,” Weaver said. “If it’s in an individual committee, even if you have an aggressive chairman like you have with McCain, the scope is still limited. And the intelligence committee — much of their work is done behind closed doors.”

Weaver says Trump and his entourage should be the ones demanding a real investigation.

“I if I were Kellyanne Conway or Steve Bannon or [Reince] Priebus or anyone else, and I thought a foreign power had intervened in an election I was part of and tried to benefit my candidate, I would be the first one calling for an investigation,” he said. “They’re certainly acting like there’s something to hide.”

Weaver said he was surprised that the shocked, disorganized political opposition doesn’t see what’s at stake in this choice. Though Democratic leader Chuck Schumer signed on to a letter last month calling for a select committee, the issue has faded in the face of battles over health care and ethics, and now former defense and intelligence figures of both parties are focusing on calls for a bipartisan commission — something McConnell will presumably also block.

“What’s there to hide? What’s the problem here?” Weaver asked. “I don’t understand why the Democrats aren’t screaming bloody murder.”

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Black Republicans are figuring out how to respond to an invite-only meeting taking place Wednesday between senior staff of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition and mostly Democratic-leaning civil rights groups and clergy.

The meeting, first reported by ABC News, which began late Wednesday morning, sent black Republicans scrambling for answers well into the night Tuesday into Wednesday morning, setting off fears that the Trump transition team does not intend on having black Republicans who helped Trump get elected be involved with influencing the team on policy.

Many of the black Republicans not invited view it as a snub; after all, they are longtime party loyalists who stuck with Trump through a tough — and, at times, embarrassing — campaign.

It’s not clear which representatives from different groups are attending, but names left off the list alarmed black Republicans who feel that they should have gotten access.

An invitation provided to BuzzFeed News described the meeting as an “African-American Listening Session.”

“You are invited to an African-American Listening Session with Omarosa Manigault and senior members from the Trump Transition Team," the invite from the transition team’s office of national engagement reads. “This meeting will allow for an opportunity to briefly share your priority issues with the official Transition Team. To the extent that you would like to share brief policy papers on issues of importance to your organization, please do so either in advance of or immediately following the meeting.”

Two well-placed sources said the meeting is Manigault’s undertaking. Multiple outlets reported Tuesday that she would have a role in the White House as a public engagement liaison, but details are vague.

One notable absence on Wednesday, multiple sources in the room said, was strategist Elroy Sailor, who served as an adviser to Reince Priebus over the course of the campaign. Sailor did not return messages seeking comment.

The lack of well-known black conservatives or lawmakers alarmed one invitee, Bishop Harry Jackson of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland.

Jackson said Manigault was impressive in her presentation, saying the team would be listening to the invitees — about 80 in total, he estimated — and prioritizing issues for the administration to address.

"I have to say I was a little put off in the beginning because I'm looking around going, 'Where are all the black conservatives?' But then I thought that since Ken Blackwell was there, they can easily get that perspective."

Jackson also said that Manigault specifically addressed people in the room who did not vote for the President-elect, saying that the transition team had wanted to hear from them, too.

She did not return an email message seeking comment.

Conference calls among top black Republicans who had hoped to set their own black agenda to the transition team left them scrambling and, according to one source, disagreeing over the right course of action.

Black Republicans are hyper-aware of Trump's penchant for singling out people who make inflammatory statements. None of the black Republicans reached for this story would speak on the record about the situation for fear of reprisal from Trump or the transition team — but mostly Manigault, who has handled most of the transition team’s outreach to black groups.

Anxious black Republicans have been hammering out policy platforms and ideas for the administration to pursue. They focus on conservative approaches to national issues facing black Americans they say have been failed by the Democratic Party.

But in turning to mostly Democratic-leaning groups like the CBC, 100 Black Men, and the NAACP (all reported by ABC News), the meeting is in line with the president-elect's break with traditional partisan norms. Some fear it’s a harbinger that the Trump administration may not conduct business as the last George W. Bush administration did.

Two sources that spoke with BuzzFeed News on the condition of anonymity said that they had been deeply concerned with Manigault's past as a Democratic operative in the Clinton White House in the days that followed Trump’s win. At different points throughout the campaign, it was clear that Manigault didn’t understand their approach to politics, one said.

Others are more optimistic that there’s no break, saying the current tension between party insiders and the transition team is part of longstanding problems that predate Trump.

“The root issue is black Republicans have no leverage in the party outside of personal relationships,” Charles Badger, a former Jeb Bush campaign staffer with ties to prominent black Republicans, who supported Hillary Clinton during the campaign, said in an email to BuzzFeed News. “It’s because everyone knows black Republicans aren't representative of most black folks. So the assumption — often true, but sometimes not — is that there's not the depth of relationships there. So if you want to talk to black folks, are you going to go to black Republicans or through the NAACP, Urban League, black Greek letter organizations, clergy, etc., groups with wider reach?”

But that is now almost certainly unlikely to assuage black Republicans’ frustration on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, who want see Republicans like former RNC Chair Michael Steele, Kay Coles James, a former senior Bush administration official, or Bob Woodson, the founder and Center for Neighborhood Enterprise be given a seat at the table.

Trump has continued to pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington, keeping the theme alive during transition. But people that spoke with BuzzFeed News said they don’t think it’s a descriptor that applies to them.

“I would say black Republicans aren’t the swamp that needs draining,” one black Hill Republican said. “We are just getting the perfect opportunity to put solutions forward to help our communities and we need to make sure these solutions have a voice at the table.”

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

WASHINGTON — A fourth judicial vacancy has opened up on the federal trial court in Washington, DC, giving President-elect Donald Trump another opportunity at the start of his presidency to choose nominees for an important court that routinely hears lawsuits against the federal government.

US District Judge Richard Leon became a senior judge at the start of 2017, creating a vacant active judgeship on the DC bench. Senior judges can still hear cases, but have the option of a smaller docket.

The court, the US District Court for the District of Columbia, currently has no Republican-appointed active judges, but now Trump will be able to nominate four people to the court — more than one-fourth of its active judgeships.

A former prosecutor who served as a counsel to Congress in multiple presidential investigations, Leon was confirmed to the DC federal district court in 2002. He was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday.

Leon ruled in late 2013 that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone metadata was "most likely unconstitutional" after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents to the media that revealed the surveillance program's existence.

Trump is already set to inherit more than 100 federal court vacancies when he takes office this month, giving him an early opportunity to influence the bench nationwide. But the DC court is of particular importance given the number of cases filed there that involve policy and the operations of the federal government.

Nine judges on the DC court were nominated by President Obama, filling a majority of the court's 15 active judgeships. By the end of 2016, Leon was the only active judge on the court who was nominated by a Republican president.

The US Senate did not act on Obama's three nominees to the court, who were sent back to the White House at the start of the new congressional session this week.

The DC court is the primary forum for lawsuits over public records requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Dozens of lawsuits related to access to emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private server were filed in DC, and some are still being litigated.

The court also handles a large number of cases challenging the legality of federal regulations, and high-profile public corruption, fraud, and government leaks cases have been prosecuted there. Appeals from the DC court go up to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, an influential court on administrative law.

In recent years, defendants to come through the DC court included former Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds; cyclist Lance Armstrong, who is fighting civil claims that he defrauded the government by doping while his team was sponsored by the US Postal Service; and former professional baseball player Roger Clemens, who was acquitted of charges that he lied to Congress about using performance enhancing drugs.

Sen. Bob Casey

Jessica Kourkounis / Getty Images

Two Democratic senators urged President-elect Donald Trump in a letter Thursday not to roll back key federal rules for how colleges are expected to respond to sexual assault cases involving students.

Sens. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wa.) sent a letter to Trump expressing concern about the possibility that his administration would rescind a 2011 Dear Colleague letter issued by the US Department of Education.

The 2011 letter clarified what the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights expects schools to do about sexual violence on their campuses to comply with the gender equity law Title IX. However, elements of the letter have been challenged by critics who said it removed or disregarded due process rights for accused students. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) recently placed the letter on a list of regulations he wants to see Trump roll back, claiming it "virtually dictates one-size-fits-all procedures which provide less protection to the accused."

"Campus sexual assault is a widespread problem affecting millions of college students across the nation, and institutions of higher education have struggled to respond even with the best of intentions," Casey and Murray wrote in their letter, obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Murray is the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, and both she and Casey are on the Senate HELP committee, which will be holding a confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, Trump's nominee for Education Secretary, on Wednesday.

The senators' letter was sent just as Vice President Joe Biden headlined the final event from the Obama White House on combatting campus rape.

“I’m working very hard with this incoming administration to convince them to understand that this is, in a sense, the civil rights issue of our time, the human rights issue of our time," Biden said at the White House event.

Casey and Murray focus in their letter on the preponderance of the evidence standard that the Education Department says schools should use when deciding an accused student's guilt. Using the standard means school officials must decide they're more than 50% certain of someone's guilt, much lower than the beyond a reasonable doubt standard used in criminal courts when someone is facing jail or prison time.

"One of the most important pieces of the 2011 guidance clarified longstanding policy at the Office [for] Civil Rights, dating back to at least 1995 and explicitly supported by the George W. Bush Administration, that expects institutions to use the preponderance of the evidence standard of proof for conduct proceedings following a report of domestic or sexual violence," the letter states. "The preponderance of the evidence standard is well established for violations of civil rights laws and civil court proceedings, and we believe this is the correct and appropriate standard to use."

Documents from the Education Department show the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both instructed schools to use the preponderance standard. Several former officials in the department's Office for Civil Rights told BuzzFeed News that prior to the 2011 Dear Colleague letter, it was known internally that the preponderance standard was expected in campus sexual assault cases.

However, the 2011 letter was the first time all schools nationwide were told to use it. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties group, is sponsoring a lawsuit against the Education Department for not allowing colleges to comment before issuing the guidance.

“We certainly were blindsided. Everyone I’ve talked to was blindsided," Robert Shipley, executive director of the group, told BuzzFeed News. "Obviously that was part of the problem."

Yet, higher education groups aren't necessarily pining to have the standard of proof in these cases raised. Makese Motley, a lobbyist for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said it makes schools "very nervous" to raise the standard because they also deal with sexual misconduct issues that might not rise to a criminal level.

“We would have huge concerns about changing the preponderance standard and raising it even higher," Motley told BuzzFeed News. "That’s something that makes us very nervous, especially as public colleges. Maybe the conduct doesn’t rise to the criminal code or felony code, but may have been actions or conduct taken that still warrants [the accused student] being suspended."

Casey and Murray were the original sponsors of the Campus SaVE Act, legislation included in the 2013 Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, that codified several portions of the 2011 Dear Colleague letter, but did not include the standard of evidence.

"We respectfully urge you to strongly support these efforts to end campus sexual assault," the letter concludes.

LINK: What A Trump Presidency Could Mean For Combating Campus Rape

Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Young black activists are frustrated with the black leaders and organizations who have met with President-elect Donald Trump's transition team in recent days — exacerbating generational a split between with the old-guard civil rights activists and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Tensions between black groups over how to deal with presidents are not new, dating back to the early days of the Civil Rights movement; not even President Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States was exempt. And the movement’s dissatisfaction with black leaders who get access to Trump or his senior staff goes back to the campaign. In November 2015, Campaign Zero’s Brittany Packnett was among young activists of black-led organizations that expressed dismay at black ministers who met with Trump.

But now Trump will be president — and on Wednesday, civil rights leaders and left-leaning activists attended a meeting convened by Trump transition official Omarosa Manigault.

Among the leaders were Barbara Arnwine, director of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights; Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation; Hilary Shelton, director the NAACP's Washington Bureau, and its senior vice president for advocacy and policy; and Ben Chavis, a former associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, who is currently head of the National Newspaper Publishing Association. The National Association of Black Journalists, which has advocated for black journalists since 1975, also met with Trump’s transition team.

In response, Campaign Zero co-founder DeRay Mckesson said that Trump’s cabinet nominees and rhetoric “did not demonstrate a commitment to justice or equity during his campaign.”

“There will continue to be consistent pressure applied to Trump, his administration, and Congress to ensure that issues, programs, and funding related to black people and marginalized people remain intact and at the forefront of his presidency,” he said.

While a growing number of black moderates in Washington, as well as non-partisan operatives say black Democrats need to find ways to work with Trump on issues like related to criminal justice, jobs, and education, Black Lives Matter activists largely find that unacceptable. Some contend that groups like the alt-right, a new white nationalist movement, and the KKK, which supported Trump, have made his presidency unique.

On a policy level, the incoming president campaigned on law and order, and is supported by the Fraternal Order of Police, which has encouraged Trump to throw out recommendations to improve the relationship between communities and police made by a task force convened by Obama.

“Here's the thing,” a still downtrodden movement activist involved in police-community relations said. “He's going to have to give them something.”

Trump even singled the movement out, telling Bill O’Reilly that Black Lives Matter had “in certain instances” instigated targeted shootings of officer last summer that rocked the entire country — and had many inside the movement unsure how to proceed.

Shelton, who attended Wednesday’s meeting, said he used his seat at the table to push the administration on voting rights, and on the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions to lead the Justice Department. Civil rights leaders, he said, have a duty to make sure the country lives up to its constitutional promises of equal protection under the law and equal opportunity for all “if we plan on staying in this country.”

“We can’t run,” he said, adding that the NAACP is inviting Trump its annual convention this summer. “The presidential administration has an awful lot of power and they can decide how to wield it. We have to do everything in our power to make sure they know what the challenges are and [know] what we want to be able to address issues of our communities.”

Shelton said that while he respects young civil rights activists, “I think they have to decide what they want.”

In interviews, over a dozen young activists said they were disappointed with leaders that met with Trump’s transition team, citing his treatment of women and President Obama, and how he campaign treating Muslims and people of color who they feel will be more vulnerable under Trump’s administration.

Calling Trump “one of the most divisive and outright racist demagogues,” Peter Haviland-Eduah, the policy chair of the Million Hoodies Movement for Justice said Trump’s involvement with the Central Park Five and giving rise to birtherism are disqualifying.

“Submitting to this harmful agenda should not be and is not a prerequisite to living in the United States and we refuse to live on those terms,” he said. “We too are citizens of this nation and will continue to demand equality and accountability until the struggle is won.”

On Wednesday, a coalition of several dozen youth-led black groups known as the Movement for Black Lives announced it was set to shortly release “powerful tools for people across the country to better organize, resist and learn.” In a statement, the activists said it was necessary in light of a “new political moment, marked by overt racism, sexism, and control of the federal government by billionaires.” The group said it was responding to increased violence against black people.

One prominent woman leader said the group is planning to “take Trump at face value,” using strategies to resist that will look the same, even though the target is different.

“There’s no sense in wasting time negotiating with a person who has already made clear by his cabinet picks how he feels about our families and our lives,” she said. “We are already clear that Trump doesn't believe black lives matter.”

As A Broader Movement, Black Lives Matter Braces For Trump’s Presidency

A protester is escorted out of the House Chamber during a joint session of Congress on Friday, Jan. 6.

Zach Gibson / AP

WASHINGTON — Two men and one woman were arrested on Friday at the US Capitol for staging a demonstration as Congress certified the results of the presidential and vice presidential elections.

The protesters, affiliated with the group Democracy Spring, stood up and shouted from the gallery of the House chamber during a joint session of Congress as Vice President Joe Biden read the tally of electoral votes. The certification makes Donald Trump and Mike Pence's victories official.

US Capitol Police said that the three protesters were each charged with one count of disruption of Congress, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a maximum fine of $500. The protesters were identified as Tania Maduro of Connecticut, Renaldo Pearson of Massachusetts, and Ryan Clayton of New Hampshire.

The demonstrators stood and spoke out one at a time from different areas of the gallery. Biden called for order and asked the sergeant-at-arms to remove the protesters. The protesters made statements about voter suppression, coming shortly after several members of the House of Representatives unsuccessfully raised objections to the election results. The objections failed to proceed because a senator was required under law to join the objection, and none did so.

Kai Newkirk, mission director of Democracy Spring, told BuzzFeed News that five members of the group, including Newkirk, were in the gallery. Newkirk was there to support the protesters, he said, and a fifth person was there to record the event.

Newkirk said the group had tickets to attend the session, which they received from members of Congress. He declined to identify which members provided the tickets. He said the members were not told how the demonstrators planned to use the tickets when the requests were made within the past week.

Each member had one ticket to give away, and the tickets did not include any personal information that would identify who had made the request.

On a video of the incident on C-SPAN, security officers can be seen leading the demonstrators out by the arm or pushing them out of the chamber. Rep. Hank Johnson said he thought the protesters were mistreated when they were removed.

"They certainly were out of order, they should have been ushered out, but they were manhandled, and I hope this does not signify a change in how we respect First Amendment Rights around here to protest," Johnson told BuzzFeed News.

Democracy Spring organized a mass sit-in at the Capitol in April. More than 1,000 people were arrested, according to news reports at the time. Newkirk has also been involved with the group 99Rise, which staged protests over the past two years inside the US Supreme Court.

Lissandra Villa Huerta contributed to this report. This story was updated with additional information about charges.

The House Speaker’s logo depicts an eagle perched on a globe — a depiction of the mace of the House of Representatives and an image used by many other US figures and organizations for a very long time.

On Friday, many people began claiming on Twitter that the logo used by Paul Ryan, speaker of the US House of Representatives, apparently resembled a Nazi image.

The idea appeared to take off when Kenneth Pennington, a former digital director for Sen. Bernie Sanders, tweeted the image and claimed "there's something off with this logo."

Pennington later deleted his tweet, but not before it was retweeted hundreds of times.

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via Akorn Pharmaceuticals / Via akorn.com

Missouri purchased manufactured drugs for use in recent executions that were made by a company that enacted stringent measures to prevent any state from doing so, BuzzFeed News has learned.

A sealed court document obtained by BuzzFeed News shows that the state had, at least sometimes in the past six years, bought manufactured pentobarbital — as opposed to the compounded version of the drug inmates spent years fighting over in court — for use in its executions.

For years, Missouri death row inmates have waged a legal battle with the state over the use of compounded pentobarbital. Manufactured drugs are subject to Food and Drug Administration regulation, while compounded drugs — which have a significantly higher failure rate — are regulated largely by the states.

But a discussion between Attorney General Chris Koster’s office and a federal judge in a sealed courtroom indicates that the state previously purchased a manufactured version of the drug. The sole FDA-approved manufacturer of the drug Missouri uses, pentobarbital, is Akorn. Akorn has stringent measures in place in an attempt to keep it out of the hands of executioners, making companies that wish to sell their drug sign an agreement that it will not go to death penalty states. Despite those efforts, it appears the state has been able to obtain some anyway.

Akorn did not respond to a request for comment.

The revelation comes months after Mississippi death row inmates attempted to subpoena records from the Missouri Department of Corrections, in an effort to discover a better method of execution than used in Mississippi. Missouri successfully quashed the subpoena after the supplier said it would no longer sell the drugs if its identity were revealed.

In a July court hearing, lawyers with Attorney General Koster’s office argued that even acknowledging they had documents on some of the requests in the subpoena would reveal too much information about its supplier.

“I'm going to order a sealed proceeding and banish anyone from the courtroom who is not a party or counsel,” Judge Stephen Bough said. “And order confidential restrictions not to discuss or file with the clients or in any other way the information that's discussed in this proceeding, subject to contempt order.”

After the court was cleared, an attorney with the Attorney General’s office laid out his concerns with revealing whether the state had the documents.

“I’m primarily focused on request number two for documents about pentobarbital,” Assistant Attorney General Greg Goodwin said, according to an excerpt in a later court filing.

“If [we] identified whether or not there is a responsive document to that request, that answers the question of whether it is or is not manufactured or compounded pentobarbital because manufactured pentobarbital has that information, and compounded pentobarbital does not have a package insert.”

“So by merely saying that there exists a document that proves it’s manufactured or proves that it’s compounded, that answers the question does Missouri use compounded or manufactured pentobarbital,” Goodwin said.

The judge then stated that there were three responsive documents to that request, according to the court filing.

The court filing was marked that it should be sealed, but for some reason was available on the federal courts’ website, PACER. Shortly after BuzzFeed News approached an attorney representing the execution drug supplier, the filing became sealed.

The now-sealed court filing does not identify the supplier of the drug. When Missouri first began using pentobarbital in Nov. 2013, the state bought the drug from an out-of-state compounding pharmacy called the Apothecary Shoppe. The pharmacy was not licensed to sell in Missouri, which under normal circumstances could be a felony.

After its identity was revealed, a death row inmate sued the pharmacy in early 2014. The pharmacy settled out of court, agreeing to no longer sell execution drugs. BuzzFeed News later revealed that the pharmacy had admitted to committing more than a thousand pharmaceutical violations.

When the Apothecary Shoppe dropped out, Missouri discovered a new supplier that it has referred to only by the pseudonym “M7,” and has attempted to keep all information about the supplier secret.

Under M7, the state has mysteriously built up a considerable stockpile of execution drugs, something that does not fit with using compounded drugs. Compounded drugs have a shelf-life measured in weeks, while manufactured drugs can last for years.

Using pentobarbital from the Apothecary Shoppe and M7, Missouri has executed 19 death row inmates. The leadership that oversaw those executions — Gov. Jay Nixon, Attorney General Chris Koster, and Director of Department of Corrections George Lombardi — are on their way out.

Nixon was term-limited out, Koster lost his bid to replace him as governor, and both leave office on Monday. Additionally, Lombardi announced his resignation after accusations that his employees retaliated against women who alleged they were sexually harassed by superiors.

The three offices did not return a request for comment.

Missouri is scheduled to carry out another execution at the end of the month.

Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — When Greg Simpson got the call Thursday afternoon that President-elect Donald Trump wanted to speak with him, he thought it might be a recording.

Instead, he was “stunned” to find Trump himself on the other end of the line, asking him to “consider” voting for Jane Timken for Ohio GOP Chair. Trump’s relationship with Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges this past year was a rocky one, and through surrogates, the president-elect had conveyed his support for Timken to unseat Borges, a longtime ally to Trump critic John Kasich.

Then, the day before the vote, Trump himself got directly involved. He personally called some of the 66 state central committee members who would actually decide the key state’s party leadership.

It worked: Borges allies believed they had enough votes for him to be re-elected — now Timken is the Ohio Republican Party chair.

This is the prospect many Republicans either fear or delight in: President Trump getting involved in their race. Even a simple tweet from the president could make life very difficult for a representative.

This year, there will be special elections to replace cabinet nominees, there are the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, and preparations for the 2018 midterms will begin soon. No one knows how much Donald Trump will be involved, how much he will try to help friends — or how much he will work to punish detractors, defectors, and would-be challengers. Will the president-elect use his political capital to influence primary fights? And if he does, will it be an organized effort to leave his personal mark on the Republican Party, or a settling of scores?

Trump’s personal involvement in the Ohio GOP Chairman’s race suggests to some Republicans that the prospect could be realer than anticipated.

“I think the one thing that it does is send a signal that clearly he’s willing to play in primaries, at least from a party perspective, so one has to think he might be more willing to do so in the legislative primaries as well,” said Saul Anuzis, former Michigan GOP chairman.

A state party chair election, as one Ohio Republican put it, “is about as in the weeds as it gets,” suggesting that could foreshadow Trump involvement up and down the ballot. “I would say state representative races are on the table; I would say state senate races are on the table,” the Ohio Republican added.

Others caution that Borges was a special case. There was a perception among some Trump supporters that Borges, a Kasich loyalist, was insufficiently supportive of Trump once he became the nominee. He was a top supporter of the Ohio governor in his presidential bid, and some Trump supporters perceived that he continued to side with Kasich, who declined to endorse Trump even after he won the nomination.

But if Borges was a special case, he is not an isolated one. There were plenty of NeverTrump Republicans in 2016 cycle, and while most have come around, Trump could opt not to let bygones be bygones. Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, for instance, was an outspoken critic of Trump’s throughout the campaign and never endorsed him. Flake is up for re-election in 2018. Some Republicans wonder if Trump will choose to turn his sights on ousting him in a primary.

Early tests could come in the special elections to fill the seats of some of Trump’s cabinet nominees, four of whom are sitting members of the House. The short turn-around time of special elections, and the fact that they traditionally have low turnout, means big monetary investments, or a big name endorsement from, say, the sitting president, could have a big impact.

In Kansas’s 4th District, Alan Cobb, a senior adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign, is one of several Republicans considering a bid to replace Rep. Mike Pompeo if he is confirmed as CIA director. The Republican nominee will be chosen at a district convention by 126 delegates elected by the county parties in the district. Though a special election will not officially be called until Pompeo is confirmed, Cobb, along with several other potential contenders, including state treasurer Ron Estes, has begun conversations with delegates as he weighs his options.

Part of Cobb’s pitch to delegates, he told BuzzFeed News, is that his “closeness to the Trump administration” could help him be an influential voice for the district in congress. And while he cautioned that the Ohio GOP situation was “unique,” he saw it as a “positive” sign for his own circumstances that the president-elect was “willing to get that involved.”

Cobb said he’s had “discussions” with members of Trump’s political team and they’ve been supportive of the idea of him possibly running for the seat, but that no commitments had been made.

The uncertainty surrounding Trump’s role in internal party battles has left some GOP outside groups in wait-and-see mode when it comes to gaming out the next cycle, as no one is entirely sure what the battle lines will even be.

“I think everybody around town was building plans for next year based on Clinton winning the election,” David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, told BuzzFeed News last month.

Republicans say much will depend on how successful Republicans are in pushing through the agenda they promised in a fully Republican government, and how unified they prove to be in doing so. There are still questions about what exactly that agenda will be, and where the House and Senate conservatives will clash with Trump — or not clash with Trump — if he departs from Republican orthodoxy.

Coming out of the summer, it looked like the major rift within the party that spurred big-spending primaries would continue to be the battle between more hardline, anti-establishment Freedom Caucus members and the candidates they backed, and more establishment groups, aligned with the Republican leadership. That fight came to a boil in Kansas this summer, when Rep. Tim Huelskamp lost his primary, after groups spent millions against the congressman, a Freedom Caucus member and a constant thorn in leadership’s side. For the first time, after years of groups like the Club for Growth targeting members deemed as insufficiently conservative, interests who supported House Republican leadership successfully ousted a Club for Growth backed conservative. Freedom Caucus members were furious; their opponents were emboldened.

Now, both sides say they feel that battle is likely to take on a different form. McIntosh professes himself less worried about challenges to members the group supports than they were a few months ago. “My bet is they don’t materialize,” he predicted. “I think it’ll be hard for the establishment to make a case for taking out a conservative Republican who has just been supporting Donald Trump’s agenda.”

Primaries could, some Republican operatives believe, become cast as Trump allies versus Trump enemies, even if Trump himself does not personally weigh in. Huelskamp, who quickly filed to run for his old seat after his loss, is already attempting to set up this dynamic against the man who took his seat, Rep. Roger Marshall. In a recent email to political supporters, he wrote, “the forces that worked to defeat me will work against President Trump to protect the status quo.”

Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers, the new chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is charged with electing Republicans to the House, also anticipates a less fraught landscape. The NRCC will be a new addition to the primary playing field this cycle with what Stivers calls it the “Patriot Primary Program,” a riff on the committee’s Patriot Program designed to help incumbents who face tough races in the general election. In August, Stivers sounded like he had the Club for Growth in mind when he said he wanted a program to help protect incumbents from outside groups. But now, Stivers said, “I feel like the world has changed, and we will find out what that means. But I believe that a lot of the infighting will be less than it has been.”

“I think we need to wait and see how things fall into place,” said Dan Flynn, a Republican operative whose Right Way super PAC spent several hundred thousand dollars in primary efforts against the more hardline, anti-establishment Freedom Caucus members and primary candidates backed by them this year. “There’s still some settling to do from the earthquake.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will serve as a senior adviser in the new White House, the incoming administration announced Monday, in a decision that may test federal anti-nepotism laws.

In a statement, the Trump transition team said Kushner, husband to Ivanka Trump, would "work closely" with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon as part of the "leadership team."

“Jared has been a tremendous asset and trusted adviser throughout the campaign and transition and I am proud to have him in a key leadership role in my administration,” Trump said in a statement. “He has been incredibly successful, in both business and now politics. He will be an invaluable member of my team as I set and execute an ambitious agenda, putting the American people first.”

Transition team officials earlier told multiple news outlets on Monday that Kushner, a real estate developer who owns the Observer newspaper, would be appointed to an influential post.

“It is an honor to serve our country,” said Kushner in the transition team statement. “I am energized by the shared passion of the President-elect and the American people and I am humbled by the opportunity to join this very talented team.”

Kushner with Bannon in December.

Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images

But Kushner's appointment raises questions about potential conflicts of interest because of the 35-year-old's business dealings.

The decision may also violate a decades-old federal anti-nepotism statute that bars officials from appointing relatives to positions in the government.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan.

Andrew Harnik / AP

John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and other lawmakers sent Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the Office of Government Ethics a letter Monday, asking them to review concerns of nepotism and conflicts of interest regarding a Kushner appointment.

The Democrats also said Kushner’s plan to not take a salary was “an attempt to circumvent both the anti-nepotism statute and the general prohibition on Executive Branch officials seeking to use their offices to enrich themselves.”

“Indeed, this concern may apply with respect to the appointment of other individuals who reportedly will fill positions as unpaid advisers to the incoming administration, such as Carl Icahn and Corey Lewandowski, and we ask that you review the lawfulness and appropriateness of their circumstances as well,” the lawmakers wrote.

In a statement, Kushner's lawyer told the New York Times his client would, in addition to not taking a salary, resign as head of Kushner Companies and divest from various assets.

"Mr. Kushner is committed to complying with federal ethics laws, and we have been consulting with the Office of Government Ethics regarding the steps he would take," the lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said.

LINK: Trump Family Connection Raises Questions For Tech Investor Josh Kushner

LINK: Here Are Donald Trump’s Cabinet Picks So Far

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The election may be over, but the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will continue its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email use at the State Department, Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told reporters Monday.

“This was never a political targeting from the beginning. Just because there’s a political election doesn’t mean it goes away. So of course I’m going to continue to pursue that,” Chaffetz said.

He said it remained a priority for the committee, though he noted, “I’ve got a lot of top priorities.”

“It’s potentially one of the largest breaches of security in the history of the State Department. It cannot and should never be repeated again. How was it that so much information was able to migrate out the door? These are still open questions that we need to finish up so they don’t happen again.”

Chaffetz said his committee would also work to hold the Trump administration accountable for potential conflicts of interest.

“My job in this role is not to protect or be a cheerleader for the president. It’s just not. I’m not here to defend him at every turn,” Chaffetz said.

But, he cautioned, his committee would have limited ability to deal with the president-elect’s conflicts of interest when he took office. “My concern is to make sure there’s compliance with the law. I will tell you that the president is exempt from a lot of them,” Chaffetz said.

Asked specifically about Trump’s announcement that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would serve as a senior adviser to the president, and whether that would raise issues of nepotism, Chaffetz demurred. “I have not looked at that at all. I can’t say one direction or another without looking at it,” he said.

But, he added later: “If you’re going to have a relative working in the White House, it’s going to draw some questions.”

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The last time Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a nominee, it ended with his hopes of a federal judgeship derailed by accusations of racial prejudice.

That was in 1986. On Tuesday, when Sessions testifies before the committee as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for US attorney general, he's expected to face questions about the events that stymied his judicial nomination 30 years ago, as well as his record on civil rights. But with a Republican-led committee and support from former US Department of Justice officials and law enforcement groups, Sessions faces good odds of winning committee approval this time.

Still, Sessions' opponents intend to put up a fight, and insist that any assumption that he already has the votes lined up undermines the purpose of a Senate confirmation hearing — a thorough, public vetting of the nominee.

"The question is not, 'Is Jeff Sessions a racist?' The question is not, 'Is Jeff Sessions a good man?' The question is not, 'What is in Jeff Sessions' heart?' The question is, 'What in his record over 40 years suggests that we can trust him to enforce the nation’s civil rights laws?'" Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told reporters during a conference call last week.

Here’s what to watch for as Sessions faces his former colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Incomplete” record

The Senate Judiciary Committee has set aside two days to hear from Sessions and witnesses. Republicans have tapped representatives of the law enforcement and victims' rights communities to testify in support of Sessions' nomination; Democrats are bringing in civil rights leaders and activists.

The hearing is taking place over objections from congressional Democrats and civil rights groups, who asked for a postponement amid criticism that Sessions submitted incomplete written materials to the committee. Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to ram through Trump’s cabinet nominees; on Jan. 6, the US Office of Government Ethics sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren warning that several nominees scheduled for a hearing hadn’t finished the ethics review process yet.

On Monday, Schumer took a jab at Republicans over their handling of Trump’s nominees, sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that McConnell had sent in February 2009 to former leader Harry Reid, outlining standards he believed Obama’s nominees should meet. Schumer crossed out Reid’s name at the top and replaced it with McConnell’s, and crossed out McConnell’s name at the bottom and replaced it with his own.

Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told reporters last week that they believed Republicans were orchestrating a "rushed and rigged" confirmation process to benefit their colleague.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has declined to reschedule the hearing. In a letter last month in response to calls to push back the date, Grassley said it was common for nominees to submit additional materials over time, noting that Eric Holder sent in multiple supplements, even after he was confirmed. Sessions had made a "good-faith effort" to provide complete responses, Grassley wrote.

Civil rights groups released a report at the end of December concluding that Sessions' questionnaire was missing information about media interviews, speeches, op-eds, and other materials from his more than three decades of public service as a US senator, US attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, and Alabama attorney general.

Sessions submitted his answers to the questionnaire — one that all cabinet nominees must complete — on Dec. 9, and then filed supplements on Dec. 23 and Jan. 6. The questionnaire covers his work history, his outside affiliations, cases he handled as an attorney, and his statements and writings as a public official. In a Jan. 6 letter that accompanied his latest supplement, Sessions said it was likely there were materials from his years in public office that he was “unable to locate, identify, or remember,” but he also questioned whether some of the materials that Democrats wanted him to submit were relevant to the questionnaire.

On Jan. 5, Grassley met with representatives of law enforcement agencies to discuss Sessions' nomination, and released a statement after the meeting reiterating that the hearing was still scheduled to start on Jan. 10.

Law and order

Sessions is backed by law enforcement and victims' rights groups, as well as proponents of more stringent border enforcement. A former federal prosecutor, Sessions fits with Trump's "law and order" focus during the campaign — a point the transition team has been pressing with media covering his nomination.

Letters sent to the Judiciary Committee praise Sessions as a staunch supporter of law enforcement, an anti-drug crusader — he has called for prosecution of federal drug violations in states that have legalized marijuana — and as a former Justice Department insider with the experience needed to lead the agency from the start.

Sessions has been critical of court-enforced agreements known as “consent decrees” between the Justice Department and state and local law enforcement agencies accused of abusive or unlawful practices. Former US Attorney General Eric Holder and current Attorney General Loretta Lynch oversaw an expansion of civil rights enforcement against police departments; Republicans have criticized that focus as federal overreach.

The committee received a letter of support for Sessions’ nomination signed by 10 former US attorneys general and deputy attorneys general and another signed by 25 state attorneys general.

Republicans plan to call witnesses who will highlight the “law and order” part of Sessions’ record: former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, Fraternal Order of Police National President Chuck Canterbury, US Commission on Civil Rights member Peter Kirsanow, and Jayann Sepich of DNA Saves, a group that advocates for the expansion of forensic DNA collection and testing.

Civil rights

Civil rights groups have attacked Sessions’ record from all sides, highlighting his hardline stance on immigration — he favors more stringent border controls and has questioned birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants — his criticism of the Voting Rights Act, his votes against federal fair pay and hate crimes legislation, and his opposition to same-sex couples’ marriage rights.

More than 1,400 law professors signed a letter opposing Sessions’ nomination, saying there was nothing in his record of public service that showed “that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge.”

Democrats are expected to ask Sessions about his failed nomination in 1986 to serve on the US District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. At the time, Sessions’ former colleagues at the Justice Department reported that they heard him make racially insensitive comments, such as telling a black attorney to be careful what he said to "white folks," calling the NAACP "un-American," and remarking that he thought the Ku Klux Klan's members were okay until he learned they used drugs. He also was questioned about his involvement in the prosecution of three black civil rights activists for voter fraud; they were acquitted.

According to a transcript of the hearing, Sessions told the Judiciary Committee that the comment about the Klan was meant to "ridicule" the group, and that other remarks were taken out of context or he didn't recall them. He denied allegations of racial prejudice, although he did stand by positions that earned him the ire of liberals and civil rights groups, such as calling the Voting Rights Act "intrusive."

Democrats plan to call American Civil Liberties Union legal director David Cole, whose organization published a lengthy report that was critical of Sessions’ record, and NAACP President Cornell Brooks, who was arrested last week after staging a sit-in at Sessions' office in Mobile, Alabama. Also on the list are Oscar Vazquez, a Mexican immigrant and US Army veteran, and Amita Swadhin, a queer advocate for survivors of sexual violence.

Political ties

A major difference between Sessions’ 1986 judicial confirmation hearing and this week’s hearing is that he’ll now testify before a group of senators who have known him for years as a colleague. He was a member of the Judiciary Committee from his first year in the Senate in 1997 through the end of 2016. He’s friendly with members of both parties, although Democrats have tempered their personal praise of Sessions with concerns about his record.

Sessions will be introduced at the hearing by Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, as well as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who started in the Senate the same year as Sessions. The high-profile support from Collins — one of the Republican senators most likely to side with Democrats on contentious issues — is a sign of how far Sessions’ relationships in the Senate could go in easing his second trip through the confirmation process.

At the same time, Sessions was an early supporter of Trump's candidacy and one of his closest advisers — forging deep political ties with Trump that could spur questions at his hearing about his connection to the White House.

One line of those questions relates to how independent the Justice Department under Sessions would be in reviewing the legality of Trump’s policy proposals and executive actions. Trump faced criticism from former Justice Department officials and legal scholars during the campaign for saying he wanted to bring back torture, for instance.

The other line concerns how he would handle potential conflict of interest issues related to Trump's business empire. Trump has said he will turn over control of his businesses to his children, but has resisted calls to fully divest. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to his Senate counterparts last week urging them to ask Sessions if he was committed to conducting an independent review of Trump's business ties and prosecuting any unlawful conduct.

Sessions’ supporters and opponents have launched public relations campaigns in advance of this week's hearings. Weeks of vocal opposition culminated in the NAACP's demonstration at Sessions' office, and Brooks and other civil rights leaders held a telephone call with reporters on Friday to outline their objections to Sessions' nomination.

The conservative Judicial Crisis Network created a website, ConfirmSessions.com, to support the nomination, and on Jan. 6 launched a digital and cable ad campaign that will run through the confirmation hearings.

Sessions' appearance before the Judiciary Committee kicks off a week of Senate confirmation hearings on Trump's cabinet picks. The Senate also will hear from Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense nominee James Mattis, Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Transportation nominee Elaine Chao, Secretary of Homeland Security nominee John Kelly, CIA director nominee Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development nominee Ben Carson, and Secretary of Commerce nominee Wilbur Ross Jr.

Chris Geidner/BuzzFeed

WASHINGTON — On Monday, the Supreme Court held arguments in a case for the first time in more than a month. It was the start of another month — another year — of waiting.

It all will change soon, when Donald Trump becomes president and names his nominee for the long-standing vacancy on the high court.

The court today, though, is an eight-justice court — evenly split between justices appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents — and it has been for nearly a year. The situation has altered the balance on the court and stalled the selection of and movement on big legal questions.

That's about to change. Trump will come into office with an opportunity to immediately send a strong message about the legacy he wants to leave, and may begin the process of changing the direction of the Supreme Court with the choice of Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement. Trump hasn’t settled on a pick yet — but has said that he is still working off his list of 21 possible nominees that he laid out during the campaign.

Most of the names on the list are conservatives backed by the Federalist Society and/or the Heritage Foundation — people who would take the court back to being a conservative-leaning court, with Justice Anthony Kennedy as the decisive vote in ideologically divided cases. The names, by and large, are the types of judges that would have been expected to be considered by any Republican president — although there are a significant number of state supreme court judges on the list, a rarity on the modern high court.

Trump did say at one point last month that he has narrowed his list down to three or four possible nominees (a point reinforced in later reporting from CBS News' Jan Crawford), although his incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, also said Trump would not begin interviewing candidates until around the inauguration.

Mike Segar / Reuters

Once Trump does make a decision, attention on the left will be paid to the nominee’s views in areas where Scalia had shown independent streaks — in free speech and criminal procedure cases in particular. The right’s focus largely will be on whether the nominee can be the next generation’s Scalia: a conservative warrior who will boldly present his views in a way that will echo outside the marble hallways of the Supreme Court building — and help the court usher in a new conservative era.

The court’s current waiting, however, comes on the heels of a year in which the court had to adapt and adjust to a new vision of itself several times. Understanding those changes is key to understanding where the court is today — hearing fewer cases and less high-profile ones. The court has agreed to hear arguments in fewer than 60 cases this term, a significant drop-off from the 80-plus cases the court heard in the last term. Although the court could still agree to hear more cases this term, time is running out — and they accepted no new cases out of their first January conference. New cases would have to be granted in the next week or two to be heard on an ordinary schedule this term.

The lack of clarity about where the court is — and what it will become — appears to have led the eight justices to pull back a bit, preferring to wait until the ground has settled and the court has returned to its full bench of nine judges.

The court’s direction is very difficult to change, and the last year has been atypical in its uncertainty. Before former Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s death in 2005, for example, the court had the same nine members for more than a decade.

Throughout the Obama presidency even, the court did not change much when it came to the bottom-line: votes. Two generally liberal justices replaced justices who had become two of the consistent liberal votes on the court.

President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat would have shifted the court significantly, with Justice Stephen Breyer or Garland himself becoming the ideological center of the court. Garland — a well-regarded, well-liked DC lawyer with a long history in the nation’s capital — appeared, in many ways, to be the Democrats’ John Roberts, an institutionalist with views largely in alignment with his party.

That was enough, though, to stymie his nomination. Republicans in the Senate refused to proceed in considering the pick, leading to a third phase at the court: accepting eight.

Of the cases decided by the Supreme Court in the time in between Scalia’s death and Trump's election, Chief Justice John Roberts and Kennedy voted the same way on all but eight cases. There was no justice with whom Roberts agreed more in that time than Kennedy.

What’s more, five of the cases in which Roberts and Kennedy split featured non-ideological lineups. In other words, only in three cases did Roberts and Kennedy part ways in cases that had ideological results. In all three — involving judicial recusal, affirmative action, and abortion — Kennedy joined the more liberal justices to give the liberal side a win. In many cases, moreover, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were left alone dissenting.

Chief Justice John Roberts

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

Roberts pairing up with Kennedy whenever he found it possible to do so had a very specific result on the eight-justice court: Either the result was a broad vote for the outcome with 6 or more justices in the majority — meaning that Roberts got to decide who would write the court’s opinion — or the result was a split 4–4 court — meaning the lower decision stood, generally the best-case scenario for the conservatives during this time. (There was one case where this didn’t happen: Breyer joined the conservatives in a Fourth Amendment case, giving conservatives their sole 5–3 win on the eight-justice court.)

These kind of shifts aren’t accidental.

Over the summer, when it appeared Hillary Clinton would be elected president, Breyer joined the conservatives in allowing a stay to be issued in a transgender student’s case with a fairly transparent aim of getting conservatives to grant similar “courtesy” fifth votes for stays where the liberals wished to be hearing cases — specifically, death penalty cases. Notably on Nov. 3, Roberts gave such a “courtesy” vote for a stay in a death penalty case out of Alabama — halting Tommy Arthur's scheduled execution.

A liberal court was on its way, and Roberts — preparing to be a chief justice in the minority — was making moves to try and keep some sort of command, even if by acquiescence, over his court. Then Election Day happened, and everything changed again.

Far from a coming liberal court, the end result likely will be a court that returns, by and large, to the way it was before Scalia’s death — with Kennedy playing his continued role as the key vote in many cases.

The fact that Trump publicized his list of 21 possible Supreme Court nominees long before the election, and the fact that he apparently is adhering to it in his selection process, means that the justices have some idea of who likely will be joining them later this year.

In December, a signal of this new phase was seen when the court, on a 4–4 vote, allowed the execution of Ronald Smith Jr. in Alabama to proceed. The chief justice, unlike a month earlier, did not provide any “courtesy” fifth vote, and Smith was executed later that night. None of the justices wrote anything regarding those decisions, so there is no clear explanation for the votes.

It was, at the least, clear that Roberts no longer felt it necessary to defer to the wishes of the liberal side of the court.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Sen. Jeff Sessions said during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that if confirmed as US attorney general, he would recuse himself from any investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emails or the Clinton Foundation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley had asked Sessions about Sessions' criticism during the presidential campaign of Clinton's use of a private email server when she led the State Department and the activities of the Clinton family's foundation.

Sessions responded that some of his comments "could place my objectivity in question." Recusing from any investigation into Clinton's activities would be the most appropriate approach, he said, "because we can never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute."

Trump during the campaign called for a criminal investigation into Clinton's handling of her emails, and chants of "lock her up" were a regular feature of Trump's rallies. Sessions was an early supporter of Trump and has been a close advisor.

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse asked Sessions if he ever joined in the "lock her up" chants. Sessions replied that he did not, although he remembered hearing them at rallies.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates and follow BuzzFeed News on Twitter.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions said he would not support a ban on Muslim immigrants to the US based solely on religion — despite President-elect Donald Trump saying such a ban should be in place.

Sessions' testimony came during his first day of confirmation hearings on Tuesday, when Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked if he agreed with Trump.

“The President-elect has repeatedly asserted his intention to institute a ban on Muslim immigrants to the United States,” Sen. Leahy said.

Leahy then referred to a non-binding resolution in December of 2015 in the Senate Judiciary Committee that stated the US would not institute religious tests for immigrants to the US — a resolution which Sessions had voted against.

It was reported that Sessions gave a rambling 30-minute statement that discussed various tangential matters related to the resolution at hand, including the death of Americans by undocumented immigrants.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, constituting both Republicans and Democrats, eventually voted 16-4 in support of the resolution, which was championed by Leahy.

“Do you agree with the President-elect that the United States can or should deny entry to all members of a particular religion?” Leahy asked.

“Senator Leahy, I believe the president-elect has subsequent to that statement made clear that he believes the focus should be on individuals coming from countries that have a history of terrorism,” Sessions responded, adding that President-elect Trump believes in “strong vetting.”

Leahy then asked why Sessions voted against the resolution in 2015 and if he held this belief.

Session indicated that he had a concern within a part of the resolution that “suggested that you could not seriously consider a person’s religious views” when they were “often” “inimical” to the “public safety of the United States.”

“But I have no belief, and do not support the idea that Muslims as a religious group should be denied admission to the United States,” Sessions said. “We have great Muslim citizens who have contributed in so many different ways.”

The answer seemed to satisfy Senator Leahy, who abruptly ended his allotted questioning time.

Later, Senator Lindsey Graham also asked Sessions "Would you support a law that says you can't come to America because you're a Muslim?"

Sessions answered, “No.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions repeatedly confronted past allegations of racial insensitivity and prejudice during his confirmation hearing Tuesday, saying the "caricature" of him during his failed judicial nomination in 1986 was false.

The Senate rejected Sessions' nomination thirty years ago to serve on a federal district court in Alabama after former colleagues from his time as a federal prosecutor claimed they heard Sessions make objectionable comments, such as telling a black attorney to be careful what he said to "white folks," failing to denounce the sentiment that a white civil rights lawyer was a traitor to his race, and calling the NAACP "un-American."

Sessions on Tuesday denied making the comments about the NAACP and the civil rights lawyer, and generally said that he did not hold racial prejudices. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Sessions how it felt to be labeled a racist or bigot. Sessions replied that it did not "feel good."

While Sessions was in the middle of answering Graham's question, he was interrupted by protesters. Civil rights groups have objected to Sessions' nomination, criticizing his record on civil rights, voting rights, immigration, and LGBT issues. After the protesters were removed, Sessions continued with his answer. He said that he didn't prepare himself well for the 1986 confirmation hearing, calling it a "painful" experience.

"I hope my tenure on this body has shown you that the caricature that was created of me was not accurate," Sessions said.

Several protesters who disrupted Tuesday's hearing accused Sessions of racism. He did not address the demonstrators directly, although he did joke at one point that he was helping to clear the room.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who introduced Sessions, said in her remarks that former Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter said in 2009 that he regretted his vote against Sessions' judicial nomination. Sessions brought that up later in the hearing when asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, about a letter signed by more than 1,400 law professors opposing his nomination as attorney general.

The law professors wrote that there was nothing in Sessions' record of public service that showed “that he is a different man than the 39-year-old attorney who was deemed too racially insensitive to be a federal district court judge.”

Sessions said that he supported civil rights enforcement when he was the US attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. He denied harboring the racial "animosities" he was accused of at the time.

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken asked Sessions about several civil rights cases that Sessions listed in his written questionnaire as matters that he personally handled. Franken cited a Jan. 3 op-ed in The Washington Post by three former Justice Department civil rights lawyers who said that Sessions "had no substantive involvement in any of" those cases.

Sessions said that as the US attorney he signed off on the cases and supported the lawyers pursuing them. He and Franken sparred over whether that qualified as personal involvement. Sessions said that he apologized if it was a mistake to include the cases on his form, but did not believe it was.

WASHINGTON — Approximately 60 Hispanic leaders met with Trump transition officials Tuesday as Sen. Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing kicked off just four blocks away.

In the room at Hillsdale College's Kirby Center, where they were offered coffee and Coca-Cola, groups like National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) — some of whom endorsed Hillary Clinton during the campaign — joined members of Trump's Hispanic advisory council, for a wide-ranging conversation on how the incoming administration can better serve the Hispanic community, according to five meeting participants.

Al Zapanta, head of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Hispanic advisory council, was the first to express disappointment that no Hispanic had been nominated to the cabinet, which would be the first time that happened since Ronald Reagan's first term.

Transition officials and those close to him have floated that Abel Maldonado, former California lieutenant governor, emerged as the frontrunner for the agriculture secretary position in recent days but other Republicans still say the smart money is on Sonny Purdue to nab the nomination.

Hector Sanchez, chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda — a coalition of 40 of the top Latino organizations in the country — implored the Trump team to stop anti-immigrant rhetoric, arguing that it has led to an increase in reports of hate crimes and bullying against Hispanic schoolchildren, according to a meeting participant. He also lamented the lack of a Latino in Trump's cabinet and asked for a meeting with Trump to to talk Hispanic community priorities on the economy, health care, civil rights and immigration as he said his group has done for the last 25 years.

From the Trump end, officials included the Republican National Committee's Jennifer Korn, Mercedes Schlapp, a Fox News contributor and longtime Trump backer, and Katrina Campins, a Latina from season one of The Apprentice.

The meeting was not all criticism, however. Roger Rocha, the president of LULAC, argued in favor of the administration working together with Hispanic leaders where there are areas of agreement.

This point has become one of particular contention, as leaders grapple with wanting access to the administration to help the Hispanic community, but also face criticism for giving cover to Trump policies they feel are unacceptable on immigration, for example.

Just last week, the USHCC president Javier Palomarez spoke positively about Trump and said he had joined the national diversity council. He was promptly hit by Latino Victory, a Democrat-aligned group who said Palomarez was falling into a trap by supporting Trump before he has softened any of his policy stances.

While participants said the Trump side is genuine in trying to work together with national organizations, some questioned how much they can influence the process and how effectively messages will go up the ladder with a lack of top Trump officials in the room.

Mario Rodriguez of the Hispanic 100 appealed to the group to seek to work with the Trump team, and asked those in the room to raise their hand if they had contributed a letter in support of Hispanic cabinet officials, with only a few raising their hands like Brent Wilkes of LULAC and Albert Morales, the USHCC chief lobbyist.

Other meeting participants included the Pastor Tony Suarez, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), Jorge Lima of the LIBRE Initiative and Eric Rodriguez of NCLR.

But while the meeting was a listening session without response from the Trump team and many saw it as a necessary first step, it was clear that more work needs to be done if Hispanic leaders and the Trump administration hope to work together.

"The wound is still somewhat sore for some people in there," one meeting participant said.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

WASHINGTON — A prominent Republican lawyer who has fought for expansion of LGBT civil rights in recent years highlighted that work in a letter backing Sen. Jeff Sessions' nomination to serve as attorney general in the Trump administration.

Ted Olson — the Gibson Dunn partner who represented George W. Bush at the Supreme Court and later also represented same-sex couples in California and Virginia fighting for the right to marry — is backing Sessions, telling the committee in a letter that he "enthusiastically" endorses his nomination and urges the committee to "confirm Senator Sessions as promptly as possible."

Sessions has a long record opposing same-sex couples' marriage rights, and LGBT rights more broadly. He opposed "don't ask, don't tell" repeal, a Senate vote on LGBT workplace protections, and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act — which he would be responsible for enforcing as the head of the Justice Department.

Despite Democrats' efforts to press the case that Sessions is out of touch on civil rights issues — including LGBT rights — Olson's letter explicitly defends Sessions regarding such issues.

"As a lawyer who has devoted years of effort to litigating and vindicating the civil rights of our fellow gay, lesbian and transgender citizens, I recognize that people of good faith can disagree on legal issues," he wrote. "Such honest disagreements should not disqualify them from holding public office. In particular, I have no reservations about Senator Sessions' ability to handle these issues fairly, and in accordance with the law and to protect the civil rights of these and all of our citizens."

Read the letter:

Tom Barrack

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Top inauguration planner Tom Barrack told pool reporters on Tuesday that the event planners are focused on avoiding "a circus-like celebration" when the new president is sworn in next week.

POOL: Talking about actors...how concerned are you that you have enough performers, people to do readings, songs, all of that? Are you satisfied that you have what you need to fill the day, as it were? a typical inauguration day?

BARRACK: Overwhelmed. We're fortunate in that we have the greatest celebrity in the world, which is the president-elect, side by side is the current president...So what we've done instead of trying to surround him with what people consider A-listers is we are going to surround him with the soft sensuality of the place. It's a much more poetic cadence than having a circus-like celebration that's a coronation. That's the way this president-elect wanted it. I think it will be contributive. It will be beautiful. The cadence of it is going to be 'let me get back to work.'

POOL: Tell us what he has told you he wants? What are some specific he wants to be part of the day?

BARRACK: He really wanted it to be about the people, not about him. So his instructions to me, by the way, which is the worst job in America. He gave the best job in America to all the bright people, he gave the party to me....was to figure out how to relate 200 years of history... and couple hundred billion dollars in investments in a moment where we have to build bridges. He knows what his constituency is and he knows you need to reach out to constituencies we have questions, who have doubts. His instruction to me was the campaign is over, I am not president for all the people. I want you to build a bridge and tie them back in. I was to heal the wounds and I want to get back to work on Saturday morning.

POOL: Any new traditions?

BARRACK: It's a delicate balance between abiding by tradition and the president-elect...having his own fingerprint on a fresh canvas. Mostly he's abiding by tradition especially in the swearing in ceremony. In the moment, when you look up that west capitol entrance and that shift of power in a moment goes from a very strong powerful man of one party to another very strong powerful man of another, that cadence and tradition of America allowing the power to change like that it's sacred. So he's kept that pretty much the way it is.

Barrack also told reporters that the Trumps and Obamas would meet for coffee the morning of the inauguration, and that the families will ride together to the Capitol.

WASHINGTON —Republicans in congress working to repeal and replace Obamacare will get some on-air support in their home districts this week.

American Action Network, a 501©(4) committee closely aligned with the House Republican leadership, will spend more than $1 million on television ads touting the GOP’s Obamacare replacement efforts in districts across the country.

It is an early foray to help boost Republicans in the messaging wars on an issue that will likely define much of this congress, as well as the 2018 midterm elections.

The 30-second ad is an uplifting number that touts a better healthcare system. “House republicans have a plan to get there, without disrupting existing coverage, giving your family the health care it deserves,” a female narrator says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZQQde857zQ

In the 2010 midterms, after a Democrat-controlled congress passed Obamacare, Republicans picked up 63 seats in the House, gaining control of the House chamber. Republicans, who find themselves in the same position as Democrats were in 2008, would like to avoid the same fate in 2018.

For now, that means winning the messaging wars. The American Action Network ad will run in the districts of 16 Republican House members across the country. Five are represented by chairmen of powerful House committees, who will play a role in the healthcare efforts. The rest are districts that will likely host contested elections in 2018. Several were won by Hillary Clinton won in 2016, and/or Barack Obama in 2012. One, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s Pennsylvania district, was a near tie in 2012, while Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon’s district went Republican by a wide margin in the past two presidential races, but elected a Democrat to the House in 2014.

The ads will run in the districts held by California Reps. Jeff Denham, David Valadao, and Darrell Issa, Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman, Iowa Rep. Rod Blum, Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo, Texas Rep. Will Hurd, Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Steve Stivers, Energy and Commerce Committee Greg Walden, Armed Services Committee chairman Mac Thornberry, Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, and Ways and Means Health Subcommittee chairman Pat Tiberi.

“American Action Network is proud to be the first and leading advertising voice for shaping the biggest congressional policy challenge of our day: repealing and replacing Obamacare,” AAN Executive Director Corry Bliss said in a statement.

The ad will first air Thursday when House Speaker Paul Ryan conducts a town hall on CNN.