A man arrested during protests in DC on Jan. 20 waits to board a police van.

Zoe Tillman / BuzzFeed News

WASHINGTON — As hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered on the National Mall to protest President Trump on Saturday, people arrested the day before during anti-Trump protests in downtown Washington, DC, made their first appearance in court.

Prosecutors are pursuing charges against all of the 230 people arrested on Friday for rioting, according to the US attorney's office in DC. Although anti-Trump demonstrations on inauguration day were largely peaceful, some turned violent, with participants breaking storefront windows, throwing bricks at police, and running through streets and parks downtown as they were chased by police.

The arraignment hearing at DC Superior Court began on Saturday around 1 p.m. and was still going six hours later. As of 7 p.m., 80 people arrested and charged with felony rioting had come before a judge. The court was expected to continue the hearing through the night until everyone arrested on Friday came through.

The defendants processed so far were released until their next court dates, with the condition that they not be arrested again in DC in the meantime.

Felony rioting is a crime under DC law that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a fine of up to $25,000. According to police, six officers were injured in confrontations with demonstrators on Jan. 20, and three of those officers sustained minor head injuries after objects were thrown at them. The DC law defines felony rioting as a group of at least five people who, "by tumultuous and violent conduct and the threat thereof," cause "serious bodily harm" or property damage valued at more than $5,000.

A 21-year-old Texas man was also charged with pointing a laser at at US Park Police helicopter during the protests on Friday. He was arraigned in Superior Court but the case is being moved to federal court.

The individuals charged with rioting were generally brought in front of the judge in groups of 10 and were represented by a cadre of public defenders and other court-appointed lawyers. One exception came early in the hearing, when former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler entered an appearance for one of the defendants. Ruemmler said her client was a journalist on assignment filming the demonstrations who was swept up in the arrests.

Ruemmler served as President Obama's White House counsel for three years before going to the law firm Latham & Watkins. Ruemmler told reporters outside of the courtroom that her firm represents Vocativ, the media company that employed her client, which is how she got involved.

Dozens of people came to the courthouse on Saturday to support the arrestees. They cheered as defendants left the courtroom; some of the defendants were walking slowly to keep their shoes on because they had to remove their shoelaces after being arrested. The defendants were held by police overnight.

Zoe Tillman / BuzzFeed News

By Saturday night, a crowd had gathered outside the courthouse to greet the arrestees, cheering and applauding as they came out. A line of police formed in between the group and the courthouse entrance, and police were screening people trying to go inside.

Several lawyers offered a preview of their defense strategy during the hearing, arguing that the rioting charge should be dismissed because prosecutors hadn't shown that each defendant was specifically involved in the rioting described in charging documents. Although the defendants were brought out in groups before the judge, they're individually charged.

One lawyer argued that the US attorney's office should recuse from prosecuting the cases because the defendants were charged with participating in anti-Trump riots and Trump was now in charge of the US Department of Justice.

"I appreciate all the creative arguments," Magistrate Judge Rainey Brandt said in response, but she said that at this early stage of the case she only had to find that the government had shown probable cause to move the cases forward.

The defendants are due back in court on various dates in February and March.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

Senior adviser to the president Kellyanne Conway said Sunday that Donald Trump will now not release his tax returns after the completion of an IRS audit despite his repeated pledges to do so.

"The White House response is that he’s not going to release his tax returns," Conway said on ABC's This Week to host George Stephanopoulos.

"We litigated this all through the election. People didn’t care. They voted for him, and let me make this very clear: most Americans ... are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like."

Conway's response came after Stephanopoulos cited a petition with over 200,000 signatures calling for the release of the president's tax returns, which he declined to do during the election.

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On Monday, Conway sought to walk back her comments, writing on Twitter that "POTUS is under audit and will not release until that is completed. #nonews"

As is tradition, the vast majority of presidential candidates have released their federal tax returns since the early 1970s.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump said his federal tax returns would be released after the completion of the audit.

"I don’t mind releasing — I’m under a routine audit. And it’ll be released. And — as soon as the audit’s finished, it will be released," Trump said at a debate with Hillary Clinton in September 2016.

Trump continued to cite the IRS audit as the reason behind the delay in releasing his tax returns as recently as Jan. 11, when he held his first press conference in six months.

"The only one's that care about my tax returns are reporters, OK?" Trump said, adding that he believes the American public is unconcerned with the tax returns.

"I don't think they care at all," he said.

After the interview with Conway on Sunday morning, WikiLeaks, which released a barrage of damaging emails against Clinton during the presidential contest, tweeted for the public to leak Trump's tax returns to them so they could be published online.

In a second tweet, WikiLeaks said, "Trump's breach of promise over the release of his tax returns is even more gratuitous than Clinton concealing her Goldman Sachs transcripts."

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The first major lawsuit against President Trump's alleged business conflicts was filed by some of the nation's top legal and ethics scholars on Monday.

"Never before have the people of the United States elected a President with business interests as vast, complicated, and secret as those of Donald J. Trump," the lawsuit to be filed on behalf of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) alleges, "creating countless conflicts of interest, as well as unprecedented influence by foreign governments."

The lawsuit — a copy of which was reviewed by BuzzFeed News on Sunday evening before the Monday filing — alleges violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause that it claims "pose a grave threat to the United States and its citizens."

Under the constitutional provision, "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

The lawsuit asks the federal court to issue a declaratory judgment defining elements of the Foreign Emoluments Clause — specifically issuing a judgment that Trump's business interests do or will violate the clause — and an injunction barring Trump from violating the clause.

"As a direct result of [Trump]'s purposeful refusal to acknowledge that he is submerged in conflicts of interest and his purposeful refusal to take precautions necessary to avoid those conflicts," the lawsuit alleges, "[he] is now committing and is poised to continue to commit many violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause — some documented, and others not yet apparent due to the complex and secretive nature of [Trump]'s business holdings — during the opening moments of his presidency and continually thereafter."

Specifically, the lawsuit points to the leases at Trump Tower in New York to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, foreign diplomats' stays and foreign embassies' events at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, as well as investments or planned business dealings in 10 foreign countries, as leading to the alleged constitutional violations.

The complaint was filed Monday morning in US District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of CREW — which on Friday also filed a letter with the General Services Administration asking it to immediately begin investigating whether Trump's business had breached its lease of the Old Post Office building with the federal government.

"We did not want to get to this point. It was our hope that President Trump would take the necessary steps to avoid violating the Constitution before he took office," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. "He did not. His constitutional violations are immediate and serious, so we were forced to take legal action."

Hope Hicks, the president's director of strategic communications, directed BuzzFeed News to Sheri Dillon, the partner at Morgan Lewis who presented the president's planned changes to his involvement with his business interests at a news conference earlier this month. Hicks wrote on Sunday evening that Dillon "has already very clearly addressed this."

A spokesperson for Morgan Lewis responded to BuzzFeed News' request to Dillon, writing, "We do not comment on our clients or the work we do for them." At the earlier news conference, however, Dillon had dismissed the Foreign Emoluments Clause argument — saying that they did not believe the clause barred foreign officials from "paying your hotel bill."

In an interview with the New York Times — which broke the news of the coming lawsuit — Eric Trump said of it, "This is purely harassment for political gain, and, frankly, I find it very, very sad."

In addition to Bookbinder, the lawyers behind the lawsuit include prominent constitutional law professors Laurence Tribe and Erwin Chemerinsky, prior White House ethics lawyers Norm Eisen and Richard Painter (who are both now on the board of CREW), Zephyr Teachout, and Deepak Gupta.

"Consistent with the Framers’ intent, the definition of a 'present' or 'Emolument' under the Foreign Emoluments Clause also is properly interpreted in a broad manner, to cover anything of value, monetary or nonmonetary," the lawsuit argues. "The Foreign Emoluments Clause also explicitly prohibits the receipt of “any present [or] Emolument . . . of any kind whatever,” emphasizing the breadth of the things of value covered under the provision."

Over the past year, in connection with Trump's candidacy and election, there has been increased focus on the clause — with most legal scholars echoing many of the views advanced in Monday's lawsuit. Those views have not been universal, however, with some scholars suggesting the clause should not be read so broadly.

The lawsuit also raises the possibility that Trump's dealings "also likely cause [him] to run afoul of" another constitutional provision, "the 'Domestic Emoluments Clause'" — which states that the president "shall not receive ... any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them," as in any of the individual states, while president.

A primary pushback to the lawsuit, as was often the case in lawsuits challenging President Obama's actions as president, likely will be as to whether CREW has standing to bring the lawsuit. Standing is a requirement that a plaintiff in a lawsuit have sufficient, individualized injury that results from the alleged action or inaction.

The complaint points to a 1982 US Supreme Court case — Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman — and a subsequent 1993 case out of the appeals court overseeing federal courts in New York — Ragin v. Harry Macklowe Real Estate Co. — as providing backing for CREW's standing in the new case. The cases found that organizations had standing to bring lawsuits in cases relating to alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act because, as the appeals court put it in the 1993 case, the organization "had to devote significant resources to identify and counteract the defendant's [sic] racially discriminatory steering practices."

In the new lawsuit, CREW alleges that "violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause have required CREW to divert and expend its valuable resources specifically to counteract those violations, impairing CREW’s ability to accomplish its mission." The lawsuit goes on to spend the next nine pages detailing the specifics of this alleged basis for a court to find that CREW has standing to bring the lawsuit.

Read the complaint:

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

A few of President Trump's recent appointees to the US Department of Justice are already getting a title boost, albeit a temporary one.

Absent Senate-confirmed officials to lead various DOJ divisions — not to mention the US attorney general job — other officials already working there are stepping in to serve as acting heads. That includes people brought in already by the Trump administration to jobs that do not require Senate confirmation.

Noel Francisco, the acting US solicitor general, who was appointed last week as the principal deputy solicitor general, and Curtis Gannon, the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, who was just brought in as the principal deputy assistant attorney general.

Former deputy attorney general Sally Yates is serving as the acting US attorney general. Trump's nominee for that position, Sen. Jeff Sessions, is still awaiting Senate confirmation.

Below, read the Justice Department memo, dated Jan. 23, that was sent out to the department listing all of the acting heads.

Mook

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Rival campaign managers from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's respective presidential bids are set to join forces on the lucrative paid speaking circuit.

In joint appearances across the country, Robby Mook and Corey Lewandowski will offer a "future-focused look at why Trump won" in what their speaking agency, Leading Authorities, promises will be an "entertaining pair sure to keep any audience engaged," according to the Washington-based firm's website.

The paid speech roadshow most often takes speakers to corporate gatherings, trade conferences, and universities. The contracts can deliver tens of thousands of dollars for each speech — and hundreds of thousands for names like Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Mook, the 37-year-old who managed Clinton's campaign, is a career field organizer, new to the world of speech and television contracts that have helped make well-paid public figures out of operatives fresh from campaigns or the White House.

After his dismissal from the Trump campaign in June of 2016, Lewandowski, 43, signed on as a paid political analyst for CNN. The arrangement became subject to criticism when Lewandowski continued to advise Trump and once on-air revived the "birther" conspiracy that the president helped make prominent before his candidacy.

Lewandowski has since opened a Washington-based consulting firm with former Trump aide Barry Bennett.

Lewandowski

Getty Images

The Leading Authorities website says the two operatives will discuss such topics as "cyber attacks," "unreliable polling," and managing an organization "through crisis."

"Corey and Robby debate the day’s hot issues while sharing behind-the-scenes anecdotes from two of the most heavily-dissected campaigns ever run," it says.

After the election, the two operatives appeared together alongside other top Clinton and Trump aides at the Harvard Kennedy School's quadrennial presidential campaign conference, an event that grew particularly tense and emotional during a three-hour panel discussion debriefing each team's victories and missteps.

The Lewandowski-Mook arrangement is far from unusual.

Speaking agencies often advertise Republican-Democratic duos. Ahead of the 2012 race, the Harry Walker Agency once sponsored a popular joint booking with Karl Rove, the Republican strategist, and Robert Gibbs, the former press secretary to Barack Obama. (Leading Authorities also presents Lewandowski as a potential joint speaker with Democratic strategist and Obama alumna Stephanie Cutter.)

Leading Authorities represents a range of public figures, from MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski to former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna Brazile.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — A draft executive order reviving Bush-era detention and interrogation policies that circulated on Wednesday is a revised version of the “most comprehensive” executive action on the topic proposed for the first 100 days of a Mitt Romney White House.

The original text of the document was prepared in September 2012 by then-presidential candidate Romney’s legal and policy advisers as a potential executive order, according to a source familiar with the document who provided it to BuzzFeed News and metadata accessible in the document.

Most of the text that appears in the Trump document appears in the 2012 document as part of a package of options, “ranging from the narrowest (Option 1) to the most comprehensive (Option 2)” to address “the fight against international jihadist terrorist groups.”

The Trump camp draft presents, with minor adjustments, the Romney-era draft’s Option 2, the most wide-reaching of the draft’s options — the only one that explicitly makes reference to detention and interrogation programs run by the CIA.

There was talk in the Trump White House about the black site executive order in the past few days, but it was never a concrete policy change, a US official told BuzzFeed News. Multiple outlets published the memo on Wednesday, reporting that the “black sites” document was being “developed” and considered by the Trump White House.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday afternoon that the document was “not a White House document,” adding, “I have no idea where it came from.”

Later Wednesday, a White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the pair of documents.

There is, of course, overlap between advisers to the two Republican nominees, with the person responsible for Romney’s transition planning, former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, also providing transition planning advice to Trump.

The Trump draft executive order, if signed, would re-open several paths to torture and harsh interrogations that had been closed during the Obama administration’s tenure. The potential order would specifically rescind two executive orders signed by Obama in the first days of his presidency which, among other things, forbid the CIA’s use of black sites — secret overseas prisons where terror suspects were subject to harsh interrogation tactics and torture.

The Trump draft also uses the “strikethrough” feature throughout to change the word “jihadist” terrorist groups to “Islamist” and "radical Islamist" terrorist groups.

The most substantive change to the document is the addition of a full paragraph on the draft’s first page and an annotation within the proposal, which account for anti-torture statutes that have been passed since the 2012 memo was first written. The National Defense Authorization Act provision, which limits government interrogators to techniques listed in the Army Field Manual, presents a “significant statutory barrier,” according to the new version of the document.

Among the minor changes to the Trump version are a prohibition on transferring detainees out of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and a small language change to include the fight against ISIS, which didn’t exist by name in 2012.

The Trump draft also explicitly reinstates a now-defunct Bush-era executive order that the Romney draft stated would have automatically gone back into effect due to the applicable laws in effect at the time given the other actions taken in the order. That Bush-era order, 13440, twists the legal interpretations of the Geneva Conventions to allow a CIA program operation to operate outside of them.

The Romney campaign memo says the policy is “designed to reverse ill-considered policy decisions, to ensure the continued maintenance and use of the facilities at GTMO for the effective detention and trial by military commission of the most dangerous alien enemy combatants, and, if determined appropriate, to initiate immediately an interagency process for the development of effective and lawful detention and interrogation practices that implement the full statutory authorities provided by Congress.”

The CIA and military have said they would oppose the return of black sites and that their use is counterproductive. Further, anti-torture advocates say, the executive order would mean little given the legal barriers recently imposed by Congress.

“The Explanatory Statement posted today says that the NDAA ‘provides a significant statutory barrier to the resumption of the CIA interrogation program.’ That’s just not strong enough,” said Daniel Jones, the lead author of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s now-defunct program. “The McCain/Feinstein Amendment in the 2016 NDAA prohibits the resumption of the CIA’s interrogation program — and bars any interrogation techniques that involve the ‘the use or threat of force.’

“In regards to secret detention sites, that’s not going to happen either, the NDAA amendment requires direct ICRC access to all detainees held by the United States,” Jones said. “That amendment was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, with a vote of 78-21.”

There is little appetite in Congress to reverse those legislative barriers, which would take either some extraordinary legal acrobatics or blatant disregard for the law to circumvent.

Trump, though, has stacked his national security circle with torture apologists, if not outright torture advocates. Recently confirmed CIA director Mike Pompeo has indicated that, although he considers waterboarding illegal under current law, he would be open to seeking changes to that law if national security officials said it was needed.

Excluded from this position is Defense Secretary Ret. Gen. James Mattis, who has openly abhorred the use of harsh interrogation techniques and told Trump as much.

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Nancy A. Youssef contributed reporting from Washington.

Gabriella Demczuk / Getty Images

PHILADELPHIA — House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said Wednesday he has requested a copy of the contract between now-President Trump’s company and the General Services Administration to redevelop the Old Post Office building into the Trump International Hotel.

The move comes in light of questions about whether the hotel represents a conflict of interest for the president.

“I did request from the GSA the full unredacted contract,” Chaffetz told reporters here at the congressional Republican retreat. “I requested that the first part of December, I still don’t have it. It’ll be interesting to see what they produce and what their take on it is.”

A clause in the contract under which Trump’s company leased the building forbids any elected official from benefiting from the contract. Democrats say that now that Trump is president, he is in violation of that contract, and several Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the GSA requesting the agency address the issue.

Chaffetz, asked if he was looking into the possible conflict of interest, told reporters he was waiting for the documents.

“It is something I’m looking at,” he said.

Protesters hold a rally outside the offices of Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to demand that they hold up the nomination process of Trump's cabinet choices.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats have labeled President Trump's nominees the "swamp cabinet," demanded more disclosure on their finances, grilled several of them in hearings, and significantly slowed down the confirmation process.

But for many on the left, that hasn't been good enough, as a new fault line in the Democratic Party develops between those who oppose everything and those willing to accommodate on some things under a Trump administration.

There is also an emerging consensus among Senate Democrats that other than slowing down the process, it makes more sense to concentrate attention on one or two vulnerable nominees rather than unrealistic attempts to block them all.

Many want to focus on Betsy DeVos, Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Education. Some think Rep. Tom Price, the Health and Human Services nominee, is still worth going after, but pulling away Republican support from Price would be tough.

As Democrats move forward with the confirmation process, some senators — including progressive darlings Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown — have been getting slammed on social media for allowing nominees to move forward with Democratic support. Some progressive activists have even been protesting outside lawmakers' offices and demanding why Democrats aren't doing more to "resist" the new administration.

Warren’s vote for Ben Carson, Trump’s nominee for Housing and Urban Development, in particular sparked outrage from her supporters. Although she explained her vote was based on promises Carson made during the hearing, that hasn't assuaged disappointed supporters. On Facebook defending her decision, Warren said that she would "not hesitate" to speak out against Carson and argued that she would continue to "turn up the heat" on a long list of Trump's other nominees.

"I can't believe they can't land a punch given this list of fucking nominees," said one Democrat who works with several progressive groups, adding that the left is still trying to find its footing. Some groups want lawmakers to do everything they can — join protests and sit-ins — while others think the approach needs to be more strategic.

The battle over how and how often to oppose Trump is also taking place as Democrats try to sort out the party's policy identity i

So far, the Senate has only confirmed four nominees compared to the seven that were confirmed on inauguration day eight years ago for former President Obama’s cabinet.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has also been successful in delaying some hearings and votes. But he also has 10 senators up for re-election in states that Trump won and obstructing everything might not play well with moderates in those states even though the base is pushing for it.

And the nominees only need 51 votes to get confirmed. If Republicans don't lose members of their own party, delaying and blocking by Democrats will ultimately not matter anyway.

"At the end of the day, the math is against us," said David Brock, founder of American Bridge, a Democratic opposition research group which has been focused on digging up research against Trump nominees for senators and the media.

"The big picture is that Senate Democrats have been very effective in using this process," Brock said. "The confirmation process unearthed serious ethical problems with the nominees. It spotlighted beliefs that are far to the right of the country and shared meaningful disagreements that these nominees have with President Trump."

Over the weekend, Brock hosted 120 donors at a closed-door retreat in Miami featuring some of the party’s top strategists and elected officials, where conversation turned often to questions of when and how to attack the Republican president.

In one private session on “Trump’s First 100 Days,” two party veterans on the panel, Rahm Emanuel and Ron Klain, found themselves split on the tactical question Democrats are now wrestling with in the Senate. Emanuel, the Chicago mayor, said Democrats needed to pick their battles to preserve limited political capital. Klain, the longtime strategist and White House alum, had another view: Oppose everything to win anything.

Brock, who recounted the exchange after the conference, identified an emerging difference in opinion within the party. “I predict the coming divide in the Democratic Party won’t be ideological so much as it will be between those who resist and oppose, and those who accommodate and appease,” he told donors in a speech that opened the conference, held at a luxury golf resort called Turnberry Isle.

“The ideological factionalism of the past should be over,” he added later, referring to the party split embodied by last year’s Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Other strategists at the conference spoke to a similar energy within the party to “oppose everything.” Pointing to the massive women’s marches after the inauguration, Stephanie Schriock, the president of the liberal group EMILY’s List, said the party should be wary of not capitalizing on “a real emotion to resist and stand up to this administration.”

“There is an explosion of emotion and energy,” she said.

Klain, reiterating his belief that “to get wins you have to have a lot of at bats,” also told reporters that the concern about collaboration between Trump and Democrats is a “false choice” and “not a real-world problem.”

“I haven’t slept a good night since Nov. 8, but what doesn't keep me up at night is will Trump offer proposals that Democrats will be tempted to support,” he said, arguing that Trump’s infrastructure bill, to which Schumer has signaled openness, won't pass muster with Democrats.

Democrats need to be “fighting together, not fighting each other,” Klain said. “There’s already been too much internecine warfare and criticism on our side.”

Michelle Rial / BuzzFeed News

In late January 2015, agents with India’s drug enforcement agency raided a small drug supplier operating out of a mall between a jewelry store and an ice cream shop in India’s western state of Gujarat.

They arrested five men in their twenties, who Indian authorities say were selling psychotropic drugs and opioids illegally to people in the US and Europe.

Agents seized a massive amount of drugs that included generic versions of drugs including Xanax, Viagra, Ritalin, Ambien, and opioids similar to morphine. The company, Provizer Pharma, was selling drugs online.

India’s Narcotics Control Bureau called the raid a “significant seizure.” Prosecutors alleged that the men “were caught on the spot” at a FedEx office in the city of Surat “while taking back their returned parcels” of drugs.

The men — who were equal partners in a company called Provizer Pharma — were detained by authorities for more than nine months for alleged violations of India’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The men were released on bail in November 2015, according to Indian court documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.

But teens and twenty-somethings weren’t the only Americans who were allegedly trying to score drugs from this company in India.

The state of Texas was also looking to buy execution drugs from them.

The building housing Provizer Pharma

Google Maps

In early January 2015, weeks before the raid, Texas was on the market for a new execution drug supplier.

Although the state already had a supply of pentobarbital in stock, the current thinking for many death penalty states — including Texas, the most prolific executioner in the United States — is that you can never have too many execution drugs. For years, sources of lethal injection drugs had been getting harder and harder to find.

In January 2015, facing a market where reputable options have dried up after manufacturers forced sellers to agree to never sell to executioners, Texas looked overseas and found willing sellers in India.

It was the first step in a series of events that have snowballed into a high-stakes standoff between death penalty states and the federal government over how executions are carried out.

In July 2015, a different supplier in India sent Texas 1,000 vials of sodium thiopental.

Texas and other death penalty states are looking to re-litigate a years-old battle over importing the drug sodium thiopental. After years of using the anesthetic in executions, the sole supplier approved by the Food and Drug Administration stopped making the drug to keep it out of the hands of death penalty states. After that, states tried to buy the drug overseas. But in 2012, a federal judge ruled the FDA had “a mandatory obligation … to refuse to admit the misbranded and unapproved drug, thiopental, into the United States.”

Under that ruling, which was upheld by a federal appeals court, the FDA detained the thiopental shipment from India for a year and a half. Under President Obama, the FDA held onto the drugs and rebuffed repeated calls for the drugs to be released — but withheld a final call on whether they’d ever be admissible.

A decision on the drugs will now have to come under President Trump, and Texas is looking to force the FDA’s hand sooner rather than later. Just this month, Texas sued the FDA, calling the lengthy detention “gross incompetence or willful obstruction” and asking that the FDA be forced to make a final decision.

In their lawsuit, Texas glossed over the facts of where the drugs came from, referring to it only as a “foreign distributor.” The state has also fought the FDA on attempts to release information on the drugs, threatening to sue the department if it releases information that identifies the supplier.

The failed execution drug deal came less than a year after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton advised the state to change course and begin keeping the identity of the supplier a secret.

An investigative report by the DEA, obtained by BuzzFeed News

But using internal documents obtained through a handful of Freedom of Information Act requests, BuzzFeed News pieced together the backstory of how the illegal drug deal went down.

The story is a rare insight into how difficult it is for states to get ahold of execution drugs — even for Texas, the state other death penalty states try to emulate.

On Jan. 8, 2015, Texas’ Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Bryan Collier and a few of his employees gave the Drug Enforcement Administration a heads up: They would be purchasing a massive supply of a drug called sodium thiopental from a company in India.

“TDCJ will be importing Thiopental Sodium in 1 gram vials for a total of 500 to 1,000 grams per purchase/importation,” a DEA agent wrote in an investigative report obtained by BuzzFeed News.

“TDCJ will be importing from the following supplier: Provizer Pharma.”

But Texas never got the drugs — at least not from that company. Before the sale could happen, Provizer Pharma was raided by the Indian government, its facility shut down, its drugs seized, and five of its employees arrested.

India’s Narcotics Control Bureau called the raid a “significant seizure.” According to a government report, they seized:

• 272 kg of generic Xanax tablets
  
• 417 g of generic Ritalin powder
  
• 14,310 tablets of generic Ambien
  
• 22 kg of tramadol powder, an opioid
  
• 340 g of tramadol tablets
  
• 1.6 kg tablets of generic Viagra
  
• 2.3 kg tablets of tapentadol, an opioid
  

Authorities said the drugs were on their way to America and Europe.

Five men in their 20s were arrested.

The men “saw more money in selling banned medicines in the US, where these substances are in high demand,” Hari Om Gandhi, a regional director with the Narcotics Control Bureau, told an Indian outlet after the raid.

“These medicines are used for relieving stress. They are also used as party drugs, as it stimulates senses.”

"[The men] saw more money in selling banned medicines in the US, where these substances are in high demand. These medicines are used for relieving stress. They are also used as party drugs, as it stimulates senses.”

The five men remained in police custody for more than nine months, according to an Indian court document obtained by BuzzFeed News. In November 2015, the men — Tarun Butani, Ashok Chovatia, Dipak Mangukiya, Ankit Patel and Jenis Viradiya — were released on bail, according to the document.

In asking for bail, an attorney for the men claimed that some of the drugs seized were not theirs, and said that they had cooperated with the investigation. An Indian prosecutor argued that the alleged crime is serious in nature, “is established from the record,” and could carry a sentence of 20 years.

The men, the Narcotics Control Bureau, and the prosecutors did not respond to repeated questions from BuzzFeed News on where the case currently stands. An attorney who only represented the men during their bail proceedings said he could not get in contact with his former clients.

It’s unclear how far along the deal between Texas and Provizer Pharma was before it fell through. In a statement, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said they never “engaged in any transaction” with Provizer Pharma.

“Your story is highly speculative and inaccurate,” spokesperson Jason Clark said. “The agency has not engaged in any transaction with this company.”

“TDCJ has a statutory responsibility to carry out court ordered executions in Texas. All drugs used in the lethal injection process are legally purchased and are tested by an independent lab for both potency and purity to ensure they meet national standards.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office declined to comment, saying they took no part in the decision on where to buy drugs.

BuzzFeed News spoke with an American man who bought a Modafinil from Provizer Pharma, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The drug is a stimulant used to treat some sleep disorders, but some use it for improving productivity.

The man said his experience with the company was generally positive — the company shipped promptly and was cheap. Plus, they never asked for a prescription. He said the drug's label indicated it was manufactured by another Indian company.

“I would like to participate in a group buy, however, I am uncomfortable being the one to import 1kg for fear of legal issues."

Some message boards for Americans looking to buy drugs without a prescription mention Provizer Pharma.

In one forum, ironically for users interested in immortality and devoted to conquering “the blight of involuntary death,” commenters discussed going in on a group buy of Modafinil from Provizer — even if some had concerns that it’s a scam or would get them arrested. The posts are punctuated by casual language, frequent misspellings, and grammatical errors.

“I would like to participate in a group buy, however, I am uncomfortable being the one to import 1kg for fear of legal issues,” ByAnyMeansNecessary wrote in June 2014.

“If this were within the US, I would be less wary, but customs can be a real pain in the ass. Given that we'd be shooting for 1kg, wouldnt this increase the risk associated with the buy (eg. being seized by customs, facing legal reprecussions, etc)?”

Another user expressed some caution.

“I dont think doing a group buy for controlled substance would be good idea for this forum,” username Maraver responded. “legal issues.”

On another site, a customer review of Provizer Pharma called them a scammers and claimed that the drugs are fake. “They will send you some that look exactly like the real deal, but once you take them you will soon find out that it is extremely weak.”

On Reddit, a user looking to buy Tramadol in October 2014 asked if Provizer Pharma was legitimate or not. Someone identifying himself as an employee of the company jumped in.

“dear sir,” username TarunProvizer wrote. (Tarun Butani was one of the employees arrested in the raid.)

“Provizer pharma is legit and they are not scammer..if you get quotation quickly than they will ship you also quickly ..if you ask them unusual question than No one will reply and lost them interest to sale you.”

It’s unclear how the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found this small company in India that made the rounds on Internet message boards for teens and 20-somethings looking to buy drugs without a prescription. The company also marketed its drugs on sites like Alibaba and IndiaMart.

While used widely in India as an anesthetic, the drug is currently unapproved in the United States, and under a federal appeals court injunction, cannot be allowed into the country.

But even if the drug were approved (which it is not), Provizer Pharma has never registered a facility with the FDA — a requirement for selling drugs into the US — meaning the sale would still be illegal.

But when the first option was shut down and its employees arrested for selling illegal drugs, Texas didn’t stop trying to find a thiopental source.

Weeks later, the state found another willing seller in India — named Chris Harris — and sent him $25,000.

This wasn’t the first time Harris has sold drugs to death penalty states. Over the years, he’s made more than $100,000 selling states illegal execution drugs. Each time, his drugs have gone unused after questions were raised about where they came from.

In 2015, BuzzFeed News investigated several of Harris’ claims of being a drug manufacturer. A facility he lists with the DEA turned out to be a former apartment he left owing rent on. The facility he registered with the FDA is a small office space he rents; a secretary at the building said manufacturing couldn’t be done there.

“We don’t know what he does with the product.”

Instead, according to documents and interviews, Harris purchased the drugs from another company in India and then sold them to Texas, Arizona and Nebraska for a profit. Harris bought his drugs from a company called Health Biotech Limited. An employee with the company confirmed that Health Biotech made the thiopental, and that they sold it to Harris, who then sold it under his own name.

“We don’t know what he does with the product,” an employee who only identified himself as Vinod said.

The FDA warned Texas and its supplier in July 2015 — along with Arizona and Nebraska, who also purchased drugs from Harris — that attempting to import the drugs would be illegal and that the product would be detained.

Weeks later, Harris shipped the drugs to Arizona and Texas anyway. The federal government, true to its word, detained the shipments at the airport in late July 2015. The drugs have remained in a government warehouse ever since.

Harris also attempted to FedEx the drugs to Nebraska but the shipment was stopped before it could even leave the country. The state eventually abandoned the sale and attempted to get a refund.

Harris declined.

“Hope this issue does not spoil the relationship between our organisations and we are able to do business in the future,” Harris responded.

See The Documents:

Pool / Getty Images

The Democracy Alliance, a leading network of liberal donors, will increase its membership dues for the first time in 10 years and revise its “2020 Vision” strategy — part of a broader effort by the organization to both close its “structural budget gap” and shift attention to Donald Trump.

The changes were announced by chairman John Stocks in a recent letter to members of the Democracy Alliance, outlining a need for the organization to “focus less on administrative tasks, such as the collection of dues and additional contributions,” and more on the “coming crises” posed by Trump’s legislative agenda, according to a copy obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Founded in 2005, the Democracy Alliance, known as the DA, is a network of high-dollar donors and institutions that pools hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to donate to a portfolio of liberal and progressive organizations, think tanks, and public-policy groups.

In an interview, DA president Gara LaMarche confirmed the changes and detailed the underlying objectives behind each one: first, to better “sustain the basic operations of the DA”; and second, to help the DA “evolve to meet this particular moment,” focusing more than it had during Barack Obama’s two terms in office on an opposition-based political agenda.

The DA depends on yearly dues from members (called “partners”) to cover operational costs. These will rise for the first time in 10 years, bumping “Governing Partners” from $30,000 a year to $35,000, and “Institutional Partners” from $60,000 to $70,000, according to Stocks’ letter.

The DA will also start billing dues up front in January, rather than in two cycles over the course of the year, as has been customary. Partners, Stocks told board members, will be encouraged “to pay as early in the year as possible so we can have certainty about the resources available.”

LaMarche, the president, said the changes do not reflect “financial concerns” about the DA. But he acknowledged that they are meant to address what both he and Stocks’ letter described as a “structural gap” between the DA’s yearly support and “what the organization costs to run.”

As the DA has added more progressive causes to its portfolio — growing from about nine groups in 2005 to 34 in 2017 — the donor club has become more expensive to run, relying on additional gifts of up to several hundred thousand dollars from some of its wealthiest members. (Billionaires George Soros and Pat Stryker have been two strong supporters of the DA since its inception.)

These “legacy contributions,” as they’re called in DA parlance, “have always been needed to fill the DA’s structural budget gap,” said Stocks, the chair, in his memo to board members.

As outlined by Stocks, the dues hike and simplified payment structure are meant to “create a more secure DA for 2017 and beyond,” freeing staffers from “administrative tasks” and allowing the donor network to spend as much time as possible on the “enormous battles” ahead.

The DA’s hope for a “year or two” from now, said LaMarche: that if “what we're getting from the board's partners supports the organization — and that money comes in early in the year in a timely fashion, and the staff didn't have to spend too much time toward the end of the year trying to make sure the dues all came in — that we'd be a more effective organization.”

The changes come as Democratic groups across the party retool for a Trump administration they didn’t plan for or expect. One major figure in fundraising circles on the left, David Brock, hosted a closed-door conference for donors in Aventura, Fla., where strategists and elected officials led discussions on “resisting Donald Trump at every turn,” as Brock put it. (LaMarche also attended.) The operative has said he plans to build his new Democracy Matters conference into a network of donors whose contributions fund groups beyond Brock’s own, similar to the DA.

Brock said he hoped to build the network in the mold of the conservative Koch brothers, arguing that the DA has “veered away from politics,” leaving room on the left for something more “openly political.” Leaders in the DA saw Brock moving aggressively into “the DA lane,” as one Democrat close to both organizations put it. In an interview with Politico, LaMarche refuted the idea that the DA isn’t partisan or political: “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.

(The DA supports a range of organizations, from public policy institutes like the Brennan Center for Justice to partisan entities such as Brock’s own media monitoring group, Media Matters.)

Some note, however, that as the DA has grown over time — building from its original group of roughly 65 high-dollar donors to a larger pool of about 120 partners, including institutions and nonpartisan foundations that count as “subscribers” — its focus has broadened beyond politics.

Since the election, the DA president has also traveled the country to meet with partners about ideas for opposing the Trump administration and the DA should “evolve to meet this particular moment,” he said. The question, LaMarche admitted, is a new one for the DA, an organization that has spent most of its existence under a Democratic president.

The “listening sessions” are still ongoing. (LaMarche spoke by phone in Boston, where he was set to meet with a group of donors there that evening.) Though he declined to elaborate on the sessions, he said partners are most concerned with building Democratic control in the states and contributing to the fight against Trump in what the party calls the resistance. State races in 2018 and 2020 will be the focus of a summit hosted by the DA in late March.

To help navigate the new political terrain, the DA has hired a new senior adviser, Archana Sahgal, who managed outreach to labor and progressive groups in the Obama White House.

Officials will also redraft the “2020 Vision” strategy they crafted before the election. The document outlines the DA’s central goals and the groups in its investment portfolio. Revisions will “hone in as much as possible on the resistance and the states,” LaMarche said, and could yield larger changes to the donor network and to the groups the organization supports.

“What the implications are for our portfolio, or the way we work, or how we raise money — those we're figuring out now,” he said. “I can't yet say how significant or radical an adjustment it will be in the way the DA operates. I do know that winning back the states and stopping whatever we can what Trump is doing really have to be the paramount priorities.”

LaMarche, now more than three years into his tenure as DA president, said he’s also worked to add transparency to a group whose processes and portfolio have long remained secret, forcing journalists to scavenge for basic information. (“I used to joke that because [conservative news site] the Washington Free Beacon took one of my strategy memos out of the garbage and published a PDF, you could be a goat herder in Tibet with access to internet and know as much about my strategy as a member of my board.”) But much about the group, including its partners, remain private, and it’s unclear if the DA would ever be a public-facing part of Democrats’ opposition.

LaMarche plans to lay out some of the DA’s plans at the donor summit in March.

Brock said he is also planning another Democracy Matters conference for the fall.

The letter from DA board chair John Stocks reads as follows:

You heard shortly before the holidays from Gara LaMarche about the DA board’s winter retreat and the steps the board and staff are taking to assess the lessons of the 2016 election. In these times, we must deal with the coming crises that the Trump Administration poses for vulnerable communities, progressive achievements, and core American institutions and values. We will also work to rebuild political power in the states, beginning all of this with our donor summit and DA conference March 22-25 in DC.

While the Board works with staff over the next few months to address the needs of this time, one thing we all agree on is that staff must focus more on the significant tasks outlined above and less on administrative tasks, such as the collection of dues and additional contributions (known as “legacy contributions”) that have always been needed to fill the DA’s structural budget gap. Even as we explore other, more permanent solutions to the DA’s sustainability, we need to act now to create a more secure DA for 2017 and beyond. So, as the Board works with staff on the longer-term picture, we have authorized three steps for 2017 and ask you to join us in taking them.

First, we will bill all Partners for their dues in January (instead of in two cycles, as has been our practice), and we strongly encourage you to pay as early in the year as possible so we can have certainty about the resources available. Payment in the first quarter is particularly important since the organization has a tax structure that allows no untaxable carry-forwards on our books, so we effectively begin each year needing to recreate our working capital for that year.

Second, we have authorized an increase in dues for all partners — an additional $5,000 for Governing Partners (from $30,000 in 2016 to $35,000 in 2017) and $10,000 for Institutional Partners (from $60,000 in 2016 to $70,000 in 2017). This is the first time that the DA has increased its dues in ten years (at which time the DA also eliminated a one-time $30,000 initiation fee for new Partners) — and is an important step we must take to ensure the stability of the DA as we move to take on new and different roles to help our Partnership and the progressive movement navigate the new environment. Inflation alone required us to make this change even as we consider other options to increase organizational stability for the future.

Third, we have also asked the staff to revise the organization’s 2020 Vision strategy considering changed political circumstances (the Board will be discussing their recommendations at our February retreat) and plan to step up the DA’s information “clearinghouse” role in the interim, relaying critical information about federal resistance and state rebuilding efforts while providing Partners with real-time information about strategic opportunities for investment.

We understand that these steps with respect to the timing and amount of dues may pose challenges for a few Partners, and we are determined not to lose Partners at this critical time, so if you have any concerns, please contact Chair John Stocks, President Gara LaMarche, Treasurer Paul Egerman or Membership Chair Keith Mestrich.

Thanks for all you are doing, and will do, to assure that we can meet the test that is before us in the coming years. We look forward to seeing you, dues paid, at the March convening to begin our effective response to the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Sincerely,

John Stocks, Board Chair

DA Board Members: Patricia Bauman, Vice-Chair

Paul Egerman, Treasurer

Weston Milliken, Secretary

Keith Mestrich, Membership Chair

David desJardins

Farhad Ebrahimi

Mary Kay Henry

Gara LaMarche

Sunita Leeds

Fran Rodgers

Susan Sandler

Rob Stein

Joe Zimlich

Pool / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — When White House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked Wednesday about a potential executive order that would revive Bush-era detention and interrogation policies, he flatly denied any knowledge of its existence.

Saying it was “not a White House document,” Spicer added, “I have no idea where it came from.”

But the document is one of more than four dozen potential executive orders prepared for a would-be President Mitt Romney during his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign, BuzzFeed News has learned. Several of these documents appear to have been used by the Trump administration in the president’s first week in office.

Senior policy and legal advisers to Romney prepared the cache of memos and orders — a “menu of options” for “possible presidential directives” — in early September 2012, according to a source familiar with the project who shared them with BuzzFeed News, as well as metadata associated with the documents.

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who led Romney’s transition planning efforts, told BuzzFeed News that the documents were part of extensive transition planning aimed at creating “executive order drafts prepared on various subjects related to commitments Romney made during the campaign.” He noted that they represented an early part of the planning process for the transition and that, given the fact that Romney lost and the transition planning never became an actual presidential transition, Romney himself never reviewed the proposals.

Among the cache was a series of the actions denoted as being “Day 1” priorities for a President Romney — although Leavitt cautioned against reading too much into those priority assertions given the early stage of planning they represented.

Among the “Day 1” actions, however, one was aimed at “Minimizing the Economic Burden of Obamacare Pending Repeal.”

Hours into Trump’s presidency, he signed his first executive order: “Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal.”

The Trump order appears to be an updated, edited version of the Romney document. Notably, however, the Romney draft proposal called for “the prompt and complete repeal” of the ACA, whereas the Trump executive order simply calls for “the prompt repeal” of the ACA.

Trump executive order:

Romney transition planning proposal:

Two other actions taken by the new administration in Trump’s first week in office appear to be similarly updated versions of Romney transition planning proposals, as well as two others reportedly under consideration.

The carbon-copy orders cast a revealing spotlight on the extent to which Trump’s administration — a radical departure from Republican, and American, traditions in some respects — is leaning heavily on decades of conservative policymaking and expertise in others.

A rough count of Trump’s executive actions so far reveals three roughly even categories: some, like Trump’s “American Pipelines” memorandum, that trumpet “America First” nationalism; some rooted in the longtime priorities of the anti-immigration movement, of which Trump ally Kris Kobach is a key figure; and a final third borrowed from the Romney campaign, representing the mainstream small-government, pro-business Republicanism and war on terror policies of the Bush era. There are deep tensions between the third strain and the first two — Romney’s wing of the party, led now by House Speaker Paul Ryan, has championed immigration, for instance. The early split among the actions offers a glimpse at what may prove to be tensions — or may simply be a balancing act — inside Trump’s new administration.

Additionally, as Leavitt pointed out, it makes sense for the Trump administration to turn to the Romney plans given that he was the prior Republican nominee.

“I have no doubt that there were draft executive orders considered in our process that would have formed a great starting place for the Trump team,” Leavitt told BuzzFeed News. “Rather than starting from scratch, it would have made drafting more efficient.” He did note, however, that he had not provided any such documents to the Trump team.

Noted issues with staffing up of the White House and agencies — and the delayed confirmation timeline for some of Trump’s key nominees — provide another reason why reliance on the previously prepared documents could be sensible.

Regardless of the reason, one of the most traditional of Republican nominees, Mitt Romney, is indirectly helping the most nontraditional president start his administration — despite not being invited to join it.

As Trump took office, the new White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, issued a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies declaring a “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review.” Had Romney taken office in 2013, according to the documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News, the new chief of staff potentially would have issued the same memo on day one — the draft is even anticipatorily dated Jan. 20, 2013.

While the document is similar to one signed by prior administrations, the memo issued by Priebus contains wording in the Romney memo that is missing from either or both of the memos from President George W. Bush and President Obama’s first chiefs of staff. For example, while Andrew Card referenced an exception for “critical health and safety functions” under Bush, Rahm Emanuel made the exception for “critical health, safety, environmental, financial, or national security functions.” Romney’s proposed order eliminated the “environmental” exception — as did the Priebus memo.

Similarly, while some elements of the Card memo are carried over to the Priebus memo, other portions are taken from the Emanuel memo — in exactly the same way as had been proposed for a Romney administration.

Even more clearly taken from the Romney proposed actions is the “hiring freeze” signed by Trump on Jan. 23.

Here’s Trump:

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order a freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees to be applied across the board in the executive branch. As part of this freeze, no vacant positions existing at noon on January 22, 2017, may be filled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances. This order does not include or apply to military personnel.”

Here’s the proposed Romney document:

“By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order a strict freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees to be applied across the board in the executive branch. As part of this freeze, no vacant positions existing at noon on January 20, 2013 may be backfilled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances.”

Although Trump added the “military personnel” sentence to his memo, it is unnecessary, given that both versions apply only to “Federal civilian employees.” The memos continue in similar fashion, with slight changes being made to the Trump memo, but the Romney proposal forming the basis.

Outside of the orders that have been signed by Trump or Priebus already, other actions under consideration clearly derive from the Romney memos.

The consideration of the detention and interrogation draft order — reported on by BuzzFeed News on Wednesday — was contested by Spicer, but the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that the text of the potential order had been forwarded from White House staff to National Security Council staff earlier in the week, seeking review of the document for Trump to be able to sign it as soon as Wednesday.

Additionally, a proposed order “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations” that was first reported about by the New York Times on Wednesday and a version of which has since been obtained by BuzzFeed News, also comes out of the Romney “menu of options.”

While changes are proposed throughout the draft, the underlying copy in both the Romney document and the document circulating this week is almost identical. Both documents establish an International Funding Accountability Committee for the purpose of reviewing “all current and expected U.S. funding designated for support of the United Nations, its related agencies, and any other international organization.”

Neither a Romney spokesperson nor a White House spokesperson responded to requests for comment on the various memos and orders.

And again, the Trump administration is not a Romney administration. While about one-third of Trump’s actions appear to have come out of the Romney playbook, the other two-thirds come from very different political movements.

Another third of Trump’s action represent his “America First” vision: The pipeline memorandum orders the Commerce secretary to develop a plan requiring new pipeline to “use materials and equipment produced in the United States, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law.” Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Agreement was based on the administration’s stated policy “to represent the American people and their financial well-being in all negotiations, particularly the American worker, and to create fair and economically beneficial trade deals that serve their interests.” Two other domestic-focused memoranda — one relating to manufacturing and the other to infrastructure projects — echo this focus as well.

The final third of Trump’s actions in his opening week have been seen as the most controversial. They come out of the anti-immigration movement — and reflected those priorities displayed on a sheet of paper photographed when Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a leader within the effort, visited with Trump in late November. Both of the orders Trump signed on Wednesday — one relating to “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” and the other to “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” — contain specific plans advocated for in Kobach’s “strategic plan” relating to immigration enforcement efforts for the first year of Trump’s administration.

Neither these nor the second type of actions appear to come from the Romney transition documents, and it’s too early to tell whether the Romney proposals will continue to play a key role in Trump’s first 100 days or whether they only have been used in a more limited way.

Jina Moore contributed to this report.

Pool / Reuters

ROCKVILLE, Maryland — Melania Trump can move ahead with a defamation lawsuit against a Maryland blogger who published claims that Trump worked in the past as a "high-end escort" and suffered a "mental breakdown" during the campaign in part because of those allegations, a judge ruled on Friday.

The judge, who announced her decision from the bench immediately after hearing arguments on Friday morning, said Melania Trump spelled out enough of a claim for defamation at this early stage of the case for her lawsuit to proceed.

"There can be no more defamatory statement than to call a woman a prostitute," said Judge Sharon Burrell, who sits in the Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville, Maryland.

The blogger, Webster Tarpley, published an article on his website on Aug. 2, 2016, that, among other things, said that it was "widely known" that Melania Trump had worked in the past as a high-end escort. He cited unnamed sources as saying that Trump was "suffering from from a full-blown nervous breakdown" as a result of the escort allegations spreading during her husband's presidential run and was considering leaving the campaign. Trump said in court papers that those claims were all false.

The favorable ruling for the first lady comes at the end of a week that saw President Trump's chief strategist Stephen Bannon characterize the press as the "opposition party" to the administration. Trump has a history of suing or threatening to sue journalists who published negative information about him. He criticized the media throughout the campaign and has continued to accuse reporters of publishing false information since he was sworn in on Jan. 20 — at times repeating his own lies in doing so.

Melania Trump is suing Tarpley on her own, and is represented by private lawyers. She was not in court on Friday. Her lead attorney is Charles Harder, the lawyer who represented Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, in his successful defamation lawsuit against the now-defunct website Gawker, which shuttered after facing a multi-million dollar verdict. The Gawker suit was financially backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, who supported Donald Trump during the election and is advising the president now.

In urging to have the lawsuit dismissed, Tarpley's lawyer, Danielle Giroux, argued on Friday that Melania Trump's lawyers failed to lay out in the lawsuit that Tarpley acted with "actual malice," a requirement in defamation cases that involve public figures. Burrell rejected that argument, pointing to language in the lawsuit that said Tarpley published the article "while consciously doubting the truth of the claims."

Giroux said Tarpley had a right to report on rumors, even if he didn't know whether they were true. There was a public interest in knowing about allegations against Melania Trump that could affect Trump's campaign, as well as his presidency if he won, Giroux said. Burrell said that the public interest was different for Melania Trump, who was not running for office.

Burrell did dismiss a second claim that Trump brought against Tarpley claiming that he interfered with her business interests.

In the same case, Trump is also suing Mail Media Inc., claiming it was liable for publishing a separate article on the Daily Mail's US website that reported allegations that Trump worked for a modeling agency that also operated as an escort service. Mail Media argues that it wasn't responsible for publishing the article, and that even if it was, the Maryland court shouldn't hear the case because all of the parties and witnesses were from New York or elsewhere out of state.

Harder argued that the Daily Mail website was accessible in Maryland, engaged with readers in Maryland, and that the media outlet was targeting the market in the state. He also said there was evidence that Mail Media did business in Maryland, such as contracting with freelancers. Mail Media's lawyer, Kelli Sager, said that none of that was enough of a connection to the state to give the court jurisdiction.

Burrell didn't rule on Mail Media's request to dismiss Trump's case, saying that she would release a written ruling later.

Both Tarpley and Daily Mail retracted the articles at issue in Trump’s lawsuit. Tarpley’s lawyer said in court on Friday that Tarpley took the article down because he feared a lawsuit, not because he didn’t believe what he wrote.

According to the lawyers on Friday, Melania Trump is pursuing a separate lawsuit in London against the Daily Mail’s publisher.

Zach Gibson / AFP / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Prosecutors announced on Friday that they had dropped a criminal case against a journalist arrested amid protests in downtown Washington, DC, during President Trump's inauguration.

Evan Engel, a journalist with Vocativ, was among 230 people charged with felony rioting in connection with large, sometimes violent, anti-Trump demonstrations on Jan. 20. Engel's lawyer, former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, notified a judge that Engel was a journalist during his first court appearance on Jan. 21, but prosecutors went ahead with the case against him at the time.

in a statement on Friday, however, the US attorney's office in Washington said that prosecutors decided to dismiss the charge against Engel "after consultation" with his lawyer. Felony rioting is a crime under DC law that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a fine of up to $25,000.

Ruemmler did not immediately return a request for comment. It was an unusual case for the former White House lawyer, whose work now at the law firm Latham & Watkins focuses on white-collar crime. Ruemmler told reporters at the Jan. 21 hearing that her firm has done work for Vocativ, which is how she got involved.

At least six other defendants arrested on Jan. 20 and charged with felony rioting have been identified as journalists, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Their cases are pending. They're represented by court-appointed lawyers, according to the case dockets. The US attorney's office said in Friday's statement that it had no comment on the status of cases against any other defendants.

The US attorney's office said that prosecutors were continuing to look at other evidence and "are always willing to consider additional information that people bring forward."

In a statement, Vocativ’s editorial director Ben Reininga said that, “learning that one of our journalists was arrested while on assignment and faced charges carrying severe fines and jail time served as a chilling reminder that we must never take our First Amendment freedoms for granted. We are pleased that charges against Evan were dismissed and we look forward to continuing to do our work.”

Engel said in a statement that his “thoughts are with any other journalists who are facing charges for doing their jobs, as well as with journalists imprisoned around the world."

Updated with statements from Vocativ and new information about arrests.

WASHINGTON — "Administration-related changes" have begun rippling outward one week into the Trump administration, leading to a delay in a transgender rights case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The EEOC asked for and received a one-month delay on Thursday in filing its appeal in the case, brought in support of a transgender employee of a Michigan funeral home.

"The EEOC requests the extension because of Administration-related changes at the Commission," EEOC lawyers wrote in a Thursday filing at the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

The EEOC had filed a notice in October that it would be appealing a trial court judge's decision against the EEOC, and its initial deadline for filing the appeal was supposed to be Thursday. With the extension, however, its appeal is now due Feb. 27.

In addition, the ACLU filed a motion to intervene on behalf of the woman, Aimee Stephens, writing that it was doing so because, "based on the change of federal administration as well as the federal government’s actions over the past few days, Ms. Stephens is reasonably concerned that the EEOC may no longer adequately represent her interests going forward."

The EEOC has adopted an aggressive, pro-LGBT litigation posture over the past five years — filing a new lawsuit supporting workers who allegedly faced anti-gay treatment at work as recently as Jan. 20. Now, however, the ACLU is concerned the changes at the commission could lead the commission to back off on the appeal. Victoria Lipnic, a Republican member of the commission, was named chair earlier this week, and there is a vacancy on the commission to be nominated by President Trump.

"Ms. Stephens is concerned that they might change their position in the litigation, but we have not been told that they are or that they have," ACLU LGBT & HIV Project director James Esseks told BuzzFeed News.

Outside a vote of the commission itself, which is controlled by a majority of Democratic commissioners, the only person authorized to change the litigation posture of the commission is its general counsel.

Carlos Barria / Reuters

WASHINGTON — As the world processed the impact of President Donald Trump's immigration and visa orders Saturday, tens of thousands of Canadian citizens — possibly including the country's immigration minister — were told they were suddenly barred from entering Canada's closest neighbor and ally.

Trump's executive action signed Friday bans citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days, even if they are also citizens of another nation. Trump's actions on Friday also suspended the entire US refugee program for four months and indefinitely halted the resettlement of Syrian refugees.

The bans caused mass confusion on Saturday as dual citizens and governments across the globe tried to assess the full impact of Trump's actions on international travel and immigration systems.

But in a statement released late Saturday night, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the White House had reassured his office that Canadians would not be affected by the ban after all.

"I understand that the press gallery, like the Canadian public, is seeking clarity on the executive order issued by President Trump," wrote PMO spokesperson Kate Purchase. "Senior officials have been working to seek clarity for Canadians from the US Department of Homeland Security and ‎US Department of Transportation, amongst other counterparts."

Purchase said Daniel Jean, Trudeau's national security advisor, had been in touch with his American counterpart, Michael Flynn, throughout the day "to seek further clarification."

"NSA Flynn confirmed that holders of Canadian passports, including dual citizens, will not be affected by the ban," Purchase said. "We have been assured that Canadian citizens travelling on Canadian passport will be dealt with ‎in the usual process."

The PMO did not immediately say why Canadians sharing citizenship with one of the seven barred countries will be excluded from the ban.

There were 35,000 Canadians who shared citizenship with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya or Yemen in 2011, according to Statistics Canada data. Another 75,000 people born in those countries live in Canada but are not full Canadian citizens.

Those numbers all come from the 2011 census and would all-but-certainly be higher today. The 2016 census data will start to be released next month.

One person who was thought to be potentially affected by the travel ban was Ahmed Hussen, who was appointed Canada's minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship earlier this month. Hussen came to Canada as a Somali refugee in 1993. He eventually became a lawyer and human rights activist before being elected as a member of Parliament in 2015.

Earlier on Saturday, the Prime Minister's Office told BuzzFeed News it was "not concerned about the ability of the Minister to travel." But it was unclear whether Hussen would only be able to travel to the US using a diplomatic passport while on government business.

As news of Trump's bans spread Saturday, Hussen tweeted from a citizenship ceremony he was attending.

Trudeau has not directly addressed the immigration ban, but also tweeted a message that appeared to respond to Trump's executive actions.

Meanwhile, Canadian airlines stopped allowing passport holders from the seven listed countries to board flights to to the US, even if they had green cards or visas.

Canada and the US share the longest undefended border in the world. Tens of thousands of trucks and hundreds of thousands of people cross the border every day. Passports were not even needed to drive across the border until after the 9/11 attacks.

The ban could have significantly affected trade and the mobility of Canadian citizens. Transport Canada spokesperson Delphine Denis had said the department was in touch with US officials "to get more information on the impacts."

The ban also runs contrary to the worldview Trudeau has championed. Whereas Trump has banned all refugees from entering the US for 120 days, one of Trudeau's first acts in office was drastically increasing the number of Syrian refugees coming to Canada.

Canada has resettled nearly 40,000 Syrian refugees since late 2015, as well as more than 20,000 from Iraq over the past decade under the previous Conservative government.

Trudeau is reportedly planning on talking to Trump about Canada's refugee resettlement program in the near future.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley echoed Trudeau's tweets on Saturday, saying her province would continue to welcome "those seeking refuge."

Brad Wall, the conservative premier of Saskatchewan who often butts heads with Trudeau, went a step further than Notley, saying that his province is ready to help the federal government with "anyone stranded by the US ban."

Jason Kenney, Canada's former Conservative immigration minister, also called upon the federal government to assist those affected by Trump's executive actions.

"This is not about national security," Kenney tweeted. "It is a brutal, ham-fisted act of demagogic political theatre. Now we are hopelessly polarized between the false choice of open-border naïveté and xenophobia."

Michael Chong, a leadership candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada, also appeared to take aim at Trump's executive action on Saturday night.

The Canadian Immigration, Foreign Affairs, and Public Safety departments did not respond to a request for comment.

Cora Lewis/BuzzFeed News

Less than 36 hours passed after President Trump signed his executive order on Friday restricting immigration on several fronts before four federal judges had issued rulings in quick succession blunting the effect of the order and calling its constitutionality into question.

The executive order — "Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States" — temporarily halted the US refugee program for 120 days; indefinitely suspended the intake of refugees from Syria; and blocked all people from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days.

The moves against the order started when federal judge in Brooklyn on Saturday evening granted a nationwide stay of removal — preventing deportation — for those people affected by the order.

"Nobody is to be removed," US District Judge Ann Donnelly told the government lawyers, issuing the stay after holding the first hearing on a challenge to the order.

In the order that followed, Donnelly barred federal officials from removing those with approved refugee applications, valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and individuals from the seven countries where all immigration was halted who are otherwise legally authorized to enter the US. Those seven countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen.

Several hours later, after a late-night hearing in a federal courthouse in Massachusetts, US District Judge Allison Burroughs and Magistrate Judge Judith Dein issued an order early Sunday morning that — as the petitioners' lawyers had requested — went further, barring federal officials from detaining, in addition to removing, the same group covered by Donnelly's order and adding those same protections, explicitly, to lawful permanent residents.

Additionally, Burroughs and Dein's order limits secondary screening to pre-Trump order status and order US Customs and Border Protection to "notify airlines that have flights arriving at Logan [International] Airport of this order and the fact that individuals on these flights will not be detained or returned solely on the basis of the Executive Order."

Overnight, there remained questions about the scope of the orders — lawyers in the New York case already are seeking clarification from the court there and the Massachusetts case only named two petitioners. Nonetheless, the combined terms of the orders — limiting federal officials from detaining or removing those affected by Trump's order — contain no explicit limitation to the respective districts in which they were granted.

In addition to those two rulings, two more localized rulings came from federal courts in Virginia and Washington. In the case filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered federal officials to provide lawyers access to "all legal permanent residents being detained at Dulles International Airport" and barred officials from deporting any such people for the next seven days. In the case out of Washington state, US District Judge Thomas Zilly barred the federal government from deporting two unnamed individuals from the US. Zilly set a hearing for Feb. 3 "to determine whether to lift the stay."

The New York-based lawsuit that started things rolling had been brought early Saturday on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, two men detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport for several hours after their arrival at the airport in the wake of Trump's signing of the ban.

In addition to the two men, however, the group of lawyers backing the men also filed a motion to turn the lawsuit into a class action, which would result in protection for all of those who would be covered by the class.

Later, they sought immediate action, filing a request that the court issue a stay of removal — an order preventing deportation — not only for the two men, but for the entire proposed class.

At the hearing in the first case, Donnelly focused in on whether the people affected by Trump's order would face irreparable harm if deported.

Gisela Ann Westwater, a lawyer from the Justice Department's Office of Immigration Litigation, presented the bulk of the government's defense over the phone, with support from Susan Riley, who was in person at the hearing.

While discussing whether irreparable harm would be brought onto people who were detained and would be sent back to the countries they came from, the judge referenced an unnamed person who the ACLU's Lee Gelernt, who argued for the challengers, said was being sent back to Syria.

Donnelly turned to the government's lawyers, asking, "What do you think about that?" Westwater began to make the case, briefly, about concerns based on those trying to come to the US on tourist visas.

The judge, however, interrupted her and delivered her order, questioning whether "the government had a full chance to think about this.”

At another point in the hearing, Gelernt told Donnelly that the petitioner's lawyers estimate 100 to 200 people are being detained across the country as a result of Trump's order.

When Gelernt pressed for the government to turn over names of those detained and the government responded that it did not know who all of those people being detained are, Donnelly said the government should compile a list.

In a follow-up order to the stay, Donnelly ordered the government "to provide a list of individuals detained, pursuant to the January 27, 2017 Executive Order, to the petitioner's counsel."

Further proceedings in the case, ultimately challenging the constitutionality of Trump's order, are set for February. The government's brief responding to the petition is due Feb. 10.

The lawyers who brought the case come from International Refugee Assistance Project, National Immigration Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, and the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School.

The Massachusetts court's order, meanwhile, will remain in effect for 7 days, with the court to schedule a further hearing before that time.

Read the order in the New York case:

Read the order in the Virginia case:

Read the order in the Washington case:

Read the order in the Massachusetts case:

This is a developing story. Please check back at BuzzFeed News for more.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — As major airports became protest sites on Saturday night over President Trump's executive order, top officials affiliated with billionaires Charles and David Koch’s political network say they’re going on offense under Trump, who they did not support during the campaign.

The Koch network is gearing up to spend between $300 and $400 million on politics and policy over the two-year 2018 election cycle.

That range of spending is an increase from the $250 million they spent in the last election cycle. "We had by far the most productive year in the history of this network," Charles Koch told donors gathered for the network's winter retreat, despite reports suggesting that the network is retreating.

"We're just getting started," he said, citing a 96% success rate in races they put money into in 2016.

Koch did not mention Trump during his short welcome speech. But top network officials seemed optimistic regarding the new administration.

Though they said it’s too early to judge the Trump administration, they already see opportunities to turn their policy priorities into law after spending the last 14 years playing defense under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

"I think there’s been some good things for sure,” said Mark Holden, co-chairman of the Koch network, citing Trump’s early moves on the Keystone pipeline as an example. "It’s too soon to tell though… It’s only been a week.”

Holden said even though they did not support Trump during the election, he expects them to have a good relationship with the White House. Former staffers who have been affiliated with the network are now working for Trump. Vice President Mike Pence and his staff in particular have ties to the network.

Tim Phillips, president of the network's largest group — Americans for Prosperity, added that "some of [Trump's] appointments were encouraging as well."

Koch refused to meet with Trump during the election, but top network officials met with Trump's staff last year, and Holden described the discussions as "civil meetings."

But asked about specific actions that the Trump administration has taken — an order to construct the wall and an another barring travel to U.S. from certain predominantly Muslim-majority countries, Koch network officials declined to take a stance.

"We think the best way to keep communities safe is to bring people together," said Brian Hooks, co-chairman of the network's gathering. "That's how we view any action."

Pressed on if that meant the network was taking a stance against the orders, Holden said: "I don't think we are right now. They came out last night."

During the campaign, Koch referred to Trump's Muslim ban as a "Nazi Germany" policy, but on Saturday, Holden noted that the executive was different from what Trump proposed during the primary.

They stressed, however, that they would oppose the administration when they felt it was necessary. "Our bread and butter — our secret sauce — is the accountability play," Holden said.

One issue where the network is already opposing the Trump administration and congressional Republicans is: border-adjustment tax reform, which would favor exports over imports.

But it's unclear how far the network will be willing to go in blocking that proposal and taking on Trump early on.

"We’re going to have conversations with members on Capitol Hill," said James Davis, spokesman for the network. "We’re also going to look to educate our activists on this. They need to call their members of Congress and tell them they're not going to be supportive of this new tax and air their frustration."

The network is hosting 550 donors — the most to ever attend such a gathering — at a luxury resort in the Palm Springs area this weekend. These donors, who attend these events known as "seminars" twice a year, make a minimum annual donation of $100,000.

BuzzFeed News was invited to cover the gathering after agreeing to set of ground rules, which include not naming donors without their permission.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Trump's decision to proceed with his expansive executive order restricting immigration at the end of his first week in office has turned into a massive legal battleground that will shape the consideration of any Supreme Court nominee.

The order ran into legal trouble almost immediately, with several federal courts and key Republicans pushing back in the 48 hours that followed. From here, federal district court rulings overnight Saturday are likely to be appealed, spurring a rolling series of legal debates about one of the first actions taken by President Trump.

And it's about to get more complicated. Trump will now nominate a Supreme Court pick in the midst of a national debate over the powers of a chief executive who is drawing sharp criticism from Democrats and Republicans — including senators who will be holding hearings and voting on his nominee. That justice will provide a crucial vote on the highest-stakes cases in the country — and could wind up ruling on elements of the executive order.

At least three of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee — Sens. Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and Ben Sasse — already have criticized aspects of the order.

Amid reports that there was little to no vetting of the order in advance of Trump signing it, the question is what the legislative and judicial branches will do in response. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday made clear that the judiciary is now front and center, saying on ABC's This Week, "The courts are going to determine whether this is too broad."

In the midst of this fight, it appears that Trump is going to attempt to change the conversation by making a new headline. On Sunday afternoon, ABC's Jonathan Karl reported that the White House was considering announcing Trump's Supreme Court nominee as soon as Monday. (Per Karl, two appeals court judges — Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman — are Trump's finalists.)

With the attention already on the courts and their role, however, the nomination, rather than changing the conversation, could crystallize and focus the debate.

In the space of a week, Trump has gone from having the opportunity to begin an administration with a legacy-setting nomination to pushing someone right into a debate about the power of the executive — and potentially changing how that Supreme Court nominee gets introduced to and scrutinized by the United States Senate.

Nicholas and Ejaab Pierce

john stanton

NEW ORLEANS — For Nicholas Pierce, President Trump’s executive order barring refugees and Iraqis from entering the United States hits especially close to home.

During an impromptu protest outside New Orleans’ City Hall Sunday, Pierce, a white Muslim American, told the crowd his message to Trump and other Americans worried about Muslim immigration was simple. “We are not terrorists, we are not trying to hurt anyone. I had someone earlier today say to me, ‘why won’t you coexist with me?’ I said, ‘you don’t know me. I’ve been coexisting with you for 27 years!’” Pierce said.

President Trump’s executive order, which bans refugee resettlements to the United States for six months and immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations for 90 days, has sparked nationwide protests and condemnation from Democrats and even some Republicans.

Of particular concern is the impact the ban may have on people who have worked as translators for the American military in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world where ISIS and al-Qaeda openly operate. For those men and women, being forced to return to their home countries could become a de facto death sentence.

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But for Pierce, the ban on refugees is very personal. As a teenager growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the 27-year-old law school student found himself essentially alone following the deaths of first his mother and then both grandparents.

“I was on my own for a little bit, and then I went to live with an uncle. I don’t want to speak ill of him, but he was kind of a drunk. Not the slap you around kind of drunk , but not the come home and take care of you and put food on the table kind of drunk either.”

While he was struggling to make ends meet as a 16-year-old washing dishes, an old coworker, Shareef Abuhajah, who was a 20-year-old student at Louisiana State University, and his family took Pierce in. “I was essentially fostered by a Palestinian family,” Pierce said in an interview with BuzzFeed News.

The Abuhajah family weren’t strangers to being displaced: the family had fled Palestine during the 1967 war with Israel, ending up in Kuwait. In 1991, the family again became refugees when Saddam Hussein invaded, and they relocated to Jordan before finally settling in Baton Rouge.

For Pierce, his conversion to Islam was a gradual, natural evolution. “They never pushed Islam as something I had to do, or become. And it’s not something I did immediately after meeting them either. It was just something that, as I started to wrestle with the issue of the death of my parents and all this stuff, and I decided I did believe in God and I needed to put form to that, their example led me to Islam,” he explained.

At 17, Pierce converted, and a year later, he joined the military because “I wanted to help people, and I wanted to show people that not all Muslims hate America.”

While in the military, he met an Iraqi translator who had served with US military forces in northern Iraq. During a mission with a group of Marines, Ali Ahmed was shot in the shoulder by insurgents as he was attempting to lure them away from the American soldiers. Like many Iraqis who have worked with the US military, Ahmed received a green card to live in America.

While that should have, in theory, meant he would remain out of the grasp of ISIS and al-Qaeda, “He’s the exact class of people, should they go home to visit their families or should they even leave the country to go on vacation and try and reenter the country under what Donald Trump proposed, they could be stopped at the border and sent back to their country,” Pierce said.

“And that breaks my heart. What this is, is essentially an American serviceman who is going to be deported back to Baghdad,” he added.

Like many Muslim Americans, Pierce has had problems with people who question his loyalties, but he said he believes that the charged anti-Muslim rhetoric has actually prompted non-Muslim Americans to make a point of reassuring Muslims that they are not alone.

“You’d be surprised where you have the positive ones,” Pierce said, explaining that he and his wife, Ejaaz, were in Lake Charles last weekend. “You know, a tiny little town. And she went into a coffee shop said, ‘that’s a beautiful hijab. I think it’s being drawn out by everything that’s going on. People feel the need to reassure.”

Mark Wallheiser / Getty Images

INDIAN WELLS, Calif — In closed-door sessions this weekend, major GOP donors affiliated with billionaires Charles and David Koch's political network went through a case study.

The subject? The defeat last year of former Republican senator Kelly Ayotte, who the Kochs did not back.

Her defeat, the session held, offers a guide for the network’s efforts to hold elected officials accountable under the Trump administration. In Indian Wells, the failing of Ayotte, who lost by a slim margin, was one of principle based on her voting record. And as a result, support was withheld.

The session was just one of several focused on dissecting the 2016 election — and better understanding Trump voters — as the Koch network figures out life under President Trump, who they did not support, and making sure the GOP-controlled Washington doesn't drift to a more populist agenda.

"We thought she didn't stick to free-market principles," said Frayda Levin, one of the 550 donors attending the Koch network's winter retreat, of Ayotte. "And we feel she's a good example of someone who would have won had she stuck to those principles. She would have had our support. She would have had the support of the activists."

Pointing to Ayotte, several donors said the accountability conversations had been a key focus, as Trump's first full week in office wraps up. Most attending the confab said they had a “mixed” view of Trump’s early actions. "Even the worst marriages make it through the first week," one of them said.

The network is making it clear it won't go along with all of the new administration's policies. A top Koch network official came out against the president's executive order barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and donors repeatedly said they oppose a border-adjustment tax plan that House Republicans and the Trump administration are pushing.

Without naming Trump, Charles Koch himself told donors in a presentation that the country could either "go the authoritarian route ... or we can move toward a free and open society. So this is our opportunity."

But 2018, when a slate of favorable seats will be up for re-election, presents a major opportunity — or what could prove to be a bitter affirmation of 2016’s deviation from conservative, and especially libertarian, ideology. The Koch network is still figuring out more specifically how their accountability efforts will shape the minimum $300 million they plan to spend on policy and politics in the next two years. "We're not there yet," Levin said. "Right now we're looking at holding them accountable. We're not talking about who we're going to primary. That's premature."

Liz Wright, another donor attending the retreat from Colorado, added: "Anyone who stands for freedom, we will support. And those who are more populist, not so much. We'll stay true to our principles."

Throughout the weekend, in different sessions for donors, there was an effort to explain the 2016 election and to show donors the frustration working-class voters who supported Trump are feeling. Network officials argued that during this time of change, they are in a prime position to offer up their policy priorities to the voters.

In a presentation to donors, Brian Hooks, co-chairman of the network in a presentation later added: "We see great opportunity to spend the bulk of our time helping this administration pass policies that really improve people's lives."

"This is a tremendous opportunity and we cannot squander it. It's our time to lead right in front of us."

Koch network officials showed testimonials from rust-belt voters who voted for Obama and then flipped to Trump. They presented clips of focus groups from Richmond, Va., and Tampa, Fla., conducted during the election in which middle-class voters talk about their struggles making ends meet.

One session during lunch on Sunday with libertarian political scientist Charles Murray and economist Tyler Cowen was aimed specifically at "improv[ing] (donors’) understanding of the frustration the American people are feeling rooted in decline of key institutions."

It was followed by another panel discussion that included Mike Rowe from the Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs. (Unlike past Koch gatherings where donors had to give up their cell phones before entering, attendees this time could keep their phones with them after putting them in a green pouch that staff locked and unlocked after the session.)

"They're looking for answers to economic insecurity and this feeling that things are still not fair," Hooks said.

"So this is not a partisan message. But the message is very, very clear: The American people are hurting and they need for things to get better," he continued. "And if things don't get better, then we should expect history to repeat itself. Not only will millions of Americans dreams be dashed, but we should expect that the political pendulum will swing with even more force in the other direction next time — even further to the left than Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren."

The network is hosting 550 donors — the most to ever attend such a gathering — at a luxury resort in the Palm Springs area this weekend. These donors, who attend these events known as “seminars” twice a year, make a minimum annual donation of $100,000.

BuzzFeed News was invited to cover the gathering after agreeing to set of ground rules, which include not naming donors without their permission.

In interviews, many of them said understanding the mindset and challenges of Trump voters was helpful as they look to future elections. They also pointed to statistics shared with them that showed the significant number of Obama voters who voted for Trump.

"Those of us who think about politics a lot think that's crazy," said Chart Wescott, a donor from Texas. "But most Americans aren't like the people in this room — or the media for that matter. They're just working types who wanted something different. All they wanted was something different."

Looking ahead to the next election, where 10 Democratic senators are up for re-election in states that Trump won, Wescott said it’s important to understand these voters better. "We're gunning for the super majority [in the Senate]," he said. "We can use the current situation to really turn up the heat on Democratic senators.