Bob Menendez

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Last month, federal prosecutors decided not to retry Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez after a lengthy corruption case against him ended in mistrial.

Menendez is a free man, but is still facing a renewed Senate Ethics Committee investigation and is somewhat at odds with more left-leaning Democrats. It’s the kind of situation that could lead to a contentious primary with a number of challengers, especially with an energized grassroots base motivated to run for office in the age of Trump.

But Menendez has drawn just one primary challenger: activist and pundit Michael Starr Hopkins.

Hopkins said the speed with which the New Jersey Democratic establishment endorsed the senator following the mistrial drove him to challenge the senator’s reelection bid — as well as Menendez’s post-mistrial statement. (“To those who were digging my political grave so they could jump into my seat, I know who you are and I won’t forget you,” Menendez said in front of the federal courthouse.)

Menendez had faced legal scrutiny over his relationship with a major donor, a Florida ophthalmologist. During the trial, former US senator Robert Torricelli (who faced his own scrutiny over a donor) worked behind the scenes to position himself as the successor of Menendez’s seat if he was forced to resign from office. But little momentum for a challenge — primarily against New Jersey's Democratic machine — has materialized.

John Wisniewski, a former progressive candidate for governor and NJ assemblyman, said there’s a slim chance of success for anyone looking to challenge Menendez, who’s already shored up support from Democratic power players including current governor Phil Murphy and popular New Jersey junior senator Cory Booker. The senator also has a hefty amount of cash ($4.1 million) on hand ahead of the April filing deadline.

“Fundraising is going to be tough. We’re not going to go dollar for dollar with Menendez,” said Hopkins, whose campaign has raised $26,268 according to Federal Election Commission data, but he hopes that New Jerseyans will connect with someone running for office “who isn’t a party insider.”

Despite the quick lineup behind Menendez, a poll, conducted by the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll, found that 51% of New Jersey voters thought that Menendez didn’t deserve reelection and 49% thought that he should resign. The poll surveyed 600 New Jersey adults after the mistrial was declared last November.

The poll also found that New Jerseyans who were informed about the senator’s corruption trial first were more likely to say he didn’t deserve reelection, and Hopkins doesn’t shy away from mentioning the corruption charges. Hopkins says that he’s running partly because he wants to protect the Senate seat for Democrats. “Losing this one seat, this one vote” could have a major impact on policies (like health care) that protect lots of Americans, Hopkins said.

He’s also running on the heels of Murphy’s 2017 campaign, in which he ran on a litany of liberal goals, from a $15 minimum wage to legalized marijuana. Foreign policy progressives have already complained that Menendez — who holds somewhat more hawkish views on Cuba and Iran than some Democrats — has regained his position as the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Menendez's campaign didn't immediately respond for comment.

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is pledging to refuse contributions from corporate PACs — a move that puts her in a small group of national Democrats and sets a new bar on the issue of campaign finance for other potential presidential candidates in 2020.

Gillibrand stopped accepting corporate PAC money on Jan. 1, an aide said.

The New York senator made the pledge in conjunction with End Citizens United, a Democratic group named after the 2010 Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited political spending by corporations and labor unions. Gillibrand, up for reelection this year, secured End Citizens United's endorsement with the pledge — and became one of just four sitting senators to vow off corporate PACs, according to the group.

"She wanted to do something to show her leadership," said Tiffany Muller, the president and executive director of End Citizens United.

Other sitting senators who decline corporate PAC money include Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Maria Cantwell of Washington.

End Citizens United officials describe Gillibrand's pledge as part of a growing response by voters and candidates to the issue of money in politics, set off in part by Donald Trump's anti-establishment message that helped him pull support from Clinton among independent, non-college-educated, and unaffiliated voters.

According to End Citizens United, about 70 candidates running in 2018 races — most of them challengers in House races — have declined to take corporate PAC money. The figure marks a significant uptick since 2016, when only three top-tier House candidates, designated "Red to Blue" candidates by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, made similar pledges, officials said.

"This is a national trend that we're seeing," said Muller, the group's president. "The reason that they're all doing this and campaigning on the issue is they see how much voters feel shut out of the system — like their voice is drowned out."

In 2016, End Citizens United did not endorse Hillary Clinton until after the Democratic primary. Speaking by phone, Muller praised Clinton for her platform on campaign finance as the "most progressive plan on the issue that we'd ever seen" — with goals to overturn the Citizens United decision, increase disclosure laws, and create a federal system to match small-dollar donations in presidential and congressional elections. Still, Clinton's campaign accepted thousands of dollars from corporate PACs.

For Gillibrand, the pledge comes as the latest in a series of aggressive and progressive stands since Trump took office. The Albany-born Democrat came to Washington in 2007 as a representative from New York's rural 20th District, with a moderate bent and a high rating from the National Rifle Association. A decade later, the 51-year-old claims one of the most liberal records in the US Senate: She cosponsored this year's single-payer health care plan, voted against most of President Trump's cabinet nominees, and set off calls for the resignation of Sen. Al Franken, her Democratic colleague, after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.

"People tend to focus on the political reasons behind why this makes sense," Muller said of Gillibrand's pledge. "One of the key reasons Sen. Gillibrand did this is it's just the right thing to do." (Muller noted that Gillibrand has long shown interest in issues of transparency: She was the first member of Congress, for instance, to publish a list of her official meetings, earmark requests, and personal financial disclosures.)

The End Citizens United pledge will apply to Gillibrand's Senate campaign and her PAC, Off the Sidelines.

Glen Caplin, an aide, said the senator has already turned down checks this year. He estimated that as a result of the pledge, Gillibrand's campaign could have raised an additional $800,000 to $1 million in donations from corporate PACs in 2018.

Still, Caplin said, much of Gillibrand's fundraising is focused online.

At the end of last year, the average contribution to her Senate campaign was $48.34. Ninety-seven percent of contributions came in increments of $100 or less. Eighty-eight percent came in increments of $25 or less. Her online donations totaled more than $4.4 million.

Ahead of the midterm elections, 18 candidates have taken End Citizen United's No Corporate PAC pledge, including high-profile challengers such as Rep. Beto O'Rourke, the Democrat running against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas, and Randy Bryce, running against House Speaker Paul Ryan in his Wisconsin home district.

So far, the group has endorsed a total of 114 candidates.

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The most recognizable protester to emerge from the movement against police violence in the middle part of this decade has landed a book deal with Viking, the publisher told BuzzFeed News.

DeRay Mckesson, who came to national prominence after participating in weeks of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, of the shooting death of 18-year-old Mike Brown at the hands of a police officer, will publish On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope, due out in September and is now available through preorder.

A Viking spokesperson declined to confirm the terms of the deal.

The publisher characterizes the book as part-memoir, part-manifesto that will lay out "the intellectual, pragmatic political framework for a new liberation movement."

The news is yet another marker of Mckesson’s ascent from protester to the forefront of progressive activism around social justice, as well as something of a darling of the monied, liberal classes in Washington and Silicon Valley. Mckesson announced his intent to leave his position as head of human resources for Baltimore's public schools to pursue activism full-time last summer. He’s launched a podcast with the liberal media group Crooked Media called Pod Save the People. That podcast — hosted with fellow Campaign Zero organizers Samuel Sinyangwe and Brittany Packnett, as well as Clint Smith III, a PhD candidate at Harvard — will have its first live show in Washington on Feb. 18.

A Viking spokesperson said the book project's auction was "highly competitive," confirming to BuzzFeed News it had 17 bidders. The book’s North American rights were acquired by Georgia Bodnar, a rising publishing industry star, and Wendy Wolf, who recently acquired work from the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-seller Hidden Figures. Bodnar and Wolf acquired the rights from CAA, the publisher said.

Mckesson will discuss meetings with figures like President Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton. Ultimately, Mckesson endorsed Clinton before the election, for which he received some criticism from other activists.

In a brief interview with BuzzFeed News, Mckesson said he'll also offer reflections on meetings Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch against a broader backdrop of contextualizing for readers contrasts in grassroots engagement in different cities where he helped organize protests. That context will also include the experience of "being in conversation" with activists from the civil rights movement, said Mckesson.

He views the book as an extension of an ongoing conversation he's tried to facilitate mostly on Twitter, where he has over a million followers. "I love Twitter and have used the platform to process and reflect, and to challenge power over the past three years," he said. "The book is an opportunity to share a host of ideas and stories about resistance, blackness, and a pathway to freedom in a fully developed way."

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The White House press corps has become used to briefing-room spin, cleanups after Trump tweets, and flat-out falsehoods about presidential fixations like crowd size.

But for reporters covering the Trump administration, something feels different about the Rob Porter scandal. White House reporters say that the incident has transformed into the most infuriating and baffling episode in an administration whose communication strategy has often been defined by chaos and warring factions.

Day after day, since the Daily Mail first reported that the now-former White House staff secretary’s two ex-wives said he was physically and emotionally abusive, the White House has repeatedly contradicted the timeline of events that led to Porter’s departure. After originally praising Porter in a statement, for instance, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told staff to say he had been tossed 40 minutes after he learned about the allegations, according to the Washington Post. That version of events was then challenged by press secretary Sarah Sanders at a White House briefing this week.

“There’s the extraordinary situation where the White House chief of staff and the White House press secretary are telling completely different stories about what happened,” said one White House reporter. “That’s wild even by Trump White House standards.”

The scandal has inherently damning components: Domestic violence (including photos) coupled with the fact that Kelly knew “several weeks ago” that Porter, who handled confidential material given to the president, would eventually be denied permanent security clearance, according to Politico. FBI Director Chris Wray complicated matters further when he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday morning, once again contradicting White House statements. (Porter has denied the allegations and resigned.)

But the event, and particularly the clumsy handling, has redefined Kelly’s image both within the West Wing and the White House media, where he has been frequently portrayed as a steady hand. The groundswell of anti-Kelly leaks coming out of the White House in recent days has demonstrated how some frustrated underlings see this as a good chance to weaken a controlling chief of staff, White House reporters say. There has also been a growing anger recently among some reporters that Kelly has not been an honest broker in dealing with the press.

“This story offers a convenient vehicle to run Kelly over with his own lies and not have it look like it’s driven by reporters’ or a newsroom’s personal frustrations,” one reporter said.

Reporters, who preferred to speak anonymously about the people they have to cover, also say they feel as though they are being gaslit, almost comically, by people who should know better. For all the public talk of “fake news,” White House officials deal with the press daily and, in many cases, have normal working relationships with reporters covering the beat. The media’s reaction to the misleading Porter timeline, some reporters say, has therefore been stronger than something like an errant Trump tweet. “Normals lying is treated normally, as opposed to Trump lying,” said another reporter.

The White House did not return a request for comment.

There’s another inconvenient fact for the White House: No other big story has emerged as a news cycle competitor in the past week, which has allowed the media to continue to focus on the changing Porter account. “It’s amazing Trump hasn’t done something ridiculous to change the subject,” said a White House reporter.

Sanders has a few tried-and-true tactics to divert attention in the briefing room from what the press wants to ask about. On Tuesday, she brought Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to the briefing for a Q&A. And in the past, when reporters are bearing down, Sanders often has a handful of conservative reporters she can call on to reliably change the subject. But White House reporters say that hasn’t been the case this time — the briefing room has become united in searching for answers on Porter.

“I think we are so animated about it because the level of fuck-up all around, from Trump and Kelly on down, is just so monumental and baffling, even by their exalted standards,” said another White House reporter.

Letitia James speaks at a memorial gathering in Brooklyn for those killed in Orlando in 2016.

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Letitia "Tish" James, the public advocate for the city of New York, has told people in recent days that she intends to run for New York City mayor in 2021, according to two sources familiar with the communication.

Asked in a text message by BuzzFeed News if the rumors were true — that she made her intentions known to a small cadre of supporters — James texted back, “No comment.”

A spokesperson for James, however, did not deny that she has reached out to supporters.

“Tish is focused on continuing her work to be an effective public advocate, standing up for working families and the most vulnerable New Yorkers,” the spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in an email.

Her potentially running wouldn't be a shocking development in New York City politics. Bill de Blasio, who was reelected mayor last year, was formerly the city’s public advocate. The office is widely viewed as a launching pad for politicians with designs on Gracie Mansion, and the public advocate is first in line to succeed the mayor. If elected, James would be the first black woman mayor of New York City.

Her early missives do appear to be a signal that James is eager to get the wheels turning on a contentious mayoral primary, even if it's years away. Formidable candidates could include Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and possibly even Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat currently serving in Congress.

In a brief conversation with BuzzFeed News in Washington last September, James said she looked forward the next step in her career, suggesting that while she understood questions surrounding her possible candidacy for mayor, she was not yet prepared to talk openly about it.

It’s not stopping people in New York from needling her, however. Last month, James spoke at Rev. Al Sharpton’s annual MLK Day celebration, a must-stop for the New York’s political elite. According to a source who was present, longtime observers and friends of hers took turns, half-jokingly, referring to her as "Madame Mayor."

Ohio Gov. John Kasich

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John Kasich’s brand is built around the idea of “two paths” for the Republican Party: one for center-right pragmatists like him, the other for flamethrowers like Donald Trump.

But as the Ohio governor considers a rematch with Trump in 2020, he is weighing two more-tactical paths. Does he challenge Trump, the sitting president, in primaries where Kasich won’t find much institutional GOP support? Or does he leave the party, go down a route littered with ballot-access hurdles and fundraising challenges, and run as an independent?

Sources close to Kasich’s political team have told BuzzFeed News in recent weeks that both options are in play. Deliberate or not, Kasich’s moves as the 2018 midterms approach reflect that. In Massachusetts, his still-active Kasich for America committee and Doug Preisse, one of his longtime advisers, have donated to Rick Green, who is seeking an open House seat as a Republican. In California, Kasich has encouraged Steve Poizner, who this week launched a campaign for state insurance commissioner as an independent.

Kasich and his team are identifying other midterm races where he can be helpful, return the favor to those who backed his 2016 White House bid, and collect chits for 2020.

“We’ve talked about it, but there have been no decisions made,” Bob Klaffky, a member of Kasich’s inner circle, said in an interview this week. “If there are people out there he believes in, and they ask for help, and he wants to do it, then he’ll do it.”

Others close to Kasich caution against seeing the tea leaves pointing to 2020 in such activity. They note that Green and Poizner supported Kasich in the past, and that any investment in their races should not necessarily be viewed as building blocks for another presidential run.

Kasich has been frustrated with the Republican Party since losing its nomination to Trump two years ago. Earlier this month — when the New Hampshire GOP chair responded to word of an upcoming Kasich visit to the nation’s first primary state by pledging to support the president — Kasich’s chief strategist, John Weaver, acknowledged thoughts about an independent run. “Why,” he wondered, “does everyone assume the only option is running in a GOP primary?”

“I think we are all watching things closely,” Klaffky said this week. “This is just my opinion, but I think the time could be right for an independent bid. I think there’s a growing middle.”

Kasich discussed Poizner’s plans to wage a nonpartisan bid for insurance commissioner — a post he was elected to as a Republican a decade ago — before his announcement Monday, a Poizner adviser told BuzzFeed News. It’s not yet certain how much Kasich will do for Poizner, who was a national co-chair of his 2016 campaign. Also of note: Weaver wrote a December guest column for the Kansas City Star promoting Greg Orman as an independent candidate for Kansas governor. (Neither Weaver nor Kasich is involved with Orman’s team.)

A viable independent presidential bid would be tricky. Kasich would need the resources to win ballot access in all 50 states and to advertise a message that breaks through the traditional two-party system. But fundraising beyond Ohio always has been a challenge for Kasich, and he does not have the personal wealth that businesspeople such as Poizner and Orman bring to their campaigns. Poizner, a former Silicon Valley executive, was a top donor to Kasich in 2016. But Kasich would need many more like him to bankroll an independent 2020 effort.

“The legal hurdles you can get over,” Klaffky said. “It’s the money” that’s a big challenge.

Kasich’s interest in New Hampshire and neighboring Massachusetts, where the Boston media market reaches much of New Hampshire, suggests groundwork for a Republican primary — an option that may be more likely if Trump for whatever reason doesn’t seek a second term. He will visit New England College on April 3, and this week he was booked as the May graduation speaker at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

His team also keeps in touch with past New Hampshire aides, including Dante Vitagliano, his former operations director in the state.

But Kasich’s tenuous standing in the GOP — Trump is popular among the party rank and file, and many remain upset that Kasich never supported him — means his help is not always wanted. Several Republicans working for 2018 candidates who backed Kasich in 2016 acknowledged that a Kasich assist could do more harm than good. Even in Ohio, where Kasich is term-limited but enjoys high approval ratings, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor has downplayed his endorsement of her as she attempts to score an upset in a gubernatorial primary.

Kasich could be more of an asset in Massachusetts, where Green is running to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Niki Tsongas. Gov. Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, carried the district in 2014, giving GOP leaders hope that they can pick up the seat with the right candidate. Green chaired Kasich’s presidential campaign in the state, and Vitagliano is managing Green’s bid. Kasich’s committee has donated $5,000 to Green. Preisse chipped in $1,000.

“I don’t have any poll numbers on that,” Vitagliano replied when asked if a Kasich campaign visit would be welcome. “But we certainly appreciate the governor’s help for Rick’s campaign.”

Leah Millis / Reuters

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that President Donald Trump's third attempt at a travel ban is likely unconstitutional, writing that it "continues to exhibit a primarily religious anti-Muslim objective."

The US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a lower court injunction that blocked the Trump administration from enforcing key parts of the travel ban, but put its order on hold while the US Supreme Court takes up the issue of the ban.

The president's third travel ban is already before the Supreme Court, after the 9th Circuit ruled in December that it violated federal law. The 9th Circuit did not rule on the issue addressed by the 4th Circuit — whether the ban amounts to religious discrimination in violation of the US Constitution's Establishment Clause — but the justices asked for briefing on the constitutional question as well.

The 4th Circuit sided in favor of the groups challenging the ban in a 9–4 decision. Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the majority opinion that the government's "proffered rationale for the Proclamation lies at odds with the statements of the President himself."

"Plaintiffs here do not just plausibly allege with particularity that the Proclamation’s purpose is driven by anti-Muslim bias, they offer undisputed evidence of such bias: the words of the President," Gregory wrote.

Gregory cited Trump's "disparaging comments and tweets regarding Muslims," the president's repeated references to a Muslim ban, the fact that Trump's previous travel bans were focused on majority-Muslim countries, and statements by Trump and his advisers that the latest order has the same goals as the previous ones.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement that, "Nothing is more important to the President and the Attorney General than the safety and security of all Americans. The President’s lawful order remains critical to accomplishing that goal. The Fourth Circuit’s decision does not alter the status quo, and we look forward to ultimate resolution of these issues by the Supreme Court.”

Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the case for the travel ban challengers in the 4th Circuit, said in a statement, that, "President Trump’s third illegal attempt to denigrate and discriminate against Muslims through an immigration ban has failed in court yet again. It’s no surprise. The Constitution prohibits government actions hostile to a religion.”

After federal courts struck down the president's first two attempts at a travel ban, Trump on Sept. 24 signed the latest set of travel restrictions. It in large part suspended travel to the US by nationals of five majority-Muslim countries covered under the previous travel bans — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — as well as two new countries, Chad and North Korea. The presidential proclamation also placed travel restrictions on certain government officials in Venezuela and their family members.

In October, federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland issued injunctions blocking enforcement of the ban, which the Trump administration appealed. The Supreme Court issued an order on Dec. 4 allowing the ban to go fully into effect while the appeals in the 9th Circuit and the 4th Circuit went forward. The justices wrote at the time that it expected that the appeals courts would rule "with appropriate dispatch."

The 9th Circuit, which heard arguments on Dec. 6, issued its opinion on Dec. 20. But the 4th Circuit, which heard arguments two days later, did not rule until Thursday.

Gregory wrote in the main opinion that even if the proclamation was "facially legitimate" — that the text on its face didn't run afoul of the constitution — it failed the test of whether the government had a "bona fide" reason for adopting it. The administration argued that the proclamation was rooted in national security concerns, but Gregory wrote that Trump's statements undermined that.

Gregory said that even setting aside Trump's statements during the campaign calling for a Muslim ban, the president had continued to make statements that "convey the primary purpose of the Proclamation—to exclude Muslims from the United States." He quoted Trump's tweets supporting his original travel ban executive order, which multiple courts determined was likely unconstitutional, as well as a tweet expressing support for an unverified story about a general who killed Muslims using bullets dipped in pig's blood and his retweets of anti-Muslim videos.

"Plaintiffs offer undisputed evidence that the President of the United States has openly and often expressed his desire to ban those of Islamic faith from entering the United States. The Proclamation is thus not only a likely Establishment Clause violation, but also strikes at the basic notion that the government may not act based on 'religious animosity,'" Gregory wrote.

The court upheld US District Judge Theodore Chuang's preliminary injunction, which blocked enforcement of the proclamation's travel restrictions with respect to nationals of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen who have a "credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States."

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department argued in court this week that officials don’t have to turn over certain information and documents about President Trump’s announced decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military — citing executive privilege.

The judge hearing one of the lawsuits challenging the policy pushed back against the Justice Department lawyer's claim. The judge said Trump administration officials were incorrectly arguing that an “absolute” privilege — meaning one that the judge could not rule against — protected the administration from having to turn over certain information regarding meetings or conversations the president had in advance of his July 26, 2017, tweets announcing an end to transgender military service.

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts,” Trump wrote in a series of three tweets, “please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

Nearly a month later, Trump issued a further policy that directed the end of transgender service this year.

In a docket entry detailing the outcome of a telephone conference, US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stated that she hopes to move the issues forward in a follow-up telephone conference Friday. The judge laid out that both sides should be ready to discuss issues relating to two types of executive privilege raised by the Justice Department in the case: information the federal government “contend[s] is covered by the presidential communications privilege” and a dispute “regarding the deliberative process privilege.”

Executive privilege, while a term familiar to most Americans, is much more complicated — and dependent on the facts of specific cases — than often portrayed. It’s a rarely invoked set of different, but related, privileges that are available to protect executive communications from disclosure to courts, Congress, and often — ultimately — the public.

Often, the privileges, even if they cover the communication, are not enough to keep some documents from being turned over or testimony from being compelled if the information at issue is necessary for a congressional or legal matter to be able to proceed, it isn't available elsewhere, and the branch seeking the information is willing to fight for it. At the same time, judicial and congressional officials often negotiate out executive privilege–related disputes before they get to a final court ruling, due to concerns about separation of powers — meaning there isn't always clearly established law on specific executive privilege–related issues.

The presidential communications privilege and deliberative process privilege have related purposes: keeping executive branch decision-making private. As the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit put it in a 1997 case, “Both are executive privileges designed to protect executive branch decisionmaking, but one applies to decisionmaking of executive officials generally, the other specifically to decisionmaking of the President” and his senior advisers, as the court held in that opinion.

Of the two, the deliberative process privilege is more limited. It only protects “predecisional” material that is “deliberative” in nature, like drafts of materials and policy recommendations to superiors. Because of these limits, factual material, like raw data collected by an agency, generally is not protected — and the privilege can be overcome with “a sufficient showing of need” for the material by the requesting party. Notably, the privilege generally does not protect against disclosure when misconduct is alleged.

The presidential communications privilege, on the other hand, is a more robust privilege that the Supreme Court addressed in the 1974 case over then-president Nixon’s White House audio tapes — and whether a court could order that they be turned over for a pending criminal trial of one of Nixon’s associates. The Nixon administration — citing the importance of protecting “the independence of the Executive Branch within its own sphere” — claimed an absolute privilege against disclosing the tapes as part of an ongoing criminal prosecution.

Former president Richard Nixon

Handout / Reuters

The Supreme Court held that “high respect” must be given “to the representations made on behalf of the President” — justifying a “presumptive privilege” for presidential communications, including factual communications. The court nonetheless ruled that a “generalized” assertion of the presidential communications privilege is not absolute and must be weighed against the need for the material by the other party seeking it — whether it be a court or Congress. In the Nixon case, the court held that the “demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial” outweighed Nixon’s invocation of executive privilege.

In the case over the transgender military policy, the Justice Department lawyer, Ryan Parker, raised the presidential communications privilege in response to a request from the challengers, who have asked for information from the president about the identities of the consulted general and military experts referenced in the tweets, and what relevant meetings and conversations took place about the issue.

“[Y]ou've taken the position, it seems to me, or almost the position that it's an absolute privilege, and that's not correct,” Kollar-Kotelly said, criticizing the Justice Department’s position. At another point, she explained further: “[I]f you assert [the presidential communications privilege], it's presumptively so, but that is not the end of the inquiry. And the problem that I'm having is, you're not willing to have the rest of the inquiry with me.”

As a way of addressing the government’s concerns, Kollar-Kotelly discussed the possibility of the department turning over a log detailing the relevant meetings and conversations — not the content of the communications, just the fact of their existence — for her to review in an effort to determine if the privilege applies, but the DOJ lawyer kept insisting that the department’s position was that such a document would be covered by the privilege.

The DOJ lawyer didn’t budge.

After significant back and forth, the judge said, “I'm not talking about giving it to the plaintiffs. You keep going back to the plaintiffs. I am talking about giving it to the Court so the Court can make a decision as to whether or not this actually falls into the presidential communications privilege.” Finally, Kollar-Kotelly said, “[A]nswer it yes or no and give me an explanation. Are you willing to provide any information whatsoever about what might have transpired?”

“Your Honor, to answer in one word, the answer is no,” Parker responded.

Concluding the discussion a few minutes later, Kollar-Kotelly said, “I will figure out how I want to proceed with this, but this is not a good way to go about this.”

The deliberative process privilege discussion, surrounding withheld documents and redactions to documents that have been turned over, was more brief and less contentious, focusing in large part on a dispute over what constitutes a “decision” — given that the privilege only protects predecisional matters.

The dispute, as Kollar-Kotelly put it, appeared to be over “whether the tweet was the decision or the memorandum was the decision.” She suggested that decision-making is fluid at times and that, “instead of going off on whether the tweet is the final decision or his memorandum is the final decision,” the lawyers should focus on whether the material at issue looks like the matter discussed is the type of material that usually would be seen as predecisional.

The challengers’ lawyer, Paul Wolfson from WilmerHale, said the government needed to specify what decision is at issue so it can be determined if the redacted material truly is predecisional or if it is “really just people reacting to a decision that was already made, which would make it postdecisional.”

Parker’s response was a bit winding, but it, in effect, said that the tweets set off a cascading series of decisions — “the tweet was a decision and that that decision itself gave rise to a series of additional decisions” — and that the redacted materials are all “deliberative material” protected from disclosure because the redactions represent predecisional material as to at least one of those decisions.

Kollar-Kotelly asked the parties to confer on those issues in an attempt to narrow down the number of documents at issue before she has to determine how to address the privilege claims.

Over the course of the hearing, lawyers for both parties referenced letters that were submitted to the court and each other, laying out their positions on the arguments. Neither letter was posted on the court's docket, however, and both lawyers for the challengers and for the government declined to provide a copy of the letters to BuzzFeed News — saying the decision was up to the judge to make the letters public. On Friday morning, just before publication of this story, BuzzFeed News was informed that the court would be placing the letters on the docket at the request of the parties — but it had not done so by the time of publication.

“I will figure out how I want to proceed with this, but this is not a good way to go about this.”

This week’s court dispute is not the first time the Trump administration has raised the argument that documents sought in litigation should be protected from disclosure by executive privilege. In December, in the course of defending the administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a discovery dispute arose in one of the challenges to the decision. A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to turn over documents in a challenge, claiming the decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The Justice Department went to the Supreme Court to halt that order from being enforced, making several arguments regarding why the order was inappropriate, but one of its final arguments was that at least some of the documents were covered by executive privilege and should not have to be produced.

The Supreme Court granted the Justice Department’s request on the grounds that the discovery order was premature, but the court added a warning regarding privilege issues. Near the conclusion of its order, the court noted, “In any event, the District Court may not compel the Government to disclose any document that the Government believes is privileged without first providing the Government with the opportunity to argue the issue.”

Of course, executive privilege issues also are expected to come up — and already are coming up — in the course of the special counsel and congressional investigations into Russian influence into the 2016 presidential election. While these other disputes are important in their own right, the government’s arguments in other cases shed light on what might be expected, should special counsel Robert Mueller seek information the administration doesn’t want to turn over or, as could happen with Steve Bannon, if a chamber of Congress votes to hold someone in contempt in response to a refusal to answer questions or provide documents.

AFP / Getty Images

The former spokesperson for President Trump's legal team spoke with special counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday, his lawyer confirmed to BuzzFeed News.

Mark Corallo served as the spokesperson for Trump's outside legal team for a short period this past summer but left in July. In January, the New York Times reported that Corallo was involved in senior-level discussions about how to respond to the news that Donald Trump Jr. had attended a meeting at Trump Tower during the campaign with a Russian lawyer who he had been told had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.

The Times also reported that Mueller was looking to talk with Corallo and that he had agreed to do so. The Daily Beast first reported that the meeting happened Thursday.

"I'm not going to talk about the substance," Corallo's lawyer, Victoria Toensing, said, though she did confirm that he spoke with Mueller for two hours Thursday and that he is not expected to speak with the special counsel again.

Asked what that latter information means, Toensing said simply, "It means it's through," noting that any other insight on the special counsel office's plans would have to come from the special counsel's office.

According to the Times' report, Corallo planned to testify about a conference call that led him to have concerns that Trump's campaign staffer and current White House communications director Hope Hicks was allegedly "contemplating obstructing justice," according to sources who spoke with the Times — a claim that Hicks's lawyer said is "completely false."

Asked to comment on Corallo's interview with the special counsel, Hicks's lawyer, Robert Trout, said, "I have no comment beyond what I’ve already stated on the record, and that comment stands."

This is a developing story. Please follow BuzzFeed News for the latest news.

Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters

The special counsel's office announced a federal indictment against the Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA), two other Russian entities, and 13 Russian individuals Friday, accusing them of "interfering with the US political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016."

The special counsel's office, which is investigating Russian interference in the election, provided the following statement:

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment on Feb. 16, 2018, against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of violating U.S. criminal laws in order to interfere with U.S. elections and political processes. The indictment charges all of the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States, three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft.

Beginning in 2014, according to the indictment, the IRA began "operations to interfere with the US political system," including by "creating false US personas" to operate "social media pages and groups designed to attract US audiences" and "traveling to the United States under false pretenses for the purpose of collecting intelligence to inform Defendants' operations."

By mid-2016, the operations, according to the indictment "included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign") and disparaging Hillary Clinton." Specifically, "Some Defendants, posing as US persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities."

At a news conference Friday afternoon, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the special counsel's work due to Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal, announced the indictment sought by Mueller — laying out the alleged social media efforts and the alleged fraudulent ways in which the effort was organized and implemented. He said the defendants had characterized their activities as "information warfare against the United States, with the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general."

The indictment charges the IRA and others with a conspiracy to defraud the United States. Rosenstein specifically noted how the efforts included efforts to defraud the Federal Election Commission, Justice Department, and State Department. The additional charges — against some but not all of the defendants — include conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, as well as several counts alleging identity theft.

Rosenstein said on Friday that there were no allegations in the indictment "that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity" — he said the Russian nationals charged took "extraordinary steps" to make it appear that they were ordinary activists — or that the alleged criminal acts had "any effect on the outcome of the election."

"This indictment serves as a reminder that people are not always who they appear to be on the internet," Rosenstein said.

Several hours after Rosenstein announced the indictment, President Donald Trump tweeted, "Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President," and he repeated his oft-made declaration that there was "no collusion."

@realDonaldTrump via Twitter / Via Twitter: @realDonaldTrump

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that Trump "is glad to see the Special Counsel’s investigation further indicates — that there was NO COLLUSION between the Trump campaign and Russia and that the outcome of the election was not changed or affected."

According to the indictment, social media entities associated with the IRA “contacted people through large social media groups focused on U.S. politics.” The statement is consistent with information reported by BuzzFeed News this past fall.

Regarding the charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, the Justice Department charged three IRA members for allegedly using stolen identities to open accounts at a bank and online payments company PayPal. The indictment noted that the defendants allegedly used the names, addresses, social security numbers, and birth dates of unwitting people to open four accounts at an unidentified US financial institution in the summer of 2016.

Some of that same information was used to register four accounts at PayPal, which according to its website, only requires a bank account and an email address to sign up. The defendants also allegedly opened 14 other PayPal accounts by buying credit card numbers and bank information that had been created with the stolen identities of real people. That operation used a combination of 14 unique bank accounts, six banks, and 11 email addresses.

“PayPal is intensely focused on combatting and preventing the illicit use of our services," a company spokesperson said in a statement. "We work closely with law enforcement, and did so in this matter, to identify, investigate and stop improper or potentially illegal activity.”

The indictment notes that stolen identities were used to maintain the PayPal accounts, as well as accounts on unnamed cryptocurrency exchanges. Accounts at an unknown bank and with PayPal were used to pay for “certain organization expenses” such as advertisements on Facebook to promote its social media presences. Other expenses included paraphernalia including “buttons, flags, and banners for rallies.”

Some of the accounts were also used to receive money from US citizens for promotions and advertisements on IRA-owned social media pages. The defendants charged some US businesses $25 to $50 per promotional post on its fake accounts — including Being Patriotic, Defend The 2nd, and Blacktivist.

In October 2016, as BuzzFeed News previously reported, Russian trolls contacted activists associated with legitimate grassroots organizations through a fictitious Facebook page, BlackMattersUS, to plan and speak at protest in Charlotte, NC following the shooting of Keith Scott, a black man killed by police. After the initial rally, the page remained in contact with an activist and invited them to a “Charlotte Against Trump” protest on November 19, 2016. The indictment information echoes the date detailed in another earlier BuzzFeed News report. The same group also organized a second “Charlotte Against Trump” rally on November 26, 2016, according to flyers and posts from the BlackMattersUS site.

Facebook pages associated with the Internet Research Agency also promoted a similar rally against then president-elect Donald Trump in New York on November 12, 2016, which was attended by thousands of New Yorkers who marched from Union Square to Trump Tower, reported on previously by BuzzFeed News and described in the indictment. A protest against the electoral college and Donald Trump, not mentioned in the indictment, was planned by another IRA-associated account on Dec. 3, 2016 in Union Square.

Some of these sites and activities were described as part of congressional investigations looking into the Russian interference.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement that the indictment was "an important step to hold Russia accountable." He noted that senior intelligence officials had testified earlier this week that Russia was "still using social media to attack our democratic institutions and sow division amongst Americans," and he expressed frustration with the extent of the intelligence community's efforts to monitor Russian disinformation campaigns.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation "is ongoing," Rosenstein said. He did not provide any additional details. Rosenstein did not respond to shouted questions at the end of the press conference about whether the indicted defendants had a connection to the Russian government or Russian intelligence operations.

Asked if the United States had received any assurances from the Russian government about turning over the charged individuals into US custody, Rosenstein said there had been no communications with the Russians about that. The US government would pursue the normal process of seeking extradition, he said.

A new guilty plea

The special counsel's office on Friday also unsealed a criminal case against Richard Pinedo, a California man who pleaded guilty to one count of identity fraud. According to the documents outlining the offense, Pinedo ran a company called "Auction Essistance" that was "designed to circumvent the security features of large online digital payment companies." Pinedo would buy and sell bank account numbers, including many that were created using stolen identities, according to court filings.

Pinedo's charging papers don't reference the Internet Research Agency, but the IRA indictment accuses the defendants in that case of buying credit card and bank account numbers from online sellers to evade security measures at PayPal — language that is similar to the special counsel office's description of the activities that Pinedo was accused of facilitating.

The timing of the announcement also indicates the two cases are related. Prosecutors asked to have Pinedo's case sealed when they first filed the charging papers on Feb. 7, according to the now-public court docket. They explained to the judge that temporarily sealing proceedings and documents in the case was necessary to avoid possible prejudice to the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, particularly into "a Russian-backed operation that used social media platforms, through fraud and deceit, to interfere with the U.S. political system."

Pinedo was arraigned during a sealed hearing on Feb. 12. On Friday, the special counsel's office asked the judge to unseal the case.

Pinedo's lawyer, Jeremy Lessem, said in a statement that Pinedo had "accepted full responsibility for his action" but "had absolutely no knowledge of the identities and motivations of any of the purchasers of the information he provided."

"To the extent that Mr. Pinedo’s actions assisted any individuals, including foreign nationals, from interfering in the American presidential election was done completely without his knowledge or understanding," Lessem said.

A spokesman for the special counsel's office, Peter Carr, said in an email to BuzzFeed News that, "Ricky Pinedo admitted in his plea to selling bank account numbers over the internet, and that he knew many of the buyers were outside the United States. We have no evidence and there is no allegation he was a witting participant in the Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. elections and political processes.”

While the Auction Essistance site has been been taken offline for maintenance, a cached version of the web page show offers for customers to buy “stealth accounts” on eBay and PayPal for as little as $35. “We offer services that will enable you to get back onto eBay or Amazon ranging from pre-made eBay & Paypal accounts or verification tools,” the website read. “We guarantee our accounts are legitimate and not hacked or stolen like most other sellers offer.”

BuzzFeed News could not reach Pinedo at a Santa Paula, Calif. phone number listed for him, which had been turned off. An internet search for Auction Essistance shows a still accessible LinkedIn page and an online slideshow presentation detailing a step-by-step process for what users could do if they had been banned from eBay. A Facebook page for the company had already been taken offline.

Authorities allege that California man Richard Pinedo ran a company called "Auction Essistance" that was "designed to circumvent the security features of large online digital payment companies." This is a slide from an online presentation made by that company.

A screenshot from a presentation of Auction Essistance.

The indictment announced on Friday has been mostly brushed aside as US posturing so far in Russia. Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia's foreign ministry, posted on Facebook calling the idea that 13 people had taken on the US government "absurd."

"It seems there were 13, in the opinion of the US Justice Department," she wrote. "13 people took part in meddling in the US election?! 13 against the billions-dollar budget of the special services? Against spying and counter-spying, against the latest methods and technologies? ... Absurd? Yes. But this is the modern American political reality."

Evengy Prigozhin, who is listed as a defendant in the indictment as the owner of the Internet Research Agency, appeared nonchalant when speaking to Russian outlet RIA. "Americans are very impressionable people, they see what they want to see," he said. "I relate to them with great respect. I'm not upset at all that I'm on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see it."

Read the indictment:

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

Hayes Brown and Ryan Brooks contributed to this report.

George Frey / Getty Images

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is now a Senate candidate in Utah — and the announcement of his candidacy shows he’s sensitive about being labeled a carpetbagger.

“Utah,” the Republican says at the beginning of a video he shared Friday morning on social media, “is admired not only for its beauty, but also for the character of its people. Utahns are known for hard work, innovation, and our can-do pioneering spirit. But more than these, we’re known as a people who serve, who care, and who rise to any occasion.”

It goes on like this for more than two minutes. One reporter joked on Twitter that he lost count of how many times Romney said “Utah.” The strategy telegraphed in recent days is clear and multipronged: Romney, who fell short in two previous White House bids and emerged as one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics, is trying to persuade voters that he is laser-focused on his adopted state and not on the president or the job he’s pined for in the past.

Though on paper this should be a cakewalk — Romney is hardly a stranger in Utah, and Democrats have little chance of picking up the seat — two prominent Republicans have made an issue of Romney’s Trump-bashing and his relocation to the West. One of them, State Auditor John Dougall, told BuzzFeed News that GOP activists in and outside Utah have been encouraging him after he said this week that he was seriously considering challenging Romney.

“Some of the key things in Utah are that we want to make sure we have a senator who understands Utah issues, and those are clearly different than Massachusetts issues, for instance,” Dougall said Friday morning in a brief telephone interview.

Dougall added that Romney had called him Thursday evening to inform him of his imminent announcement, which has been anticipated since Sen. Orrin Hatch made his retirement plans known last month. “I wished him all the best,” Dougall said of Romney.

A Romney spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dougall declined to say who is encouraging him to run. But he suggested support would come from those concerned about electing someone who would not be aligned with Trump. For weeks on his Facebook page, Dougall has been arguing against a “coronation” of Romney.

“What we need is not somebody who doesn’t like the president,” Dougall told BuzzFeed News. “I think the key thing right now is folks need to know what he stands for.”

After the phone interview, Dougall added via email: “I should have also mentioned that ‘It's clear that Utahns have a very favorable view of Mr. Romney. The odds are strongly in his favor.’”

Earlier this week, Utah Republican Party Chair Rob Anderson noted Romney’s criticism of Trump and spoke dismissively of his Utah credentials in an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune: “I think he’s keeping out candidates that I think would be a better fit for Utah because, let’s face it, Mitt Romney doesn’t live here, his kids weren’t born here, he doesn’t shop here.”

Anderson later apologized to Romney.

“I’ve no doubt that Mitt Romney satisfies all qualifications to run for Senate,” said Anderson in a Wednesday statement posted on Twitter, “and as chairman of the Utah Republican Party, I will treat all candidates equally to ensure their path to the party nomination is honest and fair.”

Ralph Orlowski / Reuters

The indictment of 13 Russian citizens and three companies on Friday is "incontrovertible" evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said Saturday.

The indictment, prepared by special counsel Robert Mueller, claimed that "operations to interfere with the US political system" began in 2014, with Russians using fake social media accounts to target US audiences and "traveling to the United States under false pretenses" to collect intelligence.

Although President Trump has wavered publicly on whether or not Russia interfered, his national security adviser says the indictment shows the US is becoming "more and more adept at tracing the origins of this espionage and subversion."

"As you can see with the FBI indictment, the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain," McMaster said at a security conference in Munich.

McMaster made his comments shortly after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the indictment out of hand at the same conference.

"Until we see the facts, everything else is just blabber — I'm sorry for this expression," he said, adding he had "no response" when asked for comment on the allegations.

Ralph Orlowski / Reuters

"You can publish anything, and we see those indictments multiplying, the statements multiplying," he said, arguing that Vice President Mike Pence and other US officials have said no country influenced the election results.

Friday's indictment contained no allegation that the Russian conduct altered the outcome of the election, nor did it allege any American was a "knowing participant." However, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told reporters that Mueller's investigation was continuing.

In Washington, however, White House spokesperson Raj Shah told Fox News on Friday night that the indictment "proved there was no collusion."

He also said the indictment did not mean that the Russian trolls had favored Trump over Hillary Clinton.

"All of these efforts were about sowing confusion in the electoral process and undermining the next president, not about supporting one candidate over the other." he told Tucker Carlson.

In fact, although the indictment stated that the Russians sought to organize pro- and anti-Trump marches after the election, they worked actively to support him and Sen. Bernie Sanders during the race.

"They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump," the indictment reads.

"Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them)," the Russians were directed, according to the indictment.

Another White House spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said those pushing a collusion narrative posed a bigger threat to the US than the Russians.

"There are two groups that have created chaos more than the Russians and that’s the Democrats and the mainstream media, who continue to push this lie on the American people for more than a year," he told Fox News on Saturday.

In a Saturday tweet, Trump himself falsely implied the indictment definitively determined there was no collusion.

In Moscow, Russian officials also doubled down in denying the allegations.

"There are no official claims, there are no proofs for this. That's why they are just children's statements," said the presidential envoy for international information security, Andrei Kutskikh, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

When asked whether Washington would consider working with the Kremlin on cybersecurity issues, as President Trump proposed on Twitter last year, McMaster joked: "I'm surprised there are any Russian cyber experts available based on how active most of them have been undermining our democracies in the West."

"So I would just say that we would love to have a cyber dialogue when Russia is sincere," he added.

LINK: Federal Grand Jury In Special Counsel Probe Indicts Russian Troll Farm And Individuals For 2016 Election Meddling

Pennsylvania Supreme Court

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Monday afternoon released a new congressional map for use in the 2018 elections — the result of a decision from the court in January that the existing map is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander under the state's constitution.

Under the challenged map, only 5 of the state's 18 congressional districts are represented by Democrats — despite the fact that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in the swing state.

"Dems have a good chance in up to 11 [congressional districts] & an outside chance at a 12th seat in Erie," Cook Political Report's Dave Wasserman tweeted about the new map.

Republican lawmakers had asked the US Supreme Court to step in and halt the state court's opinion from going into effect, but Justice Samuel Alito — who oversees requests from Pennsylvania — denied the request.

As with a previous request to put the state supreme court's decision on hold so as to not require a new map to be used in the 2018 election, the vote for implementing the new map was 4–3. (The initial decision that the existing map, passed in 2011, was unconstitutional was 5–2, but one of the justices in the majority believed the ruling should not affect the 2018 elections.)

In Monday's opinion and order (which contains more detailed maps, in addition to the statewide map), the court stated that earlier proceedings in the lower court had established a record that "the 2011 Plan was a partisan gerrymander and that this gerrymander was extreme and durable." According to the court, "It was designed to dilute the votes of those who in prior elections voted for the party not in power in order to give the party in power a lasting electoral advantage."

The 2011 map, the court stated, violates the Pennsylvania Constitution's requirement that "[e]lections shall be free and equal" because "a diluted vote is not an equal vote."

Pennsylvania Supreme Court

This is a developing story. Please check BuzzFeed News for the latest.

Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images

Campaigns across the country are anxiously awaiting changes to the way they advertise on Facebook, after the platform promised more transparency about and new rules for political advertising.

Though there’s been widespread focus on Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election, traditional campaigns and PACs spent millions and millions of dollars on ads — and even small changes in process or the algorithm could mean big changes for how political campaigns reach people this year.

But the first major primaries of 2018 are less than two weeks away, and Facebook has offered only a broad outline of what to expect and a vague timetable — sometime this summer — for when to expect it.

"We’re all trying to learn exactly what these new disclosures will look like and how they’re going to affect our campaigns,” Ted Peterson, the digital director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which promotes House candidates, told BuzzFeed News.

Like media publishers, many campaign operatives worry that changes in the Facebook algorithm will make political advertising more difficult — or maybe more expensive. They’re also contemplating what the potential loss of dark social ads might mean for campaigns, which would appear on a candidate’s page as opposed to only being shown to their targeted audience under the new rules.

“I think campaigns are going to have to change some of their tactics if they don’t want their exact messaging to be given away, they may have to change who they’re advertising to and with what messages with the idea that everything is potentially out there and hopefully that dissuades some bad actors,” said a Democratic digital strategist.

Others in the digital field are skeptical if Facebook’s broad strategy for transparency on its ad platform will fix the problems that emerged during the 2016 presidential election.

"To be honest, I'll believe it when I see it,” said Kevin Bingle, who served as digital director on Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s presidential campaign and works with other Republican candidates. “I hope they can figure this all out, but I'm not sure I understand what their goal is here.”

Facebook, which did not respond to requests for comment, is vowing to be more rigorous in verifying advertisers’ identities, in part spurred by the Russian meddling during the last campaign cycle. Rob Goldman, the company’s vice president of ads, said last October that a version of the new system is being tested in Canada. At first, only federal election-related ads will be affected when it launches in the US.

Among the most substantial “election integrity” measures announced last year is a searchable database that will allow all users to track all ads purchased by a particular campaign, including ads only previously seen by a micro-targeted audience. Company officials say the system will shine more light on who is trying to influence political races.

It’s a level of disclosure that, as described, resembles how television ads work: Local TV stations and cable providers keep public records documenting airtime costs for ads that all people viewing a given channel in a given market see.

Some campaign operatives who spoke to BuzzFeed News noted that because this is being done proactively by Facebook and not by federal regulators, the result could be totally different system that’s not as accessible or transparent as the Federal Communications Commission’s public files. But Facebook has said that political advertisers will be required to disclose who they are reaching — how many impressions, which demographics — and how much they are spending.

Digital strategists are waiting for word on how detailed they’ll have to be in their disclosures and how Facebook will present these details — which they say will affect the kinds of ads they run. And many are worried about surrendering the competitive advantages that came from being able to tailor a Facebook ad to a specific kind of voter without rival campaigns knowing the particulars about reach and cost.

Brad Parscale, the digital director for Donald Trump, who emphasized Facebook above all else last time.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

Even at a basic level, the disclosures likely will tip off a campaign when a competitor is doing something new — and, as with TV, there will be a rush to match. The transparency in TV “tends to drive up the cost of what the other side is spending, so there’s this really competitive nature,” said Tara McGowan, founder of Lockwood Strategy and a former digital director at Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC that backed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Or, as National Republican Senatorial Committee digital director Jon Adams put it: “If I shoot a missile, you shoot a missile.”

But the spending disclosures could work both ways. A campaign that sees a rival spending little or nothing on Facebook is unlikely to invest much money there. "It will be interesting,” Adams said, “to see how they include the spend amount behind the ads — does that help or hurt Facebook? Does that drive more dollars to the platform? Or to television?"

How Facebook displays the spend amount is of particular to interest to digital strategists. Will there be an amount shown for each ad? A cumulative total? What if a campaign produces eight slightly different versions of the same ad for eight different audiences? Will a user be able to see exactly how much a campaign is spending in every specific permutation?

“I think there’s going to be a lot of gaming the system,” said one Republican digital specialist.

This operative and others said that, depending on how deep Facebook makes them go, they might change the way they produce and target content, perhaps including a second state or congressional district to obscure an ad’s actual purpose. Or maybe they will flood the zone with a bunch of ads, each one with a different color background or other distinguishing characteristic to confuse anyone who might be trying to decipher a strategy.

“It’s going to be hard on both sides for Facebook to track every single ad and hold every ad accountable,” McGowan said. “I know they’re probably trying to build that plane as they fly it. I have no idea what the backend looks like but I know there’s an enormous amount of advertising that’s done on the self-serve platform and I’m sure there’ll be some difficulty there to track and regulate every single ad.”

Another Democratic strategist was concerned about how fast Facebook would be in pushing ads through the revamped approval process. “Political campaigns and political advertising is such a fast-paced environment,” said the strategist. “Anything that Facebook would do to slow down the approval process or the creation of ad campaigns — that’s detrimental to campaigns being able to get their message out quickly.”

Bingle, Kasich’s digital consultant, questioned whether Facebook’s new system will work as intended.

"How many people do you think are going to see something super-partisan on Facebook and take the time to visit that organization's page and do homework about what other things they're running and who they're targeting?” Bingle said. “Maybe I'm wrong, but the only people I can see realistically doing that are members of the media and a candidate's opposition. What does this change do to prevent bad information from spreading?"

Alex Wong / Getty Images

The Pentagon sent recommendations to the White House on Friday about how to handle transgender people in the US military — two days later than had been expected, and still leaving most questions unresolved.

President Trump had requested the recommendations so he could develop a final policy on carrying out his order from last summer to ban transgender service.

But it’s unclear what advice Trump got.

Maj. Dave Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News, “The recommendations made by the secretary was a private conversation between he and the White House, so details of that conversation will remain private.”

The White House also did not divulge those recommendations. Hogan Gidley, deputy press secretary for the White House, said only that they’re “currently under review.”

Another US official, who is familiar with the recommendations, told BuzzFeed News that Defense Secretary James Mattis advised the president to continue allowing transgender people in the armed forces. That jibes with a Washington Post report on Thursday that cited two unnamed US officials.

For now, the situation raises bigger immediate questions than it answers: Will Trump actually adopt the recommendations from Mattis? And if Trump seeks to continue the ban, moreover, can he actually enforce it given that federal courts suspended Trump’s underlying transgender service ban months ago?

Without a comment from the White House about how Trump would respond by a March 23 deadline, or a court’s opinions on whether a future policy is legal, the answers to those questions are up in the air.

The Justice Department had placed significant stock in this announcement, according to a federal judge in Maryland, who said the department claimed a new policy would be “disclosed” on Feb. 21 — which was Wednesday.

The Justice Department, according to the judge, also said the new policy would be so different from Trump's previous ban that officials didn’t need to hand over certain documents about its origins.

The Justice Department did not reply to questions from BuzzFeed News about the policy’s whereabouts.

The Justice Department’s greatest challenge in defending the policy, up to now, has been that federal courts said it singled out transgender people and would likely be ruled an unconstitutional violation of due process rights under the Fifth Amendment.

Given those past setbacks, there has been widespread speculation that the Trump administration’s new policy would be designed to avoid legal snags — much the same way Trump issued permutations of the travel ban, each one redrafted to evade challenges that doomed the one before.

The Pentagon on Tuesday announced a new “deploy or out” policy that applies across the military, which could affect up to 286,000 service members who have been non-deployable for a year or more. Those troops would be separated from the military or referred to the disability evaluation system.

It was not immediately clear if — or how — the deployment policy may factor into the administration's defense of the transgender ban.

But critics of transgender troops, including Trump, have raised concerns that transgender service members burden the military because they are undeployable while they recover from gender-transition surgeries and other treatments.

In June 2016, the Obama administration lifted a decades-long ban on transgender service, citing research that found transgender people would not bog down the military.

But Trump reversed that decision, saying on Twitter in July 2017 that transgender people would render the military “burdened with medical costs and disruption.” He made the decision to end their service, he said, “after consultation with my Generals and military experts.”

Trump formalized the policy in a memorandum last August that instructed the secretary of defense to provide policy recommendations on Feb. 21, 2018, about recruitment, retention, and health care.

Questions about the provenance of Trump’s position have received significant scrutiny, since judges have said Trump’s decree did not appear to be based on a legitimate national security interest or stem from a policy-making process.

As one federal judge wrote in November, “President Trump’s tweets did not emerge from a policy review,” adding, “A capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified tweet of new policy does not trump the methodical and systematic review by military stakeholders.”

BuzzFeed News reported on Tuesday that newly obtained emails cast questions about whether Trump did, in fact, consult with top officials before the July tweets, as he’d claimed. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in emails on July 27 that Trump’s announcement “was unexpected” and that he intended to say he was “not consulted."

The president broke out his greatest campaign hits and audience members chanted “Lock her up” at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The Rolling Stones played him off.

President Trump on Friday gave a speech at CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images

And a lot of it seemed very... how would you say... familiar.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Like circa 2016 presidential campaign familiar, when Trump would go off-script, unpredictably rambling and riffing at his campaign rallies.

Trump in Biloxi

Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images

On Friday, Trump entered to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA."

youtube.com

Just like 2016.

youtube.com

Just like in 2016.

youtube.com

Just like in 2016.

youtube.com

Just like 2016.

youtube.com

Juuust like in 2016.

youtube.com

Rep. Adam Schiff.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Democrats released a redacted memo on Saturday that they say rebuts Republican claims that the Justice Department and FBI abused their spying powers in the Russia investigation. The document, a direct counterpart to a Republican memo released early this month, was written by Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, and Democratic staff.

The release comes after President Donald Trump told Democrats they would have to redact the document before it could be made public, delaying it by two weeks.

Democrats argued that they needed to release their 10-page memo to clarify what Schiff called “many distortions and inaccuracies” in the Republican memo.

"Some time ago, Republicans on our committee released a declassified memo that omitted and distorted key facts in order to mislead the public and impugn the integrity of the FBI," Schiff said on Twitter Saturday. "We can now tell you what they left out."

Trump took to Twitter Saturday evening to condemn the Democratic memo, calling it a “total political and legal BUST,” and saying it “confirms all of the terrible things that were done. SO ILLEGAL!”

Schiff quickly responded:

At issue is how the FBI and Justice Department handled applications to surveil former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. Republicans claimed in their memo that the agencies failed to inform the courts that those applications were based, in part, on research funded by Democrats.

That research was compiled by former British MI6 intelligence official Christopher Steele and was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The dossier, which alleged several years of Trump-Kremlin links, was first published by BuzzFeed News in January 2017, after security officials had briefed then-president Barack Obama and Trump about it.

Democrats argue in their memo that the FBI and DOJ “did not ‘abuse’” the process to seek a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as Republicans alleged, arguing that the FBI and DOJ “would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government.”

The Democratic memo says that one indication that Page was suspected of Russia links even before the FBI knew about the Steele dossier was that he was interviewed by the FBI in March 2016, the same month he was named a Trump campaign adviser. The memo also notes Page’s years-long links to Russia, including his time living in Moscow working in the energy sector from 2004 to 2007 and his contact in 2013 with a Russian spy who tried to recruit him.

While the Democratic memo concedes that neither agency disclosed the specific source of funding for the dossier, it denies Republican assertions that the FBI tried to hide the dossier's origin as opposition political research. The memo argues that the FBI stuck by its long-standing practice of protecting the identities of specific American citizens and entities in not naming the DNC or Clinton’s campaign, but notes that it made clear the political context of the dossier’s funding. The memo includes the section of the FISA application in which the FBI and DOJ disclosed this information, one line of which says "the FBI speculates" that the dossier was commissioned "to discredit" Trump's campaign.

The memo also says repeatedly that the information the FBI received from Steele was not the sole basis for the applications to spy on Page. The memo notes that the Department of Justice developed information from "multiple independent sources" corroborating aspects of the Steele dossier. But details of the corroborating information are redacted from the memo.

Additionally, Democrats write that the Steele dossier “played no role” in the FBI’s decision to open an investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in the first place. Indeed, the Republican memo admitted as much, stating that the FBI’s investigation began in July 2016 as a result of information regarding George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign foreign policy adviser.

Democrats note that the investigation began “more than seven weeks” before the FBI began communicating with Steele. The document also says that at that point — in September 2016 — the FBI had already opened investigations into others “linked” to the Trump campaign, including Page. The number of other individuals who were under investigation at that time appears to be redacted.

The memo also asserts that the Page surveillance "allowed the FBI to collect valuable intelligence." But most of two paragraphs that further identified that intelligence was redacted.

The Democratic memo says the four judges who approved the requests to monitor Page were appointed by Republican presidents. Although the memo does not name the judges, who serve on the federal bench, it notes that two were appointed by President George W. Bush, and one each was appointed by President George H.W. Bush and President Ronald Reagan.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders criticized the Democrats’ memo in a statement shortly after it was released, calling it “politically driven” and arguing that “fails to answer serious concerns” raised by the Republican memo.

“As the President has long stated, neither he nor his campaign ever colluded with a foreign power during the 2016 election, and nothing in today’s memo counters that fact,” Sanders said.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also dismissed the Democratic memo in a statement Saturday. “The American people now clearly understand that the FBI used political dirt paid for by the Democratic Party to spy on an American citizen from the Republican Party,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement Saturday that "by initially delaying the release of the memo, the president purposefully silenced any Democratic rebuttal to the fabricated conspiracy theories pushed by Chairman Nunes. Obviously, there is something the president is afraid of.”

Thomas Frank, Mark Seibel and Sarah Mimms contributed to this story.

Read the memo:

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — More than 13 months into the Trump administration, the Justice Department is now officially without its Senate-confirmed No. 3 in charge — a department where nine of the divisions or offices that reported to former associate attorney general Rachel Brand also lack a permanent leader.

Much attention over Brand’s departure has focused on the order of succession at the Justice Department — a recurring question given President Trump’s repeated lashing out at both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel’s Russia investigation.

Within the department itself, however, there is another issue that Brand leaving her job highlights: There are very few people serving in “permanent” roles in the Justice Department.

Brand — who oversaw a significant part of the Justice Department’s portfolio and had served in the Justice Department for several years of the George W. Bush administration — was confirmed by the Senate and seen as helping provide day-to-day stability in the department. With Brand out, Acting Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio, who joined the Justice Department for the first time a month into the Trump administration, has taken over her responsibilities for the time being.

Four of the five legal divisions Brand oversaw lack their own Senate-confirmed leader, a multiplying effect on her departure, and one that is echoed in the the offices that reported to Brand as well. That includes the Tax Division, amid significant changes to the US tax code passed into law by the Republican Congress last year, and the Civil Division, responsible for representing the president and other federal officials in many lawsuits filed against the administration.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the issue.

Former Justice Department officials told BuzzFeed News the situation isn’t a dramatic one, legally. Strong acting heads, who are widely respected, sometimes still can have great influence, of course. And some components have not had a Senate-confirmed leader for several years, including the Civil Rights Division (2013) or the Office on Violence Against Women (2012).

But in day-to-day interactions, people serving in acting roles understandably can have difficulties asserting themselves or their office’s priorities — particularly outside of their agency — in political and even policy discussions. And with fewer people in permanent roles, the Trump administration lacks the stability for good government, or for advancing an actual agenda, more than a year into the presidency.

This topic of vacancies at Justice is not new — NPR, the Washington Post, and Above the Law all wrote about the issue in the opening weeks of 2018, before Brand announced her departure. But Brand's departure adds a new importance to the wide breadth of vacancies in offices that reported to her.

For any administration, the first years are often the most productive in terms of advancing their agenda — and the continued slow pace of the Trump administration in filling roles with permanent leadership reflects the lack of a fully realized Trump administration and, in some cases here, an apparent disinterest in advancing some of the previously established functions of the department.

An acting assistant attorney general oversees the Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, and Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) currently. The Tax Division is being helmed by the principal deputy assistant attorney general — a consequence of there not yet even being a nominee for the position.

There are pending nominations for the three legal divisions with "acting" heads, at various stages in the Senate process. Eric Dreiband, Trump’s nominee to run the Civil Rights Division, and Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Trump’s ENRD nominee, are two of the three Justice Department nominations awaiting floor action in the Senate — along with Criminal Division nominee Brian Benczkowski. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not yet taken action to consider their nominations, however, focusing instead primarily on getting judicial nominees confirmed. Trump’s nominee to head the Civil Division, Jody Hunt, was only sent to the Senate initially in December after several months’ delay and, as a result, is much less far along: He has yet to receive a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In all, of the legal divisions that reported to Brand, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, running the Antitrust Division, is the only Senate-confirmed legal division head in place.

BuzzFeed / Justice Department / Via justice.gov

Within the offices that report to the associate attorney general, the situation is more stark.

Trump has not even nominated leaders for the Community Relations Service, Office of Justice Programs, or Office on Violence Against Women. (Given that the department’s budget proposal would eliminate the Community Relations Service, it appears that a nominee is unlikely to be coming anytime soon for that office.) Additionally, and as reported by the New York Times, the new administration has effectively closed the Office for Access to Justice. The Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS Office, currently has an acting director — even though the leadership of that office is appointed by the attorney general and so doesn’t have to go through the Senate confirmation process.

The only offices that report to the associate attorney general that have permanent heads are the Executive Office for the US Trustees and the Office of Information Policy — and they have been in their roles since the George W. Bush administration.

The final entity overseen by the associate attorney general is the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission. The two part-time commissioners serving currently were nominated by former president Obama and both have been serving for several years now.

Patrick Semansky / AFP / Getty Images

Asked whether she believes the women who have accused her father of sexual misconduct, Ivanka Trump said that she believes the question is "inappropriate" to ask a daughter about a father.

"I think it's an inappropriate question to ask a daughter, if she believes the accusers of her father, when he's affirmatively stated that there's no truth to it," she said in an interview with NBC News that aired Monday. "I don't think that's a question you would ask many other daughters."

Trump, speaking from Pyeongchang, repeated, "I believe my father. I know my father. So, I think I have that right, as a daughter, to believe my father."

At least 16 women have alleged the president sexually harassed them, with some calling for an investigation into his behavior comparable to the investigations launched after some members of Congress were accused of sexual misconduct and abuse.

Trump has repeatedly defended her father in the past, saying she believes his denials. She has also said her priorities working in the White House include advocating for women, such as by working to improve paid parental leave policy.

Earlier in the interview, Trump had answered questions in her capacity as a senior White House adviser, rather than as a daughter — on her role during the Olympics, for example, working with South Korea to put pressure on North Korea.

Trump also stated that "there was no collusion" with Russia during her father's 2016 campaign and that the administration "believes that Mueller will do his work" as special counsel for the investigation into foreign interference. She said that she has not been interviewed by Mueller.

Trump concluded the interview in an official capacity as well, weighing in on education and job creation.

"We need to ensure that the skills being taught in our classrooms and the skills being taught to the American workers align with the jobs that are in demand in the modern economy," she said.

"Let’s Try Round Two": Three Women Who Accused Trump Of Sexual Misconduct Speak Out Again

Watching Harvey Weinstein Fall, Trump's Accusers Feel Frustrated

Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images

Even for this chaotic administration, the last few weeks have taken a toll on President Donald Trump and his staff. A tragic mass shooting, big-name staff departures, and a series of scandals — all in the growing shadow of the investigation into Russia’s involvement in 2016 election — has left the White House under a dark cloud of low morale and constant frustration.

Many mid- and low-level staffers are anxious to leave and are actively looking for jobs elsewhere, sources close to the White House say. Those staffers saw the surprising resignation of Trump loyalist and communications director Hope Hicks on Wednesday as a sort of tipping point.

A former White House official said he's spoken with more aides inside the White House who are trying to leave the administration, but not necessarily getting the kinds of high-paying offers in the corporate world as former aides usually do.

"Things are still pretty bleak inside the White House," the source said. "I've talked to several people in the last week trying to find a way out, but they can't get out because no one is really hiring people with Trump White House experience. Not a fun time to say the least."

Another source close to the administration said he has also talked to those on the inside about potential job offers. The source said he remembers seeing one particularly fitting pun about Hick's departure on Thursday: "The White House has lost Hope." "That about says it all, right?" the source added.

Meanwhile, Trump, with crises swirling around him, has been going rogue, taking positions that aren’t in line with the GOP and surprising his aides — more so than usual — with his comments on issues like trade and gun control.

This level of chaos, unusual even in the relative terms of the Trump presidency, is underlined by a staff exodus. Trump famously values loyalty to a supreme degree. And right now, Trump’s White House is bleeding loyalists, and those who are left are under deepening pressure.

Trump used an open-press meeting on guns with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Wednesday to essentially buck long-standing Republican orthodoxy and the National Rifle Association while siding with Democrats about the legitimacy of more stringent gun control proposals. He went as far as to say: “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” And on Thursday, Trump announced he wanted new tariffs on steel and aluminum, again with cameras rolling and without fully informing his staff of the decision.

Members of Trump’s own party on Capitol Hill are still trying to figure out what to make of Trump’s recent comments, especially on guns.

"I don't know," said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, when asked about narrowing the conversation after Trump broadened it at Wednesday’s meeting. “You saw it, right? It was wild. I just I think the president's going to have to narrow his list of issues that he would like to see addressed and figure out ... what's realistic."

There are any number of weeks or months from Trump’s first year in office that could reasonably be considered the most crisis-laden, but the last month is taking a real run at the crown.

The spiral began soon after Trump’s first State of the Union address, when Trump’s staff secretary, who helped prepare the president for that speech, was accused of serial domestic abuse by two of his ex-wives. The White House defended Porter, who had become one of the staffers closest to Trump, before he ultimately resigned.

That scandal raised another serious problem for the White House, and undermined chief of staff John Kelly’s authority: Some in the White House apparently knew about the allegations against Porter months before they were revealed in the press, and still allowed Porter access to highly sensitive information.

The ensuing outcry over security clearances, and how dozens of White House staffers were able to operate under interim clearances while their background checks dragged on, quickly came to focus on Jared Kushner, Trump’s top adviser and son-in-law.

Kushner, who came to the White House with complicated business dealings and has reportedly been a subject of the special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in 2016’s election, had his clearance downgraded under new rules laid out by Kelly, significantly limiting his once infinite purview. Trump’s family is said to be frustrated by Kelly’s role in sidelining Kushner, and the president himself has fumed over Kelly’s handling of the Porter episode.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation hasn’t just recently impacted what information Kushner is able to access. The public results of that investigation — which is examining whether or not anyone from Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia or if the president himself has obstructed justice in the course of the investigation — have intensified in the last month, with indictments against over a dozen Russians and new charges in the cases against Trump’s former campaign chairman and his deputy. Even more troubling for Trump: that deputy, Rick Gates, flipped his plea to guilty, and is now working with investigators.

Mueller’s team is also now reportedly looking into Trump’s treatment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions last summer, and whether or not it constituted an attempt to remove him from office as a way of interfering with Mueller’s investigation. That report came to light this week just as Trump has renewed his pressure on Sessions. Sessions is now publicly defending himself, in an exceedingly rare and direct rebuttal to the president.

Kushner has had few public defenders in recent weeks, with some blaming Kelly for how the president’s son-in-law is being treated. Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived former communications director, took jabs at Kelly, who fired him, on TV Thursday. The morale inside the White House, Scaramucci said on CNN, is “terrible. And the reason why the morale is terrible is the rule by fear and intimidation does not work in a civilian environment.”

Kelly, for his part, joked at a Department of Homeland Security event Thursday morning that his time in the White House isn’t exactly a delight.

“I miss every one of you, every day,” Kelly, who was previously the department’s secretary, said to laughs and applause, before rolling his eyes. “The last thing I wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being the secretary of Homeland Security, but I did something wrong and God punished me, I guess.”

Hicks, one of the last two remaining White House staffers who had been with Trump through his business and campaign, announced Wednesday her plan to leave her post as communications director. Her job title partially belies how important she has been to Trump, working closely with him through years of ups and downs. Those downs include Hicks’ reported role in devising a response to Donald Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties — a response that is now of particular interest to Mueller’s team. Hicks, who was also dating Porter at the time his alleged abuse was revealed, did not give a reason for her exit, but she had met privately with the House Intelligence Committee the day before.

Also leaving is Josh Raffel, a top adviser and communications official to Kushner and Ivanka Trump. The timing is tricky for Trump’s family: Even more than the reduced security clearance, Kushner is under increasing pressure with reports this week that he met, in his official capacity as a White House adviser, with executives who gave loans to his family’s company, and that multiple foreign nations have discussed ways of leveraging Kushner’s business interests for their own advantage.

Despite the increasing staff exodus, many Republicans remain hopeful that Trump will continue to sign their policy priorities and ignore the rest.

Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson framed the departures as not out of the ordinary and “Washington as usual.”

"Somebody's always coming, and somebody's always going at the White House,” he said.

Lissandra Villa contributed reporting.