Attorney General Barr resigns

Attorney General William Barr has resigned with only 45 days remaining for the Trump administration. He will leave office on Dec. 23.

Barr acted as Trump's protector

Although the role of the Justice Department is to enforce federal laws independent of the president, Barr frequently acted in ways to directly support Trump.

He misrepresented the report of Trump's 2016 presidential campaigns ties to Russia.

He acted on the behalf of Trump during the impeachment of Trump.

He refused to enforce virtually any subpoena issued by Congress to Trump administration officials.

Intervened in cases involving Trump associates

He intervened in the sentencing of Trump associate Roger Stone after Stone was convicted of obstructing investigations, lying to Congress, and witness tampering He also intervened in the case of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In 2017 Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Trump later gave clemency to Stone and Flynn.

Barr turns away from Trump's election lies

After the 2020 presidential election in which the Trump campaign filed numerous unfounded lawsuits challenging President Elect Joe Biden's victory, Barr said he had not found any evidence of fraud that would change the outcome.

Barr's replacement intervened in Paul Manafort sentencing

Trump has named Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen to serve as acting attorney general once Barr leaves office. 

Rosen has served various roles in the administrations of both Trump and George W. Bush - where he was known for advocating the elimination of federal regulations.

In the Trump administration, he   intervened in the sentencing  of Paul Manafort - Trump's former campaign manager  convicted of  financial fraud. 

He is a corporate attorney with no experience as a prosecutor - the main role of an attorney general. 

For more, read The Guardian story.

For more about Jeff Rosen, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read Barr's resignation letter to Trump.

Trump overhauls Defense leadership after election loss

President Donald Trump has completely revamped the Department of Defense's (DoD) leadership.

The move comes days after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Trump can remain president only through Jan. 20.

Secretary of Defense fired. Replacement has little administrative experience

Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mike Esper, and named Christopher C. Miller to replace Esper.

Miller is Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He has much experience serving in the armed forces, but little experience in terms of administration.

Others resigned - possibly under pressure

Soon after Esper's firing, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Anderson resigned, as did Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Joseph Kernan. Kernan was the Department of Defense's representative to the intelligence community.

Esper's chief of staff, Jen Stewart, also resigned.

New DoD chief of staff worked to discredit Russia investigation

Miller named Kash Patel to replace Stewart and become his chief of staff.

Patel previously worked on the staff of Rep. Devin Nunes, and was the lead author of a report to discredit the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Anthony Tata - new under secretary - known for offensive comments

Trump nominated Anthony Tata - a retired Army brigadier general - to replace Anderson as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Tata has a history of anti-Islamic comments, including (since-deleted) Twitter posts associating former President Barack Obama with terrorism.


Some of the since-deleted Twitter posts by Tata

Ezra Cohen-Watnick served under Flynn, Sessions

Trump appointed Ezra Cohen-Watnick to replace Kernan as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

Cohen-Watnick has served in several roles in the Trump administration, including as the National Security Council's director for intelligence programs to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and national security advisor to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Click here to read the DoD statement on the changes.

For more on Esper's firing, read the New York Times story.

For more on Anderson's and Kernan's resignations, read the Foreign Policy story.

For more on the changes at the DoD, read the Axios story.

Trump fires IG investigating Saudi arms sales

President Donald Trump has fired the State Department's inspector general.

Steve Linick was believed to be investigating whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was using a political appointee to perform personal errands such as walking Pompeo's dog and picking up his dry cleaning - all while being paid with public money.

Saudi Arabia connection

Linick also had been investigating whether the Trump administration had illegally sold weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Congress had denied approval for the sale because the weapons were being used to kill civilians in Yemen.

The Trump administration resumed the sales anyway by declaring an emergency - although Pompeo had met with Congress just days earlier without mentioning any such emergency.

Conflict with Trump administration

In 2019, Linick oversaw a report that State Department officials had harassed employees for their political leanings.

Linick also briefed Congressional aides about a possible attempt by Pompeo to discredit then U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Hunter Biden - the son of 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden. These actions were related to the 2019 impeachment of Trump.

Firing is questionably legal

The president has the right to fire virtually any appointed administrator, including inspectors general. However, the Inspector General Act requires the President to give Congress at least 30 days notice before doing so.

Trump did that, providing no detailed explanation.

The State Department inspector general statute, however, prohibits the Secretary of State from impeding an investigation. An inspector general cannot be fired in retaliation for an investigation.

Linnick has confirmed that he was looking into Pompeo's alleged misuse of government resources. He also said that an aide to Pompeo had asked him to halt the review of the arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Replacement overseeing himself

To replace Linick, Trump has named the State Department's director of the Office of Foreign Missions (OFM) Stephen Akard to be the acting inspector general.

Akard has not announced plans to resign his State Department position. By simultaneously holding both positions, he now provides oversight of his own department.

The conflict of interest is especially glaring when it comes to an inspector general - who is required by law to be independent.

A letter to Akard from Democratic members of the House of Representatives pointed out that such a move could stifle possible whistleblower, because it would be impossible to report on problems regarding Akard's department anonymously - as they would be reporting them to Akard himself.

Linick one of several inspectors general let go by Trump

Trump has fired or demoted other inspectors general who were investigating or had reported on activities that would put Trump or an associate in a bad light. Three of them were overseeing coronavirus relief spending.

For more on the legal issues related to firing an inspector general, read the LawfareBlog analysis.

New intel director after mandated replacement resigns

As Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats leaves office today, his replacement for now, Joseph Maguire, will be the result of shuffling and turmoil.

According to succession law specific to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the president has no discretion in appointing a successor. The position must be filled by the principal deputy director. That would be 30-year intelligence official Sue Gordon.

President Donald Trump, however, originally stated that the position would be filled instead by Rep. Daniel Ratcliffe. But soon after being named, Ratcliffe removed himself from consideration.

Trump announced he again would illegally bypass Gordon. Gordon announced she would resign at that point, freeing Trump to install Maguire in the position.

Maguire, a retired Navy vice admiral, has been the head of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).

For more, read the New York Times story.

Intel head resigns. Nominee tried to derail Russia inquiry

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has resigned. He will leave office on Aug. 15.

Coats' assessments conflicted with Trump's messages

Intelligence assessments Coats provided to President Donald Trump sometimes were at odds with the messages Trump was trying to promulgate.

He concurred with the rest of the intelligence community that Russia deliberately interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Trump had asked Coats to "say publicly that no link existed between him and Russia," according to the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

He testified to Congress that North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons, despite Trump's assertion that the country no longer is a nuclear threat.

When Trump was planning to conduct a White House meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he didn't inform Coats. Upon learning about it from a reporter's question, Coats commented, "Okay, that's going to be special."

Ratcliffe overstated qualifications, worked to sabotage Mueller investigation

Update 2019-Aug-2: Ratcliffe has withdrawn from consideration.

Trump has nominated Rep. John Ratcliffe to be the new Director of National Intelligence.

Ratcliffe has claimed to have "firsthand experience combating terrorism". His campaign website cited his role in a 2008 terrorism financing prosecution as one of his qualifications. An investigation by ABC News, however, found no connection of Ratcliffe to the case.

Ratcliffe attempted to discredit the FBI's investigation into Russian involvement with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, claiming to have seen text messages between two of the investigators suggesting the existence of an anti-Trump "Secret Society" within the FBI - a conspiracy theory that was quickly debunked, as the more complete text conversations showed.

He also wrote legislation proposing to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read Coats' resignation letter

Labor Sec. Acosta resigns. Replacement fought worker rights

Alexander Acosta has announced his resignation as Secretary of Labor.

The resignation comes in the wake of sex trafficking charges against Jeffrey Epstein. In 2007, Acosta approved a plea bargain for Epstein, who was facing imprisonment for similar charges. He instead received a much more lenient sentence.

It also comes in the wake of Acosta submitting a budget that would reduce funding for child trafficking enforcement by 80 percent.

President Donald Trump said the decision to resign was Acosta's, describing Acosta as a "great, great secretary" and a "tremendous talent" who is "a Hispanic man."

Replacement has anti-labor history and ties to Russia and convicted lobbyist

Until a replacement is approved by the Senate, the Labor Department will be run by Deputy Secretary Patrick Pizzella.

Pizzella has worked in the Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations. He also has worked with Jack Abramoff, the former lobbyist convicted of fraud in 2006. His work involved hampering worker protections in the Northern Mariana Islands.

In the late 1990s, he worked as a lobbyist on behalf of a shell company connected to the Russian government.

For more on Acosta's resignation, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read Acosta's resignation letter.

Former defense lobbyist Esper confirmed as DoD Secretary

Update 2019-July-25: The Senate confirmed Esper by a vote of 90-8.

Patrick Shanahan has resigned his position as acting defense secretary. He had held the position since President Donald Trump fired James Mattis in January.

Shanahan's resignation came in the midst of an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation that revealed domestic violence incidents. The FBI conducts similar investigations on all cabinet nominees.

Shanahan had not been formally nominated.

Replacement was defense lobbyist

Trump has named Secretary of the Army Mark Esper to take over as acting defense secretary.

Before become secretary of the Army in Nov. 2017, Esper was a lobbyist for defense contractor Raytheon.

Trump has not announced whether he will nominate Esper to become defense secretary. If that happens and he is confirmed by the Senate, it is unknown at this point if he will recuse himself from weapons decisions involving his former company.

He also is a former classmate of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

For more, read the New York Times story.

For more on Esper, read this Vox story.

Trump court nominees won't discuss landmark decision

Trump judicial nominees decline to endorse Brown v. Board under Senate questioning

Trump judge pick says intoxication can nullify rape

Trump pick to replace Kavanaugh on appeals court under fire for college op-eds on 'hysteria over date rape'

Atty General nominee hard-line, but says Mueller can continue

Update 2019-Feb-14: The Senate confirmed Barr by a vote of 54-45. Click here to view the vote.

President Trump's nominee for attorney general has been critical of the investigation of connections between Trump's campaign and Russia, but says he would allow it to continue.

"If confirmed, I will not permit partisan politics, personal interests, or any other improper consideration to interfere with this or any other investigation," William Barr said in prepared remarks the day before he testifies Jan. 15 before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Trump nominated Barr in December to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who resigned at the president's request.

As attorney general under George H.W. Bush, Barr took hard-line approach

Barr previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. A report by Vox shows his positions on crime included increased incarceration for drug users and working to abolish parole.

His efforts on immigration then were in line with Trump's policies today.

He supported blocking Haitian asylum-seekers, and urged "summary deportation proceedings to weed out patently phony claims for asylum." He said insufficient immigration enforcement was partly to blame for the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Iran-Contra

In the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan administration, administration officials (and possibly the president) broke the law to fund a pro-U.S. force fighting to take over the Nicaraguan government. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush pardoned those who were indicted or whose convictions were not overturned on appeal.

Barr supported the pardons.

Barr's post-Bush writings show similar leanings

In a 1995 essay, Barr said the U.S. government should not be secular, but instead should impose "a transcendent moral order with objective standards of right and wrong that ... flows from God's eternal law."

He praised the earliest version of Trump's Muslim travel ban, which was struck down by the courts. He praised Sessions for attacking "the rampant illegality that riddled our immigration system."

He said Trump was right to fire FBI Director James Comey.

He said Mueller should have considered political donations to Democrats when picking his team, even though Justice Department policies and federal law prohibit discriminating based on political affiliation.

He supported Trump's pressuring of Sessions to open a criminal case against Hillary Clinton, saying he saw more basis for that than for the investigation into the Trump campaign's potential conspiracy with Russia.

Barr sent an unsolicited 19-page memo to the White House and the Justice Department calling Mueller's obstruction of justice investigation "legally insupportable," and saying the special counsel shouldn't be allowed to demand an interview with Trump on the matter.

Barr now plans to testify that his memo was narrow in scope and referred solely to a single obstruction of justice theory based on a single statute.

Update 2019-Jan-15: Barr testified on the first day of his two-day confirmation hearing by the Senate

For more, read the Vox story.

Click here to read Barr's written testimony.

Interior's Zinke resigns. Replaced by oil lobbyist

Ryan Zinke has resigned from his post as Secretary of the Interior (DOI) amid a slew of ethics investigations. Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, a former oil industry lobbyist, took over as acting secretary.

In October, the department's inspector general found that Zinke violated travel policy by having his wife travel with him in government vehicles.

In addition, Zinke left the department facing investigations into:

Zinke is the fourth Trump cabinet-level official to leave under an ethics cloud, following Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin.

Four other cabinet officials - Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross - remain in their positions despite ethics scandals of their own.

Former oil industry lobbyist currently running department

Bernhardt served in President George W. Bush's interior department from 2001 to 2008.

Both before and after that, he worked for lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP. His client list included oil industry trade group the Independent Petroleum Association of America; the world's largest oilfield services provider, Halliburton; and affiliates of major oil producer Noble Energy Inc.

The oil industry has largely benefited from Trump administration decisions, including at the Department of the Interior.

Under a federal vacancies law, Bernhardt is limited to 210 days as acting secretary, but that could be extended for up to two years while a nomination for a permanent replacement is pending in the Senate.

For more on the investigations into Zinke, read the New York Times story.

DoD: Mattis leaves. Replacement has little military experience

James Mattis has left his position as Secretary of Defense.

Mattis delivered his resignation letter to President Trump on Dec. 20, stating philosophical differences with Trump on the need for international alliances and maintaining pressure on terrorism and countries such as Russia.

His letter said he would leave office on Feb. 28. Trump's reaction, however, was to fire him as of Jan. 1.

Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan will serve as acting secretary until a replacement for Mattis is named by Trump and confirmed by the Senate.

Shanahan is an engineer and long-time executive for Boeing - a defense contractor. He had no military experience before being nominated by Trump to be deputy secretary in June 2017.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Senators sue to reverse Trump's AG appointment

Three senators are suing the Trump administration to nullify the appoint of Matthew Whitaker to serve as acting attorney general.

President Donald Trump named Whitaker to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump fired.

Whitaker not in any line of succession

The Constitution's Appointments Clause requires that all high-ranking officers of the United States be approved by the Senate.

Department of Justice (DOJ) policy provides for an order of succession for the attorney general role. The policy specifies the deputy attorney general would take over. If that isn't possible, then the associate deputy attorney general would assume the role. Both of those positions require Senate approval.

The Federal Vacancies Reform Act allows for appointments without Senate approval. That law states, however, that it only applies when there is no other procedure in place.

Whitaker - who was Sessions' chief of staff - has not received Senate consent for any office within the government, "let alone the highest office in the DOJ", the lawsuit by Senators Richard Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Mazzie Hirono states.

Impacts of Whitaker's appointment

Senate consent is especially relevant in Whitaker's case, the complaint says, due to his affiliation with a company being investigated for fraud and his public comments criticizing the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller - an investigation he now oversees.

Any subpoenas or indictments Mueller seeks to issue now need to be approved by Whitaker.

Have indictments already been filed?

It's possible that Mueller already may have filed sealed indictments.

It isn't known what's in a sealed indictment - or even if it's part of the Mueller investigation - until it's unsealed. However, an unusually large number of sealed indictments have been filed in the District of Columbia District Court this year - including 14 in the past three months.

Once an indictment has been filed, a judge's approval is required to withdraw it.

For more, read the Politico story.

Click here to read the complaint.

Sessions fired - Replacement may be illegal appointment

President Donald Trump has fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, replacing him with a man who has repeatedly criticized the Trump-Russia investigation that he will oversee.

The firing came a day after Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, giving them the opportunity to subpoena witnesses and documents in the Russia probe and other Trump administration scandals.

Trump has been hostile to Sessions since March 2017, when Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation. Trump wanted Sessions to protect him, and saw the recusal as disloyal. At least four times, he pressured Sessions to reclaim control of the investigation.

Sessions' replacement unusual and possibly unconstitutional

Trump has appointed Sessions' chief of staff Matthew Whitaker to replace Sessions until a successor is appointed and confirmed by the Senate.

The decision is unusual in that normally the Deputy Attorney General would take over. In this case, that would be Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia investigation due to Sessions' recusal.

The appointment of Whitaker also might be legally problematic because his position as chief of staff is not one that required Senate confirmation - potentially violating the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and the Constitution's Appointments Clause.

Whitaker also may be obliged to recuse himself

There also are questions about whether Whitaker, like Sessions, may be obliged to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation because of his past statements and relationships.

Whitaker has repeatedly criticized the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign's possible conspiracy with Russia in the 2016 presidential election. Among other things, he defended Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign, and he wrote that Mueller's investigation was "going too far."

Whitaker also served as campaign chairman for Sam Clovis in his unsuccessful 2014 bid for Iowa treasurer. Clovis is a key grand jury witness in the Mueller probe.

In the early days of the Trump administration, he concluded in an interview, "The truth is, there was no collusion with the Russians and the Trump campaign."


Whitaker's statement appears at 1:30.

Whitaker even has a plan to end the Mueller investigation

In a 2017 interview, he said, "So I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced, it would recess appointment and that attorney general doesn't fire Bob Mueller but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigations grinds to almost a halt."

Whitaker reportedly has no plans to recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Other issues

Whitaker, a former federal prosecutor, served on the advisory board of a Miami patent-marketing firm that was shut down in May and fined $25 million for allegedly deceiving clients. In a 2015 email, Whitaker used his former job title as U.S. attorney in Iowa to threaten one of the clients with "serious civil and criminal consequences" if the client filed a complaint against the firm.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Click here to read Sessions' resignation letter.

Nikki Haley to resign as UN Ambassador

United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said she'll resign at the end of this year.

For more, read the Politico story.

Scott Pruitt leaves legacy of graft, undermining EPA

Scott Pruitt has resigned as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Throughout his tenure, Pruitt tried to weaken the agency and to roll back regulations protecting the environment. Among other things, he:

The rigidly-defined process for enacting regulations, however, has thwarted many of Pruitt's attempts to weaken the EPA.

Pruitt fought against the EPA before being named to lead it

As an Oklahoma state senator, Pruitt was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and received more than $270,000 in donations from the oil and gas industry. As Oklahoma's state attorney general, he filed several lawsuits against the EPA.

To this day, in his LinkedIn profile, Pruitt claims to be "a leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda."

He also leaves a legacy of corruption

Pruitt resigned amid more than a dozen investigations into alleged corruption and mismanagement as EPA head. They include:

Fossil-fuel lobbyist currently filling Pruitt's former EPA role

President Trump will need to name a new EPA administrator, who must be confirmed by the Senate. Until then, the agency's interim head is Andrew Wheeler.

Wheeler is a former aide to Sen. James Inhofe, an outspoken climate-change denier.

Wheeler later earned more than $700,000 as a lobbyist, mainly for the fossil-fuel industry. His top client, coal company Murray Energy, paid him to lobby against the Obama administration's regulations.

Who is head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

Hours before Richard Cordray resigned as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he named his chief of staff, Leandra English, to be the CFPB's deputy director. So when Cordray left office, it was expected that English would become acting director.

English has worked intermittently for the agency since its creation in 2010.

President Donald Trump, however, named Mick Mulvaney to fill Cordray's vacancy.

Mulvaney has said he would like to eliminate the CFPB - disparaging it for regulating banks it was created to regulate.

While a member of Congress, Mulvaney told a reporter from the Credit Union Times, that the CFPB not being accountable to Congress "makes it very difficult for us to advocate on behalf of your industry."

In that same 2014 interview, he said "It turns up being a joke. And that's what the CFPB really has been - in a sick sad kind of way, because you've got an institution that has tremendous authority over what you all do for a living, over your businesses, over your members."

So who's the acting director?

According to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act - the law that created the agency - the role is to be filled by the deputy director until a replacement is named by the president and confirmed by the Senate. That means English.

The Trump administration's legal counsel agreed on the law. Page one of a memo to the White House said that, under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA), the president normally would be able to appoint an acting head - unless another statute calls for a different way. And that the law creating the CFPB has such a statute. That would allow English to become the CFPB director.

On the same page, it goes on to say that the resignation of the director would satisfy the requirement of "absence or unavailability". "Therefore, the statute would permit a properly appointed Deputy Director to serve as the Acting Director during a vacancy," the memo said.

The remaining seven pages, however, inject ambiguity into that opinion, including...

Mick Mulvaney became the CFPB's acting director.

Update 2018-Jan-10: A federal judge denied an injunction to remove Mulvaney as the CFPB acting director. English has appealed the decision.

Federal judge nominee has conflicts of interest, little experience

The 36-year-old attorney nominated by President Trump for a federal district judge in Alabama has practiced law for only 3 years and has never tried a case.

And that might be the least interesting thing about Brett J. Talley's nomination.

When asked on a Senate questionnaire to identify family members that could cause a conflict of interest, Talley did not list anyone.

His wife, Annie Donaldson, is a senior attorney in the Trump administration.

If confirmed as a federal judge, Talley could find himself ruling on issues directly related to policies announced by Trump.

Despite his lack of experience and straightforwardness, Talley has provided clues as to how he might rule in cases. For more than a decade he is believed to have posted candid thoughts on several issues that could come before him. Though the posts were written under the pseudonymBamainBoston, the poster left indications that he was, in fact, Talley.

On the chance that an innocent person might be executed, BamainBoston wrote "...death row cases with an actual innocence claim are kind of like abortions based on rape, incest, or the life of the mother. They certainly happen, but the whole debate shouldn't turn on them."

BamainBoston also has written to defend the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

If confirmed by the Senate, this would be a lifetime appointment.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Click here to read the questionnaire Talley filled out disclosing his qualifications and potential conflicts of interest.

Senate confirms former Eli Lilly exec to head HHS

Update 2018-Jan-24: The Senate confirmed Azar by a vote of 55-43. Click here to view the vote.

President Trump has named Alex M. Azar II to become Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

He would replace Tom Price, who resigned in September.

Azar is the former executive with pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly. He also is an attorney who served as general counsel and deputy secretary for HHS in the George W. Bush administration.

For more, read the New York Times story.

HHS Secretary Tom Price resigns

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tom Price has resigned.

Price - a former member of Congress had been pointed out by President Trump as a key person in Congressional Republicans' failed attempts to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Price's resignation letter didn't list a reason. Some have presumed it has to do with his use of government jets - costing about $1 million of public money. "I don't like the optics," Trump said just before Price resigned.

Yet, Trump pushed for Price's confirmation to be HHS secretary even as Congress questioned him about stock deals he made for companies that would be affected by legislation he was involved in writing.

For more, read The Atlantic story.

For more on Price's stock trades while in Congress, read this New York Times editorial.

Click here to read Price's resignation letter.

Senate will prevent Trump appointments while on break

The Senate is on vacation until after Labor Day. But a few senators are sticking around to make sure President Trump doesn't make any appointments while they're gone.

Appointments normally require Senate confirmation. The Constitution allows for confirmation to be bypassed, however, if the appointment is made while the Senate is not in session. The procedure is known as a recess appointment.

To prevent recess appointments, the Senate will hold pro forma sessions every few days. This sessions, attended by only a handful of Senators , can last less than a minute.

These short sessions also have been used to prevent presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama from making appointments that would avoid the Senate's approval process.

For more, read The Hill story.

Trump cabinet members to speak at ALEC event

Three members of President Donald Trump's cabinet will speak this week at a conference for the ultraconservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta will attend the group's annual meeting in Denver. DeVos will speak at the meeting on Thursday, according to her public schedule. ALEC announced last week that Zinke and Acosta also will attend the conference.

Half of the Trump cabinet, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, have ties to ALEC, which writes state laws to benefit its corporate sponsors.

The group has written "model legislation" used as the basis for controversial state laws, including Voter ID, School Choice, anti-regulation, anti-minimum wage and Right-to-Work bills.

ALEC's corporate funders include brothers Charles and David Koch, ExxonMobil, PhRMA, UPS, AT&T and Pfizer.

DeVos is a former chair of the American Federation for Children(AFC), an ALEC member that has worked with the group to draft model legislation.

Zinke's record shows support of policies that are friendly to corporate interests. He has supported a balanced budget Constitutional amendment for which ALEC has written model legislation.

For more on ALEC and its activities, read our primer.

Click here to read our discussion of the Trump administration's ties to ALEC.

FBI nominee has ties to Christie, Russia

President Donald Trump's choice for FBI director is an attorney who has represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the 2013 Bridgegate scandal and "an energy company president in a criminal investigation by Russian authorities."

Christopher Wray served as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's criminal division from 2003 to 2005, overseeing cases including the Enron investigation.

Wray served as Christie's personal attorney during the trial of Christie staff members who colluded in the Bridgegate scandal - in which lanes were closed on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge resulting in traffic gridlock - to politically punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie in that year's gubernatorial election. Christie was not charged with a crime.

Wray and Christie also worked together during the Bush administration, when Christie was a U.S. attorney.

The law firm where Wray currently is a partner - King & Spalding - has consulted with Russian state-owned energy giant Rosneft, whose CEO Igor Sechin is considered a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Wray has represented "an energy company president in a criminal investigation by Russian authorities," according to a biography on his firm's website that has been taken down.

Wray has donated at least $35,000 to Republican candidates since 2008, including Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.

Wray would replace James Comey, who was fired by Trump in May. Trump acknowledged he fired Comey partly because of "this Russia thing," a reference to the FBI's ongoing investigation into possible collusion by Trump associates with Russia.  

For more on Wray, read this Guardian story and this CBS News story.

Trump fires FBI director leading probe against him

President Trump has fired Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, who was leading the criminal investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the election.

In the letter telling Comey he was fired, Trump said, "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau."

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein outlined Comey's much-criticized actions in July and October regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server. Yet as recently as May 3, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the president had confidence in Comey.

Neither Rosenstein nor Attorney General Jeff Sessions mentioned the Trump-Russia investigation in memos recommending Comey's dismissal.

But Comey's firing comes as the investigation into Trump's and his associates' dealings with Russia continues to escalate.

In the hours leading up to the firing, CNN learned of grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn - who resigned less than a month into the administration after meetings he had with Russian officials were revealed.

The firing of Comey has parallels to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon dismissed independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox while he was investigating Nixon's role in the Watergate scandal.

For more, read the Politico story.

Click here to read letters from President Trump, Attorney General Sessions, and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein detailing Comey's firing.

Senate confirms Alexander Acosta for Secretary of Labor

Update 2017-Apr-27: The Senate confirmed Acosta by a vote of 60-38. Click here to view the vote.

President Trump has nominated Alexander Acosta to be Secretary of Labor, a day after first choice Andrew Puzder withdrew from consideration.

Acosta is dean of the Florida International University law school. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito when he was a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He served on the National Labor Relations Board under President George W. Bush, as the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and as U.S. attorney in Miami.

Acosta has a mixed record of experiences he would bring to the position.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Acosta serves on the American Bar Association's Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities. He has defended the rights of Muslim Americans, including criticizing France when it introduced a ban on certain religious attire.

While at the Justice Department, Acosta wrote a letter to a federal judge in Ohio supporting a Republican voter caging effort just before the 2004 presidential election. Bush won Ohio.

When running the Justice Department's civil rights division, he was found by the department's inspector general to have ignored warnings about a subordinate accused of illegally using political affiliations to vet potential civil rights attorneys.

As U.S. attorney for Southern Florida, Acosta gave a plea deal to billionaire investor and political donor Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of having sex with dozens of underage girls. Under the plea, Epstein served about a year in prison. Epstein was a member of Mar-A-Lago - Trump's Florida home and golf club.

"I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,'' Trump told New York Magazine in 2002. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it - Jeffrey enjoys his social life."

For more, read the Guardian story.

For more on Acosta's support of voter caging, read the McClatchy DC Bureau story.

For more on Acosta's issue with politically-motivated hiring at the Justice Department, read the Guardian report.

Andrew Puzder withdraws from Labor Secretary consideration

Labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder has withdrawn his name from consideration a day before his Senate confirmation hearing was to begin.

Several Republican senators had said they would not support Puzder, the Washington Post reported.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

New FCC chair opposes net neutrality, supports media mergers

President Trump has chosen Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Ajit Pai to become the agency's new chair.

Pai has been opposed to net neutrality and is a supporter of media company mergers.

For more, read the BBC News story.

Senate confirms Sonny Perdue for Secretary of Agriculture

Update 2017-Apr-24: The Senate confirmed Perdue by a vote of 87-11. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to be Secretary of Agriculture.  

Perdue grew up on a farm and earned a doctorate in veterinary medicine from the University of Georgia.

He was worth more than $6 million and owned agriculture businesses worth nearly $2.8 million at the time of his last run for governor in 2006, according to a financial disclosure statement. He received more than $278,000 in farm subsidies from 1995 to 2004, according to the Environmental Working Group.

He served in the state Senate from 1990 to 2001, switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in 1998. He served as governor from 2003 to 2011, the first Republican elected governor of Georgia since 1868.

As governor, Perdue signed into law measures based on American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation, including the nation's second voter ID law and a school-choice program described by ALEC co-founder Paul Weyrich as "the most expansive in the nation."  

For more, read the Politico story.

Senate confirms David Shulkin for Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Update 2017-Feb-13: The Senate unanimously confirmed Shulkin

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Dr. David Shulkin to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Shulkin has served as the VA undersecretary for health since March 2015.

Previously, he worked for five years as president of the Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey and four years as president and CEO of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. He also has worked as the chief medical officer at Temple University Hospital in the University of Pennsylvania Health System and vice dean of the  Drexel University School of  Medicine in Philadelphia. He founded DoctorQuality, a medical software company.

He would be the first VA secretary who hasn't served in the military, and the first member of Trump's cabinet to have served in the Obama administration.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Ethics office concerned over rapid confirmation hearings

The new Congress has set a very fast pace for confirming President-Elect Donald Trump's cabinet appointees. That has the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) concerned that it won't have enough time to fully evaluate their financial disclosures.

The Ethics in Government Act requires these disclosures as a way to identify issues such as conflicts of interest.

For more, read the National Public Radio story.

For a more in-depth understanding of the presidential appointment process, read this Congressional Research Service report.

Senate confirms Jay Clayton to head SEC

Update 2017-May-2: The Senate confirmed Clayton by a vote of 61-37. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Jay Clayton to be chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Clayton, an attorney, has no government experience.

He is a partner with the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, which has represented Wall Street banks that he now will be in charge of regulating. That meant sometimes defending them against federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHSA). And the SEC.

Clayton's clients have included Barclays Capital, Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs.

Trump has selected three former Goldman bankers for top positions in his administration - Steve Mnuchin as treasury secretary, Gary Cohn as director of the National Economic Council, and Stephen Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor.

In a video about cybersecurity prepared by Sullivan and Cromwell in 2015, Clayton criticized banking regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.


Clayton's comments run from 5:48 to 7:14.
Since posting this video, it has been made private.

For more, read the Atlantic story.

Senate confirms Robert Lighthizer for U.S. Trade Rep.

Update 2017-May-11: The Senate confirmed Lighthizer by a vote of 82-14. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated international trade lawyer Robert Lighthizer to be U.S. Trade Representative.

Lighthizer, who served as deputy U.S. trade representative during the Reagan administration, has worked for three decades as an attorney representing heavy manufacturing, agricultural and tech companies. He worked on the behalf of U.S. steel companies to keep foreign steel out of the United States.

He has opposed free trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Lighthizer has criticized China's trade policies and called for tariffs on foreign imports.

Lighthizer's trade views match those of Trump and his nominee to head the newly created White House National Trade Council, Peter Navarro. An economics professor at the University of California, Irvine, Navarro co-authored the book Death by China and wrote and directed a documentary film of the same name.

Navarro co-authored a report on Trump's economic plan in September with Wilbur Ross, the nominee for commerce secretary who is expected to play a lead role on trade.

For more on Lighthizer, read the Politico story.

For more on Navarro and the National Trade Council, read the Bloomberg story.

Senate confirms Rep. Mick Mulvaney to direct OMB

Update 2017-Feb-16: The Senate confirmed Mulvaney by a vote of 51-49. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Rep. MIck Mulvaney to be director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Mulvaney, who has represented South Carolina's 5th Congressional District since 2011, has consistently advocated deep reductions in federal spending. He has voted to cut Medicare benefits, including...

He supported shutting down the government in 2013 and 2015 in an effort to de-fund the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood.

He opposes any increase to the nation's debt ceiling.

Mulvaney has called for a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For more, read the New York Times story.

For more on Mulvaney's Medicare-related votes, visit www.MedicareVotes.org.

Senate confirms Rep. Ryan Zinke for Secretary of Interior

Update 2017-Mar-01: The Senate confirmed Zinke by a vote of 68-31. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Rep. Ryan Zinke to be Secretary of the Interior.

Zinke, a retired Navy SEAL, has represented Montana in the House of Representatives since last year. Before that, he served in the Montana state Senate from 2009 to 2011.

Zinke would be in charge of a department that manages millions of acres of public land through the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies.

His record shows support of policies that are counter to the department's mission.

As a candidate for Montana Lt. Governor in 2012, Zinke is said to have signed the Montana Voter and Candidate Pledge. The pledge, among other things, demands opposition to Department of Interior agencies. Zinke has not acknowledged or denied signing the pledge. He has claimed that he doesn't remember signing it.

The oil and gas industry has contributed more than $345,000 to Zinke, who supports opening up public lands to oil and gas drilling.

The League of Conservation Voters has given Zinke a lifetime score of 3 percent. Zinke has supported...

His actions on climate change contradict his 2010 position in which he cosigned a letter to President Obama and Congress calling for "comprehensive clean energy jobs and climate change legislation." The letter also stated...

"Our nation's most respected military leaders recognize that climate change is a threat multiplier for instability in the most volatile regions of the world. The climate change threat presents significant national security challenges for the United States - challenges that should be addressed today, because they will almost certainly get worse if we delay."

He now claims to be skeptical of Global Warming. In a 2014 Congressional debate, he said "It's not a hoax, but it's not proven science either."

For more, read the Los Angeles Times story.

Senate confirms Rick Perry for Energy Secretary

Update 2017-Mar-02: The Senate confirmed Perry by a vote of 62-37. Click here to view the vote.

Oops.

Donald Trump has nominated a guy who wants to eliminate the Energy Department - and who once famously could not remember its name - to run it.

The president-elect has named former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to be secretary of energy.

Perry is perhaps best known for his oops moment during a 2011 Republican presidential debate...



The agency he could not recall turned out to be the Energy Department.

Perry was governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015, and before that served as the state's agriculture commissioner. He has no experience with nuclear weapons, an area that makes up much of the department's responsibilities and about 60 percent of its budget.

"Despite its name, the department plays the leading role in designing nuclear weapons, thwarting their proliferation, and ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation's aging nuclear arsenal through a constellation of laboratories considered the crown jewels of government science," the New York Times reports.

The last two energy secretaries had doctorates in physics. One had received a Nobel prize. Perry has a bachelor's degree in animal science.

Perry, along with Vice President-elect Mike Pence, spoke at the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual conference in July, 2016.

A 2011 analysis by ThinkProgress found that 10 of then-governor Perry's initiatives "mirror ALEC model legislation or policy recommendations from ALEC's state affiliate."

ALEC's "energy principles"...

ALEC also has opposed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan.

Trump's nominee for EPA administrator, Oklahoma Attorney General and ALEC member Scott Pruitt, has sued the agency over the plan.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Click here to watch Rick Perry's speech at the 2016 ALEC Annual Meeting.

Click here to watch Mike Pence's speech at the 2016 ALEC Annual Meeting.

Trump fires Sec. of State Tillerson

Update 2018-Mar-13: President Trump announced that he has fired Tillerson, and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him. For more, read the Washington Post story..

Update 2017-Feb-1: The Senate confirmed Tillerson by a vote of 56-43. Click here to view the vote.

Original story on Tillerson's nomination...
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State.

Tillerson joined Exxon as an engineer in 1975 and has spent his entire career there. He has no government or diplomatic experience.

He does, however, have strong business ties to leaders around the world, most notably Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two first met in 1999, while Tillerson was responsible for Exxon's holdings in Russia.

In 2011, five years after Tillerson became Exxon CEO, the company signed an agreement to explore and drill in the arctic and Siberia with oil company Rosneft, which is majority owned by the Russian government. The deal - which could generate up to $500 billion for Exxon - was put on hold because of U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russia for its invasion of the Ukraine.

The State Department helps decide on and administer sanctions.

ExxonMobil has given nearly $2 million to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 1998. Exxon representative Cynthia Bergman has a seat on ALEC's Private Enterprise Advisory Council.

Trump himself has business ties to Russia dating back to the 1980s. His son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008 that "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. ... We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."

For more, read the New York Times story.

Senate confirms Linda McMahon to direct SBA

Update 2017-Feb-14: The Senate confirmed McMahon by a vote of 81-19. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon to be administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA).

McMahon and her husband, Vince, took over the World Wrestling Federation, which later became the WWE, from Vince's father and built it into a multibillion-dollar corporate empire.

Trump argued that Linda McMahon "helped grow WWE from a modest 13-person operation." However, at the time the couple took over, the company already controlled wrestling in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast region, and was hosting shows at New York's Madison Square Garden, the Huffington Post reports. They developed the company into a virtual monopoly by eliminating smaller competitors, according to the report.

Trump said his agenda will "roll back the burdensome regulations that are hurting our middle class workers and small businesses". As WWE chief executive from 1997 to 2009, McMahon dealt with avoiding regulations. The corporation spent $400,000 lobbying state legislatures to deregulate wrestling, allowing it to avoid drug-testing standards and fees imposed by state athletic commissions.

The company also spent at least $1 million in federal lobbying.

McMahon donated $7 million to pro-Trump Super PACs during his presidential campaign.

Trump has been involved with McMahon's WWE, as this video shows...

Trump nominates Andrew Puzder for Labor secretary

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc., to be Secretary of Labor.

CKE runs fast-food chains that include Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. As CEO, Puzder has strongly opposed minimum-wage increases, saying they lead to fewer employment opportunities.

Puzder is a board member of the International Franchise Association (IFA), which advocates for laws and policies favorable to the industry.

The IFA has...

The IFA also is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

For more, read the Guardian story.

To read Puzner's own words on his views, read the Los Angeles Times interview or his blog.

Senate confirms John Kelly for Homeland Security

Update 2017-Jan-20: The Senate has confirmed Kelly by a vote of 88-11. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated retired four-star Marine Gen. John Kelly to be Secretary of Homeland Security.

Kelly served in the military for more than 40 years before stepping down in February as commander of the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for military activities in South America and Central America, including the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. He opposed President Barack Obama's plans to close the facility.

Previously, Kelly served as the senior military assistant to defense secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. His son, 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.

For more on Kelly's nomination, read the New York Times story.

Senate confirms Scott Pruitt to head EPA

Update 2017-Feb-17: The Senate confirmed Pruitt by a vote of 52-46. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Pruitt proclaims a skepticism of global warming. In a 2016 National Review editorial regarding EPA regulation of coal-fired power plants, he wrote...

"(The global warming) debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind."

In his LinkedIn profile, Pruitt claims to be "a leading advocate against the EPA's activist agenda". He is one of a dozen attorneys general (all Republican) who teamed up with energy companies to battle environmental regulations - including filing several lawsuits against the EPA. Among the lawsuits...

Pruitt, a former state senator and member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has received more than $270,000 in donations from the oil and gas industry since 2002.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Click here to read the full text of Pruitt's National Review editorial.

For more on Pruitt's actions on behalf of energy companies, read the New York Times story. You also can click here to read the actual correspondence between Pruitt and Devon Energy.

Click here for a list compiled by Tulsa World of lawsuits against the EPA that Pruitt was involved with.

Click here to watch Pruitt's speech at the 2014 ALEC annual meeting.
Click here to watch Pruitt's testimony about the Clean Power Plan at a 2015 U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee hearing.

Senate confirms Ben Carson for HUD secretary

Update 2017-Mar-02: The Senate confirmed Carson by a vote of 58-41. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Among HUD's stated missions are to "meet the need for quality affordable rental homes... (in) inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination."

Carson, however, criticized both an Obama administration rule aiming to desegregate housing and a Supreme Court decision that housing policies that have the effect of discrimination violate the 1968 Fair Housing Act even if they don't explicitly discriminate.

Carson has no government or housing-policy experience. Last month, a Carson spokesman told The Hill that Carson wouldn't serve in the Trump administration because he "feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency."

For more on Carson's appointment, read the Washington Post story.

Click here to read Carson's 2015 opinion in the Washington Times against recent actions by the federal government to combat segregation.

For more on Carson's assessment of his qualifications for a cabinet position, read this story in The Hill.

Also see our developing discussion on racial discrimination.

Senate confirms James Mattis for Defense Secretary

Update 2017-Jan-20: The Senate has confirmed Mattis with a 98-1 vote. Click here to view the vote. President Trump earlier had signed a bill Congress passed granting Mattis an exception to the law prohibiting someone from being Defense Secretary if they had served in the military durning the prior 7 years.

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated James Mattis to be Secretary of Defense.

Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general who last served as chief of the U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013. He had previously led combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since his retirement, Mattis has worked as a paid speaker for FWA Consultants, and has been a member of the board of directors of defense contractor General Dynamics.  

Federal law forbids defense secretaries from having served in the military within the previous seven years. Congress can waive the requirement for a nominee, but that has happened only once, in 1950, for retired Army Gen. George C. Marshall.

For more about Mattis, read the New York Times story.

For more about the relationship between Mattis' recent military service and nomination to be Secretary of Defense, read the Los Angeles Times story.

Senate confirms Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary

Update 2017-Feb-13: The Senate confirmed Mnuchin by a vote of 53-47. Click here to view the vote.

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Steve Mnuchin to be Secretary of the Treasury.

Mnuchin runs Dune Capital, a privately owned hedge fund. Prior to that he worked for 17 years at Goldman Sachs investment bank, where he was a partner. He has no government experience.

In 2009, Mnuchin led the group that bought failed subprime lender IndyMac, renaming the bank OneWest. Over the next six years, Mnuchin and his fellow investors doubled their money. During that time the bank foreclosed on more than 35,000 mortgages - forcing families from their homes. Federal regulators charged the bank with filing false documents during foreclosures, and a judge accused it of "harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive" practices.

Mnuchin also was the executive producer of movies American Sniper and Mad Max: Fury Road.

For more on Mnuchin, read the Guardian UK story.

For more on Mnuchin's practices as head of One West, read the Telegraph story.

Update 2017-Jan-19:
Mnuchin failed to disclose $100 million in assets on disclosure documents required by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). He also did not mention his role as a director of an investment fund located in a tax haven.

For more, read the New York Times article.

Senate confirms Elaine Chao for Transportation Secretary

Update 2017-Jan-31: The Senate confirmed Chao by a vote of 93-6. Click here to view the vote.

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Elaine Chao to be Secretary of Transportation.

Chao was Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush. She previously had worked as a banker and then served as head of the Peace Corps, Deputy Secretary of Transportation, and CEO of the United Way of America. She also was a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.  

As labor secretary, Chao cut mine safety inspections before the 2006 Sago and 2007 Crandall Canyon mine disasters, in which 15 miners and rescue workers died.

The Government Accountability Office also found the Labor Department under Chao had inadequately investigated claims from workers over their employers failing to pay minimum wage or overtime pay.  

After her tenure as labor secretary, Chao returned to the Heritage Foundation, served on a number of corporate and nonprofit boards, and became a Fox News contributor.

Chao is married to Sen. Mitch McConnell.  

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Senate confirms Rep. Tom Price for HHS

Update 2017-Feb-10: The Senate confirmed Price by a vote of 52-47. Click here to view the vote.

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Rep. Tom Price to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Price is an orthopedic surgeon who has represented Georgia's 6th Congressional District since 2004, and chairs the House Budget Committee.

He has introduced legislation to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and supports privatizing Medicare. He has voted against providing federal funding to health-care plans that cover abortions, and has argued that health insurance shouldn't pay for birth control. 

Price is a former member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He also is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a group consisting of conservative physicians. According to a 2009 Mother Jones magazine report...

For more about Tom Price, read the New York Times story.

For more on Price's views on paying for contraceptives, read this Atlantic article.

To read the Mother Jones article about the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, click here.

Click here to read our summary of a bill written by Price to repeal Obamacare.

Senate confirms Nikki Haley for U.N. Ambassador

Update 2017-Jan-24: The Senate confirmed Haley by a vote of 96-4. Click here to view the vote.

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Haley served in the South Carolina State House of Representatives for six years. She was elected governor in 2010 and re-elected in 2014.

Haley has little foreign policy experience. As governor, she signed a law blocking a boycott movement against some Israeli companies. Approximately a dozen other states have enacted a similar laws - a policy backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Haley is a former member of ALEC.

For more about Haley's nomination, read the Guardian story.

Senate confirms Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary

Update 2017-Feb-7: The Senate confirmed DeVos. The vote in the Senate was tied 50-50, meaning that Vice President Mike Pence was needed to cast the tie-breaking vote. Click here to view the vote.

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education.

DeVos has no professional education experience. She is a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party.

She chaired the American Federation for Children, a dark money group that supports school voucher programs and charter schools nationwide, funneling donations from undisclosed sources to candidates who support school privatization, mostly at the state level. 

DeVos' father, Edgar Prince, co-founded the Family Research Council and the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, major financial backers of the religious right. Her husband, Richard DeVos Jr., is heir to the Amway multi-level marketing company fortune. The couple founded the Windquest Group investment firm.

DeVos and her relatives - including her brother Erik Prince, co-founder of the Blackwater private security company - have been major donors to the Republican Party for decades.

For more about Betsy DeVos, read the Washington Post story.

For more on the DeVos family donations, see this Center for Responsive Politics report.

Senate confirms Sen. Jeff Sessions for Atty General

Update 2017-Feb-8: The Senate confirmed Sessions. Click here to view the vote.

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Sen. Jeff Sessions to be Attorney General.

In 1986, the Senate rejected Sessions for a federal judgeship after testimony that he had made several racial comments.

In 2005, the Senate passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of 2006 to prevent torture by the U.S. military. Sessions was one of nine senators voting against the amendment.

For more, read the BBC story.

To read a transcript of part of Sessions' testimony at his 1986 confirmation hearing to be a federal judge, read this Huffington Post report.

Senate confirms Wilbur Ross for Commerce Secretary

Update 2017-Feb-27: The Senate confirmed Ross by a vote of 72-27. Click here to view the vote.

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated Wilbur Ross to be Secretary of Commerce.

Ross is a billionaire who made his fortune buying and selling distressed assets - from steel mills to coal mines. He headed Rothschild Inc.'s bankruptcy division for nearly a quarter-century before launching WL Ross & Co. in 2000. The firm purchased bankrupt companies, shed pension plans and slashed jobs, wages and benefits, and then sold the companies for large profits.  

On Jan. 2, 2006, an explosion killed 12 miners at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, which was operated by a subsidiary of Ross' International Coal Group. Federal safety inspectors had cited the mine for 208 violations the previous year.

In August, Ross' firm agreed to pay a $2.3 million fine in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over charges that it failed to disclose some fees it charged investors.

For more on Ross, read the Huffington Post story and this Miami Herald column.

You can read how Ross bought a large steel company that had just liquidated - so he did not have to pay retirees their earned pensions - in this Slate.com story.

Trump picks Reince Priebus to be his Chief of Staff

President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to be White House Chief of Staff.

The cabinet-level post does not require Senate confirmation.

Priebus was elected RNC chairman in 2011. He previously served as chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin and RNC general counsel. He ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2004.

Priebus, House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker grew up in the same area, and are longtime friends.

In the November 2010 elections in Wisconsin, Priebus, along with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), helped elect Walker to the governorship and Republicans to control of the state Assembly and Senate.

Click here to read how ALEC and other conservative groups influenced the 2010 Wisconsin election.

Senate confirms Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General

The Senate has confirmed Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General. She replaces Eric Holder - who resigned in September of last year but remained in office until a successor was confirmed.

Lynch's confirmation had been put on hold by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell until Senate Democrats and Republicans could agree on terms of an unrelated bill to fight human trafficking (see the related Lobby99 story.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Senate confirms Ashton Carter as Defense Secretary

Ashton Carter has been confirmed by the Senate to replace Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense.

For more, read the Guardian story.

Obama nominates Ashton Carter for Defense Secretary

President Obama has nominated Ashton Carter to replace Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

For more about Ashton Carter, read the New York Times story.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resigns

Chuck Hagel has announced his resignation as Secretary of Defense. He will remain in the position until his successor is named and confirmed by the Senate.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Obama nominates Loretta Lynch for Attorney General

President Obama has nominated New York Federal Prosecutor Loretta Lynch to succeed Eric Holder as Attorney General. Holder announced in September he would leave office as soon as a successor is confirmed by the Senate.

For more, read the New York Times story.

Attorney General Eric Holder announces resignation

Eric Holder will resign as Attorney General. He will remain in office until a replacement is chosen by the present and approved by the Senate.

For more on Holder and his record as attorney general, read the New York Times story.

Supreme Court: Obama recess appointments are unconstitutional

Appointments President Obama made to key agencies while the Senate was not in session were declared invalid by the Supreme Court.

The Constitution allows for such recess appointments. In the case of the four appointments the court nullified, however, a few Senate Republicans held pro forma sessions every few days. Each lasted just a few minutes, and were intended simply to prevent the Senate from officially going into recess.

Obama appointed Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and three members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Before the appointments, only 2 of the 5 positions on the NLRB were filled - meaning the board was powerless to resolve labor disputes. Likewise, the CFPB could not take decisive actions without a leader.

The short durations between these sessions were what made the appointments unconstitutional, the Court unanimously ruled. All decisions issued by both agencies while they consisted of improperly appointed members became invalid.

There is no practical effect on the CFPB because Cordray later was confirmed by the Senate after Democrats voted to disallow silent filibusters on most presidential appointments (read our prior story, and Cordray reviewed all of his previous decisions once his appointment became valid.

The NLRB, however, will need to review hundreds of labor disputes that were ruled on by the improperly appointed members.

For a better understanding, read our discussion of this case, NLRB v. Noel Canning. Also, see the right sidebar for a link to our discussion of how presidential appointments work (and sometimes don't work).

For more, read the New York Times story.

You also read our story on the lower court decision that the Supreme Court upheld in this case.

Senate confirms Hagel as Secretary of Defense

The Senate has confirmed Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, ending a nearly two-month process that included an unprecedented filibuster.

The vote to confirm Hagel, a twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran and former Republican senator, was 58-41.

Hagel's qualifications had little to do with why his nomination was held up for so long. At first, Republicans said they wanted the Obama administration to provide more information about the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, before they would confirm Hagel. Hagel had no role in that attack, which killed four Americans.

After the administration delivered more information about Benghazi, Republicans led by freshman Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas demanded that Hagel provide more documents about his personal finances since he left the Senate four years ago.

The stated reasons for the delay appeared disingenuous in light of statements made by Sen. John McCain. "I just want to make it clear. Sen. Hagel is an honorable man. He served his country. And no one on this committee, at any time, should impugn his character or his integrity," McCain said during a Senate confirmation hearing for Hagel.

However, echoing the stated dislike of Hagel by some Republicans, McCain also said in an interview, "It goes back to there's a lot of ill will towards Sen. Hagel because, when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly - at one point said he was the worst president since Herbert Hoover, said the surge (sending thousands of extra troops to Iraq) was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which is nonsense, and was very anti his own party and people. People don't forget that."

Note: Lobby99 condemns this behavior. We expect elected representatives to use their positions to act in the best interests of their constituents - not to settle a political or personal score.

A motion to end the filibuster failed Feb. 14 by one vote. It was the first time a presidential appointee for secretary of defense had been filibustered and only the third time a cabinet nominee had been blocked. On Tuesday, however, 18 Republicans joined 53 Democrats in voting to end the filibuster and allow Hagel's nomination to proceed to a yes-or-no vote.

Meanwhile, John Brennan's confirmation as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also is being delayed by senators demanding more information about the Benghazi attacks and the use of drones to kill al-Qaida suspects overseas.

For more information about filibusters and Lobby99's approach to encouraging the Senate to focus on real issues rather than political gamesmanship, click the link in the right sidebar.

Republican senators filibuster Hagel nomination

Republican senators have filibustered Chuck Hagel's nomination, the first time that's ever happened to a presidential appointee for secretary of defense and only the third time a cabinet nominee has been blocked.

A cloture motion to end the filibuster, requiring 60 votes to pass, failed by one vote Thursday. The final tally was 58-40, but only because Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid switched his vote from yes to no so he can bring up the nomination again.

Without the filibuster, Hagel would be confirmed easily by a simple majority. And he still probably will be.

With Democrats holding a 55-seat majority in the Senate, at least five Republicans also will have to vote in favor of allowing the nomination to proceed. Four of them did so on Thursday.

At least three more - John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Richard Burr - said they just want more time and might vote to end the filibuster when the Senate returns from recess the week of Feb. 25. But that depends on what Hagel opponents are able to dig up in the meantime.

Hagel, a former Republican senator and Vietnam combat veteran, has come under fire for some of his comments about Iran and Israel, and his opposition to the Iraq war.

Still, the main reason Hagel's nomination was blocked has nothing to do with his qualifications.

Graham and McCain said they want the Obama administration to provide more information about the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, before they will confirm Hagel.

Hagel had no role in that attack, which killed four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Meanwhile, the confirmation of John Brennan as director of the CIA also is being used as leverage by senators demanding more information about the Benghazi attacks and the use of drones to kill al-Qaida suspects overseas.

Court overturns Obama recess appointments

The District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that President Barack Obama exceeded his constitutional authority when he named three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) last year.

The ruling came in a lawsuit that had been filed by a Pepsi-Cola bottler in Washington State. After the NLRB ruled against the company in a labor dispute, the company sued - claiming that three of the five board members had been appointed unconstitutionally.

Obama had appointed Sharon Block, Terence F. Flynn and Richard E. Griffin to the labor relations board. He similarly appointed Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Senate Republicans had blocked their nominations.

Facing a likely filibuster, Obama made the appointments in January 2012, when the Senate was on a 20-day break. Article 2, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution allows for appointments to be made without Senate confirmation when the Senate is not in session.

But Republican senators staged brief sessions every three days during the break. These pro forma sessions often last only a few minutes, but they are enough to keep the Senate nominally in session - thus preventing recess appointments. Both parties have used this tactic in the past.

The impasse had little to do with the nominees' qualifications. Republican senators vowed to filibuster any appointments to the consumer protection bureau until the administration made major changes to the agency's structure, including replacing the director with a board. All but one voted to kill Cordray's nomination in December 2011.

The five-member NLRB had lost its quorum of three members and could no longer issue rulings and regulations, effectively shutting it down. In 2011 it had accused Boeing of unfair labor practices, and Republicans and business groups said the board was union-friendly and anti-business.

The White House is expected to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. If this ruling stands, recess appointments would virtually be eliminated. The three-judge panel ruled that the Constitution only allows recess appointments during the break between Senate sessions, and only to vacancies created during those breaks. At the time the Constitution was written, these breaks could last six months.

The two permanent judges on the panel, Karen Henderson and Thomas Griffith, were appointed by presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

For more, read the New York Times story.