I checked in with Chuck Grassley, the powerful Senate Judiciary Chairman, who's been twisting arms for his (and Dick Durbin's) Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act .
Why it matters: Grassley-Durbin is the most ambitious bipartisan criminal justice reform bill out there. On Thursday, the Judiciary Committee will vote on it. Little known fact:20 senators are co-sponsors.
The Senate will do something highly unusual on Monday.
In the words of a senior Senate aide, Mitch McConnell will effectively tell his colleagues: "Listen boys and girls, you all have lots of different ideas about what should be done on immigration. So put your big boy and big girl pants on, and put your ideas on the floor for a vote. Do your best; try to get to 60 votes to pass a bill."
The Trump administration is considering turning the International Space Station into a private enterprise, The Washington Post reports, citing an internal NASA document it has obtained. The document also says the White House plans to stop providing government funding for the orbiting laboratory after 2024.
What we're hearing: Bob Jacobs, a senior NASA spokesperson, didn't deny the report when contacted by Axios. He said it cannot be confirmed ahead of the White House budget release on Monday.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told ABC's This Week that President Trump asked her to emphasize on the Sunday shows that he has full confidence in Chief of Staff John Kelly. Trump has confidence in his communications director, Hope Hicks, too, she said.
The backdrop: There have been reports that Kelly could lose his job over the controversy surrounding staff secretary Rob Porter's exit from the White House. Kelly defended Porter after allegations of domestic violence and Hicks, who had been dating Porter, wrote the White House statement about the aide's resignation.
"Nixon fired the man investigating him. Will Trump? ... Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein look back on the [1973] Saturday Night Massacre," adapted from their 1976 book, "The Final Days" — Lead of WashPost Outlook section:
"We’re here again. A powerful and determined president is squaring off against an independent investigator operating inside the Justice Department."
"As the Senate prepares to begin a free-wheeling debate over immigration next week, White House officials have begun floating a possible compromise idea — a pledge to maintain legal immigration at current levels, about 1.1 million people a year, for more than a decade," the L.A. Times' Brian Bennett reports on A1:
"[A] White House official said [yesterday] that the Trump administration is working with allies in the Senate on a proposal that would create a path to citizenship for an estimated 1.8 million people who were brought to the country illegally as children, and that would clear the backlog of nearly 4 million sponsored relatives who currently are waiting for green cards."
President Trump blasted "THE SWAMP" over a New York Times story that revealed American intelligence officials paid $100,000 in an attempt to retrieve stolen NSA cyberweapons from a Russian who also claimed to have "compromising material on President Trump."
Key lines from the report: "Several American intelligence officials said they made clear that they did not want the Trump material from the Russian ... The United States intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the American government."
White House Communications Director "Hope Hicks, the discreet aide always at President Trump’s side whose desk is just outside the Oval Office, ... has worked with Trump longer than anyone he is not related to at the White House," the WashPost's Mary Jordan and Josh Dawsey write.
Why she matters: "Hicks wields considerable power as Trump’s gatekeeper and is often the last to see him every day as she walks him back to his residence."
President Trump tweeted a vague defense this morning of those accused of sexual misconduct and abuse, stating that “lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation.”
Why it matters: This follows two White House staffers leaving this week over domestic abuse claims, and Trump has a long history of defending those close to him accused of sexual harassment or abuse — often reiterating that they are “fine” people — and it far outpaces his statements in support of accusers.
"The last seven weeks amount to a sea change in United States economic policy. The era of fiscal austerity is over, and the era of big deficits is back," the N.Y. Times' Neil Irwin writes.
Why it matters: In the long run, "The bigger costs of a high national debt may come in how much flexibility policymakers have to respond to a future recession or crisis. If the United States finds itself in a major war or a deep recession, its starting point in terms of debt load will be much higher than it was at the onset of the Iraq War or the 2008 financial crisis."
In less than a week, months of progress in bringing order to President Trump's West Wing have been reversed.
The resignation of Staff Secretary Rob Porter has brought back many of the chaotic characteristics of the early months, according to conversations we have been having.
After President Trump declined last night to declassify the response that House Intelligence Democrats had prepared to the Nunes memo, he tweeted this morning that Democrats had sent him a document rife with "sources and methods" that they knew he'd have to reject or heavily redact.
Yes, but: Trump's criticisms echo the concerns voiced by Democratic officials and law enforcement agencies about the Nunes memo before its release. The FBI said in a rare statement that the agency had "grave concerns about material omissions of fact" in the Republican memo.
The Democratic memo is not being declassified at this time, a White House letter reveals, though President Trump "is inclined" to do so.
Why it matters: Trump said earlier on Friday that the memo would "be released soon." According to the letter, addressed to Rep. David Nunes from White House counsel Don McGahn, the Justice Department "has identified portions...it believes would create especially significant concerns for the national security."
