The Senate Ethics Committee issued a scathing letter on Thursday, rebuking Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) for repeatedly accepting gifts and advocating for a donor's personal and business interests.
What they’re saying: Menendez, who was embroiled in a bribery and corruption case that ended last fall after a jury deadlocked, has been ordered to repay the market value of all impermissible gifts not already repaid. "This letter, you are hereby severely admonished,” the panel concluded.
The Senate confirmed an entirely new set of members to the five-person Federal Trade Commission on Thursday.
Why it matters: The FTC is the primary agency tasked with policing internet companies when it comes to privacy. It has been operating without a majority of commissioners over the last year, as calls have grown for more government scrutiny of data privacy at giants like Facebook and Google.
In a bipartisan vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to send a bill designed to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller to the full Senate.
The details: The bill passed the committee with a 14-7 vote — with Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, and Thom Tillis voting in favor along with all of the committee's Democrats. Per The New York Times, the bill would give "any special counsel a 10-day window to seek expedited judicial review of a firing and would put into law existing Justice Department regulations that a special counsel must be fired for good cause." However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already said he wouldn't bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote.
In an expansive interview with the hosts of Fox & Friends this morning, President Trump addressed some of the biggest issues of his presidency, publicly using Stormy Daniels' name for the first time and providing additional details on his potential upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Between the lines: Trump was clearly in his element. He held forth so freely that it was the Fox & Friends hosts who had to end the call after half an hour, telling the president, "We could talk to you all day, but it looks like you have a million things to do."
Ronny Jackson has withdrawn his nomination as President Trump's nominee for VA Secretary, calling the allegations against him of alcohol abuse and overprescription of medication "false and fabricated."
Why it matters: While Jackson's withdrawal rids the White House of one looming headache, it resets Trump's search for a new head of the executive branch's second-largest department back to square one. However, it seems that President Trump wasn't surprised by Jackson's decision, telling Fox & Friends during an interview this morning: "I even told him a day or two ago. I saw where this was going."
"As a light rain trickled down Wednesday, Republican members of Congress returned to a baseball field where a gunman critically wounded teammate Rep. Steve Scalise and shattered their sense of security nearly a year ago," USA Today's Deborah Barfield Barry reports.
Today is an emotional day. But it's also a rebirth, a renewal. I'm proud of the team.
— Texas Rep. Joe Barton, manager of the Republican congressional baseball team
White House sources tell Axios that they expect White House physician Ronny Jackson to withdraw as President Trump's nominee to run the Veterans Affairs Department, after Democrats on Capitol Hill circulated harsh new allegations.
What we're hearing,from a senior administration source: “There’s no question about whether the White House will stand by him. There is a question about how much longer he wants to put himself through it.”
Democrats have a real shot at winning two of the three Senate seats where Republicans are most vulnerable in the midterm elections, according to a new Axios/SurveyMonkey poll.
The bottom line: The poll provides new evidence that Republicans' hold on the Senate may not be as solid as it once looked. Democrats could win the open Arizona seat and possibly defeat Republican incumbent Dean Heller in Nevada. The third race, in Tennessee, is a statistical tie.
Senator Jon Tester's office released a detailed summary of allegations against Ronny Jackson, Trump's pick to head the Veterans Affairs Department, on Wednesday, which range from claims of recklessly dispensing drugs to crashing a government vehicle while drunk — though Jackson denies the latter ever happened, per the AP.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is demanding former Congressman Blake Farenthold to "cover all costs" of the June 30 special election to fill the seat he left vacant upon his resignation earlier this month amid scrutiny over a 2015 settlement he made with his former communications director who claimed he sexually harassed her the year prior.
The details: In a letter sent Wednesday, the Republican governor urged Farenthold to pay back the $84,000 in taxpayer funds used to settle the claim "to the counties in [his] district to cover the costs of the ... special election," adding that "the counties and taxpayers ... should not again pay the price for your actions.”
The Department of Homeland Security plans to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that gave 9,000 Nepalese nationals legal residency in the U.S. following the devastating earthquake which took place three years ago today, the Washington Post reported.
Why it matters: DHS has already ended these permits for 200,000 Salvadorans, 50,000 Haitians, and for thousands of Nicaraguans and the Sudanese. The Nepal TPS has been in place for a much shorter period of time, but a Trump official told the Post that TPS was "never intended to afford long-term residency to foreigners."
Democratic candidates have exceeded expectations in each special election since President Trump took office, which included dramatic wins for Rep. Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania and Sen Doug Jones in Alabama.
Behind the numbers: To take the House, Democrats have to beat the partisan leans calculated by Cook Political Report in each district by an average of 4 points, analyst Dave Wasserman says. Even if the Alabama Senate race — in which Jones beat expectations by 15 points — is discounted as a special case given Roy Moore's troubles, Democrats have over-performed by 6% to 12% in recent special elections.
A new academic study finds that Trump voters' anxiety was driven more by fear of what may come than by anger over the past, according to a New York Times account by Niraj Chokshi that shot to #1 on the site's Most Popular list.
The big picture: Economic anxiety was cited as a reason why Trump voters supported him despite any misgivings or doubts they had about him, but this study suggests that may not have been the case.
At this point it's very difficult to imagine a scenario in which Ronny Jackson is the next Veterans Affairs secretary.
The latest: Senators from both parties spent the day yesterday throwing cold water on Jackson's nomination. And after a trickle of loose and vague suggestions of inappropriate conduct, CNN's Juana Summers and Manu Raju scooped some details last night.
Top Republicans have conceded for months that they're likely lose the House in November's midterms. But some well-wired operatives now tell Axios that President Trump may face his real nightmare: losing the Senate, giving Democrats both ends of the Capitol, and one-third of the government.
Why it matters: It's not just that Democratic dominance at the Capitol would speed impeachment proceedings and trap the White House in a thicket of oversight probes and hearings. Twin losses would be a massive repudiation of Trump and his brand of Republicanism, just as he embarks on his reelection.
The Supreme Court has mostly been able to stay insulated from Trumpworld — it hasn’t had to grapple with the impulses and contradictions that tie the rest of official Washington in knots. But that will likely have to change today as the court takes up President Trump’s travel ban.
Between the lines: It’s no big surprise to see a president’s signature policies land at the Supreme Court, but the travel-ban case is uniquely tied up with Trump’s haphazard policymaking process, and with the tug of war between the president and his administration. The justices will even have to decide how much they care about Trump’s tweets.
Former Republican State Senator Debbie Lesko has secured the victory in Arizona's eighth district against her Democrat opponent, Hiral Tipirneni, 52.9% to 47.1%, reports the New York Times.
Why it matters: President Trump, who endorsed Lesko, won the district by 20 points, per the Times. Republicans poured money into the district after a hot streak from Democrats in recent special elections, although the district wasn't expected to flip.
