President Trump's head lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, wrote a memo to the special counsel last June which referred to former FBI Director James Comey as "Machiavellian," and "unbounded by law and regulation," according to the Associated Press which obtained the letter.
The big picture: Comey is seen as a "critical witness against the president," and undermining his credibility has been a frequent goal from the Trump camp. Kasowitz says in the 13-page document that Comey put his "own personal interests and emotions" above FBI rules by embellishing his statement before Congress, the AP reports, and therefore shouldn't be trusted by the special counsel as a witness.
A judge denied the Trump administration's request to extend the deadline to reunite families that had been separated at the border, the Associated Press reports, demanding that the government "must comply with the time frame unless there is an articulable reason."
The details: U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw said that by Saturday afternoon, the administration must share a list of the 101 children under five years old that still needed to be reunited with the American Civil Liberties Union. The deadline in place for reuniting children under five is July 10, per the AP, and a Justice Department attorney Sarah Fabian told the AP that the government "has matched 86 parents to 83 children and 16 are not yet matched."
Why it matters: The Trump administration has broken records for the most White House departures in a presidency just a year and a half in to taking the oath of office. Meanwhile, juicy leaks, gossip and insider reporting on the administration's internal chaos has become standard. Take a look at the hires and fires since Trump took office.
Special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors plan to present evidence at former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's trial that a banking executive who was after a role in the Trump campaign, "helped Manafort obtain loans of more than $6 million," CNN reports.
The details: Per CNN, the prosecutors' court filing says that the executive "expressed interest in working on the Trump campaign, told (Manafort) his interest, and eventually secured a position advising the Trump campaign." The prosecutors say in their filing that despite Manafort's "serious issues" on his loan application, the executive "interceded in the process and approved the loan."
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said on Friday in a hearing over family separation that DNA tests being used to reunited families should be removed from U.S. government databases, CNN reports.
"The government, I gather, is saying we’re going to DNA every single person and it’s gonna delay things. We would say that DNA is a last resort. … It shouldn’t be done in every case, but if it is being done in every case, we would ask that it be used only for reunification and then expunged because I don’t know that we want to be creating a database of all these people.”
Rep. Jim Jordan continued to deny that he knew of any sexual assault allegations at Ohio State University on Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier, saying "[w]e would've dealt with it if we knew of anything that happened."
The details: Four former OSU wrestlers have come forward saying that Jordan knew of abuse from the team doctor. Jordan told Baier that the people who have come forward "know what they're saying is not accurate," and that "[w]e're going to get the truth out." Jordan also speculated that his political prominence was behind the allegations, saying that "the timing is suspect when you think about how this whole story came together after the Rosenstein hearing and the speakers race."
Prosecutors moved Friday to dismiss the remaining cases against 38 people who received rioting charges during President Trump's inauguration, the Washington Post reports.
The details: 234 people had been arrested and charged, the Post reports, and of that group, 21 pleaded guilty. Charges against another 150 people were dropped after "the first six defendants to go to trial were acquitted," leading to more cases being dismissed over time. Jurors said they "weren't convinced the defendants participated in vandalism," and weren't able to positively identify the accused in videos or photos provided by prosecutors.
Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo lambasted the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday after being denied entry into a government facility holding migrant children, despite originally being approved for the visit, the Daily Beast reports.
"[I]f they're confident in the work that they're doing, they should welcome us in. It was highly disappointing and I think they're claiming that they have a lot of work and getting a lot of requests. I don't feel sorry for them. That's what we pay them to do...We fund these facilities. We fund the salaries of everyone who works at these facilities."
Hours after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters that the agency would comply with the deadline imposed by a court order to reunite migrant families, the Trump administration filed a request for more time in cases where it is difficult to match migrant children with their parents.
The big picture: The Trump administration is now working to reunite roughly 3,000 migrant children who have been placed in the custody of HHS with their parents — both those who were separated under the zero-tolerance policy and before. So far, they have matched 40 parents in immigration custody with some of the 101 children under 5 years old, and another 9 parents have been located in criminal custody, the Washington Post reports.
Newly released court documents explain that President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort is being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day ahead of his July 25 trial, citing that his safety cannot be guaranteed otherwise while in prison.
The big picture: Manafort's bail was revoked by a judge, and his legal team is currently appealing that decision arguing that being imprisoned in such a manner at a facility two hours away from his legal team is hampering his ability to defend himself. Manafort has been indicted on charges including money laundering and bank fraud.
At least 40 immigrants who had enlisted in the U.S. Army have been booted from the military, losing their chance at qualifying for citizenship, the AP reports.
Why it matters: The number of immigrant reservists and recruits being discharged from the Army appears to be a trend, but there is no clear indication that there has been any policy change under the Trump administration. Immigrants who serve in the military still receive citizenship.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, went after President Trump in a tweet on Thursday for mocking George H.W. Bush's "thousand points of light" monicker during a rally in Montana.
A senior administration official tells Axios that Environmental Protection Administration chief Scott Pruitt, who handed his resignation yesterday, "ultimately lost the war of attrition":
"If the people who've been covering for him start turning on him under oath, you know you've got a problem."
President Trump's harsh blast at NATO during a rally last night in Helena, Mont., was Europeans’ worst nightmare come to life, Western diplomatic sources tell Jonathan Swan and me:
Trump portrayed the alliance as one-sided, transactional and bad for the U.S., and seemed to suggest that U.S. military support is conditional on the Germans paying more, calling out “Angela" — the German chancellor.
President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida has asked the federal government for permission to hire 40 foreign workers to serve as waiters, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department.
Why it matters: The request conflicts with Trump’s criticism of foreign workers he said are taking away jobs away from Americans. Under the current request, if approved, workers will be paid $12.68 an hour and employed from from October to the end of May 2019. The application request was first reported by BuzzFeed.
