Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham announced his resignation on Monday, ending his term nearly a year before it ends.
Why it matters: Dillingham's resignation comes a week after multiple employee whistleblowers told the bureau's internal watchdog that they were under pressure to gather and publish rushed data on documented and undocumented immigrants.
In episode one of How It Happened: Trump's Last Stand, Axios political correspondent Jonathan Swan draws a direct line from President Trump's election night speech, in which he falsely declared victory, to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
But, but, but: The story really starts in early October, as Trump is recovering from COVID-19 and struggling to turn around a flailing campaign.
Go deeper: New episodes come out Mondays, beginning January 18.
Credits: This show is produced by Amy Pedulla, Naomi Shavin and Alice Wilder. Dan Bobkoff is the executive producer. Additional reporting and fact-checking by Zach Basu. Margaret Talev is managing editor of politics. Sara Kehaulani Goo is Axios’s executive editor. Sound design by Alex Sugiura and theme music by Michael Hanf.
Dominion Voting Systems on Monday sent a cease and desist letter to My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell over his spread of misinformation related to the 2020 election.
Why it matters: Trump and several of his allies have pushed false conspiracy theories about the company, leading Dominion to take legal action. It's suing pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell for defamation and $1.3 billion in damages, and a Dominion employee has sued Trump himself, OANN and Newsmax.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris submitted her resignation from her seat in the U.S. Senate on Monday, two days before she will be sworn into her new role.
What's next: California Gov. Gavin Newsom has selected California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to serve out the rest of Harris' term, which ends in 2022.
New York City's Empire State Building will be among hundreds of landmarks and buildings to light up across the U.S. on the eve of Joe Biden's inauguration to honor the nearly 400,000 American lives lost to COVID-19.
Driving the news: Tuesday's event is one of several planned by the Presidential Inaugural Committee to mark the occasion while avoiding crowds gathering in Washington, D.C., during the pandemic.
President-elect Joe Biden has selected FTC commissioner Rohit Chopra to be the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Obama-era Wall Street regulator Gary Gensler to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Why it matters: Both picks are progressive allies of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and viewed as likely to take aggressive steps to regulate big business.
Between the lines: For fringe organizers, those platforms may provide more security than open social networks, but they make it harder to recruit new members.
Efforts to save the office where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., planned some of the most important moments of the civil rights movement are hitting roadblocks amid a political stalemate.
Why it matters: The U.S. Park Service needs to OK agreements so a developer restoring the historic Prince Hall Masonic Lodge in Atlanta — which once housed King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference — can tap into private funding and begin work.
A New Mexico County commissioner who founded the "Cowboys for Trump" group was arrested and charged Sunday in connection with the U.S. Capitol insurrection, after returning to Washington, D.C., to participate in inauguration protests, the Justice Department said.
What they're saying: Couy Griffin, of Otero County, N.M., told FBI agents he got "caught up" in the Capitol siege and remained outside the building, but video posted to his Facebook page shows him in restricted areas of the complex, according to an affidavit.
Small groups of protesters gathered outside fortified statehouses across the U.S. over the weekend ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration Wednesday.
The big picture: Some protests attracted armed members of far-right extremist groups but there were no reports of clashes, as had been feared. The National Guard and law enforcement outnumbered demonstrators, as security was heightened around the U.S. to avoid a repeat of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots, per AP.
President Trump plans to issue at least 100 pardons and commutations on his final full day in office Tuesday, an administration official told Axios.
Why it matters: This is a continuation of the president's controversial December spree that saw full pardons granted to more than two dozen people — including former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, longtime associate Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Capitalizing on the Georgia runoffs, achieving a 50-50 Senate and launching an impeachment trial are weighty to-dos for getting Joe Biden's administration up and running on Day One.
What to watch: A blend of ceremonies, hearings and legal timelines will come into play on Tuesday and Wednesday so Chuck Schumer can actually claim the Senate majority and propel the new president's agenda.
