Amid Russia scrutiny, Trump associates received informal Ukraine policy proposal

President Trump’s personal lawyer and a former business partner met with a member of the Ukrainian parliament to discuss a peace plan for that country that could give Russia long-term control over territory it seized in 2014 and lead to the lifting of sanctions against Moscow.

• By Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman

• Amid scrutiny of President Trump’s possible ties to Russia, his lawyer advanced a plan for resolving its conflict with Ukraine.
• While there is nothing illegal about such efforts, a proposal that seems to tip toward Russian interests may set off alarms.

Trump is putting on a great circus, but what about his promises?

WASHINGTON POST, Fareed Zakaria

Trump says he ‘inherited a mess,’ blasts media and detractors

In a sprawling news conference, President Trump seemed to acknowledge widespread reports of turbulence emanating out of his West Wing, only to claim that his White House — which so far has been marred by staff infighting, a controversial travel ban, false statements, and myriad leaks — was operating seamlessly.

By Ashley Parker and John Wagner  •  Read more » It was “insane,” a “marathon rant” at the media, and “a press conference for the ages.” These were the terms that Fox Business Channel’s Charles Gasparino, the home page of the New York Post, and Fox News’s Shepard Smith used, respectively, to describe the performance that Donald Trump put on during a press conference in the East Room of the White House on Thursday. CONTINUE READING » Campaigning like it’s 2016: Trump stuck in time warp As President Trump seeks to steer his young administration through what is shaping up to be a test of his capacity to govern, he seems unable to put the election behind him. By Karen Tumulty  •  Read more »

The Republican Congress cannot be trusted to investigate the Russia Connection.

WASHINGTON POST

Flynn in FBI interview denied discussing sanctions with Russian ambassador

Michael Flynn, who resigned as the national security adviser this week, contradicted the contents of intercepted communications collected by intelligence agencies, current and former U.S. officials said. The Jan. 24 interview potentially puts Flynn in legal jeopardy, as lying to the FBI is a felony, but any decision to prosecute would ultimately lie with the Justice Department.

• By Sari Horwitz and Adam Entous

THE TRUE HISTORY OF FAKE NEWS

ROBERT DARNTON, NY REVIEW OF BOOKS

Upheaval is now standard operating procedure in the White House Once dismissed as growing pains, the chaos that was one of Donald Trump’s trademarks in business and campaigning now threatens to plague his presidency, according to interviews with a dozen White House officials and other Republicans. By Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker  •  Read more »

Do voter identification laws suppress minority voting? Yes. We did the research.

WASHINGTON POST

It’s bigger than Flynn. New Russia revelations widen Trump’s credibility gap.

WASHINGTON POST

Federal immigration raids net many without criminal records, sowing fear

The U.S. government said the series of ICE raids last week netted at least 683 “criminal aliens,” but advocates point to a sharp discrepancy between what ICE says it’s doing and what immigrants are reporting in cities across the nation.

• By Arelis R. Hernández, Wesley Lowery and Abigail Hauslohner

-- “Federal immigration raids net many without criminal records, sowing fear,” by Arelis R. Hernández, Wesley Lowery and Abigail Hauslohner: “Oscar Ramirez and Thermon Brewster walked out of the Rising Hope United Methodist Mission Church just before 7 a.m. — when those who sleep at its homeless shelter must leave for the day. Outside the church in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, Va., U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were waiting. As the two men and others crossed the street toward a shopping center on Feb. 8, about a dozen ICE agents ordered them up against the wall of a grocery store, questioning them about their immigration status. According to Ramirez and Brewster, the ICE agents then indiscriminately arrested seven of the homeless men — all of them Hispanic — and packed them into a van full of other detainees…

“The U.S. government said the series of ICE raids last week netted at least 683 ‘criminal aliens,’ the first major immigration enforcement wave under President Trump. But a growing chorus of activists, lawyers and lawmakers have pointed to a sharp discrepancy between what ICE says it is doing and what immigrant families are seeing and reporting in cities across the nation:

• In Chicago, a student called her high school teacher to tell him that ICE had raided her home the night before, arresting her father, an undocumented immigrant whose criminal record included only traffic violations, the teacher said.
• In Centreville, Va., a woman told officials at London Towne Elementary School that a student’s father had been arrested after dropping their son off at school that morning.
• In the Baltimore parking lot of a Walgreens, ICE agents arrested a barber and a local business owner who advocates said also had no criminal records.
• ICE has arrested at least one DACA recipient during the raids. ICE says the man, Daniel Ramirez Medina, is a "gang member."

10 unanswered questions after Michael Flynn’s resignation.

WASHINGTON POST

Trump undertakes most ambitious regulatory rollback since Reagan

As the administration targets dozens of Obama-era policies, business leaders are thrilled. But the campaign has alarmed labor unions, safety advocates and environmental activists as the fallout ripples across the country. By Juliet Eilperin  •  Read more »

Flynn departure erupts into crisis for White House.

For 14 days, Trump kept his No. 2 in the dark. What does that mean for Pence?

The question that legislators are trying to figure out, a Republican said, is if the vice president — like most everyone else — is simply a victim to a rash and erratic president, or if he is deliberately being shut out by senior White House advisers.

Pedro Hernandez Found Guilty in Kidnap, Murder of Etan Patz.

A 55-year-old man, Pedro Hernandez, was found guilty on Tuesday of kidnapping and murdering 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York in 1979. Prosecutors alleged that Hernandez coaxed Patz, who was waiting at a bus stop in SoHo, into following him into a basement, where he choked Patz to death and disposed of the body. A previous case against Hernandez resulted in a hung jury after one juror refused to vote in favor of conviction. Patz’s body has never been found.

READ IT AT NBC NEW YORK

Report: Trump Aides, Russian Intel Spoke.

According to a report in The New York Times, four current and former American officials contend that members of President Trump's campaign staff and other associates of Trump had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials during the year before the 2016 election. Three of the officials contend that American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the time they were finding evidence that Russia was involved in hacking of the Democratic National Committee. One of the advisers who was allegedly on the calls was former campaign manager Paul Manafort. “This is absurd,” Manafort said in response to the allegations. “I have no idea what this is referring to. I have never knowingly spoken to Russian intelligence officers, and I have never been involved with anything to do with the Russian government or the Putin administration or any other issues under investigation today.” He added: “It’s not like these people wear badges that say, ‘I’m a Russian intelligence officer.’”

READ IT AT THE NEW YORK TIMES

Hannah Arendt Called Out Trump’s Lies Decades Ago

DAILY BEAST

Embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn resigns.

The US national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned late on Monday night amid a flow of intelligence leaks that he had secretly discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador to Washington and then tried to cover up the conversations.

The resignation, with the Trump era less than four weeks old, is the latest and most dramatic convulsion in the most chaotic start to an administration in modern US history.

It was far from clear whether Flynn’s departure would steady an inexperienced and feuding White House, or resolve the lingering suspicions about the Trump team’s pre-election contacts with the Kremlin.

The White House issued a statement just after 11pm in Washington announcing the resignation, shortly after reports broke that the Trump administration had been warned weeks ago that Flynn might be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

The resignation comes after reports that Flynn had misled the vice president by saying he did not discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the United States. In his resignation letter to Trump, Flynn defended his conversations with the ambassador but said he had “inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information.”

• • 
    
• By Greg Miller and Philip Rucker

Justice Dept. warned that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

The acting attorney general informed the Trump administration late last month of her concerns, current and former U.S. officials said. They also said that although they believed Pence was misled about Flynn’s communications with the ambassador, they couldn’t rule out that Flynn was acting with the knowledge of others in the transition.

• By Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Philip Rucker

We are not better than this. We are this.

NEW YORKER

* PRICE IS CONFIRMED, GIVING NEW PUSH TO REPEAL: 

Early Friday morning, the Senate confirmed Tom Price as health and human services secretary, and Politico comments:

The bitter opposition to Price’s nomination … served as a preview of the fight to come over the future of American health care. And Price could well start that fight immediately by using his authority as secretary to roll back or not enforce select pieces of Obamacare — the mandated benefit package, perhaps, or the hot-button birth control coverage rules.

While repeal has run into trouble, make no mistake: The undermining and repeal of large chunks of the law is still moving forward, and what happens after that remains a mystery.

TRUMP IN NEW YORK: tHE yEARS uP TO 2017..

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS