The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has spoken and…it will not lift the temporary restraining order on President Trump’s travel restriction executive order. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously Thursday evening that the federal government did not present a compelling case in its effort to receive an emergency stay on the restraining order.
This is, as the White House has been stressing all week, a ruling on the specific issue of lifting the restraining order—not on the merits of the executive order itself, which the court will consider later. But the decision is a PR blow to the Trump administration, which has seen the full-speed pace of its early days decelerate almost entirely because of the fallout from this executive order.
Protests, lawsuits, restraining orders: These things may have been unavoidable no matter what Trump did to fulfill his “extreme vetting” campaign promise. But the poor execution of the travel restriction is giving Trump’s opponents ample opportunity—however dubious the justification—to thwart him. The administration’s reaction so far is overweening confidence in their case and their righteousness. But does the Trump White House have a plan B when the institutions of Washington and government push back hard enough?
Jared Kushner, IT Guy
There’s little known about the White House’s Strategic Initiatives Group, an in-house confederation of “task forces” that’s primarily the brainchild of senior counselor Stephen Bannon. Josh Rogin at the Washington Post summarized the origin of the SIG recently:
Gorka, who has also been serving as a frequent TV surrogate for the adminstration’s national-security policies, is heading up the SIG’s cybersecurity task force, according to a White House source. The same source says Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, is in charge of the task force reforming the federal government’s information technology practices. There are several other task forces covering domestic and foreign policy.
What is the SIG’s placement within the power structure of the White House? Despite its association with Bannon, the group also answers to Kushner and chief of staff Reince Priebus. How true that is in practice—and how much the SIG’s long-term purview creeps into the spaces of more established White House offices, like the National Security Council—remains to be seen.
So far, the SIG has a total staff of about 20, with 4 or 5 more positions left to be filled. That’s relatively small compared to the hundreds of staff working for the NSC.
The Counselor Becomes the Counseled
Top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway may be in hot water. Or maybe she’s not? It’s hard to tell what internal communication has happened since Conway appeared on Fox News Thursday morning. Speaking to host Steve Doocy about the controversy over Nordstrom’s decision to drop Ivanka Trump’s fashion line from its stores—and President Trump’s tweet condemning the retailer for doing so—Conway encouraged Americans to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff.”
“I own some of it,” she said of the president’s daughter’s clothing line. “I fully, I’m gonna just going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today everybody. You can find it online.”
The statement immediately raised eyebrows. Was this—a high-ranking public official hawking the personal business of a direct relative of the president—a violation of ethics rules? It was enough to prompt Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight committee, to say Conway’s statement was “unacceptable” and “clearly over the line.” (Awkward wrinkle: Chaffetz just met with President Trump at the White House on Tuesday.)
When asked about the incident Thursday afternoon at the daily press briefing, Sean Spicer cryptically said Conway had been “counseled” after her appearance. What does that mean? With a smaller group of reporters after the briefing, Spicer refused to comment any further, simply repeating that she had been counseled. Was that a reprimand? A warning? A remedial course on ethics? Was it from the White House counsel’s office? Chief of staff Reince Priebus? The president himself?
Conway herself declined to explain any further what her “counseling” was, telling Fox News’s Martha MacCallum Thursday night “I am not going to comment on that…I actually had nothing more to say about it.” She did tell MacCallum that President Trump “supports me 100 percent.”
Bolton: The Iran Deal’s on Life Support
Veteran diplomat John Bolton told attendees at an event in Washington Thursday that the Trump administration’s response to Iran’s recent illicit ballistic-missile tests suggests the nuclear deal signed by the Obama administration is in real danger.
“I don’t think it was accidental or just on the spur of the moment that Mike Flynn made the comment about Iran being ‘on notice,'” Bolton said. “Let me give you my interpretation of what ‘on notice’ means. I think it means that the [nuclear deal] is about one heartbeat away from disappearing.”
Read more from my colleague Jenna Lifhits on Bolton’s remarks.
Song of the Day
“No Reply At All,” Genesis
