Week 4: February 10-16

Trump’s 4th week started with reporting on an uptick of deportations: New York Times story about an illegal immigrant who has been here since she was a teenager, has been checking in with immigration officials regularly for eight years, and was just deported; and this Washington Post story about increased ICE raids.

Michael Flynn resigned under a cloud, having been in contact with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office and lying about it. Here is conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer arguing that Flynn did nothing wrong other than lie, and he speculates why Flynn would lie if not to cover up for some larger scandal regarding Russia.

This New York Times story reports on growing concern in Congress about Trump’s Russia connections.

And here is the big New York Times story about the intelligence community leaking reports that there were repeated contacts between the Trump campaign and high Russian officials. Nate Silver says this is more smoke than fire at this point, but the fact that news organizations have dozens of reporters on this story, and the IC is leaking to them, shows that fire may eventually be uncovered.

More judges beyond the Ninth Circuit continued to find Trump’s immigration ban unconstitutional, in this Wall Street Journal report.

In this Wall Street Journal editorial, a good Who’s Who of the Trump White House, and a plea to centralize command (under Priebus) so that the administration can become more effective and less chaotic. And here is a Washington Post story about said chaos. And here is a good WaPo opinion piece by Michael Gerson about how no one is in charge in the White House.

Congressional Town Halls are in the news, with some Republicans holding contentious ones and others are refusing to even hold them. This National Review editorial urges Republicans to take the protests seriously, and compares the current protest movement to the Tea Party.

Finally, a disturbing report from the Wall Street Journal that spies in the Intelligence Community are withholding information from the Trump White House for fear that it will be leaked to Russia.