The government in action

Monday, March 26

· President Donald Trump ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian officials and ordered Russia to close its consulate in Seattle as part of a coordinated campaign by two dozen countries in retaliation for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.

· Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley invited Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to an April 10 hearing on the future of data privacy in social media.

Tuesday, March 27

· At least 12 states signaled that they would sue to block the Trump administration from adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census, including a multi-state group headed by New York, and California, which had filed a separate lawsuit the night before.

· A Politico review of public documents, including FEMA records and interviews with more than 50 people involved with disaster response, indicates that the Trump administration responded far more aggressively to Hurricane Harvey in Texas than to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, in spite of the fact that the damage in Puerto Rico was greater.

Wednesday, March 28

· Trump announced he plans to replace Secretary of Veterans Affairs David J. Shulkin with White House physician, Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy.

· The New York Times reported that a lawyer for Trump broached the idea of Trump pardoning Michael T. Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.

· The U. S. and The Republic of Korea announced the trade agreement in a joint statement. The agreement would open Korea’s market to American autos, while extending tariffs for Korean truck exports to the U.S. and restricts the amount of steel Korea can send to the U.S.

Thursday, March 29

· Russia announced it would expel 60 American diplomats and an unspecified number of envoys from other countries to retaliate for a mass expulsion of Russian diplomats working in the West that was ordered this week by a number of countries for the March 4 poisoning of a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain.

· Attorney General Jeff Sessions told lawmakers he will not name a second special counsel to investigate allegations of surveillance abuse against a former Trump campaign aide within the Department of Justice, despite pressure from the Republican Party for him to do so.

· Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and reportedly Trump’s most trusted aide, formally left the White House, after earlier announcing her resignation.

· A top aide to former Rep. Steve Stockman testified in his federal fraud trial that hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions intended to be spent on voter education were instead used to pay off some of Stockman’s old debts.

Friday, March 30

· The Washington Post reported that the Presidential Personnel Office has only about 30 employees on hand — including a college dropout and a Marine Corps reservist, each with arrest records — and they are mostly young staffers with little professional experience other than working on Trump’s campaign, leaving key positions unfilled.

· A U.S. service member was killed by an explosive device in Syria, the second American killed in action since the U.S. began backing local forces in that conflict.

· The Washington Post reported that Scott Pruitt, head of the EPA, paid only $50 a night to stay in A D.C. condo “linked” to a Washington lobbyist whose firm represents fossil fuel companies. One night rentals in the area average $120 per night.

Saturday, March 31

· Trump spent seven hours at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, golfing with Sean Hannity and golfer Dustin Johnson, per the Palm Beach Post’s George Bennett.

Sunday, April 1

· Trump, blaming Democrats and the Mexican government for an increasingly “dangerous” flow of illegal immigrants, vowed in a series of tweets that there would be no more DACA deal and threatened to walk away from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

· Chris Christie, once head of Trump’s transition team and later demoted, told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” “This was a brutally unprofessional transition. This was a transition that didn’t vet people for this type of judgment issues, which I think could've been seen very easily in a lot of these people. And you cannot do this with Rick Dearborn and Steve Bannon on the back of an envelope in 73 days. And the president’s been ill served by this. And if Mr. Pruitt is going to go, it’s because he should’ve never been there in the first place.”