Monday, April 15

· Thedailybeast.com reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has received “enhanced intelligence capabilities,” including “collection,” that would make it possible for the agency to use some of the bulk data collection techniques opened to the intelligence community by the PATRIOT ACT.

· The House Intelligence and Financial Services committees subpoenaed records from President Trump’s longtime lender Deutsche Bank, and also from JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, as the committee investigates possible money-laundering in Russia and eastern Europe, the New York Times reported.

Tuesday, April 16

· Attorney General William Barr issued an order to keep thousands of asylum seekers in jail indefinitely as they await their hearing before an immigration judge. The order is to go into effect in 90 days.

· The Justice Department announced that a redacted version of the Mueller Report would be released on the following Thursday morning

Wednesday, April 17

· The Trump administration clamped down on trade and travel to Cuba, pushing back from President Obama’s opening of relations with the island nation. New rules limit non-family travel, and allows people and businesses to sue for property seized by the Cuban government.

Thursday, April 18

· After nearly a two-year gestation, the redacted version of the Mueller Report was devoured by journalists, politicians and the general public. Though Attorney General William Barr’s news conference preceding its release revealed there were no findings of “collusion” with Russia, even the redacted document offered plenty of grist for the investigative and political mills. Among its revelations: “The president’s efforts to influence the [special counsel] investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

Friday, April 19

· A federal judge in Montana ruled that the Interior Department acted illegally when it sought to lift an Obama-era moratorium on coal mining on public lands. Judge Brian Morris ruled the policy did not include adequate studies of the environmental effects of the mining, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970.

(Editor’s Note: This week’s installment of “The government in action” is truncated because of temporary staff absences at the Independent Coast Observer.)