Donald Trump

Alternet -   The New York Times reports Trump has no intention of making his presidential library a reservoir for review of his administration, as other presidents have done. “In his determination to own and control every document in his future library, the president is working to shield his administration’s inner workings from public view,” reports Times writers Elizabeth Williamson and Minho Kim.

“Mr. Trump had said that the $1 billion project, the priciest presidential library yet, could include a hotel and retail sales outlets. But more disturbing to historians and government watchdogs is his determination to own and control every document a presidential library would contain,” said the Times. “Not since the Watergate era, when President Richard M. Nixon took his fight to control the incriminating White House tapes to the Supreme Court, has a president worked so hard to shield documentary evidence of his administration’s inner workings from public view.”

Axios AM -   President Trump was handed a trio of bad news rulings by judges yesterday:

• His $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund was blocked from moving forward for the time being by a federal judge.
• He was ordered by a different federal judge to respond to "grievous" accusations that his settlement with the IRS, which led to the creation of his anti-weaponization fund, was "premised on deception."
• His name was ordered to be removed from the Kennedy Center, with a D.C. district judge declaring, "Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it."

Time -   Former Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday refused to answer questions regarding President Donald Trump’s involvement in the Administration’s handling of investigations into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a transcribed interview with members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. During the closed-door interview, Bondi appeared to be “combative” at times and did not answer any question regarding whether Trump directed Bondi to redact any information regarding the Epstein investigations, according to Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia. 

“In fact, she said that she would not speak or respond to any questions that had anything to do with President Trump,” Garcia said. Throughout the interview, Bondi repeatedly pointed to Acting Attorney Todd Blanche in response to questions regarding the release of the so-called Epstein files and the criminal investigations into the disgraced financier, saying “Acting AG Blanche was managing the entire investigation” and that she “did not recall” a lot of the details about events from roughly six months ago, according to Garcia.