The White House is considering dismissing several members of the National Security Council who are viewed as being disloyal to President Trump, including Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, three people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News. The White House doesn't want it to look like people are being retaliated against, and will frame this as a way to make the NSC smaller, Bloomberg News reports.Vindman, the NSC's director of European Affairs and a Ukraine expert, testified during Trump's impeachment inquiry that he was alarmed by Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Vindman found Trump's request that Zelensky open an investigation into a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, "inappropriate," and he told the NSC's top lawyer.A person close to Vindman's legal team told Bloomberg News he has not been told of any change in his status, nor has his twin brother, who also works at the NSC. Some staffers could be cut as soon as Friday, people familiar with the matter said, just two days after Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.More stories from theweek.com Fox News warns Fox News about spreading pro-Trump 'disinformation' on Ukraine Mitt Romney just showed Trump how a president should act The real State of the Union

The Interior Department released final plans Thursday for two national monuments in Utah that President Trump moved to radically shrink two years ago. Under the final plans, about 2 million acres that were once part of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments would be open to mineral extraction and ranching. Public lands advocates, Native American groups, and conservationists whose lawsuits to prevent the downsizing of the national monuments are still being litigated in court, called foul.Former President Bill Clinton cellared Grand Staircase-Escalante a national monument in 1996 and former President Barack Obama protected Bears Ears in 2016, both using the 1906 Antiquities Act. Trump proposed cutting Grand Staircase-Escalante by half and Bears Ears by 85 percent. "But the law itself is unclear on who actually has the power to abolish or shrink national monument boundaries," NPR notes, "and legal experts say it has traditionally been the responsibility of Congress to modify the size of public lands."Casey Hammond, acting assistant secretary of land, minerals, and mineral management at the Interior Department, said Thursday the Trump administration has no intention to hold off on opening the monuments to ranchers and oil, gas, and coal companies. "If we stopped and waited for every piece of litigation to be resolved, we would never be able to do much of anything around here," he told reporters.Groups who oppose the de-protection of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears have a few more months to get an injunction, The Washington Post reports. "The earliest the government could approve new mining claims and other kinds of development is Oct. 1, because of language Congress adopted in a spending bill."More stories from theweek.com Elizabeth Warren's last chance American democracy is dying Democratic debate gives standing ovation to ousted impeachment witness Col. Vindman

Donald Trump’s impeachment ended with a reminder of why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi resisted the idea for so long — an acquittal everyone saw coming, followed by a bombastic presidential victory lap and a bump in his poll numbers just as the 2020 campaign officially began. Now Democrats have to decide how to navigate the legislative and political landscape that they've helped reshape. Pelosi's nationally televised ripping of her copy of Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night underscored the acrid atmosphere that will make partisan cooperation on any issue difficult.

House Democrats are torn about whether they should call in former National Security Adviser John Bolton to testify following the acquittal of President Donald Trump in the Senate’s impeachment trial. The prospect of hauling Bolton before the House has come front and center after he dangled the tantalizing possibility of respecting a Senate subpoena compelling his testimony. Senate Democrats had made the push for Bolton’s testimony and other new evidence the centerpiece of the trial. But not enough Republicans voted to hear from him, meaning that a key figure—one who was in the middle of Trump’s efforts to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine—never ended up telling his story. With Trump now acquitted and his office secure, House investigators could still issue their own subpoena. And many Democrats believe it remains vital that he testify about what he witnessed during the administration’s push to withhold U.S. security aid until Ukraine investigated Trump’s political rivals.But there’s a fear among some Democrats that Bolton is primarily seeking to capitalize on the spotlight in order to promote his forthcoming tell-all book. What’s more, some key lawmakers believe Bolton’s account is no longer essential.  “John Bolton’s gonna come in front of us and say, the President said, don’t give out the aid until there’s an investigation,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), a member of the Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast.“I don’t really believe we’re going to learn a lot more from John Bolton. I want to know what the hell Rudy Giuliani was doing, I want to know why Mike Pompeo didn’t stand up much more… I’m not saying I don’t want to hear from Bolton, I’m just saying, Bolton will tell us what we already know. And he will do it in a way mainly designed to sell his book.”Himes’ skepticism isn’t shared throughout the party. But Democratic leadership has notably not made any overt moves that suggest imminent plans to issue a subpoena for Bolton in the 24 hours since Trump’s acquittal. Instead, they’ve signaled a desire to regroup, take a post-impeachment breather, and focus on other topics. All of which has contributed to a curious outcome: that the House might hold off on using its power to get answers to significant lingering questions about the conduct at the heart of the articles of impeachment against the president. While key figures in the party aren’t ruling out the possibility of a Bolton subpoena— Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) ventured on Wednesday it would be “likely”—most don’t seem to be salivating at the prospect. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters on Thursday that while oversight of the president would continue, there are currently no plans to subpoena Bolton. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the leader of the impeachment inquiry, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night that his Intelligence Committee reached out to Bolton’s attorney when the Senate witness vote failed and asked if he would be willing to submit a sworn affidavit describing what he saw. Schiff said that Bolton refused. And Schiff added that “there’s been absolutely no decision made,” about a subpoena. Representatives for Bolton did not respond to a request for comment. Among House Democrats, there’s broad consensus that the party needs to be careful in the steps it takes following Trump’s acquittal. Many in the caucus, especially those lawmakers in competitive districts that took risky votes to impeach Trump, want to move on to issues like infrastructure and health care and leave impeachment behind. But some lawmakers can’t see how Democrats would proceed without making an honest effort to hear from Bolton after having made the case that Trump’s conduct was fundamentally unconstitutional and disqualifying for holding the presidency. “I think there’s a very strong sentiment that the Congress and the American people are owed Bolton’s testimony,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a Judiciary Committee member. “If he has something to say, then we should hear it.”A co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), told reporters on Thursday, “I hope we subpoena him.”Others, like Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) said that lawmakers should wait to see what’s in Bolton’s forthcoming book—slated for release in March—and then proceed. “My gut tells me, just as a lawyer, wait for that, so that if you do bring him in, you have the content of the book to examine him on,” said Cicilline. During the House impeachment inquiry, Democrats requested testimony from Bolton, who refused those requests. His lawyer, who also represented Bolton’s deputy Charles Kupperman, said his clients wanted the courts to resolve whether they would be in a position to testify to Congress without violating confidentiality privileges owed to the president. Democrats chose to withdraw a subpoena for Kupperman, and ice one for Bolton, rather than pause their impeachment inquiry until a possibly lengthy court battle was resolved. During the Senate trial, the White House defense team and congressional Republicans pointed to that as a key reason for senators to vote against subpoenaing Bolton—arguing that Democrats had their chance to get them under oath and declined. When the trial concluded and questions immediately arose about the House’s plans for Bolton, those same Republicans had a bemused response to the chatter.“Knock yourself out,” quipped Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Wednesday. “They're going to have to litigate that in the court—something they didn't do in the impeachment inquiry. But that’s their prerogative.”Indeed, the White House would almost certainly file a lawsuit to block Bolton from testifying if the House ultimately did issue a subpoena. That would set up what could be a months-long court battle over whether he could testify. Without the political time bomb of impeachment, however, Democrats feel no rush. If the Republican Party refrain during impeachment was to let voters decide whether Trump’s conduct warranted his removal from office, Democrats view part of their oversight mandate as unearthing more information about that conduct before voters so they can make a decision more fully. “If there’s wrongdoing there’s wrongdoing, it doesn’t matter when you find it out,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), a member of the Intelligence Committee. “At the very least, you have the responsibility to share that with the American people, and then they can use that to factor in their decision, who to vote for. That seems to me a fair compromise.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Sen. Lindsey Graham said God gave him enough common sense to see impeachment was "a bunch of B.S."

Long before Donald Trump’s impeachment landed in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had one piece of advice for the president: Focus on the House. It was the GOP leader's central strategy to produce as partisan an impeachment as possible -- too polarizing for any centrists to touch -- to secure Republican acquittal in the Senate. “He understood right from the start, this was crooked politics,” said Trump, singling McConnell out for praise Thursday at the White House.

President Trump just won't let that one little snub go.On Wednesday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) blocked Trump from a unified Republican acquittal in his impeachment trial. Trump has since taken aim at his one defector, first attacking him without name in Thursday morning's National Prayer Breakfast and later sending a set of anti-Romney talking points to his Republican caucus.While he didn't exactly say he was talking about Romney, Trump did say Thursday that "I don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong." It was an obvious reference to how Romney made sure to say his conviction vote was based on his "oath before God." The White House later followed that up with a list of accusations about Romney's "long history of flip flopping" and "self-serving political expedience."> The WH is now sending around anti-Romney talking points, including: > •Romney’s decision was unsurprising as this display of self-serving political expedience has come to define his career. > •Romney has a long history of flip-flopping, with no sign of principles to be found.> > — Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) February 6, 2020At least one high-profile Republican is ignoring the smear campaign. House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said Thursday she disagrees with Romney's vote on impeachment, but added he's "a real value for us to have in the Senate." "Senator Romney is a good and honorable man. I don’t think anybody ought to question his faith," she added.More stories from theweek.com Elizabeth Warren's last chance Mar-a-Lago charged Secret Service agents $650 a night for rooms while they were guarding Trump Fox News warns Fox News about spreading pro-Trump 'disinformation' on Ukraine

Fox News’ own research team has warned colleagues not to trust some of the network’s top commentators’ claims about Ukraine.An internal Fox News research briefing book obtained by The Daily Beast openly questions Fox News contributor John Solomon’s credibility, accusing him of playing an “indispensable role” in a Ukrainian “disinformation campaign.”The document also accuses frequent Fox News guest Rudy Giuliani of amplifying disinformation, as part of an effort to oust former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and blasts Fox News guests Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova—both ardent Trump boosters—for “spreading disinformation.”  The 162-page document, entitled “Ukraine, Disinformation, & the Trump Administration,” was created by Fox News senior political affairs specialist Bryan S. Murphy, who produces research from what is known as the network’s Brain Room—a newsroom division of researchers who provide information, data, and topic guides for the network’s programming.The research brief is especially critical of Solomon, a former opinion columnist at The Hill whose opinion pieces about Ukraine made unsubstantiated claims about its government interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Solomon’s pieces for The Hill fuelled Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt in Ukraine, which eventually helped lead to Trump’s impeachment. Trump has also frequently cited Solomon reporting on Twitter in his own defense.While Solomon is portrayed on Hannity’s show as a crusading investigative reporter, the Brain Room document accuses the contributor of taking part in a Ukrainian smear campaign. “John Solomon played an indispensable role in the collection and domestic publication of elements of this disinformation campaign,” the Fox briefing book notes. Those smears, according to the briefing, were driven by people like disgraced former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko and the allies of Dmytro Firtash, an indicted Ukrainian oligarch and accused high-level Russian mafia associate (an accusation he denies). Both Lutsenko and Firtash have been seen as forces driving Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine to dig up dirt on Trump’s political enemies. Vindman Burns Trump Booster John Solomon: ‘All the Key Elements’ of His Reporting ‘Were False’Elsewhere in the internal brief, Murphy urges Fox News employees to focus on a wide range of alleged journalistic misdeeds from Solomon, including ”non-disclosure of conflicts, use of unreliable sources, publishing false and misleading stories, misrepresentation of sources, and opaque coordination with involved parties.” Despite Solomon’s reputation for questionable claims, he continued to be a fixture on Fox News even as impeachment inquiry witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman—who listened in on the infamous quid pro quo call between Trump and Ukraine’s president—testified that “all the elements” of the columnist’s supposed Ukraine reporting were “false.” The Hill announced it would conduct a full review of Solomon’s work. Though he has not appeared on Hannity’s show since Dec. 26, Solomon’s most recent Fox appearance came last Friday on Laura Ingraham’s primetime show.The existence of the briefing book was first publicly flagged by Marcus DiPaola, a former freelance Fox News producer. Solomon, who years ago wrote for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Giuliani, Toensing, and diGenova.“The research division of FOX News produces a briefing book for all major stories, which serves as a standing collection of extensive data on major topics for internal use by all those in editorial functions. The Ukraine briefing book is nothing more than a comprehensive chronological account of what every person involved in the Ukraine controversy was doing at any identifiable point in time, including tracking media appearances of major players who appeared on FOX News and in many other outlets,” Mitch Kweit, senior vice president of the Brain Room, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “The 200 page document has thousands of data points and the vast majority have no relation to FOX News—instead it’s now being taken out of context and politicized to damage the network.”The document also disputes the credibility of Trump personal attorney and frequent Fox News guest Rudy Giuliani. While the former New York mayor has regularly appeared on Fox to justify his efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter on Trump’s behalf, Murphy claims Giuliani is easily fooled by Ukrainian disinformation. Murphy writes that Giuliani has a “high susceptibility to disinformation” disseminated by Ukrainians like Lutsenko and Firtash. The document notes that two indicted Giuliani pals, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, had “strong reported financial links to Firtash.”“Reading the timeline in its entirety—not a small task—makes clear the extensive role played by Rudy Giuliani and his associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, in spreading disinformation,” Murphy writes.The brief also questions the credibility of diGenova and Toensing, a married pair of Washington lawyers and frequent Fox News guests who appeared across the network’s right-wing commentary shows. The pair were regularly deployed by Fox hosts like Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and Tucker Carlson to criticize the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry and attack Fox News analysts who questioned the president’s actions. DiGenova briefly stopped appearing on Fox after spewing on-air the anti-Semitic trope that liberal billionaire George Soros “controls” the U.S. State Department. And then he and his wife have altogether ceased appearing on the network since December.Leaked Memo: Colleagues Unload on John Solomon, the Journo Who Kicked Off Trump’s Ukraine ConspiracyFox News itself reported in September that diGenova and Toensing were working with Giuliani to dig up dirt on the Bidens. “Notable are the roles of Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing in spreading disinformation and their parroting of beneficial narratives while employed by Firtash,” the internal research brief adds. During their Fox appearances about the unfolding Ukraine scandal in 2019, diGenova and Toensing failed to note that they were working for Firtash, who is attempting to avoid extradition to the United States. The pair had billed the Ukrainian oligarch $1 million as of October, according to a Bloomberg report. Last year’s document urges Fox employees to consider diGenova and Toensing’s failure to note  during their Fox appearances that they were employed by Firtash. It advises employees to focus on the pair’s “non-disclosure of financial motives and representation of Firtash while spreading false and misleading stories.”The briefing book is also seemingly critical of Fox’s own coverage, urging employees to note the role that unnamed “US Media” outlets played a role in the “amplification of disinformation stories from clearly unreliable sources and non-disclosure of conflicts by guests.” While Fox isn’t specifically named in the introduction, much of the timeline focuses on appearances made on Fox programs, and Murphy writes that the “most prominent” outlets who amplified the disinformation campaign are mentioned in the timeline—a possible reference to Fox News itself.The document notes omissions by Hannity, who frequently had Solomon, Toensing, diGenova, and Giuliani on his show. Murphy notes that the primetime star continued to refer to Solomon as an “investigative reporter” even after The Hill explicitly labeled his work to be “opinion.” The briefing also dings Hannity for failing to mention, in a segment Toensing and diGenova about an affidavit filed on behalf of Firtash, that the pair were working for the Ukrainian oligarch Firtash—an obvious conflict of interest.“At no time during the program does Hannity, Toensing, and diGenova mention who requested the statement nor do they discuss that they are Firtash’s attorneys,” the briefing book reads.—With additional reporting by Justin Baragona.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Americans are evenly split, mostly along party lines, over the U.S. Senate's acquittal of President Donald Trump at his impeachment trial, even though more respondents than not think he probably did something wrong, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday. The national opinion poll found that 43% of U.S. adults supported the Republican-led Senate's decision on Wednesday to keep Trump in office in a case stemming from his dealings with Ukraine. Forty-one percent opposed the acquittal and 17% said they were undecided.

U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney was back in Utah Thursday explaining his vote to convict President Donald Trump amid pushes by some angry GOP state legislators to censure Romney or create a way to recall the senator. Romney did not speak publicly in the state and his meetings with legislative leaders were held behind closed doors. Many legislators disagreed with his decision on Trump and were concerned about repercussions for the state.