Pence’s Doctor Resigns as White House Medical Shake-Up Continues

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White House officials and others familiar with the situation said the circumstances surrounding Dr. Jackson’s fall from grace and Dr. Pena’s departure dated back many years, to longstanding divisions in the medical unit — which is part of the military — where there are two factions that do not get along.

Dr. Pena — known to patients simply as “Dr. Jen” — submitted her memos about Dr. Jackson last fall to Nick Ayers, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, who shared them with John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Both Mr. Ayers and Mr. Kelly directed Dr. Pena to go through her military chain of command to address the issue, the person said.

CNN, which obtained the memos, reported that Dr. Pena had accused Dr. Jackson of having intervened in a medical matter involving Karen Pence, Mr. Pence’s wife, and possibly violating her medical privacy rights. She also said Dr. Jackson had become irate and aggressive during a confrontation over the situation, and that he had fostered an unprofessional atmosphere in the medical unit.

Dr. Jackson, an Iraq war veteran, has insisted that all the allegations against him were untrue, an assertion backed up by Mr. Trump and numerous White House aides from the current and previous administration.

But some members of the medical unit, which houses a few dozen doctors and nurses, described Dr. Jackson as a bully and a sloppy record-keeper, who drank too much — sometimes becoming intoxicated during overseas trips with the president — and loosely dispensed strong drugs to curry favor with the powerful politicians and political aides he admired. Several of them detailed the alleged misconduct in interviews with the Democratic staff of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Despite Mr. Trump’s strong defense of him, Dr. Jackson has not resumed his job as the top physician in the medical unit since he announced his withdrawal from consideration as secretary of veterans affairs. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday that another doctor, Sean Conley, who had been acting in Dr. Jackson’s role while he prepared for confirmation hearings, would stay in the post instead.

“Dr. Jackson continues to be an active-duty Navy doctor that’s assigned here at the White House,” Ms. Sanders said, “where there are a number of doctors that are part of the White House Medical Unit.”

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Someone at the White House called Cohen’s phone before he was raided by FBI – ThinkProgress

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UPDATE: 5:36 p.m. Eastern Time: NBC News issued a correction to its original report on Thursday evening, specifying that authorities had not “wiretapped” Cohen’s phone but had used a “pen register,” a device which captures all outgoing calls made from a specific phone, but does not record the content within those calls. 

The original NBC report cited two sources with knowledge of the Cohen investigation. Those claims were later disputed in part by three senior U.S. officials. The original report has since been updated to reflect the correction.

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EARLIER: Federal investigators have been monitoring the phone lines of longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and intercepted at least one phone call between a phone line belonging to Cohen and someone at the White House, NBC News reported on Thursday.

Cohen is currently under federal investigation for a $130,000 payment he made on behalf of Trump to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, weeks ahead of the 2016 presidential election, to keep Daniels quiet about an affair she claims to have had with Trump in 2006.

Sources with “knowledge of the legal proceedings” against Cohen told NBC News that the monitoring device was in place “in the weeks leading up to” a series of FBI raids on Cohen’s home, office, and the hotel room in which he had been staying at the time, on April 9. The sources claimed they did not know how long the phone lines had been under surveillance.

It’s unclear who was on either end of the call between Cohen’s phone and the White House, or what was discussed. Due to the nature of the device used, a pen register — not, as NBC News previously reported, a wiretap — only the recipients of Cohen’s phone calls were recorded, and not the conversations therein. However, it’s unlikely the call was made in recent weeks, as NBC noted the president’s legal team advised him not to communicate with Cohen, immediately following the raids.

ABC News previously reported that Trump and Cohen did speak once, following the FBI raids on April 9.

Sources told ABC News following the April 9 raids that agents seized “recordings” in addition to documents on the Daniels payment and related matters, although it’s not clear yet whether the newly revealed White House phone call was included in those recordings. According to The New York Times, prosecutors were searching specifically for recordings Cohen had made of phone calls between himself and other lawyers. Cohen claims he did not record any conversations with Trump.

A phone call between Trump and Cohen — who has acted as Trump’s personal attorney for several years — is in itself unsurprising, but the potential timing of the phone call and the requirements necessary to obtain a federal wiretap raise suspicions. If the president was indeed on the other end of the line during the recently revealed call, it would suggest that the two men were aware investigators may have been closing in on important information, prior to the raid, and felt the need to speak about it.

Pen registers, because of their inherent nature, are less difficult to obtain than a federal wiretap. In order to obtain a federal wiretap, NBC analyst Chuck Rosenberg notes, affidavits must be “highly detailed and carefully vetted by experienced lawyers.”

“In all cases the wiretap must be approved by a federal judge,” he said. Typically, wiretaps are only employed during investigations of ongoing crimes and not for past crimes, he added.

Cohen has previously carried out a variety of tasks for Trump, including acting as a surrogate for the president both during the election and afterward. In a 2011 CNN interview, he described himself as Trump’s guardian, claiming, “I protect Mr. Trump. If there’s an issue that relates to Mr. Trump, that is of concern to him it’s of course of concern to me and I will use my legal skills to protect Mr. Trump to the best of my ability.”

That loyalty became particularly useful to Trump in the months leading up to the 2016 election: in addition to his $130,000 payment to Daniels, Cohen was also tied to an alleged $150,000 hush payment from American Media Inc. — the National Enquirer’s parent company — to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who also claims to have had an affair with Trump in 2006. While AMI claims the money was for a series of fitness columns and magazine covers, McDougal claims the money barred her from taking her story public, and that the outlet only purchased the rights to her account to shelve the story before it could be published.

Although Cohen claims he had no part in the negotiation process between McDougal and AMI, he was kept in the loop throughout by McDougal’s then-lawyer, Keith Davidson, who also previously represented Daniels.

Federal prosecutors are currently investigating Cohen’s ties to McDougal.

For his part, Cohen initially claimed that he tapped into his home equity line to make the $130,000 payment to Daniels, and that he did so to spare Trump from suffering a blow to his reputation prior to the election, despite the fact that any allegations of an affair are false. He claimed Trump did not repay him for the favor.

On Wednesday, however, former New York City Mayor and current Trump legal team member Rudy Giuliani stated that Trump had, in fact, repaid Cohen the $130,000 in hush money, and that the payment had been “perfectly legal,” despite being made during the 2016 election cycle.

“That money was not campaign money, sorry,” Giuliani told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know. It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation. [They] funneled it through the law firm, and the president repaid him.”

Giuliani’s comments contradicted Trump’s earlier statements to reporters, in which he claimed he had no knowledge of the $130,000 payment to Daniels and referred reporters to his lawyer, Cohen. The White House has also stated that Trump had “no knowledge of any payments.”

Trump’s own divorce lawyer has suggested that Cohen’s loyalty, while ironclad thus far, may only go so far. In a comment to CNN in mid-April, attorney Jay Goldberg claimed that Cohen would likely flip on the president and work with federal prosecutors to avoid jail time.

“He’s of a type that I have recognized in the past as one not suited to stand up to the rigors of jail life,” Goldberg said.

This article has been updated to reflect a correction by NBC News that clarified federal prosecutors were monitoring Cohen’s calls using a pen register and not a wiretap, as the outlet previously reported.

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Tariff Impact Colors a Key House Race in Boeing Country

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The district’s quirky boundary, which encompasses the vast airplane-making ecosystem to the west and thousands of acres of cherry and apple farms on the other side of the Cascade Mountains, makes the territory uniquely vulnerable to the president’s actions on trade. Boeing is probably the American company with the most riding on a healthy relationship with Beijing.

China is projected to buy more than 7,000 planes worth almost $1 trillion in the next 20 years, more than Boeing’s current backlog for the entire world. Most commercial aircraft in China are made by Boeing, the company says, but if the trade pressures escalate, China could choose to award more work to Europe’s Airbus.

For now, Beijing has threatened to retaliate with tariffs on some airplanes, including older 737 models made in the Renton factory where Mr. Cesmat works, which is just outside the district.

“China knew exactly where to target,” said Kim Schrier, the Democratic candidate who has built the biggest campaign war chest ahead of the Aug. 7 primary. “They’re targeting districts where this could be problematic for Republicans.”

Ms. Schrier is among half a dozen or so Democrats gunning for a seat that became catnip for the party the moment that the seven-term Republican incumbent, Dave Reichert, announced his retirement in September. Despite Mr. Reichert’s success, the district favored Hillary Clinton by three percentage points over Mr. Trump, and it went twice for Barack Obama. Ms. Schrier, a pediatrician and first-time candidate, has been hammering Dino Rossi, the likely Republican nominee, on the tariff issue.

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“These tariffs are a direct response to the policies of a president you helped elect. Don’t you have anything to say?” she tweeted to Mr. Rossi last month.

China's tariffs will be devastating for our farmers in eastern WA. @DinoRossiWA - these tariffs are a direct response to the policies of a president you helped elect. Don't you have anything to say? #WheresRossi https://t.co/GntgSl0g0D

—
Dr. Kim Schrier (@DrKimSchrier)
April 2, 2018

Mr. Rossi, a former state senator, is careful to note that the bluster could be part of Mr. Trump’s negotiating style. But he said he understood why everyone was so worried. “You really can’t get down to a trade war. In the end it will be very disruptive,” he said in an interview. “Hopefully this is more posturing than anything.”

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Schilling Cider has grown quickly since it was founded five years ago. But with tariffs raising the cost of aluminum, it may have to pay $100,000 a year more for cans.

Credit
Kyle Johnson for The New York Times

But voters in the district say the escalating trade drama has already begun to complicate their daily lives. Companies that supply construction materials have suspended orders, waiting to see what happens to metal prices. Employees at a builder of truck components say managers have been hastily reassessing supply chains that run through China and Mexico. A local hard-cider brewer is reconsidering an expansion after the steel and aluminum tariffs made new tanks and cans more expensive.

And at Boeing, a company that employs grandfathers next to granddaughters and has introduced generations of Washingtonians to their spouses, the unease has been evident from the executive suite to the factory floor.

Mr. Trump’s hard line on trade didn’t used to inspire so much teeth-grinding among Boeing workers. A lot of union mechanics were happy last year when he pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have reinforced the nation’s embrace of free trade. And the president earned a lot of fans in Washington when he criticized the company on the campaign trail in 2015 for setting up a new plant outside Shanghai, saying it would “end up taking a tremendous number of jobs away from the United States.”

Jim McKenzie, a union machinery repairman, remembered that comment when, several months ago, he came across a package of dorsal-fin parts at the Boeing plant in Auburn where he works. Mr. McKenzie pulled back the Bubble Wrap and saw a label that made him feel as if he were sinking into quicksand: Boeing China.

“We drill it and assemble it, but they ship the parts in from China,” Mr. McKenzie said. “There are people who have worked here for 25 years making those parts, and they’re proud of that.”

But Mr. McKenzie, 56, isn’t eager to blow up the Beijing relationship. “China will just buy all their planes from Airbus,” he said, leaning his chair back against a wall in the machinists’ union hall in Auburn.

He doesn’t have much hope that Mr. Trump will do anything to stop Boeing from setting up shop in China — he saw how Carrier shipped work from Indianapolis to Mexico even though the president had railed against the move. In Boeing’s case, Mr. McKenzie said, hiring some Chinese workers might be unavoidable. “You have to provide them jobs to sell them airplanes,” he said.

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“Stirring the pot unnecessarily doesn’t help business whatsoever,” Mark Kornei, a co-founder of Schilling Cider, said of President Trump’s trade moves. “Give us a steady set of rules.”

Credit
Kyle Johnson for The New York Times

Ms. Schrier recently won the endorsement of the machinists’ union, which represents more than 26,000 Boeing workers. Mr. Cesmat, 27, plans to volunteer for her campaign. “She pledged to support our jobs,” he said.

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Boeing’s “super PAC” donated $2,000 to Mr. Reichert’s campaign, but hasn’t contributed to any candidates vying to succeed him, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. It did donate $8,000 to Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is facing a strong Democratic challenge in her quest for re-election in Washington’s Fifth District.

The fear over trade tensions has spread beyond Boeing’s hulking factories, all the way to Schilling Cider, a hard-cider company founded here five years ago by two friends, Mark Kornei and Colin Schilling. The business grew quickly, thanks in part to the state’s abundant apple orchards, but now it’s staring down an uncomfortable new reality.

The company that sells Mr. Kornei stainless-steel tanks told him recently that prices for its raw materials might rise by 20 percent. A single tank costs around $50,000. He has also heard from the manufacturer of his aluminum cans that prices could increase by 10 percent. Mr. Kornei will buy 11 million of them this year, so that uptick alone could cost him more than $100,000, he said.

“Stirring the pot unnecessarily doesn’t help business whatsoever,” Mr. Kornei said. “Give us a steady set of rules so we can figure out what we are going to do.”

Mr. Rossi acknowledged that some of what the president says and does “can at times” make it harder for him on the campaign trail. But he has raised more than $2 million, about twice as much as Ms. Schrier.

The Republican tax cuts are a big selling point for Mr. Rossi, who has a ready figure for exactly how much a typical household will save because of the law (“$3,357 — that’s real money”). He’s also counting on a personal bond with Republican voters east of the Cascades.

“I have a connection with folks that certainly precedes the president,” Mr. Rossi said. He was referring to his campaigns for the governorship in 2004 and 2008, the first of which he lost by fewer than 200 votes in a third recount. “They know I’ll advocate for trade,” he said. “They know me.”

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House chaplain pressured by Paul Ryan to step down rescinds his resignation – ThinkProgress

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Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, the House chaplain who resigned after pressure from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) last month, rescinded his resignation Thursday.

Ryan has said the reason he pressured Conroy to resign was because he didn’t believe members were being “adequately served.”

“This was not about politics or prayers, it was about pastoral services. And a number of our members felt like the pastoral services were not being adequately served, or offered,” Ryan said at an event earlier this week.

But Conroy pushed back against that explanation Thursday, saying in a letter rescinding his resignation, “I have never been disciplined, nor reprimanded, nor have I ever heard a complaint about my ministry during my time as House chaplain.”

After Conroy’s resignation, both Politico and The New York Times reported that he was forced out after Republican members of Congress were upset with some of his prayers, including one in particular he delivered last November ahead of the passage of the GOP tax overhaul.

“As legislation on taxes continues to be debated this week and next, may all members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle,” Conroy prayed. “May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

Late last month, Conroy told the Times he believed that prayer, though Ryan never said as much to him, was the reason he was pressured to resign.

“[A week after that prayer], a staffer [for Speaker Ryan] came down and said, ‘We are upset with this prayer; you are getting too political,’” Conroy told the Times. “It suggests to me that there are members who have talked to him about being upset with that prayer.”

In his letter to Ryan Thursday, Conroy said that Ryan had never spoken with him in person or sent any correspondence when he asked him to resign, instead only sending his Chief of Staff Jonathan Burks to ask Conroy for his letter of resignation.

“I inquired as to whether or not it was ‘for cause,’ and Mr. Burks mentioned dismissively something like ‘maybe it’s time we had a Chaplain that wasn’t Catholic.’ He also mentioned my November prayer and interview with the National Journal Daily,” Conroy wrote in his letter.

Full letter from the Chaplain rescinding his resignation. pic.twitter.com/n3AloHkQWS

— Lauren Fox (@FoxReports) May 3, 2018

As ThinkProgress’ Melanie Schmitz noted last month, “Both Ryan and Conroy are Catholic, although Conroy is Jesuit — a more liberal and scholarly wing of Catholicism that tends to place more emphasis on Catholic social justice teachings — while Ryan is a Catholic conservative.”

The interview Conroy refers to is one he gave in October in which he urged religious tolerance and talked about the public rush to judgment following high profile instances of sexual misconduct.

“You may wish to outright ‘fire’ me, if you have the authority to do so, but should you wish to terminate my services, it will be without an offer of my resignation, as you requested,” Conroy wrote Thursday.

Father Conroy tells reporters leaving the Capitol: “I’m not commenting. The story is not over" per @MariannaNBCNews

— Alex Moe (@AlexNBCNews) May 3, 2018

He added that he wishes to serve the remainder of his term as House chaplain unless terminated “for cause.” Later, seen leaving the Capitol, Conroy told reporters, “I’m not commenting. The story is not over.”

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House Chaplain Rescinds Resignation, Forcing Confrontation

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Father Patrick J. Conroy is rescinding his decision to resign as the chaplain of the House of Representatives.

Credit
J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The chaplain of the House of Representatives, who was recently forced to resign by Speaker Paul D. Ryan, said Thursday that he is rescinding his decision — in effect forcing Mr. Ryan to try to fire him.

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In his letter to the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, Father Conroy said that Mr. Ryan’s chief of staff had said “maybe it’s time that we had a Chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic.”

Father Patrick J. Conroy, a Catholic priest who has been the chaplain since 2011, wrote in a letter to Mr. Ryan that he would like to serve out his full two-year term, “and possibly beyond,” unless he is officially terminated. He also intimated that Mr. Ryan does not have the authority to fire him, noting that the chaplain, who is selected by the speaker, is elected by the members of the House.

[Read the letter.]

“I have never been disciplined, nor reprimanded, nor have I ever heard a complaint about my ministry during my time as House Chaplain,” he wrote.

Complaining that Mr. Ryan never spoke to him in person, Father Conroy also suggested his Catholic faith played a role in his dismissal. When Mr. Ryan’s chief of staff, Jonathan Burks, informed him that the speaker was asking for his letter of resignation, he wrote, “I inquired as to whether or not it was ‘for cause,’ and Mr. Burks mentioned dismissively something like, ‘Maybe it’s time that we had a chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic.’”

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Pruitt’s Coziness With Lobbyists Includes Secretly Buying a House With One

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Mr. Pruitt described the outcome as “a small step in the right direction,” according to a report at the time in The Journal Record, a business and legal newspaper in Oklahoma. But when he ran for lieutenant governor in 2006, he cited his efforts on workers’ compensation among his main achievements. Mr. Funk served as the chairman of that unsuccessful campaign.

When Mr. Pruitt left the State Senate that year, his fellow lawmakers applauded his advocacy on workers’ compensation. In his parting remarks, Mr. Pruitt told colleagues: “I’ve always tried to approach what we do here in this body with a commitment to sound policy and trying to do things for the right reason. I believe that good politics is doing the right thing.”

Mr. Pruitt and the other investors in the shell company — Capitol House L.L.C. — sold the Oklahoma City house in 2005 for $470,000. It is unclear whether any of the proceeds went to Mr. Pruitt. The group also had at least one paying tenant, Jim Dunlap, then a Republican leader in the State Senate, who said he rented a room above the garage.

Mr. Jiles, the investor who is listed as manager of Capitol House, said in an email that each investor owned 16.66 percent of the company, and while none of them lived permanently in the house, they all had a right to stay there. The company, he said, should not be referred to as a shell company since it “acquired assets consisting of the house and its furnishings and incurred liabilities, filed tax returns and issued K-1’s to it’s members as required by law” — a reference the tax form known as a Schedule K-1.

“Nothing about the transaction, Capital House, L.L.C. or the investment was unusual, inappropriate, illegal or otherwise objectionable to anyone involved on either side of the transaction,” Mr. Jiles said.

At a hearing last week in Washington of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, lawmakers asked Mr. Pruitt about the house purchase and the use of a shell company — a lawful practice that is often used to obscure the people who have a financial interest in it, and typically is set up as a limited liability company. Mr. Pruitt’s name does not appear on any public documents related to the company; nor does Mr. Whitefield’s.

Mr. Pruitt said the company was not a shell company, but a limited liability company.

“Which is normally how you buy real estate in Oklahoma,” he said.

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Kelly Finds Himself in a Familiar Place in the Trump White House: Eyeing the Exits

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While several current and former officials said they had not heard the chief of staff call his boss “an idiot,” as NBC News reported on Monday, many said that Mr. Kelly had given the impression over many months that he did not hold the president in high regard. He speaks as if he sees himself as the lone bulwark against potentially dangerous decisions by the commander in chief, they say. And whether he used the word or not, they added, the story itself could serve to accelerate his departure.

Yet Mr. Trump, always averse to confrontation, has continued to keep Mr. Kelly in his role, while increasingly steering around him on matters large and small. One person close to the White House said that it will be up to Mr. Kelly to end his tenure, since Mr. Trump knows how damaging it would be to dismiss a four-star Marine general.

The result is that Mr. Kelly now finds himself in the position where several others who have worked for Mr. Trump have landed: aware that their jobs have become close to untenable, looking for ways to cauterize the wounds to their reputations and knowing that it is only a matter of when — not if — they will have to leave.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Kelly’s deputy, Zachary D. Fuentes, defended his boss and insisted he was the victim of unfounded attacks.

“He’s never called the president an idiot, he’s never called the president unhinged, and the idea that a Marine would ever tolerate somebody disrespecting the commander in chief like that is unthinkable,” said Mr. Fuentes, who has taken the unusual step of talking to reporters on the record this week to push back against the reports.

“He’s been smeared,” Mr. Fuentes said of Mr. Kelly, adding, “I don’t understand why people want to see him go.”

As for the relationship between Mr. Kelly and Mr. Trump, he said: “They’re on great footing. Their relationship is as strong as ever.”

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But the White House communications staff, which normally rushes to deny or sidestep rumors that Mr. Trump is angry with or on the brink of firing an underling, has been quiet. It allowed a statement that Mr. Kelly issued on Monday, and the protestations of his closest aide, to serve as the only substantial on-record comment in response to the NBC story.

“I spend more time with the president than anyone else, and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship,” Mr. Kelly said in the statement, circulated to the White House press pool. “He always knows where I stand, and he and I both know this story is total BS.”

The next day, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the press secretary, tried to put the best face on the relationship, telling reporters that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Kelly were “very happy with his position that he currently holds.”

But Chris Whipple, the author of “The Gatekeepers,” a history of White House chiefs of staff, has a different view of the relationship. “It’s like a really bad marriage, but maybe for now both people have decided they’re just going to try to muddle through,” he said. “Trump is just tired of having a chief of staff, and has this delusion that he would somehow be more effective unchained.”

Mr. Whipple described Mr. Kelly as suffering from what he called the “Don Regan syndrome,” a reference to Ronald Reagan’s ill-fated chief of staff. Like Mr. Kelly, Mr. Regan would often say things that revealed a disdain for his boss, once famously comparing his job to that of a shovel brigade whose task was to walk behind a herd of elephants cleaning up their mess.

“He’s arrogant, he’s been imperious and he’s politically out of his depth,” Mr. Whipple said of Mr. Kelly. “That’s all coming back to bite him now.”

Some officials said the NBC story appeared to be part of a calculated effort by Mr. Kelly’s detractors to damage him in Mr. Trump’s eyes, perhaps to prod the president to take the step he has so far resisted of firing his chief of staff.

Mr. Kelly’s hold on the White House staff has certainly weakened, tarnishing his reputation and overshadowing his efforts to bring order and discipline to the West Wing.

The scandal surrounding the departure in February of Rob Porter, the staff secretary who resigned under pressure amid allegations of spousal abuse, left a lingering bitter taste among aides, some of whom felt that Mr. Kelly had botched his response and been dishonest about his own role in the episode. Among those who came away angry with Mr. Kelly were Jared Kushner — whose high-level security access he revoked as part of tightened security clearance procedures in the scandal’s aftermath — and Ivanka Trump.

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More recently, he has left some aides with unclear job descriptions in place while declining to fill key roles. He has targeted some people who were close to Mr. Trump during the campaign as potential problems, and tried to limit their influence. That has included people within the West Wing as well as those on Mr. Trump’s ever-present evening phone call list, such as Corey Lewandowski, the first 2016 campaign manager who was fired before the convention.

Mr. Lewandowski and David Bossie, the deputy campaign manager, both traveled with Mr. Trump to Michigan on Saturday. And the looming midterm elections — for which Mr. Kelly has no instinctive feel — provide Mr. Trump with added incentive to listen to other voices.

Mr. Kelly’s insistence on an identifiable chain of command in the White House — one of the first things he tried to establish when taking the job last summer — has given way to the creation of new fiefs.

Larry Kudlow, Mr. Trump’s new director of the National Economic Council, has a direct line to the president, as does John R. Bolton, his newly installed national security adviser, who was not Mr. Kelly’s preferred candidate for the role. Mr. Bolton has been seeking to build his own empire, hiring staff members who may have been considered problematic before.

Mr. Kelly, for his part, is sanguine about how little control he has over how the president chooses to spend his time. At a breakfast event last week for Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, Mr. Kelly marveled that Mr. Trump had spent a long time the day before on the phone with Bill Belichick, the New England Patriots coach, talking about the status of Tom Brady, the star quarterback, according to two people familiar with his remarks, one of whom was present.

“It was, to begin with, the most dysfunctional White House in modern history, and now it’s worse,” Mr. Whipple said. “Without an empowered White House chief of staff, you can’t execute policy.”

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White House Considers Barring Chinese Telecom Sales as Tensions Mount

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering executive action to further restrict the sale of Chinese telecommunications equipment in the United States, people briefed on the discussions said, in a move that could ratchet up tensions between China and the United States as the countries vie for technological dominance.

The executive order, which could be released within days, is expected to raise the barrier for government agencies to buy products from foreign telecom equipment providers like Huawei and ZTE, two of China’s most prominent technology firms. Private government contractors may also be restricted from buying foreign telecom products, which the United States believes may be vulnerable to Chinese espionage or disruption.

The order would follow a series of intensifying actions by the Trump administration to block Chinese technology that is seen as a national security threat. In March, the Federal Communications Commission took action to block broadband companies that receive federal subsidies from buying equipment from suppliers that are deemed a risk to national security. In April, the Commerce Department barred ZTE from purchases of American technology for seven years, saying that the company failed to punish employees who violated United States sanctions.

The Trump administration increasingly views national security and emerging technology as intertwined and has used its authority to protect national security as a way to block China from gaining an economic edge, particularly as it relates to that nation’s ambitious industrial policy, known as Made in China 2025. Both nations are racing to claim dominance in cutting-edge technology like autonomous vehicles and the next generation of wireless services, known as 5G.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Department of Defense said the Pentagon was stopping the sale of phones made by Huawei and ZTE in stores on American military bases around the world because of security concerns.

While the Pentagon cannot stop service members from buying the phones elsewhere, the spokesman, Maj. Dave Eastburn, said in an email that the Defense Department was directing American military personnel to be “mindful of the security risks posed by the use of Huawei devices, regardless of where they are purchased.”

“Huawei and ZTE devices may pose an unacceptable risk to the department’s personnel, information and mission,“ Major Eastburn said. He cited Senate testimony in February by the director of national intelligence and the heads of the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and other agencies that Americans should not use Huawei products because of potential security risks.

The crackdown on the telecom companies comes as the United States and China trade accusations of unfair policies and threats of tariffs. A delegation of top Trump administration officials, including Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, arrived in China this week for talks aimed at defusing the tensions.

The Trump administration has been considering other curbs on China, including investment restrictions and curtailing visas for Chinese nationals who work on sensitive research projects. The White House is also weighing new rules that would add to the goods and services traded with China that are subject to so-called deemed export rules. If such rules go into effect, American companies and universities will be required to obtain special licenses for Chinese researchers who have contact with a broader range of technology — making it harder for Chinese citizens to join in scientific research and product development programs.

People familiar with the discussions cautioned that an executive order that expanded on these actions was still being worked on, and that legal hurdles remained.

Lindsay E. Walters, the White House deputy press secretary, said the White House had no comment on individual actions. “Protecting critical infrastructure, including the supply chains associated with such infrastructure, is a critical part of protecting America’s national security and public safety,” she added.

American companies have expressed similar national security concerns about foreign tech companies, but say they’re waiting for details of the order.

”Addressing global supply chain security concerns has long been a priority for the tech industry,” said Pamela Walker, vice president at the Information Technology Industry Council, a lobbying group. “Moving forward, we urge policymakers to share information with suppliers and contractors so we can increase the level of security and assurance within the supply chain.”

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Trump Assails Justice Dept., Siding With House Conservatives in Dispute

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But those efforts have not quieted two of Mr. Trump’s most loyal supporters on Capitol Hill, Representatives Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio. In an unusual show of defiance of their committee chairman, they have insisted the agreement is not good enough and that they need access to an unredacted version of an August 2017 memo outlining the scope of Mr. Mueller’s investigation.

Democrats fear that the requests — many of which call on the department to ignore longstanding policy about what it shares with Congress — are merely meant to provide Mr. Trump with a reason to fire Mr. Mueller.

Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the latest Republican efforts were “clearly trying to sabotage” the Mueller investigation and court a confrontation with Mr. Rosenstein.

“All of this noise is aimed at undermining the special counsel’s work as the investigation closes in on the president,” Mr. Nadler said in a statement. “The president’s attacks on the Department of Justice grow more paranoid by the day. The case for obstruction of justice — and the complicity of these House Republicans — grows day by day as well.”

Mr. Rosenstein has made clear he does not intend to go further.

The Justice Department wrote to Mr. Meadows and Mr. Jordan on Monday to deny them access to the document about the scope of the Russia inquiry, citing department policy against sharing information on a continuing investigation.

And on Tuesday, reacting to reports that Mr. Meadows had drafted articles of impeachment to use against him if needed, Mr. Rosenstein declared that the Justice Department would not be extorted.

“There have been people who have been making threats, privately and publicly, against me for quite some time,” he said at an event in Washington. “And I think they should understand by now, the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.”

Mr. Meadows fired back, saying that Mr. Rosenstein was stonewalling legitimate oversight requests and calling on him to resign.

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Last month, Mr. Trump said Mr. Rosenstein faced conflicts of interest and criticized him for signing a search warrant application to permit federal agents to eavesdrop on one of the president’s former campaign aides. Mr. Rosenstein assumed oversight of the investigation and appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel after the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself last year. Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked Mr. Sessions for his recusal.

The president has previously said he is frustrated that he is not supposed to be involved with Justice Department matters.

“I am not supposed to be involved with the F.B.I. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I’m very frustrated by it,” Mr. Trump said in an interview last November.

The president’s threats, though vague, come at a time when he has been on the defensive after the disclosure of more than 40 questions that the special counsel would like him to answer. The questions touch on a variety of topics, including coordination with the Russians during the presidential campaign and actions Mr. Trump has taken as president and whether they were intended to derail the inquiry, undercutting the president’s repeated claims that the investigation is a “hoax.”

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On Anniversary of House Obamacare Repeal, Democrats Look to Extract a Price

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WASHINGTON — A year ago Friday, Representative Claudia Tenney of New York stood among dozens of enthusiastic colleagues in the Rose Garden to celebrate passage of a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. When President Trump made his way on stage, Ms. Tenney clapped and smiled.

On this not-so-happy anniversary, a Democratic “super PAC” is on the air with a television commercial reminding constituents of a repeal vote that Republicans were once convinced would be a political winner. Her Democratic challenger, Anthony Brindisi, a state assemblyman, said health care is consistently one of the top issues in a vast district that runs from Lake Ontario through Utica and Rome to the Pennsylvania border.

“I think her vote is wildly unpopular among constituents in the district,” Mr. Brindisi said. “And what adds insult to injury is that she celebrated her vote by snapping selfies of herself at the White House, gleefully cheering a vote that would take health insurance away from thousands of her constituents.”

House passage of the Obamacare repeal bill left that chamber’s Republicans in a no-win situation. T hey took the hard vote, but because the Senate failed to follow suit, no one can claim a victory. Now Democrats hope to extract a price. Far from the liability that the Affordable Care Act has been in past elections, Democrats believe health care will be a key advantage heading into this fall’s midterm elections.

Though President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement has endured, Democrats accuse the Trump administration and congressional Republicans of sabotaging the health insurance marketplaces the health law created through actions such as ending the requirement that most people have coverage or pay a penalty. And in the weeks before this fall’s elections, consumers are expected to learn of another wave of premium increases.

Mr. Brindisi said the repeal bill, the American Health Care Act, would have had devastating effects on the district that Ms. Tenney represents in upstate New York, harming hospitals that are important to the local economy and diminishing access to opioid treatment.

But in an interview last week, Ms. Tenney, a former state assemblywoman who is in her first term, showed no sign of regret.

“The real issue is, how are we going to make health care affordable again?” she said. “We polled ‘repeal and replace’ twice,” she added. “People want Obamacare repealed in the majority in my district.”

On one level, the passage of the House repeal bill was a political achievement for Republican lawmakers; after years of campaign promises, they could tell their political base that they had done what they had pledged to do, even if the Senate stumbled once the baton was handed over to that chamber.

But viewed another way, the House repeal bill amounted to a political gift to Democrats. Opponents said its enactment would have left people with pre-existing medical conditions unable to afford health coverage and would have resulted in health plans that omit benefits that are currently required, like maternity care and mental health services. Republicans said Democrats’ claims were exaggerated, if not false. But the law was never enacted, and supporters have no way of getting real-world evidence to refute them.

All told, the House bill would have increased the number of people without health insurance by 14 million this year and by 23 million in 2026, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.

A year ago, Democrats warned that Republicans were practically begging voters to unseat them. When the repeal bill narrowly passed the House, Democratic lawmakers serenaded their Republican colleagues with, “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!”

Beyond the House repeal bill, Democrats have also developed a broader argument that Republicans have inflicted damage on health insurance markets, partly because of actions taken by the Trump administration to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Just this week, they gained an assist from an unlikely figure: Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s former secretary of health and human services, who said that ending the requirement that most people have coverage, known as the individual mandate, would increase costs for people buying insurance.

Helping the Democrats, polls have shown that the Affordable Care Act has gained in popularity since the 2016 elections. In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted last month, Democrats had an 18-percentage-point edge when people were asked which party they thought would do a better job dealing with health care.

To mark the anniversary of House passage, health care advocates are holding events around the country this week. On Friday, a coalition called Save My Care plans to air a television commercial that reminds viewers about the House bill and concludes with the narrator saying, “We won’t forget.”

Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a former chairman of the House Republicans’ campaign arm, cast doubt on how much of an effect the repeal bill would have in midterm races.

“I don’t think talking about a bill that didn’t happen is particularly effective,” he said. “People punish you for things that you do successfully, not for things that never happen just because you cast a vote.”

Mr. Cole suggested that a more significant risk stemmed from Republican voters who are disappointed that their party’s lawmakers ultimately failed to repeal the health law despite years of promises. “It’s more a matter of deflating our base than enraging the other side, because they’re already pretty enraged and energetic anyway,” he said.

Then there is the question of how much health care will remain a prominent issue when last year’s repeal effort is an increasingly distant memory.

“My fear is that there’s all this salacious stuff — there’s all this focus on Russia and Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen,” said Laurel Smith, 57, a health care activist in New Jersey whose congressman, Tom MacArthur, played a pivotal role in passing the House repeal bill. “It’s easy to get distracted.”

Ms. Smith said she had previously voted for Mr. MacArthur, a Republican, but now backs his Democratic challenger, Andy Kim. Ms. Smith’s 27-year-old son, who has a chronic and uncurable disease, has been volunteering for Mr. Kim’s campaign.

Mr. Kim, a former National Security Council staff member in the Obama White House, said he wants every voter to know about Mr. MacArthur’s role, which landed him a speaking slot at the Rose Garden ceremony.

“He wasn’t just a yes vote,” Mr. Kim said. “He’s got his name on it.”

Mr. MacArthur said he was not worried.

“The reality is I didn’t come here to be a potted plant,” he said. “I came here to work on problems facing the American people, and health care costs are hurting my constituents.”

But that Rose Garden ceremony remains a touchstone.

Elissa Slotkin said she was contemplating a run for Congress when she saw her congressman, Mike Bishop of Michigan, at that Rose Garden celebration.

“He was smiling and beaming and proud and thrilled,” she recalled. “I turned to my husband and said, ‘You do not get to do this. You don’t get to ignore the public and vote against their interests and keep your job.’ ”

Ms. Slotkin, a former senior official in the Defense Department, jumped in. She is seen by the House Democrats’ campaign arm as a formidable challenger.

Mr. Bishop bristled at his critics.

“In order to win this, the Democrats have infused fear and panic, and they have done so by misrepresenting the truth,” he said. “If you need to do that to win, then count me out, because I would never do that.”

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White House confirms involvement in ‘raid’ of Trump’s former doctor’s office – ThinkProgress

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During a news briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that the White House was involved in retrieving President Trump’s medical records from his former doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, but disputed Bornstein’s claim that what a top White House aide and Trump Organization official did to his office in February 2017 was tantamount to a “raid.”

“Why did Keith Schiller, who was a White House employee at the time, go and take medical records from the president’s personal doctor last year?” NBC’s Hallie Jackson asked. Schiller is Trump’s longtime bodyguard and served as director of Oval Office operations from Trump’s inauguration until September of last year.

“Ah, as is standard operating procedure for a new president, the White House medical unit took possession of the president’s medical records,” Sanders replied.

“It was characterized as a ‘raid’ — is that your understanding of what happened?” Jackson followed up. “The doctor seemed to be pretty upset about it.”

“Ah no, that is not my understanding,” Sanders replied, without elaborating.

A short time later, another reporter followed up, noting that “there are some today that are saying what happened with the president’s former personal doctor is a burglary, the way Keith Schiller busted in–”

Sanders cut him off.

“I don’t know if ‘some’ — I think there is one, but not ‘some,'” Sanders said, alluding to Bornstein’s recollection of in the incident. “Once again, it would be standard procedure for the president — a newly elected president’s medical records to be in possession by the White House medical unit, and that was what was taking place, is those records were being transferred over to the White House medical unit, as requested.”

Sanders’ portrayal of the February 2017 incident is at odds with Bornstein, who told NBC that the “raid” left him feeling “raped, frightened, and sad” and “created a lot of chaos.”

Bornstein said that the incident happened two days after he told the New York Times that Trump takes Propecia, a drug that is often prescribed to stimulate hair grown in men.

“I couldn’t believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important,” Bernstein said. “And it certainly was not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What’s the matter with that?”

Trump's doctor, Dr. Harold Bornstein, tells NBC that Trump's bodyguard & lawyer spent 30 minutes raiding his office.

"I couldn't believe anybody was making a big deal about a drug that's to grow his hair, which seemed to be so important… what's the matter with that?" pic.twitter.com/R2XvAKim7h

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 1, 2018

Bornstein said that Schiller, Trump Organization Chief Legal Officer Alan Garten, and another “large man” showed up unexpectedly at his office and spent about 30 minutes rummaging through it. He says they took the original and only copy of Trump’s medical charts.

During a subsequent conversation with CBS, Bornstein compared what happened in his office to the Watergate break-in.

.@KaciSokoloff just spoke w Dr. Harold Bornstein, who refused an interview but said that NBC's piece was "a pretty good story." Bornstein also said that he spoke to the NBC reporter “in the bathroom” of his office. He signed off with: "Sweetheart, this is watergate, goodbye!"

— Jacqueline Alemany (@JaxAlemany) May 1, 2018

During the presidential campaign, Bornstein — who was Trump’s personal doctor for more than three decades — released a letter proclaiming Trump had “no significant medical problems in the past 39 years” and would be “the healthiest individual elected to the presidency.”

During a press conference earlier this year, White House doctor Ronny Jackson provided a similarly glowing review of Trump’s health. “Some people have just great genes. I told the president that if he had a healthier diet over the past 20 years he might live to be 200 year old,” Jackson said. He also confirmed that Trump takes Propecia.

Jackson was recently nominated by Trump to be director of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but his nomination quickly fell through amid allegations that he doled out prescription drugs like candy and drank excessively on the job. Trump has repeatedly said he believes all of the allegations against Jackson are false.

During the briefing on Tuesday, Sanders confirmed that Jackson no longer serves as Trump’s personal physician.

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