The Republican Party is devoting a lot of energy to discrediting Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former Apprentice contestant and senior White House adviser to President Trump who is promoting a new White House tell-all, Unhinged. "Who in their right mind thinks it's appropriate to secretly record the White House chief of staff in the Situation Room?" asked Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Sunday. That's a good question. Some other ones: Who thought it was a good idea to hire her at the White House in the first place? What did she do to earn her $179,700 government salary? And why did she last a year? The answer to that last question appears to be, in part, fear.

"I'm scared sh-tless of her," one male former colleague tells Axios' Jonathan Swan. "She's a physically intimidating presence. ... I'm afraid of her. I'm afraid of getting my ass kicked." Other former officials concurred. "One hundred percent, everyone was scared of her," one told Swan, while another said, laughing: "She knows media, she knows about physical presence, like Trump does ... that's why I think he's rattled. ... She's out-Trumping Trump right now." Maybe that's one reason the chaos-encouraging Trump hired her, as this accurate 2013 tweet hints:

But it's not just Manigault Newman's physical presence and savvy that has former allies worried: She appears to have the goods to back up some of her allegations. "I don't know what tapes she has on me," one former colleague told Politico. There's at least "one indication that the Trump White House is concerned about what Manigault Newman knows," says The Atlantic's Vernon Loeb: Trump's campaign offered her $15,000 a month to work for the campaign, on the condition she sign a nondisclosure and no-disparagement agreement about her time at the White House. "It is, it now seems, way too late for that," Loeb notes. Peter Weber

Not everyone is mourning the damage done to Notre Dame.

The Yellow Vest movement, a sometimes-violent national protest based around the beliefs that ordinary French citizens have lost purchasing power and that French President Emmanuel Macron's policies favor the rich that began after a French fuel tax hike last November, has expressed anger at the nearly $1 billion in pledges to reconstruct the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, which caught fire last week.

9,000 protesters took to the streets for the 23rd consecutive weekend in Paris on Saturday and criticized what they believe is hypocrisy from the French elite. Those gathered decried the fact that money will be spent on the cathedral as opposed to addressing poverty in France.

The protests started out peacefully, but they eventually turned violent as the demonstrators clashed with police who used tear gas and stun grenades to subdue them.

Macron was actually scheduled to address the Yellow Vest movement directly in a speech on Monday when the fire struck Notre Dame. But the president postponed in order to deal with the fallout surrounding the cathedral. Tim O'Donnell

This might go on a while.

President Trump fired back at Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) after Romney released a statement saying he was "sickened" by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on 2016 Russian election interference and the Trump campaign's conduct surrounding the meddling. Romney said the report highlighted Trump's dishonesty.

Romney did also add that the government can now 'move on' from the investigation, but Trump wasn't ready to do that quite yet. The president responded to Romney's statement on Twitter, posting video footage of the senator's electoral defeat in the 2012 presidential election when he ran as the Republican nominee against former President Barack Obama.

Romney actually won a greater percentage of the popular vote in 2012 than Trump did in 2016, but he did not carry enough of the electoral vote to defeat Obama. Tim O'Donnell

The FBI arrested a member of a right-wing militia on Saturday in New Mexico. Larry Mitchell Hopkins, 69, of Flora Vista, New Mexico, was charged with alleged unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition just days after his armed group, The United Constitutional Patriots, detained over 200 migrants who had illegally crossed the United States' southern border into New Mexico.

The group reportedly posted videos of its members detaining the migrants and coordinating with U.S. border patrol agents to take the people into custody. It is unclear, however, if Hopkins' arrest is directly related to the detentions, per The Guardian. But the New Mexico attorney general's office described him as a "dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families."

The militia's spokesman, Jim Benvie, said that Hopkins "will get through this" and that the arrest "doesn't change anything."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has called The United Constitutional Patriots "fascist," blamed the group's vigilante actions on the rhetoric of President Trump. Tim O'Donnell

An ongoing series of bombings targeted churches and luxury hotels in what is believed to be a coordinated terror attack in Sri Lanka on Sunday. At least 140 people have reportedly been killed and 560 injured.

The Sri Lankan government has declared a curfew, blocked access to most major social media sites, and deployed the military in response. The first wave of attacks reportedly occurred during three Easter services at Christian churches throughout the country, including in the capital Colombo. Christians are a minority in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka and Christian groups say they have faced increasing intimidation from some extremist Buddhist monks in recent years, per Reuters.

Three more bombs then went off at hotels, one near a zoo, and one at a private residence.

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Maithripala Sirisena both condemned the attacks.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. Sri Lanka has been at "relative peace" for the past decade after the end of a 25-year civil war when terrorist bombings were common. Tim O'Donnell

It's fair to say that the Mueller report did not knock down any partisan barriers. Reactions were typically divided. Democrats vowed to continue pursuing the report's findings, with some prominent members of the party, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), calling for impeachment proceedings to begin. Republicans, though, mostly remained silent.

Even some members of the GOP who tend to risk criticizing the president more openly remained measured in their responses. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), for example, said that Mueller's findings on 2016 Russian election interference and the Trump campaign's conduct surrounding the meddling painted an "unflattering" image of Trump. But she also said the investigation was a "very thorough undertaking" that seems to have "changed very few minds in Washington," perhaps implying that the results speak for themselves.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said that while the level of Russian interference revealed in the report was alarming, Americans should be "relieved" their president did not collaborate with Moscow.

However, not everyone on the right side of the aisle is at ease with the findings of the report. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who has had his battles with Trump in the past, said in a statement that he is "sickened" by the findings, although he said the "business of government" can now "move on."

Fox News' judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano, meanwhile, suggested on Friday that there may be enough evidence in the Mueller report to prosecute the president. He added that, regardless, the report does show a "venal, amoral, deceptive Donald Trump." Tim O'Donnell

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly left Attorney General William Barr and other members of the Justice Department perplexed, The Washington Post reports.

Their confusion stems from Mueller's decision to not reach a conclusion on whether President Trump obstructed justice during Mueller's probe into 2016 Russian election interference and the Trump campaign's conduct surrounding the meddling. In public, Barr — who reportedly considers Mueller a friend — said it was Mueller's "prerogative" to make the call, or lack thereof, on obstruction.

But privately, Barr and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein disagreed with Mueller's legal theories. In the report, Mueller's team pointed to a long-standing legal opinion at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Council, which says that a sitting president should not be indicted. Mueller reportedly concluded that meant they could not accuse the president of a crime and, at times, the report implies that Congress should assume the role of making prosecutorial decisions.

This reportedly surprised Barr who did think Mueller had the authority to make such a decision (Barr eventually came to the conclusion that the evidence did not constitute obstruction.) Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the Post that it was, indeed, a surprise that Mueller leaned so heavily on the OLC opinion.

"It doesn't make any sense, because on collusion, he seemed to be perfectly empowered to reach a conclusion on whether the president committed a crime," Turley said. "The other problem is that his mandate clearly allowed him to make a decision." Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell