Effective Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security will be led by an acting secretary, Kevin McAleenan. He will join acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, acting U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen, and acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vough in President Trump's Cabinet. When Linda McMahon steps down Friday, the Small Business Administration will have an acting administrator, too.
The FAA, FDA, FEMA, ICE, and Secret Service are among the other agencies with no Senate-confirmed leader, and when McAleenan becomes acting DHS secretary on Wednesday, Customs and Border Protection administrator will be vacant, too. Shanahan, who is under investigation by the inspector general, has been acting defense secretary since Jan. 1, a record tenure for an acting Cabinet-level official, The Wall Street Journal reports. Trump hasn't even nominated a permanent candidate.
Trump seems to prefer this arrangement, telling reporters in January: "I like 'acting.' It gives me more flexibility." But the glut of acting officials in Trump's Cabinet is "prompting concerns from lawmakers in both parties about their accountability to Congress," the Journal reports. Congress isn't alone.
Trump's preference for "acting" appointees, "presumably because unconfirmed appointees are more likely to be loyal to him personally rather than to the Congress or Constitution," is yet "another assault on the law," Max Boot argues at The Washington Post. America's founders specifically "ordered George Washington to send nominations to the Hill at a reasonable pace," New York University professor Paul Light tells The New York Times, because they "rightly worried that presidents might use acting appointees to evade oversight and institutional prerogatives."
For Trump, "the real difference is avoiding Senate confirmation — either because the individuals he wants running these agencies can't be confirmed even by a Republican-controlled Senate, or because he's worried about the kinds of questions they'd have to answer and or concessions they'd have to make in order to be confirmed," adds University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck. And Congress, he notes, isn't powerless here. Peter Weber
Your move, Mayor Pete.
On Sunday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a 15-page document detailing her past corporate legal work, including cases she worked on as counsel, consultant, and expert witness. Some of the cases date back more than 30 years, and in total, she earned $1.9 million, Reuters reports. The document lists dozens of cases, and many were taken on pro bono. In April, Warren released 11 years of tax returns, and encouraged her fellow candidates to follow suit.
Warren came forward with the document on Sunday after her fellow Democratic presidential candidate, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, pressured her to share more about her corporate legal work. Warren has called out Buttigieg for not releasing any information about his time spent with the consultancy company McKinsey & Co.; she also said he should let the media cover his private donor events.
Kristen Orthman, Warren's communications director, got in a dig at Buttigieg on Sunday night, saying in a statement that "any candidate who refuses to provide basic details about his or her own record and refuses to allow voters or the press to understand who is buying access to their time and what they are getting in return will be seen by voters as part of the same business-as-usual politics that voters have consistently rejected." Catherine Garcia
Whakaari/White Island, New Zealand's most active cone volcano, erupted on Monday, injuring as many as 20 people, authorities said.
The volcano is in the Bay of Plenty, and the island is a popular tourist attraction. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it is believed that "100 people were on or around the island" when the volcano erupted, and some are unaccounted for. The government does not yet know if there have been any deaths.
Radio New Zealand said there are five helicopters, an ambulance crew, and a mobile triage unit on the way to the island, which is about 30 miles off the northeast coast of New Zealand. Catherine Garcia
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) believes the Democrats have a "solid" case for the impeachment of President Trump, he declared on CNN's State of the Union Sunday.
In fact, the case is so strong he's convinced if presented to a jury, it "would be a guilty verdict in about three minutes flat," Nadler said. There is "considerable direct evidence," he continued, and it "ill behooves the president or his partisans to say you don't have enough direct evidence when the reason we don't have even more direct evidence is the president has ordered everybody in the executive branch not to cooperate with Congress in the impeachment inquiry, something that is unprecedented in American history and is a contempt of Congress by itself."
On Monday, the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing where evidence gathered by the Intelligence Committee will be presented. Nadler said the scope and nature of the articles of impeachment are still being considered, and won't be decided until after the hearing. "We'll bring articles of impeachment, presumably, before the committee at some point later in the week," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. The articles of impeachment are expected to center on abuse of presidential power in regards to Ukraine policy and obstruction of the impeachment probe. Catherine Garcia
The Saudi gunman who killed three people on Friday at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida went on Twitter before the shooting and accused the United States of being anti-Muslim, a U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Saudi Royal Air Force 2nd Lt. Mohammad Saeed Alshamrani also apparently tweeted his anger over U.S. support of Israel. The FBI confirmed it is operating on the assumption the shooting was an act of terrorism, with investigators working to determine whether Alshamrani, 21, acted alone or with others. Alshamrani was in the U.S. for flight training, and was killed by a sheriff’s deputy during the attack.
The official also told AP that investigators believe Alshamrani went to New York City a few days before the shooting, and they are trying to figure out the purpose of his trip. A second U.S. official told AP on Saturday that Alshamrani hosted a dinner party prior to the attack during which he and three others watched videos of mass shootings.
Rachel J. Rojas, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Jacksonville, said a Glock 9 mm weapon that had been legally purchased in Florida was used to carry out the shooting. In response, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said he is against a "federal loophole" that lets foreigners purchase guns in the United States, and while he supports the Second Amendment, it "does not apply to Saudi Arabians." Catherine Garcia
Caroll Spinney, the actor and puppeteer who made Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch come alive on Sesame Street, died Sunday. He was 85.
The Sesame Workshop said Spinney, who died at his home in Connecticut, lived with dystonia for many years. Spinney began working on Sesame Street in its earliest days in 1969, before retiring in 2018.
As Big Bird, Spinney traveled around the world, conducted symphony orchestras, danced with the Rockettes, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.
In a statement, Sesame Workshop said Spinney's "enormous talent and outsized heart were perfectly suited to playing the larger-than-life yellow bird who brought joy to generations of children and countless fans of all ages around the world, and his loveably cantankerous grouch gave us all permission to be cranky once in a while." Catherine Garcia