Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked the remaining 46 U.S. attorneys to resign, the Justice Department announced Friday, describing the move as part of an effort to ensure a “uniform transition.”

The department said some U.S. attorneys, as in prior transitions, already had left the department. Now, “the Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their resignations,” a spokeswoman said.

“Until the new U.S. Attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our U.S. Attorney’s Offices will continue the great work of the Department in investigating, prosecuting, and deterring the most violent offenders,” the statement added.

It is customary, though not automatic, for the country’s 93 U.S. attorneys to leave their positions once a new president is in office. Incoming administrations over the past several decades typically have replaced most U.S. attorneys during the first year or two.

The Obama administration allowed political appointees of President George W. Bush to serve until their replacement had been nominated and confirmed. One U.S. attorney appointed by Bush, Rod Rosenstein of Maryland, remained on the job for the entire Obama administration and is the current nominee for deputy attorney general.

Sessions’ actions, though, are being closely scrutinized by Democrats after a rocky start to the AG’s time at the DOJ.

Weeks after his tight confirmation vote on Feb. 8, it emerged that Sessions had met twice with the Russian ambassador last year — despite testifying during his confirmation hearing he had no communications with the Russians.

Sessions later clarified his testimony, while recusing himself from any investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 campaign.

The move Friday also comes amid Republican concerns that officials who served under the Obama administration may be working against the Trump administration. Those suspicions, though, largely have focused on intelligence agencies and elsewhere.

U.S. attorneys are responsible for prosecuting federal crimes in the territories they oversee. They report to Justice Department leadership in Washington, and their priorities are expected to be in line with those of the attorney general. The federal prosecutors are nominated by the president, generally upon the recommendation of a home-state senator.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

House Republicans on Monday evening released the text of their long-awaited ObamaCare replacement bill, proposing to eliminate the various taxes and penalties tied to the original legislation while still preserving certain patient protections.

Aiming to deliver on their signature campaign promise after several election cycles trying to reclaim control of Washington, majority Republicans unveiled what they call the American Health Care Act. The sweeping legislation would repeal ObamaCare’s taxes along with the so-called individual and employer mandates – which imposed fines for not buying and offering insurance, respectively.

It also would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies, replacing them with tax credits for consumers.

CLICK TO READ THE TEXT OF THE OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT BILL.

The bill would continue Obama’s expansion of Medicaid to additional low-earning Americans until 2020. After that, states adding Medicaid recipients would no longer receive the additional federal funds the statute has provided.

More significantly, Republicans would overhaul the federal-state Medicaid program, changing its open-ended federal financing to a limit based on enrollment and costs in each state.

“We begin by repealing the awful taxes, the mandate penalties and the subsidies in ObamaCare,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, told Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” in an exclusive interview.

Asked about some conservatives’ concerns that GOP leaders are merely pushing ‘ObamaCare Lite,’ Brady countered, “It is ObamaCare gone.”

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told Fox News they also “are not pulling the rug out from under people.” Rather, he said Republicans want to restore power to the states and control costs in Medicaid and elsewhere.

“It’ll amount to the biggest entitlement reform, probably in at least the last 20 years,” he said.

The release of the bill touches off what is likely to be a contentious debate, not just with Democrats but within the Republican Party.

The White House signaled its approval of the plan, with spokesman Sean Spicer saying, “Today marks an important step toward restoring healthcare choices and affordability back to the American people.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill “hands billionaires a massive new tax break while shifting huge costs and burdens onto working families across America.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the proposal “would cut and cap Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood, and force Americans, particularly older Americans, to pay more out of pocket for their medical care all so insurance companies can pad their bottom line.”

The first test for GOP leaders, who have been under heavy pressure ever since President Trump took office to release a bill, will be whether the text satisfies the influential conservative wing  – which has the numbers to torpedo the legislation. But it is a balancing act, as moderate Republican lawmakers, as well as governors of both parties, also have warned against going too far in rolling back consumer protections and benefits.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the bill would “drive down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance.” He added, “This unified Republican government will deliver relief and peace of mind to the millions of Americans suffering under Obamacare.”

However, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the bill “looks like ObamaCare Lite to me … It’s going to have to be better.”

Rank-and-file Republicans were watching to see if the legislation brings down the cost of healthcare.

“If it doesn’t, we haven’t changed anything,” one House Republican told Fox News.

While subsidies would be repealed in the new bill, they would be replaced by monthly tax credits. The credits, worth between $2,000 and $14,000 a year, could be used by low-and-middle-income families who don’t get work- or government-sponsored insurance to buy state-certified plans.

The credits would be based on age and family size, unlike the income-based version under ObamaCare. Conservatives have objected that that feature creates a new entitlement program the government cannot afford.

“I can’t believe many conservative groups are going to like this,” one GOP lawmaker told Fox.

Republicans said they’d not yet received official cost estimates on the overall bill from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That office’s projections on the bill’s price tag and the number of people the measure would cover could be key in winning over recalcitrant Republicans, or making them even harder to win over.

It’s unclear how many people might lose coverage under the new plan.

The legislation, meanwhile, would preserve protections for those with pre-existing conditions by prohibiting insurers from denying coverage or charging them more. It also would continue to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plans up to age 26.

Further, the plan would call for a “transition” away from the current Medicaid expansion, which was used under the original law to cover millions more people. Republicans also say they’d give states $100 billion to design their own programs, while upping the amount of money families can contribute to so-called Health Savings Accounts.

A series of tax increases on higher-earning people, the insurance industry and others used to finance the Obama overhaul’s coverage expansion would be repealed as of 2018.

In a last-minute change to satisfy conservative lawmakers, business and unions, Republicans dropped a plan pushed by Ryan to impose a first-ever tax on the most generous employer-provided health plans.

Fox News is told the plan is to go to both the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees on Wednesday for “mark-up” sessions where they will craft a final version of the bill. The legislation would tentatively go before the House Budget Committee next week.

The hope is that the bill would hit the House floor the week after that — and the Senate before the Easter recess.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wouldn’t rule out changes in the measure by his chamber, where significant numbers of moderate Republicans have expressed concerns that the measure could leave too many voters without coverage.

“The House has the right to come up with what it wants to and present it to the Senate by passing it. And we have a right to look it over and see if we like it or don’t,” Hatch told reporters.

Underscoring those worries, four GOP senators released a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shortly before the bill was unveiled.

They complained that an earlier, similar draft of the measure “does not provide stability and certainty for individuals and families in Medicaid expansion programs or the necessary flexibility for states.” Signing the letter were Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released what it said is the full hacking capacity of the CIA in a stunning 8,000-plus page disclosure the anti-secrecy website contends is “the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.”

The 8,761 documents and files — released as “Vault 7 Part 1” and titled “Year Zero” — were obtained from an “isolated, high-security network” at the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Va., a press release from the website said. The trove had been “circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors,” one of whom “recently” gave the archive to WikiLeaks.

“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.

The collection of purported intelligence tools includes information on CIA-developed malware — bearing names such as “Assassin” and “Medusa” — intended to target iPhones, Android phones, smart TVs and Microsoft, Mac and Linux operating systems, among others. An entire unit in the CIA is devoted to inventing programs to hack data from Apple products, according to WikiLeaks.

WIKILEAKS OFFERS REWARD FOR INFO ON OBAMA MISDEEDS

Some of the remote hacking programs can allegedly turn numerous electronic devices into recording and transmitting stations to spy on their targets, with the information then sent back to secret CIA servers. One document appears to show the CIA was trying to “infect” vehicle control systems in cars and trucks for unspecified means.

WikiLeaks hinted that the capabilites revealed in Tuesday’s disclosure could have even darker utility than simply spying.

“It would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations,” the release stated.

FLASHBACK: WIKILEAKS REVEALS CLINTON ‘HITS’ FILE ON SANDERS

The site said the CIA additionally failed to disclose security vulnerabilities and bugs to major U.S. software manufacturers, violating an Obama administration commitment made in January 2014. Instead, the agency used the software vulnerabilities — which could also be exploited by rival agencies, nations and groups — for its own ends, WikiLeaks said.

“As an example, specific CIA malware revealed in ‘Year Zero’ is able to penetrate, infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts,” the WikiLeaks release stated.

WikiLeaks also revealed the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a hacking base, and the website provided the methods by which agents obfuscate customs officers to gain entry to Germany, pretending to provide technical consultation.

WikiLeaks said its source released the files because they believed questions surrounding the CIA’s reach “urgently need to be debated in public,” echoing the motives of many previous leakers.

Some of the files include redacted information, such as tens “of thousands of CIA targets and attack machines throughout Latin America, Europe and the United States.”

By Cody Derespina

After racial slurs and swastikas, and declarations hailing the Ku Klux Klan were found scrawled in a bathroom stall in a Minnesota high school, a pair of famous liberals spoke up about it.

Controversial Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King noted the vandalism on Twitter after the messages were found Monday at Lakeville South High School:

[Editor’s Note: the KKK was the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party, and NAZI stands for National Socialist] Then comic Sarah Silverman piggybacked on King’s tweet, suggesting the racist, white-supremacist graffiti is what Republican President Donald Trump and his supporters mean by making “America great again”:

You might recall that last month Silverman wondered if utility markings were swastikas.

Not a good month for her and graffiti. Because Lakeville Public Schools officials released a statement Tuesday saying the high school’s administration received parental permission to reveal that the student behind the graffiti is “non-Caucasian” with “significant special education needs.”

“While this does not excuse the student’s actions, the District believes it will help the community and others put this incident into perspective,” the statement said.

By Dave Urbanski 

K Street lobbyists are the symbol of Washington influence-peddling as they push government for favors, subsidies, exemptions, and other special treatment for their clients. Their customers include, in addition to domestic clients, foreign governments, oligarchs, fugitive speculators, and a rogue’s gallery of questionable figures. Washington lobbyists trade on their access to power. Many are former administration officials or members of Congress. If Trump fulfills his promise to “drain the swamp,” these influence peddlers would have nothing to sell. They are under attack.

The media has focused not on K Street but on the Russian ties of President Donald Trump’s associates. They list the reprehensible Kremlin-associated figures for whom members of his inner circle worked, the most notorious being Viktor Yanukovich, the deposed president of Ukraine, and fugitive oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. But both of these “repulsive” figures were also advised by Democratic top dogs, who likely earned large multiples of what the “small fry” Trump associates took home.

In pushing its Manchurian-candidate-Trump narrative, the media fail to mention the much deeper ties of Democratic lobbyists to Russia. Don’t worry, the media seems to say: Even though they are representing Russia, the lobbyists are good upstanding citizens, not like the Trump people. They can be trusted with such delicate matters.

The media targeted former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, for consulting for deposed Ukrainian president’s (Yanukovich’s) Party of the Regions. He also worked for billionaire oligarch, Firtash, who stands accused of skimming billions in the Ukraine gas trade in league with Russian oligarchs. The media also singled out Trump’s former national security advisor, General Michael Flynn, for attending a dinner with Putin and appearing on Russia’s foreign propaganda network RT. Trump’s own Russian ties were the subject of intense media coverage of an unverified opposition-research report purportedly prepared by an ex-British spy, who remains in hiding. It seems no enterprising reporter has tried to find him.

The media’s focus on Trump’s Russian connections ignores the much more extensive and lucrative business relationships of top Democrats with Kremlin-associated oligarchs and companies. Thanks to the Panama Papers, we know that the Podesta Group (founded by John Podesta’s brother, Tony) lobbied for Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official. According to a Reuters report, Tony Podesta was “among the high-profile lobbyists registered to represent organizations backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.” Among these was the European Center, which paid Podesta $900,000 for his lobbying.

That’s not all: The busy Podesta Group also represented Uranium One, a uranium company acquired by the Russian government which received approval from Hillary Clinton’s State Department to mine for uranium in the U.S. and gave Russia twenty percent control of US uranium. The New York Times reported Uranium One’s chairman, Frank Guistra, made significant donations to the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for one speech from a Russian investment bank that has “links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.”  Notably, Frank Giustra, the Clinton Foundation’s largest and most controversial donor, does not appear anywhere in Clinton’s “non-private” emails. It is possible that the emails of such key donors were automatically scrubbed to protect the Clinton Foundation.

Let’s not leave out fugitive Ukrainian oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. He is represented by Democratic heavyweight lawyer, Lanny Davis, who accused Trump of “inviting Putin to commit espionage” (Trump’s quip: If Putin has Hillary’s emails, release them) but denies all wrongdoing by Hillary.

That’s still not all: Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) read Kremlin propaganda into the Congressional Record, referring to Ukrainian militia as “repulsive Neo Nazis” in denying Ukrainian forces ManPad weapons. Conyers floor speech was surely a notable success of some Kremlin lobbyist.

Lobbying for Russia is a bi-partisan activity. Gazprombank GPB, a subsidiary of Russia’s third largest bank, Gazprombank, is represented by former Sen. John Breaux, (D., La.), and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R., Miss.), as main lobbyists on “banking laws and regulations, including applicable sanctions.” The Breaux-Lott client is currently in the Treasury Department list of Russian firms prohibited from debt financing with U.S. banks.

In his February 16 press conference, President Trump declared in response to the intensifying media drumbeat on his Russian connections: “I haven’t done anything for Russia.” K-Street lobbyists, on the other hand, have done a lot to help Russia. They greased the skids for a strategic deal (that required the Secretary of State’s approval) that multiplied the Kremlin’s command of world uranium supplies. They likely prevented the shipment of strategic weapons needed by Ukraine to repulse well-armed pro-Russian forces. A fugitive billionaire who robbed the Ukrainian people of billions is represented by one of the establishment’s most connected lawyers.

Gazprombank GPB hired Breux and Lott to gain repeal of sanctions. That’s perfectly fine in Washington; they are playing according established “swamp rules” in their tailored suits and fine D.C. restaurants. General Flynn lost his job when the subject of sanctions was mentioned by the Russian ambassador in their telephone conversation, but that’s the way the media and Washington play.

No wonder that Trump’s’ “drain the swamp” and anti-media messages resonate so well with mainstream America.

Paul Roderick Gregory, Contributor

If you listen to the mainstream media, there’s a weird thing going on. All of a sudden, Sweden doesn’t have a problem. Sweden doesn’t have a rape crisis. Sweden is just fine with its massive influx of refugees. However, the facts are indisputable. Sweden is now the rape capital of the west.

Yet the facts are tossed aside for an alternate reality that borders on the pathological. No one knows this better than Ami Horowitz, producer of Stockholm Syndrome, a documentary about Sweden’s rape crisis, who was beaten by Muslim immigrants after going into a so-called “no-go zone.”

Glenn Beck had a similar experience in Sweden, but left just shy of things becoming physical.

“I was at the place where CBS reporters got into a fight over their camera. We had to leave because our security pushed us out,” Glenn said Tuesday on radio. “They said, as we got into the car, we were minutes away from a riot because we were even there.”

Ami joined Glenn to discuss his experience in Sweden and President Trump’s nonsensical tweet, which has garnered more interest from the press than the atrocities actually taking place throughout Europe.

Enjoy the complimentary clip above or read the transcript below for details.

GLENN: Ami is a good friend of the program and a documentary filmmaker. And he was over in Sweden. He did the Stockholm syndrome, which is a documentary — short documentary that everybody should watch because it is absolutely the truth of what is happening over in Sweden. Ami, welcome to the program.

AMI: It’s a real pleasure to be back, Glenn.

GLENN: Yeah. Now, so, Ami, are you the guy who Donald Trump was talking about, do you know?

AMI: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.

GLENN: Can you tell — okay. What happened? What’s really going on here?

AMI: Are we talking about Sweden, or are we talking about the controversy?

GLENN: First, let’s talk about the controversy.

AMI: Well, so what happened was, I came out with this video, Stockholm Syndrome that you teased before. And it came out about, oh, two months ago. And it did fairly well. Got a fair amount of press. Did a few million digital views, about typical of what my videos do. And then a month and a half passes, and Tucker Carlson from Fox News wanted to have me on as a guest. He was talking about Sweden as an example of the problems that refugees are facing in terms of immigration within countries. And he said, “Hey, why don’t you come on and talk about the video.” I said, “Great.” So we talk about the video, no problem. Saturday night, I’m at a bar mitzvah, and my phone starts to blow up. I’m like, “What is going on?” And people are telling me it seems like the president just referenced your interview with Tucker Carlson. I said, “That sounds interesting.” And I heard what the president said. It sounded a little bit weird. It could be interpreted in a couple different ways. And if you are negative against the president, you could interpret it that he was making up some terror attack. If you have more sympathy toward the president, you would say, well, he was really referring last night to the interview. He just kind of stumbled on his words, which he’s apt to do. And all of a sudden, man, this becomes this global international scandal that I find myself in the middle of this maelstrom. It’s absolutely insane.

GLENN: Now, it’s sane because now let’s talk about the documentary. Ami, I was there a year ago doing a documentary on exactly the same thing. Sweden is one of the greatest countries, I think in the world. It is — it is wildly socialist, but it’s pretty easy to be socialist when it’s homogenized as Sweden is. Everybody looks the same. Everybody, you know, comes from the same background, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s no real strife in Sweden historically.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly moved Tuesday to implement a host of immigration enforcement changes ordered by President Trump, directing agency heads to hire thousands more officers, end so-called “catch-and-release” policies and begin work on the president’s promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent criminals and criminal organizations from destabilizing border security,” Kelly wrote in one of two memos released Tuesday by the department.

The memos follow up on Trump’s related executive actions from January and, at their heart, aim to toughen immigration enforcement.

The changes would spare so-called “dreamers.” On a conference call with reporters, a DHS official stressed that the directives would not affect Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and others given a reprieve in 2014. But outside those exemptions, Kelly wrote that DHS “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

A DHS official said the agencies are “going back to our traditional roots” on enforcement.

The memos cover a sprawling set of initiatives including:

• Prioritizing criminal illegal immigrants and others for deportation, updating guidance from previous administration
• Expanding the 287(g) program, which allows participating local officers to act as immigration agents – and had been rolled back under the Obama administration
• Starting the planning, design and construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall
• Hiring 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers
• Hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents
• Ending “catch-and-release” policies under which illegal immigrants subject to deportation potentially are allowed to “abscond” and fail to appear at removal hearings

It’s unclear what timelines the secretary is setting for some of these objectives, and what budgetary and other constraints the department and its myriad agencies will face. In pursuing an end to “catch-and-release,” one memo called for a plan with the Justice Department to “surge” immigration judges and asylum officers to handle additional cases.

While congressional Republicans have vowed to work with Trump to fund the front-end costs associated with his promised border wall, the same memo also hints at future efforts to potentially use money otherwise meant for Mexico – following on Trump’s repeated campaign vow to make Mexico pay for the wall. The secretary called for “identifying and quantifying” sources of aid to Mexico, without saying in the memo how that information might be used.

Mexican officials repeatedly have said they will not pay for a border barrier. DHS said it has identified initial locations to build a wall where current fencing is not effective, near El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and El Centro, Calif.

The DHS directives come as the Trump White House continues to work on rewriting its controversial executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program as well as travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. The order was put on hold by a federal court, and Trump’s team is said to be working on a new measure.

The directives also come as the Trump administration faces criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups for recent ICE raids of illegal immigrants.

DHS officials on Tuesday’s conference call stressed that they are operating under existing law and once again shot down an apparently erroneous news report from last week claiming National Guard troops could be utilized to round up illegal immigrants. That will not happen, an official said.

“We’re going to treat everyone humanely and with dignity, but we are going to execute the laws of the United States,” a DHS official said on the conference call.

By Judson Berger

President Trump vowed Thursday to root out those responsible for leaking the “illegal classified” information that has fueled a string of damaging news reports on his administration, warning the leakers they “will be caught!”

“Leaking, and even illegal classified leaking, has been a big problem in Washington for years. Failing @nytimes (and others) must apologize!” Trump tweeted.

He added: “The spotlight has finally been put on the low-life leakers! They will be caught!”

The renewed focus on tracking down the sources causing political migraines for his core team follows National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation amid reports he misled Vice President Pence about a phone call with a Russian diplomat. Flynn’s alleged deception was revealed by leaks.

While Trump apparently sought Flynn’s resignation, the episode swiftly rekindled the president’s feud with the intelligence community, amid suspicions their agents provided some of the damaging information. The Wall Street Journal also reported the intelligence community is holding back information from Trump, wary of exposing the president to sensitive information.

Trump’s tweets Thursday echoed his comments a day earlier during his joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked about Flynn’s resignation, Trump said the situation was “unfair” and emphasized that “documents and papers” were “illegally – I stress that –illegally leaked.”

“Intelligence, papers are being leaked,” Trump said. “Things are being leaked. It’s a criminal action — criminal act — and it’s been going on for a long time. Before me. But now it’s really going on.”

The flood of anonymous sources bolstering a wide array of news accounts has given rise to rumors of a so-called “deep state coup,” in which members of the intelligence community are potentially working to undermine the new president and his advisers.

“It certainly seems like it, and remember the intelligence community has a long history of doing this,” Fox News contributor Erick Erickson said on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, linking the suspected sabotage to Trump’s desire to roll back the Iran nuclear deal.

“They leaked information damaging to [former presidents] Bill Clinton, George [W.] Bush and Barack Obama when it served their interest, so Donald Trump is no different.”

Trump is not the only Republican leader seeking answers on the leak issue.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz told Fox News’ “The First 100 Days” Wednesday that he’ll ask the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate the leaks that led to Flynn’s outster.

“No matter where you are on the political spectrum, you cannot have classified information migrating out into a non-classified setting,” Chaffetz said.

By Cody Derespina

The dirty secret smart Democrats know (but won’t admit) about Trump

Trump seizes on omission in court’s travel ban ruling, plots next move

President Trump got to work early Friday picking apart a federal court’s decision not to reinstate his controversial travel ban, noting that the detailed 29-page order did not include one mention of the statute he claims gives him broad authority on immigration.

“A disgraceful decision!” Trump tweeted, while quoting an analyst who flagged the omission in a Lawfare blog post.

The writer, Brookings fellow and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, had noted the order skipped over a key part of the U.S. code on “inadmissible aliens” which Trump had publicly recited on Wednesday in defense of his immigration restrictions.

The statute reads in part: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

Wittes wrote that this statute speaks to one of two “big questions” on which the case will turn.

He said the statute indeed gives Trump “sweeping power” to restrict entry, writing: “Remarkably, in the entire opinion, the panel did not bother even to cite this statute, which forms the principal statutory basis for the executive order (see Sections 3(c), 5(c), and 5(d) of the order). That’s a pretty big omission over 29 pages, including several pages devoted to determining the government’s likelihood of success on the merits of the case.”

The Trump administration has pointed to that statute for days in defending the controversial move to suspend refugee admissions as well as travel and immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries.

A three-judge panel of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, though, declined to lift a lower-court ruling that suspended the policy on other grounds.

In their unanimous decision, the judges generally referred to the government’s position that such presidential decisions on immigration policy are “unreviewable” – but rejected that argument.

“There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy,” the judges wrote. “…Although our jurisprudence has long counseled deference to the political branches on matters of immigration and national security, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held that courts lack the authority to review executive action in those arenas for compliance with the Constitution.”

The ruling did address what Wittes said was the other “big” question at play: How statements from the president and his campaign team could “render an otherwise valid exercise of this power invalid.”

This aspect pertains to past statements by Trump and his advisers that they were looking at ways to suspend immigration to the U.S. for Muslims. While the administration now insists this is not a “Muslim” ban, the states challenging the order say it violates the establishment and equal protection clauses of the Constitution because it was meant to target Muslims – pointing to the president’s past statements and other factors.

The court wrote: “The States’ claims raise serious allegations and present significant constitutional questions.”

The Justice Department is now reviewing its options — which include the possibility of appealing the matter to the Supreme Court, asking for a review from a broader panel of judges or taking the dispute back to the lower court. Or the White House could issue a revised order.

Trump tweeted overnight, “SEE YOU IN COURT,” without specifying which court.

Wittes argued that the 9^th Circuit was right to leave the restraining order in place, “for the simple reason that there is no cause to plunge the country into turmoil again while the courts address the merits of these matters over the next few weeks.”

Before the measure was put on hold, Trump’s order caused chaos at airports amid confusion over which travelers were affected. Green-card holders initially were thought to be included in the freeze, though the Homeland Security Department later made clear they were exempt.

Wittes cautioned in his post that the fight over the merits is different than the battle that just played out in San Francisco: “Eventually, the court has to confront the clash between a broad delegation of power to the President—a delegation which gives him a lot of authority to do a lot of not-nice stuff to refugees and visa holders—in a context in which judges normally defer to the president, and the incompetent malevolence with which this order was promulgated.”

By Judson Berger

Sen. Jeff Sessions won confirmation Wednesday evening to become the next attorney general of the United States, capping a Senate fight so contentious that one of the nominee’s biggest critics was forced by majority Republicans to sit out the last leg of the debate.

The Senate narrowly approved the Alabama Republican’s nomination on a 52-47 vote, the latest in a series of confirmation votes that have been dragged out amid Democratic protests. One Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, joined Republicans in voting to confirm Sessions. Sessions himself voted present.

In his farewell address Wednesday evening, Sessions urged his erstwhile colleagues to get along better following days of bruising debate.

“We need latitude in our relationships,” Sessions said. “Denigrating people who disagree with us is not a healthy trend for our body.”

President Trump has accused Democrats of obstructing the confirmation process, though the Senate will turn next to votes on the president’s picks to lead the health and treasury departments.

Sessions became just the sixth Cabinet nominee approved by the Senate, joining Trump’s choices for Defense, Homeland Security, Education, Transportation and State.

Wednesday’s vote came after a rowdy overnight session during which Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was formally chastised for allegedly impugning Sessions’ integrity on the floor.

Warren had read a letter authored in 1986 by Coretta Scott King, who was against Sessions’ nomination at the time to the federal bench, arguing he used the power of his office to “chill” black voting rights. Warren also quoted the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who originally had entered King’s letter into the record, describing Sessions as “disgraceful.”

GOP Senate leaders said Warren had violated Senate rules and should lose her speaking privileges. In a remarkable scene, the Senate then voted 49-43 to suspend Warren’s speaking privileges for the rest of the nomination process – the first time the Senate has imposed such a punishment in decades.

Democrats had repeatedly contended that Sessions is too close to Trump, too harsh on immigrants, and weak on civil rights for minorities, immigrants, gay people and women. Sessions was a prominent early backer of Trump, a supporter of his hard line on illegal immigration and joined Trump’s advocacy of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“There is simply nothing in Senator Sessions’ testimony before the Judiciary Committee that gives me confidence that he would be willing to stand up to the president,” said Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt. “He has instead demonstrated only blind allegiance.”

Republicans argued Sessions has demonstrated over a long career in public service, including two decades in the Senate, that he possesses integrity, honesty, and is committed to justice and the rule of law.

“He’s honest. He’s fair. He’s been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said on Wednesday. “It’s been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks. This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone.”

The debate had been intensified by Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship three decades ago, which was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was alleged that as a federal prosecutor he had called a black attorney “boy” and had said organizations like the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union were un-American.

At his hearing last month, Sessions said he had never harbored racial animus and claimed he had been falsely caricatured.

Before Wednesday’s vote, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the Senate’s lone black Republican, offered a personal and passionate defense of Sessions. He spoke of his personal experiences in introducing the Alabama Republican to African-American pastors at a racial forum in Charleston.

And he read the statements of black Alabama Democrats vouching for Sessions, who as attorney general will be the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Scott said the South is still working through racial differences and said “Jeff Sessions has earned my support and I will hold him accountable if and when we disagree.”

Scott read messages in which he was called an “Uncle Tom” — and worse — and said that “as I read through some of the comments of my friends on the left, you will wonder if I ever had an experience as a black person in America.”

“I just wish that my friends who call themselves liberals would want tolerance for all Americans.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In its last year in office, the Obama Administration showered at least some $9.2 billion on the United Nations and its sprawling array of organizations, according to a document recently posted on the State Department website.

The total is gleaned from a document that summarizes U.S. government spending for international organizations, and is  about 20 per cent higher than the $7.7 billion figure  given out by State for 2010, before the Obama Administration abruptly quit providing any overall tally for its U.N. support.

The overall U.S. bill for international organizations of every stripe is just under $10.5 billion, meaning that U.N. organizations absorb about 88 per cent of such U.S. government spending.

The new tally includes nearly $360 million for  the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, which is regularly accused of inculcating violent anti-Israel attitudes and even abetting  terrorist attacks on Israel, which it strongly denies.

That is nearly a 50 per cent jump over the $238.3 million UNRWA got from the U.S. in 2010.

(Last week, the Trump Administration froze a last-minute, $221 million donation by the Obama Administration that was intended for the Palestinian Authority.)

The UNRWA numbers, along with all the rest of the U.N. donations, are likely to come under fierce scrutiny in the weeks ahead, both from the Trump Administration, which wants to take a tough look at aligning its U.N. spending with national interests, and from Congress, which is frustrated  by U.N. bloat and inefficiency, and often maddened by its anti-Israel biases.

At the same time, U.N. appeals for funds, especially humanitarian money to deal with a swamp of international crises and conflicts, are still on the rise. On Jan. 31, for example, UNICEF announced a new, $3.4 billion appeal, including $1.4 billion slated for Syria and surrounding countries, that the agency says will target some 535 million children next year.

But from a U.S. point of view, “there is a new sheriff in town,” noted Robert Wexler, a former Democratic congressman from Florida and a U.N. supporter who testified on Feb. 1 , along with some sharp U.N. critics, before a subcommittee hearing of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

The hearing focused on the U.N.’s anti-Israel biases, and specifically on UNRWA, whose recent alleged misdeeds were laid out in detail by Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based U.N. Watch, who told the legislators that “the U.S. Congress is the one reliable force that can hold the U.N. to account.”

That is, if the figures they see can be believed. Critics are already noting that the State Department figures for U.N. support are less than the full story– at least $500 million in contributions to the U.N.-sponsored Green Climate Fund, which Congress had opposed, are missing—and State itself admits that “not all Executive Branch agencies provided information for inclusion in this report.”

With the Green Climate Fund money included, the 2016 figure would amount to a nearly 26 per cent hike in U.N. support over 2010 levels.  (Another $500 million donation to the Green Climate Fund was also blocked at the last minute by the Trump Administration.)

“This report was probably put together in hurried fashion,” observes Brett Schaefer, an expert on U.N. funding at the conservative Heritage Foundation.  He  notes that its appearance was likely prompted by a congressional spending resolution last December that demanded such figures once again be made public.

The State Department website now includes similarly disorganized spending numbers  for 2015—when overall spending on international organizations hit $10.8 billion—and links to more organized reports on spending that stretch back to  2007.

CLICK HERE FOR THE DOCUMENTS

Pulling exact totals out of the State Department paperwork is a daunting task, as it does not separate U.N. organizations and other international organizations that the U.S. voluntarily  and involuntarily  funds. In some cases, getting the numbers also involves analyzing ostensibly non-U.N. grants where the money is then returned, via partnerships, to U.N. organizations.

The tallies, however, are virtually guaranteed never to match with their U.N. equivalents. The State Department figures cover the government’s fiscal year:  October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016. U.N. Secretariat  biennial budgets run from January 1 to December 31 each year. U.N. annual peacekeeping budgets are prepared on a cycle from  July 1 to June 30. Other U.N. organizations may also vary.

Thus, for 2014—the latest year covered on a U.N. website for its top inter-agency coordinating body—total U.S. contributions to the U.N. alone are tallied at $10.067 billion.

The State Department report for fiscal 2014 lists total U.S. contributions to all international organizations at about $7.4 billion.

The U.S. spent about $2.6 billion on U.N. peacekeeping in fiscal 2016, according to the State Department. That would be 32.7 percent of the $7.9 billion U.N. peacekeeping budget for July 2016 to June 30 2017—much more than the 28.57 per cent it is assessed for its peacekeeping “dues,” and which many U.S. legislators already consider greatly excessive.

(The same $2.6 billion would be 31 per cent of the previous 2015-2016 peacekeeping budget of $8.3 billion.)

Whatever the truth of the numbers, all of that money is  likely to come under the skeptical microscope of  the Trump Administration, which is contemplating a tough review of any U.N. spending that it deems outside the national interest—including  steep cuts to “voluntary” funding beyond U.S. dues-paying minimums.

UNRWA in particular may face harsh scrutiny. A foretaste was provided at the Feb. 1  subcommittee hearing, where UN Watch in particular singled out the agency in a 130-page report entitled Poisoning Palestinian Children.

The UN Watch document cites more than 40 Facebook pages that it claims were “operated by school teachers, principals and other employees” of UNRWA, which it charges “incite to terrorism or anti-Semitism.” UNRWA has vigorously denied such charges in the past.

UN Watch director Neuer claimed before the legislators that the UNRWA indictment was only part of a “vast infrastructure the U.N. has constructed to demonize Israel.”

There are plenty of other targets in the State Department tallies. To name one: $67.9 million was spent in 2016 for the United Nations Population Fund, which has become an automatic piñata when pro-life Republican Administrations are in power, and the opposite under Democrats.

In 2010, the Obama Administration gave the Population Fund $51.4 million, according to the State Department, which means the figure has been boosted by nearly a third.

But two years earlier, the number was zero. And in his first week in office, President Trump announced restoration of the so-called Mexico City Policy for global health assistance that cuts U.S. funding for non-government organizations that offer abortion counselling or advocate for abortion rights in foreign countries. Like most U.N. organizations, the Population Fund is dependent on local organizations to carry out its family planning work.

The fuel for many other impassioned battles can be seen in the State Department numbes. In 2010, for example, the International Organization for Migration, devoted to “humane and orderly migration,”  got $272.8 million from the U.S.

In 2016, now a full-fledged U.N. agency, it got $477.2 million, much of it in response to the Syria crisis—upheaval which, in turn, has helped prompt a rethinking of immigration policies by the Trump Administration.

George Russell is Editor-at-Large of Fox News. He is reachable on Twitter at @GeorgeRussell and on Facebook at Facebook.com/George.Russell

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rex Tillerson as secretary of State, as part of a fast-paced day for majority Republicans who also pushed past Democratic resistance to advance three other President Trump Cabinet picks to a final vote.

The vote to confirm the former ExxonMobil executive as the country’s top diplomat was 56-43.

Earlier in the day, Senate Republicans, frustrated by Democrats’ attempts to delay other Cabinet confirmations, moved swiftly to advance three nominees to a final vote.

On the most contentious nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 11-to-9, to approve Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for U.S. attorney general.

The move came after Democrats dragged out proceedings a day earlier. The committee advanced Sessions to the floor on an 11-9 vote.

“No doubt we have the votes” to confirm Sessions, said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a committee member. “It’s going to get done.”

Senate Democrats have attempted to hold up several of Trump’s Cabinet picks over concerns about their records, as well as Trump’s new policies and recent executive orders on immigration.

Also on Wednesday, the Republican-led Senate Finance Committee sidestepped Senate Democrats’ efforts to slow Trump’s picks for secretaries of Treasury and Health and Human Services by boycotting the votes.

Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, suspended committee rules on the number of members required to vote, to allow Republican members to vote in favor of Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary and Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to serve as Health and Human Services secretary.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the committee’s top Democrat, argued that Hatch broke the rules.

“What you had was a rump group that met in violation of Democratic values to confirm two ethically-challenged nominees,” he told Fox News. “There’s no question about that.”

Mnuchin, Price and Sessions will almost certainly get the required simple majority needed for confirmation because Republicans have 52 senators and Democrats have 48.

Still, Democrats temporarily thwarted a Senate confirmation vote on Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, by again boycotting a key committee meeting.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee rules require at least two members of the minority party be present for a vote to be held.

Committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., called the move “political theatre” and vowed to “do what is necessary” to advance Pruitt’s nomination, raising the possibility the GOP majority may seek a rules change like the one Hatch got to push a vote before the full Senate.

Republicans created their own challenges Wednesday toward confirming Besty DeVos as Education secretary.

GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, and Susan Collins, Maine, said they won’t vote for DeVos in the final Senate vote.

That would create a 50-to-50 tied. But Republicans remain optimistic, considering GOP Vice President Mike Pence would cast the deciding vote in favor of DeVos.

On Tuesday, Democrats had refused to attend the meeting to consider Mnuchin and Price, demanding more information about the nominees.

Hatch called the Democrats’ decision to boycott the vote “the most pathetic thing.”

“We took some unprecedented actions today due to the unprecedented obstruction on the part of our colleagues,” he also said Wednesday.

The rule requires at least one Democrat be present for a vote. With the rules lifted, the committee advanced the nominations to the floor.

“They should be ashamed,” he said. “The only thing missing was a member from the minority side,” Hatch continued.  But, as I noted, they, on their own accord, refused to participate in this exercise.

Hatch said he made the move after getting an OK from the Senate Parliamentarian Office and that every Republican member of the committee was present and voting, exceeding the one-third requirement for a so-called “quorum.”

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.