memeorandum: Rhino Poacher Killed by Elephant and Eaten by Lions, Officials Say (Christopher Mele/New York Times)

12:10 AM ET, April 8, 2019

Top Items:

Kirstjen Nielsen Resigns as Trump's Homeland Security Secretary — WASHINGTON — Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, resigned on Sunday after meeting with President Trump, ending a tumultuous tenure in charge of the border security agency that had made her the target of the president's criticism.

Discussion: National Review, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Raw Story and Breitbart

Paula Reid / CBS News:

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigning after clashing with Trump on immigration — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is resigning, President Trump announced in a tweet Sunday. CBS News first reported Nielsen's impending departure, which Mr. Trump announced after a 5 p.m. meeting at the White House.

Axios:

Scoop: Former White House counsel Don McGahn off the record — Don McGahn, who has kept his head down since leaving as White House counsel, shared some off-the-record thoughts on Thursday in a lunch with about 40 senior Republican Senate aides. — Details: “I spent the last couple …

Discussion: Raw Story and Washington Press

Dara Lind / Vox:

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigns as Trump rage continues — Nielsen was the most aggressive DHS secretary in history. It wasn't enough for Trump. — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen submitted her resignation to President Donald Trump Sunday night …

Discussion: Crooked Timber and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Wall Street Journal:

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Resigns — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation comes two days after she visited U.S. southern border with President Trump.

Washington Post:

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen leaving Trump administration amid surge of migrants — President Trump announced Sunday that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was leaving the administration, marking the exit of a second top immigration official in a matter of days …

Discussion: Politico, Axios, New York Post, twitchy.com, The Guardian, BloombergQuint, The Daily Caller and ThinkProgress

CNN:

Trump says DHS Secretary Nielsen leaving — (CNN)Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of Homeland Security who has become a face of President Donald Trump's hardline immigration push, is leaving the administration, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Sunday afternoon.

Discussion: The Sun, New York Times, Deadline, Fox News, NPR, Breitbart and Townhall

Associated Press:
Homeland Security Sec. Nielsen resigns amid border turmoil

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Raw Story, FITSNews and The Resurgent

Victoria Albert / The Daily Beast:
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to Resign Immediately: Report

Discussion: CBS News, New York Daily News and Splinter

Jeremy Herb / CNN:

Nunes sending eight criminal referrals to Attorney General William Barr — (CNN)California Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday he was planning to send eight criminal referrals to Attorney General William Barr as soon as this week.

Discussion: Raw Story, Talking Points Memo and Splinter

Jeffrey Toobin / New Yorker:

William Barr's Choices — Since Barr became Attorney General, he has narrowed the range of information about the Mueller report that he says he will allow the public to see. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the intellectual polymath who represented New York in the United States Senate for twenty-four years …

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA and The New Civil Rights Movement

Devlin Barrett / Washington Post: Scrutiny and suspicion as Mueller report undergoes redaction

Maureen Groppe / USA Today:

Buttigieg to Pence: If you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is with my creator — Here are a few facts about ‘Mayor Pete.’ — WASHINGTON - Pete Buttigieg got a hero's welcome as he took the stage Sunday at a fundraising brunch for a group that supports LGBTQ candidates.

Discussion: The Guardian, Conservative News Today, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Mercury News

Josh Lederman / NBC News:

‘A kind of war’: Buttigieg describes struggle with sexual orientation in emotional speech — “If you could have offered me a pill that could make me straight, I would have swallowed it before you could give me a swig of water,” Buttigieg said. — WASHINGTON — Pete Buttigieg …

Zack Budryk / The Hill:

O'Rourke: US-Israel relationship must transcend ‘a prime minister who is racist’ — Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D), in an apparent reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Sunday that the relationship between the U.S. and Israel must transcend “a prime minister who is racist.”

Discussion: Splinter and Reuters

David M. Halbfinger / New York Times:
In Israel Election, the Future of the West Bank Is Now on the Ballot

Discussion: Haaretz

Holly Bailey / Washington Post:
Beto O'Rourke on Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘Racist’

Discussion: The Week

Emily Shugerman / The Daily Beast:
Republican Jewish Coalition Has to Remind Trump: We Didn't Support Obama

Discussion: Axios

David M. Halbfinger / New York Times:
Netanyahu Vows to Start Annexing West Bank, in Bid to Rally the Right

Discussion: Slate, New York Post and The Daily Caller

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Republicans are Trashing the Law to Keep Trump's Taxes Secret — This week, the House Ways and Means Committee formally moved to obtain President Trump's federal tax forms. This move, which ought to be a mere formality, has slipped immediately into a political and legal conflict.

Michael Burke / The Hill:
Mulvaney: Democrats will ‘never’ see Trump's tax returns

Discussion: Politico, No More Mister Nice Blog, Breitbart and Raw Story

Lucien Bruggeman / ABC News:
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow accuses Democrats of playing politics, 'The president has not asked …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Daily Kos, CNN and IJR

Thomas Fuller / New York Times:

In San Francisco, Making a Living From Your Billionaire Neighbor's Trash — SAN FRANCISCO — Three blocks from Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million Tudor home in San Francisco, Jake Orta lives in a small, single-window studio apartment filled with trash. — There's a child's pink bicycle helmet …

Christopher Mele / New York Times:

Rhino Poacher Killed by Elephant and Eaten by Lions, Officials Say — A man suspected of being a rhino poacher was killed last week by an elephant and his remains devoured by a pride of lions at a South African park, officials said. — Rangers at Kruger National Park and other searchers found …

Discussion: USA Today, NPR, Quartz, 6abc, Daily Wire and Slate

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

A Pelosi-shaped cloud over Trump's NAFTA 2.0 chances — Nancy Pelosi has more power than anybody to decide whether Trump gets Congress' approval to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with his renegotiated United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. And the signs Republicans are seeing …

emptywheel:

The Carr Correction and the Barr Pseudo Exoneration — Last week, Buzzfeed released part of a package of materials that Michael Cohen's lawyers provided to Congress in what appears a last minute bid to stay out of prison. While it still represents just Cohen's self-interested view …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Matthew Choi / Politico:
Giuliani: Let Congress see the Mueller report

Discussion: Washington Press, Splinter, Daily Kos, The Guardian and Breitbart

Catie Edmondson / New York Times:

House Democratic Campaign Arm Nears War With Liberals Over Primary Fights — WASHINGTON — The House Democratic campaign arm is on the verge of open warfare with the party's rising liberal wing as political operatives close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi try to shut down primary challenges …

Tom Elliott / Grabien News:

New Record: Obama Mentions Himself 392 Times During Berlin Townhall [Montage] — ‘I worked out every morning; I mean, I was pretty religious about it, I was in the gym’ — President Obama was in Germany on Saturday, ostensibly to speak about “community leadership and civic engagement” …

Patricia Mazzei / New York Times:

Hunger and an ‘Abandoned’ Hospital: Puerto Rico Waits as Washington Bickers — VIEQUES, P.R. — A newborn's cries rarely echo anymore though the hallways of what passes as a hospital on the ravaged island of Vieques, off the coast of Puerto Rico. — “We miss it,” said Dennisse Bermúdez Colón, a nurse.

Chris Enloe / TheBlaze:

Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez violate the Constitution with her latest action on Twitter? — On Friday, the Daily Wire's Ryan Saavedra broke the news that Ocasio-Cortez had seemingly changed her accent while speaking to a predominantly black crowd at Al Sharpton's National Action Network.

Discussion: Rolling Stone, IJR, Slate and The Daily Caller

Rick Reilly / The Atlantic:

Whatever Trump Is Playing, It Isn't Golf — More than any wife, more than any party, more than any opinion, President Donald Trump has remained fiercely loyal to golf. But I've played golf my entire life. Years ago, I even played with Trump once. Whatever sport he's playing, it isn't golf.