"Trey Gowdy is done with politics.

"The House Oversight Committee Chairman for years has joked privately about quitting Congress and returning home to South Carolina. On Wednesday, he finally pulled the plug -- likely for good.

"A rising star that many Republicans once considered a dark-horse for speaker of the House, Gowdy announced Wednesday he would not seek reelection or any political office and would instead return to the justice system. Sources close to him say he wants to return home, practice law and maybe teach and write a book with his friend Sen. Tim Scott.

"'Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system,' the South Carolina Republican said."

"It's an observation so strikingly true that you wonder why you didn't think of it earlier. 'Donald Trump,' a friend said the other day, 'is teaching the Republican Party how to fight and how to win.'

"The evidence is everywhere everyday, and it was on vivid display Tuesday night. The president remains in a fighting mood, determined to keep punching his way forward. ...

"If this was Trump reaching out his hand, he was doing it from a position of strength and supreme confidence. If there is to be compromise, Dems will have pay dearly for it.

"That the president intends to drive a hard bargain was made clear during his remarks on immigration when he said pointedly, 'Americans are dreamers, too.'

"The tough tone, leavened only by the moving stories of first responders, military heroes and other noteworthy guests seated near the First Lady, suggests that Trump is sticking with what got him to the dance in the first place.

"He will continue to be who he is."

"Andrew G. McCabe abruptly stepped down on Monday as the F.B.I.'s deputy director after months of withering criticism from President Trump, telling friends he felt pressure from the head of the bureau to leave, according to two people close to Mr. McCabe.

"Though Mr. McCabe's retirement had been widely expected soon, his departure was nevertheless sudden. It added to what has already been a chaotic upheaval at the F.B.I. under Mr. Trump, who has responded to an investigation into his campaign with broadside attacks against both the bureau and the Justice Department.

"As recently as last week, Mr. McCabe had told people he hoped to stay until he was eligible to retire in several weeks. Instead, he will immediately go on leave and retire on March 18.

"In a recent conversation, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, raised concerns about a forthcoming inspector general report. In that discussion, according to one former law enforcement official close to Mr. McCabe, Mr. Wray suggested moving Mr. McCabe into another job, which would have been a demotion."

"Quote: 'America is open for business, and we are competitive once again.' End quote. That was just one of the key lines in President Trump's highly successful Davos speech this week.

"Of course, in going to Davos, Trump entered the lion's den. A year ago such a visit would have been a poor idea. Back then, elitist heads of state, the EU bureaucrats, and the international CEOs were uniformly against Donald Trump.

"But Trump's 2018 Davos strategy was a brilliant stroke.

"A year later he could make the fact-based argument that, in his words, 'The world is witnessing the resurgence of a strong and prosperous America.'

"And the core of his message was this: 'There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest, and to grow in the United States.'

"He's right."

Read entire article here.

"President Trump will propose a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrant Dreamers, nearly tripling the Obama-era DACA program, the White House said Thursday.

"Mr. Trump's vision, which he will submit to Congress next week, would grant legal status to fewer than the 3 million people under the plan Senate Democrats have backed. But the number of people is far higher than the 690,000 in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

"White House officials said they felt they had to go that far in order to demand major changes on the security side, including an end to catch-and-release of illegal immigrants snared at the border, faster deportations for those caught overstaying their visas inside the U.S. and $25 billion for Mr. Trump's wall.

"The president also will demand strict limits on the chain of family migration across the board -- not just for newly legalized Dreamers.

"He would allow immigrants to petition for spouses and minor children but would eliminate parents, siblings and adult children from chain migration. Extended family already in the backlog would be allowed to enter, but no further applications would be accepted."

Read entire article here.

"From the first, these columns have argued that the whitewash of the Hillary Clinton-emails caper was President Barack Obama's call -- not the FBI's, and not the Justice Department's. The decision was inevitable. Obama, using a pseudonymous email account, had repeatedly communicated with Secretary Clinton over her private, non-secure email account.

"These emails must have involved some classified information, given the nature of consultations between presidents and secretaries of state, the broad outlines of Obama's own executive order defining classified intelligence (see EO 13526, section 1.4), and the fact that the Obama administration adamantly refused to disclose the Clinton-Obama emails. If classified information was mishandled, it was necessarily mishandled on both ends of these email exchanges.

"If Clinton had been charged, Obama's culpable involvement would have been patent. In any prosecution of Clinton, the Clinton-Obama emails would have been in the spotlight. For the prosecution, they would be more proof of willful (or, if you prefer, grossly negligent) mishandling of intelligence. More significantly, for Clinton's defense, they would show that Obama was complicit in Clinton's conduct yet faced no criminal charges.

"That is why such an indictment of Hillary Clinton was never going to happen. ..."

Read entire article here.

"Now Mitch McConnell has promised to allow an up-or-down vote on DACA in early February that ensures the immigration debate will consume Washington for the next few weeks. It seems there's already consensus forming among analysts that this is a loser for Republicans. But maybe the lesson of the shutdown is that DACA, and the debate surrounding illegal immigrants in general, isn't as simple or as powerful as Democrats imagine. Maybe the shutdown's lesson is that Trump can hold out for a wall and other concessions on chain migration and enforcement in exchange for an easier path towards legalization for those already here. Maybe the lesson is that a deal is available.

"Because if the wall is just a silly, ineffective, useless prop then certainly it would make sense for Democrats to accede to its creation to help legalize the Dreamers and create a more rational and ethical immigration policy. If they don't, cynical people might start to get the impression that Democrats are far more interested in creating millions of new Democrats than they are in creating a lawful and rational process that respects the sovereignty of their nation."

"Democrats' solution to the government shutdown could be as harmful to the party as the shutdown was itself.

"The war between hardline progressive and centrist Democrats inflamed by the party's 2016 presidential primary contest has ebbed and flowed, but the agreement Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., came to with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Monday ignited yet another bitter battle. The same grassroots progressive base that pressured Democrats into the shutdown is now irate over party leadership's solution to it. ...

"In short, the shutdown turned out to be a mess for the Democratic Party."

"Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew well in advance of FBI Director James Comey's 2016 press conference that he would recommend against charging Hillary Clinton, according to information turned over to the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Friday.

"The revelation was included in 384 pages of text messages exchanged between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and it significantly diminishes the credibility of Lynch's earlier commitment to accept Comey's recommendation -- a commitment she made under the pretense that the two were not coordinating with each other.

"And it gets worse. Comey and Lynch reportedly knew that Clinton would never face charges even before the FBI conducted its three-hour interview with Clinton, which was supposedly meant to gather more information into her mishandling of classified information.

"On July 1, 2016, as the Lynch announcement became public, Page texted Strzok:

"Page: 'And yeah, it's a real profile in couragw [sic], since she knows no charges will be brought'."

Read entire article here

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a bill to renew the National Security Agency's warrantless internet surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, overcoming objections from civil liberties advocates that it undermined the privacy of Americans.

"The legislation, which easily passed the House of Representatives last week, is expected to be signed into law by President Donald Trump by Friday.

"Thursday's 65-34 passage in the Senate was largely a foregone conclusion, after senators earlier this week cleared a 60-vote procedural hurdle, which split party lines and came within one vote of failing.

"Passage of the legislation marked a disappointing end to a years-long effort by a coalition of liberal Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans to redefine the scope of U.S. intelligence collection following the 2013 disclosures of classified surveillance secrets by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden."