United States

Meanwhile, the Trump administration had become the object of widespread outrage over its implementation in early April of a policy that called for the children of migrants entering the U.S. illegally to be separated at the U.S. border from their parents, all of whom were detained under the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. As awareness grew of the resulting situation—which saw even very young children removed from their parents and relocated—criticism of the policy spread across the political spectrum. Initially, the administration defended the policy and claimed that the law prevented it from taking another approach until Congress acted. Republicans attempted to address the problem, pushing through broader immigration legislation, but it failed to be enacted. By mid-June the hue and cry had grown so loud and the potential political damage loomed so large that Trump was compelled to issue an executive order terminating the separations. In the wake of the order, the Department of Homeland Security announced that 2,342 children had been separated at the border from 2,206 adults between May 5 and June 9.

The Supreme Court decision upholding the travel ban, its ruling on Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, No. 16-1466, and the retirement of Anthony Kennedy

Trump’s determination to secure the country’s borders received a shot in the arm later in June from the Supreme Court, which ruled 5–4 to uphold a third version of the travel ban that restricted entry into the United States for citizens of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Venezuela. The Court ruled that the ban was within the constitutional scope of presidential authority and that Trump’s inflammatory remarks during the election campaign regarding the threat posed by Muslims to the American people did not undermine that authority.

The Court also dealt a blow to organized labour with its 5–4 decision in June on Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, No. 16-1466, which overturned the precedent established in a 1977 decision and found that public-sector employees who chose not to join unions could not be required to pay fees to support collective bargaining.

The Supreme Court was on the mind of many Americans at the end of June when Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had so often acted as the swing vote between the Court’s conservative and liberal factions, announced his intention to retire. Naming his replacement offered Trump the opportunity to tip the Court’s ideological balance toward conservatism for a generation. The president had come into office promising to name to the bench judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and so it seemed certain that Senate Democrats would to try to determine the nominee’s stance on that politically pivotal case. When conservative District of Columbia Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh was named the nominee, however, some of the attention shifted to writing by Kavanaugh in which he had expressed doubts regarding whether a sitting president should be criminally investigated or prosecuted.

The indictment of Paul Manafort, the guilty pleas of Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, and indictments of Russian intelligence officers

That issue took on heightened importance because the congressional and Mueller investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election remained in the headlines and continued to provide a subtext for virtually everything that unfolded in Washington. By October 2017 the Mueller investigation had led to its first criminal charges, as Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman from June to August 2016, was indicted for conspiracy, money laundering, tax fraud, failure to file reports of foreign financial assets, serving as an unregistered foreign agent, and making false and misleading statements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Manafort had been forced to resign his post with the Trump campaign after an investigation by the Ukrainian government revealed that he had received some $13 million under the table for his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Phone calls between Manafort and Russian intelligence agents had been intercepted.