Trump Loses Hope: The day after enduring a nine-hour grilling by the House Intelligence Committee, White House Communications Director Hope Hicks announced she’s resigning and leaving her job in a few weeks. It’s a bombshell for President Trump, losing his fourth communications director in just over a year.

Trump was reported to be livid and berated Hicks because she told the committee she occasionally told “little white lies” on Trump’s behalf.  It was at least the second time in recent weeks Trump was furious with Hicks. He chewed her out for how she handled publicity about the firing of Staff Secretary Rob Portman, with whom Hicks was having a romance.

Hicks was considered to be Trump’s most loyal aide, rising in just three years from communications aide with the Trump Organization to a powerful positon in the White House. Insiders told reporters Hicks was one of few people who could calm the President when he’s on a tirade and keep him on track.

The official word is that Hicks is pursuing “other opportunities” after just over a year in the White House and seven months as communications director. The NY Times’ Maggie Haberman reports that, “She told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington, and that there would never be a perfect moment to leave.”

Politico quotes a Hicks friend saying, “This was a case of, ‘I’m done. Physically. Emotionally. Just drained,’” the friend said. “Three years in that kind of environment is a lifetime.”

It won’t be easy for Hicks to disentangle herself. Because she has been so close to the President, she will be continually pulled back to Washington as long as the Russia investigation and prosecutions continue.

The White House Mess: The resignation of Hope Hicks overshadowed news that would have been the lead any other day.

President Trump tweeted an attack on Attorney general Jeff Sessions for the way he’s handling claims of FBI misbehavior in the Russia investigation. He wrote, “Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”

Well, for starters, the President doesn’t know how things work. The Inspector General is the equivalent of the internal affairs department in the local police department. They are the independent investigative wing within Justice.

Sessions said, “As long as I am the attorney general, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor.”

The Sessions dustup also might have been the lead on any other day, but that overshadowed Trump’s comments yesterday about gun control breaking in theory from the National Rifle Association.

Appearing at the White House with Republican and Democratic lawmakers, the President suggested that law enforcement should have the power to seize guns from mentally ill people and others who are dangerous without first going to court. “I like taking the guns early,” Trump said, “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

Trump also called for expanding background checks to gun shows and the internet, keeping guns from the mentally ill, securing schools and raising the legal age to buy a gun. He even talked about a ban on assault weapons.

Trump buried his own lead.

The Gun Beat: Walmart jumped on the wagon with Dick’s Sporting Goods, raising the age to buy a gun to 21. Back in 2015, Walmart had already stopped selling assault rifles. Under federal law you have to be 21 to buy a handgun, but you can buy an assault rifle at 18.

They Went to Jared: Trump’s son-in-law and close aide Jared Kushner received a $184 million real estate loan after meeting at the White House with a billionaire investor who was purportedly a candidate for a government job, The NY Times Reports.

The investor was Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management, which lent Kushner’s company $184 million for a Chicago skyscraper. Harris never got a job. By the way, he’s a partner of Leon Black, a former associate of junk bond king Michael Milken, who went bust in the 1980s.

An even larger loan to the Kushner company came from Citigroup, which lent $325 for office buildings in Brooklyn. That loan was made in the spring of 2017, shortly after Kushner met in the White House with Citigroup’s chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, the Times reports.

It’s highly unusual for a presidential employee to run a business out of the White House.

The Threatdown: Russia has nuclear weapons that can avoid missile defense systems and plans to make nuclear-powered cruise missiles capable of hitting any target in the world, President Vladimir Putin claimed in his annual address to lawmakers Thursday. Putin also warned that Moscow any nuclear attack on Russia or its allies would lead to an immediate response.

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