“After weeks of uncertainty atop the Department of Veterans Affairs, President Trump on said he plans to replace its secretary, David Shulkin, with the president’s personal physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy,” the New York Times reports.

“The announcement punctuated what has been a sharp fall from favor for Dr. Shulkin, a politically moderate former hospital executive, who delivered Mr. Trump a string of bipartisan legislative victories at a time when he was struggling to find them. And it adds to a significant shake-up of Mr. Trump’s senior staff, which has already included the secretary of state, director of the C.I.A. and the president’s national security adviser.”

The Atlantic: “The period of relative quiet began with a classic Trumpian outburst. On Friday, the president found himself compelled to sign an omnibus budget bill that he hated—not unjustifiably, since it was a repudiation of his administration’s budget and many of his own priorities, even if his method of expressing that discontent was ineffective. Since then, he has gone quiet.”

“It is not only on Twitter that Trump is quiet. Trump’s schedule has been unusually light since the hastily convened session Friday where he railed against the spending bill. He hosted a credential ceremony for ambassadors, attended a private fundraiser in suburban Virginia, and has met with the vice president, treasury secretary, and defense secretary. Beyond that, there’s not much listed.”

“A lawsuit accusing President Trump of violating the Constitution by refusing to divorce himself from his businesses cleared a critical hurdle Wednesday when a federal judge in Maryland refused the Justice Department’s plea to dismiss it,” the New York Times reports.

“The decision could allow the plaintiffs to scrutinize the Trump Organization’s financial records for payments from foreign entities and others possibly seeking to influence the White House.”

“A lawyer for President Trump broached the idea of Mr. Trump pardoning two of his former top advisers, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, with their lawyers last year,” the New York Times reports.

“The discussions came as the special counsel was building cases against both men, and they raise questions about whether the lawyer, John Dowd, was offering pardons to influence their decisions about whether to plead guilty and cooperate in the investigation.”

“The talks suggest that Mr. Trump’s lawyers were concerned about what Mr. Flynn and Mr. Manafort might reveal were they to cut a deal with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, in exchange for leniency.”

Josh Marshall: Who ratted out John Dowd? I think we know.

Mother Jones: “Virtually every major institution in America relies on census data, from businesses looking for new markets to the US military tracking the needs of veterans. The census lays the groundwork for the core infrastructure of our democracy, bringing a measure of transparency and fairness to how representation and resources are allocated across the country.”

“But with the Trump administration in charge, voting rights advocates fear the undercount could be amplified, shifting economic resources and political power toward rural, white, and Republican communities. The census is scheduled to begin on April 1, 2020, in the middle of the presidential election season. Of all the ways democracy is threatened under President Trump—a blind eye to Russian meddling in elections, a rollback of voting rights, a disregard for checks and balances—an unfair and inaccurate census could have the most dramatic long-term impact.”

The Atlantic: “Earlier this month, a woman broke a glass ceiling: President Donald Trump announced that he would name Gina Haspel, a career intelligence officer, the first female director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“Yet Haspel is something of a rarity, an Atlantic analysis of 2,475 Trump appointees shows. The White House has named twice as many men as women to administration positions. This gender skew is both broad and deep: In no department do female appointees outnumber male appointees, and in some cases men outnumber women four or five to one. Moreover, men significantly outnumber women in low-level positions as well as in high-level ones, with Trump’s Cabinet currently composed of 19 men and five women. Overall, 33 percent of Trump’s appointees are women, compared to 47 percent of the national workforce and 43 percent of the 2 million workers across the executive branch.”