CNN: “Thanks to a little-known and rarely used provision in the law, either the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation may request anyone’s tax returns to examine — including the president’s — from the secretary of the Treasury.”

“They wouldn’t need to tell anyone that they did so. They could share the returns with their committee members in closed session. And if one of the committees thinks releasing the returns to the House or Senate would further a legitimate committee purpose and be in the public interest, they can do that, too — without Trump’s consent.”

Jack Goldsmith, a former senior Bush Justice Department official who helped design the post-9/11 anti-terror legal architecture, told the New Yorker that President Trump might be laying the groundwork for expanded powers in the wake of a major terrorist attack.

Said Goldsmith: “If it is a large and grim attack, he might ask for more surveillance powers inside the U.S. (including fewer restrictions on data mingling and storage and queries), more immigration control power at the border, an exception to Posse Comitatus (which prohibits the military from law enforcement in the homeland), and perhaps more immigration-related detention powers. In the extreme scenario Trump could ask Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which would cut off the kind of access to courts you are seeing right now for everyone (or for every class of persons for which the writ is suspended).”

He added: “The point of the example is that the only question is not what powers Trump might ‘ask for,’ powers he might assert or assume or grab, and what he can get away with.”

“The White House is ramping up its search for a new communications director in an effort to lighten the load of embattled White House press secretary Sean Spicer,” multiple sources told CNN.

“A source familiar with internal communications said President Donald Trump is disappointed in Spicer’s performance during the first two weeks of the administration.”

The Gallup daily tracking poll finds President Trump’s approval rate at 42% to 54%.

Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Trump, said that the administration will continue using the term “fake news” until the media understands that their “monumental desire” to attack the President is wrong, CNN reports.

Said Gorka: “There is a monumental desire on behalf of the majority of the media, not just the pollsters, the majority of the media to attack a duly elected President in the second week of his term. That’s how unhealthy the situation is and until the media understands how wrong that attitude is, and how it hurts their credibility, we are going to continue to say, fake news. I’m sorry… That’s the reality.”

Rick Klein: “Betsy DeVos still appears likely to be confirmed as Secretary of Education on Tuesday – the type of activity that typically means the disappearance of Betsy DeVos from the national political dialogue. But her nomination – capped by Senate Democrats’ overnight talk-athon in opposition – has revealed the first outlines of a roadmap for how to oppose Trump.”

“Attention to DeVos’ hearings reverberated far outside of Washington. The pressure campaign did reach Capitol Hill, via congressional offices that were inundated with input. Democrats’ play for more time focused attention, as it also has on Trump’s choice for Labor Secretary, Andrew Puzder. (What Puzder has admitted to – employing a housekeeper who was an undocumented immigrant – has been enough to sink Cabinet nominees in the past.) There’s no cause for Democrats to celebrate their strategy, but at least it looks like they have one.”