When the White House Lies About You

Midway through the interview, Pompeo abruptly slammed The New York Times for publishing the name last month of a senior covert C.I.A. officer, calling the disclosure “unconscionable.” The line was met with audience applause. I said, “You’re talking about Phil Agee,” and then repeated the name. Pompeo replied, “I don’t know that name,” and the interview moved on.

My startled rejoinder was not a reference to the covert C.I.A. officer unmasked by The Times, but rather a fumbled attempt to refer to the law governing such disclosures. Philip Agee, as Pompeo and everyone in the audience knew, was the infamous C.I.A. officer who went rogue in the 1970s, wrote a tell-all memoir, and publicly identified the names of scores of C.I.A. officers, front companies and foreign agents.

.. What I didn’t do is disclose the name of any covert officer — nor would I have, since I disagree with The Times’s decision to publish it. So it came as a bad surprise when, the following morning, Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media, tweeted that I had.

.. Nor is it new that Scavino’s attack is also part of a broader White House effort to demonize The New York Times.

.. Taken with Pompeo’s outburst and Scavino’s lie, it raises the question of whether normally apolitical figures aren’t being conscripted into Trump’s war on the press. That’s a worrying thought for institutions, like the C.I.A., that are supposed to remain above the fray to preserve public trust.

I’ve Overestimated Donald Trump

Every time one of these tweeting disasters occurs, it reminds us that the United States president has no more discernible self-control than a 10-year-old bully who works out his failure to pass third grade by tormenting the little kids on the playground.

.. A lot of top Republican leaders have expressed their dismay about what was obviously a sexist insult, but that’s hardly sufficient. This is the same party, after all, that recently produced its Senate health care bill drafted by a committee of 13 men. A bill whose defenders have argued, in effect, that making maternity health coverage more expensive is not a problem because guys don’t get pregnant.

Trump Family Wedding Planner to Head New York’s Federal Housing Office

A longtime associate of President Trump’s family, who organized golf tournaments on the president’s courses and planned his son Eric’s wedding, will soon oversee billions of federal dollars as the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s New York and New Jersey office.

Lynne Patton had been working as a senior adviser and director of public engagement at HUD for several months before Ben Carson, the department secretary, recommended her for the new role

.. The appointment of a Trump family loyalist to a key government post fits a pattern. His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, work in White House offices. Dan Scavino Jr., who was the president’s caddie, is the director of social media. His longtime bodyguard, Keith Schiller, has become such an important White House figure that he hand-delivered the dismissal papers to James Comey, the former F.B.I. director.

.. Ms. Patton had earned the trust of Mr. Carson after organizing his listening tour in several cities.

.. “Dr. Carson calls her, ‘the general’ because she can lead an army. She’s that tough,” Mr. Williams said.

.. “If Donald Trump is intent on showing the contempt he has for the social safety net, then the appointment makes sense.”

.. Mr. Torres, who grew up in public housing, said Ms. Leicht had been a “strong advocate for affordable housing in New York City,” and acted as a liaison between local officials and the federal housing department.

.. Morale among some career officials at the city’s local office of the federal housing department has been low because of proposed cuts to the agency’s budget.