1. H. R. McMaster resigned as Trump's national security adviser and has been replaced by John Bolton, a Fox News commentator and former United States ambassador to the United Nations. McMaster had reportedly been discussing his departure with Trump for several weeks. "The two have been discussing this for some time. The timeline was expedited as they both felt it was important to have the new team in place, instead of constant speculation," a White House official said. "This was not related to any one moment or incident, rather it was the result of ongoing conversations between the two." McMaster, a three-star Army general, also announced that he would also retire from the military. Bolton will be Trump's third national security adviser in 14 months. (New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / CNN / Politico)

  2. Steve Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica's early efforts to collect Facebook data as part of a program to build detailed profiles of millions of American voters. The 2014 effort was part of a form of voter persuasion touted by the company, which Bannon used to identify and test anti-establishment messages that later would be used in Trump's campaign speeches. Among the messages tested were "drain the swamp" and "deep state." (Washington Post)

  3. The Senate passed a $1.3 trillion spending bill late last night, avoiding another government shut down with less than a day before the deadline. Lawmakers voted on the 2,232-page bill less than 18 hours after it was released. The bill funds the federal government through the end of September, and includes $700 billion for the military ($66 billion more than last year) and $591 million for domestic agencies ($52 billion more than last year). The content of the bill has divided some Republicans who say the bill was rushed through the House ahead of the Senate vote, while others said the bill contradicts the GOP's promises of fiscal discipline over the years. (Washington Post)

  4. Former Playboy model Karen McDougal says Trump once offered to pay her after they had sex. "After we had been intimate," McDougal told CNN, "he tried to pay me, and I actually didn't know how to take that." McDougal said Trump tried to hand her money immediately after their first sexual encounter more than a decade ago. (CNN / New York Times)

  5. Trump is reportedly considering firing John Kelly without replacing him, at which point Trump would essentially serve as his own chief of staff. Trump has apparently been talking to allies about the possibility of having a handful of aides report directly to him, instead of going through a chief of staff. Steve Bannon also said he doesn't expect Trump to replace Kelly if he leaves the White House. “I’ve actually argued that if General Kelly at any time does decide to leave — (or) the president decides it’s time for him to move on — I don’t believe there will be another chief of staff,” Bannon said at a Financial Times event on Thursday. “I think there will be five or six direct reports like there was in Trump Tower.” (NBC News / The Hill)

  6. The "lone hacker" known as Guccifer 2.0 is actually a Russian intelligence officer. Guccifer famously claimed responsibility for the breach of the Democratic National Committee and the data dump of the stolen DNC emails. He publicly portrayed himself as the "lone hacker" who was able to penetrate the DNC, but a team of investigators has identified him as an officer of Russia's military intelligence directorate, or GRU. Investigators were able to determine that Guccifer was working out of the GRU's headquarters in Moscow because he apparently forgot to turn on the virtual private network (VPN) that he used to disguise the IP address associated with his operation. (The Daily Beast)

  7. Stormy Daniels' attorney implied that he has hard evidence of Trump's affair with the porn star, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford. Michael Avenatti tweeted a photo of a what appears to be a compact disc in a safe, with the caption: "If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how many words is this worth?????" (The Hill)