Kushner Leading Government IT Task Force in White House 'Think Tank'

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has spoken and…it will not lift the temporary restraining order on President Trump's travel restriction executive order. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously Thursday evening that the federal government did not present a compelling case in its effort to receive an emergency stay on the restraining order.

This is, as the White House has been stressing all week, a ruling on the specific issue of lifting the restraining order—not on the merits of the executive order itself, which the court will consider later. But the decision is a PR blow to the Trump administration, which has seen the full-speed pace of its early days decelerate almost entirely because of the fallout from this executive order.

Protests, lawsuits, restraining orders: These things may have been unavoidable no matter what Trump did to fulfill his "extreme vetting" campaign promise. But the poor execution of the travel restriction is giving Trump's opponents ample opportunity—however dubious the justification—to thwart him. The administration's reaction so far is overweening confidence in their case and their righteousness. But does the Trump White House have a plan B when the institutions of Washington and government push back hard enough?

Jared Kushner, IT Guy

There's little known about the White House's Strategic Initiatives Group, an in-house confederation of "task forces" that's primarily the brainchild of senior counselor Stephen Bannon. Josh Rogin at the Washington Post summarized the origin of the SIG recently:

The Strategic Initiatives Group grew out of Bannon's admiration for the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, the internal think tank that is meant to consider long-term, over the horizon strategic challenges, the official said. In a four-year presidential term, long-term may be only months, but the Strategic Initiatives Group is not designed to fight the day-to-day battles over issues in the news.