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WASHINGTON A federal appeals court is expected to rule on President Donald Trump's U.S. travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries as soon as Wednesday, one day after questioning whether the order unfairly targeted people over their religion.

The temporary ban faced tough scrutiny on Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is weighing a challenge to the order.

During a more than one-hour oral argument, the panel pressed a government lawyer over whether the Trump administration's national security argument was backed by evidence that people from the seven countries posed a danger.

Judge Richard Clifton, a George W. Bush appointee, posed equally tough questions for a lawyer representing Minnesota and Washington states, which are challenging the ban. Clifton asked if a Seattle judge's suspension of Trump's policy was "overbroad."

The 9th Circuit said at the end of Tuesday's session that it would issue a ruling as soon as possible. The court earlier had said it would probably rule this week. Ultimately the matter is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The appeals court is looking, however, at whether the Seattle court had the grounds to halt Trump's ban, while the case challenging the underlying order proceeds.

Trump's Jan. 27 order barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except those from Syria, whom he would ban indefinitely.

Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, has defended the measure as necessary for national security.

The order, the most divisive act of Trump's young presidency, sparked protests and chaos at U.S. and overseas airports. Opponents also assailed it as discriminatory against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution and applicable laws.

A federal judge in Seattle suspended the order last Friday, and many travelers who had been waylaid by the ban quickly moved to travel to the United States while it was in limbo.

Trump was criticized for later questioning the "so-called judge," and on Wednesday tweeted: "If the U.S. does not win this case as it so obviously should, we can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled. Politics!"

The legal fight ultimately centers on how much power a president has to decide who cannot enter the United States and whether the order violates a provision of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits laws favoring one religion over another, along with relevant discrimination laws.

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson, Timothy Gardner, David Shepardson and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington, Mica Rosenberg and Leela de Kretser in New York, and Dan Levine, Kristina Cooke and Peter Henderson in San Francisco; Writing by Howard Goller, Amanda Becker and Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

NEW YORK When former reality television contestant Summer Zervos accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct last fall, she pursued her claims solely in the court of public opinion, since the allegations dated too far back to allow a lawsuit.

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump's choice of billionaire Betsy DeVos to be education secretary was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, but only after Vice President Mike Pence was called in to break a tie that threatened to defeat her.

WASHINGTON/HOUSTON The U.S. Army will grant the final permit for the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline after an order from President Donald Trump to expedite the project despite opposition from Native American tribes and climate activists.

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Appeals court weighs Trump's travel ban after tough scrutiny - Reuters

In a White House not known for specifics, Andrew Bremberg is President Trumps details guy.

Bremberg, an assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council, has kept a relatively low profile compared with other Trump senior advisers who have dominated headlines.

This belies the influence of the 38-year-old former senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellMitch McConnellMLK Jrs daughter gives tips on opposing Trump Santorum: Senate rebuking Warren not a big deal #ShePersisted goes viral after Senate votes to silence Warren MORE (R-Ky.), who already has penned an important memorandum for Trump on the subject of immigration.

The leaked memorandum signaled a potential harder line to come by Trump, stating that the countrys immigration laws must ensure the United States does not welcome individuals who are likely to become or have become a burden on taxpayers.

It also follows through on a promise made by Trump during the campaign to delve deep into work visa programs.

Brembergs thick resume is actually in healthcare policy. His past roles include serving as an assistant secretary for public health during the George W. Bush administration and those who know him believe that will be his main focus in a Trump White House wrestling with how to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

While serving on Scott Walkers presidential campaign, Bremberg was responsible for helping to shape the Wisconsin governors healthcare plan.

This is his issue, said one of Brembergs former colleagues on the Walker campaign. Hes going to be one of the most interesting people to watch when it comes to what theyre going to do with ObamaCare, because hes so familiar with the policy and because he knows all these key players.

Bremberg did not speak to The Hill for this story.

Late last month, during a GOP retreat in Philadelphia, Bremberg was the Trump representative on a panel with lawmakers including Sen. Lamar AlexanderLamar AlexanderDonald Trumps details man Report: Four GOP senators mum on Trumps Labor pick Top GOP senators: Past employment of illegal immigrant won't sink Trump's Labor pick MORE (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Kevin BradyKevin BradyDonald Trumps details man Trump campaign adviser: Border tax unlikely to be enacted Republican lawmakers face rising anger at town halls MORE (R-Texas).

The interaction with two of the lawmakers who will be at the forefront of congressional efforts to take action on healthcare suggests the large role Bremberg will play.

In the closed-door meeting, Bremberg stopped shy of detailing Trumps plans, though he emphasized that the executive order signed by Trump the day he took office allows his political appointees to begin taking apart the Affordable Care Act through executive authority.

Brembergs knowledge of policy details was something that drew Trump to the New Jersey native. He was initially hired by Trumps campaign to work on healthcare policy as part of the transition team. He stands out among a White House team filled with campaign veterans such as Conway and chief of staff Reince Priebus.

His experience in policymaking process has got to be important to them, said one former colleague. There arent too many people in Trumps senior circle who have done this before.

Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs magazine and a longtime friend and former colleague of Bremberg, said the White House advisers health specialty and his broad domestic and economic policy expertise make him indispensable.

Andrew is a smart, policy-savvy, full-spectrum conservative, Levin said.

Before taking on the role, Bremberg had served as the policy director for the 2016 Republican Party platform,where he had ironed out the policy differences between GOP candidates and their supporters.

At the time, Republicans who were worried about Trumps candidacy felt reassured by Brembergs presence, according to sources familiar with the process.

It was encouraging to a lot of people who were a little nervous about Trump, said one source, adding that they knew Bremberg could preserve the peace in the party.

They knew the traditional principles would be preserved, the source said.

Bremberg graduated from Franciscan University of Steubenville, an orthodox Catholic college in Ohio, which one friend said helped solidify his conservatism. He went on to receive his law degree from Catholic University and is what one friend called a classic Reagan conservative.

In a West Wing full of big personalities, Bremberg is more muted and less flashy, say those who know him.

For years,evenbeforethe time he served as counsel on nominations to McConnell, through his work inWisconsinto now, he has drivenaround in abeat-up 1999 Chevy Malibu with no air conditioning, colleagues and friends say.

They remember that he would often live by his policy beliefs, teaching his four children the value of money.

Once, while eating doughnuts with his kids, he taught them about taxes by telling them they owed him a bite of each one, dubbing it a tax.

They started understanding the tax system because they didnt want to share with him, one former colleague remembered.

He arrives at his West Wing office at7 a.m. every day,according to a White House aide. And those who know him say hes typically the last one out of the office, sometime between11p.m. and 1 a.m.

One friend said Bremberg and his wife view his job at the White House as a deployment.

This isnt easy. Its a huge sacrifice, the friend said. A guy like him would have many opportunities to do something more lucrative. But hes one of those guys who is more motivated by the mission.

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Donald Trump's details man - The Hill

BBC News

Donald Trump, media saviour BBC News Donald Trump is, by sheer force of character, destroying the mainstream media as we know it. His relentless barrage of abuse, not least about "fake news", has fatally undermined the trust of the American people in their traditional sources of news; and ... Donald Trump's Dangerous End GameNew Republic Donald Trump Says Your Opinions Are Fake If You Don't Like His PoliciesHuffington Post all 190 news articles »

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Donald Trump, media saviour - BBC News

President Donald Trump delivers his inaugural address on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan.20, 2017 in Washington, D.C.Alex WongGetty Images

Before voicing their opposition to President Donald Trump's immigration policies , a handful of tech giants offered their greenbacks to the commander-in-chief's inauguration.

Amazon ( amzn ) , Google ( googl ) , and Microsoft all donated both cash and services to the now president's January inauguration, according to a late Tuesday Politico report citing federal ethics documents and sources familiar with the matter. Microsoft ( msft ) alone gave $250,000 in cash, and the same amount in services.

While Facebook ( fb ) made no cash donation, the company did provide Instagram photos booths and a mini Oval Office for those celebrating Trump's inauguration, Politico confirmed.

Roughly a week later, the same tech giants spoke out against Trump's ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Corporate America has regularly donated to inaugural committees in past years, regardless of political party. For President Barack Obama's second inauguration, Microsoft donated roughly $2 million in cash and services, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.

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Google, Amazon, and Microsoft Donated to Donald Trump's Inauguration - Fortune

Did Kuwait follow President Donald Trump's lead in instituting a visa ban affecting certain Muslim-majority countries?

President Donald Trump's favorite social media tool is Twitter. But Trump turned to Facebook recently to defend his executive order on visas and travel from seven countries.

Trumps Facebook postseemed to rally supporters around the wisdom of his executive order, which suspended entry for most foreign travelers from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen for 120 days.

He commented, "Smart! 'Kuwait issues its own Trump-esque visa ban for five Muslim-majority countries. " The post linked to an article published on the English-language version of the Arabic-language website Al Bawaba on Feb. 1 that featured the headline Trump quoted in his post:

But the government of Kuwait -- a small, Arab monarchy wedged between Iraq and Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf -- publicly rejected the notion that it had followed Trumps lead by banning travel by Muslims.

Kuwait "categorically denied media reports that it planned to stop issuing entry visas for some nationalities," read a statement from Sami Al-Hamad, Kuwaits assistant foreign minister for consular affairs. He added that "citizens of those countries mentioned by social media visited Kuwait regularly through direct commercial flights."

Other diplomats, including the Pakistani envoy in Kuwait and Kuwaits charge daffaires in Iran, backed up Kuwaits statement.

Kuwaits denial was picked up by such mainstream media outlets as Reuters. But as of the afternoon of Feb. 7, Trumps post remained up and uncorrected, as did the Al Bawaba article he had linked to.

So whats going on here? The short answer is that Trumps Facebook post was wrong. The longer answer, however, needs to fill in some important background. (The White House did not provide PolitiFact with any backup material. Attempts to reach the Kuwaiti embassy in Washington were unsuccessful.)

Travel restrictions for Kuwait happened years ago

We found several news accounts from years ago that generally said Kuwait had banned visas for several Muslim countries in 2011 before easing the rules a bit in 2013.

A Gulf News article dated May 22, 2011, said that "Kuwait has banned nationals from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan from entering the country, local media reported. The ban includes suspending all tourism, visit and trade visas as well as visas sponsored by spouses, immigration sources said, quoted by Kuwaiti media yesterday."

The article cited unnamed sources saying that the "visa ban," which was described as "temporary," stemmed from the "difficult security conditions in the five countries" and to "the remarkably increasing tendency of nationals from the five countries to apply for visas to bring in relatives who faced or could face arrest by the local authorities to Kuwait."

Another Gulf News article dated July 8, 2013, noted that Yemen was later added to the visa-ban list.

The 2013 article noted that in January of that year, Kuwait "eased" the ban from those six countries by allowing public-sector workers to bring their wives and children with them, and by allowing private-sector workers to bring their sons if they were under 15 years old and their daughters if they were under 18.

Finally, in 2014, Kuwait eased its visa rules -- but excluded Iran, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan from those expanded rules.

So, while Trump was wrong to say in his Facebook post that Kuwait had followed his lead, Kuwait did have restrictions in previous years.

"Historically, Kuwait has issued travel bans on certain nationalities due to specific events," said Edward W. Gnehm Jr., who studies the Gulf region at George Washington Universitys Elliott School of International Affairs. He noted that Kuwait banned entry by Palestinians, Yemenis and Iraqis after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 since it considered those countries or their people to have been supportive of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

That said, Kuwait has some practical restrictions on how firmly it can crack down on travel from these countries, said Kristin Smith Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

"There are lots of Syrians living in Kuwait, and they certainly havent been evicted," Diwan said. "It also would have been very unpopular with Kuwaitis who had enormous sympathy for Syrians and the uprising, especially in the early part of the war."

Diwan added that Kuwait "has lots of business with both Iraq and Iran," making a total ban difficult. In fact, she said, the Kuwaiti Emir recently visited Iran to explore the potential for de-escalation on behalf of Kuwait and its neighbors.

Another key point is that the immigration systems of the United States and Kuwait are akin to "apples and oranges," said David Andrew Weinberg, a Gulf specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Kuwait, unlike the United States, is not a multiethnic democracy," Weinberg said. "It is a family-ruled monarchy and ethnically-based nation that does not offer a route to citizenship to immigrants. In fact, Kuwait doesnt even grant citizenship to enormous numbers of bedoon individuals who have been there for generations but arent recognized as Kuwaiti by the state."

Estimates put the number of expatriates in Kuwait at more than 2 million, accounting for about two-thirds of the countrys population and much of its workforce.

In other words, Weinberg said, Kuwait, unlike the United States, doesnt have an immigration system for people to come and stay and become citizens. So any movement toward a stricter immigration policy would have much bigger consequences in the United States than in Kuwait.

If you click through the Al Bawaba story that Trump linked to, that article sources its information to another article, from a London-based website called The New Arab. That article now includes a note at the bottom stating in part, "This article has been updated to reflect the fact that the ban came into force, unofficially, in 2011, and was not a reaction to Donald Trump's recent executive order."

So the original media source that Trumps post is based on doesnt even stand by the message of its original headline.

Our ruling

On Facebook, Trump said, "Smart! 'Kuwait issues its own Trump-esque visa ban for five Muslim-majority countries.'"

Thats wrong -- news coverage suggests that Kuwait implemented a visa ban on a half-dozen predominantly Muslim nations in 2011, six years before Trump took office.

Meanwhile, any argument that Kuwaits past actions indicate a like-minded approach between Trump and Kuwait sidesteps the reality that pursuing such a policy in the United States inevitably has a much bigger impact because the U.S., unlike Kuwait, allows a path to citizenship for legal immigrants. We rate the statement Mostly False.

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Donald Trump wrong to say Kuwait followed his lead on visa ban - PolitiFact