Before they were formally named to President Trump’s now disbanded voter fraud commission, two conservative activists emailed the commission’s vice chair Kris Kobach about “potential Democratic commissioners,” a federal judge revealed Thursday. The revelation came in a legal dispute over whether the Trump administration must turn over a batch of commission-related emails to a Democratic member of the panel, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap.

The Russian firm that special counsel Robert Mueller has charged with  funding Russia’s election meddling on social media and is run by an oligarch known as “Putin’s chef” challenged Mueller’s legal authority in court filings Monday. Concord Management was among the defendants named in an indictment approved by Mueller’s grand jury in February. Mueller accused Concord Management of funding the organization of internet trolls who allegedly created fake social media accounts in the lead-up of 2016, and charged it with conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his son-in-law are  engaged in an ugly legal battle that escalated last week with the son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, alleging that Manafort was part of a conspiracy to mislead a federal bankruptcy court.

The Justice Department asked a court to dismiss the lawsuit brought by a watch dog group alleging  that President Trump is in violation of the Constitution’s Emolument clause. The filing from the federal government on Friday argued that neither the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), nor the businesses that have joined the lawsuit, have the standing to bring the legal challenge, while asserting that the Emoluments clause does not apply to the sort of profits Trump is benefiting from through his businesses while in office.

To riff on the bard, a Muslim ban by any other name is still a political and legal problem for President Donald Trump. Trump, in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network almost immediately after signing the order, said that one of its purposes was to make it easier for Christians to enter the United States. "It seems to me the soft underbelly of the legal defense is this business about Christians, because not only is that subject to Equal Protection and Establishment Clause [questions] on its own, but it suggests that this is a Muslim ban,” said Michael Meltsner, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law.

The thousands of telecommunications jobs President-elect Donald Trump claimed Wednesday that he was bringing back to the United States were part of a previously announced investment deal between Sprint and its main funder, SoftBank. "5,000 jobs announced today are part of the 50,000 jobs that [SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son] previously announced. It will be a combination of newly created jobs and bringing some existing jobs back to the U.S," a Sprint spokeswoman said in a statement to Politico, after Trump made his announcement to the press.

The New York Times and the AP reported that the emails were uncovered after the FBI seized electronic devices owned by Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). The devices were seized as part of its investigation into Weiner's alleged sexting with a 15-year-old girl. They contained emails from Clinton's private email server, according to the New York Times.