In November, Donald Trump asked Preet Bharara, star anti-corruption prosecutor and U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to stay on the job. On March 11, Trump fired Bharara after he refused to resign along with 45 other federal prosecutors. (Those numbers did not include Billy Williams, acting U.S. attorney for Oregon.) Bharara was reportedly leading an investigation into whether Fox News lied to shareholders by failing to disclose sexual harassment claims against its former chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes. On the shortlist for Bharara's replacement: Ailes' personal attorney, Marc Mukasey.
On March 12, the Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the Republican replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as "Trumpcare." The CBO found that 24 million people, or nearly 1 in 13 Americans, would lose insurance under the law. During last year's campaign, Trump said, "We're going to have insurance for everybody." A few days before his inauguration, he said, "Nobody is going to be dying on the streets with a President Trump."
Also on March 12, White House spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway told a New Jersey newspaper that President Obama may have illegally spied on Trump during the 2016 campaign through Trump's home appliances, such as "microwaves that turn into cameras." The previous week, Trump claimed without evidence that Obama "had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" during last year's campaign. "This is McCarthyism!" Trump wrote. On March 13, White House spokesman Sean Spicer tried to erase Trump's outrageous claims, saying, "The president used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities." Conway also reversed herself. "I'm not Inspector Gadget," she told CNN. "I don't believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign."