Ron Elving

We have a roundup of the week in politics, including President Trump's response to the mail bombs sent to prominent Democrats.

"America First" has been a Trump mantra for years. The suggestion that the U.S. has been fleeced by foreigners has been his appeal to all those who find talk of "globalism" unsettling or threatening.

Don McGahn's tenure was capped by shaping Brett Kavanaugh's fight-back rebuttal against allegations of sexual assault. The office has been a perch for major figures from John Dean to Alberto Gonzales.

This weekend marks the 45th anniversary of the "Saturday Night Massacre," when Richard Nixon purged legal officials from the Justice Department. It led to Nixon's resignation the following year.

We look at the U.S. political response to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other stories in politics this week.

President Nixon 45 years ago precipitated the departure of the attorney general, deputy attorney general and Watergate special prosecutor as the criminal investigation of his administration escalated.

The rapper's meeting with President Trump raised eyebrows, and the disappearance of a journalist in a Saudi consulate in Turkey has brought the spotlight again on Washington's relations with Riyadh.

The likely confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court cements a conservative majority on the court and fulfills a long-held Republican goal.

The fight over the nomination rises from the emotional cauldron that boiled through the 2016 campaign and has simmered ever since.

The delay in the Supreme Court confirmation process reflects how deeply affected Americans have been by this week's testimony.

Given the national audience for Ford on TV, Kavanaugh's scorched-earth defense may have been his only chance — the one way to prevent Republican defections and keep the White House on his side.

Televisions across the country were tuned to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday as Christine Blasey Ford testified that she was assaulted as a teenager by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Throughout the turmoil in Washington, D.C., over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, the historical backdrop has been the 1991 confrontation between Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's path to confirmation hit a roadblock after allegations of sexual assault decades ago. The Senate Judiciary Committee wants Christine Blasey Ford to testify.

The electoral connection was critical throughout the Thomas nomination process. Two elections that took place in the 1980s were not only preludes but determinants of the drama that would unfold.

President Trump visits North Carolina on Wednesday, with the impact of Hurricane Florence still setting in. No president finds these moments easy, but some have met the challenge better than others.

"An indulgent and prosperous nation readily forgave Bill Clinton and instead blamed the prosecutor," Starr writes of investigating the president. "That would be me."

In this account by the longtime journalist, President Trump appears convinced that the same braggadocio that made him rich and made him president will make the world conform to his own view of it.

Washington is recovering from a week of Supreme Court hearings and the publication of an anonymous op-ed that rattled the White House.

For the Democrats, these hearings are not an exercise in shaping the Supreme Court. They are a series of appeals to their supporters to sympathize with the futility of their predicament.