Several of President Donald Trump’s appointees to key government agencies and posts either caused, or were forced to face, controversy this week.

President Trump’s address to the US Congress last week led many political observers to conclude the new administration reset its communications strategy to avoid unnecessary embroilment. The new President’s disapproval ratings actually decreased slightly following the well-received speech. However, several key government cabinet appointees, soon after, encountered controversies that overshadowed Trump’s most presidential sounding stump yet and reminded America that conflict will remain an enduring theme under the new regime. 

Momentum gained by the Trump administration was short-lived as major US media outlets broke news that new US Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not disclose two meetings he had with a Russian envoy in 2016. One of the meetings reportedly took place in private during the height of suspicions that Moscow was engaged in cyber-war to influence the outcome of the American presidential election. US media seized on the fact that Sessions said he did not have “communications with the Russians” while under oath during his confirmation hearing. Subsequent political pressure forced the Attorney General to recuse himself from any investigations into Russia’s election interference, as he is no longer deemed to be impartial. 

A break from protocol was the source of a small controversy at the US Department of State this week. Secretary Rex Tillerson was absent at the release of the 41st annual Human Rights Report, which calls attention to human rights conditions around the world and is widely picked up by foreign media. The decades-long tradition whereby the US Secretary of State presents the important and influential report to media and public was broken. US-based NGOs interpreted Tillerson’s absence as a possible indicator that the new administration doesn’t view protection of basic human rights around the world as a key priority and may ignore violations by repressive governments worldwide.

On the domestic front, the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson referred to slaves as immigrants during a talk with federal employees. Carson, who is African-American, said: “That’s what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships.” The secretary faced a swift backlash of criticism from prominent personalities and media. Later in the week, the secretary caused another stir when he was explaining the power of the human brain to workers at his agency and said if he hooked their heads to electrodes, “they would be able to recite verbatim, a book they read 60 years ago.” Notable psychologists who study attention and memory were quick to declare Carson’s claim as utter nonsense.

President Trump’s CIA chief Mike Pompeo encountered his first big challenge on the job as WikiLeaks released thousands of documents this week detailing cyber-espionage and hacking tools used by the spy agency. The trove of information is said to be the largest leak of CIA documents in history and revealed the scope of virtual spying capabilities by the agency and many more details of its cyber-espionage efforts. Pompeo will likely have to undertake damage control and reassure American media and public that the agency targets only foreign sources and by law does not use its arsenal of online weapons against US citizens. 

The president himself may have caused the biggest political problem this week when he claimed that President Obama wiretapped Trump Towers in the midst of last year’s election. President Trump reportedly came to that conclusion based on a story carried by the notorious rightwing news outlet formerly headed by his chief advisor. Before he took office many expected there to be endless political turmoil surrounding the Trump regime because of its unorthodox communications style and “outsider” staff, but now in less than two months in power, it is clear that controversy can emerge at any time and from all corners of the new government.