I wanted to update you on the story I flagged yesterday in which the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner, decided to bogart the offices of the Trump-beleaguered National Science Foundation at least in part to build a Sky Mansion for himself on the building’s top floors. Stories like this have always had a special fascination for me. You can’t say it’s a bigger story than the US going to war with Iran or the US military low-fi occupying a major American city. But in addition to its immediate impact on three or four thousand people – the employees of HUD and NSF – it captures so much of what 2025 Trump Era Washington is about. As probably goes without saying, there appears to have been no formal process behind this at all. There’s a very Sopranos feel to the whole caper: ‘Nice place you got here. It’s mine now.’