President Trump was reportedly so confident that Nick Ayers, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, would be his next chief of staff that the White House had already drafted the announcement. Instead, Ayers announced Sunday that he's leaving the White House at the end of the year, along with outgoing White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. Ayers, a 36-year-old father of young triplets, will reportedly head a pro-Trump super PAC from Georgia. Several names are being floated to replace Kelly, including White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Mulvaney and Mnuchin are said to be uninterested.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have shifted from investigating Michael Cohen, President Trump's former lawyer and fixer, to examining what other members of Trump's family business, the Trump Organization, may have known about the crimes Cohen says he committed on behalf of Trump in 2016, The New York Times reports. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) told CNN on Sunday that if Trump was "at the center of a massive fraud," as prosecutors seem to allege, those crimes "would be impeachable offenses." Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) added on CBS's Face the Nation that "there's a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time."

China's Foreign Ministry has summoned the U.S. and Canadian ambassadors to China to protest the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies. Meng was taken into custody in Vancouver, Canada, on Dec. 1, at U.S. direction. She faces extradition to the United States, where she is accused of helping Huawei, a major electronics manufacturer, evade American sanctions on Iran. Beijing said the arrest "severely violated the Chinese citizen's legal and legitimate rights and interests," calling it "lawless, reasonless, and ruthless, and ... extremely vicious."

President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner continued to privately advise Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, The New York Times reported Saturday. Kushner "has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm" caused by the killing, for which the CIA has reportedly concluded with "medium-to-high confidence" MBS is responsible, the Times reports. Kushner also counseled MBS to "resolve his conflicts around the [Mideast] region and avoid further embarrassments," the Times adds. While National Security Council staff are supposed to sit in on all communications with foreign leaders, Kushner and MBS reportedly have informal, one-on-one chat and text conversations.

The United Kingdom's House of Commons is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to proceed with Prime Minister Theresa May's plan for Brexit, the U.K.'s exit from the European Union. But whether the vote will proceed as planned remains uncertain, as opposition inside and out May's Conservative Party makes its prospects look dim. Protest resignations from May's own government are expected Sunday and Monday, but May's office says the vote will go forward. The deal under consideration was settled with EU leaders late last month, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned critics it is the best realistic option.