Archives for May 26, 2017 at 7:37 pm EDT

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Kushner Wanted Secret Back Channel to Moscow

May 26, 2017 at 7:37 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring,” the Washington Post reports.

“Ambassador Sergei Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, then President-elect Trump’s son-in-law and confidant, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.”

“Kislyak reportedly was taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an American to use Russian communications gear at its embassy or consulate — a proposal that would have carried security risks for Moscow as well as the Trump team.”

Senate Intelligence Requests Trump Campaign Documents

May 26, 2017 at 7:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, has asked President Trump’s political organization to gather and produce all documents, emails and phone records going back to his campaign’s launch in June 2015,” the Washington Post reports.

“Dozens of former staffers are expected to be contacted in the coming days to make sure they are aware of the request.”

Trump Mulls Senior Staff Shake Up

May 26, 2017 at 5:14 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump “is actively discussing major changes in the White House, including a shakeup of his senior team, after spending much of his free time during his overseas trip weighing the Russia investigation and the political crisis it poses for him,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Meetings devoted to White House operations are scheduled for next week, officials said. Other revisions on the table include a new filter of the president’s social-media habit and fewer scheduled press briefings… The anticipated moves are the latest sign of how the investigation into Russia’s interference in last year’s election, and the circumstances of the president’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, is defining the new administration.”

Said one Trump adviser: “Everything is in play.”

Trump to Set Up Scandal ‘War Room’

May 26, 2017 at 4:23 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump’s White House “is preparing to establish a ‘war room’ to combat mounting questions about ties between Russia and his presidential campaign… addressing a scandal that has threatened to consume his young presidency,” Reuters reports.

“Upon Trump’s return from a nine-day overseas trip, the administration will add experienced political professionals and possibly lawyers to handle the Russia probe, which has gained new urgency since the Justice Department appointed a special counsel to head the investigation.”

Most GOP Voters Thinks Millions Voted Illegally

May 26, 2017 at 4:21 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A new YouGov poll finds that 52% of Republicans “definitely” or “probably” think that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 presidential election.

Life After the Election

May 26, 2017 at 4:06 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York magazine has a must-read interview with Hillary Clinton:

Affection for her campaign staff is one reason Clinton claims she will not point fingers at her own team in assessing her loss. “I will never say anything other than positive things about my campaign,” she tells me in Chappaqua. “Because I love the people that led it, worked in it.”

Besides, she argues, “what I was doing was working. I would have won had I not been subjected to the unprecedented attacks by Comey and the Russians, aided and abetted by the suppression of the vote, particularly in Wisconsin.” She agrees that there are lessons to be learned from her campaign, just not the same ones her critics would cite. “Whoever comes next, this is not going to end. Republicans learned that if you suppress votes you win … So take me out of the equation as a candidate. You know, I’m not running for anything. Put me into the equation as somebody who has lived the lessons that people who care about this country should probably pay attention to.”

Meanwhile, Axios notes Clinton returned to her alma mater to deliver this year’s commencement address, “where took a few jabs at the president, being careful not to mention his name.”

Rural America Is the New ‘Inner City’

May 26, 2017 at 4:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A Wall Street Journal analysis shows that since the 1990s, sparsely populated counties have replaced large cities as America’s most troubled areas by key measures of socioeconomic well-being—a decline that’s accelerating.”

“In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs and medium or small metro areas).”

“In fact, the total rural population—accounting for births, deaths and migration—has declined for five straight years.”

GOP Leaders Concerned About More Leaks

May 26, 2017 at 3:57 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“House GOP leaders have launched an internal review into how someone secretly recorded and leaked audio of a private 2016 leadership meeting in which Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) jokes about how Russia is paying off Donald Trump,” The Hill reports.

“GOP leadership is currently researching what federal statutes or House rules could be applied to hold the leaker accountable. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has voiced concerns that more audio recordings of sensitive leadership discussions could be leaked.”

Republicans Worry Texas Map May Be Blown Up

May 26, 2017 at 12:28 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Several congressional Republicans told the Texas Tribune they want Gov. Greg Abbott (R) “to call a special session to redraw the Congressional lines. They believe such a maneuver would put their allies in the state legislature in the driver’s seat, circumventing Republicans’ worst fear: that a panel of federal judges will draw a less favorable map of its own.”

“The problem with that strategy? Austin has no appetite for it — largely, state Republicans argue, because it would make no legal sense in the latest battle of the state’s campaign to preserve its current maps.”

Extra Bonus Quote of the Day

May 26, 2017 at 12:04 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Respectfully, I’d submit that the president has unearthed some demons. I’ve talked to a number of people about it back home. They say, ‘Well, look, if the president can say whatever, why can’t I say whatever?’ He’s given them license… There is a total weirdness out there.”

— Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC), quoted by the Washington Post.

Bonus Quote of the Day

May 26, 2017 at 12:02 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Every time something like Montana happens, Republicans adjust their standards and put an emphasis on team loyalty. They normalize and accept previously unacceptable behavior.”

— Conservative former talk show host Charlie Sykes, quoted by the Washington Post.

FBI Probing Attempted Hack of Trump Organization

May 26, 2017 at 11:59 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The FBI is investigating an attempted overseas cyberattack against the Trump Organization, summoning President Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, for an emergency session with the bureau’s cybersecurity agents and representatives of the CIA,” officials tell ABC News.

“Law enforcement officials… confirmed the attempted hack and said the subsequent meeting took place at the FBI’s New York headquarters on May 8, the day before Trump fired FBI director James Comey.”

Trump Angled for Soviet Posting In the 1980s

May 26, 2017 at 10:41 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Donald Trump, in the mid-1980s, aggressively pursued an official government post to the USSR, according to a Nobel Peace Prize winner with whom Trump interacted at the time,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Said Bernard Lown: “He already had Russia mania in 1986, 31 years ago. He said to me, ‘I hear you met with Gorbachev, and you had a long interview with him, and you’re a doctor, so you have a good assessment of who he is.’ So I asked, ‘Why would you want to know?’ And he responded, ‘I intend to call my good friend Ronnie,’ meaning Reagan, ‘to make me a plenipotentiary ambassador for the United States with Gorbachev.'”

He added: “Those are the words he used. And he said he would go to Moscow and he’d sit down with Gorbachev, and then he took his thumb and he hit the desk and he said, ‘And within one hour the Cold War would be over!’ I sat there dumbfounded. ‘Who is this self-inflated individual? Is he sane or what?'”

Quote of the Day

May 26, 2017 at 10:40 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“I don’t want to be president. I drink red wine. I smoke cigarettes. I golf. I cut my own grass. I iron my own clothes. And I’m not willing to give all that up to be president.”

— Former Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), quoted by RigZone.

Cruz Failed to Disclose Loans from Goldman Sachs

May 26, 2017 at 9:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “improperly accounted for loans he received from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. during his 2012 campaign, saying the funds were his own personal contributions to the Senate race,” Bloomberg reports.

“The finding, released on the FEC website, marked a rare instance of agreement among the agency’s five commissioners, who voted unanimously that the $1.1 million of loans from the banks should have been disclosed to voters.”

John Glenn’s Remains Were Disrespected at Mortuary

May 26, 2017 at 8:43 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“A senior mortuary employee at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware twice offered horrified inspectors a peek at American icon John Glenn’s dead body while the famed astronaut awaited burial earlier this year,” according to an internal memo obtained by Military Times.

“The disturbing allegation has outraged Pentagon officials and sparked a top-level investigation to determine whether misconduct was committed.”

Trump Turns First Foreign Trip Into a Disaster

May 26, 2017 at 8:31 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

President Trump “punctured any illusions that he was on a fence-mending tour of Europe, declining to explicitly endorse NATO’s mutual defense pledge and lashing out at fellow members for what he called their ‘chronic underpayments’ to the alliance,” the New York Times reports.

“On a tense day when Mr. Trump brought the ‘America first’ themes of his presidential campaign to the very heart of Europe, he left European leaders visibly unsettled, with some openly lamenting divisions with the United States on trade, climate and the best way to confront Russia. The discord was palpable even in body language. When Mr. Trump greeted Emmanuel Macron, France’s new president, they grabbed each other’s hands, jaws clenched, in an extended grip that turned Mr. Trump’s knuckles white. When the leaders lined up to pose for the traditional photograph at NATO headquarters, Mr. Trump appeared to push aside the Montenegrin prime minister, Dusko Markovic, to get to his assigned place in the front.”

Former Russia ambassador Michael McFaul: “In Saudi Arabia, Trump promised no lectures. But at NATO, he lectured our allies at length.”

First Read: “Two days ago, you wouldn’t have been wrong to declare Trump’s overseas trip a relative success. But after yesterday — the ‘push aside,’ critical comments about Germany, no firm Article 5 embrace by Trump, and no formal position on Russia sanctions (!!!) — the trip became a disaster.”

GOP Inherits What Trump Has Wrought

May 26, 2017 at 7:46 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The darker forces that propelled President Trump’s rise are beginning to frame and define the rest of the Republican Party,” the Washington Post reports.

“When GOP House candidate Greg Gianforte assaulted a reporter who had attempted to ask him a question in Montana, many saw not an isolated outburst by an individual, but the obvious, violent result of Trump’s charge that journalists are ‘the enemy of the people.’ Nonetheless, Gianforte won Thursday’s special election to fill a safe Republican seat.”

“Trump — and specifically, his character and his conduct — now thoroughly dominate the national political conversation… The dynamic is shaping the contours of this year’s smattering of special congressional elections and contests for governor, as well as the jockeying ahead the 2018 midterm elections.”