Daily Archives
29 posts · Wednesday
“Federal investigators sought cooperation from Paul Manafort’s son-in-law in an effort to increase pressure on President Trump’s former campaign chairman,” Politico reports.
“Investigators approached Jeffrey Yohai, who has partnered in business deals with Manafort, earlier this summer, setting off ‘real waves’ in Manafort’s orbit, one of these people said. Another of these people said investigators are trying to get ‘into Manafort’s head.'”
Stephen Colbert announced that ousted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci will be on the Late Show on Monday, August 14.
Washington Examiner: “Trump gave Kelly unchecked hiring and firing power over White House aides below the senior counselor level when he chose the former homeland security secretary to replace outgoing chief of staff Reince Priebus late last month…. But while the president has offered Kelly a level of control Priebus never managed to obtain, Trump has resisted giving his new chief of staff veto power over the spontaneous and provocative tweets that often serve as a distraction for his administration.”
Said one insider: “Trump was pissed when he read Kelly wanted to control his Twitter feed.”
“One of Donald Trump’s most generous political benefactors is providing a six-figure donation to a super PAC devoted to unseating Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who has been fiercely critical of the president,” Politico reports.
“Robert Mercer, a reclusive hedge fund billionaire who was intimately involved in Trump’s rise and helped to bankroll his 2016 campaign, is contributing $300,000 to a super PAC supporting former state Sen. Kelli Ward, who is challenging Flake in a Republican primary next year.”
BuzzFeed News: “For months, national security experts have warned that the large number of unfilled positions at the State Department risked putting the United States in jeopardy in the event of a crisis. Now, with North Korea threatening war and a new US intelligence finding that Pyongyang has succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear bomb, a crisis has arrived, and President Trump has yet to name a US ambassador to South Korea.”
“The personnel gap comes amid confusing signals out of Washington — at a time when one of America’s most important and vulnerable allies is seeking clarity and instruction.”
For members: Diplomacy Is the Only Option for North Korea
“The White House is pushing a deal on Capitol Hill to head off a government shutdown that would lift strict spending caps long opposed by Democrats in exchange for money for President Trump’s border wall with Mexico,” Politico reports.
“The government runs out of money after Sept. 30. Without a spending deal, federal agencies will be forced to close until an agreement is reached. Democrats have vowed to oppose funding for a border wall, making it probably the biggest threat to an early October closure.”
FBI agents searched the office of Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) campaign treasurer in February, “seizing computer equipment and documents related to their investigation into whether Hunter misused campaign funds,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“The warrant said agents were looking for evidence relating to whether the GOP representative’s campaign funds were used for personal reasons, whether there was a scheme to defraud a bank over video game purchases and whether Hunter’s campaign finance reports were falsified to ‘impede or influence’ the FBI or House Ethics Committee inquiries into his use of campaign funds.”
White House social media director Dan Scavino slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Twitter for suggesting President Trump was inexperienced in how legislation is crafted.
More excuses. @SenateMajLdr must have needed another 4 years – in addition to the 7 years — to repeal and replace Obamacare…..
Trump himself followed up with this tweet:
McConnell said I had “excessive expectations,” but I don’t think so. After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?
Playbook: “This is stunning. Mitch McConnell is the lynchpin to whatever Donald Trump wants to get done on Capitol Hill. Sure, health care did not go as the White House wanted it to. They might get there in the future, they might not. But McConnell is not going anywhere for a very long time, he commands respect from all Republican senators and controls the Senate floor… Capitol Hill is hardly ever in unison but dumping on McConnell is seen as confused a strategy as the administration could employ.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in Virginia finds Ralph Northam (D) leading Ed Gillespie (R) by six points in the race for governor, 44% to 38%.
Politico: “President Trump on Sunday is scheduled to make his first visit back to Trump Tower since his inauguration… The president is scheduled to depart his Bedminster, N.J. golf club, where he has been working and vacationing this week, on Sunday afternoon and travel directly to Trump Tower, where he will hole up at his old, beloved, three-story penthouse on the 66th floor for three nights.”
President Trump delivered his “fire and fury” threat to North Korea “with arms folded, jaw set and eyes flitting on what appeared to be a single page of talking points set before him on the conference table at his New Jersey golf resort,” the New York Times reports.
“The piece of paper, as it turned out, was a fact sheet on the opioid crisis he had come to talk about, and his ominous warning to Pyongyang was entirely improvised… In discussions with advisers beforehand, he had not run the specific language by them.”
Jonathan Chait: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis have issued more normal-sounding statements intended to supersede the president’s improvised one… The message of this cleanup is that Trump’s statements do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. government – a reality most American political elites in both parties already recognize, but which needs to be made clear to other countries that are unaccustomed to treating their head of state like a random Twitter troll.”
Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA) told the Boston Globe that she will not seek another term in Congress.
Said Tsongas: “I feel it is a good time to go.”
“I will say this: he will be very busy with his concert tour and he’s got a big primary so I will wait to see who comes out of the primary.”
— Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), quoted by WZZM, sounding somewhat skeptical about Kid Rock’s (R) U.S. Senate bid.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said that he thinks that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) brain tumor and the early morning hours may have affected the Arizona Republican’s no vote on the Senate bill to repeal Obamacare, CNN reports.
Said Johnson: “I’m not gonna speak for John McCain — he has a brain tumor right now — that vote occurred at 1:30 in the morning, some of that might have factored in.”
He quickly added: “Again, I-I-I don’t know exactly what — we really thought — and again I don’t want speak for any senator. I really thought he was going to vote yes to send that to conference at 10:30 at night. By about 1, 1:30, he voted no. So you have talk to John in terms what was on his mind.”
“FBI agents raided the Alexandria home of President Trump’s former campaign chairman late last month, using a search warrant to seize documents and other materials,” the Washington Post reports.
“Federal agents appeared at Paul Manafort’s home without advance warning in the predawn hours of July 26, the day after he met voluntarily with the staff for the Senate Intelligence Committee.”
“The search warrant was wide-ranging and FBI agents working with special counsel Robert Mueller departed the home with various records… The search warrant indicates investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to believe Manafort could not be trusted to turn over all records in response to a grand jury subpoena.”
New York Times: “Officials did not disclose where the search warrant was carried out. Mr. Manafort has homes in Virginia, Florida, New York City and the Hamptons.”
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) said that “he would propose increasing the age to vote or join the military to 21 to be consistent with a new law hiking the legal age to buy tobacco,” the Portland Press Herald reports.
“Unfortunately for LePage, two things would stand in his way: the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. military.”
“Six days after the Legislature overrode his veto, LePage was still venting on the radio and in a letter to lawmakers about what he views as their hypocrisy in raising the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21 as a way to reduce Maine’s high youth smoking rates. While health groups cheered the new law, LePage called lawmakers ‘hypocrites’ and repeated his suggestion that perhaps 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds are also too young to cast ballots or choose to fight for the country.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.