“Labor Secretary Alex Acosta will hold a news conference Wednesday afternoon following renewed scrutiny over his role in cutting a plea deal more than a decade ago for Jeffrey Epstein,” NBC News reports.
“Acosta, who served as a U.S attorney in Florida, secured the federal non-prosecution agreement against Epstein in 2008, which critics have blasted as too lenient.”
“President Trump’s overhauled July Fourth celebration cost the D.C. government $1.7 million, an amount that — combined with police expenses for demonstrations through the weekend — has bankrupted a special fund used to protect the nation’s capital from terrorist threats and provide security at events such as rallies and state funerals,” the Washington Post reports.
The White House plans to send its replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement to Congress after Sept. 1, setting up a vote by the end of the year, sources told CNBC.
The reason for the delay: “The White House and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are split over how aggressively to push House Democrats to approve the deal.”
“A federal appeals court Wednesday sided with President Trump, dismissing a lawsuit claiming the president is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his luxury hotel in downtown Washington,” the Washington Post reports.
“The unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a victory for the president in a novel case brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia involving anti-corruption provisions in the emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution.”
Jed Shugerman: “Robert Mueller made a significant legal error and, based on the facts he found, he should have identified Trump campaign felonies. Mueller’s errors meant that, first, he failed to conclude that the Trump campaign criminally coordinated with Russia; second, he failed to indict campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for felony campaign coordination; third, the 10 acts of felony obstruction in Volume II fell flat among the general public because it lacked compelling context of these underlying crimes between the campaign and Russia. On top of these errors, the former special counsel said he deliberately wrote the report to be unclear because it would be unfair to make clear criminal accusations against a president.”
“The bottom line is that the Mueller Report is a failure not because of Congress or because of public apathy, but because it failed to get the law, the facts, or even the basics of writing right.”
Harvard professor Tom Patterson has written a summary of the Mueller Report, for those too busy to read the nearly 500 pages of the full report.
Proceeds from book sales will be used to buy ads on social media to bring the abridged version to the attention of a wider audience.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to shake uncontrollably for the third time in a month during Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne’s visit to Berlin, Politico reports.
“Nobody owns me. I’m not afraid to speak my mind. I’m not beholden to them. I’m not beholden to the establishment.”
— Tom Steyer, in an interview with NBC News, on why he should be the Democratic presidential nominee.
In prepared remarks, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is set to say that business investment has “slowed notably” and that trade tensions and weak global growth “continue to weigh” on the U.S. economy, a strong signal that the Fed is likely to lower the benchmark interest rate in July, the Washington Post reports.
Insider commissioned a movie-like treatment of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
“Buried within the Mueller report, there is a narrative that reads in parts like a thriller, like a comedy, like a tragedy — and, most important — like an indictment. The facts are compelling, all the more so because they come not from President Donald Trump’s critics or ‘fake news’ reports, but from Trump’s own handpicked colleagues and associates.”
Michelle Goldberg: “The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. If it were fiction, it would be both too sordid and too on-the-nose to be believable, like a season of True Detective penned by a doctrinaire Marxist.”
Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Amy McGrath (D) raised more than $2.5 million in the first 24 hours of her campaign against Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), NBC News reports.
“McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas said it’s the most ever raised in the first 24 hours of a Senate campaign… The haul is a sign of just how deep Democratic antipathy toward McConnell, the Senate majority leader, runs in the Trump era.”
A Politico excerpt of Tim Alberta’s American Carnage gives an inside look at how Donald Trump survived the Access Hollywood tape.
A few agonizing moments passed before the door opened. In walked Hicks, carrying a stapled packet of papers. She handed them silently to Trump. A former Ralph Lauren model known for her sharp looks and confident mien, Hicks was now ashen-faced. Trump eyed the top sheet and began reading. “Uh huh,” he said, flipping to the next page. “Mmm hmmm.”
Priebus was growing impatient—and fearful. “What is it?” he said. “Tell me what’s happening.”
Trump ignored him. Turning to a new page, he scanned the print and then stopped suddenly, his expression and tone shifting at once. He looked up at Hicks. “This doesn’t sound like me.”
Just then, Bossie pulled out his iPad. Farenthold, the Post reporter, had sent the audio file. With the nominee’s team clustered around him, Bossie pressed Play. They listened. And then, Trump spoke up. “Well,” he said, “that’s me.”
The British ambassador to the United States resigned Wednesday following leaked memos that showed he had called President Trump “insecure” and “incompetent,” NBC News reports.
Kim Darroch said in a statement that the fallout from the leaked communications — which sparked a series of broadsides from Trump — was “making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like.”
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll finds 60% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, the most since 1995.
“More also say their state should make it easier, rather than harder, for women to have access to abortion, with a plurality favoring no change in the status quo.”
“Billionaire activist Tom Steyer’s campaign rolled out a seven-figure television ad campaign promoting his nascent campaign, the largest single television ad buy in the Democratic presidential primary,” Politico reports.
“Joe Biden intended to stay above the fray. He wasn’t going to punch down at opponents, or embark on any apology tours for past votes or statements. Creating a sense of inevitability was the goal,” Politico reports.
“That strategy is now out the window.”
The Hill: Biden campaign looks to correct early stumbles.
BuzzFeed News “has obtained an explosive audio recording of the Metropol meeting in which a close aide of Europe’s most powerful far-right leader — Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini — and the other five men can be heard negotiating the terms of a deal to covertly channel tens of millions of dollars of Russian oil money to Salvini’s Lega party.”
“The recording reveals the elaborate lengths the two sides were willing to go to conceal the fact that the true beneficiary of the deal would be Salvini’s party — a breach of Italian electoral law, which bans political parties from accepting large foreign donations — despite the comfort with which he and Europe’s other far-right leaders publicly parade their pro-Kremlin political sympathies.”
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.