President Trump has directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cancel his upcoming trip to North Korea, saying the country was not “making sufficient progress with respect to denuclearization,” the Washington Post reports.
Kremlin Sources Go Quiet
“In 2016, American intelligence agencies delivered urgent and explicit warnings about Russia’s intentions to try to tip the American presidential election — and a detailed assessment of the operation afterward — thanks in large part to informants close to President Vladimir V. Putin and in the Kremlin who provided crucial details,” the New York Times reports.
“But two years later, the vital Kremlin informants have largely gone silent, leaving the C.I.A. and other spy agencies in the dark about precisely what Mr. Putin’s intentions are for November’s midterm elections.”
“The officials do not believe the sources have been compromised or killed. Instead, they have concluded they have gone to ground amid more aggressive counterintelligence by Moscow, including efforts to kill spies, like the poisoning in March in Britain of a former Russian intelligence officer that utilized a rare Russian-made nerve agent.”
Here’s Where Things Get Dangerous
Andrew Sullivan: “There was a sense among some this week that we had at last reached that golden ‘inflection point’ when all of Trump’s lies, scams, cons, and crimes finally sink in with Republicans, and the cult begins to crack.”
“I tend to think something else is happening: that we are entering the most dangerous phase of Donald Trump’s presidency. We always knew this would happen — that the rule of law and Trump would at some point be unable to coexist — but we had no idea how it would specifically play out. Now we see the lay of the land a little more clearly.”
“What we’re about to find out is if Trump can pull off all his usual tricks, and face no serious political or legal consequences for this. I’d say that question remains nerve-rackingly open.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“It is impossible to ignore the stench that is emanating from the White House and from Washington, and this week was a really alarming week.”
— Democratic strategist David Axelrod, quoted by The Hill.
An Unlikely Journey
Coming this fall: An Unlikely Journey: Waking Up from My American Dream by Julian Castro.
Could a presidential bid be far behind?
Fed Chair Ignores Trump
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell seemed to brush off recent complaints from President Trump about the pace of interest-rate increases, signaling in a speech that he expects the Fed to continue raising interest rates gradually if the U.S. economic expansion remains strong, CBS News reports.
Cohen’s Lawyer Says Senators Didn’t Ask Right Questions
Michael Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis told Yahoo News that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee failed to ask the right “follow-up questions” when his client appeared before the panel last year and therefore failed to elicit crucial answers about President Trump’s prior knowledge of Russian hacking of Democratic emails during the 2016 election.
Davis said that senators failed to ask the right follow-ups to Cohen’s prepared statement — about Trump’s “level of awareness” of the hacking, seeming to draw a distinction between awareness and “involvement.”
Trump Organization CFO Granted Immunity
Allen Weisselberg, longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about Michael Cohen in the criminal investigation into hush-money payments for two women during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Washington Post: “Weisselberg is the person identified in court filings as ‘Executive-1,’ who prosecutors said helped authorize $420,000 in payments to Cohen.”
From yesterday, for members: The Much Bigger Fish than Michael Cohen.
McCain Will No Longer Receive Cancer Treatment
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), “who has been battling brain cancer for more than a year, will no longer be treated for his condition, his family announced on Friday, a sign that the Republican war hero is most likely entering his final days,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. McCain’s family has gathered in Arizona, and people close to him say his death is imminent.”
Spiro Agnew Lawyer Says Trump Should Resign
“Martin London, a lawyer who represented former Vice President Spiro Agnew, said that President Trump should resign from office to keep federal prosecutors from prosecuting his family,” The Hill reports.
Said London: “It’s only going to get worse. We already have everybody, you know — the rats are leaving the ship. He’s lost Gates, Papadopoulos, Cohen, Flynn, now Pecker. He’ll probably lose others from the Trump Organization.”
He added: “If he has any interest at all in not only saving his skin, but the skin of his child, his children, his son-in-law, his grandchildren, his daughter — this is a time when he’s got to seriously think about that. Now, is he capable of that, of serious thinking? Frankly, I doubt it.”
Georgia Swiftly Rejects Proposal to Close Polling Places
“In a meeting that lasted less than 60 seconds, a Georgia board of elections voted down a plan Friday to close seven of a majority-black county’s nine polling places ahead of November’s midterm elections,” CNN reports.
“Critics had said the plan to consolidate polling places in Randolph County, Georgia, was a brazen attempt to suppress the black vote in Georgia’s governor race, which pits former Georgia House minority leader Stacey Abrams, who is black, against Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is white.”
Reality TV Becomes Reality Politics
Matthew Continetti: “I had assumed that Trump’s unusual background would limit his influence over candidate behavior. As Cohen, Omarosa, and Avenatti show, one has to be removed from statehouses and governor’s mansions to practice reality politics. Recent events give me second thoughts.”
“The emergence of these anti-Trumps suggests that there is a future for outsiders versed in tabloids, wrestling, and ‘structured reality.’… Maybe Americans can’t get enough of the drama. Or maybe they will be so exhausted at the end of the road on which we have embarked that they will revert to the tried, the placid, the conventional, the deliberate, and the upright.”
Trump’s Distorted View of Justice
First Read: “Think about it: He praises and pardons friends/allies who have committed crimes (Manafort, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza), but calls for the prosecution of enemies who haven’t been charged at all (Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Christopher Steele).”
“And as others have pointed out, Trump continues to use mob-boss language: Manafort ‘refused to break’ … White House counsel Don McGahn must be a John Dean type ‘RAT’ … ‘Flipping’ ought to be outlawed.”
“This is the president of the United States of America.”
Trump Administration Slowing Vetting of Refugees
“The FBI has dramatically slowed the pace of security reviews for refugees in recent months, which former Trump administration officials and human rights advocates say is part of an intentional bid by White House hardliners to restrict the number of refugees allowed in the U.S.,” NBC News reports.
“Former officials and aid organizations say the administration has overloaded the FBI and other government agencies with an array of procedures that have weighed down the bureaucracy and effectively delayed refugee admissions.”
GOP Talks About Impeachment More Than Democrats
Perry Bacon: “If the Democrats are planning to impeach Trump if they win control of the House, they are doing a really great job of hiding it. Congressional Democrats aren’t talking about impeachment.”
“And it’s not just Democratic leaders who aren’t talking about impeachment. As part of FiveThirtyEight’s project looking at what types of Democrats are doing well in primaries for Senate, House and governor this year, we looked at the campaign website for each of the 811 people who, as of Aug. 7, had appeared on the ballot in Democratic primaries for races with no Democratic incumbent. Only one candidate (Nate Kleinman, running for a House seat in New Jersey) featured a call for impeaching Trump on his website.”
Closing In
Here’s next week’s cover of The New Yorker:
Hunter Defends Misuse of Funds with Same Funds
“Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) legal defense is coming from the same campaign coffers he and his wife are accused of misusing, so far amounting to more than $600,000 for the lawyers,” Roll Call reports.
“Federal Election Commission filings show Hunter’s campaign made payments for ‘legal services’ or ‘legal fees’ to eight different law firms in excess of $600,000 during the 2018 election cycle. This includes disbursements of $182,000 to the San Diego-based law firm Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek, which is representing Hunter in the grand jury investigation. The five-term GOP incumbent and his wife were indicted for allegedly using $250,000 in campaign funds for personal use.”
New York May Open Tax Investigation Into Cohen
A person familiar with the matter tells the Associated Press that New York’s attorney general is looking to open a criminal investigation into whether Michael Cohen also violated state tax law.
