HuffPost: “Carl Paladino, a Buffalo real estate developer and big Donald Trump supporter, announced Saturday that he intends to run for Congress in New York’s 27th district. The seat is being vacated by Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), who was arrested on charges of insider trading last week.”
Donnelly Runs His Own Way
Politico: “Privately referred to by some colleagues as the ‘accidental senator’ because of his good fortune in drawing a deeply flawed GOP opponent in 2012, the first-term Indiana senator’s presence is often barely noticed in the Capitol. His heads-down style distinguishes him among a quintet of centrist Democrats scrapping to survive this fall.”
“Donnelly rarely gives news conferences and stays away from cable news. For years, he assiduously avoided reporters who blanket the Capitol hallways. Now, the burly 62-year-old is running for reelection like a city council candidate, highlighting small-bore accomplishments and projecting an agreeable demeanor that contrasts sharply with what comes out of the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue most days.”
What’s Next for Manafort?
“A verdict in Paul Manafort’s Virginia trial could come as early as this week, but it will hardly be the last word on his fate. A conviction would threaten to jail Manafort, 69, for the rest of his life. But he would have the option to appeal — or hope for a politically explosive pardon from President Trump,” Politico reports.
“Even if a jury acquits the former Trump 2016 campaign chairman on the tax and bank fraud charges that special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors have detailed out over the past two weeks, Manafort is hardly out of the woods.”
“Most notably, the longtime GOP operative still faces a second federal trial slated to begin in mid-September in Washington. And that case, accusing Manafort of money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent while lobbying for the government of Ukraine, could be even more challenging.”
PAC Money Is Suddenly a Campaign Issue
New York Times: “Campaign finance was once famously dismissed by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, as being of no greater concern to American voters than ‘static cling.’ But since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 opened the floodgates for unrestricted political spending, polls have shown that voters are growing increasingly bitter about the role of money in politics.”
“The issue is now emerging in midterm races around the country, with dozens of Democrats rejecting donations from political action committees, or PACs, that are sponsored by corporations or industry groups. A handful of candidates… are going a step further and refusing to take any PAC money at all, even if it comes from labor unions or fellow Democrats.”
“Rather than dooming the campaigns, these pledges to reject PAC money have become central selling points for voters. And for some of the candidates, the small-donor donations are adding up.”
White House Seeks to Stop More Omarosa Tapes
The White House is “looking into legal options to stop her from releasing more tapes and to punish her for secretly recording her conversation with Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly,” ABC News reports.
Omarosa’s Secret Tapes Show Security Breach
Jonathan Swan: “It’s extraordinary enough to secretly record a White House colleague and then play the tape on television. But it’s even more stunning that the conversation happened in the Situation Room — the most secure area in the West Wing, reserved for the most sensitive conversations, many of them dealing with highly classified intelligence.”
”You have to lie and intentionally subvert the rules to get a recording device into the SitRoom, which is actually a group of several secure meeting rooms.”
“When White House officials enter the secure area — after getting buzzed in while a security officer watches through a keyhole camera — they immediately enter a lobby with a wall of lockers. They are required to put their phones and any other electronic devices, like Apple watches, in the lockers.”
The Rise and Fall of Paul Manafort
New York Times: “The whole trajectory of Mr. Manafort’s life — from the son of a blue-collar, small-town mayor to a jet-setting international political consultant to Trump campaign chairman and now to prisoner in an Alexandria, Va., jail awaiting a jury verdict — is a tale of greed, deception and ego. His trial on 18 charges of bank and tax fraud has ripped away the elaborate facade of a man who, the story went, had moved the swimming pool at one of his eight homes a few feet to catch the perfect combination of sun and shade, and who worked for the Trump campaign at no charge to intimate that for a man of his fabulous wealth, a salary was trivial.”
“His trial also underscores questions about how someone in such deep financial trouble rose to the top of the Trump campaign, spreading a stain that has touched the president’s innermost circle. The formidable parade of more than 20 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits has further eroded the notion, advanced by President Trump, that the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, Robert S. Mueller III, is on a ‘witch hunt.’l
Conway Can’t Name a Black Person in the West Wing
Jonathan Karl asks Kellyanne Conway: “Omarosa was the most prominent, high-level African-American serving in the West Wing on President Trump’s staff. Who now is that person?”
Ellison Denies Abuse Allegations from Ex-Girlfriend
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) “denied an allegation from an ex-girlfriend that he had once dragged her off a bed while screaming obscenities at her — an allegation that came just days before a Tuesday primary in which the congressman is among several Democrats running for state attorney general,” the AP reports.
“The allegation first surfaced Saturday night from Karen Monahan after her son alleged in a Facebook post that he had seen hundreds of angry text messages from Ellison, some threatening his mother.”
Jungle Primaries Are a Glimpse Into the General Election
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Shadow President
Coming later this month: Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence by Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner.
Frank Bruni: “There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings.”
“That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.”
“To that brimming potpourri he adds two ingredients that Trump doesn’t genuinely possess: the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy.”
What Nixon’s Approval Rate Might Tell Us About Today
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Democrats Pour Money Into Longshot Races
Associated Press: “The November midterms are on pace to shatter records for political spending. While more than $1 billion raised so far nationally is helping finance battlegrounds that are poised to decide control of Congress, restless donors aren’t stopping there — they’re also putting cash into races and places they never have before to help underdog Democrats.”
“All are places where Democrats are outraising their Republicans opponents — a feat that while perhaps not changing the conventional wisdom about their chances, is succeeding in giving their campaigns unusual viability.”
Kasich Says Today’s GOP Is Not Recognizable
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) told NBC News that he no longer recognizes the Republican Party.
Said Kasich: “The Republican Party has never been for protectionism. The Republican Party doesn’t support a notion that families shouldn’t be held together. The Republican Party never supported the notion that we should ring up debt and put our kids so much in debt by doing things that are not responsible.”
He continued: “The Republican Party has never believed that we should walk away from our allies who have helped us keep the peace since World War II. These positions, they don’t even resemble the Republican Party.”
Trump Now Stripping Americans of Citizenship
Los Angeles Times: “A man recently sworn in as a United States citizen had failed to disclose on his naturalization application that he had been arrested, but not convicted, in California on rape and theft charges. Shusterman, then a naturalization attorney, embarked on a months-long effort to do something that rarely happened: strip someone of their American citizenship.”
Said Shusterman: “We had to look it up to find out how to do this. We’d never even heard of it.”
“Forty years later, denaturalization — a complex process once primarily reserved for Nazi war criminals and human rights violators — is on the rise under the Trump administration. A United States Citizenship and Immigration Services team in Los Angeles has been reviewing more than 2,500 naturalization files for possible denaturalization, focusing on identity fraud and willful misrepresentation. More than 100 cases have been referred to the Department of Justice for possible action.”
Conway Says All White House Staff Have Signed NDAs
“Kellyanne Conway responded to claims from former White House official Omarosa Manigault Newman that she was offered ‘hush money’ by saying that everyone in the West Wing has signed non-disclosure agreements, which she described as a completely normal practice,” Politico reports.
Giuliani Suggests a President Can’t Obstruct Justice
Rudy Giuliani told CNN that it would take some sort of extreme action — like pointing a gun at someone during an investigation — for President Trump to obstruct justice.
Said Giuliani: “There are people who argue that he could never obstruct justice. I think that’s too far-fetched an argument and we don’t have to make it.”
But then he contradicted himself: “I think now our argument is that when he exercises his power as president… then it becomes really really questionable if it becomes obstruction of justice.”
Wisconsin Faces a Political Crossroads
New York Times: “Walker is still Wisconsin’s governor, still harboring national ambitions, and Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans have only grown more divided over Mr. Trump and the state’s place in national politics.”
“Those dynamics are now on display as Wisconsin prepares for a major primary election on Tuesday: Mr. Walker’s bid for a third term is at stake; Wisconsin Democrats’ desire to deal blows to Trump Republicanism is intense; Republicans are deeply concerned about their future hold on state government; and the very identity of the state, which swings between progressivism and conservatism, feels up for grabs.”
