Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has been investigating a meeting between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno in Quito in 2017 and has specifically asked if WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange, were discussed in the meeting, CNN reports.
Earlier Tuesday, The Guardian reported that Manafort secretly met several times with Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Manafort denies the meetings ever happened.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “shut down the possibility that the Senate might take up legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by President Trump, even after Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the No. 2 Senate Republican, held open the possibility earlier Tuesday,” USA Today reports.
“Earlier in the day, Cornyn signaled a potential change in the position of Republican leaders who have previously rejected a push by outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) to allow a vote on the Mueller legislation.”
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort told the National Review that he has never met privately with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and threatened to sue the Guardian for reporting that he has.
Said Manafort: “This story is totally false and deliberately libelous. I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone connected to Wikileaks, either directly or indirectly. I have never reached out to Assange or Wikileaks on any matter. We are considering all legal options against the Guardian who proceeded with this story even after being notified by my representatives that it was false.”
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“An intense behind-the-scenes power struggle over who will become Donald Trump’s top congressional defender is coming to a head as two Freedom Caucus leaders and their allies pressure senior Republicans to give them two top committee posts,” Politico reports.
“Rep. Jim Jordan has formally launched a bid to become the top Republican lawmaker on the House Judiciary Committee, according to two leadership sources, while Rep. Mark Meadows is going for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.”
Former Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) “is staying silent in the face of attacks on his ex-colleague, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who has been shunned by major Democratic donors and criticized heavily online after calling for Franken’s resignation last year in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations,” BuzzFeed News reports.
Prosecutors asked a judge to revoke bail for former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane (D) “after the state’s top court denied her final appeal, clearing the way for her to begin serving a jail sentence for perjury and other crimes,” Reuters reports.
“The jury convicted Kane on charges of perjury, false swearing, obstruction of justice, official oppression and conspiracy. She was sentenced to serve 10 to 23 months in jail.”
“The White House is preventing the CIA director, Gina Haspel, or any other intelligence official from briefing the Senate on the murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi,” The Guardian reports.
“Officials made it clear that the decision for Haspel not to appear in front of the committee came from the White House.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) ruled out a potential bid for the presidency in 2020, saying that he has a “full plate” in his current role, The Hill reports.
Said Cuomo: “I am ruling it out. I ran for governor. I have a full plate. I have many projects. I’m going to be here doing the job of governor… I’m governor of New York and I have a lot to do.”
A new Monmouth poll finds just 20% of the public feels that Americans are united and in agreement on our most important values while 77% say we are not.
Big majorities of Democrats (82%), Republicans (78%), and independents (72%) feel that the country is fundamentally divided.
Also interesting: “More than 6-in-10 Americans (62%) feel that the country has become more divided since Trump took office. Just 11% say the country has become more united and 25% say there has not really been a change in our sense of unity.”
President Trump claims in a new book that he is “far greater than Ronald Reagan” and says conservatives don’t give him enough credit for his accomplishments, the Washington Examiner reports.
Said Trump: “The amazing thing is that you have certain people who are conservative Republicans that if my name weren’t Trump, if it were John Smith, they would say I’m the greatest president in history and I blow Ronald Reagan away.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told USA Today that the House Intelligence committee “will have to prioritize the most important witnesses and records that Republicans blocked them from pursuing.”
“The ‘clearest example; of that obstruction, he said, is phone records that would show whether the blocked phone number – logged as Trump Jr. was arranging a meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower – belonged to then-candidate Donald Trump.”
“At first, Trump Jr. said he never told his father of the meeting, but then later told Senate investigators that he couldn’t recall who he spoke with that night.”
Garrett Graff: “Manafort might have unwittingly given Mueller just the opportunity he requires to make public even more details about the former Trump campaign chairman, Russia, and the Trump campaign’s activities in 2016. In a court filing Monday, Mueller’s team alleged that Manafort had lied to investigators, asking the judge to move immediately to sentencing. They also said they would provide a ‘detailed sentencing submission,’ outlining ‘the nature of the defendant’s crimes and lies.'”
“In other words, Mueller plans to quickly issue a ‘report’ on Manafort’s activities, one that—if it’s anything like every other court document Mueller has filed thus far—will be more informed, more knowledgeable, and more detailed than anyone anticipates.”
“In fact, such a move would be entirely consistent with one of the most surprising and least noticed aspects of Mueller’s approach all along: He’s been writing the long-anticipated ‘Mueller Report’ bit-by-bit, in public, since his very first court filing.”
“The National Rifle Association of America reported $98 million in contributions in 2017, down from nearly $125 million in 2016,” according to new tax records obtained by the Daily Beast.
“Nearly a fifth of its contributions last year came from a single anonymous donor, who chipped in nearly $19 million to the group.”
“More noteworthy than its drop in contributions, though, was its decline in membership dues. The NRA took in more than $128 million in dues last year—a significant sum, but down considerably from the $163 million it took in the year prior.”
“He may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer, but he can see his future and knows that if he acted in an extralegal way, he would go down in history for the wrong reasons. I’m sure he doesn’t want that.”
— Former FBI Director James Comey, in a WGBH interview, on acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) said there’s a chance the Senate will actually vote on legislation designed to protect special counsel Robert Mueller, Roll Call reports.
Cornyn suggested that may be the price paid in order to get an agreement with retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) to let more of President Trump’s judicial nominations through the Judiciary Committee.
“Texas is no longer, I believe, a reliably red state. We are on the precipice of turning purple.”
— Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
“Multiple witnesses in the trial of Rep. Robert Brady’s (D-PA) former campaign strategist have implicated the congressman for conspiring to commit campaign finance crimes, recasting the spotlight on his past alleged corruption,” Roll Call reports.
“Brady, a longtime Philadelphia Democrat who is retiring in at the end of his 11th term in January, allegedly conspired with his former campaign strategists, Ken Smukler and Donald “D.A.” Jones, to pay a 2012 Democratic primary challenger $90,000 for him to exit the race.”
Nate McMurray (D) conceded his race against Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) but promised he wasn’t going away, suggesting that his opponent’s indictment might create an opening, the Buffalo News reports.
Said McMurray: “So we’re going to do things like hold town halls. And whether Mr. Collins wants to do that, or not, we don’t care. He can show up to our town halls, if he wants. Beyond that, Mr. Collins’ future in Washington remains murky. He says that he will finish his term but, as we know, he’s not the best at keeping promises.”
He added: “When the time is right, I will run for office again.”
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.
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