Michael Cohen, “who made millions over the past 18 months soliciting funds from clients seeking entree and influence at the White House, met with a senior Qatari official in Florida last month, just days before the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office,” Foreign Policy reports.
Giuliani Deflects Incriminating Video Clip
Jonathan Chait: “Historically, when an interviewer springs the old video clip of the talking head advocating an embarrassing position, he has to come up with some explanation as to why things have changed. Rudy just ranted through it, so the clip wasn’t even audible.”
“It’s so simple yet so brilliant. Why have all those previous interview subjects just sat there quietly like suckers?”
Trump Pushed Postmaster to Double Rates on Amazon
“President Trump has personally pushed U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rate the Postal Service charges Amazon.com and other firms to ship packages… a dramatic move that probably would cost these companies billions of dollars,” the Washington Post reports.
“Brennan has so far resisted Trump’s demand, explaining in multiple conversations occurring this year and last that these arrangements are bound by contracts and must be reviewed by a regulatory commission… She has told the president that the Amazon relationship is beneficial for the Postal Service and gave him a set of slides that showed the variety of companies, in addition to Amazon, that also partner for deliveries.”
House Fails to Pass Farm Bill
“A sweeping farm bill failed in the House on Friday in a major embarrassment to GOP leaders who were unable to placate conservatives demanding commitments on immigration,” the Washington Post reports.
“Leadership put the bill on the floor gambling it would pass despite unanimous Democratic opposition. They negotiated with conservative lawmakers up to the last minutes.”
“But their gamble failed. The vote was 198-213.”
Quote of the Day
“People are being too nice. You would have thought that I was there at my funeral. I’ve had more people come up to me and say the nicest things. And I thought, ‘My goodness, I should lose every day.'”
— Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), quoted by McClatchy, on losing his primary challenge.
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Multiple Fatalities Reported In Another School Shooting
At least eight people were killed in gunfire at a Houston high school, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Washington Post: “An assistant principal at Santa Fe High School told ABC-13 in Houston that a shooter had been ‘arrested and secured.’ The television station reported that law enforcement sources said the shooter appeared to be a student.”
Trump Has Destroyed Obama’s Legacy
Andrew Sullivan: “In one respect, it seems to me, the presidency of Donald Trump has been remarkably successful. In 17 months, he has effectively erased Barack Obama’s two-term legacy.”
“I don’t want to say or face this. I still want to believe my colleague, Jonathan Chait, whose thesis is that the changes Obama made in his difficult but tenacious eight years in office are too great to reverse. And there are a couple of shifts that do indeed seem to be as permanent as anything is in politics: marriage equality and legal cannabis. But neither, one recalls, was a signature goal of Obama. He began as an alleged opponent of marriage equality, even though, of course, he was bullshitting. He wouldn’t touch the marijuana issue in his entire term and even at one point dismissed it as trivial. As for the rest, in specific policy terms, Trump and the Republican Congress have succeeded in undoing Obama’s work to an extent I barely anticipated.”
Exchange of the Day
Rudy Giuliani was interviewed on CNN this morning by Chris Cuomo:
GIULIANI: The President would testify tomorrow if it was about the truth. The truth is he had nothing to do with Russia… Martha Stewart never would have gone to jail if she hadn’t gone and testified.
CUOMO: She lied.
Giuliani Says Mueller Agreed to Limit Scope of Interview
Rudy Giuliani told CNN that special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to narrow the scope of a potential interview with President Trump from five topics to two.
He said that Mueller is not considering asking the President about his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who’s under investigation in New York over his business dealings.
Giuliani said he can’t go into much more detail, but that “the main focus we want is Russia.”
Is Trump the Second Coming of Reagan?
New Yorker: “Since the start of Trump’s outsider campaign to remake the Republican Party in his own image, his partisans have branded him a Reagan for our times—a brasher and brusquer one, perhaps, but like Reagan in that they were both renegades who fought the party establishment and politically revitalized the G.O.P. with a new coalition of former Democrats like themselves.”
“But, for the most part, the heads exploding at the Reagan-Trump parallels have been those of staunch Reaganites, many of whom hate the comparisons between the sunny, optimistic Cold Warrior they still idolize and the wheeling-and-dealing, narcissistic America Firster now in the White House.”
Trump Will Prep for Mueller Interview This Summer
Politico: “Donald Trump’s lawyers have begun planning a series of summer prep sessions for the president before a possible sit-down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said Thursday. The planning meetings — to be held during off-hours at the White House and perhaps over rounds of golf at Trump’s private courses, Giuliani said — will mirror the then-GOP nominee’s 2016 debate preparation, in which aides briefed an impatient Trump in several brief sessions over many weeks.”
“Giuliani said the briefings likely will begin after Trump returns from a June 12 summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if a Mueller interview is agreed to.”
When Trump Attacks Democrats Mostly Stay Quiet
Politico: “After laying into Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in late April, Trump is reveling in a new round of attacks on the 10 senators up for reelection in states that the president won in 2016. Always more of an attack dog toward his enemies than a defender of his allies, Trump is laying into ‘Sleepin’’ Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, calling Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania a ‘disaster’ and blaming Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio for ‘catch and release’ immigration policies.”
“And Democrats are responding with a shrug, total silence or, in West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s case, effusive praise for the commander in chief. Vulnerable Senate Democrats have made a conscious decision not to engage Trump on his terms, after watching the president tear apart the GOP primary field in 2016 with personal insults, derisive nicknames and political broadsides.”
White House Will Shrink Communications Team
“The White House is considering shrinking its communications team in the coming weeks, two officials with knowledge of the expected changes tell CNN, with one objective being reducing the number of leaks and the overall goal being restructuring the entire press shop.”
“Staffers are not expected to be fired outright, but pushed out slowly or shifted to other departments in the administration outside of the West Wing.:”
Cohen’s Financial Records Are Not Missing
“Records pertaining to the financial activities of President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen are not missing from a government database; rather Treasury Department officials have taken the highly unusual step of restricting access to them even from certain law enforcement agencies,” BuzzFeed News reports.
“The New Yorker reported that a law enforcement official — worried the information about Cohen’s banking records had been removed from government databases and therefore might be covered up — had admitted to leaking some of what was still accessible.”
Trump and Allies Work to Expose Secret FBI Source
“President Trump’s allies are waging an increasingly aggressive campaign to undercut the Russia investigation by exposing the role of a top-secret FBI source,” the Washington Post reports.
“The extraordinary push begun by a cadre of Trump boosters on Capitol Hill now has champions across the GOP and throughout conservative media — and, as of Thursday, the first anniversary of Robert S. Mueller III’s appointment as special counsel, bears the imprimatur of the president.”
“The stakes are so high that the FBI has been working over the past two weeks to mitigate the potential damage if the source’s identity is revealed… The bureau is taking steps to protect other live investigations that the person has worked on, and trying to lessen any danger to associates if the informant’s identity becomes known.”
Ryan and McCarthy Split on Immigration
“Paul Ryan and his longtime No. 2 Kevin McCarthy have maintained a unified public front on immigration — but behind the scenes, the interests of the outgoing speaker and his potential successor are colliding over controversial Dreamers legislation,” Politico reports.
“Both have vehemently opposed an effort by centrist Republicans to force votes on bills shielding young undocumented immigrants who came here as children from deportation. But to stop it, Ryan floated the possibility of reigniting talks on a bipartisan deal that President Donald Trump would get behind.”
“McCarthy, on the other hand, has panned that idea.”
Manafort’s Former Son-In-Law Flips
“The former son-in-law of Paul Manafort, the one-time chairman of President Trump’s campaign, has cut a plea deal with the Justice Department that requires him to cooperate with other criminal probes,” Reuters reports.
“The guilty plea agreement, which is under seal and has not been previously reported, could add to the legal pressure on Manafort, who is facing two indictments brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.”
The Wall Street Journal says Jeffrey Yohai plead guilty in January and has been cooperating ever since.
