“A former clerk for Judge Alex Kozinski said the powerful and well-known jurist, who for many years served as chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, called her into his office several times and pulled up pornography on his computer, asking if she thought it was photoshopped or if it aroused her sexually,” the Washington Post reports.
FBI Warned Hope Hicks About Russian Emails
“FBI officials warned one of President Trump’s top advisers, Hope Hicks, earlier this year about repeated attempts by Russian operatives to make contact with her during the presidential transition,” the New York Times reports.
“The Russian outreach efforts show that, even after American intelligence agencies publicly accused Moscow of trying to influence the outcome of last year’s presidential election, Russian operatives were undaunted in their efforts to establish contacts with Mr. Trump’s advisers.”
“There is no evidence that Ms. Hicks did anything improper.”
Franks Resigns Effectively Immediately
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) issued a statement saying he would resign immediately, instead of staying on until January 31, 2018 as he said yesterday.
Politico has the background story: “Franks allegedly made unwanted advances toward female staffers in his office and retaliated against one who rebuffed him.”
“The sources said Franks approached two female staffers about acting as a potential surrogate for him and his wife, who has struggled with fertility issues for years. But the aides were concerned that Franks was asking to have sexual relations with them. It was not clear to the women whether he was asking about impregnating the women through sexual intercourse or in vitro fertilization. Franks opposes abortion rights as well as procedures that discard embryos.”
The AP reports Franks offered one staffer $5 million to act as a surrogate.
Conyers’ Seat Will Remain Vacant for 11 Months
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) said a special election to replace former Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) will be not be held until November 6, 2018.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“You have to tend to this garden of democracy, otherwise things can fall apart fairly quickly. And we’ve seen societies where that happens.”
— Former president Barack Obama, quoted by CNN.
Susan Collins ‘Got Rolled’
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) wouldn’t say whether she’ll support the final tax package in the absence of guaranteed passage of the health-care bills, Bloomberg reports.
“Collins’s promise came from Senate Majority Mitch McConnell — who can’t always deliver a vote in his own chamber, let alone the one across the capitol. It’s by no means clear that either of the health care bills Collins bargained for will get anywhere in the House, where conservatives regard at least one of the measures with disdain.”
Said Democratic lobbyist Jim Manley: “She got rolled. Despite the fact that she’s a veteran legislator, as far as I’m concerned she got rolled here. The promises she extracted from the Senate leadership aren’t worth the piece of paper they’re written on.”
Email to Trump Referred to Information Already Public
“A 2016 email sent to President Trump and top aides pointed the campaign to hacked documents from the Democratic National Committee that had already been made public by the group WikiLeaks a day earlier,” the Washington Post reports.
Axios says this reporting “massively changes the significance of this story” and “caps off a week of huge reporting blunders on the Russia probe after ABC News mischaracterized Michael Flynn’s planned testimony and Reuters and Bloomberg misreported the target of a Mueller subpoena of Deutsche Bank.”
Dina Powell Will Leave White House Soon
“Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, announced she will leave the White House early next year — the first in an expected wave of senior West Wing departures,” Mike Allen reports.
Washington Post: “She and Trump have discussed her departure and are working on an arrangement for Powell to continue advising the administration on Middle East policy from outside the government.”
Moore Accuser Admits She Altered Yearbook Inscription
“One of the women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of making advances on her when she was a teen and he a local prosecutor admitted Friday to writing part of the yearbook inscription she offered as proof, a new crack in her story that gives Moore an opening to attack her credibility,” Fox News reports.
“Beverly Young Nelson told ABC News she added the date and place in the inscription in her high school yearbook that she and famed attorney Gloria Allred presented as proof the then-30-something Moore sought an inappropriate relationship with her in the late 1970s. Nelson still insisted that Moore wrote most of the message and signed the inscription, but said she made “notes” to it.”
What If Republicans Don’t Care If Trump Is Guilty?
Eugene Robinson: “We need to prepare for the eventuality that the Mueller probe catches President Trump, family members and associates red-handed — and Republicans in Congress refuse to do anything about it.”
“This is beginning to look like a possible or even probable outcome. With a cravenness matched only by its arrogance, the GOP is Trump’s party now. It no longer has any claim to be Lincoln’s.”
Democrats Will Recommend Changes to Primary System
“A Democratic Party working group will meet in Washington, D.C. today and tomorrow to finalize a formal list of recommended reforms for the party,” ABC News reports.
“Sources close to the commission who have seen working drafts of its current report tell ABC News the panel plans to recommend dramatic cuts to the individual voting power of superdelegates and new rules around caucuses and primaries to improve access for voters and recordkeeping.”
Nate Silver: “Eliminating most unbound superdelegates + highly proportional delegate allocation + potentially huge Democratic field = high probability of a brokered convention.”
Trump Tells Far More Lies Than Most People
Bella DePaulo: “I spent the first two decades of my career as a social scientist studying liars and their lies. I thought I had developed a sense of what to expect from them. Then along came President Trump. His lies are both more frequent and more malicious than ordinary people’s.”
“Trump told 6.6 times as many self-serving lies as kind ones. That’s a much higher ratio than we found for our study participants, who told about double the number of self-centered lies compared with kind ones.”
“The most stunning way Trump’s lies differed from our participants’, though, was in their cruelty. An astonishing 50 percent of Trump’s lies were hurtful or disparaging.”
Trump Allies Urge Harder Line Toward Mueller
“A Russia investigation that Donald Trump’s legal team predicted would clear the president by year’s end looks to stretch into 2018, prompting his supporters to press for more hard-edge tactics that portray special counsel Robert Mueller’s operation as politically motivated,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The president’s legal team has largely stayed quiet on the issue. But with Mr. Mueller’s investigation appearing to edge closer to Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle, the president is being urged to drop the mostly cooperative approach taken to date.”
Control of the Senate May Hinge on Alabama
First Read: “The 2018 cycle started out with a terrible map for Democrats, with them having to defend 25 Senate seats, including a whopping 10 in states that President Trump won in 2016. But on Tuesday, we’ll find out if their path to a majority becomes much more realistic.”
“If Jones wins, pickups in Arizona and Nevada — plus Democrats successfully defending all of their seats — would give them control of the Senate. That’s far from easy. But it looks more doable than it did a year ago.”
‘Franken Didn’t Have to Resign’
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) told the Washington Post that Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) “didn’t have to resign.”
Said Cassidy: “There’s no due process for Franken. He decided to accept being drummed out… I’m not defending him. You just can’t help but observe what I’m saying is true.”
David Axelrod: “Strange principle is emerging: If you admit misconduct, you resign. But if you deny it, however compelling or voluminous the testimony against you, you continue in office-or on to office-with impunity?”
Zinke Used Helicopters to Attend D.C. Events
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “spent more than $14,000 on government helicopters this summer to take himself and staff to and from official events near Washington, D.C., in order to accommodate his attendance at a swearing-in ceremony for his replacement in Congress and a horseback ride with Vice President Mike Pence,” Politico reports.
Today’s Politics Through the Perspective of RFK
Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball and author of the new book, Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit, joins Chris Riback on Political Wire Conversations.
Listen here:
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Email Shows Trump Was Offered Wikileaks Documents
“Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents,” CNN reports.
“The September 4 email was sent during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race — two months after the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee were made public and one month before WikiLeaks began leaking the contents of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.”
”The individual was able to obtain the email addresses for Trump Jr. and his personal assistant, as well as an email that congressional investigators believe was for then-candidate Trump, although he rarely uses email.”
