President Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, Rick Gates, told a jury that Roger Stone was giving the campaign updates on WikiLeaks’ plans to release damaging emails stolen from the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, The Hill reports.

Gates said Stone was telling the campaign about WikiLeaks’ plans as early as April 2016, months before the DNC had announced it was hacked.

Washington Post: “Gates testified that in his campaign role he was asked to keep apprised of the group’s plans and was told by then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort that Trump himself would be kept updated about the disclosures.”

“Steve Bannon appeared as a reluctant witness Friday in the federal criminal trial of political operative Roger Stone,” the AP reports.

Bannon testified that Stone “implied that he had a connection with WikiLeaks” during the 2016 presidential campaign but never stated it directly.

Amy Walter: “These latest polls and election results are telling the same story we’ve been seeing and hearing for the last two-plus years. Trump is unpopular and polarizing, which makes it all but impossible for him to win the popular vote. But, he does have a chance to win thanks to the demographic make-up of key Midwestern battleground states…”

“If there’s any lesson to take from the torrent of data that’s been released this week, it’s that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite losing big in the suburbs in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the Trump campaign has zero interest in doing what it takes to win them back. Though they have more money and a better, more sophisticated campaign infrastructure, the Trump campaign is using the same playbook from 2016. Maximize turnout from the base at all costs and hope that Democrats nominate a candidate who will be even more unappealing to the suburban voters who have abandoned the party.”

“Justice Department officials are trying to release in the coming weeks a potentially explosive inspector general report about the FBI’s investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign,” the Washington Post reports.

“The report’s findings will mark a major public test of Attorney General William P. Barr’s credibility, given his past suggestions of significant problems with the investigative decisions made by former FBI leaders involved in the case.”

Bloomberg: “As Stone goes on trial for lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering, it is one of the lingering mysteries of the special counsel’s 22-month probe of Russian interference in the election. And it’s one of the many reasons the trial, starting next week, will be closely watched, even as House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry gathers steam just around the corner.”

“Did Stone, an early Trump confidant and booster, know what documents WikiLeaks had and when it would release them? The government claims he tipped off the campaign, and Mueller’s report refers numerous times to WikiLeaks or Trump’s interest in its stolen cache. Mueller says Trump and campaign advisers “privately sought information” about further releases.”

FiveThirtyEight: “Using data from Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group, we can compare the pace of TV ad spending so far in 2019 with the same point in 2015. And so far, the 2020 campaign has seen more than twice as many television ad spots as the 2016 race.”

“Donald Trump tried to distance himself from the latest scandal that threatens his presidency on Thursday by saying he didn’t know either of the foreign-born Rudy Giuliani associates that his own Justice Department had just indicted for alleged campaign finance violations,” Politico reports.

“But that’s not what one of the men said three years ago — while attending Trump’s invite-only 2016 election night party in New York. In fact, Lev Parnas described himself to a foreign correspondent at the cash-bar event in midtown Manhattan as a friend of the president-elect who didn’t live far from his south Florida winter home.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee released its bipartisan report on Russia’s use of social media to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and concludes the Kremlin sought to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by spreading disinformation.

From the report: “The Committee found, that the IRA sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton’s chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin.”

The report also called on the Executive Branch to “reinforce with the public the danger of attempted foreign interference in the 2020 election.”

President Trump accused Democrats of “interfering” with the 2020 presidential election and the “continuing to interfere” with the 2016 election.

“This is basic stuff. Foreign donors — and certainly foreign governments — cannot participate in the American political process.”

— Mike Pence, in the 2016 vice presidential debate.

“It was like applying for a job and getting 66 million letters of recommendation and losing to a corrupt human tornado.”

— Hillary Clinton, in an interview with CBS News, about the 2016 presidential election.

“His campaign manager is a felon. His deputy campaign manager is a felon. His personal lawyer is a felon. His foreign policy advisor is a felon. His national security advisor is a felon. The Trump campaign was run by criminals.”

— GOP strategist Stuart Stevens, on Twitter.