The Commentariat -- May 5, 2018

What's worse than having Uncle Fred show up at the family picnic? He brings Uncle Rudy & Uncle Donald:

... Gail Collins writes one of her better columns helping explain to Rudy & Donald what their explaining means. ...

... Trump as "Seinfeld." Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I realized last night that when Trump & the Gang don't utterly horrify me, I react to them as I did to the old "Seinfeld" shows. I've caught myself many times smiling while watching the News about Trump. Really, Trump & the "best people" with whom he surrounds himself are very much like Jerry, George, Elaine & Kramer: they're narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, aggrieved, careless, vindictive, dishonest, fiercely ambitious & not all that bright. The combination of these traits get them into predictable trouble. I had liberal acquaintances who were incensed by the teevee characters' sometimes-cruel behavior. These acquaintances just couldn't get that no matter what awful thing the characters did -- George pushing a wheelchair-bound woman over a steep hill -- but the situations were funny because the joke was on Seinfeld & friends, not on their fictional victims; these acquaintances had so suspended disbelief that they imagined the teevee characters were real. Now they indeed have come to life in Donald & Rudy & Kellyanne & Scotty, etc. The "Show about Nothing" has become the "Show about a Lot." The real-life consequences of the foibles of Donald & Co. are not funny at all, but the real-life actors themselves are LOL hilarious.

... Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump knew about a six-figure payment that Michael D. Cohen, his personal lawyer, made to a pornographic film actress several months before he denied any knowledge of it to reporters aboard Air Force One in April, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.... Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, has known since last year the details of how Mr. Cohen was being reimbursed, which was mainly through payments of $35,000 per month from the trust that contains the president's personal fortune, according to two people with knowledge of the arrangement.... If Mr. Weisselberg was involved in directing the use of the funds to silence Ms. Clifford, it could draw Mr. Trump's company deeper into the federal investigation of Mr. Cohen’s activities, increasing the president's legal exposure in a wide-ranging case involving [Cohen].... The payment to Ms. Clifford is a part of that investigation.... Two people close to the president ... said that Mr. Trump was displeased with how Mr. Giuliani ... conducted himself, and that he was also unhappy with Mr. Hannity, a commentator whose advice the president often seeks, in terms of the language he used to describe the payments to Ms. Clifford."

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "As yet another bizarre week comes to a close for the president, no one seems to know the reality of what happened between Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels, and Michael Cohen. The only thing that is proven beyond a reasonable doubt is that the White House is lying about it.... Giuliani told the Post that he had both discussed his plans to disclose the reimbursement with Trump, and that he had spoken with Trump after his Hannity interview, and that Trump was 'very pleased.' Moreover, Trump tweeted a statement (written in legal language, with formal titles, that seemed written by someone other than Trump, though still including a typo) that confirmed what Giuliani had said. Then Friday morning, Trump reversed course. 'Rudy is a great guy but he just started, but he just started a day ago. He's learning the subject matter and he's going to be issuing a statement too,' the president said as he prepared to leave for a trip to the NRA convention in Dallas. 'He started yesterday, he'll get his facts straight. In other words, Trump was saying the account he had both discussed with Giuliani ahead of time and endorsed in his tweets Thursday was not true.... Trump's claim that Giuliani just had his first day was also not true. The White House announced his addition on April 19, and Giuliani has described conversations with Trump about the case stretching back two weeks." ...

... Giuliani's Latest Tall Tales. John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "... Rudolph W. Giuliani sought Friday to clean up a series of comments made during a whirlwind media tour meant to bolster the president's standing regarding a payment to a porn star but that instead created new problems for his client. In a statement issued hours after Trump told reporters Giuliani was still getting up to speed on the facts, the former New York mayor said that a $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels by longtime Trump lawyer Michael Cohen would have happened regardless of whether Trump was on the presidential ballot the following month. 'The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the President's family,' Giuliani said in the statement. 'It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.'... In his statement, Giuliani also sought to make clear that he [was] speaking in television interviews about his understanding of events in which Trump had been involved and not about what the president knew at the time." Mrs. McC: Uh-huh. ...

... Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "The cautious wording of the written statement released by Giuliani stood in sharp contrast to his previous two days of wide-ranging television and print interviews in which, according to legal experts, he exposed his client to greater legal risks and might have compromised his own attorney-client privilege with the president.... Some Trump advisers said they fear that Giuliani may have waived his right to assert that his conversations with the president are private -- and that government or private lawyers pursuing lawsuits could now seek to interview him.... Giuliani's attempt at damage control will probably do little to mitigate the legal problems he has caused, legal experts said. 'The first rule is to shut up, which he is unable to do,' said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. 'False exculpatory statements often come back to bite.'" ...

... Ed Kilgore: "In what appeared to be an effort to vindicate the president's prediction that he'd eventually 'get his facts straight,' Trump's new lead lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, walked back earlier comments in a statement that will probably create fresh confusion about his client's actions and intentions." Kilgore does a nice job of breaking down Giuliani's statement, which, as Kilgore says, "did have the advantage of brevity, and it was pretty clear which earlier comments Giuliani was trying to retract, blur, or place in a different context[.]" ...

... Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump undercut his attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, on Friday, and said the former New York mayor will eventually get th facts right regarding a payment to a pornographic actress who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. 'And virtually everything said has been said incorrectly, and it's been said wrong, or it's been covered wrong by the press,' Mr. Trump said. Mr. Giuliani, who joined Mr. Trump's legal team last month, 'just started a day ago,' Mr. Trump said, speaking to reporters on Friday as he left Washington to attend a National Rifle Association convention in Dallas. 'He is a great guy,' Mr. Trump said. 'He'll get his facts straight.' It was the first time the president addressed the inconsistent narrative about the payment made by his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump did not offer any details on Frida to clarify the confusion, but said, 'It's actually very simple. But there has been a lot of misinformation.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jonathan Chait: "This morning, President Trump delivered an impromptu interview to reporters while shouting above the noise of his nearby helicopter. Trump stated, twice, that 'Rudy is a great guy but he started a day ago,' and 'he'll get his facts straight.' Giuliani was, in fact, hired 15 days ago. Trump also insisted that Robert Mueller was treating him unfairly because Mueller 'worked for Obama for eight years.' In fact, Mueller is a Republican who was appointed by George W. Bush, worked for Bush for seven years, and then five under Obama, before retiring. Trump offered, as further reason why Mueller should not be trusted and to explain his reason for not wanting to submit to an interview the 'fact' that Mueller has '13 Democrats' working for him. That is also not true. Donald is a great guy, but he started a day ago, he'll get his facts straight." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Aidan McLaughlin of Mediaite: "MSNBC's Donny Deutsch dropped a bombshell on Morning Joe Friday, stating that said ... Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen told him Rudy Giuliani 'doesn't know what he's talking about.... He also said look, there are two people that know exactly what happened. And that's myself and the president. And you'll be hearing my side of the story.'" Mrs. McC: Why, I do believe Michael's going to sing. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Kristen Welker & Dennis Romero of NBC News: "... Donald Trump only recently found out that he reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement with adult performer Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 election, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed Thursday.... 'I don't think the president realized he paid him (Cohen) back for that specific thing until we (his legal team) made him aware of the paperwork,' he said. Giuliani said the president responded, '"Oh my goodness, I guess that's what it was for."'" Mrs. McC: Totally true, I'm sure; right down to the "oh my goodness" part. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jeff Toobin of CNN: "Consider, alternatively, if Trump's team had told the truth from the start. He would have made a campaign report of a payment to Daniels, and that could have resulted in an embarrassing, but short-lived story. Instead, the lies caused the Daniels fiasco to metastasize into a genuine crisis.... Then of course there is the political (and moral) fallout of the falsehoods: why, now, should the public believe anything Trump says after he so obviously misled the public on this subject of wide public interest? Trump's prevarications also made a mess of the even more consequential story of the firing of James Comey, the FBI director, in May of last year. The simple question of why Trump fired Comey has produced a still-changing collection of answers.... Multiple explanations succeed only in arousing suspicion -- which the President and his allies seem by now to richly deserve."

Travels with Rudy. Chapter 1: Hanging with (Former) Terrorists in Albania. Josh Marshall: "Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) is a notorious cult-like group of Iranian exiles which appears to have close to literally zero support inside Iran but has for years cultivated significant ties to DC Iran 'regime change' advocates as well as a bipartisan list of shills willing to take their money (of which they have quite a lot). It's an odd group which mixes Islam, Marxism and neocon-inflected DC Pay-to-Play values into a bizarre amalgam run by current cult leader Maryam Rajavi. Until just a few years ago the US State Department listed them as a terrorist organization. They appear to be mainly out of the terrorism business now.... With all this you'll be glad to learn that one of their biggest backers is none other than Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton. And perhaps they're most high profile and ardent supporter (and recipient of their cash) is Rudy Giuliani.... In March of this year Rudy traveled to Tirana, Albania to headline a major MEK event."

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Two top F.B.I. aides who worked alongside the former director James B. Comey as he navigated one of the most politically tumultuous periods in the bureau's history resigned on Friday. One of them, James A. Baker, was one of Mr. Comey's closest confidants. He served as the F.B.I.'s top lawyer until December when he was reassigned as the new director, Christopher A. Wray, began installing his ownadvisers. Mr. Baker had been investigated by the Justice Department on suspicion of sharing classified information with reporters. He has not been charged. The other aide, Lisa Page, advised Mr. Comey while serving directly under his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe. She was assailed by conservatives after texts that she had exchanged with the agent overseeing the investigation into links between President Trump's campaign and Russia were made public. In the messages, they expressed anti-Trump views but took aim at Hillary Clinton and other political figures as well. The decisions by Mr. Baker and Ms. Page to leave the bureau were unrelated."

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Virginia on Friday grilled lawyers from the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about their motivations and authorization for bringing a fraud case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. 'You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud,' Judge T.S. Ellis III said during a morning hearing. 'You really care about getting information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment.' Manafort was seeking to have bank and tax fraud charges against him dismissed in federal court in Alexandria, with his lawyers arguing that the alleged crimes have nothing to do with the election or with President Trump. Ellis agreed, emphasizing that some of the charges involve alleged conduct that occurred over a decade ago. But he made no immediate decision on the defense motion. He said even without such a connection the special counsel, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, may well still have the authority to bring the charges. 'I'm not saying it's illegitimate,' Ellis said." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Ben Mathis-Lilley & Mark Stern of Slate: "... Ellis' apparent objections to the special counsel's prosecution are profoundly flawed and unlikely to be upheld on appeal should he rule in Manafort's favor. When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to investigate potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, he licensed Mueller to look into 'any matters that arose or may arise directly from' that investigation. Mueller was also licensed to investigate 'any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.'... Rosenstein has also expressly authorized Mueller to investigate any crimes Manafort may have committed 'arising out of payments he received from the Ukrainian government.' One of those alleged crimes was bank fraud, which was necessary to launder money -- the charges at the heart of Mueller's prosecution of Manafort in Virginia federal court" Read on. Mathis-Lilley & Stern make a pretty good case. ...

... Speaking of Rosenstein, Rachel Maddow devoted a segment to him. As usual, she's too long-winded, but if you've got the time, the piece is worth watching:

Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "Federal agents working with Mr. Mueller stopped [Viktor] Vekselberg, a billionaire businessman [upon whom the U.S. imposed sanctions], at a New York-area airport this year and sought to search his electronic devices and question him, according to people familiar with the matter. They confronted him after he stepped off a private plane about two months ago, according to one of the people. There is no indication that Mr. Mueller suspects Mr. Vekselberg of wrongdoing. But Mr. Vekselberg attended the presidential inauguration last year, and the interest in him suggests that the special counsel has intensified his focus on potential connections between Russian oligarchs and the Trump campaign and inaugural committee.... Mr. Vekselberg also attended a December 2015 dinner in Russia where Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump's first national security adviser, was also among the guests and sat beside Mr. Putin.... Another potential area of interest for Mr. Mueller is Mr. Vekselberg's business in Cyprus, the Mediterranean nation considered a magnet for Russian money. Mr. Vekselberg has controlled a company that has been the largest single shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus. Around the same time that Mr. Vekselberg was investing in the bank, Mr. Trump's future commerce secretary, Wilbur L. Ross, was its vice chairman." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I hope Ross goes down too in this vast corruption scheme. ...

... Devin Nunes Is (a) Nuts, (b) Illiterate, (c) a Colossal Dick. (More than one answer may be correct.) Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) demanded "a fully uncensored version of a highly sensitive document from the Justice Department explaining how the Russia investigation began in 2016," & when he didn't get it, he warned Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein that he would be held in contempt of Congress or impeached. "Facing the growing pressure, and outrage from ... Donald Trump, Rosenstein finally relented in early April -- and granted Nunes and Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina access to the document with only minimal redactions.... But when the pair arrived at the Justice Department to review the electronic communication..., Nunes -- sitting with a copy of the document in an unopened folder directly in front of him -- opted not to read it, according to four sources with knowledge of the situation.... The moment marked at least the second time that he has demanded sensitive documents from the Justice Department, only to choose not to read them -- allowing his staff or Gowdy to pore through the materials instead." (Also linked yesterday.)

Addy Baird of ThinkProgress: "... Donald Trump harkened back to the racist attack he made on Mexican immigrants on the first day of his campaign in the summer of 2015 during a speech at the National Rifle Association (NRA) convention Friday. 'These countries send up their worst,' Trump said, addressing the crowd assembled in Dallas, Texas. 'Remember in my opening speech, I got criticized for it. Remember? Well, guess what. They're not sending their finest....' In his opening speech nearly three years ago, Trump said..., 'When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.'" ...

... Benjamin Hart of New York: "Speaking at an NRA convention in Dallas on Friday..., Trump did a 'bit' on the perceived meekness of President Obama's stance on North Korea, then slammed the Iran nuclear agreement he is likely to pull out of in the coming days, getting the ultrafriendly crowd to boo the previous administration and John Kerry.... The president followed with an extended riff on the time Kerry broke his leg during a break from high-pressure negotiations crafting the agreement. 'John Kerry ... not the best negotiator we've ever seen,' Trump said. 'He never walked away from the table except to be in that bicycle race where he fell and broke his leg.... And I learned from that -- at 73 years old, you never go into a bicycle race....' Beyond the childishness, Trump was, shockingly enough, wrong on the facts. Kerry was 71 years old -- the same age Trump is now -- when he hit a curb and fractured his femur in 2015, while biking in the French Alps, about 25 miles from Geneva. There is no evidence that he entered a race, as Trump claimed, though he was riding on a section of the Tour de France when the accident occurred. As Trump attacked Kerry's cycling acumen, the Boston Globe reported that the former secretary of State was making a last-ditch, unofficial diplomatic effort to salvage the deal he was instrumental in creating." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The only funny part of Trump's riff is where you imagine Trump on a Bicycle.

It's All about the Trump Show! David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "As he has sought to build anticipation for his high-stakes summit with Kim Jong Un, President Trump has delighted in dropping tantalizing hints about where the meeting will take place -- maybe the Korean demilitarized zone! -- and what can be achieved -- perhaps a peace treaty!This week, the president, without direct prompting, casually raised another possibility, noting on Twitter that three Americans prisoners have been held in a North Korean labor camp. But, he suggested in a tweet, that could soon change: 'Stay tuned!'... Who knows? We'll see what happens.... On Friday, as he departed Washington for a day trip to Dallas, Trump reiterated his cryptic prediction in impromptu remarks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House.... 'A lot of good things have already happened with respect to the hostages. And I think you're going to see very good things,' Trump said. 'As I said yesterday, stay tuned.' The president often uses such phrases to hype dramatic possibilities.... But in the case of the prisoners, Trump and some key surrogates have again shattered long-standing Washington protocols by speaking so openly about delicate negotiations on American detainees, potentially risking a last-minute setback or coming across as insensitive to the privacy of their families, according to former U.S. diplomatic and intelligence officials."

Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence's physician has resigned, the latest fallout from the collapse of Ronny Jackson's nomination for secretary of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Jennifer Peña, who like Jackson is a military physician detailed to the White House, was among those who detailed claims of professional misconduct against Jackson to senators considering his nomination, according to a person familiar with the events.... The allegations were troubling to many in Pence's office and the White House, who felt that Pena misrepresented the severity of the situation in an effort to harm Jackson, according to the person familiar with the situation." (Also linked yesterday.)

Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "More than 50,000 Hondurans who have been allowed to live and work in the United States since 1999 will have 20 months to leave the country or face deportation, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced Friday, the latest in a series of DHS measures aimed at tightening U.S. immigration controls. The Hondurans were granted temporary protected status (TPS) in 1999, shielding them from deportation, after Hurricane Mitch slammed their country and left 10,000 dead across Central America. Under President Trump, DHS has been eliminating TPS programs one by one, arguing they were never designed to grant long-term residency to foreigners who may have arrived illegally or overstayed their visas."

Jonathan Cooper of the AP: "California's economy has surpassed that of the United Kingdom to become the world's fifth largest, according to new federal data made public Friday. California's gross domestic product rose by $127 billion from 2016 to 2017, surpassing $2.7 trillion, the data said. Meanwhile, the UK's economic output slightly shrunk over that time when measured in U.S. dollars, due in part to exchange rate fluctuations. The data demonstrate the sheer immensity of California's economy, home to nearly 40 million people, a thriving technology sector in Silicon Valley, the world's entertainment capital in Hollywood and the nation's salad bowl in the Central Valley agricultural heartland. It also reflects a substantial turnaround since the Great Recession."

John Koblin of the New York Times: "Three women sued Charlie Rose and CBS on Friday, alleging that they were sexually harassed by the former anchorman while working for him and that the network did nothing to stop it. On Thursday, The Washington Post published an article that detailed accusations against Mr. Rose by numerous women, including the three who are suing, and alleged that CBS managers knew about harassment complaints against Mr. Rose before he was fired in November. CBS has said it was not aware of any allegations about Mr. Rose's behavior before a November article by The Post that detailed accusations from multiple women and led to his firing as a host of 'CBS This Morning' and a correspondent for '60 Minutes.' PBS, the longtime home of the 'Charlie Rose' interview show, also cut ties with Mr. Rose."

Beyond the Beltway

Rick Rojas & Kristin Hussey of the New York Times: "The Connecticut Supreme Court, in a surprising reversal of its own decision less than two years ago, ruled on Friday to vacate the conviction of Michael C. Skakel, who had been found guilty of bludgeoning his neighbor with a golf club in 1975. The ruling is not only the latest of the many twists in a legal battle that has been drawn out over decades, but could stand as the conclusion of a case that has attracted the attention of tabloids and television newsmagazines with its blend of a cold-case murder with celebrity and wealth. Mr. Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, had been convicted in 2002 of killing Martha Moxley, a 15-year-old in his Greenwich, Conn., neighborhood. Mr. Skakel, also 15 at the time of the killing, was not arrested until he was in his late 30s. He was convicted after a three-week trial that brought to light details including his drinking and drug use."

The Commentariat -- May 4, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Mrs. McCrabbie: I told you (see below) the Giuliani story wasn't the last word, nor will the "last word" we hear from Trump be the truth:

... Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump undercut his attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, on Friday, and said the former New York mayor will eventually get the facts right regarding a payment to a pornographic actress who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. 'And virtually everything said has been said incorrectly, and it's been said wrong, or it's been covered wrong by the press,' Mr. Trump said. Mr. Giuliani, who joined Mr. Trump's legal team last month, 'just started a day ago,' Mr. Trump said, speaking to reporters on Friday as he left Washington to attend a National Rifle Association convention in Dallas. 'He is a great guy,' Mr. Trump said. 'He'll get his facts straight.' It was the first time the president addressed the inconsistent narrative about the payment made by his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump did not offer any details on Friday to clarify the confusion, but said, 'It's actually very simple. But there has been a lot of misinformation.'" ...

... Jonathan Chait: "This morning, President Trump delivered an impromptu interview to reporters while shouting above the noise of his nearby helicopter. Trump stated, twice, that 'Rudy is a great guy but he started a day ago,' and 'he'll get his facts straight.' Giuliani was, in fact, hired 15 days ago. Trump also insisted that Robert Mueller was treating him unfairly because Mueller 'worked for Obama for eight years.' In fact, Mueller is a Republican who was appointed by George W. Bush, worked for Bush for seven years, and then five under Obama, before retiring. Trump offered, as further reason why Mueller should not be trusted and to explain his reason for not wanting to submit to an interview, the 'fact' that Mueller has '13 Democrats' working for him. That is also not true. Donald is a great guy, but he started a day ago, he'll get his facts straight." ...

... Aidan McLaughlin of Mediaite: "MSNBC's Donny Deutsch dropped a bombshell on Morning Joe Friday, stating that said ... Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen told him Rudy Giuliani 'doesn't know what he's talking about.... He also said look, there are two people that know exactly what happened. And that's myself and the president. And you'll be hearing my side of the story.'" Mrs. McC: Why, I do believe Michael's going to sing. ...

... Kristen Welker & Dennis Romero of NBC News: "... Donald Trump only recently found out that he reimbursed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement with adult performer Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 election, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed Thursday.... 'I don't think the president realized he paid him (Cohen) back for that specific thing until we (his legal team) made him aware of the paperwork,' he said. Giuliani said the president responded, '"Oh my goodness, I guess that's what it was for."'" Mrs. McC: Totally true, I'm sure; right down to the "oh my goodness" part.

Here's the Neil Cavuto segment where he takes down Donald Trump for his pattern of lying. Mrs. McC: Never thought I'd run a full Fox "News" segment. Thanks to PD Pepe for the lead:

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A federal judge in Virginia on Friday grilled lawyers from the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about their motivations and authorization for bringing a fraud case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. 'You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud,' Judge T.S. Ellis III said during a morning hearing. 'You really care about getting information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment.' Manafort was seeking to have bank and tax fraud charges against him dismissed in federal court in Alexandria, with his lawyers arguing that the alleged crimes have nothing to do with the election or with President Trump. Ellis agreed, emphasizing that some of the charges involve alleged conduct that occurred over a decade ago. But he made no immediate decision on the defense motion. He said even without such a connection the special counsel, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, may well still have the authority to bring the charges. 'I'm not saying it's illegitimate,' Ellis said."

Matthew Nussbaum of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence's physician has resigned, the latest fallout from the collapse of Ronny Jackson's nomination for secretary of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Jennifer Peña, who like Jackson is a military physician detailed to the White House, was among those who detailed claims of professional misconduct against Jackson to senators considering his nomination, according to a person familiar with the events.... The allegations were troubling to many in Pence's office and the White House, who felt that Pena misrepresented the severity of the situation in an effort to harm Jackson, according to the person familiar with the situation."

Devin Nunes Is (a) Nuts, (b) Illiterate, (c) a Colossal Dick. (More than one answer may be correct.) Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) demanded "a fully uncensored version of a highly sensitive document from the Justice Department explaining how the Russia investigation began in 2016," & when he didn't get it, he warned Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein that he would be held in contempt of Congress or impeached. "Facing the growing pressure, and outrage from ... Donald Trump, Rosenstein finally relented in early April -- and granted Nunes and Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina access to the document with only minimal redactions.... But when the pair arrived at the Justice Department to review the electronic communication..., Nunes -- sitting with a copy of the document in an unopened folder directly in front of him -- opted not to read it, according to four sources with knowledge of the situation.... The moment marked at least the second time that he has demanded sensitive documents from the Justice Department, only to choose not to read them -- allowing his staff or Gowdy to pore through the materials instead."

*****

Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump’s new legal team made a chaotic debut as Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was tapped recently to be one of the president's lawyers, potentially exposed his client to legal and political danger by publicly revealing the existence of secret payments to Michael D. Cohen, the president's personal lawyer. After he moved into the White House, the president began paying Mr. Cohen $35,000 a month, Mr. Giuliani said, in part as reimbursement for a $130,000 payment that Mr. Cohen made to a pornographic film actress to keep her from going public about an affair she said she had with Mr. Trump. The explosive revelation ... prompted frustration and disbelief among the president's other legal and political advisers, some of whom said they feared the gambit could backfire. Legally, the failure to disclose the payments could be a violation of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which requires that federal officials, including Mr. Trump, report any liabilities of more than $10,000 during the preceding year. Mr. Trump's last disclosure report, which he signed and filed in June, mentions no debt to Mr. Cohen.... By the end of the day, the president and his advisers had done little to clarify the confusion that Mr. Giuliani had set in motion a night earlier." ...

... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "He may have had a strategy, but Rudolph W. Giuliani hatched it almost entirely in secret. The White House counsel had no idea. Neither did the White House chief of staff, nor the White House press secretary, nor the new White House lawyer overseeing its handling of the Russia investigation. They watched, agog, as Giuliani, the president's recently installed persona attorney, freestyled on live television Wednesday night about the president's legal troubles and unveiled an explosive new fact: that Trump reimbursed his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen for the $130,000 paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. Giuliani's attempt to defuse a ticking time bomb ... highlighted contradictory public statements from him and White House spokesmen.... The president was party to hatching the strategy, according to three people involved in the discussions.... Neither White House counsel Donald McGahn nor Emmet Flood, the White House attorney recently hired to handle the Russia investigation, knew that Trump had reimbursed Cohen before Giuliani revealed it, according to a person familiar with their knowledge. ...

... Matt Zapotosky, et al., of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani's media blitz to convince the public that neither Donald Trump nor his lawyer had violated the law by paying a porn star to keep quiet about an alleged affair might have backfired, giving investigators new leads to chase and new evidence of potential crimes, legal analysts said. Giuliani made statements that speak to Trump and lawyer Michael Cohen's intent -- an important aspect of some crimes -- and he made assertions that investigators can now check against what they have already learned from documents and witnesses, legal analysts said." Read on. ...

... Mrs. Huckleberry: Trump Lied to Me. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Almost nobody was aware Rudolph W. Giuliani was going to blow up the Stormy Daniels situation Wednesday night, and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed Thursday this included her. 'The first awareness I had was during the interview last night,' Sanders said of Giuliani's disclosure that President Trump had reimbursed Michael Cohen. What was most notable was how Sanders basically blamed Trump for her own contradictory statements about Daniels. Back in March, Sanders denied Trump knew about the payment and said it was based upon her own conversation with Trump. 'I've had conversations with the president about this,' she said.... Thursday..., she essentially suggested Trump has misled her. 'We give the very best information that we have at the time,' she said, later repeating a version of that phrase several times." ...

... Michelle Goldberg: "Whether they realize it or not, experts say [Trump & Giuliani] appear to have admitted that Trump and Cohen broke the law. The question is whether the impunity that Trump has enjoyed so far will hold or whether this farce of a presidency will, at long last, begin to crumble under the weight of its own sleaze.... Even before Giuliani's revelations, USA Today reported, based on interviews with a 25-person focus group of Trump voters, that many of the president's supporters already assumed he was lying about Daniels, and didn't care.... Most of the Republican Party knows who Trump is and has submitted to him anyway.... There are two possibilities for Giuliani's bizarre media jag. Either he was acting purposefully, because even worse news for his client is on the way, or he was acting haphazardly, because he's a has-been who has joined a White House in chaos. Neither possibility bodes well for Trump...." ...

... So Then. Rudy Goes on "Fox & Friends" to Make Matters Worse. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: After arguing that the $130K to Stormy Daniels was in no way a campaign contribution, Rudy sez, "Imagine if that came out of October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.... Cohen made it go away. He did his job." So Then. Kellyanne Conway's husband George almost immediately follows up Rudy's remark with a tweet citing relevant campaign finance law that defines Cohen's payment -- in Rudy's construction -- as a violation by Trump, by the campaign & by Cohen. Go, Team Trump! (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Josh Marshall: "Somewhere in here is what I believe is the real story, which is that Cohen cleaned up messes for Trump sometimes with his own money, sometimes with no questions asked on the understanding that he'd be paid back or cut in on deals from which he'd come out ahead. It makes perfect sense, based on my knowledge of Trump, that rather than paying him back directly -- and creating a paper trail to the sex/hush money -- he packaged the money as something else.... What you have are a half dozen brainstorms cooked up by a group of old men in a room used to bending reality to their purposes when something goes wrong. That's much more difficult on a national stage in front of intense scrutiny. That's what happened last night. Rudy Giuliani is far, far past his prime, used to the accommodating hothouse world of Fox News cronies and cash and carry deal-making in his law firm gigs. This was as sloppy as it looked and did his client no favors." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: To elaborate on what Marshall wrote, if you are under the misapprehension that Giuliani's story -- make that stories -- are what really happened vis-a-vis the Stormy Daniels payment, it's not. Giuliani has merely provided yet another set of cover stories for the real Trump-Cohen transaction, probably because he & Trump are aware that Michael Cohen's records -- soon to be in the FBI's hands -- will reveal that Trump paid or repaid Cohen for the Daniels payout. According to Giuliani, Trump paid Cohen $420K/year, and you can bet they discussed in real time where that $420K annual "legal retainer" went. ...

... Dana Bash & Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani's cable rollout as a member of ... Donald Trump's legal team, and the torrent of statements he made Wednesday night, caught many in the White House offguard and flat-footed, highlighting the continued chaotic nature of the President's communications strategy. Giuliani told CNN Thursday he and Trump are in sync. 'You won't see daylight between me and the President,' Giuliani said in an interview. 'The strategy is to get everything wrapped up and done with this so that it doesn't take on a lie of its own.'... But Giuliani conceded that White House officials were caught off guard by his comments. '"They were, there was no way they wouldn't be,' he told CNN Thursday. 'The President is my client, I don't talk to them.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

Netchix! ...

... Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump on Thursday directly contradicted his earlier statements that he knew of no payment to Stormy Daniels the pornographic film actress who says she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump said he paid a monthly retainer to his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, and suggested that the payment by Mr. Cohen to the actress could not be considered a campaign contribution.... In three Twitter posts [republished in yesterday's Commentariat] Thursday morning, the president repeated Mr. Giuliani's statement that Mr. Trump repaid a $130,000 payment Mr.Cohen made to Ms. Clifford just days before the presidential election in 2016.... The president's tweets on Thursday had far more formal language than his typical morning messages to the world, which often include words in all capital letters and are punctuated with exclamation points.... Though Mr. Giuliani described his interview as part of a strategy, the disclosure caught several Trump advisers by surprise, sending some scrambling on Thursday morning to determine how to confront the situation.... Some of the lawyers for Mr. Cohen and Ms. Clifford were also surprised by Mr. Giuliani's remarks on Wednesday to Sean Hannity, who is close with the president." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Anna North of Vox: "In a series of tweets Thursday morning, [Donald Trump] laid out the process by which 'celebrities and people of wealth' like himself use nondisclosure agreements to keep people from talking about them in public. Trump specifically explained that he reimbursed his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for paying porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her silence.... Even more shocking than [the] admission [that he paid Cohen] is the fact that Thursday's tweets are a totally straightforward explanation of how powerful people like Trump can use their wealth to manipulate others and cover up any information they want hidden. It's essentially the same process by which producer Harvey Weinstein and other wealthy men have been able to hide allegations of harassment and other misconduct for years. The result: Men with money can abuse ordinary people and face no repercussions for their actions, beyond a few payouts here and there. Both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who also says she had an affair with Trump, have helped expose this system by suing to break their nondisclosure agreements. But Trump himself ... made clear he believes that money and celebrity entitle him to do whatever he wants without facing consequences." ...

... Karen Yourish of the New York Times has a list of all the Trump & Co. yarns about the payoff to Clifford. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post has more on the campaign finance law violations. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Cristiano Lima of Politico: "Former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday rebuked Rudy Giuliani ... for referring to bureau officials as 'stormtroopers,' saying U.S. leaders should be emulating federal law-enforcement officials 'rather than comparing them to Nazis.'" ...

... Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "Asked about the heat he'd taken — including from former attorney general Eric Holder -- for his Wednesday night comment referring to the April 9 search warrant execution against Cohen as being conducted by 'Stormtroopers,' [Giuliani] responded, 'Oh really? If the shoe fits, wear it.' Is Giuliani really comfortable saying this about an investigation by the US attorney for the Southern District of New York -- an office he once ran? 'When you crash into an attorney's office, you're acting like a Stormtrooper. This is an attorney's office, not a defendant, an attorney for the president of the United States. I';m sorry, that is -- maybe they'd like another word -- out-of-control police,' he said. 'No, I'm not backing off, no way.'" ...

... ** Jonathan Chait: "Here was the president's lawyer, not an outside lobbyist, comparing federal law enforcement to Nazis directly, rather than indirectly.... The casualness with which the line was uttered and received does indicate something important about the way Republican thinking about law enforcement has evolved. The party's respect for the rule of law is disintegrating before our eyes, and in its place is forming a Trumpian conviction that the law must be an instrument of reactionary power.... Giuliani called for James Comey to be prosecuted and Hillary Clinton to be thrown in prison, beliefs that, in the Trump era, have become almost banal.... Just as Giuliani can call the famously straight-laced Comey 'perverted' in the very same interview he casually conceded that his own client habitually pays hush money to porn stars, Republicans can both fear the law as an instrument of terror while coveting it for the same purpose. This duality is how they can toggle between demanding ruthless authoritarian power and then, when describing their own legal predicament, squealing like the most unhinged anti-government radicals, comparing the FBI to Nazis. Trump holds this view with long-standing fervor...." Read on. ...

... The Washington Post's Editors contrast this -- A Rigged System - They don't want to turn over Documents to Congress. What are they afraid of? Why so much redacting? Why such unequal 'justice?' At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved! with "what a more presidential president might say." The contrast, to say the least, is stark.

HANNITY (in a reverent, hushed, bewildered and horrified tone): There's a Politico report today basically suggesting that now Mueller would consider Ivanka Trump ... a ... a ... a target. ...

GIULIANI (incredulously): Ivanka Trump?!?!? I would, I would, I think I would get on my charger and go right into their offices with a lance if they went after Ivanka.

HANNITY: I, uh, at this point, sir, I honestly agree with you, and I fear for the country.

GIULIANI: Now, I think if they DO do Ivanka, which I doubt they will, the whole country will turn on them. They're going after his daughter?

HANNITY: What about his son-in-law? They've talked about him!

GIULIANI: I guess, uh, Jared is a fine man. You know that. But men are, you know, disposable. [laughs] But a fine woman like Ivanka? Come on!

... Betty Cracker of Balloon Juice: "Set aside for a moment the creepy and sexist spectacle of these two infantilizing a 30-something woman who is (preposterously!) sold as a self-made business mogul and a person who merits a White House advisory role. Giuliani and Hannity's musings about Ivanka demonstrate what I hope is a fatal flaw in the Trump administration's political strategy for surviving a cascade of scandals.... Would millions rise up to follow Giuliani's lead -- mounting steeds, seizing lances and charging into Mueller's office to defend Ivanka Trump's honor?... But it's not surprising that these morons think this way -- it comes straight from the top. To the extent that he governs at all, Trump governs as if the only Americans who exist are the goobers who support him.... Speaking for myself, it would make my fucking day to see Ivanka Trump lead a perp-walk conga line -- to see all of these arrogant, corrupt, know-nothing motherfuckers swept out of power." ...

... Steve M.: "Except that our political system often functions as if the only Americans who exist are supporters of the GOP. Two of the last five presidential elections were decided in favor of the Republican popular-vote loser. It's widely accepted that Democrats might not win a House majority in the midterms even if they win the overall popular vote by a considerable margin.... The dangers Trump faces don't depend on majority rule. Anyone in Trump's orbit who goes to a jury trial will need only 1 in 12 to acquit. If Trump is impeached, he needs only 34% of the senators to save his job. The way to achieve those numbers is to rally white America. That's what Giuliani is doing. It might work." ...

... So here is why I, Mrs. Bea McCrabbie, think the Stormy Daniels payoff is actually germane to the Russia scandal: it is further evidence that Trump used probably illegal means to win the 2016 election, then covered up those actions with a series of subterfuges, followed by outright lies. That's precisely what he did by enlisting Russia to interfere with the election (tho there's no "probably" prefacing "illegal means"). The Daniels fiasco, that is, shows a pattern of behavior that tracks to Trump's use of Russian ops & the ensuing series of coverups.

Uh-Oh. Tom Winter & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for ... Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen. It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen's offices, hotel room, and home in early April, according to one person with direct knowledge. At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Oops! Never Mind. Chris Geidner: "Confusion surrounded NBC reporting on surveillance of Michael Cohen's phone lines on Thursday, leading to a 5 p.m. correction that downgraded the level of reported surveillance to a phone call log — a substantial difference from its initial reporting that Cohen's phone lines were being wiretapped. Rudy Giuliani told BuzzFeed News on Thursday afternoon that he didn't believe there was a wiretap of Cohen -- two hours after NBC reported that '[f]ederal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen,' a report that also was covered extensively on MSNBC. 'I am told by two people now that it is not true,' Giuliani said. 'FBI is saying it's not true off the record, and Special Counsel is saying it&'s not true,' he said, claiming that the Special Counsel's Office 'told the press that.' NBC's correction proved Giuliani to be right." ...

... Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Rudy Giuliani called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to intervene in the Michael Cohen case and put the people behind the probe 'under investigation' in a phone call with The Hill on Thursday.... He was reacting to an NBC News report that had initially stated phones belonging to Cohen ... had been tapped by investigators.... [Giuliani] argued that if the reported wiretapping of Cohen were true -- and he emphasized he was not sure that it was -- it would be a blatant transgression of attorney-client privilege." ...

... Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump crowed Friday morning that 'NBC NEWS is wrong again' after the network was forced to issue a correction on reporting that initially said Trump's longtime personal attorney had been the subject of a federal wiretap. NBC News issued both on-air and online corrections to state that Michael Cohen ... had not been wiretapped but instead had been the target of a 'pen register,' a monitoring of limited logs of telephone calls." Mrs. McC: It's probably worth noting that Trump pumps out disinformation, now on an average of 6.5 times a day, & never issues a correction.

Brian Schwartz of CNBC: "Special counsel Robert Mueller is focusing intensely on alleged interactions between former top Trump campaign official Rick Gates and political operative Roger Stone, one of ... Donald Trump's closest confidants, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Stone, a longtime advisor to Trump, is apparently one of the top subjects of the Mueller investigation into potential collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, sources told CNBC on condition of anonymity.... The new developments indicate that Mueller's team is interested in Stone beyond his interactions with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange during the campaign.... The link between Gates and Stone goes back to their work at what had been one of the most powerful lobbying firms in Washington, which was founded by Stone along with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.... Gates joined the firm as an intern more three decades ago...." ...

... Brandi Buchman of Courthouse News Service: "Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday filed a request for 70 blank subpoenas in the Virginia court presiding over one of two criminal proceedings involving former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The two-page filing doesn't offer much in the way of details, but each subpoena orders the recipient to appear at the federal courthouse in Alexandria on July 10 at 10 a.m. to testify at Manafort's trial on charges stemming from Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election."

The Hoax that Launched the Worst U.S. President Ever? Cassandra Pollock & Alex Samuels of the Texas Tribune: "A former director of the CIA and NSA said Wednesday that hysteria in Texas over a 2015 U.S. military training exercise called Jade Helm was fueled by Russians wanting to dominate 'the information space,' and that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to send the Texas State Guard to monitor the operation gave them proof of the power of such misinformation campaigns. Michael Hayden, speaking on MSNBC's Morning Joe podcast, chalked up peoples' fear over Jade Helm 15 to 'Russian bots and the American alt-right media [that] convinced many Texans [Jade Helm] was an Obama plan to round up political dissidents.' Abbott ordered the State Guard to monitor the federal exercise soon after news broke of the operation. Hayden said that move gave Russians the go-ahead to continue -- and possibly expand -- their efforts to spread fear. 'At that point, I'm figuring the Russians are saying, "We can go big time,"' Hayden said of Abbott's response."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "As of last week, the American public had been told that President Trump's doctor had certified he would be 'the healthiest individual ever elected.' That the president was happy with his legal team and would not hire a new lawyer. That he did not know about the $130,000 payment to a former pornographic film actress who claimed to have had an affair with him. As of this week, it turns out that the statement about his health was not actually from the doctor but had been dictated by Mr. Trump himself. That the president has split with the leaders of his legal team and hired the same new lawyer he had denied recruiting. And that Mr. Trump himself had financed the $130,000 payment intended to buy the silence of the actress known as Stormy Daniels.... For Mr. Trump, it is about creating a narrative that suits his desired image, and dictating the terms of his own life.... But he now risks losing his grip on the story line he has long sought to control, in part because of his own treatment of associates like his doctor and the lawyer who paid the porn star."

Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to prepare options for drawing down American troops in South Korea, just weeks before he holds a landmark meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un.... Reduced troop levels are not intended to be a bargaining chip in Mr. Trump's talks with Mr. Kim about his weapons program, these officials said.... Mr. Trump has been determined to withdraw troops from South Korea, arguing that the United States is not adequately compensated for the cost of maintaining them, that the troops are mainly protecting Japan and that decades of American military presence had not prevented the North from becoming a nuclear threat. His latest push coincides with tense negotiations with South Korea over how to share the cost of the military force."

Charles Bagli of the New York Times: "Over the opposition of lawyers for a company owned by ... Donald J. Trump, State Supreme Court Judge Eileen Bransten ruled Thursday that a condominium on the Upper West Side could remove the bronze letters spelling out his name from its 46-story building. The ruling opens the door for the 377 condo owners at 200 Riverside Boulevard to formally vote on whether to keep or remove the T-R-U-M-P letters that have adorned the building, between 69th and 70th Streets, for the past 19 years. Reading a 12- page document from the bench, Judge Bransten repeatedly rejected, dismissed or found the Trump lawyers' arguments to be unpersuasive and granted summary judgment to the condominium's board.... Judge Bransten ... found that the four-page licensing agreement between Mr. Trump and the condominium gave the condo permission to use the Trump name but in no way requires it to use it. Therefore, nothing prevents the board from taking it off the building." (Also linked yesterday.)

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Elizabeth Drew of the New Republic: "No, Mr. President, journalists aren't elitists."

Scotty's EPA Travel Agency. Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "After taking office last year, [Scott] Pruitt drew up a list of at least a dozen countries he hoped to visit and urged aides to help him find official reasons to travel, according to four people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... Pruitt then enlisted well-connected friends and political allies to help make the trips happen.... Pruitt's practice of involving outsiders in his travels raises serious ethical concerns, legal experts said; federal law prohibits public officials from using their office to enrich themselves or any private individual, or to offer endorsements. Late Thursday, Democratic Sens. Thomas R. Carper (Del.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) wrote to Pruitt seeking more information about the Israel trip [partly arranged by magnate Sheldon Adelson but cancelled after the WashPo revealed related scandals], the agency's agreement with Water-Gen [an Adelson interest] and 'the role Mr. Adelson or other non-governmental officials played.'" ...

... Elaina Plott of the Atlantic: "As Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt faces a seemingly endless stream of scandal, his team is scrambling to divert the spotlight to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. And the White House isn't happy about it. In the last week, a member of Pruitt&'s press team, Michael Abboud, has been shopping negative stories about Zinke to multiple outlets.... The stories were shopped with the intention of 'taking the heat off of Pruitt,' the sources said.... According to the two sources, Interior staffers who fielded the reporters' calls were able to ascertain that Abboud, who is a former Trump campaign official, was behind the stories. The Interior Department's White House liaison then called the White House Presidential Personnel Office to complain about his conduct.... A White House official with knowledge of the events added: 'Absolutely nothing Scott Pruitt did would surprise me.'" ...

... Hiroko Tabuchi & Steve Eder of the New York Times: "Since moving to Washington, Scott Pruitt ... has attracted the attention of federal investigators because of his unusual association with lobbyists.... As a state senator in Oklahoma 15 years ago, Mr. Pruitt went even further: He bought a home in the state capital with a registered lobbyist who was pushing for changes to the state's workers' compensation rules -- changes that Mr. Pruitt championed in the legislature. And as with the condominium rental in Washington, Mr. Pruitt never publicly disclosed his financial relationship with the lobbyist, who, like Mr. Pruitt, lived in the home when in Oklahoma City on business." Mrs. McC: This is something of a rehash of a WashPo an earlier NYT investigative report published a few weeks back (and linked here). But a nice reminder that Pruitt was always corrupt. ...

... Gregory Wallace & Sara Ganim of CNN: "... Scott Pruitt paid himself nearly $65,000 in reimbursements from his two campaigns for Oklahoma attorney general, a move at least one election watchdog has sharply criticized as being recorded so vaguely that there was no way to tell if such payments were lawful. The reimbursement method, which Pruitt used in his 2010 and 2014 campaigns, effectively scuttled two key pillars of campaign finance: transparency about how campaign funds are spent and ensuring campaign funds are not used for personal purchases, according to a former top elections attorney and a CNN review of the documents. Some of the reporting may also violate Oklahoma campaign finance rules, according to research done by the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group." ...

... Mrs McCrabbie: I'm going to go out on a limb here & predict that, in an effort to change the subject from Rudy's Big Reveal, today will be Scotty's Last Day at the EPA. I won't be surprised if this does not happen -- because Trump's big oil buddies -- but if Scotty gets Friday's afternoon dump, that won't surprise me either.

** Sheryl Stolberg & Elizabeth Dias of the New York Times: "Speaker Paul D. Ryan reinstated the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy as the chaplain of the House of Representatives on Thursday, after the chaplain sent him a letter rescinding his forced resignation and daring the speaker to fire him.... Father Conroy, a Catholic priest who has been the chaplain since 2011, intimated in a letter to Mr. Ryan on Thursday that the speaker did not have the authority to fire him, noting that the chaplain, who is selected by the speaker, is elected by the members of the House. He suggested his Catholic faith had contributed to his dismissal. And in an interview, Father Conroy said he had hired a lawyer to press his case. 'This is so contentious, and I think it is so historic,' Father Conroy said, adding, 'It's not over.'... Father Conroy said he and Mr. Ryan will sit down together on Tuesday when the House is back in session."

Senate Race. "China People." Alex Isenstadt of Politico: "West Virginia GOP Senate hopeful Don Blankenship [R-mass killer] is amping up his racial attacks on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell with a new ad declaring, 'Swamp captain Mitch McConnell has created millions of jobs for China people.... In fact, his China family has given him tens of millions of dollars.' McConnell's wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, was born in Taiwan and her parents are Chinese.... Earlier this week, Blankenship began running another TV spot labeling McConnell 'cocaine Mitch.' The spot is apparently in reference to a 2014 report that drugs were once found aboard a shipping vessel owned by Chao's family.... McConnell's team has noted that in 1999 Blankenship spoke of moving to China and becoming a Chinese citizen. Blankenship's girlfriend was born in China, according to media reports." Also too, McConnell's spokesperson called Blankenship "mentally ill" & texted, "This clown is a walking talking case study for the limitation of a prison's ability to rehabilitate." (Blankenship only recently got out of the clink after being found guilty of conspiracy in the deaths of 29 coal miners.) Mrs. McC: Couldn't we call these "racist attacks" instead of "racial attacks"? ...

... Oh, let's let Colbert explain:

Paul Krugman explains how Apple's way of repatriating its assets thanks to the tax heist is why "what looks like a big giveaway to wealthy investors is, in fact, a big giveaway to wealthy investors." Mrs. McC: I do love the way Krugman explains economics to dummies: "But what does 'bringing money to America' mean? Apple didn't have a huge, Scrooge McDuck-style pile of gold sitting in Ireland, which it loaded onto a homeward-bound ship. It has digital claims -- a bunch of zeros and ones on some server somewhere -- which in effect used to bear a label saying 'this money is in Ireland.' Now it has changed the label to say 'this money is in America.'"

Guardian: "Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby have been expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In a statement, the Academy announced that the governing board had voted to remove the two disgraced stars 'in accordance with the organization's standards of conduct'."

Beyond the Beltway

Brent Griffiths of Politico: "Missouri lawmakers moved overwhelmingly on Thursday evening toward calling special legislative session to further investigate possible impeachment charges against the state's embattled governor, Eric Greitens.... According to [Missouri House Speaker Todd] Richardson [R], 138 House members and 29 senators supported the call for a special session, more than the respective three-fourths required in each chamber. The first-ever special session in the state's history will begin on May 18, the last day of the regular session, and last for 30 days, immediately after which lawmakers will adjourn from their regular business."

Way Beyond

Christina Anderson & Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times: "The Swedish panel that awards the Nobel Prize in Literature said on Friday that it would take the extraordinary step of not naming a laureate this year — not because of a shortage of deserving writers, but because of the infighting and public outrage that have engulfed the group over a sexual abuse scandal. The Swedish Academy said it would postpone the 2018 award until next year, when it will name two winners, making this the first year since World War II that the panel has decided not to bestow one of the world's most revered cultural honors. The academy is involved only in the literature award, so other Nobel Prizes are not affected.... In November, a Swedish newspaper reported that 18 women said they had been sexually assaulted or harassed by Jean-Claude Arnault, who is closely tied to the Swedish Academy and is accused of using his stature in the arts world to try to coerce women into sex. Other allegations against him emerged later, including a report that Mr. Arnault had groped Sweden's crown princess, Victoria." She was not amused. Read on. There's more.

News Lede

New York Times: "Five senior Islamic State officials have been captured, including a top aide to the group’s leader, in a complex cross-border sting carried out by Iraqi and American intelligence, two Iraqi officials said Wednesday. The three-month operation, which tracked a group of senior Islamic State leaders who had been hiding in Syria and Turkey, represents a significant intelligence victory for the American-led coalition fighting the extremist group and underscores the strengthening relationship between Washington and Baghdad."

The Commentariat -- May 3, 2018

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Uh-Oh. Tom Winter & Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "Federal investigators have wiretapped the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for ... Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen. It is not clear how long the wiretap has been authorized, but NBC News has learned it was in place in the weeks leading up to the raids on Cohen's offices, hotel room, and home in early April, according to one person with direct knowledge. At least one phone call between a phone line associated with Cohen and the White House was intercepted, the person said."

So Then. Rudy Goes on "Fox & Friends" to Make Matters Worse. Josh Israel of ThinkProgress: After arguing that the $130K to Stormy Daniels was in no way a campaign contribution, Rudy sez, "Imagine if that came out of October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.... Cohen made it go away. He did his job." So Then. Kellyanne Conway's husband George almost immediately follows up Rudy's remark with a tweet citing relevant campaign finance law that defines Cohen's payment -- in Rudy's construction -- as a violation by Trump, by the campaign & by Cohen. Go, Team Trump! ...

... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Eugene Robinson, the newspaper columnist who moonlights as an MSNBC commentator, wryly suggested that Trump may have acquired a new defense that he could use on appeal if he loses in court: inadequate representation." ...

... Dana Bash & Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "Rudy Giuliani's cable rollout as a member of ... Donald Trump's legal team, and the torrent of statements he made Wednesday night, caught many in the White House offguard and flat-footed, highlighting the continued chaotic nature of the President's communications strategy. Giuliani told CNN Thursday he and Trump are in sync. 'You won't see daylight between me and the President,' Giuliani said in an interview. 'The strategy is to get everything wrapped up and done with this so that it doesn't take on a lie of its own.'... But Giuliani conceded that White House officials were caught off guard by his comments. '"They were, there was no way they wouldn't be,' he told CNN Thursday. 'The President is my client, I don't talk to them.'" ...

... Eileen Sullivan, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump on Thursday directly contradicted his earlier statements that he knew of no payment to Stormy Daniels, the pornographic film actress who says she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump said he paid a monthly retainer to his former lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, and suggested that the payment by Mr. Cohen to the actress could not be considered a campaign contribution.... In three Twitter posts [republished below] Thursday morning, the president repeated Mr. Giuliani's statement that Mr. Trump repaid a $130,000 payment Mr.Cohen made to Ms. Clifford just days before the presidential election in 2016.... The president's tweets on Thursday had far more formal language than his typical morning messages to the world, which often include words in all capital letters and are punctuated with exclamation points.... Though Mr. Giuliani described his interview as part of a strategy, the disclosure caught several Trump advisers by surprise, sending some scrambling on Thursday morning to determine how to confront the situation.... Some of the lawyers for Mr. Cohen and Ms. Clifford were also surprised by Mr. Giuliani's remarks on Wednesday to Sean Hannity, who is close with the president." ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post has more on the campaign finance law violations.

Charles Bagli of the New York Times: "Over the opposition of lawyers for a company owned by ... Donald J. Trump, State Supreme Court Judge Eileen Bransten ruled Thursday that a condominium on the Upper West Side could remove the bronze letters spelling out his name from its 46-story building. The ruling opens the door for the 377 condo owners at 200 Riverside Boulevard to formally vote on whether to keep or remove the T-R-U-M-P letters that have adorned the building, between 69th and 70th Streets, for the past 19 years. Reading a 12- page document from the bench, Judge Bransten repeatedly rejected, dismissed or found the Trump lawyers' arguments to be unpersuasive and granted summary judgment to the condominium's board.... Judge Bransten ... found that the four-page licensing agreement between Mr. Trump and the condominium gave the condo permission to use the Trump name but in no way requires it to use it. Therefore, nothing prevents the board from taking it off the building."

*****

This Russia Thing, Ctd.

Darren Samuelsohn & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "... Donald Trump is shifting to war footing in the Russia investigation. On Wednesday, the White House announced that it had hired a veteran lawyer [Emmet Flood] who helped President Bill Clinton weather impeachment, while Trump's personal legal team sent its strongest signal yet that it would fight special counsel Robert Mueller over any attempt to question the president without first setting up strict limits for the interview. Combined, the two moves represent a sharp turn away from the cooperation-minded days of 2017 when Trump said publicly that he was eager to sit down with the lead Russia investigator. At that time, his White House lawyers also showed no resistance to handing over documents and assisted in lining up interviews with more than two dozen current and former aides." ...

... Matt Apuzzo & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "President Trump plans to hire Emmet T. Flood, the veteran Washington lawyer who represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment, to replace Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who has taken the lead in dealing with the special counsel investigation, who is retiring, according to two people briefed on the matter. In a phone interview, Mr. Cobb said he informed the president weeks ago that he wanted to retire. He said he planned to stay at the White House, likely through the end of the month, to help Mr. Flood transition into the new job.... Following a New York Times report in March that Mr. Trump was in discussions to hire Mr. Flood, the president attacked the article and one of the reporters who wrote it." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Jeff Zeleny, et al., of CNN: "Two sources told CNN that Cobb was uncomfortable with Trump's tweets against Mueller, with one source describing a 'rancid' atmosphere between Mueller and the White House. 'Ty was uncomfortable with the Mueller tweets,' the source said. He was not going to be 'part of a mud-slinging campaign,' one of the sources added. Cobb had tried for weeks to counsel the President against threatening the Mueller investigation, the sources said. The lawyer made it clear on multiple occasions with the President and other members of the legal team that he 'can't go down that path,' one of the sources added. A source familiar with the developments told CNN that one reason Flood took the job was because he is likely to replace current White House counsel Donald McGahn in months. It's not immediately clear what Flood's job will be on the legal team and if he will attend meetings with Mueller. Another source familiar with the matter told CNN that Flood had been under 'serious consideration' for some time...." ...

Emmet Flood will be joining the White House Staff to represent the President and the administration against the Russia witch hunt. -- Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Wednesday ...

"Witch hunt"? Very professional & dignified, Mrs. Huckleberry. Almost as professional & dignified as your pal John Kelly's sending out an official White House statement Monday using the term "total BS" (bullshit). -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

... Matt Naham of Law & Crime: Nicole "Wallace said on Deadline White House [on MSNBC] that three sources told her Flood's recruitment to Trump's legal team sends a 'clear signal that the team plans to rely much more heavily on a legal strategy long-advocated by current White House counsel Don McGahn to exert executive privilege more aggressively.'" ...

Eileen Sullivan & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "President Trump plunged on Wednesday into the simmering dispute between conservative House Republicans and the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, siding with the lawmakers and attacking his own Justice Department. Mr. Trump called the legal system 'rigged' in a tweet and gave voice to the complaints of a small group of congressmen who have assailed the Justice Department as slow or unresponsive to their demands to produce sensitive documents that the lawmakers say they need to conduct oversight.... 'A Rigged System - They don't want to turn over Documents to Congress. What are they afraid of? Why so much redacting? Why such unequal "justice?" At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!'... Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the latest Republican efforts were 'clearly trying to sabotage' the Mueller investigation and court a confrontation with Mr. Rosenstein." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Notice that Trump is taking the side of another branch of the government -- Congress -- against his own branch -- the executive. ...

... Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Trump did not say precisely which records he believed were being slow-walked by the Justice Department, but Republicans have been pressing officials there to turn over memos on a variety of topics, including an August 2017 directive in which Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein laid out the scope of Mueller's investigation. On Monday, Justice rejected lawmakers' request for that memo, saying that disclosing it would jeopardize the ongoing probe." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Alex Ward of Vox: "... Donald Trump just issued a direct and ominous threat to the Justice Department.... Trump's GOP congressional allies are upset the DOJ won't hand over unredacted documents related to ongoing investigations.... But conservatives in Congress allege the DOJ is a corrupt institution that bungled multiple investigations -- not least the one about possible Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential election -- and, therefore, requires stringent oversight.... Trump ... does have broad authority to declassify any information he wants, which means he could remove redactions from documents and compel the DOJ to hand over those materials to Congress.... The president, of course, has the authority to fire personnel. He continues to threaten [Rod] Rosenstein's job, and it's possible he';s using the memo fight to lay the groundwork for the deputy attorney general's ouster." ...

... Martin Longman in the Washington Monthly: "When Rosenstein said he won't be extorted by threats from 'anyone,' that includes President Trump. He serves in the president's administration, but he also took an oath to protect the Constitution. Trump desperately needs a reason to fire Rosenstein, and he's settled on his refusal to turn over unredacted documents to Trump's allies in the House.... The whole effort here is choreographed. The White House and key committee chairs and members of the House Freedom Caucus are acting in concert. And it's all a naked and transparent effort to obstruct justice. It's being done brazenly, unapologetically, and in plain sight. Perhaps this is why Ty Cobb, who has consistently counseled cooperation with the investigation, just quit his job as Trump's lawyer. The cooperative phase is ending, and the constitutional crisis phase will now commence." Longman includes a good summary of the interactions, so far, between Rosenstein & the House goombahs.

Renato Mariotti in a New York Times op-ed: "Mr. Trump's team plans to use the questions [Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow derived from topics Robert Mueller outlined] to attack the special counsel as 'overreaching' and going 'beyond his mandate,' but the questions themselves suggest that Mr. Mueller has carefully stayed within his bounds.... What should concern Mr. Trump's team is how the questions zero in on Mr. Trump's criminal liability. They leave little doubt that Mr. Trump is in serious jeopardy, particularly regarding obstruction of justice.... The fact that the questions on topics other than obstruction are so broad does not necessarily suggest that Mr. Mueller has less evidence regarding those topics. A more likely possibility is that Mr. Mueller is not willing to tip his hand on those topics because the evidence he has regarding them hasn't been extensively covered in the press."

Preserving the Mueller Investigation via the Sealed Indictment. Corey Brettschneider in Politico Magazine: "... while he retains his position, Mueller has a powerful tool at his disposal: the 'sealed,' or secret, indictment. If Mueller indeed determines that he has a strong case against Trump, a secret indictment returned by a grand jury will help protect the integrity of his investigation even if he is fired, while also avoiding the risk of provoking Trump to try to further impede the probe.... If Trump were to fire Mueller, an already filed sealed indictment would outlast Mueller's tenure. A sealed indictment can only be dismissed by a judge, meaning Trump cannot rid himself of a legal headache simply by terminating the special counsel. A sealed indictment would also ensure that the statute of limitations for crimes Trump might be charged with would not expire. This leaves open the possibility of Trump being tried in the future."

Our Conspiracy Theories about Trump Are Not Conspiratorial Enough. Jonathan Chait: "... the leak [of the Mueller team's questons] came from Trump's side, so that Trump could blame the leak on Mueller. 'The president and several advisers now plan to point to the list as evidence that Mueller has strayed beyond his mandate and is overreaching,' two advisers tell the Post. The 'disgraceful' leak [Trump tweeted about] was planted by Trump's own staff -- probably at the direction of Trump himself -- in order to concoct evidence of wrongdoing by Mueller, in order to advance Trump's claim that Mueller is supposedly setting him up.... Bear this lesson in mind when you process the following. In December, the administration allowed the sale of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Supporters of the administration held up the sale as evidence that Trump could not have colluded with Russia -- here he was, arming Russia's enemy.... [Now we learn that] in response to the missile sale, Ukrainian officials have frozen out the Mueller investigation.... When the missile sale came up in December, almost nobody even considered the possibility that it might be used as a bribe to shut down Ukrainian cooperation with Mueller.... The number one rule in understanding Trump is that the lies are usually covering even worse lies." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mrs. McCrabbie: At 6:50 am ET, Trump [or a more literate alter-ego] is in the middle of tweeting about the Giuliani gaffe heard 'round the nation (linked stories ff.). I'll post the tweets when he finishes his "thoughts." Update: Here's what he's got so far:

Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are..... ..very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair,...... ...despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic.] in this transaction.

... ** Oops! Rudy's Marvelous Gaffe-a-thon. Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: "... Donald Trump repaid Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment Cohen facilitated to Stormy Daniels in 2016, Trump's new lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told Sean Hannity on Wednesday night. 'It's not campaign money. No campaign finance violation,' Giuliani said. '[They] funneled through a law firm, and then the president repaid it.'... " ...

... Nick Visser & Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "'It's going to turn out to be perfectly legal; that money was not campaign money,' Giuliani, Trump's new lead attorney regarding issues related to the special counsel's Russia investigation, told Fox News' Sean Hannity...." ...

... Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "In an interview with The New York Times shortly after his Fox News appearance, Mr. Giuliani said that he had documentation showing that Mr. Trump had personally made the payment, and he indicated that the goal was to conclusively demonstrate that there was no campaign finance violation involved.... He added that when the initial payment was made, Mr. Cohen did it 'on his own authority.'... Mr. Giuliani said that he had spoken with the president before and after his interview on Fox News, and that Mr. Trump and other lawyers on the team were aware of what he would say.... Such a payment from the candidate -- even if it was made through a lawyer -- would have to be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission as an in-kind contribution to the campaign and as an expenditure by the campaign, if it was for the purpose of influencing the election. Mr. Trump's campaign did not disclose the reimbursement to Mr. Cohen on its commission reports.... Far from bringing clarity to the question, Mr. Giuliani obscured it further -- now two lawyers [Giuliani & Cohen] for the president are providing two very different versions of events." ...

... Michael Shear: Giuliani's remarks "appeared to contradict the president, who has at times said that he was not aware of the payment to the actress, Stephanie Clifford, and did not know how his lawyer had gotten the money to pay her.... Asked specifically whether he knew about the payment by reporters aboard Air Force One last month, Mr. Trump said 'no' and referred questions to Mr. Cohen.... It also contradicts what Mr. Cohen has been saying for months — that he used his own money to pay Ms. Clifford to keep quiet." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Fox "News" is taking down fair-use videos of the "money quote" as fast as I can post them, so I don't know how long this one will stand:

... Rick Hasen in Slate: Rudy Giuliani has "gotten the president into potentially greater legal jeopardy by admitting that Trump repaid his fixer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet, seemingly contradicting the president and potentially implicating Trump and his campaign in some serious campaign finance violations.... If Cohen made the payment alone and neither Trump nor anyone in the campaign knew anything about it, Trump and the campaign officials would have done nothing wrong." ...

... Jill Colvin & Chad Day of the AP have more on the possible legal implications of Giuliani's gaffe re: Clifford. They cite Hasen, among others. ...

... Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) said Wednesday that President Trump '... fired [James] Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn't a target of the investigation,' Giuliani ... told Fox News's Sean Hannity. 'He's entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that and he couldn't get that,' Giuliani said. 'So he fired him and he said, 'I'm free of this guy."' Giuliani's statement contradicts Trump's recent claim that he didn't fire Comey over the Russia probe.... Trump also stated in his letter informing Comey of his dismissal that the former FBI director had told him he wasn't under investigation ...'on three separate occasions....'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is what happens when, more than a year into the investigation of a major, multi-track train wreck, you bring in an over-the-hill P.R. guy who knows nothing about the causes of the wreck. ...

... The Talented Mr. Giuliani ... Blows up All Trump's Phony Defenses. Margaret Hartmann: "Through public statements, apparent leaks, and the exit of White House lawyer Ty Cobb (who advocated for cooperation with Robert Mueller), [Rudy Giuliani] ... signaled that he was cleaning up Trump's legal team. From now on, they would be a unified force making aggressive, carefully calculated moves to undermine the special counsel. Then in his very first TV interview as Trump's attorney, with Trump shadow adviser Sean Hannity no less, Giuliani contradicted the president's stories on potential obstruction of justice, the Stormy Daniels affair, and even his relationship with fixer Michael Cohen. In response to Hannity's first softball -- what's the status of the Russia investigation -- Giuliani basically confirmed that he leaked Mueller's questions for Trump (which were actually composed by the president's attorneys) as part of an effort to paint the special counsel as unfairly biased. Then he offered up a brand new explanation for why Trump fired FBI director James Comey[.]... Later in the interview he claimed that paying 'some Stormy Daniels woman $130,000' would turn out to be 'perfectly legal.... When I heard Cohen's retainer of $35,000, when he was doing no work for the president, I said that's how he's repaying it, with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.'... two hours after Giuliani made his remarks, the White House had yet to come up with anything."

Manu Raju of CNN: "After being interviewed by special counsel investigators on Wednesday, former aide to Donald Trump's presidential campaign Michael Caputo told CNN that Robert Mueller's team is 'focused on Russia collusion.' ... 'They know more about the Trump campaign than anyone who ever worked there.' Caputo ... has long insisted he has no information about collusion between Trump's team and Russia. He spoke with Senate intelligence investigators on Tuesday for their Russia probe and outlined the differences between Congress' inquiries and the special counsel's. 'The Senate and the House are net fishing,' Caputo said. 'The special counsel is spearfishing. They know what they are aiming at and are deadly accurate.' Caputo lived and worked in Russia in the 1990s and later did business with Russian companies, including Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled energy giant. As a Republican consultant, Caputo worked with Trump adviser Roger Stone and Paul Manafort...."

Trump's Fake Doctor's Letter Is No Joke. Paul Waldman in the Washington Post: Trump's former personal physician Harold "Bornstein now admits that when he wrote a letter in December 2015 attesting to Trump's good health, he was actually taking dictation from Trump himself.... At the time, everyone understood that was exactly what happened.... But... everyone treated the whole thing almost as a joke.... Well, yes, it was comical. But a presidential candidate was hiding his medical situation from the public. And not any candidate, but the candidate who would become the oldest president ever elected, and who seems to eat nothing but fast food. Yet at the very same time, the press not only treated [Hillary] Clinton's health as a matter of utmost seriousness; it also was quick to accuse her of being overly secretive and dishonest about it.... One way we can prepare for [the 2020 presidential election] is to stop treating the lies Trump tells -- such as putting out false letters about his medical condition -- as though they're anything less than the scandal they ought to be."

Niraj Chokshi of the New York Times: "Summer Zervos, a former contestant on 'The Apprentice' who accused President Trump of sexual assault, is seeking records to prove that he defamed her by calling her a liar. A lawyer for Ms. Zervos, who is suing Mr. Trump for defamation in New York, said on Wednesday that subpoenas had been issued both to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns archives of the reality show, and to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Ms. Zervos says he groped her in 2007. 'We're gathering evidence that we believe will prove that the defendant lied when he falsely denigrated Ms. Zervos and when he denied sexually assaulting her,' said the lawyer, Mariann Wang of Cuti Hecker Wang.... In the subpoena issued Wednesday, Ms. Wang asked M.G.M. to turn over all documents, video or audio that feature Ms. Zervos or Mr. Trump talking about Ms. Zervos. The subpoena also seeks any recording in which Mr. Trump speaks of women 'in any sexual or inappropriate manner.' The hotel subpoena seeks records of any stay by Mr. Trump from 2005 through 2009 as well as documents related to his longtime bodyguard, Keith Schiller; his longtime assistant, Rhona Graff; or Ms. Zervos." See related story, linked below, re: "Today's Top Sideshow."

Nicholas Confessore & Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "... Cambridge Analytica announced on Wednesday that it would cease most operations and file for bankruptcy amid growing legal and political scrutiny of its business practices and work for President Trump. The decision came less than two months after the firm and Facebook became embroiled in a data-harvesting scandal that compromised the information of up to 87 million people. The revelations about the misuse of data, by The New York Times, along with The Observer of London, plunged the social media giant into crisis and prompted regulators and lawmakers to begin investigations into Cambridge Analytica. In a statement posted to its website, Cambridge Analytica said it was filing for bankruptcy in both the United States and Britain.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: My congratulations to the New York Times & Guardian for taking down these reprobates.

Melanie Schmitz of ThinkProgress: "A group of Republican lawmakers has sent a formal letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, officially nominating ... Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, for his 'work to end the Korean War.' The letter was signed by 18 members of Congress...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Haley Britzky of Axios: "Three Americans being held in North Korean labor camps have been released ahead of a planned summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, the Financial Times reports.... Kim Dong-cheol, Kim Sang-deok, and Kim Hak-seong were reportedly released in early April. Choi Sung-ryong, a campaigner for South Korean abductees, told the FT that they can either come home with Trump the day of the summit, or with an envoy prior to the talks. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is 'believed to have discussed the issue' when he traveled to North Korea on Easter weekend." (Also linked yesterday.)

Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration has repatriated a longtime inmate at the Guantanamo Bay military prison to Saudi Arabia, where he will serve out the remainder of his 13-year sentence in connection with a 2002 attack on a French ship, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The transfer of Ahmed al-Darbi to Saudi custody marks the first time the Trump administration has authorized the departure of an inmate from the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which President Trump has promised to keep open and said could even house new detainees. The move is unlikely to mark a shift in administration policy regarding prisoner transfers, which Trump has suggested threaten U.S. security."

Allie Malloy of CNN: "National Teacher of the Year award winner Mandy Manning came to the White House with one goal in mind: to elevate the profile of her refugee and immigrant students with ... Donald Trump. In a phone interview with CNN, Manning said she had done just that, delivering handwritten letters from her students directly to the President when meeting with him one on one Wednesday. Trump told Manning he was excited to read the letters, so much so that he asked an aide to put them directly on his desk, according to Manning. Manning's students are all refugees and immigrants enrolled in the 'Newcomer Center' program at Joel E. Ferris High School in Spokane, Washington." ...

... David Smith of the Guardian: "A teacher who leads a classroom for teenage refugees staged a silent protest by wearing several overtly political badges while receiving an award from Donald Trump at the White House.... Mandy Manning ... wore six badges on her black dress. According to a pooled report, they included one with a poster for the Women's March that followed Trump's inauguration, one that said 'Trans Equality Now' and one in the shape of an apple with a rainbow." ...

... Tina Vasquez in Rewire.News: "Trump is giving ICE the tools, financial resources, and presidential backing to go after immigrant communities as never before. While John Kelly and Stephen Miller may be the main architects of Trump's nativist anti-immigration policy, they are not its most important and powerful supporters. For that, look to the labor union that represents ICE's agents.... As the American Immigration Council explains, 'the enforcement of US immigration laws has historically been guided by policies that emphasize prioritization'[.]... Trump's executive orders ... have done away with this system, making enforcement priorities a thing of the past. Now every undocumented immigrant is deportable.... After Trump signed that first order, the labor unions for ICE and Border Patrol, representing some 25,600 agents and staff at the two agencies, released a joint statement: 'Morale amongst our agents and officers has increased exponentially since the signing of the orders.'... Despite his embrace of Trump's tough new enforcement regime, [acting ICE director Thomas] Homan never enjoyed the backing of ICE's field officers. You could even say that ICE iced Homan."

All the Best People, Ctd. Andrew Kaczynski of CNN: "A political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services has apologized and is now back at work at the department after it came to light that she spread conspiracy theories and shared an image that said 'our forefathers would have hung' Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for treason on social media. Ximena Barreto is a far-right political pundit who joined the Trump administration as deputy director of communications at HHS in December. She was placed on leave by the department in April after the liberal watchdog Media Matters reported that Barreto called Islam 'a cult' and pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.... A subsequent CNN KFile review of her Twitter account ... found that Barreto also repeatedly used the hashtag #BanIslam and shared conspiracy theories about the death of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich."

Today's Top Sideshow. Adam Raymond of New York: "One of the many drawbacks of Donald Trump's rise to power has been the renewed relevance granted to figures who, like himself, were better off left in the 20th century. Just in the past month, he's hired Rudy Giuliani, publicly praised Roseanne, and tweeted about phone calls with Sylvester Stallone. It's not just his supporters either. The comedian Tom Arnold has landed a TV show with Vice thanks to Trump. Unlike his ex-wife's rebooted sitcom, though, Arnold's show is unlikely to draw Trump's praise. On The Hunt for the Trump Tapes With Tom Arnold, the star of The Stupids will attempt to track down a treasure trove of lost tapes casting Trump in an unflattering light, Vice says."

Here are a couple of people who were better off left in the 17th century (or, really, never in the history of humankind): ...

... mike pence Gives Arpaio the Evangelical Seal of Approval. Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "While appearing at an event to support the Trump administration's 'America First' policies, [Mike] Pence praised former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Republican candidate for the Senate. 'I just found out when I was walking through the door that we were also going to be joined today by another favorite,' Pence said. 'A great friend of this president. A tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law. He spent a lifetime in law enforcement -- Sheriff Joe Arpaio, I'm honored to have you here.' The vice president -- a law school graduate -- called a man who was convicted of \ criminal contempt of court 'a tireless champion of the rule of law.' A federal judge -- and countless critics -- think differently.... To see the vice president, an outspoken Christian, embrace a man responsible for a string of human rights concern could have real consequences for Pence in the long term."

Scotty's Lobby Hobby. Lisa Friedman, et al., of the New York Times: "A Washington consultant who was removed from President Trump's transition team for using his business email address for government work played a central role last year in planning a trip to Australia for Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and then took steps to disguise his role, new documents show. The consultant, Matthew C. Freedman, who is also a former lobbyist for foreign governments, runs his own corporate advisory firm and is treasurer of the American Australian Council, a group that helps promote business for American-based companies in Australia. Two prominent members include Chevron and ConocoPhillips. Though the Australia trip never happened -- it was canceled after Hurricane Harvey devastated much of the Texas Gulf Coast -- it shows a pattern in which Mr. Pruitt has repeatedly relied on people with clear business interests to shape the agenda of his foreign travel."

Jonathan Chait: "Paul Ryan appeared at a financial conference to warn that, if Democrats win control of either the House or the Senate in the November elections, 'you'll have gridlock, you'll have subpoenas.'... Ryan has played an invaluable role covering up and enabling Trump administration scandals. When he says his party needs to keep control of the House to prevent subpoenas, he is both promising the cover-ups will continue if his party keeps its control of government, and expressing his clear belief that he opposes any level of independent oversight of the Executive branch."

This Didn't Take Long. Quint Forgey of Politico: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is walking back some of the criticism he leveled against the new Republican tax law earlier this week, now claiming the measure 'has been good for Americans' overall.... That assessment marks a stark departure from Rubio's awkward rebuke of the law in an interview with The Economist published Monday, in which the Florida Republican questioned how much the legislation is really helping the working class." Mrs. McC: Marco is already famous for wearing high heels; now he's getting so good at walking backwards, I wonder if he's auditioning for second billing in a Fred Astaire movie. (Also linked yesterday.)

Senate Races

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) is breaking with Trump and his scathing criticism of [Sen. Jon] Tester [D-Mont.], who the president has blamed for sinking Ronny Jackson's nomination to be secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Isakson offered his latest defense of Tester -- who faces reelection this fall in a state Trump won in 2016 -- at an event in Georgia. He noted that reporting this week appeared to verify some of the allegations against Jackson.... 'Part of the allegations made in one of the affidavits was verified by [CNN],' he said. 'I did my job and every senator has the responsibility if they're presented with accusations to try and seek the truth. And that exonerates everybody who seeks the truth.'"

Ed Kilgore: "Slanting the facts is a staple of competitive political campaigns. But it does cross an important line when campaigns just make stuff up. That seems to be happening with the two leading candidates for the GOP Senate nomination in West Virginia, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins. In both cases, they are trying to accuse the other of some sort of deep affection for Hillary Clinton.... It all seemed to begin when Morrisey ran a series of ads drawing attention to Jenkins' pre-2013 Democratic affiliation, and emphasizing his alleged support for Hillary Clinton in 2008.... f Morrisey's HRC-flavored attack was highly and deliberately mendacious, Jenkins' retaliation was way over any imaginable line. [In a Jenkins video campaign ad,] the image of Morrisey shaking hands with Hillary Clinton is, as the Jenkins campaign has admitted, completely phony. It was actually created by photoshopping an image of Morrisey shaking hands with -- wait for it -- Donald Trump!"

Stef Kight of Axios: "Several thousand ancient artifacts -- including cuneiform tablets, cylinder seals and clay bullae -- that were illegally smuggled into the United States by Hobby Lobby last year under the guise of 'tile samples' are on their way back to Iraq, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement." (Also linked yesterday.)

Amy Brittain & Irin Carmon of the Washington Post: "Incidents of sexual misconduct by Charlie Rose were far more numerous than previously known, according to a new investigation by The Washington Post, which also found three occasions over a period of 30 years in which CBS managers were warned of his conduct toward women at the network. An additional 27 women -- 14 CBS News employees and 13 who worked with him elsewhere -- said Rose sexually harassed them. Concerns about Rose's behavior were flagged to managers at the network as early as 1986 and as recently as April 2017, when Rose was co-anchor of 'CBS This Morning,' according to multiple people with firsthand knowledge of the conversations.... The Post's investigation is based on interviews over a five-month period with 107 current and former CBS News employees as well as two dozen others who worked with Rose at other television programs. Many of those interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation. The Post corroborated specific accounts with witnesses or people in whom they confided."

Medlar's Sports Report. The So-Called "Redskins" Is the Best Sports Team Ever. Juliet Macur of the New York Times: "When the Washington Redskins took their cheerleading squad to Costa Rica in 2013 for a calendar photo shoot, the first cause for concern among the cheerleaders came when Redskins officials collected their passports upon arrival at the resort.... For the photo shoot, at the adults-only Occidental Grand Papagayo resort on Culebra Bay, some of the cheerleaders said they were required to be topless, though the photographs used for the calendar would not show nudity. Others wore nothing but body paint.... A contingent of sponsors and FedExField suite holders -- all men -- were granted up-close access to the photo shoots.... Some of the male sponsors had picked ... nine of the 36 cheerleaders ... to be personal escorts at a nightclub.... 'They weren't putting a gun to our heads, but it was mandatory for us to go,' one of the cheerleaders said. 'We weren't asked, we were told. Other girls were devastated because we knew exactly what [the squad's director] was doing.'... After Daniel Snyder bought the Redskins in 1999, the cheerleading program was given a makeover. He brought it in-house -- it had operated independently -- and its style became increasingly risqué." Read on.

Beyond the Beltway

Jason Hancock of the Kansas City Star: Missouri "Gov. Eric Greitens' former campaign manager told the Missouri attorney general’s office that the governor knowingly lied to the state ethics commission about how he came to possess a donor list belonging to a veterans charity. He also says he was tricked by the governor's political advisers into taking the blame. The allegations were included in a 23-page report released Wednesday afternoon by a Missouri House committee investigating allegations of wrongdoing by the governor." (Also linked yesterday.)

Ordinary Heroes. Errin Whack of the AP: "Two black men arrested for sitting at a Philadelphia Starbucks without ordering anything settled with the city Wednesday for a symbolic $1 each and a promise from officials to set up a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs. The men and their lawyer told The Associated Press the settlement was an effort to make sure something positive came out of the incident."