memeorandum: Mick Mulvaney Met With Lobbyist Donors While at Trump White House (The Daily Beast)

3:40 PM ET, April 27, 2018

Top Items:

Lawyer Who Was Said to Have Dirt on Clinton Had Closer Ties to Kremlin Than She Let On — MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted …

New York Times:

Republicans on House Intelligence Panel Absolve Trump Campaign in Russian Meddling — WASHINGTON — Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee found no evidence during a monthslong investigation that the Trump campaign aided Russia's election meddling, the lawmakers concluded …

Discussion: Mother Jones, Washington Examiner, Hit & Run, Washington Post, IJR, Townhall, VICE News, Political Wire and Althouse

Washington Post:
The new House GOP report on Russia is revealing. But not in a good way for Trump.

Discussion: The Week

The Daily Beast: Michael Flynn and Son Met With Russia Ambassador Before RT Gala

Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Trump hails House Intelligence Committee report on Russia

Discussion: Vox, ABC News, Fox News Insider, HuffPost, Fox News, Washington Post and IJR

Associated Press: GOP-led House panel officially clears Trump in Russia probe

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

‘Mass firing’ at conservative site RedState — Salem Media, owner of the influential conservative outlet RedState, froze the site on Friday and dismissed many of its writers. — Bloggers were locked out of their accounts — some just temporarily, while the cuts were made, and others permanently.

Discussion: Vox, Political Wire, Outside the Beltway, Mediaite and Contemptor, more at Mediagazer »

Erick Erickson / The Resurgent:

RedState Is No More — RedState's owners have engaged in a mass purge of talent. … The site name will linger, but RedState is all but dead now. I have invited the fired writers here. — When RedState started in 2004, it was about collaborating between all sides of the GOP and, after I took over, had a real grassroots focus.

Andrew Kirell / The Daily Beast: Conservative Site RedState ‘Purges’ Anti-Trump Voices, Fired Writers Say

Congressman Patrick Meehan:

Congressman Meehan Announces Resignation — Representative Patrick Meehan (R-PA) today transmitted a letter of resignation to Governor Tom Wolf and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan effective Friday, April 27, 2018. Representative Meehan had previously announced he would not seek re-election …

Discussion: Washington Post, HuffPost, Political Wire, Talking Points Memo, MSNBC, Roll Call, The Guardian, Raw Story, The Daily Beast and Shareblue Media

Jonathan Tamari / Philly.com:
Rep. Pat Meehan resigns; will pay back $39,000 used for harassment settlement

Discussion: Politico, Axios and Mediaite

Melanie Zanona / The Hill:
Meehan resigns with promise to pay back alleged sexual harassment claim

Discussion: Roll Call

Choe Sang-Hun / New York Times:

North and South Korea Set Bold Goals: A Final Peace and No Nuclear Arms — SEOUL, South Korea — The leaders of North and South Korea agreed on Friday to work to remove all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula and, within the year, pursue talks with the United States to declare …

Associated Press:
Trump takes credit for Koreas' summit, declares ‘war to end’

Discussion: Politico and Axios

Avery Anapol / The Hill:
GOP lawmaker touts Nobel Peace Prize for Trump

Discussion: Axios, ABC News, Breitbart and Washington Times

Reuters:
Korean leaders aim for end of war, ‘complete denuclearization’ after historic summit

Discussion: CNN, Conservative Review, The Straits Times, Breitbart and IJR

CNN:

Several White House medical unit staffers describe pressure to hand out meds — Washington (CNN)The White House medical unit frequently functioned as a “grab and go” clinic where mid-level staffers to the most senior officials could obtain prescription drugs without being examined by a doctor …

Discussion: TheBlaze, CNBC, National Review, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, USA Today and The Nevada Independent

New York Times:

For Many, Life in Trump's Orbit Ends in a Crash Landing — WASHINGTON — Another day, another casualty. Or two. — By the time the sun set Thursday, Dr. Ronny L. Jackson was a failed cabinet nominee whose life had been picked apart for public consumption, and Michael D. Cohen was back in court facing possible criminal prosecution.

Discussion: MSNBC, The Week, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Raw Story

Catherine Rampell / Washington Post:
Trump is running America just like his businesses — right into the ground

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Jim Dwyer / New York Times:

Scenes Unseen: The Summer of '78 — Six months ago, a parks official cleaning out an office came across two cardboard boxes that had been sitting around for decades. — Inside were 2,924 color slides, pictures made in parks across New York City's five boroughs late in the summer of 1978.

Discussion: Balloon Juice

Jon Swaine / The Guardian:

Sean Hannity: 400% rise in eviction orders since host bought Georgia apartment complex — Records show 61 different residents have received notice to vacate their homes in Perry complex since Hannity took over in 2014 — The number of eviction orders obtained against tenants …

Discussion: Raw Story

Spencer S. Hsu / Washington Post:

U.S. judge tosses Paul Manafort suit seeking to bar special counsel Mueller from bringing future charges … A federal judge Friday dismissed a challenge brought by Paul Manafort to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's criminal probe of Russian interference in 2016 U.S. elections …

Josh Gerstein / Politico:
Judge tosses Manafort civil suit challenging special counsel

Discussion: ABC News

Associated Press:
Judge tosses Manafort civil suit challenging special counsel

Discussion: Axios

Richard Kim / The Nation:

The Very Specific 2006-ishness of Those Alleged Joy Reid Posts — I don't know if Reid wrote the posts in question, but it wouldn't surprise me if she, or any liberal blogger at the time, had. — If you haven't the foggiest notion of what this headline refers to and want to sail smoothly …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and CANNONFIRE

Kevin Poulsen / The Daily Beast:
Claims by Joy Reid's Cybersecurity Expert Fall Apart

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, Vox, Breitbart, Daily Wire, Splinter, Mediaite, Contemptor, twitchy.com, LGBTQ Nation and USA Today, more at Mediagazer »

Elizabeth Dias / New York Times:

House Chaplain Was Asked to Resign. He Still Doesn't Know Why. — The chaplain of the House said on Thursday that he was blindsided when Speaker Paul D. Ryan asked him to resign two weeks ago, a request that he complied with but was never given a reason for.

Jim Newell / Slate:
Why Did Paul Ryan Ax the House Chaplain?

Discussion: Washington Post, Friendly Atheist and The Hill

Bloomberg:

Will Cohen Flip? Tenuous Finances May Provide Crucial Clues — Taxes, loans, and collapsing medallion values take their toll — Does he have compromising information on Trump he can trade? — In the two weeks since federal agents seized the files of Michael Cohen …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Wall Street Journal

Ben Schreckinger / Politico:

Yiannopoulos' business implodes after death of crypto-billionaire — Running out of money and down on his luck, right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos laid off the small staff of Milo Entertainment Inc. earlier this month, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Discussion: Contemptor and The Daily Caller, more at Mediagazer »

Kyle Cheney / Politico:

Tenney's red-meat rhetoric alarms House Republicans — Rep. Claudia Tenney learned last week that she'd been outraised by her Democratic opponent for the second quarter in a row, a sign that her hold on a moderate upstate New York district is in peril. — But if GOP leaders thought …

Discussion: Washington Post and Political Wire

Los Angeles Times:

ICE held an American man in custody for 1,273 days. He's not the only one who had to prove his citizenship — Immigration officers in the United States operate under a cardinal rule: Keep your hands off Americans. — But Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents repeatedly target U.S. citizens …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Splinter

The Daily Beast:

Mick Mulvaney Met With Lobbyist Donors While at Trump White House … Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump's top budget and financial consumer watchdog, had a hierarchy of access in his former congressional office: first were constituents, then lobbyists who'd donated to his campaign, and then, at the bottom, lobbyists who hadn't.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, NPR, Center for Public Integrity, Common Dreams, New York Times and The Intercept

CNN:

The ex-con coal executive the GOP fears could be their nominee in West Virginia Senate race — Beckley, West Virginia (CNN)Watching Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship on the campaign trail, he does not immediately come across as someone his party leaders would be concerned about.

Discussion: Raw Story and Politico

Ken Ward Jr / Charleston Gazette-Mail: Coal extracted a steep price, now gas is taking WV down same path

Nicole Bitette / New York Daily News:

Rob Schneider thinks ‘Saturday Night Live’ is ruining the joke — “Saturday Night Live,” you can do it — better. — Comedian Rob Schneider burst out on the scene on “Saturday Night Live” in the 1990s, but nearly three decades later, he thinks the hit NBC comedy series is bursting …

Discussion: Breitbart, The Daily Caller, IndieWire, Raw Story, Daily Wire, Louder With Crowder and Althouse

Tim Mak / NPR:

Despite So Much Winning, The Right Feels Like It's Losing — Diamond and Silk caused a spectacle on Capitol Hill on Thursday. — “Facebook along with other social media sites have taken aggressive actions to silence conservative voices such as ourselves,” the pro-Trump social media stars charged.

Discussion: NBC News and Raw Story

Jason Schwartz / Politico:

The Puzzle of Sarah Huckabee Sanders — Sarah Huckabee Sanders is best known to the American public for running the White House daily briefing, a televised performance in which, without so much as raising her voice, the president's press secretary manages to deflect questions …

Discussion: Jezebel, Splinter, The Daily Caller and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Jeffrey Adam Sachs / Niskanen Center:

There Is No Campus Free Speech Crisis: A Close Look at the Evidence — The campus free speech debate is heating up. Last month I made the case (first in a Twitter thread and then again at the Washington Post's The Monkey Cage) that there is no campus free speech crisis.

Discussion: The Daily Signal

Marisa Guthrie / Hollywood Reporter:

Tom Brokaw Rips “Sensational” Accuser Claims: I Was “Ambushed and Then Perp Walked” — The revered NBC News anchor accused of unwanted advances pens a strenuous denial and defense of his legacy. — Tom Brokaw, the NBC News anchor who has served as a distinguished anchor emeritus since stepping …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, HuffPost, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, Variety and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

Mark Penn / The Hill:

Comey, Mueller and the poisonous tree — It is a strange and curious America that fêtes a former FBI director who was fired from his job after exceeding his authority in ways that two presidential campaigns condemned, and who then leaked confidential memos about a president he clearly despises.