memeorandum: Exclusive: U.S. Justice Dept. subpoenas Wall Street banks for small business loans info

9:35 AM ET, May 16, 2020

Top Items:

Trump ousts State Department watchdog — President Donald Trump has removed State Department Inspector General Steve Linick and replaced him with an ally of Vice President Mike Pence — the latest in a series of moves against independent government watchdogs in recent months.

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Post, NBC News, IJR, Raw Story, The Guardian, Breitbart, Axios and Mediaite

CNN:

State Department inspector general becomes the latest watchdog fired by Trump — (CNN)President Donald Trump on Friday fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, the latest in a series of dismissals of independent government watchdogs that have come in the wake of the President's acquittal …

Discussion: Politico and Lawyers, Guns & Money

House Foreign Affairs Committee:

Engel Statement on the Firing of Inspector General Linick — Washington—Representative Eliot L. Engel, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, this evening made the following statement on the President's removal of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick:

Discussion: Letters from an American and Balloon Juice

Michele Kelemen / NPR:

Trump Removes State Department Inspector General Steve Linick — President Trump is ousting State Department Inspector General, Steve Linick, extending a string of administration firings of government watchdogs. — The president sent notice of Linick's removal, effective in 30 days, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday.

Discussion: New York Times, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Raw Story

Conor Finnegan / ABC News:

Trump fires IG said to be investigating Pompeo, involved in impeachment probe — Inspector General Steve Linick will be replaced by a Trump appointee. — The White House fired the State Department Inspector General late Friday, according to a State Department spokesperson …

Matthew Lee / Associated Press:
Pompeo fires State Dept. watchdog critical of Trump moves

Discussion: Raw Story

Natasha Korecki / Politico:

‘Manipulative, deceitful, user’: Tara Reade left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances — Harriet Wrye did a double take the first time she saw Tara Reade on television lodging sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden. — “Jim, that's Tara,” the 79-year-old author and psychologist called …

Discussion: Law & Crime, NB Blog and Spectator USA

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

New Reporting Increases Doubts on Tara Reade's Allegation Against Joe Biden — When Tara Reade first made her assault allegation against Joe Biden, I thought the charge was more likely to be true than false. To be clear, I had no intention of changing my vote.

Discussion: The Atlantic, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, Washington Times, Twitchy, Law & Crime, Washington Monthly and PBS NewsHour

Katie Glueck / New York Times: How the Biden Campaign Aims to Win Battleground States

Carrie Campbell Severino / National Review:

The Woke Left's Assault on the Rule of Law — Ever since Donald Trump's election, liberal judges have aligned themselves with the political “resistance,” holding this administration to a different standard from its predecessors. As I have written before, we have seen this trend …

CNN: Behind the Justice Department's split over the Flynn dismissal

Wall Street Journal:
Justice Department, State Attorneys General Likely to Bring Antitrust Lawsuits Against Google

Discussion: archive.is, New York Times, Politico, Breitbart, The Wrap, The Verge and Raw Story, more at Techmeme »

Koh Gui Qing / Reuters:
Exclusive: U.S. Justice Dept. subpoenas Wall Street banks for small business loans info - sources

Discussion: The Hill

New York Times:

A Sitting President, Riling the Nation During a Crisis — By smearing his opponents, championing conspiracy theories and pursuing vendettas, President Trump has reverted to his darkest political tactics in spite of a pandemic hurting millions of Americans.

Discussion: Raw Story

Washington Post:

Trump sets goal of hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses by January, but scientists doubt it — Some warn it's dangerous to set a timetable, given the scientific unknowns and the danger of rushing testing. — President Trump formally unveiled an initiative Friday afternoon aimed …

CNBC:
Trump downplays the need for coronavirus vaccine: 'It'll go away at some point'

Discussion: NaturalNews.com

Associated Press:
NIH director: Large-scale vaccine testing expected by July

Discussion: New York Times

Manu Raju / CNN:

GOP congressman on why he's not wearing a mask: 'There's just no need' — Washington (CNN)Republican Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida was spotted Friday walking around the Capitol and on the House floor without wearing a mask. — Asked why not, he told CNN: “There's just no need.”

Discussion: The Hill and Talking Points Memo

CNN: House approves $3 trillion Covid aid bill and historic rules change to allow remote voting

Mike DeBonis / Washington Post:
House changes its rules during pandemic, allowing remote voting for the first time in its 231-year history

Discussion: Roll Call, The Hill and New York Times

Politico:
As crisis continues, an anxious House returns to Washington

Discussion: Washington Post

Associated Press:
Democrats push new $3T coronavirus relief bill through House

Discussion: WHYY

Washington Post:

Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths — For two months, President Trump repeatedly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus, asking would-be patients “What the hell do you have to lose?”

Discussion: Houston Chronicle

CNN:

‘He lied on national television’: Trump says truckers protesting industry problems are actually honking to support him — This is what brings out Trump's inner child — Washington (CNN)When blaring truck horns intruded on President Donald Trump's Friday speech in the White House Rose Garden …

Discussion: IJR

Stephanie M. Lee / BuzzFeed News:

JetBlue's Founder Helped Fund A Stanford Study That Said The Coronavirus Wasn't That Deadly — A highly influential coronavirus antibody study was funded in part by David Neeleman, the JetBlue Airways founder and a vocal proponent of the idea that the pandemic isn't deadly enough to justify continued lockdowns.

Corinne Gretler / Bloomberg:

Tobacco-Based Coronavirus Vaccine Poised for Human Tests — First phase of clinical trials could begin as early as June — Tobacco-made vaccine would contrast with other health effects — An experimental Covid-19 vaccine developed by cigarette maker British American Tobacco Plc is poised to begin testing in humans.

Victoria F. Piccoli / ODNI Newsroom:

Director of National Intelligence Announces Changes to Election Security Briefings — WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the ODNI announced that the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) will lead all intelligence-based threat briefings to candidates, campaigns, and political organizations under the U.S. Government's notification framework.

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit

New York Times:
Intelligence Chief Reduces Size of Counterterrorism Office

Discussion: ODNI Newsroom and Axios

Barbara Sprunt / NPR:

Trump, Unveiling Space Force Flag, Touts What He Calls New ‘Super-Duper Missile’ — President Trump held an Oval Office ceremony Friday to sign the 2020 Armed Forces Day Proclamation and unveil the official flag of the Space Force, the newest military branch.

Discussion: Gizmodo, POLITICUSUSA and Highly Transmissible

Fox News:
Space Force flag unveiled in Oval Office, presented to Trump

Discussion: Associated Press, Deadline, ABC News and The Hill

Josh Feldman / Mediaite:

Dan Abrams: Based on All We Know Right Now, ‘This Obamagate Theory Is 100 Percent Bullsh*t’ — Mediaite founder and ABC News chief legal analyst Dan Abrams went on a tear during his SiriusXM show Friday calling the idea of the “Obamagate' scandal “100 percent bullshit.

Discussion: Daily Kos

New York Times:

Now More Than Ever, Facebook Is a ‘Mark Zuckerberg Production’ — For years, he was an obsessive C.E.O. in some ways, distant in others. Then Facebook's problems became too acute to leave to anyone else. — SAN FRANCISCO — On Jan. 27, at a regularly scheduled Monday morning meeting …

Annie Palmer / CNBC:

Amazon declines to commit to Jeff Bezos testimony in Congress — Amazon said it would “make the appropriate executive available” in response to requests from the House Judiciary Committee for its CEO Jeff Bezos to testify. — Earlier this month, top Democrats on the committee demanded …

Discussion: Politico

Brian Schwartz / CNBC:

Mike Bloomberg plots spending blitz to support Joe Biden's run for president — Billionaire and former presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg is plotting a massive spending blitz to back Joe Biden's quest for the White House. — The former New York mayor and his advisors are discussing whether …

Mike Baker / New York Times:

F.D.A. Halts Coronavirus Testing Program Backed by Bill Gates — The program allows people in the Seattle area to easily take a coronavirus test at home. Researchers say such testing is essential for future monitoring of the virus. — SEATTLE — An innovative coronavirus testing program …

Discussion: Raw Story and Marginal REVOLUTION

ProPublica:

Two Coasts. One Virus. How New York Suffered Nearly 10 Times the Number of Deaths as California. — California's governor and San Francisco's mayor worked together to act early in confronting the COVID threat. For Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, it was a different story, and 27,000 New Yorkers have died so far.

Fox News:

Trump set to restore partial funding to WHO after pause to investigate coronavirus response — “TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT” EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration is on the brink of restoring some funding to the World Health Organization, a month after the president announced that it would be suspended …

Discussion: Bloomberg, New York Post and Breitbart

Paul Waldman / Washington Post:

Michael Flynn isn't a martyr. He's a crook and a crackpot. — For anyone with a memory that stretches all the way back to 2016, it is positively bizarre to see Republicans suddenly claiming that Michael Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, is a martyr.

Discussion: PREVAIL