Comey: “I’ve been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI as part of our counterintelligence mission is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
The significance is all in the final clause. This is a continuing investigation – last issue is not resolved.
We’ve seen a few drop-offs in support for President Trump since he took office two months ago. But they’ve mainly rebounded to a relative stability with a high single digit deficit in public approval. This is his steepest dive to date.
Two weeks ago today, President Trump went on Twitter and leveled a series of accusations against former President Obama, most notably that Obama had wiretapped his phones in Trump Tower. The claim has been roundly criticized ever since. Notably, it came on the heels of a new round of damaging revelations about ties between Trump’s entourage and Russia. We’ve now had formal inquiries from the congressional intelligence committees, statements from the Department of Justice and the FBI, a follow on attempt by Trump and Spicer to redefine what the President actually said.
This is a fascinating and significant development. John Podesta is supporting Tom Perriello over Lt Gov. Ralph Northam as Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia.
As Allegra Kirkland notes here, the remaining defenders of President Trump’s preposterous Obama wiretapping claim now find themselves out on a limb. But let’s also note the media’s responsibility for perpetuating this farce. Even today, I continue to hear that there is “as yet no evidence” for Trump’s claims. This is not remotely the normal way anyone discusses things like this.
Lyric Thompson is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). She leads the institution’s formulation of evidence-based policy recommendations and manages ICRW’s advocacy efforts with the US Government and internationally. Lyric serves as co-chair of the Girls Not Brides USA advocacy coalition working to end child marriage, on the steering committee of the Coalition to End Gender-Based Violence Globally, the board of the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area, the Executive Committee of the Civil Society Working Group on Women, Peace and Security and the board of the Community Center for Integrated Development of Cameroon.
Lyric will join us for a chat about all things relating to women’s health and policy. Feel free to submit questions about policy changes at home, abroad, the future of women’s health and her work on ending child marriage here by Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. EST. If you’d like to participate but don’t have TPM Prime, sign up here.
Speaker Paul Ryan just gave two back to back live interviews on MSNBC (Meet the Press Daily) and CNN (Wolf Blitzer). He struck me as agitated and defensive, occasionally verging on sarcastic. They weren’t great interviews. I’m tempted to call them meltdowns. But that’s probably overstated; I’m going to wait to hear what others think. What I will say is that, having heard Ryan make his case, I think he and his bill may be in a worse position than I realized.
There’s a very good story out today from Bloomberg chronicling the flow of money from the former Soviet Union into real estate ventures built by or licensed with the name of Donald Trump. In this case most of what we are talking about is not investment in projects or loans to fund them but the purchase of individual apartments units – though sometimes in bulk – in Trump branded or owned buildings. This is a story we and others have told you. But this new article firms the story up considerably with a new level of detail.
Oh, top Trump White House foreign policy official Sebastian Gorka is a sworn member of a Nazi-backed far-right group in Hungary, according to members of the group itself.