I’m excited to announce three new members of the TPM team who will be joining us over the course of June. Two of these new hires fill existing positions left open by people who’ve either been promoted within TPM or left the organization for new opportunities. One is the first member of our new Investigations Desk, an important new TPM initiative that will grow over the coming weeks with new hires.

Let me introduce them to you after the jump. Read More

There’s an article in the Times today about how US cyberwarfare, used to such great effect against Iran and North Korea, has been a relative disappointment against ISIS. Part of the issue seems to be that ISIS’s use of technology is more basic and mundane, though not necessarily less effective. They’re not running major industrial projects like massive installations of centrifuges or missile design programs. Much of the stuff isn’t that different from running a website. Break it down and it’s easy enough to build back up.  But down below the lede in the Times story is this fascinating detail.

One of the stand-out cyber-warfare or spying feats against ISIS was carried out by Israel. And it was that operation that President Trump blabbed to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak. Read More

I know it is a bit annoying to hear from me again and again about this. But we are in the midst of our annual membership drive. And it is critical that we convert as many of our regular readers as possible to paying subscribers. If you’re a daily visitor, if you’ve thought about it but put it off, please make today the day. Click here to sign up. Doing it makes a big difference. Doing it today rather than next week or next month is a big deal because it allows us to meet our sign up targets quickly, make plans on that basis and go back to focusing on reporting the news. Click here.

Ann Hornaday, formerly of the Baltimore Sun, Austin American-Statesman and New York Times, is a film critic for the Washington Post. She was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2008. Ann will be in The Hive on Friday, June 16th at 1 PM EST for a chat about movies and film critique. Submit your questions at any time or feel free to join us on Friday! If you’d like to participate but don’t have TPM Prime, sign up here.

A short while ago on her new MSNBC show, Nicole Wallace was asking whether all of the focus on things that happened around the turnover of the administrations (say, December 2016 to February 2017) isn’t misplaced. What about the much more out in the open events that happened earlier in the year, like that never explained change to the GOP platform? This raised in my mind a slightly different point.  Read More

Seven big questions for Attorney General Jeff Sessions today, as he faces the Senate intelligence committee after Comey.

Remember, in Trumpland, it’s corruption all the way down. It’s the default action. This morning Jesse Eisenger and TPM alum Jusin Elliot break the news that Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz bragged to friends that he got New York US Attorney Preet Bharara fired. Kasowitz reportedly told Trump, “This guy is going to get you.”

For the purposes of today, whoever’s idea it was, whoever made it happen, the actual firing had to come down from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Huge breakthrough from President Trump. He’s finally hit 60% disapproval in the Gallup daily approval tracking poll. He almost got there in March, peaking at 59% disapproval on March 28th. But this is a new record and I guess a new decile?

In the Senate right now, Republicans are making rapid progress on repealing Obamacare and forcing more than twenty million Americans off the health care coverage rolls. They’re doing it by making a mockery of almost the entire legislative process. The law they’ve written is secret, even apparently from most Republican Senators. It will remain secret until after a score is released by the CBO. Then, presumably, it will be rushed for an immediate vote before anyone has had a chance to even look at the law or what it does. President Trump will sign it. And it will be done.

This is awful. But, really, stop saying it’s awful. Read More

3:23 PM: Sessions appears to invoke executive privilege not to comment on whether pardons have been discussed. (Executive privilege seems to have become the privilege that dare not speak its name.)

3:20 PM: Sessions says his recusal had nothing to do with his actions, but only the fact that he was an top advisor to the campaign. But he recused himself the day after his meetings with Ambassador Kislyak were first reported. Seems odd.

3:07 PM: “The people of this country expect an honest and transparent government and that’s what we’re giving them.”

3:04 PM: It seems like Attorney General Sessions had a somewhat different understanding of ‘recusal’ than a lot of the rest of us.

2:59 PM: Sessions’ statement is vehement but I confess a bit hard to follow.

2:48 PM: “Just the beginning of our interaction with you and your department.” Hrrrmmm.

2:45 PM: I would not say Burr sounds hostile. But if I’m Sessions, I’m not feeling the love.

2:40 PM: And here we go …