Jim Zeigler is the Alabama State Auditor who has recast the core narratives of the Gospels as a sort of barely legal dime novel as a way to justify the alleged actions of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. “Zechariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.” Read More

This new story about Michael Flynn possibly negotiating to kidnap a legal American resident and exfiltrate him to Turkey is wild and really requires close attention. We had heard some time ago that this idea of kidnapping Fetullah Gulen had been discussed or perhaps hypothesized. But now we are hearing that Michael Flynn and perhaps his son were actively negotiating with Turkish interests about doing this during the transition. Read More

As I mentioned Thursday, we have four open positions we are currently hiring for at TPM, one an existing but vacant position and three new positions: Senior Editor, Prime Editor, Assistant Editor and a third reporter to join our Investigations Desk team. Today we’re posting our listing for our Assistant Editor position.

Listing after the jump. Read More

A lot of Flynn threads are emerging in rapid succession that suggests a much broader and wilder universe of criminal wrongdoing. Here’s my backgrounder (sub req) on what might be coming.

I’m getting a lot of new information about the AT&T/Time Warner acquisition and what the Trump White House is up to. If you know things, please contact me at our comment email address under our logo. I can also provide secure means of communication.

Fascinating piece here in the Times applying some Times level sleuthing to shed more light on those Papadopoulos court documents from last week. We get some idea of the backstory of Joseph Mifsud, apparently a failing and shambling academic career that was on its final skid when Russians showed up in 2014 with money and newfound respectability, an old story. Other gaps of the story are filled in. But the big one is Stephen Miller. Read More

Celebrate TPM’s 17th Anniversary by signing up for TPM Prime. No, really! Sign up. And yes, it’s our 17th anniversary, which is somewhat amazing. Another great way to celebrate is checking out our four current job listings: Senior Editor, Prime Editor, Assistant Editor and Investigations Desk Reporter.

I spent a bit of Friday afternoon watching an interview the Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin did with Randall Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T. I was watching because of my deep interest in what is happening with the Trump Justice Department and AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner. Stephenson was very careful not to touch Trump’s potential role in this – unsurprisingly. Ross Sorkin wasn’t that aggressive in pressing. The weirdness confirms me in what I wrote here (sub req).

But there’s something else that came up that I wanted to flag. Read More

Just to state it explicitly, there is absolutely no way Roy Moore is going to sue the Washington Post over their reporting on his dating teenagers when he was in his early thirties. This is likely obvious to most. But I wanted to make it clear in case there’s any question. As a public figure, the standard Moore would have to meet to sustain a suit is all be impossible. Particularly, as a candidate in a major election, his behavior is inherently newsworthy and closest to the more civically important forms of speech. Even if you assume for the sake of conversation that all the accusers are lying, that wouldn’t be enough for Moore to win a suit. Since he is a public figure he would have to show actual malice in the Post’s reporting. That essentially means that the Post knew the allegations were false or had a reckless disregard for the truth, simply didn’t care. The depth of the sourcing which is visible in the story makes that all but impossible. Moore knows all this. This is just a way to signal to low information voters or ones desperate to believe him that he’s fighting the charges rather than admitting their truth. He’s not suing anyone.