Some fascinating reporting here by Tierney Sneed. This is probably Paul Manafort’s last week before he goes to jail.
We’re roughly halfway through primary season and we’re starting to get a sense of who the candidates in many key races will be. The midterms are just five months away. Have questions about how things are looking for the Democrats’ bid to win control of the House? Wondering which Senate races are most critical?
Our senior political correspondent Cameron Joseph has answers.
Send your election-related questions our way through email, or post them in the Hive. We’ll select one each week (more or less) for Cameron to respond to.
There are certain frameworks and situations in the law in which it does not matter why something happened, it simply matters that something has demonstrably happened, to establish the point, making the finding or act. I have thought for some time that we face a similar situation with the man who currently holds the U.S. Presidency. Over the course of 16+ months, President Trump has acted consistently and with some success to destabilize and break up the western alliance (both its formal manifestation in NATO) but also its less formal dimensions in trade and other partnerships. He has also worked consistently on really every front to advance the interests of Russia. Read More
I had a fascinating conversation yesterday with Gen. Michael Hayden, who you likely remember as President Bush’s CIA Chief. He was NSA Director in the late Clinton administration, continued in that role under Bush. Bush later made him CIA Director and he served briefly in that role under Obama. As a top intelligence official through Bush’s two terms he was at the center of all the controversies about rendition, warrantless surveillance, drone attacks, etc. He now appears an ardent Never Trumper, though I don’t think he applies that term to himself. He has a new book out called The Assault on Intelligence. We talked about a number of issues, including what someone does in a career as an Air Force intelligence officer. But the one that interested me most was how the Russians honed their ‘information dominance’ strategies first in Russia and then in Eastern Europe and then in US pre to 2016, amplifying Ebola hysteria and playing a key role playing up the Jade Helm hysteria back in 2014, which TPMers will remember from our coverage. Listen to the conversation here.
Local TV interview in Chicago …
Mangiante Papadopoulos, 34, said her husband never acted in a way to collude with Russia to meddle with the election. “I have more ties to Russia than he does,” she stated during the I-Team interview.
Goudie: “What are your ties to Russia?
Mangiante Papadopoulos: “No, I was joking. I’ve been to Russia for work, I have visited Russia, I have a few friends in Russia, so I was joking saying I have more ties to Russia than George.”
For your light summer day reading, Emmanuel Macron is still working, seemingly successfully, to overawe President Trump with muscular handshakes. Even to the point of leaving a mark. Pictures in order after the jump. Read More
In the aftermath of what can only be called the debacle of the G-7 Summit this photograph is rapidly taking on an iconic significance.
(Click through to the full post to see a larger version of the photo or click the photo itself for a fullscreen version.) Read More
Trump Trade Advisor Peter Navarro saying there’s a “special place in hell” for Justin Trudeau and claiming he stabbed President Trump in the back is understandably getting all the attention. But it’s worth listening to the rest of the tirade. Here’s part of it.
“President Trump did the courtesy to Justin Trudeau to travel up to Quebec for that summit. He had other things, bigger things on his plate in Singapore where you are now, Chris. He did him a favor, and he was even willing to sign that socialist communique, and what did Trudeau do? As soon as the plane took off from Canadian airspace Trudeau stuck our president in the back. That will not stand. And as far as this retaliation goes, the American press needs to do a much better job of what the Canadians are getting ready to do because it’s nothing short of an attack on our political system and it’s nothing short of Canada trying to raise its high protectionest barriers even higher on things like maple syrup and other goods.” Read More
If you’re hankering for an interesting discussing this Sunday afternoon, check out my conversation with Gen. Mike Hayden (former head of the NSA and CIA under Clinton and Bush). We talk about his intelligence career, what military intelligence officers do, information warfare and how Russia was field testing their information operations in 2014 and 2016, in advance of what they did in the 2016 campaign. In fact, as he explains, they’re continuing to amplify President Trump’s attacks on NFL players like Colin Kaepernick. Down to today. Fascinating conversation about these and other topics. Listen to it here in the latest episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast.