memeorandum: Special counsel's Russia probe loses top FBI investigator (Mike Levine/ABC News)

5:40 PM ET, August 16, 2017

Top Items:

Trump Ends C.E.O. Advisory Councils as Main Group Acts to Disband — President Trump's main council of top corporate leaders disbanded on Wednesday following the president's controversial remarks in which he equated white nationalist hate groups with the protesters opposing them.

CNBC:

Top CEOs jump from Trump, disband strategic council of corporate giants — Members of President Donald Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum have agreed to disband the group, sources told CNBC, as corporate backlash mounts against the president. — The business advisory council …

Discussion: Weekly Standard, The Atlantic, Engadget, Lawyers, Guns & Money, TheStreet, GeekWire, The Daily Caller, Mashable, The Verge, Washington Free Beacon, The Week, Mediaite, Business Insider and New York's PIX11, more at Techmeme »

Bloomberg:
Trump Ends Business Councils as CEOs Turn Against President

Discussion: Business Insider, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, IJR and The Gateway Pundit

CNNMoney:
White House business panels collapse as CEOs flee Trump

Discussion: WTVR-TV and Mother Jones

Mike Allen / Axios:
Top Trump business group to disband amid Charlottesville tumult

Discussion: Raw Story

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

What Steve Bannon thinks about Charlottesville — On Tuesday night, while Gary Cohn was fuming about President Trump's latest comments, Steve Bannon was excitedly telling friends and associates that the “globalists” were in mass freakout mode. — Today, Bannon reveled in the disbanding …

Discussion: Political Wire and Washington Free Beacon

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Trump's Aides Tried to Conceal His Crazy, Racist Beliefs From the Country — Donald Trump's aides have been angry with him frequently — indeed, usually — since the beginning of his presidential campaign. But they have rarely registered their dismay as nakedly as they did Tuesday night …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

New York Times:
Trump Gives White Supremacists an Unequivocal Boost

Molly Ball / The Atlantic:
‘The President Was Entirely Correct’

Discussion: Shareblue, ABC News, AOL, Daily Kos, Washington Free Beacon, Shakesville, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller, The Week and Political Wire

Mike Allen / Axios:
If a top Trump aide leaves, it could ‘start a run on the bank’

Discussion: Zero Hedge, Shareblue, CNN, Common Dreams and Business Insider

Asawin Suebsaeng / The Daily Beast:
Steve Bannon's Ideological Allies Inside the White House Are Souring on Him

Discussion: Raw Story

Bloomberg:
Trump Drags GOP Onto Dangerous Ground, This Time Over Race

Discussion: CNN, Shareblue, CBS News, NPR, The Hill, Fox News, CBS San Francisco, Weekly Standard, Talking Points Memo, ThinkProgress, AOL, New York Times, The Atlantic and NBC News

Matt Latimer / Politico:
Time for My Fellow Republicans to Stand Up and Be Counted

Discussion: Washington Post and The Week

Josh Dawsey / Politico:
White House aides wrestle with Trump's race comments

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Associated Press, Business Insider and The Week

Sarah Jones / New Republic:

Liberals Helped Create Trump's New Bogeyman, the “Alt-Left” — The term was coined by the right-wing as a slur. Then it was adopted by the left's would-be allies. — President Donald Trump on Tuesday introduced a new nemesis to join the “fake news” media, Crooked Hillary, and Mexican rapists: the alt-left.

Discussion: The Stranger …, FAIR, Mashable and Liberal Values

Vice News:

Trump still hasn't called the Charlottesville mayor — President Donald Trump still hasn't called the mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, about the violence that swept through the city during a white supremacist rally over the weekend. — “He was supposed to call me on Saturday,” …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, New York Post, RedState and The Hill

The Definitive Source:
How to describe extremists who rallied in Charlottesville

Discussion: Washington Post, BuzzFeed, naked capitalism, Business Insider, The Week and Political Wire, more at Mediagazer »

Liam Stack / New York Times:
Alt-Right, Alt-Left, Antifa: A Glossary of Extremist Language

Discussion: The Verge, #MarchOnGoogle, Althouse, Mashable, The Daily Caller, Scared Monkeys, The Week, CNN, Business Insider, Instapundit and Jewish Telegraphic Agency, more at Techmeme »

Amber Randall / The Daily Caller:
Antifa Protesters Crash Heather Heyer's Funeral

Discussion: John Hawkins' Right Wing News and TheBlaze

Mike Levine / ABC News:

Special counsel's Russia probe loses top FBI investigator — One of the FBI's top investigators, tapped by special counsel Robert Mueller just weeks ago to help lead the probe of Russian meddling in last year's presidential election, has left Mueller's team, sources tell ABC News.

Discussion: RedState, Business Insider, Washington Free Beacon, Talking Points Memo, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, IJR and Politicus USA

Joe Uchill / The Hill:
High-ranking FBI official leaves Russia probe

Discussion: Raw Story

Robert Tracinski / The Federalist:

Donald Trump Needs To Not Be President Yesterday — We're done with the “Well, maybe it won't be so bad and we should take what we can get” phase of this administration. It's time for the “He's a disaster and needs to go” phase. For everybody's good, Donald Trump needs to not be president …

Discussion: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Independent and Outside the Beltway

David Ferguson / Raw Story:

'I'm terrified': Neo-Nazi blubbers like a baby in video reporting he's wanted for arrest in Charlottesville — Neo-Nazi Christopher Cantwell — who was one of the “Unite the Right” Charlottesville marchers interviewed by Vice.com — released a weepy, rambling video of himself discussing …

Discussion: Business Insider, Daily Mail, Towleroad and Vice News

The Times of Israel:

Yair Netanyahu says leftists more dangerous than neo-Nazis — Echoing Trump, PM's son claims ‘thugs of Antifa and Black Lives Matter are getting stronger’ while Nazis are a thing of the past — The son of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said American left-wing groups are more dangerous than neo-Nazis.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Jerusalem Post, NPR and israpundit.org

Baltimore Sun:

Confederate monuments taken down in Baltimore overnight — Confederate statues in Baltimore were removed from their bases overnight, as crews using heavy machinery loaded them onto flat bed trucks and hauled them away, an end to more than a year of indecision surrounding what to do with the memorials.

New York Times:
Baltimore Removes Confederate Statues; Mayor Cites Public Safety

Discussion: Washington Post, CNN, Daily Kos, Gothamist, The Daily Caller, Mashable, FiveThirtyEight, Business Insider, The Root, Washington Free Beacon, Axios, Shareblue, The Week and Althouse

CJ Hunt / GQ:
A Charlottesville White Supremacist Stripped Down to Escape Protesters and We Got It on Video

Discussion: The Root

Emily Shapiro / ABC News:
Confederate monuments taken down in Baltimore overnight

Discussion: Power Line and CANNONFIRE

Joel B. Pollak / Breitbart:
Threats Force Hollywood Cemetery to Remove Confederate Memorial

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Infowars and John Hawkins' Right Wing News

Courtney Kube / NBC News:

Right-Winger Jack Posobiec, Retweeted by Trump, Is Navy Intel Officer — WASHINGTON — A right-wing activist who brought attention to debunked conspiracy theories — and who gained new prominence when he was retweeted by President Donald Trump this week — is a U.S. naval intelligence officer detailed …

Discussion: Raw Story and Politicus USA

Marist Poll:

8/16: Trump at Lowest Point With 35% Job Approval Rating... Crack at the Base — President Donald Trump's job approval rating is at its lowest point since taking office with only 35% of Americans giving him a positive score. — President Donald Trump's job approval rating …

Discussion: AOL, TheBlaze, Washington Post, Politicus USA, Monmouth University, Political Wire and Washington Times

Domenico Montanaro / NPR:

Poll: Majority Believes Trump's Response To Charlottesville Hasn't Been Strong Enough — A majority of Americans thinks President Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville was “not strong enough,” according to a NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. — Fifty-two percent of respondents said so …

Ashley Jardina / Washington Post: White identity politics isn't just about white supremacy. It's much bigger.

Kevin D. Williamson / National Review:

Angry White Boys — What do the white nationalists actually want? — W — hat is it these white boys are so angry about? — You don't go to a protest because you're happy. You go to a protest because you are mad about something or, in my case, because it is your job.

Discussion: Weekly Standard and The Week

Matt Wilstein / The Daily Beast:

Fox's Abby Huntsman Humiliates Herself as Guests Weep Over ‘Morally Bankrupt’ Trump … What's a Fox & Friends host to do when they desperately want to push President Donald Trump's narrative the “both sides” are to blame for Charlottesville, but their guests want to talk about what's really going on in America right now?

Discussion: Mediaite, ThinkProgress, Political Wire and The Week

Manu Raju / CNN:

Source: McConnell upset at Trump over latest Charlottesville comments — STORY HIGHLIGHTS — (CNN)Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been publicly silent so far over President Donald Trump's latest remarks on Charlottesville, is privately upset with the President's handling of the episode …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Business Insider and Mediaite