memeorandum: The FBI Has “Grave Concerns”? So Do I (John Hinderaker/Power Line)

10:25 PM ET, January 31, 2018

Top Items:

CNN:

Exclusive: Trump asked Rosenstein if he was ‘on my team’ — Washington (CNN)Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein visited the White House in December seeking President Donald Trump's help. The top Justice Department official in the Russia investigation wanted Trump's support …

Bloomberg:

FBI's Wray Opposes GOP Memo Release, Citing Inaccuracies — Trump overheard saying memo ‘100 percent’ should be released — Republicans say memo raises doubts about Russia probe — FBI Director Christopher Wray has informed the White House of his opposition to releasing a controversial …

Adam B. Schiff / Washington Post:

Rep. Nunes's memo crosses a dangerous line — Adam B. Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, represents California's 28th District. — Even during the most difficult of times, when Congress had seemingly lost the capacity to govern and partisan storms raged across Capitol Hill …

Discussion: Bloomberg, CNBC, The Daily Caller, Media Matters for America, Mediaite, Politico and Washington Free Beacon

Federal Bureau of Investigation:

FBI Statement on HPSCI Memo — The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.

Discussion: UPI, Fox News, CNN, Business Insider, TheBlaze, Mediaite and Media Matters for America

John Hinderaker / Power Line:

The FBI Has “Grave Concerns”? So Do I — Most of us are eagerly awaiting the release of the House Intelligence Committee's memo on abuse of the FBI by the Obama administration. It should happen in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, the Bureau is worried, as always, about its public image.

Discussion: Associated Press

Alex Pappas / Fox News:

John Kelly says anti-military teacher should ‘go to hell,’ vows swift memo release in interview — White House chief of staff John Kelly, in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News Radio, said the California teacher who has made headlines for bashing the military in a profane classroom rant should …

Discussion: Washington Post, Axios, Truth Uncensored, Whittier Daily News, Politico, twitchy.com, No More Mister Nice Blog and Weekly Standard

Noah Bookbinder / Politico:

Trump's Saturday Night Massacre Is Happening Right Before Our Eyes — The FBI issued an extraordinary statement on Wednesday, pushing back on the release of a partisan congressional memo alleging the bureau used improper evidence to obtain legal permission to surveil a Trump campaign adviser.

Discussion: CNN, Washington Post and Business Insider

U.S. House of Representatives Permanent …:

Nunes Statement on FBI, DOJ Objections to Release of HPSCI Memo — f t # e — House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes issued the following statement today: — “Having stonewalled Congress' demands for information for nearly a year, it's no surprise …

Discussion: RedState, The Gateway Pundit, Truth Uncensored, The Last Refuge, IJR and Business Insider

New York Times:
F.B.I. Condemns Push to Release Secret Republican Memo

Discussion: CNBC, Reuters, Mother Jones and Daily Kos

Allegra Kirkland / Talking Points Memo:
FBI Publicly Savages Nunes Memo For ‘Material Omissions Of Fact’

Discussion: Politico, Vox, Washington Post, twitchy.com, IJR, Joe.My.God. and The Week

Betsy Woodruff / The Daily Beast:
FBI Launches Preemptive Strike on Nunes Memo

HuffPost: What A Year This Month Has Been — All of these things happened in January 2018.

Ashley Parker / Washington Post:
The month of January felt like a year and the pilot episode for the 12-part series to come

Discussion: American Prospect

Washington Post:
Trump-FBI feud over classified memo erupts into open conflict

Discussion: Mother Jones, Washington Times, The Hill, Vox, bizpacreview.com, Fox News Insider and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Orin Kerr / Lawfare:
The Dubious Legal Claim Behind #ReleaseTheMemo

Discussion: Washington Post and Daily Kos

Mike Levine / ABC News:
DOJ gives special counsel internal docs on thwarted Sessions resignation, source says

Discussion: Washington Post, Reuters, Associated Press, The Week, Daily Kos, RedState and Axios

Eric Boehlert / Shareblue Media:
In rare public rebuke, FBI humiliates GOP for Mueller smear campaign

Discussion: Raw Story

Katie Bo Williams / The Hill:
FBI warns it has ‘grave concerns’ about omissions in Nunes memo

Discussion: Townhall.com

New York Times:

Mueller Zooms In on Trump Tower Cover Story — WASHINGTON — Aboard Air Force One on a flight home from Europe last July, President Trump and his advisers raced to cobble together a news release about a mysterious meeting at Trump Tower the previous summer between Russians and top Trump campaign officials.

Discussion: Politicus USA, Raw Story and Mediaite

CNN:

Exclusive: Controversial FBI agent co-wrote initial draft of explosive Comey letter reopening Clinton email probe — GOP Rep.: FBI texts most biased I've ever seen — Washington (CNN)Emails obtained by CNN show the FBI agent at the center of a Capitol Hill storm played a key role …

Discussion: Vox, RedState, Washington Examiner, Shareblue Media, Business Insider, ThinkProgress, TheBlaze, New York Magazine, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, bizpacreview.com, AOL, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, Raw Story, The Week, Daily Kos, Joe.My.God. and Axios

Wall Street Journal:

FBI Officials Knew of New Clinton Emails Weeks Before Alerting Congress — Andrew McCabe learned of thousands of emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop at least a month before alerting lawmakers — Top FBI officials were aware for at least a month before alerting Congress …

Discussion: Axios, Reason, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, Washington Post and LewRockwell

Bryan Lowry / Kansas City Star:

Josh Hawley blames sex trafficking on ‘sexual revolution’ of 1960s in leaked audio — During a speech to pastors in Kansas City in December, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley linked the problem of sex trafficking to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. — Hawley, the top Republican prospect …

Discussion: Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, Shareblue Media, ThinkProgress, The Week and thecut

Judd Legum / ThinkProgress:

Signature line from Trump's speech is already a white nationalist rallying cry — Donald Trump's first State of the Union was a largely banal speech with few policy details and none of his signature asides and bravado. Overall, the reception to the speech has been cool.

Discussion: HuffPost, New York Times, Vox, CNN, Washington Times, Conservative Review, Business Insider, Right Wing Watch, Hullabaloo, Al Jazeera English, Raw Story, bizpacreview.com and Mother Jones

Monmouth University:

Trump Rating Ticks Up; Support for Tax Plan Increases — GOP gains on Dems in generic House ballot — West Long Branch, NJ - Donald Trump's job approval rating has bounced back from the record low registered in last month's Monmouth University Poll , as more Americans now see the president …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Breitbart, Politico, Fox News Insider, the daily howler, Business Insider and Washington Times

Evan Sernoffsky / San Francisco Chronicle:

SF will wipe thousands of marijuana convictions off the books — San Francisco will retroactively apply California's marijuana-legalization laws to past criminal cases, District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday — expunging or reducing misdemeanor and felony convictions going back decades.

Discussion: CNBC, The Daily Caller, ThinkProgress, Hit & Run, Splinter, The Week and Axios

Carter Sherman / VICE News:

EXCLUSIVE: Trump officials discussed “reversing” abortion for undocumented teen — The Trump administration official in charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement discussed trying to use a controversial, scientifically unproven method to reverse an undocumented teen's abortion, according to documents reviewed by VICE News.

Discussion: Splinter, Daily Kos, IJR, The Guardian, Raw Story and ThinkProgress

Robbie Gramer / Foreign Policy:

Kellyanne Conway Botched Trump Damage Control Meeting With African Ambassadors — But Conway didn't discuss much on Africa at all, leaving participants bewildered. — In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's disparaging comments about immigration from countries he considered undesirable …

Discussion: Raw Story, ThinkProgress and Talking Points Memo

Ronald Brownstein / The Atlantic:

Trump Is Making 2018 Much Harder for Republicans — Like colliding storm systems, the three central dynamics shaping the 2018 electoral battlefield converged in President Trump's first State of the Union address on Tuesday. And control of Congress may turn on which one of these forces voters weigh most heavily.

Discussion: NBC News

Rachael Bade / Politico: Republicans see hope for midterms, despite Trump's unpopularity

Elizabeth Zwirz / Fox News:

Texas girl, 9, that Trump said he'd pray for, is out of ICU after brain surgery, family says — On behalf of President Trump, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders asked the nation on Jan. 23 to pray for a little girl in Texas who was prepping for an upcoming surgery for a rare brain condition, KFOR reported.

Caitlin Yilek / Washington Examiner:

Michael Wolff: Nikki Haley ‘embraced’ rumors of affair with Trump … Controversial author Michael Wolff is hitting back at Nikki Haley after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations denied having an affair with President Trump. — In an interview with theSkimm, Wolff said Haley “seems to have embraced” the rumor that he started.

Discussion: Washington Post, Mediaite, IJR, Washington Free Beacon, twitchy.com and The Daily Caller

Rachael Bade / Politico:

Gowdy finally had it with Washington — Trey Gowdy is done with politics. — The House Oversight Committee Chairman for years has joked privately about quitting Congress and returning home to South Carolina. On Wednesday, he finally pulled the plug — likely for good.

Discussion: RedState, Roll Call, Axios, Business Insider and ThinkProgress

NBC News:

Train carrying GOP Congress members hits garbage truck, one dead — A chartered train carrying Republican lawmakers to a retreat collided with a trash truck in Virginia Wednesday morning and left at least one person dead. — White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders …

Discussion: Fox News, Media Matters for America, The Hill, The Gateway Pundit, NBC News, FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV, ABC News, The Last Refuge, Mediaite, KTLA, TheBlaze, IJR, Washington Free Beacon, twitchy.com and bizpacreview.com

Tampa Bay Times:

The campaign is over. The candidate might be dead. But the spending never stops. — ★★★ — WASHINGTON, D.C. — I T'S BEEN MORE THAN A DECADE since South Florida Rep. Mark Foley was forced out of Congress for sending sexual text messages to teenage boys.

The Daily Beast:

Florida (Congress)Man Invited Infamous Troll Chuck Johnson to Trump's State of The Union … Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a conservative Republican firebrand, was the lawmaker responsible for inviting the controversial internet troll Chuck Johnson to Tuesday night's State of the Union address.

Discussion: Tampa Bay Times, Politico, ThinkProgress, Joe.My.God., AOL, Mediaite and Little Green Footballs

Yascha Mounk / Slate:

Donald Trump Just Asked Congress to End the Rule of Law — Donald Trump's first State of the Union was a deeply dangerous speech. — It was deeply dangerous because he finally followed in the footsteps of European leaders like Hungarian President Viktor Orban who have long ago learned …

Discussion: American Greatness and The Federalist

Washington Post:

White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration's preference for fossil fuels … The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department's renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Politicus USA, CNBC, Engadget and Union of Concerned Scientists

Shane Harris / Washington Post:

Russian spy chiefs met in Washington with CIA director to discuss counterterrorism … Two top Russian spy chiefs traveled to Washington last week to discuss counterterrorism issues with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, but the unusual visit also raised concerns among some U.S. officials that Moscow …

Discussion: The Atlantic, RedState, ThinkProgress, Shakesville and Axios

Joe Otterson / Variety:

TV Ratings: Trump's First State of the Union Down From 2017 Address in Early Numbers — UPDATED: Viewership of President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address is down slightly in the early Nielsen ratings compared to his first televised address to Congress last February as well as President Barack Obama's first such address.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Axios, CBS News, Vox and Joe.My.God.

Orange County Register:

3 dead, 2 injured after helicopter crashes into Newport Beach home — NEWPORT BEACH - Three people were killed and two injured Tuesday afternoon when a helicopter that had taken off from nearby John Wayne Airport crashed up against a house in a neighborhood on the northeast end of Upper Newport Bay.

Discussion: Whittier Daily News and KTLA