memeorandum: The ex-con coal executive the GOP fears could be their nominee in West Virginia Senate race (CNN)

1:40 PM ET, April 27, 2018

Top Items:

Lawyer Who Was Said to Have Dirt on Clinton Had Closer Ties to Kremlin Than She Let On — MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted …

Discussion: Politico, ThinkProgress, CNN, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, Axios, Washington Post, CNBC, Washington Press, IJR, Mediaite, Political Wire, The Week, Above the Law and Daily Kos

Elana Schor / Politico:
Grassley says he wants to release transcripts tied to 2016 Trump Tower meeting

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

‘Mass firing’ at conservative site RedState — Salem Media, owner of the influential conservative outlet RedState, froze the site on Friday and dismissed many of its writers. — Bloggers were locked out of their accounts — some just temporarily, while the cuts were made, and others permanently.

Discussion: Political Wire and Contemptor

Erick Erickson / The Resurgent: RedState Is No More — RedState's owners have engaged in a mass purge of talent.

Choe Sang-Hun / New York Times:

North and South Korea Set Bold Goals: A Final Peace and No Nuclear Arms — SEOUL, South Korea — The leaders of North and South Korea agreed on Friday to work to remove all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula and, within the year, pursue talks with the United States to declare …

Discussion: National Review, Townhall, Washington Monthly, Washington Post, The Atlantic, ThinkProgress, HuffPost, Bloomberg, ABC News, AOL, IJR, The Pacific Northwest Inlander, Breitbart, Defense One, The Guardian, Washington Times, Daily Kos and Althouse

Avery Anapol / The Hill:
GOP lawmaker touts Nobel Peace Prize for Trump

Discussion: Axios, Breitbart and Washington Times

Reuters: Korean leaders aim for end of war, ‘complete denuclearization’ after historic summit

CNN:

Several White House medical unit staffers describe pressure to hand out meds — Washington (CNN)The White House medical unit frequently functioned as a “grab and go” clinic where mid-level staffers to the most senior officials could obtain prescription drugs without being examined by a doctor …

Discussion: CNBC, Talking Points Memo, USA Today, Raw Story and TheBlaze

New York Times:

For Many, Life in Trump's Orbit Ends in a Crash Landing — WASHINGTON — Another day, another casualty. Or two. — By the time the sun set Thursday, Dr. Ronny L. Jackson was a failed cabinet nominee whose life had been picked apart for public consumption, and Michael D. Cohen was back in court facing possible criminal prosecution.

Discussion: MSNBC, Raw Story, The Week, Lawyers, Guns & Money and The Atlantic

Catherine Rampell / Washington Post:
Trump is running America just like his businesses — right into the ground

Discussion: Hullabaloo

New York Times:

Republicans on House Intelligence Panel Absolve Trump Campaign in Russian Meddling — WASHINGTON — Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee found no evidence during a monthslong investigation that the Trump campaign aided Russia's election meddling, the lawmakers concluded …

Discussion: Political Wire and Althouse

Kyle Cheney / Politico:
Trump hails House Intelligence Committee report on Russia

Discussion: ABC News, Washington Examiner, Townhall, Washington Post, VICE News and IJR

Associated Press: GOP-led House panel officially clears Trump in Russia probe

Karoun Demirjian / Washington Post:
House Intelligence Committee Republicans release final Russia report

Discussion: The Week, Mother Jones and The Daily Caller

Jon Swaine / The Guardian:

Sean Hannity: 400% rise in eviction orders since host bought Georgia apartment complex — Records show 61 different residents have received notice to vacate their homes in Perry complex since Hannity took over in 2014 — The number of eviction orders obtained against tenants …

Discussion: Raw Story

Avery Anapol / The Hill:

Kellyanne Conway tells ‘Fox & Friends’ that Trump wants to come on once a month … Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway — told the hosts of “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning that President Trump — wants to come on the show regularly. — “The president has said he would like …

Discussion: Political Wire, Contemptor, The Week, Deadline and twitchy.com

Asawin Suebsaeng / The Daily Beast:
Trump Is Thinking About Inviting Kanye to the White House for Dinner, Sources Say

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Mediaite

Tina Nguyen / Vanity Fair:
Fox & Friends Hurriedly Shuts Down Interview as Trump Rants About Mueller

Discussion: New Republic and New York Magazine

Kyle Cheney / Politico:

Tenney's red-meat rhetoric alarms House Republicans — Rep. Claudia Tenney learned last week that she'd been outraised by her Democratic opponent for the second quarter in a row, a sign that her hold on a moderate upstate New York district is in peril. — But if GOP leaders thought …

Discussion: Washington Post and Political Wire

Jim Dwyer / New York Times:

Scenes Unseen: The Summer of '78 — Six months ago, a parks official cleaning out an office came across two cardboard boxes that had been sitting around for decades. — Inside were 2,924 color slides, pictures made in parks across New York City's five boroughs late in the summer of 1978.

CNN:

The ex-con coal executive the GOP fears could be their nominee in West Virginia Senate race — Beckley, West Virginia (CNN)Watching Republican Senate candidate Don Blankenship on the campaign trail, he does not immediately come across as someone his party leaders would be concerned about.

Discussion: Raw Story, Politico and Fox News Insider

Ken Ward Jr / Charleston Gazette-Mail: Coal extracted a steep price, now gas is taking WV down same path

Los Angeles Times:

ICE held an American man in custody for 1,273 days. He's not the only one who had to prove his citizenship — Immigration officers in the United States operate under a cardinal rule: Keep your hands off Americans. — But Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents repeatedly target U.S. citizens …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Splinter

Bloomberg:

Will Cohen Flip? Tenuous Finances May Provide Crucial Clues — Taxes, loans, and collapsing medallion values take their toll — Does he have compromising information on Trump he can trade? — In the two weeks since federal agents seized the files of Michael Cohen …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Wall Street Journal

Kevin Poulsen / The Daily Beast:

Claims by Joy Reid's Cybersecurity Expert Fall Apart … MSNBC host Joy Reid claims that recently unearthed homophobic articles attributed to her are fakes. And she says a cybersecurity consultant has proof that her old blog has been hacked. — But that consultant, Jonathan Nichols, had trouble producing the promised evidence.

Discussion: Vox, National Review, Washington Free Beacon, Mediaite, Contemptor, Breitbart, Daily Wire, Splinter, twitchy.com, LGBTQ Nation, USA Today, The Duran and The Daily Beast, more at Mediagazer »

Jason Schwartz / Politico:

The Puzzle of Sarah Huckabee Sanders — Sarah Huckabee Sanders is best known to the American public for running the White House daily briefing, a televised performance in which, without so much as raising her voice, the president's press secretary manages to deflect questions …

Discussion: Splinter, The Daily Caller and Mediaite

Elizabeth Dias / New York Times:

House Chaplain Was Asked to Resign. He Still Doesn't Know Why. — The chaplain of the House said on Thursday that he was blindsided when Speaker Paul D. Ryan asked him to resign two weeks ago, a request that he complied with but was never given a reason for.

Alex Pappas / Fox News:

Comey denies release of memo contents was a ‘leak,’ addresses Dem-funded dossier in Fox News interview — Former FBI Director James Comey, in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News on Thursday, defended sharing his memos about conversations with President Trump with multiple people, while denying it was a “leak.”

Discussion: Sean Hannity, Fox News Insider, Politico, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller and twitchy.com

Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Is Comey telling the truth about his memos?

Discussion: NewsBusters, Power Line, AOL and IJR

Variety:

Tom Brokaw Accused of Sexual Harassment By Former NBC Anchor (EXCLUSIVE VIDEO) — Linda Vester had a reputation for covering tough stories. As a war correspondent for NBC News in the '90s, she spent three tours of duty in the Middle East and took two assignments in Africa.

Discussion: Politico, Fox News, TheBlaze, Page Six, NewsBusters, VICE News, The Week, NPR, Louder With Crowder, AOL, NBC News, Mediaite, Daily Wire, TVNewser, IndieWire, Jezebel, Splinter and Chicks On The Right

Sarah Ellison / Washington Post:
NBC News faces skepticism in remedying in-house sexual harassment

Discussion: HuffPost, Fox News, The Hill, NewsBusters, Sean Hannity, Talking Points Memo, AOL, RedState, Deadline, The Week, Mediaite, The Daily Caller, TVNewser, twitchy.com, Mashable and In Touch Weekly, more at Mediagazer »

Nicole Bitette / New York Daily News:

Rob Schneider thinks ‘Saturday Night Live’ is ruining the joke — “Saturday Night Live,” you can do it — better. — Comedian Rob Schneider burst out on the scene on “Saturday Night Live” in the 1990s, but nearly three decades later, he thinks the hit NBC comedy series is bursting …

Discussion: Louder With Crowder, Raw Story, Daily Wire and Althouse

Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:

Dear President Macron: Le Bromance with Trump Won't End Well — Just ask congressional Republicans. — Right before France's President Emmanuel Macron flew back to Paris from Washington on Wednesday, he popped out of a conference room at George Washington University to personally greet a final set of visitors.

Burgess Everett / Politico: ‘Jon poked the bear’: Tester braces for Trump's revenge

The Daily Beast:

Mick Mulvaney Met With Lobbyist Donors While at Trump White House … Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump's top budget and financial consumer watchdog, had a hierarchy of access in his former congressional office: first were constituents, then lobbyists who'd donated to his campaign, and then, at the bottom, lobbyists who hadn't.

Discussion: Center for Public Integrity, Common Dreams, New York Times and The Intercept

Tim Mak / NPR:

Despite So Much Winning, The Right Feels Like It's Losing — Diamond and Silk caused a spectacle on Capitol Hill on Thursday. — “Facebook along with other social media sites have taken aggressive actions to silence conservative voices such as ourselves,” the pro-Trump social media stars charged.

Discussion: NBC News and Raw Story

Jeffrey Adam Sachs / Niskanen Center:

There Is No Campus Free Speech Crisis: A Close Look at the Evidence — The campus free speech debate is heating up. Last month I made the case (first in a Twitter thread and then again at the Washington Post's The Monkey Cage) that there is no campus free speech crisis.

Gina Barton / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

No charges against West Milwaukee officers in death of a mentally ill man hit 18 times with Taser — Two West Milwaukee police officers who broke down a mentally ill man's door and tased him in the shower 18 times before he died will not be criminally charged, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has decided.

Ben Schreckinger / Politico:

Yiannopoulos' business implodes after death of crypto-billionaire — Running out of money and down on his luck, right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos laid off the small staff of Milo Entertainment Inc. earlier this month, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Associated Press:

Judge tosses Manafort civil suit challenging special counsel — A federal judge in Washington has thrown out a civil lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman that sought to challenge the authority of the special counsel in the Russia investigation.

Discussion: Axios