memeorandum: Judge tosses Manafort civil suit challenging special counsel (Associated Press)

2:20 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: ThinkProgress, Mediaite, Raw Story, CNN, Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, CNBC, Axios, Washington Press, IJR, Above the Law, The Week, Political Wire 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, Outside the Beltway and Contemptor, more at Mediagazer »

Erick Erickson / The Resurgent:

RedState Is No More — RedState's owners have engaged in a mass purge of talent. … The site name will linger, but RedState is all but dead now. I have invited the fired writers here. — When RedState started in 2004, it was about collaborating between all sides of the GOP and, after I took over, had a real grassroots focus.

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: The Atlantic, National Review, U.S. Congressman Luke Messer, Townhall, Washington Monthly, Washington Post, ThinkProgress, HuffPost, ABC News, Bloomberg, AOL, The Pacific Northwest Inlander, Breitbart, Daily Kos, IJR, The Guardian, New York Magazine and Althouse

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

Discussion: CNN, The Straits Times, Breitbart, The Korea Herald and IJR

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

Discussion: Axios, ABC News, Breitbart and Washington Times

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, Raw Story, USA Today 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: Mother Jones, Washington Examiner, Townhall, HuffPost, VICE News, Fox News, Political Wire and Althouse

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

Discussion: ABC News, Washington Post, Raw Story, Fox News Insider, AOL 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

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.

Discussion: Balloon Juice

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.

Juliegrace Brufke / The Hill:
House rejects measure to set up panel to investigate chaplain's dismissal

Discussion: Raw Story, Friendly Atheist, MSNBC and ABC News

Associated Press:
House chaplain's firing sparks uproar among Democrats

Discussion: Politico and ABC News

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

Avery Anapol / The Hill:
Kellyanne Conway tells ‘Fox & Friends’ that Trump wants to come on once a month

Discussion: Political Wire, Contemptor, Deadline, The Week 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

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

Richard Kim / The Nation:
The Very Specific 2006-ishness of Those Alleged Joy Reid Posts

Discussion: The Daily Caller, CANNONFIRE and The Duran

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

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

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 and Politico

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

Congressman Patrick Meehan:

Congressman Meehan Announces Resignation — Representative Patrick Meehan (R-PA) today transmitted a letter of resignation to Governor Tom Wolf and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan effective Friday, April 27, 2018. Representative Meehan had previously announced he would not seek re-election …

Discussion: The Hill, Political Wire, Roll Call and The Daily Beast

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

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

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, The Intercept and Business Insider

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.

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: Breitbart, The Daily Caller, IndieWire, Louder With Crowder, Raw Story, Daily Wire and Althouse

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.

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: Jezebel, Splinter, The Daily Caller and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

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.

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, Politico, Fox News Insider, The Daily Caller, Talking Points Memo and twitchy.com

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

Discussion: NewsBusters, Power Line, AOL and IJR

Eric Garcia / Roll Call:

Brooks Suggests Republicans Are Retiring Because of Assassination Fears — Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks suggested in a radio interview that Republicans are retiring en masse because of assassination fears. — Brooks was speaking on “The Dale Jackson Show” about the first Republican practice …

Discussion: Political Wire and Shareblue Media

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