memeorandum: Are NBC and CNN Paying Off Top Spies Who Leaked Info With On-Air Jobs? (Lee Smith/Tablet Magazine)

1:00 PM ET, May 2, 2018

Top Items:

Trump to Add Clinton Impeachment Lawyer Emmet Flood to Replace Ty Cobb — WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to hire Emmet T. Flood, the veteran Washington lawyer who represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment, to replace Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who has taken the lead in dealing …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Axios, Joe.My.God., Mediaite and AOL

Washington Post:

Mueller raised possibility of presidential subpoena in meeting with Trump's legal team — In a tense meeting in early March with the special counsel, President Trump's lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Bloomberg:

Trump's Legal Team Lacks Security Clearances Needed for Mueller Negotiations — Possibility of a grand jury subpoena raised by Mueller's team — President's lawyers have listed 40 questions Mueller may pose — Donald Trump's current team of lawyers lacks the security clearances needed …

Discussion: Law & Crime, Talking Points Memo, New York Magazine, Shareblue Media, Political Wire, Mediaite, CNN, The Week and New York Times

Jonathan Karl / ABC News:

Exclusive: Ty Cobb says special counsel interview with Trump ‘certainly not off the table’ — White House lawyer Ty Cobb told ABC News during an exclusive interview on Wednesday that a presidential interview with special counsel Robert Mueller has not been ruled out.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Political Wire, Mediaite and Wired

Washington Post:
Under oath or not, Trump owes the country answers

Discussion: New York Post, Politico, New York Times, Talking Points Memo, The Duran and Daily Kos

Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Why Answering Mueller's Questions Could Be a Minefield for Trump

Discussion: Washington Post, Fox News Insider, Outside the Beltway, AOL, CNN, The Week, Sputnik International, Mediaite, Common Dreams, R Street and Raw Story

Andrew E. Kramer / New York Times:

Ukraine, Seeking U.S. Missiles, Halted Cooperation With Mueller Investigation — KIEV, Ukraine — In the United States, Paul J. Manafort is facing prosecution on charges of money laundering and financial fraud stemming from his decade of work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

Discussion: Vox, American Prospect, Washington Monthly, Mother Jones, Axios, Common Dreams, Political Wire, The Week and Daily Kos

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

Did Trump Bribe Ukraine to Stop Cooperating With Mueller? — Donald Trump's habitual dishonesty is a trait well understood by the entire mainstream news media, and even many members of the conservative media. But it is not fully understood. Trump manages to lie in ways that hardened cynics never anticipated.

Discussion: The Guardian, Washington Post, IJR, Fox News, Breitbart and Hullabaloo

Erica Pandey / Axios:

Trump threatens to use presidential powers on DOJ — President Trump in a Wednesday tweet called out the Justice Department for refusing to hand over un-redacted documents related to the Hillary Clinton email probe to Congress. — The big picture: The Justice Department has become …

Discussion: Washington Post, Talking Points Memo and Politico

Mark Penn / The Hill:

How about a few questions for Robert Mueller? — has plenty of questions for President Trump — , and maybe he will get to ask them. Most of them seemed like perjury traps rather than real questions for the president and, surprisingly, they contain very little that wasn't in the public domain though prior leaks.

Discussion: New York Times, FiveThirtyEight and Vox

CNN:

Exclusive: Bornstein claims Trump dictated the glowing health letter — (CNN)When Dr. Harold Bornstein described in hyperbolic prose then-candidate Donald Trump's health in 2015, the language he used was eerily similar to the style preferred by his patient. — It turns out the patient himself wrote it, according to Bornstein.

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

What we didn't know about Trump on Election Day 2016 … It's hard to dispute that voters knew far less about Donald Trump on Election Day 2016 than voters had about any other major-party presidential candidate in modern history. Some of this was a function of Trump's background.

Discussion: Vox, Shareblue Media, IJR and CNN

Associated Press:

Boy Scouts to get new name after 108 years as girls join group — NEW YORK — For 108 years, the Boy Scouts of America's flagship program has been known simply as the Boy Scouts. With girls soon entering the ranks, the group says that iconic name will change.

Discussion: Raw Story, thenewcivilrightsmovement.com, Daily Wire, Bryan on Scouting, IJR and twitchy.com

John Bacon / USA Today:
Boy Scouts are dropping the word ‘boy’ from the name of flagship program

Discussion: LifeZette, Outside the Beltway, The Daily Caller, Althouse, Joe.My.God. and The Week

Washington Post:

Lobbyist helped broker Scott Pruitt's $100,000 trip to Morocco — MARRAKESH, Morocco — A controversial trip to Morocco by Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt last December was partly arranged by a longtime friend and lobbyist, who accompanied Pruitt and his entourage …

Discussion: New York Times, The Root, Talking Points Memo, HuffPost, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Axios, TheBlaze, Washington Press, Mediaite, The Week, Daily Kos, Political Wire and Politico

Coral Davenport / New York Times:

Two Top Aides to Scott Pruitt Quit the E.P.A. Unexpectedly — WASHINGTON — Two top aides to Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency chief who is facing an array of investigations related to his spending and management practices, have resigned amid widening scrutiny of their roles at the agency.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast, USA Today, Splinter, BloombergQuint, Bloomberg, NY State of Politics, Vox and New Republic

Steven Shepard / Politico:
Poll: Majority of voters say Trump White House running chaotically

Discussion: Shareblue Media, Axios and Political Wire

Ross Douthat / New York Times:

The Redistribution of Sex — One lesson to be drawn from recent Western history might be this: Sometimes the extremists and radicals and weirdos see the world more clearly than the respectable and moderate and sane. All kinds of phenomena, starting as far back as the Iraq War and the crisis …

Discussion: Slate

Marco Rubio / National Review:

Two Cheers for Corporate Tax Cuts — On the whole, the tax cut bill helps workers. It's just not massive tax cuts to multinational corporations that do it. — Overall, the Republican tax-cut bill has been good for Americans. That is why I voted for it.

Discussion: Vox, Politico and twitchy.com, more at Techmeme »

Matt Lewis / The Daily Beast:
The Republican Party Is Exposing Its Own Policy-Making Screw-Ups

Discussion: Fortune, Washington Monthly, Raw Story, Florida Politics and CNBC

Suffolk University:

Suffolk University NH Presidential Primary Poll Shows Non-Candidate Warren Leading Dems — Even though Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has declared that she is not running for president in 2020, her shadow looms over the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary …

James Pindell / BostonGlobe.com:
New poll shows Elizabeth Warren leading the N.H. Democratic primary field

Discussion: Axios

Tatiana Siegel / Hollywood Reporter:

Playmate to Politico: How Pamela Anderson Became an International Woman of Mystery — The former ‘Baywatch’ star opens up about her relationship with Julian Assange ("We talk about the Bible"), attending Donald Trump's birthday party (for a $500 fee), her activism, ex Kid Rock …

Discussion: Mediaite

Associated Press:

Trump makes first visit to State to swear-in Pompeo — President Donald Trump is making his first visit to the State Department to attend the ceremonial swearing-in of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. — Pompeo, the former CIA director, is replacing Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon executive …

Discussion: Axios

Cristiano Lima / Politico:
Trump touts renewed ‘spirit’ at State Dept. under Pompeo

Discussion: ABC News

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed:

Facebook Has Begun To Rank News Organizations By Trust, Zuckerberg Says — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday that the company has already begun to implement a system that ranks news organizations based on trustworthiness, and promotes or suppresses its content based on that metric.

Discussion: Power Line, TheBlaze, The Western Journal, Daily Wire, The Stream, VICE News, Breitbart and Front Page Magazine, more at Mediagazer »

Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic: Mark Zuckerberg Doesn't Understand Journalism

Bill D'Agostino / NewsBusters:

One A Day: CNN Hosts Porn Star's Lawyer Michael Avenatti 59 Times in Less Than Two Months — CNN has exhibited a fetish for the Stormy Daniels story, particularly for her Trump-smacking lawyer, Michael Avenatti. In less than two months (from March 7 to April 30), Avenatti has been a guest …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and The Federalist

Doug Sosnik / Washington Post:

President Trump is sowing the seeds of his own demise — Doug Sosnik, a Democratic political strategist, was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000. — How President Bill Clinton managed the threat of removal from office has become a model in effective crisis management.

Mic:

Exclusive: Kim Kardashian West has talked to White House about pardoning nonviolent drug offender — Kim Kardashian West and President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner have spoken over the phone about a possible presidential pardon for Alice Marie Johnson …

Discussion: Axios, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller, Mediaite and The Week

Ian Shapira / Washington Post:

White supremacist is guilty in Charlottesville parking garage beating of black man … CHARLOTTESVILLE — One of the white supremacists who viciously beat a black man inside a parking garage during last year's “Unite the Right” rally here was found guilty Tuesday night of malicious wounding.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Daily Kos, WTVR-TV, The Week, Jezebel and Raw Story

Brian Kahn / Earther:

Pakistan May Have Just Set a World Heat Record — High temperatures are forecast to reach the mid-80s this week in New York, and I'm dreading it. But I have a plan to stay cool: just thinking of how much hotter it is in Pakistan, which is in the middle of a blistering heat wave.

Discussion: ThinkProgress

Washington Post:

In ‘kill list’ case, judge questions government's unilateral authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad … A federal judge Tuesday challenged a U.S. government claim of unilateral authority to kill American citizens abroad, speaking at a hearing for a lawsuit brought in Washington by two journalists …

Louise Moon / South China Morning Post:

Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash — After criticism of student Keziah Daum's Twitter post showing her wearing the traditional qipao, Chinese commenters call it cultural appreciation, not appropriation — An American teenager has received support …

Discussion: RedState, twitchy.com, The Star Online, Washington Post, The Federalist and Fox News Insider

Max Greenwood / The Hill:

Santorum: Obama's lies ‘more important’ than Trump's … Rick Santorum on Wednesday brushed off questions about false and misleading claims by President Trump — , arguing that his predecessor, Barack Obama — , told more substantial lies. — Asked on CNN's “New Day” …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Raw Story, Political Wire, Joe.My.God. and Mediaite

Clay Travis / Outkick the Coverage:

ESPN Loses 500,000 Subscribers In April — It's become a major trend, when tax season arrives, cable and satellite subscriber numbers tank according to Nielsen estimates. I don't know if that's because come spring tax season everyone looks at their yearly budgets and many people …

Discussion: Daily Wire, smokeroom.com, Awful Announcing and Breitbart

Sean Hannity:

NBC NIGHTMARE: Network ‘PRESSURED’ Female Employees to DEFEND Brokaw — Network executives at NBC reportedly pressured female staffers to sign a “women's letter” defending embattled reporter Tom Brokaw after multiple accusations of sexual harassment surfaced last week, reports the New York Post.

Discussion: Mediaite, Jezebel and NewsBusters, more at Mediagazer »

YouTube:

Tough

Robby Soave / Hit & Run:

Black Gun Owner Will Give Birth in Prison After Trying to Protect 2-Year-Old Daughter from Assailant — Siwatu-Salama Ra used a legally purchased firearm to protect her family. She was sentenced to 2 years in prison. — Siwatu-Salama Ra is a 26-year-old black mother who watched in horror …

BBC:

Macron thanks Australian leader's ‘delicious wife’ — French President Emmanuel Macron committed a rather delicious faux pas on Wednesday that left his Australian audience scratching their heads. — Mr Macron has been in the country on a diplomatic trip, discussing weighty issues like climate change and defence.

Discussion: Sputnik International, Mashable and Politico

Dan Primack / Axios:

Optimism rules at this year's Milken conference — Three takeaways from this week's Milken Global Conference, where many of the world's top financiers, politicians and philanthropists gathered to exchange ideas and host dinners: — 1. Optimism. So much optimism, about nearly everything.

Jonah Goldberg / National Review:

Vanity Fair's Hilariously Bad Account of the ‘Red-Pilling’ of Kanye West — Reporting on the Right with no understanding of the Right. — I believe it was in 2003 when I coined the term “conservatives in the mist” for a certain style of reporting. A play on “Gorillas in the Mist,” …