memeorandum: Trump lawyers say he ‘dictated’ statement on Trump Tower meeting, contradicting past denials (Marshall Cohen/CNN)

1:45 PM ET, June 3, 2018

Top Items:

Morgan Winsor / ABC News:

President Trump ‘probably does’ have the power to pardon himself: Giuliani — President Trump's lead attorney said the president “probably does” have the power to pardon himself. — Rudy Giuliani was discussing with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” …

Discussion: HuffPost, Townhall, Washington Times, Vox, Lawfare, Splinter, Common Dreams, Mediaite, The Hill, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, Joe.My.God., Taylor Marsh, Breitbart and New York Times

Katherine Faulders / ABC News:

Giuliani threatens legal battle with Mueller over subpoena — The president's lawyer Rudy Giuliani threatened a legal battle with special counsel Robert Mueller if he attempts to subpoena Donald Trump. — “If Mueller tries to subpoena us, we're going to court,” Giuliani told ABC News.

Discussion: New York Daily News, Washington Post, Common Dreams, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Mediaite, New York Magazine, NBC News, The Week, Daily Kos, Hullabaloo and Breitbart

Marshall Cohen / CNN:

Trump lawyers say he ‘dictated’ statement on Trump Tower meeting, contradicting past denials — (CNN)In a confidential letter to special counsel Robert Mueller in January, President Donald Trump's legal team acknowledged for the first time that Trump “dictated” the first misleading statement put …

Discussion: Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo, Joe.My.God., Common Dreams, Raw Story, emptywheel, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Week, HuffPost and AOL

David Kris / Lawfare:
The Trump Legal Team's Remarkable Letter to Mueller

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Power Line, The Mahablog and Washington Post

Jacqueline Klimas / Politico:
Giuliani: Trump's team ‘leaning toward’ recommending he not talk with Mueller

Discussion: ABC News, Political Wire, Mediaite, Mother Jones, The Gateway Pundit and IJR

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:
The Constitutional Crisis Is Already Underway

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money, HuffPost, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Press, New York Times, FOX2now.com and POLITICUSUSA

David Corn / Mother Jones:
Why the Bombshell Trump Letter Could Be a Big Problem for Donald Trump Jr.

Discussion: CNN, The Hill, The Daily Beast, Power Line, emptywheel, New York Times, Daily Kos, Washington Press, Balloon Juice and Shareblue Media

Quinta Jurecic / Lawfare:
Documents: Letters to Special Counsel Robert Mueller from the Trump Legal Team

Discussion: NPR, New York Times and Washington Post

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Obama - Just Too Good for Us — WASHINGTON — It was a moment of peak Spock. — Hours after the globe-rattling election of a man whom Barack Obama has total disdain for, a toon who would take a chain saw to the former president's legacy on policy and decency, Obama sent a message …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money, No More Mister Nice Blog and Penguin Random House

Roger Kimball / American Greatness:

A Clueless “Final Year” — Remember the Duck Rabbit? That's the famous image that, seen one way, looks like a duck but, seen from another angle, looks like a rabbit. The image has provided fodder for children's books and also philosophers, its inherent ambiguity being catnip to both light fancy and epistemological lucubration.

Ben Rhodes / The Atlantic:

Inside the White House During the Syrian ‘Red Line’ Crisis — In the course of a presidency, a U.S. president says millions of words in public. You never know which of them end up cementing a certain impression. For Barack Obama, one of those phrases would be “red line.”

Discussion: Front Page Magazine

CBS News:

CBS News Battleground Tracker: The House is a toss-up — Dems 219- Reps 216 in tight contest for control — In the race for Congress, most polls report one national percentage for Democrats and Republicans. But that's not very helpful - because this is a race for seats. 435 of them, in fact.

Discussion: Political Wire

Mike Allen / Axios:

Trump's 500-day coup of the GOP, conservatism — Donald Trump has been President Trump for 500 days as of noon today. Jonathan Swan writes that everything has changed, and nothing has changed. — Be smart: In 500 days, Trump's hijacking of the formerly conservative GOP is complete — an astonishing accomplishment.

Lingling Wei / Wall Street Journal:

U.S., China End Latest Trade Talks Without Settlement — China warns if U.S. introduces threatened tariffs, any results from the negotiations won't go into effect — BEIJING—U.S. and Chinese negotiators wrapped up their latest round of trade talks without a settlement …

Washington Post: Trump thinks he's saving trade. The rest of the world thinks he's blowing it up.

Lauren Meier / Axios:
Under cloud of tariffs, a U.S. trade delegation arrives in Beijing

Discussion: xinhuanet.com and Associated Press

Sylvan Lane / The Hill:
Trump's economy faces new threats ahead of midterms

Discussion: Politico and POLITICUSUSA

Joshua Zumbrun / Wall Street Journal: G-7 Members Condemn U.S. Trade Actions

Oscar Contreras / TheDenverChannel.com:

Denver Police investigating accidental shooting from gun of an off-duty FBI agent — DENVER - Police are investigating an accidental shooting that sent a man to a hospital early Saturday morning. — The apparent, accidental shooting happened just before 12:45 a.m. at the Mile High Spirits club …

Discussion: Mediaite, Raw Story and The Root

Elizabeth Hernandez / Denver Post:
Off-duty FBI agent allegedly shot a man accidentally after gun falls on dance floor in Denver bar

Discussion: The Daily Caller

CBS News:

Bill Clinton and James Patterson co-author a political beach read — A political thriller has to convincingly blend both fact and fiction, which is just what a certain debut novelist with plenty of White House experience says he has to offer. He and his writing partner are talking with Mo Rocca:

Discussion: Townhall and Washington Times

Lisa Senecal / The Daily Beast:

The NDA Protected Our Predator. I'm Breaking My Silence, Because Women Deserve Better. … I received this message from a woman in my small town of Stowe, Vermont. We had never met, but I knew instantly what her message meant: I was not the predator's only survivor.

Doree Lewak / New York Post:

Dating columnist reveals how ‘Sex and the City’ ruined her life — “Sex and the City” premiered on HBO 20 years ago this week, imprinting on a generation of women a love of fantastic fashion and dreams of their own Mr. Big. Among them was Julia Allison, who moved to New York in the early 2000s to live the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle.

Lolita C. Baldor / Associated Press:

Mattis warns of bumpy road to US, North Korea nuclear summit — SINGAPORE (AP) — It will be a “bumpy road” to the nuclear negotiations with North Korea later this month, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned Sunday, telling his South Korean and Japanese counterparts they must maintain …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and The Week

Josh Smith / Reuters:
Syria's Assad says will visit North Korea, news agency reports

Discussion: Washington Post and Politico

Nicholas Fandos / New York Times:

Jon Tester, a Democrat in Deep-Red Montana, Isn't Sweating Trump's Threats — BIG SANDY, Mont. — Under a nearly cloudless sky on the sun-speckled northern prairie last Tuesday, Jon Tester, this state's senior senator, had his hands deep inside a 25-year-old grain auger.

Chris Tomlinson / Breitbart:

Trump's Right Hand Man in Europe Rick Grenell Wants To ‘Empower’ European Anti-Establishment Conservatives — BERLIN, Germany: Trumpian U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell has expressed great excitement over the wave of anti-establishment conservatism in Europe, saying he wants to “empower” leaders of the movement.

Discussion: Joe.My.God.