memeorandum: FEMA official suspended in connection with IG probe (Daniel Lippman/Politico)

10:40 PM ET, September 18, 2018

Top Items:

Sophie Tatum / CNN:

Ford wants FBI investigation before testifying — (CNN)The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault says the FBI should investigate the incident before senators hold a hearing on the allegations. — In a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa …

Discussion: Townhall, ABC News, Roll Call, BuzzFeed News, RedState, Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, Washington Times, Axios, Political Wire, Breitbart, HuffPost, The Week, The New Neo, Bustle, twitchy.com, The Gateway Pundit, KTLA, LifeZette, Washington Free Beacon and CBS News

New York Times:

Christine Blasey Ford Wants F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh Before She Testifies — WASHINGTON — The woman who has accused President Trump's Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault threw into doubt plans for an extraordinary Senate hearing to air her accusations, charging on Tuesday …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Cut, Above the Law, The Root, Bustle, CNN, The Week, The Gateway Pundit, Mediaite, Splinter, Balloon Juice, Althouse and Daily Kos

Gabriel Sherman / Vanity Fair:

“Cut Bait”: As the Kavanaugh Nightmare Escalates, Trump Is Gripped with Uncertainty as Ivanka Suggests Cutting the Judge Loose — The threat of losing the House and Senate has stopped Trump from going scorched-earth on Christine Blasey Ford. If Trump antagonizes women voters …

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, Raw Story, Washington Post, NPR, HuffPost, Media Matters for America, Bustle, The Week, ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller, New York Times, Vox, The Atlantic and Mother Jones

Amanda Terkel / HuffPost:

Republicans Consider Using Female Staffers To Question Christine Blasey Ford — Every Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee is male. They normally would be the ones to face Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser. — Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee …

Discussion: checkyourfact.com, USA Today, Washington Post, Law & Crime, Vox, Bustle, ABC News, IJR, twitchy.com, POLITICUSUSA, AOL, The Hill, Talking Points Memo, Weekly Standard, Political Wire and Balloon Juice

NBC News:

The allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are not simply a ‘he said, she said’ situation — Prosecutors look for corroborating evidence — and there are strong indications already that Christine Blasey Ford is telling the truth about her attack. — Created with Sketch.

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Washington Post, Bustle, Raw Story, Daily Wire, The Week and Daily Kos

Anita Hill / New York Times:

How to Get the Kavanaugh Hearings Right — The Senate Judiciary Committee has a chance to do better by the country than it did nearly three decades ago. — Ms. Hill is a professor at Brandeis University. — There is no way to redo 1991, but there are ways to do better.

Brian Beutler / Crooked Media:

THE CORRUPT REPUBLICAN PLOT TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT — Facing the real prospect that their long-sought fifth anti-abortion Supreme Court justice might go unseated, and President Trump's growing legal exposure, the Republican Party is charging into election season …

Discussion: Washington Post, Townhall and New York Times

Rebecca Morin / Politico:

Kavanaugh in 2015: ‘What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep’ — Georgetown Prep's unofficial saying, according to Brett Kavanaugh: What happens there, stays there. — The Supreme Court nominee made the crack in a 2015 speech at Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law …

Discussion: Grabien News, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Political Wire, Bustle, twitchy.com and Axios

Andrew C. McCarthy / National Review:
Democrats, Kavanaugh, and ‘The End of Civilization’

Discussion: Power Line, Washington Post, abc7news.com, Fox News, Rewire.News, The Week and HuffPost

Daniel Lippman / Politico:
Exclusive: Bush reaffirms support for Kavanaugh

Discussion: Splinter, The Daily Caller, VICE, Axios and CNN

Dick Polman / The Atlantic:
The GOP Response to the Kavanaugh Allegations Sends an Unmistakable Message to Women

Discussion: New York Times, Shareblue Media and HuffPost

Brent D. Griffiths / Politico:
Kavanaugh accuser: FBI should investigate claims of sexual assault

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon, The Hill, Power Line, National Review, NPR, Townhall, Law & Crime, Daily Kos, Hot Air, RedState, TheBlaze, MSNBC, Bustle, The Federalist and Axios

The Daily Beast:
Team Trump: If We Ditch Kavanaugh, We're Signing Our Own ‘Death Warrant’

Discussion: Politico, One America News Network, Breitbart, Axios, Washington Monthly, Hot Air and Raw Story

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
Senate GOP to Prof Ford: Take It Or Leave It

Discussion: Balloon Juice

Noah Rothman / Commentary Magazine:
A Hill to Die on — Justice both delayed and denied.

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications

Politico:
When 11 men interrogate: GOP tries to head off Kavanaugh debacle

Discussion: Bustle and Breitbart

Will Bunch / Philly.com:
We already know the truth that matters: America can do a lot better than Brett Kavanaugh

Discussion: Washington Post, Bustle, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Democracy Now

Jack Crowe / National Review:
Feinstein on Kavanaugh Accusation: 'I Can't Say Everything is Truthful'

Discussion: twitchy.com and New York Times

Lukas Mikelionis / Fox News:
Keith Ellison domestic violence accuser says Democratic party doesn't believe her story

Discussion: The Hill, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit and RedState

NBC News:
Kavanaugh accuser wants FBI to investigate before she testifies at Senate hearing

Discussion: New Yorker, Vox, Washington Post and The Daily Beast

Lamar White, Jr / The Bayou Brief:
Adrian Perkins Claims Senate Judiciary Committee Relied on Fraudulent Letter Supporting Kavanaugh

Discussion: HuffPost

Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
Lindsey Graham's bizarre defense of not making Mark Judge testify

Discussion: Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, Above the Law, Bustle and Daily Kos

Matt Vespa / Townhall:
Feinstein On Kavanaugh Accuser: 'I Can't Say That Everything Is Truthful'

Discussion: RedState, Daily Wire, The Federalist and Hot Air

Avi Selk / Washington Post:
What the man accused of being part of Kavanaugh's alleged sexual assault had to say about women's sexuality

Discussion: USA Today, CNN, Talking Points Memo, HuffPost, Common Dreams, IJR, POLITICUSUSA, VICE News, Raw Story and Booman Tribune

Jonathan Allen / NBC News:
At next Kavanaugh hearing, the stakes are higher than a Supreme Court seat

Discussion: Washington Post, Vox and ABC News

The Hill:

EXCLUSIVE: Trump says exposing ‘corrupt’ FBI probe could be ‘crowning achievement’ of presidency — in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV said Tuesday he ordered the release of classified documents in the Russia collusion case to show the public the FBI probe started as a “hoax,” …

Mike Levine / ABC News:

Trump ‘dossier’ stuck in New York, didn't trigger Russia investigation, sources say — President Donald Trump and his allies have long insisted that what he calls the “fake dirty dossier” was wholly “responsible for starting the totally and discredited witch hunt” by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Washington Post:

Political nonprofits must now name many of their donors under federal court ruling after Supreme Court declines to intervene — Advocacy groups pouring money into independent campaigns to influence this fall's midterm races must disclose many of their political donors beginning this week …

Discussion: Mother Jones, Axios, Center for Public Integrity, Splinter and Political Wire

Jordan Libowitz / CREW:

SCOTUS Denies Stay, New Disclosure Ruling Goes Into Effect — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — The Supreme Court today denied a stay, and lifted a temporary stay by Chief Justice Roberts, in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's (CREW) landmark dark money case against Crossroad GPS and the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and POLITICUSUSA

Tom McCarthy / The Guardian:

Stormy Daniels' tell-all book on Trump: salacious detail and claims of cheating — Exclusive: pornographic actor says Trump 'didn't want to be president' in her book Full Disclosure — In a tell-all memoir, the pornographic actor Stormy Daniels details salacious descriptions of her time with Donald Trump …

Nitish Pahwa / Slate: Don't Let Trump's Penis Ruin Toad, the Mushroom-Headed Sage of Mario Kart

Yaron Steinbuch / New York Post:
Hope you aren't eating when you read this, because Stormy Daniels went there

Discussion: Hollywood Life, The Guardian, The Root and The Daily Beast

Politico:

Trump rails on top Florida ally over Hurricane Maria flap — Republican Ron DeSantis accused of disloyalty for bucking the president. — President Donald Trump is privately lashing out at one of his top allies, Ron DeSantis, angrily accusing the Florida Republican gubernatorial nominee of publicly betraying him.

Discussion: Sun-Sentinel, Florida Politics, Raw Story, Mediaite and Political Wire

Ron Nixon / New York Times:

U.S. Loses Track of Another 1,500 Migrant Children, Investigators Find — WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is unable to account for the whereabouts of nearly 1,500 migrant children who illegally entered the United States alone this year and were placed with sponsors after leaving federal shelters …

Discussion: Splinter

Hunter Woodall / Kansas City Star:

GOP stalwart Nancy Kassebaum picks Democrat Laura Kelly over Kris Kobach — A titan of Kansas Republican politics is shunning Kris Kobach, her party's nominee, in his run for governor. — Nancy Kassebaum, who represented Kansas for three terms in the U.S. Senate, said Tuesday …

Discussion: Mother Jones, ThinkProgress, Shareblue Media, Talking Points Memo and Political Wire

David Reddish / Queerty:

the queerty interview EXCLUSIVE: Are Bert & Ernie a couple? We finally have an answer... Mark Saltzman keeps a modest house. Tucked in the foothills of Los Angeles, the cozy cottage doesn't betray the pedigree of its owner...except for maybe the seven Emmy Awards tucked high on a shelf in the corner.

Discussion: The Sun, TVLine, BostonGlobe.com, Daily Wire, thenewcivilrightsmovement.com, TheBlaze, The Daily Caller and Bustle

New York Times:

Trump's Growing Legal Team Has a Problem: It's Operating Partly in the Dark — The president's lawyers are struggling to understand where the investigations surrounding him are going, and the extent of his legal exposure. — 2018 EMMY AWARDS — ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Win Top Awards

Discussion: Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo

Bloomberg:

Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements — Tesla is under investigation by the Justice Department over public statements made by the company and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, according to two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News' Tom Schoenberg and Matt Robinson report.

Discussion: NPR, MarketWatch, CNBC, BloombergQuint, KTLA, CBS San Francisco, The Verge, Investor's Business Daily, AOL, Breitbart, The Guardian, New York Times, The Week, The Daily Caller, Mashable and Mediaite, more at Techmeme »

Daniel Lippman / Politico:

FEMA official suspended in connection with IG probe — A senior FEMA official has been suspended without pay in connection with a Department of Homeland Security inspector general investigation into the improper use of government vehicles by FEMA administrator Brock Long, according to two current government officials.

Discussion: CNN and Talking Points Memo

Tanya Snyder / Politico:

Records: Chao government flights cost $94K — Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao flew on Federal Aviation Administration planes rather than commercial flights on seven occasions between January and August 2017, newly released records show — including one flight to and around Europe …

Discussion: Political Wire

Stef W. Kight / Axios:

Non-Christian refugees shut out of Trump's America — The Trump administration has again cut the number of refugees allowed into the U.S., and the overwhelming majority of the small group of refugees who were admitted this past year are Christians. — Data: Department of State …

Discussion: BuzzFeed News, New Republic and One America News Network

John Murawski / Raleigh News & Observer:

Florence drowns 5,500 pigs and 3.4 million chickens. The numbers are expected to rise. — The number of hogs and poultry killed in Hurricane Florence flooding is already double the casualties from Matthew in 2016, and the losses are expected to mount this week as new information comes …

Discussion: Sanderson Farms, Inc., NPR and Mother Jones

Zoe Forsey / Mirror.co.uk:

Woman's perfect Tinder date with ‘The One’ shattered by five simple words — They had been messaging for a while and she thought she knew him pretty well - but she was very, very wrong — Tinder can be a tricky game, so when one woman went on the perfect date she thought that was it.