memeorandum: Declassify the Khashoggi Assessment (Just Security)

9:25 AM ET, December 10, 2018

Top Items:

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

Scoop: Trump considering Mark Meadows for chief of staff — Over the past 24 hours, President Trump has been privately asking many people who they think should be his new chief of staff, according to three sources with direct knowledge. — What's happening: Trump has asked confidants …

Discussion: Mediaite, CANNONFIRE, Breitbart, Raw Story, Splinter, CNBC and The Gateway Pundit

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:

Nick Ayers, Aide to Pence, Declines Offer to Be Trump's Chief of Staff — Nick Ayers, President Trump's top choice to replace John F. Kelly as chief of staff, has declined to take the job, according to three people familiar with the talks. — Mr. Ayers, 36, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence …

Discussion: CNN, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Axios, No More Mister Nice Blog, Outside the Beltway, VICE News, New Republic, HuffPost and Townhall

Stephen Collinson / CNN:
Trump's next chief of staff may be walking into a nightmare

Discussion: Political Wire

Michael C. Bender / Wall Street Journal:
Pence Chief of Staff Nick Ayers Won't Be Next White House Staff Chief

Discussion: Washington Post, Politico, Axios, ABC News, Task & Purpose, Raw Story, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Mediaite, The Hill, The Daily Beast, Fox News, Political Wire, The Guardian, Mother Jones and Talking Points Memo

Brian Schwartz / CNBC:
Steven Mnuchin is under consideration to become Trump's next chief of staff, but he has indicated …

Discussion: The Resurgent and CBS News

CNN:
Ayers not taking job as White House chief of staff

Discussion: The Guardian, Sputnik International, Raw Story, Politico, IJR, Mediaite, Washington Post, Boing Boing and Balloon Juice

Mehdi Hasan / The Intercept:
John Kelly Was a Bully, Bigot, and Liar for Trump. Goodbye and Good Riddance.

Discussion: New York Times, Raw Story and PBS NewsHour

Nic Robertson / CNN:

'I can't breathe.' Jamal Khashoggi's last words disclosed in transcript, source says — Khashoggi messages reveal sharp criticism of MBS — (CNN)"I can't breathe." These were the final words uttered by Jamal Khashoggi after he was set upon by a Saudi hit squad at the country's consulate in Istanbul …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, miamiherald, Washington Post, VICE News, AOL, middleeastmonitor.com, Mediaite, Middle East Eye and Raw Story, more at Mediagazer »

Just Security:

Declassify the Khashoggi Assessment — There was no shortage of outrage on Capitol Hill this week when CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed a select group of Senators on her agency's reported judgement that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “probably” ordered the killing of U.S. resident …

Jackson Diehl / Washington Post:

Mike Pompeo swaggers his way to failure — Mike Pompeo was supposed to rescue the State Department from its disastrous start in the Trump presidency. When he first turned up at Foggy Bottom on May 1, he promised to staff up a badly depleted bureaucracy, listen to its views and reinvigorate U.S. diplomacy after a year of dysfunction.

Discussion: Raw Story and The American Conservative

Theodoric Meyer / Politico:
Diminished Saudi influence on display in Senate debate over Yemen

Discussion: One America News Network and ThinkProgress

Glenn Kessler / Washington Post:

Meet the Bottomless Pinocchio, a new rating for a false claim repeated over and over again — It was President Trump's signature campaign promise: He would build a wall along the nation's southern border, and Mexico would pay for it. — Shortly after becoming president, Trump dropped the Mexico part …

Discussion: Balloon Juice

New York Times:

Done With Michael Cohen, Federal Prosecutors Shift Focus to Trump Family Business — When federal prosecutors recommended a substantial prison term for President Trump's former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, they linked Mr. Trump to the crimes Mr. Cohen had committed in connection with the 2016 presidential campaign.

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA, The Daily Caller, Above the Law and The Gateway Pundit

John Wagner / Washington Post:
Trump: Payments to silence women were a ‘simple private transaction,’ not illegal campaign contributions

Discussion: Bloomberg, Mediaite and Political Wire

Benjamin Weiser / New York Times:
Michael Cohen Wanted to Cooperate in His Own Way. Prosecutors Had Other Ideas.

Discussion: HuffPost

Gregory Krieg / CNN:

Comey calls on Americans to ‘use every breath we have’ to oust Trump in 2020 — New York (CNN)Former FBI Director James Comey asked American voters Sunday night to end Donald Trump's presidency with a “landslide” victory for his opponent in 2020. — “All of us should use every breath …

Discussion: Axios, The Gateway Pundit, POLITICUSUSA, Daily Wire, Joe.My.God., Raw Story, Front Page Magazine, Talking Points Memo and AOL

Charles Duhigg / The Atlantic:

The Real Roots of American Rage — I. An Angry Little Town — Soon after the snows of 1977 began to thaw, the residents of Greenfield, Massachusetts, received a strange questionnaire in the mail. “Try to recall the number of times you became annoyed and/or angry during the past week,” the survey instructed.

Washington Post:

Russians interacted with at least 14 Trump associates during the campaign and transition — The Russian ambassador. A deputy prime minister. A pop star, a weightlifter, a lawyer, a Soviet army veteran with alleged intelligence ties. — Again and again and again, over the course …

Discussion: Raw Story, POLITICUSUSA and Hullabaloo

Robby Mook / Washington Post: The sad truth about Russian election interference

Alex Morales / Bloomberg:

May Said to Pull Parliament Vote on Her Deal: Brexit Update — U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May has called off a crucial vote in Parliament on whether to approve her Brexit deal, after being warned she was on course for a devastating defeat, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Political Wire

Politico:
UK can withdraw Brexit notification, ECJ rules

Discussion: One America News Network and The Local

Natasha Korecki / Politico:

Elizabeth Warren forges a 2020 machine — Sen. Elizabeth Warren has the core of her 2020 team in place if she runs for president. She has the seed money — there's $12.5 million ready to go, left over from her recent Senate run — and a massive email list she's amassed over years …

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog

Alex Seitz-Wald / NBC News: 2020 Democratic primary: California and Texas look to become the new Iowa and New Hampshire

Will Bunch / Philly.com:

Is France showing us what America's next civil war will look like? — It's October 2021. America is in a state of turmoil - so much so that the ongoing felony trial of disgraced former president Donald Trump seems only a footnote. The chaos of the 2020 election has meant no honeymoon for Beto O'Rourke …

Discussion: HuffPost, Al Jazeera and Washington Post

Bloomberg:
France to Probe Possible Russian Influence on Yellow Vest Riots

Discussion: skippy the bush kangaroo, CNN, Outside the Beltway, Front Page Magazine, News Agency UNIAN, Instapundit, The Conversation, The Moderate Voice and The Daily Caller

Marc Caputo / Politico:

Campaign finance fraud accusations haunt Spano, congressional office — MIAMI — U.S. Rep.-elect Ross Spano is struggling to hire office staff as he relies on a controversial adviser: one of the friends at the center of a campaign finance scandal that is rocking the Florida Republican.

Heather Caygle / Politico:

'His word isn't good': Dems don't trust Trump to make shutdown deal — Donald Trump's meeting Tuesday with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer may go a long way toward determining whether the government enters a partial shutdown before Christmas. — But as Democrats seriously re-engage with Trump …

Ashley Southall / New York Times:

‘Appalling’ Video Shows the Police Yanking 1-Year-Old From His Mother's Arms — [What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] — A video that shows police officers trying to remove a woman's 1-year-old son from her grasp as they arrested her in a Brooklyn …

Discussion: New York Post, Raw Story and CBS New York