memeorandum: William Barr Testimony Highlights: Attorney General Says He Thinks ‘Spying Did Occur’ on Trump Campaign (New York Times)

4:40 PM ET, April 10, 2019

Top Items:

Zachary Basu / Axios:

Barr walks back claim that law enforcement spied on Trump campaign — Attorney General Bill Barr told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday that he believes spying by law enforcement officials on the 2016 Trump campaign “did occur,” before clarifying at the end of the hearing …

Discussion: Mother Jones, Fox News, The Daily Caller, Herman Cain, Daily Wire and Conservative News Today

Lisa Mascaro / Associated Press:

AP Interview: Pelosi: 'I don't trust Barr; I trust Mueller' — WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday she doesn't trust Attorney General William Barr and suggested his statements alleging President Donald Trump's campaign was spied on undermine Barr's independence as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Discussion: Political Wire and Talking Points Memo

Ryan Goodman / Just Security:

What the President May Now Fear Most in Mueller Report — Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report is predicated, as far as we know, on a potentially explosive assumption. — Consider a head scratching set of conclusions. The Special Counsel wrote that “the evidence does not establish …

Discussion: Raw Story

John Solomon / The Hill:

The single-sentence Russia bombshell that Attorney General Barr delivered to Congress — Sitting in the hot seat of a high-profile congressional hearing has a way of unmasking the mettle of any witness. — Attorney General William Barr showed us Tuesday, in his first testimony since the end …

Discussion: Washington Examiner and New York Times

Timothy L. O'Brien / Bloomberg:

Bill Barr Is Trying Hard to Be President Trump's Roy Cohn — It's not that bad. Yet. — LISTEN TO ARTICLE — 5:57 — SHARE THIS ARTICLE — Share — Tweet — Post — Email — The attorney general of the United States is, we now know, quite sure of himself. — Exhibit A: Spying

Discussion: Washington Post, The Guardian, Washington Monthly and The Resurgent

Aaron Blake / Washington Post:

William Barr's highly questionable use of Trump's ‘spying’ talking point — From almost the moment he was nominated as President Trump's attorney general, the question has been whether William P. Barr would do Trump's bidding. He was assuming an important post in which Trump had grown frustrated …

Discussion: Rolling Stone, The Federalist and Raw Story

Kyle Cheney / Politico:
FBI brass discussed possibility Trump fired Comey ‘at the behest of’ Russia

Discussion: Raw Story

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:
William Barr, Trump toady

Discussion: Shareblue Media, CNN, Financial Times, The Mahablog and Politico

Rebecca Morin / Politico:
Trump calls Mueller probe an ‘attempted coup’

Discussion: Fox News, The Root, Breitbart and VICE News

Paula Reid / CBS News:
William Barr believes spying “did occur” on Trump campaign — live updates

Discussion: Law & Crime and The Week

Washington Post:
Attorney general says he believes ‘spying did occur’ in campaign probe of Trump associates

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, CNN and The Week

ABC News:
Trump calls Mueller investigation ‘attempted coup,’ Barr says ‘spying’ needs to be investigated

Discussion: Reuters, IJR, The Gateway Pundit, Herman Cain and Townhall

Wall Street Journal:

Hush-Money Probe Gathered Evidence From Trump's Inner Circle — Federal investigators, looking into payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, questioned longtime aides of the president and amassed more evidence than previously known — The Manhattan U.S. attorney's office has gathered …

Discussion: Bipartisan Report, Talking Points Memo, New York Post, Raw Story, CNN and Mediaite

Daniel Lippman / Politico:

Trump's ‘truly bizarre’ visit to Mt. Vernon — President Donald Trump had some advice for George Washington. — During a guided tour of Mount Vernon last April with French president Emmanuel Macron, Trump learned that Washington was one of the major real-estate speculators of his era.

MJ Lee / CNN:

Elizabeth Warren's campaign announces $6 million first-quarter haul as it makes huge hires in early states — Warren: I'm tired of a Washington that works for the rich — (CNN)Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised more than $6 million for her presidential bid in the first quarter of 2019 …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Natasha Korecki / Politico:
Warren raises $6 million in first quarter

Discussion: Axios, The Week, Washington Free Beacon and Political Wire

Cheyenne Haslett / ABC News:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren becomes latest presidential hopeful to release 2018 tax returns

Discussion: New York Times, ThinkProgress, Fox News, New York Post, The Daily Beast and Breitbart

Matt Viser / Washington Post: Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised $6 million in first quarter of 2019, trailing several other presidential candidates

Andrew Restuccia / Politico:

White House eyeing former head of anti-immigration group for DHS job — The White House is considering nominating the former head of an anti-immigration group to lead U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to a White House official and three people briefed on the deliberations …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, VICE News, Shareblue Media and Booman Tribune

Washington Post:
Miller and Kushner on a potential collision course in Trump's border crisis

Discussion: Politico, Daily Kos and Arizona Mirror

Anita Kumar / Politico:
GOP senators try to undermine Kushner's immigration plan

Discussion: The Hill, McClatchy Washington Bureau, Axios and Big League Politics

New York Times:

Mick Mulvaney Tries Letting Trump Be Trump — WASHINGTON — When President Trump met with his embattled homeland security secretary on Sunday to force her out after months of stormy eruptions over immigration policy, the only other person in the room was Mick Mulvaney, who made no effort …

Discussion: Politico, Vanity Fair, Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo

Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
The growing signs of a rift between Trump and the Senate GOP

Discussion: Washington Monthly, CNN and Vox

Sean Gallagher / Ars Technica:

DHS, FBI say election systems in all 50 states were targeted in 2016 — Joint Intelligence Bulletin issued in March says Russian hacking efforts were wide-ranging. — A joint intelligence bulletin (JIB) has been issued by the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation …

Aaron Rupar / Vox:

Steve Mnuchin tried to tell Maxine Waters how to run a congressional hearing. It did not go well. — “Please cancel your meeting and respect our time.” — During a hearing on Tuesday, an exasperated Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin made House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters …

Discussion: ABC News, Common Dreams, Slate and The Root

Justin Baragona / The Daily Beast:
Fox News Hosts Back Mnuchin in His Testy Exchange With Maxine Waters

Discussion: Politico, CNN and Contemptor

Sarah Grossbart / E! Online:

Broken Friendships, Family Fights and Prison Sentence Anguish: How Lori Loughlin Is Coping With Her New Normal — Whatever happened to the woman who once declared her family wasn't interesting enough for prime time TV? — “We've been asked to do a reality show a couple times,” …

Discussion: Daily Wire and Vanity Fair

Abby Vesoulis / TIME:

Donald Trump Inadvertently Killed the Pentagon Press Briefing. Here's How That Hurts the Public — Gerard Butler's last action movie was about Navy SEALs rescuing a kidnapped Russian president to prevent World War III. But the least realistic part may have been when the burly Scottish actor stood …

Elaina Plott / The Atlantic:
Kirstjen Nielsen's Job Prospects Are Probably Pretty Slim

Discussion: National Review, Raw Story, Newsweek and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:

A Texas bill would make it possible to put women to death for having abortions — Men and women, young and old, native Texans and immigrants, they rose to ask lawmakers to protect life, describing a “genocide” and foreseeing the arrival of “God's wrath.” — The act of public atonement …

Discussion: Shareblue Media, WTTG-TV, Raw Story, Faithwire, Balloon Juice, Common Dreams, Dallas Morning News and LifeNews.com

Lawfare:

Memo to the Press: How Not to Screw Up on the Mueller Report — Back in February, writing with Susan Hennessey and Mikhaila Fogel, we laid out “Four Principles for Reading the Mueller Report.” The report was then still vapor, a document whose preparation was widely hypothesized by most analysts …

Discussion: WGN-TV, Media Matters for America, KTLA and Associated Press

CNN:

Tiny bees found in woman's eye, feeding off tears — (CNN)Doctors treating a Taiwanese woman for a swollen eye were shocked to find four tiny bees living under her left eyelid. — The miniscule insects, known as sweat bees, are 3 to 4 millimeters (0.12-0.16 inches) in length, according to CNN affiliate CTS.

Discussion: The Daily Caller and The Guardian

Michael Brendan Dougherty / National Review:

The Smear Of Roger Scruton — The attempt to remove Roger Scruton from an honorary advisory role on the U.K. government's “Building Better, Building Beautiful” commission failed when it was tried last November. But it succeeded today. — “You expect people who spend their lives on Twitter …

Discussion: New Statesman, Spectator USA, Coffee House and The American Conservative

The Guardian:
Government sacks Roger Scruton after remarks about Soros and Islamophobia

Discussion: New Statesman and The Sun

Daniel Lippman / Politico:

Inside the (semi-)secret society for young Trump staffers — On the first Wednesday evening in February, Anthony Scaramucci entertained a packed house of like-minded souls at Rewind, a retro diner off Dupont Circle. — There, the former White House communications director fielded friendly questions …

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

How Trump is spurring more migration to the U.S. — over the short and long term — Data released by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday reinforce the dramatic increase in the number of migrants coming to the United States from and through Mexico.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

New York Times: The Border Is Broken. And There's No Plan to Fix It.

Washington Post:

If Trump has his way, this major federal agency is on the way out — The White House is moving to do what no president has accomplished since the end of World War II: eliminate a major federal agency. — If the Trump administration succeeds at dismantling the Office of Personnel Management …

Discussion: CNN, Daily Wire, TheBlaze and Axios

Amy Walter / The Cook Political Report:

Look at the Forest, Not the Trees: What We Do and Don't Know About 2020 — In this age of constant stimulation and news and information overload, it is harder than ever to get perspective. I am as guilty as anyone of getting sucked into the vortex of political twitter, only to emerge hours later with little to show for it.

Discussion: New York Times

Will Sommer / The Daily Beast:

A QAnon Believer Is Running for Congress and Is Currently Unopposed in His Republican Primary — Matthew Lusk says he is not a ‘brainwashed cult member.’ He just has some questions. — Believers in the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory are fond of telling each other to “Trust the Plan” …

Discussion: Mediaite

Sophie Lewis / CBS News:

“Consent condom” requires four hands to open, making powerful statement about consent — With consent at the forefront of modern conversations about sex, one company is highlighting its importance in a unique way. Argentinian company Tulipán has created a “consent condom” …