memeorandum: Senior officials advised against Trump emergency arms sales to Saudis (Politico)

9:45 PM ET, May 20, 2020

Top Items:

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

Michael Flynn's name was never ‘masked’ in FBI document on his communications with Russian ambassador — A Republican effort to determine who may have leaked the name of Michael Flynn in connection to his 2016 contact with the Russian ambassador has centered on the question …

Discussion: The Hill, The Week, Responsible Statecraft and Politico

Eli Lake / Commentary Magazine:

How it happened and why it matters — In their final encounter during the transition following the 2016 election, Donald Trump's incoming national-security adviser surprised Barack Obama's outgoing national-security adviser. Susan Rice writes in her memoir that the Michael Flynn she was dealing …

Discussion: American Greatness

Julia Musto / Fox News:
Trey Gowdy: Why Susan Rice's email to herself is the 'most bizarre thing I've read'

Discussion: American Greatness and Breitbart

Natasha Bertrand / Politico:
Warner asks intel chief to fork over underlying ‘unmasking’ intel on Michael Flynn

Discussion: Axios, IJR, The Week, Raw Story and American Greatness

Morgan Phillips / Fox News:
McEnany accuses Susan Rice of a ‘lie’ over 2017 interview answer about alleged Trump team surveillance

Discussion: Politico, New York Post and The Hill

QU Poll:

Release Detail — May 20, 2020 - Biden Holds 11 Point Lead As Trump Approval On Coronavirus Dips, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Almost Half Say Second Wave Of Coronavirus ‘very Likely’ In Fall — Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump 50 …

Discussion: Fox News, POLITICUSUSA, Washington Post, Washington Times, The Hill and The Week

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

Trump just said the corrupt part out loud — During the impeachment of President Trump, an expert witness called by Democrats floated a theoretical scenario involving the president threatening a state hammered by a natural disaster, to illustrate the corruption of Trump's shakedown of Ukraine.

Discussion: The Mahablog, Just The News, The Atlantic, Law & Crime, The Hill, Breitbart, NBC News, Mediaite, Michigan Advance and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Jon Ralston / The Nevada Independent:

Trump tweets garbage, Nevada Republicans won't throw it out — President Donald J. Trump acknowledges Sheldon Adelson, Chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands, during the annual Republican Jewish Coalition at the Venetian on Saturday, April 6, 2019. (Jeff Scheid/The Nevada Independent)

Discussion: BuzzFeed News, Washington Post and Politico

New York Times:
Trump Makes False Claim About Michigan Secretary of State and Mail Voting

Discussion: Washington Post, Breitbart, Vox, The Hill, Wall Street Journal, Raw Story and IJR

Mike Baker / New York Times:

G.O.P. Voters Back QAnon Conspiracy Promoter for U.S. Senate — Jo Rae Perkins won her primary campaign in Oregon as the QAnon conspiracy theory has continued to gain momentum in Republican circles. — SEATTLE — Republicans in Oregon have selected a Senate candidate who promotes …

Felicia Sonmez / Washington Post:

Believer in QAnon conspiracy theory wins Republican Senate nomination in Oregon — Oregon Republicans on Tuesday elected a Senate nominee who believes in QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that has taken root among some far-right supporters of President Trump.

Discussion: Right Wing Watch, Yahoo Sports, The Hill, Axios, Talking Points Memo and Vox

Will Sommer / The Daily Beast:

Two Weeks Ago, She Predicted Trump Would Use COVID to Arrest Obama. Now She's a GOP Senate Candidate — Jo Rae Perkins will be the Republican nominee for Senate in Oregon. And, boy, she's not your usual candidate. — A QAnon conspiracy theorist won the GOP Senate primary in Oregon on Tuesday …

Discussion: The Hill

Pete Williams / NBC News:

Supreme Court temporarily blocks Mueller grand jury material from being turned over to House — The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday blocked a House committee from receiving grand jury material gathered by Robert Mueller's special counsel investigators, issuing a stay while a legal dispute over the records is on appeal.

Discussion: UPI, Associated Press, Politico, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Post, The Hill and IJR

Brent Kendall / Wall Street Journal:
Supreme Court Grants Trump Request to Block Disclosure of Mueller Materials

Discussion: The Week

Ariane de Vogue / CNN:
Supreme Court blocks release of Mueller grand jury documents to House

Discussion: Breitbart

David Shortell / CNN:

Michael Cohen to be released Thursday and will serve remaining prison sentence at home — (CNN)President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen will be released early from prison on Thursday and is expected to serve out the remainder of his sentence at home as coronavirus continues …

Discussion: The Hill

Sadie Gurman / Wall Street Journal:
Trump's Ex-Lawyer Michael Cohen Will Be Released to Home Confinement

Discussion: Associated Press, Law & Crime and Mediaite

CNN:

'We've been muzzled': CDC sources say White House putting politics ahead of science — (CNN)In the early weeks of the US coronavirus outbreak, staff members in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had tracked a growing number of transmissions in Europe and elsewhere …

Discussion: Daily Kos, Sputnik News, IJR, Raw Story and The Hill

Kristen Holmes / CNN:
CDC's Redfield in the hot seat as White House looks for someone to blame

Discussion: Gizmodo and Raw Story

New York Times:

Lockdown Delays Cost at Least 36,000 Lives, Data Show — Even small differences in timing would have prevented the worst exponential growth, which by April had subsumed New York City, New Orleans and other major cities, researchers found.

Ariel Edwards-Levy / HuffPost:

Here's How Most Americans Really Feel About Wearing Face Masks — If there's a culture war over masks, someone forgot to tell most of the public, a new survey finds. — Most Americans consider wearing a mask near others a sign of respect and a matter of public health, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds.

Erin Banco / The Daily Beast:

White House's Own Data Crunchers: Southern Counties About to Get Hit Hard — TEMPTING FATES — The coronavirus task force has been using data from PolicyLab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to chart the disease. And the new projections aren't great.

Discussion: Raw Story and policylab.chop.edu

WFLA-TV:

Florida COVID-19 dashboard manager raises red flags about accuracy of state data after being fired — TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Cap News/WFLA) - Florida's COVID-19 dashboard, which has been praised and celebrated by officials in Washington in recent months, is now at the center of a controversy …

Discussion: Politico, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, NPR, Townhall, BuzzFeed News, Redstate, National Review, WND, TheBlaze and Florida Politics

Gary Detman / WEAR-TV:
DeSantis: Florida COVID-19 dashboard designer faces cyber sexual harassment charges

Discussion: Power Line

Politico:

Senior officials advised against Trump emergency arms sales to Saudis — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo disregarded the advice of high-level officials at the State Department, Pentagon and within the intelligence community in invoking an emergency waiver last year to circumvent congressional review …

Discussion: Raw Story, CNBC and GovExec.com

Chris Smith / BGR:

CDC: Coronavirus ‘does not spread easily’ from contaminated surfaces — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tweaked its COVID-19 transmission information webpage to make it clear that the primary way the coronavirus spreads is from person-to-person.

Discussion: New York Post

Madeline Farber / Fox News:
CDC now says coronavirus ‘does not spread easily’ via contaminated surfaces

Discussion: The Daily Caller, New York Post and TheBlaze

Politico:

Fired State Department watchdog was probing protocol office — The now-fired State Department inspector general had recently wrapped up an investigation into two other top aides to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, determining that they had likely failed to report allegations of workplace violence …

Discussion: Washington Post, NBC News, Vanity Fair, Hampton Roads Daily Press, Law & Crime, Talking Points Memo, Reason, One America News Network, The Hill, The National Interest, Common Dreams, The American Independent, CNN, The Week and Raw Story

Fred Kaplan / Slate:
The Ultimate Disgrace of Mike Pompeo

Discussion: NBC News, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, IJR and Daily Kos

Shawn Yancy / WTTG-TV:

Former White House butler Wilson Roosevelt Jerman dies of COVID-19 — Remembering former White House butler who died from COVID-19 — Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, one of the White House's longest-serving employees, died last weekend from COVID-19. He was 91.

Discussion: Fox News and The Hill

Domenico Montanaro / NPR:

Poll: Two-Thirds Expect Return To Normal Will Take 6 Months Or More — Audio will be available later today. — Two-thirds of Americans do not expect their daily lives to return to normal for at least six months, and as states reopen, three-quarters are concerned that a second wave …

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Post, Rolling Stone and No More Mister Nice Blog

Tucker Higgins / CNBC:
Swing state voters are sharply divided over coronavirus, CNBC/Change Research poll finds

Discussion: Breitbart and The Daily Caller

Jeffrey Toobin / New Yorker:

A Case From a Judge's Past May Offer a Clue About How the Michael Flynn Inquiry Will Proceed — Michael Flynn, President Trump's first national-security adviser, pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I. agents, in December, 2017, in a case brought by the special counsel Robert Mueller.

Discussion: Law & Crime, American Thinker and Fox News

Mike DeBonis / Washington Post:

Targeting Hunter Biden, Senate panel approves subpoena for lobbying firm over Democrats' objections — A Senate committee moved Wednesday to subpoena documents related to the son of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in an election-year escalation of GOP congressional scrutiny of Biden's time as vice president.

Discussion: Raw Story and Axios

Andrew Desiderio / Politico:
Republican-led Senate panel authorizes subpoena in Hunter Biden probe

Discussion: The Hill, Townhall, New York Post, WND, One America News Network, IJR, Redstate, TheBlaze, Breitbart and Raw Story

Burgess Everett / Politico:

McConnell vows end to enhanced unemployment benefits — Mitch McConnell promised House Republicans Wednesday that the beefed up unemployment benefits enacted earlier this spring “will not be in the next bill.” — The Senate majority leader told the House GOP minority in an afternoon phone call …

Discussion: Fox News and POLITICUSUSA

CNN:

Trump said Obama administration was handling early days of Swine Flu outbreak ‘fine,’ cautioned not to overreact — (CNN)Donald Trump in April 2009 said the Obama administration was handling the early days of the 2009-2010 H1N1 outbreak "fine" and warned against overreacting to the new virus.

Discussion: Political Wire

Isaac Stanley-Becker / Washington Post:

Trump's promise of ‘Warp Speed’ fuels anti-vaccine movement in fertile corners of the Web — The question was posed bluntly to the nearly 100,000 members of a Facebook group devoted to ending Pennsylvania's stay-at-home orders, with a user writing, “if there was a vaccine for coronavirus would you be likely to take it.”

Victor Morton / Washington Times:

Kamala Harris introduces resolution condemning ‘Chinese Virus’ as racist — Sen. Kamala Harris wants this on the record — the term “Chinese Virus” is hate speech fueling attacks against Asians. — The California Democrat and failed 2020 presidential candidate has introduced a resolution condemning …

Discussion: Washington Free Beacon

Sean Sullivan / Washington Post:

Bernie Sanders, seeking peace with Joe Biden, asks his own delegates to turn down the volume — Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose delegates staged a raucous rebellion against Hillary Clinton at the 2016 Democratic convention, is trying to engineer a different outcome this year …

Discussion: Politico

CBS Detroit:

‘How Can I Be Sick?’ Woman Who Took Hydroxychloroquine For 19 Years To Treat Lupus Still Got COVID-19 — OCONOMOWOC, Wis. (CBS Local) — A Wisconsin woman who has taken hydroxychloroquine for 19 years to treat lupus says the anti-malarial drug will not protect someone from COVID-19.

Discussion: CBS Denver and CBS New York

David Edwards / Raw Story:

Kayleigh McEnany: 'It doesn't matter' when people call me a liar because ‘I stand as a Christian woman’ — White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany this week brushed aside criticism of her past statements by noting that she is a “Christian woman” who ultimately works for God.

David Marcus / New York Post:

End New York City's lockdown now! — Sometimes, a good rant is all a writer can offer. Bear with me. — Last Friday morning, some 3,500 New Yorkers lined up at a Catholic church in Queens to receive free food hours before it even opened, according to the New York Police Department.