memeorandum: Trump-funded studies disputing election fraud are focus in two probes (Washington Post)

1:35 PM ET, June 5, 2023

Top Items:

Twitter's U.S. Ad Sales Plunge 59% as Woes Continue — In internal forecasts, the company projected that ad sales would keep declining, handing a tough challenge to its new chief executive. — Ryan Mac reports on Twitter, and Tiffany Hsu reports on misinformation.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, CNN, Breitbart, TechCrunch, New York Post, New York Daily News, Ars Technica, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Joe.My.God., 9to5Mac and Bloomberg, more at Mediagazer »

Chris Sununu / Washington Post:

I'm not running for president in 2024. Beating Trump is more important. — Chris Sununu, a Republican, is governor of New Hampshire. — I will not be seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024. — Our party is on a collision course toward electoral irrelevance without significant corrective action.

Discussion: CBS News and NBC News

CNN:

CNN Exclusive: New Hampshire GOP Gov. Sununu says he will not run for president in 2024 — Watch more from Dana Bash's interview with New Hampshire GOP Gov. Chris Sununu at 9 p.m. ET. — CNN — New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a frequent Republican critic of former President Donald Trump …

Discussion: WMUR, HuffPost, Fox News, USA Today, Associated Press, The Hill, Washington Times, The Pulse of NH and The Daily Caller

Politico:
Suddenly, things are actually going the Senate GOP campaign arm's way

Discussion: RedState and Political Wire

The Economist:

Ukraine's counter-offensive appears to have begun — Its armour strikes in the south-east; but there is more to come — For months a guessing game has played out in military circles worldwide: where and when would Ukraine conduct its counter-offensive? Most expected it to come through …

Discussion: The Kyiv Independent, Reuters, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, NPR, Euromaidan Press, Associated Press, Metro.co.uk, Voice of America, Financial Times and The Guardian

Samuel Charap / Foreign Affairs:
An Unwinnable War — Washington Needs an Endgame in Ukraine — Russia's invasion of Ukraine …

Discussion: Human Events

New York Times:
Ukraine Intensifies Attacks on Russian Frontline Positions

Discussion: Meduza.io, Politico, USA Today, The Hill, The Guardian, NBC News, Associated Press and The Pulse of NH

BBC:
Ukraine war: Russia says it thwarted major Ukrainian offensive

Discussion: The Hill, UPI, Associated Press, The Guardian, Reuters, TASS, The Kyiv Independent, Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg

Ben Smith / Semafor:
Inside the high-stakes clash for control of Ukraine's story

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, more at Mediagazer »

Washington Post:

Trump lawyers ask Justice Dept. not to charge Trump in classified docs case — Attorneys for Donald Trump came to the Justice Department on Monday morning to make their case that the government should not charge the former president in connection with his possession of classified documents …

Discussion: CBS News, The Hill, CNBC, Associated Press and The Gateway Pundit

Politico:

Trump lawyers visit Justice Department — The visit comes as special counsel Jack Smith nears a decision about whether to charge Trump in the classified-documents probe. — Lawyers defending Donald Trump in an investigation related to his handling of highly sensitive national security documents …

Discussion: The Hill, NBC News, CBS News, Raw Story, NewsNation and Washington Post

CNN:

Trump's lawyers meet with Justice Department officials following complaints about special counsel probe — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are meeting with Justice Department officials on Monday following a public request for a meeting about what they characterize as prosecutorial misconduct …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, CBS News, New York Times, USA Today, Bloomberg, ABC News, Associated Press, Raw Story, HuffPost, Daily Kos and Political Wire

Max Tani / Semafor:

CNN lost trust over COVID coverage, internal report found — The Scoop — The Atlantic's Friday profile of the embattled CEO profile Chris Licht drew cringes at Hudson Yards — but also anger over Licht's criticism of the network's award-winning pandemic coverage.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, The Daily Caller, Eschaton and Instapundit, more at Mediagazer »

Brian Stelter / New York Magazine:
Can Chris Licht Survive at CNN?

Discussion: The Daily Beast, CNBC, Washington Free Beacon, Variety, Deadline, Columbia Journalism Review, The Hill, Page Six, New York Post, Vanity Fair, Raw Story, Fox News, Mediaite, The Daily Caller and The Hollywood Reporter, more at Mediagazer »

Politico:
Playbook: Christie. Pence. Burgum?

Discussion: Vanity Fair and CNN

New York Times:

S.E.C. Accuses Binance of Mishandling Funds and Lying to Regulators — The S.E.C. said the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange mixed “billions of dollars” in customer funds and secretly sent them to a separate company controlled by Binance's founder, Changpeng Zhao.

Discussion: CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, CBS News, NBC News, Financial Times, Reuters, UPI, Al Jazeera, NPR, CoinDesk, TechCrunch, Metro.co.uk, New York Daily News, The Verge, Semafor, Bloomberg, Forbes and Protos, more at Techmeme »

Lawrence Hurley / NBC News:

‘Trump too small’ trademark clash to be decided by Supreme Court — The dispute is over whether lawyer Steve Elster can register “Trump too small” as a trademark for use on T-shirts. — WASHINGTON — A crude joke that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., used to mock what he said was then-2016 …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CBS News, Politico, CNN, Associated Press, USA Today, Washington Examiner, Bloomberg, The Hill, Washington Post, Roll Call, Law & Crime, SCOTUSblog, The Daily Caller and Los Angeles Times

CNN:

Exclusive: Ukraine has cultivated sabotage agents inside Russia and is giving them drones to stage attacks, sources say — Ukraine has cultivated a network of agents and sympathizers inside Russia working to carry out acts of sabotage against Russian targets and has begun providing …

Discussion: Euromaidan Press, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Kyiv Independent and Political Wire

Katie Robertson / New York Times:

Hundreds of Gannett Journalists Walk Out — The union representing the company's newsroom employees has urged a vote of no-confidence against the C.E.O. at a shareholder meeting on Monday. — Hundreds of journalists for the country's largest newspaper chain walked off the job on Monday …

Discussion: Washington Post and Raw Story, more at Mediagazer »

Katie Baker / The Daily Beast:

Casey DeSantis Is the Walmart Melania — She'd better hope that pleather is pudding-proof. … The First Lady of Florida showed up on the campaign trail in Iowa this weekend wearing a ghastly black leather jacket—American flag on front, an alligator and the silhouette of her state on the back …

Discussion: HotAir, Raw Story, Washington Examiner, RedState, TheBlaze, Mediaite, Balloon Juice, Fox News, Twitchy, Digby's Hullabaloo and Insider

Michael Scherer / Washington Post:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tests the conspiratorial appetite of Democrats — One of the most famous living descendants of the most famous American political dynasty shows early strength against Biden in polls — INDIANAPOLIS — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a candidate for president supported …

Discussion: Breitbart, Insider, Joe.My.God., Raw Story, The Hill and Trending Politics Conservative, more at Techmeme »

Jim Geraghty / National Review:

DeSantis and the Nebulous ‘Charisma Threshold’ — On the menu today: I'm not interested in discussing whether you think Ron DeSantis is charismatic or not. What I want to discuss is how seemingly overnight, so many people decided that the single most important measuring stick of DeSantis …

Discussion: Salon

Dan Ladden-Hall / The Daily Beast:

Sex Offenders Who Voted in GOP Florida County Not Prosecuted: Report — HMM... A Republican state attorney in Florida chose not to pursue cases against six convicted sex offenders who voted in a majority GOP county in the 2020 election, according to a report, despite the cases being similar …

Discussion: Raw Story, Orlando Sentinel and Political Wire

Daniel Lippman / Politico:

Democratic Senate hopeful claims primary residence in Arizona — and D.C. — As part of a VA loan application, the Arizona congressmen pledged the D.C. home was his ‘principal’ residence. — When Arizona Senate candidate Ruben Gallego bought a house near Capitol Hill last year …

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Rick Porter / Hollywood Reporter:

Showtime Pulls ‘Vice’ Episode on Ron DeSantis — An installment delving into the Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate's time as a U.S. Navy JAG officer at Guantanamo Bay was quietly shelved without explanation. — Showtime quietly pulled an episode of its Vice newsmagazine last week …

Discussion: Deadline, Forbes, Raw Story, New Republic, HuffPost, Crooks and Liars and Political Wire, more at Mediagazer »

Jeff Asher / The Atlantic:

The Murder Rate Is Suddenly Falling — The first five months of 2023 have produced an encouraging overall trend for the first time in years. — Official crime statistics are only released after a substantial delay, so for nearly a decade I've collected and compiled big-city crime data …

Wall Street Journal:

Targeting Toyota for Its Electric-Vehicle Heresy — Public pensions and proxy advisers try to punish the company using corporate governance as a pretext. — By The Editorial Board — It wasn't long ago that Toyota's hybrid vehicles were all the rage with the climate-change left.

Discussion: RedState

Washington Post:

Trump-funded studies disputing election fraud are focus in two probes — The then-president's campaign hired two firms to prove voter fraud, but none was ever found — A decision by then-President Donald Trump's campaign to spend more than $1 million for two firms to study whether electoral fraud occurred …

Discussion: Raw Story

New York Times:

What Happened When a Brooklyn Neighborhood Policed Itself for Five Days — On a two-block stretch of Brownsville in April, the police stepped aside and let residents respond to 911 calls. It was a bold experiment that some believe could redefine law-enforcement in New York City.

Discussion: NewsNation and Outside the Beltway

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine:

The GOP's Authoritarian Acceleration — Internal resistance to its anti-democratic turn has all but vanished. — In May 2017, Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey, crashing through the first of many important democratic norms. While FBI directors technically can be fired …

john pavlovitz:

Woke Will Win — The leveraging of irrational fear is nothing new. — Throughout history it has been the go-to tactic of the worst of politics and religion. — When you lack substantive ideas, you need an encroaching enemy to move and motivate people.

Felix Salmon / Axios:

America's economic holding pattern … That's largely because of Fed chair Jerome Powell, who doesn't want and won't allow some kind of economic boom — he thinks the economy is running too hot already. … The May employment report, released on Friday morning, marked the 14th straight month …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Insider

Sanjana Karanth / HuffPost:

Cornel West Announces Run For President As Third Party Candidate — The political activist and academic said on Twitter that he is running to “reintroduce America to the best of itself.” — Political activist and academic Cornel West announced on Monday that he is running for president as a third party candidate.

Discussion: Politico and Political Wire