Thursday, May 11, 2017

6:35 PM 5/11/2017

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Trumps Reasons for Firing Comey Changing, Under Attack
FBI searches Republican political consulting firm in Annapolis - Washington Post
Security situation in Afghanistan likely to get worse: U.S. intel chief
Donald Trump slams James Comey as a 'showboat' and says FBI was 'in turmoil'
Asia and Australia Edition: James Comey, Donald Trump, Moon Jae-in: Your Morning Briefing
Republican senator suggests Merrick Garland for next FBI chief - CNN
Trump says FBI director told him three times he wasn't under investigation, once in call initiated by president - Washington Post
Pentagon intelligence chief warns of Afghan gains being lost
Trump Wants 'Goddamned Steam,' Not Digital Catapults on Aircraft Carriers - The Atlantic
Trump signs long-awaited cyber order, launching hacking defense review - Politico
Kurd-Led Force Homes In on ISIS Bastion
Don't forget those smiling images of Trump and the Russians - Washington Post
Trump Offers New Account of Firing 'Showboat' Comey - New York Times
President Donald Trump: 'What Is Digital?' - Gizmodo
Donald Trump insisted Comey exonerated him. Not exactly... - CNN
Trump signs cyber security executive order - Reuters
Putin's Week Started Badly but Then Trump Made Russia Great Again - Haaretz
FBI searches Republican political consulting firm in Annapolis - Washington Post
FBI activity in Annapolis linked to search warrant of GOP consulting firm - Washington Times
Federal Ethics Office Wants To Know If Trump Appointees Are Keeping Their Promises - NPR
Trump says 'his decision' to fire FBI chief, calls him 'showboat': NBC interview https://t.co/Se8147GVaZ via @Reuters
Trump Calls Comey Showboat; Says He Made Decision to Fire Him
International Edition 1305 EDT - May 11, 2017
NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET
NPR News: 05-11-2017 3PM ET

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Saved Stories - None 
Trumps Reasons for Firing Comey Changing, Under Attack

The White House appeared to walk back on Thursday its earlier assertions that President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in response to a scathing memo from a top Justice Department official. WSJs Jason Bellini reports. Photo: AP
FBI searches Republican political consulting firm in Annapolis - Washington Post


Washington Post

FBI searches Republican political consulting firm in Annapolis
Washington Post
Federal authorities on Thursday searched the offices of a political consulting firm in Annapolis that has worked with Republican candidates nationwide and was sued in 2014 on allegations of fraudulent fundraising practices. The Strategic Campaign Group ...
FBI raids office of GOP consulting firm in MarylandThe Hill (blog)
FBI raids office of Republican campaign consultant in AnnapolisBaltimore Sun
Republican Fundraising Firm in Maryland Raided by FBI: ReportsBloomberg
CBS News
all 24 activity in Annapolis linked to search warrant of GOP consulting firmWashington Times

all 18
 
news articles »
Security situation in Afghanistan likely to get worse: U.S. intel chief

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The security situation in Afghanistan will further deteriorate even if there is a modest increase in U.S. military support for the war-torn country, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday, as President Donald Trump's administration weighs sending more forces to Afghanistan.
  
Donald Trump slams James Comey as a 'showboat' and says FBI was 'in turmoil'

Asia and Australia Edition: James Comey, Donald Trump, Moon Jae-in: Your Morning Briefing

Heres what you need to know to start your day.

Republican senator suggests Merrick Garland for next FBI chief - CNN


CNN

Republican senator suggests Merrick Garland for next FBI chief
CNN
(CNN) Republican Sen. Mike Lee suggested the President pick federal judge Merrick Garland as the next FBI director, a surprising recommendation following Republican efforts to block Garland from a seat on the Supreme Court last year. "Instead of a ...
Mike Lee: Merrick Garland for FBI headFox News
Sen. Mike Lee tweets Trump: Nominate Merrick Garland to replace ComeyPolitico

all 28 news articles »
Trump says FBI director told him three times he wasn't under investigation, once in call initiated by president - Washington Post


Washington Post

Trump says FBI director told him three times he wasn't under investigation, once in call initiated by president
Washington Post
President Trump said FBI Director James B. Comey told him three times he was not under investigation once at a White House dinner when Comey was seeking to remain in his post and in two phone calls, including one initiated by the president ...
Nixon Library Tweet That Trolled Trump Was Inappropriate, Officials SayNew York Times
Trump Says He Planned To Fire 'Grandstander' Comey 'Regardless Of Recommendation'NPR
24 hours of craziness in Trump's WashingtonCNN
Reuters -BBC News -NBCNews.com
all 8,481 news articles »
Pentagon intelligence chief warns of Afghan gains being lost

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. must "do something very different" in Afghanistan, such as placing American military advisers closer to the front lines of battle, or risk squandering all that has been invested there in recent years, the head of the Pentagon's military intelligence agency said Thursday....
Trump Wants 'Goddamned Steam,' Not Digital Catapults on Aircraft Carriers - The Atlantic


The Atlantic

Trump Wants 'Goddamned Steam,' Not Digital Catapults on Aircraft Carriers
The Atlantic
In a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine, Trump described his disgust with the catapult system known as Electro-Magnetic Aircraft Launch System, nicknamed EMALS, aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford. (Time has published only excerpts from the ...
President Donald Trump: 'What Is Digital?'Gizmodo
Trump May Have Just Derailed A Crucial Part Of America's Future Aircraft Carrier FleetJalopnik

all 16 news articles »
Trump signs long-awaited cyber order, launching hacking defense review - Politico


Politico

Trump signs long-awaited cyber order, launching hacking defense review
Politico
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a long-delayed cybersecurity executive order that launches sweeping reviews of the federal government's digital vulnerabilities and directs agencies to adopt specific security practices. The directive is Trump ...
Trump Finally Signed His Long Awaited Executive Order On CybersecurityBuzzFeed News
Trump
 
signs cybersecurity order to create an 'executive branch enterprise'Washington Examiner
 
Trump Finally Signed His Long Awaited Executive Order On CybersecurityBuzzFeed News

Donald Trump launches cyber security effortWashington Times
Washington Post
all 32 29 news articles »
Kurd-Led Force Homes In on ISIS Bastion

A Kurdish-led military force in Syria is closing in on Islamic States stronghold of Raqqa after taking the strategic Tabqa dam nearby, days after the fighters won rare approval from both Washington and Damascus to battle the extremist group.

Don't forget those smiling images of Trump and the Russians - Washington Post


Washington Post

Don't forget those smiling images of Trump and the Russians
Washington Post
The pictures from the Oval Office on Wednesday published by a Tass photographer, as no U.S. media were present are jolly and good-humored. President Trump, who fired his FBI director a day earlier, is grinning for the cameras and shaking hands ...

and more »
Trump Offers New Account of Firing 'Showboat' Comey - New York Times


New York Times

Trump Offers New Account of Firing 'Showboat' Comey
New York Times
In his first extended comments on a move that has roiled Washington, Mr.Trump castigated Mr. Comey, calling him a showboat and a grandstander who had created turmoil at the bureau. But the president's description of his decision-making process ...
Trump says he was going to fire 'showboat' Comey regardless of recommendationWashington Post
24 hours of craziness in Trump's WashingtonCNN
Trump Interview With Lester Holt: President Asked Comey If He Was Under InvestigationNBCNews.com
NPR -BBC News -Fox News
all 8,673 news articles »
President Donald Trump: 'What Is Digital?' - Gizmodo


Gizmodo

President Donald Trump: 'What Is Digital?'
Gizmodo
The president's confusing, concerning, and ultimately crazy week continued on Thursday with a prickly Time cover package. It contained an unnerving interview between the magazine's White House correspondent and Donald Trump. Based on his answers, ...

and more »
Donald Trump insisted Comey exonerated him. Not exactly... - CNN


CNN

Donald Trump insisted Comey exonerated him. Not exactly...
CNN
That's consistent with the letter Trump sent Comey informing him that he had been fired; "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the ...
What Donald Trump doesn't understand about the federal governmentWashington Post
Donald Trump's Craven Republican EnablersThe New Yorker
Donald Trump Details How Former FBI Director James Comey Said He's Not Under InvestigationDeadline
New York Magazine -New York Times -CBS News
all 8,627 news articles »
Trump signs cyber security executive order - Reuters


Reuters

Trump signs cyber security executive order
Reuters
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to bolster government's cyber security and protecting the nation's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks, the White House said, marking his first significant action to ...
Trump Finally Signs Overdue Executive Order About 'The Cyber'Gizmodo

all 39 news articles »
Putin's Week Started Badly but Then Trump Made Russia Great Again - Haaretz


Putin's Week Started Badly but Then Trump Made Russia Great Again
Haaretz
Another decision by Trump this week has brought a tight-lipped smile to Putin'sface. On Monday he approved a plan to directly arm the Kurdish YPG militia with heavy weapons. YPG is the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which America is ...

and more »
FBI searches Republican political consulting firm in Annapolis - Washington Post


Washington Post

FBI searches Republican political consulting firm in Annapolis
Washington Post
Federal authorities on Thursday searched the offices of a political consulting firm in Annapolis that has worked with Republican candidates nationwide and was sued in 2014 on allegations of fraudulent fundraising practices. The Strategic Campaign Group ...

and more »
FBI activity in Annapolis linked to search warrant of GOP consulting firm - Washington Times


Washington Times

FBI activity in Annapolis linked to search warrant of GOP consulting firm
Washington Times
Annapolis, Md., seen here from the City Dock. By Smallbones (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dock_Street_Annapolis.JPG] more >. Print. By Sally Persons - The Washington Times - Thursday, ...

and more »
Federal Ethics Office Wants To Know If Trump Appointees Are Keeping Their Promises - NPR


NPR

Federal Ethics Office Wants To Know If Trump Appointees Are Keeping Their Promises
NPR
When the Senate was preparing to confirm President Trump's Cabinet and other top officials, the nominees negotiated ethics agreements, promising to rearrange their financial lives to avoid conflicts of interest. Now the Office of Government Ethics ...

and more »
Trump says 'his decision' to fire FBI chief, calls him 'showboat': NBC interview https://t.co/Se8147GVaZ via @Reuters

Trump says 'his decision' to fire FBI chief, calls him 'showboat': NBC interview https://t.co/Se8147GVaZ via @Reuters

Trump says 'his decision' to fire FBI chief, calls him 'showboat': NBC interview

President Donald Trump on Thursday called James Comey, the FBI chief he fired, a "showboat" and "grandstander" and said in a NBC-TV interview he would have dismissed him even if officials at the Justice Department had not recommended it.
Trump Calls Comey Showboat; Says He Made Decision to Fire Him

Trump Calls Comey Showboat; Says He Made Decision to Fire Him

Trump Calls Comey Showboat; Says He Made Decision to Fire Him

In an NBC interview, the president said he would have dismissed the F.B.I. director even if the attorney general and his deputy had not advised it.
International Edition 1305 EDT - May 11, 2017

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe seems to contradict the White House position that former FBI Director James Comey had lost the support of the bureau's agents, tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Syria and Katy Perry's latest single. International Edition delivers insight into world news through eye-witnesses, correspondent reports and analysis from experts and news makers. We also keep you in touch with social media, science and entertainment trends



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NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET

NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET



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NPR News: 05-11-2017 3PM ET

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The Latest: Top US senators worried about South China Sea
Will Sending More US Troops to Afghanistan Turn Back Taliban?
International Edition 1305 EDT - May 11, 2017
NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET
NPR News: 05-11-2017 3PM ET
International Edition - Voice of America: International Edition 1305 EDT - May 11, 2017
Hourly News Summary: NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET
President Donald Trump: James Comey Wasn't Doing A Good Job' | NBC News - YouTube
President Donald Trump: James Comey Is 'A Showboat' (Excerpt) | NBC Nightly News - YouTube
Trump Calls Comey Showboat; Says He Made Decision to Fire Him
Trump says 'his decision' to fire FBI chief, calls him 'showboat': NBC interview
Kurdish Offensive: Turkey furious over US arming Syrian Kurds (part 1)
Deputy AG was on the verge of resigning over Comey firing
NPR News: 05-11-2017 1PM ET
NPR News: 05-11-2017 12PM ET
Latest Developments on Comey: Acting F.B.I. Chief Contradicts White House
Hourly News Summary: NPR News: 05-11-2017 11AM ET
This Cant End Well for Donald Trump
Trump very likely to visit FBI headquarters amid tumult over Comey firing
Trumps authoritarian instinct - NY Daily News
NPR News: 05-11-2017 9AM ET
" Enough Was Enough: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing
Was Russia the Real Reason Trump Fired James Comey?
NPR News: 05-10-2017 8PM ET
Who could President Trump pick for next FBI Director?
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The Latest: Top US senators worried about South China Sea

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The Latest on military exercises in Guam (all times local):





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Will Sending More US Troops to Afghanistan Turn Back Taliban? 

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As Washington considers sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, analysts are skeptical whether the move would help quell a resurgent Taliban or push the insurgent group to the negotiating table. U.S President Donald Trump is expected to announce his Afghan policy later this month and his advisers are reportedly recommending adding up to 5,000 additional American troops. Security analysts say a troop surge would not make a difference unless additional steps are taken including reforms...

International Edition 1305 EDT - May 11, 2017 

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Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe seems to contradict the White House position that former FBI Director James Comey had lost the support of the bureau's agents, tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Syria and Katy Perry's latest single.



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NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET 

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NPR News: 05-11-2017 3PM ET 

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International Edition - Voice of America: International Edition 1305 EDT - May 11, 2017 

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International Edition delivers insight into world news through eye-witnesses, correspondent reports and analysis from experts and news makers. We also keep you in touch with social media, science and entertainment trends



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Hourly News Summary: NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET 

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NPR News: 05-11-2017 2PM ET



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 Hourly News Summary

President Donald Trump: James Comey ‘Wasn't Doing A Good Job' | NBC News - YouTube

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Published on May 10, 2017
Donald Trump addressed the press about the firing of FBI Director James Comey, saying “wasn’t doing a good job.”
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President Donald Trump: James Comey Is 'A Showboat' (Excerpt) | NBC Nightly News - YouTube

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Published on May 11, 2017
Pres. Trump tells Lester Holt that he was preparing to fire FBI Director Comey regardless of recommendations from the attorney general and deputy attorney general.
» Subscribe to NBC News: http://nbcnews.to/SubscribeToNBC
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President Donald Trump: James Comey Is 'A Showboat' (Excerpt) | NBC Nightly News
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Trump Calls Comey ‘Showboat’; Says He Made Decision to Fire Him

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Trump says 'his decision' to fire FBI chief, calls him 'showboat': NBC interview

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Kurdish Offensive: Turkey furious over US arming Syrian Kurds (part 1) 

From: france24english
Duration: 18:39

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The Pentagon announcement that it would directly arm Syrian Kurds has been quickly followed by Kurdish militias taking the Dabqa dam, a key lever on the road to the Islamic State stronghold Raqqa. Could victory now be in sight? The Trump administration's announcement bolsters the boots on the ground, and has also enraged Erdogan who claims Kurds are says are in cohoots with the PKK insurgency he's fighting near his southeastern border. What will Erdogan get from his trip to Washington next week?
Click here for PART TWO.

Produced by Charles WENTE, François WIBAUX and Christopher DAVIS.
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Deputy AG was on the verge of resigning over Comey firing

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Win McNamee/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was so upset with the White House for pinning the firing of FBI Director James Comey on him Wednesday that he was on the verge of resigning, an administration source told ABC News.
After Comey’s firing Tuesday night, White House officials said the president acted on the recommendation of Rosenstein.
Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Good Morning America Thursday that she was “not aware” of Rosenstein’s threatening to resign.
In his letter written to staff and friends after he was fired, Comey said he was not going to dwell on how his firing was handled.
“I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed. I hope you won’t either. It is done,” Comey wrote. “In times of turbulence, the American people should see the FBI as a rock of competence, honesty and independence.”
In a memo delivered Tuesday afternoon to President Trump, Rosenstein wrote that Comey inflicted “substantial damage” to the FBI’s “reputation and credibility.”
The White House initially said Rosenstein’s recommendation was the reason Trump chose to fire Comey.
“When he brought the recommendation to the president that the director of the FBI should be removed, President Trump provided the kind of strong and decisive leadership the American people have become to be accustomed from him,” Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
Copyright © 2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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NPR News: 05-11-2017 1PM ET 

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Latest Developments on Comey: Acting F.B.I. Chief Contradicts White House

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Mr. McCabe rejected the White House’s assertion that Mr. Comey had lost the backing of rank-and-file F.B.I. agents, a pointed rebuke of what had been one of the president’s main defenses for the move.
“Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the F.B.I. and still does to this day,” Mr. McCabe said at the hearing.
“The vast majority of F.B.I. employees enjoyed a deep and positive connection to Director Comey,” he added.
— Adam Goldman

Russia inquiry ‘highly significant,’ acting F.B.I. chief says.

Mr. McCabe also said that the Justice Department’s investigation into whether any Trump associates colluded with Russia in the presidential election was “highly significant,” another direct contradiction of the White House.
A day earlier, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, trying to parry accusations that Mr. Comey’s firing was related to the Russia inquiry, called it “probably one of the smallest things that they’ve got going on their plate” at the F.B.I.
Mr. McCabe was also adamant that the firing of Mr. Comey had not affected the investigation.
“The work of the men and women of the F.B.I. continues despite any changes in circumstances,” he said in response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. “There has been no effort to impede our investigation to date. Simply put, you cannot stop the men and women of the F.B.I. from doing the right thing.”
Mr. McCabe is likely to sidestep more sensitive questions about the Russia inquiry from Democrats pressing him for information to keep the investigation dominant in the news.
That is despite the efforts of the committee’s Republican chairman to keep the subject from dominating the day.
“Let me disappoint you,” Senator Richard M. Burr, of North Carolina, said as he opened the proceeding. “The purpose of today’s hearing is to review and highlight to the extent possible the ranges of threats we face as a nation,” he said, before listing dangers the United States faces, including cyber threats, Islamist militants and North Korea.
Although he is well known in the intelligence community, Mr. McCabe, a veteran F.B.I. agent, has little name recognition outside of Washington. He has dealt with Congress for years but usually behind closed doors.
A Duke University graduate with a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Mr. McCabe is considered a skilled briefer. He is something of wunderkind at the F.B.I., rising quickly in the organization to become deputy director in early 2016. But he is not universally loved among agents.
Some inside the F.B.I. believe he did not work in the field long enough and rose too quickly to appreciate the concerns of agents.
Also testifying are Mike Pompeo, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence; Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency; and others.
— Adam Goldman

Democrat seeks warning of political interference.

The top Democrat on the committee, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, sought assurances from Mr. McCabe that he would sound the alarm if the White House or others tried to intervene in the investigation into whether any of President Trump’s associates colluded with Russia in its interference in the election.
“While we don’t know how long you will be acting as F.B.I. director, my first questions for you, even in this public setting, will be for you to assure the committee that if you come under any political influence from the White House or others to squash this investigation, or impede it in any way, that you will let this committee know,” said Mr. Warner, who has called the committee’s own inquiry into Russian election interference “probably the most important thing I’ve done in public life.”
He called the firing of Mr. Comey “a shocking development.”
“It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the president’s decision to remove Director Comey was related to this investigation and that is truly unacceptable,” he added. “Our committee will get to the bottom of what happened in the 2016 presidential election.”
Mr. Burr asked whether Mr. McCabe was aware of Mr. Comey telling the president three times that he was not under investigation, as Mr. Trump claimed. Mr. McCabe said he could not comment on any conversations that Mr. Comey might have had with the president.
— Adam Goldman and Matthew Rosenberg

Justice official’s memo on Comey troubles a Democrat.

Democratic lawmakers were increasingly critical Thursday of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, who wrote the 13-paragraph memo that Mr. Trump has said was the basis for Mr. Comey’s ouster.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she had read Mr. Rosenstein’s memo three times.
“With each read, I’ve become more troubled by the contents of this unusual document,” Ms. Feinstein said, expressing surprise that Mr. Rosenstein, a Justice Department veteran, had not offered a more thorough rationale, but instead referenced the public comments of some of his predecessors as deputy attorney general.
“Instead of a document that provides meaningful analysis, the memo reads like political document. It includes quotes from op-eds and television appearances that are as old as six months. It doesn’t include any contemporary insights from inside the F.B.I. The memo appears to have been hastily assembled to justify a preordained outcome.”
Ms. Feinstein, who has called for a special prosecutor in the Russia inquiry, demanded that both Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein recuse themselves from selecting someone for such a role.
“This issue should be handled by the most senior career attorney at the Justice Department,” she said.
— Rebecca R. Ruiz

Are cyberattacks the nation’s top threat?

For many years in a row, the “Worldwide Threat Assessment” produced by the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies had been clear about the No. 1 threat: cyberattacks on the United States. The question is whether it stays No. 1.
President Trump was clear about his top threat during the campaign: what he called “radical Islamic terrorism.” He spoke often about immigration. He occasionally took up the topic of “the cyber,” as he termed it during the campaign, but his administration is still rewriting an executive order on cybersecurity that was supposed to be issued in the first days of his presidency. A deadline for a 90-day review of American cyber defenses went by a few weeks ago with nary a word from the White House.
Threat assessment is an art, not a science, and a decade ago, cybersecurity barely appeared in the annual report at all. But after a year in which the American election process became a victim of a combination of cyber- and information-warfare techniques, which caught the government unaware, it would seem to be a strange time to demote the ranking of the threat.
— David E. Sanger

Where the Russia investigations stand.

Mr. Comey’s firing has led several lawmakers to call for an independent investigator or commission on top of the current investigations into potential links between Russia and the Trump campaign.
In addition to the F.B.I.’s investigation, two congressional committees are pursuing inquiries into the matter.
The firing of James B. Comey as director of the F.B.I. has led several lawmakers to call for an independent investigator or commission on top of the current investigations into potential links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Changing views on Comey.

After the president fired Mr. Comey, politicians on both sides of the aisle changed their attitudes toward the ousted F.B.I. director, whose farewell to his former colleagues had to be forwarded to agents on his behalf since he could no longer access the bureau’s email system.
The former director of the F.B.I. sent this letter on Wednesday to bureau staff, a day after he was fired by President Trump.
OPEN Document

Which lawmakers question Comey’s firing?

Congressional reaction ranged from support for the decision to calls for a special prosecutor or anindependent investigation to examine the ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian government — beyond the existing inquiries by Senate and House committees. View our collection of the lawmakers’ responses »
Reaction has ranged from support for the decision to calls for a special counsel.
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Hourly News Summary: NPR News: 05-11-2017 11AM ET 

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NPR News: 05-11-2017 11AM ET



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 Hourly News Summary

This Can’t End Well for Donald Trump

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President Donald Trump’s surprise firing of FBI Director James Comey late on Tuesday took Washington and the whole country by storm. The White House cashiering the man in charge of investigating the president’s connections to the Kremlin hardly constitutes a normal turn of events in our nation’s capital, and Trump’s high-stakes gamble brought inevitable comparisons to President Richard Nixon’s infamous Saturday Night Massacre in late October 1973.
Where this all ends now is anyone’s guess, though Trump’s firing his secret police chief unavoidably will bring scrutiny to issues—above all his links to Russia—which the president is desperate to make disappear. Indeed, it was Comey’s refusal to ignore Team Trump’s Russia problem that led to his brusque dismissal by Trump’s bodyguard-turned-factotum. In Los Angeles when he got the news from television, the FBI director was so stunned that at first he thought it was a prank.
However, the White House was deadly earnest about defenestrating Comey, whose refusal to toe the Trump line on the Kremlin proved his undoing. In particular, his unwillingness to say three magic words—“There’re no ties”—and thereby take the heat off the president regarding Russia drove Trump to distraction. Press reports portray a White House in crisis over Kremlingate. Politico captured the administration’s panic with this insider depiction of the president:
He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.
The latest reports demonstrate that Trump grew furious with Comey over the FBI’s director’s unwillingness to accept and publicly push a series of obfuscations that are dear to the president and his retinue. In particular, Trump was angry that Comey refused to advocate for the president’s fact-free belief that his predecessor “wiretapped” him. That particular Fake News, which is of Kremlin origin, has been thoroughly debunked by genuine experts and intelligence bosses in Washington, yet inexplicably remains an idée fixe to our commander-in-chief.
It’s difficult to see how this can end well for Team Trump since, even with Comey gone, the FBI will continue its counterintelligence investigation of the White House and the 2016 election, looking for links to Vladimir Putin—and so will Congress. The president may have to worry about the latter as much as the former, particularly in light of the revelation that the Senate Intelligence Committee has turned to the Treasury Department for help in getting to the bottom of Trump’s murky finances.
Significantly, Congress is getting support in its investigation from Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known to insiders as FinCEN. These are the Intelligence Community’s experts in tracking shady financial deals.
Then there’s the fact that one or more grand juries are busy assessing which members of Team Trump may be facing criminal charges—and for what, exactly? We now have confirmation, after weeks of rumors, that a Federal grand jury in Virginia has issued subpoenas for inquiry into possible illegalities committed by Michael Flynn, the retired Army lieutenant general who briefly served as Trump’s National Security Advisor before he was booted for lying about his connections to Moscow.
This grand jury is part of the Justice Department’s broader investigation of KremlinGate, and there are persistent rumors of a second grand jury in New York examining Team Trump. The same sources which reported the Virginia grand jury, weeks before the mainstream media confirmed the story, speak of one in New York—and that indictments are coming.
Regardless, if the White House expected that by firing Director Comey they could make their Russia problems go away, they were sorely mistaken. FBI employees were flabbergasted and outraged by the rude manner in which their boss got fired, while people across the Intelligence Community were befuddled by this latest Trumpian tactic. Since the president has repeatedly insulted and demeaned our nation’s spies during his few short months in office, we should now expect a barrage of embarrassing leaks from the IC in response. That’s how the DC game is played.
The views of the IC were expressed unofficially by retired General Mike Hayden, a career spook who headed both CIA and NSA, and a level-headed fellow not prone to verbal overreach. In an interview about Comey’s firing, Hayden stated he was “very surprised and stunned as anyone” by Trump’s move, adding piquantly, “I’m trying to avoid the conclusion that we’ve become Nicaragua.”
It certainly didn’t help matters that the day after firing Comey, the White House had a special visitor—Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s cagey foreign minister. True to form, Lavrov made an on-camera joke about the FBI director’s dismissal, and for reasons that cannot easily be understood, all American media was kept away from the president’s meeting with Russia’s top diplomat, but Russian state media was not. To make matters worse, a Russian photographer arranged a photo op with President Trump, Foreign Minister Lavrov, and Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, who’s been at the center of several scandals involving Team Trump.
In the aftermath of that unforced public relations debacle, which reopened cans of worms that the administration wants to close tightly, the White House is reported to be livid with Moscow. According to CNN, an administration official admitted Team Trump had been conned by the Russians: “They tricked us,” the official stated, “They lie.”
Anybody not previously aware that the Kremlin employs lies to further its diplomacy the way normal countries host cocktail parties is someone unfit to handle serious matters of statecraft. It seems Moscow wanted to send the message that it can manipulate President Trump and his administration whenever they feel like it. As I recently noted, Putin doesn’t care that we know he’s calling the shots here. That’s not something getting rid of Director Comey will change in the slightest.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee. 
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Trump ‘very likely’ to visit FBI headquarters amid tumult over Comey firing 

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Trump ‘very likely’ to visit FBI headquarters amid tumult over Comey firing
President Trump is making plans to visit FBI headquarters, a White House spokeswoman said Thursday, in his first direct encounter with the agency's rank-and-file personnel after the stunning decision to fire James B. Comey as director. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CBS News that Trump would “very likely” make the trip in the coming […]

Trump’s authoritarian instinct - NY Daily News

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When President Trump fired the director of the FBI on Tuesday, there was a huge outcry about how bad it looked. It wasn’t illegal, and perhaps James Comey even deserved to be dismissed, but the timing could not have been more outrageous.
The administration’s official rationale for the termination was that Comey had done a bad job with the Clinton email case — something Trump had previously praised him for.
If Trump cared about appearances, he would have thought twice about firing the man in charge of the investigation into ties between his administration and a hostile foreign power, especially when he did. According to reports, Comey had just requested more resources to pursue the Russia inquiry.
It looks bad, very bad.
But Trump doesn’t think twice — once is debatable — and the only appearance he cares about is that of his personal strength. This echoes his strongman rhetoric during the campaign, and follows the playbook of autocrats throughout history. It’s a simple formula: Always take whatever power is available. And don’t worry about how it looks, because if you accumulate enough power quickly enough, appearances can’t hurt you.
When the news broke of the Comey firing, MSNBC host Christopher Hayes tweeted, “We’re in uncharted territory.” But this territory has been very well charted — in Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and in many other democracies that turned toward despotism. We watched Vladimir Putin navigate from the same map in Russia as he systematically destroyed every check on his power.
Trump is surrounding himself with loyalists and family members, and dismissing anyone he thinks might be a threat to him. This is incredibly dangerous, but it shouldn’t be called a surprise.
Long before Trump became the least likely and least qualified President in the history of the United States, he made it clear how much he envied the power enjoyed by some of the world’s most repressive regimes. He praised the decisiveness of the Chinese leaders after they massacred students in Tiananmen Square. He spoke admiringly of the “strength” of Putin, even before a massive Russian hacking and propaganda campaign helped put him into the presidency.
Such sympathies are bad enough for any politician to hold, but when they reflect the values of the President of the most powerful country in the world, the danger is extreme. American Presidents are bound by obligations to voters, donors and other supporters, plus a long list of campaign promises. Their power is checked by the legislature on one side and the judiciary on the other, a system that prohibits rapid or excessive executive action by design.
When thwarted by Congress or the courts, the President turns to executive orders, foreign policy and other areas where his authority is relatively unrestricted. This hardly started with Trump, of course, although he is on track to issue three times as many executive orders as Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, and the most since Harry Truman.
Hyper-partisanship has made getting anything done in Washington increasingly difficult, leading to more frequent attempts to evade the traditional procedures.
As if to emphasize how little he cares about optics, Trump followed up the Comey firing by meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador at the White House the very next day. American media was blocked from attending, but Russian photographers were there to capture the three men’s beaming smiles. Trump looked in his element, no doubt boasting about flexing his power the way Putin might.
I’m sure they have much else to talk about. Trump would love to turn the FBI into a personal security and intelligence force to use against his enemies, the way Putin uses the FSB in Russia and abroad.
The photos were also essential to Putin, who very much cares how things look. The Oval Office images will splash across Russia’s state media, part of a victory lap intended to show that Putin is the winner again. The big bosses are together as equals, calling the shots, doing as they like.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying that Trump wants “mutually beneficial” relations with Russia. But it’s clear that this means the mutual benefit of Trump and Putin personally, not that of the American and Russian people.
If the rule of law and the separation of powers are to mean anything in the U.S., an independent investigation into Trump’s Russia ties and his finances is more critical now than ever. It won’t be easy, but it’s only going to get harder. Trump will keep finding new ways to accrue power — and he won’t care at all how bad it looks.
Kasparov is chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and the author of “Deep Thinking: Where Artificial Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.”
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NPR News: 05-11-2017 9AM ET 

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NPR News: 05-11-2017 9AM ET



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‘Enough Was Enough’: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing

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“He’d lost confidence in Director Comey and, frankly, he’d been considering letting Director Comey go since the day he was elected,” Ms. Huckabee Sanders said.
Mr. Comey’s fate was sealed by his latest testimony about the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election and the Clinton email inquiry. Mr. Trump burned as he watched, convinced that Mr. Comey was grandstanding. He was particularly irked when Mr. Comey said he was “mildly nauseous” to think that his handling of the email case had influenced the election, which Mr. Trump took to demean his own role in history.
At that point, Mr. Trump began talking about firing him. He and his aides thought they had an opening because Mr. Comey gave an incorrect account of how Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton, transferred emails to her husband’s laptop, an account the F.B.I. later corrected.
At first, Mr. Trump, who is fond of vetting his decisions with a wide circle of staff members, advisers and friends, kept his thinking to a small circle, venting his anger to Vice President Mike Pence; the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II; and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who all told him they generally backed dismissing Mr. Comey.
Another early sounding board was Keith Schiller, Mr. Trump’s longtime director of security and now a member of the White House staff, who would later be tasked with delivering the manila envelope containing Mr. Comey’s letter of dismissal to F.B.I. headquarters, an indication of just how personal the matter was to the president.
The chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who has been sharply critical of the F.B.I., questioned whether the time was right to dismiss Mr. Comey, arguing that doing it later would lessen the backlash, and urged him to delay, according to two people familiar with his thinking. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, at one point mulled similar concerns, but was supportive of the move to the president.
The Justice Department began working on Mr. Comey’s dismissal. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed his deputies to come up with reasons to fire Mr. Comey, according to a senior American official. On Monday, Mr. Trump met with Mr. Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein. White House officials insisted Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein were the ones who raised concerns about Mr. Comey with the president and that he told them to put their recommendations in writing.
At the same time, he signaled his thinking on Twitter, essentially calling for the investigation into the Russian meddling to be halted. “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” he wrote on Monday afternoon.
Early Tuesday, he made his final decision, keeping many aides in the dark until news of the firing leaked out late in the afternoon. About an hour before the news broke, an administration official joked that the relatively news-free events of Monday and Tuesday represented the start of a much-needed weeklong respite from the staff’s nonstop work over the past few months.
As the announcement was imminent, Mr. Trump called several congressional leaders from both parties to let them know. He caught Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, on his mobile phone as the lawmaker was walking home after a vote. Mr. Graham told him that a fresh start was good for the F.B.I.
But Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader who had been harshly critical of Mr. Comey for his conduct during last year’s election, told Mr. Trump it would be a mistake. Mr. Trump seemed surprised by the reaction, possibly assuming that Democrats would be happy to remove the F.B.I. director some blamed for Mrs. Clinton’s loss.
Another Democrat he reached was Senator Dianne Feinstein of California. “When I talked to the president last night,” she recalled, “he said: ‘The department’s a mess. I asked Rosenstein and Sessions to look into it. Rosenstein sent me a memo. I accepted the recommendation to fire him.’”
Mrs. Feinstein noted that Mr. Rosenstein had just been confirmed by the Senate. “I mean, my goodness. This is a man who’s been there for two weeks. So I’m a bit turned off on Mr. Rosenstein.”
In letters released Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump explained the firing by citing Mr. Comey’s handling of the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server — a justification that was rich in irony, White House officials acknowledged, considering that as recently as two weeks ago, the president appeared at a rally where he was serenaded with chants of “Lock her up!”
On Wednesday, the president and his staff added to their criticism of Mr. Comey’s conduct on the Clinton inquiry to include a wider denunciation of his performance. “He wasn’t doing a good job,” Mr. Trump said.
Yet even in his letter to Mr. Comey, the president mentioned the Russia inquiry, writing that “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.” And that reflected, White House aides said, what they conceded had been his obsession over the investigation Mr. Trump believes is threatening his larger agenda.
The White House was rocked by the backlash to the announcement. Three senior White House officials conceded that its public explanation was an unmitigated mess, blaming the communications shop, with one describing it as the “weakest” element of the West Wing.
Looking back, the two men may have been destined to clash. Five days after Mr. Trump was elected, he said in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he had not made up his mind about keeping Mr. Comey. But during the transition, Mr. Trump and his aides asked Mr. Comey to remain on as director.
Despite Mr. Trump’s apparent endorsement, Mr. Comey remained skeptical about his future. He believed his unwillingness to put loyalty to Mr. Trump over his role as F.B.I. director could ultimately lead to his ouster.
“With a president who seems to prize personal loyalty above all else and a director with absolute commitment to the Constitution and pursuing investigations wherever the evidence led, a collision was bound to happen,” Daniel C. Richman, a close Comey adviser and former federal prosecutor, said on Wednesday.
Still, according to associates, Mr. Comey thought the president was unlikely to get rid of him because that might be interpreted as a conclusion that the F.B.I. director was wrong to announce shortly before the election that he was re-examining the email case, which would call into question the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.
While Mr. Trump publicly insisted that he had confidence in Mr. Comey, the hostility toward the F.B.I. director in the West Wing in recent weeks was palpable, aides said, with advisers describing an almost ritualistic need to criticize the Russia investigation to assuage an anxious and angry president.
Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to Mr. Trump who has been under F.B.I. scrutiny as part of the Russia inquiry, was among those who urged the president to fire Mr. Comey, people briefed on the discussions said.
Mr. Trump denied on Twitter on Wednesday morning that he had spoken to Mr. Stone about the F.B.I. director, and Mr. Stone declined to describe his interactions with the president in an interview. But two longtime Trump associates with knowledge of the matter said the two had recently discussed their dissatisfaction with Mr. Comey and his inquiry.
Whatever the specifics, Mr. Stone ultimately reflected the president’s view of Mr. Comey. As Mr. Stone put it shortly after the dismissal became public on Tuesday, “There was a sense in the White House, I believe, that enough was enough when it came to this guy.”
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Was Russia the Real Reason Trump Fired James Comey?

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Updated on May 10 at 11:45 a.m.
This much is clear: President Trump’s stated rationale for firing James Comey makes no sense.
The president justified the FBI director’s abrupt dismissal on Tuesday with a memo from Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, in which Rosenstein systematically laid out an indictment of how Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email address and private email server while she was secretary of state. Rosenstein charged that Comey had “usurp[ed]” the attorney general’s authority by publicly recommending making no charges, overstepped his bounds by criticizing Clinton during a press conference, and then alerting Congress about newly found emails on the eve of the election.
These may be good reasons to question Comey’s leadership and even to remove him, but it is all but impossible to believe that Trump believes them, because Trump has criticized Comey for dealing with Clinton too lightly all along. The day that Comey announced he was not recommending charges against her, Trump tweeted:
Notably, Comey’s lengthy dissection of Clinton’s errors in that news conference offered Trump lots of ammunition to attack her.

In October, Trump said—baselessly—that “what was just found out is the Department of Justice, the State Department, and the FBI colluded—got together—to make Hillary Clinton look less guilty and look a letter than she looks.”
In his memo, Rosenstein complained that Comey had broken “the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information” with his October 28 letter to Congress, which Clinton has blamed for costing her the election. But Trump, at the time, was full of praise.
“It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had where they’re trying to protect her from criminal prosecution. You know that. It took a lot of guts,” Trump said at an October 31 rally. “I was not his fan, but I’ll tell you what: What he did, he brought back his reputation. He brought it back.”
Another fan of the decision was Jeff Sessions, then a senator from Alabama and top Trump surrogate. “He had an absolute duty, in my opinion, 11 days or not, to come forward with the new information that he has and let the American people know that,” Sessions told Fox Business at the time. Yet in a letter attached to Rosenstein’s memo, Sessions, now the attorney general, told Trump that “for the reasons expressed by the Deputy Attorney General in the attached memo,” he recommended firing Comey in order to reaffirm the Justice Department’s “commitment to longstanding principles that ensure the integrity and fairness of federal investigations.”
Couldn’t Trump have had a change of heart since October? Theoretically, sure. But he was still criticizing Comey for being too light on Clinton just a week ago:
Taking Trump’s rationale for the firing at face value would require believing that the president had reversed a deeply held belief in the course of just a week. Trump has had some notable flip-flops, as on Syrian intervention, but few so plain or abrupt.
In a combative CNN interview Tuesday night, Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway herself suggested that the Clinton material was mere pretext. “This has nothing to do with the campaign from six months ago,” she told Anderson Cooper. “This has everything to do with the performance of the FBI director since the president has been in the White House.”
Trump himself contradicted the stated rationale, too. “He wasn't doing a good job. Very simply. He was not doing a good job,” the president told pool reporters Wednesday morning, his first non-Twitter comments on the firing.
If Trump did not fire Comey for being too mean to Hillary Clinton, then why did he fire him? It is impossible to know the president’s mind, and given the suddenness of the dismissal, it’s difficult to get a complete picture of the process. Even some White House staffers seem to have been surprised, and Comey, who was at an FBI office in Los Angeles, reportedly believed the news to be a prank when he first heard.
The answer to which many observers, including members of Congress from both parties, immediately gravitated was that Trump is attempting to meddle in the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the election. Democrats were direct, calling it a “constitutional crisis.” Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said, “President Trump has catastrophically compromised the FBI’s ongoing investigation of his own White House’s ties to Russia.” (That earned Blumenthal a morning broadside from Trump, who attacked him for exaggerating his Vietnam War record.)
But Republicans also voiced that worry. John McCain, a frequent Republican Trump critic, said in a statement, “I have long called for a special congressional committee to investigate Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The president's decision to remove the FBI Director only confirms the need and the urgency of such a committee.” Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee was somewhat more oblique, saying, “It is essential that ongoing investigations are fulsome and free of political interference until their completion.” North Carolina’s Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee examining Russian interference in the election, added, “I am troubled by the timing and reasoning of Director Comey’s termination. I have found Director Comey to be a public servant of the highest order, and his dismissal further confuses an already difficult investigation by the Committee.”
Meanwhile, Trump was plainly enraged by the Russia investigation. He has tweeted angrily about it on multiple occasions, and called it a “charade.” While stories about Russia had emerged in a consistent drip since well before the election, Comey’s March 20 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee was a turning point, as the director told members not only that the FBI was looking at Russian interference, but also whether the Trump campaign colluded in it. On the same occasion, Comey said there was no evidence that President Obama had tapped candidate Trump’s phones, as Trump has alleged without evidence.
Trump made a curious reference to the Russia probe in his letter to Comey. “While I appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau,” Trump wrote, explicitly drawing a line between the investigation and Comey’s firing.
Some news reports have already directly connected the Russia investigation with Comey’s firing. Trump had grown angry with the Russia investigation—particularly Comey admitting in front of the Senate that the FBI was investigating his campaign—and that the FBI director wouldn't support his claims that President Barack Obama had tapped his phones in Trump Tower,” Politico’s Josh Dawsey wrote. Michael Schmidt of The New York Times reported that Sessions “had been charged with coming up with reasons to fire” Comey, even though Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe after admitting he failed to disclose a meeting with the Russian ambassador to Congress.
The Times further reported on Wednesday that days before he was fired, Comey had requested “a significant increase in money and personnel for the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election.” Comey made the request of Rosenstein, and also told members of Congress, the paper said.
Dawsey and CNN’s Gloria Borger both also reported that Roger Stone, an old Trump friend who is under investigation by the FBI for ties to Russia, had urged the president to fire Comey. Trump denied that in a tweet Wednesday morning.
During an appearance Tuesday night on Fox News, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders made the demand to end the investigations into Russia explicit.
“It's been going on for nearly a year,” she said. “Frankly, it's kind of getting absurd. There's nothing there. We've heard it time and time again. We heard it in the testimonies earlier this week. We've heard it for the last 11 months. There is no ‘there’ there. It's time to move on, and, frankly, it's time to focus on things the American people care about.”
Sanders’s claim falls short in a number of areas. First, the congressional investigations into Russia interference have barely begun. Second, there is widespread popular support for an investigation. Third, the pace of revelations about Russia appears to be quickening. Overshadowed by the Comey firing was CNN’s scoop that a federal prosecutors have issued subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn, the fired Trump national security adviser, in connection with the FBI’s Russia probe.
There is little question that Trump is well within his authority as president to fire Comey. But there is a difference between whether he is able to do so and whether it was wise to do so. If the goal of the Comey firing, as circumstantial evidence suggests, was to stifle the Russia investigation, Trump may instead have drawn more attention to it.
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NPR News: 05-10-2017 8PM ET 

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NPR News: 05-10-2017 8PM ET



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Who could President Trump pick for next FBI Director?

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From: FoxNewsChannel
Duration: 03:13

President Donald Trump will nominate a new FBI Director following his firing of James Comey. Here are a couple of the potential replacements to head up the law enforcement agency

Liberal hypocrites flip-flopping on firing of Comey?

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From: FoxNewsChannel
Duration: 03:24

Reaction and analysis on 'The Fox News Specialists'

Should President Obama have fired James Comey?

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From: FoxNewsChannel
Duration: 05:01

The debate continues on 'The Fox News Specialists'

Increased scrutiny on Russia investigation 

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From: CNN
Duration: 02:59

CNN's Jim Sciutto reports the firing of James Comey has cast greater scrutiny on the investigation into Russia's role in the US election and possible ties to President Trump's campaign.

AP Analysis: White House Defends Comey Firing

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From: AssociatedPress
Duration: 02:30

President Donald Trump defended his firing of FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday. Trump did not mention any effect the dismissal might have on FBI and congressional investigations into contacts between his 2016 election campaign and Russia. (May 10)
Subscribe for more Breaking News: http://smarturl.it/AssociatedPress
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Find the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump's latest press conferences, announcements, speeches and highlights here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnwt1fUa-EVgihKJ_26XtMdmGDOmABAAa
The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats.
AP’s commitment to independent, comprehensive journalism has deep roots. Founded in 1846, AP has covered all the major news events of the past 165 years, providing high-quality, informed reporting of everything from wars and elections to championship games and royal weddings. AP is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information.
Today, AP employs the latest technology to collect and distribute content - we have daily uploads covering the latest and breaking news in the world of politics, sport and entertainment. Join us in a conversation about world events, the newsgathering process or whatever aspect of the news universe you find interesting or important. Subscribe: http://smarturl.it/AssociatedPress
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Durbin believes Comey requested more resources 

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From: CNN
Duration: 01:24

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) says that his information indicates that President Trump chose to terminate James Comey instead of giving the former FBI director more resources for the Russia investigation.
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Bob Woodward on Trump-Watergate comparisons: 'Let's see what the evidence is' 

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From: Washington Post
Duration: 03:47

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward weighs in on President Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, and remembers the Saturday Night Massacre and the Watergate scandal.

Why Trump Decided to Fire Comey Now

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President Donald Trump sent Washington into a frenzy on Tuesday evening when he fired FBI Director James Comey, citing criticism of his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib looks at the timing of Mr. Trump's decision. Photo: Getty

Comey's out: What's next? 

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From: CNN
Duration: 01:31

CNN producer, Shimon Prokupecz, explains what happens next after the firing of James Comey.

NPR News: 05-10-2017 7PM ET 

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NPR News: 05-10-2017 7PM ET



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What All the Russia Investigations Have Done and What Could Happen Next

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U.S. to Expand Intelligence Cooperation With Turkey

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The U.S. is beefing up joint intelligence efforts with Turkey to help that government better target terrorists in the region, in an apparent bid to alleviate Turkish anxieties as the Pentagon implements a plan to arm Kurdish forces operating inside Syria.

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Trump, Top Russian Envoy Don't Discuss Alleged Meddling in U.S. Election

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President Donald Trump​didn’t raise the issue of Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. elections during an Oval Office meeting on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, dismissing the hacking charges as “not serious.”

FBI chief aimed to expand Russia probe before Trump fired him: source - Reuters

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Reuters

FBI chief aimed to expand Russia probe before Trump fired him: source
Reuters
WASHINGTON FBI Director James Comey sought to expand his agency's probe into allegedRussian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election days before President Donald Trump fired him on Tuesday, a congressional source said on Wednesday. With the ...
Behind Comey's firing: An enraged Trump, fuming about RussiaPolitico
Ex-FBI chief James Comey 'requested more funds for Russia probe' just days before being sacked by Donald TrumpTelegraph.co.uk
Trump's firing of Comey seems 'suicidal' - but it could 'energize' the Russia probeBusiness Insider
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Senate is now probing the Donald Trump Taj Mahal money laundering case we told you about last month 

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Four weeks ago Palmer Report brought you the story of the U.S. Treasury department having busted Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal hotel for money laundering in the summer of 2015. The case was visible on the Treasury’s website all along, but had gone completely unreported by any news outlet until our research team managed to dig it up. Now the Senate Intel Committee is probing that same money laundering fine.
Back on April 15th, we brought you the story of how the Taj Mahal, which was part-owned by Donald Trump at the time, had been fined $10 million by the FinCEN division of the U.S. Treasury for years of money laundering violations (link). Even though our source was the U.S. Treasury website (link), we were told by the peanut gallery that the story couldn’t be “real” or else it would have been all over cable news during the election cycle.
But now CNBC is reporting that the Senate Intelligence Committee is in fact asking the Treasury for details on the $10 million money laundering fine (link). This is a crucial development because this wasn’t a mere allegation of money laundering, but rather a ruling that the Taj Mahal did launder money. The fine was a civil penalty, meaning that no judge or jury were involved. But in terms of civil law, Trump’s hotel did commit money laundering.
As we previously documented, Trump himself owned a declining but significant stake in the hotel during the years in which his Taj Mahal was laundering money. This will serve to significantly weaken any attempt on Donald Trump’s part to believably fend off any upcoming money laundering charges as New York State comes after him on RICO charges. We don’t know if the Senate committee saw our reporting on the Taj Mahal money laundering and decided to follow up on it, or if this is a coincidence. But it points to the importance of independent political reporting. Help fund Palmer Report

U.S. Senator confirms grand jury is now underway in Donald Trump case in New York State 

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For weeks, Palmer Report has been bringing you the story of multiple federal grand juries already underway in Eastern Virginia in Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, a fact which was finally acknowledged by CNN last night. We’ve also been bringing you the story of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s own case against Trump – and now a U.S. Senator has confirmed that a grand jury is also underway in that New York Case.
The revelation comes from U.S Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who conducted a television interview about the matter and then posted it to his own official Twitter account today. At around the 1:40 mark of the interview, Senator Markey first confirms what was already known: “Subpoenas have now been issued in Northern Virginia with regard to General Flynn and General Flynn’s associates.”
But then he adds the detail about the separate state level case: “a grand jury has been empaneled up in New York.” Our earlier reporting on this matter, based on sourcing first shared by Democratic insider Claude Taylor and later confirmed by Republican insider Rick Wilson, is that there are two separate federal cases underway regarding Donald Trump. One is a RICO (money laundering) case and the other is a FARA (foreign agent) case.
Taylor has gone on to reveal that New York AG Schneiderman is pursuing his own state level RICO case against Donald Trump and his organization and associates (link), and this appears to be the grand jury “up in New York” that Senator Ed Markey is now confirming. Watch the Senator reveal the New York grand jury information in the video below:
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Hourly News Summary: NPR News: 05-10-2017 5PM ET 

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NPR News: 05-10-2017 5PM ET



Download audio: https://play.podtrac.com/npr-500005/npr.mc.tritondigital.com/NPR_500005/media/anon.npr-mp3/npr/newscasts/2017/05/10/newscast170627.mp3?orgId=1&d=300&p=500005&story=527832272&t=podcast&e=527832272&ft=pod&f=500005

 Hourly News Summary

Who could President Trump pick for next FBI Director?