General
Michael Cohen, in Recorded Phone Call, Walks Back Parts of Guilty Plea
Michael Rothfeld, The Wall Street Journal
Michael Cohen has disavowed responsibility for some of the crimes to which he has pleaded guilty, privately contending in a recent recorded phone call that he hadn’t evaded taxes and that a criminal charge related to his home-equity line of credit was “a lie.” As he prepares to begin a three-year prison term on May 6, Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, expressed dismay during the conversation that after testifying for more than 100 hours to federal and congressional investigators about his work for Mr. Trump—including the coordination of hush-money deals with two women—he remained “a man all alone.”
FBI Questions Elliott Broidy’s One-Time Partner
Betsy Woodruff and Erin Banco, The Daily Beast
A former business associate of Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy has spoken with FBI agents about his business dealings, The Daily Beast has learned. Lisa Korbatov, a wealthy pro-Israel activist with deep roots in the L.A. Republican community, expects to be further interviewed by prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Washington headquarters in the coming months, according to an individual familiar with the case.
NSA Recommends Dropping Phone-Surveillance Program
Dustin Volz and Warren P. Strobel, The Wall Street Journal
The National Security Agency has recommended that the White House abandon a surveillance program that collects information about U.S. phone calls and text messages, saying the logistical and legal burdens of keeping it outweigh its intelligence benefits, according to people familiar with the matter. The recommendation against seeking the renewal of the once-secret spying program amounts to an about-face by the agency, which had long argued in public and to congressional overseers that the program was vital to the task of finding and disrupting terrorism plots against the U.S.
Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5 Billion by F.T.C. Over Privacy Issues
Mike Isaac and Cecilia Kang, The New York Times
Facebook said on Wednesday that it expected to be fined up to $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission for privacy violations. The penalty would be a record by the agency against a technology company and a sign that the United States was willing to punish big tech companies.
CDC Reports Largest U.S. Measles Outbreak Since Year 2000
Richard Gonzales, NPR News
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report 695 measles cases in 22 states. “This is the greatest number of cases reported in the United States since measles was eliminated from this country in 2000,” according to a CDC statement issued late Wednesday.
Spurned by U.S., North Korea’s Kim holds talks with Putin
Maria Vasilyeva and Vladimir Soldatkin, Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday at a summit intended to show that the United States is not the only power with enough clout to engage with the reclusive communist state on its nuclear program. The two men held a day of talks on an island off the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok two months after Kim’s summit with U.S. President Donald Trump ended in disagreement, cooling hopes of a breakthrough in the decades-old nuclear row.
Nations targeted by U.S. for high rates of visa overstays account for small number of violators
Maria Sacchetti and Kevin Uhrmacher, The Washington Post
The White House shifted its focus this week from the surge of families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrive in the United States legally and then illegally remain in the country after their visas expire. Though President Trump has fixated on the rising numbers of Central American families claiming asylum at the southern border, he also promised during his campaign that deporting those who overstay their legal visas would be a priority for his administration.
It’s Getting Harder to Track US Progress in Afghanistan
Katie Bo Williams, Defense One
It’s getting harder and harder for the public to track the U.S. military’s progress in its 17-year war in Afghanistan, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction warned Wednesday ahead of the release of his latest quarterly report. “What we are finding is now almost every indicia, metric for success or failure is now classified or nonexistent. Over time it’s been classified or it’s no longer being collected,” John Sopko told reporters.
White House & Administration
A Federal Court Is Considering Whether To Allow Trump’s Policy Forcing Asylum-Seekers To Wait In Mexico
Hamed Aleaziz, BuzzFeed News
A federal appeals court panel grappled Wednesday with whether to continue allowing the Trump administration to require some Central American asylum-seekers wait in Mexico while their cases proceed in the US. The hearing in the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals came as the Trump administration wrestles with how to handle the record flow of families crossing the border, an issue that led President Trump earlier this month to remove senior officials from their posts over what he believed was a lack of action to curb illegal immigration.
State Department office manager admits conspiring to hide contacts with Chinese agents
Spencer S. Hsu, The Washington Post
A veteran State Department office manager pleaded guilty Wednesday to hiding extensive contacts with two Chinese intelligence agents who showered her with tens of thousands of dollars in gifts as they asked for diplomatic and economic information. Candace Claiborne, 63, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiring to defraud the United States by repeatedly covering up foreign intelligence contacts over more than five years.
How Trump Took the Shine Off Washington’s Glitziest Night
John F. Harris and Daniel Lippman, Politico
With the White House Correspondents’ Dinner fast arriving on the Washington social calendar, the standard pose in the capital is one of detachment and disavowal: Sure, I’ll be going because, you know, you kinda have to, right? But it’s become such a drag, and it’s probably time, really, just to blow the whole thing up and start over.
Senate
Barr to testify before Senate panel next week on Mueller report
Morgan Chalfant and Jacqueline Thomsen, The Hill
Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify next Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Barr, who released a redacted version of Mueller’s report on Russian interference last week, is slated to appear before the committee on May 1 at 10 a.m.
House
House Democrats grapple with how to respond to Trump’s refusal to cooperate with investigations
Rachael Bade and Tom Hamburger, The Washington Post
House Democrats are grappling with how to respond to President Trump’s blanket resistance to cooperating with their investigations — defiance that legal experts say could upend the nation’s fundamental principle of checks and balances. House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) announced plans on Tuesday to hold one Trump administration official who defied a subpoena in contempt of Congress and has threatened a second with the same punishment if he failed to show for a Thursday deposition.
Divided on Impeaching Trump, Democrats Wrestle With Duty and Politics
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos, The New York Times
As Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges caution on impeachment, rank-and-file House Democrats are agonizing over the prospect of trying to oust President Trump, caught between their sense of historic responsibilities and political considerations in the wake of the special counsel’s damning portrait of abuses. The Democrats — including more than 50 freshmen — are mindful that impeachment poses political risks that could endanger the seats of moderates and their majority, as well as strengthen Mr. Trump’s hand.
2020
Some women of color frustrated by Biden’s presidential bid
Juana Summers and Errin Haines Whack, The Associated Press
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s decision to enter the Democratic presidential race is causing consternation among some Democrats, particularly women of color, who have been hoping for a nominee who better reflects the nation’s diversity. At the She the People forum, billed as the first presidential forum focused on women of color, Roxy D. Hall Williamson’s shoulders slumped at the mention of Biden, who made his campaign announcement on Thursday.
Biden sounds fundraising alarm in conference call
Marc Caputo and Natasha Korecki, Politico
On the eve of announcing his presidential bid, former Vice President Joe Biden raised the alarm about fundraising in a Wednesday conference call with top donors and supporters. “The money’s important. We’re going to be judged by what we can do in the first 24 hours, the first week,” Biden told the group, according to one participant, whose recollections of the quotes were confirmed by two others on the call.
“I Have Maxed Out to Pete”: Gay Money, Democratic Secret Weapon, Comes Out for Buttigieg
Peter Hamby, Vanity Fair
Deep-pocketed L.G.B.T.Q. donor networks have turned Pete Buttigieg, a formerly unknown mayor of a small midwestern city, into an unlikely political dynamo—and, perhaps, America’s best hope of beating Donald Trump. “What is going on now is one of the untold secrets of the D.N.C. and Democratic party,” says one gay rights leader.
2020 Democrats confronting debate over letting felons vote
Nicholas Riccardi, The Associated Press
Democratic presidential contenders are facing a new debate over whether criminals in prison, even notorious ones like the Boston Marathon bomber, should be able to win back their right to vote. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says that they should and that voting is “inherent to our democracy — yes, even for terrible people.”
Scoop: Dems plan to teach 2020 candidates how to talk to a Trump voter
Alexi McCammond, Axios
Former Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly, who both lost their 2018 re-election races in North Dakota and Indiana, respectively, are launching the One Country Project to help their party win back rural voters ahead of the 2020 cycle. Why it matters: Their team looked at rural votes by county and state from 2000 to 2018 and found that if Democrats don’t break their performance with rural voters, they’re projected to once again win the popular vote but lose the electoral college in 2020.
States
Kentucky Democratic governor candidates debate for first time. Here’s what happened.
Daniel Desrochers, Lexington Herald Leader
The buildup to the first televised debate between the three major Democratic candidates vying to take on Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin suggested there might be fireworks. It was more like sparklers. The three candidates — House Minority Floor Leader Rocky Adkins, Attorney General Andy Beshear and former State Auditor Adam Edelen — launched only minor jabs from the stage of Carrick Theater at Transylvania University during a debate hosted by Hey Kentucky! and LEX18.
New Jersey gov: We could be top US sports bet market by 2020
Wayne Perry, The Associated Press
New Jersey’s quick growth in sports gambling means it could surpass Nevada next year as the top sports betting market in the United States, its governor said Wednesday. In the 10 months that New Jersey has allowed legal sports betting, gamblers have wagered more than $2.3 billion, a pace that would put it in the same conversation as Nevada, which took in more than $5 billion in bets last year.
Advocacy
NRA beset by infighting over whether it has strayed too far
Lisa Marie Pane, The Associated Press
The National Rifle Association is used to battling forces that criticize its fiery and unbending efforts to protect gun rights. But as the group gathers for its annual convention this week, the NRA may be facing its toughest foe in decades: its own members. NRA insiders and longtime observers describe an organization at war with itself over a central question: Has it strayed too far from its original mission of gun safety and outdoor shooting sports and become too political?
NRA Sues Over LA Law Requiring Contractors To Disclose Ties To The Gun Rights Group
Richard Gonzales, NPR News
The National Rifle Association filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a newly implemented ordinance by the city of Los Angeles that seeks to limit ties between city contractors and the gun rights group. The lawsuit alleges that the ordinance, which took effect on April 1, violates constitutional protections for free speech and association under the First Amendment and the right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment.
Echoes of Big Tobacco fight in Big Pharma hearings
Emily Kopp, Roll Call
Congress has made curtailing high drug prices a priority this year and has hauled in some of Big Pharma’s top executives to prove it. Committee hearings on drug prices — the House and Senate have held a half dozen this year — have sought accountability from the industry for drug prices that have forced patients into agonizing decisions about how to budget their lives and caused one-in-four diabetics to ration insulin.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
Mueller documented a serious crime against all Americans. Here’s how to respond.
Hillary Clinton, The Washington Post
Our election was corrupted, our democracy assaulted, our sovereignty and security violated. This is the definitive conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report. It documents a serious crime against the American people.
It’s Time for Trump to Resign
Bill Weld, The Bulwark
If Donald Trump is an American patriot, he should resign from office. In the 2016 campaign, Senator Ted Cruz described Trump as a “pathological liar.”
Fifteen Lessons I Learned From Criminal-Justice Reform
Jared Kushner, Time
One of the proudest moments of my life was standing beside President Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office to witness him sign the First Step Act, a historic criminal-justice reform bill that would make American communities safer, improve hundreds of thousands of lives and change the way we think about prisons. As I listened to the many advocates who had tirelessly worked to make this day possible I couldn’t help but appreciate the genius of our Founding Fathers. America’s democracy is the greatest governing system in the world.
Research Reports and Polling
Voter Turnout Rates Among All Voting Age and Major Racial and Ethnic Groups Were Higher Than in 2014
Jordan Misra, U.S. Census
The November 2018 election is widely recognized for its high voter turnout. Census Bureau data released today show who is behind the historic 11 percentage point increase from the last midterm election in 2014.
Sizing Up Twitter Users
Stefan Wojcik and Adam Hughes, Pew Research Center
Twitter is a modern public square where many voices discuss, debate and share their views. Media personalities, politicians and the public turn to social networks for real-time information and reactions to the day’s events.
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