A number of former WH, DOJ, DHS, State Dept, DOD and intelligence community alums have signed a letter to AG Jeff Sessions about the Trump admin's “misleading report” on terrorism/immigration. law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-conten… "Rather than informing and reassuring the public, the Report’s misleading focus on place of birth serves to spread false impressions of the nature of the actual terrorist threat.”

If only there was a way to figure out if there was some big story that ran on April 22, 2017 that would provide an innocuous explanation for this text. Guess we’ll never know!
nytimes.com/2017/04/22/us/…

https://twitter.com/RepMarkMeadows/status/1039582215229857795

BREAKING: George Papadopoulos sentenced to 14 days of incarceration huffingtonpost.com/entry/papadopo… He’s not surrendering today, but at date to be determined by Bureau of Prisons.

Former Trump aide George Papadopoulos and his wife are in the courthouse. Sentencing set for 3 p.m. Stay tuned. huffingtonpost.com/entry/papadopo… “The President of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could.” - defense attorney, not exactly boosting his client’s pardon chances

NEW: At closing arguments, Mueller’s team tells Manafort jurors that they don’t have to like Rick Gates because the documents are their “star witness." huffingtonpost.com/entry/manafort… Manafort, prosectors said, “didn’t choose a Boy Scout” to commit crimes with. Defense attorneys said Rick Gates had his hand in the cookie jar, but Mueller’s team says it was a “huge dumpster” full of hidden money. huffingtonpost.com/entry/manafort…

Election of Wesley Bell would be a big step forward in St. Louis County. But it’s still quite remarkable to me that the reformer prosecuting attorney candidate was a judge in a tiny speed trap town that has no business having its own court & police force. huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/06/vel… Velda City had a population of like 1,400 people sitting on 1/6th a square mile. Brought in more from fines and fees than either sales tax revenue or property tax revenue. Officers typically made less than $27K. A recipe for disaster. huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/06/vel…

Had a front-row seat for Rick Gates’ testimony at the Manafort trial today, where Gates said he committed crimes with Manafort but called him “one of the most politically brilliant strategists I’ve ever worked with.” More to come from Alexandria: huffingtonpost.com/entry/rick-gat… Gates admitted not only to committing crimes with Manafort, but with falsifying his own taxes, lying to banks about his income, and embezzling money from Manafort by putting “several hundred thousand” dollars in false expenses on his expense reports.

NEW: In opening statement, Paul Manafort’s lawyer put the jury’s focus on Rick Gates, branding him as a liar and saying Manafort’s “trust in Rick Gates was misplaced.” huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-man… In their opening, Mueller’s team said Manafort thought he was above the law and committed tax and bank fraud in effort to keep “bank rolling his extravagant lifestyle."

They talked about his $15K “jacket made from an ostrich.” huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-man…

The FBI has a new Physical Fitness Test app. fbi.gov/news/stories/f… They’re reallllly pushing that GPS feature, huh? fbi.gov/news/stories/f…

Six jail deaths in 13 months is a LOT for a for a facility with an average population of under 1,000 spokesman.com/stories/2018/j… The MacArthur Foundation gave Spokane County $1.75M to cut their jail population. Their jail population went up. spokesman.com/stories/2018/j…

There’s still no DOJ press release (even from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nebraska) about the neo-Nazi who pleaded guilty in terror attack on an Amtrak train. huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-su… Seems like the sort of thing federal prosecutors would want to brag about! huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-su…

It’s been three years since Sandra Bland died. The federal government still hasn’t formally counted her death nor the hundreds of other jail deaths that took place in 2015. huffingtonpost.com/entry/3-years-… The federal government’s stats on American jail deaths are getting even more useless. huffingtonpost.com/entry/3-years-…

A white supremacist told an undercover FBI agent posing as a member of the Aryan Nations that he wanted to commit a "fucking big scale” attack “in the spirit of Dylann Roof.” He was just sentenced to less than three years in federal prison. huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-su… Here are two sentences announced by federal prosecutors today:

33 months for a white supremacist who wanted to kill Jews and Muslims.

66 months for a guy who sold some pot.

huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-su…

Aaaaannnnd the #J20 trials are over. Government has dismissed charges against remaining 38 defendants. After charging more than 200 people with felonies, they got one single felony guilty plea. Pretty epic failure! DOJ charged more than 200 Trump inauguration arrestees with felonies. They secured one single felony guilty plea. huffingtonpost.com/entry/j20-trum…

Affidavit indicates the suspect wanted to back out of the July 4 plan and shift to planning an attack in Philly in September.

https://twitter.com/NDOHnews/status/1013818330694733829

Suspect to undercover, after looking at security in Cleveland: “Cancel the party for now. To bad for family to go. Very very bad weather.” justice.gov/opa/press-rele…

NEW: Rudy Giuliani tells HuffPost that FBI agents questioned him — in his suite at the Trump International Hotel -- about leaks that hurt the Clinton campaign. Story with @svdate: huffingtonpost.com/entry/rudy-giu… Rudy says the FBI agents who interviewed him about anti-Clinton leaks “seemed like straight kids.” huffingtonpost.com/entry/rudy-giu…

Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on IG report on FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe is now underway. Michael Horowitz and Chris Wray both testifying. If this hearing confirms anything, it’s that the IG report has plenty for either party to latch onto.

Grassley says it shows Clinton got “kid-glove treatment."

Feinstein says it shows the FBI harmed Clinton and helped Trump.

BREAKING: DOJ watchdog finds James Comey used personal email for FBI business huffingtonpost.com/entry/james-co… NEW: DOJ IG report calls James Comey “insubordinate” for famous Clinton email press conference.

More to come.

huffingtonpost.com/entry/doj-watc…

James Wolfe indicted

NEW: Squire Patton Boggs — which had a “strategic partnership” with Michael Cohen — tells me Cohen’s work through Essential Consultants LLC was a side hustle. huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-… “We have we never paid any money to Essential Consultants LLC and we’ve never performed work for any of the identified entities as a result of our past arrangement with Cohen.”

huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-…

Sessions fires McCabe just ahead of retirement. Full statement. McCabe got zero heads up he was fired, source tells me. Learned from reporters.