| | | | Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him | | Major breaking news tonight from CNN's Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein: Classified documents presented last week to President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN. The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Trump. The classified briefings last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs -- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.
Why tell Trump now? One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN. These senior intelligence officials also included the synopsis to demonstrate that Russia had compiled information potentially harmful to both political parties, but only released information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Democrats.
This line is very important: The two-page synopsis also included allegations that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according to two national security officials.
Watch for more tomorrow, with Trump scheduled to hold his first formal news conference since July. | | "I would never comment on investigations in an open forum." -- FBI Director James Comey today -- causing the mouths of Senate Democrats still angry at his revelations about Hillary Clinton to drop. | | | | Popular but politically humbled, President Barack Obama says goodbye to the nation tonight in a dramatic reinterpretation of a presidential farewell address. CNN's Kevin Liptak previews the speech. Here, Obama departs Washington for his last trip while in the White House. | | Sessions rebuts racism charges at confirmation hearing | | Nowhere in Sen. Jeff Sessions' prepared remarks for his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to become President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general was a rebuttal of the accusations that sank his 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship. But he decided to address them "head on" anyway, denying decades-old claims that he had offered supportive words about the Ku Klux Klan and criticized the NAACP. He said those were "damnably false charges."
"I abhor the Klan and its hateful ideology," Sessions said. "I never declared the NAACP was un-American." The Alabama senator and former US attorney told senators that in 1986, "there was an effort to characterize me as something I wasn't."
Other highlights today...
-- Sessions doesn't support a Muslim ban. "I have no belief and do not support the idea that Muslims as a religious group should be denied admission to the United States," he said.
-- He'd recuse himself rather than prosecute Hillary Clinton. "I believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from questions involving those kinds of investigations involving Secretary Clinton that were raised during the campaign and could be otherwise connected to it," Sessions said, upon questioning by Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. "I believe that would be best for the country because we can never have a political dispute turn into a criminal dispute."
-- He would follow the law on abortion and same-sex marriage. "The Supreme Court has ruled on that, the dissents dissented vigorously, but it was 5-4 and ... I will follow that decision," he said.
-- He addressed the "Access Hollywood" tape. "Is grabbing a woman by her genitals without her consent sexual assault?" Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, asked. Sessions responded, "Clearly it would be."
-- He could stamp out states' legalizations of pot, which the Justice Department has so far ignored despite being against federal law. "It's not so much the attorney general's job to decide what laws to enforce. We should do our job and enforce laws as effectively as we're able," said Sessions, adding that Congress was entitled to change federal law if it so desired.
Keep up -- Daniella Diaz is anchoring the live blog. She'll be back tomorrow when secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson is before lawmakers. | | More plagiarism examples face Trump pick Crowley | | Monica Crowley, Donald Trump's pick for a senior national security communications role, plagiarized multiple sources in some of her columns for the Washington Times, a CNN KFile review has found.
It's the latest in a line of examples of plagiarism on Crowley's part. A CNN KFile investigation found more than 50 instances of plagiarism in her 2012 book. On Monday, Politico Magazine reported sections of Crowley's Ph.D. dissertation for Columbia University had been plagiarized. | | GOP leaders struggle with Obamacare plan | | From BuzzFeed's Tarini Parti: The Republican Party's effort to repeal Obamacare -- and fulfill a promise they've made to American voters repeatedly for seven years -- is getting chaotic. The party's three key leaders gave varying messages on the issue in the span of just a few hours on Tuesday. First, Speaker Paul Ryan said in a morning press conference that their goal was to bring up repealing and replacing the health care law "concurrently" through the process the Senate is setting up. ... Then, President-elect Donald Trump told The New York Times in an interview he wanted a repeal vote next week and a replacement "very quickly or simultaneously, very shortly thereafter." Trump's comment seems far removed from what Congress is currently doing. ... And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell followed up with only a commitment to the budgetary process for repeal that is in the works for this week, saying 'we're working on what comes next.'"
What of Trump's proposed timeline? Given that lawmakers aren't anywhere near having a plan to revamp America's health care system, let alone voting on one, GOP lawmakers are wondering out loud: Should we take the President-elect literally? "That quote was so true of Mr. Trump: 'The media took him literally but not seriously and his supporters took him seriously but not literally,'" GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy told CNN. "I think he speaks in concepts, and I accept his concept. We need a sense of urgency." | | | The rock band U2 has decided to delay the release of its upcoming album, "Songs of Experience," because of the election of Donald Trump. ... A majority of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of his transition, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds. ... Trump's inauguration will feature a "soft sensuality" rather than be a "circus-like celebration," says Tom Barrack. | | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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