| | | | What Donald Trump gets wrong about opposition research | | On Thursday in France, President Donald Trump was asked about his son, Don Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer with the promise of "incriminating" information being passed along about Hillary Clinton.
"Most people would have taken that meeting," Trump responded. "It's called opposition research."
Er, not exactly.
Opposition research is a very common thing -- particularly in the high-stakes environment of a presidential campaign.
But what opposition research usually entails is not meetings with agents of foreign governments. Instead it's the far more mundane work of combing through public records to find, say, a lien against a property. Or a nasty divorce settlement. Or a disgruntled former employee.
This happens in virtually every single major campaign -- from the House level all the way to the presidential level. Dirt is dug. Debates are held within the campaign to decide whether (and how and when) the information should be used.
This is not what was happening with Don Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya on June 9.
Meeting with a foreign national to get negative information about your opponent is extremely unusual -- with the emphasis on "extremely."
Wrote Norm Eisen and Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyers for Presidents Obama and Bush, respectively, in The New York Times: "The defense that this was a routine meeting to hear about opposition research is nonsense. As ethics lawyers, we have worked on political campaigns for decades and have never heard of an offer like this one. If we had, we would have insisted upon immediate notification of the FBI, and so would any normal campaign lawyer, official or even senior volunteer."
Remember that Rob Goldstone, the music publicist who set this meeting up, made clear that the information being conveyed was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."
There can be no real question, then, what Trump Jr. thought he was getting -- and from whom.
But, he didn't bring in a Trump campaign lawyer. He didn't report it to the FBI. He said he would "love it" if the information Goldstone promised turned out to be as good as he said it was -- and that he would plan to use it later that summer (presumably for maximum political affect).
What Trump (Sr.) is trying to do here is simple: Normalize his son's behavior. This is how campaigns work, right? Right?!
But it isn't. (Don't believe me? Check out this great PolitiFact piece on oppo research). What Don Jr. did is WAY outside the norm of political campaigns and how they act. It is very much not normal. | | ALTERNATIVE HEALTH CARE PLAN(S?) | | CNN's Dana Bash and Kate Bolduan were the first to report Thursday that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, are working with their GOP colleagues on an alternative approach to replacing Obamacare. Their plan: Keeping much of the federal taxes in place and sending that money to the states to control.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans posted their updated version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), which is still in draft form. | | Education Secretary Betsy DeVos ignited backlash from activists after hosting a series of "listening sessions" for various groups impacted by Title IX.
Why is that so controversial, you might ask? Well, in addition to inviting sexual assault survivors and representatives from educational institutions, the Department of Education also invited a men's rights group.
Protesters, led by Know Your IX (an advocacy group seeking to empower students to end sexual assault), rallied outside the Department of Education Thursday morning.
CNN's Sophie Tatum, Rene Marsh and Dylan Stafford have more details about the rally:
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Jackie Speier showed up at the morning rally outside the Department of Education with strong words on the review of the department's college sexual assault policies.
Gillibrand's message to DeVos: "It is disturbing that you are not making it a priority to end campus sexual assault."
Alyssa Peterson, one of the organizers of the event, also criticized DeVos for inviting the controversial men's rights group.
"I've never heard of a government meeting with a group of people who harass people online," she said.
More coverage from CNN here. | | | May this photo inspire you to dine with a smile. | | | In honor of POTUS' trip to Paris, here's Beirut singing "Nantes" in another La Blogothèque Take Away Show filmed in Paris in 2007. | | Who says Twitter gets boring after hours? On Wednesday night, a new meme was born: Kellyanne Conway holding up flash cards.
"What's the conclusion?" she told Fox News host Sean Hannity while holding up her visual aids. "Collusion? No. We don't have that yet. I see illusion and delusion," she said, holding two pieces of paper with those words scrawled across them. The White House adviser proceeded to literally cross out the word collusion. Unfortunately for Kellyanne: Visual aids aren't the most effective prop. Fortunately for everyone else: White paper is not hard to photoshop.
Too bad "Saturday Night Live" isn't on right now. Our guess is that Kate McKinnon would have knocked this sketch out of the park. | | | 🍟 It's not Friday yet, but it's National French FRY-day. 🍟 Fortune has a nice round-up of where to get free fries to celebrate. | | | All eyes were on Emmy nominations in La La Land Thursday morning (check out CNN Entertainment's coverage here). HBO's "Westworld" and NBC's "Saturday Night Live" led nominations, nabbing 22 nods EACH! (Guess those Melissa McCarthy Sean Spicer impressions paid off). Also notable: "The Handmaid's Tale" received multiple nods, including for Outstanding Drama. This marks a big win for Hulu already, as it finally raised the streaming service's profile when it comes to original programming (more analysis from Business Insider's Mike Shields here). In addition to being buzzworthy, the show has inspired many protesters across the globe. Saba wrote a story in June about a group of about 30 women dressed in "Handmaid's Tale"-inspired attire -- red cloaks and white bonnets -- walking the US Capitol grounds to protest the proposed GOP health care bill. | | | What's up Veeps? Thanks for reading, and as always, remember to tell your friends -- and your enemies -- to subscribe. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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