Axios

Jeff Sessions discussed campaign-related matters with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, including policy issues important to the Russian government and the potential relationship between the Russian government and a Trump administration, according to current and former U.S. officials, The Washington Post reports.

The evidence: This report is based on U.S. intelligence intercepts of Kislyak's accounts of two conversations with Sessions, who was a foreign policy advisor to Trump at the time of the alleged conversations.

One big caveat: Russia is known to create false intelligence reports to sow confusion in the U.S., and Kislyak may have exaggerated his meetings.

One U.S. official said that when Sessions testified that he had no recollection of an April encounter with Kislyak, he was giving "misleading" statements "contradicted by other evidence."

• Sessions in March when he recused himself from the Russia probe: "I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign."

Why it matters: Recent reports have shown that Trump is irritated with Sessions for recusing himself from the probe in the first place.

Russian court documents, obtained by Reuters, reveal that Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. last June, had "successfully represented" Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in a legal battle over ownership of property in Moscow between 2005 and 2013.

• Why it matters: As Reuters points out, the FSB is "the successor to the Soviet-era KGB service, [and] was headed by Vladimir Putin before he became Russian president."
• The discovery of the FSB as a client of Veselnitskaya's doesn't necessarily mean she worked for the Russian government or its intelligence agencies, which Veselnitskaya has repeatedly denied.
• Earlier this week, Veselnitskaya told Russian state media RT that she is "ready to testify" before Congress to help dispel "the mass hysteria."

Per The Economist: "The last pet-less leader in American history was Andrew Johnson, who left office in 1869 and is best-known for being one of only two presidents to be impeached (the other, Bill Clinton, had a dog and a cat). According to the Presidential Pet Museum, the White House has been home to over 300 animals, ranging from dozens of dogs, horses and birds to the occasional bear, tiger and alligator."

"Theodore Roosevelt had by far the most impressive menagerie: while in office, the famed outdoorsman and conservationist cared for some 50 animals, including a badger, a barn owl and a one-legged rooster. Although animals are beloved by Americans of all political stripes, their appeal in the Oval Office has not been quite so bipartisan: Democratic presidents have averaged six pets each compared with nine for Republican ones."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told NBC's Keir Simmons Friday that President Trump and Vladimir Putin may have held additional, undisclosed meetings at the G-20 summit last month.

"They might have met even much more than just three times," said Lavrov. "When you are brought by your parents to a kindergarten, do you mix with the people who are waiting in the same room to start going to a classroom?"

Why it matters: Many of Trump's top aides are concerned with how the president is openly embracing Russia, and have said that Trump's extended dinner meeting with Putin raises red flags. But while Washington is wary of the two leaders' close relationship, Lavrov has dismissed it as no big deal: "After the dinner was over … I was not there … President Trump apparently went to pick up his wife and spent some minutes with President Putin…so what?"

Strains of populism continue to rend Europe, as a Polish government move to weaken judicial independence triggered protesting crowds on Thursday night estimated at nearly 100,000 in Warsaw and other Polish cities, per Buzzfeed.

• The protests broke out after the Sejm, the Polish parliament, okayed a bill that would compel all 83 of the country's Supreme Court judges to resign, apart from those appointed by the ruling Law and Justice Party. They would then be replaced by the Minister of Justice. The bill must now be approved by the Senate, which could vote as early as today, and signed by President Andrzej Duda.
• Critics say the move will be fatal stroke against Polish democracy. Duda has disputed that, and attempted to compromise by saying he will veto any bill that excludes a 60% threshold for the approval of any new judge. But some EU officials say that, should the bill become law, Poland could trigger a suspension of its voting rights within the EU.
• Why it matters: Along with Hungary, Poland has been drifting further and further away from the democracy established a quarter century ago with Eastern Europe's break from the Soviet Union. Their shift, along with Brexit, is complicating unity on hard political questions within the already-fractious EU.

The N.Y. Times posted a "Fact Check" by Linda Qiu on its 50-minute interview with Trump, under the headline "Trump made several misleading claims in times interview." Here are the eight headings:

• He misrepresented how health insurance works.
• He falsely said the wife of the Japanese prime minister "doesn't speak English," not even "hello."
• He said news about Russia "wasn't hot" when his son met with a Russian lawyer in June 2016.
• He said he discussed adoptions with Mr. Putin. That's a proxy for sanctions.
• He incorrectly recounted the history of the F.B.I. and falsely said its director "really reports directly to the president of the United States."
• He described savings from health care and tax cuts as a "windfall" for the middle class. The cuts are generally more beneficial to the wealthy.
• He incorrectly said Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, was "from Baltimore."("Rosenstein grew up in Philadelphia ... He was appointed the United States attorney for Maryland, based in Baltimore, in 2005 by President George W. Bush, a Republican. Mr. Rosenstein lives in Bethesda, Md.")
• He offered a distorted history of Paris and Napoleon.

CNN: "Marc Kasowitz, Trump's longtime personal attorney who has been the lead lawyer on the Russia investigation, will see his role recede ... John Dowd, along with Jay Sekulow, will now be the President's primary personal attorneys for the investigation ... Ty Cobb will take the lead from inside the White House ... when he formally starts his job on July 31."

"Mark Corallo has resigned from his position as spokesman and communications strategist for Trump's legal team."

One of the more elusive skills in this White House is the ability to communicate effectively with President Trump. It's no secret he likes things short, simple, graphical.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is ready to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort if they do not agree to testify on Wednesday, RealClearPolitics reports. So far, neither has responded to the request and the deadline is this Friday.

Why this matters: Both of these scheduled testimonies would take place in a public setting (whereas Jared Kushner's on Monday will be private). Plus, the WSJ just raised the stakes for Manafort's potential testimony, with a report tonight that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating him for possible money laundering.

The only other time a sitting president's son has appeared before Congress was Neil Bush, George H. W. Bush's son, who appeared before the House Banking Committee in 1990, per RCP.

Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Dick Durbin are introducing the DREAM Act — a new bipartisan push to reform immigration legislation about rights and protections for undocumented people whose parents immigrated to the U.S. illegally.

The bill is butting up against Trump's intention to allow DREAMers to be deported, and just yesterday Marc Short said the administration would likely oppose the bill. Trump has until Sept. 5 to decide whether to rescind the program or face court challenges.

Big picture: Graham told reporters Thursday that when history is written about how the U.S. treated so-called DREAMers, he's "going to be with these kids" and that they're "trying to do a good thing," adding that both Trump and the Republican Party are going to have to make a decision about where they fall.

A significant majority of Americans say that their friends' vote for either Donald Trump (74%) or Hillary Clinton (86%) does not have any effect on their personal friendships, according to a new Pew Research poll.

• The split: Unsurprisingly, the biggest outlier were Democrats or leaning Democrats assessing friends who voted for Trump. 35% of those on the left said a Trump vote would strain a friendship — that number jumps to 47% for those who identify as liberal.
• Trump as stress: And a majority of Americans (59%) find it stressful and frustrating to discuss politics with someone who has a differing opinion of Trump.
• Why can't we be friends? Majorities of Republicans and Democrats both said that members of the other party probably share many of their values and goals. Those numbers aren't significantly different from the last time the poll was conducted in 2013 — but they're significantly better than 2007 and 2005.

Two of the three most noteworthy officials fired by President Trump criticized his comments about Attorney General Jeff Sessions to The New York Times.

• Sally Yates, fired from her DOJ job in January after refusing to enforce the travel ban: "POTUS attack on Russia recusal reveals yet again his violation of the essential independence of DOJ, a bedrock principle of our democracy."
• Preet Bharara, fired as a U.S. Attorney in March after Trump promised he'd keep his job: "The President today effectively asked Sessions for his resignation. Will he resign or insist on being fired?... I am looking forward to having Jeff Sessions & Rod Rosenstein as colleagues @nyulaw soon. Maybe we can teach employment law together. ... Not a question you've heard before at a DOJ press conference: "Are you concerned you will be viewed as a zombie Attorney General?"
• The official who didn't comment, at least publicly: Jim Comey.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday that he plans to continue as Attorney General, despite President Trump's comments to the N.Y. Times that he would have picked someone else for the position if he had known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russian investigation.

"We love this job. We love this department, and I plan to continue to do so as long as that is appropriate," Sessions said Thursday.

Read more on why Trump lacks leverage on Sessions.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation has reportedly expanded to include a closer look at financial and business transactions involving both President Trump and some of his closest associates, a person "familiar with the probe" tells Bloomberg. This reportedly absorbed a money laundering investigation started by fired U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara last year.

• The three prongs of the Mueller investigation: Trump's finances, direct election interference and hacking, and the actions of Michael Flynn.
• What Mueller has his eyes on: Trump's interactions with Russian businessmen seem to be the biggest focus, including the Agalarov-funded Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013 and the Russian ties to the development of the Trump SoHo hotel.
• Also on the table: Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Wilbur Ross' ties to the Bank of Cyprus — a prime destination for Russian money laundering — are reportedly of interest.

"The brief honeymoon between the world's two largest economies appears to be over," per Bloomberg's Andrew Mayeda and Saleha Mohsin:

• "High-level economic talks in Washington broke up Wednesday with the two superpowers unable to produce a joint statement. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross scolded China over its trade imbalance with the U.S. in his opening remarks, and then both sides canceled a planned closing news conference."
• "Ross complained about the trade gap with China in unusually blunt terms."
• Why it matters: "While confronting the Chinese ... will play well politically in America, it's not a good strategy for making progress with Chinese leaders, who are under their own political pressures."

"Trump's embrace of Russia making top advisers wary," by AP's Vivian Salama: "Trump's persistent overtures toward Russia are placing him increasingly at odds with his national security and foreign policy advisers, who have long urged a more cautious approach."

• "[A]n extended dinner conversation between Trump and ... Putin ... raised red flags with advisers already concerned by the president's tendency to shun protocol and press ahead with outreach toward Russia."
• "Deep divisions are increasingly apparent within the administration on the best way to approach Moscow ...[S]ome top aides, including National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster, have been warning that Putin is not to be trusted."
• Wow: "Foreign and U.S. officials said the Russians recommended that a note taker be present in the bare-bones official bilateral meeting. But Trump, who has repeatedly expressed concern over leaks, refused, instead relying on [SecState] Tillerson to document the meeting."

For weeks, President Trump has been privately expressing frustration with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and has even told aides he regretted appointing him:

• Trump views Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation as an act of weakness that made the situation exponentially worse for the White House.
• POTUS has even mused that he could have named Sessions — a crucial early backer of his campaign — to be Secretary of Homeland Security instead.
• Yesterday, Trump went public with his beef, telling the N.Y. Times: "Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else."

The declaration of no-confidence led to instant speculation in Republican circles that Sessions would resign: How can he go to work this morning?