Former top Trump campaign aide Rick Gates will plead guilty on fraud-related charges in coming days, the Los Angeles Times reports. Sources tell the Times Gates has told prosecutors that he would testify against his former business partner and Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
Why it matters: Gates pleaded not guilty last October to charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, but there have been reports he's trying to strike a deal. Unnamed sources told the Times that Gates' plea will be presented in federal court in Washington "within the next few days.''
President Trump will hold a listening session with teachers and students on Wednesday following last week's massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Florida, per the AP. He also will meet with state and local officials the next day to discuss school safety.
The backdrop: The White House didn't say who the students and teachers would be. Five students from Stoneman Douglas made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows today and were sharply critical of Trump and other Republicans. One student, addressing Trump directly over his position on gun control, said "you make me sick."
President Trump has taken to Twitter repeatedly over the past few days, hitting on the two issues driving the news: the deadly school shooting in Florida and the indictments issued by Robert Mueller over Russian interference in the election.
The trend: Trump is in Florida, and spent some of the weekend speaking with local officials and first responders about the Parkland shooting. On Twitter, though, his main focus has been Russia.
"The president's numbers are looking up," the Boston Globe's Astead Herndon writes.
"The Republican Party has undergone an improbable transformation amid the swirl of scandals and controversy engulfing its leader in the White House. While it certainly cannot be called love, the forced marriage of Donald Trump and the GOP has begun its second year in a state of positive equilibrium."
"[I]t’s as if someone hit a mute button in Congress. Trump’s Republican critics have gone relatively quiet, including ... Lindsey 'Publicity seeking' Graham .... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also a regular Trump combatant, is riding high after legislative victories on tax cut legislation and the newly passed spending bill — both passed with Trump’s blessing and help."
In Sunday morning tweet, President Trump called Rep. Adam Schiff — the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee — "the leakin' monster of no control," but thanked him for criticizing the Obama administration's lack of action to prevent foreign cyber attacks.
The context: Schiff said the previous administration should have set up a "more forceful deterrent" to cyberattacks after the 2014 Sony Hack. "I think that others around the world watched that and determined that cyber is a cost-free intervention," he said in an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell.
The FBI failed to follow through on a tip about Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz in January. It apologized last week for its failures, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott called on FBI Director Chris Wray to step down. In a tweet late Saturday night, President Trump tied that failure to the Russia probe:
Five states in the U.S. — Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Delaware — run their elections using direct recording electronic machines (DREs), which provide no paper trail of the votes. That means if there’s a contested election or a suspected breach or tampering attempt in those states, there is no way to verify the election result.
Why it matters: Intelligence officials are warning that Russia will try to influence the 2018 elections and these states' election officials and state legislatures are in various stages of considering ways to get new election equipment on the books. But they might not come in time for the primaries that begin this March, or the midterms this fall.
As the gun control debate is heating up again after the Parkland school shooting, President Trump blamed Democrats for what some view as loose gun laws:
Joe Biden isn't ruling out running for president in 2020, AP reports, especially if he thinks it's the "right thing to do." He recently talked about it with NBC News, saying: "I'm focused on one thing: electing a Democratic Congress ... I have plenty of time to consider whether or not to run."
