President Trump's legal team is making a bold new claim in a letter to Robert Mueller that says he can't obstruct the Russia investigation because his presidential authority is so broad that it makes obstruction impossible, the New York Times reports.
Why it matters: That claim would push the boundaries of executive power and probably set up a legal fight over whether he can be ordered to answer questions. The letter from the president's legal team claims that the Constitution gives Trump the power to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”
Barack Obama is scheduled to headline a DCCC fundraiser along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Anna Eshoo in the Bay Area late June, reports Politico.
Why it matters: The former president has largely stayed out of the political spotlight since leaving office, but is coming back as we get closer to the midterms and Democrats fight to take back the House. Expect Democrats to use Obama and Hillary Clinton to fire up their base before November.
Eric Holder, Obama’s former Attorney General, told an audience at a political event in New Hampshire Friday that even if Trump is using his pardon power to send a signal to potential witnesses in the Mueller probe, people who are pardoned can still go before a grand jury.
Bottom line: Holder said Trump issuing pardons "will not ultimately thwart the Mueller investigation." That’s because "if Bob Mueller, for instance wants to take a pardoned person, put that person before a grand jury, that person no longer has the ability to say, 'I'm going to invoke my Fifth Amendment right'" and "that person then becomes a perfect witness for the special counsel."
CVS Health said Friday it will stop donating to the pro-Trump group, America First Policies (AFP,) after a nonpartisan research group, MapLight, revealed Thursday that the pharmacy had donated to it, per CNN.
The big picture: It’s not just CVS Health — MapLight said two other companies, Southern Company and Dow Chemical, along with CVS Health, donated a combined $1.6 million to AFP. Southern Company and Dow Chemical did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
Friday's report on the jobs market was positive — the U.S. added 223,000 jobs in May (up from 164,000 jobs added in April) and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.8%.
Yes, but: We knew good news was coming before the report came out because of a tweet from President Trump — and that may have impacted the market. Axios' Steve LeVine points out the tweet (seen below) sent an indicator of good news coming down the pipeline, leading to a surge of market activity before the official report was released.
The lawyer for Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels) reached out to well-established Democratic operatives for help in the porn star's legal battle against President Trump, the New York Times reports, although it does not appear that any money was given.
Why it matters: Daniels' allegation that Trump had a sexual affair with her years ago, and that his lawyer Michael Cohen paid her to stay silent about it, has become a major political issue. Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has a background working in Democratic politics. While Avenatti has claimed that he "will not allow this to be politicized," asking for help from political groups seems to indicate otherwise.
Bloomberg broke a story last night about the emerging structure of long-discussed Trump administration efforts to aid economically struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants.
Why it matters: Per their story, the plan would "represent an unprecedented intervention into U.S. energy markets."
President Trump tweeted Friday morning that Samantha Bee should be fired for the "horrible language used on her low ratings show."
This comes after Bee and her network TBS apologized for calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless c*nt" on Wednesday, a clip that went viral and led to advertisers exiting her show.
By any historical measure, it’s highly unusual for President Trump to repeatedly pressure his attorney general to intervene in an investigation of the White House, as Axios scooped late yesterday.
Why it matters: By any historical measure, it’s highly unusual to have a special prosecutor probing whether a president obstructed justice during his first days in office, like the Robert Mueller investigation is doing. By any historical measure, it’s highly unusual for a president this early in his term to pardon a controversial political donor (conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza) — and to signal he might pardon other celebrity criminals, like Trump did yesterday with Martha Stewart and more.
