The National Enquirer kept a safe containing documents with details on hush money payments and other damaging details on President Trump leading up to the 2016 election, reports the AP.
Why it matters: Details about the documents the Enquirer hid for Trump as part of an arrangement may come to light in the testimony of Enquirer chief David Pecker, who was granted immunity in return for providing information to federal prosecutors as part of the investigation in to Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
The White House is not backing the Secure Elections Act in its current form, arguing it would place "inappropriate mandates" on states and would move power from states to Washington, White House Spokeswoman Lindsay Walters told Yahoo News.
Why it matters: The administration's dispute against the bipartisan bill, which stalled in the Senate this week, echoes the concern some secretaries of state have about the bill. A handful of secretaries say it appears to be a federal overreach since it would require states to run post-election audits, and would allow states to double check if vote tallies match how people voted. The bill stalled Wednesday in part because of this same argument.
House Republican Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and his wife pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges that they falsified finance records and misused $250,000 in campaign funds, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The details: The couple was indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday, and by Thursday Hunter said he'd step down from his committee assignments after initially declining to do so, according to Politico. Hunter and his wife remain free on bail, having been released on a $15,000 and $10,000 bond respectively.
President Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said the president sought legal advice on a potential pardon for former campaign manager Paul Manafort "several weeks ago" but was advised against it, Giuliani told the Washington Post in an interview.
Why it matters: Giuliani's statement confirms that Trump had shown interest in pardoning Manafort after he was found guilty of financial crimes. The president had previously mentioned a pardon as a possibility for his former campaign manager in a tweet but did not explain he inquired about the legality of the option. Go deeper:All the president's guilty men
President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions followed their nasty war of words this morning with a meeting this afternoon where they didn't say a word about their confrontation, a source with direct knowledge tells Axios.
Per a second source with knowledge of the White House meeting, attended by Jared Kushner, Kellyanne Conway, Sessions, Trump and Mercedes Schlapp: “No acknowledgment, not even a passing mention” of the morning’s events. “To the point where I don’t even know if he [Trump] was aware of his [Sessions’] statement."
President Trump has stymied a plan to push prison and sentencing reform before the midterms, according to an administration source with direct knowledge. In a White House meeting on Thursday afternoon, Trump decided that the compromise package that Jared Kushner, Sen. Chuck Grassley and others have been advocating for is too politically difficult to endorse before the elections, the source told Axios.
Why it matters: Without the president backing the bill, which might have reduced some mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug crimes and sent around 4,000 prisoners home, it has zero chance of getting a vote before the midterms. Senate leadership was already reluctant to bring it up for a vote. The collapse of the bill is a win for opponents of the package, including law-and-order hardliners Sen. Tom Cotton and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
David Pecker, CEO of American Media, Inc., which publishes The National Enquirer, has been granted immunity for providing information to federal prosecutors about President Trump's knowledge of Michael Cohen's payments prior to the 2016 election to two women who alleged sexual encounters with Trump, per Vanity Fair. The WSJ first reported Pecker's cooperation Wednesday.
Why it matters: Pecker, who has been working with Trump since the late 1990s, and his chief content officer, Dylan Howard, are the latest to defect from Trump's close circle of confidants and advisors. They join the likes of Cohen himself, who has implicated Trump in his violation of campaign finance law.
Chief executives from top U.S. companies including Apple, Cisco, IBM, Pepsico and AT&T sent a letter to Homeland Security this week expressing their "serious concern about changes in immigration policy," arguing the changes are "unfair and discourage talented and highly skilled individuals from pursuing career opportunities in the United States," according to a copy provided to Axios.
The big picture: The Trump administration has imposed several new policies and released memos that have made it much more difficult for highly skilled foreign workers to obtain H-1B visas — and much easier immigration officials to deport foreign workers who become ineligible. Many tech companies in particular rely on these foreign workers to fill the labor and skills gap in the U.S.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a rare public statement Thursday in which he appeared to push back against President Trump, hours after Trump criticized him in a Fox News interview for failing to take control of the Justice Department.
"The actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations ... I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action."
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday reached out to William McRaven — former commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, who oversaw the SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden — after McRaven dared President Trump to revoke his clearance, too.
The big picture: Since leaving office, the former vice president has maintained quiet contact with a range of former people he served with who have been dismayed by what they are seeing out there, according to someone close to Biden.
Michael Cohen told lawmakers last year, in sworn testimony, that he didn't know whether then-candidate Donald Trump had foreknowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians, three sources with knowledge of Cohen's testimony tell Axios.
The big picture: And Cohen still doesn't know whether Trump knew about the infamous meeting, according to Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis. "Nothing has changed," he told Axios. Newsreports last month said Cohen was willing to assert to special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump did know about the meeting in advance.
Michael Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis told CNN on Wednesday that Cohen would reject a pardon from his former client, Donald Trump, if granted.
"Under no circumstances, since he came to the judgment after Mr. Trump's election to the presidency of the United States that his suitability is a serious risk to our country. ... His answer would be no, I do not want a pardon from this man."
The arrest of a murder suspect this week, who police had said is an undocumented immigrant responsible for the killing of 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, has reignited the debate about America's immigration policies.
What’s happening: On Wednesday, the legal status of 24-year-old suspect Cristhian Bahena Rivera came into question. Rivera’s attorney, Allan Richards, said in court filings that his client has been living in the country legally — contradicting what immigration authorities told the Associated Press.
The Secure Elections Act, which would make states run post-election audits to determine if election results reflect the way people voted, stalled in a Senate committee Wednesday night per CNN.
The big picture: The bipartisan election security bill — cosponsored by Republican Sen. James Lankford and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar — had support from several election security experts. However, Secretaries of State from around the country have been opposing the bill’s mandate on post-election audits, in particular because some view it as too strict a requirement without adequate, simultaneous funding to meet the requirement.
