From deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, on his decision to name Robert Mueller the Special Counsel on the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election:
Alexander Shnaider, a Russian-Canadian developer who partnered with Trump to build the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto, used hundreds of millions of dollars that can be traced back to Vnesheconombank (VEB), a Russian government-run bank under investigation in the U.S., to help finance the project, reports the WSJ.
Why this matters: A Trump Organization spokesman told the WSJ that the company had no financial dealings with VEB. Trump has also repeatedly stated that he has no ties to Russia. Meanwhile, federal investigators are looking into the links between Trump's staff and Russian financial institutions. This all comes as Trump has been under fire for sharing Israeli intelligence with top Russian officials.
Mark your calendars: House Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz has scheduled a hearing next Wednesday, and he's inviting former FBI Director James Comey — once he figures out his new phone number.
Chaffetz has already asked the FBI to produce any and all memos it has from Comey's communications with Trump. One of those memos reportedly includes the claim that Trump asked him to stop investigating Michael Flynn.
Split screen: Trump will be in Europe at the time for a NATO summit and a meeting with the Pope.
Meanwhile... Mitch McConnell says the Senate Intelligence Committee needs to hear from Comey in a public hearing as well: "I think we need to hear from him about whatever he has to say about the events of recent days, as soon as possible."
The Senate Judiciary Committee requested two additional pieces of information Wednesday, per the AP:
The memo former FBI Director James Comey wrote that indicates Trump asked him to drop the probe into ousted National Security Advisor Michael Flynn
Any tapes from the White House
Context: Richard Burr and Mark Warner, Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee, sent two letters Wednesday. The first asked Comey to testify publicly and privately. The second asked Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe for any memos from Comey.
An Israeli official told BuzzFeed News that Trump sharing their intel with Russia is the country's "worst fears confirmed," likely due to the balance of powers between the U.S., Russia, Israel, and Iran, since Russia could share the new information with Iran, an adversary of Israel. What we know:
Israel was the source of the classified information Trump disclosed to Russian officials about an ISIS plot to carry laptops laced with explosives onto planes, per two Israeli officials. The NYT first reported Israel was the source Tuesday.
Conservative political commentator Erick Erickson has chimed in with his take on Trump's classified disclosures to Russia, saying that he knows one of the sources personally — noting they're solidly pro-Trump — and approves of their leak as POTUS "will not take any internal criticism," per his blog The Resurgent.
His question: "If the President, through inexperience and ignorance, is jeopardizing our national security and will not take advice or corrective action, what other means are available to get the President to listen and recognize the error of his ways?"
Why it matters: This type of scandal — one that directly jeopardizes national security — is one that might begin to peel away even the staunchest conservatives from Trump's base of support.
President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort mortgaged his Hamptons home for $3.5 million via a shell company just after departing the campaign in August, but the requisite government documents weren't filed and there is no indication that the $36,750 in taxes owed on the mortgage was ever paid, per NBC News.
The intrigue: The mortgage loan was made by a capital group that's partially funded by Alexander Rovt, a Ukranian-American real-estate billionaire and Trump donor.
Why it matters: As Russia continues to dominate the news cycle, it's another bad look for Manafort, who can't seem to shake his connections to Russia and Ukraine.
Americans and Europeans are again riveted on intelligence leaks, cyber hacking and the latest surge of inward-looking fervor. In Beijing, though, the talk the last couple of days has been of globalization on a historic scale — the construction of a more than trillion-dollar global web of roads, ports, railroads and energy projects, all of them leading back to China.
The One Belt, One Road project would connect about 65% of the world's population and a quarter of its GDP, according to McKinsey, the consultant firm. If the project is realized as envisioned, much of world trade would be linked to Chinese economic strategy.
On Friday, a ransomware attack demanded payments of $300 before users could log in to their files in 74 countries around the world — including at a Spanish telecom company, the National Health Service in England, the Russian Foreign Ministry, and FedEx (read our Friday roundup here).
By the end of the day Monday, the ransomware had spread to 300,000 breaches across 150 countries, according to U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert. Here's everything else you missed Monday as the ransomware continued to cause problems around the world.
