Axios

On Dec. 1, Defense Secretary Mattis became the first Trump administration official to publicly confirm that the Kremlin continues to interfere in U.S. democracy, including in last month's midterm elections. Mattis has described Putin as a “slow learner,” but a new tracking project shows him to be an operator who has spent nearly two decades sharpening and deploying a set of asymmetric tools across the Atlantic.

The big picture: Election interference is just one part of Russia’s strategy. The Alliance for Securing Democracy has catalogued Kremlin fingerprints on over 400 incidents of interference in 42 countries. Beyond bots and troll farms, the toolbox includes information operations, cyberattacks, political subversion, strategic economic coercion and malign finance.

When it comes to cybersecurity research, the not-for-profit lab MITRE has traditionally maintained neutrality toward commercial products. But last week, it released its first security product evaluations. Here's why and how MITRE made the leap into what might at first sound like Yelp territory (but really isn't).

Why it matters: MITRE is best known for its role in assisting the government in public/private partnerships. In cybersecurity, until now, a lot of its high-profile work was more as an archivist than an active defender.

The Chinese government announced Tuesday that it would implement a total of 38 different punishments for companies that engage in intellectual property theft, an issue that has long been a source of headaches in U.S.-China trade negotiations, Bloomberg reports.

The big picture: IP theft by Chinese companies poses a threat to both national security and American companies' ability to turn profits, currently costing between $225 billion and $600 billion annually, according to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. The Chinese government says violators would be restricted from receiving financial support from the government and designated in various databases, including a registry that could be accessed by foreign lenders.

British Prime Minister Theresa May's government has been found in contempt of Parliament for the first time in history in a 311-293 vote in the House of Commons after a refusal to publish its full legal analysis on Brexit. Andrea Leadsom, leader of the Commons, announced immediately after the vote that the government would publish the complete document.

Why it matters: The BBC's political correspondent Iain Watson said that the loss was "an unwelcome distraction rather than a disaster" for May, but it highlights just how incredibly difficult it will be to get the Commons to back her Brexit deal — and potentially, her premiership — in next week's critical "meaningful vote" on the issue.

Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) plans to lead a congressional delegation to the occupied West Bank next year, breaking with the traditional visit to Israel for newly elected members of Congress sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), The Intercept reports.

The big picture: Tlaib, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, told The Intercept that she wants the delegation "to see that segregation and how that has really harmed us being able to achieve real peace in that region." She added, "I don’t think AIPAC provides a real, fair lens into this issue. It’s one-sided. … [They] have these lavish trips to Israel, but they don’t show the side that I know is real, which is what’s happening to my grandmother and what’s happening to my family there."

Israeli police landed the most damaging blow yet on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, after two years of investigations, recommending he and his wife be charged in a third corruption case.

Why it matters: These allegations are by far the most serious Netanyahu faces. The man who has dominated Israeli politics for a decade is now waging a battle for political survival.

In a follow-up to his tweets criticizing Michael Cohen for pleading guilty in the Mueller investigation, President Trump praised former campaign adviser Roger Stone Monday morning for refusing to testify against him.

“I will never testify against Trump.” This statement was recently made by Roger Stone, essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about “President Trump.” Nice to know that some people still have “guts!”

The backdrop: On ABC's This Week yesterday, Stone said, "There’s no circumstance under which I would testify against the president because I’d have to bear false witness against him. I’d have to make things up. And I’m not going to do that." Stone is under scrutiny for suspicions that he acted as an intermediary between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks, allegations that he denies.

President Trump attacked Michael Cohen on Twitter Monday morning, again claiming his former personal attorney lied in his guilty plea to special counsel Robert Mueller and that he should serve a "complete sentence" for his crimes.

“Michael Cohen asks judge for no Prison Time.” You mean he can do all of the TERRIBLE, unrelated to Trump, things having to do with fraud, big loans, Taxis, etc., and not serve a long prison term? He makes up stories to get a GREAT & ALREADY reduced deal for himself, and get his wife and father-in-law (who has the money?) off Scott Free. He lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence.

Reality check: The crimes Cohen pled guilty to were not "unrelated to Trump," as the president claims. Cohen's first guilty plea, which he submitted in August in the Southern District of New York, implicated Trump in a possible violation of campaign finance laws. Cohen's guilty plea last week, meanwhile, directly named Trump and his business dealings in Russia as a matter of central interest in the special counsel's investigation.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Brussels on Monday. The meeting, which was announced by the Israeli side only this morning, will deal with Iranian activity in Syria and Lebanon, according to Israeli officials.

Why it matters: The timing and the venue of this meeting are a bit out of the ordinary. Israeli officials told me the venue was chosen because it was the "in the middle of the way" between Washington and Jerusalem, adding the meeting was originally planned to take place on Wednesday in Milan but the time and place have changed because of President George H.W. Bush's funeral. The State Department did not announce the meeting with Netanyahu in advance and did not release Pompeo's daily schedule on its website — and its statement on Pompeo's trip to Brussels released this morning doesn't mention the meeting with Netanyahu.