House Judiciary chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters Wednesday that Attorney General Bill Barr said he is unlikely to meet the April 2 deadline set by House Democrats to make the Mueller report public, but that he agreed to testify on a date to be decided.
The intrigue: Following a 10-minute phone call with Barr, Nadler said that the full Mueller report is "very substantial," but that he was asked not to disclose the exact length. When pressed by reporters on whether it was less than 1,000 pages, Nadler responded: "Oh, I would think so."
Former Trump legal spokesman Mark Corallo said on an ABC News podcast that Hope Hicks, who previously served as White House communications director, told him that "nobody's ever going to see" the documents about the drafting of a misleading statement on the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
Context: In the original statement Trump dictated aboard Air Force One, he claimed the meeting between a Kremlin-linked lawyer and Donald Trump Jr. — first reported by the New York Times — was about Russian adoptions. Trump later revealed in a tweet that the purpose of the meeting was to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, essentially admitting that his first statement misled the American people.
The ambassadors of France, Germany and the U.K. delivered a harsh rebuke of the Trump administration's decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights at two separate meetings at the White House and State Department yesterday, three European diplomats briefed on the diplomatic démarche told me.
Details: After issuing public statements that raised concerns about Trump's decision, the three European ambassadors met at the White House on Tuesday with Victoria Coates, the National Security Council's senior director for the Middle East. They had another meeting at the State Department with David Satterfield, acting assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. European sources told me the meetings were difficult and ended unresolved, with both sides agreeing to disagree.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May told Conservative Party MPs on Wednesday that she is "prepared to leave this job earlier than [she] intended ... to deliver on the decision of the British people and leave the EU with a smooth and orderly exit," per The Times' Sam Coates.
Why it matters: This is May's gambit to finally get her Brexit deal, which has already faced two historic defeats in the House of Commons, over the line. But it has no set time as she reportedly told her MPs she would step down once the U.K. formally achieves Brexit. The EU has granted the U.K. a short extension from March 29 until April 12 to exit the bloc, which could be extended until May 22 if May's deal passes. However, the Commons voted this week to take control of the Brexit process from the government and will vote later Wednesday to gauge support for a range of alternative next steps.
The State Department said Tuesday the U.S. had "nothing to do" with a commando-style break-in at North Korea's Embassy in Madrid, after a Spanish judge said the raid leader contacted the FBI soon afterward.
Driving the news: Judge José de la Mata Adrian said the U.S.-based alleged gang leader contacted the FBI in New York "5 days after the assault" on the embassy to offer data stolen in the raid. The armed intruders seek the "liberation of North Korea" and had tried unsuccessfully to persuade an embassy official to defect, Adrian said. They "beat their occupants, until they managed to reduce them and put shackles and flanges to immobilize them."
Ernest Moniz, President Obama's former energy secretary and now CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), believes “the risk of a nuclear weapon being used is now higher than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
Driving the news: In a lengthy interview, Moniz told Axios he is particularly concerned about the erosion of the U.S.-Russia arms control regime, which could collapse entirely if the Trump administration declines to renew the New START treaty.
Former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who served a 12-day prison sentence after being charged by the Mueller investigation for lying to the FBI, told Reuters on Tuesday that his lawyers have formally applied for a pardon from President Trump.
The big picture: In May 2016, Papadopoulos drunkenly told an Australian diplomat that he had been informed by a mysterious Maltese professor that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton — prompting the FBI to launch a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. Papadopoulos says the lies he told the FBI about his interactions with the professor were unintentional and that he was pressured by investigators into signing the plea deal, which he is now considering withdrawing.
Satellite navigation systems like the Global Positioning System (GPS) make so many different pieces of our global infrastructure tick that most countries treat their signals as sacrosanct, knowing that interfering with them could have devastating effects. But a new report released Tuesday is giving us the first broad view of a country — Russia — that's pervasively tampering with the service.
The big picture: Global navigation satellites — including GPS and less-used competing services like Russia's GLONASS — are coordinated networks of atomic clocks in outer space that can be used to triangulate precise locations or coordinate precise timing. Without them, everything from global shipping to financial markets would suffer.
McDonald's has agreed to buy Dynamic Yield, an Israeli provider of personalized sales assistant software, for $300 million.
Why it matters: It's the fast food giant's biggest acquisition since buying Boston Market in 1999, and will digitally revamp menu ordering screens to incorporate everything from time of day to weather to trending items.
The details: Airbus secured the deal during a state visit by China's President Xi Jinping to Paris. The order is for 290 A320 planes and 10 jets from the A350 line.
The other side: Boeing announced it would provide free software upgradesto airlines that had bought the 737 MAX jets that have been grounded, pending the outcome of a safety investigation following 2 fatal crashes in less than 6 months.
Ethiopian Airlines told Reuters it expected preliminary findings into the cause of the crash that killed 157 people this week or next.
The Transportation Department said it would review the Federal Aviation Administration’s safety approval process for Boeing's 737 MAX aircraft.
In an unprecedented move, British lawmakers temporarily took control of the Brexit process from Prime Minister Theresa May Monday night.
The details: Members of the U.K. Parliament defeated the government in a 329 to 302 vote on a cross-party Brexit amendment, giving MPs control Wednesday to vote on a series of alternative measures to May's withdrawal deal with the European Union, which she has failed to pass through the House of Commons.
