Tuesday, May 30th
Last update05:20:13 AM GMT
Political Glance
A federal appeals court has largely upheld the nationwide block of President Donald Trump's executive order restricting travel from several predominantly Muslim countries, NBC News reported.
The ruling came from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
It upholds the suspension of a revised version of the executive order that the Trump administration crafted to better hold up to legal scrutiny than an earlier version.
TVNL Comment: This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
Months after the FBI began examining Paul Manafort as part of a probe into ties between President Donald Trump’s team and Russia, Manafort called Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus to push back against the mounting controversy, according to four people familiar with the call.
It was about a week before Trump’s inauguration, and Manafort wanted to brief Trump’s team on the alleged inaccuracies in a recently released dossier of memos written by a former British spy for Trump’s opponents that alleged compromising ties between Russia, Trump and Trump’s associates, including Manafort.
Months before the presidential election, U.S. spies collected intelligence showing senior Russian officials discussing how to exert influence over Donald Trump using his advisers, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Their discussions centered around then-adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign adviser at the time, according to three current and former U.S. officials.
Both men had indirect ties to Moscow and the Russian officials were confident that they could be used to sway President Trump, according to The Times.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not disclose meetings he had last year with Russian officials when he applied for his security clearance, the Justice Department told CNN Wednesday.
Sessions, who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at least two times last year, didn't note those interactions on the form, which requires him to list "any contact" he or his family had with a "foreign government" or its "representatives" over the past seven years, officials said.
In the midst of the 2016 presidential primary season, the FBI received a purported Russian intelligence document describing a tacit understanding between the campaign of Hillary Clinton and the Justice Department over the inquiry into whether she intentionally revealed classified information through her use of a private email server.
The Russian document mentioned a supposed email describing how then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch had privately assured someone in the Clinton campaign that the email investigation would not push too deeply into the matter — a conversation that if made public would cast doubt on the inquiry’s integrity.
President Donald Trump plans to select Marc Kasowitz — his longtime, New York-based lawyer — to lead his outside legal team as an investigation of Russian election interference heats up, an administration official said.
Kasowitz has represented Trump in legal matters for decades and is considered to have the president’s trust. He has a well-established rapport with Trump and has spoken to him regularly since Trump was sworn into office.
In selecting Kasowitz, Trump once again is turning to a person with extensive experience working with him — rather than a seasoned, Washington-based operator — to deal with a high-profile challenge.
Two districts that voted for Donald Trump in last year’s presidential election selected Democrats for state legislature seats in New York and New Hampshire on Tuesday night.
In a Long Island, New York district that Trump won by 23 percent, Democrat Christine Pellegrino defeated Republican Thomas Gargiulo in the race for a seat in the New York State Assembly. Pellegrino served as a delegate for Bernie Sanders at the Democratic National Convention last year, the local Patch reported.
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