The Morning Briefing: CNN Does Not Lie and Much, Much More

Good Thursday morning.

Here is what’s on the President’s agenda today:

The president receives his intelligence briefing
President Trump hosts a roundtable with supporters in Evansville, IN
The president delivers remarks at a joint fundraising committee reception in Evansville, IN
President Trump delivers remarks at the Make America Great Again Rally in Evansville, IN

Trump lobbying senators to dump Sessions

Tick-tock.

Politico is reporting that President Donald Trump has “for the past 10 days…[been] venting his anger at Sessions to ‘any senator who will listen.’”

The president, who has spent a year and a half fulminating against his attorney general in public, finally got traction on Capitol Hill thanks to the growing frustration of a handful of GOP senators with their former colleague – most importantly, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, who have been irritated by Sessions’ opposition to a criminal justice reform bill they support, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen congressional GOP aides, Trump advisers, and Republicans close to the White House.

And he’s also working over the lawyers.

He’s worn down his lawyers, too, according to two Republicans close to the White House. Though they once cautioned him that dismissing Sessions would feed special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s potential obstruction of justice, these people say, Trump’s legal team has become increasingly convinced Mueller will make that case regardless of whether the president fires Sessions or leaves him in place.

“There’s the belief that if the president taking action with respect to Sessions is going to be an important part of the Mueller obstruction case, most of that case has already been made. Things that the president has already done privately that have been reported, but also things that the president has done publicly that could be characterized as bullying or intimidating, all of that case is already there ready to be made, such that firing him is almost like an afterthought,” said one person familiar with the conversations among members of the president’s legal team.

Who would Trump put in that spot if he fires Sessions? Tell me your thoughts in the comments.

FBI says it did not find Chinese intrusion on Hillary Clinton’s email server

Richard Pollock at the Daily Caller broke a story earlier this week about the FBI ignoring warnings from the inspector general that the Clinton email server had been breached by the Chinese. The FBI responded yesterday, not to the allegations but to another issue that had nothing to do with what Pollock was claiming. “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised,” the FBI stated.

The statement does not address a central aspect of TheDCNF’s reporting, which was that the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three separate occasions to warn the FBI of an “anomaly” they found 30,000 in-bound and outgoing emails. The report is based on an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter. The anomaly showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.

“It was the Obama-appointed Intelligence Community Inspector General that discovered the breach. It was not the FBI that found it, so their statement was technically correct, but very deceptive in its omission,” Congressman Gohmert, who first revealed the breach, said in a statement Wednesday.

Just the typical run-around from the FBI.

“CNN does not lie”

Make no mistake, Mr. President, CNN does not lie. We report the news. And we report when people in power tell lies. CNN stands by our reporting and our reporters. There may be many fools in this story but @carlbernstein is not one of them.

— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) August 29, 2018

CNN is standing by its story, anonymously sourced by Lanny Davis, that claimed Michael Cohen was going to spill the goods on Trump’s foreknowledge of a meeting in Trump Tower between some campaign officials and a team of Fusion GPS-connected RUSSIANS. Davis backtracked on his claim but CNN still claims their story is true. Almost like it was FAKE BUT ACCURATE.

Ari Fleischer reminds us of CNN’s greatest hits:

Comey wouldn’t confirm Trump’s statement that Trump wasn’t under investigation. Scaramucci is connected to the Russians.
Don Jr. knew about Wikileaks in advance. Cohen was wiretapped. Trump knew about meeting in Trump Tower. https://t.co/fwRJI2sHyy

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) August 30, 2018

The only people who watch CNN are people who want to hear their own political wishes reflected back to them.

Historical picture of the day:

U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, smoking his corncob pipe, views landing operations after his arrival at Atsugi Airport near Tokyo, Japan, Aug. 30, 1945. (AP Photo/U.S. Army Air Force)HC00408

Other morsels:

Haunted by FBI investigation, Democratic gubernatorial nominee faces tough climb

WaPo Buries Bush/Obama Connection To Pin State Department Policy On Trump Administration

Sarah Palin not invited to McCain funeral: reports

Title IX Complaint Filed Against Feminist Professor Who Tells Women to ‘Hate Men’

White House counsel Don McGahn to leave the administration this fall

Mueller team seeks more time to decide if they’ll retry Manafort on deadlocked charges

White cop convicted of murdering unarmed black teen sentenced to 15 years

Chelsea Manning to be barred from Australia

More Iranians ‘buying’ passports in other countries to evade US travel ban, sanctions

Woman in mysterious ‘doorbell video’ identified as domestic violence victim

After weeks of uncertainty, Papadopoulos decides to accept plea deal with Mueller