I had to make a hard call to continue covering Israel before trying to bring you the rundown on the latest news in the Russia investigation, as well as updates with Cohen, which evidently all sort of come together in one way or another.
Before continuing, I'd like to acknowledge that my heart is with the victims and their families in the Santa Fe school shooting. As always I recognize that this isn't and will never be enough. In whatever way you personally think change needs to happen, I encourage you to be a voice or actor for that method of change.
This story, like most, is important, big, and complex, and I encourage you to do your own digging if you really want to understand the full spectrum of both sides of the investigations.
The sources I used are as follows:
Russia favored Trump in 2016, Senate panel says, breaking with House GOP-The Washington Post
Cracking down on leaks, the White House could worsen another problem- The Washington Post
Senate Panel Backs Intelligence Agencies on Russian Meddling- The New York Times
Trump Discloses Cohen Payment, Raising Questions About Previous Omission- The New York Times
Just as a little background, there are two general "branches" to the Trump investigations right now. One focuses mainly on Russia and possible collusion with the Trump team during the 2016 election, the other deals more with Trump allegedly paying (off Michael Cohen who then paid..) off porn star, Stormy Daniels.
In the last few days two significant things have come forth, leading me to 4 general main points.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has proven Trump guilty of collusion with Russia during the 2016 election
This contradicts the standing of house republicans who came to the opposite conclusion last month
Trump recently disclosed financial records showing hefty payments to Cohen
Records were leaked.
All four points today are relatively generic; the actual facts are few and far between amongst obviously partisan analyzation of the allegations.
The first is as follows throughout the three outlets.
It was significantly harder to find this basic fact, that has been reported in almost every other news outlet in the last 2 days, in FOX than anywhere else. It must be, as they said, that "we kinda knew that" already.
The second point is just as basic and fundamental and ironically still hard to find a written report on by FOX. If they're covering Russia lately, it must be all through clips/broadcast.
The New York Times appears to have fleshed out the explanation of the House's rejection of the collusion allegations, while the Post briefly mentions it and FOX keeps it very to the point.
Outside of the Russia section of the investigations at hand (to a certain extent,) lies the financial documents in which Trump reveals he paid thousands of dollars to Michael Cohen as a previously unrecorded and unlabeled transaction. I, quite embarrassingly, hit The Washington Post's paywall while trying to find an article with this piece of information spelled out.
The fourth and final conclusion was that records have been being leaked from the White House, despite numerous crackdowns. The Washington Post reports:
Turnover in the White House has not stopped leaks, nor has any other effort, including a ban on personal cellphones in the West Wing. The latest staff changes are not hirings or firings but, rather, tighter controls on which members of the staff receive information."
Fox goes on to discuss how there will be an eventual crackdown on whoever is leaking this information, saying
"The mysterious law enforcement official behind the leak of confidential documents on Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s business dealings is facing new pressure as sources debunk his rationale for leaking -- and one report suggests it won't be long before he's caught. The leaker could face up to five years in jail if identified and prosecuted. "
However, The Washington Post continues to talk about how the crackdown could have some side effect, quoting the New Yorker.
"The White House has a new plan to plug leaks, but it could come with a negative side effect. Both the upside and downside can be found in the lead sentence of a New York Times report on the change: “The big daily meeting that past administrations have used to keep the White House on message has been scrapped in favor of something smaller.”
Smaller meetings reduce the number of potential leakers. That's basic math. But keeping everyone on message — already a challenge for President Trump's team — might be harder if fewer people are in the room to hear the message."
In the end there is so much more to both of these "branches" of investigation. Between Donald Trump Jr.'s interference, Rudy Giuliani's far too revealing FOX and Friends' episode, and ties to Russian oligarchs, there's a lot to keep track of.
If you want to challenge your beliefs (which I always strongly recommend) while getting the rest of the story, I encourage you to read through this article from FOX (a right-leaning medium to challenge left leaning readers) or listen to the most recent episode of Pod Save America, (a left leaning medium to challenge right leaning readers/listeners) titled "The Trump Investigation."
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