Today in 5 Lines
President Trump suggested on Twitter that there might be tapes of his private conversations with former FBI Director James Comey. When asked about the tweet, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly refused to answer whether or not the president is recording conversations in the Oval Office. Senator Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Comey declined an invitation to testify before the panel in a closed session on Tuesday. The White House released a letter from the president’s lawyers that said Trump’s tax returns do not reflect “any income of any type from Russian sources,” with a few exceptions. In a major shift away from Obama-era policies on low-level drug offenses, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” against defendants.
Today on The Atlantic
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Not Looking Good: James Fallows, who covered the fall of Richard Nixon 45 years ago, offers five reasons why President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey is worse than Watergate.
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Update on the Cyber: Ransomware attacks, like the one that happened Friday, have become a kind of lucrative cottage industry, Adrienne LaFrance reports. In recent years, the rate of similar attacks has increased by more than 500 percent.
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Self-Incriminating?: While President Trump’s recent comments about firing Comey don’t prove he was attempting to thwart an FBI investigation, they do “expose clear White House obfuscations, offer circumstantial evidence for interference, and open up Trump to a possible obstruction of justice investigation.” (Conor Friedersdorf)
