Written by Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey), Madeleine Carlisle (@maddiecarlisle2), and Olivia Paschal (@oliviacpaschal)
Today in 5 Lines
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions responded to attacks from President Trump in a statement, saying the Justice Department “will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”
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Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Trump discussed pardoning his former campaign chair Paul Manafort with his lawyers several weeks ago, but they advised against it.
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named Stephen Biegun as the special envoy to North Korea. Pompeo and Biegun will visit Pyongyang next week.
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Reality Winner, a former contractor with the National Security Agency, was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for leaking information about Russian hacking attempts.
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Hawaiians are bracing for Hurricane Lane, a Category 4 storm expected to hit the main islands Thursday and Friday.
Today on The Atlantic
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More to Come: On Tuesday, Paul Manafort was convicted of fraud and Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign-finance laws. The saga is only just beginning. (Adam Serwer)
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‘Trump’s Mafia Mind-Set’: Recent statements from President Trump sound like the conversations Jeffrey Goldberg used to have while covering organized crime in the 1990s.
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What Does It Mean?: Many Democratic candidates have recently pledged not to take money from corporate PACs. But that promise is mostly symbolic. (Elaine Godfrey)
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The New ‘I’m Not a Crook’: President Trump’s obsession with the phrase “witch hunt” could become as infamous as Nixon’s “I’m not a crook.” (Conor Friedersdorf)
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Rising Uncertainty for Dreamers: A DACA ruling from a federal district judge in Texas could conflict with previous orders that have allowed the program to proceed, and, as a result, fast-track the issue to the Supreme Court. (Priscilla Alvarez)
Snapshot
What We’re Reading
The Only Choice: Trump’s voters don’t care about his personal morals or alleged corruption—they care that he’s not a Washington insider, writes Salena Zito. And the Democrats aren’t offering any good alternatives. (The New York Post)
Mountains of Evidence: Here’s why former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen cut a plea deal and admitted to committing eight federal crimes. (Rebecca Davis O’Brien, Nicole Hong, and Joe Palazzolo, The Wall Street Journal)
Venezuela Proves Nothing: Socialism is not why Venezuela is collapsing, despite what America’s right-wing media is saying. That argument is lazy and dishonest, writes Francisco Toro. (The Washington Post)
What’s the Difference Between Sanders and Warren?: The two progressive senators are often conflated. But Warren sees a clear difference: “He’s a socialist, and I believe in markets.” (Ruby Cramer, BuzzFeed)
Visualized
‘The Myth of the Criminal Immigrant’: Polling shows that almost half of Americans think immigrants make crime worse. But studies suggest no connection between increased immigration and increased crime. (Anna Flagg, The Marshall Project)
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