The Atlantic Politics & Policy Daily: Session and Off Again

Written by Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey), Madeleine Carlisle (@maddiecarlisle2), and Olivia Paschal (@oliviacpaschal)

Today in 5 Lines

• 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.”

• 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.

• Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named Stephen Biegun as the special envoy to North Korea. Pompeo and Biegun will visit Pyongyang next week.

• 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.

• Hawaiians are bracing for Hurricane Lane, a Category 4 storm expected to hit the main islands Thursday and Friday.

Today on The Atlantic

• 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)

• ‘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.

• 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)

• 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)

• 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)