The Art of the Swamp

#DrainTheSwamp | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is not the lede:

AT&T said Cohen approached the company after the 2016 presidential election and said he was leaving the Trump organization to do consulting for a “select few” companies that wanted his opinion on Trump and the administration. AT&T said it had been looking for consultants who could help it understand the president’s approach to regulatory reform at the Federal Communications Commission, tax reform and antitrust enforcement—”specifically our Time Warner deal.”

It’s the sixth graf, via Associated Press, and might well move up as the story, posted without byline, develops.

____________________

Image note: Trump Organization attorney Michael D. Cohen in New York City, 13 April 2018. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Reuters)

Associated Press. “AT&T chief lobbyist out after hiring Trump attorney, Cohen”. 11 May 2018.

A Reich-Wing Reminder

#reichwing | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Three bylines, and the Washington Post brings what might well be the least surprising lede we might imagine:

The man who federal authorities say threatened to kill CNN employees had declared in high school that he identified with Adolf Hitler and suggested “the Holocaust was exaggerated,” according to a former classmate.

Some might point out that the difference between Holocaust denial and diminution is a matter of the wolf and what it wears, but that’s the thing; they’re not wrong, but once upon a time, that difference actually meant something … er … significant … ah … that is to say … (ahem!) … to the wolves.

(¡cough!)

Unbelievably Normal (Now With Even More Obstruction)

#DimensionTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is officially curious:

The president, when asked by the pool of reporters covering a midday meeting with Republican lawmakers at the White House whether he supported Mr. Mueller, gave no answer, even though he often uses such interactions to make headlines or shoot down stories he believes to be fake.

That may have been by design, according to a person who spoke to Mr. Trump on Tuesday. The president was pleased by the ambiguity of his position on Mr. Mueller, and thinks the possibility of being fired will focus the veteran prosecutor on delivering what the president desires most: a blanket public exoneration.

Thus sayeth the New York Times. Over at The Hill, the summary is blunt:

However, White House sources told The Times that Trump is hard to predict, and they cannot be sure he won’t fire Mueller. Others who had spoken with Trump Tuesday said that the president’s ambiguity on Mueller was intentional and that the possibility of being fired would help keep Mueller in line.

A Communication Breakdown (Dubke Dub)

#DimensionTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is not surprising:

Under normal circumstances, running the White House communications shop would be a dream job for any political operative.

But Donald Trump is the president and the circumstances aren’t normal. He regularly calls his own shots on Twitter, often bypassing aides in favor of unfiltered and unpredictable messaging. That may make the applicant pool to replace Mike Dubke, who on Tuesday announced his resignation as Trump’s communications director, very small.

BuzzFeed News spoke with 20 Republican communicators and operatives, many of whom have worked on Capitol Hill and in presidential campaigns and some who have declined previous offers to join the Trump administration. Nearly all said they would be unwilling to accept an offer to replace Dubke.

“Hell no!” said one Republican—one of the most common types of response BuzzFeed News got from operatives. “That would be career suicide.”

(Gomez, et al.)

Jeff and the Buried Lede (The #PutiTrump Sessions)

#PutiTrump | #WhatTheyVotedFor

It is a personal joke to note this is a time of long bylines, but that also seems to be symptomatic of how quickly things move. Still, though, picking up the story from Politico, a certain question emerges:

An Obama White House national security official said the administration was gravely concerned in its final days about increasingly apparent ties between Trump associates and Russians, and about what appeared to be promises made by more than one individual to representatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin about policy changes that would occur once Trump was sworn in as president.

The senior Obama White House official was not told the names of the specific individuals involved because the official’s portfolio was foreign policy, not intelligence, so they were not briefed on aspects of the investigation involving U.S. persons.

“It seems pretty clear that [former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn] was not a rogue here,” the senior official said. “I don’t believe that Flynn was the only person promising things to the Russians, communicating to them what would happen once the Trump administration came in.”

The senior official was not aware of any specific information suggesting that Sessions was one of the Trump associates discussing potential changes in U.S.-Russia relations once Trump was sworn in.

Shouldn’t that be the lede?