DOJ, FBI to brief 'Gang of 8' lawmakers on Russia probe after meeting with Nunes, Gowdy

FBI and Justice Department officials on Thursday will brief the bipartisan group of lawmakers known as the "Gang of 8" on classified documents related to the special counsel's Russia investigation -- after they meet with two key House Republican lawmakers, Fox News has learned.
The first meeting at Justice Department headquarters is scheduled to take place at noon and will include White House Chief of Staff John Kelly; Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; FBI Director Christopher Wray; Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats; House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif.; and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.
The second meeting, scheduled for 2 p.m., will include Kelly, Rosenstein, Wray, Coats, Gowdy, Republican and Democratic leaders from both the House and Senate, and the top lawmakers from their intelligence panels.
Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told Fox News they plan to attend the second meeting. Warner is vice chairman of the Senate intelligence panel.
The announcement of a second meeting came after criticism from Democrats who said the briefing should have been given to the "Gang of 8" as opposed to just Nunes and Gowdy.
Nunes, an ardent Trump supporter, has been demanding information on an FBI source in the Russia investigation. The president himself took up the cause over the weekend, demanding on Twitter that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI infiltrated his presidential campaign. Late Sunday, asking its watchdog to investigate whether there was inappropriate surveillance.
"If anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action," Rosenstein said in a statement announcing the move.
In initially announcing the Nunes-Gowdy meeting Tuesday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said no Democrats had been invited because they had not requested the information.
White House spokesman Raj Shah initially told Fox News that a separate meeting between the "Gang of 8" and Justice Department, law enforcement and intelligence officials would take place after Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess.
However, Shah said in an updated statement late Wednesday that the White House was "working" to schedule a "Gang of 8" briefing before the recess.
In another twist, three Republican Senators -- Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; and John Cornyn of Texas -- sent a letter to Rosenstein and Kelly Tuesday expressing interest in attending the meeting.
"I want to find out what's going on," Graham said Wednesday. " ... I don't think we've ever had a circumstance like this where during the campaign the FBI felt like they had to apparently, I don't know whether it’s true or not, have a confidential informant engage in a campaign so somebody needs to figure out if you do this again, how you do it or if you do it all."
For his part, Gowdy told Fox News Wednesday that "I don't care who comes" to the meeting.
"The only thing I'd ask, if you show up, show up with an open mind and closed lips," Gowdy told Fox News' "The Daily Briefing." "In other words don't leak like a sieve when we get through with the meeting ... But it's not my meeting and I don't publish the invite list."

Crying Democrat Cartoons

Paul Ryan facing internal pressure to step aside early as speaker

A look at some of the likely contenders who would replace Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) when he retires in January and relinquishes the speakership.
Paul Ryan is facing renewed Republican pressure to promptly step down as House speaker after last week's failure to pass a massive farm bill amid disagreements on immigration.
The Wisconsin Republican announced in April he wouldn’t seek re-election in the fall but intended to remain as speaker through his current term. He was immediately beset by speculation that he would become a lame-duck leader and face a behind-the-scenes power struggle to replace him.
Assurances from his top two lieutenants -- Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise -- that they full support Ryan largely quieted that chatter at the time. But after Ryan was unable to muscle the GOP-sponsored farm bill through the House last Friday and faced an uprising in ranks over immigration, pressure has mounted anew for him to surrender his speakership before the midterm congressional races are in full swing.
White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney acknowledged this past weekend that he talked with McCarthy about Ryan's situation, bringing the internal debate into public view.
"I've talked with Kevin about this privately but not as much publicly,” Mulvaney said at a weekend event hosted by The Weekly Standard.
Mulvaney suggested an early speakership vote would also force Democrats to vote for or against their leader, Nancy Pelosi, as an added benefit.
“Wouldn't it be great to force a Democrat running in a tight race to have to put up or shut up about voting for Nancy Pelosi eight weeks before an election?” Mulvaney said at the event. “That's a really, really good vote for us to force if we can figure out how to do it."
Republicans have been vilifying and running against Pelosi, D-Calif., ever since 2008.
They’ve made her leadership and speakership a central issue in numerous congressional campaigns, arguing she represents the ideals of coastal, elitist liberals while eschewing the economic needs of Middle America voters.
Republicans successfully used that strategy last year in a special House race for a GOP-held seat in suburban Atlanta. Roughly nine months later, Democrat Conor Lamb won a Republican-held seat in suburban Pittsburgh on a platform that included his non-support for Pelosi remaining as the top House Democrat.
Despite the potential side benefit of pressuring Democrats over Pelosi, Ryan -- a powerful fundraiser -- insists he’s staying. So far, there isn’t a formal move to push him out early. And right now, nobody appears to clearly have enough votes to replace him.
He tried again Tuesday to end talk about a leadership change, suggesting such a move would only be disruptive.
“We all agree the best thing for us is to complete our agenda,” Ryan said at his weekly press conference.
He also saw some support Tuesday from rank-and-file GOP House members including Mike Simpson, R-Idaho.
“Ryan does not need to step down,” he told Fox News. “He is doing a fine job. … We’re in the majority, and we need to start acting like we’re in the majority, not the minority.”
“There are no barnacles on the speaker’s boat. He will be speaker until November,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News.
Any speakership race would likely feature McCarthy and Scalise, but some conservatives have also urged Freedom Caucus member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to run.
McCarthy’s office has insisted there is no speaker’s race, though the California Republican and Trump supporter appears to have positioned himself for another run at the post -- it's just a matter of when.
McCarthy dropped his 2015 bid to replace former House Speaker John Boehner because he clearly didn’t have the votes. Whether he has them now -- including from the conservative House Freedom Caucus -- remains uncertain.
McCarthy said Tuesday that reports the White House wants him to promptly replace Ryan are “untrue.”
The congressman, notably, attended a private dinner with Trump over spring recess, was among the first guests to arrive at the president’s state dinner last month and was recently spotted walking along the Georgetown waterfront with top White House adviser Stephen Miller.
Trump -- who recently referred to McCarthy as “my Kevin” -- is at least publicly keeping out of the leadership race talk. Whether his influence would matter is also unclear. Fox News is told that the president’s decision wouldn’t be enough to tilt the race.
Democrats, meanwhile, are looking to net roughly two-dozen seats to take control of the House in the midterm elections.
But if Republicans hold the House, their members will vote again in January to elect a new speaker. So if an “interim” speaker were to be tarnished by immigration and government spending issues, there’s a possibility an outside candidate could arise in January.
“This strategy gives us two bites at the apple,” said one source, suggesting a vote over the summer and then another one in January.
The prospect of forcing Democrats into an uncomfortable vote regarding Pelosi also could remain appealing for Republicans. A vote for House speaker this summer would almost certainly bring the Pelosi issue onto the campaign trail, putting moderate Democrats running in critical Midwestern and Southern districts in a tough spot.
The 78-year-old Pelosi just days ago said that she intends to compete again for a leadership post, regardless of whether Democrats retake control.
Pelosi lost 63 votes in her own leadership election after Democrats failed to win the House in 2016.
Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a former rival, told Fox News months ago he won’t challenge Pelosi a second time for her post. But a poor showing by her in a potential speaker vote in the middle of the session could give energy to moderates and others who think she’s stuck around too long.

Trump, Kushner get win as prison reform bill passes House in overwhelming vote

Trump 2020 Campaign senior advisor Katrina Pierson, Democratic strategist Kevin Walling, Olympic Media managing editor Katie Frates and retired NYPD lieutenant Darrin Porcher discuss President Trump's call on Congress to deliver him a prison reform bill.
President Donald Trump and his son-in-law scored a legislative victory Tuesday after the House overwhelmingly approved a prison reform bill that aims to help ex-convicts rebuild their lives after their release from prison.
The so-called First Step Act was authored by Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Doug Collins, R-Ga., who also worked closely with the White House -- particularly Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser, who advocated for the reform after witnessing how his father, Charles Kushner, was treated in prison.
The act would provide $250 million over five years to expand and support programs that reduce reoffending rates and encourage good behavior, the New York Post reported.
It would also require prisoners to be housed within 500 miles from their relatives and prohibit prisons from shackling pregnant women. Some prisoners would also be allowed to spend more of their sentences in a halfway house or home confinement.

“President Trump promised to fight for the forgotten men and women of this country — and that includes those in prison.”

“President Trump promised to fight for the forgotten men and women of this country — and that includes those in prison,” Kushner wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.  (Reuters)

“America is a nation that believes in the power of redemption,” Trump said Friday at a prison reform summit at the White House. “America is a nation that believes in second chances, and third chances, in some cases. And, I don’t know, I guess even fourth chances.”
The reform effort earned support from multiple diverse groups, including Dream Corps’ #cut50 initiative – a movement led by CNN analyst Van Jones, a longtime critic of Trump, Mother Jones magazine reported.
But Jones’ support for the bill heralded by Kushner came under fire from progressive Democrats who oppose working with the Trump administration. ShareBlue media’s Oliver Willis accused Jones of aiding racism, tweeting: “Van provides window dressing so racist administration can point to their black friend without really doing anything.”
“Aiding Donald Trump is aiding racism. And Van Jones is aiding Trump (even worse he did a dog n pony show for Ivanka, Jared, and Rick Perry). It was gross and disgusting,” Willis added in another tweet, prompting mockery for opposing a reform that helps inmates.
Jeffries said his bill would give additional funding to programs that allow inmates to attend vocational and college courses and get help with mental health and substance abuse issues.
“These are individuals who are in the system right now without hope, without opportunity, without a meaningful chance at transforming themselves,” Jeffries said on the House floor. “And the First Step Act will provide that. … Why would we possibly refuse that?”
The bill now moves to the Senate where it will face a tough battle as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he wants any prison reform linked to sentencing reforms as well.

A civil war is looming for Democrats. Primary results Tuesday in four states explain why

Cindy Benton celebrates after voting in the Arkansas primary election on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 in Little Rock, Ark. The Democratic and Republican parties held elections Tuesday, while all registered voters were allowed to vote in judicial elections.  (AP Photo/Kelly P. Kissel)

As the Democratic Party struggles to find its identity this primary season, it’s clear that Tuesday’s contests continued to show the internal struggle for the party’s future direction.
The results speak volumes: progressives are overwhelmingly beating their more moderate primary opponents and uncertainty remains around the Democratic Party’s ability to retake the House in November
The growing progressive insurgency presents serious questions for the Democratic Party as it continues its leftward movement.
In particular, two gubernatorial primaries demonstrated the tension between progressives and moderate candidates who are arguably more electable in November.

Progressives are overwhelmingly beating their more moderate primary opponents and uncertainty remains around the Democratic Party’s ability to retake the House in November.

In Georgia, former state House Minority Leader and staunch progressive Stacey Abrams defeated moderate former State Rep. Stacey Evans by an overwhelming margin of 74 percent to 26 percent.
Abrams, who is now one step closer to becoming the nation’s first African-American female governor, notably received an endorsement from former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who recorded a robocall on her behalf.
Abrams is also backed by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, along with his progressive super PAC, Our Revolution.
On the Republican side in the race for governor of Georgia, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Secretary of State Brian Kemp advanced to compete against each other in a July 24 runoff. They were the two finishers in a field of six Republican candidates.
Moving west, Texas’ gubernatorial race also showed signs of the Democratic base favoring a progressive over a moderate.  Progressive Lupe Valdez, the state’s first Latina sheriff, defeated moderate Andrew White, who was known for his appeal to suburban voters and personal opposition to abortion.
In terms of congressional primaries, Georgia’s 6^th District in suburban Atlanta – where Republican Karen Handel won last year in a special election that was the most expensive in House race in history – will see a Democratic runoff in June to compete against her in November. Moderate former TV news anchor Bobby Kaple, who supports prudent changes to the Affordable Care Act, will face community activist Lucy McBath, a proponent of gun control and the mother of a son who was shot and killed.
Another primary pitting moderate and progressive Democrats against one another played out in Kentucky’s Lexington-based 6th District, where has been held by Republicans since 2012. The national party recruited Lexington Mayor Jim Gray to run for the Democratic nomination, but Marine Corps veteran and first-time candidate Amy McGrath won by a considerable margin
In November, McGrath will face three-term incumbent Republican Rep. Andy Barr, who most recently won reelection in 2016 by more than 20 points.
There were, however, three consequential elections in which moderate Democratic candidates prevailed. These elections, all in Texas, took place in three of Texas’ 23 Republican-held congressional districts where Hillary Clinton beat President Trump in 2016.
Perhaps the most critical race that epitomized the growing civil war within the Democratic Party between moderates and the emboldened progressive faction took place in Texas’ 7th District in the Houston suburbs. Moderate Democrat and former attorney Lizzie Panill Fletcher defeated Our Revolution-endorsed progressive Laura Moser.
Despite controversy surrounding the involvement of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in this race and its decision to release opposition research against Moser, Fletcher overcame the insurgent Moser and will now face potentially vulnerable Republican incumbent John Culberson in November.
In Texas’s 23^rd District, occupying a large swath of west Texas along the U.S.-Mexican border, DCCC-endorsed Gina Ortiz Jones beat out the severely underfunded Rick Trevino, an activist and former Bernie Sanders delegate backed by the Sanders-affiliated group Our Revolution.
Ortiz Jones, an Iraq War veteran and Obama administration alumna, will now face Republican Rep. Will Hurd in November.
Texas’ 32^nd District in the northern suburbs of Dallas also represented a win for a moderate, former Obama administration official. Colin Allred, a DCCC-endorsed former NFL player and Department of Housing and Urban Development attorney, emerged victorious over a more progressive primary opponent Lillian Salerno. He will face incumbent Republican Rep. Pete Sessions in November.
Overall, Tuesday’s results prove that the problematic trend of far-left progressives winning Democratic primaries over moderate centrists continues, showing that the party is more divided than ever.
It is time to move forward with a plan that unifies, rather than divides the party, or squander the opportunity to retake either chamber of Congress in November.

Caputo says Mueller team didn't seem to care about alleged informants in Trump campaign

Former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo opened up to Fox News about alleged informants who approached him during the 2016 presidential election, and revealed that special investigators didn’t seem to care at all.
“I gave this information to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and I gave this information to the Mueller team. They never reached out to the intermediary to check on it,” he told Neil Cavuto Tuesday on “Your World.” “They didn't even seem to be taking notes.”
Caputo said he was approached in early May 2016 by an intermediary “who had been talking to a government official” looking to connect with the Trump campaign -- purportedly to hand off Hillary Clinton-related emails.
Caputo told Cavuto that this intermediary is a friend of his willing to go on the record at the right time. He noted both were amazed to be contacted from a government organization, which he didn’t name.
Caputo said actual staff members of the government agency had Clinton’s emails. He noted he didn’t want possession of these emails, thinking they might be classified documents. He urged the intermediary to go through proper whistleblower channels.
He also said he didn’t want to bring the information to the Trump campaign for fear of looking “kooky.”
Caputo added, “It was frightening to me. It could be a crime for me to take them into my own custody.”
He also noted he didn’t think much about the incident until WikiLeaks revealed information about the Clinton campaign in October 2016.
Caputo had been detailing from revelations he previously disclosed.
"When we finally find out the truth about this, Director Clapper and the rest of them will be wearing some orange suits," Caputo said on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" Monday night, referring to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Fox News also has confirmed that the original reported informant was in communication with at least three campaign officials.
The informant spoke with Trump campaign adviser Sam Clovis, in addition to Carter Page and foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
A source told Fox News' John Roberts that Clovis met with the informant, whom he knew to be a professor, and had a conversation related to China. The source told Fox News that Russia did not come up.
The source told Fox News that Clovis received a follow-up email from the individual in the months before the election with research material on China, and another email on the day after the election congratulating the campaign.

Nancy Pelosi Cartoons

Investigating the investigators: Why the Trump probes are now a morass

So just to bring you up to date:
--The FBI used an informant to spy on Trump campaign aides who had contacts with Russia. The New York Times and Washington Post extensively described the man and what he did, based on FBI leaks, but refused to publish his name out of concern for his safety. Their narratives enabled several mostly smaller outlets to identify the retired American professor living in London, leaving the big organizations protecting a secret that is no longer secret.
--The president of the United States then demanded that the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI or DOJ infiltrated or surveilled his campaign for political purposes. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, who the president may or may not be trying to force out, asked the department's inspector general to look into the matter.
--At the same time, DOJ is resisting a subpoena from House intel chairman Devin Nunes for all documents related to the professor—but not his name—which the panel has been trying to get for months.
--Hours before Gina Haspel was sworn in as CIA director yesterday, Trump went on a Twitter tear against Barack Obama's CIA chief, John Brennan, for having disgraced himself and the country, blaming Brennan for ginning up the whole Russia probe as a political hit job. Brennan says Trump is on a disastrous path.
--Trump also lambasted the Justice Department for not continuing to investigate Hillary Clinton over her email server, and questioned why the brother of her campaign chairman, Tony Podesta, has not been charged in conection with his lobbying work.
--And the Times reported that Donald Trump Jr. met with an emissary for two Arab princes who wanted to offer help to the campaign, a story the president dismissed as boring.
Got it?
And that's without getting into Michael Cohen, Michael Avenatti, the hush money to Stormy Daniels, and other allegations swirling around the president.
During a break in my show on Sunday, the assembled journalists agreed that it is becoming increasingly hard, even for those of us who do this seven days a week, to keep unraveling every thread of this tangle of investigations and allegations.
So what must it be like for average Americans who are busy with work and family and couldntt tell Carter Page from George Papadopoulos?
I believe much of the country, despite the nonstop media coverage, is tuning this out, or that it's been reduced to background noise. That means Trump has, at least for now, neutralized what the press is casting as a grave threat to his political survival. Maybe that's why his approval ratings are inching up.
There are monumental issues at stake here. From the right, it seems outrageous that the Obama administration would use a secret informant who's had past dealings with the CIA to infiltrate an opposing presidential campaign. And Trump's push to investigate the investigators is viewed as justified because of "deep state" opposition, with the side benefit of undercutting the Robert Mueller investigation.
From the left, it seems outrageous that a president would force his own Justice Department to investigate a duly authorized probe that, despite charges of politicization, the FBI managed to keep secret until the final days of the campaign. And Trump's continued insistence on investigating his defeated opponent and other Democrats is viewed as shattering all previous presidential norms.
But when you have this endless cycle of charges and countercharges on such complicated issues, it can all seem like a blur.
Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m.). He is the author "Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth." Follow him at @HowardKurtz. Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz.