Ever since FBI Director James Comey sent his letter to Congress about potential new emails related to the Hillary Clinton email server investigation, and got bipartisan blowback from that unusual decision, the FBI and Justice Department have been leaking like a sieve.
Unidentified "federal officials familiar with the investigation" tell The Washington Post that Comey actually showed restraint by waiting until Oct. 28 to deliver his "circumspect" letter to Congress. Comey had been told about the emails before being formally "briefed" on Oct. 27, the officials said, and had ordered FBI investigators to find everything they could about the emails from Clinton aide Huma Abedin without reading them, since they did not have a warrant for Abedin's emails. The metadata was enough to seek a warrant, the officials say, and Comey was concerned that applying for a warrant would lead to a leak. "It could not be done in secret," one official said. "It's a volatile subject and a major topic in the presidential campaign."
At The Wall Street Journal, "officials at multiple agencies" who were "familiar with the matter" described a fight between FBI agents who wanted to aggressively pursue an investigation into the Clinton Foundation and public-corruption prosecutors who thought the agents' evidence was weak or worthless. The Clinton Foundation inquiry, as The New York Times reported Tuesday, was based on allegations from an anti-Clinton book, Clinton Cash, by conservative writer Peter Schweizer. Schweizer tells The Wall Street Journal that his book wasn't meant to be a legal document but instead describes "patterns of financial transactions that circled around decisions Hillary Clinton was making as secretary of state."
"Starting in February and continuing today, investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and public-corruption prosecutors became increasingly frustrated with each other, as often happens within and between departments," The Wall Street Journal reports. The FBI agents were frustrated because they had secretly recorded a suspect in another case "talking about alleged deals the Clintons made," and were angry prosecutors wouldn't let them aggressively follow up; the prosecutors viewed the recording as not-credible hearsay and Justice Department officials became frustrated that the FBI agents were disobeying orders to be discreet in such a high-profile investigation. You can read more about the infighting at The Wall Street Journal. Peter Weber
As Democrats try to beat the odds and prevent the confirmation of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee (almost certainly Amy Coney Barrett) before the November presidential election, some lawmakers and activists have suggested boycotting the Senate Judicary Committee hearings, which are tentatively scheduled for the middle of October. Just don't expect the idea to gain much traction, The Washington Post reports, especially among Democrats who sit on the committee.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has said he will forego the standard courtesy visit, in which the nominee meets with senators individually, but he does intend to participate in the hearings and he believes "all my Judiciary colleagues will."
The risks of skipping out on the hearings seem to outweigh the potential reward, per the Post. If Democrats don't go, Republicans would likely move swiftly though the questioning and toward a committee vote.
More specifically, though, a boycott could prevent Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who sits on the committee, from giving a jolt to her own vice presidential campaign, the Post notes. Harris, who is running alongside the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, has become well-known for her interrogations of Trump's nominees over the last few years, and there's a sense that she could enhance her ticket's chances during the hearings.
With all that in mind, it's more likely that Democrats will try to extend questioning as long as possible and make their case for why the nominee shouldn't be confirmed in a more traditional manner. Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell
For the first time since June 5, New York state, the home of the United States' worst coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began earlier this year, reported just over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Saturday that the Empire State crossed the quadruple-digit threshold, though he didn't specifically address the number, saying only that New Yorkers should continue to practice social distancing, wear masks, and follow other mitigation guidelines.
The state has seen a consistently upward trend in cases over the last week, which has prompted some concern as businesses and college campuses reopen, and officials have noted that spikes in some neighborhoods in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens are especially worrisome. But New York also continues to see a high number of daily tests. Data collected by the state shows the positivity rate has remained at 1 percent, or just a tick below, for some time now, indicating that the high volume of tests is a significant factor in the case increase.
A new study published by The Lancet on Friday that searched for COVID-19 prevalence in a large nationwide sample of patients on dialysis found that about one-third of those tested in New York showed signs of a previous coronavirus infection. In terms of the study, that's the highest of any state in the U.S. and while it's far from what experts have pinpointed as the target for herd immunity, those experts have also pointed out that numbers like that can still help slow the spread of the virus. Read more at Bloomberg and NBC New York. Tim O'Donnell
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, has gone on record multiple times in the past to nix the idea of adding more seats to the Supreme Court. But, recently, in light of President Trump's plan to nominate a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — reportedly Amy Coney Barrett, who is well-respected by conservatives and would theoretically shift the high court to a 6-3 conservative majority — before the November election, Biden exhibited a slight change of tone.
When asked about court expansion earlier this week, Biden responded that it was a "legitimate question." He didn't elaborate, and there's no reason to believe he's drastically altered his view, but, as The New York Times reports, "that he would even publicly entertain the idea of adding justices as 'legitimate' is a telling signal of how far his thinking has traveled."
It also, per the Times, suggests that the way Biden views his old stomping grounds, the Senate, has shifted. The longtime senator from Delaware was a firm believer in the upper chamber's "culture of collegiality," the Times notes, which allowed him to strike up positive, friendly relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle back in the day. Now, though, that idealization may be fading as the Senate becomes more and more polarized, which may be swinging him toward positions he normally wouldn't espouse. "He's disappointed in a lot of the people in the Senate now and a lot of the people he knew — or thought he knew," Mike Gelacak, a former aide who has known Biden since law school, told the Times. "I think he has a hard time relating to it because that's not the way he operated, and it's not the way it used to be done. It's a different place." Read more at The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell
Mustapha Adib, Lebanon's prime minister-designate, resigned Saturday after he was unable to form a non-partisan cabinet in the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion in August that killed around 200 people and left thousands homeless, prompting the last cabinet to step down amid accusations of corruption and neglect.
Even before the blast, Lebanon was struggling with ongoing political and economic crises. Adib, who was designated prime minister at the end of August, was reportedly trying to move away from Lebanon's sectarian-based system of government and "create a government of experts" to address the crises, but his efforts reportedly ran into trouble when two of Lebanon's dominant Shia parties, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, insisted "they wanted the finance minister portfolio."
Adib's resignation also hinders French President Emmanuel Macron's controversial efforts to break Lebanon's political stalemate. Macron's initiative gave the country's political parties 15 days to nominate a cabinet of independent experts, The Financial Times reports, and afterward, France would convene an international pledging conference in October. Paris' attempt to intervene in Lebanon was not well received by everyone, given that France ruled the country for around two decades after the Ottoman Empire fell, but Macron's plan does have support within Beirut's political system, and leading Sunni Muslim politician Saad al-Hariri said Saturday that "those who applaud" the initiative's collapse "will bite your fingers in regret." Read more at Al Jazeera and The Financial Times. Tim O'Donnell
Johnson & Johnson announced the start of phase three of its coronavirus vaccine trial this week, citing "positive interim results" from earlier stages of its study. Those were published Friday, and they were indeed promising.
The pharmaceutical giant reported that 99 percent of the participants between the ages of 18 and 55 in early-to-mid stage clinical trials developed neutralizing antibodies against the novel virus. The analysis also found that most of the side effects associated with the vaccine were mild and resolved within a matter of days.
It wasn't clear, however, whether participants over 65 were well-protected since immune response results were available for only 15 people in that demographic. Additionally, Reuters reports, the rate of adverse reactions — like fatigue and muscle aches — to the vaccine in that age group was just 36 percent, far lower than those seen in 64 percent of the younger participants. That might sound like good news, but it actually suggests the immune response in older people may be weaker.
One of the key aspects of Johnson & Johnson's trial is that just a single dose produced a strong immune response in participants. Other companies developing vaccines like Moderna and Pfizer are using a two-dose approach. If Johnson & Johnson's phase three trial, in which 60,000 volunteers will enroll across three continents, eventually proves the single dose is safe and effective, it could simplify distribution of the vaccine. Read more at Reuters and CNN. Tim O'Donnell