The CIA's case for Russia trying to swing the 2016 presidential race toward Donald Trump reportedly rests partly on Moscow's evident focus on defeating Democrats even though Russian hackers targeted Republican operations, too. There has been a lot of speculation about what effect this Russian meddling had in Trump's victory over Hillary Clinton, but the Kremlin-linked hackers, going by the pseudonym Guccifer 2.0, also pilfered and disseminated internal Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) assessments of House candidates in about a dozen "of the most competitive House races in the country," The New York Times reports.

The airing of internal strategy blueprints and what amount to opposition research files, amplified by political bloggers and GOP campaign groups, was devastating for the candidates targeted in the hack-and-leak operation, even though some of the Democrats narrowly won their races. "This is not a traditional tit-for-tat on a partisan political campaign, where one side hits the other and then you respond," said DCCC executive director Kelly Ward. "This is an attack by a foreign actor that had the intent to disrupt our election, and we were the victims of it."

Guccifer 2.0 also targeted some Democrats in safe seats, like DCCC Chairman Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who sent his Republican counterpart a letter on Aug. 29 arguing that "the NRCC's use of documents stolen by the Russians plays right into the hands of one of the United States' most dangerous adversaries," and if the National Republican Campaign Committee continued using the materials, the GOP "will be complicit in aiding the Russian government in its effort to influence American elections." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a similar note to to House Speaker Paul Ryan. Neither Luján nor Pelosi got a response, and a Ryan-linked super PAC subsequently used the hacked material in an attack ad.

"Speaker Ryan has said for months that foreign intervention in our elections is unacceptable," said spokeswoman AshLee Strong, adding that Ryan did not control what the super PAC included in its advertising. "Why the Russian government might care about these unglamorous House races is a source of bafflement for some of the lawmakers who were targeted," The Times says, suggesting that perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying "to make American democracy a less attractive model to his own citizens and to Russia's neighbors." You can read more at The New York Times. Peter Weber

Americans' opinions on the impact social media is having on the country have shifted quite a bit in the past year.

A SurveyMonkey/Axios poll found that when asked if social media is helping promote democracy and free speech or doing more to hurt it, 57 percent of Americans said it hurts more than it helps, a dramatic spike from last year when only 43 percent said the same thing. In November 2017's survey, 53 percent of Americans said social media helps more than it hurts.

This shift in opinion has affected voters of both parties, although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to call social media harmful. Among Republicans, 69 percent now think social media does more harm than good to democracy and free speech compared to 52 percent in 2017; among Democrats, 48 percent say the same, up from 37 percent in 2017.

Additionally, 55 percent of Americans are concerned that the federal government won't do enough to regulate big technology companies, a 15-point increase from when that question was asked last year. The last version of the survey was conducted before it was reported that a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, had accessed users' private Facebook data. Despite all this, 63 percent of Americans still said that social media has a positive impact on their life, with more Democrats saying that than Republicans.

This poll was conducted by speaking to 3,622 adults online from Nov. 9-13. The margin of error is 2.5 percentage points. Read more at Axios. Brendan Morrow

A federal judge in California will hear arguments Monday for blocking President Trump's November executive order restricting asylum applications to migrants who enter the U.S. legally.

Civil rights groups aim to persuade U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar the order violates current immigration law, as the Immigration and Nationality Act says anyone who arrives in the U.S. "whether or not at a designated port of arrival" may apply for asylum. They also argue the administration made a procedural error by failing to provide adequate time for public comment on the new rule.

The Trump administration has claimed via a statement by acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that Trump holds "broad authority to suspend or restrict" immigration if he believes it is in U.S. national interest to do so.

Should Tigar, appointed by former President Barack Obama, decide against the Trump administration Monday, it will likely be a temporary ruling restoring the previous guidelines while further litigation proceeds. Bonnie Kristian

The White House giveth and the White House taketh away.

The White House has informed CNN that reporter Jim Acosta's press pass will be suspended again after a temporary restraining order preventing the suspension expires, CNN reports. Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Friday ruled that the White House needed to restore Acosta's access, and issued a 14-day restraining order, but that order expires next week.

The restraining order came as part of a lawsuit filed by CNN against members of the Trump administration, which suspended Acosta's press pass after a particularly contentious press conference exchange during which he would not give up the microphone in his attempt to ask a follow-up question. In its suit, CNN argues the White House is violating Acosta's First and Fifth Amendment rights. Judge Kelly has not yet ruled on the actual case, and while he agreed that the White House had suspended Acosta's pass without due process, he suggested it could try to revoke the pass again if it were to provide that due process in the second attempt, CNN reports.

The White House says it plans to "further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future." CNN's Brian Stelter writes in his Reliable Sources newsletter that the White House is trying to "establish a paper trail that will empower the administration to boot Acosta again at the end of the month." Per The Washington Post, the judge in the case can extend the current restraining order, or even consider a permanent order. Brendan Morrow

Nissan said Monday it was taking steps to remove its chairman, Carlos Ghosn, for allegedly violating Japanese financial law, CNBC reports. The Japanese auto maker said Ghosn and board director Greg Kelly had been under-reporting compensation amounts to the Tokyo Stock Exchange securities report for years. Nissan said "numerous other significant acts" by Ghosn had been uncovered, "such as personal use of company assets."

Trading of Nissan shares had already ended by the time the news broke, but shares of French auto maker Renault, also led by Ghosn, dropped by 13 percent, hitting their lowest level in three years. Japanese media reported Monday that Ghosn had been arrested. Harold Maass

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald's first weekend at the U.S. box office was not especially magical.

The sequel to the Harry Potter prequel took in $62 million domestically this weekend, coming in below its predecessor's 2016 $74 million debut. This is a disappointment, though not a disaster, for Warner Bros., considering estimates had the film pegged at $75 million or more a few days ago. Instead, The Crimes of Grindelwald ended up with the weakest opening weekend of any film in the Harry Potter film franchise. The first Fantastic Beasts held that distinction before, while the lowest opening of the original series was that of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which debuted at $77 million in 2007, the equivalent of $94 million in 2018 dollars.

The Crimes of Grindelwald performed much better overseas than it did in the U.S., though, taking in $191 million internationally, above the original Fantastic Beasts' international opening of $145 million, so once again a blockbuster's somewhat weak domestic take has been salvaged by its performance elsewhere.

A movie franchise seeing a box office dip in its second outing isn't uncommon, to be fair, and that happened recently with both Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. But considering The Crimes of Grindelwald is even more connected to the original Harry Potter series than its predecessor, featuring both a young Dumbledore and Hogwarts itself, the film had potential to be a much larger hit. Unfortunately, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 40 percent and a CinemaScore rating of B+, the lowest of any Harry Potter universe film, it seems director David Yates and writer J.K. Rowling this time are struggling to keep audiences under their spell. Brendan Morrow

Missing for 40 years, a 1,600-year-old mosaic depicting St. Mark is back in Cyprus, thanks to the "Indiana Jones of the art world."

Arthur Brand of The Netherlands is an art investigator, and after two years of searching, finally found the mosaic, which was looted from an Orthodox Christian church in Cyprus in the 1970s, in an apartment in Monaco. He told Agence France-Presse that a British family bought the mosaic "in good faith more than four decades ago." When he finally had the mosaic in his possession, it was "one of the greatest moments of my life," he said.

Brand delivered the mosaic to the Cypriot embassy in The Hague on Friday, and it was back in Cyprus by Sunday. He earned the Indiana Jones nickname in 2015 after he found two horse statues that once stood outside Adolf Hitler's office. Catherine Garcia