Former FBI Director James Comey told House investigators on Friday that the bureau's counterintelligence investigation of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia began with four unidentified Americans starting in July 2016, "weeks or months" before the FBI learned of "the so-called Steele dossier" compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele for Trump's political rivals. But now, thanks to recent disclosures by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, we know of at least 14 Trump associates and family members — including children Don. Jr. and Ivanka Trump — who were contacted by Russian nationals during President Trump's 2016 campaign, according to The Washington Post's tally.
Some of the Russians circling Trump's world "offered to help his campaign and his real estate business, and "some offered dirt on his Democratic opponent," the Post reports. As Mueller "slowly unveils the evidence that he has gathered since his appointment as special counsel in May 2017, he has not yet shown that any of the dozens of interactions between people in Trump's orbit and Russians resulted in any specific coordination between his presidential campaign and Russia. But the mounting number of communications that have been revealed occurred against the backdrop of 'sustained efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the U.S. presidential election,' as Mueller's prosecutors wrote in a court filing last week."
Russia experts and former presidential campaign officials say that the number and nature of such contacts with a foreign power, much less a hostile power, is highly unusual during a presidential campaign. You can read more about the 14 Trump associates and their Russian contacts at The Washington Post. Peter Weber
Much of the U.S., from the Great Plains to the East Coast, was hit with record-breaking cold and snowfall on Tuesday. Thirty percent of the continental U.S. is blanketed in snow, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates. The "arctic outbreak" was expected to reach the upper Texas coast on Wednesday. "The arctic airmass that has settled into the Plains will continue to spread record cold temperatures south and eastward into the Ohio Valley and down into the southern Plains," according to the National Weather Service. By Wednesday, temperatures in an estimated 300 locations will tie or break cold-weather records. Harold Maass
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is the new frontrunner in Monmouth University's poll of Iowa Democratic presidential caucusgoers. In the poll, released Tuesday, Buttigieg got support from 22 percent of likely caucusgoers, jumping 14 percentage points from Monmouth's last poll in August. Former Vice President Joe Biden lost 7 points, falling to second place with 19 percent support, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) lost 2 points, coming in at 18 percent. The only other candidate with double-digit support was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who gained 5 points to 13 percent support. When first and second choices were combined, Buttigieg led Warren 37 percent to 35 percent.
Buttigieg's support increased across all major demographics. At the same time, only 28 percent of likely caucus goers said they are committed to their candidate, and most said they are open to the possibility of switching contenders. Monmouth conducted the poll Nov. 7-11 among 451 likely Democratic caucus goers; its margin of sampling error is ±4.6 percentage points. Peter Weber
You may want to sit down for this one. Stephen Miller, the influential senior White House policy adviser who has steered President Trump's exclusionist immigration policy, sent hundreds of emails to a Breitbart News editor in 2015 and 2016 with links to white nationalist sites, successfully shaping Breitbart's coverage of race and immigration, according to a new report from the Souther Poverty Law Center. The former Breitbart editor, Katie McHugh, shared more than 900 emails from Miller with the SPLC's Hatewatch.
"What Stephen Miller sent to me in those emails has become policy at the Trump administration," McHugh told Hatewatch. Breitbart fired McHugh in 2017 after she posted an anti-Muslim tweet, and she has since renounced her white nationalist views. When McHugh worked at Breitbart, Miller sent her links to articles from VDARE, American Renaissance, and other sites tied to white nationalism, and he fixated on the "white genocide" conspiracy theory and touted the French anti-migrant novel The Camp of Saints, both of which are popular among white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
After lunch one day, "Miller asked me if I had seen the recent 'AmRen' article about crime statistics and race," McHugh told Hatewatch. "I responded in the affirmative because I had read it. Many of us (on the far right) had read it. I remember being struck by the way he called it 'AmRen,' the nickname." According to the SPLC, Miller got a piece he wrote for far-right site FrontPage Magazine republished in American Renaissance in 2005. Miller was also apparently upset that Amazon stopped selling Confederate battle flags after the 2015 Charleston massacre in a historic black church.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said administration officials were not familiar with the new report and called the SPLC a "far-left smear organization" whose work is "beneath public discussion." Peter Weber
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz appears to be nearing the release of his findings on the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation. Horowitz told Congress last month that his final report was being reviewed, he did not anticipate a lengthy review process, and he expects to release his report with minimal redactions.
In recent days, Horowitz has invited some of the dozens of witnesses his team interviewed and their lawyers to review their testimony over the next two weeks, The Associated Press and The Washington Post report. The witnesses will be able to suggest revisions to the portions of the report that concern their testimony. Horowitz provided a draft of his report to Attorney General William Barr in September, and Barr and other Justice Department officials have been working to clear legal and classification hurdles to the report's release.
Horowitz's review covers the early stages of what later became Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and any role the Trump campaign played. It is one of three investigations of the Russia probe that Trump's Justice Department launched. Barr has been very actively involved in the investigation he assigned to U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is now reportedly considering unknown criminal charges.
Trump and his allies are hoping that the investigations will cast doubt on the legitimacy of the origins of the Russia investigations, which, under Mueller, led to criminal convictions of Trump's former campaign chairman and vice chairman, national security adviser, and other campaign aides. If Horowitz's investigation does not come out next week, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) tweeted Tuesday, "I will be very disappointed & left to wonder WHAT THE GAME IS?? Is someone at FBI or DOJ tying IGs hands??" Peter Weber