WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, November 15, 2018

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1/ Trump made up an accusation that Robert Mueller was "horribly threatening" witnesses to force them to cooperate in the Russia probe. The renewed attack on the special counsel comes one day after Mitch McConnell blocked an effort to protect Mueller's work. Trump called Mueller's investigation "A TOTAL WITCH HUNT LIKE NO OTHER IN AMERICAN HISTORY!" and "a total mess" that has "gone absolutely nuts." Trump also defended his administration, saying it "is running very smoothly" and not "in chaos" or having a "meltdown," but rather the U.S. under his presidency has become "the envy of the world." He provided no evidence to support his claim. (New York Times / NBC News / Washington Post / Bloomberg / HuffPost)

• Mueller's team is investigating witness tampering by Roger Stone. Mueller is exploring whether Stone tried to intimidate and discredit a witness who contradicted his story about his contacts with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Wall Street Journal)

• In a two-paragraph legal filing, Mueller said former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates is cooperating with prosecutors on "several ongoing investigations," and it's not appropriate to start his sentencing process. (Bloomberg)

• Text messages show Stone discussed WikiLeaks with a friend six days before it began releasing the Clinton campaign's hacked emails. The text messages appear to show Randy Credico providing regular updates to Stone on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's plans to release the hacked emails. In the exchange, Credico tells Stone on Oct. 1, 2016, that "Hillary's campaign will die this week" because of "big news Wednesday." Nothing about Clinton was released that Wednesday, but two days later, on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks dropped its first dump of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. (NBC News)

2/ A federal judge denied a Russian firm's motion to dismiss charges filed by Mueller's team. The special counsel has accused Concord Management and Consulting of funding a propaganda operation to sway the 2016 presidential election in Trump's favor. Concord was charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. government by hiding its election-related activities and failing to register as a foreign agent trying to influence the U.S. political process. Concord is controlled by Russian businessman Evgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Putin. (Reuters / Politico / CNN)

3/ Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor is se...

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