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White House sees the Flynn charge as "a win," source says

Source: CNN

One person familiar with the mood in the West Wing insists top White House officials are actually breathing a sigh of relief today.

“People in the building are very happy,” the source said. “This doesn’t lead back to Trump in any way, shape or form.”

The source noted that Flynn is being charged for making false statements, but not for any improper actions during the campaign.

“This is a further indication that there’s nothing there,” the source said. “This is a win for the White House.”

Read more: http://cnn.it/2AkHzjp

Flynn pleads guilty, reaches deal on charge of lying to FBI

Source: ABC News

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, once a member of President Trump’s inner circle of advisers, has pleaded guilty in a deal with the Special Counsel investigating foreign meddling in the 2016 elections in which he admits to lying to the FBI about his back-channel conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Flynn’s plea signals the former top adviser to President Trump is now cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. A brief statement released by Mueller’s team Friday morning does not say what information Flynn has provided the government as part of the deal, but people familiar with the agreement told ABC News Friday he has made a decision to assist investigators.

The general told confidants about his decision to plead guilty in the last 24 hours, according to people close to Flynn, who say the former adviser feels President Trump has abandoned him and has agreed to answer questions about the president or anyone else.

Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI about the nature of his conversations with then-Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. Those conversations led Russian officials to temper their response to increased U.S. sanctions, according to the charging documents. The charge means Flynn could face up to 5 years in prison.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/michael-flynn-charged-making-false-statements-fbi-documents/story?id=50849354

Russian trolls pushed graphic, racist tweets to American voters

Source: NBC News

Warning: this story contains offensive content.

A zealous band of Russian trolls flooded Twitter with hundreds of thousands of divisive posts in 2016 — accusing Democrats of satanic practices and supporting rape — in an attempt to influence the presidential election, according to a new analysis of a Twitter database by NBC News.

The effort tricked thousands of users into spreading graphic racial epithets across social media, interweaving provocative content with disinformation and falsehoods.

The tweets were uncovered in a database of over 202,000 deleted Russian troll tweets that NBC News compiled from several sources, including three sources familiar with Twitter's application programming interface, or API, an online system that allows outside software developers to work with the data underlying users' tweets.

All of the sources asked for anonymity to avoid being identified as possibly violating Twitter's developer policy; two of the sources asked not to be identified because they didn't want to become targets of Russian trolls themselves.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/russian-trolls-pushed-graphic-racist-tweets-american-voters-n823001

Dems to file new impeachment articles against Trump

Source: The Hill

A group of Democrats will file new articles of impeachment against President Trump before Thanksgiving, according to Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who’s leading the charge.

“It is clear to us that he is unfit to be president of the United States of America,” Gutiérrez said Wednesday.

Gutiérrez, one of Trump’s sharpest critics, declined to specify what grounds the articles will cite, saying only that the Democrats are working with constitutional scholars to solidify their case.

“I assure you we will not leave you lacking for reason,” he said.

It’s also unclear which Democrats will join Gutiérrez in the effort, though an aide named Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) as one such lawmaker. Cohen in August announced his intent to introduce impeachment articles, citing Trump’s defense of the white nationalists who participated in deadly protest marches in Charlottesville, Va., that month.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/358240-dems-to-file-new-impeachment-articles-against-trump