Top Questions For Comey's Hearing, Trump Blasts His Own Justice Department, And Must-Dos For Congress

June 5, 2017 Top Stories --------------------------------------------------------------- [The Top 5 Questions For James Comey At This Week’s Blockbuster Hearing]( The Gist: On Wednesday, former FBI Director James Comey will testify publicly for the first time since President Trump fired him in early May and threatened to release tapes of their conversations. Unless the President invokes a claim of executive privilege to block Comey from testifying, Comey will take questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee—first in a public hearing and later in a closed session. Here are the top five questions looming over the ousted FBI director. [Trump Criticizes His Own Justice Dept. In Tweets About Travel Ban]( The Gist: President Donald Trump on Monday morning lashed out at his own Justice Department for offering a “watered down” version of the executive order barring travel to the United States from certain majority Muslim countries after courts blocked the administration’s initial order. [Putin Says He Barely Talked To Flynn, Is Not Sure If Kislyak Talked To Trump Team]( The Gist: During an interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly that aired Sunday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that Russia meddled in the 2016 election in the United States and claimed to be unaware of any interactions Russian officials had with members of Trump’s campaign. Putin told Kelly that he has “no idea” if Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., met with any members of Trump’s team before inauguration. From The Reporter's Notebook --------------------------------------------------------------- President Donald Trump on Sunday called for the U.S. to “get smart” and “get down to the business of security” in the wake of an attack in London that killed seven people and wounded dozens more — and then headed off for his 23rd visit to a golf course since taking office, [TPM's Esme Cribb reported](. His weekend pastime appeared at odds both with his calls for action and his previous critical comments about President Barack Obama’s golfing habits. Agree or Disagree? --------------------------------------------------------------- Josh Marshall: "We now know with what seems to be a fairly high degree of confidence that the Trump Team was trying to find ways to communicate with people in Russia by secure channels in the early months of 2016. We also learned last night from Yahoo’s Mike Isikoff that the Trump Team rolled into town in late January eager to deliver basically the full package to Russia more or less immediately. [What was in that dossier?]( Perhaps it was just flotsam and nonsense. But remember this was a set of physical documents which Cohen said he delivered to the White House, specifically to Mike Flynn. What was in them? With all we’ve learned over the last four weeks about the Trump team’s efforts to conduct covert communications about a rapprochement with Russia, I think we need to know." Say What?! --------------------------------------------------------------- “I think the rest of the world applauded what we did in Paris.” - Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, [discussing on Sunday]( the decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord. BUZZING: Today in the Hive --------------------------------------------------------------- From a TPM Prime member: "At some point, Trump will need to turn to the base for support and this week would have been a good time to distract them with red meat. Unfortunately, he has nothing new to offer them in the way of legislation except that which he has done with the stroke of a pen, as with the climate accord withdrawal and that's not enough to keep the animals at bay, let alone inspire them to fight for him. The larger problem is that the GOP has proven itself entirely incapable of governing at the legislative level and their incompetence has been masked by the greater disarray in the Executive Branch. Right now, we have no government except that which operates independently of those two branches and of their own accord. Don't get me wrong- I'm not complaining because if it were operating on all cylinders since day one, the country would be nearly unrecognizable by now." Related: [Must-Dos For Congress: Raise Debt Limit, Pass Spending Bills]( Have something to add? Become a [Prime]( member and join the discussion [here](. What We're Reading --------------------------------------------------------------- Bucking Trump, These Cities, States And Companies Commit To Paris Accord ([The New York Times]( Avoiding Two Degrees Of Warming 'Is Now Totally Unrealistic' ([The Atlantic]( [unsubscribe from this list]( | [update subscription preferences]( | [view email in browser](