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lower court's decision that it is unconstitutional for Trump to block critics 
on Twitter because he's a public official who uses the platform to 
communicate with constituents. 
But the balance of power is changing on the courts each week to 
become more favorable to Trump, and it sure sounded like the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit might be ready to uphold at least 
parts of a federal district judge's decision in Texas that the entire 2010 
health-care law is unconstitutional because the 2017 GOP tax bill got rid 
of the individual mandate to buy insurance. Two of the three judges on 
the panel expressed skepticism during the oral arguments that 
Obamacare can remain intact since the mandate was how Chief Justice 
John 
justified upholding the law in 2012. 
Judge Kurt Engelhardt, whom Trump put on the bench just last year, 
was the more outspoken of the two. He repeatedly noted that the law 
was written without an explicit feature guaranteeing that if one part were 
ever removed by Congress or the courts, the rest would remain in place. 
He suggested that it's the job of Congress to forge a solution. He 
questioned whether the courts should be "taxidermist for every 
legislative big-game accomplishment that Congress achieves." The 
judge who seemed to largely agree with him was appointed by George 
W. Bush. A third judge, appointed by Jimmy Carter, stayed silent during 
the 90-minute hearing, per Amy Goldstein, who was in the courtroom for 
US. 
Engelhardt was grilling attorneys representing Democratic attorneys 
general and the Democratic House. Normally it would have been Justice 
Department lawyers defending a federal law, but the Trump 
administration is refusing to do so and told the 5th Circuit this spring that 
the administration agrees with the plaintiffs that it should be struck 
down. 
If Trump gets what he's hoping for in New Orleans, there's a strong 
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argument to be made that the president will be like the proverbial dog 
that catches up with the truck. Health care — the issue that dogged 
Republican candidates in the 2018 midterms more than any other —
would almost certainly take a starring role in the 2020 campaign. The 
Supreme Court would probably then hear an appeal, in which 
would probably again cast a deciding vote — one way or another — in 
June of an election year. 
McConnell mum on whether he supports Trump-Obamacare lawsuit 
-- Here are three telling illustrations of how the 5th Circuit could 
hand Trump a Pyrrhic victory: 
1) Despite a decade of efforts to kill Obamacare, Senate Majority 
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused to say yesterday whether 
he supports the suit to invalidate the law. "I think the important thing 
for the public to know is there is nobody in the Senate not in favor of 
covering preexisting conditions," he said at his weekly news conference. 
"And if it were, under any of these scenarios, to go away, we would act 
quickly on a bipartisan basis to restore it." 
Trump has had a historically large number of judicial vacancies to fill 
during his first two-and-a-half years largely because McConnell blocked 
consideration of so many of Barack Obama's nominees once he seized 
control of the Senate in 2015. It was not just Merrick Garland. 
2) Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who cast a key vote for the tax bill 
that could be used as a pretext by judicial activists to repeal 
Obamacare, is trying to distance herself from the lawsuit 
challenging the ACA. She also voted to confirm Engelhardt to the 5th
Circuit, in addition to Justice Brett Kavanaugh. These votes could imperil 
her reelection next year. She issued a statement saying she opposes 
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Trump's decision not to defend the health-care law in court. "The 
Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land, and it is the 
Department of Justice's duty to defend it," Collins said. 
3) "Democrats are savoring the moment," Paige Winfield 
Cunningham reports in the Health 202. "They're spending the week 
bludgeoning Republicans over the high-stakes lawsuit, which they well 
know is prime fodder for 2020 attacks. The House Oversight Committee 
will hold a hearing this morning dubbed The Trump Administration's 
Attack on the ACA: Reversal in Court Case Threatens Health Care for 
Millions of Americans,' where a number of patients and consumers 
advocates will testify. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 
the Democratic Attorneys General Association and the Democrat-
affiliated group Protect Our Care launched hundreds of thousands of 
dollars worth of print and digital ads around the country. Democrats in 
Congress delivered floor speeches castigating their GOP colleagues. 
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said he's 
also planning a hearing on the lawsuit." 
-- As the judges in Louisiana considered the fate of health care for 
millions of people, the Senate voted 53 to 45 on party lines to 
confirm another controversial Trump nominee to the 9th Circuit, 
the court of appeals that has most often drawn the president's ire. 
Hailey Fuchs notes that Daniel Bress's confirmation gives Trump his 
seventh judge on the historically liberal bench, which now has 16 judges 
nominated by Democratic presidents and 12 by Republicans. The court 
still has one vacancy that Trump plans to fill. Bress, who once clerked 
for the late Antonin Scalia, was nominated to fill the vacancy left by M 
Kozinski, whom Kavanaugh once clerked for and who resigned in 
December 2017 amid allegations of sexual misconduct. 
Subscribe on Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod and other podcast 
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players. 
Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning briefing for 
decision-makers. 
Sign up to receive the newsletter. 
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING: 
British Ambassador Kim Darroch speaks at an afternoon tea hosted by the British Embassy to mark Trump's 
inauguration in January 2017. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images) 
-- British Ambassador Kim Darroch resigned from his post this 
morning after three days of public attacks from Trump, who was 
angry about leaked cables that showed the diplomat privately 
described the president as "inept" and "insecure." Jennifer Hassan 
reports: "Trump blasted Darroch in a series of tweets this week, calling 
him 'a pompous fool' and said his administration would not work with 
him." In his resignation letter, Darroch said the "current situation is 
making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like. Although 
my posting is not due to end until the end of this year, I believe in the 
current circumstances the responsible course is to allow the 
appointment of a new ambassador." 
Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell speaks at a news conference in May. (Patrick Semansky/AP) 
-- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has two messages for 
Congress this morning: Central bank independence is critical, and 
an interest-rate cut is likely at the end of July. Heather Long got a 
first look at his prepared testimony before the House Financial Services 
Committee: "Since [June], it appears that uncertainties around trade 
tensions and concerns about the strength of the global economy 
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continue to weigh on the U.S. economic outlook. Inflation pressures 
remain muted," Powell will say. The U.S. economy is doing "reasonably 
well," Powell will add, but he notes that business investment has 
"slowed notably," probably because of the uncertainty around trade and 
global growth. He will also stress that the economic gains have not been 
shared evenly by everyone. Hispanics, African Americans and people in 
rural communities are continuing to have a harder time finding jobs that 
pay well. 
-- Reader feedback: Many of you, on the left and right, emailed in 
response to yesterday's Big Idea to say that manufacturers should 
keep raising wages for workers if they want to make their industry 
more appealing to young people and close the skills gap. Readers 
wrote that higher salaries would have a bigger impact than any 
marketing campaign from a trade association in making the sector more 
appealing. 
A protester dressed as a character from "The Handmaid's Tale" walks back to her car in May after 
participating in a rally against restrictions on abortion rights in Montgomery, Ala. (Julie Bennett/Getty Images) 
-- Support for legal abortion has hit a 24-year high as more states 
pass severe restrictions on the procedure, according to a new 
Washington Post-ABC News poll. Emily Guskin and Scott Clement 
report:  "The Post-ABC poll finds a 60 percent majority who say abortion 
should be legal in most or all cases, up from 55 percent in a 2013 Post-
ABC poll, and tying the record high level of support from 1995. The 
latest survey finds 36 percent say abortion should be illegal in all or 
most cases, also tying a record low. A 41 percent plurality of Americans 
want their own state to avoid making it either harder or easier for women 
to have access to abortion. Fewer, 32 percent, say their states should 
make it easier and fewer still, 24 percent say their states should make it 
harder for women to have access to abortion. ... Even within party 
ranks, allowing or banning abortion in all cases is a minority position. 
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Among Democrats, 77 percent say abortion should be at least mostly 
legal, but just over 4 in 10 (42 percent) say it should be legal in all 
cases. Among Republicans, 52 percent say it should be at least mostly 
illegal, but fewer than a quarter, 22 percent, want it to be illegal in all 
cases." 
State Rep. Greg Murphy debates Joan Perry on the campus of Pitt Community College. (Deborah 
Griffin/Greenville Daily Reflector/AP) 
-- North Carolina state Rep. Greg Murphy won the Republican 
primary for the state's reliably red 3rd Congressional District, 
besting pediatrician Joan Perry by 20 points in a special election. 
Felicia Sonmez reports: "The race had been viewed by some as a test 
of women's standing within the Republican Party. Perry had won the 
endorsements of all 13 House Republican women and received nearly 
$1 million in support from an outside group created to boost female 
Republican House candidates. But in the end, she was outflanked by 
Murphy, who was backed by several House Republican heavyweights, 
including Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Mark Meadows (N.C.)." 
Joe Biden stops for ice cream in Iowa in April. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) 
-- Cashing in: Joe Biden, who continues calling himself "Middle 
Class Joe" on the campaign trail, earned $15.6 million over the 
past two years. Matt Viser and Anu Narayanswamy: "The vast majority 
of the former vice president's income — which totaled $11 million in 
2017 and $4.6 million in 2018 — came from book payments and 
speaking fees, according to newly released tax returns and financial 
disclosure forms required of federal office-seekers. All told, the Bidens 
made nearly five times more in the past two years than the next- highest 
earner, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), who with her husband earned 
$3.3 million. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-
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Mass.) each took in about $1.7 million in family income. ... Since leaving 
office, he has benefited from an explosion of wealth. He gave 47 
speeches, according to the new filings, with fees as high as $234,000. 
His speaking fees and book payments amounted to $10 million in 2017 
and $3.2 million in 2018. Biden was also a professor at the University of 
Pennsylvania, where he was paid $371,159 in 2017 and $405,368 in 
2018." 
Shane Bieber of the Indians pitches for the American League last night at Progressive Field in Cleveland. 
(Jason Miller/Getty Images) 
-- On the strength of its pitchers, the American League will get 
home-field advantage in the World Series after a 4-3 win in the All-
Star Game. Dave Sheinen reports from Cleveland: "Perhaps someone 
sneaked into the bowels of Progressive Field on Tuesday and replaced 
the regular, turbocharged 2019 baseballs with century-old versions from 
the Dead Ball Era. How else to explain — in the midst of the biggest 
home run binge in the history of the sport, one year after the most 
homers ever hit in an All-Star Game and one night after the most 
electrifying performance in the history of the Home Run Derby — the 
relatively pedestrian showing in this year's Midsummer Classic? There 
is one other possible explanation, of course, and it is the one, 
conspiracy theories aside, that will have to suffice: There are great 
pitchers scattered across this game (shellshocked as they may be by 
the nightly home run binges), and on Tuesday night they shone 
brightest. ... The victory was the seventh in a row by the AL, its 14th in 
the past 17 and 19th in the past 23 All-Star Games." 
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred denied yesterday that the 
league has knowingly "juiced" baseballs to increase the number of 
home runs this season, despite mounting complaints from 
pitchers. Manfred attributed the spike in homers to naturally occurring 
variances in manufacturing baseballs and vowed transparency as 
EFTA00043089

officials move to correct the problem, per Sheinin.
Perot in 1992 warned NAFTA would create 'giant sucking sound' 
GET SMART FAST: 
1. Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire who waged two 
unsuccessful bids for president as an independent, died at 89. 
Perot was lauded for starting two software companies that later sold 
for billions, and his reputation as a successful entrepreneur helped 
him attract nearly 20 million votes in 1992 — marking the highest 
vote share for an independent or third-party bid since Theodore 
Roosevelt and ultimately contributing to Bill Clinton's victory. (Donald 
P. Baker) 
2. Virginia's GOP-controlled General Assembly ended a special 
session on gun legislation after about 90 minutes. The Virginia 
Senate voted along party lines to adjourn until after the state 
legislative elections this November, and the House quickly followed 
suit. The Republican House speaker accused Democratic Gov. 
Ralph Northam (D) of an "election-year stunt" for ordering the 
special session shortly after the May 31 mass shooting in Virginia 
Beach. (Gregory S. Schneider, Laura Vozzella and Antonio Olivo) 
3. Democratic megadonor Ed Buck is facing allegations of 
human trafficking and revenge porn months after he came 
under fire when two black men died from overdoses in his 
home. Buck is now facing two more charges in an ongoing case 
brought by the mother of one of the two men who died in his West 
EFTA00043090

Hollywood apartment. (The Daily Beast) 
4. A Republican candidate for Mississippi governor, 
Foster, refused to allow a female reporter to travel with him 
alone because of her gender. Foster's campaign told journalist 
Larrison Campbell she would need to be accompanied by a male 
colleague if she wanted to go on a 15-hour trip with the candidate, 
saying the "optics" of the candidate with a woman could be used to 
insinuate an extramarital affair. (Mississippi Today) 
5. A Senate bill would block federal funding for the 2026 World 
Cup until the U.S. Soccer Federation agrees to give the national 
women's and men's teams the same compensation. The 
proposal by Sen. Joe Manchin Ill (D-W.Va.) comes after the women 
won the World Cup this weekend as the crowd chanted, "Equal pay!" 
(Des Bieler) 
6. An inspector general report accuses the hospice industry of 
repeatedly ignoring patients' pain and needs. One particularly 
grisly example recounted how a patient in Missouri was so neglected 
that his family had to make a trip to the emergency room to treat a 
"maggot infestation" where his feeding tube entered his abdomen. 
(Chris Rowland) 
7. Electric scooters have spread to several European capitals, 
where they are sparking the same complaints heard on this 
side of the Atlantic. The mayor of Paris condemned the scooters 
as causing "not far from anarchy" on the city's roads, and residents 
of Berlin have complained of drunk riders and at least one instance 
of a man trying to access a high-speed motorway on his e-scooter. 
(Rick Noack) 
8. Pig-ear dog treats were recalled in 33 states because of a 
potential salmonella contamination, the FDA announced. The 
treats, which were sold in bins at Pet Supplies Plus stores in the 
states, are believed to be linked to an outbreak of human salmonella 
infections. (USA Today) 
EFTA00043091

9. A rare polio-like illness marked by muscle weakness or 
paralysis affected 233 people in 2018, the majority of them 
children. The CDC said the number of recorded acute flaccid 
myelitis cases last year made it the worst year since the government 
started tracking the illness in 2014. (Philadelphia Inquirer) 
10. A man who was swept over the largest waterfall at Niagara 
Falls survived. Reports of the incident sent Niagara Parks Police 
scrambling to get to the waterfalls early Tuesday morning, where 
they found the man with non-life-threatening injuries. (Allyson Chiu) 
Trump says he feels 'very badly' for Acosta on Epstein link 
THE #METOO RECKONING: 
-- Trump is standing by his embattled labor secretary, saying he 
feels "very badly" for 
Acosta, as Democratic calls mounted 
for Acosta's resignation over the generous plea deal he struck with 
financier Jeffrey Epstein when he was a federal prosecutor. Trump 
said the White House will look closely at the circumstances surrounding 
the sex-charges deal negotiated by Acosta. "I feel very badly, actually, 
for Secretary Acosta because I've known him as being somebody who 
works so hard and has done such a good job," the president told 
reporters in the Oval Office. 
-- Acosta broke his silence and defended himself on Twitter: "The 
crimes committed by Epstein are horrific, and I am pleased that NY 
prosecutors are moving forward with a case based on new evidence," 
he wrote, suggesting that prosecutors have new evidence he did not 
when he was Miami's U.S. attorney. 
-- Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi called on Acosta to step down, 
as did most of the 2020 Democratic candidates. "Congressional 
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Republicans supported Acosta, saying issues about the plea deal were 
vetted at his confirmation hearing in 2017. Acosta's critics said he was 
not fit to lead an agency that has oversight over human trafficking 
offenses," John Wagner and Lisa Rein report. "Some attorneys for 
victims questioned Acosta's tweet saying the evidence was new." 
-- Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is privately 
urging Trump to dump Acosta, Politico's Eliana Johnson and Burgess 
Everett report: "Acosta critics, including Mulvaney, have argued that he 
has not been aggressive enough in stamping out Obama-era workplace 
regulations and employment discrimination lawsuits, and they are using 
the Epstein lawsuit to push him out the door. Mulvaney on Tuesday 
acknowledged the tension with Acosta but said it was merely part of the 
job. `I push all of the Cabinet Secretaries on the deregulatory agenda, as 
it is a top priority of the President,' Mulvaney said in a statement. ... One 
move that has particularly rankled conservatives is Acosta's decision to 
allow an employment discrimination lawsuit to proceed against Oracle, 
the rare Silicon Valley company that is not entirely hostile to the GOP." 
Democrats demand Acosta resign over Epstein deal 
-- The Justice Department said Attorney General William Barr will 
not recuse himself from the current prosecution of Epstein, but he 
will not engage in "any retrospective review" of the 2008 plea deal. 
Matt Zapotosky reports: "Barr had telegraphed at his confirmation 
hearing in January that he might have to step aside from any Justice 
Department reviews of Epstein's case, because another lawyer at his 
then-firm, Kirkland & Ellis, had represented the wealthy financier. The 
other lawyer, Jay P. Lefkowitz, helped secure [the previous deal]. The 
split nature of Barr's recusal suggests that federal prosecutors in New 
York — who unsealed new sex trafficking charges against Epstein on 
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Monday — might not be investigating authorities' handling of the 
previous allegations. The Justice Department's Office of Professional 
Responsibility has been reviewing the handling of Epstein's 2008 plea 
deal for possible misconduct, and Barr is recused from that." 
-- The Miami Herald has reported that Lefkowitz, Barr's colleague at 
the time, had a one-on-one meeting with Acosta at which the then-
U.S. attorney agreed not to prosecute Epstein in federal court. 
-- Epstein amassed a network of powerful connections as 
authorities say that he was simultaneously abusing dozens of 
young girls. Marc Fisher reports: "Even as dozens of women were 
looking to police, prosecutors and courts to hold Epstein to account for 
his alleged sexual abuses, he was amassing a stunning list of contacts 
and, in some cases, defenders across the worlds of Hollywood 
moviemaking, medical research, diplomacy, finance, politics and law. ... 
He donated large sums toward neuroscience research at Harvard and a 
California lab. He invited researchers to his New York house and talked 
math with them over equations scrawled on a blackboard in his dining 
room. He flew former president Bill Clinton and actor 
Spacey to 
Africa to promote AIDS awareness. He was a member of the Trilateral 
Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations." 
-- The criminal case against Epstein had gone cold, but Miami 
Herald reporter Julie Brown kept pursuing the story and forced 
authorities to pay attention. The Times's Tiffany Hsu reports: "Months 
ago, she published a meticulously researched series of articles about 
the secret plea deal. ... Her work identified some 80 alleged victims ... 
She worked on the award-winning series with Emily Michot, a visual 
journalist at The Herald. While Mr. Epstein moved about freely, 
reportedly building a new compound in the Virgin Islands, Ms. Brown 
continued to dig, accumulating enough documentation to fill a spare 
bedroom in her Florida home. ... Geoffrey Berman, a federal prosecutor, 
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said at a news conference that his team had been 'assisted by some 
excellent investigative journalism.-
-- Trump once threw a party with "28 girls" at Mar-a-Lago. He and 
Epstein were the only men there. The Times's Annie Karni and 
Maggie Haberman dig into the relationship: "The year was 1992 and the 
event was a `calendar girl' competition, something that George 
Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream 
Enterprise, had organized at Mr. Trump's request. `I arranged to have 
some contestants fly in,' Mr. Houraney recalled in an interview on 
Monday. `At the very first party, I said, 'Who's coming tonight? I have 28 
girls coming.' It was him and Epstein.' Mr. Houraney, who had just 
partnered with Mr. Trump to host events at his casinos, said he was 
surprised. 'I said, `Donald, this is supposed to be a party with V.I.P.s. 
You're telling me it's you and Epstein?" In fact, that was the case, an 
indication of a yearslong friendship between the president and Mr. 
Epstein that some say ended only after a failed business arrangement 
between them. ... 
"The full nature of their eventual falling out is not clear. ... The 
relationship with Mr. Trump turned so toxic that Mr. Epstein at one point 
told friends that he blamed Mr. Trump for his legal problems with the 
Palm Beach County police. But while Mr. Trump has dismissed the 
relationship, Mr. Epstein, since the election, has played it up, claiming to 
people that he was the one who introduced Mr. Trump to his third wife, 
Melania Trump, though neither of the Trumps has ever mentioned Mr. 
Epstein playing a role in their meeting." 
Trump says he had a 'falling our with Epstein years ago 
SELECTIVE AMNESIA: 
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-- Trump has a pattern of quickly minimizing ties with people who 
criticize him or who find themselves facing an onslaught of 
negative attention that reflects poorly on him. Epstein and Darroch 
are only the two latest examples. Josh Dawsey reports: "Trump sat 
across from Darroch during the annual St. Patrick's Day lunch on 
Capitol Hill in March, inquiring about Brexit and bragging of his strong 
political standing. ... Trump interacted with Darroch on a number of 
occasions in London and Washington. ... But after leaked cables 
showed Darroch criticizing Trump's administration as 'inept' and the 
president as `insecure,' the president seemed to have a memory lapse. 
'I don't know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool,' 
Trump wrote Tuesday on Twitter. ... Asked Tuesday about Epstein, 
Trump said that he was 'not a fan' of his. ... 'I don't think I've spoken to 
him for 15 years,' Trump said. In a 2002 interview with New York 
Magazine before Epstein was in trouble, Trump sang a different tune. 
'I've known ■ 
for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is 
even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of 
them are on the younger side,' Trump said. ... 
"Among those who have gotten the `I barely know the guy' 
treatment: Former acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker, 
conservative commentator Ann Coulter, former lawyer Michael Cohen, 
fired FBI director James B. Comey, former senior White House aide 
Stephen K. Bannon, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former 
State Department official Brett McGurk, longtime adviser Roger Stone, 
former White House aide Cliff Sims, former campaign aide George 
Papadopoulos and even the rapper Lil Jon, who starred on Trump's 
reality TV show 'Celebrity Apprentice.' The people change, but the 
comments are eerily similar — and are something of a joke among 
some Trump advisers." 
-- He is the do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do president: Trump attacked the 
"Radical Left" last night for encouraging boycotts against 
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companies whose owners support him, even though he has 
repeatedly advocated the exact same tactic in the past against his 
perceived critics. Trump was rallying to the defense of Home Depot 
and its co-founder, Bernard Marcus, who have been at the center of a 
boycott from liberal customers after the billionaire said he plans to spend 
part of his fortune supporting Trump's 2020 campaign. 
"Among the companies he has targeted are Macy's, which once 
carried his clothing line but abandoned him after he called Mexicans 
'rapists' in his campaign kickoff speech in 2015, and Apple, which he 
urged to release the cellphone information of the perpetrators of the 
2015 shooting in San Bernardino, Calif.," Isaac Stanley-Becker recalls. 
"Last year, he celebrated plans to boycott Harley-Davidson when the 
motorcycle company said it would move some production overseas 
because of steel tariffs imposed by the president. He has also implored 
his Twitter followers to boycott Megyn Kelly's show on Fox News and 
suggested that dropping AT&T could compel CNN to improve its 
coverage of him. ... The president has argued that Nike and the NFL 
would encounter 'anger and boycotts' as long as they support players 
who kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality and 
racial injustice. He struck a different tone on Tuesday, saying it was 
unfair to penalize a company because one of its co-founders supported 
'your favorite President, me!" 
Sater offers few details after House panel appearance 
THERE'S STILL A BEAR IN THE WOODS: 
-- A congressional panel grilled former Trump associate Felix Sater 
for more details on the president's failed Moscow project. Karoun 
Demirjian and Tom Hamburger report: "Sater met privately with House 
Intelligence Committee staffers investigating interference in the 2016 
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presidential election and questions surrounding Trump's business 
interests in Russia in 2016. At issue is Michael Cohen's false testimony 
before the same committee in 2017 and whether Trump was 
compromised by his organization's effort to build in Moscow. When 
pressed Tuesday to provide information about his knowledge of Cohen's 
testimony, Sater at one point cited lawyer-client privilege and declined to 
respond, according to accounts of the exchange described by Sater's 
attorney and a spokesman for the committee." 
-- Federal prosecutors no longer want Michael Flynn to testify 
against his former partner because they doubt his version of 
events, according to a court filing. Rachel Weiner reports: "The move 
could have implications for Flynn in D.C. federal court, where he is 
awaiting sentencing in a case brought by the special counsel. ... Flynn 
had been expected to be a key witness in the Virginia trial of Bijan 
Rafiekian, with whom he ran a consulting business. A court filing from 
Rafiekian's attorneys includes an email that Assistant U.S. Attorney 
James P. Gillis ended by saying prosecutors 'do not necessarily agree' 
with Flynn's 'characterizations' of how he came to make an inaccurate 
filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act for an influence 
campaign that benefited the Turkish government. According to the 
email, Flynn says he did not provide false information to his attorneys at 
the time, did not read the FARA filing before signing it and was not 
aware that it contained falsehoods. In their filing, Rafiekian's lawyers say 
they 'interpreted the email's final sentence as a euphemism for, 'we've 
concluded [Flynn] is lying.' 
"The decision by prosecutors could imperil Flynn's ability to avoid 
incarceration for lying to the FBI unless he is pardoned by 
Trump. Flynn's defense attorney, Sidney Powell, said in a statement 
that 'General Flynn is still cooperating with the government even if they 
don't call him as a witness.-
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-- The Justice Department directed two former members of 
Mueller's team, Aaron Zebley and James L. Quarles, not to testify 
before Congress. The Times's Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner 
report: "It is unclear what effect the Justice Department's intervention 
will have on the men's eventual appearances, but it raises the prospect 
that a deal lawmakers thought they had struck last month for testimony 
from Mr. Mueller, the former special counsel, and the two prosecutors 
could still unravel. Both Mr. Zebley and Mr. Quarles have left the Justice 
Department and are now private citizens, meaning that the department 
most likely cannot actually block their testimony. But the department's 
view — depending on how strongly it is expressed — could have a 
chilling effect on two longtime employees and give them cover to avoid 
testifying." 
-- The House Judiciary Committee will vote tomorrow on whether 
to subpoena 12 individuals with connections to Trump, including 
Jared Kushner and Jeff Sessions, for their investigation on 
whether the president obstructed justice. Colby ltkowitz reports: "The 
panel will also vote to subpoena documents related to the Trump 
administration's zero tolerance policy on migrants entering the country 
illegally, which led to the separation of thousands of children from their 
parents in 2018. ... In addition to seeking subpoenas for Kushner and 
Sessions, the committee will vote to subpoena former White House chief 
of staff John Kelly; [Flynn]; former Trump campaign manager Corey 
Lewandowski; former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein; 
former White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn; assistant 
attorney general Jody Hunt; former White House staff secretary Rob 
Porter; National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard; American Media Inc. 
chief executive David Pecker; and Keith Davidson, former attorney for 
adult-film star Stormy Daniels." 
-- Ahead of the former special counsel's testimony next week, 
many lawmakers admit that they have not read Mueller's report in 
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full. Politico's Darren Samuelsohn reports: "Trump can't give a straight 
answer about the subject. More than a dozen members of Congress 
readily admitted ... that they too have skipped around rather than 
studying every one of the special counsel report's 448 pages. And 
despite the report technically ranking as a best-seller, only a tiny fraction 
of the American public has actually cracked the cover and really dived 
in. `What's the point?' said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). ... The result, 
say lawmakers, historians and cultural critics, is a giant literacy gap in 
the country when it comes to the most authoritative examination into 
Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether 
Trump obstructed that investigation." 
-- Pelosi said she will not address "anything more that [Barr] has to 
say" because he "has lied to Congress." Pelosi's comments came a 
day after the attorney general accused Democrats of trying "to create 
some kind of public spectacle" by calling for Mueller to publicly testify 
next week. "I don't even want to address him," Pelosi said in response. 
"He has lied to Congress as the attorney general of the United States. 
He's lied under oath. I'm not speaking to anything more that he has to 
say." (John Wagner) 
-- Russian intelligence agents appear to have been the first people 
to promote the conspiracy theory that DNC staffer Seth Rich was 
killed by assassins working for Hillary Clinton. Yahoo News's 
Michael Isikoff reports: "Russia's foreign intelligence service, known as 
the SVR, first circulated a phony 'bulletin' — disguised to read as a real 
intelligence report —about the alleged murder of the former DNC staffer 
on July 13, 2016, according to the U.S. federal prosecutor who was in 
charge of the Rich case. That was just three days after Rich, 27, was 
killed in what police believed was a botched robbery while walking home 
to his group house in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, 
D.C., about 30 blocks north of the Capitol. ... In a graphic example of 
how fake news infects the internet, those precise details popped up the 
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same day on an obscure website, whatdoesitmean.com, that is a 
frequent vehicle for Russian propaganda. The website's article, which 
attributed its claims to `Russian intelligence,' was the first known 
instance of Rich's murder being publicly linked to a political conspiracy." 
-- Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was interviewed for 
16 hours last month as part of the investigation by Michael 
Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general. Politico's 
Natasha Bertrand reports: "The extensive, two-day interview took place 
in London while Trump was in Britain for a state visit, [two] sources said, 
and delved into Steele's extensive work on Russian interference efforts 
globally, his intelligence-collection methods and his findings about 
Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who the FBI ultimately surveilled. 
... The interview was contentious at first, the sources added, but 
investigators ultimately found Steele's testimony credible and even 
surprising. The takeaway has irked some U.S. officials interviewed as 
part of the probe — they argue that it shouldn't have taken a foreign 
national to convince the inspector general that the FBI acted properly in 
2016." 
After crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States on June 13, Karla Yadira Rivera, 36, cries 
as she walks to Border Patrol agents with her daughters Karla, 11; Andrea, 12; and Emilia, 17, in El Paso. 
(Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post) 
THE IMMIGRATION WARS: 
-- Border arrests are dropping as Mexico's crackdown on migrants 
takes effect. Nick Miroff reports: "The number of people taken into 
custody along the U.S. southern border fell 28 percent in June, a drop 
that U.S. authorities say reflects the early impact of Mexico's crackdown 
on Central American migration. Border crossings typically rise in the 
spring and slump during the scorching summer months, but the drop 
registered from May to June was significantly larger than in previous 
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years, according to Homeland Security statistics." 
-- Migrant children in an overcrowded detention center in Yuma, 
Ariz., are making sexual assault allegations and saying they fear 
retaliation from U.S. agents when they complain about poor 
treatment. NBC News's Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley report: "A 16-
year-old Guatemalan boy held in Yuma, Arizona, said he and others in 
his cell complained about the taste of the water and food they were 
given. The Customs and Border Protection agents took the mats out of 
their cell in retaliation, forcing them to sleep on hard concrete. A 15-year-
old girl from Honduras described a large, bearded officer putting his 
hands inside her bra, pulling down her underwear and groping her as 
part of what was meant to be a routine pat down in front of other 
immigrants and officers. The girl said 'she felt embarrassed as the 
officer was speaking in English to other officers and laughing' during the 
entire process, according to a report of her account." 
-- California became the first state to offer health benefits to adult 
undocumented immigrants. NPR's Bobby Allyn reports: "The measure 
signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday extends coverage to low-
income, undocumented adults age 25 and younger for the state's 
Medicaid program. Since 2016, California has allowed children under 18 
to receive taxpayer-backed healthcare despite immigration status. And, 
state officials expect that the plan will cover roughly 90,000 people. ... In 
California, extending health benefits to undocumented immigrants is 
widely popular. A March survey conducted by the nonpartisan Public 
Policy Institute of California found that almost two-thirds of state 
residents support providing coverage to young adults who are not legally 
authorized to live in the country." 
-- Two active-duty Marines were arrested for allegedly trying to 
smuggle three undocumented Mexican immigrants through 
California. Meagan Flynn reports: "Lance Cpls. Byron Darnell Law II 
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