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Question: The Dec. 12 special Senate election in Alabama is being touted as the next clash in the ongoing battle between  Steve Bannon  and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the soul of the Republican Partyâwhat  Bannon   with characteristic hyperbole  calls a âseason of war.â Roy Moore  the GOP candidate  stands accused of numerous incidents of sexual misconduct  including allegations that he molested a 14-year-old girl. Thatâs prompted McConnell  a Kentucky Republican  and most of his GOP colleagues to disavow him.  Bannon   by contrast  was Mooreâs most important ally in the wake of the sex scandal  at least until President Donald Trump took to Twitter to weigh in on Mooreâs behalf.
McConnell knows that having an accused child molester in the Senate would be toxic for his partyâs image  and that Mooreâs stubborn recklessness would make his own job next to impossible. For  Bannon   one suspects  this is the whole source of Mooreâs appeal.
Bannonâs stated rationale for backing Moore is that heâll help carry out the populist revolt that the former White House chief strategist is attempting to lead against McConnell and the GOP establishment. Itâs an odd claim to make  since Moore is less of a âpopulistâ than a âtheocrat.â He was twice kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court  once for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument  the other time for refusing to grant marriage licenses to gay couples. Whatâs more   Bannon  has a more powerful weapon to deploy that really does align with  his  professed politics and would all but ruin McConnell:  He  could oppose the Republican tax plan.
 Bannon  rose to prominence by espousing a brand of Republican politics that differed sharply from what party leaders such as McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan were pushing. Instead of tax cuts for the wealthy and slashed entitlement spending   Bannon  thought the GOP should become a âworkersâ partyâ focused on strengthening the middle class. This idea was so popular with conservative voters that when Trump took it up  he won the Republican presidential nomination. It also helped  him  steal blue-collar voters from Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Since  his  inauguration  however  Trump has consistently deferred to the same Republican leaders whose priorities  he  exposed as being out of step with the rest of the country. Nothing illustrates this better than the tax plan McConnell and his allies are frantically trying to rush through the Senate.
In sum  the GOP tax plan makes a mockery of what  Bannon  and  his  followers claim to stand for by directing its major benefits to the kind of plutocrats who donate to McConnell and his Republican colleaguesâone reason the plan is deeply unpopular with most voters. A recent ABC News poll found that 60 percent of Americans think the plan favors the wealthy  and just one in three support it.
So far  Bannonâs populist revolt has met with only middling success. Although heâs pledged to run insurgents in 2018 against every GOP incumbent but Ted Cruz  a strong slate of candidates has yet to emerge. One place  Bannon  has succeeded  though  is in tarnishing McConnellâs image among Republicans. Polls consistently show the majority leader to be the least popular member of the Senate  and an Oct. 24 Harvard-Harris poll found that most Republicans wish  he  would resign. If McConnell canât pass a tax bill  he may have to.
Given this vulnerability   Bannon  could use his influence and platform at Breitbart News to highlight the plutocratic skew of the GOP plan and demand that its spoils be redirected to the ordinary workers who elected Trump. Calling on Republicans to swap out the estate tax repeal  carried interest breaks and cuts for millionaires for  say  a payroll tax cut aimed squarely at the middle class would put McConnell in an impossible bind  while providing  Bannon  the dual benefits of being broadly popular and entirely consistent with  his  and Trumpâs 2016 campaign message.
Instead   Bannon  has been raging at McConnell without doing much to inhibit his agenda. He may yet carry Moore to victory. But if McConnellâs tax plan becomes law  thereâll be little doubt as to who is the true victor.

Answer: Why Is Bannon Bashing McConnell Over Roy Moore Instead of Taxes?


Question: Trump  was aware of the issue a couple of weeks before a conversation with then-FBI Director James B. Comey in which Comey said the president asked him if he could be lenient while investigating Flynn  whom  Trump  had just fired for misleading Pence about the nature of his conversations with the Russian.
According to notes kept by Comey   Trump  asked if he could see “his way clear to letting this go  to letting Flynn go.”  Trump  fired Comey in May.
In a pre-dawn tweet Sunday   Trump  issued a fresh rebuttal to Comey  writing: “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!” The tweet was part of a running commentary from  Trump  that began Saturday  a day after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and indicated he would cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III  who is probing Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Dowd confirmed Sunday that he had drafted the tweet for  Trump  and acknowledged that it was sloppily worded. He said it was inaccurate to say  the president  was told that Flynn had lied to the FBI. Dowd said Sunday that  Trump  knew only what acting attorney general Sally Yates had told the White House counsel: that Flynn’s accounts to the agents interviewing him were the same as those Flynn gave Pence  and “that the [Justice] Department was not accusing him of lying.”
Dowd played down the significance of  Trump ’s tweet. He said he did not intend to make news and declared  “I’m out of the tweeting business.”
[Graphic: Here’s what we know so far about  Team Trump’s  ties to Russian interests]
If  Trump  knew that Flynn might not have been accurate with the FBI  it could provide motivation for any alleged effort to obstruct justice  said Barak Cohen  a former federal prosecutor who does white-collar defense work at the Perkins Coie law firm. “It bolsters the intent for committing obstruction ” he said.
The person  who  like others  spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly  said that White House officials quickly realized the tweet could significantly assist Mueller if he chooses to pursue an obstruction case. The development sparked particular concern because others around  Trump  were not certain that  Trump  knew Flynn had made a false statement to the FBI at the time he fired him  the person added.
McGahn was told Jan. 30 that the material was ready for his review  the officials said. On that night   Trump  fired Yates over her refusal to defend his travel ban.
A person familiar with McGahn’s account says the White House counsel did not give  Trump  any indication in January that Flynn had violated the law in his FBI interview or tell  the president  that  he  believed Flynn was under criminal investigation.
As controversy built Sunday about  Trump’s  actions  he sought to focus attention on news that Peter Strzok — the former top FBI official assigned to Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election — was taken off that job this summer after his bosses discovered that he and another member of Mueller’s team had exchanged politically charged texts disparaging  Trump  and supporting Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE’ Now it all starts to make sense!”  Trump  wrote.  He  also criticized the FBI and promised to bring it back to “greatness” under  his  administration.
“After years of Comey  with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more)  running the FBI  its reputation is in Tatters - worst in History!”  Trump  wrote on Twitter. “But fear not  we will bring it back to greatness.”

Answer: Trump lawyer says president knew Flynn had given FBI the same account he gave to vice president


Question: Rick Pitino   the masterful coach first lured to this basketball-besotted state in 1989 to heal somebody elseâs scandal  finally toppled 28 years later Wednesday in the gusts of the latest scandal in  his  own program. By the time the University of Louisville placed  him  on unpaid administrative leave and shut off  his  access to a promising 17th season â  he  previously coached the University of Kentucky from 1989 to 1997 â it left a city woozy with scandal fatigue.
 Pitino  expressed dismay and surprise at the allegations Tuesday  just as  he  had after the revelations that former Louisville assistant Andre McGee had paid a Louisville escort to entertain the Cardinalsâ players and recruits.
âThese allegations come as a complete shock to me â  Pitino  said in a statement released Tuesday. âIf true  I agree with the U.S. Attorneyâs Office that these third-party schemes  initiated by a few bad actors  operated to commit a fraud on the impacted universities and their basketball programs  including the University of Louisville. Our fans and supporters deserve better and I am committed to taking whatever steps are needed to ensure those responsible are held accountable.â
The menâs basketball program is already under NCAA probation for the 2015 scandal.  Pitino  faced a five-game suspension during the upcoming season as part of the penalties; in addition  Louisville was ordered to return money received for NCAA tournament appearances from 2012 through 2015 and to vacate 123 wins during that period  including the 2013 national championship. The university has appealed the ruling.
 Pitino  found success at nearly every NCAA stop  he  made in a coaching career that began in the mid-1970s. At Boston University   his  first head coaching job   he  led the Terriers to their first NCAA tournament appearance in 24 years.  Pitino  parlayed that success into a two-year run at Providence  where  he  guided the Friars to the 1987 Final Four.
Then  after a two-year run coaching the New York Knicks   he  left  his  dream NBA job in 1989 to take over at tradition-rich but scandal-plagued Kentucky  even though the Wildcats would be banned from live television in  his  first season and from the NCAA tournament in  his  first two seasons.
After that  however   Pitino  quickly had Kentucky back among the nationâs elite  with a memorable Elite Eight appearance in the Wildcatsâ first post-probation season in 1992 and a Final Four bid the season after that   his  first of three appearances in the national semifinals at the school. In 1996   he  led Kentucky to its first national title in 18 years.
After an unsuccessful four-year run as coach and team president of the Boston Celtics   he  was back at another faded Kentucky power: Louisville  which had not won an NCAA tournament game in Denny Crumâs last four seasons.

Answer:
Rick Pitinoâs ouster leaves Louisville dazed from scandal fatigue