"The co-founder of Trump dossier firm Fusion GPS confirmed in court filings on Tuesday that he met last year with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and hired Ohr's wife to help with the opposition research firm's investigation of Donald Trump.

"Glenn Simpson said in a declaration filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. that he met 'at [Ohr's] request' weeks after the presidential election. Simpson stated that Ohr, who recently held the position of deputy assistant attorney general, sought the meeting 'to discuss our findings regarding Russia and the election.'

"Simpson also disclosed that Fusion GPS hired Ohr's wife, Nellie, to serve as a subcontractor on Trump-related work."

"[T]he only remaining trajectory by which Mueller and his investigators can escape with their reputations intact is to dismiss those staff attorneys who have exhibited clear anti-Trump political sympathies, reboot the investigation, and then focus on what now seems the most likely criminal conduct: Russian and Clinton-campaign collusion in the creation of the anti-Trump Fusion GPS dossier and later possible U.S. government participation in the dissemination of it. If such a fraudulent document was used to gain court approval to surveil Trump associates, and under such cover to unmask and leak names of private U.S. citizens -- at first to warp a U.S. election, and then later to thwart the work of an incoming elected administration -- then Mueller will be tasked with getting to the bottom of one of the greatest political scandals in recent U.S. history. Indeed, his legacy may not be that he welcomed in known pro-Clinton, anti-Trump attorneys to investigate the Trump 2016 campaign where there was little likelihood of criminality, but that he ignored the most egregious case of government wrongdoing in the last half-century."

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"When the chips are down, Democrats care more about their wealthiest constituents than their poorer constituents. The latter group will benefit from the Republican tax bill's larger standard deduction. The truth is that the Democrats' populist tax rhetoric has been a complete fraud, a deceptive and self-serving camouflage for Republican promises to cut taxes, which would be widely and wildly popular if not so traduced.

"Especially on the state and local tax deduction, Democrats' rhetoric has been all about protecting their pals in Democrat-led state legislatures who favor high state and local taxes. Indeed, part of the case made for those high taxes is that are federally deductible, so other people will end up subsidizing the payment of the check. High taxes go to fund their pals in public sector labor unions, who in turn fund Democratic politicians, who in turn protect the state and local tax deduction, and so on in an unending and unvirtuous circle. ...

"If GOP tax reform passes, liberal states will finally have to pay the full burden of the high taxes that their Democratic politicians impose. Perhaps the loss of the deduction will at last do something to teach voters to elect fiscally responsible governments. In New Jersey, Democratic legislative leaders are already considering reforming their tax code to mitigate the damage. That sounds like good news. Just imagine the beneficial ripple effect if the tax bill passes and becomes law."

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"The House Ethics Committee on Thursday night cleared Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on allegations that he mishandled classified information when he said a Trump transition team member had their communications monitored by the U.S. intelligence community.

"A complaint was filed over the disclosed information, and Nunes announced he would step aside from leading the investigation into the Russia's meddling in the 2016 investigation.

"The Ethics Committee said that following the analysis from 'classification experts,' it has determined that what Nunes disclosed was not classified information, ending their investigation into the Republican lawmaker's comments."

"'This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality,' President Trump said in announcing America's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Never have truer words been spoken, and they were delivered in the best speech Trump has ever given.

"What Trump did was stunning. He could just have signed the waiver of the law passed in 1995 compelling the executive branch to move America's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He did it six months ago, just like his three immediate predecessors did every six months since 1996. Or he could have not signed the waiver and simply said he was going to start the process of building the new embassy.

"Instead, he called the international community's seven-decade bluff and ended a delusion about the future that has prevented Palestinians from seeing the world and their own geopolitical situation clearly. It is a bold shift."

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"So Peter Strzok wasn't just a top investigator for Special Counsel Robert Mueller until he was axed for anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias: He was also a major player in the Hillary e-mail probe and the FBI work that led to the 'collusion' investigation.

"And Mueller and the FBI both dragged their feet on sharing key info about all this with Congress. ...

"The public doesn't know just how egregious Strzok's bias was, and won't until the release of his texts with his mistress, an FBI lawyer who (sigh) was also on Mueller's team.

"But as things stand, it now looks like the fix was well and truly in on the Hillary probe. Far worse, it also looks like the 'collusion' probe was a partisan hit from the start -- which undermines the basis for Mueller's own investigation.

"What a mess."

"Washington (CNN) -- A former top counterintelligence expert at the FBI, now at the center of a political uproar for exchanging private messages that appeared to mock President Donald Trump, changed a key phrase in former FBI Director James Comey's description of how former secretary of state Hillary Clinton handled classified information, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

"Electronic records show Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server as the No. 2 official in the counterintelligence division, changed Comey's earlier draft language describing Clinton's actions as 'grossly negligent' to 'extremely careless,' the sources said. ...

"The shift from 'grossly negligent' to 'extremely careless,' which may appear pedestrian at first glance, reflected a decision by the FBI that could have had potentially significant legal implications, as the federal law governing the mishandling of classified material establishes criminal penalties for 'gross negligence.'"

"[D]espite the banner headlines calling the Flynn guilty plea a 'thunderclap,' I think it may be a show of weakness on the part of the special counsel rather than a sign of strength. So far he has had to charge potential witnesses with crimes that bear little or no relationship to any possible crimes committed by current White House incumbents. Mueller would have much preferred to indict Flynn for conspiracy or some other crime directly involving other people, but he apparently lacks the evidence to do so.

"I do not believe he will indict anyone under the Logan Act. If he were to do so, that would be unethical and irresponsible. Nor do I think he will charge President Trump with any crimes growing out of the president's exercise of his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI or to ask him not to prosecute Flynn.

"The investigation will probably not end quickly, but it may end with, not a thunderclap, but several whimpers."

"A jury has found Jose Ines Garcia Zarate not guilty in the murder of Kate Steinle, the woman whose shooting death on a San Francisco pier in 2015 ignited an immigration debate.

"Garcia Zarate was acquitted of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and manslaughter. However, he was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

"Garcia Zarate, of Mexico, had been deported several times and has previous convictions for re-entry after deportation. Before the killing, he had been released from a San Francisco jail after a minor drug charge was dismissed. While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had issued a detainer for Garcia Zarate, he was released under the city's sanctuary laws."

"The New York Times editorial board took over the paper's opinion Twitter account, which has around 650,000 followers, 'to urge the Senate to reject a tax bill that hurts the middle class & the nation's fiscal health.' By urging the Senate, it meant sending out the phone number of moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins and imploring followers to call her. In others words, the board was indistinguishable from any of the well-funded partisan groups it whines about in editorials all the time.

"Perhaps I'm forgetting instances of similar politicking, but I don't think I've ever seen a major newspaper engage in the kind of partisan activism The New York Times is involved in right now -- not even on an editorial page. The Times' editorial board isn't saying, 'Boy, that Republican bill is going to kill children,' it's imploring people on social media -- most of whom don't even subscribe to their paper or live in Maine -- to inundate a senator with calls to sink a tax reform they dislike. (It's worth pointing out that most of the hyperbolic contentions the board makes regarding the bill are untrue or misleading, but that's another story.) ...

"What makes this kind of activism (which is likely to be ineffective, anyway) particularly hypocritical and distasteful, though, is that the Times has long argued in favor of empowering the government to shut down corporations -- just like them -- that engage in campaigning by overturning the First Amendment via Citizens United. This is worth remembering as the board turns into the equivalent of a super PAC."