Wiretap: The last place James Comey wanted to be was alone with Donald Trump

The New York Times is reporting that James Comey told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he didn’t want to be left alone with the president. Twitter snark followed almost immediately. Meanwhile, further reports say that Sessions recently offered to resign, and the White House, when asked, refused to say whether Donald Trump still has confidence in his attorney general.

Meanwhile, the hot news out of the White House, from the usual not-yet-indicted leakers, is that the furious and frustrated president is gearing up for the Comey testimony, which is expected to be broadcast on all the big four national networks. Yes, Trump is getting his twitter fingers ready, and anxious White House officials are expecting the worst. Via The Washington Post.

And another Washington Post scoop: As Washington prepares for the James Comey testimony Thursday, the Post is reporting that Dan Coats, the nation’s top intelligence official, told associates that Trump had asked him to intervene with Comey on the FBI’s Flynn-Russia investigation.

Trump keeps saying, or tweeting anyway, that his problem is with the media and so-called fake news, but, if you look closely, Trump’s real problem is that he’s fighting a losing war with his own administration. Via The Week.

Trump takes credit for Saudi Arabia’s move to cut off Qatar, even as Trump’s foreign policy team had been furiously trying to smooth the rift over. Did Trump not remember that Qatar is host to America’s most important military post in the Middle East? Via The New York Times.

Though Trump’s outrageous tweets have, in fact, outraged much of a nation, the pundits say they probably won’t have much impact on this week’s British election. That isn’t to say they haven’t become a serious headache for Theresa May. Via The New Yorker.

The feud between Donald Trump and Sadiq Khan didn’t begin with the latest London terror attack. It has deep roots, and Vox takes us back to the beginning.

If you’ve found yourself distracted of late, you should know that’s exactly what Senate Majority Mitch McConnell is hoping for as Senate Republicans, in yet another closed-door meeting, are trying to craft an Obamacare repeal bill. And it just might work. Via Politico.

From The National Review: It seems that the Democrats’ biggest problem is hypocrisy and that, according to Victor Davis Hanson anyway, progressive elites have become the Jimmy Swaggart of today. That’s what he said.

Big surprise: The big debate in the special election race in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District is much more about Washington than it is about Georgia. But in a Republican district, neither candidate was too eager to talk about Donald Trump. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Bob Dylan released a recording of his Nobel acceptance speech, and it has a little bit of everything in it, including what seems to be an entirely made-up quote from Melville. Why would Dylan do that? It may be because he’s Bob Dylan. Via The New Republic

Photo by Ann Larie Valentine, via Flickr: Creative Commons