[Shawn] Brooks, a 34-year-old day laborer currently on probation after pleading guilty to domestic battery, claims that his “drunk” commentary on an unaltered Pelosi video had no connection to the now-infamous fake clip that premiered less than 15 minutes later. “I wasn’t the individual who created that Pelosi video,” he insisted in a telephone interview.

It’s conceivable that someone else actually edited the clip. But a Facebook official, confirming a Daily Beast investigation, said the video was first posted on Politics WatchDog directly from Brooks’ personal Facebook account. …

Brooks acknowledged that he’s involved in the management of both Politics WatchDog and AllNews 24/7, the Facebook pages that sent the bogus video on it’s viral tear. To the outside observer, the two pages are unconnected, but after a tell-tale link on one of the pages led The Daily Beast to Brooks, he admitted that the ad revenue for both outlets goes directly into his personal PayPal account. In the first hint at a possible motive for the Pelosi smear, Brooks volunteered that the video brought in nearly $1,000 in shared ad revenue. …

A review of Brooks’ personal fan page reveals him as an avowed conservative and a proud member of Trump’s razor-thin African-American support base. A couple of Brooks’ Instagram posts feature misogyny. The strongest example is a post last year featuring a photo he evidently snapped of a woman sitting next to him on the subway. “This dumb bitch sitting in front of me on the E-train continues to kick me without saying excuse me,” he wrote.

Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper found a way to stand out at a crowded gathering of California Democrats: He denounced “socialism,” and got booed.

“If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer,” Hickenlooper said at a Saturday afternoon session of the state party’s annual convention. As the jeering grew louder, Hickenlooper added: “You know, if we’re not careful, we’re going to end up reelecting the worst president in American history.” …

In an interview, Hickenlooper said he had spoken “inartfully,” and that he did not mean to single out any of his opponents, though Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is the only self-identified “democratic socialist” seeking the White House.

“We’ve got to clearly show that we reject socialism,” Hickenlooper said. “We’ve got to do that because Republicans will try to make us into socialists even if we’re not. If we’re not willing to draw a bright line and say we’re not socialists, we could quite possibly reelect this president.”

The shift on impeachment stems mostly from a rebound in support for it among Democrats – 76% favor it currently, up from 69% in April. Whites who hold college degrees have also increased their support for impeachment. In surveys in April and March, fewer than 3 in 10 in that group favored proceedings, but that number has now climbed to 41%. …

Slightly fewer [Americans] now say that Democrats are overreaching in their investigations of Trump (40% feel that way in the new poll, compared with 44% in April), and a majority continue to feel that Trump is not doing enough to cooperate with those investigations (53%, was 54% in April). Surprisingly, the softening on whether Democrats are overreaching seems to come largely among Republicans: 84% said they were doing too much in April, it’s 76% now. …

The public divides on the question of whether the investigations Trump faces are justified by the facts, 47% say they are, 44% say they are not merited based on the facts. While majorities across party lines feel Trump is facing more investigations than other presidents, there are sharp partisan divisions on whether they are justified, with 75% of Democrats saying they are and 74% of Republicans saying they are not. …

About two-thirds of all Americans (67%) say that Mueller ought to publicly testify before Congress, including majorities of Democrats (88%) and independents (62%) and about half of Republicans (49%).

With congressional Democrats mulling impeachment, [President Trump’s] Europe trip should be a welcome reprieve. What’s different in the Trump era is that the president doesn’t necessarily want one. Seldom do Trump trips go smoothly. In past visits to Europe, he’s ignited international incidents of varying degrees, insulting his hosts or threatening to unravel historic alliances. But, always, his mind seems elsewhere. …

When he lands in London on Monday, Trump will also be walking into a tense regional political environment where nationalist-populist forces are jockeying for power with more centrist groups. Trump symbolizes a nationalist wing hostile to immigration and focused on sovereignty. He has talked privately of pulling out of NATO, and upset many European leaders by withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. He has also criticized European Union trade practices. Taken together, Trump’s moves have threatened the multilateral consensus that has underpinned European security since the Second World War.

A belief inside some European capitals is that Trump is merely an aberration. Once he’s gone, the thinking goes, the next president will repudiate the brand of unilateralism that this one has championed. But Trump could be in the job through the end of 2024, depending on how elections go. In the meantime, Europe is still learning how to live with America’s impertinent president.

The Washington Post reports:

Federal prosecutors on Friday declined to make public transcripts of recorded conversations between Michael Flynn and Russia’s ambassador to the United States in December 2016, despite a judge’s order. In a court filing Friday, the Justice Department wrote that it did not rely on such recordings to establish Flynn’s guilt or determine a recommendation for his sentencing.

Prosecutors also failed to release an unredacted version of portions of the Mueller report related to Flynn that the judge had ordered be made public. …

Sullivan’s request was atypical, some legal experts said, in that he demanded the release of classified records that prosecutors did not use to prove Flynn’s guilt. …

The transcripts of the Flynn-Kisylak calls would provide a rare glimpse into the power of American surveillance to capture the private discussions of foreign emissaries — and an intimate look at a budding relationship between a top Russian official and one of the president-elect’s most trusted lieutenants in the weeks before Trump took office.

Bloomberg on what they did release:

A lawyer for President Donald Trump asked for a “heads up” from former national Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s attorney as Flynn was poised to enter a cooperation agreement with prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, according to a transcript of the message made available Friday.

The lawyer, John Dowd, said in a voicemail the warning was necessary for the sake of “protecting all our interests, if we can, without you having to give up any … confidential information.” Dowd also reminded the general’s lawyer of the president’s “feelings” toward Flynn and said “that still remains.” …

In the transcript, which was peppered with ellipses and incomplete phrases, Dowd raised the prospect of information that might be damaging to the president. He said he understood Flynn couldn’t take part in a joint defense agreement.

However, he added, if “there’s information that … implicates the president … then we’ve got a national security issues, or maybe a national security issue, I don’t know.. some issue, we got to deal with, not only for the president, but for the country.”

Judy Shelton, a senior US official who is being vetted for a job on the board of the Federal Reserve, has attacked the central bank for wielding undemocratic, Soviet-style powers over markets and suggested it should not even be in the business of setting interest rates.

In an interview with the Financial Times at the Trump International Hotel in Washington this week, Ms Shelton called on the Fed to “think about whether they are doing more harm than good”. If appointed to the board, she would be “asking tough questions” about its most basic mission, she said. 

… Ms Shelton has long been sympathetic to the gold standard, which the US fully abandoned in the early 1970s in favour of a flexible exchange rate for the dollar. “People call me a goldbug, and I think, well, what does that make them? A Fed bug,” she says. Her big dream is a new Bretton Woods-style conference — “if it takes place at Mar-a-Lago that would be great” — to reset the international monetary system, replacing the current regime, mostly based on floating currencies. Ms Shelton said countries should agree to tie their currencies to a “neutral reference point, a benchmark” — which she envisages to be a “convertible gold-backed bond”.  

The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General has found “dangerous overcrowding” and unsanitary conditions at an El Paso, Texas, Border Patrol processing facility following an unannounced inspection, according to a report obtained by CNN.

The IG found “standing room only conditions” at the El Paso Del Norte Processing Center, which has a maximum capacity of 125 migrants, but on May 7 and 8, logs indicated that there were “approximately 750 and 900 detainees, respectively.”

A cell with a maximum capacity of 12 held 76 detainees, another with a maximum capacity of 8 held 41 detainees, and another with a maximum capacity of 35 held 155 detainees, according to the report.

“(Customs and Border Protection) was struggling to maintain hygienic conditions in the holding cells. With limited access to showers and clean clothing, detainees were wearing soiled clothing for days or weeks,” the report states.

“We also observed detainees standing on toilets in the cells to make room and gain breathing space, thus limiting access to the toilets,” it adds.

“Corrective action is critical to the immediate health and safety needs of detainees, who cannot continue to be held in standing-room-only conditions for weeks until additional tents are constructed,” the report states.

Several Democratic U.S. presidential candidates will make appearances in San Francisco starting Thursday, as the California Democratic Party Organizing Convention is set to kick off in the city on Friday.

The three-day CDP convention is the largest gathering of active Democrats in the state, with more than 3,400 delegates set to attend.

Saturday’s lineup includes 2020 presidential hopefuls U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, as well as former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

U.S. Reps. Tulsi Gabbard and Eric Swalwell, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper will also appear on Saturday.

Asked by CBS News’ Jan Crawford about concerns over his reputation for defending the president amid ongoing probes into the administration’s alleged ties to the Russian government and claims that Mr. Trump obstructed justice, [Attorney General] Barr appeared indifferent.

“I am at the end of my career,” Barr said. “Everyone dies and I am not, you know, I don’t believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?”  

Boteach said it happened in September 2015, when Booker announced his support for the Iran deal, which Boteach said was an unforgivable betrayal of Israel.

Boteach also said Booker is “trying to erase” his Jewish connections to satisfy the Democratic Party’s increasingly assertive left, which is often at odds with Israel. He noted that in his 2016 book, “United,” Booker makes no mention of their friendship or his connection to Judaism: “It’s like he’s almost embarrassed.”

…. Booker sighed heavily when told of Boteach’s contentions. He said the falling-out was not over Iran: “I have lots of friends I disagree with over the Iran deal, and we’re still friends.”

He said he withdrew from Boteach long before the Iran deal, because, he said, Boteach had begun using their friendship for self-promotion.

“Friendships are based on trust,” Booker said. “This was somebody who was using the personal in public in a way that was deeply unfortunate.”

Booker has rarely criticized Boteach publicly and declined to provide specifics.

During a nearly hour-long interview in Anchorage, Alaska, CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford pressed the attorney general on a number of issues from obstruction to his new review of the Russia investigation. The attorney general said he was surprised when Mueller told him he would not decide if the president obstructed justice but said he didn’t press him on it and then, working with Justice Department lawyers, stepped in and made the decision himself based on the evidence Mueller had gathered.

Asked about the fundamental difference between his and Mueller’s views on what the evidence gathered during the Russia probe means, Barr said, “I think Bob said he was not going to engage in the analysis. He was not going to make a determination one way or the other. We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction.”

“As a matter of law?” Crawford asked.

“As a matter of law. In other words we didn’t agree with the legal analysis, a lot of the legal analysis in the report. It did not reflect the views of the department,” Barr said. “It was the views of a particular lawyer or lawyers and so we applied what we thought was the right law.”

While the Democratic National Committee had long intimated it would raise the bar to qualify for later debates, many 2020 strategists were stunned by the 130,000-donor threshold, which doubles the requirement for the first two debates in June and July and which few are close to hitting. Some candidates questioned whether the party’s new donor threshold would winnow the field too severely, before most voters even tune in to the race.

Most declined to discuss their frustration with the D.N.C.’s rules on the record or to indicate how exactly they would shift tactics, saying their campaign plans were confidential. But campaign after campaign said the party’s donor requirements are skewing the way they allocate resources, forcing them to choose between investing in staff or pouring more money into ads on sites like Facebook, where prices are soaring to dizzying new heights. Two campaigns said digital vendors are currently quoting them prices of $40 and up to acquire a new $1 donor.

Democratic digital strategists said the unprecedented chase for small donors was encouraging poor habits aimed at simply stirring up internet interest or spamming existing email lists unsustainably, while also driving up the price of finding donors for down-ballot Democrats.

With more women in the presidential race than ever before, the Democratic National Committee is requiring that each 2020 Democratic presidential debate includes at least one female moderator, Refinery29 is exclusively reporting.

“The DNC is committed to an inclusive and fair debate process,” DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill told Refinery29. “That means that all 12 DNC sanctioned debates will feature a diverse group of moderators and panelists including women and people of color, ensuring that the conversations reflect the concerns of all Americans.”

Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set aside their Twitter bickering Thursday to strike an unusual bargain: an agreement to work together on a bill to ban former members of Congress from lobbying for life.

The Texas Republican and the New York Democrat made the pact on Twitter after Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a report by the watchdog group Public Citizen on the number of former lawmakers who’ve headed to K Street this year.

“I don’t think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you’ve served in Congress,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

Cruz, who’s feuded with Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter before, tweeted that he agreed, suggesting it might be “a chance for some bipartisan cooperation.”

Ocasio-Cortez responded by proposing a deal: “If we can agree on a bill with no partisan snuck-in clauses, no poison pills, etc - just a straight, clean ban on members of Congress becoming paid lobbyists - then I’ll co-lead the bill with you.”

“You’re on,” Cruz responded.

For years, economists at the Agriculture Department have churned out studies that forecast the effects of food trends, environmental changes and trade policy on rural America. But these days, career staff members at the Economic Research Service have been anxiously trying to predict their own futures.

Last year, after an economist with the division presented research that contradicted the Trump administration’s views about the president’s signature tax cuts, the Agriculture Department put into effect new rules about submitting work to peer-reviewed journals. Now, Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, is planning to move the roughly 300-person research unit, along with another division, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, out of Washington and closer to America’s farmers.

Mr. Perdue, who tried to shrink the agencies’ funding early in President Trump’s term, is expected to detail plans to relocate both units to Missouri, Kansas, Indiana or North Carolina, or another location far from the capital. He believes that the move, which could be announced in the coming days, will save money and make research more relevant.

But some critics see the relocation plan as another attempt by the Trump administration to diminish the role of science in government policymaking. Economists at the research service, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their views of the office’s internal dynamics, said they believed they were being shipped out of town as retribution for producing work that clashed with the administration’s agenda.