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A Republican opposition researcher with a potential connection to President Trump's former national security adviser Mike Flynn tried to obtain emails he thought were stolen from Hillary Clinton's email server, according to a new report.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith implied to people he sought to recruit to participate in his mission to access the stolen emails that he was working with Flynn, who was then a national security adviser to then-candidate Trump.

The Journal said the stolen emails in question were likely hacked by Russians.

The newspaper reported that emails written by Smith and one of his associates show Flynn and his consulting company, Flynn Intel Group, were allies in their effort.

Flynn's actual role in the project is unknown, the Journal reports. Smith told the Journal he knew Flynn but didn't say if he was involved. Smith, 81, died about a week and a half after his interview with the Journal, the report notes.

A Trump campaign official told the Journal that Smith never worked for them, and if Flynn coordinated with Smith, it would have been in his private capacity.

The Journal reports that U.S. investigators, as part of the probe of Russia's election interference, have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Clinton's server and then give them to Flynn through an intermediary.

Smith was targeting 33,000 emails that Clinton said were deleted and not provided to investigators because they were personal. Smith thought the emails might have been obtained by hackers and that they actually concerned official matters Clinton wanted to hide.

The Journal said Smith gave no evidence for his speculation.

Former FBI Director James Comey has said there is no evidence Clinton's private server has been hacked, but he left open the possibility it might have been.

Flynn is a central figure of investigations into Russia election interference and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Flynn was fired from his role as national security adviser after admitting he had misled the vice president and other White House officials about the contents of a phone call he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. weeks before Trump's inauguration.

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Republican operative tied to Mike Flynn tried to obtain Hillary Clinton's emails: Report - Washington Examiner

Six months after taking control of the White House and both houses of Congress, Republicans who campaigned for years on repealing Obamacare still cant agree on how to do it.

A chief reason that the struggle has been so hard is the growing importance in the party of populist blue-collar voters, whom Trump proved adept at courting, but Republicans risk alienating with their healthcare overhaul.

Its true, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday after temporarily shelving a vote on the healthcare bill, that legislation of this complexity almost always takes longer than anybody else would hope.

Its also true, as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said, that President Trump is new to government, and "it has been a challenge to him to learn how to interact with Congress." Trump, who touts himself as the closer in big deals, has proven ineffective in that role so far in the Senate, in part because of a failure to master not just the details of healthcare policy, but the broad outlines of how the bill would work.

But something more than the complexity of the subject and the dysfunction of the White House has stymied Republicans: The split over healthcare highlights a deep division that threatens to paralyze them as a governing party.

A side-by-side comparison of Obamacare and the GOPs replacement plans

Republicans were seemingly so disciplined in not lending any support to Democrats during the Obama years that we thought they were unified, said Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University and expert on Congress.

Weve overestimated cohesion in the Republican Party, she said, noting that Republicans have become more ideologically diverse over the last decade.

The splits within the party have McConnell and his allies scrambling to get the 50 votes they would need in the Senate to pass a bill, a goal he repeated on Wednesday. McConnell hopes to reach a deal by Friday, before senators leave for a weeklong July 4 recess, and then vote on it when they return. However, the longer the bill is exposed to public scrutiny and attack, not just from Democrats, but from doctors groups, hospital officials, insurers and some Republican governors, the harder the search for votes will become, he and his lieutenants fear.

Alex Brandon / Associated Press

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell listens to a question while speaking with the media after a meeting with President Trump at the White House.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell listens to a question while speaking with the media after a meeting with President Trump at the White House. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

If Republicans cant agree, McConnell said after senators met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday, well have to sit down with Sen. [Charles. E.] Schumer, the Democratic leader to negotiate a solution to at least tackle the most acute problems with the Obamacare markets.

But he made clear that bipartisan discussion was not his first choice. My suspicion is any negotiation with Democrats will include none of the reforms that we would like to make on the market side and the Medicaid side, he added.

Republicans determination to pass the healthcare bill might seem puzzling in light of its deep unpopularity with voters. A poll for National Public Radio and PBS, conducted by the polling institute at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and released Wednesday, found, for example, that only one in five people approved of how the Republicans are handling healthcare. Even among those who identified themselves as Trump supporters, opinion was evenly divided on how the party is dealing with the issue, while Trump opponents were almost unanimous in their distaste for it.

Asked specifically about the Senate bill, just 17% of Americans and only 35% of Republicans said they approved of it.

Two other nationwide surveys, done by polling institutes at Suffolk University in Massachusetts and Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, showed similar results.

One counterbalance to the bills unpopularity is pressure from the partys donors, who tend to be ideological conservatives.

At a recent donor conference organized by the network of groups affiliated with the billionaire Koch brothers, Doug Deason, a major Republican donor from Dallas, told reporters that he and other wealthy Texans had let Republicans know that they would stop sending money until Congress started fulfilling key campaign promises, including repealing the Affordable Care Act, as Obamacare is formally known.

You control the Senate, you control the House, we have the presidency, theres no reason we cant get this done, Deason said he told House Republicans, including Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). Were closing the checkbook until you get some things done, he said.

But pressure from donors is not the only factor. The same survey that revealed widespread unpopularity for the Senate bill also showed that 53% of Republicans still said they wanted Congress to completely repeal Obamacare. Among the public as a whole, 25% took that view, while 46% said Congress should change the law so it does more, and another 17% said they should leave it as it is.

A close look at how people voted last fall helps explain the divided impulses among Republicans. The partys victory in 2016 depended on two very different groups traditional conservatives and conservative populists who have clashing interests in the healthcare debate.

Political analysts often look at how voters line up on two different sets of issues economic subjects, such as the proper size of the social safety net, the role of government in the economy and inequality between rich and poor; and social issues, including race, immigration and moral questions like abortion.

Analyzed that way, voters typically separate into four big clusters. A recent large-scale study of 2016 voters, conducted by a team of political scientists for the Democracy Fund, a nonpartisan foundation, found that the largest group, making up about 45% of voters, was consistently liberal on both economic and social questions. Thats the Democratic Partys core not a majority, but relatively cohesive on most policy issues.

The opposite end of the spectrum conservatives on both economic and social issues made up just under 25% of the vote. Thats the traditional activist core of the GOP.

What allowed Trump to win and also helped create the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, is the degree of support they got from the roughly 30% of voters who hold conservative views on social issues but relatively liberal ones on the role of government. Those voters, often labeled populists, are typically blue-collar, less affluent and often drawn to Republicans despite the partys views on economic issues, not because of them.

The fourth group liberal on social issues, but conservative on economics has appeal in some elite circles, but is extremely small among ordinary voters, less than 5% of the voters in 2016.

There are a lot of people who voted Republican because of cultural and identity issues, but who want government programs that help them, said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America, a Washington-based think tank, who analyzed voting behavior for the study.

The conflicting pressures that those two groups of voters create for Republican elected officials has been a key factor in the legislative stalemate.

Republican senators such as ones from Ohio, West Virginia, Maine and Nevada who have balked at the Senate bill have constituents who like these programs, including Medicaid and parts of the Affordable Care Act, Drutman said. If theyre taken away, a lot of these voters will be upset.

Trump in his campaign seemed to understand that view, and unlike most of his Republicans rivals, he opposed cuts in entitlement programs.

I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, Trump declared in a Twitter message early on in his quest. Since his election, he has seemed intermittently aware of the tension between the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare and the needs of many of his voters, backing the healthcare bill in public, but then calling it mean after it passed the House and saying that the Senate should add more money to produce a measure with heart.

Shrinking Medicaid, the governments 50-year-old program of medical assistance to the poor, however, forms the largest element of the bill, despite Trumps campaign stand. The Senate version would reduce spending on Medicaid by $772 billion over the next decade, a cut of about 25%, and would push some 15 million people off Medicaid coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The president has not put forward a policy proposal of his own to achieve the measure with heart that he says he would prefer. Thats part of a larger theme of the Trump presidency so far: The administration has produced almost no specific policy proposals to back up Trumps populist economic message. Trumps strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, and his domestic policy advisor, Stephen Miller, have tried to push forward more specifically populist policies, but have had little success outside of immigration policy.

By default, that has left the policy field largely to the traditional conservatives, who have used the quest to overturn the Affordable Care Act as a vehicle for their long-term goal of cutting taxes and reducing Medicaid.

For them, despite the efforts unpopularity, the opportunity to roll back Medicaid and pass a big tax cut was sort of a dream come true, said Binder. Now, it may have backfired.

A side-by-side comparison of Obamacare and the GOPs replacement plans

Staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Brian Bennett contributed to this report.

David.Lauter@latimes.com

For more on Politics and Policy, follow me @DavidLauter

Get the latest news from the nations capital on Essential Washington >>

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Healthcare debate highlights the split that threatens to paralyze Republicans - Los Angeles Times

Fiction.

Columbia Pictures

The Republican health care bill has stalled in the Senate, at least until after the July 4th recess, and for people who live in states with Republican senators, the delay poses a rare opportunity to reach out and let the senate know exactly how they feel about the AHCA. But before picking up the phone, Slates chosen three movies that will help you understand the Republican health care plan backwards and forwards. Check these movies out and youll be an AHCA expert in no time, ready to talk rings around anyone answering the phone at your senators office. Take a look, and get ready to learn to speak Republican!

Its true that you wont find many wonkish health care policy details in F.W. Murnaus 1922 silent masterpiece. But as a primer in the small government philosophy that underlies the Republican partys signature legislation, Count Orloks vampiric reign of terror is at least as instructive as an Ayn Rand novel. Give it a watch to get pumped up before dialing your senator, and remember: Republicans cant enter your house unless you invite them.

You might think that Werner Herzogs 1979 remake of Murnaus film would have just as little to say about effectively lobbying against Trumpcare as the original version. But have you considered that, in many ways, the Republican health care plan resembles the sort of legislation that might be drafted by a political party that was created to serve the interests of vampires? Whos got his finger on the political pulse now?

Yes, I am literally saying that the people who support the AHCA are vampiresand not, like, sexy teenage vampires, but the German Expressionist kind, the ugliest vampires there ever were. Will watching three different films about the same vampire prepare you to call your senators and beg them not to pass a bill that will cause your fellow citizens to suffer and possibly die, just as surely as they would if Count Orlok were drinking their precious blood? I mean, at this point, what harm could it do?

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These Three Movies Will Help You Understand the Republican Health Care Bill - Slate Magazine (blog)

(Update, 8:29 p.m. ET: The White House confirmed Carrs nomination.)

U.S. President Donald Trump has named his pick to fill the final open Republican position at the Federal Communications Commission: Its Brendan Carr, a former telecom lawyer who currently serves as the agencys general counsel.

Carrs nomination confirmed to Recode on Wednesday by two sources, then the White House gives the FCCs current chairman, Ajit Pai, a reliable political ally as he continues his push to deregulate the telecom industry, including recent efforts to scrap the governments existing net neutrality rules.

Carr joined the FCC as an attorney advisor in 2012, and he became a top legal advisor to then-commissioner Pai in 2014. Once Democrats lost the White House and thus no longer controlled the FCC Pai became chairman, and in January, he named Carr as acting general counsel of the agency.

Before arriving in government, Carr represented some of the companies he may soon regulate. For years, he served as a lawyer at Wiley Rein, one of the top telecom-focused law firms in Washington, D.C., and he aided AT&T, Verizon and their main trade associations, USTelecom and the wireless-focused lobbying group, CTIA.

Carr must still survive a grilling by lawmakers, followed by a vote in the Senate. But his already-high prospects for confirmation are aided by the fact that there is also an open Democratic slot at the FCC. Typically, lawmakers pair nominees from both parties together, and vote on them as a pack.

Earlier this month, Trump nominated Jessica Rosenworcel, who had served as a Democratic commissioner at the FCC until the end of 2016. The move drew the support of the partys lawmakers, who merely ran out of time to vote on her renomination before her term expired.

If confirmed, Carr and Rosenworcel would restore the FCC to its full strength of five members: Pai, the chairman, plus Michael ORielly, a Republican commissioner, and Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat whose term is soon expiring.

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President Trump has nominated Brendan Carr to fill the final Republican slot at the FCC - Recode

(WASHINGTON) It was a platform most politicians can only hope for: A captivated, 6,000-person crowd and more than an hour of live, prime-time television coverage to hype the Republican vision for a new health care system.

But when President Donald Trump got around to talking about the Republican plan about 15 minutes into his speech he was wildly off message. Instead of preaching party lines about getting the government out of Americans' health decisions and cutting costs, he declared: "Add some money to it!"

The moment captured a major dilemma for Republicans as they look for ways to jumpstart their stalled health care overhaul. A master salesman, Trump has an inimitable ability to command attention, and that could be used to bolster Americans' support for Republican efforts and ramp up pressure on wavering lawmakers. But some lawmakers and congressional aides privately bemoan his thin grasp of the bill's principles, and worry that his difficulty staying on message will do more harm than good.

"You know, he's very personable and people like talking to him and he's very embracing of that, so there will be certain people he'd like to talk to," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. "But I'd let Mitch handle it," he continued, referring to the lead role Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has played thus far.

McConnell delayed a vote on the health legislation this week after it became clear he couldn't muster enough Republican support to offset the unanimous opposition from Democrats. GOP leaders are now hoping to pass a bill in the Senate and reconcile it with an earlier version approved by the House before lawmakers head home for their August recess.

Trump has largely ceded the details to McConnell, deferring to the Kentucky lawmaker's legislative expertise. He has spent some time talking privately to wavering senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, testing his powers of persuasion. But he's invested no significant effort in selling the American people on the impact the Republican bill would have on their health care coverage, beyond making sweeping declarations about how wonderful he expects it to be.

"We're looking at a health care that will be a fantastic tribute to your country," Trump said during a White House event Wednesday. "A health care that will take care of people finally for the right reasons and also at the right cost."

His approach is a contrast to former President Barack Obama, who delivered an address to Congress on health care and held town halls around the country about the Democrats' legislation in 2009. The Obamacare measure barely cleared Congress and became a rallying cry for Republicans, something Obama blamed in part on a failure by his party to communicate its virtues clearly to the public.

At times, even Trump's largely generic health care commentary has left Republicans fuming. Some lawmakers were particularly irked by Trump's assertion that the House bill which he robustly supported and even celebrated with a Rose Garden ceremony was "mean."

One Republican congressional aide said that comment left some lawmakers worried that the president who had no real ties to the GOP before running for the White House could turn on them if a bill passes but the follow-up becomes politically damaging. The official insisted on anonymity in order to describe private discussions.

Newt Gingrich, the former GOP House speaker and a close Trump ally, said Republicans have struggled to communicate about the complexities of health care policy because "nobody has served as a translator." He said Trump is well-positioned to take the lead, but acknowledged that the real estate mogul-turned-politician would need some help from policy experts in formulating a sales pitch.

"Trump will be able to repeat it with enormous effectiveness once somebody translates it," Gingrich said.

The White House disputes that Trump isn't steeped in the details of the Obamacare repeal efforts. Economic adviser Gary Cohn and other officials on the National Economic Council have convened several meetings with him to explain differences between the House and Senate bills. One senior White House official described the president as "fully engaged" in the process.

During a private meeting Tuesday with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who is strongly opposed to the current Senate bill, Trump said his priority was to increase the number of insurance choices available to consumers and lower monthly premiums, according to an administration official with direct knowledge of the discussion. The official said the president also specifically highlighted the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office's projection that average premiums would be 30 percent lower in 2020 if the Senate bill took effect.

To some Trump allies, more public engagement on a substantive policy debate like the future of the nation's health care system would also be a welcome reprieve for a president whose approval ratings have tumbled amid the snowballing investigations into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia.

"I think his numbers would go up if he had a couple of addresses," said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign adviser. "If he communicates directly with the American people, he cuts through the noise."

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Republicans Aren't Sure President Trump Is the Best Person to Sell Health Care - TIME