Swamp News: AT&T confirmed that it paid President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen $600,000 through 2017 to act as a consultant.

The company said in an email to its employees earlier this week that it had retained Cohen in 2017 to advise on “regulatory reform at the FCC, corporate tax reform and antitrust enforcement.” Cohen is a legal “fixer” and not an expert on any of those subjects, but he does know the President of the United States.

AT&T has big issues in front of government regulators, including the end of net neutrality rules and its $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner, the parent company of CNN.

Meanwhile, Trump’s new lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has resigned from his law firm after the partners disapproved of his statement about the payment to Stormy Daniels without the President’s knowledge  and what he portrayed as the routine payments of hush money. Giuliani said he’s focusing on his work for the President.

A statement from the law firm Greenberg Traurig said, “Speaking for ourselves, we would not condone payments of the nature alleged to have been made or otherwise without the knowledge and direction of a client.”

If You Can’t Stand the Heat: Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen nearly resigned yesterday after President Trump raged at her in front of the entire cabinet, claiming she has not properly sealed the borders against illegal immigration. Trump’s targeting of Nielsen was part of a general tirade toward the entire cabinet over immigration. Asked about it later, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “The president is committed to fixing our broken immigration system and our porous borders.”

Facebook Friends: The House released about 3500 social media ads placed by the Russian troll farm trying to sow political division during the 2016 election campaign.

The ads were posted as coming from such fictitious organizations as “Secured Borders,” “South United,” “Being Patriotic,” and “Back the Badge.”

One ad asked, “What will happen if Hitlery becomes President and one identified as from a group called Heart of Texas said, “Let’s remind them what Texas is made of and show that we’re ready to SECEDE!” Others tried to foment racial identity and division. A page called Brown Power posted a graphic that featured the Mexican and American flags and the message  “Like and share if you’re proud to be Mexican!”

Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee  said, “The only way we can begin to inoculate ourselves against a future attack is to see first-hand the types of messages, themes and imagery the Russians used to divide us.”

The Kimchi Konnektion: President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un have agreed to meet face-to-face on June 12^th in Singapore in what Trump hopes will be an historic encounter leading to the nuclear disarmament of North Korea. Trump said on Twitter, “We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!”

Fire and Fury: After a lava fissure opened up about a half mile from a geothermal power plant, Hawaiian officials scrambled to remove volatile chemicals. Authorities said that if the lava reached  the stores of  pentane used in the plant’s turbines, the resulting explosion and blast radius could be up to one mile.

Scientists say the volcano will be unpredictable for some time, and violent steam explosions may occur.

Black and White: Employees at The Denver Post are in open revolt against its corporate owners, Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund that is shrinking the paper’s staff and hampering its ability to cover the news. More cuts are  believed to be coming.

Employees marched over the weekend and again on Tuesday wearing t-shirts saying #NEWSMATTERS. One reporter told the paper’s own reporter covering the event, “I’ve never done this before, but I feel like if there’s one thing a journalist can fight for it’s for journalism.”

Denver’s other paper, the Rocky Mountain News closed in 2009 and the Post’s journalists fear their paper may also shut down.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said at the annual meeting of his company, Berkshire Hathaway,

“No one except the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and now probably the Washington Post has come up with a digital product that really in any significant way will replace the revenue that is being lost as print newspapers lose both circulation and advertising … It is very difficult to see — with a lack of success in terms of important dollars rising from digital — it’s difficult to see how the print product survives over time.”

Novel Trouble: Award-winning novelist Junot Díaz has stepped down as chairman of the Pulitzer Board amid accusations of sexual misconduct. He says he welcomes an investigation. A former graduate student accused Díaz of forcibly kissing her when she was 26.

Scotched:  Patrons of Donald Trump’s golf course in Scotland are peeved because he has stopped serving Irn-Bru, the orange-flavored soft drink that’s the Scottish equivalent of Coca Cola. It’s the “other” Scottish national drink.

The Trump management is worried that spilled Irn-Bru will create irremovable orange stains on the carpets. Trump should know. He seems to have spilled some on his hair.

-30-