The FBI Story: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is in open conflict with the White House over the House Republican vote to release a secret memo that purports to show how the bureau and the Justice Department abused their authority to obtain a warrant to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI said in a statement, “As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Republicans in both the House and Senate are making noise about the legitimacy of the FBI investigation into Russian election influencing. They are making it a bigger issue than what the Russians did. Like the FBI, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee says the memo omits important facts and delivers a politically skewed message.

President Trump has several more days to approve release of the memo. He was overheard after his State of the Union message saying “100 percent” he wants to release the memo, but his lawyers might be advising against it.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California tweeted, “As a Member of the House Judiciary Committee, I read the partisan, classified Nunes House Intel memo. I can’t talk about it. However, here’s an analogy. Remember Geraldo Rivera and the infamous Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults? It’s like that, but Geraldo Rivera has more integrity.”

Towering Inferno: Special Counsel Robert Mueller is focusing on a bogus statement cobbled together on Air Force One last spring to explain away the meeting Donald Trump, Jr. and Jared Kushner took in Trump Tower with a Russian woman peddling campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, The NY Times reports. The news release drafted while in the air falsely said the purpose of the meeting was to talk about a Russian child adoption policy.

The Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 is seen as direct evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. The Times reports that, “Mr. Mueller’s team recently notified Mr. Trump’s lawyers that the Air Force One statement is one of about a dozen subjects that prosecutors want to discuss in a face-to-face interview of Mr. Trump that is still being negotiated.”

Lying to the press is not illegal. But if Trump lies to the FBI about lying to the press, then he’s got trouble.

The Doctor is Out: Dr.  Brenda Fitzgerald, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control, has resigned following the revelation that she invested in tobacco and healthcare companies, a conflict of interest for someone holding her position. An agency statement cited her “complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all her duties as the CDC director.”  The website Politico reported that Dr. Fitzgerald, 71, had traded tobacco stocks after assuming her position at the CDC.

Fitzgerald was appointed by former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, who resigned last summer in disgrace after spending lavishly on questionable business travel.

Game Change: Trey Gowdy, the Tea Party bulldog who put Hillary Clinton under a microscope for her handling of the attack on the Benghazi consulate, announced that he’s leaving politics at the end of his term. He’s the 41^st Republican to announce he’s leaving Congress at the end of his next term.

Gowdy has been one of the roughest players in the House, but he said in a statement, “Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system.”

Word out of Washington is that he’s gunning for a judgeship or a position at the Justice Department.

Copy That: Xerox, the company that created the copying machine, is disappearing in a merger with Fujifilm. The Xerox copying machine revolutionized the flow of paper in an office. It even became a verb. To “Xerox” something means to copy it. But the company was overtaken by cheap copying machines, iPhones, Google Docs, and the cloud.

The Obit Page: Oscar Gamble, a power hitter who spent 17 seasons in the show with seven teams, has died of a rare cancer of the jaw at age 68. In the 1970s Gamble was known for hitting and hair. He played with a giant fluffy Afro which extended at least five inches all around his head.  When he finally got his hair cut in 1973, he said he lost two pounds and two hat sizes.

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