The Russia Thing: Contradicting their counterparts in the House, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report yesterday saying Russia did in fact meddle with the 2016 US election to help Donald Trump win. The Committee said it agrees with the assessment of US intelligence agencies that Russia helped Trump — an assessment Trump has dismissed.

It’s a year today that Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel to investigate Russian influence on the election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Despite administration urgings for Mueller to wrap it up, there’s no end in sight.

Trump’s new aimcrier Rudy Giuliani said on Fox News, “Mueller should now bring this to a close. It’s been a year. He’s gotten 1.4 million documents, he’s interviewed 28 witnesses. And he has nothing, which is why he wants to bring the president into an interview.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday released 2500 pages of testimony about the infamous meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. testified that he never told his father about the meeting, but he made an 11-minute phone call to a blocked number soon after. Junior said he couldn’t remember who he spoke to on that call. The testimony:

Q: “Does your father used a blocked number on his cellphone or on any phones that you call him on?”

Junior: “I don’t know.”

Q: “So you don’t know whether this might have been your father?”

Junior: “I don’t.”

President Trump was known to have had a blocked number in Trump Tower. What he knew and what role he played in events around the Tower meeting are critical in connecting the President to Russian influencing.

Junior also demurred when asked whether his father helped draft a misleading statement explaining the meeting after it was revealed in the press. The testimony:

Q “To the best of your knowledge, did the president provide any edits to the statement or other input?”

Junior: “He may have commented through Hope Hicks.”

Q: “And do you know if his comments provided through Hope Hicks were incorporated into the final statement?”

Junior: “I believe some may have been, but this was an effort through lots of people, mostly counsel.”

The Payoff: President Trump revealed in his financial disclosure statement yesterday that he had reimbursed his lawyer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 Cohen paid porn actress Stormy Daniels. When news broke about the hush money, Trump originally denied knowing anything about it.

The revelation raises the question of whether his failure to disclose the payment last year was improper. Trump signed last year’s disclosure form with the pledge that,  “I certify that the statements I have made in this report are true, complete and correct to the best of my knowledge.”

Under federal law, an official who “knowingly and willfully falsifies information” on a financial disclosure could be charged with a crime.

Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti tweeted, “Mr. Trump’s disclosure today conclusively proves that the American people were deceived by Mr. Cohen, Mr. Trump, Mr. Schwartz, the WH, and Mr. Giuliani. This was NOT an accident and it was not isolated. Cover-ups should always matter.”

Truth and Consequences: Speaking to graduates at Virginia Military Institute, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took a barely veiled swipe at President Trump saying, “If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.”

Tillerson went on, “A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not, what a fact is and is not.” He said, “When we as people, a free people, go wobbly on the truth, even on what may seem the most trivial of matters, we go wobbly on America.”

Nation: Michigan State University has agreed to pay $500 million to settle claims by more than 300 women and girls who said they were assaulted by sports doctor Larry Nassar in the worst sex-abuse case in sports history. Seventy-five million of that will be held in a trust for victims who may identify themselves later. Nassar is in prison for life.— Thousands of teachers wearing red t-shirts gathered at the North Carolina capitol in Raleigh yesterday, demanding better pay and more money for schools. At times they chanted, “Remember, remember, we vote in November!”  School was cancelled for about a million public school students. — A Florida man died when his electronic cigarette exploded. It’s believed to be the first vaping death.

Anonymous: An unemployed man in the Bronx won $5 million in the lottery and wants to keep his identity secret so his neighbors won’t know. The NY Post tracked him down and put a picture of a hoodie-wearing man on the front page with the headline, “Meet John Dough.”

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