TRAPPED BY THEIR OWN CONSPIRACY THEORIES:

The Daily Beast has learned that Barr and Durham were especially interested in what the Italian secret service knew about Joseph Mifsud, the erstwhile professor from Malta who had allegedly promised then candidate Donald Trump's campaign aide George Papadopoulos he could deliver Russian "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The Italian Justice Ministry public records show that Mifsud had applied for police protection in Italy after disappearing from Link University where he worked and, in doing so, had given a taped deposition to explain just why people might want to harm him. 

A source in the Italian Ministry of Justice, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Daily Beast that Barr and Durham were played the tape. A second source within the Italian government also confirmed to The Daily Beast that Barr and Durham were shown other evidence the Italians had on Mifsud. 

Ever since Robert Mueller concluded his probe in March 2019, Barr has worked to blunt its impact--and investigate the investigators behind it. Barr assigned Durham to look into the Mueller probe's origins. And the Attorney General's name is listed in the whistleblower complaint about the July 25 call Trump made to the Ukrainian president to pressure him into investigating political rival Joe Biden. According to the complaint, Barr was directly involved in the president's attempt to "solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." The minutiae of his involvement are feeding a scandal gripping Washington that changes by the nano-second. [...]

The Italian intelligence community had Mifsud on their radar for some years before he got involved in the Trump campaign's troubles. His affiliations with both the Link University of Rome and London Center of International Law Practice--both often affiliated with western diplomacy and foreign intelligence agencies--made him an easy target. So did the slew of apartments he owned in Malta that are allegedly tied to a racket involving Russians buying Maltese passports for cheap. 

Mifsud [...]  was in no position to be anyone's mentor. The Ph.D. program was bogus and Mifsud would soon be ousted in a scandal.

Ruvina eventually got a refund for the two weeks she spent at the university in 2012 and began her dissertation elsewhere. Mifsud has since shot to international prominence as a lynchpin of the investigation into Donald Trump's presidential campaign and its ties to the Russian government.

A court document made public last year by U.S. prosecutors alleged that it was Mifsud who dropped the first hint of the hacking that rocked the 2016 U.S. election when he met Trump adviser George Papadopoulos on April 26, 2016, in London and told him the Kremlin had "thousands of emails" on his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton.

An Associated Press investigation of Mifsud's career has uncovered an international trail of mismanagement and financial problems stretching over a decade. It doesn't answer the key question of whether Mifsud was acting on behalf of Russian interests -- wittingly or otherwise -- when he allegedly passed the tip to the Trump campaign team, but it does sketch out a bizarre academic career punctuated by scandals and disappearing acts.

ALL THE BATTLEGROUNDS ARE RED:

Democrats are targeting GOP Rep. Michael McCaul in Texas' 10th District. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)

A handful of Republican-held House seats in the Texas suburbs represent fertile ground for competitive races in 2020, according to recent Democratic polling. 

The surveys in six GOP districts, shared first with CQ Roll Call, are a sign that Democratic outside groups are willing to spend resources in the Lone Star State, where party leaders believe they can make gains next year. The polls were commissioned by House Majority Forward, the nonprofit arm of House Majority PAC, a super PAC tied to the chamber's Democratic leadership.

Three of the districts surveyed have GOP incumbents running for reelection, including Reps. Michael McCaul in the 10th District, Chip Roy in the 21st and John Carter in the 31st. Polls were also conducted in three open-seat races in the 22nd, 23rd and 24th districts. Republicans won all six seats in 2018, all by margins of 5 points or less.

ONE OF THE SADDEST LIES OF THIS ADMINISTRATION...:

When President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared on cable news programs last week, he deflected questions about his work in Ukraine and instead hammered home one talking point over and over again: The State Department knew he was trying to dig up dirt on 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. 

Giuliani waved his phone on air, flashing text messages between himself and State Department representatives, saying it was the department that connected him to a close adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Giuliani's on-air appearances threw the department into a tizzy, forcing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to try to quell a bubbling internal crisis of confidence, according to three senior U.S. officials. For Pompeo, to solve the problem meant to find someone to blame, and there was only one individual who fit the mold, according to those same sources: former U.S. representative for Ukraine negotiations Kurt Volker.

Volker resigned on Friday. But despite his resignation, the State Department has scrambled to correct course, according to these same U.S. officials, especially after news that Pompeo was on the now-infamous call between President Trump and Zelensky in July. Pompeo had previously denied knowing about it on national television. On top of that, three congressional committees subpoenaed Pompeo for documents related to Trump and Giuliani's work in Ukraine and demanded that five current and former department officials appear for depositions.  [...]

Pompeo's plan appears to have backfired. Despite the secretary's efforts to block several of his current and former officials from speaking to Congress, Volker is set to go to Capitol Hill on Thursday with the backing of a cadre of current and former diplomats. Some of those diplomats spoke to The Daily Beast and requested anonymity because they feared reprisals from Pompeo and other Trump administration officials. 

JUST ANOTHER DEMOCRACY:

ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE:

Last Thursday, Sean Davis of the conservative news site The Federalist broke an explosive revelation. The Intelligence Community had secretly changed a requirement in its whistle-blower statute to allow whistle-blowers to report secondhand allegations, whereas firsthand knowledge had been required before. This suspicious rule change allegedly allowed the whistle-blower to accuse President Trump of misconduct despite lacking firsthand knowledge of said conduct. The shocking exposure of yet another Deep State plot quickly became the foundation for Trump's defenders as they fanned out across the media.

"The hearsay rule was changed just a short period of time before the complaint was filed," claimed Senator Lindsey Graham. The whistle-blower "has no firsthand knowledge," charged Congressman Jim Jordan on CNN, and when host Jake Tapper noted that firsthand knowledge is not required to file a complaint, Jordan shot back that this was only "because they changed the form. You used to." Meanwhile, Trump demanded, in all caps, "WHO CHANGED THE LONG STANDING WHISTLEBLOWER RULES JUST BEFORE SUBMITTAL OF THE FAKE WHISTLEBLOWER REPORT?"

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed, "Just days before the Ukraine whistleblower came forward, the IC secretly removed that requirement from the complaint form," and promised that Republicans would "not rest until we have answers."

They had answers. They just didn't like them. Actual experts in intelligence law immediately pointed out that Davis's reporting was false and was based on a simple misreading of a change in the wording of a form.

Then yesterday, the Intelligence Community's inspector general, Trump appointee Michael Atkinson, posted a short statement online correcting Davis. Using heavily bureaucratized language and the patient and polite tone city officials use to assure the local gadfly that the water department is not sending alien nodes through his plumbing, the I.G. made a few basic points. First, the rules governing whistle-blowers have not changed. At all.

"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!":

HE'S GETTING HIS PENSION TOO:

A judge told federal prosecutors on Monday that they needed to charge former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe or stop investigating whether he lied to authorities.

LAUGHINGSTOCK:

This was literally a joke that Obama used in 2011 to mock Republicans on border security: https://t.co/fg0QlGs9Nh https://t.co/buPejqeHRQ

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) October 1, 2019

WHEN DOING THE RIGHT THING BECOMES THE EXPEDIENT THING:

Next year, 23 Senate Republicans will be up for reelection with Trump at the top of the ticket.

Murphy warned that, given Trump's antics, Senate Republicans are thinking they are "going to lose Colorado with Cory Gardner. We're going to lose Maine with Susan Collins. We're going to lose Arizona with Martha McSally. And the Democrats will put the Senate very much in play."

At one time, Trump kept Capitol Hill Republicans in line by threatening to have his supporters back a primary challenge to any dissenting GOP member seeking reelection.

Now, that threat has to be weighed against the increasing fear of a weakened president handing the Senate to Democrats.

There is evidence that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) sees impeachment imperiling his majority next year.

Last week, McConnell showed independence from Trump by coming out publicly in support of continuing military aid to Ukraine.

More important, he also pushed the White House to share the whistleblower complaint with Congress.

And McConnell has to deal with a well-known Senate Republican daring to separate himself from Trump on the Ukraine scandal -- Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).

Romney said he is "deeply troubled" to see reports of Trump pressuring the Ukrainian president to damage Biden. And he later told reporters: "I can't imagine being in the Senate or in any other position of responsibility and looking around to see who's with you. You stand for what you believe in." [...]

But Romney is not the only Republican willing to speak out.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) -- who was recently endorsed for reelection by Trump -- is on the record as saying Republicans "ought not just circle the wagons."

AND IT TAKES A REAL EFFORT TO EARN THAT LITTLE:

New York City's poverty rate has declined to historic lows, amid increases in both median household income and jobs , according new census data.

On Tuesday, the de Blasio administration said the city's poverty rate fell to 17.3 percent in 2018, a drop of 3.5 percent since 2013. The poverty rate is the lowest rate for the city since the American Community Survey began releasing annual data in 2006, according to the mayor's press release. City Hall also said that based on its analysis of decennial census data, the poverty level is also the lowest since the 1970s.

In 2016, the city's poverty threshold for a household consisting of two adults and two children was measured as $32,402.

SO MUCH WINNING!:

TRUMPONOMICS:

Bayou Steel Group filed for bankruptcy Monday, threatening hundreds of jobs after the company ran low on cash and defaulted on its debt.

The steelmaker idled most of its operations and sought Chapter 11 protection in Delaware, it said in a statement. Close to 400 workers may be impacted by the shutdown of Bayou's plant near New Orleans, Natalie Robottom, a local government official, said.

The company sought protection from creditors after a "severe lack in liquidity" led to a default on its senior secured debt, according to the statement. Bayou, which produces steel products like reinforcing bars and beams, will offload its remaining inventory and hopes to sell its assets to a buyer who will restart operations, the company said.

Bayou Steel is "particularly vulnerable" to tariffs because it uses imported scrap metal, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said in a statement following the layoffs. 

THOSE WACKY TRUMPBOTS:

A 13-year veteran of conspiracy website Infowars said in a recent court deposition that he repeatedly attempted to warn staff not to spread obvious lies about the parents of Sandy Hook, only to be met with laughter and ridicule.

"I must have been in that room four to five times, at least, and only to be received with laughter and jokes," Rob Jacobson, who worked at Infowars from 2004 to 2017 doing video production, testified.

THE FACTS ARE A TOUGH TASKMASTER:

For much of this year, Rudy Giuliani was counting on Ukraine's former chief prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, to reopen a dormant investigation into an energy company where Joe Biden's son, Hunter, had once served as a board member.

In an early May phone call with NBC, Giuliani called Lutsenko a "much more honest guy" than the previous, Kremlin-aligned prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, whom the Ukrainian Parliament sacked for failing to crack down on corruption.

Lutsenko recently told NBC News the two talked about ten times and the New York Times reported that Giuliani's allegations that Joe Biden's family engaged in wrongdoing in Ukraine were based on a series of meetings with Lutsenko.

In a White House transcript of a July 25 phone call, President Trump seemed to admonish the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for firing Lutsenko: "I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything."

But in a series of interviews with NBC and other news outlets this weekend, Lutsenko said he could find no evidence of wrongdoing involving the Bidens and violations of Ukrainian law....

NOTHING COSTS MORE THAN IT USED TO:

BRITT OVERBOARD:

This is gross. Celebrating a brutal dictatorship on its survival. https://t.co/AlXd2gZiow

— Brit Hume (@brithume) October 1, 2019

PURITAN NATION:

Statistically speaking, people have been ready for something like Special Effects for a while. The demand for nonalcoholic beverages has been steadily growing over the last five years; meanwhile, beer sales have flattened. One report found that while NA beers claim just 5% of the current global beer market, the category is experiencing growth of 3.9% on average annually, making it the fastest growing segment of the beer market. Consumer habits back that up. Research from Brooklyn Brewery found 44% of 21- to 34-year-old beer drinkers (read: a very monetizable demographic) actively take time off from drinking alcohol. Fifty-four percent of beer drinkers are looking for ways to reduce their alcohol consumption.

WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?:

President Donald Trump marked the 70th anniversary of the "People's Republic" with the following congratulatory tweet: "Congratulations to President Xi and the Chinese people on the 70th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China!" But Senate Republicans have marked the anniversary with condemnation of the regime. Missouri senator Josh Hawley: "Seventy years ago, the Chinese Community Party seized power from the Chinese people. Since then, its ruthless rule has resulted in the deaths of millions of its own citizens." Arkansas senator Tom Cotton: "To see the price of the PRC's anniversary celebration, look no further than what's happening in Hong Kong: a ceaseless war against those who wish to live in freedom. From the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution to the camps in Xinjiang today, it has been a ghoulish 70 years of Chinese Communist Party control." Nebraska senator Ben Sasse: "Today Chinese tyrants celebrated 70 years of communist oppression with their typically brutal symbolism: by sending a police officer to shoot a pro-democracy protester at point-blank range. The freedom-seekers in Hong Kong mourn this anniversary, and the American people stand with them against those who deny their God-given dignity."

TRUMPONOMICS:

The Institute for Supply Management reported Tuesday that the industry's activity hit its lowest level in September since June 2009, when the country was finally emerging from the Great Recession, even though the U.S. economy continues to grow overall.

SHE WAS WARNED NOT TO LOOK INTO THE ABYSS...:

The House Ethics Committee is reviewing payments Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) made to herself following her 2018 election win, the freshman congresswoman's office confirmed Monday. 

While candidates are permitted to draw a salary from their campaign coffers from the time they win their primary until election day, Tlaib paid herself tens of thousands of dollars in two payments following the election on November 6. 

AIN'T GONNA WORK ON MAGA FARM NO MORE:

Iowa Republican senator Chuck Grassley issued the following statement today:

"This person appears to have followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and protected."

WHIZZED ID:

Normally, I ignore the Presidential tweets. I assume that they are mostly a game, designed to rile up his base or, more often, muddy the political waters so that his wrong-doing and incompetence are concealed in Whataboutist complaints about Democrats. And I do think a lot his defenders are playing that water-muddying game. Rudy Giuliani, for example, is talking about how the whistleblower complaint is "hearsay" even though, as a lawyer and former prosecutor, he knows perfectly well that hearsay is often admissible in Court, let alone a Congressional inquiry.

But I don't think that's the case here. I don't think this is a carefully calculated smokescreen or Trump grinning inanely while riling up his followers. I think we're getting a very real peek into the President's id, an insight into what he is really like.

IT'S A DEFLATIONARY EPOCH:

Australia's interest rates have dipped below one per cent for the first time, but the Reserve Bank is already preparing to cut them further if the economy remains stagnant. [...]

"Taken together, recent outcomes suggest that the Australian economy can sustain lower rates of unemployment and underemployment."

The low wage growth means Australia hasn't met the RBA's inflation targets...

WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT RACIST WHITE GUYS?:

2% of black voters approve of how President Trump is handling his job in new Quinnipiac poll

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) September 30, 2019

SIC TRANSIT MAGA:

Strache led the Freedom Party for 14 years. He also served as vice-chancellor from 2017 to 2019 before he was forced from the government after video footage emerged of him appearing to offer public contracts in exchange for campaign help from what turned out to be a fake Russian backer.

WHAT'S THE AUSTRALIAN FOR "OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE"?:

President Trump has continually condemned the Mueller inquiry into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 US election as a "witch hunt".

But a meeting between former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Trump campaign aid George Papadopoulos in May 2016, is believed to have helped trigger an initial FBI inquiry into the matter.

At a London bar, Mr Downer was allegedly told about Russian material that could damage Donald Trump's political rival Hillary Clinton - but the Trump campaign aid disputes this version of events.

Mr Downer informed the Australian government about the details of their conversation, which were later relayed to United States authorities.

He has confirmed having this conversation with Mr Papadopoulos.

"I've got nothing to say about it beyond what I've ever said," he told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

A year on, former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed to lead an investigation into the alleged election interference and potential links between the Russian government and Trump's campaign team.

The Mueller report became a source of hope for President's Trump's political rivals believing the investigation could lead to his downfall.

It implicated 34 members of Trump's campaign team with wrongdoing through indictments, convictions and guilty pleas.

But the final report found insufficient evidence to determine if Trump's campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia.

Its final 448 pages of findings did not reach a conclusion on whether President Trump had committed obstruction of justice through the investigation.

At the time, President Trump said the probe had found "no collusion with Russia" and backed his "complete and total exoneration".

But Mr Mueller later told reporters: "if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so."

Attorney General William Barr launched a counter inquiry into the origins of the Russia investigation in May this year. 

It came after President Trump urged his attorney general to examine the role of the FBI and intelligence agencies and even Australia in setting off the investigation into alleged Russian links.

THE dEEP sTATE IS NOT AMUSED:

The intelligence community inspector general issued a statement Monday refuting false claims by President Trump and his allies about the whistleblower whose complaint on his interactions with Ukraine triggered a formal impeachment inquiry.

Why it matters: It's rare for the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community to issue such a statement. But it did so after the president and loyalist lawmakers made false claims while attacking the whistleblower's credibility over the complaint concerning Trump urging Ukraine investigate his political rival Joe Biden and his family.

ONCE YOU SECURE THE REGIME THE DEMOCRACY CAN FLOURISH:

When Ahmet Davutoglu was forced out as Turkey's prime minister in May 2016, he pledged eternal loyalty to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "I will sustain my faithful relationship with our president until my last breath," vowed Erdogan's long-serving foot soldier, despite the well-known tensions between the two. "No one has ever heard -- and will ever hear -- a single word against our president come from my mouth."

Fast-forward three years and the bookish, bespectacled academic has broken that silence to emerge as an outspoken critic of Erdogan's government. On Sept. 13, Davutoglu resigned from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) after being threatened with expulsion by the group he once chaired. The 60-year-old is one of several former ministers to have quit the party in recent months. And he is leading one of the two factions plotting to form their own movements to challenge Erdogan. The second is led by Ali Babacan, a 52-year-old former economy minister and deputy prime minister, who has the backing of another onetime Erdogan ally, former AKP President Abdullah Gül.

The veteran politicians are expected to officially launch new parties before the end of the year. Senior figures in both camps say they have been driven by growing alarm at what they see as Erdogan's increasingly oppressive tactics toward opponents, his harsh nationalistic rhetoric, economic mismanagement, disregard for the rule of law and apparent unwillingness to listen to those urging him to change course.

"We thought maybe he would get the message," says a senior AKP dissident. "But there were always excuses....  'If we don't do [something] now, we will regret it in the future.'"

The splintering is significant not only for the unprecedented break that it would represent in the AKP ranks but also for the potential damage it could inflict on Erdogan's 17-year dominance of the national political stage.

In a country where the voting population can be roughly divided into pro- and anti-Erdogan blocks, even shaving a small chunk off the AKP alliance -- which won 52.6 percent in last year's presidential election -- could radically alter the political landscape.