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Trump Admin Installs Chain-Link Fencing, Surveillance Cameras at Reflecting Pool

(Mediaite) President Donald Trump has not yet been able to offer evidence of the “vandals” he claims damaged the Reflecting Pool, but the administration is not taking any chances, installing surveillance cameras and chain-link fencing around the area on Tuesday. Trump’s decision to drain the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and paint the bottom “American Flag Blue” has been criticized for its cost, plus the no-bid $14 million contract that was given to an ally. Since the pool was refilled, the water has been plagued with spreading bright green algae, and the paint has been peeling away.

Epstein Ex-Secretary Says She Set Up Phone Calls Between Trump And Epstein For Year

(Huff Post) Lesley Groff, former executive secretary for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, told lawmakers that she set up phone calls between her boss and President Donald Trump several times a year for at least a decade, according to a transcript released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee. Groff, who was hired by Epstein in 2001, told lawmakers she didn’t remember setting up any in-person meetings between the two men, but said it was possible, adding later that she would describe their relationship as “friendly.”

Trump heads to Capitol to speak with GOP senators who have grown increasingly frustrated with him

(AP) President Donald Trump is headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with Republican senators who have grown increasingly frustrated with his efforts to divert their agenda. Trump, who will attend a closed-door Senate GOP luncheon for the first time in more than a year, has pressured senators for months to focus on his proof-of-citizenship voting bill even though it doesn’t have the votes to pass. At the same time, he has blocked them from confirming one of his own nominees, asked them to fund parts of his White House ballroom project despite opposition and forced them to defend his Iran war even as they question the strategy and endgame.

Trump's Pick for Top I.R.S. Lawyer Works at Firm That Represents Him

(NY Times) President Trump has nominated a lawyer from a firm that worked on his taxes to become the top attorney at the Internal Revenue Service, an arrangement that could add to the scrutiny that the nomination was already likely to face after the administration granted the president protection from tax audits last month. The White House said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump was nominating James R. Gadwood, a tax lawyer at Miller & Chevalier, to be the chief counsel of the I.R.S. Miller & Chevalier represents DJT Holdings LLC, Mr. Trump’s holding company, in tax matters, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Wednesday's Condensed News Cartoons & Memes

NY-17: Cait Conley wins Democratic primary in blow to Rep. Mike Lawler

(Politico) Republican Rep. Mike Lawler didn’t get the outcome he appeared to want in Tuesday’s election. Army veteran Cait Conley has emerged victorious in the bitter Democratic primary for New York’s 17th Congressional District, setting up a general election fight between a past national security staffer for former President Joe Biden and Lawler. Conley, who served six tours overseas before becoming the National Security Council’s director for counterterrorism, leaned on her military service during her campaign, casting herself as a tough-as-nails political outsider who could cut through the noise and find pragmatic solutions.

Democrats seek probe of Secret Service disbursements

(Roll Call) Top Democratic appropriators are calling on the Government Accountability Office to probe the Trump administration’s release of nearly $400 million of taxpayer funds for a White House East Wing modernization project that includes a ballroom. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who is the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, requested an investigation in a letter to acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown.

Dead ducks add to Trump's reflecting pool drama

(Politico) A local wildlife organization collected two deceased ducks, found at a pond adjacent to the pool Sunday. The same day, a Washington Examiner journalist documented another dead adolescent duck floating in shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. The presence of deceased waterfowl has sparked speculation of toxic algae, sometimes known as blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, in the lime-green gunk that swiftly proliferated after the Trump administration installed a commercial pool liner earlier last month.

Why MAGA buys Trump’s Reflecting Pool hoax: The GOP would love to arrest people who laugh at them

(Salon) The same man who threatened to sue and ban comedians for satirizing him is now overseeing an effort to falsely accuse people of “vandalism” as a pretext to cuff them for laughing at his Reflecting Pool calamity. Trump has gone hard on the “vandalism” conspiracy theory in recent days, telling reporters in a breathless tone on Monday that someone took a “box cutter” and “start(ed) hacking it up,” somehow putting “a 300-foot long gash” in the pool. The tale contradicts comments he made to reporters on May 4, when he bragged that the new lining was “very strong” and “if you had a knife, you can’t even cut it.”

Bill Gates told House panel Epstein was plotting to blackmail him about extramarital affairs

(ABC News) After Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tried to end his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender attempted to use compromising information about Gates' extramarital affairs to force his way back into Gates' life -- but never explicitly threatened him, Gates told the House Oversight Committee earlier this month, according to a transcript of the closed-door session released Tuesday.