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Presented by PhRMA: Playbook is POLITICO's must-read briefing on what's driving the day in Washington Sep 10, 2018 View in browser
By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, Daniel Lippman and Eli Okun

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BREAKING -- "DeSantis steps down from Congress to focus on governor's race," by Matt Dixon: "Rep. Ron DeSantis is resigning from his seat in Congress to focus on his race for Florida governor, his campaign confirmed Monday. ...

"In his resignation letter to Speaker Paul Ryan, he said he did not want to continue getting a salary because he will 'likely miss the vast majority of our remaining session days.' The resignation was retroactive and effective Sept. 1, his campaign said." POLITICO

THE INVESTIGATIONS -- "Alleged Russian agent Maria Butina shopped access to President Vladimir Putin," by ABC's Pete Madden and Matthew Mosk: "Dozens of pages of email correspondence between August 2015 and November 2016, obtained exclusively by ABC News, reveal Butina's hand in a pair of potentially explosive projects: appearing to arrange a meeting for a delegation of high-ranking members of the National Rifle Association with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and working with the Outdoor Channel to develop a television show highlighting Putin's "love of the outdoors" that would feature the Russian President himself. ...

"But while Butina appears to have succeeded in arranging the meeting with Lavrov, raising the prospect of a discussion between conservative political operatives and a powerful member of Putin's inner circle in the midst of a presidential campaign, her amateur effort to engineer a television show starring Putin never gained significant traction, raising questions about the extent and authenticity of her Kremlin connections." ABC

-- "Misfire: Maria Butina's strange route from Russia to U.S. jail," by AP's Matthew Bodner and Angela Charlton in Moscow: "[H]er far-fetched bid to liberalize gun rights in Russia flamed out. By the time she arrived in Washington in 2014 to network with the NRA, she was peddling a Russian gun rights movement that was already dead. ...

"U.S. court papers suggest the movement was a ruse, created to allow Butina and influential patron Alexander Torshin to infiltrate the NRA and pursue covert Russian back channels to American conservatives as Donald Trump rose to power. ... One possible reason she remained untouched in Russia: Evidence presented by the FBI suggests she and Torshin had links to Russian intelligence." AP

-- "Maria Butina's Beau Snookered Investors With a Shady Oil Deal," by The Daily Beast's Erin Banco: "While he was involved with accused Russian spy Maria Butina, Paul Erickson was trying to sell investors on an oil-rich real estate deal using a company that appears not to have existed on land that he did not own, according to multiple sources, court records, and data reviewed by The Daily Beast. ...

"The Bakken deal also raises questions about how Erickson used the investment money he accumulated. His former business partners now wonder whether the money from the deal went into any of his activities with Butina." The Daily Beast

-- BUTINA HAS a bond hearing this afternoon.

BEN SCHRECKINGER in POLITICO MAGAZINE, "Tinder Woes, Suspicious Landlords and Snarky Bosses: Young and Russian in D.C.": "When Maria Butina, 29, was charged with acting as an unregistered Kremlin agent from her perch as a grad student at American University, it seemed to confirm Washington's worst suspicions about them. Now, more so than ever, the capital's young Russiantonians find themselves living in a battlefield of the new Cold War.

"Their Tinder dates keep asking them if they're spies. Their landlords are interrogating them. Their resumes are getting tossed in the trash, and when they do get the job, their boss might warn them not to mention their nationality to people at the office. If that sounds bad, many of them - especially opposition figures and gay men in exile - are regarded with more suspicion by their own government back home than by their new neighbors here.

"To be young and Russian in Washington is, often, to live in the gray ambiguities of a John Le Carré Cold War spy novel." POLITICO Magazine

Good Monday afternoon. WAPO's BRIAN MCNOLDY and JASON SAMENOW: "Hurricane Florence intensifies to Category 4, continues to strengthen on path to East Coast"

-- BLOOMBERG's JENNIFER JACOBS (@JenniferJJacobs): "Trump's MAGA rally in Mississippi on Friday is now cancelled due to hurricane forecasts, aides tell me."

A message from PhRMA:

As a Medicare Part D Cliff looms for seniors, the program's successful structure is also in jeopardy. Congress can act now to protect seniors from the donut hole suddenly increasing by more than $1,200 and secure the program for the future by fixing changes that undermine its successful competitive structure.

HOT TICKET -- HOUSE RULES CHAIRMAN PETE SESSIONS (R-TEXAS) is holding a fundraiser at the Washington Capitals vs. the Boston Bruins opening night. The Capitals will raise their first Stanley Cup banner before the game. COST TO ATTEND the Oct. 3 event: $3,000 for a single PAC ticket and $1,000 personal contribution for a ticket.

WHAT'S ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND -- @realDonaldTrump at 7:03 a.m.: "The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!"

-- FACT CHECK: This has happened several dozen times just since World War II.

... at 7:10 a.m.: "If the Democrats had won the Election in 2016, GDP, which was about 1% and going down, would have been minus 4% instead of up 4.2%. I opened up our beautiful economic engine with Regulation and Tax Cuts. Our system was choking and would have been made worse. Still plenty to do!"

... at 7:22 a.m.: "The Woodward book is a Joke -- just another assault against me, in a barrage of assaults, using now disproven unnamed and anonymous sources. Many have already come forward to say the quotes by them, like the book, are fiction. Dems can't stand losing. I'll write the real book!"

... at 7:35 a.m.: "The White House is a 'smooth running machine.' We are making some of the biggest and most important deals in our country's history -- with many more to come! The Dems are going crazy!"

... at 8:36 a.m.: "'It is mostly anonymous sources in here, why should anyone trust you? General Mattis, General Kelly said it's not true.' @SavannahGuthrie @TODAYshow Bob Woodward is a liar who is like a Dem operative prior to the Midterms. He was caught cold, even by NBC."

... at 9:57 a.m.: "The Economy is soooo good, perhaps the best in our country's history (remember, it's the economy stupid!), that the Democrats are flailing & lying like CRAZY! Phony books, articles and T.V. 'hits' like no other pol has had to endure-and they are losing big. Very dishonest people!"

... at 10:42 a.m.: "'President Trump would need a magic wand to get to 4% GDP,' stated President Obama. I guess I have a magic wand, 4.2%, and we will do MUCH better than this! We have just begun."

-- FACT CHECK: Despite Trump's quote marks, Obama never said this.

-- NBC's JANE C. TIMM: "Woodward: Trump 'detached' from reality, jeopardizes national security": NBC ... The "Today" interview

2018 WATCH -- "Koch network launches new super PAC," by Maggie Severns: "The new super PAC, AFP Action, will give the Koch network's largest arm - Americans for Prosperity - significantly more leeway to push lawmakers directly on political issues, adding another tool to AFP's arsenal at a moment when the Koch network is trying to assert its power in Washington.

"Americans for Prosperity's existing organization, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, is required by law to spend a significant amount of money on 'social welfare' activities and cannot expressly urge voters to cast ballots for or against a member of Congress. But the new AFP Action super PAC can expand that work by spending unlimited sums of money on political activities." POLITICO

K FILE STRIKES AGAIN -- "Rep. Mia Love's campaign admits to improperly raising primary election funds," by CNN's Andrew Kaczynski and Nathan McDermott: "Rep. Mia Love's campaign has informed the Federal Election Commission that it will refund or redesignate less than half of what the government says was more than a million dollars improperly raised for a primary that was never expected to happen, according to documents reviewed by CNN.

"The commission sent Love a letter in August saying the Utah Republican's campaign had violated federal guidelines about money for primaries. ... Experts say the money raised is a serious violation of FEC rules. ... It is unclear if the FEC will accept Love's rationale for keeping the pre-convention donations or will say all the money will have to be refunded or redesignated. Working in Love's favor is that there are currently two vacant seats on the six-seat commission, so any decision would have to be unanimous." CNN

IMMIGRATION WATCH -- "Sessions says he plans a 50 percent surge in immigration judges," by Hugh T. Ferguson: "James McHenry, the director of EOIR, said the addition of 44 immigration judges and two new supervising judges makes for the largest class of judges in the department's history and reiterated the attorney general's pledge, saying the department will 'keep hiring until we run out of space or money.'" POLITICO

-- "Here's What Happened to the 99 Immigrant Children Separated From Their Parents and Sent to Chicago," by ProPublica Illinois' Jodi S. Cohen, Melissa Sanchez and Duaa Eldeib: "ProPublica Illinois has obtained confidential records about the 99 children sent to Illinois shelters run by the nonprofit Heartland Human Care Services, which has a federal contract to house immigrant children at nine facilities in the Chicago area. ...

"Suddenly alone, the children agonized over missing their parents and acted on their anguish by threatening to harm themselves or others, the files show. Seven of the separated children in Chicago still haven't been reunited with their families." ProPublica Illinois

TRADE WARS -- REUTERS/BEIJING: "China vows to respond if U.S. takes new steps on trade"

TRAILER DU JOUR -- The documentary "The Oslo Diaries" premieres on HBO on Sept. 13, 25 years after the accords' signing. Watch

YA CAN'T MAKE IT UP! -- "The Washington Post Magazine asked Ben Folds to write a song about anything. He chose Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein." The song ... 5-min. behind-the-scenes video

SPOTTED at Cafe Milano last night, dining separately: Lesli Linka Glatter, Alex Gansa, Chip Johannessen, Debora Cahn and Lauren White of the TV show "Homeland"; Ellen Tauscher and Tammy Haddad; Jonathan Karl.

MEDIAWATCH -- FIRST PERSON: "Three Hours Up Close With Alex Jones of Infowars," by NYT's Elizabeth Williamson: "Mr. Jones was wearing a starched, white, too-snug monogrammed shirt and one of his Rolex watches ... A couple weeks after the interview, Emily [Steel] and I read court testimony dated Dec. 18, 2014, a few days after the second anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting. Mr. Jones was in divorce proceedings, and lawyers for his ex-wife were asking him to account for spending more than $317,000 over the previous several months. He'd bought four Rolexes at once, bought jewelry for his girlfriend, spent thousands on restaurant dinners and parties in his rented Austin penthouse. 'It's a
free country,' he said. 'I had to restart my life.'" NYT

-- Alex Leary is joining WSJ as a White House reporter. He was most recently Washington bureau chief for the Tampa Bay Times. ... Caitlin Huey-Burns is now a political reporter at CBS. She previously was a reporter at RealClearPolitics. ... Byron Tau is switching beats at WSJ -- from Congress to the FBI, DOJ and special counsel investigation.

TRANSITIONS -- Kristene Blake will be executive secretary at the Export-Import Bank. She previously was director of administration for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and is also a John Boehner alum. ... TJ Helmstetter is joining Protect Our Care as director of campaign communications. He's an Americans for Tax Fairness and DNC alum.

WEEKEND WEDDINGS -- WALKER ALUMNI: Matt Oczkowski, president of Data Propria and co-founder of Campaign Inbox, married Molly Schweikert, a marketing consultant and a Targeted Victory alum. The couple worked together on Scott Walker's 2016 presidential campaign and also are alums of Cambridge Analytica. Pic ... Another pic

-- Marcus Weisberger, global business editor for Defense One, married Oriana Pawlyk, air warfare reporter at Military.com. The couple wed at St George's Catholic Ukrainian Church in New York. They met in 2013 while at a reporter happy hour after Gannett had announced furloughs for the newsroom. Pic ... Pic with all the defense reporter attendees

WELCOME TO THE WORLD -- OBAMA ALUMNI: Rachel Tulchin, an Obama State Department and Clinton Foundation alum who is now global manager for corporate affairs at Anheuser-Busch InBev, and Kevin Bailey, an Obama White House and Treasury alum who is now head of growth at NYC fintech company Ocrolus, welcomed Harper Elizabeth Bailey. Pic ... Another pic

A message from PhRMA:

There's lots of talk about how to change Part D to address affordability and predictability for seniors. But there are right ways and wrong ways to do that. The budget change passed in February was the wrong way, removing incentives experts agree are necessary to drive Part D's successful market-based structure, and potentially jeopardizing the program for the future. One right way is for Congress to address the looming Part D Cliff. In 2020, the donut hole will increase by more than $1,200, raising out-of-pocket costs for the most vulnerable seniors with significant health care needs. Congress should act now on both of these issues to protect seniors from a sudden spike in out-of-pocket
costs in Part D, while securing and strengthening the program for the long-term. Learn more.

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