1. Caught in a crossfire hurricane

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates defended a sensitive Justice Dept. investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn before the Senate Judiciary Committee today. Testifying about the outgoing Obama Administration's actions with regard to Flynn's controversial conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in late 2016–and his subsequent lies to the FBI about those discussions—she concluded, "If Gen. Flynn didn't think he was doing anything problematic, then he wouldn't have needed to do anything to cover it."

• — Yates' argument. In the context of the undisputed Russian attack on the 2016 election and the already-in-progress counterintelligence investigation known as "Crossfire Hurricane," the questions of why the incoming president was against Russian sanctions, and why Flynn was so conciliatory toward the Russians (and then covered up his engagement with them) were significant.
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• — Republicans dig in. GOP members of the panel focused their questioning on the 17 errors in wiretap applications against Carter Page, another former Trump campaign adviser who had contact with the Russians. Yates acknowledged those errors, blaming FBI fact-checkers, but insisted the Obama Administration did not surveil the Trump campaign as a whole, nor Gen. Flynn, as President Trump and Republicans have claimed.
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• — The Logan Act wasn't the central concern. At least it wasn't for Yates, and she downplayed the suggestion that former Vice President Joe Biden brought it up. She testified that the primary worry was that Flynn posed a national security risk, as he was compromised by the Russians, who knew Flynn had lied and then allowed Vice President Mike Pence to publicly defend him. —NPR

2. Ukrainian oligarch connected to FBI raid

The FBI yesterday raided the offices of a company with ties to a Ukrainian oligarch who owns several buildings in Cleveland, Ohio. Federal agents, along with IRS investigators, searched the offices of Optima Management Group, leaving with computers, boxes, and other items. Search warrants were also executed at an office in Miami, Fla.

• — The raid is part of a wide-ranging federal probe involving Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, a principal of the Privat Group, a large Ukrainian company.
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• — In the early 1990s, Kolomoisky co-founded PrivatBank, which the Ukrainian government nationalized in 2016, after an investigation suggested there was large-scale fraud over a decade-long period.
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• — Kolomoisky refused to set up a meeting with President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an attempt to dig up dirt against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden last year. —Cleveland.com

3. Dubowitz & Schanzer: Lebanon needs help

"Where Lebanon goes from here is anyone's guess. Under the grip of Hezbollah (and by extension, the Islamic Republic of Iran), beset with corruption and political dysfunction, saddled with staggering debt, and struggling amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, huge challenges lie ahead." —Newsweek

Ed. Note: Mark Dubowitz is chief executive officer and Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

MORE: What just blew up in Beirut? —Bellingcat

4. Questions about policing persist

Amnesty International says it has documented 125 separate instances of violence against protesters for racial justice in the U.S. over an 11-day period earlier this summer. In a report published yesterday, the human rights organization says that in the five years since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Mo., "there has been a disturbing lack of progress ... in ensuring that police officers use lethal force only when there is an imminent risk of death or serious injury to themselves or others." —NPR

• — Colorado. Aurora police have apologized after drawing guns on a woman and four minors after mistaking her car for one that had been stolen. Brittney Gilliam was with her 6-year-old daughter, 12-year-old sister, and 14- and 17-year-old nieces on Sunday when she, her sister, and one of her nieces were handcuffed on the ground while police verified that the car was not stolen. —CNN
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• — District of Columbia. In a similar situation, two Black mothers are demanding an investigation after they were reportedly detained by Secret Service officers brandishing guns during a visit to the National Mall with their children. The women said they were handcuffed for roughly 45 minutes and separated from their infants over a false suspicion that they were driving a stolen car. —The Hill
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• — Oregon. The New York-based Physicians for Human Rights spent seven days in Portland investigating the use of crowd control weapons against protesters and law enforcement violence directed at volunteer medical staff. They concluded that the response by federal agents was "disproportionate, excessive, and indiscriminate, and deployed in ways that caused severe injury to innocent civilians, including medics." —Oregon Public Broadcasting

MORE: DHS to replace military-style uniforms for federal police officers —CNN

5. Vinci: How to challenge China

"Up to this point, the United States and other democracies have tightly integrated their economies with China's without fully planning for the problems that the arrangement presents. China has used this economic integration for geopolitical gain. Just as the U.S. needed alliances to deter military threats after World War II, it needs alliances that deter economic threats from Beijing now." —The Atlantic

Ed. Note: Anthony Vinci is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a former associate director and chief technology officer of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.

MORE: Chinese state media slams US as a 'rogue country' for its planned 'smash and grab' of TikTok —CNBC

6. Republicans vs Republicans

The Republican Party establishment is breathing a sigh of relief today, as voters in Kansas nominated Rep. Roger Marshall for the U.S. Senate over polarizing conservative Kris Kobach. Marshall prevailed comfortably in the Kansas primary, even without an endorsement from President Trump. Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, is an immigration hawk who alienated independent and moderate GOP voters in the state's governor's race, which he lost in 2018. —Associated Press

• — Too racist for the House GOP. The House's top-ranking Republicans are also distancing themselves from Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congressional candidate in Georgia who has expressed racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic views and embraced bizarre conspiracy theories. Greene faces neurosurgeon John Cowan in the GOP primary on Aug. 11. —Politico
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• — Yeezy in Wisconsin. Rumors of the death of Kanye West's presidential campaign have been greatly exaggerated. He is making attempts to get on the ballot in Arkansas, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. And in Wisconsin, the billionaire rapper has had help from a number of prominent state Republicans. Wonder why... —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
   
• — Q goes global. An American conspiracy theory espoused by a growing number of Trump supporters is picking up steam abroad, particularly where populist movements are on the rise. The QAnon movement is gaining a foothold in countries like Italy, France, Germany, and the UK, according to NewsGuard, a company that fights misinformation. —Axios

MORE: How the Trump campaign came to court QAnon, the online conspiracy movement identified by the FBI as a violent threat —The Washington Post

7. Campos Mello: Brazil's troll army

"[A] toxic environment has been fomented by what Brazilians call the 'office of hate,' an operation run by advisers to the president, who support a network of pro-Bolsonaro blogs and social media accounts that spread fake news and attack journalists, politicians, artists, and media outlets that are critical of the president. The office of hate does not have an official title or budget—but its work is subsidized with taxpayer money. It's unclear how many people work for this office, or who they are. In fact, Bolsonaro and his allies deny that it exists. But the seeds of hatred and division it is sowing threaten to undo our democracy." —The New York Times

Ed. Note: Patrícia Campos Mello is the author of "Máquina do ódio," about disinformation campaigns and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

MORE: Brazil Supreme Court orders Facebook to block accounts of several Bolsonaro allies —The Verge

8. Poland to get more US troops

Approximately 200 U.S. soldiers will begin serving in rotating tours in Poland, the Army announced yesterday. The increased U.S. presence will include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, and infrastructure to support an armored brigade combat team and combat aviation brigade.

• — Polish President Andrzej Duda has campaigned for more U.S. troops in his nation for some time, and the two countries agreed last year that 1,000 more American troops would deploy there.

• — The move in Poland comes as the Pentagon has outlined plans to cut more than 10,000 troops from permanent deployments in Germany—drawing bipartisan criticism in Congress.
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• — The Pentagon says it has negotiated a defense cooperation agreement that would provide "the required legal framework, infrastructure, and equitable burden-sharing" needed, but didn't spell out how Poland will split the financial burden of housing troops. —The Wall Street Journal

9. DN Ed Board: Pass a stimulus now 

"The nation's long-term health will depend on lawmakers from both parties finally getting serious about bringing spending in line with revenues after the pandemic has passed. In the meantime, however, millions of Americans continue to suffer financially through no fault of their own. The current recession was necessitated by efforts to fight the virus. It was not caused by inflated inventories, overvalued assets, or any other fundamental economic weakness that needs to be corrected through the pain of financial distress." —Deseret News

MORE: White House, Democrats agree to try for coronavirus relief deal on evictions, unemployment by week's end —The Washington Post

10. An American Story: Doctor reunited with family

After more than three grueling months battling and recovering from COVID-19, an emergency room physician, Dr. Grant Lashley, reunited with his wife and three children on July 24.

• — Lashley contracted coronavirus in April and then suffered a stroke. He was put on a ventilator for 39 days and spent six weeks at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston, where he relearned basic functions.
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• — Lashley came to the facility with weakness in his arms and legs due to a loss of muscle mass from the stroke. "It's happening to people with COVID. It's not just a breathing disease, people get neurologic impairments like loss of strength, or they can develop a stroke or loss of circulation in the arms and legs that can contribute to weakness and loss of independence as well," Dr. Nikola Dragojlovic, Lashley's attending physician, said.
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• — Hospital staff cheered as he departed the facility and embraced his family for the first time in 96 days. "It was very overwhelming—just so exciting," Lashley said of being able to walk out the doors on his own. "That was my goal. I said, 'I'm going to do it ... I'm gonna walk out of here when I leave.'" Please take the coronavirus seriously! —ABC News (via Karunavirus)

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