OFF TO THE RACES: From Russia with love?
NBC News: “The FBI has been conducting a preliminary inquiry into Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort's foreign business connections, law enforcement and intelligence sources told NBC News Monday. Word of the inquiry, which has not blossomed into a full-blown criminal investigation, comes just days after FBI Director James Comey's disclosure that his agency is examining a new batch of emails connected to an aide to Hillary Clinton.”
And there’s this: “FBI Director James Comey argued against publicly disclosing the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia was behind hacks into U.S. political institutions, highly placed sources told NBC News on Monday. A former senior law enforcement official with detailed knowledge of the matter said on condition of anonymity that Comey argued that disclosing that operatives based in Russia were behind the widespread hacking not only might interfere with the U.S. election but also could violate Justice Department guidelines.”
The New York Times: “Law enforcement officials say that none of the investigations so far have found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. And even the hacking into Democratic emails, F.B.I. and intelligence officials now believe, was aimed at disrupting the presidential election rather than electing Mr. Trump.”
The AP notes that the president has gotten stuck in the spat over the Clinton emails.
From NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald: “Small disruptions in tight down-ballot races could have a big impact and the Democrats' aggressive response to Comey belies their concern that his move could cost them at the polls.”
The Washington Post editorial board’s advice for both sides: Take a deep breath.
Clinton has returned to whacking Trump rather than closing the election on an uplifting note, POLITICO writes.
The New York Times notes how some critics and historians are drawing comparisons between Comey and Herbert Hoover.
The New York Times: “[N]ewly obtained documents show that in the early 1990s, as he scrambled to stave off financial ruin, Mr. Trump avoided reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxable income by using a tax avoidance maneuver so legally dubious his own lawyers advised him that the Internal Revenue Service would most likely declare it improper if he were audited.”
Trump is refusing to pay his pollster close to a million dollars.
The Wall Street Journal takes a 30,000 foot view of the battle for the Supreme Court.
POLITICO reports on how Democrats are trying to run up the score with early voting.
John Kasich says he wrote in John McCain on his absentee ballot.
How exactly are votes counted on Election Day? Check out a very cool NBCNews.com project about it.