1/ Trump asked acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker if a Trump-appointed attorney could lead the Southern District of New York’s investigation into Michael Cohen’s hush money payments during the 2016 election. Whitaker couldn’t put Geoffrey Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, in charge, because Berman had already recused himself from the investigation, which led to Trump complaining about Whitaker’s inability to pull the strings necessary at the Justice Department to make his legal problems go away. There is no evidence that Whitaker took any direct steps to intervene in the Manhattan investigation, but Whitaker privately told associates that part of his role at the Justice Department was to “jump on a grenade� for Trump. Earlier this month Whitaker testified to the House Judiciary Committee that Trump had never pressured him to intervene in an investigation, which is now under scrutiny by House Democrats for possible perjury. [Editor’s note: This is a must read] (New York Times)

Trump denied the report that he asked Whitaker to put an ally in charge of the investigation into pre-election hush payments to women who claimed to have had affairs with him. Trump then praised Whitaker, who was replaced by William Barr last week, saying “I think he’s done a great job� and “should be given a lot of thanks by the nation.� (Politico / The Hill)

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked Whitaker to clarify his recent testimony, saying Whitaker “refused to offer clear responses regarding your communications with the White House.� (Politico)

Michael Cohen plans to describe his “personal, front-line experiences of memories, and incidents, and conduct, and comments that Donald Trump said over that 10-year time period behind closed doors,� which his lawyer described as “chilling.� Cohen has pledged to appear before closed sessions of the House and Senate intelligence committees and in a public session of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee before he reports for a federal prison sentence on March 6. (ABC News)

Trump has publicly criticized the Russia investigation nearly 1,200 times. (New York Times)

2/ Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe briefed congressional leaders in 2017 about the counterintelligence investigation he opened into Trump and that “no one objected,� including Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan. McCabe ordered the obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May of 2017, which made McCabe acting director of the bureau at the time. The FBI wanted to know whether Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests. “The purpose of the briefing was to let our congressional leadership know exactly what we’d been doing,� McCabe said, and that nobody raised concerns, “not on legal grounds, not on constitutional grounds, and not based on the facts.� Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein also attended the meeting, which is when the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation was first ann...