Today's Headlines and Commentary

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced that President Donald Trump plans to sign the congressional border deal to avert another government shutdown—and that Trump will simultaneously declare a national emergency to gain border wall funding denied by Congress, the Washington Post reports.

The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm William Barr, former attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, as the next attorney general, CNN details. He will be sworn in Thursday afternoon in a closed ceremony at the White House.

The Trump administration has accelerated a secret program to sabotage Iranian ballistic-missile tests, the New York Times reveals.

The House passed a war powers resolution to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, sending the measure to the Senate despite veto threats from Trump, the Post reports.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said in an interview for 60 Minutes that will run on Sunday that following Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, Justice Department leadership discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office, according to the Times.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Paul Manafort violated his plea agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team by intentionally making false statements. She declared that the special counsel’s office is no longer bound by the agreement to support a reduction in Manafort’s sentence, the Wall Street Journal reports. Lawfare shared the full order.

ICYMI: Yesterday on Lawfare

Suzanne Maloney discussed the state of the Iranian regime on its 40th anniversary.

Lev Sugarman shared a livestream of a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on election security.

Lev Sugarman posted an indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that a former Air Force counterintelligence specialist provided classified intelligence material to the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Jack Goldsmith and Maddie McMahon analyzed the legal basis for newly-confirmed Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to promise a public release of the Mueller report.

Matthew Kahn shared an order from Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia declaring that Paul Manafort violated his plea agreement with the special counsel’s office by intentionally making false statements.

Jen Patja Howell shared a new episode of Rational Security, in which Tamara Cofman Wittes, Shane Harris, Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes discussed whether Mueller is close to finishing his investigation, Trump’s threats to ban Huawei from U.S. networks and more.

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