presidential election

Step aside Edward Snowden: the world has another leaking NSA contractor to obsess with, if only for the next 15 minutes.

As reported earlier, Reality Leigh Winner is the 25-year-old woman who stole “Top secret” documents from the National Security Agency and leaked them to The Intercept, "confirming" that the Russian military intelligence GRU was behind an attempt to hack more than 100 local election officials.

There may be more here, however, than meets the eye.

First, dome details on her background.

Susan Rice vehemently dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin's denials that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, during a Sunday morning interview on ABC's "This Week".

Following Putin's comments during a press conference last week that "patriotic minded" private Russian hackers unconnected to the government could be behind major hacks that interfered in other nation's elections...

On Friday, media speculation emerged that the Trump administration may seek to block former FBI director James Comey's testimony scheduled for next Thursday after White House officials said that they did not know yet whether President Donald Trump would seek to block Comey's testimony, a move that would spark another huge political backlash against the president. Speaking to reporters, Sean Spicer said "I have not spoken to counsel yet. I don't know how they're going to respond."

The last two months have seen a major divergence between PMI and ISM Manufacturing reports (as the former confirmed today at its lowest final print since September). May's final print of 52.7 was slightly above expectations and the preliminary print.

This is the lowest 'final' print for US Manufacturing PMI since September (while ISM rebounds)...

This follows China's Manufacturing PMI 'contraction' overnight...

Echoing the thoughts of many who have watched this farce from outside the Beltway, Senator Mike Lee said early Thursday that he would be surprised to hear former FBI Director James Comey testify that President Trump pressed him to end a federal investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Speaking on CNN's "New Day", Lee said "that would surprise me" when asked if Comey would testify that Trump pressured him. His reasoning is simple...