The Daily 202: Why John McCain is voting against Gina Haspel to lead the CIA – and why it matters

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The Daily 202: Why John McCain is voting against Gina Haspel to lead the CIA – and why it matters

-- Wag the dog? “For Trump, each bold stroke is like a spritz of Febreze on his narrative of domestic scandal, momentarily masking the expanding [Russia probe],” Philip Rucker writes. “By making brash and risky moves on the world stage — from shredding the Iran nuclear deal to negotiating nuclear disarmament with the North Koreans to imposing tariffs on Chinese imports — Trump has a chance to change the way voters evaluate his presidency.”

1. A passport fraud scheme in Hungary allowed dozens of foreign nationals to enter the United States under false identities. Of about 700 non-Hungarians who assumed the identities of authentic passport holders, 65 successfully entered the United States, and 30 remained in the country as of October. (John Hudson and Andras Petho)
2. The head of global health security on Trump’s National Security Council, Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, left the administration. His departure comes amid a broader reshuffling of the council led by John Bolton, who effectively eliminated the office formerly overseen by Ziemer. (HuffPost)
3. Bolton is also pushing for the elimination of the top White House cybersecurity job. Former NSC officials expressed fear the move could undo U.S. progress in combating digital threats. (Politico)
4. A new Pew Research study found that two-thirds of all links on Twitter are shared by automated bot accounts. The good news? Most of the accounts don’t seem to have demonstrated political bias — focusing on adult content and sports rather than politics — and researchers say they have not seemed to play an active role in spreading fake news. (Vox News)
5. The FDA is seeking an injunction to permanently stop the operation of two stem cell companies following reports that two patients were blinded by the unregulated treatments. In a statement, the FDA accused those clinics, and hundreds of other similar facilities in the United States, of exploiting desperate patients and causing some of them “serious and permanent harm.” (William Wan and Laurie McGinley)
6. A South Carolina man was accused of trying to enlist a white supremacist group to kill his black neighbor. Brandon Cory Lecroy has been indicted on one count of solicitation to commit a crime of violence and use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire. (Kristine Phillips)

-- The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is consolidating its student arm with another office. Danielle Douglas-Gabriel reports: “In a memo obtained Wednesday by The Washington Post, Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the CFPB, informed staffers of a reorganization that will tuck the office for students and young consumers into the bureau’s office of financial education. The memo offers no explicit details on how the consolidation will affect employees or their duties… Still, advocacy groups, liberal lawmakers and former employees at the bureau are interpreting the news as an intentional move to dismantle the only unit in the federal government solely dedicated to protecting student loan borrowers from predatory actors in the financial sector.”