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Dead Drop: June 30

Dead Drop: June 30

HUGE: HUGH HEWITT HALF HOUR:  MSNBC  has given a Saturday morning TV show to conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt. A lot of left-leaning outfits are not too happy about that, arguing MSNBC is their home turf – a counter to Fox News.  They are unhappy that Hewitt’s toehold in the weekend lineup (he gets just 30 minutes at 8 a.m. on Saturdays) means that their favorite network is tilting slightly right. In his first show on June 24th, Hewitt interviewed CIA Director Mike Pompeo who told Hewitt that President Trump is an “avid consumer” of intelligence reports. Pompeo railed against leaks saying they are in part fueled by the “worship” of leakers like Edward Snowden.

SEZ WHO?  Less noticed in Hewitt’s interview with the CIA chief was Pompeo’s efforts to downplay the importance of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. "The intelligence community has said that this election was meddled with by the Russians in a way that frankly is not particularly original,” he said. “They've been doing this for an awfully long time, and we are decades into the Russians trying to undermine American democracy.” He added, “So in some ways there's no news, but it certainly puts a heightened emphasis on our ability to figure out how to stop them.”

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