| TOP STORIES Friday, July 31 REPUBLICANS REJECT TRUMP’S CALL TO DELAY ELECTION Top Republicans firmly rejected President Donald Trump’s suggestion to delay the presidential election over unfounded concerns about mail-in voting fraud. Hours after Trump’s tweet, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) assured a Kentucky news station that the government would make sure the election takes place on Nov. 3. Experts stressed that the president has no legal authority to delay the election, and a Trump-supporting conservative scholar suggested the president’s tweets could be grounds for impeachment. [HuffPost] UNSEALED DOCUMENTS DETAIL DAMNING EVIDENCE AGAINST GHISLAINE MAXWELL Hundreds of pages of court documents involving British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein accused of enabling the late financier’s sexual abuse of underage girls, were unsealed on Thursday night following a months long court battle. Among other things, the documents add detail to an allegation that Epstein forced an underage girl to have sex with Prince Andrew at Maxwell’s London apartment. [HuffPost] OREGON GOVERNOR: TRUMP’S PLAN TO DOMINATE STREETS ‘FAILED’ Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Trump both refused to back down over whether federal force is appropriate at the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests in Portland. Trump tweeted at Brown, accusing her of “not doing her job” as the demonstrations at federal buildings in downtown Portland continue. He described the protesters as “Anarchists & Agitators” and threatened to continue using federal force. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that the Department of Homeland Security complied intelligence reports on journalists covering the Portland protests — an extraordinary abuse of a system meant to share intelligence about terrorists. [HuffPost] |