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Things we’ve learned in the past few hours:

Russiagate #1: After James Comey’s meeting with Donald Trump in February, in which Trump asked him to shut down the Russia investigation, Comey told Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he didn’t want to be left alone with Trump ever again.

Russiagate #2: In March, Trump explicitly asked Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, to help him get Comey to back off the Russia probe. After discussing this with other officials, Coats “decided that intervening with Comey as Trump had suggested would be inappropriate.”

Eric Trump: For years, Eric Trump hosted a golf tournament to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. Use of the golf course was donated by Donald Trump. At least, it was until 2010, when Donald suddenly decided that Eric’s charity tournament would have to pay full freight for use of the facilities. In fact, Eric had to pay more than anyone plausibly thinks a weekend rental of the course could possibly cost. “Even if the Eric Trump Foundation had to pay the full rate for literally everything, Forbes couldn’t come up with a plausible path to $322,000 given the parameters of the annual event (a golf outing for about 200 and dinner for perhaps 400 more).” There are plenty of other niggling little questions at the link about the Trump family’s approach to charity.

Our solar wall: If Mexico isn’t going to pay for the wall, maybe we can turn it into a moneymaker all on its own. Apparently Donald Trump has proposed that we build the wall 50 feet high, cover it with solar panels, and then sell the electricity. Sigh.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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