Its been more than a decade since a storm this big has hit the part of florida where Hurricane Michael is expected to come ashore tomorrow afternoon. The storm will first hit the Florida Panhandle. Again, landfall tomorrow afternoon. Its then expected to turn toward alabama, mississippi, georgia, and South Carolina, even as parts of South Carolina are still coping with what happened from the last hurricane to come ashore, hurricane florence. In terms of whose going to get it the worst, the area just sort of southeast of panama city on the gulf coast of florida looks like theyre going to get the worst storm surge. Something on the order of 9 plus feet of storm surge. Broadly speaking, thats a region that includes Tindell Air Force base. But in addition to that big storm surge, for a large area theyre expecting flash flooding and hurricaneforce winds that the National Hurricane center says tonight will extend, quote, well inland. Again, tomorrow afternoon is expected landfall. Right now michael is a category 3 fastmoving hurricane. Its got a 120mileanhour winds. Theyre saying that it may come ashore with winds that strong. Also today, u. N. Ambassador nikki haley unexpectedly announced that she is stepping down from that very high profile position. Nikki haley is the highest ranking and highest profile woman in the Trump Administration. And, yes, i am sure it did not escape you that she has just surprise announced her resignation right after Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as the new Supreme Court justice and all the controversy surrounding his nomination. In normal times, that close sequencing of events might signal that that was the reason nikki haley was leaving the administration. Maybe these things are connected. In normal times, thats what youd think. These are not normal times, however. And honestly, no one seems to have any idea why nikki haley is leaving and leaving right now. This is a weird time to do it. It doesnt seem like a convenient moment. A couple of days after kavanaugh is sworn in, four weeks exactly before we have really, really, really important midterm elections. Its one di after an ethics complaint was filed against her for using private planes for her government travel. Are any of those events precipitating factors here for her surprise resignation . No idea. This outoftheblue announcement today and no clear explanation for why its happening, that has sort of left a vacuum into which has flooded lots of fun speculation. One popular avenue of speculation today has centered on her home state colleague, or at least her fellow south carolinian republican senator Lindsey Graham. Given Lindsey Grahams politically aggressive to the point of strange behavior recently, it is possible that senator graham is about to make some sort of move into the Trump Administration . If the president were to pluck Lindsey Graham out of the senate and appoint him to some big administration job, maybe this announcement today from nikki haley should be seen as some sort of preliminary move, some sort of staging so that shes ready to be appointed by South Carolinas governor to fill Lindsey Grahams seat in the senate. Whenever Lindsey Graham leaves that seat in the senate to instead move on up to do whatever trump has in mind for him in the administration. Maybe thats whats going on here. Surely that is conceivable. But honestly, if that is the plan, there is no reason why nikki haley would need to resign from this job now, especially at this very awkward time in order for that kind of a plan to go into effect. If thats the plan, she could just hold on to her u. N. Ambassador job and then resign ultimately to take that senate seat when the time came. So theres been a lot of breathless and i will admit sort of fun speculation about that prospect and lots of other sort of breathless avenues of speculation about what could really be going on here. Honestly, at this point we do not know. That said, this white house does leak like a rusty sieve straining acid. So i can promise you that this mystery will not be mysterious for too long. Eventually we will find out what happened with this nikki haley surprise resignation today. Until then, until we inevitably get the leak from someone associated with the Trump Administration or the white house who tells us what happened, until then, there is no real point in making up potential explanations that dont necessarily have basis in fact. So i feel like in terms of what were watching ahead for in the news, obviously tomorrow is going to be hurricane landfall for Hurricane Michael. I think i feel like starting tonight, but certainly by tomorrow we should expect to be getting more well informed reporting as to what happened here with the nikki haley resignation. But in terms of what were keeping an eye in tomorrows news, one other sort of low profile thing that you might want to watch for is that were going to have the sentencing hearing tomorrow for another one of the people who has plead guilty in conjunction with the russia investigation. Led by Robert Mueller and the special counsels office. The guy who is going to be sentenced tomorrow is named Richard Pinedo. We know next to nothing about him in personal terms. I believe this is his photo. But we know that he was charged in conjunction with the indictment of the Internet Research agency, that strange sort of kremlin adjacent social media propaganda farm that was operated by an oligarch close to putin who was targeted personally in that indictment and also personally sanctioned by the ustyugov. Richard pinedo was named by prosecutors in the special counsels office as essentially being an american helper for that Internet Research agency, russian influence operation that targeted our president ial election in 2016 to try to elect trump. Mr. Pinedo, according to prosecutors, didnt help the russians directly with their actual propaganda and these sort of psychological operations they were running on behalf of trump, but he did help them indirectly. According to prosecutor, he helped them indirectly through his profitable little criminal hobby which was basically online Identity Theft and bank fraud. The russians who were carrying out that part of the attack on our 2016 election, they needed to move money around for elements of that attack, for things like setting up websites, and operation servers. Richard pinedos online Identity Theft and bank fraud business was the means by which the russians were able to do some of that moving money around. So Richard Pinedo will be sentenced for that tomorrow. Sentencing guidelines recommend a range of 12 to 18 months in prison for the kinds of crimes to which he has plead guilty. Prosecutors seem to be signaling to the judge that they dont necessarily want the judge to throw the book at him. In their last substantive filing before tomorrows hearing, prosecutors in the special counsels office sort of went on a great length about the seriousness of the type of fraud and the type of theft that Richard Pinedo committed, but then this is how they closed their filing. Quote, at the same time, the government recognizes that since being confronted by law enforcement, mr. Pinedo readily admitted his own misconduct and provided significant assistance to the government in its own investigation of the facts. For example, at the governments request, mr. Pinedo promptly flew to the district of columbia and answered questions posed by the government and acknowledged his criminal conduct. He explained how he obtained the account numbers later sold for profit, and he provided the government with access to records identifying buyers of the accounts. Mr. Pinedos prompt acceptance of responsibility saved the government significant time and resources in the investigation. In other words, its okay if you dont lock him up. But whether or not he does get locked up, ultimately that is for the judge to decide, and that sentence willing take place tomorrow morning. So we shall see. If Richard Pinedo does get jail time tomorrow, that will make him the third person sentenced to a custodial sentence, sentenced to incarceration thus far in the mueller investigation. He would join George Papadopoulos who was sentenced to 14 days in jail for lying to investigators. Papadopoulos has been sentenced but he hasnt yet reported to start serving that time. Richard pinedo, if jailed would also join alex vand d der zwaa lawyer based in britain. A scheme that figured prominently in manaforts own criminal prosecution. Paul manafort, the president s campaign chairman, of course has himself now plead guilty to multiple felonies. Manafort is now cooperating with prosecutors in the special counsels office. Same deal with manaforts deputy, the Trump Deputy Campaign chairman, rick gates. Rick gates had a starring role you might have seen on the front page of the New York Times yesterday because of his newly reported role during the president ial election in fielding a pitch, a pitch from a foreign Intelligence Firm that was offering the Trump Campaign that they would come in and start running a psychological operations and online Propaganda Campaign in the u. S. To help trump win both the republican president ial nomination and ultimately the general election. Now rick gates as Donald Trumps campaign chairman, he reportedly did not accept this pitch from this foreign Intelligence Firm. He didnt sign off on this effort. He didnt hire this firm to do this work for the campaign. But of course the reason this is on the front page of thetimge what is interesting about this story is their pitch, the pitch from this firm to create zillions of fake online personas and to microtarget individual americans with divisive and or fake information, that would be targeted specifically to influence these americans targets either toward trump or away from his electoral competitors, the story in the times about rick gates is he was pitched this campaign, and he said no. But that pitch really does look a lot like it looks kind of exactly like what actually happened, right . That pitch from this foreign Intelligence Firm, what they said they could do for the Trump Campaign, it looks a lot like what russia actually did for the Trump Campaign to help him win. In part by using that Internet Research agency in russia which ended up getting poor old Richard Pinedo in all the trouble he is going to face before that judge tomorrow. So that story about the shady, mysterious Intelligence Firm that was offering to do that work on behalf of the Trump Campaign, that story has a lot of interesting, loose threads. For one, the firm supposedly didnt get the contract to do the work, but we know something very much like what they had pitched did happen during the campaign. Also, it appears that that firm that made the pitch, they were paid a couple Million Dollars right after the election. Hmm. What were they paid for . Also, since coming under scrutiny, the firm appears to have dissolved into thin air which is not itself crazy. Business goes away. But it does add to the mystery here. This, however, i think is one of those mysteries that we ultimately will probably get to the bottom of, if only because one of the people involved in this very intriguing story, the guy who reportedly sent this firm a check for 2 million after the election, that guy who sent them the check, what was he paying for . That guy who sent the check is now a cooperating witness for Robert Mueller. Here he is with President Trump in happier times. His name is george nader. He is an unusual figure in the russia scandal. He has been convicted on child pornography and child molestation charges. He appears to have had several ins with the Trump Campaign, including him apparently paying this foreign firm right after the campaign. He paid this foreign firm that had offered this mysterious pitch to the campaign in 2016. George nader is now a cooperating witness for the fueler investigation. He is cooperating allegedly under a deal that grants him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. So because of him, because in the middle of that strange story, theyve got a cooperating witness whose already got immunity. Hes already in the tractor beam of the special counsels office here. I think that this story is one of the more intriguing mysteries of the russia scandal that we may ultimately get an explanation for. That one may ultimately be explained. For my money, though, the single most fascinating story in all of this is what has just been reported by veteran investigative journalist Dexter Filkins at the new yorker. Just before the president ial election on halloween, october 31st, 2016, franklin phora published this fascinating and very controversial piece at slate. Com. And honestly, it has been driving me nuts ever since. We talked about this reporting a few other times on the show. You might remember it was about logs of internet traffic, logs of communication between Different Computers on the internet that appeared to show frequent and somewhat inexplicable contact all of the sudden during the president ial campaign between a computer server at the Trump Organization and a computer server at a russian bank, a russian bank called alpha bank. Alpha is the biggest private bank in russia. They have friendly relations with the kremlin. You dont get to be big anything in russia without friendly relations with the kremlin. Alpha bank is mentioned in the Christopher Steele dossier that was published to such great controversy right before the inauguration. Executives from alpha Bank Actually went on to sue buzzfeed for publishing the dossier because the dossier does mention this alpha bank just a couple of months ago in august. That lawsuit against buzzfeed was dismissed in a u. S. Court. For what its worth, i should tell you that one of the billionaire founders of alpha bank has a daughter. Not that long ago his daughter married alex van der zwaan. Crazy, right . One of the only people whose gone to jail so far in the mueller investigation. Probably all just a big quinky dink. But for whatever reason at the height of the campaign in 2016, a server use beside they bank kept making contact with a server at the Trump Organization. When that server was being used for almost nothing else, why was it communicating with a russian bank . Its a vexing little mystery. Ever since Franklin Foer first reported on it for slate. Com two years ago, halloween night right before the 2016 election, it has been a very controversial piece of reporting. Well, now Dexter Filkins at the new yorker has picked that up and run with it. And even if you have felt like this is one of those confusing stories, one of those sidebar stories about the russia investigation that seems too technical and youre not sure you get it. Pick up a copy of the new yorker or go to the new yorker. Com. Print it out, read it on paper in a quiet moment. Dexter filkins is a very, very good writer. And i promise you, even if you have been mystified by this story before, you will be intrigued by it the way he has written it up. And im going to let him tell you the story. But just to prepare you for that conversation, heres a few things that he sort of blew the lid off here with his piece in the new yorker. Number one, it turns out that at the same time Franklin Foer was pursuing this story at the very end of the president ial campaign in 2016, the New York Times had been pursuing it too. Investigative reporter for the times naked eric likblau had the story and was working on it before franklin started working on it for slate. As part of reporting that story, eric likblau at times apparently came to learn that the fbi had an open counterintelligence investigation under way into possible contacts associated with then president ial candidate donald trump and russia. Oh, which means before the election, the New York Times was in possession of the story that there was an open fbi counterintelligence investigation into trump in russia, before the election. Did i mention that they knew this before the election . Remember that headline about donald trump being the subject of an open fbi counterintelligence investigation about him and his campaigns contacts with russia right before the election, the one that blew the lid off the election . No, the New York Times did not run that story. Even though they knew that that counterintelligence investigation was under way. New york times instead ran this rather infamous story, also on october 31st, which basically said yeah, you know, the fbi looked into s