Today In News: June 9, 2017

Today In News:

• The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday called for the dismissal of a lawsuit of when President Donald Trump violated the constitution by accepting foreign payments at his hotels.  The lawsuit, filed in January, said Trump violates the Constitution's "emoluments" clause, which bars him from accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval, by maintaining ownership over his business empire despite ceding day-to-day control to his sons.

• President Donald Trump on Friday denied that he tried to block an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn as Comey delivered scathing remarks about the president on Thursday at a congressional hearing, effectively accusing James Comey, the FBI's former director, of lying under oath to Congress.

• The Trump administration has moved to reopen the cases of hundreds of illegal immigrants of whom the government considered no threat to public safety. 

• "The nation of Qatar unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level," Trump told reporters at the White House. Trump is potentially hindering the U.S. Department of State's efforts to ease heightening tensions and a blockade of the Gulf nation by Arab states and others.

• The GOP still needs Donald Trump if it has any hope of accomplishing its legislative agenda and winning elections, and it’s going to take more than James Comey’s testimony to shake them. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday boasted of the GOP’s accomplishments under Trump thus far, and promised more to come, making no mention of Comey in a speech. 

• U.S. Rep.-elect Greg Gianforte of Montana will plead guilty to assaulting a reporter the day before being elected the state’s only congressman last month.

• British voters punished Prime Minister Theresa May at the polls on Thursday, depriving her Conservative Party of its governing majority in Parliament, and forcing her to rely on the support of a small party of extremists from Northern Ireland to stay in office.

• Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party received more votes than in any election for decades. 

• The New York attorney general’s office is looking into the Eric Trump Foundation following a Forbes report that detailed possible self-dealing by President Donald Trump through the foundation. Forbes published a lengthy investigation Tuesday detailing a spike in payments from the Eric Trump Foundation to the Trump Organization beginning around 2010, seemingly contrary to Eric Trump’s claims that he used the company’s facilities free of charge for his annual fundraisers for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. 

• President Trump explicitly made a commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty after declining on multiple occasions to affirm the United States commitment to Article 5. NATO Article 5 is the mutual defense provision that treats an attack on one NATO country as an attack on all members of the alliance.

•  “No collusion.   No obstruction.   He’s a leaker.”--President Donald Trump on Friday responded to fired FBI Director James Comey’s testimony the previous day.