Good Thursday morning, I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your Politico Playbook Flash Briefing,

sponsored by BP. Just when we thought things were quieting down in the Trump White House,

the Washington Post pops a story about Jeff Sessions, now the Attorney General, meeting with the Russian

ambassador to the U.S. several times. No big deal, right? But he said he didn't, and he said it under oath. So this

could be a problem for sessions. Nancy Pelosi has called on sessions to step down. We're not sure he's

heeding Pelosi's advice, but it's certainly another distraction for President Donald Trump.

My colleague John Bresdenhan points out on Twitter that Republicans in the Senate are not

rushing to defense sessions.

That is a problem.

The New York Times is a story on its front page today about the Obama administration spreading intelligence throughout Washington on the Russia-Trump connections.

They did this so it would be preserved after Obama left the White House.

This intel is now on the hill and across several agencies and in the hands of several of

our international allies. Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, visited Trump in the Oval Office yesterday.

He brought Nancy Brinker, the founder of the Komen Race for the Cure, and they talked about cancer

research. Ruddy called us to talk about the meeting. Read playbook this morning for more.

But wait, wasn't the Trump

White House anonymously saying that Ruddy wasn't close to the president? Guess they were wrong on

that. First in Playbook this morning, Tom Price, the HHS secretary, released a four-minute video

to begin the sales job for health care replacement. He's going to need to work hard for that.

In a strange twist, we found more connections between Jack Abramoff and Dana Roerbocker.

Rohrabacher, a Republican congressman from California, sold a film he wrote to Abramoff's brother

Robert a few years ago.

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