Good Thursday morning, I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook Audio Briefing,

sponsored by J.P. Morgan Chase. And I'm Jake Sherman. Here's some palace entry for you. The Washington

posts a story with the Kiev-Ukraine Dateline reporting that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy

and Speaker Paul Ryan were joking behind the scenes about Dana Rohrabacher and Donald Trump

being on Vladimir Putin's payroll.

The story quotes Evan McMullen, the failed presidential candidate who once worked in House

Republican leadership.

Earlier this year, Evan McMullen wrote an op-ed in the New York Times referencing what

appears to be the same meeting.

Hmm, pretty sure that's not the message Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy want out right now.

Okay, let's break down where we are this

morning after another day of Washington Wimplash. The New York Times is a story on how Trump's team

knew that Michael Flynn was under investigation before he came to the White House. Despite that,

Trump still gave him the National Security Advisor job. This story is not going anywhere fast.

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director, was named as a special prosecutor by the Department

of Justice to investigate Trump and his ties to Russia.

Our colleague Josh Gerstein breaks down what you need to know about the special counsel position.

First, Mueller will have all the authority of a typical U.S. attorney to convene grand

juries, issue subpoenas, file criminal charges, and pursue those charges to trial. In practice,

he'll probably have more control over the FBI agents involved in his probe than most prosecutors

do. Second, there's no fixed duration for this investigation, and if passed his precedent,

this will go on for a long time.

...