-- CNN reported late last night that the FBI has information that indicates associates of Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Clinton's campaign: “This is partly what FBI Director James Comey was referring to when he made a bombshell announcement Monday before Congress that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. … The FBI is now reviewing that information, which includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings.” Three nuggets from the CNN report:

• “One law enforcement official said the information in hand suggests ‘people connected to the campaign were in contact and it appeared they were giving the thumbs up to release information when it was ready.’”
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• The FBI cannot yet prove that collusion took place, but the information suggesting collusion is now a large focus of the investigation.
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• The public attention has made it harder to prove: “One of the obstacles the sources say the FBI now faces in finding conclusive intelligence is that communications between Trump's associates and Russians have ceased in recent months given the public focus on Russia's alleged ties to the Trump campaign. Some Russian officials have also changed their methods of communications, making monitoring more difficult.”

-- Some prominent Republicans are starting to say publicly that only an independent investigation will remove “the big gray cloud” that now hangs over the White House, as Nunes himself put it on Monday. John McCain described Nunes’s actions as “bizarre" last night and said it is is turning what should be a serious probe into a “political sideshow.” The Arizona senator called for either a select committee or an independent commission to investigate the matter: “No longer does the Congress have credibility to handle this alone, and I don’t say that lightly,” McCain told Greta Van Susteren on MSNBC.