House Democrats try to avoid any impeachment talk of Trump ahead of the election. Hatch says Trump allegations are ‘serious’ but don’t ‘yet’ rise to the level of impeachment. LDS Church lobbyists tried to get Utah’s delegation to oppose a medial marijuana initiative.

Happy Thursday. When President Donald Trump’s former lawyer was pleading guilty in federal court, House Democratic leaders were offering advice to their fellow members on how to respond: Talk about the need for Congress to provide a check on the president or play up how Republicans are turning a blind eye to scandal after scandal. But, whatever you do, don’t talk about impeachment. That argument could hurt mid-term election chances. [Politico]

Topping the news: Reacting to allegations that President Donald Trump was involved in violating campaign finance laws during the 2016 presidential election, Sen. Orrin Hatch called the charges “serious” but not “yet” rising to the level of impeachment proceedings. Senate candidate Mitt Romney said the developments confirmed his faith in the justice system. [Trib] [DNews]

-> The Tribune learned that lobbyists for the LDS Church approached members of Utah’s congressional delegation in hopes they would show their opposition to Proposition 2, a medical marijuana initiative headed to November’s ballot. [Trib]

-> Brigham Young University filed three separate lawsuits challenging a State Records Committee ruling that an interview between a BYU police officer and a former Missionary Training Center leader accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the 1980s should be made public, arguing that the private school’s police department is not subject to Utah’s open-records laws. [Trib] [KSL]

Tweets of the day: From @realDonaldTrump: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”

-> From @jonlovett: “Trump’s just the kind of guy who sees the glass as half innocent.”

Trib Talk: Tribune reporters Erin Alberty, Courtney Tanner and Benjamin Wood discuss the role that ecclesiastical endorsements play at Brigham Young University campuses, and the power of lay religious leaders to level academic punishment for violations of church standards. [Trib]

In other news: Fifteen months after the original deadline set by federal prosecutors, the Utah Transit Authority Board hired an outside monitor, the San Francisco law firm of Coblentz Punch Duffy & Bass. [Trib] [DNews]

-> Citing the need to replace coal as an energy source in the future, the Murray City Council voted 4-1 to continue investment in a small nuclear reactor being built in Idaho Falls that would power cities in Utah. [Trib]

-> Lawyers for a subsidiary of Ivory Homes Ltd., Utah’s largest homebuilder, are seeking to block a public vote this fall on a high-density residential and retail development at the former Cottonwood Mall site in Holladay, arguing that the company’s legal and financial stakes in the project are substantial enough to justify it intervening. [Trib]

-> Utah County currently ranks No. 2 in the country for job growth. According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, job growth in the county was 6 percent between March 2017 and March 2018, compared with a national average of 1.6 percent. [Trib]

-> Gov. Gary Herbert visited a Tooele County elementary school Wednesday to try out new security doors with a fortress-like feature meant to stop an active shooter. “We’re trying to be proactive,” the governor said. [Trib] [DNews]

-> Pat Bagley wonders why Rudy Giuliani doesn’t want Trump to testify in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. [Trib]

Nationally: On Twitter, President Donald Trump praised Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman who was just convicted of tax and bank fraud, for being “unlike Michael Cohen” and refusing to “break" and cooperate with federal prosecutors. [NYTimes] [WaPost]

-> In wake of the Cohen and Manafort convictions, the White House is grappling with how to deal with fallout from what the federal trials revealed, including allegations that Trump was a co-conspirator in violating campaign finance laws. [WaPost] [TheHill] [CNBC]

-> The U.S. Department of Education under Betsy DeVos is said to be considering whether to let states use federal funding to purchase guns for educators, a move that would undermine efforts by Congress to restrict the use of federal funding on guns. [NYTimes]

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