Today’s edition of quick hits:
* House Democrats plan to subpoena Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, “as well as emails and text messages that Sondland held on a personal device and that have been turned over to the State Department, which has yet to release them.”
* Keep a close eye on this one: “Lawyers for House Democrats on Tuesday urged a federal judge to release grand jury testimony from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as Congress conducts an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.”
* Middle East: “The commander of the American-backed militia in Syria said Tuesday that it would attack Turkish forces if they enter northeastern Syria, while Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, indicated that such an operation was imminent.”
* SCOTUS: The Supreme Court appeared to be closely divided after hearing two hours of courtroom arguments Tuesday on one of the most important issues of the term: whether existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
* This should be quite a spectacle: “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Tuesday that he would invite Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, to testify before his committee about corruption in Ukraine.”
* On a related note: “Trump personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani said Tuesday that he would not cooperate with House investigators and that he ‘can’t imagine’ that anyone from the Trump administration would appear before a Democratic-led panel investigating the president.” * Quite an operation: “The Trump Organization’s two Scottish golf courses lost $14.3 million in 2018, extending a multiyear string of losses that have intensified since Donald Trump took office, according to annual financial reports released this month.” * What a strange story: “A settlement has been reached in a Florida court case over a disputed business deal that resulted from an unusual friendship that Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife struck with a former pool attendant at a Miami Beach hotel, court records show.” See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
