Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Michael Cohen: “Federal investigators have monitored the phone lines of Michael Cohen, the longtime personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who is under investigation for a payment he made to an adult film star who alleged she had an affair with Trump, according to multiple senior officials and individuals with knowledge of the legal proceedings involving Cohen.”
* Yep: “President Donald Trump’s admitted reimbursement to his lawyer for a payment to Stormy Daniels days before the election could violate campaign finance laws, experts told NBC News.”
* In the latest awful story for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, we learned today that when he was an Oklahoma state senator 15 years ago, he “bought a home in the state capital with a registered lobbyist who was pushing for changes to the state’s workers’ compensation rules — changes that Mr. Pruitt championed in the legislature.”
* On a related note, the third EPA resignation this week: “Associate Administrator Liz Bowman, the top public affairs official at the Environmental Protection Agency, is leaving to become a spokeswoman for Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa.”
* Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.) “identified himself as the subject of a lawsuit in Los Angeles County claiming a local politician sexually abused a 16-year-old girl in 2007, and vehemently denied the allegations through his attorney.”
* The VW scandal isn’t over: “Volkswagen’s former chief executive has been indicted on fraud charges in the United States over the carmaker’s yearslong effort to rig its diesel vehicles to feign compliance with federal emissions standards. The executive, Martin Winterkorn, was named in a federal indictment unsealed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Detroit.”
* The Greitens scandal is getting worse: “Gov. Eric Greitens ran an off-the-books political campaign in 2014, took a private charity’s donor list to raise campaign funds and lied about that list in a signed statement to the state’s ethics commission, according to documents and testimony from six of his former employees.” * Arizona: “Thousands of Arizona teachers who walked out of schools a week ago to protest low pay and slumping education funding are slated to head back to class Friday, marking an end to one of the biggest teacher protests in a year that has seen a spate of job actions.” * Accidental truth telling usually doesn’t last: “Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price today walked back comments about how Republican efforts to undo Obamacare’s individual mandate would increase costs for people who remain insured, saying that his remarks were reported out of context.” Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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
