Today’s edition of quick hits.
* I’ll have more in this in the morning: “Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared Thursday before the federal grand jury convened as part of the special counsel investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and remain in power, according to a source familiar with the matter.”
* Here’s hoping the Fed noticed the data: “Growth in the U.S. slowed considerably during the first three months of the year as interest rate increases and inflation took hold of an economy largely expected to decelerate even further ahead. Gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced for the period, rose at a 1.1% annualized pace in the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.”
* Will Roberts respond? “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin and the panel’s other Democrats are calling on Chief Justice John Roberts to answer follow-up questions about ethics principles guiding the Supreme Court.”
* I wonder whether some on the right are rethinking their support for Jack Teixeira: “The Air National guardsman accused of leaking classified documents poses an ongoing threat to national security because he ‘may still have access to a trove of classified information’ that would be valuable to hostile countries, federal prosecutors said in court filings released late Wednesday. … The 18-page memo said Teixeira had a history of making violent and racist remarks — including posting on social media about wanting to carry out a mass shooting — keeping ‘an arsenal of weapons’ and tactical gear at his house, and trying to thwart federal investigators by apparently destroying evidence.”
* The trial we’re keeping a close eye on: “Writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleges in a lawsuit that Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s in a New York department store, was questioned Thursday by a lawyer for the former president who repeatedly suggested her claim was made up.”
* In related news: “The federal judge overseeing the civil trial in which Donald Trump is accused of rape admonished the former president for a social media post in which he called the lawsuit ‘a made up SCAM.’ Trump could be ‘tampering with a new source of potential liability,’ U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan told one of Trump’s lawyers in court on Wednesday.”
* All is not well in red states’ legislatures: “Republican state lawmakers in Iowa have passed a bill that would limit the state auditor’s access to certain records — a move the auditor says is intended to hamstring the office of the only statewide elected Democrat in Iowa and could put $12 billion of federal funding to Iowa at risk.”
* The debate over the ERA isn’t over yet: “Senate Republicans blocked a procedural measure on a joint resolution to remove an expired deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which has never been added to the Constitution, a century after it was first introduced to Congress.” * The number of smokers keeps shrinking: “U.S. cigarette smoking dropped to another all-time low last year, with 1 in 9 adults saying they were current smokers, according to government survey data released Thursday. Meanwhile, electronic cigarette use rose, to about 1 in 17 adults.” * Good news about a good person: “Rep. Jamie Raskin has completed chemotherapy with a preliminary diagnosis of being ‘in remission,’ he revealed in an open letter Thursday. In the letter, the Maryland Democrat detailed a scan that came up negative for discernible cancer cells, with a 90 percent prognosis of no relapse in a preliminary report. Having heard the news, the lawmaker described ringing a cancer bell with his nurses and doctors.” 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."
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