Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Israel confronts a major political crisis: “Israel’s attorney general announced Thursday that his office plans to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges after a two-year investigation. The prime minister faces one count of bribery and three counts of breach of trust.”
* Either North Korea is lying about the offer it put on the table in Hanoi, or Donald Trump didn’t understand what Kim Jong-un was proposing.
* There’s political tumult in Ottawa, too: “A political firestorm surrounding Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became more damaging Wednesday, as his ex-justice minister accused his top aides of repeatedly pressuring her to drop the prosecution of a global engineering and construction firm.”
* Judicial nominees: “The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to advance the nomination of Neomi Rao to replace Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The committee voted along party lines, 12-10, to send the nomination to the full Senate despite concerns from members of both parties about her past writings on gender equality and sexual assault as well as her record as a regulatory official.”
* Conditions get a little more intense for Trump’s inaugural committee: “The attorney general for the District of Columbia has subpoenaed documents from President Trump’s inaugural committee, the third governmental body to delve into how the fund raised $107 million and spent it to celebrate Mr. Trump’s swearing-in.”
* I feel like there’s a perfectly good metaphor here: “A jackhammer reduced prototypes of President Donald Trump’s prized border wall into piles of rubble Wednesday, a quick ending to an experiment that turned into a spectacle at times.” * Oh no: “A Virginia state employee has complained that her eighth-grade daughter was upset during a tour of the historic governor’s residence when first lady Pam Northam handed raw cotton to her and another African American child and asked them to imagine being enslaved and having to pick the crop.” * Answering one of the questions that confused me during yesterday’s hearing: “Billionaire Phil Ruffin said Wednesday that he is the anonymous Kansas businessman mentioned during the marathon questioning of President Donald Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen…. Ruffin’s connection to the president surfaced when Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, asked Cohen at a House Oversight Committee hearing who paid $25 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by former students of the defunct Trump University.” 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
