Today’s edition of quick hits:
* The latest from Jersey City: “One of the two suspects who killed a police officer before targeting a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey, where three people were killed had a social media page containing anti-Jewish and anti-police writings, officials and sources said Wednesday.”
* Some news from Michael Horowitz: “The Department of Justice inspector general’s office is still investigating alleged leaks from the FBI’s New York field office regarding the Hillary Clinton email investigation to Rudy Giuliani in the final days of the 2016 campaign, the IG testified Wednesday.”
* In case you missed this last night: “A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to transfer $3.6 billion in military construction funds to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.”
* In Syria, U.S. commanders now see “military units from Turkey, Russia, Iran and the Syrian government … as a greater danger than the Islamic State forces they were sent to fight.”
* Another Trump-era ethics mess: “A top Interior Department official broke a federal ethics rule by improperly meeting with his former employer, a conservative research organization, to discuss the rollback of endangered species protections that the group had been pushing, the department’s internal watchdog said in a report published Tuesday.”
* I hope you caught Rachel’s A block on this last night: “The Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday was the second for Russia’s foreign minister. The president of Ukraine is still waiting for his first.”
* Seems like a good idea: “The Pentagon inspector general has launched a review to determine whether the U.S. military deployment to the southern border is legal, according to a Department of Defense memo obtained by NBC News.”
* The latest example of Trump administration dysfunction: “HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CMS Administrator Seema Verma have been called to the White House for a meeting with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, in the latest attempt to quash their escalating feud, according to three individuals with knowledge of the gathering.” * The job no one wanted: “Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford will be the next Senate Ethics chairman, according to three people with knowledge of the decision. Lankford will replace retiring Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who will leave his seat at the end of the year.” * The Office of Personnel Management lives to see another day: “President Trump has abandoned his administration’s faltering effort to dissolve a key federal agency, a major setback in his three-year battle to keep his campaign promise to make government leaner and more efficient.” * Noted without comment: “Sinclair Broadcast Group is axing the “must-run” segments of one of its biggest stars, Boris Epshteyn, the network’s chief political analyst and a former special assistant to President Donald Trump. The move is part of a companywide effort to move away from political commentary in favor of investigative journalism, the network said Wednesday.” 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
