Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Trump continues to make Putin happy: “President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials.”
* Trump’s Muslim ban: “The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday cleared the way for a broader list of family exceptions to President Trump’s ban on issuing visas to people in six Muslim-majority countries.”
* We knew this would happen, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept: “The Justice Department announced on Wednesday that it will be restarting a federal asset forfeiture program that had been shut down by the previous administration.”
* The closer one looks, the more interesting this story becomes: “A group of House Democrats are seeking information about Ivanka Trump’s security clearance after her husband and fellow White House adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to report dozens of contacts with foreign officials, including meetings with Russian officials, during last year’s presidential campaign.”
* For those keeping score, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) also opposed the most recent iteration of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) plan, bring the total of GOP “no” votes to five. * Rohrabacher is the subject of mockery for a reason: “Off the record, Congressional Republicans have all kinds of opinions about the Trump-Russia connection…. Publicly, though, most have charted a wide berth around the entire saga. But one California congressman is tightly tethered to the issue: California’s veteran conservative Dana Rohrabacher, whom Politico once called ‘Putin’s favorite congressman,’ and who seems to have spent time around some of the same shadowy Russian figures who talked Donald Trump Jr. into meeting with them last year.” * On a related note, Rohrabacher is also interested to know if there’s evidence of a civilization having existed on Mars. I don’t think he was kidding. 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
