Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) pressed U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Kim Jong-un’s human rights record on Wednesday to further probe Pompeo on how President Trump decided last week to retreat from sanctioning North Korea based on Trump’s relationship with Kim.
Between the lines: Although it wasn't immediately clear why Trump was pulling away from sanctioning North Korea, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said last week “President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary." Malinowski pointed out Kim's reprehensible track record on human rights in contrast.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a close ally of President Trump, plans to work closely with Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to investigate potential abuses by the intelligence community — specifically whether the Russia probe was politically motivated, Meadows told Axios.
The bottom line: Trump allies, feeling emboldened after Attorney General William Barr's summary of the Mueller report, are teaming up to go on the offensive and conduct an oversight investigation of their own.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters on Wednesday in El Paso, Texas, that the "breaking point has arrived" in the immigration system, as the number of immigrant families attempting to cross the U.S. border with Mexico continues to rise.
The big picture: "The increase in family units is a direct response to vulnerabilities in our legal framework where migrants and smugglers know that they will be released and allowed to stay in the US indefinitely pending immigration proceedings," McAleenan said. He requested additional resources for CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Health and Human Services, and called on Congress to act. The border wall, which President Trump called a national emergency for, was notably not mentioned.
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams addressed the possibility of her joining Joe Biden as vice president in his yet-to-be-announced 2020 campaign on Wednesday, saying: "I think you don't run for second place."
The consolidation of large corporations has been a popular target for presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and now she's added big agricultural companies — such as Tyson and Smithfield — to the list of industries she wants to go after as president.
"I want Washington to work for family farmers again, not just for the agribusiness executives pocketing multi-million dollar bonuses or the Wall Street traders sitting at their desks speculating on the price of commodities."
The big picture: While obtaining President Trump’s tax returns has become something of a white whale for the left since the 2016 presidential election, personal financial disclosures could become a litmus test among Democratic candidates in 2020. None of the other candidates have fully released their most recent tax filings, per the New York Times, though Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) did release a 10-year tax history last year.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked a resolution introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) calling for the release of the full Mueller report — the 2nd time this week that he has done so.
"I have consistently supported the proposition that his report ought to be released to the greatest extent possible, consistent with the law. … I think we should be consistent in letting the special counsel actually finish his work and not just when we think it may be politically advantageous to one side or the other."
"I want to be very clear: Not a single federal dollar has been used to make debt payments. ... Mr. President: Enough with the insults and demeaning mischaracterizations. We are not your political adversaries; we are your citizens."
Our thought bubble, per Axios' Andrew Freedman:Rosselló may be taking a more aggressive stance against the White House now that he has a well-known political challenger for his job in San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz. He's also pursuing an ambitious rebuilding plan that would reshape Puerto Rico's electric grid in favor of solar, wind and other renewable sources, trying to make the island a model for clean energy in the U.S.
"Barbara Bush blamed Donald Trump for her heart attack," begins a new excerpt from "The Matriarch," an inside look at the former first lady from USA Today's D.C. bureau chief Susan Page — out next week.
Details: Just before the first anniversary of Trump's election, Bush said, "I'm trying not to think about it. We're a strong country, and I think it will all work out."
"The notion that obstruction cases are somehow undermined by the absence of proof of an underlying crime, that is not my experience in 40 years of doing this nor is it the Department of Justice's tradition. Obstruction crimes matter without regard to what you prove about the underlying crime."
— James Comey, speaking in Charlotte, North Carolina
Some candidates haven’t even formally announced their decision to run yet, but President Trump's re-election campaign is already gathering ammunition to use against his opponents and mapping out the regions where he is weakest.
Between the lines: The Democratic campaigns are getting all the attention right now, but the Trump team is following them closely, sending trackers and watching all of the candidates for liberal base-pleasing proposals — like packing the Supreme Court — that they can use to make the eventual nominee look extreme.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who’s mulling whether to launch a 2020 bid for the White House, said at an event in New York on Tuesday, that he regrets not ensuring that Anita Hill got “the hearing she deserved" when she testified in 1991 wherein she claimed she had been sexually harassed by then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
"She paid a terrible price. She was abused during that hearing. ... To this day I regret I couldn't come up with a way to get her the kind of hearing she deserved, given the courage she showed by reaching out to us."
— Biden said, while emphasizing that he voted against Thomas' nomination.
Details: Biden, then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been harshly criticized for his handling of Thomas' confirmation process and not calling witnesses to support her testimony. On Tuesday, he said the all-male panel at the time "didn’t fully understand what the hell this was all about."
