D.C. District Judge Reggie Walton ordered Thursday the Justice Department to submit the full unredacted Mueller report for his review, stating that Attorney General Bill Barr's representations of the report prior to its release preclude him from accepting the Justice Department's redactions without "independent verification."
Why it matters: It's a rare instance of a federal judge, who filed the order as part of a freedom of information lawsuit by BuzzFeed News, calling into question the motives and impartiality of the attorney general in a politically explosive investigation.
For anyone who gets their economic news from cable TV, we're in the craziest period of the Trump presidency so far.
Driving the news: The S&P 500 fell by 3.4% last Monday, Feb. 24. It then fell another 3% the following day, and it fell by 4.4% on Thursday Feb. 27. This week, it rose 4.6% on Monday, fell 2.8% on Tuesday, and rose 4.2% on Wednesday. It's entirely possible we'll see another 3%+ swing today.
Sen. Bernie Sanders praised his former Democratic co-contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren after she dropped out of the 2020 race on Thursday, saying her ideas will outlive her campaign because she "has changed political consciousness in America."
Andrew Yang announced Thursday that he will launch a nonprofit called Humanity Forward to continue promoting the ideas at the heart of his 2020 presidential campaign.
The state of play: The organization plans to use conferences and podcasts to continue growing support for universal basic income, improved data privacy and "human-centered" capitalism.
Elizabeth Warren called gender a "trap question" for women in presidential politics during a Thursday press conference following her announcement that she was dropping out of the 2020 race.
"Gender in this race, you know that is the trap question for every woman. If you say, 'Yeah, there was sexism in this race,' everyone says, 'Whiner!' And if you say, 'No, there was no sexism,' about a bazillion women think, 'What planet do you live on?' I promise you this: I will have a lot more to say on that subject later on."
Flashback: Warren and Bernie Sanders had a much-publicized spat in January after she alleged that he told her in 2018 that he believed a woman could not win the presidency. Sanders denied her claim.
Elizabeth Warren is suspending her campaign after a poor performance on Super Tuesday, as first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by multiple other media outlets.
The state of play: Once thought of as a front-runner, Warren failed to win a single state during the biggest day on the Democratic primary calendar, even coming in third in her home state of Massachusetts behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
Georgia closed an investigation into its governor's accusation that Democrats had hacked state voter registration systems, concluding there was no evidence to support the charge.
Catch up fast: Two days before the polls opened in the 2018 Georgia governor's race, Brian Kemp — then Georgia's secretary of state, in charge of overseeing the election — made his explosive charge.
President Trump denied in a Thursday tweet that he told Fox News' Sean Hannity that people who are feeling sick should continue to go to work amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The state of play: While Trump didn't explicitly say that sick Americans should go to work, he did state that those with mild coronavirus cases can still recover while going about their daily lives — an assertion that contradicts public health officials' recommendations on how to manage the illness.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed regret on Thursday for comments he made about Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, following a rare public rebuke by Chief Justice John Roberts.
The backdrop: As the Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday for its first major abortion case since Kavanaugh was confirmed, Schumer warned the two conservative justices that "you won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions." Roberts responded that "threatening statements" from top public officials are "not only inappropriate," but also "dangerous."
The most impressive aspect of Joe Biden's performance on Super Tuesday was its breadth, according to Dave Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and NBC News contributor.
Why it matters: Biden won "urban voters, upscale & middle-class suburban voters AND rural/Appalachian voters. Just about the only places he didn't win were heavily Latino or progressive activist hotbeds like college towns."
Bernie Sanders told MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" Wednesday he would drop out of the 2020 race if Joe Biden won a plurality of pledged delegates at July's Democratic convention.
Details: "If Biden walks into the convention, or at the end of the process, has more votes than me, he's the winner," Sanders told Maddow. But he added if it ended up being that a candidate only had a plurality of votes and a second ballot were required that could potentially be decided by superdelegates "it would be a real, real disaster for the Democratic party."
