| | Holy cow, the Michael Cohen raid was only on Monday! | | Less than five full days ago, the FBI raided the office, home and hotel room of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's personal attorney. Less. Than. Five. Days. Ago. In between, there were 26(!) major headlines dealing with the Trump administration. And when I say "major," I mean major. There was the story that Trump had decided to fire special counsel Robert Mueller back in December 2017, only to be talked out of it. There was the forced resignation of homeland security adviser Tom Bossert. There was the leak that the White House was plotting a strategy to disqualify deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein so that Trump could fire him without it looking like an attempt to hamstring the Mueller investigation. The Point: Every week in Trump's presidency is a firehose of news. But the water pressure seemed to turn up a notch these past five days. -- Chris Monday: Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: Friday: | | "That's like, you don't have to be a cardinal to be the Pope -- but they always elect a cardinal." -- Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, in an interview with TMZ, laughing when asked whether a celebrity like Kanye West could be next speaker of the House | | | | CNN's Liz Landers tweeted out the above picture taken by CNN's Lawrence Crook of Michael Cohen, who is seen sitting outside the Loews Regency smoking cigars with friends. Point readers: We want you to caption this. We'll feature the best captions on Monday. Email chris.cillizza@cnn.com or saba.hamedy@cnn.com. | | Watch John Prine Ft. Sturgill Simpson and Brandi Carlile perform "Summer's End" on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." | | Welcome to our newest team member, CNN's Leigh Munsil, who has already been helping edit The Point every day and is now officially part of the crew. We're so pumped. | | From CNN's Brian Ries, Veronica Rocha and Amanda Wills: "President Trump tweeted Friday afternoon about the Justice Department inspector general's report on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. "What Trump is talking about: The inspector general found that McCabe "lacked candor" on four occasions when discussing the disclosure of information for a Wall Street Journal article about the FBI's Clinton Foundation investigation, according to a copy of the report obtained by CNN on Friday. "In addition, the inspector general determined that McCabe was not authorized to disclose the existence of the investigation because it was not within the department's "public interest" exception for disclosing ongoing investigations. The inspector general said that the disclosure to the Journal was made "in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of department leadership." Read more here. | | ICYMI: TRUMP PARDONS SCOOTER LIBBY | | It's official -- CNN's Kevin Liptak reported Friday that President Donald Trump granted a pardon to Scooter Libby, the chief of staff to then-Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of perjury in 2007. From the story: "Libby had been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in 2007 in the investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. He was not accused of the leak itself." A reminder: Trump also used his pardon authority last year when he pardoned Joe Arpaio, a controversial sheriff in Arizona who had been convicted of criminal contempt related to his hard-line tactics going after undocumented immigrants. Read more here. | | CALIFORNIA, HERE THEY COME | | CNN's Elizabeth Landers reported Friday that Vice President Mike Pence and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, "are teaming up -- again -- for another fundraising swing in California at the end of the month, according to a source familiar with the events." Event one: April 29 in Malibu. Event two: April 30, a roundtable in Beverly Hills. Tickets start at $10,000. Read more here. Oh, and speaking of McCarthy, Paul Ryan has endorsed the majority leader to succeed him as speaker. | | Kentucky: Dozens of school districts canceled classes so teachers could attend a rally at the state Capitol. The issues at hand are a pension reform bill and education funding. Teachers in Kentucky, West Virginia and Oklahoma have been making waves in recent weeks. CNN's Dakin Andone has more here. | | From Brenna: "Congress is weird. During a House Energy and Commerce hearing on fuel, Republican Rep. Pete Olson of Texas revealed a bobblehead of subcommittee chair Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois. Olson said that Shimkus likes to pretend he's from Texas, so he made Shimkus an official Texan with his very own cowboy hat. (Everyone carries bobbleheads of their friends around to silently agree with all of their decisions, right? No? Just me and Rep. Olson? Cool.)" Happy Friday! While you are enjoying your weekend, please take a minute -- or two -- and tell people you know to subscribe to The Point. | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Follow this link for daily coverage of the world's top stories, savvy market insights, an insider's look into the media and more. Our authors for The Point are Chris Cillizza and Saba Hamedy. Send your tips and thoughts via email to Chris or Saba. Follow on Twitter: Chris and Saba. | | | | | |
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