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Friday's Mini-Report, 3.23.18

Today's edition of quick hits.

Today's edition of quick hits:

* I guess Trump won't tweet about the stock market today: "With the threat of a trade war hanging over markets as the week drew to a close, analysts blamed a 'perfect storm' of events for volatility that saw the stock market swing into near-correction territory on Thursday, pare losses on Friday, then tank at the end of the day to close 400 points down."

* If you haven't seen this one, it's important: "Guccifer 2.0, the 'lone hacker' who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia's military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It's an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft."

* He wasn't a rogue coffee boy: "When a Russian news agency reached out to George Papadopoulos to request an interview shortly before the 2016 election, the young adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump made sure to seek approval from campaign headquarters."

* A stunning look at how far-right operatives work behind the scenes: "Days after a woman accused U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual impropriety, two Moore supporters approached her attorney with an unusual request."

* Stephon Clark: "Demonstrators enraged over the police shooting of an unarmed man shut down traffic on a Sacramento freeway Thursday and later blocked fans from attending a Kings game."

* Will he ask good questions and then vote for her anyway? "Sen. John McCain, whose experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam has established him as Congress's moral conscience on torture, asked CIA director nominee Gina Haspel to detail her role in the agency's enhanced interrogation program."

* This dovetails with the NRA story we've been watching: Incoming White House national security adviser John Bolton recorded a video used by the Russian gun rights group The Right to Bear Arms in 2013 to encourage the Russian government to loosen gun laws."

* Imagine if Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte took an interest in ongoing Trump administration scandals instead of nonsense: "The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the Justice Department Thursday for records connected to the FBI's 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton -- as well as the internal report that led to the ouster of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe."

* And Karen McDougal is now talking publicly for the first time about her alleged affair with Donald Trump, and she seems to have an interesting story to tell.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.