Thanks to the team for all the great coverage while I got away for a few days with my family. I had a nice, relaxing time. So now back to the dumpster fire of American politics.

There’s got to be something going on behind the scenes here.

Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) has been a bulldog for President Trump from his perch on the House Judiciary Committee for months, most notably with his aggressive defense of the President throughout the impeachment inquiry. Trump rewarded his loyalty by floating to reporters Thursday night that the lawmakers is among the candidates he’s considering to become director of national intelligence.

Reader RS has a different perspective from AC — “ultimately, the party should be allowed to pick” who wins the nomination, he writes.

Here’s part of his email.

As far as I understand it, the Democratic Party has always required a majority vote at the Convention to nominate a candidate. If that doesn’t occur on the first ballot, pledged delegates are released and the deliberations continue. That reflects the desire to try, as best as possible, to get a consensus nominee.

Readers have been writing in about the possibility that, by this summer, Democrats could be facing a contested convention — one in which Bernie Sanders is leading in delegates, but without enough to win the nomination outright.

Reader AC reflects on the angst that could result should the party step in and select another nominee.

I get that there are reasons to be worried about Bernie, but I think the worries about the other candidates, and especially a contested convention in which a Bernie clear lead doesn’t translate to a Bernie nomination, should be much more significant.

We’ll definitely have more on this soon, but the Justice Department ended up standing by all the sentence enhancement recommendations for Roger Stone that it made in the original sentencing memo it filed in the case, before dramatically repudiating that memo later.

What happened behind the scenes exactly? Why did Barr so badly damage DOJ for so little apparent gain? I’m not sure there are satisfying answers to these questions. More soon.

The Roger Stone sentencing hearing continues … and the judge appears to be edging closer to announcing the sentence. Follow our coverage here.

Longtime political operative and President Trump confidante Roger Stone will be sentenced this morning, bringing to a close a tumultuous and outright bizarre case that spun out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

Or not.

Tierney Sneed is at the federal courthouse in DC for Roger Stone’s sentencing this morning. She’ll have the proceedings for you in real time here.

A few weeks ago, the sentencing of Roger Stone seemed like it would be an anti-climax, a colorful footnote to the historic Mueller probe. But now it has become ground zero for the epochal battle to protect the rule of law from the assault of Donald Trump.

How will that play out today?

The Atlantic published an article yesterday speaking to various Democrats about a primary campaign Bernie Sanders floated against Barack Obama in the 2012 election. Joe Biden referenced that would-be Sanders 2012 campaign in his post-debate comments last night. The senator ultimately didn’t run, and his aides say he was never serious about it.

But another episode in the article stood out.