Five frat brothers who were among 18 suspended over a racist frat video are suing Syracuse University for infliction of “ridicule and scorn” over their treatment. According to the lawsuit: “The skits did not constitute actual racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and disrespect for the disabled. Rather, the entire focus of the skits was to create caricatures and exaggerate to be outrageous.”

It’s basically, ‘no racisms were harmed during the filming of this video.’

BREAKING: Trump denies telling Comey he didn't overnight in Moscow, then starts rambling about Hillary getting debate questions. pic.twitter.com/zGc9WnTcMc

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 26, 2018

It’s always hard to tell from an oral argument how the justices are likely to rule on a given case, but Alice Ollstein runs down some hints she got yesterday as to how the Court is thinking about the third and latest iteration of Trump’s travel ban (Prime access).

There was a lot of crazy stuff this morning when President Trump called into Fox & Friends, the Fox Morning Show. A lot of color. But I want to zero in on several key claims or admissions he made about the Russia, Cohen and Stormy Daniels cases. Read More

The judge in the Michael Cohen case has appointed Barbara Jones, a former federal judge, as a Special Master to go through the documents seized from Cohen by the FBI and decide which ones are subject to attorney-client privilege.

We’ll have more on this, and on other developments from the federal courtroom where a hearing on the Cohen case has been taking place, shortly…

Here I write mainly about politics and only occasionally about digital publishing. If you’re interested in that side of what I do, I went on the Digiday podcast to talk about it. Click here to listen.

This week on The Josh Marshall Podcast I talk to journalist Ronan Farrow. We talk about his #metoo reporting and his new book War on Peace, about the decline of American diplomacy and global influence not just under Trump but going back decades into the late 20th century. Check it out.

White House releases pictures of Mike Pompeo and ‘honorable guy’ Kim Jong-un. Read More

Is it Michael Cohen’s naked dependence on Donald Trump (and Trump’s predictably awful treatment of him) or the dispute over how much legal work Cohen was really doing for Trump that is the main takeaway from the big new Cohen profile? I can’t decide.

The fact that this taxicab family that is joined at the hip to Michael Cohen and his people is getting into the legal weed business is immaterial to me. But there’s a lot of key new information about the Michael Cohen money web in this new article from the AP. I’ll follow up later with an explainer on what it seems to mean. For now, if you’re following this story, give this a read.