attorney general jeff sessions last year ordered federal prosecutors who pursue the toughest possible charges and sentences against criminal defendants, reversing president barack obama s obama efforts to ease penalties in nonviolent drug cases. the white house released a statement on commutation that read in part, ms. johnson has accepted responsibility for her hafr and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades. while this administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance. one wonders if that is going to be universally applied. let s bring in our leadoff panel on a wednesday night. phillip rucker, pulitzer prize winning bureau chief for the washington post. guy lewis, a former u.s. attorney who has worked with robert mueller, james comey and rod rosenstein among others while at doj. also with us, michael schmidt, pulitzer prize-winning
peter baker of the new york times points out just today, the president s intervention was contrary to the policies of his own justice department that has enacted sense he took office. attorney general jeff sessions last year ordered federal prosecutors who pursue the toughest possible charges and sentences against criminal defendants, reversing president barack obama s obama efforts to ease penalties in nonviolent drug cases. the white house released a statement on commutation that read in part, ms. johnson has accepted responsibility for her hafr and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades. while this administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance. one wonders if that is going to be universally applied. let s bring in our leadoff panel on a wednesday night. phillip rucker, pulitzer prize winning bureau chief for the washington post.
production freezes, i think we re in a very difficult situation. richard, hovering above all of this is the fact that despite pompeo s trip to pyongyang, there is no state department and very little fringe element of a diplomatic approach on this. and one of our, one of our most vital allies in the region president abe in japan and palm beach today, they are sort of on the outside of this looking in. how does that affect this whole thing going forward? well, it s a reminder that the united states is not alone here. you have japan and you have south korea, who have very different priorities. we probably all have the same list of interests, we just don t rank them in the same way. he talked about the abductees. japanese citizens who have been taken hostage, essentially kidnapped for decades in north korea. he put that on the agenda. but japan doesn t just talk about long-range ballistic missiles. thafr they re concerned about
43 senators peppering zuckerberg with questions about that privacy scandal that blew up after somebody blew the whistle on the exposure of data of nearly 19 million facebook user. we re actually here on the east coast this morning and it s nice to see joe in our neck of the woods. you ve been following interest this from the very beginning from sill skoen cone valley tofrt capitol. what are some of the big questions that zuckerberg will face? reporter: well, it s nice to be on the east coast time zone and we re in the thick of it. there s a buzz in the room as journalists are getting ready to prepare for zuckerberg s arrival. right behind me you can see that s the hot seat where he will be sitting and he ll be facing 43 senators here and all of thafr questions. those questions will center around data privacy, possible regulation, russian meddling in the 2016 election, what it means for 2018 midterm elections, and the business model of facebook as it relates to privacy. what does he p
historic levels totaling as much as 40 inches in some areas. let s go to the flash flooding in houston, nbc s jacob bras koe joins me by phone. what are you seeing? we ve been driving around all morning and right now we re heading to an area we know rescue teams have been hard at work because in the southeast areas of harris county is where we hear they have the most rain. this is the worst case scenario. this is what houston feared. its a catastrophic deadly flooding, tornados, that was a surprise there were a lot of tornados. houston is under water and hafr is not nearly finished.