A few days after a group of white nationalists rallied violently against removing Confederate statues in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, the Department of Veterans Affairs chief diversity officer proposed issuing a statement emphasizing that the VA forcefully condemns such a "repugnant display of hate and bigotry by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan," The Washington Post reported Wednesday night, citing emails obtained by the group American Oversight via FOIA request. The VA's chief communications official, John Ullyot, shot her down.

Ullyot is a political appointee of President Trump and veteran of his presidential campaign, and Georgia Coffey was the deputy assistant secretary for diversity and inclusion. Trump had declined to condemn the white supremacist protesters and blamed "many sides" for the violence that ensued, peaking with a white supremacist killing a couterprotester with a car. David Shulkin, the VA secretary at the time, had appeared to break with Trump, saying on Aug. 16 that he was "outraged" by the actions of the white nationalists.

On Aug. 17, Coffey emailed VA public affairs with a draft of her statement, saying a forceful condemnation was necessary because the VA workforce, which is 40 percent minorities, was unsettled by the Charlottesville violence. Ullyot said that after consulting with Shulkin, he wanted Coffey to remove some of the more incendiary language. Coffey wrote back that his edits would likely "dilute my message and fail to convey the sense of condemnation that I hope we all feel." She published the unedited statement under her own name in her office's monthly VA newsletter; VA officials removed it and reprimanded her, and she resigned soon afterward.

An anonymous person familiar with the dispute told the Post that "Ullyot was enforcing a directive from the White House, where officials were scrambling to contain the fallout from Trump's comments." A VA spokesman said there was no such directive from the White House. Read more at The Washington Post. Peter Weber

Chinese authorities have detained Canadian businessman Michael Spavor, the second Canadian citizen arrested in China this week, and Canada is increasingly concerned that China is retaliating over Canada's arrest of Chinese business executive Meng Wanzhou at America's request. Chinese officials said Thursday that Spavor, an entrepreneur with longstanding ties to North Korea, is being investigated on suspicion of harming China's state security. The former Canadian diplomat arrested Monday night, Michael Kovrig, is being investigated on the same charge, Chinese state media reports.

The U.S. accuses Meng of conspiring to mislead banks about her company, telecom giant Huawei, violating sanctions against Iran, but President Trump suggested on Tuesday that he might intervene in the case, tying Meng's arrest to his trade spat with China and U.S. national security. Canada protested Trump's apparent politicization of what Canadian and U.S. officials strongly insist is a solely legal affair.

China has not linked the detention of the Canadians to Meng's arrest, but "in China there is no coincidence," Guy Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said after Kovrig's arrest. "Unfortunately Canada is caught in the middle of this dispute between the U.S and China." Still, "the detention of Kovrig and possible detention of Spavor reflect an increasingly bold approach to international disputes under President Xi Jinping," The Associated Press notes. "China has often retaliated against foreign governments and corporations in diplomatic disputes, but rarely by holding foreign nationals." Peter Weber

Vox's Matthew Yglesias appears to have something of a political crush on Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and he certainly isn't alone. AOC, as she's known, "is the biggest star in the Democratic Party," with "incredible wit, charisma, social media savvy, and basic political smarts," Yglesias writes, and she "constantly dominates the conversation — living rent-free in the heads of conservatives, racking up magazine profiles and Twitter followers, engaging supporters on Instagram in a heretofore unprecedented way."

In fact, Yglesias writes, "I kind of think she should run for president." AOC is 29, of course, and therefore ineligible to be president. But the "completely ridiculous constitutional provision" that you have to be 35 is "just one of these weird lacuna that was handed down to us from the 18th century but that nobody would seriously propose creating today if not for status quo bias," he argues. He laid out his case. AOC took a pass.

Yglesias suggests amending the Constitution, not that AOC run and "dare the Supreme Court to stop her," but it doesn't seem unreasonable to let her start her first job in government before tackling the biggest job in government. Yglesias has an answer for that, too: Yes, "she's too left-wing for some and would need to demonstrate an ability to staff up and run a big operation while getting up to speed on the dozens of random issues that get tossed your way over the course of a national campaign. But that’s what campaigns are for!" You can read his entire argument — including: "One good sign that AOC should run for president is that she has a nickname — AOC" — at Vox. Peter Weber

"There has been, just today, another big decision in the landmark case of Donald Trump v. Getting Caught," Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday's Late Show. On Wednesday, President Trump's former lawyer "Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison," he said, and he had a tip for Cohen: "First day in prison, you walk right up the biggest guy in the yard, and you pay him $130,000."

"Before Cohen climbed up onto the prison bus, he made sure to throw Trump under it," copping to covering up Trump's "dirty deeds," Colbert said. "And evidently, you suck at it." He read some excerpts from Cohen's tortured confessional and regrets about working for Trump. Cohen said that ironically, he is finally getting his freedom back, but Colbert disagreed: "Actually, the irony is that while you're in prison for your crimes, the guy who ordered you to do the crimes will be at Mar-a-Lago sharing chocolate cake with Xi Jinping and Kid Rock."

"It's especially infuriating to watch Trump pretend to care about the law when his own Justice Department just accused him of a crime for paying hush money to cover up affairs," the crime that's sending Cohen to jail, Seth Meyers said at Late Night. And "Cohen told the court in no uncertain terms that he committed those crimes at the direction of Donald Trump." With Trump facing potential felony charges, he joked, "forget running for re-election — in two years, Trump might be running from the feds." His imagined reason Trump gets caught is worth a watch.

While Cohen was being sentenced to three years, "Michael Flynn, Trump's former National Security Adviser, made an interesting argument for why he shouldn't go to prison," Trevor Noah said on The Daily Show. "Yeah, that's right, Michael Flynn says he didn't know lying to the FBI is a crime." He suggested helpfully that "going forward, everyone working for Trump should just be read their Miranda rights on their first day." Watch below. Peter Weber

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sealed a deal with restive Democratic lawmakers Wednesday evening that gives her enough votes to ensure a second turn as House speaker when the next Congress gavels into session in January.

Under the agreement, finalized Monday night with three Democrats who opposed her speakership, Pelosi pledges to support a measure that will limit the top three House Democrats — Pelosi, incoming Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.), and Democratic Whip Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.) — to three two-year terms, with a fourth term possible given support from two-thirds of Democrats. Since all three Democrats have already served two terms in their upcoming roles, they would have to step down no later than 2022. House Democrats will vote on the proposal by Feb. 15.

Hoyer and Clyburn oppose the measure, but Pelosi, 78, said in a statement that she's "comfortable with the proposal and it is my intention to abide by it whether it passes or not." She reiterated that she sees herself "as a bridge to the next generation of leaders, a recognition of my continuing responsibility to mentor and advance new members into positions of power and responsibility in the House Democratic caucus." After she released her statement, seven Democratic holdouts said they will vote for her, giving her one more vote than needed to be elected speaker.

If elected Jan. 3, Pelosi, already the first female House speaker, will join a small group of lawmakers who lost the speaker's gavel then reclaimed it. The last repeat House speaker was Sam Rayburn (D-Texas), whose second term began in 1955. "No other two-time speaker has reclaimed the gavel after more than four years out of power," The Washington Post notes. Peter Weber

President Trump's administration is again ramping up its anti-refugee efforts. And this time, people who fled the Vietnam War are in the crosshairs.

Vietnam and the U.S. established diplomatic ties in 1995, and immigrants who arrived in America before then were protected from deportation under a 2008 agreement. But the Trump administration now believes the agreement doesn't actually protect them, a spokesperson for Hanoi's U.S. embassy tells The Atlantic, and it might start sending some of them back.

Trump has a long track record of opposing refugee resettlement, from reducing America's cap on how many refugees it will accept per year to moving to end protections that spare at-risk immigrants from deportation. Just Tuesday, Trump officials moved to deport 46 Cambodian immigrants legally living in the U.S., The New York Times reported.

This latest refugee crackdown came as Trump officials met with Washington's Vietnamese embassy, with an advocacy group telling The Atlantic they discussed reworking the 2008 agreement. A previous reinterpretation of the deal under Trump decided its protections didn't apply to "pre-1995 arrivals with criminal convictions," The Atlantic writes. A handful of Vietnamese immigrants were deported after the August decision.

Officials from Vietnam and the U.S. protested the change, and both countries' governments tried to reason further with the White House, America's ambassador to Vietnam through October of this year says. But Trump officials are still moving to strip the 2008 deal's protections from all pre-1995 immigrants — many of whom fled the Vietnam War and have obviously lived in America for decades.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said "we have 5,000 convicted criminal aliens from Vietnam with final orders of removal" and "it's a priority of this administration to remove" them. Read more at The Atlantic. Kathryn Krawczyk

British Prime Minister Theresa May has won a vote of confidence among her party with 200 votes in favor and 117 against, BBC reports.

The vote comes just after May said she wouldn't lead her party in 2022's general election, and protects her from immediately being forced out in favor of new leadership. But its "not all comfortable" margin signals a "blow" to May's authority, BBC's Laura Kuenssberg says.

Confidence in May's leadership has dwindled in the past few days as her plan to remove the U.K. from the European Union stalls in Parliament. May tried to have members of Parliament vote on her Brexit plan earlier this week, but she postponed the vote over fears it might fail. Pro-Brexit members from May's Conservative Party then triggered a no-confidence vote against her. If May had lost the vote with a majority, or 158, of Conservatives voting against her, the party would've elected a new leader.

Sensing her party's resistance to her leadership, May told Conservatives earlier that she wouldn't lead them into the country's next general election and may step down as soon as Brexit goes through. May's narrow win on Wednesday signals just how strong that resistance seems to be.

Britain voted more than two years ago to leave the E.U., and lawmakers have since fought over how close to remain with the trading bloc. The U.K. is scheduled to leave the E.U. in March, despite a the country remaining far from reaching a deal to do so. Kathryn Krawczyk