Nearly everyone interprets the exhaustive, nearly 450-page report from Robert Mueller as a story of presidential overreach. Convinced that Mr. Mueller’s investigation would embarrass his administration by revealing the extent of Russian influence on the 2016 election, President Trump attempted to undermine the special counsel’s probe. But the report is actually a story of presidential […]
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Lawyers and constitutional scholars will pore over the Mueller report and will find much to debate and write about. I’m confident that I’m not the only White House counsel from a past administration to read it with particular attention to the details, less technical, that illuminated the extraordinary challenge within this presidency: the relationship between […]
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The Mueller report isn’t actually close to a full account of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. That’s not just because of the redactions. When he was hired, Mr. Mueller inherited supervision of a F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation. That is the missing piece of the Mueller report. President Trump may claim “exoneration” on a […]
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WASHINGTON — President Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution on Tuesday that would have forced an end to United States military involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, only the second time he has used his power to block legislation passed by both houses of Congress. The resolution invoked the War Powers Act in an effort […]
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Roy Moore stands behind his wife Kayla Moore as she speaks during a campaign event at Jordan’s Activity Barn on December 11, 2017 in Midland City, Alabama.Photo: Joe Raedle (Getty Images) Alabama Republicans insist there’s nothing wrong, that Roy Moore is just a cold sore. But just when you think he’s been defeated, here he […]
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These are vexing times for Senate Republicans. While divided government complicates the already dim prospects for legislative progress, the confirmation of presidential appointees should be simpler — especially after the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, greased the process by slashing debate time on most nominees to two hours from 30. Instead, President Trump has been […]
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Last week, Bernie Sanders released the latest version of his “Medicare for all” plan, which would establish a federally run single-payer system to finance care for everyone in the United States. The plan has changed little from its previous iterations, but there is one crucial difference: This version is backed by several of Mr. Sanders’s […]
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WASHINGTON — President Trump was walking through the Capitol corridors in February, en route to his State of the Union address, when he spied Mitch McConnell, the taciturn Senate majority leader, and rumbled over to deliver his signature verbal high-five. “Mitch!” Mr. Trump said in a voice loud enough to be heard by a Republican […]
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WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr said on Wednesday that even after he released a partly blacked-out copy of the Mueller report, most likely next week, he would work to share with Congress some of the more sensitive information that he redacted. Mr. Barr also told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that while he intends […]
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Congress has landed on one of those rare ideas that commands support from both Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, it’s a bad one. On Tuesday, the House approved legislation misleadingly titled the Taxpayer First Act that includes a provision prohibiting the Internal Revenue Service from developing a free online system that most American households could use […]
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Presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told The Root in an exclusive, hour-long interview at his home in Newark, N.J., that he unequivocally supports reparations for black people and that he is introducing a Senate version of the House bill on Monday that will form a commission to study reparations. Booker’s bill, Commission […]
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Ernest F. Hollings, a silver-haired South Carolina Democrat who served 38 years in the United States Senate in an era of rising prosperity and often painful accommodation to racial tolerance in his state and across the South, died on Saturday at his home in Isle of Palms, S.C. He was 97. His former press secretary, […]
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Senate Republicans this week adopted rule changes that could make the august upper chamber something like a miniature version of the raucous and deeply partisan House. In a bid to speed confirmation of President Trump’s nominees, Republicans voted Wednesday to cut the debate time for lower-level judicial and administration picks from 30 hours to two. […]
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By backing a flimsy, state-initiated lawsuit to throw out the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, President Trump has made himself and Republican candidates in 2020 vulnerable to attacks that they want to take health insurance away from millions of people. The president compounded the problem by saying Republicans are going to become the party […]
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WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday blocked billions of dollars in disaster aid for states across the country as Republicans and Democrats clashed over President Trump’s opposition to sending more food and infrastructure help to Puerto Rico. Most Senate Republicans refused to endorse a recovery bill passed this year by the House, citing Mr. Trump’s […]
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In the post-Watergate era, most Americans have taken for granted that a president would not fire an F.B.I. director investigating him, or replace an attorney general for insufficient loyalty to the president’s personal interests. Dangling a pardon before potential witnesses to influence their testimony? Unheard of. Whatever one’s feelings about the end of the Mueller […]
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NEWARK — After football practice one summer evening in 2008, a Pop Warner league coach and two of his players were driving through the Clinton Hill section of Newark when a car swerved and blocked their path. Suddenly six police officers emerged from unmarked vehicles and forced them out of their car at gunpoint. “I […]
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NEWARK — After football practice one summer evening in 2008, a Pop Warner league coach and two of his players were driving through the Clinton Hill section of Newark when a car swerved and blocked their path. Suddenly six police officers emerged from unmarked vehicles and forced them out of their car at gunpoint. “I […]
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For those wondering if it was still possible for the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, to raise his cynicism game, Tuesday’s show vote on the Green New Deal supplied a resounding “yes.” Of all the pressing business Mr. McConnell could be tackling, he devoted precious floor time to the resolution introduced last month by the […]
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WASHINGTON — Democrats hoped to put their wrenching intraparty debate over anti-Semitism to rest when they passed a catchall antibigotry resolution in the House this month, but Senate Republicans, eager to court American Jews outraged by the rise of anti-Semitism, have other plans. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, is backing two new […]
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