President Donald Trump is making his clearest commitment to not fire anyone over an embarrassing accidental leak of his administration’s plans for an airstrike against the Houthis in Yemen.

President Donald Trump delivered what sounded like one of his typical meandering, grievance-laden campaign speeches on Friday, but it was where he did it — inside the U.S. Department of Justice — that mattered.

It’s been a lingering question since the election: How long can a partnership between two billionaires who love being the center of attention last.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to study how to expand access to in vitro fertilization and make it more affordable.

President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, criticized the criminal cases against the Republican as “partisan lawfare” during his confirmation hearing to become the No. 2 Justice Department official.

Congress has certified Donald Trump as the 2024 presidential election winner without challenge.

President-elect Donald Trump calls his Mar-a-Lago resort the "center of the universe.”.

Donald Trump is making threats, traveling abroad, and negotiating with world leaders.

Already reeling from their November defeat at the polls, Democrats now are grappling with President Joe Biden's pardoning of his son for a federal felony conviction — after the party spent years slamming Donald Trump as a threat to democracy who operates above the law.

Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House means he’ll want to stand up an entirely new administration from the one that served under President Joe Biden.

In a rare move, the Pentagon is strongly pushing back against misinformation spread on social media that falsely suggests U.S. troops have been authorized to use force against American citizens during the election.

Nevadans will vote in primaries for Congress and the state legislature on Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump is urging supporters to “guard the vote” during next year's election, a phrase that set off alarm bells among pro-democracy advocates who say it signals permission to his followers to take extreme measures.

Experts in constitutional law and the military say the Insurrection Act gives presidents tremendous power with few restraints.

The Kraken has cracked.

Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against a onetime business partner of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis pursued charges against roughly half of the people recommended to her by a special grand jury tasked with investigating efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

A special grand jury investigating efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results recommended indictments against a much larger group than prosecutors ultimately charged, including one current and two former U.S. senators.

An Associated Press analysis of campaign finance data shows that supporters and opponents of a proposed constitutional amendment change in Ohio are largely funded by out-of-state donors, despite repeated messaging about the need to get such interests out of Ohio politics.

As Democratic presidential primary candidate Robert F.

Former President Donald Trump called into an event hosted by his former national security adviser Michael Flynn over the weekend, telling his ex-adviser, “We’re going to bring you back.”.

In May 2017, comedian John Oliver tauntingly coined the phrase “Stupid Watergate” to refer to then-President Donald Trump’s ever-growing list of scandals at the time, including his reported dealings with Russia, the investigation into Michael Flynn and his firing of former FBI Director James Comey.

As the U.S. barrels toward the next presidential election, the election conspiracy movement that mushroomed after the last one shows no signs of slowing down.

The Michigan Republican Party has elected Kristina Karamo to be its next chair during a convention in Lansing.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has had his Twitter account reinstated as the United States marked the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A judge says Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer can't share lawyers with 10 other fake electors in matters related to a special grand jury probing possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election.

A Florida judge has ruled that former national security adviser Michael Flynn must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s looking into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia.

Two days after the midterm elections, misinformation about the results remains focused on Arizona and Pennsylvania.

A day after the midterm elections, misinformation about the results is zeroing in on the states of Arizona and Pennsylvania.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has extended the deadline for former President Donald Trump to turn over documents as part of a subpoena issued last month.

A shortage of poll workers has concerned local election officials across the country as the midterm elections approach.

Republicans have political winds at their back, but the party's nominees in Pennsylvania for governor and Senate are running dramatically different campaigns and targeting two very different types of voters.

Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff, is trying to avoid having to testify before a Georgia special grand jury that’s investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the state’s 2020 election.

The House Jan. 6 committee has subpoenaed former President Donald Trump.

The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 election has filed paperwork seeking to compel testimony from a new batch of Trump allies.

An attorney for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol told a federal judge in Phoenix on Tuesday that Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward refused to answer the committee’s questions at a deposition.

In the weeks since the FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and seized about 100 documents with classification markings, the former president has insisted he had declassified the information.

Four Republicans who have promoted false claims about the 2020 presidential election and are seeking to overhaul how elections are run by becoming their state’s chief election official say they are fighting against a corrupt system.

A clear majority of American voters believe that the various investigations into alleged wrongdoing by former President Donald Trump should continue, according to a national NBC News poll conducted after the FBI searched Trump’s Florida home and recovered documents marked as “top secret” earlier this month.

A former national security official in the Trump White House, Matthew Pottinger, and a former press aide, Sarah Matthews, will be the key witnesses at a prime-time hearing of the Jan. 6 committee.

The House Jan. 6 committee's investigation of the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and the events leading up to the U.S. Capitol insurrection is raising questions about former President Donald Trump’s role and whether he committed crimes.

In a heated, “unhinged” dispute, Donald Trump fought objections from his White House lawyers to a plan, eventually discarded, to seize states' voting machines, the House Jan. 6 committee has revealed.

An upcoming hearing of the House committee probing the Jan. 6 insurrection is expected to examine ties between people in former President Donald Trump's orbit and extremist groups who played a role in the U.S. Capitol riot.

Seven states are set to host primary elections Tuesday as the nation comes to terms with last week’s stunning Supreme Court ruling eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.

Several prominent conservative groups are lining up behind Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Kathy Barnette as an alternative to Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, Elon Musk said he would reverse Twitter’s ban of former President Donald Trump, who was booted in January 2021 for inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol, should he succeed in acquiring the social platform for $44 billion.

With six days until Pennsylvania’s primary, Republicans are openly worrying that a leading candidate in the crowded GOP field running for governor is unelectable in the fall general election.

Mehmet Oz’s rivals in Pennsylvania’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate are escalating their attacks on the celebrity heart surgeon’s connections to his parents’ native country of Turkey, raising it as a possible national security issue.

QAnon loyalists, neo-Nazis and a former American president: The list of people banned from Twitter is long, but their exile could soon end if Elon Musk buys the platform.

Republicans hoping to emerge from crowded primaries this year have spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring operatives with ties to former President Donald Trump.

The House has voted to hold former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress over their monthslong refusal to comply with subpoenas from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has voted unanimously to hold two men who served as advisers to then-President Donald Trump in contempt of Congress.

For all their angst about the possibility of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens winning the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in the state, GOP leaders haven’t coalesced behind an alternative.

President Joe Biden has denied executive privilege claims made by former Trump administration officials Peter Navarro and Michael Flynn in response to congressional subpoenas from the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Canadians who have disrupted trade with the U.S. and occupied downtown Ottawa for nearly three weeks have been cheered and funded by American right-wing activists and conservative politicians who also oppose vaccine mandates and the country’s liberal leader.

Former President Donald Trump is dangling the prospect of pardons for supporters who participated in the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol if he returns to the White House.

North Carolina congressman G.

A committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to six more associates of former President Donald Trump who were involved in his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

A cybersecurity firm plucked from relative obscurity to conduct an unprecedented review of ballots in Arizona’s largest country is readying to present its findings to Republican lawmakers.

Arizona Republicans’ partisan review of the 2020 election results got off to a rocky start when their contractors broke rules for counting ballots and election experts warned the work was dangerous for democracy.

Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford would seem to have all the conservative credentials he’d need to coast to reelection in deep-red Oklahoma.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams appears to have taken a fragile lead in New York City’s crowded Democratic mayoral primary.

For a few hours last weekend, thousands of Donald Trump’s loyal supporters came together under the blazing sun in a field in Western Wisconsin to live in an alternate reality where the former president was still in office — or would soon return.

Testimony to Congress from Donald Trump’s former top White House lawyer has “shed new light on several troubling events.”.

Texas GOP Chairman Allen West, Republican U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller each delivered remarks at the event. Marketing for the event included a logo featuring a cowboy hat with the letters “WWG1WGA” around its band, a QAnon motto.

Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell says she created a legal defense fund to protect the integrity of U.S. elections.

The number of targets of secretive surveillance in national security investigations fell sharply last year in large part because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A long-running federal investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine has moved back into public view after federal agents seized electronic devices from the former New York mayor.

Rudy Giuliani sought to discredit the federal investigation into his dealings in Ukraine a day after agents raided his home and office.

President Joe Biden's pick for attorney general Merrick Garland, addresses staff on his first day at the Department of Justice, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Washington. Welcome to the new Justice Department, likely a much tamer place to be after four years of blaring headlines under Donald Trump. The former president insisted that his attorney general, and entire department, be loyal to him personally, battering the department’s reputation for political independence. “When I walked in the door of Main Justice this morning, it really did feel like I was coming home,” Garland said, referring to Justice Department headquarters. AdAbout 15 minutes later, he took the oath of office, administered by Assistant Attorney General Lee Lofthus.

President Joe Bidens nominee for attorney general will tell Congress the Justice Department must ensure laws are fairly and faithfully enforced," while reaffirming an adherence to policies to protect the departments political independence. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general says the Justice Department must ensure laws are “fairly and faithfully enforced” and the rights of all Americans are protected, while reaffirming an adherence to policies to protect the department’s political independence. The Justice Department released a copy of Garland’s opening statement late Saturday. But Democrats repeatedly accused Barr of acting more like Trump's personal attorney than the attorney general. Garland also addresses domestic terrorism and rising extremist threats, pointing to his prior work in the Justice Department supervising the prosecution following the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City.

The former "Apprentice" contestant is trying to get her defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump moving again now that he's no longer president. Federal prosecutors in Washington, meanwhile, have charged some 200 Trump supporters with crimes related to the riot, including more serious conspiracy charges. There has been no indication that Trump would be charged in the riot though prosecutors have said they are looking at all angles. The same U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan also appears to have moved on from its investigation of Trump’s inaugural committee. Recently, her office has won a series of court rulings forcing Trump’s company and a law firm it hired to turn over troves of records.

Trump is expected to pardon Bannon, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, as part of a flurry of last-minute clemency action that appears to be still in flux in the last hours of his presidency. Trump did not pardon himself, despite speculation that he would, in the face of potential federal investigations. Bannon was charged in August with duping thousands of donors who believed their money would be used to fulfill Trump’s chief campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border. “Steve Bannon is getting a pardon from Trump after defrauding Trump’s own supporters into paying for a wall that Trump promised Mexico would pay for,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on Twitter. Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter, has frequently expressed support for Trump and recently met with the president on criminal justice issues.

President Trump is seen on a network monitor after his pre-recorded farewell speech was released, inside the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021, in Washington. “This week we inaugurate a new administration and pray for its success in keeping America safe and prosperous,” Trump said in the video “farewell address,” released by the White House less than 24 hours before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Trump is set to leave Washington early Wednesday morning after a grand farewell event at nearby Joint Base Andrews. He is boycotting not just the ceremony at the Capitol, but also passed on inviting the Bidens to the White House for a get-to-know-you meeting. That threw an already paralyzed White House into even further chaos.

A U.S. Secret Service guard stands post at the North Portico of the White House, after the U.S. House impeached President Donald Trump in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2021. Trump did not make a concession phone call or invite Biden to the White House after his victory. But last week the White House invited Biden to spend the night of Jan. 19 at Blair House. Officials do not expect Trump to invite Biden to the White House for the traditional pre-inauguration tea on Wednesday, but they said it is still a remote possibility. With Trump skipping the event, White House officials say Trump has not decided yet how and when he will leave the White House for his residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. Minutes later, Pence was taken from the Senate chamber to a secret location and police announced the lockdown of the Capitol. Even before the mob reached sealed doors of the House chamber, Capitol Police pulled Pelosi away from the podium, she told “60 Minutes.”“I said, ‘No, I want to be here,’”she said. Back in the House chamber, a woman in the balcony was seen and heard screaming. When they breached the abandoned Senate chamber, they milled around, rummaged through papers, sat at desks and took videos and pictures.

Minutes later, Pence was taken from the Senate chamber to a secret location and police announced the lockdown of the Capitol. Even before the mob reached sealed doors of the House chamber, Capitol Police pulled Pelosi away from the podium, she told “60 Minutes.”“I said, ‘No, I want to be here,’”she said. Back in the House chamber, a woman in the balcony was seen and heard screaming. When they breached the abandoned Senate chamber, they milled around, rummaged through papers, sat at desks and took videos and pictures. These domestic terrorists were in the People’s House, desecrating the People’s House, destroying the People’s House.”___Associated Press writers Dustin Weaver in Washington and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

Though stripped of his Twitter account for inciting rebellion, President Donald Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)BOSTON – President Donald Trump has been kicked off of most mainstream social media platforms following his supporters’ siege on the U.S. Capitol. Still, Parler might be attractive to Trump since it's where his sons Eric and Don Jr. are already active. Losing Amazon Web Services will mean Parler needs to scramble to find another web host, in addition to the re-engineering. First, there may be an accelerated splintering of the social media world along ideological lines.

Though stripped of his Twitter account for inciting rebellion, President Donald Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. Twitch and Snapchat also have disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. And not just individual citizens have free speech rights.

This Friday, Jan. 8, 2021 image shows the suspended Twitter account of President Donald Trump. On Friday, the social media company permanently suspended Trump from its platform, citing "risk of further incitement of violence." (AP Photo/Tali Arbel)Twitter banned President Donald Trump's account Friday, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence" following the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. On Thursday, Facebook suspended Trump's account through Jan. 20 and possibly indefinitely. Twitter merely suspended Trump's account for 12 hours after he posted a video that repeated false claims about election fraud and praised the rioters who stormed the Capitol.

In this image from video, Vice President Mike Pence speaks as the Senate reconvenes after protesters stormed into the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. Trump told his morning crowd at the Ellipse that he would go with them to the Capitol, but he didn’t. Video footage also showed officers letting people calmly walk out the doors of the Capitol despite the rioting and vandalism. Announcements blared: Due to an “external security threat,” no one could enter or exit the Capitol complex, the recording said. Shortly after being told to put on gas masks, most members were quickly escorted out of the chamber.

“Tellers” from the House and Senate will record each states’ electoral votes. “He can decertify the results or send them back to the states for change and certification," Trump said. People close to the vice president stressed his respect for institutions and said they expect him to act in accordance with the law and hew to the Constitution. In 2017, it fell to Biden to intone, “It is over” after votes were tallied for Trump and Pence. The scene appeared animated as the president, Pence and their chiefs of staff met with lawyer John Eastman and others.

FILE - In this Thursday, June 27, 2019 file photo, Paul Manafort arrives in court in New York. President Trump's former campaign manager is to be arraigned on state mortgage fraud charges. Manafort, who led Trump's campaign during a pivotal period in 2016 before being ousted over his ties to Ukraine, was among the first people charged as part of Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Though the charges against Manafort did not concern the central thrust of Mueller's mandate — whether the Trump campaign and Russia colluded to tip the election — he was nonetheless a pivotal figure in the investigation. Trump and the elder Kushner knew each other from real estate circles and their children were married in 2009.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)WASHINGTON – The video message that plunged Washington into chaos was filmed in secret. On Wednesday, few Republicans or even White House staffers knew what Trump plans next, in a return to the around-the-clock chaos of his first months in office. “There are mixed signals from the White House leaving more confusion than calm,” Biden noted on Wednesday. Trump personally played little role in the negotiations, though the White House had initially sent signals that he would sign the bill.

FILE - In this Thursday, June 27, 2019 file photo, Paul Manafort arrives in court in New York. President Trump's former campaign manager is to be arraigned on state mortgage fraud charges. Manafort, who led Trump's campaign during a pivotal period in 2016 before being ousted over his ties to Ukraine, was among the first people charged as part of Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Though the charges against Manafort did not concern the central thrust of Mueller's mandate — whether the Trump campaign and Russia colluded to tip the election — he was nonetheless a pivotal figure in the investigation. Trump and the elder Kushner knew each other from real estate circles and their children were married in 2009.

He and his allies have discussed a range of other possibilities, including members of Trump's family and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. Trump also announced pardons for two people entangled in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Trump has granted about 2% of requested pardons in his single term in office — just 27 before Tuesday's announcement. Bush, another one-term president, granted 10% of requests. Also among those pardoned by Trump was Phil Lyman, a Utah state representative who led an ATV protest through restricted federal lands.

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump floated naming lawyer Sidney Powell, who was booted from his campaign's legal team after pushing unfounded conspiracy theories, as a special counsel investigating allegations of voter fraud as he grasps for straws to stay in power. It is unclear whether Trump intends to try to move forward with the effort to install Powell. Trump’s campaign and his allies have now filed roughly 50 lawsuits alleging widespread voting fraud and almost all have been dismissed or dropped. That includes Giuliani, who during the Friday meeting pushed Trump to seize voting machines in his hunt for evidence of fraud. "She is not a member of the Trump Legal Team.

Beyond appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the younger Biden, the sources said Trump is interested in having another special counsel appointed to look into his own baseless claims of election fraud. Trump announced that Barr would be stepping down from his position on Dec. 23, amid lingering tension between the president and the attorney general over the Hunter Biden investigation. Appointing a special counsel could prove to be complicated, requiring consolidating different investigatory angles and bringing in someone new to run the probe and get up to speed. Either way, the probe is complicating Joe Biden’s pick for attorney general, upon whose shoulders this probe would land. Any nominee for attorney general is likely to face a mountain of questions at a confirmation hearing about how they would oversee the probe.

Beyond appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the younger Biden, the sources said Trump is interested in having another special counsel appointed to look into his own baseless claims of election fraud. Trump announced that Barr would be stepping down from his position on Dec. 23, amid lingering tension between the president and the attorney general over the Hunter Biden investigation. Trump was angry for days after learning that Barr knew of the Hunter Biden tax investigation before the election but did not disclose it. Appointing a special counsel for the Hunter Biden probe would also signal a more prolonged and complicated investigation than the current inquiry, so far largely centered on his taxes. Either way, the probe is complicating Joe Biden’s pick for attorney general, upon whose shoulders this probe would land.

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2020, file photo, Attorney General William Barr speaks during a roundtable discussion on Operation Legend in St. Louis. Barr went Monday to the White House, where Trump said the attorney general submitted his letter of resignation. Trump said Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, whom he labeled “an outstanding person,” will become acting attorney general. But Democrats have repeatedly accused Barr of acting more like the president’s personal attorney than the attorney general, and Barr had proved to be a largely reliable Trump ally and defender of presidential power. Trump was also said to blame Barr for comments from FBI Director Chris Wray on election fraud and mail-in voting that didn’t jibe with the president’s alarmist rhetoric.

Supporters of President Donald Trump who are wearing attire associated with the Proud Boys attend a rally at Freedom Plaza, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)WASHINGTON – Thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump returned to Washington for weekend rallies to back his desperate efforts to subvert the election that he lost to Joe Biden. At a pro-Trump demonstration in Washington a month ago, Trump thrilled supporters when he passed by in his motorcade en route to his Virginia golf club. One Proud Boy yelled out, “You cops can’t be everywhere!” The Proud Boys later dispersed. The Supreme Court, where three of the nine justices were appointed by Trump, “was just afraid of a political backlash,” she said.

Supporters of President Donald Trump who are wearing attire associated with the Proud Boys attend a rally at Freedom Plaza, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)WASHINGTON – Thousands of supporters of President Donald Trump returned to Washington on Saturday for rallies to back his desperate efforts to subvert the election that he lost to Joe Biden. At a pro-Trump demonstration in Washington a month ago, Trump thrilled supporters when he passed by in his motorcade en route to his Virginia golf club. One Proud Boy yelled out, “You cops can’t be everywhere!” The Proud Boys later dispersed. The Supreme Court, where three of the nine justices were appointed by Trump, “was just afraid of a political backlash,” she said.

ATLANTA – Conservative attorney Sidney Powell has been unrelenting in her battle on behalf of President Donald Trump and the Americans who have pledged their faith in him, regardless of the facts of the 2020 election – namely, that Joe Biden won. “I’m going to release the Kraken,” Powell said in a Fox Business interview in mid-November, an apparent reference to the film “Clash of the Titans” in which Zeus gives the order to release the mythical sea monster. Powell did not immediately respond to a voicemail left Thursday at her Dallas law firm. Despite being tossed off the president’s legal team, Powell has continued to push his claim that the election was stolen. As they were filed, lawyers across the country reacted on social media, some puzzling about her strategy and others outright mocking her in paragraph-by-paragraph analysis.

President Donald Trump has pardoned Michael Flynn, taking direct aim in the final days of his administration at a Russia investigation that he has long insisted was motivated by political bias. Trump announced the pardon on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020 calling it his Great Honor. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)WASHINGTON – A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the criminal case against former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn but pointedly noted that a pardon Flynn received from the president last month does not mean that he is innocent. The order from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan was expected in light of the pardon from President Donald Trump that wiped away Flynn's conviction for lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation. "Because the law recognizes the President’s political power to pardon, the appropriate course is to dismiss this case as moot."

WASHINGTON – Advocates and lawyers anticipate a flurry of clemency action from President Donald Trump in the coming weeks that could test the limits of presidential pardon power. No, Mr. President, that would be a gross abuse of the presidential pardon authority,” Schumer said. Trump then featured Johnson's story in a Super Bowl ad and pardoned her during this year's Republican National Convention. He has participated in several meetings at the White House during Trump's term as officials brainstormed potential changes to the formal clemency process. “For those people that should be free," he said, Trump's friends-and-family approach to pardons is "a deep and real tragedy."

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is investigating whether there was a secret scheme to lobby White House officials for a pardon as well as a related plot to offer a hefty political contribution in exchange for clemency, according to a court document unsealed Tuesday. Most of the information in the 18-page court order is redacted, including the identity of the people whom prosecutors are investigating and whom the proposed pardon might be intended for. The investigative team will be able to use that material to confront any subject or target of the investigation, the judge wrote. As part of the investigation, more than 50 devices, including laptops and iPads, have been seized, according to the document. Pardons are common at the end of a president's tenure and are occasionally politically fraught affairs as some convicted felons look to leverage connections inside the White House to secure clemency.

“We have to turn the election over,” Trump said from the Oval Office, where he joined the meeting by speakerphone. “We won it by a lot.” In fact, the election gave Biden a clear mandate, and no systemic fraud has been uncovered. Judge after judge has dismissed the Trump campaign’s accusations as baseless, and the transition to Biden’s presidency is fully underway. Biden is expected to stay through the weekend in Rehoboth before returning to Wilmington for further work on the transition. Trump will forgo his usual plans to celebrate Thanksgiving at his private club in Florida and will instead remain at the White House.

President Donald Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday, taking direct aim in the final days of his administration at a Russia investigation that he has long insisted was motivated by political bias. “It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,” Trump tweeted. Trump commuted the sentence of longtime confidant Roger Stone just days before he was to report to prison. In addition, White House officials were stating publicly that Flynn and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions. It cited internal FBI notes showing that agents had planned to close out their investigation into Flynn weeks earlier.

“It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon," Trump tweeted. A Justice Department official said the department was not consulted on the pardon and learned Wednesday of the plan. But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, noted that the president has the legal power to pardon Flynn. “Americans soundly rejected this nonsense when they voted out President Trump. But last May, after years of defending the prosecution, the Justice Department abruptly reversed its position.

President-elect Joe Bidens first wave of Cabinet picks and choices for his White House staff have prized staying power over star power, with a premium placed on government experience and proficiency as he looks to rebuild a depleted and demoralized federal bureaucracy. President-elect Joe Biden has prized staying power over star power when making his first wave of Cabinet picks and choices for White House staff, with a premium placed on government experience and proficiency as he looks to rebuild a depleted and demoralized federal bureaucracy. “Collectively, this team has secured some of the most defining national security and diplomatic achievements in recent memory — made possible through decades of experience working with our partners,” Biden said Tuesday as he unveiled his national security team. His choice for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was the deputy to that post under President Barack Obama. ___EDITOR'S NOTE — Jonathan Lemire has covered the White House and national politics for The Associated Press since 2013.