Biden Calls Out Threat to Democracy, Urges Americans to ‘Stand Up for It’

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The United States is at a dangerous junction in its battle to maintain democracy, President Joe Biden believes — and in a rousing speech from Philadelphia on Thursday night, he laid the blame at the feet of one man. “There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” Biden said, referring to Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, Make America Great Again. “And that is a threat to this country.” Biden drew a dark picture of his opponents’ vision for America as he spoke in front of the hall where themore

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US Judge Defers Ruling on Appointing Special Master for Trump Records

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A federal judge on Thursday deferred a ruling on former President Donald Trump’s request for an independent review of records seized from his Florida home by the FBI during a search last month.    Trump’s lawyers last week asked U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida to appoint a special master to determine if the documents contain any privileged material that should be returned to the former president.     The Justice Department opposed the request, saying it has conducted its own review of the materials and that appointing a special master would impede itsmore

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House Committee Reaches Deal to Obtain Trump Financial Records

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A House committee seeking financial records from former President Donald Trump has reached an agreement that ends litigation on the matter and requires an accounting firm to turn over some of the material, the panel’s leader announced Thursday.  The long-running case began in April 2019, when the House Committee on Oversight and Reform subpoenaed a wealth of records from Trump’s then-accounting firm, Mazars USA. The committee cited testimony from Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, that it said had raised questions about the president’s representation of his financial affairs when it came to seeking loans and paying taxes.  Under the agreement,more

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Peltola Beats Palin, Wins Alaska House Special Election

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Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska’s only U.S. House seat on Wednesday, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor. Peltola, who is Yup’ik and turned 49 on Wednesday, will become the first Alaska Native to serve in the House and the first woman to hold the seat. She will serve the remaining months of the late Republican U.S. Rep. Don Young’s term. Young held the seat for 49 years before his death in March. Peltola’s victory, coming in Alaska’s first statewide rankedmore

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Democrats’ Chances in November Elections Seen as Improving

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When Democrats took over the presidency and scored razor-thin majorities in both houses of Congress in 2021, the general expectation was that their hold on Washington’s levers of power came with an expiration date. Conventional wisdom and U.S. election history suggested that in the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans were likely to take over the House, the Senate, or both.    Now, though, it’s beginning to look like President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats may have at least a chance to buck history and extend their control of the federal government for another two years. To be clear, the oddsmore

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Biden Talks Tough on Guns and Crime

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U.S. President Joe Biden visited the swing state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday to defend his record on gun safety and unveil his $37 billion “Safer America” crime prevention plan that the White House said will “save lives and make communities safer.” “When it comes to public safety in the United States, the answer is not defund the police. It’s to fund the police,” Biden said, distancing himself from calls by some members of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to take away police departments’ funding. Biden called out Republicans for opposing his proposal to restore a ban on assault-stylemore

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Biden to Talk Tough on Guns and Crime

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U.S. President Joe Biden heads to the city of Wilkes-Barre in the swing state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday to push his “Safer America” crime prevention plan and defend his record on gun safety.  The White House said Biden will call out Republicans for opposing his proposal to restore a ban on assault-style weapons, including firearms similar to the AR-15 that have been used in recent mass shootings.  “A majority of Americans support this. … The NRA [National Rifle Association] opposes it,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “So, we’re going to hear from the president about the importancemore

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How Grand Juries Work and What They’re Doing About Jan. 6

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The general public might not know a lot about grand juries, but the closed-door panels figure prominently in the legal aftermath of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. A grand jury subpoenaed the National Archives for all materials the agency gave to the House Select Committee looking into the events leading up to January 6. Justice Department prosecutors are working with a grand jury that is reportedly looking into former President Donald Trump’s role in efforts to reverse the election outcome. A grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, subpoenaedmore

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Biden Rallies for Democrats, Slams ‘Semi-Fascism’ in GOP

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U.S. President Joe Biden called on Democrats Thursday “to vote to literally save democracy once again” — and compared Republican ideology to “semi-fascism” — as he led a kickoff rally and a fundraiser in the state of Maryland 75 days out from the midterm elections. Addressing an overflow crowd of thousands at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Biden said: “Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of your kids from gun violence is on the ballot, andmore

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Judge Orders Justice Department to Unseal Trump Search Affidavit

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A federal judge directed the U.S. Justice Department late Thursday to unseal its redacted version of an affidavit it used to obtain a recent search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. U.S. magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart issued the order hours after the Justice Department proposed redactions to the document that prosecutors had said would be needed to guard sensitive details of their investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents. The affidavit is being sought by several U.S. news organizations and other groups amid intense public interest in the FBI’s unprecedented August 8 search of a former American president’smore

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US Justice Department Proposes Redactions to Trump Search Affidavit

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The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday proposed redactions to an affidavit that FBI agents used to obtain a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate as part of an investigation into Trump’s handling of classified government documents. The sealed affidavit – essentially the legal justification for conducting the controversial and unprecedented search of the former president’s property – is being sought by a number of U.S. news organizations and other groups. But federal prosecutors have opposed making the document public, saying it contains critical details about the ongoing investigation, including information about the government’s investigative techniques and witnessesmore

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US Judge Blocks Idaho Abortion Ban in Emergencies

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A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Idaho from enforcing an abortion ban when women with pregnancy complications require emergency care, a day after a judge in Texas ruled against President Joe Biden’s administration on the same issue.  The conflicting rulings came in two of the first lawsuits over the Democratic administration’s attempts to ease abortion access after the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the procedure nationwide.  Legal experts said the two state rulings, if upheld on appeal, could force the Supreme Court to wade back into the debate.  Aboutmore

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US Justice Department Releases 2019 Memo Advising Against Charging Trump 

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The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday released a confidential 2019 memo that advised then-Attorney General William Barr not to pursue criminal charges against then-President Donald Trump for obstructing the special counsel investigation of Russian election meddling. The memo by Steven Engel, then head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Edward O’Callaghan, another senior official, was written on March 24, 2019, the same day Barr told Congress that there was “not enough” evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice in connection with the Russia probe. “We recommend that you conclude that, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution,more

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2 New York Democrats Ousted from US House in Primary Losses 

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In a cluster of contentious Democratic primaries Tuesday, two New York incumbents were ousted from the U.S. House after redistricting shuffled congressional districts in one of the nation’s largest liberal states.  Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a 15-term incumbent who chairs a powerful House committee, lost to longtime colleague Rep. Jerry Nadler, while Rep. Mondaire Jones, a first-term progressive who was one of the first openly gay Black members of Congress, was defeated by Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as counsel to House Democrats in the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.  In other races in the state, themore

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US National Archives: Trump Took 700 Pages of Classified Documents to Florida

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump left Washington with more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some containing the government’s top secrets, when his presidency ended last year, the National Archives disclosed Tuesday.  The disclosure came in a letter dated May 10 from the acting U.S. archivist, Debra Steidel Wall, to one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, as she rejected claims from Trump’s representatives that the former president should be allowed to keep some of the documents by claiming executive privilege from his time in the White House.  Wall described the growing alarm in the Justice Department’s National Security Divisionmore

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Husband of House Speaker Pelosi Gets 5 Days in Jail, 3 Years of Probation in DUI

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The husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pleaded guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in California’s wine country and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation.  Paul Pelosi already served two days in jail and received conduct credit for two other days, Napa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Solga said. Paul Pelosi will work eight hours in the court’s work program in lieu of the remaining day, Solga said during Paul Pelosi’s sentencing, which he did not attend.  State law allows for DUI misdemeanor defendants tomore

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Trump Asks Court to Block FBI From Reviewing Documents Seized From Mar-a-lago

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Lawyers for former U.S. President Donald Trump have asked a federal court to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing documents recovered from his Florida estate until a special master can be appointed to separate material covered by executive privilege.  Federal investigators are probing whether Trump illegally kept records after the end of his presidential term.   The FBI seized 11 sets of classified material from Trump’s estate earlier this month, including some labeled with the nation’s highest level of classification that can only be viewed in designated government facilities. The National Archives also removed boxes from the estate earlier thismore

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Trump Seeks Special Master to Review Mar-a-Lago Documents

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Lawyers for former President Donald Trump on Monday asked a federal judge to prevent the FBI from continuing to review documents recovered from his Florida estate earlier this month until a neutral special master can be appointed.  The attorneys asserted in a court filing, their first since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago, that the sets of documents taken from the residence were “presumptively” covered by executive privilege.  “This matter has captured the attention of the American public. Merely ‘adequate’ safeguards are not acceptable when the matter at hand involves not only the constitutional rights of President Trump,more

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DOJ in Quandary as It Mulls Disclosing Trump Search Document

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A federal judge has given the U.S. Justice Department one week to redact an affidavit used to justify the recent search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence before the rest of the document could be made public. The document is being sought by a group of news outlets following the unprecedented search that was carried out as part of an ongoing federal investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents that he took to Mar-a-Lago. The court-issued warrant used to search Trump’s residence was unsealed last week, showing that Trump is under investigation for several potential crimes including obstruction ofmore

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Trump Wouldn’t Be First Former World Leader Facing Criminal Charges

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Experts say the unsealing of court documents Thursday sharpens the focus on former President Donald Trump as a possible subject of a criminal investigation into his removal and storage of sensitive documents from the White House. As VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, the U.S. has now joined other democratic countries in investigating a former leader. Camera: Celia Mendoza …

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Biden Administration Strengthens Hostage Policy

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Hostage negotiations are a delicate test in diplomacy and are handled at the highest levels of the American government. The Biden administration recently clarified its stance on this issue — but does this come in time for the release of several high-profile hostages held overseas? VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington. …

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Trump Critic Liz Cheney Falls in US Primary, But Murkowski Survives

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U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, a fierce Republican critic of Donald Trump who has played a prominent role in the congressional probe of the January 6 assault on the Capitol, lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in Wyoming on Tuesday.    But Senator Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who has defied the former president, cleared a hurdle in Alaska. She was set to face Trump-endorsed challenger Kelly Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 congressional election, as the two candidates advanced in that state’s nonpartisan primary.  Cheney’s defeat, by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, marks a significant victory for the former president in his campaign to oustmore

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Arizona’s Border Wall Work Delayed After 2 Containers Topple

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An effort by Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Yuma, Arizona, suffered a setback when two stacked containers toppled over.  Claudia Ramos, a correspondent for the digital platform of Univision Noticias in Arizona, posted on her Twitter feed a photo she took Monday morning of the containers on their side. She said they fell on the U.S. side of the border.  No witnesses have come forward to say what happened Sunday night.  Ramos said contractors in the area told her that they believed the containers maymore

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