National Politics

By Paul LeBlanc, CNN Donald Trump Jr. said in a series of text messages to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that his father needed to “condemn” the US Capitol insurrection as it unfolded. The messages from Trump Jr. — which the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot revealed before voting to

By Oren Liebermann, CNN The Air Force has discharged 27 service members for refusing to get the Covid-19 vaccine, spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told CNN on Monday, making these likely the first troops to be removed from the military for failure to obey the vaccine mandate. They were involuntarily separated for failing to follow the lawful

By Christina Carrega, CNN A Texas businessman and three others accused of conspiring in a murder-for-hire kidnapping plot were arrested last week, the Justice Department said. Erik Charles Maund began emailing a woman in February 2020 with whom he’d had a prior relationship and made plans to see her when he’d visit Nashville later that

By Ryan Nobles, Holmes Lybrand and Zachary Cohen, CNN William Walker, who was the top commander for Washington, DC’s National Guard and responsible for troop deployment in support of law enforcement overwhelmed on January 6, met Monday with the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol, a source familiar with his appearance

By Daniel Dale, CNN Several news outlets inaccurately reported a key detail of a story told by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the book he released last week, “The Chief’s Chief.” These news outlets got much of the story right: Meadows wrote that then-President Donald Trump had told him one day

By Sean Lyngaas and Rashard Rose, CNN A ransomware attack has hit the Virginia state Legislature’s IT branch and state agencies are helping with the recovery, a spokesperson for Gov. Ralph Northam said Monday. “Governor Northam has been briefed on a ransomware attack on the Legislative Branch’s Division of Legislative Automated Systems, and has directed

By Oren Liebermann, CNN Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has decided that no US military personnel will be punished over the August drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 civilians, including seven children. Following a review of the strike, Austin instructed the heads of Central Command and Special Operations Command to make recommendations to improve Defense

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter The Supreme Court turned away two emergency requests Monday from health care workers, doctors and nurses in New York to block the state’s vaccine mandate. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented. The dispute arose when three nurses and a group called We the Patriots

By Clare Foran and Manu Raju, CNN Sen. Joe Manchin, the most pivotal swing vote in the Senate, indicated on Monday that a significant amount of work remains to be done to earn his support for President Joe Biden’s sweeping social safety net expansion, potentially delivering a fatal blow to Democratic leaders’ hopes of getting

By Natasha Bertrand, CNN Democratic lawmakers say President Joe Biden’s “hands are partly tied” when it comes to sending new military equipment to Ukraine to fend off a potential Russian invasion because Congress has still not passed a budget for 2022 that would unlock “vital additional assistance” to the country. In a letter to Senate

By Betsy Klein and Katie Lobosco, CNN The Biden administration took steps to make government services easier, more accessible and streamlined for Americans across agencies through an executive order President Joe Biden signed Monday afternoon. “Bureaucracies assume that people understand how they function but it’s really a very complicated web for the vast majority of

By Melanie Zanona and Manu Raju, CNN Donald Trump’s closest Hill allies are privately lobbying the former President to get involved in a Republican-on-Republican matchup in Illinois, a potentially messy scenario that has sparked internal strife in the party and prompted GOP leaders to launch a counter-campaign aimed at keeping Trump on the sidelines. At

By Betsy Klein, CNN President Joe Biden on Monday announced he will travel to Kentucky later on this week to survey damage from tornadoes and severe storms. “I intend to travel to Kentucky on Wednesday. And with each passing day, the human impact of this devastation — just the depths of the losses — are

By Tami Luhby, CNN The Internal Revenue Service sent out the last monthly infusion of the expanded child tax credit Wednesday — unless Congress acts to extend it for another year. Eligible families have received monthly payments of up to $300 per child since July as part of the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill,