Politics

By Paula Reid and Jeremy Herb, CNN A defense attorney who represented the former girlfriend of Rep. Matt Gaetz says that prosecutors made the right decision not to charge the Florida Republican after a yearslong federal sex trafficking investigation. Attorney Tim Jansen told CNN on Saturday that Justice Department prosecutors were aggressive with his client.

By Natasha Bertrand, CNN The US has recently begun seeing “disturbing” trendlines in China’s support for Russia’s military and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught, US officials familiar with the intelligence told CNN. The officials would not describe in

By Aaron Pellish, Shawna Mizelle and Betsy Klein, CNN Former US President Jimmy Carter will begin receiving hospice care at his home in Georgia, according to a statement from The Carter Center on Saturday. “After a series of short hospital stays, former US President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home

By Katie Lobosco, CNN While President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program promising up to $20,000 in one-time debt relief for low- and middle-income borrowers is tied up in the courts, the Department of Education is working on a new repayment plan that has the potential to significantly help both current and future borrowers. For

By Sam Fossum and Jeremy Diamond, CNN Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo plans next week to put Russia and its intelligence services on notice: the US is monitoring their efforts to circumvent US sanctions and is cracking down. “As we look forward, one of the centerpieces of our strategy will be to counter attempts to

By Maegan Vazquez, CNN The Department of Education released a breakdown of federal student loan forgiveness applications by congressional district on Friday, providing a new window into the demographics of borrowers seeking relief across both Republican and Democratic-represented districts. The new data is being released as the fate of President Joe Biden’s debt relief plan

By Daniel Dale, CNN President Joe Biden has made another series of inaccurate claims in an economic speech. In late January, CNN fact-checked Biden’s false and misleading claims in an economic speech to union workers in Virginia. In a speech this Wednesday to union workers in Maryland, Biden repeated one of those claims and made

By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN A Republican strategist was sentenced Friday to 1.5 years in prison for facilitating an illegal contribution from a Russian businessman to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. Jessie Benton, who worked for the pro-Trump super PAC and was a longtime aide to former GOP Rep. Ron Paul, was convicted by a

By Annie Grayer, CNN Former President Donald Trump tried to call into Fox News after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but the network refused to put him on air, according to court filings from Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation case against the company. The House select committee that investigated

By Jeremy Herb and Katelyn Polantz, CNN Federal investigators searched former Vice President Mike Pence’s Washington, DC, office on Friday for classified information and did not turn up any new classified documents, a Pence spokesman said. The search followed an FBI search of Pence’s Indiana home last week after a lawyer for the former vice

By Ella Nilsen, CNN The Biden administration on Friday finalized a decision to reestablish Obama-era rules that require coal and oil-fired power plants to reduce toxic pollutants, including mercury and acid gas, that come out of their smokestacks. Mercury is a neurotoxin with several health impacts, including harmful effects on children’s brain development. And while

By Kara Scannell, CNN Former President Donald Trump is seeking to block two women who previously accused him of sexual assault from being called to testify at a separate defamation trial this spring. E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who sued Trump for defamation after he denied raping her in the mid-1990s, has indicated

By Manu Raju and Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN Sen. Joe Manchin, torn over whether to run for reelection, says he’s “given everything I possibly can” over four decades of holding public office. Sen. Jon Tester is close to making his final decision on a 2024 bid and concedes there’s a risk of his seat flipping next