Dan McCue

Robert Mueller's investigation may be over, but the cases he set in motion will continue for some time. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a corporation owned by an unidentified foreign government that has refused to turn over documents demanded by the... Read More

Attorney Michael Avenatti, the longtime foe of President Donald Trump best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels, was arrested in New York on Monday on charges of extortion and bank and wire fraud. Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York,... Read More

President Donald Trump suggested Monday he would support the public release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's full report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, but did not indicate whether he would order or ask such a release to occur. In the days since Mueller turned... Read More

In the end, it had kind of the feel of a long-running series concluding with a less-than-satisfying finale or a a novel that fell flat with a chapter to go. No matter what side one was on as Robert Mueller conducted his probe of Russian interference... Read More

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer said Friday evening that it is imperative that Attorney General William Barr make Special Counsel Robert Mueller's full report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election public. In a joint statement, Pelosi and Schumer said Barr should... Read More

Last week, Representative Xochitl Torres Small, D-N.M., introduced The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2019 (H.R. 1763), which she and her bipartisan cosponsors say will take definitive steps toward reducing nationwide physician shortages, with an emphasis in rural areas. The bill introduced by Torres Small, fellow Democrat... Read More

Predictably, despite the evident bipartisan interest in doing away with the Electoral College, one person who wants to keep it is the man who inspired the current efforts to kill it, President Donald Trump. Seven years ago, Trump would no doubt have been on the side... Read More

This week Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., made the biggest splash of her nascent presidential campaign by suggesting during a CNN town hall in Mississippi that the Electoral College should be retired and replaced by a popular-vote system that would ensure that all voters count. The moment... Read More

The federal government posted its biggest monthly budget deficit ever in February as a sharp decline in corporate revenue coincided with increased spending, the Treasury Department announced Friday. The budget gap widened to $234 billion in February, compared with a fiscal gap of $215.2 billion a... Read More

Nearly two-thirds of the lower 48 states face the prospect of unprecedented major flooding over the next several weeks, U.S. weather officials said Thursday. The dire forecast is the focal point of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s latest spring weather outlook. It says 25 states... Read More

The Trump administration's various trade disputes have caused a slump in American whiskey sales abroad, the Distilled Spirits Council said on Thursday. In a new report the industry group said whiskey exports were robust in the first half of 2018, growing 28 percent to a total... Read More

Long-term fixed-rate mortgage rates fell to 4.28 percent this week, potentially giving consumers more incentive to commit to purchasing a home just as the spring home buying season gets under way, Freddie Mac said on Thursday. The average rate on the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage declined from... Read More

State officials in Florida vowed to continue to fight the drilling of an exploratory oil well in the Everglades in the wake of a judge's ruling that the plan can go forward. “We’re disappointed in the court’s ruling, which goes against the protection of the Everglades,”... Read More

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh sued the owners of Pimlico Race Course on Tuesday in a bid to block them from moving one of the city's signature sporting events, the Preakness Stakes, to another thoroughbred racing track in Maryland. Pugh, a Democrat, filed the lawsuit in Baltimore... Read More

The Federal Reserve's policymaking Federal Open Market Committee said Wednesday there will be no more interest rate hikes this year, baring a significant, unforeseen change in the economy. The unanimous decision by the committee following its two-day meeting this week was widely expected, but it does... Read More

Federal authorities began investigating President Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, just months after the president took office, made available to the media by court order on Tuesday. The release of the trove of redacted documents was a victory for the nine news organizations who filed... Read More

Steady as she goes. That was the widely held expectation as the Federal Open Market Committee, the policy-making arm of the Federal Reserve, gathered Tuesday morning to kick off its two-day meeting this week. Given statements made by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell in several recent interviews,... Read More

A federal appeals court panel repeatedly pushed back Tuesday at claims by two attorneys general who say President Trump is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his luxury hotel in downtown Washington. At the center of the hearing before a three-judge panel of... Read More

A fix for the documentation glitch isn't the only issue National Association of Foreign Trade Zones would like to see addressed in the USMCA implementing legislation. Erik Autor, president of the association,  said his members long felt that rules established under NAFTA directly discriminated against the... Read More

Most of us don't think much about foreign trade zones. The phrase itself suggests "other" and "offshore" and somehow "separate." The reality, however, is that foreign trade zones, right here on U.S. soil, play a critical role in economic development and in inviting international investment in... Read More

As oral arguments got underway in the first of two high-profile gerrymandering cases the U.S. Supreme Court will hear this month, the justices appeared to be treading carefully despite their familiarity with claims they've heard once before. The case, Va. House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, not... Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday expanded the scope of oral arguments slated for April 23 on whether to reinstate a controversial question about citizenship proposed for the 2020 census to consider if the inquiry would violate the Constitution. Lower courts in New York and California have... Read More

The U.S. State Department on Friday announced it is eliminating a popular five-year tourist visa for Cubans, needed to achieve "reciprocity" between the visa rules of the U.S. and Cuba. Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, immediately slammed the move, saying via Twitter the decision by the... Read More

Last week, Democrats in both the House and Senate introduced legislation to address a "longstanding concern that has taken on newfound urgency," political interference with publicly-funded scientific research. The bill introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., called "Science Integrity Act" strives... Read More

Over the next two weeks, the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court will be dominated by issues it has recently preferred to punt back to lower courts: racial and partisan gerrymandering. On Monday, the justices will hear oral arguments in a case accusing the Virginia House... Read More

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Friday that the United States will revoke or deny visas to International Criminal Court officials who attempt to investigate or prosecute alleged abuses committed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. "We are determined to protect the American and allied military and... Read More

U.S Industrial production rose just 0.1 percent in February, slowed by the second straight monthly decline in manufacturing activity, the Federal Reserve said Friday. The central bank said manufacturing production dropped 0.4 percent last month, held down by declines in the output of motor vehicles, machinery,... Read More

The Senate on Thursday voted to overturn President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the nation's border with Mexico, a bipartisan rebuke the president has already suggested he'll veto. The 59-41 vote on a previously-passed House measure rejecting the president's emergency declaration marked the first... Read More

A New York appeals court ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump isn't immune from a defamation lawsuit filed by a former "Apprentice" contestant who accused him of unwanted groping and defamation. The ruling is precedent setting. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that then-president Bill Clinton... Read More

Beto O’Rourke entered the 2020 race for the White House on Thursday, telling supporters ahead of a three-day campaign swing in Iowa that he intends to run "a positive campaign" that will seek to "unite a very divided country" and "bring out the very best in... Read More

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was indicted on 16 new charges in New York on Wednesday mere minutes after he was sentenced to an additional three-and-a-half more years in prison on federal conspiracy charges. Manafort's latest legal woes stem from an alleged residential mortgage fraud... Read More

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday the United States is grounding the Boeing 737 Max aircraft after days of critics saying the administration failed to swiftly protect the flying public after two of the planes were involved in deadly crashes overseas. “All... Read More

The city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina removed a Confederate statue from the grounds of an historic courthouse Tuesday morning, bringing an end to a legal battle with the preservationist United Daughters of The Confederacy. The 30-foot high monument had stood on the grounds of the former... Read More

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told a select committee on Tuesday that he would restore the use of earmarks so that members of Congress have "a greater say in directing spending toward critical public projects in their communities." "Earmarks ... can be great instruments of... Read More

Consumer prices rose a slight 0.2 percent in February, the first increase in four months, but inflation remains tame, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The latest consumer price index, which measures what Americans pay for a wide range of products, attributed the rise to higher gasoline... Read More

If there was anything about President Donald Trump's proposed budget for the 2020 fiscal year that surprised no one on Capitol Hill Monday, it was his apparent willingness to revive the nasty fight over funding of his border wall that led to a 35-day partial government... Read More

The $4.7 trillion federal budget for 2020 proposed by President Donald Trump on Monday, misses the mark on achieving meaningful deficit reduction while relying on accounting "sleight-of-hand" to bring future spending into promised balance in 15 years, according to a prominent fiscal watchdog group. “Today’s proposal... Read More

The Democratic National Committee chose Milwaukee, Wisconsin Monday to host its presidential nominating convention in 2020, meaning the party will select its nominee in the heart of the region that sent Donald Trump to the White House two-and-a-half years ago. Though the rust belt location is... Read More

The House passed along party lines a sweeping ethics and election overhaul bill Friday morning, setting up a showdown with Senate Republicans that will likely loom large in the 2020 elections. “It’s about money in politics and how that destroys the confidence people have in the... Read More

US employers added just 20,000 jobs in February, a sharp pullback after a quarter of solid gains averaging 186,000 new jobs a month, the Labor Department reported Friday. The scarcity of new jobs added to the economy is the smallest monthly gain in nearly 18 months,... Read More

The new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was assailed by Democrats on the House Financial Service Committee on Thursday who contend an industry-friendly shift by the Trump administration has undermined the agency's mission. When the bureau opened in 2011 it was seen as the... Read More

Senators Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., introduced a bill this week to help small- and medium-sized manufacturers adopt technology to improve their business processes, increase their energy efficiency and curb the wasteful use of resources. The bill, titled the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Act, stems... Read More

The net worth of America's households fell by a record $3.8 trillion at the end of 2018, pulled down by sharp declines on Wall Street that briefly pushed the market into bear territory, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. The bracing news, part of the Federal Reserve's... Read More

There's no time like the present to solidify the gains the Democrats made in the House during the 2018 midterm elections and target vulnerable Republican seats in 2020. That's the message of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which on Thursday announced it is rolling out a... Read More

Nevada is asking the Ninth Circuit to block the Trump administration from making further shipments of weapons-grade plutonium into the state, contending the White House is intent to turn it into "the nation's radioactive dump." In a filing in the San Francisco-based appeals court on Monday,... Read More

The United States' trade deficit surged to a 10-year high in December, reaching $59.8 billion despite the Trump administration's efforts to end and renegotiate trade deals the president claims place the nation at an economic disadvantage. Figures released by the Commerce Department Wednesday also show that... Read More

The Democratic National Committee said Wednesday that it will not partner with Fox News for the upcoming presidential primary debates, citing a story in this week's New Yorker on the close ties between the channel and President Donald Trump. The article, by New Yorker correspondent Jane... Read More

A mere 608 days before what promises to be the most hotly-contested presidential election in a generation, aging voting machines employed in nearly every state of the union fall far short of ensuring a fair and secure Election Day, a new analysis has found. According to... Read More

The Treasury Department reported Tuesday that the federal deficit for the first four months of the current fiscal year is 77 percent higher than the same period a year ago. Since the fiscal year began on October 1, 2018, the deficit has ballooned to $310.3 billion... Read More

Former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will not be entering the already sizable field of Democratic candidates hoping to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020. Bloomberg, who joined the Democratic party last year in anticipation of making a run for the White House, said... Read More

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a third-party software maintenance provider in its quest to recoup the nearly $13 million it paid to Oracle Corp. to cover the litigation costs of a copyright dispute. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh held the winning... Read More

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper on Monday announced he is running for president in 2020, positioning himself as the candidate who has proven he can bridge partisan divides to accomplish progressive goals. "I'm running for president because we need dreamers in Washington, but we also need... Read More

Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced Friday that he will seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and do so by making climate change his central issue. "I'm running for president because I am the only candidate who will make defeating climate change our nation's number one priority,"... Read More

U.S. consumer spending tumbled 0.5 percent in December, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The slide, the biggest decline in nine years, is yet more evidence that the 2018 holiday shopping season was a disappointment for retailers and sellers of bigger ticket items, like automobiles. The sharp... Read More