The prosecution questioned him about his relationships with Donald Trump, Michael Cohen and others in the former president's orbit ..read more

President Joe Biden is set to deliver two commencement addresses next month, providing him a prime platform to address young voters as tensions over Israel’s war in Gaza continue to roil college campuses. Biden will address graduates at Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Georgia, during the school’s May 19 ceremony. He’ll also speak at the commencement for the United States Military Academy at West Point on May 25, according to the White House. His speech at Morehouse will give Biden the chance to appeal directly to young, Black voters in a swing state that was crucial to his ..read more

There are no atheists in foxholes and few isolationists in high office. Confronted with sobering briefings revealing Ukraine on the brink of collapse, Speaker Mike Johnson made the leap from Benton, Louisiana (pop. 2,048) congressman to custodian of the trans-Atlantic alliance. “It was the intelligence, it was the Europe generals who are in charge of the freedom of the world and of course it was the developments as well, everything has escalated,” Johnson told me, alluding to the conversations he had with the American brass at European Command. If those developments, namely Ukraine running ou ..read more

Move will see Britain spend 2.5 percent of GDP on defense by end of the decade as Downing Street urges ‘other major European NATO economies to follow ..read more

The Biden administration is preparing a roughly $1 billion package of military aid for Ukraine, as the Senate is poised to pass a bill to provide urgently needed funding for Kyiv, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions. The tranche will include artillery, air defenses and armored vehicles — Bradley Fighting Vehicles, as well as potentially older Humvees and M113 armored personnel carriers POLITICO first reported on Monday. The Pentagon is still putting the finishing touches on the package, but the total will be roughly $1 billion, said the person, who was granted anonymity to ..read more

Student Gaza solidarity protests are engulfing some of the nation’s top colleges in turmoil. The protests are upending the final weeks of the spring semester as college presidents scramble to tamp down on the encampments on prominent campus lawns and building occupations that are escalating pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Student groups say they are showing their support of Palestinians in Gaza, but they are also seeking to pressure their institutions to “divest all economic and academic stakes in Israel.” College leaders say they’re worried about campus security and are disavowing harassing ..read more

Details of prosecutors’ battles to obtain testimony from high-level White House aides to Donald Trump may soon become public, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in response to a POLITICO petition to access records related to the investigation of Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election. The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found that although those grand jury fights were properly kept secret at first, special counsel Jack Smith’s office confirmed the existence of the legal battles soon after charging Trump last year in the 2020 election probe ..read more

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As the Jan. 6 committee was working on its bombshell investigation into the Capitol riot and President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election, committee staffers took some time out of their seemingly 24-hour jobs one day in 2022 to brief a group of lawyers and legal pundits on a Zoom call. The people on the call weren’t affiliated with the investigation or the government. But they would have been familiar to anyone who watches cable news. They were some of the country’s most well-known legal and political commentators, and they were there to get insights into the committee’s wor ..read more

MIAMI — President Joe Biden probably won’t carry Florida in November. But he hopes the state serves as a warning to voters elsewhere about what could happen if he doesn't win. Biden plans to denounce Florida’s policies, especially a six-week abortion ban taking effect next week, during a campaign event in Tampa on Tuesday. It’s just one example of how the campaign in the coming months will try to designate the now conservative-leaning state as “ground zero for Trump’s MAGA blueprint,” citing not just abortion but also looser gun laws and book removals from school libraries. Playing no small p ..read more