Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife were indicted on conspiracy and bribery charges and taken into custody Friday in connection with a U.S. Department of Justice probe into ties between American business leaders and the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. From 2014 to 2021, Cuellar and his wife accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico, and in exchange, Cuellar agreed to advance the interests of the country and the bank in the U.S., according to the indictment. Among other things, Cuellar agreed to influence legi ..read more

Clarence B. Jones says he thought a prankster was on the line when he answered the telephone and heard the person on the other end say they were calling from the White House. “I said, ‘Is this a joke or is this serious?’” Jones recalled. The caller swore they were serious and was calling with the news that President Joe Biden wanted to recognize Jones with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Jones, 93, will be honored for his activism during the Civil Rights Movement. He’s a lawyer who provided legal counsel to Martin Luther King Jr. and helped write the ope ..read more

The prosecution’s star witness has yet to take the stand in Donald Trump’s hush money trial. But jurors are already hearing Michael Cohen’s words as prosecutors work to directly tie Trump to payments to silence women with damaging claims about him before the 2016 election. The second week of testimony in the case will wrap up Friday after jurors heard a potentially crucial piece of evidence: a recording of Trump and Cohen, then his attorney, discussing a plan to pay off an ex-Playboy model who claimed to have an affair with Trump. The former president denies the affair. Prosecutors have spent ..read more

A Georgia business owner who bragged that he “fed” a police officer to a mob of rioters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Thursday to nearly five years in prison for his repeated attacks on law enforcement during the insurrection. Jack Wade Whitton struck an officer with a metal crutch and dragged him — head first and face down — into the crowd on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Whitton later boasted in a text message that he “fed him to the people.” Roughly 20 minutes later, Whitton tried to pull a second officer into the crowd, prosecutors say. He also kicked at ..read more

Donald Trump faces the prospect of additional sanctions in his hush money trial as he returns to court Thursday for another contempt hearing followed by testimony from a lawyer who represented two women who have said they had sexual encounters with the former president. The testimony from attorney Keith Davidson is seen as a vital building block for the prosecution’s case that Trump and his allies schemed to bury unflattering stories in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. He is one of multiple key players expected to be called to the stand in advance of prosecutors’ star witness, Mic ..read more

Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently arrested an Uzbek man in Baltimore with alleged ISIS ties after he had been living inside the United States for over two years, according to two U.S. officials. The man, 33-year-old Jovokhir Attoev, crossed the border into Arizona and was apprehended by Border Patrol in February 2022, the officials said. At the time, neither Customs and Border Protection nor ICE could find any derogatory information on Attoev. He was released inside the U.S. on bond. Then, in May 2023, Uzbekistan put out an international notice that Attoev was wanted in his home cou ..read more

The House passed legislation Wednesday that would establish a broader definition of antisemitism for the Department of Education to enforce anti-discrimination laws, the latest response from lawmakers to a nationwide student protest movement over the Israel-Hamas war. The proposal, which passed 320-91 with some bipartisan support, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics or national origin. It ..read more

The Arizona Senate voted Wednesday to pass a repeal of the near-total ban on abortion from 1864 that was upheld by the battleground state’s Supreme Court last month. Fourteen Democrats in the Senate were joined by two Republican votes in favor of repealing the bill, which narrowly cleared the Arizona House last week and is expected to be signed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. Two Republicans joined with Democrats in the Senate on the 16-14 vote in favor of repealing a Civil War-era ban on abortions that the state’s highest court recently allowed to take effect. The repeal bill narrowly cleared ..read more

A survey of local election officials across the U.S. found that 38% report experiencing “threats, harassment or abuse” and 54% are concerned about the safety of their colleagues, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brennan Center for Justice. The survey of more than 925 local election officials in February and March also found 62% are concerned about political leaders’ attempting to interfere with how election officials do their jobs. Thirteen percent of the local officials who responded said they are “concerned about facing pressure to certify results in favor of a ..read more

The first week of testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial was the scene-setter for jurors. This week, prosecutors are working on filling in the details of how they say he pulled off a scheme to bury damaging stories to protect his 2016 presidential campaign. Prosecutors are setting the stage for crucial testimony from Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, who arranged hush money payments on Trump’s behalf before going to prison for campaign finance violations and other crimes. Trump denies any wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty. Here’s a look at how things are shaping up so far this w ..read more