Politics Election category, Page 175

WASHINGTON — Three major veterans’ groups on Friday called for the immediate dismissal of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie following a scathing government audit that found he had acted unprofessionally if not unethically in the handling of a congressional aide’s allegation of sexual assault at a VA hospital. Iraq and...

President-elect Joe Biden is getting the old gang back together. Increasingly deep into the process of selecting Cabinet members and other senior staff, the incoming Biden administration has a distinctly Obama feel. There’s Denis McDonough, former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff who Biden announced on Thursday would be nominated...

HARRISBURG — Lawyers for Pennsylvania responded in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to Texas’ effort to overturn the election result in four states for President-elect Joe Biden, calling it a “seditious abuse” of the courts that rests on conspiracy theories and falsehoods. Texas lacks standing to bring the challenge,...

The gun debate in America will soon enter a new chapter with a Democrat in the White House after four years under President Donald Trump in which gun control advocates developed a long wish list for reform amid a spate of large-scale mass killings in places like Las Vegas, El...

WASHINGTON — Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations, President Donald Trump said Thursday, marking the fourth Arab-Israeli agreement in four months. As part of the deal announced near the end of Trump’s term, the United States will recognize Morocco’s claim over the disputed Western Sahara region. Trump said...

WASHINGTON — There’s plenty of noise but no cause for confusion as President Donald Trump vents about how the election turned out and vows to subvert it even still. This truth is self-evident: Joe Biden is on track to become president Jan. 20. The machinery of government and democracy is...

WASHINGTON — The Senate fell short Wednesday in trying to halt the Trump administration’s proposed $23 billion arms sales to the United Arab Emirates, despite bipartisan objections to the package of F-35 fighter jets and drones stemming from a broader Middle East peace agreement. Senators argued the sale of the...

WASHINGTON — Still spinning their wheels on covid-19 relief, lawmakers grabbed a one-week government funding extension on Wednesday that buys time for more talks — though there is considerable disagreement over who is supposed to be taking the lead from there. Amid the uncertainty, the House easily passed a one-week...

RICHMOND, Va. — Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has formally announced his candidacy for next year’s gubernatorial contest in a race that will serve as a barometer of voter sentiment during President-elect Joe Biden’s first year in office. McAuliffe held a news conference Wednesday outside an elementary school in Richmond,...

WASHINGTON — Retiring Rep. Joe Kennedy III used his farewell speech from Congress on Wednesday to deride the “great lie of our times” that the government lacks the resources and will to help people in need. He said the real problem is greed, not scarcity. Speaking for five minutes on...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden made his case for retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin to be secretary of defense, urging Congress to waive a legal prohibition against a recently serving military officer running the Pentagon. With concern rising in Congress about eroding civilian control of the military, Biden on Tuesday...

Jenna Ellis, a main component on President Donald Trump’s campaign legal team, has reportedly tested positive for covid-19. Axios reported on Tuesday that Ellis, 36, told friends and associates she got the results shortly after attending a White House Christmas party over the weekend. White House aides have been abuzz...

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the congressional panel planning inauguration ceremonies blocked a resolution stating that they were preparing for the swearing-in of President-elect Joe Biden, as President Donald Trump’s continues his bitter battle over the election result. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Roy Blunt and House Republican leader Kevin...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden has selected Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as his housing and urban development secretary and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reprise that role in his administration, according to five people familiar with the decisions. Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, was just...

PHILADELPHIA — Sen. Pat Toomey said Tuesday that it’s “completely unacceptable” for President Donald Trump to pressure state lawmakers to overturn Pennsylvania’s election result, a rare rebuke from a Republican elected official as Trump continues his effort to subvert the will of the voters. “It’s completely unacceptable and it’s not...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. cybersecurity official who was fired last month by President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Tuesday over threatening remarks by a lawyer for the president that prompted a wave of death threats against him. Christopher Krebs says in the suit that he has been “bombarded” with threats...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Republicans’ last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the electoral battleground. The court without comment refused to call into question the certification process in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf already has certified Biden’s victory and the state’s 20...

HARRISBURG — President Donald Trump’s campaign has lost another round in a flurry of Republican lawsuits over Pennsylvania’s election, with the state Supreme Court refusing Tuesday to hear its appeal over fewer than 2,000 ballots in a suburban Philadelphia county. The court, which has a 5-2 Democratic majority, denied the...

WASHINGTON — The Democratic-controlled House on Tuesday approved a wide-ranging defense policy bill, even as President Donald Trump renewed his threat to veto the bill unless lawmakers clamp down on social media companies he claims were biased against him during the election. Trump tweeted Tuesday that he will veto “the...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his allies say their lawsuits aimed at subverting the 2020 election and reversing his loss to Joe Biden would be substantiated, if only judges were allowed to hear the cases. There is a central flaw in the argument. Judges have heard the cases and...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is continuing his futile appeal to battleground state lawmakers to subvert the votes of their constituents. The president has reached out twice to Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican, to see what might be possible for Trump to do about the state’s presidential vote....

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon. Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate,...

WASHINGTON — Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack has emerged as a leading candidate for secretary of agriculture in the Biden administration, reprising a role he held under President Barack Obama, according to people familiar with the nomination process. The people said that while Vilsack was favored, President-elect Joe Biden has...