Federal Executive Departments

Election officials have been planning and preparing for 2020 based on what they know happened leading up to 2016. The question now is what more they may learn from the special counsel.

In May 2017, the special counsel's office took over an FBI probe into Russian election interference that already had been underway for nearly a near. The report about that work is now ready.

The investigation into campaign finance violations by Michael Cohen and Donald Trump appears to be going strong based on new documents released Tuesday. Importantly, the portion of the FBI search warrants related to the hush money scheme that Cohen pleaded guilty to have been completely redacted, suggesting that information is still being tightly guarded.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that — despite more than two years of President Trump’s “America First” policies — the United States last year posted a $891.2 billion merchandise trade deficit, the largest in the nation’s 243-year history.

If they had known, they never would have bought the house on Bayou Glen Road. Sure, it was a beautiful lot, tucked in a bend of the creek, backyard woodsy and wild, the neighbors friendly and the street quiet. A little piece of nature just 20 minutes from downtown Houston. It was exactly what John and Heather Papadopoulos — recently married, hoping to start a family — were looking for in 2007. They didn't think much about the creek that ran along their yard, aside from appreciating the birds it attracted to the neighborhood.

Nearly 50 House Democrats are calling on a top government watchdog to investigate the force-feeding of immigrant detainees who have been on hunger strikes in protest of abusive conditions and prolonged imprisonment. “Rather than addressing those complaints,” the members write to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “is force-feeding detainees and reportedly taking other punitive measures, including solitary confinement.”

Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller's confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans.

What a bonkers two years the world has endured since Donald Trump landed in the White House, despite losing the popular vote by millions of votes. Who could forget James Comey releasing his extremely inappropriate letter to the public, alerting voters that the FBI was taking a fresh look at old emails from Hillary Clinton associates, emails that turned out to be a big nothing burger, while at the same time never revealing that Donald Trump’s campaign was under investigation for colluding with foreign enemy No. 1, Russia. Without a doubt, those actions impacted the 2016 election.