CNN – US Politics

By Marshall Cohen (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a controversial legal theory that would’ve given partisan state lawmakers nearly unchecked power over US elections. Former President Donald Trump and his staunch allies used the now-rejected “independent state legislature” theory to justify their attempts to overturn the 2020 election. And many Trump critics

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN (CNN) — The US Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on four companies involved in “gold dealing” and one person they say made “weapons deals” tied to the Wagner Group. The announcement of the sanctions comes days after the short-lived mutiny led by the head of the mercenary group’s leader, Yevegny

By Kylie Atwood, CNN (CNN) — Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said that the Chinese military was “stronger” at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency and accused the former president of being “singularly focused” on trade with China while he was in office. “China was military stronger – militarily stronger – when President Trump

By Devan Cole, CNN Washington (CNN) — Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday renewed his yearslong attack on a landmark First Amendment decision, with the conservative jurist again calling for the Supreme Court to revisit the “flawed” ruling in the 1964 case. The decades-old case, New York Times v. Sullivan, created a higher bar for public

By Kristen Holmes and Nicky Robertson, CNN (CNN) — Advisers and allies to former President Donald Trump are expressing outrage after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that he thinks Trump can win in 2024, but does not know if he is the “strongest” candidate. “I’ve been fielding calls on this since it happened,” one Trump

By Jason Morris and Sara Murray, CNN (CNN) — Investigators from special counsel Jack Smith’s office are set to interview Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as part of the federal probe into efforts to subvert the peaceful transition of power. A spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office confirmed Raffensperger’s interview is set to

By Ariane de Vogue and Tierney Sneed, CNN (CNN) — The Supreme Court said Tuesday that the North Carolina Supreme Court did not violate the elections clause of the US Constitution when it invalidated the state’s 2022 congressional map, rejecting a broad version of a controversial legal Independent State Legislature theory pushed by supporters of

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday wiped away a lower court decision upholding the stalking conviction of a Colorado man who sent hundreds of messages to a woman over Facebook. The justices said the court had used the wrong standard in convicting the man and sent

By Tierney Sneed and Katelyn Polantz, CNN (CNN) — The first hearing for Donald Trump and the special counsel’s office before Judge Aileen Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago documents case will be in Fort Pierce, Florida, on July 14. The hearing is set to discuss pretrial issues around classification, with Cannon on Monday granting a request

By Natasha Bertrand, Alex Marquardt, Kylie Atwood and Kevin Liptak, CNN Washington (CNN) — US intelligence officials were able to gather an extremely detailed and accurate picture of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plans leading up to his short-lived rebellion, including where and how Wagner was planning to advance, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

By Kevin Liptak, CNN (CNN) — President Joe Biden on Monday sought to distance the United States from the weekend rebellion in Russia, insisting in his first public remarks since the episode that the West had nothing to do with the mutiny. Speaking from the White House, Biden suggested it was too early to say

By Steve Contorno and Kit Maher, CNN Eagle Pass, Texas (CNN) — In his first major policy rollout of his 2024 presidential campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday proposed a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration, including sending the US military to the border and mass detention and deportation of undocumented people. DeSantis would also

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Monday dropped a case concerning a lower court opinion that allowed for a handful of members of Congress to sue a government agency for records related to the Washington, DC, hotel once owned by former President Donald Trump. The court’s move

By Tierney Sneed (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to add another majority-Black district. The justices reversed plans to hear the case themselves and lifted a hold they placed on a lower court’s order for a reworked redistricting regime. There were no noted dissents. The move

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter Washington (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court opinion that invalidated a code of conduct at a North Carolina publicly funded charter school that required girls to wear skirts in order to “preserve chivalry” based on the belief that every girl

By Kevin Liptak, CNN Washington (CNN) — As President Joe Biden was walking from the White House residence to a briefing on the unfolding crisis in Russia, not much was certain. It wasn’t obvious, for example, how a column of Wagner group mercenaries rapidly advancing toward Moscow might affect the war in Ukraine. Nor was

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter (CNN) — A federal appeals court judge previously on short lists for the Supreme Court is taking the rare step to broadly and publicly reject allegations that Justice Clarence Thomas has been improperly influenced by lavish gifts provided by a conservative billionaire, dismissing “pot shots” at the

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN Reporter, Crime and Justice (CNN) — The special counsel’s office has asked for Donald Trump to be tried in December in the Mar-a-Lago documents matter, because of how classified records must be handled carefully within the criminal case. A federal judge previously put the trial on the calendar for mid-August but

Sabrina Souza and Kaanita Iyer, CNN (CNN) — New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law Friday that legally protects doctors who prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in states where abortion services are outlawed or restricted. “We are witnessing a shameful regression of women’s rights in this country as abortion

By Alayna Treene, CNN (CNN) — Former President Donald Trump spoke Thursday at a fundraiser on behalf of defendants charged for their participation in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, a Trump campaign official told CNN. The fundraiser was hosted at Trump’s private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on behalf of

By Kylie Atwood and Sam Fossum, CNN (CNN) — The White House confirmed Friday that an official diplomatic reprimand, known as a démarche, had been given to the US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns following President Joe Biden’s comments comparing China’s Xi Jinping to a dictator at a political fundraiser in California earlier this week.

By Morgan Rimmer, Lauren Fox and Haley Talbot, CNN (CNN) — Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his allies met with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus ahead of a two-week recess to discuss their strategy for funding the government, as negotiations over appropriations bills loom large over the next month. The meeting came after members

By Kara Scannell, CNN New York (CNN) — Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a judge on Friday to sign off on an agreement with E. Jean Carroll’s attorneys to transfer $5.5 million to a court-controlled account in a step toward satisfying the judgment from the defamation lawsuit. The agreement is Trump’s first step toward paying

By Rebekah Riess and Shania Shelton, CNN (CNN) — The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Andrew Warren, a state attorney who was ousted by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year, citing an “unreasonable delay” in filing a challenge to the Republican governor’s authority to suspend him. Warren, a twice-elected Democrat, drew

By Fredreka Schouten, CNN (CNN) — A key GOP election official in Arizona is suing defeated gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake for defamation, arguing that her repeated false claims of malfeasance in the 2022 election have upended his life. In the lawsuit, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer asserts that Lake, her campaign and an affiliated fundraising

By Katelyn Polantz, Sara Murray, Zachary Cohen and Casey Gannon, CNN Washington (CNN) — Special counsel Jack Smith has compelled at least two Republican fake electors to testify to a federal grand jury in Washington in recent weeks by giving them limited immunity, part of a current push by federal prosecutors to swiftly nail down

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter (CNN) — The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling on Friday, revived the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines that prioritize which noncitizens to deport, dismissing a challenge from two Republican state attorneys general who argued the policies conflicted with immigration law. The court said the states, Texas and

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a provision of federal law that prohibits the encouragement of illegal immigration for financial gain, ruling against a man who ran an organization falsely claiming that noncitizens could obtain citizenship in the US through adult adoption. The case raised

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN (CNN) — The fallout from a global hacking incident tied to Russian cybercriminals widened on Thursday as US insurance provider Genworth Financial revealed that 2.5 million of its policyholders and customers had their data accessed in the hack, while California’s public pension fund said 769,000 of its members were affected. The

By Annette Choi and Shawna Mizelle, CNN (CNN) — In the year since the monumental US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the federal constitutional right to abortion nationwide, more than a dozen US states have banned or severely restricted access to the procedure. Abortion remains legal in seven states that

By Steve Contorno and Kate Sullivan, CNN (CNN) — Republican presidential candidates took turns Friday pitching themselves to a ballroom full of religious conservatives in Washington as the most viable alternative to front-runner Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination. The specter of the former president loomed large over the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road

By Betsy Klein and Sam Fossum, CNN (CNN) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris joined a trio of key reproductive rights activist groups to mark the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision Friday, highlighting what’s expected to be a major Biden campaign plank for the 2024 presidential election. “MAGA Republicans

By Andy Rose and Kaanita Iyer, CNN (CNN) — Medication abortion will remain legal in Wyoming for now after a district judge on Thursday blocked the state’s ban on abortion pills, according to the Casper Star-Tribune. The law, intended to take effect July 1, would have prohibited the prescription, sale and use of abortion pills

By Mark Morales, Lauren del Valle and Fredreka Schouten, CNN (CNN) — A federal judge on Thursday unsealed the identities of the co-signers on embattled Rep. George Santos’ $500,000 bond that allowed the New York Republican to stay out of federal custody after he was charged in a 13-count indictment. The guarantors were listed as

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against the Navajo Nation, dismissing a lawsuit arguing that the federal government has the legal duty under treaties signed in the 1800s to develop a plan to provide the tribe with an adequate water supply. The ruling was 5-4

By Kate Sullivan, CNN (CNN) — Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, who announced his 2024 Republican presidential campaign earlier Thursday with an anti-Donald Trump message, said he won’t sign the Republican National Committee’s pledge to back the party’s ultimate nominee in order to participate in primary debates. “I won’t be signing any kind of pledges,

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN (CNN) — US President Joe Biden downplayed the impact of his comments likening his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to a dictator, even as the Chinese government warned of “consequences” for the remarks. “I don’t think it’s had any real consequence,” Biden said at a news conference Thursday, dismissing concerns that the

By Kevin Liptak, CNN (CNN) — Democratic institutions in the United States and around the world have grown “creaky,” former President Barack Obama warned in an exclusive CNN interview Thursday, and it remains incumbent on American leaders to find ways to sustain them into the future. He told CNN Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour that

By Ariane de Vogue and Devan Cole, CNN Washington (CNN) — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of a federal prisoner who argued he should be able to challenge his 27-year sentence for firearms possession based on changes in the law since his trial. The court’s decision will make it harder for federal

By Andy Rose and Sydney Kashiwagi, CNN (CNN) — State Sen. Angela Paxton, the wife of embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, will no longer be allowed to vote in her husband’s upcoming impeachment proceedings as a result of new rules the state Senate approved Wednesday night. The Dallas-area Republican state senator had previously vowed

By Jim Sciutto, Chief National Security Correspondent (CNN) — In its early phases, Ukraine’s counteroffensive is having less success and Russian forces are showing more competence than western assessments expected, two western officials and a senior US military official tell CNN. The counteroffensive is “not meeting expectations on any front,” one of the officials said.

By Brad Lendon, CNN Seoul, South Korea (CNN) — A US Coast Guard ship “conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit” on Tuesday, according to a statement released by the US Navy. “The Legend-class national security cutter USCGC Stratton (WMSL 752) conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on June 20 (local time) through waters where high-seas