Politics Election category, Page 255
Trump pardons ex-strategist Steve Bannon, dozens of othersVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon in the final hours of his White House term as part of a flurry of clemency action that benefited more than 140 people, including rap performers, ex-members of Congress and other allies of him and his family. The last-minute...
Looking back at Trump’s strong connection with Western Pennsylvania
Outgoing President Trump’s frequent visits to Western Pennsylvania were emblematic of his time in office. He brought aspirational ideas. He made questionable claims. He galvanized supporters and detractors alike. He made his first official Pennsylvania campaign stop in Pittsburgh in April 2016. Trump, then the front-runner for the GOP nomination,...
Report: Trump expected to pardon former chief strategist Steve Bannon
President Donald Trump is reportedly going to pardon his former chief strategist as one of his final acts in office, according to CNN and Bloomberg News. BREAKING: Trump is likely to grant Steve Bannon a pardon, sources tell me, ending federal prosecution of the president’s former strategist for allegedly defrauding...
Biden immigration plan opposed by GOP, conservative groupsVideo
WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers and conservative groups opposed President-elect Joe Biden’s forthcoming immigration plan Tuesday as massive amnesty for people in the U.S. illegally, underscoring that the measure faces an uphill fight in a Congress that Democrats control just narrowly. In a further complication, several pro-immigration groups said they would...
Trump wishes new administration luck in farewell videoVideo
WASHINGTON — Trying to repair his tarnished legacy, President Donald Trump trumpeted his administration’s accomplishments and wished his successor luck in a farewell video as he spent his final full day in office preparing to issue a flurry of pardons in a near-deserted White House, surrounded by an extraordinary security...
Harris vice presidency marks several ‘firsts’
When Alyson Holt pursued a degree in electrical engineering, she was keenly aware of how few fellow students looked like her. “Women were 6% of the students,” said Holt, 48, of Murrysville. Holt came from a family full of technology careers — both grandfathers were engineers, and her grandmother and...
Mike Pence won’t attend Trump’s presidential sendoff
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence is among those who will not be attending President Donald Trump’s sendoff event at Joint Base Andrews. A person familiar with Pence’s schedule cited “logistical challenges” in getting from the air base to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremonies on Wednesday. The person spoke on...
Biden marks nation’s covid grief before inauguration pompVideo
WASHINGTON — Hours from inauguration, President-elect Joe Biden paused on what might have been his triumphal entrance to Washington Tuesday evening to mark instead the national tragedy of the coronavirus pandemic with a moment of collective grief for Americans lost. His arrival coincided with the awful news that the U.S....
Trump expected to issue flurry of pardons on last full day
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was expected to spend his last full day in office issuing a flurry of pardons and bidding farewell to the American public from a near-deserted White House and surrounded by an extraordinary security presence outside. In one of his final acts as president, Trump was...
McConnell: Trump ‘provoked’ Capitol siege, mob ‘fed lies’
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday explicitly placed blame on President Donald Trump for the deadly riot at the Capitol, saying the mob was “fed lies” and that the president and others “provoked” those intent on overturning Democrat Joe Biden’s election. McConnell’s remarks as he opened the Senate were...
Biden to attend Mass with congressional leaders
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden will strike a unity theme before his inauguration as president Wednesday by worshipping with Congress’ top Republican and Democratic leaders. The Democratic president-elect has talked throughout the campaign and the post-election period about his goal of uniting a sharply divided country. Biden’s incoming chief of...
Biden won’t end pandemic travel restrictions
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming White House press secretary says his administration does not intend to lift coronavirus travel restrictions for Europe, the U.K., Ireland and Brazil. The message from Jen Psaki came Monday evening after the White House said President Donald Trump had lifted the restrictions for those...
Trump reportedly set to pardon more than 100 people in his final hours as presidentVideo
With just hours left in office, President Donald Trump is expected to dish out pardons and sentence commutations to a varied group of more than 100 criminals, pardons that could include himself and his family members, according to several reports Monday. Trump, whose term ends at noon Wednesday, spent his...
Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham to resign amid criticism over data
Facing criticism over efforts to produce citizenship data to comply with an order from President Donald Trump, U.S. Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham said Monday that he planned to resign with the change in presidential administrations. Dillingham said in a statement that he would resign on Wednesday, the day Trump...
Pelosi demands halt to naming GOP operative as NSA top lawyer
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanded that the Defense Department halt plans to install a Republican operative as the top lawyer at the National Security Agency in the closing hours of President Donald Trump’s administration. The appointment of Michael Ellis as NSA general counsel is “highly suspect,” Pelosi told...
Trump leaves the White House as he came in: Isolated and unpredictableVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump exits the White House after four years of tumult much as he arrived, with only a handful of loyalists and family members at his side. In his final days in office, Trump found friends and political allies in short supply following the deadly Jan. 6...
Twitter suspends Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene over election fraud claims
Twitter on Sunday temporarily suspended the account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia who has expressed racist views and support for QAnon conspiracy theories online. Greene’s account was suspended “without explanation,” she said in a statement, while also condemning big tech companies for “silencing” conservative...
Trump must be cut off from intelligence briefings, Rep. Adam Schiff saysVideo
Regardless of the outcome of his impeachment trial, President Donald Trump should immediately be cut off from intelligence briefings, said the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “There’s no circumstance in which this president should get another intelligence briefing,” Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”...
Redistricting will be definitive political fight of 2021 in Pennsylvania
This article is part of a year-long reporting project focused on redistricting and gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. It’s made possible by the support of Spotlight PA members, including TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Votebeat, a project focused on election integrity and voting access. HARRISBURG — With partisanship in the Pennsylvania legislature at peak...
More backlash for GOP’s Josh Hawley as Loews Hotel cancels event
ORLANDO, Fla. — Loews Hotels said Saturday it has canceled an upcoming fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, the latest fallout for the Republican lawmaker after the U.S. Capitol uprising. The Republican senator from Missouri helped staged an Electoral College challenge the day President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S....
Trump trial pending, McConnell calls it ‘vote of conscience’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is likely to start after Joe Biden’s inauguration, and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is telling senators their decision on whether to convict the outgoing president over the Capitol riot will be a “vote of conscience.” The timing for the trial, the first...
Biden: Science will be at `forefront’ of his administration
President-elect Joe Biden says “science will always be at the forefront of my administration,” and he is elevating the post of science adviser to Cabinet level, a White House first. Biden, who introduced his team Saturday, said the scientists “will ensure everything we do is grounded in science, facts and...
Biden: We’ll ‘manage the hell’ out of feds’ covid response
WILMINGTON, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden pledged Friday to boost supplies of coronavirus vaccine and set up new vaccination sites to meet his goal of 100 million shots in 100 days. It’s part of a broader covid strategy that also seeks to straighten out snags in testing and ensure minority...
Governors complain over pace of covid-19 vaccine shipments
Governors bitterly accused the Trump administration Friday of deceiving the states about the amount of covid-19 vaccine they can expect to receive as they ramp up vaccinations for senior citizens and others. But the government attributed the anger to confusion and misguided expectations on the part of the states. Meanwhile,...
Biden picks geneticist as science adviser, puts in Cabinet
President-elect Joe Biden announced Friday that he has chosen a pioneer in mapping the human genome — the so-called “book of life” — to be his chief science adviser and is elevating the top science job to a Cabinet position. Biden nominated Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute...
