CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois’ imprisoned ex-governor, Rod Blagojevich, has filed paperwork asking President Donald Trump to commute his 14-year prison term for corruption that included seeking to sell an appointment to the Senate seat Barack Obama vacated to become president. A spokesman for Blagojevich’s lawyers told the Chicago Tribune it was submitted Tuesday to the…
By JONATHAN LEMIRE and CATHERINE LUCEY , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared Monday that he has the “absolute right” to pardon himself, but added he had done nothing wrong, asserting his presidential power as the White House is sharpening its political and legal defenses against the special counsel Russia probe. Trump’s…
By JONATHAN LEMIRE , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s lawyers composed a secret 20-page letter to special counsel Robert Mueller to assert that he cannot be forced to testify while arguing that he could not have committed obstruction because he has absolute authority over all federal investigations. The existence of the letter,…
By ZEKE MILLER, JOSH LEDERMAN and JONATHAN LEMIRE , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S.-North Korea summit is back on, President Donald Trump announced Friday, ending weeks of uncertainty about a historic meeting with Kim Jong Un, to discuss ending the North Korean leader’s nuclear program. Trump made the announcement, just a week after…
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump says he is considering commuting the sentence of ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and pardoning Martha Stewart. The comments came aboard Air Force One on Thursday after he announced on Twitter that he planned to pardon conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza. Trump tells reporters that Blagojevich said something dumb but that…
By MATTHEW LEE and JOSH LEDERMAN , Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A top aide to Kim Jong Un will make a rare visit to Washington Friday to hand a letter from the North Korean leader to President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after reporting “good progress” in talks between the…
By KEN THOMAS and ANGELA CHARLTON , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports after failing to win concessions from the European Union, a move that could provoke retaliatory tariffs and inflame trans-Atlantic trade tensions. U.S. and European officials held last-ditch talks…
By JOSHUA GOODMAN and CATHERINE LUCEY , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Joshua Holt, a Utah man who traveled to Venezuela in 2016 to marry a woman he met online but soon found himself jailed and later branded the CIA’s top spy in Latin America, has been set free by the anti-American Maduro government. He…
By JILL COLVIN , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has granted a rare posthumous pardon to boxing’s first black heavyweight champion, clearing Jack Johnson’s name more than 100 years after what many see as his racially charged conviction. “I am taking this very righteous step, I believe, to correct a wrong that…
By CATHERINE LUCEY, ZEKE MILLER and MATTHEW LEE , Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — In a dramatic diplomatic turn, President Donald Trump on Thursday called off next month’s summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, calling the cancellation a “tremendous setback” for peace and stressing that the US military was ready to respond to any…