Exclusive: Trump asked Rosenstein if he was ‘on my team’  —  Washington (CNN)Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein visited the White House in December seeking President Donald Trump's help.  The top Justice Department official in the Russia investigation wanted Trump's support …

Exclusive: Controversial FBI agent co-wrote initial draft of explosive Comey letter reopening Clinton email probe  —  GOP Rep.: FBI texts most biased I've ever seen  —  Washington (CNN)Emails obtained by CNN show the FBI agent at the center of a Capitol Hill storm played a key role …

Mueller Zooms In on Trump Tower Cover Story  —  WASHINGTON — Aboard Air Force One on a flight home from Europe last July, President Trump and his advisers raced to cobble together a news release about a mysterious meeting at Trump Tower the previous summer between Russians and top Trump campaign officials.

Josh Hawley blames sex trafficking on ‘sexual revolution’ of 1960s in leaked audio  —  During a speech to pastors in Kansas City in December, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley linked the problem of sex trafficking to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.  —  Hawley, the top Republican prospect …

SF will wipe thousands of marijuana convictions off the books  —  San Francisco will retroactively apply California's marijuana-legalization laws to past criminal cases, District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday — expunging or reducing misdemeanor and felony convictions going back decades.

Michael Wolff: Nikki Haley ‘embraced’ rumors of affair with Trump … Controversial author Michael Wolff is hitting back at Nikki Haley after the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations denied having an affair with President Trump.  —  In an interview with theSkimm, Wolff said Haley “seems to have embraced” the rumor that he started.

Trump Rating Ticks Up; Support for Tax Plan Increases  —  GOP gains on Dems in generic House ballot  —  West Long Branch, NJ - Donald Trump's job approval rating has bounced back from the record low registered in last month's Monmouth University Poll , as more Americans now see the president …

Signature line from Trump's speech is already a white nationalist rallying cry  —  Donald Trump's first State of the Union was a largely banal speech with few policy details and none of his signature asides and bravado.  Overall, the reception to the speech has been cool.

CDC director resigns because of conflicts over financial interests … This post has been updated.  —  The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned her position on Wednesday after only half a year because of “complex financial interests” that repeatedly forced …

EXCLUSIVE: Trump officials discussed “reversing” abortion for undocumented teen  —  The Trump administration official in charge of the Office of Refugee Resettlement discussed trying to use a controversial, scientifically unproven method to reverse an undocumented teen's abortion, according to documents reviewed by VICE News.

TV Ratings: Trump's First State of the Union Down From 2017 Address in Early Numbers  —  UPDATED: Viewership of President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address is down slightly in the early Nielsen ratings compared to his first televised address to Congress last February as well as President Barack Obama's first such address.

White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration's preference for fossil fuels … The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department's renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall …

Kellyanne Conway Botched Trump Damage Control Meeting With African Ambassadors  —  But Conway didn't discuss much on Africa at all, leaving participants bewildered.  —  In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's disparaging comments about immigration from countries he considered undesirable …

Trump Is Making 2018 Much Harder for Republicans  —  Like colliding storm systems, the three central dynamics shaping the 2018 electoral battlefield converged in President Trump's first State of the Union address on Tuesday.  And control of Congress may turn on which one of these forces voters weigh most heavily.

Train carrying GOP Congress members hits garbage truck, one dead  —  A chartered train carrying Republican lawmakers to a retreat collided with a trash truck in Virginia Wednesday morning and left at least one person dead.  —  White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders …

Gowdy finally had it with Washington  —  Trey Gowdy is done with politics.  —  The House Oversight Committee Chairman for years has joked privately about quitting Congress and returning home to South Carolina.  On Wednesday, he finally pulled the plug — likely for good.

The campaign is over.  The candidate might be dead.  But the spending never stops.  —  ★★★  —  WASHINGTON, D.C.  —  I T'S BEEN MORE THAN A DECADE since South Florida Rep. Mark Foley was forced out of Congress for sending sexual text messages to teenage boys.

Florida (Congress)Man Invited Infamous Troll Chuck Johnson to Trump's State of The Union … Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a conservative Republican firebrand, was the lawmaker responsible for inviting the controversial internet troll Chuck Johnson to Tuesday night's State of the Union address.

Donald Trump Just Asked Congress to End the Rule of Law  —  Donald Trump's first State of the Union was a deeply dangerous speech.  —  It was deeply dangerous because he finally followed in the footsteps of European leaders like Hungarian President Viktor Orban who have long ago learned …

How to Not Die in America  —  On the second Tuesday in June, I start to feel fluish.  If this is 2016 and I'm still a freelance writer, I'm losing money immediately on the assignments I can't complete because my vision is blurry and my thoughts are erratic.  If this is 2013, I am soon taken off the roster at the cafe where I work.