EXCLUSIVE: Special counsel probing donations with foreign connections to Trump inauguration  —  Special counsel Robert Mueller's team has questioned several witnesses about millions of dollars in donations to President Donald Trump's inauguration committee last year, including questions …

Transcript: White House Chief Of Staff John Kelly's Interview With NPR  —  Editor's note: This post contains language some may find offensive.  —  NPR's Southwest correspondent John Burnett speaks with White House chief of staff John Kelly.  Here's a partial transcript of their conversation, which has been edited for clarity.

Trump Was Told of Schneiderman Women Years Ago, Lawyer Says  — Lawyer asks judge seal Michael Cohen records to protect women  — New York Post journalist said to take allegations to Trump  —  Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was informed about allegations of sexual misconduct …

Giuliani: Trump special counsel interview decision delayed  —  NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump and his lawyers probably won't decide whether to sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller until after the president's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month, according to the president's legal team.

Black activist jailed for his Facebook posts speaks out about secret FBI surveillance  —  Now he is believed to be the first prosecuted under a secretive US effort to track so-called ‘black identity extremists’  —  Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment.

Dear Conservative Media: Do Some More Damn Reporting … The American political left has something that their counterparts on the right do not.  —  It's not a particular point of view, or a thing that is particular to a point of view.  It is more foundational than that.

Maggie Haberman and the Toxic Swamp  —  On this week's episode of my podcast, I Have to Ask, I spoke to Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for the New York Times and an analyst at CNN.  She previously worked at the New York Post and Politico, has been at the Times since 2015 …

My journey to North Korea with the secretary of state … The State Department normally craves elaborate planning and procedures for everything.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 13-hour visit to North Korea had little of that.  —  I had a view of the improvisational quality of his trip because …

They mock vegans and eat 4lb of steak a day: meet ‘carnivore dieters’  —  For the last 18 months, Shawn Baker has eaten around 4lb of steak every day.  —  “I've got two rib-eye steaks waiting for me when I get off this call,” said the trained orthopaedic surgeon from Orange County, California.

The smear that killed the ‘reset’  —  Putin needed an American enemy.  He picked me.  —  From the beginning of the Obama administration, we knew we wanted to reboot our relationship with Moscow.  I coordinated Russia policy from the National Security Council, and Russia …

How the Online Left Fuels the Right  —  I think I know what it feels like to be “red-pilled,” the alt-right's preferred metaphor for losing one's faith in received assumptions and turning toward ideas that once seemed dangerous.  —  For me, it happened over several visits to the West Bank.

The Price of Getting Inside Trump's Head  —  Michael Cohen has profited from it, but we're all Trumpologists now.  —  On Easter Sunday, Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, was holding forth in the green room at ABC News in New York before going on the air.

White House official mocked ‘dying’ McCain at internal meeting  —  A White House official mocked Sen. John McCain  —  's brain cancer diagnosis at an internal meeting on Thursday, a day after the Arizona Republican announced his opposition to President Trump  —  's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel.

Why Did the US Ambassador to Germany Defend a Human Trafficker?  —  It's no secret that the Trump administration, in office for almost 16 months now, has a devilish time filling top positions.  An unprecedented number of plum jobs in our nation's capital, including senior ones of the kind …

Trump to Drop Call for Medicare to Negotiate Lower Drug Prices  —  WASHINGTON — President Trump will lay out on Friday a broad strategy to reduce prescription drug prices, but in a break from one of his most popular campaign promises, he will not call for Medicare to negotiate lower prices …

Documents Reveal How Russian Official Courted Conservatives In U.S. Since 2009  —  Kremlin-linked Russian politician Alexander Torshin traveled frequently between Moscow and various destinations in the United States to build relationships with figures on the American right starting as early as 2009 …

Loyalty, unease in Trump's Midwest  —  Voters gave Trump a chance.  Some remain all in.  Others have grown weary of the chaos.  —  After eight years of displeasure with the presidency of Barack Obama and faced with a choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Dennis Schminke of Austin …

A Qatari spy just got caught bragging about a payoff to Trump campaign member  —  A federal court filing in Los Angeles claims that agents of the nation of Qatar gave a payoff to convicted former Trump NSA, Gen. Michael Flynn, and also that he had accepted those payments.

Blankenship wants to ‘make sure’ Morrisey doesn't win Senate bid  —  Ex-coal CEO Don Blankenship, who lost the GOP primary bid in West Virginia this week, is actively plotting how to undercut state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey's Senate candidacy.  —  Greg Thomas, an adviser …

Florida Insider Poll: Doubts about Bill Nelson beating Rick Scott grow  —  Among more than 200 experts and veterans of Florida politics surveyed in the latest Tampa Bay Times Florida Insider Poll, nearly six in 10 this week said they expect Florida's Republican governor to unseat the three-term Democratic Senator.