How Mitt Romney Decided Trump Is Guilty  —  Mitt Romney didn't want to go through with it.  —  “This has been the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my life,” he told me yesterday afternoon in his Senate office.  Roughly 24 hours later, Romney would deliver a speech announcing …

Pelosi unloads on Trump in private meeting after SOTU standoff  —  Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped into President Donald Trump in a private meeting with Democrats Wednesday, just hours after the two jousted in a silent sparring match during his State of the Union address.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema says she will vote to convict President Trump on impeachment charges  —  Citing her concern for the Constitution as well as the conduct of future presidents, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema will vote Wednesday to convict President Donald Trump on the impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The Iowa Caucuses App Had Another Problem: It Could Have Been Hacked  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.  —  A glitch in the smartphone app used to count and report votes …

In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear  —  One journalist remarked to me, “How in the world can these senators walk around here upright when they have no backbone?”  —  Mr. Brown is a Democratic senator from Ohio.  —  Not guilty.  Not guilty.

What's next — giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to David Duke?  —  So that the right-wing, faux-outrage crowd does not have a meltdown, let me be clear: I am sorry to hear talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh has cancer.  Any decent person should hope he has a full recovery.

House managers: Trump won't be vindicated.  The Senate won't be, either.  —  Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Val Demings (Fla.), Sylvia Garcia (Tex.) and Jason Crow (Colo.) were the Democratic House managers in the impeachment trial of President Trump.

First head rolls after Biden's weak Iowa finish  —  DES MOINES — Joe Biden's campaign has parted ways with its Iowa field director, two days after the former vice president came in an embarrassing fourth place in the primary caucus state.  —  Adrienne Bogen, who headed field operations for Biden …

Surprise for New York Renters: No More Broker Fees  —  Regulators unexpectedly banned broker fees for renters, which in the city have long amounted to as much as 15 percent of the annual lease.  —  In New York's City intensely competitive rental market, tenants usually deal with middlemen known as brokers …

Kirk Douglas, Indomitable Icon of Hollywood's Golden Age, Dies at 103  —  The actor starred in such films as ‘Champion,’ ‘The Bad and the Beautiful,’ ‘Lust for Life,’ ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral’ and ‘Spartacus,’ to name just a few.  —  Kirk Douglas, the son of a ragman who channeled a deep …

I believe the president, and in the president  —  George T. Conway III is a lawyer in New York and an adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump super PAC.  —  I believe the president, and in the president.  —  I believe the Senate is right to acquit the president.

TV Ratings Declined for Trump's State of the Union Speech  —  About 37 million Americans tuned in on Tuesday, the smallest audience of President Trump's tenure.  —  President Trump put a “Celebrity Apprentice” spin on his State of the Union address on Tuesday, seeding the 78-minute broadcast …

New Evidence Shows Pressure Campaign Started Earlier With Prior Ukraine Prez  —  As the Senate votes to acquit President Trump over his bid to extort the Ukrainian government into providing him with domestic political help, TPM has new evidence suggesting that the pressure campaign came far closer …

Former ‘Simpsons’ writer slams Pompeo tweet: ‘Please do not ever ever ever use Simpsons material’  —  A former writer for “The Simpsons” on Wednesday ripped Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for using a snapshot from the show to knock Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), saying …

Disney Didn't Just Buy ‘Hamilton’ for $75 Million; It Bought a Potential Franchise  —  After Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical “Hamilton” opened in New York in 2015, getting your hands on tickets became a near-impossible feat.  It went on to gross $500 million, won 11 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize …

TV Ratings: State of the Union Falls in Early Broadcast Numbers  —  Preliminary figures show the annual address down by double digits versus 2019.  —  The State of the Union address drew a considerably smaller audience on the broadcast networks than it did a year ago, at least in the preliminary ratings from Tuesday.

FactChecking the State of the Union  —  The president's address included false and misleading claims on jobs, wages, energy, immigration and more.  — 370.7K  —  In his 2020 address to Congress, President Donald Trump stretched and distorted the facts:  — Trump claimed the economy is “the best it has ever been.”