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So here comes Collins admitting that she’s discussing the subject of new witnesses with a select group of colleagues. Speaking to reporters on Friday at the end of a visit to the Fruit Street School in Bangor, Collins said she had been working all week with a “fairly small group” of Republican senators and party leaders to ensure trial rules would allow House impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers to call witnesses. Collins declined to say how large the group was, but she said “we should be completely open to calling witnesses.” “I am hopeful that we can reach an agreement...

Maxwell, the late owner of Mirror Newspapers, invested $2 million in Mr Romney's first private equity fund, which launched the controversial career in finance that the Republican presidential challenger now cites as proof of his ability to lead the US to prosperity. He was recruited by Lyons, a late colleague of Mr Romney's at Bain & Company and one of the "Guinness Four" who were convicted in 1990 over the infamous share-trading fraud at the drinks firm. Lyons and his family invested almost $3 million in Mr Romney's fund.

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska expressed unease in an interview broadcast on Tuesday with the Senate majority leader’s vow of “total coordination” with the White House on impeachment proceedings against President Trump, a potentially significant crack in Republican unity. Ms. Murkowski, a moderate with an independent streak, told Anchorage’s NBC affiliate KTUU she opposed “being hand in glove with the defense” and voiced other concerns as the Senate prepares to hold a trial over the two articles of impeachment that the House approved earlier this month. Ms. Murkowski’s views could prove important. She rarely speaks publicly against Republican leadership, but...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to acquit President Donald Trump in the Senate if he’s impeached in the House, not just dismiss the charges against him, two senators told CNN on Wednesday. CNN reports: Republicans want to have a vote on acquittal — to clear the President of the charges against him — not simply rely on a 51-vote threshold procedural motion to dismiss the hotly disputed case. The Constitution mandates 67 votes are required to convict the President and remove him from office, a barrier widely considered too high to be reached in this case. One vote...

Former first lady Michelle Obama defended her friendship with former President George W. Bush in a new interview with Bush's daughter, Jenna Bush Hager. Speaking on the Today show on Tuesday, the former first lady, 55, said that while she and Bush, 73, may disagree on matters of politics, they actually have plenty in common — something that's true of most people, she believes. 'Our values are the same. We disagree on policy, but we don't disagree on humanity. We don't disagree about love and compassion,' she said. 'I think that's true for all of us. It's just that we...

A House Republican is pressing Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to subpoena the call records of top Democrats and a whistleblower lawyer, signaling a new GOP line of defense amid the impeachment inquiry examining President Trump’s ties to Ukraine. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), one of Trump’s House allies, asked Graham in a letter Wednesday to subpoena AT&T for the call records of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as the attorney for Ukraine whistleblower, Mark Zaid. “Chairman, I urge you to utilize your subpoena power...

Congressional Republicans are sticking with their party leader in the face of thousands of pages of evidence showing President Trump leveraged foreign policy for political favors, raising the possibility that not a single House Republican will vote for his impeachment. As they prepare to hold the first open impeachment hearings this week, Democrats had hoped to peel off Republican support from a key bloc — retiring lawmakers who need not worry about internal blowback or primary challenges. Yet many are refusing to break with Trump. Rep. Peter T. King of New York made a point of stating his intention to...

By most everyone’s judgment, the Senate will not vote to remove President Donald Trump from office if the House impeaches him. But what if senators could vote on impeachment by secret ballot? If they didn’t have to face backlash from constituents or the media or the president himself, who knows how many Republican senators would vote to remove? A secret impeachment ballot might sound crazy, but it’s actually quite possible. In fact, it would take only three senators to allow for that possibility.

Pennsylvania is not a slam-dunk for Donald Trump's reelection campaign. That's one takeaway from Tuesday's elections, which turned the Philadelphia suburbs even bluer, as Republicans suffered additional congressional losses following last year's midterms. The Democrats have gone from a 13-5 minority in the House to a 9-9 split. These results in the eastern part of the state "are not helpful to Trump's reelection prospects in Pennsylvania," said Jeff Brauer, political science professor at Keystone College. "The big question will be the extent of enthusiasm of his nonsupporters in the state," Brauer added. "If that outweighs his base support, that will...

A push by President Trump and conservatives to dig into Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine is running into stumbling blocks from an unusual corner: congressional Republicans. Some Republicans believe Trump’s impeachment trial or a separate Senate committee inquiry could lay the groundwork for investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, who have both emerged as a fixation for Trump and his top allies as they look for a foothold in the impeachment battle. Trump escalated the effort on Thursday when he tweeted that the Bidens “must testify” — raising the specter that the president’s lawyers or GOP senators...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Friday that all but three GOP senators had signed onto his resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry. GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) have not yet signed onto the resolution, according to an updated list of co-sponsors shared by Graham the day after he introduced the measure. A spokesperson for Collins didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about whether or not she would back the resolution, which formally opposes the impeachment inquiry and urges House Democrats to hold an official vote on it. A spokeswoman for...

In a bipartisan rebuke to President Donald Trump, the US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning his decision to pull United States troops out of Syria, abandoning US allies in the region as Turkish troops have moved in. The 354-60 vote on the resolution Wednesday was largely symbolic, but it signaled the widespread disapproval among lawmakers for Trump’s latest controversial foreign policy move. It came as fighting continued in northeastern Syria between Turkey and Kurdish fighters, who have been a key US ally in fighting the terror group ISIS.

Ryan, who joined the Fox Corporation board in March, is now reportedly one of the most important voices pushing Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch to transition Fox New and pivot away from Trump, according to Vanity Fair. "Paul is embarrassed about Trump and now he has the power to do something about it," a Fox executive told Vanity Fair. Ryan has been openly critical of Trump ever since leaving Congress. In several on-the-record interviews for Politico correspondent Tim Alberta's book "American Carnage," Ryan didn't mince words about Trump. "I told myself I gotta have a relationship with this guy to help...

Prominent GOP consultant Mike Murphy claimed on Wednesday that he was told by a Republican senator that the majority of Republican senators "would vote to impeach" President Donald Trump if they could do so anonymously. "These Senate Republicans, should the Democrats vote impeachment, which is far more likely than not, are going to be pinned down to a yes/no answer," Murphy, who previously advised Republican politicians including Mitt Romney, John McCain and Jeb Bush, said in an interview with MSNBC. "The politics of it will get worse and worse for Trump," the Republican political consultant, who has long been critical...

A former adviser to 2016 GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush is pushing House Democrats to impeach President Trump and force Republican senators to vote on Trump's fitness for office. Republican political consultant Mike Murphy called out Democrats in an op-ed for the Washington Post published on Tuesday. Murphy said the time has come to force the impeachment question because of recent revelations of Trump's dealings with Ukraine and the president's asking a foreign government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a political opponent. "The new sins are too big and too obvious," Murphy writes

Former Florida governor and Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden’s candidacy for president. Crist, who was a Republican while serving as governor from 2007 to 2011, said that Biden has the ability to appeal to “independent and disaffected Republicans” needed to win Florida in a race against President Trump, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “Joe Biden’s record of getting things done speaks for itself,” Crist said in a Thursday statement. “He has always put the American people above party lines and will continue to as President.” “We need a president whose objective at the end...

Representative John Ratcliffe was/is a key member of the House who has investigated the details of the DOJ and FBI intelligence abuse during the 2016 election.  Factually, Ratcliffe is one of only a few high-clearance House members who had seen all of the unredacted and classified documents associated with the DOJ and FBI activity. Representative Ratcliffe appears for a discussion with Maria Bartiromo and states his confidence that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe will be indicted for lying to internal investigators.  Additionally, and perhaps more interestingly, Ratcliffe outlines how SSCI Chairman Richard Burr working together with Majority leader Mitch...

Boris Johnson’s bid to trigger a general election next month has been blocked by MPs following a string of heavy defeats for the government in both houses of parliament. The prime minister was thwarted three times in the House of Commons: an attempt by opposition parties and Tory rebels to block a no-deal Brexit easily cleared its second and third readings, and Johnson later failed in his attempt to force a snap general election. Immediately afterwards, the prime minister called Jeremy Corbyn, “the first leader of the opposition in the democratic history of our country to refuse the invitation to...

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich plans a likely visit to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire next month or in early October, a top Kasich adviser told Fox News. A trip by the very vocal critic of President Trump — first reported by The Washington Post — will spark further speculation that Kasich is seriously weighing a long-shot GOP primary challenge against the president. “The governor’s never closed the door to challenging Trump,” senior adviser John Weaver told Fox News. […] But even though Kasich retains a small group of solid supporters in the state, any path to...

<p>Two Republican senators have split from their colleagues in calling for Donald Trump’s alleged rape of the author E. Jean Carroll to be investigated. Carrol, an advice columnist for Elle magazine, claims in an upcoming book about “hideous men” in her life that the US president forced himself on her in a changing room at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1995 or 1996. She describes a “colossal struggle” in which Mr Trump entered her “halfway – or completely, I’m not certain”.</p>