The Senate impeachment trial is starting to get real. After weeks of senators seemingly ducking or dodging the Mack truck headed the chamber's way, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer kicked the preparations for next year's trial into gear Sunday night by laying out Democratic demands for how that trial should actually look. Let the negotiations begin.
Top congressional negotiators clinched a "deal in principle" to fund the US government, an agreement that comes a little more than a week before the deadline and likely takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table.
Congress is once again running right up to the brink of a government shutdown.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch was willing to give Turkey space to consider a US proposal to address its purchases of the Russian S-400 missile defense system.
The top two appropriators in Congress clinched a deal on topline spending levels that should clear the way for at least some of the 12 spending bills to be passed and signed into law before the December 20 deadline, according to two aides with direct knowledge.
Lawmakers are largely in a state of suspense as negotiators prepare for a very big week on the spending talks to avoid a potential government shutdown.
Bipartisan congressional spending negotiators have reached a critical stage in the closed-door talks to take a potential government shutdown later this month off the table.
Lawmakers return to the Capitol this week with negotiations over a crucial budget deal, in the words of one senior official involved, "as far away from agreement as they've been."
The top four congressional leaders will meet next week with White House officials to officially launch negotiations over a two-year budget deal, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Lawmakers and aides are looking at the looming failure Thursday of competing proposals to reopen the government as the most positive thing to happen in 34 days of government shutdown morass. Yes, that's an indication of how bad things still are between the two sides, but as one GOP official put it to CNN: "We're all desperate to be optimistic about anything at this point, so I'll take it."
A bipartisan Senate "gang" entered Wednesday hoping to pull together a proposal that could garner the votes (and presidential support) to re-open the government, while the White House will take a second swing at convincing rank-and-file Democrats to peel away from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Well into the third week of the partial government shutdown, the static nature of the actual state of things on Capitol Hill is really quite amazing.
The partial government shutdown headed into its third week over the weekend.
The federal government faces a partial shutdown in five days and nobody on Capitol Hill -- Republican allies of President Donald Trump or Democratic opponents -- has any idea what the President will or won't accept in terms of a deal. Congressional Democrats laid out their government funding proposals last week and haven't moved from them. Congressional Republicans have been waiting since then for guidance from the White House on next steps -- a counter proposal? A short-term punt? S
Congress has four days before funding for some government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, runs out and results in a partial government shutdown.
Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation as President Donald Trump's next Supreme Court justice has moved from a lock to a real question of whether he'll actually get a vote at all.
Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee who has drawn scrutiny from Democrats for the thousands of dollars of credit card debt incurred by purchasing baseball tickets, says he was paid by friends for the cost of the tickets "to the dollar."
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer escalated on Friday the ongoing partisan fight over documents related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's career, sending a letter to President George W. Bush asking him to authorize and make public the release of all documents related to Kavanaugh's time in the Bush White House -- including in the position of staff secretary.
President Donald Trump will announce his Supreme Court nominee at 9 p.m. As of this moment, nobody on Capitol Hill knows the selection, according to several senior aides (which, of course, makes sense given the president himself said he hadn't finalized the selection as of Sunday evening).
The Senate is on the verge of directly undercutting a key piece of President Donald Trump's trade negotiations with China, as a bipartisan group of lawmakers successfully pushed for the inclusion of a bill to undo a deal to save Chinese telecom ZTE.
The Commerce Department informed lawmakers on Friday of the outlines of a tentative deal that could save sanctioned telecommunications company ZTE, a key priority for Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to two people familiar with the matter.
President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next secretary of state may not get a favorable committee vote, but that won't stop his nomination, according to GOP lawmakers and aides.
House Speaker Paul Ryan described the message delivered to him by an octogenarian businessman a few months ago as akin to getting hit in the head "with a two-by-four, more or less."
