Election watchdog loses its enforcement powers as Trump seeks to exert more control over its decisions
CNN
The agency charged with policing federal campaign finance laws is losing its enforcement and policy-making powers with the resignation of a Republican commissioner.
The agency charged with policing federal campaign finance laws is losing its enforcement and policy-making powers with the resignation of a Republican commissioner. Allen Dickerson’s departure Wednesday — combined with President Donald Trump’s February firing of long-serving Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub — leaves the Federal Election Commission with just three members and lacking a quorum. The six-member commission needs at least four members to pursue high-level business. Another commissioner, Republican Sean Cooksey, resigned in January. Dickerson announced his resignation during an open meeting of the panel Wednesday. His four-year term expires this week. But previously some FEC commissioners, including Weintraub, had remained with the agency well after the expiration of their terms. The FEC is the latest federal agency to lose its policymaking powers in recent months as Trump seeks more control over independent arms of the government. The president’s firings this year, for instance, have stripped the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board of the numbers required for a quorum as he moves to remake the federal workforce and eliminate practices that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion. The White House did not immediately respond to a CNN inquiry about Trump’s timeline for nominating replacements to the FEC, which operates with three commissioners from each party. The posts require Senate confirmation.
The first week of testimony in Brian Walshe’s murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts, has come to an end. The jury heard from about two dozen witnesses called by the commonwealth in its case against Walshe as prosecutors work to prove he killed his wife, Ana Walshe, around New Year’s Day in 2023.
The US Army officially stood up a new command on Friday to oversee the Army’s activities in the Western Hemisphere in the latest signal of increasing focus on homeland defense.
A former high-level Drug Enforcement agent was indicted on charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel.
A federal judge in Florida ordered the unsealing of grand jury transcripts and other records in the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein granting the Justice Department’s request.
The Indiana House approved new congressional maps designed to hand Republicans all nine of the state’s US House seats on Friday, setting the stage for a showdown next week in the state Senate.
Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla said last-minute interference from US President Donald Trump in the country’s closely fought election had damaged his chances of winning and left him trailing as vote counting dragged on.
Vice President JD Vance said he and second lady Usha Vance are largely amused by the online chatter dissecting their marriage, including a recent spate of headlines over photos of her without a wedding ring.
During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter said.
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The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?