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On Thursday, the first day of the 116th Congress, Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL), Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA), Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Congressman John Katko (R-NY) introduced a bipartisan constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics and restore democratic power to the American people.

The Democracy for All Amendment affirms the right of states and the federal government to pass laws that regulate spending in elections, reversing the concentration of political influence held by the wealthiest Americans and large corporations capable of spending millions of dollars in our elections. This legislation comes days before the ninth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous ruling in the Citizens United case.

For more information on the amendment, click here for a background summary and click here for a section-by-section and answered FAQs.

President Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and give away its remaining funds amid allegations that he used it for his personal and political benefit, the New York attorney general announced Tuesday.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump and his three eldest children.

The attorney general’s suit, filed in June, alleged “persistently illegal conduct” at the charity and sought to have the foundation shut down. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofits.

Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found “a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more.”

“This is an important victory for the rule of law, making clear that there is one set of rules for everyone,” she added in a statement.

Trump agrees to shut down his charity amid allegations he used it for personal and political benefit

A federal judge sentenced Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen to three years in prison on Wednesday following Cohen's guilty pleas to a number of political and finance crimes.

Those three years would be followed by three years of supervised release, and Cohen also is subject to forfeiture of $500,000, restitution of $1.4 million and a $50,000 fine.

...Cohen told authorities that Trump had directed him to arrange payments to two women ahead of Election Day in 2016 to keep them quiet about sexual relationships they said they had had with Trump — allegations Trump denies.

Federal authorities call that a violation of campaign finance law — one for which Trump also may be culpable.

Later, Cohen admitted that he and other Trump aides continued negotiations with powerful Russians about a potential real estate project in Moscow well into the 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen had told Congress in 2017 that the talks ended in January, but his subsequent admission meant that Trump's aides had a channel open with Russia even as Trump was becoming the GOP front-runner and was denying he had any ties to Russia.

Michael Cohen Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison Following Plea That Implicated Trump

James A. Fields Jr., an avowed neo-Nazi who rammed his car into a group of counterprotesters at a white-supremacist rally, was sentenced to life in prison by a jury Tuesday after a trial that offered an unsparing view of the physical and emotional ruin he caused in this city with a burst of vehicular rage 16 month ago.

As he had throughout his two-week trial, Fields, 21, sat impassively at the defendant’s table, clad in a powder blue sweater, as the jury delivered its verdict at 12:20 p.m. after about four hours of deliberations that began Monday: life for first-degree murder; 70 years for each of five counts of aggravated malicious wounding; 20 years for each of three counts of malicious wounding; and nine years for leaving the scene of a fatal crash.

His overall sentence: life plus 419 years and $480,000 in fines.

Fields also faces a separate federal trial for alleged hate crimes related to the incident, including one offense that carries a possible death sentence. No trial date has been set, and the Justice Department has not said whether it will seek capital punishment.

Turns out that backing up first to give yourself more room to accelerate doesn't look so great when you are claiming self defense.

James A. Fields Jr. sentenced to life in prison in Charlottesville car attack

Trump's "Fixer" Michael Cohen is going to prison for the crimes he committed at the direction of "Individual 1."

Who could Indivdual 1 be, I wonder.

On approximately June 16, 2015, Individual-1, for whom Cohen worked at the time, began an ultimately successful campaign for President of the United States.

Federal Prosecutors ‘Concluded that President of the United States Committed a Felony'

But now we’re seeing that in a court filing for the first time, which, as some legal observers have noted with varying emphasis on the fact, means federal prosecutors have concluded that Trump directed someone to commit a crime, which is a crime. Put another way, SDNY prosecutors believe the president directed and coordinated felonies.

And finally, some info about the lies Manafort told that lead to the destruction of his plea deal came out.

A second woman has come forward claiming that a Bladen County, N.C., electioneer paid her to collect absentee ballots for last month's midterm elections.

Cheryl Kinlaw told WSOCTV, a local news station in Charlotte, N.C., that Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. paid her $100 to collect ballots in their district, adding that Dowless “has been doing it for years."

Kinlaw said that she never mailed the ballots she collected and that she instead handed them over to Dowless. She said she was unaware that what she was doing was illegal.

Dowless has been named twice in sworn affidavits as someone who worked for Republican candidate Mark Harris's campaign as an independent contractor and has been at the center of an investigation into the results of the election in North Carolina's 9th District.

In November, Democrat Dan McCready conceded to Harris in their House race when he was down by approximately 700 votes.

But the elections board decided not to certify the results, citing “claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities related to absentee by-mail voting.”

WSOCTV reported that it has discovered what appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots in Bladen County.

Second woman says she was paid to collect absentee ballots in North Carolina House race

UPDATE:

Over a thousand absentee ballots possibly destroyed in controversial North Carolina House race: report

In more Trump corruption news:

President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Thursday in New York to lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project that Trump and his company pursued at the same time he was running for president.

In a nine-page filing, prosecutors laid out a litany of lies that Cohen admitted he told to congressional lawmakers about the Moscow project — an attempt, Cohen said, to minimize links between the proposed development and Trump as his presidential bid was well underway.

As part of Cohen’s plea, he admitted to falsely claiming that efforts to build a Trump-branded tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, when in fact discussions continued through June of that year, the filing said. Among the people Cohen briefed on the status of the project was Trump himself, on more than three occasions, according to the document.

Trump has repeatedly said that he had no business dealings in Russia, tweeting in July 2016, “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia,” and telling reporters in January 2017 that he had no deals there because he had “stayed away.”

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, pleads guilty to lying to Congress about Moscow project

Yet another Trump Campaign staffer reports to prison today.

Most corrupt administration ever.

Papadopoulos ordered to jail Monday

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump’s personal emails — and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. She said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.

Ivanka Trump used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year

It turns out that increasing spending and decreasing tax revenue isn't good for the bank balance.

The federal deficit ballooned to $779 billion in the just-ended fiscal year — a remarkable tide of red ink for a country not mired in recession or war.

The government is expected to borrow more than a trillion dollars in the coming year, in part to make up for tax receipts that have been slashed by GOP tax cuts.

Corporate tax collections fell by 31 percent in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, despite robust corporate profits. That's hardly surprising after lawmakers cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21.

Income taxes withheld from individuals grew by 1 percent. Overall tax receipts were flat. As a share of the economy, tax receipts shrank to 16.5 percent of GDP, from 17.2 percent the previous year.

Federal Deficit Jumps 17 Percent As Tax Cuts Eat Into Government Revenue