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Articles by Stephen Dinan

President Trump says the FBI's indictment Friday of 13 Russians is vindication for his campaign after more than a year. (Associated Press/File)

Obama faulted on Russian election meddling

President Trump is pointing to the indictment of 13 Russians and three companies for interfering in the 2016 election as vindication for his campaign after it has faced accusations of collusion for more than a year.

February 18, 2018
In this Dec. 19, 2017, file photo, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., speaks with a reporter on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)

Dianne Feinstein: Raise gun buying age to 21

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday she'll write legislation to impose a 21-year-old age requirement to buy a rifle, after police say a man used an AR-15 in a killing spree at a Florida High School this week.

February 16, 2018
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents enter an apartment complex looking for a specific undocumented immigrant convicted of a felony during an early morning operation in Dallas. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File) ** FILE **

ICE arrests 212 illegals, targets 122 businesses in LA sweep

Federal deportation officers staged one of the biggest enforcement actions in years against businesses in Los Angeles last week, arresting 212 people and serving audit notices to 122 businesses who will have to prove they aren't hiring illegal immigrants.

February 16, 2018
FILE - In this April 14, 2017, file photo, protesters hold up signs outside a courthouse where a federal judge was to hear arguments in the first lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's executive order to withhold funding from communities that limit cooperation with immigration authorities in San Francisco. California state lawmakers passed and Gov. Jerry Brown signed nearly 900 new laws in 2017, most of which take effect Jan. 1, 2018. Among them is one making California a sanctuary state in response to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)

Senate dismisses sanctuary-crackdown bill

The Senate on Thursday killed a bipartisan bill that would have cracked down on sanctuary cities, as the long-awaited immigration floor fight turned into a massacre.

February 15, 2018
FILE - In this photo March 22, 2013 file photo, the exterior of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington. Politicians love trying to use the tax code to highlight their goals to voters. This year, it’s a battlefield between Hillary Clinton, who wants to boost levies on the rich to pay for expanding social programs and Donald Trump, who says cutting taxes would gird the economy. The clash has consequences for the rich, poor and those in the middle. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

IRS pays bonuses to tax cheat employees

The IRS is still paying bonuses to nearly 2,000 bad employees, including more than two dozen who were actual tax-cheats themselves, the agency's inspector general said in a new report this week.

February 15, 2018
From left, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., finish a news conference on the bipartisan immigration deal they reached during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018. The Trump administration is already denouncing their deal in the Senate, saying it will "create a mass amnesty for over 10 million illegal aliens, including criminals." " (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

John McCain’s immigration proposal dies in Senate

With dozens of Dreamers looking on from the viewing gallery, the Senate was unable to muster the votes Thursday to approve an amnesty for them and 1.8 million other illegal immigrants, leaving their fate in doubt with just weeks to go before many of them start to lose their DACA protections.

February 15, 2018
FILE - In this Dec. 21, 2016 file photo, President-elect Donald Trump, center, accompanied by Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, right, and retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a senior adviser to Trump, left, speaks to members of the media at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla. President Trump's first chief of staff says all those reports about chaos in the early days of the Trump White House were true - and then some. Priebus' recollections come in author Chris Whipple's book "The Gatekeepers" to be published in March 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Trump issues veto threat over Senate’s latest amnesty

President Trump issued his first veto threat of the immigration debate on Thursday, with the White House saying the plan being offered by Senate Democratic leaders and a handful of GOP rebels would make border security worse, not better.

February 15, 2018
In this Jan. 5, 2016, file photo, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle drives next to a U.S-Mexico border fence in the booming New Mexico town of Santa Teresa. The Trump administration is waiving numerous laws to clear the way for replacing existing vehicle barriers along a stretch of the US-Mexico border in New Mexico. The notice published Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, in the Federal Register says the waiver extends around 20 miles west of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry. (AP Photo/Russell Contreras, File)

Senate deal grants amnesty to future illegals

The Senate's new immigration compromise not only grants legal status to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before, but creates a new future amnesty that would even protect illegal immigrants who managed to sneak into the U.S. over the next four months, experts said.

February 15, 2018
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks to reporters following a Senate policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Immigration plan aids Dreamers in exchange for border wall

Democratic leaders and a handful of Republicans announced an agreement late Wednesday to build President Trump's border wall in exchange for granting citizenship rights to 1.8 million illegal immigrant Dreamers -- setting up a showdown with a White House that has panned that kind of bargain as "weak."

February 14, 2018
In this Dec. 1, 2017, file photo, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., leaves a closed-door session where Republican senators met on the GOP effort to overhaul the tax code, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) ** FILE **

Trump takes on McCain on immigration

The White House said Wednesday that President Trump opposes the immigration plan sponsored by Sen. John McCain and which had been adopted as Democrats' chief solution for illegal immigrant "Dreamers," saying it would allow criminals aliens to get citizenship and protect high school gang members from deportation.

February 14, 2018
In this Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008, file photo Manuel Rendon, center in white, along with fellow members, recite the Pledge of Allegiance at a meeting of the Collin County LULAC Young Adults Council #4780 at Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. The oldest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S. is facing turmoil over its leader's initial support for President Donald Trump's immigration plan and it comes amid evolving membership. League of United Latin American Citizens members are pressuring President Roger Rocha to resign after he wrote a letter in support of Trump's proposal on increased border security. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez,File)

Court orders full restoration of DACA program

A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that the government must restart the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals deportation amnesty, adding more weight to the legal case against President Trump's phaseout of the program just as Congress is debating the fate of "Dreamers" on Capitol Hill.

February 13, 2018
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., left, leans in to speak to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., before his speech at the McConnell Center's Distinguished Speaker Series Monday, Feb. 12, 2018, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

Mitch McConnell says immigration debate must be done by Friday

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that the Senate will only be debating immigration this week, and said if Democrats were serious about trying to find a solution for illegal immigrant "Dreamers" they better begin to offer plans.

February 13, 2018
"We want to do two things: protect Dreamers and get 60 votes," said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. "It's not an easy needle to thread. But we're making good headway." (Associated Press)

Democrats block vote on sanctuary cities

Democrats blocked an attempt Tuesday to crack down on sanctuary cities as they tried to steer the Senate's immigration debate toward their goal of legalizing "Dreamers" and away from major new security or policy changes that might upend the current immigration system.

February 13, 2018