Democracy Wire

The nation’s top intelligence officer is ducking questions this morning about whether President Trump asked him to declare publicly that there’s no evidence that the Trump for President campaign colluded with Russian agents attempting to disrupt last year’s U.S. election.

Two women who’ve seen firsthand the institutional and structural barriers that confront women running for political office - and have demonstrated that those barriers can be overcome - shared their insights on women in politics this morning with an audience of politically minded women.

The Supreme Court gave voting rights activists in North Carolina an important victory this morning, upholding a lower court ruling that the state legislature packed African-American voters into two congressional districts in an effort to dilute their voting strength elsewhere.

The Trump administration is walling off more information from public scrutiny, telling the government’s internal ethics watchdog to stop asking for copies of ethics waivers the president has issued to former lobbyists now working for federal agencies.

When the Constitution’s authors crafted the initial amendments to that document, the freedoms of speech and the press were part of the First Amendment. So every American should be on the alert for threats to First Amendment freedoms and troubled anytime First Amendment rights are violated.

In recent days, amid reports of President Trump’s involvement with the FBI investigation of Russia’s meddling in last year’s election, many have wondered whether the president is guilty of obstruction of justice and if such an offense would be impeachable.