Emily Kopp

Donors to a special fund established by Rep. Duncan Hunter to underwrite his legal defense include the board member of the company founded by his uncle and multibillion dollar defense contractors.

Hunter can tap $60,800 in donations to a piggybank separate from his campaign committee — called the Duncan D. Hunter Legal Expense Trust — to finance his legal case. Hunter faces trial in September on 60 federal charges related to spending more than $250,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses such as a family vacation to Italy and dental work.

Rep. Steve King was defiant in an interview with Iowa public television this week, insisting he won’t apologize for the racist remarks and actions that cost him all of his committee assignments and endangered his reelection.

“I have nothing to apologize for,” King told a roundtable of reporters on Iowa Public Television in a Thursday taping.

On a tour of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire, Rep. Tim Ryan emphasized that the Democratic Party should not appear to be “hostile to business” and argued that climate change can be addressed in the private sector.

The Rust Belt Democrat has been positioning himself on the moderate path as he considers a run for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

Rep. Eric Swalwell faced a dilemma Wednesday afternoon. As he trudged past Trump Tower, he wondered where else he could get a good cup of coffee in Manhattan.

“It’s snowing in [New York]. I need coffee. The closest cafe is inside Trump Tower. This is me walking to an alternative,” Swalwell tweeted.

Though typically aligned with the White House, some Republicans who have military bases in their districts oppose President Donald Trump raiding $3.6 billion in military construction projects to finance walls along the southern border.

Recent polling finds that most Americans oppose Trump’s circumvention of Congress to divert already-appropriated funds to build a wall, and the percentage of voters who endorse the idea tracks closely to the president's approval rating. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders raised just under $6 million from about 223,000 people in the 24 hours after he announced his bid for president — making the Vermont senator the clear frontrunner in grassroots fundraising.

Contributors also pledged about $600,000 in donations that will recur each month, the Sanders team announced.

When President Donald Trump declared a national state of emergency last week to get his way on funding for his border wall, legal scholars warned the move dramatically tilted the balance of power in favor of the White House.

In some ways it parallels the hobbling of Congress’ war authority 18 years ago.

An aide to Rep. Clay Higgins was arrested this weekend in connection to a bust at massage parlors and residences in Louisiana that might have involved human trafficking, according to local media reports.

Police in Lafayette Parish arrested Jerod C. Prunty Saturday and charged him with two counts of pandering, The Advocate reported. His arrest is related to those of eight other people in Lafayette Parish last week, officials said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., confirmed Tuesday he will seek the Democratic nomination to the presidency in 2020 to Vermont Public Radio.

A formal announcement is expected later today, VPR News reported.

Some in the president’s party are wringing their hands about how the emergency declaration for a border wall might set a reckless precedent.

While Congressional Republicans have raised concerns, most held off on denouncing the president’s radical maneuver to circumvent Article I of the Constitution and devote federal funds to a border wall without their approval.

Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna S. Pressley and Rashida Tlaib will vote against the massive spending measure agreed to by a bipartisan conference committee because they oppose an increase in funding to the Department of Homeland Security.

“This Administration continues to threaten the dignity and humanity of our immigrant population,” the lawmakers said in a press release Thursday. “The Department of Homeland Security does not deserve an increase in funding, and that is why we intend to vote no on this funding package.”

Lawmakers commemorated the victims of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Thursday, one year to the date of the tragedy.

Seventeen people were killed and 14  wounded in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 last year. 

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who supports President Donald Trump’s push for a wall at the southern border, was deployed there this week with his Air National Guard unit, his office reported.

In addition to representing Illinois’ 16th District, Kinzinger is a lieutenant colonel in the Guard who flies reconnaissance aircraft, conducting aerial surveillance.

A new bill named after the late Rep. Walter B. Jones, who left behind a legacy of dogged opposition to war, would repeal the military force authorization passed in the days after the 9/11 attacks.

Colleagues and constituents have heaped praise on the longtime North Carolina Republican, who died Sunday on his 76th birthday and whose funeral will be held Thursday at his parish church in Greenville.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., knocked the president in a tweet Wednesday, highlighting his record of racial and religious discrimination and bucking his calls for her to resign.

“You have trafficked in hate your whole life — against Jews, Muslims, Indigenous, immigrants, black people and more,” Omar tweeted. “I learned from people impacted by my words. When will you?”

Progressives mocked President Donald Trump after his call for Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar to resign, saying that the president has no moral authority to do so given his record on issues of hate and bigotry.

“As a candidate and now as president, Donald Trump has consistently and unapologetically trafficked in white nationalism, Islamaphobia, sexism and racism,” leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said in a statement Tuesday night. “Americans of all political stripes must reject this transparently cynical effort by President Trump and Congressional Republicans to stifle and intimidate” diverse voices.

President Donald Trump called on Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar to step down Tuesday after the Muslim-American congresswoman made remarks about an Israeli political organization that drew rebukes from her own caucus.

“I think she should either resign from Congress or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting. The president alleged Omar has anti-Israeli views “deep seeded in her heart” and labeled her Monday apology “lame.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., thanked Democrat  Max Rose for his “call to do better” after he criticized her tweet critical of the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee as “deeply hurtful to Jews.”

“I appreciated your call to do better as a friend and ally and appreciate your courage in calling out the double standard in Congress,” Omar tweeted.

Fox News host Sean Hannity blasted a preliminary agreement reached by budget negotiators Monday night, which could spell trouble for securing the support of President Donald Trump.

A conference committee comprised of Republicans and Democrats announced late Monday that they had reached “an agreement in principle” on border security spending, including $1.375 billion for physical barriers along the southern border, possibly averting another government shutdown days before appropriations run dry.

Memorial services for Rep. Walter Jones will be held Thursday in Greenville, North Carolina, his office announced Monday.

Jones died Sunday on his 76th birthday.