The criminal trial of a former congressman is offering a glimpse into the prehistory of the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The trial has begun for former congressman David Rivera over allegations he secretly lobbied for Venezuela’s government during the first Trump administration.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been thrown into two top national security roles at once after President Donald Trump appointed him to temporarily replace Mike Waltz as national security adviser.

Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea from Ukraine 11 years ago was quick and bloodless.

Marco Rubio has been confirmed by the Senate for secretary of state with unanimous support.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio painted a dark vision of the consequences of America’s “unbalanced relationship” with China.

Donald Trump Jr. says any pushback from the Washington establishment around his father’s unconventional choices for Cabinet proves they are just the kind of disruptors that voters are demanding.

Southeast Asian leaders are convening in Cambodia, faced with the challenge of trying to curtail escalating violence in Myanmar while the country’s military-led government shows no signs of complying with the group’s peace plan.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has testified as a defense witness at the New York City trial of a Donald Trump ally.

Rex Tillerson, who served as secretary of state under former president Donald Trump, has testified against the former chair of Trump’s inaugural committee.

The FBI has seized the electronic data of a retired four-star general who authorities say made false statements and withheld incriminating documents about his role in an illegal foreign lobbying campaign on behalf of Qatar.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has a book coming this fall that covers his years in the Trump administration and, according to his publisher, offers “unvarnished appraisals of the deals made and characters encountered along the way.”.

The Biden administration is extending for one year a Trump-era ban on the use of U.S. passports for travel to North Korea.

If President Joe Biden has any private words with Russia’s Vladimir Putin at their meeting next week, U.S. interpreters and diplomats will be standing by to document their high-stakes encounter.

Aides to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele say he's refused to meet with a visiting senior U.S. diplomat over what he sees as a pattern of slights from Democrats and the Biden administration.

Anti-coup protesters display pictures of deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, Myanmar, Tuesday, March 2, 2021. The Obama administration reveled in the restoration of civilian rule in the longtime U.S. pariah as a top foreign policy achievement and a potential model for engaging with other adversaries, such as Iran and Cuba. But today, Myanmar is once again an international outcast, facing a new wave of U.S. sanctions. Still, the Obama administration continued to have faith in her. Despite Kerry’s two trips to Myanmar, the administration became rapidly consumed with the Iran nuclear deal and normalization of ties with Cuba.

(AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)MIAMI – Newly filed lobbying records show Venezuela’s socialist government previously hired a longtime Democratic Party donor for $6 million at the same time it was lobbying to discourage the U.S. from imposing sanctions on the oil-rich nation. Federal prosecutors in Miami are also investigating whether the Republican broke foreign lobbying rules. Payments came from a little-known, Delaware-registered subsidiary, PDV USA, which provided shareholder services to PDVSA independent of Citgo's oil operations. “Wiss was engaged to provide PDV USA and its affiliates with legal services only,” she wrote in an e-mailed response to questions. PDV USA said Wiss provided updates on disputes involving PDVSA and advice on immigration, insurance, and cryptocurrency.

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration paused or put under review a wide swath of Trump-era foreign policies as America’s new top diplomat took the helm of the State Department. Appearing in the press briefing room, which had been rarely used during the Trump administration, Blinken pledged to respect and be accessible to journalists and to restore the State Department's daily press briefings beginning next week. Of all the steps that Trump and Pompeo took in their waning days “that's the priority in my book,” Blinken said of the designation. Blinken said the administration is prepared to ease sanctions that the Trump administration re-imposed on Iran as long as Iran returns to full compliance with the 2015 deal. At that point, Blinken said the administration would look to strengthen and lengthen the terms of the accord.

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration on Wednesday paused or put under review a wide swath of Trump-era foreign policies as America’s new top diplomat took the helm of the State Department. Appearing in the press briefing room, which had been rarely used during the Trump administration, Blinken pledged to respect and be accessible to journalists and to restore the State Department's daily press briefings beginning next week. Of all the steps that Trump and Pompeo took in their waning days “that's the priority in my book,” Blinken said of the designation. Blinken said the administration is prepared to ease sanctions that the Trump administration re-imposed on Iran as long as Iran returns to full compliance with the 2015 deal. At that point, Blinken said the administration would look to strengthen and lengthen the terms of the accord.

FILE - In this Nov. 24, 2020, file photo, Tony Blinken, President Joe Bidens nominee for Secretary of State, speaks at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del. Senators voted 78-22 to approve Blinken, a longtime Biden confidant, as the nation’s 71st secretary of state, succeeding Mike Pompeo. Blinken, 58, served as deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration. Shortly after his confirmation, Blinken took the oath of office at a private ceremony at the State Department. Blinken inherits a deeply demoralized and depleted career workforce at the State Department.

This Friday, Jan. 8, 2021 image shows the suspended Twitter account of President Donald Trump. It began with a May 4, 2009, tweet promoting Donald Trump's upcoming appearance on David Letterman's show. “I said, ‘Let’s call you @realDonaldTrump — you’re the real Donald Trump,’” recalled Costanzo. In its most popular tweet, on Oct. 2, 2020, @realDonaldTrump announced that Trump and first lady Melania Trump had contracted the coronavirus. Trump deleted 1,166 tweets and, in his final months on the platform, had 471 tweets flagged by Twitter for misinformation, according to Factba.se.

This Friday, Jan. 8, 2021 image shows the suspended Twitter account of President Donald Trump. It began with a May 4, 2009, tweet promoting Donald Trump's upcoming appearance on David Letterman's show. “I said, ‘Let’s call you @realDonaldTrump — you’re the real Donald Trump,’” recalled Costanzo. In its most popular tweet, on Oct. 2, 2020, @realDonaldTrump announced that Trump and first lady Melania Trump had contracted the coronavirus. Trump deleted 1,166 tweets and, in his final months on the platform, had 471 tweets flagged by Twitter for misinformation, according to Factba.se.

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to deliver a speech extolling the Trump administration’s foreign policy this week in Georgia, ahead of key Senate run-off elections in the state that will determine control of the upper chamber of Congress. Pompeo is expected to address threats posed by China in an address to Georgia Tech on Wednesday, the university said. Pompeo will discuss “the China challenge to U.S. national security and academic freedom,” the university said. Pompeo has said a probe is underway, although State Department ethics officials have cleared him. But, the RNC speech from the roof of a Jerusalem hotel is not the only Pompeo appearance that has raised eyebrows.

President-elect Joe Bidens first wave of Cabinet picks and choices for his White House staff have prized staying power over star power, with a premium placed on government experience and proficiency as he looks to rebuild a depleted and demoralized federal bureaucracy. President-elect Joe Biden has prized staying power over star power when making his first wave of Cabinet picks and choices for White House staff, with a premium placed on government experience and proficiency as he looks to rebuild a depleted and demoralized federal bureaucracy. “Collectively, this team has secured some of the most defining national security and diplomatic achievements in recent memory — made possible through decades of experience working with our partners,” Biden said Tuesday as he unveiled his national security team. His choice for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was the deputy to that post under President Barack Obama. ___EDITOR'S NOTE — Jonathan Lemire has covered the White House and national politics for The Associated Press since 2013.

Thomas-Greenfield joined the State Department more than three decades ago, when Black women were even more of a rarity in the U.S. diplomatic corps than they are today. That makes her the most experienced diplomat of the six people named by Biden for top national security positions on Monday. Her tenure at the State Department rivals that of previous U.N. ambassadors like Richard Holbrooke, John Negroponte and Thomas Pickering, all of them white men. Other than secretary of state, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is often the most high-profile foreign policy portfolio in a presidential administration. Thomas-Greenfield's immediate predecessors — all women — highlight that dichotomy: Rice, Samantha Power, Nikki Haley and Kelly Craft.

The picks include former Secretary of State John Kerry to take the lead on combating climate change. “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is,” Kerry said. At 43, he will be one of the youngest national security advisers in history. Blinken, 58, served as deputy secretary of state and deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration and has close ties with Biden. Blinken recently participated in a national security briefing with Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and weighed in publicly just last week on notable foreign policy issues in Egypt and Ethiopia.

WASHINGTON – Republican Sen. Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he's voted in the Nov. 3 election — but not for the leader of his party. Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, has said publicly that the New York real estate magnate is unfit for the presidency. In 2016, Romney wrote in the name of his wife, Ann, rather than vote for Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee. Trump later said he was trying to humiliate Romney, and the Cabinet post instead went to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. In the Senate, Romney was the lone Republican to vote for Trump's impeachment earlier this year.

“People need to understand how dangerous a moment we are in.”There are plenty of others weighing the same decision. But Mattis and Coats, like former White House chief of staff John Kelly and former national security adviser H.R. The White House punched back with an aggressive attack campaign aimed at discrediting her through a barrage of statements, interviews and denunciations from the lectern in the White House briefing room. “The White House knows if they show this is a very costly thing to do they will scare people from going forward," he said. He added that while more people are still considering coming forward, the White House tactics have worked to some extent — dissuading one senior official who had been on the cusp of speaking out.

Pompeo said in a statement that Hook has been my point person on Iran for over two years and he has achieved historic results.Hook will be replaced after an as-yet undetermined transition period as Iran envoy by Elliott Abrams, the U.S. envoy for Venezuela. Hook, a longtime Republican foreign policy fixture, was an early arrival in the Trump administration. After Tillerson was fired, Pompeo appointed Hook to the Iran position. As policy planning chief, Hook tried to strengthen the Iran deal, which Trump denounced during the 2016 presidential campaign as the worst deal ever and pledged to pull out from. Once he became Iran envoy, Hook was in charge of identifying sanctions to be restored and trying to lobby Europeans and others to follow suit.

The purpose: to lure Exxon back to Venezuela after a decade's absence and inject much-needed dynamism into the OPEC nation's collapsing oil industry. But Sessions did engage in other mediation efforts in Venezuela over the next 15 months. The earlier email regarding Exxon and his connection to Rivera was not known at the time. The five-sentence message sent to Sessions' personal email address, which starts with the word eagle," is short on specifics. The U.S. Department of State would be your best resource for any information regarding contacts made with Venezuela, a spokesman said.