.By Mary Clare Jalonick and Eric Tucker
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., stepped aside as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday after the FBI served a search warrant for his phone as part of an ongoing insider-trading investigation tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the move, saying he and Burr had agreed it was in the Senate's best interests.
FBI officials showed up at Burr's home with the warrant on Wednesday, marking a significant escalation into the Justice Department's investigation into whether Burr broke the law with a well-timed sale of stocks before the coronavirus caused markets to plummet,
The Justice Department declined to comment. His attorney did not respond to phone and email messages, but said last month that the law is clear that any senator can participate in stock market trading based on public information "as Sen. Burr did."
Cheddar is following the election returns as they come in.
Political fixer-turned VC Bradley Tusk doesn't think it's sufficient to just bring voters to the polls ー he wants to bring the polls to them. "We know, fundamentally, democracy works when a lot of people vote, and it really doesn't work when very few people vote," Tusk told Cheddar on Tuesday.
The nation may get greener on Tuesday night. "There's a lot more senate and congressional races in which marijuana has become an issue than ever before," Cannabis Voter Project Director Sam D'Arcangelo told Cheddar's CannaBiz on Tuesday. "Marijuana now more than ever has become an issue that politicians are talking about."
Although the much-anticipated blue wave wasn't the tsunami Democrats had hoped for, the Party still managed to wrestle the House from Republican control and score victories in gubernatorial races. As expected, Republicans maintained their grip on the Senate. Read below for more on Election Night.
It's midterms day in America! After a whopping 36 million people voted early, many are predicting record voter turnout for this midterms election. Rapper Fat Joe joins Cheddar to talk about his efforts to get young voters to the polls as part of MTVs '+1 The Vote' campaign. And, we dig into reports that Amazon is splitting its second headquarters, also known as HQ2, between two different cities.
Adam Cancryn, healthcare reporter at Politico, said the Republicans have hinted at attempting to dismantle the ACA even if they lose the House. That won't be easy.
As Americans head to the polls for the 2018 midterm election, some are concerned about outside actors hacking voting systems, which would be different from the misinformation campaigns that proliferated on social media in 2016. Rob Marvin, associate features editor at PC Mag, explains the different levels of vulnerabilities.
No matter how different Congress may look after Tuesday's vote, the markets ー especially the S&P ー will be up a year from now, Securities America investment adviser John Grace told Cheddar Tuesday.
The bitter midterm election season is coming down ー as it always does ー to who turns out to vote. With control of both chambers of Congress and dozens of statehouses up for grabs on Tuesday, and a polarizing president at the center of it all, the 2018 midterm election will be seen as one of the most consequential in modern U.S. history.
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