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Articles by Stephen Dinan

Justice Department investigators said none of the witnesses they interviewed believed Lois G. Lerner acted out of political motives and that Ms. Lerner seemed to try to correct the inappropriate scrutiny once she "recognized that it was wrong." (Associated Press)

IRS tea party targeting accusations, legal issues persist after Justice ends probe

The IRS is still holding up the nonprofit applications of tea party groups, including one that has been waiting nearly six years for approval, as conservatives panned the Justice Department's announcement last week that it had cleared the tax agency, and former senior executive Lois G. Lerner, of any wrongdoing.

October 25, 2015
Hillary Rodham Clinton has risen 5 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics.com average of national polls of Democratic primary voters in the last 10 days, and is nearing the 50 percent mark yet again. (Associated Press)

Hillary Clinton’s poise in Benghazi testimony boosts 2016 prospects

It's been a good 10 days for Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was widely deemed the winner of the first Democratic debate, chased Jim Webb from the race, headed off her biggest primary threat in Vice President Joseph R. Biden and on Thursday defused the Benghazi time bomb with a performance that had few rough spots for the surging Democratic presidential front-runner.

October 22, 2015
Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton listens as she testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, before the House Benghazi Committee. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Clinton confronted for contradictions on video’s role in Benghazi attack

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton brushed aside emails Thursday that showed she privately told family and world leaders that the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi was a terrorist assault, and said Ambassador Christopher Stevens was responsible for his own decisions regarding skimpy security ahead of his death.

October 22, 2015
A group of immigrants from Honduras and El Salvador who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally are stopped in Granjeno, Texas, on June 25, 2014. (Associated Press) ** FIL E**

Surge of illegal children, families accelerates

The surge of children and families crossing the southwest border illegally accelerated again in September, leaving fiscal year 2015 the second-worst on record, according to numbers released Wednesday by the Border Patrol.

October 21, 2015
Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez (right) is led into the courtroom by San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi and Assistant District Attorney Diana Garciaor for his arraignment at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco on  July 7, 2015. More than 1,800 immigrants that the federal government wanted to deport were nevertheless released from local jails and later re-arrested for various crimes, according to a government report released July 13, 2015. The controversy was re-ignited after 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was shot to death while walking on a San Francisco pier and authorities arrested suspect Lopez-Sanchez, who was released from jail in April even though immigration officials had lodged a detainer to try to deport him from the country for a sixth time. (Michael Macor/San Francisco Chronicle via Associated Press)

San Francisco board votes to keep sanctuary city policy

San Francisco officials voted Tuesday to affirm their sanctuary city policy that shields illegal immigrants from being turned over to federal agents, pushing back against the national attention the city garnered after the July death of a woman at the hands of an illegal immigrant.

October 21, 2015
Demonstrators chant pro-Islamic State group slogans as they wave the group's flags in front of the provincial government headquarters in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad on June 16, 2014. (Associated Press) **FILE**

Islamic State’s recruiting of foreign fighters falters

The number of Americans trying to leave the U.S. to join the Islamic State in Syria has dried up, with just six identified over the last three and a half months, FBI Director James B. Comey told Congress Wednesday.

October 21, 2015
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden smile in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March 23, 2010, before the president signed the health care bill. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Obama moves to mainstream illegal immigrant students

The Obama administration Tuesday pushed illegal immigrant youths to enroll in high school and college and announced a list of guarantees in schools and tips to help students apply for scholarships or financial aid.

October 20, 2015
Father Cameron Faller, of Restorative Justice Ministry, answers questions before a vigil for Kathryn Steinle, Monday, July 6, 2015, on Pier 14 in San Francisco. Steinle was shot and killed on Wednesday, July 1st on Pier 14. Francisco Sanchez was arrested for the shooting. (AP Photo/Beck Diefenbach)

Obama vows to veto sanctuary city crackdown

The White House on Tuesday vowed to veto a bill designed to prevent sanctuary city deaths like the July killing of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco, saying the solution is to legalize illegal immigrants, not to force cities and counties to cooperate in deporting them.

October 20, 2015
Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen (Associated Press) **FILE**

IRS vows to cut ID fraud in 2016 filing season

Stung by an embarrassing cyber fraud operation this year, the IRS vowed Tuesday to cut down on tax refund identity theft in 2016 with a series of new checks designed to weed out increasing sophisticated crimes.

October 20, 2015
Sen. Chuck Grassley (Associated Press/File) ** FILE **

Sanctuary cities data scarce, contested ahead of key Senate vote

Kathryn Steinle's death in San Francisco in July has done little to break a years-old stalemate over sanctuary cities, which continue to operate under a haze of complex federal rules, competing court decisions and tricky political recriminations -- but without very much data on either side of the debate.

October 19, 2015
FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2013 file photo, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The State Department agreed Thursday to review thousands of messages from a private email account that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used for official government business, but it cautioned that the process will move slowly and perhaps take months. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Democrats back up Clinton ahead of Benghazi testimony

Democrats ramped up efforts Monday to tarnish the Benghazi investigation as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton prepares for a momentous public hearing before the panel Thursday, insisting that she will cooperate despite a firm belief that the investigators have little more than her political destruction on their minds.

October 19, 2015
In this Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2015 photo in Sullivan City, Texas, a woman who is in the country illegally shows the footprints of her daughter who was born in the United States but was denied a birth certificate. Lawyers for immigrant families denied birth certificates for their U.S.-born children by Texas health officials who refuse to recognize as valid certain forms of identification will argue for a federal judge to intervene against the state. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Texas can refuse to issue birth certificates to illegals’ parents: court

Texas officials may continue to refuse to issue birth certificates to illegal immigrant parents who aren't able to show valid identification, a federal court ruled Friday, dealing a major blow to Mexican advocates who'd said the policy was in effect stripping them of citizenship.

October 16, 2015
Secretary Jeh Johnson of the Department of Homeland Security. (Associated Press) ** FILE **

DHS opens door to more foreign tech workers

Foreign students in science and technology fields would be able to stay and work in the U.S. for up to three years after they get their degrees under a program the Obama administration proposed expanding on Friday, saying the country needs to find a way to keep those students-turned-workers here.

October 16, 2015
Vice President Joe Biden waves to the crowd after he speaks, during Human Rights Campaign National Dinner at  Walter E. Washington Convention Center, in  Washington, Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) ** FILE **

Appetite for Joe Biden bid wanes after Democrats’ debate

The appetite for Vice President Joseph R. Biden to join the Democratic presidential field is low after this week's first debate, according to a new Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released Friday that found only about a third of New Hampshire primary voters want to see him take the plunge.

October 16, 2015
President Barack Obama gives remarks at the National Clean Energy Summit at the Mandalay Bay Resort Convention Center, Monday, Aug. 24, 2015, in Las Vegas. The President used the speech to announce a set of executive actions and private sector commitments to accelerate America’s transition to cleaner sources of energy and ways to cut energy waste. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Federal spending soars in 2015; taxes rise faster

After several years of GOP-imposed constraints the federal government opened the spending floodgates again in 2015, setting a new record with outlays of $3.688 trillion in the just-ended fiscal year.

October 15, 2015
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 17, 2015. (Associated Press) **FILE**

Feds to hit debt ceiling Nov. 3

The Obama administration will now hit the government's borrowing limit Nov. 3, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in a letter Thursday that gives Congress less than three weeks to approve more red ink.

October 15, 2015