The long-awaited interview is the result of an agreement reached last month in federal court, and a transcript will be publicly released within a week.

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee is questioning former White House counsel Don McGahn behind closed doors on Friday, two years after House Democrats originally sought his testimony as part of investigations into former President Donald Trump.

The long-awaited interview is the result of an agreement reached last month in federal court, and a transcript will be publicly released within a week. House Democrats — then investigating whether Trump tried to obstruct the Justice Department’s probes into his presidential campaign’s ties to Russia — originally sued after McGahn defied an April 2019 subpoena on Trump’s orders.

That same month, the Justice Department released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the matter. In the report, Mueller pointedly did not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice but also did not recommend prosecuting him, citing Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president. Mueller’s report quoted extensively from interviews with McGahn, who described the Republican president’s efforts to stifle the investigation.

While the Judiciary panel eventually won its fight for McGahn’s testimony, the court agreement almost guarantees its members won’t learn much new. The two sides agreed that McGahn will be questioned privately and only about information attributed to him in publicly available portions of Mueller’s report.

Still, House Democrats kept the case going, even past Trump’s presidency, and are moving forward with the interview to make an example of the former White House counsel. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the agreement for McGahn’s testimony is a good-faith compromise that “satisfies our subpoena, protects the Committee’s constitutional duty to conduct oversight in the future, and safeguards sensitive executive branch prerogatives.”

It is unclear what House Democrats will do with the testimony, which they sought before twice impeaching Trump. The Senate acquitted Trump of impeachment charges both times.

At a break during the interview, Nadler said McGahn’s appearance “vindicates the congressional subpoena right.”

As White House counsel, McGahn had an insider’s view of many of the episodes Mueller and his team examined for potential obstruction of justice during the Russia investigation. McGahn proved a pivotal — and damning — witness against Trump, with his name mentioned hundreds of times in the text of the Mueller report and its footnotes.

McGahn described to investigators the president’s repeated efforts to choke off the probe and directives he said he received from the president that unnerved him. He recounted how Trump had demanded that he contact then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to order him to unrecuse himself from the Russia investigation.

He also said Trump had implored him to tell the deputy attorney general at the time, Rod Rosenstein, to remove Mueller from his position because of perceived conflicts of interest — and, after that episode was reported in the media, to publicly and falsely deny that demand had ever been made.

McGahn also described the circumstances leading up to Trump’s firing of James Comey as FBI director, including the president’s insistence on including in the termination letter the fact that Comey had reassured Trump that he was not personally under investigation.

And he was present for a critical conversation early in the Trump administration, when Sally Yates, just before she was fired as acting attorney general as a holdover Obama appointee, relayed concerns to McGahn about new national security adviser Michael Flynn. She raised the possibility that Flynn’s conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — and his subsequent interview by the FBI — left him vulnerable to blackmail.

Trump’s Justice Department fought efforts to have McGahn testify even after District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2019 rejected arguments that Trump’s close advisers were immune from congressional subpoena. President Joe Biden’s administration helped negotiate the final agreement.

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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.

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Following the Thursday afternoon shooting, a small crowd gathered in the neighborhood where the man was shot, shouting expletives at police.

MINNEAPOLIS — Crowds vandalized buildings and stole from businesses in Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhood after officials said a man wanted for illegally possessing a gun was fatally shot by authorities who were part of a task force trying to arrest him that included U.S. Marshals.

Following the Thursday afternoon shooting, a small crowd gathered in the neighborhood where the man was shot, shouting expletives at police.

Later in the night, people vandalized “numerous” buildings and looted some, Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said in a email to reporters early Friday. A dumpster was burned and windows were smashed. Arrest totals weren’t expected to be available until later Friday.

Little is known about Thursday’s shooting. The U.S. Marshals Service said a task force was trying to arrest the man on a state warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The man, who was in a parked car, didn’t comply with law enforcement and “produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject,” the U.S. Marshals said in a statement. Task force members attempted life-saving measures, but he died at the scene, they said.

It was not clear how many law enforcement officers fired their weapons. A spokeswoman with the U.S. Marshals said the U.S. Marshals leads the task force, which is comprised of several agencies. Other agencies with personnel on the scene at the time of the shooting include sheriff’s offices from Hennepin, Anoka and Ramsey counties, the Minnesota Department of Corrections and the Department of Homeland Security.

The U.S. Marshals said a female who was in the vehicle was treated for minor injuries due to glass debris.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, an aerial view of the top level of the parking ramp where Thursday’s shooting reportedly occurred showed a silver sport utility vehicle with a shattered back window. It was surrounded by many other vehicles near a white pop-up tent. Several officers were nearby and in a glass-enclosed stairwell.

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms both tweeted that they were responding to help investigate. The Marshals said the state BCA is leading the investigation.

The Minneapolis Police Department said it was not involved in the shooting.

The city has been on edge since the deaths of George Floyd, a Black man who died last year after he was pinned to the ground by Minneapolis officers, and Daunte Wright, a Black motorist who was fatally shot in April by an officer in the nearby suburb of Brooklyn Center.

Before Thursday night’s unrest, tensions in Minneapolis already had risen after crews early Thursday removed concrete barriers that blocked traffic at a Minneapolis intersection where a memorial to Floyd was assembled after his death. Crews also cleared artwork, flowers and other items from 38th Street and Chicago Avenue where Floyd was killed, informally known as George Floyd Square, but community activists quickly put up makeshift barriers.

Former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted of murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death, and three other officers await trial on aiding and abetting charges. Former Brooklyn Center Officer Kim Potter is charged with manslaughter in Wright’s death.

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Bettors haven’t been able to get in on any action involving Illinois college teams since wagering became legal last year, but they might be able to soon — despite the objections of athletic leaders.

Illinois sports bettors were boxed out from betting on the Illini and Ramblers in March Madness, but there’s a good chance they’ll be able to get some legal action on the Wildcats, Huskies and other in-state teams when the college football season kicks off this summer.

State lawmakers advanced a bill earlier this week that would do away with parts of a controversial provision of Illinois’ sports wagering law that prohibits sportsbooks from laying odds on games involving Illinois college teams.

Critics say the in-state ban is preventing a fast-growing industry from reaching its full potential, especially while such bets are there for the taking just across the border in Indiana, not to mention on illegal offshore betting websites.

But leaders of some college programs say it’s the only thing protecting student-athletes from further barrages of online harassment and undue pressure — potentially coming from the student wagering in the dorm room across the hall.

That’s why lawmakers settled on a “middle ground” with the new gaming bill that would require in-state college bets to be placed in person at a casino, racetrack or off-track betting parlor, according to state Rep. Mike Zalewski, the Riverside Democrat who has played point on sports wagering legislation.

The provision limits wagers to the outcomes of games, not individual performances, and it would sunset after two years.

“I think it’s a great compromise,” the Riverside Democrat said in a phone interview the day after the bill passed the Illinois House 96-11 during a marathon session early Tuesday. ”If student-athletes are being harassed, we’ll revisit it. If we’re not making enough revenue, we can revisit it.”

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The state Senate would still have to approve the measure before it’s sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.

University of Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman urged lawmakers to keep the ban in place during an April 28 hearing, saying its removal threatens the “physical and mental health and wellbeing of our student-athletes,” especially given the social media vitriol many athletes already face on a daily basis.

“The commentary is vile, it’s abusive, it’s threatening and in some cases it directly references gambling losses,” Whitman said. “By allowing people in our state to bet on our own student-athletes, we’re only opening the door and inviting people to have those intense, threatening, abusive interactions.”

Whitman, who played tight end at Illinois in the late 1990s, said the fact that residents have to travel to Indiana or Iowa to wager on in-state teams is still “a pretty strong disincentive for people to bet on our team.”

AP Photos

Zalewski said the rule “simply makes no sense when Indiana and Iowa have fully operational sports betting,” but added that he followed Whitman’s logic in requiring bettors to travel to a brick-and-mortar sportsbook if they want a piece of the Illinois college action.

“It takes an extra effort. I think we’ve met him half way,” said Zalewski, who initially pushed to lift the ban completely.

Through a spokesman, Whitman declined to comment on the watered-down bill that passed the Illinois House.

Either way, it’ll hardly be a boon to a gambling market that has already drawn almost $1 billion in bets on college teams from outside the state since sports wagering went live in Illinois just before the pandemic hit. About 97% of those dollars were wagered on cellphones and other mobile devices.

Because the vast majority of bets are placed online, critics say the state is leaving millions of dollars in potential tax revenue on the table by prohibiting mobile wagers on Illinois college teams — but “any loosening of the ban on in-state collegiate betting will ultimately be beneficial for the industry,” according to Joe Boozell, an analyst for the betting website PlayIllinois.com.

“Any change that only affects retail betting will by nature be limited in its impact. Ideally, though, this move will represent an incremental step toward lifting the ban entirely, including online,” Boozell said.

The in-state college betting provision is part of a gaming bill that would also allow for a sportsbook at Wintrust Arena in the South Loop. Other larger sports venues such as Wrigley Field and the United Center are eligible to open books, but have not yet applied to do so with state gambling regulators.

The state Senate could take up the bill later this month, when legislators are expected back in Springfield.

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A black BMW 550i and a gray car were speeding east on Franklin Boulevard around 2 p.m. Thursday and went through a red light at Homan Avenue.

Two drivers are wanted by police after they sped through a red light Thursday in East Garfield Park and one of them crashed, killing a woman and injuring two children.

A black BMW 550i and a gray car sped east on Franklin Boulevard and went through a red light at Homan Avenue around 2 p.m., detectives said in a community alert.

The BMW struck a southbound Toyota SUV, police said. The woman driving the SUV was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and pronounced dead, police and fire officials said. Her name hasn’t been released.

Two children and a man were taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Merritt said. Two other adults went to the same hospital in good condition, he said.

The BMW was disabled and its driver ran away, police said. The gray car left the scene without stopping.

Anyone with information on the crash can call the Major Accident Investigation Unit at (312) 745-4521.

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There are two types of Chicago Bulls fans in this world: only two. There are those Bulls fans who love LeBron James and those who do not. Typically, there is no in between. For those on the latter side, last night was a celebratory event. LeBron and his Los Angeles Lakers were eliminated in the […]

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Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields has a great response when talking about the team’s rival, the Green Bay Packers.

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Chicago producer and DJ Antonio Cesar has used tens of thousands of dollars in grants to travel the world, exporting the city’s sounds and importing new influences.

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