Author: PolitCens

U.S. President Joe Biden announced his administration’s efforts to regulate so-called ghost guns on Monday, including banning the manufacturing of kits that consumers can assemble themselves to make a gun that lacks a serial number, making it untraceable. Gun rights groups pledged to fight the rule. 

“Law enforcement is sounding the alarm,” Biden said at a White House event as he held a ghost gun. “Our communities are paying the price.”

“A year ago this week, standing here with many of you, I instructed the attorney general to write a regulation that would rein in the proliferation of ghost guns, because I was having trouble getting anything passed in the Congress,” Biden said. 

The new Justice Department rule will require that the kits feature serial numbers that law enforcement can use to track weapons used in crimes, that sellers be federally licensed and that background checks be conducted on buyers.  

Any store that obtains an existing ghost gun must also give it a serial number.  

Another part of the new rule addresses guns made with split receivers to ensure they are covered by regulations requiring serial numbers and background checks. The receiver is the part of a gun to which other parts, such as the barrel and trigger, attach.  

Another section requires gun sellers that were previously allowed to destroy most records after 20 years to now retain the information until they close their businesses. A shop that closes down will then transfer the records to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, known as the ATF.  

The Justice Department says that in 2021, law enforcement agencies reported 20,000 suspected ghost guns recovered during criminal investigations, 10 times as many as in 2016.  

Gun Owners of America, a gun rights advocacy group, vowed it would immediately fight the rule. 

“Just as we opposed the Trump Administration’s arbitrary ban on bump stocks, GOA will also sue Biden’s ATF to halt the implementation of this rule,” Aidan Johnston, the group’s director of federal affairs, said in a statement. The group believes the rule violates the U.S. Constitution and several federal laws. 

But the gun safety group Everytown called the new rules necessary. 

“Ghost guns look like a gun. They shoot like a gun, and they kill like a gun. But up until now, they haven’t been regulated like a gun,” said John Feinblatt, the organization’s president of gun safety.  

During the event, Biden also formally announced his choice of Steve Dettelbach as ATF director, a post that requires Senate confirmation. 

Biden’s first choice for the position, gun control advocate David Chipman, withdrew from consideration in the face of both Democratic and Republican opposition.  

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press. 

 
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Steps meant to address use of guns lacking serial numbers
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When Daylight Saving Time starts in most U.S. states every spring, clocks are set ahead one hour to make daylight last later each day through fall. Now, the U.S. Congress wants to make the shift permanent. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks into the so-called Sunshine Protection Act.
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A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld President Joe Biden’s requirement that all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.

In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed a lower court and ordered dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the mandate.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas by President Donald Trump, had issued a nationwide injunction against the requirement in January.

When the case was argued at the 5th Circuit last month, administration lawyers noted that district judges in a dozen jurisdictions had rejected a challenge to the vaccine requirement for federal workers before Brown ruled.

The administration argued that the Constitution gives the president, as the head of the federal workforce, the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated.

Lawyers for those challenging the mandate had pointed to a recent Supreme Court opinion that the government cannot force private employers to require employee vaccinations.

Thursday’s ruling was a rare win for the administration at the 5th Circuit, with 17 active judges dominated by Republicans, including six Trump appointees.

Judges Carl Stewart and James Dennis, both nominated to the court by President Bill Clinton, were in the majority. Judge Rhesa Barksdale, nominated by President George H.W. Bush, dissented, saying the relief the challengers sought does not fall under the Civil Service Reform act cited by the administration.
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Former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino were held in contempt of Congress on Wednesday for their monthslong refusal to comply with subpoenas rendered by the House committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The two men became the latest members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle to face legal jeopardy as the select committee continues its more than nine-month-long probe into the worst attack on the Capitol in more than 200 years.

The near-party-line 220-203 vote will send the criminal referrals for Navarro and Scavino to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

The contempt action followed hours of raw debate on the House floor as Republicans stood by Trump and charged that Democrats were trying to politicize the attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy accused the Jan. 6 committee of “criminalizing dissent,” defended Scavino as a “good man” and lobbed harsh criticism at members of the committee, some by name. “Let’s be honest — this is a political show trial,” McCarthy said.

Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, among the nine members of the Jan. 6 panel, noted that the committee has two Republicans, including Liz Cheney. He added that the purpose of the floor vote was to make clear that “open contempt and mockery for this process, and for the rule of law” will not be allowed by the chamber.

“I mean, it is just amazing that they think they can get away with this,” the three-term lawmaker told reporters about Scavino and Navarro as the debate raged Wednesday.

Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger, who is also on the select committee, were the only Republicans who voted in favor of the contempt charges.

While pursuing contempt charges may not yield any new information for the Jan. 6 committee — any prosecutions could drag on for months or years — the vote Wednesday was the latest attempt to show that witnesses will suffer consequences if they don’t cooperate or at least appear for questioning. It’s all part of an effort to claw back legislative authority that eroded during the Trump era when congressional subpoenas were often flouted and ignored.

“This vote will reveal to us who is willing to show tolerance for the intolerable,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said on the floor, directing his comments to Republicans across the aisle.

Raskin and other Democrats made their case that Scavino and Navarro are among just a handful of individuals who have rebuffed the committee’s requests and subpoenas for information. The panel has interviewed more than 800 witnesses so far.

Scavino has “refused to testify before Congress about what he knows about the most dangerous and sweeping assault on the United States Congress since the War of 1812,” Raskin said.

The committee says Scavino helped promote Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and was with him the day of the attack on the Capitol. As a result, he may have “materials relevant to his videotaping and tweeting” messages that day.

A lawyer for Scavino did not return multiple messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. 

Navarro, 72, a former White House trade adviser, was subpoenaed in early February over his promotion of false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election that the committee believes contributed to the attack.

Navarro cited executive privilege when declining to testify, saying the committee “should negotiate this matter with President Trump.” He added, “If he waived the privilege, I will be happy to comply.”

But the Biden administration has already waived executive privilege for Navarro, Scavino and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying it was not justified or in the national interest for them to withhold their testimony.

Executive privilege was developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure, but it has limits. Courts have traditionally left questions of whether to invoke executive privilege up to the current White House occupant. The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected a bid by Trump to withhold documents from the committee.

The vote Wednesday will be the third time the panel has sent contempt charges to the House floor. The first two referrals, sent late last year, were for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump ally Steve Bannon.

The contempt referral against Bannon resulted in an indictment, with a trial set to start in July. The Justice Department has been slower to decide whether to prosecute Meadows, much to the frustration of the committee.

“It’s the committee’s hope that they will present it to a grand jury,” Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, told reporters Tuesday. “Obviously, the Meadows case is still outstanding. We don’t really know where that is, other than we’ve done our work.”

He added, “The firewall goes up from our standpoint, and DOJ uses its systems to take it from there.”

Lawmakers are interviewing dozens of individuals a week as they inch closer to public hearings in late spring. In the last week alone, the committee interviewed Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner. Both were key White House advisers who had substantial access to the former president.

Thompson suggested more witnesses could still be held in contempt in the weeks ahead even as the committee looks to wrap up the investigative portion of their work in the next two months.

A conviction for contempt of Congress carries a fine of up to $100,000 and up to a year in prison.
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Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt Tuesday to begin Senate debate on a $10 billion COVID-19 compromise, pressing to entangle the bipartisan package with an election-year showdown over immigration restrictions that poses a politically uncomfortable fight for Democrats. 

A day after Democratic and GOP bargainers reached agreement on providing the money for treatments, vaccines and testing, a Democratic move to push the measure past a procedural hurdle failed 52-47. All 50 Republicans opposed the move, leaving Democrats 13 votes short of the 60 they needed to prevail. 

Hours earlier, Republicans said they’d withhold crucial support for the measure unless Democrats agreed to votes on an amendment preventing President Joe Biden from lifting Trump-era curbs on migrants entering the U.S. With Biden polling poorly on his handling of immigration and Democrats divided on the issue, Republicans see a focus on migrants as a fertile line of attack. 

“I think there will have to be” an amendment preserving the immigration restrictions “in order to move the bill” bolstering federal pandemic efforts, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters. 

At least 10 GOP votes will be needed in the 50-50 Senate for the measure to reach the 60 votes it must have for approval. Republicans could withhold that support until Democrats permit a vote on an immigration amendment. 

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, want Congress to approve the pandemic bill before lawmakers leave in days for a two-week recess. Tuesday’s vote suggested that could be hard. 

“This is a potentially devastating vote for every single American who was worried about the possibility of a new variant rearing its nasty head within a few months,” Schumer said after the vote. 

The new omicron variant, BA.2, is expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. COVID-19 cases. Around 980,000 Americans and more than 6 million people worldwide have died from the disease. 

The $10 billion pandemic package is far less than the $22.5 billion Biden initially sought. It also lacks $5 billion Biden wanted to battle the pandemic overseas after the two sides couldn’t agree on budget savings to pay for it, as Republicans demanded. 

At least half the bill would finance research and production of therapeutics to treat COVID-19. Money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests and to research new variants. 

The measure is paid for by pulling back unspent pandemic funds provided earlier for protecting aviation manufacturing jobs, closed entertainment venues and other programs. 

Administration officials have said the government has run out of money to finance COVID-19 testing and treatments for people without insurance, and is running low on money for boosters, free monoclonal antibody treatments and care for people with immune system weaknesses. 

At the 2020 height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump imposed immigration curbs letting authorities immediately expel asylum-seekers and migrants for public health reasons. The ban is set to expire May 23, triggering what by all accounts will be a massive increase in people trying to cross the Mexican border into the U.S. 

That confronts Democrats with messy choices ahead of fall elections when they’re expected to struggle to retain their slim House and Senate majorities. 

Many of the party’s lawmakers and their liberal supporters want the U.S. to open its doors to more immigrants. But moderates and some Democrats confronting tight November reelections worry about lifting the restrictions and alienating centrist voters. 

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, who faces a competitive reelection this fall, declined to say whether she would support retaining the Trump-era ban but said more needs to be done. 

“I need a plan, we need a plan,” she said in a brief interview. “There’s going to be a surge at the border. There should be a plan and I’ve been calling for it all along.” 

Shortly before Tuesday’s vote, Schumer showed no taste for exposing his party to a divisive immigration vote. 

“This is a bipartisan agreement that does a whole lot of important good for the American people. Vaccines, testing, therapeutics,” he said. “It should not be held hostage for an extraneous issue.” 

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which initiated the move two years ago, said earlier this month that it would lift the ban next month. The restrictions, known as Title 42, have been harder to justify as pandemic restrictions have eased. 

Trump administration officials cast the curb as a way to keep COVID-19 from spreading further in the U.S. Democrats considered that an excuse for Trump, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric was a hallmark of his presidency, to keep migrants from entering the country. 

Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said she supported terminating Trump’s curb and questioned GOP motives for seeking to reinstate it. 

“I find it very ironic for those who haven’t wanted to have a vaccination mandate, for those who did not want to have masks in the classroom, for them to suddenly be very interested in protecting the public,” she said. 

 
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced plans to expand access to health care by proposing changes to the Affordable Care Act to allow millions of additional families to purchase health insurance and obtain tax credits to offset the cost. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Ivanka Trump, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter and one of his senior advisers, testified Tuesday before the House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.  

Her testimony, given remotely, came days after her husband, Jared Kushner, another former senior White House adviser, testified virtually before the committee. 

The nine lawmakers investigating the attack — seven Democrats and two Republicans — have been intrigued by the role Ivanka Trump played at the White House as her father made last-minute pleas to then-Vice President Mike Pence to try to block lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win.  

After hundreds of his supporters stormed the Capitol, President Trump was widely reported to have rebuffed pleas from his aides, including at least two from Ivanka, to call off the rioters. Later in the afternoon that day, he released a video urging the throng to leave the Capitol. 

“So, go home. We love you. You’re very special,” he told the rioters, adding, “I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it. Especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace.” 

The former president continues to spread the false conspiracy theory that he won the election. 

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson called Kushner’s testimony “valuable” and “helpful.” 

“There were some things revealed, but we’ll just share that a little later,” Thompson told reporters. 

Several key Trump and Pence aides have been among the more than 800 witnesses who have testified before the investigative panel. Other aides have refused to testify, forcing the committee to pursue contempt of Congress charges against them. 

More than 775 protesters have been charged with an array of criminal offenses in the riot ranging from minor trespassing allegations to charges that they attacked one or more of the 140 police officers injured during the riot. 

In pursuing Ivanka Trump’s testimony, Thompson said the committee wants to know about the former president’s efforts to pressure Pence to block congressional certification of election results in key states where Biden edged Trump in the popular vote and thus claimed all of the electoral votes in those states.  

“One of the president’s discussions with the vice president occurred by phone on the morning of January 6th,” Thompson wrote in the letter to Ivanka Trump. “You were present in the Oval Office and observed at least one side of that telephone conversation.” 

The committee also said it wanted to learn about Ivanka Trump’s efforts to get her father to call off rioters after they stormed the Capitol. At an earlier rally near the White House that day, the former president urged supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to stop Biden from being certified the winner of the 2020 election. 

Hundreds of his supporters smashed windows and doors, ransacked offices and scuffled with police. Five people died that day or in the immediate aftermath, with one Trump protester fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer. 

To date, more than 200 people have pleaded guilty or been convicted of criminal charges. Many have received sentences of a few weeks in jail, although some facing assault charges have been sentenced to more than four years. The rest of the cases remain unresolved as investigators pore through vast video footage of the mayhem to identify the rioters. 

 
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Senate bargainers have reached agreement on a slimmed-down $10 billion package for countering COVID-19, the top Democratic and Republican negotiators said Monday, but the measure dropped all funding to help nations abroad combat the pandemic. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said the deal would give the government “the tools we need” to continue battling the disease. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, trumpeted budget savings in the measure that he said meant it “will not cost the American people a single additional dollar.” 

At least half the measure would have to be used to research and produce therapeutics to treat the disease, according to fact sheets distributed by Schumer and Romney, the two top bargainers. 

The money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests. At least $750 million would be used to research new COVID-19 variants and to expand vaccine production, the descriptions said. 

The agreement comes with party leaders hoping to move the legislation through Congress this week, before lawmakers leave for a two-week spring recess. It also comes with BA.2, the new omicron variant, expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. cases. Around 980,000 Americans and over 6 million people worldwide have died from COVID-19. 

Schumer blamed the GOP for the lack of global assistance, saying he is “disappointed that our Republican colleagues could not agree to include the $5 billion” from an earlier version of the measure. He said members of both parties want to craft a second spending measure this spring that could include funds to battle COVID-19 and hunger overseas and more assistance for Ukraine as it continues battling the Russian invasion. 

Romney suggested an openness to considering future COVID-19 money. “While this agreement does not include funding for the U.S. global vaccination program, I am willing to explore a fiscally responsible solution to support global efforts in the weeks ahead,” he said. 

The accord represents a deep cut from the $22.5 billion President Joe Biden initially requested, and from a $15 billion version that both parties’ leaders had negotiated last month. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, abandoned that plan after Democratic lawmakers rejected proposed cuts in state pandemic aid to help pay for the package. 

The $15 billion plan had included about $5 billion for the global effort to fight COVID-19, which has run rampant in many countries, especially poorer ones. The overall price tag has shrunk, and the global money has fallen off, as the two parties have been unable to agree on more than $10 billion in budget savings to pay for it. 

 
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson advanced one step closer to serving on the U.S. Supreme Court with a key U.S. Senate committee Monday advancing her nomination for a full floor vote later this week. 

U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve on the highest court in the country is expected to pass the narrowly-Democratic-controlled Senate, making her the first African American female Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. 

Senate Democrats praised Jackson’s breadth of experience ahead of the vote on her nomination, calling her one of the most qualified nominees in the history of the Supreme Court. 

“Justice Jackson will bring to the Supreme Court, the highest level of skill, integrity, civility and grace,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin said Monday. “She has impeccable qualifications. We don’t agree on much in the Senate but not one senator on this committee has questioned that she is well qualified.” 

The 51-year-old Jackson served as a judge for almost a decade and has experience clerking at every level of the federal system, including in the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she is nominated to replace. Jackson would be the first justice to have experience as a federal public defender. 

“These critical experiences bring a missing perspective to the court,” Durbin noted. “It is truly unfortunate that some are trying to use them as reasons to vote against her. These baseless attacks are belied by the broad support for Judge Jackson’s nomination from across the political spectrum. Law enforcement, former federal prosecutors, Republican-appointed judges, and even more have vouched for her intellect, her intelligence, her ability to build consensus and her evenhandedness.” 

Jackson garnered no Republican votes in an 11-11 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Democrats were still able to advance her vote to the floor using Senate procedures. 

There was widespread Republican criticism of Jackson for her past sentencing of child pornographers. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has previously voted for Biden judicial nominees, said Monday, “I’m inclined to vote for judges of the other side, but this choice of Judge Jackson was really embraced by the most radical people in the Democratic movement to the exclusion of everybody else.” 

Other Senate Republicans have argued Jackson did not adequately define her judicial philosophy. 

Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the committee, said Monday, “She and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government. Because of those disagreements, I can’t support her nomination.” 

The Senate is expected to begin debate and to hold a final vote on her nomination before leaving for the Easter holiday recess later this week. 

 
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Sarah Palin on Friday shook up an already unpredictable race for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat, filing paperwork to join a field of at least 40 candidates seeking to fill the seat that had been held for 49 years by the late-U.S. Rep. Don Young, who died last month.

Palin filed paperwork Friday with a Division of Elections office in Wasilla, said Tiffany Montemayor, a division spokesperson. The paperwork was being processed by the division, she said.

The field includes current and former state legislators and a North Pole city council member named Santa Claus. The deadline to file was 5 p.m. Friday. A final list of official candidates was not yet available.

“Public service is a calling, and I would be honored to represent the men and women of Alaska in Congress, just as Rep. Young did for 49 years,” Palin said in a statement on social media. “I realize that I have very big shoes to fill, and I plan to honor Rep. Young’s legacy by offering myself up in the name of service to the state he loved and fought for, because I share that passion for Alaska and the United States of America.”

Palin is a former Alaska governor and was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. She has kept a low profile in Alaska politics since leaving office in 2009, before her term as governor ended.

Young, a Republican, had held Alaska’s House seat since 1973 and was seeking reelection at the time of his death last month at age 88.

A special primary is set for June 11. The top four vote-getters will advance to an Aug. 16 special election in which ranked choice voting will be used, a process in line with a new elections system approved by voters in 2020.

The winner will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which expires in January. The division is targeting Sept. 2 to certify the special election.

Others who filed Friday include Republican state Sen. Josh Revak; Democratic state Rep. Adam Wool; independent Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2020; and Andrew Halcro, a former Republican state lawmaker who is running as an independent. They join a field that includes Republican Nick Begich, who had positioned himself as a challenger to Young; Democrat Christopher Constant, an Anchorage Assembly member; and John Coghill, a Republican former state lawmaker.

Revak, who previously worked for Young’s office and was a statewide co-chair for Young’s reelection bid, said he felt a “strong calling and a duty” to step forward.

He said he was “heartbroken” by the filing timeline, coinciding with a period he said should be focused on remembering Young.

Young lay in state at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. A public memorial was held in the Washington, D.C., area on Wednesday and a public memorial is planned in Anchorage on Saturday.

Revak said he also plans to run in the regular primary for U.S. House. Palin filed paperwork to run in the special and regular primaries as well, Montemayor said.

The August special election will coincide with the regular primary. The regular primary and November general election will determine who represents Alaska in the House for a two-year term starting in January.

Gross also plans to run in both the special and regular elections. His campaign announced a leadership team that includes several Republicans and independents, as well as Democrats, including former Gov. Tony Knowles.

“We are building a campaign that embodies all of Alaska,” Gross said in a statement.

Wool said he has privately discussed a run for years. He said he looked at the candidates running in the special primary and “wasn’t that impressed. Many of them have never won an election, don’t have any statewide recognition and politically aren’t aligned certainly not with me or what I would think the majority of Alaskans are looking for.”

Wool, from Fairbanks, said he considers himself moderate. He said he has yet to decide whether to run in the regular primary.

Halcro, who has a podcast on which he talks politics, said during the campaign he plans to play up his intent to only run to fill the remainder of the term. He said if the person who wins the special election also is in the November general election, he expects they would spend a fair amount of time campaigning. He said if elected, he would be focused on congressional work.

Meanwhile, a man who years ago legally changed his name to Santa Claus and serves on the North Pole city council also filed with the state Division of Elections for the special primary. Claus, who said he has a “strong affinity” for Bernie Sanders, is running as an independent.

He said he is not soliciting or raising money. He said the new elections process “gives people like me an opportunity, without having to deal with parties, to throw our hat in the ring.”

“I do have name recognition,” he said with a laugh.
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Former White House aide Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump, answered questions Thursday from the House panel investigating last year’s assault on the Capitol. 

Kushner, the highest-ranking Trump adviser and the first family member to testify so far, appeared in private by video link voluntarily and was not subpoenaed. 

The House of Representatives committee is piecing together a detailed account of the events of the January 6 insurrection itself, but also of efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the misinformation campaign falsely claiming widespread fraud that led to the violence.  

Kushner was returning from Saudi Arabia on the day of January 6 and did not spend the night at the White House upon his return to the United States.  

Committee member Elaine Luria told MSNBC after Kushner’s appearance that he “was able to voluntarily provide information to us, to verify and substantiate his own take” on the election. 

“It was really valuable to have the opportunity to speak to him,” she said. 

Texts from justice’s wife

Kushner’s testimony caps an intense period of almost daily revelations from the investigation. 

It was revealed last week that conservative political activist Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent more than two dozen texts pushing wild conspiracy theories and urging then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to help overturn the 2020 election. 

Kushner’s name appeared in a message from Thomas dated November 13, 2020, when she told Meadows, “Just forwarded to yr gmail an email I sent Jared this am … improved coordination now will help the cavalry come and Fraud exposed and America saved.” 

It also emerged that White House logs given to investigators from the day of the insurrection show a gap of nearly eight hours in Trump’s records of calls, including the period covering the violence. 

The committee is investigating whether it has the full record and if Trump communicated that day through phones of aides or personal disposable “burner” phones. 

The select committee has also asked for testimony from Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, who was in the White House on January 6 and pleaded with her father to speak out against the violence, according to reports.  

No executive privilege

The White House said on Tuesday it would reject any assertion of executive privilege, which allows presidents to keep certain work-related conversations with aides private — from Kushner or Ivanka Trump.   

The committee is approaching the end of its investigative phase and is planning public hearings this spring.   

The parallel but separate Department of Justice probe “has expanded to examine the preparations for the rally that preceded the riot,” including those who “assisted in planning, funding and executing” the event, The Washington Post reported.
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In an interview Tuesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump specifically asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to release information that Trump believes would implicate the family of U.S. President Joe Biden in financial wrongdoing.

In the interview with the “Just the News” television program on the network Real America’s Voice, Trump suggested that Putin might want to provide the information because he thinks it would harm the United States.

“As long as Putin now is not exactly a fan of our country,” Trump said, the Russian leader might be willing to explain why in 2014 Russian businesswoman Elena Baturina, the wife of the deceased former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, made a $3.5 million payment to a firm Trump supporters have claimed is associated with Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

“I would think Putin would know the answer to that,” Trump said. “I think he should release it.”

Trump characterized the payment as having been made to the “Biden family,” but it was actually made to an entity called Rosemont Seneca Thornton. Hunter Biden was an original founder of the investment fund Rosemont Seneca, but his attorney said that he had no connection with or interest in Rosemont Seneca Thornton.

“Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a ‘co-founder’ of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false,” the attorney, George Mesires, told PolitiFact in September 2020.

While Hunter Biden’s business dealings have been under investigation by federal prosecutors since at least 2018, the information about the payment from Baturina was revealed in a Republican-led Senate inquiry. The report provided no evidence that the payment was corrupt or associated with Hunter Biden’s investment fund in any way.

‘No parallels’

Experts in American politics struggled to find another instance in which a former U.S. president had solicited damaging information about a sitting president’s family from the leader of one of the country’s most significant geostrategic rivals.

“Don’t bother to look for parallels because it’s completely unparalleled,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told VOA. “This is an example of complete self-absorption and elevation of personal interest over the country’s interests.”

Sabato added, “That is something that, it goes without saying, should be beneath the dignity of any former president. But it’s not beneath Donald Trump’s dignity.”

It was difficult to find Republicans in Washington defending the former president’s comments on Wednesday. Utah Senator Mitt Romney told reporters, “I don’t think Vladimir Putin ought to be one of the people we go to for favors right now.”

Echoes of 2016 campaign

Trump’s public call for Putin to release information about Biden’s son echoed his request, during the 2016 presidential campaign, for Moscow to release emails belonging to his then-opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said in July 2016. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Whether by coincidence or not, a special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election later determined that Russian hackers made their first attempt to break into computers in Clinton’s personal office on the same day as Trump’s request.

Also on Tuesday, Evgeny Popov, a member of the Russian Duma and the host of a program on state-run television, said during a broadcast that it was time for Russian citizens to call on U.S. citizens to end Biden’s term early, “and to again help our partner Trump to become president.”

Hunter Biden investigation

Hunter Biden’s business dealings have been a target of intense interest among Trump and his political allies. In 2018, the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, David Weiss, opened an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities in several foreign countries.

When Joe Biden took office in 2021, he left the Trump-appointed Weiss in office, in order to avoid the appearance of interfering in the investigation into his son.

Media reports indicate that the investigation into Hunter Biden has not only continued but has picked up pace.

Trump’s efforts to dig up dirt on the younger Biden related to his seat on the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma led to his first impeachment. In a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019, Trump appeared to condition the sale of military equipment to Ukraine on Zelenskyy’s willingness to do him a “favor” by announcing an investigation into the Bidens.

Biden’s membership on the Burisma board had raised eyebrows for a number of reasons. He was paid a generous $50,000 per month, despite having no apparent expertise in the energy business. Also, his father was in charge of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy at the time.

No evidence has been made public suggesting that any decisions Joe Biden made while vice president were meant to aid his son’s business ventures.

Chinese energy firm

On Tuesday, The Washington Post published an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China. The report relied on data from a laptop computer that Biden was purported to have left at a computer repair store and that was later turned over to the FBI.

Allies of Trump tried to get journalists to investigate the laptop during the 2020 election campaign, but many balked because of the circumstances under which the data from the machine was obtained. The owner of the store copied the computer’s hard drive before turning the device over to the FBI. The copied hard drive then found its way into the hands of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, who had actively worked to have Ukrainian officials announce an investigation into the Bidens.

The Post said it was able to independently verify the accuracy of some of the data on the machine.

Among other things, the Post story revealed that over 14 months, beginning in 2017, Hunter Biden’s company received $4.8 billion in payments from a Chinese energy conglomerate called CEFC China Energy. None of the energy projects that Biden discussed with the firm ever took shape, the paper reported, and one of the executives of CEFC was arrested by U.S. authorities for bribery.
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The U.S. Congress is one step closer this week to passing major legislation addressing competitiveness with China. The America Competes Act passed the U.S. Senate on Monday on a vote of 68-28, setting the stage for the legislation to be reconciled in the U.S. House of Representatives for final passage. A significantly different version of that legislation passed the U.S. House in February on a vote of 222-210. 

The White House welcomed progress on the legislation in a statement Monday night, saying “there is clear bipartisan support for the sorts of investments the president has long championed — like boosting domestic manufacturing, supporting our innovators and helping them take their ideas from the lab to the factory floor, as well as addressing supply chain bottlenecks like semiconductors that are raising prices on the middle class.” 

The multibillion-dollar legislation addresses the U.S. supply chain and research, as well as development issues, to lessen dependence on Chinese-manufactured products by providing $52 billion for the U.S. manufacture of semiconductors, and $2 billion for the manufacture of critical electronics, defense and automobile components. 

The legislation also addresses human rights and democracy issues by providing funding for U.S.-Taiwan cultural exchanges, recognizing Taiwan as part of the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy, and ending a prohibition of displaying the Taiwanese flag during official visits to the U.S. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner tweeted Tuesday, “Passing the America COMPETES Act would mean taking real action towards addressing long-term inflation and making a targeted investment in American manufacturing. I’ve been working on this bill from the beginning, and I’m ready to get it done.” 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the process of reconciling the Senate and House versions would begin by the end of this week. 

“I believe this bill will go down as one of the most important steps Congress can take toward creating more American jobs, fixing our supply chains, and refueling another generation of American ingenuity that will strengthen our economy for a long, long time,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. 

While the legislation has some bipartisan support, one top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees said it did not do enough. 

In a speech about the threat posed by Communist China at the conservative research group Heritage Foundation, Senator Marco Rubio referred to the America Competes Act as “this so-called China bill.” 

Rubio said “it takes meaningful steps toward reinvesting in our nation’s capabilities. So, there’s good things in that bill, but it doesn’t build sufficient safeguards to protect taxpayer-funded research and industrial investment. And it’s because of pressure from universities and industry, support of billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars into activities that the Chinese are stealing now, except with less money. Now they’ll just have access to more to steal.” 

Rubio went on to argue that the problem cannot truly be solved until China stops lobbying American companies to protect its interest. Rubio said his legislation blocking imports made with slave labor has received opposition from American companies. 

“They were more interested in appeasing the Chinese Communist Party and Xi Jinping because that allows them to maximize their profit margins, are interested in that, than doing what is both morally right and good for their country,” Rubio said Tuesday.  

In response to passage of the bill, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told reporters, “The China-related content of the relevant bills disregards the facts, exaggerates the theory of the China threat, advocates strategic competition with China, and is full of Cold War zero-sum thinking, which runs counter to the common desire of all walks of life in China and the United States to strengthen exchanges and cooperation. China firmly opposes this and will firmly defend its own interests.” 
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U.S. President Joe Biden’s whirlwind diplomatic tour of Europe might be most remembered by his words about Russian President Vladimir Putin: “This man cannot remain in power.” Two days after his utterance, Biden clarified that although he won’t back down from the sentiment, the U.S. did not plan to take Putin out of office. VOA’s Anita Powell reports, from the White House, on what this means as this Ukraine conflict enters a second month.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee is pushing Ketanji Brown Jackson closer to confirmation, setting up a vote next week to recommend her nomination to the full Senate and seat her as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. 

Jackson appears to be on a glidepath to confirmation by mid-April, even if she doesn’t receive the bipartisan votes that President Joe Biden has sought. Democrats can confirm her without one Republican vote in the 50-50 Senate, as long as every Democrat supports her. Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie. 

At a brief meeting Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin set the committee vote for April 4 and praised Jackson’s answers during four days of hearings last week that often grew contentious. Republicans on the committee — led by several senators who are eyeing presidential runs — spent much of the hearings focused on her sentencing decisions in a handful of child pornography cases during her nine years as a federal judge in an effort to paint her as too lenient on the criminals. 

Durbin criticized the Republican focus on the issue, saying the GOP senators asked “the toughest, meanest questions and then race to Twitter to see if somebody is tweeting.” In a Senate floor speech shortly afterward, Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, one of the Republicans who asked Jackson repeatedly about the pornography cases, defended her colleagues, saying the questioning was “not an attack.” 

The partisan spat threatened to divide Jackson’s confirmation down party lines as Republicans drew her nomination into a midterm campaign push to paint Democrats as soft on crime. Durbin, who like Biden wants a bipartisan vote, said he hopes other Republicans “will not be discouraged” by the back-and-forth when considering whether to support the historic nomination. 

So far, no Republicans have said they will vote for her. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader, cited the Republicans’ concerns about her sentencing history, along with her support from liberal advocacy groups, in announcing Thursday that he “cannot and will not” back her. 

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who met with Jackson for more than an hour and a half earlier this month, is the most likely GOP senator to vote for her. After their meeting, Collins said she believes Jackson takes “a very thorough, careful approach in applying the law to the facts of the case, and that is what I want to see in a judge.” 

Jackson would be the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would also be the first former public defender on the court, and the first justice with experience representing indigent criminal defendants since Marshall. 

Pushing back on the Republicans’ questions about her sentencing in child pornography crimes, Jackson said during the hearings that sentencing is not a “numbers game.” She noted that there are no mandatory sentences for sex offenders and that there has been significant debate on the subject. Some of those cases have given her nightmares, Jackson said, and were “among the worst that I have seen.” 

White House spokesman Andrew Bates on Monday said the questioning was in “bad faith,” and that many of the Republicans had voted for GOP-nominated judges who had also sentenced defendants beneath federal guidelines, as Jackson did. 

The April 4 vote will set up a week of procedural maneuvers on the Senate floor aimed at securing Jackson’s confirmation by the end of the week. Durbin said he still has hope for some Republican votes by then. 

“I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to take a look at this woman and what she will bring to the Court,” Durbin said. “She is the best and deserves our support.” 

 
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law on Monday that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, a policy that has drawn intense national scrutiny from critics who argue it marginalizes LGBTQ people. 

The legislation has pushed Florida and DeSantis, an ascending Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, to the forefront of the country’s culture wars. LGBTQ advocates, students, Democrats, the entertainment industry and the White House have dubbed the measure the “Don’t Say Gay” law. 

DeSantis and other Republicans have repeatedly said the measure was reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children. The law went into effect just days after DeSantis signed a separate bill that potentially restricts what books elementary schools can keep in their libraries or use for instruction. 

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said to applause before he signed the sexual orientation and gender identity measure during a ceremony at a preparatory school outside Tampa. 

The law states that “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Parents would be able to sue districts over violations. 

Swift condemnation 

Public backlash began almost immediately after the bill was introduced, with early criticism lobbed by Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and condemnation from LGBTQ advocacy groups. Democratic President Joe Biden called it “hateful.” 

As the bill moved through the Florida Legislature, celebrities mobilized against it on social media and criticized it at this year’s Academy Awards. Florida students staged walkouts and packed into committee rooms and statehouse halls to protest the measure, often with booming chants of “We say gay!” 

The Walt Disney Company, a powerful player in Florida politics, suspended its political donations in the state, and LGBTQ advocates who work for the company criticized CEO Bob Chapek for what they said was his slow response in speaking out against the bill. Some walked off the job in protest. 

After DeSantis signed the measure, Disney released a statement saying, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.” 

Throughout debate in the GOP-controlled statehouse, Democrats have said the law’s language, particularly the phrases “classroom instruction” and “age appropriate,” could be interpreted so broadly that discussion in any grade could trigger lawsuits and create a classroom atmosphere where teachers would avoid the subjects entirely. 

“The bill’s intentionally vague language leaves teachers afraid to talk to their students and opens up school districts to costly and frivolous litigation from those seeking to exclude LGBTQ people from any grade level,” said state Representative Carlos G. Smith, a Democrat who is gay. “Even worse, #DontSayGay sends a hateful message to our most vulnerable youth who simply need our support.” 

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said the law amounts to a political wedge issue for Republicans because elementary schools, especially in kindergarten through third grade, do not teach about these subjects and have state curriculum standards guiding classroom lessons. 

“This bill is based on a falsehood, and that falsehood is that somehow we’re teaching kids inappropriate topics at an early age, and clearly we’re not,” Spar said. 

‘Empowers parents’ 

The law’s sponsor, Republican state Representative Joe Harding, has said it would not bar spontaneous discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity in schools but would prevent districts from integrating the subjects into official curriculum. During the bill’s early stages, Harding sought to require schools to inform parents if a student came out as LGBTQ to a teacher. He withdrew the amendment after it picked up attention online. 

“Nothing in the amendment was about outing a student. Rather than battle misinformation related to the amendment, I decided to focus on the primary bill that empowers parents to be engaged in their children’s lives,” he said in a statement. 

DeSantis signed the bill after a news conference held at the Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill, about 74 kilometers north of Tampa. At the ceremony, several young children accompanied DeSantis and other politicians near the podium, with some holding signs bearing the governor’s “Protect Children/Support Parents” slogan. DeSantis gave the children the pens he used to sign the bill. 

The White House, which has sparred with the DeSantis administration over a range of policies, has issued statements against the law. “My Administration will continue to fight for dignity and opportunity for every student and family — in Florida and around the country,” Biden tweeted Monday. 

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona recently held a call with LGBTQ students in Florida and said in a statement issued Monday that his agency “will be monitoring this law upon implementation to evaluate whether it violates federal civil rights law.” 

For teachers in Florida, the law has caused some confusion over what is allowed in the classroom as well as concerns over frivolous lawsuits, said Michael Woods, a special education teacher in Palm Beach County with about three decades of experience. 

“From the start, I thought it was a solution in search of a problem, and the sad part about it is, I think it’s going to have a chilling effect on making sure that young people, students have a safe learning environment,” he said. 

 
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