January 6 committee postpones Wednesday’s hearing for technical reasons – live

The White House has confirmed that Joe Biden will meet Saudia Arabia’s crown prince and de-factor ruler Mohammed bin Salman on his visit to the country.

“Yes, we can expect the President to see the crown prince as well,” Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One.

The announcement is significant because relations between the two men have often been frosty. As my colleague Julian Borger reported, Prince Mohammed “reportedly declined to take a call from Joe Biden last month, showing his displeasure at the administration’s restrictions on arms sales; what he saw as its insufficient response to attacks on Saudi Arabia by Houthi forces in Yemen; its publication of a report into the Saudi regime’s 2018 murder of the dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi; and Biden’s prior refusal to deal in person with the crown prince.”

Prince Mohammed may also be banking on a return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2024, whose prior administration was much friendlier with Riyadh.

The postponed January 6 hearing will likely take place next week, committee member Pete Aguilar said.

Speaking at a press conference of the House Democratic Caucus Leaders, the California Democrat downplayed the impact of the hearing’s postponement.

“The schedule has always been fluid. So we’re going to move forward and have a Thursday hearing and then get ready for hearings next week as well,” he said, predicting the session originally set for Wednesday will “move to likely next week.”

He didn’t elaborate on the reasons for the change in schedule, but said, “We just want to make sure that you all have the time and space to digest all the information that we’re putting out there.”

The committee’s next hearing is scheduled for Thursday, June 16.

Sometime soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, the supreme court will hand down a decision that could dismantle or greatly weaken abortion rights codified by Roe v Wade. If that happens, The Guardian’s Poppy Noor reports that prosecutors in a number of states are preparing to act to keep abortion accessible.

Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, never thought she would have an abortion. But after finding herself pregnant with triplets in 2002, she faced an unenviable choice: abort one, or miscarry all three. “I took my doctor’s advice, which I should have been able to do,” she says in a phone interview.

Nessel plans to protect that same right for residents of her state if Roe v Wade is overturned this summer, as a leaked supreme court draft opinion indicates is all but certain.

If the draft opinion stands, 26 states are likely or certain to ban abortion. In Michigan, a 1931 law would be triggered, making abortion illegal in almost all cases except to save the life of the pregnant person.

Nessel says she won’t enforce the ban in Michigan, along with at least a dozen law enforcement officials across the country – a bold statement that sets the US up for a complex legal landscape with different enforcement regimes in different states, and even within them.

These officials are likely to face swift backlash from the right, including, in some cases, retaliation from state authorities who will demand they enforce the law as written. But they are determined to press ahead.

At its hearing yesterday, the January 6 committee built its case that Trump knew his fraud claims were baseless but pushed them anyway, fueling the attack on the Capitol. My colleague Lauren Gambino reports on how the hearing’s revelations may not be enough to dislodge belief in the “Big Lie” from the Republican party.

The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection charged on Monday that Donald Trump “lit the fuse” that fueled the most violent assault on the US Capitol in more than two centuries with his groundless claim that the election was stolen.

For those tuned in, the committee meticulously charted the origins and spread of Trump’s “big lie”, tapping a trove of evidence and interviews to show that the former president was told repeatedly that the election had been free and fair and peddled his myths anyway.

But in Republican politics and the conservative media ecosystem, Trump’s myth of a stolen election rages on, uncontrolled in the Republican party as it seeks to surge back into power in November’s midterm elections.

The January 6 committee has announced the postponement of its hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Committee member Zoe Lofgren blames technical reasons for the delay.

It’s official: President Joe Biden will visit Saudi Arabia, a country he once vowed to turn into “a pariah” but which may play a crucial role in lowering US pump prices from their record levels.

The visit, which will be coupled with a trip to Israel, comes as Biden’s approval rating slumps due to a wave of inflation caused in part by energy prices that have risen since Russia invaded Ukraine. Saudi Arabia is a major oil producer, and Biden is looking for ways to increase the global oil supply to lower pump prices at home.

There’s no hint of this dynamic in the White House statement announcing the trip, which focuses on Saudia Arabia chairing the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regional group.

“The President will… travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which is the current chair of the GCC and the venue for this gathering of nine leaders from across the region, at the invitation of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. The President appreciates King Salman’s leadership and his invitation. He looks forward to this important visit to Saudi Arabia, which has been a strategic partner of the United States for nearly eight decades,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wrote.

In Israel, Biden “will meet with Israeli leaders to discuss Israel’s security, prosperity, and its increasing integration into the greater region. The President will also visit the West Bank to consult with the Palestinian Authority and to reiterate his strong support for a two-state solution, with equal measures of security, freedom, and opportunity for the Palestinian people,” according to the statement.

Biden’s ire towards Riyadh has centered on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Way back in 2020, a plank of Joe Biden’s successful presidential campaign was restoring bipartisanship in Congress. If all goes well for the president this week, he may soon have the chance to sign the types of compromise legislation he promised Americans.

Chief among these would be the gun control measure senators negotiated over the weekend, which looks like it can get the 10 Republican votes needed to overcome a filibuster by others in the party opposed to the legislation, and which the Senate majority leader has said will be put up for consideration as soon as possible.

More immediately, the House could today vote to increase security for the supreme court after a man was arrested on charges of trying to kill justice Brett Kavanaugh, ahead of the court’s expected rulings that could curb abortion and expand gun rights. The bill has already passed the Senate unanimously.

Biden’s supporters would also point to the Republican votes for last year’s infrastructure overhaul as a sign of his success in uniting the parties around issues affecting all Americans. But it’s worth pointing out the massive American Rescue Plan spending bill won no Republican support, nor did Build Back Better, the president’s marquee spending plan that ended up floundering because Democrats themselves could not find consensus over it.

Good morning, US Politics blog readers. Over the past few days, the January 6 committee has used its hearings to make the case that former president Donald Trump bears responsibility for the attack on the Capitol. But while he’s the most prominent promoter of the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen, an analysis published today by the Washington Post shows at least 108 Republicans candidates for statewide office or Congress also share that belief.

Here’s what else is going on today:

• Senators are considering a bipartisan gun control compromise announced over the weekend that’s thought to have enough support to pass the evenly divided chamber. The bill has yet to be written, but it would represent Washington’s response to the mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.
• The House is expected to today approve a bill to increase security for the supreme court following the arrest of a man who was charged with planning to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
• The January 6 committee is taking a break from its hearings today, but will convene again on Wednesday. Expect more reactions today from across Washington to yesterday’s hearing, which focused on Trump’s promotion of fraud claims that his own officials said were baseless.
• Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina will be holding primary elections ahead of the 8 November midterms, which will be decisive in determining the course of Washington politics over the next two years.
• The Federal Reserve is beginning its two-day meeting and could decide to make a big interest rate increase to fight the runaway inflation that’s badly damaged Biden’s standing with voters. The central bankers announce their decision Wednesday at 2pm ET.