Americans should focus on Biden’s accomplishments, says chief of staff – as it happened

The Biden administration took advantage of a quiet week in Washington to lay the groundwork for the roughly two months of campaigning before the November midterm elections, when Democrats will have to fight for control of Congress.

Here’s what else happened today:

• White House chief of staff Ron Klain gave an interview to Politico, where he promoted Biden’s legislative accomplishments and previewed Democrats’ message to voters.

• A Georgia judge blocked senator Lindsey Graham’s attempt to quash a subpoena compelling his appearance before the special grand jury investigating election meddling in the state.

• Democrats attacked Mike Pence’s trip to Iowa, as the former vice president continues exploring whether to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

• An Ohio House Democrat criticized Biden in a television advertisement. She is fighting to keep her seat representing a district whose boundaries have been redrawn to include more Republican voters.

• More LGBTQ politicians are holding elected office in America than ever before, according to a new survey.

• The supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade may be causing a surge in women registering to vote, a political data firm has found.

“Joe Biden’s letting Ohio solar manufacturers be undercut by China.” Sounds like a Republican campaign advertisement. It’s not – instead, it’s a television spot from an Ohio House Democrat fighting for her seat in a newly redrawn district that’s become much more friendly to the GOP.

The New York Times reports that Marcy Kaptur has become the latest and most prominent Democratic lawmakers to publicly break with Biden with an ad that also highlights her collaboration with Rob Portman, Ohio’s retiring Republican senator. It’s a reversal from just last month, when she greeted the president at the airport in Cleveland during his visit to the city. However, such conduct is not unheard of for Democrats this election cycle. Maine representative Jared Golden aired an ad where he described himself as an “independent voice” that voted against “trillions of dollars of President Biden’s agenda because I knew it would make inflation worse,” according to the Times.

Then there are the somewhat bizarre actions of Carolyn Maloney of New York, who is fighting to keep her House seat against a challenge from Jerry Nadler, a fellow Democrat. She had to apologize after saying Biden wasn’t planning to stand for reelection in 2024, only to make the same comment again.

Republican House candidates who are facing close races are being advised not to talk too much about Donald Trump, but rather try to concentrate voters’ attention on the issues where they see an advantage over Democrats, CNN reports.

“I don’t say his name, ever. I just avoid saying his name generally,” a Republican lawmaker in a tight race told the network. “I talk about the policies of his that I like.”

The advice comes from Tom Emmer, a GOP House representative and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is tasked with reclaiming Congress’ lower chamber in the November elections. While a spokesman for Emmer didn’t address the report about Trump, he told CNN, “Candidates know their districts best,” and “public and private polls show the midterms will be a referendum on Joe Biden and Democrats’ failed agenda that’s left voters paying record prices, dealing with soaring violent crime and facing billions in middle-class tax hikes.”

As the report notes, this strategy could become complicated if Trump opts to announce another campaign for the presidency before the November midterms. Earlier this week, The Guardian reported he was being counseled to do so to avoid an indictment by the justice department over his handling of classified material.

The investigation into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia was one of the earliest and most intense scandals of his presidency, and the legal wrangling over it still hasn’t finished.

The Associated Press reports that a federal court of appeals panel has found that William Barr, Trump’s attorney general in 2019, wrongly withheld a memo that he cited to say that Trump did not obstruct justice during in the investigation into his ties with Moscow.

Here’s more from the AP:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}At issue in the case is a March 24, 2019, memorandum from the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, or OLC, and another senior department official that was prepared for Barr to evaluate whether evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation could support prosecution of the president for obstruction of justice.

Barr has said he looked to that opinion in concluding that Trump did not illegally obstruct the Russia probe, which was an investigation of whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.

The Justice Department turned over other documents to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as part of the group’s lawsuit, but declined to give it the memo. Government lawyers said they were entitled under public records law to withhold the memo because it reflected internal deliberations among lawyers before any formal decision had been reached on what Mueller’s evidence showed.

But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson said last year that those arguments were disingenuous because the memo was prepared for Barr at about the same time as a separate Justice Department letter informing Congress and the public that Barr and other senior department leaders concluded that Trump had not obstructed justice.

The memo noted that “Mueller had declined to accuse President Trump of obstructing justice but also had declined to exonerate him” and “recommended that Barr ‘reach a judgment’ on whether the evidence constituted obstruction of justice,” the panel wrote Friday. The memo also noted that “the Report’s failure to take a definitive position could be read to imply an accusation against President Trump” if the confidential report were released to the public, the court wrote.

Busy day for courts in Georgia. A federal judge in the state has just rejected another bid by Republican senator Lindsey Graham to quash a subpoena compelling his appearance before a special grand jury probing attempts to meddle in the 2020 elections by Donald Trump’s allies.

“Senator Graham raises a number of arguments as to why he is likely to succeed on the merits, but they are all unpersuasive, not least because they largely misconstrue the Court’s holdings,” judge Leigh Martin May wrote in denying the senator’s motion.

“A stay is not justified even assuming for the sake of argument that Senator Graham has shown ‘a substantial case on the merits.’”

Earlier this week, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared before the panel, which has informed him he is a target of their investigation.

However in Georgia, a judge will allow a state law provision that bans giving food and water to voters standing in line to go into effect for the November midterm elections, though it is still subject to further legal challenges, the Associated Press reports.

The law, passed last year, was part of a Republican-backed effort to reform the state’s election system, which Democrats attacked as an attempt to make it harder for the poor and racial minorities to vote.

But as the AP notes, the legal battle isn’t over:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee said the voting rights groups may ultimately prevail on part of their challenge, but he agreed with the state that it’s too close to the election to block any part of the provision. He noted that requiring different rules for the general election than those in place for the primaries earlier this year could cause confusion for election workers.

Boulee said that voting rights groups had failed to show that prohibiting the distribution of food and drinks within 150 feet (45 meters) of a polling place violates their constitutional rights. But he said that another part of the provision that bars people from offering food and drink within 25 feet (7.6 meters) of any person in line is probably unconstitutional because that zone is tied to the location of voters and could stretch thousands of feet from the polling place.

Meanwhile in Florida, a federal judge has blocked a provision of the “Stop WOKE” Act that banned private employers from discussing “white man’s privilege” and other biases during diversity training.

Judge Mark Walker compared the law to the popular TV show Stranger Things in ordering the injunction, The New York Times reports. “In the popular television series ‘Stranger Things,’ the ‘upside down’ describes a parallel dimension containing a distorted version of our world. Now, like the heroine in ‘Stranger Things,’ this court is once again asked to pull Florida back from the upside down.”

The law bans Florida employers from forcing its workers to attend diversity trainings that would make them feel guilty or uncomfortable, and also regulates what can be said at such trainings. According to the Times, businesses have chafed at its restrictions, with Bill George, a professor of management at Harvard, describing it to the Times as “the No. 1 issue I hear about from C.E.O.s these days.”

Conservatives’ judicial losing streak continued today, when a Michigan judge blocked the state’s abortion ban from taking effect.

Here’s video of Jacob James Cunningham’s ruling:

According to the Associated Press, the injunction will keep abortion legal in the state until this fall, when voters will decide whether to keep the ban on the books. It is also possible that the state supreme court will weigh in on the law around that time.

Details are out about what’s in the next package of military aid for Ukraine.

Here’s a taste from the Associated Press:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The United States is poised to announce it will provide Ukraine with nearly $800m in new military aid Friday, including at least a dozen Scan Eagle surveillance drones, according to several US officials.

Officials said the bulk of the aid package will be additional howitzers and ammunition, including Javelin missiles that the Ukrainian military has been using effectively to try and hold off Russian forces and take back territory Moscow has gained.

Two officials confirmed the new inclusion of the portable, long-endurance drones which are launched by a catapult and can be retrieved. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the aid ahead of its public release.

And here’s our latest reporting on the war in Ukraine:

Transgender children in Utah will be not be subjected to sports participation limits at the start of the new school year, after a judge delayed the implementation of a statewide ban.

The Associated Press has more:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Judge Keith Kelly’s decision Friday to put the law on hold until a legal challenges is resolved came after he recently rejected a request by Utah state attorneys to dismiss the case. Most Utah schools students head back to classes this month.

Attorneys representing the families of three transgender student-athletes filed the lawsuit challenging the ban last May, contending it violates the Utah constitution’s guarantees of equal rights and due process.

Similar cases are underway in states such as Idaho, West Virginia and Indiana.

The issue of whether transgender girls should be allowed to participate in female sports has become flashpoint across the US with Republican lawmakers passing legislation to block them based on the premise it gives them an unfair competitive advantage.

Transgender rights advocates counter that the rules aren’t just about sports, but another way to demean and attack transgender youth.

More:

A Republican candidate for Congress in New York said he was “being facetious” when, in the same interview, he said the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, should be executed for authorising the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Florida home.

The candidate, Carl Paladino, recently caused controversy when he praised Adolf Hitler, as “the kind of leader we need today”.

Paladino made his remark about the attorney general in an interview with the far-right site Breitbart. Paladino said: “So we have a couple of unelected people who are running our government, in an administration of people like Garland, who should be not only impeached, he probably should be executed.

“The guy is just lost. He’s a lost soul. He’s trying to get an image, and his image, his methodology is just terrible. To raid the home of a former president is just – people are scratching their heads and they’re saying, ‘What is wrong with this guy?’”

Asked to explain his “executed” remark, Paladino said: “I’m just being facetious. The man should be removed from office.”

More:

The Biden administration is taking advantage of a quiet week in Washington to lay the groundwork for the roughly two months of campaigning before the November midterm elections, when Democrats will have to fight for control of Congress.

• White House chief of staff Ron Klain gave an interview to Politico, where he promoted Biden’s legislative accomplishments and previewed Democrats’ message to voters.

• Democrats attacked Mike Pence’s trip to Iowa as the former vice president continues exploring whether to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

• More LGBTQ politicians are holding elected office in America than ever, according to a new survey.

• The supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade may be causing a surge in women registering to vote, a political data firm has found.

Mike Pence’s visit to Iowa, which marks his fourth trip to the Hawkeye State since leaving office last year, has intensified speculation that he plans to run for president next year.

As the first caucus state on the presidential primary calendar, Iowa is a top destination for potential candidates, and Pence has also made recent appearances in other early voting states like New Hampshire and South Carolina.

While in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Pence made headlines by suggesting he was open to speaking to the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. Pence was on Capitol Hill as the insurrection started, and he had to be escorted out of the Senate chamber due to concerns for his safety.

“If there was an invitation to participate, I would consider it,” Pence said Wednesday. “I would have to reflect on the unique role that I was serving as vice-president.”

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Jaime Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, did not address Pence’s potential appearance before the January 6 committee.

Harrison also deflected questions about whether Iowa would continue to serve as the first caucus state, after the disastrous handling of the Democratic results in 2020.

“The rules and bylaws committee will revisit the calendar in the coming days after the midterms,” Harrison said. “Our focus is primarily on winning these midterm elections, and then we’ll revisit where we are on the presidential calendar right after the midterms.”