Evelyn Reynolds

Mitt Romney’s long career in politics has taken him from the governor’s office in Massachusetts to presidential ballots nationwide in 2012 and finally to the Senate, where he became known as the Republican who stood up to Donald Trump.On Wednesday, Romney, 76, announced he would not stand for another six-year term as Utah’s senator next year, and made no secret that Trump’s presence at the heart of Republican politics was a factor in his decision.“We’re probably going to have either Trump or Biden as our next president. And Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters,” Romney told the Washington Post in an interview.The announcement attracted well wishes from fellow Republicans and even some Democrats, for whom he had become their chief antagonist in 2012 during his unsuccessful campaign to keep Barack Obama from a second term.The former Obama White House adviser David Axelrod tweeted that he disagreed with Romney “on some issues but respect him greatly for his courage, decency, long and distinguished service and palpable commitment to our country. He will be greatly missed but his parting message today about passing the torch offers a powerful example.”But Trump, the current frontrunner in the contest for the Republican nomination next year, made clear he was not ready to forgive the only GOP senator who had voted to convict him in both of his impeachment trials.“FANTASTIC NEWS FOR AMERICA,THE GREAT STATE OF UTAH, & FOR THE REPUBLICAN PARTY”, the former president wrote on his Truth Social account after Romney announced his decision, claiming that, as senator, Romney “DID NOT SERVE WITH DISTINCTION”.Romney had also clashed with Utah’s other Republican senator, Mike Lee. He did not endorse Romney during his Senate primary in 2018 and last year, Romney did not endorse Lee for another term, even as he publicly pleaded with him to “Please, get on board.” The hatchet appeared to be buried on Wednesday afternoon.“I want to thank [Senator Romney] for his many years of public service. I wish him the very best of success in his future endeavors, and I know that his family will enjoy the opportunity to spend more time with him,” Lee wrote on Twitter, which was recently renamed to X.Evan McMullin, the independent candidate who had briefly given the Lee campaign jitters last year but then lost overwhelmingly, was similarly gracious.“Senator Romney has proven to be one of the great patriots of our time, devoting his life to the preservation of American democracy and our Constitution – not for personal gain, but for true love of country,” he tweeted.In a statement, the top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said the chamber “is known to attract bright and proven public servants. However, we rarely get to welcome new senators already as accomplished and well-regarded as Mitt Romney. The Senate has been fortunate to call our friend from Utah a colleague these past four and a half years, and I am sorry to learn that he will depart our ranks at the end of next year.”Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, wrote on his official X account Romney “has served with distinction at the highest levels of government and we’re incredibly grateful for his commitment to this country”.On his personal account, Cox retweeted an excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Romney, published in the Atlantic today, that details how Romney wrote a text message to McConnell on the eve of 6 January, warning him of the threat posed by Trump’s most extreme supporters.“There are calls to burn down your home, Mitch; to smuggle guns into DC, and to storm the Capitol. I hope that sufficient security plans are in place, but I am concerned that the instigator – the President – is the one who commands the reinforcements the DC and Capitol police might require,” Romney wrote.He did not receive a response, according to the biography written by the Atlantic journalist McKay Coppins. More

A federal judge on Wednesday declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children.US district judge Andrew Hanen agreed with Texas and eight other states suing to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program. The judge’s ruling was ultimately expected to be appealed to the US supreme court, sending the program’s fate before the high court for a third time.“While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time,” Hanen wrote in his 40-page ruling. “The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. Congress, for any number of reasons, has decided not to pass DACA-like legislation … The Executive Branch cannot usurp the power bestowed on Congress by the Constitution – even to fill a void.”Hanen barred the government from approving any new applications, but left the program intact for existing recipients during the expected appeals process. Hanen said his order does not require the federal government to take any actions against Daca recipients.Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing Daca recipients in the lawsuit, said it will ultimately be up to higher courts, including the supreme court, to rule on Daca’s legality and whether Texas proved it had been harmed by the program.“Judge Hanen has consistently erred in resolving both of these issues, and today’s ruling is more of the same flawed analysis. We look forward to continuing to defend the lawful and much-needed Daca program on review in higher courts,” Saenz said.The Texas attorney general’s office, which represented the states in the lawsuit, and the US Department of Justice, which represented the federal government, didn’t immediately return emails or calls seeking comment.The states have argued the Obama administration didn’t have the authority to first create the program in 2012 because it circumvented Congress.In 2021, Hanen had declared the program illegal, ruling it had not been subject to public notice and comment periods required under the federal Administrative Procedures Act.The Biden administration tried to satisfy Hanen’s concerns with a new version of Daca that took effect in October 2022 and was subject to public comments as part of a formal rule-making process.But Hanen, who was appointed by then-President George W Bush in 2002, ruled the updated version of Daca was still illegal. He had previously said Daca was unconstitutional and it would be up to Congress to enact legislation shielding people under the program, often known as “Dreamers”.Hanen also had previously ruled the states had standing to file their lawsuit because they had been harmed by the program.The states have claimed they incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The states that sued are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.Those defending the program – the federal government, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the state of New Jersey – had argued the states failed to present evidence that any of the costs they allege they have incurred have been tied to Daca recipients. They also argued Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security the legal authority to set immigration enforcement policies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDespite previously declaring the Daca program illegal, Hanen had left the Obama-era program intact for those already benefiting from it. But he had ruled there could be no new applicants while appeals were pending.There were 578,680 people enrolled in Daca at the end of March, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.The program has faced a roller coaster of court challenges over the years.In 2016, the supreme court deadlocked 4-4 over an expanded Daca and a version of the program for parents of Daca recipients. In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration improperly ended Daca, allowing it to stay in place.In 2022, the 5th US circuit court of appeals in New Orleans upheld Hanen’s earlier ruling declaring Daca illegal, but sent the case back to him to review changes made to the program by the Biden administration.President Joe Biden and advocacy groups have called on Congress to pass permanent protections for “dreamers”. Congress has failed multiple times to pass proposals called the Dream Act to protect Daca recipients. More

A federal judge has blocked part of a public health order that suspended the right to carry guns in public across Albuquerque, New Mexico, the state’s largest metro area, as criticism mounted over the actions taken by the governor and political divides widened.The ruling Wednesday by US district judge David Urias marks a setback for Michelle Lujan Grisham, the Democratic governor, as she responds to several recent shootings that took the lives of children, including an 11-year-old boy as he left a minor league baseball game in Albuquerque.Lujan Grisham imposed an emergency public health order Friday that suspended the right to open or concealed carry of guns in public places based on a statistical threshold for violent crime that is only encountered in Albuquerque and its outskirts. The governor cited the recent shootings, saying something needed to be done. She acknowledged that some would ignore the order.Violators would have faced civil penalties and a fine of up to $5,000 by state police. The local sheriff and Albuquerque’s police chief had refused to enforce the order.Advocates for gun rights filed a barrage of legal challenges to the order in US district court in Albuquerque alleging infringement of civil rights under the second amendment. Republicans in the legislative majority have called for impeachment proceedings against the governor.Lujan Grisham has remained defiant despite protests that have drawn crowds to public squares in Albuquerque over recent days. The governor is testing the boundaries of her executive authority again after using public health orders for aggressive lockdowns during the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.Mothers and military veterans have been among those demonstrating, many with holstered handguns on their hips and rifles slung over their shoulders. They have voiced concerns about the ability to protect themselves from violent crime in a city that has been scarred by drive-by shootings and deadly road-rage incidents.Even top Democrats, including Raúl Torrez, the state attorney general,have suggested that the governor’s time would have been better spent developing comprehensive legislation to tackle the issue.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNew Mexico is an open-carry state, so the governor’s order suspending the open and concealed carry of firearms affects anyone in Bernalillo county who can legally own a gun, with some exceptions. Just more than 14,500 people in the county have an active concealed-carry license, according to an Associated Press analysis of data provided by the New Mexico department of public safety for the 2023 fiscal year. More

A federal appeals court has ruled that top House Republican Scott Perry’s text messages about efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election were constitutionally protected and off-limits to prosecutors, according to the opinion in the case that was newly unsealed on Wednesday.The three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit found that Perry’s communications with congressmen and staff were protected under the so-called speech or debate clause, which shields members of Congress from legal proceedings connected to their official duties.“These are quintessential legislative acts entitled to the privilege, and we vacate the district court’s judgment with respect to those communications and remand,” the appeals court ruled.It also concluded the lower court was wrong to decide that Perry’s communications only qualified for the speech or debate clause protection if the fact-finding had been authorized by an official body, like a congressional committee, saying some “informal” fact-finding would be privileged.The opinion – written by the Trump-nominated circuit judge Neomi Rao and joined by Greg Katsas, also nominated by Trump, and Karen Henderson, nominated by George HW Bush – marks a setback for the special counsel Jack Smith investigating efforts in 2020 to stop the peaceful transfer of power.Still, the appeals court determined that some information gathered by Perry during his informal fact-finding might not be protected. For messages to qualify for the privilege, the appeals court ruled, they must be “integral” or “essential” to the legislative work in question.It also rejected Perry’s categorical position that all of his messages, including to people not working in the executive or legislative branches, were privileged.“We disagree with the district court’s holding that informal fact-finding is never a legislative act. But we also reject Representative Perry’s proposition that informal fact-finding is always a legislative act,” the appeals court found.The ruling instructed the then chief US district judge Beryl Howell to reconsider her initial decision allowing prosecutors to access some of Perry’s phone, and apply their reasoning on a communication-by-communication basis for his messages with executive branch and non-congressional officials.The case now goes back to federal district court in Washington, unless prosecutors ask for an en banc rehearing of the matter before the full DC circuit. A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment whether prosecutors would take that step.For around a year, prosecutors have sought to trawl through 2,200 messages and documents on Perry’s phone related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat and to stop the January 6 congressional certification of the 2020 election results.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe FBI seized Perry’s phone last August pursuant to a court-authorized warrant, even before Smith was appointed special counsel, but sought a second warrant to search through his texts and emails with members of Congress, executive branch officials and other third-parties.The interest in Perry, the chairman of the powerful and ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and one of Trump’s most ardent supporters on Capitol Hill, came because he introduced Trump to former justice department official Jeff Clark in 2020, according to people familiar with the matter.Clark subsequently became a central player in Trump’s efforts to decertify the election results in battleground states that he lost and infamously drafted a false memo saying the justice department was investigating election fraud in Georgia when it was not.That false memo, among other things, led to prosecutors in Fulton county, Georgia, charging Clark alongside Trump and others on racketeering charges alleging that he violated state law in trying to overturn the election results. Clark has pleaded not guilty in that case.Perry was also involved in meetings with Trump at the White House in the weeks before the Capitol attack, including a strategy session with other Republican members of Congress on 21 December 2020, where they strategized ways to stop the certification from taking place. More

From 4h agoUtah’s US Senator Mitt Romney, who as the Republican nominee lost the 2012 presidential election to incumbent Barack Obama, has announced that he won’t seek a second term. He told the Washington Post it was time for a new generation to “step up” and “shape the world they’re going to live in”.Romney twice voted to impeach Donald Trump and the 76-year-old told the Post that he believed a second term, which would take him into his 80s, would be “less productive” than his work now.More to follow. Here’s the report.
Mitt Romney, the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial, said he would not be seeking reelection as Utah senator. In an interview with the Washington Post, he offered harsh criticism of Joe Biden and his own party, which he said “is inclined to a populist demagogue message”.
A day after House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced a long-shot attempt to impeach Joe Biden, it became clear that Donald Trump has been in discussions with influential House Republicans to push the effort. Trump was in contact with Elise Stefanik, the third most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, and far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in the lead-up to McCarthy’s announcement.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide over his alleged role in publishing online a trove of emails and images obtained from one of Biden’s laptops.
The White House sent a letter to US news outlets, urging them to “scrutinize House Republicans’ demonstrably false claims” surrounding their impeachment inquiry into Biden. The memo, which was sent by Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, and addressed to editorial leadership at media organizations.
The federal judge overseeing Trump’s classified documents case issued a protective order pertaining to classified evidence in the case, according a court filing.
In the Georgia election subversion case, Trump waived his right to seek a speedy trial, according to a court filing. The move is in line with efforts he has taken in other cases to delay proceedings until after the November 2024 election.
Eugene Peltola Jr, the husband of the Democratic Alaska congresswoman Mary Sattler Peltola, has died in a plane accident, a spokesperson said.Read more:
A delegation of top tech leaders including Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman convened in Washington on Wednesday for the first of nine meetings with US senators to discuss the rise of artificial intelligence and how it should be regulated.Billed as an “AI safety forum,” the closed door meeting was organized by the Democratic senator Chuck Schumer who called it “one of the most important conversations of the year”. The forum comes as the federal government explores new and existing avenues to regulate AI.“It will be a meeting unlike any other that we have seen in the Senate in a very long time, perhaps ever: a coming together of top voices in business, civil rights, defense, research, labor, the arts, all together, in one room, having a much-needed conversation about how Congress can tackle AI,” Schumer said when announcing the forum.Several AI experts and other industry leaders are also in attendance, at the listening sessions, including Bill Gates; the Motion Picture Association CEO, Charles Rivkin; the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt; the Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris; and Deborah Raji, a researcher at University of California, Berkeley.Some labor and civil liberties groups are also represented among the 22 attendees including Elizabeth Shuler, the president of the labor union AFL-CIO; Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers; Janet Murguía, the president of UnidosUS; and Maya Wiley, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights.While Schumer describes the meeting as “diverse”, the sessions have faced criticism for leaning heavily on the opinions of people who stand to benefit from AI technology. “Half of the people in the room represent industries that will profit off lax AI regulations,” said Caitlin Seeley George, a campaigns and managing director at Fight for the Future, a digital rights group.“People who are actually impacted by AI must have a seat at this table, including the vulnerable groups already being harmed by discriminatory use of AI right now,” George said. “Tech companies have been running the AI game long enough and we know where that takes us – biased algorithms that discriminate against Black and brown folks, immigrants, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups in banking, the job market, surveillance and policing.”Read more:As he steps away from the Senate, Mitt Romney is critical of both Democrats and Republicans.Here are some of the key quotes from his interview with the Washington Post at a glance:Romney, a vocal Trump critic, condemned the increasing shift to the extreme right in the Republican party, saying:
It’s pretty clear that the party is inclined to a populist demagogue message.
But he was also critical of Biden’s record:
Biden is unable to lead on important matters and Trump is unwilling to lead on important matters.
In what seemed to be a veiled dig at Biden and Trump’s age (80 and 77 respectively), Romney said he was stepping down to make way for a younger crop of leaders:
He called for a new generation to ‘step up [and] shape the world they’re going to live in’.
And Romney, who was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial, said he worried that his party had veered too far right, and lost touch with young voters:
I know that there are some in MAGA world who would like Republican rule, or authoritarian rule by Donald Trump. But I think they may be forgetting that the majority of people in America would not be voting for Donald J. Trump. The majority would probably be voting for the Democrats…
Young people care about climate change…They care about things that the MAGA Republicans don’t care about.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump White House aide over his alleged role in publishing online a trove of emails and images obtained from one of Biden’s laptops.The 13-page suit, filed in federal court in California, accuses Ziegler of improperly “accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data that they do not own” in violation of the state’s computer fraud laws.The lawsuit describes in detail how Ziegler and 10 additional unnamed defendants allegedly obtained data belonging to Hunter Biden and disseminated “tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings” on the internet, ABC News reported.Ziegler, a former aide to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, has emerged as one of the Biden family’s most outspoken critics. Navarro himself has been convicted of contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with an investigation of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.The suit reads:
Garrett Ziegler is a zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign against [Hunter Biden] and the entire Biden family for more than two years. While Defendant Ziegler is entitled to his extremist and counterfactual opinions, he has no right to engage in illegal activities to advance his right-wing agenda.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has continued his running-against-Trump-but-not-really campaign with a speech at the former US president’s favourite Washington thinktank.The biotech entrepreneur, who made a splash at the first Republican debate last month, praised Trump several times during remarks at the America First Policy Institute, which spun out of the Trump administration. He also gave a shout out to Matt Gaetz, a congressman from Florida who endorsed Trump for 2024 and was among the guests.Ramaswamy declared his wildly unrealistic plan to slash a million government jobs if elected. In a turbo charged version of Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s “deconstruction of the administrative state”, he would reduce the federal employee headcount by 75%, rescind a majority of federal regulations and shut down government agencies including the Department of Education, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.The candidate theatrically tore down posters supposedly showing “myths” to reveal supposed “truths” about a president’s power to take such action – an argument rejected by legal experts. “Do we want incremental reform or do we want revolution?” the candidate asked.
I stand on the side of a revival of those 1776 ideals, on the side of yes, we created a government accountable to the people, not the other way around.
Democrats reacted to the plans with scorn. The Democratic National Committee said in a press release:
Ramaswamy’s not the only MAGA Republican running for president who wants to gut support for federal law enforcement and public education as the GOP hopefuls continue racing to be the most extreme candidate in the field.
Here’s more from that Washington Post interview with Mitt Romney, in which the Republican Utah senator announced he would seek reelection in 2024.Asked how he sees a 2024 election rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Romney said “it could go either way” but that “so much can happen between now and then”. He added that talk by the centrist group No Labels of mounting a third party candidacy would be a mistake and only help to reelect Trump.Romney said he doubted the criminal charges pending against Trump, saying he believe people “don’t respond to old news”. Instead, he believed the investigation of Hunter Biden has the potential for political impact that could harm the president.Former vice president Mike Pence, who has been campaigning in Iowa, was forced to backtrack on earlier comments after House speaker Kevin McCarthy announced he would open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden without a floor vote.On Monday, Pence said he did not think an impeachment inquiry should “ever” be started unilaterally, as he praised McCarthy because he made it clear that if there is to be an impeachment inquiry, he would submit that to a vote on the floor of the Congress”, NBC reported.Less than two days after he made those comments, Pence told a reporter he would have “preferred” a vote on an inquiry but would defer to House Republicans, the Hill reported. He said:
I want to respect Speaker McCarthy’s authority and decision to be able to initiate an impeachment inquiry. The American people have a right to know whether or not President Biden or his family personally profited during his time serving as Vice President.
Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, announced on Tuesday he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden – despite resistance from Republicans in the House and Senate, where an impeachment vote would almost certainly fail.The order comes as McCarthy faces mounting pressure from some far-right members of his chamber, who have threatened to tank his deal to avert a government shutdown by the end of the month if he does not meet their list of demands.According to McCarthy, findings from Republican-led investigations over the summer recess revealed “a culture of corruption”, and that Biden lied about his lack of involvement and knowledge of his family’s overseas business dealings.McCarthy said during a brief press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday:
These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives.
Many of the allegations center on the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, during his father’s term as vice-president. Republicans allege that Joe Biden improperly benefited from his son’s foreign connections but, after several months, have produced no evidence. Watchdog groups say Republicans do not actually have evidence to back up their claims.McCarthy previously indicated an impeachment inquiry “would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person”, in a statement to rightwing Breitbart News earlier this month. But he declared the launch of an impeachment probe just a week and a half later, without a House floor vote, which likely means he does not have the support.GOP presidential hopeful Mike Pence was heckled during a campaign stop in Iowa earlier this week by a man who yelled:
Get the fuck out of our country and the fuck out of Iowa!
“Thank you,” the former vice president responded, before addressing the others in attendance.
I’m going to put him down as a ‘maybe’.
Utah Republican senator Mitt Romney is the sixth incumbent senator to announce plans to retire after the end of the term in 2025, AP reported.He joins Republican senator Mike Braun of Indiana, as well as Democrats Tom Carper of Delaware, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Dianne Feinstein of California and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.Romney, who ran as the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee, became the first US senator in history to vote to convict a president of their own party in an impeachment trial. He was the only Republican to vote against Donald Trump in his first impeachment and one of seven to vote to convict him in the second. Romney has also been an outspoken critic of Joe Biden.Romney’s decision to retire effectively surrenders his senate seat to a GOP successor who could be more closely aligned with Trump and the hardline conservative politics of Utah’s other senator, Mike Lee, Reuters reported.Utah senator Mitt Romney, who told the Washington Post he will not be seeking reelection in 2024, also announced his intentions in a video statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.Romney, a former Republican presidential candidate and governor of Massachusetts, said it was “time for a new generation of leaders”.The 76-year-old said:
At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.
Romney said neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump are leading their parties to confront issues on deficits and debt, and took aim at Trump for calling global warming “a hoax”.
The next generation of leaders must take America to the next stage of global leadership. While I’m not running for re election, I’m not retiring from the fight. I’ll be your United States senator until January of 2025. I will keep working on these and other issues and I’ll advance our state’s numerous priorities. I look forward to working with you and with folks across our state and nation in that endeavour. It really is a profound honour to serve Utah and the country. More

When the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden on Tuesday, he subverted the normal procedures for doing so. Typically, the House would have to vote on whether to open an informal impeachment investigation: McCarthy just announced it, unilaterally, calling a press conference to say he was “instructing” the House to open such an inquiry.Maybe the procedures don’t matter, as the optics, more than the substance, seem to be the point of the impeachment. Faced with electoral prospects that have been deeply compromised by the massive political backlash following the reversal of Roe v Wade and the almost comically superlative corruption of the likely Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump – who has now been criminally indicted four times – Republicans need to create a stench around Biden comparable to the one that follows Trump, and increasingly all the other candidates who appear with an R next to their names on the ballot. The impeachment inquiry, then, can be understood as congressional Republicans’ effort, ahead of the 2024 election, to throw a stink bomb.Another appropriate metaphor might be herding cats. McCarthy’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry came as far-right members of his coalition in the so-called House freedom caucus – most visibly Matt Gaetz of Florida, the congressman who was investigated for sex trafficking of minors but ultimately not charged – have increasingly made it clear that such an inquiry will be a precondition of their cooperation in upcoming budget negotiations that threaten to shut down the federal government at the end of the month.With the cooperation and guidance of Trump, these members have held the budget hostage in order to demand an inquiry – and, thanks to rule changes that McCarthy had to make in order to secure the speakership after a humiliating 15 rounds of leadership votes, the far right is able to threaten his own position, too. The impeachment inquiry, then, is the result of a weak speaker who cannot control his caucus, presiding over a deeply divided party that is in thrall to a vindictive and chaotic right flank. McCarthy looks a bit like a circus monkey, dancing on command: it’s the only way he can keep his job.But what exactly do House Republicans intend to impeach Joe Biden for? It’s not clear. House investigations into Biden have been ongoing for the past nine months, since Republicans took a narrow majority in the chamber, and so far they have not uncovered any notable misconduct by the president.The accusations against Biden are imprecise: it is noted that his son Hunter had some business dealings that seem unsavory, and that Biden may have been merged on to a call regarding one of these, though it’s not clear exactly what Republicans accuse him of doing on the call. Hunter Biden had a laptop with embarrassing material on it, and this is also supposed to indicate corruption on the part of the president, though Republicans never point to what the laptop specifically revealed about Biden himself.When pressed, sometimes Republicans will say that it is their own inquiries which have been targeted with wrongdoing, accusing Biden of interfering in investigations of his son. But this claim, too, has been discredited.At the press conference designed to maximize attention to the inquiry, McCarthy said that the House’s investigations, though they had turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden himself, had “painted a picture of a culture of corruption” around the Biden family. This is what the House’s new impeachment inquiry into Biden amounts to: not an actual accusation of malfeasance by the president so much as a supposedly very serious investigation of a bad vibe.Biden’s great crime, if he can be said to have committed one, is in having fathered a sleazeball. Hunter Biden has long been beset by addictions and self-destructive behaviors that he has not been willing or able to confront. He is accused of misdemeanor tax violations; once, when filling out a background check form to buy a handgun, he was asked whether he did drugs, and said no when the answer was yes. He fathered a child in Arkansas with a woman he then denied knowing, and sought to keep from having to acknowledge paternity; a DNA test proved the little girl was his daughter. His laptop was filled with pictures of him doing drugs and having sex, images which the right has gleefully published in acts of politically motivated revenge porn.Like a lot of famous men’s sons, Hunter seems content to make money by trading on his family name rather than cultivating his own talents. None of this reflects well on him. But none of it is particularly unique, either. Much of Hunter Biden’s poor character could also fairly be attributed to other children of privilege, other scions of the idle rich – including not a few Republican members of Congress.But it is Joe Biden, not Hunter, who is running for president, and it is Biden, not Hunter, whom the Republicans are truly eager to hurt. The new impeachment inquiry will give House Republicans subpoena power and an excuse to pursue their political agenda against Biden without any need for a pretext of legislative business.It will be a cudgel used to try and create the false impression that Biden’s misdeeds, if any, are equal to Trump’s, something like a re-do of the tedious and ultimately disastrous Hillary Clinton email server faux-controversy. Both federal law enforcement and the political media fell for that trick hook, line and sinker in 2016, allowing their desire to appear impartial to supersede their obligation to tell the truth.We don’t have to do that this time. This time, we can say the facts as they are plain: that Donald Trump is a singularly corrupt figure, that the Republican party is controlled by extremists, and that this new impeachment effort is an inquiry in search of a subject, a pretext and a fishing expedition. There simply is no equivalence between the ways that Trump routinely abuses his power and the misdeeds of any other politician. No number of press conferences will change that.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, announced on Tuesday he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden – despite resistance from Republicans in the House and Senate, where an impeachment vote would almost certainly fail.The order comes as McCarthy faces mounting pressure from some far-right members of his chamber, who have threatened to tank his deal to avert a government shutdown by the end of the month if he does not meet their list of demands.Here’s what you need to know.Why is McCarthy launching the impeachment inquiry?According to McCarthy, findings from Republican-led investigations over the summer recess revealed “a culture of corruption”, and that Biden lied about his lack of involvement and knowledge of his family’s overseas business dealings.“These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives,” McCarthy said during a brief press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday.Many of the allegations center on the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, during his father’s term as vice-president. Republicans allege that Joe Biden improperly benefited from his son’s foreign connections but, after several months, have produced no evidence. Watchdog groups say Republicans do not actually have evidence to back up their claims.McCarthy previously indicated an impeachment inquiry “would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person”, in a statement to rightwing Breitbart News earlier this month. But he declared the launch of an impeachment probe just a week and a half later, without a House floor vote, which likely means he does not have the support.What happens now?McCarthy has directed the chairs of three House committees – judiciary, oversight and ways and means – to lead the impeachment probe.Each of the committees have held hearings related to alleged crimes committed by the Biden family, and the chairs earlier launched a joint investigation into the Department of Justice claiming “misconduct” in its investigation of Hunter Biden for tax evasion and illegally possessing a gun.The White House sent a letter to news outlets on Wednesday urging members of the media to ramp up scrutiny of House Republicans’ “demonstrably false claims”.Where do the Republican investigations into Biden stand?After months of investigations, Republicans have failed to produce evidence that President Biden committed any crimes, according to the White House, which on Tuesday called the impeachment inquiry “extreme politics at its worst”.A watchdog group found that the house oversight committee investigation into Biden’s family, led by its chair, James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, has been “eight months of abject failure”. Comer overhyped allegations of bribery and corruption without evidence, according to a report by the Congressional Integrity Project released Monday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDo all Republicans support impeachment?Republicans in the House are split over the impeachment inquiry, with some supporting McCarthy’s decision with others publicly expressing their opposition.Don Bacon of Nebraska said on Tuesday he opposed the impeachment inquiry, saying McCarthy should hold a vote because there is currently no evidence suggesting Biden committed a crime.Ken Buck of Colorado, a member of the House freedom caucus, said in an interview on MSNBC days before McCarthy ordered the impeachment inquiry that “evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor … doesn’t exist right now”.Buck’s statement clashes with those of Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a fellow freedom caucus member who has trumpeted an impeachment vote, and of Matt Gaetz of Florida, who called the impeachment inquiry a “baby step”.Donald Trump has also been outspoken about impeaching Biden and reportedly supported Republican impeachment efforts from behind the scenes ahead of McCarthy’s announcement.Senate Republicans remained largely ambivalent on whether they supported the House’s impeachment inquiry, according to Politico, with some saying they hoped it would help McCarthy secure enough votes to avoid a government shutdown.Is impeachment likely to prevail?It’s unlikely. Impeachment would require a simple majority vote in the House, where it would likely struggle to garner enough support, before it went to the Senate.The Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority, requires a two-thirds vote to convict. More

The court battle between the US justice department and Google has entered its second day, as the United States government seeks to prove that the tech behemoth illegally leveraged its power to maintain a monopoly over internet search engines. The trial is a major test of antitrust law and could have far-reaching implications for the tech industry and for how people engage with the internet.The question at the heart of the trial is whether Google’s place as the search engine for most Americans is the result of anti-competitive practices that gave internet users no other choice but to use its services.On the first day of the trial, attorneys for the justice department and the dozens of states that have joined in the suit accused Google of shutting out competition through billion-dollar agreements with companies such as Apple and Samsung.The justice department lawyer Kenneth Dintzer alleged Google spends $10bn a year in deals to ensure it is the default search engine on devices such as the iPhone, effectively blocking meaningful competition and positioning Google as the gatekeeper of the internet.“They knew these agreements crossed antitrust lines,” Dintzer said.Google’s opening statement gave a window into how the company and its lead attorney, John Schmidtlein, plan to defend against the accusations. Schmidtlein argued that Google has achieved its dominance over online search – the government estimates it holds about a 90% market share – because it is simply a better product than alternatives such as Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Consumers are free to switch default settings with “a few easy clicks” and use other search engines if they please, Schmidtlein told the court on Tuesday.The justice department called its first witness, Google’s chief economist Hal Varian. Over the course of two hours, Dintzer presented Varian with internal memos and documents dating back to the 2000s that showed him discussing how search defaults could be strategically important. One internal communication from Varian warned over antitrust issues that “we should be careful about what we say in both public and private”.On Wednesday, the justice department called the former Google executive Chris Barton, who had worked in partnerships and was an employee from 2004 to 2011. The department questioned Barton about the value of those partnerships in establishing dominance over the market.“As we recognized the opportunity for search on mobile phones, we began to build a product team,” Barton said, according to Reuters.As with the first day of the trial, the government has tried to show that Google saw the importance early on of making deals and securing its position as the default search engine on devices. The documents and witnesses it has brought up have so far been from over a decade ago, when the government says Google was first beginning to forge agreements that helped it monopolize search.The justice department has also alleged that Google was aware of possible antitrust violations and has consciously tried to obscure its actions. The government presented a document in court from an internal Google presentation on antitrust, which warned employees to avoid mentioning “market share” or “dominance”.The trial is set to last 10 weeks and feature numerous witnesses, as well as internal Google documents that the justice department hopes will show that monopolizing search has long been a top priority at the company. Judge Amit Mehta will decide the case, and there is no jury in the trial. More