US Politics

The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.The panel says it “anticipates” the filing and release of the report tomorrow, the news coming in an email to media just now that adds: “the release of additional select committee records is possible today.”Committee chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, had been expected to present the report, which analysts say will run anywhere from 800 to thousands of pages in length, on the floor of the House of Representatives this afternoon. It is not yet clear what has caused the delay. As we won’t now see the final report tonight, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the key conclusions from Monday’s final meeting of the 18-month investigation. You can read Martin Pengelly’s report here:Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionRead moreHello again, US politics live blog readers, we’re closing this blog now but we’ll be back on Thursday for all the news, including the House select committee January 6 report and any developments on Capitol Hill as Congress scrambles to pass at $1.7tn government spending bill before the holidays.The Guardian has its separate global Ukraine live blog going that will be following the press conference at the White House with Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy. And there’ll be a special live blog launching seamlessly a bit later to cover the Ukrainian president’s address to the US Congress tonight.Here’s where things stand with US politics:
The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.
Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate urged colleagues to pass the $1.7tn government spending package on Wednesday, as the omnibus bill that will keep the government running for a year nudged closer to becoming law.
The US Senate has confirmed career diplomat Lynne Tracy as US ambassador to Russia.
A Florida judge dumped by voters after a controversial abortion ruling that also earned him a formal rebuke for “abuse of judicial discretion” has won a key court appointment from the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, according to a report.
The release of the final report of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will now probably take place on Thursday, according to “updated guidance” from the select committee.The panel says it “anticipates” the filing and release of the report tomorrow, the news coming in an email to media just now that adds: “the release of additional select committee records is possible today.”Committee chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, had been expected to present the report, which analysts say will run anywhere from 800 to thousands of pages in length, on the floor of the House of Representatives this afternoon. It is not yet clear what has caused the delay. As we won’t now see the final report tonight, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the key conclusions from Monday’s final meeting of the 18-month investigation. You can read Martin Pengelly’s report here:Five key conclusions from the January 6 panel’s final sessionRead moreThe Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate urged colleagues to pass the $1.7tn government spending package on Wednesday, as the omnibus bill that will keep the government running for a year nudged closer to becoming law.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said passing the package, which includes $44.9bn in emergency assistance for Ukraine, and Nato allies, would be appropriate with the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington DC on Wednesday:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}By passing this omnibus and confirming a new ambassador, we can send President Zelenskiy back to Ukraine with the message that the Senate, the Congress and the American people stand unequivocally behind the people of Ukraine.
We’re backing that up with real dollars and real resources.Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, is attempting to stave off a rebellion from GOP senators upset they haven’t had time to digest the 4,155 pages of the bill, which was released in the early hours of Tuesday.He cited the $858bn military spending element of the package as reason to pass it:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If Republicans controlled this chamber, we would have handled the appropriations process entirely differently from top to bottom.
But given the reality of where we stand today, senators have two options this week, just two: we will either give our armed forces the resources and the certainty that they need, or we will deny it to them.Friday is the deadline for the bill to pass the Senate and House before parts of the government would have to shut down. Democrats also have incentive to get it through: Republicans will assume control of the House in January and could use a government shutdown to leverage political pressure on Joe Biden.The final report of the House January 6 select committee investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection will run to only 800 pages, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, far fewer than expected.The news agency has published a preview of the report, which panel chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, is expected to present on the chamber floor imminently. Many analysts had expected it to run well beyond 1,000 pages, incorporating transcripts from interviews with hundreds of witnesses as well as appendices and other key documents.Here’s what the AP is saying:“An 800-page report set to be released by House investigators as soon as Wednesday will conclude that then-President Donald Trump criminally plotted to overturn his 2020 election defeat and ‘provoked his supporters to violence’ at the Capitol with false claims of widespread voter fraud.“The resulting January 6 insurrection of Trump’s followers threatened democracy with ‘horrific’ brutality toward law enforcement and ‘put the lives of American lawmakers at risk,’ according to the report’s executive summary.“‘The central cause of January 6th was one man, former president Donald Trump, who many others followed,’ reads the report from the House January 6 committee. ‘None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him’.”We’re watching proceedings in the House of Representatives, where Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson is expected to appear soon to present the final report of the January 6 select committee.There’s no sign of the panel’s chair yet, but a lot has happened since the House rose at 2pm. Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t there, and it was announced she’s passed over the gavel to a stand-in for the rest of the 117th Congress, meaning we won’t see her in the role again before she steps down when Republicans take over early next month.Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, is urging colleagues to support a bill providing equal compensation for all amateur athletes representing the US. The Equal Pay for Team USA Act, would bring equity, he asserts.“The we treat our women athletes is a reflection of our nation’s values,” Nadler says.“All to often they receive unequal pay or conditions of employment simply because of their gender.”The House has now moved on to discussing an immigration bill relating to visas for transiting cruise ship crew members. It may be a while before we hear from Thompson.The Biden administration on Wednesday sanctioned Iran’s chief prosecutor, four other Iranian officials and a company that supports the country’s security forces for their roles in an ongoing violent crackdown on anti-government protests.According to the Associated Press, the treasury department is targeting the country’s prosecutor-general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, two senior commanders in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards corps, and two members of the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer group that often enforces strict rules on dress and conduct.Also sanctioned is the Imen Sanat Zaman Fara Company, which produces armored vehicles and other equipment for the security forces.Iranian authorities have killed hundreds of peaceful protestors, including children, issued harsh sentences, including the death penalty following sham trials, and detained thousands. Today, we are sanctioning Iranian officials and an Iranian entity connected to these abuses.— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 21, 2022
“We denounce the Iranian regime’s intensifying use of violence against its own people who are advocating for their human rights,” the department said in a statement, noting that Montazeri has presided over prosecutions of protesters some of whom have been executed or condemned to death.It identified the IRGC commanders as Hassan Hassanzadeh, head of its forces in Tehran, and Seyed Sadegh Hosseini, who runs its Beit-al Moghadas Corps of Kurdistan province. The two Basij members are the group’s deputy coordinator, Hossein Maroufi, and Moslem Moein, its cyberspace chief.Iran has been rocked by protests since the 16 September 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being detained by the morality police. The protests have since morphed into one of the most serious challenges to the theocracy installed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.The Senate has confirmed career diplomat Lynne Tracy as US ambassador to Russia, the Associated Press reports.The 93-2 voted came just ahead of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s historic visit to Washington DC on Wednesday, and his address to a joint session of Congress tonight.Tracy, currently US ambassador to Armenia, testified last month to the foreign relations committee, which advanced her nomination to the full Senate for today’s vote. The AP says her confirmation by an overwhelming majority will be seen as a reinforcement of the US commitment to war-torn Ukraine as it confronts Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said the new ambassador will be tasked with “standing up to Putin”.Edward Helmore reports from New York…E Jean Carroll, the magazine columnist who says she was raped by Donald Trump in the changing rooms of a New York department store in the mid-1990s, said in a legal deposition that following the alleged incident, the “music stopped” in her love life.Carroll said she did not develop any romantic relationships after the alleged encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman, and said she had not had sex for almost 30 years.“Looking back on it, it may have been what happened at Bergdorf’s,” she said.Trump denies the incident and has denied knowing Carroll, calling the allegation “a complete con job”. The former president has also made derogatory remarks about Carroll, who he said was “not my type”.Carroll sued Trump for defamation, claiming his denial of the event and disparaging comments damaged her reputation. She recently expanded her claim to include rape via a new New York state law that allows those who allege sexual assault to sue beyond the statute of limitations.Trump’s deposition has not been released. A civil trial could come next year.Excerpts of Carroll’s testimony were made public on Tuesday.Full story here.Ed Pilkington’s 2019 interview with Carroll, here:‘I accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. Now I sleep with a loaded gun’Read moreOver on the Guardian US features desk, Michael Harriott has taken a look at the rightwing ‘war on woke’, the role it played in US politics in 2022 and what might be to come next year. The piece is well worth your time this lunchtime…Having vanquished the manufactured menaces of vaccine mandates, the gay agenda and widespread election fraud, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, used his midterm election victory speech to position himself as a wartime leader. Now, he was preparing his constituents for the existential battle posed by their newest imaginary adversary: wokeness. In Churchillian tones, he announced: “We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”DeSantis was summoning the resentment that produced the racial terrorism of Reconstruction, the pro-lynching Red Summer of 1919, and the pro-segregation states’ rights movement. This time, it was called anti-woke: a modern-day mixture of McCarthyism and white grievance.In 2021, the right became increasingly irate at what it described as “wokeness” but which tended to mean any attempt to engage in civil rights or social justice. In 2022, anti-woke became an ideology in itself, an attempt for the right to rebrand bigotry as a resistance movement.Read on…War on wokeness: the year the right rallied around a made-up menaceRead moreWorrying news for Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader trying to secure the speaker’s gavel but having a hard time satisfying the far right of the party: according to Politico, a plan is forming to have Steve Scalise, currently McCarthy’s righthand man, step in if the Californian cannot seal the deal.According to the website, “a group of lawmakers has quietly approached” Scalise “about running should McCarthy falter, according to multiple GOP members and aides..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Their message? ‘Steve, just be ready,’ according to one member currently backing McCarthy who spoke to us late last night on condition of anonymity. Scalise was uncontested in his bid for majority leader in the new Congress, the lawmaker noted, and ‘could be a good consensus leader if things don’t go well for Kevin’.Politico stresses that Scalise is in a “tough spot”, as “there’s a general consensus that if McCarthy falters, anyone with fingerprints on the knife would alienate the GOP conference and upend their own possible ascent”.But the site also says “some of the conservatives opposing McCarthy have privately relayed the same message” about running should McCarthy falter “to the affable Louisianan in recent days … while they’ve reiterated the same demands that have been laid out for McCarthy, they have signaled” – not least in comments to the New York Post by the Florida rightwinger Matt Gaetz – that they see Scalise as a more palatable option.”So far, so House of Cards. And there’s more, of course. Politico reports that while Scalise “has not been organising support or making calls for a potential run [and] his office declined to comment, instead pointing to the dozens of public statements he has made endorsing McCarthy and insisting he would never run against him”, Scalise has “kept a low profile and has been in what one ally called ‘listening mode’”.The site quoted a “person close to Scalise” as saying: “Does he want to be speaker? Absolutely. But is he going to screw Kevin? Absolutely not.”Some further reading about “the affable Louisianan”:Steve Scalise says attending white supremacist conference was a ‘mistake’Read moreThe former lawyer for a key witness at the January 6 committee hearings, whom the panel says influenced his client’s testimony, is pushing back against the accusation, and taken a leave of absence to do so, the New York Times reports.Sources say Stefan Passantino, a former deputy White House counsel and ethics lawyer under Donald Trump, was being paid by a Trump political action committee as he was advising Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows.Hutchinson gave some of the most revealing and dramatic testimony to the panel about Trump’s behavior during his insurrection, after she dropped Passantino and hired new legal representation.Passantino took a leave of absence from Milwaukee law firm Michael Best, the Times reports, the lawyer citing his involvement with the controversy as “a distraction”. By Wednesday his profile had disappeared from the company’s website.In its summary on Monday, the House committee did not mention Passantino or Hutchinson by name, but claimed a lawyer had influenced a witness to give false testimony, or at least to “forget” important testimony they were prepared to give.The Times says Passantino issued a statement insisting he had represented Hutchinson, as he had other clients, “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me”.The House panel’s full report will will released imminently.Ahead of the release of the January 6 report later today, Lawrence Douglas says the committee has done the right thing in making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice – and the DoJ must now move to prosecute Donald Trump.Over the course of 18 months, the intrepid patriots on the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection tirelessly researched Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election through fraud, intimidation, harassment and violence. The committee’s public hearings were an exercise in civic education, presenting the nation with a gripping, granular and truthful account of an unhinged president seeking to cling to power at all costs. Now they have gone one crucial step further. They have referred the matter to the justice department, urging that Trump be prosecuted..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let us take stock of this astonishing moment. For the first time in American history, a congressional committee has recommended that a former president be criminally prosecuted – and not just for any crimes.
The chief crimes at the heart of the referral – inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstructing an official act of Congress – involve nothing short of an elaborate effort to frustrate and upend the peaceful transfer of presidential power, the bedrock of our constitutional democracy.The referral powerfully reminds us that the assault on the Capitol was not a spontaneous spasm of violence. It was the culmination of a concerted effort to reject the results of a fair election, an effort that began on election day itself, when it became clear that Trump was headed to certain defeat.Read on:The January 6 committee is right. It’s time to prosecute the kingpin, Trump | Lawrence DouglasRead moreA Florida judge dumped by voters after a controversial abortion ruling that also earned him a formal rebuke for “abuse of judicial discretion” has won a key court appointment from the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis, the Miami Herald reports.Former Hillsborough county circuit judge Jared Smith denied a 17-year-old girl access to an abortion in January, citing her low school grades as justification for his ruling that she lacked the maturity to make the decision for herself.His order was reversed in a 2-1 ruling by an appeals court that said Smith abused judicial discretion, the Herald reports, and his re-election bid was subsequently rejected by Hillsborough voters in August.DeSantis, however, is unwilling to let Smith go. According to the newspaper, the rightwing governor, who signed a 15-week abortion ban into Florida law and has hinted at his approval for a more restrictive “heartbeat ban”, appointed Smith to one of the three vacancies on the newly created 6th district court of appeal. His appointment takes effect on 1 January.Nancy Pelosi says Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address a joint session of Congress at 7.30pm Wednesday.In a tweet, the Speaker says Zelenskiy’s “courageous, patriotic, indefatigable leadership has rallied not only his people, but the world, to join the frontlines of the fight for freedom. We look forward to hearing his inspiring message of unity, resilience and determination”.It is with immense respect and admiration for his extraordinary leadership that I extend on behalf of bipartisan Congressional leadership an invitation for @ZelenskyyUa to address a Joint Meeting of Congress at 7:30 p.m. E.T. tonight.— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 21, 2022
A reminder that you can find coverage of Zelenskiy’s historic visit to Washington DC, including his Oval Office meeting with Joe Biden, on our live Ukraine blog here:Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy heads to US as Putin promises to improve nuclear combat readinessRead moreHere’s an unexpected turn of events. After a single term of office defined by aggression, confrontation, bombast and abuse, Donald Trump left a “shockingly gracious” letter for Joe Biden at the White House. Martin Pengelly reports:Donald Trump wrote a “shockingly gracious” letter to Joe Biden on leaving office, a new book says, amid the unprecedented disgrace of a second impeachment for inciting the deadly Capitol attack as part of his attempt to overturn Biden’s election victory and hold on to power.According to excerpts published by Politico on Tuesday, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, by Chris Whipple, captures Biden saying of Trump’s note: “That was very gracious and generous … Shockingly gracious.”Presidents traditionally leave letters for their successors. George HW Bush’s note for Bill Clinton is generally held up as an ideal of civility between presidents from different parties.After Bush died, Clinton wrote in the Washington Post that the letter revealed “the heart of who he was … an honorable, gracious and decent man who believed in the United States, our constitution, our institutions and our shared future”.Trump refuses to admit Biden beat him fairly, faces extensive legal jeopardy for his election subversion attempts, and recently called for the constitution to be “terminated” so he could return to power.Biden has said Trump’s letter was “very generous” but he has not shared its contents. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, authors of the book Peril, on discovering the note in the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Biden “put it in his pocket and did not share it with his advisers”.Whipple’s book will be published in January. He told Politico writing it was “tough, because … this is the most battened-down, disciplined, leak-proof White House in modern times”.Read the full story:Trump left ‘shockingly gracious’ letter to Biden on leaving office, book saysRead moreIt’s a hugely significant day in Washington DC, where Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is visiting Joe Biden, and will address Congress this evening.I hope you’re having a good flight, Volodymyr. I’m thrilled to have you here. Much to discuss. https://t.co/SsRdsAnSDb— President Biden (@POTUS) December 21, 2022
We’ll be following all the developments in the Guardian’s live Ukraine blog, which you can find here:Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy heads to US as Putin promises to improve nuclear combat readinessRead moreAmong the revelations to come from Tuesday’s House ways and means committee meeting, which voted to publicly release Donald Trump’s tax returns, was the bombshell that the IRS had failed to failed to conduct mandatory audits on the president during the first two years of his administration.The Associated Press has the details:The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to pursue mandatory audits of Donald Trump on a timely basis during his presidency, a congressional committee found on Tuesday, raising questions about statements by the former president and members of his administration who claimed he could not release his tax filings because of such ongoing reviews.A report by the Democratic majority on the House ways and means committee indicated the Trump administration may have disregarded an IRS requirement dating to 1977 that mandates audits of a president’s tax filings. The IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on 3 April 2019, more than two years into his presidency and months after Democrats took the House. That date coincides with Richard Neal, the panel chairman, asking the IRS for information related to Trump’s tax returns.Required IRS audits of former President Donald Trump were delayed, according to a report issued by a Democratic-controlled House committee.A separate report suggested Trump paid a relatively modest share of his income to the federal government. https://t.co/m8y4Z2bJkE— The Associated Press (@AP) December 21, 2022
There was no suggestion Trump, who has announced a third presidential run, sought to directly influence the IRS or discourage it from reviewing his tax information. But the report found that the audit process was “dormant, at best”.The 29-page report was published hours after the committee voted on party lines to release Trump’s tax returns, raising the potential of additional revelations related to the finances of a businessman who broke political norms by refusing to voluntarily release his returns as he sought the presidency. The vote was the culmination of a years-long fight between Trump and Democrats, from the campaign trail to Congress and the supreme court.Democrats on the ways and means committee argued that transparency and the rule of law were at stake. Republicans said the release would set a dangerous precedent.“This is about the presidency, not the president,” Neal told reporters.Kevin Brady, the panel’s top Republican, said: “Over our objections in opposition, Democrats have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections. The era of political targeting, and of Congress’s enemies list, is back and every American, every American taxpayer, who may get on the wrong side of the majority in Congress is now at risk.”Trump spent much of Tuesday releasing statements unrelated to his tax returns. The IRS did not immediately comment. An accompanying report released by the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation also found repeated faults with the IRS approach to auditing Trump and his companies.IRS agents did not bring in specialists to assess the complicated structure of Trump’s holdings. They also determined limited examination was warranted because Trump hired an accounting firm they assumed would make sure Trump “properly reports all income and deduction items correctly”.Read more:IRS failed to conduct timely mandatory audits of Trump’s taxes while presidentRead moreThe final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection for the last 18 months will drop today. And it’s unlikely to make very palatable reading for the former president.The document, running to more than 1,000 pages, will put flesh on the bones of Trump’s plotting and scheming to stay in power after his 2020 election defeat. Those efforts landed him a referral to the justice department for four criminal charges.And it comes on the heels of Tuesday night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release up to six years of his tax returns, documents Trump had fought for three years to keep secret.We already knew, including from a series of televised hearings on the January 6 panel this year, many of the details of the insurrection. Trump incited a mob that overran the US Capitol on January 6 2021 seeking to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory; tried to manipulate states’ election results in his favor; and attempted to install slates of “fake electors” to reverse Biden’s win in Congress.But what we’ll see today is the deepest of dives into his efforts: the panel interviewed countless witnesses and reviewed thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of video evidence to compile the report and make recommendations.They include referrals to the House ethics committee for four Trump allies in Congress who refused to submit to the panel’s subpoenas to give evidence.We’re expecting the report to feature eight main chapters, detailed below, plus appendices that capture more aspects of the investigation, and findings from all of the select committee’s five investigative teams.We’ll bring you details when it drops.
Donald Trump’s effort to sow distrust in the results of the election.
The then-president’s pressure on state governments or legislatures to overturn victories by Joe Biden.
Trump campaign efforts to send fake, pro-Trump electors to Washington from states won by Biden.
Trump’s push to deploy the justice department in service of his election scheme.
The pressure campaign by Trump and his lawyers against then-vice president Mike Pence.
Trump’s effort to summon supporters to Washington who later fueled the 6 January mob.
The 187 minutes of chaos during which Trump refused to tell rioters to leave the Capitol.
An analysis of the attack on the Capitol.
Good morning US politics blog readers, and welcome to what promises to be a hectic Wednesday. Donald Trump’s not-very-good week rolls into a third day with publication of the final report of the House January 6 committee that’s been investigating his insurrection for the last 18 months.We learned the essentials through a final public meeting and executive summary on Monday, when the bipartisan panel referred the former president for four criminal charges. But the final report, at more than 1,000 pages, will be a much deeper dive into Trump’s scheming to reverse his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.We’ll bring you the details when we receive it.Here’s what else we’re watching:
There’s ongoing fallout from last night’s vote by the House ways and means committee to publicly release six years of Trump’s tax returns.
Joe Biden and Washington lawmakers are preparing for Wednesday’s historic visit from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, his first trip outside his country since it was invaded by Russia 10 months ago. Biden meets his counterpart at 2.30pm, followed by a joint press conference.
Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming Democratic House minority leader, and congresswoman Suzan DelBene, nominee for head of the party’s congressional campaign committee, host a press briefing at 1pm on plans to retake the majority in 2024. More

AnalysisFrom Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsMartin PengellyAs the House January 6 committee is set to publish its report, here are some of the key standouts07:50The House January 6 committee is set to publish its report on the attack on the Capitol that shocked both America and the world . After a year of dramatic hearings and bombshell testimony, here are some of the key winners and losers to emerge from its work.Liz CheneyWho: Wyoming Republican congresswoman, with Adam Kinzinger of Illinois one of two GOP members of the committee.Winner or loser: Winner.Why: As vice-chair to Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who began his political career in Mississippi under Jim Crow, the Wyoming Republican and daughter of ex-vice-president and neocon’s neocon Dick Cheney helped bring genuine bipartisan spirit to the committee’s proceedings. Once the committee was in session, Cheney emerged as its star prosecutor. Witheringly focused, she rode losing her own seat in Congress to a Trump-backed challenger in August to keep her eyes on the prize: establishing Trump’s culpability for January 6 and stopping him ever returning to power.Jamie RaskinWho: Democratic Maryland congressman and professor of constitutional law who endured the attack on Congress shortly after losing his son.Winner or loser: Winner.Why: To vastly oversimplify (and not to discount the other committee members), if Cheney was the star prosecutor, Raskin was the best defense attorney the constitution, Congress and even the Capitol building could have, launching heartfelt appeals to the spirit of American democracy while making clear the enormity of the crime in hand. Never far from a reference to Abraham Lincoln or the founders, Raskin provided perhaps a softer public face than Cheney, but one no less determined.Cassidy HutchinsonWho: Former aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, and special assistant to the president.Winner or loser: Winner.01:42Why: In taped testimony and in person, Hutchinson described Trump’s approval of chants from Capitol rioters about hanging his vice-president, Mike Pence, and attempts by Republicans in Congress to have Trump issue pardons before leaving office. She added details of the behavior of Trump, Meadows, Rudy Giuliani and other key figures before January 6 and throughout that day. Among extraordinary scenes described by Hutchinson: Trump lunging for the wheel of his vehicle when told he could not go to the Capitol with his supporters; Trump throwing food at the White House walls; and Meadows refusing to do anything at all to rein in his boss.Mike PenceWho: Trump’s vice-president, who rejected the idea he could stop certification of election results.Winner or loser: Winner.Why: The panel seemed to make a political decision to portray Trump’s doggedly loyal vice-president as a hero, for not supporting the scheme to overturn Joe Biden’s win. Pence did seek counsel as to whether he could do what was asked but he did not do it and faced real danger at the Capitol as the mob shouted for him to be hanged and gallows went up outside. Since the hearings, Pence has continued to shape his likely challenge to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024, conducting a fearsome balancing act: discussing his role in stopping Trump’s assault on democracy while evincing pride in what he says the Trump administration achieved before it.J Michael LuttigWho: Conservative judge who advised Pence he had no power to stop certification.Winner or loser: Winner.02:17Why: Luttig delivered devastating testimony with undoubted authority – and a chilling warning. “A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on January 6, 2021,” he said, adding: “Almost two years after that fateful day … Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger.” That, he said, was “because to this very day the former president and his allies and supporters pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican party presidential candidate were to lose that election, they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.”John EastmanWho: Conservative law professor who claimed certification could be stopped.Winner or loser: Loser More

Don’t stop at Trump. All candidates for office should disclose their tax returnsJill FilipovicThis should be a bipartisan issue. And while we’re at it, why are members of Congress allowed to trade stocks? Finally, at least some of Donald Trump’s tax returns will be released to the public. This is an important step forward for political transparency, but it shouldn’t be the last.On Tuesday, the House ways and means committee voted to release six years of the former president’s tax returns; the committee also revealed that, counter to standard protocol, the IRS had not audited Trump during his first two years in office – and that the IRS only began their audit once ways and means asked for the returns and audit records. Trump had repeatedly said that he was being audited during those two years, which was untrue.The January 6 committee is right. It’s time to prosecute the kingpin, Trump | Lawrence DouglasRead moreThis is a stunning breach. Trump had many notoriously shady friends, engaged in notoriously shady business dealings and notoriously avoided paying his fair share. While that wasn’t necessarily a mystery – the New York Times obtained several years of his tax returns – it did pose a potential national security threat, and at the very least the IRS should have done its job.The information released so far is depressing but predictable: Trump went to great lengths to avoid paying taxes. Despite significant wealth, he paid just $750 in income tax in 2015 and again in 2016. For years leading up to his time in office, he paid no federal income tax. While in the White House, he paid a bit more, but still a paltry fraction of his wealth.This matters because (a) honesty matters and (b) taxes are how we keep the country running. Every tax dollar that Trump maneuvered to keep in his own pocket is a dollar that was taken away from healthcare, support for veterans, public education and provisions for the ageing. The kinds of tax maneuvers he engaged in may be common among wealthy business owners, but that doesn’t necessarily make them legal or moral.The IRS failed in its responsibilities here, reportedly due to the agent in charge of review being simply overwhelmed, and Trump’s team fighting efforts to assign more resources to the audit. That in itself should have been a sign of something amiss – a president with something to hide or, at the very least, a man committed to shielding basic information from the public.Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns in the first place was a clear sign of his dishonesty. It wasn’t against the law, but it was a break with longstanding norms for those running for president – norms of financial transparency that are crucial, and the lowest possible bar. That the former president couldn’t (or wouldn’t) clear that bar should have been disqualifying for any voter who believes that public servants have an obligation to serve, not simply to self-enrich.But with that norm broken, it became incumbent on the adults in government to repair it.Republicans have complained that the committee’s decision was a politically motivated move that sets a dangerous precedent. What if every lawmaker’s private financial information were disclosed? This, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas recently said, could lead to anyone’s tax returns being disclosed – “even the returns of supreme court justices themselves”.What if?American politicians have transparency and regulation problems – or rather, they benefit from a lack of transparency and regulation, at the expense of the public. While candidates for president have routinely disclosed their tax returns (until Trump), and while Carter-era IRS auditing requirements were put into place after a Richard Nixon tax scandal, most elected officials in the US are remarkably opaque about their finances and, perhaps more importantly, their financial interests.Nominees to the supreme court and the judges on the bench should publicly disclose their tax returns; so should those running for Congress. And while supreme court justices and members of Congress alike have to provide some financial disclosures, that simply isn’t enough to keep everyone on firm ethical footing.Trump looks done, but one shouldn’t count him – or those whom he inspired – out | Moira DoneganRead moreLike presidents, members of Congress have tremendous power to shape the fortunes of various companies and sectors, and many members work on committees that influence the same companies and sectors where they have investments. While these members of Congress claim that there’s no conflict – that their investments are in a blind trust or the hands of a spouse – there is, in fact, a conflict when a public servant has the power to enrich themselves and their families through the decisions they make while in office.We want our elected officials making the best decisions for their constituents and the country. That may be hard to do if there are thousands or even millions of one’s personal or potential dollars on the line. And while the Republican party has been particularly willing to embrace radically unethical behavior and even criminality, many prominent Democrats have also been unwilling to pass the kind of laws that would put an end to these kinds of conflicts.Members of Congress and their spouses should simply be banned from trading stocks while in office. Presidential contenders, supreme court nominees and justices, and anyone running for national office should release their tax returns. The IRS should be given the resources necessary to complete timely audits of presidential tax returns.None of this is unduly burdensome. It is, in fact, the very least the public should expect from those who we have elected to serve us. The Trump tax return debate should open up bigger questions than just this one former president’s finances. This should be a moment to ask: what do we expect from our public officials? How can we close the many ethical loopholes our leaders are currently permitted to walk through?This is not a partisan position, and it will no doubt elicit bipartisan opposition – at least among those already in office, or hoping to be. But a desire for ethical behavior should transcend political affiliation. And it’s well past time we demanded it, from Trump and then well beyond.
Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk
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IRS failed to conduct timely mandatory audits of Trump’s taxes while presidentInternal Revenue Service only began audit after prompting from Congress in 2019, House ways and means committee indicates US tax authorities failed to audit Donald Trump for two years while he was in the White House, Democratic lawmakers said, despite a program that makes tax review of sitting presidents compulsory.House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the publicRead moreThe claim, in a report issued by Democrats on the House ways and means committee voting to release six years of Trump’s tax returns, raises questions over statements made by Trump and members of his administration that he could not release his tax returns, a convention for aspiring and sitting presidents, because he was undergoing an Internal Revenue Service audit.The new report suggests US tax authorities only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings in 2019, more than two years into his presidency. The audit, a requirement dating back to the Nixon administration, came only after Democrats took control of the House and requested Trump’s tax information.“This a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration and certainly not what we had hoped to find,” said Richard Neal, the Democratic ways and means chairman.Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing House speaker, praised the committee’s work. She said it revealed an “urgent need” for legislation to ensure accountability and transparency during the audit of a sitting president’s tax returns, “not only in the case of President Trump, but for any president”.Despite a six-year, cat-and-mouse dispute over Trump’s taxes, an issue that reached the supreme court, the committee made no suggestion that Trump sought to lean on the IRS or discourage it from reviewing his paperwork.“What happened?” Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told the Associated Press. “If it was not resolved, the IRS stalled. If it was resolved in Trump’s favor, then maybe the IRS rolled over and played dead. That’s what we have to find out.”The 29-page report, which found that the audit process was “dormant at best”, was published hours after the committee voted to release Trump’s returns, which are now being examined.Democrats argue that transparency and the rule of law are at stake. Republicans maintain that the release of Trump’s records sets a dangerous precedent.“Over our objections in opposition, Democrats have unleashed a dangerous new political weapon that overturns decades of privacy protections,” said Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the ways and means committee.“The era of political targeting, and of Congress’s enemies list, is back and every American, every American taxpayer, who may get on the wrong side of the majority in Congress is now at risk.”Trump has had a bad week. On Monday, the bipartisan January 6 committee voted to make a criminal referral to the justice department for Trump’s role in inciting the Capitol attack and attempting to overturn the election. The referral is not binding on prosecutors, who are conducting their own investigation.Earlier this month, the Trump Organization was convicted on tax fraud charges related to helping senior executives dodge income taxes on perks. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has said Trump and his business are still under investigation.Trump’s tax records amount to thousands of pages and may take days to be made public as the committee works to redacted sensitive details.Trump made up audit excuse for not releasing tax returns on the fly, new book saysRead morePublication may not answer the question of why Trump fought vigorously not to release his returns.The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman has reported that Trump simply made up his audit claim while on his campaign plane in 2016. The same paper found that Trump was facing an audit potentially tied to a $72.9m tax refund arising from $700m in losses he claimed in 2009 and that he had rolled over those losses to collect tax benefits on income for the subsequent nine years.The dispute over Trump’s tax returns speaks to a larger fight over the IRS. Democrats argue it is ill-equipped to audit high-income, complex tax returns, and instead targets filers in lower-income brackets.Democrats on the House ways and means committee are proposing legislation to beef up the IRS and to require a report no later three months from the filing of any president’s tax returns.Republicans plan to cut recent increases in funding to the IRS when they take the House majority in January.TopicsDonald TrumpHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS taxationnewsReuse this content More

The January 6 committee is right. It’s time to prosecute the kingpin, TrumpLawrence DouglasThe assault on the Capitol was not a spontaneous spasm of violence. It was the culmination of a concerted effort to reject the results of a fair election Over the course of 18 months, the intrepid patriots on the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection tirelessly researched Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election through fraud, intimidation, harassment and violence. The committee’s public hearings were an exercise in civic education, presenting the nation with a gripping, granular and truthful account of an unhinged president seeking to cling to power at all costs. Now they have gone one crucial step further. They have referred the matter to the justice department, urging that Trump be prosecuted.The Guardian view on the January 6 committee: Trump’s terrible, no-good year | EditorialRead moreLet us take stock of this astonishing moment. For the first time in American history, a congressional committee has recommended that a former president be criminally prosecuted – and not just for any crimes. The chief crimes at the heart of the referral – inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstructing an official act of Congress – involve nothing short of an elaborate effort to frustrate and upend the peaceful transfer of presidential power, the bedrock of our constitutional democracy.The referral powerfully reminds us that the assault on the Capitol was not a spontaneous spasm of violence. It was the culmination of a concerted effort to reject the results of a fair election, an effort that began on election day itself, when it became clear that Trump was headed to certain defeat.In the run-up to January 6, Trump and his enablers – the committee also issued referrals for a clutch of lawyers including Trump advisers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and DoJ official Jeffrey Clark – sought to coerce state officials to falsify their election tallies, appoint illegal slates of false electors in key swing states carried by Biden, and turn the justice department into a megaphone for the big lie. When all else failed, Trump, having inflamed his most fervid supporters with wild conspiracy theories he knew to be false, summoned a mob and incited it to storm the Congress.Whether the justice department will act on the committee’s referrals is unclear. It is under no obligation to do so. And while the department, which is conducting its own parallel investigation of Trump that now also includes the stash of classified documents discovered in Mar-a-Lago, remained mum about the referrals, Mike Pence went on Fox to express the worry that charging Trump with crimes “would be terribly divisive in the country at a time when the American people want to see us heal”.Whether sincere or craven, Pence’s expression of pious concern overlooks the inconvenient fact that the Republican party doesn’t share an interest in healing. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who, as we recall, seized the spot as the No 3 House Republican after Liz Cheney’s ouster, declared the referral a “partisan charade” and threatened to “hold House Democrats accountable for their illegitimate abuse of power”.More to the point, Pence fails to mention that the biggest obstacle to national healing remains his former boss. Trump is not like Richard Nixon after Watergate – a thoroughly discredited figure, shunned even by those in his own party. President Ford’s controversial pardon of Nixon arguably contributed to political repair; granting Trump a pass from prosecution would serve only to reward his reckless attacks on constitutional democracy.True, Trump appears diminished. His Midas political touch has deserted him. The midterms saw his hand-picked purveyors of the big lie lose big – and even, for the most part, concede their defeats. He has, of late, sounded ever more unmoored, calling for the “termination” of the constitution and increasingly trucking in QAnon conspiracy theories. He has shared his table with an antisemitic music star and a white supremacist Holocaust denier. Even his recently released “limited edition” digital trading cards are apparently losing value. And yet for all that, he remains, until someone proves otherwise, the most powerful force in the Republican party. And he seeks to recapture the presidency that he continues to insist was stolen from him.To give this man a pass from prosecution simply because a trial would prove divisive is to admit that the rule of law in America has failed. Granted, a trial would predictably inflame Trump’s base and elicit wild cries of execration from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, but those who predicted that the January 6 committee and the raid on Mar-a-Lago would also redound to Trump’s favor have been proven wrong.Trying a former president is not something to be celebrated. But nor is it to be shunned. Nearly a thousand insurrectionists have been charged with crimes associated with the storming of the Capitol. Hundreds have been convicted, including Oath Keeper leaders Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs for seditious conspiracy. The January 6 committee got it right: it is time for a legal reckoning with the kingpin.
Lawrence Douglas is the author, most recently, of Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020. He is a contributing opinion writer for the Guardian US and teaches at Amherst College
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Trump left ‘shockingly gracious’ letter to Biden on leaving office, book saysThe Fight of His Life, by Chris Whipple, recounts Joe Biden’s first two years in the White House Donald Trump wrote a “shockingly gracious” letter to Joe Biden on leaving office, a new book says, amid the unprecedented disgrace of a second impeachment for inciting the deadly Capitol attack as part of his attempt to overturn Biden’s election victory and hold on to power.Donald Trump: how will prosecutors pursue the House panel’s charges?Read moreAccording to excerpts published by Politico on Tuesday, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, by Chris Whipple, captures Biden saying of Trump’s note: “That was very gracious and generous … Shockingly gracious.”Presidents traditionally leave letters for their successors. George HW Bush’s note for Bill Clinton is generally held up as an ideal of civility between presidents from different parties.After Bush died, Clinton wrote in the Washington Post that the letter revealed “the heart of who he was … an honorable, gracious and decent man who believed in the United States, our constitution, our institutions and our shared future”.Trump refuses to admit Biden beat him fairly, faces extensive legal jeopardy for his election subversion attempts, and recently called for the constitution to be “terminated” so he could return to power.Biden has said Trump’s letter was “very generous” but he has not shared its contents. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, authors of the book Peril, on discovering the note in the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Biden “put it in his pocket and did not share it with his advisers”.Whipple’s book will be published in January. He told Politico writing it was “tough, because … this is the most battened-down, disciplined, leak-proof White House in modern times”.But Whipple’s previous books include The Gatekeepers, about White House chiefs of staff, and access to the Biden White House included interviews with Ron Klain, the current holder of that post.Whipple told Politico: “I think Biden’s presidency is the most consequential of my lifetime. His legislative record is comparable to [Lyndon B Johnson’s] and he’s been underestimated every step of the way. But it’s also been a tale of two presidencies – the first year and the second year.“What makes this such a great story is that Joe Biden and his team really turned it all around, I think.”Regarding comments released as reports said Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, was on his way to Washington to speak, Politico said Whipple cited Biden’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as domestic successes as proof for his contention that the president had turned things around.Whipple interviewed White House staff on “deep background”, allowing quote approval, and conducted written interviews with Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice-president. According to Politico, Harris left some questions blank, while Whipple’s book reports her dissatisfaction with her role and dissent within her team. Biden, Whipple says, initially considered Harris “a work in progress” as vice-president, the office he held for eight years under Barack Obama.Whipple also writes that Biden “felt let down by his briefers” over the US exit from Afghanistan, which was widely held to be a disaster when it took place in late summer 2021. Politico quoted William Burns, the CIA director, Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, and the secretary of state, Tony Blinken, debating the role of US intelligence assessments.Zelenskiy to meet congressional leaders in Washington on Wednesday – reportsRead moreA White House spokesperson said: “We respect that there will be no shortage of books written about the administration containing a wide variety of claims. We don’t plan to engage in confirmations or denials when it comes to the specifics of those claims. The author did not give us a chance to verify the materials that are attributed here.”Politico also reported a direct comment from Klain – to Whipple via text message. Many observers including reporters for Politico expected Biden to suffer a shellacking in the midterm elections last month. In the event Biden and his Democratic party did unexpectedly well, losing the House but only narrowly, holding the Senate and winning key state races.At 1.16am on Wednesday 9 November, the day after election day, Klain texted Whipple to say: “Maybe we don’t suck as much as people thought … Like maybe the nattering negatives who dumped to Politico were wrong!”TopicsBooksJoe BidenBiden administrationDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the publicAs a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax forms to the public A powerful congressional committee on Tuesday voted to publicly release Donald Trump’s tax returns in a move that is sure to ignite a political row as well as anger among some privacy experts in America.The Democratic-controlled House ways and means committee decided to release the documents, which the former US president has long tried to shield, after several hours of debate.The New York Times previously released extensive chunks of Trump’s tax returns which showed how the real estate mogul and reality TV star had suffered serious losses and engaged in extensive tax avoidance.The decision by the panel comes after a long battle that ultimately resulted in the supreme court clearing the way last month for the treasury department to send the returns to Congress. The committee received six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses.As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax forms to the public. He bragged during a presidential debate that year that he was “smart” because he paid no federal taxes and later claimed he wouldn’t personally benefit from the 2017 tax cuts he signed into law that favored people with extreme wealth, asking Americans to simply take him at his word.Tax records would have been a useful metric for judging his success in business. The image of a savvy businessman was key to a political brand honed during his years as a tabloid magnet and star of The Apprentice television show. They also could reveal any financial obligations – including foreign debts – that could influence how he governed.But Americans were largely in the dark about Trump’s relationship with the IRS until October 2018 and September 2020, when The New York Times published two separate series based on leaked tax records.The Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 articles showed how Trump received a modern equivalent of at least $413m from his father’s real estate holdings, with much of that money coming from what the Times called “tax dodges” in the 1990s.Trump sued the Times and his niece, Mary Trump, in 2021 for providing the records to the newspaper. In November, Mary Trump asked an appeals court to overturn a judge’s decision to reject her claims that her uncle and two of his siblings defrauded her of millions of dollars in a 2001 family settlement.The 2020 articles showed that Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018. Trump paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the past 15 years because he generally lost more money than he made.Details about Trump’s income from foreign operations and debt levels were also contained in the tax filings, which the former president derided as “fake news”.The Manhattan district attorney’s office also obtained copies of Trump’s tax records in February 2021 after after a protracted legal fight that included two trips to the supreme court.The office, then led by District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr, had subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm in 2019, seeking access to eight years of Trump’s tax returns and related documents.The DA’s office issued the subpoena after Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that Trump had misled tax officials, insurers and business associates about the value of his assets. Those allegations are the subject of a fraud lawsuit that New York attorney general Letitia James filed against Trump and his company in September.Trump’s longtime accountant, Donald Bender, testified at the Trump Organization’s recent criminal trial that Trump reported losses on his tax returns every year for a decade, including nearly $700m in 2009 and $200m in 2010.The Trump Organization was convicted earlier this month on tax fraud charges for helping some executives dodge taxes on company-paid perks such as apartments and luxury cars.Republicans, meanwhile, have railed against the potential release, arguing that it would set a dangerous precedent.Trump has argued there is little to be gleaned from the tax returns even as he has fought to keep them private. “You can’t learn much from tax returns, but it is illegal to release them if they are not yours!” he complained on his social media network last weekend.Congressman Kevin Brady of Texas, the ways and means committee’s Republican leader, has accused Democrats on the committee of “unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump, and jeopardizes the privacy of every American”.The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

Zelenskiy due in US to meet Biden and address CongressTrip to Washington is Ukrainian president’s first disclosed foreign visit since Russia invaded in February Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will arrive in Washington on Wednesday where he will meet President Joe Biden at the White House and address a joint session of Congress.The trip – Zelenskiy’s first known foreign visit since Russia invaded Ukraine – will also see the Ukrainian president meet with congressional leadership and national security committee chiefs from the Republican and Democratic parties.The trip comes as US lawmakers are due to vote on a year-end spending package that includes about $45bn in emergency assistance to Ukraine. The latest tranche of US funding would be the biggest American infusion of assistance yet to Ukraine, above even Biden’s $37bn emergency request.“The visit will underscore the United States’ steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, including through the provision of economic, humanitarian, and military assistance,” said a White House statement announcing the visit.President Zelenskiy confirmed in a tweet that he was on his way to Washington and would be speaking before Congress, as well as conducting a number of bilateral meetings.On my way to the US to strengthen resilience and defense capabilities of 🇺🇦. In particular, @POTUS and I will discuss cooperation between 🇺🇦 and 🇺🇸. I will also have a speech at the Congress and a number of bilateral meetings.— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 21, 2022
In a letter inviting Zelenskiy to address the joint meeting of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the fight for Ukraine a fight for democracy itself.“In the face of Putin’s horrific atrocities, Ukrainian freedom fighters have inspired the world with an iron will and an unbreakable spirit … your courageous, patriotic, indefatigable leadership has rallied not only your people, but the world, to join the frontlines of the fight for freedom”, Pelosi wrote.In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, a senior administration official, who did not wish to be named, said Biden and Zelenskiy had discussed a potential visit when they spoke by phone on 11 December and the White House formally extended an invitation last Wednesday. Zelenskiy’s office accepted the invitation last Friday and the visit was confirmed on Sunday.Biden will first welcome Zelenskiy at the White House for bilateral meetings with the US president’s national security team and cabinet. After a press conference, Zelenskiy will go to Capitol Hill and address a joint session of Congress. He will return home after just a few hours on the ground.The official said: “We’re looking forward to having President Zelenskiy back at the White House for his second visit but his first visit since the start of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for some time and tomorrow is actually the 300th day since Russia brutally invaded Ukraine in an all-out assault with the goal of wiping its neighbour off the map and subjecting the Ukrainian people to Russian dominion.”Biden will announce a new package of nearly $2bn of security assistance including a Patriot missile battery. The US will, in a third country, train Ukrainian forces in how to operate the Patriot system.Despite some Republicans questioning the price of the war, the official predicted Zelenskiy would receive a strong bipartisan show of support. “This isn’t about sending a message to a particular political party. This is about sending a message to Putin and sending a message to the world that America will be there for Ukraine for as long as it takes.“President Putin badly miscalculated the beginning of this conflict when he presumed that the Ukrainian people would yield and that Nato would be disunited. He was wrong on both counts. He remains wrong about our staying power and that’s what this visit will demonstrate.”The senior administration official also denied that Biden will pressure Zelenskiy to seek a diplomatic end to the war. “The president is not coming with a message that is about pushing or prodding or poking Zelenskiy in any way. This is going to be a message of solidarity and support, coordination and alignment and making sure that we are very much putting Ukraine in the best possible position to defend its interests and secure its objectives.”Biden has said from the start that the US will not send forces to Ukraine to directly fight the Russians. No change to that policy is expected on Wednesday.The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsVolodymyr ZelenskiyUkraineWashington DCUS CongressUS politicsEuropenewsReuse this content More