US Politics

Joe Biden says US should have ‘societal guilt’ 10 years after Sandy HookPresident commemorates 2012 shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut Joe Biden said on Wednesday the US should have “societal guilt” over taking too long to address gun violence and the curse of school shootings.Sandy Hook’s tragic legacy on gun safety takes a new turn 10 years onRead moreThe president made the remark in a statement 10 years after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, in which 20 young children and six adults were killed in Newtown, Connecticut, on 14 December 2012.Biden was then vice-president to Barack Obama.On Wednesday, he said: “Our nation watched as the unthinkable happened. Twenty young children with their whole lives ahead of them. Six educators who gave their lives protecting their students. And countless survivors who still carry the wounds of that day.“We should have societal guilt for taking too long to deal with this problem. We have a moral obligation to pass and enforce laws that can prevent these things from happening again. We owe it to the courageous, young survivors and to the families who lost part of their soul 10 years ago to turn their pain into purpose.”Biden heralded progress made on gun policy reform this year – after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, in May.In June, Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the first major gun safety bill in nearly 30 years. Among other initiatives, the legislation expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers and invested in mental health and violence intervention programs.But Biden acknowledged that more must be done, reiterating his commitment to signing an assault weapons ban, although that proposal has stalled in the Senate.“Enough is enough. Our obligation is clear,” Biden said. “We must eliminate these weapons that have no purpose other than to kill people in large numbers. It is within our power to do this – for the sake of not only the lives of the innocents lost, but for the survivors who still hope.”The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit, defines a mass shooting as any shooting in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter. On Tuesday, the same source said there had been 628 such shootings in the US this year. The FBI defines mass murder as an incident with four or more people killed. The Gun Violence Archive records 36 mass murders this year.In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, working with Democrats in Congress, Biden and Obama launched a push for meaningful gun reform. It failed.In his own statement on Wednesday, Obama said 14 December 2012 was “the single darkest day of my presidency. The news from Sandy Hook elementary was devastating, a visceral blow, and like so many others, I felt not just sorrow but anger at a world that could allow such things to happen.”Obama also said: “I’ve sensed that slowly, steadily, the tide is turning; that real change is possible. And I feel that way in no small part because of the families of Sandy Hook elementary.”At the Capitol in Washington, the House oversight committee staged a hearing on violence against LGBTQ+ Americans which included testimony from survivors of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs last month, in which five people were killed.In the Senate, the two Democrats from Connecticut, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, delivered remarks to mark a decade since Sandy Hook.Both senators recounted visceral memories from 10 years ago. Both were in the Newtown firehouse as parents learned their children would not come home.“I wish I could tell you that the memory of that day has dimmed,” Blumenthal said. “I wish I could tell you that the knife-like sorrow and pain have subsided, but the fact is it is still raw and real for so many of us in Connecticut.“My mind goes back to the horrors of this day, and I think that reliving it reminds us of the need to honor those 26 lives with action.”Blumenthal and Murphy praised gun safety activists who have spent 10 years working for reform, crediting them with helping make the BSCA a reality this year. Murphy said the law was already proving its impact, citing examples of blocked gun purchases to individuals considered to be at risk of committing violence.“What we have done isn’t enough,” Murphy said in his speech. “It doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to do more, but it is saving lives.”Murphy has become a champion of gun reform, telling the Guardian earlier this month the movement “is more powerful than the gun lobby” and adding: “I think we are now poised to rack up victory after victory for gun safety.”In a statement released before his speech on Wednesday, the senator said the US had become “a different place” in the decade since Sandy Hook.10 years since Sandy Hook – what’s changed? Politics Weekly America special – podcastRead more“Mostly today, I will think of all the greatness and beauty that was robbed from this world, when these promising lives were cut short.“Mostly, I will spend my day today sending every good thought I have to the family members who lost loved ones that day, to the survivors of the shooting, to the first responders, and to the community of Newtown that will never be the same.“But also today, I will be thankful. I will be thankful for all the good that has resulted from this horror. Those parents, and the community of Newtown, have chosen to rise from that tragedy and build dozens of efforts that have changed lives for the better all over our nation.“Many in Newtown have helped build the modern anti-gun violence movement, that finally this summer achieved the first federal gun safety bill in almost 30 years.”TopicsNewtown shootingJoe BidenUS gun controlUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Warren pushes bipartisan bill to regulate crypto firms after FTX collapseMove co-sponsored by Republican Roger Marshall aims to crack down on money laundering after arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried Elizabeth Warren is pressing Congress to adopt new bipartisan legislation which would force crypto firms to abide by the same regulations as banks and corporations in an attempt to crack down on money laundering through digital assets.The Democratic US senator from Massachusetts is pushing for the new controls on the crypto industry in the wake of the spectacular collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. On Tuesday its founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with eight criminal counts including conspiracy to commit money laundering.Five things we know about the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-FriedRead moreWarren’s bill is being co-sponsored by the Republican senator from Kansas Roger Marshall. The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act would essentially subject the world of crypto to the same global financial regulations to which more conventional money markets must conform.Under current systems, crypto exchanges are able to skirt around restrictions designed to stop money laundering and impose sanctions. Should the bill be enacted into law it would authorize the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) to reclassify crypto entities as “money service businesses” which would bring them under basic regulations laid out in the Bank Secrecy Act.In a statement to CNN, Warren said that the “commonsense crypto legislation” would protect US national security. “I’ve been ringing the alarm bell in the Senate on the dangers of these digital asset loopholes,” she said, adding that crypto was “under serious scrutiny across the political spectrum”.Bankman-Fried, 30, was indicted by prosecutors at the southern district of New York and is being held in custody in the Bahamas. The US Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) has also brought civil charges against him, accusing him of creating a firm that was a “house of cards”.An ongoing area of interest to investigators was the vast political contributions made by Bankman-Fried to the Democratic party, as well as to Republicans in the form, he has said, of secretive dark money donations. The Wall Street Journal has calculated that he gave more than $95,000 in direct campaign donations to the same members of the US House financial services committee who are now investigating him.Even before the implosion of FTX, the treasury department was focusing on the feared risks to national security posed by relatively unregulated digital currency exchanges. In August it moved against Tornado Cash, a virtual currency mixer which it accused of laundering more than $7bn in virtual currency since 2019.The Treasury said that Tornado Cash was attractive to launderers of the proceeds of cybercrime, including the Lazarus Group, a hacking group sponsored by North Korea. The entity’s appeal to cybercriminals was that it could move digital assets around anonymously, obscuring the origin and destination of transactions and hiding the parties involved.Warren is a former Harvard law professor and expert on consumer protection and economic inequality. She entered the Senate in 2013, where she established herself as a leading progressive critic of corporate largesse and a spirited opponent of Donald Trump.She made an unsuccessful bid for the White House in 2020.TopicsElizabeth WarrenCryptocurrenciesUS politicsFTXSam Bankman-FriednewsReuse this content More

When Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed veteran prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee two criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump on Nov. 18, 2022, Garland’s goal was to shield the probes from the appearance of partisanship.

But in immediate and repeated attacks, Trump, and some of his allies, alleged political bias anyway. For instance, in one highly charged social media post, the former president argued that he won’t “get a fair shake from” Smith.

Fairness and justice, though, are what Garland appointed Smith to deliver. In his announcement that Smith would take charge of the Department of Justice investigations into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s handling of classified government documents, Garland described Smith as someone who “has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor.”

In his own statement, Smith, who most recently investigated and prosecuted war crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, promised to “independently … move the investigations forward … to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”

From my perspective as a political scientist who studies presidential systems, I believe that while special counsels are intended to be independent – in practice, they are aren’t entirely. Here’s why.

Newly appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith, when he was prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers court in The Hague, Nov. 10, 2020.
AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool

Independent and special counsels

Ensuring impartiality in the Department of Justice can be difficult, as the attorney general is appointed by – and answerable to – a partisan president. This gives presidents the power to try to compel attorneys general, who head the department, to pursue a political agenda. President Richard Nixon did this during the investigation of the Watergate break-in, which threatened to implicate him in criminal acts.

On the evening of Oct. 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox, whom Richardson had appointed to lead the Watergate investigation. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. Finally, Nixon ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork, the next most senior official at the Department of Justice, to fire Cox. Bork complied.

This shocking series of events, often referred to as the Saturday Night Massacre, demonstrated how presidents could exercise political power over criminal investigations.

As a result of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. This allowed for investigations into misconduct that could operate outside of presidential control.

After passage of this legislation, if the attorney general received “specific information” alleging that the president, vice president or other high-ranking executive branch officials had committed a serious federal offense, the attorney general would ask a special three-judge panel to appoint an independent counsel, which would investigate.

The Ethics in Government Act also disqualified Department of Justice employees, including the attorney general, from participating in any investigation or prosecution that could “result in a personal, financial, or political conflict of interest, or the appearance thereof.”

In the decades since the law’s passage, independent counsels investigated Republicans and Democrats alike. In 1999, Congress let the Ethics in Government Act expire. That year, then-Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the appointment of special counsels, who could investigate certain sensitive matters, similar to the way independent counsels operated.

Robert Mueller, who was appointed in 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, was a special counsel. Some Republicans accused him of bias, despite his long career serving under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

In 2020, John Durham – another veteran of the Department of Justice – was appointed as special counsel to investigate the origins of the investigation that triggered Mueller’s appointment. Michael Sussmann, a former Democratic Party lawyer and target of that probe, accused Durham of political prosecution. Sussmann was later acquitted.

Politicizing the process

Although special counsels were meant to resemble independent counsels, there are notable differences.

For instance, while special counsels operate independently of the attorney general, both their appointment and the scope of their investigations are determined by the attorney general. In contrast, the appointment of independent counsels and the scope of their investigations were determined by a three-judge panel, which in turn was appointed by the chief justice of the United States.

Also, since Congress authorized independent counsels, presidential influence was limited by law. In contrast, since Department of Justice regulations authorize special counsels, a president could try to compel the attorney general to change departmental interpretation of these regulations – or even just revoke them entirely – to influence or end a special counsel investigation.

For example, at one point, Trump wanted to fire Mueller. After his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia probe, did not “end the phony Russia Witch Hunt,” Trump fired him.

Seemingly supportive of this, William Barr, who had served as attorney general under President George W. Bush, sent an unsolicited memo to the Department of Justice defending Trump by arguing that presidents have “complete authority to start or stop a law enforcement proceeding.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump then chose Barr to replace Sessions as attorney general.

In my own research, I have found that abuses of power are more common in situations in which the president and the attorney general are political allies.

For instance, after Mueller finished his report in 2019, Barr released a summary of its “principal conclusions.” Later, Barr’s summary was criticized for “not fully captur[ing] the context, nature, and substance of” Mueller’s work.

In 2020, a Republican-appointed judge ruled that Barr “failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report” and questioned whether Barr had “made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse … in favor of President Trump.”

To be or not to be free of partisanship

The independence of the Department of Justice rests, in part, on who occupies the offices of president and attorney general.

Trump, for example, saw himself as “the chief law enforcement officer of the country” and thought it was appropriate to “be totally involved.”

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has a long history of supporting the independence of Department of Justice investigations, dating as far back as his 1987-1995 tenure as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Barr once argued that the attorney general’s role is to advance “all colorable arguments that can [be] mustered … when the president determines an action is within his authority – even if that conclusion is debatable.”

In contrast, Garland – a former U.S. circuit judge – insists that “political or other improper considerations must play no role in any investigative or prosecutorial decisions.”

Given that Trump and Biden may end up facing off in 2024, it makes sense that Garland would want to appoint a special counsel in order to avoid directly overseeing any investigations into a political opponent of the president under whom he serves.

Still, Smith will not be entirely independent of Garland, just as Garland is not entirely independent of Biden. More

Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump by 23 points in Republican pollFlorida governor takes enormous lead over embattled ex-president for 2024 race as Mike Pence nears a run of his own In a new poll regarding potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, led Donald Trump by a whopping 23 points.Republican and Republican-leaning voters dealt the significant blow to the former president’s ego in a survey carried out by USA Today and Suffolk University and released on Tuesday.There was good news for Trump in another poll covering the same time period, by Morning Consult, which gave him an 18-point lead over DeSantis. Furthermore, the polling website FiveThirtyEight still shows Trump in the lead in most surveys.Nonetheless, David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told USA Today: “Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump.”That much has been clear in the rise of DeSantis, a former US military lawyer and hard-right congressman who has pursued distinctly Trumpist hardline, theatrically cruel policies as governor of Florida, in particular on immigration and education.Last month, DeSantis marked a crushing re-election victory with a confidant speech, declaring his state “where woke goes to die” to chants of “two more years”.Trump declared his third consecutive run for the Republican nomination shortly after the midterm elections.But he has shown precious little momentum, particularly after elections in which most of his endorsed candidates for key state posts and in Congress went down to defeat, contributing to a disappointing Republican performance.Trump is also in extensive legal jeopardy, over his attempted election subversion, the retention of White House records and his business affairs.USA Today said its poll showed that among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, enthusiasm for another Trump run is receding.“In July, 60% of Republicans wanted Trump to run again. In October, that number had dipped to 56%. Now it has fallen to 47%, an almost-even split with the 45% who don’t want him to run for a third time.”The poll put Joe Biden, the president, up 47%-40% in a notional rematch with Trump.Biden is 80, Trump 76. Biden has said he will decide on whether to run again over the Christmas holidays.The new poll put DeSantis, 44, ahead of Biden in a notional match-up, 47%-43%.Paleologos sounded a familiar note of caution, saying a big primary field could divide Republican opposition to Trump and hand him the nomination again.“Add in a number of other Republican presidential candidates who would divide the anti-Trump vote and you have a recipe for a repeat of the 2016 Republican caucuses and primaries, when Trump outlasted the rest of the divided field.”Another likely candidate, the former vice-president Mike Pence, is edging closer to announcing a run.Speaking in New Hampshire, an early voting state, on Tuesday, the former vice-president told Fox News the reception accorded his recent memoir “has been a great source of encouragement as we think about the way forward and what our calling might be in the future”.Pence said he and his wife, Karen, would make a decision on whether to mount a run next year, after “prayerful consideration” over the holiday period.“We’ll continue to travel, we’ll continue to listen,” he said.TopicsUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansRon DeSantisDonald TrumpMike PencenewsReuse this content More

Florida governor seeks grand jury investigation into Covid vaccinesRon DeSantis asks state supreme court to investigate undefined ‘wrongdoing’ related to vaccinations The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Tuesday he will petition the state supreme court to convene a grand jury to investigate “any and all wrongdoing” with respect to Covid-19 vaccines.The Republican governor, often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, did not say what wrongdoing the panel would investigate, but he suggested it would be in part aimed at jogging loose more information from pharmaceutical companies about the vaccines and potential side effects.A mutated virus, anti-vaxxers and a vulnerable population: how polio returned to the USRead moreHe made the announcement following a roundtable with the Florida surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, and a panel of scientists and physicians.“We’ll be able to get the data whether they want to give it or not,” DeSantis said. “In Florida, it is illegal to mislead and misrepresent, especially when you are talking about the efficacy of a drug.”Vaccine studies funded by pharmaceutical companies that developed Covid vaccines have been published in peer-reviewed journals like the New England Journal of Medicine, and government panels reviewed data on the safety and effectiveness of the shots before approving them for use.Statewide grand juries, usually comprising 18 people, can investigate criminal activity and issue indictments but also examine systemic problems in Florida and make recommendations. Recent such panels have tackled immigration issues and school safety.DeSantis noted that Florida recently “got $3.2bn through legal action against those responsible for the opioid crisis. So, it’s not like this is something that’s unprecedented.”That money came largely through lawsuits and settlements with drug makers, retailers and distributors.DeSantis said he expected to get approval from the supreme court for the statewide grand jury to be empaneled, probably in the Tampa Bay area.“That will come with legal processes that will be able to get more information and to bring legal accountability to those who committed misconduct,” DeSantis said.DeSantis also announced that he was creating an entity called the public health integrity committee, which will include many of the physicians and scientists who participated in the roundtable on Tuesday. The group includes prominent opponents of lockdowns, federal vaccine mandates and child vaccinations.He said that over the course of the pandemic some people had lost faith in public health institutions, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The governor has frequently spoken out against CDC directives, including mask and vaccine mandates, and filed lawsuits to stop many from taking effect in Florida.Additionally, the governor announced that Ladapo would conduct research through the University of Florida to “assess sudden deaths of individuals in good health who received a Covid-19 vaccine”.DeSantis also said the Florida department of health would utilize disease surveillance and vital statistics to assess such deaths.TopicsRon DeSantisFloridaVaccines and immunisationCoronavirusHealthUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

ExplainerFive things we know about the collapse of FTX and Sam Bankman-FriedCompany founder was arrested and charged with running a ‘house of cards’ in ‘one of the biggest financial frauds in US history’ It has been another crazy 48 hours in the collapse of FTX, once the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.On Monday, the company’s now-infamous founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested in the Bahamas, a day before he was set to give testimony before Congress. On Tuesday US authorities issued damning charges that the 30-year-old former billionaire ran a “house of cards” and was behind “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history”.Lawmakers went ahead with the hearing without Bankman-Fried, who was otherwise occupied, in what looks set to be a series of heated hearings about the collapse.Here are five things we learned about FTX after two days of whirlwind of events.1. What happened at FTX appears to be ‘old-school fraud’While FTX was billed as a behemoth of cryptocurrency, with all the technical complexities that implies, officials on Tuesday alleged that FTX’s downfall is a classic case of fraud.Republican representative and incoming House finance committee chair Patrick McHenry said in Tuesday’s hearing that FTX appears to be “old school fraud, just using new technology”.In a statement, Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which charged Bankman-Fried of fraud against investors, echoed this sentiment by saying Bankman-Fried “built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto.“FTX operated behind a veneer of legitimacy,” he said. “But we allege in our complaint that the veneer wasn’t just thin, it was fraudulent.”John Ray III, FTX’s current CEO who was brought in to restructure the company, called it “really old-fashioned embezzlement” when testifying in front of the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday.When asked to contrast the liquidation of Enron in the early 2000s, which Ray oversaw, he said the crimes of the former energy giant were “highly orchestrated financial machinations by highly sophisticated people to keep transactions off balance sheets”.FTX, in contrast, was “just taking money from customers, and using it for your own purpose,” he said. “Not sophisticated at all.”2. Little is known about where all the money wentRay told lawmakers that there is an “excess of $7bn” in lost FTX funds from 7.6m accounts, with 2.7m based in the US. It is unclear exactly how much money is lost.“There were no corporate controls, no corporate oversight, no independent board,” he said. “The owners, business and senior management had virtual control of all the accounts and could move money or assets as they desired, undetected by customers.”Ray said he had “never seen such an utter lack of record keeping” and there were “absolutely no internal control whatsoever”. FTX – which helped Bankman-Fried amass a personal fortune once valued at $26bn – used QuickBooks to manage its finances. “QuickBooks, very nice tool, not for a multibillion-dollar company,” Ray said.3. Prosecutors believe Bankman-Fried was lying from the beginningWhile Bankman-Fried built a reputation off his philosophy of effective altruism, saying he wanted to use his wealth to make a major positive impact on the world, prosecutors are alleging that Bankman-Fried was defrauding investors since he founded FTX in 2019.“Bankman-Fried was orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud, diverting billions of dollars of the trading platform’s customer funds for his own personal benefit and to help grow his crypto empire,” the SEC said in its complaint.The complaint describes how Bankman-Fried postured himself as a “responsible leader of the crypto community” and “touted the importance of regulation and accountability”.“But from the start, Bankman-Fried improperly diverted customer assets to his privately-held crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC, and then used those customer funds to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations,” the complaint reads.4. What’s next for Bankman-Fried?The criminal indictment that led to Bankman-Fried’s arrest was unsealed on Tuesday, revealing exactly what charges federal prosecutors have charged him with.Bankman-Fried faces eight criminal counts, including wire fraud on customers and lenders, conspiracies to commit wire fraud on customers and lenders and conspiracies to commit commodities fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.Bankman-Fried could face hefty prison time for the charges but legal experts say it is too early to say yet what sentence he will receive if convicted. Sentencing in white-collar crime is highly influenced by the scale of the fraud, said Duncan Levin, managing partner at Levin & Associates and a former federal prosecutor. Given that FTX’s losses “seem to be close to $2bn, that could drive sentencing to the absolute max,” he said.But at the moment, said Levin, it’s hard to say whether if convicted Bankman-Fried is facing an “Elizabeth Holmes [11 years] or a Bernie Madoff [150 years]”.5. Prosecutors are likely closing in on Bankman-Fried’s inner circle – and the scandal is spreadingThough Bankman-Fried is the only FTX associate who has been charged, US authorities are investigating others who were involved with the company.At a press conference Damian Williams, United States attorney for the southern district of New York, said this was only the beginning. “This investigation is very much ongoing,” he said. “We are not done.” Officials advised anyone involved in the alleged fraud “to come to us before we come to you”.But while US authorities are after FTX insiders, Washington faces its own reckoning. Bankman-Fried and his peers gave millions to politicians of both sides in the hope of steering crypto regulation. The political fallout of FTX’s collapse looks set to be one of the big stories of 2023.TopicsSam Bankman-FriedFTXCryptocurrenciesUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

Joe Biden has signed the legislation into law, in a joy-filled ceremony on the south lawn at the White House.In attendance were the first lady, Jill Biden, as well as the vice-president, Kamala Harris, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, and hundreds of LGBTQ+ couples, senior members of Congress, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and gay lawmakers looking on.Here’s the Guardian’s Washington Bureau chief, David Smith, who has witnessed the event:Joe Biden: “Today is a good day!… Marriage is a simple proposition. Who do you love and will you be loyal to that person you love? It’s not more complicated than that.” pic.twitter.com/ZsL2PEkLri— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
Biden made a short but spirited speech.Biden: “Now the law requires that interracial marriage and same sex marriage be recognised in every state in the nation.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
Biden pays tribute to many of those activists and campaigners gathered.Biden: “Those who believe in equality and justice, you never gave up… You put your relationships on the line, you put your jobs on the line, you put your lives on the line. From me and the entire nation, thank you, thank you, thank you.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
Here’s the president on Twitter:Today is a good day. Today, America takes another step toward equality. Toward liberty and justice not just for some, but for all. Because today, I sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law.— President Biden (@POTUS) December 13, 2022
It’s been a lively though unusual day in US politics. We’re ending this live blog now and we’ll be back on Wednesday morning to bring you all the day’s developments as they happen.Here’s where things stand:
Joe Biden signed the Respect For Marriage Act into law, in a joy-filled ceremony on the south lawn at the White House.
The US president noted that: “Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia – they are all connected. But the antidote is love.”
The January 6 House select committee will on 19 December vote on referring people they believe broke the law to the justice department, Politico reports, citing committee chair Bennie Thompson.
Carolyn Maloney, chair of the oversight committee in the House wrote to the National Archives asking for a review of what’s been discovered at a storage unit at Donald Trump’s Florida residence, the Washington Post reported.
Government energy officials announced that the US has taken “the first tentative steps towards a clean energy source that could revolutionize the world” through a successful fusion experiment.
Biden cheered government data released today that showed inflation declining by a greater amount than expected in November, calling it proof that his economic policies were delivering Americans relief from the price increase wave battering the economy.
Samuel Bankman-Fried is not testifying before Congress, because he was arrested in the Bahamas yesterday. Instead, the newly appointed CEO of FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange Bankman-Fried founded, is being grilled by lawmakers alone.
Reforms to the Electoral Count Act intended to stop another January 6 may end up being included in year-end spending legislation Congress is negotiating.
It’s official: rightwing lawmaker Lauren Boebert has been re-elected, after winning her unexpectedly close House race.
Under sunny skies, the ceremony for Joe Biden to sign the Respect for Marriage Act was a lively one, just wrapping up now.The bill’s primary driver, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, can be seen smiling broadly, just behind a beaming Nancy Pelosi.Joe Biden has signed the legislation into law, in a joy-filled ceremony on the south lawn at the White House.In attendance were the first lady, Jill Biden, as well as the vice-president, Kamala Harris, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, and hundreds of LGBTQ+ couples, senior members of Congress, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and gay lawmakers looking on.Here’s the Guardian’s Washington Bureau chief, David Smith, who has witnessed the event:Joe Biden: “Today is a good day!… Marriage is a simple proposition. Who do you love and will you be loyal to that person you love? It’s not more complicated than that.” pic.twitter.com/ZsL2PEkLri— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
Biden made a short but spirited speech.Biden: “Now the law requires that interracial marriage and same sex marriage be recognised in every state in the nation.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
Biden pays tribute to many of those activists and campaigners gathered.Biden: “Those who believe in equality and justice, you never gave up… You put your relationships on the line, you put your jobs on the line, you put your lives on the line. From me and the entire nation, thank you, thank you, thank you.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) December 13, 2022
Here’s the president on Twitter:Today is a good day. Today, America takes another step toward equality. Toward liberty and justice not just for some, but for all. Because today, I sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law.— President Biden (@POTUS) December 13, 2022
Joe Biden says love is the antidote to discrimination.“Racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, they are all connected. But the antidote is love,” Biden just said at the White House, as he prepares to sign the Respect for Marriage Act into law.Biden reminds those gathered that the legislation was spurred by the signal made by supreme court justice Clarence Thomas that, having overturned Roe v Wade, access to contraception and the right to same sex marriage could be next on the conservative bench’s agenda.Joe Biden is now speaking and thanking the lawmakers who drove the legislation that he is about to sign into law as the Respect for Marriage Act.He thanks, to a huge cheer from those gathered, Wisconsin’s Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin, the first out gay person ever to serve in the US Senate, who introduced the legislation and helped steer it to victory.The US president thanked Maine Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, who joined Baldwin in pushing the bill forward and garnering bipartisan support.Biden is celebrating the new law that protects not just same sex marriage but also interracial marriage, which have federal protections via the US Supreme Court but are not codified in US legislation.As the nation saw when the right-wing supermajority on the supreme court in June ditched the federal abortion legalization afforded by Roe v Wade in 1973, without congressional support in the form of legislation, rights can be taken away overnight by the court.Biden just quoted the great Edie Windsor’s words about gay marriage: “Don’t postpone joy.”“The road to this moment has been long,” Biden said. He tips his hat to those who “put their jobs on the line” to fight for the rights “I’m about to sign into law.”Goodbye, Edie Windsor. Thank you for never giving up | Steven W ThrasherRead moreKamala Harris is speaking at the White House ceremony, and she recalls Valentine’s Day, 2004, when she performed some of the US’s first same sex marriages, in San Francisco city hall, when she was the district attorney in that city.She quotes the late Harvey Milk in saying: “Rights are won by those who make their voices heard.”The vice president talks of marrying friends, the tears of joy, and also recalls the victory, ultimately, over the ban on marriage equality in California that had been passed in 2008, known as Proposition 8. More

African leaders gather in US as Joe Biden aims to reboot rocky relationsPresident and Antony Blinken woo nations at summit in Washington in hope they will align with west rather than Russia or China Dozens of African leaders have assembled in Washington for a summit aimed at rebooting US relations on the continent, which have languished in recent years.The US-Africa summit, the first since 2014, will be the biggest international gathering in Washington since the pandemic and the most substantial commitment by a US administration to boosting its influence in the region for almost a decade.The summit comes amid the sharpest great power rivalry for many decades, worsening security problems and acute economic problems in Africa.All three challenges are sometimes blamed on the US, which has been pushed on to the defensive in many areas by determined and often unconventional strategies adopted by strategic rivals such as Russia and China.In all, 49 leaders and heads of states have been invited to the summit, and the guest list underlines the difficulty faced by President Joe Biden and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in balancing values with pressing demands of power politics.Observers have noted tensions in US policy between a desire to win friends and also to reach out to populations suffering under repressive, exploitative regimes through promotion of diversity, tolerance, free speech and democracy.“It seems it’s now a numbers game and getting more countries to align with the west against Russia now and, in the longer term, China. The continent feels a lot more cold war-ish than at any time in my career,” said Alex Vines, director of the Africa programme at Chatham House.Four countries that were suspended from the African Union – Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Sudan – were not invited to the summit because coups in those nations led to unconstitutional changes in power. The White House also did not invite Eritrea.But Equatorial Guinea was invited despite the state department stating that it held “serious doubts” about last month’s election, in which President Teodoro Obiang’s ruling party won nearly 95% of the vote. So too was Zimbabwe, which has faced years of US and western sanctions over poor governance, human rights abuses and widespread corruption, and Ethiopia, some of whose commercial privileges were withdrawn in an attempt to force an end to a war in the Tigray region that led to “gross violations” of human rights.A peace deal was signed last month, with the significant involvement of US diplomats, but implementation faces major challenges.Many African leaders have come with their own agendas, such as seeking help with high debt repayments, the devastating legacy of the coronavirus, climate change, or military assistance. Most countries are suffering too from the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has pushed up inflation and disrupted food supplies.Geopolitical competition goes beyond that between China, Russia, the EU and the US to include middling powers such as Turkey, Japan, the Gulf states and the UK too, said Vines.On a tour of three countries in Africa earlier this year, Blinken appealed to “governments, communities and peoples” across Africa to embrace Washington’s vision of democracy, openness and economic partnership.The US diplomatic strategy appears in part to appeal directly to ordinary people in Africa, rather than their leaders, by promising support for democracy and accountability. Few rulers on the continent welcome Washington’s admonishments about their often poor human rights records or failures to implement political reform.“I do strongly believe that the United States is still seen as a superpower from the African perspective, but most African leaders do not want to align with its promotion of democracy,” said Abraham Kuol Nyuon, a political analyst and associate professor of political science at the University of Juba in South Sudan. “They need the support of America but not the system of America.”China has made little secret of its preference for strongman rulers, offering assistance without conditions. Sub-Saharan nations have also been major recipients of Chinese investment through its now flagging “belt and road initiative”, which supported infrastructure development.Cold war echoes as African leaders resist criticising Putin’s warRead moreThe Russian strategy has been more opportunistic, and has been focused on unstable countries with significant resources such as Sudan or those where once pro-western political leaders are now seeking new allies.On his tour, Blinken sought to counter Russian and Chinese accusations that the US is a “neo-imperialist power” by stressing that Washington wants to act in consultation with local leaders and communities, reinforcing existing African initiatives.“The United States prioritises our relationship with Africa for the sake of our mutual interests and our partnership in dealing with global challenges,” said Molly Phee, an assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “We are very conscious, again, of the cold war history, we’re conscious, again, of the deleterious impact of colonialism on Africa, and we studiously seek to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of those earlier eras.”A further aim is to make sure failures of Trump’s administration – marked by drift and a series of insulting gaffes – are forgotten.African leaders will be looking for Biden to make some big commitments during the summit, including announcing his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa. One crowdpleaser may be support for adding the African Union as a permanent member of the G20, according to the White House.The Senegalese president, Macky Sall, the current AU chair, has argued that by adding the African Union, the G20 “would come to represent the views of 54 additional members, the bulk of low-income countries, and about 80% of the world’s population”.He wrote in July: “The G20 compromises its effectiveness and influence by omitting such a large fraction of humanity and the world economy.”TopicsUS foreign policyBiden administrationJoe BidenUS politicsAntony BlinkenAfrican UnionAfricanewsReuse this content More