US Politics

As the lead prosecutor in Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, Adam Schiff, the representative from southern California, became a household name, an icon of the anti-Trump resistance, and a rising star in the Democratic party. A year on, the congressman looks increasingly well positioned to be appointed as California’s next attorney general. But in Schiff’s home district, criminal justice and immigrant rights advocates say that his record as state senator and congressman, authoring legislation to increase the criminalization and incarceration of Black and brown Californians, should disqualify him from holding the position.“There’s this real disconnect,” said Jody Armour, a University of Southern California law professor who studies the intersection of race and legal decision making. “The country knows Schiff as sort of an icon. Here in California, we know him as someone who was, in many ways, one of the chief architects of mass incarceration.”Schiff has reportedly been lobbying Governor Gavin Newsom for the attorney general spot that will open up if the US Senate confirms Xavier Becerra as the health and human services secretary later this week. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has given her blessings, and reportedly even a personal endorsement.Schiff, 60, began his career at a US district court in California, first as a law clerk and eventually as an assistant US attorney, rising to prominence for prosecuting the case against a former FBI agent convicted of spying for the Soviet Union.He was elected to the California state senate in 1996, and four years later moved to the US House of Representatives. There, he served as the chair of the powerful intelligence committee, becoming one of Pelosi’s closest confidants.As the lead impeachment manager pursuing Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, Schiff’s fiery speeches gained him lavish praise from liberals, begrudging recognition from conservatives and $41m in campaign funds last election cycle.Schiff’s star power, his powerful allies in the Democratic party and fundraising prowess have set him up as a top contender for attorney general.‘Tough on crime’ recordCalifornia voters elect their top prosecutor every four years, but Becerra will be leaving his seat with a year of his term left – leaving it to Newsom to find a replacement until the next election. From there, Schiff could be in a better position than he currently is to run for US Senate, or even governor in the future.In recent years, and especially under Donald Trump, the California attorney general has become a national figure. Becerra launched more than 100 lawsuits against the previous administration, successfully sueing to block policies that would strong-arm local law enforcement to cooperate with immigration authorities, insert a question about immigration status into the US census, or end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (Daca) program, which gives temporary protection to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children.Critics say Schiff’s appointment would run counter to the political progress on police reform and criminal justice made last year amid nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd. Armour, along with a number of academics, activists and advocates in California, have asked Newsom to appoint someone else. “One person alone is not responsible for California’s incarceration crisis. But Schiff stands out for his extreme punitiveness,” they wrote in a public letter.They pointed at Schiff’s legislative proposals and votes in the California senate in the late 1990s, which were in line with the “tough on crime” attitude of politicians in that era. Schiff authored several bills to toughen up the criminal justice system and immigration enforcement, including a proposal that would have expanded the three strikes law, one that would have allowed 14-year-olds to be tried as adults, and a bill to create juvenile “boot camps” for children who commit crimes while at school. On immigration, he authored a bill that would have made the hiring of an undocumented immigrant a crime punishable with jail time.Many of the most punitive criminal justice bills Schiff introduced never became law. They failed to get enough support in the legislature or were vetoed by both Republican and Democratic governors.More recently, as a US representative, Schiff sided with Republicans in 2017 to support the Thin Blue Line Act, which would have altered the federal criminal code to add the targeting or killing of a law enforcement officer to the list of offenses that could be sentenced with the federal death penalty. The law was criticized by civil rights organizations, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and it ran counter to policies espoused by Newsom, who issued an executive order to halt executions in California in 2019.The discrepancy between Schiff’s record and California’s priorities are noteworthy, at a moment when the state attorney general will serve as a key player in debates around police accountability, criminal justice reform and immigration. Under new California law, the state’s attorney general will take on the role of investigating all deadly police shootings of unarmed civilians. And the state is continuing to challenge Trump-era policies that restricted immigrant rights.In June, Schiff did disavow Jackie Lacey, the former Los Angeles district attorney who faced fierce backlash from the Black Lives Matter movement for her failure to prosecute police violence. “This is a rare time in our nation’s history. We have a responsibility to make profound changes to end systemic racism and reform criminal justice,” Schiff said.Schiff’s office did not respond to the Guardian’s request for response to the concerns detailed in advocates’ letter to the governor. The congressman has repeatedly brushed off questions about his attorney general ambitions in national news interviews.But Armour said he wished Schiff would explicitly reckon with his record, much like Biden and Kamala Harris – herself a former California attorney general – did in the lead-up to the 2020 elections. Newsom meanwhile has remained secretive about who his final pick will be. Other top contenders include Rob Bonta, an assembly member representing Oakland who has been endorsed by the Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, and Diane Becton, the Contra Costa county district attorney. More

Joe Biden has said that Andrew Cuomo should resign if the state attorney general’s investigation confirms the sexual harassment allegations against him.The president made the remarks in an interview with ABC News that is scheduled to air on Wednesday morning. When asked by the anchor George Stephanopoulos if the investigation confirms the claims of the women, should Cuomo resign, Biden said “yes”, adding, “I think he’d probably end up being prosecuted, too.”“It takes a lot of courage to come forward so the presumption is it should be taken seriously,” Biden said. “And it should be investigated, and that’s what’s under way now.”The New York governor is facing allegations that he sexually harassed or behaved inappropriately toward multiple women, including several former staffers. The former staffers have accused Cuomo of workplace harassment, including demeaning them with pet nicknames or making objectifying remarks about their appearance, subjecting them to unwanted kisses and touches or asking them about their sex lives.Cuomo also faces an allegation that he groped a female staff member under her shirt after summoning her to the governor’s mansion in Albany late last year. He has denied touching any women inappropriately.The three-term governor has rejected calls for his resignation from fellow Democrats, including New York’s two US senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and has asked New Yorkers to await the results of an investigation headed by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James.James last week named a former federal prosecutor, Joon Kim, and the employment discrimination attorney Anne Clark to lead the Cuomo investigation. They have full subpoena power and will document their findings in a public report.The sexual harassment investigation is in addition to scrutiny that Cuomo is facing from federal prosecutors who are looking into how his administration handled data on Covid-19 outbreaks at nursing homes. More

Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterJoe Biden stopped by a unionized, Black-owned flooring company in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday to highlight how the provisions of his $1.9tn coronavirus relief package will help lift small businesses hurt by the pandemic, part of a cross-country campaign to promote the first major legislative achievement of his presidency.During his visit to Smith Flooring Inc, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, Biden said the sweeping new law was a “big deal” and promised the owners: “More help is on the way – for real.”“We’re gonna be paying our employees,” James Smith, who co-owns the business with his wife, Kristin Smith, said of their plan for the relief checks. “We’ve been paying them. Since the first run of PPP, we decided we wanted to take that money and not lay anyone off. We put everybody in a group and said, ‘Look, we’re gonna do this for you as a team, we’re gonna get through this together.’”Biden’s visit to Smith Flooring, in a state he clawed back from Donald Trump in 2020, was his first stop on the White House’s “Help is Here” tour and comes a day after Biden announced that his administration was on track to mark two key milestones in the coming days: delivering 100m Covid vaccinations since his inauguration – far outpacing his initial promise to administer those doses in his first 100 days – and distributing 100m stimulus checks to Americans.The tour includes Biden, Kamala Harris and their spouses, Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff. Later this week, Biden and the vice-president will visit Georgia, another swing state that he narrowly won in 2020.During the visit, Biden explained how his plan would help small businesses like Smith Flooring, which saw its revenue fall by roughly 20% during the pandemic, according to the White House. The flooring company recently qualified for a federal Payment Protection Program (PPP) loan under an action taken by the president targeting businesses with 20 or fewer employees.Biden’s plan, one of the largest emergency aid packages ever enacted, will provide $1,400 direct payments to most Americans, send $350bn in aid to state, local and tribal governments, dramatically expand the child tax credit and spend tens of billions of dollars to accelerate Covid-19 vaccine distribution and testing.“Shots in arms and money in pockets,” Biden said in brief remarks on Tuesday. “That’s important. The American Rescue Plan is already doing what it was designed to do: make a difference in people’s everyday lives.“We’re just getting started.”Alawi Mohamed, the owner of a commercial strip in Chester, said the first loan given in last year’s coronavirus relief package had helped him stay afloat, but he was hoping Biden’s plan would give him a much-needed boost.“Everybody got affected by Covid-19. When they shut down everything, we got affected big time. Nobody was around and people were actually staying home,” he said. Now he said, he is “back to business, gradually, but everything came out good”.Also on Tuesday, Biden introduced Gene Sperling, a longtime Democratic policy aide, to oversee the implementation of the $1.9tn package.Democrats are increasingly confident that the stimulus package will boost their prospects in 2022, when they will attempt to keep their slim majorities in both chambers of Congress despite a long history of the president’s party losing seats during the congressional midterm elections.Every Democrat except one House member voted for the bill while Republicans unified against it.Republicans have attacked the plan as bloated, filled with liberal priorities that run far afield of the coronavirus response. But Democrats argue that the package will lift the nation from the dual crisis by rushing immediate aid to those hit hardest by the economic downturn and help ensure a more even recovery. They also say it will go further to tackle deep-seated economic inequalities, halving child poverty and expanding financial aid for families squeezed by job loss and school closures.Polling has consistently found that Americans favor Biden’s stimulus plan. According to a new CNN/SSRS poll released this week, 61% of Americans approve of the coronavirus relief package, while 37% oppose it.Haunted by their lashing in the 2010 midterms, Democrats now believe that they didn’t do enough to promote their sweeping stimulus package, shepherded by the new Obama administration and passed by Democratic majorities in response to the financial collapse.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has touted the package as among the most consequential bills of her decades-long career, putting it on par with the Affordable Care Act. In a letter to colleagues after the bill was signed, she urged members to hold tele-town halls and send informational literature to constituents to explain how the bill could benefit them and their families.“We want to avoid a situation where people are unaware of what they’re entitled to,” Harris said during her visit to a culinary academy in Las Vegas on Monday. “It’s not selling it – it literally is letting people know their rights. Think of it more as a public education campaign.” More

Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe Alaska Republican party has censured Senator Lisa Murkowski for voting to convict Donald Trump at his impeachment trial and now doesn’t want her to identify as a GOP candidate in next year’s election, a member of the party’s state central committee said on Tuesday.“The party does not want Lisa Murkowski to be a Republican candidate,” said Tuckerman Babcock, the immediate past chair of the state party.The vote to censure Murkowski was 53-17 at a Saturday meeting in Anchorage, he said. The decision has not been publicly announced by the party.“It went further than censure, which was strong,” Babcock said. “But it also directed the party officials to recruit an opponent in the election and to the extent legally permissible, prevent Lisa Murkowski from running as a Republican in any election,” he said.It’s a watershed moment for Republican politics in Alaska. Murkowski has been in the US Senate since 2002, when her father, Frank Murkowski, selected her to finish his unexpired Senate term after he was elected governor. A Murkowski has represented Alaska in the Senate since 1981.Hannah Ray, a Murkowski spokesperson, said the senator would not be available to talk to a reporter on Tuesday. However, when speaking to reporters last month in Juneau, Murkowski addressed a possible censure by the state party.“They can make that statement. But I will make the statement, again, that my obligation is to support the constitution that I have pledged to uphold, and I will do that, even if it means that I have to oppose the direction of my state party,” she said.A message left with Glenn Clary, the current Alaska Republican party chair, was not returned.The censure resolution also faulted Murkowski for supporting Deb Haaland as interior secretary, saying Haaland is an outspoken opponent of resource development on public land, which the party says is important for Alaska’s economy. Haaland was recently confirmed to the post. Alaska’s other senator, Republican Dan Sullivan, also voted to confirm Haaland.The resolution also cited Murkowski’s opposition to placing limits on abortion, voting against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, voicing opposition to the appointment of the supreme court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and her speaking critically of Trump and demanding his resignation after the riot at the Capitol.It also directed party leadership to recruit a candidate to run in the Alaska primary in 2022, when Murkowski is up for re-election. She has not indicated if she will seek another term.Alaska voters, through an initiative, did away with party primaries and instituted a ranked choice system for general elections, which will affect next year’s races. All candidates no matter their party affiliation will run in the primary, and the top four vote-getters will advance to the general election.The system is seen by many as an advantage for Murkowski, who has faced tough primaries, particularly in 2010, when she lost the Republican primary to the Tea Party favorite Joe Miller only to come back and win the general election as a write-in candidate.The new primary voting system left the state party wondering how to move forward, Babcock said.“The committee decided that they need to speak up early in order to encourage a candidate to come forward,” Babcock said.Babcock said he was not a member of party leadership and could not speak about how the party will recruit a candidate, but said he would wait to see who Trump might endorse in the race and see if that person is a viable candidate.Trump has said he would campaign against Murkowski in Alaska.Possible names that have been floated as candidates are Miller, Governor Mike Dunleavy and the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who was the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008. More

Russia tried to influence the 2020 US presidential election by proliferating “misleading or unsubstantiated allegations” largely against Joe Biden and through allies of Donald Trump, US intelligence officials said on Tuesday.The assessment was contained in a 15-page report published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It underscored allegations that Trump’s allies played into Moscow’s hands by amplifying claims against Biden by Ukrainian figures with links to Russia.In a statement, the Democratic House intelligence chair, Adam Schiff, said: “Through proxies, Russia ran a successful intelligence operation that penetrated [Trump’s] inner circle.“Individuals close to the former president were targeted by agents of Russian intelligence including Andriy Derkach and Konstantin Kilimnik, who laundered misinformation into our political system with the intent of denigrating now President Biden, damaging his candidacy.”Kilimnik has widely reported ties to Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016 who was jailed under the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller but pardoned by Trump shortly before the end of his term.Derkach worked closely with Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who has acted as Trump’s personal attorney, in attempts to uncover political dirt on Biden and his family which were at the heart of Trump’s first impeachment.Biden beat Trump by 306-232 in the electoral college and won the popular vote by more than 7m. The electoral college result was the same as that by which Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3m ballots. US intelligence agrees that election was subject to concerted Russian attempts to tip the scales for Trump. Russia – and Trump – oppose and deny such conclusions.The intelligence report issued on Monday said Russian hackers did not make persistent efforts to break into election infrastructure, unlike past elections.The report found attempts to sway voters against Trump, including a “multi-pronged covert influence campaign” by Iran intended to undercut support for the former president.But it also punctured a counter-narrative pushed by Trump’s allies that China interfered on Biden’s behalf, concluding that Beijing “did not deploy interference efforts”.“China sought stability in its relationship with the United States and did not view either election outcome as being advantageous enough for China to risk blowback if caught,” the report said.US officials said they also saw efforts by Cuba, Venezuela and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to influence the election, although “in general, we assess that they were smaller in scale than those conducted by Russia and Iran”.Schiff said: “No matter which nation seeks to influence our political system and who stands to benefit, both parties must speak with one voice and disavow all interference in our elections. We must guard against and seek to deter all attempts at foreign interference and ensure that American voters decide American elections.”Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said: “The intelligence community has gotten much better at detecting these efforts, and we have built better defences against election interference.“But the problem of foreign actors trying to influence the American electorate is not going away, and given the current partisan divides in this country may find fertile ground, in which to grow in the future.” More

The integrated review offers a nostalgic – at times, even anachronistic – response to the challenges of the 21st century. Its intent is laudable: acknowledging that attempting to defend the status quo is not enough, and seeking to carve out a path ahead. It recognises the multiple threats that the UK faces – from future pandemics to cyber-attacks – and the need for serious investment in science and technology. But overall, “global Britain” offers a hazy vision of a country that is looking east of Suez once more, wedded to the symbolic power of aircraft carriers, and contemplating a nuclear response to cyberthreats.The policy paper is in essence a response to three big shifts: the rise of China, the related but broader decline of the existing global order, and Brexit. Two of these confront democracies around the world. But the last is a self-inflicted wound, which the government appears determined to deepen. And the need to deal with the first two is not in itself a solution to the third, as this policy paper sometimes seems to imagine.The plan essentially recognises the move that is already taking place towards a warier, more critical approach to China, away from the woefully misjudged “golden era” spearheaded by George Osborne, and the fact that parameters will be set for us by the tougher approach of the US, in particular. It accepts that we must engage on issues such as climate change, and that we are not in a new cold war – we live in a globalised economy – albeit that there is likely to be more decoupling than many anticipated.But it does not try to explain how the UK can square the circle of courting investment while shielding itself from undue Chinese influence and expanding regional alliances. Australia is currently finding out what happens when Beijing is angered by a strategic shift.The tilt to the Indo-Pacific may – like Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” – fail to live up to its advertising. But it is true that Britain has paid insufficient attention to Asia, and is wise to pursue stronger ties with Five Eyes nations and other democracies in the region. These relationships will sometimes be problematic; India is the world’s largest democracy, but under Narendra Modi is looking ever less democratic. The pursuit of new partnerships could have been “in addition to” rather than “instead of”. Yet Britain is snubbing old, reliable, largely like-minded friends with clear common interests. The review is written almost as if the EU did not exist, preferring to mention individual member states. That seems especially childish when it also identifies Russia as an “active threat”. Nor is it likely – even if the UK joins the Trans-Pacific free-trade pact – that countries thousands of miles away can fully compensate for the collapse in trade with the EU that saw Britain record a £5.6bn slump in exports to the bloc in January. Geography matters.Behind the rhetoric of the review is a country that has failed to match its words and ambitions to its actions. Britain boasts of its soft power and talks of upholding the rule of law internationally – yet has declared itself happy to break international law when it considers it convenient. Though the paper promises to restore the commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid “when the fiscal situation allows”, slashing the budget is not only undermining the UK’s standing, but global security and stability too.Most strikingly, after 30 years of gradual disarmament since the end of the Soviet Union, and despite its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, Britain is raising the cap on its nuclear warheads – a decision met with dismay by the UN Elders and others, and bafflement by analysts. Mr Johnson has not deigned to explain why.The review has rightly asked difficult questions. While Joe Biden has brought the US back to multilateralism, his predecessor has shown that the longer-term parameters of US policy may not be as predictable as Britain once believed. Old certainties have gone. But the new challenges cannot be met by turning back to nukes and aircraft carriers. The government should have looked closer to home and been bolder in addressing the future. More

Joe Biden’s homeland security secretary said on Tuesday that even as the US processes a growing number of unaccompanied child migrants at the US-Mexico border, the country remains closed to most asylum seekers.“Now is not the time to come to the border,” Alejandro Mayorkas said.US border patrol officials encountered more than 15,000 children traveling without adults in January and February and officials have warned the numbers continue to grow in the first weeks of March. The arrivals threaten to overwhelm stretched federal agencies, putting children at risk, though Mayorkas told ABC News it was a challenge his department could handle.“What we are doing is addressing young children who come to the border to make claims under the humanitarian laws established years and years ago and we are building capacity to address the needs of children when they arrive,” Mayorkas said. “But we are also, and critically, sending an important message that now is not the time to come to the border.”Mayorkas said the border was not permanently closed to adults and families, but urged people to wait before approaching it.“Give us the time to rebuild the system that was entirely dismantled in the prior administration,” he said.The secretary also issued a lengthy statement, warning that the US was on pace to encounter more individuals at the border with Mexico than it had in the past 20 years.His projection did not reflect a record number of people crossing the border, however, because it only included people apprehended by US border patrol – not those who cross without getting caught. That group has shrunk dramatically since the early 2000s.“This is not new,” Mayorkas said. “We have experienced migration surges before – in 2019, 2014 and before then as well.”He also acknowledged several factors pushing people north, including poverty, violence, corruption and two damaging hurricanes which hit Honduras in November.The measured tone from the Biden administration is a marked departure from US policy under Donald Trump, when migrants were routinely vilified. Advocates have said this tone shift is an important step in itself but they are also watching closely to see if Biden administration acts reflect its promise of “a safe, legal and orderly immigration system”.A first test for the administration is how it processes children who make the dangerous journey to the US without adults.After encountering border patrol agents, unaccompanied children are supposed to be moved to US health department custody within 72 hours. The health department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement attempts to place children into homes with sponsors in the US, usually close relatives, while their cases are assessed.In recent weeks, thousands of unaccompanied children have been held in border patrol facilities beyond the three-day limit, prompting concerns for their health and welfare.Lawyers who spoke with more than a dozen children held at a border patrol facility in Texas last week told the Associated Press some said they had been there for more than a week. Some children reported being held in packed conditions, sleeping on the floor and not being able to shower for five days, the lawyers said.To cope with the increase, the Biden administration has opened temporary facilities to house children, deployed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and changed rules to move to children to the custody of a sponsor.Mayorkas said the administration was also attempting to rebuild the immigration system after the Trump administration shrank legal pathways to the US.“The system was gutted, facilities were closed and they cruelly expelled young children into the hands of traffickers,” Mayorkas said. “We have had to rebuild the entire system, including the policies and procedures required to administer the asylum laws that Congress passed long ago.”Trump’s immigration policy was shaped by adviser Stephen Miller, who has endorsed white supremacist views. On his watch, the Trump administration made more than 1,000 changes to US policy, according to the Immigration Policy Tracking Project.These changes included a March 2020 rule which effectively stopped asylum processing under coronavirus guidelines. As a result, more than 13,000 children traveling alone were expelled in the fiscal year to 30 September according to the American Civil Liberties Union.Overall, there were 197,000 expulsions in that time, a count including repeated crossings, or recidivism, which jumped from 7% in 2019 to 37% in 2020.Biden stopped using the rule, Title 42, to block unaccompanied children from seeking asylum. But it is still being used to expel adults and families. Advocates are critical of this decision, saying the public health justification is flimsy at best, but the administration has defended the Trump-era rule.At a White House briefing last week, the US southern border coordinator, Roberta Jacobson, spoke in Spanish and English.“La frontera está cerrada,” she said. “The border is closed.” More