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      Do You Know a Politically Motived Prosecution When You See One?

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      As the criminal indictments of Donald Trump continue to pile up like boxes in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom, the former president’s defenders have settled on a response: They don’t claim their man is innocent of the scores of federal and state charges against him — a tough case to make under the circumstances. Instead they accuse the Biden administration and Democratic prosecutors of politicizing law enforcement and cooking up an insurance policy to protect President Biden, who trails Mr. Trump in some polls about a very possible 2024 rematch.“So what do they do now?” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy asked last week, after Mr. Trump announced that he had received a second target letter from the special counsel Jack Smith, this time over his role in the Jan. 6 attack. “Weaponize government to go after their No. 1 opponent.”Gov. Ron DeSantis, one of the few plausible Republican nominees besides Mr. Trump, warned that the government is “criminalizing political differences.”It’s not only about Mr. Trump; griping about politicized law enforcement has become a cottage industry on the right these days. No sooner did Republicans take back the House of Representatives than they formed a Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which meets regularly to air grievances and grill witnesses about their supposed anti-conservative animus, including Christopher Wray, the (Trump-nominated) F.B.I. director.If you’re feeling bewildered by all the claims and counterclaims of politicization, you’re not alone. Take the F.B.I.’s probe of ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, which is still being hashed out in the halls of Congress seven years later: In February, Democratic lawmakers demanded an investigation of the investigators who investigated the investigators who were previously investigated for their investigation of a transnational plot to interfere in a presidential election. Got that?But even if the charge of politicized justice is levied by a bad-faith buffoon like Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the weaponization subcommittee, it is a profoundly important one. There is no simple way to separate politics completely from law enforcement. The Justice Department will always be led by a political appointee, and most state and local prosecutors are elected. If Americans are going to have faith in the fairness of their justice system, every effort must be taken to assure the public that political motives are not infecting prosecutors’ charging decisions. That means extremely clear rules for investigators and prosecutors and eternal vigilance for the rest of us.At the same time, politically powerful people must be held to the same rules as everyone else, even if they happen to be of a different party from those investigating them. So how to distinguish an investigation or prosecution based solely on the facts from one motivated improperly by politics?Sometimes the investigators make it easy by just coming out and admitting that it’s really political. Mr. McCarthy did that in 2015, when he bragged on Fox News that the House Benghazi hearings had knocked a seemingly “unbeatable” Hillary Clinton down in the polls. More recently, James Comer of Kentucky, who heads the House committee that is relentlessly investigating Hunter Biden, made a similar argument about the effect of the committee’s work on President Biden’s political fortunes. (Mr. Comer tried to walk back his comment a day later.)More often, though, it takes some work to determine whether an investigation or prosecution is on the level.The key thing to remember is that even if the subject is a politically powerful person or the outcome of a trial could have a political impact, that doesn’t necessarily mean the action itself is political. To assume otherwise is to “immunize all high-ranking powerful political people from ever being held accountable for the wrongful things they do,” said Kristy Parker, a lawyer with the advocacy group Protect Democracy. “And if you do that, you subvert the idea that this is a rule-of-law society where everybody is subject to equal justice, and at the same time you remove from the public the ability to impose any accountability for misconduct, which enables it to happen again.”In May, Protect Democracy published a very useful report, co-written by Ms. Parker, laying out several factors that help the public assess whether a prosecution is political.First, what is the case about? Is there straightforward evidence of criminal behavior by a politician? Have people who are not powerful politicians been prosecuted in the past for similar behavior?Second, what are top law-enforcement officials saying? Is the president respecting due process, or is he demanding investigations or prosecutions of specific people? Is he keeping his distance from the case, or is he publicly attacking prosecutors, judges and jurors? Is the attorney general staying quiet, or is he offering public opinions on the guilt of the accused?Third, is the Justice Department following its internal procedures and guidelines for walling off political interference? Most of these guidelines arose in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, during which President Richard Nixon ordered the department to go after his political enemies and later obstructed the investigation into his own behavior. Until recently, the guidelines were observed by presidents and attorneys general of both parties.Finally, how have other institutions responded? Did judges and juries follow proper procedure in the case, and did they agree that the defendant was guilty? Did an agency’s inspector general find any wrongdoing by investigators or prosecutors?None of these factors are decisive by themselves. An investigation might take a novel legal approach; an honest case may still lose in court. But considering them together makes it easier to identify when law enforcement has been weaponized for political ends.To see how it works in practice, let’s take a closer look at two recent examples: first, the federal investigations into Mr. Trump’s withholding of classified documents and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and, second, the investigation by John Durham into the F.B.I.’s Russia probe.In the first example, the Justice Department and the F.B.I., under Attorney General Merrick Garland, waited more than a year to pursue an investigation of Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack with any urgency — largely out of the fear that they would be seen as politically motivated.With a punctiliousness that has exasperated many liberals, Mr. Garland has kept his mouth shut about Mr. Smith’s prosecutions, except to say that the department would pursue anyone responsible for the Jan. 6 attack. Mr. Garland almost never mentions Mr. Trump by name. And Mr. Smith has been silent outside of the news conference he held last month to announce the charges in the documents case.In that case, Mr. Smith presented a tower of evidence that Mr. Trump violated multiple federal laws. There are also many examples of nonpowerful people — say, Reality Winner — who were prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to years in prison for leaking a single classified document. Mr. Trump kept dozens. Even a federal judge who was earlier accused of being too accommodating to Mr. Trump has effectively signaled the documents case is legitimate, setting a trial date for May and refusing the Trump team’s demand to delay it until after the 2024 election.In the Jan. 6 case, the government has already won convictions against hundreds of people for their roles in the Capitol attack, many involving some of the same laws identified in Mr. Smith’s latest target letter to Mr. Trump.“Prosecutors will hear all sorts of allegations that it’s all political, that it will damage the republic for all of history,” Ms. Parker, who previously worked as a federal prosecutor, told me. “But they have to charge through that if what they’ve got is a case that on the facts and law would be brought against anybody else.”President Biden’s behavior has been more of a mixed bag. He and his advisers are keen to advertise his disciplined silence about Mr. Trump’s legal travails. “I have never once — not one single time — suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do,” he said in June. Yet he has commented publicly and inappropriately on both investigations over the years.It’s impossible to justify these remarks, but it is possible to consider them in light of the other factors above and to decide that Mr. Smith’s investigations are not infected with a political motive.Contrast that with the investigation by John Durham, the federal prosecutor appointed by Mr. Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr in 2019 to investigate the origins of the F.B.I.’s Trump-Russia probe.Even before it began, the Durham investigation was suffused with clear political bias. Mr. Trump had repeatedly attacked the F.B.I. over its handling of the Russia probe and called for an investigation, breaching the traditional separation between the White House and the Justice Department. Mr. Barr had also spoken publicly in ways that seemed to prejudge the outcome of any investigation and inserted himself into an investigation focused on absolving Mr. Trump of wrongdoing.Not every investigation or prosecution will offer such clear-cut evidence of the presence or absence of political motivations. But as with everything relating to Mr. Trump, one generally doesn’t have to look far to find his pursuit of vengeance; he has taken to describing himself as the “retribution” of his followers. If he wins, he has promised to obliterate the Justice Department’s independence from the presidency and “go after” Mr. Biden and “the entire Biden crime family.”For the moment, at least, Mr. Trump is not the prosecutor but the prosecuted. And there should be no fear of pursuing the cases against him — especially those pertaining to his attempts to overturn his loss in 2020 — wherever they lead.“If we can’t bring those kinds of cases just because the person is politically powerful, how do we say we have a democracy?” asked Ms. Parker. “Because in that case we have people who are above the law, and they are so far above the law that they can destroy the central feature of democracy, which is elections, in which the people choose their leaders.”Source photograph by pepifoto, via Getty Images.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Congress to hold hearing over claims US government has UFO evidence

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      The extraordinary accusation that the US government is harboring alien space craft is set to be examined in a congressional public hearing in Washington on Wednesday, as a number of American elected officials appear more receptive than ever before to the idea that extraterrestrials are real.The House oversight committee will hear from David Grusch, a former intelligence official who claims the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles. Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, has also suggested the US has collected “dead pilots”.Grusch’s allegation that the federal government was hiding this evidence of extraterrestrials from Congress sparked a firestorm in June, prompting the Republican-led oversight committee to launch an immediate investigation.Since then the intrigue around what evidence the government has, or doesn’t have, around UFOs has only intensified.Last week Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee who is co-leading the UFO investigation, said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials. A bipartisan group of senators also waded into the discourse, when they proposed new legislation to collect and distribute documents on “unidentified anomalous phenomena”.Other witnesses at the hearing are David Fravor, a former navy commander who reported seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004, and Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who has claimed that he saw unidentified aerial phenomena – the term preferred to UFO by some experts – off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.It is Grusch, however, who will be the main draw.In June Grusch prompted headlines around the world when he alleged the US had operated a crash retrieval program which had recovered downed alien craft.He claimed in an interview with the Debrief that when he tried to investigate the program – as he had been charged to do in his role at the Department of Defense – he was prevented from doing so, and filed a whistleblower complaint.The oversight committee announced its investigation into Grusch’s claims a day later, and appears to have run into hurdles of its own.Last week Burchett said he and his co-investigator Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican congresswoman from Florida, had been “stonewalled” by federal officials when asking about UFOs, and prevented from accessing some “information to prove that they do exist”.“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” Burchett said.It is unclear whether new information will be revealed during Wednesday’s hearing, but it seems Burchett, during the course of his investigation, has found enough evidence to be convinced that extraterrestrials exist.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn an appearance on the Event Horizon podcast in early July, Burchett claimed alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, and claimed that the US has been hiding evidence of UFOs since 1947.Asked if had seen “compelling evidence” that the US was seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”, Burchett replied: “Oh, 100%. 100%. No question.”For all the excitement and inevitable media speculation, some have cautioned against reading too much into what we might hear.Grusch has not seen the alleged alien craft himself – he says his claims are based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials” – and skeptics have noted that accusations that the government is hiding information on UFOs are nothing new.“The story aligns with a lot of similar stories that have played out, going back to the 1980s and 1970s, that together allege that the US government has kept an incredible secret, the literal most extraordinary secret that mankind could have, for not just weeks or months, but years and decades, with no meaningful leak or documentary evidence to ever come forward,” Garrett Graff, a journalist and historian who is writing a book on the government’s hunt for UFOs, told the Guardian in June.“I think when you look at the government’s ability to keep secret other really important secrets, there’s a lot of reason to doubt the capability of the government to do that.” More

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      in US Politics

      UFO congressional hearing: what to know and how we got here

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      A House of Representatives committee is set to hold an eagerly-awaited hearing on UFOs on Wednesday, which is expected to see remarkable claims regarding extraterrestrial life repeated in the most high-profile setting yet.David Grusch, a whistleblower former intelligence official who in June claimed the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles, is among the witnesses slated to appear, and will repeat his allegations in front of a seemingly supportive line-up of congressmen and women.Both Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican representatives who are leading the oversight committee’s investigation into UFOs, appear receptive to Grusch’s claims. In early July, Burchett declared that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, and added that the US was “100%” seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”.How did we get here?In June, Grusch, a former intelligence official, shocked people in the US and beyond when he claimed the US government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, alleged in a series of interviews that the government and defense contractors had been recovering fragments of non-human craft, and in some cases entire craft, for decades.Some of those craft were “very large, like a football field kind of size”, Grusch told NewsNation. He added that there had been “malevolent events” connected to UFOs.Grusch has not seen the alien craft himself, but said in an interview with the Debrief that his claims are based on “extensive interviews with high-level intelligence officials”.Wednesday’s hearing was sparked by Grusch’s allegations that information on these alien vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress. Grusch said the government had a crash retrieval program which had collected downed UFO craft, and that his investigation into that program was stymied.That prompted the House oversight committee to order an investigation and hearing into what the government knows, or doesn’t know, about UFOs.Which witnesses will appear at the hearing?The star turn will be Grusch himself, and he will be joined by David Fravor, a former navy commander who reported seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004.Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who in 2021 told the 60 Minutes news show he had seen unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”, will also appear.Has there been a smooth path to this hearing?Not really. In fact, Burchett gave a furious press briefing on Thursday, when he alleged that the investigation into Grusch’s claims had been “stonewalled” by federal officials.“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” Burchett said. “We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the cover-up.”After Grusch initially aired his claims, the US defense department told NewsNation it has “not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently”.Will we get proof of UFOs?It seems unlikely, but the hearing is likely to raise questions. We can expect to hear Grusch give a detailed version of his allegations regarding what the government knows about UFOs, and potentially more claims of evidence of aliens.We might hear new information, too. Since the oversight committee began its investigation Burchett, without naming his sources, has not been shy in claiming that the US has proof of extraterrestrials.On the Event Horizon podcast, Burchett was asked if had seen “compelling evidence” that the US was seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”.“Oh, 100%. 100%. No question,” he said.Burchett has also said the US has evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and speculated that the extraterrestrial craft could be dangerous.“If they’re out there, they’re out there, and if they have this kind of technology, then they could turn us into a charcoal briquette,” Burchett said. More

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      Republicans target abortion pill access as government shutdown threat looms

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      A Republican-backed spending bill threatens to end national access to mail-order abortion pills and cut billions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) that provides low-income families with food benefits.The legislation is part of a spate of appropriations bills that lawmakers will debate this month, and which Congress must reach a decision on by the end of September in order to pass a budget for the 2024 fiscal year and avoid a federal shutdown. It was already approved by a House appropriations subcommittee in May, while being condemned by Democrats and causing internal rifts among Republicans. Republicans have added several provisions to the bill that would have wide-ranging effects on reproductive rights, health policy and benefits.The food and agriculture spending bill is the latest front in the rightwing campaign against reproductive rights. In the year since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, Republicans have passed bills in more than a dozen states that ban or severely restrict abortion access. Ending access to mail-order pills that induce abortions would complicate and limit efforts from abortion rights groups and physicians to provide care for people in states with abortion bans.Specifically, the bill would reverse a 2021 Food and Drug Administration policy that allowed people to get the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone – which can be used up to 10 weeks after conception – through the mail rather than via in-person visits to providers. The FDA had temporarily lifted restrictions on the drug during the Covid-19 pandemic, before later making those changes permanent. But the drug, which is widely used for abortion and can also be used for managing miscarriages, has been the center of legal challenges and rightwing attempts to prevent its use ever since.House Republicans’ messaging on the bill claims that their provision “reins in wasteful Washington spending” and “protects the lives of unborn children”. The bill would also decrease the Snap benefit program – formerly known as food stamps – by $32bn compared with 2023 levels, as well as prevent the health and human services department from putting limits on the maximum amount of nicotine in cigarettes.The approaching fight over spending bills has echoes of the standoff over debt ceiling negotiations earlier this year, when Democrats accused Republicans of holding the government hostage in an attempt to exact sweeping cuts to federal programs. Hardline Republicans similarly pushed to shift their party towards far-right policies during those negotiations as well.Democrats are eager to prevent a government shutdown such as the one in 2018 during the Trump administration that left about 800,000 government workers without pay and lasted longer than any previous closure in US history. But some have called for establishing red lines around what compromises they are willing to make, with a number of House Democrats such as the Massachusetts representative Jim McGovern pushing back against attempts to cut Snap funding and other conservative provisions in recent legislation. House Democrats previously tried to add two amendments to the food and agriculture spending bill that would have eliminated the anti-abortion provision, but both failed.Several Republicans have also spoken out against the food and agriculture bill, including the New York representative Marc Molinaro, who told Politico he will vote against the legislation if it comes to the floor. Molinaro, along with another New York Republican lawmaker, previously denounced a conservative Texas judge’s ruling that threatened to remove FDA approval of mifepristone.Molinaro’s opposition to the bill highlights a rift within the Republican party over just how far to push an anti-abortion agenda that has proven nationally unpopular and contributed to electoral losses in many states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAbortion policy has divided the GOP as hard-right Republicans, as well as powerful Christian conservative activist groups, have demanded far-reaching bans on abortion access. Others, such as the South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace, have warned that Republicans need to “read the room” on abortion or face defeat in elections.The Republican speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, has meanwhile been left scrambling to manage the different factions of his party as votes on must-pass appropriations bills loom. In addition to limiting abortion access and benefits, far-right Republicans have sought to use spending bills to greatly reduce military aid to Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll from earlier this year saw that support for abortion access was at an all-time high, and included a finding that about one-third of Republicans also broadly back the right to abortion access. More

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      Filthy Rich Politicians: journalist Matt K Lewis on Trump, ethics and money in Washington

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      When Covid-19 materialized as a serious threat, Richard Burr took action. As chair of the Senate intelligence committee, the North Carolina Republican had access to information on the pandemic that was unavailable to the American public. He unloaded hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stocks, including investments in the hospitality industry that was likely to be hard-hit. Burr also contacted his brother-in-law, who made his own stock dump. After the trades were publicized, Burr resigned as chair of the intelligence panel. But he was not charged with a crime.For the reporter Matt K Lewis, the story is part of an ever-increasing problem: the outsized role of wealth in Washington. The Daily Beast journalist has written a book, Filthy Rich Politicians, that was published in the US this week. The extent of the problem is reflected by Lewis’s subtitle: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling Class Elites Cashing In on America.“Rich people get elected, and people, when elected, tend to get richer,” Lewis says. “Over time, it has gotten worse.”The narrative is bipartisan and includes progressives and populists from members of the Squad to election deniers.“I think it’s just an irony that I wrote the book Filthy Rich Politicians in a moment when all the politicians in America … one thing almost all have in common is trying to position themselves as being populist outsiders attacking elites,” Lewis says.He is concerned by politicians bolstering their finances during moments of crisis, as Burr did during Covid.“That, I think, is one of the most interesting and disturbing parts of the book. Everybody kind of knows politicians are rich and some of what they do is sketchy. This, I think, most Americans don’t fully appreciate.”Whether regarding Covid or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lewis says, “These are the moments when it really pays off to have inside information.” He points out that the list of members of Congress who made advantageous stock purchases ahead of the Ukraine war included Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, a Democrat, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a notorious hard-right Republican.The House of Representatives has become a flashpoint. In the lower chamber, where members are ostensibly closer to average Americans, incomes have climbed quite high. The average member of Congress is now 12 times wealthier than the typical US household.“In the last four decades, the gap has demonstrably widened between politicians and ‘We, the people,’” Lewis says.Causes range from insider trading to book deals to lobbying, family members and friends getting in on the action through paid positions as campaign or office staffers. Lewis cites numerous examples.The former Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, have netted millions from his stock deals, outperforming top investors including Warren Buffett while Nancy Pelosi fended off attempts at reform.In the annals of lobbying, there is Billy Tauzin, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana. On Capitol Hill, Tauzin helped then-president George W Bush pass a Medicare bill. His term done, Tauzin became a lobbyist for Big Pharma.Running for office is a perfect fit for high net-worth individuals. After all, it requires significant time off from work and enough campaign funds to draw in outside donations. It helps if you’re born into wealth, marry into it – or both.Lewis comes from a different background – though he notes that his wife, Erin DeLullo, is a political consultant who has worked with some of the Republicans he criticizes as self-proclaimed populists, despite their Ivy League degrees.Lewis’s father was a prison guard for three decades. The family never lacked for food on the table, but Lewis got a rude introduction to the wider world when he made his own foray into campaign politics. A $1,000 check was late to his bank account, giving him an impromptu lesson in how much it costs to be poor in Washington.Then, after becoming an opinion journalist at the Daily Caller, a conservative site, Lewis learned how rich people populate the DC landscape. One day, he was researching a tip that a prominent liberal family was polluting the environment with its penchant for boating. A family member contended otherwise, asking if Lewis knew anything about sailing or yachting. Lewis confessed he did not, asked his colleagues if they did, and saw a sea of hands.“For me, it really hit home that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, so to speak,” he recalls.Lewis planned his book as a survey of America’s 100 richest politicians. It evolved into a more substantive project, although the original idea is reflected by two lists in the appendix: the 25 wealthiest members of Congress and the 10 richest presidents.The Florida Republican senator Rick Scott – who before entering politics ran a company fined $1.7bn for Medicare fraud – leads the congressional list with more than $200m. Top of the presidential list is Donald Trump, whose net worth topped out at $3.1bn.“Putting money aside, [Trump] changed the game in many ways,” Lewis says. “It’s never going to be the same, and not primarily because of his wealth – he’s such a different type of human being and president than we’ve ever seen.”Ironically, Trump’s populist denunciations of corruption and the DC “swamp” resonated strongly with voters.Citing a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, Lewis says: “Three-quarters of Americans believed politicians were primarily selfish and interested in feathering their own nest. I don’t think it’s any surprise that one year later, Donald Trump was elected. He talked about how the game was rigged, he talked about elites and the establishment and the need to drain the swamp.”The Biden family has also been doing quite well for itself financially – not just the president’s scandal-embroiled son, Hunter, but Hunter’s uncles Frank and James.“There are a lot of ways politicians and their families can become enriched, sort of trading off the family relationship, name and access,” Lewis says.He mentions a story in the Atlantic about Joe Biden’s 1988 run for president: the campaign took in over $11m, with around 20% of that amount going either to the candidate’s family or to companies they worked for.“You have an example of other people’s money – in this case, campaign donors – being transferred to the family of Joe Biden,” Lewis says. “Given my druthers, I would make this illegal.”He offers more suggestions for limiting the influence of wealth in politics, including a counterintuitive proposal: raise congressional salaries.“I firmly believe in it,” Lewis says. “This will happen after we ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks, after we impose a 10-year moratorium on the revolving door of lobbying, after we ban the ability to make millions from a book deal while you’re serving the country, after we ban the hiring of family for congressional offices and campaigns.“It’s not cheap to live in Washington DC. Once we have curtailed the ability to get rich from nefarious or certainly questionable means, I would compensate them even more so they could focus on the actual job.”
      Filthy Rich Politicians is published in the US by Center Street More

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      in US Politics

      ‘We’re done with the cover-up’: UFO claims to get their day in Congress

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      For decades, US politicians have been reluctant to get involved in the topic of UFOs and aliens.After a series of disclosures in recent months, however, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be lining up to inquire into the question of extraterrestrial life, as the world seems closer than ever to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.Next week, the House oversight committee will hold its first public hearing as part of its investigation into UFOs, weeks after a whistleblower former intelligence official went public with claims that the government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.David Grusch’s allegations about the government harboring alien craft – he has since suggested that the US has also encountered “malevolent” alien pilots – sparked the 26 July hearing, and beyond that, appear to have lit a fire under the Washington establishment.The Republican party has led the initial charge, with a series of claims about extraterrestrial life that, until recently, would have been seen as career-ending.Tim Burchett, the Republican congressman from Tennessee who is co-leading the UFO investigation, declared in early July that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, while a Republican colleague suggested that extraterrestrial interlopers could actually be representatives of an ancient civilization.In a briefing on Thursday, Burchett said he and his co-investigator Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member from Florida, had been “stonewalled” by federal officials when asking about UFOs, and prevented from accessing some “information to prove that they do exist”.“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” he said.Burchett said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials.He added: “We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the cover-up.”In recent days the government itself has joined the UFO discourse. A White House official claimed that aerial phenomena “have already had an impact on our training ranges”, while a bipartisan group of senators have proposed new legislation to collect and distribute documents on “unidentified anomalous phenomena”.The legitimization of UFO discussion has been propelled in part by claims from US military pilots of UFO encounters, along with leaked military videos showing inexplicable happenings in the sky.Following those revelations, in 2021 the Pentagon released a report on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), the term some experts prefer, which found more than 140 instances of UAP encounters that could not be explained. Since then, politicians appear to have moved past some of the stigma around extraterrestrial life.“There’s a sort of critical mass building now,” said Nick Pope, who spent the early 1990s investigating UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD).“And I think even though it’s easy to portray some of the politicians as mavericks, the fact that Republicans and Democrats are lining up, are united in their stance on this … I think we have crossed a line.”Grusch will appear at the hearing on Wednesday, along with David Fravor, a former navy commander who reported seeing a strange object in the sky while on a training mission in 2004, and Ryan Graves, a retired navy pilot who in 2021 told the 60 Minutes news show he had seen unidentified aerial phenomena off the Atlantic coast “every day for at least a couple years”.As Burchett has investigated the accuracy of Grusch’s claims, he has begun to make some bold declarations of his own. On the Event Horizon podcast, Burchett was asked if had seen “compelling evidence” that the US was seeing things in the sky “that might not be of this earth”.“Oh, 100%. 100%. No question,” he said.Burchett went on to claim that the US has been hiding evidence of UFOs since 1947, and speculated that the extraterrestrial craft could be dangerous.“If they’re out there, they’re out there, and if they have this kind of technology, then they could turn us into a charcoal briquette,” Burchett said.“And if they can travel light years or at the speeds that we’ve seen, and physics as we know it, fly underwater, don’t show a heat trail, things like that, then we are vastly out of our league.”He is not alone.Days earlier, Mike Gallagher, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, hypothesized that UFO encounters “could actually be an ancient civilization that’s just been hiding here and is suddenly showing itself”.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who, along with Democrats including Kirsten Gillibrand, has maintained a longtime interest in UAPs, has weighed in, as has the Donald Trump disciple Josh Hawley, who claims the US has “downplayed” the number of UFO sightings “for a long, long time”.On Thursday, Luna, the co-lead of the oversight committee investigation, echoed Hawley’s statements, alleging that “the Pentagon and the Department of the Air Force” had been particularly uncooperative.“When I take at face value the numerous roadblocks that we’ve been presented with, it leads me to believe that they are indeed hiding information,” she said.“I look forward to bringing this topic to light, and finding out the truth of what is really out there.”It is doubtful that the hearing on Wednesday will prove conclusively whether or not aliens exist. It is also unlikely the public will find out whether aliens, with their charcoal-briquette capable weaponry, have visited Earth.But still, the desire of politicians, of both sides, to wade into UFO discourse suggests that a corner has been turned, and Pope suggested Republicans’ and Democrats’ willingness to investigate could mean they are beginning to believe.“I think these politicians are doing it because they either know, or more likely strongly suspect that some of this is true,” Pope said.“I don’t think you would go all in – and they are going all in on this – if they weren’t pretty darn sure of themselves. Because the egg on the face if this all turns out to be drones – it would be staggering.” More

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      in Elections

      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Insists He Is Not Antisemitic During House Hearing

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      At a hearing convened by House Republicans, the Democratic presidential candidate defended himself against charges of racism and antisemitism.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to Capitol Hill on Thursday and pointedly declared that he is neither an antisemite nor a racist, while giving a fiery defense of free speech and accusing the Biden administration and his political opponents of trying to silence him.Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who turned to anti-vaccine activism and has trafficked in conspiracy theories, was referring to the storm that erupted after The New York Post published a video in which he told a private audience that Covid-19 “attacks certain races disproportionately” and may have been “ethnically targeted” to do more harm to white and Black people than to Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.Mr. Kennedy appeared before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government — a panel created by Republicans to conduct a wide-ranging investigation of federal law enforcement and national security agencies. He said he had “never been anti-vax” and had taken all recommended vaccines except the coronavirus vaccine.Thursday’s hearing was devoted to allegations by Mr. Kennedy and Republicans that the Biden administration is trying to censor people with differing views. It was rooted in a lawsuit, filed last year by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and known as Missouri v. Biden, that accused the administration of colluding with social media companies to suppress free speech on Covid-19, elections and other matters.The subcommittee’s chairman, Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and an acolyte of former President Donald J. Trump, opened the hearing by citing an email that emerged in that case, in which a White House official asked Twitter to take down a tweet in which Mr. Kennedy suggested — without evidence — that the baseball legend Hank Aaron may have died from the coronavirus vaccine.The tweet, which was not taken down, said Mr. Aaron’s death was “part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly” following vaccination. There was no such wave of suspicious deaths. As Mr. Kennedy often does, he phrased his language carefully; he did not explicitly link the vaccine to the deaths, but rather said the deaths occurred “closely following administration of #COVID #vaccines.”Representative Jim Jordan opened the hearing by citing an email in which a White House official asked Twitter to take down a tweet by Mr. Kennedy.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThursday’s session had all the makings of a Washington spectacle. A long line had formed outside the hearing room in the Rayburn House Office Building by the time Mr. Kennedy arrived. Kennedy supporters stood outside the building holding a Kennedy 2024 banner.Despite the theater, the hearing raised thorny questions about free speech in a democratic society: Is misinformation protected by the First Amendment? When is it appropriate for the federal government to seek to tamp down the spread of falsehoods?Democrats accused Republicans of giving Mr. Kennedy a forum for bigotry and pseudoscience. “Free speech is not an absolute,” said Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, the top Democrat on the subcommittee. “The Supreme Court has stated that. And others’ free speech that is allowed — hateful, abusive rhetoric — does not need to be promoted in the halls of the People’s House.”Even by Mr. Kennedy’s standards for stoking controversy, his recent comments about Covid-19 were shocking. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida, who is Jewish, tried unsuccessfully on Thursday to force the panel into executive session; she insisted that Mr. Kennedy had violated House rules by making “despicable antisemitic and anti-Asian comments.” She also helped organize Democrats to sign a letter calling on Republican leaders to disinvite him from the hearing.Mr. Kennedy waved the letter about during his opening remarks. “I know many of the people who wrote this letter,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s a single person who signed this letter who believes I’m antisemitic.”Mr. Kennedy has been steeped in Democratic politics for his entire life, but his campaign has drawn supporters from the fringes of both political parties. He has made common cause with Republicans and Trump supporters who accuse the federal government of conspiring with social media companies to suppress conservative content.Thursday’s hearing was billed as a session to “examine the federal government’s role in censoring Americans, the Missouri v. Biden case and Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech.” One of the lawyers involved in that case, D. John Sauer, also testified, as did Emma-Jo Morris, a journalist at Breitbart News, and Maya Wiley, the president and chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.Mr. Kennedy showed a flash of the old Kennedy style, invoking his uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a Democrat and legislative giant who frequently worked across the aisle. He called for kindness and respect, recalling how his uncle brought Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican with whom he partnered on major legislation, to the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass.And Mr. Kennedy was joined by a former member of Congress: Dennis J. Kucinich, who served in the House as a Democrat from Ohio and is Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager.“We need to elevate the Constitution of the United States, which was written for hard times,” Mr. Kennedy declared at one point, “and that has to be the premier compass for all of our activities.”Amid the vitriol, members of both parties did come together around a lament from Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia.“I’ve been in this Congress 15 years, and I never thought we’d descend to this level of Orwellian dystopia,” Mr. Connolly said.Representatives Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, and Harriet M. Hageman, Republican of Wyoming, nodded their heads and smiled. “I agree with that,” they said in unison. More

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      January 6 grand jury to hear testimony from Trump aide – US politics live

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      From 2h agoA federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election will hear testimony from an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021, according to multiple reports.William Russell, a former White House aide who now works for Trump’s presidential campaign, is scheduled to testify before he grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith, both CNN and NBC reported.Russell, who has previously testified before the grand jury, served in the Trump White House as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of advance, before moving to Florida to work as an aid to Trump after he left office.Multiple former senior Trump White House officials have testified before the grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Among those who have testified are Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and former top Trump aide, Hope Hicks.In April, Mike Pence testified for seven hours behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors in the case remain uncertain.House speaker Kevin McCarthy has denied he privately promised former president Donald Trump that he would get legislation passed that would erase Trump’s two impeachments.According to a Politico report, Trump was outraged at McCarthy for withholding his endorsement of his presidential run in the 2024 election. In an interview last month, McCarthy expressed doubt that Trump was the “strongest” candidate to defeat Joe Biden and win back the White House next year.“He needs to endorse me – today!” Trump is said to have fumed to his staff on his way to a campaign event in New Hampshire. McCarthy called Trump to apologize after the interview, claiming he misspoke, sources told CNN at the time.In return for delaying that endorsement, according to Politico, McCarthy pledged that he would get the House to vote to expunge” both impeachments against the former president. The outlet said McCarthy had promised to do so before Congress leaves for an August recess. Recess begins in less than two weeks.In 2019, a Democrat-controlled House voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he asked Ukraine to investigate his presidential election rival, Joe Biden, and his son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations.The House impeached Trump for a second time in 2021 for his actions ahead of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters. The Senate acquitted him both times, thanks to the votes of Republicans. McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump both times.“There’s no deal,” McCarthy told a reporter in the Capitol on Thursday, Reuters reported.The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, accused Democrats of trying to “destroy” the supreme court and said the ethics bill “is an assault on the court itself”.Congress should stay out of the court’s business, Graham said.Opening the committee meeting, Senate judiciary chair Dick Durbin said the legislation would be a “crucial first step” in restoring confidence in the court.Graham vowed, in response, that “all of us are going to vote no”. From NBC’s Sahil Kapur:Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.Real estate transactionsClarence Thomas’s friend Harlan Crow, the Texas Republican billionaire mega-donor, bought three properties that the conservative justice and his family owned, including Thomas’s childhood home in Savannah, Georgia, where Thomas’s mother still lives. Crow made significant renovations, cleared blight and let Thomas’s mother live there rent-free. The cost was more than $100,000 but was not disclosed.Justice Neil Gorsuch sold a 40-acre property he co-owned in rural Colorado after he became a justice, Politico reported. Brian Duffy, the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, which has had more than 20 cases before the supreme court, bought the property in 2017. Gorsuch disclosed the sale and reportedly made between $250,000 and $500,000, but he left blank the buyer’s identity.School supportCrow paid thousands of dollars in private school tuition for two boarding schools that Thomas’s great-nephew attended, ProPublica reported. The transaction was not disclosed.An investigation by the Associated Press revealed how colleges and universities attract supreme court justices to campuses as a way to generate donations for institutions, raising ethical concerns around a court that, unlike other government agencies, does not have a formal code of conduct. The visits have resulted in all-expenses-paid teaching opportunities and book sales.Money to partnersThe Republican activist Leonard Leo paid Thomas’s wife, Ginni, $25,000 for polling services in January 2012, telling the Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway to make “no mention of Ginni”, the Washington Post reported. It’s unclear whether that is a direct ethical concern for Clarence Thomas but it may constitute a conflict of interest.Ginni, who also attended the January 6 attack at the Capitol, reportedly exchanged text messages with the then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, encouraging him to support then president Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims aimed at subverting the results of his 2020 electoral defeat. The Judicial Education Project, a law firm tied to Leo, filed a brief to the supreme court in the landmark case that eventually gutted the Voting Rights Act not long after the payment was made.Roberts’ wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, ran a legal recruiting firm that raised ethical concerns since she made millions of dollars in commissions from placing lawyers at firms, some of which appeared before the court. The New York Times obtained a letter from a former colleague of Roberts to the US justice department and Congress inquiring about the connection.Luxury tripsFor more than two decades, Thomas accepted millions of dollars’ worth of luxury trips on private planes and “superyachts”, and vacations from his friend Crow without reporting them on financial disclosure forms, ProPublica reported. Crow has said that he did not attempt to influence Thomas politically or legally nor did he discuss pending supreme court cases. Thomas said he was told he was not required to disclose the trips. Notably, a company linked to Crow was involved in at least one case before the US supreme court, Bloomberg reported. Thomas did not recuse himself from the case.Justice Samuel Alito reportedly took a private jet to an all-expenses-covered fishing trip to Alaska, paid for by the hedge fund billionaire and conservative mega-donor Paul Singer. NPR reports that Singer has been involved in 10 appeals to the supreme court. In an unprecedented move, Alito defended himself in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, declaring he did not have to recuse himself and followed what he “understood to be standard practice”.The Senate judiciary committee is expected to vote today on a bill that would require the supreme court to adopt a code of ethics.Senate Democrats have called for a measure to establish a code of conduct for the supreme court justices similar to those that other government agencies must follow.The bill, unlikely to pass in a divided Congress, would demand the court create a code within 180 days and establish rules on recusals related to potential conflicts of interest and disclosure of gifts and travel.The panel vote comes after months of scrutiny on the court over ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.Senate judiciary committee chair, Dick Durbin, said this week:
      Just about every week now, we learn something new and deeply troubling about the justices serving on the supreme court, the highest court in the land in the United States, and their conduct outside the courtroom.
      Let me tell you, if I or any member of the Senate failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway or if we used our government staff to help sell books we wrote, we’d be in big trouble.
      The bill would need at least nine GOP votes to pass, and Republicans appear united against it, arguing that the legislation would undermine the separation of powers and “destroy” the court.Twice impeached and now twice arrested and indicted. Donald Trump faces serious charges in New York and Florida over a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election and his alleged mishandling of classified documents.And more criminal charges could be on the way for Trump in Georgia and Washington DC. Here is where each case against Trump stands:Classified documents case in FloridaStatus: Trump pleaded not guilty; trial scheduled for AugustCharges: 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements and representations, among othersHush-money case in New YorkStatus: Trump pleaded not guilty; trial forthcomingCharges: 34 felony charges of falsifying business recordsJanuary 6 case in WashingtonStatus: Subpoenas issued by grand juryPotential charges against Trump: Obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government and incitement of an insurrection2020 election meddling case in GeorgiaStatus: Grand jury report finished; charging decisions expected this summerPotential charges against Trump: Election code violationsE Jean Carroll lawsuits in New YorkStatus: First lawsuit going to trial; second lawsuit on appealAllegations against Trump: Defamation and sexual abuseRead the full story here. Donald Trump has said he has until midnight tonight to testify before the federal grand jury deciding whether to indict him over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Targets of criminal investigations rarely speak to grand juries, as they are usually advised by their attorneys to not take up invitations to meet with the grand jury because any statements provided in that setting could be used to help build a case against them in the event that they’re charged.Trump has not exercised that right in the two other criminal cases in which he’s been charged, Politico’s Kyle Cheney writes. Recent witnesses who have appeared before the grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election were reportedly asked about the former president’s state of mind surrounding the January 6 insurrection.Federal prosecutors asked multiple former senior Trump White House officials to speak to Trump’s mindset in the days and weeks after losing the 2020 election, leading up to 6 January, according to a New York Times report. Witnesses including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were asked if he had privately acknowledged that he had lost the election, it said. Kushner is understood to have said that it was his impression that Trump truly believed the election was stolen.The line of questioning suggested prosecutors were trying to determine if Trump acted with corrupt intent as he sought to remain in power, the paper said.A federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election will hear testimony from an aide who was with the former president for much of the day on 6 January 2021, according to multiple reports.William Russell, a former White House aide who now works for Trump’s presidential campaign, is scheduled to testify before he grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith, both CNN and NBC reported.Russell, who has previously testified before the grand jury, served in the Trump White House as a special assistant to the president and deputy director of advance, before moving to Florida to work as an aid to Trump after he left office.Multiple former senior Trump White House officials have testified before the grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection. Among those who have testified are Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and former top Trump aide, Hope Hicks.In April, Mike Pence testified for seven hours behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors in the case remain uncertain.What the potential charges means for Trump is unclear.Prosecutors have been examining various instances of Trump pressuring officials like his former vice-president Mike Pence, but Trump’s efforts to obstruct the transfer of power could also be construed as conspiring to defraud voters more generally.The other two statutes, meanwhile, suggest a core part of the case against Trump is focused on the so-called fake electors scheme and the former president’s efforts to use the fake slates in a conspiracy to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021.The target letter did not cite any seditious conspiracy, incitement of insurrection or deprivation of rights under color of law – other areas for which legal experts have suggested Trump could have legal risk.Last year, the House select committee that investigated the Capitol attack concluded that Trump committed multiple crimes in an attempt to reverse his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding.The committee issued symbolic criminal referrals to the justice department, although at that point the justice department had since stepped up its criminal investigation with the addition of new prosecutors in spring 2022 before they were folded into the special counsel’s office.House investigators also concluded that there was evidence for prosecutors to charge Trump with conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of an official proceeding. They also issued referrals for incitement of insurrection, which was not listed in the target letter.Should prosecutors charge Trump in the federal January 6 investigation, the case could go to trial much more quickly than the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case – before the 2024 election – because pre-trial proceedings would not be delayed by rules governing national security materials.Federal prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, two people familiar with the matter said.The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.Prosecutors appear to have evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States based on the target letter, two statutes that the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol attack issued criminal referrals for last year.The target letter to Trump identified a previously unconsidered third charge, the sources said. That is section 241 of title 18 of the US code, which makes it unlawful to conspire to threaten or intimidate a person in the “free exercise” of any right or privilege under the “Constitution or laws of the United States”.The statute, enacted to protect the civil rights of Black voters targeted by white supremacy groups after the US civil war, is unusual because it is typically used by prosecutors in law enforcement misconduct and hate crime prosecutions, though its use has expanded in recent years.Donald Trump has until Thursday midnight to respond to special counsel Jack Smith and tell his office whether he will appear before a grand jury in the justice department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.A letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from Smith’s office on Sunday identified the former president as a “target” in the probe into the January 6 insurrection, Trump posted to his Truth Social website on Tuesday. He wrote:
      Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter … stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and an Indictment.
      People who receive target letters from federal authorities are usually advised by their attorneys to not take up invitations to meet with the grand jury because any statements provided in that setting could be used to help build a case against them in the event that they’re charged.Good morning, US politics blog readers. The former president, Donald Trump, has quietly added a criminal defense attorney to his legal team as he faces a potential indictment in the justice department’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection.Attorney John Lauro, who has also represented Trump attorneys Christina Bobb and Alina Habba, is joining Trump’s legal team alongside Todd Blanche, according to sources, CNN reported late on Wednesday.Lauro will be solely focused on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump’s efforts to remain in office following his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, including the deadly 6 January 2021 riot in which his supporters overran the Capitol building in Washington DC.Federal prosecutors have evidence to charge the former president with three crimes, including section 241 of the US legal code that makes it unlawful to conspire to violate civil rights, the Guardian reported last night, citing two people familiar with the matter.Trump faces being charged with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, two statutes that the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol attack issued criminal referrals for last year.The target letter also identified a previously unconsidered third charge, the sources said. That is section 241 of title 18 of the US code, which makes it unlawful to conspire to threaten or intimidate a person in the “free exercise” of any right or privilege under the “Constitution or laws of the United States”.The potential charges detailed in a target letter sent to Trump by prosecutors from Smith’s office, who also charged Trump with retaining classified documents last month, was the clearest signal of an imminent indictment.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      9am ET: Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.
      9am ET: The House will hold a hearing on online censorship. Democratic presidential hopeful, Robert F Kennedy, is expected to testify.
      10am ET: The Senate will meet to resume consideration of an EPA nomination and the NDAA.
      10.20am ET: Biden will leave for Joint Base Andrews, where he will fly to Philadelphia.
      10.45am ET: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold his weekly news conference.
      1pm ET: Biden will speak about “Bidenomics”. He will depart Philadelphia to return to the White House in the afternoon. More