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      Biden under scrutiny as second batch of classified documents reportedly found

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      Biden under scrutiny as second batch of classified documents reportedly foundAnother set of materials discovered at a separate location, as White House addresses first discovery at Biden’s institute Joe Biden was facing fresh scrutiny over his handling of government secrets on Wednesday after a second batch of classified materials was reportedly found at a location linked to him.The White House was already on the defensive after revelations that classified documents were discovered last November in an office used by Biden after he served as US vice-president. On Tuesday he said he was “surprised to learn” of their existence.Then came a report from the NBC News network, followed by other media outlets, that said the president’s aides had found another set of classified documents at a separate location. The classification level, number and precise location of the material was not immediately clear, NBC News added.In the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than BidenRead moreThe allegation handed fresh ammunition to Republicans seeking to draw a false equivalence with a justice department investigation into former president Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.Josh Hawley, a Republican senator for Missouri and ardent Trump defender, responded to the disclosure by tweeting: “Special counsel”.Biden maintained an office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a thinktank in Washington, after he left the vice-presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign. It was affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and continued to operate independently of the Biden administration.Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, has said “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered on 2 November 2022 in a locked closet at the centre as Biden’s personal lawyers were clearing out the offices. According to Sauber, the lawyers immediately alerted the White House counsel’s office, which notified the National Archives, which took custody of the documents the next day.But it remains unclear why the administration waited more than two months to acknowledge the discovery of the records and what exactly they contain. Trump weighed in on his social media site, demanding: “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?”At a press conference in Mexico on Tuesday, Biden said he takes classified documents “seriously” and his team acted appropriately by quickly turning the documents over. “They did what they should have done. They immediately called the Archives.”But a day later his spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, faced tough questioning from a White House press corps starved of scandal since the end of the Trump presidency. She declined to say how the documents came to be at the office or when Biden was informed of their existence or provide assurances that other materials would not come to light.“I know you all are going to have a lot of questions on this but at this time I’m not going to go beyond what the president said yesterday,” Jean-Pierre said. “I’m not going to go beyond what my colleagues from the White House counsel shared with many of you as well on Monday. I want to be prudent here and make sure that my colleagues really truly handle this issue.”Asked why it had taken so long for the existence of the document to be disclosed, she replied: “This is under review by the Department of Justice.”There was an unusually acrimonious exchange with Ed O’Keefe, senior White House correspondent of CBS News, who pointed out that Biden had started his tenure by acknowledging that he would make mistakes and be transparent about them. Jean-Pierre retorted: “We don’t need to have this kind of confrontation. Ask your question.”Attorney general Merrick Garland has reportedly asked US attorney for the northern district of Illinois John Lausch – one of the few US attorneys to be held over from Trump’s administration – to review the matter after the Archives referred the issue to the department.The situation contrasts sharply with that of Trump, who had around 300 documents with classification markings, including some that were recovered in an FBI search after his lawyers provided a sworn certification that all government records had been returned.In November Garland appointed Jack Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption cases, to lead investigations into Trump’s retention of classified documents, as well as key aspects of a separate investigation regarding the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.But such distinctions are likely to be lost for many voters, especially as Republicans and rightwing media capitalise on the apparent misstep and accuse the justice department of double standards. Reports of a second batch of documents are likely to add fuel to the fire.Congressman Jim Jordan, chair of the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee, said the American public deserved to know earlier about the revelation of Biden’s classified documents.“They knew about this a week before the election, maybe the American people should have known that,” he told reporters. “They certainly knew about the the raid on Mar-a-Lago 91 days before this election, but nice if on November 2, the country would have known that there were classified documents at the Biden Center.”Congressman Mike Turner of the House intelligence committee has requested that the US intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of the documents found at the Penn Center.The White House did not respond to a request for comment.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      House’s Republican majority gets to work with two abortion measures – as it happened

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      The first days of a new Congress are typically when the party in charge lays out its priority, and today, it’s the turn of abortion foes.The two measures the Republican-led House will consider don’t amount to the sort of draconian laws some abortion foes would like to see passed, and supporters of the procedure fear. They are not, for instance, the nationwide abortion ban Republican senator Lindsey Graham proposed last year.Rather, they target more niche aspects and consequences of the procedure. One is a resolution condemning attacks on churches, groups and facilities that work against abortion. The other is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is intended to protect the rights of babies born after surviving an attempted abortion. Abortion rights advocate argue their rights are already secured by a 2002 law, and just last November, voters in Montana rejected a similar measure that was on their ballots.Democrats are telling their members to vote against both measures.Republicans in the House are set to pass two measures concerning abortion later this afternoon, one a resolution condemning violence against opponents of the procedure, the other a bill meant to protect the life of babies who survive abortions. Democrats oppose both. Meanwhile, GOP officials in New York have called on George Santos to resign from Congress after he admitted to lying about his qualifications, but he says he’s not going anywhere.Here’s what else happened today:
      Domestic flights resumed across the United States after all departures were briefly halted this morning by a systems failure at the Federal Aviation Administration.
      The top Republican investigator in the House demanded documents from the Treasury related to Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family. He also wants testimony from three former Twitter executives involved in the platform’s temporary banning of the New York Post after it reported on the discovery of Biden’s laptop.
      Republicans tried their best to get voters riled up over gas cookstoves.
      Joe Biden’s aides found more classified documents at a location he once used, though further details are scarce.
      Virginia’s Republican governor is unlikely to be able to ban abortion after 15 weeks, after Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in a special election.
      Another batch of classified documents has turned up at a location used by Joe Biden that is separate from the Washington DC office where the first cache was discovered in November, NBC News reports.The president has faced scrutiny ever since reports emerged this week that approximately 10 papers bearing government classification markings and dating to his time as vice-president were found at an office once used by Biden. According to NBC, the latest cache was found by aides to the president, though details of the documents’ content and how many were found were not available. NBC reports the documents were discovered after the president ordered a search for any other classified documents that may have been taken from the White House when he departed in January 2017 at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.At 4 pm, the House is scheduled to vote on a GOP-proposed resolution and bill concerning abortion.But first, the Democrats will try to attach an amendment to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is meant to protect babies who survive the procedure. The proposed amendment would “prohibit government restrictions on abortion care,” according to Democratic whip Katherine Clark’s office. “This would include any limits to providers’ ability to prescribe certain drugs, offer abortion counseling services via telemedicine, or provide emergency abortion services when a delay would risk the health of the mother.” Republicans are certain to vote this proposal down.The chamber will then consider both the born-alive act and the resolution condemning violence against anti-abortion groups. Clark’s office is encouraging Democrats to vote against both, saying the resolution does not contain “any acknowledgment of violent attacks on providers or facilities that offer abortion care,” and the born alive bill “unnecessarily restates current law requiring a doctor to provide the same standard of medical care for an infant born during an abortion procedure as they would for any other infant.”Republicans have the numbers to pass both, but at this stage, the effort is more about signaling priorities to GOP voters than changing the law. When the born-alive act arrives in the Senate, it is unlikely to be considered by its Democratic leadership.The calls for George Santos to resign have spread from county level Republicans to the state party, Politico reports:INBOX: NY state GOP backs call for Rep. George Santos’ resignation pic.twitter.com/fIr0uSzDJX— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 11, 2023
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked at her daily briefing about the classified documents discovered at an office formerly used by Joe Biden, and she said… not much.The Guardian’s David Smith was in the White House briefing room to experience the illuminating exchange up close:Jean-Pierre on Biden’s classified documents: “He was surprised to find any records were there. He doesn’t know what’s in them… As he said, his team is cooperating fully with the review… We are committed to doing the right thing.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Jean-Pierre: “This is under review by the Department of Justice. I’m not going to go beyond what the president shared yesterday.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Reporters are wont to press, and press they did, at which point it grew a little heated:Ed O’Keefe of CBS News notes that Biden acknowledged that he would make mistakes and ask for help fixing them. Jean-Pierre replies: “We don’t need to have this kind of confrontation. Ask your question… You don’t need to be contentious here with me, Ed.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Asked if Biden is looking into whether there might be more classified documents elsewhere, Jean-Pierre replies: “I’m just not going to speak to this. I’m going to let the process continue.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Joe Biden has joined Donald Trump in the club of current or former American presidents who may be in trouble over classified documents. But as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, the two men are not facing identical peril:Donald Trump’s retention of documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort has aggravating factors that might support his criminal prosecution unlike the discovery of some documents also marked classified stored at Joe Biden’s former institute from his time as vice-president, legal experts said.The US justice department has clear criteria for prosecuting people who intentionally mishandle highly sensitive government documents, and the facts of the Trump documents case appear to satisfy more elements than in the Biden documents case.Broadly, the Department of Justice has typically pursued prosecutions when cases have involved a combination of four factors: wilful mishandling of classified information, vast quantities of classified information to support an inference of misconduct, disloyalty to the United States and obstruction.The criminal investigation into Trump touches on at least two of those elements – obstruction, where a person conceals documents with an intent to impede a government agency, and the volume of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago – unlike the Biden case, which appears to touch on none.In the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than BidenRead moreWhile they may have momentum in the US House, anti-abortion groups continue to lose ground at the state level, with a special election in Virginia bringing the latest setback for their movement.Last night, Democrat Aaron Rouse claimed victory in the race for a vacant seat in Virginia’s state Senate, which, if confirmed, would expand the party’s margins in the chamber. It would also mean Republican governor Glenn Youngkin would not have the votes he needs to pass a proposed ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which he unveiled last month.Abortion rights have faired well at ballot boxes ever since the supreme court last year overturned Roe v Wade. In the November midterms, voters rejected new limits on abortion or expanded access in every state where it was on the ballot.Earlier this morning in the Capitol, George Santos kept it to the point with a quick “I will not,” when asked if he would resign.He was a bit more loquacious on Twitter this afternoon: I was elected to serve the people of #NY03 not the party & politicians, I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living.I will NOT resign!— George Santos (@Santos4Congress) January 11, 2023
      Ahead of the introduction of two anti-abortion measures in the newly Republican-controlled House, one House Republican said her party was “tone deaf” on the issue.Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, told NBC on Tuesday: “We have been tone deaf on this issue since the time that Roe was overturned.”Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which protected abortion rights, was overturned by the ruling in Dobbs v Jackson which the conservative-dominated supreme court handed down last June.Extensive evidence, including Republicans’ disappointing performance in the midterm elections in November, suggests the ruling was drastically out of step with public support for abortion rights, which runs around 60%.“We buried our heads in the sand,” Mace said. “We didn’t have any policy alternatives. We were not compassionate to both sides of the aisle on this argument.”Mace also told NBC her party was “paying lip service to the pro-life movement” and said anti-abortion measures introduced in this Congress were “never going to pass the Senate. It’s never going to get to the president’s desk to be signed into law.“If you want to make a difference and reduce the number of abortions with a Democrat-controlled Senate, the No1 issue we should be working on is access to birth control.”Some pertinent lunchtime reading from our columnist Jill Filipovic, as House Republicans seek to advance their agenda in the chamber they newly control…The Republican party didn’t exactly start 2023 hot out of the gate.Despite a new House majority, the Republican members of Congress spent their first few days in office in an embarrassing protracted squabble over the speakership. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who has spent the last few years assisting members of the extremist conspiracy-mongering Trumpian Republican radicals in their rise to power, found himself predictably on the receiving end of the extremist conspiracy-mongers, who wanted one of their own in charge as well as a series of rule changes. After largely capitulating to his party’s lunatic fringe, McCarthy squeaked through on the 15th vote.Now, he holds the gavel, but it’s clear he doesn’t hold his party’s confidence, and that he’s not a leader in any meaningful sense of the word. If he can’t even get his troops lined up to vote for him, how is he going to get his clearly out-of-control party in line to support even tougher votes?Which raises the question of what the party can reasonably accomplish in the House this term.Read on…Expect the Republican House to be just like the speaker debacle: pure chaosRead moreSome good news for Joe Biden – according to polling by the Economist and YouGov, his approval rating is net positive, his best such rating since July 2021:Biden’s net job approval is now positive in @TheEconomist’s polling with @YouGovAmerica: https://t.co/IVjBfI5OAY- This includes a +2 reading (47% approve to 45% disapprove) in this week’s poll- 45% approve of his handling of the economy- Biden’s best numbers since July 2021 pic.twitter.com/5ASvKye83h— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) January 11, 2023
      More from the Economist and YouGov, under the title “Weekly Insight”:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Two years on from the mob attack at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, a new poll from the Economist and YouGov finds that most Americans still disapprove of the insurrectionists who stormed the building. The poll finds that 64% of adults disapprove of “the Trump supporters taking over the Capitol building” on January 6, including 52% who say they “strongly” disapprove. Meanwhile 20% of adults – mostly respondents who also said they voted for Mr Trump in 2020 – say they approve. By 45% to 37%, a plurality of adults believe Mr Trump urged his supporters to engage in violence that day.So that’s reassuring. Ish.Republicans in the House are set to pass two measures concerning abortion this afternoon, one a resolution condemning violence against opponents of the procedure, the other a bill meant to protect the life of babies who survive abortions. Democrats oppose both. Meanwhile, GOP officials in New York have called on George Santos to resign from Congress after he admitted to lying about his qualifications, but he says he’s not going anywhere.Here’s what else has happened today thus far:
      Domestic flights are resuming across the United States after all departures were briefly halted this morning by a systems failure at the Federal Aviation Administration.
      The top Republican investigator in the House is demanding documents from the Treasury related to Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family. He also wants testimony from three former Twitter executives involved in the platform’s temporary banning of the New York Post after it reported on the discovery of Biden’s laptop.
      Republicans are trying their best to get voters riled up over gas cookstoves.
      Here’s newly elected congressman Anthony D’Esposito becoming the first Republican lawmaker to call for George Santos’s resignation:Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) becomes the first GOP member of Congress to call on Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to resign from the House. pic.twitter.com/VArdpuwLor— The Recount (@therecount) January 11, 2023
      Like Santos, D’Esposito is a Republican who represents a Democratic-leaning suburban New York City district.Here’s Joseph Cairo, chair of the Republican party in New York’s Nassau county, calling for George Santos’ resignation:Nassau County Republican Chair Joseph Cairo calls for Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) “immediate” resignation:“He’s not welcome here at Republican headquarters … He’s disgraced the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our Congress people.” pic.twitter.com/fgK4t1lzC0— The Recount (@therecount) January 11, 2023
      Santos’s congressional district includes part of the county in suburban New York City, and his victory in last November’s midterm election flipped it from Democratic to Republican representation.ABC News caught up with Santos at the Capitol, who said he has no plans to step down:🚨Rep. George Santos tells @rachelvscott and me he will NOT resign pic.twitter.com/vBMvotq3Y0— Lalee Ibssa (@LaleeIbssa) January 11, 2023
      There’s no shortage of business on the House’s agenda, but several Republicans are doing all they can to make the gas cookstove kerfuffle last.Consider this, from Missouri’s Mark Alford: pic.twitter.com/ePzSGT9woQ— Mark Alford 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@markalfordkc) January 11, 2023
      Texas’s Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, is promoting a website…:If gas stoves were really a health hazard, would “doctor” Jill Biden be using one?? I think not.https://t.co/2DQMkP2ZIy pic.twitter.com/QSH3A72Ifj— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) January 11, 2023
      … and employing the all-caps approach:187 MILLION Americans have gas stoves in their homes, and it will cost a FORTUNE to replace them. There’s no “science” behind this. It’s just another excuse Biden is trying to use to put MORE GOVERNMENT in your lives. HANDS OFF OUR STOVES!!https://t.co/2DQMkP2ZIy pic.twitter.com/xPxM5KwbKa— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) January 11, 2023 More

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      I survived Guantánamo. Why is it still open 21 years later? | Mansoor Adayfi

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      I survived Guantánamo. Why is it still open 21 years later?Mansoor AdayfiA generation was born and came of age since the prison opened. Four US presidents have served. Yet 35 men remain there The US prison at Guantánamo Bay opened 21 years ago this Wednesday. For 21 years, the extrajudicial detention facility has held a total of 779 men between eight known camps. In two decades, Guantánamo grew from a small, makeshift camp of chainlink cages into a maximum-security facility of cement bunker-like structures that costs close to $540m a year to operate.Twenty-one years is a long time – a generation was born and came of age in that time. Four American presidents have served. The World Trade Center was rebuilt.During that time, the US military, the CIA and other intelligence agencies experimented with torture and other human rights violations. Soldiers and even leaders committed war crimes. The US Congress researched, wrote and released a report documenting torture, abuse and inhumane treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo and at black sites around the world, while also making it impossible to close Guantánamo.Of those 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo, we know that nine died there; 706 have been released or transferred out; 20 have been recommended for transfer but remain there; 12 have been charged with crimes; two have been convicted; and three will be held in indefinite law-of-war detention until someone demands their release.I was 19 when I was sent to Guantánamo, I arrived on 9 February 2002, blindfolded, hooded, shackled, beaten. When soldiers removed my hood, all I saw were cages filled with orange figures. I had been tortured. I was lost and afraid and confused. I didn’t know where I was or why I had been taken there. I didn’t know how long I would be imprisoned or what would happen to me. No one knew where I was. I was given a number and became suspended between life and death.I didn’t know a lot about America. I knew it was supposed to be a land of laws and opportunity. Everyone wanted to live there. We all believed our detention would be short. We hadn’t done anything. They couldn’t keep us long without someone caring. I never could have imagined that I would spend eight years in solitary confinement, that I would be held for 15 years and released without ever being charged with a crime.I turned 40 recently, and even though I am a grown man I still feel like the 19-year-old who first arrived at Guantánamo. In one sense, I came of age there – learning how to protest my detention, how to use my body to hunger strike, how to resist. I think about my time there a lot. While my childhood friends went to university, married, got jobs and began their lives, I fought prison guards who harassed me while I tried to pray.In Guantánamo’s early days, when it was just an undeveloped prison, a baby really, we all had questions: when would we be released? Why were interrogations getting worse? Why didn’t anyone believe what we told them? But we weren’t the only ones with questions. Young guards wanted to know what they were doing there, who we were, and why some leaders said we were the “worst of the worst” terrorists while other leaders called us nobodies or dirt farmers.I think Guantánamo itself had the same questions. I think Guantánamo wanted to know what kind of place it would become, how long it would be used, if it would be useful.We all waited for those answers, year after year, as we grew older. I grew a beard and my hair turned gray. Guantánamo rusted, peeled, decayed; Camp X-Ray, the first camp, became overgrown with weeds and grass. Guards rotated out and so did camp leaders. Guards who were kind to us were often demoted or punished or left Guantánamo confused about the conflict between their official duty and what they knew was right and wrong. General Miller, the architect of what the US calls “enhanced interrogation” and everyone else calls torture, went to Iraq and Abu Ghraib. Some prisoners were released. Some – like Yassir (21 years old), Ali (26), and Mani (30) – died violently and mysteriously in custody.The years passed like chapters in a book, and with each new chapter we thought our questions would be answered or at least that the chapters would change. There were new beginnings and new phases, but the story remained the same: interrogations continued. So did our inhumane treatment and religious harassment.Each chapter grew darker as we lost touch with the stories of our lives before Guantánamo. When we were taken to Guantánamo, we were fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands; we had families, dreams, and lives in the outside world. But at Guantánamo we were just numbers, animals in cages, totally cut off from the world we knew; we were caught in an endless loop of interrogations trying to get us to admit that we were al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters. We lived Guantánamo’s lawlessness and abuses, we watched Guantánamo grow and evolve, while our story remained stuck.We became Guantánamo and so did our stories. We resisted and protested our arbitrary and indefinite detention, we fought and went on hunger strikes to make the world hear us, see our suffering, and know our humanity. We also had moments of happiness, creativity, and brotherhood. We sang, danced, joked and laughed. We created art. We became brothers and friends, even with some of the guards and camp staff who treated us like we were human. We gradually lost touch with our old selves until Guantánamo became our life, our world, our only story.As Guantánamo grew older, stronger, and more permanent, we grew older, too, but weaker, more fragile, still bound within its cages. We heard that some people around the world protested our imprisonment and our torture and campaigned to close Guantánamo. That gave us hope and made us feel that we had not been forgotten. But others, like politicians outside of Guantánamo, learned to use the prison to create their own false stories – stories that feasted on us to create fear. They kept Guantánamo open.Toward the end of my time, Guantánamo had grown, in some respects, more mature and more open. We had changed too; we had reconnected with the outside world. We tried to reclaim those parts of ourselves that had been taken away and lost. I took classes and created art. I learned English and wrote stories about Guantánamo. After 15 years, I worried that I wouldn’t survive in the world once I left. I had grown up there and become a man. Guantánamo is what I knew. It’s where my friends were.I thought that by leaving, I would finally be able to write new chapters, ones that changed and had a good ending. I would end the story the way I wanted to: Guantánamo would become just a memory; I would move on, go to school, get married, start my life. But the prison didn’t want to let go. It surprised me with a new story.Like me, hundreds of men have been released from Guantánamo. Some went home to their countries and to their families. Many were sent to places they don’t know – Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Slovakia. I was sent to Serbia, where I didn’t have friends or family and didn’t speak the language. We have tried to create our own stories in these new places, ones without Guantánamo. But Guantánamo won’t let us go. We live with the stigma of having been held there.Thirty-five men remain there. President Biden has quietly worked to wind down the prison camp, but without cooperation from the US Congress, Guantánamo will remain open.For years now, former prisoners, activists, lawyers and journalists have been working to write Guantánamo’s final chapter, one that ends with justice, accountability, reconciliation, and the closure of the prison. Let’s make that happen, so that in one year, we can write a new story about life after Guantánamo.
      Mansoor Adayfi is an artist, advocate, and former Guantánamo prisoner, released in 2016 after being detained without charge or trial for more than 15 years. He is the author of the memoir Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo
      TopicsGuantánamo BayOpinionUS politicsBiden administrationJoe BidencommentReuse this content More

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      In the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than Biden

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      AnalysisIn the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than BidenHugo Lowell in WashingtonThe former president’s retention of papers at Mar-a-Lago appears to satisfy more criteria for prosecution than the find at Biden’s institute Donald Trump’s retention of documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort has aggravating factors that might support his criminal prosecution unlike the discovery of some documents also marked classified stored at Joe Biden’s former institute from his time as vice-president, legal experts said.The US justice department has clear criteria for prosecuting people who intentionally mishandle highly sensitive government documents, and the facts of the Trump documents case appear to satisfy more elements than in the Biden documents case.Broadly, the Department of Justice has typically pursued prosecutions when cases have involved a combination of four factors: wilful mishandling of classified information, vast quantities of classified information to support an inference of misconduct, disloyalty to the United States and obstruction.The criminal investigation into Trump touches on at least two of those elements – obstruction, where a person conceals documents with an intent to impede a government agency, and the volume of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago – unlike the Biden case, which appears to touch on none.The obstruction applies particularly to Trump because of his repeated refusal to fully surrender classified documents, including when he only partially complied with a grand jury subpoena issued in May demanding any classified materials, that led to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last August.And Trump for months also resisted conducting a search for any classified documents that the justice department suspected were still in his possession even after the FBI seized hundreds of classified materials, only for that second search to turn up at least two more classified documents.By contrast, the classified documents found last year at the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy in Washington, where he was an honorary professor until 2019, were returned to the National Archives as soon as they were discovered when the office was being closed down.The Trump documents case also significantly differs from the Biden documents case over the sheer quantity and scattered nature of classified materials that were potentially exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct, the legal experts noted.Trump had kept hundreds of classified documents across his office and a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, as well as a separate storage unit in Palm Beach, Florida, compared with 10 classified documents found at the UPenn Biden Center in downtown Washington.Taken together, the aggravating factors of Trump’s partial compliance with the grand jury subpoena – that led the justice department to believe Trump was actively concealing documents – and the number of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago make his case more perilous, the legal experts said.“These cases typically are charged criminally only when an aggravating factor is present,” former US attorney Barb McQuade said of classified documents investigations. “The key difference with Trump is that two of the four are well met, and that is willful violation and obstruction of justice.“The two factors that are present for Trump do not appear to be present in the Biden case, and so for that reason, I would say that these cases are very different,” McQuade said, adding that if she was the US attorney reviewing the Biden case, she would decline to prosecute the current president.The two cases do share a notable similarity: both the Trump classified documents and the Biden classified documents were found commingled with other, non-classified materials, which can be an indicator of when a defendant would have been aware of their presence.For Trump, the commingled non-classified materials were dated after the end of his presidency, suggesting he had access to the classified documents when he was no longer authorized. For Biden, the commingled materials were dated no more recently than 2016, when he was still the vice-president.TopicsDonald TrumpJoe BidenMar-a-LagoUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      Democratic chair of Senate intelligence panel seeks briefing on Biden documents – as it happened

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      Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, has requested a briefing on the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s former office, as well as the government secrets the FBI discovered last year at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.“Our system of classification exists in order to protect our most important national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened both at Mar-a-Lago and at the Biden office as part of our constitutional oversight obligations,” Warner said in a statement. “From what we know so far, the latter is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is certainly different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the government. But again, that’s why we need to be briefed.”House Republicans geared up to launch investigations and tried to make the most of reports that classified documents dating to his time as vice-president were found in an office used by Joe Biden. But unlike with the government secrets the FBI found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, it didn’t take a search warrant for Biden to turn over the material – he had it done so immediately, which Democrats are citing to defend the president.Here’s what else went on today:
      The Democratic Senate intelligence chair requested a briefing on both Biden’s classified documents, and the government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.
      House Democrat Katie Porter announced a run for the California Senate seat up for election in 2024, but its current occupant, Dianne Feinstein, gave no indication she’d be stepping down. Meanwhile, Porter’s recently defeated Republican opponent announced plans to run for her seat again.
      The House GOP made clear it wants spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, which will be necessary later this year.
      George Santos may be an admitted fabulist, but a top House Republican had little to say about whether the party would discipline him for his lies. Also today, two Democrats hand-delivered an ethics complaint to his office.
      A Texas House Republican filed impeachment articles against homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It remains to be seen if the chamber’s leadership will go through with trying to remove him over his handling of the southern border.
      Katie Porter only narrowly won re-election to her southern California House district last year, and after she today announced plans to run for Senate in 2024, her former opponent declared a new campaign to take her seat.Republican Scott Baugh, who lost with 48.4% of the vote to Democrat Porter’s 51.6% in the 2022 election, said he would run again next year:Voters are rightfully upset with the dysfunction in Washington and deserve better. I am ready to go to work to restore thoughtful, conservative representation to our part of Orange County. That’s why I’m running for #CA47 in 2024.— Scott Baugh (@ScottBaughCA47) January 10, 2023
      Porter represents California’s 47th district centered on Orange county, a former Republican stronghold that has become more liberal in recent elections. The Cook Political Report’s partisan voting index rates it D+3, indicating a slight tilt towards the Democrats.The Trump Organization’s former finance chief has been sentenced to five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes and cooperating with prosecutors in their successful case against Donald Trump’s business:After testimony that helped convict Donald Trump’s company of tax fraud, its longtime senior executive Allen Weisselberg has been given five months in jail for accepting $1.7m in job perks without paying tax.Weisselberg, 75, was promised that sentence in August when he agreed to plead guilty to 15 tax crimes and testify against the Trump Organization, where he has worked since the mid-1980s and, until his arrest, had served as chief financial officer.He was handcuffed and taken into custody moments after the sentence was announced.Weisselberg will likely be locked up at Rikers Island in New York and eligible for release after slightly more than three months.As part of the plea agreement, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan also ordered Weisselberg to pay nearly $2m in taxes, penalties and interest, which he has paid as of 3 January. The judge also sentenced Weisselberg to five years of probation after his release.Allen Weisselberg: ex-Trump finance chief given five months for tax fraudRead morePart of the reason last week’s speakership fight was so high-profile was because it was exceptionally well covered, and much of that was thanks to C-Span.The non-profit organization funded by cable companies is dedicated to broadcasting government affairs, including Congress’s activities. Usually, what it’s allowed to put onscreen is restricted, but as the Washington Post reported last week, it had special permission to roam across the chamber during the standoff for speaker, allowing the public to see the haggling, boredom and emotion that took place on the House floor as Kevin McCarthy lost vote after vote, until finally triumphing on the 15th ballot.Matt Gaetz, a conservative Republican who was one of the ringleaders of the group that delayed McCarthy’s election, was apparently a fan of C-Span’s work. CNN reports that he has filed an amendment to the House rules package to allow C-Span to continue broadcasting freely in the chamber:.⁦@RepMattGaetz⁩ amendment to the House Rules package would allow CSPAN cameras to film the House floor at all times — as we saw last week pic.twitter.com/EVC7tmdP2o— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 10, 2023
      Now that the dust has settled, it’s worth asking whether last week’s protracted House speaker election a good or bad thing for Republicans.The days-long, 15-ballot process that resulted in Kevin McCarthy’s victory early Saturday morning was indeed unprecedented – the last time a speakership election took so long was before the Civil War. And many in the GOP felt like the conservative holdouts who delayed McCarthy’s election for days did more harm to the party’s standing than good. Politico reports that Republican donor Thomas Peterffy sent text messages to some of the holdouts, threatening to cut them off if they didn’t make a deal:At least two Republicans among McCarthy’s 20 holdouts got direct threats from GOP donor Thomas Peterffy last week, per GOP sources I spoke with.Here is a screenshot shared with me… pic.twitter.com/H3pOPT888W— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) January 10, 2023
      That said, a CBS News/YouGov poll released before McCarthy’s election indicates many Republicans may have felt the battle was worth fighting. The data found 64% approved of the way the speakership election was handled, while 36% disapproved.The hallway outside George Santos’s office is the scene of an entrenched stakeout by reporters, as Insider found out when they went down there:made a pilgrimage to the Santos Stakeout pic.twitter.com/HYfF6kzmf3— bryan metzger (@metzgov) January 10, 2023
      Needless to say, most lawmakers do not get this kind of attention.George Santos just can’t catch a break. But perhaps that’s to be expected for someone who brazenly lied in their campaign for Congress.The New York Republican has been hounded by reporters in the halls of Congress ever since he first arrived in the Capitol last Tuesday, and has had a complaint filed against him at the Federal Election Commission. Today, two Democratic congressman made a big show of giving him another complaint, this one being filed with the House ethic committee:.@RepDanGoldman and @RepRitchie filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee about @Santos4Congress, and then hand delivered it to his office. Santos was in his office when this happened, in the back by the windows. pic.twitter.com/r3264Ht0XS— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) January 10, 2023
      Meanwhile Pete Aguilar, the Democratic caucus chair in the House, said Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy is only allowing Santos to stick around because he’s worried about losing his majority:”Kevin McCarthy owns George Santos.”— House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar says “the only reason” Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was sworn into Congress was because McCarthy needs his vote pic.twitter.com/Y9T0uTkg7l— The Recount (@therecount) January 10, 2023
      Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, has requested a briefing on the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s former office, as well as the government secrets the FBI discovered last year at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.“Our system of classification exists in order to protect our most important national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened both at Mar-a-Lago and at the Biden office as part of our constitutional oversight obligations,” Warner said in a statement. “From what we know so far, the latter is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is certainly different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the government. But again, that’s why we need to be briefed.”In a new interview, Mike Pence commented on classified files being found in a private office used by Biden.Speaking with radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Pence called the discovery of classified files from Biden’s tenure as vice president versus the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property a “double standard”.“It’s just incredibly frustrating to me,” said Pence during his interview today.“But the original sin here was the massive overreach.”Read the full article from the Hill here.Republican representative Pat Fallon of Texas has filed articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.Fallon announced the filing in a Twitter post, linking to a Fox News article.I have officially filed Articles of Impeachment on Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.👇👇👇https://t.co/I4EBmCB5pI— Rep. Pat Fallon (@RepPatFallon) January 10, 2023
      Here is more context behind Fallon’s filing, from the Hill:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed the paperwork for the resolution on Jan. 3, the first day of the 118th Congress, though with delays in securing a House Speaker, the document was officially filed late Monday.
      The resolution claims Mayorkas “engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties,” complaining that he has failed to maintain operational control over the border.
      The resolution comes amid a busy week in the Biden administration. President Biden visited the border over the weekend for the first time since taking office, pledging to deliver more resources to the officers who patrol the region.
      And Mayorkas is in Mexico this week, meeting with officials there on a variety of issues, including the shared migration agreement rolled out by the Biden administration last week.Read the full article here.Senate tunnels were briefly closed following a mix-up where a small group breached a locked door on the Senate side of US Capitol complex.According to the United States Capitol police, the group was accompanied by a staffer and were screened following the confusion.Police also noted that the incident was not a threat, but the group using the wrong doors.From Politico reporter K Tully-McManus:Senate tunnels were briefly closed this afternoon after a small group breached a door on the Senate side of the Capitol complex.Tunnels are back open. They were closed for a VERY short time (*just* long enough to disrupt some folks lunch plans.)— K Tully-McManus (@ktullymcmanus) January 10, 2023
      The White House provided more details into a meeting that Biden had with Canada prime minister Justin Trudeau.According to a read out, the two world leaders discussed several global issues including the war in Ukraine, Haiti, and Brazil.Biden also told Trudeau that he looks forward to an upcoming visit to Canada in March.From CBS News corespondent Ed O’Keefe:INBOX: The White House readout of @POTUS Biden’s meeting with @JustinTrudeau says they discussed the situations in Ukraine, Haiti and Brazil and among other things the president, “also stated he looks forward to traveling to Canada in March of this year.”— Ed O’Keefe (@edokeefe) January 10, 2023
      House Republicans are gearing up to launch investigations and trying to make the most of reports that classified documents dating to his time as vice-president were found in an office used by Joe Biden. But unlike with the government secrets the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago, it didn’t take a search warrant for Biden to turn over the material – he ordered it done so immediately, which Democrats are citing to defend the president.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Democratic House lawmaker Katie Porter announced a run for California’s Senate seat up for election in 2024, but its current occupant, Dianne Feinstein, gave no indication she’d be stepping down.
      The House GOP made clear it wants spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, which will be necessary later this year.
      George Santos may be an admitted fabulist, but a top House Republican had little to say about whether the party would discipline him for his lies.
      Joe Biden is traveling in Mexico, where he just concluded a meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.He did not answer questions shouted by members of the White House press corps in attendance, including one about the classified documents.CNN reports that an attorney for Joe Biden found 10 documents related to Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom in a personal office, dating from his time as vice-president.The attorney clearing out an office Biden once used in Washington DC found briefing materials and intelligence memos from 2013 through 2016, when Biden served under Barack Obama, according to CNN, which cited a source familiar with the matter. The documents were mixed in with family materials, some of which related to the funeral of his son Beau Biden, who died in 2015.Upon realizing the papers were classified, the attorney immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration. Biden’s team eventually turned over several boxes “in an abundance of caution, even though many of the boxes contained personal materials, the source said,” according to CNN’s report.California senator Dianne Feinstein is unfazed by Katie Porter’s announcement that she’d run for her Senate seat in 2024.The 89-year-old is the oldest sitting senator, and has in recent months been the subject of reports questioning her fitness to serve. Feinstein was blase when the San Francisco Chronicle asked for her thoughts on the challenge from the 49-year-old Porter:NEW: Feinstein tells @sfchronicle “Everyone is of course welcome to throw their hat in the ring … Right now I’m focused on ensuring California has all the resources it needs to cope with the devastating storms slamming the state.” https://t.co/tgTkfLPFxo— Sara Libby (@SaraLibby) January 10, 2023 More

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      Kevin McCarthy faces rocky first day as House speaker – live

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      The House will convene at 5 pm eastern time to vote on a rules package, typically a customary but crucial step for operating the chamber, but which today will serve as yet another barometer of how dysfunctional the new Republican majority will be over the coming two years.The package governs how the House will conduct its business, and would cement many of the procedural giveaways Kevin McCarthy made to win the support of rightwing insurgents who blocked his election for days last week. However, those concessions could spark a revolt among moderates and others unhappy with the deal the speaker made, again raising the possibility of another bout of standoff and legislative paralysis.Much of the debate centers on how the House will handle the massive spending bills Congress must periodically pass to keep the government running. The New York Times has a good rundown of the roots of this intraparty dispute:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The new House Republican majority is proposing to make institutional changes of its own as part of a rules package Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with hard-right rebels in exchange for their support for his job. The handful of Republicans who are forcing the changes, which are scheduled to be considered on Monday, pointed to the rushed approval in December of a roughly $1.7 trillion spending bill to fund the entire government as an example of back-room legislating at its worst.
      “What this rules package is designed to do is to stop what we saw happen literally 15 days ago, where the Democrats passed a $1.7 trillion monstrosity of a bill that spent the American taxpayers’ money in all kinds of crazy ways,” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said Sunday on Fox News. He said Republicans would require 72 hours to allow lawmakers to pore over any bill.
      Part of the fight over the speakership was about the way Congress works, in particular the unwieldy “omnibus” spending bills that appear to materialize out of nowhere and with only minutes to spare.
      But restoring any semblance of order and structure to the consideration of spending bills and other measures will prove to be extremely difficult with conservative Republicans in charge of the House and Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House. The new dynamic is more likely a prescription for shutdown and gridlock. The roots of dysfunction run deep.Congressman Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri who objected to the certification of the results of the 2020 election, has won the chairmanship of the House ways and means committee.In a statement about his win, Smith pledged as chair to support the Republican plan to slash funding to the IRS or Internal Revenue Service – billions were allocated to the agency last year to go after tax cheats.“Our first step is defunding the $80bn pay increase Democrats gave the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents to target working families. But we are not stopping there,” Smith said in a statement.Doing so would reduce revenues by almost $186bn over 10 years and add more than $114bn to the deficit, according to an evaluation from the Congressional Budget Office.Rep. Jason Smith’s stmt on winning Ways and Means gavel: “It is deeply humbling and an honor to be selected by my colleagues to serve as the next Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.” pic.twitter.com/lpciH9TkbZ— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) January 9, 2023
      Nancy Mace, one of the moderate Republicans who had voiced hesitation over the rules package, will vote for it, NBC News reports:MACE will be a YES tonight on rules package but she wanted to make people aware of the flaws in the process W @KyleAlexStewart— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) January 9, 2023
      In a Sunday interview with CBS News, Mace objected to the way the package had been negotiated:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I like the rules package. It is the most open, fair and fiscally conservative package we’ve had in 30 years. I support it, but what I don’t support is a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private, in secret, to get a vote or vote present. I don’t support that … And so I am on the fence right now about the rules package vote tomorrow for that reason.Another aspect of the deal Kevin McCarthy cut with conservative Republicans that made him House speaker was a pledge to allow a single lawmaker to call for a vote to oust him from office.Under the previous Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi, a motion to vacate could only be made if a majority of a party agreed to it. While lowering the threshold got McCarthy the votes he needed to win the chamber’s leadership, it also raised fears that any lawmaker who disagrees with his policies and tactics would create a crisis by seeking to remove him.CNN surveyed two Republican representatives today about how they think the rule will be used. Here’s what they had to say:Rep. David Joyce on one member being able to force a vote to oust speaker: “So it concerns Kevin more than it concerns me.” Says it should only be used in extreme circumstances and not as a recourse on “everyday policies.”But does the GOP agree on that?”Probably not” pic.twitter.com/gXL7sp7kxM— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 9, 2023
      The House GOP may eventually win cuts to government spending, but first they’re going to try to pass a bill that will add more than $114bn to the budget deficit.The Congressional Budget Office has released its evaluation of the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, which would strip the Internal Revenue Service of $71bn in funding that was allocated last year in order to crack down on tax cheats. If the funding were withdrawn, revenues would decrease by almost $186bn in the 10 years from 2023, adding to the deficit by more than $114bn.The proposal is up for a vote today, assuming the House Republicans pass their proposed rules package.It took four days and 15 ballots for Republicans to resolve their differences and elect Kevin McCarthy speaker of the House. But he can’t get much done unless the chamber agrees on its rules, and with some GOP lawmakers pledging to oppose the package up for a vote this afternoon, pressure groups have stepped in to make clear there will be consequences if it turns into a standoff.Hours before McCarthy formally was elected, Texas’s Tony Gonzales said he would oppose the rules package, reportedly over McCarthy’s willingness to cut spending to the defense department:I am a NO on the house rules package. Welcome to the 118th Congress.— Tony Gonzales (@TonyGonzales4TX) January 7, 2023
      That’s prompted conservative group FreedomWorks to make this threat:If Tony’s a ‘NO’ on the House Rules Package he should not be welcomed into the 119th Congress. #ampFW #HouseofRepresentatives https://t.co/X2tGxa3FqO— FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) January 9, 2023
      As with the speaker vote, the package will need 218 votes to pass, and all 212 Democrats are likely to oppose it. That means the GOP can only lose six votes – and they’re already down one.The White House has accused Republicans of wanting to “defund the military” as the new House majority makes clear that across-the-board spending cuts will be a major part of their agenda in the upcoming Congress.Here’s what White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates is telling the media, according to USA Today:The White House slams possible defense cuts that Republicans’ speaker deal could produce. “This push to defund our military in the name of politics is senseless and out of line with our national security needs,” @AndrewJBates46 says. “There is bipartisan opposition ..”— Joey Garrison (@joeygarrison) January 9, 2023
      It’s almost certain that Republicans will use the House’s powers of investigation to go after Hunter Biden, in a bid to cast his father’s presidency as corrupt. And while there are indeed unanswered questions Hunter Biden’s foreign business entanglements, the Guardian’s David Smith reports that the strategy is not without risks for the GOP:When Borat – alias British actor Sacha Baron Cohen – told risque jokes about Donald Trump and antisemitism at last month’s Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, Joe Biden was not the only one laughing in a red velvet-lined balcony.Sitting behind the US president was Hunter Biden wearing black tie and broad smile that mirrored those of his father.The image captured the intimacy between the men but also the sometimes awkward status of Hunter as both private citizen and privileged son of a president. It is a dichotomy likely to come under a harsh public glare this year as congressional Republicans set about making Hunter a household name and staple of the news cycle.‘It’s going to be dirty’: Republicans gear up for attack on Hunter BidenRead moreEven some Republicans regard the idea of the GOP-controlled House impeaching homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s muddled and increasingly harsh handling of the US-Mexico border as ridiculous.Outgoing Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson (who will be succeeded by one of Donald Trump’s old press secretaries, Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she’s sworn in tomorrow, becoming the first female governor of the state), shot down any suggestion, on Fox Business this morning, that impeaching Mayorkas is a good plan.As Axios reminds us, new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last November threatened to launch an “impeachment inquiry” into Mayorkas over his handling of border policy – if he does not resign.Mayorkas has dismissed the idea of him quitting, of course.Hutchinson told Fox that “impeachment proceedings should not be based upon policy…it should be based on wrongdoing.“And so whenever there’s failed policy, let’s investigate and have hearings on that and try to change that policy. That, to me, should be the approach of the Republican Congress,” he added.US president Joe Biden visited the border yesterday for the first time as president, spending a few hours in El Paso, Texas, which has been the scene of some misery of late with an increase in irregular crossings of the border and migrants having nowhere to stay, amid freezing temperatures.Biden did not meet with any asylum seekers during his visit.Biden’s ‘carrot and stick’ approach to deter migrants met with angerRead moreWhite House chief of staff Ron Klain has rung alarm bells via Twitter on what Republicans in the House might try to do as they try to force deep national spending cuts.Here’s Klain after Florida Republican representative Michael Waltz went on Fox.They are going to try to cut Social Security and Medicare. It could not be clearer. https://t.co/h1cXaa6iwa— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) January 9, 2023
      Earlier, Waltz told Fox: “We have to get spending under control.”But amid discussions about defense spending cuts, he added that that was not his primary target and he was not going to press for cuts “on the backs of our troops.”He added: “We can work on reprioritizing defense spending but that’s nibbling around the margins. If you really want to talk about spending, it’s the entitlements program – that’s 70% of the entire budget … if you want to talk about big reforms, I look forward to hearing that from those folks who are pushing towards a balanced budget.”Social security is the federal US social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability and survivor benefits, while Medicare is chiefly the government health insurance program for those 65 and older.The Washington Post warned in a piece at the weekend that: House Republicans are set to steer the country toward a series of fiscal showdowns as they look to force the White House to agree to massive spending cuts, threatening a return to the political brinkmanship that once nearly crippled the economy and almost plunged the US government into default.In a Guardian interview before he retired, Kentucky Democrat John Yarmuth told our Chris Stein last month that the Republican party is now so extreme it could cause the world’s largest economy to default on its debt for the first time ever in its quest to extract concessions from the Biden administration.Republicans could cause US to default on its debt, top Democrat warnsRead moreIt’s a lively day in Washington, even though Joe Biden is on trip to Mexico City, where he’ll meet with the leaders of Mexico and Canada for talks.On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, it’s new House speaker McCarthy’s first day of business with the gavel in his grasp after his epic struggle to get the votes to put him in that position as last Friday turned over into the early minutes of Saturday.Here’s where things stand:
      US president Joe Biden, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador have issued a joint statement condemning yesterday’s attack on Brazil’s congress and presidential palace by supporters of Jair Bolsonaro.
      The special grand jury in Georgia has concluded its examination of Donald Trump’s alleged election meddling in the state, where he made efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. There are further stages to go through before prosecutor Fani Willis decides whether to indict Trump on criminal charges.
      House Republican leadership apparently does not want a repeat of last week’s dysfunction in the chamber, when it took 15 rounds of voting over four days to elect a speaker. They’re now racing to make sure moderate GOP lawmakers lend their vote on a crucial package of rules for governing the House.
      The House will convene at 5pm eastern time to vote on the rules package, typically a customary but crucial step for operating the chamber, with votes due after that.
      Should the rule package pass, the new Republican House majority will be able to get down to business, and their first priority will be undoing part of one of Joe Biden’s biggest legislative achievements.They’ve scheduled an initial vote later today on the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, which would rescind almost all of the new funding to the Internal Revenue Service tax authority provided by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The IRS has been underfunded for years, and the money was intended to help the agency modernize and better crack down on tax cheats. The GOP opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, and tried to stoke outrage by telling voters the money would be used to hire tens of thousands or armed IRS agents – which mostly turned out not to be true.Whether or not this passes, expect more legislation of this sort aimed at undoing the legacy of Biden’s two years of united government.Election meddling has consequences, and for proof of that, look no further than the now-concluded special grand jury investigation into what Donald Trump and his allies were up to in Georgia in the wake of the 2020 election.It’s unclear if Trump himself could face charges based on what the jurors determine, but they’ve already informed several of his allies they are targets of its investigation. These include Rudy Giuliani, one of his most prominent attorneys, as well as Georgia Republican party chair David Shafer and state senator Brandon Beach. It’s far from the only investigation into Trump, or his campaign to stop Joe Biden from taking office. The justice department is investigating that as well as the violent insurrection on January 6, and both cases have been handed to special prosecutor Jack Smith. Smith is also expected to decided whether to bring charges against Trump and others over the government secrets discovered at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.There are reasons to believe the special grand jury investigation in Georgia is the most immediate threat Trump is facing. Here’s more from the Guardian’s Chris McGreal as to why that might be:Of all the legal threats Trump is facing, is this the one that could take him down?Read more More

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      Octogenarian Biden begins new year facing age old question on 2024 race

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      Octogenarian Biden begins new year facing age old question on 2024 raceIn coming months, Biden will probably answer a simple question: would he still want to be president at age 86? Joe Biden has presided over legislative deals that American presidents have sought for years, struggled with unpopularity yet led the Democrats to a historically strong performance in last year’s midterm elections, all before turning 80.Now, in the coming months, Biden will probably answer a simple question: would he still want to be president at age 86? And, if so, is he prepared to take down Donald Trump – or perhaps another, possibly much younger, Republican candidate – to win a second term in 2024?Trump seems to have a large war chest – but is he struggling to raise money?Read moreShould the answer be yes, Biden will make clear that despite many Americans’ wariness and the fact that he is the oldest president ever to occupy the White House, he is ready to continue leading the Democrats.But if the answer is no, a vigorous battle to inherit his crown will ensue, with everyone from his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to his transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, expected to participate.By all outward appearances, Biden currently plans to run for a second term.“Watch me,” he replied in November, when asked to respond to one of the many polls that has found a majority of Americans do not want him to stand again. That same month, one of the biggest arguments against his candidacy – that his unpopularity would harm Democrats nationwide – was undercut when the party did much better than expected in the midterms.“I think Biden’s running again,” said David Brock, a veteran liberal political operative. “Had the midterm turned out differently, we’d be in a different place where we’d be handicapping who was best to take on the Republicans, but I don’t think we’re in that moment now. I think we’re in a Biden moment.”November’s elections were indeed a show of unexpected strength. The party in power typically does poorly in its first midterm, but the Democrats gained a seat in the Senate and only barely lost the House of Representatives to the Republicans.Biden has not yet made his decision official, and there are still reasons to think he could decide that one term is enough. “The economy’s a question mark. His health is a question mark, international affairs is a question mark,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, who otherwise believes Biden is sure to stand again.“He spent his entire adult lifetime running for president, and on the third try, he finally got there. Who would give it up under those conditions, who? Almost nobody,” Sabato said.Biden won the Democratic nomination in 2020 after outmaneuvering a crowded field of candidates, his strongest challenger being the leftwing senator Bernie Sanders. As his re-election decision approaches, there are signs the party’s left flank hasn’t overcome their unease with Biden.“We see Biden as a brake on the good things that need to happen,” said Jeff Cohen, a media critic and co-founder of the progressive group RootsAction. While Biden has pursued some policies popular with their voters, such as a partial student debt cancelation and provisions aimed at reducing America’s carbon emissions that were included in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, Cohen views these as half measures.His group has started a campaign, Don’t Run Joe, which is circulating a petition and airing television ads in early primary states Michigan, Georgia and South Carolina that encourage Biden to step aside.“We need a bold, Democratic party leader with a bold agenda,” Cohen said. “Our feeling is that … anything less than a bold agenda, where Joe Biden is running again in 2024, and he’s seen as the symbol of the status quo, he could be defeated by one of these Republican faux-populists” like Trump, or Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is seen as a potential alternative among Republicans, though has not yet entered the race. Cohen expects that even if Biden does run again, he’ll face at least one challenge from the party’s left.For its part, the Republican party is expected to do everything it can over the next two years to frustrate and undercut Biden, including by using the House’s powers of investigation to raise questions about how the White House handled the pullout from Afghanistan in 2021, and about the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden.They will also continue trying to draw Americans’ attention to Biden’s gaffes – the message being that he is too elderly to lead. Brock, however, believes Biden could turn the situation around by casting himself as something of an old wise man.“If it was couched properly, the age issue could become an asset,” said Brock, who recently founded Facts First USA, a group that plans to push back against the GOP’s investigation campaign. “What I would do is craft a campaign around the idea of trust, and age is part of trust. And that Joe Biden can be trusted … he’s proven he’s been able to achieve a lot.”Biden hasn’t said when he will make his decision, but Sabato expects him to do so around when spring begins, to stop any rival Democrats from laying the groundwork for their own run.Should he step down, any number of alternatives could emerge, from 2020 veterans like Buttigieg, Sanders and Harris to new contenders from the ranks of Democratic state governors, like Gavin Newsom of California, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, or Jared Polis of Colorado.“The party feels like things are going well right now … there’s just no obvious reason to challenge him,” the Democratic political strategist Simon Rosenberg said of Biden. “And so I think that the nomination is his if he wants it, and if he doesn’t run, I think the Democrats will have a very vigorous primary and we will still be more likely to prevail in 2024 than the Republicans no matter who becomes the nominee.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsUS elections 2024featuresReuse this content More

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      ‘It’s going to be dirty’: Republicans gear up for attack on Hunter Biden

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      ‘It’s going to be dirty’: Republicans gear up for attack on Hunter Biden House Republicans are determined to make the president’s supposedly errant son a staple of the news cycleWhen Borat – alias British actor Sacha Baron Cohen – told risque jokes about Donald Trump and antisemitism at last month’s Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, Joe Biden was not the only one laughing in a red velvet-lined balcony.Sitting behind the US president was Hunter Biden wearing black tie and broad smile that mirrored those of his father.The image captured the intimacy between the men but also the sometimes awkward status of Hunter as both private citizen and privileged son of a president. It is a dichotomy likely to come under a harsh public glare this year as congressional Republicans set about making Hunter a household name and staple of the news cycle.Is Hunter Biden’s art project painting the president into an ethical corner?Read more“The right wing is licking its chops at the chance to go after him,” said Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama. “The level of venom is going to be over the top and really, really dirty. The Republicans’ rhetoric might get so heated that it detracts from some of the actual behaviour.”Republicans have been waiting a long time for this moment. After regaining control of the House of Representatives in last November’s midterm elections, they used their first press conference to promise to investigate the Biden administration and, in particular, the president’s allegedly errant son.Hunter has long faced questions about whether he traded on his father’s political career for profit, including efforts to strike deals in China and reported references in his emails to the “big guy”.Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2014, around the time that Joe Biden, then vice-president, was helping conduct Barack Obama’s foreign policy with Ukraine. Hunter earned more than $50,000 a month over a five-year period.Senate Republicans claim that his appointment may have posed a conflict of interest. Last year more than 30 of them called for a prosecutor to be given special counsel authority to carry out an investigation into alleged “tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations”. But they have have not produced evidence that it influenced US policy or that Joe Biden engaged in wrongdoing.House Republicans and their staff have been studying messages and financial transactions found on a now notorious laptop that belonged to Hunter. Having gained the majority, they now have the power to issue congressional subpoenas to foreign entities that did business with him.Richard Painter, who was chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration, believes that Joe Biden should have recused himself from matters relating to Ukraine. “The Ukrainian gas company wanted to curry favour with Joe Biden so they put his son on the board,” he said.“It’s pretty clear what’s going on there but the missing link the Republicans are looking for – but I don’t think they’re going to find – is any kind of a quid pro quo, Joe Biden for the Ukrainian gas company. Still, it would have been better if Joe Biden had said: ‘Look, my son is going to be on this board, maybe the secretary of state or somebody else could handle Ukraine,’ and he’d step aside.”Hunter’s taxes and foreign business work are already under federal investigation with a grand jury in Delaware hearing testimony in recent months. There are no indications that this involves the president, who insists that he has never spoken to Hunter about his foreign business arrangements.Republicans are pulling at another strand. Ethics experts have accused Hunter of cashing in on his father’s name as he pursues a career as an artist. He is represented by the Georges Bergès Gallery in New York, which reportedly struck an agreement with the White House to set the prices of the art and not reveal who bid on or bought it.Bergès said in an Instagram post in November that Republicans on the House oversight committee had written to him with “certain requests” and subsequently got into a Twitter debate with Painter about money and influence in art. Bergès wrote: “If you’re going to scrutinize a profession then scrutinize all of them and every position that children of Congress take in DC and elsewhere.”My Son Hunter: the rightwing Hunter Biden movie is for fringe lunaticsRead morePainter said in an interview: “I don’t think there’s anything corrupt about the White House or anything corrupt about President Biden. But keeping the identities of the art buyers secret was a bad idea. It leads to suspicion that people are passing money under the table. It’s hard to keep who buys the art secret in the close-knit world of Hunter Biden’s friends or Hunter Biden himself so the secrecy was a bad idea.”Fox News and other rightwing media may relish an opportunity to demonise the president’s son ahead of an election in 2024. But Republicans are in danger of overreach. Trump’s attempt to get Ukraine to examine Hunter’s business dealings led to his first impeachment. His efforts to weaponise Hunter’s troubles in the 2020 presidential election fizzled.David Brock, a veteran political operative and president of Facts First USA, a new group set up to combat the congressional investigations, said: “What we’re going to see in the hearings is a recycling and a rehash of old discredited stories and conspiracy theories. They’re doing it for political reasons. [Congressman] Jim Jordan is on the record saying that the investigations are all about 2024 and electing Donald Trump again. That’s his own words, not mine.”Hunter’s 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, generated sympathy in some quarters for a man who 50 years ago last month survived a car crash that killed his mother and sister and who has been honest about his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse. Brock believes that a fresh Republican onslaught will backfire.Trump ramped up attacks on me to distract my father, Hunter Biden saysRead more“Going after someone who has an addiction and has had mental health issues is sadistic politics and I don’t think it will work with the American people,” he added. “There are so many people who have family members who’ve suffered in one way or another and will identify with Hunter; they won’t identify with the attackers. The Hunter-hating narrative has been out there for three years. It hasn’t really gained any traction outside of the far right and I don’t think it will.”Republicans could also lose credibility by focusing on Hunter and other retreads of the past instead of advancing a plan for domestic issues such as inflation, jobs and taxes.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist who served as a senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee from 2009 to 2013, said: “For all the talk about Republicans saying they want to return to regular order, they want to have better stewardship over taxpayer dollars, they want to act more responsibly with legislative power, well, OK, but how does investigating Hunter Biden do anything to help the American people?”TopicsHunter BidenJoe BidenRepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More