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      Adam Kinzinger: second Trump term could be ‘devastating for world order’

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      A second Donald Trump presidency could spell the end of democracy in America and prove “devastating for the world order”, Adam Kinzinger, a Republican former congressman, has warned in an interview with the Guardian.Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, is vowing retribution against his political enemies in a second-term agenda more radical than his first, including mass deportations and a purge of the justice department. Kinzinger, one of the most prominent Trump critics in America, is sounding the alarm.“The best-case scenario is a completely inept, ineffective government,” he said by phone. “The worst-case scenario is look, in his four-year term, he did not understand what he was doing. He was just trying to survive and he actually listened to people around him until the end. Now he’s going to put people around him that share his views, that will only reaffirm his views and, frankly, some of these people are pretty smart and they know how to work around the constitution or around the law to bring these authoritarian measures in.”He added: “Is it going to be the end of the United States of America? I don’t think so but I’m going to stress: think. But it certainly will set us way back in the progress that we’ve made.”An air force veteran first elected to Congress in 2010, Kinzinger broke from his party after the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. He denounced the then president for inciting “an angry mob” with false claims of voter fraud and was among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him.He was later one of two Republicans, along with Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who joined the House of Representatives committee to investigate the January 6 attack. He also formed a political organisation, Country First, to support candidates who oppose Trump and see him as a threat to the constitution.View image in fullscreenHe announced he would not seek re-election after the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature approved new congressional maps that would have forced Kinzinger and a fellow Republican incumbent – Darin LaHood, a strong supporter of Trump – into a primary matchup.Since his departure House Republicans have become ever more dysfunctional, unproductive and wedded to Trump, who continues to sow distrust in institutions and lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Kinzinger, 45, fears that the ex-president’s return to Washington may signal the beginning of the end of American democracy.“Are we going to have an election four years after Trump? Probably. Is the person who gets the most votes going to win? Probably. But the only thing self-governance needs to survive – you don’t have to agree on jack squat except that you can vote, your vote counts and whoever gets the most votes wins – that’s the only contract you need among Americans.“He’s already convinced 30 to 40% of Americans that the system is rigged and so there’s nothing that makes me think for his four years in office he’s not going to continue to undermine faith in that system. And when that is permanently undermined, democracy’s over. It literally cannot survive that way.”On Sunday Kinzinger is due to speak at the Principles First Summit in Washington, billed as a gathering of more than 700 pro-democracy, anti-Trump conservatives and centrists. It will be taking place at the same time as – and in opposition to – the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), now an annual festival of far-right “Make America great again” (Maga) populism.Kinzinger has never been to CPAC. “It’s like the clown show of ‘conservatism’,” he said. “At the CPAC of old, there would always be some weird people there and now those weird people are the entire Republican party. So maybe I should put on a fake moustache and wander in and see where the party goes.”This year’s lineup of speakers at CPAC includes Trump, the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, ex-housing secretary Ben Carson, former British prime minister Liz Truss and ex-Brexit party leader Nigel Farage.Stefanik is the highest-ranking woman in the Republican congressional conference, one of the first members to endorse Trump for president and a strong contender to be his running mate in the presidential election. Yet the New York congresswoman used to be seen as a moderate.View image in fullscreenKinzinger said: “Elise Stefanik is still a huge surprise and disappointment to me. I knew her prior. I think she legitimately opposed the first impeachment of Trump and she made some speech and Trump praised her and all of a sudden, man, it’s like a hit of heroin. It feels great. I’ve been there, I’ve been where Trump has complimented me and said nice things and it feels great.“She just made the decision at that point to grab on and go and it’s paid off for her. She keeps getting re-elected, she’s being considered for vice-president. I just couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I was her. But from raw political manoeuvring, she’s done a good job.”Another potential running mate – and case study in capitulation – is Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who abandoned his own presidential campaign last year and, in an act that many observers found humiliating, recently told Trump: “I just love you.”Kinzinger reflected: “Tim Scott, of all the people, is the one that really hurts me. I don’t mean that to sound like a gentle feud but I know Tim. I know his heart. He and I were close friends. I know he knows better.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“This is what kind of breaks my faith a little bit in humanity and, frankly, people that go into politics. I always thought that no matter how much people played the game – and I was good at playing the game – there was always a red line they couldn’t cross. When I saw Tim Scott cross that red line, it really was devastating to me personally.”Scott has downplayed Trump’s myriad legal troubles, which include 91 criminal charges across four jurisdictions, and refused to condemn the former president’s part in the January 6 riot. Stefanik has described the House January 6 panel as “illegitimate and unconstitutional” and echoed Trump’s rhetoric describing people convicted of crimes in the insurrection as “hostages”.Kinzinger is appalled.“I’m convinced that there’s not a single Trump supporter who in 10 years will ever admit they supported Donald Trump. He’s going to be seen eventually as a stain on this country. I don’t think there’s a single one of their kids that will ever be Trump supporters in 10 years. But that said, it means we have to win because if they win and they write the history books, they write the rules, then my prediction will be wrong.”When those history books are written, an important chapter will concern how the party of George HW Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney became the party of Trump, Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Kinzinger – author of Renegade: My Life in Faith, the Military, and Defending America from Trump’s Attack on Democracy – has thoughts.View image in fullscreen“When I got out I could look and say I think this stuff was under the surface. I felt a bit of it but the assumption in my mind was this authoritarian movement, a touch of racism, was the extreme. I always thought it was just in a part of the movement, a part of the party. But Donald Trump’s superpower is he taught people to not have shame and not be embarrassed and not worry about pushback.“That shame layer is what kept the party under wraps. When that was ripped off, you have among the base some of the worst instincts that come out. Leaders, instead of doing what they should do, which is lead people to a better place, are just harvesting that anger and that craziness for money and Donald Trump is the biggest part of that.”“Owning the libs” has become an article of faith for Donald Trump Jr and others in the Maga movement. Kinzinger said: “Now there’s this idea that if you can piss off the liberals and the left – it is a culture war in the depth of it. The left does a lot of stuff that drives me nuts too but, if they can drive the left nuts, that’s what they do.“So why do they love Vladimir Putin? Well, some people truly do but some people just love him because he pisses off the left. That’s no way to govern but it’s a hell of a good way to raise a bunch of money.”Trump’s admiration for Putin, the autocratic ruler of Russia, continues to dismay and disturb. He recently encouraged Russia to attack Nato allies who do not pay their bills, despite Nato’s common defence clause, known as Article 5. He remained silent for days after the death in prison of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.What would another Trump presidency mean for the western alliance? Kinzinger, who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, commented: “Sadly for Ukraine it could easily be the end of Nato. Nato will still exist but the idea that a ‘border incursion’ into Estonia, for instance, would trigger Article 5 – I don’t think you’d see Donald Trump stand up for Estonia at that time and that would be the effective end of Nato because Article 5 is the only thing that holds it together.“Ukraine will continue to fight and Europe has stepped up quite a bit but I don’t foresee a Ukrainian victory, at least under Donald Trump. Now, it’s possible that if Ukraine is facing a loss under Donald Trump’s watch that maybe he turns around; I’m not gonna say that could never happen. But it would be very devastating for the world order as we know it.” More

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      White House could use federal law to control US-Mexico border crossings

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      The White House is considering using provisions of federal immigration law repeatedly tapped by Donald Trump to unilaterally enact a sweeping crackdown at the southern border, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.The administration, stymied by Republican lawmakers who rejected a negotiated border bill earlier this month, has been exploring options that Joe Biden could deploy on his own without congressional approval, multiple officials and others familiar with the talks said. But the plans are nowhere near finalized and it’s unclear how the administration would draft any such executive actions in a way that would survive the inevitable legal challenges. The officials and those familiar with the talks spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity to comment on private White House discussions.The exploration of such avenues bythe president’s team underscores the pressure Biden faces this election year on immigration and the border, which have been among his biggest political liabilities since he took office. For now, the White House has been hammering congressional Republicans for refusing to act on border legislation that the GOP demanded, but the administration is also aware of the political perils that high numbers of migrants could pose for the president and is scrambling to figure out how Biden could ease the problem on his own.White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández stressed that “no executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected”.“The administration spent months negotiating in good faith to deliver the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security bill in decades because we need Congress to make significant policy reforms and to provide additional funding to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system,” he said. “Congressional Republicans chose to put partisan politics ahead of our national security, rejected what border agents have said they need, and then gave themselves a two-week vacation.”Arrests for illegal crossings on the US-Mexico border fell by half in January from record highs in December to the third lowest month of Biden’s presidency. But officials fear those figures could eventually rise again, particularly as the November presidential election nears.The immigration authority the administration has been looking into is outlined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives a president broad leeway to block entry of certain immigrants into the US if it would be “detrimental” to the national interest of the country.Trump, who is the likely GOP candidate to face off against Biden this fall, repeatedly leaned on the 212(f) power while in office, including his controversial ban to bar travelers from Muslim-majority nations. Biden rescinded that ban on his first day in office through executive order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut now, how Biden would deploy that power to deal with his own immigration challenges is currently being considered, and it could be used in a variety of ways, according to the people familiar with the discussions. For example, the ban could kick in when border crossings hit a certain number. That echoes a provision in the Senate border deal, which would have activated expulsions of migrants if the number of illegal border crossings reached above 5,000 daily for a five-day average.Mike Johnson, the House Republican speaker, has also called on Biden to use the 212(f) authority. Yet the comprehensive immigration overhaul Biden also introduced on his first day in office – which the White House continues to tout – includes provisions that would effectively scale back a president’s powers to bar immigrants under that authority. More

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      James Biden reportedly says his brother was never involved in his business ventures – as it hapened

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      In his opening statement to the House lawmakers leading the impeachment charge against Joe Biden, his brother James Biden said the president has never been involved in his business dealings, the Washington Post reports.The testimony rebuts Republican claims that Joe Biden has used his official positions to assist his relatives and profit corruptly from their business dealings.“I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures,” James Biden told the House oversight committee at his behind-closed-doors deposition today. “Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None.”Here’s more, from the Washington Post:House Republicans’ long-running effort to impeach Joe Biden was rocked by news of the arrest of a former FBI informant whose claims about Hunter Biden’s business with a Ukrainian gas firm were a key part of the GOP’s case against the president. Alexander Smirnov is accused of lying to the government, and yesterday, prosecutors revealed that he said he received information from Russian intelligence. Republican investigators are pressing on, and today interviewed the president’s brother James Biden, who denied that Joe Biden had ever been involved in his business. Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, called on Republicans to end the impeachment amid the Smirnov affair.Here’s a rundown of what happened:
      The US supreme court released two opinions, neither of which dealt with the challenges to Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility, or whether he is immune from prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
      Nikki Haley said she supports an Alabama supreme court decision that could curb access to IVF care.
      David Weiss, the special counsel prosecuting Hunter Biden, reportedly asked a judge to detain Smirnov, a day after a different judge allowed him to be released as he awaited trial.
      John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, is running as a Democrat for a congressional seat in New York.
      House Democrats called on the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to bring the chamber back into session to vote on Ukraine aid.
      As for Joe Biden, he’s in Los Angeles, and just popped into the Mexican restaurant CJ’s Cafe along with the city’s Democratic mayor, Karen Bass.According to the reporters accompanying him on the jaunt, the president was taking a picture with a customer, and switched their phone to selfie mode. The person was surprised Biden knew how to do that, to which the president responded: “After the last guy, the bar’s on the floor.”The last guy, and potentially the next guy.Besides the House oversight and judiciary committees’ interview with James Biden, Congress hasn’t been up to much today.That’s because the House and Senate are both out of session. But a group of House Democrats, including Ohio’s Marcy Kaptur, want the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to call lawmakers back into session to vote on legislation that will send military aid to Ukraine:Lawmakers departed the Capitol last week after failing to agree on new aid for Kyiv as well as Israel and Taiwan, despite weeks of negotiating over a proposal that would have paired that aid with hardline immigration policies.It’s unclear whether, and how, the aid package will now be approved. The Senate returns next Monday, and the House on Wednesday.Here’s video from NBC News’s interview with Nikki Haley, in which the former South Carolina governor says she supports the Alabama supreme court ruling that could complicate access to IVF care:Notice it’s being shared on X by Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Ever since the US supreme court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, the president has promised to protect abortion access, and now seems set to make the same vow for IVF.The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced her support for an Alabama supreme court ruling that could complicate access to in vitro fertilization procedures, telling NBC News in an interview: “Embryos, to me, are babies.“When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that,” said the former South Carolina governor, who is the last major challenger to Donald Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination.The Alabama supreme court last week ruled that frozen embryos are “children” and allowed two wrongful death suits to proceed against a fertility clinic where several embryos were destroyed in 2021, a decision that could complicate access to IVF treatment more widely.Here’s more from NBC on what Haley’s comments mean:
      Classifying embryos as children under state law raises significant questions about whether the practice, used by families having trouble conceiving, could continue in states like Alabama. Unused embryos are often destroyed, which could open families or clinics up to wrongful death lawsuits under this policy. Storing frozen embryos, meanwhile, is expensive.
      Asked if legislation and rulings like the one in Alabama could have a chilling effect on families using IVF to become parents, Haley said, “This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.”
      “I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t,” Haley continued, adding: “Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she’s looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”
      Haley has sought to find a rhetorical middle ground on reproductive health policy as a 2024 presidential candidate. She has repeatedly calling for national “consensus” on abortion in debates instead of the bans and restrictions favored by some of her primary opponents.
      After the state supreme court’s decision, Alabama’s largest healthcare provider paused IVF treatments:The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has announced that he is proposing the elimination of medical debt across the state.In a statement on Wednesday, Pritzker, a Democrat, said that he proposes that the state eliminate $4m of medical debt for more than 1 million Illinoisans over the next four years.He also said that he intends to “break down bureaucratic barriers in state government” by increasing coordination across agencies to improve reproductive healthcare services.Pritzker added that the Illinois department of human services will invest $1m in a pilot program to ensure new moms and babies have clean diapers, as well as an additional $5m into home visiting for the state’s most vulnerable families.Donald Trump has compared the $350m fine he received in his New York financial fraud case to “a form of Navalny”.Speaking at a Fox News town hall on Tuesday night, Trump hit back at the New York judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling. He also compared his case to that of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny whose death last week at a Russian penal colony has been largely blamed on the Kremlin.The ex president said:
      “It is a form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism. The guy [Arthur Engoron] is a nut job, I’ve known this for a long time and I’ve said it openly.”
      Also on Tuesday evening, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said that she will seize Trump’s assets if he does not pay the fine.
      If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James said.
      In the political reproductive rights war, with its real life repercussions, another new and consequential twist.Less than a week after the unprecedented decision from the Alabama supreme court that frozen embryos are “children”, a key medical school in the state has paused in vitro fertilization procedures.The court decision has been widely seen as one that would have serious implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments.On Wednesday, AL.com reported, a spokesperson, Hannah Echols, said on behalf of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a research university and academic medical center that is also the largest healthcare provider in the state, that the institution is “saddened” for patients who hope to have babies through IVF.“We must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments,” Echols wrote in the email, obtained by AL.com.In the decision released on Friday, two wrongful death suits were allowed to proceed against a Mobile fertility clinic, effectively ruling that fertilized eggs and embryos are “children”.The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system suspended in vitro fertilization procedures because of the risk of criminal prosecution and lawsuits, a spokeswoman told AL.com.House Republicans’ long-running effort to impeach Joe Biden has been rocked by news of the arrest of a former FBI informant whose claims about Hunter Biden’s business with a Ukrainian gas firm were a key part of the GOP’s case against the president. Alexander Smirnov is accused of lying to the government, and yesterday, prosecutors revealed that he said he received information from Russian intelligence. Republican investigators are pressing on, and today interviewed the president’s brother James Biden, who denied that Joe Biden had ever been involved in his business. Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, called on Republicans to end the impeachment amid the Smirnov affair.Here’s what else happened today:
      The US supreme court released two opinions, neither of which dealt with the challenges to Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility, or whether he is immune from prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
      David Weiss, the special counsel prosecuting Hunter Biden, reportedly asked a judge to detain Smirnov, a day after a different judge allowed him to be released as he awaited trial.
      John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, is running as a Democrat for a congressional seat in New York.
      Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, which is leading the push to impeach Joe Biden, called on Republicans to drop their investigation after prosecutors accused a former FBI informant of lying about Hunter Biden’s ties to a Ukrainian energy company.“I’m restating to chairman Comer, to speaker Johnson, to fold up the tent to this circus show. It’s really over at this point,” Raskin said, referring to the oversight committee chair, James Comer, and the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, both Republicans:Raskin’s demand came after Alexander Smirnov was arrested last week and accused of lying to the government about the president’s son’s work with Ukrainian firm Burisma, which has formed the basis for the GOP’s unproven allegations that Joe Biden is corrupt. Yesterday, prosecutors revealed that Smirnov told investigators that Russian intelligence had passed him “a story” about Hunter Biden, but it’s unclear what that was.Republicans have fixated on financial records showing Joe Biden received money from his relatives, including a payment of $200,000 from his brother James Biden.In his behind-closed-doors testimony today, James Biden said he would occasionally borrow money from his brother when necessary to pay the bills, and then repay him, the Washington Post reports.Here’s more: More

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      Meghan McCain ‘repulsed’ by Arizona Republican who condemned late father

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      In her quest to win an election, the Arizona Republican US Senate candidate Kari Lake is trying to win back the voters she alienated in her last run, when she lost the 2022 gubernatorial race to a Democrat.And Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Arizona senator John McCain, whose name is near-synonymous with the state’s political history, is not letting Lake off the hook.Lake’s attempt to win back voters includes reaching out to the family and allies of John McCain, who held the Senate seat in Arizona for decades and left an indelible mark on the state’s politics.When Lake ran for governor, she said her win in the Republican primary in 2022 had driven a “stake through the heart of the McCain machine” – a nod to the political apparatus McCain built up over his time in office.She also condemned the more moderate branch of the party, the McCain Republicans, and told them to “get the hell out”. She walked back the comment during a radio interview on Monday, where she said she was joking and that John McCain “would have laughed” about it.McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, hit back hard at Lake after the interview, calling out the attempt to walk back the attack.“Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us,” Meghan McCain wrote on X. “No peace, bitch. We see you for who you are – and are repulsed by it.”Lake then came back to Meghan McCain with a long entreaty, calling to mind her own father’s death from cancer and the fact that the two women are both mothers.“Our movement to save Arizona & America is growing, and it’s Mama Bears like us who are leading the charge – ALL Moms want the same thing: to leave our children a better America than the one we had,” Lake wrote to Meghan McCain on X.Lake invited Meghan McCain for a beer, coffee or lunch so that she could “pick [her] brain about how we can work together to strengthen our state” and said her team would be reaching out with Lake’s contact information. “If you’re willing to meet, it would mean a lot to me,” Lake concluded.“NO PEACE, BITCH!” Meghan McCain reiterated in a response to Lake’s offer to meet.The online spat speaks to a larger problem Lake faces in her return to the campaign trail: she swung too far right for the state’s purpling electorate, and she now is attempting to look more moderate.A Lake campaign account responded to the brush-off with a note that “All Kari can do is extend the olive branch” and that the Republican candidate would keep trying. “If you refuse to take it, that’s your call,” the Lake war room account wrote. “This kind of blind anger is not conducive to bringing Arizona together.”“I breathe fire for my family and never forgive those who have trashed any of us – particularly my Dad in death,” Meghan McCain wrote in a follow-up post on X. “Never.” More

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      Nikki Haley says she believes embryos created through IVF are ‘babies’

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      The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has spoken in response to the recent supreme court ruling out of Alabama, revealing that she believes embryos created through IVF are “babies”.In a new interview with NBC, the former UN ambassador expressed support for the Friday ruling by Alabama’s supreme court which deemed that frozen embryos are “children”.“I had artificial insemination. That is how I had my son … One thing is to … save sperm or to save eggs but when you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that is a life. And so I do see where that is coming from when they talk about that,” Haley said.Haley’s comments come after Alabama’s supreme court allowed two wrongful death lawsuits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The lawsuits stem from an incident in 2021 when a patient removed several embryos from the clinic’s cryogenic nursery.According to the lawsuit, “the subzero temperatures at which the embryos had been stored freeze-burned the patient’s hand, causing the patient to drop the embryos on the floor, killing them”.A statement released by Alabama supreme court justice Jay Mitchell said: “The central question presented in these consolidated appeals, which involve the death of embryos kept in a cryogenic nursery, is whether the act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children – that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.”Mitchell added: “Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”Asked whether she has any concerns on how the court’s ruling could hurt people seeking IVF treatment, Haley said: “I think that we have to have those conversations … Let’s never underestimate the relationship between a doctor and a patient.“This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it,” she said, adding: “I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t … Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she is looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHaley, who is currently trailing behind Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential contest, has previously downplayed the federal abortion ban. Instead, the former South Carolina governor has said that it was up to each state to determine their limits on abortion.During her time as governor, Haley signed a bill into law which bans abortion at 20 weeks and does not provide exceptions for rape or incest. More

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      Biden brother testifies as key witness’s Russia links cloud impeachment push

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      Joe Biden’s younger brother, James Biden, testified to the House oversight and judiciary committees on Wednesday, a closed-door session held even as Republican attempts to impeach the president for alleged corruption teetered on the edge of collapse.In a combative opening statement, released to the press, James Biden denied that his brother had ever been involved in his financial affairs and called anyone alleging otherwise “mistaken, ill-informed or flat-out lying”.Hunter Biden, the president’s son whose troubled personal life, legal jeopardy and complex business affairs provide the chief fuel for Republican allegations, is due to be interviewed in private next week.All the while, Washington will continue to digest and debate the news that a former FBI informant charged with making up a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving the Bidens and Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, had contacts with officials affiliated with Russian intelligence.Prosecutors revealed the alleged contact on Tuesday, as they urged a judge to keep Alexander Smirnov in custody before trial.Smirnov is charged with falsely reporting to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with Burisma paid Hunter Biden and Joe Biden $5m each in 2015 or 2016, when Joe Biden was vice-president to Barack Obama.Donald Trump’s first impeachment was fueled by his search for dirt on the Bidens related to Ukraine. Smirnov’s claim has been central to Republican attempts to impeach Biden in return, and was therefore eagerly promoted by senior Republicans and their rightwing media allies, particularly on Fox News.Smirnov was taken into custody at a facility in rural Pahrump, Nevada, west of Las Vegas, last week. Prosecutors said that before his arrest, Smirnov admitted “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden. They said Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials were recent and extensive and Smirnov had planned to meet one official on a future trip.They said Smirnov had numerous contacts with a person he described as the “son of a former high-ranking government official” and “someone with ties to a particular Russian intelligence service”.Prosecutors also said there was a serious risk Smirnov could flee. David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld, defense attorneys, said they were asking for Smirnov’s release “so he can effectively fight the power of the government”. The judge ruled that Smirnov should be released on bond.The White House did not immediately comment. But Politico quoted “a person close to Joe Biden” as saying: “Obviously there’s a case that’ll have to play out here. But based on the indictment and filing, it lays bare how unscrupulous the entire [Republican party] and their enablers in rightwing media have become.“Republicans in Congress ought to be facing the crushing burden of a massive scandal of their own making right now: an impeachment based on what might be a Russian intelligence operation. If nothing else, a criminal lie, based on the indictment.”According to prosecutors, Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma, starting in 2017, when Joe Biden was out of office. Smirnov made the bribery allegations, prosecutors said, after “express[ing] bias” against Biden while he was a presidential candidate in 2020, against Trump.After Smirnov was indicted, Democrats called for an end to the impeachment inquiry. Republicans dsaid they would continue to “follow the facts”. However, James Comer, the oversight chair, is reportedly considering whether it to stage a vote on a Biden impeachment – particularly after the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, first failed then squeaked through by a single vote.On Wednesday, two far-right Republicans, Jim Jordan and Andy Biggs, told CNN the Smirnov revelations did not change their determination to push on. Biggs claimed: “We have lots of evidence.”CNN also quoted an aide to the impeachment inquiry as saying the inclusion then deletion of a reference to Smirnov in a letter to a potential witness, first reported by the Huffington Post, was simply a clerical error.James Biden, Republicans’ target on Wednesday, is a businessman long linked to his brother’s political career.Now 74, and known in the family as Jimmy, recent duties have included overseeing Oval Office decorations including a bust of the labour organiser Cesar Chavez, sketches of the anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass, and a rugby ball from Rob and Dave Kearney, Biden cousins and international players for Ireland.Republicans allege personal cheques, addressed by James Biden to Joe Biden when the latter was out of office, represent evidence of corruption. Multiple news outlets have said the cheques simply repaid personal loans.In 2022, James Biden used a rare interview to say: “I’m the guy who assists in everything. When it comes to my family, I try to be as supportive as I can. But this notion of ‘fixer’, or any reference that has a negative connotation, is offensive.”According to the Washington Post, James Biden repeatedly said he should not be talking to a reporter while his wife, Sara, advised him to put down the phone.“Talk to a real person who knows me,” James Biden said. “Guess what? There’s not many who do.”On Wednesday, in his opening statement to the Republican-led committees, he outlined “four critical points.“One: I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures. Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None.“Two: Because of my intimate knowledge of my brother’s personal integrity and character, as well as my own strong ethics, I have always kept my professional life separate from our close personal relationship.“Three: I never asked my brother to take any official action on behalf of me, my business associates or anyone else.“Four: In every business venture in which I have been involved, I have relied on my own talent, judgment, skill and personal relationships and never my status as Joe Biden’s brother. Those who have said or thought otherwise were either mistaken, ill-informed or flat-out lying.”Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      ‘I refuse to quit’: defiant Nikki Haley vows to stay in race against Trump

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      A defiant Nikki Haley on Tuesday declared no fear of retribution from Donald Trump as she persists in her efforts to compete against the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, saying, “I feel no need to kiss the ring.”Haley approaches the South Carolina primary on Saturday, her home state where she was previously governor, a long way behind Trump but turning up the rhetorical heat.“We’ve all heard the calls for me to drop out,” she said in a speech in Greenville, South Carolina, on Tuesday. But she also said: “I refuse to quit.”And in an interview with the Associated Press, she vowed to stay in the fight at least until after Super Tuesday’s slate of more than a dozen contests on 5 March.“Ten days after South Carolina, another 20 states vote. I mean, this isn’t Russia. We don’t want someone to go in and just get 99% of the vote,” Haley said, adding: “What is the rush? Why is everybody so panicked about me having to get out of this race?”In a cutting remark on X, formerly Twitter, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung posted in a riposte to Haley’s kissing the ring statement: “She’s going to drop down to kiss ass when she quits, like she always does.”Betsy Ankney, Haley’s campaign manager, responded with sarcastic humor on the same platform.“What a move. @TheStevenCheung is the key to winning back suburban women!” she posted.In Greenville, Haley taunted that maybe some people, especially reporters, turned out to hear if she was going to drop out of the race after Trump won the first three contests of the primary race, in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.“Well, I’m not. Far from it, and I’m here to tell you why,” she said. “I’m running for president because we have a country to save,” she said, listing domestic issues such as crime, gun violence, illegal drugs, children struggling with their studies, migration at the US-Mexico border and the high cost of many things from groceries to buying a house.And on foreign policy, she said: “I’m talking about the American weakness that led to wars in Europe, and the Middle East, and the urgent need to restore strength before war spreads and draws America further in. These are the challenges I’m here to tackle.”Trump has been scathing about Haley’s performance and has been leading pressure from several directions for her to drop out, after she became the last opponent left standing following the end of the campaign trail for rivals including Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Haley said on Tuesday: “Many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump, privately dread him. They know what a disaster he’s been and will continue to be for our party. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud. Well, I’m not afraid…I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSome Republicans are encouraging Haley to stay in the campaign even if she continues to lose – potentially all the way to the Republican National Convention in July, as Trump faces numerous court cases.Haley said: “He’s going to be in a courtroom all of March, April, May and June. How in the world do you win a general election when these cases keep going and the judgments keep coming?”Meanwhile, Joe Biden was asked whether he preferred to compete against Haley or Trump this fall.“Oh, I don’t care,” the US president said.
      The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Russia adds Republican senator Lindsey Graham to ‘terrorists and extremists’ list

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      The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a key ally of Donald Trump, has been added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” kept by Russia’s state financial monitoring agency.Tass, the state-run news agency, first reported the move by Rosfinmonitoring, which allows authorities to freeze Russian bank accounts, though in Graham’s case is likely to be chiefly symbolic.The agency’s list includes more than 12,000 individuals and more than 400 companies, as well as domestic and foreign terrorist entities and Russian political opposition groups, according to the website opensanctions.org.Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was reportedly added to the list in October 2022, for supposedly tolerating “Russophobia”. Its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and other Meta employees have been banned from Russia or added to “wanted” lists.Graham, a South Carolina senator and foreign policy hawk who has long advocated arming Ukraine against Russian invaders, has also been subject to a Russian arrest warrant, for making “Russophobic statements” during a visit to Kyiv.“It’s difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators,” Dmitry Peskov, the Russian government spokesperson, said at the time. Graham responded to the warrant by telling Reuters: “As usual the Russia propaganda machine is hard at work. It has been a good investment by the United States to help liberate Ukraine from Russian war criminals.” He said he would “wear the arrest warrant issued by Putin’s corrupt and immoral government as a badge of honour”.Nonetheless, Graham is also a prominent ally of Donald Trump, the former president and prospective Republican presidential nominee who is generally held to favour Russia and Putin.This month, Graham voted against a $95bn defense and foreign aid package that would significantly boost Kyiv. On Sunday, Graham told CBS he backed a $66bn counter-proposal from House lawmakers of both parties, adding: “I want to turn the aid package into a loan, that makes perfect sense to me.”That echoed Trump, who has demanded aid to Kyiv should be turned into loans. “I think that’s a winning combination,” Graham said. “Let’s make it a loan. I think that gets you President Trump on the aid part.”Lamenting the killing of Alexei Navalny, the most prominent leader of opposition to Putin, who died in a Russian penal colony last week, Graham also said Russia should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism.Republicans continue to seek to tie Ukraine aid to border and immigration reform, even though senators including Graham dynamited their own border deal with Democrats after Trump expressed opposition.On Tuesday, Graham tweeted: “I understand what happens if Putin wins in Ukraine. However, many members of Congress do not seem to understand what is happening to America every single day at our southern border. Count me in for helping Ukraine. But, we must help ourselves first. It’s time to get our broken border under control.”Speaking to the Hill, an unnamed Democratic senator bemoaned Graham’s flexible loyalties, saying: “He got sucked into the Trump orbit, and he is so zealously about his own self-preservation in South Carolina that he literally would push his mother in front of a train to get to where he needs to be.“I hate to say it because I actually like him.”’ More