Category Archives: Joe Biden

Supreme court ethics: Senate committee approves new rules as fresh Clarence Thomas claims emerge – as it happened

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Rules passed along party lines; conservative nonprofits reportedly orchestrated a $1.8m PR campaign to defend supreme court justice
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Here’s a rundown of the ethical controversies supreme court justices have been involved in.

Real estate transactions

Just about every week now, we learn something new and deeply troubling about the justices serving on the supreme court, the highest court in the land in the United States, and their conduct outside the courtroom.

Let me tell you, if I or any member of the Senate failed to report an all-expense paid luxury getaway or if we used our government staff to help sell books we wrote, we’d be in big trouble.

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Judge rejects Trump bid to move hush money case to federal court as legal challenges gather pace – as it happened

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Former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, who Donald Trump pressured to overturn the 2020 election, has been cooperating with special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 insurrection, NBC reported.

A spokesperson for Ducey yesterday confirmed that Smith’s team had contacted the former governor. “Yes, he’s been contacted. He’s been responsive, and just as he’s done since the election, he will do the right thing,” they told CNN.

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White House ends months-long snub to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to visit US

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No date set for far-right Israel PM’s visit as arrival of President Isaac Herzog highlights over creeping annexation of West Bank

The White House has finally invited Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the US after months of snubbing the Israeli prime minister over his government’s creeping annexation of the West Bank and deepening oppression of the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s office said President Joe Biden extended the invitation in a call between the two leaders on Monday ahead of a visit to Washington by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, this week that had thrown a spotlight on to the shunning of the prime minister.

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Robert F Kennedy condemned for Covid conspiracy theory; Democrats fear Manchin run could help Trump – live

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Democratic hopeful widely criticised for spreading disinformation; West Virginia senator is speaking at New Hampshire third-party town hall

House Democrats plan to unveil a resolution to formally censure Republican congressman George Santos for lying to voters about his education, work history and family background.

The resolution from Representative Ritchie Torres will be privileged, meaning that the Republican-controlled House must act on it, NBC News reported.

In a rare and historic special session, the Iowa legislature voted for a second time to reject the inhumanity of abortion and pass the fetal heartbeat law.

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Donald Trump’s legal team urges Georgia court to block 2020 election investigation – as it happened

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Lawyers for former US president ask Georgia’s highest court to prevent district attorney from prosecuting him

Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy condemned congressman Eli Crane for using an outdated and offensive term to refer to African Americans on the House floor:

Politico reports that Crane has apologized for using the language:

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Biden ‘serious’ on prisoner swap for US reporter Evan Gershkovich

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Biden says process ‘under way’ to free Wall Street Journal reporter held in Russia and accused without evidence of spying

Joe Biden has said he is serious about pursuing a prisoner exchange for the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia for more than 100 days, and claimed the process was “under way”.

“I’m serious on a prisoner exchange,” Biden told reporters on Thursday when asked about Gershkovich’s continued detention in Russia.

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Wray calls conspiracy theories of FBI involvement in January 6 ‘ludicrous’ – live

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FBI director Christopher Wray appears before House panel as White House condemns Republican attacks on law enforcement

In his testimony to the House judiciary committee, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, decried conspiracy theories promoted by rightwing figures such as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson as well as some Republican lawmakers that the bureau’s agents were involved in the January 6 insurrection.

Wray’s comments came in an exchange with Democratic congressman Steve Cohen, who asked Wray whether Ray Epps, a man Carlson and others have claimed was a government agent and provoked the storming of the US Capitol, worked for the FBI.

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House Republicans grill FBI director as Democrats deride attacks on agency

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Hearing comes as Republicans have accused FBI and DoJ of political bias in investigations of Trump and Biden’s son

House Republicans grilled the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray, at a frequently contentious committee hearing on Wednesday. While Republicans accused the FBI of political bias in its handling of investigations into Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, Democrats derided the attacks on the bureau as a smokescreen driven by conspiracy theories.

The Republican chair of the House judiciary committee, Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, kicked off the hearing with a litany of complaints about the FBI’s alleged targeting of rightwing leaders and activists, lamenting the supposed “double standard that exists now in our justice system”. Jordan suggested that the allegedly misguided leadership of Wray, a Trump appointee, could jeopardize government funding for the FBI’s planned new headquarters.

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Zelenskiy forced to recalibrate to avert Nato summit falling-out

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Ukrainian president’s frustration threatened to overshadow meeting – and did not go unnoticed by other leaders

It was, by the standards of international summits, an undiplomatic intervention. A clearly frustrated Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted that Nato allies were showing Ukraine disrespect, that they were discussing his country’s hopes of joining the military alliance without him. “It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to Nato nor to make it a member of the alliance,” he wrote.

The outburst was certainly last minute, coming less than an hour before Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and Nato other’s 29 leaders were due to sign off a final summit declaration on the topic. It turned out to be a communique that did not spell out a timeline by which Ukraine could join, nor a list of conditions it would have to meet, nor even extend an invitation to join at an unspecified future date once the war with Russia is over.

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Zelenskiy fails in effort to secure invitation to join Nato at Vilnius summit

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Leaders of military alliance sign off on declaration that does not give Ukraine firm membership timetable

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has failed in a last-ditch effort to secure an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato after leaders of the 31 countries signed off on a declaration that did not give a firm timetable or clear conditions for its eventual membership.

The frustrated Ukrainian president had accused Joe Biden and other leaders present at a summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, of showing disrespect and complained that there was “no readiness” to invite his country to join.

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Downing Street plays down reports of UK-US split over Ukraine Nato membership after Sunak-Biden meeting – UK politics live

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No 10 spokesperson says UK ‘certainly’ wants to support Ukraine on the pathway to joining Nato after reports of rift

Joe Biden has arrived at Downing Street for his first time as president ahead of tomorrow’s Nato summit in Lithuania.

After stepping out of US presidential vehicle “the Beast”, he shared a warm handshake with Rishi Sunak on the doorstep and smiled to press before disappearing behind the door to Number 10.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Nato chief ‘absolutely certain’ summit will have ‘unity and a strong message’ on Ukraine membership

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General secretary Jens Stoltenberg comments made at press conference in Vilnius ahead of Nato summit

Russia’s ministry of defence has published an image of Valery Gerasimov for the first time since the failed Wagner uprising of 24 June. Gerasimov was one of the military leaders that Yevgeney Prigozhin had been railing against for weeks before ordering his mercenaries to march on Moscow.

In a video clip posted to the ministry’s official social media channels, Gerasimov is seen receiving reports about claimed attempts by Ukrainian forces to strike targets in Crimea, Rostov and other regions.

This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

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US could agree to sell Turkey F-16 jets so it will allow Sweden to join Nato

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Erdoğan throws another obstacle in way of agreement by insisting Turkish EU membership be back on table

Joe Biden will try to nail down a four-country deal that would lead to Turkey allowing Sweden into Nato in return for the sale of US F-16 jets to Ankara, on the condition they are not used to threaten Greece.

But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a surprise obstacle in the way of Biden’s plan by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package. Speaking at the airport before departing for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Turkish president said: “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union, and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland.”

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Ukraine pessimistic about joining Nato ahead of Vilnius summit

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The US and Germany are unwilling to support Ukraine’s membership while the conflict with Russia is ongoing

Ukraine is increasingly pessimistic about taking a significant step forward in joining Nato as leaders of the western military alliance are set to assemble on Tuesday in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

Kyiv is expected to be offered a package of last-minute “enabling security guarantees” at the two day summit – an assurance from countries such as the US, UK, France and Germany that military aid and training will continue in the long term.

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Sunak needs all his persuasive powers to sway Biden on Ukraine’s Nato membership

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Meeting between US president and UK PM carries more significance than previous visits in light of recent disagreements

Joe Biden’s meeting in Downing Street on Monday with Rishi Sunak – their fifth in the past five months and the sixth since Sunak become prime minister – probably carries more significance than any other.

Never mind that it is essentially a stopover on the way to the Nato summit in Vilnius and being squeezed between tea with King Charles at Windsor Castle and a speech on climate finance.

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Joe Biden to meet Rishi Sunak at No 10 before Nato summit

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Meeting partially overshadowed by US president’s decision to send to Ukraine cluster munitions banned in Britain

Joe Biden will meet King Charles for the first time since the coronation, in a fleeting UK visit that will be used by Rishi Sunak and the US president as a “pre-meeting” ahead of joint efforts at this week’s Nato summit.

However, what will be the sixth meeting between Biden and Sunak since Sunak took office in October has been partly overshadowed by the US president’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, weapons that are prohibited by 100 countries including the UK, which currently holds the presidency of a convention banning them.

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Biden heads to Europe amid questions over cluster munitions and Nato unity

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US leader’s three-country tour aims to ‘showcase the president’s leadership on the world stage’ at a key time for the war in Ukraine

Joe Biden heads to Europe on Sunday for a swift tour dominated by the war in Ukraine, with membership of the expanding Nato military alliance and the US approval of cluster munitions likely to be key talking points. His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the trip would “showcase the president’s leadership on the world stage”.

The US president will arrive at night in London, ahead of meetings with the British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and King Charles, and then head to a key Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, before travelling to Helsinki to welcome Nato’s newest member, Finland.

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End justifies means for Biden in sending cluster bombs to Ukraine

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Decision to approve cluster munitions, lambasted by rights groups, exposes feeling in Washington that war is reaching crunch time

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, America’s voice at the United Nations, usually chooses her words carefully. “We have seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine, which has no place on the battlefield,” she told the general assembly last year. “That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs – which are banned under the Geneva conventions.”

The speech can be read on the official website of the US mission to the UN. But it comes with a neat metaphor for how messy diplomacy can be. The transcript of Thomas-Greenfield’s remarks now has the words “which has no place on the battlefield” crossed out, and the word “banned” comes with an asterisk: she should have said “the use of which directed against civilians is banned under the Geneva conventions”.

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Biden says sending cluster bombs to Ukraine was ‘difficult decision’ – as it happened

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President tells CNN he took the recommendation for controversial weapons because Ukraine is ‘running out of ammunition’

The US added 209,000 new jobs in June as hiring slowed amid signs that the economy is cooling.

The rise was the weakest gain since December 2020, lower than the 240,000 jobs economists had expected and lower than the 309,000 jobs added in May. But the increase was also the 30th consecutive month of jobs gains, and the unemployment rate ticked down to the historically low rate of 3.6%.

This alarming development requires the Committee to assess White House security practices and determine whose failures led to an evacuation of the building and finding of the illegal substance.

The presence of illegal drugs in the White House is unacceptable and a shameful moment in the White House’s history.

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Joe Biden defends ‘difficult decision’ to send cluster munitions to Ukraine

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Rights groups condemn supply of widely banned weapons and fellow Democrat calls it a ‘terrible mistake’

Joe Biden has defended the “difficult decision” to send widely banned cluster munitions to Ukraine, after he was condemned by human rights groups and a fellow Democrat said it was “unnecessary and a terrible mistake”.

Cluster munitions are prohibited by more than 100 countries. They typically scatter numerous smaller bomblets over a wide area, sometimes as big as a football pitch, and can kill indiscriminately. Those that fail to explode threaten civilians, especially children, for decades after a conflict ends.

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