President’s personal attorney reveals justice department ‘planned search’ of home in Rehoboth
Meanwhile in the Senate, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are frustrated that they have not been briefed on the national security implications of all the classified documents that have turned up in Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Mike Pence’s hands.
The sentiment expressed by Democrat Jon Tester today, according to NBC News, is a common one:
Continue reading...Planned search followed 13-hour review of president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, in January
Joe Biden’s personal lawyer said on Wednesday the FBI was conducting a planned search of the president’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, as part of its investigation potential mishandling of classified information.
“Today, with the president’s full support and cooperation, the Department of Justice is conducting a planned search of his home in Rehoboth, Delaware,” the lawyer, Bob Bauer, said in a statement.
Continue reading...FBI agents conducted a voluntary search of an office formerly used by Joe Biden in Washington DC after classified materials were discovered there, CBS News reports.
The search of the Penn Biden Center was carried out with Biden’s agreement in November of last year, after the secret documents dating from Biden’s time as vice president under Barack Obama were first discovered. The search was not publicly announced, and CBS News cited two sources familiar with the investigation in reporting it.
Santos hired Charles Lovett as his chief of staff. Lovett served as Santos’s campaign manager and worked for six months as a field organizer for the Ohio Republican Party, according to LegiStorm. He also served as political director for Ohio Republican Josh Mandel’s unsuccessful primary bid for Senate. He has not worked on the Hill previously. Viswanag Burra, Santos’s operations director, spent less than a year as special operations director for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and recently worked as executive secretary for the New York Young Republican Club.
His communications director, Naysa Woomer, appears to have the most Hill experience. She worked for three Republican members between 2014 and 2018 before moving to Massachusetts to be the communications director for the state Republican Party and then as a communications specialist for the state Department of Revenue.
Continue reading...Two EMTs and a firefighter also fired as lawmakers call for meeting with president and investigation into Nichols’ death continues
A sixth officer involved in the death of Tyre Nichols has been removed from duty, police said, as an influential group of Black elected officials has called for a meeting with Joe Biden to discuss police reform.
Officer Preston Hemphill, who is white, was relieved of duty and put on what is known as administrative leave, Memphis police major Karen Rudolph said on Monday, according to multiple reports.
Continue reading...The move to end the declarations comes as House Republicans are set to pass a resolution to demand their immediate scrapping
Joe Biden informed Congress on Monday that he will end the twin national emergencies for addressing Covid-19 on 11 May, as most of the world has returned closer to normalcy nearly three years after they were first declared.
The move to end the national emergency and public health emergency declarations would formally restructure the federal coronavirus response to treat the virus as an endemic threat to public health that can be managed through agencies’ normal authorities.
Continue reading...System whereby government classifies 50m documents a year threatens national security and democracy, says Jameel Jaffer
Donald Trump was caught with classified documents and Democrats were outraged. Joe Biden was caught with classified documents and Republicans were outraged. Mike Pence was caught with classified documents and it became clear that there might be a bigger problem here.
America has a crisis of “overclassification”, critics say. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington has been overzealous in defining government secrets. Politicians and officials can too easily fall foul of this secrecy-industrial complex but the biggest losers are the American people denied democratic accountability.
Continue reading...Attorney Ben Crump is holding a press conference alongside Tyre Nichols’s family, where he has compared the swift indictment and arrest of five Black police officers for Nichols’s death to the comparatively slow response to other high-profile killings of Black men.
“This is not the first time that we saw police officers committing crime and engaging in excessive brutal force against Black people in America who were unarmed, but yet we have never seen swift justice like this,” Crump said.
Continue reading...The US economy expanded at a 2.9% annual pace from October through December, ending 2022 with momentum despite the pressure of high interest rates and widespread fears of a looming recession, the Associated Press reports.
Thursday’s estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP)— the broadest gauge of economic output — decelerated last quarter from the 3.2% annual growth rate it had posted from July through September.
Continue reading...President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the decision by western allies but urged speed in the delivery of new weaponry
Commitments from the United States and Germany to send advanced battle tanks to counter Russian aggression has been hailed as “only the beginning” by a senior official in Ukraine, who said hundreds of tanks were needed, as Kyiv renewed its calls for fighter jets.
Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, made the comments as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the decision by western allies, urging them to provide large quantities of tanks quickly.
Continue reading...Some lawmakers on both sides now asking if discoveries mean it’s time to look at how government manages its secrets
Joe Biden will at 12 pm eastern time speak about the United State’s support for Ukraine, amid reports that Washington plans to send its Abrams tanks to help Kyiv defend against the Russian invasion.
Earlier in the day, the White House announced the American president had spoken to president Emmanuel Macron of France, Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak, chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and prime minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy “as part of our close coordination on support for Ukraine.”
Continue reading...President lauds ‘unflagging commitment to Ukraine’ as officials approve 31 M1 Abrams tanks to add to Germany’s 14 Leopard 2A6s
Joe Biden has approved sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, a significant escalation in the US effort to counter Russian aggression as international reluctance to send tanks to the battlefront falls away.
The reversal of the US’s previous position came after Germany confirmed it will make 14 of its Leopard 2A6 tanks available for Ukraine’s war effort, and give partner countries its permission to re-export other battle tanks to aid Kyiv.
Continue reading...Similar incidents involving Pence, Biden and Trump lead to calls for tightening how documents are handled – and whether the US is over-classifying
The discovery of classified documents at the home of former US vice-president Mike Pence, following similar incidents involving Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is bringing new scrutiny to government procedures for handling and securing its most delicate secrets.
The justice department and FBI are looking into how about a dozen classified-marked papers came to be found last week in an unsecure location at Pence’s Indiana residence, two years after he and Trump left office.
Continue reading...Germany will send its 2A6 battle tanks in conjunction with other countries such as Finland, Sweden and Poland, say reports citing government sources
Berlin has reportedly succumbed to huge international and domestic pressure and is set to announce that it will send German-manufactured tanks to Ukraine that Kyiv says it needs to push back Russian forces, according to media reports on Tuesday evening citing government sources.
It is reported to be planning to send a company of Leopard 2A6 battle tanks – usually comprising 14 of the vehicles – in conjunction with other partners, namely Scandinavian countries in possession of the units. Berlin is also understood to have said it would give its permission for export licences for countries such as Finland, Sweden and Poland who have bought the tanks from Germany, allowing them to be sent to Ukraine.
Continue reading...Jurors recommended making public the report into efforts to overturn results of 2020 election
A judge in Atlanta will at 12 pm eastern time convene a hearing to determine whether to release a special grand jury’s report into attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to meddle in the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
The jurors have recommended making the report public, and Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton county, which encompasses Georgia’s capital, is using its findings to determine whether to bring charges in the investigation, which has centered on the attempts by top Trump allies like attorney Rudy Giuliani and senator Lindsey Graham to convince state officials to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state. It’s unclear if Willis is considering charges against Trump in the case. Attorneys for the former president said yesterday they will not attend the hearing, and that Trump has not committed any crimes.
The shift in the U.S. position follows a call on Jan. 17 between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which Mr. Biden agreed to look into providing the Abrams tanks against the judgment of the Pentagon. A senior German official said that the issue had been the subject of intense negotiation between Washington and Berlin for more than a week and appeared to be on the way to resolution.
Military officials have argued publicly that the Abrams tanks require a substantial amount of training and logistics support and therefore aren’t appropriate for this moment in the conflict.
Continue reading...Intervention comes after a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, and a pair of shootings near Half Moon Bay, California
Joe Biden once again called on Congress to pass a bill banning assault weapons, following a string of recent mass shootings in California that in total killed at least 18 people.
“For the second time in recent days, California communities are mourning the loss of loved ones in a senseless act of gun violence,” the president said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Forecasts predict exports will fall to £707bn next year and target will not be reached until 2035
Ministers have been accused of leaving a “record of failure and broken promises” as internal forecasts show Britain will be 15 years late in achieving its £1tn annual export target after being hit by Brexit.
Projections from the Department for International Trade (DIT) show the value of UK exports will not reach £1tn until 2035, based on current trends, with the total due to fall to £707bn next year.
Continue reading...Zients had worked at the White House before as the top official for coordinating the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic
Joe Biden will name as his new chief of staff Jeff Zients, a former top official for coordinating the US response to the coronavirus pandemic, after it had emerged on Saturday that the US president’s current chief, Ron Klain, plans to step down, according to US media reports.
Zients departed his pandemic-related White House role last April, but had been back since fall, assisting Klain ahead of and after November’s midterm elections, and will now take over the top job, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Continue reading...New search turns up six more items from tenures as vice-president and in the Senate
A new search of President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware by the US justice department found six more items, including documents with classification markings, a lawyer for the president said in a statement Saturday night.
Some of the classified documents and “surrounding materials” dated from Biden’s tenure in the Senate, where he represented Delaware from 1973 to 2009, according to his lawyer, Bob Bauer. Other documents were from his tenure as vice-president in the Obama administration, from 2009 through 2017, Bauer said.
Continue reading...New York Times reports Klain to announce departure in coming weeks, following two grueling years since president took office
Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief of staff, is reportedly set to step down from his position, in what will be the biggest change to the US president’s inner circle of advisors since he took office two years ago.
Klain will announce his departure in the coming weeks, according to the New York Times, after telling colleagues that he is ready to move on following a grueling period of successes and frustrations that stretch back to Biden’s successful 2020 election campaign.
Continue reading...Ad-hoc tribunal of legal experts and supporters pressures US administration to drop ‘attack on press freedom’
Joe Biden has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding the release of journalists detained around the world while the US president continues seeking the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain to face American espionage charges.
The campaign to pressure the Biden administration to drop the charges moved to Washington DC on Friday with a hearing of the Belmarsh Tribunal, an ad hoc gathering of legal experts and supporters named after the London prison where Assange is being detained.
Continue reading...