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Prosecutors Ask Judge to Issue Protective Order After Trump Post Appearing to Promise Revenge

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after Trump released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.

Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a “gag order,” would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Such protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”

Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

Prosecutors said they are ready to hand over a “substantial” amount of evidence — “much of which includes sensitive and confidential information” — to Trump’s legal team.

They told the judge that if Trump were to begin posting about grand jury transcripts or other evidence provided by the Justice Department, it could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

Prosecutors’ proposed protective order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

A Trump spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the former president’s post “is the definition of political speech” and was made in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”

It’s unclear when Chutkan might rule on the matter. Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election.

The indictment unsealed this week accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as his legal challenges foundered in court.

The indictment chronicles how Trump and his Republican allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a “bedrock function of the U.S. government,” repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.

Trump faces charges that include conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

It’s the third criminal case brought this year against the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith has also charged Trump in Florida federal court with illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarting government efforts to get them back.

The magistrate judge in that case agreed to a protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval. Prosecutors are seeking another protective order in that case with more rules about the defense team’s handling of classified evidence.

After his court appearance on Thursday in the Washington case, Trump characterized the prosecution as a “persecution” designed to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign. His legal team has described it as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.

Smith has said prosecutors will seek a “speedy trial” against Trump in the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the government to file a brief by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court hearing in front of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the classified documents case.
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Trump Pleads Not Guilty to Charges He Illegally Tried to Upend 2020 Election Loss

Former US President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to four charges of criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from the courthouse.
Camera: Saqib Ul Islam
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Washington Closely Watching Niger After Coup

The White House says it’s closely watching a coup in Niger, as the US Embassy prepares to evacuate staff from the West African nation. With the coup plotters staring down a Sunday deadline to reinstate the deposed democratically elected president, analysts say Moscow and Beijing are also monitoring Niamey – and looking for opportunities to widen their influence. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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Trump to Appear in Court Thursday, Accused of Illegally Trying to Upend 2020 Election Loss

Former US President Donald Trump is due to appear in court Thursday, after a grand jury in Washington accused him of illegally trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Washington.
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Trump to Face Different Jury Pools in Two Federal Indictments

Former U.S. President Donald Trump will be facing two vastly different pools of possible jurors and judges with divergent views when he goes on trial in Washington, accused of illegally orchestrating an attempt to upend his 2020 election loss, and in Florida for allegedly trying to hoard classified national security documents.

Trump was indicted by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday in the Washington case, and Trump is set to make his first court appearance on Thursday afternoon.

A federal court grand jury handed up a four-count indictment alleging that Trump conspired to defraud the United States to stay in power even though he knew he had lost his reelection bid to Democrat Joe Biden and then helped foment the January 6, 2021, riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to block lawmakers from certifying the election outcome.

Jurors do not necessarily decide criminal cases the way they voted in elections, but when the case goes to trial — and that could be months from now — Trump will face a pool of would-be jurors, all residents of Washington, the national capital, who voted against him 92% to 5% in the 2020 election.

In the southern state of Florida, where Trump lives at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate in the winter months, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has indicated she is likely to hold the classified documents case Smith filed against Trump at the courthouse where she normally presides, in Fort Pierce, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the resort city of Miami.

If the trial is in Fort Pierce, jurors would be chosen from a list of voters in five counties, four of which handed Trump more than 60% of their votes in the 2020 election, while he eked out a slim majority in the fifth county.

The two federal judges overseeing the cases have already issued rulings for and against Trump.

Cannon, a Trump appointee to the federal bench in the waning days of his presidency, was randomly picked to oversee the classified documents case. Last year, she appointed a special master Trump sought, over the protests of Smith’s prosecutors, to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, which at the time delayed the government’s investigation.

The government appealed her decision and an appellate court rebuked Cannon, ruling that she had no right to name the special master.

More recently, when Smith sought to start the classified documents trial in December and Trump’s lawyers wanted to push it past the 2024 election, Cannon pretty much split the difference, ordering the trial to start in May 2024.

In Washington, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, nominated to the federal bench by former Democratic President Barack Obama, was randomly selected to oversee the case accusing Trump of election interference to stay in power.

Smith alleged that Trump knew he had lost but continued to make false claims that he had been cheated out of another four-year term in the White House and then tried to keep Congress from certifying that Biden had won, resulting in the mayhem at the Capitol on January 6 two years ago.

A specially appointed committee in the House of Representatives examined the riot at length in public hearings last year, and Chutkan played a role in the committee’s evidence gathering.

Trump sought to block release of documents sought by the committee by asserting executive privilege over the material, even though he was no longer president and Biden had cleared the way for the National Archives to turn over the papers. Chutkan ruled that Trump could not claim that his privilege “exists in perpetuity.”

Chutkan notably wrote, “Presidents are not kings, and plaintiff is not president.”

Chutkan is one of two dozen federal judges in Washington who have overseen the cases of rioters charged with offenses for their roles in the January 6 rampage at the Capitol building.

She has sentenced all 38 defendants convicted in her court to prison terms, ranging from 10 days to more than five years. In four of the cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.

“It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment,” she said at one sentencing.
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US Economy Will Sway 2024 Vote, Small Business Owners Say

The Biden administration has recently been emphasizing the strength of the U.S. economy, but some small business owners remain skeptical. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias visited their shops and found out more about their economic struggles, ahead of election season.
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Breakdown of Sprawling Election-Meddling Indictment Against Trump

Donald Trump for years has promoted baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. In truth, Trump was the one who tried to steal the election, federal prosecutors said Tuesday in a sprawling indictment that paints the former president as desperate to cling to power he knew had been stripped away by voters.

The Justice Department indictment accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as his legal challenges foundered in court.

The felony charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith are built around the words of White House lawyers and others in his inner circle who repeatedly told Trump there was no fraud.

It’s the third time this year the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary has been charged in a criminal case. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump has said he did nothing wrong, and he has accused Smith and the Justice Department of trying to harm his 2024 campaign.

Here’s a look at the charges Trump faces and other key issues in the indictment:

With what is Trump charged?

Trump is charged with four counts: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to prevent others from carrying out their constitutional rights.

In the obstruction charge — which carries penalties of up to 20 years in prison — the official proceeding refers to the January 6, 2021, joint session of Congress at which electoral votes were counted in order to certify Biden as the official winner. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding also carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.

That obstruction charge has been brought against hundreds of the more than 1,000 people charged in the January 6 riot, including members of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups. More than 100 people have been convicted at trial or pleaded guilty to the offense.

Conspiracy to defraud the U.S., which is punishable by up to five years in prison, prohibits efforts to obstruct or interfere with government functions “by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest,” the Supreme Court has held. The indictment alleges that Trump used “dishonesty, fraud and deceit” to obstruct the counting and certifying of the election results.

Trump had the right to contest the election — and even falsely claim that he had won, the indictment says. The charges, however, stem from what prosecutors say were illegal efforts to subvert the election results and block the peaceful transfer of power.

The indictment alleges a weekslong plot that began with pressure on state lawmakers and election officials to change electoral votes from Biden to Trump, and then evolved into organizing fake slates of pro-Trump electors to be sent to Congress.

Trump and his allies also attempted to use the Justice Department to conduct bogus election-fraud investigations in order to boost his fake electors scheme, the indictment says.

As January 6 approached, Trump and his allies pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject certain electoral votes, and when that failed, the former president directed his supporters to go to the Capitol to obstruct Congress’ certification of the vote, the indictment alleges.

Finally, the indictment says, Trump and his allies tried to exploit his supporters’ attack on the Capitol by redoubling their efforts to spread election lies and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification of Biden’s victory.

“Each of these conspiracies — which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud — targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment says.

What is the ‘conspiracy against rights’ charge?

Trump is accused of violating a post-Civil War era civil rights statute that makes it a crime to conspire to interfere with rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution, in this case: the right to vote and have one’s vote counted. It’s punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The provision was originally part of a set of laws passed in 1870 in response to violence and intimidation by members of the Ku Klux Klan aimed at keeping Black people from the polls.

But it has been used over the years in a wide range of election fraud cases, including to prosecute conspiracies to stuff ballot boxes or not count certain votes. The conspiracy doesn’t have to be successful, meaning the fraud doesn’t have to actually affect the election.

Was anyone else charged?

Trump is the only defendant charged in the indictment, which mentions six co-conspirators. The six people are not explicitly named, but the indictment includes details that make it possible to identify some of them. It’s unclear why they weren’t charged or whether they will be added to the indictment at a later date.

The co-conspirators include an attorney “who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies” that Trump’s 2020 campaign attorneys would not, and an attorney whose “unfounded claims of election fraud” Trump privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Another co-conspirator is a political consultant who helped submit fake slates of electors for Trump.

What happens next?

The case was filed in Washington’s federal court, where Trump is expected to make his first appearance on Thursday.

For more than two years, judges in that courthouse — which sits within sight of the Capitol — have been hearing the cases of the hundreds of Trump supporters accused of participating in the January 6 riot, many of whom have said they were deluded by the election lies pushed by Trump and his allies.

Trump has signaled that his defense may rest, at least in part, on the idea that he truly believed the election was stolen, saying in a recent social media post, “I have the right to protest an Election that I am fully convinced was Rigged and Stolen, just as the Democrats have done against me in 2016, and many others have done over the ages.”

But prosecutors have amassed a significant amount of evidence showing that Trump was repeatedly told he had lost.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the federal case in Florida stemming from classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
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Trump Indicted, Accused of Illegally Trying to Upend 2020 Election Loss

Legal jeopardy for Donald Trump is growing after a federal grand jury in Washington indicted the former U.S. president, accusing him of illegally trying to upend his 2020 election loss to retain power. VOA’s Michael Brown reports.
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Reaction to Indictment of Former US President Donald Trump

Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s indictment on four federal charges for working to overturn his 2020 election loss drew reaction from across the political spectrum, including from his vice president at the time, Mike Pence, who said “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.” 

The indictment describes a series of events after the November election, culminating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. The indictment says many in the “large and angry crowd” had been deceived by Trump into believing Pence could change the election results. 

Among those tasked with defending the Capitol from the mob was U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who said in a statement released by his lawyer, “All I have wanted from day one is accountability and justice for the law enforcement men and women who fought bravely on January 6th.” 

“I would be lying if I did not acknowledge my numbness with the news of the indictment today of a former president of the United States,” Dunn said. “I am confident our legal system will handle this case properly.” 

‘A stark reminder’

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a joint statement that Tuesday’s indictment “will stand as a stark reminder to generations of Americans that no one, including a president of the United States, is above the law.” 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose office was ransacked by the January 6 mob, said in a statement that as the legal process plays out, “justice must be done according to the facts and the law.” 

“The charges alleged in this indictment are very serious, and they must play out through the legal process, peacefully and without any outside interference. Like every criminal defendant, the former President is innocent until proven guilty,” Pelosi said. 

Claims of political interference

Republican leaders cast the indictment as a form of political interference ahead of the 2024 presidential election in which Democratic President Joe Biden is seeking reelection and Trump remains the leading candidate for the Republican Party. 

They also mentioned Biden’s son, Hunter, ongoing congressional probes into Hunter Biden’s business dealings and criticism of a plea agreement for tax evasion. 

“Everyone in America could see what was going to come next: DOJ’s attempt to distract from the news and attack the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, President Trump,” Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in a statement. “House Republicans will continue to uncover the truth about Biden Inc. and the two-tiered system of justice.” 

Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise called Trump’s indictment “an outrageous abuse of power” and accused the U.S. Justice Department of giving favorable treatment to Hunter Biden while “trying to persecute” Trump. 

Reublican Senator Ted Budd said the Biden administration has repeatedly “weaponized the justice system to target his chief political opponent.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Michigan Prosecutors Charge Trump Allies in Felonies Involving Voting Machines, Illegal ‘Testing’

LANSING, Michigan — A former Republican attorney general candidate and another supporter of former President Donald Trump have been criminally charged in Michigan in connection with accessing and tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election, according to court records.

Matthew DePerno, a Republican lawyer who was endorsed by Trump in an unsuccessful run for Michigan attorney general last year, was charged with undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy, according to Oakland County court records.

Daire Rendon, a former Republican state representative, was charged with conspiracy to commit undue possession of a voting machine and false pretenses.

Both were arraigned remotely Tuesday afternoon, according to Richard Lynch, the court administrator for Oakland County’s 6th Circuit.

Those charged in Michigan are the latest facing legal consequences for alleged crimes committed after embracing Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

The charges come as the former president is investigated for election interference in Georgia. Separately, Trump said in mid-July that he is a target of a federal investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

DePerno, whose name was incorrectly listed as “DeParno” in court records, was named as a “prime instigator” in the case. He could not be reached by phone immediately for comment but has previously denied wrongdoing and has accused the state attorney general of “weaponizing her office.”

Five vote tabulators were taken from three counties in Michigan to a hotel room, according to documents released last year by Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office. Investigators found that the tabulators were broken into, and that “tests” were performed on the equipment. They said that DePerno was there.

Because Nessel ran against DePerno in 2022, she secured a special prosecutor who wouldn’t have a conflict of interest in the case and could operate independently.

That special prosecutor, D.J. Hilson, has been reviewing the investigation and considering charges since September. He convened a grand jury in March to determine whether criminal indictments should be issued, according to court documents.

Charges were slow to come in the case, in part because prosecutors wanted clarification from a judge about what constitutes illegal possession of a voting machine. Some of the defendants argued that local clerks gave them permission to take the machines.

In July, a state judge ruled that it’s a felony to take a machine without a court order or permission directly from the secretary of state’s office.

That felony is punishable by up to five years in prison.
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Judge Assigned to Trump Case Known for Giving Capitol Rioters Stiff Penalties

The federal judge assigned to the election fraud case against former President Donald Trump has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attack fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election. She has also ruled against him before. 

Trump is to appear Thursday before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama. She often handed down prison sentences in January 6, 2021, riot cases that were harsher than Justice Department prosecutors recommended. 

Trump was indicted Tuesday on federal felony charges for his persistent efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the two months leading up to the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. 

Chutkan has ruled against Trump before in a separate January 6 case. In November 2021, she refused his request to block the release of documents to the U.S. House’s January 6 committee by asserting executive privilege. 

She rejected his arguments that he could hold privilege over documents from his administration even after President Joe Biden had cleared the way for the National Archives to turn the papers over. She wrote that Trump could not claim his privilege “exists in perpetuity.” 

In a memorable line from her ruling, Chutkan wrote, “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.” 

Chutkan has sentenced at least 38 people convicted of Capitol riot-related crimes. All 38 received prison terms, ranging from 10 days to more than five years, according to an Associated Press analysis of court records. 

She is one of two dozen judges in Washington who collectively have sentenced nearly 600 defendants for their roles in the January 6 siege. More than one-third of them avoided sentences that included incarceration. 

Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors. Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all. 

Chutkan has said prison can be a powerful deterrent against the threat of another insurrection. 

“Every day we’re hearing about reports of anti-democratic factions of people plotting violence, the potential threat of violence, in 2024,” she said in December 2021 before sentencing a Florida man who attacked police officers to more than five years behind bars. At the time, that sentence was the longest for a January 6 case. 

“It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment,” she said. 

Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump nominee, suggested during a hearing in 2021 that the Justice Department was being too hard on those who broke into the Capitol compared with the people arrested during racial injustice protests following George Floyd’s 2020 murder. 

Without naming her colleague, Chutkan criticized McFadden’s suggestion days later. 

“People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man. Some of those protesters became violent,” Chutkan said during an October 2021 hearing. 

“But to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.” 
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Republican Presidential Candidates Woo Voters at Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner

The race to choose a Republican nominee for the 2024 U.S. presidential election is heating up in Iowa. As VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner Friday brought nearly all of the party’s candidates to one place, allowing each to woo voters ahead of the January 15 caucus.
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Trump Charged With Willfully Retaining US Military Plan to Attack Iran

Former President Donald Trump was charged Thursday with illegally retaining a classified document detailing an operational U.S. military plan of attack on Iran, and with two counts of attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal evidence” during the investigation into the classified documents he took to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Trump, Primary Rivals Mostly Ignore Case Against Him During Key Event

DES MOINES, IOWA — Donald Trump and his top rivals for the GOP presidential nomination took the stage one by one Friday night to address an influential gathering of Iowa Republicans, with none of the top-tier hopefuls mentioning that new federal charges had been filed against the former president just a day earlier.

Instead, Trump’s competitors mostly reserved their sharpest criticism for President Joe Biden and a Democratic Party they argued had lost touch with mainstream America — failing to pounce on additional counts over Trump’s retention of classified documents that might have otherwise been an opportunity to cut into his comfortable early lead in the polls.

“The time for excuses is over. We must get the job done,” said Ron DeSantis. “I will get the job done.”

The Florida governor also repeated his frequent promise to halt the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, an allusion to Trump’s legal troubles. But he offered no specific thoughts on the cases against him — even though Trump is also bracing to be charged soon in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The former president frequently avoids attending multicandidate events in person, questioning why he would share a stage with competitors who are badly trailing him in polls. Still, with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus less than six months away, Trump joined a dozen other Republican hopefuls in speaking to about 1,200 Republican Party members and activists at the Lincoln Day Dinner.

“If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me,” Trump said in his only veiled reference to his legal issues. He also insisted the same would be true if he were trailing in the polls.

While DeSantis didn’t mention the former president by name, meanwhile, Trump didn’t return the favor. He told the crowd, “I wouldn’t take a chance on that one,” and repeatedly branded him “DeSanctus.”

Trump was even blunter before the dinner as he opened a campaign office in Urbandale, outside Des Moines.

“I understand the other candidates are falling very flat … it’s like death,” Trump said.

More than 100 people packed the small office, many wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and shirts. They had waited in 37-degree Celsius weather to enter, and the poorly ventilated office quickly became sweltering. Staff handed out water bottles, and people fanned themselves with campaign handouts. Some used paper towels to wipe away sweat.

Similar strong support for the former president was evident during the dinner, when many attendees wore “Trump Country” stickers, including 72-year-old Diane Weaver of Ankeny, Iowa.

“I think he makes America great,” said Weaver, a retiree who plans to caucus for Trump. “I think he did it once and I think he can do it again.”

West Des Moines resident Jane Schrader chose to wear her “Trump Country” sticker on her pants instead of at eye level. “I’m not quite dyed-in-the-wool. I’m a supporter, but not that kind,” said the retired physician, explaining her sticker placement.

DeSantis, who like most of Friday’s speakers vowed to visit all of Iowa’s 99 counties, is Trump’s strongest primary competitor but has been trying to reset his stalled campaign for two weeks. He’s increasingly focusing on Iowa in its efforts on trying to derail Trump, and spoke at the dinner in the midst of a two-day bus tour of the state.

The governor’s stumbles have raised questions about whether another candidate might be able to emerge from the field and catch the former president. Some evangelicals, who can be determinative in Iowa’s caucuses, have pointed to South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s upbeat message and pulpit-style delivery as strengths that could help him rise there.

Scott, who also spoke Friday night and didn’t mention Trump or the cases against him, took a swipe this week at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s support for new standards that require the state’s teachers to instruct middle school students that slaves developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”

The only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, Scott said all Americans should recognize how “devastating” slavery was. “There is no silver lining” to slavery, he added.

DeSantis has also faced criticism from teachers and civil rights leaders, as well as mounting pushback from some of his party’s most prominent Black elected officials. Florida Rep. Byron Donalds said he hoped officials might “correct” parts of the curriculum addressing lessons on the developed skills of enslaved people. Texas Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt, Michigan Rep. John James and Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman now also running in the GOP presidential primary, have also criticized DeSantis.

Still, the governor continued to dig in on the issue, saying at a pre-dinner event in Oskaloosa on Friday, “D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left.”

John Niemeyer, 52, from Kalona, Iowa, attended DeSantis’ event and was impressed. But, as a high school teacher, he’s not a fan of some of the governor’s positions on education policy.

“I don’t want to make our classrooms a political battlefield,” he said, adding that it would be a “mistake” to make the issue the forefront of his campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris made her own Iowa stop on Friday, seeking to draw a contrast with the Republicans as she looked to lift President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Harris met in Des Moines with activists and discussed abortion rights, after Reynolds recently signed a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

“I do believe that we are witnessing a national agenda that is about a full-on attack on hard won freedoms and hard won rights,” the vice president said.

Trump, meanwhile, did face criticism Friday night from some Republican opponents, but only those considered long shots. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison declared, “As a party, we need a new direction for America and for the GOP (Republican Party),” drawing only muted reaction from the crowd.

Loud and sustained boos came, however, for Hurd, who said, “The reason Donald Trump lost the election in 2020 is he failed to grow the GOP (Republican) brand.”

The former congressman pressed on, saying: “Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again. … Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.”

That was the only reference to locking Trump up on the night, except for a surprising — and potentially coincidental — snippet of walk-on music played as the former president took the stage. Like all the candidates, the event’s organizers played parts of Brooks & Dunn’s Only in America as Trump approached.

But his part included the lyrics: “One could end up going to prison. One just might be president.” 
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White House, Congress Disagree About Proposed US Missile Defense Plan

Differences are emerging between Congress and the White House concerning missile defense policy, as outlined in the proposed annual defense bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

The $874 billion budget passed by the House on Friday calls for the military to maintain a “credible nuclear capability” to deter adversaries, while developing and deploying layered defense systems that can defeat complex missile threats “in all phases of flight.”

In a statement last week, the White House criticized this section of the proposed NDAA on grounds that it would “undermine U.S. strategic deterrence” with China and Russia.

“The Administration strongly opposes section 1662, which would expand U.S. homeland missile defense policy in a way that would signal intent to develop U.S. homeland missile defenses to counter large intercontinental-range, nuclear missiles threats such as those fielded by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia,” the White House said.

Asked by VOA how expanding U.S. homeland missile defense policy would undermine strategic deterrence, the White House did not respond before publication of this report.

Pentagon spokesman Oscar Seara told VOA, “It is longstanding policy that we do not comment on proposed legislation or speculate on its effects.”

Reasoning based on theory

Ian Williams, a missile defense expert at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the administration’s reasoning is a seemingly counterintuitive idea based on the Cold War-era theory known as balance of terror.

Balance of terror assumes that if two adversaries are mutually vulnerable to each other’s nuclear weapons, then both sides will avoid conflict and will be disincentivized to build up their nuclear arsenals.

“It’s beautiful in theory but dicey in practice and does not account for accidental or inadvertent launches,” Williams told VOA.

The administration also strongly opposes a section of the proposed NDAA that calls for the Pentagon and the Missile Defense Agency to execute a program to achieve initial operational capability of a Glide Phase Interceptor, a weapon that could defeat any known hypersonic missile, by December 31, 2029.

The White House statement said the government was already funded “to keep pace with new threat-related technology developments.”

The MDA is developing the Aegis Glide Phase Interceptor through a program expected to deliver a weapon in the 2030s, according to a Pentagon spokesperson.

Williams was pleased that the NDAA legislation currently proposed scheduled accountability for the Glide Phase Interceptor program.

“The U.S. has put a good deal of resources into hypersonic weapons but has put less resources into developing defenses against hypersonic weapons. Such defenses will be important to maintaining the survivability of forward-based U.S. forces in places like Guam,” he said.

New START Treaty

Congress and the White House are also at odds over how to carry out the New START Treaty, following Russia’s suspension of participation in the nuclear weapons treaty in February.

The House-passed NDAA prohibits using defense funds to provide Russia with notifications required by the New START Treaty. Waivers can be made, per the proposed NDAA, if it is “in the national security interest of the United States” and if Russia “is providing similar information to the United States as required by the New START Treaty.”

While the United States has, as of June 1, ceased transmitting New START Treaty notifications to the Russian Federation as a lawful countermeasure to Russia’s ongoing violations of the treaty, the administration opposed the language in the proposed NDAA because it says it “would unduly constrain the ability of the Executive Branch to reverse such countermeasures.”

The administration said the United States continues to send notifications on ballistic missile launches and on major strategic exercises that are required separately under two older agreements that remain in force.
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Former Trump Supporter Sues Fox News for Defamation

A former Donald Trump supporter who became the center of a conspiracy theory about January 6, 2021, filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Wednesday, saying the network made him a scapegoat for the U.S. Capitol insurrection. 

Raymond Epps, a former Marine who said he was forced from his Arizona home because of threats, is asking for unspecified damages and a jury trial. 

He filed his lawsuit in Superior Court in Delaware, the same court where Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox for lies broadcast following the 2020 presidential election. Shortly before a trial was to begin this spring, Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787 million to settle the charges. 

Fox did not respond to texts, phone calls and emails seeking comment on Epps’ lawsuit. 

The suit also states that the Justice Department told Epps in May that he faces criminal charges for his actions on January 6. The lawsuit blames that on “the relentless attacks by Fox and Mr. Carlson and the resulting political pressure.” 

Epps, who had traveled to Washington for the January 6 demonstration, was falsely accused by Fox of being a government agent who was whipping up trouble that would be blamed on Trump supporters, the lawsuit claims. 

“In the aftermath of the events of January 6th, Fox News searched for a scapegoat to blame other than Donald Trump or the Republican Party,” the lawsuit says. “Eventually, they turned on one of their own.” 

Although the lawsuit mentions Fox’s Laura Ingraham and Will Cain, former Fox host Tucker Carlson is cited as the leader in promoting the theory. Epps was featured in more than two dozen segments on Carlson’s prime-time show, the lawsuit said. Fox News fired Carlson shortly after the Dominion settlement was announced. 

Carlson “was bluntly telling his viewers that it was a fact that Epps was a government informant,” the lawsuit says. “And they believed him.” 

Carlson ignored evidence that contradicted his theory, including Epps’ testimony before a congressional committee investigating the insurrection that he was not working for the government, and videos provided by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that showed Epps’ efforts to try to defuse the situation, the lawsuit says. 

Carlson is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Epps’ lawyer, Michael Teter, noted that Carlson “was an employee of Fox when he lied about Ray, and Fox broadcast those defamatory falsehoods.” 

“Fox is therefore fully liable for Mr. Carlson’s statements,” Teter said. 

The former Fox star did not respond to a text message seeking comment. 

Also Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, addressed Epps being a “secret government agent.” 

“I will say this notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous,” Wray told lawmakers. He refused to say, however, how many of the people who entered the Capitol and surrounding area on January 6 were either FBI employees or people with whom the FBI had made contact. 

Epps claims in his lawsuit that, as a result of the alleged defamatory statements made by Fox, he and his wife have been the target of harassment and death threats from Trump supporters, forced to sell the Arizona ranch where they ran a successful wedding venue business, and now face financial ruin. According to the lawsuit, Epps and his wife are now living in a recreational vehicle in Utah. 
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FBI Director Rejects Claims of Political Bias Within the Bureau 

FBI director Christopher Wray defended his agency against Republican accusations of political bias Wednesday, dismissing claims he was “protecting” Democratic President Joe Biden’s family while going after former President Donald Trump, a Republican, and other conservatives.  

“Absolutely not,” Wray retorted during a combative House Judiciary Committee hearing when asked by Republican member and staunch Trump supporter Matt Gaetz if he was “protecting the Bidens.”  

“The FBI does not, has no interest in protecting anyone politically,” Wray said.  

The hearing marked Wray’s first appearance before the oversight panel since Republicans recaptured the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections.  

Wray, who was appointed by Trump and retained by Biden, has become a lightning rod for Republican criticism that the Biden Administration has “weaponized” the FBI and the Justice Department against its political foes.  

The criticism has intensified over the past year, particularly after the FBI executed a search of Trump’s residence in Florida last August as part of an investigation into the former president’s mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House in 2021.     

The unprecedented search, which led to Trump’s indictment last month, has fueled Republican allegations that the FBI is out to get Trump.   

Republican criticism of the FBI is not limited to the Mar-a-Lago search. During the hearing on Wednesday, Republicans aired a litany of old grievances at the FBI, from the bureau’s alleged failure to investigate the Biden family for their alleged corruption to its proclivity to target pro-life activists and work with social media companies to “censor” conservative speech. 

Wray, a long-time Republican, scoffed at the notion that he was hostile to conservatives.  

“The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Wray said.  

In his prepared testimony, Wray highlighted the FBI’s critical investigation and national security work, citing the arrest of more than 20,000 violent criminals and child predators and investigations of cartels and malicious Chinese activities.  

Those highlights fell by the wayside, though, as the hearing devolved into what has become a familiar display of partisanship before the House Judiciary Committee in recent years. 

The panel’s Republican chairman, Jim Jordan of Ohio, a staunch Trump supporter, said there is a “two tier system of justice” in the United States. 

Jerry Nadler, the Democratic ranking member of the panel, said that “it’s absurd that House Republicans are attacking the FBI and DOJ for doing their job and ensuring that no person is above the law.” 

Republicans angry at the FBI’s perceived “politicization” have threatened to “defund” the bureau. However, Wray warned that cutting off the bureau’s funding would be disastrous. 

“We’d have hundreds more violent criminals on the streets,” he said in response to a question. “Dozens more violent gangs terrorizing communities. Hundreds more child molesters on the loose. Hundreds more kids left at those predators’ mercy instead of being rescued. Scores of threats from the Chinese Communist Party being left unaddressed. Hundreds of ransomware attacks left unmitigated. Terrorist attacks, both jihadist-inspired and domestic violent extremists not prevented that would succeed against Americans.” 
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Iowa Republicans Pass Bill Banning Most Abortions After About 6 Weeks; Governor to Sign Friday

Iowa’s Republican-led Legislature passed a bill banning most abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy during a marathon special session Tuesday that continued late into the night. Governor Kim Reynolds immediately said in a statement she would sign the bill Friday. 

The bill passed with exclusively Republican support in a rare, one-day legislative burst lasting more than 14 hours over the vocal — and sometimes tense — objections from Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates protesting at the Capitol.  

Just after 11 p.m., lingering protesters in the gallery booed and yelled “shame” to state senators in the minutes after the bill was approved. 

Reynolds ordered the rare session after the state Supreme Court declined in June to reinstate a practically identical law that she signed in 2018. 

“The Iowa Supreme Court questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018, and today they have a clear answer,” Reynolds said in a statement. “The voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives cannot be ignored any longer, and justice for the unborn should not be delayed.”  

Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. The legislation will take immediate effect with the governor’s signature on Friday. It will prohibit almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. 

Preparations were already underway to quickly file legal challenges in court and get the measure blocked, once Reynolds signs it into law. 

“The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood, and the Emma Goldman Clinic remain committed to protecting the reproductive rights of Iowans to control their bodies and their lives, their health, and their safety — including filing a lawsuit to block this reckless, cruel law,” ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Mark Stringer said in a statement. 

In the meantime, Planned Parenthood North Central States has said they will refer patients out of state if they’re scheduled for abortions in the next few weeks. The organization, the largest abortion provider in the state, will continue to provide care to patients who present before cardiac activity is detected. 

There are limited circumstances under the measure that would allow for abortion after that point in a pregnancy where cardiac activity is detected — such as rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life;” and if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman. 

For much of the morning and afternoon, chants from abortion rights advocates echoed through the rotunda and could be heard from rooms where state representatives and senators were meeting in the morning and afternoon. Members of the public for and against the bill alternated conveying their viewpoints to lawmakers from both chambers for nearly four hours in total. 

Sara Eide of the Iowa Catholic Conference encouraged lawmakers to vote in favor. 

“The unborn child is a distinct human life with her own value, with her own DNA, and with her own right to life and right to legal protections,” she said. “As a state and as a society, we should commit ourselves to protect all vulnerable populations wherever we find them.” 

Hilary McAdoo, a fertility nurse, said her two daughters motivated her to voice her opposition Tuesday. 

“Just because a person has the ability to become pregnant does not mean they should be forced to become a mother,” she said. “The people before me want to govern women’s bodies without understanding how they work.” 

McAdoo called the six-week cutoff “impossible and irresponsible.” 

Laws such as Iowa’s ban abortion when a “fetal heartbeat” can be detected, a concept that does not easily translate to medical science. That’s because at the point where advanced technology can detect that first visual flutter, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus, and it doesn’t have a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus beginning in the 11th week of pregnancy, medical experts say. 

A district court found the 2018 law unconstitutional in 2019 based on rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and Iowa’s Supreme Court that had affirmed a woman’s fundamental constitutional right to abortion.  

After both bodies overturned those rulings last year, the governor sought to reinstate the 2018 law. But the state’s high court deadlocked last month without ruling on the merits of an abortion ban, leaving the law permanently blocked.  

And so Reynolds called lawmakers back to Des Moines. 

Democratic lawmakers proposed amendments to the language to expand the exceptions, which were swiftly rejected. 

“Iowa women are less free than they were a week ago and it’s because of the work of Republicans in the legislature and the governor,” said House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, who voiced concerned that there will be instant chaos and confusion when the bill is signed into law.  

“We will spend every day between now and Election Day letting voters know that the Republican Legislature was too extreme, went too far and voted against the interests of everyday Iowans,” she added. 

Most Republican-led states have drastically limited abortion access in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed authority on abortion law to the states. More than a dozen states have bans with limited exceptions and one state, Georgia, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected. Several other states have similar restrictions that are on hold pending court rulings. 
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Trump Can Be Held Liable in Writer’s Defamation Lawsuit After Justice Department Reverses Course

The Justice Department on Tuesday said that Donald Trump can be held personally liable for remarks he made about a woman who accused him of rape — a reversal of its position that Trump was protected because he was president when he made the remarks. 

In a letter filed with the judge presiding over a defamation lawsuit that columnist E. Jean Carroll brought in Manhattan federal court in 2020, the department says it no longer has “a sufficient basis” to conclude that Trump was motivated in his statements about Carroll’s claims by more than an insignificant desire to serve the United States. 

Previously, the department had agreed with Trump’s attorneys that he was protected from the lawsuit by the Westfall Act, which provides federal employees absolute immunity from lawsuits brought over conduct occurring within the scope of their employment. 

Lawyers for Trump did not immediately comment. 

In May, a jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after concluding that Trump sexually abused her in 1996 at a midtown Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman store and then defamed her last fall with comments he made about her and her claims. While the jury concluded Trump sexually abused Carroll, it rejected her rape claim. 

The trial resulted from a lawsuit Carroll brought last November after New York state temporarily allowed victims of sexual abuse to make civil claims for attacks that occurred even decades earlier. 

In the government’s letter, U.S. lawyers cited the jury’s verdict, Trump’s October deposition, and new claims Carroll has since made that Trump defamed her again with comments he made during a CNN town hall a day after the verdict. 

The letter gives fresh fuel to Carroll’s original defamation lawsuit, which had been delayed by appeals over whether Trump could be held liable for statements he made while president. 

The original claims are scheduled for trial next January and stem from comments Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first went public in a memoir with her claims about being sexually attacked by Trump. 

Carroll’s lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, welcomed the DOJ submission, saying it was one of the “last obstacles” to the lawsuit reaching trial. 

“We are grateful that the Department of Justice has reconsidered its position,” she said in a statement. “We have always believed that Donald Trump made his defamatory statements about our client in June 2019 out of personal animus, ill will, and spite, and not as President of the United States.” 

Earlier in the day, Carroll’s lawyers filed papers challenging a counterclaim in the defamation lawsuit by Trump’s lawyers who maintained that Carroll had defamed him with comments she made after the May verdict — in part because she repeated statements that he had raped her. 

The lawyers wrote that his counterclaim was “nothing more than his latest effort to spin his loss at trial.” 

They said the sexual abuse Trump was found liable for was equivalent to rape under some criminal statutes and would require him to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender if it had been a criminal claim. 

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
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Biden, Sunak to Discuss Ukraine Ahead of NATO Summit

The war in Ukraine will be high on the agenda Monday as U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meet in London as allies prepare for the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. 

It will be the leaders’ sixth meeting in six months. In June, Biden hosted Sunak at the White House, committing to the Atlantic Declaration to cooperate on advanced technologies, clean energy, and critical minerals to counter China’s clout around the world.   

Biden is also due to meet Monday with Britain’s King Charles before traveling to Vilnius, where it remains unlikely NATO will welcome Sweden as its 32nd member due to persistent objections from Turkey.   

During the flight to Britain, Biden spoke on the phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a last-minute push to pave the way toward Ankara agreeing to Sweden’s accession – a process that must be unanimous among all current members.   

“I can’t characterize how close, how far, all I can say is that we believe that Sweden should be admitted to NATO as soon as possible,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA aboard Air Force One enroute to London. “We believe that there should be a pathway to do so.”   

In a readout of the call, Ankara stated that Sweden has taken some steps in the right direction but has not made sufficient progress to support Stockholm’s application to join NATO.   

Ankara has accused Sweden of being too lenient toward militant Kurdish organizations that Turkey considers terrorist groups. Following Turkish demands, Sweden has enacted reforms, including a new anti-terrorism law. Erdogan initially accused Finland of doing the same but approved Helsinki’s application to join NATO in April.   

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg invited Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to discuss their positions at a meeting Monday in Vilnius. 

Sullivan added that Biden and Erdogan discussed the sale of F-16s, a subject that remains a sticking point for Ankara despite its public denials. In its statement, Ankara noted Erdogan said “it would be incorrect to associate Sweden’s NATO accession with the sale of F-16 jets” while thanking Biden for his support to Ankara on its desire to purchase the fighter planes.   

Lawmakers from both parties in the U.S. Congress, which has authority to approve major weapon sales, insist that Ankara must first drop its objections to Sweden’s accession before the deal can proceed.  

Hungary also opposes Sweden’s bid but has said it will approve it if Turkey assents.   

NATO summit 

At their two-day meeting in Vilnius, NATO leaders will discuss bolstering support for Ukraine, which includes hashing out the final wording of a compromise communique that will signal to Kyiv it is moving closer to membership without promises of a quick accession.

Biden has repeatedly said Ukraine must make additional reforms to qualify for NATO membership.  In an interview taped last week, Biden told CNN he thinks it is premature to call for a vote on Ukraine joining NATO.   

“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in NATO,” he said. “I don’t think there’s unanimity in NATO now … in the middle of a war. If the war is going on [and Ukraine was a NATO member], then we’re all in the war. We’re at war with Russia,” because NATO’s charter calls for all its members to defend any individual country when it is attacked.   

Allies will also discuss security guarantees for Kyiv outside of the NATO framework as it moves toward membership. Sullivan said that Washington alongside allies and partners within a multilateral framework will negotiate long-term bilateral security commitments with Ukraine.   

“Meaning that the United States would be prepared to provide in various forms of military assistance, intelligence and information sharing, cyber support and other forms of material support, so that Ukraine can both defend itself and deter future aggression,” he said.   

NATO countries, led by the United States, have sent billions of dollars in armaments to Ukraine, but Russian aerial bombardments have continued to kill dozens of Ukrainian civilians even as Kyiv’s forces have shot down hundreds of incoming missiles. The ones that landed have killed people and destroyed residential buildings.  

Heading to Helsinki next 

After the NATO summit, Biden heads to Helsinki, the Finnish capital, to commemorate Finland recently joining the military alliance created in the aftermath of World War II, and to meet with Nordic leaders.   

Finland joined NATO in April, effectively doubling the length of Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Biden has characterized the strengthened NATO alliance as a sign of Moscow’s declining influence.   

White House Correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report. 
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Biden Heads to UK, Seeks to Bolster ‘Close Relationship’

THE WHITE HOUSE – President Joe Biden will seek to grow his “close relationship” with the United Kingdom, the White House says, when he pays his first visit to newly crowned King Charles III and meets with Britain’s political leader to strengthen the bond between the two nations ahead of a critical NATO summit that could determine the course of the conflict in Ukraine.

London is the first stop on Biden’s three-nation tour, which begins Monday. He will then go to Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, for a summit of NATO leaders, and then to Helsinki, the capital city of NATO’s newest member, Finland.

“The president is very much looking forward to this,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, told VOA. “As you know, the United Kingdom is our strongest ally, in so many ways, on so many levels.”

Kirby said Biden will discuss issues such as the war in Ukraine with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and will discuss environmental challenges with the monarch, who was an early advocate for climate action.

“Not to downplay the U.K. trip, but this is not a full-fledged visit to the country but rather a stop on the way to Lithuania,” Dalibor Rohac, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA, via email.

And, he said, London noticed when Biden heaped praise on his ancestral home of Ireland, which he has described as “part of his soul.” The southern two-thirds of the Irish island is not part of the United Kingdom and has historically opposed the monarchy.

“For a host of reasons, British Conservative commentariat and political class feel constantly slighted by Biden – from his expressions of Irishness, through his absence at the king’s coronation, to Ben Wallace’s unsuccessful bid to lead NATO,” Rohac said. “That sense of neglect and of being snubbed is not going away, even if Rishi Sunak’s personal relationship with Biden appears good and even if the U.K. and the U.S. work extremely closely on a range of topics from Ukraine to security in the Indo-Pacific.”

Still, there is some symbolism to the American leader meeting amicably with the British king. Charles III is a direct descendant of King George III, the distant sovereign against whom a group of American colonists leveled a litany of complaints in the Declaration of Independence.

“So it’s to kind of recognize the pomp and circumstance of the unique head of state in the U.K. and of course, the unique history between these two great nations,” said Sean Monaghan, a visiting fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“But also on a more substantive policy front, President Biden has met with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak a number of times in recent months, and they will be looking to move forward that agenda that they agreed recently, during Sunak’s last visit here, the so called Atlantic Declaration, which promises closer cooperation on a range of issues from trade, to defense, and elsewhere.”

Commonwealth changing

King Charles III remains head of state – mostly in a ceremonial sense – for more than 2.6 billion people, spread across the globe as citizens of the 56 Commonwealth nations. The voluntary political association consists mostly of former territories of the British Empire. Their collective goals include supporting democracy, government and the rule of law and promoting liberal values like gender equality. The United States is not a member, but 13 nations in the Americas are.

In recent years, members have questioned Britain’s right to rule them and interrogated their painful colonial past. Constitutional scholar Richard Albert is a member of Jamaica’s constitutional reform committee, which will help the nation set up a post-Commonwealth framework.

Albert, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said he recently returned from a trip to New Zealand – another Commonwealth member state – where “they corrected me when I called it the Commonwealth,” he said.

“They called it the Commontheft, the idea being that the Commonwealth has gained and accumulated all of its power and money on theft, of peoples, of lands, of possessions, of culture,” he told VOA. “And so I thought that was a very powerful statement on the part of the people there in New Zealand.”

The king, in his first Commonwealth Day message earlier this year, described the alliance as “an association not just of shared values, but of common purpose and joint action.”

“Its near-boundless potential as a force for good in the world demands our highest ambition; its sheer scale challenges us to unite and be bold,” he said.

Albert, who is Canadian – and who supports the idea of Ottawa withdrawing from the group – said “it’s possible to imagine the Commonwealth now and into the future, being a force for good for democracy, for constitutionalism, for the rule of law.”

But first, he says, something big has to happen.

“I wish the president would ask the king whether he plans to make amends for the wrongdoings of the monarchy over the past centuries,” he said. “But of course, if the president were to ask King Charles that, he’d have to ask himself the very same question, wouldn’t he?”
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Americans Divided Over Supreme Court Decision on Affirmative Action

Americans are divided by the Supreme Court overturning decades of precedent supporting affirmative action in college admissions, a policy that advantaged otherwise disadvantaged students from racial or ethnic minority groups. 

“Unfortunately, race still matters in our society and affirmative action is essential in guaranteeing that everyone — not just the advantaged — benefit from an education that can serve as a pathway to upward mobility,” Coalition for a Diverse Harvard board member Michael Williams told VOA.

Harvard University, along with the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, were sued by Students for Fair Admissions, a nonprofit organization against racial classifications in college admissions. By ruling in their favor, the Supreme Court is disadvantaging all Americans, Williams said. 

“Many of our college applicants have been systematically and purposefully excluded from aspects of our society and discriminated against based on race, and an equitable college admissions process must recognize these disadvantages,” Williams said. “But this affects everyone because studies show that diverse institutions are better institutions. Affirmative action helps prepare all our students for the diversity they’ll find in the workplace.” 

Other Americans welcomed the high court’s ruling against race-conscious admissions. 

“America is supposed to be a meritocracy, and race shouldn’t play any part in college or job decisions,” said Angelica Garcia, a teacher in Saginaw, Michigan. 

“Assuming every Black and brown person has lived this underclass or inferior experience and needs help is racist,” she continued. “As a person of color, I worked hard for what I’ve gotten and I’ve overcome a lot, and I hate that some people think I’ve only been accepted into college or my job because of my race.” 

Born from civil rights movement

Race-conscious admissions in American universities were born from the civil rights movement of the 1960s and laws supporting affirmative action in the U.S. labor market. Colleges that adopted these policies were challenged in the Supreme Court, where justices ruled that while quota systems were an unconstitutional violation of equal protections, race could still be considered by universities as one factor among others. 

“Affirmative action was implemented to address the longstanding exclusion and segregation of Black and brown students in higher education and to recognize the persistent inequalities that students of color face on both individual and systemic levels,” Edgar Saldivar, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, told VOA. 

The impact of eliminating that is clear to Connie Chung Joe, chief executive officer of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California. 

“Without race-conscious admissions, racial segregation will rise at our nation’s colleges and universities,” she predicted. “This will disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, and Asian communities. Entire generations of talented students of color will be denied the future they deserve.” 

Policy has harmed, say opponents

Opponents of race-conscious admissions say it’s the policy itself that has done harm by overlooking those excluded from preferential treatments. 

“Maybe affirmative action was something necessary many years ago, but in the present day, it was time for it to be revisited,” said Jillian Dani, a former teacher from Merritt Island, Florida. “I understand the desire to give minorities more opportunities, but in today’s world, minorities have the same opportunities as the rest of us.” 

“All-women colleges exist, and all-Black colleges exist,” Dani told VOA. “But there aren’t any all-white male colleges even though poor white people are a real thing. They’re missing out on opportunities, too, and affirmative action wasn’t helping them.” 

Twenty-year-old San Diego entrepreneur Willow Hannington believes the decision to strike down affirmative action is a positive one for the country. 

“It’s a significant stride towards fostering a truly fair and equal society,” she told VOA. “This nation has achieved significant progress, and, in my opinion, race should no longer play a decisive role in any aspect of our lives.” 

Schools commit to diversity 

In a recent poll by ABC News/Ipsos, a majority of Americans favor this more “race neutral” or “color-blind” approach. Following the ruling, many colleges and universities issued statements reaffirming their commitment to diversity. 

“Eliminating the use of standardized test scores in admissions, increasing guaranteed financial support, broadening recruitment efforts to underserved communities, and developing robust middle and high school pipelines that benefit all students are just some of the things that can be done,” Saldivar told VOA. 

Craig Mindrum from Chicago has a strategy to add. With experience on a graduate school admissions committee, he said students should continue talking about how their lived experiences and race has shaped their character, drive and talents.

“No legislation or court decision is going to stop me from making some recommendations while considering minority or disadvantaged status,” he said. “Admissions counselors are people, not legislative robots, and across the country they’re going to be making the final decision on who is accepted into their college.” 
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Putin ‘Somewhat Weakened’ by Mutiny, Trump Says

WASHINGTON – Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Thursday that Putin has been “somewhat weakened” by an aborted mutiny and that now is the time for the United States to try to broker a negotiated peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

Speaking expansively about foreign policy in a telephone interview with Reuters, the front-runner in opinion polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination also said China should be given a 48-hour deadline to get out of what sources familiar with the matter say is a Chinese spy capability on the island of Cuba 145 kilometers off the U.S. coast.

On Ukraine, Trump did not rule out that the Kyiv government might have to concede some territory to Russia to stop the war, which began with Russian forces invading Ukraine 16 months ago. He said everything would be “subject to negotiation,” if he were president, but that Ukrainians who have waged a vigorous fight to defend their land have “earned a lot of credit.”

“I think they would be entitled to keep much of what they’ve earned, and I think that Russia likewise would agree to that. You need the right mediator, or negotiator, and we don’t have that right now,” he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO allies want Russia out of territory it has seized in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive that has made small gains in driving out Russian forces.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year proposed a 10-point peace plan, which calls on Russia to withdraw all of its troops.

“I think the biggest thing that the U.S. should be doing right now is making peace — getting Russia and Ukraine together and making peace. You can do it,” Trump said. “This is the time to do it, to get the two parties together to force peace.”

As president, Trump developed friendly relations with Putin, who Biden said on Wednesday has “become a bit of pariah around the world” for invading Ukraine.

Trump said Putin had been damaged by an uprising by the Russian mercenary force, the Wagner Group, and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, last weekend.

“You could say that he’s (Putin) still there, he’s still strong, but he certainly has been, I would say, somewhat weakened at least in the minds of a lot of people,” he said.

If Putin were no longer in power, however, “you don’t know what the alternative is. It could be better, but it could be far worse,” Trump said.

As for war crimes charges levied against Putin by the International Criminal Court last March, Trump said Putin’s fate should be discussed when the war is over “because right now if you bring that topic up, you’ll never make peace, you’ll never make a settlement.”

Trump was adamantly opposed to China’s spy base on Cuba and said if Beijing refused to accept his 48-hour demand for shutting it down, a Trump administration would impose new tariffs on Chinese goods.

As president, Trump adopted a tougher stance on China while claiming a good relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping that soured over the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’d give them 48 hours to get out. And if they didn’t get out, I’d charge them a 100% tariff on everything they sell to the United States, and they’d be gone within two days. They’d be gone within one hour,” Trump said.

Trump was mum on whether the United States would support Taiwan militarily if China invaded the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own.

“I don’t talk about that. And the reason I don’t is because it would hurt my negotiating position,” he said. “All I can tell you is for four years, there was no threat. And it wouldn’t happen if I were president.” 
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Biden Refutes Top-Down Economic Policy with ‘Bidenomics’

Here comes “Bidenomics,” President Joe Biden’s self-named plan to forge an economic future “for families and communities that have long been written off and left behind.” On Wednesday, he visited Chicago — a legendary city in the nation’s once-booming industrial and agricultural heartland — to introduce Bidenomics to the world. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington. Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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White House Takes a Bet on ‘Bidenomics’ Amid Americans’ Pessimism on Economy

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, the White House is promoting the term “Bidenomics” to make the case that his policies to “grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out” have succeeded in taming inflation and lowering unemployment.

“The share of working-age Americans in the workforce is higher now than it has been for 15 years,” Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Tuesday during a news briefing. “While we have more work to do, inflation has been coming down for 11 months in a row.”

She touted 13 million jobs created since Biden took office in February 2021 and an unemployment rate that has remained below 4% since February of this year.

Recent economic indicators give the administration reasons to be hopeful. While inflation still poses a challenge, employers continue to hire, and consumer prices rose at a slower pace in May compared with the previous year.

But so far most Americans do not share the administration’s optimism. The most recent Ipsos poll shows Biden’s approval rating remaining steady in the low 40s. The economy remains a top concern, and most are pessimistic about the direction of the country, a fact that Republicans have been eager to underscore.

“It’s frankly staggering to me that the president continues to have the audacity to say things like ‘hardworking families are reaping the rewards’ of his policies,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune said earlier this month. “Hardworking families are certainly reaping something from the president’s policies, but it isn’t rewards.”

Disconnect from data

The disconnect between economic data and how people are feeling about their financial well-being may be attributed to the fact that Americans are not digesting the good news, said Ipsos spokesperson Chris Jackson. He pointed to surveys measuring Americans’ familiarity with positive economic developments such as low unemployment and falling inflation versus bad news such as supply chain issues and high inflation.

“The bad news, everyone knows about. The good news, very few Americans know about,” he told VOA. “In an environment like that, it’s hard to make a compelling case that you’re doing a good job, when nobody knows anything that’s good.”

The administration is aware of the disconnect. On Wednesday, Biden will be in Chicago to deliver a speech explaining Bidenomics and trying to convince Americans that the economy is thriving under his leadership.

The speech is part of a three-week push in which top officials will travel across the country to argue that legislation championed by the president is delivering results for Americans. This includes massive investments under the infrastructure law, the COVID-19 relief package and the CHIPS and Science Act that injects over $52 billion in semiconductor research, development, manufacturing and workforce development.

Republicans believe some of the administration’s policies are too costly and contribute to high inflation. They say that most of the job gains since 2021 were simply jobs that were being recovered from the pandemic, not new job creation.

Still, the decision to brand the country’s fortunes with the president’s name reflects the administration’s confidence that the trajectory is upward, and the economy will not fall into recession – at least before November 2024 when the presidential election will be held.

Last week, the Federal Reserve paused its aggressive rate hike campaign for the first time in 18 months but signaled that the battle against inflation isn’t over. More interest rate hikes are likely, even as early as July.

Move over, Reaganomics

Bidenomics is also an attempt to distinguish the president’s and the Democrats’ agenda from that of Republicans who favor cutting taxes and slashing government spending.

Biden and his aides have often criticized former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s agenda of lowering tax rates, deregulation and slashing spending on government programs. Since the push for Reaganomics in the 1980s, Republicans have credited low taxes with boosting corporate profits and ultimately all workers and the population in general.

“He rejected trickle-down economics, the theory that tax cuts at the top would trickle down, that all we needed was for government to get out of the way,” said Brainard, the director of Biden’s economic council.

“That failed approach led to a pullback of private investment from key industries, like semiconductors to solar. It led to a deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure. And it led to a loss of a path to the middle class for too many Americans and too many communities around the country.”

Brainard said that in Chicago, the president will outline the main pillars of Bidenomics, including strategic investments in critical sectors such as infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductors; empowering and educating American workers, particularly those who have been previously marginalized; and promoting competition to lower costs and provide fair opportunities for small businesses.

Just two weeks ago, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled a proposed series of new tax breaks aimed at businesses and families, a proposal that would reverse some of Biden’s legislative victories.

Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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FBI, Homeland Security Ignored ‘Massive Amount’ of Intelligence Before Jan. 6, Senate Report Says

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday released a new report on the intelligence failures ahead of the insurrection. 

The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online. 

Among the multitude of intelligence that was overlooked was a December 2020 tip to the FBI that members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys planned to be in Washington, D.C., for the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and their “plan is to literally kill people,” the report said.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the agencies were also aware of many social media posts that foreshadowed violence, some calling on Trump’s supporters to “come armed” and storm the Capitol, kill lawmakers or “burn the place to the ground.” 

Michigan Senator Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland panel, said the breakdown was “largely a failure of imagination to see threats that the Capitol could be breached as credible,” echoing the findings of the Sept. 11 commission about intelligence failures ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks. 

The report by the panel’s majority staff says the intelligence community has not entirely recalibrated to focus on the threats of domestic, rather than international, terrorism. And government intelligence leaders failed to sound the alarm “in part because they could not conceive that the U.S. Capitol Building would be overrun by rioters.” 

Still, Peters said, the reasons for dismissing what he called a “massive” amount of intelligence “defies an easy explanation.” 

‘Everybody failed’

While several other reports have examined the intelligence failures around Jan. 6 — including a bipartisan 2021 Senate report, the House Jan. 6 committee last year and several separate internal assessments by the Capitol Police and other government agencies — the latest investigation is the first congressional report to focus solely on the actions of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. 

In the wake of the attack, Peters said the committee interviewed officials at both agencies and found what was “pretty constant finger-pointing” at each other. 

“Everybody should be accountable because everybody failed,” Peters said. 

Using emails and interviews collected by the Senate committee and others, including from the House Jan. 6 panel, the report lays out in detail the intelligence the agencies received in the weeks ahead of the attack. 

There was not a failure to obtain evidence, the report says, but the agencies “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners.” 

As Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and tried to overturn his election defeat, telling his supporters to “fight like hell” in a speech in front of the White House that day, thousands of them marched to the Capitol. More than 2,000 rioters overran law enforcement, assaulted police officers, and caused more than $2.7 billion in damage to the Capitol, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report earlier this year. 

Breaking through windows and doors, the rioters sent lawmakers running for their lives and temporarily interrupted the certification of the election victory by Biden, a Democrat. 

Even as the attack was happening, the new report found, the FBI and Homeland Security downplayed the threat. As the Capitol Police struggled to clear the building, Homeland Security “was still struggling to assess the credibility of threats against the Capitol and to report out its intelligence.” 

And at a 10 a.m. briefing — as protesters gathered at Trump’s speech and near the Capitol were “wearing ballistic helmets, body armor, carrying radio equipment and military grade backpacks” — the FBI briefed that there were “no credible threats at this time.” 

The lack of sufficient warnings meant that law enforcement were not adequately prepared and there was not a hardened perimeter established around the Capitol, as there is during events such as the annual State of the Union address. 

The report contains dozens of tips about violence on Jan. 6 that the agencies received and dismissed either due to lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays, or trepidation on the part of those who were collecting it. The FBI, for example, was unexpectedly hindered in its attempt to find social media posts planning for Jan. 6 protests when the contract for its third-party social media monitoring tool expired. At Homeland Security, analysts were hesitant to report open-source intelligence after criticism in 2020 for collecting intelligence on American citizens during racial justice demonstrations. 

One tip received by the FBI ahead of the Jan. 6 attack was from a former Justice Department official who sent screenshots of online posts from members of the Oath Keepers extremist group: “There is only one way in. It is not signs. It’s not rallies. It’s … bullets!” 

The social media company Parler, a favored platform for Trump’s supporters, directly sent the FBI several posts it found alarming, adding that there was “more where this came from” and that they were concerned about what would happen on Jan. 6. 

“(T)his is not a rally and it’s no longer a protest,” read one of the Parler posts sent to the FBI, according to the report. “This is a final stand where we are drawing the red line at Capitol Hill. … don’t be surprised if we take the #capital [sic] building.” 

‘Determined to aggressively fight’

But even as it received the warnings, the Senate panel found, the agency said over and over again that there were no credible threats. 

“Our nation is still reckoning with the fallout from January 6th, but what is clear is the need for a reevaluation of the federal government’s domestic intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination processes,” the new report says. 

In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Angelo Fernandez said that the department has made many of those changes two and a half years later. The department “has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.” 

The FBI said in a separate response that since the attack it has increased focus on “swift information sharing” and centralized the flow of information to ensure more timely notification to other entities. “The FBI is determined to aggressively fight the danger posed by all domestic violent extremists, regardless of their motivations,” the statement said. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray has defended the FBI’s handling of intelligence in the run-up to Jan. 6, including a report from its Norfolk field office on Jan. 5 that cited online posts foreshadowing the possibility of a “war” in Washington the following day. The Senate report noted that the memo “did not note the multitude of other warnings” the agency had received. 

The faultfinding with the FBI and Homeland Security Department echoes the blistering criticism directed at U.S. Capitol Police in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Homeland and Rules committees two years ago. That report found that the police intelligence unit knew about social media posts calling for violence, as well, but did not inform top leadership what they had found. 

Peters says he asked for the probe of the intelligence agencies after other reports, such as the House panel’s investigation last year, focused on other aspects of the attack. The Jan. 6 panel was more focused on Trump’s actions and concluded in its report that the former president criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. 

“It’s important for us to realize these failures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Peters said. 
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