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US Senator Fetterman Checks Into Hospital for Depression

Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman, still recovering from a stroke, has checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to seek treatment for clinical depression, his office said Thursday.

Fetterman, who has struggled with the aftereffects of a stroke he suffered last May, checked himself in Wednesday night, it said.

“While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” his chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said in a statement.

Fetterman was evaluated on Monday by the attending physician of Congress, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, who recommended inpatient care at Walter Reed, Jentleson said.

“John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis,” Jentleson said. “After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs and will soon be back to himself.”

Fetterman, 53, is in his first weeks as a U.S. senator after winning the seat held by now-retired Republican Pat Toomey in a hard-fought contest against Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Fetterman overcame a stroke days before last May’s primary election and spent the last five months on the campaign trail recovering from the stroke.

Last week, Fetterman stayed two days in George Washington University Hospital, checking himself in after becoming lightheaded. Fetterman’s office has said tests found no evidence of a new stroke or a seizure.

He continues to suffer the aftereffects of the stroke, in particular auditory processing disorder, which can render someone unable to speak fluidly and quickly process spoken conversation into meaning.

The stroke nearly killed him, he has said.

Fetterman underwent surgery to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator to manage two heart conditions, atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathy, and spent much of the summer recovering and off the campaign trail.
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Biden a ‘Healthy, Vigorous’ 80-Year-Old, Doctor Says After Annual Physical

President Joe Biden “remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” his physician said Thursday, after the White House released the results of his annual health examination.

Dr. Kevin O’Connor said Biden had recovered from his “mild” case of COVID-19 last July, and that he “has not experienced any residual symptoms which may be considered to be ‘Long COVID.’”

The report went on to say that the president’s main health indicators were normal, that he works out five days a week, and does not drink alcohol.

O’Connor said a neurologic exam “was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis.”

And on Biden’s gait — which has grown noticeably stiff in recent months — O’Connor said “the President’s gait remains stiff, but has not worsened since last year.”

In 2021, O’Connor said Biden was “healthy” and “vigorous” and capable of serving in his high-profile, high-stress job.

While U.S. presidents are not required to release health information, it has become a norm in the White House in recent decades. It is especially relevant considering Biden is the oldest person to ever serve in the role, and his critics and supporters have questioned whether he should run for a second term, when he would be 86 years old at the end of the four-year term.
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US Could Face Debt-Ceiling Crisis This Summer Without Deal, Warns Budget Office

The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday said the United States Treasury Department will exhaust its ability to pay its bills sometime between July and September unless the current $31.4 trillion cap on borrowing is raised or suspended.

In a report issued alongside its annual budget outlook, the nonpartisan budget office, also known as the CBO, cautioned that a historic federal debt default could occur before July if revenues flowing into the Treasury in April — when most Americans typically submit annual income tax filings — lag expectations.

The pace of incoming revenues, coupled with the performance of the U.S. economy in coming months, makes it difficult for government officials to predict the exact “X-date,” when the Treasury could begin to default on many debt payments without action by Congress.

“If the debt limit is not raised or suspended before the extraordinary measures are exhausted, the government would be unable to pay its obligations fully,” the budget office’s report said. “As a result, the government would have to delay making payments for some activities, default on its debt obligations, or both.”

Separately, the budget office said annual U.S. budget deficits will average $2 trillion between 2024 and 2033, approaching pandemic-era records by the end of the decade — a forecast likely to stoke Republican demands for more spending cuts.

More spending, higher costs to blame

The sobering analysis reflects the full impact of recent spending legislation, including investments in clean energy, semiconductors and higher military spending, along with higher health care, pension and interest costs. It assumes no change in tax and spending laws over the next decade.

“Over the long term, our projections suggest that changes in fiscal policy must be made to address the rising costs of interest and mitigate other adverse consequences of high and rising debt,” CBO Director Phillip Swagel said in a statement.

The need to raise the debt ceiling is driven by past spending laws and tax cuts, some enacted under Democratic President Joe Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.

Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, want to withhold a debt limit increase until Democrats agree to deep spending cuts. In turn, Democrats say the debt limit should not be “held hostage” to Republican tactics over federal spending.

After hitting the $31.4 trillion borrowing cap on January 19, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Treasury can keep up payments on debt, federal benefits and make other outlays at least through June 5 using cash receipts and extraordinary cash management measures.

Year of the debt limit

So far in 2023, not a day has gone by on Capitol Hill without lawmakers jousting over the debt limit, as Democrats press for a quick, clean increase in Treasury borrowing authority and Republicans insist on first nailing down significant reductions in future government spending.

Social Security and Medicare, the government’s popular pension and health care programs for the elderly, are at the center of the debt limit and government funding debate, as both parties jockey to define the contours of the 2024 presidential and congressional election campaigns.

“There has been a Republican drumbeat to cut Social Security and Medicare,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, told reporters on Tuesday.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has labored, without much success so far, to smother such talk.

“Let me say one more time: There is no agenda on the part of Senate Republicans to revisit Medicare or Social Security. Period,” he said at a news conference.

Americans concerned

Most Americans do not closely follow Washington’s debt-ceiling saga, but they still worry it could hurt their finances, according to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll conducted February 6-13.

Fifty-five percent of U.S. adults said they have heard little or nothing about the debate, but three-quarters of respondents said Congress must reach a deal because defaulting would add to their families’ financial stress, largely through potentially higher borrowing costs.
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Florida Education Fights Mirror National Controversies

For the past year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has waged a struggle against what he sees as a left-wing bias in educational institutions in the United States. This week, he escalated the conflict, suggesting he might block popular Advanced Placement (AP) courses from being offered in Florida high schools.

The remarks came just a few days after the nonprofit College Board, which sets the curricula for the dozens of AP courses offered across the country, criticized DeSantis and his administration for blocking the rollout of a pilot AP course on African American history.

DeSantis is widely expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, challenging former President Donald Trump and other contenders. Engaging in public battles with cultural institutions perceived by many conservatives as biased against them is keeping DeSantis’ name in the news, even though he has not officially announced his candidacy.

The only announced candidates, Trump and Republican former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, have both signaled that they, too, will make culture war politics part of their campaigns. This suggests that in the 17 months leading up to the Republican nominating convention in July 2024, American educational institutions can expect to be in the candidates’ crosshairs.

Haley and Trump

Haley, who officially announced her candidacy with a launch event on Wednesday, had already signaled her interest in wading into the education debates.

In a video released earlier in the week, she took aim at the 1619 Project, a program aimed at a broad rethinking of U.S. history with a focus on the effects of hundreds of years of slavery. The project, which has created curricula for high school students, has drawn the ire of conservatives.

In her video, with an image of the 1619 Project’s logo on screen, Haley says, “Some look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles are bad. They say the promise of freedom is just made up. Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

In his first campaign event of the new year, Trump promised to fight “indoctrination” in U.S. schools. He also vowed to cut funding to schools that promote a “leftist” agenda. It’s not a topic that the former president had commonly addressed in the past, suggesting that he believes it’s going to be necessary for him to add it to the mix as he hits the campaign trail for 2024.

Series of fights

DeSantis’ tussle with the College Board is the latest in a series of his high-profile moves to challenge the existing educational system in Florida.

Last month, he took the controversial step of removing nearly half of the trustees at New College of Florida, a small, liberal arts institution in Sarasota that DeSantis accused of being biased against conservatives. He replaced the board members with conservatives tasked with turning the school into a beacon of conservative thought and principles.

Last year, DeSantis signed two bills aimed at elementary and high school education in Florida.

The Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, restricted the ability of public school teachers in Florida to discuss LGBTQ issues in class. It led some schools to temporarily close their libraries for fear that some books might be found to be in violation of the law.

The Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (WOKE) Act took aim at instruction in schools and workplace training programs. Specifically, it targeted the teaching of topics such as the enslavement of Black Americans prior to the Civil War, and the suppression of their rights in southern states during the Jim Crow era.

Among other things, DeSantis and the bill’s supporters said it was meant to fight off “woke indoctrination” of students and to eradicate critical race theory, a more than 40-year-old academic concept that says racism is embedded in the U.S. legal system. CRT has become a catchall phrase among conservatives for curricula that point out racial disparities in the country.

AP controversy

AP courses, which allow high school students to earn college credits, are taught in public schools across the country. But the curricula for each of the dozens of different classes are developed by the College Board, a nonprofit organization that also administers well-known standardized tests, including the SAT for college and university entrance.

In 2021, the last year for which full data is available, 1.2 million U.S. public high school graduates — more than one in three — took at least one AP exam. A sufficiently high score on an AP exam is accepted as course credit by many colleges and universities, which can lower the costs of earning a college degree.

DeSantis’ fight with the College Board began last month, when the organization released a preliminary guide for a pilot program offering an AP course in African American history. The course covered a wide variety of issues, but included units on critical race theory, queer theory, and other issues to which DeSantis objected.

AP African American history

DeSantis also called into question the need for an African American history course, saying that state law mandates that African American history be taught as part of broader courses in U.S. history.

The Florida Department of Education released a statement saying it would bar public schools from using the curriculum, saying it is “contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.”

The College Board later released a significantly altered version of the curriculum that removed many of the units to which DeSantis had objected, earning it criticism for apparently giving in to the Florida governor.

The organization countered that the changes had already been under consideration and were not a capitulation to DeSantis. In a press release, it lashed out at the DeSantis administration, calling the Department of Education’s assessment of the course a “slander” and claiming that administration officials had twisted facts in order to “engineer a political win.”

The College Board did not reply to a request for comment on this story.

DeSantis replies

Speaking at a news conference in Jacksonville, Florida, this week, DeSantis took aim at the College Board.

“Who elected them?” he asked. “It’s not clear to me that this particular operator is the one that’s going to need to be used in the future.”

He said he is in favor of high school students being able to earn college credit, but pointed out that there are a number of other programs that make that possible.

“College credit? Yes. Having that available for everyone? Absolutely,” DeSantis said. “Does it have to be done by the College Board? Or can we utilize some of these other providers who I think have a really, really strong track record?”

Supporters cheer

DeSantis’s assault on the College Board in particular, and educational institutions in general, has delighted his supporters, Dan Backer, counsel for Ready for Ron, a political action committee supporting DeSantis for president, told VOA.

“Ron DeSantis is right. The College Board is shirking its duty to educate young Americans, choosing instead to play the ‘woke’ game and brainwash students with radical leftist propaganda,” he said.

On educational issues more broadly, he said, “Across America, parents and students deserve better, and Ron DeSantis knows it. He is once again showing what true leadership looks like, putting forth a common-sense education platform that prioritizes actual learning above all else — with no side helping of left-wing politics.”

Education advocates troubled

Eric Duncan of The Education Trust told VOA that his nonprofit organization — which works to break down racial and economic barriers to education — views DeSantis’ actions in Florida as a troubling reflection of a broader national trend toward stifling discussion of ugly parts of U.S. history.

“This is just part and parcel of that movement,” said Duncan, who directs the organization’s policy on preschool through high school education. “Our stance is really about trying to protect schools and classrooms from external attacks on the teaching of honest history and of conversations that are reflective of perspectives of different cultures and racial backgrounds.”

He added, “We need safe, supportive classrooms for students of color. Any efforts to censor the teaching of honest history is antithetical to that.”
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Trump Gets Republican Challenger for 2024 Presidential Election

At her first presidential campaign event on Wednesday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley told an enthusiastic crowd in Charleston that it is time for the country “to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past.”

Haley did not mention former President Donald Trump, instead focusing her criticism on the nation’s current leader, Democrat Joe Biden.

“Our leaders are failing. No one embodies that failure more than Joe Biden,” she said.

To face Biden, however, Haley will need to get past Trump, who has already declared his candidacy, and numerous other expected Republican hopefuls.

Haley, ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, is the first prominent Republican to launch a 2024 campaign to formally oppose her former boss. Her entry into the race reverses a promise she made.

“I would not run if President Trump does,” Haley told reporters on Dec. 4, 2021.

Through a campaign spokesperson, Trump, in a statement to VOA, noted Haley’s previous pledge and said he told her, “She should follow her heart and do what she wants to do,” adding, “I wish her luck!”

Haley, an accountant before entering politics, was relatively unknown in her home state when she made her initial successful run for governor in 2011. She would go on to serve a second term, when she raised her national profile by dealing with a mass shooting by a white gunman in a Black church and signing legislation to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State House.

Haley said she was repeatedly underestimated in her previous political races, noting it was not always easy for her as a child in South Carolina, “a brown girl growing up in a Black and white world.” Haley is the daughter of Punjabi Sikh immigrants from India.

In her inaugural presidential campaign video, released Tuesday, Haley portrays herself as a face of the party’s future rather than one from its past.

“Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections. That has to change,” says Haley, a point she also emphasized at Wednesday’s rally.

Haley, who is 51, told supporters at the campaign event there should be “mandatory competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.” Biden is 80. Trump turns 77 in June.

“As U.N. ambassador, she was loyal to President Trump and didn’t break with him as some of the Republican Party did. So those things, I think, would be on the positive side for a Republican voter looking at a new candidate. On the negative side, it’s not clear that she has as strong a lane or as strong an attraction to America, to Republican voters as some others,” says American Enterprise Institute senior fellow John Fortier. He describes Haley as “a dynamic figure.”

Haley’s candidacy declaration likely is just the first among Republicans seeking to thwart Trump’s return to the White House. Among those considering entering the race are three men who served in Trump’s administration — his vice president, Mike Pence, the former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and former national security advisor John Bolton.

“The big person we’re talking in this field as a potential alternative to Donald Trump is the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis,” notes Fortier. “And I think the reasons for that is that he did portray, as a large-state governor in a Republican-leaning state, many of the characteristics of Donald Trump.”

The governor, who focuses on culture war issues as does Trump, is expected to dominate other Republican hopefuls in raising funds. That may make him attractive to party loyalists desiring a strong candidate to face Biden, the expected Democratic Party nominee.

If Haley continues to poll in the single digits, she is more likely to be considered as a running mate (vice presidential candidate) to the eventual party nominee.

Conservative media figures are mostly expressing skepticism, questioning the viability of her campaign and whether she’s a liberal in disguise.

“There’s a rule in politics that you never run for vice president,” said Federalist senior contributor Benjamin Weingarten, speaking on the conservative Newsmax TV channel. “The way the field will ultimately cull that’s the highest seat she could probably attain.”

Haley “is a liberal in outlook and mindset,” declared conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain on Twitter. “She is from South Carolina so she had to run as a Republican. But her views are ultimately formed by The New York Times and The Washington Post.”

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, is not playing favorites, predicting a vigorous primary process for his party.

“I think it’s going to be very, very competitive in these primaries and we’ll hope for the best and obviously I’m going to support whoever the nominee ultimately is,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

A crowd of candidates competing against the former president and each other could pave the way for Trump, who was twice impeached, to repeat what he did as a political newcomer in 2016 – having just enough support to clear the field and capture the Republican Party’s nomination.
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A Cold War on Two Fronts? No Thanks, Says Biden

Despite intense pressure from his Republican opposition, President Joe Biden appears intent on maintaining a measured response to the Chinese spy balloon that crossed the continental United States early this month.

The approach appears calibrated to avoid escalation with a second major adversary as his administration deals with Russia’s almost 1-year-old war on Ukraine.

John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters Tuesday the balloon drama does not change the fact that the administration intends to avoid a conflict and continues to seek open lines of communication with China.

Nothing has changed about the president’s desire “to move this relationship forward in a better place than it is right now,” Kirby said.

This despite Republican demands for a tougher stance on Beijing.

“[Biden] only shot down the Chinese spy balloon after public pressure demanded it,” said John Barrasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming, in a briefing Tuesday. “This is a complete violation of our integrity as a nation, and the president’s indifference and inaction showed weakness not just to China but to the world.”

U.S.-China tensions have been high since the discovery of the balloon that Biden ordered shot down on February 4. Administration officials say the device was part of an international “high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection” by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Beijing maintains it was a civilian airship used for meteorological research.

Kirby said the administration’s approach to its adversaries has not changed, pointing to the National Security Strategy released in October that identifies the main U.S. strategic challenges as competition with China and Russia in shaping the global order, while working with allies and adversaries alike on transnational problems such as climate change, food insecurity, energy shortages and inflation.

“I’m committed to work with China where we can advance American interests and benefit the world,” Biden said in his State of the Union address this month, just days after he ordered his military to shoot down the spy balloon. “But make no mistake about it: as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.”

Incentive to avoid escalation

Biden has incentives to avoid escalation with China. His administration is already seeking to manage the NATO response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while facing other foreign policy challenges, including North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, and a volatile Middle East following the formation of an extremely right-wing Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The administration has committed more than $27.1 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since the war started on February 24, 2022, and it is mindful not to provoke Beijing to further side with Moscow.

Beijing has spread Moscow’s anti-Western propaganda and ramped up trade with Russia, but it has not provided direct military support for Putin’s war effort — nor has it helped his government and banks to evade tough Western sanctions.

“One of the key areas where the Biden administration wants to talk to Beijing is making sure that it stays out of the war in Ukraine, that Beijing does not provide any kind of political, military support for Russia,” Erik Brattberg, senior vice president in the Europe practice at Albright Stonebridge Group, told VOA.

With China’s top diplomat Wang Yi scheduled to fly to Moscow this week and President Xi Jinping expected to follow within the next few months, analysts say the administration is left with limited options.

“The best the United States can hope for is to effectively deal with the immediate threat Russia poses and weaken Russia to the point where it cannot pose a major military threat to its neighbors, and then turn its attention to the far more serious challenge China poses,” said David Sacks, research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The biggest issue, in my view, is the stress that the war in Ukraine is putting on the U.S. defense industrial base, which is seriously unprepared for a direct conflict with China,” Sacks told VOA.

“Unless the Biden administration addresses this issue with urgency and significantly ramps up production of critical munitions and weapons, the United States will be extremely vulnerable if China uses force against Taiwan in the coming years.”

Beijing is also making overtures to another U.S. adversary – Iran. Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Tehran on Tuesday, defending the Islamic Republic’s right to safeguard its rights and interests, according to Chinese state media.

“What we see emerging is a longterm competition between the global West — U.S., EU, and developed democracies — and China, Russia, Iran, and a few other nations that resent the global West’s domination of international systems,” said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

Hot-button issue

Several Republican politicians have used the incident to raise campaign contributions, at once attacking Biden and Beijing, according to Pundit Analytics, which tracks communications and social-media postings of elected officials and candidates.

With Republicans helping to stoke voters’ anger, the balloon is becoming a hot-button political issue. Ordinary Americans who had been largely ignoring U.S.-China tensions are now beginning to realize what many in the foreign policy circle agree on – that the U.S. has been on a cold war footing with China for a while now, Daly told VOA.

“This is the real significance of the spy balloon — not that it poses a new threat to the U.S., but that more Americans are signing on to the ‘China Threat’ narrative that had formerly been limited to Washington,” Daly said.

Should Biden decide to run again in 2024 as his officials say he intends to, observers say the political cost of appearing soft on China will be even greater.

VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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California Senator Feinstein Says She Won’t Run for Reelection

Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein announced Tuesday that she will not seek reelection in 2024, signaling the end of a groundbreaking political career spanning six decades in which she shattered gender barriers and left a mark on political battles over reproductive rights, gun control, and environmental protection.

“I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024 but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends,” Feinstein said in a statement.

“Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives. Each of us was sent here to solve problems. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years. My thanks to the people of California for allowing me to serve them.”

Feinstein was first elected to the Senate in 1992 and is the oldest member of Congress.
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Biden Fires Architect of the Capitol Over Alleged Abuses

Report says Brett Blandon misused his government vehicle and misrepresented himself as a law enforcement official
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New Classified Document Found in FBI Search of Pence Home

The FBI discovered an additional document with classified markings at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home during a search Friday, following the discovery by his lawyers last month of sensitive government documents there.

Pence adviser Devin O’Malley said the U.S. Department of Justice completed “a thorough and unrestricted search of five hours” and removed “one document with classified markings and six additional pages without such markings that were not discovered in the initial review by the vice president’s counsel.”

The search, described as consensual after negotiations between Pence’s representatives and the Justice Department, comes as he has been subpoenaed in a separate investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election and as Pence contemplates a Republican bid for the White House in 2024.

Pence is now the third current or former top U.S. official, joining Trump and President Joe Biden, to have their homes scoured by FBI agents for classified records. The willingness of Pence and Biden to permit the FBI to search their homes, and to present themselves as fully cooperative, reflects a desire by both to avoid the drama that enveloped Trump last year and resulted in the Justice Department having to get a warrant to inspect his Florida property.

FBI said to have unrestricted access

Police blocked the road outside Pence’s neighborhood in Carmel, just north of Indianapolis, on Friday afternoon as the FBI was inside the home. Pence himself was out of state, visiting family in California after the birth of a grandchild.

A member of Pence’s legal team was at the home, according to one of the people familiar with the situation who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. That person said the FBI was given unrestricted access.

The FBI had already taken possession of what Pence’s lawyer previously described as a “small number of documents” that had been “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence’s Indiana home at the end of the Trump administration.

The Justice Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Separate special counsels have been investigating the discovery of documents with classification markings at Biden’s home in Delaware and his former Washington office, as well as Trump’s Florida estate. Officials are trying to determine whether Trump or anyone on his team criminally obstructed the probe in refusing to turn over the documents before the FBI seizure. The FBI recovered more than 100 documents marked classified while serving a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last August.

Pence: ‘I take full responsibility’

The circumstances of the Biden and Pence cases are markedly different from that of Trump.

Pence, according to his lawyer Greg Jacob, had requested a review by his attorneys of records stored at his home “out of an abundance of caution” during the uproar over the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s home and former private office. When the Pence documents were discovered, Jacob said, they were secured in a locked safe and reported to the National Archives. FBI agents then collected them.

Material found in the boxes came mostly from the Naval Observatory residence where Pence lived while he was vice president. Other material came from a West Wing office drawer.

Pence has said he was unaware the documents had been in his possession.

“Let me be clear: Those classified documents should not have been in my personal residence,” Pence said recently at Florida International University. “Mistakes were made, and I take full responsibility.”

“We acted above politics and put national interests first,” he said.

The National Archives last month asked former U.S. presidents and vice presidents to recheck their personal records for any classified documents following news of the Biden and Pence discoveries.

The Presidential Records Act states that any records created or received by the president while in office are the property of the U.S. government and will be managed by the Archives at the end of an administration.
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Historians Tackle Biggest Lies About America’s Past

Some American myths go all the way back to the nation’s founding. Like the one where, as a young boy, America’s first president, George Washington, felt compelled to tell the truth about taking a hatchet to his father’s cherry tree because he could not tell a lie.

“There are plenty of lies that are kind of white lies that have a positive spin,” says Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University. “And what’s the harm there? It teaches children the value of honesty.”

The real harm comes, Kruse says, when lies or myths impact U.S. government policy. Kruse and fellow Princeton historian Julian E. Zelizer put together a collection of essays for their book, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past.”

In the anthology, 20 mainly liberal historians take on what they see as conservative distortions of the history behind hot-button issues like border security, voter fraud, police brutality and the backlash against civil rights protests in the aftermath of the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, a Black man.

Glenda Gilmore of Yale University writes that a sanitized, somewhat one-dimensional image of civil rights activist Martin Luther King, leader of “good protests,” obscures his relevance to the Black Lives Matter protesters who took to the streets in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.

“[Martin Luther King, Jr.] was much more searing in his denunciations of capitalism [and] militarism,” Kruse says. “King has been shorn of all that controversy and complications, reduced to this non-offensive figure who simply stood up and said, ‘Well, racism is bad and everyone agrees.’

“As a result, that seals him off from any connection to the present. That example of the good civil rights protest is constantly held up in contrast to bad civil rights protests to shame people involved in Black Lives Matter for not being like King when, in fact, they’re actually a lot like King.”

Northwestern University historian Geraldo Cadava writes that Americans who are worried about policing the southern border with Mexico have “displaced anxieties about imperial and national decline, economic fragility, and demographic change.”

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a professor of history at The New School, challenges the notion that feminism embraces anti-family values by exploring how feminists have historically defended the traditional family.

Eric Rauchway, a history professor at the University of California, Davis, has studied the New Deal, a series of programs, financial reforms and regulations signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s to help America recover from the Great Depression. In the book, Rauchway challenges the assertion of some conservative politicians that the New Deal was ineffective.

“If we believe, wrongly, that the New Deal was a failure, that discourages us from any kind of economic action along that line. You constantly see historical tropes trotted out in ways that close off options. Our sense of what happened in the past deepens our understanding of what is possible in the future,” Kruse says.

“If we firmly believe that this kind of approach failed, or this got us nowhere, we’re much less likely to try it again. So we need to understand where we’ve been if we want to understand where we’re going to go.”

The book and its assertions have been dismissed by some conservatives who say the “highly partisan” analyses are hobbled by “leftist myths.”

An essay in the National Review suggests, “The book does not debunk any myths; it merely promulgates different, radically progressive ones.”

Writing for the American Institute for Economic Research, Michael J. Douma maintains that history is an ongoing discussion that historians often don’t agree on.

“When you see your opponents’ views as all lies, myths, and legends, it might say more about the way you engage your opposition than the content of their arguments,” writes Douma, who is an associate research professor at Georgetown University.

Kruse counters such criticism by asserting that he and his co-contributors are responding to the moment.

“I understand we live in an era in which there’s going to be a kind of a reflexive desire to create an equivalence on both sides right now.” Kruse says. “No. The real challenges to American history are coming from the right and so that’s where we directed our attention.”
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Pence Subpoenaed by Special Counsel Investigating Trump

Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel overseeing investigations into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a person with direct knowledge of the event.

The subpoena to Pence as part of the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith was served in recent days, according to the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Thursday to discuss a sensitive issue.

The extraordinary scenario of a former vice president potentially testifying against his former boss in a criminal investigation comes as Pence considers launching a 2024 presidential bid against Trump. The two have been estranged since a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

ABC News first reported the subpoena.

Pence was at the center of Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. Trump falsely insisted that Pence, who had a ceremonial role in overseeing the certification of the election on Jan. 6, could simply reject the results and send the results “back to the States.”

That day, Trump supporters, driven by the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, marched to the Capitol building, brutally pushed past the police and smashed through the windows and doors while Pence was presiding over the certification of Biden’s victory. The vice president was steered to safety with his staff and family as some in the mob chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”

Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped Smith, a former public corruption prosecutor, in November to serve as the special counsel for investigations into Trump’s attempts to subvert his defeat, his actions leading up to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and his possession of classified documents after leaving office.

Federal prosecutors have been especially focused on a scheme by Trump allies to elevate fake presidential electors in key battleground states won by Biden as a way to subvert the vote, issuing subpoenas to multiple state Republican Party chairs.

Federal prosecutors have brought multiple Trump administration officials before the grand jury for questioning, including former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Pence’s own former chief of staff, Marc Short.

In a sign of the expanding nature of the investigation, election officials in multiple states whose results were disputed by Trump have received subpoenas asking for communications with or involving Trump and his campaign aides.

A House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack recommended that the Justice Department bring criminal charges against Trump and associates who helped him launch a pressure campaign to try to overturn his 2020 election loss.
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As Political Decorum Declines, Biden’s Verbal Jujitsu Strategy Emerges

Taking his message of unity Wednesday to Wisconsin, a state key to his likely 2024 reelection bid, U.S. President Joe Biden doubled down on his criticisms of Republicans, calling out by name those who had called him a “liar” during his State of the Union address Tuesday evening.

“Many of you have seen, we’ve had a spirited debate last night with my Republican friends,” he said, referring to the boos and jeers befalling upon him as he asserted that Republicans aim to sunset Social Security and Medicare, social programs cherished by supporters of both major parties.

“Marjorie Taylor-Greene and others stood up and said, ‘Liar, liar,’” Biden said, referring to the Republican representative from Georgia who heckled him repeatedly. He then laid out names of Republican lawmakers, including Florida Senator Rick Scott, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson and Utah Senator Mike Lee, and the instances in which they suggested cutting government spending on the programs that tens of millions of Americans depend on.

“Sounds pretty clear to me. How about you?” Biden, a Democrat, quipped before repeating what he concluded in his remarks following the outbursts — that Republicans now agree to protect Social Security and Medicare

“It looks like we negotiated a deal last night,” he joked.

The verbal jujitsu skills displayed amid Republican attacks and the decline in congressional decorum is a preview of the way Biden will conduct his expected reelection campaign in 2024, observers say.

“I do think President Biden was challenging or even ‘baiting’ Republicans to respond to him,” said John Fortier, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on Congress and elections. “House leadership had warned members to not take the bait, but the dynamic spiraled. The members who shouted out that the president was lying probably did not help their cause.” 

Decades in ‘the business’

With 50 years of political experience under his belt, Biden, now 80 years old, appeared to relish the exchange, grinning as he swiped back at Republicans. “We’ll, I’m glad to see — I tell you, I enjoy conversion,” he said.

“It’s hard to say if the president was expecting that reaction, but he was certainly prepared for it. He’s been in this business for a long time,” said Jeff Bennett, professor and chair of communication studies at Vanderbilt University. “The president was arguing that he’s a reasonable person who is willing to reach across the aisle to get things done. And then the hecklers ended up providing the visual evidence he needed to support that claim.”

The heckling opponents appeared unruly and disrespectful of what is supposed to be an orderly American tradition that began with President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, observers noted.

“Ceremonial occasions aren’t debate occasions, which is why congressional outbursts seem so out of place and indecorous,” Jennifer Mercieca, who teaches presidential rhetoric at Texas A&M University, told VOA. “Those outbursts aren’t what the Greeks called ‘kairotic’ — the right time and place. it’s not the right time nor the right place for debate.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre contrasted lawmakers who behaved in a way that “Americans don’t want” with a president who “was very clear in how he sees the next two years.”

“He called out members on live television, in front of millions of Americans, and effectively put them on the defense,” she said in a briefing to reporters Wednesday.

Republicans are certainly defensive.

“We’ve made it clear from the beginning, we are going to honor our debt, we are going to protect our seniors. And furthermore, we’re going to take care of our military personnel,” Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee told VOA. “And so for him to stand in the dais at the podium, and to make those accusations and really scare the American people was untruthful.”

Biden’s tone was “accusatory,” Ben Carson, secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the Trump administration, told VOA. “It really wasn’t bipartisan at all.”

Decorum in decline

As Republicans heckled throughout the speech, including shouting calls to “secure the border,” many are noticing that these disruptions are now considered acceptable in American politics.

It’s a far cry from the condemnation lobbed by members of both parties when Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled “You lie!” during President Barack Obama’s 2009 speech to a joint session of Congress. Booed by his colleagues, Wilson, a Republican, later issued an apology to the president, a Democrat.

“Then, it was a single voice, and it was shocking,” Fortier noted. “Last night, it became almost a team back and forth, somewhat reminiscent of Prime Minister’s Question Time, with many voices calling back at the president,” he said, referring to the animated British parliamentary tradition when members of the House of Commons grill the prime minister, often in an unruly manner.

Biden will likely aim to disarm combative congressional Republicans with the same strategy of boxing them in a corner as he is set to again clash with lawmakers demanding spending cuts before agreeing to pass a debt ceiling hike to avoid the country from defaulting in a few months.

“I can’t imagine that’s how negotiations to the debt ceiling will play out, but this moment will be an important one in the coming months,” Bennett said. “This is all part of his strategy to show that he is a uniter who is willing to reach across the aisle to do the business of the American people.”

Bringing the parties together will not be easy. New polling from Ipsos shows that 70% of Americans believe the country is “far apart” on issues of government budget and debt. Eighty-one percent believe the country is far apart on the abortion issue, and 78% believe the country is far apart on immigration stances.
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Ex-Twitter Execs Deny Pressure to Block Hunter Biden Story

Former Twitter executives conceded Wednesday they made a mistake by blocking a story about Hunter Biden, the son of U.S. President Joe Biden, from the social media platform in the run-up to the 2020 election, but adamantly denied Republican assertions they were pressured by Democrats and law enforcement to suppress the story.

“The decisions here aren’t straightforward, and hindsight is 20/20,” Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, testified to Congress. “It isn’t obvious what the right response is to a suspected, but not confirmed, cyberattack by another government on a presidential election.”

He added, “Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016.”

The three former executives appeared before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee to testify for the first time about the company’s decision to initially block from Twitter a New York Post article in October 2020 about the contents of a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden.

Emboldened by Twitter’s new leadership in billionaire Elon Musk — whom they see as more sympathetic to conservatives than the company’s previous leadership — Republicans used the hearing to push a long-standing and unproven theory that social media companies including Twitter are biased against them.

Committee Chairman Representative James Comer said the hearing is the panel’s “first step in examining the coordination between the federal government and Big Tech to restrict protected speech and interfere in the democratic process.”

Alleged political bias

The hearing continues a yearslong trend of Republican leaders calling tech company leaders to testify about alleged political bias. Democrats, meanwhile, have pressed the companies on the spread of hate speech and misinformation on their platforms.

The witnesses Republicans subpoenaed were Roth, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer, and James Baker, the company’s former deputy general counsel.

Democrats brought a witness of their own, Anika Collier Navaroli, a former employee with Twitter’s content moderation team. She testified last year to the House committee that investigated the January 6 Capitol riot about Twitter’s preferential treatment of Donald Trump until it banned the then-president from the site two years ago.

‘A bizarre political stunt’

The White House criticized congressional Republicans for staging “a bizarre political stunt,” hours after Biden’s State of the Union address where he detailed bipartisan progress in his first two years in office.

“This appears to be the latest effort by the House Republican majority’s most extreme MAGA members to question and relitigate the outcome of the 2020 election,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement Wednesday. “This is not what the American people want their leaders to work on.”

The New York Post reported weeks before the 2020 presidential election that it had received from Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, a copy of a hard drive from a laptop that Hunter Biden had dropped off 18 months earlier at a Delaware computer repair shop and never retrieved. Twitter blocked people from sharing links to the story for several days.

“You exercised an amazing amount of clout and power over the entire American electorate by even holding (this story) hostage for 24 hours and then reversing your policy,” Representative Andy Biggs said to the panel of witnesses.

Months later, Twitter’s then-CEO, Jack Dorsey, called the company’s communications around the Post article “not great.” He added that blocking the article’s URL with “zero context” around why it was blocked was “unacceptable.”

The newspaper story was greeted at the time with skepticism because of questions about the laptop’s origins, including Giuliani’s involvement, and because top officials in the Trump administration had already warned that Russia was working to denigrate Joe Biden before the White House election.

The Kremlin interfered in the 2016 race by hacking Democratic emails that were subsequently leaked, and fears that Russia would meddle again in the 2020 race were widespread across Washington.

Musk releases ‘Twitter files’

Just last week, lawyers for the younger Biden asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate people who say they accessed his personal data. But they did not acknowledge that the data came from a laptop Hunter Biden is purported to have dropped off at a computer repair shop.

The issue was also reignited recently after Musk took over Twitter as CEO and began to release a slew of company information to independent journalists, what he has called the “Twitter Files.”

The documents and data largely show internal debates among employees over the decision to temporarily censor links to the Hunter Biden story. The tweet threads lacked substantial evidence of a targeted influence campaign from Democrats or the FBI, which has denied any involvement in Twitter’s decision-making.

Witness often targeted

One of Wednesday’s witnesses, Baker, has been a frequent target of Republican scrutiny.

Baker was the FBI’s general counsel during the opening of two of the bureau’s most consequential investigations in history: the Hillary Clinton investigation and a separate inquiry into potential coordination between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Republicans have long criticized the FBI’s handling of both investigations.

Baker denied any wrongdoing during his two years at Twitter and said that despite disagreeing with the decision to block links to the Post story, “I believe that the public record reveals that my client acted in a manner that was fully consistent with the First Amendment.”

There has been no evidence that Twitter’s platform is biased against conservatives; studies have found the opposite when it comes to conservative media in particular. But the issue continues to preoccupy Republican members of Congress.

And some experts said questions around government influence on Big Tech’s content moderation are legitimate.
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Biden Focuses on Economy, Touts Accomplishments in 2nd State of the Union

U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday the “story of America is a story of progress and resilience” as he gave his second State of the Union address with a focus on his domestic economic policy, including an appeal to his Republican opponents to work together.

“Two years ago, COVID had shut down our businesses, closed our schools and robbed us of so much,” Biden told a joint session of Congress.

“Today, COVID no longer controls our lives,” he said.

“And two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War. Today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken.”

Facing a Congress in which Republicans now have a majority in the House of Representatives, Biden cited legislation that Republican and Democratic lawmakers came together to pass, including a massive infrastructure bill, aid for Ukraine and protecting same-sex marriage rights.

“To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together and find consensus in this new Congress as well,” Biden said.

Biden said that to maintain the world’s strongest economy, the United States needs the best infrastructure, and he said new standards will require federal infrastructure projects to use only construction materials made in America.

“Lumber, glass, drywall, fiber-optic cable,” he said. “And on my watch, American roads, American bridges and American highways are going to be made with American products as well.”

Overall, Biden said, his economic focus is on “investing in places and people that have been forgotten.”

The president also argued for raising the debt ceiling, which is the maximum amount the U.S. Treasury can borrow to pay the nation’s bills. The U.S. hit its debt limit of $31.4 trillion in January. Congress now has until midyear to raise the limit before the U.S. defaults on its loans.

Biden said Congress has previously paid the country’s bills “to prevent an economic disaster.” He called on lawmakers to commit to making sure the credit of the United States will never be questioned.

Kevin McCarthy, the newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives, has said the Republican Party will continue to oppose what they see as excessive spending.

“Biden’s challenge in the State of the Union is to make the global case while also presenting himself as a leader who understands and is prepared to meet the day-to-day economic challenges facing Americans here at home,” political scientist Andrew Seligsohn said in a note to VOA.

Foreign policy

Biden said in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “murderous assault” on Ukraine, the United States has united NATO and built a global coalition.

“We stood against Putin’s aggression. We stood with the Ukrainian people,” he said.

With Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova in attendance, Biden said the United States is united in its support for Ukraine and will “stand with you as long as it takes.”

With U.S.-China relations hitting a new low last week when the United States shot down what it said was a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the country for a week, Biden said he wants to work with China in ways that can advance U.S. interests and benefit the world.

“But make no mistake about it: as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country,” he said.

Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, told Lin Feng of VOA’s Mandarin Service ahead of the speech that Biden needs to show he “is forging ahead with policies that strengthen the security of America and its allies. His words about China should highlight Beijing’s deeds, not words, but without adjectives. Let facts speak for themselves.”

Gun control, immigration

Biden used part of his address to urge Congress to support immigration reforms, including providing equipment and officers for border security, a pathway to citizenship for certain immigrants who came to the country as children and for farm workers and essential workers.

He also advocated for a ban on assault rifles, and for police reforms.

The Congressional Black Caucus invited the parents of slain Memphis resident Tyre Nichols to the address.

Nichols, 29, was killed by five African American police officers in January. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have used the tragedy to urge Congress to revisit the stalled police reform act that Democrats proposed after the 2020 killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd.

“What happened to Tyre in Memphis happens too often,” Biden said. “We have to do better.”
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Republicans Launch Investigations Into Biden Administration

For the first time in his presidency Tuesday night, U.S. President Joe Biden will address a Congress under divided party rule.

Republicans who hold a slim majority in the House of Representatives have already issued the first subpoenas in one of many investigations just getting under way based on accusations the White House has abused its power.

“I do not think any American believes that justice should not be equal to all,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters last week. “We found from this administration, what happened before every single election, whatever comes out, that they utilize to try to falsify… they try to have different standards for their own beliefs. That doesn’t work in America.”

Republicans argue the Biden administration has abused its power in several ways and plans to conduct investigatory hearings. The House Judiciary Committee, headed by Representative Jim Jordan, launched hearings into the Biden administration’s border security last week.

“Month after month after month, we have set records for migrants coming into the country. And frankly, I think it’s intentional,” Jordan said. “I don’t know how anyone with common sense or logic can reach any other conclusion. It seems deliberate. It seems premeditated.”

One of the Republican-majority House’s first acts was to establish a Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The subcommittee – along an entirely party-line vote – has a mandate to investigate the use of information on U.S. citizens by executive branch agencies. Republicans will investigate their allegations that U.S. government agencies targeted conservative supporters of former President Donald Trump.

“The goal, the principle is that the president, like every other American citizen, is not above the law. And congressional hearings are one way to ensure that the president does not put himself above the law,” Ken Hughes, a historian with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, told VOA.

Hughes said that in the past, Congress has been able to conduct productive investigations even in eras of divided party rule.

“Even in a polarized era, congressional investigation can do some good, but in order for you to have … a truly beneficial impact, both parties have to cooperate.”

With Democrats maintaining their control of the Senate, the prospect of any legislative solutions coming out of the House investigations is highly unlikely.

“Nobody really expects that were the House Republican majority to come up with a rule about how DOJ could do investigations, to pass a law, it’s dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sarah Binder, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA. “There’s a broad realm here for lawmakers to use the subpoena power to force people to come to speak to them, even though no one expects a real lesson of change to occur because of those investigations.”

Democrats have already said Republican investigations unfairly target Biden and distract Congress from important work of legislating.

“It’s very unfortunate that we’ve seen this extreme MAGA Republican agenda which is apparently anchored in impeachment and investigations focused on witch hunts, not on working families,” Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters last month. MAGA stands for Make America Great Again, a phrase associated with former President Donald Trump, who has announced his intention to run for the White House in 2024.

Chief among Democrats’ concerns are investigations into Biden’s family, including his son, Hunter Biden, who is alleged to have unfairly benefited from his father’s political position. Republicans have also already launched investigations into the use of congressionally appropriated funds combating the COVID-19 crisis and other issues of government waste. At a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, Republican Rep. James Comer said the oversight was long overdue.

“We’re going to be returning this committee to its core mission. And that is to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being mismanaged, abused or wasted, to shine a light in the darkness of the federal bureaucracy to prevent corruption and self-dealing to make sure our federal government is working efficiently for the American people.”

The discovery of classified documents at Biden’s Delaware residence dating back to his time as vice president in the Obama administration will also come under investigation in the U.S. House. With just a year to go until the first 2024 presidential election primaries, Republicans will be seeking to keep the focus on Biden.

But Hughes, who specializes in studying abuses of presidential power, told VOA the classified documents issue now clearly impacts both parties.

“For the last decade or so we’ve seen a lot of political rhetoric about the danger of mishandling classified information, and almost no actual damage to national security as a result,” Hughes said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s OK for officials and former officials to mishandle classified information, but I think we need perspective on it. And it does no harm. If the information in the classified documents doesn’t fall into the hands of foreign powers, particularly the hostile powers, then we’re talking about an interaction rather than a crime.”

Investigations can be a way of bringing down presidential approval ratings, but the opposite party has to be careful about appearing too partisan, Binder told VOA.

“Congressional investigations we can show historically do dampen presidential approval, right? They can really tarnish what the public thinks about the president,” she said.

“The question is whether the public sees through that. Democrats won’t be convinced. And the question then is Republicans – do they care about the work of Hunter Biden? We’ll see, depending how far that investigation goes.”
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Democrats Reshuffle Primaries, Emphasize Diversity Over Tradition

The Democratic Party approved reordering its 2024 presidential primary Saturday, replacing Iowa with South Carolina in the leadoff spot as part of a major shake-up meant to empower Black and other minority voters critical to its base of support.

Although more changes are possible later this year, the formal endorsement by the Democratic National Committee during its meeting in Philadelphia is an acknowledgement that the start of the 2024 primary will look very different from the one in 2020. Hundreds of party stalwarts cheered after the easy passage by voice vote.

States with early contests play a major role in determining the nominee because White House hopefuls struggling to raise money or gain political traction often drop out before visiting states outside the first five. Media attention and policy debates concentrate in those areas, too.

The new plan was championed by President Joe Biden, who is expected to formally announce his reelection campaign in the coming months. The reconfiguring would have South Carolina hold its primary Feb. 3, followed three days later by New Hampshire and Nevada, which is swapping the caucus it used to hold in favor of a primary.

Georgia would vote fourth on Feb. 13, followed by Michigan on Feb. 27, with much of the rest of the nation set to vote on Super Tuesday in early March.

“The Democratic Party looks like America and so does this proposal,” said DNC chair Jaime Harrison, a South Carolinian. The change “continues to make us stronger and elevates the backbone of our party,” he said.

Biden wrote the DNC rules committee in December, saying, “We must ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process and throughout the entire early window.” That committee approved the new lineup, setting up Saturday’s vote.

The move remakes the current calendar, which saw Iowa start with its caucus, followed by New Hampshire and then Nevada and South Carolina. The Republican Party has voted not to change its 2024 primary order, meaning the campaign has already begun in Iowa.

“The DNC has decided to break a half-century precedent and cause chaos by altering their primary process, and ultimately abandoning millions of Americans in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement Saturday.

Four of the first five new states under Democrats’ new plan are battlegrounds, meaning the eventual party winner would be able to lay groundwork in important general election spots. That’s especially true for Michigan and Georgia, both of which voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020.

The exception is South Carolina, which hasn’t backed a Democrat in a presidential race since 1976, leading some to argue that the party shouldn’t be concentrating so many early primary resources there. But the state’s population is nearly 27% Black, and African American voters represent Democrats’ most consistent base of support. Iowa and New Hampshire are each more than 90% white.

The revamped calendar could be largely meaningless for 2024 because Biden is expected to run for a second term without a major primary challenge. Also, the DNC has already pledged to revisit the voting calendar before the 2028 presidential election.

Still, this year’s changes could establish precedent, just as a new lineup that moved Nevada and South Carolina into the first states to vote did when the DNC approved a new primary calendar before the 2008 presidential election.

“These things may be symbolic, but they’re realistic,” South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, assistant Democratic leader in the House and a close Biden ally, told The Associated Press.

The new order follows technical glitches that caused Iowa’s 2020 caucus to meltdown. It also gives Biden the chance to repay South Carolina, where he scored a decisive 2020 primary win that revived his presidential campaign after losses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Democrats have worked on overhauling their primary lineup for months. On Saturday, nearly an hour of final debate turned raw at times.

Some Black members of the DNC said those arguing to abide by tradition could be seen as implying that states with larger African American populations were incapable of handling the responsibility of going early in the primary.

“If we’re really a family, it means some of y’all got to shift to make room at the table for others,” said Leah Daughtry, a DNC rules committee member from New York.

Iowa Democratic Party chair Rita Hart argued that Republicans in her state were already accusing Democrats of “have turned their back on Iowa and on rural America.” But Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell, to sustained applause, countered: “No one state should have a lock on going first.”

Despite the approval, the final slate is not yet set. South Carolina, Nevada and Michigan have met party requirements to join the party’s new top five. But Georgia may not change its Democratic primary calendar date without the Republicans also doing so.

Iowa argued that continued uncertainty could cause other states to try and jump ahead of the new DNC calendar, as happened before the 2008 presidential race. The new rules include penalties for states trying to move up without permission, including possibly losing delegates to the party’s national convention.

New Hampshire has a state law mandating that it hold the nation’s first presidential primary, which Iowa circumvented since 1972 by holding a caucus. New Hampshire Democrats have joined with top state Republicans in pledging to go forward with the nation’s first presidential primary next year regardless of the DNC calendar.

No major challenger has yet emerged from his own party to run against Biden for president next year. Still, top New Hampshire Democrats have warned that another Democrat could run in an unsanctioned primary the state stages and, if Biden skips it in accordance with party rules, could win and embarrass the president — prolonging a primary process that wasn’t supposed to be competitive.

“Respecting our state law and lifting up diverse voices need not be mutually exclusive,” said Joanne Dowdell, a DNC rules committee member from New Hampshire.
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US Presidents Facing Scrutiny on Documents

As former Vice President Mike Pence joined the club of top officials mishandling classified documents, U.S. presidents and vice presidents going all the way back to Jimmy Carter, the oldest living former commander in chief, must now respond to public scrutiny on whether they followed procedure in returning classified material upon leaving office.

Representatives of the 39th U.S. president, who served from 1977 to 1981, said he did.

“Though President Carter was not bound by the Presidential Records Act, which took effect after his presidency, he nevertheless voluntarily donated his documents and records to the National Archives after he left office and directed his team to work closely with the National Archives on their transfer,” a spokesperson said in an email response to VOA.

The Presidential Records Act of 1978 governs the official records of presidents and vice presidents after January 1981 and transfers the legal ownership of those records from private to public under the management of the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Carter Center did not deny reporting by The Associated Press that classified materials were found at the president’s home in Plains, Georgia, on at least one occasion and were returned to NARA.

“It could happen,” Matthew De Galan, Carter Center vice president of communications, told VOA. “If it happened, it’s a normal thing — you find a classified document, you turn it in.”

But no one currently working at the Carter Center or the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum remembers the president finding classified materials at his home, De Galan added.

Representatives of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama responded similarly to VOA’s query, saying the presidents returned materials to NARA at the end of their terms and no additional searches are being conducted. Obama’s office points to NARA statements in September that refute media reports that boxes of presidential records were missing from the Obama administration when NARA moved them at the end of his term.

Widespread problem

Lawyers for Pence said a “small number” of classified documents were found at his home in Indiana last week. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are under separate special counsel investigations looking into their respective mishandling of classified documents.

Much is still unknown about how, when and why these materials were not appropriately handled. However, many former officials and experts say the problem is widespread.

“There are several million people at any given time who hold a security clearance and have access to classified information,” Mark Zaid, an attorney focusing on national security law, told VOA. “Individuals leave federal service and just mistakenly bring documents home that are classified, and they don’t even realize that for years.”

Classified documents may also get misplaced during a presidential transition, where there is a massive move of records, including the physical transfer of hundreds of millions of textual, electronic and audiovisual records and artifacts from the White House to an outgoing president’s future library.

Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign, said in a tweet that it is likely every president and vice president in recent history “accidentally left with classified documents because of packing mess at transition times.”

Still, some lawmakers are livid.

“We have an epidemic of senior leaders taking classified [documents] home. And we have to say categorically, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, it’s all wrong,” Republican Representative Don Bacon said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“It shows carelessness, negligence, and I think Americans should be mad,” he added, throwing his support behind a special counsel investigation on Pence similar to those investigating Trump and Biden.

White House officials maintain that Biden and his aides take treatment of classified materials seriously.

“The National Security Council staff, we deal with classified material every single day. You have to do that,” John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the NSC, said during a briefing to reporters on Wednesday. “We all know what the rules are. We follow the rules. And the procedures exist for a reason.”

Public trust in elected officials is already at a historic low, with only 20% of Americans saying they trust the government in Washington to do what is right, according to a Pew Research poll.

“Most people think that the government does a pretty good job with national security,” Jennifer Mercieca, who teaches presidential rhetoric at Texas A&M University, told VOA. “These classified document scandals could affect how the public sees the government’s ability to guarantee safety.”

Some observers say that while officials must deal with classified materials more carefully, the U.S. government system suffers from rampant overclassification.

“Many millions of documents are classified each year, most of which do not contain any real secrets but are classified for political purposes,” said Allan Lichtman, presidential historian at American University who has written about reforming the U.S. classification system. “Until such reform is realized, the American people have a reason to distrust the classification system.”

As part of his Open Government Initiative, Obama signed an executive order mandating that the government cannot classify a document if “significant doubt” exists about the need to hide it.

Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program, argues that the order doesn’t go far enough. She said officials overuse “Secret” and “Top Secret” stamps, keeping many documents that should be public from becoming available.

Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
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Classified Documents at Pence’s Home, Too, His Lawyer Says

Documents with classified markings were discovered in former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home last week, his lawyer told the National Archives in a letter — the latest in a string of discoveries of confidential information in private residences.

The records “appear to be a small number of documents bearing classified markings that were inadvertently boxed and transported to the personal home of the former vice president at the end of the last administration,” Pence’s lawyer, Greg Jacob, wrote in the letter shared with The Associated Press.

He said that Pence “engaged outside counsel, with experience in handling classified documents, to review records stored in his personal home after it became public that documents with classified markings were found in President Joe Biden’s Wilmington residence.

The Justice Department already is using special counsels to investigate the presence of documents with classification markings taken from the Florida estate of former President Donald Trump and from Biden’s home and former Washington office. The department says roughly 300 documents marked classified, including at the top-secret level, were taken from Mar-a-Lago, and officials are trying to determine whether Trump or anyone else should be charged with illegal possession of those records or with trying to obstruct the months-long criminal investigation.

Pence’s lawyer said in his letter that the former vice president “was unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence” and “understands the high importance of protecting sensitive and classified information and stands ready and willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry.”

Jacob said that Pence immediately secured the documents that were discovered in a locked safe. And according to a follow-up letter from the lawyer dated January 22, FBI agents visited Pence’s residence to collect the documents.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment Tuesday, and a lawyer for Pence did not immediately respond to an email seeking elaboration.

Pence told The Associated Press in August that he did not take any classified information with him when he left office.

Asked directly if he had retained any such information, he said, “No, not to my knowledge.”

In a January interview with Fox Business, Pence described a “very formal process” used by his office to handle classified information, as well as the steps taken by his lawyers to ensure none was taken with him.

“Before we left the White House, the attorneys on my staff went through all the documents at both the White House and our offices there and at the vice president’s residence to ensure that any documents that needed to be turned over to the National Archives, including classified documents, were turned over. So, we went through a very careful process in that regard,” Pence said.
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Biden Pushing Assault Weapons Ban Renewal Following US Mass Shootings

As Californians deal with two deadly mass shootings just days apart, U.S. President Joe Biden is throwing his support behind gun control measures, including renewing the 1994 assault weapons ban he championed as a senator.

“Even as we await further details on these shootings, we know the scourge of gun violence across America requires stronger action. I once again urge both chambers of Congress to act quickly and deliver this assault weapons ban to my desk, and take action to keep American communities, schools, workplaces, and homes safe,” President Biden said in a statement Tuesday following Monday shootings in two locations at Half Moon Bay, California, that left at least seven people dead.

The shootings happened just two days after a gunman killed at least 11 people at a dance studio in Monterey Park, California, as that city’s Asian American community was celebrating Lunar New Year weekend.

On Monday, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, along with Democratic senators from Connecticut Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, introduced the bill to reinstate a federal assault weapons ban, as well as legislation to raise the minimum age to purchase an assault weapon to 21. That ban expired in 2004.

“The constant stream of mass shootings [has] one common thread: They almost all involve assault weapons. It’s because these weapons were designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible,” Feinstein said. “It’s time we stand up to the gun lobby and remove these weapons of war from our streets, or at the very least keep them out of the hands of young people.”

The weapons ban, opposed by Republicans and gun rights activists, blocks the sale of 19 specific weapons that have the features of guns used by the military and outlawed magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

Democratic Congressman David Cicilline will introduce a companion version of the bill in the House of Representatives. Both chambers will need to pass the bill for it to reach Biden’s desk for signature into law — a very slim chance with Republicans controlling the House.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the administration is considering more executive actions to deal with reducing gun violence.

“But what we believe is that Congress needs to act,” she told reporters Tuesday.

There have been more deadly gun violence incidents so far this year than in any year on record — 39 mass shootings, defined as incidents with at least four victims shot, across the country in the first three weeks of 2023.

Last June, just over a month after the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school killed 19 children and two adults and a mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y. supermarket killed 10 Black people, Biden signed a bipartisan gun safety bill into law.

The legislation, the first major gun safety regulation passed by Congress in nearly 30 years, includes strengthening background checks for gun buyers between the ages of 18 and 21 and providing incentives for states to pass so-called red flag laws that allow groups to petition courts to remove weapons from people deemed a threat to themselves or others, among other provisions.
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White House Chief of Staff Klain Expected to Step Down Soon

Ron Klain, President Joe Biden’s White House chief of staff, plans to leave his post in the coming weeks, sources familiar with the matter said on Saturday, a major changing of the guard.

Klain has informed Biden of his plans, the sources said, confirming a New York Times story that said the long-serving aide would likely depart after the president’s State of the Union address on February 7.

Klain, 61, has a long history at the White House, having served as chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore and to Biden when he was vice president under President Barack Obama.

His departure is coming as Biden prepares to declare whether he will seek a second four-year term in 2024, an announcement anticipated after the State of the Union address.

The Times cited a lengthy list of possible successors to Klain: Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; former Delaware Governor Jack Markell; Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn, counselor to the president Steve Richetti, former pandemic coordinator Jeff Zients and domestic policy adviser Susan Rice, along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The news broke as Biden spent the weekend at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home.

The chief of staff position is one of the most important at the White House, the senior political appointee responsible for driving the president’s policy agenda and ensuring appropriate staff members are hired.

The job can have a high burnout rate as the long days pile up. Klain’s tenure has been fairly lengthy comparatively speaking. Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, burned through four chiefs of staff in four years including his first, Reince Priebus, who lasted 192 days.
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FBI Searches Biden Home, Finds 6 Documents Marked Classified

The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday and found six documents containing classification markings and also took possession of some of his notes, the president’s lawyer said Saturday.

Bob Bauer, the president’s personal lawyer, said the search of the entire premises lasted nearly 13 hours.

The documents with classification markings spanned Biden’s time in the Senate and the vice presidency, while the notes dated to his time as vice president.

The search took place more than a week after Biden’s attorneys found six other classified documents in the president’s home library from his time as vice president, and nearly three months after lawyers found a small number of classified records at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington.

The president and first lady Jill Biden were not at the home when it was searched. They are spending the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Bauer said the FBI requested that the White House not comment on the search before it was conducted. He said the FBI “had full access to the president’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades.”

The Justice Department, he added, “took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the president’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as vice president.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed former Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate any potential wrongdoing surrounding the Biden documents.

“Since the beginning, the president has been committed to handling this responsibly because he takes this seriously,” White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Saturday. “The president’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the special counsel to help ensure this process is conducted swiftly and efficiently.”
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Biden on Classified Docs Discovery: ‘There’s No There There’

President Joe Biden said Thursday there is “no there there” when he was questioned about the discovery of classified documents and official records at his home and former office.

“We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,” Biden said to reporters who questioned him during a tour of the damage from storms in California. “We immediately turned them over to the Archives and the Justice Department.”

Biden said he was “fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.”

“I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there,” he said. “There’s no there there.”

The White House has disclosed that Biden attorneys found classified documents and official records on four occasions in recent months — on Nov. 2 at the offices of the Penn Biden Center in Washington, and then in follow up searches on Dec. 20 in the garage of the president’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, and on Jan. 11 and 12 in the president’s home library.

The discovery complicates a federal probe into former President Donald Trump, who the Justice Department says took hundreds of records marked classified with him upon leaving the White House in early 2021 and resisted months of requests to return them to the government.

The two cases are different — Biden for example, willingly turned over the documents once found. But the issue is wearing on the president and his aides, who have repeatedly said they acted swiftly and appropriately when the documents were discovered and are working to be as transparent as possible though key questions remain unanswered.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last week appointed Robert Hur, a former Maryland U.S. attorney, to serve as special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s inquiry into the documents. Garland said the extraordinary circumstances warranted a special counsel, and he also made the decision in part to show the Justice Department’s “commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters.”

Hur is taking over for federal prosecutor John Lausch, who was initially asked to review the documents and whose team has already been interviewing former Biden aides responsible for packing up boxes during his time as vice president. Those interviews include Kathy Chung, who served as an administrative assistant during that time, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Biden expressed frustration that the documents matter was coming up as he surveyed coastal storm damage, telling reporters that it “bugs me” that he was being asked about the handling of the classified material even as “we have a serious problem here” in California.

“The American people don’t quite understand why you don’t ask me questions about that,” he pressed.

Biden’s team has faced criticism for its fragmented disclosures — the public wasn’t notified of the documents until early January and after that the additional findings dripped out slowly. It has occasionally led to heated exchanges between reporters and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in the White House briefing room. She ran into trouble when she suggested last Friday that all documents had been recovered, only to have an additional discovery disclosed over the weekend.

Biden said Thursday he has “no regrets” over how and when the public learned about the documents.

“I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do,” he said. 
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First Illinois Muslim American Lawmakers Begin Work in Diverse Legislature

Walking through the center of the city in the shadow of the looming domes of two state Capitol buildings — the old one and the new — it’s hard to miss the signs of history marked throughout Springfield, Illinois, the launching pad of the political careers of U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.

“It is surreal to know that Abraham Lincoln was in the same position as me at one point,” said Nabeela Syed while standing in front of a statue of the “Great Emancipator” at the entrance to the current Illinois state Capitol.

While Lincoln made a name for himself at the old Capitol building a few blocks away, history is very much on the mind of Syed as she walks amid the rows of well-polished wooden desks and leather chairs lined up on the floor of the Illinois House of Representatives.

“Our tour guide said he actually took a picture of Barack Obama in the same exact place that me and my family were posing,” Syed told Voice of America. “So, to think about the history that exists here in Springfield and the history that we’re contributing, it’s an incredible feeling.”

Making history

Syed and her colleague Abdelnasser Rashid are about to make their own history as the 103rd Legislative session in Illinois gets underway. They are the first Muslim American lawmakers ever elected to the Statehouse.

“I think considering that Illinois has the highest per capita population of Muslims, I do wish it happened sooner, because I know the importance of representation,” Syed said.

In November, Syed defeated an incumbent Republican to win her suburban Chicago district.

“Not only am I Democrat, but I am a hijab-wearing Muslim, Indian American woman,” said Syed. “Our values, the way that we communicate our message, the way we engage our community, went beyond those things that people consider obstacles, and we flipped our district.”

At 23, Syed is also among the youngest women ever elected in Illinois and begins her term among other notable firsts in the Illinois House of Representatives, led by the first Black speaker, with the first female Republican House leader, and the largest Asian American caucus in the General Assembly.

“As the first Palestinian elected to the legislature and as one of two Muslims, I also carry the voices of so many people who have been marginalized and have been yearning for representation. And I take that responsibility very seriously,” said Rashid, who now represents a suburban Chicago district with a large Latino population.

“It is not just about adding the number of colored faces, it is more about perspectives and strategies and position. That’s why I think they got the support from the broader community, not only the Muslim population alone,” said Kikue Hamayotsu, a political science professor at Northern Illinois University.

She credits Rashid and Syed’s successful election campaigns to their focus and messaging on the issues concerning voters and not necessarily their identity.

“The things and policies they talked about are more about imminent important issues such as reproductive health, abortion law. Also gender issues, religious freedom at a time when religious conservatism is rising to influence politics,” Hamayotsu said.

“I think the lesson of my election and Nabeela’s election and so many more — it’s not just Muslims,” said Rashid. “It’s folks like Hoan Huynh, a Vietnamese refugee who was elected. People like Sharon Chung, a Korean-American who was elected. The number of people who are in the Illinois legislature is reflective of the diversity of our state. This is something that we should take pride in, and something that we should embrace so that our government continues to reflect the wishes of its people. I think where we have a strong healthy vibrant democracy, we’ll have better outcomes for all of us.”

‘Our democracy is composed of us’

As he reflects on a long, memorable day that included his swearing-in ceremony, Rashid was hopeful about the signal his and Syed’s elections send to others with similar backgrounds who may be debating their own political careers.

“My election gives confidence to people who may have been hesitant to run but now realize that they can. I’ve had people come to me and say, ‘I didn’t think that you could win, and now my eyes are open,” he said.

Syed hopes others who also wear the hijab might see her as an example of what is possible instead of what is not.

“Our democracy is composed of us,” she told VOA. “And we are contributing to making America amazing.”

While Illinois is a reliably “blue” state, Rashid and Syed’s election wins helped Democrats increase the party’s overall influence in state politics. In the 118-member Illinois House of Representatives, 40 seats are now held by Republicans and 78 by Democrats — one of the largest party majorities in state history.
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Illinois’ First Muslim American Lawmakers Begin Work in Diverse Legislature

Illinois’ first Muslim lawmakers are now serving in the Midwestern state’s increasingly diverse House of Representatives. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports from the state capital, Springfield.
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White House Gives Few Details About Additional Classified Documents Found at Biden’s Home

The White House faced a new barrage of criticism Tuesday about the weekend announcement that lawyers found a third tranche of classified documents at the president’s private home.

Administration officials emphasized they are being cooperative with investigators and transparent with the public and are drawing a contrast between their behavior and that of former President Donald Trump.

However, in a half-hour call with reporters, White House spokesperson Ian Sams declined to offer any details beyond the few the administration already has reported about the unknown number of documents found in private offices and homes used by President Joe Biden.

And while White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre fielded multiple questions on the issue, she stressed repeatedly that the White House would not provide too many details while an investigation was underway. Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the potential mishandling of classified documents by Biden.

“While we may be constrained from being able to provide a ton of facts as this investigation is ongoing, we’re being very forthright that we’re being cooperative with the Justice Department,” said Sams, special assistant to the president and senior adviser to the White House counsel’s office. “And that’s such a stark contrast. I mean, you listen to these House Republicans … they’re faking outrage about disclosure and transparency.”

On Saturday, White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement that officials found six pages’ worth of classified documents in Biden’s private library at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. He said those documents were immediately turned over to the Justice Department.

The latest discovery adds to a trove found in December in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington home, and another set found in November in an office in Washington that he used.

Biden said after the first discovery was announced last week that he was “surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office.”

“But I don’t know what’s in the documents,” he added.

Previously, the Justice Department retrieved about 300 documents at various levels of classification from Trump’s Florida home.

Unanswered questions

In Tuesday’s call with reporters, the White House did not give comprehensive responses to questions about why they delayed by days or weeks in announcing the document discoveries, what the parameters were for the searches, whether they are done searching, what’s in the documents themselves and how many there are, and whether Biden would sit for an interview with the special counsel if he is asked.

Trump, on his social media network, sought to contrast his case with Biden’s, saying that he “did NOTHING wrong [and] have the right as President to “declassify.”

Trump added that he kept the documents securely and that “Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service. I have INFO on everyone!”

Biden’s Republican critics have promised swift action.

“President Biden’s three strikes against transparency will be met with swift congressional oversight,” James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said in a statement on Saturday. “The White House, the National Archives, and the Justice Department failed to promptly inform Congress and the American people about mishandled classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president.”

When asked if the White House would cooperate with Congress, Sams said, “We’re reviewing those letters. We’ll make a determination about our response in due course. But of course, we’re going to call it out when we see rampant hypocrisy that shows a total lack of credibility when it comes to these requests.”

Walter Shaub, a senior ethics fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, told VOA via email that while the administration was right to promptly inform Justice Department officials after they found the documents, “things might have come out better for the Biden White House if they had done a better job [of]] communicating with the public. At a minimum, they should have been forthcoming with all relevant details when the media first asked about President Biden’s retention of the records.”

“It may be understandable that the administration didn’t alert the public immediately” when they first discovered the documents, he said, but “at some point, they owed the public information. It would have been nice if the administration made an announcement before the media learned that President Biden had discovered classified records in his possession. … That was a breach of trust with the public.”

Jean-Pierre questioned whether the public was preoccupied with what is turning out to be a political headache for the Biden administration, which faces stiff opposition in the new Congress.

“That’s for the American people to decide, right?” she said.

Time and tension

The White House said the Biden administration is aware of its responsibility to inform the public, but it noted there are legal considerations.

“We understand that there’s a tension between the need to be cooperative with an ongoing DoJ investigation and rightful demands for additional public information,” Sams said.

Jordan Strauss, a former Justice Department official and former White House staffer, said that often happens in legal matters.

“It is not common for the public to learn about investigations at the investigation stage,” said Strauss, now a managing director at Kroll, a risk and financial advisory solutions firm.

Strauss said the outcome is not inevitable — some of the found documents, which date from Biden’s time as vice president, might no longer be classified.

The one thing that is sure, he said, is that this will take time.

“Right now, I suspect that the president’s lawyers are conducting a very thorough investigation on their own to try to figure out what’s happened, and they probably don’t want to share information until they’ve definitively established what happened and what did not,” he said. “And that’s not a short process in almost any criminal case, or civil case.”

Until this is resolved, questions will continue to hit the White House.

“You guys can ask me this 100 times, 200 times if you wish,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday, after fielding several questions on the issue. ”I’m going to keep saying the same thing. I hear your question. It’s been asked. And answered. It’s been noted. And we’re just going to try to move on here.”
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Key Dates in the Discovery of Classified Records Tied to Biden

Key dates related to the discovery of classified documents tied to U.S. President Joe Biden, based on statements from the White House, the president, and Attorney General Merrick Garland:

Jan. 20, 2017: Biden's two terms as vice president to President Barack Obama end.
Mid-2017-2019: Biden periodically uses an office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in Washington.
Jan. 20, 2021: Biden is sworn in as president.
Nov. 2, 2022: Biden's personal attorneys come across Obama-Biden administration documents in a locked closet while packing files as they prepare to close out Biden's office in the Penn Biden Center. They notify the National Archives.
Nov. 3, 2022: The National Archives takes possession of the documents.
Nov. 4, 2022: The National Archives informs the Justice Department about the documents.
Nov. 8, 2022: Midterm elections.
November-December 2022: Biden's lawyers search the president's homes in Wilmington, Delaware, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to see if there are other documents from his vice presidency.
Nov. 9, 2022: The FBI begins an assessment of whether classified information has been mishandled.
Nov. 14, 2022: Garland assigns U.S. attorney John Lausch to look into whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the matter.
Dec. 20, 2022: Biden's personal counsel informs Lausch that a second batch of classified documents has been discovered in the garage of Biden's Wilmington home. The FBI goes to Biden's home in Wilmington and secures the documents.
Jan. 5, 2023: Lausch advises Garland he believes that appointing a special counsel is warranted.
Jan. 9, 2023: CBS News, followed by other news organizations, reveals the discovery of the documents at the Penn Biden Center. The White House acknowledges that "a small number" of Obama-Biden administration records, including some with classified markings, were found at the center. It makes no mention of the documents found in Wilmington.
Jan. 10: 2023: For the first time, Biden addresses the document issue. During a press conference in Mexico City, he says he was "surprised to learn that there were any documents" in the Penn Biden Center and doesn't know what's in them. He does not mention the documents found in Wilmington.
Jan. 11, 2023: Biden's lawyers complete their search of Biden's residences, find one additional classified document in the president's personal library in Wilmington. NBC News and other news organizations reveal a second batch of documents has been found at a location other than the Penn Biden Center.
Jan. 12, 2023: Biden's lawyer informs Lausch that an additional classified document has been found. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, reveals publicly for the first time that documents were found in Biden's Wilmington garage and one document was found in an adjacent room. Garland announces that he has appointed Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney in the Trump administration, to serve as special counsel.
Jan. 14, 2023: The White House reveals that Biden's lawyers found more classified documents at his home than previously known. Sauber said in a statement that a total of six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden's private library. Sauber said Biden's personal lawyers, who did not have security clearances, stopped their search after finding the first page on Wednesday evening. Sauber found the remaining material Thursday as he was facilitating their retrieval by the Justice Department.

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