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Proud Boys ‘Took Aim at the Heart of Our Democracy,’ Says Prosecutor

As one of the most high-profile trials to stem from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack got under way, U.S. prosecutors on Thursday accused leaders of the far-right Proud Boys group of plotting an assault on American democracy.

In an opening argument, federal prosecutor Jason McCullough told jurors that Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and four other leaders engaged in sedition by using force to try to keep Donald Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election. 

“On January 6, they took aim at the heart of our democracy,” McCullough told jurors. 

Defendants’ lawyers said it was Trump, not the Proud Boys, who spurred thousands of supporters to attack the Capitol. 

“He’s the one that told them to march over to the Capitol and fight like hell. Enrique didn’t say that,” said Sabino Jauregui, a lawyer for Tarrio. 

‘These men did not stand back’

The case marks the third time the U.S. Justice Department has charged members of extremist groups with the rarely prosecuted crime of seditious conspiracy after Trump supporters invaded the Capitol in a failed bid to prevent lawmakers from certifying his November 2020 election loss to Biden. 

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and another chapter leader of the far-right militant group were found guilty of seditious conspiracy in November, and another trial is pending against four more members. 

The Civil War-era law, which prohibits people from plotting to overthrow or destroy the U.S. government, carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. 

When it became clear that Trump would not win re-election, “these men did not stand back. They did not stand by. Instead, they mobilized,” McCullough said, paraphrasing a comment Trump made in a debate before the election that the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.” 

All five Proud Boys defendants have pleaded not guilty and their attorneys will argue that they did not plot to block the peaceful transfer of power. 

Prosecutors have brought criminal charges against more than 950 people following the assault. Four people died during the chaos, and five police officers died of various causes after the attack. 

Trump allies also under scrutiny

Under Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Justice Department is also investigating efforts by Trump’s advisers to overturn his election defeat. 

In the Proud Boys case, the government accuses Tarrio and four other group members, some of whom led state chapters, of purchasing paramilitary gear for the attack and urging members of the self-described “Western chauvinist group” to descend on Washington. 

They say Tarrio directed the attack from Baltimore because he had been ordered to stay out of Washington after being arrested on January 4 for burning a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic African-American church in December 2020. 

Prosecutors say Tarrio met with Rhodes, the Oath Keeper founder, at an underground parking garage after being released from custody. 

Prosecutors accuse the four other defendants – Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola – of being among the first members of the crowd to charge past the barricades that had been erected to protect the Capitol. 

A fifth member of the group, North Carolina chapter leader Charles Donohoe, pleaded guilty to other charges in April 2022 and could potentially be called as a witness in the case. 

Biggs and Nordean are accused of tearing down a black metal fence that separated the crowd from police, Donohoe of throwing water bottles at police, and Pezzola with grabbing an officer’s riot shield. 

The indictment said Pezzola used the stolen shield to break a window, allowing members of the mob to enter the Capitol.  
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Veteran Woman Senator Is 3rd in Line for President

On January 3, while Republicans in the House of Representatives were deadlocked over electing a speaker of the house, Democratic Senator Patty Murray was briefly second in line to the U.S. presidency.

That’s because the longtime Democratic senator from Washington state made history when she became the first woman to serve as Senate president pro tempore, a largely ceremonial role that will see Murray filling in as head of the Senate whenever Vice President Kamala Harris is absent. In Latin, “pro tempore” means “for the time being.”

“The significance of this moment is certainly not lost on me,” Murray, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992, said in a statement. “As the first woman to serve as President Pro Tempore, I will be the first woman to sign the bills we send to President Biden’s desk for his signature and to be designated to preside over the Senate in the absence of the Vice President. It’s a responsibility I am deeply honored to take on for my country and for Washington state.”

Murray’s colleagues elected her to the position, which is traditionally based on seniority. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the most senior member of the majority party, did not seek the job. Murray’s rise to the leadership position that puts her third in line to the presidency took decades, underscoring how long the road to progress can be.

“It’s a big deal, and it’s a historic moment, and it’s one that’s been very long in coming,” says Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “That’s not surprising, because the Senate is an institution that doesn’t turn over very often. So, when it comes to positions of leadership, which are given by seniority … the pace of change is incredibly slow. But it’s still a huge moment.”

If the commander in chief cannot serve, the order of presidential succession is vice president, followed by speaker of the house and then president pro tempore of the Senate. In the last Congress, two women — Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — were the top two people in line for the presidency.

“It’s huge that we have women in these positions of leadership. What I would want to be clear about, though, is that does not mean we’re anywhere close to parity,” Sinzdak says. “We have to celebrate these accomplishments but still acknowledge that there’s work to be done to get closer to equal representation.”

There are now 25 women — one in four members — in the U.S. Senate. In the House of Representatives, fewer than one-third of the members are women. Having women in leadership positions upends traditional notions of who can and should be in those positions, Sinzdak says.

“As we see more and more women serving, it becomes clear women are just as able to serve in those positions as men are, and it normalizes women’s leadership. So, there’s definitely a role modeling effect,” she says. “And I think it also influences other women who may be considering running for office someday. It helps when you see people you can identify with serving in those positions.”
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A Side-by-Side Look at the Trump, Biden Classified Documents

The revelation that potentially classified materials were discovered at think tank offices formerly used by President Joe Biden has prompted questions on how the circumstance compares to the seizure last year of hundreds of documents marked as classified from Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of former President Donald Trump.

A side-by-side look at the similarities and differences between the two situations:

How many classified documents are we talking about?

Biden: “A small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered on Nov. 2, 2022, in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank in Washington, as Biden’s personal attorneys were clearing out the offices, according to Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president.

Biden kept an office at the Penn Center after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his 2020 presidential campaign. It was affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and continued to operate independently of the Biden administration.

Trump: Roughly 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top-secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021.

In January 2022, the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of documents, telling Justice Department officials they contained “a lot” of classified material. In August, FBI agents took about 33 boxes and containers of 11,000 documents from Mar-a-Lago, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office.

How quickly were the classified documents turned over?

Biden: His personal attorneys immediately alerted the White House counsel’s office, who notified NARA, which took custody of the documents the next day, Sauber said.

“Since that discovery, the president’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives,” Sauber said.

Trump: A Trump representative told NARA in December 2021 that presidential records had been found at Mar-a-Lago, nearly a year after Trump left office. Fifteen boxes of records containing some classified materials were transferred from Mar-Lago to NARA in January.

A few months later, investigators from the Justice Department and FBI visited Mar-a-Lago to get more information about classified materials taken to Florida. Federal officials also served a subpoena for some documents believed to be at the estate.

In August 2022, FBI agents conducting a search retrieved 33 boxes from Mar-a-Lago. The search came after lawyers for Trump provided a sworn certification that all government records had been returned.

Could either president face charges related to the discovery of the documents?

Biden: Despite the discovery of classified materials in a Biden office, there is no indication Biden himself was aware of the existence of the records before they were turned over.

The administration has also said that the records were turned over the same day they were discovered, without any intent to conceal. That’s important because the Justice Department historically looks for willfulness, or an intent to mishandle government secrets, in deciding whether to bring criminal charges.

But even if the Justice Department were to find the case prosecutable on the evidence, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that a president is immune from prosecution during his time in office. Former special counsel Robert Mueller cited that guidance in deciding not to reach a conclusion on whether Trump should face charges as part of his investigation into coordination between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

Attorney General Merrick Garland asked U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch — one of the few U.S. attorneys to be held over from Trump’s administration — to review the matter after the Archives referred the issue to the department, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Trump: The former president possibly faces exposure for obstruction over the protracted battle to retrieve the documents themselves. And, since he’s no longer in office, he wouldn’t be afforded protections from possible prosecution that would apply to a sitting president.

In November, Garland appointed Jack Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption inquiries, to lead investigations into Trump’s retention of classified documents, as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the January 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.

What did the presidents have to say about the discovery of the documents?

Biden: Answering questions from journalists at the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico on Tuesday, Biden said he was “surprised to learn” that the documents had been found at his think tank. He said he didn’t know what was in the material but takes classified documents “very seriously.”

He said his team acted appropriately by quickly turning the documents over.

“They did what they should have done,” Biden said. “They immediately called the Archives.”

In September, speaking of the situation with Trump, Biden told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the discovery of top-secret documents at Mar-a-Lago raised concerns that sensitive data was compromised and called it “irresponsible.”

Trump: Trump has claimed at times that he declassified the documents that he took with him — though he has provided no evidence of that. He said in a Fox News interview in September that a president can declassify material “even by thinking about it.”

The former president has called the Mar-a-Lago search an “unannounced raid” that was “not necessary or appropriate” and represented “dark times for our Nation.”

Of Biden, Trump weighed in Monday on his social media site, asking, “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House?”

What are the political implications of the discovery of the documents?

Biden: While unlikely to affect the Justice Department’s decision-making with regard to charging Trump in his own case, Biden’s document disclosure could intensify skepticism among Republicans and others who are already critical that politics is the basis for probes of the former president.

There are also possible ramifications in a new, GOP-controlled Congress where Republicans are promising to launch widespread investigations of Biden’s administration.

Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the American public deserved to know earlier about the revelation of Biden’s classified documents. The Ohio Republican is among House Republicans pushing for the creation of a “select subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal government” within the Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, has requested that the U.S. intelligence community conduct a “damage assessment” of the documents found at the Penn Center.

Trump: In its immediate aftermath, Trump and his supporters seized on the Mar-a-Lago search as a partisan attack from Democrats who had long been desirous of removing him from office.

During his 2024 campaign launch in November, at the same club agents had searched months earlier, Trump referenced the probes against him, casting himself as “a victim” of wayward prosecutors and the “festering, rot and corruption of Washington.”
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Republicans Launch Inquiries Into Classified Documents Found at Pro-Biden Think Tank 

President Joe Biden said he was “surprised” to learn his lawyers found government records in his former office at a Washington think tank and said he does not know what information is contained in the classified documents.

“My lawyers have not suggested I asked what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes — they’ve turned over the boxes to the [National] Archives, and we’re cooperating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished soon and will be more detail at that time,” Biden said at a press conference in Mexico City with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following their meeting.

On Monday, Biden’s personal lawyers disclosed that in November, a batch of documents from the time Biden was vice president, some of them classified, were found at the offices of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, an institute named after Biden and affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania that the White House said Biden used at times between 2017 to 2020.

Republican lawmakers have launched inquiries into the matter.

On Tuesday, incoming House Intelligence chair Mike Turner sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines requesting an “immediate review and damage assessment.”

Turner said the discovery would put Biden in potential violation of laws protecting national security, including the Espionage Act and Presidential Records Act, two laws that the Justice Department cited as the basis of their search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, last year. Trump had for months refused the National Archives’ request to hand over classified documents suspected to be in his possession, until a search conducted by FBI agents in August found hundreds of documents, dozens of them top secret.

“When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified,” Trump asked via the Truth Social platform Monday evening.

Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said that following the discovery of the material they immediately notified the National Archives, the agency in charge of handling such presidential documents.

“The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden Administration records, including a small number of documents with classified markings,” Sauber said in a statement.

Sauber said the documents were discovered when the attorneys were packing files “housed in a locked closet” to prepare to vacate office space and that the Archives took possession of the materials the following morning. He said Biden attorneys are working to ensure that “any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”

Not uncommon

Given its nature, any mishandling of classified material raises serious concerns, but such incidents are not uncommon and routinely handled through administrative proceedings, said Mark Zaid, an attorney focusing on national security law.

“A thorough factual investigation will be in everyone’s interests and presumably that will help identify whether any individual(s) are culpable,” Zaid told VOA in an email. “At this point, there does not seem to be any evidence that President Biden had any knowledge or involvement with the records in question, but we need to wait to learn more.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed John Lausch, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, to investigate the matter. But even with the investigation, the White House is now in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why Biden may be committing the same transgression he had criticized Trump for.

Referring to the Mar-a-Lago documents, Biden questioned how “anyone could be that irresponsible” during a September interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” and said he follows strict protocols governing sensitive material.

Republicans were quick to point out what they see as a double standard.

“If then-Vice President Biden took classified documents with him and held them for years and criticized former President Trump during that same time that he had those classified documents … I wonder why the press isn’t asking the same questions of him as vice president taking classified documents that they were asking President Trump,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said to reporters on Tuesday.

David A. Sklansky, former federal prosecutor and a professor of criminal law at Stanford University, said Biden’s case “isn’t remotely comparable” to Trump’s.

“What made the situation at Mar-a-Lago so serious wasn’t that classified documents were found there,” Sklansky told VOA. “It was the stonewalling and deception about those documents, and the repeated obstruction of the government’s efforts to recover the documents. There is no evidence of any of that here.”

Democratic lawmaker Pete Aguilar called Republicans’ move to investigate the president “hypocrisy at its finest,” saying that Republicans did not consider investigating the hundreds of documents found in Trump’s home to be a priority at the time.

“What President Biden did was disclose this to the Archives, let law enforcement know,” he said. “That is exactly the way that you should handle this.”

The White House has not confirmed whether the classified documents found at the Biden Penn Center include U.S. intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, as reported by CNN.

The Department of Justice and the FBI declined VOA’s request to comment, while Lausch’s office and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have not responded to VOA’s queries.

Katherine Gypson and Masood Farivar contributed to this report.
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House GOP Kicks Off Majority With Vote to Slash IRS Funding

House Republicans began their tenure in the majority Monday by passing a bill that would rescind nearly $71 billion that Congress had provided the IRS, fulfilling a campaign promise even though the legislation is unlikely to advance further.

Democrats had beefed up the IRS over the next decade to help offset the cost of top health and environmental priorities they passed last year and to replenish an agency struggling to provide basic services to taxpayers and ensure fairness in tax compliance.

The money is on top of what Congress provides the IRS annually through the appropriations process and immediately became a magnet for GOP campaign ads in the fall, claiming that the boost would lead to an army of IRS agents harassing hard-working Americans.

The bill to rescind the money passed the House on a party-line vote of 221-210. The Democratic-controlled Senate has vowed to ignore it.

Shortly before the vote, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that rescinding the extra IRS funding would increase deficits over the coming decade by more than $114 billion. That created an awkward moment for Republicans, who have been saying that addressing deficits would be one of their top concerns in the majority.

Still, the CBO’s projection didn’t appear to dampen Republican support. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., said the extra IRS funding Democrats provided last year was for one purpose.

“To go after small businesses, hard-working Americans to try to raise money for reckless spending, reckless spending that has caused $31 trillion in debt in this nation,” Duncan said.

Duncan and other GOP lawmakers routinely say the extra funding will be used to hire 87,000 new agents to target Americans, but that’s misleading. The number is based on a Treasury Department plan saying that many IRS employees would be hired over the next decade if it got the money. But those employees will not all be hired at the same time, they will not all be auditors and many will be replacing some 50,000 employees who are expected to quit or retire in coming years.

“This debate about IRS lends itself to be the most dishonest, demagogic rhetoric that I have seen in the Congress at any point in time,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Charles Rettig, the former commissioner of the IRS, said in a final message to the agency in November that the additional money would help in many areas, not just beefing up tax enforcement. He said the investments would make it “even less likely for honest taxpayers to hear from the IRS or receive an audit letter.”

Additional funding for the agency has been politically controversial since 2013, when the IRS under the Obama administration was found to have used inappropriate criteria to review tea party groups and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status.

In the ensuing years, the IRS was mostly on the losing end of congressional funding fights, even as a subsequent 2017 report found that both conservative and liberal groups were chosen for scrutiny.

In April, Rettig told lawmakers the agency’s budget has decreased by more than 15% over the past decade when accounting for inflation and said the number of full-time employees — 79,000 in the last fiscal year — was close to 1974 levels.

But Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., and other Republicans weren’t buying the argument that the funding would be focused on auditing the wealthy.

“This is meant to nickel-and-dime, audit and harass America’s small businesses and families, who they know cannot afford the legal fees to fight this army,” Malliotakis said.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said a decade of Republican-led budget cuts gutted the IRS.

“The only way that House Republicans could make it any more obvious that they’re doing a favor for wealthy tax cheats is by coming out and saying it in exactly those words,” Wyden said. “This bill is going nowhere in the Senate.”

And the White House said President Joe Biden would veto the bill if it gets to his desk, saying that the wealthiest 1% of Americans hide about 20% of their income so they don’t have to pay taxes on it, shifting more of the tax burden to the middle class.

“With their first economic legislation of the new Congress, House Republicans are making clear that their top economic priority is to allow the rich and multibillion-dollar corporations to skip out on their taxes, while making life harder for ordinary, middle-class families that pay the taxes they owe,” the White House said.
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US House Adopts Rules Sought by Hardliners to Control McCarthy

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Monday adopted a package of internal rules that give right-wing hardliners more leverage over the chamber’s newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy.   

Lawmakers voted 220-213 to approve the legislation. One Republican, Representative Tony Gonzales, joined all 212 Democrats in voting against the rules package. Another Republican did not vote.   

The rules package, which will govern House operations over the next two years, represented an early test of McCarthy’s ability to keep his caucus together, after he suffered the humiliation of 14 failed ballots last week before finally being elected speaker on Saturday.   

The legislation includes key concessions that hardliners sought and McCarthy agreed to in his quest for the speaker’s gavel. The changes include allowing a single lawmaker to call for his removal at any time. Other changes would place new restrictions on federal spending, potentially limiting McCarthy’s ability to negotiate government funding packages with President Joe Biden, whose fellow Democrats control the Senate.   

Democrats denounced the legislation as a rules package for “MAGA extremists” that would favor wealthy corporations over workers, undermine congressional ethics standards and lead to further restrictions on abortion services. 

“These rules are not a serious attempt at governing. They’re essentially a ransom note to America from the extreme right,” Representative Jim McGovern said.   

Gonzales, the lone Republican to oppose the legislation, said he objected to potential limits on U.S. defense spending at a time of growing tensions with Russia and China.   

His vote came despite an earlier warning from the grass-roots conservative group FreedomWorks, which said on Twitter: “If Tony’s a ‘NO’ on the House Rules Package he should not be welcomed into the 119th Congress.”   

Republicans have a narrow majority of 222-212 in the House, after winning fewer seats than expected in November’s midterm elections. This has amplified the hardliners’ power and raised questions about how the divided Congress will function.   

Lawmakers face critical tasks in the year ahead including addressing the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt limit. Failure to do that, or even a long standoff, would shake the global economy.   

Other changes include a 72-hour waiting period between when a bill is introduced and when it can get a vote, a cap on government spending at 2022 levels, and the creation of a committee to investigate the Justice Department. 
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Meet the Clerk Who Kept Order While the House Chose Its Leader

Standing up to nominate Rep. Byron Donalds for House speaker, Republican Rep. Chip Roy addressed the woman presiding over the chamber as “Madam speaker.”

The third-term congressman quickly corrected himself. “Madam clerk,” he acknowledged with a smile.

The flub, coming on the second day of voting, illustrated the rising stature of House clerk Cheryl Johnson, a central figure in the drama that became a dayslong effort to select a speaker. Round by round, she called for the start of each vote and announced at the end that, once again, no speaker had been elected.

That is, until early Saturday morning, when she named Rep. Kevin McCarthy the victor after the 15th vote.

Who is Cheryl Johnson?

According to her official bio, Johnson is the 36th person to serve as clerk and was first sworn in by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019. She is the first Black woman to preside over the House chamber.

A New Orleans native, Johnson has worked for the House for nearly two decades, serving as chief investigative counsel and spokesperson for the Committee on Education and the Workforce. She was also counsel for the committee with oversight over the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, where she worked for 10 years liaising with congressional committees with jurisdiction over its funding.

A journalism and mass communication graduate of the University of Iowa, Johnson earned her law degree from Howard University and graduated from the senior management program at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

On Friday, in nominating Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries — whom Democrats unanimously supported throughout every round of voting — outgoing House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn addressed Johnson, thanking her for her service during a contentious week.

“Madam clerk, I want to begin by thanking you for your contribution to maintaining the dignity and honor of this august body,” said Clyburn, who as the No. 3 House Democrat had been the chamber’s highest-ranking Black member. “The eyes of the country are on us today. Let us consider what they will remember.”

What does the clerk do?

Until a speaker is chosen and members-elect are officially sworn in, the clerk oversees the chamber, tasked with calling each day’s session to order, calling the roll and deciding procedural questions that may arise.

It’s also up to the clerk to maintain order in the House chamber, which at times has involved using her gavel to tamp down a dull roar of chatter during the debate.

After there’s a speaker in place, the clerk’s role becomes more procedural, keeping records of floor activity, preparing, printing and distributing the daily journal, and certifying the passage of bills and resolutions.

The clerk also acts as a go-between for the House and the Senate, as well as the White House when the chamber isn’t in session, receiving and delivering messages. He or she also supervises the staff of any member who dies, resigns or is expelled, until a replacement is elected.

In addition to duties inside the chamber, there are several other offices whose jurisdiction falls under the clerk, including those tracking legislation, transcribing floor proceedings, and processing and retaining House records until they are transferred to the National Archives.

John Beckley of Virginia was chosen as the first clerk of the House in April 1789. The clerk also served as librarian of Congress until 1815, when that became a separate position.

How are clerks selected?

The clerk is a professional employee of Congress, one of the House officers elected every two years when the House organizes a new session.

Each caucus nominates candidates for those positions. Those elections happen after the session’s new speaker is selected.
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House Republicans Hold 14th Vote on House Speaker 

The U.S. House of Representatives has failed on a 14th ballot to elect a new speaker.

A band of 20 right-wing lawmakers has successfully blocked California Congressman Kevin McCarthy over four days of voting from becoming speaker because they believe he is not conservative enough.

McCarthy gained backing earlier Friday from 15 of the holdouts, coming up just a few votes short of the majority he needs to win the speakership. He must receive 218 votes to win the job, if all 434 current members of the House vote.

McCarthy’s path to winning depends on how many lawmakers are present for the vote, which affects the size of the winning majority, as well as how many of his opponents he can win over.

Allies of McCarthy say two Republican supporters of his leadership are planning to return to Washington Friday night for the vote, giving him a better chance to clinch the speakership.

McCarthy told reporters Friday he believed “we’ll have the votes to finish this once and for all.”

Committed to the contest

The Republican has never given any indication that he would drop out of the contest to lead the House, which would also, under a provision of the U.S. Constitution, make him second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency.

Republicans hold a slim 222-212 margin over Democrats in the new session of the 118th Congress, with one current vacancy, meaning McCarthy can lose the support of no more than four Republicans and still be able to reach a majority of 218, if all Democrats vote.

Republicans who are holding up the vote for speaker say they want to reduce the power of the speaker’s office and give rank-and-file lawmakers more influence over the creation and passage of legislation.

McCarthy has acceded to several of the right-wing lawmakers’ demands, including allowing a single member to call for a snap internal House election to vacate the speakership if they don’t approve of his legislative policies or the way he is overseeing the chamber.

He has also promised them key committee assignments and full House votes on some of their legislative priorities, such as imposing term limits on lawmakers and stronger border controls to curb undocumented migrants from entering the U.S. across the southwestern border with Mexico.

House business on hold

It has been 100 years since neither a Republican nor a Democrat won the House speakership on the first round of voting.

Electing a speaker in the House is the chamber’s first order of business as a new session of Congress opens. Without a speaker, the lawmakers, all newly elected or reelected in last November’s nationwide congressional elections, have not been sworn in.

As such, the new Republican majority cannot form House committees to begin to consider legislation, start promised investigations of the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden, or provide constituent services for voters in their congressional districts.

The 57-year-old McCarthy has sought for years to lead the House. Over the past several weeks, he has met repeatedly with his Republican foes in an effort to secure their support.

Whomever the Republicans eventually elect will replace outgoing Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who remains a House member and cast her votes for Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the new Democratic minority leader in the House. All House Democrats have voted for Jeffries on all the previous speakership ballots, but he has no chance of winning because no Republicans plan to vote for him to help him reach the 218 majority.

Democrats, who have been locked in a 50-50 split with Republicans in the Senate the past two years, gained an edge in the nationwide congressional elections nearly two months ago and will hold a 51-49 majority, counting three independents who work with the Democrats.

New senators were sworn in on Tuesday.
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McCarthy Finally Wins US House Speakership

It took 15 tries and five days, but California Congressman Kevin McCarthy has been elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

After the 14th ballot there was a move to adjourn until Monday, but that vote also failed after Republicans changed tactics and decided on a 15th effort to elect a new leader.

A band of 20 right-wing lawmakers had blocked McCarthy on previous ballots because they believe he is not conservative enough.

In an unusual confrontation, McCarthy had exchanged words with Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida on the floor of the house chamber after the 14th ballot because the congressman had voted ‘Present’ instead of casting the vote that would have given McCarthy the speakership.

The Republican had never given any indication that he would drop out of the contest to lead the House, which would also, under a provision of the U.S. Constitution, make him second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency.

Republicans hold a slim 222-212 margin over Democrats in the new session of the 118th Congress, with one current vacancy, meaning McCarthy could lose the support of no more than four Republicans and still be able to reach a majority of 218, if all Democrats vote.

Republicans who held up the election of the speaker say they want to reduce the power of the speaker’s office and give rank-and-file lawmakers more influence over the creation and passage of legislation.

McCarthy acceded to several of the right-wing lawmakers’ demands, including allowing a single member to call for a snap internal House election to vacate the speakership if they don’t approve of his legislative policies or the way he is overseeing the chamber.

He has also promised them key committee assignments and full House votes on some of their legislative priorities, such as imposing term limits on lawmakers and stronger border controls to curb undocumented migrants from entering the U.S. across the southwestern border with Mexico.

It has been 100 years since neither a Republican nor a Democrat won the House speakership on the first round of voting.

Electing a speaker in the House is the chamber’s first order of business as a new session of Congress opens. Without a speaker, the lawmakers, all newly elected or reelected in last November’s nationwide congressional elections, have not been sworn in.

As such, the new Republican majority cannot form House committees to begin to consider legislation, start promised investigations of the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden, or provide constituent services for voters in their congressional districts.

The 57-year-old McCarthy has sought for years to lead the House. Over the past several weeks, he has met repeatedly with his Republican foes in an effort to secure their support.

Whomever the Republicans eventually elect will replace outgoing Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who remains a House member and cast her votes for Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the new Democratic minority leader in the House. All House Democrats have voted for Jeffries on all the previous speakership ballots, but he has no chance of winning because no Republicans plan to vote for him to help him reach the 218 majority.

Democrats, who have been locked in a 50-50 split with Republicans in the Senate the past two years, gained an edge in the nationwide congressional elections nearly two months ago and will hold a 51-49 majority, counting three independents who work with the Democrats.

New senators were sworn in Tuesday.
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Conservatives Deny McCarthy Speakership for Third Day

US lawmakers will try for a fourth day Friday to elect a speaker of the US House of Representatives as a group of 20 conservatives continued to block Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the post. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has reaction from Capitol Hill.
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Selection of Next US House Speaker Moves to 3rd Day

After two days of deadlock, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will try again Thursday to agree on who should be the next speaker of the House. 

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s bid floundered Wednesday when, for a second day, a group of conservative lawmakers withheld crucial support in multiple rounds of voting.        

McCarthy, a 16-year lawmaker from California and the House Republican leader in the session of Congress that ended Tuesday, has long sought to become speaker. But he lost three votes on Tuesday in his quest for a 218-vote majority in the 435-member chamber, and he failed in three more rounds of balloting on Wednesday.    

McCarthy fell short by as many as 17 votes Wednesday, as conservative members of his own party continued to say he was not ideologically strong enough to lead.      

The House adjourned for a few hours early Wednesday evening only to then adjourn until noon Thursday.     

It has been 100 years since neither a Republican nor a Democrat won the House speakership on the first round of voting to become the leader of the lower house of Congress.    

The fourth vote came hours after former President Donald Trump publicly called for McCarthy’s election as House speaker, a lawmaker he has described as “My Kevin.”          

“It’s now time for all of our great Republican House members to vote for Kevin, close the deal, take the victory,” Trump said on his social media network.       

Trump warned the slim Republican majority in the 118th session of Congress to “not turn a great triumph into a giant & embarrassing defeat. It’s time to celebrate, you deserve it. Kevin McCarthy will do a good job, and maybe even a great job — just watch!”    

But Trump’s new statement, following calls in recent days to some of the dissidents opposing McCarthy, had no effect. The former president, who has announced his 2024 campaign to try to reclaim the White House, had for weeks voiced his support for McCarthy.       

Republican Representative Lauren Boebert said on the House floor Wednesday that Trump “needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, ‘Sir, you do not have the votes, and it’s time to withdraw.'”  

President Joe Biden answered a question about the stalemate as well, telling reporters at the White House before the fourth vote, “With regard to the fight over the speaker, that’s not my problem.      

“I just think it’s a little embarrassing that it’s taking so long … and the rest of the world is looking,” he said. “They’re looking at, you know, we need to get our act together.”       

Republicans will hold a narrow 222-212 majority in the House, with one current vacancy, requiring McCarthy to win at least 218 votes to claim the speakership, assuming all 434 lawmakers vote. Under a provision in the U.S. Constitution, he also would become second in line of succession to the presidency.    

Nineteen Republicans, many of them in recent weeks expressing the view that McCarthy was not conservative enough to lead House Republicans, voted for other Republican lawmakers in the first round of voting, including Representatives Andy Biggs and Jim Jordan, two vocal opponents of Biden.    

In the second round of voting, 19 dissident Republicans voted for Jordan, even though he nominated McCarthy as his choice to lead the majority Republican caucus in the new two-year House session. On the third round, another Republican, Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, a second-term lawmaker, switched his vote to Jordan after voting for McCarthy on the first two ballots.          

In the Wednesday balloting, 20 lawmakers in the anti-McCarthy bloc voted for Donalds to become the new speaker in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds.    

Democratic Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, with all 212 Democrats voting for him, led the voting for the speakership, although he has no chance of winning the job because no Republicans plan to vote for him to help him reach the 218 majority.      

On the fourth and fifth ballots, 201 Republicans voted for McCarthy,16 short of the 217 he needed because in both rounds of voting, one lawmaker voted “present,” lowering the required majority total by one vote.     

The 57-year-old McCarthy, a staunch conservative himself, has sought for years to lead the House. Over the past several weeks, he has met repeatedly with his Republican foes to secure their support.       

McCarthy offered to change the House’s governing rules in several ways, including to permit snap votes to declare the speakership vacant and select someone else if they did not like his policy stances or how the party caucus was conducting its promised investigations of Biden and his administration.   

Whomever the Republicans eventually elect will replace outgoing Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who remains a House member and cast her votes for Jeffries.    

Democrats, who have been locked in a 50-50 split with Republicans in the Senate the past two years, gained an edge in the nationwide congressional elections nearly two months ago and will hold a 50-49 majority in the upper chamber, even after onetime Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced she is now an independent but would not change her voting philosophy. She usually has voted with the Democratic lawmakers and Biden.    

Choosing a House speaker occurs even before representatives are sworn into office for their two-year terms. Lawmakers have called out the name of their choice for House speaker from the floor of the chamber, and the same scenario will continue to play out in succeeding rounds of voting until someone wins the speakership. 
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Conservatives Block Mccarthy Speaker Bid in 3 Rounds of Voting

The U.S. House of Representatives failed to choose the next Speaker of the House Tuesday, as a group of conservative U.S. lawmakers continued to vote against fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy’s bid to lead the 118th session of Congress. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
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House Speaker Race May Complicate New Session of US Congress

The 118th session of the U.S. Congress opens Tuesday with all attention focused on whether Congressman Kevin McCarthy of California can secure enough votes from his fellow Republicans to become the speaker of the House of Representatives and second in line to the U.S. presidency.

The 57-year-old McCarthy, who for years has sought to lead the 435-member House, is now tantalizingly close to winning the speakership yet not quite assured of securing the 218-vote majority he needs.

Republicans won a narrow 222-213 majority in nationwide House congressional elections in November and will take control of the chamber from Democrats and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Democrats, who have been locked in a 50-50 split with Republicans in the Senate the past two years, gained a 51-49 edge in the elections nearly two months ago and will maintain a majority even though Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema later switched from Democrat to independent.

McCarthy, a staunch conservative, won 188 votes in a House Republican caucus in November, and since then has secured more support in his effort to reach the 218-vote majority for the speakership.

But a hard-right group of House Republicans — five or more — oppose McCarthy’s bid for the speakership, saying that he has not been devoted enough to the conservative cause.

The dissidents have vowed to vote against McCarthy, which would leave him short of the needed majority because all Democrats almost assuredly will vote for their newly selected party leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Over the past several weeks, McCarthy has held numerous conversations with the band of Republicans opposing him to try to secure their support.

He has offered them a variety of changes to the way the House operates or appointment to committees where key legislation is considered. One change will give the small number of dissident Republicans the right to a House vote to declare the House speakership vacant if they disagree with the way McCarthy is handling party policy on legislation or expected investigations of U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration.

But so far, with less than a day before Congress convenes at noon Tuesday, McCarthy’s quest for the speakership hangs in the balance, even though no one has gained any substantial support as an alternative.

No vote for the House speakership has gone beyond a single ballot in a century, but it could Tuesday.

Choosing a House speaker occurs even before representatives are sworn into office for their two-year terms. Lawmakers will call out the name of their choice for House speaker from the floor of the chamber.

Should McCarthy come up short of the required 218 votes — or fewer if some lawmakers vote themselves as “present” in the chamber, lowering the number McCarthy would need for a majority — one or more new votes would occur. The clerk of the House would continue to laboriously call the roll of all 435 members until McCarthy, or someone else, reaches a majority to become speaker.
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Five Takeaways About Trump’s Taxes

Democrats in the U.S. Congress released six years’ worth of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns following a years-long legal fight in which Trump sought to keep the information private. The newly publicized records amount to nearly 6,000 pages, including the personal tax returns of Trump and his wife, Melania, from 2015 to 2020, as well as tax returns from Trump’s businesses.

Here are five key takeaways from the documents:

1. Trump’s personal income varied greatly year by year.

Of the six years covered by the documents from 2015 to 2020, Trump’s adjusted gross income ranged from a low of negative $32.4 million (in 2016) to a high of $24.4 million (in 2018).

1. Trump’s tax liability also greatly fluctuated.

Trump paid little to no taxes in three of the six years covered by the documents released: $0 taxes paid in 2020 and $750 in taxes paid in both 2016 and 2017. The former president paid larger sums in 2015 ($641,931), 2018 ($999,466) and 2019 ($133,445).

1. Trump claimed large deductions and losses.

While Trump’s gross income ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars, he also reported large losses and claimed various tax deductions, which reduced his adjusted gross income, along with the taxes he would have to pay on it.

1. Trump had bank accounts in several foreign countries.

In his tax filings, Trump said he had financial accounts in various foreign countries between 2015-2020, including China, Ireland, Great Britain and the Caribbean nation of St. Martin. By 2018, he had closed all his overseas accounts except for the one in Great Britain. The former president also reported earning money in foreign nations.

1. Trump’s charitable giving varied year by year.

Of the six years covered by the documents, Trump’s charitable giving ranged from a low of $0 in 2020 to a high of $1.8 million in 2017. Trump gave about half a million in each of 2018 and 2019, and $1.1 million in 2016.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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US Congressman-Elect Santos Investigated for Lying About His Past

U.S. Representative-elect George Santos of New York was under investigation by Long Island prosecutors on Wednesday after revelations surfaced that the now-embattled Republican lied about his heritage, education and professional pedigree as he campaigned for office.

Despite intensifying doubt about his fitness to hold federal office, Santos has shown no signs of stepping aside — even as he publicly admitted to a long list of lies.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly, a Republican, said the fabrications and inconsistencies were “nothing short of stunning.”

“The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress,” she said. “If a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.”

Santos’ campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

He is scheduled to be sworn in next Tuesday, when the U.S. House reconvenes. If he assumes office, he could face investigations by the House Committee on Ethics and the Justice Department.

The Republican has admitted to lying about having Jewish ancestry, a Wall Street pedigree and a college degree, but he has yet to address other lingering questions — including the source of what appears to be a quickly amassed fortune despite recent financial problems, including evictions and owing thousands in back rent.

Fellow Long Island Republican Representative-elect Nick Lalota said he was troubled by the revelations.

“I believe a full investigation by the House Ethics Committee and, if necessary, law enforcement, is required,” Lalota said Tuesday.

The New York attorney general’s office has already said it’s looking into issues that have come to light.

Brendan Brosh, a spokesperson for the Nassau County DA’s office, said Wednesday, “We are looking into the matter.” The scope of the investigation was not immediately clear.

Other Republicans castigated Santos but stopped short of asking him to step aside.

“Congressman-elect George Santos has broken the public trust by making serious misstatements regarding his background, experience and education, among other issues,” said Joseph G. Cairo, chair of the Nassau County Republican Committee, which is within the 3rd Congressional District.

Questions intensified after The New York Times examined the narrative Santos, 34, presented to voters during his successful campaign for a congressional district that straddles the north shore suburbs of Long Island and a sliver of Queens.

The Times uncovered records in Brazil that show Santos was the subject of a criminal investigation there in 2008 over allegations that he used stolen checks to buy items at a clothing shop in the city of Niteroi. At the time, Santos would have been 19. The Times quoted local prosecutors as saying the case was dormant because Santos had never appeared in court.

Santos continued to deny he was being sought by authorities in South America.

Democrats pounced, calling Santos a serial fabulist and demanded he voluntarily not take office.

In an interview with the New York Post earlier this week, Santos apologized for his fabrications but downplayed them as “sins” over embellishing his resume, adding that “we do stupid things in life.”

He admitted to lying about working for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as well as having earned a degree in finance and economics from Baruch College in New York.

Beyond his resume, Santos invented a life story that has also come under question, including claims that his grandparents “fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium and again fled persecution during World War II.”

During his campaign, he referred to himself as “a proud American Jew.”

He backtracked on that claim, saying he never intended to claim Jewish heritage, which would have likely raised his appeal among his district’s significant ranks of Jewish voters.

“I am Catholic,” he told the Post. “Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background, I said I was ‘Jew-ish.'”

In a statement Tuesday, the Republican Jewish Coalition repudiated Santos.

“He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. In public comments and to us personally, he previously claimed to be Jewish,” the coalition said. “He will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”

On Fox News Tuesday night, Santos came under withering questioning by former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who was sitting in for Tucker Carlson.

“You don’t really seem to be taking this seriously,” she told him.

“You’ve apologized. You’ve said you’ve made mistakes. But you’ve outright lied. A lie is not an embellishment on a resume,” she said.

“Look, I agree with what you’re saying,” Santos replied. “We can debate my resume and how I worked with firms such as —”

“Is it debatable?” Gabbard interjected. “Or is it just false?”

“No, it’s not false at all,” he said. “It’s debatable.”

Santos lost his first race for Congress in 2020 but successfully ran again this year.

In its opposition research on Santos, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised several red flags about the Republican’s record — but also accepted some of his assertions, including his educational record, as fact. The 87-page dossier sought to tie him to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his support for baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

The report also sought to depict him as a far-right candidate. But buried within its report, the DCCC had raised issues about his shaky financial standing and multiple evictions that left him thousands of dollars in debt.

Federal campaign records show that he loaned his campaign more than $700,000, but the source of that money has yet to be explained.

While his Democratic opponent, Robert Zimmerman, also tried to raise Santos’ misrepresentations during his losing campaign, it did not gain much traction.

Zimmerman has said that Santos is unfit for office and has called for him to step aside so a special election can be held.
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Biden Renomination Pursuit Could Be No Sure Thing

President Joe Biden, currently vacationing in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has said he would take time over the holidays to discuss with family members whether he should seek re-election in 2024.

White House and Democratic Party officials say it is almost certain Biden will run again. But will he secure his party’s nomination?

An ideal place to explore that question is Prince George’s County, Maryland, where Biden received 89% support — his highest percentage in the 2020 general election.

Only about one-fourth of the 400,000 eligible voters in Prince George’s County usually cast ballots in major elections. Regardless of the turnout, the outcome is predictable in general elections for countywide offices — Democrats are almost assured victory in the largest African American-majority county in the United States.

The county executive, the 11 members of the county council, the sheriff, the clerk of the court and the nearly two dozen lawmakers from the county holding office in the state general assembly are all Democrats.

“There is no Republican I can think of that actually is viable, that would be able to win within Prince George’s County,” county Democratic Central Committee chair Kent Roberson said.

The Republican Central Committee vice chair in Prince George’s County agrees.

“Not in my lifetime. I’m 70 years old right now. So, Maryland has become more Democrat-leaning — certainly the county has — over the years that I’ve been here,” Jim Wass told VOA.

That does not mean Republicans in the county should give up casting ballots in general elections, said Wass.

“One of these times, it’s going to matter.”

An issue of age

What matters for many voters of both parties is that Biden, already the oldest U.S. president, would be 86 years old if he were to finish a second term. But in this county where he topped the polls in 2016, would he be able to vanquish all primary election challengers in 2024?

“I don’t believe he has blind total support,” Roberson told VOA. “And one, if we look at the [low] approval ratings, I don’t think that’s just all Republicans who feel that way, but it is Democrats, as well. And regardless of how I feel about the president and how he is succeeding, I think that we’re also aware that individuals are concerned that he might not be the one to continue in office for another four years.”

Biden, according to Roberson, did his part by bringing the country “through a transition stage from President [Donald] Trump to where we are now.”

As in other heavily Democratic districts across the country, Prince George’s County Democrats are not monolithic. Democrats individually wear different labels: progressive, moderate, liberal or conservative. In 2016, they came together for Biden to deny Trump a second term.

“We all have been able to take all of our differences and work together. But you’ll also see where some of those individuals think that leadership is needed to move forward in a different candidate. And so, that also sways how individuals feel whether President Biden should continue in office or not,” Roberson said.

Many possible contenders

Incumbent presidents seeking a second term rarely face serious intraparty challenges, but Biden’s age could put precedent aside.

Asked to assess Democratic presidential hopefuls, Republican Wass said Gavin Newsom, the 55-year-old governor of California, perhaps could appeal to Prince George’s Democrats more than Biden.

“Somebody like Gavin Newsom might fit the mentality of Prince George’s Democrats,” he said.

As recently as November, Newsom has dismissed speculation he would challenge Biden.

“He not only beat Trump once, I think he can beat him again,” Newsom told Politico in an interview. “I hope he runs. I’ll enthusiastically support him.”

If Biden does not run for reelection or is forced out of contention by a health issue, Newsom is seen as a leading candidate, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is 58; Senator Bernie Sanders, 81; and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, a relatively youthful 40. All three were contenders in the 2020 Democratic primaries.

Wass recalls 1992 when an obscure governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton decided to run for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, despite political pundits predicting New York Governor Mario Cuomo was the one to beat incumbent Republican George H.W. Bush. Cuomo’s campaign collapsed before it began, and Clinton defeated Bush in the general election.

“Gavin Newsom must run or he’s wasting that opportunity,” said Wass, adding that for the same reason, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should enter the Republican primary contests in 2024.

“Even with former President Trump appearing to lock up a lot of the money and attention right now, these guys must run,” Wass said.

Other possible primary challengers to Trump include Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney (who was defeated for reelection this year and is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney). Also mentioned among moderate Republicans are New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.

The only elected president in American history to be denied his party’s nomination for a second term was Democrat Franklin Pierce in 1856. But the concern then was the president’s policies, not his age.

The hard-drinking Pierce favored enslavement as the country headed toward civil war over the issue. His party decided to instead nominate James Buchanan, a former secretary of state who had served as Pierce’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and thus had not been involved in the contentious slavery debate.

Buchanan, who was himself no friend to the abolitionists, bested two contenders in the general election from the Whig and Republican parties, despite not actively campaigning, capturing every slave state except Maryland.

Historians generally consider Pierce and Buchanan among America’s worst presidents.
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US House Bans TikTok on Official Devices

The popular Chinese video app TikTok has been banned from all U.S. House of Representatives-managed devices, according to the House’s administration arm, mimicking a law soon to go into effect banning the app from all U.S. government devices.

The app is considered “high risk due to a number of security issues,” the House’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) said in a message sent on Tuesday to all lawmakers and staff and must be deleted from all devices managed by the House.

The new rule follows a series of moves by U.S. state governments to ban TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd, from government devices. As of last week, 19 states have at least partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans and censor content.

The $1.66 trillion omnibus spending bill, passed last week to fund the U.S. government through September 30, 2023, includes a provision to ban the app on federally managed devices and will take effect once President Joe Biden signs the legislation into law.

“With the passage of the Omnibus that banned TikTok on executive branch devices, the CAO worked with the Committee on House Administration to implement a similar policy for the House,” a spokesperson for the Chief Administrative Officer told Reuters on Tuesday.

The message to staff said anyone with TikTok on their device would be contacted about removing it, and future downloads of the app were prohibited.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the new rule.

U.S. lawmakers have put forward a proposal to implement a nationwide ban on the app.
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Lake Loses Suit Over Her Defeat in Arizona Governor’s Race

A judge has thrown out Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her defeat in the Arizona governor’s race to Democrat Katie Hobbs, rejecting her claim that problems with ballot printers at some polling places on Election Day were the result of intentional misconduct.

In a decision Saturday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson, who was appointed by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, found that the court did not find clear and convincing evidence of the widespread misconduct that Lake had alleged had affected the result of the 2022 general election. Lake will appeal the ruling, she said in a statement.

The judge said Lake’s witnesses didn’t have any personal knowledge of intentional misconduct.

“The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence,” Thompson said.

Lake, who lost to Hobbs by just over 17,000 votes, was among the most vocal 2022 Republicans promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. While most of the other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake has not. Instead, she asked the judge to either declare her the winner or order a revote in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of Arizona’s voters.

Hobbs takes office as governor on Jan. 2.

In the ruling, the judge acknowledged the “anger and frustration” of voters who were inconvenienced in the election and noted that setting aside the results of an election “has never been done in the history of the United States.”

“But this court’s duty is not solely to incline an ear to public outcry,” the judge continued. “It is to subject plaintiff’s claims and defendant’s actions to the light of the courtroom and scrutiny of the law.”

Lawyers for Lake focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines backed up in some areas amid the confusion.

County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted, since ballots affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at the elections department headquarters. They are in the process of investigating the root cause of the printer problems.

Lake’s attorneys also claimed the chain of custody for ballots was broken at an off-site facility, where a contractor scans mail ballots to prepare them for processing. They claimed workers at the facility put their own mail ballots into the pile, rather than sending their ballots through normal channels, and also that paperwork documenting the transfer of ballots was missing. The county disputes the claim.

Lake faced extremely long odds in her challenge, needing to prove not only that misconduct occurred, but also that it was intended to deny her victory and did in fact result in the wrong woman being declared the winner. 
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Georgia Special Grand Jury Wraps Up Probe of Trump, Allies

A special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies illegally tried to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election in the southern U.S. state of Georgia appears to be wrapping up its work, but many questions remain.

The investigation is one of several that could result in criminal charges against the former president as he asks voters to return him to the White House in 2024.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who began investigating nearly two years ago, has said she will go where the facts lead. It would be an extraordinary step if she chooses to bring charges against Trump himself.

“Even if he’s acquitted by a jury, for him to face trial and to have a public trial with evidence on the record would be an epic thing for American history,” Georgia State University law professor Clark Cunningham said.

Here’s what we know as the special grand jury appears to be winding down:

What’s the latest?

Over about six months, the grand jurors have considered evidence and heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, including high-profile Trump associates and top state officials. A prosecutor on Willis’ team said during a hearing in November that they had few witnesses left and didn’t anticipate the special grand jury continuing much longer.

The grand jurors are expected to produce a final report with recommendations on potential further action. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s supervising the panel, will review the report and recommend to the court’s chief judge that the special grand jury be dissolved. The judges of the county Superior Court will then vote on whether to let the special grand jurors go or whether more investigation is necessary.

The special grand jury cannot issue indictments. Willis will decide whether to go to a regular grand jury to pursue criminal charges.

What have we learned about the investigation?

For more than a year after opening the investigation, Willis revealed little. But, ironically, once the special grand jury began meeting in June, its proceedings shrouded in mandatory secrecy, hints about where the investigation was headed began to come out.

That’s because whenever Willis wanted to compel the testimony of someone who lives outside Georgia, she had to file paperwork in a public court docket explaining why that person was a “necessary and material witness.” Additionally, anyone fighting a summons had to do so in public court filings and hearings.

In the paperwork Willis filed seeking to compel testimony from some Trump associates, she said she wanted to know about their communications with the Trump campaign and others “involved in the multi-state, coordinated efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

Prominent Trump allies whose testimony was sought included former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, as well as John Eastman and other lawyers who participated in Trump’s attempts to stay in power.

“We learned from the identity of the witnesses that this is a far-ranging conspiracy that she’s looking at,” said Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment and co-wrote a Brookings Institution report analyzing the “reported facts and applicable law” in the Fulton County investigation.

Have there been setbacks?

A number of Trump advisers and allies fought Willis’ attempts to bring them in for testimony, but Willis prevailed in most cases.

“I think that augurs well for the pretrial skirmishing to come if she charges,” Eisen said.

Willis had a notable misstep when she hosted a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor even as her investigation zeroed in on the state’s fake electors, including Burt Jones, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor. McBurney said that created “a plain – and actual and untenable – conflict” and ruled that Willis could not question or pursue charges against Jones, who won election in November.

What’s been the focus of the investigation?

The information that has come out publicly has indicated that Willis was looking at the following:

Phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election
A group of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state's “duly elected and qualified” electors
False allegations of election fraud made during meetings of state legislators at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020
The copying of data and software from election equipment in rural Coffee County by a computer forensics team hired by Trump allies
Alleged attempts to pressure Fulton County elections worker Ruby Freeman into falsely confessing to election fraud
The abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta in January 2021

What about that infamous phone call?

In a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the president suggested that the state’s top elections official, a fellow Republican, could “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.

A month later, Willis sent letters to Raffensperger and other top state officials instructing them to retain records because she was investigating “attempts to influence the administration of the 2020 Georgia General Election.”

Trump told Raffensperger he needed 11,780 votes, one more than Biden won. That was a mistake, Cunningham said, because the specific and transactional nature of that comment makes it hard to say he was just generally urging Raffensperger to look into alleged fraud.

But other legal experts have said prosecutors could struggle to prove criminal intent, which requires showing that actions were taken purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently.

What charges might be considered?

In her February 2021 letters to state leaders, Willis said she was looking into potential crimes that included “solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”

Many believe Willis will pursue charges under the state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute, commonly known as RICO. In a high-profile prosecution when she was an assistant district attorney, she used that law successfully to secure charges against Atlanta educators in a test cheating scandal. She has also used it more recently to target alleged gang activity.

The state RICO law, which is broader than the federal version, requires prosecutors to prove a pattern of criminal activity by an enterprise, which could be a single person or a group of associated individuals. It allows prosecutors to assert involvement in a pattern of criminality without having to prove that each person participated in every act.

Eisen said RICO seems “most commensurate with the nature of the people testifying and the questions that she wanted to ask.”

As the special grand jury was working, Willis informed some people that they were targets of the investigation, including Giuliani and the state’s 16 fake electors. It’s possible others received similar notifications but haven’t disclosed that publicly.

What has Trump said?

The former president has consistently called his phone call with Raffensperger “perfect” and has dismissed the Fulton County investigation as a witch hunt.

Criminal defense attorney Drew Findling, part of Trump’s legal team in Georgia, in August said the focus on Trump “is clearly an erroneous and politically driven persecution.”

Trump allies have also denied any wrongdoing. 
…

Final Report on Jan. 6 Attack Points Finger at Trump

The committee formed by the House of Representatives to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol on Thursday released its final report, an 845-page set of documents supporting the committee’s claim that the attack was directly caused by former President Donald Trump and represented the final act in a “multipart conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.”

The product of more than 17 months of investigation, the report is the distillation of evidence gathered from thousands of witness interviews, documents and subpoenaed electronic communications. According to the committee, “That evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

Trump himself has consistently denounced the committee and its work, and has continued to insist, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Expansive report

In addition to examining the attack itself, the report describes Trump’s pressure on U.S. officials, states, legislators and then-Vice President Mike Pence to manipulate the system or violate the law.

The release of the report follows a final hearing by the committee, held on Monday, in which members accused the former president of committing multiple crimes and referred him to the Department of Justice for prosecution. The charges include insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to make a false statement.

The referral carries no legal weight, but the voluminous records produced by the committee will supplement evidence gathered by the Justice Department in its own investigation and could influence the final decision on whether to prosecute the former president.

Major findings

The report issued Thursday builds a case that former President Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, using multiple strategies, all of which ultimately failed.

It documents efforts to pressure state and local officials to challenge or throw out election results that showed a Biden victory, even after dozens of lawsuits challenging the results were dismissed in court challenges.

After other attempts were thwarted, Trump latched on to a theory proposed by attorney John Eastman, which claimed that Pence had the authority to refuse to count the votes of specific states when Congress convened on January 6, a strategy meant to buy time to persuade state legislatures to take action to overturn state-level results. Pence ultimately refused to go along with the plan, and evidence uncovered by the committee indicates that even as he proposed it, Eastman was aware that the scheme was illegal.

Effort to corrupt DOJ

The committee report also lays out in detail what it describes as an effort by the former president to “corrupt the Department of Justice.”

In the aftermath of the election, former Attorney General William Barr informed Trump that all of the investigations into election irregularities undertaken by the Department of Justice had failed to find evidence of fraud sufficiently large to overturn the results of the balloting. In the face of Trump’s continued claims of fraud, Barr announced his resignation in December 2020.

The report documents that, in the weeks that followed, Trump took a number of steps to try to persuade senior officials in the department to issue statements expressing doubt about the results of the election.

Trump found an ally in DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark, an official in the department’s Civil Division, who drafted a document for the department to send to election officials in Georgia, falsely claiming that the department had “significant concerns” about possible fraud that might have affected the election outcome there and in other states. The document, which was never transmitted, also urged the state legislature to consider overturning the election result in that state.

The report chronicles a dramatic showdown in the Oval Office, in which Trump proposed installing Clark as acting attorney general. The most senior officials in the department all told the president that if he took that step, they would immediately resign.

Trump knew claims were false

A crucial finding in the report, and one that was hammered home in public hearings, was that Trump knew that he had lost a fair election, having been told so unequivocally by a number of his top advisers.

The point is important, because demonstrating that the former president was not acting in good faith when he claimed that the election had been stolen and sought to have state officials produce alternative results is a key component of the fraud charges.

Trump pushed back against that claim in particular on his social media network, Truth Social, writing, “This is a total LIE. I never thought, for even a moment, that the Presidential Election of 2020 was not Rigged & Stolen, and my conviction became even stronger as time went by.”

Capitol assault

The investigative committee, formally the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, was originally conceived of as a bipartisan effort with support from leaders of both the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House.

It was formed to gather facts and conclusions about the events of that day, when a thousands-strong crowd of Trump supporters attended a rally near the White House, at which Trump told them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” The mob descended on the Capitol, where lawmakers had gathered to certify now-President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

The crowd quickly became violent, and despite the presence of more than 1,000 law enforcement officers, was able to force entry into the building and force members of Congress and Pence to flee. Members of the crowd were angry at the vice president for his refusal to illegally declare Trump the victor, and many were chanting “Hang Mike Pence.”

The report establishes that, during the hourslong attack, President Trump was aware of what was taking place, and nevertheless sent out a tweet attacking Pence, further inflaming the crowd. Witnesses produced by the committee said that Trump declined requests by aides and members of his family to ask the rioters to leave.

Trump was eventually persuaded to ask the mob to disperse, which he did in a video address that described the rioters as “very special.” Order was eventually restored late in the day, with the help of National Guard troops, and Congress formally certified Biden’s victory.

Born in controversy

In the immediate aftermath of the assault, condemnation of the attack was bipartisan, and a proposal to fully investigate its causes received strong support from leaders on both sides. However, in the weeks that followed the assault, Republican lawmakers, taking cues from Trump, tried to minimize the seriousness of the event.

When the committee was formed in the early summer of 2021, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy nominated five Republicans, including Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. Because Jordan, a close Trump ally, was likely to be a target of the investigation, and because Banks had publicly stated his unwillingness to cooperate with an investigation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected their appointments and requested that McCarthy name replacements. Instead, the Republican leader withdrew all five nominees and declined to offer new ones.

Pelosi replied by designating two Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom had continued to denounce the attack and Trump’s role in inciting it.

Beginning in the summer of 2022, the committee held a series of nine public hearings in which it laid out a comprehensive timeline of the assault itself and of the efforts to overturn the election that preceded it.

House Republican report

A competing report issued by the five House Republicans who were originally nominated to serve on the Jan. 6 committee was released Wednesday.

The report focused primarily on the security failures that led the Capitol Police and Washington Metropolitan Police Department to be underprepared for the violence at the Capitol. The report lays much of the blame for the results of the riot on Pelosi, claiming that she decided not to bring on additional security, including the National Guard, in advance of the riot.

The Republican report does not address the root causes of the riot, the actions of former President Trump on Jan. 6 and before, or the broader effort to overturn the results of the election.
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Biden White House Navigates Jan. 6 Committee Recommendation to Prosecute Trump

The House select committee probing the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol is scheduled to release its final report Thursday, referring former president Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation and potential prosecution for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden.

As Attorney General Merrick Garland considers whether to accept the recommendation, the White House has been treading carefully to avoid the appearance it is targeting a potential political opponent in the 2024 election.

On numerous occasions White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has emphasized that the White House will not politicize the process.

“I just want to be very careful and refer you to the Department of Justice on those, because this administration and the DOJ conduct criminal investigation independently, free of any sort of — any kind of political interference or any interference at all,” she said earlier this week.

The report, released just two weeks shy of the two-year anniversary of the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters, caps an unprecedented chapter in American history where a committee of lawmakers, which included two Republicans, recommended the Justice Department pursue at least four criminal charges against Trump related to his alleged efforts to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and incitement, rebellion or insurrection.

No former U.S. president has ever been indicted for criminal conduct. Given the high stakes and sensitivity, it would be prudent for the administration at this point to simply get out of the way, said Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University.

“The best thing that President Biden can do is what he’s doing, which is to say – you know, the House committee made a really compelling case. In my view, it’s really clear, I agree with their conclusions, we have to continue to defend and promote democracy, and now it’s up to the Department of Justice.”

Hold accountable those responsible

Last month after a jury in Washington convicted two members of the far-right group the Oath Keepers on seditious conspiracy charges for crimes related to the Capitol attack, Garland said the department will continue to work “to hold accountable those responsible for crimes related to the attack on our democracy on January 6, 2021.”

However, there are clearly political implications to investigating such a public and controversial figure as Trump, especially after his November announcement that he will be a candidate for president in 2024.

Running for president does not shield an individual from criminal probes: Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in 2016, was investigated beginning in 2015 on her use of a private email server. Also, the Justice Department for months has been running investigations related to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, as well as potential attempts to nullify the 2020 election results. Still, officials must take extra caution to avoid even the appearance that the investigation of the former president is politically motivated.

Independence of Justice Department

The attorney general is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but the Justice Department has a degree of independence stemming from practices established after the 1974 Watergate scandal, when President Richard Nixon attempted to use department officials for his political agenda, ordering Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned.

There’s also the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 that allows investigations into misconduct to operate independently of presidential control, which provided the legal basis for Garland to appoint special counsel Jack Smith to lead the Trump investigations in November.

“Such an appointment underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” Garland said.

Many Republicans, including Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, say that even with the investigation being conducted by a special counsel, the Justice Department should not accept the committee’s recommendation.

“I would hope that they would not bring charges against the former president,” Pence said in an interview with FOX News earlier this week. “I think the president’s actions and words on January 6th were reckless. But I don’t know that it is criminal to take bad advice from lawyers. And so I hope the Justice Department is careful.”

Other observers say that despite the risk of widening political divisions even further, a full investigation is worth it.

“There’s at least the possibility of the genuine independence of the Department of Justice and a careful prosecution waged against a former president who in important ways was lawless, that will have the effect of shoring up the rule of law and protecting our democracy,” said William Howell, professor of American politics at the University of Chicago. “That’s the bet the Department of Justice is making.”

Howell said no matter how well Smith carries out the investigations, how much evidence he unearths and how carefully he abides by the law, expect Trump and his supporters to cry foul.

Trump already did. Last month he slammed Smith’s appointment and called it a continuation of what he calls the Democrats’ witch hunt against him.

“Over the years, I’ve given millions and millions of pages of documents, tax returns and everything else, and they have found nothing,” Trump said during a speech at Mar-a-Lago.

“Which means I’ve proven to be one of the most honest and innocent people ever in our country.”
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US Senate Passes $1.7 Trillion Bill to Fund Government, Ukraine Aid

The Senate passed a massive $1.7 trillion spending bill Thursday that finances federal agencies through September and provides another large round of aid to Ukraine one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dramatic address to a joint meeting of Congress.

The bill, which runs for 4,155 pages, includes about $772.5 billion for domestic programs and $858 billion for defense and would finance federal agencies through the fiscal year at the end of September.

The bill passed by a vote of 68-29 and now goes to the House for a final vote before it can be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

“This is one of the most significant appropriations packages we have done in a very long time,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said moments before the vote. “The range of people it helps is large and deep,” 

Lawmakers were racing to get the bill approved before a partial government shutdown would occur at midnight Friday, and many were anxious to complete the task before a deep freeze and wintry conditions left them stranded in Washington for the holidays. Many also want to lock in government funding before a new GOP-controlled House next year could make it harder to find compromise on spending.

Lawmakers heard from Zelenskyy about the importance of U.S. aid to his country for its war with Russia on Wednesday night. The measure provides about $45 billion in military, economic and humanitarian assistance for the devastated nation and NATO allies, more than Biden requested, raising total assistance so far to more than $100 billion.

“Your money is not charity,” Zelenskyy told lawmakers and Americans watching from home. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”

The spending bill is supported by Schumer and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, though for different reasons.

McConnell cited the bill’s 10% boost in defense spending, which he says will give America’s armed forces the funding and certainty needed to ensure the country’s security.

“The world’s greatest military will get the funding increase that it needs, outpacing inflation,” McConnell said. “Meanwhile, non-defense, non-veterans spending will come in below the rate of inflation, for a real-dollar cut.”

McConnell faced pushback from many Republicans who don’t support the spending bill and resent being forced to vote on such a massive package with so little time before a potential shutdown and the Christmas holiday.

“There has not been enough time for a single person to have read this entire bill. The bill and process ignores soaring inflation, rising interest rates and our ballooning debt of $31 trillion,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. “Enough is enough.”

For two senators, the bill puts the finishing touches on their work in Washington. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is retiring after serving some 48 years in the Senate and as the current chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He negotiated the bill for months with Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the committee’s ranking Republican, who was elected to the Senate in 1986 and is also retiring.

“What a capstone to a brilliant career,” Schumer said.

The bill also contains roughly $40 billion in emergency spending in the U.S., mostly to assist communities across the country recovering from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

And, of course, it includes scores of policy changes unrelated to spending that lawmakers sought to include in what is going to be the last major bill of the Congress.

One of the most notable examples was a historic revision to federal election law that aims to prevent any future presidents or presidential candidates from trying to overturn an election. The bipartisan overhaul of the Electoral Count Act is in direct response to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to convince Republican lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to object to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
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US Congressional Leaders Unveil New Spending Plan to Avert a Government Shutdown

U.S. congressional leaders early Tuesday unveiled a more than $1.6 trillion spending and policy plan to fund the government through the end of next September, including billions of dollars in new aid for Ukraine to fight its war against Russia, a 10% boost in defense spending and revised controls on certifying the election of U.S. presidents.

The measure, which also includes about $40 billion to help U.S. communities recover from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters, is likely to be the last major piece of legislation that lawmakers will consider in the current session of Congress.

But the 4,155-page bill must be approved by midnight Friday, when current, temporary funding expires, or lawmakers will face the prospect of a partial government shutdown heading into the Christmas holiday this coming weekend.

If the measure is not passed, lawmakers could approve another temporary funding bill extending into next month. Some Republican lawmakers favor that outcome because they will narrowly control the House of Representatives when the new session of Congress opens on January 3, which could give them leverage in negotiating spending policies with the Democratic-controlled Senate and Democratic President Joe Biden.

The proposal includes $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs and $858 billion in defense funding.

Included in the package is about $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine as it battles Russia’s 10-month invasion, the biggest single allocation yet for the Kyiv government, although piecemeal measures for Ukraine have already totaled about $68 billion. The congressional proposal for Ukraine would top Biden’s $37 billion request.

The overall end-of-year proposal wraps in other measures that have languished as stand-alone bills. Various provisions would improve the country’s readiness for future disease pandemics and ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok on government-owned devices.

It also tightens the rules under which lawmakers can object to the final vote counts submitted by each of the 50 states when Congress meets every four years to certify the outcome of presidential elections. Dozens of Republican lawmakers supporting former President Donald Trump objected to declaring Biden the winner when Congress met on January 6 last year to certify the outcome of the 2020 election, on a day when about 2,000 Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to keep Congress from acting.

As it stands now, only one senator and one member of the House of Representatives is needed to contest the outcome of the presidential vote in any state. But the new proposal would require at least 20 of the 100 senators and 87 of the 435 House members to object before their protest could be considered.

The legislative proposal also clarifies an 1887 law to explicitly say that the vice president’s role in counting the Electoral College votes from throughout the country is ceremonial and does not give the vice president the right to overturn the outcome of the election. Trump claimed erroneously last year that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the right to upend Biden’s victory and keep Trump in power for another four years.

In the United States, presidents are not elected by national popular balloting, although Biden won 7 million more votes than Trump. Instead, presidents are elected in the Electoral College, depending on the state-by-state outcome in each of the 50 states, with the most populous states having the most electors and thus the most sway on the national outcome.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in the early hours of Tuesday, “Nobody wants a shutdown, nobody benefits from a shutdown, so I hope nobody will stand in the way of funding the government ASAP. Finalizing the omnibus [spending bill] is critical, absolutely critical for supporting our friends in Ukraine.”

Shalanda Young, director of the government’s Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement that neither Republicans nor Democrats got everything they wanted in the deal. But she praised the measure as “good for our economy, our competitiveness, and our country, and I urge Congress to send it to the president’s desk without delay.”

But some Republicans threatened to hold up the measure to push the funding debate into January to give them new leverage, even as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said his party had curtailed Biden spending plans in the proposal announced Tuesday.

But House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who is attempting to become the new House speaker in two weeks, assailed his Republican counterparts in the Senate for even negotiating with Democrats.

Another Republican, Congressman Chip Roy, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, complained on “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend, “Republicans are about to literally give the Biden administration a blank check. Republican leadership in the Senate — and frankly, too many in the House — are walking away from using that important tool to check the executive branch.”
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Lawmakers Race to Complete Government Spending Deal Before Holidays

U.S. lawmakers this week face a tight deadline to pass a massive bill funding the federal government through next September. The size and scope of the U.S. military budget and a new round of aid for the conflict in Ukraine are among the high-profile items being negotiated. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent, Katherine Gypson, has more.
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Kari Lake Challenges Her Defeat in Arizona Governor’s Race

Kari Lake, the Republican defeated in the Arizona governor’s race, is formally challenging her loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs, asking a court to throw out certified election results from the state’s most populous county and either declare her the winner or rerun the governor’s election in that county.

The lawsuit filed late Friday by Lake centers on long lines and other difficulties that people experienced while voting on Election Day in Maricopa County. The challenge filed in Maricopa County Superior Court also alleges hundreds of thousands of ballots were illegally cast, but there’s no evidence that’s true.

Lake has refused to acknowledge that she lost to Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes.

The Donald Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate has bombarded Maricopa County with complaints, largely related to a problem with printers at some vote centers that led to ballots being printed with markings that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators.

Lines backed up in some polling places, fueling Republican suspicions that some supporters were unable to cast a ballot, though there’s no evidence it affected the outcome. County officials say everyone was able to vote and all legal ballots were counted.

Lake sued Maricopa County officials and Hobbs in her current role as Arizona’s secretary of state.

Sophia Solis, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office, said Lake’s lawsuit was being reviewed but had no other comment on the filing.

Jason Berry, a Maricopa County spokesperson, declined to comment on Lake’s request to throw out the county’s election results in the governor’s race. But he said the county “respects the election contest process and looks forward to sharing facts about the administration of the 2022 general election and our work to ensure every legal voter had an opportunity to cast their ballot.”

Hobbs in a post on her Twitter account called the lawsuit “Lake’s latest desperate attempt to undermine our democracy and throw out the will of the voters.” She posted a statement from her campaign manager that called the lawsuit a “sham” and said her camp remained focused on “getting ready to hit the ground running on Day One of Katie Hobbs’ administration.”

Lake’s lawsuit says Republicans were disproportionately affected by the problems in Maricopa County because they outvoted Democrats on Election Day 3-1. GOP leaders had urged their voters to wait until Election Day to vote.

In late November, Lake filed a public records lawsuit demanding Maricopa County hand over documents related to the election. She was seeking to identify voters who may have had trouble casting a ballot, such as people who checked in at more than one vote center or those who returned a mail ballot and also checked in at a polling place.

During the summer, a federal judge also rejected a request by Lake and Mark Finchem, the defeated Republican candidate for secretary of state, to require hand counting of all ballots during the November election.

The judge has since sanctioned lawyers representing Lake and Finchem, saying they “made false, misleading, and unsupported factual assertions” in their lawsuit. The lawyers told the court that their claims were “legally sound and supported by strong evidence.”

Hobbs in her role as secretary of state has petitioned a court to begin an automatic statewide recount required by law in three races decided by less than half a percentage point.

The race for attorney general was one of the closest contests in state history, with Democrat Kris Mayes leading Republican Abe Hamadeh by just 510 votes out of 2.5 million cast.

The races for superintendent of public instruction and a state legislative seat in the Phoenix suburbs will also be recounted, but the margins are much larger.
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Viktor Bout, Arms Dealer in Prisoner Swap, Remembered as ‘Monster’

Viktor Bout, the former Russian military officer convicted of illegal arms trafficking in U.S. courts in 2012, and who was serving a 25-year prison sentence, has had his sentence commuted and is being repatriated as part of a prisoner exchange that freed United States basketball star Brittney Griner from prison in Russia.

Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” started an air freight business in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, which prosecutors alleged he used to transport military-grade weapons around the world, often supplying arms to combatants on opposing sides of the same conflicts.

In an indictment of Bout issued in February 2010, the U.S. Justice Department alleged, “Bout, an international weapons trafficker since the 1990s, has carried out a massive weapons-trafficking business by assembling a fleet of cargo airplanes capable of transporting weapons and military equipment to various parts of the world, including Africa, South America, and the Middle East. The arms that Bout has sold or brokered have fueled conflicts and supported regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan.”

The Russian government has long claimed that Bout was wrongly convicted and unjustly imprisoned. He had, most recently, been held in a federal prison facility in the city of Marion in the U.S. state of Illinois.

Griner had spent 10 months in prison in Russia after being arrested at a Moscow airport with a small amount of cannabis oil in an electronic cigarette cartridge in her luggage. Sentenced to nine years in prison, she was recently transferred to a prison labor camp.

Early life

Little is known for certain about Bout’s early life, other than that he grew up in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and was conscripted into the Russian military at age 18. He is believed to be multilingual, and is thought to have studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow. The institute has close ties to Russian intelligence services.

Bout appears to have left military service around the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union, and moved to the United Arab Emirates, where he purchased four Soviet-era Antonov-8 cargo planes and established an air freight firm called Air Cess.

Bout’s fleet of planes eventually numbered around 60, and much of his business was legitimate. According to Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, authors of the book Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible, Bout’s contracts included some with the U.S. government for ferrying reconstruction supplies into Afghanistan and some with the United Nations for delivering humanitarian aid.

Active in Africa

It was arms dealing, however, that made Bout both internationally famous and extremely wealthy. In the years following the breakup of the Soviet Union, vast quantities of military weapons appeared on the black market, and prosecutors and journalists have produced evidence that Bout transported weapons to conflict zones around the globe, often to parties that were subject to international arms embargoes.

Bout was especially active in Africa, and in the 1990s is believed to have supplied arms to both the government of Angola and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) who were fighting against it.

Similarly, Bout is believed to have supplied arms to both sides of the civil war in what was then Zaire, and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to have sold arms used in conflicts in Rwanda, Sudan, and Somalia.

Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia who was convicted of war crimes for his role in the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, is also believed to have been one of Bout’s clients.

‘Truly a monster’

David M. Crane, the founding chief prosecutor of the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone, saw the results of Bout’s arms dealing in West Africa up close.

“He was truly a monster in his own right,” Crane told VOA. “This is someone who spread his arms and ammunition around the world, in very dark corners of the world, causing pain and suffering wherever he went.”

Crane, who went on to found the non-profit Global Accountability Network, which seeks justice for the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, said that the destruction wrought in Sierra Leone by the forces Bout armed was extensive.

“He was the main supplier of arms and ammunition…to that terrible conflict in West Africa, which saw the murder, rape, maiming and mutilation of over 1.2 million human beings,” Chase said.

While Africa may have been Bout’s primary focus, he was also active in other parts of the world. For example, he is believed to have sold weapons and equipment to both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Northern Alliance that opposed it in the late 1990s.

Captured

By the late 2000s, Bout was subject to multiple arrest warrants around the world, and rarely left Russia, where the government of Vladimir Putin refused to extradite him.

In 2008, however, he was lured to Bangkok, Thailand, for a meeting with people he believed to be representatives of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, the rebel group that for decades sought to overthrow the Colombian government before a 2016 peace accord. FARC was, at the time, designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government.

In fact, Bout was actually meeting with informants for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, who recorded him offering to sell them hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and other heavy weaponry. In the conversation, Bout acknowledged that the missiles, in particular, were to be used to bring down U.S. planes flying drug interdiction missions.

Bout was arrested on the spot by Thai law enforcement, and two years later he was extradited to the U.S., where he was charged with several crimes, including breaking weapons embargoes, conspiring to kill U.S. officials, and various money laundering and wire fraud charges.

In 2012, Bout was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Long process

In a statement on Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry characterized the negotiations that led to Bout’s release as long, with the U.S. resisting demands that he be made part of the deal.

“Washington was categorically refusing to engage in dialogue on putting the Russian national on the exchange scheme,” the foreign ministry told the news outlet TASS. “Nevertheless, the Russian Federation continued to actively work towards the release of our fellow countryman.”

In remarks announcing Griner’s release Thursday morning, U.S. President Joe Biden did not mention Bout, but criticized Russia for holding the basketball star. He said that Griner “lost months of her life [and] experienced a needless trauma.”

Biden also referred to another high-profile American detainee in Russia, former Marine Paul Whelan, who has been held there for four years.

“We’ve not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained in Russia for years,” Biden said. “This was not a choice of which American to bring home….Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s. And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.”
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