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As US Midterms Near, Volunteers Rally People to Vote

Young volunteers walk down a neighborhood street knocking on doors in Washington. Their message is short and simple: “Please vote.” 

Similar scenes are happening around the United States as political parties and a broad spectrum of advocacy groups try to persuade Americans to vote in the November 8 midterm elections. 

“I know the election is important and a lot of people have approached me about making sure I vote,” said Evelyn Newman, a retired African American health care worker who believes the country is heading in the wrong direction. “I think people are upset about inflation hitting everybody hard, especially those on limited incomes.” 

Stakes are high to drive voter turnout as the outcome of the contests will determine which political party controls Congress and decide the fate of President Joe Biden’s remaining legislative agenda. The election comes as the Biden administration has worked to make voting more accessible to eligible Americans, while many Republican-led states have imposed limits on how people can vote and where.  

Typically, midterm elections generate much lower turnout than contests held during a presidential election year. A recent NBC News public opinion survey, however, found 57% of voters said this midterm election cycle is more important than previous ones. 

It’s a big reason that groups representing the Republican and Democratic parties and affiliated organizations are spending millions of dollars to connect with voters before the election. 

Political analysts believe high voter dissatisfaction and a polarized electorate will generate a larger than normal turnout in the election. 

“A lot of Americans fear that if the other party wins the election, they will have fewer rights and freedom,” said Emily Ekins, who directs polling at the Cato Institute in Washington. Ekins noted that polls show seven out of 10 Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, fear the other party will strip them of their rights. ”They feel threatened, they feel fearful.” 

With in-person early voting under way in some states, groups have ramped up mobilization drives to connect with voters. More than 8 million Americans have already cast ballots in early voting, including more than 1 million in the southern state of Georgia. 

“[If] you value where you live, you vote. If you value your children, you vote. That’s your responsibility,” said Francine Sims-Gates, from Atlanta. She cast her ballot on the first day of early voting in the state. 

A recent Associated Press public opinion poll suggests eight in 10 registered voters say it’s extremely or very important to them to cast a ballot in this year’s elections. 

“That’s part of being citizens of this United States of America. We’ve worked hard for the opportunity just to vote,” said Sims-Gates. 

Targeting minority voters 

In Nevada, the state’s Republican Party unveiled “Operación ¡Vamos!” a voter mobilization drive in the state’s Latino community. Republicans have sought to increase engagement with Latino voters who could support Republican candidates. 

Meanwhile, nonprofit organizations like “Make the Road Action” has teams of canvassers knocking on doors, making calls and sending texts to persuade Latinos to support Democratic Party candidates. 

“Each election is an opportunity to make sure that our community does not get ignored, that our community does not get put aside,” said Democratic Las Vegas City Councilwoman Olivia Diaz. 

Democrats in the state hope to reverse an election trend that had seen slight gains in the number of Latino voters supporting the Republican Party in 2016 and 2020. Other groups, like powerful labor unions, are spending millions of dollars courting Hispanic voters to show up at the polls on the day of the election. 

The NAACP, the nation’s largest civil rights organization, is mobilizing voters in the Black community. The group is working with churches to transport worshippers to polling locations after Sunday services for early voting. “Our power lies within our vote, and we become even greater when we put our collective power together at the polls,” said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president. 

In Michigan, the group Human Rights Campaign created a coalition to mobilize nearly 1.2 million pro-equality voters who are part of the LGBTQ+ community or supporters of sexual minorities. The group also launched a digital ad campaign, “Hate Won’t Win.” 

“We have had three anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in the state legislature this year and our folks know equality is on the line,” said Amritha Venkataraman, Michigan state director for Human Rights Campaign. 

The organization is trying to connect with voters with a combination of door-to-door conversations, phone calls, and digital communication. “Reminding our supporters of the challenges ahead often fires them up and gets them ready to go to the polls and vote,” Venkataraman told VOA. ”We know that our strength is in numbers.” 

Voters in several states will face a slew of new restrictions that make it harder to cast ballots. The laws were passed by Republican-led legislatures after former President Donald Trump’s false claims that voter fraud cost him reelection in 2020. Republicans have pushed back, maintaining they support expanded early voting. 

In Georgia, one of the laws includes a ban on giving food and drinks to waiting voters at polling locations. ”We are telling people to show up at polling locations despite the restrictions,” said Deborah Scott, head of the community organizing group Georgia STAND-UP.

“We will host block parties near some voting precincts so people can get water and food before they get in line to vote,” she said. The organization plans to use tape measures to make sure the events are more than 46 meters from the precinct to comply with the new law. 

 
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Fetterman Faces Oz at Senate Debate 5 Months after Stroke

More than five months after experiencing a stroke, Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman struggled at times to explain his positions and often spoke haltingly throughout a highly anticipated debate Tuesday against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz as they vie for a critical Senate seat.

In the opening minutes of the debate, Fetterman addressed what he called the “elephant in the room.”

“I had a stroke. He’s never let me forget that,” Fetterman said of Oz, who has persistently questioned his ability to serve in the Senate. “And I might miss some words during this debate, mush two words together, but it knocked me down and I’m going to keep coming back up.”

When pressed to release his medical records later in the debate, he refused to commit.

Oz, a celebrity heart surgeon, ignored his opponent’s health challenges throughout the debate, instead seizing on Fetterman’s policies on immigration and crime and his support for President Joe Biden. At one point, Oz said Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, was “trying to get as many murderers out of jail as possible.”

“His extreme positions have made him untenable,” he charged.

The forum had many of the trappings of a traditional debate, complete with heated exchanges and interruptions. But the impact of the stroke was apparent as Fetterman used closed-captioning posted above the moderator to help him process the words he heard, leading to occasional awkward pauses.

The biggest question coming out of the debate was whether it would have a lasting impact coming two weeks before the election and more than 600,000 ballots already cast. The stakes of the race to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey are huge: It represents Democrats’ best chance to flip a Senate seat this year — and could determine party control of the chamber and the future of Biden’s agenda.

But rather than watch the full hour as the candidates debated abortion, inflation and crime, many Pennsylvanians may only see clips of the event on social media. And both parties are preparing to flood the airwaves with television advertising in the final stretch.

Independent experts consulted by The Associated Press said Fetterman appears to be recovering remarkably well. Stroke rehabilitation specialist Dr. Sonia Sheth, who watched the debate, called Fetterman an inspiration to stroke survivors.

“In my opinion, he did very well,” said Sheth, of Northwestern Medicine Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in suburban Chicago. “He had his stroke less than one year ago and will continue to recover over the next year. He had some errors in his responses, but overall he was able to formulate fluent, thoughtful answers.”

Problems with auditory processing do not mean someone also has cognitive problems, the experts agreed. The brain’s language network is different from regions involved in decision making and critical thinking.

Oz, a longtime television personality, was more at home on the debate stage. He cast himself as a moderate Republican looking to unite a divided state, even as he committed to supporting former President Donald Trump should he run for president again in 2024.

“I’m a surgeon, I’m not a politician,” Oz said. “We take big problems, we focus on them, and we fix them. We do it by uniting, by coming together, not dividing.”

Fetterman similarly committed to supporting Biden should he run again in 2024.

The Democratic president campaigned with Fetterman in Pittsburgh during the Labor Day parade and just last week headlined a fundraiser for Fetterman in Philadelphia. There, Biden said the “rest of the world is looking” and suggested a Fetterman loss would imperil his agenda.

While backing Biden, Fetterman also said, “he needs to do more about supporting and fighting about inflation.”

Abortion was a major dividing line during the debate.

Oz insists he supports three exceptions — for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother. When pressed Tuesday night, he suggested he opposes South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill to impose a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks because it would allow the federal government to dictate the law to states.

“I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all,” Oz said. “I want women, doctors, local political leaders letting the democracy that always allowed our nation to thrive, to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves.”

Fetterman delivered a blunt message to women: “If you believe that the choice for abortion belongs with you and your doctor, that’s what I fight for.”

Fetterman is a star in progressive politics nationwide, having developed a loyal following thanks in part to his blunt working-class appeal, extraordinary height, tattoos and unapologetic progressive policies. On Tuesday, the 6-foot-9-inch Democrat swapped his trademark hoodie and shorts for a dark suit and tie.

But even before the debate, Democrats in Washington were concerned about Fetterman’s campaign given the stakes.

For much of the year, it looked as if Fetterman was the clear favorite, especially as Republicans waged a nasty nomination battle that left the GOP divided and bitter. But as Election Day nears, the race has tightened. And now, just two weeks before the final votes are cast, even the White House is privately concerned that Fetterman’s candidacy is at risk.

Fetterman’s speech challenges were apparent throughout the night. He often struggled to complete sentences.

When pressed to explain his shifting position on fracking, a critical issue in a state where thousands of jobs are tied to natural gas production, his answer was particularly awkward.

“I do support fracking. And I don’t, I don’t. I support fracking, and I stand and I do support fracking,” Fetterman said.

At another point, the moderator seemed to cut off Fetterman as he struggled to finish an answer defending Biden’s student loan debt forgiveness program. He also stumbled before finishing a key attack line: “We need to make sure that Dr. Oz and Republicans believe in cutting Medicare and Social Security …”

The Pennsylvania Senate hopefuls faced each other inside a Harrisburg television studio. No audience was allowed, and the the debate host, Nexstar Media, declined to allow an AP photographer access to the event.

Oz had pushed for more than a half-dozen debates, suggesting Fetterman’s unwillingness to agree to more than one was because the stroke had debilitated him. Fetterman insisted that one debate is typical — although two is more customary — and that Oz’s focus on debates was a cynical ploy to lie about his health.

Fetterman refused to commit to releasing his full health records when asked repeatedly Tuesday by the moderator.

“My doctor believes that I’m fit to be serving. And that’s what I believe is where I’m standing,” Fetterman said.

While it is customary for presidential candidates to release health records, there is no such custom in races for the U.S. Senate. Some senators have, in the past, released medical records when running for president.

Democrats noted that the televised debate setting likely would have favored Oz even without questions about the stroke. Oz hosted “The Dr. Oz Show” weekdays for 13 seasons after getting his start as a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show in 2004. Fetterman, by contrast, is a less practiced public speaker who is introverted by nature.

Many Republicans were thrilled by the debate’s outcome, although most — including Oz — tried to avoid piling on to concerns about Fetterman’s health.

Donald Trump Jr. was less cautious.

“If Fetterman is some sort of leftist decoy to make Biden actually sound somewhat intelligent and articulate he’s doing a great job,” the former president’s son tweeted. 

 
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In Polarized 2022 Midterms, US Candidates Find Common Ground Opposing China

As American voters get ready for the midterm elections next month, candidates from both parties are pledging tough policies on China in hopes of wooing voters.

American attitudes toward China have worsened in recent years, especially since the 2020 coronavirus outbreak. New data from Pew Research Center said that this year, 82% of Americans have an unfavorable view of China, a historical high. Five years ago, that number was about half, standing at 47%.

Polls indicate those negative views are shared by Republicans and Democrats, which is why candidates from both parties are talking about China and Beijing’s formidable economic power.

“We have to stop being weak on China. We have to stop sending American jobs to people who hate us,” said J.D. Vance, the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

His Democratic opponent, incumbent Representative Tim Ryan, is equally critical.

“It’s us versus China. China is out-manufacturing us left and right, and it’s time we fight back,” he tweeted. Both candidates support keeping steep U.S. tariffs on Chinese products.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman said he will “work to guarantee that we don’t allow China to out-innovate us.” His Republican opponent for the U.S. Senate, Dr. Mehmet Oz, has made “get tough on China” one of his key campaign messages.

In Missouri, State Attorney General Eric Schmitt calls China a growing military, economic and public health threat.

His opponent for the U.S. Senate, Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine, criticizes Schmitt for supporting legislation that allows foreign ownership of farmland that her campaign claims has allowed more than 100,000 acres of Missouri land to be purchased by Chinese-controlled companies.

In Arizona, Republican challenger Blake Masters insists that Chinese students in America are a threat to U.S. national security.

Incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly was a key supporter of the CHIPS and Science Act, a measure that aims at winning the tech war with China.

“China is pretty much front and center in this election,” Dean Chen, an associate professor of political science at the Ramapo College of New Jersey, told VOA Mandarin.

“When campaigns become highly polarized and highly competitive, there’s got to be an issue that is prominent enough that can raise the attention. It is always easier to find an external common enemy and adversary in order to unite local constituents behind themselves,” he said in a phone interview.

Frank Sesno, a communications professor and director of strategic initiatives at The George Washington University, said China is being framed increasingly in the context of national security and less visibly in terms of economic opportunity.

“China is being positioned increasingly as a national threat. Not merely a competitor but an adversary. I would say portrayal has intensified, and it appears to be a theme increasingly of both parties,” he told VOA Mandarin.

‘Rare bipartisan unity’

According to research by the U.S. China Business Council, an industry group helping American companies do business in China, the number of China-related bills considered by U.S. lawmakers has increased dramatically in the last five years.

From 2001 to 2017, the number of China-related bills considered by each Congress hovered around 200 to 250. Since 2017, that number has skyrocketed to some 639 bills in the last Congress and already more than 700 in this Congress.

The Biden administration has passed several important China-related bills since coming into office. The CHIPS Act will provide $52.7 billion in investment in U.S. domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research and development to counter China’s massive subsidies to its chip industry.

The National Critical Capabilities Defense Act seeks to establish a review process for U.S. companies to invest abroad, aiming to prevent U.S. capital from flowing to Chinese technology companies.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act prohibits forced labor products from Xinjiang from entering the United States.

All three bills have enjoyed wide support from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

“What’s most interesting about sentiment on China in this country’s politics is it is such a rare point of bipartisan unity,” said Dan Schnur, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked on four presidential and three gubernatorial campaigns as one of California’s leading political strategists.

“I cannot think of any other issue on which the two parties set aside their differences, especially in an election year,” he told VOA.

Schnur said the “get tough on China” card is being received particularly well in America’s heartland, because the upper Midwest has been a base of manufacturing capacity. But over the last few decades, many of those manufacturing jobs have left the U.S. and gone to other parts of the world.

“When you have a working-class electorate that doesn’t feel this globalization is working to their benefit, then it’s fairly easy for a candidate of either party to try to capitalize on the sentiments,” he explained.

Anna Tucker Ashton, director of China corporate affairs at the Eurasia Group, agrees.

“That is where there is the most acute sense that U.S. jobs were outsourced to China, that China stole American jobs, and that a decrease in overall quality of life in these communities is directly linked to not being tough on China,” she told VOA Mandarin.

Pew said the negative views of China are tied to China’s human rights record and concerns about its growing military power.

Sesno said Beijing changing its hard-line policies will improve relations.

“The Chinese are fueling this. Things that are driving those numbers up are China’s policy toward Uyghurs, China’s threats toward Taiwan, China’s nationalist rhetoric, [the] Xi Jinping presidency and a third term, and the increasingly nationalist tenure and tone of the Beijing government,” he told VOA. “So, this is not happening in a vacuum, and it’s not happening merely because of American politics.”
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US Supreme Court’s Thomas Temporarily Blocks Graham Election Case Testimony

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday temporarily blocked a judge’s order requiring Senator Lindsey Graham to testify to a grand jury in Georgia in a criminal investigation into whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully tried to overturn 2020 election results in the state. 

Thomas put the case on hold pending further action either from the justice or the full Supreme Court on a request by Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and Trump ally, to halt the order for testimony. Graham filed the emergency application to the Supreme Court on Friday after a federal appeals court denied his request to block the questioning.

Thomas acted in the case because he is designated by the court to handle emergency requests from a region that includes Georgia. 

Graham has argued that his position as a senator provides him immunity under the U.S. Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause from having to answer questions related to his actions as part of the legislative process. 

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has subpoenaed Graham to answer questions about phone calls he made to a senior Georgia election official in the weeks after the November 2020 election. 

Atlanta-based U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May last month narrowed the scope of questions that Graham must answer from the grand jury, ruling that he is protected from having to discuss “investigatory fact-finding” that he was engaged in during his calls to state election officials. 

However, May said he may be questioned about alleged efforts to encourage officials to throw out ballots or alleged communication with the Trump campaign. May rejected Graham’s bid to avoid testifying altogether. 

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday declined to block Graham’s testimony pending an appeal. 

Graham is not a target in the investigation, but his testimony could shed further light on coordination among Trump allies to reverse the election results.

The senator’s lawyers said in his application that the testimony would “undisputedly center on Senator Graham’s official acts — phone calls he made in the course of his official work, in the leadup to the critical vote under the Electoral Count Act.  

Trump continues to appear at rallies repeating his false claims that the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud. 

The investigation was launched after Trump was recorded in a January 2, 2021, phone call pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results based on unfounded claims of voter fraud. During the phone call, Trump urged Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to “find” enough votes to overturn his Georgia loss to Biden. 

The transcript of the call quotes Trump telling Raffensperger: “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” which is the number Trump needed to win Georgia. Trump has denied wrongdoing in the phone call. 

Legal experts have said Trump’s phone calls may have violated at least three state election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties. 
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Somali Americans, Many Who Fled War, Now Seek Elected Office

It’s a busy Friday afternoon at a Somali restaurant on the northeast side of Columbus, home to second-largest Somali population in the United States. The smell of spices is just as robust as the loud conversation, and the East African restaurant is crowded after afternoon prayers at the nearby mosque.

The hubbub grows when a familiar face swaggers in — Ismail Mohamed, a young Somali lawyer and candidate for the Ohio Legislature. Elders and youth alike clamor to say hello. The excitement that someone from their community could represent them in the legislature is palpable.

“It’s humbling to, you know, to be in this position, but it puts a lot of pressure on you to where folks have really high expectations,” he said.

The 30-year-old Democrat is one of a small but growing number of immigrants who fled civil war and famine in Somalia, ready to add their voices to the political process in the places they now call home.

Across the country, 11 Somali Americans are running for legislative seats in Maine, Minnesota, Ohio and Washington state. Somali Americans have also been elected to city councils, school boards and, in Minnesota, legislative seats and Congress.

The growing political clout corresponds with growing numbers. There was an influx of Somalians arriving in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and their numbers now top 300,000.

“We’re just getting started. I hope there are more to come,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

They are part of an age-old trend of new immigrants testing the waters of the political process once they have settled in the United States. Many Somali American candidates say they want to lend their voices, ensure their communities have a seat at the table, and offer up solutions to the problems plaguing their communities.

“Our driving force is to see betterment for everybody that lives here. Running for office is our way of showing we’re here and we’re willing to contribute,” said Mana Abdi, who is expected to win her race and make history as the first Somali American in the Maine legislature.

Abdi wears a headscarf because of her Muslim faith, like most people from Somalia, while knocking on doors and visiting with residents outside assisted living community on a recent afternoon.

The 26-year-old Democrat came to America as a child, graduated from the University of Maine at Farmington and works at Bates College, and is unopposed because her Republican opponent dropped out after sharing a social media post saying that Muslims shouldn’t hold office.

She could be joined by another Somali American, South Portland Mayor Deqa Dhalac, who’s running for another legislative district in Maine.

Dhalac, a 54-year-old social worker and a Democrat, said part of the reason she was inspired to run was Republican former President Donald Trump, who made a vulgar comment about immigrants from Haiti and Africa and banned travel from several Muslim countries, including Somalia.

“If we do not run for office, we cannot blame other people for making policy and legislation and complain about it. You have to be at the table if you want to make good decisions for your community,” she said.

The newcomers share many of the same concerns as those born in the U.S. The candidates are focused on affordable housing, public safety and increased funding for schools — issues that directly impact their communities.

“People do ask ‘are you an American?’ just because your last name is, you know, Mohamed or, you know, Abdi,” Mohamed said, noting that fellow immigrants are proving they’re just as American as others by serving in the armed forces and becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers and more.

Like Abdi, 26-year-old Munira Abdullahi is all but guaranteed to be the first Somali woman and first Muslim woman to serve in the Ohio Legislature because she, too, is unopposed. Abdullahi, who is running as a Democrat, was born in a refugee camp after her parents fled Somalia. A couple decades later, she’s youth director for the Muslim American Society and a graduate of Ohio State University.

“I know a lot of young women are looking up to me and seeing themselves in me and they’re realizing, like, they could also do this,” she said. “I really want young women and young women of color, especially, to look at me and say, like, if I really want to do this, I can.”

The immigrants are bringing diverse views and experiences and are contributing to the economy by starting businesses and bringing new energy to communities, said Molly Herman, citizenship and civic engagement manager for the Immigrant Welcome Center in Portland, Maine.

“Getting new individuals, new perspectives, new or different backgrounds, people coming from all types of places, I think is really important, in continuing a successful democracy,” she said.

The inspiration for some of the candidates is U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who grew up in a refugee camp and became the first Somali American member of Congress. She and several other young Democratic women of color were collectively nicknamed “the squad.”

She said she’s eager to see more Somali Americans joining her in Washington.

“Somali Americans are as American as anyone else, and we don’t need an invitation to show up or serve our communities. I am incredibly proud of all the Somali Americans who are entering into public service and can’t wait to see more of us in the halls of Congress,” she said.
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Republican Committee Sues Google Over Email Spam Filters

The Republican National Committee has filed a lawsuit against tech giant Google, alleging the company has been suppressing its email solicitations ahead of November’s midterm elections – an allegation Google denies.

The lawsuit, filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of California Friday evening, accuses Gmail of “discriminating” against the RNC by unfairly sending the group’s emails to users’ spam folders, impacting both fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts in pivotal swing states.

“Enough is enough – we are suing Google for their blatant bias against Republicans,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel in a statement to The Associated Press. “For 10 months in a row, Google has sent crucial end-of-month Republican GOTV and fundraising emails to spam with zero explanation. We are committed to putting an end to this clear pattern of bias.”

Google, in a statement, denied the charges. “As we have repeatedly said, we simply don’t filter emails based on political affiliation. Gmail’s spam filters reflect users’ actions,” said spokesperson Jose Castaneda, adding that the company provides training and guidelines to campaigns and works to “maximize email deliverability while minimizing unwanted spam.”

The lawsuit focuses on how Google’s Gmail, the world’s largest email service with about 1.5 billion users, screens solicitations and other material to help prevent users from being inundated by junk mail. To try to filter material that account holders may not want in their inboxes, Google and other major email providers create programs that flag communications likely to be perceived as unwelcome and move them to spam folders that typically are rarely, if ever, perused by recipients.

The suit says Google has “relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building” – particularly at the end of each month, when political groups tend to send more messages. “It doesn’t matter whether the email is about donating, voting, or community outreach. And it doesn’t matter whether the emails are sent to people who requested them,” it reads.

Google contends its algorithms are designated to be neutral, but a study released in March by North Carolina State University found that Gmail was far more likely to block messages from conservative causes. The study, based on emails sent during the U.S. presidential campaign in 2020, estimated Gmail placed roughly 10% of email from “left-wing” candidates into spam folders, while marking 77% from “right-wing” candidates as spam.

Gmail rivals Yahoo and Microsoft’s Outlook were more likely to favor pitches from conservative causes than Gmail, the study found.

The RNC seized upon that study in April to call upon the Federal Election Commission to investigate Google’s “censorship” of its fundraising efforts, which it alleged amounted to an in-kind contribution to Democratic candidates and served as “a financially devastating example of Silicon Valley tech companies unfairly shaping the political playing field to benefit their preferred far-left candidates.”

Since then, the commission has approved a pilot program that creates a way for political committees to get around spam filters, so their fundraising emails find their way into recipients’ primary inboxes. Gmail is participating in the “Verified Sender Program,” which allows senders to bypass traditional spam filters, but also gives users the option of unsubscribing from a sender. If the unsubscribe button is hit, a sender is supposed to remove that Gmail address from their distribution lists.

As of Friday evening, the RNC had not signed up to participate in the pilot program.

Republicans who have tried to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election without parroting the most extreme and baseless claims about corrupted voting machines and stolen votes have often tried to blame big technology companies like Twitter and Facebook that they allege were biased against former President Donald Trump. A long list of state and local election officials, courts and members of Trump’s own administration have said there is no evidence of the mass fraud Trump alleges. 
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After Midterms, Pressure for Biden to Stay Tough on China

With polls suggesting that Republicans may retake control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, the United States appears set to continue its “tough on China” policy. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at how a GOP-led Congress might exert more pressure on the Biden administration on various issues from trade relations with Beijing to support for Taiwan.
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After Midterms, Pressure for Biden to Stay Tough on China

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping did not mention the United States during the CCP’s 20th National Congress this week. But his message was clear: Beijing will double down in the face of Western threats, including those concerning Taiwan.

“We are not committed to abandoning the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures,” Xi said, slamming the “serious provocations of external forces interfering in Taiwan.”

The U.S. Congress is considering the Taiwan Policy Act, a bill aimed at boosting the military capability of the self-governed island, which Beijing considers a breakaway province, against a potential Chinese invasion.

Xi’s address and the CCP congress’ report contained stark warnings that China is facing growing external threats and entering a period “in which strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent.”

As the CCP congress cements a more assertive foreign policy under Xi, who will remain in power for an extraordinary third term, the country is on a collision course with a Biden administration that would be pressed to be even tougher on China should Republicans win more congressional seats in the November midterm elections.

“For 50 years, the Chinese Communist Party has launched an assault on the American way of life, on our economy, on our jobs, on our companies, on our culture, on our institutions, on our very future,” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters in September.

If Republicans win a majority of seats in the House, McCarthy will likely become the speaker.

Representative Michael McCaul, who leads the House Foreign  Affairs Committee China Task Force, has vowed that if Republicans retake control, they will prepare the U.S. to win its great power competition against China through tougher legislation, including on export controls.

“My priority will be to stop exporting these technologies and selling these technologies to China so they can build their own war machine that will then in turn be pointed at us,” he said at the same press conference.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced aggressive measures limiting exports of advanced U.S. semiconductor technology to China, saying that the technology is supporting Beijing’s military modernization.

Beyond Taiwan

Beyond Taiwan, various Republican lawmakers have promised more focus on China — and a tougher U.S. stance on issues from securing supply chains to investigating the origins of the coronavirus — to make their point that President Joe Biden is soft on Beijing.

But even if Democrats retain their slim majority in Congress, Biden’s China policy will likely remain hawkish, keeping in place many of the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, including steep tariffs on Chinese goods and containing Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific.

“Under the Trump administration, the Chinese genuinely hoped that the Democrats would win. But after almost two years of the Biden administration, I think the Chinese have come to the realization that both are not going to change the consensus on China,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

“And some in China would even argue that Biden’s policy is even more difficult for China because of how Biden aligns his position and mobilizes allies and partners to jointly counter China’s growing influence,” Yun told VOA.

Should Republicans retake Congress, Yun said, there will be more skepticism of Biden’s compartmentalized approach of competing strategically with China while cooperating on transnational challenges such as climate change and pandemic prevention.

The approach is problematic, she said, because Beijing views its relationship with Washington as transactional; to secure China’s cooperation, the U.S. must concede on issues it sees as competitive because for Beijing, “everything is linked to everything else.”

From Beijing’s point of view, whatever happens in U.S. politics in the foreseeable future, there are no good outcomes, she said.

“Regardless of who wins in this midterm election, or regardless of who wins in the next presidential election in 2024, this China policy is here to stay.”
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Court Temporarily Blocks Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness

A federal appeals court late Friday issued an administrative stay temporarily blocking President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans. 

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay while it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the loan cancellation program. The stay ordered the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal. 

The order came just days after people began applying for loan forgiveness. 

It’s unclear what the decision means for the 22 million borrowers who have applied for relief. The Biden administration had promised not to clear any debt before Sunday as it battled the legal challenges, but the soonest it was expected to begin erasing debt was mid-November. 

The crucial question now is whether the issue will be resolved before January 1, when payments on federal student loans are expected to restart after being paused during the pandemic. Millions of Americans were expected to have their debt canceled entirely under Biden’s plan, but they now face uncertainty about whether they will need to start making payments in January. 

Biden has said his previous extension of the payment pause would be the final one, but economists worry that many Americans may not have regained financial footing after the upheaval of the pandemic. If borrowers who were expecting debt cancellation are asked to make payments in January, there’s fear that many could fall behind on the bills and default on their loans. 

A notice of appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was filed late Thursday, hours after U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis ruled that because the states of Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina failed to establish standing, “the court lacks jurisdiction to hear this case.” 

Separately, the six states also asked the district court for an injunction prohibiting the administration from implementing the debt cancellation plan until the appeals process plays out. 

Speaking at Delaware State University, a historically Black university where the majority of students receive federal Pell Grants, Biden on Friday said nearly 22 million people have applied for the loan relief in the week since his administration made its online application available. 

The plan, announced in August, would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 yearly or households with less than $250,000 in income. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will get an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven. 

The Congressional Budget Office has said the program will cost about $400 billion over the next three decades.  

James Campbell, an attorney for the Nebraska attorney general’s office, told Autrey at an October 12 hearing that the administration was acting outside its authority in a way that would cost states millions of dollars. 

The cancellation applies to federal student loans used to attend undergraduate and graduate school, along with Parent Plus loans. Current college students qualify if their loans were disbursed before July 1. The plan makes 43 million borrowers eligible for some debt forgiveness, with 20 million who could see their debt erased entirely, according to the administration. 

The announcement immediately became a major political issue ahead of the November midterm elections. 

Conservative attorneys, Republican lawmakers and business-oriented groups have asserted that Biden overstepped his authority in taking such sweeping action without the assent of Congress. They called it an unfair government giveaway for relatively affluent people at the expense of taxpayers who didn’t pursue higher education. 

Many Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection contests have distanced themselves from the plan. 

Biden on Friday blasted Republicans who have criticized his relief program, saying “their outrage is wrong and it’s hypocritical.” He noted that some Republican officials had debt and pandemic relief loans forgiven. 

Other lawsuits also have sought to stop the program. Earlier Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an appeal from a Wisconsin taxpayers group seeking to stop the debt cancellation program. 

Barrett, who oversees emergency appeals from Wisconsin and neighboring states, did not comment in turning away the appeal from the Brown County Taxpayers Association. The group wrote in its Supreme Court filing that it needed an emergency order because the administration could begin canceling outstanding student debt as soon as Sunday.
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Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Survives 2 Legal Challenges

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a Republican-led challenge to President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, shortly after U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a request in another case to block it. 

U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey in St. Louis, Missouri, said that while the six Republican-led states had raised “important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan,” they lacked the necessary legal standing to be able to pursue the case. 

Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina had alleged Biden’s plan skirted congressional authority and threatened the states’ future tax revenues and money earned by state entities that invest in or service loans. 

Their case is one of a number of challenges that conservative state attorneys general and legal groups have filed seeking to put on hold the debt forgiveness plan for people who had taken out loans to pay for college. Biden announced the plan in August. 

Autrey ruled about an hour after Barrett denied without explanation an emergency request to put the debt relief plan on hold in a challenge brought by the Wisconsin-based Brown County Taxpayers Association.

No personal harm demonstrated 

A lower court had thrown out the Wisconsin group’s lawsuit because it could not show that it would be personally harmed by the loan relief. Barrett is designated by the Supreme Court to act on emergency matters arising from a group of states, including Wisconsin. 

Republican state attorneys general promised to appeal Autrey’s decision. Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson in a statement said, “The states continue to believe that they do in fact have standing to raise their important legal challenges.” 

In a policy benefiting millions of Americans, Biden said in August the U.S. government would forgive up to $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year, or $250,000 for married couples. Those who received Pell Grants, which benefit lower-income college students, will have up to $20,000 of their debt canceled. 

The policy fulfilled a promise that Biden made during the 2020 presidential campaign to help debt-saddled former college students. The Congressional Budget Office in September calculated that the debt forgiveness would cost the government about $400 billion. 

Democrats are hoping the policy will boost support for them in the November 8 midterm elections in which control of Congress is at stake, even as many Republicans criticize the plan. 

Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell called the debt forgiveness “socialism” that would worsen inflation, reward “far-left activists” and deliver a “slap in the face” to Americans who paid back their student loans or picked career paths, including serving in the military, to avoid taking on debt. 

President’s authority challenged

Several legal challenges have been filed contesting Biden’s authority to cancel the debt under a 2003 law called the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, which lets the government modify or waive federal student loans during war or national emergency. 

Biden’s administration asserts that the COVID-19 pandemic represented such an emergency. 

The six states sued on September 29. That same day, the U.S. Department of Education closed the forgiveness program to borrowers with loans issued by private banks but guaranteed by the federal government, a move seen as an attempt to avoid lawsuits involving state entities that profit from such loans. 

In a 19-page ruling, Autrey cited that decision in dismissing the states’ cases. He said claims by several of the states that their tax revenues would be also harmed were “tenuous” and “speculative.” 

The Wisconsin group brought its case to the Supreme Court after rapid losses in lower courts. It sued on October 4, arguing that the policy “obligates federal taxes and erases federal assets (in the form of debt) without any authority whatsoever.”  

U.S. District Judge William Griesbach in Green Bay threw out the case two days later, noting that merely paying taxes is not enough to challenge federal actions. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently refused the group’s request to block the debt relief program pending an appeal. 
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Appeals Court: Graham Must Testify in Georgia Election Probe

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paves the way for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to bring Graham in for questioning. She wants to ask the South Carolina Republican about phone calls he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who said Graham asked him whether he had the power to reject certain absentee ballots.

Raffensperger said he took that as a suggestion to toss out legally cast votes, an interpretation Graham dismissed as “ridiculous.”

Graham could appeal the ruling to the full appellate court. An attorney for Graham deferred comment Thursday to a spokesperson for the senator’s office, which did not immediately comment on the ruling.

Graham had challenged his subpoena, saying his position as a U.S. senator protected him from having to testify in the state investigation. He has also denied wrongdoing. In a six-page order, the judges wrote that Graham “has failed to demonstrate that this approach will violate his rights under the Speech and Debate Clause.”

Willis opened the investigation early last year, shortly after a recording of a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Raffensperger was made public. In that call, Trump suggested Raffensperger could “find” the votes needed to overturn his narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Willis requested a special grand jury, saying the panel’s subpoena power would allow the questioning of people who otherwise wouldn’t cooperate with the investigation. She has since filed several rounds of paperwork with the court, seeking to compel the testimony of close Trump advisers and associates.

Some of those associates include former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who has testified before the special grand jury, according to a person familiar with Cipollone’s testimony who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private appearance. Cipollone’s appearance was first reported by CNN.

Cipollone vigorously resisted efforts to undo the election and has said he did not believe there was sufficient fraud to have affected the outcome of the race won by Biden.

Graham was in the first group of people close to Trump whose testimony Willis sought to compel in a batch of petitions filed with the court in early July. He challenged his subpoena in federal court, but U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May refused to toss out his subpoena. Graham then appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Graham’s lawyers argued that the U.S. Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which protects members of Congress from having to answer questions about legislative activity, shields him from having to testify. He contends that the call he made to Raffensperger was protected because he was asking questions to inform his decisions on voting to certify the 2020 election and future legislation.

Lawyers on Willis’ team argued that comments Graham made in news interviews at the time, as well as statements by Raffensperger, show that the senator was motivated by politics rather than by legislative fact-finding.

They also argued that the scope of the special grand jury’s investigation includes a variety of other topics that have nothing to do with the Raffensperger call. They also want to ask Graham about his briefings by the Trump campaign, including whether he was briefed on the Trump-Raffensperger call, and whether he communicated or coordinated with Trump and his campaign about efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia and elsewhere.

Invoking ‘sovereign immunity’

Graham’s lawyers also argued that the principle of “sovereign immunity” protects a U.S. senator from being summoned by a state prosecutor.

Even if the speech or debate clause or sovereign immunity didn’t apply, Graham’s lawyers argued, his status as a “high-ranking official” protects him from having to testify. That’s because Willis has failed to show that his testimony is essential and that the information he would provide cannot be obtained from someone else, they argued.

Judge May had found that Graham cannot be questioned about any “investigatory fact-finding” on his call with Raffensperger because that is protected legislative activity. But she rejected his other arguments, saying Willis’ team and the special grand jury can ask him about any attempts to encourage Raffensperger to throw out ballots and about any communications and coordination with the Trump campaign on post-election efforts in Georgia, as well as his public statements about the election in Georgia.

In their ruling Thursday, the appellate judges ruled that Willis “can ask about non-investigatory conduct that falls within the subpoena’s scope” but “may not ask about any investigatory conduct,” noting that Graham could note any issues over specific areas at the time of his questioning.

Others have already made their appearances before the special grand jury. Former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who’s been told he could face criminal charges in the probe, testified in August. Attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro have also appeared before the panel.

Paperwork has been filed seeking testimony from others, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich. 
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Republican Party Targeting Hispanic Voters in Texas

In this year’s midterm elections in the United States, the Republican Party is pushing to expand recent gains among Hispanic voters. VOA’s Scott Stearns narrates this story from Christian von Preysing-Barry in Texas, where Republicans this year won a congressional seat long held by the Democratic Party. Videographer: Christian von Preysing-Barry
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Emails Show Trump Knowingly Pressed False Voter Fraud Claims, Judge Says 

A California federal judge on Wednesday said then-U.S. President Donald Trump had signed a sworn statement asserting that voter fraud numbers included in a 2020 election lawsuit were accurate, despite being told the numbers were not correct. 

U.S. District Judge David Carter made the disclosure in ordering lawyer John Eastman to provide more emails to the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters. 

Eastman was one of Trump’s attorneys when the former president and his allies challenged his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. 

Representatives for Trump and Eastman did not immediately return requests for comment. 

Carter said Wednesday that Trump had “signed a verification swearing under oath” that the inaccurate fraud numbers were “true and correct” or “believed to be true and correct” to the best of his knowledge and belief, when alleging the improper counting of votes in a county in Georgia. 

“The emails show that President Trump knew that the specific numbers of voter fraud were wrong but continued to tout those numbers, both in court and to the public,” the judge wrote. 

Carter has previously ruled that Eastman and Trump had likely committed a felony by trying to pressure his then-vice president to obstruct Congress. 

The ruling was made in a lawsuit filed by Eastman to block disclosure of the emails to the January 6 select committee, following a congressional subpoena.  

Carter has previously ordered Eastman to provide more than 200 emails to the committee, after the lawyer resisted the subpoena and claimed that the communications were privileged. 

The judge said Wednesday that the vast majority of emails still being sought by congressional investigators should not be handed over, because legal protections given to attorneys and their clients apply to those records. 

He said eight emails that would normally be shielded under those protections must be given to the committee, after he found that the communications were in furtherance of a crime — one of the few times those legal safeguards can be lifted. 

Carter found that four emails show that Eastman and other lawyers suggested that the “primary goal” of filing lawsuits was to delay Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results. 

The judge said four other emails “demonstrate an effort by President Trump and his attorneys to press false claims in federal court for the purpose of delaying the January 6 vote.” 

Trump and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 election, which Biden won, with some complaints alleging voter fraud without evidence to support those claims. Those cases were overwhelmingly rejected by judges, some of which Trump appointed to the federal courts. 

The January 6 select committee last week voted to subpoena Trump in its investigation. It is set to issue a report in the coming weeks on its findings. 
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Why US Courts Are Allowing Voters in 4 States to Use Rejected Congressional Maps

When midterm elections get under way next month, voters in several Republican-controlled states will be casting their ballots in congressional districts with borders that courts have rejected.

In Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio, the congressional maps were drawn by Republican legislators in the aftermath of the 2020 census. Judges later ruled that the maps were illegally drawn or likely to be proven illegal at trial.

But the U.S. Supreme Court, and other federal courts following its precedent, have allowed the rejected maps to be used for this election, rejecting proposals to make them fairer.

Their rationale? A little-known legal concept that says judges should refrain from changing voting rules close to an election because doing so can lead to chaos and confusion and keep voters away from the polls.

Known as the “Purcell principle,” the concept takes its name from a 2006 Supreme Court case called Purcell v. Gonzalez. The case involved a legal challenge to Arizona’s voter ID requirements. It was a midterm year, and the Supreme Court dismissed the challenge.

‘Bedrock tenet’

In the 16 years since the Arizona ruling, the “Purcell principle” has become what Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh has called a “bedrock tenet of election law.”

“When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled,” Kavanaugh wrote in February, explaining his decision to allow Alabama’s Republican-backed congressional map to take effect even though it had been rejected by a three-judge panel. “Late judicial tinkering with election laws can lead to disruption and to unanticipated and unfair consequences for candidates, political parties and voters, among others.”

That means judges should be wary of issuing orders that change voting rules close to an election, and so they have. In 2020, the Supreme Court repeatedly blocked changes that sought to make it easier for voters to cast their ballots during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

Critics say this amounts to putting the administration of elections ahead of safeguarding the right to vote.

“I think the balance they’ve chosen is out of whack,” said Dan Vicuna, the national redistricting manager for the watchdog Common Cause.

Rick Hasen, a University of California-Los Angeles election law expert who coined the term “Purcell principle” in 2016, has argued that the Supreme Court should “rein in” the doctrine.

Republicans have stood by their maps.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former county election official now with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the Purcell principle is a “good rule” with an important purpose.

“Anyone who’s got a problem with [an election] law or regulation has plenty of time before an election to file a lawsuit,” von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, said.

Districts redrawn each decade

The disputed congressional maps in the four states are considered “gerrymandered,” a portmanteau with origins in early 19th-century American politics.

Every 10 years, following a constitutionally mandated census, U.S. states redraw their congressional and state legislative maps to reflect changes in their electorate.

Gerrymandering occurs when voting district maps are redrawn for political gain, for example by packing opposition party voters into one district so as to reduce their influence in others.

The practice is legal in most states, and both Democrats and Republicans engage in it. But when a map is flagrantly drawn to favor one group over another, it can run afoul of state and federal laws.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Under the law, voters can seek judicial relief if they believe a voting practice or procedure such as a new political map “abridges” their right to vote.

Under the Voting Rights Act, challengers can also bring claims of “vote dilution.” Vote dilution occurs when minority voters cannot elect the candidate of their choice because of gerrymandering. This was part of the claim in the legal challenge against the congressional maps in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana.

Former procedure

Before Purcell, aggrieved voters could sue for judicial relief and courts did not dismiss the challenge simply because an election was close at hand.

But that changed with Purcell, according to David Gans, director of the human rights, civil rights and citizenship program at the Constitutional Accountability Center.

“Purcell has made it incredibly difficult for courts to provide relief when state governments violate the right to vote, when they put in place discriminatory maps that dilute the vote for communities of color,” Gans said.

Consider what happened in Georgia.

In December, civil rights groups filed lawsuits against the state’s new political redistricting maps that appear designed to give Republicans an additional House seat even though the state’s electorate has become increasingly Democratic.

Then in March, with the state’s primary elections under two months away, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, citing the Purcell principle, ruled that the challenged maps could be used even though he found that they included boundaries that violated the Voting Rights Act.

“Changes to the redistricting map at this point in the 2022 election schedule are likely to substantially disrupt the election process,” Jones wrote.

In Alabama and Louisiana, federal courts found that the two Southern states’ redistricting maps violated the Voting Rights Act, only to be overruled by the Supreme Court.

High court’s rulings

The Supreme Court, dominated by six conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents, has applied the Purcell doctrine “in a way that’s mostly friendly to Republicans,” Vicuna said, but that has not always been the case.

In March, for example, the high court refused to overturn a map drawn by the North Carolina Supreme Court over the objection of Republican lawmakers who wanted to use their own map.

In addition, the high court has rejected Republican challenges to redistricting maps drawn by Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, though not on the grounds of Purcell.

Election law experts say that while the likelihood of voter confusion can be a strong argument against making last-minute changes in voting procedures, it should not be the sole factor.

“One of the reasons the court has gone awry is that it’s not looked at the sort of traditional factors that apply when there’s a request for emergency relief,” Gans said. “Purcell has essentially replaced that sort of more careful fact-specific analysis with this across-the-board hostility to protecting voting rights.”
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Analyst Acquitted at Trial Over Discredited Trump Dossier

A jury on Tuesday acquitted on all counts a think-tank analyst accused of lying to the FBI about his role in the creation of a discredited dossier about former President Donald Trump. 

The case against Igor Danchenko was the third and possibly final case brought by Special Counsel John Durham as part of his probe into how the FBI conducted its own investigation into allegations of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Kremlin. 

The first two cases ended in an acquittal and a guilty plea with a sentence of probation. 

Danchenko betrayed no emotion as the verdict was read. His wife wiped away tears after the fourth and final “not guilty” was read by the clerk. 

The acquittal marked a significant setback for Durham, who declined to comment after the hearing, as did several jurors. 

Despite hopes by Trump supporters that the prosecutor would uncover a sweeping conspiracy within the FBI and other agencies to derail his candidacy, and then his presidency, the investigation over the course of more than three years failed to produce evidence that met those expectations. The sole conviction — an FBI agent admitted altering an email related to the surveillance of a former Trump aide — was for conduct uncovered not by Durham but by the Justice Department’s inspector general, and the two cases that Durham took to trials ended in across-the-board acquittals. 

The Danchenko case was the first of the three to delve deeply into the origins of the “Steele dossier,” a compendium of allegations compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele that Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was colluding with the Kremlin. 

Most famously, it alleged that the Russians could have blackmail material on Trump for his supposed interactions with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel. Trump derided the dossier as fake news and a political witch hunt when it became public in 2017. 

Danchenko, by his own admission, was responsible for 80% of the raw intelligence in the dossier and half of the accompanying analysis, though trial testimony indicated that Danchenko was shocked and dismayed about how Steele presented the material and portrayed it as factual when Danchenko considered it more to be rumor and speculation. 

Prosecutors said that if Danchenko had been more honest about his sources, the FBI might not have treated the dossier so credulously. As it turned out, the FBI used material from the dossier to support applications for warrantless surveillance of a Trump campaign official, Carter Page, even though the FBI never was able to corroborate a single allegation in the dossier. 

Prosecutors said Danchenko lied about the identity of his own sources for the material he gave to Steele. The specific charges against Danchenko allege that he essentially fabricated one of his sources when the FBI interviewed him to determine how he derived the material he provided for the dossier. 

Danchenko told the FBI that some of the material came when he received an anonymous call from a man he believed to be Sergei Millian, a former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. 

Prosecutors said Danchenko’s story made no sense. They said that phone records show no evidence of a call, and that Danchenko had no reason to believe Millian, a Trump supporter he’d never met, was suddenly going to be willing to provide disparaging information about Trump to a stranger. 

Danchenko’s lawyers, as a starting point, maintain that Danchenko never said he talked with Millian. He only guessed that Millian might have been the caller when the FBI asked him to speculate. And they said he shouldn’t be convicted of a crime for making a guess at the FBI’s invitation. 

That said, Danchenko’s lawyers say, he had good reason to believe the caller may well have been Millian. The call came just a few days after Danchenko had reached out to Millian over email after a mutual acquaintance brokered a connection over email. 

And Danchenko’s lawyers say it’s irrelevant that his phone records don’t show a call because Danchenko told the FBI from the start that the call might have taken place over a secure mobile app for which he had no records. 

The jury began deliberations Monday afternoon after hearing closing arguments on four counts. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga threw out a fifth count, saying prosecutors had failed to prove it as a matter of law. 

 
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Biden Vows Abortion Legislation as Top Priority Next Year

President Joe Biden promised Tuesday that the first bill he sends to Capitol Hill next year will be one that writes abortion protections into law — if Democrats control enough seats in Congress to pass it — as he sought to energize his party’s voters three weeks ahead of the November midterms. 

Twice over, Biden urged people to remember how they felt in late June when the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion, fresh evidence of White House efforts to ensure the issue stays front of mind for Democratic voters this year. 

“I want to remind us all how we felt when 50 years of constitutional precedent was overturned,” Biden said in remarks at the Howard Theatre, “the anger, the worry, the disbelief.” 

He lambasted Republicans nationwide who have pushed for restrictions on the procedure, often without exceptions, and told Democrats in attendance that “if you care about the right to choose, then you gotta vote.” 

As he has done all year, Biden emphasized that only Congress can fully restore abortion access to what it was before the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, which overturned Roe. But he also acknowledged “we’re short a handful of votes” now to reinstate abortion protections at the federal level, urging voters to send more Democrats to Congress. 

“If we do that, here’s the promise I make to you and the American people: The first bill that I will send to the Congress will be to codify Roe v. Wade,” Biden said. “And when Congress passes it, I’ll sign it in January, 50 years after Roe was first decided the law of the land.” 

That’s a big if. 

For Biden to follow through on his pledge, Democrats would have to retain control of the House and pick up seats in the Senate — an unlikely scenario considering current political dynamics. Abortion rights have been a key motivating factor for Democrats this year, although the economy and inflation still rank as chief concern for most voters. 

Abolishing the filibuster — the legislative rule that requires 60 votes for most bills to advance in the Senate — amid opposition in their own ranks will also pose a significant challenge for Democrats. 

Long resistant to any revisions to Senate institutional rules, Biden said in the days after the June decision to overrule Roe that he would support eliminating the supermajority threshold for abortion bills, just as he did on voting rights legislation. 

But two moderate Democrats — Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — support keeping the filibuster. Sinema has said she wants to retain the filibuster precisely so any abortion restrictions backed by Republicans would face a much higher hurdle to pass in the Senate. 

Democratic Senate candidates in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the party’s two best chances to flip seats currently held by Republicans — have both said they support eliminating the filibuster in order to pass abortion legislation. Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman has actively campaigned on being the 51st vote for priorities such as legalizing abortion, codifying same-sex marriage protections, and making it easier for workers to unionize — all measures that would otherwise be blocked by a filibuster in the Senate. 

Abortion — and proposals from some Republicans to impose nationwide restrictions on the procedure — have been a regular fixture of Biden’s political rhetoric this election cycle, as Democrats seek to energize voters in a difficult midterm season for the party in power in Washington. 

In fundraisers and in political speeches, Biden has vowed to reject any abortion restrictions that may come to his desk in a GOP-controlled Congress.  

As he did Tuesday, Biden has also urged voters to boost the Democratic ranks in the Senate so enough senators would not only support reinstating abortion nationwide but would change Senate rules to do it. 

Opponents of abortion rights have also sought to capitalize on the issue, with Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, saying Tuesday that the stakes of next month’s midterm elections “could not be higher.” 

“Doubling down on an extreme agenda of abortion on demand until birth won’t stop Democrats from losing Congress, even with the abortion industry spending record sums to elect them,” Dannenfelser said. “Biden’s party is on the wrong side and stunningly out of touch. 

On Tuesday, Biden made a pointed appeal to young voters, who traditionally participate in lower rates than other age demographics in midterm elections. Though his remarks were primarily focused on abortion, Biden also mentioned his decisions to forgive billions of dollars in student loan debt and to issue pardons for marijuana possession — moves popular with younger voters. 

“What I am saying is, you represent the best of us. Your generation will not be ignored, will not be shunned and will not be silent,” Biden said, adding: “In 2020, you voted to deliver the change you wanted to see in the world. In 2022, you need to exercise your power to vote again for the future of our nation and the future of your generation.” 

Court decisions and state legislation have shifted the status of abortion laws across the country. Currently, bans are in place at all stages of pregnancy in 12 states. In Wisconsin, clinics have stopped providing abortions though there’s dispute over whether a ban is in effect. In Georgia, abortion is banned at the detection of cardiac activity, generally around six weeks and before women often know they’re pregnant. 

Meanwhile, codifying Roe remains a broadly popular position. In a July AP-NORC poll, 60% of U.S. adults said they believe Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. 

 
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AP-NORC Poll: Most Say Voting Vital Despite Dour US Outlook

From his home in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, Graeme Dean says there’s plenty that’s disheartening about the state of the country and politics these days. At the center of one of this year’s most competitive U.S. Senate races, he’s on the receiving end of a constant barrage of vitriolic advertising that makes it easy to focus on what’s going wrong. 

But the 40-year-old English teacher has no intention of disengaging from the democratic process. In fact, he believes that the first national election since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is “more significant” than in years past. 

“This could very well sway the country in one direction or another,” the Democratic-leaning independent said. 

Dean is hardly alone in feeling the weight of this election. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center of Public Affairs Research finds 71% of registered voters think the very future of the U.S. is at stake when they vote this year. That’s true of voters who prefer Republicans win majorities in Congress, and those who want to see Democrats remain in control, though likely for different reasons. 

While about two-thirds of voters say they are pessimistic about politics, overwhelming majorities across party lines — about 8 in 10 — say casting their ballot this year is extremely or very important. 

The findings demonstrate how this year’s midterms are playing out in a unique environment, with voters both exhausted by the political process and determined to participate in shaping it. That could result in high turnout for a midterm election. 

In the politically divided state of Michigan, for instance, over 150,000 voters have already cast absentee ballots. A total of 1.6 million people have requested absentee ballots so far, surpassing the 1.16 million who chose the option in the 2018 midterm election. 

In follow-up interviews, poll respondents reported distinct concerns about the country’s direction despite agreement that things are not working. 

Rick Moore, a 67-year-old writer and musician in Las Vegas, said he’s dissatisfied with President Joe Biden, and “not just because I’m a Republican.” Moore called him “more of a puppet” than any other president in his lifetime. 

“It’s important to me that Republicans are in control of as much as possible because we’re not going to get rid of the Democratic president anytime soon,” Moore said. 

In general, Moore said, he doesn’t like the way Democratic politicians run their states, including Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, adding that Democrats are “using the word democracy to make all of us do what they want.” 

“I would just like to see my voice more represented,” he said. 

Since the last midterm elections, voters have grown more negative about the country and people’s rights: 70% say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., up from 58% in October 2018. 

Republicans have become enormously dissatisfied with a Democrat in the White House. While Democrats have become less negative since Donald Trump left office, they remain largely sour on the way things are going. 

Fifty-eight percent of voters also say they are dissatisfied with the state of individual rights and freedoms in the U.S., up from 42% in 2018. About two-thirds of Republicans are now dissatisfied, after about half said they were satisfied when Trump was in office. Among Democrats, views have stayed largely the same, with about half dissatisfied. 

Shawn Hartlage, 41, doesn’t think her views as a Christian are well represented, lamenting that she’d love to vote “for someone that really stood for what you believe,” but that it’s very important to her to vote anyway. 

The Republican stay-at-home mother of two in Washington Township, Ohio, said the direction of the country is “devastating,” noting both inflation and a decline in moral values. 

“I’m scared for my children’s future,” Hartlage said. “You always want to leave things better for them than what you had, but it’s definitely not moving in that direction.” 

Teanne Townsend of Redford, Michigan, agrees that things are moving backward. But the 28-year-old called out abortion, health care and police brutality as especially concerning areas in which rights are being threatened. 

“We have minimum progression in the right direction for a lot of areas, especially for people of minority [groups]. Their rights are not the same as those of other races and cultures,” said the Democrat, who is African American. 

A children’s health and mental health specialist, Townsend said she’s voting for her constitutional right to an abortion this year. If passed, the state’s ballot initiative would guarantee abortion rights in the Michigan Constitution. 

“I feel like it’s just a lot that’s at stake,” Townsend said, adding that she’s both “optimistic and nervous” about the outcome but that it’s “the right thing” for people to be able to vote on it. 

The poll showed majorities of voters overall say the outcome of the midterms will have a significant impact on abortion policy, with Democratic voters more likely than Republican voters to say so. Most voters across party lines say the outcome will have a lot of impact on the economy. 

More voters say they trust the Republican Party to handle the economy (39% vs. 29%), as well as crime (38% vs. 23%). Republicans also have a slight advantage on immigration (38% vs. 33%). The Democratic Party is seen as better able to handle abortion policy (45% vs. 22%), health care (42% vs. 25%) and voting laws (39% vs. 29%). 

Despite the uncertainty in the outcome, Dean in Pennsylvania has faith in the American system to work for the will of the people. 

“I think it’s important that our representatives represent what the majority of people want,” Dean said. “That’s what we claim we do in this country and it feels like it is what should happen. And I am hopeful.” 
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US Urges 6-Month Sentence for Ex-Trump Adviser Bannon Over Contempt Conviction

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal judge to sentence former President Donald Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon to six months behind bars, saying he pursued a “bad faith strategy defiance and contempt” against the congressional committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. 

Bannon, an influential far-right political figure, was convicted in July on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena. 

Each count is punishable by between 30 days to one year in prison and a fine ranging between $100 to $100,000. 

He is due to be sentenced before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Friday morning. 

Prosecutors told Nichols in their sentencing recommendation on Monday that Bannon’s actions, including his refusal to this day to produce “a single document” to the congressional committee, led them to recommend a prison sentence at the top of the guidelines range. 

They also urged the judge to impose the maximum fine of $200,000, which they said they based on Bannon’s “insistence on paying the maximum fine rather than cooperate with the Probation Office’s routine pre-sentencing financial investigation.” 

“Throughout the pendency of this case, the Defendant has exploited his notoriety — through courthouse press conferences and his War Room podcast — to display to the public the source of his bad-faith refusal to comply with the committee’s subpoena: a total disregard for government processes and the law,” prosecutors wrote in their filing. 

“The defendant’s statements prove that his contempt was not aimed at protecting executive privilege or the Constitution, rather it was aimed at undermining the committee’s efforts to investigate an historic attack on government.” 

 
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US Justice Department Seeks End of Review of Documents Seized From Trump Home 

The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal appeals court Friday to end a special third-party review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida, arguing that a district court should not have appointed a “special master” in the case. 

In a petition to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Justice Department prosecutors argued that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon exceeded her authority when she paused a criminal investigation to allow the special master to review more than 11,000 seized records. 

“It follows that the district court erred in requiring the government to submit any of the seized materials for the special-master review process,” prosecutors said in the court papers. 

The Justice Department is investigating whether Trump broke the law by taking government records, including about 100 classified documents, to his Florida estate after leaving office in January 2021. 

The department also is looking into whether Trump or his team obstructed justice when the FBI sent agents to search his home and has warned that more classified documents may still be missing.
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Congressional January 6 Panel Wrapping Up Case Against Trump

The congressional panel investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 of last year is wrapping up its public hearings Thursday, pledging to present new evidence to show the scope of former president Donald Trump’s connection to the violence that day as he tried to upend his 2020 election defeat and stay in power for another four years.

The House of Representatives Select Committee’s hearing is expected to be its first without live testimony from new witnesses. But the panel’s chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said the nine-member committee plans to reveal “significant information that we’ve not shown to the public.”

Another committee member, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren of California, told CNN, “We discovered through our work through this summer what the president’s intentions were, what he knew, what he did, what others did.”

The hearing is unfolding less than a month before crucial nationwide congressional elections on November 8 in which the narrow Democratic political control of Congress is at stake and two years ahead of the 2024 presidential election, with Trump, a Republican, signaling he is likely to mount a new run for the White House against the Democrat who defeated him in 2020, President Joe Biden.

To this day, Trump falsely claims he was cheated out of a second four-year term in the 2020 election because of voting irregularities in several states he narrowly lost to Biden.

He has called the nine-member committee – seven Democrats and two vocal anti-Trump Republicans – “political thugs and scoundrels.”

During earlier hearings, several aides to Trump and officials in his administration testified at the House panel’s eight public hearings in June and July that they directly told the then-president he had lost and that there was not any significant fraud that would have upended his defeat.

Nonetheless, the witnesses said that Trump repeatedly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to block Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, from certifying the Electoral College vote that Biden had won the election. Pence refused to acquiesce to Trump’s demand, drawing Trump’s ire as Trump-supporting rioters stormed the Capitol.

Some of the rioters, more than 800 of whom have been arrested in the 21 months since then, shouted “Hang Mike Pence!” a suggestion one Trump aide said the president thought was appropriate. Gallows had been erected on the National Mall within eyesight of the Capitol.

Trump, witnesses said, also considered sending the names of fake, Trump-supporting electors to the Capitol for the official Electoral College vote count to replace the official Biden electors in states Trump lost by narrow margins.

Trump is facing several criminal investigations stemming from his actions as he tried to remain in power, including a sweeping Justice Department probe into whether he helped foment the Capitol riot by urging his supporters to go there and “fight like hell” as lawmakers were certifying his Electoral College loss.

In the southern state of Georgia, a prosecutor in Atlanta, the state capital, is investigating Trump’s request to the top state elections official to “find” him 11,780 votes, one more than he needed to overturn his 11,779-vote loss to Biden.

The state-by-state vote counts are essential in U.S. presidential elections because the country’s leader is not elected by the national popular vote count, which Biden won by more than 7 million votes. Rather, the overall outcome is effectively determined in the Electoral College through state-by-state elections, with each state’s number of electors roughly determined by its population, with the biggest states holding the most sway.

The House investigative panel is expected Thursday to try to make the case that Trump remains a threat to American democracy because of his actions after the 2020 election leading up to the riot, when about 2,000 Trump supporters stormed into the Capitol, clashed with law enforcement, injured 140 police officers and ransacked congressional offices.

The committee has no power to bring criminal charges against Trump but could make a criminal case referral to the Justice Department in a final report it expects to complete before the end of this year. If Republicans succeed in taking control of the House starting in January, they would almost certainly disband the committee if it does not finish a report by then.

Since the last public hearings, the committee has obtained more than 1.5 million pages of documents and communications from the Secret Service, the presidential security agency, that include details of how agents blocked Trump’s attempts to join his supporters at the Capitol even after their assault on the national seat of government had already erupted.

Trump, after rallying his supporters near the White House to “stop the steal” of the election, angrily berated a Secret Service agent when he realized his security detail was taking him back to the White House, where witnesses say he watched on television for more than three hours as the riot unfolded.

Late on the afternoon of January 6, he told his supporters in the Capitol to leave.

“I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace,” he said. “I know you’re in pain. I know you’re hurt.

“We had an election that was stolen from us,” he claimed. “It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace.”
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Here’s What to Expect From Final January 6 Panel Hearing

The congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol is set to hold what will likely be its final public hearing on Thursday, with members pledging new revelations about former President Donald Trump’s role in the events that led up to the attack.

The televised hearing, House of Representatives committee members say, will be sweeping and thematic, offering a broad overview of the panel’s findings to date while airing recently unearthed evidence tying Trump and his associates to the far-right groups that plotted the riot.

“We’re going to be going through really some of what we’ve already found but augmenting [it] with new material that we discovered through our work throughout this summer — what the president’s intentions were, what he knew, what he did, what others did,” Representative Zoe Lofgren, one of the committee’s seven Democratic members, said in a CNN interview on Tuesday.

“Obviously, there’s close ties between people in Trumpworld and some of these extremist groups. We will touch upon that,” Lofgren said, declining to say whom the circle encompassed. “There is some new material that I found, as we got into it, pretty surprising.”

The hearing was initially scheduled for September 29 before Congress recessed for the midterm elections, but it was canceled as Hurricane Ian smashed into Florida and South Carolina.

To date, the panel has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and reviewed over 130,000 documents as part of its investigation.

While the investigation will not stop after Thursday’s hearing, the committee’s focus will shift over the coming months to completing a report of its findings and recommendations for policy changes to Congress by the end of the year.

Trump has called the congressional investigation “a unilateral, completely partisan, political witch hunt.”

The committee is made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, both of whom are ardent Trump critics and won’t be returning to Congress next term.

Here is what you need to know about the investigation and the committee’s last hearing.

What the hearing will showcase 

The bipartisan panel held eight televised public hearings in June and July. With the exception of the first hearing, each had a thematic focus.

The eighth hearing, held on July 21, focused on Trump’s “dereliction of duty” — the 187 minutes on the afternoon of January 6, during which he allegedly refused to condemn the riot or ask his supporters to go home.

Thursday’s hearing, set for 1 p.m. EDT, will continue in that vein, according to Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the panel.

“It will be the usual mix of information in the public domain and new information woven to tell the story about one key thematic element of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election,” Schiff said September 25 on CNN.

Declining to be more specific, Schiff added that as the last hearing of its kind, Thursday’s session “will be potentially more sweeping than some of the other hearings, but it, too, will be very thematic.”

The committee will also likely air some of the previously unused “substantial footage” and “significant witness testimony” it has gathered, according to Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, committee chairman.

“So, this is an opportunity to use some of that material,” Thompson said last month.

Witness testimony  

In the two months since its last hearing in July, the committee has interviewed several high-profile witnesses, including Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state for period during the Trump administration, and Elaine Chao, Trump’s secretary of transportation.

While the panel is likely to air excerpts of those interviews, it’s not clear if it will feature testimony from another sought-after witness: Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a Republican activist and wife of conservative Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.

Earlier this year, Ginni Thomas disclosed that she had attended the pro-Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol but said she “played no role with those who were planning and leading the January 6 events.”

It was later revealed that the January 6 committee had obtained text messages between Ginni Thomas and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in which she wrote that Trump should not “concede” his loss in the presidential election to Joe Biden.

“The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” Ginni Thomas texted on November 10, 2020.

Last month, the panel interviewed Ginni Thomas, whom Lofgren said was “not a key figure” in the events leading up to January 6.

Though the interview was not videotaped, Lofgren told MSNBC on Sunday that the committee “may” use a transcript, “but we have plenty of other information, as well.”

Secret Service communications

Among the new information the committee will be showcasing is a massive cache of Secret Service communications it recently received.

Last month, Representative Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice chair, disclosed that the panel had obtained about 800,000 pages of communications material from the Secret Service.

The presidential protection service has come under scrutiny ever since information emerged this summer that text messages exchanged between agents had been erased.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in June that Trump knew his supporters gathered in Washington were armed and that he was so intent on joining them at the Capitol that he lunged at the head of his security detail in the presidential vehicle when they instead drove him to the White House.

Speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival last month, Cheney said that while Secret Service agents “were playing a hugely important and very courageous role” on January 6, “there are some that have not been forthcoming with the committee, and you’ll hear more about that.”

What’s next for the committee? 

As a House “select” committee, the January 6 panel is set to expire at the end of the current congressional term on January 3, 2023. But before its term ends, the panel is mandated to present a report of its findings and policy recommendations to Congress. That report is expected to be released by the end of the year, according to committee members.

One legislative proposal the panel was expected to recommend has already been pushed through Congress.

The proposed legislation seeks to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, a 19th-century law that Republican supporters of Trump argued gave Vice President Mike Pence the power to stop the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

Last month, the House passed a version of the legislation. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has thrown his support behind a Senate version, raising the prospects of its enactment into law.

Will there be any consequences for Trump? 

While the committee does not have the power to bring criminal charges, it can refer Trump and others to the Justice Department for prosecution.

The Justice Department has been investigating the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has said the investigation will continue, regardless of a congressional referral.

Still, on the question of whether to make any criminal referrals to the Justice Department, committee members appear divided.

While some members such as Schiff favor making criminal referrals, others such as Thompson have said the panel lacks the authority to do so.

Among Trump’s actions in the lead-up to January 6, Democrats say his pressure on Pence to overturn the electoral count was both “illegal and unconstitutional.”
…

Pressure Grows for Congressional Action on US-Saudi Relationship  

The Biden administration and U.S. lawmakers are pushing this week for longtime ally Saudi Arabia to face consequences for agreeing to reduce oil production.

OPEC+, which includes Saudi Arabia, the 12 other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and 10 other oil-exporting nations, announced last week that it would cut its oil production target by 2 million barrels a day, despite U.S. objections.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the decision was unanimous and based on economic considerations.

Some members of Congress are calling for an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia. U.S. President Joe Biden signaled Wednesday he was willing to consider that proposal when Congress returns from a recess next month.

“We’re going to react to Saudi Arabia and we’re doing consultation when they come back. We will take action,” Biden told reporters.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said in a statement Monday that the Saudi decision was tantamount to underwriting Russia’s war in Ukraine. The United States has been working to sanction Russian oil exports as punishment for the unprovoked February invasion.

“There simply is no room to play both sides of this conflict – either you support the rest of the free world in trying to stop a war criminal from violently wiping an entire country off of the map, or you support him. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia chose the latter in a terrible decision driven by economic self-interest,” Menendez said.

Menendez proposed that Congress freeze all aspects of the U.S.-Saudi security relationship, including arms sales and security cooperation. Senate and House Democrats introduced a proposal late Tuesday that would halt all sales for one year.

“Saudi Arabia is clearly the driving force in this decision. It’s the dominant power in OPEC+, it has been for years and so singling out Saudi Arabia makes the most sense,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, told reporters Wednesday.

“I believe the Saudis have consistently been miscalculating in the past couple years, and it’s probably because [former U.S. President Donald] Trump candidly gave them carte blanche. A lot of the deals that were taking place over the previous administration gave them a sense of security, and what President Biden is trying to do is just return to the proper balance,” Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, another co-sponsor, told reporters.

Blumenthal and Khanna wrote Sunday in an editorial in American political publication Politico that Saudi Arabia does not have other good options for arms purchases, giving the U.S. leverage.

“Make no mistake, this is a move on oil prices that was designed,” Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator, told VOA.

The decision to cut production comes ahead of midterm elections in the United States November 8.

“What the Saudi crown did [was] to literally undermine the president’s political position, certainly with respect to oil prices, weeks before the midterms and at the same time undermine the president’s position, the international community’s position, in an effort to isolate [Russian President] Vladimir Putin in terms of his aggression against Ukraine by supporting him politically and economically,” Miller said.

Congressional Republicans have been less vocal about what consequences Saudi Arabia should face for the oil production target cut but have criticized the kingdom for human rights violations and other concerns in the past.

“Some of the senators from gas-producing states in the United States were deeply concerned about two years ago when Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ [countries] took certain decisions that led to a severe drop in the price of oil. I think the broader picture is that from a bipartisan basis, the U.S.-Saudi relationship is not on a stable foundation,” Brian Katulis, vice president of policy at the Middle East Institute, told VOA.

Blumenthal told reporters he was in talks with Republicans about his legislation. Lawmakers are due to return to Washington after the midterm elections.

Cindy Spang contributed to this report.
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US Justice Department to Monitor Midterms, Avoid Appearance of Partisanship

Carrying on a long-established tradition, the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) plans to deploy teams of federal observers around the country on Election Day next month while requiring the FBI to receive high-level approval for politically sensitive investigations that might call into question the integrity of the election.

At stake in the Nov. 8 congressional races is not only control of Congress but also the legitimacy of U.S. elections — fallout from former President Donald Trump’s attempt to undo the outcome of the 2020 presidential vote.

Many Americans are questioning the credibility of elections. At the same time, new laws passed by Republican state legislators have thrown up barriers to voting, rights advocates say, prompting the Justice Department to challenge the new measures in court.

The Justice Department, which under the Biden administration has made voting rights a central plank of its law enforcement agenda, says federal monitors will observe the midterm elections in an effort “to ensure that all qualified voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots and have their votes counted free of discrimination, intimidation and suppression.”

“The Civil Rights Division undertakes its important work to protect the right to vote all throughout each year, and this year’s work continues longstanding department tradition,” the Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday.

The U.S. has a decentralized election system, with voting administered at the county level.

But the federal government has a role too. The Justice Department’s civil rights division is responsible for enforcing a string of federal laws designed to protect the right to vote. These include the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.

Federal election monitors, drawn from the Justice Department’s civil rights division as well as U.S. attorney’s offices across the country, will observe compliance with these laws, according to the Justice Department.

In the past two election cycles, the Justice Department dispatched election monitors to about 20 states. It is likely to cover the same number of states this year, according to Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at the watchdog group Common Cause.

“I’ve been given no indication that they are going to stray greatly from prior behavior, and they told us that they are continuing to do their job as they’ve always done,” Albert said.

The locations to be monitored are determined based on whether “they have a history of problems and voters or community groups in the area making them [the DOJ] aware,” Albert said.

“You always use the institutional knowledge, the history of the location, any complaints from voters and voter advocates to monitor,” Albert said.

The Justice Department releases its election-monitoring plan on the eve of the midterms. A representative did not have any additional details about the department’s monitoring plan beyond the press statement.

Zack Smith, a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said the Justice Department observers play an important role in ensuring equal access to voting.

“Their goal is to really be kind of a quick reaction force if issues come up to us to potentially address those issues in real time,” Smith said.

In addition to the Justice Department monitors, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of which the U.S. is a participating state, will deploy observers throughout the country to “closely monitor all aspects of the elections, including pre- and postelection developments.”

“The mission will assess the elections for their compliance with OSCE commitments and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections, as well as with national legislation,” the OSCE said in a statement Sept. 29.

Staying above politics

While taking steps to protect the right to vote, the Justice Department is keeping up another of its long-standing traditions: avoiding the appearance of partisanship during an election year.

In a May 25 staff email entitled “Election Year Sensitives,” Attorney General Merrick Garland urged Justice Department employees to be “particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and non-partisanship.”

“Simply put, partisan politics must play no role in the decisions of federal investigators or prosecutors regarding any investigation or criminal charges,” Gartland wrote.

The exhortation was a mere restatement of long-standing DOJ policies. But to the outrage of many on the left, Garland went on to say that he was keeping in place a 2020 directive issued by his predecessor, William Barr.

The Barr directive says the FBI must get the attorney general’s written approval before opening criminal or counterintelligence investigations of “politically sensitive individuals or entities.”

Garland’s decision to extend that policy gave fodder to critics who say he hasn’t moved aggressively enough to charge Trump and his associates for their alleged roles in the events leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

But the attorney general has said that “no person is above the law” and that the Justice Department “will follow the facts and the law, wherever they lead.”

Garland is a former federal judge and Supreme Court nominee. Defenders say he has restored the Justice Department’s traditional role as an independent law enforcement agency after four years of the Trump administration, during which the attorney general was accused of doing the president’s bidding.

But Republicans say that it is under Biden that the Justice Department has become politicized. They point to the FBI’s unprecedented investigation of Trump’s handling of presidential records as well as Justice Department lawsuits filed against “election integrity” laws enacted by Republican state lawmakers.

“I think there certainly is the perception, if not the reality that there’s a disconnect between what Merrick Garland is saying and what the department is actually doing,” Smith said.  
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Bullet-Proof Glass, Guards: US Election Offices Tighten Security for Nov. 8 Midterms

When voters in Jefferson County, Colorado, cast their ballots in the Nov. 8 midterm election, they will see security guards stationed outside the busiest polling centers.

At an election office in Flagstaff, Arizona, voters will encounter bulletproof glass and need to press a buzzer to enter.

In Tallahassee, Florida, election workers will count ballots in a building that has been newly toughened with walls made of the super-strong fiber Kevlar.

Spurred by a deluge of threats and intimidating behavior by conspiracy theorists and others upset over former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat, some election officials across the United States are fortifying their operations as they ramp up for another divisive election.

A Reuters survey of 30 election offices found that 15 have enhanced security in various ways, from installing panic buttons to hiring extra security guards to holding active-shooter and de-escalation training.

Reuters focused on offices in battleground states and offices that had openly expressed a need for security improvements, for example in congressional testimony. While the survey does not speak to how widespread such moves are, it does show how election officials are responding to threats in parts of the country where the election will likely be decided.

Election officials around the country said they were coordinating more closely with local law enforcement to respond quickly to disturbances. Many have also trained workers in de-escalating conflicts and evading active shooters.

Until recently, such threats to safety were seen as hypothetical in a country that has seen few instances of election-related violence since the civil rights battles of the 1960s, when the presence of armed officers sometimes intimidated rather than reassured Black voters.

Now those risks are seen as real, said Tammy Patrick, a senior adviser at the Democracy Fund, a nonpartisan public-interest group founded by entrepreneur and Democratic donor Pierre Omidyar.

“The likelihood that they could occur has definitely increased, so everyone is taking that to heart,” she said.

Election officials in 12 states, including some who have paid for moderate security improvements, said they have not received enough money to make their desired upgrades due to bureaucratic hurdles.

In Champaign County, Illinois, clerk Aaron Ammons would like to install metal detectors at his office, where visitors have filmed staff and the layout of the space in what he described as a threatening manner.

“It makes us feel like we’re targets, or we’re not a priority in the same way our men and women in uniform are. And we’re on the front lines of democracy just like they are,” said Ammons.

Ammons gave testimony to Congress in August that he and his wife received anonymous messages threatening their daughter’s life ahead of the 2020 election, and he told Reuters he recently saw someone filming his house.

The Justice Department says it has investigated more than 1,000 messages to election workers since the 2020 election, including more than 100 that could warrant prosecution. Reuters documented the campaign of fear being waged against election workers in a series of investigative reports.

Seven cases have been charged so far. The first sentence came Thursday, when a Nebraska man received 18 months in prison for threatening an election official.

Spooked workers

One in five U.S. election officials said that they were unlikely to stay in their job through 2024, when Americans will go to the polls again to elect a president, according to a survey by the Brennan Center for Justice that was released in March. They cited stress, attacks by politicians and impending retirement as reasons.

The lingering bitterness from the 2020 election has also spooked many of the temporary workers who check in voters, count ballots and perform other tasks that make elections possible, officials say.

Philadelphia has boosted pay for election day workers from $120 to $250 to help recruiting efforts that have been complicated by fears of harassment, as well as a tight labor market, said Omar Sabir, one of the city’s three election commissioners. After receiving death threats in 2020, he himself changed his travel patterns.

“You’ve got to keep your head on a swivel,” Sabir said.

“Sometimes I have nightmares thinking about that, somebody walking up and causing me harm.”

Protective measures

Many election officials blame disinformation, such as Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud in the 2020 election, for the surge in threats.

Justin Roebuck, the Republican clerk of Michigan’s rural, conservative Ottawa County, said Trump’s rhetoric had “really poisoned the well,” inspiring other candidates to sow doubts about elections. In Michigan, Republican candidates for governor, attorney general and other positions have questioned the outcome of the 2020 election.

Roebuck’s office held a three-hour role-playing exercise with local emergency management officials this year to plan how to respond to violent incidents. They also printed a brochure explaining balloting procedures that workers can hand to people to de-escalate confrontations with anyone aggressively questioning their work.

In addition to adding Kevlar walls, the Leon County, Florida, elections office has held active shooter training for its workers, installed bullet- and bomb-resistant glass, and invested in security cameras and video file storage, according to elections supervisor Mark Earley, who says he gets frequent hostile and profane calls from strangers.

“I’ve got to worry about my workers leaving the building and walking up to their cars after dark,” he said.

Earley paid to stiffen his facility’s security with a 2020 grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a non-profit group funded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But Florida and 25 other states have since banned such outside funding.

Funding Woes

Election officials say they have struggled to get federal aid for safety measures.

The departments of Justice and Homeland Security said this year that funds would be available for election office security, but that money was claimed by local police departments and others more familiar with those programs, said Amy Cohen, the head of the National Association of State Election Directors.

A spokesman for the Justice Department said the agency’s Election Threats Task Force had worked since its launch in 2021 to steer federal aid to local election offices for security enhancements and had urged Congress to provide more such funding.

Some offices have paid for security enhancements by cutting back elsewhere. Jefferson County, Colorado, has scaled back mailings to voters to pay for four security guards who will monitor the busiest four voting locations in the weeks surrounding the election.

“It’s worth it for us, having the ability to be proactive rather than reactive,” said George Stern, the Jefferson County clerk.
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Proud Boys Member Pleads Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy in Capitol Riot 

A North Carolina man pleaded guilty Thursday of plotting with other members of the far-right Proud Boys to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election, making him the first member of the extremist group to plead guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge. 

Jeremy Joseph Bertino, 43, has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation of the role that Proud Boys leaders played in the mob’s attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a federal prosecutor said. 

Bertino’s cooperation could increase the pressure on other Proud Boys charged in the siege, including former national chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio. 

The guilty plea comes as the founder of another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, and four associates charged separately in the January 6 attack stand trial on a seditious conspiracy charge — a rarely used Civil War era offense that calls for up to 20 years behind bars. 

Bertino traveled to Washington with other Proud Boys in December 2020 and was stabbed during a fight, according to court documents. He was not in Washington for the January 6 riot because he was still recovering from his injuries, court papers say. 

Bertino participated in planning sessions in the days leading up to January 6 and received encrypted messages as early as January 4 indicating that Proud Boys were discussing possibly storming the Capitol, according to authorities. 

A statement of offense filed in court says that Bertino understood the Proud Boys’ goal in traveling to Washington was to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and that the group was prepared to use force and violence if necessary to do so. 

Bertino also pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawfully possessing firearms in March 2022 in Belmont, North Carolina. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly agreed to release Bertino pending a sentencing hearing, which wasn’t immediately scheduled. 

Justice Department prosecutor Erik Kenerson said sentencing guidelines for Bertino’s case recommend a prison sentence ranging from four years and three months to five years and three months. 

A trial is scheduled to start in December for Tarrio and four other members charged with seditious conspiracy: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. The charging document for Bertino’s case names those five defendants and a sixth Proud Boys member as his co-conspirators. 

The indictment in Tarrio’s case alleges that the Proud Boys held meetings and communicated over encrypted messages to plan for the attack in the days leading up to January 6. On the day of the riot, authorities say, Proud Boys dismantled metal barricades set up to protect the Capitol and mobilized, directed and led members of the crowd into the building. 

Video testimony by Bertino was featured in June at the first hearing by the House committee investigating January 6. The committee showed Bertino saying that the group’s membership “tripled, probably” after Trump’s comment at a presidential debate that the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.” 

Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on January 6, but authorities say he helped put into motion the violence that day. Police arrested Tarrio in Washington two days before the riot and charged him with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December 2020. Tarrio was released from jail on January 14 of this year after serving his five-month sentence for that case. 

More than three dozen people charged in the Capitol riot have been identified by federal authorities as leaders, members or associates of the Proud Boys. Two — Matthew Greene and Charles Donohoe — pleaded guilty of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, the January 6 joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College vote. 
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Supreme Court Takes Up Key Voting Rights Case From Alabama

The Supreme Court is taking up an Alabama redistricting case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power across the United States. 

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in the latest high-court showdown over the federal Voting Rights Act, lawsuits seeking to force Alabama to create a second Black majority congressional district. About 27% of Alabamians are Black, but they form a majority in just one of the state’s seven congressional districts. 

The court’s conservatives, in a 5-4 vote in February, blocked a lower court ruling that would have required a second Black majority district in time for the 2022 midterm elections. 

A similar ruling to create an additional Black majority district in Louisiana also was put on hold. 

Conservative high-court majorities have made it harder for racial minorities to use the Voting Rights Act in ideologically divided rulings in 2013 and 2021. A ruling for the state in the new case could weaken another powerful tool civil rights groups and minority voters have used to challenge racial discrimination in redistricting. 

The case also has an overlay of partisan politics. Republicans who dominate elective office in Alabama have been resistant to creating a second district with a Democratic-leaning Black majority that could send another Democrat to Congress. 

Two appointees of President Donald Trump were on the three-judge panel that unanimously held that Alabama likely violated the landmark 1965 law by diluting Black voting strength. 

The judges found that Alabama has concentrated Black voters in one district, while spreading them out among the others to make it impossible for them to elect a candidate of their choice. 

Alabama’s Black population is large enough and geographically compact enough to create a second district, the judges found. 

The state argues that the lower court ruling would force it to sort voters by race, insisting that it is taking a “race neutral” approach to redistricting. 

That argument could resonate with conservative justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts. He has opposed most consideration of race in voting both as a justice and in his time as a lawyer in Republican presidential administrations. 

Tuesday’s arguments are the first Supreme Court case involving race for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black female justice. 

A challenge to affirmative action in college admissions is set for arguments on October 31.

 
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