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Explainer: The Leak of Supreme Court’s Draft Roe v. Wade Reversal

Late Monday, the American news website Politico dropped a bombshell: A draft of a Supreme Court majority opinion it had obtained revealed that the court was set to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion in the United States in 1973.

The leak of a highly anticipated court opinion, unprecedented in modern history, set off a political firestorm in Washington and protests across the country. Democrats denounced the leaked draft decision as “the greatest restriction of rights in over 50 years” and vowed to pass legislation to protect abortion rights. Republicans cheered the reported opinion written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito while accusing the “radical left” of “bullying” Supreme Court justices.

In a city where the executive and legislative branches of government routinely leak information to the press, the Supreme Court has long enjoyed a reputation as one of a handful of relatively leak-free institutions.

And while some recent internal high court deliberations have been released to the press, never before has a draft opinion been leaked in its entirety prior to its announcement.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who, according to Politico, had yet to endorse the majority opinion by Alito and four other conservative justices, issued a stark condemnation of the leak.

“This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here,” he said in a statement.

At the heart of the Supreme Court case is a Mississippi law that prohibits performing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. During oral arguments in December, the court’s conservative justices appeared willing to uphold the law without signaling they were united in overturning the 1973 decision.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about the Supreme Court leak:

How rare are leaks of Supreme Court decisions?’

Extremely rare. The court keeps its internal deliberations and proceedings confidential to shield the justices from public pressure.

However, while court opinions have not been leaked in modern times, unauthorized releases of court decisions and deliberations date back to the mid-19th century, according to University of Georgia media law professor Jonathan Peters.

In 1852, the New-York Tribune reported the outcome of a court decision 10 days before its official announcement, Peters tweeted late Monday.

In 1972, The Washington Post reported details of the court’s internal deliberations in the Roe v. Wade case before the justices announced their decision. 

And in 2012, CBS News reported how Roberts initially sided with the court’s conservative wing before voting to uphold key provisions of the Affordable Care Act. 

But those leaks pale in comparison to what was given to Politico, experts say.

“There’s been leaks in the past of how a case might turn out for some internal deliberations of the court. But in terms of a fully baked 98-page majority opinion with citations, with all the notations of how a Supreme Court opinion looks and the outcome, this has never happened before,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of the nonpartisan Fix the Court.

Who might have leaked the document?

In a statement, Roberts ordered the Marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court — the court’s internal police force that protects the justices and the building — to investigate the leak. Colonel Gail A. Curley is the current marshal.

Sarah Parshall Perry, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, told VOA the Supreme Court’s internal police has “all the authority to enforce both federal and District of Columbia laws that may have been broken with this leak of an opinion.”

But Roth is skeptical that the culprit could be exposed.

About 50 to 100 people could have had access to the leaked document, including the nine justices, 37 clerks, administrative employees, building staff and security guards, he said.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of who might have leaked the copy to Politico,” Roth told VOA.

Were any crimes committed?

It’s not clear whether the leak involved any criminal violations. If an authorized person accessed and leaked the court document, charges could potentially involve theft of government property, but there are no indications that a person authorized to access the document shared the draft with Politico.

However, Supreme Court opinions, unlike many other government documents, are not classified, but the court’s deliberations and draft decisions are understood to be confidential, Perry said.

Moreover, leaking a draft opinion for the purpose of swaying justices could be a “serious offense,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics czar who is now a law professor at the University of Minnesota.

If a Supreme Court justice was involved in leaking the document, he or she could face impeachment by Congress.

Only one justice — Samuel Chase in the early 19th century — has ever been impeached, but none has been convicted and removed from the bench, according to Roth.

Will the public outcry change the final decision?

Highly unlikely. In a statement, Roberts said the leaked document “does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

While justices sometimes change how they vote in a case, some experts say the leak has made it more unlikely that the five conservatives on the court will walk back their apparent support for overturning Roe v. Wade, along with a 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Supreme Court justices, Painter noted, “never want to be perceived as bowing to public pressure.”

In recent months, Roberts was believed to be seeking a middle ground that would endorse the law without overturning Roe v. Wade. But after the leak, he may join the other conservatives on the court in overturning the decision, Perry said.

“He did try to seek a middle ground,” she said. “We might, for example, see a 5-3-1. But based on his very strenuous statement that this is not going to have an effect on how they are ruling, I am inclined to believe that we might have actually gained Chief Justice Roberts, when before this leak, we might not have had him.
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DC Reaches $750,000 Settlement in Trump Inauguration Lawsuit

Former President Donald Trump’s businesses and inaugural committee have reached a deal to pay Washington, D.C., $750,000 to resolve a lawsuit that alleged the committee overpaid for events at his hotel and enriched the former president’s family in the process, according to the District of Columbia’s attorney general. 

Attorney General Karl Racine announced the settlement agreement in the case against the Presidential Inaugural Committee, the Trump Organization and the Trump International Hotel in Washington in a tweet on Tuesday. The document had not yet been signed by a judge. 

The agreement says the case is being resolved “to avoid the cost, burden, and risks of further litigation” and that the organizations “dispute these allegations on numerous grounds and deny having engaged in any wrongdoing or unlawful conduct.” 

As part of the agreement, the defendants will pay the District of Columbia a total of $750,000, which will be used to benefit three nonprofit organizations, the settlement paperwork says. 

“We’re resolving our lawsuit and sending the message that if you violate DC nonprofit law—no matter how powerful you are—you’ll pay,” Racine said in a tweet. 

In a statement, Trump blasted Racine and noted that the settlement includes no admission of guilt or liability. 

“As crime rates are soaring in our Nation’s Capital, it is necessary that the Attorney General focus on those issues rather than a further leg of the greatest Witch-Hunt in political history,” Trump said. “This was yet another example of weaponizing Law Enforcement against the Republican Party and, in particular, the former President of the United States.” 

Racine has said the committee misused nonprofit funds and coordinated with the hotel’s management and members of the Trump family to arrange the events. He said one of the event’s planners raised concerns about pricing with Trump, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and Rick Gates, a top campaign official at the time. 

The committee has maintained that its finances were independently audited, and that all money was spent in accordance with the law. The committee raised an unprecedented $107 million to host events celebrating Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. But the committee’s spending has drawn mounting scrutiny. 

Gates, a former Trump campaign aide who cooperated in the special counsel’s Russia investigation, personally managed discussions with the hotel about using the space, including ballrooms and meeting rooms, the attorney general’s office has said. In one instance, Gates contacted Ivanka Trump and told her that he was “a bit worried about the optics” of the committee paying such a high fee, Racine said. 

Prosecutors say the committee could have hosted inaugural events at other venues either for free or for reduced costs but didn’t consider those options. 
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Report: Draft Opinion Shows US Supreme Court to Overturn Abortion Rights

In a rare leak from the highest court in the U.S., Politico reported it has obtained a draft Supreme Court opinion showing a majority of the court in favor of striking down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. 

The document, labeled as a “1st Draft” by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated among the other justices in February, represents a breach in the highly secretive deliberation process among the justices in which their decisions are unknown until the rulings are officially issued. 

Those positions can change during the deliberation process, even after the drafting of a majority opinion, and the final ruling is expected before the court finishes its current term in late June or early July. 

At stake is the issue of abortion rights in the United States, which since the Roe decision have been protected on a national level and reaffirmed in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

A Supreme Court spokesperson declined to comment. 

Public opinion polls in show a majority of the U.S. public favors abortions being legal either in most or all cases. 

“If the Supreme Court does indeed issue a majority opinion along the lines of the leaked draft authored by Justice Alito, the shift in the tectonic plates of abortion rights will be as significant as any opinion the Court has ever issued,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement late Monday. “It would deprive half the nation of a fundamental, constitutional right that has been enjoyed by millions of women for over 50 years.” 

Alito is one of six conservative justices on the nine-person court and overturning Roe has been a longtime goal of social conservatives in the United States. 

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,” the draft opinion says. 

The justices are deciding on the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which involves the state of Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

A federal appeals court ruled against Mississippi, saying its timeframe went against the standards set in Roe and Casey that allow a mother to terminate a pregnancy without state interference before a fetus is viable outside the womb. 

The draft opinion rejects the limits on state authority in the Roe and Casey decisions, saying state lawmakers should be the ones to decide what is legal in their state. 

“Abortion presents a profound moral question,” the draft says. “The Constitution does not prohibit citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.” 

Politico said it received a copy of the 98-page draft decision “from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Trump: Republican Political Kingmaker or Political Meddler?

Is former U.S. President Donald Trump a Republican political kingmaker or just a political meddler? 

The first answers are coming in the month of May.  

The United States is about to get its first significant reading on how much political clout Trump retains over the Republican Party 16 months after he played a role in hundreds of his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol to protest his 2020 election defeat and then left Washington as Democrat Joe Biden became president. 

Trump, who retains a wide Republican following, to this day claims he was cheated out another four-year term in the White House and has teased making another run for the presidency in 2024.  

To that end, he has endorsed nearly 130 Republican candidates in coming party primary elections — state legislative and congressional contenders and incumbents — who share his political vision, with many of them also embracing his contention that Biden fraudulently won. Some of those Trump is supporting have also been accused of abusing women. 

Court after court has ruled that the scant irregularities that may have occurred in 2020 would not have been sufficient to overturn Biden’s victory. Those decisions have not stopped Trump from making the election fraud claims and endorsing his most ardent supporters, even as other key Republicans and interest groups aligned with the party have endorsed their opponents. 

The first test comes Tuesday in the Midwestern state of Ohio, which Trump easily won in the 2020 election, where he has endorsed the Senate candidacy of J.D. Vance, author of a book called “Hillbilly Elegy.” It is a memoir of Vance’s upbringing in Ohio and acts in part as an explanation of why white working-class voters became enamored of Trump during his successful run for the presidency in 2016 and subsequent loss for reelection two years ago. 

Several of the Ohio Republican Senate contenders actively sought Trump’s endorsement but the former president went with Vance even though he had criticized Trump’s 2016 candidacy, saying then that his “actual policy proposals, such as they are, range from immoral to absurd” and describing Trump as “reprehensible.” 

But Vance, as he transformed himself into a politician, recanted his views about Trump, saying, “I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy. I think he was a good president; I think he made a lot of good decisions for people, and I think he took a lot of flak.” 

According to recent polling, Trump’s mid-April endorsement of the 37-year-old Vance immediately doubled his share of the vote and pushed him to a narrow lead in the crowded field. He could now be positioned to win the Republican Senate nomination with just a quarter of the primary vote to run in the November general election against the likely Democratic nominee, Congressman Tim Ryan. 

But Vance’s six-year-old attacks on Trump quickly reemerged as a point of contention in the Republican primary. 

The Club for Growth, a national pro-Republican anti-tax group and often a Trump ally, had already endorsed one of Vance’s opponents, Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer who has pledged that if he wins, he will take on “squishy establishment” Republicans in Washington. After Trump’s Vance endorsement, Club for Growth immediately started airing television ads showing Vance’s repeated 2016 attacks on then-presidential candidate Trump. 

Trump angrily had an assistant send a vulgar message to Club for Growth president David McIntosh protesting the broadcasting of the ad, but the group, rather than backing off, responded by saying it would increase its spending on the anti-Vance ad with his attacks on Trump. 

Three other contenders narrowly trailed Vance in the latest polling, giving them a chance as well in the Tuesday election: Ohio State Senator Matt Dolan, businessman Mike Gibbons, and former Ohio Republican chairwoman Jane Timken. All of them have collected endorsements from various state and national Republican figures. 

In Nebraska

Trump’s grip on Republican politics will also be tested this month in three other states. 

Next up is the May 10 party primary in the staunchly conservative Midwestern state of Nebraska, where Trump on Sunday rallied with gubernatorial contender Charles Herbster, a businessman who has advised Trump on agricultural policy and donated to his campaigns.  

Herbster is denying allegations that he has sexually assaulted multiple women. Trump called Herbster a “very good man” who had been “maligned.” 

“I defend people when I know they’re good,” Trump said. “A lot of people, they look at you and say: you don’t have to do it, sir. I defend my friends.” 

In Pennsylvania

A week later, on May 17 in the Eastern state of Pennsylvania, which Trump lost in the 2020 election, he is backing the Senate candidacy of a celebrity television doctor, Mehmet Oz, in his run for an open seat after Republican Senator Pat Toomey announced he would be retiring. 

Oz, echoing Trump, is disputing the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. 

“I have discussed it with President Trump and we cannot move on,” Oz said at a recent debate. “As all the other candidates up here have outlined, under the cover of COVID, there were draconian changes made to our voting laws by Democratic leadership, and they have blocked appropriate reviews of some of those decisions. We have to be serious about what happened in 2020, and we won’t be able to address that until we can really look under the hood.” 

Oz’s key opponent appears to be David McCormick, a former hedge fund executive and undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs during the administration of former Republican President George W. Bush. 

Trump’s first choice in the Senate race in Pennsylvania was not Oz but rather Sean Parnell, an Army veteran and former congressional candidate who dropped out of the race late last year after losing a custody battle with his estranged wife over primary custody of their three children. A judge ruled that Parnell had committed some abusive acts toward his wife in the past. 

In Georgia

Last up on the May political primary calendar is Georgia, on the 24th, a state Trump lost in 2020. A grand jury is convening in the state capital of Atlanta to investigate his possibly criminal efforts in a taped telephone call he made to try to convince a state election official to “find” him one more vote than he needed to overtake Biden’s 11,779-vote victory. 

Trump’s anger over his loss in the southern state — the first for a Republican presidential candidate in Georgia since 1992 — has spilled over to the state’s gubernatorial primary. Trump has endorsed former Republican U.S. Senator David Perdue in his race for the state governorship over incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. 

Trump is opposing Kemp’s reelection because he claims Kemp did not do enough two years ago to help him overturn Biden’s victory in the state. 

Polling in the state, however, shows Kemp with a substantial lead over Perdue, who lost his Senate seat in a run-off election in early 2021. 

Trump is also supporting Herschel Walker, a former professional football player for a Trump-owned team, for the Republican Senate nomination in the state. Polls show Walker far ahead in his maiden bid for elected office and will likely face Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in the November general election. 

In supporting Walker, Trump has ignored advice from Washington Republican political analysts that Walker is a flawed candidate after he acknowledged abusing his former wife, who accused him of holding a pistol to her head and “extremely threatening behavior.” 

 
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Biden Calls Former VP Mondale ‘Giant’ of Political History 

President Joe Biden saluted his “friend of five decades” Walter Mondale on Sunday, traveling to the University of Minnesota to remember the former vice president and Democratic Party elder whose memorial service was delayed for a year due to the pandemic. 

Mondale died in April 2021 at age 93. He is credited with transforming the office of the vice presidency — which Biden himself held for eight years under President Barack Obama — expanding its responsibilities and making himself a key adviser to President Jimmy Carter. 

Mondale “was a giant in American political history,” Biden said of Mondale, known to friends as “Fritz.” He added that Mondale was one of the “toughest, smartest men I’ve ever worked with” both as Senate colleagues and as a mentor when Biden was Obama’s No. 2 and then later as president. 

Biden emphasized Mondale’s empathy, recalling his own promise during the 2020 presidential campaign to unite the country. That’s something the president has strayed from a bit in recent weeks, as he seeks to draw a starker contrast between his administration and congressional Republicans who have opposed it on nearly every major issue. 

“It was Fritz who lit the way.” Biden said. “Everybody is to be treated with dignity. Everybody.” 

Biden added of Mondale: “He united people sharing the light, the same hopes — even when we disagreed, he thought that was important.” 

“It’s up to each of us to reflect that light that Fritz was all about.” 

The invitation-only, 90-minute service Sunday inside a stately campus auditorium featured plentiful organ music. Biden, who received a standing ovation, said he spoke with Mondale’s family beforehand and “got emotional” himself. 

Democratic Sen. Tina Smith called Mondale a “bona fide political celebrity” who still dedicated time to races large and small back in their home state. Minnesota civil rights icon Josie Johnson spoke of what a good listener Mondale was and how he championed inclusiveness. 

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar described once being an intern who climbed under chairs and a table to carry out a furniture inventory when Mondale was vice president. 

“That was my first job in Washington. And, thanks to Walter Mondale, this was my second,” Klobuchar said of being a senator, noting that Mondale encouraged her to run and taught “the pundits in Washington how to say my name.” 

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Minnesota may be better known as Mondale’s home state than its moniker “The Land of 10,000 Lakes,” and praised Mondale’s intellect, humility, humor and optimism. 

“He embodied a sense of joy. He lived his life every single day,” Walz said. “At 91, he was still fishing for walleye. Unlike me, he was catching some.” 

A booklet given to attendees for the “afternoon of remembrance and reflection” quoted from Mondale’s 2010 book, “The Good Fight”: “I believe that the values of the American people — our fundamental decency, our sense of justice and fairness, our love of freedom — are the country’s greatest assets, and that steering by their lodestar is the only true course forward.” 

Its back cover showed Mondale’s face next to the slogan, “We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace,” which Klobuchar described as being memorialized after the then-vice president said them at the end of the Carter administration. 

Mondale was a graduate of the University of Minnesota and its law school, which has a building named after him. During Sunday’s remembrance, Biden wiped his eyes as a performance of “Tomorrow” from the musical “Annie” played, and the service closed with the university’s marching band, which sent people away with the “Minnesota Rouser” fight song. 

Mondale followed a trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, serving as Minnesota attorney general before replacing Humphrey in the Senate. He was Carter’s vice president from 1977 to 1981. 

Mondale also lost one of the most lopsided presidential elections ever, to Ronald Reagan in 1984. He carried only Minnesota and the District of Columbia after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won. But he made history in that race by picking Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, of New York, as his running mate, becoming the first major-party nominee to put a woman on the ticket. 

Mondale remained an important Democratic voice for decades afterward, and went on to serve as ambassador to Japan under President Bill Clinton. In 2002, at 74, he was drafted to run for the Senate again after Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash shortly before the election. Mondale lost the abbreviated race to Republican Norm Coleman. 
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Biden Roasts Trump, GOP, Himself at Correspondents’ Dinner

The White House press corps’ annual gala returned Saturday night along with the roasting of Washington, the journalists who cover it and the man at the helm: President Joe Biden.

The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, sidelined by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, featured Biden as the first president in six years to accept an invitation. Donald Trump shunned the event while in office.

“Just imagine if my predecessor came to this dinner this year,” Biden told an audience of 2,600, among them journalists, government officials and celebrities. “Now that would really have been a real coup.”

The president took the opportunity to test out his comedic chops, making light of the criticism he has faced in his 18 months in office while taking aim at his predecessor, the Republican Party and the members of the press.

“I’m really excited to be here tonight with the only group of Americans with a lower approval rating than I have,” Biden said to the Hilton ballroom filled with members of the media.

Biden also made light of the “Let’s Go Brandon” slogan, which has become the right’s stand-in for swearing at the president.

“Republicans seem to support one fella, some guy named Brandon,” Biden said, causing an uproar of laughter among the crowd. “He’s having a really good year. I’m happy for him.”

As far as roasting the GOP, he said, “There’s nothing I can say about the GOP that Kevin McCarthy hasn’t already put on tape.”

In addition to speeches from Biden and comedian Trevor Noah, the hourslong event had taped comedic skits that included late-night TV hosts, comedians and even Biden himself.

“Thank you for having me here,” Noah said to Biden. “And I was a little confused on why me, but then I was told that you get your highest approval ratings when a biracial African guy is standing next to you.”

While most of the speech was filled with cutting jabs, Biden did make note of the important role journalism plays in American democracy, especially in the last decade.

“I mean this from the bottom of my heart, that you, the free press, matter more than you ever did in the last century,” he said. “You are the guardians of the truth.”

The dinner had other serious moments, with tributes to pioneer journalists of color, aspiring student reporters as well as a dedication to the journalists detained, injured or killed during the coverage of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The premier event for news media in Washington, the correspondents’ dinner mixed Washington journalists like CNN’s Jake Tapper and MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid with celebrities Kim Kardashian, Pete Davidson, Brooke Shields, Caitlyn Jenner, Drew Barrymore and Martha Stewart. Among the large swath of government officials and other prominent figures was Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Accompanied by the first lady, the president came to the event while trying to strike a careful balance with the nation fatigued by the pandemic yet facing an uptick in infections. The ongoing national threat has struck closer to home for the president: Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive this past week and Dr. Anthony Fauci skipped the dinner for health precautions.

The U.S. was experiencing a COVID-19 case spike from a highly contagious subvariant of omicron, with confirmed infections rising to about 44,000 per day, up from 26,000 a month ago. Still, virus deaths and hospitalizations were near, or at, pandemic lows, with the BA.2 variant proving less severe than earlier virus strains.

In the wake of the recent Gridiron Club press dinner in Washington, dozens of attendees, including members of Congress and of Biden’s Cabinet and journalists, tested positive for COVID-19. The White House Correspondents’ Association said it was requiring same-day antigen testing for its dinner attendees even before the Gridiron outbreak, then added a vaccination requirement.

Biden, 79, decided to pass up the meal but turn up later for the program. While he planned to be masked when not speaking, a maskless president greeted award winners on the dais and could be seen smiling broadly during the dinner program.

The correspondents’ dinner debuted in 1921. Three years later, Calvin Coolidge became the first president to attend, and all have since, except Trump. Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon opted not to attend every year of their presidencies, however, and Reagan, then recovering from an assassination attempt, missed the 1981 installment — but called in from Camp David.

“The thing I think this shows is the restoration to the health of the relationship,” Harold Holzer, author of the book The Presidents vs. The Press and the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York, said ahead of the dinner. “It’s still barbed, there are still tense moments. But that’s OK.”
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White House Correspondents Dinner Returns, With Biden Headlining

U.S. President Joe Biden will resume a Washington tradition by speaking at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday night, the first president to speak at the annual event since 2016.

After being canceled for two years due to COVID-19 pandemic and boycotted by Donald Trump during his presidency, the event returns with gusto this year, featuring remarks by comedian Trevor Noah.

More than 20 WHCA-related parties are being staged around Washington before and after the major event on Saturday night and several senior administration officials will attend as well as a smattering of celebrities from the entertainment world.

However, a recent rise in COVID-19 cases in Washington, in particular an outbreak at the journalists’ white-tie Gridiron dinner early in April, has brought an undercurrent of caution to the White House dinner.

Organizers are requiring every attendee be tested for the virus, and some top officials, including infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, have dropped out.

The White House said Biden will take extra precautions at the event – skipping the dinner portion and attend only the speakers program, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Wednesday. He may opt to wear a mask when he is not speaking.

Asked what Biden will tell the crowd, Psaki said, “I will lower expectations and say it’s not funny at all.”

In recent weeks, the president has mostly been unmasked at crowded White House events, but those events had lower attendance than Saturday’s dinner, which is expected to seat about 2,600 journalists, Washington officials and celebrities.  

The White House Correspondents Association was founded in 1914 and has held a dinner nearly every year since the first one in 1921 to celebrate the reporters who cover the presidency and raise money for scholarships.
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US Seeks Authority to Give Seized Russian Assets to Ukraine

The Biden administration is asking Congress for additional legal authority to make it easier for the U.S. government to seize Russian government and oligarch assets and transfer the proceeds to Ukraine.

The White House released the package of legislative changes Thursday as President Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine as it seeks to fend off a devastating Russian invasion, now in its third month.

If enacted, the proposed measures would “establish new authorities for the forfeiture of property linked to Russian kleptocracy, allow the government to link the proceeds to support Ukraine, and further strengthen related law enforcement tools,” the White House said in a statement.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urged Congress to quickly enact the changes.

“The proposals the president announced today will give the Justice Department critical resources and tools to continue and strengthen this work,” Garland said Thursday during a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Garland during a hearing earlier this week that “there will be a receptive audience to give you more money if that’s what it takes to go after the people who profited from destroying the Russian economy.”

The proposal comes as Ukrainian officials asked Western governments to hand over Russian oligarch and government assets seized since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said seized Russian assets, including frozen Russian Central Bank reserves, “have to be used to rebuild Ukraine after the war, as well as to pay for the losses caused to other nations.”

So far, European countries in which Putin’s wealthy associates have long maintained homes and investments, have led in seizing their assets.

According to the White House, European Union member states have reported freezing more than $30 billion in Russian assets, including $7 billion worth of boats, helicopters, real estate and artwork.

By contrast, the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned and blocked boats and aircraft belonging to Russian elites worth more than $1 billion, the White House said.

The confiscations include the seizure earlier this month of a $90 million yacht owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

In addition, the department has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian elites held in U.S. bank accounts, the White House said.

U.S. lawmakers have voiced support for stepped-up enforcement of sanctions imposed on Russian individuals and companies.

Critics say some of the proposed legislative changes go too far and could lead to government abuse of civil forfeiture authority.

“It’s not just aimed at ‘oligarchs’ and ‘Russian elites,’ whatever that means,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. “Many of the provisions would greatly expand the government’s civil forfeiture powers in other cases, as well.”

Here is a look at the new enforcement tools the administration is seeking.

Transferring Russian assets to Ukraine

The administration’s key proposal would allow the departments of Justice, Treasury and State to hand over to Ukraine Russian assets forfeited to the U.S. government.

At present, forfeited property goes into the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeitures Fund, which is primarily used to compensate victims of crime and to fund investigations.

To empower the government to give the money to Ukraine, “multiple statutes” would have to be amended, according to the Justice Department.

These include the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a 1970 law enacted to fight organized crime.

Garland said during the House hearing that the proposed changes would make it “easier” to transfer seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

Seizing property used to evade sanctions

Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the primary U.S. sanctions statue, proceeds from violating sanctions are subject to forfeiture to the government.

The administration wants Congress to amend the 1977 law, extending the government’s authority to forfeit – or take ownership of – “property used to facilitate sanctions violations,” not just “proceeds of the offenses.”

The IEEPA authorizes the president to impose sanctions on foreign actors, including individuals and government officials.

Defining sanctions evasion as ‘racketeering activity’

The administration wants sanctions evasion to be defined as a “racketeering activity” under RICO.

Famously used in the 1980s to bring down mob leaders, the law includes a long list of crimes as racketeering, from bribery and money laundering to drug trafficking and kidnapping.

The proposed change “would extend a powerful forfeiture tool against racketeering enterprises engaged in sanctions evasion,” according to the Justice Department.

Creating a new criminal offense

The proposal would create a new criminal offense, making it illegal to possess proceeds obtained from “corrupt dealings” with the Russian government.

Smith said the proposed creation of a new offense is “scary.”

“How are ‘corrupt dealings’ to be defined?” he wrote in an email to VOA.  “Presumably to make it as easy as possible for the government to seize and forfeit ‘oligarchs’ assets.”

Extending the time limit for prosecuting oligarchs

The proposal would extend the so-called statutes of limitations for prosecuting money laundering and seeking forfeiture of their assets from five years to 10 years.  A statute of limitations limits the prosecution of an offense within a specified time.

Conducting such investigations can be complicated and time-consuming.

“Extending the statute of limitations would provide additional time for investigators and prosecutors to hold oligarchs criminally accountable,” the White House said in a statement.
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 Biden to Visit South Korea, Japan in May

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to travel to South Korea and Japan next month to meet with leaders and discuss economic and security ties. 

The White House announced the trip Wednesday, saying Biden would go to the region May 20-24. 

In South Korea, Biden will hold talks with President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was elected in March. 

In Japan, Biden is due to meet with Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and to hold talks with leaders from the Quad group of countries that includes Japan, Australia, India and the United States.
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France’s Election Offers Lessons to US Ahead of Midterms  

This week’s French presidential contest boiled down to a debate between nationalism and globalism — and globalism prevailed in the victory of President Emmanuel Macron, an ally of President Joe Biden. What can the U.S. learn from this as Biden’s party faces elections? VOA’s Anita Powell reports.
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Bill to Help Taiwan Regain WHO Status Passes Congress

The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation Wednesday calling on the State Department to submit a plan to help Taiwan regain its observer status at the World Health Organization, seeking to boost the island as it faces pressure from China.

The House passed the bill 425-0, sending it to the White House because it passed the Senate in August. Congressional aides said they expected President Joe Biden to sign the measure into law.

Taiwan is excluded from most global organizations such as the WHO, the U.N. health agency, because of the objections of China, which considers the island one of its provinces and not a separate country.

The measure directs the U.S. secretary of state to establish a strategy for obtaining observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the WHO.

Taiwan was stripped of that status in 2017.

Urging support for the bill, Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly praised Taiwan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that it had only 37,000 confirmed cases despite a population of 23.5 million, and that it shared expertise and donated protective equipment internationally.

“Taiwan’s leadership and contribution to global health security demonstrate why it ought to be part of the general conversation on public health,” he said.

Taiwan has raised its alert level since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wary that Beijing might make a similar move on the island, though it has reported no signs this is about to happen.

Similar concerns have fueled efforts in the United States to support Taiwan, such as increasing its participation in international organizations like the WHO.
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House 1/6 Panel Wants to Hear from McCarthy after New Audio 

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol is redoubling its efforts to have GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy appear for an interview amid new revelations concerning his private conversations about the deadly attack, the chairman said Tuesday.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the panel expects to decide this week about issuing a second request to McCarthy, who has declined to voluntarily appear before the panel. The committee is also looking at summoning a widening group of House Republicans for interviews, Thompson said, as more information emerges about their conversations with the Trump White House in the run-up to the Capitol siege.

The committee is racing to wrap up this phase of its work amid newly released audio recordings of McCarthy’s private remarks after the Jan. 6 attack, when supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

In a Jan. 10, 2021, audio recording released Tuesday by The New York Times, McCarthy tells fellow Republican leaders that Trump’s far-right allies in the House are “putting people in jeopardy” with their public tweets and comments that could put other lawmakers at risk of violence.

Earlier, the Times reported that McCarthy, in conversations with House Republicans, had blamed Trump for the attack. The audio recordings released by the Times are part of reporting for a forthcoming book, This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.

Thompson said the committee met most of Tuesday deciding next steps on McCarthy and other House members.

“We will probably look at engaging some of the lawmakers by invitation at this point, and we’ll go from there,” Thompson said at the Capitol.

The panel had previously sought interviews from McCarthy and Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, two Trump allies central to the effort to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to Biden.

All three have declined to voluntarily appear, but the committee has stopped short of taking the more dramatic step of issuing subpoenas to the sitting members of Congress to compel their testimony.

Thompson noted that the earlier invitation to McCarthy was sent “before this latest revelation that was reported on tape.” He told reporters that “in all probability” McCarthy would get another invitation.

At the same time, the panel is broadening its outreach to a potentially much wider group of Republican lawmakers who are now known to have played a more substantial role than previously understood ahead of the riot and as it unfolded.

“We’ll make a decision on any others before the week is out,” Thompson said.

Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, a Trump ally who was with a group of lawmakers who met in December 2020 at the White House, has suggested he would appear before the panel. Brooks also spoke at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally before the mob descended on the Capitol.

Additionally, the panel is now eyeing other House Republican lawmakers reported to have been working closely with Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, as they sought to challenge Biden’s win.

A handful of lawmakers’ names were included in testimony released late Friday as part of a court filing as the committee seeks access to Meadows’ text messages.

“We will probably look at engaging some of the lawmakers by invitation at this point, and we’ll go from there,” Thompson said Tuesday.

The panel is working swiftly to launch public hearings, which it hopes to both start and conclude by June, before issuing an initial report of its findings in fall.
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Biden to Deliver Eulogy for Madeleine Albright

President Joe Biden will eulogize former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at her funeral Wednesday at the Washington National Cathedral.  

The invitation-only service will be livestreamed beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern time.  

“When I think of Madeleine, I will always remember her fervent faith that ‘America is the indispensable nation,'” Biden wrote in a statement after Albright’s death last month. 

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also will give speeches, along with Albright’s three daughters. Musicians Chris Botti, Judy Collins, and Herbie Hancock will perform.  

Albright, who died last month at age 84, was appointed by President Clinton in 1997 as the country’s 64th secretary of state and the first woman to serve in that position. She had previously served as his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. 

An immigrant from Prague, Czechoslovakia, she helped steer Western foreign policy in the aftermath of the Cold War, in addition to promoting human rights and democracy around the world.  

During an interview on “PBS NewsHour” last month, President Clinton said that Albright “represented America’s best possible future.” 

Her death was “an immense loss to the world in a time when we need the lessons of her life the most,” President Clinton said in a statement. 
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Biden Returns to In-Person Fundraising in Pacific Northwest

U.S. President Joe Biden is returning to in-person political fundraising with the easing of coronavirus precautions that limited his exposure to large crowds. The president’s ability to draw political donations is especially important for Democrats as the face serious challenges to sustain their majorities in the House and Senate. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya has the story from Seattle.
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Long-Serving Utah Senator Orrin Hatch Dies at Age 88

Orrin G. Hatch, who became the longest-serving Republican senator in history as he represented Utah for more than four decades, died Saturday at age 88.

His death was announced in a statement from his foundation, which did not specify a cause. He launched the Hatch Foundation as he retired in 2019 and was replaced by Mitt Romney.

A conservative on most economic and social issues, he nonetheless teamed with Democrats several times during his long career on issues ranging from stem cell research to rights for people with disabilities to expanding children’s health insurance. He also formed friendships across the aisle, particularly with the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

He also championed GOP issues like abortion limits and helped shape the U.S. Supreme Court, including defending Clarence Thomas against sexual harassment allegations during confirmation hearings.

Toward the end of his career, he also helped pass a federal tax overhaul and pushed for President Donald Trump to downsize two national monuments in Utah as he called for a return to an era of political civility. He became an ally of Trump.

He was also noted for his side career as a singer and recording artist of music with themes of his religious faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He is survived by his wife, Elaine, and their six children. 
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Biden: Public Works Plan Can Boost US That’s ‘Fallen Behind’

President Joe Biden opened a two-day visit to the Pacific Northwest by focusing on improvements planned for the runway and roof of the airport where he landed Thursday, rather than any of the region’s traditional, natural attractions.

Portland International Airport lies on a tectonic plate fault line, but crews are working on a series of modernizations, including a new, earthquake-resistant runway capable of accommodating jets coming and going even after a major natural disaster. The design is modeled after the runway of the Sendai airport in Japan, which Biden said he’d visited and which survived the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in that country.

The trip is Biden’s first as president to this part of the country and comes as he has increased travel across the U.S. to tout the $1 trillion, bipartisan infrastructure package his administration supported and Congress approved last fall. Just since last week, Biden has been to Iowa, North Carolina and New Hampshire, and will travel to Seattle after the Oregon stop.

The president has been trying to promote the idea that he’s successfully advanced key policy goals — including providing badly needed funding for long-neglected public works projects around the country — despite Republicans in Congress opposing many of the White House’s priorities at every turn. The GOP counters that Biden has done little to tackle many of the nation’s most pressing issues, failing to control inflation that has climbed to its highest levels in more than 40 years or slow crime rates that are on the rise in some parts of the country.

“We’ve fallen behind. We haven’t invested in ourselves,” Biden said in a speech during which he noted that the public works package includes $25 billion to improve airports across America. “It bothers the heck out of me that there’s this belief that we can’t do big things anymore. We can.”

He added, “America invented modern aviation, but a lot of our airports are far behind our competitors.”

Portland’s airport is flanked by mountains and hills, yet, before his remarks, Biden was more attentive to the workers as they explained how the improvements would increase resiliency and energy efficiency. Officials are spending $2 billion on the airport revamp, including upgrades to the complex’s roof whose new sections will be primarily made of wood.

The roof is being disassembled into 20 sections and then pieced back together over the terminal, which Democratic Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley called “an incredible investment in mass timber.”

The White House says about 19.8 million passengers traveled through Portland’s airport in 2019 and says air cargo has increased more than 19% since 2019 as online commerce has grown amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Among those on hand was Oregon Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio, who said, “I’ve been fighting my entire career for investments that will rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.” He said the U.S. continues to face systemic challenges, including “an economy that rewards wealth instead of work.”

Biden later headed to a Democratic Party fundraiser at Portland’s yacht club, where he took aim at the GOP and Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s proposals for tax increases on the middle class and a potential end to Social Security. The president noted that Florida Republicans also are fighting with the Walt Disney Co. over their “don’t say gay” law for schools and predicted that Democrats would add two seats to secure a 52-48 majority in the Senate.

“The far right’s taken over that party,” Biden said. “And it’s not even conservative in a traditional sense of conservatism. It’s mean. It’s ugly.”

Historically, the party that controls the White House usually loses congressional seats in the next midterm races — and Republicans have suggested for months that they will easily win control of the House and Senate in November. Scott, the head of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, has proposed imposing income taxes on more than half of Americans who currently don’t pay any, and moving to phase out federal legislation after five years — which could presumably threaten Social Security.

Biden plans to mark Earth Day on Friday in Seattle by speaking about a need to bolster the nation’s resilience in the face of threats like wildfire, and a need to rapidly deploy clean energy, the White House said.

In an Earth Day statement, Biden called the infrastructure law “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build on these actions and accelerate our nation’s ability to confront the environmental and climate challenges we face.”

“For the future of our planet, for our health, and for our children and grandchildren, we must act now,” it said. 
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Will Rescuing Middle America Save Democracy?

Closing the economic divide in the hard-hit industrial Midwestern United States could dampen the fervor of anti-democratic populism, a new working paper suggests.

Populism is ascribed to political movements that embrace an us-versus-them mentality. Battles are often fought along socioeconomic, ethnic or communal lines.

“When communities are in decline, when residents are anxious about their own futures and the futures of their children, when the younger generation has left, there is a great feeling of frustration, of anxiety, of ill ease about losing status and a changing world,” says John Austin, principal author of the report. “And the populists, of both left and right, prey on these attitudes and anxieties.”

The American Midwest was once an economic powerhouse with thriving steel, oil, aviation and auto industries. But globalization and technological change shuttered many of those factories, leaving struggling communities with far fewer high-wage unionized jobs. Some studies suggest economic grievances, often stemming from an erosion of earning potential and living standards, are behind the rise of populism in the United States.

“Left-wing populists definitely prey on the same resentment and anxieties about a changing world as right-wing populists, but the left-wing populists offer a policy solution: ‘Let’s soak the rich, get you free health care, free college, a decent wage.’ That’s their solution,” says Austin, director of the Michigan Economic Center and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“Right-wing populists offer a culture war: ‘Don’t trust the government, immigrants or someone else who’s getting theirs (opportunities and benefits) at your expense. They’re the cause of your community distress.’ And the right-wing populists also encourage anti-democratic behaviors: ‘Don’t trust the press. You can’t trust the government. We can’t trust our own institutions,'” he says.

Samuel Abrams, a professor of politics and social sciences at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, sees the right-left divide differently.

“My sense is that populism on the right often seeks to retain our institutions and hearken back to some sense of what that institution may have been,” says Abrams, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The flip side is, if you look at the rhetoric on the left, my sense is that it’s not about preserving institutions, it’s about destroying institutions. It’s not about saving them at all, and I tend to see a lack of proposals on the left of what would replace these institutions.”

The report finds that some Midwestern communities are on the rebound because they’ve been able to exploit their local assets.

“Their economic development approach is, ‘We have to grow our own new future based on who we are,” Austin says. “It’s not about chasing factories to come in, and it’s not about giving tax breaks to get folks to move to town. It’s about looking around and investing in and leveraging whatever assets you have and building from within.”

That can mean growing local universities and research institutions, revitalizing downtowns to make them more walkable and livable, and investing in schools, the arts and recreation.

“Those investments in quality of life and play have much stronger impacts on a community’s employment growth and population growth than do traditional business-friendly measures like ‘Let’s cut taxes and lower regulation and hope that that will attract some industry or some investment,'” Austin says.

The problem, according to Abrams, is that voters aren’t necessarily rational about what they need, often embracing wholesale a set of ideas on the left or the right rooted more in ideology than practical concerns.

“So, yes, you could absolutely transform these heartland communities. I think it would be very powerful to do that, and I think that would go a long way,” Abrams says. “But we then still have to deal, again, with this ideological polarization. … If you look at a lot of the rhetoric of the populist movement right now with immigration, defense, a lot of xenophobic (attitudes) … you can make people wealthy or more comfortable, but it’s not going to change that.”

Data from the 2020 presidential election between incumbent Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden show that some Midwestern cities and counties that experienced economic growth shifted toward the Democrats, away from Trump’s brand of populism and toward Biden’s center-left views.

But, in Abrams’ view, economic resurgence can only do so much.

“I do think there’ll be some change if we can enhance economic stability and help people feel less exposed to economic change,” Abrams says. “But there are also numerous examples of where you can find Trump supporters and populists, on the left and the right, where it has nothing to do with money and it has everything to do with ideology.”
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US Officials Warn of ‘Dramatic’ Increases in Space Competition with Russia, China

Space is being increasingly militarized, says the ‘Challenges in Security in Space Report – 2022’
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Special US Envoy to Horn of Africa Reportedly Stepping Down

David Satterfield to leave post amid political and economic turmoil in Ethiopia and Sudan 
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Biden Blames the ‘Putin Price Hike’ for Inflation

For President Joe Biden, the pain Americans are feeling in their pocketbooks comes down to an increasingly repeated slogan: “Putin’s price hike.” For more than a month now, his administration has tried to blame rising prices on the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine. But the truth is a little more complicated, analysts say. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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Oklahoma Governor Signs Bill to Make Abortion Illegal

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights. 

The bill, which takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns next month, makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother. Abortion rights advocates say the bill signed by the GOP governor is certain to face a legal challenge. 

Its passage comes as the conservative U.S. Supreme Court considers ratcheting back abortion rights that have been in place for nearly 50 years. 

“We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma,” Stitt said during a signing ceremony for the bill, flanked by anti-abortion lawmakers, clergy and students. “I promised Oklahomans that I would sign every pro-life bill that hits my desk, and that’s what we’re doing here today.” 

Under the bill, anyone convicted of performing an abortion would face up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. It does not authorize criminal charges against a woman for receiving an abortion. 

Sen. Nathan Dahm, a Broken Arrow Republican now running for Congress who wrote the bill, called it the “strongest pro-life legislation in the country right now, which effectively eliminates abortion in Oklahoma.” 

Abortion rights advocates say the bill is clearly unconstitutional, and similar laws approved recently in Arkansas and Alabama have been blocked by federal courts. 

“Oklahoma legislators are trying to ban abortion from all sides and merely seeing which of these dangerous, shameful bills they can get their governor to sign,” Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Texas and Oklahoma and a board member at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement. Although similar anti-abortion bills approved by the Oklahoma Legislature in recent years have been stopped as unconstitutional, anti-abortion lawmakers have been buoyed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow new Texas abortion restrictions to remain in place. 

The new Texas law, the most restrictive anti-abortion law to take effect in the U.S. in decades, leaves enforcement up to private citizens, who are entitled to collect what critics call a “bounty” of $10,000 if they bring a successful lawsuit against a provider or anyone who helps a patient obtain an abortion. 

“The U.S. Supreme Court’s failure to stop Texas from nullifying the constitutional right to abortion has emboldened other states to do the same,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “We’ve sued the state of Oklahoma ten times in the last decade to protect abortion access and we will challenge this law as well to stop this travesty from ever taking effect.” 

Several states, including Oklahoma, are pursuing legislation similar to the Texas law this year. 

The Texas law bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Abortions in Texas have plummeted by about 50% since the law took effect, while the number of Texans going to clinics out of state and requesting abortion pills online has gone up. 

One of the Texas-style Oklahoma bills that is one vote away from the governor’s desk would ban abortions from the moment of conception and would take effect immediately upon the governor’s signature. 
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US State Department Orders Non-Emergency Personnel to Leave Shanghai 

Mandatory evacuation comes as authorities in Chinese financial hub gradually eases strict lockdown orders in some neighborhoods  
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Biden Announces Ghost Gun Rules, Nominates New ATF Head

U.S. President Joe Biden announced his administration’s efforts to regulate so-called ghost guns on Monday, including banning the manufacturing of kits that consumers can assemble themselves to make a gun that lacks a serial number, making it untraceable. Gun rights groups pledged to fight the rule. 

“Law enforcement is sounding the alarm,” Biden said at a White House event as he held a ghost gun. “Our communities are paying the price.”

“A year ago this week, standing here with many of you, I instructed the attorney general to write a regulation that would rein in the proliferation of ghost guns, because I was having trouble getting anything passed in the Congress,” Biden said. 

The new Justice Department rule will require that the kits feature serial numbers that law enforcement can use to track weapons used in crimes, that sellers be federally licensed and that background checks be conducted on buyers.  

Any store that obtains an existing ghost gun must also give it a serial number.  

Another part of the new rule addresses guns made with split receivers to ensure they are covered by regulations requiring serial numbers and background checks. The receiver is the part of a gun to which other parts, such as the barrel and trigger, attach.  

Another section requires gun sellers that were previously allowed to destroy most records after 20 years to now retain the information until they close their businesses. A shop that closes down will then transfer the records to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, known as the ATF.  

The Justice Department says that in 2021, law enforcement agencies reported 20,000 suspected ghost guns recovered during criminal investigations, 10 times as many as in 2016.  

Gun Owners of America, a gun rights advocacy group, vowed it would immediately fight the rule. 

“Just as we opposed the Trump Administration’s arbitrary ban on bump stocks, GOA will also sue Biden’s ATF to halt the implementation of this rule,” Aidan Johnston, the group’s director of federal affairs, said in a statement. The group believes the rule violates the U.S. Constitution and several federal laws. 

But the gun safety group Everytown called the new rules necessary. 

“Ghost guns look like a gun. They shoot like a gun, and they kill like a gun. But up until now, they haven’t been regulated like a gun,” said John Feinblatt, the organization’s president of gun safety.  

During the event, Biden also formally announced his choice of Steve Dettelbach as ATF director, a post that requires Senate confirmation. 

Biden’s first choice for the position, gun control advocate David Chipman, withdrew from consideration in the face of both Democratic and Republican opposition.  

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press. 

 
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Biden to Nominate New ATF Head, Announce Ghost Gun Rules

Steps meant to address use of guns lacking serial numbers
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Will U.S. Adopt Permanent Daylight Saving Time?

When Daylight Saving Time starts in most U.S. states every spring, clocks are set ahead one hour to make daylight last later each day through fall. Now, the U.S. Congress wants to make the shift permanent. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks into the so-called Sunshine Protection Act.
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Appeals Court OKs Biden Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate 

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld President Joe Biden’s requirement that all federal employees be vaccinated against COVID-19.

In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed a lower court and ordered dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the mandate.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of Texas by President Donald Trump, had issued a nationwide injunction against the requirement in January.

When the case was argued at the 5th Circuit last month, administration lawyers noted that district judges in a dozen jurisdictions had rejected a challenge to the vaccine requirement for federal workers before Brown ruled.

The administration argued that the Constitution gives the president, as the head of the federal workforce, the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated.

Lawyers for those challenging the mandate had pointed to a recent Supreme Court opinion that the government cannot force private employers to require employee vaccinations.

Thursday’s ruling was a rare win for the administration at the 5th Circuit, with 17 active judges dominated by Republicans, including six Trump appointees.

Judges Carl Stewart and James Dennis, both nominated to the court by President Bill Clinton, were in the majority. Judge Rhesa Barksdale, nominated by President George H.W. Bush, dissented, saying the relief the challengers sought does not fall under the Civil Service Reform act cited by the administration.
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