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Judge Rejects Effort by Trump to Toss January 6 Lawsuits

A federal judge on Friday rejected efforts by former President Donald Trump to toss out conspiracy lawsuits filed by lawmakers and two Capitol police officers, saying in his ruling that the former president’s words “plausibly” led to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta said in his ruling that Trump’s words during a rally before the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol were likely “words of incitement not protected by the First Amendment.”

“Only in the most extraordinary circumstances could a court not recognize that the First Amendment protects a president’s speech,” Mehta wrote. “But the court believes this is that case.”

The order is the latest example of growing legal peril for the former president. Just hours earlier, the National Archives said records found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort contained classified information and that it had notified the Justice Department.

On Thursday, a judge in New York ruled that Trump and two of his children must answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices. Another judge ordered that his company’s financial chief be subjected to questioning in another probe by the District of Columbia attorney general’s office. And earlier this week, the firm that prepared Trump’s annual financial statements said the documents, used to secure lucrative loans and burnish Trump’s image as a wealthy businessman, “should no longer be relied upon.”

During a planned rally on the Ellipse just hours before Congress was to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump told his supporters to “Fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” He said, “(We’re) going to try to and give (weak Republicans) the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country,” and then told the crowd to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Mehta said Trump’s speech could have directed people to break the law. But the judge dismissed similar charges made against Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, saying their speech was protected by the First Amendment. Mehta did not yet rule on another motion to dismiss from Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, also named in the suits.

The lawsuits, filed by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby and initially by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., argued that Trump, Trump Jr., Giuliani and Brooks made “false and incendiary allegations of fraud and theft, and in direct response to the Defendant’s express calls for violence at the rally, a violent mob attacked the U.S. Capitol.”

Thompson later dropped out of the lawsuit when he was named to lead the Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. The NAACP continued in his stead.

The lawsuits cite a federal civil rights law that was enacted to counter the Ku Klux Klan’s intimidation of officials. They spell out in detail how the Trumps, Giuliani and Brooks spread baseless claims of election fraud, both before and after the 2020 presidential election was declared and charged that they helped to spin up the thousands of rioters before they stormed the Capitol. Five people died as a result of the violence on Jan. 6, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer.

They have all denied the allegations.

Mehta said Trump’s efforts to dismiss the case ignored the theory that his words sparked what followed, but that argument was plausible.

“In this one-of-a-kind case, the First Amendment does not shield the president from liability,” Mehta wrote. 
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National Archives: Trump Took Classified Items to Mar-a-Lago

Classified information was found in the 15 boxes of White House records that were stored at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, the National Archives and Records Administration said Friday in a letter that confirmed the matter had been sent to the Justice Department. 

The letter from the agency followed numerous reports about Trump’s handling of sensitive and even classified information during his time as president and after he left the White House. The revelation could also interest federal investigators responsible for policing the handling of government secrets, though the Justice Department and FBI have not indicated they will pursue the case. 

Federal law bars the removal of classified documents to unauthorized locations, though it is possible that Trump could try to argue that, as president, he was the ultimate declassification authority.  

No matter the legal risk, it exposes him to charges of hypocrisy given his relentless attacks during the 2016 presidential campaign on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state. The FBI investigated but ultimately did not recommend charges.  

Trump recently denied reports about his administration’s tenuous relationship with the National Archives, and his lawyers said that “they are continuing to search for additional presidential records that belong to the National Archives.”

Social media records not preserved 

The letter from the archivists in response to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which is investigating, also details how certain social media records were not captured and preserved by the Trump administration. And it also says that the agency learned that White House staff frequently conducted official business using unofficial messaging accounts and personal phones.  

Those staff did not copy or forward their official messaging accounts, as required by the Presidential Records Act, the letter said.

The letter also reveals that additional paper records that had been torn up by the former president were among those transferred to the National Archives.  

“Although White House staff during the Trump administration recovered and taped together some of the torn-up records, a number of other torn-up records that were transferred had not been reconstructed by the White House,” the letter said.  

Lawmakers are also seeking information about the contents of the boxes recovered from Mar-a-Lago, but the agency cited the records act as holding them back from divulging.

Representative Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the chairwoman of the Oversight Committee, said in a statement Friday that “these new revelations deepen my concern about former President Trump’s flagrant disregard for federal records law and the potential impact on our historical record.” 

She added, “I am committed to uncovering the full depth of the Presidential Records Act violations by former President Trump and his top advisers and using those findings to advance critical reforms and prevent future abuses.” 

House investigators will be looking to see if Trump’s actions, both during his presidency and after, violated the Presidential Records Act, which was enacted in 1978 after former President Richard Nixon wanted to destroy documents related to the Watergate scandal. 

The law mandates that presidential records are the property of the U.S. government, rather than the president himself. A statute, punishable by up to three years in prison, makes it a crime to conceal or intentionally destroy government records. 
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Republican Lawmakers in Several US States Bar Journalists From House Floors

Republican lawmakers in several states are scaling back access to government business, extending pandemic-era rules that restrict when journalists can report from the floors of state legislative chambers and, in effect, making it easier to dodge the press. 

As the public returns to the corridors of state capitols, new rules approved in Iowa last month and in Utah this week critically limit reporters’ access to lawmakers, sparking an outcry from media organizations and press advocates.

“It is critical that there is some accountability with respect to those who have tremendous power, such as you,” Lauren Gustus, the executive editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, told Utah lawmakers in a committee hearing last week, where she testified against such rules.

These rule changes limit when journalists can work on the floor of the legislature where lawmakers sit, making it easier for elected officials to avoid interacting with the press, even when they take up high-profile topics like election laws, taxes and abortion.

Rules governing where journalists can work vary across the nation’s 50 statehouses. Most allow credentialed reporters to observe from the chamber floors; some allow reporters to ask questions before or after proceedings; others require they remain in press boxes or alcoves separated from lawmakers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In states that are now moving to change their procedures, lawmakers argue that creating formal rules allays security concerns and prevents bad actors from disrupting governance. Press advocates say the proposed rules make it more difficult for journalists to ask questions and impede the reporters’ ability to keep tabs on fast-paced statehouse action.

In Iowa, Republican leaders this year did not issue credentials to journalists to work at press benches on the state Senate floor as they had previously. They said the policy change addressed “confusion” because of changing media that now includes blogs and newsletters that identify themselves as the press.

In Utah, reporters are now being required to ask for permission each time they’d like to interview a lawmaker on the Senate floor or in certain adjacent hallways. There and in the Iowa Senate, reporters now must work from a gallery high above the chambers though they can still work from the floor in the House of Representatives. 

Under new rules passed through Utah’s Senate and advancing through the House, camera crews will be required to ask for permission to film in certain parts of committee rooms.

In a hearing on the rule last week, Utah lawmakers said daily press conferences and efforts to stream all proceedings online demonstrated their commitment to transparency. They said putting a clear rule on the books would help both lawmakers and the press know what’s allowed.

“The barriers of civility and discourse that have been respected in this state and this country for years and for decades are changing and they’re changing rapidly,” said Utah GOP Sen. Todd Weiler, who supported the rule change, adding that “if they are pushing the barriers, it is nice to have a rule in place.”

In Kansas, new rules from leaders in the state Senate relegate newspaper reporters to the chamber’s gallery, which has made it easier for senators to avoid reporters after sessions. In exceptional circumstances, like when the gallery is filled with other members of the public, journalists are allowed to report from the floor like the rules allowed before.

“Placing restrictions on journalists in the Senate chamber suggests there is something to hide, or that leadership is taking unwarranted and unnecessary retaliation against reporters,” former Kansas lawmaker Steve Morris wrote in an editorial in the Kansas Reflector.

Morris, who led Republicans in the Kansas Senate from 2005 to 2013, said that as a politician and a news consumer he saw the benefits of having journalists able to observe and report from a statehouse floor. When discussions draw considerable public interest, he said, people want to know how their lawmakers are reacting, which at times can mean body language like eye rolls or enthusiastic gestures.

“Reporters are our avenue to see what’s going on,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“Especially when there’s something controversial,” he added. “The session adjourns and members skedaddle out of there rapidly so it’s hard for journalists to get to them, unlike when they’re on the floor they can immediately get to them.”

The new limits come in an environment of increasing attacks on the media and parallel new restrictions placed on journalists covering protests and courtroom proceedings.  They also come as states and cities loosen coronavirus restrictions that have returned restaurants, sporting events and offices to pre-pandemic capacity.

Parker Higgins, the advocacy director at the Freedom of The Press Foundation, said the ways transparency and access increased during the pandemic — for example, when  courtrooms allowed members of the public to hear and watch trials remotely — were being reversed.

After speaking with reporters in Kansas and Iowa, he said “most say it’s not impossible to do their jobs without floor access. But, in terms of doing your job quickly and effectively, you can’t get that from the public gallery.
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Biden Visits Ohio to Tout Infrastructure Investments, Court Voters

President Joe Biden on Thursday visited a small, deindustrialized Ohio steel town to tout his ambitious multi-trillion-dollar proposed spending plan, to announce a $1 billion initiative for environmental cleanup and restoration, and to court voters in a crucial state ahead of this year’s tightly contested midterm elections.

“Today, we’re announcing an investment of $1 billion — $1 billion — from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill,” he said, speaking to about 60 invited guests, including members of Congress, local elected officials and labor leaders at a shipyard in the lakeside town of Lorain, Ohio.

“It’s going to allow the most significant restoration of the Great Lakes in the history of the Great Lakes. We’re going to accelerate cleanup of sites across six states in the Great Lakes Basin — from Duluth, Minnesota, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Gary, Indiana, to Buffalo, New York, and everywhere in between,” Biden said.

Lorain is a town of about 65,000 people whose moribund main street runs straight into Lake Erie. The town was hit hard by the decline of American manufacturing. Yet both of Biden’s predecessors have made a point of visiting the once-bustling steel town to tout their accomplishments and to court voters. This corner of America is especially important this year, as swing-state Ohio will see the retirement of Republican Senator Rob Portman.

Or, as former President Donald Trump put it when he visited a nearby town in June for his first post-presidential rally: “Next year, the Republican red wave is going to begin right here,” Trump told the crowd at the Lorain County Fairgrounds, which is in the nearby town of Wellington. “We will fight for more jobs for Ohio families, fair trade for Ohio workers, and more Ohio factories forging more products stamped with that beautiful, beautiful phrase, ‘Made in the U.S.A.'”

And a small corner of southern Lorain is represented by one of Biden’s harshest critics, Republican U.S. Representative Jim Jordan, who voted against Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill. His opposition to the bill echoes that of many in his party.

“Democrats’ economic plan is basically the dumbest plan in history because it is ‘lock down the economy, spend like crazy, pay people not to work, and oh, for everyone who has been working, we’re now going to raise your taxes,'” he said shortly after the bill passed late last year.

Environmental advocates praised the expenditure — and Biden’s choice to visit the area to talk about it.

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is clear that these are the types of environmental remediation projects that the $1.2 trillion should be used for,” said Steve Cochran, associate vice president of state affairs for the Environmental Defense Fund. “The President is making it a priority, which shows that the solutions are not only important but have broad support in the region and for these constituencies. Given the problems in the Great Lakes, and how much the communities depend on them, this is an excellent use of resources.”

Bipartisan observers agree.

“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was a significant achievement. It makes political sense to barnstorm the country touting it,” said Andy Winkler, director of the Bipartisan Policy Center. “But there’s also real value in these visits. The U.S. needs to make transformational investments in infrastructure to address climate change and stay economically competitive. To the extent the administration can, it must encourage state and local officials to take advantage of every resource the law offers and invest wisely.”

But, Winkler added: “President Biden should visit red states and blue states alike, in places he won and places he didn’t, to meet with Republicans and Democrats and explain why the bill was a significant bipartisan achievement and a win for the country.”

Biden, who said his priority taking office was to bring unity to this divided nation, evoked that in Lorain by mentioning the town’s most famous daughter, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. In her seminal novel, “Beloved,” she wrote: “Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”

“Places like Lorain have a lot of proud yesterdays,” Biden said. “Now you’re going to have some brighter tomorrows — and because of all of you.”
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Senate Sends Biden Bill Averting Federal Shutdown

The Senate gave final approval Thursday to legislation averting a weekend government shutdown, sending President Joe Biden a measure designed to give bipartisan bargainers more time to reach an overdue deal financing federal agencies until fall. 

Final passage was by a bipartisan 65-27 vote, five more than the 60 votes needed. The House easily approved the legislation last week. Each party had concluded that an election-year shutdown would be politically damaging, especially during a pandemic and a confrontation with Russia over its possible invasion of Ukraine.  

Yet as with virtually all must-pass bills, politics hitched a ride. Before passage, conservatives forced votes on amendments including on one of the year’s hot-button issues: COVID-19 vaccine mandates. They were defeated along party lines. 

One by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and several colleagues would have blocked existing federal vaccine requirements for the military, government employees and contractors and health care workers. 

Another by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would have halted federal funds for school districts imposing their own vaccine requirements. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., proposed another requiring Congress’ non-binding federal budgets to balance within 10 years.  

United Democrats can defeat GOP proposals in the 50-50 Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. But with Harris in Europe and some Democrats missing because of illness or ailing spouses, Democrats prevailed after several Republicans also left for travel or to begin the chamber’s recess. 

A separate GOP move to block federal spending on pipes used to smoke crack faded away after the Biden administration said it never planned to do that and would not. The money is part of a program aimed at helping drug abusers avoid hurting themselves further.  

Amending the bill would have caused complications because the House is also gone for recess but would have had to pass the revamped version before sending it to Biden.  

Without Senate passage of the identical House bill, agencies would have had to stop functioning over the weekend. The legislation will finance the government through March 11. 

 
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US Congress Stalled on Russia Sanctions

U.S. lawmakers struggled to agree this week on sanctions to deter Russia’s Vladimir Putin from a possible Ukraine invasion. VOA Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson says that despite the snag, there is still pressure to mount a unified U.S. response.

Producer: Katherine Gypson.
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Sandy Hook Families Settle with Remington After 2012 Massacre 

The families of nine victims of a massacre at an elementary school nearly ten years ago in the northeastern U.S. state of Connecticut reached a $73 million settlement Tuesday in a lawsuit against Remington Arms, the maker of the rifle used in the mass killing. 

The settlement is a rare instance of a U.S. gunmaker paying damages for bloodshed arising from the criminal use of a firearm. 

“While this settlement does not erase the pain of that tragic day, it does begin the necessary work of holding gun manufacturers accountable for manufacturing weapons of war and irresponsibly marketing these firearms,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday.

Biden encouraged state and local lawmakers, as well as victims of gun violence, to pursue similar actions.

“Together, we can deliver a clear message to gun manufacturers and dealers: they must either change their business models to be part of the solution for the gun violence epidemic, or they will bear the financial cost of their complicity,” the president said. 

Twenty first grade students and six educators were killed on December 12, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut by Adam Lanza, who repeatedly fired a Remington semi-automatic rifle as he made his way through the school. 

The families and a survivor of the massacre sued Remington in 2015, maintaining the company should have never sold such a dangerous military-style weapon to the public. They also said they are focused on preventing other mass shootings.

“Today is not about honoring our son Benjamin. Today is about how and why Ben died,” said Francine Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son was killed in the massacre. “Our legal system has given us some justice today, but David and I will never have true justice. True justice would be our fifteen-year-old healthy and here with us.”

The civil lawsuit in Waterbury Superior Court focused on how the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle was marketed, maintaining Remington singled out younger, at-risk males in marketing and in product placements in violent video games. 

Remington did not immediately comment on the settlement but the gunmaker had argued there was no evidence that its marketing of the rifle was linked to the killings. 

The gun manufacturer also had said the lawsuit should have been dismissed because of a federal law that grants broad immunity to the gun sector. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled, however, that Remington could be sued under state law over how it marketed the rifle. 

Remington appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. 

The gunmaker offered to pay the plaintiffs nearly $33 million in July. In 2018, Remington filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and emerged from it later that year under the control of its creditors. The company filed for bankruptcy again in July 2020 after more retailers restricted gun sales after other school shootings in the U.S. 

The plaintiffs said four insurers for Remington agreed to pay the full amount of coverage available, totaling $73 million. 

“This victory should serve as a wake-up call not only to the gun industry, but also the insurance and banking companies that prop it up,” said Josh Koskoff, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “For the gun industry, it’s time to stop recklessly marketing all guns to all people for all uses and instead ask how marketing can lower risk rather than court it.” 

The rifle used by Lanza, who was 20 years old at the time of the shootings, was legally owned by his mother. He used to the rifle to kill his mother at their Newtown home before committing the mass shooting at the school. Lanza killed himself with a handgun as police arrived. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Congress Approves Sex Harassment Bill in #MeToo Milestone

Congress on Thursday gave final approval to legislation guaranteeing that people who experience sexual harassment at work can seek recourse in the courts, a milestone for the #MeToo movement that prompted a national reckoning on the way sexual misconduct claims are handled. 

The measure, which is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden, bars employment contracts from forcing people to settle sexual assault or harassment cases through arbitration rather than in court, a process that often benefits employers and keeps misconduct allegations from becoming public.  

Significantly, the bill is retroactive, nullifying that language in contracts nationwide and opening the door for people who had been bound by it to take legal action.  

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has spearheaded the effort, called it “one of the most significant workplace reforms in American history.”  

Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, said the arbitration process is secretive and biased and denies people a basic constitutional right: a day in court.  

“No longer will survivors of sexual assault or harassment in the workplace come forward and be told that they are legally forbidden to sue their employer because somewhere in buried their employment contracts was this forced arbitration clause,” she said.

Introduced in 2017 

Gillibrand, who has focused on combating sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the military, originally introduced the legislation in 2017 with Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. 

The legislation had uncommonly broad, bipartisan support in a divided Congress. That allowed the bill to be passed in the Senate by unanimous consent — a procedure almost never used for significant legislation, especially one affecting tens of millions of Americans. The House passed the bill this week on a robust bipartisan basis in a 335- 97 vote. 

Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, who accused now-deceased network CEO Roger Ailes of making unwanted advances and harming her career when she rejected him, testified in support of the legislation. Some employee contracts at the network included binding arbitration clauses. 

Carlson, who appeared with Gillibrand and other senators at a news conference after Senate passage of the bill, said she could never have imagined, after coming forward with her allegations five years ago, that it would lead to a change in the law that both Democrats and Republicans would get behind. 

“Marching in the streets can inspire us. Editorials can open our minds. Hashtags can galvanize, but legislation is the only thing that lasts,” Carlson said. 

An estimated 60 million American workers have clauses tucked into their employment contracts forcing them to settle any allegations of sexual misconduct in private arbitration proceedings, rather than in court. The widespread practice has come under fire in the wake of the #MeToo movement for forcing employees to seek recourse without a jury, a chance to appeal a decision or the sunlight of a public court process.

‘Overdue’ legislation

“If you could ever say any legislation was long overdue, this is it,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. He called it “almost medieval” to force victims of harassment and assault “to shut up, not tell anyone about it and not seek justice.”

The secretive nature of binding arbitration protects companies and perpetrators, critics contend, and allows corporations to avoid changing any policies or removing serial abusers.  

The clauses barring lawsuits are not just limited to employment contracts but have been found in other service agreements, preventing those who were sexually assaulted at nursing homes or massage parlors from taking their claims to court.  

Defenders of the arbitration process, including business groups, have contended it is a faster and less costly way to resolve disputes than through lengthy courtroom proceedings.  

Graham said on the Senate floor that it does not harm businesses to ensure people who are harassed at work are treated fairly. 

“This is not bad for business. This is good for America,” he said.  

Many workers don’t realize they’re bound by forced arbitration rules and how the process can disproportionately benefit employers, with companies typically paying out smaller sums to settle claims, Gillibrand said.  

In a sign of the power of the #MeToo movement and wide-ranging support behind the change, the legislation’s co-sponsors included senators who are ideologically polar opposites, such as New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker and Missouri Republican Josh Hawley. 

Graham said at the news conference that things can be “pretty screwed up” in Washington but the legislation signals “that there’s some hope, as long as we listen to each other and try to make life better where we can find common ground.” 

The White House released a statement earlier this month in support of the bill.  
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US Congress Advances Bill to Sanction Those Fueling War in Ethiopia 

Legislation has advanced in the U.S. House of Representatives to impose sanctions on Ethiopians committing human rights abuses, blocking food aid delivery, or taking other actions that are worsening the country’s 15-month crisis. It would also sanction those providing training, weapons, or financial support to those involved in the conflict.

The proposed Ethiopian Stabilization, Peace and Democracy Act was voted out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday. It can now be voted on by the full U.S. House. A similar bill is being considered in the Senate.

If enacted, the bill would sanction individuals as well as suspend U.S. security and financial assistance to the Ethiopian government until certain human rights conditions are met. It would also require the U.S. to oppose loans by international agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Congressman Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey who co-sponsored the bill, said urgent action is needed.

“The war in Ethiopia has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, and all the combatants, along with their foreign backers, are responsible for horrific abuses of basic human rights,” he said.

“Today, Congress is coming together to say that the conflict must end, and to hold accountable all those responsible for perpetuating it.”

The bill follows September sanctions and the November decision to suspend Ethiopia from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows African countries’ exports duty-free access to the U.S. market.

One of the issues of ongoing concern to Congress is also the mass detention of Tigrayan civilians in several cities across Ethiopia, including the capital, Addis Ababa. Rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, say ethnic Tigrayans have been targeted since the start of the conflict in November 2020, citing reports of forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests among other human rights violations.

“The mass detention of Tigrayan civilians in unlivable conditions is a human rights violation so outrageous that it demands a forceful U.S. response,” tweeted Congressman Brad Sherman of California, calling for action on what he called an atrocity.

The bill calls on the State Department to determine whether war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide has been perpetrated by any party to the conflict. It also asks State to report on the role of foreign governments including those of China, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey in fueling the conflict.

The bill has drawn condemnation from the Ethiopian government and supporters in the global diaspora.

The American-Ethiopian Public Affairs Committee, a nonprofit diaspora organization that has supported the government during this conflict put the blame squarely on the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, which the government has designated a terrorist group, and armed forces in Tigray.

“This bill ignores the millions in Amhara and Afar … who were victims of the TPLF’s attacks,” the AEPAC said in a tweet.

The group further criticized the impact it would have on ordinary Ethiopians. “It will do nothing to repair the lives of those who have been left without loved ones or who have suffered serious injuries.”

Others in the Tigrayan diaspora have, however, supported the bill and previous U.S. sanctions on Ethiopian and Eritrean officials, including Omna Tigray, a nonprofit group consisting of Tigrayans residing in the diaspora who see the move as a way to protect the lives of civilians caught in the conflict.

Other analysts point to the effectiveness of earlier sanctions. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that “the praiseworthy design of the sanctions regime avoids typical pitfalls.” She said that implemented sanctions are meant to give “legal exceptions for humanitarian relief delivery.”

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has emphasized the goal of targeted sanctions is to ensure perpetrators are held to account.

“These sanctions authorities are not directed at the people of Ethiopia or Eritrea,” a White House official said in September during a call with reporters. “The new sanctions program is deliberately calibrated to mitigate any undue harm to those already suffering from this conflict.”

The United Nations has said thousands have been displaced by conflict in the country, and more than 60,000 Ethiopians, mostly from the Tigray region, are seeking refuge in neighboring Sudan. The U.N. estimates that about 9.4 million people in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions are in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
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Biden Touts ‘American Manufacturing Comeback,’ New Tennessee Plant

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that an Australian company that makes chargers for electric vehicles will build a manufacturing facility in Tennessee, while reiterating his commitment to make the U.S. government’s fleet of cars electric. 

The new plant will produce up to 30,000 electric vehicle chargers per year and create 500 local jobs, according to Biden and the Brisbane-based company, Tritium. State officials said production is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2022. 

Biden touted “an American manufacturing comeback.” Tritium’s chargers will “use American parts, American iron, American steel,” and will be installed by union workers, Biden said. He said the federal government’s fleet of 600,000 vehicles will “end up being electric vehicles.” 

“The benefits are going to ripple through thousands of miles in every direction and these jobs will multiply,” Biden said, adding the manufacturing plants will lead to a growth in steel mills, small parts suppliers and construction sites throughout the country. 

Tritium CEO Jane Hunter appeared alongside Biden at the White House and said Biden’s policies “have contributed to enormous demand” for Tritium products in the United States. This “directly led us to pivot and change our global manufacturing strategy.” 

Biden also announced that this week, the White House will roll out a state-by-state allocation of $5 billion in funding for electric vehicle chargers. He used the speech to highlight contributions by U.S. companies involved in manufacturing electric vehicles including Tesla, a company Biden has refrained from naming in the past. 

Biden has made rebuilding American manufacturing a key of his economic agenda, including pushing for billions of dollars of public and private investments in the electric vehicle industry. The bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year provided money for a sprawling network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country. 

Biden has said electric cars will be more climate-friendly and affordable for American families, and the White House has set a target of half the vehicles sold in the United States to be electric or plug-in hybrids by 2030. 

The Tritium announcement is the latest in recent weeks by major companies announcing investments in U.S. manufacturing and jobs, including Intel, General Motors and Boeing. More than $200 billion in investments in domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, electric vehicles, aircraft, and batteries have been announced since 2021. 

 
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House OKs Bill Easing Budget Strains on Postal Service

Congress would lift onerous budget requirements that have helped push the Postal Service deeply into debt and would require it to continue delivering mail six days per week under bipartisan legislation the House approved Tuesday.  

The election-year bill, coming at a time of widespread complaints about slower mail service, would also require the Postal Service to display online how efficiently it delivers mail to communities. 

The Postal Service is supposed to sustain itself with postage sales and other services but has suffered 14 straight years of losses. The reasons include growing worker compensation and benefit costs plus steady declines in mail volume, even as it delivers to 1 million additional locations every year.  

Postal Service officials have said that without congressional action, it would run out of cash by 2024, a frequent warning from the service. It has estimated it will lose $160 billion over the coming decade.  

Those pressures have brought the two parties together for a measure aimed at helping the Postal Service, its employees, businesses that use it and disgruntled voters who rely on it for delivery of prescription drugs, checks and other packages. Tuesday’s vote was 342-92, a rare show of partisan agreement, with all Democrats and most Republicans backing it. 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said the Postal Service “provides service to every American, no matter where they live, binding us together in a way no other organization does.”  

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, that committee’s top Republican, said “the days of letters alone driving Postal Service revenue are not coming back.” The bill, he said, will “help it succeed into the 21st century.”  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’s planning a vote before a recess that starts after next week. The bill has 14 GOP sponsors and, with strong Democratic support expected, seems on track to gain the 60 votes most bills need for Senate passage.  

Over the years, some lawmakers have wanted to impose tougher requirements for faster service by the Postal Service, while others have favored privatizing some services. The compromise omits controversial proposals.  

There has been talk over the years of reducing deliveries to five days per week, which could save more than $1 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office, the accounting agency of Congress. That idea has proven politically toxic and has not been pursued. 

The bill would also require the Postal Service to set up an online dashboard that would be searchable by ZIP code to show how long it takes to deliver letters and packages.  

The measure is supported by President Joe Biden, the Postal Service, postal worker unions, industries that use the service and others. 

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said the bill would help “provide the American people with the delivery service they expect and deserve.” Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, called the bill “outstanding” in an interview. 

One of the bill’s few critics was Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who said its changes fell short. 

“It has failed to make a profit, it has failed the American people, and everyone who has a mailbox knows it,” he said.  

The bill would end a requirement that the Postal Service finance, in advance, health care benefits for current and retired workers for the next 75 years. That obligation, which private companies and federal agencies do not face, was imposed in 2006. That ended up being the year that the Postal Service’s mail volume peaked and its financial fortunes steadily worsened. 

The Postal Service hasn’t made those payments since 2012. Overall it faces unpaid obligations of $63 billion, according to its most recent annual report. The bill forgives much of that debt. 

Instead of those obligations, the Postal Service would pay current retirees’ actual health care costs that aren’t covered by Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older people.  

The legislation would also require future Postal Service retirees to enroll in Medicare, which about 3 in 4 do now. The shift would save the Postal Service money by having Medicare cover much of its costs. 

Proponents say the changes would save tens of billions of dollars over the next decade. 

The Postal Service had a successful 2021 holiday season, delivering 97% of shipments on time during two weeks in December, according to ShipMatrix, which analyzes shipping package data. In 2020 more than a third of first-class mail was late by Christmas Day. 

Since the Postal Service has its own finance system, it is not counted as part of the federal budget. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would save the government $1 billion over the next 10 years. 

That is largely because retirees’ prescription drug expenses under Medicare would be covered by required discounts from pharmaceutical makers. 

 
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VOA Interview: US Ambassador to OSCE on Russia-Ukraine Crisis

U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Michael Carpenter spoke with VOA’s Russian service Monday to discuss the situation along the Russia-Ukraine border.

Carpenter said the allies and its partners are trying “to see if the Kremlin is interested in pursuing a diplomatic solution to this crisis, to seeking to de-escalate the situation along Ukraine’s border, which is very dire.”

Here is a transcript of the interview, edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Washington and French President (Emmanuel) Macron is in Moscow. What are your expectations from these negotiations, and what could be the result of these massive diplomatic efforts?

U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter: Well, I think you’re right. It’s a massive diplomatic effort. We’re trying, with our allies and partners, to see if the Kremlin is interested in pursuing a diplomatic solution to this crisis, to seeking to de-escalate the situation along Ukraine’s border, which is very dire. The military buildup is really unprecedented. And so, naturally, we’re consulting very closely with allies and partners. We are here at the OSCE. We are at NATO. We’re doing it bilaterally, telegraphing to (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin that there will be intense repercussions, both in terms of sanctions, in terms of export controls, in terms of military force posture, if he invades Ukraine, but also holding out hope for the potential for a diplomatic solution, as well.

VOA: How united is the West now in its response to Russian aggressive actions? We saw Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visiting Putin quite recently.

Carpenter: Well, I think if you step back and look at the entire NATO alliance, I think we’re actually extremely united in an unprecedented way. When we launched a discussion of the crisis in European security here at the OSCE on January 13, really every state spoke out in support of a dialogue, which could be read as a condemnation of Russia’s position. Russia was really alone, and so I think they’re seeing that also in terms of the fact that we’ve had the North Atlantic Council, the European Council, as well as the G-7 (Group of Seven), all speaking in the same language about massive and unprecedented consequences in the event of a Russian military escalation. So, I don’t know that President Putin was counting on this, but the West is in fact very united right now.

VOA: How confident is the United States that Russia is in the final stages of preparing for an invasion of Ukraine? And what is that confidence based on? Can the United States convince OSCE partners of the reality of this threat?

Carpenter: Well look, here’s what I can tell you, that we have well over 100,000 combat-ready troops on the border. We have all of the equipment that would be necessary for invasion that is in place. And by that I mean attack helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, munitions supplies, medical supplies, engineering — all of the enablers that you would need to launch an invasion within a matter of days. And so, when you look at that military capability, you can’t just sit back and wait to see what happens. You have to be prepared, and you have to rally allies and partners to respond in the event that there is an invasion. At the end of the day, I can’t tell you what is in President Putin’s mind. I can’t tell you whether he will invade or not and when he might do it. But what I can tell you is that that capability is of extreme concern.

VOA: What mechanisms does Washington have within the OSCE that it could use now? Because we have the U.S. Helsinki Commission, we have very strong bipartisan statements on Russia from this commission, and we have you as a representative of the executive branch. So, what mechanism can you use?

Carpenter: What we are trying to do is to sharpen the choices for the Kremlin to present them with. On the one hand, a set of very severe consequences if they choose to act militarily, as I said: sanctions, export controls, substantially beefing up NATO’s force posture on the eastern flank. You’re already seeing it in terms of the fact that we’ve had now approximately 3,000 U.S. troops deploying to the European theater on a temporary basis. But if Russia invades Ukraine, a lot of other things are potentially on the table, as well. And then at the same time, holding out that option for diplomacy, including here at the OSCE, on things that the Russians have said in the past, that they do care about, things like deconfliction risk reduction, potentially even new forms of conventional arms control and transparency. If they’re interested in those things, then the OSCE is the place where we can develop the actual instruments, potentially even legally binding agreements, if we get far enough. That would satisfy our concerns and the Russian concerns. But right now, we’re in the process of elaborating these two sets of options and hoping very much that the Russians choose the option of diplomacy.

VOA: You just mentioned binding agreements. What is off the table?

Carpenter: Well first of all, any sort of agreements in terms of military transparency, confidence-building, reciprocal restraint — all of those would need to be negotiated and adhered to by all of our allies and partners. So, nothing about Europe without Europe. You’ve heard the various officials say that in the past as very much our mantra. Second of all, anything we do we’re not going to compromise on the core principles of the European security order, which means no acceding to spheres of influence, no ability of one state to dictate what sort of alliances another state gets to choose. None of that. So first, principles are going to be kept intact. But as I said, there is certainly room for confidence-building, risk reduction, new forms of conventional arms control if we get that far.

VOA: You’ve been studying in Russia for a very long time, both as an official and as an expert. Why do you think Vladimir Putin needed to create this crisis?

Carpenter: Well, I can’t tell you. As a U.S. official, I can’t speculate on what President Putin is thinking. What I can tell you is that there was this massive buildup in April, followed by an even more comprehensive, I would say buildup right now, which has all the hallmarks of a potential invasion of Ukraine. Why is President Putin doing it this time? Is it to seek concessions? Is it to try to escalate the situation militarily to Russia’s advantage? We don’t know. But we have to act from the premise that he may escalate militarily, and therefore, we have to telegraph that the costs that would result from that would be strategically catastrophic for Russia. So that both the Russian leadership and the Russian people understand that if this path is chosen — and let’s again, God forbid, that we go down this path — but if it is chosen, those repercussions and consequences will be massive.

VOA: Yesterday’s statement by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that the Belarussian army will act jointly with the Russian army, what does this mean for you? How does it change the perspective on the situation? Belarus is a member of OSCE, as well.

Carpenter: Yes, Belarus is a member of the OSCE, and in the past, they have said repeatedly that they would never allow their country to serve as a launching pad for an invasion of a neighbor. And so, that language you’ve just cited has shifted a little bit, which is of extreme concern. We expect that there could be as many as 30,000 Russian troops deployed to Belarus, together with short-range ballistic missiles and other types of equipment that, in fact, would serve as a launching pad for a potential invasion. So, we’re watching the situation very closely. It’s very concerning what the Belarusian Ministry of Defense has said, with regards to the purpose of these exercises, frankly, doesn’t square with the reality on Belarus’ southern border, which is that there is no threat whatsoever from Ukraine. So, I think it deserves to be watched very, very closely.
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US Ambassador to OSCE Michael Carpenter on Russia-Ukraine Crisis

U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Michael Carpenter spoke with VOA’s Russian service Monday to discuss the situation along the Russia-Ukraine border. Carpenter spoke to VOA’s Danila Galperovich.
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US Taking the Fight Against Terrorism to the App Store

More than a decade ago, technology giant Apple began telling its smartphone customers that if something was worth doing, “There’s an app for that.”

Starting now, the same can be said of fighting terrorism.

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Monday launched its aCTknowledge mobile app, ready for download from the Apple app store and from the NCTC website.

“The app is a one stop shop to get unclassified counterterrorism information,” a NCTC official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the center’s foray into mobile apps.

Officials said a version should also be available in the coming months from Google Play, and that the information will also be available in a desktop version. 

But while the app is public, access to the full suite of features is limited to counterterrorism professionals.

NCTC officials say the initial rollout is limited to officials with the U.S. federal government and in the U.S. military.  State and local counterterrorism officials will also be getting access in the near future.

“This is a tremendous evolution of our information sharing efforts,” a NCTC expert who helped develop the aCTknowledge app told reporters.

“We’re moving from a weekly, regularized information sharing effort (via email) to a daily, near real time effort,” the expert said. “Our ability to send push notifications to partners using the app is really going to change the community, in general, because we’ll be able to immediately level-set everyone’s understanding of a counterterrorism event as it occurs.”

Like other apps, NCTC’s aCTknowledge will enable users to get notifications, search for information and follow for updates on specific terms or topics.

NCTC says the nature of the new mobile app will also allow it to see what type of information its various government partners are looking for, and make sure that data or training is made available.

Although the information being shared on the app is unclassified, officials are taking precautions to protect the systems from hackers and others who might try to misuse it.

“You’re required to use your official government email address to register,” a second NCTC expert said, speaking like the other on the condition of anonymity. “And then we have an established vetting criteria to make sure that applicants have a validated need to know.”

Officials say many of the app’s features were designed with the help of state and local first responders, including police and fire departments from across the United States.

“With the release of aCTknowledge, NCTC is delivering on our mission to innovate how we share intelligence products with our partners,” NCTC Director Christy Abizaid said in a statement late Monday. “The app empowers its users with the information they need to protect their communities from potential threats.” 
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Supreme Court Sides With GOP in Alabama Election Map Case

The Supreme Court on Monday put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts before the 2022 elections to increase Black voting power. The high court order boosts Republican chances to hold six of the state’s seven seats in the House of Representatives.  

The court’s action, by a 5-4 vote, means the upcoming elections will be conducted under a map drawn by Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature that contains one majority-Black district, represented by a Black Democrat, in a state in which more than a quarter of the population is Black. 

A three-judge lower court, including two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump, had ruled that the state had likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting the political power of Black voters by not creating a second district in which they made up a majority, or close to it. 

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, part of the conservative majority, said the lower court acted too close to the 2022 election cycle. 

Chief Justice John Roberts joined his three more liberal colleagues in dissent. 

The justices will at some later date decide whether the map produced by the state violates the landmark voting rights law, a case that could call into question “decades of this Court’s precedent about Section 2 of the VRA,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent.  

That decision presumably will govern elections in 2024 through the end of the decade in Alabama and could affect minority political representation elsewhere in the country, too.  

Alabama lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional districts following the results of the 2020 census. Several groups of voters sued, arguing that the new maps diluted the voting power of Black residents. 

In a unanimous ruling in late January, the three judges said that the groups were likely to succeed in showing that the state had violated the Voting Rights Act. As a result, the panel ordered lawmakers to redraw the districts so Black voters would be a majority, or close to it, in two districts, not one. The ruling ran more than 200 pages. 

The panel wrote that “we do not regard the question … as a close one.” 

Alabama asked the Supreme Court to put the ruling on hold while it appeals, and the justices agreed. The state argued that it drew the new map guided by race-neutral principles and that the new map is similar to past maps. 

More than a dozen mostly Republican-led states had filed a brief urging the justices to side with Alabama and allow it to use the maps it originally drew. 

Deuel Ross, a lawyer for Alabamians who sued, called the state’s congressional districts “a textbook case of a Voting Rights Act violation” and said the high court’s decision to intervene is disheartening. 

The facts are clear, Ross, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “Alabama’s current congressional map violates the Voting Rights Act,” he said. “The litigation will continue, and we are confident that Black Alabamians will eventually have the congressional map they deserve — one that fairly represents all voters.” 

Roberts, who typically votes against consideration of race, wrote that he shares some of Alabama’s concerns, but still would have let the redrawn districts govern the 2022 election and have future elections governed by the ultimate outcome in the case. 

Kavanaugh, writing to explain his vote, stressed that the court has repeatedly declined in the past to change the rules close to an election. 

“When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled. Late judicial tinkering with election laws can lead to disruption and to unanticipated and unfair consequences for candidates, political parties, and voters, among others. It is one thing for a State on its own to toy with its election laws close to a State’s elections. But it is quite another thing for a federal court to swoop in and re-do a State’s election laws in the period close to an election,” he wrote in an opinion Alito joined.  

Taking issue with Kavanaugh, Kagan noted that the lower court ruled months before any votes will be cast.  

She criticized the conservatives for using the emergency application process known as the shadow docket “to signal or make changes in the law, without anything approaching full briefing and argument.”   

 
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Pence: Trump Is ‘Wrong’ to Say Election Could Have Been Overturned

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday directly rebutted Donald Trump’s false claims that Pence somehow could have overturned the results of the 2020 election, saying that the former president was simply “wrong.”

In a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in Florida, Pence addressed Trump’s intensifying efforts this week to advance the false narrative that he could have done something to prevent Joe Biden from taking office.

“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.”

While Pence in the past has defended his actions on January 6 and has said that he and Trump will likely never see “eye to eye” on what happened that day, the remarks Friday marked his most forceful rebuttal of Trump to date. And they come as Pence has been laying the groundwork for a potential run for president in 2024, which could put him in direct competition with his former boss, who has also been teasing a comeback run.

In a statement Tuesday, Trump said the committee investigating the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol should instead look into “why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval.” And on Sunday, he blasted Pence, falsely declaring that “he could have overturned the Election!”

Vice presidents play only a ceremonial role in the counting of Electoral College votes, and any attempt to interfere in the count would have represented a profound break from precedent and democratic norms.

Pence, in his remarks Friday, described January 6, 2021, as “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol.”

Pence was inside the building, presiding over the joint session of Congress to certify the presidential election, when a mob of Trump’s supporters violently smashed inside, assaulting police officers and hunting down lawmakers. Pence, who had released a statement earlier that day to make clear he had no authority to overturn the will of the voters, was rushed to safety as some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence!”

Pence framed his actions that day as in line with his duty as a constitutional conservative.

“The American people must know that we will always keep our oath to the Constitution, even when it would be politically expedient to do otherwise,” he told the group Friday. He noted that, under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, “elections are conducted at the state level, not by Congress” and that “the only role of Congress with respect to the Electoral College is to open and count votes submitted and certified by the states. No more, no less.”

“Frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president,” he added. “Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”

Pence also acknowledged the lingering anger among many in Trump’s base. But he said: “The truth is, there’s more at stake than our party or political fortunes. Men and women, if we lose faith in the Constitution, we won’t just lose elections — we’ll lose our country.”
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Biden Renews Federal Push Against Gun Violence

US President Joe Biden traveled to New York City on Thursday to highlight a new push by his administration to combat gun violence and crime, including a crackdown on untraceable firearms, so-called ghost guns. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Democratic US Senator’s Stroke Stalls Biden Agenda

A U.S. senator was resting in the hospital Wednesday after suffering a stroke from which he is expected to recover fully, although it poses problems for the Democrats’ agenda until his return. 

Ben Ray Lujan, 49, underwent brain surgery to relieve swelling late last week and remains hospitalized, according to his office, which added that he was expected back at work in four to six weeks “barring any complications.” 

As he recovers, Democrats effectively lose their advantage in the Senate, which is split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris wielding the tie-breaking vote. 

Unlike in the House, senators must vote in person.  

Party rank-and-file members fear that advancing White House priorities such as a stalled social spending bill and a Supreme Court justice confirmation on a party-line vote may now prove complicated.  

A brain bleed in 2006 took Democrat Tim Johnson out of Senate action for around nine months when he was 59 years old, while Republican Mark Kirk’s stroke in 2012 laid him low for a full year at age 52.  

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer paid tribute to “one of the most beloved members of this body” and said senators were hopeful the freshman member from New Mexico would be “back to his old self before long.” 

Lujan’s chief of staff, Carlos Sanchez, said in a statement the senator began experiencing dizziness and fatigue on Thursday last week and checked himself into the hospital, where the stroke was identified.  

‘Life is precious’

“As part of his treatment plan, he subsequently underwent decompressive surgery to ease swelling,” Sanchez said. 

President Joe Biden plans to announce his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer by the end of this month and has vowed to pick a Black woman. 

The first Senate confirmation hearings would not likely take place until several weeks later, with a vote expected in late March at the earliest. 

But Biden will need at least one Republican vote if Lujan’s recovery takes more than a few weeks. 

Ketanji Brown Jackson, the early favorite to replace Breyer, won support from three Republican senators last year when she moved up to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

In the meantime, Schumer will likely focus on judicial nominations or legislation with clear cross-party backing. 

A government funding deal or a Russian sanctions package would likely be unaffected, but without Lujan, the planned resurrection of the Build Back Better social welfare and environment spending package appears dead.  

And the prospects for legislation aimed at ending supply chain woes and countering competition from China in the next month are also on shaky ground. 

According to the Congressional Research Service, the average age of senators at the beginning of the year was 64 years and four months, making it the oldest in history. 

The White House was asked in a news conference for Biden’s thoughts on trying to pass legislation with a majority so precarious that any senator falling sick can upend his plans. 

“Life is precious, as we know. You’re … familiar with the average age of senators in the Senate, but that is true on both sides of the aisle,” Biden press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. 

“So, I would just say we spend most of our time engaging in good faith about the president’s agenda and not making those calculations.”
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US Lawmakers Nearing Agreement on Russia Sanctions

U.S. lawmakers are nearing a deal on sanctions aimed at deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. Several lawmakers who recently returned from a trip to Kyiv told VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson there is broad bipartisan unity on confronting Russia.

Camera: Russian Service Produced by: Katherine Gypson
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Out of Office, Trump Still the Center of Attention, Investigations

Former U.S. President Donald Trump left office more than a year ago, but his conduct in the waning weeks of his presidency as he tirelessly sought to remain in power and his reported role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, remain a focal point of the American political scene and multiple investigations. 

Trump, with a wide base of Republican voter support, is teasing another run for the presidency in 2024 after losing in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden, now the 46th U.S. president. Both men are in their 70s, but an electoral rematch in two years is possible. 

Trump is already assailing Biden’s performance during his first year in office, while Biden and his aides attack Trump, zeroing in on his baseless claims that he was cheated out of a second term by electoral fraud. 

But for the moment, the focus is not on 2024 or the nationwide congressional elections coming up in nine months. The current focus is on how the Trump presidency ended. 

Special grand jury 

A prosecutor in the southern city of Atlanta, Georgia, has convened a special grand jury to investigate Trump’s phone call to the top Georgia election official, Brad Raffensperger, in early 2021 asking him to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state.

“So, look. All I want to do is this,” Trump said in a recording of the call to Raffensperger. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”

Meanwhile, several U.S. news outlets reported Tuesday that aides to Trump drafted orders, which apparently were never issued, calling on the Defense and Homeland Security departments to seize voting machines in key political battleground states in hopes of proving electoral fraud.

Trump lost one court challenge after another in states that Biden won. William Barr, Trump’s former attorney general, declared that federal investigators had not found evidence of fraud that would have changed the election outcome.

Undaunted, Trump turned his attention to the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2021, imploring then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the Biden electors from several key battleground states that the Democrat had won.

Shortly before Congress convened that day, Trump staged a rally near the White House in front of several thousand of his supporters, urging them to “fight like hell” to block certification of Biden’s win.

Hundreds of Trump supporters stormed into the U.S. Capitol, smashing windows and doors, ransacking offices and scuffling with police, injuring 140 of them. Five people died that day or in the immediate aftermath, with one Trump protester shot dead by a police officer. 

To this point, 768 people have been charged with criminal offenses during the chaotic melee at the Capitol, many with minor trespassing charges but some with assaulting police. A total of 178 have pleaded guilty, with many receiving a sentence of a few weeks in jail, although some facing assault charges have been sentenced to more than four years. The rest of the cases remain unresolved as investigators pore through vast video footage of the mayhem to identify the rioters. 

Congressional investigation 

A select committee in the House of Representatives — seven Democrats and two vocal anti-Trump Republicans — has been investigating the events leading up to the January 6 riot, interviewing more than 300 witnesses, including Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff. 

Other key witnesses, including Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, have refused to testify, but the committee expects to reach conclusions by midyear about how the riot unfolded, Trump’s role in fomenting it and why for three hours he declined to call off his supporters from the ensuing riot. 

Trump has belittled the investigation, issuing a statement saying, “The January 6th Unselect Committee composed of Radical Left Democrats and a few horrible RINO Republicans is looking to hold people in criminal contempt for things relative to the Protest, when in fact they should hold themselves in criminal contempt for cheating in the Election.”

Trump’s RINO reference — Republicans in Name Only — derisively referenced the two Republicans on the committee: Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Congressman Adam Kinzinger. 

This past weekend at a political rally in Texas, Trump spoke up for the rioters arrested at the Capitol, saying, “So many people have been asking me about it. If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.” 

But Trump faced immediate blowback for his pardon suggestion, drawing a rebuke from Cheney and other Republicans. 

“Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the Jan 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election,” Cheney said on Twitter. “He’d do it all again if given the chance.” 

A close political ally of Trump’s, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, rejected pardons as “inappropriate.” Graham told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” show, “I don’t want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol. There are other groups with causes that may want to go down the violent path if these people get pardoned.” 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki also assailed Trump, saying, “You know, his remarks this weekend, he defended the actions of his supporters who stormed the Capitol and brutally attacked the law enforcement officers protecting it. 

“I think it’s important to shout that out and call that out. He even attacked his own vice president for not, in his words, having ‘overturned the election.’ And it’s just a reminder of how unfit he is for office,” Psaki said. 

 
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In One Small Prairie Town, Two Warring Visions of America

“In rural Minnesota we still have a work ethic, and I’ll call them Christian values, and that’s not reflected in our local newspaper,” said Al Saunders, a farmer and friend of Wolter’s who graduated from Benson High School a couple years after Anfinson.

“I just can’t stomach it anymore,” said Saunders, whose family settled on part of his sprawling farm more than a century ago, and who speaks almost lovingly about the rich brown soil. Anfinson’s editorials on farm subsidies and politics leave him fuming. “Trash gets thrown at you so many times and eventually you just give up.”

He grudgingly subscribes to the Monitor-News, which has a circulation of roughly 2,000. But just to follow local politics.

Anfinson does cover Swift County intensely — the city council, the county commissioners, the school board and nearly every other gathering of consequence. He’s there for school concerts, community fund-raisers, elections and livestock judging at the county fair. His white Jeep is often spattered with mud from the county’s dirt roads.

He works relentlessly. Wednesday afternoons, after he gets that week’s edition ready for printing the next morning, often count as his weekend.

Anfinson is 67 but looks at least a decade younger. A contemplative man who casually quotes Voltaire, he loves newspapers deeply, and mourns the hundreds of small-town papers that have gone under in recent years.

Still, Anfinson sometimes is surprised to find himself in Benson.

Family is a powerful force here, and this town is knitted together in ways that few Americans understand anymore. His grandfather, a poetry-loving plumber and child of Norwegian immigrants, came to Benson as a child. His father came home from World War II, became a reporter at the Monitor-News and eventually bought the newspaper with a partner.

Anfinson grew up planning on a journalism career somewhere beyond small-town Minnesota. But he found those plans upended when his father’s health began declining in the late 1970s.

“I thought I’d come back here just for a little while,” he said. “It turned into the rest of my life.”

Not that he regrets it.

He’s proud that his reporting means something here, whether it’s a high-school student getting an award or an expensive building project the community rejected after he wrote about it.

Still, there are times when it’s exhausting. And expensive. With declining circulation and ads, he estimates his three little local newspapers are worth at least $1 million less than a decade ago.

“The easy part is speaking truth to power. The hard part is speaking truth to your community. That can cost you advertisers. That can cost you subscribers,” he said.

It can be easy, looking around Benson, to think it is a land that time forgot.

Bartenders often greet customers by name. The town’s cafes feel like high school lunchrooms, with people wandering between tables to say hello. Those in search of solitude go to the Burger King, where they sit alone at plastic tables, staring out the windows.

Benson was built in the 1870s as railways reached this part of the prairies, and trains remain the town’s background music. In the cafes, people barely look up when mile-long trains roar through downtown. Few people stop talking. They’ve been hearing those trains for generations.

Many farms and businesses have been owned by the same families for decades: through the droughts of the 1930s; through the thriving years around World War II; to the population decline that began in the 1950s.

But plenty has changed.

Stores closed. Little farms were bought up by more successful farmers. Families left. Swift County’s population has dropped about 30 percent since 1960, and now has about 10,000 residents. Meanwhile, a county that was 98% white in 1990 has seen a stream of new minority residents, particularly Latinos. The county is now 87% white – far whiter than much of America, but far more diverse than a generation ago.

Today, longtime locals can sometimes feel unmoored.

“There are a lot of people coming through that I don’t recognize,” said Terri Collins, Benson’s cheerful mayor, whose family has been in Benson for five generations. “I used to know all of my neighbors and now that’s different. And I don’t know what to blame for that.”

Once, neighborliness and good manners were near-commandments here. Now anger is on the rise.

Neighborhood shouting matches are more common, a local official’s car was vandalized, and a “F— Biden” flag now flies along a school bus route. Collins and the town police chief both say they sometimes worry about Anfinson’s safety.

“Ten years ago I don’t think anything like this would happen,” she said.

But that was then. Travel across the plains of western Minnesota and you’ll find plenty of people who are bestirred by a new and often dark vision of America.

They are not on the fringes, at least by current standards. They are, for the most part, mainstream conservatives who see a nation that barely exists in traditional newspapers and mainstream TV news broadcasts.

People like the store manager, sitting at an American Legion bar drinking $3 cocktails, who calls the billionaire financier George Soros, a Jewish survivor of the Nazis and a powerful backer of liberal causes, “one of the most evil men I’ve ever heard of.” And the semi-retired nurse who fears teams of sex traffickers she says operate freely in countless small towns.

But it would be a mistake to think they can be categorized easily.

Some desperately want Trump to run again; others pray he won’t. One farmer quietly admits he worries about the growing numbers of racial minorities; another enjoys hearing new accents at the grocery store. Many are nearly as dismissive of conservative media as they are of traditional news outlets.

While social conservatism has long run deep in Swift County — even the former, longtime Democratic congressman was anti-abortion and pro-gun rights — many say the presidency of Barack Obama marked a change.

Gay marriage was legalized and identity politics took hold. Growing calls for transgender rights seemed like an issue from another planet. The sometimes-violent racial justice protests that followed police killings of Black men had some here stocking up on ammunition.

Trump’s cries that he loved America resonated in an area where new approaches to teaching U.S. history, with an increased focus on race, were confounding.

So in a county where Obama won with 55% of the vote in 2008, Trump won with 64% percent in 2020.

“We’ve seen a shift here in Swift County,” said Al Saunders. “But you won’t see that in the newspaper.”

Anfinson’s weekly column, where he writes about everything from political divisions to rural housing shortages, is a local lightning rod.

He sighed: “That editorial page will have people hate me.”

Across the U.S., many smaller newspapers, already facing economic decline with the rise of the internet, have cut back or completely stopped running editorials, trying to hold onto conservative readers who increasingly see them as local arms of a fake news universe.

But Anfinson won’t consider that, even if sometimes he feels like he’s tilting at angry, small-town windmills. He says it’s his duty to expose people to new ideas, even unpopular ideas like stricter gun control.

The editorial page is, he says “the soul of a newspaper in a way.”

“I would be a traitor to the cause of journalism, of community newspapers,” by giving up on editorials, he said. “I would be cowardly.”

Some would call him stubborn, and his wife and business partner, Shelly, would not disagree. It can be complicated being married to Reed Anfinson.

Like the day last spring, when Anfinson was in the bar next to the office and a man loudly told a friend that Anfinson was a communist and “somebody should do something about that guy.”

Anfinson knows the man. So does Shelly. A longtime dental hygienist, she cleaned his teeth for 20 years. She still says hello when she passes the man on the street.

“I try not to create a bigger divide,” said Shelly, who, after a series of intensive classes on the newspaper business, began running another of the couple’s weekly papers two years ago.

“I’ve definitely lost sleep over some confrontations that he’s had,” she said. “But do you let that stand in the way of reporting the facts?”

Shelly is warm and gregarious and easy to like. And when it comes to politics, she’s not who you’d expect to be married to the man often tagged as Benson’s best-known liberal.

She’s a pro-life Republican who voted for Trump, at least the first time. It annoys her when news outlets talk down to conservatives. She worries that there are too few Republican journalists.

She and Reed married 20 years ago, after both had been divorced. She moved in across the street and soon he was walking her home.

She is often torn between support for Reed and worries over subscriber loss.

Still, she’s been pressing him to tone down the politics.

“It is a struggle. I can tell these things to my business partner. It’s harder to tell them to my husband.”

In the custom of small-town Minnesota, the Anfinson and Wolter families get along, at least outwardly. They wave when they see each other. When one family is out of town, the other will sometimes watch their home.

“We’re still personable,” Wolter says. “I just don’t trust him.”

“He’s not going to come to church and I’m not going to buy his newspaper. But we can still treat each other as neighbors.”

While he believes Anfinson is sincere in what he publishes, he does not believe his neighbor has a monopoly on truth.

Wolter also knows that plenty of people would write him off as just another conspiracy monger. But he’s far more complicated.

He worries his conservative opinions color what he believes: “There are times when I’ve thought: ‘Well, what if all my angst over this is misplaced?’” he said. “Maybe everyone else is right?”

But he worries more about America: “This is a dark time.”

He criticizes conservative politicians for trying to make it illegal to burn the American flag, but worries about far-right accusations that U.S. soldiers are hunting down American conservatives.

“Maybe five or 10 years ago, I would have said ‘That’s crazy!’” he said. “Now I acknowledge it might be possible. I’m not saying I think it’s happening, but at least I don’t dismiss it the way that I would have.”

Wolter, whose home library includes everything from Sophocles to “The Grapes of Wrath,” is a careful reader, in his own way. He’s wary of conservative news sites like Breitbart, believing it shapes its reporting to please conservative readers. Instead, he finds his news farther off the beaten path, like on Gab, a Twitter-like social media platform that has become home to many on America’s far right.

“For better or for worse I don’t really trust anything I read,” he says. The answer, he said, is research, probing the farthest corners of the internet.

The answers are not to be found, he insists, in the Swift Country Monitor-News.

Anfinson, for his part, doesn’t want to talk about Wolter, at least not directly. He’s watched Benson’s fragile web of community fray too much.

Instead, he talks proudly about the Monitor-News: how it prints letters to the editor that are harshly critical of it; how he reports the truth even if it costs him; how his coverage of the pandemic goes to the heart of journalists’ responsibility to keep their communities safe.

He mourns how some people see him as an enemy. His newspaper should bind people together, he says. Instead, America and Benson are growing angrier. Contentious midterm elections loom.

“It’s kind of sad,” he said. “But it would be foolish of me not to be aware of (my safety) with the sentiments out there.”

Does he carry a weapon? This soft-spoken man says he does not.

“But I know where one is if I need it.”
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In America, Electoral Vote Perils Have Long History 

The president-elect was warned – there was a conspiracy to prevent the counting of the electoral ballots and disrupt his inauguration. There was even talk of seizing Washington by military force in a deeply divided nation.

It was not Joe Biden receiving the alarming reports after his 2020 election, but Abraham Lincoln following the vote of 1860.

“There was also an assassination plot against the president-elect to prevent him from arriving in Washington at all,” according to Lincoln historian Howard Holzer.

Members of a white supremacist secret society and a Baltimore militia, both committed to preserving slavery, had discussed seizing Washington by force before looking to sabotage the train carrying Lincoln to his inauguration.

Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States on March 4, 1861. By then southern states had already begun seceding to form the Confederated States of America. To get to the ceremony in Washington, Lincoln avoided going through the slaveholding city of Baltimore, as had been announced, detouring to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania disguised as an ordinary passenger in a sleeping car on a night train.

The plot to kill the president-elect (who was assassinated in 1865 after winning a second term) “turned out to be little more than rumor and drunken boasting and Lincoln was afterward so embarrassed that he had listened to any of it that he almost went to the other extreme in disregard of his personal safety,” according to Princeton University Professor Allen Guelzo.

As in 2020, some Americans in 1860 were incensed by unfounded charges about the legitimacy of the popular and electoral votes.

“It was even more ridiculous than the recent charges by Donald Trump,” Holzer told VOA of the claims that Lincoln was not legitimately elected because he prevailed in the North but had no electoral votes in the South.

Lincoln “won the election on the strength of the electoral college vote, but with only 39 percent of the popular vote. However, the states where he won the popular vote — and thus the electoral vote — gave him whopping margins of victory, so there was never any question about challenges to electors in those states,” says Guelzo, director of Princeton’s Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. 

The first mob at the Capitol 

In another parallel to recent events, on Feb. 13, 1861, a mob tried to force its way inside the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the electoral vote count. Unlike the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, authorities were prepared.

General Winfield Scott, a Southerner and hero of the Mexican War in charge of defending Washington, had even sent a cannon to Capitol Hill.

The general made it known that any intruder would be “be lashed to the muzzle of a twelve-pounder and fired out the window of the Capitol.” For emphasis, he added: “I would manure the hills of Arlington with the fragments of his body.” 

“That intimidated the group a bit,” notes Holzer.

A major difference between 1861 and 2021 is that all the senators and many of the House members from the breakaway states had already permanently departed Washington.

“So, there was no one there really to take votes and object to the state counts. And that’s one of the other reasons why it actually went much more smoothly than it did in 2020,” says Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College.

The vice president of the United States, who is the president of the Senate, in both 1861 and 2021 did not tamper with the ceremonial but crucial electoral vote count. On that fateful day in 1861, Vice President John Breckinridge of Kentucky (the runner-up presidential candidate from the Southern side of a split Democratic Party) presided over the event.

Two months later, civil war began when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. Army fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

Modern day dispute 

On the first anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, deadly attack on the Capitol, Biden declared: “We are in a battle for the soul of America,” accusing Trump of trying to unravel the country’s democratic system by continuing to repeat lies about the 2020 election.

Trump continues to insist, without evidence, there was “massive vote fraud” in several states he lost. 

A special House committee, meanwhile, is investigating the siege of the Capitol and the violent attempt to disrupt the electoral vote counting.

The U.S. election system has improved since Lincoln’s days, but more reform is needed, according to numerous politicians, analysts and historians.

“In those days, state electors were elected in many states by the legislature, not even by voters. There was a lot of possibilities for fraud, or at least over-politicization that ignored the will of the people,” says Holzer. “We don’t have that now. We have electronic and computer counts. We have poll-watchers, we have the popular vote.”

Numerous technical issues with the certification and counting of the electoral votes remain concerningly vague, however, according to Michael Morley, a law professor at Florida State University and a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises.

“It’s an issue that four years ago wouldn’t have been on anyone’s political radar,” says Morley, who explains he is now “cautiously optimistic that we might see some changes.” 

The danger for the next presidential election in 2024 in a deeply divided nation, as it was in Lincoln’s time, is “both the possibility, as well as a public perception of the possibility, that the outcome of the election could be determined by politically motivated decision-making rather than the dictates of the law and what the actual outcome of the vote is,” Morley tells VOA.

Will law be updated? 

Such concerns have a bipartisan group of U.S. senators examining ways to modernize the law concerning the electoral ballots. 

The 1887 Electoral Count Act is woefully out of date, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, told reporters on Wednesday. She explained that lawmakers are exploring how to raise the requirements for members of Congress to challenge state-certified election results and ensuring the vice president’s role is purely ceremonial when the electoral votes are certified.

The 1887 act written in reaction to the presidential election of 1876, in which Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote but ultimately lost to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Three Southern states had sent in multiple competing electoral returns and Congress had no rules in place to resolve the conflicts.

It is critical, according to Collins, to prevent a repeat of last year when Trump pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to overturn electoral results. 

“Fortunately, Vice President Pence did the right thing and followed the 12th Amendment, but the Electoral Count Act is ambiguous about the role of the vice president,” Collins told WMTW-TV. “But what if we had a vice president who wasn’t as ethical and bound by his constitutional duty?” 

 
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Biden’s High Court Pledge Shows Growing Power of Black Women

As he struggled to survive the 2020 Democratic primary, Joe Biden made a striking pledge before voting began in heavily African American, must-win South Carolina: His first Supreme Court appointment would be a Black woman.

On Thursday, with his poll numbers reaching new lows and his party panicking about the midterm elections, Biden turned again to the Democratic Party’s most steadfast voters and reiterated his vow to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer with the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

The striking promise is a reflection of Black women’s critical role in the Democratic Party and the growing influence of Black women in society. It’s also a recognition that Black women have been marginalized in American politics for centuries and the time has come to right the imbalance of a court made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries, a change Biden said Thursday is “long overdue.”

Black women are the most loyal Democrats — 93% of them voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.

And it’s Black women’s reliability as Democratic voters that makes it so important for the party to respond to their priorities and keep them in the fold, said Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University. “Democrats know Black women are going to turn out for them so they have everything to lose if they don’t do this.”

Black women turned out to vote for Biden in greater numbers than for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and they were vital in Biden’s wins in states like Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Overall, they made up 12% of Biden’s voters and reached even higher percentages in heavily African American states like Georgia, where they represented 35% of his support. In that state, which Biden won by just over 12,000 votes, he earned the backing of 95% of Black women.

Biden, in particular, owes Black voters, and especially women, a debt from the primaries. His campaign was on life support before South Carolina’s primary in late February 2020, when he secured the endorsement of Rep. James Clyburn, the kingmaker of the state’s Democratic political orbit, by pledging to select a Black woman for the Supreme Court.

“His campaign was struggling,” Clyburn recalled on Thursday, citing Biden’s three straight losses in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. “This was quite frankly do or die for him, and I urged him to come out publicly for putting an African American woman on the Supreme Court.”

Biden already made a fundamentally important statement about the importance of Black women in his coalition by selecting Kamala Harris as his vice president. But putting a Black woman on the court is another historic step. Republican Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 presidential campaign, vowed to put the first woman on the Supreme Court and nominated Justice Sandra Day O’Connor once in office.

But Biden’s pledge also responds to issues Black women care about, said Glynda Carr, president of Higher Heights For America PAC, which advocates for Black women in politics. “Black women are very in tune with knowing the court is important to our daily lives,” said Carr, citing big cases on voting rights and abortion.

The decision isn’t just a win for Black women but for all voters concerned with ensuring that government reflects the actual population, said Tom Bonier, a Democratic data analyst. As such, he said, it should rally Democrats of all races.

“To the extent that Biden, at this point, is suffering from lower approval ratings, part of his challenge is just reassembling his coalition and reminding those voters who sent him to the White House why that vote mattered,” Bonier said.

Biden’s early discussions about a successor to Breyer have focused on U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss White House deliberations.

Childs is a favorite of Clyburn. The House majority whip said Thursday that she had “everything I think it takes to be a great justice.”

The robust roster of Black women for the Supreme Court is a testament to their growing professional progress over the past few decades, experts say. Black women — like women of all races — have been increasingly likely to earn college degrees over the past two decades. Although they still lag in other crucial categories such as pay, the court seat is another milestone.

“We could not have imagined the sheer number of overqualified women a few decades ago,” Brown said.

The nomination of a Black woman is also significant for Black men, said Adrianne Shropshire of BlackPAC, a political organization that tries to elect more Black Democrats. That’s in part because the current sole African American on the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, is a conservative Republican whose decisions often go against the desires of the heavily Democratic Black community.

While Black men are not quite as Democratic as Black women, they still overwhelmingly back the party — 87% voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast.

Still, Shropshire warned, a Supreme Court appointment is only one step in ensuring Black voters are motivated in 2022 and beyond.

“For Black folks in the country, the thing that looms largest is, are their daily lives changed?” Shropshire said. “For the president — and the vice president — it is going to be more than this appointment.”

“I don’t think it’s helpful for people to say, ‘Well, the one thing we got is a nomination on the Supreme Court,'” Shropshire added.
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US House Committee Subpoenas Fake Trump Electors in 7 States 

The House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection subpoenaed more than a dozen individuals Friday who it says falsely tried to declare Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election in seven swing states.

The panel is demanding information and testimony from 14 people who it says allegedly met and submitted false Electoral College certificates declaring Trump the winner of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to a letter from Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairman. President Joe Biden won all seven states. 

“We believe the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme,” Thompson said in the letter. “We encourage them to cooperate with the Select Committee’s investigation to get answers about January 6th for the American people and help ensure nothing like that day ever happens again.” 

The nine-member panel said it has obtained information that groups of individuals met on December 14, 2020 — more than a month after Election Day — in the seven states. The individuals, according to the congressional investigation, then submitted fake slates of Electoral College votes for Trump. Then “alternate electors” from those seven states sent those certificates to Congress, where several of Trump’s advisers used them to justify delaying or blocking the certification of the election during the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.

Lies about election fraud from the former president and his allies fueled the deadly insurrection on the Capitol building that day, as a violent mob interrupted the certification of the Electoral College results. 

Group obtained certificates

Last March, American Oversight, a watchdog group, obtained the certificates in question that were submitted by Republicans in the seven states. In two of them, New Mexico and Pennsylvania, the fake electors added a caveat saying the certificate was submitted in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. That would have been possible only if Trump had won any of the several dozens of legal battles he waged against those states in the weeks after the election.

In the other five states, however, Republicans certified that they were their state’s duly elected and qualified electors. 

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a CNN interview this week that the Justice Department has received referrals from lawmakers regarding the fake certifications, and that prosecutors were now “looking at those.” 

An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in six of the battleground states disputed by Trump has found fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election. 

Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his victory margin in those states. 

The fake electors are the latest to be subpoenaed in the large-scale investigation the committee has been pursuing since it came together last summer. The congressional probe has scrutinized Trump family members and allies, members of Congress and even social media groups accused of perpetuating election misinformation and allowing it to spread rampantly. 

The committee plans to move into a more public-facing phase of its work in the next few months. Lawmakers will be holding hearings to document to the American public the most detailed and complete look into the individuals and events that led to the Capitol insurrection.
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US Bridge in Pittsburgh Collapses on Day of Biden’s Infrastructure Visit

A bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, collapsed early Friday morning, just hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s visit to the U.S. city to underscore the need to improve the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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US Congress Considers Bills to Boost Competition with China

With President Joe Biden’s broader domestic agenda stymied in the Senate, Democratic leaders in Congress have begun looking for legislative victories elsewhere, with a new focus on improving the U.S. ability to compete with China.

Democrats in the House of Representatives are attempting to come to agreement on legislation that would provide large financial subsidies to the semiconductor industry as well as generous research and development grants to support supply chain resilience, buoy domestic manufacturing operations and underwrite new scientific research.

The effort in the House follows a push in the Senate last year, which resulted in bipartisan passage of the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021. That bill proposed $52 billion in assistance to the semiconductor industry as well as nearly $200 billion more on research and development projects meant to bolster U.S. competitiveness.

The House is likely to pass its own version of the legislation, meaning the two chambers would have to come to an agreement on final language before a bill could go to the White House to be signed into law. It remains unclear whether an eventual House bill would garner any Republican support in that chamber, or whether compromise language would continue to attract the Republican support that helped the Senate’s original bill come to the floor for a vote.

But in a statement this week, the president made it clear that he would like to see the legislation on his desk.

Biden praised the “transformational investments” that the legislation would make. With the proposed legislation, he said, “We have an opportunity to show China and the rest of the world that the 21st century will be the American century – forged by the ingenuity and hard work of our innovators, workers, and businesses.”

Countering Chinese subsidies

In Congress, even among conservative lawmakers who generally shy away from government intervention in the economy, there is recognition of a need to balance the scales for U.S. companies that frequently find themselves in competition with Chinese firms that receive subsidies and other preferences from the government in Beijing.

When the Senate passed its version of the bill in June, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said, “This type of targeted investment in a critical industry was unthinkable just a couple years ago, but the need for smart industrial policy is now widely accepted.”

That comes as a surprise to many observers of U.S. policymaking.

“There is somewhat of an ambivalence, or confusion, in D.C. where, on the one hand, people want to say that China’s industrial policies are both very unfair, and also very important in explaining China’s competitive success,” Gerard DiPippo, a senior fellow in the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA. “But then, they also seem reluctant to actually engage in those policies because they think those policies are actually very distortionary and ineffective. So, it sort of cuts both ways.”

Semiconductors in focus

Despite strong economic growth in the U.S. over the past year, a persistent shortage of semiconductors has caused some sectors of the economy – the automobile industry in particular – to lag behind. Supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic have been difficult to resolve, leading many members of Congress to propose funding to “re-shore” domestic production of semiconductors.

Both the Senate bill and the version being considered by the House of Representatives would funnel $52 billion in grants and subsidies to the industry.

However, China is not a major competitor of the United States when it comes to semiconductors. While China does make some semiconductors, the largest manufacturer in the world is TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. in Taiwan.

‘Decoupling’ seen as troubling

Some American companies that do business with China are concerned about the long-term efforts of both countries to achieve economic independence from each other.

“China is upset with efforts to increase export restrictions on U.S. goods, block Chinese companies from accessing certain U.S. goods, and restrict some direct investments in China,” Doug Barry, a senior director with the U.S.-China Business Council, told VOA in an email exchange.

“They worry about incentives to relocate production of some critical goods back to the U.S. At the same time, China is working to reduce dependence on certain goods like advanced semiconductors, while slow-walking promised market access reform and opening,” Barry said.

“Our members worry that these efforts signal mutual economic decoupling that’s not in the long-term interest of either country,” he said. “Both governments need to engage in direct talks to better manage differences, adhere to WTO principles, and ensure that Phase One Agreement commitments are fully met.”

Government interference ‘misguided’

Ryan Young, a senior fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told VOA that efforts by Congress to mimic China by trying to manipulate the U.S. economy are “misguided” at best, and at worst destructive.

“This falls into what I think of as the ‘But they do it, too,’ argument,” Young said. While it is indisputable that the Chinese government creates all sorts of advantages for certain sectors within its economy, he said, it doesn’t follow that the answer is for the U.S. to do the same.

Despite government support, large Chinese tech firms are burdened with substantial debt, operational inefficiencies and political meddling, he said.

Further, Young noted that the semiconductor industry, which the legislative efforts target above all else, has already taken steps to bring some of its production into U.S. territory, with chip giant Intel expanding a $50 billion complex of chip manufacturing facilities in Arizona. 

 
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