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Trump Facing Major Criminal Investigations as He Considers 2024 Presidential Run

As he strongly hints at another campaign for the White House in 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump is facing major federal and state criminal investigations into his actions in the immediate aftermath of his failed reelection campaign in 2020.  

Monday’s unprecedented FBI raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida was the latest indication that investigators remain focused on the country’s 45th president. Reports say the investigators were seeking classified documents he may have taken with him when he left Washington last year. 

The search was court-authorized and was likely sanctioned at the highest levels of the Justice Department. But details of the search warrant filed by investigators and their justification for it are not yet publicly known, nor is the name of the judge who authorized it. The White House says it was not given advance notice of the raid. 

Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the official records of all presidents and vice presidents remain publicly owned, even after they leave office. The statute’s premise is that the papers belong to the American public, not the individuals who served as the country’s leaders. 

About a year after he left office, Trump turned over to the National Archives 15 boxes of documents from his presidency, some of which were said to include classified papers. But investigators who searched Trump’s office and opened a safe at his Florida seaside estate Monday carted away more documents that were not turned over in January. 

Trump belittled the search, much as he has the election-related investigations, as an attempt to keep him from running again in 2024.  

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” the former president said in a statement. 

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he said, contending the search was the result of “prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.” 

He claimed such a event “could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before.” 

Trump retains a wide following among a base of Republican voters, although an array of Republican officials, including Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others, have been broadly hinting they could seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. 

Ongoing investigations 

The Justice Department is also investigating Trump’s role in instigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when about 2,000 of his supporters rampaged into the building to block lawmakers from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. At a rally shortly beforehand, Trump urged supporters to walk to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” 

Despite White House aides and then-Attorney General William Barr repeatedly telling Trump there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the vote-counting sufficient to overturn his defeat, Trump demanded publicly and privately that Pence stop certification of the Electoral College vote count favoring Biden.  

But Pence refused to do so on the advice of lawyers who told him the Constitution did not give him that authority. 

Investigators are looking into the role Trump played in carrying out a plan promoted by some of his advisers to name unauthorized slates of electors in states where he lost who would seek to replace the official electors pledged to Biden. 

In the United States, presidents are effectively chosen in separate elections in each of the 50 states, not through the national popular vote. Each state’s number of electoral votes is dependent on its population, with the biggest states holding the most sway. The rioters who stormed the Capitol tried to keep lawmakers from certifying Biden’s eventual 306-232 victory in the Electoral College.  

In a third investigation, a prosecutor in the southern state of Georgia is investigating Trump for possible solicitation of election fraud. 

In a taped January 2, 2021, telephone call, Trump asked Georgia’s top election official to “find” him 11,780 votes — one more than Biden defeated him by — out of 5 million ballots that were cast in the state. 

During the call, Trump said, “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.” 

 
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FBI, Justice Department Routinely Prosecute Misuse of Classified Documents

Federal officials are saying little so far about Monday’s FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, but Trump and one of his sons have said the move is part of an investigation into Trump’s removal of official documents from the White House.

While such a search of a former U.S. president’s residence would appear to be unprecedented, investigations into the removal or unlawful retention of classified information is not.

Since 2005, the FBI and the Justice Department have launched at least 11 such investigations, some targeting high-profile former U.S. officials, including a former national security adviser and a former CIA director.

Others who have been prosecuted and who have pleaded guilty or were convicted include Defense Department employees, defense contractors and employees or contractors with the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Here’s a list of some notable cases:

April 2005 – Former U.S. national security adviser Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration. Berger admitted to concealing and removing five copies of a classified document from the Archives in September and October 2003.

Berger also admitted to concealing and removing handwritten notes in violation of the Archives’ policy. In September 2005, Berger was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and give up his security clearance for three years.

March 2013 –Retired Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Pierce Bishop was arrested in Hawaii and charged with one count of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense and one count of willfully communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive such information. Court papers alleged Bishop, who was working for a defense contractor, stored 12 documents containing classified information at his residence. The documents further allege Bishop willfully communicated that information to a 27-year-old Chinese woman with whom he had a relationship.

Bishop pleaded guilty in March 2014. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

March 2015 – Retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The plea followed revelations that Petraeus shared some of the materials with his biographer and mistress.

Petraeus was sentenced to two years of probation and a $100,000 fine.

July 2015 – U.S. Navy reservist Bryan Nishimura was sentenced to two years of probation and a $7,500 fine after he pleaded guilty to downloading and storing classified documents from his deployment to Afghanistan in 2007-2008 on his personal devices and media. A search of his home in May 2012 turned up numerous classified materials, both in digital and hard copy formats.

August 2016 – Former National Security Agency contractor Harold Martin was arrested for what federal prosecutors described as a theft of top-secret government information that was “breathtaking in its longevity and scale.”

Martin was indicted in February 2017 on charges of stealing and retaining classified documents and other material, according to a statement from the Justice Department. The department further alleged Martin “stole and retained” highly classified top secret documents covering 20 years, keeping them in his home and in his vehicle.

According to the indictment, the documents stolen and retained by Martin contained NSA planning information and information on intelligence collection targets. Other documents, from U.S. Cyber Command, contained information on U.S. military capabilities, some to be used in specific operations, and documents about gaps in U.S. cyber capabilities.

Martin pleaded guilty to the willful retention of national defense information in March 2019. In July 2019, Martin was sentenced to nine years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

January 2017 – Former defense contractor and sailor Weldon Marshall was arrested for unlawfully retaining classified information, stored on compact discs and computer hard drives that he kept at his home in Texas. The information included classified documents from Marshall’s time with the U.S. Navy and from his time as a defense contractor in Afghanistan.

Marshall pleaded guilty in March 2018. He was sentenced in June 2018 to more than three years in prison followed by a year of supervised release.

January 2018 – Former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee, also known as Zhen Cheng Li, was arrested on charges of unlawful retention of national defense information. Prosecutors alleged that Lee, while staying at hotels in Hawaii and Virginia, was in possession of two, small books that contained handwritten notes that included the true names and phone numbers of assets and covert CIA employees, operational notes from asset meetings, operational meeting locations and locations of covert facilities.

Lee was indicted in May 2018 on two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense, as well as one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.

Lee pleaded guilty and was sentenced in November 2019 to 19 years in prison for conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to China.

May 2018 – Former CIA contractor Reynaldo Regis pleaded guilty to charges of unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, as well as to making false statements to federal law enforcement officers. Prosecutors said during his time at the CIA, Reyes conducted unauthorized searches of classified databases and copied the information into dozens of notebooks, which he then took home.

In November 2018, Reyes was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Regis’ lawyer later told the Associated Press and other news outlets that his client “had no nefarious purpose. It was just a mistake.”

August 2019 – Former National Security Agency (NSA) employee Elizabeth Jo Shirley was arrested in Mexico City on charges of parental kidnapping and was later charged with retaining top secret documents on her electronic devices, both in Mexico and some stored at her home in West Virginia.

Prosecutors additionally alleged that Shirley sought to offer the information to the Russian government.

In July 2020, Shirley pleaded guilty to one count of willful retention of national defense information and to one count of international parental kidnapping. She was sentenced in January 2021 to more than eight years in prison for the willful retention of national defense information. She was also sentenced to three years in prison on the kidnapping charges.

June 2020 — Investigators conducted a search of the Hawaii home of Asia Janay Lavarello, a U.S. Defense Department employee, following her return from a temporary assignment to the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Investigators found numerous classified documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense or foreign relations and said the documents – first seen by guests at a dinner party hosted by Lavarello – had not been transported by secure diplomatic pouch, as required.

Lavarello pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified information in July 2021. She was sentenced in February 2022 to three months in prison and a $5,500 fine.

May 2021 – Kendra Kingsbury, an employee at the FBI’s Kansas City division, was indicted on two counts of having unauthorized possession of documents relating to the national defense. The court documents allege Kingsbury removed sensitive material and classified documents from her workplace over a period of more than 12 years and kept them at her home. One of the documents included information on al-Qaida members in Africa, including a suspected associate of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.
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Lawyer: Giuliani Won’t Testify Tuesday in Georgia Election Probe

Rudy Giuliani will not appear as scheduled Tuesday before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia, his lawyer said. 

A judge last month had ordered Giuliani, a Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, to appear before the special grand jury Tuesday. 

But Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, told The Associated Press on Monday that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, had excused Giuliani for the day. 

Nothing in publicly available court documents indicates that Giuliani is excused from appearing, but McBurney has scheduled a hearing for 12:30 p.m. Tuesday to hear arguments on a court filing from Giuliani seeking to delay his appearance. In a court filing Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked the judge to deny Giuliani’s request for a delay and to instruct him to appear before the special grand jury as ordered. 

Willis opened an investigation early last year, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May at her request. 

Last month she filed petitions seeking to compel testimony from seven Trump advisers and associates, including Giuliani. Because they don’t live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involves getting a judge in the state where they live to order them to appear. 

New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber on July 13 issued an order directing Giuliani to appear before the special grand jury on August 9 and on any other dates ordered by the court in Atlanta. 

Giuliani’s legal team last week asked Willis’ office to delay his appearance, saying he was unable to travel because of a medical procedure. That request was rejected after Willis’ team found evidence on social media that he had traveled since his medical procedure. 

A Giuliani attorney then clarified to Willis’ team that Giuliani is not cleared for air travel, but Willis still refused to postpone his appearance, the motion says. 

In her Monday court filing, Willis wrote that her team had obtained records indicating that between July 19 and July 21, Giuliani bought multiple airline tickets, including tickets to Rome, Italy, and Zurich, Switzerland, for travel dates between July 22 and July 29. Willis said her team offered to provide alternative transportation — including bus or train fare — if Giuliani wasn’t cleared for air travel. 

Giuliani had also offered to appear virtually, for example by Zoom, his motion says. 

“It is important to note here that Mr. Giuliani is no way seeking to inappropriately delay or obstruct these proceedings or avoid giving evidence or testimony that is not subject to some claim of privilege in this matter,” the motion says, noting that Giuliani had appeared virtually before the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and testified for more than nine hours. 

“Mr. Giuliani is willing to do the same here under conditions that replicate a grand jury proceeding,” the motion says. 

In the petition for Giuliani’s testimony, Willis identified him as both a personal attorney for Trump and a lead attorney for his campaign. 

She wrote that he and others presented a Georgia state Senate subcommittee with a video recording of election workers that Giuliani alleged showed them producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers. 

Within 24 hours of that hearing on Dec. 3, 2020, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video and said that it had found that no voter fraud had taken place at the site. Nevertheless, Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using that debunked video, Willis wrote. 

Evidence shows that Giuliani’s appearance and testimony at the hearing “was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the petition says. 

 
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Trump Says Mar-a-Lago Home in Florida Raided by FBI

Former U.S. President Donald Trump said FBI agents have raided his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.  

“My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in lengthy statement Monday evening. “After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”  

The circumstances of the search were not immediately clear, according to media reports. The Justice Department, however, has been actively investigating the discovery of classified information in boxes of records that were taken to Trump’s Florida residence after he left the White House in January 2021. 

Trump, who was in New York City on Monday, did not say why the raid took place. The FBI and Justice Department did not immediately comment on Trump’s statement. 

Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson declined to comment on the search to The Associated Press. Iverson also declined to comment about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland had personally authorized the search, according to media reports. 

A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, told the AP the search happened earlier Monday.  

Earlier this year, the National Archives and Records Administration said it had found classified material in 15 boxes at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. It then referred the case to the Justice Department. 

The Presidential Records Act of 1978 established that all presidential records are owned by the public and automatically transfer into the custody of the National Archives as soon as a commander-in-chief leaves office. All presidential libraries and museums are part of the National Archives.  

“Presidential records are the property of the United States government and are administered by the National Archives,” Meghan Ryan Guthorn, acting deputy chief operating officer of the agency, told VOA earlier this year. “So, all presidential papers, materials and records in the custody of the National Archives, whether donated, seized or governed by the Presidential Records Act, are owned by the federal government.” 

The former president accused the government of “prosecutorial misconduct,” saying the raid amounts to the “weaponization of the Justice System.” 

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he said. 

Trump said FBI agents even broke into the safe in his home.  

Evan Corcoran, a lawyer representing Trump, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post. 

The developments come as Trump has been preparing for a potential presidential run in 2024, possibly setting himself up for a rematch against President Joe Biden. He accused Democrats of “desperately” not wanting him to run again. 

Top Biden White House officials said they were not given advance notice of the raid, according to media reports. 

The Justice Department has been investigating the removal of official presidential records to Trump’s Florida estate at the conclusion of his presidency. It is not clear if the raid has anything to do with that investigation. 

Trump has previously said he agreed to return certain records to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, calling it “an ordinary and routine process.” 

The Justice Department also has been investigating efforts by allies of Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.  

The department has not announced whether it will seek criminal charges against Trump in that investigation. 

Dora Mekouar contributed to this report. Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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Examining the Debate Over Native American Land Acknowledgments

A civil rights lawsuit filed by a University of Washington computer science professor has called attention to a largely academic debate over land acknowledgments — formal statements that recognize Indigenous custodianship of geographic areas on which institutions stand or events take place.

Evolving out of the work of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, land acknowledgments are becoming increasingly common at U.S. universities and sporting events.

Yale University, for example, developed this statement:

“Yale University acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.”

Native American students at Stanford University in Stanford, California, put together a video statement acknowledging the institution’s location on the the ancestral land of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe (below):

In 2020, the University of Washington acknowledged its location on the traditional land and waterways of the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot Nations and encouraged faculty to include land acknowledgments on individual course syllabuses.

But Stuart Reges, a computer science professor at the University’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, opposes land acknowledgements and posted a dissenting statement on his course outline which read, “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”

He now faces disciplinary action by the university for that statement. In his lawsuit, Reges alleged his First Amendment right to free speech had been violated.

The labor theory he cites was proposed by English philosopher John Locke in 1690, who suggested that by laboring and making the land more productive than it was in its original state of nature, an individual assumes the right to own that land.

“Locke said that in the case of land, if you grew corn on an acre of land, then by mixing your labor with the land, you come to own the land,” Reges told VOA. “So, if you believe in the Locke idea, then it wasn’t Native tribes that made productive use of this land. It was the people who founded the university.”

What is the Locke Theory of Property?

For help in understanding this little-known theory, VOA reached out to Kyle Swan, a professor of philosophy at California State University, Sacramento, who has written about Lockean property rights.

“I think he [Reges] is making some mistakes in the way he applies Locke’s theory,” he said. “Locke was talking about the commons, earth in its original state, when nobody owned anything yet.”

In a later chapter of his “Second Treatise of Government” titled “On Conquest,” Locke said property could only be legitimately acquired when it was not already owned by someone else.

“Why were they making contracts to acquire land from the natives if the natives didn’t already own the land?” Swan asked. “They wouldn’t do that if they believed that the lands were unused, unoccupied and unowned.”

“The second thing is that the person appropriating something from the commons, they have to do that in a way that improves it through their productive activity — gathering berries, hunting, fishing,” Swan said. “And finally, in acquiring the land, they have to leave enough and as good [land] for others.”

Locke also posed a condition in cases of conquest, said Swan, reading directly from Locke’s essay: “The inhabitants of any country, who are descended and derive a title to their estates from those who are subdued and had a government forced upon them against their free consents, retain a right to the possession of their ancestors.”

“In other words,” Swan said, “if what you have is a conquest rather than a legitimate transfer of territorial rights, then Locke says that the original inhabitants retain their claims to it.”

Their different interpretations of Locke notwithstanding, Swan said he believed Reges had the right to exercise free speech.

Ties to current politics

Reges said he believes land acknowledgments support a “particular view” of American history that “has no place in the classroom.”

“You could call it the Howard Zinn view of history — that the United States is evil, and we stole the land, we are guilty, and so forth,” he said.

Zinn was a controversial historian and author of “A Peoples History of the United States,” which re-examined history through the experiences of those normally neglected in textbooks — African and Native Americans, immigrants and the working classes.

Critics condemn Zinn as a Marxist trying to turn Americans against their country. His name often comes up in discussions about critical race theory (CRT).

Reges isn’t alone in his views. In a July 18 article in Newsweek magazine University of Chicago Law School professor M. Todd Henderson called land acknowledgments “ahistorical nonsense,” and like Reges, invokes Locke’s theory of property rights.

“No one has a claim on land except if they put it to productive use and are capable of defending it. … Nearly every plot of land on Earth is inhabited today by groups of people that displaced other people who lived there before,” Henderson said.

Graeme Wood, a writer for the Atlantic and a lecturer at Yale, criticizes land acknowledgments as superficial and showy.

“The acknowledgments never include any actual material redress — the return of land, meaningful corrections of wrongs against Indigenous communities — or sophisticated moral reckoning,” he wrote.

A Native American perspective

Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee), president of the Morning Star Institute and former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, scoffs at these criticisms.

“People who enjoy their privilege are like sea anemones. At the slightest ripple in the water, they withdraw and turn into something that looks like a very carefully protected stone,” she said. “Every time Native peoples began to own something or control something or aspire to — or even just be — in a certain place, there’s always a backlash against any sort of exercise of our treaties, our sovereignty, our inherent rights, our original rights that pre-date everyone else’s here in this hemisphere.”

She pointed out that opponents of land acknowledgments and CRT say they want to save their children from feeling guilt.

“What we’re doing — different people of color — is trying to stop our kids from thinking badly of themselves. That’s what happens if you’re treated badly, if you’re treated like second-class citizens, even though you have treaties, even though you have absolute rights and you’re constantly denied them. Pretty soon, their kids start thinking it’s them, that they are the bad persons.”

“So, yeah,” she added. “We are trying to save our kids.”

 
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US Warns Pacific Isles of ‘Struggle’ Against Coercive Regimes

A top U.S. diplomat warned Pacific Islands of a new struggle against violent power-hungry regimes Sunday, as she visited the Solomon Islands to mark the 80th anniversary of World War II’s Battle of Guadalcanal.

With China’s military carrying out war drills around Taiwan and Russia bombarding Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman hit out at a new crop of world leaders reviving “bankrupt” ideas about the use of force.

Visiting a battlefield memorial in the Solomon Islands, Sherman said “some around the world” had forgotten the cost of war or were ignoring the lessons of the past.

She hit out at “leaders who believe that coercion, pressure, and violence are tools to be used with impunity,” without citing any leader by name.

Sherman is leading a U.S. delegation to the Solomon Islands to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal.

The brutal seven-month land, sea and air fight between Allied and Japanese forces killed tens of thousands of troops — most Japanese — and was a turning point in the war.

Painting the situation today as carrying faint echoes of the fight against Nazism and Imperial Japan in the 1930-40s, the State Department No. 2 urged the region to push back.

“We remember how bankrupt, how empty, such views were then, and remain today,” she said.

“Today we are once again engaged in a different kind of struggle — a struggle that will go on for some time to come.”

Sherman’s trip comes as the United States scrambles to rebuild diplomatic relations in a region where China is growing stronger and democratic alliances have faltered.

Nowhere is America’s waning regional influence more evident than in the Solomon Islands itself.

The government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare recently signed a secretive security pact with Beijing, has moved to curb press freedoms, and suggested delaying elections.

Sherman, again without naming names, told her hosts “It is up to us to decide if we want to continue having societies where people are free to speak their minds.”

It is time, she said, to decide “If we want to have governments that are transparent and accountable to their people.”

As well as warnings, Sherman said Washington wants to increase cooperation with the “absolutely critical” Pacific islands, including by opening embassies in Tonga, Kiribati, and the Solomon Islands.

As part of the charm offensive, U.S. President Joe Biden is also expected to invite Pacific Island leaders to the White House for a September summit.
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Senate Rules Referee Weakens Democrats’ Drug Plan in Economic Bill

The Senate parliamentarian Saturday dealt a blow to Democrats’ plan for curbing drug prices but left the rest of their sprawling economic bill largely intact as party leaders prepared for first votes on a package containing many of President Joe Biden’s top domestic goals. 

Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s nonpartisan rules arbiter, said lawmakers must remove language imposing hefty penalties on drugmakers that boost their prices beyond inflation in the private insurance market. Those were the bill’s chief pricing protections for the roughly 180 million people whose health coverage comes from private insurance, either through work or bought on their own. 

Other major provisions were left intact, including giving Medicare the power to negotiate what it pays for pharmaceuticals for its 64 million elderly recipients, a longtime goal for Democrats. Penalties on manufacturers for exceeding inflation would apply to drugs sold to Medicare, and there is a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on drug costs and free vaccines for Medicare beneficiaries. 

Her rulings came as Democrats planned to begin Senate votes Saturday on their wide-ranging package addressing climate change, energy, health care costs, taxes and even deficit reduction. Party leaders have said they believe they have the unity they will need to move the legislation through the 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote and over solid Republican opposition. 

“This is a major win for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the bill, which both parties are using in their election-year campaigns to assign blame for the worst period of inflation in four decades. “And a sad commentary on the Republican Party, as they actively fight provisions that lower costs for the American family.” 

In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Democrats “are misreading the American people’s outrage as a mandate for yet another reckless taxing and spending spree.” He said Democrats “have already robbed American families once through inflation and now their solution is to rob American families yet a second time.” 

Dropping penalties on drugmakers reduces incentives on pharmaceutical companies to restrain what they charge, increasing costs for patients. 

Erasing that language will cut the $288 billion in 10-year savings that the Democrats’ overall drug curbs were estimated to generate — a reduction of perhaps tens of billions of dollars, analysts have said. 

Schumer said MacDonough’s decision about the price cap for private insurance was “one unfortunate ruling.” But he said the surviving drug pricing language represented “a major victory for the American people” and that the overall bill “remains largely intact.” 

The ruling followed a 10-day period that saw Democrats resurrect top components of Biden’s agenda that had seemed dead. In rapid-fire deals with Democrats’ two most unpredictable senators — first conservative Joe Manchin of West Virginia, then Arizona centrist Kyrsten Sinema — Schumer pieced together a broad package that, while a fraction of earlier, larger versions that Manchin derailed, would give the party an achievement against the backdrop of this fall’s congressional elections. 

The parliamentarian also signed off on a fee on excess emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas contributor, from oil and gas drilling. She also let stand environmental grants to minority communities and other initiatives for reducing carbon emissions, said Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del. 

She approved a provision requiring union-scale wages to be paid if energy efficiency projects are to qualify for tax credits, and another that would limit electric vehicle tax credits to those cars and trucks assembled in the United States. 

The overall measure faces unanimous Republican opposition. But assuming Democrats fight off a nonstop “vote-a-rama” of amendments — many designed by Republicans to derail the measure — they should be able to muscle the measure through the Senate. 

House passage could come when that chamber returns briefly from recess Friday. 

“What will vote-a-rama be like. It will be like hell,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said Friday of the approaching GOP amendments. He said that in supporting the Democratic bill, Manchin and Sinema “are empowering legislation that will make the average person’s life more difficult” by forcing up energy costs with tax increases and making it harder for companies to hire workers. 

The bill offers spending and tax incentives for moving toward cleaner fuels and supporting coal with assistance for reducing carbon emissions. Expiring subsidies that help millions of people afford private insurance premiums would be extended for three years, and there is $4 billion to help Western states combat drought. 

There would be a new 15% minimum tax on some corporations that earn over $1 billion annually but pay far less than the current 21% corporate tax. There would also be a 1% tax on companies that buy back their own stock, swapped in after Sinema refused to support higher taxes on private equity firm executives and hedge fund managers. The IRS budget would be pumped up to strengthen its tax collections. 

While the bill’s final costs are still being determined, it overall would spend more than $300 billion over 10 years to slow climate change, which analysts say would be the country’s largest investment in that effort, and billions more on health care. It would raise more than $700 billion in taxes and from government drug cost savings, leaving about $300 billion for deficit reduction — a modest bite out of projected 10-year shortfalls of many trillions of dollars. 

Democrats are using special procedures that would let them pass the measure without having to reach the 60-vote majority that legislation often needs in the Senate. 

It is the parliamentarian’s job to decide whether parts of legislation must be dropped for violating those rules, which include a requirement that provisions be chiefly aimed at affecting the federal budget, not imposing new policy. 

 
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US Senate Preps for Landmark Climate Legislation

Congressional Democrats appear to be on the cusp of passing legislation that would dedicate $369 billion to combat climate change through a combination of grants, tax cuts, subsidies and other measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

In addition to its climate-related elements, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) makes it possible for Medicare, the government-sponsored health insurance program for older Americans, to negotiate certain drug prices with the pharmaceuticals industry, a move expected to lower drug costs for all Americans. It also creates a minimum tax on large corporations, raises taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and will reduce the federal deficit by an estimated $300 billion over 10 years.

In a statement issued Thursday, President Joe Biden praised the legislation and called on lawmakers to pass it quickly.

The bill, Biden said, “makes the largest investment in history in combating climate change and increasing energy security, creating jobs here in the U.S. and saving people money on their energy costs. I look forward to the Senate taking up this legislation and passing it as soon as possible.”

Key provisions

A major element of the bill is a package of rebates, tax credits, and grants to help individual American families reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by subsidizing energy efficient home improvement projects and the purchase of electric vehicles.

The bill would dedicate $60 billion to helping establish clean energy production in the U.S. That includes tax credits to support $30 billion in spending on the domestic production of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other critical clean energy components as well as $20 billion in low-cost loans to support the manufacture of electric vehicles.

Other elements of the bill aim to support a broad range of decarbonization efforts across the economy, including $30 billion in grants and loans to states and electric utilities to “accelerate the transition to clean energy.”

The bill also earmarks tens of billions of dollars for “environmental justice” efforts meant to reduce the impact of climate change on disadvantaged communities and billions more toward increasing the climate resilience of farms and rural communities.

A catalyst for global action

“We could not be more excited about this huge breakthrough,” David Kieve, president of EDF Action, an arm of the Environmental Defense Fund, told VOA. “There’s been a shift in the attitudes of the American public in recent years towards an understanding that the jobs of the future are going to be in clean energy. And the only open question is, are they going to be here in the United States?”

Kieve said that in addition to creating those jobs in the U.S., he believes the investments in the bill will put the U.S. “on the fast track” to hitting the administration’s broader climate goals. He said he also expects it to catalyze action in other countries.

“What we’ve heard from other nations for quite some time, is that it’s nice that America has a president who’s saying the right thing about climate change, but do they really have the political will to execute on it?” he said. “When this bill is passed, and goes to President Biden’s desk, we will have answered that question definitively for the rest of the world and other nations will have no excuse but to get in line and follow our lead.”

Big promises

In an effort to push the bill across the finish line, Democrats in Congress have been touting its expected impact on the Biden administration’s pledge to reduce U.S. carbon emissions. While the $369 billion of climate-directed spending falls short of the $555 billion that the administration was seeking last year, many experts say that the IRA will have a major impact.

As negotiations were ongoing last week, Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from the state of Delaware who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued a statement that said, “In what would amount to the most ambitious climate bill ever enacted, this legislation would put our nation on track to nearly 40% emissions reduction by the end of the decade, unleash the potential of the American clean energy industry, and create good-paying jobs across the country.”

Experts and activists who have reviewed the legislation have broadly agreed that the bill lives up to the hype.

In a statement calling the legislation “transformative,” Sierra Club President Ramón Cruz said the bill “will be the single largest investment in our communities — including those that have long been disproportionately impacted by climate-fueled disasters — and a healthy and secure future for all of us.”

Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology, a non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank analyzed the legislation and issued a report that read, in part, “We find that the IRA is the most significant federal climate and clean energy legislation in U.S. history, and its provisions could cut greenhouse gas emissions 37-41% below 2005 levels.”

Criticism from the right

Not all analyses of the bill’s climate provisions were positive. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, argued that the effort to move the country toward greater use of renewable energy is an infringement on Americans’ freedom.

“Energy impacts every aspect of our lives and every sector of the economy. By dictating how we produce and consume energy, this bill would dictate how we live our lives and limit the freedoms we enjoy,” the report argued. “It’s a pretext for control. And there is little to no regard for the high prices incurred by Americans and the costs that will arise for trying to achieve the left’s radical climate agenda. And what’s even worse, this is all pain for no gain.”

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who represents West Virginia, a state that relies heavily on fossil fuel for both jobs and energy, also criticized the bill.

“It will hurt our industries in West Virginia, our hard working men and women in the oil and gas business or in the coal business,” she said. “That will also, I think, hamper our energy security in this country.”

Former EPA officials in support

A bipartisan group of former Environmental Protection Administration leaders released a statement Friday in support of the bill’s climate components.

“The legislation meets the moment of urgency that the climate crisis demands, and will position the U.S. to meet President Biden’s climate goals of reducing emissions 50-52% by 2030, while making unprecedented investments in clean energy solutions that will save families hundreds of dollars a year and create new, good paying union jobs across the country,” the former administrators said.

The group included Carol Browner, who ran the EPA under President Barack Obama, and Christine Todd Whitman, who ran the agency under President George W. Bush.

Complicated process

The bill is the product of months of negotiations among Senate Democrats, who had to make a number of concessions to appease centrist members of their party. Keeping all Democrats on board was essential because the Senate is currently divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris able to cast deciding votes in the instance of a tie. Republicans appear united in opposition to the bill.

Democrats are moving to pass the bill through a process called “budget reconciliation” that makes legislation immune to the filibuster, a rule that allows a minority of senators to block a piece of legislation unless it receives 60 votes in the 100-member body. Under budget reconciliation, the Democrats’ 50 votes, plus Harris’s tie-breaker, would be sufficient to pass the Inflation Reduction Act even if Republicans unanimously oppose it.

If the Senate passes the bill, which could happen within days, it would then go to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass and to be sent to Biden for his signature.
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Native American News Roundup July 31 – August 6, 2022

Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week:

Supreme Court to Consider ICWA in Biggest American Indian Case in Decades

The newly released U.S. Supreme Court schedule shows that the justices will begin hearing arguments November 9 in Haaland vs. Brackeen, a consolidation of three cases that challenge the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA): Cherokee Nation v. Brackeen, Texas v. Haaland and Brackeen v. Haaland.

Congress passed the ICWA in 1978 to discourage states from placing Native American children in non-Native American homes. Before the ICWA, between 25% and 35% of all American Indian children had been placed in adoptive homes, foster homes or institutions; the vast majority were raised by non-Natives.

The ICWA sets guidelines for how states should handle child welfare cases involving Native American children.

“Before you can place an Indian child in a non-Indian home, you have to first look for another member of the immediate family, then another member of the tribe, then another Indian family before you can place that child in a non-Indian home,” Stephen Pevar, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, told VOA in 2018.

A Texas federal court in 2018 struck down the ICWA as “unconstitutional,” saying the law discriminates against non-Native couples looking to adopt Native children. The case worked its way through several lower courts, and in September 2021, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Native Americans worry that if a conservative majority of justices rule against the ICWA, other federal Indian laws, including tribal sovereignty itself, could be threatened.

Affirmative action cases up first in November argument calendar

A Look at Supreme Chief Justice Neil Gorsuch’s record on tribal sovereignty

This week, Insider looks at the record of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on matters involving U.S. treaty obligations to tribes.

Gorsuch broke from the conservative majority in his June 29 opinion in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, which considered whether the state could prosecute non-Native Americans for crimes against Native victims on tribal land. That case revisited a 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which determined that a large swath of eastern Oklahoma remained an Indian reservation and that only tribal and federal governments had criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed on reservations.

Insider examines Gorsuch’s career to shed light on how his experience in a Western appellate court informs his opinions today.

“Gorsuch would have seen many Native law cases under various contexts, helping him gain a deep understanding of the historic precedents,” the article states.

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s background primed him to break from the other conservatives on Native law and defend tribal sovereignty

Michigan Next Stop on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s ‘Road to Healing’ Tour

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland will visit Pellston, Michigan, as part of a year-long tour aimed at giving Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and their descendants an opportunity to speak about their experiences in Indian boarding schools. An outgrowth of the 2021 Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the “Road to Healing” tour also gathers permanent oral histories. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa of Harbor Springs, Michigan, will host the August 13 event with 35 Tribal Nations invited to participate. There will be trauma support available at the site, as there was at the first listening session July 9 in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Haaland and Newland will hold further listening sessions in Arizona and Hawaii later this year.

Road to Healing set for Pellston, Michigan

SUV Driver Plows Through New Mexico Ceremonial Parade

Citizens of the Navajo Nation are expressing shock and sorrow after the driver of an SUV plowed through a parade in downtown Gallup, New Mexico, Thursday evening. Several people were injured, including two police officers. The driver was taken into police custody.

The parade was part of the 100th annual Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial, one of the oldest continuous celebrations of Native American culture and heritage in the U.S. and a major tourist attraction.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and fellow tribal officials were among those caught in the path of the vehicle but were unharmed.

In a video statement he made at the scene, Nez expressed shock and anger.

“You would see [events like] this on television. You would think it will never happen here. I’m sorry to say it happened here in Gallup, New Mexico,” he said, adding, “This is just evil creeping into our communities.”

SUV plows through 100th annual Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial parade

Archaeologists find ancient ‘ghost footprints’ in Utah

Archaeologists working for the U.S. Air Force at a missile test site in Utah have discovered a set of 88 footprints made 12,000 years ago when the Great Salt Lake Desert was a vast wetland.

Archaeologist Daron Duke explained that thousands of years ago, a group of adults and children walked through shallow water. Wet sand rushed in to fill their footprints, but impressions of their feet remained in a layer of mud beneath the sand.

Today, scientists call these tracks “ghost footprints” because they show up only after it rains and then disappear after the ground dries.

Back in 2016, scientists working a half-mile from the footprints discovered a fire pit, tools and charred tobacco seeds dating back 12,300 years, the earliest documented use of tobacco ever found.

‘Ghost footprints’ left by ancient hunter-gatherers discovered in Utah desert

National Science Foundation Awards Haskell University Major Scientific Grant

Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, was awarded a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support an Indigenous science hub project.

It is the largest NSF grant ever for a Tribal College or University.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland called the award “a tremendous step forward in supporting tribal communities as they address challenges from a rapidly changing climate.”

The project, “Rising Voices, Changing Coasts” will bring together scientists and Indigenous knowledge keepers from various coastal regions to study and develop ways to manage coastal hazards in indigenous communities.

Haskell Indian Nations University Receives $20 Million for Indigenous Science Hub

 
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