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  • Tent processing center for migrants going up in El Paso, expected to increase capacity by 1,000 | CNN

    Tent processing center for migrants going up in El Paso, expected to increase capacity by 1,000 | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    In response to the increased number of migrants crossing the border in El Paso, US Customs and Border Protection is erecting a soft-sided tent facility to increase migrant processing capacity by about 1,000, according to Landon Hutchens, US Customs and Border Protection spokesperson.

    “The facility will be used by U.S. Border Patrol El Paso Sector to provide additional migrant processing capabilities, with a capacity to hold approximately 1,000 migrants while they are processed in accordance with U.S. immigration law,” Hutchens said in a statement.

    The facility is expected to be operational sometime in January.

    In preparation for the possible lifting of Title 42, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would be adding 10 soft-sided facilities to boost its processing capacity. The facility going up in El Paso is one of those facilities.

    “This is part of the agency’s response efforts regarding increased migrant encounters in the El Paso area, along with surging additional personnel and providing funding to local partners,” Hutchens added.

    “The addition of temporary processing facilities such as this one increases CBP’s capacity to safely take noncitizens into custody and place them into immigration proceedings.”

    Title 42 was put in place by the Center for Disease Control in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in a public health bid to curb the spread of Covid-19, but advocates argue it’s been used to halt immigration at the US-Mexico border.

    The controversial order was set to end December 21 but remains in limbo after the Supreme Court issued an order Wednesday allowing the policy to remain in effect while legal challenges play out – a process that could stretch out for at least several months.

    The city of El Paso is straining to handle the daily influx of migrants crossing the border.

    Two vacant schools in the city are being prepared to house migrants, Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino said Tuesday.

    Shelters have been set up at hotels, and some church parishes have volunteered to house migrants, he said. About 1,000 beds have been set up in El Paso’s convention center, which housed more than 480 migrants overnight on Christmas Eve and about 420 on Christmas Day, city spokesperson Laura Cruz-Acosta confirmed to CNN.

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  • IRS delays rule change for people who get paid on Venmo, Etsy, Airbnb and other apps | CNN Business

    IRS delays rule change for people who get paid on Venmo, Etsy, Airbnb and other apps | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Anyone getting paid for their goods and services through apps like Venmo, PayPal or CashApp, or platforms like Etsy and Airbnb, just got a reprieve from the IRS.

    Following concerns expressed by the tax community, the electronic transactions industry and some lawmakers, the IRS said Friday it would delay by one year the implementation of a rule change that would have resulted in a virtual paper chase of tax forms going out by January 31, 2023, to anyone using such apps for their business transactions.

    The rule change requires third-party payment platforms to issue a 1099-K to the IRS and the app user for business transaction payments if they add up to more than $600 over the course of the year. A business transaction that is taxable is defined as a payment for a good or service, including tips.

    It used to be those platforms only had to issue you a 1099-K if you engaged in more than 200 business transactions for which you received total payments of more than $20,000 in a year.

    “The IRS and Treasury heard a number of concerns regarding the timeline of implementation of these changes under the American Rescue Plan,” said Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell. “To help smooth the transition and ensure clarity for taxpayers, tax professionals and industry, the IRS will delay implementation of the 1099-K changes. The additional time will help reduce confusion during the upcoming 2023 tax filing season and provide more time for taxpayers to prepare and understand the new reporting requirements.”

    Indeed, the increase in 1099-Ks issued early next year for people’s 2022 tax returns was expected to be, in a word, “ginormous,” according to Wendy Walker, who chairs the information reporting subgroup on the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council.

    Walker works as a solution principal for Sovos, which helps more than 30,000 business clients with tax compliance, including the issuance of all types of 1099s, of which there are at least 16 different varieties.

    Some businesses that only had to issue a couple thousand 1099-Ks under the prior rules were looking at a couple hundred thousand, she noted. “Our clients … have reported enormous increases in their potential filing obligations as result of the threshold change,” Walker said.

    Meanwhile, those receiving 1099-Ks for the first time will have to figure out what portion of the amount reported on the form is actually taxable versus what portion represents payments that may be deductible business expenses, such as a fee paid to the payment platform or a credit issued to the business, Walker said.

    “People are just not going to understand how to take that gross amount and then work off the deductions to get to their taxable amount.”

    The move was welcomed by those representing third-party payment platforms.

    “Given the potential confusion the reporting requirement would cause, we applaud the delay, ” said Scott Talbott, spokesman for the Electronic Transactions Association. “The $600 reporting requirement is not worth the problems it would cause. ETA will keep working to increase the threshold to a realistic amount.”

    How does ETA define realistic? A threshold that falls between $10,000 and $20,000, Talbott said. “ETA supports a reporting threshold that ties into regular businesses and not consumers occasionally selling a handbag or a bike online.”

    The new rule doesn’t impose any additional taxes on anyone. Nor does it change your obligation as a taxpayer to always report to the IRS all of your taxable income from your business activities.

    But the 1099-K reporting will make it harder for someone to evade the taxes they owe by underreporting their business income.

    The rule also does not apply to personal transactions you conduct on an electronic payment platform. For example, if a friend sends you money through Venmo to help pay for a dinner out or your mother sends you some spending money.

    Lastly, the 1099-K reporting rule does not apply to any transactions made through Zelle. That’s because Zelle is a payments clearinghouse that connects the payer’s bank account directly to the receiver’s bank account. “Zelle facilitates messaging between financial institutions, but does not hold accounts or handle settlement of funds,” the company said in a statement earlier this year.

    But the IRS may still get reporting on at least some of your business transactions on Zelle, Walker said.

    If there is a business-to-business payment over the Zelle network, the business that makes the payment must provide the receiving business and the IRS with either a 1099-NEC for non-employee compensation or a 1099-MISC for other expenses, she explained.

    Like the 1099-K, those other forms also provide information to the IRS that will make it harder for businesses to understate their income in a tax year.

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  • This Afghan interpreter risked his life for US Marines. Now, they’re fighting for him to stay in the US | CNN Politics

    This Afghan interpreter risked his life for US Marines. Now, they’re fighting for him to stay in the US | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    It was November 2010 and a platoon of Marines was patrolling outside of a village in Helmand Province, Afghanistan – slowly, and carefully, to avoid accidentally stepping on hidden improvised explosive devices. They walked in a single file line meant to reduce the risk of multiple Marines being taken out in one blast.

    In the patrol formation was Zainullah Zaki, a young Afghan man working as an interpreter with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. As the Marines scanned for hidden explosives, Zaki, known as Zak by his American counterparts, listened to the radio, monitoring frequencies for Taliban communications.

    As they walked, he heard a Taliban commander coordinating an ambush on the very Marines he was with.

    Maj. Tom Schueman, the platoon commander at the time, told CNN that Zaki told him what was happening and said the Marines needed to “hurry up” to get into town. He recalled telling Zaki that they could only move as fast as the Marines at the front of the column, but Zaki insisted they move faster to avoid being caught in an attack.

    “Zak said, ‘That’s not fast enough,’” Schueman recalled, “And he just took off, ran a couple hundred meters through this active IED belt, mine field. He was able to correlate where the guy was observing us from, he knew what building the guy was in and went in there, tackled him, and detained him.”

    It wasn’t the last time Zaki would go far outside his job description to help the Marines he served alongside. But despite the deep trust and camaraderie Zaki formed with the Marines and his employment by US contractors for more than two years in Afghanistan, he recently received notice that his request for a Special Immigrant Visa was denied for the last time. Zaki and his family are now in uncertain territory alongside thousands of other Afghans who were evacuated from the country, as the humanitarian parole status they resettled in the US with is set to expire next year.

    A notice from the chief of mission for the US Embassy in Kabul dated November 30 said that Zaki’s request for the visa, which is meant to provide a pathway to the United States for Afghans who were employed by or worked on behalf of the US government, was denied due to an insufficient length of employment.

    “There is no further appeal of this decision,” the letter says. The denial was first reported by military news outlet Task & Purpose.

    Schueman said he doesn’t understand the problem: Zaki was employed by US contractors for more than a year, which is the required length of time to receive a SIV. Indeed, a letter of verification provided to CNN and signed by the chief operating officer of IAP Worldwide Services shows that he worked as a linguist in Kunar Province from January 2012 to December 2013 – just short of two years. Another verification letter showed he was employed by Mission Essential, another US contractor, from September 2010 to July 2011.

    However, the denial letter says that his verification letter from IAP is not valid. Pete Lucier, a Marine veteran who works with #AfghanEvac, a non-profit focused on “fulfilling the United States’ duty to Afghan allies,” said the problem likely lies with one sentence in the verification letter. The letter states that while Zaki “was not employed directly by my company, IAP Worldwide Services, Inc., he was assigned to me by our local [US Government] management.”

    “Reading denials is a bit like parsing a secret code, but they seem to be saying that since Zaki didn’t work for IAP, an IAP employee can’t confirm employment by a third company,” Lucier said.

    He added that the frustration over the paperwork is “absolutely valid. Everything that they provided should be more than enough, you shouldn’t have to dig up old records from these companies, and it’s pretty clear from what they assembled that this guy should probably be given the benefit of the doubt.”

    But that doesn’t seem to be the case, and Zaki told CNN that verification letter was all he had from his second stint of employment with US contractors. Today, he’s unsure of know how to get in touch with the US organization who’d employed him in order to request more paperwork.

    Rob Hargis, the chief operating officer of IAP who signed Zaki’s August 2021 verification letter, told CNN that Zaki was “employed by another company that worked on bases where we also worked,” and was “often on small tasks where one of our staff oversaw” him. Hargis said he was “disappointed” to hear that Zaki’s SIV had been denied and called the SIV process as a whole “hugely frustrating.”

    “To hear that Zaki’s case is denied is yet another example of an inflexible process where flexibility and judgement should be considered in each adjudication,” Hargis said. “From where we and many of our peers in the Defense Contracting Community sit, it is profoundly disappointing to see our former and faithful interpreters and other Afghan support staff languish in a process that is neither transparent, nor efficient.”

    Throughout his journey to the US and process to get his SIV after arriving, Zaki’s situation has drawn attention from lawmakers who are advocating behind the scenes to help him, as he and his family – a wife and five children, one of whom was born in Texas, where they live – face an uncertain future.

    The office of North Carolina Republican Rep. Ted Budd, who recently won a seat in the Senate, is “in contact with [Zainullah Zaki]” and “trying to successfully resolve his case,” Budd’s spokesman Curtis Kalin told CNN.

    Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, has also advocated for Zaki to receive a visa and for the passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would provide a pathway to lawful permanent residency to Afghans who were evacuated to the US. But the legislation ultimately wasn’t included in the massive spending bill recently passed by Congress.

    “For 20 years, thousands of Afghans risked their lives to stand alongside our service members and diplomats during America’s longest war,” Durbin, who’s the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement to CNN. “We must now honor our commitment to them and provide a pathway to safety and certainty in the U.S. … Zaki and his family, and thousands of others, deserve no less, and I will continue to do what I can to help advocate for them.”

    The State Department declined to comment, citing visa records’ confidentiality.

    Despite the nuances and inner challenges of the SIV process, it’s all rather simple to Schueman. Zaki’s willingness to confront the Taliban in order to save the Marines on patrol, Schueman said, was “just one of many events where Zak demonstrated that he was willing to die for us.” That alone, he said, should be enough for him to receive support from the US.

    Travis Haggerty, who served in Schueman’s platoon and has since left service, said Zaki is the reason more of his fellow Marines weren’t killed or severely wounded on that deployment. He served as a “radar” of sorts, Haggerty said, helping them assess what was abnormal or dangerous in a country and culture they were unfamiliar with.

    And it didn’t stop there. Both Schueman and Haggerty said Zaki repeatedly went above and beyond his role as an interpreter.

    “If we were having to carry a casualty to a helicopter or to a safe place, Zak had no problem jumping on the stretcher and carrying a corner of that stretcher. He had no problem running with you towards someone who had just gotten blown up or shot, trying to see what he could do to make everyone safe,” Haggerty said. “He was just a constant … He stayed with us and was actively involved, because he thought we were family, and we thought he was family.”

    When Schueman met Zaki in 2010, the interpreter was roughly the same age as the young Marines he was working alongside. Schueman recalled that Zaki began working with them after others had quit; it was “too dangerous,” the Marine officer said.

    They had good reason to feel that way. The 3/5 Marines, nicknamed the “Darkhorse” battalion, lost 25 Marines during their deployment to Sangin, Afghanistan, one of the deadliest places for US and British forces in the country. Roughly 200 more were wounded. But the Marines said Zaki never balked.

    Zaki told CNN that he wanted to work with the US to “build a brighter Afghanistan.”

    That drive and passion for what he was doing was evident to the Marines who served with him.

    “From the minute we hit Afghanistan, we were told we were going into a really bad spot,” Trey Humphrey, another Marine who worked alongside Zaki, said. “Zak got assigned, and he was a pretty hard charger, I mean he was excited and eager to help … We went through some pretty f**ked up stuff, and a lot of guys got hurt or wounded or injured or killed, and I don’t know why the f**k Zak would want to do that job. There’s no way we paid him enough to do it.”

    Some of the Marines lost touch with Zaki after the deployment, but Schueman said he stayed in touch with his interpreter through Facebook. And in 2016, Zaki sent him a message telling him that persecution in Afghanistan was “increasing,” and he’d decided to apply for a SIV.

    “I think that was pretty tough for him in a lot of ways, because Zak joined with the US, allied with the US, essentially to have a more prosperous Afghanistan that he wanted to invest in, that he wanted to raise his family in, that he believed in,” Schueman said. “So, for him to make that decision to leave only came after like, significant duress, significant persecution … almost nightly death threats to his home.”

    Schueman agreed to help him, though he said neither of them knew much about the SIV process other than that it existed. In theory, he said, it’s “not complicated”– you serve a required amount of time with the US military, and you get a visa. Zaki had served roughly nine months with his Marines, and almost two years with another US contractor.

    “I thought it was pretty clear cut,” Schueman said, “but it did not end up turning out that way.”

    Like so many others who applied for a SIV, the process turned out much more laborious than they’d anticipated. For six years now the two have chipped away. Schueman said in all that time, there has “never been a person who has corresponded with us.” Instead, they get “an anonymous, kind of sanitized email” with a scripted response.

    That impersonal process is part of the problem, according to Lucier. Like Zaki’s letter of denial shows, applicants are often not given specific reasons as to why their paperwork is being rejected, or what in particular they need to fix, he said.

    The unit that reviews SIV approval “could have had a conversation here,” he said. “They could have followed up with the letter writer, requested an explanation, or more evidence,” Lucier said, highlighting that the process’ many requirements are “really difficult for anyone to navigate, but especially for non-Native English speakers, which more applicants are.”

    Zaki had all but given up by the time the US and its allies began pulling their forces out of Afghanistan last year. Schueman said he spoke with Zaki after it was announced in April 2021 that the US was leaving: “I asked Zak, I said, ‘What are the implications of that for you?’ He said, ‘That means my family and I will be killed.’”

    What followed was months of advocacy from Schueman, including media interviews and calls and meetings with lawmakers. Like so many other veterans of Afghanistan, Schueman was in a mad dash to get his former interpreter out of danger, though there was little direction on how exactly the US government was going to help. So, he took it upon himself. Schueman said he spoke a number of times with a friend who deployed to Kabul during the evacuation, helping connect the two in order to get Zaki and his family out.

    Eventually they did. Schueman said they first went to Qatar, then Germany, and finally landed in Philadelphia. From there, they went to Virginia, Minnesota, and eventually down to San Antonio, Texas, to be near family in the area.

    Zainullah Zaki and Tom Schueman

    “From there, he started working construction,” Schueman said. “He got a one-bedroom apartment. We started writing a book together. I mean, he was happy. He was safe. They’ve got a great Muslim community down there … He’s really been embracing setting into his new American life.”

    That safety, however, once again seemed to be put in jeopardy on November 30, when Zaki received notice that his request for an SIV was rejected.

    Schueman called the letter “devastating,” and thought it was particularly difficult to understand given all the media attention that had been on Zaki’s case.

    “It’s something we’ve been working towards for six years,” Schueman said, “something that the documentation so clearly demonstrated that he earned and with no explanation, just, ‘You may not appeal. This is your final determination; you may not appeal.’”

    Lucier told CNN that due to a recent change in law, there may still be potential for an appeal, despite the letter’s assertion. But Zaki’s troubles are indicative of much broader flaws within the SIV program, Lucier said, that leave people with “confounding, confusing denials” and stuck in a “nightmare of bureaucracy.”

    It’s understandable that there’s a process, and that the process is imperfect, Humphrey said. But it’s hard not to take it personally when he and his fellow Marines saw day in and day out what Zaki did for them. There’s not “a single person more deserving of being pushed through this process,” he said, and in a perfect world, those behind the SIV process would be able to see the person and the story behind the paperwork.

    Zaki is not the only Afghan evacuee in limbo after escaping the Taliban’s rule last year. Roughly 83,000 people – including Afghan nationals, lawful permanent residents, and American citizens – came to the US as part of Operation Allies Welcome. But as evacuated Afghans near the two-year expiration date of their temporary status, advocates have pushed for Congress to take action in helping them secure a pathway to lawful permanent residency.

    Although the legislation attempting to solidify that pathway was not included in the massive spending bill voted on last week, lawmakers did include legislation to extend and expand the SIV program for Afghans who worked with the US.

    Zaki, Haggerty said, “genuinely wants the American dream for his kids.”

    “He’ll make a really incredible American citizen when that day comes,” Haggerty said. “And it should come sooner rather than later.”

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  • Biden and his team feeling vindicated by a 2022 turnaround built on the same decades-old principles | CNN Politics

    Biden and his team feeling vindicated by a 2022 turnaround built on the same decades-old principles | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden spent hours during his first foreign trip behind closed doors, attempting to reassure a shaken group of US allies that America was back. It was clear, he later told advisers, just how much work remained to convince them of the durability of that commitment.

    Eighteen months after those meetings in Europe, Biden departed Washington on Tuesday for his year-end vacation, riding the momentum of historic legislative success and the defiance of political gravity that has reshaped the expectations for the critical months – and decisions – ahead. It’s a moment that Biden never seemed to doubt would come, even as his party – and some inside the White House – questioned or outright urged a change in approach to address political and economic headwinds driven primarily by soaring inflation that threatened to drag down his presidency.

    During those 2021 meetings in England and Belgium, Biden found a group of allies genuinely shaken by the January 6 insurrection and the events that led to it. But the president tried to reassure them that the visceral divides that culminated in the violence that day would heal and the bleak moment in US politics would pass.

    He was met with polite appreciation from his foreign counterparts. But the deep skepticism served only to underscore his commitment to a belief that sat at the heart of a pledge that was often pilloried during the campaign as naïve. The only real reassurance, Biden would note, was delivering on what he’d promised.

    “That’s why it’s so important that I succeed in my agenda, whether it’s dealing with the vaccine, the economy, infrastructure,” Biden told reporters in Brussels shortly before he boarded Air Force One for a flight to Switzerland and a sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s important that we demonstrate we can make progress and continue to make progress. And I think we’re going to be able to do that.”

    The moment provided a brief window into the president’s high-stakes theory of the case – one that appeared exceedingly aspirational given his party’s narrow congressional majorities and staunch GOP opposition. But even as this year began, Biden and his team were grasping to break free of a series of crises and the cornerstone of his agenda – a sweeping bill that included numerous administration priorities – appeared in shambles.

    Biden’s anticipated final major action before the end of 2022 serves as an almost poetic coda for his first two years. The $1.7 trillion bipartisan spending package he will sign will lock in key funding priorities and include an overhaul of the law his predecessor cited in the lead up to the January 6 riot.

    The turn from aspirational goals to palpable accomplishments – highlighted over the last several months by Biden’s travel to major corporate groundbreakings in states like Ohio, Arizona and Michigan – underpins the sharp reversal for the White House. That turnaround serves as evidence of Biden’s steely belief in his strategies and policy proposals –an approach deeply rooted over his decades in public service.

    “One thing that is foundational with him is if he says he’s going to do something, he does it,” Steve Ricchetti, one of Biden’s closest and longest-serving advisers, told CNN in an interview, underscoring an approach that has been defined by steady, and at times stubborn, persistence.

    Simple as it may seem, a campaign promise or commitment has tipped internal debates on policy decisions more than once, one White House official noted.

    Biden’s closest confidants also stress that it’s a perspective that is instructive as the White House prepares for the dramatically reshaped Washington that will confront him upon his return from his family vacation to the US Virgin Islands.

    “The whole idea of showing people government can work – we were mocked for that in some corners,” a Biden adviser said. “That’s literally what’s happening now.”

    There are still clear challenges ahead. Inflation remains high even if its grip appears to be easing. Biden’s advisers expect economic growth to slow in the quarters ahead, though they remain cautiously optimistic a recession can be avoided.

    Biden’s approval ratings, while ticking up, remain low and his age remains a real, if less publicly addressed, concern held by Democrats as they wait for an official decision about whether he will seek reelection.

    But Biden’s overarching approach has guided the early-stage planning for the legislative and political implications of a new House Republican majority and served as the basis for aides already working through the outlines of the State of the Union address that will come early next year.

    It’s also a defining element of the structure and message planning of a nascent campaign that has taken shape over the last several months and accelerated. Biden’s senior team has become increasingly confident that a reelection campaign will be green lit in the weeks ahead.

    White House officials view the political salience of his agenda as both an underappreciated element of their ability to defy the expectations of sweeping GOP gains in the midterms and as a critical piece of what comes next. The prospect of divided government – and the exceedingly narrow legislative pathway it brings – has limited effect on an agenda that is now in the implementation phase.

    “It forms the foundation for even stronger achievements as the nation heads into the New Year,” Mike Donilon, the White House senior adviser and long-standing member of Biden’s inner circle, wrote in a political memo circulated to allies this month.

    Biden, advisers said, has laid down strict directives to senior aides and Cabinet officials about the necessity of efficient implementation in the months ahead.

    “It’s not subtle,” a senior administration official said of the message from the top. “We have to get it right and in the moments we don’t, we damn well be ready to explain it – and fix it.”

    For Biden’s tight-knit and long-serving advisers, this is a moment that both vindicates and validates core elements of a campaign and presidency that at various points were dismissed, underestimated or at some points even mocked.

    “A lot of people told him that this wouldn’t resonate, or that it wasn’t the message, or that it’s outdated,” Stef Feldman, the longtime Biden aide who served as the 2020 campaign policy director before following him to the White House, told CNN.

    Biden viewed his infrastructure proposal, in particular, as a central policy plank of his campaign as Democratic primary opponents raced to outdo one another with transformational progressive proposals – none of which included a viable way to pass a bitterly divided Congress.

    Biden and his economic advisers zeroed in on an intensive manufacturing and supply chain agenda that grew more aggressive and transformational as a once-in-a-century pandemic gripped the country. They saw it as the key to reverse the accelerants at the heart of the atmosphere that created the opening for Donald Trump to reach the Oval Office.

    “This was the right moment for his theory of the case,” Feldman said. “He could apply the principles that have really guided him throughout his whole career.”

    Those principles have largely stayed with Biden through his time as a senator and vice president and were refined during the critical two years spent out of office as he weighed yet another run for the presidency.

    “Ever since I’ve talked to the president about the economy, he’s distinguished between the short-term and the long-term, between consumption and investment,” said Jared Bernstein, Biden’s chief economist as vice president who now sits on the Council of Economic Advisers. “These have always been foundational to his economic thinking.”

    The animating principles of Biden’s 2020 campaign hardly diverged from the key themes outlined by Donilon, Biden’s in-house mind-meld, in the 22-page memo he drafted in early 2015 as the then-vice president weighed jumping into the 2016 race.

    From think tanks to business schools to Davos, Biden took the role of a kind of middle class evangelist, pressing for the pursuit of policies that addressed short-term incentives that had driven jobs away and wages down. Those speeches and discussions served as a roadmap of sorts for an agenda that is now largely law. They detailed major infrastructure investments and a incentivizing research and development that had atrophied. There were broad outlines of nascent ideas to connect hollowed out manufacturing centers and communities to new opportunities. Biden proposed changes to the tax code that tracked near where his administration would eventually land as it sought to finance spending plans.

    Even the anecdotes from the period – whether the one about Chinese leader Xi Jinping and American “possibilities” or his father’s sayings about the dignity of work, or the importance of “breathing room” – are the same that populate his speeches as president.

    Ricchetti, who as counselor to the president helped lead the White House legislative effort, pointed to a clear “through-line” from Biden’s days as a senator, through his time as vice president and during the first two years of Trump’s presidency.

    Biden wrote a book detailing his decision not to run for president as he dealt with the pain of his son Beau’s fight with, and eventual death from, brain cancer. That process and the book tour that followed are viewed by Biden’s inner circle as an essential experience in the eventual decision to run in 2020.

    “Much of what we prioritized at that time we took with us and used as the foundation,” Ricchetti said of the years leading up to the campaign.

    If the effort to turn that foundation into a coherent policy agenda was accelerated and expanded in the final months of the campaign, it was turbocharged during a transition that saw Democrats take control of the Senate majority.

    Officials structured the infrastructure, manufacturing, research and development, climate and equity proposals into interlocking pieces, designed to work in tandem even if they were eventually scaled back during the legislative process.

    “At the core of this strategy was that the power of it is that these things work together,” National Economic Council Chairman Brian Deese, one of the architects of the package, said in an interview.

    What the proposals – particularly across industries and policy priorities tied to climate and manufacturing – also represented was a dramatic shift in what had become an entrenched, if not monolithic, economic orthodoxy. Biden would oversee the most consequential pursuit of an industrial policy strategy in decades. He’d do so in many cases with Republican support.

    To be clear, subscribing to the term “industrial policy” still isn’t universally embraced. Even Deese, who has driven and defined its core elements, prefers “Modern American Industrial Strategy.” In its simplest form, it’s the idea that “if you do public investment in a thoughtful way, what you’ll actually do is crowd in private investment,” Deese said.

    Deese likes to point out its roots in the American economy can be traced to Alexander Hamilton.

    But the convergence of factors that led it to once again gain broader, and bipartisan, traction was in many ways tailor-made for Biden.

    A resurgence in research and development funding. Significant public investments designed for critical areas of national and economic security. The elevation of labor unions and a focus on creating the conditions to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US.

    On their face, these issues are politically popular and hardly exclusive to Biden. They’re also exceedingly difficult to turn into policy. At least until the pandemic.

    “There’s a cost associated with industrial weakness,” Deese said. “The pandemic laid bare something that had been the case for years.”

    That was true for semiconductors – the tiny chips essential for everything from cars and washing machines to advanced weapons systems – that drove the bipartisan urgency behind the $280 billion CHIPS and Science law. Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican up for reelection in 2022, drove the effort on Capitol Hill – something that underscored the salience of an issue that scrambled traditional political dynamics.

    For Young, who had pressed for legislation tied to the issue in the year before Biden entered the White House, it was less about embracing a broader shift in economic policy and more about addressing the fact China had pursued exactly that for a decade or longer. Young was one of 17 Senate Republicans who voted to advance the eventual law that has driven new private sector investment or commitments in the last several months.

    The pandemic. The rise of China as key feature of policy making in both parties. A president animated by the idea of long-term economic incentives crafted to connect workers and communities left behind for decades.

    “These policy insights might not have come to fruition were it not for a confluence of events,” Bernstein acknowledged.

    Ted Kaufman has a simple explanation for Biden’s approach and the places where it paid off after two years.

    “There’s a confidence that comes from knowing what you’re doing,” said Kaufman, the former Delaware senator, longtime Biden Senate chief of staff and one of the president’s closest friends. “This is a guy who is so incredibly well qualified to be president because of experience.”

    As to why that experience has rarely been rewarded by voters, Kaufman had another simple explanation.

    “It’s hard because you have a record,” he said.

    In a way it’s both an implicit acknowledgment of the unprecedented factors – most notably Trump, but in some ways the pandemic as well – that created an opening to the presidency for Biden. Another incumbent, or another moment, and advisers note that it wouldn’t be a question of if Biden would win. He wouldn’t have even run.

    Instead, as he weighs running for reelection at age 80, he enters the final two years of this term with much of his agenda now law. Core elements of that agenda were driven by bipartisan consensus. Even Biden’s final bipartisan achievement of the year – the $1.7 trillion spending package – includes an initial $500 million to seed the technology and innovation hubs created by the CHIPS and Science Act in parts of the country outside of traditional tech sectors.

    While Democrats narrowly lost their House majority in the midterm elections, the party expanded its Senate majority by a seat.

    Perhaps most critically for Biden, the voters sharply reject some of the most extreme voices parroting 2020 election lies in critical races for governor and secretary of state.

    In the months leading up to the midterm elections, Biden had started regularly recounting the experience with his foreign counterparts on that first foreign trip in an effort to underscore the stakes.

    In the weeks that followed, after his travel to Indonesia for the G-20 Summit, he was ready to provide an updated version as he stood against the backdrop of a new factory in Arizona to celebrate the announcement by a Taiwanese chip maker of what would mark one of the largest foreign investments in US history.

    “What was clear in those meetings is the United States is better positioned than any other nation to lead the world economy in the years ahead if we keep our focus,” Biden said.

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  • Heavy rain and snow, strong winds hitting the West this week | CNN

    Heavy rain and snow, strong winds hitting the West this week | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Heavy coastal rain and mountain snow from a potent atmospheric river are falling across the western United States, with more to come later this week.

    All 11 Western states are expecting rain or snow, with the heaviest impacts predicted for California. By Tuesday afternoon, the rain, snow and wind have already knocked out power to about 161,000 customers in Oregon, 40,00 in Washington state and 14,400 in California, according to poweroutage.us.

    The atmospheric river – a long, narrow region in the atmosphere that can transport moisture thousands of miles – is the reason flood watches were issued for more than 5.4 million people across much of the West Coast, including Seattle and San Francisco.

    More than 16 million people in the West are under wind alerts from the National Weather Service through at least Tuesday evening as the storm system pushes inland.

    A high-wind warning is in effect for much of the Pacific Northwest, where widespread winds of 35 to 45 mph with wind gusts up to 70 mph are forecast or already occurring. In addition, wind advisories are also posted both in the Pacific Northwest as well as many other Western states.

    “Strong, possibly damaging, winds…with gusts as high as 60 mph” are forecast for the Portland metro & Willamette Valley through at least 3 pm PST, according to the NWS in Portland. Along the coast gusts are forecast 50 to 70 mph.”

    Some areas are already seeing wind gusts of 76 mph, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane.

    Some of the top wind gusts included 90 mph in Walker, California; 84 mph in Cambridge, Idaho; and 82 mph in Wagontire, Oregon.

    Strong winds in Portland could knock down trees that have been weakened by weather extremes in recent years, arborist Colin Bourgeois told CNN affiliate KATU.

    “The consecutive dry summers that we’ve had, especially the heat events like the heat dome, that really damages trees and it takes up so much of their energy to fuel their immune systems to fight off pathogens,” Bourgeois said.

    Areas to the west of Portland have seen up to 6 inches of precipitation in the past 24 hours, and the city on Monday broke a record for the date.

    Portland recorded 2.12 inches of rain, topping the record of 1.08 inches set on December 26, 1996. Monday was the third-rainiest December day on record in Portland.

    Over the next five days, rainfall across much of the West is forecast to be between 2-4 inches with isolated pockets up to 6 inches. Along the coast, rainfall is forecast to be between 4-6 inches with isolated areas potentially seeing higher.

    The greatest flash-flooding concerns are for the western foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, as well as the coastal portions of southern Oregon down through the Bay Area and to Los Angeles County.

    Widely scattered instances of flash flooding are possible at lower elevations, particularly in burn scars from wildland fires.

    Moderate to heavy rain has been falling across portions of the Bay Area since Monday night and is expected to keep falling for several days.

    As of mid-morning Tuesday, downtown San Francisco had recorded 1.21 inches of rain, Santa Rosa 2.72 inches and Mount Tamalpais 4.10 inches.

    Law enforcement had reports of roadway flooding, so the National Weather Service office issued a flood advisory.

    The storm will bring a temperature drop of 15-20 degrees to Southern California.

    “Say goodbye to the warmth,” the National Weather Service in Los Angeles tweeted Monday. “Big drop in temperatures on track between today and tomorrow (Tuesday). Expect 15-20 degrees of cooling thanks to the approaching storm system.”

    Temperatures could get as low as 49 on Wednesday night in Los Angeles, the weather service predicted.

    The weather service office in Northern California also warned of rough ocean conditions.

    “Seas have built to between 16 and 22 feet along the Northwest California coast,” the office in Eureka said on Twitter. “This is causing dangerous marine conditions, but also bringing large surf to the coastline. Please stay far back from the surf and off of rocks/jetties.”

    In terms of snowfall, winter storm alerts have been issued for 11 Western states.

    Over the next five days, lower elevation areas could see between 2-10 inches of snowfall with isolated areas getting 12-24 inches.

    Snowfall in higher elevations could be between 1-3 feet with isolated areas seeing over 3 feet.

    California is off to a fast start with snowpack, a critical source of water and good news for some improvement in drought conditions. As of late last week, the state’s snowpack was running more than 150% of normal, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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  • George Santos faces growing condemnation as House GOP leadership remains silent | CNN Politics

    George Santos faces growing condemnation as House GOP leadership remains silent | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    GOP Rep.-elect George Santos is facing growing condemnation from House Democrats, some of whom have called on him to step aside, and even from some corners of the GOP, with at least one of his fellow incoming Republicans calling for him to face an ethics investigation. House GOP leadership, however, remains silent over revelations that the New York Republican lied about parts of his biography. 

    Santos has admitted to fabricating sections of his resume – including his past work experience and education – and has apologized but says he intends to serve in Congress.

    Democratic Reps. Joaquin Castro of Texas and Ted Lieu of California were among those calling on Santos – after the congressman-elect gave interviews acknowledging “embellishing” his resume – to resign and if he refuses, for the House to expel him. 

    Castro called for Santos to be investigated by authorities and argued if the New York Republican is allowed to serve in Congress after lying about his resume, “There will be more who seek office up and down the ballot who will believe that they can completely fabricate credentials, personal features and accomplishments to win office.”

    Democratic Rep.-elect Dan Goldman of New York, a former federal prosecutor, called Santos a “total fraud.” He criticized House Republicans, saying, “Congress also has an obligation to hold George Santos accountable, but it is sadly clear that we cannot trust House Republicans to initiate an investigation in the House Ethics Committee.”

    At least one incoming member of the GOP conference called for Santos to face scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee – an investigative panel that is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats but has limited options for doling out repercussions. 

    “As a Navy man who campaigned on restoring accountability and integrity to our government, I believe a full investigation by the House Ethics Committee and, if necessary, law enforcement, is required,” GOP Rep.-elect Nick LaLota said in a statement that marks the sharpest rebuke yet from a Republican coming to Congress or currently serving.

    “New Yorkers deserve the truth and House Republicans deserve an opportunity to govern without this distraction,” LaLota added.

    Another incoming GOP lawmaker from New York, Rep.-elect Anthony D’Esposito, condemned Santos’ false statements and called on him to “pursue a path of honesty,” although he stopped short of calling for an investigation.

    “Neighbors across Long Island are deeply hurt and rightly offended by the lies and misstatements made by Congressman-Elect George Santos,” he said in a statement. “While Santos has taken a required first step by ‘coming clean’ with respect to his education, work experience and other issues, he must continue to pursue a path of honesty.”

    It is unlikely House Republican leadership will refuse to seat Santos, who is scheduled to be sworn in with the rest of the new members of Congress next Tuesday. The House has the power under the Constitution to expel any member with a two-thirds vote, but doing so is extremely rare and only five lawmakers have been expelled in US history. 

    Besides making a referral to the House Ethics Committee, other potential options for dealing with Santos include not giving him any committee assignments, which would be up to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

    In the past, the California Republican has shown little appetite for punishing his own members for bad behavior – particularly when it comes to actions from before they were a member of Congress. McCarthy has also declined to weigh in when members are under investigation, arguing he will let the probes play out before determining how to proceed. 

    “This will not deter me from being an effective member of the United States Congress in the 118th session,” Santos told City & State in an interview posted Monday night.

    McCarthy’s office and the National Republican Congressional Committee did not respond to CNN’s request for comment Monday evening.  

    Republican condemnation has, however, come from outside Congress.

    Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman Joseph G. Cairo, Jr., said Tuesday that Santos “has broken the public trust” and “has a lot of work to do to regain the trust of voters.”

    “I am deeply disappointed in Mr. Santos, and I expected more than just a blanket apology,” Cairo said in a statement. “The damage that his lies have caused to many people, especially those who have been impacted by the Holocaust, are profound.”

    CNN’s KFile reported that claims by Santos that his grandparents “survived the Holocaust” as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium who changed their surname are contradicted by sources including family trees compiled by genealogy websites, records on Jewish refugees and interviews with multiple genealogists.

    “I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the New York Post on Monday. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.’”

    But Santos described himself as a “proud American Jew” in a document shared with Jewish groups during the campaign, which was first reported by the Forward and confirmed by CNN.

    The Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday said the incoming congressman had “misrepresented his heritage” and “will not be welcome at any future RJC event.”

    “We are very disappointed in Congressman-elect Santos,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement. “He deceived us and misrepresented his heritage. In public comments and to us personally he previously claimed to be Jewish. He has begun his tenure in Congress on a very wrong note.”

    Santos admitted Monday he didn’t graduate from any college or university, despite previously claiming he had degrees from Baruch College and New York University.

    He also admitted that he never worked directly for the financial firms Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as he has previously suggested, but claimed that he did do work for them through his company, telling the New York Post it was a “poor choice of words” to say he worked for them.

    The New York Times first revealed last week that Santos’ biography appeared to be partly fictional. CNN confirmed details of that reporting, including about his college education and employment history.

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  • Why 2022 was a tough year for Trump and 2023 may not be much better | CNN Politics

    Why 2022 was a tough year for Trump and 2023 may not be much better | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    This must feel like the year that won’t end for former President Donald Trump, whose actions appear to be catching up with him in public, painful and expensive ways.

    Trump is infamous for escaping accountability, but he’s been put under the microscope in the second half of 2022 in a way that has complicated things for the 2024 contender.

    The FBI searched his Florida resort, where classified documents were seized. His business was found guilty of criminal tax fraud. Documents relating to his tax returns were released by House Democrats, who are expected to release his actual returns before turning over the committee gavel next year to Republicans, who won a smaller-than-expected majority under Trump’s influence. Many candidates Trump backed failed in key Senate races, costing Republicans a majority in that chamber.

    The former president himself hasn’t been charged with any crimes. But a special counsel has been appointed at the Justice Department to oversee two Trump-related investigations – surrounding the hoarding of documents at Mar-a-Lago and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Trump has railed against the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, and his most ardent supporters tried to stonewall it, but it’s hard to objectively dismiss its damning 800-page detailed report, which spells out his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his role inspiring rioters to attack the Capitol.

    And though the committee’s criminal referrals of Trump to the Justice Department are largely symbolic, the former president still has to wait and see what comes of the DOJ’s own twin probes.

    In the meantime, there’s no sign that the former president – who launched his third nonconsecutive presidential bid last month – has done much to clear the GOP field, with other hopefuls mulling their options over the holidays.

    The ongoing end-of-year revelations chipping away at Trump’s facade of power include large developments like the January 6 committee report – and smaller details.

    Hidden in court documents is the inconvenient truth that even his loudest acolytes on Fox News knew his 2020 election fantasy was false.

    Sean Hannity, the Fox News opinion host, admitted he didn’t “for one second” believe the fraud claims he helped push.

    It might be nice for Fox viewers to hear that from Hannity, but the admission came off the air and in a deposition as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the conservative network, according to the New York Times.

    Hannity, as we know from text messages, was in close contact with Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in the days leading up to January 6.

    That the conservative elites in Trump’s circle knew the truth adds context to the fears of fraud they pushed to encourage Republican lawmakers to pass new election security laws in key states.

    The release of Trump’s tax information, without his consent, by House Democrats confirmed what anyone could have guessed – that he paid no federal income tax in a year when he was leading the country.

    Even in years like 2018, where he paid about $1 million in federal taxes, the rate he paid, a bit more than 4%, was on par with the bottom half of American taxpayers.

    The special tax rules for real estate barons, which Congress can’t seem to address, help explain why Trump’s tax bill looks so different than that of regular wage-earning Americans. But the end result is that the former president looks like a tax avoider.

    Trump broke with tradition in 2016 by refusing to release any of his personal tax returns. But his team immediately tried to weaponize the release of his information. “If this injustice can happen to President Trump, it can happen to all Americans without cause,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said last week.

    Trump made sure his influence was felt during the 2022 midterms, but after Republicans failed to secure a “red wave,” some members of his party have blamed him for the GOP’s poor showing.

    He must now grapple with polls like CNN’s from earlier this month, which showed that most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents want the party to nominate someone other than Trump in 2024. Their top pick for an alternative? Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The GOP governor, who won a resounding reelection last month, enjoyed much stronger favorability ratings than Trump among Republicans, according to the CNN survey.

    That’s bad news for a man who jumped out in front of the 2024 Republican field and launched another presidential bid at the precise moment he began to appear politically weak.

    Even his most ardent supporters are growing tired of some of his antics. The $99 Trump-themed digital trading cards timed the NFT market all wrong and drew ridicule even from his most loyal supporters.

    “I can’t do this any more,” complained Stephen Bannon, the former adviser who was sentenced to four months in jail for contempt of Congress after ignoring a subpoena from the January 6 committee. (He’s appealed that conviction.)

    Many of the issues that dogged Trump in 2022 won’t be over with the start of the new year – and could even escalate.

    His business, convicted of tax fraud in late 2022, also faces civil charges from the New York attorney general in 2023.

    On the election-stealing front, it’s not just Special Counsel Jack Smith that Trump has to worry about. An Atlanta-area special grand jury investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State has already begun writing its final report, CNN reported earlier this month. That will serve as a mechanism for the panel to recommend whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should pursue indictments.

    While Trump envisions himself returning to the White House, one of the final bipartisan efforts lawmakers agreed on this month was an update to the Electoral Count Act, making clear that attempts like Trump’s after 2020 – to exploit antiquated language in federal election law and undermine the Electoral College – can never occur again.

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  • The most underdiscussed fact of the 2022 election: how historically close it was | CNN Politics

    The most underdiscussed fact of the 2022 election: how historically close it was | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A lot of people have tried to draw lessons from the 2022 elections, which ended earlier this month. Whether it be Democrats’ historically strong performance for a party in power during a midterm or the lack of Senate incumbents losing, the takes have been aplenty.

    But perhaps the most important lesson as we head into the 2024 cycle hasn’t gotten enough oxygen: the closeness of the 2022 midterms. Indeed, an examination of the data reveals that 2022 was a historically close election in a historically divided era.

    Let’s start with seat counts in governorships and in the House and Senate. Post-election, neither party dominates. Republicans have maintained the thinnest majority of governorships (52%) and House seats (51%). Democrats will control the Senate with a bare majority (51% of the seats).

    It’s not unusual for any one of these (governorships, House seats or Senate seats) to be narrowly split. After all, we’ve just had two years in which each party has held 50 Senate seats.

    What is unusual is to have all three be so closely divided. By my count, this is apparently the first time since the popular election of senators (1914) when neither party will hold more than 52% of governorships, House seats or Senate seats.

    When you examine the vote counts from the 2022 election, the closeness becomes even more apparent. Republicans won the House popular vote by less than 3 points and would likely have won by about 2 points had both parties run candidates in every district. That would have been the second-closest midterm margin in the House popular vote in the last 70 years.

    The popular vote margins in governor’s and Senate races this year were even closer. There were 36 gubernatorial races in 2022, with Democrats winning more votes cast for governor in total than Republicans – by less than 0.3 points.

    That margin was the closest in midterm- or presidential-year gubernatorial races since at least 1990.

    The margin in Senate races was still tighter. Republican candidates for Senate won more votes than Democratic candidates – by 0.1 points. Democrats likely would have gotten more votes had they run a candidate in Utah instead of endorsing independent Evan McMullin.

    Still, the 0.1-point popular vote margin was the closest in Senate races in any election since at least before the beginning of World War II.

    Not every state held gubernatorial and Senate races this year, but those that did were well representative of the country as a whole when looked at together. They collectively voted for Joe Biden in 2020 by a margin comparable with his actual national popular vote advantage.

    What makes the closeness of the 2022 elections especially notable is how it exemplifies an electorate that has been quite divided for nearly 35 years.

    We have not had a presidential election in which the popular vote was decided by double-digits since 1984. This streak of single-digit elections is the longest since most states began popularly electing presidents in the 1820s.

    The largest margin in the House popular vote since 1984 was the nearly-11-point win Democrats notched in the 2008 election. In fact, the last time the House popular vote margin was 11 points or more was 40 years ago, in 1982. We haven’t seen such a string of close results in the House popular vote in 200 years.

    Political scientists have debated the reasons for this tight set of recent elections. Arguably, the best explanation is political polarization. The era of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats is mostly gone now. The pool of swing voters has, accordingly, shrunk.

    But that hasn’t made swing voters any less valuable today. These voters, who go back and forth between the parties, remain highly sought after by Democrats and Republicans, and they can make all the difference. For instance, a number of purple states (such as Nevada, New Hampshire and Wisconsin) elected candidates of different parties for governor and senator this year.

    The 2024 election will undoubtedly see both parties trying to win over these swing voters. The early read suggests neither party can feel secure about their chances. You can find polls that have Biden (the likely Democratic nominee) and his likely Republican opponent (either former President Donald Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) within a few points of each other among this group.

    The bottom line is: Neither party has a lasting majority from the public. That was true in the historically close election of 2022 and in the historically divided era of the last 35 years. And it could very well also be also true in the next presidential election.

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  • Microsoft tells judges its $69 billion Activision deal would benefit gamers | CNN Business

    Microsoft tells judges its $69 billion Activision deal would benefit gamers | CNN Business

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    Microsoft Corp said on Thursday its $69 billion bid to buy “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard would benefit gamers and gaming companies alike.

    Microsoft

    (MSFT)     made the argument in a filing aimed at convincing a judge at the US Federal Trade Commission to allow the deal to proceed, after FTC commissioners said the merger would hamper competition in the gaming industry in a complaint this month aimed at blocking the deal.

    In a complaint on Dec. 8, the FTC said its concern was that Activision’s popular games, including “World of Warcraft” and “Diablo,” potentially would stop being offered on devices that rival Microsoft’s Xbox. It set a hearing before an administrative law judge for August 2023.

    Microsoft President Brad Smith said in mid-December the company had offered to sign a legally binding consent decree with the FTC to provide “Call of Duty” games to rivals including Sony and others for a decade.

    “The acquisition of a single game by the third-place console manufacturer cannot upend a highly competitive industry. That is particularly so when the manufacturer has made clear it will not withhold the game,” Microsoft said in Thursday’s filing.

    Smith said in a statement this week he was still confident in the company’s legal case but remained “committed to creative solutions with regulators.”

    Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement on Thursday he believes that the companies will prevail in a legal fight with the trade commission.

    The Biden administration has taken a more aggressive approach to antitrust enforcement. The US Department of Justice recently stopped a $2.2 billion merger of Penguin Random House, the world’s largest book publisher, and smaller US rival Simon & Schuster.

    The Microsoft deal is also facing scrutiny outside the United States, with the European Union saying it would decide by March 23, 2023, whether to clear or block the deal.

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  • Power substations vandalized in Washington state weeks after North Carolina electricity attack and FBI warning | CNN

    Power substations vandalized in Washington state weeks after North Carolina electricity attack and FBI warning | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    After thousands of customers in Pierce County, Washington, were affected Sunday when burglars vandalized three energy substations, power was then knocked out for even more homes after a suspect or suspects gained access to a fourth substation, vandalizing the equipment and causing a fire, according to an update from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

    The damaged equipment cut power to around 14,000 customers, police said, weeks after an attack in North Carolina left thousands in the dark for days amid federal warnings of extremist threats to electricity infrastructure.

    The Christmas Day vandalism near Tacoma marked more such incidents in the state, where two November attacks on Puget Sound Energy substations were investigated by the FBI. Vandalism and deliberate damage were reported last month at substations in southern Washington and Oregon.

    No suspects are in custody in the latest case affecting Puyallup and Graham, Washington, and it “is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems,” the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday in a statement.

    The FBI’s Seattle Division was aware of the vandalism reports but would not confirm or deny its role in any investigation, adding, “We do take threats against our infrastructure seriously and urge anyone with information to contact law enforcement,” it told CNN on Sunday.

    The bureau in a November 22 bulletin warned of reports of threats to electricity infrastructure by people espousing racially or ethnically motivated extremist ideology “to create civil disorder and inspire further violence,” according to the alert sent to private industry.

    The first report of a burglary at a Tacoma Public Utilities substation came at 5:26 a.m. PT, the sheriff’s office said.

    “Deputies arrived on scene and saw there was forced entry into the fenced area,” according to its statement. “Nothing had been taken from the substation, but the suspect vandalized the equipment causing a power outage in the area.”

    Then, a second burglary was reported at another Tacoma Public Utilities substation, with forced entry and damage to equipment, the statement said. Similarly, nothing was taken.

    “At 11:25 we were notified by Puget Sound Energy that they too had a power outage this morning at 02:39 a.m. Deputies are currently on scene at this facility where the fenced area was broken into and the equipment vandalized,” the statement continued.

    Dispatchers received a call about a fire at another substation at 7:21 p.m. local time Sunday, the sheriff’s department said. Firefighters and Puget Sound Energy employees responded to the scene and were able to extinguish the fire and secure and the substation.

    Power has since been restored to most of the affected homes, the update said.

    Anti-government groups over the past two years have used online forums to urge followers to attack critical infrastructure, including the power grid. They have posted documents and even instructions outlining vulnerabilities and suggesting the use of high-powered rifles.

    Investigators probing the attacks last month at substations in Moore County, North Carolina, zeroed in on two possible threads: extremists’ writings in online forums encouraging attacks on critical infrastructure, and recent disruptions of LGBTQ+ events across the nation by domestic extremists, law enforcement sources told CNN.

    The attackers “knew exactly what they were doing,” Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said at the time.

    The resulting outages left some 40,000 customers scrambling as temperatures dipped to the mid-40s, with schools and businesses forced to close for days before power was restored.

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  • January 6 panelist points to Electoral College reform as next priority to safeguard democracy | CNN Politics

    January 6 panelist points to Electoral College reform as next priority to safeguard democracy | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the House January 6 select committee, said reforming the Electoral College to ensure the presidential winner reflects the outcome of the popular vote would be the next step to safeguard democracy.

    “The Electoral College now – which has given us five popular-vote losers as president in our history, twice in this century alone – has become a danger, not just to democracy, but to the American people. It was a danger on January 6,” the Maryland Democrat said in an interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that aired Sunday. “There are so many curving byways and nooks and crannies in the Electoral College, that there are opportunities for a lot of strategic mischief. We should elect the president the way we elect governors, senators, mayors, representatives, everybody else. Whoever gets the most votes wins.”

    “The truth is that we need to be continually renovating and improving our institutions,” Raskin said, later noting that he supports the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which represents a pledge made by certain states and the District of Columbia to award their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the popular vote nationwide.

    Under the US Constitution, Americans don’t select their president directly. They vote for their state’s electors, who are then expected to carry out the will of the voters when they vote for president and vice president.

    Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 both won the national popular vote in their races but lost the Electoral College vote count. Other presidential nominees who lost after winning the popular vote included Andrew Jackson (1824), Samuel Tilden (1876) and Grover Cleveland (1888).

    “The framers [of the Constitution] were great, and they were patriots, but they didn’t have the benefit of the experience that we have lived, and we know that the Electoral College doesn’t fit anymore,” Raskin said.

    Included in the sweeping spending bill that Congress passed last week was a measure aimed at making it harder to overturn a certified presidential election. Raskin described the move, which would reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act, as “necessary” and “the very least we can do and we must do.”

    “But it’s not remotely sufficient,” he said. “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year exporting American democracy to other countries, and the one thing they never come back to us with is the idea that, ‘Oh, that Electoral College thing you have, that’s so great, we think we’ll adopt that too.’”

    Raskin’s remarks come just days after the select committee – which has investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol – issued its final report, a comprehensive overview of the bipartisan panel’s findings on how former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In a symbolic move, the committee in its last public meeting referred Trump to the Justice Department on four criminal charges.

    Raskin said the unprecedented referrals were necessary because of the “magnitude of the attack on democracy” on January 6. He also warned of a future coup attempt.

    Raskin talked about security threats members of Congress face amid rising partisan tensions.

    “There’s very dangerous rhetoric going on out there that’s a real break from everything we’ve known in our lifetimes,” he said.

    “What it means to live in a democracy with basic civic respect is that people can disagree without resorting to violence. But the internet has played a negative role, especially for the right wing, the extreme right, which now engages in very dangerous hyperbolic rhetoric that exposes people to danger.”

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  • How the January 6 panel unearthed key details from little-known insiders | CNN Politics

    How the January 6 panel unearthed key details from little-known insiders | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The story of January 6 has largely focused on a cast of very prominent characters, including former President Donald Trump and members of his inner circle who have become household names, like his former attorney Rudy Giuliani and his White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

    But those with notable names were merely the tip of the iceberg for the January 6 committee, which spent 18 months investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses behind closed doors, including scores of Trump aides who were hardly ever in the headlines.

    The January 6 committee’s report, which came out Thursday, highlights how investigators tracked down little-known insiders – from the Trump campaign to the National Guard to the Republican National Committee – who witnessed key moments and provided critical information to the panel.

    One critical example of the outsize role of little-known figures: The committee’s report mentions an unnamed White House staffer who told Trump around 1:21 p.m. on January 6, 2021, that “they’re rioting down at the Capitol.” This represents one of the first instances of Trump being told directly that the situation was descending into violence.

    With the panel’s report public and witness interview transcripts trickling out on a daily basis, we’re getting a new glimpse into how these obscure figures played big roles in the inquiry. Some of them even provided information that will be useful to the ongoing criminal probes by the Justice Department and state prosecutors in Georgia, who are investigating Trump’s election schemes.

    Here are a few lesser-known insiders and what they shared with the committee.

    The committee’s dive into the hundreds of millions of dollars that were made in campaign fundraising off Trump’s bogus election fraud claims includes the story of a young RNC staffer who was fired after he pushed back on some of the assertions being made in fundraising emails.

    Ethan Katz, who provided testimony to the committee, was an RNC copywriter who made clear to his superiors he was not comfortable with the false claims the Trump campaign and its allies were making after the election, according to the report.

    His direct boss told the committee that she wasn’t sure why Katz was terminated three weeks after the election. However, it came after Katz repeatedly questioned the direction leadership was taking in Republicans’ post-election fundraising messaging.

    The first confrontation – corroborated by multiple witnesses – came in a meeting with the entirety of the Trump digital team, in which Katz grilled a higher-up on how the campaign was saying it wanted to stop the count in several battleground states while keeping it going in another.

    In the second episode in the report, he refused a directive to write an email declaring Trump the winner in Pennsylvania – an email Katz suspected was meant to preempt the election being called for Joe Biden in that state.

    Another copy writer was assigned the task, the report said, and an email falsely declaring a Trump victory in Pennsylvania was sent on November 4.

    Katz was one of several lower-level digital staffers who spoke to the committee, shedding light on how the campaign and the RNC tried to walk the line between not putting themselves in potential legal jeopardy by blasting out false claims while exploiting Trump’s fraud narrative for fundraising.

    Among the first people the committee identifies as having concocted the fake electors strategy – in which slates of fraudulent Trump electors were put forward as alternatives to Biden electors – is Vince Haley, the deputy assistant to the president for policy, strategy and speechwriting.

    Texts and emails that Haley turned over to the committee show how he repeatedly pushed the idea of using illegitimate GOP slates of presidential electors in battleground states to some of Trump’s closest staff members.

    Supposed election fraud by Democrats is “only one rationale for slating Trump electors,” Haley told Johnny McEntee, an assistant to Trump, in text messages one week after the 2020 election that he turned over to the January 6 committee.

    “We should baldly assert” that state legislators “have the constitutional right to substitute their judgment for a certified majority of their constituents” if that prevents socialism, he said.

    The messages highlight how Trump allies and White House staffers appeared to know that their efforts to overturn the election could be problematic early on but believed they were justified if the plan was successful in keeping Trump in office.

    Haley added, “[i]ndependent of the fraud – or really along with that argument – Harrisburg [Pennsylvania], Madison [Wisconsin] and Lansing [Michigan] do not have to sit idly by and submit themselves to rule by Beijing and Paris,” proposing that conservative radio hosts “rally the grassroots to apply pressure to the weak kneed legislators in those states.”

    Haley then sent McEntee names and contact information for state legislators in six states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan. Trump later called several of those state officials, according to the report.

    Two not-well-known Trump campaign officials who were already of interest to the Justice Department provided especially helpful testimony to the January 6 committee.

    One of them, Georgia-based staffer Robert Sinners, described how he felt misled by campaign higher-ups about the legal sketchiness around the fake electors plan – evidence that might go to show a corrupt intent.

    The second, Trump campaign associate general counsel Joshua Findlay, described fielding concerns from the activists being recruited to be fake electors and recounted to the committee how the campaign’s core team tried to hand off the scheme to the more fringe Trump lawyers.

    Findlay also gave valuable testimony connecting the plot to the former president himself. He told the committee that he was tasked by another campaign official in early December with exploring the feasibility of the plan and that the official conveyed to him that the president wanted the campaign to “look into” the alternative electors proposal.

    When it was decided that Giuliani would be in charge of the gambit, Findlay was left with the impression that it was because Trump wanted Giuliani to lead it. Findlay testified that Trump campaign leadership backed off the plan a few days after he had been told to look into it, with top lawyers bailing on the idea.

    However, the campaign’s director of election day operations, Mike Roman, took on a chief operation role in the gambit.

    The role played by Roman – who declined to answer many of committee’s questions in his testimony, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights – was fleshed out by communications handed over to the committee by Sinners. They showed that Roman was organizing information tracking the effort.

    Sinners told the committee that he would not have participated with the scheme had he known the campaign’s top lawyers were not on board with the plan. He testified that he felt “angry,” according to the report, that “no one really cared if – if people were potentially putting themselves in jeopardy” by doing this, and “we were just … useful idiots or rubes at that point.”

    The Justice Department has been seeking information about Sinners and Findlay. Their committee testimony, along with that of others, showed how the Trump campaign was willing to move forward with the fake electors plot – putting its participants in legal jeopardy – even as its top lawyers sought to distance themselves from the scheme.

    To get to the heart of what was happening in the White House and Trump campaign war rooms, the committee looked to junior staffers – people who were key observers to the action but didn’t have an orchestrating role.

    One such staffer was Angela McCallum, the national executive assistant on Trump’s reelection campaign.

    After the election, McCallum was part of the Trump campaign’s operation to contact hundreds of state legislators to ask for their support for efforts to replace state electors.

    Though McCallum does not appear to have had a leadership role in the operation, nor was she directly quoted by the committee, footnotes from the report show that she turned over several text messages, campaign spreadsheets and even a script for calling state legislators.

    Her insight appears to have given the committee information on the campaign’s outreach efforts to push the fake electors plan. Her notes say that campaign staff tried contacting over 190 Republican state legislators in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan alone.

    McCallum’s text records also show how campaign supervisors viewed the ongoing outreach efforts. In one instance, McCallum provided a text message sent by an operative the committee believes may have brought the fake elector certificates to Washington, based on the message’s photo of the operative in front of the Capitol.

    “This has got to be the cover a book I write one day,” the operative, whom the committee could not find to serve a subpoena, said in the message. “I should probably buy [Mike] [R]oman a tie or something for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been done since 1876 and it was only 3 states that did it.”

    In another message, the operative, who was McCallum’s supervisor, celebrated after reporters published a recorded voicemail McCallum left on a state legislators’ phone.

    “Honest to god I’m so proud of this” because “[t]hey unwittingly just got your message out there,” the message read, according to the report.

    He continued, telling McCallum that “you used the awesome power of the presidency to scare a state rep into getting a statewide newspaper to deliver your talking points.”

    The long delay in sending National Guard troops to the US Capitol on January 6 was among the most glaring security failures that day. Previously unreported testimony revealed for the first time in the committee’s final report shows that one commander on the ground had his forces ready to respond hours before they were given approval to actually do so.

    National Guard Col. Craig Hunter is not a household name, but as the highest-ranking commander on the ground on January 6, his testimony helped the committee untangle conflicting accounts provided by more senior officials and ultimately arrive at a conclusion about what caused the delayed response.

    Hunter provided a detailed timeline of his own actions that day, including that he immediately started preparing his troops to respond at around 2 p.m. ET after hearing that shots had reportedly been fired at the US Capitol.

    “So, at that point in my mind I said, ‘Okay, then they will be requesting the DC National Guard now, so we have to move,” Hunter told the committee, according to its final report.

    Within the hour, Hunter had a plan in place. Over 100 National Guard troops were already loaded on to buses with their gear, and Hunter informed other responding law enforcement agencies that backup was coming as soon as he got approval from his superiors.

    “At 3:10 p.m., Colonel Hunter felt it was time to tell his superiors all that he had done and hopefully get fast approval,” the report says.

    But Hunter was unaware that a looming communications breakdown between senior military leaders – including the acting secretary of Defense and secretary of the Army – would delay approval of his plan for more than three hours.

    At that very moment, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy was putting together a redundant plan for transporting those forces to the Capitol and was not aware that he had already been given authority to issue the order himself, the report says.

    The confusion, coupled with a lack of communication between senior military leaders and commanders on the ground, was a key factor in the delayed response, the report says.

    In hindsight, the failures of top military officials are even more glaring considering Hunter had already devised a plan that could have been put into motion hours earlier.

    They also did not occur in a vacuum. Trump could have personally intervened at any time, to hasten and coordinate the military response, but chose not to.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Trump White House spokeswoman learned mid-lunch about the Capitol riot, new transcript shows | CNN Politics

    Trump White House spokeswoman learned mid-lunch about the Capitol riot, new transcript shows | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A newly released transcript of Kayleigh McEnany’s interview with the January 6 committee revealed how the Trump White House press secretary learned, while eating lunch in her office, that the situation at the US Capitol had become violent.

    “I initially went back to my office to eat lunch, but I eventually turned up the volume on Fox News,” McEnany told the committee.

    The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol on Friday released its latest batch of transcripts from interviews conducted during the probe. The new transcripts include interviews with the former press secretary and former President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka.

    According to the latest tranche of documents, McEnany returned to the White House from Trump’s rally at the Ellipse, and eventually went to her office to eat lunch – a turkey sandwich.

    Soon, a CBS News producer “stormed” into her office and asked for her “thoughts about the Capitol.” McEnany said she was “totally blindsided by what (the reporter) was referring to.”

    She then alerted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about the reporter’s inquiry and about the reports of minor injuries at the Capitol, McEnany said.

    At some point during the riot, McEnany said she received a text from deputy press secretary Judd Deere, who relayed that he was “getting asked if we have any reaction to people storming Hill office buildings.”

    When interviewed by the House panel, Rep. Liz Cheney, the GOP vice chair of the committee, pressed McEnany on her apparent inaction upon hearing reports of violence, implying a lack of urgency.

    “[Deere] sends you a text message saying that people are storming, this says, Hill office buildings,” Cheney said. “And you were just eating a turkey sandwich and just didn’t – didn’t register?”

    McEnany then rebuffed Cheney’s depiction, according to transcripts.

    “I definitely reject the characterization that I was just eating a turkey sandwich and would ignore a text about Capitol Hill office buildings being stormed. I likely wouldn’t have seen it at the time,” McEnany replied, saying the text was likely sent to her personal phone, which would have been on her desk.

    “I in no way, shape, or form would eat a turkey sandwich if I thought Capitol Hill was being sieged,” she added.

    McEnany met virtually with the committee in January after being initially subpoenaed last year.

    The public release of transcripts comes in conjunction with the committee’s final report, a comprehensive overview of the bipartisan panel’s findings on how Trump and his allies sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election, released late Thursday evening.

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  • January 6 panel’s criminal referrals are ‘worthless,’ Trump lawyer says | CNN Politics

    January 6 panel’s criminal referrals are ‘worthless,’ Trump lawyer says | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The January 6 committee’s criminal referrals to the Justice Department, urging the prosecution of Donald Trump, are “worthless,” one of the former president’s lawyers told CNN on Saturday.

    “The referral itself is pretty much worthless,” Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore said on “CNN Newsroom.” “The Department of Justice doesn’t have to follow it. There’s been an existing investigation that we have been dealing with for quite some time. Really what this does, If anything, it just politicizes the process.”

    Parlatore was responding to the unprecedented criminal referrals that the bipartisan select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol sent to the Justice Department earlier this week. Committee members said they believed Trump was guilty of at least four federal crimes, including conspiracy and obstructing a joint session of Congress.

    The January 6 committee reached those conclusions after unearthing evidence from witnesses indicating that Trump was warned that some of his post-election schemes to overturn the results were illegal – but he tried them anyway. This included Trump’s relentless pressure campaign against Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump hoped would interfere with the electoral vote count during the joint session on January 6, 2021.

    “It’s political noise, but it doesn’t have any effect, as of right now, on our defense,” said Parlatore, who represents Trump in the Justice Department probes into January 6 and the potential mishandling of government documents at Mar-a-Lago.

    Trump has denied wrongdoing regarding both matters. The two high-stakes investigations are now being overseen by special counsel Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor who has been tasked with deciding whether there is enough evidence that Trump broke the law and whether prosecution is appropriate.

    The Mar-a-Lago probe revolves around whether Trump or his aides mishandled classified records and national security documents by taking them from the White House to his resort and home in Florida.

    Federal authorities have recovered at least 325 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, according to court filings. Trump voluntarily returned 184 of these files in January. He returned another 38 under subpoena in June. Justice Department investigators suspected there were still more at Mar-a-Lago, so they got a search warrant, and found another 103 classified documents during their August search.

    Since then, prosecutors have been haggling with Trump’s lawyers to certify that nothing remains.

    Parlatore told CNN on Saturday that he was sure there weren’t any more records with classification markings still at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “Everything that was found has been turned over.”

    “We had a professional search team go through all possible locations that reasonably could have documents,” Parlatore said. “We went through several locations that really we thought couldn’t conceivably have them. But the DOJ asked us to, so we did it anyway.”

    He added, “I’m pretty confident that this is a dead issue at this point.”

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  • House passes $1.7 trillion government spending bill as funding deadline looms | CNN Politics

    House passes $1.7 trillion government spending bill as funding deadline looms | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The House voted Friday to pass a massive $1.7 trillion spending bill that would fund critical government operations across federal agencies and provide emergency aid for Ukraine and natural disaster relief. The bill will next go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

    Government funding is currently set to expire late Friday evening – and lawmakers raced the clock to clear the measure before the deadline. The Senate passed the legislation on Thursday along with a bill to extend the deadline by one week, to December 30, to provide enough time for the yearlong bill to be formally processed and sent to Biden. The House also approved the one-week extension and Biden signed it into law on Friday, ensuring there will not be a shutdown.

    The massive spending bill for fiscal year 2023, known on Capitol Hill as an omnibus, provides $772.5 billion for non-defense, domestic programs and $858 billion in defense funding. It includes roughly $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies and roughly $40 billion to respond to natural disasters like hurricanes, wildfires and flooding.

    Other key provisions in the bill include an overhaul of the 1887 Electoral Count Act aimed at making it harder to overturn a certified presidential election – the first legislative response to the US Capitol insurrection and then-President Donald Trump’s relentless pressure campaign to stay in power despite his 2020 loss.

    Among other provisions, the spending bill also includes the Secure Act 2.0, a package aimed at making it easier to save for retirement, and a measure to ban TikTok from government devices.

    The legislative text of the package, which runs more than 4,000 pages, was released in the middle of the night – at around 1:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday – leaving little time for rank-and-file lawmakers, and the public, to review its contents before it came up for a vote in both chambers.

    House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy criticized $1.7 trillion dollar spending bill in a floor speech ahead of the House vote.

    “This is a monstrosity. It is one of the most shameful acts I have ever seen in this body,” the California Republican said. “The appropriations process has failed the American public, and there is no greater example of the nail in the coffin of the greatest failure of a one-party rule of the House, the Senate, and the presidency of this bill here.”

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi later spoke in favor of the spending bill while noting that the moment would “probably be my last speech as speaker of the House on this floor, and I’m hoping to make it my shortest.”

    The California Democrat took issue with McCarthy’s floor comments, saying she was “sad to hear the minority leader earlier say this legislation is the most shameful thing to be seen on the House floor in this Congress.”

    “I can’t help but wonder, had he forgotten January 6?” she asked, a reference to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    The giant government funding bill initially stalled in the Senate in the days following its release over a GOP amendment regarding the Trump-era immigration policy, Title 42, that could have sunk the entire $1.7 trillion legislation in the Democratic-controlled House.

    GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah insisted on getting a vote on his amendment to keep in place the immigration policy that allows migrants to be turned back at the border, which Republicans strongly support. Because Lee’s measure was expected to be set at a simple majority threshold, there was concern it would pass and be added to the government funding bill as several centrist Democrats back extending the policy – only for it to later be rejected in the House.

    But senators had a breakthrough in negotiations Thursday morning.

    Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Jon Tester of Montana wrote an amendment in an attempt to give moderates an alternative way to vote in support of extending Title 42, which the administration and most Democrats want to get rid of.

    As expected, both amendments did not pass. Lee’s amendment to extend the Trump-era immigration policy failed 47-50. The Democratic alternate version from Sinema-Tester went down 10-87.

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  • No directive: FBI agents, tech executives deny government ordered Twitter to suppress Hunter Biden story | CNN Politics

    No directive: FBI agents, tech executives deny government ordered Twitter to suppress Hunter Biden story | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Internal Twitter communications released by the company’s new owner and CEO, Elon Musk, are fueling intense scrutiny of the FBI’s efforts alongside social media companies to thwart foreign disinformation in the run-up to the 2020 election.

    At the heart of the controversy is Twitter’s decision in October 2020 to block users from sharing a New York Post story containing material from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden. Conservative critics have accused Twitter of suppressing the story at the behest of the FBI, something they claim the released communications, dubbed the “Twitter Files,” demonstrate.

    Musk himself has alleged the communications show government censorship, suggesting Twitter acted “under orders from the government” when it suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story.

    But so far, none of the released messages explicitly show the FBI telling Twitter to suppress the story. In fact, the opposite view emerges from sworn testimony by an FBI agent at the center of the controversy. And in interviews with CNN, half a dozen tech executives and senior staff, along with multiple federal officials familiar with the matter, all deny any such directive was given.

    “We would never go to a company to say you need to squelch this story,” said one former FBI official who helped oversee the government’s cooperation with companies including Twitter, Google and Facebook.

    Musk and his conservative allies have insinuated the released messages provide evidence of illicit behavior by the FBI, suggesting the exchange of secret files pertaining to Hunter Biden, and improper payments made to Twitter. But CNN’s interviews with people directly involved with the interactions and with those who have reviewed the documents disprove those claims.

    Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists Musk tapped this month to comb through Twitter internal messages for evidence of free speech violations, said himself on December 2 that “there is no evidence – that I’ve seen – of any government involvement in the laptop story.”

    What is clear, however, is that following Russia’s meddling campaign in 2016, plus after years of interactions with federal agents about how to spot foreign disinformation efforts, Twitter executives were hyper suspicious of anything that looked like foreign influence and were primed to act, even without direction from the government.

    By the time the New York Post published its laptop story on October 14, 2020, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then head of site integrity, had spent two years meeting with the FBI and other government officials. He was prepared for some kind of hack and leak operation.

    “There were lots of reasons why the entire industry was on alert,” Roth said at a conference in November, not long after he resigned from Twitter. Roth insists he was not in favor of blocking the story and thought the company’s decision was a mistake.

    As the released communications show, Twitter initially acted to suppress the story for a few days in part out of concerns that Hunter Biden, the son of the then-Democratic presidential candidate, was being targeted as part of a foreign election interference operation similar to the one Russia carried out in 2016.

    What Twitter did not know at the time was that Hunter Biden was the subject of a federal criminal investigation. Since as early as 2018, the Justice Department has been investigating Hunter Biden for his business activities in foreign countries. In late 2019, nearly a year before the story first emerged in the New York Post, the FBI had used a subpoena to obtain a laptop that Biden allegedly left behind at a Delaware computer repair store.

    According to sources at the FBI and at Twitter who spoke to CNN, none of that information was disclosed to Twitter executives trying to decide how to treat the laptop story, nor to anyone else for that matter.

    “It was an ongoing investigation, so I would never approve of talking about it,” said the former FBI official.

    While the released Twitter messages have yet to reveal a smoking gun showing the government ordered a social media company to suppress a story, Republicans on Capitol Hill say there are enough questions raised by the internal communications to merit calling tech executives to testify.

    Scrutiny is building around the role of Twitter’s recently-fired deputy general counsel James Baker, a former top FBI official who joined Twitter in the summer of 2020. The released documents show Baker was in regular contact with his former colleagues at the FBI, giving rise to rampant accusations from conservatives that he was the conduit for the government to pressure Twitter.

    In some of the material released by Twitter, an email shows Baker setting up a meeting – in the midst of Twitter’s internal deliberations about how to handle the New York Post story – with Matthew Perry, an attorney in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel. It is not clear what the two discussed.

    The FBI declined to discuss any communications Baker had with FBI officials once he arrived at Twitter.

    Baker is among a number of former Twitter executives called to testify this month by Republican Rep. James Comer, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee. Baker declined to comment for this story.

    Rep. James Comer (R-KY) attends a House Oversight Committee hearing on July 27, 2022

    Comer also wants to hear from several former US intelligence officials who, days after the laptop story broke, wrote an open letter saying it had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” The group of former officials who signed the letter included former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who, as a CNN contributor, appeared on the network to express his view.

    Though the former officials admitted, “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement,” their letter set the tone for much of the early discussion and coverage of the laptop.

    In a statement to CNN, the FBI said, “The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries. As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers.

    “The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”

    Among the messages given the most attention from Musk and other critics are a series of emails between Roth and Elvis Chan, an FBI special agent based in San Francisco, where he focuses on cybersecurity and foreign influence on social media. On October 13, the day before New York Post story published, Chan instructed Roth to download ten documents on a secure portal.

    Roth responded, “received and downloaded – thanks!”

    Michael Shellenberger, who is among those Musk has entrusted with access to the internal messages, wrote about the Chan communication with Roth. Shellenberger does not describe the contents of the files, but he does insinuate that the timing of the message suggests Chan was secretly providing Roth information about the Hunter laptop.

    At the FBI’s headquarters in Washington, a team reviewing the internal communications released by Musk says it has identified the 10 documents Chan sent to Roth. “I reviewed all 10 of these documents personally and I can say explicitly there is nothing in these 10 documents about Hunter Biden’s laptop or about any related story to that,” an FBI official involved in the review told CNN.

    The official said eight of the documents pertained to “malign foreign influence actors and activities,” the FBI’s terminology for foreign government election meddling. The official said the other two documents were posts on Twitter the FBI flagged as potential evidence of election-related crimes, such as voter suppression activities.

    Another interaction that has drawn suspicion is an internal message from early 2021 that Shellenberger cites showing that the FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million beginning October 2019. In the message, an unnamed associate emails Baker saying, “I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”

    The FBI says the bureau is obligated under federal law to reimburse companies for the cost they incur to satisfy subpoenas and other legal requests as part of the FBI’s investigative work.

    The FBI describes its discussions with Twitter as the type of information-sharing that Congress and both the Trump and Biden administrations encouraged to help tech companies and social media platforms protect themselves and their users. The released messages appear to show that FBI officials repeatedly noted that it was up to the content moderators at the company to take action if a post violated their rules.

    “All the information exchanged is about the actors and their activity,” a second FBI official who reviewed the communications told CNN. “What we are not providing is specifics about the content and the narrative. We are also not directing the platforms to do anything. We are just providing it for them to do as they see fit under their own terms of service to protect their platforms and customers.”

    After the 2016 election, social media executives knew they had a problem. Russian operatives had used their platforms to run a massive covert influence campaign to help elect Donald Trump, using bots to spread disinformation and sow division among Americans.

    To prepare for the next election, the executives set about bolstering their internal controls, including hiring former law enforcement and intelligence officials. But they also knew they had to forge a closer relationship with the US government to help root out foreign trolls and sources of disinformation.

    President Donald Trump chats with Russia's President Vladimir Putin at a summit in 2017.

    What followed were a series of regular meetings with federal agents that began in May 2018.

    The released communications as well as interviews with people involved in the meetings portray routine, friendly and sometimes tense contacts between company executives and the government officials with whom they regularly interacted. Among the released communications are lively exchanges between Twitter and the FBI, revealing some of the sensitivities — and tensions — at play as the government and Silicon Valley slowly figured out how to work together.

    One former FBI official who spoke to CNN recalls that tech executives would insist on meetings away from their campuses, in part because government agents weren’t welcome. Feelings in Silicon Valley toward the intelligence community were still raw since the Edward Snowden leaks detailed a vast data collection apparatus that targeted the tech companies.

    “Early on, who hosted the meeting was also a political football,” said a person familiar with the meetings between the government and Silicon Valley. “Each company wanted someone else to. There were worries about employees seeing a bunch of feds and leaking it in an inaccurate way.”

    One tech source, however, dismissed this and said companies offered their offices for the meetings out of a shared sense of responsibility.

    Nevertheless, the meetings went ahead. The first one took place at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park. Later meetings were held at Twitter and LinkedIn’s offices, a person familiar with the meetings told CNN.

    Some of the early interactions were terse. Reports published by CNN and other news organizations described complaints from some tech executives that the FBI was sharing only limited information, useless to help the companies protect their platforms.

    A telling moment came early on when a government lawyer lectured tech executives about the limits on what the government can do to help, multiple people who attended the meeting told CNN. One Silicon Valley executive described how the lawyer gave a 20-minute speech about the First Amendment and insisted that “government representatives can’t tell the companies to take any content down.”

    Former Twitter employees and FBI officials involved say that by 2020, their discussions had become better coordinated and useful to both sides. One indicator of how advantageous the relationship had become: By 2020, Facebook was issuing press releases about some of the discussions.

    Musk and other critics of the interactions point to released messages that they claim show a cozy relationship between the government and Twitter. But the messages also show Roth, Twitter’s then head of site integrity, repeatedly pushing back against asks from the FBI.

    At various points, the Twitter communications show Roth resisting pressure to reveal certain information about users absent a formal legal request, such as which third-party VPN services were used by some account-holders to access Twitter.

    Yoel Roth

    Roth also shut down a request that the company share more of its data with intelligence officials.

    Others within Twitter noted the US government’s interest in Twitter’s data and urged colleagues to “stay connected and keep a solid front against these efforts.”

    Conservative critics continue to blame Roth for Twitter’s suppression of the laptop story, but he insists he didn’t make the final call and says he thought it was a mistake. “It is widely reported that I personally directed the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story,” Roth said last month. “It is absolutely, unequivocally untrue.”

    Exactly who in Twitter’s leadership ultimately made the call to block the story remains unclear.

    In December 2020, Roth gave a sworn declaration to the Federal Election Commission saying the government had warned of expected hack-and-leak incidents targeting people associated with political campaigns. Roth said that he learned in the meetings with government agencies there were “rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.”

    Roth did not point to the government as the source of the rumor, but his claim that law enforcement agencies gave general warnings about disinformation campaigns dovetails with recent testimony from Chan, the FBI agent who played a key role in the meetings.

    Chan was deposed this year as part of a lawsuit brought by the Missouri attorney general alleging government censorship of social media. Chan disputed that the government told social media companies to “expect” hack-and-leak campaigns, saying that it would have only warned companies it was a possibility.

    That Hunter Biden might be the target of a hack-and-leak operation was being publicly discussed at the time, after it emerged that Burisma Holdings, a company he worked with in Ukraine had reportedly been hacked by Russian military intelligence early in 2020.

    Chan also testified that government agents never raised Hunter Biden specifically, and that his name came up only when a Facebook analyst asked specifically for relevant information. An FBI agent in the meeting declined to answer, Chan recalled, adding that she was likely not authorized to address the question because at the time the FBI had not publicly confirmed its Hunter Biden investigation.

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  • Biden signs vital $858 billion defense bill into law, nixing military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate | CNN Politics

    Biden signs vital $858 billion defense bill into law, nixing military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden on Friday signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law, a massive defense spending bill with provisions that will give service members a pay raise, fund support for Ukraine and Taiwan and rescind the US military’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

    In a statement following the signing of the NDAA, Biden said the act “provides vital benefits and enhances access to justice for military personnel and their families, and includes critical authorities to support our country’s national defense, foreign affairs, and homeland security.”

    The Senate voted last week to pass the massive NDAA with bipartisan support. It follows the House’s bipartisan approval of the legislation the week prior.

    The defense bill outlines the policy agenda for the Department of Defense and the US military and authorizes spending in line with the Pentagon’s priorities. But it does not appropriate the funding itself. The legislation, which authorizes $817 billion specifically for the Department of Defense, will provide $45 billion more than Biden’s budget request earlier this year.

    The increase for fiscal year 2023 is intended to address the effects of inflation and accelerate the implementation of the national defense strategy, according to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It authorizes $12.6 billion for the inflation impact on purchases, $3.8 billion for the impact on military construction projects and $2.5 billion for the impact on fuel purchases, according to a bill summary from the committee.

    The NDAA includes provisions to strengthen air power and land warfare defense capabilities, as well as cybersecurity. And it shows Congress’ continued support for helping Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion, even though several Republican lawmakers have raised questions about the ongoing US aid. Additionally, the NDAA establishes a specific defense modernization program for Taiwan to deter aggression by China.

    Among a series of provisions to support service members and their families, the funding will provide a 4.6% increase in military basic pay for service members – the largest in 20 years. The Department of Defense’s civilian workforce will get the same raise. It also bumps up service members’ housing allowance.

    In addressing service member suicides, the act requires the Secretary of Defense to compile a report on suicide rates within the ranks.

    The act also ends the requirement that troops receive the Covid-19 vaccine. However, it will not reinstate members of the military who were discharged for refusing to get vaccinated.

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously said the White House had viewed the removal of the vaccine mandate as “a mistake,” but she declined to say whether Biden would sign a bill that ends the requirement, noting that the president would “judge the bill in its entirety.”

    Biden said in his statement on Friday that while he’s pleased the funding bill supports several critical objectives, “certain provisions of the Act raise concerns.”

    He repeated past concerns about barring funds to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees into the custody of certain foreign nations and several “constitutional concerns or questions of construction” over other provisions – including concerns about the transmission of highly sensitive information to Congress.

    Biden also called a portion of the NDAA requiring that documents, including presidential communications, be shared unconstitutional.

    “I will commit to complying with its disclosure requirements only in such cases where a committee has a need for such Presidential communications that outweighs the potential harm to the confidentiality interests underlying the Presidential communications privilege,” the president’s statement said.

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  • Trump White House drafted statement attacking Barr after he publicly refuted Trump’s voter fraud claims, transcript reveals | CNN Politics

    Trump White House drafted statement attacking Barr after he publicly refuted Trump’s voter fraud claims, transcript reveals | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    In December 2020, after then-Attorney General William Barr publicly refuted President Donald Trump’s claims that the election was rigged, White House staffers drafted a press release that would’ve called for the firing of anyone who disagreed with Trump’s claims, according to a new transcript from the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.

    The draft statement ended with, “Anybody that thinks there wasn’t massive fraud in 2020 election should be fired,” according to the deposition.

    The draft statement – which was never sent out, and hadn’t been revealed before Friday – was brought up during the committee’s deposition of Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, according to the transcript. Congressional investigators told him that they likely obtained the statement from the National Archives, which turned over documents from the Trump White House.

    The committee also said during the Cipollone interview that White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson previously testified that Mark Meadows gave her the draft statement – which was a handwritten note – after an Oval Office meeting on the same day Barr made his public comments refuting Trump. It appears that the statement didn’t explicitly name Barr.

    The committee claimed that Hutchinson testified that she was instructed by Meadows to seek Cipollone’s approval before the statement was posted on social media. The committee said Hutchinson testified that Cipollone’s response was, “God, no.” Cipollone said he had no recollection of the draft statement or the episode.

    “By the way, I wasn’t fired,” Cipollone quipped to the committee.

    The Cipollone deposition is one of nearly 50 additional transcripts released Friday night by the January 6 committee. The latest batch contained interviews with key witnesses, including Trump White House insiders and lawyers who worked for the Trump campaign.

    Elaine Chao, who served as Trump’s transportation secretary, said she had no recollection of discussing the 25th Amendment after the insurrection, according to a transcript of her deposition with the January 6 committee released Friday.

    Asked by congressional investigators if she had concerns about Trump’s mental fitness, Chao said that she didn’t go to many White House meetings by the end of Trump’s tenure. Chao was careful not to be too critical of Trump in her interview. She said she had not met with him in some time.

    “By that time, I did not have personal contact with him,” Chao said. “I did not go to the White House, there were no meetings, so I hadn’t been in close proximity to him.”

    Chao, who resigned on January 6, said she stepped down once she realized “the full ramifications of the actions that were taken by some people and the results that occurred.” Asked about Trump’s conduct that day, she said: “I wish he had acted differently.”

    Asked about the inner workings of the Trump White House, and who he trusted among his aides and advisers, Chao said, “I’m not so sure he trusted anyone.”

    Chao said she does not remember talking to other cabinet members that day – even though Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia told the committee he spoke with her.

    Ivanka Trump, who served as senior White House adviser to her father, handed over text messages to the January 6 committee, a newly released transcript of her testimony reveals.

    It wasn’t previously known that she provided text messages to the panel, though video clips from her April deposition were featured during the committee’s public hearings this summer.

    The content of the texts messages remains unclear.

    The committee’s line of questioning did not delve into the contents of her texts, but instead veered into her father’s cell phone habits, including whether he ever sent and received text messages. Ivanka Trump said she “never” exchanged texts with her father on “any device.”

    Still, this is the latest example of how the committee obtained a wealth of evidence, including materials that weren’t previously known.

    Sidney Powell, a conspiracy-peddling attorney who helped Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, said Trump and his allies believed he couldn’t have lost because of his large “rallies” and “common sense,” according to a transcript of her deposition to the January 6 committee released Friday.

    She said that was the consensus in the room at a White House meeting that she attended with Trump, just a few days after the election. She told the committee that Trump’s then-attorney Rudy Giuliani was also there along with White House aides, according to the transcript.

    “He wanted to know the truth,” Powell said, referring to Trump. “And our general consensus was that the vast majority of people had poured out in support of the President. The rallies indicated that. All the information that we had indicated that. And the numbers that we saw on election night simply didn’t jibe with common sense.”

    She also claimed “math geniuses” reached out to her to tell her that Joe Biden’s victory was statistically impossible.

    The testimony shows just how paper-thin the fraud theories emanating from Trump’s orbit actually were.

    Despite her assertions, there is no evidence that the outcome of the 2020 election was tainted by widespread fraud or vote-rigging. Many of the conspiracies Powell has promoted about the election have been thoroughly debunked.

    During the presidential transition, Trump nearly appointed Powell as a special counsel to use the powers of the federal government to investigate her baseless voter fraud theories. Senior White House officials and attorneys vehemently opposed that idea and it never ended up happening.

    Cipollone told the January 6 committee that it “would have been a disaster” if Trump made Powell a special counsel, according to a transcript of his deposition.

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  • This is how your government works now | CNN Politics

    This is how your government works now | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The annual dash to fund the government is starting to sound like a bad Christmas carol: 12 spending bills, $1.7 trillion, 4,000-plus pages, a single massive end-of-year vote and a lifeline for the lobster industry.

    This is the bizarre way your government works. Rather than pass spending bills in regular order or throughout the year, the leaders on Capitol Hill punt on the process until the last possible moment when it’s vote “yes” or shut down the government.

    Democrats are the ringleaders this year, but next year it will be Republicans in charge of the House and they’ll have to either make good on pledges never to do it this way again or we’ll find members of Congress and senators right back here again, aching to be home for the holidays rather than voting on things they should have done earlier in the year.

    The Senate passed the massive year-long funding bill Thursday and is waiting for the House to do the same before it can go to President Joe Biden’s desk. But, having been down this road before, senators also tried to buy a little extra time by also clearing on Thursday afternoon a bill to extend the government funding deadline by one week, to December 30. The House is expected to do the same on Friday before voting on the broader funding bill.

    House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, however, could draw out the last-minute work with a lament on the House floor, known as a “magic minute,” which allows party leaders to speak as long as they want. The California Republican, who’s hoping to become speaker in the new year, has promised not to let government funding work this way.

    Recent memory is littered with such threats. President Donald Trump promised to veto any “omnibus” bill, endured a government shutdown and then ended up signing versions throughout the rest of his presidency.

    The Senate leaders are proud of the bill.

    “A lot of Sturm und Drang, a lot of ups and downs, but the end, a great result that really helped the American people,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, facing criticism from fellow Republicans about the process, argued he wouldn’t have done it this way.

    “But given the reality of where we stand today, senators have two options this week, just two,” the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor. “Give our armed forces the resources and certainty that they need or we will deny it to them.”

    McConnell focused on the defense spending, but there was so much more, including billions earmarked by lawmakers for projects in their home states and districts.

    The return of the earmarking progress, now called Community Project Funding, allows even those lawmakers who will vote against the omnibus to direct spending back home. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, for example, lists her requests for appropriations on her website. They include taxpayer money for a wastewater plant in Greenwich, a police station in Moriah, a childcare facility in Ogdensburg, among others. But she’s expected to join other House Republicans and oppose the final bill.

    The difficulty for lawmakers like Stefanik and McCarthy will come next year when they face calls among hardline Republicans to refuse raising the debt ceiling without steep federal spending cuts.

    Schumer said he will wait to negotiate with McCarthy on that topic until next year, but had this warning that the House GOP leader must listen to more moderate Republicans.

    “There is a large chunk of Republicans, perhaps a majority in the House and the Senate who are not MAGA,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “And this election showed them – I’ve talked to them – that following MAGA is like Thelma and Louise, going over a cliff.”

    The omnibus was not just about spending and keeping the government’s lights on. Lawmakers also threw in some extra packages, mostly bipartisan efforts they didn’t have time to turn to during the year.

    This year those included:

    • Electoral Count Act – a bipartisan effort to avert Insurrection 2.0 and clarify that no, the vice president cannot simply reject election results
    • 401(k)s – much-needed updates to federal rules about retirement accounts
    • Tech – a ban on TikTok from federal government devices
    • Education – higher maximum Pell grant awards
    • Ukraine aid – an additional $45 billion, which will allow the Pentagon to back Ukraine for some time
    • Military and veterans – funding for a 4.6% pay raise for troops and a 22.4% increase in support for VA medical care
    • And that lifeline for the lobster industry.

    There’s a lot more. No human has read the entire thing, which GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida pointed out, is “three times the size of the Bible.”

    That doesn’t mean many of its parts, which were cobbled together from committees’ work throughout the year, haven’t been scrutinized.

    But for many reasons – lawmakers are frequently distracted by other matters like judicial nominations, for instance – these things get delayed until the last minute.

    But mostly, it seems like leaders have found it’s easier to ram something through when the vote is framed as must-pass and it’s the only thing standing between them and the holidays.

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  • Congress passes first legislative response to January 6 Capitol attack | CNN Politics

    Congress passes first legislative response to January 6 Capitol attack | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Congress has passed a measure aimed at making it harder to overturn a certified presidential election, a major moment that marks the first legislative response to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and then-President Donald Trump’s relentless pressure campaign to stay in power despite his 2020 loss.

    The legislation, which would overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act, was included as part of a massive $1.7 trillion government funding bill that the Senate passed on Thursday and the House passed on Friday. It will now go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

    The measure to overhaul the Electoral Count Act would clarify that the vice president’s role in overseeing the electoral result certification in Congress is strictly ceremonial. It would raise the threshold to make it harder for lawmakers to force votes attempting to overturn a state’s certified result. Additionally, it includes provisions that would prevent efforts to pass along fake electors to Congress.

    The bill is the result of intense bipartisan negotiations that won over the support of top Republicans, including Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. But a number of House Republicans have pushed back on efforts to overhaul the election law. So with Republicans set to soon take control of the House, lawmakers pressed to send the bill to Biden’s desk, knowing it was likely to be doomed in the next Congress.

    Sens. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, and Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, announced on Tuesday that the bill had been included as part of the broader government funding package.

    “We are pleased that our legislation has been included in the omnibus appropriations bill and are grateful to have the support of so many of our colleagues. We look forward to seeing this bill signed into law,” the senators said in a joint statement.

    The Electoral Count Act is an 1887 law that Trump has sought to exploit and create confusion over how Congress counts Electoral College votes from each state in a presidential election. Constitutional experts say the vice president currently can’t disregard a state-certified electoral result, but Trump pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to obstruct the Electoral College certification in Congress as part of his pressure campaign. Pence refused to do so and, as a result, became a target of the former president and his mob of supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6.

    The new legislation seeks to make clear that the vice president only has a ceremonial role in overseeing the certification of the electoral results – and does not have the power to unilaterally accept, reject or settle disputes over electors.

    It would also make it more difficult for members of Congress to attempt to overturn an election by increasing the threshold for the number of House and Senate members required to raise an objection to election results when a joint session of Congress meets to certify them.

    The legislation “raises the threshold to lodge an objection to electors to at least one-fifth of the duly chosen and sworn members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate,” according to a fact sheet. Under current law, just one senator can join one House member in forcing each side to vote on whether to throw out results subject to an objection.

    The bill also includes changes intended to prevent efforts to install fake electors. For example, each state’s governor would be responsible for submission of a certificate that identifies electors – and Congress would not be able to accept a slate of electors submitted by any other official. “This reform would address the potential for multiple state officials to send Congress competing slates,” the fact sheet states.

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