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  • A moment of reckoning for gerrymandering | CNN Politics

    A moment of reckoning for gerrymandering | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Americans’ reckoning with their own democracy extends beyond the looming presidential election to a much more local level.

    There are new details about how the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court issued its most unexpected decision of the past year and threw out Alabama’s congressional map, part of a secret negotiation between Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Read that incredible behind-the-scenes reporting from CNN’s Joan Biskupic.

    Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the inverse is occurring – lawmakers who enjoy a majority thanks to gerrymandered state-level districts are keen on throwing out a liberal state Supreme Court justice even though she took the bench last month after being elected to a 10-year term.

    State and federal courts are hearing challenges to maps across the country, which could have a major impact on the coming election and help determine who controls Congress.

    Also this week:

    • A federal court has also thrown into question the congressional map drawn by Republicans that helped them gain seats in Florida.
    • There’s a trial over congressional maps underway in Georgia.

    The selective drawing of legislative district maps during periods of redistricting after the US census every 10 years – colloquially known as gerrymandering – is a practice that has been the subject of political and court fights for most of the country’s history. The Supreme Court has said partisan gerrymandering done for political reasons is not its concern, but this year it reaffirmed that racial gerrymandering that keeps minorities shut out of the power structure is not allowed.

    An endless series of adjustments has sought to address the issue of gerrymandering. These have ranged from major legislation like the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s to the adoption of nonpartisan or independent redistricting commissions in recent decades. The Congressional Research Service has a list of which states, many on the West Coast, have tried to de-politicize the process.

    But lawmakers in multiple states continue to work hard to protect their party control, a battle that is being fought on multiple fronts.

    Republicans in Alabama, for instance, unhappy with the Supreme Court’s decision this summer, essentially ignored the court by drawing a map that did not include an additional majority-Black district as the justices demanded. A federal court sent the state back to the drawing board again this week with the rebuke that it was “disturbed” by Alabama’s actions.

    Alabama argued that creating a second majority-Black district would be a sort of “affirmative action.”

    But the three-judge panel that threw out the map rejected that idea.

    “The Voting Rights Act does not provide a leg up for Black voters – it merely prevents them from being kept down with regard to what is arguably the most ‘fundamental political right,’ in that it is ‘preservative of all rights’ – the right to vote.” Read more from CNN’s Fredreka Schouten and Ethan Cohen.

    Alabama plans to appeal to the US Supreme Court again with an eye to changing Kavanaugh’s mind.

    Gerrymandered lawmakers target anti-gerrymander judge

    In Wisconsin, a Marquette University Law School review of data tells the story of how partisan gerrymandering – the kind the Supreme Court doesn’t concern itself with – makes it virtually impossible for Democrats to win the state’s assembly. When Gov. Tony Evers narrowly won statewide in 2018, he got 49.6%, or about half of the vote. But because of how the state’s legislative maps were drawn, the Republican then-Gov. Scott Walker got a majority in 63 of the state’s 99 assembly districts, just two fewer than in 2014, when Walker won a majority of votes in 2014.

    It is lawmakers elected from Republican-friendly maps who now want to remove the liberal state Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, from office in part for her opposition to the maps. Read more from CNN’s Eric Bradner.

    North Carolina’s new Supreme Court overturns gerrymandering ruling

    North Carolina Republicans tried to cut the state courts out of the federal redistricting and elections process altogether by pushing a fringe legal theory known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The US Supreme Court rejected that argument, which could have upended how federal elections are contested in a consequential decision earlier this year.

    But North Carolina Republicans seem likely to ultimately get the map they want. Republicans gained a majority on the state’s Supreme Court this year, and the court has ruled it has no authority to oversee partisan gerrymandering.

    There are many more legal fights over congressional maps underway. The US Supreme Court in June also allowed for the Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to allow for another majority-Black district.

    From CNN’s report on the Louisiana decision by Tierney Sneed: “Louisiana state officials were sued last year for a congressional map – passed by the Republican legislature over Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto – that made only one of its six districts majority Black, despite the 2020 census showing that the state’s population is 33% Black.”

    Congressional maps are in question in many states, including Georgia, where there is a trial underway in Atlanta.

    Kentucky’s Supreme Court is set to hear arguments later this month about whether gerrymandered maps violate the state’s constitution.

    On the flip side, Democrats are trying to get more friendly maps in New York, where a court-drawn map led them to lose congressional seats in 2022.

    One way to view these court decisions is that the US Supreme Court allowing or insisting that maps in Alabama or Louisiana be redrawn could have a real impact on who controls Congress after the 2024 election. Republicans hold a tiny five-seat majority.

    Another way to view these court decisions is that when the US Supreme Court allowed the GOP-drawn maps to be used in these states in the 2022 election, it helped Republicans gain that slim majority.

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  • Schumer in talks with McConnell as shutdown fears grow: ‘We may now have to go first’ | CNN Politics

    Schumer in talks with McConnell as shutdown fears grow: ‘We may now have to go first’ | CNN Politics

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    Watch CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju’s interview with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this Sunday at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT on CNN’s “Inside Politics”.



    CNN
     — 

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told CNN that his chamber might have to take matters in its own hands and push through a must-pass bill to fund the government amid deep divisions in the House and a looming shutdown by next weekend.

    For weeks, Democratic and Republican senators have been watching the House with growing alarm as Speaker Kevin McCarthy has struggled to cobble together the votes to pass a short-term spending bill along party lines – all as he has resisted calls to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open until a longer-term deal can be reached. The initial plan: Let McCarthy get the votes to pass a bill first before the Senate changes it and sends it back to the House for a final round of votes and negotiations.

    Now with House GOP leaders still struggling to get the votes ahead of the September 30 deadline, Schumer said he would try to cut a deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and send it to the House on the eve of a potential shutdown – all as he signaled he was pushing to include aid to Ukraine as part of the package.

    “We may now have to go first … given the House,” Schumer told CNN in an interview in his office, moments before he took procedural steps to allow the Senate to take up a continuing resolution, or CR, as soon as next week. “Leader McConnell and I are talking and we have a great deal of agreement on many parts of this. It’s never easy to get a big bill, a CR bill done, but I am very, very optimistic that McConnell and I can find a way and get a large number of votes both Democratic and Republican in the Senate.”

    If Schumer’s assessment is correct, that would leave McCarthy with a choice: Either ignore the Senate’s bill altogether or continue to try to pass his own bill in the narrowly divided House where he can only afford to lose four GOP members on any party-line vote.

    But McCarthy could also be jammed by a bipartisan group of members who are openly threatening to sign a petition forcing a vote in the House – if they get 218 supporters – and circumvent the speaker altogether. At the moment, McCarthy is scrambling to resurrect his spending plans to try to move 11 year-long funding bills through his chamber – even though it typically takes months to hash out differences between the two chambers on spending legislation.

    There’s now talk in House GOP circles about focusing solely on those long-term bills and abandoning a stop-gap resolution altogether, as hardliners threaten to tank it, and as GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida has vowed to seek McCarthy’s ouster as speaker if he pushes for such a Band-aid solution. But McCarthy indicated he’s still open to passing a Republican stop-gap bill, and he was non-committal on Friday on how he would handle a plan sent to him by the Senate.

    It remains to be seen what will ultimately be included in the Senate’s plan. Schumer said in the interview “I hope so” when asked if he expected Ukraine funding to be included as the White House has pushed for $24 billion to aid the country in its war against Russia.

    “Leader McConnell and I are both strongly for aid for Ukraine, and I believe the majority of the members of both parties in the Senate agree with that,” Schumer said.

    But pushing such a plan quickly through the Senate will be difficult. Any one senator can slow down action in the Senate – and Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican – has vowed to battle a bill that provides money for Ukraine.

    “I’ll object to sending any more money to Ukraine,” Paul told CNN on Thursday. “We don’t have any more money.”

    Yet with the GOP divisions over how to proceed, frustration is growing in the ranks.

    Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a member of Senate GOP leadership, raised concerns about her party’s handling of the spending talks.

    “I feel like we have control of the House – I don’t envy my good friend Kevin McCarthy’s position here – but I think we’re just showing that we don’t have any solutions,” Capito told CNN. “Stalemates and government shutdowns are not good solutions.”

    Asked if she were concerned about the fallout of a shutdown, Capito said: “I do worry about that, the political backlash.”

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  • Fact check: Republicans make false, misleading claims at first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Republicans make false, misleading claims at first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is holding its first hearing Thursday in the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden – and Republicans on the committee have made a series of false and misleading claims, as well as some other claims that have left out critical context.

    Below is a CNN fact check. This article will be updated as additional fact checks are completed.

    Republican Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said in his opening remarks at the hearing on Thursday that the committee has uncovered how “the Bidens and their associates created over 20 shell companies” and “raked in over $20 million between 2014 and 2019.”

    Facts First: The $20 million figure is roughly accurate for Joe Biden’s family and associates, according to the bank records subpoenaed by the committee, but the phrase “the Bidens and their associates” obscures the fact that there is no public evidence to date that President Joe Biden himself received any of this money. And it’s worth noting that a large chunk of the money went to the “associates” – Hunter Biden’s business partners – not even Biden’s family itself.

    So far, none of the bank records obtained by the committee have shown any payments to Joe Biden. And a Washington Post analysis in August found that, of about $23 million in payments the committee had identified from foreign sources, nearly $7.5 million went to members of the Biden family – almost all of it to Hunter Biden – and the rest to people Hunter Biden did business with. (The Post also questioned the use of the vague phrase “shell companies,” noting that “virtually all of the companies” that had been listed by the committee at the time had “legitimate business interests” or “clearly identified business investments.”)

    A Republican aide for the House Oversight Committee disputed the Post’s analysis on Thursday, saying that bank records obtained by the panel actually show that, of $24 million in payments between 2014 and 2019, $15 million went to members of the Biden family and $9 million went to associates. CNN has reached out to the Post for comment; the committee has not publicly released the underlying bank records that would definitively show the breakdown in payments.

    The records obtained by the committee have shown that during and after Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president, Hunter Biden made millions of dollars through complex financial arrangements from private equity deals, legal fees and corporate consulting in Ukraine, China, Romania and elsewhere. Again, Republicans have not produced evidence that Joe Biden got paid in any of these arrangements.

    Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio repeated a false claim about Hunter Biden that CNN debunked when Jordan made the same claim last week.

    Jordan claimed that Hunter Biden himself said he was unqualified to sit on the board of directors of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings.

    “Hunter Biden’s not qualified, fact number two, to sit on the board. Not my words, his words. He said he got on the board because of the brand, because of the name,” Jordan said Thursday.

    Facts First: It’s not true that Hunter Biden himself said he wasn’t qualified to sit on the Burisma board. In fact, Hunter Biden said in a 2019 interview with ABC News that “I was completely qualified to be on the board” and defended his qualifications in detail. He did acknowledge, as Jordan said, that he would “probably not” have been asked to be on the board if he was not a Biden – but he nonetheless explicitly rejected claims that he wasn’t qualified, calling them “misinformation.”

    When the ABC interviewer asked what his qualifications for the role were, he said: “Well, I was vice chairman on the board of Amtrak for five years. I was the chairman of the board of the UN World Food Programme. I was a lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world. Bottom line is that I know that I was completely qualified to be on the board to head up the corporate governance and transparency committee on the board. And that’s all that I focused on. Basically, turning a Eastern European independent natural gas company into Western standards of corporate governance.”

    When the ABC interviewer said, “You didn’t have any extensive knowledge about natural gas or Ukraine itself, though,” Biden responded, “No, but I think I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on the board – if not more.”

    Asked if he would have been asked to be on the board if his last name wasn’t Biden, Biden said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not.” He added “there’s a lot of things” in his life that wouldn’t have happened if he had a different last name.

    A side note: Biden had served as the board chair for World Food Program USA, a nonprofit that supports the UN World Food Programme, not the UN program itself as he claimed in the interview.

    Jordan cited new documents obtained from IRS whistleblowers, made public by House Republicans on Wednesday, to argue that the Justice Department improperly blocked investigators from asking about Joe Biden in a 2020 search warrant related to Hunter Biden’s overseas dealings.

    “We learned yesterday, in the search warrant…examining Hunter Biden electronic communications, they weren’t allowed to ask about Political Figure 1,” Jordan said. “Political Figure number 1 is the big guy, is Joe Biden.”

    Facts First: This is highly misleading. The Justice Department official who gave this instruction said Joe Biden’s name shouldn’t be mentioned in the search warrant because there wasn’t any legal basis to do so. Furthermore, this occurred during Trump’s presidency, so it doesn’t prove pro-Biden meddling by the Biden-era Justice Department.

    The August 2020 email from a deputy to now-special counsel David Weiss, the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor who is leading the Hunter Biden probe, said the warrant was for “BS,” an apparent reference to Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm that represented Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden was on the board.

    The Weiss deputy said in the email that “other than the attribution, location and identity stuff at the end, none if it is appropriate and within the scope of this warrant” and that “there should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,” according to emails released by House Republicans. Another document released by the GOP confirm that Joe Biden is “Political Figure 1.”

    Before obtaining a search warrant, investigators need to establish probable cause and secure approval from a judge. If federal prosecutors believed the references to Joe Biden weren’t within the legal scope of what the warrant was looking for, it wouldn’t have been appropriate or lawful to include them.

    Comer said in his opening remarks that the committee recently uncovered “two additional wires sent to Hunter Biden that originated in Beijing from Chinese nationals; this happened when Joe Biden was running for president of the United States – and Joe Biden’s home is listed on the beneficiary address.”

    Facts First: This lacks important context. Comer was correct that the committee has found evidence of two wire transfers sent to Hunter Biden from Chinese nationals in the second half of 2019, during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, but he did not explain that Joe Biden’s home being listed as the beneficiary address doesn’t demonstrate that Joe Biden received any of the money. Nor did he explain that there may well be benign reasons for the inclusion of the address. Hunter Biden has lived at his father’s Wilmington, Delaware, home at times and listed that address on his driver’s license; Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement to CNN this week that the address was listed on these transfers simply because it was the address Hunter Biden used on the bank account the money was going to, which Lowell said Hunter Biden did “because it was his only permanent address at the time.”

    “This was a documented loan (not a distribution or pay-out) that was wired from a private individual to his new bank account which listed the address on his driver’s license, his parents’ address, because it was his only permanent address at the time,” Lowell said in the statement. “We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda.”

    White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday: “Imagine them arguing that, if someone stayed at their parents’ house during the pandemic, listed it as their permanent address for work, and got a paycheck, the parents somehow also worked for the employer…It’s bananas…Yet this is what extreme House Republicans have sunken to.”

    Comer told CNN this week his panel is trying to put together a timeline on where Hunter Biden was living around the time of the transfers, which occurred in July 2019 and August 2019. Joe Biden was a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary at the time.

    Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina claimed at the Thursday hearing, “We already know the president took bribes from Burisma,” a Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors.

    Facts First: Mace’s claim is false; we do not “already know” that Joe Biden took any bribe. The claim about a bribe from Burisma is a completely unproven allegation. The FBI informant who relayed the claim to the FBI in 2020 was merely reporting something he said he had been told by Burisma’s chief executive. Later in the hearing, a witness called by the committee Republicans, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, called “the bribery allegation” the most concerning piece of evidence he had heard today – but he immediately cautioned that “you have to only take that so far” given that it is “a secondhand account.”

    According to an internal FBI document made public by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa earlier this year over the strong objections of the FBI, the informant said in 2020 – when Donald Trump was president – that the CEO of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, had claimed in 2016 that he made a $5 million payment to “one Biden” and another $5 million payment to “another Biden.” But the FBI document did not contain any proof for the claim, and the document said the informant was “not able to provide any further opinion as to the veracity” of the claim.

    Republicans have tried to boost the credibility the allegation by saying it was in an FBI document and that the FBI had viewed the informant as highly credible. But the document merely memorialized the information provided by the informant; it does not demonstrate that the information is true. And Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer testified to the House Oversight Committee earlier this year that he had not been aware of any such payments to the Bidens; Archer characterized Zlochevsky’s reported claim as an example of the Ukrainian businessman embellishing his influence.

    Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, falsely claimed that Hunter Biden never paid taxes on his foreign income.

    He said Hunter Biden “failed to pay any taxes” on the millions of dollars he got from Ukrainian companies, and that this shows how “the Biden family doesn’t have to” pay taxes.

    “Who’s going to write the check for the money Hunter Biden didn’t pay?” Burchett asked, adding that “hardworking Americans” would end up footing the bill.

    Facts First: This is false. Hunter Biden repeatedly missed IRS deadlines, and his conduct was so egregious that federal investigators believe it was criminal, but he eventually belatedly paid all of his back taxes, plus interest and penalties, to the tune of about $2 million.

    Documents from Hunter Biden’s criminal cases indicate that he repeatedly missed tax deadlines, even though he had the funds and was repeatedly warned by his accountant and business partners. He was prepared to plead guilty to two misdemeanors in July, for failing to pay taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, before the plea deal collapsed.

    But there’s a difference between failing to pay taxes on time and failing to pay taxes at all. In 2021, while the criminal investigation was still underway and before any charges were filed, Hunter Biden paid roughly $2 million to the IRS to cover all the back taxes, plus penalties and interest.

    Hunter Biden was able to make the massive payment thanks to a roughly $2 million loan from a friend and attorney who has been supporting him during his legal troubles, according to court filings.

    Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York accused a Republican member of the committee, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, of cutting out “critical context” from an image of a purported text message that Donalds displayed earlier in the Thursday hearing. Ocasio-Cortez also said that Donalds had displayed a “fabricated image.”

    The dispute was over an image Donalds showed of a purported 2018 text message from the president’s brother James Biden to the president’s son Hunter Biden – provided by IRS whistleblowers and released by House Republicans on Wednesday – in which James Biden purportedly wrote, “This can work, you need a safe harbor. I can work with you father [sic] alone !! We as usual just need several months of his help for this to work.”

    After showing the image, Donalds asked a witness at the committee, “If you saw a text message like this between the president’s brother and the president’s son, wouldn’t you be concerned about them trying to give plausible deniability for the president of the United States to not have any knowledge of said business dealings?”

    Facts First: Donalds didn’t invent the James Biden text message, but Ocasio-Cortez was correct that Donalds left out critical context – specifically, context that showed there was no sign that the purported text exchange between James Biden and Hunter Biden was about business dealings. The information released by House Republicans this week appeared to show that James Biden’s purported text about getting “help” from Joe Biden came in direct response to a purported Hunter Biden text saying he could not afford alimony, school tuition for his children, food and gas “w/o [without] Dad.” Donalds did not display this purported Hunter Biden text at the Thursday hearing.

    In other words, when James Biden purportedly mentioned the possibility of several months of help from Joe Biden, he gave no indication he was referring to some sort of business transaction, much less the foreign transactions that House Republicans have been focused on in their investigations into the president. But Donalds didn’t make that clear.

    With that said, Ocasio-Cortez herself could have been clearer about what she meant when she claimed the image Donalds showed was “fabricated.”

    The contents of the purported James Biden text Donalds displayed were not made up, according to the IRS whistleblowers. What appeared to be novel was the graphic Donalds used; he showed the text in a form that made it look like a screenshot from an iPhone text conversation, with white words over a blue background bubble. The House Republican spreadsheet that the words were taken from did not include any such graphics, and, again, it did include the preceding purported Hunter Biden message that Donalds didn’t show.

    Republican Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas said at the Thursday hearing, “In an interview back in 2019 with The New Yorker, even Hunter admitted that he talked to his dad about business, specifically Burisma.”

    Facts First: This needs context. The 2019 New Yorker article in question reported that Hunter Biden said he recalled Joe Biden discussing Burisma with him “just once” in a brief exchange that consisted of this: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’”

    It’s fair for Fallon to say that this counts as Joe Biden discussing business with his son, but Fallon did not mention how brief and limited Hunter Biden said the purported discussion was.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • New Hampshire man pleads guilty to threatening Rep. Matt Gaetz after scrolling TikTok | CNN Politics

    New Hampshire man pleads guilty to threatening Rep. Matt Gaetz after scrolling TikTok | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A New Hampshire college student on Thursday pleaded guilty to federal charges of threatening to kill a member of Congress after he became angry while drunkenly scrolling on TikTok.

    While authorities didn’t name the member of Congress, Rep. Matt Gaetz confirmed he was the target when he played the threatening voicemail at the heart of the case on his podcast earlier this year. CNN has reached out to the Florida Republican’s office for comment.

    The defendant, 24-year-old Allan Poller, faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced in January.

    According to court documents, Poller, who is a student at Keene State College in New Hampshire, placed a call to the Washington, DC, office of an unnamed member of Congress just after midnight on March 29.

    No one in the office answered, prosecutors said, so Poller left a voicemail warning the member to stop “coming for the gays” and threatened to kill the member should they continue.

    “If you keep on coming for the gays, we’re gonna strike back and I guarantee you, you do not want to f**k with us,” Poller said, according to court documents. “We will kill you if that’s what it takes. I will take a bullet to your f**king head if you f**k with my rights anymore.”

    Poller later admitted to leaving the message in an interview with law enforcement, according to court documents, telling investigators that he had been drinking and become angry while watching videos on TikTok.

    Poller’s attorney Jesse Friedman said in a statement that his client “recognizes that hate in any form is wrong and hurtful. He accepts responsibility for his actions and did not intend for his acts to cause harm or a threat to anybody.”

    As part of his plea deal, Poller agreed that while he may not have intended to carry out the threat, he knew his voicemail would be viewed as such.

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  • DC grand jury that handed up 2020 election indictment against Trump meets again | CNN Politics

    DC grand jury that handed up 2020 election indictment against Trump meets again | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A federal grand jury reconvened on Tuesday for the first time since handing up an indictment last week against former President Donald Trump related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    CNN spotted grand jury members at the federal courthouse in Washington, an indication that the investigation into election interference is not over.

    The grand jury has been hearing evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the aftermath of the election leading up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol for nearly a year. In the Trump indictment, prosecutors refer to six unnamed co-conspirators, raising questions about whether they also could face charges in the case.

    One of the co-conspirators identified by CNN is ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. On Monday, Bernie Kerik, a longtime Giuliani associate who coordinated with him after the 2020 election, met with investigators at the special counsel’s office. Kerik spoke with investigators about Giuliani’s efforts to try to uncover election fraud in 2020, according to his attorney Tim Parlatore.

    Prosecutors allege in the indictment that the co-conspirator identified as Giuliani “was willing to spread knowingly false claims” about supposed election fraud.

    A political adviser to Giuliani, Ted Goodman, previously told CNN that they were acting in good faith and that the indictment “eviscerates” the First Amendment.

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  • Hunter Biden is a sensitive topic that advisers rarely broach with the president | CNN Politics

    Hunter Biden is a sensitive topic that advisers rarely broach with the president | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Long among the most sensitive subjects inside the West Wing, Hunter Biden’s legal saga now appears destined to play out amid his father’s bid for reelection, frustrating the president but so far causing little real concern among his advisers.

    The probe into Hunter Biden is now one of two special counsel investigations – the other being an inquiry into his father’s handling of classified documents after leaving the Senate and the vice president’s office – that both appear poised to extend for months to come.

    Even some of Biden’s allies acknowledge they threaten to complicate or erode the moral high ground the president asserts as he seeks reelection. Hunter Biden, of course, is not himself running for president and the White House has taken pains to avoid interference in the case – all points of contrast with the president’s most likely Republican rival.

    The cases and consequences are entirely separate for both investigations. Although President Biden is so far not a part of special counsel David Weiss’s investigation into his son, his aides expect that he may be interviewed as part of special counsel Robert Hur’s documents probe.

    Still, both investigations take away the fundamental element of control for a White House heading into an election cycle. As multiple Biden advisers conceded privately this week, special counsels have a history of uncovering information they hadn’t set out initially to discover. The fact that it’s also a delicate family matter, people close to Biden say, is creating a level of personal angst unlike any other challenge for the president.

    David Weiss, left, and Hunter Biden

    ‘This is just a debacle’: Ex-federal prosecutor on length of Hunter Biden investigation

    How and whether those factors play into Biden’s reelection chances remains to be determined. Next to a likely rival who has now been indicted four times, Biden’s predicament is vastly different. Democratic strategists believe swing voters see Hunter Biden as a private citizen and are more concerned about the economy.

    Given the facts currently known, strategists say, these voters don’t believe President Biden has been implicated in any wrongdoing. Yet Biden’s advisers also concede the topic is mostly verboten with the president, raising the prospect of a critical blind spot heading into a bruising campaign where nothing will be off limits with their Republican rivals.

    “Hunter Biden is not a topic of discussion in campaign meetings,” a senior aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of the subject. “It’s just not addressed.”

    It was a surprise to the West Wing last week when Attorney General Merrick Garland announced he was giving special counsel status to Weiss – originally a Trump appointee – a fact that further underscores the separation between the White House and the Justice Department on the case. The decision was met with a range of responses by Biden’s allies last week, from resignation to frustration.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Department of Justice, Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Washington. Garland announced Friday he is appointing a special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe, deepening the investigation of the president's son ahead of the 2024 election. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

    Garland appoints special counsel to Hunter Biden case

    For the president himself, the decision to name a special counsel amounted to another page in a chapter he would like to close. Even as the president and first lady try to move on from a dark period surrounding their son’s addiction, Republicans and now the Justice Department are extending the scrutiny into an indeterminable future.

    Just two weeks ago, the couple had hoped Hunter Biden’s expected plea deal would be a moment to admit mistakes and move on, one person familiar with the president’s thinking had said.

    But that plea deal fell apart and the special counsel appointment moves the legal issues into a new phase, including potentially a trial.

    From the beginning, the Bidens have tried to approach Hunter Biden’s issues through a personal lens, expressing their love and support for their son but otherwise declining to comment on the investigation. They have kept him close amid the legal proceedings with Hunter Biden appearing at family events and White House functions including a lavish state dinner days after his initial plea agreement was announced.

    President Joe Biden hugs his son Hunter Biden upon returning from a trip to Ireland, at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on April 14.

    For some close to the president, however, there are now questions over how the matter has continued to persist, despite work toward a plea deal on tax and gun related charges, the resolution of a child support battle and no evidence yet that President Biden himself was implicated in any wrongdoing.

    They pin the blame mainly on Republicans, whom the White House blasted this week for waging years-long investigations into the president that haven’t produced evidence showing President Biden engaged in wrongdoing.

    “If you think about what Republicans in Congress have tried to do for years, they have been making claims and allegations about the president on this front over and over again. And month after month, year after year, they have been investigating every single angle of this and looking for any evidence to back their allegations,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week. “And what’s been the result of that, if you ask yourself what we have seen from that? They keep turning up documents and witnesses showing that the president wasn’t involved.”

    Beneath the surface, however, private questions are now brewing among some Democrats about the abilities of Hunter Biden’s legal team and the wisdom of his visible presence around his father.

    On Tuesday, Hunter Biden’s lead criminal defense attorney asked a federal judge on Tuesday for permission to withdraw from the case because he could now be called as a witness in future proceedings. To some Biden advisers, the surprise collapse of a plea deal only exacerbated existing concerns about Hunter’s legal team.

    “I’m sure this didn’t land all that well over in the White House because I think they’d love this Hunter Biden case to be behind them. The Republicans are sort of pointing to it for purposes of what-about-ism,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser in the Obama White House and CNN senior political commentator, who said Republicans were eager to make false comparisons – essentially saying, “what about” Hunter’s legal issues?

    “They need to have a countervailing argument and their countervailing argument is, ‘Oh two standards of justice, they’re not indicting Hunter Biden,’” he said. “And they’re beating that horse to death, even though they’ve failed to make the connection between Hunter Biden and Joe Biden in the way that they allege. So I think that anything that extends the Hunter Biden case into the election year is not welcome news for Joe Biden.”

    Hunter Biden walks to a waiting SUV after arriving with US President Joe Biden on Marine One at Fort McNair in Washington, DC, on July 4, as they return to Washington after spending the weekend at Camp David.

    CNN reporter details why Hunter Biden’s top lawyer asked to withdraw from case

    Indeed, the actions of Hunter Biden are now becoming a central discussion point for Republicans in Congress and presidential candidates, who frequently point to the president’s son in their argument of a false equivalency in the Justice Department.

    Republicans have criticized the now defunct plea agreement between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors as a “sweetheart deal,” and they scoffed when Weiss was appointed as special counsel, despite many previously supporting the appointment of a special counsel.

    Some of the president’s potential Republican rivals also blasted the special counsel decision. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis argued Hunter Biden would receive “soft glove treatment.” A spokesperson for former President Donald Trump argued the Biden family has “been protected by the Justice Department for decades” – even though Trump appointed Weiss to his position and Biden kept him in the post upon taking office.

    Hunter Biden at a ceremony at the White House in Washington, July 7, 2022.

    The matter is likely to arise at the first Republican presidential debate next week in Milwaukee. The Democratic National Committee is not preparing specific responses to any criticism leveled against Hunter Biden at the Republican presidential debate but will be ready to respond as needed, a party official says.

    In 2020, plans were similarly laid ahead of general election debates with Trump, who seized on Hunter Biden as an attack line. Biden’s defense of his son and his pride in his sobriety proved one of the most memorable moments of that year’s debate circuit.

    First lady Dr. Jill Biden had previously told CNN that the investigations into their son Hunter did not impact the president’s decision to seek reelection this year.

    Some Democrats view the development as an opportunity to demonstrate the party’s view of a fair judicial system – a contrast to many Republicans who have cried foul at the multiple indictments of Trump.

    “If Hunter has done something beyond the tax issue and beyond the gun issue that deserves to be investigated, then that should happen. No one is above the law,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat. “That’s why you’re not hearing Democrats say that, you know, this is the weaponization of the Justice Department. No. We’re being consistent. When we say no one’s above the law when it comes to Donald Trump, we mean it even if it’s one of our own.”

    This story has been updated to clarify that the DNC may respond to criticism leveled against Hunter Biden but has not prepared any specific responses.

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  • Republican congressman says Tuberville’s hold on military nominations is ‘paralyzing’ and a ‘national security problem’ | CNN Politics

    Republican congressman says Tuberville’s hold on military nominations is ‘paralyzing’ and a ‘national security problem’ | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, a Republican, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday that GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military nominations is “paralyzing” and a “national security problem.”

    “The idea that one man in the Senate can hold this up for months … is paralyzing the Department of Defense,” McCaul said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    “I think that is a national security problem and a national security issue,” the Texas congressman said.

    Tuberville, of Alabama, has delayed the confirmations of more than 300 top military nominees over his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members and their families who have to travel to receive abortion care. Tuberville says the Pentagon’s reproductive health policies violate the law, but Pentagon officials have pointed to a Justice Department memo that says the policies are lawful.

    A spokesperson for Tuberville said McCaul’s view “just isn’t accurate.”

    “No one can stop (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer from holding votes on these nominations. He just doesn’t want to,” spokesperson Steven Stafford wrote in an email to CNN. “It’s also inaccurate because acting officials are in all of these roles. In some cases these acting officials are the nominees for permanent roles. No jobs are open or going undone right now.”

    One senator can hold up nominations or legislation in the chamber, and Tuberville’s stance has left three military services to operate without a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in history.

    It’s possible to confirm each nominee one by one, but Senate Democrats have argued that would take up valuable floor time – despite a five-week recess in August.

    McCaul said on Sunday that he wishes Tuberville would reconsider his stance and that the Republican Party is working on the abortion travel policy issue through the National Defense Authorization Act.

    “But to hold up the top brass from being promoted … I think is paralyzing our Department of Defense,” he said.

    The hold on promotions, which began in March, has been a growing source of public scrutiny. The three US military service secretaries told CNN last week that Tuberville’s blockage is aiding communist and autocratic regimes, and is being used against the US by adversaries such as China.

    In July, active-duty military spouses hand-delivered a petition to Schumer, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Tuberville signed by hundreds of military family members who were “deeply concerned and personally impacted by Senator Tuberville blocking confirmation of senior military leaders.”

    Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told CNN’s Tapper on Sunday that if elected president, she would put an end to the reimbursement policy for travel for abortion care. Haley, whose husband is in the South Carolina Army National Guard, said military families should not be used as political pawns.

    “I’m not saying that Sen. Tuberville is right in doing this, because I don’t want to use them as pawns. But if you love our military and are so adamant about it, then go and make Congress, Republicans and Democrats, have to go through person by person,” the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador said.

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  • Latest wave of migrants at US-Mexico border puts Biden under renewed pressure | CNN Politics

    Latest wave of migrants at US-Mexico border puts Biden under renewed pressure | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A new surge of migrants at the US-Mexico border has placed immense pressure on federal resources and tested President Joe Biden’s border policies only months after going into place, prompting fresh criticism from Republicans and concern within the administration over a politically delicate issue.

    Biden has been plagued by issues on the border since his first months in office when the US faced a surge of unaccompanied migrant children that caught officials flatfooted. Over the last two years, his administration has continued to face fierce pushback from Republicans – and at times, Democrats – over his immigration policies.

    That complicated political landscape was put into sharp focus this week when administration officials were forced to contend with images of migrants crossing into the US in large groups, while also heralding a major move that will make hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans already in the US eligible to work, addressing a major sticking point with allies in New York.

    But the new wave of newcomers – many of whom are from Venezuela – paints a grim outlook for the fall as Biden ramps up his reelection campaign and Republicans continue to hammer the administration over its handling of the border.

    On Thursday, Biden blasted Republicans in Congress during remarks at the 46th Annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Gala in Washington, DC, saying they “continue to undermine our border security” by blocking bipartisan efforts to pass immigration reform.

    “We need our colleagues to act – for decades, immigration reform has been bipartisan in this country,” he said.

    “Unfortunately, MAGA Republicans in Congress spent four years gutting the immigration system under my predecessor,” he added.

    In the absence of immigration reform, the administration has put in place a patchwork of policies to try to stem the flow of migrants journeying to the US southern border amid unprecedented mass migration in the western hemisphere.

    Earlier this year, the administration rolled out new and additional avenues for migrants to enter the US legally, like a mobile app, to keep people from crossing unlawfully. They have also stood up centers in the hemisphere to allow migrants to apply to come to the US.

    But desperation and disinformation from smugglers have prompted migrants to cross anyway. Homeland Security officials are monitoring the situation and while they gave no clear explanation for what prompted the latest surge, they cited poor economies, authoritarian regimes and the climate crisis as forces driving migration.

    This week, US Border Patrol apprehended more than 8,000 migrants daily, according to two Homeland Security officials. That’s up from around 3,500 daily border arrests after the Covid-era border restriction known as Title 42 expired in May and triggered more severe consequences for people who crossed the border illegally.

    The Department of Homeland Security has ramped up capacity in border facilities to accommodate the growing number of migrants, as well as continued to conduct deportation flights of migrants deemed ineligible to stay in the United States. US officials are also coordinating with Mexico to try to drive down crossings.

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is set to travel to the border on Saturday, going to McAllen, Texas, for a meeting with President Xiomara Castro of Honduras.

    The Department of Defense, for its part, is sending 800 new active-duty personnel to the US-Mexico border, in addition to the 2,500 National Guard members already in place, to provide support to federal authorities.

    The arrival of migrants at the US southern border also affects inner cities, where asylum seekers usually reside as they go through their immigration proceedings, expanding the scope of the issue for the Biden administration.

    The administration addressed a major concern among Democrats this week by making more than 472,000 Venezuelans already in the US eligible for Temporary Protected Status, which provides deportation protections and allows them to work in the US. Democratic allies had urged the White House to speed up the ability for Venezuelans to obtain work authorization so they wouldn’t have to rely on social services.

    “As a result of this decision, immigrants will be temporarily allowed to work, fill needed jobs and support their families while awaiting an asylum determination. The decision will also substantially reduce the cost to New York taxpayers with respect to the sheltering of asylum-seekers,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of whom are New York Democrats, in a statement.

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  • Biden previews 2024 message by warning that Trump’s movement is a threat to American democracy | CNN Politics

    Biden previews 2024 message by warning that Trump’s movement is a threat to American democracy | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden issued blunt new warnings about ongoing existential threats to US democracy in a major address Thursday, sharpening the central argument in his potential rematch with Donald Trump and asking voters to prioritize the health of American institutions.

    “There’s something dangerous happening in America now,” Biden said during his speech in Arizona, where he was also honoring his friend, the late Republican Sen. John McCain. “There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: The MAGA movement.”

    “There’s no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists,” he said, using the acronym for Trump’s political movement. “Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”

    The stark message was Biden’s most forceful attempt at calling out Trump’s antidemocratic behavior since the former president was criminally charged for his attempts to subvert the 2020 election results. It offered a taste of Biden’s forthcoming reelection message, one centered on Trump’s own words and actions as threats to democracy. Biden said his predecessor was guided not by the Constitution or decency, but by “vengeance and vindictiveness.”

    As indictments and arrests of the former president piled up over the summer, Biden remained mostly silent on his predecessor, wary of appearing to intervene in Justice Department business. His most substantive comment on Trump’s myriad legal issues was a sarcastic remark about his mugshot in the Fulton County, Georgia, case.

    But as Trump’s prohibitive lead in the Republican primary remains unchanged – and as Biden’s own standing remains mired in low approval – the president is sharpening his attacks on his most likely 2024 rival as a danger to democracy. Thursday’s speech served as yet another sign that the days of trying to keep Trump at an arm’s length are long gone.

    “Trump says the Constitution gave him the right to do whatever he wants as president,” Biden said, referencing his most likely GOP challenger by name. “I’ve never heard presidents say that in jest.”

    He alluded to Trump’s recent suggestion that Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could be executed, and said Republican silence on the comment was “deafening.”

    Stopping the erosion of democratic institutions and values was central to Biden’s decision to run for president in 2020, it will again be core to his reelection campaign, officials said, as he looks to energize voters and donors who have otherwise appeared lukewarm about a rematch between the two men.

    “We should all remember: Democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle. They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up,” Biden said.

    Senior Biden advisers had mulled over the timing and location of Thursday’s speech for weeks. Previously, Biden has sought to harness the symbolic settings of Independence Hall and Gettysburg to issue warnings about the state of American democracy.

    Advisers eyed similar sites pegged to American history on the East Coast before settling on Tempe, Arizona, in part as a way to honor the late Republican Sen. John McCain, whom Biden was friends with for decades and referred to as a “brother.” Biden announced funding to construct the McCain Library, honoring his longtime friend.

    Arizona was also a center of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and a state where voters rejected candidates who denied the results two years later. That effort loomed large in the president’s message.

    “I believe in free and fair elections and peaceful transfer of power. I believe there’s no place in America – none, none, none – for political violence,” Biden said.

    Biden’s advisers also selected the day after the second Republican primary debate, hoping to insert Biden into a news cycle otherwise dominated by the GOP contest. Trump skipped the debate, delivering a speech in Michigan instead as he looks to cut into Biden’s support among union workers.

    The speech came at a moment of political uncertainty for Biden, as he faces persistent questions about his age, disapproval of his handling of the job and an indictment of his son, Hunter. House Republicans held their first hearing in an impeachment inquiry into Biden on Thursday.

    Many senior Democrats believe once voters come to see the 2024 election as a contest between Biden and Trump, the stakes will be clearer and the current president’s standing will improve.

    At one point in his speech, Biden was interrupted by climate activists as he urged the audience to “put partisanship aside, put country first.” Kai Newkirk, one of the protesters, had stood up and called on Biden to take further action to address fossil fuels.

    “I tell you what, if you shush up, I’ll meet with you immediately after this,” Biden said, before resuming remarks.

    “Democracy is never easy – as we just demonstrated,” he joked.

    Newkirk added in a statement later Thursday that he did not hear the president’s offer to meet with him but that he would have “gladly” accepted.

    “I worked hard to elect President Biden, and conscience compelled me to interrupt his speech today to ask why he has yet to declare a climate emergency,” he said in a post on X.

    Top Biden donors, many of whom have agitated for more forceful attacks on Trump at this early stage in the campaign, were informed of the plans for Thursday’s speech by senior Biden advisers during a fundraising retreat in Chicago earlier this month. Biden began previewing his address to donors behind closed doors last week.

    In those remarks, Biden debuted new warnings about his predecessor’s potential return to the White House, testing the material off-camera as he and his team were preparing for Thursday’s address.

    “Let there be no question: Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy. And I will always defend, protect, and fight for our democracy. That’s why I running,” he said at a Broadway theater last week.

    Two days later, he amplified his warnings to a group of lawyers – and said he was confident he could defeat Trump for a second time.

    “I’m now running again. Because guess what? I think that it’s likely to be the same fellow, and it’s likely that I think I can beat him again,” he said.

    Defending democracy is an issue Biden allies believe remains deeply resonant with voters, almost three years after the 2020 contest. The video announcing his reelection opened with footage of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    In the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Biden delivered a resounding message in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, warning of “MAGA forces” that “tried everything last time to nullify the votes of 81 million people.” Ahead of the speech, Biden convened his communications staff with a group of academics and historians – including Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham, who has helped draft his highest-profile addresses – to reflect on the fragile state of the union and compile ideas.

    The White House remains in touch with several of those historians to continue generating ideas, according to officials.

    Democrats say the message worked. The administration and national Democrats have touted the results of the 2022 midterm elections, and the fact that a so-called red wave never materialized as many had predicted, as proof the president’s focus on themes like defending democracy struck a chord.

    Thursday’s remarks were billed by the White House as the president’s fourth major speech on the theme of democracy – Biden spoke to the issue last year to mark the one-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, as well as days before the midterm elections.

    By also honoring McCain during his speech Thursday, Biden hoped to harken to an era of bipartisanship in Washington that has disappeared in recent years. The comparison is amplified given the current battle over government funding, which appears destined to result in a government shutdown by the end of the week.

    He was joined at the speech by McCain’s widow Cindy, other members of the McCain family and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

    However, one of the state’s senators, Kyrsten Sinema – who was a Democrat until she left the party last year to become an independent – said Biden should use his visit to Arizona to observe the situation at the southern border.

    “It’s well past time for President Biden to see the border crisis first hand and for the administration to do its job, secure the border, and keep Arizona safe. While he’s in Arizona, I’m calling on him to visit the border to actually understand how our communities shoulder the burden of his administration’s failure to address this crisis,” she said in a statement.

    McCain’s death was deeply personal and painful for Biden for a number of reasons, including the fact that McCain had been diagnosed with the same cancer that took the life of Biden’s son, Beau. After laying a wreath near the site where McCain’s plane was shot down in Hanoi this month, Biden said he missed his former Senate colleague.

    “He was a good friend,” Biden said.

    In his eulogy for McCain in the summer of 2018, Biden described his friend as having “lived by a different code – an ancient, antiquated code where honor, courage, integrity, duty were alive.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • US regulator seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition | CNN Business

    US regulator seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday applied for a court order to force Elon Musk to testify in an ongoing probe related to his acquisition of Twitter and public disclosures he made in connection with the deal, according to court filings.

    The filing Thursday in San Francisco federal court seeks a judge’s order requiring Musk to testify, alleging “blatant refusal to comply” with an earlier SEC subpoena.

    X, the company formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The SEC action is the latest turn in a long-running inquiry into whether Musk fully complied with his disclosure obligations when he began acquiring large amounts of Twitter stock, prior to his deal to buy the company. And it underscores years of friction between Musk and the agency over his public comments on numerous matters involving his companies.

    Musk began buying up large amounts of Twitter stock in early 2022, and he revealed on April 4 of that year that he had become the company’s largest shareholder. Later that month, Musk inked a deal to buy the platform for $44 billion and — after a monthslong legal battle attempting to exit the deal — officially closed the acquisition in October of last year. Musk has faced a number of legal challenges related to his Twitter acquisition in the months since his takeover.

    Musk testified twice as part of the SEC’s investigation in July 2022, according to the agency.

    Starting that same month, Musk produced “hundreds of documents” to federal investigators working on the probe, “including documents Musk authored,” according to a declaration by an SEC attorney filed alongside the agency’s court request.

    The SEC served Musk with a subpoena to testify again in the matter in May 2023, according to the court filing. The current subpoena at issue seeks evidence and testimony from Musk that the SEC does not yet possess, the agency said.

    Despite previously agreeing to testify on September 15 and rescheduling the testimony once, Musk “abruptly notified the SEC” two days before his scheduled appearance to say he would not be showing up, the filing states.

    The SEC attempted to negotiate with Musk to find alternative dates later this fall, according to court documents.

    “These good faith efforts were met with Musk’s blanket refusal to appear for testimony,” it adds.

    “The subpoena with which Musk failed to comply relates to an ongoing nonpublic investigation by the SEC,” the filing continued, “regarding whether, among other things, Musk violated various provisions of the federal securities laws in connection with (1) his 2022 purchases of Twitter, Inc (“Twitter”) stock, and (2) his 2022 statements and SEC filings relating to Twitter.”

    When Musk informed the SEC he would not be appearing to testify, his lawyer, Alex Spiro, wrote to the agency on September 13, saying Musk had “already sat for testimony twice in this matter” and that “enough is enough.”

    Spiro’s letter, which was included as an exhibit in the SEC’s court filings, accused regulators of seeking Musk’s testimony in bad faith and attempting to waste Musk’s time.

    In addition, Spiro claimed that the recent release of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk would interfere because it contained “new information potentially relevant to this matter” that would take time for both sides to digest.

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  • Jim Jordan, the face of key GOP investigations, seeks the speaker’s gavel — again | CNN Politics

    Jim Jordan, the face of key GOP investigations, seeks the speaker’s gavel — again | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a key figure in House GOP-led investigations, is again seeking the speaker’s gavel as Republicans face a deepening leadership crisis and the chamber remains paralyzed without a speaker.

    Jordan has made a name for himself as a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and was endorsed by Trump in his bid for the speakership. The Ohio Republican serves as chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee.

    Jordan has a longstanding reputation as a conservative agitator and helped found the hardline House Freedom Caucus. He has served in Congress since 2007.

    Jordan initially ran against House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and was defeated in a closed-door vote by the conference. Scalise went on to become the GOP speaker nominee – but dropped out of the race abruptly Thursday evening after facing a bloc of hardened opposition.

    The House GOP conference selected Jordan on Friday as its latest speaker-designee in a 124-81 vote over GOP Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia – who made a surprise last-minute bid. Jordan gained only 25 supporters compared to Wednesday’s vote when Scalise defeated Jordan, 113-99.

    Jordan then called a second vote asking members if they would support him on the floor, in an effort to see if that could shrink his opposition. That vote, which was cast by secret ballot, was 152-55 – laying out the long road ahead for Jordan’s speakership bid to succeed.

    In addition to chairing the Judiciary Committee, Jordan is also the chair of the select subcommittee on the “weaponization” of the federal government. When McCarthy announced a House GOP impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, he said House Oversight Chairman James Comer would lead the effort in coordination with Jordan as Judiciary chair and Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith.

    While Republicans say their investigative work is critical to informing the American public and ensuring accountability, Democrats frequently criticize Jordan as a hyper-partisan Trump defender and have accused him of using his perch to shield the former president in the run up to the 2024 presidential election.

    Rep. Jim Jordan, an ally of President Donald Trump who was recently appointed to the House Intelligence Committee, takes his seat on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in November 2019, during the first public impeachment hearings of President Trump's efforts to tie US aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents.

    As Jordan oversees key House GOP investigations, Democrats also point to the fact that he stonewalled in response to a subpoena for his testimony from the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

    Jordan as well as Scalise both supported objections to electoral college results when Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s presidential win on January 6, 2021, the same day a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol seeking to overturn the election.

    Jordan has downplayed concerns that he may be too conservative for some of the more moderate members of the GOP.

    “I think we are a conservative-center-right party. I think I’m the guy who can help unite that. My politics are entirely consistent with where conservatives and Republicans are across the country,” Jordan told CNN’s Manu Raju.

    CNN reported in 2020 that six former Ohio State University wrestlers said they were present when Jordan heard or responded to sexual misconduct complaints about team doctor Richard Strauss.

    Jordan has emphatically denied that he knew anything about Strauss’ abuse during his own years working at OSU, between 1987 and 1995. “Congressman Jordan never saw any abuse, never heard about any abuse, and never had any abuse reported to him during his time as a coach at Ohio State,” his congressional office said in 2018.

    This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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  • Incident involving US warship intercepting missiles near Yemen lasted 9 hours | CNN Politics

    Incident involving US warship intercepting missiles near Yemen lasted 9 hours | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A US warship that intercepted drones and missiles near the coast of Yemen on Thursday encountered a larger and more sustained barrage than was previously known, shooting down 4 cruise missiles and 15 drones over a period of 9 hours, according to a US official familiar with the situation.

    The USS Carney, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer that traversed the Suez Canal heading south on Wednesday, intercepted the missiles and drones as they were heading north along the Red Sea. Their trajectory left little doubt that the projectiles were headed for Israel, the official said, a clearer assessment than the Pentagon’s initial take.

    A sustained barrage of drones and missiles targeting Israel from far outside the Gaza conflict is one of a series of worrying signs that the war risks escalating beyond the borders of the coastal enclave.

    In addition to protests at US embassies across the Middle East, US and coalition forces in Syria and Iraq have come under repeated attack over the past several days.

    On Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen and were launched “potentially towards targets in Israel.” At the briefing, Ryder said three land-attack cruise missiles and “several” drones.

    Some of the projectiles were traveling at altitudes that made them a potential risk to commercial aviation when they were intercepted, the US official said. The drones and missiles were intercepted with SM-2 surface-to-air missiles launched from the USS Carney.

    US interceptions of Houthi launches are exceedingly rare, making the timing of this incident, as tensions rise in Israel, more significant. In October 2016, the USS Mason deployed countermeasures to stop an attempted attack in the Red Sea targeting the Navy destroyer and other ships nearby. In response, the US fired sea-launched cruise missiles at Houthi radar facilities in Yemen.

    On Wednesday, one-way attack drones targeted two different US positions in Iraq, according to US Central Command. One of the attacks resulted in minor injuries. One day later, the At-Tanf garrison in Syria, which houses US and coalition forces, was targeted by two drones, which also caused minor injuries.

    Early Friday morning in Iraq, two rockets targeted the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center near the airport, which houses US military, diplomatic and civilian personnel, according to another US defense official. One rocket was intercepted by a counter-rocket system, while the second hit an empty storage facility, the official said. No one was injured as a result of the rocket attack.

    The US has not assigned attribution for any of the recent attacks in Iraq and Syria, though Iranian proxies have carried out similar drone and rocket attacks against US forces in both countries in the past.

    The US military has carried out strikes on Iranian-backed militias as a response to previous such attacks against US forces, but the Pentagon would not say anything yet about its intentions.

    “While I’m not going to forecast any potential response to these attacks, I will say that we will take all necessary actions to defend US and coalition forces against any threat,” said Ryder. “Any response, should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing.”

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  • 'Change is necessary': Coast Guard pledges reforms after mishandling reports of sexual assault | CNN Politics

    'Change is necessary': Coast Guard pledges reforms after mishandling reports of sexual assault | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US Coast Guard, rocked by allegations that its leaders for years concealed damning information about sexual assaults and other serious misconduct, released a highly critical report Wednesday acknowledging it had “failed to keep our people safe,” while vowing to make reforms that would better protect them.

    After spending 90 days speaking with hundreds of service members, reading through more than 170 written comments and “sifting through a mountain of data,” an internal review team said it had heard a resounding message from the workforce that “these failures and lack of accountability are entirely unacceptable” and that leaders “must do something about it.”

    “Too many Coast Guard members are not experiencing the safe, empowering workplace they expect and deserve (and) trust in Coast Guard leadership is eroding,” the authors wrote in the roughly 100-page report, noting that they had heard from victims of sexual assault and harassment stretching from the 1960s to the current day who “expressed deep rooted feelings of pain and a loss of trust in the organization.”

    The scathing internal review was launched after CNN exposed a secret criminal investigation, dubbed Operation Fouled Anchor, which found that serious misconduct had been ignored and, at times, covered up by high-ranking officials. It wasn’t until CNN started asking questions about Fouled Anchor this spring that Coast Guard leaders rushed to officially brief Congress on the scandal — leading to outrage on both sides of the aisle, multiple government investigations and proposed legislation.

    CNN’s coverage of Fouled Anchor and subsequent reporting revealing that Coast Guard leaders declined to prosecute a retired officer for sexual misconduct “have led people to experience feelings ranging from disappointment to outrage,” the report said.

    “For so many victims, there are even deeper levels of broken trust: in leaders who failed them in preventing and responding to sexual violence; in a military justice system with antiquated legal definitions of rape; in non-existent support programs for those impacted prior to 2000,” it stated. While the report outlined a number of changes made in the last two decades, it also acknowledged that reforms to date have not been enough to prevent assaults and properly support victims.

    The review did not seek to hold past perpetrators or officials involved with the Fouled Anchor cover-up accountable, saying multiple government investigations launched by Congress remained ongoing.

    Instead, it looked to the future and focused on preventing future assaults and other misconduct, describing the report as a “road map aimed at improving” the agency’s culture.

    Along with the report’s findings, the Coast Guard announced a series of actions directed by the agency’s leader, Commandant Linda Fagan, through recommended changes to everything from training and victim support services to strengthening processes for holding perpetrators accountable.

    “This report acknowledges the Coast Guard’s failures and uses them to inform a way ahead, rebuild trust, and set the baseline for organizational growth,” the document states, noting that many of the actions require additional funding and authority to implement.

    Among the reforms are the creation of a mentorship program for victims to help them navigate the aftermath of a sexual assault, the development of a “safe to report” policy so that victims are not penalized for collateral minor misconduct (such as alcohol use at the time of an incident), more secure locks on Coast Guard Academy bedrooms and improved oversight of the school and its cadets – including a new chain of command for the academy head.

    Fagan also directed officials to better keep tabs on the academy’s hallmark “Swab Summer” training program, which is run by upperclassmen at the academy, and to consider strengthening policies that allow the agency to reduce pension payments for those found to have committed misconduct.

    The report was the Coast Guard’s most expansive response to the growing criticism of its handling of misconduct. And while it was being released publicly, and members of Congress had been briefed on its contents earlier, the report was specifically addressed to “U.S. Coast Guard workforce, past and present.”

    “You made it clear that you want and expect our Service to confront this issue and make it better. You want our Service to deliver meaningful change,” the report stated. “Whether you’re a member who has a story to share — or the shipmate standing beside them — this is our time. Let’s get it right.”

    While the Coast Guard is focused on the future, members of Congress are still determined to get answers about past failures as well.

    “This new report still does not hold anyone accountable for past failures—particularly those at the Coast Guard Academy,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, where the Coast Guard Academy is located. Murphy and other lawmakers have continued to slam the agency for its failure to be transparent about sexual assault and other misconduct. “It does lay out a modest plan to improve oversight, training, and support for survivors, but a report is nothing more than paper until concrete steps are taken.”

    Democratic Senators Maria Cantwell and Richard Blumenthal also criticized how, despite calling this effort an “accountability” review, the Coast Guard still failed to hold anyone to task for the mishandling of sexual assault cases. Cantwell reiterated the importance of an independent investigation, saying she is looking forward to seeing the results of the probe currently being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General.

    Earlier this year, CNN reported how former Commandant Karl Schultz and his second-in-command, Vice Commandant Charles Ray, failed to act on plans to share the findings of Fouled Anchor with Congress and the public. Ray resigned from his position at a Coast Guard Academy leadership institute soon after, but no other current or former Coast Guard officials have publicly faced any consequences.

    “Current Coast Guard personnel are being told to trust their leadership, but their leaders aren’t holding predecessors accountable,” K. Denise Rucker Krepp, a former Coast Guard officer and former chief counsel of the Maritime Administration wrote in a recent letter to Congress, describing how she had attended a “community healing” event sponsored by the Coast Guard Academy Alumni Association last month.

    “Before my first cup of coffee I learned about a woman who was raped shortly after joining the service. She never told her parents about the crime,” she wrote. “While washing my hands in the bathroom, another woman shared that she was raped while attending the Coast Guard Academy in the late 1990s. Another woman shared that she was gang-raped by three students at the school and had spent two-thirds of her life on medication because of the crimes that occurred almost 40 years ago.”

    Next week, more survivors of sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy are slated to share their experiences publicly in a Congressional hearing. The hearing, announced just yesterday, is part of an ongoing Senate probe launched in reaction to the Fouled Anchor cover-up.

    Do you have information or a story to share about the Coast Guard past or present? Email melanie.hicken@cnn.com and Blake.Ellis@cnn.com.

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  • Biden defers to Justice Department in first public answer on special counsel investigation into his son | CNN Politics

    Biden defers to Justice Department in first public answer on special counsel investigation into his son | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden on Friday said he had no comment and deferred to the Department of Justice when asked for his reaction to the special counsel appointment in the case of his son, Hunter Biden.

    “I have no comment on any investigation that’s going on,” the president said during a trilateral news conference with the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David. “That’s up to the Justice Department, and that’s all I have to say.”

    The answer to a reporter’s question was the first time the president had spoken publicly about the appointment of a special counsel since David Weiss was elevated to the role last week. Biden had previously ignored reporter questions on the matter.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last week that Weiss – a Trump-appointed US attorney who has been leading an investigation into Hunter Biden for years – had been given special counsel status after plea talks between the Justice Department and the president’s son fell apart. Weiss asked for the new authority after plea talks to resolve tax and gun charges fell apart.

    The probe appeared to reach its conclusion when a plea deal was announced in June. In a two-pronged agreement, Hunter Biden planned to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and prosecutors would drop a separate felony gun charge in two years if he stayed out of legal trouble and passed drug tests.

    Federal prosecutors also agreed to recommend probation, and no jail time, for the president’s son. The GOP had criticized the plea deal, accusing Weiss of giving Hunter Biden preferential treatment.

    But at a stunning three-hour court hearing last month, the deal nearly collapsed under scrutiny from the federal judge overseeing the case. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said the intertwined deals to resolve the tax and gun charges were “confusing,” “not straightforward,” “atypical” and “unprecedented.” At the end of that hearing, she ordered the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s lawyers to file additional legal briefs defending the constitutionality of the agreement. Weiss said last week that the talks had failed.

    By naming Weiss as a special counsel, Garland gave him further independence from the Justice Department as he embarks on an unprecedented trial against the son of the sitting president, and as Republicans claim the department is politicized.

    The probe into Hunter Biden is now one of two special counsel investigations – the other being an inquiry into his father’s handling of classified documents after leaving the Senate and the vice president’s office – that both appear poised to extend for months to come. But the probe into Hunter Biden is among the most sensitive subjects inside the West Wing.

    Multiple Biden advisers conceded privately this week that special counsels have a history of uncovering information they hadn’t set out initially to discover. The fact that the probe into Hunter Biden is also a delicate family matter, people close to Biden say, is creating a level of personal angst unlike any other challenge for the president.

    This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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  • Congress poised for messy September as McCarthy races to avoid government shutdown | CNN Politics

    Congress poised for messy September as McCarthy races to avoid government shutdown | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    GOP hardliners in the House are eager to play a game of chicken over the end-of-the-month deadline to fund federal agencies, seeking to force the White House and Senate to make a choice: Accept a slew of conservative priorities or risk a debilitating government shutdown.

    And caught in the middle, once again, is Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

    In a private conference call last week, McCarthy urged his colleagues to back a short-term spending deal to avoid an October 1 shutdown and instead focus their energy on the larger funding fight later in the fall, sources on the call told CNN. His argument: The year-long spending bills to fund federal agencies would be better suited to enact cuts and policy changes they have demanded, including on hot-button issues like border security and immigration policy.

    And, he argued, if they spend too much time squabbling among themselves, they’ll end up getting jammed by senators in both parties and forced to accept higher spending levels than they’d like.

    “It’s a great place to have a very strong fight and to hold our ground,” McCarthy told his colleagues, according to a person on the call, referring to having an immigration fight on the bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security – not on short-term funding legislation that the far-right House Freedom Caucus is pushing to use as a bargaining chip.

    As the Senate returns this week after its August recess, and the House reconvenes next week, the two chambers have little time to resolve major differences over funding the government. The two sides are hundreds of billions of dollars apart after McCarthy backed away from a previous deal he cut with the White House and later agreed to pursue deeper cuts demanded by his right-flank.

    Now, the two sides will have to work together to punt the fight until potentially early December and pass a short-term funding bill – all as Congress faces other key end-of-the-month deadlines, such as an extension of federal aviation programs, and as a potential impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden looms in the House.

    None of it will be that easy.

    The White House and senators from both parties want to tie the short-term funding bill to $24 billion in aid to Ukraine and with another $16 billion in much-needed funds for communities ravaged by a spate of natural disasters. But a contingent of vocal House conservatives are furiously opposed to quickly passing more aid to Ukraine – while GOP sources said McCarthy privately voiced displeasure at the White House for formally unveiling its funding request during the congressional recess and not briefing lawmakers.

    Moreover, to pass legislation in the House by a majority vote, the chamber must first approve a rule – a procedural vote that is typically only supported by the majority party and opposed by the minority party. Yet several hard-right conservatives told CNN they are prepared to take down the rule over the spending bill if their demands aren’t met.

    That would leave McCarthy with a choice: Either side with conservative hardliners and set up a major clash with the White House or cut a deal with Democrats and pass the spending bill by a two-thirds majority, a threshold that would allow them to approve the bill without having to adopt a rule first but could force McCarthy to give more concessions to Democrats.

    But if he works with Democrats to circumvent his far-right, McCarthy risks enraging the very members who have threatened to push for a vote to oust him from the speakership.

    GOP Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, who leads one of the appropriations subcommittees, acknowledged that they’ll need Democratic support for both a short-term spending patch and for any longer-term bills to fund the government – which he said could put McCarthy in a predicament.

    “The challenge for McCarthy, and I’ll be real honest with you, is that if he works with the Democrats, obviously, the Democrats are not going to do it for free. They want something. So, it’s going to be a compromise – one of those really bad words in Washington for some reason,” Simpson told CNN. “Then you’re going to find a resolution introduced on the floor to vacate the chair.”

    One GOP lawmaker acknowledged there have been conversations among conservative hardliners about using a “motion to vacate” – a procedural tool that forces a floor vote to oust the speaker – to gain leverage in the funding fight, if they feel like McCarthy isn’t sticking to his spending promises or gives too much away to Democrats.

    A few on the right, who were furious with McCarthy over his bipartisan debt ceiling deal, briefly floated the idea of triggering a motion to vacate this summer, but then dialed back their threat when it became clear there wasn’t much support for the move.

    McCarthy allies say the hard-liners are playing with fire.

    GOP Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a Nebraska swing district won by Biden, said of the right’s hardline approach to spending: “It’s not realistic.”

    “This theory that you gotta have 100% (of what you want), and if you don’t get 100, you’ll take zero – it’s not that the way it works,” he added. “And it’s not good for the country.”

    Part of the McCarthy strategy to get conservative hardliners on board is to channel their energy on other matters that won’t lead to an end-of-the-month shutdown.

    In recent weeks, McCarthy has tried to use the right’s desire to investigate and impeach Biden as part of his argument against a shutdown, warning that their probes into the administration would have to come to a halt if the government were to shut down.

    Meanwhile, the House will consider its homeland spending bill on the floor the week they return from recess, giving the right a fresh opportunity to offer amendments and shape their party’s border policy — and train their focus away from the must-pass short-term extension.

    Democrats are already trying to pin the blame on any shutdown on the House GOP.

    “When the Senate returns next week, our focus will be on funding the government and preventing House Republican extremists from forcing a government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a letter to his colleagues on Friday.

    How McCarthy deals with the immediate spending demands remains to be seen, including whether he’ll agree to pair the short-term spending bill with any aid to Ukraine.

    While Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell is a staunch advocate for Ukraine aid, McCarthy has been more circumspect amid loud calls from his right-flank against pouring more money into the war-torn country.

    And as he toured Maui on Saturday, McCarthy acknowledged the need for more disaster relief aid, though it’s unclear if he will separate that package from Ukraine funding — even as the White House and senators in both parties want them to move together.

    Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told CNN that disaster relief and Ukraine “need to be separated.”

    “The president needs to come forward, or the speaker, leadership of the Republican Party, the Democrat Party need to come together to share with the American people what we’re doing, what’s the outcome of this?” Hern said.

    Simpson said of tying Ukraine aid to the short-term spending bill: “That’s a tougher sell. Particularly in our conference.”

    But advocates of more Ukraine aid say that the longer that Congress waits, the more difficult it will be to approve money needed to deter Russian aggression and the brutality of Vladimir Putin’s war.

    “I think we need to get that done because we’re not going to get it done next year, right?” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat. “Once you get truly into the presidential cycle, everything gets that much more difficult.”

    Hard-line conservatives are already threatening to make McCarthy’s calculus more complicated if he cuts a short-term spending deal with Democrats. Several of them are already threatening to oppose any rule if the bill falls short of their demands – a tactic that they have employed this Congress to bring the House to a halt. It would take just five Republicans to take down a rule, assuming all Democrats vote against it as they typically do.

    Rep. Ralph Norman – who serves on the House Rules Committee, where such a procedural step would originate – told CNN he hasn’t made up his mind yet on the rule.

    But the South Carolina Republican said he has concerns about the supplemental request for Ukraine aid, which he said needs to be offset, as well as top-line funding levels for their remaining spending bills.

    “There is no appetite for getting our financial house in order by anyone of either party,” he said.

    Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, another hardliner, also hinted that he may vote against both the short-term spending bill and the rule, but when asked for clarification by CNN, he said: “I’m on a very different decision calculus than this.”

    Gaetz didn’t respond to a follow-up question about what he meant, but later posted on social media a long list of grievances he has with GOP leadership – including on spending issues – and ended his post with: “We are going to have to seize the initiative and make some changes.”

    Some have made their demands directly known to GOP leaders, including Virginia Rep. Bob Good, who said on last week’s conference call that lawmakers shouldn’t fear a potential shutdown, according to a source on the call.

    Other Republicans made clear they want no part of a shutdown – something California Rep. Darrell Issa said is “not constructive.”

    “We will get there,” Issa said of funding the government. “Now if we get there earlier without a shutdown, the American people are better served.”

    When asked how the next few months will shake out, Simpson had some words of warning: “I tell people: buckle up. It’s going to be crazy for September, October, November, December,” Simpson said. “The next four months are going to be wild.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • McCarthy says defense spending bill will get a vote this week ‘win or lose’ | CNN Politics

    McCarthy says defense spending bill will get a vote this week ‘win or lose’ | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday that the Defense Department appropriations bill that was paused last week before it even made it to the floor for debate will come up for a vote this week “win or lose.”

    “We will do that this week,” McCarthy said on Fox News, adding “unfortunately I had a handful of members last week that literally stopped the Department of Defense appropriations coming forward,” referring to members of his right flank who have stymied two appropriations bills thus far.

    “I gave them an opportunity this weekend to try to work through this, and we’ll bring it to the floor win or lose,” McCarthy told Maria Bartiromo.

    House Republican leadership was hoping to put a series of standalone spending bills on the floor to try to build consensus and unite the conference, but it’s been a gamble. Leadership was left scrambling over the defense spending bill after one member of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, voted against the bill in the Rules Committee and another, Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, told CNN he would vote against the rule on the floor.

    Both the debate and the scheduled votes were pulled minutes before the chamber was due to gavel in Wednesday.

    McCarthy on Sunday pointed a finger at the Senate, saying not only does the House have to work with the upper chamber, but that the Senate “blew up last week too. They couldn’t pass anything.”

    “And unfortunately on the Senate side, the Republicans and Democrats over there are writing bills to spend more money. Ours are the most conservative, but if we don’t ask them, we’re weaker in the negotiations. So anytime a Republican wants to hold back and stop the floor from working when Republicans have the majority, that puts us in a weaker position to win in the end of the day,” he said.

    But McCarthy said a government shutdown “would only give strength to the Democrats. It would give the power to Biden.”

    With no serious progress on Capitol Hill as Congress stares down a spending deadline at the end of the month, lawmakers are acknowledging that at this point a government shutdown is not only possible, but may soon be inevitable.

    That’s particularly true if the political dynamics at play among McCarthy, the hardliners in his conference and the US Senate don’t change fast.

    “I want to make sure we don’t shut down. I don’t think that is a win for the American public and I definitely believe that will make (Republicans’) hand weaker,” McCarthy said.

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  • Biden says border walls don’t work as administration bypasses laws to build more barriers in South Texas | CNN Politics

    Biden says border walls don’t work as administration bypasses laws to build more barriers in South Texas | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden said Thursday that he doesn’t believe border walls work, even as his administration said it will waive 26 laws to build additional border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley amid heightened political pressure over migration.

    According to a notice posted to the Federal Register Wednesday, construction of the wall will be paid for using already appropriated funds earmarked specifically for physical border barriers. The administration was under a deadline to use them or lose them. But the move comes at a time when a new surge of migrants is straining federal and local resources and placing heavy political pressure on the Biden administration to address a sprawling crisis, and the notice cited “high illegal entry.”

    Biden – who, as a candidate, vowed that there will “not be another foot” of border wall constructed on his watch – defended the decision to reporters Thursday, saying that he tried to get the money appropriated for other purposes but was unsuccessful.

    “I’ll answer one question on the border wall: The border wall – the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t, they wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office.

    Asked whether he believes the border wall works, Biden answered, “No.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated forcefully that there had been no change to the administration’s policy at a news conference in Mexico City on Thursday.

    “I want to address today’s reporting relating to a border wall and be absolutely clear: There is no new administration policy with respect to the border wall,” Mayorkas said. “Allow me to repeat that: There is no new administration policy with respect to the border wall.”

    “We have repeatedly asked Congress to rescind this money, but it has not done so, and we are compelled to follow the law,” he said.

    Border Patrol reported nearly 300,000 encounters in the Rio Grande Valley sector between last October and August, according to federal data. Last month, Border Patrol apprehended more than 200,000 migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, the highest total this year.

    Biden has been plagued by issues on the border since his first months in office, when the US faced a surge of unaccompanied migrant children that caught officials flatfooted. Over the last two years, his administration has continued to face fierce pushback from Republicans – and at times, Democrats – over his immigration policies.

    But a new surge of migrants has placed additional pressure on federal resources and tested Biden’s latest border policies only months after going into place, prompting fresh criticism from Republicans and concern within the administration over a politically delicate issue.

    Migration along the southern border has been a relentless focus of the Republican presidential primary field and conservative media, and leading Democrats, including the mayors of New York and Chicago, have begun publicly demanding stronger efforts by the federal government to provide resources to accommodate arrivals.

    The Department of Homeland Security had concluded “it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads” in Starr County, Texas, along the US border with Mexico, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the filing posted in the US Federal Registry.

    “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Mayorkas said in the notice.

    Construction of the wall will be paid for through a 2019 appropriations bill that funneled money specifically to a “border barrier” in the Rio Grande Valley, and according to Mayorkas, “DHS is required to use those funds for their appropriated purpose.” The funds needed to be spent by the end of fiscal year 2023, prompting the administration to choose to move forward this year with construction in south Texas, according to a source familiar.

    US Customs and Border Protection had previously announced plans to design and construct up to 20 miles of new border barrier systems in Starr County, including light poles and lighting, gates, cameras and access roads, among other systems. CBP sought public input between August and September, according to the agency.

    Among the laws the Biden administration is bypassing to build the wall are several of the same statutes the administration has in the past moved to protect, including: the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

    A CBP spokesperson said the agency “remains committed to protecting the nation’s cultural and natural resources” while implementing “sound environmental practices” to build the border barriers.

    Migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border are expected to remain high in the near term, a senior US Customs and Border Protection official recently told CNN, though additional commitments from Mexico are expected to help eventually drive down numbers.

    This week, Mayorkas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland and White House Homeland Security adviser Dr. Liz Sherwood-Randall will meet with their Mexican counterparts in Mexico City for annual security talks.

    Migration is expected to be a topic of discussion. Senior administration officials maintain that the US has been in regular touch with Mexico over the situation at the US southern border, including commitments to shore up enforcement.

    Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said constructing a new border wall is a “regression” that won’t resolve the immigration problem. During his daily press conference, he criticized “right-wing Republicans” for pressing the immigration and drug trafficking problem for political purposes.

    “So, they are acting very irresponsibly, and they are putting very hard pressure on the president, who will always count on our support,” Lopez Obrador said. “But that authorization for the construction of the wall is a setback. Because that doesn’t solve the problem, that doesn’t solve the problem. The causes must be addressed.”

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Who are the Trump co-conspirators in the 2020 election interference indictment? | CNN Politics

    Who are the Trump co-conspirators in the 2020 election interference indictment? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The historic indictment against Donald Trump in the special counsel’s probe into January 6, 2021, and efforts to overturn the 2020 election says that he “enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts.”

    The charging documents repeatedly reference six of these co-conspirators, but as is common practice, their identities are withheld because they have not been charged with any crimes.

    CNN, however, can identify five of the six co-conspirators based on quotes in the indictment and other context.

    They include:

    Among other things, the indictment quotes from a voicemail that Co-Conspirator 1 left “for a United States Senator” on January 6, 2021. The quotes in the indictment match quotes from Giuliani’s call intended for GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville, as reported by CNN and other outlets.

    Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, said in a statement that “every fact Mayor Rudy Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good faith basis President Donald Trump had for the actions he took during the two-month period charged in the indictment,” adding that the indictment “eviscerates the First Amendment.”

    Among other things, the indictment says Co-Conspirator 2 “circulated a two-page memorandum” with a plan for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election while presiding over the Electoral College certification on January 6, 2021. The indictment quotes from the memo, and those quotes match a two-page memo that Eastman wrote, as reported and published by CNN.

    Charles Burnham, an attorney for Eastman, said the indictment “relies on a misleading presentation of the record,” and that his client would decline a plea deal if offered one.

    “The fact is, if Dr. Eastman is indicted, he will go to trial. If convicted, he will appeal. The Eastman legal team is confident of its legal position in this matter,” Burnham said in a statement.

    The indictment says Co-Conspirator 3 “filed a lawsuit against the Governor of Georgia” on November 25, 2020, alleging “massive election fraud” and that the lawsuit was “dismissed” on December 7, 2020. These dates and quotations match the federal lawsuit that Powell filed against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.

    An attorney for Powell declined to comment.

    The indictment identifies Co-Conspirator 4 as “a Justice Department official.” The indictment also quotes an email that a top Justice Department official sent to Clark, rebutting Clark’s attempts to use the department to overturn the election. The quotes in that email directly match quotes in an email sent to Clark, according to a Senate report about how Trump tried to weaponize the Justice Department in 2020.

    CNN has reached out to an attorney for Clark.

    Among other things, the indictment references an “email memorandum” that Co-Conspirator 5 “sent” to Giuliani on December 13, 2020, about the fake electors plot. The email sender, recipient, date, and content are a direct match for an email that Chesebro sent to Giuliani, according to a copy of the email made public by the House select committee that investigated January 6.

    CNN has reached out to an attorney for Chesebro.

    The indictment says they are “a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” The indictment also further ties this person to the fake elector slate in Pennsylvania.

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  • Justice Kagan order: Apple doesn’t have to change app store terms while battling Epic in court | CNN Business

    Justice Kagan order: Apple doesn’t have to change app store terms while battling Epic in court | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A judicial order forcing Apple to change some of its app store terms will not need to take immediate effect while litigation over the decision plays out, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on Wednesday, handing a temporary defeat to opponents of the company.

    The order is a setback for “Fortnite”-maker Epic Games as Apple appeals a lower-court ruling that found the iPhone-maker had violated California competition law.

    Epic Games declined to comment on Kagan’s decision, which occurred in the Supreme Court’s so-called “shadow docket” and was not referred to the full court.

    Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Apple had previously been ordered not to interfere with efforts by iOS app developers to inform their users within their apps about alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment system, which allows Apple to take a commission.

    In April, a federal appeals court upheld the order that, if allowed to take effect, would prevent Apple from intervening when developers include “buttons, external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms” apart from Apple’s own channels.

    The appeals court temporarily paused enforcement of the injunction while Apple appeals the ruling to the Supreme Court. But last month, Epic Games filed an emergency request to the court calling for the order to be put into effect immediately, saying the public would otherwise be harmed by Apple’s practices.

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  • Sen. Tim Kaine says ‘powerful argument’ 14th Amendment could disqualify Trump | CNN Politics

    Sen. Tim Kaine says ‘powerful argument’ 14th Amendment could disqualify Trump | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Sunday “there’s a powerful argument to be made” for barring Donald Trump from the presidential ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding public office.

    “My sense is it’s probably going to get resolved in the courts,” Kaine said on “ABC This Week,” adding that Democrats’ focus should be on winning in 2024.

    Legal experts have pointed to the 14th Amendment as a potential long-shot avenue to keep Trump from becoming president. The amendment includes a post-Civil War “disqualification clause” that bars anyone from holding public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” The Constitution does not, however, spell out how to enforce this ban and it has only been applied twice since the late 1800s, when it was used extensively against former Confederates.

    Election officials in battleground states, including attorneys general in Michigan and New Hampshire, have said they’re anticipating outside groups to file lawsuits on the matter, and are studying the legality of the provision and how it may disqualify Trump from appearing on ballots in their states.

    Liberal activists have championed the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause and have already vowed to file suits to disqualify the former president, a tactic they have used against other elected officials to little success – though some prominent conservative legal scholars have recently endorsed the idea.

    Does the 14th Amendment make Trump ineligible? Hear what law professor thinks

    Kaine voiced support for the idea, saying, “The language (of the amendment) is specific: If you give aid and comfort to those who engage in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States — it doesn’t say against the United States, it says against the Constitution. In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose … and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power as is laid out in the Constitution.”

    Kaine also said that he had discussed using the provision with fellow senators during Trump’s second impeachment in 2021, remarking that he thought it would “have been a more productive way to go to do a declaration under that section of the 14th Amendment.”

    He floated the idea of a censure vote in Congress under the 14th Amendment as an alternative way of holding Trump accountable and keeping him from holding public office again after the Senate acquitted the former president in a failed impeachment vote. Seven GOP senators joined the chamber’s 50 Democratic and Independent members in finding Trump guilty of inciting a riot on January 6.

    Kaine noted that Virginia will host its own races later this year to decide the makeup of its split legislature in an election that will act as a window into the state of politics in the battleground state ahead of next year’s presidential race.

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