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The Memo: New controversies deepen GOP’s ‘extremist’ problem

The GOP has an image problem — and it’s not getting better.

Republicans suffered a disappointing midterm election in part because moderate voters saw the party as too extreme.

A string of new controversies isn’t doing anything to soften those edges.

On Saturday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told a gala in New York that the Jan. 6 insurrection would have been more successful had she and former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon organized it. 

Expanding on her point, the Georgia congresswoman said that such an attempt “would’ve been armed.” 

She later claimed she was being sarcastic.

Earlier this month, the former president himself said on social media that he favored the “termination” of the Constitution — and appeared to suggest he could somehow be reinstated as president.

The bizarre claim came at a time when Republicans were still being buffeted by outrage over former President Trump having dinner at Mar-a-Lago with two noted antisemites: Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and Nick Fuentes.

Then, on Monday, website Talking Points Memo published texts that were apparently sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the waning days of Trump’s presidency.

Those messages included one from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), sent three days prior to President Biden’s inauguration, in which the congressman urged Meadows to encourage Trump to impose martial law — something that he considered “our last hope” in “saving our Republic.”

Put it all together, and it’s a lot of new fuel for the fire that burnt the GOP in the midterms. 

In those elections, according to a voter analysis commissioned by The Associated Press and Fox News, 44 percent of voters called “the future of democracy in this country” the single most important factor for them. Among that group, Democrats had a 20-point advantage.

The furors sparked by Trump and his fiercest advocates, such as Greene, have those who favor a more moderate course for the GOP shaking their heads. 

“These kinds of irresponsible statements alienate millions of voters, especially independents and swing voters who decide national elections,” one such Republican strategist, Brendan Steinhauser, told this column. 

There are signs that the voices of the old GOP establishment are reasserting themselves to try to quell the new storms.

Several leading Senate Republicans distanced themselves from Trump’s early December Truth Social post in which he argued for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Three days later, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) noted dryly at his weekly press conference that someone who makes such an argument “seems to me would have a very hard time being sworn in as the president of the United States.”

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) were among the other senior GOP senators who expressed their displeasure with Trump’s remarks.

Tensions between Trump’s MAGA movement and GOP senators are at a high pitch after the midterms anyways, given that Republicans remain confined to the Senate minority because Trump-backed nominees lost winnable races in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

The dynamics between party leadership and the most hard-line GOP members are even more complicated in the House, where Republicans will have 222 seats — a thin majority, and much fewer than they hoped for — in the new session.

There, current Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has to keep support from the whole party — including the hard-liners — if he is to be elected Speaker in January. 

A handful of the most Trumpian members of the conference, including Norman, have said they will not vote for McCarthy.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is challenging McCarthy, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has been adamant he will not vote for the Californian. Reps. Bob Good (R-Va.) and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) are also in the anti-McCarthy camp.

Greene, to the surprise of some of her most vehement supporters, has backed McCarthy for Speaker, and he has pledged to give her back the committee assignments that were stripped from her in early 2021 amid controversy over past comments, including apparent endorsements of violence.

Those maneuvers are, in turn, giving Democrats plenty of material to assert that the GOP is in the hands of extremists. 

“We’ve known for a long time that Marjorie Taylor Greene is the real power behind the new majority,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) told The Hill earlier this week. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that McCarthy and his colleagues “need to decide which side of the insurrection they’re on.”

Democratic strategist Tad Devine told this column that Republicans “are shooting themselves in the foot constantly” and “blew it” in the midterm elections, even while enjoying favorable political conditions.

“The Republicans are a political party who are only interested in their base voters and not interested in the much larger segment of voters who tend to decide general elections,” Devine added.

Democrats, of course, have a partisan interest in making those arguments. And Republicans who back Trump and his right-wing populism insist their approach is boosting working-class support across racial lines, reshaping American politics to the party’s advantage.

But other Republicans, like Steinhauser, take a very different, dimmer view.

“When political figures talk about ‘terminating’ the Constitution or imposing martial law to keep their favorite politician in power, the American voter rightly objects to such rhetoric,” he said.

“Unfortunately, some in the GOP are determined to say outrageous and frightening things that they believe have wide appeal. But they do not, and responsible leaders on the right need to speak out against such rhetoric.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage. Mychael Schnell contributed reporting.

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Lawmakers reach deal on framework for omnibus spending package  

Lawmakers have struck a much-anticipated deal on a framework for an omnibus package to fund the government for fiscal year 2023.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Tuesday said negotiators had “reached a bipartisan, bicameral framework that should allow us to finish an omnibus appropriations bill that can pass the House and Senate and be signed into law by the President.”

Shelby said he reached the deal with Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).

“We have a framework that provides a path forward to enact an omnibus next week,” DeLauro said, adding that the House and Senate Appropriations committees will “work around the clock” to negotiate the final spending bills for 2023.  

“The pain of inflation is real, and it is being felt across the federal government and by American families right now. We cannot delay our work any further, and a two-month continuing resolution does not provide any relief,” Leahy said. 

This is a developing story. 

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McDaniel seeks to fend off RNC leadership challenge

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel is facing her clearest leadership challenge to date in the wake of her party’s disappointing midterm election results.

Much of the finger-pointing has been directed at McDaniel, who as RNC chairwoman has overseen election cycles where the party lost the House in 2018, lost the White House and Senate in 2020 and then failed to retake the Senate this past November and captured a more modest House majority than expected.

Still, McDaniel has racked up endorsements for another term from a majority of RNC members, as well as former RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and Blake Masters, who lost his Senate bid in Arizona last month.

The process of choosing an RNC leader is designed to insulate an incumbent from an outside challenge, former party officials said, making it unlikely the organization will move on from McDaniel before 2024. But that hasn’t squashed dissent among some Republicans.

The dynamic was laid out in a letter from Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who fielded calls to challenge McDaniel for RNC chair after his unsuccessful campaign for New York governor drew praise from Republicans and may have helped the party make gains down ballot.

“Change is desperately needed, and there are many leaders, myself included, ready and willing to step up to ensure our party retools and transforms as critical elections fast approach, namely the 2024 Presidential and Congressional races,” Zeldin wrote last week in announcing he would not run against McDaniel.

“However, the issue is Chairwoman McDaniel’s re-election appears to already be pre-baked, as if the disappointing results of every election during her tenure … do not and should not even matter,” Zeldin added.

McDaniel has led the RNC since after the 2016 election, when Priebus left the position to serve as White House chief of staff. Former President Trump was a strong supporter of McDaniel.

But with Trump no longer in the White House and Republicans licking their wounds from November’s underwhelming showing, there have been more calls for McDaniel’s ouster.

The executive committee of the Arizona GOP last week unanimously passed a resolution calling for McDaniel to resign. The Texas GOP followed suit this week, passing a resolution saying “the grassroots have lost faith in Chairman McDaniel and the RNC” and calling for new leadership. 

Zeldin declined to say he would run against McDaniel, but made clear in his letter that he felt she should step aside and let new leadership revamp the RNC.

Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney with ties to Trump and a California RNC member, has announced a challenge to McDaniel and has been a regular guest on Fox News in recent days. Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow who has spread conspiracies about the 2020 election being rigged, has also said he plans to run for chairman.

McDaniel’s critics argue the election results under her watch are reason enough to need a change. They specifically argue the party needs to invest more in early voting, get more involved in candidate recruitment and better message what Republicans stand for in contrast to Democrats.

But the process of electing the head of the RNC makes it exceedingly difficult for an outsider to break through, and McDaniel appears to already have the votes necessary to win another term.

There are 168 members of the national committee — three from each state and territory. To win reelection, McDaniel needs a simple majority. For a challenger to even get on the ballot against her, they need the support of two RNC members from at least three different states.

An endorsement letter circulated last week contained the signatures of 107 RNC members backing McDaniel to stay on as chair, well more than the 84 she would need to win reelection at the party’s January meetings.

“The RNC campaign is about locking down the votes of 168 people, and those people are not beholden to a Republican senator or governor or member of Congress in that state,” said Doug Heye, a former spokesperson for the organization. “They belong specifically to the RNC, and she’s played that inside game very well.”

McDaniel’s defenders argue she has invested in the party to improve its on-the-ground operations, opened community centers to expand voter outreach, pushed back on the Presidential Debate Commission, supported election integrity efforts and lawsuits to throw out certain ballots and enforce voting rules, and worked on fundraising to boost candidates nationwide. 

“Support for the Chairwoman has only grown since her announcement and she looks forward to speaking with each and every member to discuss how the party can continue building upon our investments and make the necessary improvements to compete and win in 2024,” Emma Vaughn, a spokesperson for McDaniel’s reelection, said in a statement.

Some Republicans downplayed McDaniel’s role in the midterm results, instead pointing to issues like candidate quality. And there are those who think Trump — who has waded into primary races and discouraged his supporters from using mail ballots — should shoulder more of the blame.

Sean Spicer, a former RNC communications director and chief strategist who worked in the Trump White House, noted that candidates like New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) and statewide candidates in Georgia performed well and easily won their races last month, even as Senate candidates in those states struggled.

“They played on the same field on the same day, and they won. Is that a function of the party, or is that a function of the candidate?” Spicer said. 

McDaniel has in recent days defended her record while acknowledging the need for improvements in some areas.

She argued the RNC’s efforts under her leadership have led to an increasingly diverse array of candidates and helped foster strong Election Day turnout that helped Republicans flip House seats in Florida, North Carolina and California this cycle.

And without naming Trump, she lamented that some in the party had advocated against voting by mail. 

“We have had consistent leadership for six years. I have brought a lot of change to the RNC. And we’re going to continue to do that,” McDaniel said Monday on Fox Business Network. “But you have got to keep that going if we’re going to be successful in 2024. And that’s what I intend to do.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Five takeaways from the fusion energy breakthrough

The Biden administration has announced a breakthrough on nuclear fusion, fueling hopes of further progress toward clean energy.

Nuclear fusion — the process in which atoms are fused together to create energy — has long been studied as a potential power source.

But various hurdles have prevented the reaction from being a viable option for clean energy, and a commercial effort is still likely decades away.

Here’s what you should know about the Energy Department’s announcement:

1. It’s the first time a net energy gain has come from fusion

The crux of Tuesday’s news is that scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California were able to produce more energy via fusion than they put in. They put in 2.05 megajoules of energy and got out 3.15 megajoules. 

This is the first time scientists in a lab were able to create a net energy output through fusion, demonstrating that it is possible to do so.

“It’s the first time it has ever been done in a laboratory anywhere in the world. Simply put, this is one of the most impressive scientific feats of the 21st century,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at a press conference. 

While the technology isn’t ready to be commercialized yet, the successful experiment raises the prospects of larger-scale deployment of fusion energy.  

Previously, the lab came relatively close to breaking even when it generated 70 percent of the energy it put into a fusion reaction last year.

2. It’s seen as another potential source of carbon-free energy

If fusion can become a large-scale power source, it will provide another way of generating carbon-free energy as the world looks to transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels. 

U.S. officials have said they hope to broadly have an entirely clean electric grid by 2035 and commercially viable fusion power within a decade.

Like wind, solar and traditional nuclear energy — where an atom is split apart instead of fused together — nuclear fusion doesn’t emit any planet-warming gasses or air pollution. 

“This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero-carbon, abundant fusion energy powering our society,” Granholm said. 

“We can use it to produce clean electricity, transportation fuels, power heavy industry [and] so much more,” she added. “It would be like adding a power drill to our toolbox in building this clean energy economy.”

Unlike traditional nuclear energy, called fission, fusion doesn’t generate radioactive waste that requires long-term storage. And unlike traditional hydropower dams, it doesn’t require finding — and flooding — a new reservoir.

The main place that fusion power would be useful if plugged into the current American grid would be as what is called “base load” power: a stable constant amount of electricity that current grids rely on.

In the U.S., about 19 percent of electricity comes from nuclear power, while 60 percent comes from fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and petroleum, and the rest is from renewables, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Carolyn Kuranz, associate professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan, told The Hill on Monday that nuclear fusion does create byproducts that have small amounts of radioactive material, but she said the material can stay on the power plant site and be used to fuel future fusion reaction instead of needing to go elsewhere.

Paul Dabbar, who was the Energy Department’s under secretary for science during the Trump administration, also pointed to some advantages that fusion could have over wind and solar in an interview with The Hill this week. 

“It needs to be windy, it needs to be sunny, it takes a lot of land,” he said of the other energy sources, though he noted that battery technology could be used to improve on the intermittency issue.

However, fusion comes with its own drawbacks. A future fusion industry built around large, expensive individual plants would be dependent on an expanded, high-capacity electric grid to move power across the region or country — something that feels almost as far away at this point as commercial fusion power. 

3. Breakthrough positions US as leader in global quest for fusion 

The successful net power-producing experiment is a clear mark of success for America’s burgeoning public and private investment into fusion energy — particularly as the European Union, China and South Korea build out their own programs.

In January, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) sustained a record 17-minute fusion reaction, Smithsonian reported.

And the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in southern France will be the largest fusion facility in the world when it begins experiments in 2025, according to a statement.

In March, the Energy Department released a decadelong roadmap to bring commercial fusion to electricity markets.

That initiative touted the $2.5 billion that the private sector poured into fusion last year — about 3.5 times what the government spends directly.

An April White House summit also promoted the fact that two-thirds of private fusion companies and suppliers are based in the U.S. — and that American companies are the main recipients of international fusion funding.

But while it is tempting to think of fusion in terms of a “race” between countries, the drive for fusion power is highly international and collaborative.

U.S. companies built the central solenoid magnet for the ITER tokamak — necessary to create the magnetic fields that power and control the superheated plasma during a fusion reaction, according to the U.S. government.

And the Energy Department in November announced nearly $50 million for fusion research — of which part will go to support U.S. researchers at ITER and EAST, as The Hill reported.

4. Fusion still years off from becoming a mainstream energy source

The development was a major step toward fusion energy, but you’re not likely to be using this type of energy to turn on your lights anytime soon. 

Granholm told reporters the administration hopes to see commercial fusion within a decade. 

“The president has a decadal vision to get to a commercial fusion reactor within, obviously, 10 years, so we’ve got to get to work,” she told reporters. 

Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where the breakthrough occurred, said it could be even longer, taking “decades” before the technology is commercialized. 

“There are very significant hurdles” in both science and technology, Budil said. 

Dabbar told The Hill this week that he thinks the first commercial demonstration fusion reactors could crop up between 2030 and 2035 and that large-scale deployment could come a few years after that. 

“It takes a long time for energy systems to go from testing to full-scale deployment,” he said. 

5. It has military implications

The applications of this discovery — like the experiment itself — go well beyond peacetime.

While the ultimate implications of this test are a milestone on the road to clean energy, the “more immediate” implications were military, said Marvin Adams, deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

So are the program’s roots: The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory uses extremely powerful lasers to “ignite” hydrogen and cause a self-sustaining explosion — a system developed in part to test advanced nuclear weapons without having to detonate an entire bomb. 

“You start with a little spark, and then the spark gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and then the burn propagates through,” physicist Riccardo Betti of University of Rochester told public radio station WBUR.

This is a tiny-scale version of the same process used to kick off a hydrogen or “thermonuclear” bomb — which uses fusion power to release 1,000 times as much energy as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, Time reported.

Fusion reactors don’t contain nearly enough fuel to produce that kind of explosion — and a thermonuclear bomb requires a separate atomic explosion to trigger ignition, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But U.S. officials hinted at military applications. Fusion is “an essential process in modern nuclear weapons” and a milestone like this one was a strong argument for American military power, Adams noted.

The successful test demonstrates America’s “world-leading expertise in weapons-relevant technologies” while continuing “to show our allies that we know what we’re doing,” Adams said.

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FTX founder Bankman-Fried's campaign finance charges 'just the tip of the iceberg'

FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with violating a slew of campaign finance laws on Tuesday, marking another major blow for the former crypto leader. 

According to the unsealed indictment, the U.S. District Court in Manhattan alleged that in addition to committing securities and wire fraud, Bankman-Fried gave a minimum of $25,000 in campaign finance donations to campaigns and political action committees “in the names of other persons.” 

The court also said Bankman-Fried and others conspired to make “corporate

contributions to candidates and committees in the Southern District of New York that were reported in the name of another person.” 

The charges against Bankman-Fried in relation to campaign finance laws are notable given his status as one of the most prominent political donors in this campaign cycle. 

“All of this dirty money was used in service of Bankman-Fried’s desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday. 

Additionally, a civil complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Bankman-Fried of using his crypto investment firm Alameda “as his personal piggy bank to buy luxury condominiums, support political campaigns, and make private investments, among other uses.” 

“This was a massive, massive campaign finance scheme to buy political favors,” said Craig Holman, the government affairs lobbyist for the consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen. “He’s facing some very serious consequences that could add up to 20 years in prison or more.” 

Earlier this month the watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission requesting that it investigate Bankman-Fried for campaign finance violations. 

“Taking him at his word, Bankman-Fried was able to direct at least $37 million to influence federal elections while evading federal laws that require disclosure of the true source of the contributions,” CREW’s senior vice president and chief counsel Donald Sherman said in a statement announcing the complaint last week. 

The complaint points to an interview Bankman-Fried gave to cryptocurrency vlogger Tiffany Fong in which he said he donated to Democrats and Republicans, but that all of his Republican donations were “dark.” 

“Despite Citizens United being literally the highest-profile Supreme Court case of the decade and the thing everyone talks about with campaign finance, for some reason, in practice, no one can possibly fathom the idea that someone actually gave dark. All my Republican donations were dark,” Bankman-Fried told Fong. 

“The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the f— out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight,” he said. 

According to Open Secrets, Bankman-Fried was the second biggest donor to Democrats this election cycle, publicly giving nearly $40 million. However, only about $235,000 in donations from Bankman-Fried was publicly listed as going to Republicans.

“We’re off in a different world where we don’t have a donor saying what they’re doing and they will feign ignorance,” CREW’s senior litigation counsel Stuart McPhail said. “The way they’ll play cute and get around charges is they’ll say ‘I didn’t give money to this person or this 501(c) to then give it somebody else. I was giving them a general charitable contribution. I was just giving them a gift and they just chose on their own to hand it over to somebody else.’ And unfortunately, that works too well with the FEC.” 

“But here we have a donor literally saying ‘I was giving money to candidates, I knew where it was going, that was the point. But I was doing it in a way to evade reporting,’” McPhail said. 

McPhail added that the charge shows there is at least “probable cause” there is a violation of campaign finance rules. 

“It’s pretty bare bones,” he said. “We don’t know exactly what they’re including here. All they allege is at least $25,000 [in contributions]. Based on the complaint and what he said, we’re talking more like $37 million, potentially if you take his boast about being the second biggest donor, that could be up to $80 million.” 

Holman agreed that the $25,000 cited in Tuesday’s unsealed indictment is likely “just the tip of the iceberg.” 

“I suspect since Bankman-Fried felt free to launder money through third parties, he would have done so with the dark money contributions as well,” Holman said. 

Tuesday’s development is the latest in the turbulent saga involving Bankman-Fried and his ill-fated cryptocurrency company FTX. Bankman-Fried was arrested on Monday in the Bahamas, which was where FTX was established and run until its collapse. He is set to be extradited to the U.S. 

Bankman-Fried was originally set to virtually testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday. However, the committee still received testimony from attorney John Jay Ray III, who was tapped to shepherd FTX through its demise and has extensive experience in dealing with corporate bankruptcies. 

While the former crypto billionaire’s future remains grim, experts say the fiasco could present a silver lining for campaign finance reform. 

“We frequently get some of our best campaign finance reforms following scandals that are massive in scale,” Holman said. “We’re talking foreign money, corporate money, we’re talking laundered money. This is a massive scandal that could give rise to some serious campaign finance reforms.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden comes under increasing pressure to win Whelan’s release

President Biden is under increasing pressure to secure the release of Paul Whelan, a former Marine being held in Russia, following the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner in a trade for the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. 

The Whelan family has voiced support for the president’s efforts to sure Paul Whelan’s release, but Biden has come under criticism from Republicans and former President Trump for both not winning Whelan’s freedom and for trading Bout for Griner.

“Biden’s now aiding both sides of the war,” tweeted Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), suggesting the newly freed Bout could help Russian President Vladimir Putin source arms for use in his country’s war with Ukraine. 

Trump, a potential presidential opponent for Biden if he runs for reelection in 2024, has sought to put on the pressure. 

Trump on Sunday said he turned down a deal to release Whelan in exchange for Bout, saying he wouldn’t have made the deal to bring back a hundred people for him. 

In response, David Whelan, Paul Whelan’s brother, accused the Trump administration of not appearing interested in the case, adding that the Biden administration is “much more engaged in wrongful detentions.”

The White House took pains in the hours after Griner’s release to show how it had continued to seek Whelan’s freedom. Griner’s family and advocates have also signaled solidarity with the Whelan family.

Officials from the National Security Council (NSC) communicate with the Whelan family roughly every other week. This is in addition to weekly calls the Whelan family has with the special envoy for hostage affairs team, a senior administration official told The Hill.

The NSC team and the State Department met virtually with Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth Whelan, on Monday. That followed a conversation between her and Biden last week, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“We are bound and determined to ensure that we work through a successful method of securing Paul Whelan’s release at the earliest possible opportunity,” Sullivan said, adding that the commitment to Whelan’s release is “absolutely rock solid, intense.”

The Biden administration has insisted that the Russians treated Griner’s release differently than Whelan’s and had different demands.

“The big challenge we had over the course of the past several months is that what Russia was asking for to secure Paul Whelan’s release was not something that we had to be able to give. That is a problem we are trying to solve,” Sullivan said on Monday.

Much of the criticism surrounding Griner’s release and Whelan’s continued captivity is the price the U.S. paid to win the WNBA superstar’s freedom. 

Bout is an infamous arms dealer whose arrest and 2011 conviction put a capstone on decades of international arms sales that earned him the nickname “Merchant of Death.” 

The administration at one point wanted both Griner and Whelan released for the price of Bout. Russia refused, arguing the espionage charged that Whelan was convicted on meant he could not be included. The U.S. and Whelan’s family say those charges were trumped up. 

Republicans critical of the trade have said that giving up Bout was simply too much to not bring Whelan back as well. 

The Whelan family has put pressure on the administration to secure Paul Whelan’s release. But they have also defended Biden from Trump’s criticism.

“The business with the former president, basically saying he turned down an offer to bring back Paul, was a surprise and not a welcome one,” Elizabeth Whelan said in a phone call with The Hill. She also said the family was unable to have meaningful contact with Trump’s national security council after then-national security adviser John Bolton left his position. 

Still, Elizabeth Whelan said the family is not trying to make her brother’s release a partisan issue.  

“We have to really deal with the here and now. For whatever it’s worth, many different administrations have had Americans kept overseas… and you just have to deal with whoever’s in office at the moment. We’re fortunate that right now we have a lot of commitment from this administration to bring Paul home and that’s where we’re focusing our energy.”

The Biden administration, in defending the president’s move to grant Bout clemency, said they assessed that he no longer posed a security threat to the U.S.

A senior administration official told The Hill that the U.S. carefully considers all ramifications when commuting the sentence of someone convicted of crimes. 

“This was done in this case, and we of course will stay vigilant. While we are under no illusions about Viktor Bout, he has spent the last 12 years in detention,” the official said. “Should Viktor Bout return to crime, this does not stop us from detaining him again in the future.”

Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the Biden administration is likely correct that Bout does not pose an immediate threat to the U.S., though “that doesn’t mean he can’t be a threat down the line.”

“So it’s possible that given the fact he’s just an amoral character who basically will sell arms or work with basically anyone, he could work with terrorist groups, and that is a risk,” Ramani said. 

Another criticism of Bout’s release to secure Griner’s freedom is that it will incentivize other regimes to take Americans hostage.

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the U.S. has a number of Russians in custody, including computer hackers, whom Putin wants returned. 

“The Russians really don’t like that … there will be no shortage [of people] that Moscow wants to get back in years to come. I do worry that playing this hostage negotiation game will incentivize them to keep doing it on their end,” he said.

The Biden administration has made efforts to deter state and nonstate actors from taking Americans hostage or arresting them for political purposes.

The president issued an executive order in July to increase sanctions authorities to target hostage takers, bolster information sharing between federal agencies to understand heightened risks for Americans traveling abroad and increase travel warnings for Americans to identify where they face an increased risk of being taken hostage.

Elizabeth Whelan said that deterrence against American hostage-taking and consequences for countries that engage in this behavior must be strengthened. 

“I haven’t seen any evidence that we’re actually doing that, that we’re actually using that executive order, and that is what is going to bring wrongful detention to a halt,” she said. 

“I’ve been very keen to see this executive order put in place … I see it as a really great tool, and also it’s a tool that other countries can use.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden signs historic legislation to enshrine marriage equality

President Biden on Tuesday signed legislation to safeguard marriage equality after Congress, for the first time in history, approved federal protections for same-sex marriage.

The Respect for Marriage Act passed the House on Thursday in a 258-169-1 vote, with 39 Republicans joining all Democrats in supporting the measure. The Senate cleared the measure last week in a 61-38 vote; 12 GOP senators joined on to the bill once it included an amendment outlining some protections for religious beliefs.

Biden has championed the legislation, with the White House describing the Respect for Marriage Act as “personal” to him. He signed the legislation at a celebratory event at the White House with over 2,000 attendees.

“The road for the moment has been long but those who believe in equality and justice, you never gave up,” Biden said. “Many of you standing on the South Lawn here. So many of you put your relationships on the line, your jobs on the line, your lives on the line to fight for the law I’m about to sign.”

Before the bill signing, there were musical performances from artists Sam Smith and Cyndie Lauper and Biden’s now infamous remarks from a “Meet the Press” appearance in 2012 played from a loud speaker.

He later quoted himself from those remarks: “As I’ve said before and some of you might remember on a certain TV show 10 years ago — I got in trouble — marriage, I mean this from the bottom of my heart, marriage is a simple proposition, who do you love? And will you be loyal to that person you love? It’s not more complicated than that.” 

“Deciding whether to marry, who to marry is one of the most profound decisions a person can make,” he added.

Same-sex marriage has been legal nationwide since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges.

But the debate over gay marriage was resurrected this summer when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion for that ruling, he called on the court to also reconsider the precedent for Obergefell v. Hodges.

The new law enshrines federal protections for same-sex couples, requiring that the federal government and all states recognize marriages if the pair was wed in a state where the union was legal. It also cements protections for interracial couples.

And it repeals of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which recognized marriage as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”

But, Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed on Tuesday for Congress to next pass the Equality Act, which aims to ensure federal protections against anti-LGBT discrimination.

“When a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, this is still wrong. Wrong,” Biden said. 

“And that’s why the people you heard speak today continue to fight to pass the Equality Act. When hospitals, libraries and community centers are threatened and intimidated because they support LGBTQ children and families, we have to speak out. We must stop the hate and violence,” he said.

He also mentioned the shooting last month in Colorado Springs, when a gunman opened fire at a gay night club.

Additionally, the president noted that Congress passed the Respect for Marriage Act on the same day that Biden secured the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner. Biden announced her release alongside Griner’s wife, Cherelle.

“Brittney’s wife said, ‘today, my family is whole.’ My fellow Americans, that all-consuming, life altering, love and commitment—that’s marriage,” Biden said.

The Respect for Marriage Act also includes an amendment outlining protections for religious liberties, which was a late addition central to securing enough Republican support for passage in the Senate.

Biden was at odds on the issue with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which opposed the measure, arguing it doesn’t include enough leeway for religious organizations. The fight between Biden and the bishops was reminiscent of some bishops’ attempts last year to try to deny him communion over his stance on abortion rights.

Other religious institutions, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, supported the religious freedom protections in the bill.

Updated 5:02 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

FTX hearing: 6 big revelations from House panel questioning

The first House hearing on the collapse of FTX didn’t have the company’s disgraced founder and former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was arrested on the eve of his highly anticipated testimony. But lawmakers still drew crucial revelations about the company’s demise from John J. Ray III, a veteran of corporate bankruptcies tapped to clean up the mess left by Bankman-Fried.

Ray, who has shepherded Enron and other high-profile companies through bankruptcy, laid out the stunning lack of oversight, experience and scruples that led to FTX’s demise. He also explained how hard it would be to make customers whole and how Bankman-Fried’s lengthy apologies were simply a cover for “old-fashioned embezzlement.”

FTX collapse was Enron-like in scale but not sophistication 

Ray and lawmakers frequently compared the demise of FTX to that of Enron, the Texas energy company that collapsed in 2001 and caused $11 billion in losses after years of inflating and lying about its financial holdings. While Ray said he’s unsure of FTX’s total losses, he estimated the company has already lost $8 billion of customer money.

The big difference, Ray said, was how conspicuously FTX leaders were ripping off customers and mismanaging money.

“Enron was really a different company. Crimes that were committed there were highly orchestrated financial machinations by highly sophisticated people to keep transactions off balance sheets,” Ray said. 

“This is really just old-fashioned embezzlement. This is just taking money from customers and using it for your own purpose,” Ray continued. “Sophisticated, perhaps, in the way they were able to sort of hide it from people, frankly, right in front of their eyes.”

We don’t know how much money FTX lost or has

FTX’s lack of adequate record-keeping helped lay the groundwork for its collapse, Ray said, and has made it incredibly difficult to figure out the company’s total assets and outstanding debts.

“Even in the most failed companies, you have a fair roadmap of what happened. We’re dealing with literally a paperless bankruptcy in terms of how they created this company,” Ray said, calling the lack of documentation “unprecedented.”

FTX did not have a formal accounting department, Ray explained, despite the billions of dollars in customer money it was responsible for protecting. He added that FTX leaders used Slack, an online messaging system, to handle invoices and QuickBooks, an online bookkeeping program popular among small-business owners, to handle its assets.

“Nothing against QuickBooks — very nice tool — just not for a multibillion-dollar company,” Ray said.

No walls between FTX leaders, Alameda, customers’ money

Ray said FTX lacked basic controls any major company would impose to protect customer money, uphold terms of service and ensure FTX executives were not abusing their power.

“This small group of grossly inexperienced, non-sophisticated individuals [did not] implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company entrusted with other people’s money or assets,” Ray said.

Despite promising FTX customers that their money would not be used to support Alameda Research — Bankman-Fried’s defunct crypto trading firm — the company treated Alameda both as its bank and as a customer, Ray said. Because FTX did not have a board of directors, no one stepped in to stop it.

“I find it difficult to believe that we’re dealing with conscientious stupidity,” said Rep. Al Green (D-Texas).

“It seems to me that you have to be rather talented to do all of these things to the extent that they were done,” he said.

While a normal investment platform would have a bank to hold company and customer funds, FTX used Alameda to collect customer money. FTX leaders would then use that money to fund Alameda’s operations or even their own personal investments, he explained, violating their pledges to customers and investors in both firms.

“In order for these companies to exist, they’ve got to be able to change their digital assets into hard U.S. dollars at some point, so you need a bank account. And so they needed Alameda to be able to do that,” said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.)

“This should be a really big red flag for all of us who are in the financial services world,” he continued.

SBF got millions of dollars in loans from FTX — and himself

Bankman-Fried’s unfettered access to FTX and Alameda funds allowed him to take millions of dollars in personal loans from the companies he owned, Ray said. While FTX executives took roughly $1.5 billion in payments from the company, it is unclear where all that money went and for what purposes.

“In one instance, [Bankman-Fried] signed as both the issuer of the loan and the recipient of the loan,” Ray said.

Ray added that FTX executives had “unlimited ability” to borrow or take customer funds “and deploy them for their own use,” taking more than $1 billion for their own use.

FTX customer money may be too mixed up to fully sort out

Any customers of a bankrupt company will face trouble getting money back from the firm as it goes through restructuring. But FTX customers may have even slimmer odds of being compensated for their losses given the company’s lack of internal controls and reliance on volatile crypto assets.

FTX spent at least $5 billion on “myriad businesses and investments,” Ray said, that may be worth “only a fraction” of what the company paid. The crypto assets of customers for its U.S. platform were held in the same database as those of its international clients, and the steep decline in crypto prices over the past few months may make it impossible to sort out enough to make customers whole.

Ray said his team has recovered roughly $1 billion worth of crypto assets so far and now has control of company bank accounts. But he said securing cash and other crypto assets has been “an ongoing adventure.”

Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), who was a bankruptcy attorney before he joined Congress, warned Ray he may need to spend “100 years” finding and disbursing FTX’s assets.

“That could be from some very innocent people who got paid money [by FTX],” Perlmutter warned.

“You’re gonna be dealing with so many preferences, so many fraudulent transfers,” he said.

Tensions are emerging between Ray and the Bahamian government

Ray and Bahamian government officials have sparred for days over what should happen to FTX assets that new company leaders may still be able to access. 

Ray told lawmakers Tuesday that he was unsure why millions of dollars in assets from FTX were moved after he and the company filed bankruptcy on Nov. 11. He also criticized the decision to allow roughly 1,500 Bahamas-based FTX customers to withdraw a total of roughly $100 million one day before the company filed for bankruptcy within the U.S., which would have frozen those assets.

Ray suggested Bankman-Fried and the Bahamian government may have struck an agreement to allow such withdrawals, all while the founder knew bankruptcy proceedings would soon begin.

But the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, the country’s chief markets regulator, claimed Ray was misrepresenting its communications with Bankman-Fried and conflating Bahamian government officials with liquidators appointed by Bahamian courts to handle FTX’s dissolution. 

The commission also said it was “securing the transfer” of FTX assets and holding them safely until a court decides how they should be distributed as per Bahamian law.

“Key misstatements made by [Ray] … do not appear to be concerned with facts but rather appear intended only to make headlines and advance questionable agendas,” the Securities Commission of the Bahamas said in a statement.

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate to vote on Manchin’s permitting amendment to defense spending bill

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is granting Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) another stab at getting his effort to speed up approvals for the country’s energy projects into a defense spending bill.

Schumer earlier this year promised Manchin that he’d support his energy approval efforts, known as permitting reform, in exchange for Manchin’s vote on the Democrats’ major climate, tax and health care bill. 

“Yes, we’re going to vote on that amendment. As you know, Republicans blocked it in the House even though permitting reform is something that they’ve always supported in the past, so I hope they’ll help us and support it,” Schumer told reporters on Tuesday. 

Manchin announced that he’d put forward the policies, which include faster timelines for environmental reviews, giving the federal government authority to direct electric transmission lines and approving a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia, as an amendment to this year’s annual defense spending bill after it was not included in the bill’s text. 

The spending bill already passed the House without Manchin’s amendment and will need to get reapproved if the amendment ultimately ends up attached to it.

The latest effort also comes after an unsuccessful attempt to get the policies into a stopgap funding measure earlier this year. It failed amid opposition from both progressive Democrats and Republicans.

It’s not clear whether the latest amendment push will be able to garner the necessary support. Six Democrats said in a letter last week that they opposed putting the energy policies into the defense bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act.  

Previously, a handful of other Democrats also expressed opposition on environmental grounds despite support from Schumer and other Democrats who argue that a faster process is also needed to build out carbon-free energy sources. 

Though Manchin made some changes aimed at getting Republicans on board, the push also faces headwinds there, with some Republicans saying the changes don’t go far enough. 

Republicans have also expressed hostility to helping Manchin after he supported the Democrats’ climate and tax bill. And the party may be hesitant to hand a legislative win to Manchin, who faces a tough reelection bid in 2024. 

Source: TEST FEED1