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Why the Fed faces new risks in its inflation fight amid recession fears 

The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter-percentage point at its meeting on Wednesday, entering a high-stakes chapter in its battle against high inflation.

The central bank is on track to issue its smallest rate hike since March 2021, when the Fed began aggressively boosting borrowing costs and slowing the economy into lower price growth.

But the Fed faces serious risks on both sides of a potential pause to rate hikes.

If the Fed stops too soon, bank officials fear that high inflation could become entrenched. If it stops too late, the central bank could trigger a serious, job-killing recession. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that the Fed’s rate hikes affect the economy at a lag.

“This is like trying to steer a large cruise ship through a storm. They have very blunt controls and they operate at a lag, and they don’t have great visibility right now,” said Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist with the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, in an interview with The Hill.

The Fed under pressure to stop rate hikes

With inflation fading and the economy slowing, the central bank is under pressure to stop raising rates altogether. While Fed officials are reluctant to declare victory against inflation, they have acknowledged the economy no longer needs supersized rate hikes to cool it off. 

While markets currently expect modest rate hikes at the Fed’s meeting this week and at its next meeting in March, the central bank may indicate Wednesday that hikes will continue into May.

“The job of the Fed is to — as carefully and consciously as we can — navigate through this so that there’s the least pain in the economy as possible while we restore price stability,” said Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, in an interview with NPR earlier this month.

“We’re going to be conscious that we need to slow the pace of increases, look around, watch the data, see how things are coming out, and then make decisions meeting by meeting by meeting.”

Fed officials expect to hike interest rates again by a total of 0.75 percentage points before the end of 2023, according to projections released in December. That would require two more hikes of at least 25 basis points before the end of the year after its likely Wednesday increase.

Some investors think the Fed needs to keep going with higher rate hikes in order to hit its earlier projection and stay in line with business expectations.

“The Fed are battling market, household, and business expectations and if they were to come up short of their stated terminal rate, it may negatively impact their credibility,” Joe Davis, an economist with investment company Vanguard Group, wrote in an analysis. 

Other economists believe recent data should push the Fed toward a sooner pause.

The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, fell to an annual increase of 5 percent in December from a June high of 6.8 percent. The better-known consumer price index (CPI) dropped to 6.5 percent annually in December from a high of 9.1 percent in June.

Economy shows signs of slowing down

The U.S. economy is also showing more signs of slowing from its record-breaking rebound, with gross domestic product (GDP) rising 2.1 percent on the year in 2022 and job gains slowing for five consecutive months. 

And the Labor Department’s Employment Cost Index (ECI), the Fed’s primary gauge of wage growth, rose 1 percent during the fourth quarter, the slowest increase since the start of 2022.

“The real risk is that they raise rates too high or that they hold them too high for too long … but it seems like there’s a possibility that we’re in for a soft landing, which means there aren’t a lot of jobs destroyed,” Sojourner said.

These downward trajectories have some Fed watchers saying that the Fed should hit the brakes on rate hikes after Wednesday. They argue that the price-dampening effects of previous hikes have yet to be fully felt and that the pain of a deep recession would be worse than having inflation land above the Fed’s target rate of 2 percent annually.

“The markets are now seeing clearly that the inflation spike [between the second quarter of 2021 and the third quarter of 2022] is proving to have been pandemic-related – not the result of a larger and more sustainable macroeconomic shift,” investor and Westwood Capital founder Dan Alpert said in an email to The Hill. 

“Whether or not everyone [at the Fed] agrees with this premise is less important than the real-world risks of continuing an extreme tightening of monetary policy when you know that the lagged effects of that policy have not yet been seen,” Alpert said.

Fed’s goal of a ‘soft landing’ not guaranteed

Avoiding both entrenched inflation and a recession will mean the Fed has achieved its desired goal of “soft landing,” but even with inflation easing that outcome is far from guaranteed.

Fed officials expect the unemployment rate to rise to 4.6 percent by the end of the year, more than 1 percentage point higher than the December jobless rate of 3.5 percent, according to projections released in December.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other bank leaders have argued that an increase in the jobless rate of that size does not necessarily mean the U.S. is in a recession. Many experts, however, doubt the Fed could achieve that increase without serious economic harm.

“The unemployment rate has only increased by 1 percent within a year twelve times since World War II. Every time, we saw a recession [and] the unemployment rate continued to increase far beyond the initial 1 percent,” wrote senior economist Alex Williams in a January analysis for Employ America, a think tank that advocates for high employment levels in the U.S. economy.

Tapering rate hikes by the Fed will be felt throughout the economy and especially in sectors that are sensitive to the cost of financing. The average 30-year-fixed-rate mortgage rate has ticked down to 6.13 percent while average credit rates, which are variable, have soared about 20 percent.

“The markets are projecting one 25 [basis point] rate hike on Feb. 1, and another 25 bp hike on March 22. They expect a pause after that, and modest rate cuts at the end of the year. At this point, those market projections are not unreasonable,” Boston College economist Brian Bethune wrote in an email to The Hill.

Source: TEST FEED1

House Republicans pass bill to end COVID-19 public health emergency

House Republicans passed a bill on Tuesday to end the COVID-19 public health emergency, moving ahead with the legislation despite the Biden administration announcing one day earlier that the declaration would end in May.

The legislation — titled the Pandemic is Over Act — passed in a 220-210 party-line vote.

The measure, which stretches two pages, would terminate the COVID-19 public health emergency on the day it is enacted. The Trump administration implemented the declaration in January 2020 and it has remained in place since.

The bill, however, is unlikely to move in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

House Republicans revealed last week that the legislation would hit the floor on Tuesday. On Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours before the vote, the Biden administration announced that the COVID-19 public health emergency would end on May 11, setting an expiration date for the declaration that has been extended 12 times since it was first implemented.

The administration also said it would end the COVID-19 national emergency on May 11.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) argued in a statement that the immediate repeal of the public health emergency — as mandated in the GOP bill — would have “highly significant impacts on our nation’s health system and government operations.”

One area of concern for the administration is Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allows border officials to turn away asylum seekers because of concerns regarding public health. If the public health emergency were to end, Title 42 would expire, according to the administration.

“The Administration supports an orderly, predictable wind-down of Title 42, with sufficient time to put alternative policies in place. But if H.R. 382 becomes law and the Title 42 restrictions end precipitously, Congress will effectively be requiring the Administration to allow thousands of migrants per day into the country immediately without the necessary policies in place,” the OMB wrote on Tuesday.

Republicans, however, have argued otherwise, and decided to go ahead with their bill on Tuesday, contending the public health emergency should come to a close immediately, citing President Biden’s comments from September that said “the pandemic is over.”

The president later walked back those remarks, saying “it basically is not where it was.”

“President Biden has taken too long to act on his statement last September that the pandemic is over, which is why I am moving forward with my bill to end the COVID-19 public health emergency and finally restore checks and balances between Congress and the executive branch,” Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the lead sponsor of the bill, said during debate on the House floor.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said the bill would “abruptly and irresponsibly end the COVID-19 public health emergency virtually overnight.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Meet the Republican at the center of the House GOP’s investigations into Biden

Rep. James Comer, one of the most powerful House Republicans in the new majority, faces a delicate challenge as he takes the reins of the Oversight and Accountability Committee: showing substance with the spectacle.

Comer (R-Ky.) leads a panel at the heart of House Republicans’ investigatory responsibilities. It’s also a panel stacked with firebrand GOP personalities consumed with digging into hot-button issues surrounding President Biden’s administration and family.

“We will be the committee with all the newsmakers,” Comer said.

The panel’s Republicans include Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.), who won their assignments back after being punted from the panel by Democrats in the last Congress.

Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Scott Perry (Pa.), three more fiery conservatives who withheld support from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during his drawn-out battle to win his post, also sit on Oversight.

At the center of it all is Comer, who is not as well-known on the national stage as some of the Republicans he’s leading but is likely to become much more famous through the course of the year.

Comer shows no shyness when it comes to going after Biden and Democrats or defending the personalities on his panel.

“I believe that we’ve had the conversations that it is important that we’re a credible, factual committee,” Comer said. “The fact that we have a lot of people with a lot of passion is a good thing.”

He added that Democrats “have some firebrands on their side as well,” pointing out that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will be second to ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on the committee.

Moving under the spotlight

Sebastian Gorka, the conservative commentator and former Trump White House adviser, questioned Comer’s ability to effectively lead probes into Hunter Biden’s business dealings last year:

“Nobody’s ever heard of him,” Gorka said.

That is quickly changing.

Comer is now a frequent cable news guest, weighing in on revelations of classified documents in Biden’s personal office and home and rebuffing questions about why his panel is not focusing on investigating influence-peddling among members of former President Trump’s family in addition to Biden’s.

Trump, Comer says, was already extensively investigated by congressional Democrats, and this will be the first time Republicans have subpoena power to dig into Biden.

“He is new to a lot of people. But he is as MAGA, he is as Trump. … He doesn’t talk with the same bravado that [House Judiciary Committee Chairman] Jim Jordan does, but he’s following that same playbook,” said Brad Woodhouse, a senior advisor for the Congressional Integrity Project, a left-wing advocacy group that aims to counter House GOP investigations.

“We don’t believe he’s a credible investigator or that he has played fair with these issues.”

Comer, of course, disagrees.

“I think there’s a lot of people watching the committee,” Comer said. “Congressional oversight doesn’t have a lot of credibility for various reasons, so we want to try to restore credibility to congressional oversight in general, but congressional investigations in particular.”

Right at the center of things

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is at the center of the biggest House GOP investigatory priorities, many of which have been the focus for Republicans on the committee long before the midterm elections. 

An investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings aims to determine whether the president misrepresented his knowledge of foreign deals and funds. A select subcommittee on COVID-19 will probe the origins of the virus. Policies at the U.S.-Mexico border will also be a major focus.

On Wednesday, the committee will hold its first hearing on waste, fraud and abuse in COVID relief programs, such as Paycheck Protection Problem loans. Next week, it will host former Twitter executives to discuss suppression of a New York Post story on Hunter Biden, as well as a hearing on the border.

One House GOP staff member said that Comer has thus far managed to keep good relationships across the conference, from the hard-right House Freedom Caucus rabble-rousers to congressional leadership.

Comer said he talks frequently with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a fellow GOP Kentuckian. The two often sit beside each other while waiting to board a plane to or from Washington. 

Trump won Comer’s district by more than 40 points in the 2020 election, but Comer voted to certify all the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021.

“It wasn’t the right political vote, but I think it was the right vote,” Comer said at a National Press Club event this week. 

Under attack

Left-wing outside groups like the Congressional Integrity Project and Facts First USA, described in an October memo as a “SWAT Team to Counter Republican Congressional Investigations,” are tying him to the fringes of the GOP by virtue of him having so many election deniers on his committee, as well as the subject of his investigations.

“I think he’s seen as maybe not as out there as some of the others, or even like Jim Jordan. But what’s really controlling him is the MAGA caucus, and so they’re going to tug him in whichever way, in the most extreme direction,” said Facts First USA President David Brock.

Comer is brushing off the swipes. “I don’t know where they get some of their information. I guess they pull it out of the rear end,” he told The Hill of the messaging from those organizations. 

At the National Press Club event, Comer recalled a story about former Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), who was the ranking member on the Watergate committee, responding to frustration from the Republican base about how hard he was on President Nixon. Baker calmly responded that while Nixon may not have ordered the break-in, “he certainly lied about it, and tried to cover it up.”

“That is something that has always stuck with me,” Comer said.

A father of three

Comer, now 50, is a father of three — two teenagers and one preteen — with a “very supportive wife” who he said was “a very important part of [my] political rise.” He is a “huge golfer” and loves watching his son play baseball.

You won’t catch House GOP members calling him “James.” Jamie is a nickname he has had since birth, and what everyone in his hometown calls him.

A farm owner and a former bank director, Comer got involved in politics at a young age.

“I always was interested in politics. Both my grandfathers were active in politics,” Comer said. 

His paternal grandfather was a local county party chair in rural Kentucky, and his maternal grandfather, Kenneth Witcher, was a two-term state representative just across the state line in Tennessee. 

“They watched the news and read the newspaper. They had pictures with prominent politicians on their wall, and I have a lot of those pictures in my office — pictures with both of my granddads with President Nixon, with President Ford,” Comer said. 

Comer followed in their footsteps and built a career as a young Republican, becoming chair of the Monroe County, Ky., Republican Party soon after graduating from Western Kentucky University and then a delegate to the 1996 Republican National Convention. In 2000, at the age of 27, Comer was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives.

He rose to be elected Kentucky agriculture commissioner in 2012, the only Republican elected statewide that year. The Democrats, he said, “were always ganging up on me and doing things to try to limit my success rate.”

As he steps into the role of being a top antagonist to Democrats, Comer says he hopes to find some common ground across the aisle. He recalled working well with former House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) on a postal reform bill and has expressed hopes of working with Raskin on legislation to address how presidential and vice presidential offices ensure they do not improperly retain classified documents after they leave office.

Raskin and Comer did not enter the new Congress with a close relationship, with each Jamie describing their relationship with the other as “cordial.” And there are sure to be plenty of opportunities for clashes.

“If the majority is going to promote agendas that depend on conspiracy theory and distortion, we will act as a truth squad,” Raskin said in December soon after winning a contest to be the top Democrat on the panel.

But any tension is, so far, not personal, with Comer expressing well-wishes to Raskin — who disclosed a cancer diagnosis in December — at an organizing hearing for the committee on Tuesday. 

“We’re all rooting for you. We know that you’re going to win this battle. You’re in our thoughts and prayers,” Comer told Raskin.

Source: TEST FEED1

US accuses Russia of violating major nuke treaty

The United States on Tuesday accused Russia of violating a major nuclear arms control agreement by not allowing on-site inspections and refusing to meet to discuss such concerns. 

“Russia is not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory,” a State Department spokesperson confirmed to The Hill. “Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.” 

The spokesperson added that Russia has also failed to comply with the treaty’s “obligation to convene a session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission in accordance with the treaty-mandated timeline.” 

The announcement of the violations, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is likely to ramp up tensions between Washington and Moscow after they were already strained due to the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin has on numerous occasions threatened nuclear action since starting the conflict nearly a year ago, alarming the United States and its allies. 

The New START treaty, established under the Obama administration in 2011, dictates the number of nuclear warheads both the United States and Russia can deploy at any time.

Russian lawmakers in January 2021 passed a five-year extension of the treaty with the U.S. just ahead of the nuclear arms control pact’s expiration, though there are concerns the Kremlin will refuse to negotiate a follow-on agreement to take effect after New START expires in 2026. 

The last major nuclear arms pact in the post-Cold War era, the treaty also permits the two countries to conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites. Such inspections have been postponed since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, though the United States has accused Russia of delaying a Bilateral Consultative Commission on the treaty. That meeting was set for November in Egypt but was called off at the last moment.  

The State Department’s finding, revealed in a report sent to Congress earlier Tuesday, is the first time Washington has accused Moscow of violating the agreement.  

“Russia has a clear path for returning to full compliance. All Russia needs to do is allow inspection activities on its territory, just as it did for years under the New START Treaty, and meet in a session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission. There is nothing preventing Russian inspectors from traveling to the United States and conducting inspections,” according to the State Department spokesperson.  

Following the report to Congress, Republican lawmakers condemned the Russian violations and warned that the infringement had serious implications for global security. They also urged the administration to ready the U.S. military should it need to respond.

“Russia must be held accountable for its actions if the New START Treaty, or any future agreement, is to have any meaning at all. If these agreements cannot be enforced, then they do nothing to enhance U.S. security, and serve only to undermine it,” according to a joint statement from Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss,) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.).  

“We urge President Biden to direct the Department of Defense to prepare for a future where Russia may deploy large numbers of warheads, well in excess of New START Treaty limits,” they added. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Prominent Republicans hold off on backing Trump

GOP leaders are keeping their powder dry when it comes to former President Trump’s 2024 campaign, declining to publicly back him despite his lead in most primary polls. 

Prominent Republicans in early-voting states like Iowa and South Carolina have held off on endorsing him, as have some longtime allies in Washington, such as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).

The reluctance to weigh in comes as the Republican field starts to solidify and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), likely Trump’s most formidable primary opponent, is thought to be moving closer to his own White House bid.

“They’re waiting to see what Trump’s campaign is going to be about,” said Brian Seitchik, an Arizona-based GOP strategist and Trump campaign alum. 

“I think people who support Donald Trump would like the campaign to be about inflation, to be about securing the border, to talk about the successes of his administration,” Seitchik continued. “I think people are fearful the campaign is going to be a grievance tour, and about how the race was stolen from him and how he doesn’t get enough credit for this or enough credit for that.” 

Trump made his first notable foray onto the 2024 campaign trail this past week, visiting the crucial early-voting states of New Hampshire and South Carolina. The former president addressed officials at the New Hampshire Republican Party’s annual meeting and then unveiled his South Carolina leadership at the State House in Columbia. 

Major figures like South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) were in attendance at the event, which included an audience of 200 people. Still, Trump has not drawn the number of endorsements he did during his last campaign in 2020, and several prominent Republicans in the region were notably absent, including former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), a Trump administration alum who is said to be planning a challenge to her ex-boss.

“If you’re the former president then why don’t you have every sitting Republican congressman in South Carolina endorsing you?” said Alex Stroman, a former spokesperson for Trump’s inaugural committee and former executive director for the South Carolina GOP. 

The scaled-down nature of Trump’s campaign events over the weekend raised eyebrows among observers used to his normally crowded and raucous rallies. While critics said the weekend’s events were a sign of what could be Trump’s declining stock in the GOP, others said it was more likely to be a part of a broader strategy. 

One alum of Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns told The Hill that the more intimate events make Trump look more presidential. 

“It was smart to do that,” the alum said. “Because that’s the classic hit, who is the x-factor at the rallies? How is it going to go? Is he just going to go off script way too much?” 

Of course, there is still plenty of time for Trump to formally receive the backing of fellow Republican figures. On Tuesday, Politico reported that Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who Trump endorsed in 2022, has told allies that he plans on supporting Trump in 2024. Vance’s fellow freshman Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) told the outlet that the former president has his support. 

And Trump continues to hold a strong lead in most 2024 polls. An Emerson College survey released last week showed Trump with a 26-point lead over DeSantis, while a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll from last week shows Trump leading DeSantis by 20 points. 

“The reality of this situation is that he is leading in all of these polls because people are hurting over the course of these past few years and I think the American public believes he is the person who can get us back to a state of normalcy,” freshman Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), a supporter of the former president, said in an interview with The Hill. 

Other Republicans are more skeptical, arguing that Trump’s presence in the race this early on puts him at an advantage in the polls for the time being. 

“It’s easy to be the front-runner when you’re the only person in the race,” Stroman said. 

Republicans, both Trump supporters and critics, say they expect to see a robust 2024 primary. 

DeSantis, by and large, is seen by many in the GOP as the next-best replacement for the former president and appears to be inching closer to a 2024 bid. Other contenders said to be exploring presidential campaigns include Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has also been floated as a possible contender and is set to attend the Polk County Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln Dinner next month. 

Various Republicans say they are waiting to see how the primary plays out, but Trump’s supporters argue that the former president’s record is reason enough to endorse him out of the gate. 

“All of these people I think are great and will be great leaders for the future, but the reason why they still aren’t resonating is that they’re still unproven,” Hunt said. 

But Trump has had harsher words for those looking to challenge him, particularly DeSantis. 

“I do think it would be a great act of disloyalty because, you know, I got him in. He had no chance. His political life was over,” Trump told The Associated Press on Saturday. 

The terse words from Trump sent a strong signal to DeSantis, who was once seen as one of the former president’s key allies. 

“He is clearly fearful of the ascension of Ron DeSantis and wants to cut him off as quickly as he can,” Seitchik said. “I think he also wants to give him a taste of what the campaign would be like.” 

The Florida governor hit back at Trump on Tuesday, contrasting his successful reelection bid in 2022 with the former president’s unsuccessful one in 2020. 

“The people are able to render a judgment on that whether they reelect you or not and I’m happy to say in my case not only did we win reelection, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida,” DeSantis said to applause. 

And while Trump’s Republican critics say the primary will not be a coronation for the former president, they maintain it won’t be one for DeSantis either. 

In 2016, Trump saw great success in giving his Republican opponents insulting nicknames. Trump infamously dubbed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) as “Low Energy Jeb,” while Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was branded “Lttle Marco.” 

“It is a test of wills and stamina on so many levels and enduring the daily and potentially hourly attacks of Donald Trump is part of the process,” Seitchik said.

And while Trump’s endorsed candidates largely underperformed in last year’s general election, his brand still proved to be successful in the primaries. 

“As evidenced by the success he had in the primaries last year, not the general, but the success he had in the primaries, he’s still the guy to beat,” Seitchik said. “Until someone shows that they have the will and the mettle to stand up to Donald Trump, it’s a pretty tough cliff to jump off of.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Tanks, jets and justice: Ukraine’s top prosecutor tries to rally US on legal battle

After the U.S. and its partners reached a major breakthrough in delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine, Kyiv’s top law enforcement official is pushing allies to show similar determination to punish Russia in the courtroom.

“The instruments of delivering justice should be as strong as weapons we receive in order to fight for our independence,” Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told The Hill. 

He is visiting Washington this week for meetings with his counterpart, Attorney General Merrick Garland, other administration officials and lawmakers to push for further U.S. support in Ukraine’s legal battles against Russia. 

Kostin’s visit follows President Biden’s decision last week to supply 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, in tandem with similar commitments from Germany and other NATO allies. Ukraine has now renewed its push for modern fighter jets. 

“The very difficult decisions to give us more and more weapons really went in parallel with decisions to support us in our justice initiatives,” Kostin said.

While Biden has described Russia’s aggression against Ukraine as committing “genocide,” Kyiv wants such crimes prosecuted in an international court, plus a special tribunal to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching an invasion of the country on Feb. 24. 

The administration has resisted Ukraine’s push to label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, but Kostin said he supports the Biden administration’s proposal to label Russia an “aggressor state,” a compromise term to avoid legal consequences of the terrorism designation. 

“Our position was, all the time, that Russia should be declared as a country, as a state sponsor of terrorism,” he said.

“If, going on this track, Russia would be declared as an ‘aggressor state,’ this also would be very helpful to reach justice on international level, because we are still actively fighting for the tribunal for the crime of aggression.” 

Kostin described an uphill battle in finding consensus among dozens of countries to support the establishment of a special tribunal but said he expected a decision within “months,” adding that recent buy-in from countries like France and the United Kingdom have helped build more consensus on the idea of prosecuting Russia for the crime of aggression. 

But Ukraine is looking for a clear sign from the U.S. on this issue.

“What we understand is that U.S. is also on the way, in case the U.S. [Congress] declares Russia as an aggressor state … this will be very helpful,” he said.  

Biden administration officials have not stated publicly whether they support the establishment of a special tribunal, but have told The Hill that they are in conversations with “Kyiv’s strongest partners as we consider Ukraine’s proposal … as well as all other options for holding Russia and its leaders to account.”  

The Office of the Prosecutor General is faced with the enormous challenge of investigating alleged Russian war crimes — with nearly 67,000 documented already, and many more expected as Ukrainian forces push to liberate additional territory from Russian occupation.

Among those are at least 155 identified cases of sexual violence, Kostin said, up from 44 cases that were identified when he was appointed prosecutor general in July. 

“Some of [the cases] are already in Ukrainian courts, some are in absentia, but the perpetrator is identified,” Kostin said. “And if we are talking about for the sake of justice for the survivors, it’s important for them to know that this case goes to court.”

Another grievous war crime is the abduction of Ukrainian children. The head of the United Nations’s refugee agency said last week that Russia is violating the “fundamental principles of child protection” by giving Ukrainian children Russian passports and putting them up for adoption.

Kostin said that while the priority is to find and return these children to their families, the investigation of their forced relocation is part of evidence being gathered to bring the case of genocide against Russia. 

The Ukrainian government estimates that nearly 15,000 children were deported to Russia. About 126 children have been returned to Ukraine, according to their figures. 

In September, the U.S. sanctioned Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alexeyevna Lvova-Belova, saying she has led Russia’s efforts to deport thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Kostin said his office has prioritized resources to focus on these three elements: the forced deportation of children, sexual violence and genocide. 

He added that the intentional destruction of critical civil infrastructure — Russia has destroyed nearly 70 percent of Ukraine’s electrical grid with missile and drone attacks since October — is another element of the genocide case and is likely to be pursued through the International Criminal Court. 

Kostin’s staff are spread across the country in nine regional offices, allowing them to quickly descend on the scene of liberated villages and cities to collect evidence of possible war crimes.

Armored vehicles help protect staff traveling to areas close to the battlefield — Kharkiv in the north, Donetsk in the east, and Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv in the southeast. Drones are further used to scout out areas that require demining, which is carried out by trained security officials.

Assistance ranging from technical expertise to practical items such as laptops, printers and armored vehicles and demining equipment is provided by the U.S. and other partner countries, Kostin said. 

“This was all done with the help of our partners, which is very important,” he said.

But Kostin is also tasked with confronting corruption in the country that risks undermining international support and that feeds into criticism, largely from a minority wing of the Republican Party, that billions of dollars of U.S. support is at risk of being misused.

Kostin called corruption Ukraine’s second enemy, along with Russia’s aggression. Last week, he accepted the resignation of his deputy, who quit in the face of public backlash for taking a vacation during war time and under questionable circumstances. 

“My position from the very first day of my appointment was that, it’s war, we need to work very actively, and we need to devote all our time to work for our country, for our nation, and if some of them didn’t understand, then it’s time for changes,” he said. 

Kostin was appointed prosecutor general in July. His predecessor was ousted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after he revealed hundreds of prosecutors and security officials allegedly conspired with Russia before and during the invasion.

Rooting out collaborators is an ongoing challenge, Kostin said, as they pose risks from exposing Ukrainian military positions and putting civilians in the crosshairs to assisting Russian forces and officials exercising control in the occupied territories.

Kostin said he finds the motivations of these individuals difficult to understand, but said it could relate to Russian nationalism, money or, in the case of those under Russian occupation, being forced to betray their country under duress. 

Bringing accountability to areas liberated from Russia is incredibly difficult, sussing out those Ukrainians who willingly worked for the Russians, those collaborating under duress or neighbors exercising personal grievances. 

“For those who stayed on the occupied territories and started active collaboration with the occupation administration, it’s very important, also, to find all of them,” Kostin said.

“We check this information because we are fighting for justice for everyone, and it’s important for Ukrainians to understand, even if they are angry, some of them, [by] the actions of the other, we need to ensure that justice would be for all.”

Source: TEST FEED1

McConnell mocks Biden judicial nominee for flubbing basic legal questions 

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Tuesday ridiculed President Biden’s nominee to serve as district judge for the Eastern District of Washington for flubbing basic questions about the Constitution last week, arguing Democrats have used a double standard for Biden’s and former President Trump’s nominees. 

The nominee, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Charnelle Bjelkengren, couldn’t describe the purpose of Article V of the Constitution, which establishes the procedures for amending the nation’s founding document, or Article II, which establishes the powers of the president and executive branch.  

“Goodness gracious,” McConnell exclaimed, noting that the presidential powers laid out in Article II, including the power to appoint judges to the Supreme Court, is something “high schoolers across America learn each year.”  

McConnell recounted in detail Bjelkengren’s awkward and halting answers in response to the pop quiz she got from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) at her confirmation hearing last week.  

“Article V is not coming to mind at the moment was the response. Sen. Kennedy came back with another even more basic request, ‘How about Article II?’ …. But this sitting judge drew another blank. Article II wasn’t coming to mind either,” the leader said.  

“Then she flunked yet another question about legal philosophy and then again she flunked still another question about the most controversial Supreme Court case this term,” he said. “Apparently, when this particular nominee had been asked to list the top 10 most impactful cases she’d ever litigated in court, she could only come up with six.”

“At no stage of her professional career has this judge focused on federal law. At no point has she ever even appeared in federal court,” he fumed.  

McConnell then asked whether Biden has drastically lowered the standards for serving as a federal judge in his rush to stock the federal judiciary with nominees who are viewed as sympathetic to his political agenda.  

And he excoriated Democrats for complaining about the qualifications of Trump’s judicial nominees, only to then turn around and give some of Biden’s nominees a free pass.

“Is this the caliber of legal expert with which President Biden is filling the federal bench?” he asked, referring to Bjelkengren. “For lifetime appointments? Is the bar for merit and excellence really set this low?” 

The GOP leader pointed out that Democrats “howled” that Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, the Florida district judge who struck down the administration’s mask mandate for airplanes, trains and other public transportation, was unqualified when she was nominated to the federal bench by Trump in 2020. 

“But with a Supreme Court clerkship under her belt, she had incomparably more experience in federal court than the nominee who failed Sen. Kennedy’s bar exam,” McConnell said, referring to Biden’s pick for the Eastern District of Washington.  

He argued that Trump picked more academically qualified nominees than Biden has so far during his first term.  

“Democrats were not particularly impressed or moved by the top-shelf professional excellence or the academic brilliance that the last Republican Administration’s nominees possessed in spades. And apparently they don’t count those qualities as particularly high priorities now that they’re the ones doing the nominating,” he said.  

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DeSantis responds to Trump attacks by pointing to his reelection

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday brushed off former President Donald Trump’s latest attacks with a simple message: check the scoreboard. 

Asked during a news conference about Trump’s criticism over the weekend of his approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, DeSantis responded with a reminder that he won reelection last year by the largest margin of any Republican Florida governor in the state’s modern history.

“When you’re an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions’ you got to steer that ship. And the good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that – whether they reelect you or not,” DeSantis said. 

“And I’m happy to say, you know, in my case, not only did we win reelection, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida,” he added. “We won by the largest raw vote margin – over 1.5 million votes – than any governor candidate has ever had in Florida history.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis brushed off former President Donald Trump’s criticism of him by pointing to his historic re-election win over former Rep. Charlie Crist. (AP)

Indeed, DeSantis defeated former Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) in November by a staggering 19-point margin. It was the largest spread in a Florida gubernatorial race in four decades.

Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. He is now seeking to mount a political comeback by running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. DeSantis is not in that race but is widely seen as a potential contender.

DeSantis’s comments came days after Trump called out the Florida governor and one-time political ally during a campaign swing through New Hampshire and South Carolina. 

Trump accused DeSantis of “trying to rewrite history” when it came to his early handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, arguing that Florida was “closed for a long period of time” at the outset of the pandemic. 

In separate remarks to The Associated Press, Trump also took aim at DeSantis’s rumored presidential ambitions, saying that running for the White House would be a “great act of disloyalty.”

Former President Trump took aim at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handling of the COVID pandemic and his potential run for President in 2024. (AP)

DeSantis hasn’t said much about his 2024 plans, though his advisers are said to be actively preparing for a presidential campaign. If he decides to run, an announcement wouldn’t likely come until later this year. 

It wasn’t the first time that Trump took aim at DeSantis, who is seen as perhaps the biggest threat to the former president’s bid to recapture the GOP nomination in 2024. For his part, DeSantis has largely ignored Trump’s criticism and has avoided mentioning him directly.

After Trump took a jab at DeSantis late last year, he shrugged it off as nothing more than “noise.” On Tuesday, he used a similar retort.

“I roll out of bed, I have people attacking me from all angles,” he said. “It’s been happening for many, many years.”

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Santos steps down from committee assignments

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is stepping down from his committee assignments, he informed House GOP colleagues on Tuesday in a conference meeting.

The representative had faced a whirlwind of criticism over numerous fabrications and misrepresentations of his resume and personal history, as well as questions about his personal and campaign finances.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said that that Santos informed the Conference he would recuse himself from committees “temporarily” until “things get settled.”

“And then he asked that we all support him when everything settles down for him to serve on committees,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told reporters after the meeting.

The House GOP Steering Committee, the panel of Republican leaders who assign committees, had assigned Santos to the Small Business Committee and the Science, Space, and Technology Committee earlier this month. 

Santos’s move comes after he reportedly met with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday.

Greene said Santos also colleagues he was recusing himself amid the controversy surrounding him, and as Republican leadership works to shore up support to block Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Affairs Committee, which has drawn some opposition within the conference.

Some Democrats have pointed to Santos being seated on committees as a point of criticism for the effort against Omar.

“Just all the controversy surrounding him and then while we’re working to remove Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs,” Greene said.

This story was updated at 10:13 a.m.

Source: TEST FEED1