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The Hill's Morning Report — A critical week for McCarthy ahead of the Speakership vote

For House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the Jan. 3 Speakership election is fast-approaching — and there’s a lot of legwork to be done before he steps in front of the chamber for the vote. As The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports, McCarthy is making overtures to his critics who threaten to keep him from the gavel, as well as mounting a forceful show of support. 

But with House Republicans heading into the majority with only 222 seats to 212 for Democrats and one vacancy, the opposition could keep McCarthy from securing the gavel. He needs 218 votes, assuming all members are present and voting for a candidate. If he doesn’t secure that number, the process continues to a second ballot, and McCarthy’s critics gain an opportunity to add a different lawmaker into the mix.

McCarthy has been forceful in courting votes. After several of those withholding support from McCarthy said the House should block bills from GOP senators who vote for the omnibus government funding bill — which passed late last week — McCarthy gave a thumbs-up and pledged those bills would be “dead on arrival in the House” if he is Speaker. And in an acknowledgment of his critics’ call for a “Church-style” committee to investigate alleged government abuses, McCarthy called for such a probe into the FBI and CIA. The name is a reference to a 1975 Senate select committee that investigated intelligence agencies, named for former Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho).

At the same time, the California Republican is whipping up public support, compiling a list of 54 “Only Kevin” House GOP endorsers — some of whom discourage support for his most obvious potential challenger, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). Scalise, for his part, has said he’s supporting McCarthy.

“Kevin’s going to get there, and he’s going to have a lot of meetings with members to make sure that we get this result on January 3,” Scalise said Friday.

But roadblocks remain, such as McCarthy not supporting restoring any member’s ability to make a “motion to vacate the chair” — something Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) says is her “red line” for support. The move forces a vote on ousting the Speaker, and while House Republicans adopted a rule that allows the motion to be brought up if half the conference agrees, McCarthy detractors want the bar to be lowered.

▪ The Hill: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) presses Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to go after the Speakership.

▪ The Washington Times: Scalise is waiting in the shadows as McCarthy struggles in his quest to become speaker.

Across the aisle, House Democrats are grappling with a question swirling around their own leadership hierarchy next year: Who is the No. 4 Democrat?

Most think the title falls to incoming assistant leader Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus and powerful 30-year veteran lawmaker who played an instrumental role in President Biden’s 2020 win. But incoming vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus Ted Lieu (Calif.) is beginning to call that hierarchy into question.

While the vice chair has always been ranked just below the caucus chair, the caucus chair in the 118th Congress will be the No. 3 position, as Democrats enter minority status in the House. The Hill’s Mike Lillis reports on the confusing reshuffling of the pecking order.

The Hill: New York Rep.-elect George Santos (R) admitted Monday to fabricating college and work details, leading Democrats to call for his resignation.

Related Articles

▪ Politico: “A sea change”: Biden reverses decades of Chinese trade policy.

▪ Vox: An incomplete guide to this very weird year, in charts.

▪ Reuters: White House assails Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) over Christmas Eve migrant drop.

▪ Washington Monthly: The final triumph of the January 6. Committee — day 10.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

While Democrats may still be fresh off a triumph in the 2022 fight for the Senate, they now face an even more difficult battle as they try to retain their majority in the next election as they defend nearly two dozen seats. Of the 33 contested 2024 Senate seats, 23 are held by members who caucus with Democrats, including a number in states that former President Trump won or nearly won. Republicans have their sights firmly set on taking down the likes of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and reversing the “candidate quality” issues that plagued them in 2022. The Hill’s Al Weaver breaks down issues to watch that could affect the battle for the Senate playing out over the next two years.

Along with mounting Senate challenges, Republican leaders are also urging their base to take a less skeptical stance on early and mail-in voting, The Hill’s Julia Manchester reports. The party suffered significant losses in the midterms in part due to a heavy reliance on in-person voting on Election Day. Chief in stoking skepticism about early and mail-in voting in 2020 and beyond was Trump, whose message played a key role in costing Republicans Senate seats in Georgia that year and in the 2022 midterms.

The task may be a tall order: according to a study from Pew Research conducted last year, 62 percent of Republicans said voters should only be allowed to vote early or absentee if they have a documented reason. 

“While the RNC invested millions of dollars in trying to persuade voters to vote early, our ecosystem must expand our voter turnout window, change the narrative on early voting, and examine the impact of absentee ballot and early vote chasing in states like Florida and North Carolina, as well as ballot harvesting in California, as a model for the rest of the country,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote in a Fox News op-ed earlier this month.

The Washington Post: As Republicans inch away from election denialism, one activist digs in.

Democrats, however, are also ready to go on offense in 2023 — mounting a sweeping defense of voting rights through a long list of proposals that include creating automatic voter registration systems, preregistering young people to vote before they turn 18, criminalizing election misinformation and returning the franchise to felons released from prison.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has directed his fellow Democrats to “think big” on voting issues now that his party controls both chambers of the state’s legislature.

And in Michigan, the Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said she would like to see sweeping new rules and penalties for disseminating and amplifying misinformation that interferes with voting (The New York Times).

“The greatest threats to our democracy right now continue to be the intentional spread of misinformation and the threats and harassment of election officials that emerge from those efforts,” Benson said. “We owe it to voters on all sides to ensure we are seeking accountability for anyone who would intentionally try to essentially block someone from voting through misinformation.”

Politico: Pennsylvania politics are heated. It soon could be utter chaos.

Looking ahead to 2024, the differences between potential presidential rivals Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are coming into sharper focus, writes The Hill’s Brett Samuels. While Trump’s endorsement helped DeSantis succeed in the 2018 GOP primary for the Florida governor’s race, their differences — on issues from vaccines to the pandemic response — are bubbling to the surface as they position themselves for White House runs.

“I think the overall narrative and differentiation will be that DeSantis gets things done, and he’s not a cult of personality,” one Florida-based Republican strategist told The Hill. “While President Trump is running for himself, DeSantis is running for the people and showing he can do effective government.”

▪ The Hill: DeSantis’s request for COVID-19 vaccine probe denounced by health experts.

▪ Politico: 2022 is the year we all finally got tired of narcissists.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

A drone believed to be Ukrainian penetrated Russian airspace, causing a deadly explosion at the main base for Moscow’s strategic bombers. The drone, which crashed at the Engels air base where three service members were killed, is the latest attack that has exposed gaps in Moscow’s air defense.

As the war entered its 11th month, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday hosted leaders of other former Soviet states in St. Petersburg for a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States group, which Ukraine has long since left (Reuters).

“Unfortunately, challenges and threats in this area, especially from the outside, are only growing each year,” Putin said in televised remarks, not directly commenting on the war. “We also have to acknowledge, unfortunately, that disagreements also arise between member states of the commonwealth.”

Swedish authorities leading a criminal investigation into the September incident at the Nord Stream gas pipeline have concluded that a state actor was most likely responsible for the blast that ripped through the pipes, saying that explosives were probably dropped from ships or planted on the seafloor using submarines or divers.

The attack has been a wartime mystery, prompting finger-pointing and speculation about how a vessel could creep up on a crucial energy conduit, plant a bomb and leave without a trace. But it turns out the Baltic Sea was a close to ideal crime scene. It is covered with telecommunication cables and pipes that are not closely monitored. Ships come and go constantly from the nine countries bordering the sea, and vessels can easily hide by turning off their tracking transponders (The New York Times).

▪ The Wall Street Journal: China sends a wave of warplanes near Taiwan in response to U.S. “provocations.”

▪ The New York Times: Nepal’s revolving door produces a new leader but no hoped-for change.

▪ Reuters: Israel’s President-elect Benjamin Netanyahu looks to vote in a new government on Thursday.

“The key question is not what kind of surveillance there was, but why the lack of surveillance for this pipeline — and other pipelines and electric cables and the underwater cables on the seabed,” Niklas Rossbach, deputy research director at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, told the Times.

Starting in January, inbound travelers to China will no longer be subject to quarantine, in a further step to ease the country’s strict “zero COVID” policies that had in recent months hit the economy hard and stoked historic public discontent. As of Jan. 8, people arriving in China will no longer be quarantined, though they will be required to obtain negative COVID-19 test results within 48 hours of departure, the National Health Commission announced Monday (Bloomberg News).

But what could mark the end of “zero COVID” may be just the beginning of China’s pandemic problems. A low vaccination rate is leading to a spike in infections, and experts warn of a possible incoming wave.

“I think in the next couple of weeks, China will be faced with unprecedented pressure to the health system,” Xi Chen, an associate professor at the Yale School Of Public Health, told CNBC. 

The New York Times: With “zero COVID,” China proved it’s good at control. Governance is harder. For a powerful government that has bragged about its command of the country, its absence at a moment of crisis has made the public question its credibility.

OPINION

■ The cynic’s dilemma: As 2022 comes to a close, I feel something unfamiliar, something I can’t entirely trust: optimism, by Franklin Foer, staff writer, The Atlantic. https://bit.ly/3vfjaHc 

■ How Americans can stand against extremism, by The New York Times editorial board. https://nyti.ms/3PWHd7y 

WHERE AND WHEN

👉 The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will convene on Tuesday, Jan. 3.

The Senate will convene on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. for a pro forma session.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 9:30 a.m. He and first lady Jill Biden will travel to St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands, where they will celebrate the New Year with their family.

The vice president has no public schedule.

The first lady will travel to St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands, with the president.

ELSEWHERE

➤ STATE WATCH

At least 26 people have died over this weekend’s catastrophic snowstorm in western New York, officials announced Monday, marking this blizzard as the area’s deadliest in at least 50 years.

“This is the worst storm probably in our lifetime and maybe in the history of the city,” Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz said during a news conference. “And this is not the end yet.”

The National Weather Service has warned that a “reinforcing shot” of cold air from Canada could cause more snowfall across the Great Plains and Midwest this week, and the eastern half of the country would remain in a deep freeze. In Erie County — which includes Buffalo, N.Y. — the death toll jumped to 27 on Monday (The Hill).

At least 55 people have died in weather-related incidents across the country since late last week, according to an NBC News tally. The deaths were recorded in 12 states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

▪ The New York Times: A South Korean tour group’s van became stuck in the snow outside a house in Williamsville, N.Y. They spent the weekend with the residents — who luckily had a well-stocked kitchen.

▪ Yahoo News: “Travel insanity”: U.S. passengers stranded by winter storm; 2,500 flights canceled.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Southwest Airlines CEO says more cancellations ahead as airline tries to recover.

The nation’s power grid is suffering a decade-high surge in attacks as extremists, vandals and cyber criminals increasingly take aim at critical infrastructure. According to federal records examined by Politico, physical and computerized assaults on the equipment that delivers electricity are at their highest level since at least 2012, with 101 reported this year through the end of August. The previous peak was the 97 incidents recorded for all of 2021.

This year’s tally doesn’t include the most visible recent attack — the shootings of two Duke Energy substations that cut out power for 45,000 people in Moore County, N.C. In Washington State, the lights went dark for 14,000 customers on Christmas Day after four Tacoma Public Utilities and Puget Sound Energy substations were vandalized (Bloomberg News).

The coordinated and deliberate nature of the attacks have sparked questions for federal regulators.

“Is there something more sinister going on?” Richard Glick, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said in a news conference last week. “Are there people planning this?… I don’t think anyone knows that right now. But there’s no doubt that the numbers are up in terms of reported incidents.”

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

The U.S. is in the middle of an infectious disease trifecta — a “tripledemic” of COVID-19, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus. Officials in New York City and Los Angeles County once again “strongly recommend” masking indoors, and those in other cities may follow soon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now advise wearing one based on COVID-19 community levels — a recommendation that considers hospital admissions, beds available and the number of case rates.

Two experts spoke with Vox about how to best protect yourself and your loved ones this winter. 

Beyond the “tripledemic,” the CDC said it’s tracking a “possible increase in invasive group A strep” among children. At least 94 people in the United Kingdom, including 24 children, have died from complications caused by a strep A infection. 

“To my knowledge, we’ve never seen a peak like this at this time of year, at least not for decades,” microbiologist Shiranee Sriskandan at Imperial College London told Nature.

Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it was too soon to say if the United States would see a “large strep A outbreak,” but he warned that it could be a problem if we do see a rise in the bacterial infection at the same time we’re contending with the viral “tripledemic” (The Hill).

The New York Times: The last holdouts: What it’s like to wear masks for COVID-19 when most others have long since moved on.

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability can be found at Vaccines.gov.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,090,218. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,952 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally… 🐢 Scientists have found a new way of measuring how deeply a fossil site was buried before eons of other geological activity, and it’s all down to turtles. A 2012 study about turtle shells — where researchers subjected the skeletal remains of different kinds of turtles to incremental increases in mechanical forces and measured where and how the shells began to buckle — turned out to provide an answer to an entirely unrelated problem.

“It’s actually fun to just play around with them and see how they bend under a point or certain loading regimes,” Holger Petermann, a paleontologist with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, told The New York Times.

The flatness of a turtle shell, Peterman found, could help paleontologists figure out how deeply a fossil site was originally buried. The new name for their measurement method: the Turtle Compaction Index.

Stay Engaged

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Time is running short for McCarthy to lock up Speakership

It’s crunch time for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). 

Members of Congress departed Washington on Friday with the group of House Republicans voicing opposition to McCarthy for Speaker showing no signs of wavering, setting up a dramatic Jan. 3 Speaker’s vote — or series of votes — on the first day of the 118th Congress.

McCarthy brushed off a question on Friday asking how he plans to lock up support over the holidays, saying he plans to “go home; have a really nice Christmas.”

At least five House Republicans have explicitly said or strongly indicated they will not vote for McCarthy to be Speaker, and several others have withheld support for him as they push for commitments on governing priorities and rules changes that would empower individual members. 

No Speaker vote has gone to a second ballot in a century.

But with House Republicans heading into the majority with 222 seats to 212 for Democrats and one vacancy, that opposition could keep McCarthy from securing the gavel. He needs 218 votes, assuming all members are present and voting for a candidate.

As the GOP leader aims to secure the votes to be Speaker, he is making overtures to his critics, and his allies are mounting a forceful show of support. 

He said he supports requiring 72 hours between release of final bill text and a vote in the House, one request laid out in a letter from seven current and incoming members. 

After several of those withholding support from McCarthy said last week that the House should block bills from GOP senators who vote for the omnibus government funding bill, McCarthy endorsed the idea and pledged those bills would be “dead on arrival in the House” if he is Speaker. 

And in an acknowledgement of his critics’ call for a “Church-style” committee to investigate alleged government abuses, McCarthy similarly called for a “Church-style” investigation into the FBI and CIA. The name is a reference to a 1975 Senate select committee named for former Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) that investigated intelligence agencies.

“He’s grabbing it and using it and talking about it. I’m not surprised because we’ve been talking about it for a while,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who has not confirmed how he plans to vote on Jan. 3 but has repeatedly said McCarthy does not currently have the votes to be Speaker. 

In recent weeks, McCarthy has held meetings with his critics and detractors, but none of them have said his commitments have swayed them to support him.

And disagreement remains on other points, particularly on restoring any member’s ability to make a “motion to vacate the chair,” a move to force a vote on ousting the Speaker. House Republicans adopted a rule that allows the motion to be brought up if half the conference agrees, but McCarthy detractors want that bar to be lower.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said recently called it her “red line” for support of a Speaker.

“Nothing’s changed. Requests are still there,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), chairman of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Meanwhile, more than 100 current and incoming House Republicans have publicly said they support McCarthy for Speaker, and many are frustrated about the opposition. The uncertainty has already caused House Republicans to put off selecting committee chairs, delaying behind-the-scenes organizing activities like hiring staff for the next Congress.

McCarthy allies have amped up public shows of support, compiling a list of 54 “Only Kevin” House GOP endorsements — which may discourage support for his most obvious potential alternative, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).

Scalise says he is supporting McCarthy.

“Kevin’s going to get there, and he’s going to have a lot of meetings with members to make sure that we get this result on January 3,” Scalise said Friday when asked about speculation about him being a possible alternative to McCarthy.

Many McCarthy allies are brushing off the opposition as a negotiation tactic, and expect critics to cave.

“I think he’ll have it on the first ballot,” said Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.).

A lack of an alternative GOP Speaker candidate, McCarthy allies say, is the biggest sign that he will ultimately become Speaker. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is running as a protest challenger to McCarthy, but even the “Never Kevin” Republicans acknowledge that he is not a viable alternative.

McCarthy told reporters on Friday, before members left, that he had talked to Biggs the day before. Asked if he urged Biggs to drop out, McCarthy said he did not. 

McCarthy detractors tease that there could be a viable alternative candidate. But they will not name names for fear of putting a target on anyone’s back.

“I think on the second ballot, it will become a little more clear on who we think can get us to 218,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) said on a recent Politico podcast. 

Good said there have been “private conversations” between the anti-McCarthy crowd and other potential Speaker candidates initiated by both the McCarthy opponents and by those interested in becoming Speaker. 

“Let’s say he has 20 votes against him on the first ballot. If he has 40 votes against him on the second ballot, do you think we’re going to continue to keep his name in play? I would suggest we won’t,” Good said.

Good did indicate that whoever the McCarthy detractors’ preferred alternative would be would likely be a sitting member of the House, saying while it is “technically” possible for the Speaker to be a nonmember, it is “practically improbable.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are watching the drama unfold. 

After McCarthy made a lengthy floor speech in opposition to the omnibus spending bill on Friday, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) quipped: “After listening to that, it’s clear he doesn’t have the votes yet.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Controversial activist Steve Donziger is a folk hero to the left, a fraud to Big Oil   

Steven Donziger says he has no regrets amid a lengthy legal battle with Chevron that has won him support from Democrats in Congress who have pushed for his release from detention.  

To supporters, Donziger is a folk hero who stood up to the power of oil companies in Latin America and has now suffered a personal cost.

To opponents — and in the eyes of the law, as it stands now — he’s a fraud who allegedly ghostwrote an Ecuadorian judge’s ruling ordering Chevron to pay $9.5 billion to farmers and Indigenous groups in the country. Donziger denies all allegations of fraud or misconduct in connection with the Ecuador case. 

The vast majority of his detention — more than 800 days — has been pretrial house arrest, longer than the six-month maximum sentence he eventually received.      

Donziger, who was released from house arrest in April, spoke to The Hill in November, one of several interviews he’s given since his release to tell his side of the story. 

Donziger, who has a 16-year-old son, acknowledged it’s been a painful experience, given that he’s been deprived of three years of normal father-son activities they can never get back.     

“Yeah, it hurt. It wasn’t fun in detention,” he said. “But we strengthened our hand considerably, and we now have a much bigger platform to achieve justice, not only for the people of Ecuador but for the climate. That’s a very long way of saying I would [take on Chevron] again if I had the opportunity.” 

His detention drew criticism from the U.S. and abroad, with Amnesty International and members of the House Progressive Caucus calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to intervene while he was still under house arrest, and the main United Nations human rights body calling the length of his house arrest illegal.  

Chevron, however, maintains that his detention was the consequence of unethical and illegal tactics he used in the original Chevron suit, and its arguments have been backed up in court.

Theodore Boutrous, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, which represents Chevron, told The Hill that Donziger “is an adjudicated racketeer who has been disbarred.”    

“The judgment Donziger procured in Ecuador has been found by U.S. federal courts to be the product of fraud and corruption, and has been rejected by other tribunals around the world,” Boutros told The Hill. “No court or tribunal anywhere has recognized it as legitimate.”       

Donziger’s 30-year battle with the oil industry began in the early 1990s, when he visited Ecuador at the request of the Amazon Defense Coalition, an Ecuadorian nongovernmental organization, to investigate reports of environmental degradation by Texaco, which is now owned by Chevron.      

Upon arrival, Donziger found what he called a “horrifying scene” in the rainforest.  

“There were literally hundreds of pits of oil that were gouged out of the floor of the Amazon [and] pipes that were used to flow the contents into rivers and streams the local communities were relying on for their drinking water, to their bathing and for their fishing,” he said.      

Chevron has blamed the degradation on Ecuador’s state oil company, saying in a statement “Texaco Petroleum … was a minority partner in an oil-production consortium in Ecuador along with the state-owned oil company, Petroecuador, from 1964 to 1992.”    

Donziger and the rest of his legal team filed a class-action lawsuit in 1993 against Texaco on behalf of 30,000 farmers and Indigenous Ecuadorians. The company fought the case in Ecuadorian courts for years, continuing after it was acquired by Chevron in 2001. Ultimately, in 2011, a court ordered Chevron to pay $18 billion. The company appealed the case all the way to Ecuador’s highest court, which affirmed the judgment but cut the amount nearly in half to $9.5 billion.     

After that result, however, Chevron began a decadelong second round of the battle, countersuing Donziger under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The countersuit played out in the U.S., where RICO has force of law and where Chevron alleged several of his violations of the racketeering law occurred.    

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, an appointee of former President Clinton, ruled in favor of Chevron and threw out the $9.5 billion judgment in 2014, ruling that Donziger fraudulently orchestrated the judgment in Ecuador, which he denies.  

Chevron and other critics of Donziger have accused him of unethical tactics, including bribery and witness tampering, with The Wall Street Journal editorial page accusing him in 2019 of a “shakedown” of Chevron that “ranks among the biggest legal scams in history.”   

Notre Dame law professor Douglass Cassel, who has himself been retained by Chevron, has called Donziger a “con man” whose conduct did a disservice to his clients. The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2018 that the $9.5 billion judgment should not be recognized or enforced, ruling that the judgment was “was procured through fraud, bribery and corruption.”     

Donziger noted that the ruling against him was based in part on the testimony of Alberto Guerra, an Ecuadorian ex-judge who testified he accepted bribes in the case in exchange for allowing Donziger to ghostwrite a judgment against Chevron. However, in 2015, Guerra told an international arbitration tribunal he had lied under oath in his testimony.

Gibson Dunn, the law firm representing Chevron, disputed the claim that the judgment hinged on Guerra’s testimony.

“Donziger and his allies routinely both exaggerate Guerra’s importance and lie about his testimony—much of which was corroborated by documentary evidence,” a representative for the firm told The Hill. “Guerra’s testimony was hardly the only evidence that Donziger ghostwrote the Ecuadorian judgment.”     

In 2018, Donziger was disbarred in New York and Washington, D.C., and Kaplan ordered him to turn over his electronic devices to Chevron forensics experts while he appealed Kaplan’s ruling. 

When Donziger refused, citing attorney-client privilege, Kaplan charged him with criminal contempt of court. Gibson Dunn disputed Donziger’s claim that this was “unprecedented,” noting that Donziger was the defendant rather than an attorney in the case.      

When federal prosecutors declined to take the contempt case, Kaplan appointed private lawyers from the firm of Seward & Kissel, which has represented Chevron as recently as 2018, to prosecute the case. Kaplan also directly appointed Senior District Judge Loretta Preska to hear the case rather than using random assignment.     

Preska convicted Donziger on the contempt charges and sentenced him to six months last July. An appeals court upheld the conviction in a split decision this June, two months after his release. In September, he appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, arguing a lack of supervision from Justice Department officers violated separation of powers. The federal government filed a brief in opposition to the pending appeal on Dec. 16. 

“Ultimately, I spent 993 days in detention, 45 days of that in federal prison and the rest was at home, and I was released [in] April,” Donziger said.

Since the case began, and continuing after his release, Donziger has been hailed by many on the political and environmentalist left, including the House Progressive Caucus members who called attention to his detention.  

“Progressive movements rightly saw [Donziger’s case] as an attempt to criminalize corporate accountability, and that hit a nerve. If he’s a principled lawyer taking on a powerful corporation and the justice system punishes him, that has a profound chilling effect,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who has been part of the progressive caucus push for Donziger’s release, told The Hill in a statement.

“We can’t become afraid of fighting for what’s right. Donziger’s work was important. I’m thankful he’s free now, but he shouldn’t have had to fight for that freedom.”      

Although he’s out of detention now, Donziger expressed concern that he was a test case for what he called the corporate capture of American civil institutions by energy giants like Chevron, with a goal of silencing opposition.     

“The industry’s figured out that if they can control the courts, or at least, influence them to a great degree, they can prevent themselves from being held accountable and obtain effective impunity for their misdeeds, for their wrongdoing, for their pollution [and] for the harm they cause,” he said.      

“That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t use our courts, we must — there are ways to use them effectively in climate justice — but make no mistake about it, the U.S. federal courts right now are very hostile to climate cases” as a result of decades of Republican efforts to create an industry-friendly judiciary, he said.     

A new generation of activists and commentators, like the hosts of the leftist comedy podcast Chapo Trap House and Amazon union organizer Chris Small, are among those who have brought attention to Donziger’s case.  

“I think the younger generation has power in their hands to quickly change the equation, and I think that the mobilization of younger people around climate and other issues of democracy is vital,” Donziger said. “And I love that we’re seeing it happen to, you know, to a greater degree than it used to, and we saw this in the midterm elections,” which saw large turnout by many of the same younger voters who rank environmental issues and the climate a top issue.   

Donziger said that the admiration he’s received from millennial and Generation Z figures in particular is mutual.     

“My generation has failed to preserve the planet adequately, despite the great efforts of many, myself included,” he said, “and I think it’s great to see young people alive and awaken to what needs to be done.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Five questions shaping new battle for Senate

Democrats fresh off a triumph in the 2022 fight for the Senate now face an even more difficult battle: retaining their majority in the next election as they defend nearly two dozen seats.

Of the 33 Senate seats contested in 2024, 23 are held by Democrats, including a number in states that former President Trump won or nearly won. Republicans have their sights on taking down the likes of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and reversing the “candidate quality” issues that plagued them in 2022. 

Here are some issues to watch that could affect the battle for the Senate playing out over the next two years.

How will Schumer handle Sinema?

The moment Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) announced she was leaving the Democratic Party to become an independent, the 2024 cycle kicked off amid chatter on how each party will approach the seat. 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is a key player in the Sinema dance. Will he treat her like a Democratic incumbent, as the party treats Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), or will he and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee throw their weight behind a Democratic nominee?

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is already flirting with a challenge, but having a Democrat and Sinema in the race against a strong Republican candidate could easily flip the seat to the GOP.

Sinema’s decision to become an independent suggests she saw that as her best path to reelection, but she also faces uncertainty.

“It’s tough. It’s why you run as a Republican or run as a Democrat,” said Barrett Marson, a Phoenix-based GOP strategist. “But Sen. Sinema certainly has shown an ability to defy odds and win elections, close as they may be, in the state and has tapped into a lot of angst.”

Can the GOP fix its “candidate quality” problem?

Ever since Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) raised the issue of “candidate quality” in August, the item has loomed large for the party.

The GOP lost the Senate as candidates backed by Trump — notably Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania — were defeated.

Senate Republicans have signaled they are anxious for the National Republican Senatorial Committee to put its thumb on the scale in primaries again after a cycle where Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the committee’s previous chairman, refused to do so.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the newly-installed chairman, has signaled that change will happen.

“I will tell you this. If I have heard one thing since the last election a little over a month ago, Republicans are sick of losing, and we’re gonna do whatever it takes to win,” Daines told Fox News recently. “We want to make sure we have candidates that can win general elections.” 

Whether the party can cobble together a stable of winning candidates and what role Trump will play in the primary process are in question.

GOP strategists are also wondering if former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), who have turned down Senate bids in the past, will change their minds in 2024. Either would be a strong candidate in their states.

Can Democrats avoid a red state wipeout?

Republicans defeated a number of red-state Democrats in 2018, but Manchin and Tester survived.

Those two will be big targets in 2024 along with Brown in Ohio, which between 2018 and 2022 seemed to cement itself as a red state.

While Tester and Manchin have yet to reveal their 2024 plans, Brown has indicated he will seek a fourth term, giving a boost to Democrats.

Still, while Brown ran a strong race in 2018, he was aided by facing a weak candidate in then-Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), who entered the race at the last minute after former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel (R) dropped out. 

Whether he gets as lucky in 2024 remains to be seen. A number of Republicans, including Ohio Attorney General Frank LaRose (R), may run for the right to face the incumbent Democrat.

In West Virginia, Rep. Alex Mooney (R) has announced a bid, while Gov. Jim Justice (R) and Attorney General Patrick Morrissey (R), who lost to Manchin in 2018, are considering the race.

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), who Tester defeated in 2018, and Rep.-elect Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) are both reportedly eyeing the Montana race.

To retire, or not to retire? 

That is the question facing a number of Senate stalwarts who have yet to announce whether they will push for another term in the upper chamber. 

The list starts with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 89, the oldest member of the upper chamber who has been the subject of years of speculation over whether she will resign before her term is up.

Recently, Feinstein told the Los Angeles Times that she has no plans to step aside before the end of her term, but will decide in the spring whether to seek a sixth full term in office.

Democrats will be favored to win in California, and they’d also likely be favored in Maryland and Delaware, where Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), 79, and Tom Carper (D-Del.), 75, have yet to announce reelection bids.

In other states, Democratic incumbents would have advantages, but not as great of a home field advantage.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) told Politico she is “all in” on seeking a second term in 2024. Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) are also moving in that direction.

Nevada and Wisconsin, in particular, are states where Republicans will feel they have a fighting chance of picking up a seat. 

How will Trump affect the 2024 field? 

If there was a person the 2022 cycle revolved around, it was Trump.

Early signals show Trump may not have the kind of influence he held in this year in 2024.

The mere fact that Trump critic Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is considering a reelection bid and that Daniels is keeping the door open to one shows that Republicans aren’t running in fear of Trump.

McConnell is also taking more public shots at Trump, signaling establishment GOP voices want to push back on his influence amid polls showing the former president behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis among GOP presidential voters.

Trump still has influence and allies within GOP circles, and predictions on his strength declining have been off in the past. 

What seems certain for now is that there will be a battle over his power and his ability to pick candidates, both in public and in private.

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Democrats call for George Santos to resign over 'whopping lies' 

Democrats are calling for Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) to resign his newly won Long Island House seat after the incoming lawmaker admitted to lying about about his professional and educational background.

“GOP Congressman-elect George Santos, who has now admitted his whopping lies, should resign. If he does not, then @GOPLeader should call for a vote to expel @Santos4Congress,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), the incoming vice chair of the House Democratic caucus, said on Twitter.

Santos admitted in a New York Post interview released Monday to having fabricated details about his resume, including making misleading claims about working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and falsely claiming to have earned a college degree from New York’s Baruch College. 

Santos said this week he “never worked directly” with either firm and did not graduate from Baruch nor “any institution of higher learning.” He declared in a separate interview that he’s “not a criminal” and has “done so much good work” in his career.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) argued that allowing Santos to enter office, as he is slated to do next week, would set a dangerous precedent and prompt others to campaign for office while promoting false details about their own background.

“We’ve seen people fudge their resume but this is total fabrication,” Castro said on Twitter, suggesting the New York Republican “should also be investigated by authorities.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said Santos “confessed to defrauding the voters of Long Island about his ENTIRE resume” and called for him not to be seated when new lawmakers are sworn in next week.

Santos flipped a House seat for the GOP in November to represent parts of Long Island and Queens, helping the party capture a narrow majority in the lower chamber.

Democrats have latched onto scrutiny of the newly elected Republican, with incoming House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) saying last week that Santos “appears to be a complete and utter fraud — his whole life story made up.” 

“I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume,” Santos said in the interview with the Post. “I own up to that … We do stupid things in life.”

Santos’s admission on Monday broke days of silence after a New York Times report drew attention to apparent inconsistencies in his professional profile, with interviews casting doubt on various aspects of his official campaign biography.

Among the questions raised about Santos’s background were those centered on his past claims of Jewish heritage and his campaign’s telling of his maternal grandparents fleeing Jewish persecution in Europe during World War II.

“Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish,’” Santos told the Post, adding he identifies religiously as Catholic.

“He didn’t graduate college, didn’t work on Wall Street, and isn’t Jewish — all of which he asserted in order to dupe the voters in Queens and Nassau. Santos is not fit to be a member of Congress. He must resign,” New York Rep.-elect Dan Goldman (D) tweeted.

Another New York Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres, urged the House Ethics Committee to probe the Republican’s fundraising on the campaign trail, saying the “complete fabrication” of his background could signal other issues. 

“George Santos admits his life story is a complete fabrication. His pitiful confession should not distract us from concerns about possible criminality and corruption. The Ethics Committee MUST investigate how he made his money. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Ritchie said. 

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New York Rep.-elect George Santos admits fabricating college, work details

Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) has admitted to fabricating details about his education and previous employment as he campaigned for Congress during this year’s midterms, falsely claiming he’d earned a college degree and misrepresenting his past work.

His comments in an interview with the New York Post published Monday follow a report from The New York Times that highlighted discrepancies in Santos’s story, including his claims that he’d worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and that he’d graduated from New York’s Baruch College.

Santos told the Post he “never worked directly” with either firm and said he’ll be “clearer about that” in the future. He also said he did not graduate from Baruch nor “any institution of higher learning” despite his past claims.

“My sins here are embellishing my resume. I’m sorry,” the incoming GOP lawmaker told the outlet.

Santos insisted to the Post that the controversy won’t keep him from “good legislative success” when he takes his seat in the 118th Congress in January.

Breaking his silence on the accusations, Santos also gave an interview to local radio station WABC-AM in which he maintained that “a lot of people overstate in their resumes, or twist a little bit.”

“I’m not saying I’m not guilty of that, I’m just saying, I’ve done so much good work in my career,” he said.

“I’m not a criminal who defrauded the entire country,” Santos told the outlet.

Santos flipped a House seat for the GOP in November to represent parts of Long Island and Queens.

Incoming House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said last week that Santos “appears to be a complete and utter fraud — his whole life story made up.” 

Santos’s attorney last week had called the Times report about him a “shotgun blast of attacks” and claimed coverage of him was aimed at trying “to smear his good name.”

“I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume,” Santos said in the interview with the Post. “I own up to that … We do stupid things in life.”

Source: TEST FEED1

DeSantis's request for COVID vaccine probe denounced by health experts

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) petition for a grand jury investigation into COVID-19 vaccines, in which he decries the ongoing vaccine campaign as “propaganda” by the Biden administration, is drawing fierce criticism from health experts.

Physicians and public health experts say his request betrays decades of established procedure designed to ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, and only serves to stoke further immunization fears.

DeSantis’s petition for a grand jury investigation was approved by the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday, clearing the way for what his office described as a probe into “wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine.”

The request was first made known during a roundtable discussion the Florida governor held last week, in which he condemned what he viewed as the linking of morality to pandemic mitigation methods such as staying at home in the early parts of the outbreak and getting vaccinated once the shots became available later on, and criticized federal COVID-19 guidance as being a “huge political farce.”

In his petition, DeSantis expressed suspicion over the COVID-19 vaccines’ ability to prevent transmission of the virus, as well as public statements made on the subject by officials like President Biden and outgoing chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci. As has been previously stated by physicians and researchers, no vaccine is 100 percent effective, but studies have consistently shown the coronavirus vaccines offer strong enough protection for recipients to prevent severe disease, hospitalization and death.

“It is impossible to imagine that so many influential individuals came to this view on their own. Rather, it is likely that individuals and companies with an incentive to do so created these perceptions for financial gain,” DeSantis suggested in his petition.

Public health experts and physicians, however, said DeSantis’s approach to scrutinizing the vaccines was flawed and counterproductive to promoting public health.

Brian Castrucci, president and CEO of public health group the de Beaumont Foundation, said DeSantis “appears to be focused on creating fear around vaccines that have been shown to be safe and effective,” rather than protecting the lives of Floridians.

“These vaccines have been tested and scrutinized more than any other vaccine, and they continue to save lives. Vaccine safety is not a partisan issue and attempting to make it one puts lives at risk,” Castrucci added.

Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at Johns Hopkins University and former principal deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said in a statement to The Hill that while there are legitimate avenues for evaluating vaccine recommendations, DeSantis’s investigation request was not an example of one.

“This is turning a matter of health and science into a political wedge issue, with the likely consequence that many people will be misled into placing themselves and their families at risk of serious illness and death,” Sharfstein said.

Other public health experts similarly disagreed with the avenue the governor has chosen for reviewing the COVID-19 vaccine guidance.

“His understanding of the facts or at least his articulation of the facts are just wrong,” Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told The Hill. Commenting shortly before the court’s decision, Benjamin said he hoped the petition was denied, as he considered such an investigation “a waste of taxpayer money and time and effort.”

“No one has either inappropriately or purposely either overstated or understated the vaccine in any way,” said Benjamin. “It’s a brand-new technology. Like any brand-new technology, you make some assumptions about what you think’s going to happen. It actually turned out to be a whole lot better than most people thought it would be.”

William Schaffner, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University’s department of health policy and its division of infectious diseases, said he was “baffled” by DeSantis’s assertion that influential public health officials could not have come to same conclusion when it came to the vaccines.

As Schaffner noted, there are two independent panels composed of voluntary, external experts who advise federal agencies on vaccine policy. These committees are the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee at the FDA and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for which Schaffner is an ex-officio member, usually a nonvoting position within the group.

“That committee has been working for more than 60 years, and it deals with all vaccines. And it establishes the standards of practice as to who ought to receive the vaccines,” Schaffner said of the ACIP, noting committee meetings are entirely open to the public. “So, this is a rigorous, externally vetted, very critical process and it’s transparent … it is a model of open regulatory and recommending processes.”

In addition to expressing suspicion over the vaccine’s ability to prevent transmission, DeSantis further asserted that the risk of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, could possibly outweigh the benefits conferred by immunization.

Myocarditis is a rare side effect of mRNA vaccination that has been observed to be more common among young male patients. Both the ACIP and the CDC have previously determined that the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis, an inflammation of the muscles surrounding the heart, is outweighed by the benefits of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.

Both Benjamin and Schaffner pushed back against DeSantis’s suggestion, stating that the risk of myocarditis was in fact higher in COVID-19 infections than in coronavirus immunizations. Schaffner referred to myocarditis following vaccination as a “transient phenomenon” from which the vast majority of patients fully recovered, which has also been observed by the CDC in surveys.

“I’ve worked for governors and mayors and there’s clearly a role for elected officials to provide the appropriate moral leadership in our communities and governance leadership,” Benjamin said. “But I think that they get in trouble when they try to practice medicine.”

“They’re smart and, you know, they can certainly give an appropriate message. But the message is not as credible when they get into the weeds and start arguing really technical details without having the background and training,” he said.

When reached for a response to some of the criticisms relayed to The Hill, DeSantis’s office referred back the roundtable discussion the governor held.

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Buffalo faces brunt of deadly winter storm

The enormous winter storm that killed about 50 people across the U.S. the past few days has proven especially brutal for residents in and around the city of Buffalo, N.Y.

Buffalo, which sits on the northeastern tip of Lake Erie, was blanketed by more than 40 inches of snow over the weekend. Temperatures plunged when sweeping, arctic air coincided with a low-pressure storm that brought hurricane-force winds.

The area has seen people trapped in cars or stuck in below-freezing homes, local officials said. The storm-related death toll in the city now stands at 20, according to the mayor, with more than a dozen of those individuals found outside in the cold.

“This has been a very difficult and dangerous storm,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at a Monday news conference, noting it was a once-in-a-generation event.

“Everything that was forecast we have gotten in the city of Buffalo, and then some.”

Thousands of residents in the Buffalo area lost power as the storm moved in over the weekend from the central U.S. As of Monday afternoon, officials said the number of homes without power had dropped below 10,000.

Brown said some residents have been without power since Friday.

The National Guard has deployed to help clear up roads and assist dozens of emergency personnel responding to residents trapped inside their vehicles or stuck out in the blistering cold.

Ahead of the storm last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared a state of emergency for the entire state and on Monday expressed surprise that the storm mostly devastated western New York.

She called the winter storm the “blizzard of the century” and said officials were expecting another six to 12 inches of snow.

“It’s still a dangerous situation,” she said, describing “scores and scores” of vehicles left outside in the heavy snow. “We have had snow plows, major snow plows, and rescue vehicles — I saw them myself in ditches, buried in snow. Those circumstances are still difficult.”

Hochul added she recently talked to President Biden, who has promised to swiftly approve her request for federal emergency aid.

Local counties in western New York are enforcing a driving ban to keep residents out of the storm.

Many streets in Buffalo are also impassible for both walkers and drivers because of the thick snow.

Brown, Buffalo’s mayor, explained some people have “taken advantage of the suffering in our community” to loot buildings and stores.

Western New York alone accounts for more than half of the death toll so far in the U.S.

In Erie County, which includes Buffalo, 27 deaths were confirmed from the local medical examiner’s office, although official causes of death could change the unofficial toll attributed to the winter storm.

In frequent updates, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz has described some of the deaths related to the storm, with 14 people found outside, three from an EMS delay and three who died from cardiac arrest after shoveling snow.

In neighboring Niagara County, one man died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car.

“We do expect that there will be more,” Poloncarz said at the Monday news conference. “We are at the mercy of Mother Nature.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden offers New York help as winter storm death toll hits 27

President Biden spoke by phone with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Monday and offered federal assistance as New York deals with a massive winter storm that has claimed more than two dozen lives.

Biden offered federal help to address the impacts of the “historic winter storm,” the White House said, adding he’s directed officials to respond to any requests for assistance from New York.

“The President shared that his and the First Lady’s prayers are with the people of New York and all those who lost loved ones. He expressed his gratitude to the Governor for her leadership and to the National Guard, law enforcement, and first responders for their tireless work,” the White House said in a statement.

The death toll from the storm in New York hit 27 on Monday, according to The Associated Press, representing roughly half of the total fatalities attributed to the Christmas week storm that swept across the country.

Many of the deaths in New York are in Erie County around Buffalo.

Eighteen storm-related deaths were confirmed over the weekend across Erie and Niagara counties, local outlet WIVB reported, before topping two dozen on Monday.

As much as 49 inches of snow have been reported in some areas as of Monday afternoon, with local authorities warning of more on the way.

“This is a major disaster that in some ways may turn out to be worse than the blizzard of ’77,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference on Sunday.

Some people were stranded in their vehicles for more than two days while others have faced below-freezing temperatures in their homes, Poloncarz said.

A winter weather advisory for the area in western New York remains in effect until 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Hochul called it the “most devastating storm in Buffalo’s long, storied history.”

Updated: 4:05 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1