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The Memo: Michigan appears set to deliver a blow to Trump

Former President Trump is headed to Michigan on Saturday for the latest in a series of campaign rallies.

But the event, to be held in Warren, will only sharpen questions about whether Trump’s influence is backfiring against the GOP in general election campaigns.

The most prominent candidate Trump has backed in the Wolverine State, conservative commentator and gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, has lagged incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) by double digits in recent polls.

Not so long ago, Whitmer was a top Republican target. Conservatives believed they could capitalize on discontent with her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular.

Instead, the GOP has a candidate who hews to a hard-line anti-abortion position, meanders on whether the 2020 election was legitimate, and is suffering from a massive fundraising disadvantage.

When Trump endorsed Dixon in the GOP primary in late July, he promised she was a “Conservative Warrior” who was “ready to take on one of the worst Governors in the nation.”

But even some Republicans don’t think a Trump rally is going to turn things around for Dixon, who trailed Whitmer by 16 points in a poll last week from the Detroit Free Press.

“Here is the problem with these events: What does Trump do? He talks about the candidate he is allegedly there to support for about 60 seconds, he may or may not insult the candidate — as he did with J.D. Vance — and then the rest of it is the Trump Grievance Tour,” said Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee.

Heye added that Trump’s grievances — generally revolving around false claims of election fraud — “are of interest only to Trump, as opposed to the issues the candidate would prefer to be talking about.”

Dixon and Ohio’s Vance — who is in an unexpectedly close race against Rep. Tim Ryan (D) for a Senate seat being vacated by Republican Rob Portman — are far from the only Trump-backed candidates mired in general election trouble.

In Pennsylvania, Trump’s picks in Senate and gubernatorial races alike — Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano, respectively — are struggling. In Georgia, former football star Herschel Walker lagged Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) by 4 points in a Fox News poll this week.

On Thursday, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the gubernatorial races in Michigan and Pennsylvania from “lean Democratic” to “likely Democratic.”

Jessica Taylor, Cook’s Senate and governors editor, wrote that, in Michigan, the “race could have been different had the Republican primary…produced a stronger nominee.”

Given Dixon’s parlous position in the polls, it is surprising that Trump is continuing to tie himself to her rather than cutting her loose. The former president is notoriously prickly about suggestions that he is unpopular or that his appeal is waning.

On Thursday alone, the former president’s main leadership political action committee, Save America, sent out emails linking to articles from conservative publications showing favorable national poll numbers in a hypothetical match-up against Biden; superior support for Trump over Biden in Texas; and comments from House GOP campaign head Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) praising Trump as a “tremendous partner” for the party’s candidates.

Save America also blasted out another article headlined, “Donald Trump is Ranked Number 1 Presidential Golfer in history by a Landslide.”

Jenna Bednar, a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Michigan, said that, even if it looks like Dixon is bound for defeat, Trump’s real purpose is to bask in adulation and to promote the prospect of a 2024 White House run.

“For sure he is here to support Dixon, but he is also here to support himself — literally, in the sense of his as-yet-undeclared candidacy. He’s here to say, ‘Mar-a-Lago raid be damned and Jan. 6 Committee be damned, I am still here.’”

But Bednar claimed that it’s far from clear Trump will even improve Dixon’s position, much less catapult her to victory.

“He is going to mobilize the portion of the Republican Party that is completely committed to what he stands for, but he is going to demobilize the middle,” she said. 

For all the inevitable focus on Trump, however, Bednar also emphasized that abortion is a huge issue in the Michigan race. 

She noted not only the Supreme Court’s late June verdict striking down the right to abortion but also the fact that Michigan voters will weigh in on an abortion-specific ballot measure.

That measure, if approved, would explicitly provide the right to abortion in the state constitution. 

Dixon is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape or incest. In an August interview with Fox 2 Detroit, she said abortion should be allowed only for the “life of the mother.” In cases of rape, she asserted, there could be “healing through that baby.” 

Whitmer, by contrast, is a strong advocate of the right to abortion.

Trump will do his best to stir up the GOP base on Saturday. 

But Dixon is a serious underdog.

Michigan, which Trump won in 2016 but lost in 2020, could be about to deliver another defeat by proxy to the former president.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

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Ron Johnson comes under heavy fire from home-state colleague

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) is leading the charge against Sen. Ron Johnson, the Senate’s most vulnerable Republican incumbent and a fellow Wisconsin senator, accusing him of being out of step with the rest of the state, particularly on the issue of abortion.

With future control of the 50-50 Senate at stake, Baldwin is jettisoning the tradition of detente between home-state colleagues, ripping the Republican this week for voting against advancing a motion to keep the government from shutting down.

“I want to highlight one thing in particular because my Senate colleague from Wisconsin last night voted against moving forward to fund the government, keep the government open and avoid a needless government shutdown,” Baldwin told reporters.  

Baldwin then piled on by highlighting past statements by Johnson on Medicare and Social Security, which she argued provide plenty of evidence that her colleague wants to gut those popular programs.  

“Senate Republicans like my counterpart from Wisconsin have proposed sunsetting, cutting and putting Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block with every budget every year,” she said.  

She concluded by asserting that Johnson wants to turn back the clock to 1849 when it comes to a woman’s right to an abortion.

Baldwin lumped Johnson together with Republicans in her home state who have “enabled and continue to support taking women back to 1849 … and keeping them there without the right and freedom to make their own personal choices about their body, their health and their family.”  

Baldwin’s verbal barrage was remarkable because home-state Senate colleagues, even if they’re in different parties, traditionally maintain a political truce so that bruised personal feelings don’t make it tougher for them to work together.  

For example, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, didn’t campaign against Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) when she was a top target in the 2020 election.  

Ohio Sens. Rob Portman (R) and Sherrod Brown (D) and West Virginia Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R) and Joe Manchin (D) haven’t savaged each other on the campaign trail either.  

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) attended rallies for his home-state colleague Sen. Jon Tester’s (D-Mont.) Republican opponent in 2018, but he didn’t criticize Tester in the same pointed manner as Baldwin did Johnson this week.   

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said he campaigned for Senate Democratic candidate Katie McGinty when she ran against his colleague Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in 2016 but emphasized he was careful to focus on McGinty’s talents and qualifications instead of trashing Toomey.  

Baldwin, by contrast, coolly delivered her evisceration of Johnson standing right outside the Senate chamber in the historic Ohio clock corridor at a Senate Democratic leadership press conference, while Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) stood right behind her.  

The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision, earlier this year is a hot button issue across the country and in Wisconsin specifically, where a loss by Johnson would make it tough for the GOP to claw back a Senate majority.

After the ruling, Wisconsin reverted back to an 1849 statute that outlaws abortions even in cases of rape or incest. Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, announced last week that he is calling for a special session of the state legislature in an attempt to repeal the 173-year-old law.  

“The abortion ban in Wisconsin that Sen. Johnson supports is threatening the health and safety of women across my state with delayed and denied care,” Baldwin said. “Let me just close by saying whether it’s Medicare, Social Security, health care, prescription drugs, reproductive health care, we are making it clear to the American people who is on their side and who isn’t.”  

Johnson on Thursday said he wasn’t surprised that Baldwin slammed him at a press conference in the Capitol and blamed her for leaking to The New York Times his text messages to her expressing initial interest in a bill to protect same-sex marriage.   

“Certainly when she released our texts between two senators, that certainly was a breach [of decorum]. It just shows a lack of integrity,” he said.  

The Times reported that Johnson asked Baldwin not to let other Democrats “add anything obnoxious” to the marriage equality bill and texted her a thumbs up emoji when Baldwin said she would try not to do anything to jeopardize the bill’s passage.  

Baldwin initiated the text exchange to write that she was thrilled after hearing that Johnson told reporters that he would not oppose a same-sex marriage bill.

He later said, however, that he would not support the marriage equality bill that Baldwin negotiated with a group of Senate GOP colleagues because he decided that he didn’t like how it was drafted after closer review.  

Johnson described his reelection campaign as a battle “versus lies, distortions, character assassination, the politics of personal destruction.” 

But Johnson insisted the bad blood between he and Baldwin doesn’t affect their ability to work together — albeit at an arms’ length — on issues important to Wisconsin, such as judicial nominees.  

“I sold plastics for 30 years. I’m used to reaction, I have a very thick skin,” he said. “What I’ve told the folks in Wisconsin is I actually want to unify and heal this nation. That’s a goal that President Biden laid out, I think he’s done the exact opposite.” 

While riding an elevator up to the Capitol’s second floor with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), he noted that he worked with her to introduce legislation to reauthorize the opportunity scholarship program in Washington, D.C. And he said he helped pass more than 100 bipartisan and nonpartisan laws as the former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.  

Johnson said any hostility in the relationship with Baldwin is mostly one-sided and directed at himself.  

“I always try to be the adult in the room and try to turn the other cheek,” he said.  

Baldwin told The Hill Thursday that her comments about Johnson were not a breach of Senate collegiality because they were focused on the issues and not personal attacks.  

“I was talking about issues and the positions he’s taken particularly on Medicare and Social Security and Roe and I think home-state senators do that, you know, talk about how they’re different or the same on a variety of issues,” she said.  

Baldwin’s and Johnson’s fraught relationship experienced a moment of harmony in November after the Waukesha Christmas parade attack, when a man rammed dozens of people with his sports utility vehicle.  

The Wisconsin senators released a rare joint statement urging outside groups not to “exploit the tragedy … for their own political purposes.” 

But relations deteriorated a few months later when Johnson blocked Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William Pocan’s nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.  

Baldwin recommended Pocan to fill a vacancy on the court but Johnson refused to let him move, citing the Waukesha tragedy, which he said was “the direct result of soft on crime low bail policies and court orders.” 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel later reported that Pocan didn’t have anything to do with the defendant in the Waukesha case, who was set free in an unrelated domestic violence case on $1,000 bail.

Source: TEST FEED1

Abbott faces pivotal debate amid 2024 chatter

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) will get his moment in the spotlight Friday when he faces off against Beto O’Rourke for the first and only televised debate of the gubernatorial race.

Abbott enters the debate comfortably, leading O’Rourke by roughly 7-8 points in most polls. But the forum also comes amid speculation that Abbott could mount a presidential bid in 2024, as well as reports of a growing rivalry between him and another rising GOP star, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is also up for reelection this year.

With that backdrop, Abbott’s debate performance is one political observers will be watching closely.

“Abbott and DeSantis are both shooting for pole position in the race for the GOP nomination in 2024,” said GOP donor Dan Eberhart, who has contributed to DeSantis. “But it’s still early. A lot can happen in the next year.”

The rivalry between Abbott and DeSantis garnered headlines recently after the Florida governor flew a planeload of migrants from the Lone Star State to the wealthy liberal Massachusetts enclave of Martha’s Vineyard, a move that carried echoes of a gambit that Abbott himself had made.

The Texas governor garnered headlines earlier this year when he sent busloads of migrants from the state’s southern border to Democratic-controlled cities including Washington, New York and Chicago. The move boosted his national profile as immigration once again became a hot-button issue ahead of the midterms, and stoked speculation about his national ambitions as some Republicans mull alternatives to former President Trump for the 2024 presidential race.

Yet DeSantis’s stunt was reportedly not well-received by Abbott and his allies. According to The New York Times, the migrant flight irked Abbott, who hadn’t been notified of the plan beforehand.

“The pre-primary for the governor lane for the 2024 Republican primary is happening now,” Eberhart said. “Abbott spent months planning Texas’s relocation program, and DeSantis sweeps in and grabs the headlines with a single planeload of immigrants.”

The Texas governor’s allies and other Republicans have brushed off the notion that there are tensions between the two. Abbott’s campaign praised his relationship with DeSantis in a statement to The Hill. 

“Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis have a solid working relationship, having worked together on various initiatives through Republican governors organizations,” said Renae Eze, a spokesperson for Abbott. “We’re grateful to Governor DeSantis and other Republican governors who sent law enforcement personnel and resources to help secure the Texas-Mexico border last year after Governor Abbott launched Operation Lone Star.”

“Governor Abbott encourages and welcomes all his fellow governors to engage in this effort to secure the border and focus on the failing and illegal efforts of the Biden-Harris Administration to continue these reckless open border policies,” she continued. “Until President Biden does his job and takes our nation’s border security seriously, this crisis will continue unabated.”

Other observers see it differently, however, noting the obvious parallels between the two governors’ strategies.

“I think you can absolutely tell there is a rivalry,” said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

“They have positioned themselves, they’re posturing in a way that is playing to the Republican base right now, that is playing to the Trumpist concepts in the base,” he continued. “It’s kind of funny how they’re paralleling each other with talking about illegal immigration, about drugs, about Florida values, Texas values, that sort of thing.” 

The states are also similar in that they are large and populous, as well as Republican strongholds. Yet Florida has in many ways become the center of the Republican universe, with Trump holding court at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

DeSantis, meanwhile, saw his own national profile skyrocket after he allowed Florida’s localities to stay open for much of the height of the coronavirus pandemic, lauding the state as an “oasis of freedom.” Republican donors, including Trump donors, have donated heavily to DeSantis’s efforts. 

The Florida governor is also seen as the leading 2024 GOP contender in the case that Trump does not run, according to numerous polls. Abbott has not seen the same kind of 2024 speculation. 

“I don’t think he quite gets the nuances that come with having to make almost immediate pivots when it comes to political issues,” Taylor said, referring to Abbott. “DeSantis is a much smoother, much more polished guy in this respect, and he just seems to be someone who has a much better focus.” 

Eberhart noted that a rivalry between DeSantis and Abbott could potentially benefit Trump in the case that he decides to launch a third presidential bid.

“The more they try to one-up each other, the more they are creating a lane for Trump if he does want to run. Abbott considers DeSantis as Johnny-come-lately, but DeSantis refuses to play that role and has been stepping into Abbott’s spotlight,” Eberhart said “That has to irk Abbott, who is more deliberative than DeSantis. He considers his moves carefully which can be a disadvantage against someone like DeSantis who keeps his own counsel and often moves quickly once he thinks something is a good idea.”

Neither Abbott nor DeSantis have made any announcements regarding future presidential bids, and for the moment, they appear focused on their reelections in their respective states. While Abbott leads O’Rourke in Texas polls, DeSantis is also ahead of former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (D) in most polling out of Florida.

And as Abbott preps for his debate against O’Rourke on Friday, DeSantis is garnering the national spotlight once more as he leads his state’s response to Hurricane Ian.

Abbott’s Texas showdown against O’Rourke on the debate stage is not likely to garner a ton of attention from the general public, given its scheduling on a Friday night in a state where high school Friday Night Lights is almost a religion. 

“It’s not like it’s on a Tuesday evening in a state at 7 p.m. in the state where everybody could tune in and most likely would,” Taylor said.

“And it’s not just high school football, it’s Friday night,” he added. “How many people are going to be sitting in a bar or restaurant this Friday going, ‘oh look, the debate is on’?”

Source: TEST FEED1

How a GOP Congress could impact Trump probes

Congressional Republicans will likely find themselves in a sticky situation next year when it comes to Justice Department investigations of former President Trump should they win control of the House or the Senate in the face of pressure by the ex-president to thwart the work of federal investigators.

Some Republicans have floated defunding parts of the FBI in response to what they call a politically motivated search and seizure at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. An ascension to power also gives the GOP a chance to put a magnifying glass to the Biden administration through congressional hearings and investigations that could also throw some speed bumps into Department of Justice (DOJ) probes.

At a recent rally in Ohio with GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance, the former president complained that he has been “harassed, investigated, defamed, slandered and persecuted like no other president,” and that there has been “political repression unlike anything our nation has ever seen.”

“J.D., you gotta get it stopped,” Trump said.

But taking an ax to funding for Trump probes is unlikely. And congressional investigations may do more to sway the court of public opinion than stop DOJ probes into the former president.

“Some members of Congress could make a bunch of noise, but that’s about it,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official.

Trump is currently at the center of several investigations, two of which are under the Justice Department’s purview.

Federal investigators are digging into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. A number of ex-Trump White House aides have been called before a grand jury — including former counsel Pat Cipollone and Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence — and the department has reportedly seized cellphones belonging to Trump advisers.

The Justice Department is also investigating Trump’s handling of presidential records and classified documents after he departed the White House in January 2021. The FBI executed a search warrant on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August and found scores of classified and top-secret documents that had been sought by the federal government after Trump left office.

Power of the purse

The Mar-a-Lago search spurred calls from some Republican members and GOP commentators to “defund the FBI.” But the logistics of actually defunding DOJ probes into Trump are politically fraught.

It is unlikely that appropriations negotiators would make cuts to the DOJ or FBI that could make it past a Senate filibuster, let alone be signed into law by President Biden. Republicans could theoretically leverage the threat of a government shutdown or need to raise the debt ceiling when negotiating for the cuts, but there does not appear to be a widespread political will among Republicans to play hardball to that extent over perceived politicization at the DOJ.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus has called for bringing back the Holman Rule, which would give more power to individual members by allowing them to propose amendments to appropriations bills that cut the salaries of specific federal workers down to $1, effectively defunding them. The arcane rule has been floated as a potential way to impact the investigations should they target investigators. 

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, suggested at a CPAC Texas event in August, days before the Mar-a-Lago search, that Republicans could use the Holman Rule to “start defunding some of these bad agencies, the FBI, the DOJ.” He did not specifically mention the agencies’ probes into Trump.

House Republicans restored the Holman Rule — which dates back to 1876 and is named after former Rep. William Holman (D-Ind.) — in January 2017 after securing control of the lower chamber, but Democrats nixed the procedural rule two years later when they took back the majority.

“We should be able to take and restrict dollars flowing to a particular bureaucrat who we think is not doing the will of the people or following the law,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the Freedom Caucus, told The Hill.

“Take, for example, [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas; take, for example [Anthony] Fauci; take, for example, other bureaucrats, the administration, but also [Attorney General Merrick] Garland and the FBI and what they’re doing,” he said.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the current chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said Garland and investigations into Trump will be “included” in the conference’s use of the Holman Rule, but emphasized that the group plans to cast a wide net.

“We’re looking to fix the abuse of spending and power at all the federal levels,” Perry said. “It’s everything.”

Pressed on if there will be a particular focus on probes into the former president, he said “it’s not specific to Trump investigations, it’s specific to government overreach and overspending.”

While bringing back the Holman Rule is a priority for the Freedom Caucus, not all Republicans are lining up behind the initiative.

“It may come back, I’m not a big fan of it,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), ranking member on the House Rules Committee, adding that it “tends to personalize politics in ways that are not helpful.”

Shine of the microscope

Republicans have already pledged to use their congressional investigatory authority in response to the DOJ’s probe of Trump.

After the search at Mar-a-Lago, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) promised “immediate oversight” of the DOJ in a GOP majority, arguing that it had “reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” He directed Garland to “preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”

The Justice Department has long responded to congressional inquiries about ongoing investigations by claiming that providing such information could interfere with national security, compromise an investigation or amount to improper political interference.

A GOP-led congressional committee would have broad ability to seek records and testimony as long as there is a legitimate legislative purpose. Congress has typically considered the needs of an agency to keep matters relating to its deliberative process confidential.

Criticism relating to those concerns rose in 2018 after former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), then the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), then the chair of the House Oversight Committee, access to a memo that launched the FBI’s investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign. 

Harry Litman, a law instructor at the University of California at San Diego and former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in an op-ed at the time that the disclosure “could compromise the investigation, unfairly expose uncharged individuals and provide a road map for defendants to sculpt their stories.”

But with different leadership in the DOJ, Litman does not have the same worries about a future Congressional requests. 

“So long as Merrick Garland remains atop the DOJ, the Department will vigorously resist providing any information about pending investigations (as Rosenstein did in 2018),” Litman said. “That includes going to court, where the law is uncontroversially in their favor and they should prevail.”

The Iran-Contra affair provides another notable historical instance of a congressional investigation affecting a federal criminal probe even when the dual investigations had the same target. Former National Security Council aide Oliver North’s 1989 conviction on felony charges were later overturned in part over concerns that testimony he gave to Congress on the condition it would not be used against him was utilized in his trial. 

Multiple experts agreed that there is ultimately little Congress can do through oversight activities to thwart the DOJ. 

David Janovsky, analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, said that while a GOP congressional investigation may add “speed bumps” to DOJ probes into Trump, it cannot alone stop it.

​​Matthew Miller, a former DOJ spokesman and an MSNBC analyst, said that the DOJ would simply refuse to turn over certain information.

“They’re pretty used to litigating these fights with Congress by this point in the D.C. courts,” he said.

Concerns about congressional investigations affecting DOJ probes have already affected GOP investigations into matters concerning Trump. The National Archives and Records Administration, for instance, has declined to share records relating to the Mar-a-Lago search with Republicans on the House Oversight Committee in order “to protect the integrity of the DOJ’s ongoing work.”

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Putin raises stakes with Ukraine annexation plans

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to move forward on Friday with the annexation of four Ukrainian territories in the latest escalation by the Kremlin of its war in Ukraine, sparking outcry from the U.S. and its partners.

Putin will speak at a ceremony in Moscow that comes after a series of referendums in Ukraine that the U.S. and others have denounced as manipulated and preordained by the Kremlin. 

The land grab follows Putin’s warnings about nuclear weapons — raising questions over how Russia will respond to attacks in these territories once declared part of the fatherland. 

“It certainly is Putin’s intention to have us believe that he’s raising the stakes. This is the biggest land grab since the second World War,” said Marshall Billingslea, who served as the special presidential envoy for arms control at the State Department during the Trump administration.

“He’s effectively putting down a marker, and we should expect the Russians to immediately signal that this is now Russian territory, and therefore their threat to escalate applies to any effort to retake these territories by Ukraine or anyone else,” Billingslea added.

The annexation also comes as experts have warned the Russian leader is growing increasingly desperate to turn the tide of the war. 

However, the U.S. has promised that it will not be deterred by the risk of belligerence from Moscow as it claims Ukrainian territory. 

“The true will of the Ukrainian people is evident every day as they sacrifice their lives to save their people and maintain the independence of their country, and in defense of freedom as well,” President Biden said Thursday at a gathering of Indo-Pacific leaders.

“Russia’s assault on Ukraine in pursuit of Putin’s imperial ambitions is a flagrant violation of the U.N. charter and the basic principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

The Kremlin earlier this week announced that a ceremony will take place Friday that will launch a process of annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Putin has largely followed the playbook Moscow used when it annexed Crimea in 2014, after invading and then holding referendums rejected by Ukraine and the West. 

Russian troops occupy parts of all four territories. After a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive earlier this month turned momentum against Russia more than six months after it launched its invasion, Moscow organized the referendums to purportedly determine whether those regions wanted to join Russia.

The United States, Ukraine and international organizations uniformly condemned the referendums as a “sham,” pointing to the presence of Russian troops near voting locations and reports that some soldiers went door to door in an effort to influence or intimidate voters, sometimes at gunpoint.

The official results released by the Kremlin showed around 90 percent or more of voters supporting joining Russia. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement this week the U.S. “does not, and will never, recognize the legitimacy or outcome of these sham referenda or Russia’s purported annexation of Ukrainian territory.”

Still, the move brings even more uncertainty to an already precarious moment in the conflict.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday said any decision by Russia to go forward with the referendum “will further jeopardize the prospects for peace” in the region. 

“It will prolong the dramatic impacts on the global economy, especially developing countries and hinder our ability to deliver life-saving aid across Ukraine and beyond. It is high time to step back from the brink,” Guterres told reporters, according to a readout of the call.

He added that any Russian decision to proceed with an annexation of the four Ukrainian regions would have no legal leg to stand on, “stands against everything the international community is meant to stand for” and “is a dangerous escalation.”

But in Moscow, preparations are already underway for a major celebration in Red Square, where Putin’s spokesperson said he will deliver a major speech and pro-Moscow figures from the claimed annexed regions will sign treaties to join Russia in the Kremlin’s grand St. George’s Hall.

Putin warned in a speech last week that Russia would defend itself against any attack by Ukraine or others on its homeland, making reference to Moscow’s nuclear capabilities. The annexation of Ukrainian territory has triggered debate over whether efforts to reclaim those territories would be viewed as an attack on Russia.

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel on Thursday said annexation would only bring a new round of woes to the Kremlin.

“All options remain on the table when it comes to imposing costs on Russia when it comes to its atrocities and its continued invasion of Ukraine and, of course, its recent report on its sham referenda the efforts around annexation,”  Patel told reporters.

He would not go into details as to options Washington is considering, only noting that America “will continue to use the various tools and levers at our disposal to hold Russia accountable and continue to support the Ukrainian people — and we will never recognize those territories as Russian, they will always be Ukrainian and in Ukraine.”

And the Pentagon announced Wednesday that it will give Ukraine 18 more advanced rocket systems as part of a new $1.1 billion military aid package to the country.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Thursday revealed a new bill that would halt economic and military aid to any country that recognizes the so-called annexed Ukrainian regions.

Putin is “trying to rewrite the map of Europe. He’s trying to do by force of arms what he can’t do by process,” Graham told reporters alongside Blumenthal in a press conference.

Blumenthal called the Russian leader’s actions “a steal” and “another craven brazen tactic by Vladimir Putin to test the West’s support for Ukraine, and we are having none of it.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Judge says Trump can hold off on affirming accuracy of FBI's Mar-a-Lago inventory

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon brushed aside an order from the special master in the Mar-a-Lago case requiring former President Trump to back his claims the FBI planted evidence in his home in an order that also extends the deadline for completing the review.

The order from Cannon comes after Trump’s legal team penned a letter to Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master, complaining his “management plan exceeds the grant of authority from the district court on this issue.”

In Thursday’s order, Cannon agreed with Trump’s team, saying his attorneys would not be required to affirm the accuracy of the FBI’s inventory from Mar-a-Lago before getting a chance to review the records themselves.

“There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the seized materials. … The Court’s Appointment Order did not contemplate that obligation,” Cannon wrote.

Her order also extends the timeline to review the roughly 200,000 pages Trump stored at his home from Nov. 30 until Dec. 16.

The shuffling of deadlines also allows other key filings from the Trump team to land after the midterms.

Cannon sided with a requirement from Dearie for the Trump team to be more specific about what types of executive privilege he wishes to assert over the documents.

Trump’s team must now label each document to claim whether it could be covered by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege, as well as which presidential records he argues are his personal property. 

But his team is not required to make those claims until shortly after the midterm elections. Dearie had required Trump’s team to make those claims on a rolling basis.

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Biden's student borrower forgiveness program updated to exclude private loans

President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was abruptly updated on Thursday to exclude borrowers with privately held federal student loans, according to Education Department guidance.

As of Thursday, borrowers with federal student loans not held by the Education Department are no longer eligible to obtain one-time debt relief by consolidating those loans into Direct Loans, the guidance said.

The department said only borrowers in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program whose loans are held by the federal government are eligible. The FFEL Program, which stopped issuing loans in 2010, was a student loan system that had private banks manage the loans but were guaranteed by the federal government.

Borrowers with privately held loans through the FFEL Program and Perkins Loans who had applied to consolidate into the Direct Loan Program before Thursday — when the administration updated its guidance — are still eligible for one-time debt relief through the Direct Loan Program. 

The Education Department also said it is “assessing whether there are alternative pathways to provide relief to borrowers with federal student loans not held by ED, including FFEL Program loans and Perkins Loans, and is discussing this with private lenders.”

More than 4 million student loan borrowers have privately held loans through the FFEL Program, according to NPR.

Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is set to forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers earning under $125,000 and up to $20,000 for borrowers who received Pell Grants.

Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the plan will cost about $400 billion. It also projected that 90 percent of income-eligible borrowers will apply for debt cancellation. 

The White House pushed back on the report, saying it’s unlikely that 90 percent of eligible borrowers will take advantage of the program.

Biden’s plan also faced the first of its legal challenges this week. 

Six Republican-led states filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the administration in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, arguing the proposal is unlawful because there is no statue from Congress authorizing the cancellation of student loan debt.

Earlier this week, public interest firm Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against the administration, challenging it through a plaintiff who is currently paying off loans and would be subject to an expensive tax in the event of debt relief because he lives in Indiana, one of several states that considers debt cancellation taxable income.

The White House has cited the Heroes Act to justify the forgiveness program when pressed on how it will uphold in court against legal challenges.

The law allows the Education Department to waive or modify statutes or provisions related to student financial assistance programs during war or national emergencies, with the COVID-19 pandemic being a justification for debt cancellation.

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate passes short-term funding bill to avert shutdown

The Senate on Thursday approved a short-term government funding bill, less than two days ahead of a looming shutdown deadline on Friday night.

Senators voted 72-25 to advance the bill, sending the must-pass legislation to the House, where it is expected to pass swiftly before heading to President Biden’s desk for signature. 

“We’re not going to shut the government down,” House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told reporters on late Wednesday, adding she is “ optimistic that we’re going to pass a bill.”

The bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), will temporarily allow the government to remain funded at the current spending levels through mid-December, giving negotiators and leadership more time to work out a larger agreement over how to fund the government for fiscal 2023, which begins on Oct. 1.

The legislation also includes more than $12 billion in security and financial assistance for Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, as well as funding for disaster relief, following a White House request for emergency funding in both areas weeks back. 

However, the package excludes supplemental funding for the nation’s coronavirus and monkeypox, despite a request by the White House for billions, amid staunch GOP opposition.

The passage on Thursday afternoon caps off weeks of drama in the upper chamber, after members on both sides of the aisle came out against a push by Democratic leadership to use the vehicle to advance an energy proposal offered by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Manchin and top Democrats had previously struck a deal to advance the proposal,  which is aimed at speeding up the country’s energy infrastructure projects, as part of a larger agreement to gain his support for the Inflation Reduction Act, a sprawling tax, climate and health care plan passed along party lines last month.

But the proposal, which ​​advocates say would undercut environmental reviews, fell out of the package earlier this week amid opposition from more than a handful of Senate Democrats and a growing number of Republicans that threatened final passage for the overall funding plan. 

Republicans also saw rifts in their own party in recent weeks amid disagreement over how long Congress should put off hashing out new government funding levels, with the November midterm races approaching around the corner.   

A growing number of House conservatives, and some in the Senate, have been pressing for leaders to wait until January to set new funding limits, as GOP hopes swell of taking back control of Congress. 

However, other Republicans have pushed back on the campaign, raising concerns about how putting off new funding levels could hurt agencies and set back the next session of Congress, particularly as the Senate’s top two appropriators are stepping down. 

The heated debate comes as anticipation builds on Capitol Hill around the coming critical midterm elections, which members on both sides say will likely be a major factor in larger funding talks for fiscal 2023.

“Obviously, the results of the midterms will have a lot to do with our ability to get this done,” Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security Chair Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told The Hill ahead of the vote on Thursday. “But with both Senator Shelby and Senator Leahy retiring, I think there’ll be a lot of support within both caucuses to get a budget done before they retire.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden: Hurricane Ian 'could be the deadliest' in Florida's history

President Biden on Thursday warned Hurricane Ian could prove to be the deadliest storm in Florida’s history as it punished swaths of the state with flooding rains and damaging winds. 

“This could be the deadliest hurricane in Florida’s history. The numbers are still unclear, but we’re hearing early reports of what may be substantial loss of life,” Biden said during a visit to Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters for a briefing on the hurricane response. 

“We’re continuing to see deadly rainfall, catastrophic storm surges, roads and homes flooded,” Biden added. “We’re seeing millions of people without power and thousands hunkered down in schools and community centers.” 

Hurricane Ian made landfall on Wednesday as a Category 4 storm, lashing the western coast of the state in particular. But the size of the storm meant that other parts of the state also faced flooding and power outages. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a briefing on Thursday morning said more than 1 million Floridians were without power. DeSantis told reporters that Lee and Charlotte counties were knocked off the power grid and would require rebuilt infrastructure. 

“The amount of water that’s been rising … is basically a 500-year flood event,” DeSantis said. 

Biden spoke with DeSantis earlier Thursday and overnight signed a major disaster declaration to free up additional federal resources and help with temporary housing and home repairs in particular. The president has also been in touch with local leaders in some of the hardest hit areas. 

The president said he would visit Florida to meet with first responders and tour damage once conditions made it possible. He also reiterated his call for major oil companies to bring down the price of gas rather than use the storm as a pretext to raise prices. 

Biden during his visit praised the work of FEMA officials and emergency responders. He told staffers at the agency’s headquarters that their work was helping to reinforce the public’s faith in government institutions as they coordinated disaster relief.  

“At times like this, America comes together. We’re going to pull together as one team, as one America,” Biden said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats scrap plan to vote on stock trading ban before elections

House Democrats have scrapped a tentative plan to move this month on legislation barring lawmakers from trading stocks — a vote sought by some Democrats heading into the midterm elections.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday that there was not enough time for lawmakers to study the details of the proposal, which had been introduced just two days earlier, before the House leaves Washington Friday for the long midterm recess.

“People have to look at it,” Hoyer told reporters gathered in his office in the Capitol.

“It’s an important issue,” he continued, and leaders want the extra time “to make sure that if and when we do something, we do it right.”

The announcement is a departure from comments made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) earlier in the month, when she indicated the negotiations were going well “and we believe we have a product that we can bring to the floor this month.” 

It’s also certain to anger those Democrats who were pressing to vote on a reform proposal — one that’s popular among voters — before November’s elections. Some supporters of the legislation said this week that the true reason the vote was punted was that Democratic leaders simply don’t support the concept of banning lawmakers from owning and trading stocks.  

Pelosi and Hoyer have been among those prominent opponents, noting that federal law already prohibits insider trading and warning that a special ban for members of Congress might dissuade talented people from running for office.

Yet the proposal has gained enormous momentum in the current Congress following revelations that scores of lawmakers have violated existing laws designed to eliminate conflicts of interest between legislators and the investments they pursue. 

Even if no laws are violated, supporters of the ban say, the current system can create the damaging perception lawmakers are trading on information not available to the general public or crafting legislation to boost their own finances.

That pressure from within the caucus forced Pelosi to have a change of heart earlier in the year, when she directed Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chair of the House Administration Committee, to draft a stock ban proposal based on “where the support is in our caucus.” 

After months of negotiations, Lofgren released that proposal on Tuesday night. The wide-ranging legislation prohibits stock trades not only by members of Congress, but also their spouses and dependent children, senior congressional aids, the president, the vice president and high-ranking members of the judicial branch, including Supreme Court justices. 

While some supporters of the bill wanted the opportunity to vote on it before the elections, Lofgren said Thursday that the exact timing of the House vote — before the midterms or after — is insignificant. 

“In a way it doesn’t matter,” she said, “because the Senate’s not gonna be able to act before the election,” she said. 

Mychael Schnell contributed. 

Source: TEST FEED1