Day: January 29, 2023

Washington
CNN
 — 

The trio of Democrats whom House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has targeted for removal from committee assignments offered a unified rebuke in a joint interview on CNN that aired Sunday.

Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, who were stripped of their positions on the House Intelligence Committee, and Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom McCarthy is seeking to oust from the House Foreign Affairs panel, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that the California Republican’s actions were nakedly partisan.

“This is some Bakersfield BS,” Swalwell said in the interview, referring to the speaker’s hometown. “It’s Kevin McCarthy weaponizing his ability to commit this political abuse, because he perceives me, just like Mr. Schiff and Ms. Omar, as an effective political opponent.”

Schiff similarly cast their ouster as “all pretextual” and a result of McCarthy “catering to the most extreme members of their conference.”

“And I don’t accept the premise that this has anything to do with the conduct of any of the Democratic members. This is merely the weakness of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, that he’s so reliant on these extreme members,” Schiff said.

McCarthy has cited a “new standard” from Democrats for why he was stripping Schiff and Swalwell, both fellow Californians, of their Intelligence Committee assignments.

The speaker said in a letter to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that it was his “assessment that the misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congresses severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions – ultimately leaving our nation less safe.” He said he wants the panel to be one of “genuine honesty and credibility that regains the trust of the American people.”

McCarthy specifically targeted Schiff over his handling of the first impeachment of then-President Donald Trump. Among other things, McCarthy said: “Adam Schiff openly lied to the American public. He told you he had proof. He told you he didn’t know the whistleblower.”

Yet there is no evidence for McCarthy’s insinuation that Schiff lied when he said he didn’t know the anonymous whistleblower who came forward in 2019 with allegations – which were subsequently corroborated – about how Trump had attempted to use the power of his office to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, then a looming rival in the 2020 election.

“Apparently he believes I was very effective in exposing his misconduct, Donald Trump’s misconduct. And that’s what they’re trying to stop,” Schiff told Bash. “So, I think that he benefits from having these smears repeated. And that’s part of what he gains from it. But this is a pretext, and nothing more.”

Swalwell, meanwhile, rebuffed GOP claims that he shared sensitive information with a suspected Chinese spy – a charge McCarthy has repeatedly put forward.

“There’s nothing there,” the California Democrat said, noting that the FBI has relayed that “all I did was help them, and, also, I was never under any suspicion of wrongdoing.”

McCarthy was able to use his authority as speaker to unilaterally keep Schiff and Swalwell off the Intelligence panel because it is a select committee. Ousting Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee would require a vote of the full House. If all Democrats vote to oppose the move, it would only take a handful of GOP critics to block McCarthy from moving forward, given House Republicans’ razor-thin majority.

Asked Sunday about her past comments, which were condemned by both sides of the aisle as antisemitic, Omar noted that she had apologized and said she’s hopeful that any vote against her as a result of those comments will fall short.

“I might have used words at the time that I didn’t understand were trafficking in antisemitism. When that was brought to my attention, I apologized, I owned up to it. That’s the kind of person that I am,” the Minnesota Democrat said.

“What I do know is that the two Republicans that have been public and some that have privately said that they are not going to vote to remove me are doing so because they don’t want to be seen as hypocrites,” she added.

Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana said last week that she opposed the push to strip the three Democrats of their committee assignments, stressing the importance of ethics probes before taking disciplinary action against any elected member of Congress. South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace has said she has concerns about the resolution to oust Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. A third Republican, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, has told NBC News he was “opposed to … the removal of Congresswoman Omar from committees.”

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told MSNBC on Sunday that she expects more than five Republicans to vote against removing Omar and suggested “it may never come to a vote” as a result.

“I just want to applaud the Republicans who are doing the courageous thing. And listen, when people are public, and they say publicly that they’re going to vote no – like my friend Ken Buck – courage begets courage. And hopefully this means that others, the dam will break, others will feel like they also can say that they’re going to vote no,” Jayapal said.

This story has been updated with additional reaction.

CNN
 — 

Olesya Krivtsova sports an anti-Putin tattoo on one ankle and a bracelet that tracks her every move on the other.

The 19-year-old from Russia’s Arkhangelsk region must wear the device while she is under house arrest after she was charged over social media posts that authorities say discredit the Russian army and justify terrorism.

Russian officials added Krivtsova to the list of terrorists and extremists, on a par with ISIS, al Qaeda and the Taliban, for posting an Instagram story about the explosion on the Crimean bridge in October that also criticized Russia for invading Ukraine.

Krivtsova, a student at Northern (Arctic) Federal University in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, is also facing criminal charges for discrediting the Russian army for making an allegedly critical repost of the war in a student chat on the Russian social network VK.

Currently, Krivtsova is staying under house arrest in her mother’s apartment in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk region, banned from going online and using other forms of communication.

“Olesya’s case is not the first, nor is it the last,” Alexei Kichin, Krivtsova’s lawyer, told CNN.

Kichin said the teenager may face up to three years in prison for discrediting the Russian army and up to seven years in prison under the article of justification of terrorism. However, Krivtsova’s legal defense hopes for a softer punishment such as a fine.

Independent human rights monitor OVD-Info said at least 61 cases were initiated in Russia in 2022 on the charges of justification of terrorism on the internet, with 26 leading to sentencing so far.

Olesya’s mother, Natalya Krivtsova, says the government is trying to give a warning to the public, with her daughter being in effect “publicly flogged” for not keeping her views to herself.

“We live in the Arkhangelsk region and this is a vast region but too remote from the center. There are no more protests in Arkhangelsk, so they are trying to strangle everything that is left at its early stage,” Natalya Krivtsova told CNN.

A local head of the Communist Party, Alexander Novikov, publicly mocked the teenager on state television, calling her a fool who should be sent to the front lines in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region so that she could “look into the eyes” of the military fighting as part of the Arkhangelsk battalion.

This is not Olesya Krivtsova’s first run-in with the authorities for publicly airing her views. Last May, she faced administrative charges for discrediting the Russian army by distributing anti-war posters.

Matters became more serious when she was accused of discrediting the Russian army on social media last October. According to Krivtsova’s lawyer, a repeat offense under the same article turns into a criminal case.

“She has a heightened sense of justice, which makes her life hard. The inability to remain silent is now a major sin in the Russian Federation,” her mother told CNN.

According to Natalya Krivtsova, police burst into an apartment on December 26 where her daughter was living with her husband Ilya, forcing the young people to lie face down on the ground and allegedly threatening them with a sledgehammer, which the officers told her was a “hello” from the Wagner Group, a private military contractor headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

CNN has reached out to the state police in Arkhangelsk for comment.

“Olesya was very frightened because she saw the video in which a prisoner was killed with a sledgehammer,” her mother told CNN.

In the notorious video referred to by Natalya Krivtsova, mercenaries from the Wagner Group, which actively recruits prisoners, apparently executed a former convict, Yevgeny Nuzhin, with a sledgehammer after he attempted to flee his post. The video description said: “The traitor received the traditional, primordial Wagnerian punishment.”

“The state has some strange policies: prisoners go to war, and children go to prison,” she said.

CNN
 — 

Authorities in southwestern Oregon are warning that a man suspected of kidnapping a woman and beating her unconscious may now be using dating apps to evade capture or find potential new victims, according to police.

The suspect, 36-year-old Benjamin Obadiah Foster, has so far evaded capture but he appears active on online dating services, the Grants Pass Police Department said in a statement Friday.

“The investigation has revealed that the suspect is actively using online dating applications to contact unsuspecting individuals who may be lured into assisting with the suspect’s escape or potentially as additional victims,” Grants Pass Police said.

The search for Foster began Tuesday after officers found a woman who had been bound and severely beaten into unconsciousness, Grants Pass Police said. She was taken to a hospital in critical condition and is being guarded while the suspect remains at large, police said.

The man fled the scene before officers arrived, but investigators identified Foster as the suspect and asked members of the public to call 911 immediately if they see him, warning he “should be considered extremely dangerous.”

Police said Foster “likely received assistance in fleeing the area.” A 68-year-old woman was arrested “for Hindering Prosecution” as authorities searched for the suspect, according to the department.

As the search continues, a $2,500 reward has been offered for information leading to Foster’s capture. Police said he is wanted on suspicion of kidnapping, attempted murder and assault.

Prosecutors accused Foster of attempting to kill the victim “in the course of intentionally torturing” the woman, according to charging documents filed in court and obtained by CNN affiliate KDRV.

“This is a very serious offense – a brutal assault on one of our residents that we take extremely serious and we will not rest until we capture this individual,” Grants Pass Police Chief Warren Hensman said in a news conference Thursday.

This is not the first time Foster has been accused by authorities of violence against women.

Court records in Clark County, Nevada, show that Foster was charged in two different cases years earlier, accusing him of attacking women.

In the first case, Foster was charged with felony battery constituting domestic violence, court documents show. Foster’s ex-girlfriend testified in a preliminary hearing that he had attempted to strangle her in a rage in 2017 after another man texted her.

While that case was still pending in court, Foster was charged with felony assault, battery and kidnapping for allegedly attacking another woman – his girlfriend at the time – in 2019, charging documents show.

The victim told police “Foster strangled (her) to the point of unconsciousness several times” and kept her tied up for most of the next two weeks. She said she was only able to gain her freedom after convincing Foster they needed to go shopping for provisions, and escaped while in a store, according to the court records.

The woman was left with seven broken ribs, two black eyes and abrasions to her wrists and ankles from being tied up, according to a Las Vegas police report.

Foster ultimately agreed to plea deals in the cases, the documents read. He was sentenced to a maximum of 30 months in prison but given credit for 729 days served in the first case.

“Am I troubled by what I know already? The answer is yes,” Hensman said when asked about the previous charges in Nevada.

“We’re laser focused on capturing this man and bringing him to justice,” Hensman said.

CNN
 — 

The West’s decision to finally send tanks to Ukraine has caused some to ask the uncomfortable question: Does this mean that NATO is now in direct conflict with Russia? 

This narrative, which is being pushed hard by the Kremlin, undoubtedly helps Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies deflect from the fact that Russia launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine and illegally occupied parts of a sovereign state.  

It also, perhaps more conveniently for Putin, gives the NATO allies pause for thought when it comes to deciding exactly how much military assistance they should give Ukraine.  

First things first: the consensus among experts is that no NATO member is anywhere near what could be considered to be being at war with Russia by any internationally accepted legal definition. Therefore, the idea that the alliance is at war with Russia is a non-starter.  

“War would require strikes carried out by US or NATO forces, in uniform, attacking from NATO territory against Russian forces, Russian territory, or the Russian populace,” explains William Alberque, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  

“Any fighting by Ukraine – with any conventional weapons, against any Russian forces – is not US/NATO war on Ukraine, no matter how much Russia wants to claim it so,” he adds.  

Alberque points to the United Nations Charter, which states that nothing “shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” 

Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has used its veto to block condemnation of its actions in Ukraine.  

The Kremlin has certainly sought to exploit certain grey areas that are inherent in any modern warfare to incorrectly claim that NATO is the chief aggressor in the Ukraine conflict. 

Those grey areas might include the use of Western intelligence to carry out attacks on Russian targets.

They could also include the US launching the war on terror and invoking NATO’s Article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, in which America was attacked by terrorists rather than a nation state.

Russia’s Security Council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, has claimed that the West is trying to “destroy” Russia. Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, has said that the US administration is pushing Ukraine to “carry out terrorist attacks in Russia.” 

Of course, whatever slim merit there might be to these dubious claims, they pale in comparison to the documented brutality and illegal actions of Russian forces in Ukraine since Putin ordered the invasion. 

But the fact that they exist and are being taken seriously by analysts and commentators outside of Russia, including in Washington DC, plays into the Kremlin’s hands in more ways than one. 

John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine and senior director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, explains that promoting the idea of this being a NATO-Russian war helps explain to Putin’s domestic audience why the invasion has not succeeded as quickly as Russia had hoped. 

“Because the Russian military has been such a failure in Ukraine, it is helpful to explain this as a war with NATO rather than Ukraine. This also helps justify whatever steps Putin might take next, and Russia has been very keen to play up the idea that this might mean going nuclear,” Herbst told CNN. 

Herbst believes that Russia’s information war on the West has been more successful than its military campaign, in the sense that it has caused credible and rational people in Washington, DC to self-deter from backing increased military support to Ukraine because they overstate the prospect of Putin using nuclear weapons, which would be disastrous for Russia too. 

“I can’t tell you how many experts have said we really can’t provide Ukraine with certain weapons because Putin will go nuclear. What we’ve seen in the past six months is Russian think-tankers contacting their colleagues in the West to say that Putin could really do it. Sadly, Washington and Berlin, especially, allowed themselves at times to be deterred by this threat,” he says. 

The reason long-term Putin-watchers think there is little threat of Russia escalating to the point of provoking NATO to respond with force is simply that Moscow knows it couldn’t survive the confrontation. 

“One of the few objectives that the Russian and US leadership share at the moment is avoiding a direct conflict between the two powers,” says Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London. 

“Russia knows that a conventional confrontation with NATO would be over very quickly for them. However, there is some sense in ratcheting up the idea that it is willing to take that risk, if it means it can extract more concessions from the West,” he adds.  

Multiple European officials and NATO sources agreed with the analysis that Putin going nuclear was unlikely, though the possibility had to be taken seriously and avoided. The question is, avoided at what cost? 

Ukraine will very likely continue to ask for more weapons and greater support from its allies the longer the war drags on. Each time, every NATO member will have to weigh up whether or not it’s worth the risk, or if dragging its feet actually plays into the Kremlin’s hands.  

Herbst believes that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has served as a sharp reminder of what dealing with an aggressive Kremlin is like and that Western officials had temporarily forgotten the tactics of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  

“The soft-headedness of the West has happened because we’ve had peace between the great powers for the best part of 30 years,” he says. “We are currently in the process of discovering stuff that we knew in our bones at the height of the Cold War. And the only reason why we are seeing this now is because one of the great powers has decided it doesn’t like the world order that now exists.” 

As the war progresses, the West and NATO are being forced to learn hard lessons in real time.  

But each time Russia warns of escalation – either by itself or NATO – Western capitals must keep sight of the fact: Russia is the aggressor in this conflict and the West is nowhere near being at war with Russia.   

And no matter what noises Kremlin officials make about the West trying to destroy Russia, only one sovereign state has invaded another sovereign state and illegally claimed parts of its territory by force.

CNN
 — 

The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee and select subcommittee on the so-called weaponization of the federal government plan to adopt a rule that will allow Republican members to issue subpoenas without consulting Democrats days ahead of time, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The plan, articulated to GOP members of the select subcommittee by its top Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio during their first meeting Friday, will expedite the subpoena process as both panels move forward with probes of the Biden administration, two of the sources said.

It reflects the “urgency” of Republican plans to investigate the Biden administration on several fronts, the sources added.

A third source told CNN that the move will effectively allow Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee and select subcommittee to unilaterally issue subpoenas.

In doing so, Republicans say they are taking a page from Democrats, including former House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings of Maryland, asserting he had previously waived rules that required members of the opposite party be consulted before subpoenas were issued.

At the time, Republicans slammed Democrats for violating the bipartisan agreement that governs the subpoena process for certain House committees.

Democrats argue that what the Republicans are doing now is a return to the practices employed by Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California, who served as chairman of the House Oversight Committee from 2011 top 2015. Issa used this authority to issue a barrage of unilateral subpoenas to investigate the Obama administration, Democrats say.

The plan to adopt the subpoena rule comes after Friday’s meeting, hosted by Jordan, of the Republicans appointed to serve on the select subcommittee. The appointees discussed how to prioritize their work and how to tackle the many investigations the members want to pursue.

Issa, now a member of the select subcommittee, emerged from the meeting holding a binder full of what he described as “reading material.” He told CNN that Republicans have already scheduled interviews as part of the panel’s work.

Jordan “has given us a road map … some of which is very public, and some of which we’ll discover as time goes on,” he said.

“[Jordan] charged all the members of the committee to come with where they thought there was weaponization, where they believe that the committee should look, and so on,” Issa said. “We have 50, or 47 weeks, ahead of us this year, and the ability to only have so many hearings. But we do have the ability to hold transcribed interviews and depositions – several, which have already been scheduled.”