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Highlights from the latest release of January 6 transcripts

January 2, 2023 Published by



CNN
 — 

The House January 6 committee on Sunday released another wave of witness interview transcripts.

The new release is part of a steady stream of transcript drops from the House select committee in recent days, complementing the release of its sweeping 845-page report.

The latest transcript drop comes as the panel winds down its work with the House majority set to change hands from Democrats to Republicans on Tuesday at the start of the new Congress.

The transcripts released so far have shed new light on how the House committee conducted its investigation of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol – and new details about what key witnesses told the panel.

Here are some of the highlights from the latest disclosures:

Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, provided the select committee with 6,600 pages of email records and approximately 2,000 text messages, according to a transcript of a deposition for which Meadows did not appear in December 2021.

Investigators ran through some of the items they had hoped to ask Meadows about if he had appeared, including a December 2020 email from Meadows stating, “Rudy was put in charge. That was the President’s decision,” according to the committee transcript.

The committee also hoped to ask Meadows about certain passages in his book, specific text message exchanges and his outreach to the Justice Department “encouraging investigations of suspected voter fraud.” The committee also planned to ask Meadows about his communications regarding deploying the National Guard on January 6, “including a January 5th email from Mr. Meadows in which he indicates that the Guard would be present at the Capitol to, quote, ‘protect 153 pro-Trump people,’ end quote.”

The committee similarly convened no-show deposition meetings for former Trump aide Dan Scavino, former Trump administration official Peter Navarro and right-wing media personality Steve Bannon, who previously worked in the Trump White House. The brief transcripts of those meetings document the failure of the witnesses to appear and communications the committee had with the witnesses or their representatives.

In a transcript with Alexandra Preate, who worked as a spokeswoman for Bannon, the committee asked about their text exchanges. In one, the two appeared to be discussing – days after the Capitol was attacked – 1 million people surrounding the Capitol after Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021.

The committee interviewer quotes Bannon’s text as saying, “I’d surround the Capitol in total silence.”

When asked if she and Bannon talked about bringing people back to Washington, DC, even after January 6, Preate said, “I don’t recall that” and it was “not my deal.” Preate also said she believes Trump lost the election.

Read the full transcript of the no-show deposition with Mark Meadows.

Read the full transcript of the interview with Alexandra Preate.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told the committee that the former president called her on January 1, 2021, and asked her about her relationship with then-Vice President Mike Pence.

“I do have a recollection of him asking me what my relationship was with the Vice President, and I said I didn’t know him very well,” McDaniel told the select committee, according to a transcript.

McDaniel said she could not recall if they specifically discussed the role Pence would play in certifying the Electoral College vote five days after that call. But McDaniel said that later on, after the US Capitol attack, Trump conveyed to her privately “in one way or another that, you know, the Vice President had the authority to – I don’t know the correct legal term, but he had the authority to not accept the electors.”

She also said Trump called her on January 7 but they did not talk about the attack.

The panel revealed during its hearings over the summer that Trump called McDaniel directly in December to tell her about the plan for a group of states to submit alternate slates of electors and connected her to his elections lawyer John Eastman, but her full transcript reveals more details about what was shared between the RNC, Trump White House and the Trump campaign at the time.

In the lead-up to January 6, McDaniel testified that she did not know that the alternate slates of electors were being considered for anything other than contingent electors in case legal challenges changed state election results. She added she was not privy to a lot of those discussions and that she was going through ankle surgery around the time of the Capitol attack.

McDaniel told committee investigators that after that December call, she called the Trump campaign’s counsel Justin Clark, who gave her the impression that the campaign was aware of the so-called alternate elector plan and was working on it. She also testified that on December 14, when she was informed that false electors met, she sent a note to former Trump White House aide Molly Michael.

As for fundraising emails from the RNC about the 2020 election, McDaniel said the RNC worked closely with Clark but that once Giuliani took over Trump’s legal efforts, he “was doing his own thing and didn’t really reach out to the RNC.”

Read the full transcript of the interview with Ronna McDaniel.

A Trump campaign attorney described to the committee a request by Giuliani to be paid $20,000 per day for his post-election legal work – a request that Giuliani has denied making.

Matthew Morgan, who was general counsel for former President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, described to the committee how the campaign handled requests by Giuliani and his team – which took over the campaign’s litigation strategy in mid-November 2020 – to bring on outside attorneys and firms.

“Rudy Giuliani himself, he requested an engagement letter, and he requested through a surrogate what was viewed as a large amount of compensation,” Morgan said, according to a transcript of an April interview that was made public Sunday.

“And when I presented this to (Trump deputy campaign manager) Justin Clark, Justin Clark didn’t think that was a number the campaign was willing to pay and I relied on then Justin to tell me if we could do such an engagement letter and then it never materialized.”

Morgan told the House committee the ask was made via an associate of Giuliani’s, Maria Ryan, and that it was for $20,000 per day. He declined to answer further questions from the committee about the pushback from the campaign to the request.

CNN previously reported that Giuliani was asking for $20,000-per-day in November 2020, citing a source. At the time, Giuliani denied to The New York Times that he was seeking that figure.

Read the full transcript of the interview with Matthew Morgan.

Trump White House aides offered conflicting accounts of how the former president reacted when he learned he would not be taken to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

While Cassidy Hutchinson, in her testimony, described Trump’s reaction as an angry outburst, Robert “Bobby” Engel – the lead agent in Trump’s motorcade the day of the riot – apparently told others in the White House that Trump simply “shrugged it off” when he was told he would not be taken to the Capitol.

When Engel returned to the White House after Trump’s January 6 speech, he stopped by the office shared by former White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato and William “Beau” Harrison, the special assistant to the president for operations.

“It was brought to our attention that the President asked where am I going. You know, am I going – am I going back to the White House. And Bob said, yeah, you know, we’re going back to the White House,” Harrison told committee investigators in an August 2022 interview, according to the transcript.

“And at that point I have a specific memory of Bobby telling both Tony and myself, as we were in the room, no one else was in the room, that the President almost kind of shrugged it off,” Harrison told the committee. “He just kind of moved on.”

Harrison told congressional investigators he had never heard of a heated argument in the vehicle until he saw Hutchinson’s testimony on television. “I would also add that, if something like had been described had occurred, I 100 percent would have known about it and would have heard that.”

When Hutchinson testified, Harrison got a call from Ornato. Ornato said, essentially, “Can you believe this?” and “Where is this story even coming from,” according to Harrison’s committee transcript.

Notably, Harrison told investigators he was not paying for his legal representation and was not sure who was footing the bill.

Harrison’s attorney for his committee interview was Stefan Passantino, who previously represented Hutchinson and allegedly encouraged Hutchinson to provide misleading testimony. Passantino has insisted he represented Hutchinson “honorably” and “ethically.”

Read the full transcript of the interview with Beau Harrison.

Kenneth Chesebro – the Trump attorney described by the House January 6 committee as the architect of the post-2020 election fake electors scheme – declined to answer the bulk of the panel’s questions in an October deposition, according to a transcript.

Chesebro invoked both his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as well as attorney-client privilege when asked questions about a variety of topics, including his interactions with Trump, his role in the plot to put forward Trump electors to rival the Biden electors in states that Biden won and the push to have Pence disrupt Congress’ certification of Biden’s win.

“I believe my Fifth Amendment privilege covers this entire subject matter in terms of any involvement with the alternate electors,” Chesebro said at one point in the deposition. At its start, his lawyer referenced the criminal probes in Fulton County, Georgia, and by the Justice Department, which are both looking closely at the fake electors scheme.

Chesebro did answer some of the committee’s more abstract questions about how he learned of the legal questions that shaped the theories he promoted after the 2020 election. However, citing the Fifth Amendment, he refused to say whether he went to the White House on December 16, 2020, as suggested by an email obtained by the committee, or if he was in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

He also refused to confirm that he was the Kenneth Chesebro listed on some emails obtained by the committee that investigators sought to ask him about.

“I think I would take the Fifth in terms of authenticating a document that is related to the subject matter as to which I’m taking the Fifth,” he said.

Read the full transcript of the interview with Kenneth Chesebro.

As rioters were breaking into the Capitol on January 6, Trump called his executive assistant, Molly Michael, to ask her what she thought and she described the scene that was unfolding, according to a transcript of her interview with the committee.

“The President of the United States in the middle of a riot at the Capitol calls you and asks you what you think, not what you see but what you think, and you don’t recall what you told him other than just reporting what was on TV?” investigators asked.

“The TV is very large, and the coverage was on probably all four of the stations. So that was really all I was seeing,” Michael said. “The images I was seeing is the predominant memory I have.”

Committee investigators pressed her for more details on how Trump reacted during their call.

“You don’t remember him expressing any distress, any frustration, any anger, any anything. Is that right?” investigators asked.

Michael responded, “The phones were ringing. A lot was happening. I don’t recall.”

Michael’s lengthy interview transcript was heavy with moments she did not recall, such as Trump’s demeanor at the end of the day on January 6.

When congressional investigators asked Michael if she was aware in the run up to January 6 of a “very serious, acrimonious conflict” between Trump and Pence, Michael said she couldn’t recall but there were often heated conversations playing out in the Oval Office.

Her committee interview also revealed more details about Trump’s activities the night before the Capitol attack, when he was apparently directing his assistant to share election fraud claims with GOP senators.

Trump directed Michael to send Sens. Lindsey Graham and Josh Hawley a document entitled “The Art of the Steal” – apparently authored by Navarro – on the evening of January 5, according to emails investigators reviewed with Michael during her committee interview.

Congressional investigators asked Michael about the emails, which she sent on Trump’s behalf with the subject line “From POTUS.”

Read the full transcript of the interview with Molly Michael.

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A Consequential Year for the US Supreme Court 

January 2, 2023 Published by

USA – Voice of America 

In January, 83-year-old liberal Justice Stephen Breyer announced he was stepping down from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of the term.

The announcement paved the way for President Joe Biden to deliver on a long-touted campaign promise to put the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Harvard-educated federal judge who once clerked for Breyer, was confirmed by the Senate in April. At 52, she could help shape the court for decades to come.

But Jackson’s trailblazing elevation to the Supreme Court did not change its ideological balance. Through three appointments by former President Donald Trump, the nine-member high court remains dominated by six Republican-appointed justices who often vote as a bloc on hot-button issues such as abortion and gun rights.

From ending the constitutional right to abortion in June to weighing an end to affirmative action in college admissions in October, 2022 has been a consequential — and controversial — year for the court. The year straddled the end of one term and the beginning of another.

Although the court sometimes returns to a period of relative quiet following a term of big cases, this has not been the case this year.

In a string of 6-3 decisions during the term that ended in June, the court ended the constitutional right to abortion, limited the government’s ability to fight climate change and expanded gun rights.

Abortion

In a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, justices overturned nearly half a century of Supreme Court precedent.

For many conservatives, the decision came down to whether the right to abortion constitutes an “unenumerated right,” meaning a right that is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution but has nonetheless been recognized by the Supreme Court.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said unenumerated rights are those that are “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition,” and that the right to abortion is not among them.

The Dobbs ruling represented the culmination of a decadeslong conservative campaign against the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe decision.

“I would resist the characterization of the decisions as ideologically based as opposed to jurisprudentially based,” said Joel Alicea, an assistant professor of law at the Catholic University of America and a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

“I think that at the end of the last term and going into this term, we are seeing a significant shift in the direction the court is taking in its approach to constitutional adjudication. And that shift is more toward history and tradition and text-based approaches to constitutional adjudication and away from judge-empowering balancing tests in a lot of different areas of law,” Alicea said.

But liberal constitutional scholars say the conservative wing’s approach to jurisprudence makes its rulings in Dobbs and other high-profile cases no less radical.

“What they’re saying is they’re justifying their radical departures by suggesting that they’re based in something other than precedent, stare decisis, and a long-standing understanding of what our Constitution has meant,” said Caroline Fredrickson, a visiting professor at Georgetown Law Center and a senior fellow at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice. “I think especially once you start adding the word ‘tradition,’ it becomes extremely malleable.”

In Dobbs, Fredrickson noted, Alito cites 13th-century English cleric Henry de Bracton on “whether women in the United States of America in the 21st century should have the right to control their bodies.”

“That’s radical, and I don’t know where a 13th-century theologian sits in terms of our constitutional understandings, but it’s not part of the original understanding,” Fredrickson said.

The abortion decision has sparked concerns that the high court could undo other protections such as the right to same-sex marriage.

Upcoming rulings

While no one expects the Supreme Court to overturn its 2015 ruling on same-sex marriage anytime soon, observers expect the justices to strike down other precedents.

In the two months since the term started in October, the justices have heard oral arguments on affirmative action, congressional redistricting, the intersection between gay rights and free speech, and a constitutional interpretation known as the independent legislature theory.

The affirmative action dispute before the court involves lawsuits brought against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina by a group called Students for Fair Admission.

The lawsuit against Harvard claims the university’s admissions policy discriminates against Asian American applicants, while the UNC complaint makes a similar claim on behalf of white students.

The Supreme Court has previously ruled that colleges and universities can use race as a factor in their admissions decision-making as part of an effort to build a diverse student body. But during oral arguments in late October, the court’s six conservative justices questioned the court’s precedents on affirmative action, suggesting they’re inclined to vote down the practice.

Another case that is likely to lead to a conservative outcome pits a Colorado web designer against the state.

Lorie Smith, a devout Christian, says she wants to build wedding websites but only for opposite-sex couples and wants an exemption from Colorado’s anti-discrimination law that mandates equal treatment for all people in public accommodations.

Allowing her an exemption, Colorado argued, could lead to other forms of discrimination.

But the court’s conservative wing appeared unconvinced, suggesting that forcing the web designer to build websites for gay couples would violate her First Amendment right to free speech.

Not all conservative causes are likely to receive the court’s imprimatur. One case is centered on the so-called independent legislature theory.

The theory holds that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures nearly unfettered power to regulate federal elections without any oversight from state courts.

During oral arguments earlier this month, however, a majority of the justices appeared unwilling to embrace the theory, despite some support from several conservatives on the bench.

Reshaping the law

The high court’s conservative rulings have led some critics on the left to disparage it as the “radical Trump court.”

But when it comes to the litigious former president, the court has exhibited a degree of independence.

In October, it rejected a request by Trump that an independent auditor be allowed to review classified documents seized by the FBI from his Mar-A-Lago estate. And in November, the court rejected an attempt by Trump to prevent Congress from obtaining his tax records as part of an investigation.

“I think any suggestion that they are beholden in some way to the former president is clearly wrong and without any foundation,” Alicea said.

Fredrickson said the court’s rejection of Trump’s requests suggests they are “more independent than they are” perceived to be.

“I think they are, however, embarked on this project to radically reshape our law, and it really is irrelevant whether they support Trump or not,” Fredrickson said.

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Family of suspected Idaho killer speaks out, ‘Avengers’ star hospitalized and more top headlines

January 2, 2023 Published by

Latest & Breaking News on Fox News 

‘PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE’ – Family of man charged in murders of Idaho students breaks their silence. Continue reading …

MEXICO MAYHEM – Gunmen in armored vehicles kill 14, injure dozens in attack on prison near El Paso, Texas. Continue reading …

HOT TAKES – Legacy media plagued by scandals, gaffes and clear bias in 2022. Continue reading …

JEREMY RENNER HOSPITALIZED – ‘Avengers’ star reportedly in ‘critical but stable’ condition after snow plowing accident. Continue reading …

HIGH GROUND – Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal explain four paradoxes of health care reform. Continue reading …

–

SPEAKER ROLE NOT CLINCHED – GOP faces delay in unlocking full powers of House if McCarthy cannot clinch speakership. Continue reading …

‘DATABASE ERROR’ – Rep.-elect George Santos faces scrutiny over campaign filings. Continue reading …

ELECTION CYCLE – Chicago chooses a mayor, states vote on legislatures in contentious upcoming races. Continue reading …

NEW YEAR, NEW LAWS – Dozens of states see new laws on abortion, minimum wage take effect in 2023. Continue reading …

Click here for more cartoons…

TIME FAIL – CNN New Year’s Eve spectators take to social media when network misses midnight. Continue reading …

POLITICAL TIME BOMBS – Go Woke, Go Broke? Liberal movies, books, TV that bombed in 2022. Continue reading …

‘WORK ETHIC YOU COULDN’T DENY’ – Joy Behar pays tribute to ‘The View’ founder Barbara Walters. Continue reading …

HIGH-PRICED HISTORY – Teddy Roosevelt’s Smith & Wesson revolver fetches big bucks at auction. Continue reading …

‘EMOTIONALLY CONNECT’ – Celebrity fitness trainer shares best way to stick to 2023 goals. Continue reading …

‘AFFIRMS SCRIPTURE’ – Cherished biblical site where Jesus performed miracle will open to public for first time in 2,000 years. Continue reading …

DEPARTED – Modest Mouse drummer, co-founder Jeremiah Green, dead at 45. Continue reading …

 

WATCH: Border crisis a ‘complete catastrophe’ on national security, humanitarian scales: Monica De La Cruz. See video …

WATCH: Rep. Darrell Issa says there’s no alternative’ to Kevin McCarthy: He’s ‘earned’ the speakership. See video …

 

What’s it looking like in your neighborhood? Continue reading…

  

  

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Trust Issues Becoming the Norm

January 2, 2023 Published by

USA – Voice of America 

For decades, if not longer, intelligence agencies worldwide have worried about disinformation, whether from adversaries or their own efforts to influence others.

It was persistent, and at times pitched, though it was not often on the minds of everyday people.

In 2022, however, that seems to have changed.

“In this age of misinformation — of ‘fake news,’ conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls and deepfakes — gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time,” the Merriam-Webster English language dictionary announced in November, naming it the official word of the year. 

Online searches of the word, which means “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage,” jumped by 1740% throughout the year, the dictionary said, noting consistent interest in the word and modern efforts at deception.

In the United States, such concerns consistently dominated the public discourse, starting with President Joe Biden’s appeal to defend democracy on the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies?” he asked.

“We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation,” Biden said. “The way forward is to recognize the truth and to live by it.”

The U.S. president’s comments came just weeks after U.S. Homeland Security officials warned of ongoing — and more volatile — efforts by foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations to seed the country with disinformation. 

And those concerns grew as Russia prepared for its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia – Ukraine

“We’re seeing Russian state media spouting off now about alleged activities in eastern Ukraine,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in late January, as 100,000 Russian troops took up positions along Ukraine’s border.

“This is straight out of the Russian playbook,” Austin said of the Russian disinformation efforts. “And they’re not fooling us.”

By mid-February, senior U.S. Homeland Security officials were warning that Moscow had fine-tuned its disinformation operations, “trying to lay the blame for the Ukraine crisis and the potential escalation in that conflict at the feet of the U.S.”

Russian disinformation efforts took another turn in the days following the invasion, according to U.S. defense officials, with the Kremlin publicizing false reports about the widespread surrender of Ukrainian troops to erode Ukrainian morale and resistance. 

Russian-government affiliated news outlets also sought to use the war in Ukraine to boost Moscow’s standing in Africa, amplifying accounts in late February and early March of Africans and other people of color being subjected to racism as they sought to evacuate.

Other Russian disinformation campaigns focused on claims the U.S. was running biological weapons labs in Ukraine and on efforts to undermine Western support for Ukraine by targeting countries perceived as weak links. 

Countercampaigns

Russia’s disinformation efforts and influence campaigns, however, did not go unanswered.

Even before the first Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine in February, U.S. intelligence officials made a decision to fight disinformation with evidence and facts, taking the unprecedented step to declassify assessments to share with allies and even the public.

“The work that we’ve done, and it’s not without risk as an intelligence community to declassify information, has been very effective,” CIA Director William Burns told lawmakers in early March.

“We hopefully can provide some credible voice of what is actually happening,” added U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. “That’s both for the domestic population, but that’s also for the international audience.”

Other Western countries and allies of Ukraine followed with pushback of their own.

In early March, the European Union banned broadcasts and websites affiliated with Russian state-funded media outlets. 

Ukraine also ran its own counter-disinformation efforts, targeting audiences in Russia and Belarus, hoping to sow doubts and erode support for Moscow’s invasion.

“I’m not realistic about changing their minds,” Heorhii Tykhy, with Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, said during a virtual forum in March, though he added that overall, Kyiv was “winning this information war and winning it massively.”

U.S. domestic fears

At the same, the U.S. intelligence agencies and their Western allies were focused on Russia’s disinformation efforts surrounding Ukraine, U.S. Homeland Security efforts were focused on disinformation at home.

In June, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reissued a National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin, citing the pervasive disinformation environment, much of it originating in the U.S., as a key concern.

“It’s really the convergence of that myth and disinformation with the current events that creates those conditions that we’re concerned about in terms of mobilization to violence,” a senior DHS official said at the time.

Some of those fears had already manifested a month earlier when 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who consumed online conspiracy theories, shot and killed 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

Other acts of violence across the U.S., such as the shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado in November, an attack against the husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a rash of threats against religious institutions, also had links of various sorts to the online disinformation environment.

“One of the things we’ve seen with violent extremist ideologies is that they often commingle or cross over,” a second senior DHS official said this past November. “It just contributes to an environment where individuals … might grab on to those narratives in a way that motivates and animates their violent or potentially violent activity.”

U.S. elections

Some of the most targeted disinformation efforts, though, centered on the U.S. midterm elections in November.

“We are concerned malicious cyber actors could seek to spread or amplify false or exaggerated claims of compromise to election infrastructure,” a senior FBI official said in early October.

Other senior U.S. officials warned that adversaries like Russia, China and Iran would seize upon false narratives, originating in the U.S., questioning the integrity of the electoral process, and seek to amplify them.

Researchers also found evidence that Russia and China, in particular, had resurrected dormant social media accounts as part of intensified disinformation campaigns to spread doubts about the U.S. election.

And as the election neared, top U.S. officials called the threat of foreign influence operations and disinformation sparking violence a “significant concern.”

In the end, fears of potential violence never materialized into actual incidents, though U.S. officials did find themselves pushing back against domestic and largely partisan efforts to take scattered malfunctions and cast them as evidence of a larger conspiracy.

 

A report by the cybersecurity firm Mandiant concluded that in the end, efforts by Russia, China and Iran, some targeted specific contests but were mostly “limited to moderate in scale.”

A number of experts warn the threat of election disinformation is here to stay.

Future disinformation threats

“Narratives like the Big Lie have become systemic,” Graham Brookie, senior director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, said about former President Donald Trump’s disproven claims that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen from him.

“[There is] not a huge amount of audience growth on that narrative, but for the audiences and communities that are engaged in and believe in that narrative, their engagement has gone up and become more hardened,” Brookie told VOA.

Some U.S. lawmakers are likewise warning the threats are not dissipating.

“After each election cycle, social media platforms like Meta often alter or roll back certain misinformation policies, because they are temporary and specific to the election season,” Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote in a letter to the social media giant December 14.

“Doing so in this current environment, in which election disinformation continuously erodes trust in the integrity of the voting process, would be a tragic mistake,” they added. “Meta must commit to strong election misinformation policies year-round, as we are still witnessing falsehoods about voting and the prior elections spreading on your platform.”

Other lawmakers are looking at social media apps from China and Russia, calling for some, such as TikTok, to be banned in the U.S.

“TikTok is digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news,” Republican Representative Mike Gallagher said in a statement regarding a bill designed to block such apps.

“This isn’t about creative videos,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee said in a statement regarding TikTok.

“This is about an app that is collecting data on tens of millions of American children and adults every day. We know it’s used to manipulate feeds and influence elections,” he said. “We know it answers to the People’s Republic of China.”

Anita Powell contributed to this report.

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Biden’s border crisis: Our immigration courts have a 2,023,441 case backlog and it’s more than we can handle

January 2, 2023 Published by

Latest & Breaking News on Fox News 

The Border Patrol had more than 2.2 million encounters with illegal crossers between ports of entry on the Southwest border in fiscal 2022.

A recent report from the DHS Inspector General indicates that most of the illegal crossers are not put in detention facilities or expelled under Title 42, but rather are processed for outcomes allowing them to be released into the United States to wait for immigration hearings. This has overwhelmed the immigration courts.

The immigration court backlog was 1,262,765 cases at the end of fiscal 2020, which was the last full fiscal year of the previous administration. Under the current administration, it has risen to 2,023,441 cases as of the end of November 2022.

ICE DEPORTATIONS REMAINED WELL BELOW TRUMP-ERA LEVELS IN FY 2022, AMID HISTORIC BORDER CRISIS

Almost 800,000 of them have submitted asylum applications and are waiting for an asylum hearing. The average wait from when an application is filed to when an applicant’s case will be heard is 1,572 days, or 4.3 years.

Moreover, many others have been allowed to enter the United States to wait for an asylum hearing but have not filed an asylum application yet. And the number of asylum seekers is likely to increase greatly when Title 42 is terminated. 

The administration seems to want to deal with this problem by finding faster ways to adjudicate the applications instead of admitting fewer asylum seekers to give the immigration court a chance to catch up. 

For instance, on May 28, 2021, the administration announced a new Dedicated Docket which is supposed to expeditiously and fairly make decisions on the immigration cases of newly arrived families who are apprehended between ports of entry at the Southwest Border. INA §1325(a) provides that such entries are crimes subject to imprisonment for up to two years. 

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says in the announcement that, “Families who have recently arrived should not languish in a multi-year backlog; today’s announcement is an important step for both justice and border security.”

He is referring to newly arriving families, not the families who already are languishing in the multi-year backlog. 

The announcement concludes that while “the goal of this process is to decide cases expeditiously, fairness will not be compromised.” 

Dedicated Dockets are not new or fair. 

The Obama and Trump administrations also had Dedicated Dockets for newly arriving migrants to prevent them from having to wait a long time for a hearing. 

The Vera Institute of Justice claims that as prior efforts to use expedited dockets have demonstrated, Dedicated Dockets do not provide due process. Court records for a two-year period during the Obama administration show that it was rare for an unrepresented family in Dedicated Docket proceedings to file the papers needed to seek asylum or other forms of relief from deportation. Only 1 in 15 (6.5 percent) managed to do this without representation. 

According to a recent TRAC report, more than 110,000 cases have been assigned to the current administration’s Dedicated Docket, and nearly 40,000 of them have been completed. The vast majority (83%) of the completed cases were closed within 300 days from the date of receiving a Notice to Appear in removal proceedings.

But a price must be paid for doing this. Georgetown Law School Professor Paul Schmidt points out that when Dedicated Docket judges are not available to hear cases on the general docket, it places extra burdens on their judicial colleagues who are handling the general docket cases. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

And taking judges away from the general docket to serve on the Dedicated Docket also reduces the number of judges who are available for doing cases that would reduce the backlog.

TRAC found that only 34% of the families whose cases have been completed had representation, and few families without representation have been able to complete the paperwork required for filing an asylum application.

Overall, only 2,894 out of 39,187 families who had hearings in fiscal 2022 were granted asylum. The cases in which asylum was granted represent just 7.4% of the completed cases. 

The Vera Institute of Justice would address this problem by providing representation for every migrant in Dedicated Docket proceedings. According to the Institute, “No immigrant should be forced to go through immigration court proceedings without legal defense.”

Is that even possible? And if it is possible, who is going to pay for it? INA §1229a(b)(4), which provides that migrants have the “privilege of being represented” in removal proceedings, specifies that it must be “at no expense to the Government.” 

Frankly, I think the main problem is that the administration is flooding our already overwhelmed immigration court with a tsunami of illegal crossers who claim that they are asylum seekers. 

The attempt to relieve the immigration court’s backlog crisis with a Dedicated Docket didn’t work for the Obama administration and it isn’t working for the current administration either.

 

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Trump, McCarthy, Biden: Six political storylines that will shape 2023

January 2, 2023 Published by

Just In | The Hill 

After a 2022 that saw Democrats celebrate passing key parts of their agenda and defy expectations in the midterms, the next year is set to bring about change in Congress and set the table for another big election year.

Tuesday will see the swearing in of a divided Congress. The 2024 presidential field will take shape as Republicans mull whether to take on former President Trump, while President Biden’s own future takes center stage for Democrats. And the Supreme Court could once again reshape the political arena with major rulings.

Here are six storylines to watch that will shape the year ahead.

Trump’s place in the GOP 

Former President Donald Trump enters 2023 as politically vulnerable as he’s been since leaving the White House two years ago.

Trump’s highest profile midterm endorsements flopped, recent polls have shown many voters are ready to move on and his 2024 candidacy has thus far been marred by controversies around his dinner with a white nationalist and calls to suspend the Constitution to redo the 2020 election.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made clear he’s ready to move past Trump, predicting a crowded 2024 presidential field and describing Trump’s clout as “diminished.”

Trump is also facing the prospect of legal peril heading into the new year, with the Justice Department investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and his handling of classified materials that he took with him to his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving the White House.

At the same time, Trump is the only declared candidate in the 2024 field, and he retains a formidable and energetic base that gives him a solid floor of support in a GOP primary. He also has plenty of allies on Capitol Hill, including House Republican leadership.

Of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over Jan. 6, only two will be in the next Congress after the rest either retired or lost primaries to Trump-aligned challengers.

Some in the party worry a third Trump presidential nomination could cost the GOP a shot at the White House in 2024. The battle within the GOP over Trump’s future will hover over nearly all the party does in 2023.

The rise of DeSantis

For Republicans hoping to move past Trump, all eyes in 2023 will be on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

DeSantis’ star rose in the conservative movement in 2022 like few others as he became a prominent foil to the Biden administration on COVID-19, LGBTQ+ issues and immigration. And his re-election romp in November cemented his status as a political force in Florida.

Many Republicans seeking a viable alternative to Trump believe DeSantis can carry on the former president’s brand of politics without all the baggage. A recent USA Today-Suffolk University poll found 56 percent of GOP and GOP-leaning voters would back DeSantis, compared to 33 percent who would support Trump.

Experts believe DeSantis could announce a 2024 bid sometime this summer after the Florida legislative session is out. 

If he does so, DeSantis will face growing scrutiny as a candidate for national office. Trump is likely to go on the attack, and Democrats would almost certainly highlight DeSantis’ comments on vaccines and policies targeting discussion of gender and sexuality in the classroom to paint him as unfit for higher office.

Trump administration veterans such as former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley may also get into the 2024 contest, putting further pressure on DeSantis to solidify himself among voters outside of Florida and adding to the odds that a fractured field would ultimately benefit Trump.

Biden’s age and strength with Democrats

President Biden is entering 2023 with significant momentum after a slew of legislative achievements – many bipartisan – during his first two years in office.

Biden has said he will decide early in the new year about a re-election bid, but many Democrats and officials around the White House expect the president to seek another term.

Despite his successes, Biden will face questions, including from some in his own party.

Many candidates steered clear of Biden ahead of the midterms as Democrats overperformed expectations. He is 80 and is prone to the occasional high-profile gaffe, such as when he called out a congresswoman at a September White House event who’d died months earlier. 

Biden will also have to navigate a divided Congress for the next two years, making the odds of any major legislative achievements slim and testing his foreign policy on matters like support for Ukraine. And the GOP-led House is likely to go on the attack, probing his administration over its withdrawal from Afghanistan, its immigration policies and potentially Hunter Biden’s financial dealings.

Polls still show many voters do not want to see Biden run for another term. A CNN poll conducted in December found 59 percent of registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would like to see someone other than Biden be the party’s 2024 nominee. 

But Biden and his team have spent the last several years defying conventional wisdom and punditry, and believe strongly that his old-school brand of politics resonates with voters, especially outside of the Washington, D.C., bubble.

If in 2023 Biden is able to navigate a divided Congress, continue to strengthen the economy and avoid a recession while maintaining support at home and abroad for Ukraine, he will have a strong case that he is the only choice for Democrats to put atop the ballot in 2024.

McCarthy and the GOP

The year will begin with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) trying to win the Speaker’s gavel, something that has been no easy task in the weeks leading up to the new Congress.

McCarthy’s strength with his own caucus will be put to the test on Jan. 3. Even days before the vote, McCarthy still does not appear to have the 218 votes needed to secure the speakership as he scrambles to make concessions that appeal to hardline conservatives.

Whether it is McCarthy or some alternative candidate who has yet to emerge who holds the Speaker’s gavel, the year in Congress will be shaped largely by how Republicans govern in the House with a very slim majority.

McCarthy has pledged to remove certain Democrats, like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), from committee assignments. He has vowed to investigate Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and create a select committee on China. And he has said Republicans will seek to roll back IRS funding and other key provisions of Democrats’ signature climate and health care bill that was passed in August.

The incoming House majority also features a number of skeptics of funding for Ukraine as it seeks to fend off a Russian invasion. The White House and top Senate Republicans have said they will continue to stand with Ukraine, but House GOP opposition could complicate matters.

Strategists and donors believe the House GOP majority must show the party is capable of governing, not merely opposing Biden, in order to create a strong argument for Republicans to retake the White House in 2024.

House Democrats begin life after Pelosi 

For the first time in 20 years, Democrats will be led in the House by someone other than Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who will remain in Congress but will not serve in leadership.

It is a remarkable changing of the guard for a party that will also be grappling with serving in the minority for the first time since 2017.

Hakeem Jeffries, the 52-year-old New Yorker, will be tasked with managing a fractious caucus with diverse views, including a left-wing that has grown in numbers and influence in recent years. 

Democrats will also be tasked with filling the fundraising void left by Pelosi, who was prodigious in her ability to bring in money for the party as its leader. 

Jeffries and the rest of the revamped House Democratic leadership team will narrowly be in the minority, serving as a foil to the GOP majority and defending the White House against investigations while pushing for potential areas of bipartisan agreement.

A subplot will be the growing influence of the progressive wing of the party, which has allies in the White House and which has steadily grown its numbers in the four years since members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) were first sworn-in.

Supreme Court poised to shift landscape again

The Supreme Court delivered a political earthquake in 2022 when it overturned the abortion protections established under Roe v. Wade, and it could create additional seismic shifts in 2023 with a slew of high-profile cases on the docket.

The court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, already heard arguments but has yet to rule in a case over whether Alabama’s 2021 redistricting plan violates the Voting Rights Act by drawing just one majority-Black district. The eventual decision could reverberate for years to come through redrawn congressional districts and as voting rights emerges as a key pillar of the Democratic platform.

The justices similarly already heard arguments in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case in which the court must determine what is covered under the Clean Water Act. Depending on the ruling, it could have major ramifications for which properties are subject to certain environmental regulations at a time when the White House is focused on combating climate change.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the coming year on cases regarding affirmative action in college admissions that could reshape the discussion around that process for years to come, as well as arguments from plaintiffs who have claimed President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is unconstitutional.

Should the latter challenge succeed, it would strike a blow against a key selling point for Biden to young voters and potentially create chaos as borrowers sort through whether or not they must continue repaying their loans.

The court is also expected in February to hear arguments from GOP-led states who sued the Biden administration to keep in place Title 42, a policy used since the onset of the pandemic to quickly expel migrants under the umbrella of public health. The court’s ruling will either keep the measure in place, or finally allow it to expire, potentially creating a political headache for Biden at the border.

​Administration, Campaign, House, News, Senate, Donald Trump, Hakeem Jeffries, Joe Biden, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Ron DeSantis, Supreme Court Read More 

Trump tax returns raise alarms about fairness of US tax code

January 2, 2023 Published by

Just In | The Hill 

A preliminary review of the thousands of pages of Donald Trump’s tax returns released by a key Congressional committee on Friday confirms that the former president was using business losses in the tens of millions of dollars to reduce his annual tax liability, in some cases all the way down to zero. 

While one of Trump’s main businesses was found guilty of criminal tax fraud earlier this month, Trump himself has so far not been accused of doing anything illegal with his taxes and personal accounting.

But that’s raising more urgent questions about the fairness of the U.S. tax code and tax regulations, which number in the millions of words and in the case of Trump proved effectively unenforceable.

Advocates for tax reform say that a shift in mindset is needed, that a flawed conception of taxation as punitive and economically destructive is what allows for the sort of serial tax avoidance on display in the Trump tax returns.

“With the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns we have learned that he did not pay any federal income taxes [in some years],” Frank Clemente, director of tax advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement to The Hill. 

Clemente said that Trump’s tax avoidance was made possible by “a loophole-ridden tax system in need of fundamental change.”

Trump on Friday touted his ability to use the tax code to his advantage, specifically praising his use of business losses to wipe out his own personal tax bill.

“The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises,” Trump said in a statement.

In an apparent violation of IRS policy, which mandates that presidents receive regular audits, U.S. tax collectors were not auditing Trump on an annual basis, according to the Ways and Means Committee report released last week.

The reason for that isn’t clear, but the complexity of Trump’s financial situation and the tax laws that enable it may have been to be too much for the IRS to handle with resources dedicated to it.

“The individual tax return of the former President included the activities of hundreds of related and pass-through entities, numerous schedules, foreign tax credits, and millions of dollars in [net operating loss] carryforwards,” the Ways and Means report found.

The lone IRS agent assigned to one of Trump’s audits noted “that the lack of resources was the reason for not pursuing certain issues on the former President’s returns.”

“With over 400 flow-thru returns reported on the form 1040, it is not possible to obtain the resources available to examine all potential issues,” an internal IRS memo stated, according to the report.

While the committee dumped thousands of pages of documents on Trump’s taxes on Friday, it did not release IRS audit files along with them — a notable omission since the reason for obtaining and releasing Trump’s returns was supposed to be IRS oversight.

“Where are the IRS workpapers?” tax expert Steve Rosenthal said in an email to The Hill. “I thought the Ways and Means Committee was sharing Trump’s tax returns to allow the public to assess the IRS audit. The Joint Tax Committee reported the IRS audit was abysmal, which seems correct. But Joint Tax used the IRS workpapers to illuminate. We ought to see them also.”

The IRS is set to receive $80 billion in additional funding over the next decade, nearly doubling the operating budget of the agency on an annual basis and improving its capacity to audit complex business operations like those belonging to Trump.

But a structural discrepancy in the U.S. tax system between the way workers and business owners are taxed means that this new money for law enforcement might not be as effective as more legal reforms.

“Under the current system, American workers pay virtually all their tax bills while many top earners avoid paying billions in the taxes they owe by exploiting the system,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in 2021.

“At the core of the problem is a discrepancy in the ways types of income are reported to the IRS: opaque income sources frequently avoid scrutiny while wages and federal benefits are typically subject to nearly full compliance. This two-tiered tax system is unfair and deprives the country of resources to fund core priorities,” she said.

Tax reform advocates say it’s time to be taxing wages and capital in the same way.

“We should tax income from wealth the same as income from work. Very little of Trump’s money was earned by working—most was just ‘earned’ when he sold assets he inherited that had grown in value,” Amy Hanauer, director of the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, wrote in an editorial for Newsweek.

“This is backwards. Lawmakers should equalize these rates so that someone who wakes up at 6 a.m. and trudges to work in the rain doesn’t pay a higher rate than someone who sits in their inherited mansion watching the stock portfolio they were given grow,” she wrote.

Speaking in November, Fred Goldberg, who was IRS Commissioner under George H.W. Bush, said that simplifying the U.S. tax code has long been a moonshot for lawmakers.

“That’s been the holy grail for 40 years,” he said.

Beyond the policy questions raised by Trump’s labyrinthine returns, their release represents the latest chapter in years of political sparring over the former president’s business career and the tactics he used to amass his wealth and fame.

Throughout his first political career, Trump and his supporters pledged he would be a ruthless dealmaker on behalf of the American people. While Trump attributed his success to a tireless work ethic and unique ability to dominate negotiations, a series of financial records, media reports, and lawsuits exposed his heavy reliance on tax credits, bankruptcy litigation and fraud to build a real estate empire.

Democrats often criticized Trump for claiming to be a virtuosic businessman despite declaring bankruptcy four times and amassing billions of dollars in debt to finance a string of deals. They also sought Trump’s tax returns to assess the true nature of his wealth and the depth of his financial connections abroad.

“As the public will now be able to see, Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) in a Friday statement.

Trump and his Republican supporters in Congress, however, defended the former president’s business practices as a basic part of operating in real estate. The former president anointed himself the “king of debt” in 2016 amid frequent criticism of his past bankruptcies, which he called an effective way of keeping his business going.

​Finance, Donald Trump, IRS, Trump tax returns Read More 

[World] Croatia begins new euro and Schengen Zone era

January 2, 2023 Published by

BBC News world 

AFP/Getty Images

The Adriatic city of Dubrovnik is a big draw for tourists

Croatia is embarking on a historic year as it joins the EU’s border-free Schengen zone and it ditches its own currency, the kuna, adopting the euro.

The country committed to joining the eurozone when it became the EU’s newest member in 2013.

Nationalist parties wanted to keep the kuna, but were overruled by the constitutional court.

It will be the 27th country in the Schengen area, which allows 400 million to move freely between countries.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the changes as “two immense achievements” for the youngest member state of the EU.

She said the changes – which officially happened on 1 January – would be one “for the history books”.

Above all, this would be a moment of “joy and pride for the Croatian people”, she said.

“It is testimony of your amazing journey, your hard work and your determination.”

Croatia’s Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, said on Sunday the country – a former Yugoslav republic that fought a war of independence in the 1990s – had “achieved its strategic, state and political goals” by the two historic changes.

He was speaking at a ceremony at the Bregana border crossing with neighbouring Slovenia, where passports will no longer be checked.

EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (right) was treated to a coffee with Croatia PM Andrej Plenkovic (centre) in Zagreb on Sunday, after the Adriatic nation officially embarked on a new era

Mr Plenkovic said that Schengen membership would “mean a lot for Croatia as a tourist country, which is to a large extent a destination where tourists travel by car”.

He added that “the fact that we will also be in the eurozone gives another signal to all those visiting Croatia”.

Croatia’s entry into the Schengen area is expected to boost its tourism industry, which accounts for 20% of its GDP and welcomes some 20 million visitors each year. Previously long queues at border crossings with Hungary and Slovenia should become a thing of the past.

The use of the euro is already widespread in the country, with key assets such as homes valued in the currency and a large percentage of bank deposits also denominated in euros.

Experts say moving to the European currency should help shield Croatia’s economy at a time of inflation across the globe.

The euro was launched on 1 January 1999 as an electronic currency and became legal tender for about 300 million people in 12 member states on 1 January 2002. With the addition of Croatia, there are now 20 countries in the Eurozone.

 

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Crowds gather as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s body lies in state at Vatican

January 2, 2023 Published by

Latest & Breaking News on Fox News 

Members of the public waited for hours to pay their respects to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI as his body lies in state in St. Peter’s Basilica.

As daylight broke, 10 white-gloved Papal Gentlemen — lay assistants to pontiffs and papal households — carried the body on a cloth-covered wooden stretcher up the center aisle of the mammoth basilica to its resting place in front of the main altar under Bernini’s towering bronze canopy.

According to The Associated Press, a Swiss Guard saluted as the body was brought in via a side door after Benedict’s remains, placed in a van, had been transferred from the chapel of the monastery grounds where the late pontiff died at the age of 95 on Saturday morning.

Thousands of people braved the damp weather to view Benedict’s body. The line of people snaked around St. Peter’s Square. 

Around 25,000 people are expected to pass by the body on the first day of viewing.

POPE EMERITUS BENEDICT XVI DEAD AT 95, VATICAN SAYS

Public viewing lasts for 10 hours on Monday in St. Peter’s Basilica. Twelve hours of viewing are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday before Thursday morning’s funeral, which will be led by Pope Francis, at St. Peter’s Square.

The service will be open to the public and the Vatican has provided contacts for Catholics worldwide wishing to concelebrate the mass remotely.

POPE BENEDICT’S VISION OF CATHOLICISM, VATICAN II, AND THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH ENDURE THROUGH HIS TEACHINGS

Benedict was elected to the papacy in 2005. He later claimed that he prayed he would not be chosen throughout the conclave but was forced to accept what he believed was God calling him to greater service. 

In February 2013, at 85 years old, Benedict became the first pope in 600 years to resign from his post. 

“I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise [of the pontificate],” he said at that time. 

On June 29, 2021, Benedict celebrated the Platinum Jubilee — 70th anniversary — of his ordination into the priesthood. 

The Associated Press and Fox News’ Timothy Nerozzi contributed to this report.

 

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