Democrats in Washington are beginning to accept the reality that they do not have the votes to pass President Biden’s long-shot push to pass new voting rights bills.

Biden traveled to Capitol Hill on Thursday in an attempt to sway Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D.-W.Va., to agree to change the Senate filibuster in order to pass the legislation.

Biden conceded after the closed-door meeting that his efforts likely were not enough.

“I don’t know whether we can get this done,” Biden told reporters after the meeting. “But one thing for certain — like every other major civil rights bill that came along, if we miss the first time, we can come back and try a second time.”

Biden said that if the effort fails this week, he will keep on pushing to stop states from passing restrictive voting laws that Democrats say inhibit ballot access. He said it is also “about election subversion, not just whether or not people get to vote.”

He added: “But I know one thing: As long as I have a breath in me, as long as I’m in the White House, as long as I’m engaged at all, I’m going to be fighting to change the way these legislatures have moved.”

Sinema and Manchin reiterate stances on filibuster

Biden’s meeting with Democrats came less than an hour after Sinema made it clear that she will not support plans to weaken the filibuster to reach those goals.

Sinema reiterated her long-standing support for the filibuster in a speech on the Senate floor, where she defended the 60-vote requirement for most legislation as a critical tool to maintain the system of checks and balances in the Senate.

Sinema said she supports voting reforms and the specific voting rights bills under consideration but added she is unwilling to change her position on the filibuster for them to pass.

“These bills help treat the symptoms of the disease, but they do not fully address the disease itself,” Sinema said. “And while I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country.”

Sinema went on to criticize lawmakers who try to consolidate power and bemoaned the lack of true negotiation and bipartisanship in Washington. She also argued that any attempt to undermine the filibuster, which might make it easier for Democrats to pass legislation now, would grant the same power to Republicans when they regain control of the Senate in the future. Sinema said that this could create wild swings in public policy that would be bad for the country.

“American politics are cyclical, and the granting of power in Washington, D.C., is exchanged regularly by the voters from one party to another,” Sinema said. “What is the legislative filibuster other than a tool that requires new federal policy to be broadly supported by senators representing a broader cross section of Americans, a guardrail inevitably viewed as an obstacle by whoever holds the Senate majority but which in reality ensures that millions of Americans represented by the minority party have a voice in the process.”

After Biden’s meeting with Democrats, Manchin released a statement that “reiterated his long-held commitment to protecting the filibuster and the input of the Senate minority.”

Manchin wrote: “Allowing one party to exert complete control in the Senate with only a simple majority will only pour fuel onto the fire of political whiplash and dysfunction that is tearing this nation apart – especially when one party controls both Congress and the White House. As such, and as I have said many times before, I will not vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster.”

McConnell praises Sinema

Only two Democrats sat in the Senate chamber to listen to Sinema’s remarks. Several Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his top deputy, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., were present for the speech.

McConnell later told reporters he was pleased with Sinema’s remarks.

“She literally saved the Senate as an institution,” McConnell said. “It was an act of conspicuous political courage.”

Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, helped lead Democrats’ efforts to persuade Sinema and Manchin to support the filibuster change. He is one of several Democrats who used to back the filibuster and have changed their position with regard to voting rights.

King told reporters he does not share McConnell’s view on Sinema.

“She believes that the risk of changing the filibuster is greater than the risk of what’s going on in the states,” King said. “I hope, profoundly, that she’s right. I fear that she’s wrong.”

Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.

LONDON — With varying degrees of enthusiasm, senior British government ministers on Thursday expressed support for Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson and rejected demands he resign for attending a garden party during the country’s first coronavirus lockdown.

Many other Conservatives held their tongues, waiting to see whether the crisis threatening Johnson’s premiership will fade or intensify.

Johnson apologized in the House of Commons on Wednesday for attending a “bring your own booze” party in the garden of the prime minister’s Downing Street office and residence in May 2020. About 100 staff were invited by a senior prime ministerial aide to what was billed as a “socially distanced drinks” event.

At the time Britons were banned by law from meeting more than one person outside their households as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Millions were cut off from family and friends, and even barred from visiting dying relatives in hospitals.

Johnson said he understood public “rage,” but stopped short of admitting wrongdoing, saying he had considered the gathering a work event to thank staff for their efforts during the pandemic.

Johnson urged people to await the conclusions of an investigation by senior civil servant Sue Gray into several alleged parties by government staff during the pandemic. Gray, a public service veteran with a reputation as a straight-shooter, is expected to report by the end of the month.

Johnson was spending Thursday holed up in Downing Street. A planned visit to a coronavirus vaccination center was called off after a family member tested positive for the coronavirus, the prime minister’s office said.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said Johnson’s apology had been “very, very sincere” — but added that the prime minister did not believe he had done anything wrong.

“The prime minister has outlined that he doesn’t believe that he has done anything outside the rules,” Lewis told Sky News. “If you look at what the investigation finds, people will be able to take their own view of that at the time.”

Gray does not have the power to punish officials, and Johnson did not say what he would do if she found he was at fault.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss — often cited as a possible successor to Johnson — tweeted: “I stand behind the Prime Minister 100% as he takes our country forward.”

Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, another potential rival for the top job, was more muted. He tweeted that “The PM was right to apologise and I support his request for patience while Sue Gray carries out her enquiry.” Sunak was notably absent from the House of Commons during Johnson’s statement on Wednesday; he was 200 miles away on a visit to southwest England.

Opposition politicians say Johnson should resign for attending the party and for his previous denials that any rule-breaking took place.

Many Conservatives fear the “partygate” scandal could become a tipping point for a leader who has weathered a series of other storms over his expenses, and his moral judgment.

Some have joined opposition calls for Johnson to quit. Douglas Ross, the leader of Conservatives in Scotland, said Johnson’s position “is no longer tenable.” Lawmaker Roger Gale called the prime minister a “dead man walking.”

If he does not resign, Johnson could be ousted by a no-confidence vote among party legislators, which would be triggered if 15% of Conservative lawmakers write letters demanding it. It’s unclear how many letters have already been submitted.

Labour Party home affairs spokeswoman Lisa Nandy said the police, and not just a civil servant, should be investigating.

“It’s strange that the police have not launched any kind of wider investigation given the number of pieces of evidence about what’s happening in Downing Street,” she said.

Nandy said there was “immense” public anger over the party revelations.

“Based on what I’m seeing pouring into my inbox this morning, I think the prime minister should not be confident that he’ll survive this,” she said.

Many Conservatives were waiting to see how reaction to the crisis develops in the coming days.

Conservative lawmaker Philip Dunne said the allegations were “very serious.”

“I think the prime minister was quite right to apologize yesterday, and I think it is right that we wait to see what the investigation from Sue Gray establishes,” he told Times Radio. “People will then have to suffer the consequences of whatever happens.”

KOBLENZ, Germany — The world’s first criminal trial over torture in Syria’s prisons ended Thursday with a guilty verdict and life sentence for a former Syrian intelligence officer.

The ruling came in a German case against Anwar Raslan, who was accused of more than 30 counts of murder, 4,000 counts of torture and charges of sexual assault from when he oversaw a notorious prison in Damascus in 2011 and 2012.

The landmark trial marked the first time a high-ranking former Syrian official has faced Syrians in open court in a war crimes case.

Raslan, a 58-year-old former colonel was stoic as the five judges strode into a silent court room. The judges remained standing to deliver the verdict and sentence. They then read out the names of Syrian torture survivors who were in the courtroom.

Witnesses and the lawyers who worked on their behalf deemed it a rare success in prosecuting a war crimes case in which the crimes were committed under a government that remains in power — the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“This is the first step in a very long way to achieve justice,” says Wassim Mukdad, a Syrian torture survivor and co-plaintiff who now lives in Germany. “To experience the verdict against a former colonel in the intelligence forces, it’s history being written in front of our eyes.”

In more than 100 court sessions from April 2020 to this month, five federal judges heard over 100 witnesses, including 50 torture survivors, to examine state-sponsored torture in Assad’s Syria. German authorities arrested Raslan in February 2019, four years after after he defected from the Syrian government and fled to Germany.

The court room was packed with Syrian lawyers and activists who had worked for this moment for years. The harrowing testimony was noted by the judges. The brutality of Syria’s Assad regime was also on trial.

German prosecutors launched the criminal case under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which means a country can prosecute alleged crimes against humanity committed elsewhere.

The trial is a blueprint for future war crimes prosecutions

Mukdad testified in August 2020, a few months after the trial began. He also gave a statement in the trial’s closing days on atrocities committed in Syria.

The verdict sends a message of accountability to the Syrian regime, he says, after more than 100,000 people were disappeared and thousands were systematically tortured, accelerating in 2011 after a civil uprising against the regime touched off Syria’s war.

“We feel that we achieved something. Our pain and our suffering is not in vain,” Mukdad says.

Nuran al-Ghamain, one of the few female torture survivors to testify, said she collapsed in court after seeing Raslan for the first time since 2012, when she was released from prison in Damascus.

“It was hard for me to take,” she recounts about her day in court, but her testimony was a relief, she said. In a closing statement this month, she hailed the German judges for adding sexual violence as a crime against humanity.

The trial is a blueprint for future prosecutions, says Patrick Kroker, a senior legal advisor with the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. Kroker represented some of the Syrian torture survivors.

Syrian witnesses’ testimony was key to the case, he says, and the bravery they showed was “very, very inspiring and a very powerful moment.” The torture survivors delivered their remarks to the German judges, but aimed them mostly at the defendant, who appeared visibly discomfited, according to those in the courtroom.

Raslan said that torture took place in Syria, but denied personally taking part in it. The Assad regime has consistently denied there is torture in Syrian prisons, despite evidence to the contrary.

Some Syrian exiles have criticized the trial

Despite Thursday’s verdict, not everyone in Germany’s 800,000-strong Syrian community was happy with the trial. Raslan was too low-level, some complained — and serving officials of the Assad regime remain free. The trial, held far from where most of the Syrian community lives in Berlin, was largely inaccessible to the community. The court provided no transcript of proceedings.

Judges rejected a petition to allow audio recordings of the trial and had to be forced by another court — following a lawsuit by Arabic-speaking journalists and human rights organizations — to provide Arabic translations of the German proceedings. There was no witness protection, even as the Assad regime was threatening the families of witnesses back home.

In a closing statement, attorney Anna Oehmichen, who represented four Syrian plaintiffs, praised the judges for their objectivity. But she also criticized the court for a “failure to inform those actually affected,” referring to the Syrian exile community in Germany as well as those who remain in Syria.

Oehmichen warned that ”an information vacuum creates ideal conditions for misunderstandings” that could undermine the Syrian exile community’s trust in the German legal system. “It plays right into the hands of those who should actually be brought to justice,” she said, referring to Syrian regime officials who can twist their own version of the trial’s outcome.

The German decision to hold the trial came at a time when international tribunals have been politically blocked in the United Nations by China and Russia, allies of the Damascus regime. Germany was the first to bring charges in a national court. There are now cases pending against Syrian officials and loyalists across Europe.

Ideally, this case should have been tried in Syria, says ECCHR general secretary Wolfgang Kaleck, but that was impossible.

“Those who criticized the Koblenz trial, fair enough,” says Kaleck. “The decision [to hold a trial in Germany] was nothing or this. And, you know, it was a promising start with more to come.”