Senate passes bipartisan gun control legislation in 65-33 vote – CBS News
Senate passes bipartisan gun control legislation in 65-33 vote – CBS News

Washington — The Senate late Thursday voted 65 to 33 to pass the bipartisan gun control bill, the most significant legislation addressing guns in nearly 30 years. 

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who led the negotiations along with Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said on the Senate floor Thursday that the legislation “responds” to the  shootings last month at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas — that left a combined 31 people dead, including 19 children – in a “positive and an affirmative way.”

“I don’t believe in doing nothing in the face of what we saw in Uvalde and we’ve seen in far too many communities,” Cornyn said. “Doing nothing is an abdication of our responsibility as representatives of the American people here in the United States Senate.” 

The bill will now be sent back to the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to take it up swiftly. Though Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been urging Republicans to vote against the bill, it is expected to pass the Democrat-controlled House.

“First thing tomorrow morning, the Rules Committee will meet to advance this life-saving legislation to the floor,” Pelosi said in a statement Thursday night.    

Although the bill does not represent all the gun control measures President Biden had called for, he is expected to sign the bill. 

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, arrives to meet with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., arrive for more bipartisan talks on how to rein in gun violence, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. 

J. Scott Applewhite / AP


In a statement released after the vote, Mr. Biden called on the House to “promptly vote on this bipartisan bill and send it to my desk.”

“Tonight, after 28 years of inaction, bipartisan members of Congress came together to heed the call of families across the country and passed legislation to address the scourge of gun violence in our communities,” he said. “Families in Uvalde and Buffalo — and too many tragic shootings before — have demanded action. And tonight, we acted.”

Republicans who voted for the bill are Sens. Roy Blunt; Richard Burr; Shelley Moore Capito; Bill Cassidy; Susan Collins; John Cornyn; Joni Ernst; Lindsey Graham; Mitch McConnell; Lisa Murkowski; Rob Portman; Mitt Romney; Thom Tillis; Pat Toomey; And Todd Young. 

McConnell said the Senate’s passage of the legislation, as well as the Supreme Court striking down a New York gun law earlier Thursday, made for “two landmark victories.”

“I am proud of these two complementary victories that will make our country freer and safer at the same time,” the Senate minority leader said. “Law-abiding Americans will go to bed tonight with significantly stronger Second Amendment rights than they had this morning, while new commonsense guardrails around convicted criminals and mental illness are now on their way to becoming law.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that he is “pleased we’re finally taking meaningful action on guns for the 1st time in nearly 30 years to keep communities safe.”

Senate negotiators released a framework of the proposal earlier this month, and unveiled the legislative text Tuesday, after which the upper chamber took the first step to advance the bill in a bipartisan procedural vote.

The legislation enhances background checks for prospective gun buyers under 21 years old, closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” clarifies the definition of a Federally Licensed Firearms Dealer and creates criminal penalties for straw purchases and gun trafficking. It also provides $750 million in grants to incentivize states to implement crisis intervention programs and provides roughly billions of dollars in federal funding to bolster mental health services for children and families and harden schools.

The Senate’s measure does not go as far as what Mr. Biden has called for and is significantly more narrow than a package of bills that passed the House this month. That legislation would raise the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21 years old and ban large-capacity magazines. It also incentivizes the safe storage of firearms and establishes requirements regulating the storage of guns on residential premises.

While the House’s legislation included many of the proposals advocated for by Mr. Biden, it would not have won enough support from Republicans to overcome the 60-vote threshold for legislation to advance in the Senate.

Democrats involved in the upper chamber’s bipartisan discussions have acknowledged their proposal is more tailored, but they have said a slimmed down package had a better chance of receiving GOP backing.

The bill is opposed by the National Rifle Association, which said in a statement Tuesday the proposals put forth in the legislation can be “abused to restrict lawful gun purchases, infringe upon the rights of law-abiding Americans, and use federal dollars to fund gun control measures being adopted by state and local politicians.” 

House Republican leaders, too, have said the Senate’s plan is part of an effort to erode law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment rights. But McConnell, who voted for the bill, said on the Senate floor Wednesday that the legislation advances “commonsense solutions without rolling back rights for law-abiding citizens.”

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gun-control-legislation-senate-pass/

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Live Updates: Ukraine Is Withdrawing From Sievierodonetsk – The New York Times
Live Updates: Ukraine Is Withdrawing From Sievierodonetsk – The New York Times

KYIV, Ukraine — As the European Union summit began in Brussels on Thursday evening, an aide to Ukraine’s foreign minister tuned into the proceedings on a laptop.

The minister, Dmytro Kuleba, whose left leg was in a tight red cast after a basketball injury, was upbeat as he watched the European Council grant his war-battered country something it had been seeking without success for years: the coveted status as a candidate to join the bloc.

It was one of the best pieces of news for Ukraine, which is in its fourth month of war, since a successful counteroffensive pushed Russian soldiers away from the capital. Mr. Kuleba said the council’s move was “the most important step in overcoming the last psychological barrier in the relations between Ukraine and the European Union.”

Still, he acknowledged that his country would have to wait a long time before it could join the 27-member bloc. The action by the European Council, composed of the leaders of the member states, was just the first step in a yearslong process, and Ukraine would have to make progress on combating corruption and enforcing the rule of law to finally pass muster.

“Sure, there will be talks, reforms here and in the European Union,” he said. “I don’t care. As long as the decision that Ukraine is Europe is taken, I’m fine. History has been made.”

Mr. Kuleba said that for decades, as Ukrainians fought for democracy in protest movements in 2004 and 2014, Brussels and other European capitals still “were entertaining this idea of a buffer zone of something in the middle, a bridge between Russia and the E.U.”

In the last phase, he said, European leaders were unofficially “winking” at Ukrainian officials. “Like, ‘Guys, everything will be fine, it will take years, but in the end you will be with us,’” he said. “But they were still afraid to say it out loud.”

As Mr. Kuleba was speaking in the interview, air raid sirens wailed in Kyiv. An aide ran into the office to say that there were 10 Russian missiles flying above Ukrainian airspace.

“I’m not surprised that the Russians would fire something at Kyiv today,” Mr. Kuleba said, adding that the symbolism of the day would not be lost on the Kremlin.

Mr. Kuleba, 41, a career diplomat, said he saw the European Union as “the first ever attempt to build a liberal empire” on democratic principles, contrasting it with the Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states under President Vladimir V. Putin.

“I understand that people do not like the word empire, but this is how history is written,” Mr. Kuleba said. “You have to show that different things of a similar scale can be built on different principles: those of liberalism, democracy, respect for human rights, and not on the principle of imposition of the will of one on the rest.”

Mr. Kuleba said he was grateful to other Western allies, especially the United States, for military and political support. However, he said he hoped for a more explicit articulation of Washington’s war aims.

“We are still waiting for the moment when we hear a clear message from Washington that for Washington, the goal of this war is for Ukraine to win and for international law to be restored,” he said. “And Ukraine’s victory for Washington means restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

— Valerie Hopkins

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/24/world/russia-ukraine-war-news

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Supreme Court gun control ruling: NY case now divides United States – USA TODAY
Supreme Court gun control ruling: NY case now divides United States – USA TODAY

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/23/supreme-court-gun-control-ruling-reaction/7716735001/

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Senate passes first major federal gun safety legislation in decades – CNN
Senate passes first major federal gun safety legislation in decades – CNN

By Clare Foran, Ali Zaslav, Lauren Fox and Ted Barrett, CNN

Updated 12:05 AM ET, Fri June 24, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/politics/senate-bipartisan-gun-bill/index.html

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Supreme Court Strikes Down New York Concealed-Gun Law in Sweeping Opinion – The Wall Street Journal
Supreme Court Strikes Down New York Concealed-Gun Law in Sweeping Opinion – The Wall Street Journal
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Jan. 6 panel focuses on Trump pressuring Justice Department – Los Angeles Times
Jan. 6 panel focuses on Trump pressuring Justice Department – Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON — 

Former President Trump nearly replaced the head of the Department of Justice with a supporter of his fraud theories after the acting attorney general refused to comply with his persistent demands to falsely claim there was evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, the House panel investigating the Capitol insurrection detailed in its hearing Thursday.

Using testimony from three former top Justice Department officials, the committee laid out Trump’s unremitting pressure on department leaders as he demanded they lend credence to his unsubstantiated claims of fraud in order to subvert the will of voters and keep him in office.

“He hoped that law enforcement officials would give the appearance of legitimacy to his lies so he and his allies had some veneer of credibility when they told the country that the election was stolen,” said the panel’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

A declaration from Justice Department officials that fraud had taken place in the election would have cast serious doubt on the results and given Republican-controlled state legislatures a pretense for appointing alternate presidential electors to reverse President Biden’s victory, he said.

“Donald Trump didn’t just want the Justice Department to investigate. He wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his lies, to baselessly call the election corrupt, to appoint a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud,” Thompson said.

On Thursday, the committee also revealed the names of multiple Republican members of Congress who asked for presidential pardons from Trump for their actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.

Former acting Atty. Gen. Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Richard Donoghue and former Asst. Atty. Gen. Steven Engel testified before the committee that Trump had asked the Justice Department in December 2020 to file legal briefs supporting election lawsuits brought by his campaign and allies.

Testimony on Thursday also detailed Trump’s request that Rosen appoint a special counsel to investigate election fraud, though Justice Department investigations had concluded there was no evidence of fraud on a scale that would change the election’s outcome.

“Between Dec. 23 [2020] and Jan. 3 [2021], the president either called me or met with me virtually every day,” Rosen said.

“The Justice Department declined all of those requests because we did not think they were appropriate based on the facts and the law as we understood them,” he said.

The former president also pressured the Justice Department to challenge election results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the Supreme Court, the witnesses said. Engel and the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which he led, ruled there was no legal basis for such lawsuits.

The committee focused on a handful of meetings in late December 2020 and early January 2021 in which Trump, at Perry’s prompting, considered replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, head of the Justice Department’s civil division, including a Dec. 27 phone call in which Trump told Rosen and Donoghue to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” according to Donoghue‘s notes on the conversation.

Donoghue said the Dec. 27 conversation was “an escalation” of the pressure Trump had been putting on the department to intervene. After noticing many people were whispering in the president’s ear, Donoghue said, he tried to be extremely blunt with Trump, and told him there was nothing to any of the claims he was repeating.

“As we got later in the month of December, the president’s entreaties became more urgent. He became more adamant that we weren’t doing our job,” Donoghue said.

Federal agents searched Clark’s Virginia home Wednesday. More than a dozen law enforcement officers seized his electronic devices during the search, according to Clark’s current employer, Russ Vought, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump.

The panel also discussed a draft letter Clark asked Rosen and Donoghue to sign on Dec. 28, 2020, in which it was proposed that the Justice Department urge the Georgia Legislature to hold a special session to scrutinize supposed “irregularities” in the state vote. The letter amounted to a road map for how Georgia could overturn Biden’s victory there, suggesting the Legislature could choose a new slate of electors who would back Trump over Biden. Clark indicated similar letters outlining allegations of fraud would be sent to officials in other states. Rosen and Donoghue refused to add their signatures to the document.

Donoghue said he told Clark that “for the department to insert itself into the political process this way, I think would have had grave consequences for the country. It may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis.”

Nevertheless, Clark began calling witnesses and conducting investigations of his own, looking into fringe theories of fraud, Donoghue said.

Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said the letter was co-written by Ken Klukowski, who joined the Justice Department on Dec. 15, 2020, and was assigned to work under Clark. Klukowski previously worked with conservative California lawyer John Eastman, who was behind the theory that the vice president could reject states’ electors or send results back to the states for more consideration.

At Thursday’s hearing, Cheney presented a Dec. 28 email recommending that Eastman and Klukowski brief Vice President Mike Pence and his staff.

“The email suggests that Mr. Klukowski was simultaneously working with Jeffrey Clark to draft the proposed letter to Georgia officials to overturn their certified election, and working with Dr. Eastman to help pressure the vice president to overturn the election,” Cheney said.

Key moments to know in the timeline of the Capitol insurrection as the House select committee hearings on Jan. 6, 2021, begin.

In a contentious Dec. 31 meeting, Trump asked Rosen to have the Justice Department seize voting machines. Rosen said he told Trump that nothing improper had been found with the machines, and that the Department of Homeland Security had already looked into and debunked fraud claims involving election machines.

“I don’t think there was legal authority” for the department to seize state election equipment, Rosen said.

On Jan. 3, 2021, Clark told Rosen that Trump had offered him the acting attorney general role.

White House logs show frequent calls between Clark and Trump starting at 7 a.m. Jan. 3. The logs note that Clark was referred to as “acting attorney general” by 4:19 p.m. that day, hours before Rosen met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the change.

Rosen, Donoghue, Engel, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and Deputy White House Counsel Pat Philbin met with Trump and Clark in the Oval Office for several hours that evening.

Donoghue said he felt obligated to point out to the president that Clark’s background in environmental law didn’t prepare him to run the department.

“I said, ‘Mr. President, you’re talking about putting a man in that seat who has never tried a criminal case. Who’s never conducted a criminal investigation. He’s telling you that he’s going to take charge of the department — 115,000 employees, including the entire FBI — and turn the place on a dime and conduct nationwide criminal investigations that will produce results in a matter of days. It’s impossible. It’s absurd. It’s not going to happen and it’s going to fail,’” Donoghue said.

Those at the meeting warned Trump that the entire leadership of the Justice Department and the White House counsel’s office would resign en masse if he installed Clark to lead the Justice Department. Donoghue said he emphasized that U.S. attorneys and department employees around the country might follow suit, putting the agency on the brink of collapse.

“I said, ‘Mr. President, within 24, 48, 72 hours, you could have hundreds and hundreds of resignations and [lose] the leadership of your entire Justice Department because of your actions. What’s that going to say about you?’” Donoghue said at the hearing, noting that Engel warned Trump that Clark would be “leading a graveyard.”

Donoghue told the committee that Cipollone referred to the letter Clark wanted to send to several states as “a murder-suicide pact.”

“It’s going to damage everyone who touches it,” Cipollone added, according to Donoghue. “And we should have nothing to do with that letter. “

White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said in a deposition that he had cautioned Clark against acting on the letter should he become attorney general.

“Congratulations. You just admitted your first act as attorney general would be committing a felony,” he said.

Rosen said in his deposition that after that Jan. 3 meeting, he did not speak to Trump again until Jan. 19, not even as the department was coordinating with Pence and congressional leaders during the Jan. 6 attack.

The committee also provided evidence of its allegation in the first hearing that multiple Republican members of Congress had asked Trump for pardons before and after Jan. 6. Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama sent an email to the White House five days after the attack asking for a pardon for himself and all 147 Republicans who had voted to overturn the election.

The panel also showed parts of video depositions from White House staff members, who said that Perry, Gaetz, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Louie Gohmert of Texas had asked Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for pardons, and that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia had asked the White House counsel’s office for one.

Thursday’s hearing is expected to be the last for a few weeks. The committee will pause hearings for at least two weeks to examine new evidence it has obtained, Thompson said.

The next hearings will focus on domestic terrorism and extremism, and what Trump was doing in the 187 minutes between the start of the insurrection and when he called on his supporters to go home, Thompson told reporters after the hearing.

“At this point with the hearings we’ve had, we think we have done a good job of telling the story as to what happened,” he said. “We would love to have former Vice President Pence’s testimony. We have sought it — we have talked to his attorneys in the past — but we’re moving on with the work.”

Times staff writer Anumita Kaur contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-23/day-5-jan-5-hearings

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Multiple House Republicans on defensive over Jan. 6 panel testimony that they sought post-riot pardons – POLITICO
Multiple House Republicans on defensive over Jan. 6 panel testimony that they sought post-riot pardons – POLITICO

The flurry of pardon requests followed what the select committee showed was weeks of efforts by Trump’s top congressional Republican defenders to spread misinformation about the results of the 2020 election. Those GOP lawmakers also helped apply pressure on the Justice Department to legitimize those false fraud claims. None of the lawmakers ever received pardons.

At an earlier hearing, the Jan. 6 panel showed an email from attorney John Eastman, one of the key architects of Trump’s bid to stay in power, asking to be placed on Trump’s “pardon list.” He, too, never received a pardon.

Later Thursday, several of the House Republicans vigorously denied asking for pardons for themselves. Gohmert said in a statement he asked for pardons for other people unrelated to Jan. 6. Perry issued his own statement reiterating his denial that he asked for a pardon: “I stand by my statement that I never sought a Presidential pardon for myself or other Members of Congress.”

Biggs wrote on Twitter the allegations were “false.” Jordan said he never requested a pardon but declined to say whether he ever asked for a status update.

Other Republicans criticized the committee but didn’t directly deny the allegations. Greene, in a tweet, accused the committee of relying on hearsay, saying Hutchinson testified she “heard” about a pardon request, though she refused repeated questions from reporters on whether she ever asked for one.

Gaetz, in a tweet, simply criticized the select panel; he ignored questions late Thursday about the evidence he asked for a pardon.

Brooks, on other hand, said in a statement that “the email request says it all,” citing concerns that Democrats would prosecute or jail Republicans for their objections to certifying the electoral votes.

The Alabama Republican told reporters that Trump asked him to put his pardon request “in writing so it can be evaluated” following a post-Jan. 6 conversation — and that after he sent his email, “the president thought it would be best just to let it play out. I agreed with him.”

The testimony about pardons also highlighted the absence of deposition evidence from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone — whom the panel’s vice chair, Liz Cheney, has urged to testify in recent days — and his deputy Patrick Philbin. Both have met informally with the committee but not figured much into the public hearings. Some testimony Thursday suggested that Philbin was on the receiving end of pardon requests.

As the select panel prepares to add new evidence to hearings next month, Chair Bennie Thompson told reporters the committee could back up its allegations about the GOP pardon bids: “We can prove what we showed today.”

Its fifth public hearing underscored the lengths Trump and his allies went to enlist DOJ in his effort to seize a second term after losing the election. Trump’s top officials at the time — acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, his deputy Richard Donoghue and former Office of Legal Counsel Chief Steven Engel — described a series of increasingly desperate meetings to fend off Trump’s effort to deploy DOJ in service of his effort, and an intense, ultimately successful effort to prevent him from installing a more compliant official atop the department.

“He pressured the justice Department to act as an arm of his reelection campaign,” Thompson said.

The panel also highlighted Trump’s own direct pressure on DOJ, which escalated in the days after former Attorney General William Barr announced his resignation in mid-December 2020.

”… Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the [Republican] Congressmen,” Donoghue recalled Trump saying during a Dec. 27, 2020, meeting.

The hearing highlighted how Trump’s West Wing became a haven for conspiracy theories about election fraud that he then tasked DOJ and other cabinet agencies to investigate. When the theories were debunked, Trump would fall back on new ones, often plucked from far-flung corners of the internet and laundered through pro-Trump channels until they reached the Oval Office.

“You guys may not be following the internet the way I do,” Trump told the officials, according to Thursday’s testimony.

Donoghue described one such theory — that Italian satellites had switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden — as “pure insanity.” But the select committee also showed that Trump’s newly appointed acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller called officials in Italy to inquire about the bizarre theory.

Much of the hearing emphasized how Trump’s allies in Congress helped ratchet up pressure on DOJ even as the Department systematically debunked Donald Trump’s election fraud claims.

The select panel showed Thursday that Perry — who now chairs the House Freedom Caucus — helped link Trump with Jeffrey Clark, a little-known DOJ environmental official whom Trump hoped would amplify his debunked claims of voter fraud. Perry brought Clark to the White House on Dec. 22, 2020, according to visitor logs released by the Capitol riot committee.

Trump would go as far as offering Clark the Justice Department’s top job, only to back down as Rosen, Donoghue and Engel — as well as Cipollone — warned of a mass exodus within DOJ. Engel’s warning to Trump that a Clark-run DOJ would be a “graveyard” apparently affected Trump, the witnesses said, and he backed off the plan.

Donoghue emphasized that Trump made clear he wasn’t interested in the merit of any election fraud allegations — only in DOJ’s willingness to endorse them, then leave the rest to him and his allies. As part of that plot, Trump had pressed his DOJ leaders to issue a letter describing concerns about election irregularities in multiple states.

Clark was prepared to issue that letter, urging states to convene their legislatures and consider whether to appoint new presidential electors who would favor Trump. Clark, asked about these matters by the select committee during a deposition earlier this year, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against potential self-incrimination and claimed executive privilege.

FBI officials raided Clark’s home Wednesday, a sign some select committee members saw as part of a rapidly escalating criminal inquiry against Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

In court filings connected to its investigation, the committee revealed text messages between Perry and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in which Perry urged Meadows to elevate Clark at DOJ as quickly as possible. The two also discussed a potential deputy for Clark. The select committee has also obtained testimony that Meadows burned some papers in his office after meeting with Perry during those crucial post-election weeks.

Rosen and Donoghue also described their experiences on Jan. 6, noting that they were on the phone constantly with congressional leaders, cabinet officials, then-Vice President Mike Pence and senior White House aides. But they noted that they never heard from Trump amid the chaos.

Betsy Woodruff Swan and Anthony Adragna contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/23/jan-6-panel-to-hone-in-on-trumps-efforts-to-meddle-at-doj-00041708

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Pete Arredondo, Uvalde school district police chief, placed on administrative leave – CBS News
Pete Arredondo, Uvalde school district police chief, placed on administrative leave – CBS News

Pete Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief, was placed on administrative leave Wednesday, the school’s superintendent said. The action is effective immediately.

Dr. Hal Harrell said in a statement that, although the district wanted to wait for the investigation into law enforcement’s responses to the deadly mass shooting to be completed before making any decisions, he went ahead and placed Arredondo on leave “because of the lack of clarity that remains” and the “unknown timing” of when the investigation will conclude.

Lieutenant Mike Hernandez will fill the role while Arredondo is on leave, Harrell said.

Arredondo has been met with intense criticism since the May 24 shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers. He was in charge of the law enforcement response that day, and investigations have revealed several failures, including that police had an opportunity to shoot the gunman within three minutes of his arrival at the school and instead left him in the school for over an hour. Police also never checked to see if the door to the classroom where the gunman was holed up was locked.

Not only has Arredondo faced questioning, but the subsequent investigation into the shooting response has also raised red flags, with many feeling confused about what actually happened on that day.

Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the Texas Department of Public Safety, accusing state troopers of not sharing information with the public, but instead pointing fingers at Uvalde school police.

“They want to give us snippets of body cam footage from the local police, but they want to hold on to their own body cam footage,” Gutierrez said of the Texas State Troopers. “We found out yesterday there was 91 officers on site from the Department of Public Safety.”

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin is placing blame at the feet of state authorities, who he says have been responsible for keeping citizens in the dark. 

McLaughlin told CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca that he was last briefed by DPS on the morning of May 25, one day after the shooting. 

“I’ve contacted them every day. I don’t get a damn thing out of them,” McLaughlin said.

The search for answers has left community and family members feeling lost amid the struggle to find answers. Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter Jacklyn was killed, said the mixed messages from officials is frustrating and hurts. 

The news comes as state lawmakers continue to focus on mental health and gun safety following the shooting’s aftermath. 

McGraw said Tuesday that the shooter was “on a pathway to violence,” as he dropped out of high school at 17 and had asked a family member to purchase a weapon for him. Also Tuesday, McLaughlin vowed that no Uvalde student or teacher will ever step foot in Robb Elementary again, saying it’s his understanding that the building will be demolished.

Omar Villafranca

Omar Villafranca is a CBS News correspondent based in Dallas.

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uvalde-school-shooting-pete-arredondo-administrative-leave/

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Unseen Jan. 6 Documentary Footage Reveals Pence’s Reaction to Demand for 25th Amendment – The Daily Beast
Unseen Jan. 6 Documentary Footage Reveals Pence’s Reaction to Demand for 25th Amendment – The Daily Beast

In previously unseen documentary footage, Mike Pence reacts to a request that he use the 25th Amendment to remove then-President Donald Trump from office. The footage, obtained and reported on by CNN, captures Pence sitting for an interview with Alex Holder’s documentary film crew on Jan. 12, 2021, when an aide enters and shows him an email that includes the draft House resolution insisting he invoke the 25th Amendment to oust his boss. Pence says, “Yeah, excellent,” before offering a contained, if not tense, smile—a “smirk,” CNN reports. “Tell Zach to print me off a hard copy for the trip home,” he tells the staff member before resettling for the scheduled interview, during which he refused to discuss the riot at the Capitol, according to the documentary. The new footage offers a taste of the content that the January 6 panel—which is weighing holding future hearings due to newly revealed evidence—is now reviewing.

Source Article from https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-holders-footage-shows-mike-pence-reacting-to-demand-that-he-invoke-25th-amendment-in-jan-6-documentary

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‘YOU take YOUR seat’: Very specific cheat sheet reminds Biden how to act – New York Post
‘YOU take YOUR seat’: Very specific cheat sheet reminds Biden how to act – New York Post

President Biden on Thursday inadvertently held up a comically detailed cheat sheet prepared by his staff instructing the gaffe-prone leader of the free world to “take YOUR seat” and to limit his remarks to “2 minutes.”

A photographer snapped an image of the document when Biden held it up backward at a meeting with wind-industry executives, which he attended after skipping his administration’s morning meeting with oil companies about combatting record gas prices.

The prepared instructions for Biden — titled “Offshore Wind Drop-By Sequence of Events” — tell Biden to “enter the Roosevelt Room and say hello to participants.”

Then, the paper says, “YOU take YOUR seat.”

The typed-up note says that after reporters arrive, “YOU give brief comments (2 minutes).”

When reporters depart, “YOU ask Liz Shuler, President, AFL-CIO, a question” and then “YOU thank participants” and “YOU depart.”

Biden’s use of staff notes at events has been embarrassing before, such as last July, when an aide scrawled, “Sir, there is something on your chin.” Biden also held that note so it faced reporters and photographers.

President Biden held up a detailed cheat sheet during a meeting with wind-industry executives on June 23, 2022.
Shawn Thew – Pool via CNP / MEGA
The cheat sheet instructed Biden to “take YOUR seat” and then “YOU depart” at the end of the event.
EPA/SHAWN THEW

Biden reportedly has bristled at staff attempting to control his message to the point that they even contradict his unexpected public utterances without checking with him.

Biden reportedly reminded staff that he’s president after they said he didn’t mean what he said in March when he called for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be removed from power over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The so-called clean-up campaign, he has told advisers, undermines him and smothers the authenticity that fueled his rise. Worse, it feeds a Republican talking point that he’s not fully in command,” NBC News reported last month.

A day after Biden’s remark about Putin, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain retweeted a message from CNN White House correspondent John Harwood that said Biden’s remark showed a “significant lapse in discipline.”

Republicans often accuse the 79-year-old president of being in mental decline. Former President Donald Trump claimed ahead of the 2020 election that Biden was cognitively “shot.”

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2022/06/23/a-very-specific-cheat-sheet-reminds-biden-how-to-act/

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Supreme Court strikes down New York gun law, expanding concealed carry rights – CBS News
Supreme Court strikes down New York gun law, expanding concealed carry rights – CBS News

Washington — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York law that placed strict restrictions on carrying concealed firearms in public for self defense, finding its requirement that applicants seeking a concealed carry license demonstrate a special need for self-defense is unconstitutional.

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision upholding New York’s 108-year-old law limiting who can obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in public. Proponents of the measure warned that a ruling from the high court invalidating it could threaten gun restrictions in several states and lead to more firearms on city streets.

Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the majority opinion for the ideologically divided court, writing that New York’s “proper-cause requirement” prevented law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment right, and its licensing regime is unconstitutional.

“The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,'” Thomas wrote. “We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.”

Writing in dissent for the liberal wing of the court, Justice Stephen Breyer noted the rise in gun violence in the U.S. and ubiquity of firearms, and warned that states working to pass more stringent firearms laws will be “severely” burdened by the court’s decision.

“In my view, when courts interpret the Second Amendment, it is constitutionally proper, indeed often necessary, for them to consider the serious dangers and consequences of gun violence that lead states to regulate firearms,” Breyer wrote. “The Second Circuit has done so and has held that New York’s law does not violate the Second Amendment. I would affirm that holding.”

The court’s decision comes on the heels of a string of mass shootings from mid-May to early June that jolted the nation and acted as a catalyst for Congress to again search for consensus on a legislative plan to curb gun violence. On May 14, a racist gunman went on a shooting rampage at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., killing 10 people. Ten days later, 19 children and two teachers were massacred in a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Then, on June 1, four people were fatally shot at a medical building in Tulsa, Okla.

The ruling marks the first expansion of gun rights since 2008, when the Supreme Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep firearms in the home for self-defense. The New York court battle was also the biggest Second Amendment case before the court since its 2008 decision, and a 2010 ruling that said the right to have a handgun in the home applies to the states. Gun rights supporters were hopeful the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority would recognize the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a firearm in public.

In a concurring opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Kavanuagh noted the court’s decision does not prohibit states from imposing licensing requirements for carrying handguns, and leaves untouched existing regimes in 43 states. Instead, it only impacts more stringent licensing rules in affect in six states, including New York.

President Biden said in a statement he is “deeply disappointed by the decision,” and again urged states to enact changes to their laws to curb gun violence.

“This ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all,” he said.

The New York permitting law at the crux of the dispute dates back to 1913 and requires residents seeking a license to carry a gun outside the home to demonstrate a “proper cause” to obtain one, which state courts have said is a “special need for self-protection.”

The two plaintiffs in the case, Robert Nash and Brandon Koch, each applied for carry licenses, but licensing officers denied their applications because they failed to establish proper cause to carry handguns in public. The two were granted “restricted” licenses to carry firearms for target shooting, hunting and outdoor activities.

Along with the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Nash and Koch challenged the constitutionality of New York’s prohibition on carrying handguns in public and the proper-cause requirement in 2018. A federal district court dismissed their suit, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision, leaving the licensing regime in place.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, criticized the Supreme Court’s decision, saying on Twitter that it was “outrageous that at a moment of national reckoning on gun violence, the Supreme Court has recklessly struck down a New York law that limits those who can carry concealed weapons.”


New York Gov. Kathy Hochul responds to Supreme Court striking down gun law

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the court’s ruling will “put New Yorkers at further risk of gun violence.” He pledged to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the approach to defining places where carrying firearms is banned, and to review the application process to ensure only those who are qualified can obtain a license to carry.

“This decision may have opened an additional river feeding the sea of gun violence, but we will do everything we can to dam it,” he said.

Half of the states generally require a permit issued by the state in order to carry a concealed firearm in public, and of those, about six other states — California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island — allow a person to carry a firearm in public only if they have a need to do so. In those half-dozen states, government officials have discretion in denying licenses, even if the applicant satisfies the statutory criteria.

New York officials and the Biden administration, which urged the Supreme Court to uphold the law, warned the justices during oral arguments in November that invalidating the measure could have a domino effect, jeopardizing not only the states’ restrictions, but also others that limit public carry in places where people congregate, such as airports, arenas, churches and schools.

Some of the justices appeared concerned about how a broad ruling could impact restrictions imposed on places where large amounts of people gather. Roberts, for example, questioned whether a state or city could ban firearms at football stadiums or places where alcohol is served, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked about banning guns in “sensitive places,” such as Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito criticized Breyer’s dissent for recounting recent mass shootings.

“Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo?” he wrote. “The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.”


Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-new-york-gun-law-second-amendment/

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Jan. 6 hearing: Trump told DOJ officials ‘just say it was corrupt, and leave the rest up to me’ – CNBC
Jan. 6 hearing: Trump told DOJ officials ‘just say it was corrupt, and leave the rest up to me’ – CNBC

Multiple Republican members of the House of Representatives sought preemptive pardons from Trump on the heels of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, among them Reps. Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks and Marjorie Taylor Greene, witnesses testified.

Alabama Rep. Brooks sent the White House an email on Jan. 11, 2021, seeking pardons for himself, Gaetz, and “every Congressman and Senator who voted to reject the electoral college submission of Arizona and Pennsylvania” five days earlier, according to excerpts of the message displayed during the hearing.

Florida Rep. Gaetz had pushed to receive a pardon beginning in December 2020, according to videotaped testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

“The pardon he was requesting was as broad as you could describe, from the beginning of time, up until today, for any and all things” former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said in his own videotaped testimony about Gaetz.

Others who sought pardons were Trump allies such as Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas and Andy Biggs of Arizona as well as Greene, the controversial Georgia congresswoman, according to testimony.

All of them had promoted and supported Trump’s false claims of having lost the 2020 presidential election only as a result of widespread ballot fraud.

After testimony about the pardons was heard, committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said, “The only reason I know to ask for a pardon is because you think you’ve committed a crime.”

– Dan Mangan

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/23/jan-6-hearing-to-spotlight-trumps-pressure-on-doj-and-plan-to-replace-attorney-general-.html

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Ukraine grants EU candidate status at European Council summit – The Washington Post
Ukraine grants EU candidate status at European Council summit – The Washington Post

If Ukraine joined now, it would become the fifth-most-populous member state, and by far the poorest. Ukraine’s per capita gross domestic product last year was $4,872, less than half that of the current poorest member, Bulgaria, at $11,683, according to estimates from the International Monetary Fund.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/23/ukraine-european-union-candidate-status-russia/

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Publix won’t offer coronavirus vaccines to children under 5 ‘at this time’ – The Washington Post
Publix won’t offer coronavirus vaccines to children under 5 ‘at this time’ – The Washington Post

Publix has donated to both Democrats and Republicans, but the company notably gave $100,000 to DeSantis’s political committee last year, campaign finance records show. The Post reported last week that Julie Fancelli, the 72-year-old Publix heiress, paid the speaking fee for Kimberly Guilfoyle, a fundraiser for former president Donald Trump and the fiancee of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., at the rally on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the Capitol riot. In the days leading up to the Jan. 6 rally, Fancelli wired $650,000 to several organizations that helped stage and promote the event.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/06/23/publix-covid-vaccination-young-children-florida/

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Republican lawmakers asked the White House for pardons before and after Jan. 6 – NPR
Republican lawmakers asked the White House for pardons before and after Jan. 6 – NPR

A video displays a discussion about presidential pardons on Thursday during the fifth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Alex Wong/Getty Images


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Alex Wong/Getty Images

A video displays a discussion about presidential pardons on Thursday during the fifth hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Various Republican members of Congress requested pardons from then-President Donald Trump in the final days of the administration, testimony revealed today.

Five days after the insurrection, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., sent an email with the subject line “Pardons” to the White House requesting a pardon for Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., himself and “every congressman or senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania.”

In a taped deposition shown during the hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said Brooks and Gaetz advocated for blanket pardons for House members who were involved in a Dec. 21 White House meeting.

Specifically, Gaetz had been asking for a pardon since “early December,” Hutchinson said, noting Reps. Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Scott Perry also sought pardons from the White House. John McEntee, a former White House aide, also said Gaetz had told him he asked Meadows for a pardon.

Hutchinson testified she had heard that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia had requested a pardon from the White House counsel’s office, but did not communicate with Greene about that. No pardons were issued.

“The only reason you ask for a pardon is if you think you’ve committed a crime,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the Democratic-led select committee, said during today’s hearing.

Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer, told the committee in a videotaped interview that Gaetz sought a pardon “from the beginning of time up until today, for any and all things.”

On Twitter, Gaetz did not deny the claims, but wrote: “The January 6 Committee is an unconstitutional political sideshow. It is rapidly losing the interest of the American people and now resorts to siccing federal law enforcement on political opponents.”

Herschmann said the “general tone” of the requests was: “We may get prosecuted because we were defensive of the president’s position on these things.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107192874/republicans-trump-pardons-jan-6

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Uvalde school police chief on leave after mass shooting – The Associated Press – en Español
Uvalde school police chief on leave after mass shooting – The Associated Press – en Español

DALLAS (AP) — The Uvalde school district’s police chief was put on leave Wednesday following allegations that he erred in his response to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said that he put schools police Chief Pete Arredondo on administrative leave because the facts of what happened remain unclear. In a statement, Harrell did not address Arredondo’s actions as on-site commander during the attack but said he didn’t know when details of federal, state and local investigations into the law enforcement response to the slayings would be revealed.

“From the beginning of this horrible event, I shared that the district would wait until the investigation was complete before making personnel decisions,” Harrell said. “Because of the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations, I have made the decision to place Chief Arredondo on administrative leave effective on this date.”

A spokesperson for the Uvalde school district, Anne Marie Espinoza, declined to say whether Arredondo would continue to be paid while on leave.

Another officer will assume the embattled chief’s duties, Harrell said.

Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a state Senate hearing on Tuesday that Arredondo made “terrible decisions” as the massacre unfolded on May 24 , and that the police response was an “abject failure.”

Three minutes after 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered the school, sufficient armed law enforcement were on scene to stop the gunman, McCraw testified. Yet police officers armed with rifles waited in a school hallway for more than an hour while the gunman carried out the massacre. The classroom door could not be locked from the inside, but there is no indication officers tried to open the door while the gunman was inside, McCraw said.

McCraw has said parents begged police outside the school to move in and students inside the classroom repeatedly pleaded with 911 operators for help while more than a dozen officers waited in a hallway. Officers from other agencies urged Arredondo to let them move in because children were in danger.

“The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering Room 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw said.

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin pushed back on McCraw’s testimony casting blame on Arredondo, saying the Department of Public Safety has repeatedly put out false information about the shooting and glossed over the role of its own officers.

McLaughlin called Tuesday’s Senate hearing a “clown show” and said he heard nothing from McCraw about state troopers’ involvement, even though McLaughlin said their number in the school hallway at points during the slaughter surpassed that of any other law enforcement agency.

Delays in the police response as the shooting was happening has become the focus of ongoing investigations and public outcry. Law enforcement has at times offered confusing and sometimes contradictory details and timelines that have drawn anger and frustration.

The Uvalde City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously against giving Arredondo — who is a council member — a leave of absence from appearing at public meetings. Relatives of the shooting victims had pleaded with city leaders to instead fire him.

“Please, please, we’re begging you, get this man out of our lives,” said Berlinda Arreola, the grandmother of Amerie Jo Garza, a 10-year-old who was fatally shot in the attack.

Sen. Paul Bettencourt told the state Senate hearing that Arredondo should have stepped down straight away.

“This man should have removed himself from the job immediately because, just looking at his response, he was incapable of it,” Bettencourt said.

Arredondo and his lawyer have declined repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press and did not immediately respond to an inquiry Wednesday about his leave.

Arredondo has tried to defend his actions, telling the Texas Tribune that he didn’t consider himself the commander in charge of operations and that he assumed someone else had taken control of the law enforcement response. He said he didn’t have his police and campus radios but that he used his cellphone to call for tactical gear, a sniper and the classroom keys.

It’s still not clear why it took so long for police to enter the classroom, how they communicated with each other during the attack, and what their body cameras show.

Officials have declined to release more details, citing the investigation.

Arredondo, 50, grew up in Uvalde and spent much of his nearly 30-year career in law enforcement in the city. He took the head police job at the school district in 2020 and was sworn in as a member of the City Council in a closed-door ceremony May 31.

___

Find more AP coverage of the Uvalde school shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-politics-police-shootings-texas-9aa0ddb541ab37dd7b6526fc2cdb0bec

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New Biden Rules Would Bar Discrimination Against Transgender Students – The New York Times
New Biden Rules Would Bar Discrimination Against Transgender Students – The New York Times

The proposal expands the definition of what constitutes sexual harassment, and the types of episodes that schools are obligated to address and investigate — to include, for example, incidents that took place off campus or abroad, as well as incidents that create a “hostile environment.” The new rules would also roll back the most controversial of Ms. DeVos’s rules, and make live hearings and cross-examination optional, rather than required.

The proposal retains aspects of Ms. DeVos’s rules — which drew more than 120,000 public comments and unsuccessful legal challenges — that emphasize the presumption of innocence, fair and unbiased investigations, and equitable rights of accused and accusers.

Still, the proposal “has flaws that sets it up on a collision course with the courts,” said Joe Cohn, the legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan civil liberties group.

Mr. Cohn said that the administration’s backtracking on live hearings and cross-examinations, as well as its deviation from the Supreme Court definition of sexual harassment used by Ms. DeVos, ignore free speech and due process rulings that have already found such measures essential to Title IX case deliberations. The rule also reinstates a “single investigator” model that courts have found problematic, he said, under which one person acts as judge and jury.

“This rule acts as if that body of case law does not exist,” Mr. Cohn said. “They need to make significant revisions if they want the regulation to survive.”

The proposal, predictably, divided Congressional lawmakers along partisan lines. Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the ranking member of the Senate Education Committee, said the proposed change made clear “the administration is placing accusations of guilt above fair consideration of the evidence.”

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/us/politics/biden-transgender-students-discrimination.html

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Live updates: SCOTUS throws out New York’s handgun law – CNN
Live updates: SCOTUS throws out New York’s handgun law – CNN

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, June 22. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Just after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on New York’s gun law, a major bipartisan gun safety bill moved one step closer to final passage in the Senate on Thursday after a critical vote succeeded in advancing the measure with Republican support.

The legislation is now on a path to pass the Senate before the week is out — with the potential for a final vote to take place as early as later today.

The bipartisan gun deal represents the first major federal gun safety legislation in decades. It includes millions of dollars for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs and incentives for states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

It also makes significant changes to the process when someone ages 18 to 21 goes to buy a firearm and closes the so-called boyfriend loophole, a victory for Democrats, who have long fought for that.

The package amounts to the most significant new federal legislation to address gun violence since the expired 10-year assault weapons ban of 1994 — though it fails to ban any weapons and falls far short of what Democrats and polls show most Americans want to see.

The critical vote on the federal gun safety bill came on the same day as the Supreme Court struck down a New York gun law enacted more than a century ago that places restrictions on carrying a concealed handgun outside the home.

The ruling highlights the conflicting political forces surrounding the issue at all levels of government, as the judicial branch implements the widest expansion of gun rights in a decade, happening right as the legislative branch appears on track to pass its most significant gun safety package in almost 30 years.

A critical vote that requires GOP support: Thursday’s vote was held to overcome a GOP filibuster and required 60 votes to succeed, meaning that at least 10 Republicans needed to join with Democrats to vote in favor.

That was expected to happen, however, after 14 Republicans voted to advance the bill in an initial vote Tuesday evening.

Now that the Senate has broken a filibuster, the bill is on track for a final passage vote.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called to pass the bill this week, though the exact timing of a final vote is still to be determined. A final Senate vote could come as early as Thursday if all 100 senators consent to a time agreement. It will take place at a simple majority threshold.

The House would next have to take up the bill before it can be signed into law. It is not yet clear how quickly the bill could move through both chambers, but if the Senate holds a final passage vote Thursday evening, the House could pass the measure soon after.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that if the Senate passes the gun safety bill on Thursday, the House will convene and pass it Thursday as well.

“We’ll try to do it today,” he said. “If they move it that quickly, we’ll get it done.”

Senate rules allow any one senator to slow down the process, and Schumer on Thursday called on Senate Republicans to work with Democrats to get the legislation passed “before the day is out.”

Read more here.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/new-york-gun-law-supreme-court-decision/index.html

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Capitol attack panel to show how Trump pressured DoJ to overturn election – The Guardian US
Capitol attack panel to show how Trump pressured DoJ to overturn election – The Guardian US

The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection on Thursday will hear from former justice department officials about Donald Trump’s “brazen attempt” to overturn the 2020 presidential election that he lost.

Opening the hearing, the panel’s chair, congressman Bennie Thompson, said the hearing would show that the former president sought to “misuse the justice department as part of his plan to hold on to power”.

“Donald Trump didn’t just want the justice department to investigate,” Thompson said. “He wanted the justice department to help legitimate his lies, to basically call the election corrupt.”

After exhausting his legal options and being rebuffed by state and local elections officials, the panel said a desperate Trump turned to the justice department to declare the election corrupt despite no evidence of mass voter fraud, the nine-member panel will seek to show in their fifth and final hearing of the month.

Testifying from the Cannon Caucus Room on Capitol Hill are Jeffrey Rosen, the former acting attorney general; Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general; and Steven Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel.

The committee has repeatedly played clips from the taped deposition of former attorney general Bill Barr, who said he told the president in no uncertain terms that his claims of election fraud were “bullshit”. At one point during his deposition, Barr burst into laughter as he recounted how absurd some of the theories were, including one purportedly orchestrated by Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan leader who died in 2013.

Donoghue also told Trump, according to his taped deposition, that the department found no evidence to support the allegations of fraud, but said every time they disproved one Trump would present another.

“We told him flat out that much of the information he’s getting is false and/or just not supported by the evidence,” Donoghue said.

The committee is building the case that Trump was at the heart of the sprawling conspiracy that led to the violence on January 6 – a lie that has only metastasized in the months since a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol with pipes, bear spray and Confederate flags. Nine people died in the assault and its aftermath.

The public hearings are the culmination of a yearlong investigation into the violence on January 6 and the events that led to it. The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and collected more than 140,000 documents. But it continues to amass new evidence.

Thompson told reporters this week that the committee had received “a lot of information”, including documentary footage of Trump’s final months in office. It also plans to speak with Ginni Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas who was in close contact with Trump’s chief of staff in the days leading up to the Capitol attack.

The committee said it would resume public hearings in July, with at least two more sessions scheduled. Those hearings are expected to detail how extremist groups like the Proud Boys planned the attack on Congress and how Trump failed to act to stop the violence once it erupted on 6 January.

“These efforts were not some minor or ad hoc enterprise concocted overnight,” said congresswoman Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice-chair. “Each required planning and coordination. All of them were overseen by President Trump.”

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/23/capitol-attack-panel-trump-pressured-doj-overturn-election

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Federal Authorities Search Home of Trump Justice Dept. Official – The New York Times
Federal Authorities Search Home of Trump Justice Dept. Official – The New York Times

At the time, Mr. Clark was proposing to send a letter to state officials in Georgia falsely stating that the department had evidence that could lead Georgia to rescind its certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in that key swing state. The effort was cut short by his superiors in the department.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has said little publicly about the criminal investigation other than that the Justice Department would follow the facts. But he has been under pressure from some Democrats, including members of the House select committee, to hold Mr. Trump and his allies to account for the effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

The dramatic developments regarding Mr. Clark came to light as a federal grand jury sitting in Washington continued to issue subpoenas to people involved in a related plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the election: an effort to subvert the normal workings of the electoral process by creating fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states that were actually won by Mr. Biden.

In the past two days, according to several people familiar with the matter, at least nine people in four different states have received subpoenas in connection with the fake-elector investigation. They were largely those who agreed to be electors for Mr. Trump themselves or were aides to Mr. Trump’s campaign in states where the plan was carried out.

Among those who received subpoenas were Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, and her husband, Michael, both of whom served as electors on Mr. Trump’s purported slate in the state, according to a person familiar with the matter. Along with the Wards, subpoenas were issued to two other pro-Trump electors in Arizona, Nancy Cottle and Loraine B. Pellegrino, the person said.

Their lawyer, Alexander Kolodin, attacked the Justice Department’s fake elector inquiry.

“This is an investigation based on allegations that our clients engaged in core First Amendment activity — petitioning Congress about grievances,” Mr. Kolodin said.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-justice-dept.html

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Ukraine takes step toward EU membership as battle in east enters ‘fearsome climax’ – Reuters.com
Ukraine takes step toward EU membership as battle in east enters ‘fearsome climax’ – Reuters.com

KYIV, June 23 (Reuters) – Ukraine will formally become a candidate to join the European Union on Thursday, a boost for the devastated country’s morale as Russian assaults wear down the defenders of two cities in the eastern Donbas region.

Although the approval of the Kyiv government’s application by EU leaders meeting in Brussels is just the start of what will be a years-long process, it marks a huge geopolitical shift and will anger Russia as it struggles to impose its will on Ukraine.

The expected green light “is a signal to Moscow that Ukraine, and also other countries from the former Soviet Union, cannot belong to the Russian spheres of influence,” Ukraine’s ambassador to the EU, Vsevolod Chentsov, told Reuters.

In the capital, 22-year-old serviceman Volodymyr Yanishan welcomed the move to candidate status. “It means that people almost reached what we have been striving for since 2014 in a bloody fight which cost us much effort… I think the majority will be glad and it means changes for better.”

Mass protests in Kyiv that year ousted Ukraine’s then-president after he broke a promise to develop closer ties with the EU. read more

Friday will mark four months since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops across the border in what he calls a “special military operation” partly necessitated by Western encroachment into what Russia considers its sphere of influence.

The conflict, which the West sees as an unjustified war of aggression by Russia, has killed thousands, displaced millions and destroyed cities, while the curtailment of food and energy exports has affected countries across the world.

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain was willing to assist with demining operations off Ukraine’s southern coast and was considering offering insurance to ships to move millions of tonnes of grain stuck in the country. read more

Russia has focused its campaign on southern and eastern Ukraine after its advance on Kyiv in the early stages of the conflict was thwarted by Ukrainian resistance.

The war of attrition in the Donbas – Ukraine’s industrial heartland – is most critical in the twin cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, which sit on opposite sides of the Siverskyi Donets River in Luhansk province.

The battle there is “entering a sort of fearsome climax”, said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskiy.

HOT SUMMER

Russian forces were trying to encircle Ukrainian troops defending Lysychansk, senior Ukrainian defence official Oleksiy Gromov said in a briefing on Thursday.

Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said separately that all Lysychansk was within reach of Russian fire and the Ukrainian troops there might retreat to new positions to avoid being trapped.

1/10

People watch as a defused 500kg bomb that did not detonate when it landed on an apartment building in March, is lowered from the roof by members of a specialised team that defuses and removes explosives, bombs, mines and other munitions in the Saltivka neighbourhood, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, June 23, 2022. REUTERS/Leah Millis

Russian-backed separatist forces said there was fierce fighting underway around Ukrainian positions in Hirske, which lies on the western side of the main north-south road to Lysychansk, and Zolote, another settlement to the south.

Ukrainian forces were defending Sievierodonetsk and nearby Zolote and Vovchoyrovka, Gaidai said, but Russian troops had captured Loskutivka and Rai-Oleksandrivka to the south.

Hundreds of civilians are trapped in a chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk while Ukraine and Russia dispute who controls the bombed-out city.

On the southern front, Russian forces struck Ukrainian army fuel tanks and military equipment near Mykolaiv with high-precision weapons, Russia’s defence ministry said, quoted by the Interfax news agency.

A river port and ship-building centre just off the Black Sea, Mykolaiv has been a bastion against Russian efforts to push West towards Ukraine’s main port city of Odesa.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Ukraine’s allies to speed up shipments of heavy weapons to match Russia on the battlefield.

“We must free our land and achieve victory, but more quickly, a lot more quickly,” he said in a video address early on Thursday.

Later, Ukrainian defence minister said HIMARS multiple rocket systems had arrived from the United States. With a range of 70 km, the systems can challenge the Russian artillery batteries that have bludgeoned Ukrainian cities from afar.

“Summer will be hot for Russian occupiers. And the last one for some of them,” Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted.

SHIELD FOR THE EU

As well as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia are also seeking to the join the EU in what would be its most ambitious expansion since welcoming Eastern European states after the Cold War.

Russia has long opposed closer links between Ukraine, a fellow former Soviet republic, and Western groupings like the European Union and the NATO military alliance.

Diplomats say it will take Ukraine a decade or more to meet the criteria for joining the EU. But EU leaders say the bloc must make a gesture that recognises Ukraine’s sacrifice.

The country’s move to join the EU runs alongside applications by Sweden and Finland to enter NATO in the wake of the Russian invasion – indications that the Kremlin’s military actions have backfired on its geopolitical aims.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-calls-heavy-arms-eu-membership-russia-pounds-cities-2022-06-23/

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