But there are non physical reminders as well. Despite their smiles and handshakes, it’s not lost on Israeli and other Middle Eastern officials that Trump made the region the scene of his first foreign trip, while Biden waited a year and half into his presidency to stop by.
Trump made Jerusalem now the U.S.-recognized capital of Israel. He made it so there’s no longer a U.S. consulate that engages with the Palestinians. His policies assured that the dream of a Palestinian state is nearly dead and that Israel has more Arab friends than ever.
Biden has grudgingly accepted this new reality and will do little to change it during roughly 48 hours on the ground in Israel. Comparisons to Trump’s time in the holy land will be unavoidable since the 45th president threw aside convention to be the first to visit the Western Wall and put his name directly on an American embassy in Jerusalem, whose courtyard is dedicated to his son–in-law, Jared Kushner.
Biden isn’t aiming for grand gestures: He wants to show the U.S.-Israeli relationship remains on solid footing before heading to a much trickier meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The actual word “Trump” is unlikely to slip past Biden’s lips.
“I assumed he would stay far away from that name. Like Candyman,” said Kirsten Fontenrose, a former top National Security Council official for the Gulf in the Trump administration. “He won’t want to draw any comparisons…He can’t afford to have references in the Arab press equating their policies.”
“What purpose does bringing up Trump serve? I don’t see any benefit for the U.S. president doing that,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, adding there’s no imperative to mention Trump even in a show of bipartisanship due to America’s longstanding support for Israel.
Biden may have no incentive to discuss his predecessor. But his team has not shied away from touting a rare area of agreement it has with “the former guy.”
The Biden administration has embraced the Abraham Accords, a Trump-backed effort to improve Israel’s relations with other Arab countries and better integrate it economically, diplomatically and otherwise into the Middle East. Those accords were brokered by the Trump White House, and they’ve normalized relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries, including Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
Arab nations had long made it clear that they would not negotiate with Israel until the Palestinians received an independent state of their own. But the Abraham Accords showed that Arab-Israeli relations could be decoupled from the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The Biden White House wants to build on what Trump started. “We strongly support the Abraham Accords and normalization agreements between Israel and countries in the Arab and Muslim worlds,” an administration official told POLITICO.
Biden aides privately concede that Trump’s deals have helped lower the temperature in the Middle East. One of the president’s objectives on this trip is to push Israel and Saudi Arabia closer together, possibly toward an eventual Abraham Accord of their own.
Israeli officials, for the most part, are hesitant to openly discuss Trump while Biden is in the region.
In the lead-up to the visit, a POLITICO reporter tried asking a half-dozen Israeli officials if they were pleased Biden is continuing Trump’s policy of keeping the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem and building on the normalization deals.
None would comment, not even on background. Eventually, a seventh Israeli official was willing to say, “Of course we’re happy,” that Biden hasn’t changed course on major Trump policy shifts related to the region.
The Biden administration has reversed some of Trump moves in the Middle East. For instance, it restored hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the Palestinian people, and it has re-established a diplomatic channel to the Palestinians, even though it has not managed to re-open the consulate.
The Biden team also says it supports a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — even as Trump’s approach dramatically undermined that possibility —and has warned against Israeli settlement expansion in land claimed by Palestinians for a future state. And it’s trying, but failing, to revive the Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore apart in 2018.
Those shifts, however, are minor when compared to the changes Trump and his team pushed through, which heavily favored Israel. In some cases, legal and diplomatic hurdles have prevented Biden from changing Trump policies — Israel, for example, won’t give permission for the reopening of the consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem.
“We would like to see a consulate in East Jerusalem,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Wednesday on Air Force One, but “that requires engagement with the Israeli government, requires engagement with the Israeli leadership.” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby clarified Sullivan’s comments, saying the top aide meant to just say “Jerusalem,” as is consistent with current U.S. policy.
Biden’s visit to the West Bank, where he’s supposed to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, could prove unusually sensitive. Abbas despised Trump, and it’s possible he may use this moment to air grievances he had with the former president. Trump and Abbas met in 2017 in Bethlehem, a session some reports indicated was tense and awkward.
Many Palestinians have been disappointed by Biden’s relative lack of attention to their situation. Biden is expected to announce $100 million for Palestinian hospitals, giving more aid to make up for the assistance the Trump administration stripped away. But that’s peanuts compared to what Palestinians say they need and a far cry from what they want: The resuscitation of peace talks.
“Are the Palestinian people excited about the visit? No,” a Palestinian official told POLITICO. While the Biden administration has made adjustments to the U.S. rhetoric about the region, “from a policy perspective, nothing has changed.”
While giving the idea of a two-state solution lip service, including saying in Israel that it remains “the best way” forward for both parties, Biden has put virtually no diplomatic muscle behind it. His administration views it as a no-win cause, not least because neither of the parties seems truly ready for serious talks.
The decades-old conflict is further complicated by Hamas, a militant group the U.S. considers a terrorist organization and which controls the Gaza Strip. One of Biden’s first major foreign crises as president was an 11-day battle last year between Israel and Gaza militants.
Overall, Biden’s swing through the region is likely to be a more traditional, quieter affair than Trump’s 2017 trip to the Middle East, which was marked by spectacle.
Trump stopped first not in Jerusalem, but in Riyadh, where his image was plastered on highway signs and projected on the sides of buildings, including the luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel where he stayed (and where later that year Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would imprison fellow royals and elites he accused of corruption).
Trump was greeted with a lavish ceremony that featured a traditional Saudi sword dance. He also stood next to the Saudi king and president of Egypt to pose — for some unclear reason — with a glowing orb.
Trump’s visit to Israel, his next stop, also included a highly symbolic visit to Jerusalem’s Western Wall —one of Judaism’s holiest sites — as well as unending pledges of love from Netanyahu.
The Netanyahu-Trump relationship was mutually beneficial: his pro-Israel bona fides helped Trump rally his evangelical base while Netanyahu got full-throated support from Washington during tense elections and judicial problems as well as a lopsided White House peace proposal that met many of Israel’s demands at the expense of the Palestinians.
Biden is unlikely to form such a relationship with Israel’s caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, especially since Lapid may no longer lead the country following Israel’s fifth elections in under four years this fall. Biden may have to soon once again deal with Netanyahu — who himself may in a couple years’ time get Trump back. But if Biden leaves Israel having reduced the subtle pining in Jerusalem for Trump, that may be enough.
Ward reported from Jerusalem. Toosi reported from Washington, and Lemire reported from New York.
The chair of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, said Wednesday that the panel is “concerned” about a witness whom former President Donald Trump allegedly phoned in the last few weeks but that it will be up to the Justice Department to determine whether the call amounted to anything illegal.
“You know, we are concerned obviously about the witness. And we’re not going to put that witness in unnecessary jeopardy,” Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters Wednesday, a day after the panel first revealed the alleged call to an unidentified witness.
At the close of Tuesday’s hearing, the committee’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said that after the panel’s last hearing on June 28, “President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation — a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings.”
“That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call, and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us,” Cheney said, adding that the panel alerted the Department of Justice.
“Let me say one more time: We will take any efforts to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney said.
Thompson refused Wednesday to divulge any details on the person’s identity, except to say that they are a “person of importance to the committee.”
Asked if he thought the Trump call had been an attempt to intimidate a witness, he said he considered the attempted contact “highly unusual.”
“That’s why we more or less put that in the hands of the Justice Department, for them to make that decision,” Thompson said.
Another committee member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was asked in an interview with CNN if he thought there’d been an attempt to tamper with a witness. “I don’t think we know enough, in part because the attempt was unsuccessful,” Schiff said.
Asked to comment on the call Tuesday, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich instead criticized Cheney, the committee and the media.
At the committee’s hearing on June 28, Cheney suggested Trump allies had tried to influence witnesses in the case and showed excerpts of statements from witnesses alleging that they had been contacted by someone trying to influence their testimony.
Schiff told CNN on Wednesday that “the fact that there have been multiple efforts to contact or influence witnesses is obviously of deep concern to us.”
He added that “one of the reasons we wanted that information out there is to let the former president and his allies know that we are watching this, that we will report their conduct to the department. We want to do everything we can to protect our witnesses.”
The document dump — a coup for the group but a serious blow to the C.I.A. — included instructions for compromising various commonly used computer tools, and then using them to spy: the online calling service Skype; Wi-Fi networks; PDF documents; and even commercial antivirus programs of the kind used by millions of people to protect their computers.
The breach, known as the Vault 7 leak, caused “catastrophic” damage to national security, the government said.
Investigators scrambled to find the culprit, and the trail eventually led to Mr. Schulte, a computer engineer for the agency who had helped create hacking tools as a coder at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va.
There, according to the government, Mr. Schulte and his team of elite programmers worked in a secret building protected by armed guards, designing, among other things, malware that targeted the computers of suspected terrorists.
F.BI. agents searched Mr. Schulte’s Manhattan apartment a week after WikiLeaks released the first of the C.I.A. documents, and then prevented him from flying to Mexico on vacation, according to court records and relatives. In June 2018, he was charged with being at the center of the breach.
When it published the information, WikiLeaks said the source hoped to raise “policy questions that need to be debated in public, including whether the C.I.A.’s hacking capabilities exceeded its mandated powers.”
Officials in southwestern Virginia say dozens of people are unaccounted for and likely over 100 homes were damaged after heavy rains caused devastating flooding in rural Buchanan County.
First responders, including swift water rescue teams, from across southwest and central Virginia headed to the area as water levels rose overnight and early Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, the National Weather Service office in Charleston, West Virginia, had issued a flash flood warning lasting into early Wednesday for parts of West Virginia and Virginia and also warned of severe thunderstorms in the area.
Gov. Glenn Younkin declared a state of emergency on Wednesday to respond to the severe flooding.
No deaths have been reported as a result of the flooding, Buchanan County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Eric Breeding said at a Wednesday news conference.
Authorities were investigating reports of 44 people who were unaccounted for, the sheriff’s office said later Wednesday.
“This does not mean the person is missing, it means we are attempting to reach and locate the person and check on their wellbeing,” the sheriff’s office said in a post on social media.
Billy Chrimes, search and rescue specialist from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, said the storm caused “significant flooding” and damage to a “well over 100” homes. Hundreds of households were also without power Wednesday in Buchanan County, according to poweroutage.us.
Crews continued to survey the damage Wednesday, Chrimes said, adding that landslides and road conditions were creating obstacles for the 18 search and rescue teams that responded to the flooding.
Several roads in the area were closed due to flooding, Breeding said, urging residents to avoid driving unless absolutely necessary. A family reunification center and emergency shelter was set up at a local elementary and middle school, he said.
“We ask that everyone please pray for this area,” Breeding said. “Please pray for those affected by this flooding.”
“We are making every resource available to help those impacted,” he said. “While rescue and recovery operations continue, please join me in prayer as we lift up our fellow Virginians impacted by this tragedy.”
The flooding comes less than a year after Buchanan County suffered serious flooding damage when the remnants of a hurricane hit the area in August 2021, washing away homes and leaving one person dead.
This is CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that “a really difficult road” lies ahead for Ukraine as Russia makes incremental advances in the east of the country.
Meanwhile in Istanbul, a high-stakes meeting has begun among Ukraine, Turkey, Russia and the United Nations, focusing on efforts to restart Ukrainian grain exports.
Andriy Yermak from Zelenskyy’s office said on his Telegram channel that the parties will discuss sea corridors for the export of grain, along with security issues. For months, Russian war ships have blocked Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
Back in Ukraine, anti-Russian sentiment is rife in occupied parts of the country, Britain’s Ministry of Defense noted on Wednesday, with Russian and pro-Russian officials (called collaborators by Ukraine) being targeted. A Moscow-installed mayor in Velykyi Burluk in the Kharkiv region was killed in a car bombing on Monday.
Ukraine, U.N., Russia and Turkey to discuss sea corridors for grain exports next week following talks
Russia and Ukraine are slated to meet again in Turkey next week following talks that aim to free up grain exports, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in a statement.
Delegations from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations met in Istanbul earlier.
“We will try to reach a conclusion by carrying out this in coordination with the UN. In this sense, it was agreed that the Ukrainian and Russian delegations should meet again in Turkey next week,” Akar said in a statement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a press conference that the meeting was a “critical step forward” in the safe and secure export of Ukrainian food products through the Black Sea.
For months, Russian warships have blocked Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
— Amanda Macias
U.S. welcomes EU decision to impose sanctions on Russian shipments to Kaliningrad
The Biden administration welcomed the European Union’s decision to implement economic sanctions on Russia and its shipments to and from Kaliningrad.
Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, depends on Lithuania and Belarus to conduct transit traffic between the enclave and mainland Russia.
“We applaud European Union member states, including Lithuania, for enforcing sanctions measures fully in accordance with EU guidance,” wrote State Department spokesman Ned Price in a statement.
“It is important to note that there is not now and there never has been a so-called blockade of Kaliningrad. Using a variety of routes, passengers continue to transit between mainland Russia and Kaliningrad, as do all humanitarian shipments and most other goods,” Price added.
In June, Lithuania announced it would halt entry by rail of all EU-sanctioned goods coming from Russia into Kaliningrad.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Lithuania’s actions in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad will trigger retaliatory measures.
— Amanda Macias
More than 5.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine, UN says
Of that total, more than 3.6 million people have registered for temporary refugee protection or similar safeguards in Europe.
“The escalation of conflict in Ukraine has caused civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcing people to flee their homes seeking safety, protection and assistance,” UN researchers wrote in a report.
“Millions of refugees from Ukraine have crossed borders into neighboring countries and many more have been forced to move inside the country,” the report added.
Here’s a look at where Ukrainian refugees have fled:
— Amanda Macias
U.S. Defense Secretary Austin and Dutch counterpart discuss Ukraine at Pentagon
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin thanked his Dutch counterpart for supplying Ukraine with military aid and for supporting joint U.S.-EU sanctions against Russia during a visit to the Pentagon.
“The Netherlands has heeded Ukraine’s calls for defensive and lethal equipment, especially in high-priority areas such as artillery and coastal defense,” Austin said, according to a Pentagon readout of the meeting with Netherlands Minister of Defense Kajsa Ollongren.
“Your government has also helped bolster NATO’s eastern flank by sending forces to Lithuania, Slovakia, and Romania, and as you’ve heard me say before, I’ve never seen NATO more united than it is right now,” Austin added.
The visit follows last month’s NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain where the 30-member bloc approved the expansion of the military alliance to include Sweden and Finland.
“We also welcome your government’s support for E.U. sanctions on Russian energy to impose further economic cost on Moscow and I want to thank you for your leadership in moving toward your NATO commitments and for increasing your defense budget to invest in modern and relevant capabilities,” Austin said, according to the readout.
— Amanda Macias
UN expert to visit Poland and Belarus to view Ukrainian refugee conditions
The U.N. will dispatch an expert to Poland and Belarus to assess the condition of Ukrainian migrants and refugees in those countries.
U.N. expert Felipe Gonzalez Morales is slated to visit Poland’s border areas with Belarus and Ukraine, including crossing points, guard posts, registration and processing centers, asylum reception centers, immigration detention facilities and other temporary reception facilities.
Gonzalez Morales, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, will also meet with Belarusian governmental authorities, U.N. agencies, civil society organizations and refugees.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, more than 5.8 million refugees have fled Ukraine, according to data compiled by the United Nations.
Gonzalez Morales will present his observations and recommendations to the Human Rights Council next year.
— Amanda Macias
Gazprom casts doubt on pipeline’s quick return to full flow
Russian energy giant Gazprom appeared to cast doubt on the prospects of quickly restoring the flow of natural gas to full capacity through a major pipeline to western Europe.
Gazprom last month reduced the gas deliveries through Nord Stream 1 to Germany by 60%. The state-owned gas company cited technical problems involving a part that partner Siemens Energy sent to Canada for overhaul and couldn’t be returned because of sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Canadian government said over the weekend that it would allow the gas turbine that powers a compressor station to be delivered to Germany, citing the “very significant hardship” that the German economy would suffer without a sufficient gas supply to keep industries running and generate electricity.
In a statement on Twitter, Gazprom said it “does not possess any documents that would enable Siemens to get the gas turbine engine … out of Canada.” It added that “in these circumstances, it appears impossible to reach an objective conclusion on further developments regarding the safe operation” of a compressor station at the Russian end of the pipeline.
Nord Stream 1 runs under the Baltic Sea is Germany’s main source of Russian gas, which recently has accounted for about 35% of the country’s total gas supply. Gas is usually sent onward to other European countries as well.
— Associated Press
U.S. calls on Russia to halt forced deportations of Ukrainians, citing possible war crimes
The Biden administration called on Russia to immediately halt systematic filtration operations and forced deportations in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, citing the possibility of war crimes.
“The unlawful transfer and deportation of protected persons is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians and is a war crime,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in a statement referencing a 1949 U.N. agreement to which Russia is a signatory.
Blinken said the U.S. suspects that between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, have been detained and forcibly deported from their homes to Russia.
— Amanda Macias
Opposition leader Ilya Yashin charged with ‘discrediting’ the Russian army fighting in Ukraine
Russian opposition figure and Moscow city councilor Ilya Yashin, charged with “discrediting” the Russian army fighting in Ukraine, is escorted inside the Basmanny district court prior to a hearing on his detention in Moscow.
— Getty Images
U.S., allies aim to cap Russian oil prices to hinder invasion
With thousands of sanctions already imposed on Russia to flatten its economy, the U.S. and its allies are working on new measures to starve the Russian war machine while also stopping the price of oil and gasoline from soaring to levels that could crush the global economy.
The Kremlin’s main pillar of financial revenue — oil — has kept the Russian economy afloat despite export bans, sanctions and the freezing of central bank assets. America’s European allies plan to follow the Biden administration and take steps to stop their use of Russian oil by the end of this year, a move that some economists say could cause the supply of oil worldwide to drop and push prices as high as $200 a barrel.
That risk has the U.S. and its allies seeking to establish a buyer’s cartel to control the price of Russian oil. Group of Seven leaders have tentatively agreed to back a cap on the price of Russian oil. Simply speaking, participating countries would agree to purchase the oil at lower-than-market price.
High energy costs are already straining economies and threatening fissures among the countries opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine in February. President Joe Biden has seen his public approval slip to levels that hurt Democrats’ chances in the midterm elections, while leaders in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy are coping with the economic devastation caused by trying to move away from Russian natural gas and petroleum.
— Associated Press
Hopes rise that grain exports from Ukraine could resume as talks begin
Ukraine’s foreign minister has expressed optimism that a deal to secure grain exports from Ukraine is within reach as a meeting gets underway to break an impasse over the exports, contributing to global food price rises.
“We are two steps away from a deal with Russia. We are in the final phase and now everything depends on Russia,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Spanish newspaper El Pais ahead of four-way talks between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and UN officials that have begun in Istanbul.
More than 20 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain are stuck in silos at the Black Sea port of Odesa, according to Reuters estimates, and many cargo ships have been stranded due to Russia’s blockade.
Russia has in turn blamed Ukraine for the stoppage of exports, accusing Kyiv of mining the Black Sea. Both Russia and Ukraine are major wheat exporters, as well as other vital products such as fertilizer and sunflower oil, respectively.
— Holly Ellyatt
Death toll rises to 47 after apartment block missile strike
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the town of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine has risen to 47.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, said in a Telegram post earlier today that another body of a woman had been recovered from the rubble of the apartment block that was struck on Saturday.
“In total, since the beginning of rescue works, the bodies of 47 dead people, including a child, have been found and removed from the scene. Nine people have been rescued from the rubble. Rescue works are underway,” Tymoshenko said.
Russian forces hit the five-storey apartment building in Chasiv Yar. Ukraine has said that the destruction was caused by Russian Uragan rockets. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilian targets despite a large number of instances in which civilian infrastructure was targeted, causing death and more displacement for ordinary Ukrainians.
— Holly Ellyatt
Ukraine says it has repulsed attack near Sloviansk, a key Russian target
Ukraine says it has successfully repulsed a Russian assault toward the settlements of Dovhenke and Dolyna, near the city of Sloviansk, a key target for Russian forces trying to advance in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said on Wednesday that Russian forces were shelling Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv and surrounding settlements, and also reported non-stop artillery shelling of areas around Sloviansk further south in Donetsk.
“Ukrainian defenders successfully repulsed an assault in the direction of Dovhenke and Dolyna. It is not excluded that the enemy will continue to conduct offensive operations to improve their tactical position and create favorable conditions for conducting an offensive towards Izium – Sloviansk,” general staff spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said in the armed forces’ latest update on Facebook.
Widespread shelling was also taking place in the areas around nearby city Kramatorsk and Bakhmut, Ukraine said.
Ahead of a meeting in Istanbul between Ukraine, Russia, the UN and Turkey on unblocking grain exports from Ukraine, the armed forces said that in both the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, Russia’s navy “focuses its main efforts on blocking civilian shipping. Four warships armed with Kalibr cruise missiles are kept ready for missile strikes.”
Ukraine’s armed forces added that the “morale and psychological state of the personnel of the occupiers remains low, systematic consumption of alcoholic beverages and desertion are noted. The occupiers complain about the ineffectiveness of their attacks on Ukrainian positions.”
CNBC was unable to verify the information in the report.
— Holly Ellyatt
Russian advances to continue this week as anti-Russian sentiment grows, UK says
In the Donbas, Russian forces will likely focus on taking several small towns during the coming week, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. Siversk and Dolyna are likely to be targets for Russian forces as they approach their bigger objective — the capture of cities Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
“Russia continues to seek to undermine the legitimacy of the Ukrainian state and consolidate its own governance and administrative control over occupied parts of Ukraine,” the ministry said on Twitter.
“Recently this has included an initiative to twin Russian and Ukrainian cities and regions to develop post-conflict administrations and a decree to make it easier for Ukrainians to obtain Russian citizenship.”
There is, however, a backlash in Ukraine, the ministry said, with anti-Russian sentiment in occupied parts leading to Russian and pro-Russian officials being targeted. The Russian-appointed administration in Velykyy Burluk acknowledged that one of its mayors was killed on July 11 by a car bombing.
“The targeting of officials is likely to escalate, exacerbating the already significant challenges facing the Russian occupiers and potentially increasing the pressure on already reduced military and security formations,” the U.K. said.
— Holly Ellyatt
A ‘really difficult road lies ahead,’ Zelenskyy says
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned there is a “really difficult road” ahead for his country as Russian forces continue to make small, incremental advances in eastern Ukraine.
In a Telegram post Tuesday evening, Zelenskyy said “a really difficult road is ahead. Everyone understands that. But it is also clear that what lies ahead is the success of our state.”
“When millions of people work sincerely for this – each and everyone at their own level – the result will be inevitable,” he added.
Zelenskyy’s comments come as Russian forces make slow but steady progress in occupying the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have already seized the Luhansk region of the Donbas and are now advancing into neighboring Donetsk.
Images published on Tuesday showed Russian soldiers patrolling areas of Severodonetsk, a major city in Luhansk and one of the last Ukrainian-held places to fall to Russia in the last few weeks.
— Holly Ellyatt
Ukrainian ministry says ships are passing through newly opened Danube rivermouth
Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said in a statement that 16 ships had passed through the Danube’s newly-reopened Bystre rivermouth in the last four days and that the opening up of the Bystre was an important step towards speeding up grain exports.
— Reuters
Ukraine, U.N., Russia and Turkey to discuss sea corridors for grain exports
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it would participate in a four-party meeting with the United Nations, Turkey and Russia on efforts to restart Ukrainian grain exports.
The meeting is slated for Wednesday in Istanbul.
Andriy Yermak from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said on his Telegram channel that the parties will discuss sea corridors for the export of grain, along with security issues.
For months, Russian war ships have blocked Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
— Amanda Macias
Death toll from Russian attack on apartment block rises to 41
The death toll from a Russian rocket attack that hit a five-story apartment block in the town of Chasiv Yar in the eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk has risen to 41, according to Ukraine’s emergency service.
Search and rescue teams were racing to reach survivors trapped in the rubble after the residential building was struck by Russian rockets over the weekend.
The service said that nine people had been rescued from the rubble as of Monday night.
“Work in progress,” Ukraine’s emergency services said in a Facebook post as search and rescue teams continued to look for survivors.
— Amanda Macias
Ukraine claims missile attack on Russian ammo depot near occupied Kherson
Ukraine’s military says it carried out a missile strike on an ammunition depot near the Russian-occupied port city of Kherson in southern Ukraine.
The strike hit a depot in Russian-held Nova Kakhovka, roughly 35 miles east of Kherson. Ukrainian officials had previously talked about launching counteroffensives to retake land that Russia has occupied since its invasion began in late February.
Moscow denies the Ukrainians hit an ammunition depot, saying it was a fertilizer storage facility that was struck and blown up. Russia also said that the strike damaged houses, a hospital and a market, causing deaths. The information has not been independently verified.
The Associated Press reported significant damage from the blast, seen in satellite imagery, and said in its analysis that the precision of the strike suggested it was carried out with U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS.
Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment on Columbus’ Northwest Side, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He’s since been charged with rape, a felony of the first degree in Ohio.
Columbus police were made aware of the girl’s pregnancy through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by her mother on June 22, Det. Jeffrey Huhn testified Wednesday morning at Fuentes’ arraignment. On June 30, the girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis, Huhn said.
Huhn also testified that DNA from the clinic in Indianapolis is being tested against samples from Fuentes, as well as the child’s siblings, to confirm contribution to the aborted fetus.
Ebner said a high bond was necessary, however, due to Fuentes being a possible flight risk and for the safety of the child involved. Before being arrested, Huhn and Det. David Phillips collected a saliva sample from Fuentes, according to a probable cause statement.
Ebner set a $2 million bond for Fuentes, who is being held in the Franklin County jail.
Charges further confirm story that has become abortion debate flash point
The criminal charges and testimony from the Columbus detective further confirm the disturbing story that has become a key flash point in the national furor over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The Indianapolis Star, a Gannett sister paper of The Dispatch, first reported earlier this month that a 10-year-old rape victim traveled from Ohio to Indiana for abortion services after most abortions became illegal in her home state. The account was attributed to Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis physician who provides abortion services.
The story quickly went viral, appearing in outlets across the globe, and became a top talking point for abortion rights supporters, including President Joe Biden.
“Imagine being that little girl,” Biden said Friday as he decried the high court’s decision. “I’m serious. Just imagine being that little girl.”
But in recent days, some abortion opponents, Republican politicians and news outlets had criticized the story as unproven.
Story was questioned by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Fox News
Yost, a Republican, told Fox News host Jesse Watters that his office had not heard “a whisper” of a report being filed for the 10-year-old victim.
“We have regular contact with prosecutors and local police and sheriffs — not a whisper anywhere,” Yost said on the show.
Yost doubled down on that in an interview with the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau on Tuesday, saying that the more time passed before confirmation made it “more likely that this is a fabrication.”
“I know the cops and prosecutors in this state,” Yost said. “There’s not one of them that wouldn’t be turning over every rock, looking for this guy and they would have charged him. They wouldn’t leave him loose on the streets … I’m not saying it could not have happened. What I’m saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence.”
On Wednesday, once news of the arraignment of the Columbus man accused in the child’s rape came, Yost issued a single sentence statement:
“We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets.”
He later added that he’s “absolutely delighted that this monster has been taken off the street. If convicted, he should spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Hearing details investigation, concerns about suspect
During Wednesday’s hearing, Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Dan Meyer requested Fuentes be held without bond. He said Fuentes is not believed to be in the country legally and there are questions about his identity.
Huhn testified that detectives spoke to Fuentes, through an interpreter, and Fuentes admitted to having sexual contact with the girl. An interpreter was also used during Wednesday’s hearing.
The 10-year-old also told police Fuentes was the father of the pregnancy, Huhn testified. Meyer said the girl had just turned 10 recently, meaning she was likely impregnated at 9 years old.
Clark Torbett, an attorney with the Franklin County Public Defender’s office, said it was unconstitutional to hold Fuentes without bond, especially with DNA confirmation of the pregnancy’s father still pending.
He said Fuentes had lived in Columbus for the last seven years and had a steady job at a café. He also had an address where he could live that was not at the same location as the 10-year-old.
If convicted, Fuentes would face a potential life sentence in prison.
Data shows frequency of reports of sexual abuse of children
An analysis of Columbus police reports filed since May 9 found 50 reports of rape or sexual abuse involving girls 15 years or younger. That number of reports may also be underreported because of restrictions on public records related to reports initiated by mandated reporters. The report involving the 10-year-old girl falls into that category.
In 2020, there were 52 abortions in children 15 or younger in Ohio, accounting for 0.3% of the 20,605 abortions performed that year, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Data from the health department shows there were 63 such procedures in 2019, 54 in 2018, 61 in 2017 and 76 in 2016.
Data from 2021 is not yet available.
Indiana lawmakers expected to enact abortion ban
The ability of Ohio residents to seek abortion services in Indiana could soon be curtailed.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, has called a special legislative session that is scheduled to convene on July 25. Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both chambers of the Indiana General Assembly, have pledged to enact new abortion restrictions.
Legislative leaders have been tight-lipped about what the legislation will look like. They haven’t said whether their abortion proposal will allow for exemptions for rape, incest or life of the pregnant person, or at what point in a pregnancy they’ll ban abortion.
Reporters asked Holcomb about the case of the 10-year-old rape survivor on Tuesday. He called it a “horrific example,” but declined to say whether he was comfortable banning abortions in cases involving young rape victims.
“I am reserving comment until we see a bill,” he said.
Will Ohio Republicans ban nearly all abortions? Can anyone stop it?
A ban on nearly all abortions in Ohio is likely coming.
Ohio’s GOP-controlled General Assembly is expected to ban abortions even earlier than the current six-week ban, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest.
Lawmakers are still crafting language on when abortions would be banned, but past proposals barred the procedure after fertilization, which could prohibit some birth control.
Republicans, who hold veto-proof majorities in the Ohio House and Senate, have the votes to pass such a ban without any Democratic support.
Dispatch reporters Laura Bischoff and Eric Lagatta contributed to this story.
Bethany Bruner covers crime and public safety for the Columbus Dispatch.
After Jayland Walker graduated from Buchtel High School, his family asked him about his plans for the future.
Walker, who had wrestled all his life, said he was thinking about going semi-pro, much to the thrill of his young cousins.
What would his wrestling name be? His family offered suggestions.
“Nah,” he told them. “I’m gonna be String Bean.”
“With Jayland, you didn’t always know if he was joking or not, so we kind of laughed it off,” Walker’s cousin Robin Elerick said, chuckling as she shared this memory during Walker’s funeral service Tuesday at the Akron Civic Theatre in downtown Akron.
Elerick was among several family members and clergy who spoke during the funeral for Walker, who was shot and killed by Akron police officers June 27 after a brief chase. They provided the first insight from the family of the 25-year-old man whose name has become a national rallying cry for police reform.
About 1,000 people attended the visitation and service, held at the theater in the heart of downtown, where several demonstrations have been held, leading to clashes to between police and protesters.
The funeral was open to the public and livestreamed. Attorneys for the Walker family requested that the public and media give the family privacy for a burial scheduled afterward at Greenlawn Cemetery.
Funeral begins with music
Walker’s funeral began with uplifting music, with men and women singing on the stage at the Akron Civic Theatre.
The songs included “I Have No Reason to Fear” and “The Lord is Messing with Me Right Now.”
Bishop Joey Johnson of the House of the Lord in Akron gave the opening prayer, asking for the gathering to magnify and uplift Walker’s family.
Pastor Marlon Walker then read resolutions passed by several government bodies and churches to recognize the Walker family.
“Black people whose voices call out for justice are unheard,” said a resolution from the national Church of God in Christ.
Pastor: ‘Nothing right about this’
Bishop Timothy Clarke, a Columbus pastor and the national head of the Church of God, pumped up the crowd with his passionate remarks.
“We must not normalize this,” Clarke said. “We cannot make the deaths of our sons and daughters at such an early age a normal thing. There is nothing normal about this. We must not try to act as if this is all right. This is not all right!”
Clarke said people shouldn’t spiritualize Walker’s death by saying something like, “God needed a flower.”
“Jayland would be better with his family — alive and loving.”
Walker’s best friend, cousin remember him
Walker’s best friend, Dupri Whatley, shared memories of growing up with Walker, including playing basketball and listening to music.
Whatley, a Summit County sheriff’s deputy, said he would call Walker all the time for advice, saying he wouldn’t be where he is without Walker.
Whatley choked up several times as the audience encouraged him and cheered in support.
“He’s gonna live through me,” Whatley said. “I’m never gonna forget him.”
Elerick said Walker was her youngest cousin, so she remembers him being born and knew him his entire life. She said he “had the biggest heart” and was “so sweet and so authentically genuine.”
In the last few weeks of Walker’s life, she said, he was going through a hard time after the death of his fiancée in a car crash. She recalled the two of them sitting quietly, holding hands, crying and exchanging many impromptu texts and phone calls.
“There were a lot of ‘I love yous’ back and forth,” she said.
Elerick said from Walker’s death, she wants people to remember moments.
“God does not waste moments, and it’s so important to share the moments with the people that you love as often and as much as we can with each other,” she said.
Walker’s uncle calls him a ‘kind soul’ with the right shoes
Tom Addie, Walker’s uncle, described his nephew “a kind soul with a great heart” who always wanted to get the last word and always had the right shoes.
When Walker entered a room, Addie said, he would give his relatives hugs and tell them, “I love you.” He said Walker did the same when he left.
“That’s what we need to cherish and think about,” Addie said. “All this will handle itself. Jayland’s at peace now.”
Addie asked people to keep their family in their prayers and thoughts.
Pastor: There are many Jayland Walkers
The Rev. Robert DeJournett gave Walker’s eulogy, which was just under 40 minutes.
He said they all “grew up there” at Akron’s St. Ashworth Temple, where he’s now the pastor, and called “our family church.”
When Walker was young, he couldn’t pronounce DeJournett’s name. DeJournett’s family called him “Robert Earl” — his first and middle name — and Walker would call him “Robba Girl.”
DeJournett said Walker’s mother, Pam, and sister, Jada, described Walker as sweet, caring, thoughtful, humble, an all-around nice person who was raised in a good home and was an “undercover mama’s boy.”
They said he was loyal, “almost to a fault,” honest and well-rounded. Jada told DeJournett her brother was “one of a kind,” saying “I don’t use those terms lightly” and that she only also describes her father and grandfather that way.
“We’re here until the end,” DeJournett said. “We’re going to keep on pushing. We’re going to keep on fighting. We’re going to keep on lifting up our voices and in celebrating the life of Jayland Walker. One must know who he was.”
DeJournett said there are many Jaylands across the country — young, respectful, fun-loving men who have never been in serious trouble.
DeJournett said he is a proponent of getting help from mental health professionals and admitted that he has received this assistance himself.
“Emotions are raging for many of us,” he said. “We’re grieving. Grief comes out differently depending on who you are. It’s normal. Grief is a normal, natural reaction to loss, conflicting feelings caused by end of or change in the familiar pattern of behavior.”
People protesting is an expression of grief, DeJournett said, and should be permitted — as long as it’s nonviolent. The family has been calling for protests to be peaceful.
DeJournett read the names of other Black people shot and killed by police, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Tamir Rice. He said he never thought this would happen in Akron and that this incident would garner national attention for the city.
“But God knew, and he wants us to show the world how to go through this the right way and utilize the power of his strength to do it with dignity and respect,” he said.
DeJournett also said he believes “this is going to be the last time that we have to do this.”
“But God, we’re gonna continue to push and push and push until a change is gonna come,” he said.
‘This happens to all of us,’ says Akron woman attending event
Those who attended the viewing and service included people who knew the Walker family and those who didn’t but wanted to pay their respects.
One Akron woman said she attended the services because she wanted to see with her own eyes “the injustice that happened in our city.”
“This is a fear that I have, that police will shoot my boys,” said Tashe Ase, 42.
Ase is a former activist and founding member of a group started years ago called Stop the Violence in Akron. She said Walker’s shooting reinvigorated her desire to get involved.
Ase, though, is worried about outside protesters causing problems in Akron.
“They’re riling everybody up,” she said. “We will have to be here with these [riled up] police officers.”
Celeste Tolbert of Akron, who is a distant relative of Journei Tolber, a 4-year-old killed in Akron on Friday night, said she has a son who is close to Walker’s age.
“I hurt for the family so much,” she said. “By the grace of God, it could have been my son.”
Akron resident LaToya Smith, who knew Walker and his fiancée through her niece, had the same thought about her son.
“It was just awful,” she said. “I wish we could all just get along.”
A group of about 20 people, some armed with semiautomatic rifles, came to Akron for the service. The unarmed people went inside, while the armed members stayed on the sidewalk outside the theater.
Outside the theater were a man carrying two semiautomatic rifles and a sheathed machete on his back, a woman holding a shotgun and other men carrying semi-automatic rifles, machetes and handguns.
Ilyse Walwyn, one of the unarmed members of the group who was allowed inside the theater, is a Cleveland resident and member of the New African Nation Gun Club and other organizations. She said she had a cousin who was shot and killed by Cleveland police.
“Power to the people,” she said. “Let the world see us.”
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com. Emily Mills can be reached at 330-996-3334 or emills@thebeaconjournal.com. Jim Mackinnon can be reached at jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.
President Biden lashed out a reporter who asked what he would say to Democrats who don’t want him to run for a second term Tuesday — insisting that the party is behind him despite a recent survey showing nearly two-thirds of its voters want a different nominee in 2024.
“They want me to run,” Biden, 79, said during the White House Congressional Picnic. “Read the poll. Read the polls, Jack. You guys are all the same. That poll showed that 92% of Democrats, if I ran, would vote for me.”
“A majority of Democrats say they don’t want you to run again in 2024,” a member of the press retorted.
“Ninety-two percent said if I did, they’d vote for me,” Biden repeated before walking away.
The New York Times/Siena College poll referenced in the exchange showed that while 92% of Democrats would vote for Biden if Donald Trump was his Republican opponent in 2024, 64% would prefer the party pick someone different to be its standard-bearer in two years.
The poll also found that 94% of Democrats under the age of 30 want somebody besides Biden at the top of the ticket.
The survey also contained dire news for Biden and Democrats heading into the November midterm elections.
It showed that Biden’s job approval rating was at just 33% and that 77% of Americans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction.
When asked why they would prefer a candidate other than Biden in 2024, 33% of Democrats pointed to his age, 32% cited his job performance, 12% said they just prefer someone new, 10% said Biden isn’t progressive enough, and 4% doubted his ability to win re-election.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also cited the 92% figure when asked to react to the poll’s findings Monday.
“You know, there’s going to be many polls,” she said. “They are going to go up and they are going to go down. This is not the thing that we are solely focused on.”
BOSTON (AP) — A former Boston police officer who was beaten more than 25 years ago by colleagues who mistook him for a shooting suspect will be the new leader of the city’s police department, Mayor Michelle Wu announced Wednesday.
Michael Cox, 57, will return to his hometown of Boston after working as the police chief in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to lead of the same force he once brought a civil rights case against over his beating by fellow cops. Cox, who is Black, will take over as commissioner next month.
Cox described his appointment is an “emotional moment” for him, apologizing during a call with reporters for his voice quivering. He promised to work to diversify the police department — which critics have long complained doesn’t look enough like the city it serves — and make sure officers feel supported in their job to protect the community.
“I think this is a very exciting time. I think the officers need someone to support them,” Cox told reporters Wednesday. “And I’m going to their biggest cheerleader.”
Cox was working undercover in plainclothes as part of the gang unit in January 1995 when officers got a call about a shooting. Cox, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, spotted the suspect and started to chase him. The suspect started to scale a fence and Cox was struck from behind just as he was about to grab the man, Cox said. He was kicked and punched by fellow officers, suffering head injuries and kidney damage.
“There’s no reason to treat anyone like that. And then to just leave them. And if they do it to me — another police officer — would they do it to another person if they got away with it?” Cox said.
Cox has described facing harassment in an effort to silence him after the beating became public despite efforts by his colleagues to cover it up. A department injury report said Cox lost his footing on a frozen puddle, causing him to fall and crack his head.
Cox chose to stay in the police force after what happened to him and try to improve things instead of walking away from a job he loved, he said Wednesday.
“Since then in 1995, I have dedicated my life to making sure that both the Boston police department and policing in general has grown and learned … to make sure that we have structures and mechanisms in place to make sure that we never repeat that kind of incident against anyone,” Cox told reporters.
The top prosecutor for Boston and surrounding communities, who has known Cox for years, called him “a man of high honor and integrity.”
“The journey of Michael Cox from being beaten by fellow Boston Police officers to his appointment as Commissioner of the Boston Police Department is emblematic of criminal legal reform,” Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in an emailed statement.
Cox’s tenure in Ann Arbor was marred by claims that he created a hostile work environment, which led to him being briefly placed on administrative leave in 2020.
An investigation found “no evidence that the Chief was behaving in such a way” as to create a hostile work environment. But a report said “there is evidence that people feared retaliation by the Chief, and they had a legitimate basis for that fear, whether or not that was the Chief’s intent.”
He was reinstated less than a month after being placed on leave after being told by the city administration to apologize “for any misunderstandings and poor communications.”
The mayor said the vetting process was intense and that she personally spoke with Ann Arbor’s mayor and town administrator about Cox’s time there. Those conversations confirmed that he is a “leader of great integrity,” Wu said.
“We are tremendously excited to bring a leader of his experience and wisdom and background to Boston in this role,” she told reporters.
In Boston, Cox spent 15 years in a variety of roles in the police force’s command staff, including as the Bureau Chief and Superintendent of the Bureau of Professional Development. He oversaw the Boston Police Academy, the Firearms Training Unit, the Police Cadet Unit, and training for recruits and sworn officers.
Boston’s last commissioner — Dennis White — was fired last year following a bitter battle to keep his job after decades-old domestic violence accusations came to light.
White was placed on leave over the allegations, which he denied, just days into his new job. Superintendent-In-Chief Gregory Long has been serving as the acting police commissioner during the search for White’s permanent successor.
President Biden greeted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid with a fist bump at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
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President Biden greeted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid with a fist bump at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
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JERUSALEM — When President Biden walked off Air Force One on Wednesday, he did something he hasn’t done in a while. Instead of shaking the hand of the first politician to greet him on the red carpet — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid — he gave him a fist bump.
It’s a switch that comes amid intense speculation about whether or not Biden will shake the hand of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman when he meets him on Friday.
The body language between U.S. presidents and their global counterparts is always closely watched for insights into their relationships. When Biden meets bin Salman, it will be a particularly fraught moment. U.S. intelligence assessed that bin Salman approved the 2018 operation that resulted in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden said afterward that he would make Saudi Arabia “the pariah that they are” and he’s been under pressure from human rights groups over his decision to visit the kingdom.
Biden has since emphasized that there are broad U.S. national security interests in making the visit to Saudi Arabia. He wrote last week that is goal is to “reorient — but not rupture — relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years.” But the White House has been reluctant to say ahead of time whether Biden will be willing to be photographed greeting bin Salman, as is normally the custom on these kinds of visits.
President Biden threw his arm around the shoulders of Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid after he arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
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President Biden threw his arm around the shoulders of Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid after he arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.
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Just before Biden landed in Tel Aviv, White House officials suggested the president would try to minimize direct contact, such as hand shakes, during his trip to the Middle East. They said it was an enhanced precaution for COVID-19, even though the virus is known to spread primarily through the air.
“We’re in a phase of the pandemic now where we are seeking to reduce contact and to increase masking,” Jake Sullivan told reporters on the plane.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rejected the notion that it had anything to do with avoiding an enduring photograph of Biden shaking hands with bin Salman — or even that there was a change in practice.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a change,” she told reporters. “We are saying that we’re going to try to minimize contact as much as possible. But also, there are precautions that we are taking because this is up to his doctor,” she said, noting a surge in cases related to the BA-5 variant of the virus.
President Biden greets House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House Congressional Picnic, held just before he left for Israel on Tuesday.
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President Biden greets House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the White House Congressional Picnic, held just before he left for Israel on Tuesday.
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Biden shook a lot of hands in the hours leading up to his trip
But it was a stark charge from the days leading up to Biden’s Middle East trip. On Tuesday, just hours before he left, Biden worked a crowd of hundreds of lawmakers and their families on the lawn of the White House at the annual congressional picnic — shaking plenty of hands, giving hugs, and crowding in to take selfies.
Hours before he flew to Israel, President Biden worked the crowd at the congressional picnic at the White House, shaking hands with lawmkers like Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md.
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Hours before he flew to Israel, President Biden worked the crowd at the congressional picnic at the White House, shaking hands with lawmkers like Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md.
Patrick Semansky/AP
The picnic followed another big White House event on Monday, where lawmakers and gun safety advocates gathered to mark the passage of gun safety legislation.
And last week, guests packed into the East Room of the White House, where Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people.
President Biden met with families of gun violence on Monday, including Garnell Whitfield, Jr., whose mother was killed in a mass shooting in Buffalo in May.
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President Biden met with families of gun violence on Monday, including Garnell Whitfield, Jr., whose mother was killed in a mass shooting in Buffalo in May.
Evan Vucci/AP
Biden may have a hard time stopping himself from shaking hands
Biden, who has been a politician for more than 50 years, makes no secret of his love of meeting leaders face to face, a style of personal diplomacy where handshakes are habitual.
As he walked the red carpet at the Tel Aviv airport, there were some backslaps and shoulder pats to go with the fist bumps. He draped his arm around Prime Minister Lapid.
President Biden shook the hand of Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz during a tour of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
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President Biden shook the hand of Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz during a tour of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
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Later, as he received a tour of defense equipment, Biden paused for a prolonged handshake with Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz.
And while paying his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center, Biden greeted two survivors of the Holocaust, embracing them.
At the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum, President Biden embraced Holocaust survivor Rena Quint, as fellow survivor Giselle Cycowicz looked on.
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At the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum, President Biden embraced Holocaust survivor Rena Quint, as fellow survivor Giselle Cycowicz looked on.
Menahem Kahana/AP
Earlier, Sullivan had warned reporters that when it comes to his boss’s proclivity to shake hands, he was not making any firm rules.
“I can’t speak to, you know, every moment and every interaction and every movement,” he said aboard Air Force One. “That’s just kind of the general principle we’re applying here.”
On Tuesday, after weeks of presenting fragments of evidence and detailed testimony to show how the Trump administration disseminated the Big Lie and contributed to a violent insurrection, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol presented a persuasive timeline with a clear intent: building up to a ground-shaking finale.
Like the penultimate episode of an intense TV drama, Tuesday’s hearing opened with a “previously on …” montage of flashbacks, advanced the narrative, then closed with a staggering cliffhanger. In the final minutes of the three-hour hearing, Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) dropped the hearings’ most tantalizing bombshell yet, saying former President Trump attempted to call a committee witness, and that the committee submitted that information to the Department of Justice. Stay tuned.
This disciplined approach has allowed the hearings to shift with breaking news and new testimony as needed without losing momentum (see last month’s questioning of Cassidy Hutchinson), while also organizing the chaos around the 2020 election and its aftermath into a gripping chronology of events. The structure is familiar to fans of serial television — and with each public revelation, the committee has only bolstered the expectation, like an expert writers room, that there are more surprises to come.
Times television critic Lorraine Ali is covering the Jan. 6 committee hearings. Catch up on the big moments you missed with her recaps.
Remaining on track sometimes means recapping what’s come before, as was the case at the start of Tuesday’s broadcast. The proceedings began at a slower pace than usual, but Cheney made sure to connect the hearings to their real-time impact: “Today there appears to be a general recognition that the committee has established key facts, including that virtually everyone close to President Trump, his Justice Department officials, his White House advisors, his White House counsel, his campaign, all told him the 2020 election was not stolen.”
Cheney said the new strategy appears to be that he was manipulated by outsiders from his administration, such as Sidney Powell. “In this version the president was, quote, poorly served by these outside advisors.… This of course is nonsense. President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child.” In fact, among the top takeaways on Tuesday was Trump‘s effort to make the Jan. 6 march to the Capitol — which was planned ahead of time — look like a spontaneous decision.
Queasy comedy, part of many of the great TV dramas, has also run through most of the hearings, and usually around Rudolph W. Giuliani’s antics. It played a role Tuesday as well, with depositions about an “unhinged” Oval Office meeting in the weeks before the riot that recounted events both shocking and laughable. In what other world but Trump’s are “the Overstock.com guy,” a disgraced general and the White House chief of staff together in anything but a punchline?
That Dec. 18, 2020, meeting, best described on MSNBC as “professionals versus conspiracy theorists,” was covered in vivid detail via taped testimony from former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and others. The gathering included Trump, Cipollone and attorney and advisor Eric Herschmann, along with Powell, QAnon convert Michael Flynn and, for some reason, the former chief executive of Overstock.com. Trump was still looking for ways to invalidate the election results; there were heated arguments and it lasted for hours. And of course Giuliani was nearby, describing White House officials who wouldn’t go along with the scheme to overturn the election as “a bunch of .…” Well, you know what he said. Classy, as always.
A series of six hearings will be televised starting Thursday. Here’s what you need to know.
Continuing with the timeline, the committee then showed how Trump pivoted from dead-end legal avenues to inciting the masses behind his effort to stay in power, withseveral examples of how he weaponized social media to that effect. In the hearing, led by Cheney, Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), powerful taped testimony from a former Twitter employee spoke to the growing danger of radical right-wing groups like the white supremacist group the Proud Boys and white nationalist organization the Oath Keepers using the internet to assemble around Trump’s election fraud lies.
The hearing’s two live witnesses personified the impact of Trump’s calls to the masses to gather in Washington, D.C., and march to the Capitol. Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, described how Trump paved the way for the militant group to employ violence. Former Trump supporter Stephen Ayres, who was arrested after he breached the Capitol during the attack, explained how he believed it when the president told him the election was stolen — and now feels deceived.
When he was asked whether it would have made a difference if he knew that Trump knew the election was not stolen, his answer was clear. Definitely.
If the committee can stick the landing in its prime-time finale, he won’t be alone.
The death of Jayland Walker has spurred days of protest in Akron, Ohio, after the release of police bodycam footage showing officers shooting the 25-year-old Black man dozens of times.
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The death of Jayland Walker has spurred days of protest in Akron, Ohio, after the release of police bodycam footage showing officers shooting the 25-year-old Black man dozens of times.
Bryan Olin Dozier/Reuters
It was just after 1 a.m. on May 28 when the future that Jayland Walker was planning shattered in an instant.
His fiancée, Jaymeisha Beasley, was traveling with family outside Cincinnati when they were hit by a tractor-trailer. Beasley wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and was thrown from the van onto the interstate. Within moments, she was struck by a passing vehicle, leaving her with fatal injuries. A hit and run. She was 27.
For those who knew Walker, the next 30 days are hard to make sense of. The person they remember loved sports — wrestling most of all — and was quiet and kind. He was a fiancé, son, brother and friend who knew how to make people laugh. And he was never one for trouble, they say.
Which is what makes the final moments of his life all the more painful and confounding. With Walker’s funeral scheduled for Wednesday, they are struggling to understand what may have caused him to flee police on June 27 during what should have been a routine traffic stop. They don’t understand why a 25-year-old with no criminal record was shot dozens of times by officers in Akron, Ohio, leaving him with more than 60 gunshot wounds. And they don’t understand why after years of nationwide protests over racial injustice, young Black men like Walker continue to be killed by police at a rate that is more than twice as high as that of white Americans.
Police in Akron say they sought to stop Walker for a “traffic and equipment violation.” Video of the ensuing chase shows what police say is a muzzle flash coming from Walker’s driver-side door. Walker was unarmed when he was shot, according to authorities, but police say a handgun was later found in the car.
“It’s just not matching the person that I know, because he’s not into that and that’s not him,” his sister, Jada Walker, told ABC. “That’s not Jayland.”
A community remembers a wrestling fan who loved to laugh
Demonstrators gather outside Akron City Hall on July 3 to protest the killing of Jayland Walker.
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Demonstrators gather outside Akron City Hall on July 3 to protest the killing of Jayland Walker.
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Walker and his sister grew up in a blue-collar community on the west side of Akron. Their parents separated when he was still in school, but friends recalled a close and supportive family despite the separation.
“You can tell he came from a good home, because he was polite, he was respectful,” says Brian Turner, formerly a dean of students at Buchtel High School in Akron, where Walker studied. “He would say things such as ‘please, thank you, excuse me’ — things some students kind of struggle with these days.”
For the men in the Walker family, wrestling was life. Walker’s uncle and father both wrestled, so by the time he made it to Buchtel, a school where the student body is majority-minority, there was little doubt he would follow in their footsteps.
On the wrestling team, Walker made friends with Tyler Cox, who remembered him as “one of the funniest people you would ever meet.”
“He was a natural comedian,” Cox says.
Cox says Walker was a leader — a captain during his sophomore year on the team and someone who spent his summers volunteering to help coach the youth team underneath them.
But he also described a unique closeness with Walker shaped not just by wrestling, but by shared challenges the team faced.
“We all became family,” Cox says. “We had problems and struggles within wrestling that we all went through together as a team that made us closer.”
He recalled the story of how one day after school, the police were called on the team after a disagreement with a school staff member over whether they were allowed to be on campus. The issue was not that they didn’t want to leave, says Cox, but that they were with an immune-compromised parent who could not safely wait outside in the cold with them.
“It was something that we just couldn’t let it slide. That was when everybody really locked in” and grew closer, Cox says.
Their coach during that time was Robert Hubbard, who says Walker wasn’t just a “really sweet kid,” but also one of the most motivated wrestlers he can remember.
“Wrestling as a high school sport is probably the toughest one out there, so if I’m saying you’re a hard worker, you’re a hard worker,” says Hubbard.
He was also one of the friendliest kids at the school, remembers Norma James, a former assistant principal at Buchtel.
“What it was for me, it was the smile,” James says. “Every morning I stood in the hall and I was the one looking at kids as they came in because we have a dress code … I was always ‘the bad guy’ in the morning,” James says, the one who had to enforce the rules. “That really kind of crushed my day … I got to the point where I was looking forward to seeing him come in because I knew I would see him smile.”
Walker faced immeasurable loss after high school
A demonstrator holds a sign during a vigil in honor of Jayland Walker on Friday in Akron, Ohio.
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A demonstrator holds a sign during a vigil in honor of Jayland Walker on Friday in Akron, Ohio.
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Walker would stay in Akron after graduating from Buchtel in 2015, working for Amazon for a time before taking a job as a delivery driver for DoorDash.
His life after high school wasn’t always an easy time. In 2018, his father, Edward “Pete” Walker, died at the age of 57. In 2020 came the pandemic, followed by the death of his fiancée earlier this year.
“That’s a lot,” says Cox, Walker’s former teammate. Cox says he and Walker eventually lost touch after high school, but that “I can only imagine what was really going through his mind.”
Walker’s death has sparked days of protest in Akron over what many of the city’s residents see as a continuing double standard around race in policing.
James pointed to the confessed shooter in Highland Park, Ill. — the 21-year-old white man who killed seven people during a parade on July Fourth before he was chased hours later and apprehended by police without a single bullet fired.
Eight officers who were involved in Walker’s death have been placed on administrative leave, and the shooting remains under investigation.
“At some point you got to realize something is going to give,” Cox says. “It’s like you pretty much filling up a water balloon and you just keep continuously filling this water balloon. At some point that water balloon is going to pop.”
For James, the death of the young man whose smile she once sought out every morning has been difficult to process.
“All those bullets for a traffic violation,” James says. “They shot him as many times as they shot up Bonnie and Clyde, and they robbed and killed across the country. I mean, I can’t wrap my head around the why of it. The why so much.”
It’s left her struggling when she thinks about what she might one day have to tell her grandchildren.
“How do you tell children that when you go outside, because of something you have no control over, there are people who not only hate you enough to discriminate and hurt you, but some even want to kill you. How do you tell them that?” she says.
“And then how do you live with that each day knowing that at any given time, everything you’ve done and accomplished is stripped away from you and the only thing you are is a person of color. Or a person that other people hate for whatever reason. That’s a hard conversation to have.”
John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump and before that ambassador to the United Nations under George W Bush, said on Tuesday he helped plan coup attempts in other countries.
Speaking to CNN after the day’s January 6 committee hearing, Bolton said it was wrong to describe Trump’s attempt to stay in power after the 2020 election as a coup.
He said: “While nothing Donald Trump did after the election, in connection with the lie about the election fraud, none of it is defensible, it’s also a mistake as some people have said including on the committee, the commentators that somehow this was a carefully planned coup d’etat to the constitution.
“That’s not the way Donald Trump does things. It’s rambling from one half-vast idea to another plan that falls through and another comes up.”
His host, Jake Tapper, said: “One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.”
Bolton said: “I disagree with that, as somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat, not here, but you know, other places. It takes a lot of work and that’s not what [Trump] did. It was just stumbling around from one idea to another.
“Ultimately, he did unleash the rioters at the Capitol, as to that there’s no doubt, but not to overthrow the constitution, to buy more time to throw the matter back to the states to try and redo the issue.
“And if you don’t believe that you’re going to overreact, and I think that’s a real risk for the committee, which has done a lot of good work.”
Tapper returned to Bolton’s remark about having helped plan coups.
Bolton said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics.”
Tapper asked: “Successful coups?”
Bolton said: “Well, I wrote about Venezuela in in the book and it turned out not to be successful.
“Not that we had all that much to do with it, but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed. The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable.”
Bolton devotes considerable space to Venezuela policy in The Room Where It Happened, his 2020 memoir of his work for Trump.
In 2019, the US supported the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s call for the military to back his ultimately failed attempt to oust the socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, arguing Maduro’s re-election was illegitimate.
Before Bolton joined the Trump administration, it was widely reported that Trump wanted to use the US military to oust Maduro. In August 2017, Trump told reporters: “We have many options for Venezuela, this is our neighbour.”
Among other gambits, Bolton’s book describes work with the British government to freeze Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank of England.
In his newsletter, The Racket, Jonathan M Katz, author of the book Gangsters of Capitalism, said: “The United States has indeed sponsored and participated in lots of coups and foreign government overthrows, dating back to the turn of the 20th century [and] Bolton was personally involved in many of the recent efforts – in Nicaragua, Iraq, Haiti and others”.
But, Katz added: “Generally, officials do not admit that sort of thing on camera.”
Katz wrote: “Keep in mind that throughout the 2019 crisis, Bolton insisted that the Trump administration’s support for … Guaidó … was anything but a coup. He literally stood in front of the White House at the height of the affair and told reporters: “This is clearly not a coup!”
In those remarks, in April 2019, Bolton said: “We recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of Venezuela.
“And just as it’s not a coup when the president of the United States gives an order to the Department of Defense, it’s not a coup for Juan Guaidó to try and take command of the Venezuelan military.
“We want as our principal objective the peaceful transfer of power but I will say again, as [Trump] has said from the outset, and Nicolas Maduro and those supporting him, particularly those who are not Venezuelan, should know, all options are on the table.”
On CNN, Tapper said: “I feel like there’s like this other stuff you’re not telling me.”
Newly released video from the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, shows the gunman entering Robb Elementary School and how police responded to the massacre.
The gunman walks down an empty hallway, stopping to fire into classrooms, according to the footage released by the Austin American-Statesman. A student spots the shooter as he rounded a corner and then runs away.
Three minutes later, the first police officers enter the building. They are shot at by the gunmen and they run away.
The video then jumps to 19 minutes later, where there’s a more heavily armed police presence in the hallway, but still no entry into the classrooms where the gunman fired more than 100 rounds, killing 19 children and two teachers.
The newspaper removed the sounds of children screaming, but the noise from hundreds of rounds fired by the shooter can be heard in the video.
The video is difficult to watch, as officers stand in the hallway for long periods of time. One officer walks over to a wall-mounted dispenser of hand sanitizer in the midst of the carnage.
Seventy-seven minutes into the edited video, the breach is made into the classroom and a barrage of gunfire can be heard.
The video’s release has been part of a fight between numerous government officials, including the Uvalde district attorney, who opposed releasing it.
Those calling for its release, including victims’ families, hoped it would help explain the delayed response and why officers put their own safety ahead of those of the children. But the video has only raised more questions.
“I am deeply disappointed this video was released before all of the families who were impacted that day and the community of Uvalde had the opportunity to view it as part of Chairman Dustin Burrows’ plan. Those most affected should have been among the first to see it,” Department of Public Safety director Steven McCraw said in a statement. “This video provides horrifying evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary on May 24 was an abject failure. In law enforcement, when one officer fails, we all fail.”
State Rep. Dustin Burrows said that while he was “glad that a small portion is now available for the public” he believes “watching the entire segment of law enforcement’s response, or lack thereof, is also important.” Burrows also said he was disappointed the victims’ families did not have the opportunity to watch the video before it was released.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection held a series of high-profile hearings in June. The committee’s next public hearing is scheduled for July 12.
Faced with no legal path to staying in office, former President Trump summoned supporters to Washington to pressure Congress to overturn the 2020 election results, a move far-right extremists saw as a cue to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the House committee investigating the insurrection argued in Tuesday’s hearing.
Members of the panel used the seventh public hearing to cover an extended timeline from the electoral college’s Dec. 14, 2020, meeting to affirm Joe Biden’s win until Jan. 6, 2021, when the electoral vote count in Congress was interrupted by the attack on the Capitol. The committee presented evidence and testimony on the preparations for the insurrection by extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, whose members have since been charged with sedition.
“What we established is that [Trump] participated knowing that the election was not fraudulent, that it was not stolen, and he helped orchestrate what occurred on Jan. 6,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters.
Reps. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) led the questioning of witnesses Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, a rioter who pleaded guilty to entering the Capitol and told the committee that he only went there because Trump urged his supporters to do so in his speech.
“It was going to be an armed revolution,” Van Tatenhove said of the violence on Jan. 6. “People died that day…. There was a gallows that was set up…. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war.”
Van Tatenhove said he fears for the future if there is no reckoning for what happened Jan. 6.
“If a president tries to instill and encourage, whip up a civil war among his followers, using lies, deceit and snake oil, regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again?” Van Tatenhove said.
The committee did not release the witnesses’ names before the hearing, citing concerns about safety. Committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) indicated at the hearing that the panel has alerted the Department of Justice to information it received that Trump attempted to contact a witness who has spoken with the committee. The witness, who has not yet appeared in the hearings, did not take the former president’s call and informed the committee through a lawyer, Cheney said.
“We will take any attempts to influence witness testimony very seriously,” she said.
In laying out events connecting Trump to the violence of Jan. 6, the panel discussed a contentious Dec. 18, 2020, White House meeting in which the president’s allies tried to persuade him to sign an executive order to seize voting machines and appoint a special counsel to investigate fraud allegations. Raskin noted that in the approximately six-hour meeting, Trump heard White House counsel rip apart his election fraud claims, but still continued to publicly say that the election was stolen. The meeting devolved into shouting matches, threats of physical violence and demands for the allies to produce evidence of fraud they claimed existed.
Trump attorney Sidney Powell told the committee that during the Dec. 18 meeting, Trump said he was naming her special counsel to oversee an investigation over voter fraud and granting her a security clearance. But he did not appear to follow through.
“I was vehemently opposed — I didn’t think she should be appointed to anything,” former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee.
In the early hours of Dec. 19, shortly after the group left the White House, Trump tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
Trump’s words “reverberated powerfully and pervasively online,” Raskin said, noting that extremist groups took the president’s Dec. 19 announcement of a “wild” rally hours before Congress met to certify the election results as a cue to come to Washington to keep him in power through any means necessary.
The tweet “electrified and galvanized his supporters, especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and other racist and white nationalist groups spoiling for a fight against the government,” Raskin said.
At the hearing, the committee showed video of far-right social media personalities talking about occupying Washington and storming the Capitol, and social media posts calling for violence. Those who run far-right online forums told the committee that Trump’s tweet created a “laser-like focus” on Jan. 6, Raskin said.
“The former president was for seemingly the first time speaking directly to extremist groups,” a Twitter employee granted anonymity by the committee testified of Trump’s tweets calling for people to attend his Jan. 6 rally.
While Trump made continued efforts to get Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes on Jan. 6, an alliance of extremists coordinated an effort to storm, invade and occupy the Capitol, Raskin said, convincing a large and angry crowd who believed the election had been stolen from them to travel to Washington.
Key moments to know in the timeline of the Capitol insurrection as the House select committee hearings on Jan. 6, 2021, begin.
Extremist groups started aligning immediately after Trump’s tweet, Raskin said, referencing evidence such as an encrypted chat that included leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as well as Republican operative Roger Stone, who revealed they were intent on hyping up pro-Trump events in November and December 2020, as well as the Jan. 6 rally.
The committee also laid out the relationship between Trump allies and the extremist groups. Former national security advisor Michael Flynn was a major player in the attempt to find evidence of fraud after the election and was escorted on Jan. 6 by a security detail made up of members of the Oath Keepers, several of whom have been charged with entering the Capitol. Stone had a long-standing relationship with the Proud Boys and helped raise money to put on rallies around Jan. 6.
Kellye SoRelle, an attorney for the Oath Keepers, told the committee that as Jan. 6 developed, Stone and far-right conspiracy theorists Ali Alexander and Alex Jones “became the center point for everything.”
Trump left the door to the Oval Office open so he could listen to a pro-Trump rally on Jan. 5 from the Resolute Desk, aides testified by video depositions.
That night, Jones led the crowd in a chant of “1776!” Trump tweeted soon after: “Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to see an election victory stolen by emboldened Radical Left Democrats. Our Country has had enough, they won’t take it anymore! We hear you (and love you) from the Oval Office. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!.”
The former Twitter employee said social media traffic on Jan. 5 indicated that violence was likely on Jan. 6. The employee said they worried people would die.
“For months I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die, and on January 5th I realized that no intervention was coming,” the person testified.
Murphy also played audio from a Republican conference meeting the night of Jan. 5, in which Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko asked what security was in place for the next day.
“We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election and when that doesn’t happen, most likely will not happen, they’re going to go nuts,” Lesko said.
“I will be making a Big Speech at 10AM on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!!” the draft Trump tweet said. The tweet that was sent is similar, but does not reference a march to the Capitol.
Murphy also showed a text between Jan. 6 rally organizer Kylie Kremer and MyPillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell talking about the plan for Trump to “unexpectedly” call for the march to the Capitol. Kremer told Lindell not to distribute that widely, because she would get in trouble.
Ayres, who was among the crowd but not part of an extremist group, said when Trump promoted the rally, he felt like he had to go to Washington to see the speech, but he never intended to go to the Capitol until Trump told his supporters to go. Ayres said the crowd thought Trump was going to go with them.
“We didn’t actually plan to go down there,” Ayres said. “Basically the president got everybody riled up and told everybody to head down.”
Ayers said he left the Capitol when Trump tweeted at 4:17 p.m. urging rioters to go home and said if Trump had tweeted earlier in the day the riot may not have happened.
“It definitely dispersed part of the crowd,” Ayres said. “We left right when that came out.”
Ayres said he trusted what Trump said after the election, a decision that led to criminal charges and resulted in the loss of his job and his home. He’s now taken the “horse blinders” off, he said.
“I was hanging on every word he was saying,” Ayres said.
Ayres paused after the hearing to apologize one by one to Capitol Police officers in the hearing room for his participation in the riot, which injured more than 150 officers, some permanently.
The committee also named Republican members of Congress who attended a Dec. 21 meeting focused on opposing counting votes of some states Jan. 6 in an effort to change the election outcome by preventing Biden from getting the votes needed to secure the presidency: Reps. Brian Babin of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Andy Harris of Maryland, Jody Hice of Georgia, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and then Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
In her opening remarks Tuesday, Cheney said that after six hearings, Trump’s allies are pushing a narrative that he was poorly served by his outside advisors, including California lawyer John Eastman, Powell and Perry, in an attempt to undercut the committee’s findings.
“This of course is nonsense. Donald Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices,” she said.
Trump had access to more information about election integrity than perhaps anyone else in the country, Cheney said, but chose to push forward with the lie that the election was stolen.
“Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind,” she said.
The committee’s final hearing, expected to occur next week, will focus on what was happening inside the Capitol during the riot, a time during which Trump made no public statements about the violence and did not speak with national security officials.
“Our hearing next week will be a profound moment of reckoning for America,” Raskin said.
Times staff writer Anumita Kaur contributed to this report.
Surveillance video of law enforcement’s response during the Uvalde school massacre gives the clearest account yet of how officers waited outside an elementary classroom as the gunman continued firing, killing 21 students and teachers on May 24.
The video, which was published by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper on Tuesday, shows responding officers approaching the door of the classroom within minutes of the shooter entering yet retreating after the gunman opened fire at them. After more than an hour – with the hallway growing more crowded with officers from different agencies – the doorway of the classroom was breached by law enforcement and the gunman was shot and killed.
Local officials and families of the victims decried the decision to release the footage before those impacted were able to see it for themselves. And the video, which was lightly edited by the American-Statesman to blur at least one child’s identity and to remove the sound of children screaming, still leaves questions outstanding – in particular, why the law enforcement response was so delayed.
“They just didn’t act. They just didn’t move,” Uvalde County Commissioner Ronald Garza said on CNN’s “New Day” on Wednesday. “I just don’t know what was going through those policemen’s minds that tragic day, but … there was just no action on their part.”
The video also does not answer the question of “who, if anybody, was in charge,” state Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D) told CNN on Tuesday.
“Even if we see 77 minutes in a hallway, it’s not going to tell us who was in charge or who should have been in charge. And I think that’s the sad statement of what happened on May 24 is that no one was in charge.”
Gutierrez criticized the Texas Department of Public Safety for having a multitude of officers on site yet not taking control of the situation. The state agency has consistently pointed to Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the Uvalde school district police chief, as the on-scene commander during the attack.
Arredondo was placed on leave as school district police chief in June and has not given substantial public statements about his decision-making that day despite intense public scrutiny, though he told the Texas Tribune that he did not consider himself to be the leader on the scene. On Tuesday, the Uvalde City Council accepted his resignation from his position as councilman.
Families of the victims said they were disturbed by the leaked footage, saying it was just the latest in a long line of examples of their wishes being pushed to the side. Officials say they had planned to show the footage to families this weekend before releasing it publicly.
“There’s no reason for the families to see that,” Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin said of the leak. “I mean, they were going to see the video, but they didn’t need to see the gunman coming in and hear the gunshots. They don’t need to relive that, they’ve been through enough,” he said.
Officials harshly criticize video’s early release
The Austin American-Statesman’s decision – along with TV partner KVUE – to release the footage was harshly criticized by local officials who echoed the concerns of parents, saying certain graphic audio and images should not have been included.
“While I am glad that a small portion is now available for the public, I do believe watching the entire segment of law enforcement’s response, or lack thereof, is also important,” the chairman of the state House Investigative Committee, state Rep. Dustin Burrows (R) tweeted.
“I am also disappointed the victim’s families and the Uvalde community’s requests to watch the video first, and not have certain images and audio of the violence, were not achieved,” he wrote.
In the first edited video, which is a little over four minutes long, audio captures frantic teachers screaming as the gunman crosses the parking lot after crashing his truck just outside Robb Elementary School’s campus.
He then enters the school at 11:33 a.m., turns down a hallway carrying a semi-automatic rifle, walks into a classroom and opens fire. As the shots ring out, a student who had been peeking around the hallway corner at the gunman quickly turns and runs away.
Minutes later, officers rush into the hallway and approach the door, but immediately retreat to the end of the hall when the shooter appears to open fire at them at 11:37 a.m. Law enforcement continues to arrive in the crowded hallway but do not approach the door again until 12:21 p.m. and wait until 12:50 p.m. to breach the classroom and kill the gunman.
A second edited video, lasting almost an hour-and-a-half, was also published on the newspaper’s YouTube channel.
In the footage, the sound of children screaming has been edited out, but the stark sounds of gunfire are still clearly audible and the gunman’s face is briefly shown as he comes through the school doors.
“It is unbelievable that this video was posted as part of a news story with images and audio of the violence of this incident without consideration for the families involved,” McLaughlin said in a statement.
The American-Statesman defended its decision, with executive editor Manny Garcia writing in an editorial, “We have to bear witness to history, and transparency and unrelenting reporting is a way to bring change.”
McLaughlin also shared his disappointment that a person close to the investigation would leak the video.
“That was the most chicken way to put this video out today – whether it was released by the DPS or whoever it was. In my opinion, it was very unprofessional, which this investigation has been, in my opinion, since day one,” he said during a city council meeting Tuesday.
What will happen next
Despite the leak of the surveillance footage, the Texas House Investigative Committee still plans to meet with victims’ families on Sunday and provide them with a fact-finding report as originally scheduled, a source close to the committee told CNN.
The report will show that there was not one individual failure on May 24, but instead a group failure of great proportions, the source said. Members of the committee also asked the director of Texas DPS, Col. Steve McCraw, to testify a second time on Monday to get further clarification on earlier sworn testimony before the Texas House and Senate, according to the source.
Meanwhile, some outraged family members took to social media to urge people not to share the video while families come to terms with the footage and the law enforcement behavior it reveals. “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT SHARE THE VIDEO!! We need time to process this!!,” posted Berlinda Arreola, grandmother of Amerie Jo Garza, 10, who was killed in the massacre.
Gloria Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn was killed, also implored her Facebook family and friends not to share the video, saying it is “the opposite of what the families wanted!”
“If you are a true friend please do not share it, I don’t want to see it in my feed nor do I want to be tagged on any of the news stations that are sharing it. Our hearts are shattered all over again!,” Cazares wrote.
The Uvalde school district has scheduled a meeting on July 18 where McLaughlin said he hopes the City Council and victims’ families will be able to get details about the return to school.
The school district previously announced that Robb Elementary School students will not return to the campus and will be reassigned to other schools.
CNN’s Steve Almasy, Andy Rose, Elizabeth Joseph, Taylor Romine, Shimon Prokupecz, Eric Levenson, Cheri Mossburg, Christina Maxouris, Mary Kay Mallonee, Vanessa Price and Dave Alsup contributed to this report.
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