Today's politics recap
- The White House said Joe Biden is open to more one-on-one conversations with Vladimir Putin, as the tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue to escalate. “The president remains certainly open to that if there’s a determination that that is the appropriate and most constructive step moving forward,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
- Psaki also emphasized the importance of recognizing Russia as the “aggressor” in the Ukraine crisis. Dismissing Putin’s criticism that the west has ignored Russia’s security demands, Psaki said, “When the fox is screaming from the top of the henhouse that he’s scared of the chickens, which is essentially what they’re doing, that fear isn’t reported as a statement of fact. And as you watch President Putin screaming about the fear of Ukraine and the Ukrainians, that should not be reported as a statement of fact.”
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine. “He emphasized that further invasion of Ukraine would be met with swift and severe consequences and urged Russia to pursue a diplomatic path,” state department spokesperson Ned Price said of the call.
- Biden met with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate judiciary committee to discuss the upcoming supreme court vacancy. At the start of the meeting, Biden said he was committed to receiving bipartisan input as he searches for a nominee to succeed Stephen Breyer. “The Constitution says ‘advise and consent, advise and consent,’ and I’m serious when I say it: that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent, if we can arrive on who the nominee should be,” Biden told reporters.
- Some of the Trump White House documents connected to the Capitol insurrection had been torn up, the National Archives said last night. Donald Trump’s habit of ripping up papers has been well documented, and the Archives said some of the notes had not been taped back together. The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has subpoenaed Trump White House documents related to the attack.
– Joan E Greve
Updated
The House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has tested positive for Covid-19.
In a statement, the 82-year-old senator of Maryland said Tuesday that his symptoms were mild, and he is working from home. “In order to protect the safety of other Members, staff, employees, and visitors to the Capitol, I will utilize proxy voting,” he said. “I look forward to returning to the Capitol once my isolation period is over to continue carrying out the important work of leading House democrats as we govern responsibly for the people.”
Updated
NSO offered US mobile security firm ‘bags of cash’, whistleblower claims
A whistleblower has alleged that an executive at NSO Group offered a US-based mobile security company “bags of cash” in exchange for access to a global signalling network used to track individuals through their mobile phone, according to a complaint that was made to the US Department of Justice.
The allegation, which dates back to 2017 and was made by a former mobile security executive named Gary Miller, was disclosed to federal authorities and to the US congressman Ted Lieu, who said he conducted his own due diligence on the claim and found it “highly disturbing”.
Details of the allegation by Miller were then sent in a letter by Lieu to the Department of Justice.
“The privacy implications to Americans and national security implications to America of NSO Group accessing mobile operator signalling networks are vast and alarming,” Lieu wrote in his letter.
The letter was shared with the Guardian and other media partners on the Pegasus project, a media consortium led by the Paris-based Forbidden Stories that has investigated NSO and published a series of stories about how governments around the world have used the company’s spyware to target activists, journalists, and lawyers, among others.
NSO said it had no business with the mobile security company.
The Guardian and media partners have separately learned that NSO is the subject of an active criminal investigation by the Department of Justice, according to four people familiar with the investigation. The investigation, they claim, is focused on allegations of unauthorised intrusions into networks and mobile devices.
One American citizen whose mobile phone was hacked by a client of the spyware maker – and who asked not to be identified – said they were interviewed at length about the 2021 hacking incident by US authorities. Security researchers had found the individual was hacked while living outside the US and using a non-US mobile number. The justice department also interviewed the Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui, whose iPhone was hacked using NSO technology, according to security researchers who have analysed her mobile phone.
According to another person familiar with the criminal investigation, the justice department has also been in contact with a company whose users are alleged to have been targeted by clients of NSO using Pegasus spyware.
Read more:
Updated
After Republicans tried to rig its elections, Michigan fought back
Spenser Mestel reports:
In recent months, Michigan should have been a hotbed for attempts to rig elections, like it was in 2011. That year, the Republican-led legislature distorted the voting maps so that the GOP was able to win nine of Michigan’s 14 congressional seats despite never earning more than 50.5% of the vote statewide.
A decade later, as the redistricting cycle has come around again, the dynamics are just as toxic. The battleground state broke for Joe Biden by fewer than 155,000 votes, and the Republican-controlled legislature has fought endlessly with the Democratic governor about election “audits”, voter IDs and absentee ballots.
But this cycle, the state’s redistricting commission has pulled off something remarkable. Despite a flurry of legal action and very public disputes between members, it has produced some of the fairest maps in the US. How did it manage it – and will the maps survive?
Neither party was involved in drawing new maps, a process that is open to abuse if politicians are allowed to allocate particular voters to particular districts in order to guarantee a win there. Instead, the responsibility fell to 13 Michiganders – four Democrats, four Republicans and five independents – who were randomly selected by the state.
The Michigan Independent Citizens’ Redistricting Commission (MICRC) includes a foster care worker, a retired banker, an aspiring orthopedic surgeon, a mother of six, a college student and a real estate broker.
MICRC, and the approach it epitomizes, came about thanks to Katie Fahey, a Michigan resident and political novice who posted a message on Facebook two days after the 2016 presidential election. She said she wanted to take on gerrymandering and eventually recruited more than 14,000 volunteers to campaign for an amendment to the state’s constitution. It passed with 61% of the vote and created the commission, one of the most successful ways to unrig the redistricting process so far and a potential model for other states.
Read more:
New Mexico senator Ben Ray Luján has suffered a stroke, his office said.
The 49-year-old Democratic senator underwent surgery over the weekend and is expected to make a full recovery, according to his office.
— Senator Ben Ray Luján (@SenatorLujan) February 1, 2022
It is unclear when Luján will return to the Capitol. Because Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate, they will need all members to confirm Joe Biden’s nominee to replace supreme court Justice Stephen Breyer.
Biden has signaled he will name his pick by the end of the month.
Updated
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- The White House said Joe Biden is open to more one-on-one conversations with Vladimir Putin, as the tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue to escalate. “The president remains certainly open to that if there’s a determination that that is the appropriate and most constructive step moving forward,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
- Psaki also emphasized the importance of recognizing Russia as the “aggressor” in the Ukraine crisis. Dismissing Putin’s criticism that the west has ignored Russia’s security demands, Psaki said, “When the fox is screaming from the top of the henhouse that he’s scared of the chickens, which is essentially what they’re doing, that fear isn’t reported as a statement of fact. And as you watch President Putin screaming about the fear of Ukraine and the Ukrainians, that should not be reported as a statement of fact.”
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine. “He emphasized that further invasion of Ukraine would be met with swift and severe consequences and urged Russia to pursue a diplomatic path,” state department spokesperson Ned Price said of the call.
- Biden met with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate judiciary committee to discuss the upcoming supreme court vacancy. At the start of the meeting, Biden said he was committed to receiving bipartisan input as he searches for a nominee to succeed Stephen Breyer. “The Constitution says ‘advice and consent, advice and consent,’ and I’m serious when I say it: that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent, if we can arrive on who the nominee should be,” Biden told reporters.
- Some of the Trump White House documents connected to the Capitol insurrection had been torn up, the National Archives said last night. Donald Trump’s habit of ripping up papers has been well documented, and the Archives said some of the notes had not been taped back together. The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has subpoenaed Trump White House documents related to the attack.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Joe Biden spoke to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell today about his search for a supreme court nominee, after Stephen Breyer announced his retirement last week.
“The Leader believes the cornerstone of a nominee’s judicial philosophy should be a commitment to originalism and textualism,” a spokesperson for McConnell said.
“He emphasized the importance of a nominee who believes in judicial independence and will resist all efforts by politicians to bully the Court or to change the structure of the judicial system.”
Biden also met with the Senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, and ranking member, Chuck Grassley, this afternoon to discuss the supreme court vacancy.
“The Constitution says ‘advice and consent, advice and consent,’ and I’m serious when I say it: that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent, if we can arrive on who the nominee should be,” Biden told reporters at the start of the meeting.
The Pentagon was asked to respond to reports that Russian troops are moving medical supplies, particularly blood supplies, closer to the Ukrainian border, which could potentially point to an imminent invasion.
The Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby, did not go into the specifics of those reports, but he acknowledged that Vladimir Putin has “increased his logistics and sustainment capability” along Ukraine’s borders over the past several weeks.
“Now is that alone all by itself some sort of tripwire or indicator causing alarms to go off that an invasion is imminent? Not necessarily,” Kirby said.
.@PentagonPresSec John Kirby on reports that Russia is moving medical supplies closer to the Ukrainian border: "Is that alone, all by itself some sort of tripwire or indicator, causing alarms to go off that an invasion is imminent? Not necessarily." pic.twitter.com/MOZxSYbNJk
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 1, 2022
Kirby added that the defense department relies on “a whole mosaic of information as we evaluate what we’re seeing on the ground” in Ukraine.
“I would just go back to what we’ve said and have said now for more than a couple of weeks, we believe that he has enough capability to move now if he wants to,” Kirby said.
“Depending on what his goal is here and what he wants to do, he could move imminently, at any time.”
The Guardian’s Andrew Roth and Julian Borger report:
During a press conference at the Kremlin today, Vladimir Putin told journalists he was unsatisfied with the US response to Russian demands that Nato remove troops and infrastructure from eastern Europe and pledge never to accept Ukraine into the alliance.
“It’s already clear … that Russia’s principal concerns were ignored,” Putin said following talks with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
In emotional remarks, Putin also said the west was using Ukraine as a “tool to hinder Russia” and hypothesised that Ukraine’s entrance into Nato could lead to a conflict over Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
Putin said he was ready to continue negotiations with the west, which has said it is ready for dialogue but views Moscow’s demands as a non-starter.
But Russia has also continued deploying thousands of troops and offensive weapons to the Ukrainian border, appearing to threaten a strike if the Kremlin does not get its way.
Putin’s remarks broke almost a month of silence on the issue from the Russian leader, who has been mostly absent from public life as concern has grown in western capitals that Moscow was preparing an invasion.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also spoke today with Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Chairman-in-Office Zbigniew Rau and EU High Representative Josep Borrell.
“The Secretary reaffirmed his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and discussed diplomatic engagements with Russia against the backdrop of Russia’s unprovoked military buildup on Ukraine’s borders,” state department spokesperson Ned Price said.
“The participants agreed to continue to coordinate closely and committed to seek a diplomatic solution to prevent further aggression against Ukraine.”
In his call with Sergei Lavrov this morning, Blinken reiterated that Russia would suffer “swift and severe consequences” if Vladimir Putin approves an invasion of Ukraine.
The White House said Joe Biden is open to having more one-on-one conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the situation in Ukraine.
“The president remains certainly open to that if there’s a determination that that is the appropriate and most constructive step moving forward,” press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Pres. Biden is open to having more direct discussions with Russian Pres. Putin “if there’s a determination that that is the appropriate and most constructive step moving forward,” White House press sec. Jen Psaki tells @marykbruce. https://t.co/BhCqgOHv6c pic.twitter.com/oNJIS4wyFg
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 1, 2022
Psaki noted that the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has been “very active and engaged” in communicating with his counterparts as Russia has built up its troop presence along Ukraine’s borders.
This morning, Blinken spoke to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to reiterate the White House’s preference for a diplomatic path to de-escalation in Ukraine.
“He emphasized that further invasion of Ukraine would be met with swift and severe consequences and urged Russia to pursue a diplomatic path,” state department spokesperson Ned Price said of the call.
White House dismisses Putin's criticism of US and allies
At her daily briefing, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, was asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest comments on the crisis in Ukraine.
Earlier today, Putin complained that the US and its allies are ignoring Russia’s security demands, as the Kremlin works on a response to the White House’s proposal on Ukraine.
Psaki said that, while it is important to “keep the door to diplomacy open,” the US will continue to stand by Ukraine as Russia threatens its sovereignty by building up its troop presence along Ukrainian borders.
“When the fox is screaming from the top of the henhouse that he’s scared of the chickens, which is essentially what they’re doing, that fear isn’t reported as a statement of fact,” Psaki said.
“And as you watch President Putin screaming about the fear of Ukraine and the Ukrainians, that should not be reported as a statement of fact. We know who the fox is in this case. We have seen the buildup of troops at the border.”
When asked about a potential path to “mutual de-escalation” in Ukraine, Psaki argued it was important to identify Russia as the “aggressor” in the situation.
“When we talk about mutual de-escalation, Russia has 100,000 troops on the border. They are the aggressor,” Psaki said. “Nato is a defensive alliance. It is not the same thing. And I think we need to be careful about comparing them as the same thing.”
Updated
Meeting with Senate judiciary committee leaders at the White House, Joe Biden described the duty to nominate supreme court justices as “one of the president’s most serious responsibilities”.
“There’s always a renewed national debate every time a president nominates a justice because the Constitution is always evolving slightly in terms of additional rights or curtailing rights, etc. And that’s always an issue,” Biden said.
The president reiterated his hope that he will select a nominee by the end of the month, and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has promised to move “quickly” to confirm the person.
After Biden delivered his opening remarks before the meeting, reporters were escorted out of the Oval Office. The president did not take any questions.
Biden meets with Senate judiciary committee leaders to discuss supreme court vacancy
Joe Biden is now meeting with the Senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, and ranking member, Chuck Grassley, to discuss the upcoming supreme court vacancy.
The president addressed reporters at the start of the meeting in the Oval Office, which Kamala Harris also joined.
President Biden & @VP Harris meet with @SenatorDurbin and Sen. @ChuckGrassley on Supreme Court Nomination.
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 1, 2022
"The Constitution says 'advice and consent, advice and consent,' and I’m serious when I say that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent."#SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/EU2CgErei1
Biden noted that he, Durbin and Grassley have previously worked on many judicial nominations, as they worked together in the Senate for years.
“The Constitution says ‘advice and consent, advice and consent,’ and I’m serious when I say that I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent to arrive on who the nominee should be,” Biden said.
“I’m looking for a candidate with character, with the qualities of a judge in terms in terms of being courteous to folks before them and treating people with respect, as well as a judicial philosophy that is more one that suggests that there are unenumerated rights in the Constitution.”
Updated
As Joe Biden prepares to meet with the leaders of the Senate judiciary committee to discuss the upcoming supreme court vacancy, one of the president’s potential nominees is attracting progressive criticism.
The progressive group Our Revolution released a statement this morning urging Biden not to nominate Michelle Childs, a South Carolina judge who has the support of House majority whip Jim Clyburn.
In the statement, Joseph Geevarghese, the group’s executive director, criticized Child’s work as a “a former labor and employment lawyer who repeatedly worked on behalf of employers against unionization drives”.
“President Biden vowed to be the ‘most pro-union,’ ever, and it is imperative he keeps this campaign promise by nominating a pro-union Justice,” Geevarghese said.
“It would be nonsensical to nominate a union-busting Justice to the nation’s highest court. President Biden must stand by his word and nominate a pro-union, Black woman.”
The Senate judiciary committee chairman, Dick Durbin, and ranking member, Chuck Grassley, have now arrived at the White House for their meeting with Joe Biden, per CNN:
Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley just arrived at the White House, where they're scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office to discuss the forthcoming Supreme Court vacancy left by Justice Stephen Breyer. pic.twitter.com/OPvgf6EwZr
— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) February 1, 2022
The three men are expected to talk about the supreme court vacancy created by Stephen Breyer’s retirement, which was announced last week.
Reporters will be let in to the Oval Office for the start of the meeting, and they may have the opportunity to ask Biden some questions about his search for a nominee. Stay tuned.
Republican lawmakers busy funneling money to colleagues who crossed Donald Trump, contd.
Further to the reporting moments ago on this, Reuters goes on to name more names.
The [three Republican] incumbents targeted by Trump ended 2021 with more money in their campaign war chests than any of their challengers, including those backed by Trump.
A week after the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump’s supporters, the House voted to impeach him, with the Senate then falling short of the super-majority needed to convict him and bar him from future public office.
[Steve] Scalise gave money in September to at least three House members who voted to impeach Trump: Peter Meijer of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state - who are both facing Trump-endorsed challengers - as well as David Valadao of California.
Scalise also transferred money in December to the re-election campaign of Dan Newhouse of Washington, a House Republican who also voted for impeachment.
The contributions ranged from $2,000 to $5,000 and came from Scalise’s re-election campaign committee or from his “Eye of the Tiger” fundraising group, a so-called leadership committee that lawmakers use to support other candidates.
Representative Elise Stefanik, who replaced Representative Liz Cheney as the No. 3 House Republican after Cheney was ousted from her post following her vote to impeach Trump, made a $5,000 contribution to Herrera Beutler from her “E-PAC” leadership committee, which Stefanik uses to support Republican women candidates.
Cheney, the scion of a storied Republican family and the most forceful Trump critic in Congress, received $5,000 from [Kentuckian] McConnell’s “Bluegrass Committee” fundraising group.
The group also gave $10,000 to the campaign of [Alaska’s Lisa] Murkowski, who is the only one of the Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trial last year who is seeking re-election this year.Cheney and Murkowski both are facing Republican primary challengers endorsed by Trump, as is Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, another Republican who voted to impeach Trump and took contributions from the leadership committee of Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.
Representatives August Pfluger of Texas, Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, Byron Donalds of Florida and Carlos Gimenez of Florida - who each have been endorsed by Trump in their re-election bids for this year - also transferred money to impeachment voters from their campaigns or leadership committees. Their offices did not respond to requests for comment.A Trump spokesperson and representatives for Scalise, Stefanik, McConnell and McMorris Rodgers also did not respond to requests for comment.
Joe Kent, a U.S. Army veteran endorsed by Trump to unseat Herrera Beutler, said the lawmakers backing the incumbent are hoping Trump’s movement “will just go away.”
“2022 is a referendum on the establishment,” Kent said.
Republican lawmakers are busy funneling money to colleagues who crossed Donald Trump
At least 71 GOPers in the US House and Senate channeled more than $380,000 last year to the campaigns of eight colleagues whom Trump, the former US president, is trying to drive from office – prioritizing the goal of regaining control of Congress over 45’s apparent desire for vengeance, the Reuters news agency reports.
Reuters has more, saying those lawmakers:
Transferred money to the campaigns of seven House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection arising from last year’s Capitol riot and Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict him.
Steve Scalise, the No 2 House Republican, and a group aligned with Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, were among those making the donations.
Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats control both the House and Senate with slim majorities. Republicans are trying to take over one or both chambers in the Nov. 8 congressional elections. If they do so, they could torpedo Biden’s legislative agenda.
Election experts said these contributions to colleagues reflect a long-standing practice among lawmakers to share money freely to help their party secure a majority, with incumbents typically seen as having the best chances of winning.
“It’s very much a strategic consideration,” said political scientist Zachary Albert of Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
Three House lawmakers targeted by Trump already have dropped out of their races following public backlash from Republican leaders.
Nonetheless, congressional Republicans are donating to colleagues who Trump has disparaged as “disloyal” and “losers,” according to financial disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission ahead of a Monday deadline.
More to follow on this in few moments.
Updated
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Joe Biden will meet this afternoon with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate judiciary committee to discuss the upcoming supreme court vacancy. The meeting comes one week after Stephen Breyer, one of the court’s three liberal justices, announced he would step down from the bench this summer.
- The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine. “He emphasized that further invasion of Ukraine would be met with swift and severe consequences and urged Russia to pursue a diplomatic path,” state department spokesperson Ned Price said of the call.
- Some of the Trump White House documents connected to the Capitol insurrection had been torn up, the National Archives said last night. Donald Trump’s habit of ripping up papers has been well documented, and the Archives said some of the notes had not been taped back together. The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection has subpoenaed Trump White House documents related to the attack.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Vladimir Putin accused the US and its allies of ignoring Russia’s security demands, and he said his team is still working on a response to the White House’s proposal on Ukraine, which was delivered last week.
Hosting Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban in the Kremlin, the Russian president directly addressed the escalating crisis in Ukraine for the first time in more than a month.
The AP reports:
[Putin] said it was clear that the West has ignored the Russian demands that NATO will not expand to Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations, refrain from deploying offensive weapons near Russia and roll back NATO deployments to Eastern Europe.
Putin said the refusal by the U.S. and its allies to heed the Russian demands violate the obligations on integrity of security they made at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He argued that while Western allies emphasize every country’s freedom to choose alliances, they neglect the principle of the ‘indivisibility of security’ enshrined in the OSCE documents.
That involves the principle that the security of one nation should not be strengthened at the expense of others.
The Guardian’s Julian Borger and Lorenzo Tondo report:
Ukraine will be responsible for its own destruction if it undermines existing peace agreements, a senior Russian diplomat has warned at a combative UN security council debate on the crisis.
The warning from Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, came on a day of continued high-level diplomacy aimed at defusing the Ukraine crisis.
The state department said it had received a response from Moscow to a document the US delivered in Moscow last week, formally outlining areas where the Biden administration believes the two countries could find common ground. US officials would not disclose the contents of the Russian letter, saying they would not “negotiate in public”.
Russia’s state news agency RIA reported on Tuesday that Russia had sent follow-up questions rather than a response, and that Moscow was still working on an actual response.
Updated
Today’s call between the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, lasted about 30 minutes, per the Washington Post.
The call between Blinken and Lavrov lasted about 30 minutes, per a senior State Dept official. Lavrov said the Russians are preparing a full written response to the U.S. proposal that will be first sent to Putin for his approval and then delivered to the US 1/
— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) February 1, 2022
In the call, Lavrov said the Kremlin is working on a full written response to the US proposal regarding Russia demands on Ukraine, which the White House delivered last week.
In its proposal, the White House made clear that it would not support denying Ukraine the opportunity to pursue Nato membership, as Russia has insisted upon.
Blinken urges Russia to pursue diplomatic path in Ukraine
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, spoke to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, today to discuss the escalating crisis in Ukraine.
“The Secretary emphasized the U.S. willingness, bilaterally and together with Allies and partners, to continue a substantive exchange with Russia on mutual security concerns, which we intend to do in full coordination with our partners and Allies,” state department spokesperson Ned Price said.
“He further reiterated the U.S. commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the right of all countries to determine their own foreign policy and alliances.”
In @SecBlinken’s call with Foreign Minister Lavrov, he reiterated that further invasion of Ukraine will incur severe consequences and urged Russia to choose a path of diplomacy and de-escalation. https://t.co/yxY1qYz8lS
— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) February 1, 2022
Blinken again urged the Kremlin to withdraw its troops and equipment from Ukraine’s borders, where more than 100,000 Russian service members are now stationed.
“He emphasized that further invasion of Ukraine would be met with swift and severe consequences and urged Russia to pursue a diplomatic path,” Price said.
The call marks the first time that Blinken and Lavrov have spoken since the US delivered its written response to Russian demands on Ukraine last week.
Donald Trump wants the House committee investigating the January 6 attack to investigate Mike Pence.
In the first of two rambling, lie-filled statements this morning, the former president said: “The Unselect Committee should be investigating why [House speaker] Nancy Pelosi did such a poor job of overseeing security [at the Capitol on 6 January 2021, a common and baseless complaint from Republicans] and why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!”
That has not been shown, clearly or otherwise, however much Trump thinks moves to reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887 suggest that it has.
Nothing is getting easier for Pence, as the former vice-president tries to stay relevant in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024, which of course seems Trump’s for the taking should he wish to take it.
Pence, remember, concluded that he did not have the authority to reject electoral college results, resisted pressure from Trump to do so, and was rewarded with a mob of Trump supporters attacking the Capitol, some chanting that they wished to hang him.
Here’s more on all that, from our columnist Sidney Blumenthal:
Meanwhile, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has reportedly subpoenaed documents from the General Services Administration as part of her civil investigation into potential fraud at the Trump Organization.
According to the Washington Post, James and her team are investigating whether Trump inflated his assets to secure the lease for the historic post office building in Washington, where the Trump International Hotel is now located.
The Post reports:
The documents James sought included a scorecard GSA used to rank Trump’s bid against those of other developers who proposed leasing and redeveloping the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion downtown. That information could fit into James’s broader effort to show a pattern of Trump giving false information to business partners, banks and insurers to secure loans and other deals.
James’s request appears to differ from previous inquiries into Trump’s hotel, which largely focused on whether he should have been allowed to retain the deal while in office. After Trump was elected, he ignored calls from Democrats to sell his stake in the lease to avoid conflicts of interest.
Trump is now working to sell that lease, in a deal that could net his company $100 million in profits, and the negotiations have coincided with renewed scrutiny from lawmakers and prosecutors.
In October, the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), issued a report raising concerns about whether Trump had misled the GSA in pursuing the deal. Maloney and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) wrote to GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan alleging that Trump “’concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in debts from GSA when bidding on the Old Post Office Building lease’ and called for an investigation.
Donald Trump directed Rudy Giuliani to ask the Department of Homeland Security if it could seize voting machines in three key states, the New York Times reported.
Citing three anonymous sources, the paper said Giuliani made the call six weeks after Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden but before the January 6 Capitol riot, by supporters trying to stop the certification of electoral college results.
A DHS official told Giuliani it did not have the authority to seize the machines, the Times said.
The paper also said Trump turned to his personal lawyer after considering a plan to have the Department of Defense seize the machines, and after being told by his attorney general, William Barr, that the Department of Justice would not do so.
Trump ripped up some documents related to Capitol attack, Archives says
Some of the White House records turned over to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack were ripped up by Donald Trump.
The documents include diaries, schedules, handwritten notes, speeches and remarks. The supreme court rejected Trump’s attempt to stop the National Archives turning them over to Congress.
In a statement, the Archives said: “Some of the Trump presidential records received by the National Archives and Records Administration included paper records that had been torn up by former president Trump.
“These were turned over to the National Archives at the end of the Trump administration, along with a number of torn-up records that had not been reconstructed by the White House. The Presidential Records Act requires that all records created by presidents be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations.”
The Archives did not say how it knew Trump had torn the records but his habit of tearing up documents has been widely reported.
In 2018, Politico spoke to Solomon Lartey, a records management analyst who spent time “armed with rolls of clear Scotch tape … sft[ing] through large piles of paper and put[ting] them back together … ‘like a jigsaw puzzle’.”
Lartey and another staffer who taped records were fired by the White House that year, they said summarily.
Lartey said: “They told [Trump] to stop doing it. He didn’t want to stop.”
Updated
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said the chamber will move “quickly” to confirm Joe Biden’s supreme court nominee once the president chooses someone to succeed Stephen Breyer.
“I am confident that the President will select an outstanding individual to fill Justice Breyer’s seat, and we intend to move quickly on our constitutional duty to act on his nominee when announced,” Schumer said in a floor speech yesterday.
“I can assure all senators that the Senate will have a fair process that moves quickly, so we can confirm President Biden’s nominee to fill Justice Breyer’s seat as soon as possible.”
.@SenSchumer on #SCOTUS confirmation process: "I can assure all Senators that the Senate will have a fair process that moves quickly so we can confirm President Biden's nominee to fill Justice Breyer's seat as soon as possible." pic.twitter.com/MJXXrpm7a2
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 31, 2022
Schumer also applauded Breyer’s decades of service on the court, noting that the liberal justice once served as an aide on the Senate judiciary committee in the 1970’s and worked closely with the late Senator Ted Kennedy.
“At every step of the way he remained his essential self: decent, brilliant, and dedicated to our democracy,” Schumer said.
“Today, the members of this chamber say thank you to Justice Breyer for his lifetime of public service.”
J Michelle Childs, a South Carolina judge among contenders to be nominated to the supreme court by Joe Biden, has received strong support from an unlikely source: Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator and leading ally of Donald Trump.
“I can’t think of a better person for President Biden to consider for the supreme court than Michelle Childs,” Graham, a member of the Senate judiciary committee that will consider Biden’s pick, told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.
“She has wide support in our state. She’s considered to be a fair-minded, highly gifted jurist. She’s one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.”
James Clyburn, the South Carolina congressman whose endorsement both secured Biden’s promise to install a Black woman and boosted him to the Democratic nomination, is a known Childs supporter. The House Democratic whip told CBS on Sunday he spoke to Biden about Childs “several months ago”.
The nomination of any Black woman, Clyburn said, would send a message “to every little child growing up under moderate circumstances, needing the entire community to help raise [her], getting scholarships to go up to school because she couldn’t afford to go otherwise, going to public schools because you didn’t get an offer from one of the big private schools”.
That message, he said, would be: “You’ve got just as much of a chance to benefit from the greatness of this country as everybody else … That’s the kind of conversation I had with [Joe] Biden way back when he was running for president.”
At her briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was also asked about Joe Biden’s promise to select a Black woman to fill Stephen Breyer’s seat on the supreme court, which would mark a historic first for the US.
A reporter pointed to an ABC News/Ipsos poll that showed 76% of Americans want Biden to consider “all possible nominees” for the vacancy, while the White House has indicated he will follow through on his pledge to choose a Black woman.
“What we can assure the American public of, wherever they fell on that poll, is that he will choose and nominate someone who has impeccable credentials and is eminently qualified to serve as a supreme court justice and someone who is eminently qualified to serve in a lifetime appointment,” Psaki said.
She noted that other presidents have previously made similar promises when it comes to supreme court vacancies, such as when Ronald Reagan promised to nominate the first woman justice. (He did, and Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed in 1981.)
“The president’s commitment is to deliver on the promise he made to the country,” Psaki said. “There’s no question in his mind that there is a wealth of qualified, talented Black women to choose from.”
Biden to discuss supreme court vacancy with Senate judiciary committee leaders
Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.
Joe Biden will meet today with the Senate judiciary committee’s chairman, Dick Durbin, and ranking member, Chuck Grassley, to discuss the upcoming vacancy on the supreme court.
The meeting comes a week after Stephen Breyer announced he would step down from the bench this summer, giving the president his first supreme court seat to fill.
Announcing the meeting yesterday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the discussion was a reflection of Biden’s commitment to seeking bipartisan input as he searches for his nominee.
.@PressSec Jen Psaki on #SCOTUS nomination process: "Tomorrow the president is going to host Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley at the White House to consult with them and hear their advice about this vacancy." pic.twitter.com/v4QNAIDl6R
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 31, 2022
“He is steeped in this process and looks forward to advice from members of both parties on the Hill, as well as top legal experts and scholars across the country, working with the vice-president and his team at the White House,” Psaki said at her daily briefing.
“So this will be part of that process, and I expect we’ll have more details to confirm as the week proceeds.”
Biden is scheduled to sit down with Durbin and Grassley this afternoon, and reporters may get a chance to ask him some questions at the start of the meeting, so stay tuned.
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