Evening summary
That’s it for me tonight. Thanks for reading along! Here’s some of what we covered:
- A federal judge in Texas ordered the suspension of Daca – a program that protects immigrants brought to the US as children from deportation.
- An investigation into voter fraud in Arizona turned up only 200 possible cases out of more than 3m votes cast during last-year’s presidential election. No votes were counted twice.
- Senate investigators released a report detailing how a little-known security unit in the US Commerce Department racially profiled and conducted unauthorized surveillance of agency employees of Chinese and Middle Eastern descent.
- The Biden administration is standing by conservationist Tracy Stone-Manning, nominated to head the BLM, as Republicans call for her withdrawal.
Have a great weekend! See you next time.
Updated
Two lawyers that filed a federal lawsuit last December claiming to represent 160m American voters in a dispute over the results of the 2020 election could face ramifications for filing a frivolous suit, the Washington Post reports.
Gary D Fielder and Ernest John Walker, the two attorneys from Colorado, were chastised by federal magistrate judge N Reid Neureiter today, during a hearing to consider whether the pair should face sanctions.
“Did that ever occur to you? That, possibly, [you’re] just repeating stuff the president is lying about?” Neureiter asked, questioning whether they knowingly became a “propaganda tool” for the former president.
Both argue that they acted in good faith and believed the election had been stolen.
Updated
The Biden administration is standing by Tracy Stone-Manning, a conservationist nominated to head the Bureau of Land Management, as Republican lawmakers call for her withdraw, Reuters reports.
Calling Stone-Manning “a dedicated public servant who has years of experience and a proven track record of finding solutions and common ground when it comes to our public lands and waters,” in a statement issued Friday, the White House said she was exceptionally qualified.
Stone-Manning was a senior adviser for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation who pushed back against the previous president’s public land use policies, including the expansion of fossil fuel production.
The statement was issued after a group of Republicans sent a letter calling on Biden to withdrawal his nomination, accusing Stone-Manning of misleading the committee on her ties to a tree-spiking incident – a tactic used by environmental activists that involves inserting metal or other materials into trees to stop them from being logged – that occurred decades ago.
“We do not make this request lightly,” wrote 10 members of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in the letter issued Wednesday, citing their belief that she made “false and misleading statements in a sworn statement to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources regarding her activities associated with an eco-terrorist cell”.
Noting that the BLM manages one in ten acres including roughly 65m acres of forests in 12 states, and about 30% of the nation’s minerals, they said “any individual who leads this important agency must have the faith and trust of the American people. Ms Stone-Manning has violated this trust.”
From Reuters:
The director position will be central to the Biden administration’s effort to address climate change through management of public lands, including a current review of the federal oil and gas leasing program.
Updated
A new report from Senate investigators found that an obscure security unit operating in the US Commerce Department spent a decade acting as a “rogue, unaccountable police force” and conducted unauthorized surveillance of the agency’s employees if Chinese and Middle Eastern descent.
The report, released by Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, was based on the accounts of more than two-dozen whistle-blowers, according to the New York Times.
“Combating national security threats posed by China should be a priority for any agency, but that does not give the federal government a license to disregard the law,” Wicker said in a statement. “Abuse of authority and race-based targeting is unacceptable, especially in law enforcement.”
The investigators found that the unit searched employee email accounts, flagged “ethnic surnames” and even deployed masked-agents to raid offices.
From the NYT:
Senate investigators painted a picture of a unit that routinely engaged in unethical or unsafe activities that were beyond the scope of its mandate and that its employees were not trained to do. The report indicated that the bulk of those efforts were driven over the course of multiple administrations by one official: George Lee, the unit’s longtime director, who has since been placed on leave. Mr. Lee could not be reached for comment on Friday.”
Arizona had less than 200 cases of possible voter fraud identified by election officials out of more than 3m votes cast during last year’s presidential election, “undercutting former President Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election as his allies continue a disputed ballot review in the state’s most populous county,” the Associated Press reports:
An Associated Press investigation found 182 cases where problems were clear enough that officials referred them to investigators for further review. So far, only four cases have led to charges, including those identified in a separate state investigation. No one has been convicted. No person’s vote was counted twice.
While it’s possible more cases could emerge, the numbers illustrate the implausibility of Trump’s claims that fraud and irregularities in Arizona cost him the state’s electorate votes. In final, certified and audited results, Biden won 10,400 more votes than Trump out of 3.4 million cast.”
Numerous studies have shown that voter fraud is uncommon, but that hasn’t stopped Trump supporters from claiming the election was stolen and for Republican lawmakers to use the issue to push for legislation that will add new voting restrictions.
Updated
US Judge rules Daca is unlawful
Gabrielle Canon here, signing on from the west coast to take you through the rest of the afternoon.
First up—
Today a US federal judge in Texas has ordered the suspension of Daca program, which protects so-called “Dreamers” – immigrants who have been in the US since they were children – from deportation, arguing that it was illegally created by the Obama Administration.
The US district judge Andrew Hanen wrote in his ruling that the order won’t yet impact the more than 616,000 people are already enrolled in the program until other courts weigh in, but the program is otherwise put on pause.
Just in: A federal judge in Texas has blocked the DACA program going forward — it won't affect current recipients for now (judge is putting that issue on hold, pending expected appeals), but it blocks DHS from approving new applications https://t.co/urJh8jnJDd pic.twitter.com/LqvSDWx2ao
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) July 16, 2021
“DHS violated the APA with the creation of Daca and its continued operation,” he wrote. “Nevertheless,” he added, “these rulings do not resolve the issue of the hundreds of thousands of Daca recipients and others who have relied upon this program for almost a decade. That reliance has not diminished and may, in fact, have increased over time.”
The order will be temporarily stayed in its application to current recipients until “further order of this Court, the fifth circuit court of appeals, or the United States supreme court” the ruling says.
Updated
Afternoon summary
Here’s a quick summary of what happened today.
- Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the country is currently in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” as 97% of people who are hospitalized with Covid-19 are unvaccinated. Every state has reported increases, and the federal government has been doubling down on messaging to get vaccinated, even though many Americans remain skeptical.
- White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the state department has found that Russia and China have been spreading misinformation on social media that claims vaccines made in the West are ineffective. The White House has been calling out social media companies to do more to curb misinformation on their sites.
- An excerpt from an upcoming book by journalists Susan Glasser and Peter Baker revealed that Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, stopped Donald Trump from launching an attack on Iran.
- Anonymous sources have said that the ex-daughter-in-law of Allen Weisselberg, who has surrendered to Manhattan prosecutors in their investigation of the Trump Organization for tax fraud, has implicated Trump by telling prosecutors that she witnessed the former president offering to pay for her children’s tuition instead of giving her husband a raise.
Stay tuned for more live updates.
Caitlyn Jenner, who is campaigning to replace California governor Gavin Newsom in his recall race, is currently in Australia to be a contestant on a reality show two months before the election takes place on 14 September.
On Twitter, Jenner said she is “honoring a work commitment that I had made prior to even deciding to run for governor” and said that she has not paused her campaign.
I am honoring a work commitment that I had made prior to even deciding to run for governor. There is no pause at all on this race to save CA!
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) July 16, 2021
Separate reports on Friday from Politico said that Jenner appears to be working on a documentary or series of sorts as a film crew has been following her on the campaign trail.
Jenner is part of a long slate of Republican candidates who are trying to oust Newsom. She held her first press conference last week, months after she first announced her run.
Vulnerable Senate Democrats have gotten a flood of cash over the last few months as they gear up for the 2022 elections.
According to CQ Roll Call, four current Senator – Mark Kelly of Arizona, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire – raised a combined $19.2m between April and June of this year and ended the quarter with $31.3m in the bank.
Warnock raised $7.2m in the second quarter of 2021, which he ended with $10.5m in the bank. Kelly meanwhile raised $6m and had $7.6m in the bank.
The fundraising numbers suggest the candidates are out-raising Republicans who have started trickling into the Senate races.
Punchbowl News: Cash on hand for senators in competitive races, per second-quarter FEC filings:
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 16, 2021
→ Sen. Mark Kelly: $7.5 million
→ Sen. Raphael Warnock: $10.5 million
→ Sen. Maggie Hassan: $6.5 million
→ Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto: $6.5 million
Over 1m people were arrested at the US-Mexico between October and June, according to US Border Patrol data released Friday. Over 178,000 people were arrested in June, a 20-year record for that month.
A bulk of the arrests were of people who are trying to recross the border after being turned away. Migrants looking to cross can immediately be turned away when the government uses Title 42, an order from the Trump administration that allows Border Patrol to bar entry to those who pose a public health risk.
About 455,000 unique individuals were arrested by US Border Patrol this past year, which is lower than the number of unique individuals who crossed in 2019.
New Yorker: Milley stopped Trump attacking Iran
Susan Glasser of the New Yorker and her husband, Peter Baker of the New York Times, have a Trump book coming out next year. Not to be left out this summer, as the bestseller lists are drenched in the things, Glasser has a piece of standardly startling reporting out on the subject today.
In short, Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and star of many a Trump-related books story of late, reportedly did not only stop Trump from shooting protesters and muse to friends about “Reichstag moments” and “the gospel of the Führer”. He also did his best to stop Trump launching an attack on Iran.
In the months after the election, with Trump seemingly willing to do anything to stay in power, the subject of Iran was repeatedly raised in White House meetings with the president, and Milley repeatedly argued against a strike. Trump did not want a war, the chairman believed, but he kept pushing for a missile strike in response to various provocations against US interests in the region. Milley, by statute the senior military adviser to the president, was worried that Trump might set in motion a full-scale conflict that was not justified. Trump had a circle of Iran hawks around him and was close with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also urging the administration to act against Iran after it was clear that Trump had lost the election.
“If you do this, you’re gonna have a fucking war,” Milley would say.
Trump did not do it.
For what it’s worth, Trump returned to the offensive against Milley on Friday, issuing yet another intemperate statement about the contents of books with which, in the most part, he himself co-operated. The gist: “’General’ Milley (who [former defense secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried.”
Here, meanwhile, is Lloyd Green’s review of perhaps the biggest of the Trump books, I Alone Can Fix It by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post, which includes a lot of Milley’s musings about the possibility of a coup, which have really angered Trump. The book is out next week but is No1 on Amazon already:
US representative Joyce Beatty said in an interview that the arrest of her and eight others yesterday during a voting rights protest was ironic given how quick the response to the protest was compared to the Capitol riot 6 January.
“Here we are with the disparities of treatment with less than a hundred of people [compared to the] thousands and thousands of people who were not peacefully protesting,” she told SiriusXM Urban Vie’s The Joe Madison Show.
The protest was “in the same spirit” as protests that took place during the Civil Rights Movement that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Let the people vote. Fight for justice. pic.twitter.com/JnEUPl9KJW
— Joyce Beatty (@RepBeatty) July 15, 2021
“Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis and other marched, sang, protested and what happened? They got America’s attention,” she said. “We are in a critical point right now... voting rights is our power”
Updated
Speaking to the press briefly before he left for Camp David for the weekend, Joe Biden doubled down on the White House’s message against vaccine misinformation.
Asked what his message is to platforms like Facebook on coronavirus misinformation, President Biden says, "They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.” pic.twitter.com/Ke27Vi4M18
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 16, 2021
At the White House’s daily press briefing yesterday, press secretary Jen Psaki said that Facebook and other social media companies aren’t doing enough to combat misinformation spreading on their platforms.
“We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We’re working with doctors and medical professionals to connect medical experts who are popular with our audience with accurate information and boos trusted content,” she said.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a new bill into law Thursday barring police from lying to underage kids during interrogations.
Commonly used interrogation tactics, such as promising leniency or insinuating that incriminating evidence exists, are banned for suspects under 18 years old under the new law, which goes into effect January 1, NPR reported:
According to the Innocence Project, an organization focused on exonerating wrongly convicted people, those types of interrogation methods have been shown to lead to false confessions. They’ve also played a role in about 30% of all wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA.
Illinois once was called the “False Confession Capital of the United States,” the organization said, because of a number of high-profile exonerations of people who falsely confessed to crimes they didn’t commit.
“In Illinois alone, there have been 100 wrongful convictions predicated on false confessions, including 31 involving people under 18 years of age,” said Lauren Kaeseberg, legal director at the Illinois Innocence Project.
One notable case involved the Englewood Four. In March 1995, Chicago police brought in four Black teenagers from the Chicago neighborhood of Englewood and accused them of the rape and murder of a woman named Nina Glover.
After hours of interrogation, police told one of the teenagers, Terrill Swift, that if he just confessed to being at the scene he could go home — so he did. All four teens would confess to the crimes, and were all still in prison 20 years when they were exonerated thanks to DNA evidence.
A judge in DC has said that the federal government cannot share grand jury materials with a contractor who was hired to organize the huge collection of evidence from the 6 January Capitol riots, according to Politico. Over 500 defendants face federal prosecution for their role in the insurrection.
Deloitte Financial Advisory Services was offered $6.1m to create a database of material from the riot collected by the FBI. The federal government has reportedly collected 16,000 hours of footage from the day and have issued 6,000 grand jury subpoenas. To move prosecutions forward for the hundreds of cases, the government would need to share its evidence with defense attorneys representing those facing charges.
The ruling means that organizing the massive pile of evidence will be more of a headache for the federal government.
In her decision, DC district court judge Beryl Howell said that prosecutors did not show there was a “particularized need” to provide Deloitte with access to grand jury materials given that it is a private firm.
White House says Russia and China are spreading anti-Western vaccine misinformation on social media
The State Department has determined that Russia and China have been promoting vaccine misinformation through social media platforms, including “messaging that undermines western-origin vaccine development programs,” White House secretary Jen Psaki said at a press briefing this afternoon.
Psaki said the impact goes beyond a competition between vaccines but is further stoking fears over the vaccine overall, with the posts saying that the vaccines are ineffective and unhelpful.
As Russia and China are “pushing information out there that these tested, approved vaccines are ineffective and unhelpful, a lot of people on these platforms, they’re not discriminating between the source of the information,” she said.
Yesterday, Psaki and other White House officials called on social media platforms, especially Facebook, to take more steps addressing misinformation. The White House cited a studied that found that 12 people were responsible 65% of vaccine misinformation found online, all of whom were still active on Facebook.
Psaki: "We're making sure social media platforms are aware of the false narratives dangerous to public health."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) July 16, 2021
The ex-wife of a long time Trump Organization employee told investigators looking into alleged tax fraud that Donald Trump said he would cover school costs for family members of two employees instead of giving them a raise, according to two anonymous sources who spoke with the Daily Beast. The Trump Organization is currently being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for alleged tax evasion.
Jennifer Weisselberg, the ex-daughter-in-law of former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, told prosecutors in June that Trump was personally involved in instances where corporate funds were used for gifts instead of salary increases. Allen Weisselberg in June surrendered to Manhattan prosecutors after he personally faces charges for tax crimes.
The anonymous sources said that Weisselberg witnessed discussions between Trump, her husband, who was an employee of the company, and her father-in-law. Trump said he would cover the cost of tuition for her and her husband’s children’s private school instead giving her husband a raise.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered,” Trump said, according to Weisselberg’s recollections.
The Pentagon announced Friday that 70% of its service members have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, while 62% are fully vaccinated.
The vaccine is not mandatory for military personnel, and in February, the Pentagon reported that one-third of its armed forces will be turning down the vaccine.
In a video, defense secretary Lloyd Austin emphasized that the vaccine is safe and effective and thanked service members who have already been vaccinated.
I’m pleased to report that as of today, 70% of active duty service members have received their first COVID-19 vaccination, and 62% of active duty are fully vaccinated. #WeCanDoThis pic.twitter.com/UHsXzR3KED
— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) July 16, 2021
Jeffrey Zients, the coordinator of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said that unvaccinated Americans “account for virtually all recent Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths”, emphasizing the risk the virus poses to those who remain unvaccinated.
“We will likely continue to experience an increase in Covid cases in the weeks ahead, with these cases concentrated in communities with lower vaccination rates,” he said.
Four states that are currently seeing high upticks in Covid-19 cases have accounted for over 40% of the total Covid cases seen in the country this past week, Zients said. One in five cases occurred in Florida, in which about 50% of the state is fully vaccinated.
“Each Covid-19 death is tragic, and those happening now are even more tragic because they are preventable,” he said.
Zients said that the White House is working on local outreach to communities that are skeptical of the vaccine and are making the vaccine accessible at doctors offices and workplaces.
Updated
Speaking at the White House’s coronavirus press briefing, Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases official, said that there has been an “extraordinary surge” in the Delta variant – which is a more transmissible variant of Covid-19 – around the world, including in the US. Fauci said that at least 100 countries have detected the Delta variant. Over 50% of cases in the US, and 70% of cases in certain areas of the country, are of the Delta variant.
Fauci pointed out that Israel, which has seen high vaccination rates among its population, has continued to see diminished hospitalizations even with the presence of the Delta variant. The UK and US in comparison have both seen slight increases in hospitalizations as the Delta variant has started to spread.
He emphasized that the vaccines available in the US are highly effective against Covid-19, including the Delta variant.
“The message loud and clear that we need to reiterate is that these vaccines continue to [have] strong protection against Covid,” Fauci said.
Updated
CDC head says country is undergoing ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’
The White House’s coronavirus task force is giving its weekly update, and the nation’s top public health officials are sounding the alarm on the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the country.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that the US is seeing an average of 26,000 cases a day – a seven-day average that is 70% higher this week than it was last week. Hospitalizations and deaths are also seeing increases around 36% and 26%, respectively.
Walensky said that this is a “critical moment” in the pandemic as the virus continues to spread.
“There is a clear message that is coming through: This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” she said.
“We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk. Communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well.”
Joe Biden has been trying to undo the legacy of Donald Trump, down to the changes the former president was trying to make to shower heads across the country.
Biden is reversing a Trump rule that was finalized in December that allows shower heads to pour as much as 2.5 gallons of water per minute for each nozzle on the shower head, according to the Associated Press. Federal law formerly capped 2.5 gallon of water per minute for the entire shower head.
Trump last year criticized the lack of water coming out of shower heads saying: “You take a shower, the water doesn’t come out. You want to wash your hands, the water doesn’t come out. … So what do you do? You just stand there longer or you take a shower longer?”
The energy department said that the shower heads that pour out Trump’s desired water amount are not easily found on the market but emphasized that the reveal is “commonsense”.
The change “means consumers can purchase shower heads that conserve water and save them money on their utility bills”,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, an acting assistant the the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
A new law in Illinois will bar the police from lying as an interrogation tactic when questioning minors under 18 years old.
Officers will sometimes promise leniency or lie about existing evidence as a tactic to get a confession out of suspects. Criminal justice advocates say the strategy can lead to false confessions. According to the Innocence Project, lying as an interrogation tactic has played a role in 30% of all wrongful convictions that have been overturned by DNA evidence.
Illinois governor JB Pritzker signed the bill banning deceptive tactics, saying that it makes “abundantly clear that justice can no longer be denied”. The governor also signed three other bills around criminal justice, including one guaranteeing that participation in restorative justice practices will remain privileged and creating a task force on resentencing.
Updated
Two men were charged with planning to firebomb the California Democratic Party’s headquarters in Sacramento and were in possession of multiple explosives and firearms to carry out the plot, according to the Washington Post.
Federal officials say the two men, Ian Benjamin Rogers and Jarrod Copeland, are members of a militia group and were “prompted by the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election”. They hoped to start a “movement” with their plans to attack the party’s headquarters.
In searches of Rogers’ home and business, the authorities found a collection of pipe bombs, ammunition and at least 45 firearms. The two men face multiple federal charges, including for conspiracy to destroy a building used in interstate commerce and possession of unregistered destructive devices.
In a statement, the FBI said the agency’s “highest priority has remained preventing terrorist attacks before they occur, including homegrown plots from domestic violent extremists.” Domestic terrorist incidents have generally been on the rise, particularly among right-wing extremists motivated by white supremacist and anti-government sentiments.
Covid cases rising in every US state, data shows
Good morning, and welcome to today’s politics live blog.
Covid-19 cases are rising in every state, with some states seeing as much as double the number of cases as last week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Public health experts point to the more transmissible Delta variant, a slowdown in vaccinations and surges from the Fourth of July weekend as the main factors behind the surge.
Though nearly 70% of the adult population has received at least one vaccine dose, the virus is clearly still spreading. The New York Yankees are postponing a game after six members of the team tested positive for the virus. In Arkansas, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country with about 35% of its population fully vaccinated, hospitals are “full” and “cases are doubling every 10 days”, Cam Patterson, chancellor of the University of Arkansas for Medical Science, told CNN. Los Angeles county will begin requiring masks indoors again starting Sunday.
Biden’s administration has deployed “surge response teams” in states with high Covid-19 rates and low vaccination rates to try to encourage skeptical Americans to get vaccinated and assist local governments, though it is unclear how successful these efforts will be.
Here’s what else we’re looking at today:
- Even as Covid cases are rising across the country, Republican lawmakers in multiple states are pushing for bills that would make it harder for employers to require the Covid-19 vaccinations.
- The fight for voting rights continues as nine people, including a Democratic congresswoman, were arrested at the US Capitol yesterday as they protested for voting rights.
- The west coast is bracing for another heatwave this weekend as wildfires are burning across hundreds of miles.
Stay tuned for more live updates.
