Politics

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday began questioning potential jurors in Brooklyn for the trial of Tom Barrack, the private equity executive and onetime fundraiser for former President Donald Trump charged with acting as a foreign agent without notifying the U.S. government as required.

Barrack, the 75-year-old former chairman of the firm now called DigitalBridge Group Inc, worked for the United Arab Emirates to influence Trump’s campaign and administration between 2016 and 2018 and advance the Middle Eastern country’s interests, according to federal prosecutors.

Barrack, who headed Trump’s inauguration committee and was a frequent White House guest, has pleaded not guilty, as has his former assistant and co-defendant Matthew Grimes. The two defendants intend to argue that their interactions with UAE officials were part of their work for DigitalBridge, then known as Colony Capital.

Another co-defendant, Emirati businessman Rashid Al Malik, is at large.

The trial is expected to focus on allegations that UAE officials gave Barrack input about what to say in television interviews, what then-candidate Trump should say in a 2016 energy policy speech, and who should be appointed ambassador to Abu Dhabi.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan told potential jurors not to “exaggerate potential unavailability” to try to get out of service.

“You’re going to find this trial, if you’re chosen as a juror, to be particularly interesting,” Cogan told them.

Cogan, prosecutors and defense lawyers are interviewing prospective jurors one-by-one about whether their views on topics ranging from Trump to Middle East politics would affect their ability to be fair. A pool of 39 prospective jurors deemed qualified is to due to be selected before a jury of 12, with four alternatives, is picked.

Prosecutors have said Barrack, Grimes and Al Malik never told the U.S. attorney general they were acting as UAE agents as required under federal law. Barrack’s lawyers have said the U.S. State Department, and Trump himself, knew of his contacts with Middle East officials, showing that Barrack did not intend to be a foreign agent. Barrack was arrested in Los Angeles but has remained free on bond pending trial.

Barrack was charged https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-advisor-presidential-candidate-among-three-defendants-charged-acting-agents-foreign last year with acting as a foreign agent and conspiracy – counts that could bring 10 and five years in prison, respectively, though the sentence would be determined by the judge based on a range of factors. Barrack also was charged with obstruction of justice and making false statements in an FBI interview.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Jonathan Oatis)

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels called Monday on Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers to halt all paroles in the state, even though a governor can’t unilaterally order them to stop and some paroles are mandated by law.

Michels has been hitting Evers as being soft on crime, accusing the Democrat in a letter Monday of sympathizing with and coddling “brutal, convicted criminals.” Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said it would be illegal to do as Michels wants and called the request “an uninformed stunt to score political points by someone who has no regard or appreciation for the laws of our state.”

Michels and Evers are knotted in a tight contest in the battleground state that polls show is about even. Michaels, who is endorsed by former President Donald Trump and co-owner of the state’s largest construction company, has been attacking Evers both over his parole policies and his response to violent protests in Kenosha two years ago that followed the shooting of Black man Jacob Blake by a white police officer.

Wisconsin’s parole commission, which operates independently of the governor, has granted about 460 discretionary paroles not required by law, something that both Republican and Democratic governors before Evers also routinely granted.

For example, former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson’s administration granted more than 23,000 discretionary paroles during his 14 years as governor. Thompson has endorsed Michels. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker granted more than 650 discretionary paroles over eight years, according to the parole commission.

A parole allows someone who is in prison to be released before their sentence is complete. Parole is required for some offenders under state laws that set mandatory release dates. Discretionary paroles are available only to offenders not sentenced to life in prison who committed a felony before Dec. 31, 1999.

While the governor decides who is granted a pardon, he does not control paroles. That is done by the four-member parole commission that is given independent authority under state law to determine whether an inmate is eligible after serving a certain portion of their sentence. The governor appoints the chair of the commission, who is subject to confirmation by the state Senate.

Michels’ campaign spokesperson Anna Kelly said that Evers could effectively halt paroles by rescinding his appointment of Christopher Blythe as chair of the commission, or ask that Blythe stand down for three months. Michels did not make that specific request in his letter.

State law established a right to being considered for parole and both state and federal courts have recognized the right of inmates to be paroled. So if paroles were to stop in Wisconsin as Michels wants, it would likely be challenged in court.

Paroles are different from pardons, which can be granted to a person convicted of a felony who completed their sentence at least five years ago, has no pending charges and is not on the sex offender registry. A pardon doesn’t erase or seal a conviction but it does restore certain rights, like being able to own a gun, and often makes it easier for the person to get a job.

Michels, in a letter to Evers, also called on him to stop issuing pardons.

Evers has issued more pardons than any Wisconsin governor in modern history. The vast majority of the more than 600 pardons have been granted to people convicted of lower level, nonviolent crimes.

In the 2018 governor’s race, Walker ran a television ad saying that Evers’ general support for cutting the prison population in half would result in the release of “felons who’ve committed rape, assault, robbery and even kidnapping.”

“That’s a lie. I never said that,” Evers said at the time in response. “We will not release violent criminals.”

Michels, in his letter to Evers, said, “You were not candid with the people of Wisconsin about limiting your get-out-of-jail-free card to nonviolent offenders.”

Michels, at a news conference last week in Milwaukee, did not say what the correct number of paroles should be, other than it would be more than zero and less than what Evers has done. Evers started granting pardons after Walker didn’t issue a single one during eight years in office.

Evers has been under fire from Michels and others about paroles for months. In June, Wisconsin Parole Commission Chairman John Tate resigned, a month after Evers made a hasty appeal to Tate in the midst of Republican criticism over parole plans for a convicted murderer.

Michels has promised to make sure there are enough prison space to keep criminals behind bars. The Department of Corrections reported on Sept. 9 that 20,291 inmates were being housed in prisons designed to hold 17,298.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is finding it’s easier to call out attacks on democracy than it is to stop them.

His fundamental rationale for running for president was that America’s democratic traditions were in jeopardy. Now, 20 months into his presidency, the dangers are worse, Biden’s warnings are more dire — and the limits of his own ability to fix the problem are clearer.

Former President Donald Trump continues to stoke the baseless claim the 2020 election was stolen, and even now advocates for the results in certain battleground states to be decertified even though the falsehood has been rejected by dozens of courts and his own attorney general. The belief has taken deep root in the Republican Party, with dozens of candidates insisting Trump was right.

Never in the country’s history have elections taken place in a climate where one party has so frontally questioned the integrity of the electoral process and actively sought to undermine confidence in it.

“We’re in an unprecedented situation here, because Biden’s predecessor has shown a flagrant disregard for the Constitution of the United States, and now others are following that path,” said Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, who was among a group invited to the White House recently to put today’s challenges in historical context. “It could be dangerous.”

Biden has found, even with the megaphone of the White House, how difficult it is to counter the Trump-inspired narrative and the millions of Americans who believe it. Trump allies have been going around the country peddling lies about the 2020 election and conspiracy theories about voting machines, while Republican candidates running for office this year have repeated his lies to their supporters –- messaging that has reached a broad audience.

Every U.S. president swears to “preserve, protect and defend” the U.S. Constitution, but even in ordinary times there is no playbook for safeguarding it. Biden took that oath as the nation was facing challenges unmatched since perhaps the U.S. Civil War, in the view of some historians.

In a speech earlier this month at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Biden described democracy as “under assault” and pledged that it was the work of his presidency to defend it. But he also said the solution had to be bigger than him, that he can’t turn back what he sees as a years-long backslide in American political norms on his own.

“For a long time, we’ve told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it’s not,” he said. “We have to defend it, protect it, stand up for it – each and every one of us.”

Has Biden himself done enough?

His efforts at persuasion don’t seem to have produced any significant shift in public opinion. His push for voting rights legislation in Congress has for the most part fallen short.

Beyond the president’s increasingly drastic warnings, White House officials point to the administration’s efforts to push voting rights safeguards through Congress and to their support for the Electoral Count Act, which would patch ambiguities exploited by Trump and his allies.

The Department of Justice is prosecuting those who violently stormed the Capitol. More than 870 people have been charged and more than 400 convicted.

The administration also has sounded the alarm about domestic extremist groups. There’s an increasing overlap with politically-fueled violence, as a growing number of ardent Trump supporters seem ready to strike back against the FBI or others they consider going too far in investigating the former president. And the National Security Council has developed a whole-of-government strategy to counter domestic violent extremism, which U.S. intelligence officials have called the top threat to homeland security.

While voters ranked threats to democracy as the most important issue ahead of the midterm elections, according to an NBC News poll late last month, the conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies have succeeded in sowing doubts about the integrity of U.S. elections in a large swath of the population.

Two-thirds of Republicans believe Biden wasn’t legitimately elected president, according to an AP-NORC poll. They believe that votes were switched, or voting machines were corrupted en masse, or that fake ballots were cast in favor of Biden because pandemic-era policies made voting too easy.

Trump-backed candidates are winning primaries and some will make it to Congress. In the states, nearly 1 in 3 Republican candidates for offices that play a role in overseeing, certifying or defending elections supported overturning the results of the 2020 presidential race.

Candidates have signaled a new willingness to simply refuse to accept the results of their election if they lose. And election workers across the country are getting death threats and are harassed online, pushing many to just resign.

“We are very clearly playing with fire with some of the new tactics, allowing them to proliferate around the country,” said Matthew Weil, the executive director of our Democracy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank. “It’s: ‘If my candidate loses, I’m going to drag it out as long as possible. I can cut the legs out from the person who beat me from taking office.’ That’s a new feature and it’s pretty dangerous. We can’t have an election system where people aren’t willing to lose.”

Checking the antidemocratic forces within Trumpism is not just a policy aim, it’s a political endeavor as well, and that clouds the picture.

Biden aides say his best tool to try to preserve democracy is his use of the bully pulpit to make clear to voters that they play a vital role in participating in the electoral process and deciding whom to put into positions of influence.

He isn’t the only one sounding the alarm. The special congressional committee investigating the 2021 Capitol insurrection has delivered the same message, as have election officials in states across the country, historians and other lawmakers.

Administration allies say Biden’s efforts have resonated with voters, particularly as Trump’s behavior in late 2020 and early 2021 has been cast into stark relief by the Jan. 6 committee.

But the president’s remarks have largely been dismissed by Republicans unwilling to break with Trump.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump supporters threatened to hang on Jan. 6 and who hid in a secure location beneath the building as the masses hunted him in the halls, decried Biden’s comments after the Philadelphia speech.

“Never before in the history of our nation has a president stood before the American people and accused millions of his own countrymen of being a ‘threat to this country,’” Pence said in remarks to conservatives.

Former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley called Biden “the most condescending president of my lifetime.”

The struggle the nation is facing goes beyond political parties, though. And “unless and until enough people fight for, protect and build our democracy, the fever we see today will continue,” said Melody Barnes, head of the University of Virginia Karsh Institute of Democracy.

The closest parallel, historians say, has been the Civil War era, when war broke out after Southern states wouldn’t recognize Abraham Lincoln had been elected president. Following the end of fighting, there was a continued refusal to accept the rule of law during Reconstruction, as deep racism and violence proliferated, resulting eventually in the Jim Crow era.

At critical moments, U.S. leaders have taken a stand to protect the nation from itself. George Washington left office to ensure future leaders would willingly walk away, too. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after Watergate — a wildly unpopular move in 1974 but one that has since been viewed more as an effort to push the country past a national nightmare.

Biden, at a summit this past week on countering hate-fueled violence, talked about how good he felt years ago when he worked successfully with Republicans in the Senate to get the Voting Rights Act extended. “And I thought, well, you know, hate can be defeated,” he said.

“But it only hides,” he said with a sigh. “And when given any oxygen, it comes out from under the rocks.”

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden said U.S forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, his most explicit statement so far on the issue, something sure to anger Beijing.

Asked in a CBS 60 Minutes interview broadcast on Sunday whether U.S. forces would defend the self-ruled island claimed by China, he replied: “Yes, if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack.”

Asked to clarify if he meant that unlike in Ukraine, U.S. forces – American men and women – would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, Biden replied: “Yes.”

The interview was just the latest time that Biden has appeared to go beyond long-standing stated U.S. policy on Taiwan, but his statement was clearer than previous ones about committing U.S. troops to the defend the island.

The United States has long stuck to a policy of “strategic ambiguity” and not making clear whether it would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.

Asked to comment, a White House spokesperson said U.S. policy towards Taiwan had not changed.

“The President has said this before, including in Tokyo earlier this year. He also made clear then that our Taiwan policy hasn’t changed. That remains true,” the spokesperson said.

The CBS interview with Biden was conducted last week. The president is in Britain for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral on Monday.

In May, Biden was asked if he was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan and replied https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-meets-japanese-emperor-start-visit-launch-regional-economic-plan-2022-05-23: “Yes … That’s the commitment we made.”

In the 60 Minutes interview, Biden reiterated the United States did not support Taiwanese independence and remained committed to a “One-China” policy in which Washington officially recognizes Beijing not Taipei.

Biden’s remarks are sure to enrage Beijing, which was greatly angered by a visit to Taiwan by U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi in August.

That visit promoted China to conducted its largest-ever military exercises around Taiwan and China has protested moves by U.S. lawmakers to advanced legislation that would enhance U.S. military support for Taiwan.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to bring democratically-governed Taiwan under Beijing’s control and has not ruled out the use of force.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from China’s embassy in Washington.

In a phone call with Biden in July, Xi warned against playing with fire over Taiwan, saying “those who play with fire will perish by it.”

Asked last October if the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan, which the United States is required by law to provide with the means to defend itself, Biden said: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”

At that time, a White House spokesperson said Biden was not announcing any change in U.S. policy and some experts referred to the comment as a “gaffe”.

Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said if Biden made such pledges he needed to ensure he could back them up.

“If President Biden plans to defend Taiwan, then he should make sure the U.S. military has the capability to do so,” she said. “Rhetorical support that isn’t backed up by real capabilities is unlikely to strengthen deterrence.”

Biden’s Asia policy czar, Kurt Campbell, has in the past rejected any move to “strategic clarity” over Taiwan, saying there were “significant downsides” https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/significant-downsides-strategic-clarity-over-taiwan-us-2021-05-04 to such an approach.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Costas Pitas, Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Lincoln Feast.)

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BOSTON (AP) — Just 20 years ago, Massachusetts voters had yet to elect a woman as governor, attorney general, U.S. senator or mayor of its largest city. This year, Democratic women won five of six statewide primary contests.

2022 is shaping up to be a watershed year for women seeking political power in Massachusetts, a state that despite its liberal reputation has lagged when it comes to electing women to top offices.

Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey is heavily favored to flip the Republican-held governor’s office in November, which would make her the state’s first woman and first openly gay candidate elected chief executive. Andrea Campbell, the former Boston city councilor hoping to succeed Healey as attorney general, would be the first Black woman to hold that post.

And since candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run together in the general election, Healey is poised to make history with her running mate, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, by becoming the first two-female governor/lieutenant governor ticket elected to lead any state.

Healey said she’s more focused on issues important to voters — like housing costs and transportation — than on the groundbreaking nature of her run.

“I know it’s historic. I also know this is about the resume, though. This is about picking the people that you want in government to best serve and deliver for you and your family,” Healey said a day after her Sept. 6 primary victory.

This year, both Democrats and Republicans nominated women for the lieutenant governor post. In addition, Democrats nominated women in the attorney general, treasurer and auditor races, while Republicans nominated a woman for secretary of the commonwealth.

The nominations continue a trend that saw Michelle Wu become the first woman and first Asian American elected mayor of Boston last year.

If Healey were to win in November, she wouldn’t be the state’s first female governor, but she would be the first woman to be elected to the post. Republican Jane Swift, then lieutenant governor, became the acting governor in 2001 when Paul Cellucci resigned to become ambassador to Canada.

Swift said having more women serving in office helps defuse the “gender question.”

“I would have loved to never answer another gender question, not because I wasn’t tremendously proud of my accomplishments, but I didn’t run for office because I was a woman,” she said. “I ran for office because I thought we needed lower taxes and a better small business climate and better education.”

“I can’t wait for the day when it’s not part of the conversation, when the women serving in office can talk about the issues that propelled them to win, not why they think differently because they have a uterus,” she added.

Massachusetts has fallen behind other states in electing women. In 2012, neighboring New Hampshire, considered far less liberal, became the first state to elect an all-female congressional delegation as well as electing a female governor.

One reason for the recent success of female candidates in Massachusetts may be the weakening of the Massachusetts Democratic Party apparatus, said Erin O’Brien, an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

“In the past, single party control has made it harder for women to get elected because parties only expand their pool of candidates when they feel threatened — and Democrats have not been threatened in Massachusetts,” O’Brien said.

There are signs the party’s influence may be waning. In 2014, a relatively unknown Healey took on state Sen. Warren Tolman for attorney general. Tolman had the endorsement of the Democratic Party and a brother who was president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, but Healey easily beat him and won the general election.

Just this summer, Quentin Palfrey won the state party’s endorsement for attorney general but dropped out of the race a week before the primary and endorsed Campbell. In the race for state auditor, Chris Dempsey won the party’s endorsement but lost the primary to state Sen. Diana DiZoglio.

“Part of the reason that women are beginning to win in Massachusetts is because the Democratic Party is starting to look outside itself,” O’Brien said. “Women can run against the preferred male and win and not pay with their careers if they lose.”

US Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who defeated an incumbent to become the first Black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts, said the rise of fellow Democratic women is a testament to the “courage, skill, and commitment” of each candidate.

“More women are seeing themselves in public office, recognizing the critical role their expertise and lived experience plays in policy-making, and choosing to build more inclusive, representative decision-making tables,” she said in a statement.

“When I won my first campaign for Congress, in 2018, many people referred to it as ‘Black Girl Magic,’ but I know it was ’Black Woman Work,’” she added.

The party’s bylaws prohibit it from getting involved in contested primaries other than endorsements at the state convention, according to Gus Bickford, chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

“Once a nominee is chosen by voters in the primary election we get to work to get them elected,” Bickford said in a statement. “As we prepare to elect the first female Governor and Lt. Governor team in Massachusetts history, along with other qualified women on the ballot, we are very proud of the role we play in supporting them.”

The shift began in part in 2006, when Martha Coakley became the first woman elected attorney general in Massachusetts. Another milestone came in 2012 when Elizabeth Warren defeated incumbent GOP Sen. Scott Brown to become the state’s first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

Representation by women in Massachusetts state politics stretches back to 1922, when Democrat Susan Fitzgerald and Republican Sylvia Donaldson became the first women elected to the state House of Representatives.

In 1936 Republican Sybil Holmes became the first woman elected to the Massachusetts Senate, but it took another 70 years before Therese Murray became the first woman to serve as Senate president.

The number of women serving in the Legislature has increased in recent decades.

In 1992, there were just six women serving in the 40-member Massachusetts Senate and 31 in the 160-member Massachusetts House. Thirty years later, the number of women in the Senate has more than doubled to 13, while the number of women in the House stands at 46.

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

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AUBURN, Maine (AP) — Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District this year, but his brand of politics is.

In a race that will help decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democratic Rep. Jared Golden will defend his seat against Republican former Rep. Bruce Poliquin and independent candidate Tiffany Bond. The race is a rematch for Golden and Poliquin, who ran for the same seat in 2018, when Golden emerged victorious by a razor-thin margin.

The appeal of Trump-style politics has grown in the district since then despite the fact it is represented by Golden, a moderate Democrat. Poliquin, who represented the 2nd District as a moderate Republican from 2014 to 2018, has shifted his own messaging rightward to try to take advantage of those headwinds.

The result is a race that could be an indicator of Trump’s continued influence on swing districts and rural politics.

Voters in the district are taking notice. Mary Hunter, a Democrat and retired academic who lives in the city of Lewiston, thinks Golden is still the right candidate for the district. She said she’s voting for him in part because she’s concerned about Democrats losing control of Congress. And she’s aware Trump is still a big influence on a lot of voters in her district.

“Most people are kind of red team or blue team. I think Jared is doing his best to move to the middle. He’s very centrist,” Hunter said. “Whether that will serve him, I don’t know.”

But in Auburn, a nearby city of about 23,000 in the 2nd District, Coastal Defense Firearms owner Rick LaChapelle said he’s planning to vote for Poliquin. LaChapelle, a Republican city councilor in Lewiston, said he respects Golden but feels the Democratic Party has become too extreme.

“His party is too radical. He cannot overcome the strength of his party, so you have to change the party,” LaChapelle said.

The district, one of two in Maine, includes the state’s second- and third-largest cities — Lewiston and Bangor — but is mostly made up of vast rural areas in northern and western Maine. It also includes the state’s Down East coastline and is home to Maine’s traditional industries such as lobster fishing, logging and potato and blueberry farming.

The district is also geographically the largest in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River, and it is far more politically mixed than the heavily Democratic 1st Congressional District in southern Maine. Trump won the 2nd District in 2016 and performed even better in the district in 2020, though he lost the statewide vote both times because of overwhelming margins in the 1st District, centered in liberal Portland.

Poliquin has focused his campaign on issues such as curtailing immigration and protecting gun rights. It’s a shift from his earlier campaigns, which focused more closely on controlling taxes and protecting rural jobs, though he continues to tout those issues. His website has warned of liberals who want to defund law enforcement and push critical race theory in schools, and boasted of his work with Trump when he served in Congress.

“I came out again from semi-retirement because our country and our state are in deep trouble,” said Poliquin, who was once an investment manager and served two years as Maine’s state treasurer.

Golden, a Marine Corps veteran, has long positioned himself as a moderate who supports the 2nd Amendment and works to safeguard industries such as commercial fishing and papermaking. He’s continuing that approach this time around.

Golden has shown a willingness to buck his own party over the years, including coming out against President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan in August. His positions have sometimes won him crossover endorsements from groups that often back Republicans, such as when he received the backing of the state’s largest police union in July.

The union also endorsed Republican former Gov. Paul LePage, who is running for his old job. Golden said he expects voters to reward him for standing up to the Democratic Party leadership on issues such as the nearly $2 trillion climate and health care bill the House passed in 2021. He voted against the bill. He subsequently voted for the slimmed-down $740 billion measure that passed Congress last month.

“In the last two years, I don’t know of anyone who has been more independent, and more willing to stand up to their own party, than I have been,” Golden said. “I’m not trying to strategize ‘How do I hold on to the Democratic voters or to the Trump voters?’”

The race will include the use of ranked-choice voting, which Golden needed to win the seat in 2018. Bond, who came in third in 2018, said independent voters in the race will be the ones who decide it. She said she’s focusing her campaign on issues such as improving health care access and addressing climate change.

Bond said she expects ranked voting will play a role again this time around.

“I was the candidate who got all the votes that neither party could,” she said.

The race is likely to be much closer than Golden’s 2020 reelection victory, said Mark Brewer, a political scientist at University of Maine. Golden won that election handily over Republican Dale Crafts.

It’ll be closer this time in part because of national backlash against Democrats over issues such as inflation, Brewer said. But it’ll also be closer simply because the 2nd District is unpredictable, he said.

“It’s the kind of district that has a lot of the people Trump made his appeal to in 2016. Relatively rural, largely white working class voters who have a sense of grievance, economic grievance,” Brewer said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that this race is going to be closer than Golden’s last race.”

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The story has been corrected to show that Golden voted for the $740 billion climate and health care bill passed last month. He voted against a previous, more expansive bill in 2021 labeled the Build Back Better Act.

Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics.

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LONDON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden paid emotional tribute to Queen Elizabeth on the eve of her state funeral on Sunday, saying Britain and the world had been lucky to have such a dignified and dedicated servant on the throne for 70 years.

Biden, among scores of dignitaries and royals from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas who have arrived in London for Monday’s funeral, said the queen’s death at 96 years of age had left a giant hole on the global stage.

“To all the people of England, all the people in United Kingdom, our hearts go out to you,” Biden said after he signed a book of condolence and visited her lying-in-state in Westminster. “You were fortunate to have had her for 70 years, we all were. The world’s better for her.”

He said he had consoled the queen’s heir, King Charles, that the queen would be “with him every step of the way, every minute, every moment and that’s a reassuring notion”.

Hundreds of thousands of people have descended on London to bid farewell to Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, with people from all walks of life from around the country and overseas queuing for hours to file past her coffin in a solemn stream.

Biden followed other world leaders in appearing on a balcony overlooking the coffin in the vast historic Westminster Hall, making a sign of the cross and briefly placing his hand on his heart in reverence.

The U.S. president later joined Charles and other leaders for an evening reception ahead of the state funeral https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/plans-queen-elizabeths-state-funeral-2022-09-15.

Biden was one of 14 U.S. presidents https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/queen-elizabeths-reign-featured-enchiladas-with-reagan-dancing-with-ford-2022-09-12 in office during the queen’s reign, of which Elizabeth met all except Lyndon Johnson, starting with Harry Truman in 1951 when still a princess.

He will join presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens and sultans representing nearly 200 countries and territories at the funeral.

French President Emmanuel Macron was seen walking near the River Thames earlier on Sunday, mingling with those gathered in the streets around parliament.

Liz Truss, who the queen appointed as Britain’s prime minister two days before her death, took the opportunity to meet with leaders from Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada and Poland over the weekend.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, however, is no longer expected, according to a British government source. Inviting the man Western leaders believe ordered the murder in 2018 of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi had been controversial. He has denied any role in the killing.

Britain has invited https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/world-leaders-come-london-queen-elizabeths-funeral-2022-09-12 heads of state or ambassadors from any country with which it has full diplomatic relations, but it is up to those nations who they send. The change was made by Saudi Arabia, the source added.

‘LOVE FOR A SON’

For all the high ceremony and careful diplomacy of the funeral, for the queen’s family, it is also when they will bid farewell to a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

Prince Andrew https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/disgraced-prince-andrew-back-spotlight-still-out-cold-2022-09-15, the queen’s second son, paid tribute to “Mummy, Mother, Your Majesty” on Sunday, reflecting the roles he said Elizabeth fulfilled during her reign.

“Mummy, your love for a son, your compassion, your care, your confidence I will treasure forever,” he said.

Andrew has fallen from grace, stripped of the “His Royal Highness” title and removed from royal duties after a scandal over his friendship with late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and a related sex assault allegation.

Andrew, Duke of York, has not been charged with any criminal offence and has denied wrongdoing. He paid to settle a U.S. civil court case.

On Saturday, his two daughters joined the queen’s other six grandchildren, including Charles’ sons Princes William and Harry, at a vigil around her coffin.

Camilla https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/rottweiler-queen-consort-camillas-rise-shadow-diana-2022-09-08, wife of the new king and now Queen Consort, said the smile of the late queen was “unforgettable”, in her own tribute https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/i-will-always-remember-queen-elizabeths-smile-camilla-pays-tribute-2022-09-18 on Sunday.

CLAMOURING CROWDS

Monday’s funeral and the period of mourning has already drawn hundreds of thousands of people to central London, many clamouring to view floral tributes and feel the atmosphere.

The government advised against travelling to join the queue to see the coffin before it closes later on Sunday.

Such has been the desire to pay tribute to the popular monarch, the only one most Britons have known since her accession in 1952, that tens of thousands have waited patiently for hours alongside the Thames to spend a few brief seconds at the side of her coffin.

Many have wept, said a prayer, bowed their head or dropped to their knees.

Dignitaries have also taken their place on a balcony to view her lying-in-state, with leaders from Canada, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere having already paid their respects.

“I’m actually blown away by the amount of people that are here,” Gary Thompson, 54, and from London told Reuters. “When you’re here, it’s overwhelming. It really is incredible.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the “sheer silence” was one of the things that made the lying in state so moving, adding that she had shared her moment beside the coffin on Friday with people who had queued for 20 hours or longer.

“The queen was here for her people and now her people are there for her,” she told the BBC on Sunday.

Prince William joined his father Charles to speak to mourners waiting in line on Saturday. “She wouldn’t believe all this, she really wouldn’t,” he said. “It’s amazing.”

MOMENT OF REFLECTION

Britain has hosted a series of carefully choreographed ceremonies in the 10 days that have followed Elizabeth’s death, reflecting the traditions and pageantry of a royal family whose lineage stretches back almost 1,000 years.

A minute of national silence will be held at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Sunday, marked by the striking of Big Ben, which towers over Westminster Hall.

London’s police force has described the funeral ceremony as the biggest security operation it has ever undertaken.

Members of the public were camping out to secure positions on the procession route and near Westminster Abbey, the site of coronations, weddings and burials of English and then British kings and queens since William I in 1066.

Britain has not held a state funeral on the scale planned for the queen since that for World War Two leader Winston Churchill in 1965.

(Additional reporting by William James, Kate Holton and Paul SandleEditing by Alison Williams and Frances Kerry)

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By Jacqueline Thomsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Friday asked a federal appeals court to let it resume reviewing classified materials seized in an FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate.

In the filing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the Justice Department said the circuit court should halt part of the lower court decision that prevents prosecutors from relying on the classified documents in their criminal investigation into the retention of government records at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach after his presidency ended.

The department also asked that a third party appointed to examine all the records taken in the federal raid at Trump’s part, Senior U.S. Judge Raymond Dearie, not be permitted to review the classified materials.

The government asked the appeals court to rule on the request “as soon as practicable.”

Trump’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the unprecedented search of the former president’s property, the Justice Department has said it is investigating the retention of government records – some marked as highly classified, including “top secret” – as well as obstruction of a federal probe.

The Justice Department must now convince the Atlanta-based appeals court, with a conservative majority, to take its side in litigation over the records probe. Trump appointees make up six of the 11 active judges on the 11th Circuit.

The government’s motion comes after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday rejected the same requests from the Justice Department.

Cannon, whom Trump appointed to the bench in 2020, had said she would tell Dearie, who is filling the role of a “special master” in the case, to prioritize the classified records in his review, which she set a Nov. 30 deadline to complete.

There were roughly 100 classified documents among the 11,000 records gathered in the FBI’s court-approved Aug. 8 search at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

If Cannon’s ruling stands, experts said, it would likely stall the Justice Department investigation involving the government records.

The government’s Friday filing at times directly took issue with Cannon’s prior decisions in the case. Prosecutors said the judge cited court papers from Trump’s lawyers that suggested the former president could have declassified the documents marked as classified, but those legal briefs stopped short of claiming Trump did so.

“The court erred in granting extraordinary relief based on unsubstantiated possibilities,” the government lawyers wrote.

The Justice Department also criticized Cannon’s direction that classified records be disclosed to Dearie and Trump’s lawyers as part of an outside review of all records taken in the search, and described the former president’s attorneys as potentially being witnesses to “relevant events” in the criminal probe.

The department is also looking into possible obstruction of the probe after it found evidence that records may have been removed or concealed from the FBI when it sent agents to Mar-a-Lago in June to try to recover all classified documents through a grand jury subpoena.

Trump’s lawyers had opposed the government’s latest requests to Cannon, telling the judge in a Monday filing they dispute the government’s claim that all the records are classified, and that a special master is needed to help keep prosecutors in check.

Trump’s attorneys instigated the litigation over the records investigation last month, seeking a third party to go over the materials taken by federal agents and determine if any should be shielded from investigators. The former president’s legal team argued that some materials could be covered by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege – a legal doctrine that can shield some presidential records from disclosure.

Cannon granted that request in a Sept. 5 ruling, rejecting Justice Department arguments that the records belong to the government and that because Trump is no longer president he cannot claim executive privilege.

Dearie said earlier on Friday he will hold his first hearing on the privilege review for the seized documents on Tuesday, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn.

(Reporting by Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by Tim Ahmann and William Mallard)

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MARTHA’S VINEYARD, Mass. (Reuters) – Florida’s Republican governor on Friday defended his decision to fly dozens of migrants to the wealthy vacation island of Martha’s Vineyard from Texas, and said similar actions could follow as a political dispute over border security deepened in the run-up to U.S. elections in November.

DeSantis claimed credit for a pair of chartered flights on Wednesday that carried around 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, as part of a broader Republican effort to shift responsibility for border crossers to Democratic leaders.

At a news conference in Daytona Beach, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed Democratic President Joe Biden for what he portrayed as a failure to stop migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, as a record 1.8 million have been arrested this fiscal year.

DeSantis said the Florida Legislature set aside $12 million to transport migrants out of the state and that his government would likely use the funds “to protect Florida.”

“There may be more flights, there may be buses,” he said to cheers and applause from backers in the crowd.

The state paid $615,000 to Vertol Systems Company Inc, an aviation business, on Sept. 8 as part of a “relocation program of unauthorized aliens,” Florida state data showed. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The flights to Martha’s Vineyard follow a busing effort by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, another Republican, that has sent more than 10,000 migrants to the Democrat-controlled cities of Washington, New York and Chicago since April. The Republican governor of Arizona also has sent more than 1,800 migrants to Washington.

Unlike those major cities, the island south of Boston is home to around 20,000 year-round residents and is known as a vacation spot for affluent liberals like former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

On Friday morning in Martha’s Vineyard, the migrants, a group of mostly Venezuelans including half a dozen children, boarded buses en route to a ferry to Cape Cod in transportation organized by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican. He said they would be housed temporarily at a Cape Cod military base.

The scene left some of the island residents who volunteered to shelter them in a church for two nights in tears. Locals had come together to donate money, toiletries and toys for the migrants. A local thrift shop donated clean clothes, restaurants took turns organizing meals and pro-bono lawyers flew in to help the migrants with paperwork and immigration cases.

“I want them to have a good life,” said Lisa Belcastro, who helped organize cots and supplies at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, which sits among expensive white-clapboard homes in Edgartown. “I want them to come to America and be embraced. They all want to work.”

‘LIKE CHATTEL’

DeSantis, who is running for reelection in November and is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate for 2024, said his administration flew the migrants from Texas, and not his own state, to the island getaway because many of the migrants arriving in Florida come from Texas.

In addition to re-election bids by DeSantis and Abott, November’s midterm elections will determine whether the Democrats retain control of Congress.

Many migrants who cross into the United States via the Southwest border are immediately expelled to Mexico or other countries under a COVID-19 pandemic policy. But some nationalities, including Venezuelans, cannot be expelled because Mexico will not accept them and many seek to apply for U.S. asylum.

The White House has decried the Republican governors’ efforts, saying migrants were being used in a political stunt.

“These were children. They were moms. They were fleeing communism. And what did Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott do to them? They used them as political pawns, treated them like chattel,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing on Friday.

The legal basis for the Florida government to round up migrants in a different state remained unclear. U.S. government attorneys are exploring possible litigation around the governors’ efforts, a Biden administration official told Reuters.

The migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard said they had recently been admitted into the United States on humanitarian parole after fleeing Venezuela, and had been staying at a shelter in San Antonio, Texas, when they were approached by a woman who identified herself as “Perla.”

The woman persuaded them to board the flights by misleading them into thinking they were heading to Boston and would be provided shelter and assistance finding work for three months, they said.

Many said they told the people who organized the flights they had appointments with immigration authorities they needed to attend in other cities, said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, a group in Boston assisting the migrants.

“The organizers of this scheme said ‘Don’t worry, that will be taken care of’” he said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Jonathan Oatis)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Henry Silva, a prolific character actor best known for playing villains and tough guys in “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Ocean’s Eleven” and other films, has died at age 95.

Silva’s son Scott Silva told Variety that his father died Wednesday of natural causes at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

Silva was a New York City native who dropped out of school as a teenager, in the 1940s. He was accepted the following decade into the Actors Studio, where fellow students included Shelley Winters and Ben Gazzara. He went on to have a long and busy career in film and television, with hundreds of credits before retiring from acting in 2001.

He had a breakthrough role on stage and screen in the 1950s as a drug dealer in “A Hatful of Rain” and supporting parts in two of Frank Sinatra’s best known movies, both from the early 1960s: “Ocean’s Eleven,” the Las Vegas heist film that was a showcase for Sinatra, Dean Martin and other “Rat Pack” members; and “The Manchurian Candidate,” the Cold War thriller about brainwashing and the attempted assassination of a presidential nominee that starred Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Janet Leigh. (In his last film appearance, Silva was cast in the “Ocean’s Eleven” remake from 2000 that starred George Clooney and Brad Pitt).

“Our hearts are broken at the loss of our dear friend Henry Silva, one of the nicest, kindest and most talented men I’ve had the pleasure of calling my friend,” Dean Martin’s daughter, Deana Martin, tweeted. “He was the last surviving star of the original Oceans 11 Movie.”

Silva was also seen on such television series as “Wagon Train” and “The F.B.I.,” and in such films as Warren Beatty’s “Dick Tracy,” Jerry Lewis’ “Cinderfella” and “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” in which he played a mobster in the 1999 release directed by one of his admirers, Jim Jarmusch.

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The story has been corrected to show the plot of “The Manchurican candidate” involved the attempted assassination of a presidential nominee, not the assassination of a president.

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