Politics

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. vice president and Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence said on Sunday he felt former President Donald Trump’s words and actions leading up to the Capitol attacks on Jan. 6, 2021, were reckless though not likely criminal.

“While his words were reckless, based on what I know, I am not yet convinced that they were criminal,” Pence told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Trump said on Tuesday he had received a letter saying he is a target of a grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat.

The letter represented the clearest sign to date that Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, may face federal criminal charges around his efforts to remain in power after losing the election to Democrat Joe Biden.

“I hope it does not come to that,” Pence said on a potential Trump indictment over efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He said it should be left to the American public to determine whether Trump was responsible.

“His actions were reckless,” Pence said. He added: “I don’t honestly know what his intention was” on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ahead of the 2021 Capitol attacks by Trump supporters, the then-president repeatedly lambasted Pence for refusing to try to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s win in the 2020 election.

Pence said on Sunday that Trump was wrong in thinking the former vice president could overturn the outcome of the election. Some rioters chanted “hang Mike Pence” during the Capitol riots.

“I know I did my duty that day,” Pence said on Sunday.

Separately, Trump was indicted in June on charges that he unlawfully kept national security documents when he left office and lied to officials who sought to recover them. He has pleaded not guilty.

He was recently also charged with falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he had asked CIA Director William Burns to become a member of his cabinet.

“Under his leadership, the CIA is delivering a clear-eyed, long-term approach to our nation’s top national security challenges,” Biden said in a statement, referring to Burns’ approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and U.S. competition with China.

The move was reported earlier by the Washington Post, which said it was largely symbolic and would not give Burns any new authorities.

“He leads with dignity and represents the very best of America, and I look forward to continuing to work with him in the years ahead,” Biden said.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden has asked CIA Director William Burns to become a member of his cabinet, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing a statement from the president.

The move is largely symbolic and will not give Burns any new authorities, the newspaper reported.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech)

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By Josephine Walker and Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature on Friday passed a new congressional map that increased the number of Black voters in one of the state’s districts, but Democrats said the plan defied a U.S. Supreme Court ruling intended to protect minority voters’ rights.

Civil rights groups have already vowed to challenge the new map in court, a month after the Supreme Court ruled that the state’s previous district lines marginalized the state’s sizable Black population in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

“Alabama lawmakers appear hell-bent on preventing Black voters from fully participating in the democratic process and they are blatantly ignoring their constituents, federal law, and the highest court of the land to disenfranchise us,” one plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, Scott Douglas, the executive director at Greater Birmingham Ministries, said in a statement.

More than one-quarter of Alabama’s residents are Black, but under a Republican-drawn map approved in 2021, only one of the state’s seven congressional districts, the 7th, is majority Black. The state’s lone Democratic U.S. representative, Terri Sewell, represents that district.

After the Supreme Court decision, a federal three-judge panel gave lawmakers until Friday to create a second district with either a Black majority or “something quite close” to give Black voters another opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.

The new map increases the proportion of Black voters in the 2nd district from about 32% to 40%, a level that Democrats and civil rights groups said was not enough to comply with the court’s directive.

Adding another majority-Black district, as the Supreme Court plaintiffs have proposed, would increase Democrats’ chances of picking up another seat in the 2024 elections. Republicans hold a narrow 222-213 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democratic lawmakers decried the move on the floor of the legislature. Senator Bobby Singleton, a Black Democrat, accused fellow lawmakers of playing a “game” with Black voters.

“We don’t care about your voice,” Singleton said. “That’s what it ultimately ends up saying.”

But Republicans said they were confident the 2nd district’s new lines provided a meaningful opportunity for Black voters.

Michael Li, a redistricting expert with New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, called the Republican plan “flabbergasting,” saying it fell far short of the court’s order.

“The court ruling was very clear about what you need to have in order to satisfy the Voting Rights Act,” he said.

The map will require approval from the federal three-judge panel. If the court determines that the new map is still illegal, a court-appointed special master would draw a new version to be used in the 2024 congressional election.

Last week, a New York state appeals court ordered lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map. The decision, opposed by Republicans, could give the Democratic-controlled legislature a chance to flip as many as half a dozen Republican-held U.S. House seats by enacting a partisan plan.

(Reporting by Josephine Walker in Washington, additional reporting by Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Aurora Ellis)

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By Andrea Shalal and Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday said he had asked CIA Director William Burns to become a member of his cabinet, elevating one of his closest advisers on national security and foreign policy.

“Under his leadership, the CIA is delivering a clear-eyed, long-term approach to our nation’s top national security challenges,” Biden said in a statement, referring to Burns’ approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and U.S. competition with China.

The move was reported earlier by the Washington Post, which said it was largely symbolic and would not give Burns any new authorities.

Bonnie Glaser, head of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the appointment reflected Biden’s confidence in Burns and his career experience.

Burns, who became the first career diplomat to lead the CIA in 2021, “has made a significant contribution to national security decision-making, especially with regard to Russia and China” Glaser said.

Burns is not the first CIA director to attain cabinet status. Former President Bill Clinton also named his CIA directors – John Deutch and George Tenet – to serve in his cabinet, as did Ronald Reagan with William Casey.

Daniel Byman, director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, saw it as testament to Burn’s “incredible effectiveness rather than a broader decision about the role of the CIA in cabinet.”

“Burns has been a very important part of Biden’s foreign policy, serving as of course an intelligence leader but also as a diplomat to Ukraine, the Middle East, and other parts of the world,” he said. “Biden wants to draw on Burns’ knowledge and skill as he shapes his foreign policy.”

A White House official said it was common for presidents to vary the agencies represented in their cabinets.

For instance, former President Barack Obama elevated the head of the Small Business Administration to the cabinet and Clinton added Federal Emergency Management Agency head James Witt to his cabinet.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Cynthia Osterman)

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By Jacqueline Thomsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump’s trial over his alleged mishandling of classified documents will begin on May 20 next year, according to a U.S. court order on Friday.

Trump’s lawyers had resisted setting a date but said any trial should take place after the November 2024 U.S. presidential election, in which he is front-runner for the Republican nomination.

A Trump spokesperson said the trial schedule “allows President Trump and his legal team to continue fighting” the criminal case. A spokesperson for U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office declined to comment.

Friday’s ruling came from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who sits in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Trump was indicted on June 8 on charges that he unlawfully kept national security documents when he left office and lied to officials who sought to recover them. He has pleaded not guilty.

Federal prosecutors had asked Cannon to schedule the trial for December.

The case is one of several legal woes Trump faces as he campaigns for 2024.

Trump is set to go to trial in Manhattan on March 25 on separate charges that he falsified business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star.

He said on Tuesday he had received a letter saying he is a target of a grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by John Stonestreet and David Holmes)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65 and make other aviation reforms, Republican House leaders said Friday.

The House bill approved 351 to 69 reauthorizes Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation safety and infrastructure programs for the next five years.

House lawmakers did not agree to add additional round-trip flights at Washington Reagan National Airport that had been sought by Delta Air Lines, and opted to retain pilot training rules that were adopted after a February 2009 fatal passenger airplane crash near Buffalo.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Thursday said he did not make any promises to former President Donald Trump that he would get legislation passed that would erase Trump’s two impeachments by the chamber when he was president.

“There’s no deal,” McCarthy, a Republican, told a reporter in the Capitol following a report by the Politico news outlet that he had made such an agreement with Trump, the current frontrunner for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

The House, then controlled by Democrats, voted in 2019 and again in 2021 to impeach Trump, with the Senate acquitting him both times thanks to the votes of Republicans.

The House the first time charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he asked Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden, who went on to win the 2020 presidential election, and his son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations. The second time it charged Trump with inciting an insurrection, relating to the attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump both times. McCarthy on Thursday called both impeachments politically motivated and not based on evidence that Trump had committed a high crime or misdemeanor, as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution.

McCarthy’s remarks came after Politico reported that Trump was outraged at the speaker for withholding his endorsement of Trump’s third run for the White House in 2024. In return for delaying that endorsement, according to Politico, McCarthy promised to work to pass legislation to “expunge” both impeachments.

Politico said McCarthy had promised to do so before Congress leaves for an August recess.

A Trump representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump, the only president to have been impeached twice, said on Tuesday he had received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith stating that he is a target of a grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. That would be his third criminal indictment since leaving office.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, additional reporting by Josephine Walker, Moira Warburton and Nathan Layne; Editing by Will Dunham and Scott Malone)

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump on Thursday urged the United Auto Workers union to back his campaign, a day after the union’s president met with President Joe Biden after raising concerns about electric- vehicle policies.

Trump, the former Republican president seeking a return to office in 2024, said Democrat Biden was “waging war on the U.S. auto industry” through “crippling” electric vehicle mandates and urged the UAW to endorse him. Trump made the comments in a video posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Biden’s campaign responded that Trump was “the most anti-union president in modern history, stacking his cabinet with anti-union officials.” It added that under Biden, “more than 120,000 auto manufacturing jobs have come back to the United States, and new auto factories are popping up across the country.”

Trump said he advocated trade policies to help U.S. autoworkers during his presidency, including renegotiating trade deals. Biden’s campaign said that he supported incentives that helped dramatically add more U.S. electric vehicle and battery production.

UAW President Shawn Fain, who represents 150,000 U.S. hourly workers at General Motors, Ford Motor, and Chrysler parent Stellantis, has held off so far on endorsing Biden for re-election and has criticized some administration EV policies. Most other major unions have already endorsed Biden.

The UAW said in May that “another Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster. But our members need to see an alternative that delivers real results.”

In his Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump vowed to “terminate” green vehicle mandates, warning that if they continued under Biden, “American auto production will be totally dead.” Many congressional Republicans have also criticized Biden’s electcric-vehicle rules, arguing they would force automakers to end gasoline-powered production.

The trade group representing nearly all major automakers last month urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ease its proposal to cut vehicle emissions through 2032, saying this approach was “neither reasonable nor achievable.”

The EPA said in April the proposed 2027-2032 standards would cut emissions by 56% and require 67% of new vehicles to be electric by 2032.

Earlier this month the UAW called on the Biden administration to soften its proposed vehicle emissions rules.

Fain said last week the UAW was not ready to endorse Biden. “We have expectations and that’s why we haven’t made endorsements yet,” he said. “We expect people to be there for us if they want our endorsement.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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By Moira Warburton and Josephine Walker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Thursday he did not promise Donald Trump that he would pass a measure aimed at expunging the former president’s two impeachments.

“There’s no deal,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told NBC following a report by the Politico news outlet that he had made such an agreement with Trump, the current front-runner for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

A Trump representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s House allies are rallying around him as he braces for a pair of potential criminal indictments for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat – one from U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and another in Fulton County, Georgia.

No. 4 House Republican Elise Stefanik and hardline Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene last month introduced a bill aimed at expunging Trump’s historic two impeachments, from 2019 and 2021. Both impeachments passed the then-Democratic-controlled House but in each case Senate Republicans voted to acquit him.

There is no historical precedent for expunging an impeachment, but Greene said that would not stop her from pushing the measure forward.

“We’re lawmakers. We can do things that haven’t been done before, and this one certainly needs to be done,” Greene told reporters, calling Trump’s impeachments “an embarrassment, a stain on our history, and they shouldn’t have happened.”

It is a move, however, that could make more moderate House Republicans squirm. Some of them are likely to face difficult re-election bids next year in congressional districts that are often closely contested between the two political parties.

Another Trump controversy might be the last thing they would want hovering over their campaigns.

Democrats will be vying to recapture majority control of the House, which is now narrowly held by Republicans with a 222-212 margin, in the November 2024 elections.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, called the idea of an expungement vote “a disgrace.”

NEW INDICTMENTS LOOM

Trump, the only president to have been impeached twice, said on Tuesday he had received a letter from Smith stating that he is a target of a grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. That would be his third criminal indictment since leaving office.

There is no constitutional provision providing for the House to obliterate the two impeachments approved during a prior Congress. If such a measure were to pass, the historical record of those impeachments would remain, as would the Senate trials that were triggered by the House impeachments.

The House the first time charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he asked Ukraine to investigate Democrat Joe Biden, who went on to win the 2020 presidential election, and Biden’s son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations. The second time it charged Trump with inciting an insurrection, relating to the attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

McCarthy voted against impeaching Trump both times. McCarthy on Thursday called both impeachments politically motivated and not based on evidence that Trump had committed a high crime or misdemeanor, as spelled out in the U.S. Constitution.

McCarthy’s remarks came after Politico reported that Trump was outraged at the speaker for withholding his endorsement of Trump’s third run for the White House. In return for delaying that endorsement, according to Politico, McCarthy promised to work to pass the legislation.

Politico said McCarthy had promised to do so before Congress leaves for an August recess.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and Josephine Walker in WashingtonAdditional reporting by Nathan Layne in Wilton, ConnecticutWriting by Richard CowanEditing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Matthew Lewis)

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