Biden, congressional leaders talk about Ukraine, border
WASHINGTON — President Biden convened top congressional leaders at the White House to underscore Ukraine’s security needs, a meeting that comes at a pivotal time as senators narrow on a landmark immigration deal that could unlock $110 billion in stalled aid to Ukraine, Israel, and other US allies.
But Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans used the face-to-face moment with Biden to push him for tougher border security measures, with the speaker telling the president that GOP lawmakers were demanding “substantive policy change” and insisting that the White House’s executive actions on immigration had weakened the border.
“We understand that there’s concern about the safety, security, and sovereignty of Ukraine,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting, which ran for more than an hour. “But the American people have those same concerns about our own domestic sovereignty and our safety and our security.”
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New
York, also speaking to reporters after the meeting, stressed that Biden has repeatedly said he is willing to compromise on certain border measures and that any effort in a divided Congress must be bipartisan. House Republicans have insisted on passage of a hard-line border security measure that has no Democratic support on Capitol Hill.
“There was a large amount of agreement around the table that we must do Ukraine, and we must do border,” he said.
The White House called the meeting with lawmakers — including Johnson; Schumer; House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York; and Senate Republican keader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky — to brief them on Ukraine’s current need for weapons and other aid, which the White House described as “desperate” and “urgent.”
A meeting populated with national security leaders was expected to impress on the new speaker the importance of the aid package and the current US approach to world affairs. The Republicans in the room, even Johnson, are largely supportive of aiding Ukraine but have stressed to the White House that it will need significant bordersecurity measures in return to persuade the large swath of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers skeptical about sending more funds abroad. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Maine judge delays decision on Trump and ballot
PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine judge on Wednesday put on hold a decision on former president Donald Trump’s ballot status to allow time for the US Supreme Court to rule on a similar case in Colorado.
Trump’s lawyers appealed in state court when Secretary of State Shenna Bellows removed the Republican front-runner from the presidential primary ballot but then asked the judge to pause proceedings to allow the US Supreme Court to rule on the Colorado case, which could render the lawsuit moot.
Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy denied Trump’s request to stay the proceedings but, with agreement from all parties, she sent the case back to the secretary of state with instructions to await the outcome of the US Supreme Court case before withdrawing, modifying, or upholding her original decision.
In her decision, the judge said that the issues raised in the Maine case mirror the issues raised in the Colorado case before the US Supreme Court.
She wrote that her decision “minimizes any potentially destabilizing effect of inconsistent decisions and will promote greater predictability in the weeks ahead of the primary election.”
Bellows concluded last month that Trump didn’t meet ballot qualifications under the insurrection clause in the US Constitution, citing his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. She became the first election official to ban Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment.
The nation’s highest court has never ruled on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office. Some legal scholars say the post-Civil War clause applies to Trump for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and encouraging his backers to storm the US Capitol after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Activists conducted a campaign urging election officials to bar Trump under the clause. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Super PAC backing DeSantis starts layoffs
The super political action committee supporting Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida in the presidential race began carrying out layoffs Wednesday, even as the campaign insisted he had a path forward.
It was unclear how broad the layoffs were at the super PAC, Never Back Down. The group had spent heavily on a vast field operation in Iowa, taking over many of the responsibilities of a traditional campaign, but DeSantis lost the state’s caucuses to former president Donald Trump on Monday by 30 percentage points.
Scott Wagner, the chief executive of Never Back Down, issued a statement saying that the group continued to host events for DeSantis, but he did not address the question of layoffs.
NEW YORK TIMES
Court says Twitter didn’t have to tell Trump of warrant
A federal appeals court has rejected Twitter’s claim that Donald Trump should have been alerted to the existence of a search warrant for his data by prosecutors investigating interference in the 2020 election, leaving in place a $350,000 fine imposed on the social media company for not complying on time.
Twitter, now known as X, can still take its case to the US Supreme Court. The case split the D.C. Circuit along partisan lines, with four Republican appointees saying Trump should have been able to argue some of the information from X be withheld from the government.
“Judicial disregard of executive privilege undermines the Presidency, not just the former President being investigated in this case,” Judge Neomi Rao wrote for the disagreeing group. The ruling comes as the same court considers another question of executive power — Trump’s claim to total immunity from prosecution. One of the four judges who joined the dissenting statement in the Twitter decision, Karen L. Henderson, is on the panel considering that argument.
The ruling that X appealed was of a court order barring the company from telling Trump or his attorneys about the existence of a January 2023 search warrant for his data and a subsequent sanction for not handing over the information on time. X argued that it had a First Amendment right to alert Trump, who might then fight the disclosure himself.
But X acknowledged that it did not have standing to make any claims on Trump’s behalf.
No court has ruled on whether a former president can block a business from responding to a court order, or whether that right would outweigh a compelling need for secrecy during a criminal investigation.
X did ultimately turn over the information, two days after the Feb. 7 deadline imposed by the court. When Trump was indicted by special counsel Jack Smith in August on charges of obstructing Congress and thwarting people’s right to vote, several of the former president’s tweets were quoted as evidence. The special counsel also obtained 32 direct messages from Trump’s account, according to the court record. WASHINGTON POST