2024 election

Blue states open 2024 election year with migrant crisis escalating

New York City Mayor Eric Adams suggests local officials set limits on arrivals.

By EMILY NGO, DANIEL HAN and SHIA KAPOS

New York City Mayor Eric Adams had advice Tuesday for fellow mayors experiencing an influx of migrants: Set limits like he did.

After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott bussed hundreds of migrants to transit stations in New Jersey’s suburbs over the weekend — an end-run around Adams’ restrictions on new arrivals — Democratic leaders in the Garden State were seriously considering the advice. The mayor of one of New Jersey’s largest municipalities even said he arranged for a chartered bus to send migrants back to the southern border should more arrive in his town.

And halfway across the country in Chicago, which is set to host the Democratic National Convention this year, officials were scrambling to track asylum seekers after Abbott sent 350 to an airport 90 miles from a designated landing spot. His administration then bussed the migrants to suburban towns, forcing them to find their own way to Chicago.

The episodes marked another pivotal moment in the national debate over migrant resettlement. Democrats are now confronting a deepening crisis at the dawn of a crucial election year, and the ongoing feud over border control could determine who serves in the White House and who controls Congress.

Democrats around the country — from Adams to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — accused Abbott of heartless brinkmanship. They said his moves to send chartered planes and buses of asylum seekers to far-flung communities outside New York City and Chicago were designed to sidestep rules requiring a coordinated effort to transport the new arrivals.

“We’re dealing with a bully right now, and everything is on the table that conforms with the law,” Adams, whose city has processed more than 160,000 migrants since spring 2022, said on Tuesday.

The mayor said he hopes to pressure Abbott “until he throws his hand” — but he did not detail what that would entail.

Abbott didn’t seem to care, proudly announcing on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that Texas had transported more than 95,000 migrants to northern cities and more were on the way.

“Sanctuary cities like NYC & Chicago have seen only a FRACTION of what overwhelmed Texas border towns face daily,” Abbott posted on the site Tuesday afternoon, vowing to continue his “mission” until President Joe Biden addresses border security.

Sending migrants to the New York City suburbs has electoral implications in the House, with several competitive districts in New York and New Jersey among the nation’s most competitive this November. Biden has received low approvals from voters over his handling of immigration, and Republicans have painted it as a problem that he and fellow Democrats own. And even Democrats are divided on how the president has dealt with border security, according to a Monmouth University poll last month.

Last week, Adams dialed up his effort to control the situation by ordering that buses carrying migrants from the southern border arrive only between 8:30 a.m. and noon on weekdays. His executive order, which mirrors rules in Chicago, also required 32 hours’ advance notice. Not one bus from Texas had complied with New York City’s executive order as of Tuesday, Adams’ chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, said.

The mayor, who has effectively severed his relationship with Biden over the migrant crisis, rejected the idea that his mandate is sowing confusion in neighboring communities.

“The goal of the EO is to coordinate people coming into our city,” he told reporters. “The goal is not to have this cascade of EOs; that’s a byproduct. The goal is to coordinate.”

But in New Jersey, confusion reigned over the holiday weekend and officials in New York suburbs reacted quickly after Adams’ order.

Buses of migrants were sent to various train station stops headed toward New York City in towns, including Edison, Secaucus and Fanwood. New Providence, a suburb around 30 miles away from Manhattan, became the most recent New Jersey municipality with migrants bussed there from Houston, according to that town’s mayor.

“We had one bus [Monday] that came at four in the morning, dropped off about 30 to 40 migrants,” New Providence Mayor Allen Morgan, who said he was informed of the matter by New Jersey Transit, said in an interview. “They all had train fare tickets.”

In Trenton, the state’s capital, Mayor Reed Gusciora said there were four buses of migrants that came to the city train station in recent days, with nearly all migrants en route to New York City. Gusciora said he was considering an executive order similar to the one Adams issued to limit migrant drop-offs, although he said he is holding off on the idea after consulting with Gov. Phil Murphy’s office.

“I think all municipalities and the city should have some certitude of how many visitors they’re getting,” Gusciora said in an interview, adding that he’d need his City Council to work with him. “And the times of their arrivals would be very helpful.”

With one bus coming into Trenton as early as 4 a.m., he said, prior notification or time windows should be implemented so people can be accommodated in case they have food or medical needs. The concern from Murphy’s office, Gusciora said, was that a patchwork of rules from different municipalities could come with unintended consequences and that “something like this should be done uniformly and if we plug only one hole in the dike another hole would crop up in another municipality.”

A spokesperson for Murphy’s office declined to comment on the matter and referred to a prior statement from the governor’s office that said that the state is being used as a “transit point” for bussed migrants en route to New York City.

New Jersey’s nascent role in the migrant bussing situation has drawn backlash from the top official in one of the state’s largest municipalities. Edison Mayor Sam Joshi, a Democrat, said in an interview that “we’re not going to have migrants stay in Edison.”

Joshi said that migrants sent to his town — where nearly 45 percent of the population is foreign born, according to U.S. Census figures — could be bussed back to the southern border. It was unclear what the cost of the busing would be.

“We have directed our emergency management to have a charter bus on standby if necessary to send the migrants back to the southern border,” he said. “The migrants need to be vetted through customs, they need to go through the legal process. That’s my position.”

“Immigrants overwhelmingly in Edison township went through the legal process,” he said. “Just like my family, just like my friends, just like all the people that I’ve grown up with.”

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop — who is running for New Jersey governor in 2025 — called for a statewide response on X, adding: “We must be smart in how we approach this and have a statewide solution but also we MUST be compassionate first here and help where we can.”

In the northern suburbs of New York City, the supervisors of Clarkstown and Haverstraw have already banned unannounced migrant drop-offs in the days since Adams dramatically narrowed the window during which chartered buses of migrants can arrive.

Adams said that unlike Texas’ Abbott, he’s been communicating with other municipalities.

Texas has also sidestepped new rules for sending migrants to Chicago, which has seen more than 26,000 asylum seekers arrive since August 2022.

At 1 a.m. on Sunday, a Boeing 777 from San Antonio dropped off 350 asylum seekers to the airport in Rockford, about 90 miles west of Chicago. Eight buses chartered by Abbott’s administration then dropped off the migrants to surrounding suburbs. The new arrivals took trains and other modes of transportation from there to make their way to the landing zone in downtown Chicago, according to the city.

The move follows rules passed last month to fine bus companies that don’t follow the drop-off procedures for migrants. They include only delivering the new arrivals to the city’s landing zone on Mondays through Fridays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

62 dead

Earthquakes in Japan leave at least 62 dead

Fears grow about saving people still trapped.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

A series of powerful earthquakes that hit western Japan left at least 62 people dead as rescue workers fought Wednesday to save those feared trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas two days after a magnitude 7.6 temblor slammed the area. The first 72 hours are considered crucial to save lives after disasters.

Water, power and cell phone service were still down in some areas. Residents expressed sorrow about their uncertain futures.

“It’s not just that it’s a mess. The wall has collapsed, and you can see through to the next room. I don’t think we can live here anymore,” Miki Kobayashi, an Ishikawa resident, said as she swept around her house.

The house was also damaged in a 2007 quake, she said.

Of the deaths, 29 were counted in Wajima city, while 22 people died in Suzu, according to Ishikawa Prefectural authorities. Dozens of people have been seriously injured, including in nearby prefectures.

Although casualty numbers continued to climb gradually, the prompt public warnings, relayed on broadcasts and phones, and the quick response from the general public and officials appeared to have limited some of the damage.

Toshitaka Katada, a University of Tokyo professor specializing in disasters, said people were prepared because the area had been hit by quakes in recent years. They had evacuation plans and emergency supplies in stock.

“There are probably no people on Earth who are as disaster-ready as the Japanese,” he told The Associated Press.

Japan is frequently hit by earthquakes because of its location along the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

Katada warned the situation remains precarious and unpredictable. The March 2011 quake and tsunami in northeastern Japan had been preceded by other quakes.

“This is far from over,” Katada said.

Predictions by scientists have repeatedly been proven wrong, such as with the 2016 quake in southwestern Kumamoto, an area previously seen as relatively quake-free.

“Having too much confidence in the power of science is very dangerous. We are dealing with nature,” Katada said.

Japanese media’s aerial footage showed widespread damage in the hardest-hit spots, with landslides burying roads, boats tossed in the waters and a fire that had turned an entire section of Wajima city to ashes.

Japan’s military has dispatched 1,000 soldiers to the disaster zones to join rescue efforts. It was uncertain how many more victims might still be in the rubble.

Nuclear regulators said several nuclear plants in the region were operating normally. A major quake and tsunami in 2011 caused three reactors to melt and release large amounts of radiation at a nuclear plant in northeastern Japan.

On Monday, the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a major tsunami warning for Ishikawa and lower-level tsunami warnings or advisories for the rest of the western coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu, as well as for the northern island of Hokkaido.

The warning was downgraded several hours later, and all tsunami warnings were lifted as of early Tuesday. Waves measuring more than one meter (3 feet) hit some places.

Still, half-sunken ships floated in bays where tsunami waves had rolled in, leaving a muddied coastline.

People who were evacuated from their houses huddled in auditoriums, schools and community centers. Bullet trains in the region were halted, but service was mostly restored. Sections of highways were closed.

Weather forecasters predicted rain, setting off worries about crumbling buildings and infrastructure.

The region includes tourist spots famous for lacquerware and other traditional crafts, along with designated cultural heritage sites.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined President Joe Biden and other world leaders in expressing support for the Japanese.

“Our hearts go out to our friends in Japan,” he said. “We will provide, and have offered, whatever support is requested by our friends in Japan.”

Red Sea tensions rise

Iranian warship enters Red Sea as tensions rise

Worsening violence in the strategic waterway that links Europe and Asia could have far-reaching repercussions.

BY GABRIEL GAVIN, LAURA KAYALI AND JEREMY VAN DER HAEGEN

Iran dispatched a naval frigate to the Red Sea amid an escalating standoff between Western nations and Tehran-backed militants that has seen maritime traffic attacked by drones, missiles and speedboats.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported Monday that the warship Alborz crossed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and entered the busy waterway, where a U.S.-led coalition is already stationed. According to Iranian officials, the 51-year-old vessel, originally sold to the shah of Iran by Britain, will supervise naval missions in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The move adds Iran’s military into an increasingly volatile crisis unfolding in the Red Sea, where tensions have soared in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. 

Houthi rebels from Yemen — who, along with Gaza-based Hamas, form part of the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” against Israel — started targeting commercial vessels traversing the Red Sea in December. The group insists it aims only to disrupt tankers and cargo liners linked to Israel, but dozens of civilian vessels have been put at risk.

Over the weekend, the United States Navy reported it destroyed three boats carrying Houthi fighters in what it said was a hijacking attempt against a container ship, the Maersk Hangzhou, operating in the region. The incident marked the second attack against the vessel in the space of just 24 hours.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson on Tuesday called the attacks “unacceptable” and “destabilizing."

"Planning is underway for a range of scenarios. No decisions have been made and we will continue to pursue all potential routes," they said. On Monday, U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps hinted in an op-ed published in the Telegraph that London was ready to launch air strikes against the Houthis. 

In December, the U.S. announced an international security effort dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian to police the Red Sea. The U.K. deployed a naval destroyer as part of the coalition, and Denmark said Friday it would send a frigate to join the operation.

The EU agreed to join the U.S. effort but countries such as France and Spain announced their military vessels in the region would remain under national control. 

“We're keeping a French command in this affair and we're continuing to act in self-defense,” French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu told French TV on Tuesday. 

The French Languedoc FREMM multipurpose frigate is currently in the region, a French official said. 

Squeezing global trade

The Red Sea is a vital thoroughfare for shipborne cargo and energy exports. 

Tankers carrying up to 10 percent of the world’s oil pass through its waters. The price of Brent crude rose by 2 percent to $78.58 a barrel on Tuesday in the wake of last weekend’s attacks. BP has already said it will reroute its vessels to avoid the region, which likely means longer journey times and higher costs for consumers.

Shipping companies are diverting their vessels around Africa instead of braving the Red Sea, but so far the economic impact is limited, “although clearly not zero,” wrote UBS Wealth Management chief global economist Paul Donovan.

Maersk, the world’s largest shipper, on Sunday stopped sending its vessels through the Red Sea after the Maersk Hangzhou was hit by a missile. Hours later the same ship was attacked by Houthi boats.

The company said on Tuesday that it would "pause all transits through the Red Sea / Gulf of Aden until further notice," adding: "In cases where it makes most sense for our customers, vessels will be rerouted and continue their journey around the Cape of Good Hope."

Maine decision

Trump appeals Maine decision deeming him ineligible to run for president

He is contesting last week’s ruling from the Maine secretary of state. A similar case out of Colorado has already reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

By ZACH MONTELLARO

Former President Donald Trump has appealed the Maine secretary of state’s decision that he is ineligible to run for president because he engaged in an insurrection, the first step in his court fight to remain on the ballot in the state.

Trump’s legal team filed the appeal in state court on Tuesday, just five days after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, plunged the state into an intensifying national dispute over whether the Constitution bars Trump from returning to the White House.

That dispute likely will ultimately be resolved by the Supreme Court, and Trump is expected in the coming days to file a separate appeal there in hopes of reversing a Colorado ruling that deemed him ineligible.

In Maine, however, he must first proceed through the state court system. His appeal on Tuesday did not break much new ground from the arguments his legal team has made in other court cases and hearings across the country. The filing argues that the secretary of state had no authority to disqualify Trump under an interpretation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that says he cannot again run for president because he engaged in an insurrection against the United States on Jan. 6, 2021.

His attorneys also say that Bellows’ ruling “was the product of a process infected by bias and pervasive lack of due process,” arguing she should have recused herself from the process.

Bellows ruled on Dec. 28 that Trump is ineligible to run because Trump incited the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That made Maine the second state to block Trump, following a Dec. 19 decision from the Colorado Supreme Court that did the same.

Both rulings are on hold while Trump pursues his appeals, so Trump will remain on the Republican primary ballots in both states while the litigation continues.

“It was an attack on the Capitol, and not just the Capitol and governmental officials there, including the former vice president and members of Congress, but also on the peaceful transfer of power and on the rule of law,” Bellows said in an interview with POLITICO last Friday. “That rose to the definition of insurrection.”

Trump’s appeal argues that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment requires Congress, not an individual court or election administrator, to determine whether a candidate is disqualified. It also contends that the 14th Amendment does not apply to Trump specifically or the office of the presidency more broadly and that Trump did not incite an insurrection because his speech is protected by the First Amendment.

Tuesday’s appeal, filed in state superior court, is the beginning of what could be a lengthy legal process in the state. The superior court’s decision could be appealed to the Maine Supreme Court and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Colorado case, meanwhile, has already made its way quickly to the nation’s highest court. The Colorado Republican Party petitioned the justices last week to take up the case and rule that Trump is eligible. Trump himself is expected to file a similar petition soon.

The high court has not yet indicated if it will take up the Colorado case, although many legal observers expect the court to do so — and have urged the court to resolve the case expeditiously.

In a legal brief on Tuesday, attorneys for Colorado voters who challenged Trump’s eligibility said that while the Colorado Supreme Court made the correct decision, the U.S. Supreme Court should take up the case and affirm the Colorado ruling to remove any uncertainty.

“This case is of utmost national importance,” they wrote. “And given the upcoming presidential primary schedule, there is no time to wait for the issues to percolate further.”

Kills senior Hamas official

Israeli strike kills senior Hamas official in Beirut: Reports

Hamas has confirmed the death of Saleh al-Arouri, according to media reports.

BY PIERRE EMMANUEL NGENDAKUMANA

A strike apparently carried out by Israel on Tuesday killed Saleh al-Arouri, a senior official of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Beirut, according to Hamas and Hezbollah officials cited on Lebanese state-run media and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV and according to U.S. officials cited in U.S. media outlets.

Al-Arouri was a senior official for Hamas in its political bureau and a commander within its military wing.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the attack on the state-run National News Agency. “This explosion is a new Israeli crime aimed at inevitably dragging Lebanon into a new phase of confrontation,” he said, “following the daily ongoing assaults in the South, resulting in a significant number of martyrs and wounded individuals.”

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Israel to avoid further escalation of the conflict, “particularly in Lebanon,” according to AFP. Macron delivered the message by telephone to Israeli war Cabinet member Benny Gantz.

According to Hezbollah’s television channel, the alleged drone strike took place in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold. U.S. officials have expressed concern to Israel in recent weeks about its escalating military action north of its border in Lebanon, according to U.S. media reports. Strikes and counterstrikes between Israel and Lebanon have continued for weeks as a backdrop to Israel’s airstrikes and ground operation in Gaza.

According to the Washington Post, a U.S. defense official claimed Israel was responsible for the attack, adding that an assessment of al-Arouri’s killing was ongoing.

Danny Danon, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, congratulated Israel on killing al-Arouri, saying: “Anyone who was involved in the 7/10 massacre should know that we will reach out to them and close an account with them.”

Israel has not officially commented on al-Arouri’s assassination or claimed responsibility for the attack.

GOP operatives

2 Trump-aligned GOP operatives face foreign agent charges for helping Qatar

Barry Bennett and Doug Watts cut deferred prosecution deals over claims of undisclosed lobbying for Qatar.

By JOSH GERSTEIN, KYLE CHENEY and CAITLIN OPRYSKO

Bob Menendez isn’t the only Washington insider in hot water for his dealings with Qatar.

Two longtime Republican political consultants who backed Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign admitted in court filings Tuesday to deceiving the Justice Department about their lobbying activities on behalf of the small but wealthy Arab nation.

Barry Bennett and Doug Watts acknowledged they accepted funds from the Qatari government in exchange for promoting efforts to influence U.S. policy in the Middle East and engaged in a scheme to mislead investigators about those dealings.

The charges against the two consultants were publicly disclosed in court documents in Washington just minutes before federal prosecutors in New York unveiled a new indictment against Menendez (D-N.J.) that charged him with aiding the Qatari government in exchange for bribes.

There was no clear connection between the Menendez indictment and the Bennett and Watts cases, but the simultaneous unveiling of the charges hints at the extent to which the oil-rich country may have harnessed political allies in both parties to advocate for its interests in Washington.

Prosecutors indicated that Bennett and Watts have entered into “deferred prosecution” agreements that will allow the charges to be dismissed after a year if the men comply with the terms of the deals. The two men face charges for scheming to conceal work for a foreign government and making false statements about their work.

As part of the agreements, Bennett will pay a $100,000 fine, and Watts will pay $25,000. Both also agreed to abstain for a year from engaging in any lobbying or public relations work covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Bennett and Watts joined pro-Trump efforts after they departed the imploding campaign of then-GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson in 2016.

Bob Menendez speaks alongside other lawmakers and advocates during a press conference.

Prosecutors contend that Bennett and Watts set up an organization called “Yemen Crisis Watch” at Qatar’s behest to call attention to allegations of the Saudi Arabian government’s brutality in a military conflict with the Houthi militant group in Yemen.

In an August 2017 email, Bennett wrote to Watts that he would be “involved in the entity” while Bennett would “manage the entire project quietly,” according to a statement of facts filed in the cases Tuesday.

The two men organized briefings about related issues on Capitol Hill and helped organize the placement of at least two op-eds in the Washington Examiner.

Lawyers for Bennett and Watts did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Under the terms of the deal, the men and their agents may not make any statements disputing or undercutting the facts laid out by prosecutors.

After Carson’s campaign fizzled in 2016, Bennett took a job as a senior adviser for delegate issues on the Trump campaign, while Watts became the national executive director of a pro-Trump super PAC, the Committee for American Sovereignty.

Bennett has been a prominent GOP strategist for years and opened a lobbying shop with Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski soon after the 2016 election. Lewandowski left the company early in Trump’s term, and Bennett closed the firm shortly after Joe Biden took office.

According to the new court filings, Bennett and Watts’ work on Yemen Crisis Watch lasted only about six months, but it has been under scrutiny by investigators for about four years.

Word of the probe emerged publicly in 2021. In an interview with POLITICO in May 2021, Bennett described reports of the investigation as “rumors.” Bennett’s financial assets were also partially frozen after an associate on the Carson campaign, Ying Ma, sued him in a state court in Maryland, claiming he’d failed to pay her $300,000 she was owed and lied to federal investigators about her.

Bennett denied the claims. The pair later settled the suit.

Surveillance laws

Britain’s got some of Europe’s toughest surveillance laws. Now it wants more

Despite the protestations of industry and campaigners, ministers are whisking a new bill through parliament.

BY LAURIE CLARKE

The U.K. already has some of the most far-reaching surveillance laws in the democratic world. Now it’s rushing to beef them up even further — and tech firms are spooked.

Britain's government wants to build on its landmark Investigatory Powers Act, a controversial piece of legislation dubbed the "snooper's charter" by critics when introduced back in 2016.

That law — introduced in the wake of whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass state surveillance — attempted to introduce more accountability into the U.K. intelligence agencies’ sprawling snooping regime by formalizing wide-ranging powers to intercept emails, texts, web history and more.

Now new legislation is triggering a fresh outcry among both industry execs and privacy campaigners — who say it could hobble efforts to protect user privacy.

Industry body TechUK has written to Home Secretary James Cleverly airing its complaints. The group's letter warns that the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill threatens technological innovation; undermines the sovereignty of other nations; and could unleash dire consequences if it sets off a domino effect overseas.

Tech companies are most concerned by a change that would allow the Home Office to issue notices preventing them from making technical updates that might impede information-sharing with U.K. intelligence agencies. 

TechUK argues that, combined with pre-existing powers, the changes would “grant a de facto power to indefinitely veto companies from making changes to their products and services offered in the U.K.” 

“Using this power, the government could prevent the implementation of new end-to-end encryption, or stop developers from patching vulnerabilities in code that the government or their partners would like to exploit,” Meredith Whittaker, president of secure messaging app Signal, told POLITICO when the bill was first unveiled. 

The Home Office, Britain’s interior ministry, remains adamant it’s a technical and procedural set of tweaks. Home Office Minister Andrew Sharpe said at the bill’s committee stage in the House of Lords that the law was “not going to … ban end-to-end encryption or introduce a veto power for the secretary of state … contrary to what some are incorrectly speculating.”

“We have always been clear that we support technological innovation and private and secure communications technologies, including end-to-end encryption,” a government spokesperson said. “But this cannot come at a cost to public safety, and it is critical that decisions are taken by those with democratic accountability.”

Encryption threat

Despite the protestations of industry and campaigners, the British government is whisking the bill through parliament at breakneck speed — risking the ire of lawmakers.

Ministers have so far blocked efforts to refine the bill in the House of Lords, the U.K.'s upper chamber. But there are more opportunities to contest the legislation coming and industry is already making appeals to MPs in the hopes of paring it back in the House of Commons.

“We stress the critical need for adequate time to thoroughly discuss these changes, highlighting that rigorous scrutiny is essential given the international precedent they will set and their very serious impacts,” the TechUK letter states.

The backdrop to the row is the fraught debate on encryption that unfolded during the passage of the earlier Online Safety Act, which companies and campaigners argued could compel companies to break encryption in the name of online safety. 

The bill ultimately said that the government can call for the implementation of this technology when it’s “technically feasible” and simultaneously preserves privacy. 

Apple, WhatsApp and Signal have threatened to pull their services from the U.K. if asked to undermine encryption under U.K. laws. 

Since the Online Safety Act passed in November, Meta announced that it had begun its rollout of end-to-end encryption on its Messenger service.

In response, Cleverly issued a statement saying he was “disappointed” that the company had gone ahead with the move despite repeated government warnings that it would make identifying child abusers on the platform more difficult. 

Critics see a pincer movement. “Taken together, it appears that the Online Safety Bill's Clause 122 is intended to undermine existing encryption, while the updates to the IPA are intended to block further rollouts of encryption,” said Whittaker.  

Beyond encryption 

In addition to the notice regime, rights campaigners are worried that the bill allows for the more permissive use of bulk data where there are “low or no” expectations of privacy, for wide-ranging purposes including training AI models.

Lib Dem peer Christopher Fox argued in the House of Lords that this “creates an essentially new and essentially undefined category of information” which marks “a departure from existing privacy law," notably the Data Protection Act.

Director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, also has issues with the newly invented category. With CCTV footage or social media posts for example, people may not have an expectation of privacy, “[but] that's not the point, the point is that that data taken together and processed in a certain way, can be incredibly intrusive.”

Big Brother Watch is also concerned about how the bill deals with internet connection records — i.e. web logs for individuals for the last 12 months. These can currently be obtained by agencies when specific criteria is known, like the person of interest's identity. Changes to the bill would broaden this for the purpose of “target discovery,” which Big Brother Watch characterizes as “generalized surveillance.”  

Members of the House of Lords are also worried about the bill’s proposal to expand the number of people who can sanction spying on parliamentarians themselves. Right now, this requires the PM’s sign-off, but under the bill, the PM would be able to designate deputies for when he is not “available.” The change was inspired by the period in which former PM Boris Johnson was incapacitated with COVID-19.

“The purpose of this bill is to give the intelligence agencies a bit of extra agility at the margins, where the existing Rolls Royce regime is proving a bit clunky and bureaucratic,” argues David Anderson, crossbench peer and author of a review that served as a blueprint for the bill. “If you start throwing in too many safeguards, you will negate that purpose, and you will not solve the problem that bill is addressing.” 

Anderson proposed the changes relating to spying on MPs and peers are necessary “if the prime minister has got COVID, or if they're in a foreign country where they have no access to secure communications.” 

This could even apply in cases where there’s a conflict of interest because spies want to snoop on the PM’s relatives or the PM himself, he added.

Amendments proposed by peers at the committee stage were uniformly rejected by the government. 

The bill will return to the House of Lords for the next stage of the legislative process on January 23, before heading to the House of Commons to be debated by MPs.

“Our overarching concern is that the significance of the proposed changes to the notices regime are presented by the Home Office as minor adjustments and as such are being downplayed,” reads the TechUK letter.

“What we're seeing across these different bills is a continual edging further towards … turning private tech companies into arms of a surveillance state,” says Carlo.

Qualifies

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. qualifies for presidential ballot in Utah, the first state to grant him access

Kennedy has met the signature requirement and can officially file to run as a presidential candidate in the state before a March 5 deadline.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has collected enough signatures to appear on the 2024 presidential ballot in Utah, election officials say, marking the first state where the independent candidate and prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist has qualified.

Kennedy has met the 1,000-signature requirement needed to qualify for the Utah ballot and can officially file to run as a presidential candidate in the state before a March 5 deadline, state Elections Director Ryan Cowley said.

Utah is the first state where Kennedy’s campaign submitted signatures and qualified for ballot access, campaign spokesperson Stefanie Spear said. She did not indicate which day he would file for candidacy.

A scion of one of the nation’s most famous Democratic dynasties, the longtime environmental lawyer veered from the party last fall and announced his independent bid for the White House. He is a son of former senator and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and a nephew of Democratic President John F. Kennedy.

The candidate rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic for his embrace of public health conspiracy theories and has a loyal following of people who reject the scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and effective.

His success at gaining ballot access in Utah reignites questions of whether the independent could play spoiler for the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees. While it’s unlikely that an independent or a third-party candidate would win the presidency, they could siphon support from the major candidates in a way that tips the scales.

Allies of both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the likely nominees for their respective parties, have questioned whether Kennedy could be a spoiler for their candidate. Both Biden and Trump are unpopular among voters, increasing the likelihood that third-party support could play a deciding role in 2024.

In an increasingly polarized political climate, Kennedy is playing the middle, aligning with influential people on the far-right while touting his background as an environmentalist. It’s not yet clear in how many states he will qualify for ballot access. Each state sets its own requirements, and the process for collecting signatures and navigating legal hurdles can be costly for candidates not backed by the major parties.

An organization that Kennedy founded, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines.

 Holidays are over... Back to the shit...

More evidence....

Recordings, emails show how Trump team flew fake elector ballots to DC in final push to overturn 2020 election

By Marshall Cohen, Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb and Katelyn Polantz

Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the Trump campaign’s plan to use fake electors to block President-elect Joe Biden from taking office faced a potentially crippling hiccup: The fake elector certificates from two critical battleground states were stuck in the mail.

So, Trump campaign operatives scrambled to fly copies of the phony certificates from Michigan and Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, relying on a haphazard chain of couriers, as well as help from two Republicans in Congress, to try to get the documents to then-Vice President Mike Pence while he presided over the Electoral College certification.

The operatives even considered chartering a jet to ensure the files reached Washington, DC, in time for the January 6, 2021, proceeding, according to emails and recordings obtained by CNN.

The new details provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the chaotic last-minute effort to keep Donald Trump in office. The fake electors scheme features prominently in special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal indictment against the former president, and some of the officials who were involved have spoken to Smith’s investigators.

The emails and recordings also indicate that a top Trump campaign lawyer was part of 11th-hour discussions about delivering the fake elector certificates to Pence, potentially undercutting his testimony to the House select committee that investigated January 6 that he had passed off responsibility and didn’t want to put the former vice president in a difficult spot.

These details largely come from pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who was an architect of the fake electors plot and is now a key cooperator in several state probes into the scheme. Chesebro pleaded guilty in October to a felony conspiracy charge in Georgia in connection with the electors’ plan, and has met with prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, who are investigating the sham GOP electors in their own states.

Chesebro is an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal election interference indictment against Trump.

CNN has obtained audio of Chesebro’s recent interview with Michigan investigators, and exclusively reported earlier this month that he also told them about a December 2020 Oval Office meeting where he briefed Trump about the fake electors plan and how it ties into January 6.

An attorney for Chesebro declined to comment. A spokesman for the special counsel’s office did not reply to a request for comment for this story.

‘A high-level decision’

Emails obtained by CNN corroborate what Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors: He communicated with the top Trump campaign lawyer, Matt Morgan, and another campaign official, Mike Roman, to ferry the documents to Washington on January 5.

From there, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and a Pennsylvania congressman assisted in the effort to get the documents into Pence’s hands.

“This is a high-level decision to get the Michigan and Wisconsin votes there,” Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors. “And they had to enlist, you know, a US senator to try to expedite it, to get it to Pence in time.”

Chesebro also discussed the episode with Wisconsin investigators last week when he sat for an interview with the attorney general’s office as part of a separate state probe into the fake electors plot, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Wisconsin prosecutors asked about the episode “extensively,” the source said, noting Chesebro discussed how a Wisconsin GOP staffer flew the certificate from Milwaukee to Washington and then handed it off to Chesebro.

The firsthand account from Chesebro’s perspective helps fill in the narrative behind the effort to hand-deliver elector slates to Pence, which is vaguely referenced in Smith’s federal indictment.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include conspiring with Chesebro and others to obstruct the January 6 certification proceeding. Before Chesebro’s guilty plea in Georgia, his attorneys reached out to Smith’s team. As of this week, he has not heard back from federal prosecutors, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

Federal investigators have spoken with several individuals involved in the scramble with the phony elector certificates, according to a source familiar with the matter. This includes interviews with Trump staffers who were tapped to fly the papers to DC, and some fake electors who knew of the planning.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not reply to a request for comment.

Asked about the episode, a spokesperson for Johnson pointed to his previous comments, where he said, “my involvement in that attempt to deliver spanned the course of a couple seconds,” and that, “in the end, those electors were not delivered.”

‘Day-by-day’ coordination

According to the recordings of Chesebro’s sit-down with Michigan prosecutors, he explained how a legal memo he wrote for Wisconsin transformed into a nationwide operation, where Trump lawyers were “day-by-day coordinating the efforts of more than a dozen people with the GOP and with the Trump campaign.”

On January 4, 2021, Morgan sent an email to Chesebro and Roman asking for confirmation that all of the Trump elector slates had been received by Congress, according to the documents obtained by CNN.

Roman responded that the Michigan certificate had been mailed on December 15 but was still “in transit” at a US Postal Service facility in DC. Wisconsin’s certificate also had apparently not arrived.

Chesebro told prosecutors that Morgan was “freaked out” when the campaign realized the phony certificates from Michigan were still in the mail.

That same day, Morgan weighed in over email asking Chesebro and Roman to rethink how they would deliver the certificates to Pence.

“As I thought about this more, a courier will not be able to access the Capitol to deliver a sealed package,” Morgan wrote on January 4, according to emails obtained by CNN “You will probably need to enlist the help of a legislator who can deliver to the appropriate place(s). I strongly recommend you guys discuss a revised delivery plan with Rudy (Giuliani) to make sure this gets done the way he wants.”

‘Can we charter a flight?’

Roman was concerned the Wisconsin documents wouldn’t reach Washington in time.

“Can we charter a flight? The only available commercial from MKE (Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport) to DCA (Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport) arrives at 2130 tomorrow night,” Roman wrote to Chesebro on January 4 at 11:24 p.m.

The job of physically flying the elector documents to Washington fell to two people: A Trump campaign staffer and a Wisconsin GOP official, according to the emails and what Chesebro told prosecutors.

The Wisconsin GOP official who had that state’s elector documents landed after 10 a.m. on January 5 at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, according to the emails.

Trump campaign aide Michael Brown flew with the Michigan certificates to Washington National Airport with a scheduled arrival around 1 p.m., according to emails obtained by CNN.  A source familiar with the matter told CNN that Brown flew to DC from Atlanta, because the Trump staffers who had custody of the Michigan ballots were in Georgia for the Senate runoffs.

The campaign booked and paid for Brown’s flight on Southwest Airlines, the source said. Federal campaign finance records indicate that a pro-Trump super PAC paid the airline on the day of Brown’s flight for travel related to election “recount” efforts.

Trump Hotel meetup

The emails show that Brown and the Wisconsin GOP official were instructed to meet Chesebro at the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington to hand off the fake elector certificates. Chesebro said in an email that he’d keep the ballots in his hotel room safe until it was time to pass them along.

Wisconsin Republican Party officials were annoyed at the request to courier the fake elector certificates to Washington. “Freaking trump idiots want someone to fly original elector papers to the senate President,” a Wisconsin GOP official wrote to then-state party chairman Andrew Hitt on January 4, according to the January 6 committee report.

Hitt – who has provided information to federal investigators about the efforts to get the fake elector certificates to Washington, according to a source familiar with the matter – told the January 6 committee that the couriering ended up being overkill, because the original documents that the state party had mailed to Washington actually made it in time.

Getting the certificates inside the Capitol

The documents still had to be hand-delivered to Pence’s Senate office in the Capitol.

The electors plot – as envisioned by Chesebro and other Trump allies – was that Pence could reject Biden’s legitimate electors and recognize Trump’s “alternate electors” on January 6, while lawmakers tallied the electoral votes from each state. Per federal law, the certificates need to be physically presented on the floor of Congress during the joint session, while lawmakers tally the electoral votes.

Chesebro told investigators that Roman connected him with an aide for a Pennsylvania GOP lawmaker that he believed was Rep. Scott Perry to turn over the documents. Chesebro wasn’t certain which congressman the staffer worked for – and the January 6 report says a staffer for a different Pennsylvania Republican, Rep. Mike Kelly, helped shuttle the documents that day.

“I had the Wisconsin stuff. [Trump campaign aide] Mike Brown had the Michigan stuff. We walked to the Longworth Office Building, and the guy with Perry, or whatever his name is, and some other fellow, that were like staff members of the House, took them and said, ‘We’re going to walk them over to the Senate and give it to a Senate staffer,’” Chesebro told Michigan prosecutors, according to the audio obtained by CNN.

“I don’t know why logistically we didn’t take it directly to Johnson. But that’s how we did it,” he added.

Kelly and Perry’s offices did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

Brown did not comment for this story. CNN previously reported that he testified in June to Smith’s grand jury in the Trump election subversion probe.

CNN previously reported that Roman sat for a proffer interview with Smith’s team before Trump was indicted.  He was also indicted in the sweeping Georgia election racketeering case, in connection with the fake electors scheme, and has pleaded not guilty.

Roman’s attorney did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The details from Chesebro put a finer point on how members of Congress, including a sitting US senator, were involved in making sure the electoral certificates for Trump ended up in Pence’s hands.

The January 6 committee first revealed last year Johnson’s involvement in trying unsuccessfully to deliver the fake elector certificates to Pence, who announced on the morning of the joint session that it would be unconstitutional to do what Trump wanted and unilaterally overturn the election results.

The committee revealed text messages during their hearings last year that Johnson aide Sean Riley sent to Pence aide Chris Hodgson, saying that Johnson “needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise.”

“What is it?” Hodgson asked.

“Alternate slates of electors for MI and WI because archivist didn’t receive them,” Riley responded.

“Do not give that to him,” Hodgson said.

‘F**k these guys’

In his Michigan interview, Chesebro also dished on some of the internal disagreements among the Trump lawyers, campaign officials and other allies, who clashed over the purpose of the electors’ plan and how far to take things on January 6.

Chesebro has maintained – then, and now – that the plan was a lawful move to preserve Trump’s legal rights.

Even before the Trump electors met in their state capitals on December 14, 2020, to cast their fake ballots and sign the certificates, Chesebro heard about concerns from some of the electors about possible legal jeopardy, according to emails and text messages reported by the Detroit News and obtained by CNN.

Chesebro added hedging language for the faux certificates from Pennsylvania and New Mexico in response to those concerns. He proposed to Roman and Morgan that they add the contingency caveats to the paperwork for all seven states in the plan. But Roman rejected the idea, according to the emails.

“F**k these guys,” Roman texted Chesebro on December 12, 2020.

By this time, the Trump campaign had essentially cleaved in two. Top officials who had managed day-to-day activity for Trump up to the election, including in court, say they ceded responsibility to Rudy Giuliani and others, such as Chesebro, according to congressional testimony transcripts. Roman effectively switched teams to work under Giuliani’s structure, according to the testimony from Morgan and others.

A spokesperson for Giuliani did not reply to a request for comment.

‘It really went south on me’

Chesebro told Michigan investigators that his own emails show that Morgan remained deeply involved, including in the final hours before January 6, to ensure that the certificates reached DC.

“I don’t have a really warm feeling toward, at least, the top Trump lawyers that did this, hid from me what they were doing and then lied to Congress about me. So, it’s been really difficult,” Chesebro said.

Chesebro further describes the fallout from his involvement the attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

In his congressional testimony, Morgan said he knew of the elector plan but wanted to distance himself from the effort, delegating the work to others, including those under Giuliani.

Morgan told the January 6 committee last year that he initially believed the electors were only meant to be used as a contingency. The electors, he believed, should meet in their state capitals and cast their electoral votes but “not necessarily submit” the certificates to Congress unless “we prevailed” in court.

Morgan told the committee that the plan changed in December, saying it morphed from a “cast-and-hold” operation and had “shifted to cast-and-send.” And that’s when Morgan told the committee that he backed out, testifying that he directed an aide to “email Mr. Chesebro politely to say, ‘this is your task. You are responsible for the Electoral College issues moving forward.’”

“This was my way of taking that responsibility to zero,” Morgan told the committee, later adding that he “moved on” after that email was sent.

Morgan explained that he was concerned that the new plan to try to count the fake electors on January 6 “would make the Vice President’s life harder, and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”

“Mr. Morgan stands by his congressional testimony,” his defense attorneys told CNN in response to his emails and Chesebro’s statements to investigators.

Ultimately, on the eve of the joint session of Congress, Morgan helped get the ballots in place, according to the emails and according to Chesebro, who blamed his legal troubles squarely on the Trump campaign’s legal team.

“I could have avoided all this,” Chesebro vented to Michigan prosecutors. “It’s been a real lesson in not working with people that you don’t know and are not sure you can trust, because it really went south on me.”