Biden
Biden nominates Jackson, first Black woman, to Supreme Court
President Joe Biden on Friday nominated federal appeals court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, the first Black woman selected to serve on a court that once declared her race unworthy of citizenship and endorsed American segregation.
Introducing Jackson at the White House, Biden declared, “I believe it’s time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation.”
With his nominee standing alongside, the president praised her as having “a pragmatic understanding that the law must work for the American people.” He said, “She strives to be fair, to get it right, to do justice.”
In Jackson, Biden delivered on a campaign promise to make the historic appointment and further diversify a court that was made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries.
He also chose an attorney who would be the high court’s first former public defender, though she possesses the elite legal background of other justices as well.
Jackson would be the current court’s second Black member — Clarence Thomas, a conservative, is the other — and just the third in history. She would replace liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, who is retiring at the end of the term this summer, so she won’t change the court’s 6-3 conservative majority.
Jackson would join the court as it weighs cutbacks to abortion rights and will be considering ending affirmative action in college admissions and restricting voting rights efforts to increase minority representation.
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She would be only the sixth woman to serve on the court, but she would join three others already there, including the first Latina, Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
In brief remarks, Jackson thanked Biden, saying she was “humbled by the extraordinary honor of this nomination.” She highlighted her family’s first-hand experience with the entirety of the legal system, as judges and lawyers, an uncle who was Miami’s police chief and another who was imprisoned on drug charges.
She also spoke of the historic nature of her nomination, noting she shared a birthday with Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be confirmed to the federal bench.
“If I’m fortunate enough to be confirmed as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court United States, I can only hope that my life and career, my love of this country and the Constitution, and my commitment to upholding the rule of law and the sacred principles upon which this great nation was founded, will inspire future generations of Americans,” she said.
Jackson, 51, once worked as one of Breyer’s law clerks early in her legal career. She attended Harvard as an undergraduate and for law school, and served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the agency that develops federal sentencing policy, before becoming a federal judge in 2013.
Her nomination is subject to confirmation by the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority by a razor-thin 50-50 margin with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaker. Party leaders have promised swift but deliberate consideration.
Friday’s ceremony was attended only by White House staff, Jackson’s family and news media, in part because the Senate is out of session this week.
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Everyone wore masks because of the pandemic, Biden and Jackson removing theirs to speak. He bent to pull out a lectern step for her to stand on as she made her remarks.
Her introduction came two years to the day after Biden, then struggling to capture the Democratic presidential nomination, pledged in a South Carolina debate to nominate a Black woman if presented with a vacancy.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin said in a statement that the panel will “begin immediately” to move forward on consideration of an “extraordinary nominee.” Senators have set a tentative goal of confirmation by April 8, when they leave for a two-week spring recess. Hearings could start as soon as mid-March.
That timeline could be complicated by a number of things, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the extended absence of Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, who suffered a stroke last month and is out for several weeks. Democrats would need Lujan’s vote to confirm Biden’s pick if no Republicans support her.
Once the nomination is sent to the Senate, it is up to the Senate Judiciary Committee to vet the nominee and hold confirmation hearings. After the committee approves a nomination, it goes to the Senate floor for a final vote.
Biden and Senate Democrats are hoping for a bipartisan vote on the nomination, but it’s unclear if they will be able to win over any GOP senators after bitterly partisan confirmation battles under President Donald Trump. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of three Republicans who voted to confirm Jackson to the appeals court last year, had pushed Biden to nominate a different candidate from his home state, Judge J. Michelle Childs, who also was favored by home-state Rep. James Clyburn, a Biden ally.
Graham said earlier this month his vote would be “very problematic” if it were anyone else, and he expressed disappointment in a tweet Friday. Previewing a likely Republican attack line, he and several others on the right said Biden was going with the choice of the “radical left.”
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said he looked forward to meeting with Jackson and “studying her record, legal views and judicial philosophy.” But he noted he had voted against her a year ago.
Biden has said he was interested in selecting a nominee in the mold of Breyer who could be a persuasive force with fellow justices. Although Breyer’s votes tended to put him to the left of center on an increasingly conservative court, he frequently saw the gray in situations that colleagues were more likely to find black or white.
“Justice Breyer — the members of the Senate will decide if I fill your seat,” Jackson said Friday, praising the retiring justice’s “civility, grace, pragmatism and generosity of spirit.”
“But please know that I could never fill your shoes,” she said.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “With her exceptional qualifications and record of evenhandedness, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be a justice who will uphold the Constitution and protect the rights of all Americans, including the voiceless and vulnerable.”
As part of his search process, Biden, a longtime chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also interviewed Childs and California Supreme Court Judge Leondra Kruger, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, saying all three interviews took place on Feb. 14. As part of his process, Biden also consulted with a range of legal experts and lawmakers in both parties and delved deeply into the finalists’ legal writings.
Biden called Jackson late Thursday to inform her that she was his choice, Psaki said, and he informed Democratic congressional leaders Friday morning.
Jackson serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a position that Biden elevated her to last year from her previous job as a federal trial court judge. Three current justices — Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts, the chief justice — previously served on the same appeals court.
Jackson was confirmed to that post on a 53-44 Senate vote, winning the backing of three Republicans: Graham, Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.
In one of Jackson’s most high-profile decisions, as a trial court judge she ordered former White House Counsel Don McGahn to appear before Congress. That was a setback to Trump’s efforts to keep his top aides from testifying. The case was appealed, and a deal was ultimately reached for McGahn’s testimony.
As an appeals court judge, she was part of a three-judge panel that ruled in December against Trump’s effort to shield documents from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Miami. She has said that her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, chose her name to express their pride in her family’s African ancestry. They asked an aunt who was in the Peace Corps in Africa at the time to send a list of African girls’ names and they picked Ketanji Onyika, which they were told meant “lovely one.”
Jackson traces her interest in the law to when she was in preschool and her father was in law school and they would sit together at the dining room table, she with coloring books and he with law books. Her father became an attorney for the county school board and her mother was a high school principal. A brother, nine years younger, served in the Army, including in Iraq, and is now a lawyer, too.
Biden and Europe waiting on one key sanction against Russia
U.S. and European officials are holding one key financial sanction against Russia in reserve, choosing not to boot Russia off SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused a barrage of new financial sanctions Thursday. The sanctions are meant to isolate, punish and impoverish Russia in the long term. President Joe Biden announced restrictions on exports to Russia and sanctions against Russian banks and state-controlled companies.
But Biden pointedly played down the need to block Russia from SWIFT, saying that while it's “always” still an option, “right now that's not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take.” He also suggested the sanctions being put in place would have more teeth.
“The sanctions we’ve imposed exceed SWIFT,” Biden said in response to a question Thursday. “Let’s have a conversation in another month or so to see if they’re working.”
Still, some European leaders, including in the United Kingdom, favor taking the additional step of blocking Russia from SWIFT, the Belgium-headquartered consortium used by banks and other financial institutions that serves as a key communications line for commerce worldwide. The SWIFT system averaged 42 million messages daily last year to enable payments. The name is an acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, and about half of all high-value payments that cross national borders go through its platform.
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Ukraine has sought for Russia to be excluded from SWIFT, but several European leaders would prefer to stay patient because a ban could make international trade more difficult and hurt their economies.
“A number of countries are hesitant since it has serious consequences for themselves,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who believes a ban should be a last resort.
The British government says Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushed at a virtual meeting of the Group of Seven world leaders Thursday for Russia to be kicked out of SWIFT. It said there was “no pushback” but it was agreed that more discussion was needed. U.K. officials would not confirm Germany was resisting.
U.S. lawmakers have called on Biden to deploy every available financial sanction, with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell saying Thursday that America should “ratchet the sanctions all the way up. Don’t hold any back. Every single available tough sanction should be employed and should be employed now.”
But Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the SWIFT ban would be complicated and time-consuming in part because the U.S. doesn't have control over the decision.
The problem is that banning Russia from SWIFT might not cut it off from the global economy as cleanly as proponents think. Also, there could be blowback in the form of slower international growth. And rival messaging systems could gain users in ways that erode the power of the U.S. dollar — all of which has left SWIFT as a sanction waiting to be deployed.
“It’s a communications platform, not a financial payments system," said Adam Smith, a lawyer who worked in the Obama administration. "If you remove Russia from SWIFT, you’re removing them from a key artery of finance, but they can use pre-SWIFT tools like telephone, telex or email to engage in bank-to-bank transactions.”
The other risk is that countries could migrate their institutions to platforms other than SWIFT, such as a system developed by China. This would increase the friction in global commerce — hurting growth — and make it harder to monitor the finances of terrorist groups.
“By politicizing SWIFT you give incentive for others to develop alternatives,” said Brian O'Toole, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former Treasury official. “SWIFT also is an important partner in U.S.-European counterterrorism efforts. It shares data with U.S. Treasury related to counterterrorism issues that has proven to be enormously valuable.”
The sanctions announced Thursday would still accomplish much of what would happen if Russia lost access to SWIFT, said Clay Lowery of the Institute of International Finance.
“Cutting off these financial institutions from utilizing the dollar, euro, pound sterling is still a pretty significant step," Lowery said. “You’re really having the same impact on certain subsections of the Russian economy through sanctions.”
Iran was blocked from the SWIFT system in 2014 because of its nuclear program. In 2019, then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said losing access to SWIFT would be akin to a declaration of war against Russia. The statement by Medvedev is a sign that Russia viewed the platform as a vulnerability and developed workarounds to limit any economic damage.
Read:Ukraine's capital under threat as Russia presses invasion
"I think it will be harmful in the immediate term and psychological as well, but I’m not sure it’ll impact the economy in ways that make it worthwhile,” Smith said.
Russia has already prepared for ways to evade sanctions, including those imposed this week, experts say.
Ari Redbord, a former Treasury senior adviser, said he expects Russia’s leadership to bypass financial penalties that limit its ability to engage in the global financial system through the increased use of cryptocurrency.
He said this is a risk “especially when there are actors like Iran, China and North Korea” that will continue to trade with Russia outside of the formal financial system, Redbord said.
“If Russian banks are entirely cut off from the U.S. and European financial system, that will be very debilitating to those banks and the Russian economy,” he said. But the Russian government will use alternative means to trade with countries “even if there are debilitating" sanctions from the European Union and U.S.
Biden hits Russia with sanctions, shifts troops to Germany
President Joe Biden hit back Thursday against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, unleashing robust new sanctions, ordering the deployment of thousands of additional troops to NATO ally Germany and declaring that America would stand up to Russia's Vladimir Putin.
He also acknowledged that the invasion — and efforts to thwart Putin — will have a cost for Americans. But he sought to reassure the public that the economic pain that may come with rising energy prices will be short-lived in the U.S.
As for the Russian president, Biden said: “He’s going to test the resolve of the West to see if we stay together. And we will.”
Also read: Biden, Putin signal bigger confrontation ahead over Ukraine
Targeting Russia's financial system, Biden said, the United States will block assets of large Russian banks, i mpose export controls aimed at the nation's high-tech needs and sanction its business oligarchs.
The president said the U.S. also will be deploying additional forces to Germany to bolster NATO after the invasion of Ukraine, which is not a member of the defense organization. Some 7,000 additional U.S. troops will be sent.
Some U.S. lawmakers — and Ukrainian officials — called on Biden to do more.
“There is more that we can and should do,” said Sen Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, pointing to the possibility of removing Russian banks from the SWIFT international banking system and sanctioning Putin personally. “Congress and the Biden administration must not shy away from any options.”
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell expressed support Thursday for Biden's latest moves but also urged Biden to apply maximum pressure on Putin. McConnell said the top four congressional leaders in the House and Senate received a classified briefing from the president late Thursday.
“We’re all together at this point and we need to be together about what should be done,” McConnell said. “But I have some advice: Ratchet the sanctions all the way up. Don’t hold any back.”
White House deputy national security adviser Daleep Singh stressed that the Biden administration valued closed coordination with allies and avoiding even the perception of hurting ordinary Russian citizens as they roll out sanctions. He declined to detail a circumstance in which Biden might approve cutting the Russians off from SWIFT or target Putin directly.
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“When we consider which sanctions to apply, we’re not cowboys and cowgirls pressing a button to impose costs,” Singh said. “We follow a set of principles. We want the sanctions to be impactful enough to demonstrate our resolve, and to show that we have the capacity to deliver overwhelming costs to Russia.”
Biden declared that Putin, who has referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the past century, is looking beyond Ukraine.
“He has much larger ambitions,” Biden said. “He wants to, in fact, reestablish the former Soviet Union. That’s what this is about.”
The penalties announced Thursday fall in line with the White House’s insistence that it would hit Russia’s financial system and Putin's inner circle, while also imposing export controls that would aim to starve Russia’s industries and military of U.S. semiconductors and other high-tech products.
“Putin is the aggressor,” Biden said. “Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences."
But Biden, for now, held off imposing some of the most severe potential sanctions, including cutting Russia out of the SWIFT payment system, which allows for the transfers of money from bank to bank around the globe.
Biden announced the sanctions at the White House while Ukraine’s government reported mounting casualties inflicted by Russian forces attacking from the east, north and south.
Oil and natural prices have already surged over concerns that Russia — an energy production behemoth — will slow the flow of oil and natural gas to Europe. Biden, however, acknowledged the sanctions are “going to take time” to have their effect on the Russian economy.
Biden added that after Russia’s “brutal assault” against Ukraine it would be a mistake to allow Putin's actions to go unanswered. He said if they did, “the consequences for America would be much worse.”
“America stands up to bullies, we stand up for freedom,” Biden said. “This is who we are.”
Biden spoke hours after holding a virtual meeting with the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy and Japan. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also joined the meeting.
The president also met with his national security team in the White House Situation Room as he looked to flesh out U.S. moves in the rapidly escalating crisis.
While Biden described the sanctions as severe, Ukrainian officials urged the U.S. and West to go further.
“We demand the disconnection of Russia from SWIFT, the introduction of a no-fly zone over Ukraine and other effective steps to stop the aggressor,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a tweet.
The Biden administration, however, has shown some reluctance to cut Russia from SWIFT, at least immediately, because of concerns the move could also have enormous ramifications for Europe and other Western economies. Biden, answering questions from reporters, appeared to push a decision on SWIFT to European allies.
“It is always an option but right now that’s not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take,” Biden said. He also contended that the financial sanctions he announced would be more damaging to Russia.
The Belgium-headquartered system allows for tens of millions of transactions daily among banks, financial exchanges and other institutions. The U.S. notably has previously blocked Iran from the system because of its nuclear program.
Officials in Europe have noted that the loss of SWIFT access by Russia could be a drag on the broader global economy. Russia has also equated a SWIFT ban to a declaration of war. And because the system cements the importance of the U.S. dollar in global finance, outright bans also carry the risk of pushing countries to use alternatives through the Chinese government or blockchain-based technologies.
Brian Frey, a former Justice Department prosecutor during the Trump administration, said while SWIFT is the primary messaging system for financial payments, “there are alternatives to the system” and cutting Russia off would create a “splashback and immediate problems for the international community.”
The sanctions include targeting Russia’s two largest banks, Sberbank and VTB Bank. The U.S. Treasury Department says the sanctions overall “target nearly 80% of all banking assets in Russia and will have a deep and long-lasting effect on the Russian economy and financial system.”
Individuals close to Putin were also targeted in the latest sanctions. They include former chief of staff Sergei Ivanov; Andrey Patrushev, a Putin ally who has held high-ranking positions at the state-owned Gazprom Neft; and former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, chairman of the management board of the oil company Rosneft.
Treasury also announced sanctions against Belarusian banks, the country's defense industry and security officials over support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden said the export control measures he ordered would "impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time.” The measures will restrict Russia access to semiconductors, computers, telecommunications, information security equipment, lasers and sensors.
“We’re going to impair their ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy," Biden said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s second-ranking diplomat in Washington, Minister Counselor Sergey Trepelkov, was expelled in retaliation for the Russian expulsion of the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Moscow earlier this month, a senior State Department official said Thursday.
The expulsion was unrelated to the invasion and is part of a long-running dispute between Washington and Moscow over embassy staffing, the official said.
Biden, Putin signal bigger confrontation ahead over Ukraine
The East-West faceoff over Ukraine escalated dramatically Tuesday, with Russian lawmakers authorizing President Vladimir Putin to use military force outside his country and U.S. President Joe Biden and European leaders responding by slapping sanctions on Russian oligarchs and banks.
Both leaders signaled that an even bigger confrontation could lie ahead. Putin has yet to unleash the force of the 150,000 troops massed on three sides of Ukraine, while Biden held back on even tougher sanctions that could cause economic turmoil for Russia but said they would go ahead if there is further aggression.
The measures, accompanied by the repositioning of additional U.S. troops to the Baltic nations on NATO’s eastern flank bordering Russia, came as Russian forces rolled into rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine after Putin said he was recognizing the independence of the separatist regions in defiance of U.S. and European demands.
Speaking at the White House, Biden said the Kremlin had flagrantly violated international law in what he called the “beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.” He warned of more sanctions if Putin went further.
“We are united in our support of Ukraine,” Biden said. “We are united in our opposition to Russian aggression.” When it comes to Russian claims of a justification or pretext for an invasion, Biden said, “None of us should be fooled. None of us will be fooled. There is no justification.”
Hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the threat of invasion, which U.S. officials have for weeks portrayed as all but inevitable, appeared to evaporate. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled plans for a Thursday meeting in Geneva with his Russian counterpart, saying it would not be productive and that Russia’s actions indicated Moscow was not serious about a peaceful path to resolving the crisis.
Western nations sought to present a united front, with more than two dozen European Union members unanimously agreeing to levy their own initial set of sanctions against Russian officials. Germany also said it was halting the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia — a lucrative deal long sought by Moscow but criticized by the U.S. for increasing Europe’s reliance on Russian energy.
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The U.S., meanwhile, moved to cut off Russia’s government from Western finance, sanctioning two of its banks and blocking it from trading in its debt on American and European markets. The administration’s actions hit civilian leaders in Russia’s leadership hierarchy and two Russian banks considered especially close to the Kremlin and Russia’s military, with more than $80 billion in assets. That includes freezing all of those banks’ assets under U.S. jurisdictions.
Biden, though, did hold back some of the broadest and toughest of the financial penalties contemplated by the U.S., including sanctions that would reinforce the hold that Germany put on any startup of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; an export ban that would deny Russia U.S. high-tech for its industries and military; and sweeping bans that could cripple Russia’s ability to do business with the rest of the world.
Biden said he was moving additional U.S. troops to the Baltics, though he described the deployments as purely “defensive,” asserting, “We have no intention of fighting Russia.” The U.S. is sending about 800 infantry troops and 40 attack aircraft to the Baltics and NATO’s eastern flank from other locations within Europe, according to a senior defense official. In addition, a contingent of F-35 strike fighters and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters will also be relocated.
Earlier Tuesday, members of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, voted unanimously to allow Putin to use military force outside the country — effectively formalizing a Russian military deployment to the rebel regions, where an eight-year conflict has killed nearly 14,000 people.
Shortly afterward, Putin laid out three conditions to end the crisis that has threatened to plunge Europe back into war, raising the specter of massive casualties, energy shortages across the continent and global economic chaos.
Putin said the crisis could be resolved if Kyiv recognizes Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed after seizing it from Ukraine in 2014, renounces its bid to join NATO and partially demilitarizes. The West has decried the annexation of Crimea as a violation of international law and has previously flatly rejected permanently barring Ukraine from NATO.
Asked whether he has sent any Russian troops into Ukraine and how far they could go, Putin responded: “I haven’t said that the troops will go there right now.” He added that “it’s impossible to forecast a specific pattern of action — it will depend on a concrete situation as it takes shape on the ground.”
The EU announced initial sanctions aimed at the 351 Russian lawmakers who voted for recognizing the two separatist regions in Ukraine, as well as 27 other Russian officials and institutions from the defense and banking sectors. They also sought to limit Moscow’s access to EU capital and financial markets.
With tensions rising and a broader conflict looking more likely, the White House began referring to the Russian deployments in the region known as the Donbas as an “invasion” after initially hesitating to use the term — a red line that Biden had said would result in severe sanctions.
“We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine,” Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser, said on CNN. “An invasion is an invasion, and that is what is underway.”
The White House announced limited sanctions targeting the rebel regions on Monday evening soon after Putin said he was sending troops to eastern Ukraine. A senior Biden administration official, who briefed reporters about the sanctions targeting the breakaway regions noted “that Russia has occupied these regions since 2014” and that “Russian troops moving into Donbas would not itself be a new step.”
Read: Russia flexes military for Ukraine move; West to respond
Western leaders have long warned Moscow would look for cover to invade — and just such a pretext appeared to come Monday, when Putin recognized as independent the two separatist republics in eastern Ukraine, where government troops have fought Russia-backed rebels. The Kremlin then raised the stakes further by saying that recognition extends even to the large parts of those two regions now held by Ukrainian forces.
Putin said Russia has recognized the rebel regions’ independence in the borders that existed when they made their declaration in 2014 — broad territories that extend far beyond the areas now under separatist control and that include the major Azov Sea port of Mariupol. He added, however, that the rebels should eventually negotiate with Ukraine.
Condemnation from around the world was quick. In Washington, lawmakers from both parties in Congress backed an independent Ukraine and vowed continued U.S. support, even as some pushed for swifter and even more severe sanctions on Russia. Senators had been considering a sanctions package against Putin’s regime but held off as the White House pursued its strategy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would consider breaking diplomatic ties with Russia, and Kyiv recalled its ambassador in Moscow.
If Putin pushes farther into Ukraine, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg insisted the West would move in lockstep. “If Russia decides once again to use force against Ukraine, there will be even stronger sanctions, even a higher price to pay,” he said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the U.K. would slap sanctions on five Russian banks and three wealthy individuals. He warned a full-scale offensive would bring “further powerful sanctions.”
Zelenskyy said he was calling up some of the country’s military reservists but added there was no need for a full military mobilization.
In an address to the nation, Zelenskyy said his decree applied only to those assigned to the so-called operational reserve, which is typically activated during ongoing hostilities, and covers “a special period of time,” without clarifying what that means.
“Today there is no need for a full mobilization. We need to quickly add additional staff to the Ukrainian army and other military formations,” he said. The head of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksii Danilov, said earlier this year that Ukraine can call up up to 2.5 million people.
Biden-Putin meeting discussed as Ukraine war fears loom
The U.S. and Russian presidents have tentatively agreed to meet in a last-ditch diplomatic effort to stave off Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine as heavy shelling continued Monday in a conflict in eastern Ukraine that is feared will spark the Russian offensive.
French President Emmanuel Macron sought to broker a possible meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a series of phone calls that dragged into the night.
Macron’s office said both leaders had “accepted the principle of such a summit,” to be followed by a broader summit meeting also involving other “relevant stakeholders to discuss security and strategic stability in Europe.” It added that the meetings “can only be held on the condition that Russia does not invade Ukraine.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, said the administration has been clear that “we are committed to pursuing diplomacy until the moment an invasion begins.” She noted that “currently, Russia appears to be continuing preparations for a full-scale assault on Ukraine very soon.”
Macron’s office said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are set to lay the groundwork for the summit when they meet Thursday.
It followed a flurry of calls by Macron to Putin, Biden and also British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Putin and Biden could meet if they consider it necessary, but emphasized that “it’s premature to talk about specific plans for a summit.”
“The meeting is possible if the leaders consider it feasible,” he said in a conference call with reporters.
The prospective meeting offers new hope of averting a Russian invasion that U.S. officials said could begin any moment with an estimated 150,000 Russian troops amassed near Ukraine.
Adding to fears of an imminent invasion, Russia and its ally Belarus announced Sunday that they were extending massive war games on Belarusian territory that offers a convenient bridgehead for an attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, located just 75 kilometers (less than 50 miles) south of the border with Belarus.
Starting Thursday, shelling also spiked along the tense line of contact between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatist rebels in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, Donbas, where over 14,000 people have been killed since conflict erupted in 2014 shortly after Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine and the rebels have traded blame for massive cease-fire violations with hundreds of explosions recorded daily.
Read: Ukraine rebels order troop mobilization amid invasion fears
On Friday, separatist officials announced the evacuation of civilians and military mobilization in the face of what they described as an imminent Ukrainian offensive on the rebel regions. Ukrainian officials have strongly denied any plans to launch such an attack and described the evacuation order as part of Russian provocations intended to set the stage for an invasion.
The separatist authorities said Monday that at least four civilians were killed by Ukrainian shelling over the past 24 hours and several others were injured. Ukraine’s military said two Ukrainian soldiers were killed over the weekend, and another serviceman was wounded Monday.
Ukrainian military spokesman Pavlo Kovalchyuk said the Ukrainian positions were shelled 80 times Sunday and eight times early Monday, noting that the separatists were “cynically firing from residential areas using civilians as shields.” He insisted that Ukrainian forces weren’t returning fire.
In the village of Novognativka on the government-controlled side, 60-year-old Ekaterina Evseeva, said the shelling was worse than at the height of fighting early in the conflict.
“It’s worse than 2014,” she said, her voice trembling. “We are on the edge of nervous breakdowns. And there is nowhere to run.”
Evseeva said that residents were hunkering down in basements amid the renewed fighting: “Yesterday I saw my neighbor with her 2-month-old as she was running to the basement. It shouldn’t be like this.”
Moscow denies any plans to invade Ukraine, but wants Western guarantees that NATO won’t allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members. It also urges the alliance to halt weapons deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe — demands flatly rejected by the West.
Russian officials have shrugged off Western calls to deescalate by pulling back troops, arguing that Moscow is free to deploy troops and conduct drills wherever it likes on its territory. Last week, Western officials dismissed Russian statements about some of the troops returning to their bases, saying that Moscow was actually beefing up its forces around Ukraine.
Despite Biden’s assertion last week that Putin has made the decision to roll Russian forces into Ukraine, Ukrainian officials sought to project calm, saying that they aren’t seeing invasion as imminent.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Monday that Russia has amassed 147,000 troops around Ukraine, including 9,000 in Belarus, arguing that the number is clearly insufficient for an offensive on the Ukrainian capital from the north.
“The talk about an attack on Kyiv from the Belarusian side sounds ridiculous,” he said, charging that Russia is using the troops there as a scare.
Russia upped the ante Saturday with sweeping nuclear drills that included multiple practice launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and cruise missiles that Putin personally oversaw.
The European Union’s top diplomat, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, welcomed the prospect of a Biden-Putin summit but said that should diplomacy fail the 27-nation bloc has finalized its package of sanctions for use if Putin orders an invasion.
“The work is done. We are ready,” said Borrell, who is chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers and was tasked with drawing up a list of people in Russia to be hit with asset freezes and travel bans. He provided no details about who might be targeted.
The European Commission has prepared other sanctions to “limit the access to financial markets for the Russian economy and (impose) export controls that will stop the possibility for Russia to modernize and diversify its economy,” its president, Ursula von der Leyen, said over the weekend.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed Macron’s summit initiative and warned Russia against any false flag action to provoke hostilities. “I appeal urgently to the Russian government, to the Russian president: Don’t play with human lives,” she said as she arrived at the EU top diplomats’ meeting.
Biden is ‘convinced’ Putin has decided to invade Ukraine
U.S. President Joe Biden said Friday that he is “convinced” Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to invade Ukraine, including an assault on the capital, as tensions spiked along the country’s militarized line with attacks that the West said could be “false-flag” operations meant to establish a pretext for invasion.
A humanitarian convoy was hit by shelling, and pro-Russian rebels evacuated civilians from the conflict zone. A car bombing hit the eastern city of Donetsk, but no casualties were reported.
After weeks of saying the U.S. wasn’t sure if Putin had made the final decision to invade, Biden said that assessment had changed, citing American intelligence.
“As of this moment I’m convinced he’s made the decision,” Biden said. “We have reason to believe that.” He reiterated that the assault could occur in the “coming days.”
Meanwhile, the Kremlin announced massive nuclear drills to flex its military muscle, and Putin pledged to protect Russia’s national interests against what it sees as encroaching Western threats.
Biden reiterated his threat of massive economic and diplomatic sanctions against Russia if it does invade, and pressed Putin to rethink his course of action. He said the U.S. and its Western allies were more united than ever to ensure Russia pays a price for the invasion.
With an estimated 150,000 Russian troops posted around Ukraine’s borders, U.S. and European officials warn that the long-simmering separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine could provide the spark for a broader attack.
As further indication that the Russians are preparing for a potential invasion, a U.S. defense official said an estimated 40% to 50% of the ground forces deployed in the vicinity of the Ukrainian border have moved into attack positions nearer the border. That shift has been under way for about a week, other officials have said, and does not necessarily mean Putin has decided to begin an invasion. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal U.S. military assessments.
The official also said the number of Russian ground units known as battalion tactical groups deployed in the border area had grown to as many as 125, up from 83 two weeks ago. Each battalion tactical group has 750 to 1,000 soldiers.
Lines of communication remain open: The U.S. and Russian defense chiefs spoke Friday, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called for de-escalation, the return of Russian forces surrounding Ukraine to their home bases and a diplomatic resolution, according to the Pentagon. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to meet next week.
Immediate worries focused on eastern Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces have been fighting pro-Russia rebels since 2014 in a conflict that has killed some 14,000 people.
A bombing struck a car outside the main government building in the major eastern city of Donetsk, according to an Associated Press journalist there. The head of the separatist forces, Denis Sinenkov, said the car was his, the Interfax news agency reported.
There were no reports of casualties and no independent confirmation of the circumstances of the blast. Uniformed men inspected the burned-out car.
Shelling and shooting are common along the line that separates Ukrainian forces and the rebels, but targeted violence is unusual in rebel-held cities like Donetsk.
However, the explosion and the announced evacuations were in line with U.S. warnings of so-called false-flag attacks that Russia would use to justify an invasion.
Adding to the tensions, two explosions shook the rebel-controlled city of Luhansk early Saturday. The Luhansk Information Center said one of the blasts was in a natural gas main and cited witnesses as saying the other was at a vehicle service station. There was no immediate word on injuries or a cause. Luhansk officials blamed a gas main explosion earlier in the week on sabotage.
Separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that form Ukraine’s industrial heartland known as the Donbas said they are evacuating civilians to Russia. The announcement appeared to be part of Moscow’s efforts to counter Western warnings of a Russian invasion and to paint Ukraine as the aggressor instead.
Denis Pushilin, head of the Donetsk rebel government, said women, children and the elderly would go first, and that Russia has prepared facilities for them. Pushilin alleged in a video statement that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was going to order an imminent offensive in the area.
Metadata from two videos posted by the separatists announcing the evacuation show that the files were created two days ago, The Associated Press confirmed. U.S. authorities have alleged that the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign could include prerecorded videos.
Authorities began moving children from an orphanage in Donetsk, and other residents boarded buses for Russia. Long lines formed at gas stations as more people prepared to leave on their own.
Putin ordered his emergencies minister to fly to the Rostov region bordering Ukraine to help organize the exodus and ordered the government to offer a payment of 10,000 rubles (about $130) to each evacuee, equivalent to about half of an average monthly salary in the war-ravaged Donbas.
Ukraine denied planning any offensive.
“We are fully committed to diplomatic conflict resolution only,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.
Around the volatile line of contact, a United Nations humanitarian convoy came under rebel shelling in the Luhansk region, Ukraine’s military chief said. No casualties were reported. Rebels denied involvement and accused Ukraine of staging a provocation.
Separatist authorities reported more shelling by Ukrainian forces along the line. A surge of shelling Thursday tore through the walls of a kindergarten, injuring two, and basic communications were disrupted. Both sides accused each other of opening fire.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the threat to global security is “more complex and probably higher” than during the Cold War. He told the Munich conference that a small mistake or miscommunication between major powers could have catastrophic consequences.
Russia announced this week that it was pulling back forces from vast military exercises, but U.S. officials said they saw no sign of a pullback — and instead saw more troops moving toward the border with Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the White House and the U.K. formally accused Russia of being responsible for recent cyberattacks targeting Ukraine’s defense ministry and major banks. The announcement was the most pointed attribution of responsibility for the cyber intrusions.
Also Friday, the U.S. government released new estimates of how many military personnel Russia has in and around Ukraine. It said there are between 169,000 and 190,000 personnel, up from about about 100,000 on Jan. 30, according to Michael Carpenter, the permanent U.S. representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The new estimate includes military troops along the border, in Belarus and in occupied Crimea, as well as Russian National Guard and other internal security units, and Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine. The separatists inside Ukraine, the National Guard and troops in Crimea were not included in the previous U.S. estimate of 150,000.
Read: In Ukraine’s volatile east, a day of shelling, outages, fear
The Kremlin sent a reminder to the world of its nuclear might, announcing drills of its nuclear forces for the weekend. Putin will monitor the sweeping exercise Saturday that will involve multiple practice missile launches.
Asked about Western warnings of a possible Russian invasion on Wednesday that didn’t materialize, Putin said: “There are so many false claims, and constantly reacting to them is more trouble than it’s worth.”
“We are doing what we consider necessary and will keep doing so,” he said. “We have clear and precise goals conforming to national interests.”
Read:Allies watch for Kremlin attempt to justify Ukraine invasion
Biden warns Putin of ‘severe costs’ of Ukraine invasion
President Joe Biden told Russia’s Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would cause “widespread human suffering” and that the West was committed to diplomacy to end the crisis but “equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House said Saturday. It offered no suggestion that the hourlong call diminished the threat of an imminent war in Europe.
Biden also said the United States and its allies would respond “decisively and impose swift and severe costs” if the Kremlin attacked its neighbor, according to the White House.
The two presidents spoke a day after Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, warned that U.S. intelligence shows a Russian invasion could begin within days and before the Winter Olympics in Beijing end on Feb. 20.
Read: US: Civilian toll in Syria raid may be higher than thought
Russia denies it intends to invade but has massed well over 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border and has sent troops to exercises in neighboring Belarus, encircling Ukraine on three sides. U.S. officials say Russia’s buildup of firepower has reached the point where it could invade on short notice.
The conversation came at a critical moment for what has become the biggest security crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. U.S. officials believe they have mere days to prevent an invasion and enormous bloodshed in Ukraine. And while the U.S. and its NATO allies have no plans to send troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, an invasion and resulting punishing sanctions could reverberate far beyond the former Soviet republic, affecting energy supplies, global markets and the power balance in Europe.
“President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our Allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios,” the White House statement said.
Also read: British envoy in Moscow to try to ease Ukraine crisis
The call was “professional and substantive” but produced “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks,” according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters following the call on condition of anonymity.
The official added that it remains unclear whether Putin has made a final decision to move forward with military action.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy aide, said that while tensions have been escalating for months, in recent days “the situation has simply been brought to the point of absurdity.”
He said Biden mentioned the possible sanctions that could be imposed on Russia, but “this issue was not the focus during a fairly long conversation with the Russian leader.”
Before talking to Biden, Putin had a telephone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the crisis. A Kremlin summary of the call suggested that little progress was made toward cooling down the tensions.
Putin complained in the call that the United States and NATO have not responded satisfactorily to Russian demands that Ukraine be prohibited from joining the military alliance and that NATO pull back forces from Eastern Europe.
In a sign that American officials are getting ready for a worst-case scenario, the United States announced plans to evacuate most of its staff from the embassy in the Ukrainian capital. Britain joined other European nations in urging its citizens to leave Ukraine.
Canada has shuttered its embassy in Kyiv and relocated its diplomatic staff to a temporary office in Lviv, located in the western part of the country, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said Saturday. Lviv is home to a Ukrainian military base that has served as the main hub for Canada’s 200-soldier training mission in the former Soviet country.
The timing of any possible Russian military action remained a key question.
The U.S. picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a U.S. official familiar with the findings. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and did so only on condition of anonymity, would not say how definitive the intelligence was.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he told his Russian counterpart Saturday that “further Russian aggression would be met with a resolute, massive and united trans-Atlantic response.”
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to project calm as he observed military exercises Saturday near Crimea, the peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
“We are not afraid, we’re without panic, all is under control,” he said.
Ukrainian armed forces chief commander Lt. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov issued a more defiant joint statement.
“We are ready to meet the enemy, and not with flowers, but with Stingers, Javelins and NLAWs” — anti-tank and -aircraft weapons, they said. “Welcome to hell!”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, also held telephone discussions on Saturday.
Further U.S.-Russia tensions arose on Saturday when the Defense Ministry summoned the U.S. Embassy’s military attache after it said the navy detected an American submarine in Russian waters near the Kuril Islands in the Pacific. The submarine declined orders to leave, but departed after the navy used unspecified “appropriate means,” the ministry said.
Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 U.S. troops to Poland to reassure allies.
The U.S. has urged all American citizens in Ukraine to leave the country immediately, and Sullivan said those who remain should not expect the U.S. military to rescue them in the event that air and rail transportation is severed after a Russian invasion.
The Biden administration has been warning for weeks that Russia could invade Ukraine soon, but U.S. officials had previously said the Kremlin would likely wait until after the Winter Games ended so as not to antagonize China.
Sullivan told reporters on Friday that U.S. intelligence shows that Russia could take invade during the Olympics. He said military action could start with missile and air attacks, followed by a ground offensive.
“Russia has all the forces it needs to conduct a major military action,” Sullivan said, adding that “Russia could choose, in very short order, to commence a major military action against Ukraine.” He said the scale of such an invasion could range from a limited incursion to a strike on Kyiv, the capital.
Russia scoffed at the U.S. talk of urgency.
“The hysteria of the White House is more indicative than ever,” said Maria Zakharova, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “The Anglo-Saxons need a war. At any cost. Provocations, misinformation and threats are a favorite method of solving their own problems.”
Zakharova said her country had “optimized” staffing at its own embassy in Kyiv in response to concerns about possible military actions from the Ukrainian side.
In addition to the more than 100,000 ground troops that U.S. officials say Russia has assembled along Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders, the Russians have deployed missile, air, naval and special operations forces, as well as supplies to sustain a war. This week, Russia moved six amphibious assault ships into the Black Sea, augmenting its capability to land marines on the coast.
Biden has bolstered the U.S. military presence in Europe as reassurance to allies on NATO’s eastern flank. The 3,000 additional soldiers ordered to Poland come on top of 1,700 who are on their way there. The U.S. Army also is shifting 1,000 soldiers from Germany to Romania, which like Poland shares a border with Ukraine.
Russia is demanding that the West keep former Soviet countries out of NATO. It also wants NATO to refrain from deploying weapons near its border and to roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe — demands flatly rejected by the West.
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing the Crimean Peninsula and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed over 14,000 people.
A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped halt large-scale battles, but regular skirmishes have continued, and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.
Putin, Biden plan high-stakes phone call in Ukraine crisis
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden are to hold a high-stakes telephone call on Saturday as tensions over a possibility imminent invasion of Ukraine escalated sharply and the U.S. announced plans to evacuate its embassy in the Ukrainian capital.
Before talking to Biden, Putin is to have a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with him in Moscow earlier in the week to try to resolve the crisis.
Russia has massed troops near the Ukraine border and has sent troops to exercises in neighboring Belarus, but insistently denies that it intends to launch an offensive against Ukraine.
Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 U.S. troops to Poland to reassure allies.
Biden has said the U.S. military will not enter a war in Ukraine, but he has promised severe economic sanctions against Moscow, in concert with international allies.
The timing of any possible Russian military action remains a key question.
The U.S. picked up intelligence that Russia is looking at Wednesday as a target date, according to a U.S. official familiar with the findings. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and did so only on condition of anonymity, would not say how definitive the intelligence was, and the White House publicly underscored that the U.S. does not know with certainty whether Putin is committed to invasion.
US to evacuate Ukraine embassy amid Russian invasion fearsHowever, U.S. officials said anew that Russia’s buildup of offensive air, land and sea firepower near Ukraine has reached the point where it could invade on short notice.
U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the State Department plans to announce Saturday that virtually all American staff at the Kyiv embassy will be required to leave. The State Department would not comment.
The department had earlier ordered families of U.S. embassy staffers in Kyiv to leave. But it had left it to the discretion of nonessential personnel if they wanted to depart.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, urged all Americans in Ukraine to leave, emphasizing that they should not expect the U.S. military to rescue them in the event that air and rail transportation is severed after a Russian invasion.
Several NATO allies including Britain, Canada, Norway and Denmark also are asking their citizens to leave Ukraine, as is non-NATO ally New Zealand.
Sullivan said Russian military action could start with missile and air attacks, followed by a ground offensive.
“Yes, it is an urgent message because we are in an urgent situation,” he told reporters at the White House.
“Russia has all the forces it needs to conduct a major military action,” Sullivan said, adding, “Russia could choose, in very short order, to commence a major military action against Ukraine.” He said the scale of such an invasion could range from a limited incursion to a strike on Kyiv, the capital.
Russia scoffed at the U.S. talk of urgency.
“The hysteria of the White House is more indicative than ever,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. “The Anglo-Saxons need a war. At any cost. Provocations, misinformation and threats are a favorite method of solving their own problems.”
In addition to the more than 100,000 ground troops that U.S. officials say Russia has assembled along Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders, the Russians have deployed missile, air, naval and special operations forces, as well as supplies to sustain a war. This week Russia moved six amphibious assault ships into the Black Sea, augmenting its capability to land marines on the coast.
Sullivan’s stark warning accelerated the projected timeframe for a potential invasion, which many analysts had believed was unlikely until after the Winter Olympics in China end on Feb. 20. Sullivan said the combination of a further Russian troop buildup on Ukraine’s borders and unspecified intelligence indicators have prompted the administration to warn that war could begin any time.
“We can’t pinpoint the day at this point, and we can’t pinpoint the hour, but that is a very, very distinct possibility,” Sullivan said.
Biden has said U.S. troops will not enter Ukraine to contest any Russian invasion, but he has bolstered the U.S. military presence in Europe as reassurance to allies on NATO’s eastern flank. On Friday the Pentagon said Biden ordered a further 3,000 soldiers to Poland, on top of 1,700 who are on their way there. The U.S. Army also is shifting 1,000 soldiers from Germany to Romania, which like Poland shares a border with Ukraine.
Biden spoke to a number of European leaders on Friday to underscore the concerns raised by U.S. intelligence about the potential imminence of a Russian invasion. Sullivan said the Western leaders were completely united and would respond harshly to a Russian invasion with devastating economic and trade sanctions.
Russia is demanding that the West keep Ukraine and other former Soviet countries out of NATO. It also wants NATO to refrain from deploying weapons near its border and to roll back alliance forces from Eastern Europe — demands flatly rejected by the West.
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly leader was driven from office by a popular uprising. Moscow responded by annexing Crimea and then backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed over 14,000 people.
A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped halt large-scale battles, but regular skirmishes have continued, and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.
Biden weighs appeal of 3 top candidates for high court
President Joe Biden first zeroed in on a pair of finalists for his first U.S. Supreme Court pick when there were rumors last year that Justice Stephen Breyer would retire. But since the upcoming retirement was actually announced late last month, it has come with the rise of a third candidate, one with ready-made bipartisan support that has complicated the decision.
For Biden, it’s a tantalizing prospect. The president believes he was elected to try to bring the country together following the yawning and rancorous political divide that grew during the Trump administration and especially following the Capitol insurrection in January 2021.
And a Supreme Court nominee with a raft of qualifications who has the vocal support of even one or two Republican senators could well attract the backing of other Republicans. That, in turn, could make for a smoother nomination process after some painfully partisan ones in recent years.
This story is based on accounts from seven people familiar with Biden’s decision-making who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to talk about private discussions.
Two of the three judges now on Biden’s short list were evaluated last year by White House aides, although that early vetting did not include deep dives into their opinions or backgrounds, formal interviews or FBI background checks.
Read:Justice Breyer to retire, giving Biden first court pick
They are Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, a recent appointee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she has served since June 2021, and Leondra Kruger, 45, a California Supreme Court judge since 2015 who would be the first person in more than 40 years to move from a state court to the Supreme Court if she were to be confirmed.
Jackson is seen as the top candidate. And she, too, has a proven record of bipartisan support: She was confirmed to the appeals court on a 53-44 vote. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voted for her.
But J. Michelle Childs has rapidly become a serious third candidate after House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D.-S.C., publicly announced his support for her, as did the state’s Republican senators, Graham and Tim Scott. Graham has made clear Childs is his preferred choice.
The 55-year-old is a federal judge in South Carolina who has been nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. That nomination is on hold while she’s under consideration for the high court.
Childs lacks the elite law school credentials of many current Supreme Court justices — she attended the University of South Carolina School of Law. But that’s part of her appeal to Clyburn and others who question why Ivy League credentials are necessary. Eight of the court’s nine current members attended law school at Harvard or Yale. Childs also has a master’s degree from the school as well as a different legal degree from Duke.
Among the three justices on Biden’s short list, Childs is considered the most moderate, and she has been criticized by progressives land labor groups who say her record is not sufficiently supportive of worker rights. She was previously a state court judge and has served as a federal trial court judge since 2010.
Jackson did attend Harvard Law School and has expertise that would bring considerable professional diversity to the high court. She worked as a public defender and served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission before she was nominated to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama. She is the favorite of progressives.
Kruger, 45, has been on the California Supreme Court since 2015. She was just 38 when chosen for the job by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. She’s seen as a moderate on the seven-member court. She used to wok for the Department of Justice.
Breyer’s replacement won’t shift the ideological makeup of the court. So in some ways, that makes it easier for Republicans to back a candidate advanced by Biden. But Biden has also said bipartisan support is not a necessity; a razor-thin majority in the U.S. Senate means he doesn’t need it.
Biden said earlier this week he was looking closely at “about four” candidates and was interested in selecting a nominee in the mold of Breyer who could be a ”persuasive” force with fellow justices. Although his votes tended to put him to the left of center on an increasingly conservative court, Breyer frequently saw the gray in situations that colleagues to his right and left were more likely to find black or white.
Biden, who is spending the weekend at Camp David, is studying a range of cases and other materials about the candidates, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.
His team, led by former Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, has compiled past writings, public remarks and decisions of the candidates, as well as learning their life stories.
Psaki said Biden could begin meeting with top contenders as early as next week, noting that such interviews typically happen at the end of the vetting process. She said the president remains on track for an announcement by the end of the month.
Going back as far as his campaign, Biden has pledged to nominate a Black woman for the slot. The Supreme Court was made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries. Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Thurgood Marshall are the only two Black men who have served on the court. There has never been a Black woman.
Other possible candidates included U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright from Minnesota; Melissa Murray, a New York University law professor who is an expert in family law and reproductive rights justice; and Leslie Abrams Gardner, a U.S. district judge for the Middle District of Georgia and the sister of Stacey Abrams, a powerful voting rights activist and nominee for Georgia governor.
Biden to split frozen Afghan funds for 9/11 victims, relief
President Joe Biden is expected to issue an executive order on Friday to move some $7 billion of the Afghan central bank’s assets frozen in the U.S. banking system to fund humanitarian relief in Afghanistan and compensate victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a U.S. official familiar with the decision.
The order will require U.S. financial institutions to facilitate access to $3.5 billion of assets for Afghan relief and basic needs. The other $3.5 billion would remain in the United States and be used to fund ongoing litigation by U.S. victims of terrorism, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision had not been formally announced.
International funding to Afghanistan was suspended and billions of dollars of the country’s assets abroad, mostly in the United States, were frozen after the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August.
The country’s long-troubled economy has been in a tailspin since the Taliban takeover. Nearly 80% of Afghanistan’s previous government’s budget came from the international community. That money, now cut off, financed hospitals, schools, factories and government ministries. Desperation for such basic necessities has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as health care shortages, drought and malnutrition.
The lack of funding has led to increased poverty, and aid groups have warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe. State employees, from doctors to teachers and administrative civil servants, haven’t been paid in months. Banks, meanwhile, have restricted how much money account holders can withdraw.
The official noted that U.S. courts where 9/11 victims have filed claims against the Taliban will also have to take action for the victims to be compensated.
The Justice Department had signaled several months ago that the Biden administration was poised to intervene in a federal lawsuit filed by 9/11 victims and families of victims in New York City by filing what’s known as a “statement of interest.” The deadline for that filing had been pushed back until Friday because the department said the administration needed to resolve “many complex and important” issues that required consultation with “numerous senior officials and executive agencies and components.”
The executive order is expected to be signed by Biden later on Friday. The New York Times first reported on the coming order.
The Taliban have called on the international community to release funds and help stave off a humanitarian disaster.
Afghanistan has more than $9 billion in reserves, including just over $7 billion in reserves held in the United States. The rest is largely in Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Qatar.
The Taliban are certain to oppose the split.
As of January the Taliban had managed to pay salaries of their ministries but were struggling to keep employees at work. They have promised to open schools for girls after the Afghan new year at the end of March, but humanitarian organizations are saying money is needed to pay teachers. Universities for women have reopened in several provinces with the Taliban saying the staggered opening will be completed by the end of February when all universities for women and men will open, a major concession to international demands.