Closing summary
That’s all for the US politics blog for today, a Monday almost entirely dominated by news about Donald Trump’s legal troubles and developments in the inquiry into the 6 January insurrection that the former president incited.
Trump is facing a fine of $10,000 a day after a New York judge held him in contempt for failing to release documents to state attorney general Letitia James, who is probing his business dealings. And CNN revealed thousands of texts sent to and by Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows at and around the time of the Capitol riot.
Developments in the Ukraine conflict are recorded in our 24-hour live blog here. And please join us again tomorrow, when the House of Representatives returns from its Easter break.
Here’s where else our day went:
- Twitter agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk for $44bn. The White House said “no matter who owns or runs Twitter... tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause.”
- The Texas court of criminal appeals issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, a Mexican-American woman convicted in the death of her two-year-old daughter.
- Joe Biden said he “felt good” about Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the French presidential election.
- Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic hopeful to become Texas governor, announced he has tested positive for Covid-19.
- A district court judge in Kansas threw out a Republican-drawn congressional map that sought to decrease Democratic representation in the state.
Updated
Jen Psaki was also questioned about today’s meeting between Joe Biden and members of the Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who are concerned about the expected surge of migrants at the southern US border next month when the Trump-era Title 42 policy ends.
Psaki noted the policy, which blocked refugees during the Covid-19 pandemic, was ending on health grounds, although Republican lawmakers visiting the border today are painting the predicted surge as an immigration failure by Biden.
Psaki said the issue was a reminder that there was a need for comprehensive immigration reform:
We have a broken immigration system that’s been long overdue to be fixed. [The president] agrees with that, and he’s certainly happy to discuss that during this meeting, or any other meeting he has with members of Congress.
But this is not an immigration policy. Title 42 is a health authority that’s determined by the CDC, and we need to have a conversation about immigration reform, that’s vital. Maybe this is a reminder.
The homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas faces a series of congressional hearings later this week that will include discussions of Title 42, and which will undoubtedly feature some feisty questioning from Republicans.
Read more:
The White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the breaking news of Elon Musk’s reported Twitter deal early in her afternoon briefing, specifically the administration’s thoughts about Donald Trump’s possible return to the platform:
No matter who owns or runs Twitter, the president has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms, the power they have over our everyday lives, and he has long argued that tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause.
He has been a strong supporter of fundamental reforms to achieve that goal... and he’s encouraged that there’s bipartisan interest in Congress.
In terms of what hypothetical policies might happen, I’m just not going to speak to that.
Musk 'reaches agreement' to buy Twitter, company says
Billionaire Elon Musk has reached an agreement to acquire Twitter for approximately $44 billion, the company said.
The outspoken Tesla chief executive, the world’s richest person, has said Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company in order to build trust with users and do better at serving what he calls the “societal imperative” of free speech, the Associated Press reported.
Twitter said it will become a privately held company after the sale is closed.
Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal said in a tweet:
Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.
Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important. https://t.co/5iNTtJoEHf
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 25, 2022
Who wouldn’t want Valerie Biden Owens in their corner? The first sister of the United States gives no inch in defending her big brother. Asked about Joe Biden’s notorious gaffes, for example, she simply rejects the premise.
“He doesn’t have gaffes,” she insists. “He speaks the truth. Like, hello, surprise, I just said what was true!”
At the end of a carefully crafted speech last month in Warsaw, Poland, the president ad libbed that Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, “cannot remain in power”. To the world’s media it was a howler implying regime change that upended weeks of diplomacy and sent aides scrambling.
To Biden Owens, however, it was truth-telling after meeting refugee mothers and children.
“This is a man, you see what you get,” she says, with recognisable flintiness. “His wife died. Two of his children died, one by a long death and one by a sudden death. And one almost from addiction. He was speaking from his heart. What kind of man [Putin] does this? That’s the real Joe Biden. That was not a gaffe.”
Biden Owens, 76, is talking about her newly published memoir. Growing Up Biden is a lucid account of a middle-class childhood remarkable only for its ordinariness, becoming the first woman in US history to run a presidential campaign, and helping “Joey” emerge from personal and political disasters to reach his own mountaintop.
It is also a moving portrait of sibling love. Joe is the oldest of four Biden children. Valerie was born three years later, followed by Jimmy and Frank.
“At an age when a lot of other older brothers pretended they didn’t even know their sister, Joey took me everywhere with him,” she writes. “When his friends would ask, ‘Why did you bring a girl?’ he answered, ‘She’s not a girl. She’s my sister. If you want me around, she’s going to be around, too.’”
Read more:
Following the New York judge’s decision to hold Donald Trump in contempt in the attorney general’s civil investigation, AG Letitia James said: “Today, justice prevailed. For years, Donald Trump has tried to evade the law and stop our lawful investigation into him and his company’s financial dealings. Today’s ruling makes clear: No one is above the law.”
James had asked for the contempt finding this month stating that Trump had not complied with a subpoena requiring him to produce documents and information.
James’ civil investigation has focused on whether the Trump Organization misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax deductions. Earlier in April James said investigators had found “significant evidence” of wrongdoing.
In a court filing then, the New York attorney general said Trump failed to abide by his earlier agreement to comply “in full” with her subpoena for documents and information by 31 March.
On Monday, Judge Arthur Engoron, a New York state supreme court judge, agreed with James that Trump was in contempt of court.
The contempt finding by the judge came despite a spirited argument by Alina Habba, Trump’s attorney, who insisted repeatedly that she went to great lengths to comply with the subpoena, even traveling to Florida to ask Trump specifically whether he had in his possession any documents that would be responsive to the demand.
“The contempt motion is inappropriate and misleading,” she said. “He complied ... There are no more documents left to produce by President Trump.”
She also derided the James investigation as “political” and “truly a fishing expedition,” saying Trump and his companies had turned over more than six million documents and paperwork related to 103 Trump entities over an eight-year period.
The Texas court of criminal appeals has issued a stay of execution for Melissa Lucio, the Mexican-American woman who was set to be judicially killed within 48 hours, ordering a lower court to consider new evidence of her innocence in the death of her two-year-old daughter Mariah.
The court issued its order on Monday as the final clock was ticking on Lucio’s transfer to the death chamber. She would have been the first Hispanic woman executed by Texas.
As Wednesday’s scheduled execution date grew closer, calls for a stay to give time for new scientific evidence of her innocence to be reviewed grew to fever pitch. The intensity of the outcry against her pending death rivaled that of the case of Troy Davis, the African American man executed by Georgia in 2011 despite serious doubts around his guilt.
New evidence presented by Lucio’s legal team in a 266-page petition suggested that the murder of her toddler daughter had never even happened. Medical and eye-witness evidence pointed towards Mariah having died after accidentally falling down a steep flight of stairs at Lucio’s rental home.
In a statement, Lucio thanked the court of criminal appeals for giving her the chance “to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always.”
Sandra Babcock, one of Lucio’s legal team and a professor at Cornell law school, said that the court’s decision paved the way for a new trial which would allow a jury to hear evidence that was not presented at her original trial in 2008. Five of the 12 jury members from that trial have said that had they known what is now known about the case they would have decided differently.
Babcock said: “Melissa’s life matters.As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and intimate partner violence, and now locked away for these past 15 years, Melissa’s voice and experiences have never been valued. The Court’s decision signals its willingness to finally hear Melissa’s side of the story.”
Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence Project, who also represents Lucio, said: “Medical evidence shows that Mariah’s death was consistent with an accident. But for the State’s use of false testimony, no juror would have voted to convict Melissa of capital murder because no murder occurred.”
Jeff Leach, the Republican lawmaker who led the push for a delay of execution in the Texas House, greeted the news of the stay with delight, saying it would secure “justice for Melissa and for Mariah and the entire Lucio family”.
Earlier, Leach told the Guardian in an interview that the failings of the prosecution in Lucio’s case had shaken his belief in the death penalty. He said her treatment had “given me great pause and made me reconsider my stance on whether this is the way we want to do things in the state of Texas”.
While we await Donald Trump’s almost inevitable statement of fury over a New York judge’s decision to hold him in contempt, and fine him $10,000 a day for failing to hand over financial documents to the state’s attorney general, it’s worth revisiting the extent of legal jeopardy the former president is in.
A Guardian tally back in February found 19 separate legal actions against Trump at federal, state and local levels, ranging from his actions seeking to overturn the 2020 election he lost, to sexual misconduct and financial impropriety. Half allege improper conduct during his single-term presidency.
As recently as last week he was ordered to pay his former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman more than $1.3m in legal fees, closing a case over her alleged violation of a non-disclosure agreement.
My colleague Ed Pilkington examined Trump’s legal woes in an article in February.
Read more:
Beto O’Rourke, the prominent Democrat who is seeking to oust Greg Abbott from the Texas governor’s mansion later this year, has announced he has Covid-19.
“I tested negative yesterday morning before testing positive today. I have mild symptoms and will be following public health guidelines,” O’Rourke said in a tweet that indicated he became infected on the campaign trail.
O’Rourke, who narrowly failed to unseat Ted Cruz in their 2018 US Senate race, trails Abbott by a significant margin ahead of November’s election, according to RealClearPolitics.
In addition to being fully vaccinated and boosted, I regularly test for COVID-19 while traveling the state for town hall meetings.
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) April 25, 2022
I tested negative yesterday morning before testing positive today.
I have mild symptoms and will be following public health guidelines.
A district court judge in Kansas has struck down a Republican-drawn congressional map that would likely make it harder for the only Democrat in the state’s delegation to win reelection this year, according to the Associated Press.
It was the first time a court has declared that the Kansas constitution prohibits political gerrymandering. The state is expected to appeal to the Kansas Supreme Court.
Wyandotte county district judge Bill Klepper was scathing of Republicans’ attempts to manipulate district boundaries to their advantage:
How strong are Kansans? Strong enough to expect nothing more than a level playing field devoid of partisan advantage for one group of Kansans.
Strong enough for the merits of the issue to be the deciding factor. Strong enough to make their political decisions based upon the content of a candidate’s character rather than the color of their political party.
The map sought to move some voters from the Democratic stronghold of Kansas City into a Republican-dominated district, thus weakening support for Democratic Representative Sharice Davids in her own district.
Critics argued that the map also diluted the political power of Black and Hispanic voters in the Kansas City area by splitting them up. The state rejected all of those allegations, but Klepper agreed and ordered lawmakers to draw up a new one.
The Kansas case will be watched closely in Florida, where Republican governor Ron DeSantis last week signed a “racist” congressional redistricting map that strips representation from Black voters. Numerous voters’ rights groups immediately filed a lawsuit.
Updated
Here’s another dose of Monday opinion poll news, this time from Harvard Kennedy school’s institute of politics, which finds young voters are losing confidence in the US political system.
“While 18 to 29-year-olds are on track to match 2018’s record-breaking youth turnout in a midterm election this November and prefer Democratic control 55%-34%, there was a sharp increase in youth believing that ‘political involvement rarely has tangible results’ (36%), their vote ‘doesn’t make a difference’ (42%), and agreement that ‘politics today are no longer able to meet the challenges our country is facing’ (56%)”, the study found.
And Joe Biden’s job approval has dropped to 41% among young Americans, down five points from a similar poll in the fall of last year.
According to Mark Gearan, director of the Harvard Kennedy school’s institute of politics:
In the past two election cycles, America’s youngest voters have proven themselves to be a formidable voting bloc with a deep commitment to civic engagement. Our new poll shows a pragmatic idealism as they consider the state of our democracy and the concerning challenges they face in their lives.
Elected officials from both parties would benefit from listening to young Americans and as we head into the midterm elections.
A fringe party in Canada says notorious right-wing American strategist Roger Stone, known for his political ‘dirty tricks’, will join its campaign ahead of an upcoming provincial election.
On Monday, the Ontario Party announced Stone, 69, would join as a “senior strategic advisor” ahead of the province’s expected June election.
The statement called Stone, who has worked on multiple US presidential campaigns, including Donald Trump’s in 2016, a “seasoned veteran of hard-nosed politics”. The release said Stone had been “inspired” by the Canadian trucker protests, which paralyzed the nation’s capital for nearly a month before it was broken up by police.
Formed in 2018 and with little electoral success to date, the Ontario Party has been sharply critical of the province’s public health measures during the coronavirus pandemic.
The party’s leader, Derek Sloan, was expelled from the Conservative party in 2021 after he received a campaign donation from a white supremacist. Then-leader Erin O’Toole cited Sloan’s pattern of “destructive behaviour” and “disrespect towards the Conservative team” as justification for removing him from the party.
In a tweet, the Ontario Party leader warned incumbent premier Doug Ford to “watch out big guy”.
.@fordnation watch out big guy. https://t.co/9729qho8JM
— Derek Sloan (@TrueDerekSloan) April 25, 2022
It is unclear how much of a role the controversial American strategist will play in the province’s election, as Ford looks to renew his legislative majority. In 2019, Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison after attempting to sabotage a congressional investigation into former president Trump. He was subsequently pardoned by Trump.
Updated
Trump to be fined $10,000 a day after judge's ruling
Reuters has provided more detail on the decision by a New York judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt, ordering the former president to be fined $10,000 per day until he complies.
Trump lost a bid to quash a subpoena from state attorney general Letitia James, then failed to produce all the documents by a court-ordered 3 March deadline, later extended to 31 March at his lawyers’ request, the agency says.
Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that a contempt finding was appropriate because of what the judge called “repeated failures” to hand over materials and that it was not clear Trump had conducted a complete search for responsive documents.
Although Trump was not in court, Judge Engoron addressed him directly:
Mr Trump, I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously. I hereby hold you in civil contempt.
James is investigating whether the Trump Organization, the former president’s New York City-based family company, misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax deductions.
James has said her probe had found “significant evidence” suggesting that for more than a decade the company’s financial statements “relied on misleading asset valuations and other misrepresentations to secure economic benefits.”
The attorney general has questioned how the Trump Organization valued the Trump brand, as well as properties including golf clubs in New York and Scotland and Trump’s own penthouse apartment in Midtown Manhattan’s Trump Tower.
Read more:
Updated
New York court holds Trump in contempt
A New York judge on Monday held former president Donald Trump in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena for documents in the state attorney general’s civil probe into his business practices, Reuters reports.
The decision relates to Trump’s non-compliance in a case brought by New York state attorney general Letitia James.
More on this very shortly.
Texts reveal more evidence senior Republicans urged Trump to stop insurrection
Thousands of text messages sent to Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows urging him to get the-then president to call off the mob invading the Capitol on January 6, 2021, have been freshly revealed, according to a report by CNN.
“Mark: he needs to stop this, now. Can I do anything to help?” Mick Mulvaney, a previous chief of staff to Trump, texted Meadows, the report says.
And Trump’s first chief of staff when he entered office in January, 2017, Reince Priebus, reportedly texted Meadows in all caps, of the insurrectionists: “TELL THEM TO GO HOME !!!”
A special House of Representatives bipartisan panel is investigating events leading up to and surrounding January 6, when thousands of extremist Trump supporters streamed from a rally the-then president held near the White House to the US Capitol and stormed the building in an effort to prevent the official certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over the Republican.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing representative from Georgia who is currently the subject of efforts to disbar her from Congress, was inside the Capitol building at the time.
“Mark I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol. Please tell the President to calm people This isn’t the way to solve anything,” Greene wrote to Meadows, according to the report. He appeared not to have responded.
Georgia Republican congressman Barry Loudermilk noted to Meadows that rioters who stormed the building had made it inside.
“It’s really bad up here on the hill. They have breached the Capitol, he wrote, later adding: “This doesn’t help our cause.”
Meadows responded to some of those sending texts, not to others.
“The president needs to stop this ASAP,” Republican William Timmons of South Carolina texted.
Meanwhile, the committee has voted to recommend criminal prosecution for former Meadows, punishing Trump’s then-most senior aide for refusing to testify to the panel about the insurrection.
Updated
The Tennessee governor Bill Lee has signed legislation that will add harsh penalties against public schools that allow transgender athletes to participate in girls’ sports, the Associated Press is reporting.
The new law, which removes funding from any school district that allows transgender students to play sports consistent with their gender identity, builds on anti-LBGTQ+ measures previously approved by the conservative Republican.
Last year, Lee was slammed by the Human Rights Council for his so-called “slate of hate”.
It follow a wave of anti-LBGTQ+ sentiment and legislation that has swept across numerous Republican-controlled states in recent months, tracked here by Bloomberg.
Among the most prominent is Florida, where governor Ron DeSantis, a likely 2024 presidential hopeful, has signed several new laws, including the infamous “don’t say gay” bill that bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.
Last June, DeSantis signed his state’s own bill banning transgenders athletes from women’s and girls’ sports, broadly similar to the Tennessee measure, and has kept up a steady beat of rhetoric since, including a proclamation last month that a resident of his state was the “rightful” holder of a college title won by trans swimmer.
More Americans approve than disapprove of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court as its first Black female justice, a poll by the Associated Press has found.
But that support is politically lopsided: a majority of Black Americans, but fewer white and Hispanic Americans approve of her confirmation.
Overall, 48% of Americans say they approve and 19% disapprove of Jackson’s confirmation to the high court according to the AP-NORC center for public affairs research study. The remaining 32% of Americans hold no opinion.
The US Senate earlier confirmed Jackson’s nomination earlier this month by a 53-47 vote, fulfilling Joe Biden’s promise to name a Black woman to the court.
According to the AP, the poll’s findings suggest the confirmation did more to energize Biden’s Democratic base than it did to energize Republicans in opposition, despite vocal resistance from some GOP lawmakers who were largely united in voting against her. 80% of Democrats and only 18% of Republicans approve of Jackson replacing the retiring liberal justice Stephen Breyer.
Biden 'feels good' about Macron triumph in French election
Reporters just snatched a quick conversation with Joe Biden as he arrived back in Washington DC from Delaware, the president telling them: “I feel good about the French election.”
Many western leaders have sent their congratulations to the French president Emmanuel Macron, who defeated the far right candidate Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s poll.
Biden tweeted his congratulations on Sunday night, and said he also tried to call Macron, who was “busy”.
“I tried to talk to him last night, we spoke to the staff but he was at the Eiffel Tower having a good time, so I’m going to be talking to him today,” Biden said.
The president also told reporters at Joint Base Andrews that he hadn’t yet spoken with secretary of state Antony Blinken and defense secretary Lloyd Austin about their weekend trip to Ukraine, but was about to receive an update.
Congratulations to @EmmanuelMacron on his re-election. France is our oldest ally and a key partner in addressing global challenges. I look forward to our continued close cooperation — including on supporting Ukraine, defending democracy, and countering climate change.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 24, 2022
Updated
Could Donald Trump soon be back on Twitter? That’s the hope of some Republican congress members who have welcomed news that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is set to buy the social media platform for $43bn.
“Hey, @elonmusk it’s a great week to free @realDonaldTrump,” the House Republican Conference, representing 209 lawmakers, tweeted.
Hey, @elonmusk it's a great week to free @realDonaldTrump.
— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) April 25, 2022
Twitter banned Trump permanently on 8 January last year for violating its “glorification of violence” policy, relating to tweets he sent his more than 80m followers about the 6 January insurrection and efforts to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.
But Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist” and analysts expect him to allow the former president to return if his bid, which was initially rejected by the Twitter board, is successful.
The firebrand Ohio congressman and Trump ally Jim Jordan, a member of the Freedom Caucus of conservative House Republicans, said the deal would be good for shareholders and good for free speech, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, the extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose personal account was also permanently banned, said on her congressional Twitter feed: “I should get my personal Twitter account restored.”
Read more:
US Senators return to the Capitol today after a two-week Easter recess and get straight down to business with the confirmation of Lael Brainard for vice-chair of the federal reserve.
But it’s what’s coming up during the intense legislative sessions over the next few weeks that offers more intrigue, and a probable road map to the campaign for November’s midterm elections.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Joe Biden’s legislative agenda is on the line, alongside control of Congress itself.
The president will be pushing lawmakers to take up several key issues on which his fortunes rest, including more financial aid for Ukraine, reviving a stalled push for a bipartisan agreement on Covid-19 relief, and the likely resurrection of elements of his flagship Build Back Better social spending package that was blown apart by the Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin a few months ago.
Ukraine spending is arguably the most urgent priority, Biden informing Congress last week, after a further $800m investment in military supplies, bringing arms spending to more than $3bn, that he’d pretty much exhausted his existing authorization and would be asking for more.
“My hope and my expectation is that Congress would move and act quickly,” Biden said on Thursday.
But with his approval rating having sunk to the second worst in decades for a US president, according to The Hill, Biden will also be seeking success in his domestic agenda. Parts of Build Back Better could be key - if he can get them through.
While Manchin was a “no” on the $1.75tn size of the welfare and climate package, citing fears of worsening inflation for his refusal, the White House believes he can be persuaded by individual elements.
Axios reported last month that Manchin was open to agreements on climate change, prescription drug prices and deficit reduction. With Manchin back on board, and if fellow Democratic holdout Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is happy, Biden’s prospects are better in the 50-50 chamber. But it’s a big if.
His other key priority, coronavirus relief, is tied to immigration. A $10bn “agreement in principle” between leading Democratic and Republican senators fell apart when the Biden administration announced it was ending the Trump-era Title 42 policy of blocking refugees at the border because of the pandemic.
The money, mostly for vaccines, treatments and testing, was far below what the White House was seeking. But getting even that back on track again will be an uphill battle.
Amazon workers in New York will go to the polls again as labor activists push to unionize a second facility in the US following their surprise recent victory over the tech giant.
About 1,500 eligible workers at an LDJ5 Amazon sorting center in Staten Island, New York, begin voting in a union election on Monday, in a process that will continue through 29 April. Ballot-counting starts on 2 May.
Amazon has aggressively opposed unionization among its workforce, which totals about 1.1 million people in the US alone. The fight comes as workers at other major corporations including Starbucks are fighting to unionize.
Amazon has spent millions hiring union avoidance consultants. Amazon Labor Union (ALU) organizers have alleged harassment and intimidation from management.
The company is vigorously contesting its first loss and has accused ALU of using “objectionable, coercive, and misleading behavior”, to convince workers to support them. Among other objections, Amazon claims the vote should be overturned because ALU “intentionally created hostile confrontations” and offered marijuana to workers in an “impermissible grant of support” for workers’ votes, according to filings obtained by the New York Times.
Voting Tents going ‼️⬆️ up We’re ready to make history again LDJ5 will be the 1st sortation center in the country to unionize @amazonlabor #ALU #ALUfortheWin ✊🏽 pic.twitter.com/rcRq9KsaLb
— Christian Smalls (@Shut_downAmazon) April 18, 2022
The sorting center is right across the street from the JFK8 warehouse where workers won a historic first union election at Amazon in the US on 1 April.
It is the second union election petition filed by the ALU, an independent group of current and former Amazon workers with no affiliation with established labor unions and led by the former Amazon worker Chris Smalls.
Read more here:
Brink picked to lead returning US diplomatic team
Joe Biden has punctuated secretary of state Antony Blinken’s announcement that US diplomats will return to Ukraine this week by nominating a new ambassador to the war-riven country.
The president has chosen Bridget A Brink, currently the ambassador to Slovakia, to lead the US team, initially in the western city of Lviv, and later back in Kyiv when conditions are considered suitable.
Brink has spent her 25-year career in the foreign service “focused on advancing US policy in Europe and Eurasia,” according to a White House press release, and has served overseas postings in Uzbekistan, Georgia, Cypress and Georgia.
If confirmed by the US Senate, Brink will become the first US ambassador to Ukraine for three years. The post has been vacant since Marie Yovanovitch was dumped by Donald Trump as the then-president pressured his Ukraine counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiiy to investigate Biden and son Hunter’s business dealings in the country.
The US relocated diplomats to Poland following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, but joins numerous other nations looking to restore their presence following the withdrawal of Russian troops from around Kyiv.
According to the website foreignpolicy.com, at least 17 nations have already reopened their embassies or sent diplomats back to Kyiv, including western allies such as Austria, Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal.
The UK plans to reopen its Kyiv embassy this week.
Blinken, who was in Ukraine with defense secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday, said the US return to Kyiv would be more gradual, with the American diplomatic team first making short trips to Lviv and other western cities, then the capital city at an unspecified future date.
Read more about the US officials’ visit to Ukraine here:
Biden names new Ukraine ambassador
Good morning blog readers, and welcome to a brand new week in US politics.
Joe Biden has nominated his new ambassador to Ukraine, career diplomat Bridget A Brink, who currently fills the same role in Slovakia. The move comes as secretary of state Antony Blinken, who was in the country yesterday, revealed plans to move US diplomatic officials back into Ukraine.
A reminder that you can follow developments in the Ukraine conflict on our live 24-hour blog here.
What we’re also watching today:
- The US Senate returns to business after the two-week Easter recess (the House gets an extra day off) with a busy legislative agenda in coming weeks, including pandemic relief, financial support for Ukraine and a probable revival of at least some of Joe Biden’s social spending plans.
- Republican lawmakers including House speaker Kevin McCarthy head for the US southern border aiming to put pressure on Biden over immigration. But attention will probably be more focused on McCarthy’s audiotape troubles.
- We might hear from Biden this afternoon as he welcomes hockey’s champion Tampa Bay Lightning to the White House.
- Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, is scheduled to deliver her first briefing of the week at 3pm.
