Closing summary
“Witch-hunt”. “Unfair”. “Anyone in my position not taking the fifth would be a fool”. It was Donald Trump at his finest, or perhaps most exhausting, in video of his summer deposition before the New York attorney general obtained by CBS News. Besides bashing Letitia James and her inquiry – which alleges he and his children conspired to inflate his net worth in order to get better loan terms – Trump doesn’t say much, instead refusing to answer questions more than 400 times. Meanwhile, in Washington, lawmakers have plenty of questions of their own in the ongoing saga of the classified documents discovered in the possession of former White House occupants, with a top Democrat demanding information on Trump and Mike Pence’s visitors from the Secret Service.
Here’s what else happened today:
George Santos announced he will not serve on any House committees, even though Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy said he would be willing to seat him.
The Biden administration will let the emergencies declared over Covid-19 expire, but is considering declaring a new crisis to allow Americans to obtain access to abortions.
Kamala Harris will attend Tyre Nichols’s funeral in Memphis on Wednesday, her office announced.
Minnesota’s governor Tim Walz signed into law a measure protecting abortion rights, making the state’s legislature the first to enshrine access to the procedure since the end of Roe v Wade last year.
Boris Johnson paid a visit to the US Capitol in search of support for Ukraine and perhaps also political relevance.
Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister, has brought his quest for political relevance to Washington, holding talks with Republican members of Congress in an effort to shore up support for Ukraine.
Johnson left office last September amid a Trumpian cascade of scandals but, far from fading into retirement, may be hoping that the war with Russia offers a shot at redemption and chance to emulate his hero Winston Churchill as a global statesman.
The 58-year-old visited Ukraine earlier this month and, on Tuesday, was seen entering the office of House speaker Kevin McCarthy, who ruffled feathers last year by warning that Republicans will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine if they win back the majority.
Reporters also spotted Johnson heading to the office of Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader and staunch supporter of Ukraine who has urged Joe Biden to act faster, as well as Congressman Jim Banks, a veteran of the Afghanistan war.
Cristina Maza, a journalist at the National Journal, tweeted that Johnson told her that he is on Capitol Hill to thank Americans for backing Ukraine and called Republican support for Kyiv “very robust”. The ex-PM also met Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the US, and took questions from Ukrainian journalists.
Johnson has penned an opinion column for the Washington Post, arguing that years of “diplomatic doublespeak” about Ukraine joining Nato ended in disaster. “Ukrainians should be given everything they need to finish this war, as quickly as possible, and we should begin the process of admitting Ukraine to NATO, and begin it now,” he writes.
The former PM is set to speak at a private Republican club on Tuesday evening and take part in a virtual conversation about sustaining support to Ukraine with the Atlantic Council think tank at 11.30am on Wednesday.
