Closing summary
We’ll finish where we started today, with Kamala Harris’s trip to Poland, although a lot has developed since this morning, US time. The US vice president disembarked in Warsaw from Air Force Two about half an hour ago, just after 10.34pm local time. She was greeted on the tarmac by senior Polish government officials. Her motorcade rolled off to her hotel without Harris responding to journalists’ shouted questions.
But since she took off from the US this morning, when we predicted she was flying into the middle of the MiG muddle, the Pentagon has squashed any idea that the US will be involved in taking fighter jets from Poland and getting them to the Ukrainian military. That should make Harris’s trip smoother, though still a huge challenge.
Meanwhile, the House is expected to vote tonight on a spending bill that includes almost $14bn in aid for Ukraine.
This blog is closing now until tomorrow, in order to devote more reporting resources overnight to the Guardian’s global, round-the-clock Ukraine crisis live blog, which you can follow here for all the updates on Russia’s invasion of its democratic neighbor.
Here’s what happened today in US politics:
- Donald Trump was scared of Vladimir Putin, but also admired the Russian dictator’s capacity to “kill anyone” he wanted, an ex-press sec said.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he believes that ultimately Putin and will suffer “strategic defeat” in Ukraine.
- British foreign secretary Liz Truss said at a joint press conference in Washington, DC, after meeting with Blinken that there will be “terrible implications’ for European and global security if Putin is not stopped.
- Minneapolis failed to follow emergency protocols during protests and riots in reaction to white then-police officer Derek Chauvin murdering Black resident George Floyd, in 2020, according to a report commissioned by the city.
- Vice President Kamala Harris embarked on an official visit to Poland and Romania in the midst of the escalating war in neighbor Ukraine.
A local clerk in Colorado has been indicted on felony charges for allegedly helping facilitate a security breach of her county’s voting equipment, according to a new report.
Tina Peters, the Republican clerk in Mesa county, is accused of giving access to secure areas of her office to a non-county employee in May when voting machine equipment from Dominion was being updated, the Colorado Sun reports.
Secure information from the equipment eventually was leaked online, leading to an investigation of Peters, who has embraced conspiracy theories about the election and appeared at a symposium hosted by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has espoused false claims about the election.
Peters, who is currently running for Colorado secretary of state, faces a mix of 10 felony and misdemeanor charges, including attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, and first-degree official misconduct. Belinda Knisley, a deputy clerk, was also indicted.
Peters’ case is one of the first cases in which an election official has faced criminal charges for embracing conspiracies about the 2020 election.
