SENATE STICKS AROUND TO CLOSE UKRAINE-ISRAEL FUNDING DEAL
The House went home for the holidays yesterday, but the Senate will continue working next week in an effort to present Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a $45-billion military aid package before Christmas.
The Senate was scheduled to adjourn today but will come back Monday, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said yesterday.
Additional military aid for Ukraine is part of a $106 billion supplemental funding package requested by President Joe Biden that includes $45 billion in military aid for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, $13.6 billion for U.S. border security, and $10 billion for humanitarian aid for Israel, Ukraine, Gaza, and refugees entering the United States.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told senators two weeks ago there would be no Ukraine money until the Senate agrees to the provisions of H.R. 2, a border security bill passed by the House in a party-line vote earlier this year.
Johnson refused to comment on the possibility of reaching an 11th-hour deal.
“We can’t speculate about hypotheticals,” Raj Shah, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff told The Epoch Times yesterday.
Many Republicans in both chambers say securing the southern border is the top priority.
“There are a number of ways of doing that. It doesn’t have to be my way, but it has to result in results. No more lip service and federal money,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told The Epoch Times.
“When I can look at the border and go, ‘Hey, I’m an Eagle Pass and nobody’s walking across the border,’ . . . if you want to come and talk to us about it, then we could,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters.
Democrats laid blame for the lack of progress at the feet of their Republican colleagues, saying it plays into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.
“If we neglect to send these resources without conditioning without delay, we fail not only the people of Ukraine but the people of Israel and the people in Palestine, to whom we want to give relief and humanitarian aid,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday.
Zelenskyy made a third visit to Washington Tuesday, pressing his case for additional arms to the Senate, as well as to Johnson and Biden.
Shalanda Young, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, warned congressional leaders last week that existing U.S. resources to aid Ukraine would run out this month.
GOP hardliners were unmoved by the growing urgency.
“The Biden administration is obsessed with our country having an open border, and we just can’t have it. It'll be the end of the country,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) told The Epoch Times.
Tough talk is not enough, according to Grothman. “I think we’ve got to watch it be implemented as well. We’ve got to show they’re capable of shutting down the border.”
—Lawrence Wilson and Joseph Lord
LIVING UNDER THE LONG RED SHADOW
No matter where you are, the fear follows as long as anyone you care about lives under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.
Georgetown Law student Zhang Jinrui made that statement because he lived through it.
Like many others, Zhang had kept his views about the CCP to himself. But in late 2022, a high-rise building fire in Urumqi in China’s northwest that had been locked down because of the regime’s stringent COVID-19 restrictions changed him. That fire caused at least 10 deaths, including a three-year-old—”not because the fire was extraordinarily powerful” but because they were trapped and the fire truck couldn’t get into the locked building, he told the audience at a House China panel hearing on Wednesday.
The retaliation did come. Giving out flyers on his campus, a pro-CCP Chinese student rebuked him and tried to report him to the Chinese police.
From June to November, Chinese police harassed Zhang’s family, dragging his father away for interrogation and only letting him go on the condition that he would make Zhang “love the Chinese Communist Party more,” he told NTD, sister media of The Epoch Times.
Anna Kwok, executive director of Hong Kong Democracy Council, recalled seeing suspicious-looking men with Chinese military-style haircuts and earpieces during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November. They stalked her and others on the streets of San Francisco as they protested outside a venue where Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping was holding an event. Some pro-democracy protesters were beaten up and hospitalized. Others had their phones robbed away.
Lawmakers from the committee said they want to look into federal laws over how to stop such conduct.
“It would seem to me that Congress needs to formally define and criminalize” transnational repression,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill), ranking member of the committee.
Committee chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) describes it as a matter of educating law enforcement authorities.
“Assaulting someone is illegal,” he told The Epoch Times. “It’s just a question of whether law enforcement is tracking this and actually, proactively tackling it.”
—Eva Fu
TAKING STOCK OF THE TRUMP CASES
Multiple lawsuits against Trump are proceeding across the country as the presidential campaign season intensifies and it seems increasingly likely that at least some trial dates may be delayed.
The Supreme Court recently added to the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s D.C. trial – scheduled for March 4, 2024—when it agreed to take up an appeal in a different Jan. 6 case.
A Jan. 6 defendant may disrupt the timeline of Trump’s D.C. trial as the Supreme Court has agreed to review his challenge to the application of a law that forms part of the Justice Department’s indictment of Trump.
Trump’s D.C. trial has already been placed on hold as his presidential immunity claims make their way through the appeals process. So far, the D.C. Circuit has agreed to expedite an appeal of Judge Tanya Chutkan’s decision to reject Trump’s motion to dismiss. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has asked Trump to respond to Jack Smith’s request that the justices skip the D.C. appellate court to quickly review the presidential immunity issue.
Gag orders are just a part of Trump’s D.C. and New York cases but are hotly debated and carry implications for how Trump defends himself during the campaign season. On Wednesday, an appellate court rejected Trump’s appeal of the New York gag order. Last week, the D.C. gag order was narrowed but not eliminated by an appeals court. Each could face additional appeals.
The Mar-a-Lago documents trial is scheduled to begin on May 20, 2024 but observers have questioned whether that will hold given some of Judge Aileen Cannon’s decisions regarding pre-trial activity.
New York is the site of several other lawsuits against Trump.
- The civil trial in the case of E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump defamed her in 2019 when he claimed she lied about allegations Trump raped her in the mid-1990s, starts on Jan. 15, 2024. A judge has already found Trump liable for defamation. The trial is solely to determine how much he should pay in damages.
- A criminal case, slated for March 25, 2024, prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg involves alleged campaign finance violations relating to the payment of hush money to adult actress Stormy Daniels.
- Jan. 29, 2024, is the start date for the trial over his promotion of the multi-level marketing company ACN Communications.
Across the country, Trump is also facing attempts to remove him from the ballot via a provision of the 14th Amendment.
—Sam Dorman
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- The House recesses until the New Year.
- Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff host a holiday reception.
- Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) delivers remarks in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
BOOKMARKS
Whatever you think of Elon Musk, he’s clearly a larger-than-life figure, unafraid to “move fast and break things,” to borrow Mark Zuckerberg’s famous line. But is Musk ultimately just another tech billionaire, or could he be one of history’s “Great Men”?
The Epoch Times’ Darren Taylor details how Musk’s Starlink internet service is proving disruptive in Africa, despite the objections of some local governments.
Speaking of men who seem like something out of science fiction, Blackwater founder Erik Prince spoke at length with IM1776 about the woeful condition of the United States’ military.
Ahead of 2024, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley is getting support from some interesting sources. The Epoch Times’ Austin Alonzo unravels that story, naming some of the major donors who have fueled her campaign; they include major donors to the Democrats.
The Associated Press reports on how Haley and other candidates have weighed in on the case of Kate Cox, a Texan whose request for an abortion was denied by the state’s Supreme Court. Her response contrasted somewhat with that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who pointed out that Florida’s new abortion law allows for the procedure in the case of “fatal fetal abnormalities.”
And with the Israel-Hamas war raging, Newsweek reports on a central question: have too many Palestinian civilians been killed? Their article drew on interviews with anonymous soldiers with both the U.S. military and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).
While multiple sources told Newsweek that Israeli fighters have not deliberately gone after civilians, one U.S. Air Force officer opined that “Israel has lost the information war because it has destroyed so much, even if they can justify each individual attack.”
The Epoch Times’ Dan Berger examines a related trend: after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, everyday Israelis have been requesting gun permits by the hundreds of thousands. The process of approving requests has been sped up too. The upshot: individual Israelis are arming themselves to an unprecedented extent.
—Nathan Worcester
