Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Axios she is “nervous” about the U.S. defaulting on its debt and cautioned that Americans likely will face a scary and spiraling recession if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling this summer.
Financial Times: Wall Street warns of riskiest US debt limit showdown since 2011.
“Democrats are seizing on a Republican proposal to impose a national sales tax and abolish the Internal Revenue Service as a cudgel against the GOP, even though the bill has few fans even among Republican lawmakers,” the Washington Post reports.
“Notebooks that President Joe Biden wrote in during his time as vice president are among the items the FBI took from one of his Delaware homes during a search there last week,“ NBC News reports.
“The notebooks were seized because Biden’s writings on some of the pages relate to his official business as vice president, including details of his diplomatic engagements during the Obama administration, and may reference classified information.”
“The Justice Department has asked the Federal Election Commission to hold off on any enforcement action against George Santos, the Republican congressman from New York who lied about key aspects of his biography, as prosecutors conduct a parallel criminal probe,” the Washington Post reports.
“The request, which came from the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, is the clearest sign to date that federal prosecutors are examining Santos’s campaign finances.”
Mother Jones: “The contributions are among more than a dozen major donations to the 2020 Santos campaign for which the name or the address of the donor cannot be confirmed, a Mother Jones investigation found. A separate $2,800 donation was attributed in Santos’ reports filed with the Federal Election Commission to a friend of Santos who says he did not give the money.”
“Under federal campaign finance law, it is illegal to donate money using a false name or the name of someone else.”
The Guardian: “One of the enduring mysteries surrounding the chaotic attempts to overturn Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential battle has been solved: who made a secret $1m donation to the controversial election ‘audit’ in Arizona?”
“The identity of one of the largest benefactors behind the discredited review of Arizona’s vote count has been shrouded in secrecy. Now the Guardian can reveal that the person who partially bankrolled the failed attempt to prove that the election was stolen from Trump was… Trump.”
Reuters on why Biden keeps pushing for an Assault Weapons Ban: “Such a ban has little chance of passing the Republican-controlled House of Representatives or the Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Democrats, political experts say.”
“But Biden’s stubborn strategy continues: make a ban the focus of public discourse whenever a mass shooting occurs and put pressure on lawmakers who oppose one. The White House hopes to build on already strong public support for stricter gun safety laws overall, and ultimately try to pressure Republicans in Congress into changing their thinking.”
“A federal judge sentenced the Pennsylvania man who pepper sprayed U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick on Jan. 6, 2021, to six years and eight months in prison Friday, saying he found his assault on outnumbered officers inexusable,” WUSA reports.
“There’s good news for Biden appointees eyeing the exits: Unlike your predecessors from Donald Trump’s chaotic administration, you’re in demand in the private sector,” Politico reports.
“While the 46th president has presided over comparatively little turnover in his two up-and-down years in office, this month’s announcement that White House chief of staff Ron Klain would depart seemed to sound the starting gun on the period when insiders naturally start contemplating life on the outside. And though the scramble is only just starting, the prospects are much better than most people might have expected in the crisis environment of 2020.”
“President Biden approved more oil and gas drilling permits in his first two years in office than did former President Donald Trump,” Yahoo News reports.
“Despite that statistic, Republicans have routinely criticized Biden over his aversion to selling new oil and gas leases on federal land, which, in addition to the halting of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline project, they say resulted in a surge in gasoline prices after Russia invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022.”
Elon Musk met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries at the US Capitol in Washington on Thursday evening, CNN reports.
After the meeting, Musk wrote on Twitter that he met with McCarthy and Jeffries “to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties.”
“A federal judge on Friday delayed the contempt of Congress trial for former Donald Trump adviser Peter Navarro, likely for months, to allow for additional pre-trial debate over the role executive privilege could play when the case goes to a jury,” CNN reports.
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