Politico

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a slate of senior personnel changes ahead of the midterm elections in November, extending a high-profile position to former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and appointing a new White House counsel.

Bottoms, who served as Atlanta’s mayor from 2018 to January of this year and is currently a CNN political commentator, will become senior adviser to the president for public engagement, overseeing the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Bottoms was one of the women under consideration to be tapped as Biden’s running mate in the summer of 2020 before Vice President Kamala Harris was ultimately selected. Bottoms announced last May that she would not seek a second term as mayor. Her new role in the White House was previously occupied by former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), another close Biden ally.

“Mayor Bottoms understands that democracy is about making government work for working families, for the people who are the backbone of this country,” Biden said in a statement. He went on to praise her handling of the coronavirus pandemic, mass protests against racial injustice and police brutality, and the shootings last March at three Atlanta-area spas that killed eight people, including six Asian women.

“Keisha is bright, honorable, tough and has the integrity required to represent our Administration to the American public,” Biden continued, adding that he and first lady Jill Biden “have known Keisha for a long time and look forward to working with her more closely.”

In addition to Bottoms’ appointment, Biden announced that Stuart Delery, who currently serves as deputy counsel to the president, will become assistant to the president and replace outgoing White House Counsel Dana Remus next month.

Biden said he was “immensely grateful” for Remus’ service, calling her as “an invaluable member of my senior staff” over the past three years who “helped reinstate a culture of adherence to the rule of law.” He added: “I wish her the best as she moves forward.”

Biden also announced that Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who currently serves as deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, will become senior adviser and assistant to the president while carrying on in her director role.

Biden said Delery’s and Rodriguez’s elevations represent “two historic promotions to our senior team,” and he described the pair of White House officials as “dedicated public servants that bring diverse perspectives and a shared commitment to tackling the critical issues our nation faces today.”

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton huddled with two dozen of his top donors Tuesday morning to describe his planning for a potential 2024 White House campaign, telling them a comeback bid by former President Donald Trump wouldn’t deter him from running.

During the meeting at the Hay-Adams hotel in Washington, which was described by two attendees, Cotton said he was prepared to run and detailed the work he’s done to develop an infrastructure for a national campaign. He emphasized that he wouldn’t defer to any other would-be candidates — including Trump — and said he planned to make a final decision on whether to run after this year’s midterm election.

The meeting provided a window into the 45-year-old Cotton’s deliberations about a prospective presidential bid. While the senator lacks the national profile of some other would-be candidates, such as Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his team made a case for why the Arkansas Republican should be considered a serious contender.

Brian Colas, Cotton’s top political adviser, delivered a 15-slide PowerPoint presentation which, among other things, mentioned that the senator and his advisers had studied dozens of past Republican presidential campaigns. They concluded that early national recognition and attention had little bearing on the eventual success of candidates.

What was determinative, Colas argued, was performance in Iowa and New Hampshire, which host the first two nominating contests.

Colas said that because Cotton ran unopposed for reelection in 2020, he was able to get a head start on developing a donor base and making outreach to activists in both states. He noted that Cotton had already made repeated trips to Iowa and New Hampshire — since 2020, he has gone to Iowa six times and to New Hampshire four times.

When Cotton rose to speak, he argued that he had developed appeal to the populist and establishment wings of the party, which he contended would serve him well in a primary.

The Cotton team also argued that they were in strong financial shape, noting that Cotton’s Senate campaign committee has $8 million that could immediately be transferred to a presidential effort, enough to sustain him through the early stages of a campaign.

The gathering is the latest move in an intensifying competition among potential candidates to court major donors, with the midterm election just months away.

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, for example, has established an allied super PAC that has drawn large contributions from the likes of tech giant Larry Ellison and Las Vegas billionaire Steve Wynn. DeSantis has been crisscrossing the country to raise money for his 2022 reelection bid, developing relationships with givers who could form the foundation of a financial network for a national campaign.

And former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley has set up a political action committee that has received checks from major donors like New York hedge fund manager Paul Singer.

Cotton’s gathering was attended by several prominent Republican strategists who have relationships with the senator, including Danny Diaz and Steven Law, the operative who oversees the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely aligned with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

A number of major GOP donors were also in attendance, including investors Jim Brennan, Paul Horvath and Kevin Dretzka, venture capitalist Thomas Lehrman, and attorney Keith Noreika.

Cotton has remained in touch with Trump since he left office in 2021. But the senator has broken from the former president several times: He voted to certify the 2020 election, and he has highlighted his opposition to Trump’s criminal justice reform efforts, calling it the biggest mistake of his presidency.

President Joe Biden is closing in on a new top scientist for his administration.

Arati Prabhakar, the head of the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from 2012 to 2017, is a frontrunner to lead the White House science office, according to three White House officials.

Biden spoke with Prabhakar recently about leading the Office of Science and Technology Policy. And a White House official confirmed that Prabhakar is currently “a leading contender for the President to nominate as OSTP Director and serve as his Science Advisor.”

The job, which Biden originally elevated to a cabinet level position, has not been officially filled since Eric Lander resigned in February after POLITICO reported that an internal White House investigation found he had bullied and demeaned subordinates. It’s unclear if Biden would restore the position to cabinet level.

Since Lander’s departure, Alondra Nelson has been performing the duties of OSTP director while former director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, has served as the president’s science adviser. After Lander’s departure, Nelson embarked on what some administration officials called an “apology tour” across departments and agencies to try to reset the relationship with the office and the rest of the administration.

Still, Prabhakar, if named to the post, would be entering an office that has mixed morale after the past several months.

The president has designated the science office to run point on the “cancer moonshot” initiative which remains a personal priority after the death of his son, Beau, from brain cancer in 2015.

Prabhakar was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the first woman to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology during the Clinton administration. Between then and her time in the Obama administration she worked in Silicon Valley. She is currently the CEO of Actuate which promotes itself as a “nonprofit organization, formed to contribute a fresh approach to society’s critical challenges.”

Actuate did not respond to a request for comment.

“Dr. Prabhakar was a fantastic DARPA director who led the agency at a critical time for our nation’s defense,” Ash Carter, the former Secretary of Defense, said in a statement. “She is a superb and forward-thinking leader who understands the innovation ecosystem throughout the country and the need to attract and retain new and diverse talent to America’s science and technology enterprise.”

President Joe Biden’s high-stakes Summit of the Americas was meant to reaffirm U.S. ties to its own neighborhood while tackling thorny issues of economic growth and migration. But one of the most important neighbors won’t be attending, raising substantial questions about the relevance of the gathering.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a key player to Biden’s plan, announced Monday that he will skip the summit, a boycott that could prompt other nations to follow suit. The move left White House officials scrambling to set the agenda, not to mention the guest list. And it cast doubt on the chances of success at a moment when a rise in migrants at the U.S. border has become a searing political flashpoint.

After Donald Trump antagonized much of the region during his presidency, Biden has expressed hopes of stabilizing the gathering of nations — which stretches from Canada in the north to Chile in the south – while also countering China’s growing influence in the region. But the challenges are growing.

López Obrador had served as ringleader of mostly leftist leaders pushing the U.S. to invite the autocratic nations of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the gathering, something the Biden administration has resisted because of political optics and their human rights records. And other leaders, including from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — the three main drivers of migration to the U.S. — previously indicated they’d also abstain from attending if those nations are not invited.

“The region is in serious economic distress, and its economic struggles are eroding support for democracy,” said Benjamin Gedan, acting director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program. “Biden’s election generated high expectations for U.S. reengagement in the region, and so far, most everyone has been disappointed.”

The summit, which begins today, is the ninth such gathering since the 1994 summit was held in Miami, the last time the U.S. hosted the event. But the backdrop of this gathering may prove more chaotic than those of the past.

López Obrador had hinted at a boycott for weeks, though many in the Biden administration didn’t expect him to follow through. Publicly, White House aides downplay the possible absences of Mexico and other nations following suit. But privately, there has been growing frustration within the West Wing that the back-and-forth soap opera over the guest list has been the defining – and only – breakthrough conversation about a summit overshadowed by recent headlines, including a spate of mass shootings, inflation and the war in Ukraine.

“There’s always questions about the invites, there’s always questions about who is coming and who is not, but we should also talk about and focus on what the purpose of this meeting is,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week. “I think if you’ve been following this administration for the past year and a half, one week is not the eleventh hour when it comes to how things move. And so that is a lifetime away for us as a White House.”

Mexico’s foreign minister will attend the summit instead, and López Obrador said Monday he intends to visit the White House next month.

The White House in the meantime has moved forward with its plans for the gathering. In total, 23 countries will be represented at the summit.

Biden will outline a cooperative economic vision for the region, as well as propose plans to tighten supply chains, particularly for medical supplies to prepare for future pandemics. He is expected to announce a food security plan and task Vice President Kamala Harris to lead a climate change partnership with Caribbean nations.

The main event will likely be the discussions on migration. Biden will stress that every nation – not just the U.S. and Mexico – has experienced irregular migration during the pandemic and will reveal a new plan emphasizing responsibility sharing and economic support throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Migration to the southern border has increased to its highest levels in decades within the past year, and officials warn that those trends are expected to continue even though pandemic-era restrictions have curtailed access to asylum.

Other priorities, per officials, will be creating a pathway for the region to transition to clean energy as well as move toward a more digital future. And, underscoring a Biden campaign theme, the White House will use the moment to advocate for the vitality of democracies in an effort to blunt the rise of autocratic governments.

But the push runs into some political realities, coming as Biden considers a meeting in Los Angeles with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a nationalist who has not committed to honoring the results of his nation’s election later this year if he were to lose. And despite nixing the presence of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, the White House is also in the planning stages of a possible meeting with Saudi Arabia’s autocratic leader later this summer.

Domestic factors will, of course, impact any of the foreign policies Biden tries to implement while in California. Beyond the fervor of migration, economic headwinds may make it difficult for the president to unveil significant trade deals, while the complicated politics inherent to Florida make it hard for Biden to adjust U.S. diplomacy toward a country like Cuba.

“Historically, the U.S. gets in trouble in Latin America when it is absent, negligent, not engaged. Problems fester and grow into crises,” said Bernard Aronson, a former assistant secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs and former U.S. special envoy to the Colombian peace process.

“It’s not too late, by any means,” Aronson continued, “but if you look at what Biden’s got on the plate elsewhere — an administration can only do two or three big things at a time. He’s got Ukraine, Iran, China, inflation. I don’t think he has a lot of bandwidth available given what’s on his plate.”

Electoral politics may also come into play. Once the summit gets underway, some of Biden’s fellow Democrats could turn on him — they already have over his recent limited relaxation of Cuba and Venezuela policies — in an effort to shore up their moderate backers.

And Biden administration officials are bracing themselves for leaders to use the platform to decry U.S. regional policies, perhaps even to the president’s face – while other leaders, of course, will make their protests known with their absence.

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden and his aides have grown increasingly frustrated by their inability to turn the tide against a cascade of challenges threatening to overwhelm the administration.

Soaring global inflation. Rising fuel prices. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A Supreme Court poised to take away a constitutional right. A potentially resurgent pandemic. A Congress too deadlocked to tackle sweeping gun safety legislation even amid an onslaught of mass shootings.

In crisis after crisis, the White House has found itself either limited or helpless in its efforts to combat the forces pummeling them. Morale inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is plummeting amid growing fears that the parallels to Jimmy Carter, another first-term Democrat plagued by soaring prices and a foreign policy morass, will stick.

“It’s something that has bedeviled quite a few previous presidents. Lots of things happen on your watch but it doesn’t mean there is a magic wand to fix it,” said Robert Gibbs, a press secretary under President Barack Obama. “The limits of the presidency are not well grasped. The responsibility of the president is greater than the tools he has to fix it.”

The West Wing believes there is still time for a course correction.

The plan is to put Biden on the road to highlight progress being made, even incrementally, in meeting the series of tests, with visits this week to California, where he will preside over a summit of Western Hemisphere allies, as well as New Mexico to push for his climate agenda. The administration will also set aside its reluctance to work with “a pariah” nation with hopes to spur oil production. And it plans to sharpen its attacks on Republicans, aiming to paint the GOP as out-of-touch with mainstream America on issues like gun safety and abortion, all while hoping the upcoming Jan. 6 congressional hearings will further color the party as too extremist and dangerous to return to power.

But first aides need to quell the finger-pointing that’s been erupting internally and the increasing concern over staff shakeups, according to five White House officials and Democrats close to the administration not authorized to publicly discuss internal conversations. They also increasingly are trying to soothe the greatest source of West Wing frustration, coming from behind the Resolute Desk.

The president has expressed exasperation that his poll numbers have sunk below those of Donald Trump, whom Biden routinely refers to in private as “the worst president” in history and an existential threat to the nation’s democracy.

Far more prone to salty language behind the scenes than popularly known, Biden also recently erupted over being kept out of the loop about the direness of the baby formula shortage that has gripped parts of the country, according to a White House staffer and a Democrat with knowledge of the conversation. He voiced his frustration in a series of phone calls to allies, his complaints triggered by heart-wrenching cable news coverage of young mothers crying in fear that they could not feed their children.

Biden didn’t want to be painted as slow to act on a problem affecting the working-class people with whom he closely identifies. Therefore, when aides convened a meeting with formula company executives, the president — against the advice of staffers — publicly declared it took weeks before details of the shortage had reached him, even though the whistleblower complaint that led to the shutdown of a major production facility was issued months ago. Some aides feared the moment made Biden look out of touch, especially after the CEOs in the very same meeting made clear that warnings of the shortage were known for some time.

Members of Biden’s inner circle, including first lady Jill Biden and the president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, have complained that West Wing staff has managed Biden with kid gloves, not putting him on the road more or allowing him to flash more of his genuine, relatable, albeit gaffe-prone self. One person close to the president pushed for more “let Biden be Biden” moments, with the president himself complaining he does not get to interact enough with voters. The White House has pointed to both security and Covid concerns in restricting the travel of the 79-year-old president.

“A lot of things are out of his control and we are frustrated and all Democrats — not just the White House but anyone with a platform — need to do a better of job of reminding Americans of how terrible it would be if Republicans take control,” said Adrienne Elrod, a senior aide on Biden’s transition team and aide to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Complicating the White House’s efforts to turn around the president’s midterm fate has been the exodus of staff from its communications shop: from press secretary Jen Psaki to several deputy press aides. Psaki’s successor, Karine Jean-Pierre, took the post with little experience, and allies were critical when, days later, the White House brought over her Pentagon counterpart, John Kirby to join the staff. Kirby has been a candidate for Jean-Pierre’s role but will serve on the national security team.

The staff drama hasn’t ended there. While Biden is undyingly loyal to his small inner circle of advisers, whispers in the building have built over whether the return of Anita Dunn — back to a senior adviser post — could portend her eventually succeeding Ron Klain as chief of staff.

With worries rising about the Democrats’ fate this November, the White House switched to more aggressive attacks on Republicans recently. Frustrated that the GOP has not been called to task for releasing few policy ideas of its own, Biden has gone hard after a tax plan put out by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). But those broadsides have gained little traction.

“The president is taking action to lower prices and fight the global rise in inflation, building on the unprecedented job creation and the manufacturing resurgence he has delivered,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates. “And he’s working with Congress to cut the deficit as well as many of the biggest costs families face, like energy and prescription drugs. He knows what families are going through and is moving to help them.”

But much of what the White House can accomplish is only around the edges. Biden has sounded the alarm about the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade and continues to push Congress to act on guns in the wake of the mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas. But he also signaled in his Thursday evening speech that he knows that Congress, at most, will pass small measures on firearms that will leave much of his party dissatisfied.

And while Biden has received high marks — even from some Republicans — for holding together an alliance to stand up to Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, voters this fall will likely care far more about some of the war’s aftershocks: its further strain on supply chains has only added to rising inflation and, most painfully for the White House, soaring gas prices.

For nearly a month, Biden and his inner circle have agonized over whether to make a trip to Saudi Arabia, a nation the president deemed a “pariah” after its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden, for a time, angrily rejected meeting with the crown prince, arguing the presidency “should stand for something,” according to two people with knowledge of his thinking.

But he has recently relented, recognizing a need to push Riyadh for more oil production. Still, the dates for the trip remain fluid, leaving some aides to wonder if the president will change his mind again.

Biden’s inner circle is well aware of recent presidential precedent. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both overcame a rough first midterms only to benefit from economic turnarounds and cruise to reelection. But George H.W. Bush and, especially, Carter were felled by shaky economies and rising inflation.

“[Carter] lost because of inflation and bad feelings about the economy and a sense that America was flailing and Biden is finding now that it’s hard to be a leader when other things are unraveling,” said Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian at Rice University. “He can’t just be a mourner-in-chief, he can’t just play defense. He needs to be on offense and convince Americans that, despite the challenges, better days are ahead.”

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were briefly evacuated from their Rehoboth Beach residence Saturday after a small plane mistakenly entered restricted airspace.

The president and the first lady were evacuated and are now back at their Delaware beach house with no threat apparent, according to the White House.

In a statement, the Secret Service said the aircraft was immediately escorted out of the restricted airspace while a preliminary investigation showed that the pilot was not on the proper radio channel or following flight guidance procedures. The Secret Service said they will be interviewing the pilot.

“A small private plane entered restricted airspace, all indications are by mistake, and precautionary measures were taken,” a White House official said. “There was no threat to the President or his family.”

The acquittal of the defendant in the highest-profile case brought by special counsel John Durham intensified calls for him to wrap up his investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe into Donald Trump’s Russia ties, but there are few signs that the Justice Department is pressuring Durham to pull the plug.

Durham’s semi-annual budget report released Friday showed that his office spent almost $2 million in the six-month period ending in March, down from about $2.36 million in the prior half year, including money federal agencies spent on Durham’s behalf.

Those amounts include some of the costs related to the false-statement case Durham brought against Democratic attorney Michael Sussmann, but don’t capture the cost of the two-week-plus trial last month that ended with a jury quickly acquitting the former federal prosecutor, who worked for both the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016.

“I certainly think it’s time for [Attorney General Merrick] Garland to circumscribe the Durham boondoggle both temporally and topically,” liberal legal scholar, Harvard professor Larry Tribe, told POLITICO. “The Durham roadshow has expended far too much of the taxpayers’ money with precious little to show for it and needs to be wound down in an orderly fashion. Enough already!” Conservative lawyer and prominent Trump critic George Conway also called for Durham to wrap it up.

“I hope it’s headed into the trash can because it should be. The Justice Department should put an end to this,” Conway said on MSNBC following the verdict, urging Garland to tell Durham the

investigation needs to end.

“As attorney general he [Garland] has under the regulations, he has the power to say that’s enough,” Conway added. “In fact, he has the obligation to do it if he thinks that Durham is on a

frolicking detour, which I think he is. I think the reason it hasn’t been done already was for the simple reason they didn’t want the political blowback of people saying: cover up, cover up.”

Even some supporters of Durham’s probe said Sussmann’s fast acquittal indicated that the long-time prosecutor misjudged the case.

“Everything just kind of fell apart,” former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said in a podcast recorded near the end of the trial. “The further we get into the trial, the more I can’t understand why Durham brought this case…I’m just really surprised especially with everything riding on his investigation and his final report that he would take a chance like this with a case like this….I just wonder if it was worth it.”

A National Review editorial called the prosecution “unwisely brought” and expressed concern that the courtroom defeat would distract from Durham’s broader findings about actions Democrats took to publicize the Trump-Russia allegations and about the FBI’s handling of those claims.

Justice Department spokespeople declined to comment on the future of Durham’s investigation, but Garland seems unlikely to dismiss Durham anytime soon.

For one thing, Durham has another, more-complex false statement case pending in Alexandria, Va. federal court against Russian-born foreign policy researcher Igor Danchenko. He’s accused

of repeatedly and intentionally feeding inaccurate information to the FBI about his role in a dossier about Trump a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, prepared for a research firm working for the Clinton campaign.

Danchenko, who has pleaded not guilty, isn’t scheduled to go to trial until October. Much of the evidence in his case is classified, necessitating protracted court hearings unless the case is dropped or Danchenko decides to cut a deal with prosecutors.

In theory, the case could be handed over to other prosecutors from Justice Department headquarters or the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria.

However, the idea of Garland simply booting Durham seems far-fetched. Even after the Sussmann case was filed, Garland publicly pledged to let Durham lay out his findings. “With respect to the report, I would like as much as possible to be made public,” Garland said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in October. “I have to be concerned about Privacy

Act concerns and classification, but other than that, the commitment is to provide a public report, yes.”

During the lead-up to Sussmann’s trial, his attorneys and others complained that the indictment in his case contained extraneous information that would never be admitted at trial and appeared

to be an effort to air claims that the Clinton campaign and various technology experts concocted the idea of computer links between Trump and Russia.

U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper declined to sanitize the indictment, but he neve showed it to the jury. Cooper, an appointee of President Barack Obama, ruled that the accuracy of the claims shouldn’t be debated at the trial, although the jury heard that the FBI was unable to establish any link and concluded that the so-called secret server communications were relatively innocuous “spam.”

The 39-page, five-count Danchenko indictment also includes colorful assertions that seem unlikely to ever go before a jury: like speculation among Danchenko associates about whether he

might be a Russian spy. Such detail is uncommon in federal criminal indictments. Some of the cases filed by special counsel Robert Mueller, especially ones against alleged Russian agents

unlikely to ever stand trial in the U.S., appeared to be efforts to lay out a public narrative about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

Asked at a news conference last December about whether Durham was subject to the same oversight as other Justice Department prosecutors, Garland didn’t answer directly.

“The regulations regarding the special counsel are pretty clear about what Mr. Durham does,” Garland said in response to a question from POLITICO. “I don’t want to say anything more

beyond what’s in the regulations, but we are following the regulations.”

Officials have also declined to detail who at Justice Department headquarters is overseeing Durham, but a senior career official in Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s office has served

as a point person on aspects of the Durham probe, a person familiar with the situation said. Whether Monaco herself has played a role in overseeing Durham is unclear.

The regulations, adopted in 1999 by Attorney General Janet Reno after the expiration of a widely-criticized independent counsel statute, seek to give a special counsel independence from

the department while retaining ultimate control for the attorney general.

The rules say Durham and any other special prosecutor “shall not be subject to the day-to-day supervision” of anyone at the Justice Department. However, the attorney general reserves the

right to veto “any investigative or prosecutorial step” if it “is so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.”

The regulations go on to say the special counsel’s views on any such matter must be given “greatweight” and that any rejection by the attorney general must be reported to Congress, although it

can wait until the special counsel’s final report is submitted.

Garland could change or revoke the special counsel regulations, but such a move would likely trigger a political firestorm and seems unlikely, especially with midterm elections just months

away.

What could trigger a showdown between Garland and Bill Barr is if Durham wants to bring a criminal case against someone new. At least two potential witnesses at Sussmann’s trial declined

to testify, saying they feared prosecution by Durham’s team. It’s not clear whether Durham is actively considering charging those people, especially since the events of the 2016 campaign are

now more than five years old.

Under the special counsel rules, sometime between July and September, Garland is supposed to make a decision about whether Durham’s probe should continue into another fiscal year. His work began in May 2019 at the request of Attorney General Bill Barr, who has said he was deeply suspicious about how the FBI’s probe of Trump got underway. In October 2020, Barr

quietly converted Durham into a special counsel, complicating any efforts to dismiss him or constrain his work. The change in status was announced after Trump lost the election.

Even as other some other conservatives dumped on Durham this week, Barr praised his endeavor and said the storytelling part of the probe is as significant as the outcome of any prosecutions

Durham brings.

“People have done, I think, a very good job trying to develop this case in the face of very strong headwinds. And part of this operation is to try to get the real story out,” Barr said on Fox News.

“And I think that Danchenko prosecution is going to further amplify these themes and the role that the FBI leadership played in this, which is increasingly looking fishy and inexplicable.”

Barr also counseled patience about Durham’s efforts.

“If you want the facts and want a report, that can be done fairly quickly,” the former attorney general told Fox’s Jesse Watters. “If you want scalps, that takes time.”

For just the third time in office, President Joe Biden gave a prime-time address to the nation on Thursday evening, speaking about what he called a “carnage” that had ravaged America’s youth and communities.

“For God’s sake,” he said at one point, noting that more kids than soldiers are killed by guns, “how much more carnage are we willing to accept?”

It was, at once, a call for action and the first true attempt by Biden to outline the specific proposals that he wanted to see enacted.

Speaking in the Cross Hall of the White House, with the long, red-carpeted hallway framed by two lines of flickering candles, Biden said that he was not calling for “taking anyone’s guns.” Nor, he added, was he “vilifying gun owners.” But he said the rights granted by the Second Amendment weren’t unlimited. He then outlined the limits he wanted.

Biden called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and, if such policies couldn’t be passed, the raising of the age that one could purchase an assault weapon from 18 to 21. He called for strengthening background checks, repealing the legal immunity that gun manufacturers enjoy, and codifying a ban on so-called ghost guns. And he called for addressing what he deemed the “mental health crisis” in America while expanding “red flag” laws.

“Why in God’s name should an ordinary citizen be able to purchase an assault weapon that holds 30-round magazines that lets mass shooters fire hundreds of bullets in minutes?” Biden said at one point.

Up until Thursday, the White House had kept strategic distance from the legislative negotiations spawned by back-to-back mass shootings, first in Buffalo, N.Y., then in Uvalde, Texas, and on Wednesday in Tulsa, Okla. In recent days officials have talked up their staffs’ phone calls with legislative leaders but have been careful to omit any mention of Biden’s possible involvement. They have downplayed the ability to take additional, meaningful executive steps that would evade the need for congressional input.

And while the president retains the bully pulpit as one of his few remaining tools, he and his aides have seemed, at times, reluctant to use it.

Biden gave remarks after traveling to Buffalo and grieved with the victim’s families there and in Texas. But his public utterances consisted largely of broad calls to address gun violence, not admonishments of those standing in the way or even specific legislative reforms he’d like to see. The appearances he has made since then have been muted and brief.

That changed on Thursday, too, as Biden specifically called out Senate Republicans for using the filibuster to prevent consideration of legislation.

“The fact that the majority of the Senate Republicans don’t want any of these proposals even to be debated or come up for a vote, I find unconscionable,” he proclaimed. It was a line his Democratic critics have longed to hear, though one that likely won’t change the realities in the Senate, where Republicans have shown no appetite to tackle far-reaching proposals that, they argue, would infringe on constitutionally-protected gun ownership.

For presidents, prime-time addresses are usually reserved for sober affairs. They mark national tragedies or shared, difficult moments for the nation. When they do celebrate triumphs, it’s often in the form of a breakthrough in some long, drawn-out struggle: the killing of Osama bin Laden, for example, or the bombing of a Syrian airfield in response to chemical attacks in that country.

Biden’s two previous prime-time addresses have fit this mold. He spoke on the one-year anniversary of the nation shutting down because of the Covid-19 pandemic, detailing the progress made in that fight and the sacrifices that have come with it. Later, he gave remarks to the public about the verdict of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was found guilty on all counts in the murder of George Floyd.

The shootings in Buffalo, on May 14, and in Texas, on May 24, mark a different type of inflection point for this president, though one he has past familiarity with. Biden played an integral role in shepherding gun policy reforms in the 1990s — the last time that Congress took major steps to curb access to firearms. He also, as vice president, was the Obama administration’s point man when it embarked on the task of pursuing its own reforms following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

But that latter effort ended in partial failure: a slew of executive actions not accompanied by legislative reforms, which failed to clear a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Biden, on Thursday, referenced that tragedy and others, including several prominent school shootings in recent years, to bemoan the absence of action and to demand that history not repeat itself once more.

“My fellow Americans, enough,” he said. “Enough. It’s time for each of us to do our part. It’s time to act. For the children we’ve lost, the children we can save, for the nation we love, let’s hear the call and the cry. Let’s meet the moment. Let us finally do something.”

President Joe Biden will deliver a special prime-time address on guns Thursday evening amid a slew of mass shootings and as negotiations continue on Capitol Hill to pass even modest changes to the nation’s laws.

The decision to give the speech was not made until midday Thursday, according to two people familiar with the president’s schedule, underscoring the sense inside the White House that they needed to show more involvement on the issue. The speech will be delivered at 7:30 p.m. The topic, per the White House, will be “the recent tragic mass shootings, and the need for Congress to act to pass commonsense laws to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is taking lives every day.”

To date, Biden has comforted the families of victims in separate trips to Buffalo, N.Y. and Uvalde, Texas, and he’s urged Congress to act. But the White House has stressed that they are leaving legislative discussions and congressional mechanics up to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and lead Democratic negotiator Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

On Wednesday, an official told POLITICO that Biden’s legislative affairs team has been in close contact with the Hill since the tragedies in Uvalde and Buffalo, logging dozens of calls with leadership, committees with jurisdiction, and with members who are involved in the negotiations. Biden also has vowed to meet in person with lawmakers, who are working on a scaled down bipartisan bill.

Biden has delivered relatively few prime-time addresses to date. Absent his speeches before joint sessions of Congress, he spoke to the nation last March to mark the one-year anniversary of the country shutting down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But the White House also is cognizant of leaving news vacuums over long weekends, with the president often appearing before the cameras on Fridays (especially those Fridays when jobs numbers are announced) or taking questions before he departs for weekend getaways.

Biden is set to leave Washington late Thursday afternoon for a long weekend at his beach home in Rehoboth, Del.