The News & Guts Digest: a Serving of the Day’s Top News Stories with a Little Side of Commentary
Could It Really Get Worse?
The United Nations announced that over 1 million refugees – including 500,000 children – have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded last week. The U.N. warns that the mass exodus is quickly developing into “one of Europe’s largest refugee crises since the Second World War.”
…A meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Belarus ended on Thursday without a clear resolution, but both sides agreed to form “humanitarian corridors” that would allow for the inflow of critical supplies like food and medicine. Refugees could also use these corridors to escape…
…Video evidence suggests that Russian forces continue to target civilian neighborhoods, with a cluster of bombs falling near a pharmacy, a hospital and a series of apartment buildings in the northern city of Chernihiv on Thursday. Ukraine’s state emergencies agency said at least 33 civilians have been killed there.
… In the southeastern port city of Mariupol, Russian forces are close to toppling the local government. Mayor Vadym Boichenko said the city has been barraged with constant shelling over the past 24 hours and that food, water, and power supplies are dwindling. “The enemy occupying forces of the Russian Federation have done everything to block the exit of civilians from the city of half a million people,” he said.
… Multiple reports Wednesday indicated that another city in southern Ukraine, Kherson, has fallen to the Russians. At a Thursday press conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the occupation would only be temporary. “We will chase them away, with shame,” he said. “Every occupier must know they will not obtain anything here. They will not have anyone submit to them. Anywhere they enter they will be exterminated. They will have no rest. They will have no food. They will not have a single quiet minute.”
… Russian President Vladimir Putin called French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday. Macron’s office said the 90-minute call was full of lies and left the French leader thinking “the worst is yet to come.”
… The U.S. estimates that 90% of the more than 170,000 troops that Putin had amassed along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus have entered the country. The Russians have fired nearly 500 rockets into Ukraine since the invasion began, according to U.S. estimates…
…A Pentagon official told reporters on Thursday that Ukraine’s air defense systems remain intact. Zelensky urged the West to enforce a no-fly zone over his country. Absent that, Zelensky said, the West should provide fighter planes to Ukraine. “I say every day if you cannot shut the sky now, then give us the timeline when you will do it? If you now cannot provide the timeline, tell us how many people have to die?” Zelensky said at the press conference.
… Putin told his Security Council Thursday that the war was “going according to plan and in full compliance with the timetable.” He called his military campaign a “special operation” against “neo-Nazis.” (In Russia, media outlets are barred from using the words “war” or “invasion”.)
… The White House imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian elites, oligarchs and their family members on Thursday, stepping up the campaign to punish influential members of Putin’s corrupt regime. Biden explained: “The goal was to maximize the impact on Putin and Russia and minimize the harm on us and our allies and friends around the world. Our interest is in maintaining the strongest unified economic impact campaign on Putin in all history, and I think we’re well on the way to doing that.”
‘A Serpent in the Ear of the President of the United States’
Late Wednesday night, the House’s January 6th committee filed court documents in California indicating that their investigators have found ample evidence that former President Donald Trump and his associates “may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts” related to their attempts to overthrow the 2020 election.
…The filing was related to an effort to get conservative lawyer John Eastman to hand over email exchanges he had with the Trump White House, which he claims are privileged. But the Eastman angle is almost besides the point. As former federal prosecutor Elie Honig explained on CNN, the filing was a “call to action by the committee to the Department of Justice.”
…That’s because the House committee doesn’t have the power to file criminal charges against Trump (or anyone). However, it has already done serious investigative heavy lifting, including interviewing 500+ persons of interest and obtaining thousands of relevant documents. Therefore, it can provide the DOJ with a roadmap on how to charge the former president and his cronies. And laying out all the evidence in a court filing is a good way to begin exerting pressure on the DOJ…
… Much of Wednesday’s court filing was dedicated to documenting well-know events that led to January 6th. But the filing also includes a jaw-dropping email exchange that was written during the Capitol attack between Greg Jacob, a top lawyer for then-Vice President Mike Pence, and Eastman, who was advising Trump…
…Jacob told Eastman that the theory he concocted to justify delaying the certification of the election was ridiculous and that it helped foment the January 6th riot. Here’s the most remarkable part of the exchange:
“I have run down every legal trail placed before me to its conclusion, and I respectfully conclude that as a legal framework, it is a results-oriented position that you would never support if attempted by the opposition, and essentially entirely made up,” Jacob wrote Eastman. “And thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.”
Eastman responds: “The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so the American people can see for themselves what happened.”
Jacob follows-up: “The advice provided has, whether intended or not, functioned as a serpent in the ear of the President of the United States, the most powerful office in the entire world. And here we are.”
Another Breach in The Wall
Besides everyone, who could have seen this coming?
… The Washington Post obtained unpublished U.S. Customs and Border Protection maintenance records that indicate that Donald Trump’s infamous border wall along the Southern border is breached multiple times a day. In fact, the CBP has spent $2.6 million over the past three years repairing 3,272 different breaches.
… Cutting through the steel wall is far from rocket science. Smugglers use “tools widely available at retail hardware stores” and cover themselves with blankets to hide sparks and obscure noise…
… By simply walking along sections of the border wall, The Post discovered multiple spots that had clearly been repaired. Reporter Nick Miroff also spotted peeling paint. (Trump insisted that the wall be painted black even after advisors warned him that would increase maintenance issues.)
Also Churning This News Cycle
… “Through the Cold War and the decades since, nothing could persuade Finns and Swedes that they would be better off joining NATO — until now. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has profoundly changed Europe’s security outlook, including for Nordic neutrals Finland and Sweden, where support for joining NATO has surged to record levels,” reports The Associated Press.
… “Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma have reached a deal with U.S. states to pay as much as $6 billion in cash to end widespread litigation against the OxyContin maker over its role in the nation’s opioid epidemic,” reports Axios.
… “French authorities have seized four cargo vessels and one luxury yacht linked to Russian oligarchs as governments around the world on Thursday ramped up pressure on Russia’s super-rich over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine,” reports Reuters.
