Senior Democrats have accused Donald Trump’s administration of giving a green light to violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, warning that its policies created “a climate of impunity and unbridled violence” that endangers both Palestinians and US citizens.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, a group of 19 Democratic senators and representatives call for the restoration of sanctions against extremist settlers and demand independent US investigations into the deaths of nine US citizens killed in the West Bank since 2022.
The letter, signed by Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren among others, is addressed to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary.
It argues that Trump’s promise last year that “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank” has been undermined by events on the ground. “In practice,” the Democrats write, “violent settlers and the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government have proceeded to rapidly extend Israeli control over civilian populations in the region.”
More here:
Katie Miller, an erstwhile Trump administration official and wife of Stephen Miller, once relied on Dr Anthony Fauci to get through Covid. Now, she’s calling for his imprisonment – a reversal that illuminates the politicization of Fauci and of public health writ large, a trend that could have major repercussions for America’s preparedness for future crises.
A US Senate committee will vote on Thursday morning over whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after the physician and former public health official invoked his fifth amendment rights during a Senate hearing last week focused on Fauci’s actions during the Covid pandemic.
The invocation of the worst days of the Covid pandemic come as midterms loom and the administration struggles to address several infectious outbreaks, including cyclosporiasis and Ebola.
Rand Paul, a senator, released contemporaneous notes that Fauci took during his time in public office, which Paul called Fauci’s diary, that reveal the confusion and fear of the time and illuminate the private episodes of a man who became known as America’s doctor.
“By focusing entirely on one human being and by calling him all sorts of names, including ‘evil’, and by calling for him to be jailed, it abdicates Republicans’ own responsibility in the US response to the pandemic, which was under President Trump,” said Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University. “I think that this is all aimed at riling up the base ahead of the midterms and at washing their hands of any culpability themselves in the mass death event of Covid.”
And it comes after substantial cuts to the public health infrastructure; misinformation has spread at the highest levels of the government, and growing outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, cyclosporiasis, Ebola, and more.
“This is an extraordinarily good way to distract people from the very deliberate destruction of the US public health system,” Yamey said.
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
The Senate is expected to vote today on whether to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Fauci, a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the Covid-19 pandemic, had invoked the fifth amendment and refused to answer questions at a high-profile Senate committee hearing on the origins of Covid-19.
The hearing had been called by Republican senator Rand Paul, who has investigated Fauci for years – and who Fauci accused of having an “unhinged obsession” with him. Ahead of the hearing, Paul released what he described as Fauci’s “diary”, in which he described Trump as “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Robert F Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services has also provided a copy of Fauci’s phone to the Republican-led Senate panel. Kennedy had written a conspiratorial book attacking Fauci in 2021 that sold more than a million copies – thanks in part to blurbs from fellow non-scientists Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Alan Dershowitz and Tony Robbins.
Scientists and Democrats have rallied behind Fauci, with a group of 155 scientists signing an open letter calling for the government to stop the “vilification and harassment of many American scientists”.
“This is only going to deter other scientific experts from public service,” Gary Peters, a Democratic senator of Michigan, said.
More to come.
Key events
- 17m agoTop Democrats accuse Trump officials over Israeli settlers’ ‘unbridled violence’
- 38m agoWhy making Anthony Fauci the enemy will harm US public health for years
- 1h agoSenators set to vote on holding Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress
Top Democrats accuse Trump officials over Israeli settlers’ ‘unbridled violence’
David Smith
Senior Democrats have accused Donald Trump’s administration of giving a green light to violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, warning that its policies created “a climate of impunity and unbridled violence” that endangers both Palestinians and US citizens.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, a group of 19 Democratic senators and representatives call for the restoration of sanctions against extremist settlers and demand independent US investigations into the deaths of nine US citizens killed in the West Bank since 2022.
The letter, signed by Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren among others, is addressed to Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary.
It argues that Trump’s promise last year that “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank” has been undermined by events on the ground. “In practice,” the Democrats write, “violent settlers and the [Benjamin] Netanyahu government have proceeded to rapidly extend Israeli control over civilian populations in the region.”
More here:
Why making Anthony Fauci the enemy will harm US public health for years
Melody Schreiber
Katie Miller, an erstwhile Trump administration official and wife of Stephen Miller, once relied on Dr Anthony Fauci to get through Covid. Now, she’s calling for his imprisonment – a reversal that illuminates the politicization of Fauci and of public health writ large, a trend that could have major repercussions for America’s preparedness for future crises.
A US Senate committee will vote on Thursday morning over whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after the physician and former public health official invoked his fifth amendment rights during a Senate hearing last week focused on Fauci’s actions during the Covid pandemic.
The invocation of the worst days of the Covid pandemic come as midterms loom and the administration struggles to address several infectious outbreaks, including cyclosporiasis and Ebola.
Rand Paul, a senator, released contemporaneous notes that Fauci took during his time in public office, which Paul called Fauci’s diary, that reveal the confusion and fear of the time and illuminate the private episodes of a man who became known as America’s doctor.
“By focusing entirely on one human being and by calling him all sorts of names, including ‘evil’, and by calling for him to be jailed, it abdicates Republicans’ own responsibility in the US response to the pandemic, which was under President Trump,” said Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University. “I think that this is all aimed at riling up the base ahead of the midterms and at washing their hands of any culpability themselves in the mass death event of Covid.”
And it comes after substantial cuts to the public health infrastructure; misinformation has spread at the highest levels of the government, and growing outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, cyclosporiasis, Ebola, and more.
“This is an extraordinarily good way to distract people from the very deliberate destruction of the US public health system,” Yamey said.
Senators set to vote on holding Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
The Senate is expected to vote today on whether to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Fauci, a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the Covid-19 pandemic, had invoked the fifth amendment and refused to answer questions at a high-profile Senate committee hearing on the origins of Covid-19.
The hearing had been called by Republican senator Rand Paul, who has investigated Fauci for years – and who Fauci accused of having an “unhinged obsession” with him. Ahead of the hearing, Paul released what he described as Fauci’s “diary”, in which he described Trump as “rambling”, “crazy”, “desperate”, “bumbling”, “incompetent”, “an idiot”, “a true embarrassment”, “totally nuts” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent”.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Robert F Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services has also provided a copy of Fauci’s phone to the Republican-led Senate panel. Kennedy had written a conspiratorial book attacking Fauci in 2021 that sold more than a million copies – thanks in part to blurbs from fellow non-scientists Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Alan Dershowitz and Tony Robbins.
Scientists and Democrats have rallied behind Fauci, with a group of 155 scientists signing an open letter calling for the government to stop the “vilification and harassment of many American scientists”.
“This is only going to deter other scientific experts from public service,” Gary Peters, a Democratic senator of Michigan, said.
More to come.
Source note
First published by The Guardian World
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Read the original at The Guardian World