The Nassau, Bahamas, courthouse where FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried appeared after his arrest on December 13, 2022

Photo by KRIS INGRAHAM/AFP via Getty Images

• A judge ordered Sam Bankman-Fried remanded to the Bahamas’ only prison on Tuesday.
• Fox Hill is known to be overcrowded and have unsanitary conditions, per human rights reports.
• Bankman-Fried appeared disappointed in court following the judge’s decision, according to reports.

Sam Bankman-Fried is headed to a harsh Bahamian prison after a magistrate judge on Tuesday ordered him remanded to custody until February and denied the former FTX CEO bail following his Monday arrest in the country on US fraud charges. 

Authorities in the Bahamas detained Bankman-Fried this week, acting on a request from US officials. A federal criminal indictment unveiled on Tuesday charged Bankman-Fried with multiple counts, including wire fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance violations, related to the collapse of one of the largest crypto exchanges earlier this year.

While he awaits extradition to the US, Bankman-Fried will spend time at the Bahamas’ only prison, the Fox Hill correctional facility, a notoriously overcrowded and unsanitary institution.

The rate of imprisonment in the Bahamas is one of the highest in the world, with 409 per 100,000 people detained in the country, according to a 2020 US State Department human rights report. The sheer number of Bahamian prisoners means Fox Hill is overpopulated, and conditions at the facility suffer as a result.

Inmates are supposed to get an hour outside each day, but understaffing and overcrowding means there are periods where prisoners may only see the sunlight for 30 minutes a week, Romona Farquharson, a local attorney, told The Wall Street Journal.

—The Chainsaw (@chainsawdotcom) December 13, 2022

 

Fox Hill has several different housing facilities, including a female block and sections with varying levels of security. Those serving short sentences for nonviolent crimes should, in theory, be kept in a separate part of the prison from those who are in for violent crimes, but space constraints and overcrowding have led some inmates who are merely awaiting a trial to be housed in the maximum security facility, Farquharson told The Journal.

A 2021 human rights report on the Bahamas by the US State Department revealed even more about Fox Hill. Inmates at the facility said they had to remove human waste by bucket and were prone to bed sores after being forced to lie on the hard ground for long periods of time.

The report cited infestations of rats, maggots, and insects in individual cells, which measure just six by ten feet in the maximum security block. As many as six inmates at a time can share the small cells which have no mattresses or toilet facilities, according to the report. 

Inmates were also subjected to poor nutrition, saying they lacked access to nutritional meals and sometimes faced long delays in between meals, according to the government report. Prisoners also said they have been denied prompt medical care, as well as access to psychological care while at Fox Hill.

Correctional guards failed to properly quarantine prisoners during COVID-19 outbreaks, the report said, and a 2003 Amnesty report on Fox Hill’s conditions found that the facility was prone to high rates of infectious diseases, including TB. 

Bankman-Fried appeared disappointed in court on Tuesday, according to Reuters, lowering his head and hugging his parents following the judge’s declaration that he posed a “great” flight risk. The judge ordered him to the correctional facility on the island, where he will initially be held in the medical department, a local official told the outlet. 

Bankman-Fried resigned from his role at FTX last month after the exchange filed for bankruptcy following a liquidity disaster. Officials have alleged that he duped investors and defrauded customers while at the helm of the company. 

Peru’s armed forces will take control of the “protection” of key infrastructure, its defense minister said Tuesday, as protests that have led to at least six deaths continue across the country following the ousting of its former president.

Peru’s new president, Dina Boluarte, had earlier in the day pledged to work with Congress to see if the next election could be held sooner than previously proposed and pleaded for calm. She also said she would speak with other regional leaders who came to the defense of jailed former President Pedro Castillo.

The former vice president was sworn in last Wednesday after Castillo illegally sought to dissolve Congress hours before being swiftly removed from office by lawmakers, and arrested shortly afterward.

The move has led to angry and sometimes violent protests by Castillo’s supporters demanding a fresh presidential election, which have been met by police dispersing tear gas and gunfire in an effort to quell the unrest.

Boluarte has already pledged to seek a way to hold the election slated for 2026 in April 2024.

“I’m arranging a meeting with the constitution committee (of the Congress) so that together we can shorten the timeframe,” she said, adding that she could not change the timing of the election without congressional support.

Castillo is being investigated over charges of rebellion and conspiracy. He lashed out over his detention on Tuesday, while also calling on soldiers and police to lay down their arms during a court appearance from a Lima prison.

“I’ve been unjustly and arbitrarily detained,” said Castillo, in remarks broadcast online by the court. He repeated that he was innocent of the charges he faces.

In posts on Twitter shortly afterwards, Castillo said there had been a “massacre of my people” and again called on the armed forces to end the bloodshed.

Peru’s Supreme Court later on Tuesday ruled a legal appeal from Castillo was baseless.

Among the victims from the social unrest are five teenagers and a 38-year-old man, according to the country’s ombudsman, which on Tuesday said six people had been killed during the protests, compared to a previous estimate of seven.

Some protesters have torched public buildings, attacked police stations and blocked highways while demanding Boluarte’s resignation, a new constitution and the dissolution of Congress.

In Lima, public schools closed on Tuesday, while at least one key court in the capital announced it would also close for the day after rocks were hurled at it on Monday.

Three airports, in Apurimac, Arequipa and the tourist hub of Cusco remained shuttered on Tuesday due to the unrest.

Police reported that there were highway blockades Tuesday morning in 13 of the country’s 24 regions.

In response to the disruptions, Defense Minister Alberto Otarola said Peru’s government would declare a state of emergency on the highway system to guarantee free transit.

The country’s armed forces were also charged with the “protection” of infrastructure including airports and hydroelectric plants, Otarola told journalists late Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a diplomatic spat played out between Peru’s new president and several leftist governments in the region, who came to Castillo’s defense in a joint statement on Monday. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said relations with Peru were now on hold.

Boluarte said she plans to talk with the leaders while also defending the arrest of her predecessor.

In a post on Twitter, Jaime Quito, a lawmaker with the Marxist Peru Libre party that Castillo rode to a narrow election victory last year, lambasted both Boluarte and the conservative-dominated Congress as engineers of a coup.

“They’ve declared war on the people,” he wrote.

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Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Gov. Ron DeSantis at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, on January 6, 2022.

Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

• DeSantis has asked for a grand jury to kick off a probe into life-saving COVID-19 shots.
• He used to promote the vaccines, but has become more skeptical over time. 
• The actions show a big contrast with Trump on pandemic policy. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis intensified his attacks on the COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday, in a move that positions the Republican governor to contrast his pandemic record with that of former President Donald Trump.

Speaking from a studio in West Palm Beach, DeSantis held a 90-minute roundtable with COVID vaccine skeptics and asked the Florida Supreme Court to set up a statewide grand jury to investigate “crimes and wrongdoing” related to the COVID-19 shots, weaponizing life-saving vaccines ahead of a potential fight with not just Trump but President Joe Biden.

Since 2020, DeSantis has made his pandemic policies a key political rallying cry. He bucked the advice of federal health officials to reopen schools and Florida businesses before most other states and banned both mask and vaccine mandates.

Should DeSantis decide to enter the 2024 presidential contest, the pandemic is one area where the governor could accentuate the differences between himself and Trump, whose administration launched the COVID-19 vaccines in record time. 

While the governor hasn’t directly criticized Trump or said whether he intends to pursue the presidency, DeSantis made his latest announcement geographically close to Mar-a-Lago, the oceanfront private club and estate where Trump lives in Palm Beach. 

DeSantis often holds major announcements at locations that carry subliminal messages. For instance, he has taken to publicly calling President Joe Biden “Brandon” in a nod to the anti-Biden chant “Let’s Go, Brandon,” and last year signed a bill in Brandon, Florida, when he banned workplace vaccine mandates. 

In contrast, Trump has been more forthright in attacking DeSantis. Soon after the election, Trump bashed DeSantis as disloyal to him because he’d endorsed the governor four years ago, helping him secure the GOP nomination.

He has called DeSantis “DeSanctiminious” and said that governors who don’t announce their vaccine status are “gutless.” Many news outlets interpreted the comment as a dig against DeSantis, who hasn’t shared whether he received a COVID-19 booster shot. 

It’s not clear whether Trump will lean into his success on the COVID-19 vaccine through his Operation Warp Speed program. Dr. Paul Offit, a leading infectious disease expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Trump should “take bows” over the vaccines, calling it “the greatest scientific and medical advance in my lifetime.”

Republicans shouldn’t “feel the need to distance themselves from it,” he said, adding that he didn’t understand why Trump didn’t brag about it more. 

“What I’ve come up with is that he’s a modest man who doesn’t like to put his name on things,” Offit joked of Trump, whose eponymous buildings decorate US city skylines. 

President Donald Trump reaches into his suit during a news conference where he prematurely declared victory in the election on November 4, 2020.

Evan Vucci/AP

DeSantis leads Trump in a new poll 

Several signs show Operation Warp Speed could become a liability to Trump. For instance, Republicans have a lower uptake of the vaccine than Democrats, and Trump supporters have booed when he has encouraged them to get the vaccine. 

Meanwhile, DeSantis is seen as one of Trump’s most formidable opponents in a hypothetical presidential matchup. In a USA Today-Suffolk University poll released Tuesday, DeSantis led Trump by 23 points among Republicans.

But if the governor does run for president he’ll need to contrast himself with Trump. News outlets, Democrats — and even many Republicans — frequently portray DeSantis as similar to Trump. 

Several GOP operatives see Trump’s pandemic policies as a possible area from which to attack Trump on the right, Insider first reported in September.

“Pushing back and ensuring accountability on anything COVID-related is a win for DeSantis,” GOP strategist John Thomas, who started a pro-DeSantis Super PAC, told Insider. “This issue also serves as a reminder to the American people that he made the right calls during COVID to fight back against lockdowns and vaccine mandates.” 

The Biden administration often bashes Trump on his pandemic policy. But while president, Trump initially shut down the US and his administration released guidance in support of wearing masks.

Steven Cheung, Trump’s campaign spokesperson, told Insider that Trump’s administration had “worked tirelessly” to secure medical equipment and that he allowed each state to determine what was best for its residents. He didn’t say anything about DeSantis in his response, instead accusing Biden of failing “to continue the Trump administration’s successes he inherited,” noting that more people died from COVID-19 under Biden than under Trump. 

“Operation Warp Speed was a once-in-a-lifetime initiative that gave people the option of utilizing therapeutics if they wished to do so,” he said.

Other Trump supporters criticized DeSantis directly. Alex Bruesewitz, CEO of political consulting firm X Strategies, panned DeSantis’ actions as “revisionist history.” 

“Facts be damned, this is exactly what to expect from career politicians looking to climb the political ladder,” he told Insider. “Ron DeSantis was Florida’s biggest vaccine advocate when it was ‘good’ PR, and now, as he tries to position himself for his next campaign, he is reinventing reality and hoping no one will notice. Typical unabashed political opportunism, but MAGA voters won’t be manipulated so easily.”

Then-President Donald Trump with then-Florida governor candidate Ron DeSantis at a July 2018 “Make America Great Again” rally in Tampa, Florida.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

DeSantis launched a new public health group

DeSantis did do events across Florida to encourage COVID vaccine uptake and prioritized older adults, though he later had vaccine skeptics appear at several events and offered health advice that clashed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For instance, the FDA and CDC have cleared the bivalent booster for those as young as 6 months of age depending on what COVID-19 vaccine a person has previously had. In contrast, Florida’s health agency has recommended against healthy children getting the shots at all. Countries including Denmark and Sweden have similar guidance. 

DeSantis plans to go further during his second term after being sworn in on January 3. The governor said Tuesday that he plans to push the state legislature to pass a law to block hospitals from taking medical licenses from doctors who speak out on COVID-19 mitigation practices. 

He is tasking Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo with starting a surveillance program with the University of Florida to investigate sudden deaths in people that received the COVID shot, and having Ladapo lead a “Public Health Integrity Committee.” The committee will issue guidance about COVID vaccines and other healthcare matters. 

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, is one of the committee members. Bhattacharya, who was attending the roundtable, has been in the news in the last few days after conservative journalist Bari Weiss revealed that Twitter diminished the visibility of his tweets because he opposed COVID lockdowns.

DeSantis gave some indications about the grand jury investigation on Tuesday. He called out CDC guidance that initially and incorrectly said people could not become infected with the coronavirus if they were vaccinated, and accused the government of downplaying vaccine side effects such as myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, in teens and young men.

“I think people want the truth and I think people want accountability,” DeSantis said. “You need a thorough investigation about what happened.”

He accused the pharmaceutical industry of potentially misleading on the vaccine, and said a grand jury would have “legal processes that will be able to get more information and to bring legal accountability with those who committed misconduct.” 

The DeSantis roundtable focused on Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines, and not the Johnson & Johnson vaccine which has shown in rare cases to be linked to an increase in blood clots. The scientists present at the roundtable repeatedly stressed that other, non-COVID vaccines should be considered safe. 

Moderna did not respond to Insider’s questions about DeSantis’ latest announcement. Sharon Castillo, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, defended the COVID-19 vaccines’ efficacy in an email to Insider, saying they’d saved “hundreds of thousands of lives” and “enabled people worldwide to go about their lives more freely.” 

The vaccines prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations and 3 million additional deaths, according to an estimate from the Commonwealth Fund.

Numerous regulatory agencies had authorized the vaccine after “robust and independent evaluation of the scientific data on quality, safety, and efficacy,” Castillo said, adding that real-world studies continue to show that the vaccines work to prevent severe illness. 

Offit, who has advised the CDC on vaccines, told Insider that he didn’t think DeSantis understood the regulatory process, adding that companies submit all their data to the Food and Drug Administration when they apply for approval. The CDC then goes on to make recommendations for who should get the shot, and outcomes from vaccines get tracked in several places — which is how scientists now know about the myocarditis and blood clotting side effects in some people.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Offit said. “His whole thing is that the data are being hidden, that you need this supervisory system to have integrity. The system has integrity.” 

Offit does, however, differ from the CDC in saying that, at this time, he does not see how the CDC data support encouraging young, healthy people to get another COVID-19 booster shot. Instead, boosters should go toward people at the highest risk of hospitalization, he said. 

DeSantis was asking a “fair question” about the booster for children, Offit said, but “when he makes false claims about safety he loses credibility.”

Rail operator CSX Corp is changing its workforce attendance policy for unexpected, short-term medical absences next year after U.S. railroads’ sick-time policies became a flashpoint in national labor talks.

CSX is among the railroads that used so-called points-based attendance policies to reduce unplanned absences. Under the long-established policies, workers are penalized with points for unscheduled absences, and risk being suspended or fired.

The scheme came under fire during the pandemic, when industry-wide job cuts meant to bolster profits left fewer workers to manage the COVID-related cargo surge.

Rail unions are protesting the lack of federal intervention on sick-time policies outside the U.S. Capitol and in cities around the country on Tuesday.

On Dec. 2, U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation that broke the impasse that could have halted shipments of food, fuel and medicine, stranded commuters and harmed the U.S. economy without making any changes to sick-time agreements.

When the pandemic struck and freight volumes surged, affected rail workers said those policies discouraged them from seeking medical care or taking time off to recover from illness.

Under the new policy effective Jan. 1, CSX said on Tuesday it will no longer assess points when an employee calls in sick shortly before a scheduled workday with an illness for which they saw a doctor.

CSX’s new attendance rules will be “non-disciplinary and non-punitive,” the company said in an email to Reuters.

Four of 12 unions involved in the latest railroad contract talks rejected a recently negotiated deal because it did not include any paid short-term sick days and failed to address the attendance points system used by CSX and the two largest U.S. railroads: Union Pacific (UNP.N) and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF (BRKa.N).

Under the new CSX policy, accrued points will expire on a rolling 12-month cycle rather than accumulate indefinitely, and employees will receive credit for working without an absence and can use those to expunge points. CSX said it does not apply points when employees miss work due to hospitalization or emergency treatment.

Clark Ballew, a former CSX track worker and communications director for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED) rail union, said the changes are a step in the right direction, but fall short of repairing damage from industry cost-cutting.

Union Pacific told Reuters it expects to start working with unions on quality of life issues in the coming weeks. BNSF did not immediately respond to questions regarding its policy on health-related absences.

On Friday, more than 70 lawmakers urged Biden to take executive action to guarantee rail workers paid sick days.

Meanwhile, Canada on Dec. 1 granted workers at railroads and other regulated workplaces at least 10 days of paid sick leave annually.

Canada’s two biggest freight railways, Canadian National Railway Co (CNR.TO) and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd (CP.TO), have about 10,000 employees in the United States. Collective bargaining with U.S. workers will determine sick-day requirements, the railways said.

A Bahamian judge denied FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried bail on Tuesday, hours after U.S. prosecutors accused the 30-year-old of misappropriating billions of dollars and violating campaign laws in what has been described as one of America’s biggest financial frauds.

The former CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange, dressed in a blue suit without a tie, lowered his head and hugged his parents after the judge said his risk of flight was too “great” and ordered that he be sent to a Bahamas correctional facility until Feb. 8.

The day’s events capped a stunning fall from grace in recent weeks for Bankman-Fried, who amassed a fortune valued over $20 billion as he rode a cryptocurrency boom to build FTX into one of the world’s largest exchanges before it abruptly collapsed this year.

In an indictment unsealed on Tuesday morning, U.S. prosecutors said Bankman-Fried had engaged in a scheme to defraud FTX’s customers by misappropriating their deposits to pay for expenses and debts and to make investments on behalf of his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC.

He also defrauded lenders to Alameda by providing false and misleading information about the hedge fund’s condition, and sought to disguise the money he had earned from committing wire fraud, prosecutors said.

They accused Bankman-Fried of using the stolen money to make “tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.”

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in New York said that the investigation was “ongoing” and “moving quickly.”

“While this is our first public announcement, it will not be our last,” he said.

Williams described the collapse as one of the “biggest financial frauds in American history.”

Prior to his arrest, Bankman-Fried, who founded FTX in 2019, was an unconventional figure who sported wild hair, t-shirts and shorts on panel appearances with statesmen like former U.S. President Bill Clinton. He became one of the largest Democratic donors, contributing $5.2 million to President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. Forbes pegged his net worth a year ago at $26.5 billion.

“You can commit fraud in shorts and t-shirts in the sun. That’s possible,” attorney Williams told reporters.

Bankman-Fried has previously apologized to customers and acknowledged oversight failings at FTX, but said he does not personally think he has any criminal liability.

He faces up to 115 years in prison if convicted on all eight counts, prosecutors said, though any sentence would depend on a range of factors.

Williams declined to say whether prosecutors would bring charges against other FTX executives and whether any FTX insiders were cooperating with the investigation.

Both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also filed suit on Tuesday.

The CFTC sued Bankman-Fried, Alameda and FTX, alleging fraud involving digital commodity assets.

Since at least May 2019, FTX raised more than $1.8 billion from equity investors in a years-long “brazen, multi-year scheme” in which Bankman-Fried concealed FTX was diverting customer funds to Alameda Research, the SEC alleged.

Tuesday’s court hearing in The Bahamas, where FTX is based and where Bankman-Fried was arrested at his gated community in the capital, marked his first in-person public appearance since the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse.

Bankman-Fried appeared relaxed when he arrived at the heavily guarded Bahamas court. He told the court he could fight extradition to the United States.

Bahamian prosecutors had asked that Bankman-Fried be denied bail if he fights extradition.

“Mr. Bankman-Fried is reviewing the charges with his legal team and considering all of his legal options,” his lawyer, Mark S. Cohen, said in an earlier statement.

Bankman-Fried is expected to appear in court again in the Bahamas on Feb. 8.

FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, leaving an estimated 1 million customers and other investors facing losses in the billions of dollars. The collapse reverberated across the crypto world and sent bitcoin and other digital assets plummeting.

Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX’s CEO the same day as the bankruptcy filing. FTX’s liquidity crunch came after he secretly used $10 billion in customer funds to support his proprietary trading firm Alameda, Reuters has reported. At least $1 billion in customer funds had vanished.

The collapse was one of a series of bankruptcies in the crypto industry this year as digital asset markets tumbled from 2021 peaks. A crypto exchange is a platform on which investors can trade digital tokens such as bitcoin.

FTX’s current CEO, John Ray, told lawmakers that FTX lost $8 billion of client money, saying the company showed “absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced, nonsophisticated individuals.”

As legal challenges mount, U.S. Congress is looking at crafting legislation to rein in the loosely regulated industry.

FTX has shared findings with the SEC and U.S. prosecutors, and is investigating whether Bankman-Fried’s parents were involved in the operation.

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From the first time we heard that he was coming into the DOJ cases, we knew that Jack Smith would be taking no prisoners. He’s also wasting no time. The Washington Post (and others) reported that Smith has issued a subpoena to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger among others. Smith wants to talk to election officials who received calls or other communications from Donald Trump about his attempts to overturn the election in the states he lost, including Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. WaPo reported that Nevada declined to comment on whether they have received anything from the DOJ. Raffensperger has already testified in Georgia’s grand jury investigation into whether Trump broke election laws in Georgia with his call to “find” votes for him in Georgia.

Smith has not subpoenaed the individuals but, instead, has subpoenaed records, though he obviously could ask these people to testify about their records. In his November 22, 2022 letter to the Milwaukee County Clerk Custodian of Records, he does say: “In lieu of personally appearing before the Grand Jury on the date indicated, you may comply with this grand jury subpoena by producing the requested records and documents to:” a special agent of the FBI. Accordingly, if they comply, they need not appear-yet. Washington Post reported that these are the first subpoenas issued by Smith, and everyone is staying mum about details, but the subpoena speaks for itself. It goes quite in depth about the records the special counsel is seeking. It is detailed, including naming names, and is specific as to the records it seeks: communications from or involving Donald Trump and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. It is clear that Smith is going for the proverbial jugular, which also means he is serious about this investigation. Requests such as this reveal the serious nature of Smith’s investigation and further show that he is indeed looking at criminal behavior by Trump. The deadline for production was Friday, December 9, 2022, so we may well hear more on this in the very near future.

As for Donald Trump, he has got to know that his days are numbered. If he doesn’t, he’s dumber than we thought. It is clear where Smith’s requests are leading him. He is looking at the fundraisers, the organizers, and the bullshit talking. All of that helped to rile up the thugs who vandalized the Capitol. Words have power; everyone knows that. Remember, it is not okay to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, and it was not okay to get these people riled up to the point that they felt the need to resort to violence. That is never okay, and those who did it should be punished.

The Trump criminal saga is far from over. Smith is reaching out to virtually everyone who had anything to do with subverting democracy, as he should. Trump and his allies were out of touch and out of bounds. It is past time to rein them in.

The post Special Counsel Jack Smith is on the case appeared first on Palmer Report.

The White House and Sen. Bernie Sanders clashed Tuesday in the run-up to a Senate vote on the war powers resolution, put forward by the Vermont independent, banning U.S. support for Saudi-led offensive operations in its war on Yemen. By the evening, Sanders had agreed to withdraw his resolution, saying on the Senate floor he would enter negotiations with the White House on compromise language.

“I’m not going to ask for a vote tonight,” Sanders concluded. “I look forward to working with the administration who is opposed to this resolution and see if we can come up with something that is strong and effective. If we do not, I will be back.”

If it had happened, the vote may have been close, as advocates believed they had five to eight Republicans lined up to vote yes. But getting back, as Sanders said, will be a challenge, as Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives in early January. A growing block of House Republicans have become resistant to U.S. military adventures overseas, but current House Republican leadership has been opposed to curtailing U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

On Tuesday morning, the White House privately circulated talking points making the case against the resolution, saying President Joe Biden’s aides would recommend a veto if it passed and that the administration was “strongly opposed” to it. The White House argued, in part, that a vote in favor is unnecessary because, significant hostilities have not yet resumed in Yemen despite a lapse in the ceasefire, and the vote would complicate diplomacy.

Sanders — leaving a rally in support of sick days for rail workers, at which he called on the White House to take executive action on their behalf — said that he was aware of the administration’s efforts. “I’m dealing with this as we speak,” he said in the early afternoon.

Pushed by the White House press corps, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre initially declined to comment on the administration’s posture toward the resolution, but when confronted with the confirmation by Sanders, she acknowledged the administration was pushing its preferred approach. “We’re in touch with members of Congress on this. Thanks to our diplomacy which remains ongoing and delicate, the violence over nine months has effectively stopped,” she said, adding that the administration was wary of upsetting that balance.

White House Press Secretary declines to comment on whether President Biden would veto Bernie Sanders’ Yemen war powers resolution following reporting by @ryangrim that the White House is urging Senators to vote against it: https://t.co/0yBrK4j42e pic.twitter.com/8WO1X65K0i

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) December 13, 2022

Jamal Benomar, formerly UN under-secretary general who served as special envoy for Yemen until 2015, was critical of the White House’s claim that it was engaged in diplomacy, much less that the war powers resolution would imperil that. “There’s been no diplomatic progress whatsoever,” he told The Intercept. “There’s been no political process, no negotiations, or even a prospect of them. So an all-out war can resume at any time.”

The administration’s opposition represents a reversal on the part of top Biden administration officials including Jake Sullivan, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Wendy Sherman, and Colin Kahl, who signed a letter in 2019 calling on Congress to override then-President Trump’s veto of the Yemen war powers resolution. Warning that the legislation represented “a constitutional matter facing Congress that may be unparalleled in its impact on millions of lives,” the letter argued that the war powers resolution would go beyond just alleviating Yemeni suffering and addressed a core constitutional question of checks and balances that affects all Americans. “The executive branch would be emboldened to launch and sustain unconstitutional wars” without the legislation, the letter said.

Jean-Pierre’s reasoning — that a peace resolution would actually mean war — aligns with the talking points distributed by the White House, which were obtained by the Intercept.

“The Administration strongly opposes the Yemen War Powers Resolution on a number of grounds, but the bottom line is that this resolution is unnecessary and would greatly complicate the intense and ongoing diplomacy to truly bring an end to the conflict,” the talking points read. “In 2019, diplomacy was absent and the war was raging. That is not the case now. Thanks to our diplomacy which remains ongoing and delicate, the violence over nearly nine months has effectively stopped.”

A coalition of antiwar groups, in dueling counterpoints that were also circulated privately and obtained by The Intercept, argued that the question of timing and delicacy did not militate against the resolution:

A UN-brokered truce in Yemen expired more than two months ago. The Saudis can resume airstrikes at any time. A previously announced end to U.S. “offensive support” did not prevent devastating and indiscriminate Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, which occurred as late as March 2022. Passing this legislation allows Congress to play a constructive role in the negotiation of an extension of the truce and a long-term peace.

“There’s been a lull in the fighting, but since there was no concerted effort to move the political process forward, the lull is a temporary one and all sides are preparing for the worst,” Benomar, the former UN under-secretary general said. He also warned that the situation is more volatile now than it was in the past and that subsequent fighting would likely be bloodier. “The situation is extremely fragile because Yemen has fragmented now and you have different areas of Yemen under the control of different warlords.”

Biden’s own Yemen envoy, Tim Lenderking, has warned that a failure to reach a new peace agreement would precipitate a “return to war.” While a UN-brokered six-month ceasefire was agreed to earlier this year, it ended on October 2. On Monday, the UNICEF warned that 2.2 million Yemeni children are malnourished, with over 11,000 children having been killed or maimed in the war.

The war began in 2015 under Saudi Arabia’s then-Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, pitting the richest country in the region against the poorest,. MBS, as he’s known, told former CIA Director John Brennan that the military operation, initially codenamed Operation Decisive Storm, would “finish off the Houthis in a couple of months,” according to Brennan’s memoir. “I looked at him with a rather blank stare and wondered to myself what he had been smoking,” Brennan recalled.

The White House also argued that the resolution should be rejected because it goes further than one passed in 2019. “I know that many of you supported a similar war powers resolution in 2019,” the talking points read. “But the circumstances now are significantly different. And the text of the resolution itself is also different.”

The text of the resolution may be different, the goal is the same, advocates of the resolution said:

This legislation reflects the latest developments in the conflict and its directives have been adopted by the House of Representatives for three years in a row. Its operative text was endorsed in 2019 by Jake Sullivan, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Robert Malley, Wendy Sherman, and Colin Kahl. While midair refueling ended as a result of previous votes on war powers resolutions, offensive Saudi bombings in Yemen continued, including for more than a year after the Executive Branch announced an end to “offensive” support. S.J.Res.56 bans any U.S. logistical involvement in offensive Saudi-led coalition strikes in Yemen. Such involvement is operationally essential for the bombings. It differs from previous legislation only in that it is tailored to end future operational U.S. involvement in offensive Saudi airstrikes, ensuring that they cannot resume without affirmative authorization from Congress.

The White House talking points do not explain how it is that withdrawing U.S. support for the Saudi-led war would upset the diplomatic balance, but the argument makes up the bulk of their case against the resolution, according to the talking point:

Here are the facts: The Yemen war was ongoing and escalating at the start of the Biden Administration through early this year. Hundreds were dying each month, the Yemeni people were experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe, and dozens of Houthi-launched missiles were flying at KSA.

That violence has effectively stopped for a period now going on nine months, in no small part due to the robust diplomatic efforts by the United States.

However, the situation is still fragile, and our diplomatic efforts are ongoing. The most intense diplomacy right now is directly between the Houthis and KSA, which is what we’ve always wanted — and they are making progress, but it’s far from done. A vote on this resolution risks undermining those efforts.

Some advocates say the White House’s opposition to the war powers resolution represents a gift to MBS, which could embolden him. “Despite the catastrophic failure of Biden’s fist bump approach with MbS and the Saudi government, it seems that while MBS gets more brutal and emboldened, the administration doubles down on protecting him,” said Abdullah Alaoudh, research director for Saudi Arabia and the UAE at Democracy in the Arab World Now, referring to Biden’s controversial meeting with MBS in Jeddah this summer. “Now, they protected him legally in US courts with a legal immunity request, protected him militarily with weapons and arms sales, and protected him politically with pressure on Congress to impede efforts to end the Yemen war.”

Biden, who in his campaign vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, more recently said that “there will be consequences” after Riyadh cut oil production shortly before midterm elections — consequences which have yet to materialize.

The resolution scrambled the partisan spectrum, with major players on both the right and left teaming up against the war. Advocates of the resolution said that Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was prepared to vote yes, and Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works, Concerned Veterans for America were pushing for a yes vote.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who serves as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the war, announced on Mehdi Hasan’s show Tuesday that he would be supporting the resolution, a major boost for supporters. (Late last year, Murphy supported a missile sale to Saudi Arabia to “defend” against the Houthis.)

Murphy specifically cited the resolution’s restrictions on U.S. maintenance of the Saudi bomber fleet, saying it was appropriate that this resolution goes beyond the previous one. “I just think it’s time,” he told Hasan. “The Saudis have not shown a level of seriousness in ending this war despite the misery that has been visited upon Yemenis.”

.@ChrisMurphyCT says he’ll be voting in favor of Bernie Sanders’ Yemen war powers resolution: “The Saudis have not shown a level of seriousness about ending this war…and the United States needs to just clear out.”

Catch his full convo w/ @mehdirhasan on @MSNBConPeacock. pic.twitter.com/yW2dNoRu1W

— The Mehdi Hasan Show (@MehdiHasanShow) December 13, 2022

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said during the day that he would be a no vote, and staffers for Sen. Dianne Feinstein indicated she would also vote no. She had been a yes on past years, though her Senate operation is known to be largely staff-driven at this point, which may change the calculus.

Finally, some administration allies made the argument that the resolution’s definition of hostilities could set some type of precedent that could hamper support for Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion, though the resolution is clear that it is limited to Yemen and only applies to offensive operations.

“The whole thing is just embarrassing for the Democrats,” said Dan Caldwell, vice president for foreign policy for the conservative group Stand Together, backed by the Koch organization, and a senior adviser to Concerned Veterans for America. “Even though this started under Obama, they were able to claim moral high ground on this issue during Trump. They just surrendered it again. The logical end of the Biden Administration argument is that you need to starve Yemeni children to support Ukraine.”

The coalition of groups backing the resolution said they expect Sanders to introduce the same language in the beginning of January, engage the administration in negotiations, but move forward alone if the White House continues in opposition.

The post Bernie Sanders Pulls Yemen War Powers Resolution Amid Opposition From White House appeared first on The Intercept.

Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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