President Biden Administration Has Big Week Headlined by Foreign Policy

U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday released a report with the most direct official statement to date indicating that the Donald Trump campaign cooperated directly in Russia's 2016 efforts against Hillary Clinton. According to the New York Times, the report established for the first time that private meetings and communications between the campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and their business associate Konstatin Kilimnik were a direct pipeline from the campaign to Russian spies at a time when the Kremlin was engaged in a covert effort to sabotage the 2016 presidential election. Previous government investigations identified  Kilimnik as a Russian intelligence operative. Manafort’s decision to provide Kilimnik with internal polling data was one of the mysteries that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, sought to unravel during his two-year investigation into Russia’s election meddling. (See the full Times article here.)

• announced plans to expel 10 Russian diplomats and impose sanctions against several dozen people and companies, holding the Kremlin accountable for interference in the 2020 presidential election and the hacking of federal agencies.
• agreed to lift Trump's historically low caps on refugee resettlement by May.
• hosted Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga at the White House on Friday for his first in-person meeting with a foreign leader. The meeting focused on tightening bonds with Japan as part of larger efforts to confront China.
• unveiled an initial set of executive actions on gun control, including new investments in intervention programs in violence-prone communities. He is directing his administration to tighten restrictions on so-called ghost guns and pistol stabilizing braces that allow weapons to be used more accurately. Biden also called on Congress to take steps on gun reform legislation, including re-enacting an assault weapons ban in the wake of last month's mass shootings.

Richard Poole

News Content by James Cummings

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