Most G.O.P. Senators Vote Against Holding Impeachment Trial for Trump - The New York Times

President Biden signed executive orders intended to promote racial equity.

Biden said his administration was nearing a deal with Pfizer and Moderna for 200 million more doses by summer’s end.

Janet Yellen, the first woman to be Treasury secretary, is sworn in by the first woman to be vice president.

Do you solemnly swear that all things appertaining to the trial, the impeachment of Donald John Trump, former president of the United States, now pending, you do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you God?” “All persons are commanded to keep silence on pain of imprisonment while the House of Representatives is exhibiting to the Senate of the United States an article of impeachment against Donald John Trump, former president of the United States.” “Mr President.

The senator from Kentucky.” “Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution says the president, vice president and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Article 1, Section 3, Clause 6 states, when the president of the United States is tried the chief justice shall preside.

As of noon last Wednesday, Donald Trump holds none of the positions listed in the Constitution.

Former President Trump committed, in the view of many, including myself, the gravest offense ever committed by a president of the United States.” “The Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment, is adjourned until Tuesday, February [9], at 1 p.m.

A majority of Republicans rallied on Tuesday against trying former President Donald J.

Trump committed impeachable offenses surrounding the deadly Capitol siege, had asserted that the former president “provoked” the mob, and had said he was undecided on the charge.

“My review of it has led me to conclude it is constitutional in recognizing impeachment is not solely about removing a president, it is also a matter of political consequence,” said Ms.

Grant’s secretary of war, hurried to the White House, where he tendered his resignation in tears just before Congress could act.

The pause will allow President Biden time to win confirmation of members of his administration and give Mr.

District Court for the Southern District of Texas on Tuesday issued a 14-day nationwide temporary restraining order sought by the state’s attorney general that would prevent carrying out the policy, which was issued by the Homeland Security Department within hours of President Biden’s inauguration.

Tipton, who was appointed by former President Donald J.

Trump, said in his ruling that the suspension of deportations would violate a provision of the immigration statute as well as another law that required agencies to provide a rational explanation for their policy decisions.

The judge determined that the Homeland Security Department had run afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act because it failed to supply adequate justification for the temporary suspension of deportations.

Biden began dismantling some of his predecessor’s initiatives that were intended to curb both legal and illegal immigration to the United States.

“The court’s order shows the uphill battle President Biden has in trying to reverse the prior administration’s immigration restrictions,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration lawyer and a professor at Cornell Law School.

Paxton called the plan a “complete abdication of the Department of Homeland Security’s obligation to enforce federal immigration law” that would “seriously and irreparably harm the State of Texas and its citizens.”.

The Biden administration said that the pause was intended to allow time for an internal review.

The moratorium would cover most immigrants who faced deportation, unless they had arrived in the United States after Nov.

“We’re confident that as the case proceeds, it will be clear that this measure was wholly appropriate in ordering a temporary pause to allow the agency to carefully review its policies, procedures and enforcement priorities — while allowing for a greater focus on threats to public safety and national security,” a White House spokesman said on Tuesday.

And that means we need to make the issue of racial equity not just an issue for any one department of government.

President Biden signed executive orders on Tuesday to end Justice Department contracts with private prisons and increase the government’s enforcement of a law meant to combat discrimination in the housing market, part of the new administration’s continued focus on racial equity.

Biden also signed orders that make it the federal government’s policy to “condemn and denounce” discrimination against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, who have faced harassment since the coronavirus pandemic spread from China to the United States and to strengthen relationships between the government and Native American tribes.

Biden said before signing the orders.

He added that “every branch of the White House and the federal government is going to be part of that effort.”.

The orders are an escalating repudiation of President Donald J.

Biden overturned a Trump administration ban on diversity training in federal agencies and disbanded a Trump-created historical commission that issued a report aiming to put a more positive spin on the nation’s founders, who were slaveholders.

In a conference call with reporters, a senior White House official described the Trump administration’s “heinous” Muslim ban and said certain minority groups were treated with a “profound level of disrespect from political leaders and the White House.”.

President Biden announced on Tuesday that his administration was nearing a deal with Pfizer and Moderna to secure an additional 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of the summer — a time frame that his predecessor had also envisioned, and one that may not accelerate the current pace of vaccination for months.

Biden said.

Biden said.

Pfizer had agreed last summer to provide an initial 100 million doses to the United States by the end of March.

Under a new agreement reached last month by the administration of former President Donald J.

Trump, Pfizer agreed to provide an additional 70 million doses by the end of June and another 30 million by the end of July, doubling the deliveries it promised in the initial contract.

Biden also said the federal government’s weekly allocations of coronavirus vaccines would increase by about 1.4 million doses starting next week.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, the chairman of the National Governors Association, said that New York, where more than 42,000 people have died, welcomed both the increase in doses and Mr.

6, acknowledging during a closed-door briefing that the department knew there was a “strong potential for violence” but failed to take adequate steps to prevent what she described as a “terrorist attack.”.

6, when thousands of angry protesters, believing false claims that the election had been stolen, marched on the Capitol at the behest of former President Donald J.

Speaking by video conference in a virtual briefing, Chief Pittman told the committee that the department “should have been more prepared for this attack,” according to the remarks.

Chief Pittman said that her department knew Jan.

She said her department knew that militia groups and white supremacists organizations would descend on Washington.

Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving senator and the president pro tempore, was briefly taken to a hospital in Washington for observation early Tuesday evening after he reported not feeling well, his spokesman said.

Leahy, whose position in the Senate puts him third in line for the presidency, oversaw the start of the impeachment proceedings against former President Donald J.

The Biden administration will restore diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority, more than two years after President Donald J.

The action signals a return to a more traditional and evenhanded approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after a Trump administration policy that was heavily slanted toward Israel.

ambassador to the United Nations, announced the shift in a speech on Tuesday.

The parties have all but ceased communications, Palestinian leaders summarily rejected a peace plan offered by the Trump White House last year and the issue is not among Mr.

Biden, and an end to the open hostility between Washington and the Palestinians fomented by the Trump administration.

Trump took an openly punitive approach toward the Palestinians with the goal of forcing them to make concessions to Israel, to little avail.

“This is exactly the type of swift action the administration needs to take to restore American credibility as a diplomatic mediator between Israelis and Palestinians,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a liberal advocacy group that supports an Israeli settlement with the Palestinians.

Mills said the Biden administration would “take steps to reopen diplomatic missions that were closed by the last U.S.

In addition to closing the Palestinian Mission in Washington in September 2018, the Trump administration also closed the United States Consulate in East Jerusalem.

President Biden called President Vladimir V.

Navalny as well as a host of other “malign actions by Russia,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said.

Biden struck a more confrontational tone — a sharp break from former President Donald J.

“President Biden made clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us or our allies,” according to a White House readout of the conversation.

Biden was asked at an event at the White House on Tuesday what Mr.

Trump and Mr.

The president, speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, said he was “very concerned” about Russia’s actions with regard to Mr.

Trump, who was often loath to utter a negative word about Mr.

Trump refused to condemn Russia.

Biden, a Kremlin critic who pressured President Barack Obama to arm Russia’s neighbors, immediately pointed the finger at Mr.

Biden said in a statement as Mr.

Biden addressed during a call with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg of NATO, officials said.

For four years, the failed diplomacy of the Trump administration weakened our alliances, strengthened and emboldened our adversaries and tarnished America’s reputation abroad.

Blinken as the nation’s 71st secretary of state, installing President Biden’s longtime adviser who has a mission to rejoin alliances that were fractured after four years of an “America First” foreign policy.

Blinken, 58, has already signaled he is prepared to roll back a number of State Department policies that were set under President Donald J.

Trump.

Trump “was right” to take a tougher tone against China, an overarching strategy that is certain to remain.

Blinken described a measured willingness to rejoin other world powers in an agreement, which the Trump administration had jettisoned, to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

He promised a harder line on Russian cyber hacks and election meddling — even as the Biden administration said it would work to extend an arms treaty with Moscow — and said he would review American policy toward North Korea, which he described as “a problem that has not gotten better.

Blinken inherits a State Department where many diplomats say they are demoralized within an agency made up of about 1,000 fewer employees than when he left as its deputy secretary in early 2017.

He and his wife, a former senior State Department official, have two very young children at home, and he will be the first secretary of state in modern times to be raising toddlers while serving in office.

Yellen was sworn in as the secretary of the Treasury Department on Tuesday by Vice President Kamala Harris, a history-making moment as both are the first women to hold two of the most powerful jobs in the United States government.

Standing outside the White House, Ms.

Yellen said on Twitter that she was proud to be joining the Treasury Department and described the field of economics, and the agency’s mission, as one that can “right past wrongs and improve people’s lives.”.

The new Treasury secretary said in the memo that she plans to soon embark on a “listening tour” of the department, holding virtual meetings with each office and bureau to learn about what can be improved at the agency.

The Treasury Department said that Ms.

The White House and lawmakers in Congress have begun the process of negotiating over President Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion relief bill.

I think this is a critical job of the commerce secretary as we continue to see the impacts of Covid on our economy.” “Commerce Department has a simple, but vital mission: to spur good-paying jobs, empower entrepreneurs to innovate and grow, and help American workers and businesses compete.

Raimondo, President Biden’s nominee to be the next commerce secretary, told lawmakers on Tuesday that she plans to help American communities bounce back from coronavirus, aggressively enforce trade rules to combat unfair practices from China and leverage the power of the government to mitigate climate change if confirmed to a cabinet post.

The Trump administration made heavy use of the department’s authorities to crack down on Chinese technology firms, turning often to the so-called entity list, which allows the United States to block companies from selling American products and technology to certain foreign firms without first obtaining a license.

Asked about the steel and aluminum tariffs levied on foreign countries by the Department of Commerce during the Trump administration, Governor Raimondo declined to say whether they would be removed or changed.

She said that the Biden administration would carry out a broad review of trade policies in consultation with its allies, aggressively pursue uncompetitive trade behaviors from China and ensure that the process that excludes certain companies from the tariffs is swift, fair and objective.

Biden said last year at a fund-raiser.

“Every defense secretary since Dick Cheney has come up here and said nice things and then the fight behind the scenes was to protect the status quo,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, who has spent years pushing legislation on the issue.

Justice Department officials said on Tuesday that the fast-moving federal investigation into the assault on the Capitol is expected to slow as investigators turn their attention to more complex matters such as conspiracy and sedition cases, the investigation into the death of Officer Brian D.

In the hours after supporters of President Donald J.

Trump engaged in a violent assault on the U.S.

The numerous arrests since the assault have overwhelmingly involved devoted Trump supporters and far-right adherents.

Last week, the Oregon Republican Party passed a resolution falsely claiming that there was “growing evidence that the violence at the Capitol was a ‘false flag’ operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters and all conservative Republicans.” Bill Currier, the chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, said in a video discussion that state party officials were working with counterparts across the country to “coordinate our messaging” around the Capitol attack, the response to it and the continuing efforts to impeach the president.

Larry Kudlow, the former CNBC star who served as director of President Donald J.

This is the first major television gig secured by a senior Trump aide who stayed in the White House until the president’s term ended last week.

Kudlow’s hiring is the latest example of the revolving door between Fox News and members of the Trump administration.

Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House press secretary, included an “employment agreement” with Fox News on a federally mandated disclosure form she filed earlier this month, signaling that she had landed a job at the cable channel.

Before joining the White House, Ms

Sanders joined the network as an on-air contributor shortly after she departed the Trump administration in 2019, but she and the network recently cut ties after she announced her candidacy for governor of Arkansas

The Biden administration announced this week that it would include an American Sign Language interpreter in its daily press briefings, a step that the previous administration avoided taking until a court ordered it to do so late last year

briefers at some White House events and meetings, Mr

Rosenblum said, but President Biden is the first to make it a fixture

“The president is committed to building an America that is more inclusive, more just and more accessible for every American, including Americans with disabilities and their families,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said during Monday’s briefing

Rosenblum’s advocacy group and five deaf Americans sued the Trump administration for holding briefings on the coronavirus without a sign language interpreter present, arguing that it was a violation of the First Amendment

A federal judge in Washington sided with the plaintiffs, and the Trump administration started including an interpreter in November

Of the nearly 240 pardons and commutations issued by President Donald J

Trump, only 25 came through the rigorous process for identifying and vetting worthy clemency petitions — an action overseen by the Justice Department, according to a tally kept partly by a former United States pardon attorney

Trump after the White House chief of staff called a well-connected Washington lobbyist who had been hired to lead his clemency push

Lawrence McCarroll, who is serving a 33-year sentence for a nonviolent drug offense, learned from his mother that the petition he had filed with the Justice Department and the letter he had sent to the president had failed to win him a commutation of the remaining six years of his sentence

Weinstein whose allies could afford to buy access to the highest levels of the administration, the results included pardons for people with direct personal relationships with the former president, such as his longtime adviser Roger J