President Trump will address the nation about the “terrible ordeal” of impeachment and his acquittal on Thursday at noon.
Trump to address nation after acquittal
The president announced he will address the nation at noon on Thursday from the East Room of the White House to discuss his acquittal. Earlier this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast—normally a friendly, bipartisan event—Trump took aim at his political opponents. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the lone Republican to vote to remove him from office, were in attendance.) “As everybody knows, my family, our great country and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people they have done everything possible to destroy us and by so doing very badly hurt our nation,” the president said. “They know what they are doing is wrong, but they put themselves far ahead of our great country.
Impeachment backlash has already begun
Hours after the Senate voted to acquit Donald Trump in the presidential impeachment trial, Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson announced they would be investigating “potential conflicts of interest” in business Hunter Biden conducted while his father was vice president of the United States. Grassley and Johnson appear to be focused on whether the younger Biden used state resources on personal business trips during that time.
We still don’t have the final Iowa Caucus results
On Wednesday, the Iowa Democratic Party released more results from Monday night’s caucuses: With 97% of precincts reporting, Pete Buttigieg now has 26.2% of state delegate equivalents to Bernie Sanders’ 26.1%, while Sanders leads the popular vote with 26.5% compared to Buttigieg’s 25%. A New York Times analysis, however, found the results “were riddled with inconsistencies and other flaws.” Party officials in Iowa also said that droves of callers expressing support for Trump overwhelmed the telephone hotline system precinct chairs were supposed to use to send in results when the mobile app built for reporting malfunctioned.
Federal government slaps New Yorkers with ban on global entry program
New Yorkers will no longer be able to access Trusted Traveler programs such as global entry, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday, due to the state’s refusal to help deport immigrants. New York passed the “Green Light Law” in late 2019 that allowed undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses without reporting their status to immigration officials. Global entry allows pre-vetted travelers a speedier clearance through customs when they enter the U.S. New York’s participation in three other traveler programs were also affected, in a move former acting ICE Director John Sandweg called “irrational” and “ridiculous.”
Emiene Wright Emiene Wright is associate editor at Cardinal & PIne. Before that she was on the 24-hour news desk of the Miami Herald and the Detroit Free Press, and her writing has been featured in Crisis, the Charlotte Observer, and Our State magazine.
