Still ‘no consensus’ on Covid’s origins, White House says

The U.S. government still has not reached a consensus on how the coronavirus pandemic started, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday — despite news reports that the Energy Department has concluded the virus most likely leaked from a lab in China.

"The intelligence community and the rest of the government is still looking at this,” Kirby said. “There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say — nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here. What the president wants is facts."

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the department had reached a “low confidence” conclusion supporting the so-called lab leak theory in a classified finding shared with the White House and members of Congress. Kirby would not confirm or deny the report, saying he is “not going to get ahead” of the U.S. government’s investigation.

The reported DOE finding gave new life to arguments from GOP lawmakers who have claimed, without evidence, that federal officials have covered up the origins of the virus that has killed more than a million Americans. Other agencies have said evidence points to the virus arising naturally in China before being transmitted to humans.

The Energy Department declined Monday to comment on the article, saying through a spokesperson: "The Department of Energy continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed."

During an interview Sunday with CNN, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said a “variety of views" exist within the intelligence community about how Covid began.

The investigation is a full government effort and not led by one agency, Kirby said. He added that President Joe Biden has been regularly informed of what agencies have found regarding coronavirus origins.

“The president made trying to find the origins of Covid a priority right when he came into office and he has a whole government effort designed to do that,” Kirby said during a White House press briefing Monday. “There is not a consensus right now in the U.S. government about exactly how Covid started.”

"The president wants to understand that, so we can prevent better future pandemics,” Kirby added.

When the information is available, the administration will brief Congress and the American people, he said.

Staff writers Robin Bravender and Brian Dabbs contributed to this report.

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Buttigieg ‘glad’ for federal audit on his use of government planes

The inspector general that oversees the Transportation Department is auditing Pete Buttigieg's use of government planes since becoming Transportation secretary — a move Buttigieg says he welcomes to help blunt what he called "misleading narratives" from conservatives about whether he abuses them.

"Glad this will be reviewed independently so misleading narratives can be put to rest," Buttigieg tweeted. "Bottom line: I mostly fly on commercial flights, in economy class. And when I do use our agency’s aircraft, it’s usually a situation where doing so saves taxpayer money." DOT spokesperson Kerry Arndt added that Buttigieg "flies commercially the vast majority of the time."

The Transportation Department's inspector general announced on Monday that it will audit his travel; the news was first reported by the Washington Post. The IG probe stems from a Fox News article in December outlining that Buttigieg had used planes owned by the Federal Aviation Administration 18 times since taking office, a practice Buttigieg has defended. A spokesperson at that time told Fox News Digital that 108 of the 126 flights he had taken on official business had been via commercial airplanes.

DOT said in December that the 18 flights Fox News highlighted — to destinations that included Las Vegas, Montreal and Oklahoma — cost taxpayers just under $42,000. The audit was originally requested by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) who has since called for Buttigieg's resignation over his handling of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Any government official can use the fleet, if they can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the agency's ethics department that the flights will be more cost-effective than flying commercial, or for security or scheduling reasons. FEMA officials and National Transportation Safety Board accident investigators are typically frequent users of the planes, and it is not unusual for top DOT and FAA officials, as well as the heads of other agencies, to use them when warranted.

In 2018, POLITICO reported that former DOT Secretary Elaine Chao took the same FAA-owned planes on seven trips, costing taxpayers an estimated $93,977, including a $68,892 trip to and around Europe for her and five staffers.

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Feds looking to block $13 billion mortgage software deal

The Federal Trade Commission is expected to challenge the $13 billion takeover of mortgage data company Black Knight by financial services giant Intercontinental Exchange, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

A case is expected to be filed some time in March, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss a confidential matter. The FTC believes the deal would give Intercontinental Exchange, which also owns the NYSE, too much power in the multi-trillion dollar U.S. mortgage market, and come at the expense of both higher home prices for consumers and competitors in the mortgage data and services industry, the people said.

The FTC has been investigating the deal since shortly after it was announced nearly a year ago and if the companies choose to defend against a possible lawsuit, it could potentially delay the deal’s close into 2024. The timing of a lawsuit could slip and no decision is final until a case has been filed, the people said.

A lawsuit would also be the latest volley from President Joe Biden’s antitrust enforcers, FTC Chair Lina Khan and Assistant Attorney General for antitrust Jonathan Kanter, who have both pledged to rein in corporate consolidation. The FTC is currently challenging deals including Microsoft’s takeover of video game giant Activision Blizzard, and the DOJ is likely to challenge JetBlue’s takeover of Spirit Airlines.

ICE founder and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher is a major GOP donor. His wife is former Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

Spokespeople for ICE and Black Knight declined to comment. An FTC spokesperson declined to comment.

The ICE-Black Knight merger would bring together the two largest companies offering loan origination software, essentially the pipe connecting brokers with lenders. The companies have offered to sell Black Knight’s loan origination platform Empower, to resolve the so-called horizontal overlap between the companies, one of the people said. That is not enough, however, to allay the FTC’s concerns that the merger would give the combined company too much control over data and technology in the residential mortgage market, that person said.

The FTC believes that just selling Empower though does not curtail all of the head-to-head competition between the companies, two of the people said. Both companies offer a variety of services that operate with the loan origination platform, including the data analytics business Optimal Blue.

Reuters previously reported that Black Knight had hired bankers to help sell Empower.

ICE, which operates major financial exchanges and clearinghouses, has expanded into the mortgage market in recent years. It recently acquired Encompass, its loan origination offering, through its $11 billion purchase of mortgage software company Ellie Mae in 2020. And in 2018 it completed its buyout of Merscorp, which operates a national electronic registry of U.S. mortgages.

In 2019 and 2020, Black Knight bought a pair of companies — Compass Analytics and Optimal Blue — that provide a variety of data and analytics services to lenders to help them price loans. Through those deals it has a leading position in the software used by banks to price loans.

Companies including the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as financial technology start-ups like Roostify and Blend rely on the loan origination platforms from Black Knight and ICE.

In another example of the rapidly consolidating mortgage technology market, Roostify was bought last week by CoreLogic, which itself fended off an earlier takeover bid by Black Knight.

“We depend on the interoperability of our platform across third-party applications and services that we do not control,” Blend says in securities filings. While it does not mention either Black Knight or ICE by name, it says it relies on loan origination and pricing tools that the combined company would dominate.

The companies’ Surefire and Velocify services also compete head-to-head in the marketing of mortgage services from lenders.

The deal has faced opposition from lawmakers, consumer groups, customers and competitors, with FTC hearing a number of concerns from companies who rely on Black Knight and ICE that their access will either be lost or degraded after the merger, two of the people said.

The deal “would make ICE the largest mortgage services company in the housing ecosystem” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. The new company “could exert significant market power over loan pricing for consumers, access to and sale of consumer data, and mortgage software pricing,” she said in a late December letter to Khan urging the FTC to block the deal.

Federal Financial Analytics managing partner Karen Petrou urged the FTC to block the acquisition in an early February report, arguing that combining ICE’s “critical mortgage services” with Black Knight would give it “unrivaled power to control the prices set on each mortgage, the terms on which credit is provided, the lenders offered the most advantageous terms, and the extent to which home ownership is available on affordable, equitable terms in rural, urban and majority-minority communities.”

That report outlining Petrou’s case was funded by an anonymous company opposing the deal, but Federal Financial Analytics said it had complete control over the final product.

Zachary Warmbrodt contributed to this report.

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DeSantis appoints political backers to new Disney oversight board

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday appointed members to a new board that oversees much of Disney World’s day-to-day operations, settling a long-running conflict with the entertainment giant over Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

DeSantis announced the five appointees, all political donors and loyalists, at a ceremony where he signed legislation that, in large part, creates a board to run the special district that previously granted Disney a wide range of freedom to self-govern. Florida’s GOP-dominated Legislature approved the bill during a special session earlier this month.

“There is a new sheriff in town and accountability will be the order of the day,” DeSantis said at a press conference in the special district in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Disney has already said publicly it is not planning a legal challenge to the DeSantis-championed legislation, which also stripped the company of its ability to operate its own airport or nuclear power plant — authority it has never used.

It’s the end of a nearly yearlong political fight after DeSantis called a special session in April 2022 to do away with the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the name of the special district that gave Disney self-governing status, after the entertainment giant issued a statement opposing legislation that banned the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms up until third grade. The bill was prominently referred to as “Don’t Say Gay.”

The most prominent name DeSantis appointed Monday to the board of the district, which the new law renames the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, is Bridget Ziegler, a conservative education activist who was a major backer of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. She is also a DeSantis-endorsed Sarasota County School Board member and co-founder of “Mom’s for Liberty,” a group that helps train and recruit conservatives to run for school boards.

Her husband, Christian, was recently elected chair of the Republican Party of Florida.

DeSantis picked Tampa attorney Martin Garcia to serve as the board’s new chairman. Garcia runs the investment firm Pinehill Capital Partners, which gave a DeSantis’ aligned political committee $50,000.

DeSantis also appointed Brian Aungst Jr., a prominent Pinellas County Republican attorney who DeSantis previously appointed to the 6th circuit judicial nominating commission; Mike Sasso, a Winter Park attorney who DeSantis has appointed to a handful of boards over the years; and Ron Petri, an Orlando-area businessman who runs The Gathering, a ministry focused on “discipleship and outreach to men.”

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat who has been a leading critic of the changes, blasted the new board.

“It’s absolutely wild to see a self-proclaimed capitalist like DeSantis celebrate the government takeover of a private board which is exactly what the governor did today,” she said.

She specifically noted that Garcia’s company gave $50,000 to DeSantis and his name appeared on records tied to the administration’s search for local state attorneys who espouse progressive political beliefs. The search ultimately led to the suspension of Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren.

“It’s important to note that the bulk of today’s appointees are extreme and political donors,” Eskamani added.

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Yellen makes surprise trip to Ukraine

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made an unannounced trip to Kyiv on Monday to emphasize the Biden administration’s continued support for Ukraine as the country prepares for Russia’s highly-anticipated spring offensive.

“I bring to Kyiv a clear message from President Biden and the American people: We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Yellen said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Yellen said she particularly hoped to highlight the White House’s “close partnership in providing economic and budgetary support” for Ukraine.

“As you have said, our support is not ‘charity,’” Yellen told Zelenskyy. “It’s an ‘investment in global security and democracy.’”

Yellen’s trip comes a week after President Joe Biden made his own surprise visit to Kyiv, a show of support that marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

On Friday, the U.S. announced a new $10 billion aid package to Ukraine to support energy and budget costs, as well as $2 billion in security assistance. The U.S. has so far provided Ukraine with close to $50 billion aid, Yellen said Monday in Kyiv.

“Just as your life is a part of the history of Ukraine – I believe that Ukraine is a central part of the history of the free world. And you are writing our history right now,” Yellen said. “As you do, I hope you know this: America stands with you in this fight for freedom. And we will be by your side to help you rebuild.”

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Voters of all stripes sour on Santos

NEW YORK — Democrats, independents and Republicans all agree — Rep. George Santos has got to go.

A new poll found that 66 percent of New York voters across the state believe the Long Island Republican should resign from Congress, according to the Siena College Research Institute Survey. That's up from 59 percent last month.

While 72 percent of Democrats want him out of office, so do 63 percent of independents and 58 percent of Republicans.

“The ‘good’ news for Santos is that even in these hyper partisan times, he’s found a way to get Democrats, Republicans and independents to agree about a political figure. The bad news for Santos is that the political figure they agree on is him, and they overwhelmingly view him unfavorably,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.

Voters also dislike Santos. Some 64 percent of them view him unfavorably, up from 56 percent in January.

He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a Long Island swing district last November based on a largely fabricated résumé. He's facing investigations by state, federal and international agencies on a range of potential crimes from campaign finance violations to pet charity fraud.

Santos insists he merely embellished his résumé and never broke any laws.

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The strengths and weaknesses of Volodymyr Zelenskyy

War hasn’t done anything to temper the Ukrainian leader’s impatience with the complexities of governing.

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