U.S. military eyes mounting Western air-to-air missiles on Ukrainian MiGs

The U.S. military is studying whether it’s possible to integrate advanced Western air-to-air missiles with Ukraine’s Soviet-era fighter jets, in the latest attempt to jury-rig old platforms with new capabilities ahead of what’s expected to be a bloody spring.

Officials are looking into whether AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, designed to be fired from Western fighter jets such as the U.S.-made F-16, can be mounted on Ukraine’s existing MiGs, according to two Defense Department officials and another person involved in the discussions.

If the work is successful, it would be the first time the U.S. has given Ukrainian aircraft the capability to fire air-to-air missiles, some of which are already in their inventory.

The effort, if successful, could be part of a solution to Kyiv’s need for additional firepower and air defenses as both Ukraine and Russia prepare for major offensives this spring. Senior American generals hosted Ukrainian military officials last week in Wiesbaden, Germany, for a set of tabletop exercises to help Kyiv get ready for the next stage of the war.

U.S. military officials believe Kyiv is looking to mount its offensive in the next six to eight weeks as the weather warms up and Ukrainian forces finish their training on combined arms maneuver tactics in Germany, the DoD officials said. Officials are concerned that Ukraine is running low on air defenses as Russia continues missile attacks and even sends decoy balloons with radar reflectors to deplete Ukrainian missiles.

Ukraine has been pushing for modern fighter jets for the conflict, among other things to help with air defense, but so far there is little appetite among Western leaders to send more advanced aircraft such as the F-16. Two Ukrainian pilots are in the U.S. to do an assessment of their skills on simulators at an Air National Guard base in Tucson, Ariz., but officials said they will not fly American aircraft.

Officials are looking for more creative solutions to fill that gap. The U.S. has already provided Kyiv air-to-ground missiles, such as the AGM-88B High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile, which can be attached to the MiGs and used against ground targets such as radars and air defense systems. The Pentagon has also sent the Joint Direct Attack Munition, which converts air-launched munitions into smart bombs.

But integrating the AIM-120s with MiGs would be the first time the U.S. has provided the capability to fire air-to-air missiles from aircraft, however. Ukraine already has a number of the missiles, which were provided by European countries, including the U.K. and Belgium, which are fired from Western-provided air defense systems such as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System.

But the integration process poses challenges, said one of the DoD officials and another person with direct knowledge of the effort. Both were granted anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations. Not only must the missile physically be fitted onto the aircraft, it must also “talk” to the aircraft’s radar. To fire a shot, first the aircraft radar gives the missile a target, and guides the missile until it is close enough to find the target on its own.

The main problem is that the American and Soviet systems are so different that the missile and aircraft can’t communicate with each other.

The military is working on: “How do you mount this thing? Can you get all the electronics in the aircraft to talk to this thing that wasn’t meant to be launched?” said one of the DoD officials.

A DoD spokesperson declined to comment on the effort due to operational security.

“We are in regular contact with Ukrainian leaders, and we’ll continue to consult closely with Ukraine on their security assistance needs — both near and longer term,” said Lt. Col. Garron Garn. “Our focus will continue to be on providing Ukraine with real combat capability to enable them to defend their country, but for operational security reasons, we won’t discuss what initiatives we may or not be undertaking in this effort.”

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Did China mess with Canada? Trudeau says he has a plan to find out.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has buckled to political pressures and is calling an investigation into allegations that Beijing interfered with Canadian elections.

“I will be appointing an independent special rapporteur, who will have a wide mandate and make expert recommendations on combating interference and strengthening our democracy,” the prime minister said Monday evening in Ottawa.

Trudeau stopped short of the public inquiry that opposition parties have demanded. Instead, he pitched a convoluted plan led by an “eminent, unimpeachable expert,” minus any deadlines.

The prime minister said he has also consulted the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) — an all-party group of MPs and senators who have top secret security clearances — about allegations that Beijing meddled with the 2019 and 2021 campaigns.

China’s embassy in Canada has called the claims "pure slander and total nonsense" and is accusing media of spreading “all kinds of disinformation” without evidence.

Trudeau said the rapporteur, a Canadian, will enlist NSICOP and others who can investigate and make recommendations that “could include a formal inquiry or some other independent review process.”

He emphasized that federal party leaders agree the 2019 and 2021 election results “were not impacted by foreign interference.” He had tough words for actors using the issue to get an edge on the next campaign.

“Foreign interference is a complex landscape that should not be boiled down to sound bites and binary choices,” he said. “It should certainly not be about partisan politics.”

The sudden course change comes in response to pressure from opposition parties and a House committee since a bombshell story on Feb. 17 cited unverified intelligence reports about Beijing’s interference strategy — details that were shared with Five Eyes allies, including the United States.

Leaks from inside Canada’s spy agency reported by the Globe and Mail and Global News allege the Chinese government oversaw covert campaigns that backed 11 federal candidates, a majority of them Liberal.

The country’s national police agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, confirmed last week that they were not actively investigating the allegations. On Monday, the agency confirmed it has launched a probe to find the whistleblowers.

Unauthorized disclosures from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service allege Chinese diplomats in Toronto and Vancouver bragged about influencing voters to the extent that two incumbent Conservatives were driven out of office in 2021.

“The RCMP has initiated an investigation into violations of the Security of Information Act associated with recent media reports,” spokesperson Robin Percival said in a statement. “This investigation is not focused on any one security agency.”

The political stakes are high for Trudeau who risks appearing indecisive, feeding opposition charges the third-term prime minister is not fit to lead.

Recent polling by the Angus Reid Institute suggests a majority of Trudeau’s own Liberal supporters believe Beijing likely attempted to meddle in Canada’s recent elections. The same poll found that 42 percent of Conservative voters feel the 2021 election was “stolen.”

Trudeau also said he has asked Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino to guide the creation of a foreign influence transparency registry in Canada.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had pressed for a public inquiry, calling anything short of that unacceptable. The party has criticized the Liberals’ handling of Beijing, even after the government announced last year it would be taking a new hawkish approach with the Chinese Communist Party.

An all-party House committee has also been studying the allegations.

“This is not about Chinese Canadians who are first and foremost the victims of Beijing’s interference activities,” Conservative MP Michael Cooper told the Commons procedure and House affairs committee last week.

“This scandal is about what the prime minister knows about this interference, when he first learned about it, and what he did about it or failed to do about it.”

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Vivek Ramaswamy says he received an offer to buy his way into the CPAC straw poll

Shortly after Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur and anti-woke crusader, announced he was seeking the Republican nomination for president, a political consultant with ties to the Conservative Political Action Conference called his campaign asking if he planned to attend.

If so, the consultant had an offer, a Ramaswamy aide recalled.

“Basically, they were like, if you pay I think it was upward of $100,000, we can get tickets and bus a bunch of people in for the straw poll,” a senior campaign official for Ramaswamy described on the condition of anonymity to share details about the call. “I was taken aback, because I’ve never been to CPAC before, and it’s very activist driven but I think if any of them knew it was an artificial poll, they’d be pretty pissed about that.”

The Ramaswamy campaign declined the offer, so they did not get any more details about where the money would go or how exactly the arrangement would work. The anecdote was shared on condition that the name of the consultant not be revealed for fear of retribution. But POLITICO confirmed that the person who made the alleged offer does indeed have ties to the conference.

“A straw poll is a vote that those in attendance get to participate in. If a presidential contender is organized and popular, they can do well,” a spokesperson for CPAC said in response to POLITICO.

In the past, candidates have organized for their own supporters to come to CPAC to boost their standing in the straw poll or cheer their candidate on stage. But the Ramaswamy campaign’s allegation is fundamentally different: that someone with ties to the conference offered to arrange those supporters for a fee.

It comes as there have been questions about CPAC’s influence in the broader conservative universe. The leader of the conference, Matt Schlapp, is currently being sued by a campaign staffer alleging sexual misconduct, allegations which Schlapp has denied. And it suggests that the biotech entrepreneur is designing his outsider campaign for president as a disruptive force within traditional GOP circles.

Ramaswamy first mentioned his campaign was contacted about the straw poll on Fox News Business. In an interview with POLITICO, he expanded on it, saying he decided to speak out about the call as part of his campaign’s effort to shine a light on corruption and exposing the sometimes unsavory behind the scenes deal making that is part of modern politics.

“The premise of the campaign is to drive a national identity revival, but a definite secondary goal is going to be exposing – I mean I’m not someone who has grown up in politics but everything I’ve learned suggests that there is a lot that people need to see in the open,” said Ramaswamy.

“We've decided to go ‘full transparency’ on exposing the quasi-corrupt process of the campaign itself,” he said.

Ramaswamy spoke at CPAC last week and received 1 percent support in the straw poll of potential 2024 Republican primary contenders. Former president Donald Trump came in first with 62 percent, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in at 20 percent. Perry Johnson, the millionaire from Michigan who announced his candidacy last week, and whose team had a presence at the event, earned 5 percent.

During his speech at CPAC on Friday, Ramaswamy called for a “national revival,” said he would shut down the FBI and the Department of Education, and vowed to end federally mandated affirmative action by repealing Executive Order 11246, which mandates race-based quotas for federal contractors.

"Do we want a national divorce? Or do we want a national revival? It's not going to happen automatically, whatever it is — it is going to be what we choose it to be," Ramaswamy asked the audience, referencing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s calls for a “national divorce.”

Following CPAC, Ramaswamy attended the anti-tax group Club for Growth’s donor event in Palm Beach, Fla. This weekend, Ramaswamy will be attending the Hamilton Co. Republican Party Pancake Breakfast in Cincinnati, Ohio, and will be making upcoming stops in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Ramaswamy said his campaign is thinking about doing things differently when it comes to fundraising and even showing how candidates are prepped for interviews or events with expert briefings. He plans to launch a podcast in the coming weeks where the public can listen in on his briefing on topics ranging from foreign policy to health care.

“I am increasingly intrigued by the process,” Ramaswamy said of running for office. “The Republican base likes my message about fixing government management but you need to fix it in your own backyard if you’re going to preach about it.”

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Fox’s top lobbyist, a former Biden staffer, is leaving the network

Fox Corp.’s top lobbyist is exiting the company, leaving the cable and broadcast giant and owner of Fox News without its most prominent Democrat, just as scrutiny of the network is reaching a fever pitch in Washington.

Danny O’Brien, a top aide to President Joe Biden during his time in the Senate and during his penultimate presidential campaign in 2008, had been serving as the network’s main point person in Washington D.C. South Korean solar manufacturer QCells announced that he will be joining as an executive vice president and head of U.S. corporate affairs. Puck News first reported O’Brien’s departure. The precise date of O’Brien’s exit from Fox is unclear and he did not return a request for comment.

The loss of O’Brien comes at a particularly rough patch for Fox, which is facing a $1.6 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused the network of defamation for its role in spreading conspiracies around the 2020 election. That suit has dredged up damaging revelations about the network. Among them, the company’s chairman Rupert Murdoch conceded that some Fox News hosts had “endorsed” false claims that the election had been stolen from former President Donald Trump. Other filings from Dominion revealed that some of the network’s top talent booked guests who they believed were spreading disinformation about the election. In addition, it was revealed that Murdoch provided Trump’s son-in-law and campaign aide Jared Kushner with secret details on forthcoming ads from the Biden campaign.

The documents prompted outrage from top Democrats in Washington, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). It has also sparked discussions within Democratic circles about icing out the network. The White House, for its part, sidestepped having Biden sit down with Fox for an interview around the Super Bowl — breaking with tradition that the host network of the game get a one-on-one with the president.

Fox confirmed O’Brien’s departure in a statement.

“FOX is currently interviewing for our Head of Government Relations role and speaking with internal and external candidates,” spokesman Brian Nick said. “We would like to thank Danny for his years of outstanding service to our Company and wish him the best of luck on his next endeavor.”

O’Brien joined Fox in 2018 as head of its Washington office, where he led the company’s legislative, regulatory and policy agenda and its government relations team. Before that, he served as a global government affairs and policy executive for what is now GE Transportation.

But it’s his past roles in the public sector that have made O’Brien’s placed of employment especially intriguing.

O’Brien worked on Democratic campaigns for years, before moving to the Hill to work for former Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.). He then served as chief of staff in Biden’s Senate office from 2003 to 2006, and later held the same role with Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), in addition to becoming staff director on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When Biden ran for president in 2008, O’Brien was tapped as his policy director.

At Fox, O’Brien had built up an in-house lobbying shop that employed more Democrats (3) than Republicans (1). In 2019, he hired veteran broadcast lobbyist Jamie Gillespie away from the National Association of Broadcasters, and last year O’Brien recruited a staffer straight from Biden’s West Wing, Carissa Joy.

O’Brien is not the first Democrat to lead Fox’s D.C. office — his predecessor, Chip Smith, helped lead former Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 White House bid.

And ahead of last year’s midterms, Fox said its corporate PAC gave roughly evenly to Republicans and Democrats, including maximum donations to each party’s national committee and House and Senate campaign arms. Democratic recipients of Fox’s campaign cash included some of Fox News’ favorite punching bags, such as Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), and several of each party’s most vulnerable incumbents.

In his new role at QCells, O’Brien will almost assuredly be working on the implementation of one of Biden’s legacy legislative achievements as president, the climate and tax spending bill passed last year.

Last month the company and Biden announced a $2.5 billion dollar investment for an existing QCells solar manufacturing plant in Georgia that was attributed specifically to the Inflation Reduction Act. QCells also recently announced a partnership with Microsoft, and said that O’Brien will lead its policy, communications and sustainability teams as QCells “expands across the clean energy value chain in the United States.”

Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.

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Street near Miami named for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

CUTLER BAY, Fla. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson came home to South Florida on Monday to celebrate the renaming of a street in her honor in the community where she grew up.

“I hope that this street naming will also serve as a testament to what is possible in this great country,” said Jackson, the first Black woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

During 40-minute ceremony in Cutler Bay attended by local dignitaries, members of the community and her parents, she noted how proud she is to have grown up in this area south of Miami. The newly named Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Street winds through a suburban neighborhood where peacocks stroll through yards and roost in oak trees.

“This in many ways is as much a celebration of us as it is of me, and I’m saying that because I grew up among all of you.” she said. “This is where I got my start, and I really do believe that there is an important connection between my experience growing up in this area and my current position as associate justice.”

Jackson is a graduate of Palmetto Senior High School, and she acknowledged teachers and coaches who she said helped her become who she is today.

“It was while I was studying and competing and growing up here in this community that I gained self confidence in the face of challenges,” she said. “I learned how to lean in, in spite of obstacles, to work hard to be resilient, to strive for excellence and to believe in myself and what I could do if given the opportunity.”

Jackson said that having her name “so prominently displayed on a street in a community that has given me so much” is an incredible honor.

“I hope that people who are driving by might have a moment of reflection about what it means that a person from this neighborhood, and someone with my background, could take what this place has to offer and be well-equipped enough to then go out into the world and do what it takes to not only become the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court of United States, but also the first former public defender and the first associate justice who is from the great state of Florida.”

She noted that only four previous high court justices have had any ties to the state — William Johnson was sent to Florida by the British as a prisoner of war during the Revolutionary War, John Campbell once taught school in the state, and George Shiras Jr. and John Paul Stevens each retired in Florida.

“So far, so far, I’m the only Supreme Court justice who can boast of being from Florida,” Jackson said. “And I’m so proud that I grew up here in this South Florida community, which thanks to all of you now has a prominent street that bears my name.”

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Biden administration expected to grant protected immigration status for Nicaraguans

The Biden administration plans to redesignate Temporary Protected Status for Nicaragua amid pressure from immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers, according to three people familiar with the plans.

It’s not clear when the Department of Homeland Security would roll out the policy, and plans were subject to change before final approval. The White House and DHS declined to comment.

President Donald Trump sought to end Temporary Protected Status for Nicaraguans and several other nationalities in 2017 and 2018, putting more than 300,000 people at risk of losing their legal relief. Last fall, the Biden administration announced an 18-month TPS extension for multiple countries, including Nicaragua.

Immigration groups and Florida lawmakers have pushed the Biden administration to redesignate TPS for Nicaraguans living in the U.S., which would allow them to live and work in the country without fear of deportation.

Since taking office, President Joe Biden has leaned on TPS as a tool to grant immigration relief to hundreds of thousands of people as Congress remains in gridlock over fixes to the immigration system. Biden has designated six new countries for TPS since taking office and redesignated six other nations, making an additional 712,000 U.S. immigrants eligible for the status, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Backlogs at the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services have delayed approvals, but nearly 537,000 people had TPS as of November 2022.

Nicaraguans first received TPS in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch wreaked havoc in Central America. The Temporary Protected Status designation, created by Congress in 1990, helps residents from countries struck by natural disaster, armed conflict or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

There were 4,250 TPS recipients from the country in 2021, the U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services said in a congressional report.

A record-number of Nicaraguans sought to illegally enter the U.S. last year, as migrants fled political persecution and poor economic conditions in the country. In fiscal year 2022, border officials said there were 163,876 encounters with Nicaraguans.

In a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month, federal lawmakers pointed to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s political “repression” of protesters, clergy and students.

“The increasingly totalitarian nature of the Ortega-Murillo regime and the brutal political repression Nicaraguans face in their daily lives exacerbate the urgent need for the Biden Administration to redesignate and extend TPS to Nicaragua,” the letter said.

The letter also mentioned the government’s release of over 222 political prisoners last month. The Biden administration orchestrated the relocation of the prisoners to the U.S. through its humanitarian parole program and have granted them this status for two years. Biden announced the parole program—aimed to curb the flow of Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans — in January.

That policy forced migrants to apply for asylum from their home country, while expelling those who try to enter the U.S. unlawfully from Mexico. Migrants were only approved if they had a verified sponsor and were allowed to enter the U.S. by air. Border encounters have dropped significantly this year, which Biden officials credit to the new policy.

Last month, the Biden administration announced a proposed rule that will bar some migrants from applying for asylum in the U.S. if they cross the border illegally or fail to first apply for safe harbor in another country. The proposal — which immigrant advocates refer to as the “transit ban” or the “asylum ban” — will take effect on May 11 and serve as its policy solution to the long-awaited end of Title 42, a pandemic-era restriction that lifts the same day.

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Feds say Proud Boys associates fanned out to facilitate Jan. 6 breach

Leaders of the Proud Boys activated a network of foot soldiers to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors argued to a federal judge on Monday, describing how more than a dozen of the group’s associates played pivotal roles in overrunning police lines, dismantling barricades and facilitating the mob’s entry into the building itself.

The Justice Department laid out its clearest evidence yet that it sees the Proud Boys — and the far-right group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio — as uniquely responsible for the chaos that unfolded on Jan. 6. Though only five members of the group face seditious conspiracy charges over allegations of masterminding the plot, prosecutors say they deployed a much wider collection of associates to carry it out.

There was Daniel “Milkshake” Scott, who helped bash through a line of police officers just before rioters — led by Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola — breached a Senate-wing window. (Scott pleaded guilty to assault last month). There was Christopher Worrell, who is pictured spraying a chemical irritant toward a line of U.S. Capitol Police officers early in the mob’s advance. And there’s William Pepe, who ripped away metal barricades protecting outnumbered officers early in the afternoon.

In case after case, prosecutors said, the alleged offenders had links to the Proud Boys — some explicit, some tenuous — and either joined them on their march from the Washington Monument to the Capitol or participated in encrypted text message channels with the group’s leaders ahead of their actions on Jan. 6. But it’s the most specific effort by the Justice Department to capture the breadth of what it sees as the most significant case to arise from the Jan. 6 attack.

None of the 23 associates identified by prosecutors are charged as co-conspirators alongside Tarrio and the other leaders: Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Pezzola. Rather, the Justice Department contends that those in the broader group were handpicked by the leaders and acted as “tools” of the alleged seditious conspiracy.

“The people who marched with them, all the way from before Trump started speaking and who marched onto Capitol grounds, trampled police barricades before he finished speaking, were acting jointly with these defendants,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Kenerson said on Monday.

Whether the jury ever sees this evidence is a question in the hands of U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, who must decide whether prosecutors have made a clear enough case that these individuals acted — knowingly or not — to further the goals of the alleged seditious conspiracy.

The prosecution’s assertion that the some defendants acted as “tools” of those charged in a separate case and that their acts should be imputed to those on trial on conspiracy charges drew outrage from defense attorneys.

Lawyers for the Proud Boys leaders contended that prosecutors were seeking to prove “guilt by association,” tagging Tarrio and others with the violent actions of a loosely connected group of rioters.

“We’ve cut the baloney now so thin that I can see through it and read the other side of the paper,” said Norm Pattis, an attorney for Biggs.

Pattis suggested that the government’s theory that individuals were “activated” by the Proud Boys to help advance their conspiracy could equally apply to other Jan. 6 influencers, including former President Donald Trump himself. Pattis has indicated that he hopes to subpoena Trump to testify in the trial, though it’s unclear whether he has served the subpoena as of this week. He described the government’s theory as “tenuous.”

Prosecutors described varying degrees of relationships between the so-called tools and the Proud Boys leaders. Some, like Paul Rae, crashed at an Airbnb with Nordean and others the night before Jan. 6, or like Gabriel Garcia, who was invited into pre-Jan. 6 encrypted chat groups by Tarrio. Others, like Barton Shively and Trevor McDonald, joined the Proud Boys somewhere along their march to the Capitol, which came even before Trump finished addressing a rally crowd assembled near the White House. Prosecutors said one defendant appeared to fist-bump with a man who later joined a violent push against police.

Kelly said he intends to consider the evidence prosecutors described on Monday and determine whether to permit the government to show it to jurors.

Nevertheless, prosecutors described about a dozen discrete examples of actions by associates of the Proud Boys that they say underscored the group’s influence during the riot.

The most compelling example was the case of Ronald Loehrke and James Haffner, two associates of Nordean. Prosecutors displayed text messages in which Nordean tells Loehrke, “I want you with me,” on Jan. 6. “I’ll have you on the front lines with me,” he says. Haffner came to Washington with Loehrke and is seen on video spraying police officers during a melee outside Capitol doors.

Other examples include Robert Gieswein, who was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol and joined the confrontation with Capitol Police outside the Senate chamber; Paul Rae and Gilbert Fonticoba, who entered the Capitol with Biggs; and Nicholas Ochs, who scrawled “Murder the Media” on a Capitol door.

Prosecutors said they don’t intend to introduce the Gieswein evidence in front of the jury, which prompted Carmen Hernandez, the defense attorney for Rehl, to assert that Gieswein was invited to join the Proud Boys march by a “confidential human source” working with the government.

Prosecutors also said a group of five associates — A.J. Fischer, Dion Rajewski, Zach Johnson, Brian Boele and James Brett — who they consider “tools” of the Proud Boys’ conspiracy were part of the mob that besieged the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace tunnel, the scene of the day’s worst violence.

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