‘The speaker has to move quickly’: White House urges Mike Johnson to pass aid for Ukraine and Israel – as it happened

Hello again, it’s been a lively day in US politics with news coming from the White House, the Supreme Court and Capitol Hill. We’re closing this blog now. We still have live coverage of the first day of the first ever criminal trial of a former US president as Donald Trump attends court in New York, where jury selection is underway in the hush money case involving Stormy Daniels. You can read that blog here.

We’ll be back on Tuesday. All in the one blog this time we’ll plan to have action from Day 2 of the Trump trial, oral arguments at the Supreme Court over alleged insurrectionists accused of obstruction of an official proceeding when they tried to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, on January 6, 2021, and now-President Biden’s trip to his hometown of Scranton on the first visit of a three-day campaign swing through the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Here’s what happened today:

• The White House “will not accept” any bill put forward by Republicans in the US House that only provides additional funding to Israel and not also Ukraine, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “The Speaker has to move quickly” to put the a bipartisan bill already passed by the Senate onto the floor of the House for a vote, she said.

• “We do not want a war with Iran,” national security spokesman John Kirby said at the White House press briefing. He said the US is not involved with any Israeli decision now about how to respond after Iran sent drones and missiles hurtling towards Israel on Saturday, with almost all of them shot down.

• Supreme court justice Clarence Thomas was absent from the court in Washington DC on Monday – with no explanation, as the court issued a ruling and heard oral arguments. This is highly unusual. Thomas, 75, also was not participating remotely in arguments, as justices sometimes do when they are ill or otherwise can’t be there in person.

• The US supreme court on Monday allowed a Black Lives Matter activist to be sued by a Louisiana police officer injured during a protest in 2016 in a case that could make it riskier to engage in public demonstrations, a hallmark of American democracy. In declining to hear DeRay Mckesson’s appeal, the justices left in place a lower court’s decision reviving a lawsuit by the Baton Rouge police officer, John Ford, who accused him of negligence after being struck by a rock during a protest sparked by the fatal police shooting of a Black man, Alton Sterling, by white officers.

• Joe Biden is preparing for a three-day election campaign swing through Pennsylvania from Tuesday, after Donald Trump campaigned there on Saturday, two days before his criminal trial was due to begin in New York.

Czech prime minister Petr Fiala has now arrived in the Oval Office.

Before his departure from Prague on Sunday, Fiala told reporters that during his visit to the US he will focus on security cooperation, the Middle East, and aid to Ukraine, the White House pool reports.

Fiala said he would address the issue of further support for Ukraine in any talks he has with US officials. The White House today is urging the US House to bring a stalled bill to the floor for a vote that provides fresh aid to Ukraine and Israel.

I will try to convince our American friends that this help and support is absolutely necessary,” Fiala said of more aid for Ukraine in its desperate fight back against Russia more than two years after the much larger neighbor invaded.

Other topics will include economic relations and nuclear energy. Although the American firm Westinghouse has dropped out of the bid for the completion of a Czech power plant, the Czech Republic would still like to cooperate with the US on the supply of nuclear fuel for Czech power plants, and development of small modular reactors.

Announcing Fiala’s travel to the US, the Czech Government Office pointed to a symbolic significance of his visit, as the Czech Republic commemorates the 25th anniversary of its accession to NATO.

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The arrival of the prime minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala, at the White House has been delayed, as it was due to be happening by now.

The White House pool report notes that Fiala began his visit to Washington today with an unannounced meeting with the director of the CIA, William Burns.

“At the beginning of my working visit, I am heading for a meeting with the director of the CIA,” Fiala himself revealed on X. The heads of the Czech intelligence services, including the head of the Czech civilian counterintelligence service, the Security Information Service (BIS) Michal Koudelka and Military Intelligence Service commander Jan Beroun are accompanying Fiala in Washington.

Last month Fiala announced that BIS discovered a Kremlin-financed network that spread Russian propaganda and wielded influence across Europe, including in the European Parliament.

At the center of the network was a Voice of Europe news site based in Prague, which tried to discourage Europeans from sending more aid to Ukraine. Some European politicians cooperating with the news site were apparently paid by Russians. Fiala and Biden met in Warsaw in February 2023.

Top House Democrat and New York Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries is also urging Speaker Johnson to bring the bipartisan aid bill that covers Ukraine and Israel to the floor for a vote.

It was passed by the Senate in February and since then has been stalled as Johnson battles hard right Republican colleagues who oppose more aid to Ukraine.

Jeffries’ wish posted yesterday has not been granted:

But earlier on Monday Jeffries sent a letter to his caucus spelling out the need to support Ukraine as well as Israel, Reuters reports.

The gravely serious events of this past weekend in the Middle East and Eastern Europe underscore the need for Congress to act immediately. We must take up the bipartisan and comprehensive national security bill passed by the Senate forthwith,” Jeffries wrote.

Ukraine appealed again to allies on Monday for “extraordinary and bold steps” to supply air defenses to help defend against waves of Russian airstrikes that have targeted its energy system in recent weeks.

But underscoring the deep party divide in Washington, a letter released on Monday urging an immediate vote on the Senate bill was signed by 90 House Democrats and just one Republican.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to decide this week on how he will handle Joe Biden’s long-delayed request for billions of dollars in security assistance for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific, Reuters reports.

More than two months after it passed the Senate, the push for the $95bn aid package, which includes $14 billion for Israel as well as $60 billion for Ukraine, gained new urgency after Iran’s weekend missile and drone attack on Israel despite fierce opposition in the deeply divided Congress.

Johnson has declined to allow the Republican-controlled House to vote on the measure that the Senate passed with 70% bipartisan support in February.

Backers insist it would receive similar support in the House, but Johnson has given a variety of reasons not to allow a vote, among them the need to focus taxpayer dollars on domestic issues and reluctance to take up a Senate measure without more information.

Republican House aides said on Monday Johnson had not yet indicated his plans for security assistance, after discussing it with national security committee leaders late on Sunday and planning more talks with members on Monday.

The White House “will not accept” any bill put forward by Republicans in the US House that only provides additional funding to Israel, in the wake of Iran’s attack on Saturday, and does not include aid for Ukraine, the press secretary just said.

The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday that he will aim to advance a bill for wartime aid to Israel this week but did not clarify whether Ukraine funding would be part of the package.

The White House wants a bipartisan $95bn national security bill that is languishing in the House to be passed, which includes fresh funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and other allies.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the media briefing in the west wing moments ago that “the Speaker has to move quickly” to “get this on the floor” of the chamber for a vote.

If Republicans put forward a bill that only offers extra funding for Israel, the White House will not support it (although such a bill would be unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate anyway).

“We would not accept a standalone,” Jean-Pierre said.

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Joe Biden said a little earlier on Monday that he wants to prevent the conflict in the Middle East, where Israel is waging war in Gaza and fending off Iranian attacks, from spreading more widely, Agence France-Presse reports.

Iran launched an unprecedented aerial attack against Israel, and we launched an unprecedented military effort to defend it. Together with our partners, we defended that attack.

The United States is committed to Israel’s security. We’re committed to a ceasefire that will bring the hostages home and prevent the conflict from spreading beyond what it already has,” Biden said as he met Iraq’s visiting prime minister.

Biden was referring to those kidnapped by Hamas militants in their deadly October 7 attack on Israel.

Biden has promised “ironclad” support for Israel but also urged it to “think carefully and strategically” before launching a response against Iran that could trigger a wider war.

The US president said he was “also committed to the security of our personnel and partners in the region, including Iraq.”

Iraq’s prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was visiting the White House for talks on the presence of US troops in Iraq as part of an anti-jihadist coalition.

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National security spokesman John Kirby, at the White House press briefing, is reluctant to expand on Joe Biden’s advice to Israel at the weekend to “be careful” in its approach to any response to Iran’s attack on Saturday night.

But there is an air that the US believes Israel’s broadly successful defense against the unprecedented Iranian assault at the weekend, where hundreds of missiles and drones were intercepted by the Jewish state and allies, is a satisfactory outcome in itself.

“We do not want a war with Iran,” Kirby said. He said the US is not involved with any Israeli decision now about how to respond.

However he talked in graphic terms about the US activities in shooting down incoming Iranian missiles and drones on Saturday as they approached Israel, both with US fighter jets in the air and from US destroyer ships at sea.

“We will do what we have to do to defend Israel,” he said, adding that the US “does not want a wider conflict.”

Israel has said it will respond, but without any details yet. Western leaders are urging restraint. Iran’s attack was retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iranian targets in Syria earlier this month.

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A little earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said Washington did not want any escalation, but would continue to defend key ally Israel.

The White House press briefing is underway. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just greeted the media in the west wing and now national security spokesman John Kirby is speaking on international affairs.

Kirby is speaking now about Iran’s attack on Israel on Saturday night and he’s pushing back on any idea that Iran knew it wouldn’t hit home with any of the drone weapons or cruise missiles that it launched and that it designed the assault to fail.

He said the attack “was defeated thanks to our preparations…and Israel’s remarkable defense system.”

Kirby said the extent of the US’s intervention in Israel’s defense was unprecedented, and that Iran had fired so many weapons at Israel because it knew many would be repelled but hoped a maximum number would get through.

He’s now talking up the wide defensive coalition and said “Iran failed.”

Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the US supreme court earlier this month, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.

Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.

Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred. To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.”

Trump faces four federal election subversion charges.

The supreme court will hear arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, despite widespread legal and historical opinion that the claim is groundless. Fuller report from my colleague, Martin Pengelly here.

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Donald Trump’s federal criminal trial for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results had been due to take place in Washington, DC, in March and the government, prosecuting, had asked for it to begin in January of this year.

But here we are in April, with the New York criminal trial going ahead (being blogged here) and no dates for any of the other three cases in which Trump is a defendant.

This as the US Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments from the former president that he is immune from prosecution.

Trump pleaded not guilty last August to charges filed in federal district court in Washington that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspired to obstruct an official proceeding, obstructed an official proceeding and engaged in a conspiracy against rights.

My colleague Hugo Lowell writes that the supreme court’s eventual ruling in Fischer v United States, in which it’s hearing oral arguments tomorrow, will indicate whether the obstruction charge under section 1512 of title 18 of the US criminal code can be used against Trump, and could undercut the other general conspiracy charges brought against the former president by the special counsel, Jack Smith.

The court could also end up by extension invalidating many convictions against rioters involved in the January 6 Capitol attack. The obstruction statute has been the justice department’s primary weapon to hold accountable those involved in the violence of that day.

With Clarence Thomas absent from court today, observers will be watching keenly to see if he joins the bench on Tuesday for Fischer.

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Clarence Thomas is the oldest of the justices on the bench of the US supreme court, at age 75.

The staunch conservative has had previous absences for health reasons, but no reasons have been given for his not being present today during the session in the marbled edifice in Washington DC.

Oral arguments were being heard today and a ruling was made. Chief Justice John Roberts announced that Thomas wasn’t present.

He has been embroiled in controversies in relation to accusations of unethical conduct and unfair partisan political links.

NBC News reports:

“Often when a justice is not present for oral arguments, the court will give a reason, including instances when there is a health issue.

In February of last year, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch was not present for an argument, and the court said he was feeling “under the weather.”

When Thomas himself was hospitalized in 2022, the court disclosed that he had an infection and was being treated with antibiotics.”

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The US supreme court on April 25 will hear arguments in the unprecedented claim by Donald Trump that he has absolute immunity from prosecution in the federal criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Progressive advocacy group MoveOn is petitioning for the conservative supreme court associate justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from that case.

The group argues that: “It’s clear that the supreme court will play a central role in this year’s presidential election at a time when the public holds the historically lowest opinion of the court’s integrity. For the supreme court to consider these cases with any impartiality, it’s critical that justices with conflicts of interest recuse themselves. That applies first and foremost to Justice Clarence Thomas, whose own wife played a role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.”

The group goes on to argue that: “Thomas has a longstanding history of conflicts of interest. It’s crucial that we raise the pressure now and demand that Justice Thomas recuse himself from this case immediately!”

With Trump on trial from today in Manhattan on the New York hush money case (being live blogged here), in the federal case on 2020 election interference we don’t yet have a date for trial. The case is basically on hold until the supreme court rules on the matter of immunity, putting in grave jeopardy the prospect of that trial starting before the next election in November.

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The US supreme court is due to hear arguments in an important case on Tuesday that involves defendants charged with crimes in relation to the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington – and has implications for Donald Trump.

Associate justice Clarence Thomas’s absence from court today now has people wondering what will happen tomorrow.

Oral arguments will be presented in the case of Fischer v United States. Former police officer Joseph Fischer has been charged in connection with the January 6 invasion of congress by a mob of Trump supporters, accused of assaulting a serving police officer, disorderly conduct and, crucially, obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

This allegedly happened when rioters, who had been egged on by Trump at a rally near the White House just before they breached the US Capitol, aimed to stop the official certification by a joint session of congress of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump. Amid the violence, the certification was delayed but took place in the early hours of the following day after the Capitol had been cleared.

Fischer, as the learned Scotusblog explains, has asked the supreme court to throw out the charge that he obstructed an official proceeding, arguing that the law that he was charged with violating was only intended to apply to evidence tampering.

More than 300 other January 6 defendants have been charged with violating the law and also features in federal criminal charges brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith for the former Republican president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, who is seeking re-election to a second term as the Democratic nominee this November.

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