Today’s Headlines and Commentary

President Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that he anticipates “a significant de-escalation today on the path to a cease-fire” in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, writes the New York Times. Netanyahu did not appear to give any indication that he expects a cease-fire, saying that he was “determined to continue this operation until its aim is met.” Biden’s call to Netanyahu adds to the extensive international effort to press Israel and Hamas to agree to stop the fighting, including attempts to call for a cease-fire led by France at the United Nations Security Council. As of Wednesday afternoon, at least 227 individuals have been killed in Gaza—including 64 children—and 1,620 have been wounded, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israeli airstrikes and bombings have also destroyed houses, medical facilities and roads throughout Gaza. Over 4,000 rockets have been launched from Gaza since the beginning of the conflict 10 days ago—according to the Israeli military—killing at least 12 Israeli residents. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that he will oppose the creation of a panel that would investigate the Jan. 6 attempted insurrection on the Capitol, reports the Washington Post. McConnell’s statement reportedly signals the legislation will not garner the necessary Republican support to pass through the Senate. McConnell called the panel a “slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission to study the events of January the 6th,” despite the fact that the 10-member commission would have five Democrats and five Republicans. McConnell’s comments on Wednesday come after former President Trump called the commission a “Democratic trap” on Tuesday evening. When speaking to reporters on Tuesday, McConnell expressed concerns that the commission might interfere with the ongoing federal prosecutions of rioters and that the proposal appears to provide the Democratic-chosen chairman with the authority to hire and fire the panel’s staff.

Following the completion of the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty in November, the Russian parliament’s lower house voted on Wednesday to exit the international agreement that permits surveillance flights over military facilities, reports the Associated Press. In order to be implemented, the decision to withdraw still needs to be approved by the upper house of parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian legislators Wednesday that although he believes it is unlikely, a “new diplomatic process will start” if the U.S. states its intention to return to the treaty. The European Union has pressed the U.S. to reconsider its decision to leave the agreement, and the EU has urged Russia to remain in the treaty and remove flight restrictions. 

The Biden administration will waive sanctions on the corporate entity and CEO in charge of the building of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany, reports Axios. The State Department will distribute to Congress its mandatory 90-day report identifying the entities connected to Nord Stream 2 that deserve sanctions, however the department will reportedly waive those sanctions—citing U.S. national interests. This move would result in the Biden administration imposing sanctions on ships involved in the construction of the pipeline but not sanctioning those overseeing the project. 

The conditions in U.S. emergency shelters housing migrant children vary dramatically, some shelters don’t have windows and lack sufficient clean clothes for the children, according to the New York Times. The conditions in some of the shelters are reportedly worse than the standard promised by the Biden administration. 

Emergent BioSolutions, the biotech firm whose plant in Baltimore accidentally ruined the equivalent of approximately 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, gave its top executives hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses last year, according to documents released by a House subcommittee ahead of a hearing on Wednesday, writes the New York Times. The U.S. government gave the company a $628 million contract last year and has so far paid the company $271 million despite the government not clearing one dose of vaccine produced at the firm’s Baltimore facility, according to the documents.

Ambassadors from the 27 EU member states voted on Wednesday to allow fully vaccinated tourists to enter the countries in the bloc, writes the Wall Street Journal. The decision still needs to gain approval from national leaders—which could come as soon as tomorrow. For U.S. travelers to benefit from this decision, the U.S. would need to be added to the list of countries from which nonessential travel is allowed, which the EU says could happen quickly if the government leaders approve the opening of the borders. Individual EU countries could still impose additional restrictions even if the bloc votes as a whole to permit tourists to enter, and some states have already opened their borders to tourists from certain countries.

New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office said Tuesday that it has expanded its once purely civil probe into the Trump Organization into a criminal one as well, writes the Washington Post. The attorney general’s notification of this change to the Trump Organization appears to indicate that investigators at the attorney general’s office have begun to collaborate with those working for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., whose office has been conducting an investigation into the Trump Organization since 2018. This shift in James’s probe would allow the attorney general’s office to pursue criminal penalties in addition to civil ones. 

A Colonial Pipeline communications system is back online after experiencing a temporary outage on Tuesday, making it more difficult for fuel distributors to send shipments to supply-clogged areas, reports Bloomberg. This temporary outage comes less than two weeks after Colonial was forced to shut down all of its pipelines following the most severe cyberattack on a North American motor-fuel pipeline to date. The company said the Tuesday outage was the result of an effort to increase security of its systems and was unrelated to the recent large-scale hack. 

On Wednesday, India reported more coronavirus deaths in one day than any other country in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Associated Press. The 4,529 deaths reported Wednesday eclipsed the previous high mark from the U.S. on Jan. 12—when 4,475 people died from the coronavirus. While the spread of the virus appears to be slowing in India’s largest cities, there is worry that the virus is spreading in the countryside—where the majority of India’s residents live with limited health care and coronavirus testing capacity. 

ICYMI: Yesterday on Lawfare

Quinta Jurecic, Molly Reynolds and Benjamin Wittes examined the new Jan. 6 Commission bill and compared it to the 9/11 Commission. 

Jen Patja Howell shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast, featuring discussion about Maria Butina, the former unregistered Russian foreign agent who was arrested after the breaking of the Russian electoral interference scandal. Lawfare’s editor in chief Benjamin Wittes spoke with director and producer Celia Aniskovich and former FBI agent Peter Strzok about Butina, the investigation of her activities and where she fits into Moscow’s plans regarding the 2016 election. 

George Croner argued that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is fulfilling its responsibilities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 program.

Stewart Baker shared the next edition of the Cyberlaw Podcast featuring an interview with Brandon Wales, acting head of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Jen Daskal, deputy general counsel for Cyber and Technology at the DHS, about Biden’s new executive order on cybersecurity. The episode also covered the Colonial Pipeline attack and the Irish High Court ruling permitting the Irish data protection regulator to conduct a probe that could cut off the export of the country’s data to the United States.  

Jordan Schneider shared an episode of ChinaTalk in which Schneider and co-host Danny Crichton of TechCrunch interviewed Odd Arne Westad about his new book on Sino-Korean relations, Empire and Righteous Nation: 600 Years of China-Korea Relations.

Mark Niles contends that police reform should be primarily focused on applying strong liability to local governments whose police officers breach residents’ civil rights.

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