Senior House Republicans are moving swiftly to build a case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as they strongly weigh launching rare impeachment proceedings against a Cabinet secretary, a plan that could generate sharp backlash from GOP moderates.

Key committee chairmen are already preparing to hold hearings on the problems at the southern border, which Republicans say could serve as a prelude to an impeachment inquiry against Mayorkas. Three House committees — Oversight, Homeland Security and Judiciary — will soon hold hearings about the influx of migrants and security concerns at the border.

The House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over an impeachment resolution, is prepared to move ahead with formal proceedings if there appears to be a consensus within the GOP conference, according to a GOP source directly familiar with the matter. The first impeachment resolution introduced by House Republicans already has picked up support, including from a member of the GOP leadership team.

A GOP source said the first Judiciary Committee hearing on the border could come later this month or early February.

One top chairman is already sounding supportive of the move, a sign of how the idea of impeaching President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretary has moved from the fringes to the mainstream of the conference.

“If anybody is a prime candidate for impeachment in this town, it’s Mayorkas,” Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told CNN.

It’s exceedingly rare for a Cabinet secretary to be impeached, something that has only happened once in US history — when William Belknap, the secretary of war, was impeached by the House before being acquitted by the Senate in 1876. Yet it’s a very real possibility now after Kevin McCarthy — as he was pushing for the votes to win the speakership — called on Mayorkas to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings.

With no signs that Mayorkas is stepping aside, House Republicans are signaling they’re prepared to move ahead, even as a bevy of members are uneasy about the approach.

Indeed, McCarthy has to balance his base’s demands for aggressive action with the concerns from more moderate members — many of whom hold seats in swing districts central to his narrow majority. And some in safer seats aren’t yet sold on whether the GOP should pursue that route.

“Clearly, the management of the Southern border has been incompetent,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Republican of South Dakota, told CNN. “That is not the threshold in the Constitution for impeachment — it’s high crimes and misdemeanors. … I would want to think about the legal standard the Constitution has set out — and whether or not that’s been met.”

If he loses more than four GOP votes on an impeachment resolution, the effort would fail in the House and could mark a huge embarrassment for the GOP leadership. Already, he has potentially lost one vote — Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas who signaled he is opposed to the effort right now — and several other members who are far from convinced that charging Mayorkas with committing a high crime and misdemeanor is warranted, even if they believe he’s done a lackluster job in helping secure the southern border.

“Has he been totally dishonest to people? Yes. Has he failed in his job miserably? Yes,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, said of Mayorkas. “Are those grounds for impeachment? I don’t know.”

Indeed, Republicans from swing districts are urging their colleagues to not rush into impeachment, which would be dead-on-arrival in the Senate and could turn the American people off if the party is perceived as overreaching.

“The border is a disaster and a total failure by the Biden administration. We should first to try to force change through our power of the purse,” Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a Biden-won district in Nebraska, told CNN. “Maybe after more oversight we’ll see where middle America is at, but I don’t think independent, swing voters are interested in impeachments.”

Asked Tuesday about his pre-election warning that Mayorkas could be impeached by the House over the GOP concerns about the borders, McCarthy railed on the problems at the border.

“Should that person stay in their job? Well, I raised the issue they shouldn’t. The thing that we can do is we can investigate, and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told CNN, adding it could “rise to that occasion” of an impeachment if Mayorkas is found to be “derelict” in his duties.

Articles drafted up

During the first working week of their new majority, Rep. Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican, introduced articles of impeachment for Mayorkas over problems at the southern border, and Rep. Andy Biggs, a hard-right Arizona Republican, vowed to re-introduce a similar resolution in the coming weeks, which could serve as a template for eventual impeachment proceedings.

Fallon’s resolution says Mayorkas has “undermined the operational control of our southern border and encouraged illegal immigration,” also contending he lied to Congress that the border was secure.

Democrats say Republicans are threatening to impeach Mayorkas for pure political reasons, and say policy disputes hardly rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Mayorkas has already testified in front of Congress numerous times since he assumed his post, and his agency says he is fully prepared to continue complying with oversight in the GOP-led House. So far, there have been no formal requests for hearings or testimony, with congressional committees still working to get off the ground, though Republicans last year sent numerous letters and preservation requests telegraphing their plans for the majority.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Mayorkas made clear he has no plans to resign and called on Congress to come together to fix the nation’s immigration system.

“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people. The Department will continue our work to enforce our laws and secure our border, while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “Members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else; they should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which they have not updated in over 40 years.”

Yet there are signs that the push is gaining steam in the House GOP.

Fallon’s resolution has attracted the support of several Republicans who previously held off on calling for impeachment, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican and member of the Homeland Security Committee, and Oklahoma Rep. Stephanie Bice, a new member of the GOP leadership team — signaling the idea is hardly isolated to the fringe wing of the party.

Fallon, too, had not previously backed impeaching Mayorkas until this Congress. Fallon said that he introduced impeachment articles to help get “the ball rolling,” but still believes it’s key to show the American public why they believe Mayorkas deserves to be removed from his post.

“It is important, it is an emergency, you need to break the glass, you really do need to take it up, and then we’re going to have an additional investigation,” Fallon told CNN. “While that’s why I filed the articles, you can always just sit on them and not do anything with them. That starts the ball rolling, we’re going to give Mayorkas the opportunity to defend himself and his department.”

Meanwhile, key committee chairs are vowing to hold hearings on the crisis at the southern border and prepping plans to haul in officials for interviews. GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who leads the powerful House Judiciary Committee where impeachment articles would originate, suggested the issue would be one of the first hearings when his panel gets up and running.

GOP leaders are cognizant of the fact they can only afford to lose four Republicans on any given vote, and want to build a thorough case for impeachment that can bring the entire party along. But pressure is already building on McCarthy, who has emboldened members of his right flank in his bid to claim the speaker’s gavel — and even given them a powerful tool to call for his ouster if he doesn’t listen to their demands.

Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and one of the key negotiators in the standoff over McCarthy’s speakership and who was the first to call for Mayorkas’ impeachment, told CNN: “I’ve been very public about my belief that he has violated his oath, that he has undermined our ability to defend our country.”

Hard-right leading the charge

The primary committees that would be involved in building a case against Mayorkas are both chaired by members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus: Jordan and Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, the newly elected leader of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Part of Green’s pitch to become chairman has centered on how he will hold the Biden administration accountable over the southern border. Green told CNN he has a “five-phase plan” to delve into the issue.

“And if it turns out that (impeachment) is necessary, we’ll hand that over to Judiciary,” Green said. “We’ll have a fact-finding role.”

There’s also been talk of holding field hearings at the southern border, while Republicans plan to keep making visits there, as they did in the last Congress.

Jordan told reporters that the border problems will likely be one of his first hearings as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But a source close to Jordan, who has become a close McCarthy ally, cautioned that they will not move ahead with impeachment unless the party is fully on board

And it’s clear that House Republicans are not yet in agreement on the issue.

Freshman Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents a Biden-won district in New York, told CNN shortly before being sworn in: “I think the top priority is to deal with inflation and the cost of living. … I don’t want to see what we saw during the Trump administration, where Democrats just went after the President and the administration incessantly.”

But there are some Republicans in Biden districts already lining up behind impeachment articles for Mayorkas, suggesting the politics could be moving in the GOP’s direction.

Freshman Rep. Nick Langworthy, another New York Republican, is among the 26 co-sponsors who have signed on to Fallon’s impeachment articles so far.

And another freshman New York Republican from a swing district, Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, has also expressed support for impeaching Mayorkas.

D’Esposito contended that many Customs and Border Protection agents are tired of the leadership from the top.

“They are the ones that will tell you flat out that Secretary Mayorkas is not living (up) to his oath and he is failing to secure our homeland,” he added.

And South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace, also a Republican who hails from a swing district, said Mayorkas needs to go.

“When you raise your hand and take an oath to protect our country’s border, and you intentionally and willfully neglect to do that job, you should lose it,” said Mace, who pointed to the influx of drugs across the southern border. “Either way, Secretary Mayorkas has to go.”

House Republicans who have long been itching to impeach Mayorkas have been trying to keep the pressure on their leadership, holding a news conference last month and urging McCarthy to more explicitly spell out where he stands on the issue before they voted him speaker.

But even if an impeachment resolution is approved in the House, winning a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict Mayorkas has virtually no chance of succeeding. Some Senate Republicans, such as Senate GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota, were noncommittal about backing such a move. And Democrats are roundly dismissing the idea.

“A wonderfully constructive action,” Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said sarcastically when asked about the impeachment talk.

Coons quickly added: “I think that’d be an enormous waste of time.”

The Republican campaign staffer who has accused Matt Schlapp, a high-profile conservative activist, of sexual assault is now suing Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes, for more than $9 million.

The sexual battery civil lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the Virginia Circuit Court in Alexandria, also accuses both Schlapps of defamation and of conspiracy to impugn the accuser.

The complaint recounts accusations made by a Republican strategist, a male in his late 30s, who alleged that Matt Schlapp fondled him without his consent as he drove Schlapp back to his hotel in Georgia last October. The staffer was working for the Georgia GOP and Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign and had been assigned to drive Schlapp to campaign events in the Atlanta area.

The plaintiff, who is listed as John Doe in the lawsuit, alleges that in the wake of his coming forward there were “dishonest efforts” by the Schlapps and “others associated with and acting in concert with them, to discredit Mr. Doe.”

The lawsuit says as a result of the Schlapps’ alleged conspiracy, “Mr. Doe suffered damages, including and without limitation embarrassment, humiliation, stress, and reputational harm.”

An attorney for the Schlapps denied the allegations in a Tuesday statement, saying the complaint was “false.” The attorney, Charles Spies, said that the “Schlapp family is suffering unbearable pain and stress due to the false allegation from an anonymous individual.”

“No family should ever go through this and the Schlapps and their legal team are assessing counter-lawsuit options,” Spies said in the statement.

The lawsuit says that the accuser is withholding his name to “preserve the privacy of a victim of a sexual battery” and because the Schlapps are “well known, and in some quarters revered, amongst a portion of the population that has demonstrated a proclivity for threatening violence against those with whom they disagree.”

The lawsuit was first reported by The New York Times.

The Schlapps are both highly visible in Republican spheres and boosters of former President Donald Trump. Matt Schlapp, an alum of George W. Bush’s White House, runs the American Conservative Union, which stages the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC. Mercedes Schlapp was a communications director in the Trump White House.

The staffer says he agreed to meet Matt Schlapp for drinks in October because he was “eager to make a connection” due to Schlapp’s prominence within the Republican Party. The men met up for drinks at two Atlanta bars, and while at the second bar, the lawsuit says Schlapp “sat unusually close to Mr. Doe, such that his leg repeatedly contacted and was in almost constant contact with Mr. Doe’s leg,” making him uncomfortable, according to the lawsuit.

As the staffer drove Schlapp to his hotel, he alleges Schlapp “began aggressively fondling Mr. Doe’s genital area in a sustained fashion,” the lawsuit says, causing the staffer to freeze with “fear and panic from what was happening.”

Screenshots of text messages — previously reported by CNN — between the accuser and Schlapp the morning after the alleged incident are included in the complaint, including a text in which the accuser told Schlapp he “was uncomfortable with what happened” the previous night.

Schlapp repeatedly tried calling the staffer, according to the lawsuit, and eventually texted “if you could see it in your heart to call me at the end of the day. I would appreciate it. If not I wish you luck on the campaign and hope you keep up the good work.”

The complaint reveals that in the wake of the sexual assault accusations first becoming public earlier this month, Mercedes Schlapp allegedly sent a message to a neighborhood group “chat or text” claiming the accuser was a “troubled individual” who had been fired from multiple jobs, including for “lying and lying on his resume.”

The lawsuit also states the plaintiff has never been fired from a job for lying or lying on his resume and alleges that Mercedes Schlapp’s statement is defamatory, and along with comments from their attorney has engaged in “a campaign to impugn Mr. Doe’s character.”

Tim Hyland, an attorney for the accuser, said in a statement that, “Because Mr. Schlapp has refused to own up to his misbehavior, this suit aims to make Mr. Schlapp, and those who lie for him, accountable for their actions.”

The staffer tells CNN he is keeping his legal options, including the possibility of seeking criminal charges, open.

DNIPRO, Ukraine (AP) — The death toll from the Ukraine war’s deadliest attack on civilians at one location since last spring reached 45 at an apartment building a Russian missile blasted in the southeastern city of Dnipro, officials said Tuesday.

Those killed in the Saturday afternoon strike included six children, with 79 people injured, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app. The toll included two dozen people initially listed as missing at the multistory building, which housed about 1,700, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.

Emergency crews cleared some 9 metric tons (9.9 tons) of rubble during a non-stop search and rescue operation, the Dnipro City Council said. About 400 people lost their homes, with 72 apartments completely ruined and another 236 damaged beyond repair, it added.

People converged at the site Tuesday to lay flowers, light candles and bring plush toys. For a third day in a row, Dnipro resident Oleksandr Pohorielov came to mourn.

“It’s like coming to the cemetery to your family. It’s a memory, to say a proper goodbye. To remain a human after all,” he explained as an intense reek of burning emanated from the building’s ruins.

Volunteers helped Nadiia Yaroshenko’s son escape from their third floor apartment on a makeshift ladder but their white cat Beliash refused to leave. He remains in his favorite place at a window that is now blown out, Yaroshenko said, desperately trying to see him from the courtyard with a flashlight.

“We cannot reach the apartment even with rescuers because the apartment is in an emergency and dangerous condition. Walls could collapse there every minute,” she said.

The latest deadly Russian strike on a civilian target in the almost 11-month wa r triggered outrage. It also prompted the surprise resignation on Tuesday of a Ukrainian presidential adviser who had said the Russian missile exploded and fell after the Ukrainian air defense system shot it down, a version that would take some of the blame off the Kremlin’s forces.

Oleksii Arestovych’s comments in a Saturday interview caused an outcry. He said as he quit that his remarks were “a fundamental mistake.” Ukraine’s air force had stressed that the country’s military did not have a system that could down Russia’s Kh-22 supersonic missiles, the type that hit the apartment building.

Zelenskyy vowed “to ensure that all Russian murderers, everyone who gives and executes orders on missile terror against our people, face legal sentences. And to ensure that they serve their punishment.”

The British Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the weekend barrage of long-range missiles, the first of its kind in two weeks, targeted Ukraine’s power grid.

The Kh-22 was designed during Soviet times to strike enemy ships. It can also be used against ground targets, but with much less precision. Observers have said that Russia has increasingly used older weapons, including those intended for other purposes, to attack targets in Ukraine in what could be a sign of the depletion of Russian stockpiles of modern precision weapons. The U.K. ministry noted that the Kh-22 “is notoriously inaccurate when used against ground targets as its radar guidance system is poor at differentiating targets in urban areas,” suggesting that might have been a factor in the deaths in the Dnipro.

Similar missiles were used in other incidents that caused high civilian casualties, it said, including a strike on a shopping mall in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk in June that officials said killed more than 20 people.

The deadliest attack involving civilians before Saturday was an April 9 strike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that left at least 52 people dead, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project.

In Moscow, a makeshift memorial to the Dnipro attack’s victims appeared in front of an apartment building, an unusual act in Russia, where even a hint of criticism of the government’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is often suppressed. Amid snow, flowers and toy stuffed animals were laid at the monument of prominent Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka, along with a photo of the destroyed building and a sign that read in Russian: “Dnipro. 14.01.2023.”

Attacks on civilians have helped stiffen international support for Ukraine as it battles to fend off the Kremlin’s invasion. The winter has brought a slowdown in fighting, but military analysts say a new push by both sides is likely once the weather improves.

Underscoring Russia’s growing military needs, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the country’s military would increase the number of troops from 1.15 million to 1.5 million in the coming years.

As part of the buildup, the military will form an army corps in the northwestern region of Karelia, near Finland, as well as three new motorized infantry and two airborne divisions. The military will also beef up seven motorized infantry brigades into divisions.

On the side of Ukraine, the top U.S. military officer, Army Gen. Mark Milley, traveled to the Ukraine-Poland border on Tuesday to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart for the first time. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in southeastern Poland. On Monday, Milley visited troops from Ukraine training at a military base in Germany under U.S. commanders.

Aid is also on the way from the Netherlands. Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday in Washington that his country plans to “join” the U.S. and Germany’s efforts to train and arm Ukraine with advanced Patriot missile defense systems.

It remains unclear if the Dutch will ultimately send Patriot systems, although Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Tuesday that the Netherlands had agreed to send Ukraine a battery of the equipment. “So, there are now three guaranteed batteries. But this is only the beginning. We are working on new solutions to strengthen our air defense,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian troops are at Oklahoma’s Fort Sill Army base learning how to operate and maintain the Patriot, the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has pledged to provide to Ukraine to help repel Russian aerial attacks.

Ukraine’s first lady was doing her part Tuesday to help. She pressed world leaders and corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Switzerland to exercise their influence against a Russian invasion she said is leaving children dying and the world struggling with food insecurity.

As the first anniversary of the war nears, Olena Zelenska said parents in Ukraine are in tears watching doctors trying to save their children, farmers are afraid to return to their fields filled with mines and “we cannot allow a new Chernobyl to happen,” referring to the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster.

“What you all have in common is that you are genuinely influential,” Zelenska told attendees. “But there is something that separates you, namely that not all of you use this influence, or sometimes use it in a way that separates you even more.”

Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency is visiting several of Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants this week to oversee the establishment of a permanent presence of inspectors at each of them to oversee operations and ensure safety.

Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tuesday the missions “will make a very real difference through supporting the Ukrainian operators and regulator in fulfilling their national responsibility of ensuring nuclear safety and security.”

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

A former Republican New Mexico House of Representatives candidate — who, police say, claimed election fraud after his defeat — was arrested by an Albuquerque SWAT team Monday in connection with a string of recent shootings that damaged homes of local Democratic elected leaders, city police said.

Solomon Peña, who lost his 2022 run for state House District 14, is accused of paying and conspiring with four men to shoot at the homes of two state legislators and two county commissioners, Albuquerque police said.

“It is believed he is the mastermind” behind the shootings that happened in December and early January, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said in a news conference.

CNN has reached out to Peña’s campaign website for comment and has been unable to identify his attorney.

Before the shootings, Peña in November — after losing the election — had approached one of the legislators and some county commissioners at their homes with paperwork that he said indicated fraud was involved in the elections, police said.

The investigation confirmed “these shootings were indeed politically motivated,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said Monday.

“At the end of the day, this was about a right-wing radical, an election denier who was arrested today and someone who did the worst imaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence,” said Keller, a Democrat. “We know we don’t always agree with our elected officials, but that should never, ever lead to violence.”

The stewing of doubt about election veracity, principally among Republicans and usually without proof, has exploded nationwide since then-President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid and began propagating falsehoods the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The claims have stoked anger — and unapologetic threats of violence — against public officials down to the local level.

Peña will face charges related to four shootings: a December 4 incident at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa; a December 8 shooting at the home of incoming state House Speaker Javier Martinez; a December 11 shooting at the home of then-Bernalillo Commissioner Debbie O’Malley; and a January 3 shooting at the home of state Sen. Linda Lopez, police said in a news release.

In the latest shooting, police found evidence “Peña himself went on this shooting and actually pulled the trigger on at least one of the firearms that was used,” Albuquerque police Deputy Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock said. But an AR handgun he tried to use malfunctioned, and more than a dozen rounds were fired by another shooter from a separate handgun, the police statement said.

The department is still investigating whether those suspected of carrying out the shootings were “even aware of who these targets were or if they were just conducting shootings,” Hartsock added.

“Nobody was injured in the shootings, which resulted in damage to four homes,” an Albuquerque police news release said.

5 people tied to conspiracy, police say

During the fall campaign, Peña’s opponent, Democratic state Rep. Miguel Garcia, sued to have Peña removed from the ballot, arguing Peña’s status as an ex-felon should prevent him from being able to run for public office in the state, CNN affiliate KOAT reported. Peña served nearly seven years in prison after a 2008 conviction for stealing a large volume of goods in a “smash and grab scheme,” the KOAT report said.

“You can’t hide from your own history,” Peña told the outlet in September. “I had nothing more than a desire to improve my lot in life.”

A district court judge ruled Peña was allowed to run in the election, according to KOAT. He lost his race to Garcia, 26% to 74%.

“After the election in November, Solomon Peña reached out and contracted someone for an amount of cash money to commit at least two of these shootings. The addresses of the shootings were communicated over phone,” Hartsock said Monday, citing the investigation. “Within hours, in one case, the shooting took place at the lawmaker’s home.”

Firearm evidence, surveillance video, cell phone and electronic records and witnesses in and around the conspiracy aided the investigation and helped officials connect five people to this conspiracy, Hartsock said.

Detectives served search warrants Monday at Peña’s apartment and the home of two men allegedly paid by Peña, police said in the statement, adding Peña did not speak with detectives.

Officers arrested Peña on suspicion of “helping orchestrate and participate in these four shootings, either at his request or he conducted them personally, himself,” Hartsock added.

Police last week announced they had a suspect in custody and had obtained a firearm connected to one of the shootings at homes of elected officials. A car driven at one of the shooting scenes was registered to Peña, the department said.

“Detectives no longer believe the shootings are connected to reports of shots fired near a campaign office of the Attorney General, nor the law office of a state senator,” the news release states.

‘Processing this attack (is) incredibly heavy’

“I am very relieved — and so is my family. I’m very appreciative of the work the police did,” O’Malley told CNN on Monday evening. O’Malley and her husband had been sleeping on December 11 when more than a dozen shots were fired at her home in Albuquerque, she said.

Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa discovered the gunshots at her home after returning from Christmas shopping, she said.

“It was terrifying. My house had four shots through the front door and windows, where just hours before my grandbaby and I were playing in the living room,” Barboa said in a statement. “Processing this attack continues to be incredibly heavy, especially knowing that other women and people of color elected officials, with children and grandbabies, were targeted.”

State House Speaker Javier Martinez, whose home also was shot at, is grateful a suspect is in custody, he told CNN in a statement. “We have seen far too much political violence lately and all of these events are powerful reminders that stirring up fear, heightening tensions, and stoking hatred can have devastating consequences,” he said.

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In a statement Monday, the White House said the president will visit with first responders, state and local officials, and communities impacted by the recent extreme weather; survey recovery efforts; and assess what additional federal aid is needed.

California has been hit by nine atmospheric rivers since Christmas. Across the state, the storms have killed at least 20 people and caused at least $1 billion in damage.

Biden on Saturday declared that a major disaster exists in California and ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms, flooding, landslides and mudslides beginning on Dec. 27 and continuing.

Funding is now available to residents of Santa Cruz, Sacramento and Merced counties.

In a separate statement, the White House said assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help people and businesses recover from the effects of the disaster.

Check back for updates.

House Republicans have been demanding that the White House turn over all information related to misplaced classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president, including any visitors logs to Biden’s private residence and who might have had access to his private office in Washington, DC, where the first batch of documents were discovered in early November.

“Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the counsel’s office said in a statement Monday morning. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the US Secret Service, said the agency also does not independently maintain visitor logs for Biden’s home in Wilmington. The agency provides security for the property, and screens visitors before they arrive to Biden’s home, but does not maintain records of those visitors. Biden and his staff determine who is permitted onto the property.

Guglielmi said the Secret Service does not independently maintain visitor logs at the Wilmington home because it is a “private residence.”

The announcement on Saturday was the third time in less than a week that the White House was forced to acknowledge a batch of classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president had been found at a personal property — first an office space in Washington, DC, and then in the Wilmington home.

CNN previously reported that the classified material found in Biden’s private office included some top secret files with the “sensitive compartmentalized information” designation, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources. Those documents included US intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The White House announced over the weekend that it had discovered five additional pages of classified documents at Biden’s Wilmington home on Thursday. The White House counsel’s office said it would be referring all future questions to the special counsel’s office.

In a letter addressed to White House chief of staff Ron Klain, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, asked for more documents and communications related to the searches of Biden’s homes and other locations by the president’s aides for classified documents, as well as visitors logs of the president’s Wilmington home from January 20, 2021 to present.

“It is troubling that classified documents have been improperly stored at the home of President Biden for at least six years, raising questions about who may have reviewed or had access to classified information,” Comer wrote in the letter. “As Chief of Staff, you are head of the Executive Office of the President and bear responsibility to be transparent with the American people on these important issues related to the White House’s handling of this matter.”

The White House labeled the Republican investigations as “shamelessly hypocritical” compared to their approach to former President Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in his post-White House years.

“House Republicans have no credibility. Their demands should be met with skepticism and they should face questions themselves about why they are politicizing this issue and admitting they actually do not care about the underlying classified material,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said.

More searches for documents possible at locations connected to Biden, sources tell CNN

Additional searches of other locations connected to Biden could be undertaken for presidential records and any classified material from his time as vice president that need to be returned to the federal government, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

Biden’s team has searched a private office in Washington, DC, and his two Delaware homes — three locations where the White House said files may have been shipped during his 2017 transition out of office — turning up about 20 classified documents.

Sources say more searches are possible, but it’s unclear who would conduct them or where they would take place. While sources did not provide other potential locations, Biden has used other office spaces, and his family had rented another home in northern Virginia.

So far, Biden’s private attorneys and White House special counsel Richard Sauber, who has a security clearance, have handled the searches. Justice Department officials also accompanied Sauber last week to take possession of five more pages marked classified that were discovered at the Wilmington house after an initial search.

But the pace of searches by Biden’s team became a source of consternation for the US attorney’s office in Chicago that originally looked into the matter, a source close to the investigation tells CNN.

John Lausch, the US attorney there, was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland less than two weeks after Biden’s personal attorneys discovered the first batch of documents. Lausch did not request searches of additional locations after that discovery, according to the source, nor did he conduct his own searches or use a grand jury during his review. Instead, Biden’s lawyers decided on their own to search Biden’s Delaware homes, the source said.

When that process took several weeks, Lausch did not wait for Biden’s team to complete its search of the Delaware residences before recommending that Garland appoint a special counsel to take over the investigation. Lausch briefed the attorney general multiple times before officially recommending a special counsel on January 5. Garland appointed Robert Hur to that role last week.

Many of those details in the timeline of recent events were released by the Justice Department. Sources tell CNN that Justice officials decided to provide the information after the White House released information in dribs and drabs, creating confusion and mistrust.

While some Republicans are crying foul, saying Trump was treated differently because FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago last August, that step followed months of Trump’s team stonewalling and failing to turn over documents sought by the National Archives.

Moreover, the Trump investigation is looking at potential obstruction, in part because after the former president’s lawyers attested that all classified documents had been returned, investigators obtained evidence indicating that wasn’t the case and surveillance video of boxes being moved from a storage room the Trump team had promised to secure.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

The declaration provides the cities with access to federal, state and county storm resources.

In Antioch, City Manager Cornelius Johnson declared a state of emergency on Thursday and the City Council approved the proclamation a day later.

Antioch officials on Friday estimated costs associated with the local emergency at nearly $4 million, which does not include the weekend’s storm that partially closed Deer Valley Road and caused damage elsewhere.

Antioch also canceled the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service in anticipation of more storm cleanup work that would be needed, Mayor Lamar Thorpe said in a video statement on Facebook on Thursday.

“While we’ve properly managed the response to these unprecedented storms, they have not been without damage to critical infrastructure like Delta Fair Boulevard or the Fulton Shipyard,” Thorpe said. “At this point, conservatively speaking, we estimate about $4 million in damages. I know that figure will continue to grow as more storms hit our area.”

In Pittsburg, meanwhile, City Manager Garrett Evans declared a state of emergency on Jan. 11 as staff worked in shifts to respond to flooding, downed trees, road damages, and other health and safety emergency calls. Estimated costs were not yet available.

On Monday morning, Harbor Street was still closed from Yosemite Drive to Greystone Place, where water flooded the street and sidewalks and some house and apartment evacuations took place as rain pummeled the area overnight, filling up nearby Kirker Creek. Residents of some 19 homes and four units in the Fox Creek Apartment complex were asked to evacuate and 12 persons were rescued via boat, according to Evans.

In an online statement late Monday, Evans said public works crews will be onsite through the week “to monitor and address water levels to ensure public safety.”

“With the current break in the weather, the water in Kirker Creek is expected to recede below maximum capacity,” he said.

In addition to flooding streets, the extreme weather compromised a 20-foot-high retaining wall and downed four 30-foot trees in Pittsburg, according to the staff report.

Check back for updates.

A once-in-a-generation political battle is heating up in California as candidates begin to spar over Dianne Feinstein’s coveted Senate seat, promising reverberations that will shake up everything from our representation in the U.S. House to our local Bay Area elections.

It’s exceedingly rare — like snow in San Jose rare — for one of California’s two U.S. Senate seats to hit the ballot without an incumbent running. But that’s exactly what may happen in 2024 when many expect Feinstein, who is almost 90 and reportedly facing cognitive decline, to retire.

U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, an Orange County Democrat, made waves this past week when she became the first to officially declare her candidacy for Feinstein’s seat. And several of the Golden State’s representatives in the U.S. House, including locals Barbara Lee from the East Bay and Ro Khanna from Silicon Valley, and Adam Schiff from Southern California, have shown interest in the seat Feinstein has held since 1992.

Others, including Rep. Eric Swalwell from the East Bay — who was 12 when Feinstein took office — also have been mentioned as contenders. If they run, the scramble could open the door for a new generation of ambitious Democrats to slip into those vacated House seats, providing a chance for termed-out local mayors, county supervisors and city councilmembers to move up the political ladder without facing off against an entrenched opponent.

“There are a lot of people who will be looking at this as an opportunity,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.

The election is still nearly two years away. And what’s more, Feinstein — who has been adamant she won’t leave office until she’s good and ready — hasn’t even hinted that she won’t seek reelection in 2024. But the fact that the feeding frenzy already has begun shows it’s going to be a crowded, dramatic and expensive race.

“It could be a cast of thousands,” joked Larry Gerston, professor emeritus of politics at San Jose State University. “These things don’t come up very often. It’s a gem of a position to have, that’s for sure.”

Landing a seat in the U.S. Senate is scoring one of the “ultimate” jobs in politics, Gerston said. It’s an exclusive club with just 100 members, and it can serve as a springboard to the presidency.

Porter got some blowback for the timing of her announcement — in the midst of damaging storms and flooding that have resulted in multiple deaths across the state. But she put pressure on other prospective candidates to make a move, McCuan said. Timing is important, he said, and no one wants to be last.

The next day, Lee told colleagues during a closed-door meeting that she plans to run — though she hasn’t formally announced her intentions, a source close to Lee confirmed to this news organization. Meanwhile, Khanna has said he’s considering a Senate run. There’s even speculation that Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is thought to have his eye ultimately on the presidency, might throw his hat in the ring — though he has publicly promised to serve all four years of his brand-new term as governor.

Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator in U.S. history, is a political legend in California and throughout the country. She has deep Bay Area roots, serving as a San Francisco supervisor and then mayor before joining the Senate. But her advanced age and recent questions over her ability to do her job have opened the floodgates to rivals eager to replace her.

“I think if she chooses to run she’s still hard to beat,” said Thad Kousser, a UC San Diego political science professor. “She’s not unbeatable. She’s no longer the single most popular politician in the state, as she once was.”

All that jostling for Feinstein’s seat will spur some interesting down-ticket races. With Porter no longer in the mix, it’s not unlikely that her battleground Southern California district will go to a Republican — potentially helping the GOP hold onto their control of the House.

Lee’s vacated House seat, on the other hand, would undoubtedly go to a Democrat — maybe someone like former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf or Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who recently lost her bid for Alameda County supervisor, Gerston said.

Amelia Ashley-Ward, publisher of the Sun-Reporter — a historic San Francisco newspaper serving the Black community — wants Feinstein to step down early and Newsom to appoint Lee to take her place. The Black community felt “robbed” when Newsom did not replace then-Sen. Kamala Harris — the only Black woman in the Senate when she became vice president — with another Black woman, Ashley-Ward said (though she loves Sen. Alex Padilla, who ultimately took that seat). Newsom has since promised to appoint a Black woman if Feinstein steps down.

“We’re underrepresented and we need to have our voices heard there,” Ashley-Ward said. “I think that it’s really, really needed.”

The hot-button race is also a fight for geographic representation, pitting Northern California candidates (Lee, Khanna and Swalwell) against SoCal ones (Porter and Schiff). Until Harris vacated her spot for the vice presidency, Northern Californians had occupied both of the Golden State’s Senate seats since Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, from Marin County, were elected together three decades ago.

But no matter who wins, they are likely to vote very similarly on key issues, Kousser said.

“It’s going to be a fight for different flavors of progressive Democrats,” he said.

Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer running for chair of the Republican National Committee, thinks while the candidates mentioned so far might garner votes in big, liberal cities, their left-leaning politics are too “extreme” to win fans statewide.

“These are not likable, crossover, appealing-to-moderates candidates in my opinion,” she said.

The race hasn’t drawn any Republican challengers yet, but Gerston is sure it will — though they will face a “steep hill to climb” in liberal California, he said.

With so much time to go until the race, there are sure to be plenty of shake-ups and surprise candidates. In addition to the big names, we also might see someone who is new to politics but is wealthy enough to finance their own campaign.

“There are enough people in this state,” Gerston said, “with lots of zeros behind their name, who if they want to run, could.”

DNIPRO, Ukraine (AP) — The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro rose to 30 Sunday, the national emergencies service reported as rescue workers scrambled to reach survivors in the rubble.

Emergency crews worked through the frigid night and all day at the multi-story residential building, where officials said about 1,700 people lived before Saturday’s strike. The reported death toll made it the deadliest attack in one place since a Sept. 30 strike in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project.

Russia also targeted the capital, Kyiv, and the northeastern city of Kharkiv during a widespread barrage the same day, ending a two-week lull in the airstrikes it has launched against Ukraine’s power infrastructure and urban centers almost weekly since October.

Russia on Sunday acknowledged the missile strikes but did not mention the Dnipro apartment building. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians in the war.

Russia fired 33 cruise missiles on Saturday, of which 21 were shot down, according to Gen. Valerii Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces. The missile that hit the apartment building was a Kh-22 launched from Russia’s Kursk region, according to the military’s air force command, adding that Ukraine does not have a system capable of intercepting that type of weapon.

In Dnipro, workers used a crane as they tried to rescue people trapped on upper floors of the apartment tower. Some residents signaled for help with lights on their mobile phones.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that at least 73 people were wounded and 39 people had been rescued as of Sunday afternoon. The city government in Dnipro said 43 people were reported missing.

“Search and rescue operations and the dismantling of dangerous structural elements continues. Around the clock. We continue to fight for every life,” Zelenskyy said.

Ivan Garnuk was in his apartment when the building was hit and said he felt lucky to have survived. He described his shock that the Russians would strike a residential building with no strategic value.

“There are no military facilities here. There is nothing here,” he said. “There is no air defense, there are no military bases here. It just hit civilians, innocent people.”

Dnipro residents joined rescue workers at the scene to help clear the rubble. Others brought food and warm clothes for those who had lost their homes.

“This is clearly terrorism and all this is simply not human,” one local, Artem Myzychenko, said as he cleared rubble.

Claiming responsibility for the missile strikes across Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that it achieved its goal.

“All designated targets have been hit. The goal of the attack has been achieved,” a ministry statement posted on Telegram said. It said missiles were fired “on the military command and control system of Ukraine and related energy facilities,” and did not mention the attack on the Dnipro residential building.

On Sunday, Russian forces attacked a residential area in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said in a Telegram post. According to preliminary information, two people were wounded.

Russia’s renewed air attacks came as fierce fighting raged in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar but Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting.

If the Russian forces win full control of Soledar it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut. The battle for Bakhmut has raged for months, causing substantial casualties on both sides.

With the grinding war nearing the 11-month mark, Britain announced it would deliver tanks to Ukraine, its first donation of such heavy-duty weaponry. Although the pledge of 14 Challenger 2 tanks appeared modest, Ukrainian officials expect it will encourage other Western nations to supply more tanks.

“Sending Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine is the start of a gear change in the U.K.’s support,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said in a statement late Saturday. “A squadron of 14 tanks will go into the country in the coming weeks after the prime minister told President Zelenskyy that the U.K. would provide additional support to aid Ukraine’s land war. Around 30 AS90s, which are large, self-propelled guns, operated by five gunners, are expected to follow.”

Sunak is hoping other Western allies follow suit as part of a coordinated international effort to boost support for Ukraine in the lead-up to the 1-year anniversary of the invasion next month, according to officials.

The U.K. defense secretary plans to travel to Estonia and Germany this week to work with NATO allies, and the foreign secretary is scheduled to visit the U.S. and Canada to discuss closer coordination.

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Meldrum reported from Kyiv. Sylvia Hui in London contributed reporting.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Diane Hendry, who filed a retaliation lawsuit against the city in August 2018, received a $2.6 million payment as part of the settlement, ending a five-year legal battle between the former fire captain and Fremont.

Fremont is still facing two other lawsuits that accuse city officials of retaliatory behavior. In November, the family of the late Fremont Police Capt. Fred Bobbitt filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city for allegedly contributing to his death last year, saying he was harassed by senior officials after refusing to violate state law during negotiations with the Fremont Police Association. The same month, senior Fremont police detective Michael Gebhardt filed a retaliation lawsuit against the city in which he claimed to be targeted for criticizing the Fremont Police Department.

Hendry, who joined the Fremont Fire Department in 1993 and agreed to retire later this year as part of the settlement, sued after experiencing two years of what she calls “a campaign of retaliation” by the leaders of the fire department.

According to the Fremont native, the retaliation began following her role in the investigation of the dismissal of a female recruit in 2016, when Hendry was a division chief of administration. The recruit had been released from the city’s training academy for failing performance tests, but disputed that she had failed the tests.

Hendry and then-Fire Chief Geoff LaTendresse reviewed tapes of the tests and determined that the recruit had indeed passed.

“It was my assignment at the time and I did my job. It was indisputable that this woman passed these tests,” Hendry said in an interview. The recruit was reinstated, and an investigation was launched. The recruit filed a lawsuit against the city and settled in 2017.

As a result, Division Chief Rick Cory was removed from his position as head of the training academy. The deputy chief of training at the time, Chris Shelley, retired before the investigation was complete, and a captain who was an instructor at the academy, Matt Loughran-Smith, retired two days after the results were released, according to court documents.

“I was widely blamed for what happened. I was left out of meetings, people stopped talking when I entered a room, nobody would sit next to me. It got to the point where people began making complaints about me, and I knew I was on the way out,” Hendry said. “I had been part of the city for 25 years; I was promoted up through the ranks and I built all of these relationships and suddenly I was completely shut out. It was horrible.”

Hendry said that she was isolated, removed from certain duties and excluded from critical meetings regarding the recruit’s reinstatement.

In depositions provided to Hendry’s lawyers, her accusations were backed up by two other division chiefs who worked at the department at the time. “It seemed she was blamed for everything,” one said during a deposition.

In 2018, Hendry decided to transfer to the city’s police department on a temporary basis, but said her requests to transfer back to the fire department were never approved, despite a number of positions opening up in the department. Hendry was also still paid by the fire department, rather than the police department, during this time.

A performance evaluation written by LaTendresse in June 2017 said that Hendry was “one of the most dedicated people” and was consistently positive, professional and trustworthy.

“One of the first things we look at with these cases is performance history, but her performance reviews are the most glowing I’ve ever seen,” Hendry’s attorney, Deborah Kochan, said in an interview.

In an email sent in 2020, Jacobson told Hendry that her duties had been reassigned and that her return to the department would be “disruptive” because of reasons that included the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfire season.

In another email sent in response to a further request by Hendry to be transferred in 2021, Jacobson told Hendry that he could not accommodate the request as she had not served in the department for two years.

In a later deposition, Jacobson said that he felt Hendry’s presence on the force would disrupt team cohesiveness if she were transferred back.

“Based on my personal experience of having people that have left organizations and/or brought lawsuits against organizations that they still are members of, it just doesn’t end well,” Jacobson said during the deposition.

Hendry said she believes her gender played a role in how she was treated. “There were five women in Fremont Fire for most of my career. I was hired in 1993, and we didn’t hire another woman until 2013. By that time, the others had retired, so there were only two of us in the department,” Hendry said. “I was actively trying to recruit more women, which was part of my duties, but I think people didn’t like that. There was a perception that we were lowering our standards. But, I also think I was targeted for simply speaking up; for going against the culture.”

Two investigations were launched after Hendry took her concerns to human resources, but she was told that sufficient evidence was not found to support her claims.

During a deposition, former Deputy Chief Amiel Thurston claimed that the issues came down to Hendry isolating herself from members of the department after he became interim chief following LeTendresse’s retirement in 2017.

However, Hendry maintained that she had fully supported Thurston’s appointment and that she had recommended him for the position, which LaTendresse and Assistant City Manager Brian Stott confirmed in court.

“Thurston came up through the ranks with Diane, and they always had a good working relationship,” Kochan said.

“His best friend was one of the people disciplined after the 2016 investigation. After that, he turned against her. I asked him why everything between him and Diane changed, and he realized he needed an answer and came up with this idea that she was jealous of him – and the city ran with it.”

Thurston confirmed in a deposition that Rick Cory was his best friend, and the godfather of one of his children.

A trial date was scheduled for November, but the city reached a settlement with Hendry in early December.

In response to a request for an interview, the city’s communications department said in an email that no one was available to comment as the case involved a “personnel matter.”

The two other lawsuits alleging retaliation by Fremont city officials are still pending. Bobbitt died by suicide on Feb. 21, 2022, at age 54, after serving on the Fremont police force for more than 32 years. He allegedly faced retaliation from former Fremont City Manager Mark Danaj, who was charged with embezzlement last March, and retired Fremont Police Chief Kimberly Petersen.

Bobbitt filed a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing in March 2021, and a claim with the city in May 2021. That December, an arbiter found that the city’s anti-retaliation policy had been violated. Bobbitt was also mentioned in the retaliation lawsuit filed by Gebhardt.

“I truly thought that when I spoke up, city leadership would step up,” Hendry said. “But these things will happen again. The needle hasn’t moved forward.”