Takedown of another unidentified object raises national security concerns; aliens ruled out: recap

Rest easy America. It's not E.T.

The White House Monday shot down the notion that aliens were somehow involved with or connected to a spate of unidentified flying objects the U.S. military has taken out over the past few days. The latest was an object over Lake Huron in Michigan on Sunday – the third in three days and the fourth overall after also taking down a Chinese spy balloon off the South Carolina coast on Feb. 4.

"I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these crafts. Period," White House spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing.

Hours before the Sunday shootdown, new concerns emerged on Capitol Hill over the three earlier takedowns and the future of relations between the United States and China.

Here's what else is happening in politics:

• Architect of Capitol fired: President Joe Biden fired the government official responsible for maintenance and operation of the U.S. Capitol on Monday after a watchdog report accused him of multiple administrative and ethics violations.

• No Biden Super Bowl interview: President Joe Biden didn’t take part in a pregame interview with Fox, breaking with a relatively new presidential tradition.

• Schumer says there will be a "clean debt ceiling" increase: The Senate majority leader called on Republicans to raise the debt ceiling without any spending cuts.

• Are some of Santos' fabrications protected by the First Amendment?: Legal experts weigh in on the Constitution and lying in some contexts.

How many spy balloons have been spotted?: Questions mount after flying objects shot down

House Oversight subcommittee launches first investigation into pandemic origins

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee's select subcommittee on the COVID-19 pandemic is launching its first investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and whether U.S. funds were sent to a lab in Wuhan, China.

The select committee is requesting information on the origins of the virus from Biden administration officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci and the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit pandemic prevention research organization.

“The American people deserve real answers after years of suffering through the coronavirus pandemic and related government policies,"  Select Subcommittee Chair Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said in a statement. "This investigation must begin with where and how this virus came about so that we can attempt to predict, prepare or prevent it from happening again."

– Rachel Looker

Biden fires Architect of Capitol over administrative, ethics violations

President Joe Biden fired the government official responsible for maintenance and operation of the U.S. Capitol on Monday after a watchdog report accused him of multiple administrative and ethics violations.

The White House said Brett Blanton, the architect of the Capitol, has been terminated. Blanton’s dismissal came just hours after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said he had lost confidence in Blanton and that he should resign immediately or be fired.

Blanton, who was appointed to the position by Donald Trump, faced calls for his resignation after an inspector general’s report last October concluded he and his family had used government vehicles for weekend trips and that he mispresented himself as a law enforcement official. The report cited Blanton for “administrative, ethical and policy violations” and said the investigation found “evidence of criminal violations.”

Blanton was hauled before a congressional committee last week to answer questions about the findings. During the hearing, he also was widely criticized because he was not at the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack by Trump supporters.

– Michael Collins

Architect fired: Biden fires Architect of Capitol amid report of ethics violations, calls for his resignation

White House rules out aliens, still can't say who's behind unidentified objects

The White House said Monday there are “no indications of aliens or extraterrestrial activity” from a series of unidentified objects the U.S. shot down from North American airspace.

"I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these crafts. Period," White House spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing.

Kirby said the U.S. hasn’t determined the origins of the objects that were shot down over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron one week after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon in the Atlantic Ocean. The Pentagon has also not identified the purpose of the objects, which Kirby said appeared to be moving by prevailing winds, not self-propulsion, about 40,000 feet high or lower.

Complicating the search for more details, the U.S. has not made it to the debris sites of the objects, which fell in remote areas and, in two cases, frozen waters. Kirby said the U.S. has spotted “no active tracks” of additional high-altitude objects Monday.

- Joey Garrison

Not from outer space: White House rules out aliens, but still can't say who is behind unidentified flying objects

McCarthy and Republican lawmakers headed to southern border

GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and four freshmen Republican lawmakers are headed to the southern border Thursday.

McCarthy will be joined by Reps. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, Jen Kiggans of Virginia and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin. They will receive a briefing and aerial tour of the border near Tucson, in Cochise County, Arizona, from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

Securing the border has been a top priority for House Republicans, who were sworn in as the majority party in January.

- Candy Woodall

Potential presidential candidate: Vivek Ramaswamy? (he's an "anti-woke" crusader)

It seems like several people from outside the political system want to be the next Donald Trump and get themselves elected president – a group that now includes "anti-woke'' advocate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy, an Ohio native and author of a book called "Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam," told The Cincinnati Enquirer and Politico that he is strongly considering a presidential bid on the Republican side.

"If you ask people in my generation what it means to be an American, you get a blank stare in response," Ramaswamy said in a statement to the Cincinnati Enquirer. "I’m on a mission to deliver an answer to that question. We need to revive the basic ideas that set this nation into motion merely 250 years ago.”

– David Jackson

Portions of Trump grand jury report to be released Thursday

A Georgia judge Monday ordered a partial public release of a grand jury's investigative report on former President Donald Trump's attempts to interfere in the 2020 election.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said three portions of the panel's report will be released Thursday, including a section expressing concerns that some witnesses may have lied under oath.

McBurney also said the grand jury's conclusions also would be made, in a ruling that represented a partial concession to District Attorney Fani Willis who argued last month that full disclosure of the panel's findings would damage an ongoing investigation.

“In this case, the state understands... the world’s interest, but we have to be mindful of protecting future defendants' rights," Willis told McBurney in a January hearing in Atlanta.

– Kevin Johnson

Trump Georgia investigation latest: Georgia judge orders partial release of Trump grand jury report Thursday

Judge: Grand jury provided roster of who should or should not be indicted in Georgia probe

While Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney rejected arguments from a media consortium, which called for immediate and full disclosure of the report as a "court record," he also noted the "compelling public interest in the proceedings and the unquestionable value and importance of transparency" as prompting the partial release.

"Indeed it (the grand jury) provided the district attorney with exactly what she requested: a roster of who should (or should not) be indicted and for what in relation to the conduct (and aftermath) of the 2020 general election in Georgia," McBurney wrote, adding that the panel had done its work "by the book."

– Kevin Johnson

Biden's schedule this week

President Joe Biden has no public events scheduled today. Look for questions at the daily White House briefing, scheduled for 1 p.m., to focus on the flurry of mysteries around the spy balloon saga.

On Tuesday, Biden will speak to the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. On Wednesday, he will discuss his economic agenda in Maryland.

– Holly Rosenkrantz

Governors offer preview of 2024 White House race

Leading into what is expected to be a contentious 2024 presidential election, current and former governors took to Sunday's talk shows to offer insights into the next race for the White House.

Former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie said on ABC's This Week that most of the candidates jumping in the GOP presidential primary will be mostly former or current governors alongside former President Donald Trump.

“What it's going to be is a field of Donald Trump, I think, current and former governors, and maybe one senator,” said Christie, referring to Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is also speculated to be considering a run for president.

– Ken Tran

Schumer says there will be a 'clean debt ceiling' increase

As the need to raise the debt ceiling looms over Democrats and Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sunday there will be “a clean debt ceiling“ increase.

“The party that holds out with brinksmanship and says ‘I won’t renew it unless you do what I want’ loses,” Schumer said on ABC’s This Week. “We’re gonna win this fight and it’s gonna be a clean debt ceiling.”

House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., have been demanding spending cuts from Democrats and President Joe Biden as part of any increase to the nation's capacity to borrow.

– Ken Tran

Ron Klain talks ups, downs and final hours as Biden's chief of staff

The White House was facing a lot of criticism from stalling out on top Democratic priorities and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan as President Joe Biden neared the end of his first year in office, some of it aimed at the chief of staff, Ron Klain.

On one of the darker days, Louisa Terrell, Biden’s legislative liaison, stuck her head in Klain’s office. Walking over to his desk, Terrell plunked down a smooth, gray rock she had picked up walking along the Rhode Island coast when it felt like the White House was being hit from all sides. She wanted Klain to know the team was “rock solid” behind him.

“From that day on, I kept it right in the middle of my desk,” Klain told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview Tuesday, his last full day in the White House. Along with encouragement from the president and others on the team, the “plain and simple” rock was one of the reasons Klain fought through the rough patches and stayed in the job longer – as he likes to point out – than eight of the last nine White House chiefs of staff.

– Maureen Groppe

Pence-Trump relationship grows even more complicated with subpoena

There is likely no better witness to Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election than Mike Pence.

While the former vice president managed to avoid an appearance before a House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, Pence is now confronting a potentially fraught political path in the form of a subpoena from the Justice Department’s special counsel overseeing criminal investigations involving Trump, including the former president’s efforts to block the transfer of power.

And one of the most striking of Trump’s attempts to subvert the election played out in a heated telephone call on the morning of Jan. 6, when the then-president berated his vice president as a “wimp” if he didn’t act to decertify President Joe Biden’s election.

– Kevin Johnson, David Jackson

Trump-Pence dynamic: Mike Pence's relationship with Donald Trump gets even more complicated with subpoena

Could some of George Santos’ fabrications be protected by the First Amendment?

Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., faces a series of investigations and growing hostility from Republicans for lying about his background while running for office. But legal experts say some of the fabrications, on their own, are likely protected by the First Amendment – along with other speech many Americans may find objectionable.

Not all lying is protected by the First Amendment: Americans can't lie in connection with committing financial fraud, for instance. Lying under oath is perjury. Even when not under oath, lying to the federal government – such as to the FBI or the Securities and Exchange Commission – can lead to hefty fines and prison. But lying for votes, experts say, is not likely a crime on its own.

"I frequently tell my students there is a lot of sleazy, unethical, rotten conduct that isn’t criminal," Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at George Washington University Law School, wrote recently on his Sidebars blog. "Santos is a liar and a fraud who does not deserve to be in Congress. But his lies about his background almost certainly fall into that 'sleazy but not criminal' category."

– John Fritze

'Sleazy but not criminal': Some George Santos fabrications likely protected by the First Amendment

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Recap: Concerns grow after 4th object shot down