CIA chief reportedly warns Russia against attacking Nato countries on visit to Moscow – US politics live

Europe has made ⁠progress in taking over the responsibility ⁠for its ⁠conventional ​defence but more needs to be done, ⁠US Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby told allies ⁠in Brussels ahead ​of talks ‌about ‌potential US troops cuts in ‌Europe.

“Let’s look at some of things like access, basing, overflight. Well, there is a lot ‌of good, but there’s some things that we ​need to work out to make sense going forward,” Colby said ⁠at Nato headquarters, adding ​Europe would ​remain a critical ​interest of the ​US ‌and he ​had ​come in a spirit of consultation.

Former JPMorgan Chase executive Jes Staley told US lawmakers he repeatedly shared confidential and market-sensitive bank ⁠information with Jeffrey Epstein and ⁠was at one ​point named as a trustee of his estate, according to a transcript released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday.

These admissions come as lawmakers investigate the late convicted ⁠sex offender’s ties with political and business elites. Staley appeared before the committee in July as part of its investigation into Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Transcripts ⁠from the meeting were released on Wednesday.

In the closed-door, voluntary interview conducted on ۲۴ July, Staley said he divulged to ​Epstein the bank’s communications with the Federal Reserve during the ‌۲۰۰۸ financial crisis, a figure of $۴۴bn in private bank inflows over two weeks and details of pending deals. Staley also admitted to ‌sharing other confidential information about JPMorgan with Epstein, according to the transcript.

Lawmakers also questioned him about communications in which he discussed matters including his compensation, client relationships and developments related to his eventual move to Barclays.

Staley defended the exchanges, saying he believed he had the authority to share information when he considered it appropriate. He has maintained he had a close professional relationship with Epstein, but was unaware of his crimes.

He also testified that he informed Epstein ‌about the bank’s concerns over his large cash withdrawals and told him he had been designated a high-risk client.

JPMorgan declined to comment. Staley’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A man who is serving time in a federal prison in New York advanced on Wednesday from the primary for Alaska’s lone US House seat.

Eric Hafner, a registered Democrat, also ran for the seat in ۲۰۲۴ and secured a spot on the general election ballot that November despite a challenge brought by the Alaska Democratic party.

Hafner pleaded guilty in ۲۰۲۲ to charges of making threats against police officers, judges and others. He is set to be released in ۲۰۳۶.

The leading candidates in the race are the incumbent, Republican Nick Begich, and independent Bill Hill, a commercial fisher and retired educator.

Hafner’s success in the primary as one of the candidates moving on to the general election is almost certain to draw another legal challenge because the US constitution requires candidates to live in the state they will represent at the time of the election.

In the candidate information he filed with the state, he listed the same Box Elder, South Dakota, mailing address and New York phone number as his mother, Carol Hafner. Neither has any apparent ties to Alaska.

China’s foreign minister said his country and the United States should overcome obstacles between the nations ahead of an expected summit next month between the US president, Donald Trump, and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

Wang Yi met the US ambassador to China, David Perdue, on Wednesday and called on both sides to “focus on the positive agenda, properly manage differences, remove interference and overcome obstacles to high-level exchanges between the two countries”, the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday.

China-US relations “still face various risks and challenges,” he acknowledged in a statement released by CCTV.

The ⁠Trump administration is considering a new round of sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, ⁠Politico reported on ⁠Thursday, ​citing eight people familiar with discussions.

A new tariff proposal could tax a ⁠wider range of tech goods. Instead of just targeting microchips, the duties would ⁠also apply to products that use them, such ​as laptops, gaming consoles and data ‌center servers, the report said.

The commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, ‌favors a structure that will tie foreign companies’ relief from the tariffs to investment in US chip manufacturing to boost local production, the report said.

Washington is also mulling a phase-in ‌period for the new tariffs and the framework could still be substantially revised in ​the coming weeks or months, Politico reported.

The Kremlin dismissed US media reports that Russia could attack ⁠a Nato ⁠member ​state and that the purpose of CIA director ⁠John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow this week had been ⁠to warn Moscow against such ​a move.

Asked ‌to comment ‌on the reports, Kremlin ‌spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:

A lot of this kind of scare-story material is being published right now. Of course, it has ‌nothing to do with reality and nothing to do ​with the intentions of the Russian Federation.

Earlier on Thursday, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence ⁠service said he had held ​a “working-level ​meeting” with Ratcliffe ​and that they had ​discussed unspecified ‌and sensitive ​matters ​falling within the remit of their respective intelligence services.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

A trip by the CIA director to Moscow this week was to warn Russia against any attack on Nato member states, US media reported, after Donald Trump attempted to downplay the visit.

The Wall Street Journal and CBS News reported CIA director John Ratcliffe aimed to dissuade Russia from attacking Nato members amid US intelligence assessments that Moscow could seek to test the alliance. Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow on a government transport plane on Tuesday, taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.

Interviewed by the conservative radio host Glenn Beck, Trump poured cold water on speculation that Ratcliffe had travelled in response to fears that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was planning to “test Nato resolve” or to win Moscow’s cooperation for intensified US sanctions on Iran.

“None of the above,” the US president said in response to Beck, who referred to the speculation as “crazy”. “He’s there, you know, very sort of semi-routine. I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end,” Trump said.

“John Ratcliffe is a fantastic guy. He’s the head of the CIA, and he is not in there for any of the things that you said. Now something may come … out of it. We’re working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.”

Ratcliffe is one of the highest-ranking US officials to visit Russia since its war with Ukraine started in ۲۰۲۲.

Sergei Naryshkin, the head ⁠of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, confirmed ⁠that he had ⁠held ​a “working-level meeting” with Ratcliffe in ⁠Moscow and that they had discussed unspecified ⁠and sensitive matters falling within ​the remit of ‌their respective ‌intelligence services. Naryshkin claimed the fact ‌that they had met was nothing unusual.

The Kremlin added that “scare stories” have nothing to do with reality, in response to the reports.

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In other developments:

• Two dozen mainly Democratic‑led states filed a fresh lawsuit to block Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail voting in this year’s midterm elections.

• Lawyers for Lisa Cook wrote to the White House on Wednesday, rejecting a new attempt to force the Federal Reserve governor to resign for allegedly listing two properties as her primary residence on mortgage applications. The letter goes on to detail the numerous other individuals who have made the same mistake on mortgage forms, starting with Trump.

• The chief spokesperson for the US Secret Service and two other communications staffers are under investigation for “potential misconduct” and have been suspended, according to the agency and media reports.

• A geography professor alleges in a lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Manhattan that he was fired from his tenured position at the US Military Academy at West Point “because he taught that humans influenced climate change”.

• The US army announced on Wednesday that it has awarded to $۲.۲bn to five contractors “to own, construct and operate nuclear microreactors on military installations” in five states.