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WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Friday that the US is sending Ukraine its largest aid package to date — worth $6 billion — that will include munitions for Patriot missile defense systems that Kyiv has said could change the course of the war, but not the systems themselves. The massive package comes just two days after a separate $1 billion tranche for Ukraine was announced upon President Biden signing a $95 billion foreign aid supplemental funding bill into law. “The announcements this week underscore America’s enduring commitment to Ukraine’s defense,” Austin said after a meeting of the Ukraine...

WASHINGTON — Dozens of former national security officials have gone to work for Facebook and Twitter after leaving government service, raising concerns about the influence of their onetime agencies over the social media giants. At Twitter alone, at least eight former FBI agents work at the company’s so-called “trust” and “security” divisions — including its product policy manager Greg Anderson, who previously worked on “psychological operations” at the National Security Council, The Post has learned. Another is Matthew Williams, the company’s co-lead of its Trust and Safety department who spent more that 15 years in intelligence with the agency. The...

Former President Donald Trump again rejected the result of Arizona’s gubernatorial election Monday, calling for Republican Kari Lake to be declared the winner due to a supposed “criminal voting operation.” “Massive numbers of ‘BROKEN’ voting machines in Republican Districts on Election Day. Mechanics sent in to ‘FIX’ them made them worse,” Trump, 76, said in a Truth Social post without offering evidence. “Kari had to be taken to a Democrat area, which was working perfectly, to vote. Her opponent ran the Election.” Trump added it was “SO OBVIOUS” that Lake, 53, should not have lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s...

President Biden thanked first responders with an awkward phone call into the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Thursday that provided some cringeworthy TV for viewers of the annual parade. From the Massachusetts island home of private-equity billionaire David Rubenstein, the president and first lady Jill Biden engaged in a call that started with a lengthy and uncomfortable silence as NBC’s Dylan Dryer, on scene at the parade, seemed unable to hear the pair for about 30 seconds. “I’m not one to take a phone call during TV, but I think I should answer this one,” Dreyer said.

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team thought that getting a case challenging Georgia’s election results before Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was their “only chance” to derail the Jan. 6, 2021 congressional vote count certifying the election of Joe Biden, newly published emails show. “We want to frame things so that Thomas could be the one to issue some sort of stay or other circuit justice opinion saying Georgia is in legitimate doubt,” Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020 message to his colleagues obtained by Politico. Though the states had certified Biden as the winner of...

The Air Force will “hold accountable” whoever leaked confidential records holding private information about the sexual assault of a Republican House candidate and former officer, two GOP congressmen said Wednesday. Reps. Jim Banks and Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) said in a joint statement that Air Force watchdog Lt. Gen. Stephen Davis had told them the service took “full responsibility” for the release of Jennifer-Ruth Green’s confidential personnel records to an unnamed political research firm. “On yesterday’s [Tuesday’s] call, the Air Force took full responsibility for improperly releasing Lt. Col. Green’s confidential personnel records to an opposition research firm just weeks before...

A group of 30 left-wing legislators on Tuesday withdrew a letter sent a day earlier calling on President Biden to negotiate directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his war on Ukraine — after several signatories running for re-election objected to its release nearly four months after it was written.The Congressional Progress Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” the group’s chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote in a statement Tuesday. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.” Though she blamed unnamed employees for the letter’s...

WASHINGTON – Before then-President Donald Trump visited a US Navy base in Japan in 2019, his team asked officials to keep a ship named for one of Trump’s Republican rivals – the late Sen. John McCain – out of sight, newly released Navy emails confirm. When reports of the White House request initially surfaced, Navy officials told reporters a painting tarp that obscured the ship’s name from view in the days before Trump’s visit was placed there for maintenance reasons – but the documents released Wednesday confirm that was untrue. “The name of USS John S. McCain was not obscured...