Melania Trump was an island of calm in a sea of impeachment chaos Wednesday, choosing to make her first solo trip to Capitol Hill as her husband's party reckoned with his conduct and rumbled with House Democrats.
As President Donald Trump faced the most peril of his presidency, Mrs. Trump took her seat in a paneled Senate parlor under George Washington's portrait to discuss opioid policy with members of the House and Senate. The lawmakers, almost all Republicans, stretched out around her at a table shaped like a "U'' for the rare chance to speak on-camera about something other than impeachment.
Mrs. Trump, wearing a camel-colored pant suit, exchanged thanks with members of the administration and lawmakers on the first anniversary of a law that helps fight opioid addiction.
First lady Melania Trump is greeted by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar, as they participate in a roundtable discussion on the opioid crisis, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019. The first lady marked the first anniversary of the President's signing of the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act and it's impact on the country. (AP PhotoCliff Owen)
"We're celebrating," said Alex Azar, Trump's secretary of health and human services.
In that, the Mansfield Room was like a bubble. All around it, tension crackled through the small city of Capitol Hill, one day after diplomat William Taylor described the president's effort to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless its president publicly agreed to investigate Democrats. The account undermined Trump's insistence that there was no quid pro quo, a stance that many Republicans had repeated in their defense of the president.
Mrs. Trump's event got underway as a different scene unfolded across the Capitol complex and deep in its bowels. About two dozen House Republicans tried to barge into the secure briefing room where three committees were hearing testimony from witnesses on Trump's pressure on Ukraine. The legislators, not members of those committees, loudly complained that too many Republicans were kept out and brought the day's proceedings to a halt, at least temporarily.
Back in the Senate, reporters chased Republicans to gauge whether Taylor's testimony had changed their view of Trump's conduct.
Mrs. Trump could have canceled her event just off the Senate floor. Instead, she arrived with a retinue of administration officials, including Azar and White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway.
In brief remarks, Mrs. Trump said the law enacted a year ago, called the SUPPORT Act, is compatible with her childhood initiative, Be Best. Both, she said, focus on children affected by the opioid crisis.
"Because of the SUPPORT Act, we are able to look at ways to reduce opioid use during pregnancy and recognize early childhood issues related to substance abuse," she said.
On the way out, Mrs. Trump ignored questions about how the impeachment inquiry was affecting her family.
Associated Press Writer Mike Balsamo contributed to this report.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
