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Daily calls from national security adviser highlight White House’s pipeline nerves

Top White House officials — including counselor Steve Ricchetti and National Security Council chief of staff Yohannes Abraham — visited Camp David last weekend to brief President Biden about the Colonial Pipeline hack, sources familiar with the response tell Axios.

Why it matters: The high-level response, which also included daily calls from national security adviser Jake Sullivan, underscores the administration's heightened concern about fallout from the hack — both from national security and political perspectives.


What we're hearing: Biden made clear after receiving his first briefing Friday night that he wanted to be kept abreast of the status of the hack and the administration's response.

  • He requested details on both fronts, officials said.

How events unfolded: Beginning Friday, Homeland Security adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and National Economic Council director Brian Deese set up an ad-hoc interagency team, made up of White House and Cabinet principals, to deal with the pipeline breakdown.

  • Deese and Sherwood-Randall, who served as deputy secretary of Energy under President Obama and previously worked on issues with the Colonial pipeline, convened a series of calls and Zoom meetings with Colonial multiple times per day.
  • Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technology, was in touch with Colonial executives, and invited Tuesday to assist their chief information officer with diagnostics and remediation.

On Tuesday morning, Sullivan and Sherwood-Randall gave Biden a more detailed briefing focused on the nature of the attack, the particular group involved and how Colonial was remediating the ransomware attack to get their network back up and running.

  • Biden received a breakdown of the capabilities of the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Homeland Security and Defense, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, to assist in mitigating supply shortages.
  • Biden urged the team to move aggressively in responding to supply shortages that would emerge from a prolonged shutdown, officials said.

On Wednesday, the White House sent its top Cabinet officials to brief members of Congress on the situation. The briefing was held shortly after Colonial announced it would begin restarting its operations.

Go deeper: The White House provided a fact sheet on its outreach to states, including waivers allowing multiple states to temporarily use noncompliant fuel to boost available supply and increase weight limits for fuel transport trucks.

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NRA files for bankruptcy, says it will reincorporate in Texas

The National Rifle Association said Friday it has filed for voluntary bankruptcy as part of a restructuring plan.

Driving the news: The gun rights group said it would reincorporate in Texas, calling New York, where it is currently registered, a "toxic political environment." Last year, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit to dissolve the NRA, alleging the group committed fraud by diverting roughly $64 million in charitable donations over three years to support reckless spending by its executives.

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Bipartisan group of senators urges Blinken to vaccinate Americans abroad

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) are leading an effort urging the Biden administration to coordinate with the Defense Department to donate supplemental COVID-19 vaccine doses to U.S. embassies and consulates.

Why it matters: Millions of Americans living in countries where they are not considered eligible for the vaccine or those living in places where vaccines are not being authorized by the FDA or the World Health Organization may have to wait for months or even years to receive a vaccine.

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