Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Rochester Opera House in Rochester, N.H, Jan. 21, 2024. (Haiyun Jiang/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday it will not take up an appeal from former President Donald Trump of the limited gag order placed on him in his federal election interference case, according to a new court filing.
The ruling, which did not include any accompanying opinion, means Trump could now seek to appeal the issue to the Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in October granted part of the government’s request for a narrowly tailored gag order against Trump, prohibiting him from making or “reposting” statements “publicly targeting” the special counsel and his staff, as well as Chutkan’s staff and the staff of other D.C. district court personnel.
After temporarily halting the limited gag order following Trump’s appeal of her order, the judge then reinstated the limited gag order in response to Trump’s social media comments regarding his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Trump in August pleaded not guilty to charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election as the Jan. 6 riot raged — all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
The former president has denied all wrongdoing and denounced the charges as political.
(CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE) — For weeks, Nikki Haley and her allies have said she was ready to take on Donald Trump in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary — and prove she has the momentum with Republicans to keep fighting him for the party’s presidential nomination.
With Haley’s endorsement from the state’s popular governor, Chris Sununu, and its higher proportion of college-educated and independent voters, the state was seen as the most favorable early battleground for her against the former president after she finished a distant third in Iowa.
New Hampshire polls found Haley had some reason for optimism, with 538’s polling average showing her gaining notable ground with voters since December.
Still, Trump’s own support has also increased and they headed into primary day with Haley still trailing by double digits.
The Haley team, including surrogates like Sununu, also softened their own expectations for how she would perform, from predicting a “landslide” to vowing a “strong second.”
“We’re fighting for every inch look. No one said that this was going to be easy,” Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas told ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis on Tuesday night. “Donald Trump is Donald Trump.”
‘A landslide here in New Hampshire’
Haley won the endorsement of anti-Trump New Hampshire Gov. Sununu in December. He chose her over other options like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, both of whom have since ended their campaigns.
Sununu quickly became a key surrogate for Haley, stumping for her in numerous rallies and TV interviews.
Fresh off the endorsement — six weeks ahead of the primary — Sununu in a joint television appearance with Haley boasted that the former U.N. ambassador’s chances of victory were high.
“The fact is, we’re gonna have record turnout here,” Sununu said. “And if any — everybody that can vote comes out and votes, there’s no doubt Nikki Haley’s gonna win this thing in a landslide here in New Hampshire. And that’s the fundamental change.”
‘Iowa starts it’
Whereas opponents like DeSantis devoted more resources to a strong showing in Iowa’s caucuses, which kicked off the nominating race last week, Haley promised supporters at one Milford, New Hampshire, event that their primary would be a chance to “get this right.”
“You know, Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it, ” Haley said on Jan. 3.
Introducing Haley at the event, Sununu admitted he expected Trump to win Iowa — which Trump ultimately did, with 51% of the vote — but predicted Haley would have a good showing in the state.
“I think she’s going to shock everyone in Iowa with a strong second.” Sununu said.
Haley overtook DeSantis for second place in a late poll but ended up falling behind in the actual caucuses, ending up in third with 19%.
‘Strong … and then even stronger’
Last week, Sununu struck a different tone about Haley’s goals in his state: “We always wanted to have a strong second,” he told ABC News’ Byron Pitts, adding that it was “the only expectation we ever laid out.”
On the day of the New Hampshire primary, Haley had South Carolina’s Feb. 24 primary on her mind. In an interview with ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Haley was asked about recent polls showing Trump widening his lead above Haley in New Hampshire.
“We’re going home to South Carolina. The goal is we wanted to be strong in Iowa, stronger in New Hampshire and then even stronger that in South Carolina,” Haley said.
But there, as in other parts of the country, Trump has an enormous polling lead.
A Haley campaign memo released Tuesday argued that the Super Tuesday primaries on March 5 would offer “significant fertile ground for Nikki.”
“We are committed to see this through. I think what a lot of people don’t realize is first a month in politics is a lifetime,” Perez-Cubas, the campaign spokeswoman, said on ABC News Live on Tuesday. “A lot can happen over the next several weeks.”
(CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE) — New Hampshire voters have been heading to the polls on Tuesday to vote in a presidential primary that could heavily influence the race for the Republican nomination.
It’s largely between former President Donald Trump, who is the favorite in the polls to win both New Hampshire and the overall primary, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the last major candidate remaining against him.
Some still didn’t know who they’re backing in the days before the race.
“I’ve changed my mind about a dozen times so far,” said Mark LaCroix.
Others, however, touted their candidate as the one who can remedy the country’s ailments, with several voters expressing dour perceptions of the economy and the cost of living — a recurring theme going back at least to the 2022 midterms.
“When you speak to the average working-class voter, they have increasing debt, everything has become more expensive for them, and that’s what they’re feeling,” said Bobby O’Donnell.
“I’m voting for Nikki Haley because she’s fresh, she’s young, she’s an accountant, and I like that. She’s gonna balance the budget,” Maureen Ennis told ABC News.
Most voters, though, expressed confidence that Trump would run away with the state.
“I think President Trump is going to win. I think after New Hampshire, I think if he wins this state, Nikki Haley has to win it in order for her to continue,” said Cooper Walsh.
“I’m supporting President Trump because he has a record of getting things done. I think Americans are tired of what Joe Biden’s done to this country. I think they want the border closed. … They want to see the economy booming again. And me, personally, I want a president who’s going to support women in women’s sports,” Maya Harvey said, adding that “absolutely” Trump will be the Republican nominee.
Some voters were motivated to vote because they feared that prediction would end up being true.
“I’m an independent going on the Republican ticket so I can vote for Nikki Haley,” said Karol Carroll. “Because Donald Trump, I do not want him in office.” (Under New Hampshire law, independent voters can cast ballots for either the Democratic and Republican nominees.)
There’s seemingly been less action on the Democratic side. But President Joe Biden’s allies are waging a write-in campaign for him in the state’s unsanctioned primary, which he declined to campaign in because of a larger battle over scheduling between the state and national Democrats.
But many Democrats are still hoping Biden can win handily via the write-in campaign to fend off an embarrassing defeat to either Rep. Dean Phillips or author Marianne Williamson, who are challenging him for the nomination.
“[People have been confused] and resentful. A lot of people are resentful about it. But it’s nothing that Biden could control really … or New Hampshire. These are the rules, and we have to follow them whether we like them or not. New Hampshire has to be first, and the DNC says South Carolina has to be first. So, we’ve got an impasse,” said Donna Vanderbeck, a supporter of the write-in campaign.
Others, though, felt less positively about Biden.
Phillips is looking to run to Biden’s left and lean into the 26-year age difference between the two of them (Phillips is 55 and Biden is 81) while arguing Biden cannot take on Trump in a rematch in November.
And progressives are frustrated over Biden’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas after Hamas’ October terror attack, with some pushing voters to write-in “cease-fire” instead of the president’s name.
“He was one of the candidates I, one, saw most, which influences a lot in who you vote for,” Daniel Rosario said of why he voted for Phillips. “But also, a lot of his views I align with, along with the fact that he is younger — which is something that we really haven’t had in a while.”
Rosario clarified later that he hasn’t gone to any of Phillips’s events in New Hampshire, but had seen ads for Phillips and some YouTube videos about candidates.
Why not vote for Williamson? “She just didn’t get my attention as much,” Rosario said, adding that while she has “a lot of views that I agree with… something about her didn’t call me to vote for her.” As for President Joe Biden, Rosario said he feels Biden has been in office or running for too long.
“I don’t know that any of the candidates have actually been strong enough with respect to what’s happening in Gaza,” George Shaker said. “Certainly, President Biden hasn’t been, and I think we need a voice with more of a humanitarian concern; there have already been over 25,000 people killed in Gaza; civilians, children, women, men.”
(CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE) — Strong turnout by unaffiliated voters and a comparative abundance of moderates stand out in preliminary exit poll results from the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday.
Under New Hampshire law, the primary is open, allowing independents to vote for either the Democratic or Republican nominee.
Voters who are registered as “undeclared,” rather than Republican, account for 47% of the turnout in the preliminary exit poll results — the record to date was 45% in 2012.
Moderates account for 31% of voters, compared with 9% in last week’s Iowa caucuses. Just 24% are very conservative vs. 52% in Iowa. And white evangelicals are 19%, compared with 55% in Iowa.
From a list of four issues, the economy (34%) and immigration (31%) prevailed in importance, compared with foreign policy, cited by 17%, and abortion, 11%.
With regards to abortion, 27% of voters say they favor a federal ban, a sharp difference from 61% who favored it in Iowa, according to preliminary exit poll results.
Economic sentiment is sour, with 69% saying the economy is in not-so-good or poor shape. Relatedly, 77% are dissatisfied or even angry with the way things are going in the country today. And a majority of voters, 56%, say they expect life to be worse for the next generation of Americans — up dramatically from 20% in 2020 and 33% in 2016.
Using self-reported partisanship, 45% of New Hampshire voters in these preliminary exit poll results describe themselves as independents, near the 2012 record of 47%.
Notably, 8% identify themselves as Democrats — double the previous high in a GOP primary in the state.
That leaves just 47% of Republican primary voters identifying as Republicans in these preliminary exit poll results — which, if it holds, would set a new low. Self-identified Republicans have slipped to fewer than half of GOP primary voters in the state just once before: 49% in 2012.
A quarter of New Hampshire voters in these preliminary results say they finally made up their mind in the past week or less and 16 percent are first-time voters in a GOP primary.
A relatively modest majority of New Hampshire primary voters, 56%, say in these preliminary results that they’d be satisfied with former President Donald Trump as the party’s nominee but 55% say they’d be satisfied with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump’s main remaining opponent.
About 32% of New Hampshire voters identify themselves as part of the MAGA movement vs. 46% in Iowa.
Forty-nine percent of voters say they are 2020 election deniers compared with 66% in Iowa. And 47% say that if Trump were convicted of a crime, they’d consider him unfit to serve as president — compared to the 31% of voters in Iowa who said the same. He denies all wrongdoing.
Another question marks Haley’s position as chiefly the anti-Trump choice: 77% of Trump voters in these preliminary results say they strongly favor their candidate as opposed to liking him with reservations or mainly disliking others.
By contrast, just 33% of Haley voters strongly favor her and 39% mainly dislike her opponent
Exit poll results may change as the night progresses.
Martin Shkreli, former chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, exits court in New York, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023. (Bloomberg / Contributor/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Martin Shkreli’s lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry was upheld by a federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Shkreli was punished appropriately for antitrust violations.
Shkreli increased the price of the antiparasitic drug Daraprim — an anti-malaria medication often prescribed for HIV patients — by 4,000%, from $17.50 per pill to $750 per pill in 2015.
Shkreli, a former pharmaceuticals CEO who was nicknamed “Pharma Bro” after hiking the cost of the lifesaving drug, was convicted of securities fraud and had faced a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
In 2018, Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud and other offenses and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
At the time of his sentencing, Shkreli apologized for his “disgraceful judgment” and dispensed with his prior criticisms of the court and his conviction.
“The only person to blame for me being here is me,” he said. “There is no government conspiracy to take down Martin Shkreli. I took down Martin Shkreli with my disgraceful and shameful actions.”
After serving about five years, Shkreli was released from prison early in May 2022.
After the Federal Trade Commission sued him a court ordered the lifetime ban and made him repay $64 million.
Shkreli argued the lifetime ban was excessive and limited his public speech. The appellate court found the ban was a reasonable measure to protect the public from future price-fixing.
“Given Shkreli’s pattern of past misconduct, the obvious likelihood of its recurrence, and the life-threatening nature of its results, we are persuaded that the district court’s determination as to the proper scope of the injunction was well within its discretion,” according to the opinion.
Shkreli’s company, Vyera Pharmaceuticals, settled allegations it suppressed competition for Daraprim, its most valuable drug, and filed for bankruptcy last year.
The Iranians call Hamas a “Palestinian liberation group” and say Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are a response to the war in Gaza. (ABC News)
(IRAN) — The chances that flashpoints in the Middle East will ignite a conflict that engulfs the entire region have increased, Iran’s top diplomat told ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
“The scope of the war has become wider. This means that the danger of having a wider war in the region has gone up,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, blaming the U.S and Israel for the escalating tensions.
“If the U.S. today stops its backing — logistical and weapons, political and media support — of the genocidal war launched by Israel, then I can assure you that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu will not survive for 10 minutes,” he asserted. “So the key to solve the problem is in Washington before it is in Tel Aviv.”
Raddatz pressed the foreign minister on Iran’s role in stoking the conflict, including its longstanding financial and military support of Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that killed hundreds of civilians in Israel in its Oct. 7 attack.
“We consider Hamas a Palestinian liberation group that is standing against occupation,” Amir-Abdollahian said. “Of course, we never approved the killing of women and children, civilians anywhere in the world. We never support it.”
Raddatz also questioned the foreign minister on Iran’s backing of the Houthis — the Yemeni rebel group responsible for dozens of recent attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, including U.S. ships.
The Pentagon has shared evidence of what it says is Iran’s weapons smuggling network that supplies the Houthis, including details of a commando mission in the Arabian Sea that successfully intercepted Iranian-made missile components destined for Yemen but resulted in the death of two Navy SEALS.
But Amir-Abdollahian dismissed the allegations, baselessly accusing the U.S. military of fabricating the information.
“Mostly, this is a TV show,” he asserted, even though the United Nations and other foreign governments have documented similar arms transfers from Iran.
While the Oct. 7 attacks and its tumultuous aftermath have renewed fears of direct combat between the U.S. and Iran, the two have teetered on the brink of war before in recent years.
Hostilities between the countries hit a zenith in 2020, when then-President Donald Trump ordered an air strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force and a man the U.S. says responsible for the deaths of hundreds American and coalition service members and was actively plotting to kill more.
In the aftermath of Soleimani’s killing, Iranian officials vowed they would eventually exact revenge.
“That was a big, big mistake made by Trump. That is not something that we will be able to forget,” Amir-Abdollahian said, adding that Tehran still wanted to see “all the people involved” in the strike “brought to justice.”
“What does that mean?” Raddatz asked. “Does that mean killed?”
“Justice will rule on it,” he responded.
However, Amir-Abdollahian argued that whether Trump won or lost his bid for another term in the Oval Office would ultimately have little impact on the relationship between the U.S. and Iran.
“Individuals are not important, what matters is the behavior of the government that takes the office.,” he said.
In the Middle East, Tehran wields much of its power through its vast web of proxies–an informal coalition terrorist organization like Hamas, the Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as well as paramilitary groups scattered through Iraq and Syria that are united by anti-Western and anti-Israeli sentiments.
U.S. officials say Iran has significant influence over the network of militants that benefit from the country’s financial and military support, but Tehran has consistently downplayed or denied the connections–insisting the country only wants to see peace across the Middle East.
“Nobody is going to benefit from any war. We believe that the solution is never war,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
ABC News’ Cindy Smith, Nate Luna and Christopher Boccia contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — With tax season set to kick off next week, the IRS is launching a new initiative to redesign and simplify common tax documents.
The changes will eventually apply to around 170 million letters that are sent out to individual taxpayers every year. The notices, for example, remind taxpayers of how much they owe, that they have made an error on their returns, or that they have been victims of identity theft.
The current IRS forms are often complicated, confusing and filled with legal jargon. The redesigned versions are shorter with clearer language about the steps taxpayers need to take in the specific notice they receive.
“We need to put more of these letters into plain language, something an average person can understand without needing to hire a tax or legal professional,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
Letters affecting about 20 million taxpayers will be redesigned for the current 2024 tax season. Werfel said the goal is to cover 90% of all notices sent to taxpayers by next year’s filing season.
“This is a big undertaking to the IRS, and it will take time and resources” Werfel said, crediting funding that was made available through the Inflation Reduction Act.
That legislation, passed in August 2022, allocated $80 billion to the IRS over 10 years, as part of a push to modernize the agency. Some of those funds have since been clawed back amid ongoing spending fights in Congress.
The IRS says the new “Simple Notice Initiative” builds on a previous effort to improve paperless processing, making it easier for taxpayers to submit documents online.
The 2024 tax filing season officially kicks off on Jan. 29.
(IRAQ) — The U.S. on Tuesday staged airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq in retaliation for ballistic missiles fired Saturday against Al-Assad airbase that left four U.S. personnel with traumatic brain injuries.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(IRAQ) — The U.S. on Tuesday staged airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq in retaliation for ballistic missiles fired Sunday against Al-Assad airbase that left four U.S. personnel with traumatic brain injuries, two U.S. officials said.
“Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia group and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq. These precision strikes are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks against U.S. and Coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
“The President and I will not hesitate to take necessary action to defend them and our interests,”” he said. “We do not seek to escalate conflict in the region. We are fully prepared to take further measures to protect our people and our facilities. We call on these groups and their Iranian sponsors to immediately cease these attacks.”
Sunday’s attack on U.S. troops at the sprawling Iraqi airbase in western Iraq involved 17 ballistic missiles and rockets and was launched from inside Iraq, according to three U.S. officials.
While the majority of the projectiles were blocked, two ballistic missiles were able to get through U.S. air defenses, the officials said.
The Pentagon said that the attack resulted in structural damage to “noncritical facilities” and that four U.S. service members had returned to their duties after having been evaluated for traumatic brain injuries (TBI), an Iraqi official was also injured in the blasts.
U.S. officials anticipate the possibility that additional service members could step forward with TBI symptoms.
There have been more than 150 rocket and drone attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria since mid-October carried out by Iranian-backed militias claiming they are in support of Palestinians in the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza.
But their use of ballistic missiles, as happened this weekend was seen as an escalation.
There are still about 2,500 American troops serving in Iraq and 900 in Syria to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State.
However, the continued presence of American troops in Iraq was cast into question by Iraq’s parliament shortly after a U.S. drone strike on January 4 that killed a top leader of one of the Iranian-backed militia groups responsible for the attacks on U.S. forces.
That drone strike and other retaliatory strikes carried out inside Iraq and Syria have so far not deterred the groups from continuing to launch the attacks.
The attacks are a sign of rising tensions in the region for the United States which has also carried out retaliatory strikes in Yemen targeting Houthi militants responsible for more than 30 attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Most recently on Monday, the United States and United Kingdom carried out another major strike against Houthi locations associated with the shipping attacks.
It marked the eighth retaliatory airstrike carried out against Houthi targets since Jan. 11 which U.S. officials say have degraded the Houthis ability to carry out the attacks even as they have continued to do so.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Venmo, Zelle and Cash App are leaving consumers vulnerable to fraud that’s “draining bank accounts of significant sums of money,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in letters to the companies that own those financial apps. He demanded they increase protections.
Bragg’s letters said he was writing “in response to a growing number of incidents” involving fraud and theft “through the exploitation of your company’s mobile financial applications on personal electronic devices such as iPhones.”
Peer-to-peer payment services now handle an estimated $1 trillion in payments and the district attorney said “frauds and scams have proliferated” as usage climbs.
In the past year, there have been thefts stretching from Los Angeles, where several people were robbed of thousands of dollars through Venmo at knifepoint, to Orlando, where a woman had thousands drained from her Venmo after a child asked to use her phone. Similar thefts and robberies have been publicly reported in West Virginia, Louisiana, Illinois, Kansas, Tennessee, Virginia and elsewhere across the United States.
“These crimes involve an unauthorized user gaining access to unlocked devices and then draining bank accounts of significant sums of money, making purchases with mobile financial applications, and using financial information from the applications to open new accounts,” Bragg’s letters said. “Offenders also take over the phone’s security by changing passwords, recovery accounts, and application settings. The ease with which offenders can collect five- and even six-figure windfalls in a matter of minutes is incentivizing a large number of individuals to commit these crimes, which are creating serious financial, and in some cases physical, harm to our residents.”
The district attorney called on Venmo, Zelle and Cash App to adopt additional security measures, including imposing limits on transactions, requiring secondary verification of up to a day and better monitoring of unusual activity.
“I am concerned about the troubling rise in illegal behavior that has developed because of insufficient security measures connected with your software and business policy decisions,” Bragg’s letters said.
He is requesting meetings with the companies.
Paypall, the owner of Venmo; Square Inc, the owner of Cash App; and Zelle did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
