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Fresh off Iowa win, Trump sets sights on battling Haley in New Hampshire

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump coasted to a strong victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses which, despite depressed turnout amid brutal weather, saw him embraced by a majority of the state’s Republican base.

Now he’s gearing up to battle directly with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, looking to quash what appears to be her best hope at beating him in his quest for a third straight presidential nomination, sources in Trump’s orbit told ABC News, offering a glimpse into his immediate next moves on the trail.

“The game plan is always to win. And whether it’s ‘scorched earth’ or highlight the major deficiencies in her record, that’s what we can expect the next week,” said one former campaign official who remains in touch with Trump’s current team and who asked not to be named to share internal discussions. (Spokespeople for Trump and Haley did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)

“Donald Trump has a chance of ending this race and putting the final nail in the coffin of this presidential primary in New Hampshire,” the former official said. “He’s not one to leave artillery in the gun.”

Monday night’s results saw Trump clinch a thorough victory in Iowa, taking more than 50% of the vote and winning every county except for one.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Haley, who were separated by only a couple of points for second and third place, respectively, ultimately trailed Trump by about 30% each despite months of pitching themselves as better alternatives to win the White House.

Allies of DeSantis and Haley were quick to note the results came out of just one state at the start of the 2024 race (though it is one state that receives outsized attention) and arguably few voters were making their voices heard.

Around 110,000 people voted in the Republican caucuses, which was about 60% of the turnout in the last contested caucuses, in 2016.

And even as the vote totals and entrance polls suggested Trump continues to have problems with more moderate and younger voters and in more educated and less rural areas, his win showed that the base of the party remains with him.

Trump is favored to win upcoming primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina, but both states offer different quirks that theoretically provide openings for Haley on a narrow path toward competing with him through the rest of the primary season, observers and experts said.

Independents and people registered as undeclared — who typically lean more moderate — are allowed to vote in New Hampshire’s primary and South Carolina, where Trump has a 30-point edge in 538’s polling average, is seen as potentially more hospitable to Haley than Iowa, given her existing connection to voters as a former governor there.

Trump and Haley have already engaged in tit-for-tat attacks, with Trump casting aspersions on Haley’s intelligence and labeling her a “globalist” and the South Carolinian depicting the former president as an agent of “chaos” — while still saying she would pardon him if she’s elected and he’s convicted of a crime (he denies wrongdoing) and declining to rule out if she’d be his running mate.

Sources around Trump forecasted that the attacks from his team and allies will be escalating after Iowa to several notches above what Haley has already faced.

“I think she’s a significant opponent and in a primary, she’s earned the right to get clobbered,” said one source in Trump’s orbit.

“This is a roller coaster she’s only heard of, and she had the seat in the very last row,” said a second person, who like the other Trump sources quoted here asked not to be named because of ongoing relationships.

The former president is already planning on upping his campaign schedule in New Hampshire in the coming days, where one source said an anti-tax message could jive with the state’s “life free or die” mantra.

“I think the most important thing is obviously, taxes [are] going to be a part of the conversation. New Hampshire is a no-tax type of state, that’s their political philosophy,” the former campaign official said, arguing Trump “delivered on one of the largest tax cuts in American history.”

Another line of attack from Trump could focus on some of Haley’s wealthy donors, including those who have given to Democrats — a charge she has also faced from DeSantis and tried to play down.

Haley’s allies told ABC News she’s ready to fight back.

“She is tough. There is nothing the Trump folks can say that she hasn’t already heard. Of course, we have to leave room for the probability he will just make stuff up. In that case, she will just have to correct the record,” said Eric Levine, an attorney and donation bundler for her.

Haley, too, appeared to be ramping up her responses this week, including linking Trump to President Joe Biden in the most explicit terms yet.

“Both are consumed by chaos, negativity and grievances of the past,” a narrator says in a new ad running in New Hampshire.

“Our campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden nightmare,” Haley added in remarks after the caucuses.

“Republicans have lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. That’s nothing to be proud of,” she said then.

Supportive outside groups, like SFA Fund Inc., the super PAC backing Haley, and the Koch-aligned Americans for Prosperity are also launching attacks on the former president.

Andrew Smith, the director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said Haley is well-positioned to absorb attacks before next week’s primary, pointing to past jabs from entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — who dropped out on Monday and endorsed Trump — on Haley’s family that ended up falling flat.

“You saw what happened when Ramaswamy went after Haley in the debates: The more he attacked her and accused her of things, the smaller he looked, and she just sat back and absorbed it with a smile on her face,” Smith said.

“I think if [Trump] says, ‘Yeah, she just does well with the moderates, those moderates, you can’t trust those people, they’re not all MAGA’ … That’s probably the best way to do it,” Smith added. “I don’t know if it would necessarily work.”

Haley throughout the campaign has urged voters to move on from Trump, whom she attacks on some major issues like raising the national debt. But she has tempered her comments about her former boss. One frequent line is that he was “the right president at the right time.”

She has also defended his right to be on the 2024 ballot in light of challenges citing the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause in connection with Jan. 6. (More openly anti-Trump candidates, like Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, have already left the 2024 race.)

That balancing act underscores the difficulty for Haley or anyone else going against Trump, some experts said. In trying to undercut him with Republican voters, they risk just making themselves smaller.

“Obviously, Trump is still the favorite” in New Hampshire, Smith said. “I don’t think that’s changed at all. I think that Haley has a distant chance.”

ABC News gets rare access to VP Kamala Harris as she hits the 2024 campaign trail

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — As the Republican presidential candidates jockeyed for votes during the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris was in South Carolina, shoring up support in a state that will kick off Democrats’ primary season next month.

“It’s good to be back,” Harris, who was making her second trip to South Carolina since the start of the new year, said before getting in her motorcade.

ABC News was granted exclusive access to the vice president during her trip, getting a rare, behind-the-scenes look as the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign kicks into high gear. ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce followed Harris as she traveled on Air Force Two, delivered a speech outside the South Carolina State House and met with supporters.

Harris has taken an expanded role on the campaign trail, traveling to at least 18 states over the last six months — taking on political fights over abortion access, race and voting rights.

This, as many voters say President Joe Biden’s age is a top concern. The oldest-ever sitting president, Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll shows only 28% of those surveyed say Biden has the mental sharpness to serve another four years, down from about 50% in May 2020.

Bruce pressed Harris on how the campaign plans to change that perception.

“I’ll tell you, the reality of it is, and I’ve spent a lot of time with Biden, be it in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room and other places — he is extraordinarily smart. He has the ability to see around the corner in terms of what might be the challenges we face as a nation or globally,” Harris said.

Harris added: “Well, I mean, listen, you’re here with me in South Carolina. You saw every room we went in. The numbers of people who are there, applauding quite loudly, and they’re applauding for me and they’re applauding for Joe Biden and for what we as an administration have accomplished. They’re there because they believe in what we’re doing and they want to see us continue to do this work.”

On Monday, Harris spoke to a crowd of hundreds outside the state Capitol to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day and laid out what she saw was at stake in the coming election.

“As vice president of the United States, I’d say, at this moment, in America, freedom is under profound threat,” Harris said. “Today, in fact, we are witnessing a full-on attack on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms.”

South Carolina has played a critical role in Democratic primary politics. Most voters who participate in the state’s Democratic primary are Black — the party’s base. It also revived Biden’s campaign in 2020 after he came in fourth in Iowa, and fifth in New Hampshire.

In a nod to South Carolina’s role in Biden’s 2020 win, the Democratic National Committee changed its 2024 presidential primary calendar to elevate South Carolina to be the first state to vote while demoting Iowa and New Hampshire, which national Democrats argue are not representative of their voter base or of the country, despite sharp outcry from both states.

“We’re not going to wait and parachute into these communities at the last minute and ask them for their vote, we’re going to earn their vote,” deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks told reporters on a call earlier this month.

“Well, that’s why I’m out here,” Harris told Bruce in an interview before departing Columbia. “We’ve done really good work, our challenge will be to let people know who brung it to them.”

She added: “We have done the work that has been about bringing down unemployment, Black unemployment, to some of the lowest numbers we’ve ever seen … What we’ve done on student loan debt, we have now erased student loan debt for over three-and-a-half million people and with more to do, so we’ve delivered.”

An area where they have not delivered, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll, is on immigration, a critical issue for voters. Just 18% approve of Biden’s handling of the border.

Biden assigned Harris the responsibility of addressing the root causes of migration at the southern border.

Democrats and Republicans are negotiating on Capitol Hill as the country faces record-shattering numbers of encounters at the southern border. Some Democrats are pressing the administration to do more, including New York Mayor Eric Adams, who has chided Washington for lacking urgency on the issue.

“Does your administration bear responsibility for that?” Bruce pressed the vice president.

“It is no secret for anyone that we have a broken immigration system, and it needs to be fixed and it would be great if we could get some bipartisan consensus to do just that,” Harris responded.

Harris has also taken a leading role when it comes to abortion rights. The California native will be embarking upon a nationwide “Reproductive Freedoms Tour” next week to highlight the administration’s fight for abortion access.

While the White House has said it wants to codify the rights previously guaranteed under Roe v. Wade, without Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, its ability to act is limited.

“What can you realistically promise the American people you would do to protect these reproductive rights?” Bruce pressed.

“Well, we’re gonna continue to do what we’ve been doing, and so that includes what we’re doing through the court system, what we’re doing to ensure emergency care and protection for all people in terms of access to emergency care, what we’re doing to protect access to contraception is another big piece of this,” Harris said.

“But here’s the bottom line: From Kansas to California from, from Ohio to Virginia. When this issue has been on the ballot, the American people have voted in favor of freedoms,” she added.

With a potential Biden-Trump rematch on the horizon, the Biden-Harris campaign says in the coming months voters will be presented with a stark choice involving “democracy and freedom.” Harris told Bruce the campaign is gearing up for a tough fight.

“Well, I mean, we’re talking about an election for president of the United States, vice president of the United States, and we have to earn that reelect. I mean, these are challenging times,” she said. “I have been traveling our country, and it is clear to me that there is an intent to attack these most fundamental freedoms and liberties.”

Bruce asked Harris if a rematch with former President Donald Trump, who went on to handily win the Iowa caucuses later on Monday, was a foregone conclusion.

“I don’t know,” Harris said. “But look, if it is Donald Trump, we’ve beat him before and we’ll beat him again.”

‘This is the end’: Alaska Airlines passengers sue over door plug blowout

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Four passengers are suing Alaska Airlines and Boeing for the “terror” they say they experienced after a door plug “blew off” during their flight, according to a complaint filed Tuesday.

The door plug for the fuselage of a Boeing 737 Max 9 fell off a few minutes after Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland International Airport on Jan. 5, depressurizing the cabin and exposing passengers to open air thousands of feet above the ground, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. No one was seriously injured and the plane made an emergency landing safely.

Two California residents and two Washington state residents who were on the flight are suing the two companies for alleged injuries including “intense fear, distress, anxiety, trauma [and] physical pain,” according to the complaint.

“Plaintiffs feared the gaping hole in the fuselage, rapid depressurization, and general havoc was a prelude to the plane’s destruction and their own likely death,” the complaint stated.

“This is the end,” one plaintiff thought, according to the complaint.

Some passengers also sent “what they thought would be their final text messages in this world,” according to Seattle attorney Mark Lindquist, who filed the complaint on behalf of the four passengers.

One plaintiff texted, “Mom our plane depressed. We’re in masks. I love you,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that Boeing delivered a plane with a faulty door plug and that Alaska management had deemed the aircraft unsafe to fly over the ocean but continued to fly it over land, according to the complaint.

In an interview with ABC News on Jan. 7, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Alaska pilots had reported a pressurization alert on that plane three times between Dec. 7 and Jan. 4, but it was determined to be benign. According to Homendy, Alaska ran maintenance tests and put the plane back in service, but issued a restriction for the plane to not fly over water to Hawaii. The plane had been in operation since Oct. 31, federal records show.

The lawsuit, which was filed in King County Superior Court in Washington state, is seeking unspecified damages for alleged negligence against Boeing and Alaska Airlines. It also alleges product liability against Boeing under the Washington Product Liability Act, alleging that the plane was “unreasonably dangerous and defective,” according to the complaint.

The incident remains under investigation by the NTSB.

“Though it’s too soon to know for sure what exactly went wrong,” Lindquist said in a statement. “We do know Boeing is ultimately responsible for the safety of their planes and Alaska Airlines is ultimately responsible for the safety of their passengers.”

Alaska Airlines grounded its Max 9 fleet shortly after the incident occurred. In response to the lawsuit, Alaska Airlines said it cannot comment on pending litigation.

Boeing had no comment on the lawsuit.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded approximately 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes worldwide in the wake of the incident.

The FAA also is increasing its oversight over Boeing and began an audit of the company’s production and manufacturing last week.

Spirit AeroSystems — which produces the fuselage of the Boeing 737 Max 9 and was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit — said it is “committed” to supporting the FAA’s audit of Boeing’s production line and suppliers.

“Spirit AeroSystems is committed to supporting the FAA’s audit of production and manufacturing processes to ensure compliance with the FAA Quality Management System. As a trusted partner to our customers, Spirit’s top priorities are quality, product integrity and compliance,” Spirit AeroSystems said in a statement.

During a meeting with employees at the 737 production facility in Renton, Washington, last week, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said the company is “going to approach” the incident by starting with an acknowledgment of “our mistake.”

“We’re going to approach it with 100% and complete transparency every step of the way,” Calhoun said during the meeting. “We are going to work with the NTSB who is investigating the accident itself to find out what the cause is.”

The incident could have been potentially more “catastrophic” under different conditions, according to Homendy. The two seats next to the missing door plug were empty, and the incident occurred about 10 minutes after takeoff — when passengers would have still had their seatbelts on — at about 16,000 feet.

“At 30,000, at 35,000 feet, the pressure differential is much greater, which means it would have been a much greater, explosive event — every violent — and it could have had catastrophic consequences,” Homendy told ABC News.

Alaska Airlines has offered full refunds to all passengers of Flight 1282, as well as a $1,500 cash payment “to cover any incidental expenses to ensure their immediate needs were taken care of,” the company said.

“My clients want accountability for Boeing and Alaska Airlines,” Lindquist said in a statement. “They also want assurances that this isn’t going to happen again to anyone.”

Other passengers on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 have sued Boeing over the incident in a proposed class-action suit.

Daniel Penny returns to court for dismissal hearing in NYC subway chokehold death

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — A judge is expected to decide Wednesday if he will dismiss involuntary manslaughter charges against Daniel Penny, a former Marine who choked a man to death on a New York City subway car.

Penny’s attorneys argue that the victim, Jordan Neely, was “insanely threatening” at the time of the incident.

Prosecutors argue that Penny maintained his chokehold on Neely’s neck for six minutes, well past the point when Neely stopped “purposeful movement.”

Penny has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with the death of Neely on the F train on May 1, 2023, which captured Penny in video footage putting Neely in a chokehold.

Both sides are also expected to hear from the judge on evidentiary matters. No trial date has been set.

Penny held Neely for several minutes, and at some point, Neely stopped moving, but Penny continued to hold him for an extended period of time, according to assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass, who told the judge during Penny’s initial appearance in court on May 12.

Penny remained on the scene to talk with police following the incident, Steinglass said.

Some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train, authorities said.

Police sources had previously told ABC News that Penny was not specifically being threatened by Neely when he intervened and that Neely had not become violent and had not been threatening anyone in particular.

Penny’s attorneys have said that he was defending himself and others when he put Neely into the chokehold that caused his death.

The medical examiner determined Neely was killed by a chokehold and his death was ruled a homicide.

Neely was homeless at the time of the incident.

Kohberger lawyer wants the public to see request for the judge to rethink dismissing charges

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — In a capital murder case that has been marked by secrecy and media restrictions, a lawyer for accused Idaho college killer Bryan Kohberger is now asking the judge to make public their arguments that he should rethink his decision to deny their ask to toss out the charges.

“Mr. Kohberger acknowledges the right of the public to be fully informed of the issues,” his lawyer wrote in a new filing posted to the docket Tuesday and filed on Friday.

Kohberger’s defense had previously made two different attempts to get the indictment against him dismissed. In one, they argued that the grand jury was given inaccurate instructions — that they used the wrong standard of proof. In the other, they argued that prosecutors withheld evidence that might aid Kohberger in defending himself, and biased the grand jury.

The judge denied both in mid-December. Just before Christmas, Kohberger’s team asked the judge to reconsider that decision — filing a request under seal.

Kohberger’s high-profile case has largely been veiled in secrecy due to a strict non-dissemination or so-called “gag” order in place. The defense has repeatedly criticized some media portrayals of their client, and the judge himself has chastised the media for what he called “disappointing” behavior filming proceedings by some members of the press. Both Kohberger’s defense and prosecutors leading the case against him have supported limiting cameras in the courtroom — or even banning them entirely.

Now, Kohberger’s lawyer wants the public to know where they stand, at least on this particular matter of asking the judge to rethink his decision to dismiss the charges.

“Capital case litigation is largely a matter of creating or avoiding as many appellate issues as possible. The prosecution wants to avoid them, the defense wants to create them,” said Matt Murphy, a former prosecutor in Orange County, California and ABC News legal contributor.

“The defense has already made their position clear on the trial record. That properly preserved the issue for appeal review,” Murphy added. “‘Unsealing’ it now just opens it up for the public. This has the twin dangers of poisoning prospective jurors, or running afoul of the Court’s desire not to try the case in the media.”

In their new filing, Kohberger’s lawyer says they only asked for those particular filings to be sealed in the first place “solely” because prosecutors wanted it — and they were on deadline to file the motion, so they acquiesced.

They say their client “has a right” for the relevant criminal rule “to apply as it is written rather than disadvantage him with items remaining sealed that are not within the scope” of that rule.

Arguments on Kohberger’s requests for the judge to reconsider his decision not to toss out the charges are set to be heard in pretrial hearings on Jan. 26.

Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger, a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, broke into an off-campus home and stabbed four University of Idaho students to death: Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.

After a six-week hunt, police zeroed in on Kohberger as the suspect, arresting him in December 2022 at his family’s home in Pennsylvania. He was indicted in May and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

Kohberger could face the death penalty, if convicted.

His lawyers have said their client wasn’t in the home where the homicides occurred and was driving around alone that night.

In August, Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial, indefinitely delaying what was supposed to be an Oct. 2 start date.

A new trial date has not been set.

Four college students rescued by helicopter after camping during winter storm in Kentucky

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Four college students camping in Red River Gorge in Kentucky were rescued by helicopter Tuesday morning after getting stranded on Courthouse Rock, Powell County Search and Rescue said.

The four students from Asbury University were camping overnight and “underestimated the weather conditions,” Powell County officials said. After waking up to snow on Tuesday, the four realized it was unsafe to climb down from the Rock and called for help.

Members of Powell County Fire and Rescue were dispatched to assess the trail conditions for the rescue. After starting to trek to the top of Courthouse Rock, the rescue team realized the safest way to rescue the group was by helicopter.

The helicopter, flown by Kentucky State Police, was able to rescue the four students at 2:05 p.m. Tuesday.

Fortunately, none of the students were injured.

“Other than being cold, all four students seemed to be in good spirits,” Powell County officials said.

“This call was one of the most dangerous rescues ever attempted in the Gorge,” Powell County Fire and Rescue said. “Climbing Courthouse Rock is extremely treacherous even when conditions are favorable.”

Kentucky State Police, REDSTAR Wilderness EMS, MiddleFork Fire and Rescue, Powell County Search and Rescue and Wolfe County Search and Rescue assisted in the rescue efforts.

DOJ moves to dismiss lawsuit filed by Hunter Biden against IRS over release of his tax info

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department is moving to dismiss a civil lawsuit filed by President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, against the Internal Revenue Service over its alleged failure to protect his tax information from disclosure by two whistleblowers.

Hunter Biden sued the IRS in September over claims made by a pair of veteran tax investigators, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, whom the younger Biden accused of waging a campaign to “to embarrass and inflict harm” on him by improperly sharing his private taxpayer information in media interviews.

Justice Department argued in a 22-page filing on Tuesday that the alleged wrongdoing described by Hunter Biden pertains to disclosures made by the whistleblowers’ personal attorneys — neither of whom are government employees — and should therefore be dismissed.

Hunter Biden also failed to show that the IRS demonstrated any “intentionality or willfulness” in its alleged failure to protect his taxpayer information, government lawyers argued, quoting the standard for bringing this cause of action.

“Even accepting Plaintiff’s factual allegations as true, they do not support a plausible inference that the agency intentionally or willfully failed to establish adequate technical or procedural safeguards to prevent disclosures from taking place,” DOJ attorneys wrote.

The two whistleblowers accused government prosecutors of mishandling their investigation into the president’s son — a claim that the Justice Department has denied.

US plans to relist Houthis as a global terror group

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration plans to relist Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a global terrorist group in response to the militants’ attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, according to an official familiar with the decision.

The Iranian-backed group was designated as a terrorist organization in January of 2021 — a move that was met with widespread concern from humanitarian groups, who feared that the restrictions that accompany the designation would make it nearly impossible to provide aid to Yemen’s impoverished civilians.

President Joe Biden quickly delisted the Houthis when he entered office as part of his administration’s diplomatic push to end Yemen’s ongoing civil war.

The administration has been considering reimposing the designation for weeks, but some officials involved in the decision making were reluctant because of possible disruptions to humanitarian assistance and peace talks. The official says these priorities will be safeguarded. However, only time will tell if they can create effective workarounds.

When asked about this topic, Biden recently brushed the label off as “irrelevant.”

“It’s irrelevant whether their designated,” Biden told reporters on Friday when asked how soon he would designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization after he said earlier in the day said he believed that’s what they were.

The possible designation comes as the Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea following Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise terror attack on Israel have riled commercial shipping and threatened to dangerously escalate heightened tensions in the Middle East. In response, the U.S. has carried out airstrikes focused Houthi targets, according to U.S. Central Command.

Court rejects Twitter’s appeal of ruling that let special counsel access Trump’s DMs

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected an effort by Twitter to appeal a ruling that allowed special counsel Jack Smith to access records from former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account as part of his federal election interference probe.

As ABC News previously reported, the social media company secretly tried to fight an effort by Smith to obtain metadata and a handful of direct messages allegedly sent by Trump from his Twitter account before the account was suspended shortly after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

On Tuesday, the full court did not issue an opinion accompanying its rejection of the appeal, though a minority of judges consisting of the court’s conservative jurists issued an accompanying statement that argued that the ruling ignored potentially relevant executive privilege issues.

The ruling from the court means that none of the Twitter records and data that Smith has obtained will be clawed back — though it’s unclear whether the social media company will seek to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

A district judge previously raised concerns about whether Twitter was taking action at the behest of its CEO Elon Musk, who has made statements favorable to Trump.

Club Q shooter charged with 50 federal hate crimes

January 17, 2024 by WDNY Radio

(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) — The shooter who killed five people and injured 40 at an LGBTQIA+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, pleaded not guilty to federal hate crimes Tuesday.

Anderson Aldrich was charged with more than 50 federal hate crime violations stemming from the November 2022 shooting at Club Q.

Aldrich, who opened with an AR-15 style rifle, pleaded guilty last year to state murder charges and sentenced to over 2,000 years in state prison.

Daniel Davis Aston, Kelly Loving, Derrick Rump, Raymond Green Vance, and Ashley Paugh were killed in the incident.

As was described in detail in the aftermath of the attack, Aldrich was only stopped after two patrons forcibly removed the gun from him.

“The defendant’s attack on Club Q interfered with the club’s ability to do business and provide a safe, fun, and welcoming environment for patrons who had gathered there during and after the drag show as part of a weekend of events related to Transgender Day of Remembrance,” the court documents said.

The federal criminal complaint noted that Aldrich, who was 22 at the time, was wearing a tactical vest with ballistic plates and had “at least two additional magazines loaded with ammunition.

Though hate crimes resulting in death charge qualifies for the death penalty, court documents filed jointly by the Justice Department and Aldrich’s lawyer on Jan. 9 indicate there has been a plea agreement that removed the death penalty off the table.

“Among other provisions, the agreement provides that the defendant will plead guilty to every count of a 74-count Information charging him with federal hate crimes in violation of relevant provisions of the Shepard-Byrd Act, 18 U.S.C. § 249, and appurtenant gun crimes in violation of the relevant provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 924,” the court documents filed said.

“The United States is not seeking the death penalty in this case. The parties have agreed that multiple concurrent life sentences plus a consecutive sentence of 190 years imprisonment is sufficient but not greater than necessary to achieve the goals of criminal justice,” the court documents said.

The court docket indicates a plea hearing will be scheduled in the near future.

A lawyer for Aldrich did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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