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Treasury Department rejects GOP claims on new IRS agents

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Internal Revenue Service does not plan to use the nearly $80 billion it’s set to receive in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to hire 87,000 new agents in order to target middle class Americans, a Treasury Department official told ABC News, rejecting a claim widely circulated by Republican lawmakers and right-wing media personalities.

A sizable portion of the money will go toward improving taxpayer services and modernizing antiquated, paper-based IRS operations, Treasury Department spokesperson Julia Krieger said, in an effort to update the agency — well documented as being chronically starved of resources for decades.

The agency also is planning on hiring auditors who can enforce the tax laws against high-income Americans and corporations, not the middle class, along with employees to provide customer service to taxpayers, the official said. The majority of hires will fill the positions of about 50,000 IRS employees on the verge of retirement, Krieger said, which will net about 20 to 30-thousand workers, not 87,000.

“The resources to modernize the IRS will be used to improve taxpayer services — from answering the phones to improving IT systems — and to crack down on high-income and corporate tax evaders who cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars each year. The majority of new employees will replace the standard level of staff departures over the next few years,” Krieger said in a statement.

“New staff will be hired to improve taxpayer services and experienced auditors who can take on corporate and high-end tax evaders, without increasing audit rates relative to historical norms for people earning under $400,000 each year,” she said.

The IRA, the wide-ranging tax, climate and health care bill signed into law by Biden on Monday and touted as a major legislative achievement for Democrats, includes roughly $78 billion for the IRS over the next 10 years.

The heightened funding will also act as a key part of how will provisions under the IRA will be paid for — increased tax enforcement of the wealthy and large corporations is expected to raise revenue by $204 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Congress has cut funding for the IRS for most of the past decade, leaving the agency with technology systems dating back to the 1970s and as of July, a backlog of over 10 million unprocessed individual returns, according to the IRS.

“Bringing IRS technology into the 21st century is long past due. Our technology system is over 60 years old, the oldest in government, and fuels both taxpayer frustration and government waste,” said Executive Director Chad Hooper of the Professional Managers Association – formed in 1981 by IRS managers.

Republicans, ahead of the midterm elections, have been denouncing the package as irresponsible spending while inflation reaches record highs. They’ve hammered the claim that the bill’s IRS provisions would would bad news for the middle class.

“Do you make $75,000 or less?” tweeted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “Democrats’ new army of 87,000 IRS agents will be coming for you—with 710,000 new audits for Americans who earn less than $75k.”

The 87,000 new agent number that GOP leaders have been circulating is in reference to a year-old report released by the IRS, which described what the agency could do with nearly $80 billion in new funding if Congress would pass the American Families Plan.

In a table in that report, the IRS shows by 2031 the IRS could increase the size of its workforce by 86,852 full-time employees. But most of those hires would not be IRS agents and wouldn’t be new positions, according to the Treasury official, and the report is not in reference to IRA funding.

The claims appeared to have been ramped up after last week’s FBI search of Trump’s Palm Beach residence, with GOP leaders capitalizing on current Republican mistrust of bureaucratic agencies.

The search is said to have been part of a wider investigation into whether Trump took classified documents from the White House at the end of his presidency, with no reports of a connection to the IRS.

“After todays raid on Mar A Lago what do you think the left plans to use those 87,000 new IRS agents for?” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, after news of the raid broke.

GOP voices have also claimed that the hypothetical IRS agent hiring splurge would include armed tax enforcers. Fox News host Tucker Carlson and guest U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. on Aug. 4 claimed the government is beginning to treat “the IRS as a military agency.”

“Well, Joe Biden is raising taxes, disarming Americans, so of course they are arming up the IRS like they are preparing to take Fallujah,” Gaetz said.

Treasury officials rejected the claim that agent hires would be carrying weapons — saying the faction of armed agents are an “extremely critical but small” piece of the IRS, representing less than 3% of its total workforce.

The armed agents do not interact with average Americans, they focus only on specialized issues like narcotics, money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act violations, they said. Recently, they’ve been involved in the task force that is tracking assets of Russian oligarchs.

But the widely debunked claims may have begun to have an impact on some American voters.

“Even the Democrats, they heard, they just hired 85,000 IRS agents, they’re not not happy about it,” said John Ellingson, an Iowa GOP strategist, noting that the claims have been widely discussed since the information has been circulated by leading Republican voices.

Democrats have attempted to quell concerns over assertions that average Americans might be targeted by the federal government.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia refuted GOP claims on Twitter, telling Americans they are “being lied to.”

“In typical fashion, Republicans have chosen to lie and embellish in order to scare the American people. There is no army of 87,000 new IRS agents. It’s entirely made up. The truth is that the Republican Party hollowed out the IRS and has repeatedly slashed its budget over the years. Rich tax cheats run wild, meanwhile the average American can’t even get someone from the IRS on the phone. The Inflation Reduction Act will restore the IRS so it actually works for the American people,” Connolly said in a statement to ABC News.

CDC director acknowledges mistakes to staff in internal message

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky made a remarkable acknowledgment of her agency’s failures during the COVID-19 pandemic as she delivered a message to her staff Wednesday.

Her message, given in an internal video viewed by ABC News, addressed employees about the plan to overhaul the agency, following an internally initiated review which found that the CDC’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic fell short of the crisis.

“To be frank, we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes. From testing, to data, to communications,” Walensky said to the camera in front of a blue CDC backdrop.

“As an agency, even with all the terrific work we do, we still suffer the consequences from these mistakes. After over 18 months serving in this position, learning and living the many lessons from our COVID-19 response, and receiving feedback from many internal and external interested parties, this is the right time to take a step back and strategically position CDC to facilitate and support the future of public health,” Walensky said.

Those conversations, she added, yielded “loud and clear” key principles to “promote public health action and communication; conduct and disseminate exceptional science,” and “serve our partners, prioritizing the American people first.”

“All of us collectively are being asked to look to the future and build a stronger CDC to tackle what lies ahead. This is our watershed moment,” Walensky said.

“We must pivot, take appropriate action, and lead the systemic changes required to equitably protect health, safety and security of all Americans,” she said — especially because neither the pandemic nor her agency’s response to it, is finished.

Walensky’s message, delivered in a more than 14-minute recording, follows a scathing internally initiated review of how the CDC handled COVID-19, which found its approach toward the pandemic failed to meet the moment of crisis and offered a series of changes intended to revamp the agency and make it more nimble.

That review, ordered by Walensky in April, comes after the CDC had come under frequent fire for its muddled and inconsistent messaging on COVID mitigation measures.

During interviews with roughly 120 agency staff and key external stakeholders, the review found that it “takes too long for CDC to publish its data and science for decision making,” that its guidance is “confusing and overwhelming” and that agency staff turnover during the COVID response “created gaps and other challenges for partners,” according to findings obtained by ABC News.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and our agency-wide response is not over. Our important work continues,” Walensky said in her video. “There have been too many tragic deaths from this virus and we must do all we can to prevent more.”

The threat of other infectious diseases’ spread means now is the time for public health infrastructures to shore up their defenses, she noted.

“Now the global monkeypox outbreak requires increased attention and efforts,” Walensky said. “We will continue to activate the personnel and resources necessary to fulfill our public health mission.”

In the video, Walensky promised to “develop new systems and processes to equitably deliver all of CDC science and program activities to the American people,” with “data modernization, laboratory capacity, rapid response to disease outbreaks, and preparedness within the US and around the world.”

“These changes will inform what CDC can do during a pandemic, along with every day during normal operations in our infectious and non-infectious disease portfolios to ensure a CDC science reaches the public in a timely and implementable manner,” she said.

“We must also strengthen the agency’s ability to respond to public health threats,” she said. “This is an agency-wide top priority to respond when we are called upon.”

Walensky emphasized the importance of “breaking down organizational silos in favor of a ‘One CDC mindset,'” increasing accountability and supporting equity efforts across the agency, she said.

“Change is hard. I know that. This is our time to change. And we will all need to roll up our sleeves to move CDC forward,” Walensky said, and “apply” the “COVID-19 lessons learned” by “sharing scientific findings and data faster.”

“The future of CDC is dependent upon applying the lessons learned from the last few years, whether it’s under my direction or a future CDC director, regardless of who is sitting in the seat, an honest and unbiased read of our recent history will yield the same conclusion. It is time for CDC to change,” she said.

“I recognize that our growth will involve some uncomfortable moments for many of us. We will hold ourselves accountable and we will be open to feedback,” Walensky said. “I owe it to you to work hard with the agency’s leadership to make CDC better and I’m grateful to have you in this with me.”

ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.

What to expect from Thursday’s hearing on unsealing the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A magistrate judge in Florida is set to hear in-person arguments Thursday on a request from a coalition of media outlets to make public the affidavit supporting the search warrant executed at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week.

The Justice Department earlier this week urged the judge, Bruce Reinhart, to keep the affidavit under seal, arguing that if it were to be made public it could “cause significant and irreparable damage” to an ongoing criminal investigation involving highly classified materials related to national security.

“If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” officials said in a Monday filing, noting that the affidavit contained “highly sensitive information about witnesses” already interviewed by the government.

“In addition, information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high-profile nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation,” the DOJ’s filing said. “Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations.”

ABC News and a number of other media organizations have called for the release of the affidavit, noting the historical significance of the unprecedented law enforcement search of a former president’s residence and the “immediate and intense public interest as well as a vociferous reaction from Mr. Trump and his allies.”

It is unclear how Judge Reinhart will ultimately rule on the request, but the Justice Department has requested that if he were to order even a “partial unsealing” of the affidavit that they be given a chance to provide the court with proposed redactions.

Officials said in their Monday filing, however, that they believed the redactions that would be necessary to protect the investigation “would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content.”

DOJ would likely seek an immediate appeal on any ruling by Judge Reinhart that would reveal further substantive details underlying their investigation.

The government said, though, it would not object to the unsealing of other materials filed in connection with the warrant, such as cover sheets for the application, the government’s motion to keep the warrant under seal and Judge Reinhart’s original sealing order — none of which will likely reveal much beyond the materials already disclosed.

The redacted copy of the search warrant released last Friday sent shockwaves through Washington, as it revealed the Justice Department was investigating the potential violation of at least three separate criminal statutes in its search of Mar a Lago, including obstruction of justice and one crime under the Espionage Act.

A property receipt accompanying the warrant shows agents seized 11 boxes of documents of various classifications, including one set referring to “classified/TS/SCI documents” (the acronym stands for top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information that not everyone with even top-secret clearance can view) and four other sets of top-secret documents.

The documents were discovered by authorities after a lawyer for Trump signed a statement in June to the FBI affirming that all classified documents on the premises had been handed over to investigators, sources confirmed to ABC News.

It’s not immediately clear whether lawyers for President Trump will be present at Thursday’s hearing in Florida.

Trump in recent days has called for the “immediate release” of the affidavit while leveling various attacks at the FBI and Justice Department, while also demanding over his social media website that the documents be returned to him. But Trump’s legal team has yet to take any sort of legal action on either front in response to the search.

Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin are among multiple other witnesses interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation, ABC News confirmed Tuesday, with sources saying both sat with investigators sometime in the spring. But there’s no indication that the Justice Department’s filing referencing officials’ hopes of protecting witnesses who testified in the investigation was a direct reference to Cipollone or Philbin.

ABC News’ John Santucci contributed to this report.

Minneapolis Public Schools defends policy to prioritize retaining educators of color when determining layoffs

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(MINNEAPOLIS) — Ahead of the new school year, Minneapolis Public Schools has defended its agreement reached with the teacher’s union this spring to prioritize retaining educators of underrepresented backgrounds when determining layoffs.

Effective in the spring of 2023, the contract provision states that teachers who are members of “populations underrepresented among licensed teachers in the district” may be exempt from district-wide layoffs outside of seniority order, deviating from the traditional “last-in, first-out” system.

The stipulation is a part of a recent collective bargaining agreement between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and MPS, which concluded a weekslong teachers’ strike in March.

“To remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination, Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) mutually agreed to contract language that aims to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups as compared to the labor market and to the community served by the school district,” a spokesperson for Minneapolis Public Schools said in a statement to ABC News Wednesday.

The policy comes as efforts to diversify teachers in Minnesota are ramping up in the state legislature with the introduction of HF3079, the 2022 Increase Teachers of Color Act.

The legislation seeks to “increase the percentage of teachers of color and American Indian teachers in Minnesota” to ensure that “all students have equitable access to effective and racially and ethnically diverse teachers who reflect the diversity of students,” according to the text of the bill.

However, as news of the MPS policy has made national headlines in recent days, critics say the policy’s attempts to rectify past discrimination could constitute discrimination itself — potentially even a violation of the 14th Amendment.

James Dickey, an attorney in Minneapolis, told ABC News that his firm has recently received a “flood of emails” from taxpayers and teachers in Minneapolis who are opposed to the policy and have reached out regarding potential legal actions.

Dickey is senior legal counsel at the Upper Midwest Law Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm in Minnesota, and said that his firm could be “prepared to go forward with litigation” soon.

When asked about efforts to diversify the teaching staff in Minnesota public schools, Dickey acknowledged the concern but said that addressing the issue instead requires reforming the seniority system, suggesting that layoffs should be based on merit, not seniority or race.

“Teachers are not being evaluated based on merit, they’re being evaluated based on, you know, first in first and last out. And I think that’s the bigger problem,” he said.

Responding to criticism, MFT has doubled down on its support of the policy, citing the need for educators to reflect the diversity of their schools’ student bodies. While 65% of the students attending MPS in the 2021-22 school year were people of color, only around 30% of the teaching staff were, the district reported.

“No matter where they live in Minneapolis, or what they look like, every student in the Minneapolis Public Schools deserves great teachers and education support professionals who challenge, support and educate all their students in a safe and stable learning environment,” the union wrote in a statement to ABC News.

The union wrote that it wanted to create a “transparent, legal, ethical process” to retain the “unique skills and experiences” of educators of color and those of other underrepresented backgrounds in the case of budget cuts and layoffs.

MFT described the agreement as a small step toward dismantling discriminatory systems in education but noted that diversifying educators will be a long haul given the nationwide teacher shortage. There are currently more than 370 open jobs for teachers in MPS, the union said.

Tra Carter, a former behavioral specialist at Clara Barton Community School in south Minneapolis, said he believes MPS could do even more to support teachers of color. Carter, who was laid off last year during the strike, said that at the time, he was the only Black male educator employed at his school.

“Black and brown educators of color are losing their jobs exponentially faster than their white counterparts, so I’m happy again that something got done,” Carter said.

“But I don’t think that it’s ever going to be enough,” he added. “I think one of the first steps that the district needs to do is to begin hiring more educators of color and helping those educators that are already in the schools who don’t have those teaching licenses or who don’t have those degrees, helping those educators so that they can then be in that community.”

Baby girl born with one lung and given 20% chance of survival goes home

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(SAN DIEGO) — A California girl has beaten the odds to reunite with her twin and return home with her family after a six-month stay at a San Diego hospital.

Charlotte and her twin sister, Olivia, were born to Karla and Joshua Valliere last December, but in January, Charlotte was suddenly admitted to Rady Children’s Hospital with breathing difficulties and a respiratory infection.

At first, the Vallieres didn’t know what was wrong. Olivia was healthy, and although Charlotte had been born with one lung, she hadn’t had any issues after birth.

“Her one lung grew like 1.5 sizes, so it was compensating for the lack of the second one. So [doctors] did run all the studies. She was totally fine — oxygenation, everything 100%, so we were cleared to go after four days in the hospital,” Karla Valliere told Good Morning America. “It was six weeks at home — total bliss. Everything was great … and all of a sudden she started having breathing problems.”

The Vallieres took their daughter to Rady on Jan. 29, and she was admitted and placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, or ECMO.

Dr. Matthew Brigger, chief of the pediatric otolaryngology division at Rady Children’s Hospital, started seeing Charlotte, who was just six weeks old at the time. Charlotte would eventually be diagnosed with tracheal stenosis and complete tracheal rings. This meant she had a birth defect with her airway where the rings in her trachea were abnormal and she had an abnormal narrowing of the trachea, or windpipe. She also had a blood vessel wrapped around her trachea.

“This set of anomalies, with the single lung, with the way the aorta was wrapped around the trachea itself and the trachea being this narrow, is actually fairly rare,” Brigger told GMA.

“We knew that she had a critical airway that if anything were to progress, trying to keep her intubated, that was gonna potentially injure the airway and give us more difficulty in repairing it. So the ECMO was sort of a bridge to surgery,” he continued.

But the surgery was a major one and in order to do it, Brigger and the rest of Charlotte’s doctors had to wait until she was big enough, since she and her twin had been born a few weeks early and therefore, Charlotte was small for her age.

“Initially I [told the parents], ‘Well, if we can get through surgery, I’m gonna give her 50-50,” Brigger said. “[But] I’m thinking more 20% of getting through surgery at the time, just knowing how much that we had to go through.”

Despite the low chance of survival, Charlotte’s surgery was a success.

“Fortunately, Charlotte’s a fighter and we got to do the surgery. She sailed through surgery,” he said.

The Vallieres said that throughout the monthslong stay in the hospital and all the ups and downs, with Charlotte’s complications, multiple surgeries and treatment, they drew strength from their own daughter.

“The thing that I think that I believe got us through was her. She never gave any sign of weakness,” the mom of two said.

After spending 185 days in the hospital, Charlotte was finally discharged on Aug. 1, and her parents and twin sister were there to celebrate and bring her home.

“It was just a lot of emotions and it was just a roller coaster. But now we have them together, so it’s worth it,” Karla Valliere added.

Today, Brigger said he doesn’t anticipate Charlotte needing a second lung at all and her future looks bright.

“Prognosis is very good. She may not be running marathons in the future but she is Charlotte so it’s hard to say. She’s proved people wrong all along. I expect her to be able to live a good life,” he said.

Weeks before Mar-a-Lago search, ex-Trump DOD official vowed to publish classified documents from National Archives

August 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — In June of this year, seven weeks before the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in search of classified materials, former Defense Department appointee and outspoken Trump loyalist Kash Patel vowed to retrieve classified documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website.

Trump had just issued a letter instructing the National Archives to grant Patel and conservative journalist John Solomon access to nonpublic administration records, according to reporting at the time.

Patel, who under Trump had been the chief of staff for the acting defense secretary, claimed in a string of interviews that Trump had declassified a trove of “Russiagate documents” in the final days of his administration. But Patel claimed Trump’s White House counsel had blocked the release of those documents, and instead had them delivered to the National Archives.

“I’ve never told anyone this because it just happened,” Patel said in an interview on a pro-Trump podcast on June 22. “I’m going to identify every single document that they blocked from being declassified at the National Archives, and we’re going to start putting that information out next week.”

Patel did not provide a clear explanation of how he would legally or practically obtain the documents.

“White House counsel and company disobeyed a presidential order and implemented federal governmental bureaucracy on the way out to basically send the stash to the National Archives, and now that’s where it’s at,” Patel said in a subsequent interview on June 23 on a different pro-Trump internet show.

Trump and his allies have for years pushed aggressively to declassify materials related to the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation that examined alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia — a probe that was later put under the control of Robert Mueller following his appointment as special counsel. Patel, who previously served under then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) during Nunes’ time as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has claimed that nonpublic information provided to Congress undercut the Russia probe and helped support Trump’s claim that the investigation lacked merit.

The day before he left office, Trump authorized the declassification of a set of documents related to the Russia probe. The memorandum, released in January 2021, acknowledged that “portions of the documents in the binder have remained classified and have not been released to the Congress or the public.”

So according to Patel, Trump asked him to work on retrieving the classified documents from the National Archives and then release them to the public. “President Trump was like, ‘Who knows those documents better than anyone?’ And I was like, ‘If you want me to go, I’ll go,'” Patel said.

“I know what’s there” in the Archives, said Patel. “I can’t still talk about them, but the whole process is going to be: Identify the documents, whether it’s Russiagate, Hunter Biden, impeachment, Jan 6th — and put them out.”

Erica Knight, a spokesperson for Patel, told ABC News that Patel was acting as “a representative on behalf of President Trump to work with the National Archives to get them to disclose information.”

“The GSA has their own policies and procedures for how presidential records must be handled, which Patel is in full cooperation with,” Knight said of the federal government’s General Services Administration, an adjunct of the National Archives.

Patel’s comments claiming that Trump had directed him to retrieve classified documents came in the middle of the former president’s growing dispute with National Archives officials. By June, the National Archives had asked the Justice Department to investigate the former president’s handling of White House records, after National Archives officials had in January retrieved 15 boxes of records that had been improperly taken to Trump’s home in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

And while Patel has said the former president said to declassify “a mountain of documents,” experts say there are protocols in place to ensure that national security is not harmed when information is declassified — even by the president.

“[Patel] is lashing out at the bureaucracy, but it’s that bureaucracy and those protocols that are in place to prevent damage to our national security by an inappropriate disclosure of national security information,” said John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor.

“I can’t stress how important those protocols are,” Cohen said. “For everyone who has a clearance, it is ingrained in your brain that even an inadvertent disclosure of top secret information could cause great harm to national security.”

According to Patel, the plan in June was to retrieve the documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website “for free,” then “make a big announcement every time” a new document was published.

Patel, a former GOP congressional aide who worked on Trump’s National Security Council before joining the Pentagon, was also involved in security preparations for the Jan. 6 counting of the electoral vote on Capitol Hill, according to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, citing records obtained from the Defense Department.

Last September, the Jan. 6 committee issued subpoenas to four former senior Trump administration officials, including Patel, who appeared before the committee for several hours in December.

This past April, Patel was brought on as a member of the board of directors for the former president’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which launched the “Truth Social” platform in February. Patel also published a pro-Trump children’s book titled “The Plot Against the King.”

As of last month, Patel was still pursuing his plan to publish documents currently in the National Archives.

“Now we’re in this fight,” Petal told conservative commentator Benny Johnson in a July 4 interview. “I’m working on it. And of course, the bureaucracy is getting in the way, but that’s not going to stop us.”

“I will be going to the National Archives in the coming weeks, I will be identifying those documents,” he said.

Prosecutor sues Florida governor over suspension, says 1st Amendment rights violated

August 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The Florida state attorney who was suspended by Gov. Ron DeSantis this month sued the governor on Wednesday, claiming his removal from office violated his First Amendment rights.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges the Republican governor retaliated against Andrew Warren, the Hillsborough County state attorney, for siding with progressive prosecutors who vowed not to prosecute crimes related to abortion and gender-transition treatments for children.

Warren, a Democrat, has called the suspension “political theater” and has claimed DeSantis suspended him to advance his own career.

Warren’s legal team filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. They hope a judge will rule to reinstate the twice-elected state attorney, who is the top prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area.

“I have the same first amendment right that everybody else in Florida does,” Warren said at a press conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday morning, adding that the governor’s decision amounted to an abuse of power.

Jean Jaques Cabou, a lawyer for Warren, said at the press conference that the governor had no grounds to oust Warren. He said DeSantis took his client out of office “because of policy differences [and] because the governor would like to do his job differently than Mr. Warren wants to do his job.”

“Those are not bases for which the governor can suspend Warren,” Cabou added.

DeSantis did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the lawsuit. After he suspended Warren on Aug. 4, the governor said in a statement that “state attorneys have a duty to prosecute crimes as defined in Florida law, not to pick and choose which laws to enforce based on his personal agenda.”

The governor also touted his decision to remove Warren from office while on the campaign trail this week.

“Out of 20 elected prosecutors, we found one who decided to put himself above the law, saying he didn’t have to enforce laws that he disagreed with,” he said during a speech in Carlsbad, New Mexico, on Sunday.

Warren has signed two joint statements pledging not to prosecute crimes related to abortion and gender-transition treatments for children. By doing so, DeSantis claims, Warren has neglected his duty and demonstrated incompetence.

DeSantis signed a law in April that bans abortions in Florida after a 15-week gestation period. The law went into effect on July 1, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Florida health care providers last week filed a notice of appeal with the state Supreme Court challenging the abortion law. The plaintiffs argue the law violates the state constitution.

There is currently no law in Florida that criminalizes gender-related treatment for minors, although some state legislators have pushed for one. The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration recently passed a rule barring transgender residents from using Medicaid to pay for gender-affirming care.

The governor says Warren’s decision to sign the joint statements, coupled with other decisions Warren has made in his two terms as a state attorney, are sufficient under the Florida Constitution for suspension.

Cabou argues that it’s up to the court to decide whether Warren’s statements meet the criteria for a suspension.

“Just because the governor calls something neglect of duty or the government calls something incompetence doesn’t make it true,” he said.

Scott Stephens, a Florida constitutional law professor and former Hillsborough County circuit judge, told ABC News the court will decide whether Warren’s decision to sign the two letters can be used as evidence that he neglected his duty or is incompetent.

Under Florida law, Warren has the right to a hearing before the state senate to decide whether his suspension was constitutional.

Debbie Brown, the secretary of the Republican-controlled body, sent Warren a letter on Monday to initiate the process for a hearing.

This process is now on hold due to Wednesday’s filing.

5th set of human remains found in receding Lake Mead

August 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LAS VEGAS) — Another set of human remains were found in Lake Mead near Las Vegas, the second time this month that remains have been found in the country’s largest reservoir, officials said Wednesday.

The remains were discovered at Swim Beach in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area around 8:00 p.m. Monday, according to the National Park Service.

With the help of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s dive team, park rangers responded and set up a perimeter to retrieve the body, the NPS said.

The Clark County Medical Examiner was contacted and is working to identify the person and discover the cause of death, the park service said.

This is the fifth time since May and the second time this month that human remains have been found in Lake Mead, where water levels are receding at a historic rate.

Lake Mead, formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, supplies drinking water to millions of people in California, Arizona, Nevada and part of Mexico.

Officials said the water levels are so depleted, they could soon reach “dead pool” status, in which the water is too low to flow downstream to the Hoover Dam. According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the minimum water surface level needed to generate power at the dam is 1,050 feet.

On May 7, human skeletal remains were found near the lake’s Callville Bay, according to NPS. The discovery came a week after the decayed body of a man was found stuffed in a steel barrel near the reservoir’s Hemenway Fishing Pier, over 20 miles from Callville Bay, according to Las Vegas police.

On July 25 and Aug. 6, human remains were also discovered at Swim Beach.

ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp files motion to delay testifying in Fulton County election probe

August 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp filed a motion on Wednesday looking to delay a subpoena for his testimony in front of the special grand jury as part of the ongoing criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Fulton County.

In the 121-page motion, Kemp’s legal team pushed back on the subpoena, claiming Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “engineered the Governor’s interaction with the investigation to reach a crescendo in the middle of an election cycle.”

In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Kemp noted the proximity to the November midterm elections.

“For more than a year, the Governor’s team has continually expressed his desire to provide a full accounting of his very limited role in the issues being looked at by the special grand jury,” said Katie Byrd, Kemp’s communications director. “We are now just weeks away from the 2022 general election, making it increasingly difficult to dedicate the time necessary to prepare and then appear.”

Kemp’s office said they are asking the judge “to allow the Governor to come in after the November election and direct investigators to work with our legal team to ensure the topics discussed during his appearance remain on his defense of state law and the Constitution in the aftermath of the 2020 election.”

Kemp is currently slated to testify before the special grand jury on Thursday. The Georgia governor is running for reelection against Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, who lost her bid against Kemp in 2018.

The motion from Kemp follows the news that former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was informed that he is a target of the investigation. Giuliani testified before the special grand jury in Atlanta on Wednesday.

The special grand jury does not have the ability to return an indictment, and can only make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution — a process that’s expected to take months.

Another grand jury would be needed in order to bring any possible charges.

Monkeypox vaccine not ‘a silver bullet’, WHO says, as breakthrough cases emerge

August 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — As demand for monkeypox vaccines increases, the World Health Organization (WHO) has begun to receive preliminary reports on the efficacy of the shots, which suggests there are breakthrough cases occurring, officials said Wednesday.

“We have known from the beginning that this vaccine would not be a silver bullet, that it would not meet all the expectations that are being put on it, and that we don’t have firm efficacy data or effectiveness data in this context,” officials said during a press conference.

Some of the reports of breakthrough cases have been among people who received a prophylaxis vaccine after exposure.

“The fact we’re beginning to see some breakthrough cases is also really important information because it tells us that the vaccine is not 100% effective in any given circumstance. Whether preventive or post-exposure, we cannot expect 100% effectiveness at the moment based on this emerging information,” officials said.

This occurrence of breakthrough infections is not new, officials noted, explaining that a limited study from the 1980s demonstrated that the vaccines offered about 85% protection against monkeypox.

“[The] vaccine is not a silver bullet,” officials said, “that every person who feels that they’re at risk and wishes to lower their own level of risk [has] many interventions are at their disposal, which includes vaccinations where available, but also includes protection from activities where there may be a risk — reducing [the] number of sex partners, avoiding group sex or casual sex, and, specifically, when a vaccine is, in fact, administered, waiting until that vaccine has the time to produce a maximum immune response.”

Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced it would move forward with a plan to increase the U.S. monkeypox vaccine supply by as much as five times, using an injection method that requires less vaccine per shot.

Across the country, federal data shows that more than 634,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine have been shipped to states and jurisdictions as of Aug. 12.

The number of monkeypox cases identified across the globe continues to grow, with the total jumping by 20% in the last week, according to the WHO.

Globally, more than 38,000 cases of monkeypox have now been confirmed, according to the CDC, including more than 13,500 cases in the U.S.

The majority of cases, in the current monkeypox outbreak, have been detected in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. However, health officials have repeatedly stressed that anyone can contract the virus.

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