(NEW YORK) — The D.C. Court of Appeals has declined to answer whether then-President Donald Trump was acting within the scope of his employment when he allegedly defamed writer E. Jean Carroll when denying her rape claim.
Carroll sued Trump for defamation over statements he made in 2019 when he denied her claim that he raped her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s.
Trump, who also denies defaming her, has argued that the Justice Department should be substituted as the defendant in the case because, at the time of his allegedly defamatory statements, he was an employee of the federal government. Such a ruling would make the case go away, as the federal government cannot be sued for defamation.
On Thursday, the D.C. Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over federal employees, returned the question to federal court in New York, where Carroll brought the suit.
“We have never adopted a rule that has determined that a certain type of conduct is per se within (or outside of) the scope of employment, and we decline to do so now,” the court said.
The opinion leaves in limbo whether the case can go forward, but Carroll filed a second lawsuit in November alleging defamation and battery that is scheduled for trial April 25.
Trump has sought to delay that trial for four weeks, arguing a “cooling off” period was necessary given the publicity around Trump’s recent criminal indictment on charges of falsifying business records. Carroll has opposed a delay.
(NEW YORK) — The abortion pill mifepristone will remain on the market for now — but come Saturday morning, access should be severely restricted, a federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday in partially blocking a lower court order.
It’s a bittersweet victory for abortion rights advocates who feared the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals would side with conservative plaintiffs in the case and force manufacturing and production of the drug mifepristone to stop entirely by Saturday morning. Instead, the three-judge panel is allowing the drug to stay on the market — for now — but with tough restrictions on the drug that haven’t been in place since 2000 when it was first approved and regulators wanted to monitor its safety more closely.
“We are going to continue to fight in the courts. We believe that the law is on our side and we will prevail,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Abortion rights opponents said they were pleased with the decision because it paves the way for approval of the drug to be suspended entirely.
“We are very encouraged by this landmark win for women and girls. The Court recognized that the abortion pill is dangerous and rolled back Biden’s reckless mail-order abortion scheme,” said Katie Daniel, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.”
The Justice Department could still take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court before the appeals court ruling takes effect.
But for now, the drug would be available only up to seven weeks instead of 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Three in-person office visits would be required: the first to administer mifepristone, the second to administer misoprostol — which causes the pregnancy to be expelled — and the third to assess any complications and ensure there were no fetal remains in the womb.
It would require the supervision of a qualified physician and the reporting of all adverse events from the drugs.
Overall, it would roll back every win the abortion rights movement had on this drug in the past two decades.
“The FDA followed decades of science and evidence when it expanded access to mifepristone — a court with no medical experts that has a long history of extremist rulings on abortion has no place taking that away,” said Kirsten Moore, director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access (EMMAA) Project.
While the appeals court’s decision is temporary while it considers the merits of the case, the panel of judges signaled it was sympathetic to conservative arguments made in the lawsuit, calling the Food and Drug Administration rules around mifepristone “exceedingly unusual” because they allow patients to obtain the drug without seeing a doctor in person.
“Because applicants chose to cut out doctors from the prescription and administration of mifepristone, plaintiff doctors and their associations will necessarily be injured by the consequences. This is an exceedingly unusual regime. In fact, as far as the record before us reveals, FDA has not structured the distribution of any comparable drug in this way,” the panel of appeals court judges wrote.
Danco Labs, which produces the brand name version of the drug Mifeprex, said the FDA’s decisions in recent years to loosen regulation of the drug were based on safety and efficacy data.
“FDA has been empowered by Congress to make decisions about what drugs are safe and effective and how they should be available to patients,” the company wrote in a statement. “Danco remains unchanged in its commitment to do all that we can to support and protect the availability of and access to Mifeprex for healthcare providers and all people in the United States.”
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Ukraine’s most senior military intelligence official is blaming Russia for the massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has dominated headlines in recent days.
In his first interview since classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defense were leaked online last week, Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told ABC News in Kyiv on Wednesday evening that information warfare of this kind is nothing new.
“Russia is the only beneficiary of this,” Budanov said. “We will get the final answer only after the completion of the investigation.”
Budanov confirmed he spoke with his U.S. counterparts soon after the leak.
“We have communication with relevant services in the U.S.,” he added, “and from literally the first few hours, we started to talk.”
The Ukrainian intelligence chief insisted there was “no risk” that the matter would damage the relationship between his war-torn country and the United States. Instead, he downplayed the likely impact the shocking revelations will have on the battlefield, as Ukraine endures a second year of Russia’s invasion.
“If there is a problem, it will be solved,” he told ABC News. “If there is no problem, even better. This will not be able to affect the real results of the offensive operation.”
Budanov, who has been credited with predicting the precise date and time of the Russian invasion, talked up the Ukrainian military’s ability to make headway in an upcoming and long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces, despite U.S. officials suggesting in private that any prospective gains will likely be more modest than last year’s lightning operation that returned huge swathes of territory to Ukrainian government control.
“What will be the results of these actions? I think that, in the near future, everyone will see and feel it,” he said.
However, Budanov admitted that the “success of this offensive operation is badly needed” — not just for Ukrainians but also their allies who are supplying them with funds and ammunition. While he noted that the “taxpayers” of countries supporting Ukraine’s defensive, such as the U.S., expect to see results, Budanov said he was not aware of any demands made by Western allies nor that continued support would be conditional on battlefield success.
“Without victories, sooner or later, questions will be asked whether it’s worth continuing to support Ukraine,” he told ABC News.
Budanov sat down with ABC News in his office in the Ukrainian capital just days after the leaked cables, which was described by analysts as the most serious breach of U.S. intelligence in over a decade. Budanov refused to be drawn in on some of the more explosive claims, including what appears to be evidence that U.S. officials were listening in on internal Ukrainian discussions about striking targets deep within Russia.
Further evidence of U.S. assistance for Ukraine emerged earlier Wednesday. A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that a small military special operations team based at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv has been providing intelligence assistance to Ukrainian special forces and security assistance to VIPs since the early phase of Russia’s war. A former U.S. official told ABC News that, in addition to providing assistance with the oversight of U.S. equipment and supplies being sent to Ukraine, they have also assisted Ukrainian military planners with their operations that have resulted in hundreds — if not thousands — of Russian military casualties. The sources stressed that they were not in combat.
When talking about Russia, Budanov was characteristically bullish. He made headlines last year when he told ABC News that the Ukrainian military would strike at targets “deeper and deeper” inside Russian territory.
Speaking to ABC News on Wednesday evening, Budanov vowed to take back the Crimean Peninsula and mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s not-so-veiled nuclear threats and failed “winter offensive,” the latter of which has seen minimal gains and heavy losses. While studying a map of Russia, Budanov predicted seismic change within the neighboring country that he believes will play a part in ending Putin’s war in Ukraine’s favor.
“Borders can be changed,” he said. “This is an artificially created mistake and, now, the moment has come for this country to collapse.”
(NEW YORK) — Thousands of foreign volunteer fighters are currently fighting on the side of Ukraine to help the country turn back Russia’s invasion.
But for one group of those foreign fighters, the ongoing war has hit close to home.
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell got an inside look at two brigades made up of mostly Chechen volunteers, filming with them as they trained outside Kyiv before returning to the frontline in eastern Ukraine.
The fighters, many of whom are keeping their identities a secret for fear of reprisal from their repressive government back home, said they volunteered their services to Ukraine because they are all too familiar with the violence wrought by Russia’s government.
“What is happening in Ukraine now, it’s the same thing that happened to Chechnya,” a Chechen volunteer fighter who goes by the call sign “Maga,” told Reevell. “All these occupation(s), all these massive graves, all this genocide of civilians.”
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia fought two devastating wars in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996 and again from 1999 to 2009 to prevent the region from breaking away from Moscow’s control. Russian forces laid waste to Chechnya, razing its capital Grozny to the ground with tactics it is now repeating again in cities in eastern Ukraine, like Bakhmut. Between 50,000 to 250,000 civilians were estimated to have been killed in the wars.
Chechnya’s current leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who was appointed by president Vladimir Putin to keep a tight grip on the region, has turned it into his personal fiefdom, accused of frequently kidnapping, torturing and killing his critics.
Kadyrov has sent thousands of Chechen troops into Ukraine to support Russian forces.
“It’s slaves of the Russian Tsar,” Maga said of Kadyrov and its forces.
Maga belongs to the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, named after Chechnya’s leader in the 1990s, who declared its independence. The brigade has around 50 Chechens fighting in it, according to Maga.
Maga and a number of the Chechen soldiers had been already fighting for Ukraine before last year’s full-scale invasion, and when Russian troops began advancing on Kyiv last March they grabbed rifles and joined the defense. Since then, they have become one of Ukraine’s most-battled hardened units, involved in many key Ukrainian victories, including the counteroffensive in Ukraine’s northeast last year, when they were among the first units to enter the strategic city of Izyum.
The victories have given hope to many of these foreign volunteer fighters that they can eventually defeat Russia in Ukraine, which they see as a step towards gaining independence for their own homeland.
“Our objective is to liberate Ukraine and after, to totally liberate Chechnya,” Maga said.
The Chechens are joined by a number of Crimean Tatars, a Muslim minority from the peninsula that Russia seized in 2014. Like the Chechens, tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars were deported from their homeland by Soviet authorities under Joseph Stalin.
Since the Kremlin’s takeover of Crimea, Russian security forces have persecuted the Tatar community, seeing them as disloyal, with dozens arrested on extremism charges, as well as some reportedly kidnapped and tortured.
Tamila Tasheva, the Ukrainian president’s permanent representative for Crimea, who is a Crimean Tatar herself, told ABC News that of 181 political prisoners in Crimea, 116 of them are Tatars.
Ukraine’s successes on the battlefield, as well as a growing number of Ukrainian strikes on Russian bases within the peninsula — most spectacularly on the Crimean bridge connecting it to Russia — have fanned the hopes of Crimean Tatars that Ukraine could re-take Crimea militarily, despite most experts’ belief that that remains a tall order.
A Crimean volunteer fighter, who asked not to be identified, said he left his country in 2014 after the Russian annexation because of the persecution. During a recent training session, he said it is only a matter of time before Ukraine will retake Crimea.
“I definitely don’t know how many years, but I hope that it will be in the near future,” the volunteer fighter said. “I want to return home. I want to visit the tombs of my ancestors.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump arrived Thursday at the office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James for a deposition as part of her $250 million civil lawsuit against Trump and his namesake company — his first return to New York City since he pleaded not guilty last week to 34 felony charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump’s motorcade was seen entering a garage beneath the attorney general’s office near Wall Street.
James sued Trump last September, accusing him, his eldest children, the Trump Organization and some of its executives of scheming for more than a decade to manipulate Trump’s net worth and the value of his real estate holdings in order to receive more favorable terms on loans, taxes and insurance.
The trial is scheduled for October and, if James is successful, could result in a $250 million penalty and a ban on the defendants from operating a business in New York.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and, in a morning social media post ahead of the deposition, called James, who is black, “racist” and her lawsuit “ridiculous.”
Trump is facing deposition questions about his business practices and the reliability of financial statements prepared by the Trump Organization, but it remains to be seen whether he answers those questions or invokes his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the way he did hundreds of times last August when he sat for his first deposition as part of the case.
In a civil case, jurors are allowed to draw an adverse inference from a defendant’s choice to take the Fifth.
Trump’s legal team had sought to delay the October trial, but Judge Arthur Engoron said last month there was no need to postpone what he called a “seemingly simple case” of whether Trump’s disclosures to lenders and insurers were accurate or not.
“The issue is whether the statements were false,” Engoron said during a hearing last month. “This case is complex, but it is not complicated.”
Trump has complained about Engoron, writing in his Thursday morning social media post, “If I had a fair judge, this case would have never happened.”
(NEW YORK) — One of only five people in the world to achieve full remission of HIV is stepping forward to share his story in an ABC broadcast exclusive.
Paul Edmonds’ journey into medical history began decades ago. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 — a time when it was a potential death sentence. Thanks to his own perseverance and advances in treatment, he survived — even thrived — after his diagnosis.
Edmonds met his future husband Arnie House and convinced him to be tested. House also was HIV positive. As years past, better antiretroviral treatments brought both of their HIV levels to undetectable, which means the virus was untransmissable.
But for Edmonds, another diagnosis was looming. In 2018, he learned he had leukemia. Although his heart sank, Edmonds told ABC News’ Juju Chang, “I wasn’t ready to die.”
Edmonds and House sought care at City of Hope Medical Center in California. There, while undergoing treatment for leukemia, Edmonds’ doctors saw a unique opportunity to try to cure him of his HIV, too. After chemotherapy, Edmonds received a stem cell transplant from a donor with a mutation that makes them resistant to HIV. Stem cell transplants carry a significant risk in themselves, as they must be preceded by wiping out the whole immune system. During this time, which can be months, patients have to stay in protected areas of the hospital to reduce the risk of life-threatening infections.
“It’s a very rare mutation. It exists in roughly 1% of the population. So it’s not, it’s not something we find very commonly,” said Edmonds’ physician, Dr. Jana Dickter, City of Hope associate clinical professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine.
The transplant worked. Not only did Edmonds go into remission for his cancer, he also became the fifth person ever to go into remission from HIV. Now, four years after his transplant and two years after doctors took him off HIV medications, the virus shows no signs of coming back.
“We can’t find evidence of replicating HIV in his system,” Dickter said. “It’s been really amazing. It’s been such a journey.”
Dickter and her colleagues announced the details of Edmonds’ case in July 2022, but he was known anonymously as the “City of Hope patient” at the time. Now, he is stepping out of the shadows. He and his husband sat down with ABC’s Chang for an in-depth interview in their California home.
Edmonds said he still struggles to come to terms with being cured after living with HIV for more than three decades and after watching so many of his friends die of AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s.
“I was incredibly grateful. I’m grateful to be alive. I was grateful there was a donor,” he said.
House said he was thrilled when Edmonds’ HIV went into remission.
“I was so happy for him. Because it was like a liberation for me. That he didn’t have to take his HIV medications anymore – it was wonderful,” House said.
There is still no cure for most of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV today. Rare cures happen only among people with HIV who are also diagnosed with certain types of cancer, and subsequently receive the unique stem cell transplant that cures their cancer and HIV simultaneously.
But scientists say Edmonds’ story is helping them get one step closer. His story is unique because his treatment was less medically intensive than prior cases, giving scientists hope that the procedure he received could be applicable to a wider range of HIV patients with cancer who are aging. At 66, Edmonds is the oldest person to be cured of HIV — and he had been living with HIV the longest.
Edmonds was able to receive a newer, less intensive chemotherapy regimen that City of Hope helped develop for older patients, and his transplant had only mild medical complications, according to Dr. Ahmed M. Aribi, assistant professor with City of Hope’s Division of Leukemia, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.
Although scientists are still searching for an HIV cure, significant medical advances mean people living with HIV are living longer and healthier lives. In fact, doctors say, modern medication is so effective that many people with HIV can lower the amount of virus in their blood to the point where it is impossible to pass the virus on to others, even after unprotected sex and other high-risk exposures.
Edmonds and House both urged everyone to get tested for HIV, because knowing your status can save a life. They said ignorance is the only killer.
“We have to go out, get tested. It’s so easy to be able to get put on medications. Have yourself followed by a doctor like me,” House said.
(WASHINGTON) — Coordinated groups of inauthentic accounts have been attempting to influence online conversations around the 2024 elections for the better part of a year, according to a recent investigation conducted by Cyabra, a social analysis firm.
According to the Israel-based firm, someone created thousands of automated Twitter accounts that appear to be praising former President Donald Trump and criticizing his political rivals on both sides of the aisle.
“What I found was so interesting about this bot farm [was] that it understood the nuances of the division within the Republican Party and it was exploiting that online,” Jules Gross, a solutions engineer at Cyabra, told ABC News.
Gross said she reviewed hundreds of posts and found that these automated accounts — or bots — were going after Trump’s potential 2024 rivals for the presidency.
As soon as Nikki Haley announced a bid for the presidency in February 2023, Gross said she saw bots accusing Haley of being disloyal to her onetime boss.
Around 40% of the conversation online about Haley was being controlled by inauthentic accounts versus just 2% before her announcement, according to Cyabra.
Haley hasn’t been the only target; these bots also appeared to go after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to the firm.
Although DeSantis hasn’t announced a bid, it hasn’t stopped numerous fake accounts from insisting he not run in the 2024 election, Cyabra said in its report.
Gross said she has also found hundreds of posts accusing Republicans of not being loyal because they cooperated with Democrats.
“Whether it’s Kevin McCarthy, or even Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and also Nikki Haley, the bots say these people are not Republican enough,” Gross said.
She added that the bots allege that “(t)hey are not true Republicans, they need to be more extreme.”
Gross said Cyabra found three coordinated groups of inauthentic accounts created on one of three dates in April, October and November of 2022.
Gross said she was initially scanning conversations around prominent American politicians on Twitter when she noticed seemingly inauthentic accounts popping up among real ones.
“Once I filtered all of the fake profiles from the ones that were just created, on the same days, I could see that they were all promoting the same ideology online, possibly even posting the same exact posts online,” Gross said. “And from that, we’re able to deduce that is a coordinated activity.”
While public perception may be that social media bots are rudimentary, some experts say these coordinated groups are getting more complex and harder to spot.
“Detecting bots is a very difficult challenge that requires analysis of a number of different parameters,” said Sam Woolley, the program director at Propaganda Research Lab at the University of Texas, Austin. “You can’t just look at two or three different things.”
Cyabra said it looked at over 500 different behavioral parameters to identify whether these profiles were fake — parameters like how many hours a day an account was active, the geographic location of their followers and if the content posted was original or repurposed.
As of Thursday, the three coordinated groups identified are still active on Twitter, Gross said. Most recently, Cyabra said these accounts have been posting and re-sharing posts about the health and whereabouts of Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania following his recent hospitalization for severe depression.
According to Cyabra, Elon Musk hired the data analysis firm to analyze bot activity on Twitter before he purchased the company.
ABC News has reached out to Twitter for comment.
“It shows just how likely it is that the conversations on social media surrounding the 2024 presidential election will be controlled and will be full of not just of disinformation and misinformation, but also harassment, disenfranchisement content, and all other sorts of forms of misleading information,” warned Woolley.
Cyabra said it does not know who is behind these coordinated accounts.
Research found that bots have helped spread falsehoods and manipulate conversations in all major U.S. elections — and many others worldwide — since 2016. Bots spreading misinformation aren’t specific to Twitter; networks of inauthentic accounts have been uncovered and taken down on Facebook and Instagram in the past, experts say.
But experts like Woolley say social media companies need to “take a stand and provide more clarity with what kinds of automation is unacceptable.”
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. and international government agencies are urging software manufacturers to “revamp” the design of certain software to take the burden of cybersecurity flaws out off of the customer.
Historically, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI, the NSA and a host of international law enforcement agencies say that “technology manufacturers have relied on fixing vulnerabilities found after the customers have deployed the products, requiring the customers to apply those patches at their own expense,” according to an alert from the agencies released on Thursday.
The alert is aimed at tech providers, and customers according to CISA Executive Director Eric Goldstein.
Goldstein said he hopes tech providers will use the product to “actually change their internal cultures,” and invest in the changes they are hoping to outline. He is also hoping that customers use the guidance as well so that they know what to ask for when dealing with software companies, but he acknowledged the document is just the beginning.
“We see this document as an opening to an international conversation,” he explained.
The agencies are urging software manufacturers to “revamp their design and development programs to permit only Secure-by-Design and -Default products to be shipped to customers,” and the agencies are calling it “Secure by Design” and “Secure by Default.”
“Products that are Secure-by-Design are those where the security of the customers is a core business goal, not just a technical feature,” the alert says. “Secure-by-Design products start with that goal before development starts. Secure-by-Default products are those that are secure to use “out of the box” with little to no configuration changes necessary and security features available without additional cost.”
The government agencies say there are three software principals manufacturers should abide by when designing products.
“Now more than ever, it is crucial for technology manufacturers to make Secure-by-Design and Secure-by-Default the focal points of product design and development processes,” the alert says. “Some vendors have made great strides driving the industry forward in software assurance, while others lag behind.”
The burden should not fall solely on the customer to protect their systems when they purchase software, share information with other companies when relevant to help secure customers systems, and build a structure of leadership to employ the “Secure by Design” and “Secure by Default” principals.
Goldstein said the hope is that the solutions outlined are not just done by the technical advisors but by senior leaders at the top of software companies, and he said they are looking “forward to opening the apiture of collaboration,” so that way all the voices in the software industry are heard.
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve’s staff is more worried about the U.S. economy tipping into a recession after the recent banking crisis, the minutes from the central bank’s meeting in March reveal.
Economists at the Federal Reserve said they expect a “mild” recession later this year, an escalation from their previous assessment.
“Given their assessment of the potential economic effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years,” according to the publicly posted minutes from the meeting, which took place over March 21-22 right after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
The comments from economists on staff within the Federal Reserve reflect a dimmer outlook than public statements from Chairman Jerome Powell, who said after that March meeting “we don’t know” whether there will be a recession.
While several economists, including the International Monetary Fund, have said the U.S. and global economies face a higher risk of recession after the recent bank failures, the Biden administration has painted a rosier picture, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying she does not anticipate a “downturn” in the U.S. economy.
“I wouldn’t overdo the negativism about the global economy,” she said Tuesday. “I think countries have proven resilient, and a number of emerging-market and lower-income countries continue to show resilient growth.”
Speaking with reporters in Dublin, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued that economic indicators say “we are not headed to a recession or pre-recession.”
“Recent economic indicators are not consistent with a recession or even a pre-recession. And you can just look at the data: Twelve-point-five million jobs have been created since he took office — twelve-point-five million jobs. We’ve gained all the jobs lost during the pandemic and created three million more jobs. And so, unemployment is a near 50-year low and black unemployment is at a record low. Annual inflation has fallen over the last nine months,” she said.
Silicon Valley Bank, the nation’s 16th largest bank, collapsed in March and was taken over by the government. Signature Bank, the 29th-largest bank in the U.S., followed suit just days later, marking the largest bank failure since the 2008 crisis.
Despite the troubling outlook from Federal Reserve staff, the central bank has aimed to curb inflation. In February, year-over-year inflation was 6%. The data released on Wednesday marked the ninth consecutive month of smaller price hikes.
(NEW YORK) — The head of the government agency that oversees recalls is making an urgent plea when it comes to getting a recalled baby product off the market.
Alexander Hoehn-Saric, chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, sent letters Wednesday to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and Mattel, the maker of the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play sleeper, calling on the companies to do more to make sure the sleeper, recalled since 2019, is not used by consumers.
In the letters, Hoehn-Saric said his agency has found that hundreds of recalled Rock ‘n Play sleepers are sold every month on Facebook Marketplace and other secondhand sites.
The CPSC issued an initial recall of Rock ‘n Play sleepers in 2019 after 30 children were reported to have died after they were placed in a sleeper and “rolled from their back to their stomach or side while unrestrained, or under other circumstances,” according to the agency.
The recall applied to approximately 4.7 million sleeper products, many of which were sold between 2009 and 2019 at major retailers such as Target and Walmart and online on e-commerce sites like Amazon.
Hoehn-Saric noted in his letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the majority of secondhand listings for Rock ‘n Play sleepers are found on Facebook Marketplace.
“While CPSC staff informs me that Facebook Marketplace is responsive and moves quickly to remove listings that CPSC flags for Meta, CPSC should not be finding many illegal offers of life-threatening products on your platform,” Hoehn-Saric wrote. “Moreover, at best, CPSC is catching these unlawful products after they have been listed for sale and made available to the public; we do not know how many illegal sales occurred that we did not identify.”
He continued, “Facebook is uniquely positioned to identify recalled and violative products like the Rock ‘n Play and stop their sale before they are listed. This would guarantee that these dangerous products are not sold, and further tragedies are averted.”
In the letter to Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz , Hoehn-Saric called on the company to reannounce the recall and offer consumers more of an incentive to stop using the sleepers.
“Fisher Price clearly has not done enough to incentivize consumers to act upon the recall. Nor have the company’s actions deterred a secondary market for this product,” Hoehn-Saric wrote. “It is incumbent on Fisher Price to motivate consumers to stop using the Rock ‘n Play and to destroy unused Rock ‘n Plays that may be in their homes. A refund of the full purchase price of all Rock ‘n Plays would be a good start in achieving these outcomes.”
In January, the CPSC re-announced the recall of the Rock ‘n Play sleeper, noting that at least eight additional infant deaths had been associated with the product following the original 2019 recall.
The CPSC also confirmed at the time that at least 70 more infant deaths had been reported in connection to the sleeper, bringing the total to over 100.
In January, the CPSC instructed consumers to “stop using the Rock ‘n Play immediately and contact Fisher-Price for a refund or voucher.” The agency also noted in the reannouncement of the recall, “It is illegal to sell or distribute the recalled sleepers.”
In response to the letter from Hoehn-Saric, a spokesperson for Fisher-Price told ABC News the company “has worked diligently” to remove recalled sleepers from the market.
“Following the April 12, 2019 voluntary recall, Fisher-Price immediately stopped sales of Rock ‘n Play Sleepers,” the spokeperson said in a statement. “Since then, the company has worked diligently to remove all recalled product from the market, highlighted most recently by a widespread re-announcement of the original product recall, made jointly with the CPSC on January 9, 2023.”
The Fisher-Price spokesperson also noted the company is considering increasing the refund amount for consumers.
“We have recently made clear to the CPSC our willingness to increase the proportional cash refund available to consumers who participate in the recall,” the spokesperson said. “Fisher-Price and CPSC share a common goal: to remove this recalled product from the market. We look forward to collaborating with the CPSC to explore ways to promote participation in the recall. We urge both consumers and resellers that they should not use, sell, or donate the recalled Rock ‘n Play. If consumers have a recalled product, they should go to https://service.mattel.com/ to the ‘Recall and Safety Alert’ tab and follow the instructions on how to participate in the recall. We reaffirm our commitment to parents that we will always put their children’s safety first.”
A spokesperson for Meta told ABC News that selling recalled goods on Facebook Marketplace is a violation of the company’s policies. In addition, the company works on its own to remove recalled goods from Facebook Marketplace, and encourages consumers to report items that may violate the site’s policies, according to the spokesperson.
“Like other platforms where people can buy and sell goods, there are instances of people knowingly or unknowingly selling recalled goods on Marketplace,” the Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We take this issue seriously and when we find listings that violate our rules, we remove them.”
Safe sleep guidelines from both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics say that caregivers should always place infants to sleep on their backs on a firm, flat surface without any pillows, blankets or bumpers, and that infants should not be placed on inclined products for sleep.
Last year, legislation known as the Safe Sleep for Babies Act went into effect, banning the manufacturing and sale of inclined sleepers for babies.
