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(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has spent much of this week defending the department’s newly established Disinformation Governance Board in response to Republican lawmakers’ concerns about partisan influence in federal law enforcement.

The board, according to DHS, was actually created to address privacy concerns that arise with disinformation campaigns when information is shared between departments as well as to ensure it’s done appropriately. But the Orwellian name and an admittedly clumsy rollout immediately raised eyebrows as well as ignited a pre-existing debate about free speech and partisanship — especially given the person tasked with leading the board’s activities.

“Given the complete lack of information about this new initiative and the potential serious consequences of a government entity identifying and responding to ‘disinformation,’ we have serious concerns about the activities of this new Board, particularly under Ms. Jankowicz’s leadership,” Mike Turner and John Katko, Republican leaders of the House Committee on Homeland Security, wrote in a letter to Mayorkas last week.

In a fact sheet released Monday, the department admits that “there has been confusion about the working group, its role, and its activities” and vows to work on building greater public trust.

That confusion over the board’s work stemmed from a comment Mayorkas made to Congress last week that it would be used to “more effectively combat” the threat of false information. DHS has now said the body will not be involved in managing department operations and Mayorkas said the group would “bring together the experts throughout our department to ensure that our ongoing work in combating disinformation is done in a way that does not infringe on free speech, a fundamental constitutional right embedded in the First Amendment, nor on the right of privacy or other civil rights and civil liberties.”

The White House on Friday pledged the board will operate in a “nonpartisan and apolitical manner.”

But Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, was not sold.

“I think you’ve got no idea what disinformation is, and I don’t think the government is capable of it,” he said during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.

The secretary pushed back on the assertion from Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., that the board will be the “truth police.”

“The Department of Homeland Security is not going to be the truth police,” Mayorkas said. “That is the farthest thing from the truth. We protect the security of the homeland.”

The GOP criticisms also center on Nina Jankowicz, the former Wilson Center fellow tapped to lead the board. Jankowicz, who is routinely outspoken on Twitter, has publicly criticized Republicans and sowed doubt about the accuracy of press reports critical of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

Jankowicz was quoted by the Associated Press in 2020 refuting a story about the discovery of new emails that reportedly linked Hunter Biden and a Ukrainian energy executive with the president.

“We should view it as a Trump campaign product,” Jankowicz told the AP that October.

She later suggested on Twitter that the emails were “part of an influence campaign.”

“Voters deserve that context, not a fairy tale about a laptop repair shop,” Jankowicz wrote.

The New York Times and Washington Post confirmed the authenticity of the emails related to Hunter Biden with the help of security experts in March. ABC News has not independently confirmed the veracity of the emails, which were first reported by the New York Post in an article that was flagged as disinformation on Twitter. The social media company demanded the tabloid delete the posts but eventually backed down when it refused.

The debate over the new board takes place against the backdrop of a long-standing divide over regulating speech, especially online. Fueled by libertarian beliefs in an unregulated public sphere, leaders on the right have championed figures like Elon Musk, whose recent acquisition of Twitter was met with skepticism and concern from those who believe social media companies have a duty to remove vitriolic harassment, disinformation and misinformation on their platforms.

“Your priority is setting up a board and hiring someone who has gone to TikTok to talk about stopping speech she doesn’t like, who has mocked voters of the last president, that has been your priority, and to say your priorities are misplaced is a dramatic understatement, and the time I think has come, Mr. Secretary, for you to resign,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Mayorkas.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said Jankowicz has made “political statements” in the past that would disqualify her from holding the position on the board.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said.

Mayorkas, for his part, pushed back, saying he didn’t know about the TikTok posts and, as secretary, he is ultimately responsible for what occurs at DHS. He also declined to say who hired Jankowicz but stressed she must do her job in a nonpartisan way.

John Cohen, the former acting intelligence chief at DHS who helped stand up the disinformation board and left the department last month, said the board simply addresses a communication issue within the department.

“It didn’t coordinate operational activities, it wasn’t governing intelligence operations, it had no input on how organizations collect intelligence or information,” Cohen, now an ABC News contributor, said. “It was simply intended to be a working group that would gather on an ad hoc basis to address matters of policy.”

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(WASHINGTON) — U.S. officials on Thursday pushed back on a New York Times report that said the U.S. provided Ukraine intelligence that helped it target and kill Russian generals and other senior officers.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson took exception to the story’s headline: “U.S. Intelligence Is Helping Ukraine Kill Russian Generals, Officials Say.”

“The headline of this story is misleading and the way it is framed is irresponsible. The United States provides battlefield intelligence to help the Ukrainians defend their country. We do not provide intelligence with the intent to kill Russian generals,” Watson said, drawing a semantic distinction, appearing to want to distance the U.S. from any direct involvement in an attack on Russian commanders.

A second U.S. official with knowledge of U.S. intelligence-sharing with Ukraine confirmed that the U.S. provides intelligence on movements of Russian units and command posts, but not on individual Russian military leaders.

“The U.S. is not providing intelligence on Russian generals,” the official told ABC News Wednesday evening.

A third official told ABC News the same: “That is not how we operate.”

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby offered clarifying remarks during a press briefing Thursday.

“The United States provides battlefield intelligence to help Ukrainians defend their country,” Kirby said. “We do not provide intelligence on the location of senior military leaders on the battlefield or participate in the targeting decisions of the Ukrainian military.”

The New York Times story originally cited American officials claiming U.S. intelligence “has helped Ukrainians target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war.”

Officials say it is correct, as reported by the Times, that the Ukrainians are able to combine what they learn from the U.S. with their own intelligence to then target Russian leaders. But they emphasized that the U.S. does not play a direct role in targeting individuals on the battlefield.

Other nations are also sharing intelligence with Ukraine, which has its own “robust” capabilities, according to Kirby.

“Ukraine combines information that we and other partners provide with the intelligence that they themselves are gathering on the battlefield, and then they make their own decisions, and they take their own actions,” Kirby said.

The Kremlin also responded to the article, saying its troops are aware of intelligence-assistance for Ukraine coming from the West.

“Our servicemen are well aware that the United States, the United Kingdom and NATO in general are providing intelligence and information about other parameters to the Ukrainian Armed Forces on a permanent basis. This is well known and, of course, together with the arms supply to Ukraine by the same countries and the alliance, all of those actions are not helping rapidly finalize the operation, although they cannot hinder the achievement of objectives set for the special military operation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a press briefing Thursday.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense has claimed 12 Russian generals have been killed since the invasion, though U.S. officials have not confirmed this when asked.

One reason senior officers might be particularly vulnerable is due to the structure of Russia’s military.

“They do not delegate authority,” said Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and ABC News contributor. “So, they are out giving orders directly to their forces.”

Unlike the U.S. military, Russia does not empower its non-commissioned and junior officers with the authority to make decisions on their own, according to Mulroy.

“It’s the only way to effectively fight in modern combined arms maneuver warfare,” he said. “The lack of delegation is another reason the Russian military is performing so poorly.”

Top American military leaders have publicly stated the U.S. is sharing intelligence to help Ukrainians in their fight against Russia’s invading forces.

“We have opened up the pipes,” Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators Tuesday. “There is a significant amount of intelligence flowing to the Ukraine from the United States.”

The officials ABC News spoke to could not say whether the U.S. has any hard rules in place against giving Ukraine intelligence on high-level leaders, including top Russian general Valery Gerasimov, who spent multiple days in the contested Donbas region last week. But according to Mulroy, there is nothing wrong in principle with helping Ukraine kill Russian generals.

“Targeting generals is fully lawful, targeting non-combatant civilians is not,” Mulroy said. “If Russian generals don’t want to be targeted, they should withdraw their forces and return to Russia.”

ABC News’ Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Attorney Kathryn Kolbert has spent a majority of her career thinking about the after-effects on reproductive rights if the Supreme Court was to overturn Roe v. Wade. She believes prohibiting abortions will force some women to turn to unsafe practices to terminate pregnancies that will put their lives in danger.

“Women are crafty,” said Kolbert. “I’m not advocating that they break the law, but the reality is, as in the days before Roe, the underground market will operate.”

Kolbert is best known as one of the lawyers who argued and helped win the landmark 1992 abortion case Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. Now, a leaked draft opinion for the Supreme Court appears to indicate that the court is poised to fully overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Kolbert told ABC News’ podcast Start Here that if the ruling is overturned, so-called “trigger laws” will immediately go into effect to ban or prohibit abortions across half the country.

“The reality is that women in those 25 or 26 states will not be able to obtain the reproductive health care that they need,” said Kolbert. “The bottom line: Women will have to travel hundreds of miles, sometimes thousands of miles, to obtain reproductive health care. That’s what they did in the 1970s.”

If women cannot afford to travel to obtain proper reproductive care, Kolbert said that some women will take dangerous measures, either through unsafe surgical abortions or medical abortions, that could result in serious consequences.

“They’ll figure it out and there’s all kinds of ways they can do that. Internet access from doctors around the world, getting drugs from their friends… traveling across the border, and picking up the drugs, all kinds of ways,” said Kolbert.

Kolbert said that, although medical abortions, which is the use of different medications to terminate a pregnancy, are safe under medical supervision, there are still always risks that women can bleed more than expected. For those who obtain the drugs illegally, they’ll often be deterred from seeking follow up medical care when they need it.

“[A woman in Texas] was prosecuted for self-managing her abortion. They dropped those charges eventually, but [she] was dragged into court,” said Kolbert. “[Authorities] found out because she went to a hospital, because she was bleeding and wanted appropriate health care.”

Kolbert said another risk is women receiving “bad drugs.”

“For the most part, [medication is] safe when you get the right drug, but there’s unscrupulous people out in the world and that’s a risk,” said Kolbert. “But the reality is, even with the risks of medication… [For some women] being forced by the government to carry your pregnancy to term is unthinkable and they will do, as they did in the days before Roe, just about anything to terminate a pregnancy.”

The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 13% of annual maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortions. The same study states that in developed regions, it is estimated that 30 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions.

For now, abortions are legal while the final Supreme Court decision remains pending. Kolbert said that there are three things people can do to help: donate money to abortion rights causes, get political and build “a badass social justice movement” because “change has never happened until there has been a cry for change.”

“The young people in our country really need to demand that their rights, their liberties that they’ve enjoyed their entire lifetimes, be respected,” said Kolbert. “It is not appropriate to tell women that they can’t make decisions about their lives. It is not appropriate to tell women that their bodies do not belong to themselves. We need to stand up and say, ‘No way.’”

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(WASHINGTON) — After a year and a half at the podium, White House press secretary Jen Psaki is planning to leave the White House on May 13, and her current deputy, Karine Jean-Pierre, will be her replacement, President Joe Biden announced Thursday.

In a historic pick, Jean-Pierre will be the first Black, and first openly gay person to hold the position of White House press secretary.

“Karine not only brings the experience, talent and integrity needed for this difficult job, but she will continue to lead the way in communicating about the work of the Biden-Harris Administration on behalf of the American people. Jill and I have known and respected Karine a long time and she will be a strong voice speaking for me and this Administration,” Biden said in a statement.

Almost one year ago to the day, Jean-Pierre anchored her first White House briefing, where ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked her about making history at the podium.

“It’s a real honor to be standing here today,” Jean-Pierre said. “I appreciate the historic nature, I really do, but I believe that being behind this podium, being in this room, being in this building, is not about one person. It’s about what we do on behalf of the American people.”

“Clearly the president believes that representation matters, and I appreciate him giving me this opportunity, and it’s another reason why I think we are all so proud that this is the most diverse administration in history,” she added.

Psaki has long said she would leave the White House press office sometime this year, and Biden thanked her for “raising the bar” during in her tenure.

“Jen Psaki has set the standard for returning decency, respect and decorum to the White House Briefing Room. I want to say thank you to Jen for raising the bar, communicating directly and truthfully to the American people, and keeping her sense of humor while doing so. I thank Jen her service to the country, and wish her the very best as she moves forward,” Biden said in Thursday’s statement.

Psaki also offered kind words about her replacement as Jean-Pierre prepares to become the new face of the White House.

“She is passionate. She is smart and she has a moral core that makes her not just a great colleague, but an amazing Mom and human. Plus, she has a great sense of humor,” Psaki tweeted. “I can’t wait to see her shine as she brings her own style, brilliance and grace to the podium.”

Psaki didn’t comment on her plans, but if Psaki lands at NBC News next, as Axios has reported, it would follow a similar path to former Biden-Harris administration adviser Symone Sanders, who left last year to start a show on MSNBC.

ABC News’ Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate will take a procedural vote to start debate on codifying abortion rights next week, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday.

Democrats have pledged to take swift action on the issue after a leaked draft opinion showed the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision legalizing abortion in the U.S. The draft is not the final ruling, though the court confirmed its authenticity.

“I intend to file cloture on this vital legislation on Monday which will set up a vote for Wednesday,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor.

Any effort to protect abortion access nationwide is likely to face an uphill battle in the 50-50 divided chamber, where Democrats don’t have the 60 votes needed to overcome an expected filibuster.

The party has already experienced this problem with the Women’s Health and Protection Act. The bill cleared the House of Representatives in September 2021, but in the Senate Schumer failed to get even the entire Democratic caucus on board when he tried to start debate on the bill back in February.

The legislation would codify Roe while also banning requirements some states have put into place related to abortion care, such as waiting periods and mandatory doctor’s visits before the procedure.

Republicans have taken issue with how broad the Women’s Health and Protection Act is, prompting Democrats to draft a modified version. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., changed some of the bill’s language but it still may not be enough to sway the GOP members.

GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told ABC News’ Trish Turner that she would vote “no” on the proposal.

“My goal is to codify what is essentially existing law,” Collins said. “That means Roe v. Wade, it means Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which established the undue burden test, and it means keeping the “conscience” protections which appear to be wiped out by the Democrats’ version. So, I’m not trying to go beyond current law or, but rather to codify those Supreme Court decisions.”

Collins is one of the Democratic Party’s best chances of gaining a Republican vote on any potential bill. She and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the sole Senate Republicans who support abortion rights.

Collins and Murkowski have their own proposal to codify Roe. Their bill — dubbed the Reproductive Choice Act — would prohibit states from imposing an “undue burden” on the ability of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy pre-viability but also allows states to keep other restrictions in place.

Senate Democrats held a news conference on Thursday afternoon to discuss next week’s vote.

“This is a life or death moment and we need to fight,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., told reporters.

Schumer said next week’s vote is intended to put on the record exactly where lawmakers stand on abortion rights.

“You will hear plenty from us,” Schumer said. “This is not just one vote and then this issue goes away. You will hear a lot from us through the next month all the way through November.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A new, imposing eight-foot-high fence was erected overnight at the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of protests over a bombshell draft opinion on abortion.

The leaked ruling, not yet final but confirmed to be authentic by the court, indicated its conservative majority is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade — the landmark decision that has guaranteed a woman’s right to abortion for almost the past 50 years.

Abortion rights activists — and some anti-abortion protesters — have rallied at the Supreme Court each day since Politico reported the draft document on Monday, including the preliminary votes of the majority.

More protests were expected on Thursday.

Neither the Supreme Court nor Capitol Police have said anything publicly about possible threats to the court or the justices.

The protests outside the court’s marble front steps have been largely peaceful, prompting some to question why the new security barrier — reminiscent of the unscalable fencing placed around the U.S. Capitol after the violence of Jan. 6, 2021 — is necessary.

John Becker, a spokesperson at Catholics For Choice, said the measures appear “ominous and disproportionate to what has actually been transpiring on that plaza.”

But the court has often been a magnet for threats and security concerns. Just two weeks ago, a man reportedly described as an environmental activist died after setting himself on fire on the court’s front plaza, possibly related to his views on climate change.

A Supreme Court spokeswoman declined to comment on the fencing, citing a longstanding policy of not discussing security operations.

The justices are scheduled to next meet in person for a private conference on May 12. A final decision in the abortion case, which centers on a Mississippi law banning the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy, is expected by the end of June or early July.

In the draft opinion, dated Feb. 10, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” adding, “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.”

If the draft document written by Alito were to hold as written, access to abortion across the country could be upended. Thirteen states have so-called “trigger laws” in place to swiftly ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is repealed.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are working to bring forward legislation to codify abortion rights at the federal level. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he plans to hold a vote as soon as next week.

The House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify Roe last fall but the bill has stalled in the Senate. Any other legislation would likely meet a similar fate in the evenly divided chamber.

The Supreme Court’s leaked opinion draft’s language has sparked concern that other unenumerated rights may be at stake, including gay marriage and contraception.

“This is about a lot more than abortion,” President Joe Biden said while giving remarks at the White House on Wednesday.

“What are the next things that are going to be attacked?” Biden asked. “Because this MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history — in recent American history.”

Roberts confirmed the draft was authentic on Tuesday, stating he’s directed the start of an investigation into the leak. Supreme Court Marshall Gail Curley, a career Army lawyer, will lead the probe.

“We at the Court are blessed to have a workforce — permanent employees and law clerks alike — intensely loyal to the institution and dedicated to the rule of law. Court employees have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court,” Roberts said in a statement. “This was a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.”

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Luke Barr contributed to this report.

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