(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military last month launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, attempting to capture the strategic port city of Mariupol and to secure a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 05, 4:39 am
Russian shelling on residential areas of Kramatorsk injures 25, officials say
At least 25 civilians were injured by Russian shelling on residential areas and the central part of Kramatorsk on Wednesday night, according to the local city council.
Six of the wounded required hospitalization, and at least nine homes, a school as well as various civilian infrastructure sustained damaged, the Kramatorsk City Council said in a statement via Telegram.
Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko confirmed in a statement via Facebook that a kindergarten was seriously damaged.
Kramatorsk is a city in eastern Ukraine’s war-torn Donetsk Oblast.
May 05, 3:50 am
Over 300 civilians evacuated from Mariupol, surrounding areas
More than 300 civilians have been evacuated from the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol and surrounding areas, officials said late Wednesday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it facilitated the safe passage of the civilians in coordination with the United Nations and both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The evacuees arrived Wednesday in Zaporizhzhia, a Ukrainian government-controlled city about 140 miles northwest of Mariupol.
“We are relieved that more lives have been spared,” Pascal Hundt, the ICRC’s head of delegation in Ukraine, said in a statement Wednesday night. “We welcome the renewed efforts of the parties with regards to safe passage operations. They remain crucial and urgent in light of the immense suffering of the civilians.”
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk confirmed that 344 people were evacuated to Zaporizhzhia from the Mariupol area, Manhush, Berdyansk, Tokmak and Vasylivka.
The evacuation did not include civilians trapped inside the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol.
(WASHINGTON) — State governments across the country are taking steps to firm up abortion rights if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that granted protections for a woman’s right to an abortion.
A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion published by Politico on Monday apparently shows that the court will overturn Roe. Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the draft and ordered an investigation into its release.
More than half of Americans oppose abortion bans. A new ABC News-Washington Post poll found that 57% of Americans oppose a ban after 15 weeks. Fifty-eight percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases and 54% said the court should uphold Roe.
State legislatures have introduced a range of legislation to end existing restrictions, protect the right to abortion and increase access to abortion care, according data from the Guttmacher Institute, which studies sexual and reproductive health and rights.
While overturning Roe would not criminalize abortion at the federal level, experts said it would be left to states to regulate abortions.
“In the absence of a federal right to abortion, then each state could determine for itself whether to protect and expand abortion rights and access or whether to prohibit abortion entirely,” said Elisabeth Smith, the director for state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Smith added, “Roe, for the last almost 50 years, has provided essentially a federal floor and states are not allowed to go beneath the protections of Roe, but states were always free to create more protections and more access than Roe affords. If Roe is overruled, essentially that federal floor would be removed and all abortion policy would be up to each state.”
This map shows where abortion will remain legal in the U.S. if Roe is indeed overturned.
ABC News
The Center for Reproductive Rights estimates that up to 25 states could outlaw abortion entirely. Of the remaining, 22 states have a state right to abortion established in a state constitution or state statute, while three do not have state protections for abortion.
“So regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, abortion will remain legal in at least 22 states,” Smith said.
Abortion is not protected in New Mexico, Virginia and New Hampshire. Smith said women in these states will still likely have access to abortion in the future.
“In New Mexico, they very recently repealed their pre-Roe ban. Virginia, two years ago, repealed many medically unnecessary abortion restrictions that had been in statute for a long time. New Hampshire does not have many of the abortion bans and restrictions that we see in the states that we term ‘hostile’ to abortion rights,” Smith said.
Live Action, a nonprofit anti-abortion group, told ABC News that 22 states already have anti-abortion laws that would kick in if Roe falls.
“Nine states in this group have pre-Roe abortion restrictions still on the books; 13 states have a so-called ‘trigger ban’ that is tied to Roe being overturned and five states have laws passed after Roe restricting nearly all abortions,” Live Action told ABC News.
Another dozen states have six- or eight-week restrictions there are not currently in effect, while Texas’ six-week restriction is in effect. Four states have constitutions that ban the right to abortion, according to Live Action.
While several states have moved to limit or ban access to abortions, many states have also moved to expand access and increase protections for them.
Progressive states are expanding access for their residents and enacting measures to support people from other states who may need to cross state borders to receive access to abortion services due to new restrictions or bans in their home state, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
State legislatures have introduced 231 protective measures in 29 states and the District of Columbia between Jan. 1 and April 14, according to Guttmacher.
Only 11 protective measures have been enacted in seven states in that time frame, according to Guttmacher.
The governor in Colorado signed a bill in April codifying the right to abortion. A Connecticut bill passed in April that protects women who get abortions, those who assist them and abortion providers, and prevents state agencies from assisting interstate investigators seeking to hold people liable. Vermont passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion which will be on the ballot in November, according to Live Action.
Despite efforts by Maryland’s governor to veto a bill that expands who can provide abortions, state lawmakers were able to override his veto in April.
Efforts to protect access to abortion include provisions expanding the types of health care professionals who can provide abortion care; legislation to assist patients with paying for an abortion; and earmarking state funds for abortion services.
Three states — Colorado, New Jersey and Washington — have enacted rules that establish or expand statutory protections for the right to abortion. Two states, Maryland and Washington, have authorized advanced practice clinicians to provide abortion care, according to Guttmacher.
California, Maryland, New York and Oregon have enacted legislation that requires health plans to cover abortion or establish a state fund to assist with abortion costs, according to Guttmacher.
(NEW YORK) — For the first time in months, daily hospital admission levels and new COVID-19 related deaths in the United States are both projected to increase over the next four weeks, according to updated forecast models used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The projected increases come after weeks of steady upticks in infections across the country, subsequent to the removal of masking requirements and mitigation measures in many states and cities.
The forecast now predicts that approximately 5,000 deaths will occur over the next two weeks, with Ohio, New York, and New Jersey projected to see the largest totals of daily deaths in the weeks to come.
“We are still in the middle of a pandemic, to be sure—there’s no confusion about that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told Foreign Policy last week.
The forecast models show that 42 states and territories in hospital admissions across the country, including New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, are projected to see increases in the next two weeks.
Nationally, a growing number of COVID-19 positive patients have already been admitted to hospitals, requiring care, federal data shows.
Since late last month, daily hospital admission totals have been slowly increasing, particularly in the Northeast, according to CDC data. And in the last week, admissions have jumped by 20%, with emergency department visits also up by 18%.
On average, more than 2,200 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day — a total that has increased by 20% in the last week, the CDC reports. This also marks the highest number of patients requiring care since mid-March.
Overall, there are about 18,300 patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 in hospitals across the country, up by 18% in the last two weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services reports.
Although totals remain significantly lower than during other parts of the pandemic, admission levels are now on the rise in every region of the country.
Nationally, new infection rates have reached their highest point in nearly two months. More than 60,000 new cases are being officially reported each day, up by 27% in the last week, according to the CDC.
In the Northeast and New York-New Jersey region, infection rates have risen by 64.8% and 54.8% respectively, over the last two weeks.
Since last summer, dozens of states have moved to shutter public testing sites, with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available. Most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, experts say infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.
Health experts say a confluence of factors is likely driving the nation’s latest viral resurgence, including the easing of masking requirements and other COVID-19 restrictions as well as highly contagious omicron subvariants, which have been estimated to be between 30% and 80% more transmissible than the original omicron strain.
The BA.2 subvariant, BA.2.12.1, first discovered domestically last month, in New York state, continues to steadily increase in the U.S., newly released federal data shows. The subvariant now accounts for 36.5% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide, while in the New York — New Jersey area, it accounts for the majority — nearly 62% — of new cases.
With vaccine immunity waning and the presence of variants of concern growing, health officials continue to urge the public to get vaccinated and boosted to prevent the risk of severe disease and hospitalization.
“We hope that we don’t see a major uptick [in cases] as we get into the fall, but that remains to be seen. We’re going to have to wait and see, which is the reason why we’re still encouraging people to get vaccinated,” Fauci said last week. “If you’ve not been vaccinated or if you have been vaccinated and are eligible for a booster, make sure to get it now.”
(WASHINGTON) — The father of Trevor Reed, the American freed from Russia in a prisoner exchange last week, on Wednesday demonstrated outside the White House, calling for the Biden administration to help other Americans held hostage overseas, including two U.S. citizens still detained in Russia, Paul Whelan and WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Trevor Reed, a 30-year-old former Marine, was released last week after nearly three years in detention in Russia, where he was imprisoned on charges that his family and the U.S. government said were trumped up.
He arrived home in Texas last Thursday after being traded for a Russian pilot who had been serving a lengthy sentence in the U.S. for a drug-smuggling conviction. Reed is currently at a military base in San Antonio, receiving counseling and support as part of a reintegration program.
Despite reuniting with his son less than a week ago, Reed’s father Joey Reed and his daughter, Taylor Reed, travelled to Washington, D.C., Wednesday to join the demonstration with families of Americans detained in several countries, including Venezuela, Iran, China, Rwanda.
Joey Reed said he had come to urge the Biden administration to repeat what it had done for his son and to put a spotlight on the cases of the families of other detainees.
“We think there’s at least 16 cases of detainees and hostages where an exchange would bring them home tomorrow,” Reed told ABC News.
He also called on President Joe Biden to meet with the families of other hostages as he did with the Reeds, saying he felt that had been pivotal in persuading the administration to go ahead with the exchange that freed his son.
“We believe that was the complete tipping point was when we met with him,” he told ABC News. “He’s a personable guy. You know, he’s compassionate, kind. Meet with these families like they met with us.”
Joey Reed said he had come at the insistence of his son, who is passionate about freeing Whelan, the other former U.S. Marine still held in Russia and who was not part of last week’s prisoner exchange.
Reed’s release has renewed focus on the cases of Whelan and Griner, who the U.S. government believes were seized by Russia as bargaining chips.
Whelan has been detained in Russia since 2018 and is currently in a prison camp, sentenced to 16 years on espionage charges that the U.S. government and his family say were fabricated.
Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February when Russian police alleged they found vape cartridges in her luggage containing hashish oil, a substance illegal in Russia. This week, the State Department reclassified Griner as “wrongfully detained,” a designation that allows it to begin negotiating for her release and disregards the Russian criminal case against her.
Reed was freed in an exchange for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian cargo plane pilot who was jailed in the U.S. in 2011, after he was seized in a DEA sting operation and convicted of plotting to smuggle large quantities of cocaine.
Since 2018, Russia had repeatedly floated Yaroshenko as a possible candidate for a prisoner trade for Reed and Whelan. But Russia has also pressed for Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer dubbed “the Merchant of Death,” who is currently serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. on drugs and terrorism charges.
Most experts believe Bout — one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers — is a more difficult trade for the U.S. to accept.
The U.S. is generally reluctant to make prisoner exchanges in hostage case out of a fear of encouraging hostile governments to seize more Americans.
But Joey Reed said his son’s case showed the U.S. could be more open to making exchanges if it can get Americans home.
“We just want a trade so they can bring Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner home tomorrow. And we hope that they’re working, towards that and that Trevor was just the beginning of a lot of Americans being repatriated with their country and their families,” Joey Reed said.
Whelan’s sister, Elizabeth Whelan, was also at Wednesday’s demonstration and said it was “wonderful” Reed had been released and gave her hope for her brother.
“I do think Trevor Reed’s release showed that sort of trade was possible. But I think mostly to us it signaled that tools are available,” she said. “So, we’re just asking the White House, the administration to do whatever is [possible], use whatever tools are at their disposal to bring Paul home. And the same goes for everyone.
She said she had met with national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House before the demonstration and that the meeting had been encouraging.
Asked about the efforts to free detained Americans, State Department spokesman Ned Price on Wednesday said, “What I can say is that we are doing everything we can — almost all of it unseen, almost all of it unsaid in public — to do everything we can to advance the commitment that President Biden has to see these Americans who were wrongfully or unjustly detained around the world — or in some cases held hostage around the world — brought home.”
Among the families represented the event were several whose relatives are held in Venezuela, including Alirio and Jose Luis Zambrano, Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell, Matthew Heath, Jose Angel Pereira, Airan Berry and Luke Denman.
Relatives of Siamak and Baquer Namazi, and Morad Tahbaz, also called for help in freeing them from Iran.
One by one the families stood at a microphone and described the pain of struggling to free their loved ones and pleaded with the Biden administration to act urgently. Several said, Reed’s release had given them hope.
Neda Shargi, whose brother, Emad, is serving a 10-year sentence in Iran, addressed Reed directly, saying: “If Trevor is watching this we are so grateful to you for being strong enough to come back. And for having your parents here. Trevor, it’s because of you that we have hope.”
ABC News’ Shannon Crawford contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Abortion-rights advocates are responding to the leaked draft opinion of the Supreme Court majority opinion on the pending Mississippi abortion case that was first reported by Politico on Monday.
According to the copy of the draft opinion, which the court has confirmed is authentic but not final, a majority of justices appear to side with the Mississippi state legislature and will vote to effectively overturn the landmark abortion precedent set by Roe v. Wade.
Amid the reports, a recent ABC News/Washington Poll found that a majority of Americans support upholding Roe v. Wade. Since Monday, many are calling on Congress to act. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that “a whole range of rights are in question.”
Some abortion providers, like Shannon Brewer, said they weren’t surprised by the draft opinion. Brewer is the director of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health. She spoke with ABC News’ podcast Start Here on Wednesday morning.
“This is what we’ve been expecting,” said Brewer. “It didn’t come as a shock to a lot of us here.”
Currently, in the state of Mississippi, abortion is legal up until 20 weeks into the pregnancy.
In October, the Mississippi state legislature passed a law that would reduce the legal number to 15 weeks. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, an estimated 54,000 to 63,000 abortions in the U.S. occur annually at 15 weeks and later into the pregnancy.
After the Supreme Court heard arguments in December, the case remains pending.
Chief Justice John Roberts and the court released a statement Tuesday in response to the leaked draft, saying that it “does not represent a by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
Despite this statement, Brewer said she expects the final verdict will not change that much.
“I expect them fully to overturn. I expect these states to start banning abortions immediately. I expect us to have to stop seeing patients immediately,” said Brewer. “That’s what we’re expecting and that’s what it’s looking like… It’s going to happen.”
While the Mississippi’s law remains under review by the Supreme Court, 26 states have already set so-called “trigger laws” that would immediately prohibit abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Brewer said that she is working across state lines to open other facilities, one called the Pink House West, to continue to help patients.
“This is not something that is going to just affect Mississippi within the year. This is going to affect upwards of 25 to 26 states, which is half of the United States,” said Brewer, who added that her clinic is seeing patients travel from Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma in order to receive care. “We’re still busy every single day.”
She added that the group is already seeking to open a new location in New Mexico, which is less likely to enact sweeping bans.
She said their clinic isn’t the only one – clinics across the country are overrun with patients. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, Brewer said she predicts a “catastrophe.”
“I predict a lot of unwanted pregnancies. That’ll cause unwanted births. I predict an uptick in women showing up at the hospital, bleeding out and having issues due to unsafe things that they’ve been doing out of being desperate and can’t get to a facility,” said Brewer.
Brewer said her message to women who may have just found out that they are pregnant is to “pay attention every day.”
“We don’t know from one day to the next what’s going to go on in each state,” said Brewer. “People don’t pay attention to issues going on with abortion until it affects them, until they need the service they don’t think it’s as important.”
Overall, Brewer said that women who can’t afford to travel to other states to get abortions will be affected most by banning or prohibiting abortions.
“It’s going to be the women who need it the most,” she said. “They’re going to be the ones that can’t get out.”
(WASHINGTON) — As Dr. Mehmet Oz embarks on a bid for the U.S. Senate, the television star has largely shied away from discussing his ties to Turkey, where he maintains citizenship, and dismissed criticism from political opponents that he harbors any so-called “dual loyalties.”
But a photograph of Oz casting a ballot in Turkey’s 2018 presidential election is rankling some national security experts — particularly after recently saying he has “never been politically involved in Turkey in any capacity.”
“The decision to vote in a foreign country’s election is problematic from a security clearance perspective,” according to John V. Berry, a former government lawyer with expertise in federal security clearances.
After a rocky start to his campaign, Oz recently earned a coveted endorsement from former President Donald Trump, bolstering his chances of capturing the Republican nod. But political opponents have continued to target his connections to Turkey — a strategy the Oz campaign and others have called xenophobic smears. If elected, Oz has said he would renounce his Turkish citizenship.
When asked about the photograph, which appeared in June 2018 on the Facebook page of Turkey’s consulate in Manhattan, Brittany Yanick, an Oz campaign spokesperson, confirmed its authenticity to ABC News and confirmed that Oz did vote in the 2018 election. According to Yanick, Oz voted for opposition candidate Muharrem Ince in his unsuccessful campaign against Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan. She denied that Oz’s vote amounted to “political involvement.”
“Voting in an election is far different from being actively engaged in the political work of the Turkish government, which Dr. Oz has never been involved with,” Yanick told ABC News. “There is no security issue whatsoever.”
Elected officials are not subjected to the same level of scrutiny as civilians who seek security clearances for sensitive government work; once sworn-in, lawmakers are granted access to classified information, unless the executive branch denies them certain information.
But the background check process for civilians can also “provide a framework for analyzing whether someone is trustworthy or not,” according to Kel McClanahan, the executive director of National Security Counselors, a nonprofit public interest law firm. And for McClanahan, voting in another country’s election would set off a “giant, flashing red light.”
Born and raised in Ohio, Oz has said that he maintains dual U.S.-Turkey citizenship to care for his mother in Turkey, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. He also served in the Turkish army for 60 days in the early 1980s — reportedly to retain his Turkish citizenship — and maintains real estate holdings in Turkey, plus has an endorsement deal the country’s national airline, Turkish Airlines.
“Any single one of those would be enough to torpedo a [security] clearance,” McClanahan said. “Taken together, I would not put good odds on that person getting a clearance anywhere.”
Turkish voting records indicate that the 2018 presidential election was the first in which Oz participated. Prior to the 2014 election, Turks living abroad could only vote by returning home or by visiting polling stations set up on Turkey’s borders.
Yanick, the campaign spokesperson, said Oz did not plan to vote in the 2018 election, but decided to cast a ballot while at the consulate discussing his “humanitarian work on behalf of Syrian refugees in Turkey.”
“It was during an election season, so he voted,” Yanick said.
Other security experts ABC News spoke with expressed less concern with Oz’s 2018 vote. Steve Aftergood, a senior analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, said that because Oz has been transparent about his ties to Turkey, his dual citizenship alone is more of a political concern for him than a risk to national security.
“The fact that [Oz] has made no effort to conceal his dual citizenship counts in his favor,” Aftergood said. “Voters will have an opportunity to decide whether or not it is of concern to them.”
Security experts that ABC News consulted emphasized that the country in question matters when considering potential foreign influence risks. A person’s ties to Turkey, a NATO member and strategic ally to the U.S., present far less of a threat than China or Russia.
But in recent years, Turkish President Erdogan has demonstrated increasingly authoritarian behavior, jailing journalists and summarily silencing opposition voices. Erdogan has also strained ties with the U.S. by purchasing Russian weapons systems.
Richard Grenell, the former Director of National Intelligence under President Trump, characterized Oz’s understanding of Turkey an asset in the fight against authoritarianism.
“It is frankly un-American to suggest that first- and second-generation Americans are unworthy or suspect to work as a U.S. official,” Grenell said. “They’ve seen fascism and totalitarianism and are actually more clear-eyed about what is at stake.”
Background check investigators consider “the totality of circumstances” when investigating those seeking security clearances, said Sean Bigley, a national security lawyer and former Trump-appointee to the National Security Education Board. Bigley said Oz’s portfolio of risk would likely include his existing financial ties to Turkey.
According to financial disclosures submitted in April, Oz owns several hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate property in Turkey, including a building he has leased out to the Turkish Ministry of Education for free. The building is being used as a student dormitory, according to his disclosure form, and “is subject to pending trust and estate litigation.”
The disclosure form also shows Oz scored a lucrative endorsement contract with Turkish Airlines, Turkey’s national flag-carrying airline. Experts say the air carrier has grown increasingly close to Erdogan since 2018, when he named himself chairman of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, which holds a 49% stake.
In 2018, Oz appeared in a Super Bowl advertisement for Turkish Airlines, and in 2021, he appeared in a four-minute informational discussing the airline’s COVID-19 safety protocols as a brand ambassador.
Any wealth Oz has accumulated from his interests in Turkey, including the airline deal, would reflect only a small amount of his full financial picture. In all, Oz’s disclosure shows that he and his spouse together own between $104 and $422 million in various assets and holdings.
Even so, Bigley said, “if I were advising [Oz], I would suggest divesting from any assets or … financial ties with any entity of the Turkish government.”
Oz has faced criticism for not using his celebrity prominence as a platform for denouncing Erdogan’s clampdowns on opposition and other democratic backsliding. Some suggest that Oz’s continuing financial interests in Turkey create a disincentive for him to criticize its leadership, as doing so could put Oz at risk of having his Turkish assets seized.
“It is the nature of the Turkish system and authoritarian systems more generally that folks who do not want to be targeted by the state kowtow to leaders or keep their mouth shut,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There are many examples of people who have dared to criticize Erdogan who have been forcibly divested.”
Nicholas Danforth, a non-resident fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, an Athens-based think tank, agreed.
“If you wanted to have a lucrative career as a spokesman for Turkish Airlines, you certainly couldn’t say anything negative about Erdogan,” Danforth said.
According to several news reports published since launching his campaign, Oz has met with Erdogan on at least two occasions, in 2014 and 2018, and attended events with officials in Erdogan’s party. Oz has said that attending these functions was normal for a Turkish-American of his stature.
Asked whether Oz had taken a public stance against Erdogan, Yanick provided ABC News with comments Oz made at a January 2022 campaign event in which he said he “would be the harshest critic of Erdogan” in the Senate.
“The country that I respected when I was growing up — Turkey, the country my father left — was a secular country where there was no significant Islamic rule elements, period,” he said. “And it was not a dictatorship.”
Hailed in the West as a charismatic leader with the potential to return Turkey to its secular roots, Muharrem Ince fell to Erdogan in the 2018 election by a substantial margin — 52 percent to 30. Ince attracted support from a broad coalition of anti-Erdogan parties, but also expressed some controversial opinions — including an interest in rebuilding ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Ince was hardly a paragon of democracy, human rights, and tolerance,” said Cook.
As one of Turkey’s most recognizable figures in the West, Oz is not the first high-profile candidate to face accusations of a so-called “dual loyalty,” a claim reminiscent of attacks against Catholics, Jews and members of other religious and ethnic groups in previous generations.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump accused Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, of maintaining dual loyalties to Canada, his country of birth, even though Cruz had renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2014. Trump has not expressed any similar concern for Oz’s arrangement.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys with the Department of Justice recently clashed behind closed doors with staff members for the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, two sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
In a roughly five-hour interview last month that House investigators conducted with former Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin, attorneys from the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs repeatedly objected to questions that they argued could impact the DOJ’s ongoing work prosecuting accused Jan. 6 rioters.
Sherwin had been tasked with leading the early stages of the DOJ’s criminal investigation into the attack, and sources told ABC News that during the interview, DOJ attorneys were highly sensitive to questions posed by House investigators that were related to the early stages of the probe.
At one point, interactions between Jan. 6 staffers and DOJ attorneys grew so contentious that Sherwin stepped out of the room so the discussion could continue in private, sources said.
The episode reflects a rare instance of tensions surfacing between the committee and the Justice Department, which over the past year have quietly been working together to ensure their parallel investigations don’t compromise sensitive matters involving the DOJ’s criminal prosecutions.
Sherwin is not the first former DOJ official authorized by the department to testify before the Jan. 6 select committee, and other witnesses — including former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen — were subject to similar limitations on their testimony in front of Congress.
“The Department has a longstanding policy not to provide congressional testimony concerning prosecutorial deliberations,” said a DOJ letter sent to Rosen authorizing his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. “Discussion of pending criminal cases and possible charges also could violate court rules and potentially implicate rules of professional conduct governing extra-judicial statements.”
But Jan. 6 investigators, according to sources, believed the limitations on Sherwin’s testimony were overly restrictive in prohibiting him from discussing any information starting from the time the Capitol was under assault.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the Jan. 6 select committee declined to comment to ABC News regarding the interview, and Sherwin himself also declined to comment.
Sherwin, who served as acting U.S. attorney through the end of Donald Trump’s administration and stayed on into the Biden administration, resigned from the Justice Department in April of 2021 after he sat for an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that was not authorized by senior DOJ officials. Sherwin told 60 Minutes that evidence potentially supported charges of sedition against some of those who participated in the attack.
Soon after the 60 Minutes interview, a federal judge admonished DOJ prosecutors over Sherwin’s comments, which the judge said could potentially taint the government’s case against members of the Oath Keepers militia group charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.
The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility launched an investigation into Sherwin over the 60 Minutes report, but it’s unclear whether that probe continued after Sherwin left the department and joined a private law firm. Nearly a year after the 60 Minutes interview, in January of this year, 11 members of the Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were charged by the DOJ with seditious conspiracy.
As a result of the limitations asserted by DOJ attorneys, Sherwin’s answers to the Jan. 6 committee’s questions last month were largely limited to discussing his concerns about failures in intelligence-sharing prior to the Jan. 6 attack, sources said. Sherwin was critical of how FBI officials have defended their intelligence gathering in the period leading up to Jan. 6, noting that some individuals on social media had publicly expressed a desire to disrupt Congress’ certification of the 2020 vote, per sources.
Jan. 6 committee staffers also questioned Sherwin about whether any officials in the Trump White House or elsewhere had sought to influence any of the early decisions made by prosecutors in their cases against rioters who stormed the Capitol. Sherwin denied that any such overtures took place, sources said.
By the time Sherwin left his post as acting U.S. attorney in March of 2021, the office had brought charges against more than 300 individuals in connection with the assault on the Capitol.
According to the latest ABC News tally, that number has since grown to nearly 800 people, including members of groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who are accused of coordinating among each other in advance of the attack.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump Jr., former President Donald Trump’s eldest son, appeared before the Jan. 6 select committee on Tuesday for a voluntary interview, multiple sources familiar with his appearance confirmed to ABC News.
ABC News first reported last month that Trump Jr. was expected to appear before the committee, as it wraps up its investigatory phase and prepares for at least eight public hearings next month.
The committee declined to comment.
Trump Jr.’s text messages are among those that former chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over to the committee, sources have said.
The president’s son was the latest member of the Trump family to meet with the committee after Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, both of whom served as senior White House advisers to former President Donald Trump, were also interviewed in recent weeks.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump Jr.’s fiance, has also met with the committee twice. Sources said the second interview was at times contentions and focused in part on the fundraising efforts around Trump’s “Save America” rally on Jan. 6, 2021.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken tested positive for COVID-19 via a PCR test Wednesday afternoon, the State Department said.
Blinken, who is vaccinated and boosted, is experiencing mild symptoms.
Blinken attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, where President Joe Biden was in attendance.
The State Department said Blinken hasn’t seen Biden “in person for several days, and the President is not considered a close contact according to guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Three alleged gang members have been charged with multiple counts of murder stemming from a mass shooting last month in downtown Sacramento, California, that left six people dead and a dozen wounded, authorities said.
Two of the suspected gunmen are in custody, while the third suspect is still being sought by police, officials said.
“What we know is that this was clearly gang related. There was a gunfight between multiple gang rivals,” Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert identified the murder suspects as Smiley Martin, 27, his 26-year-old brother, Dandrae Martin, and 27-year-old Mtula Payton.
Smiley and Dandrae Martin have been in custody since the shooting occurred.
Payton remains on the run and Lester said a team of police officers is doing everything they can to locate him and bring him to justice.
Schubert said the three suspects are each charged with three counts of murder stemming from the killings of “innocent bystanders” — Melinda Davis, 57, Johntaya Alexander, 21, and Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21.
Schubert said the three other people killed in the shooting — Sergio Harris, 38, Devazia Turner, 29, and Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32 — participated in the gun battle.
“The evidence shows and will show that these individuals armed themselves with guns,” Schubert said.
Citing California law, Schubert said if “individuals are involved in a gun battle and they kill innocent bystanders, all participants in that gun battle are responsible for the deaths of those innocent bystanders.”
“It doesn’t matter whose bullet killed who. What matters is that this was a gun battle between rival gang members who came armed to this scene in downtown Sacramento and innocent bystanders died,” Schubert said.
Schubert said the investigation is ongoing and more charges will likely be filed, including attempted murder charges.
On April 3, the shooting broke out around 2 a.m. at the corner of 10th and K Streets in a popular nightlife area of Sacramento, just blocks from the State Capital Building. Lester said 70 to 80 people were in the vicinity of the gunfire and many were caught in the cross fire.
Harris, Turner or Hoye-Lucchesi were identified as having weapons when they were shot dead, Schubert said.
Lester said investigators believe there were a total of five shooters.
Schubert declined to say if Harris, Turner and Hoye-Lucchesi were among those identified as having opened fire.
She said more than 100 shell casings were collected at the crime scene.
Schubert said Smiley Payton faces an enhancement charge of being in possession of a fully-automatic 9mm firearm with an extended magazine.
In addition to murder, the Martin brothers and Payton are also charged with being convicted felons in possession of weapons. Because they are each charged with multiple slayings, they all face capital murder enhancements that could make them eligible for the death penalty, Schubert said.
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At the time of the shooting, Payton was free on $50,000 bail, stemming from a January 2020 arrest for allegedly being a felon in possession of a firearm, Schubert said.
Lester said more than 40 detectives were involved in the investigation, 12 of them full-time. The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive are assisting in the investigation.
“This act of violence devastated families and made members of our community concerned for their safety,” Lester said. “And as I said the day this happened, we are resolved to find those responsible and to secure justice for those victimized.”
