(NEW YORK) — The U.S. military said it carried out airstrikes on Tuesday targeting areas of eastern Syria controlled by Iran-backed militias.
The “precision strikes” in the oil-rich Deir ez-Zor province, near Syria’s border with Iraq, “targeted infrastructure facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” according to Col. Joe Buccino, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command.
“Today’s strikes were necessary to protect and defend U.S. personnel,” Buccino said in a statement. “The United States took proportionate, deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize the risk of casualties.”
Buccino did not offer any casualty numbers from the strikes.
Neither Syria nor Iran immediately acknowledged the attack.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitoring group, said the U.S. strikes targeted the Ayash Camp run by the Fatemiyoun Brigade, a militia made up of Afghan Shiite refugees sent by Iran to fight in the ongoing Syrian Civil War alongside Syrian government troops. At least six Syrian and foreign militants were reportedly killed in the strikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
According to Buccino, the strikes came at the orders of U.S. President Joe Biden in response to an attack on Aug. 15, when Iran-backed militias allegedly launched drones targeting the al-Tanf Garrison used by U.S. forces in the energy-rich Homs province in central Syria. At that time, U.S. Central Command described the attack as causing “zero casualties and no damage.”
“The United States does not seek conflict, but will continue to take necessary measures to protect and defend our people,” Buccino added. “U.S. forces remain in Syria to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS.”
The strikes came as Biden seeks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that his predecessor abandoned.
Since 2014, the U.S. has led a coalition of countries conducting strikes targeting the Islamic State group in Syria. U.S. ground forces entered Syria in 2015. In more recent years, the American-led coalition has also launched strikes targeting the Syrian government’s forces and allies, mainly in defense of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias that was formed as part of the campaign against ISIS.
What started as a local protest movement in Syria’s southern city of Dara’a expanded into a full-fledged civil war by 2012. ISIS, which grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq, took root in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after seizing swaths of territory in neighboring Iraq. The jihadist group is fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and establish a caliphate.
The Syrian Civil War has pulled in the United States, Russia, Iran and almost all of Syria’s neighbors. It has become the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II, according to the United Nations.
(WASHINGTON) — As another deadline nears on the restart of payments for America’s $1.7 trillion in federal student loans, President Joe Biden is poised to decide whether to cancel debt for a subset of Americans and continue to keep a pandemic-era pause on the repayments — a sweeping move he has openly weighed in some form or another since his time as a candidate.
Without action, numerous Americans will — for the first time in two years — have to start paying their student loans on Sept. 1.
But multiple people familiar with White House policy discussions told ABC News that the loan pause, first put in place under President Donald Trump during the disruptions of COVID-19’s onset, is expected to be extended. Talks about debt cancellation, which were still underway Tuesday, have so far coalesced around forgiving approximately $10,000 for people who make less than $125,000 a year — though details are still being worked out.
An announcement on the federal student loans could come as early as Wednesday, sources familiar with the plan said.
In an interview on Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona told ABC News that the much-anticipated decision on loan forgiveness would come “soon” but was vague on details.
“We recognize it’s an important issue for many families. And we want to make sure that they get the information directly from the president,” Cardona said.
The White House did not confirm any further details, saying only that the president would have more to say on this before Aug. 31.
“As a reminder, no one with a federally-held loan has had to pay a single dime in student loans since President Biden took office, and this Administration has already canceled about $32 billion in debt for more than 1.6 million Americans — more than any Administration in history,” White House spokesman Abdullah Hasan said, referring to debt relief for people who went to fraudulent universities and a restructured program to forgive debt for people who work in public service for 10 years.
But more specific details on how much money will be forgiven and for who are in high demand for the more than 45 million Americans who still have federal student loan debt.
One-third of federal loan borrowers have less than $10,000, meaning they could see their debts completely wiped out should this policy come to fruition. Another 20% of borrowers, around nine million people, would have their debt at least slashed in half.
Such a major cancelation may seem like a big step for Biden to take without Congress, but legal and policy experts say it’s clearer: The move would be well within the president’s authority — it just hasn’t been wielded before because of the political implications.
“The president has some pretty broad authority under the Higher Education Act,” said John Brooks, a law professor at Fordham University who focuses on federal fiscal policy.
“A lot depends on the size of the cancellation. The smaller the amount of cancellation, the easier the question is,” Brooks said. “Wiping out all student debt with a single stroke might be tougher, but the president through the secretary of education does have the power to adjust the amount of loan principle that any borrower has.”
Still, Biden could get taken to court — possibly by loan servicing agencies who would lose revenue or by members of Congress who may believe Biden is spending money in a way that hasn’t been appropriated by legislators.
Outside experts also wonder how long the processes would take to cancel student loans once a policy is announced — and how complicated it would be for borrowers to work their way through it, which are details that have yet to be released.
Some fear that people might fall through the cracks if applications to cancel debt become too labor-intensive because of the prospective income cap.
“The White House is about to ask the Education Department to do something that is extraordinarily difficult, and that is going to have the effect of denying debt relief to low-income folks, economically vulnerable folks, who have the hardest time navigating these complicated paperwork processes,” Mike Pierce, executive director and co-founder of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a think-tank that advocates for universal debt cancellation, told ABC News in an interview.
Pierce and other supporters for more progressive debt cancellation, including the NAACP, said the smoothest path would include full and universal cancellation for everyone.
“If the rumors are true, we’ve got a problem. And tragically, we’ve experienced this so many times before,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement Tuesday, reacting to the details of the potential policy announcement.
“President Biden’s decision on student debt cannot become the latest example of a policy that has left Black people – especially Black women – behind. This is not how you treat Black voters who turned out in record numbers and provided 90% of their vote to once again save democracy in 2020,” Johnson said.
But for many borrowers and advocates for canceling student debt — particularly the nearly half of people with federal student loans who would see their debt extinguished or cut significantly — Biden’s policy would still be cause for major celebration and be seen as a start to reforming the college and university system, where rising costs have become a major area of focus.
For Michigan teacher Nick Fuller, a possible Biden announcement on student loans could come just before the financial crunch of winter, when his heating bills skyrocket.
Though Fuller worked hard his first few years out of school to pay down his school debt, and then had his loan frozen for much of the pandemic, he’s concerned that restarting payments on top of monthly living costs could put him over the edge.
“I think things will get really tight in the winter because my utility bills are higher,” Fuller told ABC News. “I mean for January and February — the highs are zero and the lows are -20 [degrees] for almost two months.”
The frozen temperatures might sting a little bit less if Biden forgives $10,000 of Fuller’s remaining student loan bills, he said.
“It’s about two-thirds of the debt that I have left,” he said.
That would make payments “a lot more affordable and a lot more manageable in my situation,” he said.
Easing the student debt crisis — which is also how Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos described the issue in 2018 — could also aid a crippling teacher shortage that has caused thousands of staff vacancies at the start of the latest school year, something Fuller has seen himself.
Pinched salaries and rising inflation have had many teachers on edge with the loan forgiveness deadline approaching.
And because Black students are among the fastest growing group of people taking on debt, advocates argue that canceling some student loans could also begin to address racial inequities.
Shareefah Mason, the dean of Educator Certification at Dallas College, feels this impact firsthand as a Black woman with student debt. She leads the apprenticeship component of a program that pairs students with residency partners to ensure they earn while they learn, effectively reducing education debt for aspiring teachers.
“I bear the weight of $70,000 in student loans,” Mason told ABC News. “The data shows that student loan debt exponentially impacts and disproportionately impacts Black women.”
The average amount of student debt accrued by Black women is more than any other group at $38,800, according to Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on education reform.
But Mason’s program, the very first full-time paid teacher apprenticeship in the state of Texas, allows students to earn one of the cheapest bachelor’s degrees in the state, Mason said.
The goal, she said, is to aid future educators in breaking the generational barriers that she has faced as a Black woman.
Mason said “they will not have to worry about student loan debt,” which could open more doors for minority communities that have historically lacked the means to access higher education.
“My students will be able to earn, as a first year teacher in the city of Dallas, upwards of $60,000,” Mason said.
For the nation’s most impacted borrowers, Mason said, “there needs to be a space created for them to make enough money to pay their student loans without having to sacrifice their ability to create generational wealth for their families.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — Uvalde school board officials will consider Wednesday whether to fire Pete Arredondo, the school district’s police chief, exactly three months after the school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
School board members agreed in an Aug. 15 meeting to hire outside attorneys ahead of the hearing.
Arredondo has been the target of criticism for the delayed response to the May 24 tragedy.
School officials have continued to face pressure to hold officers accountable for the 77 minutes it took before law enforcement breached a classroom door and killed the 18-year-old gunman.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District recommended that Arredondo be fired. The Uvalde school board canceled its July 23 special session to consider the district’s recommendation “in conformity with due process requirements, and at the request of his attorney.”
Parents and community members have called on officials to fire Arredondo immediately, with some calling for the firing of other members of Uvalde’s school district police force who were present during the shooting.
According to an investigative report by the Texas House of Representatives into the events of May 24, the school district’s written active shooter plan assigned Arredondo “to assume command and control” during an active shooter incident.
“But as events unfolded, he failed to perform or to transfer to another person the role of incident commander,” the report from the state House read. “This was an essential duty he had assigned to himself in the plan mentioned above, yet it was not effectively performed by anyone.”
The report goes on to describe the general consensus from witnesses that officers on the scene either “assumed that Chief Arredondo was in charge, or that they could not tell that anybody was in charge of a scene described by several witnesses as ‘chaos’ or a ‘cluster.'”
In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Arredondo said he did not consider himself the commanding officer on the scene. He has said he was not made aware of the 911 calls coming from the children in the attacked classrooms.
Arredondo has defended the police response to the incident.
“We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced,” Arredondo said. “Our objective was to save as many lives as we could, and the extraction of the students from the classrooms by all that were involved saved over 500 of our Uvalde students and teachers before we gained access to the shooter and eliminated the threat.”
Arredondo resigned from his city council post and is currently on leave from his position as UCISD police chief.
Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A civic organization plans to sue New York City’s largest utility company over the alleged illegal dumping of heated, toxic wastewater into a Hudson River estuary sanctuary.
The City Club of New York, along with Tom Fox, a representative of the club who serves on the Hudson River Park Advisory Council, plan to sue Con Edison for alleged “ongoing violations” of the federal Clean Water Act, according to a notice sent to the energy company earlier this month and obtained by ABC News.
Based on a review of public documents, the petitioners allege that Con Ed dumps water used to cool a power station off of Hudson River Park’s Pier 98 at “dangerously high temperatures” for aquatic life into the river. They also allege that Con Ed dumps wastewater containing “toxic pollutants,” such as chloroform, into the estuary sanctuary in violation of its state permit.
This matter was first reported by The New York Times.
Through their attorneys, the City Club of New York and Fox sent a notice to Con Ed on Aug. 10 of their intent to sue within 60 days.
Fox, who was involved in the effort to create Hudson River Park, said he wasn’t aware of the alleged dumping, which has purportedly occurred for decades, until recently.
“Nobody knew about this. I didn’t know about this, and I’ve been involved with the park for 40 years, since the beginning,” he told ABC News. “I think that for whatever reason, it wasn’t publicly acknowledged. Now that it is, we have a chance to correct the situation.”
The notice of intent claims Con Ed has violated state rules for estuaries by discharging water into the river that exceeds 90 degrees on more than a dozen occasions since 2006, according to state records. It claims a permit modification Con Ed requested in 2006 to allow for a higher discharge temperature was improperly approved by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation because the state agency did not hold a public hearing on the application, per state and federal law. It also claims that Con Ed has been discharging pollutants into the Hudson River without a valid permit for more than a year.
In a statement to ABC News, a Con Ed spokesperson said the company is “in compliance with our permit for both water temperature and discharge of chemicals at Pier 98.”
“We are reviewing the letter in detail and have noted numerous inaccuracies,” the spokesperson, Allan Drury, said. “For instance, our permit has not expired and we have not exceeded our permitted temperature limits. We will address these and other issues with the appropriate parties.”
The City Club of New York and Fox plan to seek an injunction requiring Con Ed to halt all discharges into the river, among other relief.
The notice of intent to sue was also sent to the DEC and the Hudson River Park Trust, which operates Hudson River Park and is Con Ed’s lessor. The petitioners allege that the DEC and trust have known about Clean Water Act violations at the Con Ed plant but have failed to act.
“Con Ed’s continuing thermal and industrial discharge into the sanctuary — facilitated by the disregard of applicable federal and state laws by DEC and the Trust — represents a threat to the preservation and protection of those resources,” the notice stated.
In a statement to ABC News, the DEC said it has identified more than two dozen minor “discrepancies” at the plant since 2010 and has not taken any enforcement action at the facility since that year.
“Since 2010, of the 4,400 sampling records at the Con Edison plant, DEC identified 27 reported exceedances and non-reporting of operational parameters unrelated to the outfall at the facility,” it said. “These discrepancies were considered minor and quickly resolved.”
ABC News did not immediately receive a response from the Hudson River Park Trust seeking comment.
(WASHINGTON) — The murder of James “Whitey” Bulger was planned “as soon as” the notorious mobster had arrived at the prison in West Virginia where he was found beaten to death, a Justice Department prosecutor said.
The plot started with a phone call to the mother of Sean McKinnon, one of the men accused in the killing, the night before the high-profile inmate’s arrival, Assistant U.S. Attorney Hannah Nowalk told a federal magistrate judge in Florida at a court hearing for McKinnon.
“Yeah, we’re getting ready to get a — getting ready to get another higher profile person here tonight,” McKinnon allegedly told his mother the day before the 89-year-old Bulger arrived at U.S. Penitentiary Hazleton in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.
A recording of that phone call was played in federal court on Monday by Nowalk, a transcript of which was obtained by ABC News.
Nowalk said that “as soon as they saw Bulger come into the unit, they planned to kill him.”
Sean McKinnon, 36, was charged by the DOJ last week in connection with the killing of Bulger on Oct. 30, 2018. Nowalk said McKinnon acted as the lookout while the two other men, Fotios “Freddy” Geas, 55, and Paul DeCologero, 48, went into Bulger’s cell and allegedly killed him.
Prosecutors have not yet offered a motive for the killing or said how the defendants knew of Bulger’s arrival.
“No, I mean, you should know the name,” McKinnon told his mother, according to the transcript of the phone call. “Every heard the name Whitey Bulger?”
McKinnon’s mother warned him to stay away from Bulger because she was worried hanging around Bulger would get him “in trouble,” the transcript shows.
Bulger, the leader of Boston’s Winter Hill gang, was on the run for 16 years before being caught by federal authorities in 2011, and later tried and convicted. Before being moved to a West Virginia penitentiary, Bulger was housed in federal prison in Florida.
Prosecutors allege that a mere 12 hours after Bulger arrived at USP Hazelton, he was found dead in his cell. The killing, Nowalk said, took all of seven minutes.
Nowalk said that on the day of the murder, at around 6:07 a.m., the three men gathered outside of Bulger’s cell, then went in and stayed there for seven minutes, allegedly killing Bulger. By 8:07 a.m., Bulger was found dead by prison guards.
McKinnon allegedly told his mother that the cell doors at the prison open at 6 a.m. and they do not lock, prompting the men to enter easily, Norwalk alleged.
“The admissions were, from Pauly, that he and Freddy used a belt with a lock attached to it and beat Mr. Bulger to death,” Nowalk told the judge in arguing for McKinnon’s pre-trial detention. “There were also admissions from Pauly and from Mr. McKinnon himself that they collectively were the guys that killed Bulger and that…Mr. McKinnon stood as lookout as Freddy and Pauly went into Mr. Bulger’s cell and bludgeoned him to death in those seven minutes that are recorded on the surveillance footage.”
Federal Magistrate Judge Philip R. Lammen ultimately ended up ordering McKinnon to be held pending trial.
Lawyers for McKinnon told Lammen that he lived near his mother and was not a flight risk, but the judge did not agree.
Nowalk said there are three witnesses whom the men told they killed Bulger.
At the time of the indictment, Geas was still incarcerated at USP Hazelton, according to prison records, and was serving a life sentence for a separate crime. DeCologero was no longer being held at USP Hazelton but was housed in the federal prison system and McKinnon was on federal supervised release and was arrested last week in Florida.
Attorneys for the three defendants did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
(NEW YORK) — A Marion County deputy and a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper were killed Tuesday when their helicopter hit a power line and crashed in a wooded area, authorities said.
“A Bell 206 helicopter struck a power line and crashed in a wooded area on Aetna Mountain near Whiteside, Tenn., around 4 p.m. local time today. Two people were on board,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. “The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. The NTSB will be in charge of the investigation and will provide additional updates.”
Tennessee Highway Patrol Capt. Travis Plotzer said during a press conference that an aircraft went down and it was “a tough day for us.”
“What I would ask, … please give the family their privacy as we go forward,” he said. “Today is a very tragic day for law enforcement. We appreciate all your support and your patience going forward.”
The investigation is in its “infant stages,” Plotzer added. He did not take any questions.
(NEW YORK) — A man is dead after slipping and falling off of a ledge on a mountain while he was hiking with two friends over the weekend.
The incident occurred on Saturday at approximately 12:50 p.m. when a group of three people made the decision to ride the tram to the top of Cannon Mountain, a peak in New Hampshire located in the White Mountain National Forest in the northern part of the state.
The three people had planned to tour the summit of the mountain before returning back to base by taking the tram down again, according to a statement released by New Hampshire Fish and Game on Monday. The group, however, reportedly changed their mind and decided that they would hike down the mountain instead.
“Unfortunately, they were not following an established hiking trail, starting down what they thought was a ski trail,” New Hampshire Fish and Game said in their statement. “The group encountered a location that was rocky, wet, and steep with a waterfall. As the group tried to maneuver their way down, one of the hikers slipped causing him to fall off a ledge.”
Authorities say the other two members who witnessed the fall immediately called 911 for help and first responders were able to hike to the coordinates provided by the witnesses in an attempt to locate the missing man. But when authorities arrived, they located a deceased male at the bottom of the waterfall.
“Conservation Officers and members of the Pemigewasset Valley Search and Rescue Team brought him to the tram parking lot, arriving at approximately 3:35 p.m.,” said New Hampshire Fish and Game.
The victim was subsequently transported by Ross Funeral Home to Littleton, New Hampshire.
The man’s identity has not yet been disclosed and he will remain unnamed until his family have been notified of his death.
(UVALDE, Texas) — The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District is facing a $27 billion class-action suit in connection with the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
Attorney Charles Bonner told ABC News that he and several other attorneys served the Uvalde school district with a notice of claim Monday night following a school board meeting.
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
The notice cites an investigative report from the Texas House of Representatives which says, “Uvalde CISD and its police department failed to implement their active shooter plan and failed to exercise command and control of law enforcement responding to the tragedy.”
“We want this amount of money to compensate these people for this wrong that was parachuted upon them,” Bonner said.
Bonner also said he hopes the large sum can fund mental health resources and hold police forces accountable. The lawsuit will be formally filed in September, naming a long list of defendants.
The Uvalde school district did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday responded to Republican vows to investigate him after he steps down from his government roles in December, saying he would consider testifying but not submit to “character assassination.”
Top Republicans in Congress pounced on the news of his planned departure, saying if they retake the majority in the upcoming midterm election, they will grill the nation’s leading infectious disease expert about his role during the COVID pandemic.
“Dr. Fauci lost the trust of the American people when his guidance unnecessarily kept schools closed and businesses shut while obscuring questions about his knowledge on the origins of COVID. He owes the American people answers. A @HouseGOP majority will hold him accountable,” House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted.
Sen. Rand Paul, who has had many public squabbles with Fauci, pledged to hold a “full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic.”
“He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak,” he tweeted.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas also weighed in, saying on Twitter: “In January, a GOP Congress should hold Fauci fully accountable for his dishonesty, corruption, abuse of power, and multiple lies under oath.”
“Retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight,” House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member James Comer said in a statement Monday.
Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a household name during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and later served as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, announced on Monday that he would be stepping down to pursue the next phase of his career after serving nearly 50 years in the federal government.
“While I am moving on from my current positions, I am not retiring,” Fauci said in a statement. “After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field.”
Fauci, who turns 82 in December, has said for months that he plans to step away from his public role as a national leader on the pandemic once COVID-19 reaches a “steady state.”
Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy had strong words for Fauci, saying Republican lawmakers could eventually subpoena him.
“Well, unless Dr. Fauci decides to seek asylum in some foreign country whose Powerball jackpot is 287 chickens and a goat, and therefore, which won’t enforce a subpoena from the United States Congress, then, Dr. Fauci, retirement or not, is going to be spending a lot of time in front of a congressional committee and committees if Republicans take back control,” Kennedy said during an interview with FOX News Monday.
He added: “We’re going to have a lot of questions and we’re going to subpoena him and expect him to answer. And I would not advise Dr. Fauci to put down a nonrefundable deposit on a cruise.”
Republicans – some of whom could become future committee chairs if Republicans retake the majority this fall — have also vowed to hold hearings to determine the origins of COVID and have said they believe Fauci may have concealed information and has told “multiple lies under oath” regarding the novel coronavirus’ origination. The pandemic’s origins remain controversial.
“It’s good to know that with his retirement, Dr. Fauci will have ample time to appear before Congress and share under oath what he knew about the Wuhan lab, as well as the ever-changing guidance under his watch that resulted in wrongful mandates being imposed on Americans,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said in a statement.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement that the committee will pursue answers and accountability regarding Fauci’s tenure with the NIH.
“As he prepares to leave his leadership positions at the White House and at the National Institutes of Health, I hope Dr. Anthony Fauci will work to provide more transparency to the American people. We need answers to many questions around the government’s failed COVID-19 pandemic response, how this pandemic started, and his role in supporting taxpayer-funded risky research without proper oversight in China…We need a full accounting of actions taken and decisions made to ensure these mistakes never happen again,” Rodgers said in a statement.
“To that end, House Republicans on Energy and Commerce will continue to pursue answers and accountability. Our oversight of Dr. Fauci’s tenure with NIH, the White House and leading NIAID will continue past his departure and until the American people have the answers they need,” she said.
Other Republicans have questioned the timing of Fauci’s departure, with some accusing him of “conveniently resigning” before a potential red wave of Republicans in the coming midterm election.
“Dr. Fauci clearly knows the Red Tsunami is coming this November which is why he is retiring before Republicans gain control of the House. Dr. Fauci, the highest paid US government official who has been in his appointed bureaucratic position since before I was born, is an example of an unelected Washington bureaucrat who was given far too much power throughout his career and caused irreparable harm to the American people,” House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik said in a statement.
Rep. Andy Biggs, the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, called Fauci a “coward” and said Fauci is “conveniently resigning from his position in December before House Republicans have an opportunity to hold him accountable for destroying our country over these past three years.”
Fauci responded to Republican critics on Tuesday saying he would “certainly” consider testifying before Congress after he steps down at the end of the year and dismissed their plans to conduct oversight as a “character assassination.”
“I certainly would consider that… I believe oversight is a very important part of government structure, and I welcome it and it can be productive. But what has happened up to now, is more of a character assassination than it is oversight,” Fauci said during an interview with CNN on Tuesday.
“So, sure, I would be happy to cooperate, so long as we make it something that is a dignified oversight, which it should be, and not just bringing up ridiculous things and attacking my character. That’s not oversight,” he added.
Fauci said the animosity towards him from some Republicans played no role “at all” in his decision to depart his role in government.
“Really, none at all. Not even a slight amount. I have nothing to hide. And I can defend everything I’ve done. So that doesn’t phase me or bother me. My decisions of stepping down go back well over year,” Fauci said.
He further reiterated that he had hoped to leave his post at the end of the Trump administration but stayed after Biden personally asked him to remain on board to support his administration’s COVID-19 response.
“I thought that was going to last about a year… that we would be having COVID-19 behind us after a year. But obviously painfully so, that’s not the case,” Fauci said. “I think we’re in a relatively good place with regard to COVID, if we utilize and implement the interventions that we have, and I just felt it was the right time.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Charlie Crist on Tuesday defeated Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried in Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, ABC News projects, setting up a high-profile matchup against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in the fall.
With about 92% of the expected vote counted, Crist won with roughly 60% of the vote, while Fried trailed in second with about 35%.
Crist will next face off against DeSantis, a top Democratic boogeyman who has emerged as a major GOP culture warrior, forcing through several policies through in Florida on issues like discussing sexual orientation and gender topics in public schools.
Crist previously served as governor himself — but as a Republican before becoming an independent once leaving office and ultimately running for the House as a Democrat. Running against Fried, Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat, he insisted he could appeal to a broader swath of the electorate with his more moderate “happy warrior” persona.
DeSantis, who narrowly won his 2018 race, heads into the general with a war chest of over $130 million — and a rising national profile.
Democrats hope to unseat him in an attempt to not only win back the governor’s mansion but also cut off a potential 2024 presidential bid by the first-term governor.
In the primary, Crist and Fried battled over their ideological purity and ability to defeat DeSantis.
Crist also criticized Fried for her ties to the Republican Party. As a lobbyist for a medical marijuana company, she campaigned for former State Sen. Manny Diaz of Miami, the current education commissioner and staunch ally of DeSantis. Fried also was college friends with Trump-ally Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Fried lambasted Crist’s party switching, casting him as soft on key Democratic issues like abortion access and argued that she could produce a groundswell of Democratic voters this November.
