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(WASHINGTON) — A Florida state representative behind the Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics, has been indicted on wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements charges.

A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Florida returned a six-count indictment against state Rep. Joseph Harding, who is accused of scheming to defraud the Small Business Administration and obtaining COVID-19-related loans on false pretenses, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

Harding, 35, allegedly sought Economic Injury Disaster Loans using the names of shuttered businesses. He is further alleged to have obtained falsified bank statements for one of those dormant businesses to obtain more than $150,000 in funds from the SBA.

Harding was charged with two counts of wire fraud, two counts of engaging in monetary transactions with funds derived from unlawful activity and two counts of making false statements to the SBA.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges in federal court Wednesday, according to court records. His trial is set for Jan. 11 next year.

If convicted, the maximum prison sentence he faces for the offenses is 20 years for wire fraud, 10 years for money laundering and five years for making false statements, according to the Department of Justice.

ABC News did not immediately receive a response from his attorney to an email seeking comment.

As a state representative, Harding introduced the controversial parental rights and education bill earlier this year. The bill quickly passed the state legislature and was signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in March.

The law bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. It also states that any instruction on those topics cannot occur “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” according to the legislation, HB 1557. Parents could sue their school district if they believe there is a violation.

The bill, which went into effect on July 1, sparked immediate backlash from some LGBTQ people and activists nationwide, who say this legislation misrepresents these identities as inherently sexual, shameful or taboo.

Copycat legislation has since been introduced in other states. A bill recently introduced in Congress that would restrict federal funding from organizations, local governments and schools that include LGBTQ content in events, programs, education and more has been dubbed a federal “Don’t Say Gay” bill by LGBTQ activists.

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(WASHINGTON) — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff hosted a roundtable at the White House on Wednesday about antisemitism, saying he was compelled to use his “microphone” to address the issue.

“There’s an epidemic of hate facing our country,” he said, kicking off his remarks. “We’re seeing a rapid rise in antisemitic rhetoric and acts.”

“Let me be clear: Words matter,” continued Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris and the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president. “People are no longer saying the quiet parts out loud. They are literally screaming them.”

The roundtable, which was attended by Jewish leaders, dignitaries and advocates, was organized amid high-profile antisemitic controversies including former president Donald Trump; Kyrie Irving, a star basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets; and Ye, the rapper and designer formerly known as Kanye West.

Police in some parts of the country have also noted increasing violence against Jews.

Last month, Irving shared an antisemitic film on Twitter and later said, after being suspended by his team, “I don’t stand for anything close to hate speech or antisemitism or anything that is going against the human race.” In November, Trump dined at his Mar-a-Lago resort with Ye and Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist. During a subsequent interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on InfoWars, Ye said, “I like Hitler” and later tweeted an image of a swastika combined with the Star of David.

In November, law enforcement alerted the public to threats made against the New York City and New Jersey Jewish communities, which officials later said were mitigated without incident.

Hate crimes also rose 70% last month in New York City compared to the same month a year earlier, led by a surge in antisemitic attacks, which rose 125%, according to the New York Police Department.

During Wednesday’s roundtable, Emhoff described his anguish over antisemitism and urged people to speak out against it.

“I’m in pain right now. We’re all in pain right now. Our community’s in pain,” he said. “It hurts me to see what we’re going through right now. What all people are going through right now. Antisemitism is dangerous. We cannot normalize this. We all have an obligation to condemn these vile acts.”

“We know when people refuse to condemn this vile speech and these vile acts … it only serves to ignite violence, violence among extremists,” he said.

Emhoff said his great-grandparents fled persecution over their Jewish identity in current-day Poland and recalled viewing their names on the ship manifest on Ellis Island and in early census reports.

“Those images, they just live on in my mind,” he said.

Emhoff also vowed to keep using his role to amplify important topics, calling the roundtable only the beginning of the conversation.

“As long as I have this microphone, I’m going to speak out against hate, bigotry, lies,” he said. “I’m going to speak out against those who praise fascist murders and idealize extremists. I’m going to speak out against Holocaust deniers. I’m going to call those out who won’t do it.”

The White House’s top domestic policy adviser, Susan Rice, and Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt also spoke during the event.

Rice, who is Black and who grew up in a predominately Jewish neighborhood and attended friends’ Passover Seders, said she has understood what it was like to be hated for who you are, “but there’s nothing more vicious than what we are seeing today — out of the mouths of our leaders, of our public figures, our celebrities, our elected officials.”

Lipstadt said “for too long” people have failed to take antisemitism seriously.

“Jew hatred has been belittled or discounted because Jews have erroneously been considered white and privileged,” she said. “This is a very real threat to Jews, and that alone would make it worth fighting with all our soul and with all our might.”

But antisemitism threatens more people than just Jews, Lipstadt said. It is linked to other forms of prejudice and hate and is “the death knell of democracy. The antisemite believes Jews control the government, the press, the media and therefore democracy is an illusion.”

“I will not remain silent,” Emhoff said. “I’m proud to be Jewish. I’m proud to live openly as a Jew, and I’m not afraid. We cannot live in fear. We refuse to be afraid.”

None of the speakers during the opening part of the roundtable, which was the only part open to press, mentioned Ye, Irving, or Trump by name.

The organizations that participated in the roundtable included the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Jewish on Campus, Religious Action Center and Anti-Defamation League, according to a White House official. The groups spanned across different Jewish denominations and movements.

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(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Wednesday that the panel’s long-awaited report will be released on Wednesday, Dec. 21.

Thompson said the report’s release would be coupled with some form of public presentation, the details of which are still being sorted out by committee members.

The report and accompanying materials will be posted online, Thompson said.

He also said that any decisions regarding potential criminal referrals will come the same day, and will be voted on publicly.

Thompson indicated on Tuesday that criminal referrals related to the Capitol attack were under discussion, but that final decisions — including on specific crimes and specific suspects — had not been made pending a vote by committee members.

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(WASHINGTON) — As Republicans plan to aggressively challenge President Biden’s border and immigration policies in the House next year, one border-district Republican is drawing attention an alarming number of suicides in the ranks of Customs and Border Protection agents.

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers plan this week to introduce the TAPS Act to direct resources to Border Patrol agents — modeled on a past effort at the Pentagon to address mental health issues in the military.

“There’s a lot of things that should unite us,” Gonzales said at a news conference Wednesday. “The fact that we have 14 agents who have committed suicide [this year] is a problem … and it’s a problem for this body to solve.”

The 14 recorded suicides is the highest recorded by the agency in 13 years — since 2009. The agency reported eight suicides in 2020 and 11 suicides in 2021.

Gonzales, who represents Uvalde, also spoke about the mental health needs of the agents who responded to the school shooting.

“What they have been exposed to 100% has an impact on you,” he said.

“Until we take out the far of law enforcement coming forward to talk about mental health issues, they’re not going to do it,” said Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing rank and file agents.

Under the current rules, Judd said, an agent who approaches supervisors for mental health issues can be stigmatized and at risk of losing pay.

The Democrats in attendance acknowledged the challenge the next Congress will have in advancing immigration and border security legislation, given the GOP House and a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., said the “best thing we can do for border security is comprehensive immigration reform.”

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said Democrats and Republicans “recognize that our immigration system is totally broken, and is working for no one.”

“The folks who are manning the southern border are bearing the brunt of our failed policies,” she said. “We are willing to work with anyone on the right or the left to deal with that crisis.”

Gonzales signaled that this new effort could be its own bipartisan push, ahead of any major border security plan advanced by Republicans in the majority next year. Democrats will still control the Senate with 51 seats, and will need at least 60 votes to advance legislation.

A CBP spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News that the agency is “facilitating a culture that destigmatizes suicide and makes it safe for employees to seek help,” and is “increasingly dedicating resources” to support the workforce’s “mental health and well-being.”

“In addition to offering new resources for the field and generating social media and other communications campaigns, CBP has expanded the number of on-site clinicians and is hiring over a dozen operational psychologists. Together, these licensed professionals implement an evidence-based suicide prevention and intervention program, while tackling precursors to suicide including substance abuse, relationship problems, financial difficulties, and job stress during periods of expanded mission scope and complexity,” the spokesperson said.

ABC’s Lauren Peller and Quinn Owen contributed to this report.

If you are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises please call or text the new three digit code at 9-8-8. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org or dial the current toll free number 800-273-8255 [TALK].

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(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump had an outside team conduct a deeper search for any government documents at four properties which turned up at least two more documents marked classified, ABC News has confirmed according to sources familiar with the matter.

The documents were recovered at a storage unit that is owned by the federal government, and maintained by the General Services Administration (GSA) in West Palm Beach, Florida, the sources told ABC News.

The Department of Justice has been notified of the documents’ existence.

The news of the search and discovery was first reported by The Washington Post.

In August, federal agents searching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate recovered hundreds of classified documents that had been taken there when Trump left the White House.

The search of the storage unit was conducted after a federal judge pushed Trump’s lawyers to search for any further documents that were taken by the former president and his allies.

A spokesperson for Trump told ABC News in a statement, “President Trump and his counsel continue to be cooperative and transparent, despite the unprecedented, illegal, and unwarranted attack against President Trump and his family by the weaponized Department of Justice.”

“President Trump will keep fighting against the outrageous politicization of law enforcement and will always stand for America and all Americans,” the statement said.

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(NEW YORK) — Just before Thanksgiving, about 9 million people who applied for student debt relief from the federal government got an email from the Department of Education with a subject line indicating their application had been “approved,” according to a copy of the email obtained by ABC News.

But that was misleading as the Biden administration’s student loan program was halted in mid-November by Republican-led lawsuits — weeks before the email was sent informing borrowers of their “approved” status.

The email explained as much in the email body, informing borrowers that “lawsuits are preventing the Department of Education from implementing its one-time student loan debt relief program.”

The program will remain in limbo until the Supreme Court makes the final call on the program sometime before late June. But the subject line left many borrowers confused.

Acknowledging the misfire this week — about two weeks later — the Department of Education told ABC News that borrowers will get an updated email soon that corrects the subject line and clarifies the state of the program. (The Department of Education said that some people did get emails with the correct subject line.)

A spokesperson said Accenture Federal Services, a contractor that does digital work for the federal government, is primarily responsible.

“Communicating clearly and accurately with borrowers is a top priority of the Department. We are in close touch with Accenture Federal Services as they take corrective action to ensure all borrowers and those affected have accurate information about debt relief,” a spokesperson for the Education Department said.

Accenture Federal Services has not returned a request for comment from ABC News, but the Education Department said the company is expected to review quality control measures for future email messages having to do with the program.

On the whole, the erroneous email is just one of multiple twists and turns for the debt relief proposal, which the White House announced in late August.

Around 26 million Americans applied for forgiveness by early November — nearly half of the people who were eligible. About 43 million Americans qualify in total, according to the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona have said they remain confident the program will prevail through the legal challenges, though its challengers maintain the president has overreached his authority.

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(WASHINGTON) — Republicans are celebrating a major political win as they head into the new Congress with a House majority — forcing Democrats to concede on ending the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in order to get the must-pass national defense bill across the finish line.

The move would be a major concession for Democrats and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy took a victory lap on Tuesday night when the National Defense Authorization Act was revealed to have included a provision to get rid of the mandate, writing on Twitter, “Last week I told Biden directly: it’s time to end your COVID vaccine mandate on our military & rehire our service members.”

“The end of the mandate is a victory for our military & for common sense,” said McCarthy, who is currently in a heated effort to secure support from his conference to become speaker in January.

The White House called the provision being included a “mistake” but didn’t say whether or not Biden would sign the bill once it’s passed. “We continue to believe that repealing the vaccine mandate is a mistake. Making sure our troops are ready to defend this country and prepared to do so that remains the president’s priority and the vaccine requirement for COVID does just that,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said Wednesday.

The White House and Pentagon argue that service members have long been required to get multiples vaccinations other than the COVID vaccine.

A vote on the military funding bill is expected as early as Wednesday.

Democrat House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday that Democrats needed to agree to the provision in order to get the policy bill passed, calling it “a question of how can we get something done?”

“We are willing to compromise because we want to make sure we fund government. We want to make sure that we get that national defense bill passed. This is a small part of it,” Hoyer said.

The mandate was imposed in August 2021 and requires all U.S. service members to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Other Republicans celebrated the added provision, arguing that the move would particularly help with difficulty in recruiting and retaining service members.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell praised the mandate’s repeal, calling it “a policy which this Democratic administration had stubbornly clung to even as it has clearly undermined readiness and hurt retention.”

Including a repeal of the mandate in House bill may well save the NDAA from procedural calamity when it heads to the Senate. Last week, a large contingent of Senate Republicans threatened to slow or even block the bill over the provision.

“You’re going to kick somebody out of the military who is willing to get shot because they won’t take a shot,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who lead the Senate Republican effort with Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, said at a press conference.

Graham and Braun said they had assembled a coalition of over 20 Republicans who would insist on the opportunity to vote on an amendment to repeal the mandate if a repeal wasn’t included in the bill. A group of this size wouldn’t have been able to block the NDAA, but they could have derailed it for days.

“It ought to be your body and your choice whether you get the vaccine,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who joined the group, said.

It’s likely that if the Senate had brought the vaccine mandate up for a vote it would have passed. There are several conservative Democrats who support repeal of the vaccine mandates.

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(WASHINGTON) — In an extraordinary and tense debate stretching three hours on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court entertained an unprecedented call to give state legislatures nearly unchecked power to dictate when, where and how Americans vote for president and Congress.

While a majority of justices appeared skeptical of entirely removing state courts from the process of reviewing state election laws, a majority did seem willing to impose new limits on the role judges can play in election policy. There was no clear consensus on scope or approach.

North Carolina Republicans were asking the high court to reinstate a gerrymandered election map drawn by the GOP-controlled state legislature after it was thrown out by the state supreme court for violating the state constitution. A court-appointed panel drew a new map which was used during the 2022 midterm election.

The plaintiffs argue that the U.S. Constitution’s elections clause expressly empowers the state legislature, and legislature alone, to dictate the “time, places and manner” of federal elections — free from substantive review by state courts. The view is based on a fringe theory known as the independent state legislature theory, which the court has never adopted.

“States lack the authority to restrict the legislatures’ substantive discretion when performing this federal function,” argued attorney David Thompson, representing the Republicans.

A group of North Carolina voters and pro-democracy advocates, backed by the Biden administration, opposes the move as contrary to the nation’s history and tradition and has warned that it would invalidate hundreds of election laws in every state.

“The blast radius from their theory would sow elections chaos,” said attorney Neal Katyal, the former Obama administration solicitor general representing the voters. “For 233 years, “This court has never second-guessed a state court interpretation of its own constitution in any context.”

Of the supposed historical underpinning of the theory, Katyal said: “The dog never barked … Not a person said anything like that they were trying to create this strange animal.”

On the left and the right, the justices echoed skepticism of the theory.

“This is a theory with big consequences,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “It would say that if a legislature engages in the most extreme forms of gerrymandering, there is no state constitutional remedy for that, even if the courts think that that’s a violation of the constitution. It would say that legislatures could enact all manner of restrictions on voting, get rid of all kinds of voter protections that the state constitution in fact prohibits. It might allow the legislatures to insert themselves, to give them a role, in the certification of elections and the way election results are calculated.”

“This is a proposal that gets rid of the normal checks and balances on the way big governmental decisions are made in this country, Kagan said. “And you might think that it gets rid of all those checks and balances at exactly the time when they are needed most.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett seemed to call out inconsistencies in how the theory would be applied. “You do have a problem explaining why these procedural limitations [i.e. a governor’s veto] are okay, but substantive [i.e. a state court ruling] are not,” she told Thompson.

“We ground it in precedent, your honor, and text and structure and history,” Thompson replied.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly sought to poke holes in North Carolina Republicans’ view of the history. “It seems that every answer you give is to get you what you want, but it makes little sense,” she told Thompson.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch appeared most inclined to embrace a broad application of the independent legislature theory, appearing to side with the Republican challengers.

“The question before us is whether the rule, the time, place and manner regulation has been prescribed by the legislature,” said Justice Neil Gorsuch. He voiced skepticism of a state court saying “we’re not going to enforce the rules of the legislature for any reason.”

Katyal argued that U.S. Constitution’s references to ‘legislature’ were always understood to mean the “lawmaking ‘system,’ subject to constraints.”

“What’s the check on an appointed state supreme court?” quipped Justice Alito, who probed “boundaries” on state courts that might wade into policymaking. “Many state supreme courts are not elected.”

Chief Justice John Roberts followed with concern about the practice of some state courts appointing a special master to draw election maps after a dispute.

“The judges don’t sit in the back room with lines drawing the districts, but other people do,” Roberts said. “And I wonder if there’s a disconnect between the level of the grant of authority…and how it’s actually practiced on the ground.”

But the chief justice stopped short of suggesting there should be no limits, whatsoever, on state lawmakers when it comes to elections. “State legislative action under the Elections Clause is subject to a governor’s veto, right?”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested the case against the independent state legislature theory is a simple one. Since a state’s constitution creates the legislature and lays out its power, lawmakers must inherently be subject to the charter’s terms as interpreted by a court.

“What I don’t understand is how you can cut the state constitution out of the equation when it’s giving the state legislature the authority to exercise legislative power,” she said. “It’s the state constitution that is telling the legislature when and under what circumstances it can actually act as the legislature.”

Kagan repeatedly turned the argument back to the big-picture stakes for a country exhausted by partisanship.

“There’s a great deal of sentiment in this country about the problems with extreme partisan gerrymandering,” she said. “And states have responded to that in nonpartisan ways…State constitutions have been amended by the work of the people.”

“In all recent [Supreme Court] cases,” Kagan said, “we’ve said: of course, state courts applying state constitutions typically constrain state legislatures when they redistrict, when they enact election laws…. We’ve understood this to be an established idea of law.”

The court is expected to hand down a decision before the end of June.

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