(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump did not want to call for the prosecution of Jan. 6 rioters after the Capitol attack, according to a video released Monday by the House select committee investigating the riot.
In a video tweeted by Virginia Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, a member of the panel who led last week’s hearing, the committee showed what appeared to be a draft of Trump’s Jan. 7, 2021, remarks to the country — with several proposed lines crossed out.
The new video cites previously unreleased witness testimony and a copy of a document titled “Remarks on National Healing” that showed Trump was reluctant to give a speech rebuking his supporters who attacked the Capitol and calling for the Justice Department to prosecute them.
“It took more than 24 hours for President Trump to address the nation again after his Rose Garden video on January 6th in which he affectionately told his followers to go home in peace,” Luria wrote in her message posting the video. “There were more things he was unwilling to say.”
The nearly four-minute video includes clips of depositions from Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, discussing how the Jan. 7 remarks came together.
“We felt like it was important to further call for de-escalation,” said Kushner, who like Ivanka Trump was a senior White House aide.
Ivanka Trump told the committee that she could identify her father’s handwriting in the copy of the Jan. 7 speech included in the video while Kushner repeatedly said “I don’t know” when asked why the president had crossed out lines that read “legal consequences must be swift and firm” and “you do not represent me, you do not represent our movement.”
Key Trump aide John McEntee told investigators in his own deposition that he was told by other aides to “nudge” the speech along if President Trump asked his opinion on it — which he took as a sign that Trump didn’t want to deliver the remarks as initially written.
In the speech he eventually delivered at the White House on Jan. 7, Trump accused the rioters of defiling “the seat of American democracy” and said, “You do not represent our country.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, a committee witness who worked as a top aide to Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told the committee that Trump’s advisers pushed him to deliver remarks after the riot both to protect his legacy and to address concerns about how senators might respond if his Cabinet tried to remove him from office via the 25th Amendment.
“There was a large concern of the 25th Amendment potentially being invoked, and concerns about what would happen in the Senate,” Hutchinson said in the new video. “So the primary reason that I had heard other than, you know, ‘We did not do enough on the 6th’ … was, ‘Think about what might happen in the final 15 days of your presidency if we don’t do this. There’s already talk about the 25th Amendment. You might need this as cover.'”
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday’s video from the committee.
He has repeatedly said he did nothing wrong regarding Jan. 6 and has cast the House investigation as politically motivated and one-sided.
(WASHINGTON) — At a House subcommittee hearing last week on the economic impact of mass shootings on local communities, Mayor of Buffalo, New York, Byron Brown, testified about the aftermath of the shooting at a supermarket in May that killed 10 people and left three injured.
Since the shooting, the city has spent more than $500,000 on “police, fire, sanitation [and] other municipal services,” Brown told ABC News, in addition to the financial impact on businesses, families of the victims and survivors, and other unexpected costs. Last month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $50 million investment earmarked for East Buffalo, where the shooting occurred.
Brown spoke with ABC News about the emotional and financial impact of the shooting in Buffalo, which he says has not received any federal support yet, the reopening of Tops supermarket and how the community has responded in the wake of what law enforcement authorities called racially-motivated violence.
GMA3: Welcome back to GMA3, everybody. Buffalo, New York, Texas, an elementary school there, a Fourth of July parade in Illinois. You know what I’m talking about here. We’re talking about the series of mass shootings we’ve seen. They continue, it seems, in this country, and it profoundly affects the communities in which they occur. And last week, a congressional subcommittee hearing addressed not only the devastating loss of life from these events, but the long-term economic impact these communities often suffer. Want to bring in now somebody who testified at the hearing, Buffalo, New York, Mayor Byron Brown. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for being here. And I know that some numbers we can get into, statistics and whatnot, but I just want to start with you speaking from the heart for a second. Just how is your community doing?
BROWN: You know, it has been very painful for our community. People are in trauma. We are healing, wrapping our arms around each other and doing everything that we can to get through this most painful time in our community.
GMA3: Mr. Mayor, can you tell me, I saw that you spent almost half a million dollars that you didn’t expect to spend in the immediate weeks after the shooting. That just has to do with vital services that were needed, overtime for many of your folks in the community, your police officers, your fire department. Are you getting what you need? I know the federal government often promises and wants to be there to help, but are you getting those types of resources and financial resources that you need in your community right now?
BROWN: We’re having those conversations. We haven’t gotten any financial resources from the federal government at this point. I’ve sent the message that I believe strongly that communities that experienced mass shootings there should be federal financial support; in this case an act of domestic terrorism fueled by racism and white supremacy. The impact has been very devastating to this community financially. May 14, when the shooting occurred and in the two weeks thereafter, the city spent over half a million dollars – police, fire, sanitation, other municipal services. And that price tag has continued to grow ever since.
And so the economic impact is a significant one, not only on the municipality un-budgeted costs, but on the families, on the survivors, on the surrounding community, and on businesses in the community around the Tops supermarket.
GMA3: Mr. Mayor, have you gotten a commitment that that money is coming?
BROWN: The federal government has been very responsive. President Biden has been here in Buffalo. Vice President Harris has been here. The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has been to Buffalo. We’ve had several meetings in Washington.
And it is my hope that the federal government will step up, will see the pressing need in this community and financially will support the needs of residents, families of victims, survivors of the shooting and the city itself.
GMA3: We talked about [the fact] that the Tops grocery store, the supermarket, was such a vital part of the community. It was one of a few grocery stores that serve so many people in that area. And the subcommittee did hear testimony about property values going down and business activity going down in cities in areas where there have been mass shootings. How has that community begun to recover in that aspect? Is it back to being a place that is bustling? I know the supermarket has reopened.
BROWN: The supermarket reopened July 15. Every day since the supermarket has reopened, the parking lot has been full. A strong message that hate will not win, that the love in the community will conquer hate. People are showing that they want the supermarket to be open, that they need the supermarket and that they’re willing to come back to the supermarket.
Obviously, some people [feel] uncomfortable to come back to that location because of the horrible tragedy. Ten people killed, three wounded. We’ve partnered with a company called Instacart to expand at-home delivery from the supermarket and to expand grocery pick-up at the supermarket. So we are doing everything that we can to not let those alarming statistics of the horrible impacts of mass shootings take hold in the Buffalo community.
As I said, people are rallying around each other. There have been food distributions, concerts, marches, rallies, everything that we can think of to keep the community together and send a message to the nation and to the world that evil will not win, that hate will not win, and that white supremacy will not win.
GMA3: Mr. Mayor, you said two things there that jumped out at me. Keep the community together, and they’ve been rallying around each other. But how can you take this moment and again, when you talk about unity in moments like this, I know you’re tired of hearing it, but Buffalo has historically been for a long time one of the most racially segregated cities in this country. And there are brown and Black communities there that have long suffered. How can you take this moment now and do something? And how can you do something to bridge that divide and division in your community? Because a lot will argue that your community was targeted in the first place because of that segregation. The shooter actually looked up a place where there was a high percentage of African-Americans. It ended up in your community.
BROWN: The shooter attacked Black Buffalo. But many people that we’ve heard from all across the country feel like this was an attack on Black America because the goal of this racist white supremacist shooter was to kill as many Black people as possible. And so this could have occurred anywhere in the country, anywhere in the state where there was a high concentration of Black people.
So we have to focus on defeating white supremacy, making it impossible for white supremacy to proliferate. But our goal now is to build back East Buffalo, the Black community of Buffalo, the city of Buffalo, better and stronger than ever before, to hopefully get resources from the federal government, from our state government.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has already committed over $50 million to East Buffalo. And so we will use those resources and work with the community to invest heavily to make this community better, stronger and more united than it has been previously.
(WASHINGTON) — The former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence appeared last week before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Marc Short was caught by an ABC News camera departing D.C. District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood.
Short appeared under subpoena, sources said.
Short would be the highest-ranking Trump White House official known to have appeared before the grand jury.
Short declined to comment to ABC News. His attorney did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office also declined to comment.
(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis offered a long-sought apology to the Indigenous community in Canada on Monday over the Catholic church’s role in the generational abuse they suffered at Indigenous residential schools for nearly 150 years.
The schools were operated for decades by churches and the federal government of Canada to force assimilation.
“I am here because the first step of my penitential pilgrimage among you is that of again asking forgiveness, of telling you once more that I am deeply sorry,” Francis said. “Sorry for the ways in which, regrettably, many Christians supported the colonizing mentality of the powers that oppressed the Indigenous peoples.”
“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” he added.
Beginning in the 1800s, thousands of Indigenous children from Canada were taken from their homes and families and placed into so-called residential schools aimed at ridding the children from ties to their Native communities, language and culture. Some of the schools were run by the Catholic church, where missionaries participated in the policies of forced assimilation and abuse.
Upon his arrival in Edmonton, the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta, Pope Francis was greeted on Sunday at the airport by First Nations, Metis and Inuit leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.
Francis met with residential school survivors on Monday near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis in central Alberta.
Francis said that an apology is only a “starting point” and acknowledged that some in the Indigenous community have called for further action to address the injustice of the boarding school legacy.
“Dear brothers and sisters, many of you and your representatives have stated that begging pardon is not the end of the matter. I fully agree: that is only the first step, the starting point,” Francis said. “An important part of this process will be to conduct a serious investigation into the facts of what took place in the past and to assist the survivors of the residential schools to experience healing from the traumas they suffered.”
Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, who had called for Pope Francis to deliver an in-person apology on behalf of the church, told ABC News’ Marcus Moore that Francis’ visit is “a validation of what has happened with the church and how they’ve hurt and abused our people.”
Ahead of his historic seven-day trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” and offered an apology to Native communities for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse.
“Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutions, contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation, that, in the past, gravely damaged, in various ways, the Native communities,” Francis said in a July 17 address delivered from the Apostolic Palace to the public in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, according to The Associated Press.
“For this reason, recently, at the Vatican, I received several groups, representatives of Indigenous peoples, to whom I manifested by sorrow and my solidarity for the evil they have suffered,″ Francis added.
According to a 2015 report released by Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous residential schools were an integral part of the Canadian government’s “conscious policy of cultural genocide,” where children were disconnected from their families, punished for speaking their Native languages and some faced physical and sexual abuse.
“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic,’ there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights,” according to the report.
Reflecting on the generational trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous communities, Alexis recalled a conversation with a survivor who told him, “The only thing I learned in the residential school was how to hate myself.”
The pope’s visit comes a year after nearly 1,000 sets of human remains were found at the cemetery of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in western Canada and at the former St. Eugene’s Mission School for Indigenous children in Aqam, a community in British Colombia. It is unclear how many total students died at residential boarding schools and what their causes of death were.
After the graves were discovered in Canada, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position — launched a probe in June 2021 into the U.S. government’s own role in funding Indian boarding schools as part of an effort to dispossess Indigenous people of their land to expand the United States.
The probe’s initial findings were outlined in a May report that found more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died over the course of 150 years in Indigenous boarding schools run by the American government and churches.
Native Nations scholars estimate that almost 40,000 children have died at Indigenous boarding schools. According to the federal report, the Interior Department “expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”
Haaland, whose grandparents attended Indian boarding schools, now oversees the government agency that historically played a major role in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people and said that her work is a chance to bring some healing to the community.
“I have a great obligation, but I was taught by my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother that when you are asked to do something for your people that you step up,” Haaland told “Nightline” in an interview earlier this year.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou, Kiara Alfonseca and Tenzin Shakya contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Cities and counties throughout the United States are considering reinstating mask mandates as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise.
In Los Angeles County, 8,091 new infections were reported on Friday, the latest date for which data is available, according to the Department of Public Health. This is an increase of 50% from the 5,391 cases recorded at the beginning of the month.
Experts have said the increase is due to BA.5, a highly contagious offshoot of the omicron variant that is better at evading immunity — at least partially — from both vaccines and previous infections.
It is currently the dominant strain in the U.S., making up 77.9% of all cases, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows. In a region that includes California, Arizona and Nevada, it’s at nearly 80%.
What’s more, the county’s average test positivity rate has remained consistently high, currently sitting at about 16%, said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Currently, the CDC has classified the county as having “high” levels of COVID-19 community transmission. The county must reach a “medium” level by July 28 or an indoor mask mandate will go into effect July 29.
“We are on the cusp of medium and high,” Ferrer said during a media briefing Thursday. “It isn’t going to take much to move us back to medium level if we can get our case numbers to go lower.”
“Should we start seeing a steep decline next week … we are likely to want to take a pause on moving too quickly on indoor masking, universal indoor masking,” she continued.
Ferrer said she understands that “for many this will feel like a step backwards,” but added that mask requirements are one of many “sensible safety precautions” to take when cases jump.
“We are not closing anything down. We are not asking people not to gather with the people they love,” Ferrer said. “We’re asking you to take a sensible step, when there’s this much transmission with a highly transmissible variant, to go ahead and put back on a well-fitting high-filtration mask when you’re indoors around others.”
Meanwhile, in nearby King County — which includes Seattle — officials say they are having “active discussions” about reinstating mask mandates.
In the last seven days, 5,761 cases have been recorded, an 11% decrease from the 6,501 cases recorded in the previous seven days. Hospitalizations recorded in the last seven days have risen 10% from 146 to 161, according to Public Health – Seattle & King County.
The CDC has also placed the county in the “high” transmission category.
During a press briefing earlier this month, Dr. Jeff Duchin, the health officer for the department, said hospitalizations have risen three-fold since April.
“We are actively considering if, and when, additional mandates may be needed,” he said. “And I’m really encouraging everyone now to please, let’s make sure we’ve done all we can on a voluntary basis before we have to go there.”
(NEW YORK) — A California wildfire cutting a path of destruction through a tinderbox of vegetation and tough terrain near Yosemite National Park grew overnight to nearly 17,000 acres, state fire officials said Monday.
The Oak Fire burning in Mariposa County, which has prompted the evacuation of more than 6,000 people, went from zero containment on Sunday to 10% containment on Monday as more than 2,000 firefighters battling the blaze made progress overnight, according to Cal Fire.
“Fire activity was not as extreme as it has been in previous days. Firefighters made good headway,” Cal Fire said in an updated incident report released Monday morning.
Despite being challenged by rugged terrain and temperatures ranging from the high 90s to 100 degrees, firefighters managed to save the small community of Mariposa Pines, on the north edge of the fire, according to Cal Fire.
The blaze made a “hard push” Sunday evening in the direction of Mariposa Pines, which has a population of nearly 300 people, according to Cal Fire. Three firefighting strike teams managed to prevent flames from jumping a road and spreading into the Sierra Nevada mountains community, Cal Fire officials said.
Firefighters were also making progress on the east and south sides of the fire, officials said. The northeast side of the blaze, according to Cal Fire, was moving into an area where there are burn scars left by the 2018 Ferguson Fire, which charred nearly 97,000 acres.
Severe drought conditions has left large pockets of dried out vegetation, helping to fuel the quick-moving blaze, fire officials said. The Oak Fire is now the largest fire to erupt in the state this year.
The fire started around 2 p.m. Friday near the Mariposa County town of Midpines, Cal Fire said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Mariposa County over the weekend and his office announced the state has secured a Fire Management Assistance Grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help provide resources as it responds to the blaze.
The fire has destroyed or damaged at least 15 structures, according to Cal Fire. A preliminary damage estimate by Cal Fire found that at least seven homes in Mariposa County have been destroyed.
No deaths or serious injuries have been reported.
Among the residents who were evacuated were newlyweds Steve and Andrea Ward. The couple returned to their home on Sunday to find it nearly burned to the ground, but took solace in parts of the structure still standing, including a wooden arch in front of their home where they exchanged wedding vows.
“Just to see that space, I honestly thought it was going to be burnt to the ground. I’m surprised it’s still standing,” Andrea Ward told ABC station KFSN-TV in Fresno, California.
The couple said they not only plan to rebuild their home, but vowed to pitch in and rebuild their community. Steve Ward said the devastation has made their bonds with the community and their love for each other stronger.
“If I gotta prioritize keeping her safe versus keeping the house safe, I’m gonna take her,” Steve Ward said of his wife.
Smoke from the Oak Fire is expected to drift into parts of the San Francisco Bay Area nearly 200 miles away and affect air quality, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
Smoke from the fire could be seen from International Space Station, officials said. The National Weather Service released a time-lapse smoke forecast map showing smoke blanketing high elevations over the entire Bay Area by Tuesday.
This is the third wildfire to burn in Mariposa County over the past two weeks.
The Washburn Fire, which started on July 7 near the southern entrance of Yosemite National Park, is 87% contained after burning over 4,800 acres. The containment of the fire, which at one point was inching dangerously close to the park’s large sequoia grove, Mariposa Grove, allowed the southern entrance of the park to reopen July 16.
The cause of the Washburn Fire remains under investigation.
The smaller Agua Fire, which started on July 18, is now fully contained after burning some 420 acres. The fire was caused by a car, officials said.
(NEW YORK) — Former GOP Rep. Steve Buyer was arrested Monday on insider trading charges.
According to the complaint, Buyer, who has done consulting work since leaving Congress in 2011, “misappropriated material non-public information that he learned as a consultant and used [it] … to place timely, profitable securities trades in brokerage accounts in his own name and the names of others.”
In March 2018, Buyer attended a golf outing with an executive of T-Mobile, one of his consulting clients, from whom he learned about the company’s then-nonpublic plan to acquire Sprint, the complaint said. Buyer began purchasing Sprint securities the next day, and, after news of the merger leaked in April 2018, Buyer saw an immediate profit of more than $107,000, according to the complaint.
In total, Buyer’s fraudulent trading activity based on nonpublic information in 2018 and 2019 resulted in profits of at least $349,846.61, the complaint said.
Buyer was arrested in Indiana where he was expected to make an initial appearance in federal court later Monday.
Buyer, who was first elected to the House from Indiana in 1992, announced in 2010 he would not seek another term amid ethical questions involving fundraising.
Monday’s arrest was the result of a joint investigation by several federal agencies including the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was representing Buyer following his arrest.
(NEW YORK) — As the heat hovering over much of the country continues, residents on the East Coast will soon have another extreme weather event to contend with: severe storms.
More than 52 million people living along the Interstate 95 corridor will be under threat of severe thunderstorms on Monday afternoon.
As the storm system moves east, it will effectively end a nearly weeklong heat wave from Boston to Washington, D.C.
Records for heat were broken over the weekend in Newark, New Jersey, which hit 102 degrees for the fifth day in a row, breaking the all-time record for consecutive days over 100. Boston surpassed its record at 100 degrees, Philadelphia broke its record at 99 degrees and Providence, Rhode Island, did the same at 98 degrees. New York City’s LaGuardia Airport tied its heat record at 98 degrees.
Heat alerts remained in the Northeast on Monday, with hot and humid conditions from Maryland to Massachusetts.
Monday afternoon, a cold front is expected to pass through the region with severe thunderstorms, damaging winds, hail and the possibility of isolated tornados.
There will be a break in the heat following the storm system with temperatures in the Northeast staying in the 80s over the next several days.
However, scorching conditions will continue Monday afternoon in the Pacific Northwest, down the coast to central and Southern California and stretching to the Midwest, Plains and Southeast.
Triple-digit temperatures are expected in cities like Portland and Medford, Oregon; Fresno, California; San Antonio, Houston and Dallas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Shreveport, Louisiana. In Tennessee, Nashville is expected to hit 102 degrees, while Memphis is expected to reach 108 degrees.
A strong push of monsoon moisture into the Southwest will bring elevated threats for flash flooding Monday and through the week. Flood watches have been issued for Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.
(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis is set to deliver a long-sought apology to the Indigenous community in Canada over the Catholic church’s role in the generational abuse they suffered at Indigenous residential schools for nearly 150 years.
The schools were operated for decades by churches and the federal government of Canada to force assimilation.
Beginning in the 1800s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children from Canada and the United States were taken from their homes and families and placed into so-called residential schools aimed at ridding the children from ties to their Native communities, language and culture. Some of the schools were run by the Catholic church, where missionaries participated in the policies of forced assimilation and abuse.
Upon his arrival in Edmonton, the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta, Pope Francis was greeted on Sunday at the airport by First Nations, Metis and Inuit leaders, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mary Simon, who is Canada’s first Indigenous governor general.
“[Pope Francis] is visiting Canada to deliver the Roman Catholic Church’s apology to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Survivors and their descendants – for its role in operating residential schools, and for causing pain and suffering that continues to this very day,” Trudeau tweeted on Sunday.
Francis is set to meet with residential school survivors on Monday near the site of a former residential school in Maskwacis in central Alberta, where he is expected to pray and deliver an apology.
“Dear brothers and sisters of [Canada], I come among you to meet the indigenous peoples. I hope, with God’s grace, that my penitential pilgrimage might contribute to the journey of reconciliation already undertaken. Please accompany me with [prayer],” Francis tweeted on Sunday.
Chief Tony Alexis of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, who had called for Pope Francis to deliver an in-person apology on behalf of the church, told ABC News’ Marcus Moore that Francis’ visit is “a validation of what has happened with the church and how they’ve hurt and abused our people.”
Ahead of his historic seven-day trip to Canada, Pope Francis asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called a “penitential pilgrimage” and offered an apology to Native communities for the Catholic church’s role in the abuse.
According to a 2015 report released by Canada’s National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, Indigenous residential schools were an integral part of the Canadian government’s “conscious policy of cultural genocide,” where children were disconnected from their families, punished for speaking their Native languages and some faced physical and sexual abuse.
“The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been ‘absorbed into the body politic,’ there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights,” according to the report.
Reflecting on the generational trauma that was inflicted on Indigenous communities, Alexis recalled a conversation with a survivor who told him, “The only thing I learned in the residential school was how to hate myself.”
The pope’s visit comes a year after nearly 1,000 sets of human remains were found at the cemetery of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan in western Canada and at the former St. Eugene’s Mission School for Indigenous children in Aqam, a community in British Colombia. It is unclear how many total students died at residential boarding schools and what their causes of death were.
After the graves were discovered in Canada, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American to hold a Cabinet position — launched a probe in June 2021 into the U.S. government’s own role in funding Indian boarding schools as part of an effort to dispossess Indigenous people of their land to expand the United States.
The probe’s initial findings were outlined in a May report that found more than 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died over the course of 150 years in Indigenous boarding schools run by the American government and churches.
Native Nations scholars estimate that almost 40,000 children have died at Indigenous boarding schools. According to the federal report, the Interior Department “expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands.”
Haaland, whose grandparents attended Indian boarding schools, now oversees the government agency that historically played a major role in the forced relocation and oppression of Indigenous people and said that her work is a chance to bring some healing to the community.
“I have a great obligation, but I was taught by my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother that when you are asked to do something for your people that you step up,” Haaland told ABC’s Nightline in an interview earlier this year.
