(NEW YORK) — Vaccine lotteries and other incentives designed to encourage COVID-19 vaccination after the rate steeply declined didn’t consistently raise numbers as many public health officials had hoped.
Now, officials are turning to community partnerships and other means of engagement to drive vaccinations — and the personal approach appears promising.
Vaccinations peaked at over 4 million per day in early April before dropping down to an average of about 429,000 per day by early July. Despite at least 30 states and territories implementing vaccine incentives such as cash lotteries, free food and free entrance to local attractions, the weekly moving average still hovers close to 470,000.
Experts caution not to say that vaccine incentives didn’t work. States such as Ohio and Missouri saw a temporary but meaningful bump in vaccinations in the week after the lotteries were announced.
“I think vaccine incentives have worked better than we think,” said Dr. Stacy Wood, professor of marketing at North Carolina State University. “When any given incentive didn’t work, it was because it didn’t match the hurdle that a particular person was facing for vaccination. … There’s no one-size-fits-all incentive.”
But for some, the vaccine incentives themselves are a turn off. “It actually makes me a little more leery,” said Camille Holmes, a school-based speech therapist from Westchester County, New York.
Holmes said she routinely gets vaccines for herself and her family but right now is “indifferent” about the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I think as time progressed, my answer went from ‘absolutely not,’ to ‘I don’t know,’ to ‘I’m not ready,’ to ‘I probably am going to get it when I’m forced to do so.'”
So what is the key to encouraging vaccinations? For some, it might be a mandate from their employer. For others, it might be about renewed fear as the more contagious delta variant spreads. Now that cases are rising due to the delta variant, there has been a gradual increase in vaccinations, up 14% last week, according to the White House.
But for many, it’s about meeting people where they are — literally. According to research by Wood, “small incentives combined with that immediacy” tailored to a specific population works well.
This might be especially true for younger people, who aren’t necessarily opposed to getting a vaccine but don’t feel as deeply concerned they’ll become very sick or die without it.
St. Louis County, Missouri, recently announced a new initiative called Sleeves Up STL that will enlist local barbershops and beauty salons to provide information to their customers about getting the vaccine.
Randy Barnes, the owner of R & R Style Shop in Florissant, Missouri, plans to participate in this initiative because COVID-19 has been rising in his community.
“I’m thinking because of the barber and the beauty shops, people trust us. If the information is there, if the education is there, people maybe would be more apt to [get vaccinated],” Barnes said. “Those that were skeptical, given the right information, maybe would go ahead and get themselves vaccinated and even convince other people.”
There is already evidence that getting information from trusted friends, family members and community leaders spurs vaccination. Since Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson began traveling the state and having community conversations, the rate of vaccinations in the state has increased 40%, he told NPR.
Research has shown, and Barnes and Wood believe, that hearing from those who’ve had COVID-19 or lost someone due to the disease would be helpful. Barnes lost his brother to COVID-19 last April.
In addition to discussing vaccination with people, having vaccines immediately available at places where people commonly go, such as subway stations or museums can be helpful.
Whether it’s a lottery ticket, free meal, a conversation with a survivor or a trusted person or convenience, Barnes said he hopes one of these measures motivates people.
Adjoa Smalls-Mantey, M.D., D.Phil., trained in immunology and a psychiatrist in New York City, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
It takes less than ever to find partisan grooves these days — and the fact that they’ve been etched deeper out of the fallout from Jan. 6 serves as a case in point.
That’s the reality that confronts President Joe Biden with this next uncertain phase of combatting the pandemic. New federal guidance on mask mandates and the consideration of a vaccine requirement for federal workers run into longstanding political arguments about individual liberties and personal accountability.
The push for vaccinations has become less partisan of late, with prominent Republicans adding new emphasis — and giving special credit to the previous administration — to make the case.
Yet mask-wearing and vaccine requirements have long since taken on cultural as well as political significance, and the fallout of Biden’s latest comments offer just a taste. Former President Donald Trump is offering strong pushback to mandates, and consider as well how readily some Republicans are using Dr. Anthony Fauci as a foil — raising money off the mention of his name, and even threatening legal action against him.
Biden indicated that he will outline next steps in the push to vaccinate the country on Thursday, as some statistics showing rates going up of late. The president on Tuesday also served up a reminder that as a candidate he “promised to be straight with you about COVID — good news or bad.”
Another reminder: 11 months ago, Biden said he wouldn’t hesitate to order another shutdown if that’s what his advisers recommended.
“I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists,” he told ABC “World News Tonight” Anchor David Muir last August.
The campaign was quick to clarify that comment at the time. Biden’s statement Tuesday about masks and vaccines framed them as a way “to avoid the kind of lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures and disruptions we faced in 2020.”
“We are not going back to that,” the president said.
The RUNDOWN with Averi Harper
The testimony of Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn underscored the additional layer of trauma Black law enforcement officers experienced on Jan. 6.
Dunn’s heartbreaking testimony chronicled the racial slurs he endured as he tried to defend the seat of our nation’s democracy.
Among the insurrectionists were attackers who carried Confederate flags, donned shirts with anti-Semitic messages and freely hurled the n-word at Black officers.
“No one had ever, ever called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer,” said Dunn.
He also brought with him the stories of other Black officers, later adding, “Another Black officer later told me he had been confronted by insurrectionists in the Capitol who told him, put your gun down and we’ll show you what kind of n***** you really are.”
For many, listening to Dunn recount the epithets stung as they were broadcast uncensored. The attack at the Capitol is often referred to as one of our nation’s darkest days, it’s particularly poignant that racism crept its way into the ugliness of it all, too.
It’s a vile reminder that racism in America, even in its most blatant forms, still exists.
The TIP with Alisa Wiersema
Republicans in Washington have one more representative joining their ranks — but the victory serves as an upset to Trump, despite his looming influence over the Republican Party on a national scale.
Nearly three months after the May 1 special election, State Rep. Jake Ellzey came out on top in Tuesday’s runoff election for Texas’ 6th Congressional District. Ellzey faced off with fellow Republican, Susan Wright, who had Trump’s backing going into the contest due to the political legacy of her late husband, Rep. Ron Wright, who died in February from COVID and complications with cancer.
The conclusion of the race is the latest indicator of the former president’s looming influence over his party in a state that is increasingly becoming ground zero for intra-party battles.
On Monday, Trump waded into another high-profile Texan battle by endorsing incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton for another term. The move served a devastating — and complicated — blow to Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who was the only member of his storied political family to publicly back Trump, despite the former president launching repeated attacks against his father, Jeb Bush.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department declined a request from Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., Tuesday night to intervene for him in a lawsuit brought by a Democratic lawmaker suing him for his role in allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a new filing, the DOJ said it has determined it does not believe Brooks was acting within the scope of the duties of his office when he spoke in front of a pro-Trump rally just before rioters stormed the building, telling the crowd, “today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking a**.”
Brooks had asked for the Justice Department to replace him as a defendant in a lawsuit brought by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., providing him legal immunity under a law known as the Westfall Act that former President Donald Trump similarly has sought to use to shield him from an effort by columnist E. Jean Carroll to sue him for defamation over his denial of her rape allegation.
“We appreciate the thoughtful analysis by the Committee on House Administration and the Department of Justice and could not agree more with their conclusion,” Rep. Swalwell’s attorney Philip Andonian said in a statement Tuesday night. “This conduct manifestly is outside the scope of Brooks’s employment as a member of Congress and the House and DOJ made the right call in requiring him to answer directly for his actions. This is a great step toward justice.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland faced a barrage of criticism last month when the department said it would continue to seek to substitute itself for Trump in the lawsuit, arguing that the law did apply to Trump even if they believed his statements were “crude” and “disrespectful.”
“The essence of the rule of law is that like cases be treated alike,” Garland said in defense of the move in testimony before a Senate panel. “That there not be one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans. That there not be one rule for friends and another for foes.”
Brooks similarly argued that by speaking to the rally and repeating Trump’s false claims of a stolen election that he was performing an official act of his office by representing the interests of his constituents.
Brooks has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment following the DOJ’s decision Tuesday.
But the chair of the House Administration Committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., disputed that assertion in a July 23 letter to the Justice Department, saying that Brooks’ conduct was “in furtherance of political campaigns” and thus should be deemed outside the scope of his office.
“Essentially, in deflecting the allegation that his speech was an incitement to violence, Representative Brooks has sworn under oath to the court that his conduct was instead in furtherance of political campaigns,” Lofgren wrote. “As noted, standards of conduct that apply to Members and precedents of the House are clear that campaign activity is outside the scope of official duties and not a permissible use of official resources.”
The Justice Department in its late filing Tuesday night largely backed Lofgren’s position, saying, “Brooks’s appearance at the Jan. 6 rally was campaign activity, and it is no part of the business of the United States to pick sides among candidates in federal elections. … Indeed, although the scope of employment related to the duties of a Member of Congress is undoubtedly broad and there are some activities that cannot be neatly cleaved into official and personal categories, Brooks’s request for certification and substitution of the United States for campaign-related conduct appears to be unprecedented.”
“Members of Congress are subject to a host of restrictions that carefully distinguish between their official functions, on the one hand, and campaign functions, on the other,” the department said. “The conduct at issue here thus is not the kind a Member of Congress holds office to perform, or substantially within the authorized time and space limits, as required by governing law,” the DOJ wrote.
The DOJ also notes that “if proven” the conduct Brooks is alleged by Swalwell to have engaged in “would plainly fall outside the scope of employment for an officer or employee of the United States.” “… conspiring to prevent the lawful certification of the 2020 election and to injure Members of Congress and inciting the riot at the Capitol.”
“Alleged action to attack Congress and disrupt its official functions is not conduct a Member of Congress is employed to perform and is not “actuated . . . by a purpose to serve” the employer, as required by District of Columbia law to fall within the scope of employment,” the department wrote in its filing.
Legal experts have been closely watching what the DOJ would ultimately decide in Brooks’ case, believing it could have a significant impact on other cases brought against allies of former President Trump being sued for encouraging or inciting the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
It is still unclear, however, whether the judge overseeing the case will decide to grant Brooks’ request to substitute the DOJ for himself despite DOJ’s stated opposition Tuesday evening.
(NEW YORK) — Prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump has filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, alleging the pharmaceutical giant marketed talcum-based baby powder specifically to Black women despite links to ovarian cancers.
Johnson & Johnson has denied the allegations, saying its marketing campaigns are “multicultural and inclusive.” The company also denies that its products cause cancer, despite a Missouri appellate court last year ruling in favor of ovarian cancer victims suing the company as part of a separate lawsuit, claiming their condition was caused by asbestos in its baby powder and other talc products.
Crump, perhaps best known for representing the family of George Floyd after his murder by Derek Chauvin, filed the suit Tuesday in New Jersey with his legal partner Paul Napoli on behalf of members of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). The council, founded in 1935, is a nonprofit that advocates for and empowers women of African descent and their families.
“I would be remiss if I did not say exactly what this lawsuit is about. It is about the lives of our grandmothers, our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our nieces, and our wives, and how they were sinisterly targeted by Johnson and Johnson,” Crump said at a news conference Tuesday announcing the suit. “This multi-billion-dollar corporation, their corporate executives know about the link between talcum powder and ovarian cancer.”
“Black women have always been the backbone of this country, standing up for everyone, but receiving the least amount of respect,” he added. “Well, it is time that we stand up for Black women.”
At the news conference, victims who lost family members to ovarian cancer tearfully spoke out about the impact these deaths have had on their lives.
Lydia Huston said her mother died of ovarian cancer in 2014. She remembers the mother of two and grandmother of eight as a “phenomenal cook” who “loved to take care of the people that she loved.”
“We had a routine and it involves hygiene, a very clean home and a very clean body,” she said. “And just like deodorant, soap, lotion, and toothpaste, talcum powder was a part of the daily routine that she had for over 35 years.”
“I miss her dearly, and I want justice for her,” Huston said.
Janice Mathis, the executive director of the NCNW, added in a separate statement that “generations of Black women” used Johnson & Johnson products as part of their daily routines.
“This company, through its words and images, told Black women that we were offensive in our natural state and needed to use their products to stay fresh,” she said. “Generations of Black women believed them and made it our daily practice to use their products in ways that put us at risk of cancer — and we taught our daughters to do the same.”
Johnson & Johnson has denied that its baby powder products cause cancer, but has previously said that it is facing more than 20,000 lawsuits over its talcum products. Despite assurances it is safe, the company stopped selling talc-based baby powder in 2020 in the U.S., citing reduced demand due to misinformation and litigation advertising.
In June 2020, an appellate court in Missouri upheld more than $2 billion in damages against Johnson & Johnson, saying the company knew there was asbestos in its baby powder. In June of this year, the Supreme Court declined to hear the company’s appeal of the Missouri verdict.
The company told ABC News in a statement that independent scientific testing has proved its products do not cause cancer. A Journal of the American Medical Association report released last year found “no statistically significant link” between use of powder in the genital area and risk of ovarian cancer.
“We empathize with anyone suffering from cancer and understand that people are looking for answers. We believe those answers can be better understood through science — and decades of independent scientific testing by medical experts around the world has confirmed that our products are safe, do not contain asbestos, and do not cause cancer,” Johnson & Johnson told ABC News in a statement Tuesday.
“The accusations being made against our company are false, and the idea that our Company would purposefully and systematically target a community with bad intentions is unreasonable and absurd,” the statement added. “Johnson’s Baby Powder is safe, and our campaigns are multicultural and inclusive.”
“We firmly stand behind the safety of our product and the ways in which we communicate with our customers,” the company said, noting that more information can be found at www.FactsAboutTalc.com.
(POWESHIEK COUNTY, Iowa) — The lead agent who investigated the disappearance and murder of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts testified Tuesday that there was no doubt in his mind who killed her.
“Cristhian Rivera murdered Mollie Tibbetts,” special agent Trent Vileta said in court.
Vileta rejected a theory by Cristhian Bahena Rivera’s attorneys that he was framed for Tibbetts’ kidnapping and murder as part of a sex trafficking ring. The attorneys claim the alleged sex trafficking ring was investigated and that resulting evidence was withheld from them by law enforcement authorities.
“I don’t remember any tips that she (Tibbetts) was the victim of sex trafficking, but I didn’t see all of them either,” Vileta said.
A jury convicted 27-year-old Bahena Rivera in May of first-degree murder, but his sentencing was postponed after his attorneys requested a new trial in order to be allowed to review evidence in any ongoing investigations into sex trafficking in and around Poweshiek County, Iowa, where Tibbetts went missing in July 2018. Her body was discovered in an Iowa cornfield about a month after she vanished.
During Tuesday’s hearing, which lasted more than four hours, Bahena Rivera’s attorneys called Arne Maki to testify about a conversation he said he had in July 2020 with a 21-year-old inmate while they were both being held at the jail in Keokuk County, Iowa.
Maki, 46, who is now serving a prison sentence for domestic violence, claimed the inmate who he befriended told him that he and another man killed Tibbetts on the orders of a sex trafficker after she was kidnapped and brought to a sex trafficking “trap house.”
“He’s like, ‘yeah, I killed her,'” Maki testified about the inmate who defense attorneys named in court documents and during the hearing. “I’m like, ‘I don’t believe you.'”
Maki claimed the man then mentioned Bahena Rivera, a Mexican national who was in the country illegally and working at a dairy in Poweshiek County when he was arrested and charged with Tibbetts’ killing.
“He’s like, ‘We set him up.’ He’s like, ‘It’s a sex trafficking case gone wrong, and I stabbed her to death and put her in a tarp, me and my Black friend that don’t speak English good.'”
Maki testified that he doubted the inmate’s story until he saw TV news reports on Bahena Rivera’s testimony during his trial.
Bahena Rivera claimed he was kidnapped at his home near Brooklyn, Iowa, by two armed masked men, who ordered him to drive to where Tibbetts was expected to be jogging. He claimed that when they found Tibbetts, one of the men stabbed her to death, put her body in the trunk of Bahena Rivera’s car and made him drive to a cornfield, where the young woman’s badly decomposed remains were discovered a month after she went missing.
Bahena Rivera said that while he placed Tibbetts’ body in the cornfield, he did not kill her.
“Right there my conscience told me that I should say something, even if it’s not true,” Maki said, explaining why he told authorities about the inmate’s purported confession.
But under cross-examination from prosecutor Bart Klaver, Maki said he did not know that the inmate who confessed to him was in a rehab facility under court supervision at the time Tibbetts disappeared.
Judge Joel Yates, who presided over Bahena Rivera’s trial, told the attorneys he will make a written decision as soon possible on the defense motion for a new trial.
Earlier this month, Yates rejected the motion to allow Bahena Rivera’s attorneys an opportunity to review evidence in ongoing sex trafficking investigations in Poweshiek County and in the case of a missing 11-year-old boy, Xavior Harrelson, who vanished in May from his home in Poweshiek County. The defense attorneys suggested that the man who they allege operated the sex trafficking “trap house” once had been the boyfriend of Harrelson’s mother.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol held its first hearing Tuesday in which lawmakers heard dramatic, emotional accounts from law enforcement officers who defended the building against a pro-Trump mob.
“We’re going to revisit some of those moments today, and it won’t be easy,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said to open the hearing, while praising the officers for holding the line. “But history will remember your names and your actions.”
Here are key takeaways from the first hearing:
All witnesses feared for their lives during attack
The four officers testifying — Capitol Police officers Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Department officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges — flatly rejected any attempts to rewrite history on Jan. 6 and downplay the attack as one that shouldn’t be investigated further, telling lawmakers they all feared for their lives on Jan. 6.
When Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., asked Gonell to respond to former President Donald Trump’s calling the crowd “loving.” Gonell placed responsibility on him for sending his supporters to the Capitol.
“It’s a pathetic excuse for his behavior for something that he himself helped to create — this monstrosity,” Gonell said. “I’m still recovering from those ‘hugs and kisses’ that day.”
Hodges, who referred to the rioters as “terrorists,” detailed the weapons used against officers that day including police shields, batons, hammers, a sledgehammer, flag poles, tasers, pepper spray, bear and wasp spray, copper pipes, rocks, table legs broken down, guardrails, cones and “any items they can get their hands on.”
“There were over 9,000 of the terrorists out there with an unknown number of firearms and a couple hundred of us, maybe. So we could not — if that turned into a firefight, we would have lost,” he said. “And this was a fight we couldn’t afford to lose.”
Hodges, who was crushed in a doorway that day, recalled how he had to wrestle with one rioter who tried to take his baton and how another shouted at him, “‘You will die on your knees.'”
Gonell also described the day as a scene “from a medieval battlefield.”
“I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, ‘this is how I’m going to die, trampled defending this entrance,'” he said.
But the officers said they didn’t think twice about defending the Capitol and democracy, as traumatic as the experience was for them, their colleagues and families.
“Us four officers, we would do Jan. 6 all over again,” Dunn said. “We wouldn’t stay home because we knew what was going to happen. We would show up. That’s courageous. That’s heroic. So what I ask from you all, is to get to the bottom of what happened.”
“The rioters called me traitor, a disgrace, and shouted that I—an army veteran and a police officer—should be executed,” Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell says during Jan. 6 select committee hearing. https://t.co/KuT3vxIg91pic.twitter.com/knJ8oRxRqg
The lawmakers choked up at times during the officers’ testimony including Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who told them, “You guys may like individually feel a little broken … but you guys won.”
“Democracies are not defined by our bad days. We’re defined by how we come back from bad days,” he said.
Racial slurs heard at riot haunt hearing room: ‘I guess it is America’
Racial slurs haunted the hearing room as officers recounted chants made by the mob, moving some officers to tears and prompting some lawmakers to hang their heads.
Dunn recounted the racist verbal abuse he endured from rioters in emotional testimony and said it was the first time he had been called the n-word in uniform.
“I’m a law enforcement officer and I do my best to keep politics out of my job, but in this circumstance I responded, ‘Well, I voted for Joe Biden, does my vote not count? Am I nobody?'” he said he told rioters who falsely shouted at him the election was stolen.
Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn on racial abuse from rioters: “It’s so disheartening and disappointing that we live in a country with people like that, that attack you because of the color of your skin just to hurt you.” https://t.co/pZb3doEsvxpic.twitter.com/rVGupmH6hP
“That prompted a torrent of racial epithets,” Dunn said. “One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled “You hear that guys, this n***** voted for Joe Biden.”
Dunn, who also witnessed a Confederate flag carried through the Capitol, said that other Black officers shared similar stories of racial abuse from the day.
“I sat down on the bench in the Rotunda with a friend of mine, who is also a Black Capitol Police officer and told him about the racial slurs I endured. I became very emotional and began yelling, ‘How the blank could something like this happen? Is this America?'” he said. “I began sobbing.”
When Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., posed the same question to Dunn later, the officer said, “I guess it is America. It shouldn’t be.”
Committee looking to subpoena Trump, lawmakers
Cheney, in her opening statement, made clear the committee is open to subpoenaing the former president, White House aides and members of Congress as they create a timeline of the day.
“We must also know what happened every minute of that day in the White House. Every phone call, every conversation, every meeting, leading up to, during, and after the attack. Honorable men and women have an obligation to step forward,” she said.
Adding to that pressure, all four witnesses told lawmakers they wanted an investigation into those in power who may have aided and abetted rioters.
Dunn used an analogy with a hitman to describe his expectations, in an apparent nod to the former president, after the witnesses spent three and a half hours recounting chants of “Trump sent us,” among others.
“If a hitman is hired and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to jail, but not only does the hitman go to jail but the person who hired them does. There was an attack carried out on Jan. 6 and a hitman sent them,” he said. “I want you to get to the bottom of that.”
Thompson said at a press conference after the hearing that the committee could be brought back for another hearing during the House’s August recess, which starts Friday. The panel said its work is just beginning.
The Department of Justice said in letters to former Trump officials, and provided to congressional committees, that they can participate in the investigations into the Jan. 6 attack, according to sources and letters reviewed by ABC News earlier Tuesday.
Cheney and Kinzinger poke holes in GOP arguments against committee
The two Republicans on the panel spent their questioning time pushing back on some of the most prominent Republican talking points after Jan. 6 — including that the rioters were not violent and that whatever took place at the Capitol paled in comparison to violence perpetrated by antifa during racial justice protests.
“I condemn those riots and the destruction of property that resulted — but not once did I ever feel that the future of self-governance was threatened like I did on Jan. 6,” Kinzinger said. “There was a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law, between a crime, even grave crimes and a coup.”
Kinzinger also defended his choice to serve on the committee, saying it’s “not in spite of my membership in the Republican Party, but because of it, not to win a political fight, but to learn the facts and defend our democracy.”
Cheney reminded in her opening statement that she and other lawmakers preferred to establish an independent commission to investigate the attack, but that effort was “defeated by Republicans in the Senate.”
“That leaves us where we are today. We cannot leave the violence of Jan. 6 and its causes uninvestigated,” she said. “If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic.”
Rep. Liz Cheney: “We must overcome the many efforts we are already seeing to cover up and obscure the facts…No member of Congress should now attempt to defend the indefensible.”
The former No. 3 House Republican also reminded that her GOP colleagues had “recognized the events that day for what they actually were” in the days after the attack, even if members downplay it now.
Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Republicans who boycotted the select panel said the hearing should focus on the fact that Capitol Police were unprepared for Jan. 6. But because they gave up their ability to participate in the hearing, they couldn’t lead the discussion in their preferred direction — or challenge Democrats’ lines of inquiry the way Cheney and Kinzinger picked apart some of their claims.
Officers, while praised for heroism, blast lawmakers for partisan politics
While the officers were praised throughout the hearing for holding the line on Jan. 6, with lawmakers on the panel thanking them for their protection, the officers didn’t hold back when describing their disapproval in how partisan politics has muddied the search for the truth.
Fanone, the Metropolitan Police Department officer who was dragged down the Capitol steps, beaten with a flagpole, tased repeatedly and taunted with chants of “kill him with his own gun,” called out lawmakers on Tuesday who have blocked efforts for an investigation.
Officer Michael Fanone slams the table during Capitol riot hearing: “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!”
“What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens…are downplaying or outright denying what happened.” pic.twitter.com/1mGO4hHTFG
“The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful,” he said, slamming his fist on the witness table. “I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad.”
“Nothing — truly nothing — has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so betray their oath of office,” he added.
Gonell said of the former president downplaying the day, “It’s insulting, it’s demoralizing because everything that we did was to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt.”
Dunn said that the investigation is innately political because of the landscape surrounding the attack, but that it shouldn’t stop lawmakers from seeking the truth.
“It’s not a secret that it was political. They literally were there to stop the steal. So when people say it shouldn’t be political, it is. It was and it is. There’s no getting around that,” he said.
“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are being lauded as courageous heroes and while I agree with that notion, why? Because they told the truth? Why is telling the truth hard?” he asked. “I guess in this America, it is.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon that a mandate to require all federal employees to be vaccinated is now “under consideration.”
He said this one day after the Department of Veterans Affairs moved to require all health workers get a COVID-19 vaccine and shortly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant and reversed its mask guidance.
“It’s under consideration right now,” Biden said when asked by ABC News if the federal government would expand the vaccine mandate. “But if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
BREAKING: Pres. Biden tells ABC’s @sarahkolinovsky that he is considering a mandate for all federal employees to get COVID-19 vaccines.
As he wrapped a visit to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ABC News also asked the president about Tuesday’s new guidance from the CDC, recommending masks for vaccinated Americans in public, and whether it would cause confusion, but Biden continued to focus on those who remain unvaccinated.
“We have a pandemic because the unvaccinated — and they’re sowing enormous confusion,” he said. “The more we learned — the more we learn about this virus and the delta variation, the more we have to be worried, concerned.”
“And the only one thing we know for sure, if those other 100 million people got vaccinated we’d be in a very different world. So get vaccinated. If you aren’t, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were,” Biden continued.
Following his remarks, Biden released a statement saying the CDC decision is “another step on our journey to defeating the virus” and that he’d have more to say on Thursday when he will “lay out the next steps” to get more Americans vaccinated.
Regarding the CDC recommendation for students, Biden said it’s “inconvenient,” but gives them a chance to learn “with their classmates with the best available protection.”
He also acknowledged concerns that as cases rise and mask guidance is reversed that the U.S. could be heading back to restrictions and closures but said in the statement, “We are not going back to that.”
“In the meantime, more vaccinations and mask wearing in the areas most impacted by the delta variant will enable us to avoid the kind of lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures and disruptions we faced in 2020. Unlike 2020, we have both the scientific knowledge and the tools to prevent the spread of this disease,” he said.
Earlier Tuesday, the CDC cited new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant and reversed its mask guidance to recommend that everyone in areas with high levels of COVID, vaccinated or not, wear a mask, as the virus continues to spread rapidly across the U.S.
“This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendation,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday afternoon.
Throughout Washington there was a quick return to mask wearing for many who had grown accustomed to being without.
Vice President Kamala Harris, meeting with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Native American voting rights advocates Tuesday afternoon, wore a mask indoors for the first time since May 13.
Asked about the development, Harris gave a little shrug.
“None of us like wearing masks,” she said bluntly.
She noted that most people dying at this point are not vaccinated.
“People need to get vaccinated. That’s the only way we’re going to cut this thing off. No one likes wearing a mask. Get vaccinated. That’s it,” she said, then hitting her hand on the table for emphasis.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The sole copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” owned by one-time hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli until he forfeited it following his securities fraud conviction, has been sold, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, said Tuesday.
The terms of the sale were confidential, as was the identity of the buyer, but the proceeds will be applied to the balance of the nearly $7.4 million Shkreli owes in forfeiture.
“Through the diligent and persistent efforts of this office and its law enforcement partners, Shkreli has been held accountable and paid the price for lying and stealing from investors to enrich himself. With today’s sale of this one-of-a-kind album, his payment of the forfeiture is now complete,” said Jacquelyn Kasulis, acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Shkreli, best known for hiking the price of a life-saving drug when he was a pharmaceutical executive and for trolling critics on social media, was convicted of securities fraud in 2017 for orchestrating a series of schemes to cheat investors in two hedge funds he controlled as well as a biopharmaceutical company then known as Retrophin. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
The millions the government is seeking in forfeiture “represents a conservative computation of the proceeds Shkreli personally obtained as a result of his three different securities fraud crimes of conviction,” prosecutors wrote at the time.
Shkreli was ordered to forfeit the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, which he purchased for $2 million at an auction in 2015. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, it includes a hand-carved nickel-silver box as well as a leather-bound manuscript containing lyrics and a certificate of authenticity.
In September 2017, after he had been convicted but before the district court ordered the forfeiture of his assets, Shkreli attempted to sell the album through an online auction, prosecutors said.
The album, which has been considered one of the most valuable musical albums in the world, is subject to various restrictions, including those related to the duplication of its sound recordings.
ABC News’ Celia Darrough contributed to this report.
(RICHMOND, Va.) — Virginia gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe called on his GOP opponent Glenn Youngkin to cancel his appearance at and denounce what the 5th Congressional District Republican Party is calling an “election integrity regional rally,” which coincides with the anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act first being signed into law.
Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, called on the 5th District Republicans to cancel the event altogether.
“We all know what Glenn Youngkin and Republicans mean when they talk about election integrity. They’re following Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and pushing restricting measures that make it harder for folks to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” Swecker said in a virtual press conference Tuesday. “Here in Virginia, we fought hard to protect and expand the sacred right to vote, and we’re not about to let Glenn Youngkin drag us backwards.”
The two-day, paid event is scheduled for Aug. 6 and 7 at Liberty University, a private evangelical Christian institution in Lynchburg. Attendees can purchase “early bird tickets” through Friday, which cost $60 per individual and $110 per couple; after Friday, ticket price increases by $20 and $40, respectively, according to the flyer for the event.
Youngkin, along with the other statewide GOP nominees for lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, and attorney general, Jason Miyares, are the headliners for the Saturday night banquet.
The itinerary for the 5th District Republicans’ rally, which was not organized or being run by the Youngkin campaign, does not indicate it will be an event highlighting conspiracies about the 2020 election. It appears to be more of a grassroots event for the party’s faithful, with breakout sessions focused on voter registration, outreach like phone banking and door-knocking, organizing and election monitoring, for which there is a legal process to do.
In response to a request for comment, Melvin Adams, the chairman of the 5th District Republicans, told ABC News the party is “not surprised by these tactics.”
“They know this is a close race and that our event to thank, inspire, equip, and empower our ‘grassroots’ volunteers, while also helping them know how they can help to secure the integrity of our local elections, will cause an unprecedented Republican turnout in this very RED region of Virginia,” Adams said. “That is why they are attempting to cause distraction.”
Election integrity has become the rallying cry of the Republican Party following the 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump continues to falsely claim was “rigged,” despite no real evidence to support the baseless accusation of widespread fraud in battleground states Trump legitimately lost. Republican-led state legislatures, including Georgia, Florida and Arizona, have passed new “election integrity” laws, some of which amount to sweeping rewrites of election code.
The lawmakers justify these changes by asserting voters have lost faith in the system and are demanding changes — though few in the party openly acknowledge the source of that diminished confidence among voters, Republican voters specifically.
Youngkin, who earned Trump’s endorsement after securing the nomination, has not personally repeated the same lies about the election being “stolen,” but the issue of election integrity has been central to his campaign.
Before the party convention in May, the only major plan Youngkin released was one in February about this, also creating an “election integrity task force.” The five-prong plan calls for creating a “politically independent and transparent” Department of Elections, monthly updates to voter rolls, stricter voter identification requirements, verification of mail ballot applications and returns to ensure they are “legitimate and timely,” and requiring ballot counting observers and an audit of voting machines.
McAuliffe, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s predecessor who’s vying for his old job, blasted the rally as being “inspired by Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory that led to a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.”
“Glenn – enough is enough. I call on you to immediately withdraw from this ‘election integrity’ rally and disavow this dangerous, deadly conspiracy theory once and for all. Virginians deserve a leader who will tell the truth, act with integrity, and respect the office they seek to hold,” McAuliffe said in a statement Tuesday. “Glenn has shown, yet again, that he is no such leader. … If Glenn has any respect for the truth or Virginians, he will drop out of this event immediately.”
In response, Youngkin spokesperson Matt Wolking said in a statement, “Terry McAuliffe opposes requiring a photo ID to vote, which undermines the integrity of our elections and makes it easier to cheat. Glenn Youngkin will restore Virginia’s photo ID law and make sure it is easy for every eligible person to vote and harder to cheat.”
In Virginia, current law requires voters present a form of identification, but photo ID specifically is not required. There is broad support among the public for requiring voters to present a photo ID to cast ballots. In late June, a Monmouth University poll found that 80% of Americans support this, including about 60% of Democrats.
McAuliffe also accused Youngkin of spending “months denying that Joe Biden was duly elected president.” Since winning the nomination, Youngkin has repeatedly said Biden was legitimately elected, according to a fact check done by the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact. However, the fact check also found that pre-nomination, multiple media outlets reported that Youngkin or his campaign either did not respond to questions about whether Biden was “legitimately elected” or declined to answer.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has sent letters to six former Trump DOJ officials telling them that they can participate in Congress’ investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to sources and communications reviewed by ABC News.
The move is likely to remove a significant barrier that Democrats faced during Trump’s presidency, when the Justice Department backed the White House’s efforts to prevent any DOJ officials from testifying before their Democratic congressional committees.
At this time, no Trump-era DOJ official has indicated that they have agreed to testify in the congressional probe.
The first hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, featuring law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, got underway Tuesday.
Earlier, those attorneys who had been asked to testify had said they would need authorization from the Justice Department, sources told ABC News.
“Department attorneys, including those who have left the Department, are obligated to protect non-public information they learned in the course of their work,” reads the DOJ’s letter, which was sent Monday and reviewed by ABC News. “For decades and across administrations, however, the Department has sought to balance the Executive Branch’s confidentiality interests with Congress’s legitimate need to gather information. The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress in this case.”
The letter was sent to former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia B.J. Pak, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia Bobby Christine and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Patrick Hovakimian, all of whom were requested as witnesses by House Oversight Committee.
“The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress in this case,” the letter said. “Congress has articulated compelling legislative interests in the matters being investigated, and the information the Committees have requested from you bears directly on Congress’s interest in understanding these extraordinary events: namely, the question whether former President Trump sought to cause the Department to use its law enforcement and litigation authorities to advance his personal political interests with respect to the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
