Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on Thursday said that the Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday against the state’s congressional map means that the planned May 16 congressional primaries won’t proceed as scheduled as lawmakers consider drawing a new map.

“The Supreme Court previously stayed an injunction against the State’s enforcement of the current Congressional map. By the Court’s order, however, that stay automatically terminated with yesterday’s decision. Accordingly, the State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map. We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward,” they wrote in the statement.

Landry told at least some Republican House candidates in Louisiana that he plans on Friday to suspend the state’s primaries, according to multiple Republican sources.

A Republican source told ABC News that the governor called one candidate on Wednesday and said he is making calls to all of the candidates that he plans on Friday to suspend the election using executive power. The Washington Post was first to report about the governor’s calls.

The source said it was unclear if this will apply to all of the planned primaries, which include a closely watched Senate primary, or just the primaries for the House that would be impacted by a new congressional map.

ABC News has reached out to Landry’s office and the office of the Louisiana secretary of state. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday reverses lower court decisions that said Louisiana’s map, drawn after the 2020 census, violated the Voting Rights Act because only one of six districts was majority Black. More than a third of the state’s voting age population is Black. 

Those courts had ordered Louisiana to add a second majority-Black district, a process which in turn explicitly relied on race. In his opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said that move infringed on the rights of white voters under the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Absentee ballots in Louisiana have already been sent out, and votes have likely been cast, although early voting in person does not start until Saturday, May 2. Absentee voting is relatively limited in Louisiana and requires a valid excuse.

Democratic Rep. Troy Carter from Louisiana said on Wednesday at the Congressional Black Caucus press conference that elections are too close at this point for congressional maps to change. 

“We are in the 2026 election cycle now. The Supreme Court has set precedent just four years ago in a case in Louisiana, they ruled the district to be unconstitutional, said it’s too close to the election now, therefore we will do it in the next cycle,” Carter said, later adding that “if precedent matters, then clearly this is something that will have to be taken up in 2028 cycle, not the 2026.”

But the Louisiana’s existing map cannot be used, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Technically the state could revert back to its original 2022 map with one majority-Black district or redraw a new map entirely. Some legal experts have argued Louisiana could still keep its current map for the May primaries.

On Thursday, Murrill put in a filing with the Supreme Court saying, “Louisiana currently ‘is prohibited from using SB8’s map of congressional districts for any election’. The Governor and Attorney General are thus working with the Legislature– which is in session until June 1 — to immediately produce a constitutional map and electoral process for Louisiana.”

On Wednesday, Landry praised the ruling, but declined to say if it would have an impact on those primaries or not.

“Look, I think that anyone who jumps to conclusions right now — I think it’s going to take us at least 24 hours to really pore through the opinion to understand what exactly that opinion is telling us,” he told reporters. But he left the option open to a map redraw: “I mean, look, the Supreme Court picked an interesting time to be able to drop that on us… the court decides to give it to us on the eve of the election. What are they telling us? Are they telling us we have to draw? Telling us we don’t have to draw?”

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump doubled down on his claim that the term “86” is a “mob term” for a killing as former FBI Director James Comey faces a federal indictment over a social media post of seashells arranged to read “86 47.”

“’86’ is a mob term for ‘kill him.’ They say 86 him! ’86 47′ means ‘kill President Trump,'” Trump wrote in a social media post Wednesday night, before going on to assail Comey as a “Dirty Cop” who “knows this full well!”

Comey, who was indicted on Tuesday by a federal grand jury in North Carolina, made an initial court appearance on Wednesday after self-surrendering to law enforcement at the courthouse in the Eastern District of Virginia. Comey did not enter a plea.

The former FBI director, who was fired in 2017 by Trump during the president’s first term, faces one charge of threats against the president and successors, and one charge of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.

The indictment centers on a controversy that erupted nearly a year ago when Comey, in a since-deleted Instagram post, shared a picture showing the numbers “86 47” written in seashells on the beach with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

“EIGHT MILES OUT, SIX FEET DOWN! Didn’t he also lie to the FBI about this??? I think so!” Trump said on Wednesday night, describing his apparent interpretation of what the eight and six represent.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary, which lists several definitions of “eighty-six,” says the most common use for the informal saying is to describe a way “to refuse to serve” or “to eject or ban” a customer from a restaurant or bar. The dictionary says it’s often used as a way to say something has been removed. The American Heritage dictionary says the term may have derived as a rhyming slang for “nix.”

The origin of the president’s assertion that the term comes from the mob is unclear. A search of scripts from the American Film Institute’s top 10 gangster films shows no instance of the phrase being used, despite Trump referring reporters to mob movies on Wednesday.

“You ever see the movies? ’86 ’em’ — the mobster says to one of his wonderful associates, ’86 ’em.’ That means kill ’em. It’s — I think of it as a mob term,” he said.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said he did some of his own research on the term.

“I searched to the end of the internet last night, I can’t find one example where the number 86 had anything to do with any violent threat. So hopefully there’s more to it than just the picture in the sand,” Tillis told reporters on Wednesday. “Otherwise, I just think it’s another example of where we’re going to regret this because we’re setting a fairly low bar and political physics, like I’ve said around here for years, is what it is. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.”

Tillis later added, “maybe there’s deep history in the use of this word and communicating threats. I just can’t find it anywhere.”

The Department of Justice in announcing that the indictment that had been handed up said that “a reasonable recipient [of Comey’s image] who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”

And while the president has repeated his claim that Comey’s post was a call for him to be killed, Trump appeared to hedge when asked directly Wednesday whether he believed his life was in danger.

“Probably, I don’t know,” he said. “You know, based on — based on what I’m seeing out there, yeah.”

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(WASHINGTON) — After drama and delay, House Republicans narrowly approved a blueprint for legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies, the first step in the GOP’s plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security.

The party-line vote, which was held open for more than five hours, was called at 10:39 p.m. on Wednesday after Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders huddled with holdouts.

Reps. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Andy Harris of Maryland, Michael Cloud of Texas and Victoria Spartz of Indiana flipped their votes to yes after hours of discussion. Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, an Independent who conferences with Republicans, voted present.

The final vote was 215-211-1.

The budget resolution kicks off the drafting process of a bill that Republicans said would provide billions of dollars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term.

Trump has set a June 1 deadline for Republicans to fund the immigration enforcement agencies.

Republicans are using reconciliation, a lengthy and complex process, to overcome Democratic opposition.

Democrats have said they won’t support funding for ICE and CBP without reforms to their operating procedures, after two American citizens in Minneapolis were fatally shot by federal agents earlier this year.

DHS has been shut down since mid-February, making it the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

The shooting at the White House Correspondents Association dinner at the Washington Hilton on Saturday rekindled the DHS funding fight. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the funding lapse a “national emergency.”

But it’s currently unclear when House Republican leaders plan to put a Senate-passed bill to fund the rest of DHS on the floor for a vote.

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(NEW YORK) — Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Thursday morning that she is suspending her U.S. Senate campaign, leaving Graham Platner as the likely Democratic nominee.

She cited financial resources as a reason for suspending her campaign.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(FLORIDA) — Florida’s state legislature passed a new congressional map on Wednesday that could allow Republicans to flip up to four seats.

It now goes to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had proposed it earlier this week after teasing mid-decade redistricting for months. The governor has argued that Florida’s population growth and other legal issues meant the state had to redraw its map.

The new map, analysts say, could leave just four Democratic-held districts in the state after the 2026 midterms.

But it’s likely to face legal challenges, particularly because the Florida Constitution has what are known as the Fair Districts Amendments, which prohibit drawing congressional districts “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent” and includes protections for minority voters and keeping districts contiguous. 

Representatives for DeSantis have argued that the Fair Districts Amendments, approved by voters in 2010, are faulty.

But Democrats have been adamant that the process of considering the map was rushed, and that the mid-decade redistricting gambit will be found illegal by courts.

“This is a map that is designed and intended to rig outcomes, and to benefit one political party, the Republican Party, Donald Trump’s Republican Party, in direct violation of Florida’s constitution,” Democratic state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith said on Wednesday ahead of the vote. 

Republican Party of Florida Chair Evan Powers said “Florida got it right.”

“Governor Ron DeSantis and our Legislature have delivered congressional maps that reflect the continued growth of our state that are fair, and constitutional, ensuring Florida voters are represented accurately,” Powers said in a statement on Wednesday.

Some Republican members of Florida’s U.S. House delegation had previously expressed concerns that a map redraw could backfire for the GOP, weakening incumbents while galvanizing Democratic voters.

The passage of Florida’s new map came on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and dealt a blow to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

DeSantis and his team argued that the case and ruling lent credence to Florida redrawing its map.

The new Florida map also comes roughly a week after Republicans faced a loss when Virginia voters approved allowing a new congressional map there that could let Democrats flip up to four seats. The results of that election are currently held up in court.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former FBI Director James Comey made an initial court appearance Wednesday after self-surrendering to law enforcement at the courthouse in the Eastern District of Virginia, following his indictment Tuesday on charges of threatening the president.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina on Tuesday indicted Comey over a controversial Instagram post from last year that President Donald Trump and members of his administration claimed was a threat against Trump.

Comey did not enter a plea during his court appearance.

He answered “Yes, your honor,” presumably as an acknowledgement of the charges in the indictment. He was flanked by his two attorneys, Jessica Carmichael and Patrick Fitzgerald.

Comey was allowed to the leave court without conditions for his release. His attorney said, “I don’t see why they’d be necessary this time.”

The indictment centers on a controversy that erupted nearly a year ago when Comey, in a since-deleted Instagram post, shared a picture showing the numbers “86 47” written in seashells on the beach with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” Citing the slang meaning of “86” as to “nix” or “get rid” of something, allies of the president allege that the post was a veiled threat against Trump, who is the 47th president.

As outlined in the short, three-page indictment, Comey faces one charge of threats against the president and successors, and one charge of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.

Prosecutors in the indictment say the post constitutes a threat that any “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”

Comey’s attorneys indicated Wednesday that they plan to file a motion accusing the Justice Department of selectively and vindictively prosecuting Comey, and said in court they wanted to make sure the government preserved any materials and public statements that could be related to such a motion.

Prosecutors will likely face a high legal bar to prove that the Instagram post constituted a “true threat,” which the Supreme Court in 2023 found required showing an individual understood their message would be perceived as threatening. With the phrase “86 47” increasingly adopted by protesters of the Trump administration, the case could carry sweeping implications for the First Amendment.

Comey was indicted last year on unrelated charges for allegedly lying to Congress and obstruction related to his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020. Comey’s lawyers moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing the case was politically motivated and that the grand jury never saw the charges in their entirety, and the case was ultimately dismissed over issues with the legitimacy of the prosecutor who brought the case.  

“I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude is going to be the same,” Comey said in a video posted to social media after the previous indictment was thrown out in November. “I’m innocent. I am not afraid, and I believe in an independent federal judiciary — the gift from our founders that protects us from a would-be tyrant.”

The new indictment comes as the Department of Justice in recent weeks has ramped up investigations of some of Trump’s perceived political foes under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is heading up the Justice Department following Trump’s ouster of Pam Bondi.

“Nothing has changed with me,” Comey posted online Tuesday in response to the indictment, echoing what he said after the previous indictment was thrown out last year. “I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary so let’s go.”

“But it’s really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country, this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be and the good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values,” he added. “Keep the faith.”

This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Louisiana’s 2022 congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and dealt a blow to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, landmark legislation that has long prohibited election practices that have the effect of diluting the influence of racial minority voters.  

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority effectively raised the bar for challenges to election maps that limit the equal opportunity of minority voters to elect candidates of their choosing, even if lawmakers did not have deliberate intent to discriminate.

Justice Samuel Alito authored the opinion, which said that states only violate the Voting Rights Act when “evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — After a top Democrat introduced a resolution to hold former Attorney General Pam Bondi in civil contempt, a GOP spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee said Bondi will appear on May 29 for a deposition as part of the panel’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, on Wednesday morning introduced a resolution to hold Bondi in civil contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena.

“Just a few minutes ago, we filed official contempt charges against Pam Bondi,” Garcia announced to reporters at the Capitol.

Moments later, a House Oversight Committee spokesperson said that “former Attorney General Pam Bondi is appearing on May 29. We will have more details to share later.”

Garcia applauded the news as he spoke to reporters.

“Clearly, we’re being effective, because it’s interesting how only when we take action and when we actually have to force Republicans to do anything, to call subpoenas, to get in front of our committee that they actually ever do anything,” he said.

“So, I am so glad that Chairman [James] Comer is scared of this group back here, and then we’ll continue to push every single time,” Garcia continued. “So, that’s great to hear. If that’s the truth. I’m glad he told him he made that announcement today.”

Bondi had been expected to testify behind closed doors on April 14 pursuant to the committee’s bipartisan subpoena. But after she was removed from her role by President Donald Trump, the Justice Department said the subpoena no longer obligated her testimony in the Epstein matter.

Bondi’s handling of the Epstein documents and the Justice Department’s compliance with the Epstein Transparency Act was a point of bipartisan criticism, and stoked frustration within the Trump administration.

Garcia’s civil contempt effort, if successful, would elevate the matter to a federal court where a judge would be tasked with deciding whether Bondi is legally obligated to comply with the subpoena.

According to the Congressional Research Service, civil contempt allows Congress to “seek a civil judgment from a federal court declaring that the individual in question is legally obligated to comply with the congressional subpoena.”

In January, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee voted to hold former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in criminal contempt. The Clintons ultimately agreed to testify, and Republicans dropped the contempt effort.

Comer has depositions scheduled with several other witnesses in the probe through June, prolonging the committee’s Epstein investigation into the summer. 

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(NEW YORK) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is on Capitol Hill Wednesday for what is formally billed as a routine hearing on the Pentagon’s budget request.

But the appearance — the first before Congress for Hegseth since the war in Iran began in February — lands just two days before a 60-day deadline to wind down hostilities.

It also comes amid intensifying questions on the Hill about how quickly the Pentagon is depleting weapons stockpiles, and as lawmakers continue to scrutinize Hegseth’s unusual spate of firings of senior defense officials without a public explanation.

Questions over civilian casualties in the Iran war, as well as whether the U.S. was properly prepared for retaliatory strikes, and broader questions over the strategic rationale for the conflict, are likely to be a key part of committee members on both sides of the aisle questioning of Hegseth, multiple congressional aides explained.

This week marks Hegseth’s first return to Capitol Hill in nearly a year — with testimony Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee and Thursday on the Senate side — and his first exposure to sustained scrutiny since the war with Iran began. He is joined by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at both hearings.

While Hegseth has appeared before the press since the conflict began in late February, he has largely limited engagement to reporters viewed as sympathetic to the administration.

At the center of this week’s hearings is the administration’s request for $1.5 trillion in defense spending, the largest amount in the Pentagon’s history and a jump of 50% over current levels, which would mark the largest single-year increase in a generation.

The proposal would triple spending on drones and related technologies to more than $74 billion, while directing over $30 billion toward munitions procurement. But that budget request was developed months ago: not account for spending in the war with Iran.

“The overlap, you’ll see, is the request for munitions, which is something we always need,” Jules Hurst III, acting undersecretary of defense and the Pentagon’s comptroller, told reporters last week. “We always need to increase our magazine depth. But outside of that, there aren’t any operational costs in here from Iran.” Hurst is set to join Hegseth and Caine at the Senate hearing on Thursday.

That means the Pentagon may require additional funding to cover the cost of the vast quantities of munitions being expended as U.S. forces have struck more than 13,000 targets in Iran since February, along with other significant war-related expenses.

Defense experts have long raised concerns about stockpile constraints even before the war with Iran, with some estimates of a potential conflict with China suggesting the United States could exhaust long-range missile inventories within the first few weeks of fighting.

In less than two months of exchanging fire with Iran, the U.S. has used roughly half of certain missiles and other munitions, according to an analysis published last week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Retired Col. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at CSIS and an author of the report, said Operation Epic Fury “does create a window of vulnerability” for a period of as many as four years – the time it would take to replenish stocks.

“The United States has enough munitions to fight this war if it stubs up again,” Cancian said. “But the risk is in a future war with China, where inventory levels are far below where war planners would like them to be.”

Pentagon officials have maintained the U.S. has enough ammo to fight Iran. Though rearming the force with new munitions can take years, with some missiles requiring one to two years to build, reflecting an inherent limit on how many complex munitions the defense industry can produce each year, spurring much of the interest in huge investments in relatively cheap, easier-to-produce drones, which the Pentagon continues to surge into the Middle East.

Hegseth is also likely to face questions on his unprecedented firing or sidelining of two dozen senior military officials, particularly during a time of war, where he recently fired Gen. Randy George, who was the Army’s top officer and John Phelan, the Navy secretary.

Hegseth has also fired numerous lower-profile generals, without explanation, including Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., who was the chief of the Army Chaplain Corps, a collection of clergy from different faiths within the service. He has also blocked the promotion of four colonels to brigadier general, two of whom are women and two are Black, according to two U.S. officials, who both described a secretary of defense intervening in promotions as unprecedented.

Meanwhile, Democrats have failed in their multiple attempts to rein in President Donald Trump’s authority to wage war in Iran without Capitol Hill’s approval.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution gives the president latitude to conduct military strikes for a 60-day window, which closes Friday. The law allows for a one-time 30-day extension for the president to act without the consent of lawmakers, though it is unclear whether Trump intends to do so or whether Republicans will take into account the ceasefire in a way that relieves any deadline pressure.

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(WASHINGTON) — Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to self-surrender today in the Eastern District of Virginia, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

A federal grand jury in North Carolina on Tuesday indicted Comey over a controversial Instagram post from last year that President Donald Trump and members of his administration claimed was a threat against the president.

The new indictment centers on a controversy that erupted nearly a year ago when Comey, in a since-deleted Instagram post, shared a picture showing the numbers “86 47” written in seashells on the beach with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” Citing the slang meaning of “86” as to “nix” or “get rid” of something, allies of the president allege that the post was a veiled threat against Trump, who is the 47th president.

As outlined in the short, three-page indictment, Comey faces one charge of threats against the president and successors, and one charge of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.

Prosecutors in the indictment say the post constitutes a threat that any “reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”

Prosecutors will likely face a high legal bar to prove that the Instagram post constituted a “true threat,” which the Supreme Court in 2023 found required showing an individual understood their message would be perceived as threatening. With the phrase “86 47” increasingly adopted by protesters of the Trump administration, the case could carry sweeping implications for the First Amendment.

Comey was indicted last year on unrelated charges for allegedly lying to Congress and obstruction related to his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020. Comey’s lawyers moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing the case was politically motivated and that the grand jury never saw the charges in their entirety, and the case was ultimately dismissed over issues with the legitimacy of the prosecutor who brought the case.  

“I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude is going to be the same,” Comey said in a video posted to social media after the previous indictment was thrown out in November. “I’m innocent. I am not afraid, and I believe in an independent federal judiciary — the gift from our founders that protects us from a would-be tyrant.”

The new indictment comes as the Department of Justice in recent weeks has ramped up investigations of some of Trump’s perceived political foes under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is heading up the Justice Department following Trump’s ouster of Pam Bondi.

“Nothing has changed with me,” Comey posted online Tuesday in response to the indictment, echoing what he said after the previous indictment was thrown out last year. “I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary so let’s go.”

“But it’s really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country, this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be and the good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values,” he added. “Keep the faith.”

This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.

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