Harris to visit Monterey Park to meet with victims’ families

Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson

(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Monterey Park, California, on Wednesday to meet with victims’ families days after a mass shooter there killed 11 and wounded at least nine others at a Lunar New Year celebration inside a dance studio.

“As we grieve Saturday’s mass shooting in California, we already face two more this week alone in Half Moon Bay and Oakland,” Harris wrote on Twitter Tuesday, acknowledging the subsequent shootings in her home state this week.

“Tomorrow I will visit Monterey Park to stand and mourn with the community. Doug and I continue to pray for healing and recovery for all those impacted,” she wrote.

In Monterey Park, Brandon Tsay disarmed the shooter. Tsay later told ABC News he realized “everybody would die” if he didn’t take control of the situation, adding, “Something came over me.”

On Monday, seven people were killed in Half Moon Bay, in a mass shooting across two farms, authorities said, with workplace violence believed to be the motive. And only hours later in Oakland, at least one person was killed and seven more injured in another mass shooting at a gas station.

It’s unclear if the vice president will renew calls for an assault weapons ban while in Monterey Park — an action she and President Joe Biden support but which lacks the necessary backing among Republican lawmakers, many of whom say restrictions on firearms are ineffective and unconstitutional.

Congress broke a nearly 30-year stalemate last year by passing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the first major piece of federal gun reform to clear both chambers since what’s known as the 1993 Brady bill. The BSCA was crafted in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 young children and two teachers.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, alongside Connecticut Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, on Monday reintroduced a federal assault weapons ban and legislation that would raise the minimum purchase age for assault-style weapons to 21. But that legislation is unlikely to move forward.

Harris spoke about the Monterey Park shooting at a Sunday appearance in Florida to mark 50 years since Roe v. Wade, saying, “Yet another community has been torn apart by senseless gun violence.”

“All of us in this room and in our country understand this violence must stop,” she said then. “President Biden and I and our administration will continue to provide full support to the local authorities as we learn more.”

According to the Gun Violence Archive, the U.S. has seen more mass shootings than days in 2023.

ABC News’ Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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Woman pleads guilty to mailing ricin to then-President Donald Trump

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(WASHINGTON) — A Canadian-French dual national has pleaded guilty to charges that she mailed threatening letters containing the poison ricin to then-President Donald Trump, as well as eight Texas law enforcement officers, in 2020.

Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, 55, faces over 21 years in prison if a judge agrees to accept the terms of her plea agreement.

She is scheduled to be sentenced on April 26.

“There is no place for political violence in our country, and no excuse for threatening public officials or endangering our public servants,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said in a statement. “We hope this resolution will serve as a warning that using our mail system to send a toxic substance and other threats of this type will cost you your freedom for many years.”

Ferrier admitted in plea records to making the ricin at her home in Quebec in September 2020 and mailing it to Trump and the eight Texas officials, who she blamed for being connected to a prior incident where she was detained in the spring of 2019.

The letter addressed to Trump instructed him to “[g]ive up and remove [his] application for this election.”

After mailing the letters, Ferrier drove a car from Canada to the Peace Bridge Border Crossing in Buffalo, New York, where border patrol officials arrested her and found her in possession of a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other weapons.

She has remained in custody since then.

“This woman did not succeed in her efforts to poison numerous public officials in our district, but her actions still created fear and stress for many of these dedicated public servants,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said in a statement. “We are grateful for the hard work of the FBI and our other law enforcement partners in identifying and apprehending her.”

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McConnell says it’s up to McCarthy and Biden to negotiate a deal on the debt ceiling

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(WASHINGTON) — The debt ceiling debate continues to loom large on Capitol Hill as both sides prepare for a showdown that the Treasury Department has said could throw the U.S. economy into a tailspin if it isn’t able to borrow more money.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday made it clear that his chamber will play a backseat role in the process, telling reporters that he “can’t imagine” a debt ceiling proposal that could first pass in the Senate and then in the House.

“In this current situation, the debt ceiling fix — if there is one or has to be dealt with — has to come out of the House,” he said.

“I think the final solution to this particular episode lies between Speaker McCarthy and the president,” McConnell said.

With his new Republican majority, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has vowed to try and bring what he calls fiscal discipline to Washington, though congressional Democrats and the Biden White House have rejected the push for spending cuts as a partisan tactic that could “wreck” numerous livelihoods while weakening popular programs like Social Security.

It’s not yet entirely clear what McCarthy and his conference hope to reduce.

On Tuesday, the speaker told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott “no” when asked if he will change his mind on negotiating the debt ceiling with the White House.

“For the president to say he wouldn’t even negotiate — that’s irresponsible. We’re going to be responsible. We’re going to be sensible, and we’re going to get this done together. So the longer he waits, the more he puts the fiscal jeopardy of America up for grabs,” McCarthy said. “We should sit down and get this done and stop playing politics.”

The debt ceiling is a cap set by Congress on the amount of money the federal government can borrow to pay its current bills. The limit, now set at about $31.4 trillion, doesn’t authorize new spending.

The Treasury Department has said the U.S. hit that limit last week but that it can likely keep the government funded through early summer, through “extraordinary measures” and its standard cash flow.

McConnell said Tuesday that it was “entirely reasonable” for McCarthy to put spending cuts on the table and said he “wished him well” in talking with President Joe Biden.

“That’s where a solution lies,” said McConnell — whose been in such negotiations before. In 2011, he cut a last-minute deal with then-Vice President Biden to save the nation from debt default.

But the White House has repeatedly said raising the debt ceiling is non-negotiable and should be done without related cuts, especially on programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Biden said Tuesday, as he met with the new Democratic leadership at the White House, that he had “no intention of letting the Republicans wreck our economy.”

“Apparently, they’re genuinely serious about cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare,” Biden said of some of the measures proposed by Republican members, adding with a hint of sarcasm: “And I love their 30% sales tax.”

McCarthy last week said that he agreed to meet with Biden to discuss the debt ceiling, and while White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said Biden looks forward to sitting down with the new speaker, she reiterated their position on the issue was not up for debate.

“If you look at the debt ceiling right now, 90% of it was before the president walked in,” she told reporters on Tuesday. “So this is their duty.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats are going to present a collective front.

“The bottom line is that we said that our unity is our strength,” Schumer told reporters after meeting with Biden Tuesday. “The president, the House, the Senate are going to be on the same page talking about what we should do,” he said.

“And one of the things we want to do on the debt ceiling is tell Republicans, ‘Tell us your plan,'” Schumer said.

One thing most Senate Republicans seem to agree on is avoiding cuts to defense spending.

“I think that I’ve always said that if you don’t get national security right, the rest is conversation. That’s the job — job #1. So, I hope that as they have conversations over there [in the House] about this year’s funding levels that national security won’t be part of that,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune told ABC News.

In the meantime, the Treasury Department is employing “extraordinary measures” to stave off a debt crisis. The latest measure announced by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is an alteration as of Monday to the investments in government-run funds for retirees.

“I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” Yellen wrote.

She previously wrote to McCarthy that she didn’t expect the department’s “cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.”

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McCarthy rejects Democrats Schiff and Swalwell from House Intelligence Committee

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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday night rejected the reappointments of Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, both D-Calif., to the powerful House Intelligence Committee — fulfilling a promise McCarthy made even before he won the gavel.

The committee has special rules that allow the speaker to assign its members in consultation with the minority leader.

While the minority party’s recommendations have typically been seated, McCarthy has the power to decline to seat members without relying on a full floor vote of the chamber.

In a letter sent to House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, McCarthy cast his decision as one of “integrity,” suggesting that Schiff and Swalwell would weaken the committee on which they had served until January.

“I cannot put partisan loyalty ahead of national security, and I cannot simply recognize years of service as the sole criteria for membership on this essential committee. Integrity matters more,” McCarthy wrote.

The speaker argued that the “misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congress severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions — ultimately leaving our nation less safe.”

In pledging to keep Swalwell and Schiff off of House committees in this Congress, McCarthy has cited their past conduct: In Swalwell’s case, because of his reported run-ins with a suspected Chinese spy, though Swalwell wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing; and for Schiff, because of what McCarthy has said were his comments related to a disputed dossier about Donald Trump and Russia.

Jeffries said in a letter to McCarthy over the weekend that both Democrats were “eminently qualified” to continue to serve.

Moments before McCarthy’s decision was announced on Tuesday, Schiff told reporters that McCarthy was “trying to dictate to Democrats who can sit and who can lead Democrats on the Intelligence Committee.”

“It goes to the weakness of his speakership that he has to rely on these fraudsters and these QAnon conspiracy theorists,” Schiff said when asked if it was hypocritical to remove him while elevating Republicans like firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to the House Oversight Committee and giving embattled Rep. George Santos of New York some low-level committee assignments.

On Twitter, Swalwell pushed back on McCarthy’s criticism of him, calling it false, and wrote: “He can keep me off Intel, but I’m not going away.”

Schiff echoed that, tweeting, “This is petty, political payback for investigating Donald Trump. If he thinks this will stop me, he will soon find out just how wrong he is.”

Earlier in the evening, McCarthy and Jeffries were seen meeting off the House floor after McCarthy renewed his pledge to reject Schiff and Swalwell’s appointments.

“I believe there’s 200 other Democrats that can serve on that committee,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday.

Over the weekend, Jeffries formally selected Schiff and Swalwell to sit on the Intelligence Committee, despite McCarthy’s promise to keep them off the panel.

“It is my understanding that you intend to break with the longstanding House tradition of deference to the minority party Intelligence Committee recommendations and deny seats to Ranking Member Schiff and Representative Swalwell,” Jeffries wrote to the speaker then.

Jeffries wrote that “the denial of seats to duly elected Members of the House Democratic Caucus runs counter to the serious and sober mission of the Intelligence Committee.”

Citing Santos’ committee assignment, despite admitting to fabricating or embellishing parts of his background, Jeffries wrote: “The apparent double standard risks undermining the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that is so desperately needed.”

Republican leaders have pointed to how the House’s Democratic majority in the last Congress removed Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., from their committees over their past incendiary behavior, including Greene spreading conspiracies.

In both cases, some Republicans joined Democrats in voting to strip Greene and Gosar’s seats, Jeffries noted in his letter to McCarthy.

“What I am doing with the Intel Committee [is] bringing it back to the jurisdiction it’s supposed to do. Forward-looking to keep this country safe, keep the politics out of it,” McCarthy told reporters at a press conference earlier this month.

“So yes, I’m doing exactly what we’re supposed to do,” he said.

Separately, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., will be named by her party this week to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to Democratic sources.

McCarthy has also promised to keep Omar off of that committee, due to some of the controversial statements she has made, which could set up a House vote this week to remove her assignment.

However, two members of McCarthy’s conference — Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Victoria Spartz of Indiana — have said they won’t back him removing Democrats from committees.

Reps. Schiff, Swalwell and Omar released a statement Tuesday evening that said McCarthy’s decision was “disappointing” but not “surprising.”

“Kevin McCarthy has capitulated to the right wing of his caucus, undermining the integrity of the Congress, and harming our national security in the process. He struck a corrupt bargain in his desperate, and nearly failed, attempt to win the Speakership, a bargain that required political vengeance against the three of us,” the statement read. “But despite these efforts, McCarthy won’t be successful. We will continue to speak out against extremism and doggedly defend our democracy.”

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Mike Pompeo’s memoir stirs controversy with passages on Nikki Haley, Jamal Khashoggi

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(WASHINGTON) — Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new memoir, released on Tuesday, is drawing fire over sections about his Trump administration colleague Nikki Haley and the slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi — with pushback coming from Haley and Khashoggi’s widow.

In Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, Pompeo criticizes Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who was killed in 2018, and claims that former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Haley tried to replace Mike Pence as vice president under President Donald Trump.

“I wanted to tell the story from my perspective, for four years of the Trump administration, and our effort to put the American people at the front of American foreign policy,” Pompeo said in a Tuesday interview with CBS News.

Pompeo wrote in his book that Khashoggi was “cozy” with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political movement, and that Khashoggi mourned Osama bin Laden’s death.

“He didn’t deserve to die, but we need to be clear about who he was — and too many in the media were not,” Pompeo wrote, describing “a situation far more complex than has been acknowledged.”

In a statement released on Tuesday, Fred Ryan, publisher and CEO of The Washington Post, denounced Pompeo’s characterization of Khashoggi.

“It is shocking and disappointing to see Mike Pompeo’s book so outrageously misrepresent the life and work of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi,” Ryan said.

“As the CIA – which Pompeo once directed – concluded, Jamal was brutally murdered on the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s prince has denied having personal knowledge of Khashoggi’s death, though U.S. intelligence concluded that he would have signed off on the operation to either capture or kill Khashoggi.

Pompeo writes in his book that it was “agents of the Saudi regime” who “literally chopped [Khashoggi] into pieces,” which he called “grotesque butchery.”

Pompeo responded to Ryan’s criticism on Twitter, writing, “Americans are safer because we didn’t label Saudi Arabia a pariah state. I never let the media bully me. Just [because] someone is a part-time stringer for [the Post] doesn’t make their life more important than our military serving in dangerous places protecting us all. I never forgot that.”

Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, told ABC News that it was “not true” that her late husband was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“It is shameful to try to justify a horrible crime against my husband,” she said in a statement.

Pompeo, a former CIA director and Kansas congressman who was Trump’s last secretary of state, told CBS News on Tuesday he was considering a 2024 run for president. But he said he was still undecided on whether to throw his hat in the ring — though Trump’s own decision to run would not affect his own decision.

Also in the Tuesday interview with CBS, Pompeo addressed another controversy around his book. He wrote how he was told that at one point during Trump’s presidency, Haley apparently tried to oust Pence to become vice president.

Haley denied that in an interview with Fox News last week, saying, “It’s really sad when you’re having to go out there and put lies and gossip to sell a book.”

But Pompeo said on CBS that he was told it “was true” by both Trump’s then-chief of staff, John Kelly, and Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser. Pompeo suggested that Haley, who left the administration before him, was less committed to serving.

Haley is also a possible candidate in the 2024 presidential election but has not said whether she will run.

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Judge delays ruling on release of Georgia election interference probe report

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(FULTON COUNTY, Ga.) — The judge hearing arguments over whether or not to publicly release the report by the Georgia grand jury investigating efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election said Tuesday that he will take all arguments under consideration and “circle back” with a decision at a later date.

Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney heard arguments Tuesday regarding the public release the long-anticipated confidential report, which the grand jury submitted earlier this month, according to court records, after probing the matter for months.

“My proposal is that I think about this a little bit and then contact both groups,” McBurney said. “There will be no rash decisions.”

Earlier in the hearing, the district attorney leading the probe told the judge that she opposes the public release of the grand jury’s report.

“In this case, the state understands the media’s inquiry and the world’s interest,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told McBurney. “But we have to be mindful of protecting future defendants’ rights. We want to make sure that everyone is being fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate for this report to be released.”

“Decisions are imminent,” Willis said.

Donald Wakeford, a prosecutor in the DA’s office, also argued that release would be “dangerous” to the people “who may or may not be named in the report for various reasons.”

“It’s also a disservice to the witnesses who came to the grand jury and spoke the truth to the grand jury,” Wakeford said.

Prosecutors said that 75 witnesses were interviewed as part of the probe.

Thomas Clyde, a lawyer representing a coalition of media outlets that includes ABC News, urged Judge McBurney to order the release of the report based on existing case law and “a genuine public interest in what these jurors found.”

“We believe the report should be released now and in its entirety,” Clyde said. “It is not unusual for the [district attorney] … to release information during the progress of its case.”

Clyde cited several examples in which “special purpose” grand jury reports were made public, and argued that none of the material likely included in the report would justify keeping it sealed.

Though the grand jury does not have the ability to return an indictment, it can make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution. Another grand jury would bring any possible charges, should they be recommended.

The central question regarding the report: Did the grand jury recommend criminal charges for Donald Trump and his allies?

Attorneys for Trump said in a statement on Monday that they would not be participating in Tuesday’s hearing — and did not expect charge recommendations.

“On behalf of President Trump, we will not be present nor participating in Tuesday’s hearing regarding the possible release of the special purpose grand jury’s report,” said the statement. “To date, we have never been a part of this process. The grand jury compelled the testimony of dozens of other, often high-ranking, officials during the investigation, but never found it important to speak with the President. He was never subpoenaed nor asked to come in voluntarily by this grand jury or anyone in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.”

Attorneys in the statement said they therefore “assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump” — although there’s no indication if that’s true or not.

Willis officially launched the probe in February 2021, sparked in part by the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the exact number Trump needed to win Georgia.

Trump has repeatedly defended his call to Raffensperger, calling it “perfect.”

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Classified documents found at Mike Pence’s home and turned over to DOJ: Sources

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(WASHINGTON) — Classified documents have been found in the home of former Vice President Mike Pence and turned over to the FBI for review, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

A lawyer for Pence conducted the search of Pence’s home in Indiana last week and found around a dozen documents marked as classified, sources said. The search was done proactively and in the wake of the news that classified documents from before he was president were found in Joe Biden’s home and old office at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

The Pence documents are undergoing a review by the Department of Justice’s National Security Division and the FBI, sources said.

Pence previously told ABC News’ David Muir that he did not retain any classified information after leaving office.

“Let me ask you, as we sit here in your home office in Indiana, did you take any classified documents with you from the White House?” Muir asked in a November interview.

“I did not,” Pence said then. Asked if he saw “any reason for anyone to take classified documents with them, leaving the White House,” he said, “There’d be no reason to have classified documents, particularly if they were in an unprotected area.”

CNN first reported the discovery of classified materials.

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

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Classified documents found at Mike Pence’s home and turned over to DOJ: Lawyer

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(WASHINGTON) — Classified documents have been found in the home of former Vice President Mike Pence and turned over to the FBI for review, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

A lawyer for Pence conducted the search of Pence’s home in Indiana last week and found around a dozen documents marked as classified, sources said. The search was done proactively and in the wake of the news that classified documents from before he was president were found in Joe Biden’s home and old office at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

The Pence documents are undergoing a review by the Department of Justice’s National Security Division and the FBI, the sources said.

CNN first reported the discovery of classified materials.

In a letter sent last week to the National Archives, and obtained by ABC News, a representative for Pence wrote that Pence had engaged outside counsel on Jan. 16 to review records that were stored in his home. It was during that review that a lawyer found a “small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information interspersed throughout the records.”

Pence’s lawyer and representative, Greg Jacob, wrote in the letter that the counsel was unable to provide an exact description of the folders or briefing materials because they did not review the contents after realizing they had potential classification markings.

“Vice President Pence immediately secured those documents in a locked safe pending further direction on proper handling from the National Archives,” Jacob, who is Pence’s designated representative for his records and also his former top lawyer during the administration, wrote in the letter.

Jacob asserted that Pence was “unaware” of the records being in his possession and was “willing to cooperate fully with the National Archives and any appropriate inquiry.”

In a second letter to the National Archives sent on Sunday, Jacob wrote that the Department of Justice requested direct possession of the documents and that Pence agreed to them taking possession, even though he was in Washington, D.C., at the time.

Jacob wrote that FBI agents came to Pence’s Indiana home last Thursday night to collect the documents. The transfer of the documents was facilitated by Pence’s personal lawyer, who conducted the prior review on Jan. 16.

In his letter, Jacob disclosed that there were four boxes containing administration papers, which included two boxes with papers with classified markings as well as “two separate boxes containing courtesy copies” of Pence’s vice presidential papers.

Jacob wrote he would deliver the boxes, which had been sealed, to the National Archives on Monday, Jan. 23.

Pence previously told ABC News’ David Muir that he did not retain any classified information after leaving office.

“Let me ask you, as we sit here in your home office in Indiana, did you take any classified documents with you from the White House?” Muir asked in a November interview.

“I did not,” Pence said then. Asked if he saw “any reason for anyone to take classified documents with them, leaving the White House,” he said, “There’d be no reason to have classified documents, particularly if they were in an unprotected area.”

The revelation makes Pence the third high-profile official to have classified material discovered at their residence in recent months.

Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was searched by federal agents in August after what the federal government said was a months-long effort to retrieve documents that they said he resisted handing over.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and asserted, without evidence, that he declassified the documents.

Biden’s attorneys have said his documents were “inadvertently placed” at his home and office, and emphasized cooperation with the Department of Justice. Biden’s lawyers stated they immediately turned over the documents to the appropriate authorities and consented to an FBI search of his Wilmington, Delaware, home on Friday.

But the president has been under fire for not disclosing the matter to the public sooner, as the first set of documents were found on Nov. 2 — just a week before the midterm elections.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to determine if any laws were broken in Biden and Trump’s handling of classified materials while out of office.

John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former Department of Homeland Security undersecretary, said that in many cases it’s an “accident” that such material is taken out when an official leaves office.

“I suspect that because of the visibility that the Biden case and the Trump case have generated, that you have a large number of former government officials — whether they be former presidents or others — who are looking in their basement at boxes that they’ve stored there since the last government,” Cohen told ABC’s “Start Here” podcast.

But Cohen acknowledged then the process for handling the bulk of classified information is problematic and lacks a tracking system.

Only a small subset of classified material is required to undergo a sign-in and sign-out process, Cohen explained.

“The government over the last five, six, seven years has made strides in identifying behavior that could be suspicious on these government systems … But this idea that every classified paper document is being tracked? That’s just not how the system works,” he said.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.

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DA opposes release of report by grand jury probing efforts to overturn 2020 election in Georgia

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(ATLANTA) — The district attorney leading the Fulton County, Georgia, investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election told a judge Tuesday that she opposes the public release of the grand jury’s report on the probe.

Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney is hearing arguments regarding whether or not to publicly release the long-anticipated confidential report, which the grand jury submitted earlier this month, according to court records, after probing the matter for months.

“In this case, the state understands the media’s inquiry and the world’s interest,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told the judge. “But we have to be mindful of protecting future defendants’ rights. We want to make sure that everyone is being fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate for this report to be released.”

“Decisions are imminent,” Willis said.

Donald Wakeford, a prosecutor in the DA’s office, also argued that release would be “dangerous” to the people “who may or may not be named in the report for various reasons.”

“It’s also a disservice to the witnesses who came to the grand jury and spoke the truth to the grand jury,” Wakeford said.

Prosecutors said that 75 witnesses were interviewed as part of the probe.

Thomas Clyde, a lawyer representing a coalition of media outlets that includes ABC News, urged Judge McBurney to order the release of the report based on existing case law and “a genuine public interest in what these jurors found.”

“We believe the report should be released now and in its entirety,” Clyde said. “It is not unusual for the [district attorney] … to release information during the progress of its case.”

Clyde cited several examples in which “special purpose” grand jury reports were made public, and argued that none of the material likely included in the report would justify keeping it sealed.

Though the grand jury does not have the ability to return an indictment, it can make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution. Another grand jury would bring any possible charges, should they be recommended.

The central question regarding the report: Did the grand jury recommend criminal charges for Donald Trump and his allies?

Attorneys for Trump said in a statement on Monday that they would not be participating in Tuesday’s hearing — and did not expect charge recommendations.

“On behalf of President Trump, we will not be present nor participating in Tuesday’s hearing regarding the possible release of the special purpose grand jury’s report,” said the statement. “To date, we have never been a part of this process. The grand jury compelled the testimony of dozens of other, often high-ranking, officials during the investigation, but never found it important to speak with the President. He was never subpoenaed nor asked to come in voluntarily by this grand jury or anyone in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.”

Attorneys in the statement said they therefore “assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump” — although there’s no indication if that’s true or not.

Willis officially launched the probe in February 2021, sparked in part by the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the exact number Trump needed to win Georgia.

Trump has repeatedly defended his call to Raffensperger, calling it “perfect.”

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Judge delays decision on release of report by grand jury probing efforts to overturn 2020 election in Georgia

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(ATLANTA) — The judge hearing arguments over whether or not to publicly release the report by the Georgia grand jury investigating efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election said Tuesday that he will take all arguments under consideration and “circle back” with a decision at a later date.

Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney heard arguments Tuesday regarding whether or not to publicly release the long-anticipated confidential report, which the grand jury submitted earlier this month, according to court records, after probing the matter for months.

“My proposal is that I think about this a little bit and then contact both groups,” McBurney said. “There will be no rash decisions.”

Earlier in the hearing, the district attorney leading the probe told the judge that she opposes the public release of the grand jury’s report.

“In this case, the state understands the media’s inquiry and the world’s interest,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told McBurney. “But we have to be mindful of protecting future defendants’ rights. We want to make sure that everyone is being fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly, it is not appropriate for this report to be released.”

“Decisions are imminent,” Willis said.

Donald Wakeford, a prosecutor in the DA’s office, also argued that release would be “dangerous” to the people “who may or may not be named in the report for various reasons.”

“It’s also a disservice to the witnesses who came to the grand jury and spoke the truth to the grand jury,” Wakeford said.

Prosecutors said that 75 witnesses were interviewed as part of the probe.

Thomas Clyde, a lawyer representing a coalition of media outlets that includes ABC News, urged Judge McBurney to order the release of the report based on existing case law and “a genuine public interest in what these jurors found.”

“We believe the report should be released now and in its entirety,” Clyde said. “It is not unusual for the [district attorney] … to release information during the progress of its case.”

Clyde cited several examples in which “special purpose” grand jury reports were made public, and argued that none of the material likely included in the report would justify keeping it sealed.

Though the grand jury does not have the ability to return an indictment, it can make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution. Another grand jury would bring any possible charges, should they be recommended.

The central question regarding the report: Did the grand jury recommend criminal charges for Donald Trump and his allies?

Attorneys for Trump said in a statement on Monday that they would not be participating in Tuesday’s hearing — and did not expect charge recommendations.

“On behalf of President Trump, we will not be present nor participating in Tuesday’s hearing regarding the possible release of the special purpose grand jury’s report,” said the statement. “To date, we have never been a part of this process. The grand jury compelled the testimony of dozens of other, often high-ranking, officials during the investigation, but never found it important to speak with the President. He was never subpoenaed nor asked to come in voluntarily by this grand jury or anyone in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.”

Attorneys in the statement said they therefore “assume that the grand jury did their job and looked at the facts and the law, as we have, and concluded there were no violations of the law by President Trump” — although there’s no indication if that’s true or not.

Willis officially launched the probe in February 2021, sparked in part by the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the exact number Trump needed to win Georgia.

Trump has repeatedly defended his call to Raffensperger, calling it “perfect.”

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