(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday sought to delay an upcoming status conference in the criminal case against Rep. George Santos, telling the judge in a new court filing they are discussing “possible paths forward” with Santos’ defense attorneys.
Santos, 35, a first-term congressman, has been accused of fraud, money laundering, stealing public funds and lying to Congress. He has pleaded not guilty.
A status conference had been scheduled for Thursday in Central Islip, New York, but prosecutors asked the judge to delay it until Oct. 27.
Santos’ attorneys said they need extra time to review all the evidence that has been turned over through discovery as they continue to plot a defense.
“Further, the parties have continued to discuss possible paths forward in this matter,” the filing said. “The parties wish to have additional time to continue those discussions.”
Prosecutors claim Santos relied on “repeated dishonesty and deception” to reach Congress and “used political contributions to line his pockets.” Additionally, he is charged with unlawfully applying for unemployment benefits during the pandemic and lying to the House of Representatives about his financial condition.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio is set to be sentenced Tuesday for his conviction on charges of seditious conspiracy and several other felonies stemming from his leadership role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Tarrio will be the final leader of the far-right group convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack to be sentenced. While Tarrio was not present in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, prosecutors said he was the ringleader who helped orchestrate the events of Jan. 6.
Prosecutors are seeking 33 years in prison for Tarrio, their harshest recommended sentence yet for an individual charged in connection with the attack — though he is likely to receive much less than that based on the sentences handed down last week by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly for four of Tarrio’s co-defendants.
Judge Kelly went well below the sentencing guidelines in his prison terms handed down to Proud Boys leaders Joseph Biggs, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison, Zachary Rehl, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and Ethan Nordean, who received 18 years in prison — matching the longest sentence to date handed down in connection with the Capitol attack to Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. Dominic Pezzola, the sole defendant charged in the case who was found not guilty of seditious conspiracy, but who was convicted of several other major felonies, was sentenced last Friday to 10 years in prison.
In the hearings last week, Kelly explained his decisions to sentence the Proud Boys below what the federal sentencing guidelines called for, noting that previous decadeslong sentences handed down to individuals convicted of seditious conspiracy were often in cases where their actions directly resulted in loss of life.
“The defendants understood the stakes, and they embraced their role in bringing about a ‘revolution,'” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum earlier this month for Tarrio and the other Proud Boys. “They unleashed a force on the Capitol that was calculated to exert their political will on elected officials by force and to undo the results of a democratic election. The foot soldiers of the right aimed to keep their leader in power. They failed. They are not heroes; they are criminals.”
The recommendation underscores what prosecutors see as the Proud Boys’ singular role in igniting much of the violence at the Capitol that day, as well as Tarrio’s leadership in the conspiracy by directing his followers’ actions to disrupt Congress’ certification of the 2020 election — despite the fact he was not in Washington, D.C., during the attack.
The request of 33 years for Tarrio is eight years more than the 25 years prosecutors had previously sought for Rhodes, who received an 18-year sentence that prosecutors are now appealing, arguing it was too lenient.
It is not immediately clear whether prosecutors will similarly plan to appeal the sentences handed down to the Proud Boys.
In their 80-page sentencing memo, prosecutors argued that for years the far-right group “intentionally positioned themselves at the vanguard of political violence in this country” by bringing an “army of violence” to communities such as Portland, Oregon; Kalamazoo, Michigan; and Washington, D.C., where they often engaged in violent clashes with leftist protesters.
“They brought that violence to the Capitol on January 6 in an effort to change the course of American history, and the sentences imposed by this Court should reflect the seriousness of their offenses,” prosecutors said.
As they did through much of the more than four-month-long trial, prosecutors point out how the group became emboldened and saw a swelling of its ranks after former President Donald Trump mentioned them during a September 2020 presidential debate, in which he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” after being asked if he would condemn the group’s actions.
Tarrio previously had gathered members of the group to protests in D.C. in November and December of 2020 and even posted a photo of himself visiting the White House.
He was arrested in D.C. two days before Jan. 6 on charges that he burned a Black Lives Matter flag during one of the prior protests that had erupted into violence, as well as possession of two high-capacity firearms magazines. While he was ordered to stay out of the city as result of those charges, messages displayed by prosecutors during the trial showed him in close contact with associates as they carried out the attack on the building.
In their sentencing memo, prosecutors extensively cite the group’s calls for using force to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election win, their communications over encrypted messaging apps to organize and recruit others, and actions during key moments throughout the riot to help fuel the violence on the ground.
“Such conduct in leading and instigating an attack like January 6 demands deterrence,” prosecutors said. “It is critical that this Court impose significant sentences of incarceration on all the defendants in this case to convey to those who would mobilize such political violence in the future that their actions will have consequences.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate is set for an uncertain and busy return from its August recess Tuesday, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s health in question and a stocked to-do list looming.
The longtime GOP leader last week appeared to freeze for more than 30 seconds while giving remarks in Kentucky. The incident added to concerns that were sparked in late July when the 81-year-old was escorted away by colleagues from a press conference on Capitol Hill after he stopped speaking mid-sentence.
He stayed to answer another question last week, while in July he eventually returned to answer more questions from the press after he was helped away.
McConnell’s office attributed the latest freeze to lightheadedness and released a letter Thursday from Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the Capitol attending physician, who said he had consulted with McConnell and McConnell’s neurology team and that the Republican leader is medically clear to continue with his schedule.
Monahan did not say he personally examined McConnell.
“… I have informed Leader McConnell that he is medically clear to continue with his schedule as planned,” Monahan said. “Occasional lightheadedness is not uncommon in concussion recovery and can also be expected as a result of dehydration.”
McConnell’s health has been a source of concern and speculation since he suffered a concussion and a broken rib after a fall in Washington earlier this year. He underwent inpatient rehabilitation after a dayslong hospital stay.
The GOP leader’s allies have come out in support after his second freeze, insisting the Kentuckian is up to the task of leading his party in the Senate.
“Mitch is sharp, and he is shrewd. He understands what needs to be done,” South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said Sunday on CNN. “I will leave it up to him as to how he wants to discuss that with the American public. But there’s no doubt in my mind that he is perfectly capable of continuing on at this stage of the game.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote Thursday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that McConnell is “fully prepared to continue leading our caucus when the Senate resumes session on Tuesday.”
Even President Joe Biden, who often finds himself on the other end of the negotiating table from McConnell but formed a decadeslong relationship with him while in the Senate, expressed confidence that McConnell would be able to execute his job.
“I spoke to him today,” Biden told reporters Thursday. “He was his old self on the telephone.”
Asked if he harbored concerns about McConnell’s ability to serve as GOP leader, Biden responded, “No, I don’t.”
Still, other Republicans continue to have concerns regarding the freeze episodes.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination and has already called for competency tests for leaders over 75 years old, pointed to McConnell and other ailing lawmakers like Sen. Dianne Feinstein to argue that Congress’ old guard should consider stepping aside.
“At what point do they get it’s time to leave?” Haley said on CBS News. “They need to let a younger generation take over. We want to go and start working for our kids to make sure we have a strong national security, to make sure we have a stronger economic policy, to make sure that America is safe.”
Fellow GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Friday that he thought it would be “most prudent if he stepped aside.”
The speculation over McConnell’s health is taking place amid fierce debates over government spending and aide to Ukraine.
Government funding runs out at the end of the month, and Congress will need to either pass a new budget or a continuing resolution, a short-term patch that would extend government funding at current levels.
Prior to the August recess, senators marked up legislation that largely mirrors the budget caps agreed to by Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., earlier this year. However, the GOP-controlled House pushed legislation far beneath those levels.
Among the major dividing lines among Republicans is aide to Ukraine, with more traditional lawmakers, including McConnell, urging more weapons and resources go to Kyiv and more populist lawmakers suggesting Washington roll back its support.
Some hardline House Republicans have also threatened to vote against a government funding bill if it doesn’t include funding for their own investigations into the Biden administration or remove funding from special counsel Jack Smith’s probes into former President Donald Trump, language that would likely have trouble getting passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
“My guess is we will have a lot of screaming and shouting, and we’ll end up shutting down the government,” Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said last week. “And a lot of people will be inconvenienced or hurt as a result of doing that. But we’ll do it.”
(SALEM, N.H.) — Former Vice President Mike Pence and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who have become fast foils on the 2024 campaign trail, attended the same picnic in Salem, New Hampshire, on Labor Day, their first time in the same space since sparring at last month’s debate.
But Pence slipped out shortly after making his remarks and the two did not meet, despite coming within 20 feet or so of each other.
Pence and Ramaswamy, the two candidates who spoke the most on the first Republican debate stage in Milwaukee, due in part to their repeated clashes, have continued to criticize each other on the campaign trail and in media appearances in the nearly two weeks since.
Ramaswamy has questioned Pence for certifying the 2020 election results, insisting that the vice president could have asked for several election reforms, and only certify the election results on the condition reforms were enacted — a notion Pence unequivocally rejects.
Pence, meanwhile, has blasted Ramaswamy as, he says, “just wrong” — on foreign policy, election policy and inheritance tax policy. Ramaswamy, in turn, has said Pence is misrepresenting his positions.
Ramaswamy, asked at Monday’s event about Pence’s critical view of him, said in part: “He’s a good guy and I wish him well in his life …. I think that the fact that we’re having real debates in this party about the division between a neoconservative foreign policy establishment and a new, unapologetically nationalistic vision of how we advance American interest — that’s good. I’m glad we’ve smoked that out. And I think that we’re going to persuade many people.”
They’ve offered brief compliments, too. Ramaswamy has called Pence “a man of faith” and Pence has called Ramaswamy “a good family man.” They shared a quick handshake at the end of the debate.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Steve Laffey, the former mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, also spoke and met with voters at the Salem Republican Town Committee’s annual Labor Day picnic, as presidential candidates descend on the first-in-the-nation primary state with months to go until votes are cast.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who ruled out running for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year but has played kingmaker to candidates in his state since, also addressed attendees.
Pence isn’t the only Republican going after the 38-year-old political outsider. Former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who returns to New Hampshire on Tuesday, continues to call Ramaswamy “naive” on foreign policy after calling out his lack on experience at the debate.
(PHILADELPHIA) — President Joe Biden celebrated Labor Day with remarks in front of a union crowd in Philadelphia.
Biden, who says he’s the most pro-union president in history, spoke at the Tri-State Labor Day Parade hosted by the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, which is comprised of more than 100 local unions representing 150,000 workers.
There, he touted job creation and other economic initiatives while hammering former President Donald Trump’s record in a likely preview of his 2024 reelection message.
“Bidenomics is a blue collar blueprint for America,” Biden said, referencing his sprawling economic vision to build the economy from the bottom up.
“My plan for the country is to make the economy work for people like you, because when it works for people like you, it works for everybody,” Biden told the audience, adding: “It’s working.”
Biden has struggled to convince voters on his handling of the economy, polls have shown, despite positive economic indicators. The latest jobs report, released last Friday, showed U.S. hiring and wage increases slowed in August but remained steady.
The president on Monday trumpeted the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, including 13.5 million jobs created, a historically low unemployment rate of below 4% and cooling inflation.
“You wouldn’t know from all the negative news you hear,” Biden said, calling it “one of the greatest job creation periods in American history.”
“It wasn’t that long ago that 20 million people were out of work, but you didn’t give up,” he said. “Philadelphia didn’t give up. America didn’t give up.”
Seeking to a draw a contrast with the Republican frontrunner looking to oust him, Biden criticized Trump several times throughout his speech — though never mentioned him by name.
“The last guy who was here, he looked at the world from Park Avenue,” Biden said. “I look at it from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I look at it from Claymont, Delaware.”
He compared his jobs record to Trump’s as well.
“It wasn’t that long ago we were losing jobs in this country. In fact, the guy who held his job before me was just one of two presidents in history … who left office with fewer jobs in America than when he got elected to office,” Biden said.
On infrastructure, Biden touted 800,000 manufacturing jobs added nationwide and the passage of a massive $1.2 trillion bipartisan law to upgrade outdated roads, bridges, transit systems and more. Biden said million of dollars has gone to Pennsylvania, a key 2024 battleground state, for updates to Roosevelt Boulevard, area airports and more.
“The great real estate builder, the last guy, he didn’t build a damn thing,” Biden said in another swipe at Trump. “Under my predecessor, infrastructure week became a punch line.”
Biden at the top of his speech also addressed another key issue plaguing his reelection bid: his age.
Voters and candidates have raised concerns about Biden’s age. A new poll from the Associated Press found 77% of the public said Biden (who turned 80 last year) is too old to serve another term. Only about half of U.S. adults said the same about Trump, who is 77.
“I’ll tell you what, someone said, ‘That Biden, he’s getting old,'” Biden said on Monday. “Well guess what, the only thing that comes with age is a little bit of wisdom.”
“I’ve been doing this longer than anybody and, guess what, I’m gonna continue to do with your help,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia on Sunday said that he believes a strong legal argument can be made to use the 14th Amendment to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in 2024, citing Trump’s actions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Shortly after Jan. 6, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for inciting an insurrection amid his push to overturn his election loss, with 10 Republicans and all Democrats voting to impeach him.
He denied any wrongdoing, and while seven members of his own party joined Democrats to support his conviction, he was ultimately acquitted by the Senate.
“In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose at a particular moment, and that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power of as is laid out in the Constitution,” Kaine said Sunday in an interview with ABC This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos. “So I think there’s a powerful argument to be made.”
“The language is specific,” Kaine argued, referring to a section of the amendment that states that someone isn’t eligible for future office if, while they were previously in office, they took an oath to support the Constitution but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or [gave] aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” unless they are granted amnesty by a two-thirds vote of Congress.
Some legal scholars and advocacy groups agree that that would include Trump, though similar efforts against other Republicans have failed.
A Trump campaign spokesman previously called the potential use of the 14th Amendment “blatant election interference.”
Kaine, a former vice presidential nominee, said on This Week that his congressional colleagues had debated using the 14th Amendment to remove Trump from office, rather than pursuing a second impeachment in the wake of Jan. 6. He said he thought at the time that it might have been “a more productive way to go.”
Still, Kaine suggested that Democrats should not put all their hopes in the legal maneuver.
“My sense is it’s probably going to get resolved in the courts,” he said. “But, you know, I think what we have to focus on in our side is we just got to win in 2024.”
He said that starts with winning legislative races in his home state in 2023, because it “will send a message” about next year’s elections.
Last week, President Joe Biden directed the Democratic National Committee to invest $1.2 million in those races, a DNC spokesperson confirmed to ABC News. The money will go toward supporting campaign staffing and get-out-the-vote programming across the state, the DNC said.
Kaine on This Week also slammed many of the 2024 Republican presidential contenders as having a “complete lack of a moral compass” because of their pledge to vote for Trump even if he were to be convicted of a crime. (Vivek Ramaswamy, one of those candidates, maintained in his own appearance on This Week that the prosecutions of Trump are wrong.)
“If you are unwilling to say that the behavior of Donald Trump trying to overturn the peaceful transfer of power is a disqualifier, if you pledge, despite that, to vote for him, if you pledge, despite that, to pardon him should you be elected — it shows that you don’t have the moral compass that you need to be the leader of the greatest nation in the world,” Kaine said.
Stephanopoulos asked Kaine about why Trump, despite his legal challenges, is tied with Biden in recent polling. (Trump has pleaded not guilty in four cases.)
Biden has also grappled with anemic approval and favorability ratings that suggest voters are discontent with both politicians.
Kaine cited the “painful” years Americans have gone through with the COVID-19 pandemic causing more than a million deaths, countless job losses and personal sacrifices.
“I think there is a collective trauma that still is kind of working its way through the system,” he said. “But as I look at what the Biden administration, working with Congress, has been able to do: delivering on infrastructure, delivering on clean energy, record job growth, manufacturing is back in the United States. And I have every reason to believe we’re going to continue to be able to celebrate those accomplishments.”
Kaine added that a contrast between Biden’s legislative wins will be a split screen that will help Democrats.
“On the other side, you’re going to be reading what is the latest news about Donald Trump’s criminal trials,” he said.
Pressed by Stephanopoulos if the current close race between Biden and Trump reflects voters’ concerns about Biden’s age, health or his policies, Kaine pointed the finger at what he called poor messaging.
“We have to do, as Democrats, something that we don’t do so well which is go out and sell: Sell the accomplishments, sell the infrastructure projects, sell the growth and manufacturing jobs,” Kaine said. “And if we do that, I think Joe Biden is going to get reelected.”
(NEW YORK) — Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, one of Donald Trump’s rivals in the 2024 race and one of the former president’s biggest defenders on the trail, said Sunday that while he would have made different judgments than Trump regarding Jan. 6 and the handling of classified documents — those decisions shouldn’t be grounds for prosecution.
“I do draw a distinction, George, between bad behavior and illegal behavior,” Ramaswamy said in an interview with ABC This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos. “And once we start conflating those two things, I think we’re in a long, downward slide as a country.”
Ramaswamy was repeatedly pressed by Stephanopoulos about disagreeing with some of Trump’s conduct — and which actions in particular he disagreed with — while still backing the former president.
Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur and commentator, has been thrust into the spotlight since entering the race for the White House early this year. He has defined his platform by promising to embrace and expand Trump’s policies.
He has also committed to pardoning Trump if he is elected president and quickly raised his hand during the first GOP primary debate when asked if he would vote for Trump if Trump is convicted.
“Can you just explain why you would vote for a convicted felon for president?” Stephanopoulos asked on Sunday.
“I expect to be the next nominee, and that’s why I’m running for president. But I also intend to keep the [loyalty] pledge that I made,” Ramaswamy responded.
When Stephanopoulos followed up, Ramaswamy sought to dismiss the indictments against Trump as “outright, downright politicized persecutions,” which prosecutors reject.
Trump is charged in four cases and has pleaded not guilty in each.
“I’m in this race because I believe I can lead us forward and reunite this country. But if it’s not me as the nominee, I still expect that Donald Trump or whoever the Republican nominee will be better than the alternative,” Ramaswamy said.
Stephanopoulos asked about when Ramaswamy in 2021 described Trump’s actions around Jan. 6 as “abhorrent” and what particular decisions he was criticizing.
Ramaswamy initially pivoted his answer, maintaining that “systematic censorship was the true cause of what happened that day” and citing other issues including COVID-19 restrictions and Hunter Biden’s scandals.
When Stephanopoulos drilled down, Ramaswamy said he wouldn’t have urged supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, as Trump did two years ago — though Ramaswamy also noted Trump at one point called for peaceful demonstrations — and he wouldn’t have endorsed competing but unauthorized slates of electors before Congress, an alleged criminal scheme detailed in two of Trump’s indictments.
“I disagree with a lot of what he did that day. I said so at the time,” Ramaswamy said, adding, “But that is still different for saying that he should be prosecuted for it, which I think sets a dangerous precedent.”
On Trump’s other federal indictment, for allegedly mishandling and refusing to return government secrets while out of office, Ramaswamy again said that he would have acted differently but didn’t believe anything illegal was done.
“I’ll come back to a simple theme, and I hope I can make this clear for you: There’s a difference between a bad judgment and a crime,” he said.
“It would be easier for me if Donald Trump were eliminated from competition. That is why it’s particularly important for me to state with clarity that on principle, I’m still against seeing him eliminated that way,” Ramaswamy said. “And that’s why I have been so vocal about this.”
Stephanopoulos followed up to say: “You find his actions abhorrent around Jan. 6, you said he was wrong to take the classified information, you said you would not do that yourself. But you still say you would vote for him for president. That’s what I don’t get.”
Ramaswamy responded that “I said what every Republican nominee said to make it on that debate stage, that we will actually support the Republican nominee from our party.”
More broadly, he insisted that his focus is on the future and on delivering Republican priorities, including “go[ing] further than Trump in advancing that America first agenda.”
Ramaswamy also argued that there was an “obsession,” in culture and in the media, with “looking backwards” at one person — at Trump — “as opposed to talking about what we need to talk about.” He called that a hindrance to moving the country forward to national unity.
Stephanopoulos pushed back: “Sir, that man is the front-runner for the Republican nomination right now. He’s a former president of the United States. He’s leading you by 40 points [in the polls]. Yet you still say you would vote for him despite what you say about his behavior. That’s the question I am asking. It’s not an obsession.”
Ramaswamy said he planned to vote for Trump “just as I expect him to vote for me when I’m the nominee.”
“If I’m expecting and deciding between the nominee, even though I disagree with many of my rivals in the Republican Party on a lot of issues, I think any of them will be better than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris to move this nation forward,” he said.
He continued: “That is my arbitrator when I cast my vote for who the next president is — who’s going to serve the interests of the American people?”
(WASHINGTON) — Kelly Barnett had a “horrible feeling” about her son after learning of the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s airport amid the hectic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“I kept texting him, ‘Are you OK? Are you good?'” Barnett, mother of Marine Staff Sgt. Darin “Taylor” Hoover, told ABC This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz in a segment that aired Sunday. “I had a three, three-hour drive back to my house. That whole drive home, I was sobbing. I knew something was wrong. I could feel it.”
Hoover was one of 13 U.S. service members who died in the attack on Aug. 26, 2021. Raddatz sat down with his mother and the Gold Star family members of two other Marines killed that day.
As the Taliban swept through Afghanistan in 2021, 6,000 U.S. troops were dispatched to the Kabul airport to aid the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians desperate to flee. Abbey Gate was the only remaining public entrance for civilians who swarmed the gate despite the chaos and danger. It was there that the suicide bomber would detonate his device, ending the lives of the 13 service members and more than 170 Afghan civilians.
Less than a week before the bombing, Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee posted a photo of herself holding an infant at the Kabul airport with the caption, “I love my job.” At 23 years old, Gee volunteered to join the mission.
“She shared with me that she had never seen people so desperate,” said Christy Shamblin, Gee’s mother-in-law, with whom she shared a close relationship. “And I think once she saw that, she was just going to give 100% to help them be rescued.”
A similar mindset motivated 31-year-old Hoover, who was on his third deployment to Afghanistan.
“I have heard from many of his friends, his men, that had said that when it was time for them to take a break, he didn’t want to,” said Barnett. “He wanted to stay out there and continue to bring people in.”
Coral Briseno gave her son, Humberto Sanchez, permission to join the Marine Corps at 17. Known as “Bert” by friends and family, Sanchez wanted to join to make his mother proud.
“One day he just show[ed] up and said, I want you to go and sign up because I enlist in the Marines,” Briseno said. “And I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because I want to be the best of the best and I want to make you proud.'”
These Gold Star family members remember exactly where they were when they found out their loved ones were among the fallen. Shamblin was on vacation with her son Jarod, Gee’s husband and a fellow Marine.
“As soon as we saw the news that 13 service members had been killed, he said to me, ‘Mom, I have a very bad feeling,'” she shared. “And we stayed up that whole night waiting for our phone call that we knew was coming. As time wore on and we didn’t hear from her, my son knew. I was, I think, in shock or denial.”
Barnett recalls being gripped by fear herself.
“I got home around 7 p.m., [and the] doorbell rang. And I looked at my son-in-law, and we both just dropped before we even looked at the door. We knew,” she said.
“What do you remember, Coral?” Raddatz asked.
“I went to sleep, but I could not sleep. I was awake,” Briseno recalled. “At 1:42, I hear my phone vibrating under my pillow. I don’t want to answer.”
After a second call, Briseno’s husband told her to pick up the phone. The Marines had information about Bert but were at the wrong address.
“I gave them my address and they said, ‘We’re gonna be there in a few minutes.’ So as soon as I went downstairs, I still [had] hope that they were going to [say] ‘Your son’s got wounded and we have to take you somewhere,'” Briseno said. “When I look at the window, I just saw my husband and I said, ‘Please tell me that they are not in full dress.’ Then he’d just shake his head.”
Three days after the bombing, the remains of all 13 service members arrived at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer ceremony, where President Joe Biden was there to greet the families. Instead of feeling comforted, all three mothers described feeling disrespected.
“The administration didn’t seem to know our story,” Shamblin said. “They didn’t seem to know Nicole’s name, our names. People from the military certainly knew our story, Nicole’s name, our names. And that was expressed to us in a way that felt very genuine and loving. But when it came to the people in suits, it felt disingenuous and hollow.”
“First, he called me ‘Ms. Lopez,’ and I was not ‘Mrs. Lopez,'” Briseno said. “And he just talk[ed] about his son and said how much he knows or he understand[s] how we feel because he lost his kid and he didn’t feel — he didn’t know how we feel because he was there with his son when he passed. We didn’t have the privilege. We received our kids in a casket.”
Briseno added that she felt the president made the encounter “all about him.”
“We had decided as a family that we would not meet with the president, so we were actually in a room on the side,” Barnett emphasized.
The family ultimately decided to go onto the tarmac, where Biden checked his watch multiple times.
“It was just total disrespect,” Barnett said. “It’s beyond disgusting.”
Raddatz recalled a prominent moment during Biden’s exit, where someone in the crowd screamed, “Burn in hell.”
“That was my daughter,” Barnett said. “And she meant it.”
These mothers, along with several other family members of the 13 fallen service members, have been extremely vocal in their calls for transparency and accountability from the Biden administration. Last week, all three were among a group who participated in a roundtable discussion led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, marking the first time several of these Gold Star families gathered on Capitol Hill. And these grieving families say they will continue to seek answers.
In response to an inquiry from ABC News, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the White House knows “each of these families still suffer, still grieve and still yearn for loved ones killed in Kabul.”
“We also know that very little can be said to ease their pain. But we do hope they know how deeply committed the President and First Lady remain to honoring the service and sacrifice of their Marines, their Soldier and their Sailor,” Kirby continued. “Each of these brave men and women lost their young lives trying to make possible entirely new lives for thousands of Afghans. And we will never forget that.”
While these family members say their grief will be with them forever, their hope is that changes will be made in our institutions to avoid another chaotic conflict or withdrawal.
“That’s all I can really hope for, you know, so that we don’t have another addition to our Gold Star family,” Shamblin said. “We love each other very much, but we don’t want any more.”
(NEW YORK) — Bill Richardson was known for many things, the former governor of New Mexico, ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary under the Clinton administration, but one of his most significant professional achievements was working to free wrongfully detained American citizens abroad.
Richardson died at 75 at his summer home in Chatham, Massachusetts, the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, the organization he founded to promote international peace and dialogue, announced on Saturday.
These are a few of the Americans who Richardson helped to bring home:
Brittney Griner
The two-term Democratic governor and his Richardson Center for Global Engagement organization in New Mexico, worked to secure the release of basketball player Brittney Griner, who was released from a Russian prison in December 2022, after being detained for 10 months. The U.S. swapped the WNBA star for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
The Richardson Center for Global Engagement revealed at the time of her release it had been working with Griner’s family and the organization’s members had traveled to Moscow several times in efforts to secure her release, engaging with their Russian counterparts and Russian Embassy officials in Washington, D.C.
“Often, the price we pay for bringing our fellow Americans home to their families is unseemly, but it is the right thing to do — for our fellow Americans, their families, and for our nation,” Richardson said in a statement at the time.
Richardson and his organization worked with the White House National Security team on Griner’s release, and made efforts to secure the release of Marine veteran Paul Whelan.
“We remain very concerned for Paul Whelan and committed to continue to work on his safe return, as we have been for the last four years,” the Richardson Center said at the time of Griner’s release.
In a statement to ABC News, Brittany Griner and her wife Cherelle Griner, expressed their condolences over Richardson’s passing.
“We were sad to learn of Ambassador Bill Richardson’s passing. Our hearts and prayers go out to his family and friends,” the couple said. “We will be forever grateful for all of his efforts to help bring me home from Russia. We applaud his years of tirelessly representing many families of other wrongfully detained Americans.”
Trevor Reed
Richardson and his team also worked to secure the release of former Marine Trevor Reed last year, the organization said.
“In this effort, we have had many engagements with our Russian counterparts, and have recently traveled to Moscow, on a private humanitarian mission, to meet with Russian leadership and discuss Trevor’s and Paul Whelan’s release,” the Richardson Center said in a statement at the time.
Reed had been imprisoned in Russia for nearly three years, thrown in isolation cells as small as a closet for 23 hours a day, placed in a psychiatric ward and sent to a forced labor camp he described as looking and feeling like something “out of medieval times,” he told ABC News.
Danny Fenster
Richardson and the Richardson Center announced in 2021 they helped free American journalist Danny Fenster from a prison in Myanmar.
Fenster had been detained by authorities in Myanmar as he was preparing to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Richardson obtained Fenster’s release after face-to-face meetings with Myanmar’s Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the organization said.
“This is the day that you hope will come when you do this work,” Richardson said during the announcement. “We are so grateful that Danny will finally be able to reconnect with his loved ones, who have been advocating for him all this time, against immense odds.”
Richardson was nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a diplomat and prisoner negotiator.
ABC News’ Patricio Chile, Morgan Winsor, Henderson Hewes, Patrick Reevell, James Hill, and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — President Joe Biden on Saturday morning offered his first on-camera reaction to his meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis falling through as he surveys Hurricane Idalia damage.
“I don’t know,” Biden said in response to a shouted question as he and the first lady boarded Marine One about what happened with his meeting with the governor. “He’s not going to be there.”
Biden said Saturday morning that his message to DeSantis is: “We’re gonna take care of Florida.”
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said Saturday that security concerns expressed by DeSantis’ office Friday were not relayed to FEMA staffers.
“I have teams that have been on the ground since I left, and we have heard no concerns over any impact to the communities we’re going to visit today,” Criswell said Saturday.
The official’s comment comes after DeSantis’s office said he would not meet with Biden, citing the disruptive effect a presidential security detail could have on the recovery effort.
“We don’t have any plans for the Governor to meet with the President tomorrow,” DeSantis’ press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said to ABC News in a statement Friday. “In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts.”
Asked Saturday morning, “Do you agree with him that the security apparatus isn’t strong enough?” Biden smiled and asked, “Do you?”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Saturday that the invite to the governor still stands.
“Of course he is welcome to be with the president today,” she said.
The two political leaders set aside politics last year when Biden traveled to Florida to survey damage from Hurricane Ian — but that was before DeSantis announced his 2024 campaign.
ABC News has reached out to DeSantis’ office for comment.
Although DeSantis will not be seen with Biden during his visit to the Sunshine State, Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Kat Cammack, both Florida Republicans, will be.
Scott, who is up for reelection next year, announced on Twitter he would be in Suwannee County with Biden to receive a briefing from local officials and meet with families impacted by Hurricane Idalia. Scott also said he would urge Biden to support his legislation, The Federal Disaster Responsibility Act, adding that Floridians and Americans would benefit from its passage.
ABC News has reached out to Sen. Marco Rubio’s, R-Fla., office to see whether he’ll also join Biden as he tours the state.
