Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Utah Sen. Mitt Romney hasn’t yet said if he’ll run for a second term, next year — but if he does, he’ll face a primary challenge from other Republicans who think he’s vulnerable with the base because of his renunciation of former President Donald Trump.

Romney boasts a lengthy conservative record and deep ties to the party: A former Massachusetts governor, he was the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. (His father was a Republican governor of Michigan.)

But he has also been Senate Republicans’ top Trump detractor, repeatedly lambasting Trump’s character and voting to convict Trump after each of his impeachments, becoming the first lawmaker of a president’s party to vote against him at trial.

That’s thrust Romney’s future into limbo, some party strategists in Utah say, because it’s put him at odds with GOP voters who view Trump much more favorably than he does.

“I don’t think it’s set in stone either way right now. I think that he has a great advantage because of name recognition, money, people that are used to thinking about Romney in a great light,” said one Utah GOP strategist, who asked not to be named to frankly discuss next year’s Senate race. “But he also has the problem of my mother, every time she talks to me about politics, asking me when Mitt Romney is going to get defeated.”

“I probably give him about a 60-40 shot right now,” this person said. “I absolutely think it’s a dogfight if he runs.”

Seemingly sensing an opening, several conservatives in the state are mulling runs of their own.

Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs is the only Republican officially in the race so far, though state House Speaker Brad Wilson has launched a Senate exploratory committee, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz is weighing a campaign and state Attorney General Sean Reyes is thought to be considering a bid, too. (Reyes declined to comment.)

Staggs and Wilson both told ABC News that their efforts are fueled by what they view as frustrations from Utahns over a perceived lack of support from Romney for the party line.

“I know the majority of Utahns are highly conservative and that we deserve, Utah deserves, another conservative senator,” Staggs told ABC News. “We’re not getting that in Mitt Romney.”

Liz Johnson, Romney’s chief of staff, expressed confidence in a statement to ABC News that his “record of fighting for Utah speaks for itself” and that while the senator makes his decision on whether to mount a reelection campaign, “we’re ensuring he’s well prepared to run if he chooses.”

But in a sign of grumbling about Romney among state lawmakers, over 60 of them recently signed a letter encouraging Wilson to jump into the primary and Wilson “continues to travel across the state and is constantly hearing that Utahns want a bold, proven and conservative leader as their senator,” his spokesperson Chris Coombs said.

Chaffetz, meanwhile, suggested to ABC News that he’s leaning against a run in favor of a possible future gubernatorial bid but said he’s still considering a chance to join the Senate and sees Romney as somewhat at-risk.

“He’s obviously formidable. He’s the sitting United States senator. He enjoys a good base of support. But it’s still an uphill battle,” Chaffetz said. “A lot of conservatives have serious question marks.”

Republicans in Utah who spoke to ABC News said much of the intraparty ire that Romney has drawn has focused on the fact that he’s bucked Trump so consistently. Some contend that the conflict has overshadowed — or distracted Romney from — his policy work.

He also ruffled feathers last year when he didn’t endorse fellow Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s reelection bid as Lee — a Trump critic who later embraced him — was facing a challenge from a well-funded independent candidate, Evan McMullin, who ultimately lost by about 10%.

“It’s going to be an interesting dynamic, but I just think that ship has sailed for him [Romney]. … I don’t think he survives the primary because you do still have to have that base, you have to have some of those Trump voters to make it work. And they’re done with him,” said Carson Jorgensen, a former chairman of the Utah Republican Party.

Trump could insert himself into the primary, rallying opposition to Romney. One operative in Trump’s orbit told ABC News they believed the former president’s operation would mobilize if a viable opponent to Romney were to appear.

“No matter what Mitt Romney decides to do, I’m sure Donald Trump will enjoy being right up in his grill,” Chaffetz said.

At the same time, Trump has faced his own challenges among conservatives in Utah — more so than in many other red states. In both 2016 and 2020, though he still won Utah, he earned less overall share of the vote than any other GOP presidential candidate had since the ’90s.

Among the likely reasons, experts say, is Utah’s high concentration of people who are members of the Church of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church, and who place a higher premium on moral conservatism and civility in contrast with Trump’s personal scandals and habit for crude tbehavior.

A 2016 analysis by the Pew Research Center found voters who identified as Mormon shifted 4% to the left in the presidential race that year, compared to 2012, though Trump still won the vast majority of them.

Romney’s allies maintain that Trump’s potential involvement in the 2024 Senate primary could help rather than hurt.

“It would be a huge gift if he did” get involved, said one source familiar with the race. “He’s never been as popular in Utah as he has been everywhere else. The morality, or lack thereof, of the man who Donald Trump is just doesn’t sit well with a state that prides itself on moral issues.”

Romney has his own built-in benefits, strategists said, including broad name recognition, incumbency and long-standing good will with the GOP’s establishment flank, which could help gin up fundraising support.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Romney is done, he doesn’t have a chance.’ But if he decides to run, he’s going to be quite formidable,” said a former senior Trump administration official with experience in Utah politics.

“I would say a good majority of Republican voters would probably prefer somebody else. The question is, is it somebody else that can generate enough organization and excitement and what have you to actually pull it off? That I don’t know. Could Wilson or Staggs do it? I have serious doubts that either of them have the ability to pull that off,” the former senior Trump administration official said.

Without declaring his plans, Romney has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for reelection, which allows him to continue receiving campaign donations and leaves the door open to a second term. He raised under $70,000 in the second quarter of 2023 but finished June with more than $1.5 million in the bank.

Privately, Romney is said to have signaled that he’s not worried about his reelection chances — should he decide to jump in.

“It’s definitely his race to lose. And he knows that,” the source familiar with the race said. “He has never once raised, ‘What if I don’t win?'”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Starting Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal student loan borrowers will start to receive emails from their servicers with the subject line “Your student loans have been forgiven.”

The notices will come as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to cancel debt for 804,000 borrowers who qualify for relief under their repayment plans but haven’t yet received it because of what officials have called administrative failures.

The emails were set to start going out on Monday, according to a copy of the confirmation notices to borrowers that ABC News has exclusively obtained.

It’s expected that 800,000-plus borrowers will be notified of some relief in the coming weeks.

Around 614,000 people are expected to have their entire student loan debts canceled, while the others might have remaining loans that they took out at different times.

The relief is targeted at people who enrolled in income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which allow student loan debts to be forgiven by the federal government once payments have been made for 20 or 25 years, depending on the plan.

But because of well-documented errors in tracking payments, many borrowers enrolled in IDR plans have been left paying well beyond their payment end dates, with no forgiveness in sight.

President Joe Biden, whose administration has faced legal setbacks in pursuing more sweeping student loan cancellation, heralded the beginning of these account adjustments as a step toward fixing the broken student loan system.

“Under these plans, if a borrower makes 20 or 25 years’ worth of payments, they get the remaining balances of their loans forgiven. But because of errors and administrative failures of the student loan system that started long before I took office, over 804,000 borrowers never got the credit they earned, and never saw the forgiveness they were promised – even after making payments for decades,” Biden said in a statement to ABC News.

“I was determined to right this wrong, and today, because of actions my Administration took, these 804,000 borrowers who have been in repayment for over 20 years will start to see their student debt cancelled. Over 614,000 of them will have all of their remaining federal student loan debt cancelled once this action is complete,” he said.

Impacted borrowers should expect to receive emails from their loan servicers with the subject line “your student loans have been forgiven” and a message of “Congratulations! The Biden-Harris Administration has forgiven your federal student loan(s) listed below with [servicer name] in full.”

Administration officials were unable to provide an exact timeline for how many borrowers would receive their relief and when, citing the complicated nature of reviewing each individual loan, but said the process would be complete within weeks.

There is also the potential for lawsuits to interrupt the debt discharges, though a recent suit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) on behalf of the Cato Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, arguing that the Department of Education is going beyond its authority, was recently dismissed by a U.S. district court judge in Michigan.

For the time being, though, the Department of Education is moving forward with the plan to discharge debt for borrowers who qualify.

“We are standing up for borrowers who did everything right, but whose progress toward forgiveness went uncounted due to past administrative failures that the Biden-Harris team has worked tirelessly to correct,” Secretary Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement.

In total, the fixes to the IDR plans being made by the Department of Education will result in $39 billion of automatic debt relief, ABC News previously reported.

The effort is part of a wave of fixes to federal loan programs that officials have said weren’t holding up their end of the deal. That includes $45 billion in forgiveness to people enrolled in Public Service Loan Forgiveness who weren’t getting the debt relief they were promised and $22 billion to borrowers who were defrauded by for-profit colleges.

In all, the debt relief announced by the Biden administration so far totals $116.6 billion for more than 3.4 million borrowers, the Department of Education has said.

Biden’s program to cancel student loan debt on a massive scale was rejected by the Supreme Court in June, with a majority of justices ruling that he had exceeded his authority.

That program, a Biden campaign promise, would have canceled between $10,00 and $20,000 in federal loans for people making below a certain income.

Since then, the White House has announced a new IDR plan that will lower monthly payments to 5% of a person’s discretionary income, down from 10%, and decrease the timeline for forgiveness down to 10 years of payments, from 20 or 25, if the initial loan was less than $12,000.

The Department of Education is also in the rulemaking process to attempt debt forgiveness again through a different law, the Higher Education Act, though that’s likely to face legal challenges as well.

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(NEW YORK) — On Jan. 6, 2021, when then-second lady Karen Pence drew the curtains of the vice president’s ceremonial office on Capitol Hill, shielding her family from the unfolding attack moments after their evacuation from the Senate chamber, she says she never feared for her life.

“Never,” Karen Pence told ABC News Live Prime Anchor Linsey Davis in a new interview, marking some of her first public comments on the day. “I just was discussing this with someone here in Iowa a few minutes ago, I never felt afraid.”

“I really felt like we just had such a peace and God’s presence,” she said during the interview — part one of which airs Monday night on ABC News Live Prime at 7 p.m., 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. “And just a sense of purpose and determination that I don’t think any of us in the whole group – all the staff and everyone with us — I don’t think any of us felt fear. I think we felt like a sense of resolve.”

Asked specifically by Davis about closing the curtains, a moment cemented in history by the former vice president’s photographer, the former second lady pinned the move on “conditioning” from years in public life.

“I think once you become, you know, second lady, life changed a lot for us. In fact, during the transition, we rented a home near D.C. And I remember walking in that home the first day — and Secret Service had put a butcher block paper, you know, all over the windows — and you couldn’t even see outside,” she said.

“And every time we traveled, they would have bulletproof glass in every hotel room. So it’s a conditioning thing that I just knew. Whenever you’re in a situation where someone might be able to shoot through the window, just close the drapes,” she continued. “That was my thinking at the time was like, ‘Wait a minute. Things are starting to happen out there. Let’s close the drapes.'”

“You say things were starting to happen,” Davis followed up. “But at what point did you realize my family could be in danger?”

“Well, the Secret Service are phenomenal men and women,” she replied. “And they made it clear to us right away that, you know, there might be a point where we would need to move to a different location.

“And so that was pretty clear to us from the very beginning because they had come and gotten us out of the Senate chambers and taken us back to Mike’s office and in the Senate. So, it was clear pretty early on that we might need to vacate that room and go somewhere else,” she added.

In his memoir released last November, So Help Me God, the former vice president similarly described feeling grounded by God when they were evacuated from the Senate chamber with their daughter Charlotte.

“We stood together in that cramped office and watched the mayhem unfolding inside and around the Capitol on a small television set. The scenes were alarming,” Pence wrote. “I have often told our three children that the safest place in the world is to be in the center of God’s will. I knew in my heart that we were where we were supposed to be, doing what we were supposed to be doing. I felt resolve and at peace informed by my upbringing in Indiana, my faith, my family, a lifetime of service and lifelong love of the Constitution.”

“Responding to a muffled roar in the distance, my wife closed the drapes over the large windows facing outside to the north, as our lead Secret Service agent returned to make one more urgent plea for us to leave,” he continued. “I pointed my finger at his chest and said, ‘You’re not hearing me. I’m not leaving.'”

Not long after the photo was snapped, the Pences were rushed below the Capitol complex to a loading dock — where the vice president then refused to get in the car with the Secret Service.

“It wasn’t my first rodeo,” Pence wrote in his book. “I just knew that if I got into the car and that 200-pound door shut, somebody was going to tell the driver to get us out of the building.”

Karen and Charlotte Pence stayed at the Capitol until the early morning hours of Jan. 7, 2021, when the gavel finally fell, and President Joe Biden’s victory was affirmed. Noting this fact, Pence has called himself “truly blessed.”

When he launched his campaign for president in June, Pence said it came after prayer and deep reflection with his family — and two and half years after Trump “demanded” he choose him over the Constitution.

“As I’ve said many times, on that fateful day, President Trump’s words were reckless. They endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol,” he said on June 8, 2023, in Iowa. “But the American people deserve to know that on that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution. Now, voters will be faced with the same choice: I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”

Pence has since leaned into his criticism as Trump faces criminal charges around alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Pence’s campaign says it received 7,400 donations the day after Jack Smith’s latest indictment, which mentioned the former vice president’s role more than 100 times, came down.

As Pence lays out his differences with Trump, which he says extend beyond Jan. 6, Karen is never far.

He fondly introduces her on the stump as “the highest-ranking official in the room: a Marine Corps mom, a lifelong schoolteacher, accomplished artist, bestselling author and the best second lady in the United States of America has ever had.”

More than 38 years after meeting at church in Indiana, the Pence couple’s faith continues to guide their marriage, and offered guidance on Jan. 6, like any other day.

More of former second lady Karen Pence’s interview will be running this September as part of ABC News Live Prime’s “running mates” series highlighting the spouses of presidential candidates.

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(NEW YORK) — Former Vice President Mike Pence said in a new interview with ABC News that he’s not interested in trading insults with former President Donald Trump, who has been criticizing Pence online and on the campaign trail — especially in the wake of Trump’s latest indictment.

In a sit-down in Ankeny, Iowa, ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis pointed to one recent social media post from Trump that accused Pence of going to the “dark side.”

“How do you respond to that?” Davis asked in a clip from the interview, which will air on Monday night.

“Well, I don’t,” Pence replied, shaking his head and chuckling. “Look, I know the former president pretty well. I think more and more Americans every day are getting to know us, getting to know our lifetime of commitment to the conservative agenda. And I’m very heartened by the fact — and you saw it at the Iowa State Fair this week — how many people come up to us on a regular basis and thank us for the stand that we took on that fateful day [on Jan. 6].”

“So I’ll be taking my record to the American people, and the president can continue to do what he does: He can continue to hold forth and level his broadsides,” Pence told Davis. “But for me, I’m not going to engage in negative personal attacks.”

Watch more from Mike Pence’s sit-down interview with Linsey Davis on Monday at 7 p.m. ET on ABC News Live Prime.

“I’m going to draw the contrast, lay out the choice and focus on how we make this country more prosperous and more secure after the disastrous policies of President Joe Biden and the White House,” Pence said.

Since he and Trump left office, Pence — while touting many of his accomplishments with Trump — has become increasingly vocal about disagreeing with Trump’s push to have him reject their election defeat as he presided over Congress in a ceremonial role on Jan. 6, 2021.

That episode is a key part of Trump’s third criminal indictment, out of Washington, which accuses him of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

Pence’s role as vice president is mentioned more than 100 times in the indictment.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and claims the cases are politically motivated.

Pence has described on the campaign trail — as he challenges the former president for the 2024 Republican nomination — how, he said, he stood by the Constitution on Jan. 6 despite Trump demanding he do otherwise.

Trump accused Pence last week on his Truth Social platform of having “gone to the dark side,” mocking him as “delusional.” Trump also maintained that he never told “Pence to put me above the Constitution.”

Pence choosing not to engage follows a familiar refrain of his on the stump: a promise “to restore a threshold of civility in public life.”

Pence has not ruled out voting for Trump in 2024 but has said, “I don’t think I’ll have to.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said Sunday that the process of getting a special counsel appointed to investigate Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s younger son, was “bumpy” and that it seems Hunter Biden did “unlawful and wrong things.”

But, Raskin said, federal prosecutors should be allowed to continue their work unimpeded by politics.

“David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, who had been nominated by Donald Trump, can make the decisions about what to charge, where to charge and when to charge,” Raskin told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “And with the collapse of the plea agreement that he had apparently worked out with Hunter Biden, now he wants to be certain that he’s got the authority to go bring charges wherever he wants.”

The change in the plea status was detailed in court filings by prosecutors on Friday, the same day Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he was elevating Weiss to special counsel.

Weiss, who has overseen the investigation of Hunter Biden for some five years, asked on Tuesday to become a special counsel, which will grant him further independence and new powers.

Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to tax charges.

“From my perspective, it is the rule of law and the justice system working itself out the way that it does and, obviously, it’s bumpy and this side or that side doesn’t necessarily prefer this course of events,” Raskin said on Sunday. “But our job, I think, as political people is to allow the justice system to run its course.”

Raskin said that Weiss becoming a special counsel will not functionally change how he’s been operating: “To me, it seems to formalize what has basically been the understanding from the beginning.”

When asked by Karl what he believes changed for Weiss and Garland, Raskin cited the issues with Hunter Biden’s plea deal. He also said there has been inappropriate political pressure on Weiss.

Hunter Biden had originally agreed to acknowledge his failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018. In exchange, prosecutors would have recommended probation. Hunter Biden also would have agreed to a pretrial diversion on a separate gun charge, with the charge being dropped if he adhered to certain terms.

But the agreement with prosecutors was deferred by a judge after a hearing in Delaware late last month, with the judge questioning some of the terms.

Prosecutors said in their filings on Friday that they were at an “impasse” with Hunter Biden’s attorneys over any potential deal.

“I don’t know what factors went into the calculus to appoint [Weiss as special counsel] Obviously, there had to be some public interest rationale for it. The material change in circumstance that I can discern is simply the collapse of the plea agreement,” Raskin said on Sunday. “But when that agreement appeared to evaporate, then I suppose they wanted to formalize that the U.S. attorney for Delaware had the authority that he needed in order to prosecute the case. And, certainly, there was political pressure being brought on it, which I don’t approve of myself. I think it’s not our job as politicians to be second-guessing and trying to micromanage.”

Leading Republicans in Congress, some of whom previously called for Weiss to become a special counsel, then sharply criticized that development.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy wrote in a social media post that Weiss may not be able to be “trusted” because of his role in the previous Hunter Biden plea agreement.

On “This Week,” Raskin pushed back on his conservative colleagues, arguing they were hypocritical.

“You may as well just say: ‘How could Kevin McCarthy, who told Donald Trump that it was his people who had stormed his own office and the Capitol, was at fault but then turned around a week or two later to curry favor again with Donald Trump be trusted on any of this?’ And this is why we have a justice system. Let’s just let them do their job,” Raskin said.

Republicans have increasingly focused on Hunter Biden, including on his controversial past business work overseas, which they contend at least suggested influence peddling by the larger Biden family while Joe Biden was in office.

The White House has repeatedly dismissed that, saying there is no evidence Joe Biden is or was ever involved in Hunter Biden’s business.

Pressed by Karl on “This Week,” Raskin conceded he was “concerned” about how Hunter Biden may have been profiting off of his family name but then pointed back to conduct by Donald Trump and Jared Kushner during the Trump administration.

“They’ve not laid a glove on Joe Biden as president. They haven’t been able to show any criminal corruption on his part,” Raskin said of Republicans. “What they’ve got is Hunter Biden. And we’ve all seen … that this guy was addicted to drugs and did a lot of really unlawful and wrong things. And we have said, let the justice system run its course.”

ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and a top Georgia elections official who has repeatedly rebuked former President Donald Trump’s claims of fraud after Trump lost the state to Joe Biden in 2020, said Sunday as a potential indictment looms against Trump in Georgia that his “biggest concern” remains the potential risk of violence as a result of incendiary attacks on voting integrity.

Sterling’s appearance on “This Week” comes as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected this week to present a case to a grand jury after investigating efforts to overturn Trump’s loss in Georgia in the 2020 election.

Trump denies all wrongdoing.

Sterling was asked by “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl if he worried Trump’s rhetoric, including a recent campaign ad attacking Willis, could lead to violence “once again.”

“You never know what’s going to happen. My biggest concern for years now … is somebody will be motivated by some of those kinds of language at some point and do something stupid,” Sterling said.

“It’s not going to be an organized thing. It’s not going to be a bunch of conspirators together,” he said. “It’s going to be one probably mentally unstable individual who’s going to be radicalized through this process.”

Sterling was echoing a warning he first made in December 2020, while serving as the voting system implementation manager in Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.

“Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia,” he told Trump then, during one of many press conferences he held debunking false claims about the 2020 election. “You have the right to go through the courts. What you don’t have the ability to do — and you need to step up and say this — is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed.”

Sterling, now the chief operating officer in Raffensperger’s office, first came to prominence in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as he and Raffensperger, also a Republican, pushed back on false claims of voter fraud in the state’s results pushed by Trump and his allies.

In January 2021, shortly before Trump’s defeat was certified by Congress, Trump urged Raffensperger in an infamous phone call to “find” just enough votes for him to win Georgia.

On “This Week,” Karl asked Sterling whether he thinks Trump knew he lost the election, as federal prosecutors have alleged in court. Trump insists he sincerely believes that.

Sterling pointed out that independent audits failed to find fraud in Georgia, and he cited statistics that underscored how Trump’s public disdain for mail voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have cost him crucial votes.

“We’ve been saying this over and over again. We counted the ballots three times. He lost this state,” Sterling said. “And he continued to say he didn’t lose it. And it’s just creating a lot of tension and a lot of chaos. It’s completely unnecessary. I mean, there’s real issues in this country.”

In the short term, Sterling said Trump’s legal issues seem to have resulted in political gain for him as he seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

“This has been giving oxygen to his campaign,” Sterling said. “This is raising tons of money, and a lot of that money … is being used to pay for his lawyers and not for actual campaign[ing].”

“He’s making himself a martyr, and a lot of the American people are going behind him because they feel like some of these things are a little bit of a stretch,” Sterling added.

Longer term, however, Sterling predicted that Trump’s focus on his false claims about the last election won’t help him win over the voters he needs next year. “Anybody talking about 2020 election is going to lose the general election. You’re not gaining any voters by doing that,” Sterling said.

A former city councilman and a self-described “political junkie,” Sterling told Karl that he has been and will continue to closely follow Trump’s three indictments, with a fourth potentially looming in Fulton County. (Trump has pleaded not guilty to each, claiming persecution.)

But Sterling also said he and others are getting “fatigued over the entire thing.”

“It’s hard to believe we’ve gotten where we’ve gotten. … But, you know, the system has to work its way through, one way or the other,” he said.

He declined to say whether or not he has been called to testify before the grand jury who will hear the Fulton County district attorney’s case but acknowledged previously speaking with investigators. “If I am called, when I am called, I will go and do what I did before. I will tell the truth, answer honestly,” he said. “That’s all we can do in this situation.”

Karl pressed Sterling about why he thinks many in the Republican Party’s base have embraced Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.

“It’s tribal. If my party believes this, then therefore, I will believe it,” Sterling said. “And if you don’t believe it, then you’re committing apostasy and you’re not following the rules.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said Sunday that rival Donald Trump should not shrug off his mounting indictments, all of which he denies.

“Trump needs to be smart and careful about this, if that’s at all possible. Which is that he is a criminal defendant,” Christie told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.

Christie, a former governor of New Jersey, former ABC News contributor and former Trump ally-turned-critic, stressed that Trump being prosecuted in three different criminal cases, with a fourth potentially coming in Georgia, means both he and Republican voters will have to navigate uncharted waters.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of his charges, which so far come out of New York state court, federal court in Florida and federal court in Washington, D.C. An Atlanta-area prosecutor is expected this week to present a fourth case to a grand jury there.

Some restrictions have been placed on Trump related to his indictments, such as a protective order issued by the federal judge overseeing his Jan. 6 case in Washington. That order bars the disclosure of “sensitive” information that Trump will learn via discovery from prosecutors. The judge also warned against “inflammatory statements” that “could taint the jury pool or intimidate potential witnesses.”

The judge in Trump’s New York state case issued a similar order.

Christie said on “This Week” that “you get subject to certain restrictions, and the reason you’re subject to those restrictions is because a grand jury has found there’s probable cause that you’ve committed criminal acts.”

Challenging the view of the federal judge in Washington — who said “the existence of a political campaign will not have any bearing on my decision” — Christie said that “I think it is impossible to not have politics inform some of this case. It’s not a normal criminal case, and so politics is going to inform some of it.”

Trump is slated to go on trial next year at the same time that he will also be on the campaign trial in the thick of the Republican primary — meaning GOP voters can render their own judgment, Christie said.

“I think all of these things are things people are going to have to process for the very first time in a presidential race,” he said. “And what I think Republican voters have to ask themselves is two things: First is, is he really the guy under indictment in four different cases, given the conduct that he committed, someone who can beat Joe Biden or any other Democrat in November 2024? And when are we going to stop pretending that this is normal?”

Christie previously ran for president in 2016 and launched a second presidential bid in early June. He hasn’t hesitated to denounce the former president, including at nearly every one of his campaign events thus far.

Trump, for his part, has dismissed Christie as a “failed” candidate and governor and early polls so far show Christie badly trailing Trump and other hopefuls.

On “This Week,” Karl cited a widely circulated video from a debate during the 2016 campaign when Christie hammered opponent Marco Rubio.

“Looking back at all that has happened since then, do you ever wish that you had taken that swing at Donald Trump and not at Marco Rubio?” Karl asked.

Christie responded, “I wish I’d taken swings of both of them, Jon, looking back on it.”

“We all made a mistake in 2016: Myself, Marco, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, in not going after Donald Trump,” Christie continued, referring to other 2016 Republican candidates — each of whom at different times were seen as more legitimate than Trump, the eventual winner.

“I think we were under the illusion that somehow what was obvious to us at the moment, that there were some better candidates on stage than him, would be obvious to the public,” Christie said. “It wasn’t. And I think it should inform everybody’s approach to the race this time. Certainly, it’s informing mine.”

The first 2024 Republican primary debate will be held on Aug. 23, in Milwaukee. To make it on the stage, candidates have to sign a loyalty pledge with the Republican National Committee that promises to eventually back whomever wins the nomination.

Both Christie and Trump have criticized the loyalty pledge. Trump said last week that he wouldn’t sign it: “I can name three or four people that I wouldn’t support for president. So right there, there’s a problem.”

He has also suggested he sees no point in attending the first debate, given his polling lead.

“I think that they [the RNC] are serious about wanting this pledge signed, and I do think they would keep Donald Trump off the stage if he chose not to sign the pledge,” Christie said on “This Week.”

Still, “I think this is all kind of nonsensical theater,” he said. “I’ve made that clear to the RNC as well, way back, even before I entered the race, that I thought the pledge was a bad idea, and Donald Trump is now playing that game. But that’s what he does.”

Christie himself has yet to sign the pledge and said Sunday that debate organizers haven’t presented it to him as they are still verifying eligibility for candidates to take the stage.

He has said he will reluctantly sign it and on “This Week” predicted that Trump, despite his protestations, might as well.

“I would not be the least bit surprised if sometime around Sunday or Monday of next week that he signs the pledge, and he shows up on the stage on Wednesday,” Christie said. “He might not also, but I would not be the least bit surprised if he did. This is about Donald Trump keeping the attention on Donald Trump.”

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(ATLANTA) — Nearly a decade ago, Judge Jerry Baxter oversaw the prosecution that first thrust Georgia’s Fani Willis in the spotlight — a massive scandal involving cheating by teachers in Atlanta’s public schools.

Now, many more eyes are watching the Fulton County district attorney as her investigation into alleged efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia nears its end and a potential fourth indictment looms for Trump, who denies all wrongdoing.

A charging decision is imminent. Willis is expected to present her findings to a grand jury next week.

“I would hate to have Fani Willis after me,” Baxter told ABC News. “She is a superb trial lawyer and the real deal.”

A ‘tenacious prosecutor’

Willis has said she knew since she was young and accompanied her father, a former Black Panther and defense attorney, to court that she wanted to be a lawyer.

She received her undergraduate degree at Howard University and a law degree from Emory University in Georgia.

In 2001 she became an assistant district attorney in Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta. She worked there for 16 years, handling homicide, sexual assault and other major cases.

“She was able to make it look easy,” said attorney Clint Rucker, a former colleague. “Her reputation was developed as a very good litigator while presenting these complex murder cases because of her courtroom demeanor, her style. She’s very dogged. She’s very aggressive.”

Rucker said that despite her small stature, Willis had a voice that compelled people.

Arguably her most well-known case was the Atlanta public school cheating scandal in 2013, in which authorities said teachers admitted to inflating standardized test scores to show improvements in student achievement. Willis was the lead prosecutor in the eight-month trial, the longest in state history, that ended in 2015 with 11 teachers and educators convicted of racketeering.

The case was controversial. Many in the community didn’t like the idea of teachers being charged under the RICO Act, a statute famous for bringing down mafia members.

“I thought that it was an overreach,” Akil Secret, a criminal defense attorney who represented one of the educators charged, told ABC News. Though he disagreed with the approach, Secret described Willis as “fair” and “honest” during the proceeding and overall as a “tenacious prosecutor.”

“During that time, she was an adversary,” Secret said. “But she was, in my opinion, an honorable adversary.”

Willis has defended her work on the case, citing the students harmed.

“I always told people I was fighting for those children,” she told South Atlanta Magazine in 2022. “If in my obituary that’s what y’all say about me, I can live with it.”

Becoming district attorney

Willis left the district attorney’s office in 2018 to relaunch her own law firm.

Then, sitting District Attorney Paul Howard — her former boss — was accused of sexual harassment and financial misconduct. Howard denied the sexual harassment allegations and predicted he’d be “totally exonerated” in the financial misconduct probe, started by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and later turned over to the state attorney general’s office for review, though he agreed to pay an ethics fine in 2020, according to ABC affiliate WSB.

Willis ran to unseat him, criticizing his office as dysfunctional and corrupt. She pitched herself to voters as a needed change, vowing to operate with greater transparency and integrity.

“I plan to do the work of the citizens of Fulton County to keep everyone safe, to represent everyone and to make sure that those that break the law — whether they are a police officer, whether they are an elected official or whether they are the person that kicks in your door — that they are prosecuted, that they are held accountable and that we as a society are safe,” she told the Atlanta Voice in August 2020.

She defeated Howard, a six-term incumbent, in a runoff primary race and went on to be unchallenged in the general election. She is the first woman to hold the office.

Secret served for a month on Willis’ 22-member transition team tasked with providing recommendations for how to improve the district attorney’s office as well as the social and criminal justice issues it would be facing. Much of that involved community work and finding creative ways of resolving cases in addition to traditional jail sentences, he said.

Some of Willis’ initiatives, including a pretrial diversion program that allows some individuals to enter into community service or restitution rather than be charged, have been described as progressive.

But she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2020 that she sees herself in the middle ground.

“Some prosecutors don’t believe jail should exist,” Willis told the newspaper after she defeated Howard. “I don’t like bullies. I don’t like violent crime. I’ve walked over enough dead bodies to know you have to have prisons.”

“On the other end of the spectrum, you have these people who think everyone should go to jail,” she continued. “I don’t think that. I think we should have programs that restore people. I’m not extreme on this liberal side. I’m not extreme on this conservative side. I come at these issues just right.”

Since taking office, she’s cracked down on gang activity. She brought RICO indictments against alleged members of the Bloods gang, the “Drug Rich Gang” as well as the popular rap stars Young Thug and Gunna and other alleged members of Young Slime Life, or YSL.

(Young Thung has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial; Gunna entered what is known as an Alford plea, in which he maintained his innocence but pleaded guilty and acknowledged prosecutors had enough evidence to convict.)

Willis has faced some criticism for using rap lyrics as alleged evidence in her criminal cases, which many have said is discriminatory against artists in the hip-hop community, but she’s defended it: “I think if you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m going to use it,” she told reporters last year.

Taking on Trump

Willis has often described the first time Trump came across her desk.

It was her first day in office as district attorney and airing nonstop on TV was the now infamous call in January 2021 between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” just enough votes to overturn his election loss to Joe Biden in the state.

Eight days later, on Jan. 10, 2021, Willis notified Gov. Brian Kemp that her office had launched an investigation.

Willis told The New York Times earlier this year she had hoped the phone call happened in another jurisdiction but quickly realized it was in her domain.

“I’m stuck with it,” she told the Times.

Since then, Willis has talked with the media about the case — prompting rebuke from Republicans.

Chairman of the Georgia GOP Josh McKoon recently tweeted that “Willis does not even pretend to be impartial as she “invites TV cameras into her office to talk about her bogus investigation.”

Trump has repeatedly insisted he did nothing wrong and is being persecuted, calling the call with Raffensperger “perfect.” The former president has attacked Willis as a “radical left” prosecutor.

Earlier this week, he released an ad blasting Willis and others who have prosecuted him as the “fraud squad.” Willis issued an internal memo, obtained by ABC News, telling her staff not to respond to the ad and telling them that “this is business, it will never be personal.”

Willis said in late July, after two and a half years of investigation, that the “work is accomplished.”

“We’re ready to go,” she told local station WXIA. She also said increased security measures were being taken ahead of any announcement.

“I would say that if she is anything like the Fani I know, the preparation of this case has been meticulous and the presentation to the grand jury will be very professional,” said Rucker, who worked with Willis on the Atlanta public school case.

“And if this grand jury returns an indictment that charges the former president of the United States with a crime, it’ll be a circumstance of such historical proportions that I can’t imagine any prosecutor anywhere in the country who would have a case of more significance than this one,” Rucker told ABC News. “And she understands what’s at stake.”

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(WASHINGTON) — As Republicans gathered Friday for Day 2 of the Iowa State Fair, news broke in Washington that the U.S. attorney investigating Hunter Biden was being elevated to special counsel.

Several candidates in the 2024 GOP field welcomed the development, with former Vice President Mike Pence telling reporters it’s “about time.” Others said they still didn’t believe the investigation would be independent.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis faced an unfriendly reception at his first stop of the day, when protesters with cowbells interrupted the event.

And in West Virginia, Sen. Joe Manchin is once again flirting with the idea of leaving the Democratic Party.

Here’s what to know from the trail on Friday.

2024 candidates react to Hunter Biden special counsel

Pence was one of the first candidates to react to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s announcement that U.S. Attorney David Weiss was being appointed as special counsel in his investigation of President Joe Biden’s son.

“I’ll be honest with you, I can’t relate to what his son was doing when he was vice president,” Pence told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott. “When I was vice president, my son was flying an F-35 in the Marine Corps defending this country.”

Pence continued, “But I think it’s about time that we saw the appointment of a special counsel to get to the bottom of not only what Hunter Biden was doing, but what the Biden family was doing. The American people deserve answers and I welcome it.”

Miami Mayor Frances Suarez said he wasn’t surprised.

“Well, I’m not shocked. Not shocked by that at all,” Suarez said. “I think that there’s a perception among Republicans that I talked to that there’s a two-tier system [of justice]. So I think it’s gonna be welcomed.”

But other candidates were skeptical and continued to suggest the Justice Department has been politically weaponized.

Former President Donald Trump wasn’t in Iowa, but a spokesperson for his campaign claimed that if the special counsel is “truly independent,” he will “quickly conclude” that the Bidens and others should face “required consequences.”

Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley told Fox News she didn’t “trust” the special counsel appointment.

“I don’t trust it. I don’t think the American people trust it. I don’t think the American people trust the Department of Justice,” Haley said.

DeSantis told reporters he wasn’t “confident” the investigation would include corruption issues alleged by many in the GOP.

“It seems to me they’re going to find a way to give him some type of soft-glove treatment,” he said.

Democrat Marianne Williamson, who had previously declined to make Hunter Biden a campaign issue, weighed in with a statement saying it’s “up to the American people to decide how this complication impacts their view of President Biden’s candidacy and whether it’s a further reason to move on.”
DeSantis drowned out by protesters

Two women ringing cowbells and shouting through a megaphone interrupted DeSantis as he campaigned at Freedom Rock, a monument honoring veterans in Menlo, Iowa

The women, Heather and Kara Ryan, attempted to drown out DeSantis with chants like “Ron De-Fascist” and “Go Back to Florida.” Donned in “B****** Get Stuff Done” shirts, Heather Ryan told ABC News afterward that they belonged to an Iowa-based progressive group by the same name.

In a particularly tense moment, a member of DeSantis’ super PAC swatted the megaphone Heather Ryan was shouting through.

DeSantis criticized the women in his comments, saying they didn’t “respect veterans.”

-ABC’s Hannah Demissie, Will McDuffie and Isabella Murray

Doug Burgum says RNC rules should apply to Trump, too

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has resisted discussing Trump during his campaign. But he made an exception on Friday to disagree with the Republican National Committee potentially offering Trump a waiver to be on the debate stage if he doesn’t sign the loyalty pledge.

“These are all clubhouse rules. If they are clubhouse rules, they ought to apply to everybody,” Burgum told reporters.

The loyalty pledge is one requirement to get on the RNC’s debate stage later this month. Trump said earlier this week that he would not sign it, and has insinuated he might skip the first two debates.

-ABC’s Kelsey Walsh

Pence confronts Jan. 6 supporters and opponents

Pence has received a mixed reaction in Iowa, with some calling him a “traitor” and others commending him for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

During his turn on the soapbox Thursday, Pence was asked by one audience member why he committed treason on Jan. 6 — a question that caused another in the crowd to yell, “shut the f*** up.”

But Pence said it was a fair question and defended his actions that day.

“And I’ll always believe by God’s grace, I did my duty that day. I truly believe it,” Pence said.

Asked by ABC News on Friday if the polar opposite reactions represented a Republican Party at a crossroads, Pence said he honestly didn’t know.

“I’ve been deeply moved by the people who have expressed their appreciation for my long-conservative career and position I took that fateful day,” he said. “I understand that after two-and-a-half years that my former running mate has been telling people things that aren’t so, I welcome the opportunity … I kept my oath to the United States and I’m confident that in time, people that didn’t understand it then, may not understand it now, will come around and understand that we always kept our promises to the American people.”

-ABC’s Rachel Scott, Libby Cathey and Ben Siegel

Manchin thinking ‘seriously’ about becoming independent

The moderate Democrat said he’s “absolutely” thought about becoming an independent during a radio interview with a West Virginia’s “Talkline” radio host Hoppy Kercheval.

“I’m thinking seriously what’s the best for me,” Manchin said. “I have to have peace of mind, basically. The brand has become so bad. The ‘D’ brand and ‘R’ brand … You’ve heard me say a million times I’m not a Washington Democrat. But I’ve got a lot of friends who aren’t Washington Republicans, either.”

Manchin is up for reelection next year in the increasingly conservative state. If he did switch parties, he’d be following in the footsteps of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who switched her registration from Democrat to independent late last year.

“When I get ready to make a decision, I’ll come see you,” Manchin told Kercheval.

-ABC’s Kelsey Walsh

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(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as a special counsel in his investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, Garland announced on Friday.

The move came as a plea deal struck between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors fell apart last month and the case appeared headed for trial. In the interim, Hunter Biden entered a not-guilty plea.

Weiss, who was previously appointed by former President Donald Trump, asked Garland to be appointed special counsel on Tuesday and Garland said he concluded it was in the public interest after considering the request.

A senior Department of Justice official told reporters that this is the first time Weiss has asked to be appointed special counsel. Weiss himself has said the same before, pushing back on claims by an IRS whistleblower.

“This appointment confirms my commitment to provide Mr. Weiss all the resources he requests,” Garland said. “It also reaffirms that Mr. Weiss has the authority he needs to conduct a thorough investigation and to continue to take the steps he deems appropriate in dependently based only on the facts and the law.”

Garland said Weiss “will continue to have the authority and responsibility that he has previously exercised to oversee the investigation and decide where, when and whether to file charges.”

Prosecutors also wrote in court filings that they intend to drop the misdemeanor tax charges against Hunter Biden in Delaware and instead bring them in California and Washington, D.C. — the venues where prosecutors say the alleged misconduct occurred.

“Since that time [of Hunter Biden’s not-guilty plea], the parties have engaged in further plea negotiations but are at an impasse. The Government now believes that the case will not resolve short of a trial,” the filing said.

“Now that the parties are at an impasse, a trial is in order,” they wrote. “Venue must be proper for each count of an indictment.”

The judge gave Hunter Biden until Monday to respond to the motion from the United States to vacate the court’s briefing order.

Republicans blasted the appointment of Weiss as special counsel, with House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., claiming the Justice Department is trying to “stonewall” Congress’ own investigations into Hunter Biden and calling the news part of a “Biden family coverup,” despite Republicans offering no evidence of a “coverup.”

“This move by Attorney General Garland is part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of the House Oversight Committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals,” Comer, who is leading the effort by House Republicans investigating Joe Biden and his family, said in a statement on Friday.

Since Republicans retook the House last year, they have launched multiple investigative efforts aimed at learning more about who paid Hunter Biden in the past, when and why, and they have contended that the swirl of foreign money sullies Joe Biden himself.

The White House has repeatedly dismissed claims of misconduct by the president, saying there is no evidence that Joe Biden was or is connected to his son’s business work. The president has said the same.

ABC News’ Will Steakin contributed to this report.

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