Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Only seven weeks into his 2024 campaign for the White House, Ron DeSantis is struggling to make a dent in former President Donald Trump’s commanding lead in the Republican primary — and the Florida governor’s team is already looking for a possible media strategy reset while some top donors privately fret over the trajectory of the campaign, multiple sources tell ABC News.

DeSantis, who has been viewed in some more traditional Republican donor circles as the best shot at beating the former president for the GOP nomination, formally entered the race in May. But despite an impressive second-quarter $20 million fundraising haul, he has continued to trail Trump in national polls amid a series of early campaign stumbles.

Back in January, DeSantis trailed Trump nationally by just single digits, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of national polls. But since officially jumping into the race in May, DeSantis has seen his deficit balloon to nearly 30 points.

Amid that slow start, the DeSantis campaign has been weighing a shift in media strategy, sources tell ABC News. While candidates like former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have made regularly appearances on CNN and MSNBC a part of their White House runs, DeSantis has largely shunned mainstream media outlets and has mainly stuck to more friendly platforms like Fox News and conservative news media — a trend that has caught the eye of Trump and his team, sources said.

That may be about to change, according to multiple sources, who said the governor’s team is leaning toward having DeSantis begin doing mainstream network interviews and possibly town halls.

The move would mark a stark shift in strategy for the governor’s team, who sources said felt earlier in the year that DeSantis could afford to engage only with more friendly platforms and figures — as evidenced by his campaign launch coming via a Twitter Spaces event hosted by Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who had previously expressed support for the governor.

In recent weeks, as Trump and his team have continued to hit DeSantis for avoiding tougher interviews, DeSantis’ team has urged the governor to reconsider the strategy, sources said.

The potential shift would come a little more than a month from the first Republican primary debate in August, which will serve as DeSantis’ biggest opportunity yet to introduce himself to Republican primary voters and to chip away at Trump’s lead in the polls.

DeSantis’ early struggles to catch Trump have led some of the Florida governor’s big-money donors to privately question DeSantis’ viability as a presidential candidate while Trump is still in the field, multiple sources told ABC News. Some donors have privately discussed holding their money until 2028, or until Trump is no longer a part of the presidential picture, sources said.

Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who early on had signaled plans to throw his support behind DeSantis’ White House run, has in particular grown increasingly frustrated with how the Florida governor’s early campaign has played out after hoping the governor would be the best bet to take on Trump in the primary, sources familiar with Griffin’s thinking told ABC News.

Griffin has privately told people close to him, including other top donors, that he’s growing impatient with waiting for DeSantis to show progress as a candidate, said a source familiar with Griffin’s thinking. A source described Griffin as having “hit the pause button” on his support for the governor.

A spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign did not return a request for comment when asked about the possible change in media strategy or the concerns of some donors, including Griffin.

When asked about Griffin’s support for DeSantis, a spokesperson for the billionaire reiterated that Griffin “continues to assess the field,” and denied that he had paused support. The New York Times reported back in April that Griffin was assessing the field.

Still, many donors continue to view DeSantis as the only candidate who can take on the former president. Onetime Trump megadonor Hal Lambert, who is now backing DeSantis, told ABC News that he has not heard complaints from donors regarding the Florida governor’s current standing in the polls.

“People that are concerned about these polls, I would just say — Trump’s poll numbers aren’t great in my opinion,” Lambert said. “I mean, 50 percent? You have half the party that doesn’t want you? His numbers should be much higher.”

The Florida governor’s team is hopeful that if DeSantis can start inching back up the polls — possibly after a strong showing in the upcoming debate — the billionaire will reassess his stance and “come back” to support DeSantis, sources said.

“$150 million was just raised to elect Gov. Ron DeSantis the next president of the United States,” Dave Vasquez, national press secretary for the super PAC backing DeSantis, Never Back Down, said in a statement to ABC News. “That combined haul is the largest in one single quarter out of any candidate in this primary. Not only are we outpacing the competition in fundraising, we’re already lightyears ahead of the field when it comes to infrastructure on the ground — that’s what makes everyone going up against Gov. DeSantis so nervous.”

Never Back Down says supporters have knocked on over 690,000 doors nationwide, and over 7,000 in Iowa, where the first GOP caucus will take place. The group also says it has 400 full-time paid canvassers deployed across the country.

Sources have told ABC News that some top donors who had planned to support DeSantis have started “shopping around” to other primary candidates, including taking meetings with the likes of Christie, Sen. Tim Scott, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

But Lambert said he isn’t concerned.

“I think the polling will come around,” Lambert said of DeSantis. “He’s not running a campaign to juice polling numbers.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Danielle Gershkovich, the sister of detained Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, said Thursday she is heartened by efforts to keep his case in the spotlight, even as while dealing with his being held in Russia has been challenging.

Appearing on a panel at the National Press Club in Washington to mark more than 100 days since her brother was detained on espionage charges, she spoke out on the same day President Joe Biden said the U.S. is “serious” about a possible prisoner swap.

“I just try to take it day by day. It still feels unreal sometimes. So, for my parents, it’s a full-time job … There’s not really a lot for us to know, but we’re just trying to learn everything that we can, and just try to, mostly, stay strong; try to keep the spotlight on Evan’s case,” she said.

Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have strongly denied Russia’s allegations. On Thursday, President Joe Biden, asked about his case, told reporters in Helsinki, Finland, that he is “serious about a prisoner exchange.”

“I’m serious about doing all we can to free Americans who are being illegally held in Russia, or anywhere else for that matter. And that process is underway,” Biden said.

The White House had previously said that efforts to secure the release of Gerskovich and detained former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan are continuing, and that the administration is in contact with high-level Russian authorities. The administration also warned that there was no clear path forward yet to securing their release.

As her brother’s detention stretches on, Danielle said, she has been receiving letters from him about once a week.

“It’s a really tough position to be in, because you have to steel yourself to know that it’s going to be a long time, and you don’t really know what is coming next… we passed the 100-day marker. And seeing Evan’s face in the news was just really heartening. At such a dark time, it’s wonderful to see his face again.”

The Journal marked 100 days since Gershkovich’s detention with a front-page wrap with his picture and the hashtag #IStandWithEvan.

Danielle Gershkovich spoke about growing up with her brother, whom she called a “great listener,” even though she quipped she was a classic “bossy older sister.”

“Not only is he just so talented, but he’s just — he’s a great listener, he gives the best presents,” she said. “He just somehow, like, sees into your soul … He would be the person I’d be talking to, to make sense of this right now. So, yeah, really miss him.”

When asked if her family has had any contact with Whelan’s family — Gershkovich said they had not, but that “our hearts go out to any family who’s dealing with something like this, and we just want all Americans who are unjustly detained abroad to be brought back home.”

Jason Conti, general counsel at the Wall Street Journal’s parent company Dow Jones & Co., said that the company has lawyers and others both working in Russia and the United States to help secure Evan’s release and provide support to the family. This includes navigating the Russian legal system as well as helping with diplomatic efforts.

“The frustrating part, which — it’s hard to describe it — it’s like, lots and lots of action — unclear how much progress. And that’s wildly frustrating for everybody … You don’t know you’ve made progress until, all of a sudden, you’ve made progress,” Conti said.

Thursday’s event in Washington came as the Gershkovich family has begun to speak out more openly about bringing home their son and brother.

In an interview with ABC News that aired on Tuesday, Gershkovich’s parents Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich told “Good Morning America” co-anchor George Stephanopoulos that they are confident the U.S. government is working hard to get him home.

President Joe Biden “told us he understands our pain,” Millman told Stephanopolous.

“I’m so proud of him. I’m sure most of you have seen the video of him talking to my parents in the courtroom, just that little glimpse of it,” Danielle Gershkovich said on Thursday. “And just to see him waving his hands in such a familiar way and making them laugh … I don’t know how he’s staying so brave, but it means I have to stay brave for him, too.”

And what does she wants to do the most when she sees him again? “Well, first I’m going to hug him so hard he won’t be able to breathe,” she said, and then hopes the two of them and their parents will take a family vacation.

“I’d love to have a beer with him,” she said.

ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Cheyenne Haslett, Molly Nagle, and Cindy Smith contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Congressional Democrats on Thursday unveiled a new push to make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri introduced a joint resolution stating the gender-equality measure has met ratification requirements and should be finalized as the 28th Amendment immediately by the national archivist.

“The ERA is the path that brings our entire country toward true gender equity, and all that is standing in the way of this necessary change is paperwork,” Bush said in a news release.

The measure is the latest tactic in the party’s renewed effort to revive the amendment, which protects against sex discrimination, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade. Critics of the court’s decision have pointed to language from Justice Clarence Thomas they say threatens other rights such as marriage equality or contraception access.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan attempt to push the ERA forward by removing the 1982 deadline — set by Congress for ratification — was blocked by Senate Republicans.

The new measure from Gillibrand and Bush contends the 1982 deadline is arbitrary, stating Article V of the Constitution sets only two requirements for amendments — passage by two-thirds of the House and Senate and ratification by three-fourths of the states — and maintain both have been satisfied.

Legal experts told ABC News, however, the process for constitutional amendments isn’t so clear cut.

“The Constitution doesn’t provide any clear rules for determining when the rules of Article V have been satisfied,” said Columbia Law professor David Pozen.

Pozen noted virtually every amendment has faced plausible legal challenges to its compliance with Article V, and the courts have largely stayed out of such disputes.

“At the end of the day, whether an amendment has crossed the line and deserves to be considered part of the Constitution is a function of whether enough government officials, lawyers and ordinary citizens treat it as such,” he said.

Wilfred Codrington, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, had a similar view.

“Constitutional amendments and pushes to have them proposed and ratified are largely political issues,” he said. “We should think about this as a political question, and think of our government actors as the ones to make the determination of its validity.”

The ERA, which will soon reach a 100-year milestone, has been at an impasse since Virginia became the 38th state to ratify in 2020. The congressional deadline, the rescission of ratification by some states and other issues have been the focus of several lawsuits.

The joint resolution from Gillibrand and Bush seeks to end that limbo but it is unlikely to pass given the Republican Party’s general stance that the amendment is not necessary.

But Codrington said he doesn’t believe the ERA is an issue that is going away any time soon.

“It hasn’t died in over a century. It hasn’t died in the States, where many have successfully enacted their own constitutional amendments to guarantee gender equality,” he said. “On the national scale, political actors are thinking about the political times with abortion, marriage equality and other gendered issues arising.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Secret Service on Thursday said its investigation into how cocaine ended up at the White House is now closed without identifying a suspect.

The agency statement came after congressional Republicans said they were told in a classified Secret Service briefing that the investigation into the cocaine found in the White House West Wing earlier this month was concluding without a determination of who was responsible.

“There was no surveillance video footage found that provided investigative leads or any other means for investigators to identify who may have deposited the found substance in this area,” the agency said in a lengthy statement. “Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered. At this time, the Secret Service’s investigation is closed due to a lack of physical evidence.”

The Secret Service said the packaging was “subjected to advanced fingerprint and DNA analysis,” by the FBI crime lab.

“The investigation included a methodical review of security systems and protocols,” the agency statement said. “This review included a backwards examination that spanned several days prior to the discovery of the substance and developed an index of several hundred individuals who may have accessed the area where the substance was found. The focal point of these actions developed a pool of known persons for comparison of forensic evidence gleaned from the FBI’s analysis of the substance’s packaging.

“On July 12, the Secret Service received the FBI’s laboratory results, which did not develop latent fingerprints and insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons,” the statement said.

Following Thursday’s closed-door briefing to members and staff of the House Oversight Committee, Republicans said they viewed the development as a “failure” of the agency and said the briefers said the investigation was concluding.

“And to say that they don’t know who it is, to me, somebody should lose their job over this. This thing’s a trash can. Everybody wants to pick and choose they need to shut the whole thing down put the garden hose to it and clean it out,” Rep. Tim Burchett said, adding that the Secret Service told members in the briefing the bag contained less than a gram of cocaine.

Members told reporters the Secret Service informed them they narrowed down the list of suspects to 500 people during the weekend that cocaine was found and said that group included a mix of staffers and visitors who were on a tour. West Wing tours are invitation only.

Members said they were told there are 182 lockers on the wall where visitors are typically told to store their electronics and cell phones. They said they were told the cocaine was found in locker 50.

GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert said the key to that locker is missing.

“There’s no collateral system in place. There’s no assigning of the lockers. And this was one of the concerns I raised to Secret Service. We need to be able to track individuals and which locker they are using,” she said.

CNN first reported the Secret Service’s conclusion.

Committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., said the discovery raises questions about security at the White House when he requested the briefing in a letter sent to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on July 7.

“This alarming development requires the Committee to assess White House security practices and determine whose failures led to an evacuation of the building and finding of the illegal substance,” Comer wrote.

The briefing took place behind closed doors in a SCIF — a sensitive compartmented information facility used to handled classified information.

The Secret Service has been investigating since the drug was found at the White House complex on July 2. So far, no one has been blamed for bringing in the illegal substance.

The White House was briefly shut down and the D.C. Fire Department was called to the scene when a powdery, cocaine-like substance was found inside a work area. Testing later confirmed the substance was cocaine.

A source familiar with the matter told ABC News the drug was located inside a cubby near the West Executive entrance where visitors typically drop off their cell phones and other belongings.

As part of the probe, the Secret Service was reviewing the security footage and visitor logs.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there had been tours conducted the Sunday the substance was found as well as the two days prior, and described the area as “highly traveled.”

President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and other Biden family members left the White House Friday afternoon to spend the weekend at Camp David.

The White House has declined to extensively comment on the incident. Jean-Pierre was peppered with questions during a press briefing last week, but only told reporters that Biden had been briefed on the matter and the White House was confident the Secret Service would “get to the bottom of this.”

“We are not involved in this,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is something that the Secret Service handles. It’s under their protocol.”

ABC News’ Laren Peller, Will Steakin and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Secret Service on Thursday will give a classified briefing to members and staff of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on the cocaine found in the White House West Wing earlier this month, a spokesman for the agency confirmed to ABC News.

Committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., said the discovery raises questions about security at the White House when he requested the briefing in a letter sent to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on July 7.

“This alarming development requires the Committee to assess White House security practices and determine whose failures led to an evacuation of the building and finding of the illegal substance,” Comer wrote.

The briefing will take place behind in a SCIF — a sensitive compartmented information facility used to handled classified information — and will start at 10 a.m. ET, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The Secret Service has been investigating since the drug was found at the White House complex on July 2. So far, no one has been blamed for bringing in the illegal substance.

The White House was briefly shut down and the D.C. Fire Department was called to the scene when a powdery, cocaine-like substance was found inside a work area. Testing later confirmed the substance was cocaine.

A source familiar with the matter told ABC News the drug was located inside a cubby near the West Executive entrance where visitors typically drop off their cellphones and other belongings.

As part of the probe, the Secret Service was reviewing the security footage and visitor logs.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there had been tours conducted the Sunday the substance was found as well as the two days prior, and described the area as “highly traveled.”

President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and other Biden family members left Friday afternoon to spend the weekend at Camp David.

The White House has declined to extensively comment on the incident. Jean-Pierre was peppered with questions during a press briefing last week, but only told reporters that Biden had been briefed on the matter and the White House was confident the Secret Service would “get to the bottom of this.”

“We are not involved in this,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is something that the Secret Service handles. It’s under their protocol.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s emails were hacked as part of the Microsoft cyber breach, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Microsoft’s Outlook systems were breached by Chinese hackers, according to the company. The breach was discovered in May.

Raimondo’s Commerce Department has been imposing sanctions on China, and she met with her Chinese counterpart in May, promising better relations.

This isn’t the first time a cabinet-level secretary’s emails were breached. The emails of former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf were compromised during the SolarWinds hack of 2020, which is widely considered one of the worst breaches in U.S. history.

SolarWinds was a hack that was carried out by the Russian nation-state actor Nobelium, Microsoft said in 2021.

Raimondo is the only cabinet secretary so far to have their emails hacked in this particular breach.

The State Department, though, was also impacted by the latest cyber breach.

While State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller could say little more about the breach from the podium Wednesday, officials familiar with the matter say the hack began in May but was not identified until mid-June, even though there were widespread issues within the department’s email systems earlier that month — potentially missed warning signs.

The Department of Commerce is the second agency impacted by the Microsoft 365 hack by the Chinese hackers.

“Microsoft notified the Department of a compromise to Microsoft’s Office 365 system, and the Department took immediate action to respond,” a commerce department spokesperson told ABC News. “We are monitoring our systems and will respond promptly should any further activity be detected. The Department maintains strong cyber security protections, which we update to address a rapidly evolving cyber security landscape.”

In an alert sent Tuesday night, Microsoft said China was able to gain email data from 25 organizations.

“On June 16, 2023, based on customer reported information, Microsoft began an investigation into anomalous mail activity,” the alert read. “Over the next few weeks, our investigation revealed that beginning on May 15, 2023, Storm-0558 gained access to email data from approximately 25 organizations, and a small number of related consumer accounts of individuals likely associated with these organizations. They did this by using forged authentication tokens to access user email using an acquired Microsoft account (MSA) consumer signing key. Microsoft has completed mitigation of this attack for all customers.”

FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency officials told reporters earlier in the day that Microsoft acted “swiftly” to mitigate the damage done by the hacking of government emails.

The attack, officials said, was targeted and lasted for about a month.

“The targeting was intentional. This was an attack that was limited in scope and was not an attempt to compromise a broad array of organizations or accounts, as we have seen in other types of campaigns,” the CISA official said.

The adversary that hacked the emails is China, according to Microsoft, but officials did not give any U.S. government attribution.

“As Microsoft has articulated the timeline from the first known intrusion to the time when Microsoft remediated this attack vector was approximately one month, that does not mean that the duration of the intrusion for all victims was one month. And we do understand that some were shorter than one month, in some cases a number of days,” a senior CISA official said.

The CISA official said there was nothing classified that was compromised during the attack.

CISA and the FBI went into detail about how the Chinese carried out the attack in an alert on Wednesday.

“Microsoft determined that APT actors accessed and exfiltrated unclassified Exchange Online Outlook data from a small number of accounts,” the alert read. “The APT actors used a Microsoft account (MSA) consumer key to forge tokens to impersonate consumer and enterprise users. Microsoft remediated the issue by first blocking tokens issued with the acquired key and then replacing the key to prevent continued misuse.”

On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin was asked about Microsoft’s claims that China is behind the hacking. He did not address the claim, but instead responded by claiming the U.S. is “the world’s biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The House on Wednesday cleared its first procedural hurdle on the National Defense Authorization Act, approving a rule on non-controversial amendments to the annual military spending and budget bill. But the fight continues as Republicans remain far from agreement on how to tackle issues including abortion, diversity at the Pentagon and Ukraine funding — all of which could tank the legislation.

Facing another test of how he can corral his party, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is working with GOP leadership to navigate through the rest of the amendments for the defense bill while having ongoing meetings and talks with the hard-line conservatives who are proposing controversial changes. 

“We did the first part now. You know we have 1,500 amendments. It takes a lot of time to work through all of it,” McCarthy said.

The amendments include gutting military diversity programs, reversing a policy to reimburse service members for travel expenses if they get an abortion, reinstating troops who refused to comply with the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and limiting funds for further assistance to Ukraine, like providing cluster bombs, which are banned by numerous other countries.

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said Wednesday that the House GOP is still “trying to figure out how we’re going to pull all that together and get it across the finish line.”

“There’s obviously a lot of hot-button issues you all know that need to be addressed and dealt with,” he said, listing items like abortion access, climate change and the transgender community.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said leadership is having ongoing discussions with right-wing lawmakers including Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania about the proposed amendments.

“We’re going to work through the process. If we can finish it all this week, we will. If it takes more time we’ll take it, right?” Scalise said.

During the weekly GOP conference meeting, McCarthy warned against amendments that could complicate or slow-down the NDAA.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Republican leaders and members have been encouraging the conference to push the NDAA forward.

“There’s nothing more that we need to do as a nation other than to prepare and ready our defense forces, whether it’s here or abroad. We need to do this, we need to do it this week, and I hope that we can get there,” Mace said.

Some Democrats have said they will vote against the NDAA if it includes the right-wing amendments. McCarthy has said he hopes Democrats still back the bill, while House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar has said members “will vote their districts” and “their conscience. … the details of these policies matter.”

Beyond the NDAA, the House also faces a looming government shutdown later this year. Hard-line Republicans have already demanded McCarthy agree to their limits on spending if he wants their votes on future appropriations bills.

ABC News’ Noah Minnie contributed to this report.

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(DES MOINES, Iowa) — The Iowa Legislature on Tuesday night passed legislation that would restrict abortion, now sending the bill to Gov. Kim Reynolds after 14 hours of committee meetings and testimony from the public.

Lawmakers kicked off a special session Tuesday morning with the “sole purpose” of passing the legislation.

“The Iowa Supreme Court questioned whether this legislature would pass the same law they did in 2018, and today they have a clear answer,” Gov. Reynolds said in a statement, announcing her plans to sign the bill on Friday, the day she is set to speak at Family Leadership Summit, a conference hosted by evangelical Christian conservative Bob Vander Plaats’ group, the Family Leader.

It comes less than a month after the state’s Supreme Court was deadlocked on whether a lower court’s injunction of a six-week abortion ban should be dissolved, leaving the procedure legal in Iowa.

In response, Reynolds had blasted the court’s decision — saying it had failed to exercise its authority — and called for the special session.

“I believe the pro-life movement is the most important human rights cause of our time,” Reynolds said in a statement. “Not only will I continue to fight against the inhumanity of abortion, but I will also remain committed to supporting women in planning for motherhood, promoting fatherhood and parenting, and continuing policies that encourage strong families.”

Because Republicans hold a majority in both the state Senate and the House of Representatives, the new legislation was likely to pass.

The bill would limit abortion once cardiac activity can be detected, which typically occurs around six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant. Abortion in Iowa is currently legal up to 20 weeks.

There are exceptions for medical emergencies and for rape and incest, as long as they are reported to law enforcement or to a health agency within 45 days and 145 days, respectively.

If the ban is passed, Iowa will join several other states that have passed so-called “heartbeat bills,” including Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota and Texas.

Ohio and South Carolina have also passed six-week abortion bans. Both are currently facing legal challenges and Iowa could be next.

“The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood, and the Emma Goldman Clinic remain committed to protecting the reproductive rights of Iowans to control their bodies and their lives, their health, and their safety–including filing a lawsuit to block this reckless, cruel law,” ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Mark Stringer.

Impassioned abortion rights demonstrators rallied in protest of the bill, during and after Tuesday’s proceedings.

Planned Parenthood Advocates of Iowa tweeted Monday, calling for demonstrators to protest the special session at the Iowa State Capitol.

“Now is the time to get loud and show up in force at the Capitol to fight back against attacks on abortion access,” the group wrote. “Together, we will make our voices heard and hold elected officials accountable for any vote they take to restrict abortion.”

The previous abortion ban, signed into law by Reynolds in 2018, also prevented abortion after six weeks. However, the law was permanently struck down by a district court in January 2019, which ruled that the law violated the Iowa constitution and that there was no state interest in banning abortions so early in pregnancy.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, at least 15 states have ceased nearly all abortion services, according to an ABC News tally.

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(WASHINGTON) — FBI Director Christopher Wray is set for a grilling when he appears before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has been critical of Wray and the Justice Department, accusing it of misuse of resources for political purposes.

Jordan’s committee released a report on Tuesday about U.S. social media companies facilitating “censorship requests to American social media companies on behalf of a Ukrainian intelligence agency infiltrated by Russian-aligned actors.”

Director Wray will focus his remarks on the good work of the FBI to protect the American people and the professionalism, patriotism and dedication to public service of FBI employees, an FBI spokesperson tells ABC News.

Wray is expected to highlight the “sheer breadth and impact” of the 38,000 FBI employees according to an excerpt of his opening remarks obtained by ABC News.

“The work the men and women of the FBI do to protect the American people goes way beyond the one or two investigations that seem to capture all the headlines,” he is expected to say, while highlighting the work the FBI does in taking violent criminals off the street and going after the cartels who traffic drugs across the southern border.

Jordan also has also accused the FBI of overreaching when executing the search of former President Donald Trump’s home last August. In a letter to Wray’s boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Jordan called the raid a “serious appearance of a double standard and a miscarriage of justice.”

The director has defended the Bureau’s actions in the face of some Republicans calling on Congress to reduce funding for the FBI. Jordan plans to attach riders to appropriations bills which state the FBI is to move to Hunstville, Alabama, or get defunded, per a source briefed on the plan. The plan was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Wray is also set to face questions on the investigation into Hunter Biden. Last month, Biden agreed to plead guilty to a pair of tax-related misdemeanors and enter into a pretrial diversion agreement that would enable him to avoid prosecution on one felony gun charge.

Jordan, along with Oversight Chairman James Comer and Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, has raised questions about the way the investigation was handled.

Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss has pushed back on allegations of political interference to benefit Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.

“To clarify an apparent misperception and to avoid future confusion, I wish to make one point clear: in this case, I have not requested Special Counsel designation,” Weiss wrote in a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In earlier testimony to Congress, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley claimed that Weiss was unsuccessful in persuading federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and California to bring charges against Biden, so Weiss then requested to become a special counsel, which — according to Shapley — was denied.

Wray is also expected to face questions about Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a surveillance program set to expire at the end of this year. While Jordan has argued against reauthorization for Section 702, citing cases when officials have been found to have misused the Section 702 program, Wray has argued the program is invaluable to law enforcement, noting its utility in nabbing terrorists and other foreign adversaries who have used email accounts serviced by U.S. companies.

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(NEW YORK) — The Justice Department said on Tuesday it was no longer claiming, under the Westfall Act, that former President Donald Trump was acting within the scope of his office and employment as president of the United States when he allegedly defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019.

The development, which could clear the way for Carroll’s initial 2019 lawsuit against then-President Trump to proceed, came on the same day that Carroll’s attorney argued for the dismissal of a counterclaim Trump filed against Carroll in a separate but related case.

A jury in May found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s, then defaming her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie.” But Carroll’s initial defamation lawsuit, filed in 2019, has been tied up in the courts over the question of whether Trump’s denial of Carroll’s rape claim was part of his official duties, as he argued.

If so, the Justice Department would have substituted for Trump as the defendant and the case would have been moot since the federal government cannot be sued for defamation.

Instead, the Justice Department said Tuesday that “it lacks adequate evidence to conclude that the former President was sufficiently actuated by a purpose to serve the United States Government to support a determination that he was acting within the scope of his employment when he denied sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll and made the other statements regarding Ms. Carroll that she has challenged in this action.”

Word from the DOJ came in a letter to the court from James Touhey, director of the Justice Department’s torts branch.

“The evidence of Mr. Trump’s state of mind, some of which has come to light only after the Department last made a certification decision, does not establish that he made the statements at issue with a ‘more than insignificant’ purpose to serve the United States Government,” the letter said. “Here, although the statements themselves were made in a work context, the allegations that prompted the statements related to a purely personal incident: an alleged sexual assault that occurred decades prior to Mr. Trump’s Presidency. That sexual assault was obviously not job-related.”

The filing marks a major reversal for the Justice Department, which had repeatedly stood by its position to bolster Trump’s defense in the case even in the face of withering criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“The job of the Justice Department and making decisions of law is not to back any administration, previous or present,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told the Senate Appropriations Committee in 2021. “And our job in doing so is to ensure adherence to the rule of law, which is a fundamental requirement of a democracy, or a republic or a representative democracy.”

Carroll’s 2019 lawsuit is scheduled for trial in January.

“We are grateful that the Department of Justice has reconsidered its position,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement. “We have always believed that Donald Trump made his defamatory statements about our client in June 2019 out of personal animus, ill will, and spite, and not as President of the United States.”

A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.

Meanwhile, Carroll’s attorneys argued Tuesday for the dismissal of the counterclaim that Trump filed against Carroll for comments she made on CNN after she won her separate but related suit against him.

Trump sued Carroll last month after she insisted in a television interview that he had raped her in the dressing room despite the jury finding him liable for the lesser charge of sexual assault.

“Carroll’s statements are not plausibly susceptible of a defamatory meaning, are substantially true, were uttered without actual malice, and are protected by the fair reporting privilege,” Carroll’s attorneys said in their motion to dismiss.

Her attorneys said there is no basis for Trump to proceed with a counterclaim, which they said “would impose on Carroll undue burden and significant expense, not to mention hold up yet again this otherwise trial-ready, much-delayed case.”

Trump’s counterclaim is based on Carroll’s May 10 appearance on CNN during which she answered questions about the jury’s verdict holding Trump liable and awarding her $5 million in damages, which Trump has asked the court to reduce.

“I just wonder, E. Jean, what went through your head when you heard that?” a CNN reporter asked Carroll about the jury’s determination that Trump hadn’t committed rape.

“Well, I just immediately say in my own head, ‘Oh, yes, he did — oh, yes, he did.’ So that’s my response,” Carroll replied.

“This statement about Carroll’s recollection was not defamatory as a matter of law because it was substantially true,” her attorneys said in Tuesday’s filing. “Trump does not allege that Carroll lied about her own recollections. In other words, he does not claim that she lied when she told CNN’s reporters that she had thought ‘Oh, yes, he did — oh, yes, he did’ while listening to the jury verdict.”

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