Politics

(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump on Monday suggested he had been too “busy” and wanted to be sure he’d retrieved his personal belongings before complying with the federal government’s repeated demands — and, eventually, a grand jury’s subpoena — that he return classified documents he took with him when he left the White House.

In a lengthy interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, which continued to air on Tuesday, Trump staunchly defended the conduct now at the center of an unprecedented, 37-count federal indictment against him.

He pleaded not guilty last week and is tentatively set to go to trial later this year.

He is the first former president to ever face federal criminal charges.

Trump is accused of 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information; one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice; one count of withholding a document or record; one count of corruptly concealing a document or record; one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation; one count of scheming to conceal; and one count of making false statements and representations.

While prosecutors allege the former president illegally held onto national defense information and refused to give it back even after a subpoena, in violation of the Espionage Act, Trump pushed back on the case against him in various answers to Baier.

At the same time, he also appeared to acknowledge that the packing process to leave the White House had been haphazard and that he later resisted turning over everything to the government as quickly as they wanted.

“Why did you have this very sensitive national security defense documents?” Baier asked at one point.

“So, like every other president, I take things out,” Trump said. “And, in my case, I took it out pretty much in a hurry. But people packed it up, and we left. And I had clothing in there, I had all sorts of personal items.”

“I have to go through those boxes,” he said. “I take out personal things.”

Trump also insisted “I have every right to have those boxes” and wrongly said the Presidential Records Act gave him permission to take the government records with him when he left office. (The Presidential Records Act specifically excludes official agency records. Prosecutors wrote in Trump’s indictment that he kept documents from U.S. intelligence agencies.)

At one point in the interview, Baier referenced the sensitive records that prosecutors say were recovered from Trump, including those about America’s military and nuclear capabilities, a foreign country’s support of terrorism and information on various foreign militaries.

“Why do you want to hold on to those documents after you’re president?” Baier asked.

“I don’t say I do,” Trump said.

The indictment against him describes how he and aides packed boxes to leave the White House that contained hundreds of classified documents — and, back at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, how those same boxes were then carted from room to room around the property, including in areas accessible to others.

At one point, the indictment states, a Trump aide found that some of the boxes had fallen in a storage room, spilling their contents across the floor. Among the papers was a document marked “secret,” according to the indictment.

In the Fox News interview, when Baier said the National Archives had sought for Trump to return what he took, Trump contended that was what he was trying to do — which prosecutors dispute.

The indictment states that starting in May 2021, the archives “repeatedly demanded” that Trump hand back over any presidential records he took with him after office, as required by law — otherwise, the archives warned, they would “refer the matter” to the Department of Justice.

In January 2022, the archives received 15 boxes that Trump sent them, according to the indictment, and found that 14 of the boxes had, in total, about 200 classified documents. The archives referred this to the DOJ.

In March 2022, the FBI began investigating and in May 2022 a federal grand jury issued a subpoena in order to compel Trump to turn over all the classified records he inappropriately had, according to the indictment, which also states that Trump’s attorneys then provided some more classified documents to the government but not all of them. The FBI obtained a search warrant, approved by a judge, to search Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 where they found another 102 documents with classification markings.

On Fox News on Monday, Baier referenced some of this timeline.

“They asked,” Baier told Trump of the archives.

“We were talking. … And I gave them some,” Trump said.

Baier noted the federal grand jury’s subpoena.

“Why not just hand them over then?” Baier asked.

“Because I had boxes. I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don’t want to hand that over to [the archives] yet,” Trump said. “And I was very busy, as you have sort of seen. I have been very, very busy.”

“Before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out,” he said. “These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things, golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes.”

Baier asked if those materials included a potential attack plan on Iran.

“Not that I know of,” Trump said, and he said he no longer has any classified documents in his possession.

Prosecutors wrote in the indictment that in 2021 Trump was allegedly recorded showing off a “secret” government document that he noted was still classified. ABC News has reported that, according to sources, Trump said the document was about attacking Iran.

On Fox News, Trump disputed the account of the recording when Baier raised it, saying, “It wasn’t a document, OK?” Instead, he said he might have been referring in the recording to news clips.

Trump also maintained that he had declassified “everything” with him, which he has claimed before, though he has provided no evidence of doing so before his presidency ended.

He also repeatedly said he was being singled out despite other former office-holders keeping classified records while out of office, including current President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom said they promptly returned classified documents after discovering them — unlike Trump.

The Department of Justice investigated but did not pursue charges against Pence. A special prosecutor has been examining Biden’s handling of classified records while out of office. He has pledged to cooperate and said he wants the matter “resolved quickly.”

“When you look at this, other presidents, when they leave, they take the papers,” Trump told Baier.

“They have never treated a president like this,” he said at another point in the interview.

Asked if he was “worried” about the federal case, Trump said, “Based on the law? Zero.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(GEORGIA) — Allegations of election fraud against two Georgia election workers who became the subjects of a Trump-backed conspiracy theory in the aftermath of the 2020 election were found to be “false and unsubstantiated,” according to an investigative report released Tuesday by the Georgia Elections Board.

Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, both former election workers from Fulton County, faced threats of violence from conspiracy theorists after their election-night conduct on a polling place livestream proliferated online among right-wing election deniers who believed Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

In one video clip, online commentators accused Freeman of handling a suitcase of fraudulent or stolen ballots.

“The suitcases they claim we had were issued ballot boxes that we use every election,” Moss explained on an episode of ABC News’ IMPACT x Nightline last November.

Another clip showed Freeman handing her daughter a small item, imperceptible on the grainy livestream footage, that led some online commentators to accuse the two of exchanging a USB drive, which was allegedly meant to somehow manipulate votes. Freeman said it was just ginger mints that she kept in her purse.

The following week, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, appeared before a committee of the Georgia state legislature to advocate for their intervention in the electoral college certification — and told the legislators that a video circulating online showed “Ruby Freeman and Shaye Freeman Moss … quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports, as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.”

Testifying last year in the House select committee’s Jan. 6 hearings, Freeman said, “I’ve lost my name and I’ve lost my reputation, I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with No. 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.”

Freeman told ABC News’ Terry Moran that she subsequently received so much harassment from conspiracy theorists that she was forced to pack up and leave the suburban Atlanta home where she lived for 20 years.

As part of their probe, Georgia Elections Board investigators interviewed a social media user who “admitted he created a fake account and confirmed the content that was posted on the account was fake,” the new report said.

“We are glad the State Election Board finally put this issue to rest,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement following the release of the report.

“False claims and knowingly false allegations made against these election workers have done tremendous harm,” Raffensperger said. “Election workers deserve our praise for being on the front lines.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — An “Abolition Amendment” was introduced in Congress last week that would eliminate the so-called slavery loophole in the U.S. Constitution.

Ratified in 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, “except as punishment for crime.” That exception is what three Democratic members of Congress – Rep. Nikema Williams of Georgia, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon – are seeking to eliminate with their new amendment.

In a statement to ABC News, Booker said, the exception “has allowed our government to exploit individuals who are incarcerated and to profit from their forced labor.”

The United States incarcerates more of its population than any other country, including a disproportionate number of Black Americans.

Rep. Nikema Williams spoke to ABC News’ Kanya Whitworth about the amendment proposed ahead of Juneteenth, which marks the day when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free.

KANYA WHITWORTH: Before we get into some of the specifics of the abolition amendment, could you reflect on today’s federal holiday, Juneteenth? An important moment that we recognize as a nation?

NIKEMA WILLIAMS: I mean, a very important moment. I was just looking at – one of the things that is good about social media is you get memories from the years in the past. And I served in the state Senate before I was in Congress, and I saw where I filed legislation in Georgia to make Juneteenth a state holiday to replace our Confederate memorial holiday.

And I couldn’t even get a hearing for my bill. And now here we are, three short years later, and it’s a federal holiday. So, this is a day that we should all celebrate, the progress of Black Americans, formerly enslaved people in this country, and one step closer to recognizing the full history of our country and the struggles that formerly enslaved people went through, including my ancestors. And so today is a day of celebration, but still so much more work to be done.

WHITWORTH: And commemoration, of course. And you’ve teamed up with New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley to try to change the language of the Constitution, specifically removing what has been called the slavery loophole from the 13th Amendment. What exactly is the language you want to change there?

WILLIAMS: That’s exactly right. So as we’re commemorating Juneteenth, when every enslaved person learned that they were actually free in this country after slavery had already been abolished, one thing that most Americans probably don’t even know is that we still have an exception clause in the U.S. Constitution and the 13th Amendment that allows slavery for punishment for a crime.

So the 13th Amendment states that slavery is abolished, except for punishment for a crime. And so, Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Jeff Merkley and I are working to change the U.S. Constitution once and for all.

This is bicameral legislation. It is bipartisan legislation. And we’re going to keep doing the work to make sure that once and for all, we remove slavery from our U.S. Constitution.

WHITWORTH: And we know the U.S. incarcerates more of its population than any other country and that includes a disproportionate number of Black Americans. Practically speaking, how would this amendment help address mass incarceration?

WILLIAMS: So right now, we have nearly 2 million incarcerated people in this country who are subject to forced labor, to slavery, and it is legalized based on our U.S. Constitution. We saw seven states who have already ratified their state constitutions to get rid of this, including states that don’t have a lot in common.

If you’re looking at it from a political sense, like Alabama and Colorado, Nebraska and Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont, these are states that have already ratified their constitution to make sure that that we can change the slavery loophole in the [U.S.] Constitution. So what is happening right now is we can have forced labor legally for punishment for a crime.

Right now, we have to make, we have to get this through Congress. We need two-thirds of a vote in both chambers. So we have a lot of work ahead of us. But the more we tell the story, the more we educate people, the more – regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, which part of the country you’re from – the more people are coming on board to say that we need to end the exception once and for all for slavery.

WHITWORTH: Congresswoman, you were elected to fill the Georgia seat left by the late congressman and civil rights icon, John Lewis. Can you talk to us about how you try to keep the legacy of “good trouble” alive?

WILLIAMS: So, Congressman Lewis taught us that we have an obligation, a moral obligation to find a way to get in the way. And each day, when I step into the halls of the U.S. Congress, when I walk through a Capitol that was built by enslaved people, I know that I have a legacy to uphold. I know that the people of Georgia’s 5th District, we call ourselves “The Fighting Fifth” down here in Georgia.

We have work to do to make sure that everyone has not only free and fair access to the ballot, but equality and justice for everyone in this country. And I have this constant reminder. I was able to know Congressman Lewis personally.

My husband worked for him for many years. And so I have the blueprint, and it’s up to me to continue to do the work. Each generation has to pick up the baton and take us one step closer to full equality for everyone in this country. Congressman Lewis paved the way, and it’s my turn to do my part of the job.

WHITWORTH: And you clearly are energized to do that. Our thanks to you, Congresswoman Williams.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump “has a prolific history of baselessly accusing state and federal judges around the country of bias” and there’s no reason the judge overseeing his criminal prosecution in New York should recuse himself from the case, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Tuesday in response to a court filing by Trump’s attorneys.

Trump earlier this month filed a motion seeking the recusal of New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case in which Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to a hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Trump is arguing that the judge is biased because his daughter works for a company aligned with Democrats.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office portrays the recusal as unnecessary.

“Recusal would facilitate an apparent effort by defendant to select his own judge and would encourage other litigants to adopt the same approach,” prosecutors said in their court filing Tuesday. “The motion to recuse should be denied.”

The defense has argued that the judge’s daughter would have a financial stake in the outcome of the case and the rulings her father makes — but prosecutors said that’s insufficient to warrant his stepping aside.

“Recusal is required only where there exists a direct, personal, substantial or pecuniary interest in reaching a particular conclusion,” prosecutors said. “There must be concrete proof of such a direct interest; speculative claims of potential bias are insufficient to warrant recusal.”

Trump also argued that the judge “pushed” former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg to plead guilty in his criminal case last summer. Prosecutors said it was Weisselberg who initiated plea talks, and any involvement by Judge Merchan has no bearing on a wholly different case.

“The Court’s participation in plea discussions involving Mr. Weisselberg was completely proper and displayed no favoritism or antagonism toward any party,” prosecutors said.

Trump is also trying to steer his prosecution away from Merchan by simultaneously working to move the case to federal court. A hearing on that is scheduled for next week.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — It seems clear from his comments over the years that the fatherly relationship Joe Biden has with his son Hunter outweighs concerns about appearances and political implications.

Biden has long maintained he was confident Hunter, 53, one of his two surviving children, had done nothing nefarious amid a federal investigation into the younger Biden’s tax affairs and overseas business dealings.

“First of all, my son’s done nothing wrong,” Biden told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle last month as prosecutors neared the end of their probe. “I trust him. I have faith in him. And it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.”

On Tuesday, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to a pair of tax-related misdemeanors, potentially bringing an end to the probe. The younger Biden will acknowledge failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018, and struck a deal with prosecutors regarding a felony charge related to illegal possession of a firearm.

The development comes just as President Biden has begun campaigning for a second term, and as congressional Republicans attempt at every turn to paint the first family as corrupt.

The charges are unlikely to satisfy those in the GOP who’ve been laser-focused on targeting what they call, without providing evidence, the “Biden crime family” and those lashing out at what they perceive to be a two-tiered system of justice in the wake of Donald Trump’s indictments.

The White House had largely avoided commenting on the investigation carried out by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, but maintained the president and his son never discussed the latter’s business dealings.

After news broke Tuesday of Hunter Biden’s plea agreement, White House spokesperson Ian Sams released a short statement.

“The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life,” Sams said. “We will have no further comment.”

The administration had previously emphasized neither President Biden nor the White House had discussed the probe with the Justice Department, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said as recently as March prosecutors were operating free from any interference.

“That’s a matter that’s going to be decided by the Justice Department, by the legal process,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain said on ABC’s This Week in April 2022. “It’s something that no one at the White House has involvement in.”

The investigation began in 2018 and became public in December 2020, just after Biden became president-elect. At the time, Biden’s transition team released a statement saying Biden remained “deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.”

The president commented on the issue only a handful of times since then, each time coming to the younger Biden’s defense and occasionally bristling at questions and accusations about his son’s conduct.

“I’m confident that he is — what he says, and does, are consistent with what happens,” Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in October 2022. “And, for example, he wrote a book about his problems, and was straightforward about it. I’m proud of him.”

In his 2021 memoir Beautiful Things, Hunter Biden detailed his struggle with drug addiction (which he said entered a darker phase after the death of his brother Beau Biden from brain cancer in 2015) his relationships with his family and his attempt to build a successful business career while sharing a name with his influential father.

Hunter Biden described when his father came to check on him during one of his benders, writing: “”He looked aghast at what he saw. He asked if I was okay and I told him, sure, I was fine. ‘I know you’re not fine, Hunter,’ he said, studying me, scanning the apartment. ‘You need help.’ I looked into my dad’s eyes and saw an expression of despair, an expression of fear.”

Hunter Biden has been visible at recent White House events, appearing at his father’s side at a state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron and at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington. He also accompanied President Biden during his trip to Ireland.

When asked by CBS News’ 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley last September if any of Hunter Biden’s troubles have caused “conflicts for you or for the United States,” Biden said no.

“I love my son, number one. He fought– an addiction problem,” Biden responded. “He overcame it. He wrote about it. And no, there’s not a single thing that I’ve observed at all from th– that would affect me or the United States relative to my son Hunter.

It remains to be seen how the charges against him will impact President Biden’s reelection bid.

House Republicans have used their majority to launch an investigation and hold various hearings into Hunter Biden’s private dealings. House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., vowed Tuesday to continue those efforts.

Trump — who faces multiple legal troubles of his own, including federal charges for his alleged mishandling of classified documents — on Tuesday alleged Hunter Biden was slapped with “a mere ‘traffic ticket.”

“Our system is BROKEN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

President Biden’s last presidential campaign, too, faced swirling questions about his son and then Republicans were ultimately unsuccessful in their attempt to tie Biden to his son in the minds of voters.

In an effort to diffuse scandals burgeoning during the 2020 presidential campaign, the younger Biden gave some personal interviews discussing his addiction struggles and his past relationships, including one with his brother’s widow Hallie.

Hunter Biden, in a 2019 sit down with ABC News, defended the ethical implications of his private business dealings but conceded a misstep in failing to foresee the political implications on his father’s career.

“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part. Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it — I know that there was — did nothing wrong at all,” Hunter Biden said. “However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is…a swamp in many ways? Yeah.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security John Tien is retiring from the Department, he announced in an internal message to department staff on Tuesday.

Tien, an Army veteran who served three tours of duty, including in Operation Desert Storm, is leaving the Department on July 20, according to the message.

“After 26 years of combined federal service including three combat tours in Iraq and living apart from my family for the last two years, I have decided to return to Atlanta to re-join them there,” Tien said to the Department workforce in an email. “When I depart from DHS on July 20, 2023, I will most fondly remember what the Secretary and I tried to do for the workforce to vastly improve the lives of our fellow employees in terms of pay, training, facilities, and technology support, all essential to improving morale.”

The outgoing deputy secretary served in the military for 24 years after graduating from West Point with the school’s highest honor.

Tien is also one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans in the Biden administration. He spoke about it to ABC News last month.

“As a first-generation Asian American, I know that I’ve got a responsibility to be both seen and heard,” he explained in May.

In a message to the workforce obtained by ABC News, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called Tien a “patriot.”

“On behalf of 260,000 of us throughout the Department of Homeland Security — across the country and around the world — I express our profound thanks to him for making our Department and all of us the beneficiaries of his dedication to country and qualities as a person for the past two years,” Mayorkas said.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — News that President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has agreed to a plea deal regarding a pair of tax-related misdemeanors follows a five-year Justice Department probe into the younger Biden’s finances and comes as a GOP-led congressional panel investigates what House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer says are the Biden family’s “shady business deals.”

After years of largely avoiding public confrontations about his business dealings, Hunter Biden earlier this year engaged a new legal team to undertake a more aggressive legal tack, making private citizen criminal referrals and sending cease-and-desist letters involving some of his most vocal critics.

Here’s a look at the various investigations into the president’s son:

Justice Department probe

Federal authorities with the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-era appointee, had been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018, but the probe was temporarily paused for several months ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The investigation spilled into public view in December of 2020, shortly after Joe Biden secured the presidency, when Hunter Biden confirmed the probe into his “tax affairs.” Prosecutors have examined whether he paid adequate taxes on millions of dollars of his income, including money he made from multiple overseas business ventures.

Prosecutors also explored allegations that Hunter Biden lied about his drug use on a gun application form in 2018, despite later acknowledging that he was addicted to drugs around that time.

ABC News has previously reported that the younger Biden borrowed $2 million from his lawyer and confidant Kevin Morris to pay the IRS for back taxes, penalties and liens that he owed.

A grand jury empaneled in Delaware reportedly heard testimony from multiple witnesses over the course of their probe, including some of Hunter Biden’s business partners and a woman who had a child by Hunter Biden out of wedlock.

The younger Biden, a Yale-trained lawyer, has said he is cooperating with investigators and remained “100% certain” that he would be cleared of any wrongdoing. President Biden has said he and his son never discussed his foreign business dealings and there are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president in any way.

The White House has repeatedly sought to distance the president from the probe.

Congressional oversight

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Republicans have been conducting a long-expected investigation into Hunter Biden and his father.

Last month the powerful House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to the FBI demanding the bureau produce a record related to an “an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.”

The subpoena seeks an unclassified FD-1023 document, which is generally defined as a report from an informant. An FD-1023 form could be generated in a variety of situations involving someone presenting themselves as a “source” with claims of wrongdoing.

The White House denounced the accusation as “anonymous innuendo.”

In April, a supervisor at the IRS told lawmakers that he had information that suggested the Biden administration was possibly mishandling the investigation into Hunter Biden, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

In a letter to lawmakers obtained by ABC News, the lawyer for the IRS whistleblower said his client was an IRS criminal supervisory special agent “who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation” and “would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.”

The disclosures, the letter said, “(1) contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee, (2) involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case, and (3) detail examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who had testified on Capitol Hill that the Hunter Biden probe was free from any improper political interference, responded to the letter by saying he stood by that statement.

“I stand by my testimony, and I refer you to the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware who is in charge of this case and capable of making any decisions that he feels are appropriate,” Garland said last month.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, pledged after November’s election to “pursue all avenues” of wrongdoing and called investigations into the president’s family a “top priority.”

In February, former Twitter executives testified before the Oversight Committee that the social media company made a mistake in blocking users from sharing a controversial 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

President Joe Biden subsequently dismissed the Oversight Committee’s probe in an interview with PBS NewsHour.

“[The] public’s not going to pay attention to that,” he said. “If the only thing they can do is make up things about my family, it’s not going to go very far.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — District Judge Aileen Cannon has set a tentative date of Aug. 14 for the start of former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges of obstruction and mishandling classified documents, per a new scheduling order posted to her court docket Tuesday morning.

Story developing…

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — This year’s legislative elections in Virginia could determine the fate of local abortion rulemaking and gun policy, control of two narrowly divided statehouses and Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s legislative agenda.

Political observers say the results could also give some hint about the mood of voters as the 2024 election cycle gets underway.

The contests will begin to ramp up on Tuesday when Virginians will select candidates in primaries across the state heading into the general election in November. As the only major set of legislative elections in a purple state this year, the races are seen as something of a bellwether for the broader electorate, even as turnout is expected to be low because the contests don’t overlap with higher-profile races like those for president or governor.

“We’re looking for signals in a year that we don’t have any,” the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics director, Larry Sabato, told ABC News.

“The elections are revealing because Virginia has a blue tinge to it, but it’s not as blue as we thought it was,” Sabato explained.

While Virginia has reliably voted Democratic in presidential races since 2008 — Joe Biden beat Donald Trump there by 10 points — its state and local elections are closer.

“Virginia could become competitive again,” Sabato said.

Primaries playing out in divided government

Tuesday will see a total of 47 nominating contests: 31 of them Democratic and 16 for Republicans. GOP nominees have already been selected for an additional nine contests, which were conducted through party-run races over the past few weeks.

The vast majority of the state’s legislative districts have a reliable partisan tilt. Only three of Virginia’s 40 state Senate seats and eight of its 100 House of Delegates seats are considered competitive, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a political data nonprofit.

At a time of divided government in Virginia, those few districts could be critical. In 2021, Republicans flipped control of the governorship and gained a 50-46 majority in the House of Delegates, while Democrats hold a two-seat majority in the state Senate.

Given this, experts say primary results will have influence over the chances of either party winning Virginia’s Legislature, as particular primary candidates may fare better or worse in a competitive general election.

Most of the swing districts in the state are located on the fringes of the urban centers in Northern Virginia, Richmond or the Hampton Roads region — suburban areas that have proven decisive in recent elections.

Primary divides for both parties

On the Democrats’ side, one major breaking point between primary candidates is their financial backing, according to Democratic strategist Benjamin Tribbett. Several primaries pit one candidate endorsed by Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest electric utility, against another endorsed by the advocacy group Clean Virginia, which donates to candidates who swear off campaign contributions from Dominion.

While energy is not a major issue on the ballot, the funding points to generational splintering within the party over Dominion’s historically dominant presence in Richmond politics.

“The new candidates, the ones who are running for the first time, are more likely to side with Clean Virginia, and the Dominion candidates have been in the Legislature for a long time,” Tribbett said.

The 2017 elections were a watershed moment for this issue, when 12 Clean Virginia-backed candidates won seats in Virginia’s House of Delegates. Now, more than two-thirds of state House Democrats are in that group — compared to about half of state Senate Democrats. This year’s record level of incumbent retirements, a result of Virginia’s recent redistricting reform, could create new inroads in the usually incumbent-friendly chamber.

“That’s really the question: whether that wave is now going to hit the Senate in 2023,” Tribbett said.

Meanwhile, Republican candidates differ on their support for former President Trump. Results from the nominating contests so far have been trickling in over the past few weeks, as localities conduct conventions — that is, a cluster of hyperlocal contests which use weighted voting to pick the winner — or “firehouse primaries,” all-day affairs that amount to massive winner-take-all competitions. There will be 16 more GOP primaries on Tuesday.

Early results from the previous nominating events have been mixed, as conventions have picked some Trump-aligned candidates and others have distanced themselves from their party’s early presidential front-runner.

The primaries are also an indication of Youngkin’s pull with voters, given how many endorsements he’s made.

He has backed 10 candidates in contested races. Three of those have already emerged victorious in local conventions, none have lost and the remaining seven will go to primaries on Tuesday.

Overall, Tribbett said, “In the key districts, the governor has really cleared the field for most of the candidates he wants.”

Specific races and candidates to watch

The race for the state Senate’s 17th District will measure the strength of the governor’s endorsement, as Youngkin-backed Del. Emily Brewer squares off against Hermie Sadler, a businessman and retired NASCAR driver.

In the Richmond suburbs, the Republican primary in the state Senate’s 12th District pits Sen. Amanda Chase, a self-described “Trump in heels,” against two more moderate conservatives: Glen Sturtevant, a former state senator, and business owner Tina Ramirez. Chase has butted heads with party leadership, receiving an official censure by the Virginia Senate when she praised those who participated in Jan. 6. The winner of the primary will face off against Democrat Clint Jenkins in a race that analysts estimate is narrowly right-leaning.

Finally, the primary in the Virginia Senate’s 13th District will test Democrat’ views on abortion, as incumbent Rep. Joe Morrisey, a self-described “pro-life” Democrat, squares off against progressive Lashrecse Aird, who supports more access to abortion than Morrisey does.

Morrisey’s tenure in politics has survived multiple controversies, including a sex scandal and jail time. Now, he is crafting his pitch to voters around other issues, including his record on criminal justice reform and economic opportunity in his majority-minority district.

Virginia Republicans widely support legislation that would restrict access to abortion, making such a law likely if the party holds the state House and flips the state Senate.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents is being denounced by some of the top brass in his administration.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, during appearances on the Sunday shows, painted Trump’s behavior as careless and unbefitting a political leader.

“This is not a circumstance where he’s the victim or this is government overreach,” Barr told CBS’ Face the Nation host Robert Costa.

“He provoked this whole problem himself,” Barr continued. “Yes, he’s been the victim of unfair witch hunts in the past, but that doesn’t obviate the fact that he’s also a fundamentally flawed person who engages in reckless conduct that leads to situations, calamitous situations, like this, which are very disruptive and hurt any political cause he’s associated with.”

Barr, when asked if he’d put the country “at risk” if reelected, said he will “always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests.”

“There’s no question about it,” the former attorney general said. “This is a perfect example of that.”

Trump faces 37 felony counts as he’s accused of willfully retaining documents containing sensitive defense information regarding the nation’s nuclear programs and more, then tried to obstruct investigators trying to retrieve them.

He pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom on June 13. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, claiming the investigation is a political prosecution and relentlessly attacking special counsel Jack Smith.

Many Republicans have argued Trump’s been unfairly treated by a “weaponized” Department of Justice, but others have criticized his conduct as problematic.

On CNN’s State of the Union, Esper called the indictment’s revelations “disturbing” and outlined the security risks that unfold when classified information is mishandled. He also compared Trump’s case to that of Jack Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard accused of leaking sensitive documents online.

Asked if Trump should be trusted with the nation’s top secrets if elected president again in 2024, Esper said not if what the special counsel’s investigation has alleged is true.

“Based on his actions, again, if proven true under the indictment by the special counsel, no,” Esper told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“I mean, it’s just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation’s security at risk,” Esper said. “You cannot have these documents floating around. They need to be secured.”

Barr served for roughly two years as attorney general before stepping down after the 2020 election following disputes with Trump over his unfounded allegations of voter fraud. Esper served for little more than a year before Trump announced he fired him in the fall of 2020.

Both men have turned critical of the former president, each penning books about their experiences working for him. Trump has taken to criticizing both men on his Truth Social platform, though he hasn’t responded directly to their latest statements.

Former President Mike Pence, who is challenging Trump for the Republican nomination, has recently toughened his stance against his one-time boss over the federal indictment.

Pence said last week he “cannot defend” what’s alleged in the 49-page indictment.

“The very prospect that what is alleged here took place — creating an opportunity where highly sensitive classified material could have fallen into the wrong hands, even inadvertently — that jeopardizes our national security [and] puts at risk the men and women of our Armed Forces,” Pence said.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.