(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Tuesday set a hearing next month to consider whether former President Donald Trump should be allowed to move his criminal case from State Supreme Court in Manhattan to federal court.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein set the hearing for June 27.
“In the meantime, proceedings may continue in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County,” Hellerstein’s order said.
That means Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office must, as ordered at a hearing last week, work together to pick a trial date for some time in February or March 2024.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records related to a hush payment to adult film actress Story Daniels in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign.
Trump’s attorneys sought to move the case to federal court “because the case involves important federal questions since the indictment charges President Trump for conduct committed while he was president of the United States that was within the ‘color of his office’ and the charges involve alleged federal and state election law violations that have a federal preemption defense.”
The allegations against Trump are based on reimbursement checks written to Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, who made the payment to Daniels. The reimbursements were logged as legal expenses when in fact the payment was made for campaign purposes, prosecutors said.
The charges of falsifying business records were elevated to felonies because prosecutors alleged the true nature of the reimbursements to Cohen were falsified to conceal tax or election crimes.
“There has never been a prosecution under New York State law based on an alleged violation of election law pertaining to a federal election. And there are serious federal preemption issues with such a prosecution,” defense attorney Susan Necheles wrote in her motion on Tuesday.
The district attorney’s office has until June 15 to respond to Trump’s motion.
(NEW YORK) — Rep. George Santos has been charged by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The charges remain under seal so the nature of the allegations is currently unclear.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The Democrat-led Senate Judiciary Committee is seeking more information on the extent of billionaire Harlan Crow’s gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The panel’s 11 Democrats requested itemized lists of gifts worth more than $415, real estate transactions, travel and lodging accommodations and admissions to private clubs provided by Crow to any justice or members of their families.
“As part of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing efforts to craft legislation strengthening the ethical rules and standards that apply to the Justices of the Supreme Court, we request that you provide the Committee with certain information by May 22, 2023,” a letter sent Monday to Crow said.
The lawmakers also sent letters to the holding companies of Crow’s jet and yacht as well as to Topridge Camp — his private resort in the Adirondacks — seeking more information on any gifts to Thomas or any other justice.
“Like we’ve said: if the Court won’t implement ethics reform itself, Congress must,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., tweeted about the letters. “This is the next step.”
The letters follow a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week in which legal experts testified on whether Congress has the authority to require the high court to adopt an enforceable code of conduct.
Republicans have accused Democrats of “selective outrage” in going after Thomas and say it’s part of the party’s effort to delegitimize the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
“This is not about judicial ethics,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said during the hearing. “This is not about rules that should apply to judges across the board. We could have a reasonable discussion about that. This is about applying a double standard to Clarence Thomas, and only Clarence Thomas.”
Thomas has faced intense scrutiny since ProPublica reported last month that Thomas received luxury trips from Crow for years and did not disclose them on his financial filings.
Thomas said it’s been his understanding that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”
There were deeper financial ties between the two men, with Crow paying for tuition at two private schools for Thomas’s grandnephew, another ProPublica report last week said. The total sum for tuition was not known, but it could’ve exceeded $150,000, the organization reported.
In response to the report on Crow paying for the tuition, Crow’s office said in a statement provided to ABC News that he “has long been passionate about the importance of quality education and giving back to those less fortunate, especially at-risk youth” and that he and his wife have supported many young Americans through schooling. Thomas did not comment on the report.
Amid Democrats’ push for ethics reform, all nine Supreme Court justices signed a statement rebutting proposals for independent oversight as they reaffirmed voluntary adherence to a general code of conduct.
“This statement aims to provide new clarity to the bar and to the public on how justices address certain recurring issues and also seeks to dispel some common misconceptions,” they wrote.
The back-and-forth between the two federal branches comes as public opinion of the court is at a low, polling shows. A new poll from ABC News/Washington Post found 51% of Americans think justices base their rulings mainly on their personal political opinions, not on the law.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Dianne Feinstein will return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday after a nearly three-month absence, an aide for the California Democrat confirmed to ABC News.
News of her return was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Feinstein, 89, is set to return after she was hospitalized in February with a case of shingles. She was released in early March and had been continuing her recovery at home.
Her nonattendance in the Senate, which impacted some of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, spurred debate within her own party about whether she should resign.
Some Democrats, including California Rep. Ro Khanna and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, argued the federal judiciary could be harmed if Feinstein didn’t step down.
But others, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, came to Feinstein’s defense, saying she was being unfairly singled out.
“I don’t know what political agendas are at work that are going after Sen. Feinstein in that way,” Pelosi said in April. “I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way.”
Feinstein issued a statement last week expressing confidence that judicial nominees who have stalled in committee will be confirmed upon her return.
“While the Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced eight strong nominees during my absence, I’m disappointed that Republicans on the committee are blocking a few from moving forward. I’m confident that when I return to the Senate, we will be able to move the remaining qualified nominees out of committee quickly and to the Senate floor for a vote,” the senator said.
Last month, Senate Republicans blocked a request by Democrats to temporarily replace Feinstein on the judiciary panel while she recovered.
Feinstein, the oldest sitting member of Congress, has been under scrutiny for years amid reports questioning her age or mental faculties. She’s pushed back against criticism multiple times, telling the Los Angeles Times in 2020, “I don’t feel my cognitive abilities have diminished.”
Feinstein announced earlier this year that she will not be seeking reelection in 2024.
“Even with a divided Congress, we can still pass bills that will improve lives. Each of us was sent here to solve problems. That’s what I’ve done for the last 30 years, and that’s what I plan to do for the next two years,” she said in her announcement.
Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee are among the Democrats who have declared their candidacy for Feinstein’s vacated seat.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A high-stakes meeting on the debt ceiling got underway Tuesday afternoon at the White House as lawmakers stare down a June 1 deadline to reach a deal or risk default.
The sit-down between President Joe Biden and top congressional leaders — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — is the first major discussion on the issue since Biden and McCarthy last met in February.
The lawmakers declined to take questions as they arrived in the Oval Office but were expected to speak afterward.
“We’re going to get started, we’re going to solve all the world’s problems,” a smiling Biden quipped with a hint of sarcasm as the meeting kicked off.
Leaving the Capitol for the White House, McCarthy told ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott, “We hope the president is finally willing to negotiate.”
Biden has said raising the debt ceiling is non-negotiable.
Both sides still seemed miles apart on a debt ceiling fix ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, though a rare point of agreement did emerge: opposition to a short-term solution.
“He’s gotta stop ignoring problems,” McCarthy said about Biden earlier Tuesday. “And why continue to kick the can down the road? Let’s solve it now.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during the daily briefing, “A short-term extension is not our plan, either. That is not our plan.”
Jean-Pierre reiterated the Biden administration’s view that it is Congress’ duty to enact a clean raise to the debt ceiling without conditions.
Republicans have demanded federal spending cuts in exchange for a debt ceiling increase. The House GOP narrowly passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act last month to lift the limit for one year while also reducing funding for federal agencies to 2022 fiscal year levels and limiting growth in government spending to 1% per year.
McCarthy said he believed a deal in principle on the matter is needed by next week in order to avert default, which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns could come as soon as June 1 though there’s still uncertainty about the exact date when the government would be unable to pay all of its bills.
The speaker went on to say he was not optimistic about Tuesday’s negotiations at the White House.
“Why should I have high expectations if he wasted three months and put us in jeopardy?” McCarthy told reporters.
The White House told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce Biden wouldn’t give Republicans an “off-ramp” in the negotiations.
“The exit strategy is very clear, do your job. Congress must act, prevent a default,” Jean-Pierre said when asked by Bruce what a successful meeting would look like.
Administration officials have warned adversaries like China and Russia could take advantage if the U.S. were to default, and economists state there would be wide-reaching impacts that could trigger a global financial crisis.
“It’s widely agreed that financial and economic chaos would ensue,” Yellen said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”.
If the U.S. were to default for the first time in history, Americans are split on who would bear responsibility.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found 39% would mainly blame the Republicans in Congress, while virtually as many, 36%, say they’d mainly blame Biden. Sixteen percent volunteer that they’d blame both parties equally.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Jay O’Brien and Gabe Ferris contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Tuesday announced the dismantling of a global network of computers infected by malware that Russia’s state security services have allegedly used for nearly 20 years to steal secrets from the U.S. and NATO allies.
The operation — code named “MEDUSA” — aimed to neutralize the so-called “Snake” malware used by a unit within the Russian FSB known as “Turla,” which experts consider to be one of the most sophisticated cyber espionage groups in the world.
DOJ and other global partners identified the Snake malware in computer systems in at least 50 countries. The Turla group used the malware to target NATO member states, financial sectors, journalists and other targets of the Russian government dating back as early as 2004, officials said.
Channeling more Greek mythology, the FBI says it recently created a tool officials dubbed “PERSEUS” to effectively neutralize the Snake malware after receiving authorization from a judge in Brooklyn to secure remote access to infected computers.
The PERSEUS software “establishes communication sessions with the Snake malware implant on a particular computer, and issues commands that causes the Snake implant to disable itself without affecting the host computer or legitimate applications on the computer,” according to DOJ.
The Snake malware was previously assessed by the U.S. intelligence community to be “one of the most sophisticated malware sets used by the Russian intelligence services” to target ministries of foreign affairs and ministries of defense in NATO-allied countries, officials added.
The FBI began deploying the PERSEUS tool against infected computers yesterday and they were able to confirm that Turla’s access to many of the computers had been disrupted, an FBI official told reporters Tuesday morning.
The bureau says it notified all victims whose computer systems were accessed as part of the MEDUSA operation, and the United States and Five Eyes partners have issued a joint cybersecurity advisory with detailed technical information on the malware so cybersecurity experts can detect whether other networks may have been infected.
There’s an ongoing risk to some of those targeted, officials said, because after gaining access to networks, the Turla group is known to use a “keylogger” tool that steals account passwords and other authentication credentials.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will meet Tuesday afternoon with congressional leaders at the White House — as a fast-approaching deadline looms to either increase the nation’s borrowing limit or risk an unprecedented and potentially devastating debt default that would ripple across the global economy.
Tuesday’s meeting will be the first time since February that Biden has sat down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to discuss the debt and spending.
The intervening months have been filled with back and forth, with Biden leading Democrats in pushing for a raise to the debt ceiling “without conditions.”
McCarthy and other Republicans, meanwhile, continue to say they will only agree to raise the borrowing cap if Biden also agrees to some federal spending cuts and budget changes.
Both sides have repeatedly insisted they don’t want to see a default, but comments from Democrats and Republicans as recently as this week show how far apart they publicly remain on reaching an agreement.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Sunday on ABC’s This Week that the federal government could run out of money to pay all of its bills by June 1, though uncertainty remains about the exact “X-date” when default would begin.
“Whether it’s defaulting on interest payments that are due on the debt or payments due for Social Security recipients or to Medicare providers, we would simply not have enough cash to meet all of our obligations,” Yellen said. “And it’s widely agreed that financial and economic chaos would ensue.”
Why Biden is meeting with lawmakers about the debt ceiling
The U.S. can pay most but not all of its bills with the tax and other revenue it takes in, and it must borrow the rest of the money. But Congress enforces a limit on how much debt the government can incur and when that ceiling — currently set at about $31.4 trillion — is reached, lawmakers must increase it before the government can borrow more funds.
The U.S. hit its debt limit in January and has been employing “extraordinary measures” since then to keep its bills paid, the treasury secretary has said.
On May 1, Yellen sent a letter to McCarthy and other top lawmakers urging action.
“We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States,” she wrote.
Later on May 1, the White House invited McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to a meeting at the White House.
What Democrats want: A ‘clean’ hike
Last week, the president spoke bluntly of how he viewed the GOP strategy.
“Let’s get it straight: They’re trying to hold the debt hostage to [get] us to agree to some draconian cuts, magnificently difficult and damaging cuts,” Biden said on Friday.
Schumer also criticized Republicans in a floor speech on May 1: “If the hard right continues running the show in the House, the dangers of a first-ever default are growing day by day. The only real solution is for both parties to past a clean bill … with no brinksmanship, no hostage-taking.”
On Monday during a White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president planned to make “very clear” with the congressional leaders on Tuesday that their “constitutional duty” is to raise the debt limit.
“We should not have House Republicans manufacturing a crisis on something that has been done 78 times since 1960,” she said.
“Congress must avoid default without conditions — without conditions — as they did three times before in the last administration,” she said.
Biden resisted earlier Republican pressure to negotiate by challenging conservatives to publicly present their specific budget plan. The president released his own in early March, with House Republicans then unveiling their debt limit bill in mid-April.
“I’m happy to meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended,” Biden said in late April. “That’s not negotiable.”
Congressional Democrats have also indicated they are open to talks about spending and the budget — possibly even simultaneously with work on a separate debt ceiling bill.
“We, of course, are open to having a discussion about what type of investments, what type of spending, what type of revenues are appropriate in order to protect the health, safety and economic well-being of the American people,” Jeffries said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “That is a process available to us right now.”
What Republicans want: Spending cuts
On April 26, House Republicans narrowly passed their bill to effectively raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion while reducing funding for federal agencies to 2022 fiscal year levels and limiting growth in government spending to 1% per year.
Afterward, McCarthy addressed Biden at a news conference: “We’re the only ones to pass a plan. So, I think it’s up to you now. Whether the economy goes in any trouble, it’s you, because the Republicans raised the debt limit.”
“We’ve done our job,” he said.
The GOP proposal would also reverse much of Biden’s signature climate, education and tax agenda.
“The House bill that they put out was their first parameter,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday when pressed by anchor George Stephanopoulos about the spending cuts the GOP wants. “It is the beginning of a negotiation.”
Lankford said then that the “most stunning part about this” was the lack of ongoing talks between the White House and Republicans.
“President Biden has been sleepwalking towards this crisis,” McConnell said in a floor speech on May 2.
“We have divided government. The American people gave Republicans the House, Democrats have the presidency,” McConnell said then. “The president and the speaker need to reach an agreement to get us past this impasse.”
Senate Republicans have stayed in lockstep with their House colleagues. Mike Lee of Utah this weekend led a letter addressed to Schumer and signed by 43 total Republican senators that stated their staunch opposition to backing any debt limit increase without “substantive spending and budget reforms.” They also threatened to filibuster any bill brought to the floor that doesn’t include their requests.
Americans are closely divided on whom they’d blame if the federal government defaults on its debts, with 39% saying in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll that they’d mainly point the finger at Republicans in Congress, while virtually as many, 36%, said they’d mainly blame Biden.
Sixteen percent said that they’d blame both sides equally.
Democrats this weekend did not entirely rule out two possible ways to prevent a debt default: either a short-term hike or the president trying to invoke the 14th Amendment, which states that the public debt “shall not be questioned.”
When asked by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Friday if he would consider using the amendment, Biden said he had “not gotten there yet.”
(NEW YORK) — Ten months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, two-thirds of Americans continue to oppose its decision — and 51% now think its justices base their rulings mainly on their personal political opinions, not on the law.
Early in 2022, before the abortion ruling, the public divided evenly, 46%-45%, on whether the justices’ rulings were based mainly on the law or on their own political preferences. Today, well fewer than half, 39%, think Supreme Court rulings are based mainly on the law, a 7-point drop in this fundamental measure of confidence in the court.
While these views have grown more partisan, even among Republicans and conservatives, just half think the justices rule mainly on the basis of the law. And today, just 35% to 37% of Democrats, independents and moderates alike, and 27% of liberals, think so. Faith in the court to follow the law has dropped by double digits in three of those groups.
Women are especially likely to oppose the ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But majorities of women and men alike oppose it, and confidence in the court to rule mainly on the basis of the law is down among women (minus 7 points) and men (minus 6 points) alike. (The declines are slight given sample sizes.)
Abortion
Results of this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, underscore broad and continued majority support for abortion rights in the United States, a contrast to the state-by-state upheaval prompted by the high court’s ruling last summer.
Among those results, 78% of Americans say the decision whether to have an abortion should be left a woman and her doctor, rather than regulated by law. (It was 70% and 75% in two previous ABC/Washington Post polls since 2021.) Even majorities of Republicans (58%) and conservatives (60%) hold this view, as do anywhere from 82% to 96% of those with other partisan and ideological preferences.
Notably, even among evangelical white Protestants, typically the leading anti-abortion group, 56% say the decision to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor. That rises to 75% of Catholics, 83% of non-evangelical white Protestants and 92% of people with no religious affiliation.
As noted, 66% overall oppose the court’s Dobbs ruling, including 54% who strongly oppose it — far above strong support, 22%. Overall opposition encompasses 71% of women, compared with 61% of men. It’s also higher among Black (81%) and Hispanic (74%) adults than among white people, 62%.
Most evangelical white Protestants, conservatives and Republicans support the ruling, but not overwhelmingly so — 58% among evangelicals, 55% among conservatives and 54% among Republicans. Those compare with much higher levels of opposition in other political and ideological groups — 71% among independents, 79% among moderates, 88% among Democrats and 92% among liberals.
The result among independents, in particular, marks potential political risk to anti-abortion candidates. Seventy-seven percent of independent women oppose Dobbs, as do 65% of independent men. Seventy percent of suburban women oppose it, as do 63% of suburban men. And 60% in the states won by Donald Trump in 2020 oppose Dobbs, rising to 70% in the states won by Joe Biden.
Similar to attitudes on Dobbs, 66% overall say the abortion drug mifepristone should remain on the market. Half of evangelical white Protestants say so, as do 46% of conservatives and 45% of Republicans — with support rising much higher in other groups.
Among its supporters, 72% say the drug should remain as available as it is now.
While mifepristone is now unavailable in 14 states, 60% of residents of those states say the drug should be available versus 27% who say it should be off the market. In other states, 68% say mifepristone should remain available.
The Supreme Court last month blocked, for the time being, two lower court rulings against mifepristone — one overturning the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug, the other blocking its distribution by mail. That case continues in the lower court.
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone April 28-May 3, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults. Partisan divisions are 26-25-41%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Maryland. See details on the survey’s methodology here.
State Department photo by Ron Przysucha/ Public Domain
(WASHINGTON) — The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is threatening to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt if he doesn’t turn over subpoenaed documents tied to the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, marking a significant escalation in the months-long standoff between the Biden administration and Republicans investigating the chaotic withdrawal.
“Should the Department fail to comply with its legal obligation, the Committee is prepared to take the necessary steps to enforce its subpoena, including holding you in contempt of Congress and/or initiating a civil enforcement proceeding,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, wrote in a letter to Blinken on Friday, setting a deadline of this Thursday, May 11 at 6 p.m.
The document McCaul is demanding is what’s known within the State Department as a dissent cable — a memo sent through a classified channel for employees to flag their concerns to top levels of leadership — as well as the department’s official response to the cable.
According to a source familiar with the dissent cable in question, U.S. diplomats warned Blinken that the Afghan government was teetering on the brink of collapse and urged the administration to speed up its evacuation of Afghan allies over a month before the Taliban retook Kabul and the last American troops left the country.
Despite McCaul’s efforts, the State Department signaled on Monday that Blinken would not comply.
“It’s unfortunate that despite having received a classified briefing on the dissent channel cable as well as a written summary that the House Foreign Affairs Committee continues to pursue this unnecessary and unproductive action,” Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement.
McCaul has maintained that the documents are vital to the panel’s probe into the final, chaotic days of America’s occupation of Afghanistan. After the committee’s initial request for the material went unfulfilled, he issued a subpoena — his first as chairman — in late March.
Blinken and other administration officials have argued that handing over the documents would jeopardize the integrity of the channel and State Department employees’ ability to privately voice their perspectives on critical matters.
The State Department has offered committee members other means of insight into the dissent cable through a closed-door briefing and summaries.
“Our viewpoint is that the materials and briefings that we’ve offered and provided have sufficiently met the mark when it comes to the committee’s legitimate oversight request,” Patel said during a briefing on Monday.
But McCaul disagrees.
In his letter to Blinken, the chairman blasted the briefers from the department, claiming they were either “unwilling or unable” to answer basic questions and made inaccurate statements. He also complained about the brevity of the department’s one-page summary of the four-page dissent cable.
Beyond the original, unaltered documents, McCaul said his committee would settle for either the cable and the department’s response with “all names and other identifying marks redacted,” an opportunity to privately review the unredacted material with an agreement that it will not publicly disclose the names of any signatories without their permission, or a chance to privately review the material with only the names of the names of the signatories redacted.
When asked whether the department would consider one of the alternative options, Patel balked, saying the administration felt the information it has already provided “sufficiently met the mark.”
(ALLEN, Texas) — Just one day after the most recent mass shooting in the United States — this time at an outdoor mall in Allen, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blamed the incident on mental health issues as he’s done with previous mass shootings in the state.
Abbott, a Republican, said addressing mental health — not tightening gun laws — can prevent shootings such as the one on Saturday, in which eight people were killed and seven injured before the suspect was fatally shot by police, Abbott said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
Law enforcement sources told ABC News the alleged gunman was in the U.S. Army in 2008 but was “removed due to mental health concerns.” Investigators have found he also may have gravitated toward right-wing extremist ideology, including neo-Nazi sympathies, the sources told ABC News.
“What we’ve seen across the United States over the past year or two … is an increased number of shootings in both red states and blue states,” Abbott said on Sunday. “We’ve seen an increased number of shootings in states with easy gun laws as well as states with very strict gun laws.”
This is not the first time Abbot has blamed a growing prevalence of people with mental health issues on mass shootings. In May 2022, he also said it was behind the Uvalde elementary school shooting that left 21 people dead.
Here’s what Texas has — and hasn’t — done when it comes to addressing mental health in the state.
Texas ranks last in the U.S. when it comes to access to mental health care, including a lack of mental health services, a high number of those uninsured, and being unable to see a mental health professional due to costs, according to a recent report from nonprofit Mental Health America.
It’s not just adults suffering, but adolescents as well. The report found 60% of youth with major depression did not receive mental health treatment.
Additionally, last year, Abbott announced nearly $500 million would be moved from state agencies to support the deployment of the National Guard to the southern border as well as to support border operations.
Of that amount, $210.7 million was from Texas Health & Human Services, which oversees public mental health programs. It’s unclear if funding was cut from mental health programs:
That’s not to say nothing has been done in Texas to address mental health. In June 2022, in response to the Uvalde shooting, Abbott ordered that $5.8 million be allocated to expand the Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine statewide and that $4.7 million be allocated to the Health and Human Services Commission to increase multisystemic therapy, a program for juveniles with serious criminal offenses, across the state.
However, the National Mental Health Alliance of Texas is working to get Republican offices to support HB 4713, providing insurance coverage for coordinated specialty care for people under age 26 experiencing a first episode of psychosis, meaning delusions and hallucinations.
Recently an amendment was introduced by state Rep. Jeff Leach, whose district includes Allen — where the shooting took place — that makes it optional for insurance companies to cover this care.
Greg Hansch, executive director of NMHA of Texas, expressed his disappointment at the amendment passing in a statement to ABC News.
Not voting “to ensure that insurance pays for the gold standard in treatment for young people experiencing a first episode of psychosis, they are leaving significant mental health legislation on the table that could help in preventing further tragedies,” he said. “This all happened today, two days after the shooting.”
Abbott’s office did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.
