Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court ethics and questions surrounding the conduct of Justice Clarence Thomas were on full display Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

The panel heard from a range of legal experts on whether Congress has the authority to require the high court to adopt an enforaceable code of conduct. Democrats have pushed for such legislation following reports scrutinizing Justice Thomas’ nondisclosure of private luxury travel and accommodations from a wealthy Republican donor.

“How low can the court go?” chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked as the hearing kicked off.

“We wouldn’t tolerate this from a city council member or an alderman,” Durbin added. “It falls short of ethical standards we expect of any public servant in America. And yet the Supreme Court won’t even acknowledge it’s a problem.”

Meanwhile, Republicans made it clear they would push back on any congressional attempt to impose rules on the court and accused Democrats of “political theater.”

All nine current members of the Supreme Court, including the three liberal justices, have suggested they oppose legislative proposals for independent oversight and mandatory compliance with ethics rules. Last week they signed a rare public statement on “ethics principles and practices” reaffirming voluntary adherence to a general code of conduct but resisting outside regulation.

As the hearing was underway, protesters gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to call for ethical reforms to the nation’s highest court. The Supreme Court is the only branch of government that operates without a formal enforceable code of conduct.

Here are some key takeaways:

Senators agree on need for transparency but disagree on path forward

There was bipartisan agreement that the Supreme Court needs to be more forthcoming about its conduct and the guidelines justices abide by.

“I, too, have expressed a desire for the court to be more transparent, to have rules the public can relate to,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the ranking member of the committee, said in his opening statement.

The panel was divided, however, on the role of Congress in this debate. Republicans argued Congress has no authority to impose enforceable ethics rules and outside enforcement.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy said such a step would be “unconstitutional and unnecessary.”

Legal experts, too, were split on the matter in Tuesday’s hearing. Though J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appellate judge popular among conservatives, said in written testimony that while the Supreme Court should enforce such rules itself, Congress “indisputably has the power” to enact laws imposing ethical standards on the court’s non-judicial activities.

Republicans defend Thomas, accuse Democrats of ‘selective outrage’

Graham accused Democrats of “cherry-picking” instances of travel and gifts to conservative justices to undermine confidence in the court. He listed all-expense-paid trips and monetary awards given to various justices, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, over the years.

“This is an unseemly effort by the Democratic left to destroy the legitimacy of the Roberts court,” Graham said. “There’s a very selective outrage here.”

Other GOP members echoed that argument, claiming this ethics argument is an attempt by Democrats to push back against the court in light of recent decisions by the conservative majority.

“Today’s hearing is just one political theater to delegitimize our judicial system, particularly the Supreme Court,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz evoked comments made by Thomas during his bitter confirmation hearings in 1991. Cornyn played footage of Thomas, who was facing harassment accusations by Anita Hill, famously calling the proceedings a “high-tech lynching.”

“It is sad to see 30 years later this committee is again engaged in the same despicable tactics,” Cruz said, accusing Democrats of racist attacks.

Democrats want independent panel of retired judges to police the court

“The justices have been playing out of bounds,” declared Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has sponsored legislation to require adoption of an ethics code, mandate terms for when a justice must recuse from a case, and tighten financial disclosure requirements for members of the high court.

Retired federal judge Jeremy Fogel, who once sat on the Judicial Conference’s Committee on Financial Disclosure, which facilitates compliance with federal ethics law across the judiciary, testified that the “absence of a formal structure [of ethics] is untenable and that a lack of clarity feeds the perception” of a partisan Supreme Court. He recommended an independent panel of retired judges to confidentially work with the justices to ensure compliance with their guidelines.

Roberts declines to appear, responds in writing

Absent from the hearing was Chief Justice John Roberts, despite Durbin’s invitation to Roberts — or any other justice — to appear before the committee.

Roberts instead briefly responded to questions in a written statement, in which he highlighted the role of the Judicial Conference’s “Committee on Financial Disclosure” in helping the justices stay in compliance with the law.

That body, he said, reaches out to justices when information surfaces about incomplete or inaccurate filings. To his knowledge, there’s never been an instance of a justice and the committee failing to resolve an issue — and a penalty has never been imposed on a justice.

Durbin swiped at Roberts for not appearing on Tuesday, stating, “The reality is that sitting justices have testified at 92 congressional hearings since 1960.”

“Answering legitimate questions from the people’s representatives is one of the checks and balances that helps preserve the separation of powers,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday gave his first public response to an IRS supervisor-turned-whistleblower who claimed to have information for Congress about potential mishandling of the yearslong federal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Among the allegations laid out in a letter to lawmakers last month was that the whistleblower would contradict Garland’s testimony on Capitol Hill that the Hunter Biden probe has remained free from any improper political interference, sources have told ABC News.

In an unrelated news conference Tuesday morning, Garland was asked whether he stood by those previous statements.

“Yes, it’s still the case 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.

Federal authorities with the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, have been investigating the younger Biden since 2018, ABC News previously reported.

Various news outlets have reported for months that prosecutors were nearing a conclusion, but no charges have yet been filed.

The investigation spilled into public view in December 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 have 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 previously reported 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.

The president’s younger son said in an interview with CBS in 2021 that he was “fully cooperating, and I’m fully confident that at the end of the day it’s all gonna be fine.”

In April, in a letter to lawmakers obtained by ABC News, a lawyer for the IRS whistleblower said his client is an criminal supervisory special agent “who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020 and would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.”

The letter did not name Hunter Biden specifically, but lawmakers have been made aware he is the “high profile, controversial” subject that the lawyer is referring to. In addition, while the letter referred to preferential treatment that Hunter Biden allegedly received, there were no specific examples provided to support the accusations.

Leading Republicans, who have campaigned in part on promises of investigating the Biden family, seized on the whistleblower letter, reacting with alarm.

“It’s deeply concerning that the Biden Administration may be obstructing justice by blocking efforts to charge Hunter Biden for tax violations,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said in a statement.

In response to the IRS agent’s letter, Chris Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said, “It appears this IRS agent has committed a crime” by disclosing information about his client.

“It is a felony for an IRS agent to improperly disclose information about an ongoing tax investigation,” Clark said in a statement. “The IRS has incredible power, and abusing that power by targeting, embarrassing, or disclosing information about a private citizen’s tax matters undermines Americans’ faith in the federal government.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to weigh in on the matter in April, stressing that the president was choosing to keep his distance: “I’ll leave it to the Department of Justice to make their decision to move forward with this particular case. We’re just not going to comment from here.”

A spokesperson for the White House counsel insisted the administration had not gotten involved.

“President Biden has made clear that this matter would be handled independently by the Justice Department, under the leadership of a U.S. Attorney appointed by former President Trump, free from any political interference by the White House,” Ian Sams said in an April statement. “He has upheld that commitment.”

ABC News’ Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn introduced bipartisan legislation Tuesday focused on protecting children online and holding social media companies accountable as cries mount for improved safety features.

The legislation would mandate independent annual audits to assess risks to minors, require social media companies to have more options for minors to protect their information and disable certain features, provide more parental controls and give academic and public interest organizations access to datasets to foster research.

The Kids Online Safety Act of 2023 builds on the 117th Congress’ version by delineating important definitions and guidelines to better concentrate on immediate hazards to children. The legislation focuses on specific dangers online, including the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse and sexual exploitation.

Though the bill failed last year, Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said he’s noticed a “powerful change” recently, and after conversations with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, he said, “I fully hope and expect to have a vote this session.”

“We cannot afford to allow more children to die or suffer as a result of this toxic content driven and children and driving them down dark rabbit holes,” Blumenthal said during Tuesday’s press call introducing the bill.

During the call, the senators brought on researchers, parents whose children have been affected by social media trends and young adults who told their own stories about the addictive and harmful features on social media apps.

“Right now, the burden of safety on social media and online platforms falls squarely on me on my peers, and on parents. And when, not if, we are faced with harmful content or interactions online, there are a few places to turn,” said Zamaan Qureshi, youth advocate and co-chair of Design It For Us, self-described as a “coalition of young activists and organizations advocating for safer social media and online platforms for kids, teens and young adults.”

Joann Bogard, who described losing her 13-year-old son Mason in 2019 after he participated in a viral social media challenge called the choking game, said well-intentioned parents are no match for social media companies when it comes to monitoring their children’s content.

“I kept asking myself, ‘What did I miss?'” she said. “I had safety features turned on his devices watchdog apps to alert me if he searched inappropriate content and connected phone regularly and we had candid conversations about online safety. But even the parents who do everything right can’t protect them from these corporations who are deliberately designing these products to keep iPhone screens on.”

Blumenthal and Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, have spearheaded the bipartisan push for more oversight of social media companies, blaming “Big Tech” for blocking attempts by Congress to regulate their platforms.

At a February hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard from advocates also pushing for more social media safety features and victims of cyberbullying as they continued discussions about the various harms of social media and the lack of protection tools.

As ABC News previously reported, in addition to the 2023 Kids’ Online Safety Act, the dozens of proposals to restrict Big Tech in Congress include a measure from Sens. Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren that would create a new consumer protection agency to regulate the tech industry and a bill from Sens. Tom Cotton and Brian Schatz that bans social media for children under 13.

Blumenthal and Blackburn both rejected an age limit ban Tuesday, voicing concerns over the collection of personal information.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Defense plans to send 1,500 additional active-duty troops to support the security mission along the U.S.-Mexico border for a temporary three-month period, according to a U.S. official, ahead of an expected surge of migrants with the end of Title 42 restrictions on May 11.

They will join 2,500 National Guard members already there on an active-duty status.

Their mission will be to help with ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support.

The move comes after an executive order from President Joe Biden last week that authorized the secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security and DOD “to order to active duty such units and individual members of the Ready Reserve” to better respond to the “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by international drug trafficking.”

The 1,500 additional troops will be from the active-duty military, not from the National Guard or reserves, at least initially, according to the official.

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(WASHINGTON) — Nearly 300 people were arrested as a result of a years-long, three-continent operation targeting darknet trafficking of fentanyl and opioids, the Justice Department and FBI announced Tuesday.

Under “Operation SpecTor,” the “largest ever operation targeting the trafficking of fentanyl and opioids on the dark web,” 288 people were arrested within the last two years, and more than 850 kilograms of drugs — including 64 kilos of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics — intended to be sold on the darknet were seized, DOJ said.

“Our message to criminals on the dark web is this: You can try to hide in the furthest reaches of the internet, but the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference Tuesday.

Law enforcement also seized 117 firearms and $53.4 million in cash and virtual currencies as part of the operation, according to DOJ.

In one case highlighted by DOJ, a Florida man was sentenced to 16 years in prison late last year after it was revealed that he and his co-conspirators had a list of more than 6,000 darknet customers to whom they trafficked fentanyl, heroin and meth.

The Sinaloa cartel, a drug trafficking ring that DOJ has accused of gruesome crimes, and the Jalisco cartel were singled out as particularly harmful to Americans.

“The Sinaloa and Jalisco drug cartels, and the global networks they operate are killing Americans by sending fentanyl into the United States. Their associates distribute this fentanyl into communities across America by every means possible, including the dark web,” said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, adding that the agency “is committed to shutting down the fentanyl supply chain from beginning to end.”

“The availability of dangerous substances like fentanyl on dark net marketplaces is helping to fuel the crisis that has claimed far too many American lives,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a Tuesday statement. “That’s why we will continue to join forces with our law enforcement partners around the globe to attack this problem together.”

In 2021, a record 107,622 Americans died from drug poisoning or overdose, with 66% linked to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the Department of Justice said in a press release last year.

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(PROSPECT PARK, N.J.) — A Muslim mayor who has represented Prospect Park, New Jersey, for nearly two decades said Tuesday he has not heard from the White House since the U.S. Secret Service blocked him from attending President Joe Biden’s evening Ed al-Fitr celebration.

Mayor Mohamed Khairullah said he was about half an hour away from joining fellow Muslim leaders on Monday to mark a belated end of the holy month of Ramadan when he got a call from a White House aide telling him not to come.

“At this point, we still did not receive any explanation,” he told CNN on Tuesday morning. “All that happened is I received that call as I was entering D.C. And I was told by a staffer from the White House social events department that the Secret Service advised them that I cannot attend the event and that Secret Service did not provide them with any explanation.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service said in a statement to reporters late Monday the agency regrets the inconvenience but couldn’t comment further.

“While we regret any inconvenience this may have caused, the mayor was not allowed to enter the White House complex this evening. Unfortunately we are not able to comment further on the specific protective means and methods used to conduct our security operations at the White House,” said Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service.

Khairullah, born in Syria and a U.S. citizen since 2000, is now in his fifth term as mayor of Prospect Park. From his perspective, Monday’s experience “reeks of Islamophobia by certain federal agencies,” something he said he wishes to discuss with Biden if he’s invited back — an invitation he said he would accept.

“I think that the big question [for the White House] is what are we going to out the targeting of Arabs, Muslims, South Asians by federal agencies that are basically not telling us why we are being harassed at airports, border crossings, and now, for me to be denied entry into the People’s House is baffling,” he said.

“If someone like me who has a high profile, who has clearly served their community, who has demonstrated dedication to the local community and global community can be targeted like that — I have someone who could speak on my behalf — the average citizen doesn’t know who to turn to and who to speak to,” he told CNN.

Khairullah suspects his trouble stems from his name matching one that appeared on an FBI terrorism watch list, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told him in 2019. He said he’s faced many incidents of discrimination when flying, which can be embarrassing for his family, he added.

He called on the White House to apologize and to reinstate the mayor’s invitation.

“If these such incidents are happening to high-profile and well-respected American-Muslim figures like Mayor Khairullah, this then begs the question: What is happening to Muslims who do not have the access and visibility that the mayor has,” Maksut said.

A report from CAIR last year found a 9% increase in discrimination complaints from Muslim-Americans in 2021 compared to 2020.

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(WASHINGTON) — As the 2024 election cycle takes very early shape, GOP strategists are predicting that an expensive and potentially even race-deciding “proxy war” could break out in various states between two major political groups, the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) and the Club for Growth.

The crux of their conflict? They agree there’s a problem in unifying behind the best nominees, but they disagree on the solution.

Republicans across the party concede that “candidate quality” was a prime factor in their failure to flip the Senate last year, when less experienced nominees like Blake Masters and Herschel Walker suffered high-profile defeats while the party only narrowly retook the House, despite widespread apathy about President Joe Biden.

But where the SLF and the Club for Growth disagree is on who should take the lead — and how.

One strategist who is “more aligned” with Senate Republicans put it this way, with some exasperation: “If you’re the Club for Growth, why in the heck would you spend $10 or $12 million to defeat [another GOP candidate], who probably is aligned with like 100% on your issues?”

In an interview, David McIntosh, the Club for Growth’s president, offered a virtual reflection of that argument from the other side.

“My proposition to them is: Let us find and support and fund these good candidates through their primary, and then we’ll work together to try to get the majority in the fall,” McIntosh said.

The dispute is likely to play out far away from voters at the ballot box but it could help determine who the GOP nominates in key races in 2024, with control of a closely divided Congress at stake.

And with tens of millions of dollars in potential advertising and other muscle at the ready, both the SLF and the Club for Growth are set to play major roles in elevating the next class of Republican politicians.

Ultimately, primary voters pick their party’s nominee, not outside groups. But those same outside groups can be influential in helping with ads and messaging for preferred candidates as well as with attacks on their opponents.

“It’s always important to have the best candidate and one that could appeal to independent voters,” said one former National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) staffer. “Candidate quality matters. It’s the first thing you control in a race. And so, getting it right is paramount.”

Lining up early behind dueling names

In 2022, the SLF, allied with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, prized electability above all else. But groups like the Club for Growth emphasized conservative bona fides instead.

All the while, the NRSC stayed out of primaries, getting involved only in the general election — a strategy that has been abandoned heading into 2024.

Midterm losses in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and elsewhere in 2022, which saw Republicans nominate nontraditional figures like Dr. Oz Mehmet and Don Bolduc, set off finger-pointing over what critics said were insufficient efforts to boost strong candidates.

The next cycle provides a “golden opportunity,” as the former NRSC staffer put it, with Democratic incumbents defending many Senate seats, including in red states like Montana, Ohio and Virginia.

The SLF and the NRSC are aligned in their willingness to intervene in the 2024 primaries in order to elevate candidates they view as electable, and the Club is set to do the same — but not always for the same people.

“I think in some states, it could become a major proxy war,” said one GOP strategist working on Senate races.

If so, expect major fronts in that battle to open in Montana and West Virginia.

The NRSC and SLF are focusing on wealthy potential self-funders and are eyeing either veteran and businessman Tim Sheehy or state Attorney General Austin Knudsen in Montana. They also successfully recruited West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice to run for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s seat.

McConnell and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., the NRSC chair, have been directly involved in such recruitment talks, and the SLF released early internal polling showing Manchin losing to Justice but not West Virginia Rep. Alex Mooney, another primary contender.

That survey was something of a swipe at the Club for Growth, which is backing Mooney to the tune of $10 million.

Daines has also talked up former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick as a potential Pennsylvania Senate candidate (McCormick lost to Oz in the 2020 primary by less than 1,000 votes), and a source familiar with the matter told ABC News that national Republicans are having discussions with candidates in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“We want to win primaries and generals. I think people realize that winners make policy, and losers go home,” Daines said in a brief interview.

The Club for Growth, meanwhile, is a longtime backer of Rep. Matt Rosendale, who could run against Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

The organization put out a memo that contended the SLF had “abandoned conservatives” in 2022 and claimed, “the best path to a Republican majority is through the Club for Growth PAC endorsed candidates.”

Republicans also have an opportunity to unseat Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, though sources familiar said they anticipate a more hands-off approach to the GOP primary there.

Voters ‘don’t like to be told’ what to do

Interviews with leaders and strategists on both sides of the divide lamented the prospects of bloody primaries fueled by each camp’s beefy war chests. But it appeared that no amount of dread could force cooperation.

A source familiar with the matter said the NRSC and the Club for Growth have held discussions “trying to just get a feel for — ‘Where are you really going to go to the mat on? And where are you going to maybe spend a half a million or a million?'”

But both groups denied the talks.

“They have a different set of candidates in a couple of these states — Montana, West Virginia,” McIntosh, the Club for Growth president, told ABC News. “And the question that I would ask them to think about is: Is it worth spending your money in a primary when you can get a candidate that we’ll support, who can win, and then save your resources to win the majority in the general?”

For all the focus on the maneuvering, some politicos suggest a simpler reality.

“In my experience, Republican primary voters don’t like to be told who to vote for by people in D.C.,” said one 2022 NRSC staffer, noting the recruiting efforts around Justice and Sheehy. “They may be beloved by the Republican base. We’ll see how the primaries play out.”

This person agreed that the GOP has to “make sure that we can all come together for the general election and win” but shrugged off the primary conflict.

“I think they have different philosophical perspectives on how they go about races. And so, at a certain point, there isn’t necessarily a way to completely align those. And again, it’s not a bad thing or a good thing, necessarily. It just is,” they said. “And that’s never going to change.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. government risks defaulting on its debts — for the first time in history — “as early as June 1,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other top lawmakers on Monday.

“It is imperative that Congress act as soon as possible to increase or suspend the debt limit in a way that provides longer-term certainty that the government will continue to make its payments,” Yellen wrote.

The government hit its debt ceiling in January and has been employing “extraordinary measures” since then to keep its bills paid, according to Yellen.

“It is impossible to predict with certainty the exact date when Treasury will be unable to pay the government’s bills, and I will continue to update Congress in the coming weeks,” she wrote on Monday.

The House Republican majority has said they won’t raise the limit further without a compromise from Democrats on spending and the government budget — which President Joe Biden has rejected, saying the ceiling should be raised without strings attached, as has happened before.

With the potential June 1 deadline looming, the president called all four congressional leaders on Monday afternoon and invited them to a May 9 meeting on the debt limit, multiple sources familiar confirmed to ABC News.

ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and Rachel Scott contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — Hospitals in Missouri and Kansas violated federal law last summer when they refused to provide an emergency abortion to a woman who went into premature labor at nearly 18 weeks and risked developing a life-threatening infection, according to initial findings in a government investigation by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The investigation, which is the first of its kind, underscores the persistent legal confusion in several states that ban abortions but carve out exceptions when a patient’s life is at risk. Abortion rights advocates say there’s no clear standard on when a health condition is serious enough to intervene and that doctors are often unclear on how to treat medical complications in a way that won’t violate anti-abortion statutes.

In the case of Mylissa Farmer of Joplin, Missouri, she was told she risked developing an infection and other serious complications if she remained pregnant after her water broke, investigators found, but at least two hospitals denied providing her with an abortion because of concerns it could violate state abortion laws.

“Since (last year’s Supreme Court decision), there’s been a lot of legal chaos and confusion and we really applaud that this is decisive action” by the government, said Michelle Banker, director of reproductive rights and health litigation at the National Women’s Law Center and Farmer’s lawyer.

Patients are “really being forced to wait until they are on the brink before hospitals will intervene,” Banker added. “And what this decision makes clear is that federal law does not allow hospitals to put patients in that impossible scenario.”

Last August, after Farmer arrived at a Missouri hospital, the doctors there said her fetus had a “very low” chance of survival and that an abortion was necessary to prevent her from developing sn infection and other problems due to her medical history, according to federal findings.

But because the fetus still had a heartbeat and Farmer remained stable at the time, the legal staff at Freeman Health System in Joplin, Missouri, determined that delivering the fetus at such an early point in the pregnancy would violate anti-abortion laws, investigators said.

“She expressed concern of infection with ruptured membranes,” according to a federal report on Farmer’s case. Doctors at the hospital “discussed that unless delivery becomes emergent, we are unable (to) help her deliver due to current state law while fetus has a heartbeat, even (though) the fetus is not viable.”

Farmer then drove three hours to the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City. While abortion is legal in Kansas, Farmer had arrived there the night of Aug. 2 — the same day the state was voting on whether to amend its constitution to allow for abortion bans.

According to Farmer’s complaint, the hospital’s legal counsel told the doctor not to deliver the fetus prematurely or surgically remove it because it would be ‘too risky in this heated political environment to intervene.'”

The Health and Human Services Department’s CMS, which works with hospitals to administer Medicare and Medicaid dollars, says it found that Farmer’s treatment at both hospitals violated a federal law known as Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, which requires that hospitals provide stabilizing care to patients showing up in emergency rooms. Neither hospital responded immediately to requests for comment.

A CMS spokesperson said the hospitals are now “taking steps” to demonstrate compliance with the law. If compliance remains in question, the hospitals could risk losing access to the Medicare program and eventually being fined.

The Biden administration last year issued guidance to hospitals that abortions should be considered stabilizing care, although anti-abortion rights advocates say this position is unnecessary. They argue that hospitals can’t be forced to grant access to abortion, although the Lozier Institute has called on state medical boards and other oversight groups to offer hospitals more detailed guidance.

States with abortion bans still allow terminations “in those rare and heartbreaking circumstances when it is necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman,” the Lozier Institute, which opposes abortion rights, wrote in an online post earlier this year.

“Physicians can make this determination based on their ‘reasonable medical judgment,’ a standard very common in the medical profession and used for any case involving medical malpractice litigation,” the group added.

Still, other medical experts say it’s not clear how sick a patient must be to qualify for an abortion and warn that doctors still fear running afoul of state laws.

In a letter to hospitals this week, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra told administrators they must under law “continue to require that healthcare professionals offer treatment, including abortion care, that the provider reasonably determines is necessary to stabilize the patient’s emergency medical condition.”

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(CLEVELAND, Texas) — After Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott faced backlash for what critics called an effort to “dehumanize” the victims of a mass shooting in his home state over the weekend, a spokesperson appeared to walk back Abbott’s remark in a statement to ABC News on Monday afternoon.

The spokesperson claimed federal authorities had told “the state of Texas” that the shooting suspect and victims “were in the country illegally” but that they have since learned at least one of the victims “may have been in the United States legally” — and that they “regret” if the information was an incorrect distraction.

“Any loss of life is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to the families who have lost a loved one. Following the horrific shooting on Friday night, federal officials provided the state of Texas information on the criminal and the victims, including that they were in the country illegally. We’ve since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally. We regret if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal,” Renae Eze said in the statement.

In an earlier tweet on Sunday announcing a $50,000 reward for the at-large suspect, Abbott called the five victims of Friday’s attack “illegal immigrants,” leaving many on social media to question why he used language they consider dehumanizing toward immigrants.

In a statement on Sunday, Abbott said, “Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of the five victims that were taken in this senseless act of violence.”

The victims of the brutal attack in Cleveland, Texas, were identified by authorities as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Obdulia Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso Guzman, a 9-year-old boy, according to his father and school district officials. All are originally from Honduras, police said.

Police say the suspect — still at-large — used an AR-15-style rifle in the attack, which began late Friday, to kill the five family members. Two of the female victims were discovered in the bedroom lying on top of two surviving children, authorities told ABC News. Three minors in total were found uninjured but covered in blood.

Jefrinson Josué Rivera, partner to Velázquez Alvarado for the last six years, told ABC News in a phone interview Monday that she was a lawful permanent resident, not an undocumented immigrant as Abbott had initially claimed.

In Spanish, he said the governor was “inhumane” for referring to the victims, all friends or relatives of his, in this way.

Through tears he described how he wants his loved one to be remembered: “She was warrior, she gave everything for her children. She never had issues with anyone. She was happy, humble and caring. She was so attentive to her children, her friends, and to me.”

He also said he has a question for Abbott: “Why do they discriminate against immigrants so much. In what way are we affecting him? What harm have we caused him? He’s making his living and we’re here to make our own? We don’t care if he wants to make his money through politics, we’re here to make an honorable living.”

Reacting to Abbott’s tweet late Sunday, Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said he showed “a disgusting lack of compassion and humanity.”

“If loosening gun laws actually made us safer, Texas would have one of the best records in the country on gun violence,” she said in another tweet. “In this country so awash with firearms, you can’t go to grocery stores, church, schools, or even your neighbor’s house now without fear. It’s the guns.”

Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde — where, one year ago this month, a gunman killed 19 fourth graders and two of their teachers — called Abbott’s framing a “new low.”

“Greg, how was an undocumented person able to obtain an AR-15 in the first place? I’ll tell you why. It’s because you and other Republicans have made safe gun laws nonexistent,” Gutierrez tweeted.

The Hispanic Congressional Caucus also weighed in, accusing the governor of trying to “dehumanize & delegitimize the lives of those killed in this horrific attack.”

Charlie Sykes, a conservative commentator and editor-in-chief of the website The Bulwark, called it “extraordinary” that Abbott “felt the need to do that.”

“This cried out for a little bit of compassion, for some leadership. Of course, we got neither of those,” he said Monday on MSNBC.

“Star Trek” Actor George Takei, who was imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp for a year and a half, was one of the first on the chorus of critics to call Abbott’s response “despicable.”

“I would have thought bringing up the immigration status of the innocent victims of this senseless violence would be beneath even you. But I was wrong,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, the manhunt for suspected gunman Francisco Oropesa, 38, is still underway.

Investigators said carnage at his hands began Friday night after neighbors asked him to stop shooting his gun in the yard of his home in Cleveland, Texas, about 50 miles north of Houston. When deputies arrived at the home, they found five victims at the property, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers told reporters on Sunday. Abbott also said in his tweet that Oropesa is “in the country illegally.”

The gruesome, mass shooting follows a series of attacks gun safety advocates argue illustrate the need for stricter gun laws across the country.

ABC News’ Peter Charalambous, Meredith Deliso and Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.

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