Politics

(NEW YORK) — After pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts, former President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched attacks on the Manhattan district attorney and judge overseeing his case — despite the judge’s request that both sides refrain from making inflammatory public comments.

Trump called Alvin Bragg a “failed district attorney” and a “criminal” before taking aim at Bragg’s wife. He also criticized the judge overseeing his case, accusing him of bias.

“I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family,” Trump said to a room full of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

If the rhetoric were to continue and escalate, it could put Judge Juan Merchan in the precarious position of having to consider a gag order, legal experts told ABC News.

Kevin O’Brien, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said he imagines Merchan “wants to do everything to avoid a situation like that.”

“I do think it’s a tough spot for the judge to be in,” said Sarah Krissoff, a former federal prosecutor in New York and current defense attorney.

Krissoff noted any potential gag order, “no matter how narrowly tailored,” would be appealed and face extensive litigation.

Prosecutors are working with Trump’s team on a protective order to prevent discovery materials from being shared online or elsewhere. However, prosecutors did not request a gag order during Tuesday’s arraignment, and Merchan said he was not inclined to grant one even if they had.

“Such restraints are the most serious and least intolerable on First Amendment rights,” he told the court. “That does apply doubly to Mr. Trump, because he is a candidate for the presidency of the United States.”

But the judge made clear he did not agree with Trump’s attorneys that recent social media posts which stoked prosecutors’ alarm — including one in which Trump threatened “death and destruction” if he were indicted — were just an expression of frustration.

And he gave a pointed warning to both parties to refrain from inflammatory language that could prompt violence and civil unrest, or that jeopardize the safety of any individuals.

“This is a request I’m making,” Merchan said. “I’m not making it an order. But now that I have made the request, if I were to be handed something like this again in the future, I would have to take a closer look at it.”

It was just hours later that Trump took the stage at Mar-a-Lago to air a litany of grievances against those he perceives as political enemies.

“The judge took a hands off approach and I think that was wise,” O’Brien said. “The question is, is Trump going to do something to tempt him to impose a gag order or restriction?”

Gag orders are considered an “extraordinary” remedy given all defendants’ First Amendment rights, but it’s a step taken if comments being made threaten to undermine the integrity of the trial process or potentially poison the jury pool.

In this case, some legal experts said it might be concerns about safety that could prompt a request for a gag order.

“The interests here might be a little different than a normal normal criminal case … It just may be a safety issue, frankly, that imposes a gag order,” Krissoff said.

Police sources told ABC News Judge Merchan’s received dozens of threats in recent days. Bragg’s also been a target, as a letter threatening to kill “Alvin” was sent to his office. The letter contained white powder that was determined to be non-hazardous.

If prosecutors were to push for a gag order, there are a “range of options” the judge can take, according to former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Daniel Horwitz,

He could impose some limitations, rather than a total gag order, on disparagement of individuals involved while still allowing Trump to make statements about the case in his defense, Horwitz said. If Trump were to violate an order given by the judge, he could be held in contempt and fined.

Top Republicans have argued a gag order in this case would be a violation of the First Amendment. Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer, the GOP chairmen of two powerful House committees, said in a statement such a move would be “unconstitutional.”

“To even contemplate stifling the speech of the former commander in chief and current candidate for President is at odds with everything America stands for,” the two lawmakers said ahead of the arraignment.

While experts said there are unique circumstances in this case, with Trump being a leading 2024 candidate for Republican nomination and the first former president to be indicted, he is still a criminal defendant.

“The fact that Donald Trump happens to be running for president is somewhat of an added complexity, but at the end of the day, he’s a defendant like every other defendant and he has to obey the rule of law,” said Horwitz.

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(NEW YORK) — As Congress considers banning TikTok amid growing fears over potential data privacy issues and Chinese government intrusion, some states are taking matters into their own hands to regulate social media access.

Last week, Utah became the first state to pass a law limiting access to social media for kids under age 18. The statute will require parental consent for minors to use platforms like TikTok and Instagram, putting the onus on social media companies to verify users’ ages.

One of the bill’s sponsors, State Sen. Michael McKell, spoke to “GMA3” about the scope of the new laws, addressing concerns over privacy and how the state plans to enforce them when they go into effect next March.

EVA PILGRIM: So I just want you to break this down for us. How will these restrictions actually work?

SEN. MICHAEL MCKELL: I think that’s a great question. First and foremost, what we worry about is involving parents. So the first thing this legislation does is it requires parental consent for a child to jump on a social media site. I think that’s important. Two of the really important things: we ban data collection of our kids and we ban targeted advertisement. But more than anything else, we want parents to be involved in the process with their kids, with social media. So we want parents to consent before their kids jump on a social media site.

GIO BENITEZ: Senator, the law has passed. The restrictions, they go into effect in March of next year. But I think we need a little bit of a reality check here, because there are nearly a million minors in Utah right now. Most of them know more about tech than their parents. How do you plan to even enforce these laws every time a minor signs on to social media?

MCKELL: And that’s a great question, and that’s what parents struggle with. Oftentimes, these kids are a lot smarter than their parents when it comes to social media. So over the course of the next year, we’ve got some rulemaking. And what rulemaking means is our division of Consumer Protection is going to build the process to verify ages and do this parental consent program. As I’ve gone out in the state of Utah, parents want tools. And what we’re trying to do is empower those parents to be more involved with their kids in their social media accounts.

BENITEZ: And you say there will be four employees within the Department of Commerce handling this new law. How can they possibly keep tabs on everyone?

MCKELL: Well, the good news is we will have four employees, but they’re there to receive complaints. If there are additional problems, one of the things we built into the legislation is a private right of action. If there’s broad sweeping abuse in violation of these new rules, we’ll also have that private right of action where the public can engage in the process as well. But we’re not going to be proactive. Those complaints are going to come to the state of Utah. We’re going to look at them and address them. So there will be some complaints. We don’t know how many complaints there’ll be at this point, but we wanted to make sure that we do have some employees on the ground as this program moves forward.

PILGRIM: You’re a parent, you have four kids. What do you say to those parents who, they’re concerned about their kids on social media, but say it should be the parents’ job to regulate their kids’ use and their access, not the government’s?

MCKELL: Yeah, and I think that’s a great concern. And that’s what we’re trying to do, is have tools available to parents right now. Oftentimes, there are kids, my kids certainly understand social media better than I do. And what we want to do is empower parents. You know, mom and dad may have one or two jobs. Mom and dad are busy. We want to make sure those tools are easy to use and available for those parents. What we don’t do is, parents can, we’ve got some default settings, they can override those. They can give their kids as much access as they want. But we really and truly want to empower parents here in the state of Utah.

BENITEZ: Senator, under these laws, social media companies will be forced to verify user ages. Now, how will they do that without violating privacy laws? Because, of course, there are those who are concerned about social media companies having even more access to your sensitive data.

MCKELL: Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. And the way we do parental consent is to verify age. Age verification is nothing new in this country. What I would point to for your viewers, online prescription, if you buy online prescriptions, you’ve got to verify your age. We have millions of people on dating sites. You’ve got to verify your age.

BENITEZ: Right, senator. But this is TikTok. This is Facebook. This is Instagram. I mean, a lot of people don’t want to give them that sensitive data.

MCKELL: Yeah, and one of the things we did is we call out our Consumer Privacy Act in the legislation. We make it clear that a form of government ID cannot be the only form of verification. As we’ve met with stakeholders in tech companies, they believe that they can do the verification without violating privacy. But that’s something that we’re going to watch and we’re going to watch it closely to make sure that doesn’t happen here in this state.

BENITEZ: Such an interesting debate. Thank you so much Utah State Sen. Mike McKell. We will be watching this. Thanks for joining us here on “GMA3.”

MCKELL: Thank you.

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(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — Two Democratic lawmakers have been ousted from the Republican-controlled Tennessee state House of Representatives and one was allowed to stay in what marks the first partisan expulsion in the state’s modern history.

State Rep. Justin Jones, the first lawmaker expelled when lawmakers voted to adopt HR65, called the resolution “a spectacle” and “a lynch mob assembled to not lynch me, but our democratic process.”

“We called for you all to ban assault weapons and you respond with an assault on democracy,” Jones said during his 20-minute opening statement.

Following the adoption of the expulsion resolution, Jones said his ouster “is just setting a precedent that any member who voices dissent or opposition can be expelled from the legislative body.”

“Whether I’m a member on the inside or a community member on the outside, I will continue to stand with the people demanding change because this is not the end. But today is a very dangerous day for America,” he said in a hallway interview after the vote, according to NewsNation.

State Rep. Justin Pearson, who sang “Power to the People” and quoted from the Bible, said the resolution to remove him was an “injustice against the First Amendment.”

“Speaking up on behalf of the last, the lost, the least, those who’ve been left out, those who’ve been ignored, those who’ve been silenced but refuse to be silent anymore, that does not deserve expulsion from this House,” he said before he was expelled from the chamber Thursday evening.

State Rep. Gloria Johnson, the sole lawmaker to survive the expulsion resolutions, denied allegations that she shouted from the well and said she breached House decorum in a needed effort to stir “good trouble.”

“My friends in school all called me ‘Little Miss Law and Order’ because I’m a rule-follower, and I know that rules sometimes have to be broken and sometimes you have to get in good trouble,” she said.

“I may have broken a rule, but the words in this document are false and I did what I was compelled to do based on speaking for the voters in my district who were begging me to bring this issue forward,” she later added, gesturing at HR64, which would have expelled her from the legislative body.

President Joe Biden said the move to oust the lawmakers was “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” arguing Republicans in Tennessee were focused on “punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action” rather than pushing for reforms.

Earlier in the Thursday session, the legislature passed HB322, a bill that requires schools to implement a number of safety plans and security systems, over the objections of the three members who face expulsion.

“This bill is not about school safety that will not make our students safer,” Jones said, adding the move to “make our schools militarized zones” is borne out of refusal “to address the real issue, which is easy access to military grade weapons, which is easy access to weapons of war on our streets.”

Johnson, a former teacher, decried the possibility of “gun battles at our schoolhouse door,” and Pearson argued that “the root cause that each of us have to address is this gun violence epidemic do the due to the proliferation of guns.”

“We don’t need a solution that says if you don’t lock a door or get someone with a gun, we need a solution that says people shouldn’t be going to schools and to houses and to neighborhoods with weapons of war,” Pearson added.

Protesters gathered both inside — in the gallery, where they were told to remain silent — and in large groups outside, in apparent support of the three Democratic lawmakers.

Jones, Johnson and Pearson are facing expulsion resolutions for allegedly violating the chamber’s rules of decorum by participating in a gun control protest at the state Capitol last week. The demonstration came in the wake of the deadly Covenant School shooting in Nashville on March 27, where a former student fatally shot three children and three adults, police have said.

When protesters crowded the state House and gallery hallways last week, calling for stricter gun laws, only one Democratic lawmaker was granted permission to address them.

Others, particularly young progressives like freshman Reps. Pearson and Jones, also wanted to speak but were prohibited by Republican leadership.

So, during a recess, the duo, along with Johnson, used the well of the House chambers to demand action. With their mics shut off, they brought a megaphone, leading chants.

Days later, Tennessee’s Republican Reps. Bud Hulsey, Gino Bulso and Andrew Farmer sponsored the expulsion resolutions Monday. They argued the Democratic lawmakers “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives through their individual and collective actions.”

Hulsey, Bulso and Farmer did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Republican state lawmakers including Speaker Cameron Sexton have accused the trio of attempting to incite an insurrection, even likening their actions to the violent Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to ABC affiliate WKRN.

Since the Civil War, the Tennessee state House has voted only twice to expel a member.

As of Thursday, the trio of Democrats said they have already lost ID access to the state Capitol and been stripped of any committee assignments.

But Pearson and Johnson told ABC News, no matter the results of the expulsion vote, they will remain undeterred in fighting for their constituents.

“If we are expelled on Thursday, you can expect the protest to continue the resistance to build, and the advocacy for our communities and for the people that we care about,” said Pearson.

“This is not going to stop me in the least,” Johnson added.

ABC News’ Sarah Beth Guevara and Nakylah Carter contributed to this report.

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(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — The Republican-led Tennessee House of Representatives held a hearing to vote to expel three Democratic members on Thursday over their involvement in a gun control protest last week following the Nashville school shooting.

After a day-long hearing, the House voted to expel Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, but not Rep. Gloria Johnson.

Over the last few days and during the hearing, the three said they have no regrets about speaking out against gun violence and calling on their colleagues to do more to enact laws that crack down on gun access.

Pearson told ABC News’ “Start Here,” before the vote that he and his colleagues were never allowed to speak out on behalf of their constituents, many of whom are demanding common sense gun reform, and dismissed the GOP member’s arguments that they violated the chamber’s rules of decorum.

“The people elected us, not our colleagues,” he told “Start Here.” “That is not the status quo. None of us expected that we had broken a rule that could lead to our expulsion.”

Each elected official has had deep ties to the state’s politics and has been vocal about their support for gun control.

Gloria Johnson

Johnson, 60, was born in Colorado and moved several times during her youth for her father’s work with the FBI until she was in seventh grade when her family, which had long Tennessee roots, settled in Knoxville, according to her official campaign bio.

She graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with an education degree and taught elementary and high school classes for several years. In addition to teaching, Johnson was active in local politics, helping with some field campaigns for Democratic elected officials, her bio said.

She was Knox County Democratic Party chairwoman in 2009. Three years later, Johnson was first elected to the Tennessee House representing the 13th district, which covered Knoxville.

She was defeated in the 2014 election by Republican Eddie Smith but in 2018 she regained her seat in a rematch with Smith.

Johnson, who is a gun owner, has made gun safety a top priority.

“As someone who worked in a classroom where we lost one of our students, you never forget the faces, the people, the children, and the traumatic experience. And we do not want that to happen to another child and another school,” she told ABC News.

Justin Jones

Jones, 27, was born in Oakland, California, and said he has been active in political movements since he was a teenager.

In high school, he organized rallies to speak out against “stand your ground laws” following Trayvon Martin’s death, according to his campaign bio.

He began attending Fisk University in Tennessee in 2013 and continued to take part in political activism, including a 62-day sit-in outside the Tennessee State House in protest of the controversial Dakota Pipeline construction at Standing Rock.

After graduating from the university with a degree in political science, Jones continued to work with local community activist groups, including the Tennessee Healthcare Campaign, a non-profit that advocates for affordable healthcare for all state residents.

Jones ran for office last year for the open house seat for Tennessee’s 52nd district, which includes Nashville. He had no opponents in the general election.

Jones has kept gun control at the forefront of his agenda and has repeatedly called out his Republican colleagues on their bills to loosen the state’s firearm restrictions.

“There comes a time when you have to do something out of the ordinary. We occupied the House floor today after repeatedly being silenced from talking about the crisis of mass shootings,” he tweeted before the March 30 protest.

Justin Pearson

Pearson, 27, was born and raised in Memphis and graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine with a degree in government & legal studies and education studies, according to his campaign bio.

Pearson was part of several community organizing groups, including Memphis Community Against Pollution and the Poor People’s Campaign: National Call for Moral Revival, his bio said.

After years of political work in the non-profit sector, Pearson officially became an elected member of the Tennessee House this year in a special election to replace Barbara Cooper, the 86th district’s representative who died in October 2022.

Pearson told “Start Here” he recently lost a classmate to gun violence. He noted that murders in his district are up 44% this year compared to last year.

“I think about responsibility as an elected official and the care and compassion that we should just have as people, those are together,” Pearson said.

Pearson said he and his fellow Democratic colleagues are speaking with attorneys about their next move but vowed to continue speaking out.

“Our work is not ending today. Our work is continuing,” he said.

ABC News’ Brad Mielke and Amanda Su contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans on Thursday took the next step in their probe of the Manhattan district attorney’s yearslong investigation of former President Donald Trump by issuing a subpoena to depose a former prosecutor in the office.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, subpoenaed Mark Pomerantz related to his role in investigating Trump and Trump’s businesses. The subpoena — which comes two days after Trump was arraigned on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, to which he has pleaded not guilty — is the first from the committee.

Pomerantz is one of the prosecutors who resigned in 2022 over District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s unwillingness to pursue their case against Trump. Bragg has said that he felt “more work was needed” on the matter. After Pomerantz left his role as a special assistant district attorney, he wrote a memoir about his time on the investigation.

Jordan wrote to Pomerantz along with the subpoena that his book and media appearances indicate he “has no basis to decline to testify about matters before the committee.”

“Based on your unique role as a special assistant district attorney leading the investigation into President Trump’s finances, you are uniquely situated to provide information that is relevant and necessary to inform the Committee’s oversight and potential legislative reforms,” Jordan wrote.

Pomerantz declined to appear before the committee last month for a transcribed interview. He could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Earlier this week, in the wake of Trump’s arraignment, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said “Bragg’s weaponization of the federal justice process will be held accountable by Congress.”

Bragg’s office has been engaged in a back-and-forth with the House Republicans seeking to investigate his investigation, which his counsel has called an undue intrusion into New York affairs.

The Judiciary Committee said in a statement on Thursday that the GOP-led House may consider “legislative reforms that would, among other things, prevent state or local politically motivated prosecutions of current or former presidents.”

Bragg responded to the subpoena in a statement, saying Republicans continue “to attempt to undermine an active investigation and ongoing criminal case with an unprecedented campaign of harassment and intimidation.”

“These elected officials would better serve their constituents and the country, and fulfill their oath of office, by doing their jobs in Congress and not intruding on the sovereignty of the state of New York by interfering in an ongoing criminal matter in state court,” Bragg said.

He has refused to cooperate with the congressional requests so far and Jordan has left the door open on whether to take the step of subpoenaing him while he is overseeing an ongoing criminal case.

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(BOISE, Idaho) — Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a bill into law on Wednesday that makes it illegal for an adult to help a minor get an abortion across state lines without parental consent.

The new law is the first of its kind in the United States and comes less than a year after Idaho banned nearly all abortions.

“With the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe vs. Wade last summer, the right and duty to establish legal policy on abortion was finally returned to our state democratic process,” Little, a Republican, wrote in a letter to Idaho lawmakers on Wednesday, announcing he had signed the legislation.

The text of House Bill 242, which was first introduced to the Idaho Legislature in February, lays out a new crime of “abortion trafficking,” in which an adult helps a pregnant, unemancipated minor obtain an abortion or abortion pills “by recruiting, harboring or transporting” them without the consent of their parent or guardian. Anyone who is found guilty of committing the crime will face two to five years in prison and could also be sued by the minor’s parent or guardian. A parent or guardian who raped their child will not be allowed to sue.

The legislation allows an affirmative defense to prosecution — an opportunity for a defendant to present evidence in court that could negate liability — if “a parent or guardian of the pregnant minor consented to trafficking of the minor,” unless the abortion provider was located in another state.

In his letter, Little clarified that the new law “does not criminalize, preclude or otherwise impair interstate travel, nor does it limit an adult woman from obtaining an abortion in another state.”

“Rather, the ‘abortion trafficking’ provision in the bill seeks only to prevent unemancipated minor girls from being taken across state lines for an abortion without the knowledge and consent of her parent or guardian,” he wrote.

Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates West, a nonprofit advocating for reproductive rights in the states of Hawaii, Idaho and Washington, took to Twitter on Wednesday to vow to challenge Idaho’s new law in court.

“Yet again, Idaho’s governor disregarded constituents and signed HB 242 into law, creating the nation’s first crime of so-called ‘abortion trafficking,'” the group tweeted. “This legislation is despicable, and we’re going to do everything in our power to stop it.”

Two weeks ago, Idaho became the first U.S. state to enact a law modeled after recent legislation passed in Texas that bans abortions after six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. The Idaho law allows for exceptions in the case of rape, incest or a medical emergency, but women are required to file a police report and show it to the medical provider before the abortion. The legislation also allows the father, grandparents, siblings, uncles or aunts of the fetus to sue a medical provider who performs the procedure.

ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — A Thursday report that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted luxury travel and hospitality perks from a billionaire Republican donor was met with both renewed criticism of how the justices self-police and renewed calls for oversight and the impeachment of the embattled conservative.

The controversy was touched off by a ProPublica story describing how Thomas and his wife, Ginni, a conservative activist, were treated to high-end vacations and private jet travel subsidized by Dallas-based businessman Harlan Crow, who has a record of contributing millions to Republican candidates and causes.

Thomas did not report the gifts on his annual financial disclosure filings, according to ProPublica — an omission that ethics experts say violates a code of conduct for federal officials.

Neither Thomas nor the Supreme Court and its counsel have responded to ABC News’ request for comment on the report and questions about the apparent disclosure oversight and whether Thomas’ reports will be amended.

Crow is not said to have any direct connection to business before the court and no apparent alleged conflict of interest on that level, but he is deeply connected to GOP politics and, according to ProPublica’s reporting, regularly includes conservative power players in gatherings with Thomas.

While Supreme Court justices are expected to follow a federal judicial code of ethics, there is no requirement that they do so and no independent oversight of compliance.

In a statement, Crow insisted he “never” spoke with Thomas about a Supreme Court case. But that hasn’t stopped the criticism, largely from the left and from advocates for judicial reform.

“If the information in this report is correct … and if the point of the United States judiciary is still to neutrally interpret and uphold the law, then it is obvious what should happen next,” Jeff Hauser, executive director of the progressive group Revolving Door Project, said in a statement. “The House of Representatives must immediately draw articles of impeachment against Justice Clarence Thomas.”

Some progressive lawmakers have joined in pushing for Thomas’ removal. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote on Twitter that “this degree of corruption is shocking – almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached.”

Only one Supreme Court justice in the country’s history has been impeached: Samuel Chase, in 1804, for allegedly refusing to dismiss biased jurors from a politically sensitive case. Political realities in 2023 cast doubt on the likelihood of a similar fate for Thomas, with Republicans now in control of the House. Beyond impeachment, a trial in the Senate, currently held 51-49 by Democrats, would require more than a dozen conservatives to join in voting against Thomas.

The justice has long attracted scrutiny for his close ties with Republican political figures and has faced unreported financial engagements in the past. But the new ProPublica report, which examined 20 years’ worth of unreported gifts, broke new ground.

According to ProPublica, Crow bankrolled transportation and accommodations for Thomas and his wife to far-flung destinations like Indonesia and New Zealand. These vacations and others to Crow’s own properties reportedly included lavish trimmings, including use of billionaire’s private jet, yacht and chef.

Crow, a prolific Republican donor who amassed a fortune in real estate, has given tens of millions of dollars to various Republican candidates and political groups at the federal level, according to public campaign finance databases. He has been a particularly generous donor to super PACs linked to Republican leadership in Congress, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on those groups almost every election cycle.

In a statement to ABC News, Crow acknowledged his friendship with the Thomases but denied any implication that his behavior amounted to anything more than “a gathering of friends.”

“Justice Thomas and Ginni never asked for any of this hospitality,” Crow said. “We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one, and we have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue.”

Other voices stopped short of calling for Thomas’ impeachment, instead using ProPublica’s reporting as an opportunity to call attention to the lax rules governing Supreme Court justices’ personal conduct.

Gabe Roth, executive director of the nonpartisan watchdog group Fix the Court, said ProPublica’s findings highlight a troubling reality: “The Supreme Court is the least accountable part of our government.”

Roth and others have advocated for legislation imposing stricter guidelines on financial disclosures and other mechanisms to ensure sufficient oversight of justices who wield broad power to check presidential and congressional authority and, unlike other branches of government, serve lifetime terms.

Congressional Democrats have for years been trying to pass legislation that would implement an enforceable code of conduct on the nine justices. In the wake of the ProPublica story, Senate Democrats once urged passage of the Supreme Court Ethics Act, which has been sponsored by Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy every year in Congress for more than a decade.

Later Thursday, the White House declined to weigh in. “There are other bodies of government that should be dealing with this,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Illinois’ Dick Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, characterized Thomas’ behavior as “simply inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any public servant, let alone a Justice on the Supreme Court.”

“The Pro Publica report is a call to action,” Durbin said in a statement on Thursday, “and the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.”

ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — With strikes raging throughout France in response to a push to raise the nation’s retirement age, government officials across the Atlantic Ocean may want to take steps to avoid similar chaos in the event that Social Security becomes insolvent.

Last-ditch talks between Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and leaders of France’s largest trade unions faltered on Wednesday. Union representatives emerged after less than an hour deeming the meeting a “failure” and calling on the public to join Thursday’s strike.

Millions have taken to the streets in recent months in opposition to the pension reform, with protests at times shutting down schools, public transit and iconic cultural attractions like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. Mounds of garbage piled up on the sidewalks and were set ablaze. Violent clashes have been documented between demonstrators and police.

Frédéric Souillot, the secretary general of the Force Ouvrière trade union, warned Wednesday they were “more determined than ever” ahead of the new wave of protests.

But France is not the only nation grappling with a financial dilemma. The United States will soon have to address the holes threatening to sink its own retirement system.

Social Security, the popular program on which 67 million Americans rely for monthly payments, faces long-term solvency issues that could result in benefit reductions within the next decade. U.S. lawmakers will soon have to act on Social Security, despite its status as the “third rail” in American politics — as in “touch it at your own peril.”

The trust fund that pays retirees is estimated to run dry by 2033, a year earlier than previously predicted, according to a report released last week from its board of trustees. If no solution is reached by then, the program would only be able to pay out 77% of scheduled benefits.

“We face the same demographic challenges here that France is facing,” Richard Johnson, the director of the Urban Institute’s Program on Retirement Policy, told ABC News. “There will be more retirees per worker in the future than we have today. That’s the challenge.”

What can America learn from France’s upheaval? Here are steps experts say U.S. officials can take in an effort to avoid the same fate.

Negotiate with the labor movement

France’s retirement age hike incensed the nation’s labor movement, which argued the measure unfairly burdened blue-collar workers in physically demanding jobs. The move is opposed by younger and older citizens alike.

French President Emmanuel Macron argued the new law — which raises the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 — was necessary for the survival of the country’s pension system. He pushed the deeply unpopular measure forward by shunning Parliament and invoking a special constitutional power.

Jean Garrigues, a leading French historian, said Macron made two “bad mistakes” during the ordeal: not negotiating with the labor movement and using what many see as an undemocratic tool to get the measure adopted.

“A lot of people accuse Emmanuel Macron of being responsible for all this violence,” Garrigues told ABC News.

Strive for fairness in readjusting the system

Both France and the U.S. have pay-as-you go systems that are strained by the collapsing ratio of working people to retirees. President Joe Biden and Republicans have clashed several times over how to address the disparate numbers of people in different generations.

Some Republicans have floated raising the full retirement age to 70 and making benefit changes to high-earning Americans to bring the system into balance. Democrats have generally proposed expanding benefits and raising taxes on the wealthy.

Rich Fiesta, the executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said he would “urge caution” to lawmakers who want to raise the full retirement age in the U.S. beyond 67.

“That’s the one thing that is universally not well regarded by the American public,” he said.

Macron’s critics have argued the funding for pensions could’ve come from another source, such as tax increases, without forcing people to retire later.

“Part of the protests in France is this idea of how we should be distributing the pain of adjusting the retirement system,” Johnson said.

That idea will likely be a key point of debate as the U.S. continues to debate Social Security.

“When we look at the solution that the French have come up with, which is increasing the retirement age, there are some questions about the fairness of doing that,” Johnson said. He noted those in physically demanding jobs may not be able to work longer and older people who lose their jobs may have trouble getting reemployed.

“Is that the most fair kind of change that we should make to Social Security? Should we ask wealthier people to pay more into the system? That’s something that the French haven’t done, and we’re seeing street protests.”

Make changes gradually

The last time the U.S. increased the retirement age for Social Security was in 1983, but the change happened gradually over several decades.

By contrast, France’s new retirement age will be fully implemented by 2030 — just seven years away.

“You want to give people time to adjust,” Johnson said. “It’s important to start thinking about change long before the system is in crisis. What we’re seeing in France is the importance of planning ahead, so we don’t have to make quick changes.”

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(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — The Republican-led Tennessee House of Representatives scheduled a vote to expel three Democratic members on Thursday over their involvement in a gun control protest last week following the Nashville school shooting.

Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson have said they have no regrets about speaking out against gun violence and calling on their colleagues to do more to enact laws that crack down on gun access.

Pearson told ABC News’ “Start Here,” before the vote that he and his colleagues were never allowed to speak out on behalf of their constituents, many of whom are demanding common sense gun reform, and dismissed the GOP member’s arguments that they violated the chamber’s rules of decorum.

“The people elected us, not our colleagues,” he told “Start Here.” “That is not the status quo. None of us expected that we had broken a rule that could lead to our expulsion.”

Each elected official has had deep ties to the state’s politics and has been vocal about their support for gun control.

Gloria Johnson

Johnson, 60, was born in Colorado and moved several times during her youth for her father’s work with the FBI until she was in seventh grade when her family, which had long Tennessee roots, settled in Knoxville, according to her official campaign bio.

She graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with an education degree and taught elementary and high school classes for several years. In addition to teaching, Johnson was active in local politics, helping with some field campaigns for Democratic elected officials, her bio said.

She was Knox County Democratic Party chairwoman in 2009. Three years later, Johnson was first elected to the Tennessee House representing the 13th district, which covered Knoxville.

She was defeated in the 2014 election by Republican Eddie Smith but in 2018 she regained her seat in a rematch with Smith.

Johnson, who is a gun owner, has made gun safety a top priority.

“As someone who worked in a classroom where we lost one of our students, you never forget the faces, the people, the children, and the traumatic experience. And we do not want that to happen to another child and another school,” she told ABC News.

Justin Jones

Jones, 27, was born in Oakland, California, and said he has been active in political movements since he was a teenager.

In high school, he organized rallies to speak out against “stand your ground laws” following Trayvon Martin’s death, according to his campaign bio.

He began attending Fisk University in Tennessee in 2013 and continued to take part in political activism, including a 62-day sit-in outside the Tennessee State House in protest of the controversial Dakota Pipeline construction at Standing Rock.

After graduating from the university with a degree in political science, Jones continued to work with local community activist groups, including the Tennessee Healthcare Campaign, a non-profit that advocates for affordable healthcare for all state residents.

Jones ran for office last year for the open house seat for Tennessee’s 52nd district, which includes Nashville. He had no opponents in the general election.

Jones has kept gun control at the forefront of his agenda and has repeatedly called out his Republican colleagues on their bills to loosen the state’s firearm restrictions.

“There comes a time when you have to do something out of the ordinary. We occupied the House floor today after repeatedly being silenced from talking about the crisis of mass shootings,” he tweeted before the March 30 protest.

Justin Pearson

Pearson, 27, was born and raised in Memphis and graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine with a degree in government & legal studies and education studies, according to his campaign bio.

Pearson was part of several community organizing groups, including Memphis Community Against Pollution and the Poor People’s Campaign: National Call for Moral Revival, his bio said.

After years of political work in the non-profit sector, Pearson officially became an elected member of the Tennessee House this year in a special election to replace Barbara Cooper, the 86th district’s representative who died in October 2022.

Pearson told “Start Here” he recently lost a classmate to gun violence. He noted that murders in his district are up 44% this year compared to last year.

“I think about responsibility as an elected official and the care and compassion that we should just have as people, those are together,” Pearson said.

Pearson said he and his fellow Democratic colleagues are speaking with attorneys about their next move but vowed to continue speaking out.

“Our work is not ending today. Our work is continuing,” he said.

ABC News’ Brad Mielke and Amanda Su contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied West Virginia’s request to immediately reinstate a law that would ban transgender student-athletes from participating in sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

The decision is a win for a 12-year-old transgender girl and her parents who are challenging the law in a bid to allow her to continue running on her middle school cross-country and track teams.

It is also a victory for transgender rights advocates at a time when many states nationwide are enacting similar sports bans, even if the continued injunction is only temporary as legal challenges play out.

The court did not explain its decision, though two justices — Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas — issued a dissent.

“Among other things, enforcement of the law at issue should not be forbidden by the federal courts without any explanation,” Alito writes.

The high court was not considering the ban on the merits but rather addressing the question of whether it should remain on hold while legal proceedings continue in lower courts.

West Virginia, defending the law in court documents, has claimed that “there is ‘a substantial risk that boys would dominate the girls’ programs and deny them an equal opportunity to compete in interscholastic events.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is challenging West Virginia’s trans sports ban on behalf of the girl, Becky Pepper Jackson, applauded the decision.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court today acknowledged that there was no emergency and that Becky should be allowed to continue to participate with her teammates on her middle school track team, which she has been doing without incident for three going on four seasons, as our challenge to West Virginia’s onerous trans youth sports ban makes its way through the courts,” the ACLU said in a statement. “This was a baseless and cruel effort to keep Becky from where she belongs – playing alongside her peers as a teammate and as a friend.”

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