Politics

(NEW YORK) — Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders quietly signed into law on Thursday a bill that will create a “monument to the unborn” on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol.

Sanders’ team confirmed the bill signing in a release late Friday.

State Senate Bill 307, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Kim Hammer and Rep. Mary Bentley, allows for private funds “of gifts, grants, and donations from individuals and organizations” to pay for a monument to “unborn children aborted during the era of Roe v. Wade.”

Once the monument is installed, it would then be maintained by taxpayer funds due to its location.

Bentley said its intent is to “remember those children we were not able to protect and we will not be able to forget.”

Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, an organization that challenged the installation of a Ten Commandments monument on State Capitol grounds in 2017, called the move to place an anti-abortion monument there a “performative political stunt.”

“Arkansas is ranked as one of the worst states in the nation for overall child well-being, maternal health, and the life expectancy among adults, yet the legislature has enacted dangerous limits and bans on reproductive healthcare. Lawmakers should be working to protect Arkansans with real solutions instead of this type of performative political stunt,” Dickson said in a statement to ABC News.

A total ban on abortion, except to save the life of the mother in a medical emergency, took effect in Arkansas last June when the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

But despite a super majority of Republicans in the legislature identifying with anti-abortion rights, the bill to make a monument enshrining Arkansans’ aborted fetuses did not see unanimous support among Republicans in the state legislature.

The House passed the legislation Tuesday in a 60-19 vote with two Republicans voting “no.” Ten Republicans didn’t vote, and another ten Republicans voted “present,” which has the same effect as voting no. When the bill moved through the state Senate last month, two Republicans didn’t vote and one Republican voted present.

“From a Christian perspective, this has the look and feel of spiking the football,” said state Rep. Steve Unger, a Republican who voted against the bill, on the House floor. “It looks like gloating.”

“Public memorials to our nation’s wars where we face an external threat are right and proper,” he added. “A memorial to an ongoing culture war where we seem to be shooting at each other is not.”

Unger told ABC News on Friday, “My comments reflected my beliefs, but I respect other convictions.”

Rep. Jeremiah Moore, the other House Republican to vote against creating the monument, warned it could “have an unintended effect on the pro-life cause.”

“I believe that life is precious, but we must approach this issue with grace. It will serve as a poke in the eye to all those who don’t share our beliefs,” he said in a floor speech.

Rep. Tippi McCullough, a Democrat who voted against the legislation, told ABC News, “I could think of a thousand ways to better spend money that would be helpful to our citizens.”

“This bill makes no real distinctions in the type of abortions it would enshrine with a statue on Capitol Grounds. That means a woman who went through a traumatic pregnancy that resulted in the death of her child-to-be would have to face a monument commentating that awful moment when she comes here to the people’s house,” McCullough said in a statement to ABC News. “Abortion was legal in this country for nearly 50 years. Putting a monument outside these walls won’t change that. The state has no business in a woman’s healthcare or in a family’s tragedy.”

Hammer, one of the bill’s sponsors, countered the criticism to say, “Abortion had no unintended affect because it achieved what those who supported it intended for it to do which is to kill innocent lives.”

“Many tax dollars went to organizations that supported and encouraged abortions,” Hammer told ABC News in a statement. “Rep. Moore can defend his own comments. I will defend remembering the 250,000 innocent babies through a visual reminder in the hopes that we will never repeat a terrible chapter in our nation’s history.”

Hammer also said he is in touch with a company already that wants to donate the monument but did not disclose the company’s name or a description of the design. The secretary of state will have final approval of the monument’s maker and design, which the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission will select, according to the bill’s text.

While there are hundreds of anti-abortion monuments across the country, this appears to be among the first approved for the grounds of a state Capitol.

The National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children, an anti-abortion rights group, which says it exists “to honor the gravesites of our unborn brothers and sisters,” told ABC News it was not aware of any other currently existing monuments to unborn children on the grounds of other State Capitols.

Lawmakers in Tennessee approved legislation in 2018 allowing for a similar privately-funded monument to anti-abortion rights on its state Capitol grounds, but that monument has yet to be installed, said spokesperson John Jansen.

Monuments already on Arkansas Capitol grounds include statues honoring the Little Rock Nine, the first Black students to enter Little Rock Central High School under the landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, and one of the Ten Commandments, which was damaged a day after it was installed when a man ran it over in protest. It has since been repaired.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Marking St. Patrick’s Day in Washington, President Joe Biden began a day of festivities by welcoming Ireland’s prime minister to the White House.

Biden, donning a shamrock-green tie in homage to his Irish roots, held a bilateral meeting with Leo Varadkar in the Oval Office — a return of a tradition put on hold for two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve been great friends,” Biden said. “You’ve been a great friend to the United States, and Ireland and the United States share great friendship and long, long traditions.”

Varadkar, also known as the taoiseach, thanked Biden for the invitation and for his support leading up to the Windsor Framework, which was the proposed post-Brexit legal agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

The two leaders also discussed standing together to support Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

“It means a great deal, speaking out against Russian aggression, and our deepening economic ties,” Biden said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

However, Biden and Varadkar did not hold a joint news conference following their meeting. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked Thursday by ABC News’ Karen Travers why one wasn’t planned, said it’s something done “in coordination” with the visiting head of state.

After their Oval Office meeting, Biden and Varadkar went to Capitol Hill for a luncheon hosted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with the Friends of Ireland.

Biden will later host Varadkar for a Shamrock presentation and reception at the White House featuring singer-songwriter Niall Horan of One Direction fame.

The celebrations, which included the White House fountain being dyed green, come ahead of Biden’s expected trip to Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The accord, signed in April 1998, helped bring an end to decades of conflict in Northern Ireland.

Varadkar said he was looking forward to Biden’s visit, as the president said earlier this week it was his intention to travel to Ireland for the occasion.

“I promise you that we’re going to roll out the red carpet and it’s going to be a visit like no other,” he told Biden. “Everyone’s excited about it already.”

Biden replied, “I look forward to that,” but didn’t say exactly when he would make the trip.

Varadkar began the day at Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence for breakfast with her and second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

There, Varadkar, Ireland’s first openly gay head of government, praised the U.S. for its leadership on gay rights.

“From Stonewall to Sacramento to San Francisco, America has led the way when it comes to LGBT equality. I don’t think I would be here today were it not for what America did,” he said, thanking Harris specifically for her work on marriage equality.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Former Vice President Mike Pence doubled down Thursday on his controversial remarks aimed at Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s decision to take parental leave.

The former vice president, thought to be a contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, refused to apologize after he mocked Buttigieg’s “maternity leave” at the annual Gridiron Dinner in Washington for journalists and politicians last Saturday.

“The Gridiron Dinner is a roast,” he told WMUR-TV’s Arielle Mitropoulos at a GOP dinner in New Hampshire when asked for his response to the criticism. “I had a lot of jokes directed to me, and I directed a lot of jokes to Republicans and Democrats. The only thing I can figure is Pete Buttigieg not only can’t do his job, but he can’t take a joke.”

On Monday, the White House publicly asked Pence to apologize, calling the joke “offensive and inappropriate, all the more so because he treated women suffering from postpartum depression as a punchline.” Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, then went on ABC’s The View on Thursday to denounce the “attempted joke.”

Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff and co-chair of his political advocacy group, called the White House reaction to Pence’s set “faux outrage.”

“The White House would be wise to focus less on placating the woke police and focus more on bank failures, planes nearly colliding in mid-air, train derailments, and the continued supply chain crisis,” Short said in a statement earlier this week.

ABC News’ Gio Benitez asked the transportation secretary himself on Monday whether he thought Pence owed him an apology, to which he responded, “I’ll let others speak to that.”

“It’s a strange thing to me because the last time I saw him, he asked me about my kids like a normal person would. I guess, you know, at a political event in white tie, it’s a little different,” Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg’s twins, now 18 months old, were born prematurely and developed Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV). One was hospitalized and put on a ventilator — a “terrifying” experience that the couple documented on Medium — and a point Chasten Buttigieg raised in a tweet this week to Pence.

“I spoke up because we all have an obligation to hold people accountable for when they say something wrong, especially when it’s misogynistic, especially when it’s homophobic, and I just don’t take that when it’s towards my family, and I don’t think anyone else would, especially when you bring a very small, medically-fragile child into it,” he told co-hosts of The View.

Chasten Buttigieg also said Pence’s comments were “part of a much bigger trend attacking families.”

“The thing about what he said is it flies in the face of what he says he is. He says he’s a family values Republican. So I don’t think he’s practicing what he preaches here,” he said.

“Someone wrote this, and he checked it and purposely said maternity leave rather than paternity leave — but also, it’s a bigger conversation about the work that women do in families — taking a swipe at all women and all families and expecting that women would stay home and raise children is a misogynistic view, especially from a man who said just last year that we should be supporting more people that adopt,” he added.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, speaking on ABC’s Good Morning America Friday, said he was “absolutely” prepared for cross-examination in a potential trial after completing his testimony this week before a Manhattan grand jury mulling charges against Trump.

“I was working for a man who ultimately became president of the United States, and, yes, there are things that we did that were wrong — for example, the hush-money payment — but I never expected that democracy would be on the line as a direct result of the former president,” Cohen told ABC News Anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Trump’s one-time fixer said he’s not worried about allies of Trump attacking his testimony.

“The facts are the facts. The truth is the truth and the truth will always rise so I’m not worried about anything that they want to come at me with,” he said.

Cohen did not divulge what prosecutors, investigating the 2016 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, asked him specifically after he met with them twice this week, but said, in his view, they have enough evidence to indict and convict the former president.

“I promise you and I promise the American people that all the information that is needed in order to create the indictment to get a prosecution and a conviction is in the hands of the district attorney,” Cohen said.

Stephanopoulos asked Cohen his biggest regret, and he said it was accepting a job from Trump in 2007.

“That’s my biggest regret. There was absolutely no reason for it. I didn’t need to work for him and I probably shouldn’t have. I should have listened to my wife, my daughter, my son and not accepted the job, but I did and, yeah, it’s cost me a lot. It’s cost my family a lot. Our happiness, finances, my law license,” he said. “But most importantly, as I said to you almost five years ago today that my wife, my daughter, my son and my country have my first loyalty and they always will.”

Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think justice will be served?”

“I know it will be,” Cohen replied.

Cohen tweeted a reminder ahead of the interview that five years ago he told Stephanopoulos that⁩ his first loyalty was not to Trump but to his family and country, promising to discuss how he’s adhered to the words since.

Trump’s one-time fixer paid $130,000 to Daniels in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign to allegedly keep her quiet about an affair she claimed to have had with Trump. The former president has denied an “affair” and his attorneys have framed the funds as an extortion payment.

“You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One in 2018, denying knowledge of the payment.

But the Manhattan district attorney’s office has been investigating whether Trump falsified business records when the Trump Organization allegedly reimbursed Cohen for the payment and then recorded the reimbursement as a legal expense.

Cohen served prison time after he pleaded guilty to federal charges that included campaign finance violations related to the hush payment. Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, noted Wednesday that when federal prosecutors charged Cohen they said that Trump — identified in court records as Individual 1 — directed Cohen to make the $130,000 hush payment, after which his reimbursement to Cohen was falsely logged in the Trump Organization’s records, according to prosecutors.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, met with prosecutors Wednesday over Zoom after former Trump advisers Hope Hicks, Kellyanne Conway and several other witnesses testified recently.

Prosecutors also invited Trump last week to testify in the probe — the clearest indication yet that they’re nearing a decision on whether to indict him.

No current or former U.S. president has even been indicted for criminal conduct.

ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — With the rise of artificial intelligence in our daily lives, members of Congress are trying to get ahead of the curve and ensure the technology doesn’t get out of control.

And they’re taking different approaches to find the best solution.

U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) is taking graduate level courses on AI for his machine learning master’s degree at George Mason University. The 72-year-old lawmaker told ABC News that he doesn’t know enough about the technology but needs to stay on top of it to properly legislate it.

“I’m never going to be a scientist, but I’m helping make policy on some really important things,” he said.

The congressman said his wife recently used the AI in the Bing search engine using his name, and the results came back with falsehoods.

“So how do we regulate that? And especially because we, more than any other country in the world, have this deep, deep-seated commitment to free speech,” he said.

The new Bing is currently in public preview, a Microsoft spokesperson told ABC News.

“We’ve received a lot of helpful user feedback and have quickly responded with updates to address issues and continue to improve the experience,” the spokesperson said.

Beyer warned though that there are concerns about AI, such as impersonations, cheating and other fraud, but it is still too early to regulate it.

“It’s really hard to say, ‘Hey, here’s what I think we should do because it’s so new.’ We don’t know the upsides or the downsides,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), an MIT graduate, however, argued that now is the time for Congress to act. In January, Auchincloss showed off how powerful AI can be by reading the first speech on the House floor that was entirely written by ChatGPT.

He warned that tech companies won’t be writing the rules of AI.

“This can’t be social media to 2.0 where policymakers for 15 years, allowed companies to get big, to get rich and to not sufficiently interrogate the effects on society, on politics, on the media, that their technology was having. We have got to be ahead of this wave of innovation not behind,” he told ABC News.

U.S. Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif), a former video game designer who has a master’s degree in AI, told ABC News that he’s constantly had to educate his colleagues on the tech.

He said while the concerns that AI will take away jobs and disrupt lives are legitimate, the technology has had many benefits in advancing medicine, computer technology and other areas.

“What we can’t do is throw the baby out with the bathwater and regulate without understanding what we’re doing,” Obernolte told ABC News. “Because if we do that, we’re going to stifle the development of something that can be incredibly beneficial.”

Still, the elected officials said they will be keeping an eye on any developments.

“There is a meaningful thing there. But I have real trouble imagining what legislation would protect us from that creative destruction. It’s like, almost going back to the atomic bomb. You can’t uninvent it,” Beyer said.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Fans might call it the luck of the Irish!

Singer-songwriter Niall Horan, who rose to fame as part of the international boy band sensation One Direction, will give a special performance at the White House on Friday to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre teased the star’s appearance on Thursday, tweeting, “It doesn’t get better than this!”

“I think I speak for all the music lovers in the Biden-Harris Administration when I say we cannot wait to welcome @NiallOfficial to the White House tomorrow for a special performance to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!” she said.

But Jean-Pierre later admitted at a Thursday afternoon press briefing, “I’m going to keep my comments to myself on One Direction. I don’t know who they are. Sorry,” earning laughs from attendees.

Horan, who is from Ireland, was quick to confirm the news.

“It’s an honour to be invited and represent my country. Looking forward to performing and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at the White House tomorrow,” the 29-year-old responded over Twitter.

President Joe Biden, who often plays up his Irish heritage, will also welcome Leo Varadkar — Ireland’s Taoiseach, or prime minister — on Friday for a bilateral meeting and shamrock bowl handover, an Oval Office tradition to mark St. Patrick’s Day dating back to 1952.

Biden also said earlier this week it was his “intention” to visit both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to mark 25 years since the Good Friday agreement, the peace accord between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Typically on St. Patrick’s Day, Ireland’s Taoiseach is hosted across the street from the White House at the Blair House, where the Irish flag is put on display.

Biden couldn’t meet in person with Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin last year after Martin tested positive for COVID-19 while in Washington.

While Horan hasn’t performed at the White House before, it’s not the first time he was invited. When the Obamas were in the White House, they said One Direction band members had an “open invitation” to perform there and identified daughters Sasha and Malia as big fans.

The band formed in 2010 and broke up in 2016, with members going on to pursue solo careers. Horan was the only member of the British boy band native to Ireland.

It is unclear at what time Horan will perform Friday evening.

ABC News’ Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — After six recent close calls between commercial airliners, the Federal Aviation Administration says it will work to require all cockpit voice recorders (CVRs), often called black boxes, to capture 25 hours of information.

If ultimately finalized, that would be an increase from current regulations, which only require CVRs to record for two hours, and mark a major win for the National Transportation Safety Board, which has been pushing for the requirement since 2018.

The FAA said Thursday it would also establish an Aviation Rulemaking Committee to explore how to make greater use of data gathered by airplanes and their systems, including expanded flight data monitoring.

“We welcome any tools or resources Congress wants to provide to help us do this expeditiously,” the agency said in a statement.

In at least six of the most recent close calls involving commercial planes in the U.S. being investigated by the FAA and NTSB, CVR data is not available.

Under the current requirements, CVRs tape for at least two hours at a time and then new data begins to overwrite the previous recording. Aviation officials rely on CVRs in their investigations.

“When we use the cockpit voice recorder, we download it, we transcribe it and so we use that information to help supplement other data that we have, like from a flight data recorder,” Lorenda Ward, chief of the NTSB’s Air Carrier and Space Investigations Division, said in an interview with ABC News last month.

Ward cited one such close call in New York City in January.

On Jan. 13, an American Airlines flight crossed a runway at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport without clearance from air traffic control, causing a Delta Air Lines plane to abort its takeoff from that runway, according to the NTSB. The closest point between the two aircraft was about 1,400 feet, a preliminary report from the agency stated.

“The reason it’s important, I use the American Airlines recent one at JFK, is that we have a crew who cross over an active runway not aware, they take off and they continue on to London … and the CVR gets overwritten,” Ward said. “So now we have to rely on crew statements to find out what was going on in the cockpit — whereas if we have a cockpit voice recorder, we can kind of hear that occurring in real time, like if there’s any kind of discussion, if there’s any distraction noises, communications with [air traffic control], anything that might be occurring there in the cockpit.”

The NTSB recently subpoenaed the crew of that American Airlines flight after they “refused” three requests for interviews. The NTSB said the crew “refused to be interviewed on the basis that their statements would be audio recorded for transcription.”

“The transcripts of each flight crew member’s account of the activities and conversation leading up to the runway incursion is particularly important in the absence of a cockpit voice recording,” the NTSB said in a statement.

The crew subsequently agreed to be interviewed in compliance with the subpoena.

“Twenty-five-hour CVRs don’t just help all of us learn from accidents and incidents, it helps operators improve safety,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said during a safety summit convened by the FAA on Wednesday. “The fact is, Europe has mandated 25 hours … for over a year. We should do the same.”

ABC News’ Clara McMichael and Sam Sweeney contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(BISMARCK, N.D.) — The North Dakota Supreme Court declared Thursday that the state’s abortion ban is unconstitutional and will not be enforced.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade during the summer, a trigger ban was set to go into effect that would make it a felony to perform an abortion with only exceptions for rape, incest or if the mother’s life is in danger.

A lower court blocked the ban over the summer after North Dakota’s only abortion provider, the Red River Women’s Clinic, argued the right to an abortion was guaranteed under the state’s constitution.

In the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Jon J. Jensen, the state Supreme Court found the ban infringed on fundamental rights including “the right of enjoying and defending life and pursuing and obtaining safety.”

“While the regulation of abortion is within the authority of the legislature under the North Dakota Constitution, RRWC has demonstrated likely success on the merits that there is a fundamental right to an abortion in the limited instances of life-saving and health-preserving circumstances, and the statute is not narrowly tailored to satisfy strict scrutiny,” Jensen wrote.

With the state Supreme Court decision, it means the current 21-week limit on abortions will remain in place.

“Today, the court rightfully stopped one of the most extreme laws in the country from taking effect and depriving North Dakotans of their reproductive freedom,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights — which had filed the suit in North Dakota on behalf of abortion providers — in a statement.

“Under the state constitution, North Dakotans are promised the rights to life, liberty, safety, and happiness, all of which protect the right to abortion,” the statement continued. “In state after state, people have made clear that they want this right protected, yet state officials continue to ignore the will of their citizens. We will continue to work tirelessly to protect North Dakotans and the fundamental human rights of all people.”

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, RRWC moved from Fargo to Moorhead, Minnesota — a mile-and-a-half away – amid the legal battle.

Tammi Kromenaker, director of RRWC, applauded the decision but said there were no plans to return to North Dakota.

“The court made the right decision and sided with the people of North Dakota today,” she said in a statement. “Those seeking abortion care know what’s best for themselves and their families and should be able to access such essential services if and when they need it.”

She continued, “While I’m heartbroken that we have been forced to close our doors here in Fargo, we will continue to serve the region at our new clinic in Moorhead, Minnesota.”

North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley, who had been asking the Court to reinstate the ban, criticized the ruling in a statement.

“Today’s North Dakota Supreme Court decision does not bar the people of North Dakota from regulating abortion through the enactments by their elected representatives in our state legislature,” he said. “Thankfully, our legislature has spent the past two months working on legislation that recrafts North Dakota’s abortion laws and they will now have the opportunity to enact the will of North Dakotans aware of the latest North Dakota Supreme Court pronouncement.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Jack Smith is pushing to question an attorney for former President Donald Trump about an alleged phone call the two held as investigators were building evidence about Trump’s potential obstruction of the government’s efforts to retrieve classified materials that he had retained after leaving the White House, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Smith in recent weeks has pressed for a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to pierce attorney-client privilege and force Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to testify, according to those sources, about a June 24, 2022, phone call that investigators believe Corcoran held with Trump.

The alleged call would have been on the same day that investigators subpoenaed the Trump Organization for surveillance footage from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as the government grew suspicious that Trump continued to hold onto classified materials even after one of his attorneys asserted in a sworn statement that he had complied with a subpoena requesting any remaining documents in his possession.

It’s not immediately clear how Smith’s investigators learned of the call, or why they have zeroed in on it as part of their investigation into potential obstruction by Trump and his legal team.

Investigators have also sought to compel the testimony of another attorney for the former president, Jennifer Little, who has also sought to assert attorney-client privilege, as part of the investigation into the Mar-a-Lago documents, sources tell ABC News. Little has been representing Trump in the Fulton County, Georgia, probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in that state. She did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

A spokesperson for the special counsel declined to comment when contacted by ABC News. An attorney for Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment.

“President Trump has done nothing wrong,” a spokesperson for Trump told ABC News in a statement. “Radical Democrats continue to weaponize the justice system against President Trump, including in their attempts to demolish our Constitution by stripping away President Trump’s right to counsel, because they know that he will win back the White House, as he leads both Republicans and Democrats by wide margins. President Trump will not be deterred and will always continue to fight for the American people.”

Trump has blasted the DOJ’s documents probe as being politically motivated, calling it “an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country.”

In a previous appearance before a D.C. grand jury, Corcoran declined to answer any questions regarding communications he had with Trump as his attorney, sources told ABC News.

Sources said that Corcoran also declined to answer questions regarding his efforts to locate potentially classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort following a May subpoena sent by the government for any documents that remained in Trump’s possession, as well as Corcoran’s role in drafting a document signed on June 3 by another Trump attorney, Christina Bobb, asserting that to the best of her knowledge a “diligent search” of the premises had been conducted and that all documents in response to the subpoena had been handed over.

Corcoran asserted attorney-client privilege at his testimony as a basis for declining to answer questions about whether Trump or any others in his office were aware of Bobb’s certification, or the reasons for any edits made to the certification document, sources said.

After the government built evidence through witnesses and other means following that signed statement, the FBI conducted a court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, according to public court records. During the search, investigators found roughly 100 documents with classification markings — including some in Trump’s personal office and in a closet in his residence.

Prosecutors are trying to convince a judge to compel Corcoran’s testimony under the “crime-fraud exception,” which allows attorney-client privilege to be pierced in cases where there is sufficient evidence that legal services have been rendered in furtherance of a crime.

According to public court records, during a June 2022 visit by DOJ officials to Mar-a-Lago, Corcoran handed over 38 documents with classification markings inside a sealed envelope that he said had been found during a review of boxes held inside a storage room at the estate. Corcoran told investigators he “had been advised” that all Trump’s remaining records from the White House remained in that storage room, but Corcoran restricted them from reviewing any of the boxes.

According to sources, after the August search the government found at least 76 of the roughly 100 classified documents inside that same storage room, leading investigators to believe some had been transferred there after the FBI’s search of the property.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.) — A Minnesota Republican said he opposed a bill to guarantee meals for all students because he had “yet to meet a person in Minnesota who is hungry.”

State Sen. Steve Drazkowski made the comments Tuesday as he argued against HF 5, a proposal to dedicate roughly $400 million of taxpayer money to feeding the state’s children.

Drazkowski, elected to the state Senate last year, pushed to use the money instead to boost proficiency levels in reading and math.

“Hunger is a relative term,” he added. “I had a cereal bar for breakfast. I guess I’m hungry now.”

The bill’s author, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Sen. Heather Gustafson, said that in fact, nearly 275,000 Minnesota K-12 students are on free and reduced meals. Roughly one in six are “food insecure,” meaning they don’t know when their next meal will be available, she added, citing state figures.

“I’m a mom. I have four kids. There are a lot of years that we couldn’t afford much. I would have appreciated a policy like that,” she said.

“Being hungry makes learning almost impossible,” she added.

Drazkowski framed the bill as a form of “socialism” that would open the door to an array of expenses he deemed unnecessary.

“[Students] will be coming to buy their socks, buy their pants, buy their shirts, their hats, maybe their winter clothing. Who knows what’s next?” he said.

“We should be using this nearly half a billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money to make sure we have reading proficiency happening in our schools again, math proficiency happening, science proficiency happening, and that the kids are learning,” he said. “That is what our schools are for. That is what parents pay tax money for. That is what our constitution provides them: to teach them, not to feed them.”

Gustafson argued that the proposed increase accounts for “less than one percent of the state’s education budget.”

Citing her own experience working in classrooms, she said, “As a teacher, I’ve had countless students come into my classroom. They’re looking for food, not just for themselves but for their siblings as well.”

The bill passed the state senate by a vote of 38-26.

Drazkowski’s office did not immediately return requests from ABC News for comment.

Gov. Tim Walz said he would sign the legislation into law.

“As a former teacher, I know firsthand that kids can’t learn on an empty stomach. When universal school meals reaches my desk — a historic, bipartisan bill — I’ll be proud to sign it into law,” Walz tweeted.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.