(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack is in the process of reviewing thousands of pages of documents obtained in response to requests made of federal government agencies and 35 social media and communication companies in recent weeks.
A spokesperson for the committee said that documents have come in from “nearly all Executive Branch agencies.” Last month, the committee sent records requests to eight government agencies, seeking records from the Trump White House and administration related to the riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
It was not immediately clear what documents the committee has in their possession, but sources familiar with what has been obtained so far say the records came from both social media companies and government agencies.
The panel sent requests to the National Archives — which maintains and preserves Trump White House records — the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of the Interior, the FBI and several intelligence community agencies.
The committee has not yet received documents from the National Archives, which is in the process of reviewing the request.
“The Select Committee is also aware that the National Archives has undertaken the process required by law for identifying records and notifying relevant parties,” a committee spokesperson said.
In the 12-page letter to the National Archives, the committee requested records pertaining to more than 30 White House aides, lawyers, Trump family members and outside advisers, along with West Wing communications, records and visitors logs on and around the day of the Capitol riot.
In a statement following the request, former President Donald Trump slammed the investigation as a “partisan exercise” that is “being performed at the expense of long-standing legal principles of privilege.”
“Executive privilege will be defended,” Trump said.
It’s not clear what conversations the Biden White House is engaged in related to executive privilege. Biden has said his administration wants to help the investigation, but sources say there could be reluctance within the West Wing and Department of Justice to set new precedents regarding executive privilege and what presidential records Congress can access and obtain.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden paid tribute to the victims of the Sep. 11 terror attacks Friday, commemorating their lives and the losses of their families in a somber six-and-a-half-minute video.
Biden, in prerecorded remarks to the nation on the eve of the 20th anniversary, hailed the shared sense of national purpose that Americans felt after 9/11, and called unity the “greatest strength” of the country.
“Unity is what makes us who we are, America at its best. To me that’s the central lesson of Sept. 11,” he said. “Unity doesn’t mean we have to believe the same thing. But we must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation.”
Biden will travel to New York City Friday evening and will attend 9/11 memorials in New York City; Shanksville, Pennsylvania; and at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on Saturday.
“No matter how much times has passed, these commemorations bring everything back,” Biden said in the video, addressing the families of the victims. “Jill and I hold you close, and send you our love.”
“There are people around the world who you will never know who are suffering their own losses, who see you,” he continued. “Your courage … gives them courage that they too can get up and keep going.”
Biden said the 9/11 attacks also exposed the “darker forces of human nature,” acknowledging the wave of Islamophobia that followed the attacks as “fear and anger, resentment and violence against Muslim Americans, true and faithful followers of a peaceful religion.”
“We saw a national unity bend and we saw that unity is the one thing that must never break,” he said.
Biden recalled speaking to a family friend in the days after 9/11 on the way to a meeting with students at the University of Delaware. The friend, Davis, had lost his eldest son at the World Trade Center, and his youngest son in a boating accident three years earlier.
“He told me to tell people, ‘Don’t be afraid. Tell them don’t be afraid.’ The absolute courage it took after two unimaginable losses is extraordinary, yet the most ordinary of American things. To know that life can be unfair and uncertain … but even in the darkness, to still be the light,” Biden recalled.
He invoked his friend’s words at the end of his remarks.
“We find strength in the broken places, as [Ernest] Hemingway wrote. We find light in the darkness,” he continued. “We find purpose to repair, renew and rebuild. And as my friend told me that September, 20 years ago, we must not be afraid.”
(NEW YORK) — Taking his toughest tone yet against those Americans still unvaccinated, President Joe Biden has triggered vows of legal challenges from GOP governors representing some of the very states where he’s trying to use mandates to get more people inoculated.
At least 19 Republican governors have lashed back at Biden’s promise to use OSHA to pressure employers with more than 100 employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or have workers submit to weekly testing. The Republican governors called the mandate an overreach that will force Americans to choose between their job and the vaccine.
While Biden said on Friday morning, during a visit to local middle school, that all scientists would agree with his new strategy — that using protecting public health as a justification for mandates makes “considerable sense,” his taking a combative tone may come with new political and public health risks and further polarize Americans, fueling the already bitter political divide around the pandemic.
South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, tweeted to Biden, “see you in court,” while Mississippi GOP Gov. Tate Reeves compared him to a “tyrant,” and South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster said he’ll “fight them to the gates of hell” to stop the move. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Biden’s approach “flat-out un-American.”
When ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Biden on Friday what his message was to Republicans threatening to challenge his move in court, he responded, “Have at it.”
He continued, “Look, I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities. We’re playing for real here — this isn’t a game.”
While Biden has previously said he wouldn’t impose vaccine mandates, he said Friday that vaccine requirements are “nothing new.” However, past vaccines requirements for measles, mumps and rubella, for instance, have historically been implemented at a state and local level — and at times when the country wasn’t already so divided politically
In his address to the nation on Thursday introducing his new six-part approach, a frustrated Biden went after the unvaccinated and elected officials for standing in the way of public health measures and, he said, causing people to die.
“These pandemic politics, as I refer to it, are making people sick, causing unvaccinated people to die. We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of the large majority of Americans who have done their part and want to get back to life as normal,” Biden said.
“My message to unvaccinated Americans is this: What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see?” he said. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.”
He called out the governors, many of whom are now criticizing his approach, saying, “if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way.”
He added, “Let me be blunt. My plan also takes on elected officials in states that are undermining you and these life-saving actions. Right now, local school officials are trying to keep children safe in a pandemic while their governor picks a fight with them and even threatens their salaries or their jobs,” he said. He promised his administration would to pay back salaries withheld from those opposing mask bans.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked on Friday what caused Biden and the rest of the administration to change its tune on blaming the unvaccinated for the pandemic — after Psaki said in June that she didn’t want to place blame.
She said Biden on Thursday was “channeling the frustration” of millions who are vaccinated as the pandemic rages, while pointing a finger at Republicans.
“We didn’t anticipate, I will say, that when there was a vaccine approved under a Republican president, that the Republican president took, that there would be such hesitation, opposition vehement opposition in some cases from so many people of his own party in this country,” she said.
While 75% of adults have gotten a shot, per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinations have stalled in recent months despite widespread availability as the hospitals across the country face another surge of the virus timed with the start of a new school year.
Biden’s new approach to getting more shots into arms comes as his approval for handling the pandemic has dropped sharply from 62% in June to 52% now.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found also that vaccine hesitancy has subsided in the face of the delta surge, with the share of Americans who are disinclined to get a coronavirus shot now just half what it was last January. Among those unvaccinated adults, about 7 in 10 are skeptical of the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, 9 in 10 see vaccination as a personal choice rather than a broader responsibility and just 16% have been encouraged by someone close to them to get a shot.
It’s unclear if Biden will break through to that group.
A White House spokesman declined to say whether public polling on why certain people remain unvaccinated informed the decision to institute these new requirements, or otherwise explain how Americans’ attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines impacted the president’s decision.
The spokesman said the decision to enact the new requirements was “not rooted in any political focus, rather on what’s going to work.”
As some GOP governors say they’re preparing lawsuits, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients in defending the mandates on Friday argued that COVID-19 is a “public health issue, not a political issue.”
“We know that vaccination requirements work,” Zients said, pointing to “significant increases in vaccination rates at companies, health care systems, universities, that implement vaccine requirements.”
As Biden did on Thursday, Zients pointed specifically to companies like Fox News — which has provided a platform for vaccine misinformation and has repeatedly railed against Biden’s COVID-19 response — but which is also participating in a version of a vaccination reporting requirement itself.
“The president’s actions will accelerate that number of companies across the board for employers over a hundred, and that includes Fox News, which already has that vaccination requirement in place to keep its own employees safe.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Sasha Peznik contributed to this report.
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — In a victory for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, an appeals court ruled Friday to keep the state’s ban on student mask mandates in place, at least until it issues a final ruling on the legality of the ban.
The ban on mask requirements — issued by the Florida Department of Health in August after DeSantis directed it to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks” — had been suspended Wednesday by a judge in Tallahassee. Judge John C. Cooper had ruled that the state could not keep punishing school districts that require masks while the appeals court works toward a final ruling.
Friday’s order overrides Cooper, giving the Florida Board of Education the green light to continue withholding the salaries of school board members in districts that require face coverings for students. The state has imposed that punishment on two districts and has announced investigations into several others.
“Just like last year in the school re-opening litigation, the First District Court of Appeal has reinstated Florida’s ability to protect the freedom for parents to make the best decisions for their children while they make their own ruling on the appeal,” Taryn Fenske, communications director for DeSantis, said in a statement to ABC News. “We look forward to winning the appeal and will continue to fight for parents’ rights.”
DeSantis tweeted, “No surprise here – the 1st DCA has restored the right of parents to make the best decisions for their children. I will continue to fight for parents’ rights.”
Alachua County, one of the districts where school board members’ salaries are being withheld for imposing a mandate, said in a statement that despite Friday’s ruling it will “continue to enforce universal masking in our schools.”
“The decision is disappointing, but we understood from the beginning that the legal battle over masks in schools would take time and not every decision would be favorable,” Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Carlee Simon said in a statement.
“While Alachua County Public Schools is not part of this particular lawsuit, we certainly support it,” Simon continued. “We are pleased that the plaintiffs plan to continue their fight. In the meantime, our legal challenges are just beginning, and we support the other Florida districts and families who are also taking the state to court over this issue.”
At least 13 school districts, including Florida’s six largest, have implemented mask mandates.
“Upon our review of the trial court’s final judgment and the operative pleadings, we have serious doubts about standing, jurisdiction, and other threshold matters,” Friday’s order states. “These doubts significantly militate against the likelihood of the appellees’ ultimate success in this appeal.”
A lawyer representing the parents who sued the state said Friday’s decision would make students less safe.
“We are disappointed by the ruling of the 1st DCA that reinstates the stay and will be seeking pass through jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Florida since this matter involves statewide issues. With a stay in place, students, parents and teachers are back in harm’s way,” Charles Gallagher, one of the lawyers representing the group of parents who sued the state over its ban on mask mandates, wrote on Twitter.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited a local middle school in Washington on Friday to talk about keeping students safe in classrooms as the raging delta variant has upended the start of the school year — and one day after Biden took his toughest tone yet and announced sweeping new federal requirements for vaccines and testing.
But Biden also offered another lesson to the next generation when asked by ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott about Republican governors calling his call for vaccination mandates an “overreach” and threatening to sue the federal government over his new plan.
“Have at it,” Biden said.
“I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities,” he said following brief remarks on keeping schools safe.
“One of the lessons I hope our students could unlearn is that politics doesn’t have to be this way,” he said. “They’re growing up in an environment where they see it’s like, like a war, like a bitter feud…It’s not who we are as a nation. And it’s not how we beat every other crisis in our history.”
Reintroducing his six-part strategy to combat the pandemic, Biden focused his remarks at Brookland Middle School on how his approach will help keep schools safe, including requiring that 300,000 educators in federal Head Start programs be vaccinated and using the Defense Production Act to produce nearly 300 million rapid COVID-19 tests for distribution at the schools around the country.
He also called for more governors and school districts to implement vaccine requirements.
“We all know if schools follow the science — like they are here — and implement safety measures like vaccinations testing, masking, then children can be safe in schools safe from COVID-19,” he said.
Biden acknowledged the Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved vaccines for children under 12, leaving a large swath of the population without the choice to be vaccinated. He said while the FDA is working on the science “as safely and as quickly as possible,” the onus is on children aged 12 to 17, and adults, to get the shot to keep schools open.
“The safest thing you can do for your child 12 and over is get them vaccinated,” Biden said, speaking directly to parents.
He reminded that vaccine requirements in schools are “nothing new.”
“You got them vaccinated for all kinds of other things — measles, mumps, rubella — for them to go to school, to be able to play sports, they’ve had to have those vaccinations,” he added. “It is safe, and it’s convenient, and we’ll work to bring the vaccine clinics to our schools as well.”
Praising local vaccine incentives already in play, Biden, seemingly going off script, also offered the students at Brooklyn Middle School a visit to the White House once they’re all vaccinated.
“I’m going to get in trouble with the Secret Service and everybody else. I’m not sure how we’re going to mechanically do it, but I assume the buses can get you to the White House and if we can’t get you all in one room. We’ll be out in the Rose Garden or out in the back there and maybe let you fly the helicopter,” Biden said to laughter. “I’m only joking about that.”
The first lady, who returned to teaching this week and has been an advocate for keeping kids in the classroom, speaking ahead of her husband said it was the responsibility of educators and families to make schools safe for kids.
“We owe them a promise to keep their schools open as safe as possible. We owe them a commitment to follow the science. We owe them unity, so that we can fight the virus, not each other as we move forward,” she said.
In his address to the nation on Thursday, Biden also promised to make up the salary of any teacher or administrator whose pay was withheld for opposing state bans on masks.
Ahead of their remarks, the Bidens visited the classroom 6th-grade science teacher Ms. Michelle Taylor and talked with students, all of whom were masked up.
The visit comes after a record-high 2,396 children were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Tuesday. In the last week alone, nearly 252,000 children in the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19, marking the largest increase of pediatric cases in a week since the pandemic began, according to a newly released weekly report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday that federal government employees and contractors will now be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will create a rule for private businesses with 100 or more employees to require their employees to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing, according to senior administration officials.
Biden will lay out his new six-part strategy to combat the delta variant in remarks at 5 p.m. ET.
A senior administration official estimated that this new OSHA requirement will cover about 80 million workers and businesses that do not comply with the agency’s rule can face substantial fees — up to $14,000. OSHA will require these employers to offer paid time off for vaccination.
As part of his effort to vaccinate the federal executive branch, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service and the National Institutes of Health will complete implementation of their previously announced vaccination requirements that cover 2.5 million people, a source familiar with the plans said.
This is an escalation of the president’s action in July calling for federal workers to attest to their vaccination status and submit to mitigation efforts if they are not vaccinated, such as mask usage and regular testing.
The president is also expected to announce that the Transportation Security Administration and interstate travel mask mandate will be extended through Jan. 18, the fine for noncompliance will double and health care facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement must require their employees to be vaccinated. This will cover about 17 million health care workers across the country.
“In total, the new vaccination requirements in the president’s plan cover about 100 million workers, that’s two thirds of all workers in the United States,” a senior administration official said on a briefing call with reporters Thursday afternoon.
Speaking at her daily briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Biden would “outline the next phase in the fight against the virus and what that looks like, including measures to work with the public and private sector.”
She said he would be “building on the steps that we’ve already announced, the steps we’ve taken over the last few months, requiring more vaccinations, boosting important testing measures and more, making it safer for kids to go to school, all at a time when the American people are listening. Again, this will be six steps that we’ll work to be implementing over the months ahead.”
According to a White House official, the president’s plan will include six areas of focus: vaccinating the unvaccinated; furthering protection for the vaccinated; keeping schools safely open; increasing testing and requiring masking; protecting the economy’s recovery; and improving care for those with COVID-19.
Psaki confirmed there will be new components as part of the president’s announcement but wouldn’t go much beyond general comments about testing access, mandates and making sure kids are protected from the highly transmissible virus as they return to school and Americans return from summer vacations.
She said plans were still being finalized as Biden met with with his COVID-19 response team Wednesday afternoon.
“Will any of those new steps influence the average American’s day-to-day life? Should we expect any new mitigation recommendations, as an example?” a reporter asked.
“It depends on if you’re vaccinated or not,” Psaki replied, but gave no further details.
She highlighted efforts the administration already has taken to try and get the delta variant under control.
“We’ve been at war with the delta variant over the course of the last couple of months. And just to remind you of some of the steps that we have announced, we have announced new government mandates on DOD, our military forces, NIH, other — the VA, the Veterans Affairs — Department of Veterans Affairs, folks who are serving on the front lines on the health — on health — in health roles in that department. We’ve also incentivized additional mandates, whether it is in home — in health care facilities, nursing homes, and others,” Psaki said.
“And we’ve also lifted up and — and incentivized private sector — private sector mandates, because we’ve seen that they have been effective. We’ve also deployed over 700 surge response teams across the country and work closely, again, with the private sector to institute more requirements on vaccinations,” she continued.
“We have more work to do, and we are still at war with the virus and with the delta variant,” she added. “So, we’re going to build on that work. And he’s speaking to it now, because this issue, of course, is on front of mind, top of mind to Americans across the country. People are returning to schools. Workplaces are either reopening, some brick and mortar, or some people are just returning to work after spending some time with family or loved ones over the summer.”
But besides ordering the nation’s 2.1 million federal employees and 1.3 million active duty service members get vaccinated, Biden has limited legal authority to institute a broad vaccine mandate for most Americans.
About 75% of the adult U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose and 64.4% of the adult U.S. population is fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Tuesday, Psaki did seem to suggest that Biden will call on the private sector to institute more vaccine mandates. Major corporations such as Facebook, Google and Citigroup have already announced vaccination requirements.
“I will note that we’ve seen that there are a range of ways that we have increased vaccinations across the country, or vaccinations have increased, I should say. One of them is private sector companies mandating in different capacities that their employees get vaccinated. Or certain school districts mandate,” Psaki said.
Biden previewed some of what he planned to say when he spoke about the August jobs numbers, which were much lower than predicted.
“There’s no question the delta variant is why today’s jobs report isn’t stronger. I know people were looking, and I was hoping, for a higher number. But next week, I’ll lay out the next steps that are going to — we’re going to need to combat the delta variant, to address some of those fears and concerns,” Biden said Friday.
A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Americans in August souring on Biden’s handling of the pandemic, with his approval rating for his handling or the response dropping 10 points from June, down to 52%
Biden’s remarks are scheduled for just 11 days before the administration is set to begin widely rolling out booster shots of Pfizer on Sept. 20, a process mired by confusion as some public health experts say the data doesn’t yet support the need for boosters.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has filed suit against the state of Texas to block its restrictive law against abortions, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Thursday, setting up a high-stakes legal battle after the Supreme Court allowed the law to go into effect earlier this month.
“That act is clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent,” Garland said at a news conference. “Those precedents hold, in the words of Planned Parenthood versus Casey, that ‘regardless of whether exceptions are made for particular circumstances, a state may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.'”
He accused Texas Republicans of crafting a “statutory scheme” through the law “to nullify the Constitution of the United States.”
“It does not rely on the state’s executive branch to enforce the law, as is the norm in Texas and everywhere else. Rather, the snatcher deputizes all private citizens without any showing a personal connection or injury to serve as bounty hunters authorized to recover at least $10,000 per claim from individuals who facilitate a woman’s exercise of our constitutional rights,” he said.
As part of its lawsuit, Garland said the DOJ is seeking an immediate court order preventing the enforcement of SB8 in Texas.
Garland also made clear that the department won’t hesitate to take similar legal action against other states who might pursue a similar route to restrict abortions in the state.
“The additional risk here is that other states will follow similar models,” Garland said, and he denied that the decision to file the suit now was in any way based on political pressure from Democrats or the White House.
The lawsuit accuses Texas lawmakers of enacting the law “in open defiance of the Constitution.”
“The United States has the authority and responsibility to ensure that Texas cannot evade its obligations under the Constitution and deprive individuals of their constitutional rights by adopting a statutory scheme designed specifically to evade traditional mechanisms of federal judicial review,” the lawsuit says. “The federal government therefore brings this suit directly against the State of Texas to obtain a declaration that S.B. 8 is invalid, to enjoin its enforcement, and to protect the rights that Texas has violated.”
The suit also alleges that the law conflicts with federal law by intending to prohibit federal agencies from carrying out their responsibilities related to abortion services.
“Because S.B. 8 does not contain an exception for cases of rape or incest, its terms purport to prohibit the federal government and its employees and agents from performing, funding, reimbursing, or facilitating abortions in such cases,” the lawsuit says.
Garland cautioned that the Texas law should concern all Americans, regardless of their politics.
“This kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans, whatever their politics or party, should fear. If it prevails, it may become a model for action in other areas by other states and with respect to other constitutional rights and judicial precedents,” he said. “Nor one need think hard or long to realize the damage that would be done to our society if states were allowed to implement laws that empower any private individual to infringe on another’s constitutionally protected rights in this way. The United States has the authority and the responsibility to ensure that no state can deprive individuals of their constitutional rights through a legislative scheme specifically designed to prevent the vindication of those rights.”
The Texas statute, which is the most restrictive abortion law in the country, bars physicians from providing abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, or as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy — often before a woman would even know they were pregnant. There is an exception for medical emergencies, but not in cases of rape or incest.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court formally rejected a request by Texas abortion providers to block the state’s severe new law as legal challenges continue.
The unsigned order from the court said the providers had “raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue,” but added “their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions” that they were unable to resolve.
The new law has triggered outrage from those who support a women’s right to an abortion nationwide. Companies like Uber and Lyft have offered to pay legal fees for any driver who is sued under the law and dating apps Match and Bumble, both headquartered in Texas, pledged to support women seeking abortions.
On the other side, many state lawmakers have said they intend to copy the wording of the Texas law in order to enact similar bans in their states.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Harriet Hageman, a primary challenger to incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., ahead of Hageman’s Thursday afternoon announcement that she will run for Cheney’s seat in the House of Representatives.
His endorsement both strikes back at Cheney, who voted for Trump’s impeachment in January and is serving on the Jan. 6 House select commitee, and is another test of how much weight his backing carries in primary races.
“Unlike RINO [Republican in name only] Liz Cheney, Harriet is all in for America First. Harriet has my Complete and Total Endorsement in replacing the Democrats number one provider of sound bites, Liz Cheney. Make America Great Again!” Trump said in a statement on Thursday morning through his Save America political action committee.
Trump also said that Hageman “is strong on Crime and Borders, powerfully supports the Second Amendment, loves our Military and our Vets, and will fight for Election Integrity and Energy Independence.”
POLITICO reported last month that that Trump and Hageman, who ran for governor in 2018, were going to meet to discuss a congressional bid.
Hageman, an attorney and former national committeewoman for Wyoming on the Republican National Committee, supported Cheney in previous campaigns. But in a statement on her campaign website, she said Cheney had lost her support.
“Like many Wyomingites, I supported Liz Cheney when she ran for Congress. But then she betrayed Wyoming, she betrayed this country, and she betrayed me,” Hageman said. “Every time Wyomingites see President Biden fail us and harm the interests of our nation and our state, they have Liz Cheney to thank.”
Cheney fired back at Trump’s endorsement on Twitter, posting a picture of Trump’s statement with “number one provider of sound bites, Liz Cheney” highlighted in yellow.
“Here’s a sound bite for you: Bring it,” Cheney wrote.
“I am honored to represent the people of Wyoming and proud of my strong conservative record,” Cheney said in a statement to ABC News.
“It is tragic that some in this race have sacrificed those principles, and their duty to the people of Wyoming, out of fear and in favor of loyalty to a former president who deliberately misled the American people about the 2020 election, provoked an attack on the U.S. Capitol, and failed to perform his duties as president as the violence ensued.”
The upcoming Republican primary in Wyoming, which only has one congressional district, will pit Cheney against multiple primary challengers.
Wyofile, a Wyoming-based news service, reported on Wednesday that voters in the state have been receiving illegal robocalls asking about Cheney’s primary challengers. The Wyoming Republican Party has said the calls “are not being generated on behalf of any Wyoming Republican state or county party.”
ABC News’ Meg Cunningham and John Parkinson contributed reporting.
(TEXAS) — Just one week after a law took effect in Texas that bans nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, the state is close to enacting another restriction on abortion.
A bill that would shorten the time in which a pregnant person could have a medication abortion is now on the desk of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who has defended his state’s new law that bans most abortions, including in cases of incest and rape.
The bill awaiting Abbott’s signature, Senate Bill 4, would limit the time window for physicians to offer abortion-inducing medication to seven weeks of pregnancy instead of 10 weeks of pregnancy. This would mean that if a person misses the six-week window for a procedure-based abortion, they would have one more additional week to have access to medication abortion.
Access to medication abortion — the use of oral medications mifepristone and misoprostol to end a pregnancy — has become a major focus point since Texas’ controversial law went into effect. The law, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to not block it amid legal challenges, marked a significant moment in the United States’ history of reproductive rights, experts say.
And now, many experts are keeping their eyes on Texas — a state with a long history of debating abortion rights — to see if its actions encourage other states to impose more restrictions on medication abortion with the goal of limiting abortion access overall.
“Texas looms so large when it comes to abortion rights and access and what we’re really seeing is this coordinated strategy of layering bans and restrictions to very nearly ban abortion,” said Elizabeth Nash, interim associate director of state issues at the Guttmacher institute, a reproductive rights organization. “Medication abortion has been a very high priority in state legislatures in 2021.”
In South Dakota this week, Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, issued an executive order directing the state’s Department of Health to establish rules requiring that abortion-inducing drugs only be prescribed and dispensed by a state-licensed physician after an in-person examination. Noem said she also plans to pass legislation next year that makes “these and other protocols permanent.”
Across the country, more than 30 states require clinicians who administer medication abortion to be physicians, while 19 states require the clinician providing a medication abortion to be physically present when the medication is administered, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The rising restrictions, which began to increase about a decade ago, according to Nash, come as more people are turning to medication abortion.
Medication abortion is now the most common method used for abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, and accounted for almost 40% of all abortions in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Medication abortions were first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000. FDA guidelines advise that abortion-inducing pills are safe to use up to 70 days, or 10 weeks, after conception, though evidence shows it can be safe even later in pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).
In most cases in a medication abortion, mifepristone is taken first to stop the pregnancy from growing. Then, a second pill, misoprostol, is then taken to empty the uterus.
Of the two medications, mifepristone is more restricted by the FDA. Since 2011, the agency has applied a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) to mifepristone, preventing it from being distributed at pharmacies or delivered by mail like other prescription drugs.
It must be ordered, prescribed and dispensed by a health care provider who meets certain qualifications, and may only be distributed in clinics, medical offices, and hospitals by a certified health care provider, according to FDA guidelines.
The FDA’s rules, combined with state restrictions like the one that appears close to becoming a law in Texas, have the effect of not only limiting when, where and how people can get abortions, but also potentially misguiding people on the safety of medication abortion, according to Dr. Jamila Perritt, an OBGYN based in Washington, D.C., and president and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health.
“The important thing to know about mifepristone is that it’s regulated as if it were a highly unsafe medication, which is the opposite of the truth,” said Perritt. “It’s actually a very, very safe medication and we have decades of medical evidence that shows people can use it on their own.”
“None of this is about safety,” she said. “It’s all about limiting access to abortion.”
The restrictions around medication abortion also limit the use of telemedicine, which is effectively banned in 19 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Complications from at-home medication abortions are rare, happening in less than 1% of cases in one study of nearly 20,000 medication abortions, according to ACOG, which says medication abortion “can be provided safely and effectively by telemedicine.”
Last year, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and amid a rise in telemedicine, ACOG, an organization that counts more than 60,000 obstetrician–gynecologists as members, joined other groups to urge the FDA to suspend the requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in a medical clinic.
The request for the FDA to temporarily suspend the mifepristone requirement was upheld last year in lower courts. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to reinstate the restrictions.
In April, the FDA, under the Biden administration, said it would stop enforcing the in-person dispensing requirement during the pandemic. States though can still set laws about dispensing mifepristone within their state.
Proponents of the FDA’s decision say that allowing greater access to medication abortion, including via telemedicine, gives more options to the people who need them the most.
Around 75% of abortion patients are low-income residents, and nearly 60% of U.S. women of reproductive age live in states where access to abortion is restricted, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
“Restrictions shape who is able to access [abortion],” said Perritt, noting that people of color, young people, immigrants and people living on low-income communities are the most affected, and adding, “We’re going to continue to see a worsening outcome for them because of it.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Svokos contributed to this report.
(TEXAS) — Texas’ new abortion ban is notable for several reasons — chief among them how it is enforced.
The statute, which is the most restrictive abortion law in the country, bars physicians from providing abortions once they detect a so-called fetal heartbeat — technically the flutter of electrical activity within the cells in an embryo. That can be seen on an ultrasound as early as six weeks into a pregnancy — before many women even know they’re pregnant. There is an exception under the Texas law for abortions in cases of medical emergencies.
The law — which is enforced civilly, rather than criminally, by members of the public — can potentially have very broad applications and could result in numerous lawsuits over one suspected illegal abortion, experts told ABC News.
Here’s a look at how the law, known as SB 8, might work in practice.
Who can sue, and be sued
Under SB 8, private citizens — including those who live outside of Texas — can sue a person they “reasonably believed” provided an illegal abortion or assisted someone in getting it in the state, up to four years after the act. Government officials are expressly prohibited from enforcing the law.
“This is a very unusual way to enforce abortion prohibitions, or almost anything else,” Seth Chandler, a law foundation professor at the University of Houston Law Center, told ABC News. “We either criminalize the conduct or we give people who are actually injured by the conduct the right to sue.”
SB 8, rather, “gives virtually anyone on the planet the right to sue, regardless of whether they suffered any injury from the abortion,” he said.
Under the law, plaintiffs can file in the county where they reside, if they live in Texas; where the alleged illegal abortion took place; or where any of the defendants live.
Since anyone can sue, there could potentially be a lawsuit filed in all 254 Texas counties against one doctor for the same abortion, Chandler said. The law also prohibits the consolidation of lawsuits or a change of court venue, which could further burden defendants, he said.
However, doctors found in violation of the law would only have to pay damages once if there were multiple lawsuits filed over a single abortion.
“The pro-SB 8 forces can make life completely miserable for the doctor that they believe has performed an unlawful abortion,” Chandler said. “If you lose once then you can make the other cases go away. But in the meantime, you’re going to have to incur potentially large litigation expenses defending yourself against multiple lawsuits.”
Doctors aren’t the only potential defendants; as stated in the law, they could also be anyone who “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise.”
That opens it up to any number of defendants, Priscilla Smith, a senior fellow at the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice at Yale Law School, told ABC News.
“It could be somebody’s mom who gives them a phone number” for an abortion provider, she said. “It could be your best friend who drives you to the clinic. It could be anybody.”
The law further states that a lawsuit can be brought against someone “regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced” — a broad interpretation of which experts say could further widen the scope of potential defendants to, for instance, an unwitting ride-share driver. In fact, days after the law went into effect, the CEOs of Uber and Lyft both announced they would cover all legal fees for drivers sued under SB 8 while driving on their platforms.
Determining standing
In federal court, only the injured parties may sue, though “those rules need not apply in state court,” Chandler said. “A state’s constitution could give a broader class of citizens the right to sue.”
There is a debate if Texas law is in fact broader than federal law, he said.
“That’s the initial step — there’s a question as to whether they have standing or not,” he said.
If the case proceeds, a defendant might be able to file a lawsuit in federal court to enjoin proceedings in the state court, Chandler said. Normally federal intervention in state courts is not permitted, but an SB 8 lawsuit could be a strong case for an exception, he said.
The defendants would raise the defense of Roe v. Wade and argue that SB 8 is unconstitutional, and the court would decide if it protects them, Smith said.
Burden of proof
The plaintiff would have to show that a doctor performed an illegal abortion. That could involve the medical records — protected health information under HIPAA — of the person who received the abortion, who wouldn’t be a party in the lawsuit.
There is some precedent in requesting medical records for parties not named in a lawsuit, Kelly Dineen, an associate professor of law and the director of the health law program at Creighton University School of Law, told ABC News. For example, that could arise during a dispute over a non-compete clause, with medical records requested to show proof of a violation, she said.
“HIPAA does provide a couple of ways that that could, in theory, happen,” Dineen said.
In the case of SB 8, one way could be by the court issuing an order to the abortion provider to disclose the information, she said.
“Let’s say that the person bringing the lawsuit says that an abortion was provided on X date to X person — then that could be specified in the court order,” she said.
The information could also be released during discovery, if the woman the health records are about received notice and didn’t raise any objections, or any objections raised were resolved and the court permitted the disclosure, Dineen said.
The health records could also be obtained through a qualified protective order, which has restrictions on how the information is used, she said.
“The HIPAA requirements make it very unlikely that you could just have generalities,” Dineen said. “You’d have to have pretty good information, and then it would be subject to all those protections as well.”
Lawsuits may come from people with personal knowledge of what happened, Chelsey Youman, the Texas director for the pro-life group Human Coalition Action, told Austin ABC affiliate KVUE.
“It could be the unborn child’s father who knows that there was an abortion conducted and he’s sad he lost a child,” she told the station.
Financial impact, and beyond
There are significant financial penalties at stake, should a plaintiff prevail. Each defendant would be subject to paying $10,000, as well as cover the costs and attorney’s fees of the plaintiff.
“The risk to somebody who just wants to help their friend get an abortion is financially huge,” Smith said. “The risk to a provider is also financially huge.”
There are licensure penalties that can apply as well, which could result in providers losing their license, Smith said.
The law also creates a “retroactive liability” should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade within the four-year statute of limitations that someone can sue, according to Charles Silver, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and co-author of “Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care.”
“The history of Republican legislatures has been to eliminate or narrow causes of action,” Silver told ABC News. “But here, the legislature is going in exactly the opposite direction.”
Even if there aren’t any lawsuits filed under SB 8, “the intimidation factor is huge” for medical practitioners, Silver said. “I don’t think we want laws that operate through intimidation, when those laws are themselves unconstitutional.”
Some state lawmakers have already said they will attempt to mimic the near-total abortion ban. Though there could be broader applications if it is successful, law experts said.
“The recipe that SB 8 has developed is not restricted to abortion,” Chandler said. “It can be used for any constitutional rights that people don’t like. And that’s why this bill is so pernicious.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Svokos contributed to this report.
