(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Tuesday issued six subpoenas to Trump campaign staffers and Republican operatives in several key battleground states who supported efforts to send “fake electors” to Congress in an effort to challenge the 2020 election results.
The group includes Michael Roman and Michael Brown, who worked on Election Day operations for Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, as well as Mark Finchem, Arizona GOP Party Chair Kelli Ward and former Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox.
Finchem is now running to serve as Arizona’s top election official, while Ward has sued to stop the committee from obtaining her and her husband’s phone records.
The committee also subpoenaed Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who chartered buses to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 and organized a post-election hearing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to raise claims of widespread and unproven voter fraud. He was also involved in Trump’s White House meeting with Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers in December of 2020, as Trump worked to overturn the results in the state and in other presidential battlegrounds.
Mastriano was also a leader of the GOP’s 2020 election audit in Pennsylvania, which was based on a similar review conducted by Republicans in Arizona.
Cox, the leader of the Republican Party in Michigan during the 2020 election, also supported Trump’s efforts to challenge the results in her state. In the aftermath of the election, Trump also gathered a group of Michigan GOP lawmakers at the White House to make his case.
“The Select Committee is seeking information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election,” Jan. 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement. “We’re seeking records and testimony from former campaign officials and other individuals in various states who we believe have relevant information about the planning and implementation of those plans.”
Thompson recently told ABC News that the panel’s planned public hearings this spring would review Trump’s state-level pressure campaign and the unsuccessful lawsuits that sought to challenge election results in key swing states, and will possibly include testimony from state and local election officials.
To date, the committee has collected tens of thousands of pages of records, conducted more than 560 interviews and issued at least 81 subpoenas.
(WASHINGTON) — A group of Republican senators sent a letter to the Justice Department on Tuesday to express “strong opposition” to creating a federal no-fly list for unruly passengers, claiming “the majority of recent infractions on airplanes has been in relation to the mask mandate.”
Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas were among those who signed a letter opposing Delta Airlines’ CEO Ed Bastian’s request earlier this month that the DOJ create a “no-fly” list for passengers convicted of federal offenses relating to on-board disruptions.
Last year saw a major spike in unruly passengers, with more than 5,981 reported cases, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency notes, of those cases, 4,290 were mask-related.
“Creating a federal ‘no-fly’ list for unruly passengers who are skeptical of this mandate would seemingly equate them to terrorists who seek to actively take the lives of Americans and perpetrate attacks on the homeland,” the GOP senators’ letter said. “The [Transportation Security Administration] was created in the wake of 9/11 to protect Americans from future horrific attacks, not to regulate human behavior onboard flights.”
The senators argued airlines could create their own no-fly lists and refuse services to unruly passengers, but that it would be an overreach for the federal government to do so.
Many airlines have already done this, but they do not prevent an offender from boarding another carrier. Delta has previously asked other U.S. airlines to share their internal no-fly lists so that people who endangered their crew can’t do so on another airline.
“The creation of this list by DOJ would result in a severe restriction on the ability of citizens to fully exercise their constitutional right to engage in interstate transportation,” the GOP letter said. “It also raises serious concerns about future unrelated uses and potential expansions of the list based on political pressures.”
In Bastian’s request to the DOJ, he indicated that he believes banning unruly passengers from all commercial flights will send a strong signal to the flying public that not following crew member instructions comes with severe consequences.
“This action will help prevent future incidents and serve as a strong symbol of the consequences of not complying with crew member instructions on commercial aircraft,” he wrote.
Unruly passenger incidents onboard Delta planes have increased nearly 100% since 2019, according to Bastian. The airline has placed almost 2,000 people on Delta’s internal no-fly list for refusing to wear a mask and has submitted around 1,000 banned names to the TSA to pursue civil penalties.
Other people in the industry have called for support of a no-fly list for unruly passengers. Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, responded in a statement to the GOP senators.
“We’ve been punched, kicked, spit on, and sexually assaulted. This puts everyone at risk and disrupts the safety of flight, which is never acceptable and every single one of the senators who signed this letter knows full well what is at stake if we leave a gap in aviation safety and security,” Nelson said. “It is irresponsible and political brinkmanship that will put our economic security at risk right along with our lives.”
Nelson pushed back against the lawmakers’ argument about mask mandates, noting many charges stem from incidents unrelated to mask-wearing.
“Our union continues to call for the creation of a centralized list of passengers who may not fly for a period of time after being fined or convicted of a serious incident. This is not about ‘masks,’ and the worst attacks have nothing to do with masks,” Nelson said. “You’re either for protecting crew and passengers from these attacks or you’re against. We need clear and consistent rules with strict consequences for those who cannot respect our collective efforts to keep everyone safe – in the air and on the ground.”
Joe DePete, the president of the Air Line Pilots Association, called for the Department of Homeland Security to create a “no-fly list” for unruly passengers.
“There should be zero tolerance for airline passengers who threaten the safety of others,” DePete said in a tweet Tuesday.
Delta responded to the Republican senators in a statement, saying unruly passengers risk the safety of airline staff and other passengers.
“Delta welcomes the interest from Congress as U.S. airlines continue to grapple with an uptick in unruly passengers, putting the safety of airline employees and the flying public at risk,” a spokesperson for Delta told ABC News on Tuesday. “At Delta, nothing is more important than ensuring a safe and secure travel experience for our customers and our people.”
Attorney John Durham. – Bob MacDonnell/Hartford Courant/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A former lawyer for the Democratic Party indicted by special counsel John Durham for allegedly lying to the FBI has accused Durham’s office of leveling false allegations that he claims are intended to politicize his case.
Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer who previously worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, was charged last year by Durham for allegedly lying to the then-FBI general counsel James Baker in a July 2016 meeting where Sussmann provided information about data that he said showed a strange link between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank — an allegation later investigated by the FBI but determined not to be nefarious.
Sussmann, who has pleaded not guilty, is alleged to have lied to Baker by saying he was not passing along the information on behalf of any specific client, while Durham says Sussmann was in fact working on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and a tech executive named Rodney Joffe. Sussmann, however, denies that he ever told Baker he was not representing the interests of any client and, additionally, says he was not acting on behalf of the Clinton campaign in passing along the allegations to Baker.
This past weekend, Durham put forward new allegations in a seemingly unrelated filing where he sought to raise potential conflict concerns over the attorneys currently representing Sussmann.
Specifically, Durham claimed his office has evidence that Joffe worked with a group of cybersecurity researchers to collect internet data about the Trump Organization, and in doing so accessed so-called ‘DNS traffic data’ — records showing back-and-forth communications that computers or cellphones have with internet servers — from entities including Trump Tower, Donald Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and the Executive Office of the President of the United States.
Durham alleges that Joffe’s company had a contract with Executive Office of the President to provide DNS-related services, but that he “exploited this arrangement … for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.”
According to the Durham filing, in a meeting with the CIA in February of 2017, Sussmann allegedly passed along information and data from Joffe and others that Sussmann said appeared suspicious and showed that “Trump and/or his associates” may have been “using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.”
Trump and numerous other Republicans went on to cite Durham’s filing as proof that Hillary Clinton’s campaign directed an illegal conspiracy to spy on Trump both during and possibly after his 2016 election victory, though nowhere in Durham’s filing did prosecutors say that the effort was directed by or involved the Clinton campaign, that any of the alleged gathering of data took place after Trump had taken office, or that any of the alleged conduct — even if it took place — was illegal.
Durham raised the new set of allegations as part of a filing regarding concerns over whether Sussmann’s defense attorneys have a conflict of interest in representing him. No additional criminal charges have been brought against Sussmann or others related to the new allegations.
Contrary to reports, nowhere in Durham’s filing does he state that lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a tech company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House.
Joffe did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
In a statement provided to ABC News, a spokesperson for Joffe disputed Durham’s allegations, calling Joffe an “apolitical Internet security expert with decades of service to the U.S. Government who has never worked for a political party, and who legally provided access to DNS data obtained from a private client that separately was providing DNS services to the Executive Office of the President (EOP).”
“Under the terms of the contract, the data could be accessed to identify and analyze any security breaches or threats,” Joffe’s spokesperson said. “As a result of the hacks of EOP and DNC [Democratic National Committee] servers in 2015 and 2016, respectively, there were serious and legitimate national security concerns about Russian attempts to infiltrate the 2016 election. Upon identifying DNS queries from Russian-made Yota phones in proximity to the Trump campaign and the EOP, respected cybersecurity researchers were deeply concerned about the anomalies they found in the data and prepared a report of their findings, which was subsequently shared with the CIA.”
Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, attorneys for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology analyst who was part of the research team referenced in Durham’s filing, told ABC News that the team only provided data that was legally obtained during the Obama administration. Westby and Rasch said researchers were looking at attempted malware attacks that were believed to be targeting the White House, and that contrary to Durham’s allegations, Joffe was never “tasking” the researchers in their work.
“He was simply providing data. He may have commented on it, but he did not task the researchers in what they were doing,” Westby and Rasch said. “They were in no way ever working for Rodney Joffe.”
Both lawyers maintain that the effort to bring this information to the attention of the FBI and CIA was appropriate, and say they’re concerned that Durham’s actions could have a chilling effect on researchers bringing cybersecurity information to the attention of law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the future.
“What you don’t want to have happen, which we already see happening, is for researchers to be chilled in bringing concerns about cybersecurity threats to appropriate government agencies,” they said. “And right now, the cybersecurity community is largely afraid to talk to law enforcement because of what has happened and how this case has been handled.”
Late Monday, Sussmann’s attorneys responded to Durham’s new filing, accusing him of making “false” allegations that “are plainly intended to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool.”
Sussmann’s attorneys also dispute what they say appears to be Durham’s leading theory, that Sussmann was acting in concert with the Clinton campaign when he took the DNS data to the CIA in February of 2017.
“…the Motion conveniently overlooks the fact that Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with Agency-2 happened well after the 2016 presidential election, at a time when the Clinton Campaign had effectively ceased to exist,” Sussmann’s attorneys say in their filing. “Unsurprisingly, the Motion also omits any mention of the fact that Mr. Sussmann never billed the Clinton Campaign for the work associated with the February 9, 2017 meeting, nor could he have (because there was no Clinton Campaign).”
The filing directly cites former President Trump’s numerous statements released since Durham’s filing, including where he suggested the alleged conduct “would have been punishable by death” in a “stronger period of time.”
Sussmann’s attorneys accuse Durham of purposefully ginning up the new wave of furor, noting that the new allegations were included in a completely unrelated filing regarding potential conflicts of interest among Sussmann’s legal team.
“This is not the first time in this case that the Special Counsel has sought to include allegations about uncharged conduct in public filings and done so using inflammatory and prejudicial rhetoric,” the filing says. “The Indictment is 27 pages long and reads as though there was a vast conspiracy, involving the Clinton Campaign and Mr. Sussmann, to defraud the FBI into investigating Donald Trump as part of an ‘October surprise.’ But the Indictment does not charge anyone other than Mr. Sussmann; the Indictment does not charge a conspiracy; and the Indictment does not even charge a fraud.”
Sussmann’s attorneys have asked the judge in the case to strike from the record Durham’s latest series of allegations.
A spokesperson for Durham declined to comment to ABC News when asked about the accusation put forward by Sussmann.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, cut ties with Trump last week, saying his financial disclosures from 2011-2020 can no longer be relied upon, according to a letter the firm sent to the Trump Organization.
The letter was included in a court document filed Monday by the New York Attorney General’s office, which is conducting a civil investigation into the way the Trump Organization valued its real estate portfolio.
“We write to advise that the Statements of Financial Condition for Donald J. Trump for the years ending June 30, 2011 – June 30, 2020, should no longer be relied upon and you should inform any recipients thereof who are currently relying upon one or more of those documents that those documents should not be relied upon,” the letter to Trump’s namesake company said.
“We have come to this conclusion based, in part, upon the filings made by the New York Attorney General on January 18, 2022, our own investigation, and information received from internal and external sources,” said the letter. “While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate.”
Mazars effectively resigned as the Trump Organization’s accountant, saying, “Due in part to our decision regarding the financial statements, as well as the totality of the circumstances, we have also reached the point such that there is a non-waivable conflict of interest with the Trump Organization. As a result, we are not able to provide any new work product to the Trump Organization.”
The letter indicated that the former president and his wife still have tax returns to file by Feb. 15.
“We believe the only information left to complete those returns is the information regarding the Matt Calimari Jr. apartment,” said the letter. “As you know, Donald Bender has been asking for this information for several months but has not received it. Once that information is provided to your new tax preparers, the returns can be completed.”
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization refuted the firm’s characterization of the organization’s financial statements as unreliable.
“While we are disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways, their February 9, 2022 letter confirms that after conducting a subsequent review of all prior statements of financial condition, Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies,” the spokesperson said. “This confirmation effectively renders the investigations by the DA and AG moot.”
However, the New York Attorney General seized on the letter as reason why a judge should order compliance with a series of subpoenas issued to the company and personally to Trump, his eldest son Donald Jr., and his eldest daughter Ivanka.
“This development further reinforces what OAG’s previous submissions already showed: The Court should order Respondents’ compliance with OAG’s document and testimonial subpoenas,” the attorney general’s office said in a filing Monday.
The Trumps have been fighting to dismiss the subpoenas on the grounds they are overly broad and that the investigation is politically motivated.
Monday’s AG filing also makes mention of the recent flap over Trump’s purported destruction of documents as asserted by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
“Given reports concerning Mr. Trump’s destruction of documents covered by the Presidential Records Act, he should be ordered to comply with Instruction 3 in the subpoena entitled ‘Documents No Longer in Your Possession,’ requiring a sworn statement regarding how documents were destroyed and by whom,” the filing said.
(WASHINGTON) — On Monday’s fourth anniversary of the Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting, during which his son was killed, Manuel Oliver climbed atop a construction crane near the White House and unfurled a banner calling on President Joe Biden to do more to get gun control legislation passed, according to news reports.
Photos showed a large banner depicting an image of his son, Joaquin Oliver, who was one of 17 victims in the shooting at the high school in Parkland, Florida, and read “45K PEOPLE DIED FROM GUN VIOLENCE ON YOUR WATCH.”
Oliver climbed down the crane with another individual at approximately 10 a.m., and was met by officers who escorted him into an ambulance in handcuffs for a brief moment before he was led away, ABC News affiliate WJLA-TV reported.
In a statement to ABC News, the Metropolitan Police Department said officers located and apprehended one individual on the 700 block of 15th St., NW at approximately 5:40 a.m.
“Two other individuals were located on a crane near the location. At approximately 10:06 am, the two individuals located on the crane were taken into custody as well. Preliminarily, three individuals were arrested from the scene,” the Metropolitan Police Department confirmed.
The Metropolitan Police Department did not release the identities of the individuals arrested, but WJLA identified Oliver.
In a statement marking the shooting’s anniversary, Biden said his administration stands with the Parkland families, “Americans in every corner of our country who have lost loved ones to gun violence or had their lives forever altered by a shooting” and “those working to end this epidemic of gun violence.”
“I have put forward a comprehensive plan to reduce gun crime that includes curbing the proliferation of ‘ghost’ guns, cracking down on gun dealers who willfully violate the law, issuing model extreme risk protection order legislation for states, and promoting safe firearm storage, among other efforts,” Biden wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — First Lady Jill Biden is spreading love — and offering a teaching moment to elementary school students — at the White House on Monday to mark Valentine’s Day.
For the second year in a row, the first lady delivered a valentine to the nation with a colorful heart-filled display on the White House North Lawn.
The decor, this year, features hand-painted wooden artwork in the shapes of the family’s first pets — new cat, Willow, and German Shepherd puppy, Commander.
A massive, wooden heart between the two pets is inscribed with Corinthians 13:13: “Three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.”
The heart-shaped decorations also extend inside the White House to the East Wing, where the first lady has featured the “heart-work” of second-grade students in Washington whose teacher, Alejandro Diasgranados, was awarded teacher of the year for 2021.
According to the first lady’s office, the students were asked to incorporate words reflecting her values including “family,” “kindness,” and “peace” to guide their Valentine’s Day heart designs. Diasgranados and some of the 21 students that created the 42 paper hearts on display in the East Landing are scheduled to visit the White House on Monday to see their work.
Three large, red hearts reading “hope,” “healing” and “love” were also on display in the East Wing.
After spending the weekend at Camp David, President Joe Biden and the first lady returned to the White House earlier Monday morning holding hands as they walked into the residence. Biden did not answer questions but lowered his mask to tell reporters, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
For the Bidens’ first Valentine’s Day in the White House, the first lady decorated the North Lawn with three giant, hand-painted hearts that read “hope,” “unity” and “love.”
(AUSTIN, Texas) — As the first in-person voters of the 2022 election cycle head to the polls on Monday, not only is this year’s early voting period expected to set the political tone for candidates ahead of the March 1 primary election, it will also put a renewed spotlight on Senate Bill 1, the state’s recently revised election law.
The law officially went into effect in December following nearly a year of debates in the Texas legislature over its possible impact on voting rights. Some of the most contentious floor debates were rooted in state Democrats’ claims that the law would limit voters’ ballot access through complicated voter identification requirements. Democratic lawmakers and voting rights advocates also took aim at the expanded access poll watchers would have within polling places under the new law.
New regulations surrounding voter identification appeared to create immediate ripple effects in election administration as early as January. In some of the state’s biggest counties, like Harris and Tarrant counties, hundreds of Texans eligible to vote by mail initially saw their mail ballot applications rejected due to the heightened proof of identity requirements.
Some counties had trouble matching original voter registration records to the information provided by voters on their mail ballot applications and, in some cases, voters appeared to have their applications rejected because they failed to include all of the newly required information.
In the middle of January, Harris County — which includes Houston — reported up to 30% of its mail-in ballots being rejected or flagged for rejection. The county is obligated to tell voters if their ballot was rejected, giving them a chance to fix it, which is bringing the numbers down. Now, Harris County is reporting to ABC News it is seeing a 13.45% rejection rate due to the new law.
Other counties are also reporting rejected ballots. Travis County — which includes Austin — told ABC News it is seeing a 7% rejection rate. Tarrant County — which includes Fort Worth — is reporting to ABC News an 8% rejection rate of its mail-in ballots.
“Every time there’s changes in the law, whether it’s ID requirements, new requirements for mail-in ballots, it takes some time for voters to get used to,” Texas’ Assistant Secretary of State for Communications Sam Taylor told ABC News in January.
Critics of the new law are also bracing for another potential change with the start of early, in-person voting — the possible effects poll watchers could have on voters, especially voters of color.
According to the Texas Poll Watcher’s Guide, which is issued by the secretary of state’s office, a poll watcher is a person appointed to observe the conduct of an election on behalf of a candidate, a political party, or the proponents or opponents of a measure. Poll watchers must first successfully complete a training course administered by the state and are limited in where they can serve. Although there are some limitations to who can serve as a poll watcher, partisans associated with campaigns or political parties are not exempt.
Under SB 1, poll watchers are given broad access to observe activities within polling places, as well as any instances of curbside voting, and situations in which a voter could be getting help with casting their ballot. According to the Texas election code, watchers are also “entitled to sit or stand near enough to a member of a counting team who is announcing the votes to verify that the ballots are read correctly.”
SB 1 stipulates that watchers are supposed to observe the happenings inside a polling place “without obstructing the conduct of an election,” and an election administrator can call for a law enforcement official to remove a poll watcher if that watcher “commits a breach of the peace or a violation of law.”
But the presence of people within polling places whose roles do not involve assisting voters could cause confusion, or even dissuade first-time voters from casting their ballots, according to Cesar Espinoza, executive director of the immigrant-led civil rights organization Fiel Houston.
“One thing is what you say on paper, but the other thing is what your actions portray or what your demeanor is — who really is going to be out there monitoring these people?” he said.
“Even if everything is done, right…we feel this is a waste of resources. This is a waste of people power. We should be all working to make more people want to go vote instead of trying to police those people who are already showing up to vote,” Espinoza added.
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said empowering poll watchers through the new law could lead to a heightened partisan environment, putting voters of color on alert about interactions with poll watchers when voting in person.
“The push on empowering poll watchers, while increasing regulations around voting, have raised questions about voter intimidation, particularly from people of color, and in Texas – [voters] historically have an experience of voter intimidation during the period of Jim Crow – and… beyond that, during the period in which voting rights were not uniformly extended, particularly to African Americans, to Black voters and to Mexican American voters,” Henson said.
Although election administrators like Travis County Administrator Rebecca Guerreo tell ABC News they welcome trained poll watchers to be a part of the election process, despite concerns that some individuals “may be overzealous and overstep their authority,” voters could feel differently.
“Historical context is pretty clear, and I think historically, context is pretty hard to ignore for a lot of voters, and again, particularly voters that are people of color,” Henson said.
(WASHINGTON) — The very career experience that makes Supreme Court candidate Judge J. Michelle Childs attractive to both Democrats and Republicans may now be complicating her potential nomination, as some labor and progressive groups warn the White House that her appointment would break President Joe Biden’s promise to be “the most pro-union president” in history.
Childs, backed by influential South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn and the only candidate named by the White House as in the running to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, spent eight years practicing labor and employment law at a prestigious South Carolina firm, Nexsen Pruet. Some of her clients included employers accused of race and gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.
“Her record shows that she wins for employers, and I think that’s problematic in this moment,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, billed as the nation’s largest grassroots-funded progressive group allied with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
“If we have any doubt about where [the nominee] stands on labor rights or the power of corporations verses labor in our economy right now, we should not put them forward and we would actively oppose them,” he said.
The firm’s website claims “one of the largest and most experienced” labor and employment law practices in the Carolinas, touting “litigation skills to aggressively pursue any matter through trial when it is in the best interests of the employers we represent.”
Earlier this month, a top lawyer for the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union with roughly 700,000 members, publicly called Child’s former employer an “anti-union law firm,” adding “that’s not what we need.”
While Childs did help defend corporate clients, she also represented employees in claims of mistreatment by their employers, her former Nexsen Pruet colleagues told ABC News. Several described her has a fair-minded and well-respected litigator. In 2000, she was named a partner at the firm — the first Black woman to become partner at a South Carolina law firm in a legal industry long dominated by white men.
“I would not characterize her work as anti-union or anti-employee,” said Nexsen Pruet managing partner Leighton Lord, who joined the firm a year after Childs and worked alongside her for many years.
“She worked on a dozen or so employee matters,” Lord said, referencing her work on behalf of employees suing their corporate employers. “Of the lawyers that came up in our firm, she’s probably one of the ones that worked more on the employee side than any of our other employment lawyers. So she’s very balanced in how she practiced in the private sector.”
Childs participated in 25 employment cases — in 23 of them defending an employer accused of alleged discrimination on the basis of race or sex, according to the American Prospect, a liberal publication which reviewed state court records during her tenure.
In one case, in the late 1990s, Childs represented a beachwear retailer sued by two former employees for alleged near-daily sexual assault at work. A federal jury sided with the plaintiffs, awarding compensatory and punitive damages, a decision upheld on appeal.
Her former colleagues say that court records do not reflect the many instances in which Childs achieved settlements for employees against their employers outside of court. Lord noted a 1999 case in which Childs represented a Mack Truck worker alleging wrongful termination, and she secured a “great” settlement without going to trial.
While some critics have accused Childs of working against unionization drives, Nexsen Pruet says it has never conducted any such campaigns and only has a single lawyer on staff specializing in union issues — one who joined four years after Childs left the firm.
“Diversity is more than just race and gender, it’s experience,” Lord said. “Her time at Nexsen Pruet gave her private practice experience representing employees, representing companies — it gave her a unique understanding of how the practice of law actually works.”
Childs has won the endorsement of some labor groups, including the South Carolina chapter of the AFL-CIO, whose president, Charles Brave, Jr., said in a letter to Biden earlier this month that Childs would “represent all of us well.”
After leaving Nexsen Pruet in 2000, Childs went on to oversee workplace safety regulations as an appointed deputy director at the state Department of Labor. From 2002 to 2006, she served as a workers’ comp judge on a state commission adjudicating benefits for injured or disabled employees.
“Everybody feels heard when they come into the doors of her courtroom,” said Meliah Bowers Jefferson, a former clerk for Childs on the federal bench.
Geevarhese said other candidates on Biden’s short list, including U.S. Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, do not raise the same level of concern as Childs. He stopped short of endorsing a particular nominee.
“If Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] is vouching for Michelle Childs, it should give Democrats pause,” he said.
Graham said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he believes Childs would “get the most Republican votes” of any candidate on Biden’s short list. “She would be somebody, I think, that could bring the Senate together and probably get more than 60 votes,” he said.
The White House has not directly responded to the criticism of Childs but made clear she is still under consideration. The president “is actively seeking the recommendations of members of both parties as he prepares to make an historic choice and fulfill one of the most important duties of the presidency,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates.
Jefferson, who remains close with Childs, said the judge is likely unfazed by the controversy.
“While she may have been known at the beginning of her career as someone who had this expertise in employment law, certainly while she was on the state court bench the breadth of her experience expanded,” Jefferson said. “Her approach in every case, at least from my perspective, was that it is decided on its own merits.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Rudy Giuliani is in active discussions regarding testifying before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and potentially responding to some of the committee’s questions, sources familiar with the matter confirm to ABC News.
The extent of the cooperation remains to be seen and no deal is anywhere near final, the sources said. Sources have told ABC News that the negotiations could easily dissolve.
Giuliani was subpoenaed by the committee last month to appear for an interview last week.
“Mr. Giuliani’s appearance was rescheduled at his request,” a committee aide told ABC News on Sunday. “He remains under subpoena and the select committee expects him to cooperate fully.”
Committee investigators and Giuliani’s representation are expected to connect again in the coming days over Giuliani’s potential cooperation. It’s unlikely that Giuliani would agree to testify about or share records regarding his direct communications with former President Donald Trump, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Giuliani is still very close to Trump, having spent some time with the 45th president just last week in Florida, and was planning to watch the Super Bowl Sunday evening with Trump and other guests, a source told ABC News.
The former New York City mayor was on the front lines of Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election, working with allies Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and a small team that filed numerous lawsuits and tried to assemble a slate of fake electors — all of which failed.
Should he testify, Giuliani would arguably be one of the closest to Trump’s efforts to undo the election results to meet with the committee.
News of Giuliani’s possible cooperation with the committee was first reported by the New York Times.
Trump has maintained that the committee’s efforts are a partisan witch hunt, and several top Trump allies have refused to cooperate with the probe.
Ex-White House strategist Steve Bannon was indicted on two federal counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee. A trial has tentatively been set for July.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reversed course after originally cooperating with the panel, leading the full House to hold him in criminal contempt. A referral to the Justice Department has yet to be acted upon.
An attorney for Giuliani did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Congress should be sending a stronger signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin as fears of an imminent invasion of Ukraine persist.
On “This Week,” anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Graham on Sunday whether he is convinced Putin will invade the neighboring Baltic state.
“No, I’m not, but I’m convinced that we could do more in Congress and should,” Graham answered.
The Senate’s prospects of passing a sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill have stalled, and Graham said the White House “keeps pushing back” against pre- and post-invasion sanctions being considered by Congress.
Stephanopoulos followed up: “You’re saying the president is pushing back against, but you also have some pushback from your Republican colleagues in the Senate?”
“Yeah, but not in a real, meaningful way. There’s 70 votes in the body for invasion sanctions, pre-invasion sanctions with a waiver, post-invasion sanctions,” Graham responded. “So, the problem has been secondary sanctions. It’s not just enough to sanction a Russian bank. You want to sanction anybody that does business with that bank.”
On Saturday, President Joe Biden spoke with Putin for a little more than an hour from Camp David, pledging to “impose swift and severe costs” if Russian forces invade Ukraine.
Graham said the U.S.-Russia relationship “would be forever changed,” possibly harming the diplomatic process for decades to come, if Putin launched an invasion.
“This is not the last president America will have. If Russia invades the Ukraine, you will destroy the U.S.-Russia relationship for decades and every president in the near-term will be put in a box when it comes to dealing with Russia, so I hope Putin understands that,” Graham said.
When asked about whether the Biden administration’s release of intelligence on a possible false flag operation has been effective in deterring a military advance into Ukraine, Graham said the U.S. government should be doing more.
“I don’t want to ring alarm bell as much as take action. They’re telling us the invasion is imminent. But they’re not telling Putin with clarity what happens if you invade,” Graham added. “He should be punished now.”
Recently, the South Carolina senator came under fire by the former President Donald Trump after disagreeing with Trump suggesting he would pardon Jan. 6 rioters if reelected to office. Trump even called Graham a “RINO,” a Republican in name only, during an interview with NewsMax.
Stephanopoulos pressed: “So where do things stand with you and President Trump right now? Do you support his comeback in 2024?”
“If he wants to be the Republican nominee for the Republican Party, it’s his for the taking,” Graham responded. “Donald Trump is the most consequential Republican in the Republican Party today. He has a great chance of being president again in 2024.”
Despite some Republicans still casting doubt on the legitimate results of the last presidential election, Graham said “the 2020 election is over for me” and that he’s not “contesting” the results.
The key GOP senator gave advice to the former president as well, suggesting that “if he looks backward, I think he’s hurting his chances.”
Given Trump’s fractured relationship with longtime Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, Stephanopoulos asked Graham: “If (Republicans) take the Senate back, will you vote for Mitch McConnell as Senate Republican leader? In the past, you have said that he’s got to fix his relationship with President Trump if he’s going to earn your vote.”
“Yes, I think any Republican leader in the House or the Senate has to have a working relationship with President Trump, because most Republicans like President Trump’s policies,” Graham said. “And so Mitch McConnell, if he runs, or anyone else, I think, would have to show a working relationship with the president.”
U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs, who sits on the federal court in South Carolina, is reported to be one of Biden’s top contenders to replace Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who recently announced his retirement.
Graham, a fellow South Carolinian, has previously voiced his support for Childs to become Biden’s nominee.
Stephanopoulos asked: “Is Judge Michelle Childs of South Carolina the only Biden nominee you could support?”
“I think she’s the one that would get the most Republican votes. I would be very inclined to support her because of her background,” Graham said. “She didn’t go to Harvard or Yale, which I think is a plus. She went to the University of South Carolina. But we’ll wait and see what President Biden does.”
