(COLUMBUS, Ohio) — The battle over a Senate seat is hot in swing state Ohio. Democratic nominee Rep. Tim Ryan is locked in a competitive race with Republican opponent J.D. Vance, who picked up $28M in airtime funding from a PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
ABC News hit the campaign trail, asking young voters in Columbus and at Ohio State University, about the issues that matter most to them in the midterm elections.
This year’s midterms are slated to be the most consequential yet as the fate of abortion laws are now in the hands of the states after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Abortion, cost of living
“A lot of women don’t even know they’re pregnant until after six weeks. I think that is odd, cruel and it’s clearly laws made by people that have never had babies,” said Ashley McCoy of Columbus, referring to the state’s six-week abortion ban, which makes the procedure illegal after fetal cardiac activity is detected, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
“I understand pro-life and I’m all for that if that’s what you believe in, but you cannot force it upon the masses. It’s not right,” added McCoy.
Rising costs of living and unemployment rates are also prime sources of concern for voters like Kristyn Schweitzer, an Ohio native.
“My husband and I had to scale our lives back after COVID because of layoffs,” said Schweitzer. “I think it says a lot that inflation and interest rates have gone up because it’s hard to get a foothold. We’re surviving but it’s not comfortable.”
Law enforcement issues, student debt
Law enforcement’s treatment particularly of Black men is another issue that concerns some Ohioans, as the Columbus Police Department is now under fire for the fatal shooting of Donovan Lewis — a Black man fatally shot by police Tuesday, released police body camera footage showed.
Andrew Pierce, a senior and the student body president at Ohio State University, says it is time to have a conversation about what policing looks like going forward.
“How do we move with the police but also how do we just create a safe society for everybody?” said Pierce.
And President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt was also on the minds of students, who applauded the plan, but some said they also believe more could be done to alleviate the burden.
“I feel like right now $10,000 is a lot of money, but also it’s still nowhere near the amount that students here regularly accumulate,” said Zoe Lawler, a senior at Ohio State University who is majoring in genetics. “Ten thousand dollars. It’s like a drop in the bucket,” Lawler said.
Herb Asher, political science professor at Ohio State University, told ABC News that the issues Ohio’s voters cited, are no surprise.
“I think the economy has always been at the top of lists that Ohioans are concerned about, in part Ohio is a state that has lost so many well-paying manufacturing jobs,” he said.
Asher also said the issue of abortion may be a “liability” for Republicans, in part because of what various state legislatures are doing now that they have the power to determine access to the procedure, which may turn off some voters.
“Once the Supreme Court said Roe v. Wade is overturned, that didn’t ban abortion,” said Asher. “That just sent the issue back to the states. And a lot of the states are doing some really, very restrictive, very conservative and in some cases, very extreme things.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Friday that he does not consider all supporters of his predecessor, Donald Trump, to be a threat to the United States.
“I don’t consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country,” Biden said in response to a reporter’s question.
The night before, Biden had said during a major, prime-time speech in Philadelphia that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
“There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the ‘MAGA Republicans,’ and that is a threat to this country,” he said, using the acronym for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Biden has repeatedly explained he is not condemning all Republicans, but rather those loyal to Trump.
He said Friday he thought people who call for violence or fail to condemn it, refuse “to acknowledge when an election has been won” and insist on changing the way votes are counted – “that is a threat to democracy.”
Biden said those who voted for Trump in 2020 “and support him now, they weren’t voting for attacking the Capitol, they weren’t voting for overruling an election.”
“They were voting for the philosophy he put forward,” Biden said.
“So, I am not talking about anything other than, it is inappropriate — and it’s not only happened here, but other parts of the world — where there’s a failure to recognize and condemn violence whenever it’s used for political purposes,” he said. “Failure to condemn the attempt to manipulate electoral outcomes. Failure to acknowledge when an election has been won or lost.”
The culmination of weeks of ramped-up rhetorical attacks on Republicans loyal to Trump, his Thursday night speech was highly political in nature, although the White House had taken pains to paint it as an “official” event.
Two Marines stood behind the president as he spoke at Independence Hall, prompting criticism the White House was using them as political props.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday “the presence of the Marines at the speech was intended to demonstrate the deep and abiding respect the president has for these services–service members, to these ideals, and the unique role our independent military plays in defending our democracy, no matter which party is in power.”
She noted previous presidents had spoken while standing in front of members of the military.
(WASHINGTON) — Gina McCarthy — President Joe Biden’s top climate adviser — will step down from her post on Sept. 16, the White House announced on Friday.
The National Climate Advisor role will then be filled by McCarthy’s deputy, Ali Zaidi, just weeks after the president signed historic climate legislation.
Longtime Democrat John Podesta, who served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, and managed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 White House bid, will oversee the implementation of the climate and energy provisions of Democrats’ recently passed Inflation Reduction Act while also chairing the President’s National Climate Task Force, according to the White House.
“Under Gina McCarthy and Ali Zaidi’s leadership, my administration has taken the most aggressive action ever, from historic legislation to bold executive actions, to confront the climate crisis head-on,” Biden said in a statement announcing the administrative moves.
Biden also nodded to his recruitment of Podesta, under the title, “Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation.” While with the Obama administration, Podesta’s focus was on coordinating climate-related policy initiatives.
“His deep roots in climate and clean energy policy and his experience at senior levels of government mean we can truly hit the ground running to take advantage of the massive clean energy opportunity in front of us.”
After decades of federal inaction to curb climate change, the The Inflation Reduction Act includes $369 billion in investments in climate and clean energy programs– lauded by experts as one of the country’s most important steps to address the issue and potentially decrease energy costs for households nationwide.
“This is an absolute game-changer,” McCarthy said about the IRA’s climate provisions at a recent summit in Lake Tahoe.
McCarthy, 68, led the Environmental Protection Agency for four years during the Obama administration. During her nearly two-year tenure with President Biden, she played an outsized role promoting climate initiatives across federal agencies and moving climate legislation through Congress. Her office helped craft the IRA.
The Washington Post had reported in April that she was mulling the decision to step down from her position, however.
“Yes, she is stepping down,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at her Friday briefing. “She, as you know, has been a leader in what we have seen as one of the largest investment in dealing with climate change … She is a — not the first time that she’s been in an administration, and we are very sad to lose her.”
–ABC News’ Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House is seeking $47 billion from Congress to secure COVID and monkeypox vaccines, to bolster Ukraine’s defenses and to respond to natural disasters at home.
“All of the requests in here meet urgent funding needs,” an administration official told reporters Friday. “It is our responsibility to tell Congress what we need in order to meet these critical needs. These have had bipartisan support in the past, and we fully expect Congress to work with us to reach a resolution on all of them.”
The funding would be tied to a constituting resolution to keep the government running past Sept. 30. Biden officials said the requests are for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, which would span from October to December of this year.
But their request is likely to be met with resistance on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are generally opposed to any additional emergency and Democrats for months have pushed to no avail for supplemental COVID funding that they say is necessary to combatting the virus.
Most of the money would go toward combating the COVID pandemic, with the White House asking lawmakers for $22.4 billion for vaccines, treatments and personal protective equipment (PPE). That sum would also fund “next-generation” research, the administration said, and provide services like treatments for “long COVID.”
On Friday, the federal government’s free program for Americans to order at-home COVID tests was suspended due to a lack of funding. More than 600 millions tests have been sent to families free of charge since the program began in January.
To tackle the monkeypox crisis, the administration is requesting $4.5 billion to expand domestic manufacturing of vaccines, to develop rapid tests, support health activities and more.
The administration has faced criticism for its response to the monkeypox outbreak, with public experts saying the U.S. should have moved faster to distribute tests and vaccines. As of Sept. 1, there were 19,465 total confirmed monkeypox/orthopoxvirus cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This funding will also help ensure the United States is at the front of the line for the best tools to fight any possible future outbreak,” the administration said.
Beyond the administration’s public health efforts, the second largest chunk of the money the White House is requesting would go toward Ukraine.
The administration is seeking $13.7 billion to provide Ukraine with military equipment and intelligence gathering, as well as direct budget assistance to the nation’s government. That funding also includes $2 million for energy-related issues stemming from the conflict.
“We have rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy and we cannot allow that support to Ukraine to run dry,” the administration said. “The people of Ukraine have inspired the world, and the Administration remains committed to supporting the Ukrainian people as they continue to stand resolute and display extraordinary courage in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion.”
To combat natural disasters in the U.S., which faces record heat and devastating flooding, the White House is asking for $6.5 billion to go toward the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund; direct payments for farmers; to local governments to strengthen their eclectic grids and more.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Friday unsealed a more detailed inventory of what the FBI seized in the search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last month.
The judge, who is considering the Trump legal team’s request to name a third party to review the materials, ordered the release in a court hearing in Florida Thursday.
Judge Aileen Cannon also ordered unsealed a status review of the records seized during the Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago.
She has not yet ruled on the question of a review by an independent “special master.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden used to steadfastly avoid uttering the name, “Donald Trump.”
But now, bolstered by stronger poll numbers and relatively positive economic news, Biden as of late has been seeking to make the midterm elections a referendum on the former president — and the extreme ideas he says Trump’s supporters espouse.
“There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the ‘MAGA Republicans,’ and that is a threat to this country,” Biden said Thursday during a prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
His remarks represented the culmination of weeks of ramped-up rhetorical attacks on not all Republicans but Trump-loyal Republicans, whom he has blasted as “ultra-MAGA Republicans” and “MAGA extremists.”
Last week, he said “the entire philosophy that underpins” the GOP was akin to “semi-fascism.”
Trump complicates Republican strategy
Biden has increasingly sought to portray Americans’ choice this November as one between light and darkness — with Trump and his supporters representing “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” as he said Thursday.
“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” Biden said. “Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”
And he has been helped by Trump, whose actions have put him in a less-than-positive light.
Since the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump has publicly fought back — even making the raid public in the first place. His haphazard approach has led to sensational headlines as the Justice Department pushes back on his claims.
By holding onto hundreds of documents — many allegedly classified — in the first place, the former president has left Republican candidates who want to look tough on crime struggling to answer for those in their party publicly attacking the FBI, all while U.S. intelligence agencies are assessing the fallout.
“I think that Trump is making this a referendum on himself by the way he’s behaving, and it’s causing a lot of problems for other Republicans,” James Thurber, a professor of government emeritus and author who founded American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, told ABC News. “He’s the story, rather than inflation and other issues they’re accusing the Democrats of failing on.”
Fortunes reverse for Biden
Historically, midterm elections have served as a referendum on the current president. And this year’s did not look good for Biden, who faced sagging poll numbers, roadblocks on Capitol Hill and Democratic candidates who signaled they did not want him to join them on the campaign trail.
But in just a few months, he’s notched up a string of legislative victories: a historic climate, health and tax package; a gun reform law; hundreds of billions to boost the domestic semiconductor industry; and new protections for veterans. Last year’s $1.9 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, whose results are now starting to materialize.
By overturning Roe v. Wade and taking away the constitutional right to an abortion, the Supreme Court has energized voters — with signs Democrats could benefit this fall.
Last week, a Democrat who declared “choice is on the ballot” won a special congressional election in upstate New York, and last month, voters in traditionally conservative Kansas voted to protect abortion rights.
Biden has benefited from his own rapidly rising poll numbers, after suffering record-low approval ratings earlier this year. In a Quinnipiac University survey conducted Aug. 25-29, 40% of Americans said they approved of the job Biden was doing, up 9% from the month before.
At the same time, Americans are acutely aware of developments surrounding Trump — and most view them in a negative light.
In that same poll, 76% of Americans said they had been following the news about the Mar-a-Lago seizure. Fifty-nine percent said they think Trump acted inappropriately, and 50% said they thought he should be prosecuted on criminal charges.
While Biden has repeatedly deferred questions about the investigation to the Justice Department, he has — by implication — made clear the choice he says voters have.
“In 2020, you and 81 million Americans voted to save our democracy,” he told thousands of supporters at a rally in Maryland last week. “That’s why Donald Trump isn’t just a former president, he is a defeated former president.
“It’s not hyperbole,” he continued. “Now you need to vote to literally save democracy again.”
Changing economic tides
Biden has also been buoyed by changing economic tides.
For much of his presidency, he has struggled to persuade Americans he had a handle on the economy, as prices for gas and other goods skyrocketed and inflation hit 40-year highs. Presidents historically foot the blame for high gas costs, even though they don’t have much control over them.
But now, prices at the pump have dropped 11 weeks in a row, and there are signs inflation is slowing.
Still, inflation could remain a weak point for Biden, who understands the economy is always a top issue for voters, according to Todd Belt, a professor and expert on the presidency at The George Washington University.
“Republicans wanted to run on inflation and crime,” Belt told ABC News. But Trump retaining government documents and Republicans’ attacks on the FBI have allowed Biden to take the side of law enforcement and look tougher on crime, he said.
“The question is, are there enough voters for whom other issues are more important, such as abortion, such as saving democracy, such as health-care benefits,” that Biden and the Democratic Party can push candidates past the finish line in enough Senate and House elections to retain power in either body, Belt said.
Democrats had long expected to lose control of both the Senate and House, but that dynamic is shifting.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last month that Republican “candidate quality” may hurt Republicans’ chances of flipping the Senate — after a handful of Trump-endorsed nominees have stumbled campaigning before the wider, general electorates in their states.
And while Republicans are still favored to gain control of the House, they may pick up fewer seats than originally expected.
Voting to save ‘the soul of the nation’
Making the November midterms a choice between those who want to save democracy — the “soul of the nation,” as Biden has put it — and those he says seek to destroy it fits a central theme Biden has returned to repeatedly for years.
His Philadelphia remarks harkened back to the moment he says he decided to run for president in 2017, when Trump defended white nationalists after violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia. Then, Biden declared, “We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation.”
“I ran for president because I believe we were in a battle for the soul of this nation,” he said Thursday. “I still believe that to be true.”
His Philadelphia remarks were deeply partisan in nature, but the White House had insisted the president was holding an “official,” as opposed to political, event, since most a majority of Americans agreed with its theme that “we need to save the core values of our country.”
Biden has shown a particular interest in Pennsylvania; his Thursday trip was the second of three planned in just one week.
His speech may not have reached as many voters’ eyeballs, though, with Penn State football kicking off its season at the same time.
And none of the three largest broadcast television networks aired the speech live nationally; while the networks often show more official addresses like those from the Oval Office, they typically eschew airing speeches that are more political in nature, like Biden’s.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats hope to pick up a Senate seat during a race between Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Republican Mehmet Oz. The state has also hosted a hotly contested race for the governor’s mansion, with Trump-supporting Republican Doug Mastriano taking on Democrat Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general.
ABC News’ Mary Bruce and Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
(PHILADELPHIA) — President Joe Biden, in a rare prime-time speech, condemned Donald Trump and his “MAGA Republicans” as he urged the nation to unite against threats to American democracy.
Biden took the stage shortly after 8 p.m. on Thursday at Independence Historical Park in Philadelphia, where several hundred people were sitting in white lawn chairs and Independence Hall’s facade was lit up in red and blue.
“This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated,” Biden said. “This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment of self-government the world has ever known.”
“But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” he continued. “We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise. So, tonight, I’ve come to this place where it all began, to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our hands to meet these threats and about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it.”
The president mentioned his Oval Office predecessor by name as he assailed Republicans who refuse to accept the 2020 election results, defend those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 or want to strip away abortion rights and other privacy concerns.
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” he said. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Pres. Biden: “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” https://t.co/ARxiYL3o54pic.twitter.com/ttpqDid2HJ
Biden made a distinction between the so-called MAGA Republicans and other conservatives, stating “not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology.”
“I know, because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans,” he said. “But there’s no question that the Republican party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans and that is a threat to this country.”
Biden’s urgent rhetoric mirrors his 2020 messaging, in which he presented himself as a clear contrast to Trump and the race itself as an inflection point for the nation.
He made that comparison again Thursday, telling the crowd: “Now America must choose to move forward or to move backward, to build a future obsessed about the past, to be a nation of hope, unity, and optimism or a nation of fear, division and of darkness.”
Administration officials had teased Biden’s speech as an extension of his “soul of the nation” message, which first emerged in 2017 after white nationalists clashed with counter protesters in Charlottesville, West Virginia — the incident Biden said inspired him to run for president.
Biden on Thursday said all Americans are called by “duty and conscience to confront extremists” and to reject political violence.
“We are still at our core a democracy, and yet, history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy,” he said.
Pres. Biden: “Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: Either they win, or they were cheated. And that’s where the MAGA Republicans are today.” https://t.co/ARxiYL3o54pic.twitter.com/b417lzzwBp
Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia is his second of three stops in the battleground state of Pennsylvania this week alone.
At Wilkes University, where made the case Tuesday for his administration’s plan for policing and crime prevention, Biden went after MAGA Republicans for their response to the Jan. 6 attack and the FBI search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“For God’s sake, whose side are you on? Whose side are you on?” a fired-up Biden asked.
The GOP issued a preemptive rebuttal of Biden’s remarks, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy speaking in Scranton (Biden’s hometown) just hours before the president took the stage in Philadelphia.
McCarthy criticized Democrats on inflation, crime and the border before demanding Biden “apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists” after the president previously described the ideology being adopted by MAGA Republicans as “semi-facism.”
“What Joe Biden doesn’t understand is that the soul of America is the tens of millions of hard working people, loving families, and law-abiding citizens whom he vilified for simply wanting a stronger, safer, and more prosperous country,” McCarthy said.
“The soul of America is not the ruling class in Washington, it is the law-abiding, tax-paying American citizen,” McCarthy said. “The soul of America is our determination to get up and go to work everyday, provide for our families, to love our children, be involved in their education and ensure that this nation and its people always come first.”
– ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Mary Bruce, Sarah Kolinovsky and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection sent a letter to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Thursday seeking information and records related to what it said were his conversations and communications with former President Donald Trump’s team before and after the attack on the Capitol.
In its letter, the committee said it had obtained emails from Gingrich, an influential Republican, to Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Miller offering talking points and direction for television ads about election fraud in December of 2020.
The panel specifically said those communications were sent after Trump’s voter fraud allegations “were shown to be false.”
“The goal is to arouse the country’s anger through new verifiable information the American people have never seen before[.] . . . If we inform the American people in a way they find convincing and it arouses their anger[,] they will then bring pressure on legislators and governors,” Gingrich wrote in an email, according to the panel.
In its letter, the committee said Gingrich repeatedly emailed then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows before and after the attack with questions about coordination of a push to send fake electors to the Electoral College and letters from state legislators regarding the electors — including after the mob was cleared from the Capitol.
“On the evening of January 6th, you continued to push efforts to overturn the election results. You emailed Mr. Meadows at 10:42 p.m., after the Capitol had been cleared of rioters and members of Congress had returned to finish certifying the election results, and asked, ‘[a]re there letters from state legislators about decertifying electors[?]'” the committee wrote.
“Accordingly, you appear to have been involved with President Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of the election results, even after the attack on the Capitol.”
The committee requested a voluntary interview with Gingrich the week of Sept. 19.
“A full and accurate accounting of what happened on January 6th is critical to the Select Committee’s legislative recommendations. And the American people deserve to understand the relevant details of what led to the attack,” the panel wrote.
The committee has previously sought information from aides to Gingrich who did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
In December 2020, the committee said, Gingrich emailed senior Trump aides urging the campaign to run national television ads promoting the conspiracy theory that Georgia election workers smuggled suitcases full of ballots into State Farm Arena.
Senior Justice Department officials at the time, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, told the committee and said publicly that they investigated this and other claims of election fraud, and found no merit to them.
“We looked at the tape, we interviewed the witnesses,” former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue told the committee about his conversation with former President Trump about the claims. “I said, ‘No sir, there is no suitcase. You can watch the video over and over. There is no suitcase.'”
The letter to Gingrich, a prominent Trump ally, is a reminder of the House committee’s work while much of the national attention is on the unprecedented FBI raid on Trump’s Florida residence as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
The panel is expected to resume public hearings at some point this month after already publicly interviewing several former Trump administration officials and rioters.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department’s Tuesday night court filing in its ongoing investigation into classified documents stored at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate included previously unreleased details about the probe — but perhaps none were as revealing as an FBI photograph of documents recovered from Trump’s personal office during the bureau’s August 8 raid.
Since the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, some members of Trump’s team have downplayed the documents he kept at the resort as keepsakes that contained little sensitive information. But the photo released by Justice Department appears to refute those claims, showing document after document clearly labeled Secret and Top Secret.
In a court filing Wednesday evening, attorneys for Trump criticized the photo and its inclusion in the brief the government filed opposing Trump’s request for a special master to review the retrieved documents.
“The Government’s Response gratuitously included a photograph of allegedly classified materials, pulled from a container and spread across the floor for dramatic effect,” the filing said. “The Government pretends these are not historically important moments, telling this Court that not only does it object to a Special Master, but that the Movant should have no opportunity to challenge any aspect of this behavior and decision-making.”
While portions of the FBI photo are redacted, a close review of the image reveals new clues about the kind of classified materials the former president was continuing to hang onto even after the Justice Department had issued a subpoena for their return.
Classified cover sheets
The photo shows numerous documents on the floor of Trump’s personal office, including colored-coded cover sheets baring classification markings in big, bold lettering.
“An examination of these cover sheets alone tells you a lot,” Douglas London, a 34-year CIA veteran, told ABC News regarding the DOJ photo. “As the most important intelligence customer, it should be no surprise that the president receives the most sensitive information — and that’s reflected in these documents.”
The markings on the cover sheets include “TOP SECRET/SCI,” which refers to Sensitive Compartmented Information classified as national intelligence “concerning or derived from intelligence sources,” according to a separate document from the Director of National Intelligence reviewed by ABC News. This material may come from allies or informants, or from spying or eavesdropping.
A cover sheet near the bottom center of the photo also appears to show a “HCS-P/SI/TK” classification marking. HCS-P refers to HUMINT Control System, which is “designed to protect intelligence information derived from clandestine human sources, commonly referred to as “human intelligence.” SI, or Special Intelligence, refers to a Sensitive Compartmented Information control system “designed to protect technical and intelligence information derived from the monitoring of foreign communications signals by other than the intended recipients,” according to the FBI.
London, who is also the author of “The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence,” said, “If HCS is on the cover sheet, it means at least some of that information was drawn from human sources. And HCS-P is sensitive even by human source standards.”
“Without being melodramatic, anything that helps an adversary identify a human source means life and death,” he said. “People’s lives are truly at stake.”
There is also a handwritten marker next to the document that reads “2A,” which appears to refer to “Item 2A” on the property receipt that was given to Trump’s lawyers following the search. On the receipt, “Item 2A” is described as “Various classified/TS/SCI documents.”
Dates on documents
Even though the contents of the documents can’t been seen in the photo, the dates on some documents are visible. While it’s not clear how or if the dates correlate to the classified information, they could provide potential clues regarding what Trump was publicly dealing with at the time.
Two documents with a “limited access” marker appear to be dated Aug. 26, 2018. While little else about those documents is visible, it’s known that in August 2018, Trump was in the thick of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.
The day before Aug. 26, Trump, posting on Twitter, unloaded on Muller and then-attorney general Jeff Sessions, who had by then recused himself from the Russia probe, according to records maintained by The American Presidency Project by UC Santa Barbara.
One month prior to that, Mueller had indicted 12 Russian military intelligence officers for hacking and releasing Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign.
In addition, days before Aug. 26, 2018, Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was found guilty on eight counts of tax fraud.
Aug. 26, 2018, was also the day after Sen. John McCain died.
A separate document shown in the photo bears the date May 9, 2018, which is the same day Trump gave a speech announcing he was withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
On that same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang, which led to Trump announcing that Pompeo would be returning to the U.S. with three Americans who had been released from prison in North Korea.
“I’m very honored to have helped these great folks, but the true honor is going to be if we have a victory in getting rid of nuclear weapons,” Trump said standing on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews. “We have a meeting scheduled in a very short period of time. We have the location set. We’ll see if we can do something that people did not think was going to happen for many, many years.”
Trump ended up meeting with Kim the following month at a summit in Singapore, after which Trump announced that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat to America. However North Korea resumed constructing new missiles the following month.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has sentenced former New York Police Department officer Thomas Webster to 10 years in prison for assaulting officers outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.
The sentence is the longest prison term yet for a defendant in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of Jan. 6, but short of the 17.5 years prosecutors had sought for Webster.
The DOJ had previously released harrowing officer body camera footage that showed Webster, 56, assaulting law enforcement.
The sentencing in D.C. court comes after a jury found Webster guilty on six charges, including assaulting a police officer, in May.
Webster was found guilty of assaulting D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer Noah Rathbun, who testified during the trial.
According to testimony and video of the riot, Webster, clad in a bulletproof vest and waving a Marine Corps flag, pushed toward the front of the crowd and yelled at Rathburn to “take your s— off!”
Video shows Webster swing a metal flagpole and breaking apart bike racks that were acting as a police perimeter. As Rathbun backed away, Webster tackled him and then pulled at the officer’s gas mask. Rathbun testified that he began to choke on his chin strap as Webster pulled at the mask. Video shows that Rathbun hit Webster’s face while trying to push him away.
During the trial, Webster claimed that Rathbun had provoked the fight and that he pulled at Rathbun’s mask as a form of self-defense.
Webster was convicted of assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer using a dangerous weapon; civil disorder; entering and remaining in restricted grounds with a dangerous weapon; engaging in physical violence in restricted grounds with a dangerous weapon; and engaging in an act of physical violence on Capitol grounds.
During his sentencing, Webster was given three years of supervised probation and ordered to pay $2,060 in restitution.
Judge Amit Mehta chose to apply a 4-level enhancement because Webster was wearing body armor. This alone added 30 months to the minimum sentence he could have received.
Mehta described Webster as an ordinary American, a public servant in the NYPD and the Marine Corps, who “lost everything in a split second.”
While making a statement during his sentencing hearing, Webster wept, saying he should have never come to D.C. on Jan. 6. He said he was overwhelmed and frustrated by his emotions and political rhetoric and should have known to turn away but did not have the courage to do so. He also apologized to Rathbun.
Webster, of the village of Florida, New York, served in the Marine Corps from 1985 to 1989 and as an NYPD officer from 1991 to 2011.
“As a former Marine and retired police officer, Thomas Webster could readily see the growing dangers to law enforcement when he and other members of the mob targeted the Capitol on January 6th,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a statement Thursday. “He chose to escalate the situation, brutally going on the attack. Today’s sentence holds him accountable for his repeated attacks of an officer that day.”
Webster’s lawyers had argued that Webster’s years of service, “exceptional character,” “impeccable conduct” as a uniformed police officer and “love and devotion to his country” warranted a less severe sentence than the DOJ sought.
