Politics

(ROCKVILLE, Md.) — President Joe Biden will hit the campaign trail on Thursday to highlight a series of policy wins as Democrats look to keep their narrow majorities in Congress during this fall’s elections.

Biden will “lay out the choice before Americans” when he speaks at a Democratic National Committee rally in Rockville, Maryland, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Biden’s appearance, happening exactly 75 days out from Election Day, comes after a string of summer legislative victories: the first major piece of gun reform in decades, Democrats’ landmark health care and climate change law and a bipartisan effort to boost semiconductor production in the U.S.

“He’ll highlight how he and congressional Democrats have delivered results for working families,” Jean-Pierre said as she teased his speech tonight. “Creating nearly 10 million jobs and record low unemployment, lowering health care costs and energy costs, passing a new gun safety law, which we hadn’t seen in decades.”

“And he’ll say that they have taken on special interest and won, that’s what Democrats have done,” Jean-Pierre added.

Earlier this week, the administration announced a plan to cancel thousands of dollars of student loan debt for millions of borrowers — fulfilling one pledge Biden made as a 2020 presidential candidate.

The policy has been lambasted by Republicans as unfair, and while many Democrats have celebrated the plan, some lawmakers in tough reelection races have distanced themselves from it.

Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democratic Senate nominee in Ohio, was critical of the move as sending “the wrong message to millions of Ohioans without a degree working just as hard to make ends meet.”

“Are you guys worried that you might have put more vulnerable Democrats in a tough spot? That you could have risked some of these races in November,” ABC News White House Correspondent MaryAlice Parks asked Jean-Pierre.

“I’m not going to get into politics and to what the next several weeks are going to look like,” Jean-Pierre responded. “But I can speak to the popularity of what we did, the importance of what we did, how this is going to help struggling families, and that has always been the plan of this president, especially as we look at the economy and making sure that we do not leave anybody behind.”

Biden will also warn about what his Republican in Congress would do if they are able to regain majority control — drawing on statements prominent GOP leaders have made about abortion access and gun rights.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — the landmark decision legalizing abortion access nationwide — at least 15 states (many led by Republicans) have ceased nearly all abortion services. Some Republicans in Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have floated the idea of a national ban on abortion.

“He’ll say what they are still fighting for is protecting a woman’s right to choose, not a national ban on abortion, which we have seen from the other side,” Jean-Pierre said. “The safety of kids in school, not protecting the NRA, as we’ve seen from the Republicans and the right to vote and have the — that vote counted, which is so incredibly important as we talk about our democracy.”

ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The judge considering the release of the affidavit used to support the search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday ordered a redacted version made public by noon on Friday.

It was unclear whether the Justice Department would appeal.

Earlier Thursday, the Justice Department submitted its proposed redactions to the affidavit.

In his order, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said that after reviewing DOJ’s memorandum and proposed redactions he believes the government has met its burden of showing a compelling reason and good cause to seal the requested portions of the affidavit because “disclosure would reveal the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, the investigation’s strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods, and grand jury information…”

He says that the government has also met its burden in showing that its proposed redactions “are narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit.”

He gave DOJ until noon Friday to file in the public docket a version of the affidavit containing the redactions sent Thursday.

Reinhart had given department officials a noon deadline Thursday to submit proposed redactions under seal as well as a legal memorandum explaining their justifications for the information that they believe should be kept hidden from public view. Reinhart had said he was not inclined to keep the full affidavit sealed, saying he believes there are portions of it that could presumably be unsealed.

The government argued in court last week that the redactions they believe would be necessary to protect the integrity of their ongoing criminal investigation would essentially render the document “meaningless.”

A coalition of media organizations, including ABC News, has urged for release of the affidavit even with redactions — citing the need to further inform the public in light of the historic nature of the search of a former president’s residence.

Jay Bratt, the head of DOJ’s counterintelligence division, said “there would be nothing of substance” adding that the government is “very concerned about the safety of the witnesses” and the impact releasing the affidavit could have on other witnesses.

“It doesn’t serve the media’s interest to give them something that is meaningless,” Bratt said.

Bratt argued there is information in the document that could easily identify witnesses based on the descriptions of events that only certain people would have knowledge about.

Reinhart said in a Monday filing that he might ultimately side with the government.

“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the Government,” he said.

Judge Reinhart said that he believes the government has met “its burden of showing good cause/a compelling interest that overrides any public interest in unsealing the full contents of the Affidavit.”

It was thought the Justice Department would likely seek to immediately appeal any decision that would release portions of the affidavit they are not comfortable releasing.

While former President Trump and his allies have publicly called for the release of the full affidavit, his legal team has made no such efforts in court since the Aug. 8 search, including as part of their motion filed Monday before a separate federal judge calling for the appointment of a special master to review materials seized by the FBI.

Instead, Trump’s lawyers requested federal Judge Aileen Cannon to issue an order directing investigators to halt their review of the materials taken from Mar-a-Lago pending appointment of a special master, return any personal materials swept up in the search, and provide a more detailed receipt of items that were seized.

The filing, which was riddled with falsehoods, misrepresentations and blatant references to a possible announcement of Trump’s plans to again run for the presidency in 2024, appeared to be met with confusion by Judge Cannon.

On Tuesday, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued an order requesting Trump’s team enter a supplemental filing by Friday with a line-item list of basic information not included in their original motion.

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(WASHINGTON) — Two Florida residents have pleaded guilty to stealing the diary of Ashley Biden, President Joe Biden’s youngest daughter, and then selling it to right-wing activist group Project Veritas, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Aimee Harris, 40, and Robert Kurlander, 58, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property involving the theft of personal belongings of an immediate family member of a then-former government official for taking several items belonging to Ashley Biden in September 2020. The charge carries a maximum of five years in prison.

Kurlander has also agreed to cooperate with the government.

Though Ashley Biden, 41, is not named in the court documents, a source familiar with the case confirmed they were her belongings.

“Harris and Kurlander stole personal property from an immediate family member of a candidate for national political office,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “They sold the property to an organization in New York for $40,000 and even returned to take more of the victim’s property when asked to do so.”

Biden had stored a handwritten journal containing highly personal entries, tax records, a digital storage card containing private family photographs and a cellphone, among other things, in a private residence in Delray Beach, Florida, where Harris was also staying.

After she stole Biden’s items, she contacted Kurlander and they got in touch with a representative from Project Veritas. They met with the Veritas employee in New York City shortly after they made contract with them, the DOJ said.

“During that meeting, Harris described the circumstances of how she had obtained the property, and provided the property to the Organization,” court documents say. “After the meeting, and at the Organization’s request, HARRIS and KURLANDER returned to Florida to obtain more of the Victim’s property in order to provide it to the Organization.”

They were paid $20,000 each by Project Veritas after providing more of Biden’s personal belongings, according to the DOJ.

In a statement Thursday, Project Veritas said, “Project Veritas’ news gathering was ethical and legal. A journalist’s lawful receipt of material later alleged to be stolen is routine, commonplace, and protected by the First Amendment.”

After the pair went to the house in Florida to steal more of the information, Kurklander sent a text to Harris, saying they expected as much as $100,000 from Project Veritas for the additional possessions.

“They are in a sketchy business and here they are taking what’s literally a stolen diary and info … and trying to make a story that will ruin [the Victim’s] life and try and effect the election. [The Victim] can easily be thinking all her stuff is there and not concerned about it. … we have to tread even more carefully and that stuff needs to be gone through by us and if anything worthwhile it needs to be turned over and MUST be out of that house,” the text message said according to court documents.

Harris acquired Ashley Biden’s property after she was invited to live there shortly after Ashley moved out. Biden stored her stuff at the property, according to the DOJ.

The duo also allegedly tried to sell the stolen property at a fundraiser benefiting “Candidate-2,” which is believed to be former President Donald Trump. Harris and Kurklander “attended the fundraiser with the intent of showing the Victim’s stolen property to a campaign representative of Candidate-2, hoping that the political campaign would purchase it.”

The campaign representative declined to purchase the information.

“A representative of Candidate-2’s political campaign conveyed to AIMEE HARRIS and ROBERT KURLANDER, the defendants, that the campaign was not interested in purchasing the property and advised HARRIS and KURLANDER to provide the items to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the court documents said.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge granted the Biden administration a preliminary injunction Wednesday in its lawsuit against a near-total ban on abortions in Idaho — temporarily barring some enforcement of the new law.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state over the ban, which goes into effect on Thursday, arguing that it violates a federal law guaranteeing access to emergency medical care.

The Idaho abortion law would make it a felony to perform an abortion in all but extremely narrow circumstances. There are exceptions for cases of rape or incest that have been reported. To avoid criminal liability, a doctor must prove that the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman, though there is no defense for an abortion to protect the woman’s health, according to the DOJ.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise granted a preliminary injunction, effective immediately, barring the state from enforcing the law “as applied to medical care required by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act” amid the court proceedings, his order stated.

The case at hand is “not about the bygone constitutional right to an abortion,” he wrote. “This Court is not grappling with that larger, more profound question. Rather, the Court is called upon to address a far more modest issue — whether Idaho’s criminal abortion statute conflicts with a small but important corner of federal legislation. It does.”

Given that the U.S. has shown it will “likely succeed on the merits,” he continued, “the Court has determined it should preserve the status quo while the parties litigate this matter.”

The state is prohibited from enforcing the law to the extent that it conflicts with Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act-mandated care, Winmill ordered.

The decision “ensures that women in the State of Idaho can obtain the emergency medical treatment to which they are entitled under federal law. This includes abortion when that is the necessary treatment,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will continue to use every tool at its disposal to defend the reproductive rights protected by federal law.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the ruling “will prevent serious harm to women in Idaho.”

In its complaint, filed on Aug. 2, the Justice Department claimed that the Idaho law violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which states that hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required to provide necessary treatment to women who arrive at their emergency departments while experiencing a medical emergency. That medical care could include providing an abortion, according to the DOJ.

The Justice Department is seeking a declaratory judgment that the Idaho law is preempted by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act in emergency situations, as well as an order permanently barring the law to the extent that it conflicts with the federal act.

The lawsuit marked the Biden administration’s first legal challenge to a state abortion ban after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June, ending the constitutional right to an abortion.

Prosecutors argued that the Idaho law would prevent doctors from performing medically necessary abortions, as required by federal law.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden called the lawsuit “politically motivated” and charged that the DOJ did not attempt to “engage Idaho in a meaningful dialogue on the issue” prior to filing its complaint.

A case involving the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act as it pertains to abortion care is also ongoing in Texas.

Last month, the state of Texas sued the Biden administration on its guidance to hospitals that doctors should perform an abortion if doing so would protect a woman’s health. The complaint was filed days after Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra instructed hospitals to follow the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act when determining whether to provide an abortion in emergency cases “regardless of the restrictions in the state where you practice.”

On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the federal government from enforcing the guidance, saying the federal law is “silent as to abortion.”

Attorneys for the state of Idaho drew attention to that case in a court filing on Wednesday, saying Idaho “has not yet had a full opportunity to consider how the Texas court’s decision should be persuasive in aspects of this current lawsuit, or in the pending preliminary injunction motion.”

Garland said the DOJ is considering “appropriate next steps” following the Texas court’s decision.

Idaho’s so-called trigger law would be even more restrictive than an abortion ban that went into effect in the state earlier this month. That law, modeled after a similar “heartbeat law” in Texas, bans abortion at about six weeks and also allows civil lawsuits against medical providers who perform the procedure.

Amid legal challenges from abortion providers, the Idaho Supreme Court upheld both abortion laws in a ruling issued on Aug. 12, allowing them to go into effect.

Another trigger law that would make it a felony for doctors to perform an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy went into effect on Aug. 19 in the state. That law, which has exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies, is also currently being challenged by abortion providers.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Thursday is expected to file a heavily redacted version of the affidavit used to support a search warrant of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month, as a magistrate judge weighs whether to make portions of it public.

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart gave department officials a noon deadline to submit proposed redactions under seal as well as a legal memorandum explaining their justifications for the information that they believe should be kept hidden from public view. Reinhart said he was not inclined to keep the full affidavit sealed, saying he believes there are portions of it that could presumably be unsealed.

The government argued in court last week that the redactions they believe would be necessary to protect the integrity of their ongoing criminal investigation would essentially render the document “meaningless.”

A coalition of media organizations, including ABC News, has urged for release of the affidavit even with redactions — citing the need to further inform the public in light of the historic nature of the search of a former president’s residence.

Jay Bratt, the head of DOJ’s counterintelligence division, said “there would be nothing of substance” adding that the government is “very concerned about the safety of the witnesses” and the impact releasing the affidavit could have on other witnesses.

“It doesn’t serve the media’s interest to give them something that is meaningless,” Bratt said.

Bratt argued there is information in the document that could easily identify witnesses based on the descriptions of events that only certain people would have knowledge about.

Reinhart said in a Monday filing that he may ultimately side with the government.

“I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the Government,” he said.

Judge Reinhart says that he believes the government has met “its burden of showing good cause/a compelling interest that overrides any public interest in unsealing the full contents of the Affidavit.”

The Justice Department would likely seek to immediately appeal any decision that would release portions of the affidavit they are not comfortable releasing.

While former President Trump and his allies have publicly called for the release of the full affidavit, his legal team has made no such efforts in court since the Aug. 8 search, including as part of their motion filed Monday before a separate federal judge calling for the appointment of a special master to review materials seized by the FBI.

Instead, Trump’s lawyers requested federal Judge Aileen Cannon to issue an order directing investigators to halt their review of the materials taken from Mar-a-Lago pending appointment of a special master, return any personal materials swept up in the search, and provide a more detailed receipt of items that were seized.

The filing, which was riddled with falsehoods, misrepresentations and blatant references to a possible announcement of Trump’s plans to again run for the presidency in 2024, appeared to be met with confusion by Judge Cannon.

On Tuesday, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued an order requesting Trump’s team enter a supplemental filing by Friday with a line-item list of basic information not included in their original motion.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Homeland Security took steps on Wednesday to codify the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program into regulatory policy — even as a court case threatens to upend the ability of migrants who were brought illegally into the U.S. as young children to remain in the country.

Since President Barack Obama launched the policy in 2012, the DHS estimates that more than 825,000 immigrants have been enrolled in DACA, which temporarily protects them from deportation and allows them to obtain work authorization.

The DHS’ final rule, issued Wednesday after being subject to public comment, is a technical move that seeks to absorb DACA under administrative law rather than through presidential discretion.

The rule largely preserves the eligibility criteria outlined in a 2012 memo by then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, including the requirement that applicants must have arrived in the U.S. before the age of 16 and must have continuously resided in the country for at least five years before June 15, 2012.

“We are taking another step to do everything in our power to preserve and fortify DACA, an extraordinary program that has transformed the lives of so many Dreamers,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Thanks to DACA, we have been enriched by young people who contribute so much to our communities and our country. Yet, we need Congress to pass legislation that provides an enduring solution for the young Dreamers who have known no country other than the United States as their own,” Mayorkas said, referring to the people in the program by a common nickname.

Since its inception, DACA has faced multiple legal challenges from those who say Obama overreached his authority. An ongoing case in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals seeks to have the court rule the program unlawful and end it. A decision there may come any day.

Despite Wednesday’s regulatory filing by DHS, DACA remains closed to new applicants as a result of a July 2021 decision from a federal court in Texas. Only those who already have DACA status can apply to renew it under the new framework, according to DHS.

The department’s final rule would not go into effect until Oct. 31 and it was unclear how Wednesday’s move would impact any current litigation.

“President [Joe] Biden campaigned on strengthening and fortifying DACA. This final DACA rule fails to strengthen the program by not expanding it to include the majority of undocumented immigrant youth who are graduating from high school this year and not eligible for the program because of arbitrary cut-off dates,” Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of federal advocacy for the group United We Dream, said in a statement, in part.

“This rule does not bring us any closer to seeing true protection for DACA recipients and immigrant youth,” Macedo do Nascimento said.

The DHS rule will preserve the original process for applying for a renewal of deferred action — shielding young migrants from deportation — and a work permit despite the department suggesting in an earlier proposal that it would have potential applicants apply for a permit and for deportation protection separately.

Immigration advocates had warned that decoupling the two benefits would leave people susceptible to losing work authorization while maintaining deferred deportation if a future administration wished to make DACA recipients ineligible to work.

DHS estimates that as of 2020, DACA recipients and their households pay around $5.6 billion in annual federal taxes and $3.1 billion in annual state and local taxes. Many people in the program have gone on to acquire professional certificates, advanced school degrees and about 56,000 have become homeowners, DHS said.

After the final rule was published, Biden issued a statement on Wednesday reaffirming his support for the “Dreamers,” whom he said were “part of the fabric of this nation.”

“They serve on the frontlines of the pandemic response. They are students, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. Many serve bravely in our military. They’ve only ever known America as their home,” Biden said.

Although the president made no mention of the ongoing legal challenges to DACA, he called on Republicans to support a pathway to citizenship — a politically fraught process that has divided the GOP and repeatedly failed, over the years, to result in federal legislation.

“It is not only the right thing to do,” Biden argued of congressional action, “it is also the smart thing to do for our economy and our communities.”

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(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Most of the Florida school board candidates backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis won their elections on Tuesday — an indication that the ascendant Republican’s conservative stance on education is moving the needle with some parents across the state.

DeSantis at his election night rally on Tuesday night declared victories for his endorsees, of which 25 out of 30 won or are likely to win their races.

He again lauded that success on Wednesday at a rally in Seminole County, casting the races in the culture-war language that has become his signature.

“We were able to take school boards that had leftist majorities … people that wanted to mask your kids, people that wanted to indoctrinate your kids. We were able to replace them all across the state,” DeSantis argued at another stop on his “Keep America Free” tour. “We were able to replace union-backed candidates with conservatives.”

In the days leading up to Florida’s primaries, DeSantis campaigned across the state on his “Education Agenda Tour.” He joined with school board candidates who share his “anti-woke” agenda, giving them one final push before their races.

“We didn’t have a primary for me … we didn’t have Senate [race], attorney general [race], none of that,” he said. “So what was the motivation?” he added, referencing the turnout of Republican voters. “One of the reasons is we worked hard to elect pro-student, pro-parent candidates all across the state of Florida.”

With DeSantis at the helm, Florida Republicans have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the down-ballot, typically apolitical races. The rare move to endorse and even share campaign funds with school board candidates comes as DeSantis has made a legislative push to preserve what he calls parents’ rights in schools, over criticism that he is trying to restrict some topics from the classroom.

In recent months, Florida’s GOP-controlled legislature has passed bills barring race-based conversations in schools and for some grades, the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The issue of education and parents’ oversight of the classroom has become a key tenant of the GOP’s campaign message in recent years, in particular after the onset of COVID-19 and the resulting remote schooling and school closures. Voters in some places have responded favorably, such as with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 victory in Virginia.

Youngkin ran in large part on the issue of parental choice in COVID-related school restrictions.

In recent months in Florida, DeSantis has signed legislation like the Parental Rights in Education Bill, denounced by its opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bans the discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools for children from kindergarten to third grade or in other classroom settings where it is deemed inappropriate.

DeSantis also signed the so-called Stop WOKE Act to block critical race theory in schools. (The theory is typically taught only in high-level academic settings, not grade school.) Last week, a federal judge declared portions of that bill unconstitutional.

The governor’s school board victories in Florida include two races in Miami-Dade County, one of the stops on DeSantis’ “Education Agenda Tour.” Monica Colucci, who rallied with him on Sunday, defeated a 24-year incumbent on her platform of keeping “socialist curriculums” away from schools.

In Sarasota, another of Florida’s largest counties, three DeSantis endorsed candidates won their races, flipping the school board to a four-to-one conservative majority.

The Florida Department of Education — whose commissioner, Manny Diaz, also spoke on DeSantis’ tour — announced last week it would give U.S. military veterans and their spouses five-year temporary teaching certificates as they complete bachelor’s degrees. The policy has been opposed by teachers’ unions across Florida, who say hiring unqualified instructors would be harmful to students.

Democrats, who also decided to endorse 18 school board candidates, saw just five victories on Tuesday night. They unseated Fred Lowry, who as a Volusia County councilman faced calls to resign after he espoused a far-right conspiracy theory.

Diyonne McGraw, who was removed from her seat last year by DeSantis and replaced with Mildred Russell after it was discovered she lives around 300 feet outside of the district, ran again and beat out Russell.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated Kim Cheatle to lead the United States Secret Service, the White House announced.

“Kim has had a long and distinguished career at the Secret Service, having risen through the ranks during her 27 years with the agency, becoming the first woman in the role of Assistant Director of protective operations,” Biden said in a statement.

The Bidens have a close relationship with Cheatle. She served on Biden’s security detail when he was vice president. Biden said his family “came to trust her judgment and counsel.”

“She is a distinguished law enforcement professional with exceptional leadership skills, and was easily the best choice to lead the agency at a critical moment for the Secret Service,” his statement said. “She has my complete trust, and I look forward to working with her.”

The director is not a Senate-confirmed position.

Prior to leaving the agency for the private sector, Cheatle not only served in leadership roles in Washington, D.C. but also around the country for the agency.

“She has deep knowledge and understanding of the Agency’s missions to investigate and protect. I am confident that her skillset, combined with her fresh perspective, will ensure the Secret Service builds on its strong foundation to grow and evolve into an even more effective agency,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Secret Service is housed in the Department of Homeland Security.

Don Mihalek, an ABC News contributor and a retired Secret Service agent who worked with Cheatle during his time at the agency, told ABC News she “is a professional that has the competency and capability to lead the agency.”

Mihalek said the agency she is returning to is “different” than the one she retired from two years ago, and it will be her decision which direction the agency goes.

The Secret Service has come under scrutiny as of late for the deletion of text messages on and in the days surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A Secret Service spokesman last month acknowledged text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, were deleted after being sought by the DHS inspector general.

A letter sent by the inspector general last Wednesday to the heads of the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees said the messages were deleted “as part of a device-replacement program” despite the inspector general requesting such communications.

Anthony Guglielmi, the agency spokesman, dismissed any “insinuation” the agents had “maliciously” deleted the texts.

The agency sent out communications to employees on how to upload digital files on their local devices if they are government records, according to a source familiar with the Secret Service migration process.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that his administration is forgiving some student loan debt for U.S. borrowers and extending the federal student loan repayment pause until Dec. 31, both actions that have been highly anticipated and closely watched by millions of Americans.

The move comes a week before the pause on student loan repayments was set to expire on Aug. 31. The measure was put in place in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and was designed to relieve borrowers from defaulting on student loans and allow them to begin repayments in good standing when the state of the economy improved.

The new changes could “provide relief to up to 43 million borrowers, including cancelling the full remaining balance for roughly 20 million borrowers,” according to a White House fact sheet.

The move could be of particular benefit to women, who hold nearly two-thirds of all student loan debt in the U.S., according to the American Association of University Women, and Black borrowers, who are disproportionately burdened by student loan debt, according to the National Consumer Law Center.

Below are some of the top questions surrounding student loan forgiveness and what experts say borrowers should consider.

How much in student loans can be forgiven?

The president tweeted an outline of the changes on Wednesday, which include forgiving up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Americans who attended colleges and universities on federal Pell grants and up to $10,000 for Americans who did not attend schools on Pell grants. This would only apply to borrowers who earn $125,000 or less per year.

When does student loan repayment start?

The federal student loan pause ends on Dec. 31. Those with student loans will have to start making repayments in January 2023.

Additionally, those with undergraduate loans will be able to cap their repayments at 5% of their monthly income.

How many Americans have student loan debt?

The federal government estimates that more than 45 million Americans have approximately $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, according to the White House fact sheet published Wednesday.

What is the average amount of student loan debt?

According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, American undergraduates hold nearly $25,000 in student loans after graduation.

Who do you contact when it’s time to enroll in a repayment plan?

Borrowers should contact their loan servicer(s) to determine how to begin or resume making repayments and to discuss specific conditions of repayments. If a borrower was using an auto-debit service previously, they should not expect the service to proceed again automatically.

What happens when you refinance a student loan?

Student loans can be federal student loans that are funded by the federal government or private loans managed by a lender like a bank, school, state agency, or other institution. Private student loans are not included in Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.

A federal student loan can be refinanced or reorganized into a private loan with different terms, but borrowers should carefully consider the benefits and drawbacks before doing so. There are advantages a borrower may have to give up if refinancing, including qualifying for temporary loan payment relief, no interest periods, potential loan forgiveness and discharges, according to the Department of Education.

What is the best student loan repayment plan?

There are several types of student loans and a borrower will need to take a closer look at what types of loans they have — whether federal or private — and the different terms for each loan.

How else can a borrower get student loan forgiveness?

The federal government is giving borrowers until Oct. 31 to apply for a waiver and credits for past repayment periods under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a federal program that forgives student loan balances after a borrower, who has worked full-time for a qualifying employer, has completed 120 qualifying payments. These payments can be ones made under income-driven repayment plans.

Under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, the federal government also established a Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness program which may apply to borrowers who don’t necessarily qualify for the PSLF program.

Borrowers can visit the StudentAid.gov website to see if they qualify for or to apply for the PSLF/TEPSLF program and/or waivers and credits.

For additional information on the student loan forgiveness program changes and for more details that will be released in the coming weeks, borrowers can visit the StudentAid.gov website.

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(WASHINGTON) — Under order from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Justice Department on Wednesday released a 2019 memo used by former Attorney General William Barr to justify his decision not to prosecute then-President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice arising from Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

The department initially released a redacted version of the memo in May 2021, stemming from a Freedom of Information Act suit brought by the watchdog group the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). That version fully redacted more than six out of the memo’s 10 pages.

On Friday, however, a panel of judges in the D.C. Circuit ordered the release of the full memo, affirming a district court decision that had found Barr and other DOJ officials were not candid in their statements about the role the memo played in their decision to not charge Trump.

DOJ officials previously told the court that the memo should be kept from the public because it involved internal department deliberations and the advice given to Barr about whether Trump should face prosecution.

But a district judge ruled that Barr was never engaged in such a process and had already made up his mind to not charge Trump.

The full memo released Wednesday outlines the rationale given to Barr from Steven Engel, the former head of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Ed O’Callaghan, the then-principal associate deputy attorney general.

Both write that former special counsel Mueller’s report on his investigation of Trump and Russia “identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constituted obstructive acts, done with a nexus to a pending proceeding, with the corrupt intent necessary to warrant prosecution under obstruction-of-justice statutes.”

In the March 2019 memo, they said their determination was reached separate from considering whether Trump was already immune from prosecution because of his status as a sitting president.

“The memorandum advised Attorney General Barr on what, if any, determination he should make regarding whether the facts articulated in Special Counsel Mueller’s report were sufficient under the Principles of Federal Prosecution to establish that the President of the United States had committed obstruction of justice,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday.

“The suit was filed under the Freedom of Information Act seeking public disclosure of this internal memo,” the spokesperson said. “The litigation involved only whether the government had properly withheld from disclosure portions of the memo under FOIA – it did not involve the merits of the advice provided in the memo.”

In the 2019 document, Engel and O’Callaghan detailed multiple justifications for declining a prosecution of Trump for actions stemming from the Mueller report, which laid out 10 possible instances of obstruction of justice investigated by the special counsel’s team.

They wrote that the instances in Mueller’s report were not similar to “any reported case” DOJ had previously charged under obstruction-of-justice statutes and described Mueller’s obstruction theory as “novel” and “unusual” because of the conclusion he reached in the first volume of his report — that evidence developed “was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with representative of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.”

“It would be rare for federal prosecutors to bring an obstruction prosecution that did not itself arise out of a proceeding related to a separate crime,” the memo states.

Engel and O’Callaghan wrote that “much of” Trump’s conduct in the report instead “amounted to attempts to modify the process under which the Special Counsel investigation progressed, rather than efforts to impair or intentionally alter evidence… that would negatively impact the special counsel’s ability to obtain and develop evidence.”

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