(PHOENIX, Az.) — Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is running in Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary, said a review of the 2020 election found that just one ballot was cast in a dead voter’s name, refuting allegations, mostly from Trump supporters, that nearly 300 such ballots had been returned two years ago.
The finding from Brnovich’s office, revealed in a letter to state Senate President Karen Fann, also a Republican, marks another knock on a partisan review conducted by the Cyber Ninjas firm and propelled by Republican state senators.
The criminal investigation was sparked last year after former President Donald Trump and his allies alleged without evidence that voter fraud cost him a victory in the Grand Canyon State in 2020.
“After spending hundreds of hours reviewing these allegations, our investigators were able to determine only one of the 282 voters on the list was deceased at the time of the election. All other persons listed as deceased were found to be current voters,” Brnovich wrote, referencing the Cyber Ninjas report allegations.
Brnovich added that some of the claims “were so absurd” that the “names and birthdates didn’t even match the deceased, and others included dates of death after the election.”
“Our agents investigated all individuals that Cyber Ninjas reported as dead, and many were surprised to learn they were allegedly deceased,” he wrote.
“We supported the Arizona Senate’s ability to conduct an audit of Maricopa County’s elections and understand the importance of reviewing the results,” Brnovich wrote. “However, allegations of widespread deceased voters from the Senate Audit and other complaints…are insufficient and not corroborated.”
The letter from Brnovich did not say if there were any charges stemming from the one ballot cast on behalf of a deceased voter.
The Cyber Ninjas review, widely panned by Democrats and elections officials, focused on Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest county and the home to Phoenix. Despite the claims of the 282 ballots, the firm’s report still showed that now-President Joe Biden won the state by 360 more votes than originally believed.
Fann said in a statement that she is “thankful’ to Brnovich’s efforts.
“They asked us to do the hard work of fact finding, and we are delivering the facts. This step of the AG’s investigation is critical to restoring the diminished confidence our constituents expressed following the last election. We’re grateful for the increased voter integrity measures put in place after the audit revealed weaknesses in our election processes,” she said.
The report comes as debates over “election integrity” in the GOP Senate primary, which will pit Brnovich against Blake Masters and Jim Lamon, among others.
Masters and Lamon have questioned the results of the 2020 election in Arizona, while Brnovich has defended the vote in the state but has expressed concern over “serious vulnerabilities” in the electoral system.
(WASHINGTON) — Top Democrats in Congress investigating the events of Jan. 6 continued to allege that the government’s federal watchdog for Homeland Security abandoned efforts to collect texts and phone records from that day.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chair the House Oversight and Homeland Security committees, on Monday renewed calls for Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to step away from the watchdog’s investigation.
“We recently called for you to step aside from this matter and for a new IG to be appointed in light of revelations that you had failed to keep Congress informed of your inability to obtain key information from the Secret Service,” the chairs said in a letter to Cuffari. “Removing yourself from this investigation is even more urgent today.”
“These documents also indicate that your office may have taken steps to cover up the extent of missing records,” the chairs added.
Last month, Cuffari told Congress that the U.S. Secret Service had deleted text messages from Jan. 5 and 6 and that record reviews by DHS attorneys were causing months-long delays.
But House Democrats on Monday said the inspector general may have abandoned plans to collect the texts from the Secret Service more than a year ago and did not report the issues until recently. They requested interviews with Cuffari’s staff as well as internal documents from the office.
Responding to questions on Homeland Security’s data retention policy and the missing records, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Marsha Espinosa said the department is working with the Jan. 6 committee and is cooperating with the ongoing investigations.
“DHS is fully cooperating with the ongoing investigations and, as appropriate, looking into every avenue to recover text messages and other materials for the Jan. 6 investigations,” Espinosa said in a statement. “The Department is in continued close communication with, and deeply committed to supporting the Jan. 6 Committee and those investigating the events that occurred that day.”
A spokesperson for the Secret Service acknowledged in a recent statement that some phone data from January 2021 was lost as the result of a pre-planned data transfer, noting that the transfer was underway when the IG office made the request in February 2021.
The committees also said that former DHS Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli was using his personal phone, potentially for official government businesses, and Congress was not notified by the inspector general. A report from the government accountability group Project on Government Oversight found that messages from Cuccinelli and then-DHS Secretary Chad Wolf have also gone missing.
“I complied with all data retention laws and returned all my equipment fully loaded to the Department,” Wolf said in a tweet last week. “DHS has all my texts, emails, phone logs, schedules, etc. Any issues with missing data needs to be addressed to DHS.”
A senior DHS official told ABC News that text messages are not always assumed to be records as defined by federal data retention law and individual employees are required to ensure the proper storage of records while working in an official capacity.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — After a series of delays and emotional protests, the Senate is expected to vote Tuesday night on a bill that would help veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
Schumer announced that the Senate will begin voting on the PACT Act at 5 p.m., with votes on three Republican amendments before a vote on final passage of the bill. Republicans agreed to the deal.
“I believe it will pass and pass this evening,” Schumer said during his weekly press conference.
The PACT Act passed the Senate earlier this year, but after a quick fix in the House required the bill to be voted on again, 26 Republican senators changed their votes and blocked swift passage of the act last week, sparking outrage among Democrats and veterans groups.
Comedian and activist Jon Stewart has become the face of this legislation, joining veterans in protest outside the Capitol for the last several days. He’s harshly criticized Republicans and demanded action from lawmakers.
“America’s heroes who fought in our wars outside sweating their asses off with oxygen, battling all kinds of ailments” while Republican senators were sitting “in the air conditioning walled off from any of it,” Stewart said during a press conference in front of the Capitol Building on Thursday. “They don’t have to hear it, they don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings.”
Republicans said they did not object to the new funding for veterans in the bill, but wanted the opportunity to modify a “budget gimmick” they say could be exploited by Democrats. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., has led Republicans in their opposition, insisting on an amendment to change language in the bill he says could free up $400 billion in existing funds already being used for veterans by shuffling the money inside the budget to use for unrelated purposes.
“What matters to a veteran whose ill because of a toxic exposure is that the money is there to cover what he needs, that’s what he should be concerned about and that will be there,” Toomey said Tuesday. “What I am trying to limit is the extent that they could use a budget gimmick to reclassify a reclassify spending and go on an unrelated spending binge.”
Republicans will finally get their shot at closing this perceived budget loophole during a Tuesday night vote, when they consider Toomey’s amendment to modify accounting provisions in the bill. It will almost certainly fail.
“We have an exceptionally sympathetic overwhelmingly popular group of Americans, and rightfully so, they are veterans,” Toomey said. “There is overwhelming consensus to provide the resources to at least cover their healthcare cost and provide them with disability benefits because of their service to our country. In fact the cause is so popular that the 280 billion of new spending.
Schumer on the floor called today’s development “good news.”
“Our veterans across America can breathe a sigh of relief,” Schumer said on the floor. “The treatment that they deserve and have been denied by the VA because of all kinds of legal barriers and presumptions will now be gone.”
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Tuesday continued to highlight what it said was President Joe Biden’s “success” in killing Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader involved in the planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying it “has undoubtedly made the United States safer.”
National security adviser Jake Sullivan also said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that the strike vindicated Biden’s controversial and chaotic withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan last August.
“It has proven the president right when he said one year ago that we did not need to keep thousands of American troops in Afghanistan fighting and dying in a 20-year war to be able to hold terrorists at risk and to defeat threats to the United States,” Sullivan said.
The White House also released a new photograph it said showed Biden in the Situation Room on July 1 getting briefed briefed on the proposed operation by CIA director William Burns and being shown a model of the safe house where al-Zawahiri was hiding.
A White House official later confirmed to ABC News that the closed wooden box on the table in the photograph contained the scale model of the house.
When Biden announced al-Zawahiri’s death on Monday in an address from the White House, he stated “justice has been delivered” and he made a point of saying he had been careful before approving the strike that no civilians would be killed.
A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that the CIA carried out the operation.
A separate senior administration official said Monday there was no indication of anyone else harmed by the two Hellfire missiles fired from a drone, missiles with rotating blades that use kinetic energy to kill, different from large explosions, to limit collateral damage.
But with no U.S. forces on the ground, it was unclear how the administration could be certain of that.
Al-Zawahiri was killed at approximately 9:48 p.m. on July 30 on the balcony of his safe house in downtown Kabul after months of planning among various parts of the counterterrorism community, a senior administration official told reporters Monday.
Biden was first briefed on al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts back in April, the official told reporters, and received updates on the development of the target throughout May and June.
Biden convened several other meetings with his key advisers and Cabinet members in the weeks that followed to carefully scrutinize the intelligence and evaluate the best course of action, the official said.
A final meeting was held on July 25, during which Biden authorized the strike.
The White House photo of Biden was reminiscent of a similar photo of President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Situation Room watching the 2011 U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
While this most recent strike was largely applauded by members of Congress, Republicans focused on what they called Biden’s “disastrous withdrawal” from Afghanistan that they say reopened the door for al-Qaeda in the country.
“It is noteworthy where [al-Zawahiri] was in Kabul,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a floor speech on Tuesday. “So, al-Qaeda is back as a result of the Taliban being back in power and describing the current situation in Afghanistan as a success is utterly absurd.”
McConnell said the “precipitous decision” to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan has “produced the return of the conditions that were there before 9/11.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is demanding an immediate intelligence briefing for Congress on the “possible reemergence” of the terrorist organization. Rep. Mike McCaul, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, went so far as to say Biden lied to the American people when he said last year al-Qaeda was “gone” from Afghanistan.
Sullivan pushed back on the criticism on “Good Morning America,” stating the drone strike is proof the U.S. can continue to go after its enemies “over the horizon” without endangering American service members.
“There is not a single American in harm’s way in that country in uniform and there was nobody on the ground in uniform when this strike occurred and yet we were able to take Ayman al-Zawahiri off the battlefield,” Sullivan told GMA co-anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I would call that a successful, effective policy that protects our troops, protects our people and ensures that Afghanistan will not be a safe haven for terrorists.”
But questions remain about how the U.S. will respond to the Taliban’s actions in sheltering al-Zawahiri. Senior members of the Taliban were aware of his presence in Kabul this year, the senior administration official told reporters Monday.
The official also said Haqqani Taliban members took actions after the airstrike to conceal al-Zawahiri’s presence at the location and acted quickly to remove al-Zawahiri’s wife, his daughter and her children to another location consistent with a broader effort to cover up that they had been living in the safe house.
Sullivan said the U.S. is in direct communication with the Taliban but did not reveal any specifics on how exactly the Taliban will be held accountable.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also declined to provide additional details on what specific steps the U.S. will take to hold the Taliban accountable during Tuesday’s press briefing, but said the “strike itself shows how serious we are about accountability.”
“It shows how serious we are about defending our interests,” Kirby added.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday the Taliban “grossly” violated the Doha Agreement by sheltering al-Zawahiri. In the 2020 agreement, the Taliban said they wouldn’t harbor al-Qaeda members.
“They also betrayed the Afghan people and their own stated desire for recognition from and normalization with the international community,” Blinken said. “In the face of the Taliban’s unwillingness or inability to abide by their commitments, we will continue to support the Afghan people with robust humanitarian assistance and to advocate for the protection of their human rights, especially of women and girls.”
Despite the Taliban’s sheltering of al-Zawahiri, Kirby told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega that Afghanistan will “never” become a safe haven for terrorists.
“If you were to ask the members of al-Qaeda, ask them how safe they feel in Afghanistan right now,” Kirby said. “I think we proved … this weekend that it isn’t a safe haven and it isn’t going to be going forward.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Trish Turner, Allison Pecorin and Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Lt. Gen. Michael E. Langley was confirmed by the Senate on Monday as a four-star general, making history as the first Black Marine to attain that rank.
The Senate’s confirmation came after President Joe Biden nominated Langley in June to lead the U.S. Africa Command, responsible for military operations in Africa.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Langley said at his July 21 confirmation hearing that his father, retired U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Willie C. Langley, served in the military for 25 years, while his stepmother, Ola Langley, served the U.S. Post Office.
Langley has served for 37 years, including as the deputy commanding general of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, deputy commanding general of the Fleet Marine Force, and as the commanding general of the Marine Forces Europe and Africa. In November 2021, he assumed the duties of commanding general, Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, and commander, Marine Forces Command and Marine Forces Northern Command.
“It is a great honor to be the president’s nominee to lead USAFRICOM. I am grateful to the trust and confidence extended by him, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the commandant of the Marine Corps,” Langley said in the July Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Following its founding on Nov. 10, 1775, the U.S. Marine Corps barred Black Americans from enlisting until President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. While the order prohibited discriminatory recruitment practices in national defense departments, agencies and industries, civil rights concerns remained, according to the National Archives.
In 1948, President Harry S. Truman issued another executive order that banned segregation in the armed forces. Executive Order 9981 was initially met with resistance from military personnel, according to the National Archives, but all units were eventually desegregated by the end of the Korean War.
Despite significant progress since the Marine Corps’ establishment, Black men and women are still underrepresentedin the Marines Corps senior leadership, according to a 2020 Council on Foreign Relations report. In 2016, the Department of Defense reported there were six Black general-ranking officers serving in the Marine Corps out of a total 87 across all racial demographics.
“Now, the global security environment we are witnessing today is the most challenging I have seen throughout my 37 years,” Langley said during the July hearing, referencing “global tensions” and other threats.
Nevertheless, he said, he is “enthusiastic to engage across the whole government to faithfully execute the policies and orders of the president and the secretary of defense.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday announced the Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the state of Idaho challenging its law that will take effect next month that would make it a felony to perform an abortion in all but extremely narrow circumstances.
Garland said the law violates the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) that states hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required to provide necessary treatment to patients who arrive at their emergency departments while experiencing a medical emergency.
That medical care, according to Garland and the DOJ lawsuit, could include providing an abortion.
“The suit seeks to hold invalid the state’s criminal prohibition on providing abortions, as applied to women who are suffering medical emergencies,” Garland said in a press conference at the Justice Department. “As detailed in our complaint, Idaho’s law would make it a criminal offense for doctors to provide emergency medical treatment that federal law requires.”
Garland said that while the law, which will take effect next month, provides an exception in order to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, “it includes no exception for cases in which the abortion is necessary to prevent serious jeopardy to the woman’s health.”
“Moreover, it would subject doctors to arrest and criminal prosecution even if they perform an abortion to save a woman’s life,” Garland said. “And that would then place the burden on the doctors that they are not criminally liable.”
Garland used his press conference to put on notice other states who he says have passed restrictions on reproductive health care that similarly run afoul of federal law in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
“We will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that pregnant women get the emergency medical treatment to which they are entitled under federal law,” Garland said. “And we will closely scrutinize state abortion laws to ensure that they comply with federal law.”
The lawsuit asks a judge to declare the Idaho law invalid under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and is preempted by federal law to the extent that it conflicts with EMTALA.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden continued to test positive for COVID-19 Tuesday but is feeling “well,” according to a memo from Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician.
“The President continues to feel well, though he is experiencing a bit of a return of a loose cough. He remains fever-free and in good spirits. His temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation remain entirely normal. His lungs are clear,” O’Connor wrote.
O’Connor added that Biden “will continue his strict isolation measures” and “will continue to conduct the business of the American people from the Executive Residence.”
Biden initially tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21. His symptoms at the time were said to have included a runny nose, cough, sore throat, a slight fever and body aches.
He was treated with Paxlovid and tested negative last Wednesday before emerging from isolation.
However, he tested positive again Saturday in a so-called rebound infection, which can occur when patients take Paxlovid.
High-risk patients still face drastically diminished risks of hospitalization after taking Paxlovid.
O’Connor’s memo Tuesday marked the first time he noted a reemergence of symptoms from the rebound case.
Biden had six close contacts before testing positive for COVID for a second time, though White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday none has tested positive.
It remains unclear for how long Biden will be able to leave the White House for a number of planned trips.
Jean-Pierre noted Monday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet released any guidance regarding travel after a rebound infection.
The delegation headed by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrives in Songshan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan, Aug. 2, 2022. – ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan this week is a significant moment in her long career of advocating for democracy and human rights in Asia while pressuring China and its government in Beijing.
Second in line to the presidency after Vice President Kamala Harris, Pelosi is the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 1997 visit to the island.
The Biden administration, which appeared to have unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade Pelosi from visiting Taiwan on her trip to Asia, — although it wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it tried to so — has warned that Beijing could retaliate economically or militarily to her visit.
“If the speaker does decide to visit and China tries to create some kind of crisis or otherwise escalate tensions, that would be entirely on Beijing,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday. “We are looking for them, in the event she decides to visit, to act responsibly and not to engage in any escalation going forward.”
The visit has infuriated China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province, and has claimed sovereignty over the island. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson vowed that China would “take resolute and vigorous countermeasures” in response to Pelosi’s visit.
“Everything is stormy,” Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, told ABC News. “And from China’s perspective, they see this as yet another example of how the U.S. will not stop pushing Taiwan to think and act for itself, which is exactly what they don’t want.”
While the Biden administration has maintained the longstanding ‘One China’ policy and does not recognize Taiwanese independence — the standoff over Pelosi’s visit is also due to her reputation as a China critic and hawk, experts told ABC News.
“The Chinese just see her as rabidly anti-China, and believe that no good can come out of her,” Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told ABC News.
As she landed, Pelosi and others in the congressional delegation traveling with her put out a statement saying, “Our Congressional delegation’s visit to Taiwan honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy.”
The statement continued, “Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy,guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, U.S.-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances. The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo.”
Tiananmen Square and protecting Chinese students
Pelosi seized on human rights in China quickly after winning her first full term in Congress — a liberal who often found common cause with conservatives on human rights issues and China after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations and violent crackdowns against protests in 1989.
Representing one of the largest Asian-American communities in the country, she was the chief sponsor of legislation that would allow thousands of Chinese students to remain in the United States after their visas expired and avoid potential persecution if they returned to China.
Despite her relatively junior status in the House, she helped propel the legislation through Congress, prompting a showdown President George H. W. Bush, who vetoed the legislation.
“First the Chinese authorities gave us a massacre, and then they gave us a masquerade,” Pelosi said at a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in 1990.
Pelosi wrangled Democratic and Republican votes to override Bush’s veto — embarrassing Bush, who once served as a top U.S. representative to China.
While the veto override effort fell several votes short in the Senate, the Washington Post reported, the administration eventually issued an executive order that accomplished Pelosi’s goals of protecting the Chinese students in the United States.
Later, on an official visit to China in 1991, Pelosi and two congressmen were briefly detained by Chinese police, after unfurling a small banner in protest to commemorate pro-democracy protesters killed near Tiananmen Square.
“We’ve been told now for two days [in private meetings with Chinese officials] that there is no prohibition on freedom of speech in China,” Pelosi said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “This does not conform to what we were told.”
The international incident cemented Pelosi’s position as a chief China critic. She “has been a strong advocate of human rights for a very long time,” Glaser told ABC News.
Pelosi ruffled feathers on a subsequent trip to China: In 2009, she hand-delivered a letter to Hu Jintao, China’s president at the time, calling for the release of political prisoners.
Challenging China’s trade status and taking on her own party
In the 1990s, Pelosi repeatedly clashed with leaders of her own party over the United States’ improving economic relationship with China and its ascension to the World Trade Organization.
She criticized and challenged President Bill Clinton’s efforts to improve trade relations between the two countries, arguing against normalizing trade relations and decoupling the economic relationship from concerns about Beijing’s human rights record and the transfer of technology to countries hostile to the United States.
“I am disappointed that President Clinton has chosen to continue a failed policy,” she said in a statement when normal relations were extended in 1997. “Since he delinked trade from human rights three years ago, the human rights situation in China and Tibet has deteriorated, the U.S. trade deficit with China has soared, and China’s authoritarian government has continued its sale of nuclear, chemical, missile and biological weapons technology to dangerous countries, including Iran.’
Years later, her positions even led to one of her rare breaks with President Obama and his administration.
According to Newsweek, Pelosi in 2009 helped scuttle the confirmation chances of Obama’s initial pick to lead the National Intelligence Council, over comments he had made about the Tiananmen Square massacre.
(She did not deny her position when later asked about the episode by the Huffington Post.)
“It’s a cheap shot for both Americans or Chinese to accuse her of sort of doing this as some sort of provocation when her commitment to the region and activists has been consistent and unwavering,” said Samuel Chu, the founder and President of the Campaign for Hong Kong, whose father, a prominent/veteran pro-democracy activist, met with Pelosi in Hong Kong on one of her early visits to the region.
Olympic boycotts over Tibet and Chinese forced labor
Pelosi called for the U.S. to impose diplomatic boycotts of the summer and winter Olympics hosted by China in Beijing in 2008 and 2022, respectively.
In 2008, she called for President Bush and other world leaders to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics to show support for Tibetans pushing for independence from China, and condemned the International Olympic Committee for awarding the games to China given its human rights record.
“If freedom-loving people don’t speak out against China’s oppression of people in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak out against any oppressed people,” Pelosi said on a visit to India and the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile.
“I don’t think China should have gotten the Olympic Games to begin with,” Pelosi told ABC’s Good Morning America in 2008. “I had a resolution in the Congress which was very popular, and bipartisan support on it. But they did get them with the promise that they would open up more and have better respect for human rights and freedom of expression. They have not honored that.”
Years later, when China prepared to host the Winter Olympics, Pelosi repeated her calls for a diplomatic boycott – this time over China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority.
“We cannot proceed as if nothing is wrong about the Olympics going to China,” she said at a congressional hearing.
China’s Foreign Ministry blasted Pelosi’s statements and said she was “full of lies and disinformation” in calling for a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Games.
Around the same time, she worked across party lines with Republicans to pass legislation to sanction China for selling goods to America made with Uyghur Muslim forced labor — which President Biden later signed into law.
“None of that would have been possible without her leadership,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told ABC News. “She’s unrelenting.”
(WASHINGTON) — A 49-year-old Texas man was sentenced by a judge to more than seven years in prison Monday for his role in the Capitol attack, the harshest sentence yet for a Jan. 6 defendant — but legal and national security experts say another decision made by the judge could carry potentially broader implications.
In handing down an 87-month sentence to Guy Wesley Reffitt, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich declined to characterize the defendant as a domestic terrorist, as prosecutors had requested.
Prosecutors had sought a 15-year prison term for Reffitt, predicated on the use of an increasingly rare legal tool called the “terrorism enhancement,” which empowers judges to issue sentences above the federal guidelines for certain crimes. Federal sentencing guidelines in Reffitt’s case called for a prison sentence between nine and 11 years.
On Monday, Friedrich brushed aside the government’s motion for a terrorism enhancement, citing other Jan.6-related defendants whose conduct appeared to be more serious than Reffitt’s — and for whom the Justice Department chose not to pursue the terrorism enhancement.
Experts said Fridrich’s decision demonstrates the challenge prosecutors face in meeting the exceptionally high standard to formally label someone a terrorist under the law.
“In the court of common sense, individuals who went into the Capitol to engage in destructive behavior and disrupt a lawful government proceeding may have, by definition, committed an act terrorism,” said John Cohen, a former Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor. “But the challenge for prosecutors is to prove that a defendant has met the specific legal elements of a terrorism offense.”
The terrorism enhancement, codified in section 3A 1.4 of the federal sentencing guidelines, traces its roots back to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, after which Congress enacted tougher penalties to deter acts of “intimidation or coercion” aimed at the government or civilian population.
In the intervening years, terrorism sentences have most frequently been applied to defendants with ties to ISIS or al-Qaeda, or to violent domestic extremists like Cesar Sayoc, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to mailing pipe bombs to members of Congress.
But critics complain that the law is too broad and too inconsistently applied.
In 2017, for example, prosecutors secured a terrorism enhancement for Jessica Reznicek, a climate activist who pleaded guilty to damaging pipeline infrastructure across the Midwest. A federal appeals court upheld her sentence in June.
Meanwhile, neither Dylann Roof, who pleaded guilty to massacring nine people at a Charleston bible study, nor James Fields, who was convicted of killing a Charlottesville demonstrator with his car, were sentenced with the terrorism enhancement.
Reffitt, for his part, brought a weapon to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and threatened to “physically attack, remove, and replace” lawmakers, making him a “quintessential” case for the enhancement, prosecutors wrote in a July sentencing memorandum. In March, a jury found him guilty on five felony counts, including obstruction of justice, as well as entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm.
The case marked the first time the Justice Department sought to have a terrorism enhancement applied to a Jan. 6 defendant.
“We do believe that what he was doing that day was domestic terrorism and we do believe that he’s a domestic terrorist,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler told Judge Friedrich Monday, before the judge declined to apply the terrorism enhancement.
In rejecting the enhancement, Friedrich sided with Reffitt’s defense counsel, who accused prosecutors of utilizing the tool as retribution for Reffitt taking the case to trial.
“This is the only case where the government has asked for the terrorism enhancement, and this is the only case where the defendant has gone to trial,” said Clinton Broden, a lawyer for Reffitt. “I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out.”
Friedrich’s decision to reject the enhancement in Reffitt’s case serves as further evidence of its “undisciplined, arbitrary use” in federal cases, according to Bill Quigley, a lawyer for Reznicek.
“How can Jessica Reznicek be a terrorist in the eyes of the law, and this person who stormed the Capitol and threatened members of Congress not be?” Quigley said.
“It is ironic that prosecutors managed to secure this enhancement for a person who damaged infrastructure belonging to a private company, but the courts failed to apply the same label to someone who used violence to further their extremist ideological beliefs in the seat of our democracy,” Cohen said.
Jordan Strauss, a former national security official in the Justice Department, pointed out that the government’s pursuit of a terrorist enhancement against Reffitt could mark a shift in its handling of Jan. 6-related cases — and could foreshadow a more aggressive approach in future cases.
“This case is noteworthy in that it may reflect a policy change for January 6th cases moving forward,” said Strauss, who now serves as the managing director at the Kroll Institute, a corporate consulting firm. “We should expect to see more enhancements sought, particularly if there are guilty verdicts in the more complex sedition cases.”
(NEW YORK) — Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab spoke with ABC News Live Monday ahead of the state’s anticipated primary election, which includes a referendum on abortion laws.
Voters on Tuesday will decide on a proposal to amend the state constitution to explicitly disavow the right to access abortion. It will be the first popular vote on abortion rights in nearly 50 years.
Below is a transcript of Schwab’s interview with ABC News’ Kyra Phillips:
ABC NEWS LIVE:Well, clearly, it’s a huge vote tomorrow on abortion in your state. Your office estimates that this issue alone could actually bring in an extra 200,000 voters to the polls. Kansas is a red state, of course. So tell me, why is this issue in particular energizing voters there and is that good for Republicans right now?
SCOTT SCHWAB:Well, I think it’s good for our republic to get voters energized. But this is a big issue because we’ve always seemed to be at the center in Kansas on these big social issues, whether it’s slavery, women’s suffrage, prohibition [or] the Civil Rights Act. What’s interesting about this is the Supreme Court of Kansas said there’s an inherent right to an abortion in the Kansas Constitution, and the word does not even exist in the Constitution. But it kind of edges the legislature out from making policy. So this has created the big debate on how much regulation — and should there be regulation — on abortions in our state.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Which leads me to my next question. You know, if abortion remains legal in Kansas, is that the end of the legal fight or will Republicans pursue further restrictions on abortion going forward?
SCHWAB:Well, if the measure passes, it’s very difficult for the legislature to regulate anything as it relates to abortion. I’m no longer a policymaker in the House, even though I had been at a time. We will always have those debates on abortion and some measures will pass, some won’t.
But really, I can see after this, because this has been such a topic of an issue, this constitutional amendment, that the legislature might want to sit back and just take a breath if it passes. Because we have had a whole lot of good laws on the books that aren’t in effect because that Supreme Court ruling and it’ll just be like what we had six, seven years ago. I think a lot of legislators in our state will just kind of want to take a break, but that’s just my prediction.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Take a break. Define take a break. What does that mean?
SCHWAB:We’ll take a break in…not deal with this issue this year. Let’s deal with some other issues that have taken a back-burner, because these social issues have really taken a lot of the legislature’s bandwidth. So there’s a lot of things like K through 12 funding and highway funding and rainy day fund. So I really think the legislature will probably want to focus on this next upcoming session. But I could be wrong. The legislature is an independent body.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Well, and think about all the political pressure. I mean, you really think abortion would take a back seat?
SCHWAB:Actually, they tried to pass this amendment to go to the vote of the people two years ago. And it didn’t pass. It didn’t, it didn’t have the votes to go there. So, yes, sometimes it does.
ABC NEWS LIVE: All right. Let’s talk voter confidence, shall we? Since we’re talking about that, you’re in a pretty tight primary yourself. Your opponent, former County Commissioner Mike Brown, has echoed Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud. He’s made election security central to his campaign against you. What’s your response to those lies about the 2020 election? Where do you stand?
SCHWAB:Well, you know, it is frustrating because he was a county commissioner at the time and he certified his own loss in that election and trusted enough to do that and that all of a sudden the turn. But, President Trump is not complaining about Kansas and we do post-election audits. We’ve done over 300 post-election audits in Kansas since we took office in 2019. And one, not one county has failed their audit. And we’re unique in that that we do post-election audits in a way that they are finished before the board of canvassers meet to show those board of canvassers an error did not occur. And every county has voter paper ballot verification that gets counted. So it’s pretty, it’s pretty hard to cheat.
ABC NEWS LIVE:But if you just look at the past couple of years. Can you win as a Republican if you reject the former president’s false claims about the election? We see the power that Trump still holds within the GOP. What do you say to those in your party who do continue to peddle the “big lie” because it’s still happening?
SCHWAB: It is interesting. I had a friend [who told] me saying, “It’s interesting the people who believe conspiracy theories about somebody trying to control them are allowing themselves to be controlled by the very people spreading the conspiracy theory.” The complaint in Kansas isn’t valid.
And that’s where we put our focus…
I don’t judge other states because I would have to go there and audit them. And I don’t have time to do that because I’m paid to do [that] here in Kansas and in Kansas we get it right. And it’s just the outside voices coming into our state, making false attacks and assumptions that the law itself prevents from happening.
ABC NEWS LIVE:Before we let you go, Scott, I’ve got to ask about one of the stories making news. Of course, locally, your office is refusing to turn over provisional ballot records ahead of voting tomorrow, despite a court ruling that says you violated the state’s open records law. You know, the governor there in Kansas has urged you and your office to comply with the ruling. You’re running as the candidate with integrity and challenge your opponent over his 2020 election lies. How can you claim that while ignoring this court order?
SCHWAB:Well, we can’t do the court order. It requires a software upgrade that we can’t do right now. And we will be appealing that to the Kansas Supreme Court because a lower court agreed with us. What it is, is it’s partial information in that report, and we’re constantly trying to fight partial and misinformation and that appellate courts change Kansas law, as opposed to the open records being, “Hey, if there’s a record, you’ve got to make it open.” The appellate court says you got to create the record. Well, that’s something completely different that we’ve never had to deal with before.
It’s almost like in an open meetings act forcing a legislative body to have a meeting when they normally don’t wish to have a meeting. So we’re struggling with trying to comply with a court order that physically we cannot comply with while trying to run an election. And we don’t want to do massive software changes while we’re in the middle of an election.
