(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Gavin Newsom has never been afraid to throw an elbow.
During the surge of the delta variant, California’s Democratic governor sat on the glossy sound stage of The Late Late Show with James Corden, surrounded by Christmas lights, and slammed Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis over what Newsom called his lax coronavirus policies.
“California’s example versus Florida? It’s not even close in terms out of the outcome if you care about life, and you care about the economy,” Newsom told Corden, adding later that “clearly” DeSantis is running for president to scoop up the Trump-aligned Republican vote, pointing to DeSantis’ policies as a “litmus test” to win attention from conservative-aligned news networks.
His criticism of DeSantis is one of many made over the course of the pandemic, but Newsom’s recent $105,000 advertising buy that ran in Florida, certainly an unusual move for a politician who is running a reelection campaign of his own, has spun the question of presidential aspirations toward Newsom.
During an interview with ABC News’ Zohreen Shah prior to the ad placement, Newsom, 54, insisted he had no White House ambitions, although several California-based political advisers told ABC News that claim doesn’t totally hold water, and the ad campaign was a fool-proof way to elevate his profile and test public appetite as Biden’s stock with Democrats continues to dive.
Picking a fight across state lines is “very vintage” Newsom, consistent with his appetite to be a part of the national conversation in elevating California above other states, said Jessica Levinson, a California-based legal expert and former president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.
“He’s always talking about California as a nation-state. And I think he fancies himself the executive of a nation-state in some ways. And he really wants to put a stake in the ground and say California is different and better and therefore, I am different and better,” said Levinson.
His vision of his state as a shining “city on a hill” is clear from his Florida ad, in which he urges residents of the Sunshine State to “join the fight” against Republican leaders or “join us in California, where we still believe in freedom,” a clear knock at DeSantis’ “free state of Florida” mantra.
Levinson said Newsom has a penchant for wanting to be a beat ahead, almost defiant, of national Democrats on key issues, as when he began issuing same-sex marriage licenses as mayor of San Fransisco in 2004 to the chagrin of conservatives, and testing the waters with a high-profile attack on DeSantis is part of that calculus.
“And if that means my political career ends, so be it,” Newsom said nearly a decade ago.
But that defiance propelled him to the governor’s mansion, and now, possibly, if the tide shifts in his direction, toward the White House.
The idea that Newsom wouldn’t run for president is “total bull—,” said Levinson, who explained that he likely sees himself as the kind of lawmaker who could “fill a leadership vacuum” if given the opportunity.
And members of Newsom’s party may be looking for candidates to fill that vacuum as well. New polling from The New York Times/Siena College shows that nearly three-quarters of the Democratic party want a new nominee at the top of the ticket. Even more bleak for the White House, 94% of Democrats under 30 said they’d prefer a fresh face.
Dan Schnur, a veteran strategist in California who worked on Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid and former Gov. Pete Wilson’s team, told ABC News that Newsom’s toe-dip into the national news-cycle is great political posturing, given the uncertainty of the Democratic leadership.
“Whether Newsom runs in two years, or in 2028, he’s now a part of that conversation. If Biden, 79, decides not to run again, Newsom is ready to pounce. And if Biden does run for reelection, Newsom certainly can lay the groundwork for four years after that,” Schnur said.
Biden has made it clear he intends to run for reelection with Vice President Kamala Harris by his side, but slipping approval numbers and concerns over age and health are determinate factors that, coupled from pressure from within his own party, could force him to reconsider.
Some of that pressure has come from Newsom himself. A day after Politico reported the contents of a leaked Supreme Court draft that would overturn Roe, Newsom slammed Democrats for not taking decisive action to codify access to abortion with a biting exclamation: “Where the hell is my party? Where’s the Democratic Party?”
“Why aren’t we standing up more firmly, more resolutely?,” Newsom questioned. “Why aren’t we calling this out? “This is a concerted, coordinated effort and yes, they’re winning. They are, they have been … We need to stand up, where is the counter offensive?”
And casting himself as a hero is what Newsom does best, said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who worked for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Where Newsom thrives is when he’s able to be in contrast to a Republican that he can lead a progressive coalition against,” said Stutzman. “He’s going to go after the guy he perceives as the Republican frontrunner.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday arrives in the Middle East for the first time as president, visiting Israel, the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia in a trip centered on encouraging the growing ties between Israel and Arab countries, while resetting his administration’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Coming as his administration has focused on countering China’s rise in Asia and uniting Europe against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden’s visit underscores the volatile region’s strategic importance to U.S. foreign policy and the global economy, analysts told ABC News.
From Biden’s highly-anticipated meeting with Saudi Arabia’s de-facto leader, to his efforts to address high gas prices at home and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, here are seven things to watch on the trip this week.
A Saudi reset?
As a presidential candidate, Biden vowed to make oil-rich Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state over the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi – an operation U.S. intelligence agencies later concluded was authorized by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also known as “MBS” and who effectively runs the Gulf nation.
Biden also pledged to “reassess” the traditionally close U.S.-Saudi alliance, amid calls from families of Sept. 11 attack victims to hold the kingdom “accountable” for links to the hijackers behind the terror attacks – and a push from within his own party to pressure Saudi Arabia to end its intervention in Yemen’s civil war, which according to the United Nations has led to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
Since taking office, Biden has spoken twice with King Salman, the crown prince’s father, who officially rules the country.
But he had also dispatched Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to serve as his administration’s point of contact with the crown prince, in what was widely perceived as a snub to the powerful Saudi leader.
Relations between the two countries reached a low point last spring when the Wall Street Journal reported that Prince Mohammed and his Emirati counterpart declined to schedule a phone call with Biden over frustrations with U.S. policy in the region. (The White House at the time told reporters there were “no rebuffed calls.”)
On Saturday, Biden plans to attend a summit of Arab leaders in Jeddah, a meeting that the crown prince will also attend, though it’s not yet clear how the two leaders will interact or engage.
The White House has said that Prince Mohammed is expected to attend a bilateral meeting Biden will hold with King Salman and the king’s “leadership team” on Friday. But U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday declined to say if the public would see Biden and the crown prince shake hands.
Oil, Ukraine force Biden’s hand, experts say
Several experts told ABC News the rapprochement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was inevitable, given the kingdom’s influence in the region – and its status as one of the world’s largest oil producers at a time when gas prices have skyrocketed and the West has attempted to boycott Russian oil.
“Without the Ukraine war, there would be a lot less focus [on Saudi Arabia]. There’s no question about it,” Dr. Gregory Gause, a Saudi Arabia expert and head of Department of International Affairs at The George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, told ABC News.
Biden has defended his approach, writing in an op-ed for The Washington Post published Saturday that “my aim was to reorient — but not rupture — relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years.”
“As president, it is my job to keep our country strong and secure,” he wrote. “We have to counter Russia’s aggression, put ourselves in the best possible position to outcompete China, and work for greater stability in a consequential region of the world.
“To do these things,” he continued, “we have to engage directly with countries that can impact those outcomes. Saudi Arabia is one of them, and when I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that’s based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values.”
Will the Saudi visit itself lower gas prices? Probably not, experts say
Biden plans to attend a summit of leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council, a union of Arab states, who will also be joined by the leaders from Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan; the grouping is being referred to as the “GCC+3.”
Sullivan said Monday the White House believes the oil-producing Gulf states have “a capacity for further steps that could be taken” to increase oil output, although he would not say if Biden planned to ask Saudi Arabia and the other countries to raise production by a certain amount.
Experts have told ABC News that it is not clear that Saudi Arabia could really do much to impact gas prices in the U.S., which have already started dropping in recent weeks — as demand falls off — from record $5 per gallon averages.
“There are things the Saudis can do,” Gause, the expert on Saudi Arabia, said. “But I don’t think that even if they really opened the spigots, it would bring prices down to, you know, where they were… in the midst of COVID.”
Amy Meyers Jaffe, the managing director of the Climate Policy Lab at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, said it’s most important to ensure “that the supply that’s already in the market stays in the market.”
“Part of that is engaging with the producers of the Middle East, because it’s not clear to me how much more they can all produce,” she told ABC News.
In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron was reportedly overheard last month telling Biden that the United Arab Emirates was already at “maximum” production capacity, and that the Saudis could only increase output by a relatively small 150,000 barrels per day in the short term.
A new Middle East?
When Biden first visited Israel nearly 50 years ago, the country was at war with much of the Arab world.
Now, following several peace agreements brokered by the Trump administration known as the Abraham Accords, Israel has diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco — in addition to existing peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt.
Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states share a mutual enemy in Iran: Israel considers Iran’s nuclear program an existential threat, while the country’s ballistic missiles and regional proxies have targeted Saudi and Emirati oil infrastructure.
While a major diplomatic breakthrough isn’t expected on this trip, Biden’s visit could help move Saudi Arabia and Israel toward normalized relations and greater coordination on regional security — at a time when renewed negotiations to limit Iran’s nuclear program have stalled.
“The region is watching to see how far the Saudis are willing to go,” Jacob Walles, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, told ABC News.
Walles said that while Saudi Arabia’s crown prince has signaled support for inching closer to Israel, significant diplomatic progress could take time, given Saudi public opinion and opposition to Israel.
The 86-year-old King Salman would also likely “limit” any breakthrough with Israel absent progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has traditionally been a sticking point in relations between Israel and its neighbors, Walles said.
In his Washington Post op-ed, Biden noted that he will be the first U.S. president to fly from Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, describing it as a “small symbol” of the deepening ties between Israel and the Arab world.
“The Israelis believe it’s really important that I make the trip,” Biden told reporters at a press conference last month.
Walking a fine line on human rights
As Biden pursues rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and a strong relationship with Israel, he must balance economic and security interests with human rights concerns.
The U.S. has walked a fine line in the wake of the death of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a well known Al Jazeera correspondent killed in May while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.
During her funeral, Israeli police beat mourners and pallbearers — drawing widespread, global condemnation.
The State Department said on July 4 that after reviewing U.S. and Palestinian investigations into Abu Akleh’s death, it found that Israeli military gunfire likely killed her — but that it “found no reason to believe that this was intentional but rather the result of tragic circumstances.”
Asked if Biden planned to press Israeli officials on the case during his visit, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that “we want to see accountability.”
But Abu Akleh’s brother wrote in a letter to Biden late last week that “your administration’s engagement has served to whitewash Shireen’s killing and perpetuate impunity,” Reuters reported. He asked for Biden to meet with his family while in the region.
Meanwhile, Khashoggi’s 2018 murder was the reason Biden pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah,” but the White House has repeatedly declined to say whether the president will even bring it up with the crown prince when he meets with him.
Biden constantly argues that the world is at an inflection point between democracy and autocracy, and his trip to Saudi Arabia shows that democracies may feel forced to kowtow to autocratic nations when economic and security interests are at stake.
“For an American president to go to [Saudi Arabia] is very, very humiliating,” Hossein Askari, an economist and Professor Emeritus of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University, told ABC News.
“Maybe the American people don’t see that,” he continued. “But in the eyes of dictators around the world, and in the eyes of the Middle East, people will be laughing.”
What about the peace process?
The Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab nations are one of the few foreign policies pursued by President Donald Trump that Biden has praised.
But the agreements cast aside longstanding doctrine that elevated the Palestinian issue in any normalization talks with Israel, cutting the Palestinians themselves out of talks — although the Arab nations did seek concessions from Israel favorable to the Palestinians.
Experts do not expect any breakthroughs in Israeli-Palestinian relations this week – nor has the Biden administration telegraphed any expected developments.
There have been, though, reports of discussions over Saudi Arabia allowing Israeli planes to fly over its territory — and U.S.-backed diplomacy aimed at resolving an international dispute over islands in the Red Sea.
And the Biden administration has reversed several Trump policies that downgraded the U.S. relationship with the Palestinians — such as resuming funding for a U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees — although he has not delivered on a promise to reopen an American consulate in Jerusalem for Palestinians that Trump closed. Other Palestinian desires – reopening an office in Washington and resolving other funding issues — are subject to congressional action that has not materialized, according to Michael Koplow, the chief policy officer of Israel Policy Forum.
Israel’s unstable political dynamics have also worked to lower expectations for the peace process on the trip, experts told ABC News — adding uncertainty and diverting attention from the U.S. commander-in-chief’s trip among Israelis.
The country will hold its fifth election in four years in November, following the collapse of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s fragile governing coalition — a mix of right wing, centrist, liberal and Arab parties with little in common besides a shared opposition to former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The right-wing leader, a fixture in Israeli politics for decades, could make his way back into power as prime minister this fall, despite his ongoing corruption trial.
In Israel during the campaign season, Biden will meet with interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid — a moderate serving in the role through the next election — and is expected to meet with other key leaders on the trip, including Netanyahu.
He will also meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and is expected to visit a hospital catering to Palestinian patients, as his administration reverses the Trump administration’s decision to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians.
Yemen war a major focus
Yemen’s civil war has paused for the last four months as the result of a negotiated truce.
It’s the longest ceasefire in the nearly eight-year war that caused what the United Nations has labeled the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
Saudi Arabia has led a coalition that has backed Yemen’s government in its fight against a rebel group called the Houthis, who are backed by Iran. The U.S. has supported Saudi Arabia’s involvement, which has relied heavily on airstrikes.
Biden had ended offensive weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, though, over its handling of the war, and accused the kingdom of “murdering children” in Yemen as a presidential candidate.
While Sullivan told ABC News Monday that that ban would remain for now, the White House has in recent weeks praised Prince Mohammed’s role in bringing about the ongoing ceasefire as it works to improve relations with Saudi Arabia.
White House officials have said the war in Yemen will be a major focus for Biden while he visits Saudi Arabia – but human rights advocates and members of his own party have called on him to speak out more forcefully against Saudi involvement in the conflict while he’s in the region.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 will focus Tuesday on extremist groups’ alleged coordination with former President Donald Trump and his allies ahead of and during the Capitol attack.
Stephen Ayres of Warren, Ohio, who recently admitted to illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, will testify, as well as a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers militia group, Jason Van Tatenhove, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Please check back for updates. All times Eastern:
Jul 12, 12:45 pm
Police officers brace for ‘triggering’ hearing with rioter testifying
Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who testified at the first select committee hearing last fall on how he feared for his life and faced racist attacks while defending the Capitol on Jan. 6, told ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott ahead of the hearing today that he’s expecting the afternoon to be “triggering” — and that he is “emotionally, preparing for the worst.”
With Jan. 6 defendant Stephen Ayres set to testify, Dunn said Ayres “owes everyone in the congressional community who was affected by the day an apology.” Adding, “if he stops short of being honest about the violence — that doesn’t do enough for me. If he stops short of apologizing — that doesn’t do enough for me.”
Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges, who also defended the Capitol and has also been a regular fixture at the public hearings, said it will be notable for Americans to hear what happened straight from someone who breached the building, given that some continue to downplay the violence.
“Having one of the people involved in the attack on Capitol — in their own words describe their mentality, their intentions and the intentions of the group — you can’t get any closer to the source than that.”
Jul 12, 12:17 pm
Cipollone deposition clips to be heavy focus
Video clips from the roughly eight-hour deposition committee investigators conducted with former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone last Friday are expected to be played at the afternoon hearing, a source familiar with the matter tells ABC News.
Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said last week after Cipollone was subpoenaed by the committee that his testimony did not contradict those of previous witnesses when he met with investigators.
Asked if Americans could assume that Cipollone confirmed the testimony offered by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, Lofgren told CNN, “Not contradicting is not the same as confirming.”
While Hutchinson publicly testified last month that Cipollone stressed to her that Trump should not be taken to the Capitol after his rally, warning, “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable” if he went, according to Hutchinson, it was not clear if the committee asked Cipollone in his deposition about the comment.
-ABC News’ John Santucci and Katherine Faulders
Jul 12, 12:13 pm
Committee to detail chaotic December 2020 Oval Office meeting
Today’s hearing will partly focus on a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020. Sources confirmed the meeting to ABC News at the time.
The meeting was said to be so long that it ended up moving from the Oval Office to the White House residence quarters upstairs. In attendance were Trump allies Sidney Powell; former CEO Patrick Byrne; former national security adviser Michael Flynn; then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone; then-chief of staff Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani, who joined by phone.
Powell, Flynn and Byrne argued with White House officials over invoking rarely used presidential powers to declare a national emergency to seize voting machines – a plan that was ultimately rejected. Trump in the meeting also discussed naming Powell a special counsel overseeing an investigation of voter fraud, as first reported by the New York Times at the time.
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl described the meeting in his book “Betrayal” as one “so bizarre, long, and out of control that it may go down in history as the strangest meeting Donald Trump, or any other president, ever had at the White House.”
– ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Will Steakin
Jul 12, 11:17 am
Reps. Murphy, Raskin to lead questioning
Reps. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., will lead Tuesday’s questioning, according to committee aides.
One focus of the hearing, aides said, will be the impact of a Twitter post sent by Trump in December 2020, which read: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
“Today, we’ll show how President Trump’s tweet in the early hours of December 19th activated domestic extremist groups, and how some Members of Congress amplified that message, all leading to the attack on January 6th,” Murphy said on Twitter.
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Monday cited some of its past successes as it played down a new New York Times/Siena College poll showing President Joe Biden’s approval rating almost scraping 30% — and Democrats pushing, at this point some two years out, for a different candidate in the 2024 race.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the administration remains focused on the issues at hand despite the latest survey, which showed only 33% of respondents approve of the job Biden is doing and 64% of Democratic voters saying they want someone else to be the party nominee in the next presidential election.
“Not to get into politics from here or get into any political analysis, [but] this is not something — there’s going to be many polls. They’re going to go up, they’re going to go down, this is not the thing that we are solely focused on,” Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s press briefing before noting Biden’s celebration of a bipartisan anti-gun violence package earlier in the day.
“We are focused on things like today, signing this bipartisan gun reform legislation, which will, again, save lives. Do we have more work to do? Absolutely. I was talking about inflation and how … that is a priority for this president, how we have seen gas prices go down by close to 30 cents per gallon the past 25-plus days,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is something that the president is going to continue to work on because we still need to give Americans relief.”
The press secretary rattled off other priorities, like maintaining job growth and pushing a bill to increase competitiveness with China, insisting that Biden will remain locked on those issues in spite of any poor polling — which, administration supporters were also quick to note, did show him winning a hypothetical rematch with Donald Trump.
“We’re not gonna pay attention to polls, it’s not what we’re going to do here. But [what] we’re going to focus on is delivering for the American people,” Jean-Pierre said.
“There is so much work to be done that the president is going to focus on and deliver as well,” she said.
Still, Jean-Pierre recognized the widespread dissatisfaction exemplified in the poll, with more than 75% of respondents saying America was headed in the wrong direction — though, given the country’s polarization, it is surely for varying and contradictory reasons.
“We understand what the American people are feeling. We understand that. We understand that inflation is hurting families when they are around the kitchen table. When they are trying to figure out, you know, how they are going to deal with gas prices at the pump, how they’re going to deal with food prices as well,” Jean-Pierre said.
The latest poll comes amid a spate of poor surveys for Biden, whose approval rating has sunk under the pressure of stubbornly high inflation, the expensive cost of gasoline and more even as the administration has touted what it says is a little-credited economic recovery, with robust employment, and other legislative breakthroughs including on guns and infrastructure.
The Times/Sienna polling — as well as the fact that Biden, at 79 years old, is already the country’s oldest-ever president — has refueled concerns from some Democrats over his viability to win reelection in two years.
But as the Times poll also showed, Biden narrowly comes out on top — 44 to 41 — in the expected matchup with former President Trump.
In a further sign that defeating Trump would be a top priority for Democratic voters, over any particular policy, 92% of Democrats in the poll said they would stick with Biden in such a contest.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Monday rejected a series of explanations by former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon as to why he failed to comply with a subpoena issued by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, reinforcing the legal challenges that Bannon is currently facing.
Bannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after defying the panel’s subpoena, and Judge Carl Nichols said in Monday’s pretrial hearing that he would not delay Bannon’s trial, which is set to begin next Monday.
“I see no reason for extending this case any further,” said Nichols.
On the eve of the Monday’s pretrial hearing, Bannon — who for months had refused to comply with the subpoena by claiming absolute “immunity” from congressional subpoenas due to his previous role within the Trump White House — suddenly offered to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, a move that prosecutors in a court filing have described as a “last-ditch effort to avoid accountability.”
The hearing also followed a revelation by the Justice Department that federal investigators interviewed former Trump attorney Justin Clark two weeks ago in connection with Bannon’s case.
Among the overarching arguments that Nichols rejected was Bannon’s claim that he defied the subpoena because former President Donald Trump had asserted executive privilege over his testimony, an argument Bannon’s lawyers said was based on DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinions. Judge Nichols noted that the opinions referenced do not apply in Bannon’s case because they do not pertain to someone in Bannon’s position as a former White House official to a former president. Bannon has not worked in the White House since 2017.
In a blow to Bannon’s defense, Nichols ruled that Bannon cannot present to the jury evidence that he relied on those internal Justice Department opinions — or on his counsel’s advice — as the reason for declining to appear, saying those factors don’t serve as appropriate reasons for Bannon’s decision not to comply.
Nichols also rejected Bannon’s “entrapped by estoppel” defense, which argued that he was “tricked” into believing he was entitled to ignore the subpoenas due to the DOJ opinions, on the grounds that the DOJ opinions do not specifically deal with Bannon’s situation.
In addition, the judge ruled that Bannon cannot present a “public authority” defense, because Trump was no longer a federal official by the time Bannon was subpoenaed.
“The former president, in his civilian capacity, is by definition not a federal official” and “never instructed Mr. Bannon not to show up altogether,” the judge ruled.
The judge also rejected Bannon’s defense that prosecutors would need to show that he knew his conduct was unlawful, saying that prosecutors only need to prove that Bannon acted “deliberately” and “intentionally” to defy the Jan. 6 panel.
Bannon’s attorney, David Schoen, questioned the judge’s rulings.
“What’s the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?” Schoen said before the judge.
In a win for Bannon, Nichols said he will allow his defense team to present evidence about prior subpoenas regarding whether Bannon thought the date was flexible, allowing Bannon to argue that he misunderstood the subpoena’s due date or believed in good faith that the deadline could be extended.
The judge also ruled that he would allow Bannon’s defense team to cross examine certain witnesses to introduce evidence of “political bias.”
However, Nichols granted a motion from the House committee to quash 16 trial subpoenas that Bannon’s attorneys had sent to 12 members of Congress and four staffers, and he rejected the defense’s assertion that the Jan 6. Committee is not “properly composed,” saying “the entire House has on multiple occasions ratified that the committee is validly constituted.”
Following the hearing, Schoen suggested to reporters that he might appeal Nichols’ rulings.
“That’s why they have a court of appeals,” said Schoen when asked how he felt about the judge’s decisions.
In their filing overnight, prosecutors said the timing of Bannon’s sudden offer to testify suggests that “the only thing that has really changed since he refused to comply with the subpoena in October 2021 is that he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default.”
(WASHINGTON) — An Ohio man who accused Joe Biden, other Democrats, and the mainstream media of “treason” is set to testify in a public hearing Tuesday before the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol last year, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The hearing is expected to focus on the rise of radical extremism in the United States, and the source said one of the key witnesses will be Stephen Ayres of Warren, Ohio, who recently pleaded admitted to illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A former spokesman for the Oath Keepers militia group, Jason Van Tatenhove, will also be testifying Tuesday, the source said.
In court documents filed last month, Ayres acknowledged that the day before the riot, he drove to Washington, D.C., to protest Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
On Facebook, Ayres had spotlighted then-President Donald Trump’s call for supporters to descend on Washington on Jan. 6, which Trump said will “be wild” in a Tweet he posted on Dec. 19, 2020.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the committee hopes to explore the impact that Tweet had on Trump’s supporters, committee aides said. The hearing is expected to also include clips from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s deposition with congressional investigators last week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Two days before he left for the nation’s capital, Ayres posted a message on Facebook saying, “Mainstream media, social media, Democrat party, FISA courts, Chief Justice John Roberts, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, etc….all have committed TREASON against a sitting U.S. president!!! All are now put on notice by ‘We The People!'”
In the week before that, Ayres said in social media posts that it was “time for us to start standing up to tyranny!” and he warned that “If the [deep state] robs president Trump!!! Civil War will ensue!” according to the FBI.
Ayres joined the mob outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, then entered the building that afternoon, court documents say.
Last month, he pleaded guilty to one federal charge of disorderly conduct inside a restricted building. His sentencing is scheduled for September.
An attorney representing Ayres declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden was briefly interrupted by a parent whose son was killed in a mass school shooting as he hosted hundreds impacted by gun violence on the White House South Lawn Monday to tout the first major bipartisan gun legislation to pass through Congress in nearly 30 years.
Before he spoke, Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde pediatrician who treated the victims of the Robb Elementary School mass shooting, and Garnell Whitfield, Jr., son of the oldest Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield, first offered brief remarks to introduce Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“The dried white roses and the sun-bleached teddy bears have been taken away and stored. What remains is a hollow feeling in our gut,” Guerrero said.
“It’s been tough being a pediatrician in a community where children do not want to return to school, and parents don’t want to send them there with the fear of a future attack,” he added. “I spend half my days convincing kids that no one is coming for them and that they are safe knowing that they’re safe — but how do I say that knowing that the very weapons used in the attack are still freely available? Let this only be the start of the movement towards the banning of assault weapons.”
Whitfield read the names of the victims in the Buffalo shooting, which took the life of his 86-year-old mother, and while he praised Biden and Harris for their work to mitigate gun violence said, “We know that this is only the first step.”
Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law last month, but the signing was overshadowed since it came one day after the Supreme Court released its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Monday provided the president a new opportunity to take a victory lap — but it also came one week after another mass shooting at a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, left seven dead and dozens wounded.
About one week to the hour of the Highland Park shooting, Biden took the podium on the South Lawn, wearing a ribbon on his lapel to honor gun violence victims.
Not long after he started speaking, Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin was killed in the Parkland mass shooting, interrupted Biden’s remarks in an apparent protest. Oliver has publicly criticized the legislation.
“We have to do more than that!” Oliver shouted. “I’ve been trying to tell you this for years!”
Biden said, “Let him talk,” before continuing with his prepared remarks as Oliver was escorted away by a staffer.
Later, speaking to reporters, Oliver defended his decision to interrupt Biden — taking issue with the White House making this bipartisan achievement into a “celebration” — and pointing to the community of Uvalde still mourning the loss of the 19 children and two teachers who were killed.
“The word celebration has been used in the wrong way. We were invited to Uvalde this week. Mothers are still crying in Uvalde,” he said. “And meanwhile, we, some way, by being here, clapping and standing ovation, these types of bills, which by the way I welcome, because it will save some lives, while we do that, other people are just getting shot. We cannot accept that.”
Biden named the leaders of the bipartisan Senate negotiations which crafted the legislation, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, Chrisy Murphy, and Thom Tillis, and joked that he hoped he doesn’t get Republican John Cornyn of Texas “in trouble” for praising him, too. Biden and Cornyn shook hands after his remarks.
President Biden said none of the actions he’s calling for infringe on Second Amendment rights, even repeating his support for the Second Amendment, but that “we can’t just stand by” when guns are the “number one killer of children in the United States.”
“Guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America … And over the last two decades more high school children have died from gunshots and on-duty police officers on active duty military combined,” Biden said. “We can’t let it happen any longer.”
“With rights come responsibilities. Yes, there’s a right to bear arms. But we also have a right to live freely, without fear for our lives in a grocery store, in a classroom, in a playground, and a house of worship, in a store, at a workplace, a nightclub, a festival, in our neighborhoods, in our streets,” he added. “The right to bear arms is not an absolute right that dominates all others.”
Gun violence survivors and family members of victims of recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, attended, as well as survivors and family members from the Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland mass shootings, among others. But some gun safety advocates lament that it doesn’t go far enough.
Ahead of Monday’s event, Biden asked Americans in a tweet to text him their stories of how gun violence has impacted their communities, looking to tout how the new law will help stop similar violence.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes $13 billion in new spending for mental health programs and for securing schools. It also makes background checks stricter for gun buyers under 21, helps to close the so-called boyfriend loophole to restrict domestic violence offenders from purchasing guns, and incentivizes red flag laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
But it doesn’t go as far as many wanted, including Biden, lacking measures such as universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
As the president marked progress on gun reform Monday, he also called on Congress to act further.
He called for legislation that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, strengthen background checks and enact safe storage laws.
“We’re living in a country awash in weapons of war. Weapons that were designed to hunt are not being used; the weapons designed that they’re purchasing are designed as weapons of war, to take out an enemy,” he said. “What is the rationale for these weapons outside war zones?”
The president’s ask for more congressional action comes as the Senate returns from its July Fourth recess Monday. Notably, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was not at Biden’s event because he is isolated with COVID-19.
ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will host hundreds impacted by gun violence on the White House South Lawn Monday to tout the first major bipartisan gun legislation to pass through Congress in nearly 30 years.
Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law last month, but the signing was somewhat overshadowed, coming one day after the Supreme Court released its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Monday provides the president a new opportunity to take a victory lap — but it comes one week after another mass shooting at a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, left seven dead and dozens wounded.
“I recently signed the first major bipartisan gun reform legislation in almost 30 years into law, which includes actions that will save lives,” Biden said in the Roosevelt Room addressing the latest mass shooting. “But there is much more work to do, and I’m not going to give up fighting the epidemic of gun violence.”
Gun violence survivors and family members of victims of recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, are expected to attend, as well as survivors and family members from the Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland mass shootings, among others. But while many in attendance are expected to praise the legislation, some gun safety advocates lament that it doesn’t go far enough.
Guns Down America and other gun violence advocacy groups are expected to host a counter-programming event Monday outside the White House calling on Biden to establish an office at the White House to more urgently address gun violence.
Ahead of Monday’s event, Biden asked Americans in a tweet to text him their stories of how gun violence has impacted their communities, looking to tout how the new law will help stop similar violence.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes $13 billion in new spending for mental health programs and for securing schools. It also makes background checks stricter for gun buyers under 21, helps to close the so-called boyfriend loophole to restrict domestic violence offenders from purchasing guns, and incentivizes red flag laws to remove firearms from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
But it doesn’t go as far as many wanted, including Biden, lacking measures such as universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
As the president marks progress on gun reform Monday, he will also call on Congress to act further.
Biden is expected to urge Congress to confirm Steve Dettelbach to serve as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
He will also call on Congress to bring him “legislation that would ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, strengthen background checks, and enact safe storage laws,” according to the White House.
The president’s call for more congressional action comes as the Senate returns from its July Fourth recess Monday. Notably, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will not be at Biden’s event, as he is isolated with COVID-19.
Schumer’s positive test serves as a reminder that COVID is still a looming threat, though the close spacing of chairs on the White House South Lawn Monday doesn’t appear to reflect that concern.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department revealed in an early Monday morning court filing that federal investigators interviewed former President Donald Trump’s attorney Justin Clark two weeks ago in connection with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal contempt case.
Prosecutors say that Clark confirmed in the interview that at no point did Trump ever invoke executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony — and directly contradicted other claims made by Bannon’s defense team in their case.
Bannon was charged last year with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress after defying a Jan. 6 subpoena, though he argued Trump’s privilege claim protected him. He pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial next week.
Prosecutors say in Monday’s filing that they believe Bannon’s recent efforts in conjunction with Trump to offer to finally testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack are no more than an effort to try to make Bannon more of a sympathetic figure to the jury he’s set to face next week.
“All of the above-described circumstances suggest the Defendant’s sudden wish to testify is not a genuine effort to meet his obligations but a last-ditch attempt to avoid accountability,” prosecutors say.
“The Defendant’s timing suggests that the only thing that has really changed since he refused to comply with the subpoena in October 2021 is that he is finally about to face the consequences of his decision to default,” prosecutors said in the filing.
Regarding Bannon, the filing also said Clark told investigators that he “never asked or was asked to attend the Defendant’s deposition before the Select Committee; that the Defendant’s attorney misrepresented to the Committee what the former President’s counsel had told the Defendant’s attorney; and that the former President’s counsel made clear to the Defendant’s attorney that the letter provided no basis for total noncompliance.”
Neither representatives for Bannon or the Jan. 6 committee immediately responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Bannon remained an outside adviser to Trump after helping to lead Trump’s first presidential campaign and serving a short stint in the White House. He was at a meeting at the Willard Hotel where lawmakers were encouraged to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in the lead-up to Jan. 6, the House Jan. 6 committee claimed in a 2021 letter to Bannon that accompanied his subpoena.
On his final night in office, Trump pardoned Bannon, who had been indicted on charges tied to an alleged conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering related to a crowdfunding effort to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Prosecutors had accused Bannon of defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors to the “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign by falsely claiming that he and other organizers would not take a cut of any donated funds. Prosecutors alleged that organizers of the group, including Bannon, syphoned off at least $1 million for their own personal expenses.
Two of Bannon’s co-defendants in the case, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, who did not receive pardons from Trump, pleaded guilty. The trial for a third co-defendant, Timothy Shea, ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a verdict.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 on Tuesday announced its next hearing: July 12 beginning at 1 p.m. ET.
The panel has been holding a series of public hearings since last month related to its year-long inquiry into the events before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters.
It has not yet been announced who will be testifying on July 12. The past hearings have stretched for several hours. The committee initially said the hearing would start at 10 a.m. ET but on Sunday announced the updated start time.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the panel, indicated earlier this month that the next hearing would focus on the formation of the mob that ultimately descended on the Capitol last year, including the participation of several far-right groups.
“Who was participating, who was financing it, how it was organized, including the participation of these white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, and others,” Schiff said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who served as the lead impeachment manager for the House proceedings against then-President Donald Trump after the insurrection, is anticipated to play a large role.
The last hearing featured lengthy testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s last White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
Hutchinson’s appearance sparked days of criticism of Trump — including from other conservatives — after she testified that the former president was aware that attendees of his speech at the Ellipse earlier on Jan. 6 were armed before he asked for security measures to be reduced and ultimately urged them to march to the Capitol. Hutchinson also testified that when the Secret Service would not take Trump to the Capitol after his speech, he lunged for the steering wheel of his SUV and then at the neck of a Secret Service agent.
Trump adamantly denied her account. The Secret Service said it would cooperate fully with the panel, “including by responding on the record,” if investigators had any follow up questions over the alleged incident.
Other hearings the committee has held have focused on the Capitol insurrection itself; on Trump allies’ awareness that his voter fraud claims were false; and on the pressure campaign by Trump and those in his orbit to push states to not certify now-President Joe Biden’s win.
In her testimony last week, Hutchinson said she had heard chatter about the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers — two prominent far-right groups — in the days leading up to Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. She said that Rudy Giuliani, who was then Trump’s personal lawyer, was frequently seen around the White House at the same time.
Leaders of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have been charged with seditious conspiracy over the groups’ roles in last year’s riot.
