(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice should investigate “any allegation of criminal activity” against former President Donald Trump and his allies raised by the House’s Jan. 6 select committee in its public hearings this month, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday on “This Week.”
“There are certain actions, parts of these different lines of effort to overturn the [2020] election, that I don’t see evidence the Justice Department is investigating,” Schiff, a member of the committee and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview with “This Week” co-anchor and ABC Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz.
“Once the evidence is accumulated by the Justice Department, it needs to make a decision about whether it can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt the president’s guilt or anyone else’s,” he said.
“But they need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is.”
On Thursday the Jan. 6 committee held the first of seven new public hearings to lay out its nearly year-long investigation into what members described as Trump’s “attempted coup” — a multifaceted effort to challenge and overturn the 2020 presidential election results that culminated in the deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, as members of Congress had gathered to certify Trump’s defeat.
Trump has long denied wrongdoing and contends the Jan. 6 committee is politically motivated.
“The evidence is very powerful that Donald Trump began telling this ‘big lie’ before the election … that lie continued after the election and ultimately led to this mob assembling and attacking the Capitol,” Schiff told Raddatz on Sunday. “There’s a lot more testimony where that came from.”
Schiff said that exploring the connections between Trump’s orbit and extremist groups like the Proud Boys has been a “clear focus” of the committee’s investigation, but he declined to be more specific about their work.
Raddatz pressed him in the interview: “Let me ask you again: Is there an actual conversation between people in Trump’s orbit and Proud Boys, Oath Keepers?”
“I don’t want to predetermine or prejudge the strength of what we’ll show you. … I don’t want to get into the specifics of the evidence. You’ll just have to wait until we get to that point in our hearings,” Schiff said.
The committee will also reveal details about alleged efforts from some Republican lawmakers to seek pardons from Trump for their involvement in the push to challenge the election, he said.
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., called Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s claim that he sought a pardon from Trump a “soulless lie.”
“We will show evidence that we have that members of Congress were seeking pardons. To me I think that is the most compelling evidence of a consciousness of guilt,” Schiff said. “Why would members to that if they felt that their involvement in this plot to overturn the election was somehow appropriate?”
On Monday, the committee will hold the second in its latest hearings, which they say will focus on evidence that Trump and his aides knew he had lost the election but still continued to push unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud.
(ANCHORAGE, Alaska) — Sarah Palin got one step closer this weekend to a return to national politics when she successfully advanced through the crowded statewide primary for the special election for Alaska’s lone House seat.
ABC News projected Sunday that Palin, who is running as a Republican, made it to the special general race in August along with Nick Begich and Al Gross. The fourth and final candidate is still to be determined.
In a statement on social media, Palin wrote that she was “looking forward to the special general election so we can highlight our ideas for fixing this country.”
Among those proposals, she said, was “responsibly developing Alaska’s God-given natural resources, getting runaway government spending under control [and] protecting human life” as well as backing the Second Amendment — amid renewed talks of federal gun legislation in response to the latest wave of mass shootings.
Palin previously served as governor of Alaska and mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, before she was named as Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential race.
That election — which instantly gave Palin a national profile — spotlighted both her popularity with conservatives and the emerging “tea party” wing of the GOP and her stumbles as a candidate, particularly around foreign policy. She resigned from the governorship in 2009, months after she and McCain lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
In the years since, Palin has remained involved in politics: musing about a presidential race of her own and working as a commentator and TV personality.
Her bid for the Alaska House seat was her first official foray back into electoral politics.
Palin supported Trump’s 2016 presidential run, and only two days after Palin launched her House campaign this year, Trump returned the favor. In early June, he held a statewide telerally for her.
Forty-eight candidates in total were running in the special primary, held Saturday, after Republican Rep. Don Young died in March.
The winner of the special general election in August will serve only the remainder of Young’s term; the regularly scheduled election to decide who will serve a full two-year term starting in 2023 will be held in November. (Thirty-one candidates have filed for that race.)
Begich, who is running as a Republican, comes from a prominent Democratic family. His grandfather, Rep. Nick Begich Sr., was Alaska’s sole representative before Young — from 1970 to 1972.
Before running for Congress, the younger Begich held several political roles, including co-chair for Young’s 2020 reelection campaign, the 2020 OneAlaska campaign and the Alaska Republican Party’s Finance Committee.
Gross, a surgeon running as an independent, told the Anchorage Daily News he was seeking the House seat because he wanted to do what was best for Alaskans. He said that his top priorities include creating jobs, diversifying the state’s economy and making the U.S. energy independent.
Gross ran in Alaska’s 2020 Senate race but lost to incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan.
Among the other candidates in Saturday’s special primary was a man named — yes — Santa Claus, who has a long white beard and is a city council member in North Pole, Alaska.
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — This year’s redistricting process reduced electoral competition, giving incumbents bolstered protection. But not every officeholder gets a break, even if members of their own party help draw the maps.
Take Rep. Tom Malinowski, the Democrat incumbent of New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, which he flipped from red to blue in 2018, maintaining his seat by fewer than two points in 2020. Now, thanks to a new map, the district inherits a large chunk of Republican voters, putting Malinowski on the ropes again, with his seat vulnerable to Republican takeover.
And with only five seats needed to give the GOP control of the House, the political stakes of the crop of newly competitive races for seats currently held by Democrats couldn’t be higher.
“This is the race that is going to determine whether Democrats control the House of Representatives for the next two years, or the people who supported the insurrection on January 6th,” said Malinowski during a campaign event with Union City Democrats in the commuter town of Rahway, a new part of his district. That’s an easy choice for the good people of New Jersey.”
Unfortunately for Malinowski, that choice will likely be anything but easy with the new lines.
When a panel of New Jersey lawmakers were tasked with redrawing the state’s congressional boundaries, Democrats faced a challenge: How do they help draw a map that ensures they maintain their majority in Congress? The decision was to draw eleven of the twelve districts as safely partisan, leaving one remaining race competitive. That seat? Malinowski’s.
If things go poorly for Malinowski come November, Rutgers Professor John Farmer says the New Jersey congressman “will be seen as having been sacrificed.”
Unsurprisingly, national Republicans have been on the offensive.
Malinowski and Rep. Cindy Axne, an Iowa Democrat, both advanced to a general election challenge after winning their state’s primaries and are some of the top targets of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The group, alongside other House-aligned Super PAC called The Congressional Leadership Fund, has poured millions of dollars in the efforts to push New Jersey’s 7th district from lightly to solidly red.
Malinowski must now fend off Tom Kean Jr., the son of former Gov. Thomas Kean, whose legacy helps him elbow out the competition from both more moderate and MAGA wings of the Jersey GOP. Kean lost to Malinowski by a hair in 2020, and new maps give him the upper hand for the rematch.
“I am both humbled and fully committed to flipping this seat in November,” Kean wrote in a statement on Twitter after his primary victory.
During hits on cable news — mostly Fox — he’s been slamming Malinowski on rising costs and inflation in D.C., kitchen table issues that tend to swing New Jersey voters.
In addition to creating some newly competitive districts, redistricting has also forced some Democrats to run against fellow Democrats in incumbent-on-incumbent primaries. Such was the case for Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath, who advanced to the general after being forced into Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, ousting Democratic Rep. Carolyn Bordeaux. And history will repeat itself in New York come August in perhaps the hottest incumbent-on-incumbent primary when Democrats Rep. Jerry Nadler squares off with Rep. Carolyn Maloney in New York’s new 12th district.
In the walk-up to the November election, the path for Democrats is anything but clear.
At a campaign event with supporters in Springfield area coffee shop, Malinowski gave a candid appraisal of the road ahead for Democrats like him.
“We’re the only ones who actually, by our votes and by our work, get to decide, get to make a difference in terms of which way the wind is blowing in America one way or another. And that is a burden. It means we have to work much harder. It’s going to cost us a lot of money. But I think it’s also a privilege,” said Malinowski. “We actually could go either way, and that makes the investment that all of us are going to make in this campaign all the more important.”
(WASHINGTON) — Washington, D.C., is increasing police presence and urging visitors not to bring guns as the city prepares for rallies and Supreme Court rulings on hot-button topics including abortion and gun rights.
Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said Friday his department is in a “posture of preparedness” for upcoming events.
“We are increasing our presence to have coverage in neighborhoods and our downtown areas, which includes the activation of civil disturbance unit platoons,” he said at a press conference alongside Mayor Muriel Bowser. “In addition, we are working closely with our law enforcement, government and community partners to ensure that all of these events are peaceful and our neighborhoods are safe.”
This weekend in D.C., a March for Our Lives demonstration is expected to draw thousands calling for action on gun control after a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, left 19 young children and two teachers dead. That followed a shooting in Buffalo, New York, where a gunman opened fire and killed 10 Black people.
The Supreme Court is also expected to deliver several opinions this month, with one or more decisions being handed down Monday and Wednesday.
Contee said if more officers are needed at any point, the Metropolitan Police Department will call upon departments in neighboring jurisdictions.
The police chief also specifically warned against bringing guns to any upcoming events amid a disturbing trend of high-profile mass shootings.
“If you’re coming to enjoy our beautiful city, individuals should not think to bring firearms into our beautiful city,” he said. “We need to help keep the peace in our city — leave the law enforcement and the firearms, leave that to the Metropolitan Police Department. That’s our responsibility.”
The FBI Washington field office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia released a statement Friday reiterating its commitment to keep the peace this summer.
“We will not tolerate violence, destruction, interference with government functions, or trespassing on government property,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Steven M. D’Antuono.
Tensions have been running high in recent weeks as the nation awaits decisions in two high-profile Supreme Court cases — one on gun rights and another on abortion rights.
Earlier this week, an armed man was arrested outside the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Bowser said Friday that the city won’t “live in fear.”
“We’re going to rely on each other but also on our government who knows how to support large-scale events and are going to take every precaution that we can, but we’re also asking each other to look out for our neighbors,” she said.
– ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Editor’s note: This story was originally published in January 2022. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Hamse Warfa was the first Somali-American presidential appointee. Other Somali Americans have been appointed to presidential administrations prior to Warfa, including Hani Garabyare, during Barack Obama’s tenure. We regret the error.
The White House announced this week that Hamse Warfa will join the Biden administration — a Somali native who was inspired to enter public service because of the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment during the 2016 election cycle.
While not the first Somali-American to join a presidential administration, Warfa is one of the highest-ranking — a senior adviser to the State Department on civilian security, democracy and human rights. In that role, he will help develop strategies for protecting and promoting democracy at home and abroad.
“My acceptance of this role is in direct response to President Biden’s call to action to protect and promote democracy,” he told ABC News.
Warfa’s family fled Somalia after the country’s civil war started in 1991 and lived in various refugee camps across Kenya, he said. After arriving in the United States as a teenager in 1994 alongside his family, he received a bachelor’s degree in political science from San Diego State University and his master’s in organizational management and leadership from Springfield College in the same city. He moved to Minnesota in 2012 after he was recruited by the state’s largest philanthropic foundation, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, he explained.
The 2016 election season inspired Warfa to become more active in civic engagement.
“The strong anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim policy and actions, motivated me to organize and get more involved at the state level,” Warfa said. “Some of the Minnesota gubernatorial candidates talked about shutting down the refugee program, and in some cases, created fear about refugees in Minnesota, especially about Minnesota’s Muslim, Somali community.”
In 2019, the Minnesota governor’s office appointed Warfa as deputy commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, making him the highest-ranking Somali American official in the state’s executive branch, according to the department.
Warfa’s list of accomplishments also includes being the co-founder of BanQu, Inc., a blockchain service created to broaden economic opportunities for low-income people across the globe, as well as the recipient of a 2016 Bush Fellowship, which is granted to help develop leadership skills, and an Ashoka Fellowship for social entrepreneurs.
During his time in Minnesota government, he “successfully advocated for the largest job bill in state history, supplying workforce training to youth and adults,” according to his department.
He served as an economic adviser to the Biden campaign, helping develop the administration’s plans to reverse the Muslim ban and increase refugee admission numbers.
“When we talk about democracy, I want to make sure we talk about inclusive democracy,” he told ABC News. “I want to bring my both lived and professional experiences to help the administration expand access to those affected by government policies and actions.”
“I want to see America live through its ideals in building multiethnic and multiracial democracy that protects everyone,” he added. “I hope people see in my example — from the refugee camp to representing America — hope for democracy and value of everyone’s voice and vote.”
(WASHINGTON) — Flanked by the leaders of several countries, President Joe Biden announced the Los Angeles Declaration of Migration and Protection on the final day of the Summit of the Americas on Friday.
20 different countries signed on to the declaration, each committing to tackling different components of migration.
Biden credited the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and climate change as contributing factors to migration throughout the Western Hemisphere.
“Right now, migrants make up as much as 10% of the population of Costa Rica. And no nation should bear this responsibility alone, in my view, our view,” he said.
Many of the commitments under the declaration deal specifically with boosting temporary worker programs.
Canada has agreed to welcome more than 50,000 agricultural workers from Mexico, Guatemala, and the Caribbean this year. Mexico and Guatemala are also agreeing to expand migrant labor programs to address labor shortages.
Ecuador has issued a decree to create a pathway to regular migration status for Venezuelans who legally entered through port of entry but are currently unlawfully in the country.
At home, the Biden Administration has offered its own commitments including $300 million in funding for humanitarian assistance for countries “so when migrants arrive on their doorstep, they can provide a place to stay, make sure migrants can see a doctor, find opportunities to work, so they don’t have to undertake the dangerous journey north.”
The Biden Administration has been rattled by the continuation of hardline immigration policies installed by the Trump administration.
Unprecedented rates of migration and piecemeal approaches to stemming the flow have manifested in large groups gathering at ports of entry like Del Rio, Texas. However today, the president made clear that controlling migration is a responsibility shared among all nations in the western hemisphere. Perhaps pushing back on Republican attacks that he’s “soft on immigration,” the president also assured that the declaration includes a commitment to strengthen border security as well as the administration’s intention to expand a multilateral “sting operation” that aims to disrupt human trafficking in Latin America.
“If you prey on desperate and vulnerable migrants for profit, we are coming for you. We are coming after you,” Biden said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will be launching a $65 million pilot program to issue grants for farmers hiring seasonal agricultural workers.
The administration failed in its attempts to lift Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allows the government to quickly expel migrants without giving them a chance to apply for asylum because of the ongoing pandemic. Last month, a federal judge prevented the administration from ending the rule on May 23.
Immigration advocates and lawyers have said that Black asylum seekers are bearing the brunt of these kinds of hardline policies as they face discrimination at our border and on their journey here.
In September, photos depicting Border Patrol agents on horse back aggressively apprehending Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas, sparked outrage and a lawsuit on behalf of some of the people detained that day.
The president has carved out several initiatives that deal specifically with Haitian migrants in the Declaration including resuming its participation in the Haitian Family Reunification Parole Program, which allows U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to apply for parole for relatives in Haiti. The U.S. will also be providing 11,500 H-2B visas for nonagricultural seasonal workers from Central America and Haiti.
Nana Gyamfi, the Executive Director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), said the initiatives laid out in the declaration deprive Haitian migrants the right to seek asylum where they feel safe.
“When you claim asylum, you are taking agency over your life. You are saying that I’m making this journey, if I survive here is where I want to be safe,” she said. “All of the pieces that you see in this declaration are all take away agency from the people who need the support, and puts all of the decision making into government entities.”
Gyamfi also believes it fails to address institutional racism that excludes Black asylum seekers from finding refuge across the hemisphere.
“There’s no policies that are saying look, we understand that a you know, anti blackness exists and that it’s being expressed not just in the United States policy, but the policies of Mexico the policies and Central America,” she said.
The announcement of the Declaration comes as some of the controversy over notable absences at the Summit have threatened to overshadow the collaborative work the administration intended to do on issues like climate change, recovery from the COVID-19 Pandemic, and migration.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei boycotted the summit over the administration’s decision to not invite leaders of the authoritarian governments of Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.
During a plenary session, Prime Minister of Belize Johnny Briceño slammed the president, as he was seated from a few feet away, over his “incomprehensible” and “un-American” exclusion of Cuba and Venezuela.
The administration is touting the declaration as proof that countries in the region can work together to achieve common goals.
Belize has committed to launching a program in August to legalize some Central American and CARICOM migrants who have been living illegally in the country.
“Our security is linked in ways that I don’t think most people in my country fully understand, and maybe not in your countries as well. Our common humanity demands that we care for our neighbors by working together,” the president said.
(NEW YORK) — When Alaska’s only House member, Rep. Don Young, died in March, it opened the floodgates to replace him.
Since Young — the longest serving Republican in the House — was first elected in 1973, this is the first time in nearly half a century that Alaska’s House seat is vacant.
Forty-eight candidates are now running in a special statewide primary Saturday, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Palin and fellow Republican Nick Begich III, as well as independent Al Gross, are among among the four likely to advance to the general election in August, according to FiveThirtyEight, which notes that since the election is primarily being conducted using mail ballots due June 21, the results won’t be known until later this month.
The Alaska Division of Elections is holding the “Nonpartisan Top 4 Primary to determine the top four vote getters that will advance to the General Election, regardless of party affiliation.” The winner in August will serve only the remainder of Young’s term; the regularly scheduled election to decide who will serve a full two-year term starting in 2023 will be held in November.
Palin has the most name recognition in the relatively crowded primary field. Her return to national politics comes 14 years after she and then-GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain lost the 2008 election to Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
In 2009, a few months after that loss, she resigned as Alaska’s governor. But Palin gained popularity along with the “tea party” movement that same year. Two years later, in 2010, she was the keynote speaker at the National Tea Party Convention.
The “tea party,” though rooted in an opposition to taxation and big government, also included radical elements — with some adherents supporting the fabricated and racist birtherism theory that Obama, the first Black president, is not a United States citizen.
In many ways, Palin’s shoot-from-the-hip style and the tea party were precursors to Trump and the MAGA movement. Both tapped into voters’ anger during the Obama era and used it to their advantage.
Palin supported Trump’s 2016 presidential run, and only two days afer Palin launched her House campaign this year, Trump returned the favor. In early June, Trump held a statewide telerally for Palin.
Palin’s main platform includes making America energy independent, getting inflation under control and protecting Second Amendment rights. In an interview with the Associated Press, she said she’s committed to the people of Alaska.
When she announced her run for Congress in April, Palin said she entered the race because she believed “America was at a tipping point.”
Even though Palin’s candidacy is high profile, she faces competition. Begich, who is running as a Republican, comes from a prominent Democratic family. His grandfather, Democratic Rep. Nick Begich Sr., was Alaska’s sole representative before Young — from 1970 to 1972. The older Begich was presumed to have died in 1972 when his plane disappeared en route to a rally in Alaska — a plane also carrying then-House Majority Leader Hale Boggs. Nick Begich’s siblings served in the Alaska legislature and the U.S. Senate as Democrats; Mark Begich was a senator for a single term, elected in 2008.
Before running for Congress, Begich held several political roles, including co-chair for Young’s 2020 reelection campaign, the 2020 OneAlaska campaign and the Alaska Republican Party’s Finance Committee.
Another candidate who could advance to the general is Gross, running as an independent.
Gross told the Anchorage Daily News he is running for Congress because he wants to do what is best for Alaskans and his top priorities include creating jobs, diversifying the state’s economy and making the U.S. energy independent.
Thirty-one candidates have filed for the general election.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump on Friday rebuked his own daughter’s deposition testimony played for millions to hear during the House select committee’s prime-time hearingdetailing its Jan. 6 investigation.
Posting to Truth Social — the social media network Trump launched after being kicked off Twitter — Trump continued to repeat false claims about the 2020 election as he mocked the committee’s work and lashed out at comments Ivanka Trump and former Attorney General Bill Barr made in videotaped depositions.
“Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results,” Trump wrote after she said she agreed with Barr’s assessment that there was no amount of fraud sufficient enough to overturn his loss.
“It affected my perspective,” Ivanka Trump told the committee about Barr’s assessment. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”
Trump fired back Friday that Ivanka “had long since checked out, and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!).”
It’s a shift in tone for Trump towards his eldest daughter, who served as a senior adviser in the White House, as did her husband Jared Kushner. Trump praised Ivanka’s work multiple times during his administration, calling her smart and intelligent.
Trump also once commended Barr, his second attorney general, as one of the “most respected jurists” in the nation. When Barr stepped down from his role as attorney general in December 2020, Trump said their relationship was “a very good one” and Barr had “done an outstanding job!”
Using recorded testimony from Barr and Ivanka Trump, as well as other Trump insiders, the House panel on Thursday night argued that Trump was aware of the fact that he lost but moved ahead anyway with a scheme to remain in power.
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., placed Trump at the center of what he described as an “attempted coup” to try to overturn President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
In one interview aired in the hearing, Barr recounted telling Trump the idea that the presidential race was rigged was “bull****.”
Barr said he “repeatedly told the president in no uncertain terms that I did not see evidence of fraud and — you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election. And frankly, a year and a half later, I haven’t seen anything to change my mind on that.”
Trump on Friday called Barr “weak and frightened” and denounced the committee once again as the “Unselect Committee.”
Teasing what else the committee learned in its 11-month investigation, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming said the public will soon hear testimony from former White House staffers who saw first-hand Trump’s reaction to the rioters.
Cheney said the testimony claims Trump expressed support for threats of violence against then-Vice President Mike Pence.
“Aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it,” Cheney said.
Trump denied doing so on Truth Social, writing he “NEVER said, or even thought of saying ‘Hang Mike Pence.'”
“This is either a made up story by somebody looking to become a star, or FAKE NEWS!” he added.
Last year, Trump told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl that he didn’t worry about Pence’s safety during the Capitol riot and thought he was “well-protected.”
“They were saying ‘hang Mike Pence,'” Karl reminded Trump.
“Because it’s common sense, Jon,” Trump responded. “It’s common sense that you’re supposed to protect. How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right? — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that?”
(WASHINGTON) — Millions more bottles’ worth of critically needed infant formula are set to touch down on U.S. shores later this month, as the Biden administration continues its push to replenish the supply on the nation’s empty shelves.
More than 3.2 million bottles’ worth of formula will be airlifted in on planes donated by Delta Airlines in the coming weeks, ABC News is first to report.
Those some-212,000 pounds of Kendamil infant formula, from U.K. manufacturer Kendal Nutricare, will begin shipping into the country beginning on June 20.
Donated Delta planes will shuttle those formula shipments from Heathrow Airport in London to Logan Airport in Boston and Detroit Metro Airport, a White House official told ABC.
Upon distribution, it will be available for families’ purchase at select U.S. retailers nationwide, as well as online, the administration says.
The newly announced flights are the latest in a lengthening list of formula shipments coming in through FDA’s exercised import discretion; in total, Kendal Nutricare has committed to export at least 54 million 8-ounce bottles’ worth to the U.S.
Friday’s announcement also comes on the heels of two other large shipments putting wheels down in the U.S. just a day before.
On Thursday, nearly two million bottles’ worth of infant formula came in from overseas: roughly 1.6 million 8-ounce bottles’ worth of Nestlé formula, greeted in Texas by HHS Sec. Xavier Becerra; and the first of several flights donated by United Airlines coming into Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., altogether are expected to bring in about 3.7 million 8-ounce bottles’ worth of additional Kendamil formula from the U.K., available at Target stores in the coming weeks.
It couldn’t come soon enough for so many American families still scrambling to feed their children amid the urgent supply crisis.
So far, cumulatively, the White House says it has secured commitments to import upwards of 127.5 million bottles’ worth. President Joe Biden, acknowledging the strain so many parents have been feeling, as well as political criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.
“There’s nothing more stressful than the feeling you can’t get what your child needs,” he said meeting virtually with formula manufacturers and members of his administration, saying his team will use “every tool available” to get more formula on shelves “as quickly as possible.”
“Still we have work to do,” Biden said. “But we’re making critical progress.”
(WASHINGTON) — In a prime-time hearing, the House select committee on Thursday began laying out the findings of its ongoing investigation, placing former President Donald Trump at the center of what it called the “culmination of an attempted coup” and “multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election.”
From a packed room in the Cannon House Office Building, the panel spent almost two hours unearthing new details of what members have learned behind closed doors over the course of their 11-month investigation — gathering more than 140,000 documents and 1,000 witness interviews to piece together details from, and leading up to, the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.
The hearing, the first of several this month, included never-before-seen footage of the attack and distress calls from law enforcement that left some in the room in tears.
Taped depositions with Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and other members of Trump’s inner circle were also aired before the committee heard live testimony from two people on the ground that day: Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards and documentarian Nick Quested.
In the audience were law enforcement members who pushed back against rioters as well as widows of officers who died in the aftermath.
“Tonight and over the next few weeks, we are going to remind you of the reality of what happened that day,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in his opening statement. “But our work must do much more than just look backwards, because our democracy is in danger. The conspiracy to defraud the will of the people is not over.”
Here are some key takeaways:
Committee places Trump at center of ‘attempted coup’
In his opening statement, Thompson — looking directly at the camera and reading from a teleprompter — called Jan. 6 “the culmination of an attempted coup” and illustrative of “President Trump’s last stand — his most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.”
“He lost in the courts, just as he did at the ballot box. And in this country, that’s the end of the line,” he said. “But for Donald Trump, that was only the beginning of what became a sprawling, multi-step conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election.”
Thompson laid out how every president in American history has carried out the peaceful transfer of power — until Trump — and previewed how the committee would use testimony from Trump’s own allies to show he directly encouraged his supporters to stop lawmakers from certifying election results.
“Trump was at the center of this conspiracy, and ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down the Capitol and subvert American democracy,” Thompson said.
Vice-Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Trump “coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power.”
Cheney also built a case against fellow Republican officeholders, addressing them directly: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone. But your dishonor will remain.”
Key players offer first-hand insight into Trump’s thinking
Using recorded testimony from Trump officials including former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Trump spokesman Jason Miller, campaign attorney Alex Cannon and some of Trump’s closest family members, Cheney argued that Trump was “well aware” both that he lost the election and of ongoing violence at the Capitol yet still moved forward with a plot to stay in power.
In a video clip from an interview with Barr, Trump’s attorney general said he “repeatedly told the president, in no uncertain terms, that I did not see evidence of fraud and — you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election.”
Ivanka Trump, in another clip, was asked about Barr’s statement that the Justice Department found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election.
“It affected my perspective,” she said of Barr’s assessment. “I respect Attorney General Barr, so I accepted what he was saying.”
Cheney also showed a tape of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner telling the committee that he dismissed White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s “multiple” threats to resign in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot.
“I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you,” Kushner said.
“Whining,” Cheney recounted to the hearing room. “There is a reason why people serving in our government take an oath to the Constitution… And that oath must mean something.”
Further laying out what the committee learned in its interviews, Cheney said the American people will soon hear testimony from former White House staff about Trump’s reaction to rioters threatening violence against then-Vice President Mike Pence.
“You will hear testimony that ‘the president didn’t really want to put anything out calling off the riot or asking his supporters to leave,'” Cheney said in her opening statement. “You will hear that President Trump was yelling and ‘really angry at advisers who told him he needed to be doing something more.'”
“And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea,'” she recounted. “Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it.”
Capitol Police officer recounts disbelief as ‘war scene’ unfolded
Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after rioters knocked her to the ground, painted a dire picture of what took place that day, describing it as “an absolute war zone” with “hours of hand-to-hand combat.”
“I can just remember my breath catching in my throat because I — what I saw was just a war scene,” Edwards testified. “It was something like I’d seen out of the movies. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
“There were officers on the ground. You know, they were bleeding. They were throwing up. You know, they had, I mean, I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell,” she said.
“It was carnage,” she continued. “It was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw, never in my wildest dreams did I think as a police officer, as a law enforcement officer, I would find myself in the middle of a battle.”
Edwards was knocked unconscious during an altercation with rioters — a moment captured on video that aired during the hearing — but returned to duty at the Capitol’s west terrace. She was also later hit with pepper spray and tear gas.
Teasing what’s to come
The House select committee will hold five more hearings this month. The next one is Monday at 10 a.m.
That hearing, Cheney said, will focus on how Trump and his team knew he had lost the election but continued to spread false claims about fraud and unsuccessfully litigated the matter in court.
At the third hearing, slated for June 15, the committee plans to argue that Trump planned to replace Barr so the Department of Justice could act on his false election claims. Cheney said he even went so far as to offer Jeff Clark, an environmental lawyer at the DOJ, the role of acting attorney general.
The fourth hearing is expected to focus on Trump’s pressure campaign to get Pence not to certify the 2020 election. Pence refused and has repeatedly said he never had the authority to do so, despite Trump’s claim.
Trump’s efforts to halt the counting of electoral votes at the state level will be the focus of the fifth hearing.
