(WASHINGTON) — Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s eldest granddaughter, will have her fall wedding on the South Lawn of the White House — the first time the White House has hosted nuptials since 2013.
“Sooo not sure how best to update but was supposed to do so weeks ago…but we have finally figured out where the ceremony will be…and much to the relief of secret service and with the dogs’ endorsement…we’ll be getting married on the South Lawn! Couldn’t be more excited,” the 28 year-old Naomi Biden, an attorney, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
Aides had previously announced that she and her 25-year-old fiancé, lawyer Peter Neal, would have a reception at the White House on Nov. 19.
“Peter and I are endlessly grateful to my Nana and Pop for the opportunity to celebrate our wedding at the White House. We can’t wait to make our commitment to one another official and for what lies ahead,” Naomi Biden, daughter of the president’s younger son, Hunter, tweeted in April.
The White House has said the Biden family will be covering the cost of the reception as is consistent with other private events hosted by the first family and in keeping with the tradition of wedding festivities under prior administrations.
Naomi Biden and Neal were introduced by friends some four years ago, first lady Jill Biden’s office previously told reporters. Neal proposed in September in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, not far from where he grew up “with a ring that includes the band of his grandmother’s engagement ring.”
Their families “were there to surprise them after,” the first lady’s office has said.
According to the White House Historical Association (WHHA), there have been 18 documented weddings at the White House and four documented receptions. The most recent ceremony was in 2013, under President Barack Obama, when his photographer Pete Souza wed Patti Lease.
The most recent reception was in 2008, for President George W. Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush ahead of her marriage to Henry Hager at the Bush family ranch in Texas.
While the WHHA notes there have been weddings held in the Rose Garden, they do not list any weddings that took place on the South Lawn.
(NEW YORK) — With communities around the country suffering from extreme temperatures, just months after some of those same locations saw unbearable cold snaps, some state leaders are taking the initiative with proposals to help people navigate the consequences of climate change.
In California, state leaders have been pushing a legislative package that they say plans around the new normal of consistent 100-degree weather. Proposals like an extreme heat ranking system, similar to ones used in hurricanes, mandate cooling during high heat days and the creation of a chief heat officer are crucial for the wellbeing of residents, according to the bills’ supporters.
“We cannot wait for the federal government to do something,” state Assemblywoman Luz Rivas, who co-introduced the bills, told ABC News. “People are dying of extreme heat every day.”
Environmental experts agreed and said that more states and localities need to focus on extreme weather policies that are tailor made for their regions and do so soon.
“We don’t have any national adaption plan and as far as I know there is no talk about it,” Sarah Pralle, an associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University who specializes in environmental policy, told ABC News. “That’s going to hurt us as more and more states experience these climate induced disasters.”
California legislators work to beat the heat
In May, the California state Assembly passed a series of bills that provide safeguards and protections for residents during high heatwaves, and are currently awaiting hearings in the state senate.
Under Rivas’ extreme heat ranking bill, the state’s Environmental Protection Agency would issue alerts with either a letter, number or color indicator that would warn a specific community about the heat threats to their area.
The assemblywoman noted that different parts of the state experience worse effects from heat waves, such as communities closer to the desert that are experiencing drought or neighborhoods that are higher risk for wildfires, and need different disaster preparations.
“The alert would provide recommendations to people with adequate time and how to compare and when it’s best to remain indoors,” Rivas said.
If passed, the warning system would make California the first state in the nation to have an extreme heat alert system, according to the assemblywoman.
Rivas said her heat related bill would create a chief heat officer, an extreme heat advisory council and interagency heat task force under the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. That officer and agencies would be tasked with preparing local governments with short- and long-term efforts to safeguard people from the heat and would provide grants for projects such as cooling centers in rural areas.
Rivas noted that several cities around the world, such as Athens and Miami, have recently created chief heat officer roles to streamline the process for getting mitigation efforts done and to have a dedicated staff focused on the high heat.
“In California we have multiple programs that can be spread over many agencies, but the idea of having this centralized position and office is crucial,” the assemblywoman said. “I think our local governments need the support from a statewide officer.”
Other approved heat related bills that are making their way through the state include assembly bill 2243 that would get a “ultraheat heat standard” for people working outdoors and require access to cool water and frequent rest periods, and assembly bill 2597 which would change building codes to require “safe maximum indoor air temperature” in newly constructed and existing dwelling units.
A good start that others can follow
Environmental experts tell ABC News that California’s bills could inspire other states and even the federal government to adopt similar measures.
Pralle said that the bill to create an extreme heat office will be beneficial, if approved, because it would keep the momentum for solutions to heat related problems consistent.
“The problem with disaster policy is there is a lot of attention during and after the disaster, we move onto different things,” she said. “The bad news about climate change is that these disasters keep happening so the conversations about policy have to keep going. So having an office whose job is to stay focused on this problem is a good thing.”
Daniel Kammen, a professor of energy at the University of California, Berkeley, who has advised lawmakers in state legislators across the country on policies, told ABC News that it is difficult to gauge the success of environmental policies because of the rapidly worsening climate change effects.
“All of these adaption strategies are hard to do, because you’re spending money today and you’re not getting credit or results until years later,” he told ABC News. “Even climate scientists don’t understand the number of disruptions that are coming and how much we have to adapt.”
But when one state comes up with successful programs, Kammen said others are quick to follow suit. He cited California’s 2018 adoption of the zero carbon emissions as an example.
The executive order mandated state agencies to meet a goal of 100% carbon free electricity by 2045 and called on various state agencies to work on proposals to achieve the goal.
As of today, 20 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have adapted similar zero carbon goals, according to the Clean Energy States Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of state energy organizations.
“State actions are invariably the way we test drive policies,” Kammen said.
Kammen said the latest California heat policies would be beneficial to other parts of the region, even those with completely different environments. He emphasized that the bills aimed at identifying which populations are most vulnerable to extreme heat is a topic that every state is dealing with.
“We need to be able to protect the most vulnerable. Those local and state efforts that invest in cooling are critical,” he said.
Kammen said other states have considered similar bills in the past for requiring workplace and housing safety during high heat and extreme cold weather, including New York. Policy makers will be keeping tabs on the progress of California’s bill and take any successful components that will apply to their states’ vulnerable neighborhoods, he predicted.
Kammen added that even states that haven’t made past investments or policies in combatting extreme weather are now facing the reality of climate change and taking legislative action.
He noted that Texas’s energy company began rolling out funding and proposals to improve its energy efficiency with new energy storage units which can provide clean fuel during outages after the stage was rocked by the cold winter storms in 2021.
“Texas to this day actually has the most energy storage that is now scheduled to be built. There are more energy storage projects in the build queue than the rest of the country combined,” Kammen said.
More work needed
Pralle said the California bills and other state initiatives are a good start to mitigating extreme temperatures but emphasized that those actions alone won’t be enough to help people.
She said many of the proposals issued by states call for more studies and aren’t changing the laws fast enough to deal with the problem.
“There are lot of good ideas out there, but my concern is that they’re not regulatory enough,” she said.
Pralle also emphasized that while hyperlocal environmental policies help to remedy communities specific extreme heat problems, they also come with hinderances. For example, state environmental policies may conflict with ones issued at the national level and lead to confusion among local officials.
“Having some innovation and ideas and having people do different things isn’t a bad thing,” she said. “However there comes a time when you have a patchwork of programs and that can be confusing.”
Pralle said that the best outcome for a state specific climate policy would be one that is successful enough to prompt the federal government to copy and implement nationally.
She contended that it’s going to take the entire country has to band together and move quickly, and any small step from local governments works.
“A national approach is better, but it’s been difficult to get that done. States do need to step in,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is working to secure testimony from a growing number of officials in former President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who reportedly discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, recently sat with committee investigators for a transcribed interview, the sources said.
ABC News previously reported that Pompeo is expected to speak with the committee in the coming days, though his interview is not officially scheduled.
Among the officials actively negotiating with the committee are former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and former acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, sources familiar with the negotiations said.
Wolf would also be able to speak to Trump’s desire to order the federal government to seize voting machines.
The engagement shows that even after the committee’s round of dramatic public hearings, it continues to pursue additional evidence about what the administration’s most senior officials knew about Trump’s actions surrounding Jan. 6.
Committee investigators are not only focused on the discussions surrounding the 25th Amendment that occurred within the Cabinet, but also Cabinet members’ concerns after the attack on the Capitol about Trump’s decision-making, including his potential conversations with world leaders.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Ratcliffe “didn’t want much to do with the post-election period.” Hutchinson said that Ratcliffe “felt that there could be dangerous repercussions, in terms of precedent set for elections, for our democracy, for the 6th. You know, he was hoping that we would concede.”
The committee also has expressed interest in speaking with other senior Trump officials like Robert O’Brien, the former national security adviser.
Representatives for Mnuchin, Ratcliffe, Wolf and O’Brien did not immediately respond to ABC’s request for comment.
Another area of focus are Cabinet officials who resigned in the wake on Jan. 6: former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
They will potentially join a growing list of officials who have already cooperated with committee investigators, including former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia. Former Attorney General Bill Barr also sat with committee investigators for a deposition.
A spokesperson for the Jan. 6 committee declined to comment.
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified that Scalia wanted to convene a Cabinet meeting on Jan. 7 2021. Scalia told the committee he requested the meeting that morning because “I thought that trying to work within the administration to steady the ship was likely to have greater value than simply resigning.”
The committee has been releasing new information leading up to the release of the anticipated September report on their findings.
In an audio clip released by the panel earlier this week, then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller told investigators there was “no order” from Trump to have 10,000 National Guard troops ready for deployment ahead of Jan. 6. Miller was responding to a Mark Meadows interview with Fox News from February 2021 where he claimed that it was a “given” that Miller had told thousands of troops to be at the ready.
(NEW YORK) — The family of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who has been detained in Russia for more than three years, said they now have “a little bit of hope” after learning that the United States has offered a prisoner swap to bring home Whelan as well as another jailed American, professional basketball player Brittney Griner.
“The offer that the U.S. government has made — and extraordinarily made public — is super. Hopefully the Russian government will take the concessions that have been made and allow Paul to come home,” Paul Whelan’s twin brother, David Whelan, told ABC News’ Robin Roberts during an interview Thursday on Good Morning America.
It’s the first time the Whelan family has spoken out since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday that he will hold a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “in the coming days” and a critical topic of discussion will be securing Whelan and Griner’s freedom. Blinken revealed that the U.S. government had already “put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release” and remains hopeful for a breakthrough on their cases.
Three sources familiar with the offer confirmed to ABC News that the U.S. had proposed exchanging convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in order to secure Griner and Whelan’s release from Russia. CNN was first to report this plan.
“We speak to people in the State Department and the National Security Council on a regular basis, but not to this level of detail. I think we were all taken by surprise yesterday when the announcement was made,” David Whelan said. “And it’s nice also to know that the offers are being made — that perhaps this is the only one that’s been made public, but there may have been other offers made in the past by the U.S. government.”
Paul Whelan, a 52-year-old former Marine and Michigan-based corporate security executive, has been held in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage charges, which both he and the U.S. government claim are false.
Griner, a 31-year-old Houston native and star center for the Phoenix Mercury, was returning to Russia to play in the WNBA’s offseason when she was detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport in the Moscow suburb of Khimki on Feb. 17, after being accused of having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in the country. The two-time Olympic gold medalist has been held in Russia ever since and is currently on trial for drug charges.
(WASHINGTON) — In a surprise move Wednesday, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announced that not only had he reached a deal with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a major health care-focused spending package — he had also signed onto climate and energy provisions.
It was a reversal of sorts for the conservative Democrat who just two weeks ago backed away from climate measures being included in any spending bill, telling a radio host that inflation was “absolutely killing many, many people” and that he would have to wait until July inflation numbers were out before considering such measures. Democrats were sure then that they would be left with a health care-only bill. Some other Senators had openly begun making their peace with it.
It was unclear Wednesday why Manchin had changed course.
“Today, we are pleased to announce an agreement,” Manchin and Schumer said in a joint statement, noting “many months of negotiations.”
The pair said they had “finalized legislative text” that, if approved, would reduce the deficit by some $300 billion while investing $369.75 billion in “Energy Security and Climate Change programs” over the next decade.
“The investments will be fully paid for by closing tax loopholes on wealthy individuals and corporations. In addition, the expanded Affordable Care Act program will be extended for three years, through 2025,” the senators said.
With Manchin’s approval, Democratic leaders in the evenly-divided chamber are now aiming to have the bill approved by the end of next week using a fast-track process known as reconciliation that allows passage of such legislation with a simple majority (and Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote).
The House, according to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would then return sometime in August to pass the measure.
If approved, it would be a major victory for President Joe Biden, who announced his support for the deal in a statement Wednesday night after speaking to both Manchin and Schumer. Biden had tried but failed to get his party united behind a sweeping $2 trillion “Build Back Better” economic and social safety net bill that included provisions like universal pre-K, Medicaid expansion and paid family leave, but Manchin previously balked at that price tag amid rising inflation, tanking that bill.
Similar, if scaled-down, proposals since have all failed to garner sufficient support among Democrats, with Republicans opposed.
Wednesday’s deal was likewise swiftly condemned by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who tweeted, “Democrats have already crushed American families with historic inflation. Now they want to pile on giant tax hikes that will hammer workers and kill many thousands of American jobs. First they killed your family’s budget. Now they want to kill your job too.”
While Democrats await the Senate’s rule-keeping parliamentarian scrubbing through the new deal to ensure all provisions meet the strict guidelines of reconciliation, details of what exactly are in the bill are not yet known. But according to Schumer and Manchin’s portrayal, the bill “lowers energy costs, increases cleaner production, and reduces carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030,” measures that Democrats say will cost roughly the $369 billion.
Democrats also plan to extend for three years the pandemic-era subsidies for those lower-income Americans who buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. It was important for Democrats to push through those changes, they said, because insurance companies typically announce their premium increases in August.
The agreement, known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, brings in far more revenue — $739 billion — than the government would spend under this measure, according to Democrats. Together, the climate and ACA provisions would cost the government roughly $433 billion, and Democrats plan to put at least $300 billion of that toward deficit reduction.
That was at the insistence of Manchin, in a bid to bring down record inflation.
To bring in the needed money, Democrats said they plan to target big corporations and the “ultra-wealthy” by implementing a 15% corporate minimum tax as well as collecting more through IRS tax enforcement, both measures bringing in nearly $440 billion.
Republicans for weeks have warned that those tax hikes would hit small and mid-size businesses disproportionately, but Sens. Manchin and Schumer insisted in their news release that under their plan, there will be “no new taxes on families making $400,000 or less and no new taxes on small businesses” — a key campaign promise by President Biden.
“Senate Democrats can change the name of Build Back Broke as many times as they want, it won’t be any less devastating to American families and small businesses. Raising taxes on job creators, crushing energy producers with new regulations, and stifling innovators looking for new cures will only make this recession worse, not better,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in a statement.
Most Senate Democrats have not yet seen the legislative text, though many appeared to be supportive.
Chris Coons of Delaware said he was “very encouraged.”
“I am pleased to report that this will be, by far, the biggest climate action in human history,”said Hawaii’s Brian Schatz. “Nearly $370 billion in tax incentives, grants, and other investments in clean energy, clean transportation, energy storage, home electrification, climate-smart agriculture, and clean manufacturing makes this a real climate bill.The planet is on fire. Emissions reductions are the main thing. This is enormous progress. Let’s get it done.”
A meeting of the entire Senate Democratic caucus is expected at 9 a.m. Thursday to run through the details of the new plan.
But not every member of the caucus was happy with the deal.
Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, bristled, telling reporters on Wednesday: “Last I heard, Sen. Manchin is not the majority leader, despite what you may think. Last I heard, he is not the only [a] member of the Democratic caucus. I will look at it and we’ll go from there.”
Democrats need each of their 50 votes to remain united and healthy to seal the deal — not an easy feat considering Manchin himself has been quarantined this week with COVID-19.
(TOPEKA, Kan.) — When Kansans head to the polls on Aug. 2 to vote in their primary election, they will also decide on a critical ballot measure that could impact the future of abortion legislation in their state.
Kansas is the first state in the nation to vote on reproductive freedom after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion. It is one of at least five states voting on reproductive rights this year, alongside California, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont. A measure that would amend the Michigan constitution to guarantee the right to reproductive freedom has also been proposed.
If the amendment passes, Kansas will be the fifth state to amend its state constitution to say it does not grant the right to abortion, joining Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia.
The amendment has drawn national attention, particularly in the wake of the last month’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“I think a lot of people see the vote here as a kind of indicator of where politics might be headed,” Richard E. Levy, JB Smith Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Kansas School of Law, told ABC News.
Here’s what to know about the Kansas ballot measure, dubbed Value Them Both.
2019 state Supreme Court decision
The ballot measure is in response to a 2019 state Supreme Court decision on abortion restrictions. The ruling stemmed from a 2015 case challenging a Kansas law that aimed to largely ban dilation and evacuation, a method used in most second-trimester abortions.
In striking down the ban on the procedure, the judges ruled 6 to 1 that the Kansas constitution protects the “right of personal autonomy.”
“This right allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life — decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy,” the opinion states while prohibiting Kansas from restricting the right to an abortion “unless it is doing so to further a compelling government interest and in a way that is narrowly tailored to that interest.”
“The court adopted the most rigorous form of constitutional analysis, known as strict scrutiny,” Levy said. “So that in Kansas, under current law, regulations on abortion are valid only if they serve a compelling governmental interest and are narrowly tailored to that interest.”
Since the ruling, a lower court has upheld that a ban on dilation and evacuation is “unconstitutional and unenforceable.” Another law pertaining to abortion in the state has also been blocked. The statute, what would be considered a TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) law by abortion rights advocates, would impose certain requirements on abortion providers.
Nearly a dozen other regulations on abortion remain in effect and have not been challenged, including mandated waiting periods and ultrasounds for patients, required parental consent, a ban on abortion after viability except where necessary to preserve a woman’s life or health, and limits on the use of public funding for abortion.
What’s on the ballot
In the wake of the 2019 ruling, the Republican-led state legislature attempted to pass a ballot measure that would reverse the decision. That measure failed in 2020 before passing the state House and Senate in 2021 to get on the ballot this year.
This is what voters will see as they head to the polls:
Explanatory statement. The Value Them Both Amendment would affirm there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion or to require the government funding of abortion, and would reserve to the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, the right to pass laws to regulate abortion, including, but not limited to, in circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or when necessary to save the life of the mother.
A vote for the Value Them Both Amendment would affirm there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion or to require the government funding of abortion, and would reserve to the people of Kansas, through their elected state legislators, the right to pass laws to regulate abortion.
A vote against the Value Them Both Amendment would make no changes to the constitution of the state of Kansas, and could restrict the people, through their elected state legislators, from regulating abortion by leaving in place the recently recognized right to abortion.
If the amendment wins with a simple majority, this passage, included on the ballot as well, will be adopted into the state constitution:
§ 22. Regulation of abortion. Because Kansans value both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion. To the extent permitted by the constitution of the United States, the people, through their elected state representatives and state senators, may pass laws regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, laws that account for circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or circumstances of necessity to save the life of the mother.
What voting ‘yes’ means
Voting “yes” on the ballot measure supports amending Kansas’ constitution to state that it does not grant the right to an abortion and leaves regulation in the hands of the state legislature.
“The Kansas state Supreme Court overreached in 2019,” Mallory Carroll, a spokesperson for SBA Pro-Life America, which is part of a coalition working to pass the amendment, told ABC News. “The purpose of the amendment is to neutralize this decision so that this is an area for the people to use the tools of democracy to decide through their elected officials, not judges.”
The ballot measure is not an abortion ban. However, opponents, including the coalition Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, argue that the bill’s language could open the door to one.
“If the amendment passes, there will be an effort by the legislature to quickly ban abortion with no or very few exceptions,” Ashley All, a spokesperson for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, told ABC News, pointing to a failed bill introduced in the last legislative session that would have criminalized abortion in most cases.
“The language very clearly says that legislators may pass any law they want regarding abortion, and even in situations of rape, incest and the life of the mother. So we’re pretty confident that that’s where we’re headed,” All said.
Carroll said “anything is possible” when it comes to future abortion legislation if the amendment passes.
“That’s exactly because they’ll be using the tools of democracy to debate and find consensus,” she said. “We don’t know what consensus is going to look like in Kansas.”
One thing is clear — if the amendment passes, the laws targeting abortion providers and the second-trimester abortion procedure will “go into effect almost immediately,” Levy said. With no “trigger law” in place in Kansas, a general abortion ban would require further legislative action, he said.
What voting ‘no’ means
A “no” vote would maintain the status quo and affirm that reproductive rights are protected by the state constitution. The current enacted regulations on abortion would remain in effect, Levy said.
“There would still be a lot of regulations in place,” he said. “Some of those limitations might be vulnerable, but it’s unlikely.”
Opponents of the amendment have argued that abortion is already “heavily regulated” in Kansas even after the state Supreme Court ruling, while proponents are pushing for stronger pro-life policies.
If the amendment fails, Levy wagers that the state legislature might work to “test the limits” of the abortion protections in the state constitution.
Voter turnout a question
The ballot measure is being voted on in a primary election, which is expected to favor abortion opponents. Primary elections also historically draw fewer voters than general elections and might alienate independents, who otherwise have no reason to show up to the polls.
The primary coming weeks after the Dobbs decision may have helped generate interest in the ballot measure, Levy said. Early voter turnouts have been reported to be higher than usual in some areas as well.
“People are paying attention,” Levy said. “Whether that translates into high turnout, that’s another question.”
(WASHINGTON) — Two leading House Democrats are requesting a government watchdog step away from an investigation into deleted text messages sent by the Secret Service around the time of the U.S. Capitol attack.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of House Homeland Security Committee, and New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent the request Tuesday to the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.
In their letter, Thompson and Maloney wrote they have “grave concerns” about Joseph Cuffari, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general — including what they said was his failure to promptly notify Congress of “crucial information” while investigating Jan. 6.
“Inspector General Cuffari failed to provide adequate or timely notice that the Secret Service had refused for months to comply with DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) requests for information related to the January 6 attack and failed to notify Congress after DHS OIG learned that the Secret Service had erased text messages related to this matter,” Thompson and Maloney wrote.
“These omissions left Congress in the dark about key developments in this investigation and may have cost investigators precious time to capture relevant evidence,” Thompson and Maloney argued.
The letter raises other concerns about Cuffari’s performance, including “reports that he sought to censor findings of domestic abuse and sexual harassment by DHS employees” and his past refusal to investigate Secret Service actions.
The inspector general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Thompon and Cheney’s request for a new inspector general to complete the Jan. 6-related investigation comes amid myriad questions about how and why the Secret Service texts were deleted — after being sought — and why they may not be able to be recovered.
The DHS watchdog had requested the messages sent and received by 24 Secret Service members between December 2020 and January 2021, the period around the Jan. 6 attack.
But the agency said the texts in question were deleted as part of a “device-replacement program” even as the inspector general said that the deletions occurred only after his office requested the messages. The Secret Service insisted they had not acted “maliciously” and sought full cooperation with investigators.
A letter to the House Jan. 6 committee obtained by ABC News last week showed that the Secret Service ultimately provided a single text exchange from that day.
A criminal probe was opened by the DHS inspector general earlier this month.
The House committee subpoenaed the agency for the records on July 15.
The Secret Service has said it is working with the Jan. 6 committee, and spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told ABC News last week that the agency also delivered an initial set of records in response — including “thousands of pages of documents, Secret Service cell phone use and other policies, as well as operational and planning records.”
But the House panel has gone so far as to suggest the agency’s handling of the electronic communications may be a violation of federal record-keeping laws.
“Four House committees had already sought these critical records from the Department of Homeland Security before the records were apparently lost,” the Jan. 6 committee said in a statement last week. “Additionally, the procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act.”
Thompson and Maloney are asking the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency to respond to their request by Aug. 9.
The Secret Service has already been under heightened scrutiny amid the Jan. 6 hearings.
Testimony from several witnesses suggested former President Donald Trump wanted to join his supporters at the Capitol last year and clashed with members of his security detail when they refused to take him there.
The agency has said it will respond to the testimony but has yet to make any official statement.
Last week, in the Jan. 6 committee’s second prime-time hearing, witnesses revealed that members of the security detail for Vice President Mike Pence were greatly concerned for his safety and well as their own as the violence at the Capitol escalated.
“The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives,” a witness the committee identified only as a “White House security official” said in an interview.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — Texas’ “trigger” law, which raises the penalty for performing abortions, is set to go into effect on Aug. 25, after the U.S. Supreme Court formally issued its judgement overturning Roe v. Wade on Tuesday.
“Trigger” laws only take effect when certain events occur, in this case the law required a judgement overturning Roe, which had established a constitutional right to abortion at the federal level, or a case establishing states’ right to regulate abortion.
The so-called trigger law will establish civil and criminal penalties for performing banned abortions and prohibit nearly all abortions, with few exceptions including cases where a pregnancy poses a risk of death or serious impairment of a pregnant woman. The law will not apply to individuals seeking or attempting abortions, according to the law’s documentation.
The law criminalizes any attempt by a medical professional to perform, induce or attempt an abortion, making it a second-degree felony. However, if the pregnancy is successfully aborted, the offense becomes a first-degree felony, according to the law.
According to the Texas Penal Code, the punishment for a first-degree penalty could be up to life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The penalty for a second-degree felony is up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
The law also states that the Texas attorney general “shall file an action” seeking civil damages for those who perform abortions of no less than $100,000 per abortion performed, in addition to the possibility of requesting attorneys’ fees and costs incurred.
Any physician or provider who attempts, performs or induces an abortion could also have their medical license revoked. Medical licenses are regulated at the state level, not by the federal government.
While the court had released its opinion overturning Roe in June, it formally issued its judgement in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health on Tuesday, allowing so-called trigger laws in states, including Texas, to take effect.
The Texas “trigger” law, passed in September 2021, will go into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court issued its judgement, according to the Texas State Law Library.
Another Texas law in place, called SB8, places a near-total ban on abortions at 6 weeks and allows people to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion, to collect a bounty of at least $10,000.
Idaho and Tennessee also previously enacted laws that would ban nearly all abortions 30 days after the Supreme Court issues its judgment overturning Roe.
At least 13 states have ceased nearly all abortion services. Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas have near-total bans. Abortion providers in Arizona and Wisconsin have suspended abortion services due to confusion over the law. Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee have banned abortions after embryonic cardiac activity is detected — which is generally around six weeks — before many women know they are pregnant.
Earlier this month, Texas’ attorney general sued President Joe Biden’s administration after it issued an executive order telling doctors to perform abortions in medical emergencies.
-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Ely Brown contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican leaders who worry that Donald Trump could hurt their midterm chances by announcing a presidential run too soon are hoping he’ll be dissuaded from doing so by the prospect of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal payments, according to an RNC official.
Since October 2021, the Republican National Committee has paid nearly $2 million to law firms representing Trump as part of his defense against personal litigation and government investigations.
But an RNC official told ABC News that as soon as Trump would announce he is running for president, the payments would stop because the party has a “neutrality policy” that prohibits it from taking sides in the presidential primary.
In January, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said, “The party has to stay neutral.”
“I’m not telling anybody to run or not to run in 2024,” she added. However she has since reaffirmed that Trump “still leads the party.”
RNC officials would not comment on the record for this story. Representatives for Trump also declined to comment.
This isn’t the first time that legal bills have been seen as possible leverage over Trump.
According to the book “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, in the final days of Trump’s presidency, Trump told McDaniel he was leaving the GOP and creating his own political party — only to back down after McDaniel made it clear to Trump that the party would stop paying his legal bills for his post-election challenges and take other steps that would cost him financially.
Both Trump and McDaniel have denied the story.
According to the RNC’s most recent financial disclosure to the Federal Elections Commission, from October 2021 through June of this year, the RNC paid at least $1.73 million to three law firms representing Trump, including firms that are defending him in investigations into his personal family business in New York. Last month alone, the RNC paid $50,000 to a law firm representing Trump in June.
The latest tally tops the $1.6 million maximum figure that the Republican Party’s executive committee reportedly voted to cover for Trump’s personal legal bills during an RNC meeting last year, a figure that The Washington Post, which first reported on the agreement in December, wrote could increase further with the party executive committee’s approval.
The RNC reported payments to law firms representing Trump as recently as mid-June, indicating the party leadership’s unfettered support for the former president and heightening critics’ concerns about the party’s neutrality ahead of the 2024 presidential primary season.
“I don’t think there’s been any effort” by the RNC to remain neutral, longtime Republican donor and Canary LLC CEO Dan Eberhart told ABC News. “This is a symbiotic relationship.”
“The RNC needs Trump or Trump surrogates or Trump’s likeness to raise money, and Trump wants them to continue paying his bills and be as pro-Trump as possible,” Eberhart said. “So neither is in a hurry to cut the umbilical cord.”
The RNC has continued to fundraise off of Trump’s name in its emails to supporters, touting a so-called “Trump Life Membership,” boosting his social media platform, and, most recently, promoting Trump’s first visit to Washington, D.C., since January of last year. Other potential 2024 presidential candidates and key party figures like former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have not received the same spotlight as Trump, experts say.
Eberhart said the current relationship between Trump and the RNC is putting other potential 2024 presidential candidates at an “absolute disadvantage.”
“Other Republican candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president have good reason to worry that the party apparatus is rigged against them in its unwavering support for Trump,” echoed Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at the progressive government-watchdog group Public Citizen.
“By paying Trump’s extensive legal bills, the RNC is indirectly helping finance the Trump campaign,” Holman said. “And given the history of the RNC zealously defending Trump, other Republican candidates should expect that they are not just running against Trump, they are also running against the Republican Party.”
Eberhart said “it’s an open secret” within the Republican Party that “nobody wants Trump to announce his candidacy until after the midterms.”
“Everyone thinks it’ll scramble the midterms and we could potentially destroy the advantage we have” if Trump would announce too early, Eberhart said. “It makes Trump more relevant and gives the Dems potentially a way to reset the race.”
RNC spokesperson Emma Vaughn, who declined to comment on the RNC’s recent legal payments to firms representing Trump, had previously told ABC News that “as a leader of our party, defending President Trump and his record of achievement is critical to the GOP.”
“It is entirely appropriate for the RNC to continue assisting in fighting back against the Democrats’ never-ending witch hunt and attacks on him,” Vaughn told ABC News in January, in response to questions about the party’s earlier legal payments for Trump.
The Republican Party committee has described the legal payments for Trump as support for the former president against political attacks against him. But at least two of the three firms that have been paid on behalf of Trump are involved in legal work on behalf of the former president regarding investigations against his personal businesses by the New York attorney general and Manhattan district attorney.
Although both officials are Democrats, they have both said their probes are not politically motivated.
In all, the $1.7 million paid in total to the three firms includes more than $862,000 paid to NechelesLaw LLP, $516,000 paid to Fischetti & Malgieri LLP, and $350,000 paid to van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin, the RNC’s disclosure filings show. The most recent payments are $50,440 to Fischetti & Malgieri LLP in mid-June and $186,182 to NechelesLaw LLP in May.
Neither NechelesLaw LLP, Fischetti & Malgieri LLP, or van der Veen, Hartshorn and Levin responded to ABC News’ requests for comment.
The RNC is reportedly not covering Trump’s legal bills related to the House special committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But as previously reported by ABC News, Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, and his presidential committee-turned-PAC Make America Great Again PAC have been footing legal bills for witnesses involved in legal battles related to the events of Jan. 6, which has raised concerns about witness coercion from Jan. 6 committee members and legal experts.
Holman, the watchdog group lobbyist, said regulations that would govern legal expense funds for executive branch officials and candidates have been proposed to the Office of Government Ethics. Among the proposals are regulations that would enforce contribution limits, prohibit certain funding sources, and require the full disclosure of where money comes from and how it is spent.
“Until OGE finalizes these rules, however, Trump and the RNC legally can do almost whatever they want to pay for Trump’s legal woes and largely evade meaningful disclosure of the sources and expenditures of these funds,” Holman said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Tuesday night and again Wednesday morning and will end “his strict isolation measures,” according to the physician to the president, Dr. Kevin O’Connor.
The negative test comes less than one week after the president’s first positive test on Thursday morning.
Biden finished his five-day course of Paxlovid 36 hours ago, O’Connor wrote in a memo Wednesday morning that was subsequently released by the White House.
“His symptoms have been steadily improving, and are almost completely resolved,” O’Connor wrote.
In remarks later Wednesday morning from the Rose Garden, Biden called his recovery a “real statement of where we are in the fight against COVID-19.”
“Even if you get COVID, you can avoid winding up with a severe case. You can now prevent most COVID deaths, and that’s because of three free tools the Biden administration has invested in and distributed this past year: booster shots, at-home tests [and] easy-to-use, effective treatments. We got through COVID with no fear, I got through it with no fear, a very mild discomfort because of these essential, life-saving tools,” he said.
“COVID was killing thousands of Americans a day when I got here. That isn’t the case anymore. You can live without fear by doing what I did, get boosted, get tested and get treatment. At the same time, my administration remains vigilant. Right now, we have the tools to keep you from getting severely ill or dying from COVID, but we’re not stopping there,” he added.
His comments mark a continuation of the White House’s message that while the coronavirus is here to stay — something many public health experts have long been warning and fighting against — life can go largely back to normal for many, if not all, Americans.
“Let’s keep emerging from one of the darkest moments of our history with hope and light for what can come,” Biden said.
The president likely had the highly contagious BA.5 subvariant, and his symptoms had included a runny nose, cough, sore throat, a slight fever and body aches. O’Connor never reported any abnormalities in Biden’s pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate or oxygen saturation throughout his infection.
Biden told reporters Monday that all his test results were “good” and “on the button.”
Biden is ending his strict isolation measures after being confined to the White House residence since his diagnosis. He will continue to wear a “well-fitting” mask as needed for 10 days.
He worked while in isolation, posting a photograph on Twitter Monday of him and his dog, Commander, saying he “took some calls this morning with man’s best co-worker.”
The president tweeted a picture of his negative test on Wednesday and said that he’s returning to the Oval Office.
Biden “continues to be very specifically conscientious to protect any of the Executive Residence, White House, Secret Service and other staff whose duties require any (albeit socially distanced) proximity to him,” O’Connor wrote in his memo on Wednesday.
Biden will increase his testing cadence in light of the possibility of a Paxlovid “rebound,” O’Connor wrote, referring to a seemingly rare but increasingly reported phenomenon in which COVID symptoms recur or there is the development of a new positive viral test after having tested negative.
The president is fully vaccinated and has received two booster shots, but at the age of 79 was considered to be at a higher risk for severe illness.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, stressed after Biden’s diagnosis that all Americans should take advantage of vaccinations and treatments courses.
“This is a president who’s double-vaccinated, double-boosted, getting treatments that are widely available to Americans and has at this moment a mild respiratory illness,” Jha told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “This is really good news, and this is both vaccines and treatments that are available to everyone. Really important that people go out and get vaccinated and avail themselves of these treatments if they get infected.”
First lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris both tested negative for COVID-19 after spending time with the president before his diagnosis.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson, Alexandra Hutzler and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
