(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is in active discussions with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for his testimony behind closed doors, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
Pompeo is tentatively scheduled to speak with the committee in the coming days, sources said.
The recent outreach to Pompeo is an indication of the committee’s continuing interest in gathering information and testimony from high-level Trump administration officials as it moves toward the release of a public report on its findings this fall.
A lawyer for Pompeo declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the Jan. 6 committee.
According to Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Pompeo called Meadows on Jan. 6 to alert him that discussions were happening within the Cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment as a vehicle to remove Trump from office.
“And from what I understand, it was more of a — this is what I’m hearing, I want you to be aware of it, but I also think it’s worth putting on your radar because you are the chief of staff,” Hutchinson recalled Pompeo telling Meadows in her testimony before the Jan. 6 panel. “You’re technically the boss of all the cabinet secretaries. And you know if the conversations progressed you should be ready to take action on this.”
In his book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl wrote that Pompeo and then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment. Pompeo has denied that conversation occurred.
(WASHINGTON) — A Senate investigation revealed evidence on Tuesday of widespread corruption and misconduct dating back years at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
At a hearing Tuesday morning, an investigatory panel led by Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff intends to press outgoing Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Michael Carvajal on agency records that show staff at the Atlanta federal penitentiary “acted with impunity and even lacked regard for human life,” Ossoff said in his opening statement.
The prison was rife with contraband, including weapons and synthetic cannabis, and large amounts of confiscated drugs were never logged after they were discovered, according to Ossoff.
A lack of security checks also allowed inmates to pass contraband between cells and freely use narcotics, Ossoff said.
Internal reports from 2017 and 2019, now revealed by the committee, found prison guard weapons were improperly stored and at times went missing.
The findings documented by the panel — an investigatory arm of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — include allegations of poorly maintained and often dangerous conditions for inmates. Between 2012 to 2020, a total of 12 inmates died by suicide which the committee linked to a lack of compliance by staff to prison procedures and “complacency, indifference, inattentiveness, and lack of compliance with BOP policies and procedures,” according to Ossoff.
After Carvajal initially declined to testify, the subcommittee subpoenaed him; he announced his retirement at the beginning of the year and plans to leave BOP in August, when his successor takes over.
The U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta has been under public scrutiny for years. An inmate and his fiancée pleaded guilty in 2017 to running what prosecutors described as an “inmate Uber.” The two admitted to transporting convicts to and from the prison, allowing them access to outside food and contraband.
Last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that four senior prison officers were banned from the facility amid a corruption investigation and the prison’s population was reduced from more than 1,800 to 134.
The Senate panel on Tuesday will also hear witness testimony from the facility’s former chief psychologist and jail administrator.
Representatives with the BOP and the Atlanta penitentiary did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — A Senate investigation revealed evidence on Tuesday of widespread corruption and misconduct dating back years at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
At a hearing Tuesday morning, an investigatory panel led by Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff intends to press outgoing Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Michael Carvajal on agency records that show staff at the Atlanta federal penitentiary “acted with impunity and even lacked regard for human life,” Ossoff said in his opening statement.
“The evidence the [subcommittee for investigations] has secured to date reveals stunning long-term failures of federal prison administration that likely contributed to loss of life; jeopardized the health and safety of inmates and staff; and undermined public safety and civil rights in the State of Georgia and the Southeast Region of the United States,” Ossoff said.
The prison was rife with contraband, including weapons and synthetic cannabis, and large amounts of confiscated drugs were never logged after they were discovered, according to Ossoff and the subcommittee’s review of internal BOP documents in addition to interviews with whistleblowers, federal judges and former senior agency leaders.
A lack of security checks also allowed inmates to pass contraband between cells and freely use narcotics, Ossoff said.
The findings documented by the panel — an investigatory arm of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — include allegations of poorly maintained and often dangerous conditions for inmates. Between 2012 to 2020, a total of 12 inmates died by suicide which the committee linked to a lack of compliance by staff to prison procedures and “complacency, indifference, inattentiveness, and lack of compliance with BOP policies and procedures,” according to Ossoff.
Internal reports from 2017 and 2019, now revealed by the committee, found prison guard weapons were improperly stored and at times went missing.
Erika Ramirez, a whistleblower and former chief psychologist of the Atlanta facility, testified on Tuesday to a variety of unsafe and unsanitary conditions as well as a lack of control over contraband.
“The walls were infested with mold,” Ramirez said. “Whenever it rained, the sewer would break — would back up and overflow onto the recreation yard, sometimes leaving a foot of human waste behind. Security-wise, there was little to speak of. Given the volume and flagrancy of the contraband, it was obvious that cell searches were not being properly conducted, if at all.”
Ramirez testified that she documented her findings and reported them to upper management and, in some cases, to the BOP central office in Washington. Ramirez was subsequently, involuntarily transferred to a facility in Texas in what she described as retaliation for speaking out.
Former jail administrator Terri Whitehead also appeared at Tuesday’s hearing and said unsanitary conditions at the prison resulted in security lapses.
“For example, there was so many rats inside the facility, dining hall and food preparation areas that staff intentionally left doors open so the stray cats that hung around the prison could catch the rats,” Whitehead said. “It is never a good idea to leave prison doors open.”
After BOP Director Carvajal initially declined to testify, the subcommittee subpoenaed him; he announced his retirement at the beginning of the year and plans to leave BOP in August, when his successor takes over.
The U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta has been under public scrutiny for years. An inmate and his fiancée pleaded guilty in 2017 to running what prosecutors described as an “inmate Uber.” The two admitted to transporting convicts to and from the prison, allowing them access to outside food and contraband.
Last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that four senior prison officers were banned from the facility amid a corruption investigation and the prison’s population was reduced from more than 1,800 to 134.
Representatives with the BOP and the Atlanta penitentiary did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump returns to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since leaving office in the shadow of the Capitol insurrection to deliver remarks to ultra-conservative allies at the America First Agenda Summit.
Trump’s return, at a two-day conference hosted by the America First Policy Institute, a MAGA-aligned group formed when he took office, comes as he publicly teases a 2024 presidential run — and amid a congressional investigation into his actions surrounding the deadly rioting last year by his supporters at the Capitol, which led to his historic second impeachment. (He denies wrongdoing.)
Other prominent conservatives slated to speak Tuesday include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California; Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Ga.; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; former White House aide Kellyanne Conway and GOP ally Newt Gingrich, all of whom have attacked the House Jan. 6 committee and its vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.
With Cheney vowing the committee will hold more hearings in the fall, saying, “The dam has begun to break,” the panel also weighs whether to send a criminal referral to the Justice Department.
A referral is not required for federal authorities to charge Trump himself, nor will one guarantee such a move. But public hearings outlining Trump’s “seven-point plan” to overturn the 2020 presidential election have amped up pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to bring a federal criminal case against Trump — which would be the first in history against a former president.
Trump is already facing a civil investigation in New York, by state Attorney General Letitia James, into his family’s real estate business practices; she has argued her office found “significant evidence” of fraud and Trump and some of his children are set to be deposed by investigators. (Trump has claimed James is politically motivated.)
Separately, Sen. Graham, only after a subpoena, will appear before a grand jury in Georgia as part of the Fulton County district attorney’s ongoing investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.
The simultaneous probes show how Trump’s legal problems continue to loom over a possible 2024 comeback bid.
The only modern president who has refused to concede defeat, Trump can be expected to lament his 2020 election loss in his address on Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET, though organizers said in a release that his speech will be focused on “America First” policy.
But on the eve of Trump’s return, it was his former Vice President Mike Pence who intended to take the attention of the Republican Party, planning to tout his “Freedom Agenda” in remarks on Monday at the Heritage Foundation that were ultimately canceled due to weather.
Pence remains scheduled to speak before the Young America’s Foundation’s student conference on Tuesday.
Pence and Trump’s appearances further highlight their estrangement-turned-rivalry, as both have thrown their support behind competing candidates in state primary races. In Arizona last week, Pence joined a term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey to rally for Karrin Taylor Robson, widely seen as the establishment GOP candidate in the open race for Ducey’s seat; while Trump campaigned for Kari Lake, a former TV reporter-turned-“Ultra MAGA mom.”
In May, Pence and Trump stumped for opposing candidates in the GOP primary to be Georgia’s governor, with the Pence-backed incumbent, Brian Kemp, soaring to victory over Trump’s pick, former Sen. David Perdue.
Last week in Maryland, Trump’s pick, state Del. Dan Cox — who criticized (and then apologized for criticizing) Pence as a “traitor” after Pence didn’t reject the 2020 results — won the GOP governor’s primary, to the ire of term-limited Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who backed a more moderate candidate and appears to have presidential aspirations himself.
Hogan told ABC News’ This Week co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday that some in the Republican Governors Association were “very concerned” about Trump potentially launching a 2024 presidential bid before November’s midterm races, which Hogan said could upend contests across the country.
“I think most people are very concerned about the damage it does to the party if he announces now,” he said. “And it may help in very red states or very red districts. But in competitive places and purple battlefields, it’s going to cost us seats if he were to do that.”
(WASHINGTON) — Marc Short, the former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, appeared before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Short confirmed to ABC News.
Short, in an interview Monday night with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, said he was subpoenaed by a grand jury and complied with the subpoena, adding he “really can’t comment further than that” upon the advice of his legal counsel.
ABC News first reported early Monday that Short had appeared last week before the grand jury.
Short was caught by an ABC News camera departing D.C. District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood.
Short is the highest-ranking Trump White House official known to have appeared before the grand jury.
“I think that having the Capitol ransacked the way that it was, I think did present liability and danger,” he told Davis in the interview. “And I think the Secret Service did a phenomenal job that day. I think that the bigger risk and despite the way perhaps it was characterized in the hearings last week, candidly, is that if the mob had gotten closer to the vice president, I do think there would have been a massacre in the Capitol that day.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment to ABC News.
Pence’s former chief counsel, Greg Jacob, also testified before the grand jury, sources familiar with his appearance told ABC News.
Neither Jacob nor his attorney responded to a request for comment from ABC News.
Jacob testified publicly during a recent public hearing of the Jan. 6 committee.
In March, the Department of Justice expanded its criminal probe into the events of Jan. 6 to include preparations for the rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol, as well as the financing for the event, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Grand jury subpoenas were sent to those who assisted in the organizing and planning of former President Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally on the Ellipse near the White House, the sources said, with prosecutors seeking multiple records and documents related to the rally, including text messages and emails, as well as potential communications with other individuals regarding the logistics of the event.
“There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what’s it not doing, what our theories are and what our theories aren’t, and there will continue to be that speculation,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press briefing last week. “We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election, and we must do it in a way filled with integrity and professionalism.”
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has played numerous clips from Short’s deposition with committee investigators during its public hearings.
(WASHINGTON) — Roughly $343 million will be made available to transit agencies this year to make subway and rail stations more accessible to those with disabilities, the Biden administration announced Tuesday.
The tranche of funds comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and will be allotted to transit agencies across the country to retrofit rail and subway stations for wheelchair use, officials said.
“Everyone should be able to get to work easily, everyone should be able to get to the people in places they love and the activities that bring them joy,” Mitch Landrieu, senior adviser and infrastructure coordinator, said during a call with reporters. “Accessibility should never be a barrier.”
Officials said there are approximately 900 stations across the country that are without elevators and ramps, and therefore not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Officials said these stations were constructed before the passing of the ADA in 1990.
“For many people who use a wheelchair or are blind or low vision, or just have a bad knee or [are] coming out of the surgery, or older folks who have trouble getting up and down stairs, this often means that affordable public transportation by rail is not an option,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. “That is not right, it is not fair.”
The funding will total $1.75 billion over the next five years to make these stations more accessible, the officials said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate is aiming this week to bolster the public’s ability to buy an affordable car, microwave or a smartphone as lawmakers push forward legislation to incentivize production of the tiny semiconductor chips that all kinds of technological devices rely upon.
A nationwide shortage of these chips has caused production delays, stalling out industries from automotive to medical and spurring already-punishing inflation rates.
The Biden administration warns there’s no time left to lose: Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, briefing lawmakers earlier this month, called passing a bill to incentivize U.S. developments of the semiconductors a “matter of urgency” and said the country was “out of time” to act.
“It’s a matter of national defense. It’s a matter of economic vitality. And it’s time for all of us just do our job and get this over the finish line,” she said.
The Senate agrees. After more than a year of congressional back-and-forth, lawmakers are poised to take action on the so-called CHIPS+ legislation this week. The proposal would provide billions to spur research and development of semiconductors.
Here are answers to a few key questions on the issue that impacts almost every piece of technology you touch.
What is a semiconductor anyway?
A semiconductor, sometimes referred to as a chip or microchip, is only about the size of a dime. But as experts describe it, this tiny piece of tech is a “building block” for a range of everyday devices, from cell phones to cars to air conditioners to smart appliances in kitchens.
The chips, made out of silicon and other mined elements, serve as a kind of brain for machines both handheld and massive. They can be found in trains, planes, iPads and microwaves.
“Semiconductors, or ‘chips’ as we call them, are sort of the building blocks of any computer system,” Morris Cohen, an emeritus professor of manufacturing and logistics in the Operations, Information and Decisions Department at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told ABC News in January.
That means the chips are also the bedrock of dozens of industries, including auto, health care, agriculture, robotics, travel, national security and dozens of others.
But as the chips have become essential in the manufacturing of more and more products, there’s been a shortage of them.
Why is there a shortage? What does it mean for the economy?
A “perfect storm” is how the Department of Commerce described the factors that contributed to the shortage of microchips.
Even before the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, the supply-demand imbalances in the semiconductor industry were fragile, the department noted in a recent report. But the pandemic spurred challenges as more and more people rushed to acquire new technologies for communication that rely heavily on semiconductors. Supply-chain issues and COVID-era factory shutdowns made manufacturing of the chips even more difficult.
In short: Demand for the chips far outpaces the supply.
This comes at a time when the U.S. is producing a smaller percentage of the world’s microchips than ever before. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a lobbying group focused on semiconductor manufacturing, the U.S. now produces 12% of the world’s chips, down from 37% in 1990.
The result of that disparity has been the strained manufacturing of all sorts of products that require these chips. The auto industry has been kneecapped by the shortage, at times temporarily shutting down American plants until more chips could be acquired. The spike in the cost of cars caused one-third of all inflation Americans saw in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What does Congress plan to do about it?
The bill that Senate lawmakers are hoping to advance this week allocates $52 billion to spur domestic research and development of these microchips and grants tax incentives for manufacturing. The aim is to bring more semiconductor production to the U.S., something legislators see as a critical national security component of the bill.
Many other countries, with already cheaper labor costs, have taken strides in recent years to incentivize major chip manufacturers to build plants abroad. Congress hopes with this new funding to make the U.S. a more attractive place for such operations.
But the bill does more than address the chip shortage — and a test vote in the Senate last week proved there was enough support to do even more.
The proposal also includes funding for a few other innovation-based priorities; there are billions for tech startups and the National Science Foundation in the legislation as well. The Senate is scheduled to take another key vote on the bill on Tuesday morning and, if it clears, the package could be on a path for final approval as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
But wait, hasn’t this been in the news for more than a year?
Yes: Addressing the shortage of microchips has been a priority of the Biden administration and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for some time. That’s why the Senate voted to approve funding for microchips over a year ago.
The Senate first passed a massive innovation and competitiveness bill on June 8, 2021. Tucked inside that legislation, along with provisions to bolster the national science apparatus, spur competition with China and address supply chains shortages, was $52 billion for semiconductor research and development.
The House also passed a bill that included this funding but had differences from the Senate bill on some of the other competitiveness factors. Both chambers voted to hold meetings to try to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill, but those negotiations slugged along and later got tied up in political gamesmanship from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who threatened to withdraw GOP support for the process as Democrats soldiered on with a partisan spending bill.
The legislation Senate lawmakers are now considering is a compromise: a less comprehensive version of last year’s competitiveness bill.
When will it pass?
The Senate is expected to pass the CHIPS+ bill sometime this week with relatively broad bipartisan support. Despite some Republican opposition — and objections of “corporate welfare” from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — in its first test vote the bill earned substantial backing from both parties.
Once the Senate passes their legislation, it will head to the House where Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said they will “will act on this bill as soon as it is ready.”
“Addressing the global semiconductor shortage is crucial to tackling inflation and ensuring that America can compete with the rest of the world,” he said in a statement.
The administration is supportive of the legislation and President Joe Biden is expected to sign it if it clears Congress.
ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump did not want to call for the prosecution of Jan. 6 rioters after the Capitol attack, according to a video released Monday by the House select committee investigating the riot.
In a video tweeted by Virginia Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria, a member of the panel who led last week’s hearing, the committee showed what appeared to be a draft of Trump’s Jan. 7, 2021, remarks to the country — with several proposed lines crossed out.
The new video cites previously unreleased witness testimony and a copy of a document titled “Remarks on National Healing” that showed Trump was reluctant to give a speech rebuking his supporters who attacked the Capitol and calling for the Justice Department to prosecute them.
“It took more than 24 hours for President Trump to address the nation again after his Rose Garden video on January 6th in which he affectionately told his followers to go home in peace,” Luria wrote in her message posting the video. “There were more things he was unwilling to say.”
The nearly four-minute video includes clips of depositions from Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, discussing how the Jan. 7 remarks came together.
“We felt like it was important to further call for de-escalation,” said Kushner, who like Ivanka Trump was a senior White House aide.
Ivanka Trump told the committee that she could identify her father’s handwriting in the copy of the Jan. 7 speech included in the video while Kushner repeatedly said “I don’t know” when asked why the president had crossed out lines that read “legal consequences must be swift and firm” and “you do not represent me, you do not represent our movement.”
Key Trump aide John McEntee told investigators in his own deposition that he was told by other aides to “nudge” the speech along if President Trump asked his opinion on it — which he took as a sign that Trump didn’t want to deliver the remarks as initially written.
In the speech he eventually delivered at the White House on Jan. 7, Trump accused the rioters of defiling “the seat of American democracy” and said, “You do not represent our country.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, a committee witness who worked as a top aide to Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told the committee that Trump’s advisers pushed him to deliver remarks after the riot both to protect his legacy and to address concerns about how senators might respond if his Cabinet tried to remove him from office via the 25th Amendment.
“There was a large concern of the 25th Amendment potentially being invoked, and concerns about what would happen in the Senate,” Hutchinson said in the new video. “So the primary reason that I had heard other than, you know, ‘We did not do enough on the 6th’ … was, ‘Think about what might happen in the final 15 days of your presidency if we don’t do this. There’s already talk about the 25th Amendment. You might need this as cover.'”
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday’s video from the committee.
He has repeatedly said he did nothing wrong regarding Jan. 6 and has cast the House investigation as politically motivated and one-sided.
(WASHINGTON) — The former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence appeared last week before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Marc Short was caught by an ABC News camera departing D.C. District Court on Friday alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood.
Short appeared under subpoena, sources said.
Short would be the highest-ranking Trump White House official known to have appeared before the grand jury.
Short declined to comment to ABC News. His attorney did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office also declined to comment.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 symptoms are “almost completely resolved,” his physician said on Monday.
Kevin O’Connor wrote in a letter released by the White House that Biden is now only noting “some residual nasal congestion and minimal hoarseness.”
“His pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature remain absolutely normal. His oxygen saturation continues to be excellent in room air. His lungs remain clear,” O’Connor added.
Biden on Sunday night also completed his fourth full day of Paxlovid, the COVID-19 treatment he’s been taking since he tested positive for the virus on Thursday. The president is believed to have contracted the BA.5 subvariant, which has shown increased resistance to vaccines than previous COVID strains.
Prior to Monday, Biden’s symptoms had included a runny nose, cough, sore throat, a slight fever and body aches. He had also been using an albuterol inhaler for a cough, though O’Connor’s Monday letter did not mention that.
Biden is fully vaccinated and double-boosted, though at 79 years old, he’s considered to be in a high-risk age group for severe infection.
The White House has said that 17 people are considered close contacts of the president, though no other positive tests from the administration have been reported as of Monday morning.
Biden will continue working from the White House residence until he tests negative. He had to cancel trips to Pennsylvania and Florida after contracting the virus.
