(WASHINGTON) — A decision in the U.S. Supreme Court’s biggest gun rights case in over a decade is expected to land any day now.
The closely-watched case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v Bruen, addresses whether New York state’s concealed carry law violates the Second Amendment.
It is the most significant case regarding the Second Amendment since the high court affirmed the right to bear arms with its 2010 decision rendering Chicago’s nearly 30-year ban on handgun ownership unconstitutional.
“There’s been a big push to get more Second Amendment cases before the courts because many people believe that the lower courts were not being faithful to the Supreme Court’s decision in 2010 saying that states, as well as the federal government, were restricted by the Second Amendment,” Seth Chandler, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center who teaches constitutional law, told ABC News. “The Supreme Court for the past 10 years or so has just not placed that hot-button issue on its docket. But now, with this New York State Rifle and Pistol v. Bruen case, they’ve accepted those challenges.”
‘May issue’ states
The case, brought forth by the NRA-affiliate New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, focuses on a century-old New York state law that requires gun owners to show “proper cause” to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. Local authorities currently are given the discretion to decide who receives a concealed carry license even if basic requirements are met.
Twenty-five states require a permit to carry concealed weapons in public, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Among those, New York is one of eight states, as well as the District of Columbia, that have such “may issue” concealed carry laws. Someone may be denied a permit if, for instance, they have not demonstrated a strong reason to carry a weapon in public.
Seventeen “shall issue” states, meanwhile, issue concealed carry permits with little to no discretion to those who meet basic qualifications. The remaining 25 states generally allow people to carry concealed weapons in most public spaces without a permit, according to the Giffords Law Center.
Gun control advocates like the Giffords Law Center warn that relaxing concealed carry laws could increase the risk of gun violence, while gun rights groups argue that laws like New York’s are unfair and overly discretionary.
The court is also deciding the case at a time when the country has seen record levels of gun violence and gun deaths and a spate of deadly mass shootings that have reignited calls for gun reform, alongside record gun sales.
Potential outcomes
During oral arguments on the case in November, many of the court’s conservative justices seemed skeptical of New York-style laws, though raised concerns about public safety if restrictions were rolled back too far.
With the high court appearing poised to strike down New York’s proper-cause requirement, it would be a question of “how narrowly or broadly that opinion is written,” Darrell Miller, a professor at the Duke University School of Law who teaches constitutional law, told ABC News.
“A really narrow opinion could be something like New York can have a licensing law for concealed carry, but it can’t grant as much discretion as it does to the licensing authority,” Miller said. “A broad decision on this issue would be something like it’s unconstitutional to have any kind of licensing [for concealed carry] at all. I don’t think that that’s likely, but it’s possible.”
If it rolls back New York’s concealed-carry restrictions, the Supreme Court may also need to address decisions on where guns should be prohibited, Miller said.
“If you end up having more people carrying guns around New York, could you prevent people from carrying guns on college campuses or in the middle of Times Square on New Year’s Eve?” Miller said. “If the Supreme Court says we’ll have rights to carry guns in more places, that puts a lot of pressure on legislatures and eventually the courts to figure out what places are potentially sensitive that you can prohibit guns from being there.”
The justices could uphold the law, allowing New York to continue to exercise discretion in issuing concealed carry licenses, or they could say they don’t want to decide the case now — though both seem unlikely, Miller said.
The justices could send the case back to the district court to get more facts — such as how often people are denied concealed carry licenses in New York — Chandler said, though noted that also seems unlikely.
“I suspect the court feels it’s ready to decide the matter,” he said.
Potential impact
Should the court decide that New York’s discretionary licensing law is unconstitutional, similar laws in other states will likely be challenged, depending on how narrow or broad the decision is, Miller said.
A technical but potentially consequential “sleeper issue” in this case, Miller also noted, is whether the court takes a “text, history and tradition”-only approach in instructing lower courts on how to think about Second Amendment rights, or if judges can continue to consider modern evidence like social science data while balancing individual rights against state laws promoting public safety.
The text, history and tradition-only approach — which gun rights advocates have pushed — “essentially says that only those regulations that have some equal or analogue and history are constitutional, and all other regulations are not,” Miller said.
If the court adopts that approach, other gun regulations — such as those prohibiting guns on planes or keeping them out of the hands of people convicted of domestic violence — may suddenly become subject to that analysis, according to Miller, who was among a group of scholars who filed a brief in the Bruen case on behalf of neither party urging the court not to apply a text, history and tradition-only approach.
If New York’s law remains unchanged, there are other Second Amendment cases in the pipeline that are seeking Supreme Court review, Miller said.
“It’s pretty much guaranteed that whatever this opinion looks like, it will generate further litigation,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The latest House Jan. 6 committee hearing on Tuesday afternoon focused on what it said was then-President Donald Trump’s “unprecedented” effort to push key state officials to reject the results of the 2020 election — including a scheme to create slates of “fake” electors to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., led the hearing, which featured live witness testimony from Republican officials from Arizona and Georgia to show the pressure campaign related to Trump’s “big lie” extended to well before Jan. 6.
Some of the most compelling testimony came from a mother-daughter pair who worked as election workers in Georgia. They described in deeply personal terms the impact of threats they experienced after being targeted by Trump.
And the panel aired taped testimony from Trump allies to argue he was directly involved in what he knew was a baseless effort to have key states send fake Trump electors to Congress to replace legitimate Biden ones.
“Whether his actions were criminal will ultimately be for others to decide,” Schiff said in his closing remarks. “But what he did was without a doubt unconstitutional. It was unpatriotic. It was fundamentally un-American.”
Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said that “pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook” and warned only a handful of election officials in key states “stood between Donald Trump and the upending of American democracy.”
Here are some key takeaways from Tuesday’s hearing:
Arizona House speaker invokes faith, recalling how he wouldn’t deny oath of office
After Trump claimed Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social that Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican, had told him the election was rigged, Bowers said that was “false” and that Trump’s team claimed widespread fraud in Arizona but never provided him with any evidence.
“Anywhere, anyone, at any time, who said that I said the election was rigged, that would not be true,” Bowers said.
He recalled conversations with Trump election lawyer John Eastman, who tried to convince him there was a law in Arizona that would have allowed him to overturn results in his state, and his maintaining that he would not break his oath of office and decertify electors for Biden.
“I said, ‘What would you have me do?’ He said, ‘Just do it and let the courts sort it out.'”
At one point, Bowers fought back tears as he described the pressure placed on him to betray his oath and the impact “disturbing” protests outside his home had on his family.
“It is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, one of my most basic foundational beliefs,” Bowers testified. “And so for me to do that because somebody just asked me to is foreign to my very being. I will not do it.”
After some lawmakers in Arizona went around him to send a slate of “fake” electors to Congress and the National Archives, with the intention of then-Vice President Mike Pence refusing to certify votes in those states, Bowers described it as a “tragic parody.”
Bowers recalled Trump lawyer Giuliani telling him, “‘We’ve got lots of theories, but we just don’t have the evidence.'”
The Arizona Republican then went on to read aloud a passage from his journal from December 2020.
“I do not want to be a winner by cheating,” he read. “I will not play with laws I swore allegiance to with any contrived desire towards deflection of my deep, foundational desire to follow God’s will as I believe he led my conscience to embrace. How else will I ever approach Him in the wilderness of life knowing that I asked of His guidance only to show myself a coward in defending the course he led me to take.”
Republican witnesses tie Trump to fake electors plot, detail how they responded to pressure from Trump and his allies
In her opening statement, Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said the committee would provide evidence that Trump “had a direct and personal role” in a scheme to have key states send fake electors to Congress and for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results, “as did Rudy Giuliani, as did John Eastman.”
Appearing to be part of that point, the committee aired taped testimony of Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel being asked about the scheme to send “fake” electors to Congress to decertify Biden’s win and responding that Trump was on a call about the plan.
“He turned the call over to Mr. Eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importance of — helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the results of any states,” McDaniel recounted.
“The campaign took the lead, and we just were helping them in that role,” she added, appearing to try to distance the RNC from the effort.
The House select committee argued the RNC assisted Trump in coordinating the fake electors plot “at the president’s direct request.”
The testimony is important as Trump has also tried to distance himself, at times, from his own attorneys, but, according to McDaniel, he was personally involved in a call about the effort.
The testimony also detailed Trump’s calls to Georgia election officials highlight his role in the pressure campaign.
The committee played audio clips of the 67-minute, now-infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump told Raffensperger he needed to “find” 11,780 votes in Georgia — just one vote over the margin by which he trailed Biden — so he could be declared the winner of an election that three separate counts in the state confirmed he lost.
The call appeared to follow a cycle of Trump offering false election conspiracies and Raffensperger calmly explaining to him that each one was not accurate. At one point, Trump suggested to Raffensperger that his inaction could mean he was criminally liable.
Raffensperger was among several Republicans who told Trump his claims about fraud were false, the committee said, but he continued to spread them anyway.
The committee also aired audio from a call in which Trump tried to convince Frances Watson, the Georgia secretary of state’s lead elections investigator, to reverse his loss.
“You know, you have the most important job in the country right now,” Trump told her as he continued to falsely and publicly claim victory.
“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Trump said to Watson.
Mother-daughter election worker duo describe impact of targeted attacks
Former Fulton County election worker Shaye Moss, who was falsely accused by Giuliani and other Republicans of election fraud and smuggling “suitcases” of illegal ballots in Atlanta on election night, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who was sitting behind her, told members how their lives were changed by the lies.
“When I saw the video, of course the first thing that I said was, ‘Why? Why are they doing this? What’s going on?'” Moss recalled.
Moss then described the onslaught of threats and hateful messages she received online — a situation she had never been in during her 10 years as an elections worker.
“I felt so bad,” Moss. “I just felt bad for my mom and I felt horrible for picking this job and being the one that always wants to help and always there and never missing out on one election, I just felt like it was my fault for putting my family in this situation.”
Both women told the committee they are now scared to use their names, and Freeman was told by the FBI she had to leave her home for two months because of threats.
“I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with No. 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen,” Freeman said.
Public officials recount intimidation of protests, tweets from Trump supporters
Elected officials detailed the threats they received or witnessed others received as a result of Trump’s pressure campaign to reject state electors.
Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, recalled the moment that made him decry Trump’s claims of fraud and emotionally speak out about the threats made toward election officials in a press conference in December 2020.
It was a tweet, he said, targeting a contractor he knew that “broke the camel’s back.”
“It had his name, ‘you committed treason, may God have mercy on your soul,’ with a slowly twisting GIF of a noose and, for a lack of a better word, I lost it,” Sterling said. “I just got irate.”
Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, a Republican, said in a taped deposition that all of his personal information was doxxed online and multiple protests happened outside of his home. The committee aired audio from one protest in which participants shouted, “Bryan Cutler, we are outside.”
“We had to disconnect our home phone for about three days because it would ring all hours of the night, it would fill up with messages,” Cutler said.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, described the feeling of having protesters outside her home as well.
“My stomach sunk, I thought, ‘it’s me,'” she told the committee in a deposition. “The uncertainty of that was why it was the fear. Like, are they coming with guns? Are they going to attack my house?”
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, GOP Rep. Andy Biggs involved in fake electors?
As the committee unveils its findings, it has suggested how Republican lawmakers were involved in scheme to overturn the election.
Bowers, Arizona’s House speaker, testified he received a call from Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, asking Bowers if he’d support the decertification of electors. Bowers told Biggs he would not.
The committee also showed evidence that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., attempted to deliver slates of “fake” Trump electors from Wisconsin and Michigan to Pence ahead of Jan. 6.
Text messages between Johnson staffer Sean Riley and Pence aide Chris Hodgson were displayed on-screen in which Riley wrote that Johnson wanted to hand over fake electors from the two states.
“Do not give that to him,” the Pence aide replied.
Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Johnson, denied that Johnson had any involvement in the creation of fake alternate slates of electors and claimed he had “no foreknowledge” it was going to be delivered to the office.
“The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office. The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story,” Henning told ABC News.
Teasing hearings still to come, the next of which is on Thursday, Cheney put pressure on former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone to appear before the committee, adding that they are “certain” Trump wouldn’t want that to happen.
(WASHINGTON) — An airman was arrested in the U.S. on Thursday in connection with an April attack at a base in Syria that injured four other U.S. service members, according to a new statement from an Air Force official.
“After reviewing the information in the investigation, the Airman’s commander made the decision to place him in pretrial confinement,” the official said.
The Air Force will not release the airman’s name unless charges are preferred.
“It is too early in the process for a charge sheet. It will be available if charges are preferred,” the official said.
Earlier this month, military officials said an American service member had been identified as a “possible suspect” in the April 7 attack at the Green Village base.
Four other U.S. service members were evaluated for minor wounds and possible traumatic brain injuries after what the military originally reported to be two indirect-fire rounds hitting the site. Further investigation showed the explosions were the result of “deliberate placement of explosive charges” at an ammunition storage area and shower facility on base, according to military officials.
The Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) have been conducting a joint investigation into the incident.
An Army CID official previously emphasized that “at this point, these are just allegations” and that any suspects were presumed innocent.
“The investigation is ongoing, which may or may not, develop sufficient evidence to identify a perpetrator(s) and have enough evidence to ensure a conviction in a court of law,” that official said.
(WASHINGTON) — After weeks of negotiation, a bipartisan group of senators released their anti-gun violence bill on Tuesday evening — setting up a vote in the upper chamber as early as this week.
The key four senators on the deal were Republicans John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democrats Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The group came together after a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers.
“Today, we finalized bipartisan, commonsense legislation to protect America’s children, keep our schools safe, and reduce the threat of violence across our country. Our legislation will save lives and will not infringe on any law-abiding American’s Second Amendment rights,” the four lawmakers said in a statement. “We look forward to earning broad, bipartisan support and passing our commonsense legislation into law.”
Led by Cornyn and Murphy, a group of 20 senators had announced last week that they agreed upon the broad outline of a bill, which they then focused on drafting more specifically. Now that the legislative text is complete, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could begin the process of teeing up a vote as soon as this week. He’s previously vowed to move the bill expeditiously.
“Once the text of this agreement is finalized, and I hope it will be as soon as possible, I will put this bill on the floor quickly so the Senate can move quickly to make gun safety reform a reality,” Schumer said in a floor speech the day after the bipartisan framework was introduced on June 12.
The bill marks a step forward in advancing that agreement, which was supported by 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, enough to overcome a filibuster. That framework had outlined plans for a law that would include expanded background checks for those ages 18-21 as well as funding for school safety and mental health programs, funds to incentivize violence prevention programs in states and the closure of the so-called “boyfriend loophole” regarding which convicted domestic abusers can possess firearms.
If the draft text becomes law, it will be the first major gun legislation in nearly 30 years. But the Senate will need to work quickly if lawmakers want to see a floor vote before they depart for a two-week recess at the end of the week. Waiting until the end of that recess could prove a serious blow to the bill’s momentum, given resistance in some conservative circles.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state of Maine must allow parents who receive taxpayer-funded tuition assistance payments to use them at religious schools, saying a ban on the practice had violated the First Amendment.
The decision is a significant expansion of religious liberty and opens the door for wider use of taxpayer funds for sectarian education.
“The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools — so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion joined by the court’s five other conservatives.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
“The Court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build,” Sotomayor wrote.
Half of Maine’s school districts — mostly in rural and sparsely populated areas of the state — do not operate their own public schools. Instead, they either contract with a neighboring district to provide public education for residents, or they provide parents with tuition assistance payments to use at a private school of their choice. About 5,000 students currently use the assistance to attend private schools.
State regulations have prohibited use of the funds at a school that promotes a specific faith or belief system and teaches academic material through a “lens of faith.”
A pair of families who want to send their children to religiously-affiliated private schools using the program sued the state alleging discrimination under the First Amendment. Two lower federal courts sided with the state, saying that the program was rightly restricted because of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits government establishment of religion.
“A neutral benefit program in which public funds flow to religious organizations through the independent choices of private benefit recipients does not offend the Establishment Clause,” Roberts writes. “Maine’s decision to continue excluding religious schools from its tuition assistance program …thus promotes stricter separation of church and state than the Federal Constitution requires.”
Chief Justice Roberts noted that Maine is not required outright to fund religious schools, but that once it allows general subsidy of private education it could not discriminate. “The State retains a number of options: it could expand the reach of its public school system, increase the availability of transportation, provide some combination of tutoring, remote learning, and partial attendance, or even operate boarding schools of its own,” he wrote.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that the Constitution gives the states some leeway to choose how scrupulous they want to be in keeping taxpayer dollars away from religious use.
“That need is reinforced by the fact that we are today a Nation of more than 330 million people who ascribe to over 100 different religions. In that context, state neutrality with respect to religion is particularly important,” Breyer wrote.
Justice Sotomayor, in a separate dissent, sharply rebuked the court’s conservative majority.
“Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation,” she writes. “If a State cannot offer subsidies to its citizens without being required to fund religious exercise, any State that values its historic anti-establishment interests more than this Court does will have to curtail the support it offers to its citizens.”
Advocates for the Maine families challenging the program celebrated the court’s decision.
“We are thrilled that the Court affirmed once again that religious discrimination will not be tolerated in this country,” said First Liberty president and chief counsel Kelly Shackelford. “Parents in Maine, and all over the country, can now choose the best education for their kids without fearing retribution from the government.”
Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said the justices were infringing on the rights of those who believe the government must remain neutral in matters of religion.
“This nation was built on the promise of religious freedom, which has always prevented the state from using its taxing power to force citizens to fund religious worship or education,” Laser said in a statement. “Here, the court has violated that founding principle by requiring Maine to tax citizens to fund religious schools. Far from honoring religious freedom, this decision tramples the religious freedom of everyone.”
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol holds another hearing Tuesday at 1 p.m. on the pressure campaign it says former President Donald Trump and allies put on state election officials as part of a larger “seven-part scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Please check back for updates. All times Eastern.
Jun 21, 3:47 pm
Schiff calls Trump’s action ‘unpatriotic’ but punts to DOJ on whether criminal
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led the hearing Tuesday focused on Trump’s pressure campaign on state election officials, appeared to speak to Attorney General Merrick Garland and other prosecutors at the Department of Justice watching the committee unfold its findings, reminding the public that lawmakers will not be the ones to bring charges to Trump and allies.
“Whether his actions were criminal will ultimately be for others to decide. But what he did was without a doubt unconstitutional. It was unpatriotic, and it was fundamentally un-American,” Schiff said.
The committee has appeared to make the case that Trump directly engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the government.
Jun 21, 3:37 pm
Mother-daughter election duo describe impact of ‘hateful’ attacks
Ruby Freeman, the mother of Shaye Moss, both former election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, sat behind her daughter in the hearing room Tuesday as Moss detailed “racist” and “hateful” threats to their lives after Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani falsely accused them of “smuggling” ballots in suitcases.
Both women told the committee they are now scared to use their names, and Freeman was told by the FBI she had to leave her home for two months because of threats. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said that in Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, he mentioned Freeman’s name 18 times.
“I’ve lost my name and I’ve lost my reputation,” Freeman, a 62-year-old grandmother, said in taped testimony. “I’ve lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with No. 45 and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to push their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.”
“I can’t believe this person has caused this much damage to me and my family,” she added. “It was horrible.”
Asked how the false attack espoused by the president and his allies affected her, Moss said it has “in every way.”
“I haven’t been anywhere at all. I’ve gained about 60 pounds. I just don’t do nothing anymore. I don’t want to go anywhere,” she said. “All because of lies — for me doing my job, same thing I’ve been doing forever.”
Jun 21, 3:30 pm
Former elections worker describes moment she learned about threats against her
Shaye Moss, a former election worker in Fulton County, Georgia, told the committee about the moment she learned Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was falsely accusing her and her mother of smuggling ballots in suitcases.
“When I saw the video, of course the first thing that I said was, ‘Why? Why are they doing this? What’s going on?'” Moss recalled.
Moss then described the onslaught of threats and hateful messages she received online — a situation she had never been in during her 10 years as an elections worker.
“It was just a lot of horrible things,” she said.
“A lot of threats, wishing death upon me, telling me that, you know I’ll be in jail with my mother,” Moss added.
Moss opened her remarks by telling the committee what she had loved about her job, stating she took pride in helping elderly voters and college students cast their ballots.
Jun 21, 3:13 pm
Committee plays audio of Trump’s call to Raffensperger to ‘find’ votes
The committee played audio clips of the now-infamous phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump told Raffensperger he needed to “find” 11,780 votes in Georgia — just one vote over the margin by which he trailed President-elect Joe Biden — so he could be declared the winner of an election that three separate counts in the state confirmed he lost.
The call lasted 67 minutes and appeared to follow a cycle of Trump offering false election conspiracies and Raffensperger calmly explaining to him that each one was not accurate. At one point, Trump suggested to Raffensperger that his inaction could mean he was criminally liable.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., leading Tuesday’s hearing, also said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reached out to Raffensperger 18 times to set up the call with Trump.
Jun 21, 3:04 pm
Audio of Trump pressuring Georgia official aired in hearing
The committee aired audio from a call in which Trump tried to convince Frances Watson, the Georgia secretary of state’s lead elections investigator, to reverse his loss.
“You know, you have the most important job in the country right now,” Trump told her as he continued to falsely claim victory in the Peach State — which he lost to Joe Biden by some 11,000 votes.
“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Trump said to Watson.
Jun 21, 2:55 pm
Sterling describes threats to election workers amid Trump’s pressure
Gabe Sterling, the chief oversight officer of Georgia’s election, said trying to combat misinformation spread by Trump and his team was “kind of like a shovel trying to empty out the ocean,” adding that he even argued with his own family members over the ‘big lie.’
With Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asking the Georgia election officials about threats made against them, Sterling said the “straw that broke the camel’s back” for him was a message to a Dominion contractor which said, “You committed treason — May God have mercy on your soul,” accompanied with a “slowly twisting GIF of a noose,” he said.
“I lost my temper, but it seemed necessary at the time because it was just getting worse,” Sterling said.
The committee went on to play a video of him from December 2020 in which he pleaded with Trump to “stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was the first to testify after a short recess and was immediately asked by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to address the false allegations of widespread voter fraud Trump and his allies pushed in the battleground state.
“Our election went remarkably smooth,” Raffensperger said. “President Biden carried the state of Georgia by approximately 12,000 votes,” he reminded.
Raffensperger, a Republican who supported Trump’s re-election bid, recounted how three separate audits in the state confirmed President Joe Biden as the winner.
“Three counts — all remarkably close — which show that President Trump did come up short,” he said.
Jun 21, 2:38 pm
GOP Sen. Johnson attempted to give fake electors to Pence, committee shows
The committee showed evidence that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., attempted to deliver slates of “fake” Trump electors from Wisconsin and Michigan to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
Text messages the House panel obtained between Johnson staffer Sean Riley and Pence aide Chris Hodgson were displayed on-screen during Tuesday’s hearing.
Riley wrote that Johnson wanted to hand over fake electors from the two states — which Joe Biden won — to Pence ahead of Jan. 6.
“Do not give that to him,” the Pence aide replied.
Jun 21, 2:32 pm
Arizona House speaker recounts faith in standing up to pressure
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers emotionally recounted the pushback he and his family faced under immense pressure from Trump’s top team, who tried to convince him there was a law in Arizona that would have allowed him to overturn electors in the state — which did not legally exist.
Bowers summarized the effort to go around him and send fake Arizona electors to Washington as a “tragic parody” and recounted how people turned on him as Trump continued to espouse the ‘big lie.’
“It is painful to have friends who have been such a help to me turn on me with such rancor,” he said. “I may, in the eyes of men, not hold correct opinions or act according to their vision or convictions, but I do not take this current situation in a light manner, a fearful manner, or a vengeful manner.”
“I do not want to be a winner by cheating,” he added. “I will not play with laws I swear allegiance to with any contrived desire towards deflection of my deep, foundational desire to follow God’s will as I believe he let my conscience to embrace. How else will I ever approach Him in the wilderness of life knowing that I ask of His guidance only to show myself a coward in defending the course he led me to take.”
He mentioned the threats around his home and how it upset is daughter, Kacey Rae Bowers, who was gravely ill at the time. She passed away at age 42, just days after the attack on the Capitol, on Jan. 28, 2021.
Jun 21, 2:15 pm
RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel appears in videotaped testimony
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, niece of Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, made her first appearance at a Jan. 6 hearing in video testimony where she was asked about the scheme to send “fake” electors to Congress to decertify President-elect Joe Biden’s win.
The House select committee says the RNC assisted Trump in coordinating the effort “at the president’s direct request.”
“He turned the call over to Mr. Eastman, who then preceded to talk about the importance of — helping the campaign gather these contingent electors in case any of the legal challenges that were ongoing change the results of any states,” McDaniel recounted.
“The campaign took the lead, and we just were helping them in that role,” she added, appearing to try to distance the RNC from the effort.
Jun 21, 2:07 pm
Arizona House speaker says he told Eastman twice he wouldn’t break oath
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers said he told Trump election lawyer John Eastman on two occasions that he would not break his oath of office and decertify electors for President-elect Joe Biden and recalled the conversations before the committee.
“I said, ‘What would you have me do?’ He said, ‘Just do it and let the courts sorted out.’ I said, ‘You’re asking me to do something that is never been done in history, the history of the United States. And I’m gonna put my state through that without sufficient proof? That’s going to be good enough with me that I would put us through that, my state?”
Bowers recalled telling Eastman, “‘I swore to uphold both in the Constitution and in law — no, sir,'” and said that Eastman suggested he “do it” and let the courts figure it out.
Bowers also said he also received a call from Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, asking Bowers if he’d support the decertification of electors. Bowers told Biggs he would not.
Jun 21, 1:58 pm
Arizona Republican gets emotional describing pressure to violate his oath
Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, got emotional Tuesday as he described to the committee the pressure placed on him by Trump and others to violate his oath to the Constitution.
Bowers said he was not presented with any strong evidence that would have given him doubt as to the integrity of the election.
“It is a tenet of my faith that the Constitution is divinely inspired, one of my most basic foundational beliefs,” Bowers said. “And so for me to do that because somebody just asked me to is foreign to my very being. I will not do it.”
Jun 21, 1:49 pm
Arizona House speaker rejects Trump’s claim, says he told Giuliani he wouldn’t be ‘used as a pawn’
After Trump claimed earlier Tuesday on his social media platform Truth Social that Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers told him the election was rigged, Bowers said that was “false.”
“I did have a conversation with the president. That certainly isn’t it. There are parts that are true. There are parts that are not,” Bowers said, asked about Trump’s claim. “Anyone, anywhere, anytime [saying] I said the election was rigged, that would not be true,” he added.
Bowers said Trump’s team claimed widespread fraud in Arizona but couldn’t provide evidence of it.
“I did not feel that the evidence, and its absence, merited the hearing,” he said, explaining that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani wanted him to reconvene his state legislature to change the state’s vote. “I didn’t want to be used as a pawn.”
“I said, look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath that I swore to the Constitution to uphold it. I also swore to the Constitution and the laws of the state of Arizona — this is totally foreign as an idea or a theory to me,” Bowers recalled. “You’re asking me to do something against my oath. I will not break my oath.”
Jun 21, 1:36 pm
Arizona House speaker faces 1st questions
Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican who was pressured by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to decertify Biden’s victory in the state, according to emails reviewed by ABC News, as well as Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to The Arizona Republic, faced the first questions from the committee on Tuesday, establishing that he did support Trump’s re-election bid.
Bowers and other state officials on the first panel did not deliver opening statements, but Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said the Republican House speaker of Arizona will talk about “conversations with the president, with Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, what’s the president’s team asked of him and how his oath of office would not permit it.”
A spokesperson said for the Arizona House of Representatives said that Bowers is appearing in response to a committee subpoena.
-ABC News’ Ali Dukakis
Jun 21, 1:30 pm
Trump’s election lies are ‘a dangerous cancer,’ Schiff warns
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., described the pressure placed on state officials as a “dangerous precursor” to the violence the nation witnessed on Jan. 6, 2021.
“This pressure campaign brought angry phone calls and texts, armed protests, intimidation, and, all too often, threats of violence and death,” Schiff said in his opening statement. “State legislators were singled out. So, too, were statewide elections officials. Even local elections workers, diligently doing their jobs, were accused of being criminals, and had their lives turned upside down.”
Trump’s supporters, Schiff said, saw his conduct toward local officials as “a call to action.”
“The president’s lie was — and is — a dangerous cancer on the body politic,” Schiff said. “If you can convince Americans that they cannot trust their own elections, that anytime they lose, it is somehow illegitimate, then what is left but violence to determine who should govern?”
Jun 21, 1:20 pm
Cheney says committee will show Trump’s ‘direct and personal role’ in fake electors scheme
Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in her opening statement, said the committee will provide evidence that Trump “had a direct and personal role” in a scheme to have key states send fake electors to Congress and for Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results, “as did Rudy Giuliani, as did John Eastman.”
“In other words, the same people who were attempting to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject electoral votes illegally, were also simultaneously working to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election at the state level,” Cheney said.
Cheney said the public will learn about calls Trump made to officials of Georgia and other states, and asked, “As you listen to these tapes, keep in mind what Donald Trump already knew at the time he made those calls — he had been told over and over again that his stolen election allegations were nonsense,” she said, going on to play video testimony of Trump’s attorney general Bill Barr.
Also raising threats of violence to election workers, Cheney said, “Donald Trump didn’t care about the threats of violence” and “made no effort to stop them; he went forward with his fake allegations anyway.”
“Do not be distracted by politics,” she added, as the former president and GOP allies continue to attack the committee’s investigation. “This is serious. We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence.”
Jun 21, 1:10 pm
Chairman opens hearing
Chairman Bennie Thompson convened the committee’s fourth hearing this month shortly after 1 p.m. and previewed the pressure campaign he said Trump and his allies put on election officials in key states with the aim of overturning the 2020 election.
In his opening statement, Thompson said “pressuring public servants into betraying their oaths was a fundamental part of the playbook” and that, in 2020, only a handful of election officials in key states “stood between Donald Trump and the upending of American democracy.”
“Everything we describe today — the relentless, destructive pressure campaign on state and local officials — was all based on a lie. Donald Trump knew it,” Thompson said. “He did it anyway.”
Explaining how the U.S. elects its president with the Electoral College system, Thompson also warned that “the lie hasn’t gone away” but is still “corrupting our democratic institutions,” citing an example of a county commissioner in New Mexico who refused to certify primary results last week.
“People who believe that lie are now seeking positions of public trust,” Thompson said. “If that happens, who will make sure our institutions don’t break under the pressure? We won’t have close calls. We’ll have catastrophe.”
Jun 21, 12:18 pm
Committee subpoenas filmmaker for new footage of Trump
The House select committee has subpoenaed a British documentary filmmaker who had substantial access to Trump, his family and closest aides both before and after the Jan. 6 attack, according to a statement from the filmmaker obtained by ABC News.
A spokesperson for filmmaker Alex Holder, who began filming Trump for a project in September 2020, confirmed the subpoena, first reported by Politico.
Holder said he has “fully complied with all of the committee’s requests” and handed over footage which includes interviews with Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vice President Mike Pence, shot in the weeks around the Jan. 6 attack.
-ABC News’ Ali Dukakis and Benjamin Siegel
Jun 21, 12:09 pm
Former election worker to describe threats against her, family
Shaye Moss, a former election worker in Georgia, will testify Tuesday about the threats she said she and her family received in the aftermath of the 2020 race, according to a copy of her opening statement obtained by ABC News.
“Ever since December 2020, I have been under attack for just doing my job,” the statement reads. “My mom too.”
Moss will describe how they were the target of lies spread by Trump and Rudy Giuliani, including false accusations that they brought ballots into the State Farm Arena in a suitcase.
“People showed up at my grandmother’s home trying to bust the door down and conduct a citizen’s arrest of my mom and me,” her statement reads. “The threats followed me to work. People would email the general email address for our office so everyone could see their threats and the hateful messages directed at me.”
Jun 21, 12:04 pm
4th June hearing to include 4 live witnesses
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whom Trump asked to “find” just one vote over the margin by which he trailed President-elect Joe Biden in a now-infamous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, will testify before the committee this afternoon, along with his blunt-spoken deputy, Gabe Sterling, after facing backlash from their own party for pushing back on Trump’s claims of election fraud in Georgia.
Joining them will be Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who was pressured by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to decertify Biden’s victory in the state, according to emails reviewed by ABC News. Bowers previously described to The Arizona Republic that Rudy Giuliani also called him after the election to pressure him to involve the state legislature to manipulate results in his state.
Former Fulton County election worker Shaye Moss, who was falsely accused by Giuliani and other Republicans of election fraud and smuggling “suitcases” of illegal ballots in Atlanta on election night, will testify on a second panel. She’s said that she and her mother, another election worker, were subject to harassment and threats online even after Georgia election officials debunked fraud allegations.
Jun 21, 11:42 am
What to expect at Tuesday’s hearing
The committee’s afternoon hearing will focus on what it says was then-President Donald Trump’s “unprecedented” effort to push key state officials to reject the election results and his central role in the plot to create “fake” slates of electors to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
Trump “drove a pressure campaign bases on lies” about the election, an aide told reporters on a briefing call Monday, and was “warned that his actions risked inciting violence” but “did it anyway.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., will lead the 1 p.m. ET hearing that the aide said will reveal new information obtained by the committee detailing Trump’s involvement and feature live witness testimony from Arizona and Georgia officials.
(WASHINGTON) — Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democratic negotiator on a pending package to address gun violence, told reporters on Tuesday afternoon that a deal had been reached on the legislative text — and that the bill will be out soon.
“We have an agreement and the text will be coming out very shortly,” Murphy said before walking onto the Senate floor to preside.
Murphy declined to give more specific timing on when the draft bill would be introduced ahead of what leaders have signaled would be a quick vote.
A bipartisan group of senators has been working for days behind the scenes to turn a previously announced legislative framework into a specific bill that retains enough Republican support to avoid a filibuster.
Democratic leadership, including Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, have been clear they need bill text by Tuesday to get to a vote before the July 4 recess.
The disagreements negotiators faced
Sources previously told ABC News that abortion funding had emerged as the latest snag in the Senate’s talks to finalize the legislative agreement, with the informal deadline looming at the end of Tuesday in order to keep a potential bill on track for a vote before the two-week holiday break.
Negotiators had recently been focusing on the Hyde Amendment, which forbids federal funding from being used to pay for abortions. That provision got caught up in the portion of the possible gun law dealing with mental health funding, with Republicans pushing for language barring any money in an ultimate agreement from being used pay for abortions, according to a source familiar with the matter.
That snag marked the latest curveball in the discussions.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the lead Republican working on the deal, expressed optimism to ABC News earlier on Tuesday that an agreement could be reached later that day, saying that draft text would emerge “hopefully shortly.”
Still, Cornyn said — without elaborating — that certain “details” needed to be worked out.
“It’s a complicated bill and it’s been a tough negotiation,” he said.
The other core negotiators have been Sens. Murphy, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
The gun talks recently narrowed in on two other disagreements: funding for “red flag” laws, which would allow law enforcement to remove firearms from those deemed a danger to themselves or others, and how extensively to address the “boyfriend loophole” by expanding the kinds of domestic abusers barred from having firearms.
Sen. Durbin, the majority whip, suggested to ABC News on Tuesday that conversations over the Hyde Amendment could be resolved quickly and aides were still optimistic that an overall deal would not be derailed.
Negotiators have been pressing for a bill that can get the filibuster-proof support of 10 Republican senators, the same number who previously supported the framework announced on June 12.
Democrats want a deal to be wrapped up shortly to maintain momentum amid public outcry following high-profile mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. Republicans, meanwhile, are facing calls from their base to blunt the gun-access aspects of any legislation, with that pressure on display over the weekend when Cornyn was booed at a state party convention in Texas.
When asked by ABC News on Tuesday if that made negotiations more difficult, Cornyn replied, “Oh no. No it hasn’t.”
(WASHINGTON) — The House Jan. 6 committee’s Tuesday hearing will focus on what it says was then-President Donald Trump’s “unprecedented” effort to push key state officials to reject the election results and his central role in the plot to create “fake” slates of electors to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.
Trump “drove a pressure campaign bases on lies” about the election, an aide told reporters on a briefing call Monday, and was “warned that his actions risked inciting violence” but “did it anyway.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., will lead the 1 p.m. ET hearing that the aide said will reveal new information obtained by the committee, including evidence it says shows Trump’s role in the effort to get states to submit “fake” pro-Trump electors to Congress to overturn Biden’s win.
“We’ll show evidence of the president’s involvement in this scheme. We’ll also again show evidence about what his own lawyers came to think about this scheme,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Schiff also told the Los Angeles Times that then-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows appeared at a Georgia election meeting and also offered auditors autographed “Make America Great Again” hats.
While the hearing will feature live witness testimony from Arizona and Georgia officials, the committee will describe the “breadth” of Trump’s pressure efforts, which also included Michigan and Pennsylvania, the committee said.
The pressure campaign was part of what the committee says is a discredited theory presented by Trump election attorney John Eastman that then-Vice President Pence could unilaterally block Congress’ certification of Biden as president.
An aide said the committee would also spotlight “the heroes in this story” who “remained true to their oaths” and rejected the overtures of Trump and his allies to reject their state’s results or send pro-Trump electors to Congress to further the election challenge.
The committee will also show, an aide said, how the threats facing election workers are “real” and “ongoing” heading into the midterms and 2024 presidential election.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who beat a Trump-backed challenger in his GOP primary race for secretary of state last week, will testify on Tuesday, along with his blunt-spoken deputy, Gabe Sterling. Both were on that infamous phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump told Raffensperger he needed to “find” 11,780 votes in Georgia — just one vote over the margin by which he trailed President-elect Joe Biden — so he could be declared the winner of an election that three separate counts in the state confirmed he lost.
Joining them will be Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, who was pressured by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to decertify Biden’s victory in the state, according to emails reviewed by ABC News. Bowers previously described to The Arizona Republic that Rudy Giuliani also called him after the election to pressure him to involve the state legislature to manipulate results in his state.
A spokesperson for the Arizona House of Representatives confirmed to ABC News that Bowers is set to testify in Tuesday’s committee hearing in response to a committee subpoena.
On a second panel, former Fulton County election worker “Shaye” Moss will be the sole live witness. Moss and her mother were falsely accused by Giuliani and other Republicans of election fraud and smuggling “suitcases” of illegal ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on election night. She’s said she was subject to harassment and threats online even after Georgia election officials debunked the allegations.
Both Bowers and Moss received the 2022 JFK Profile in Courage Award “for their courage to protect and defend democracy in the United States.” (Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., also was a recipient.)
In public remarks in Nashville on Friday, Trump compared lawmakers on the Jan. 6 committee to “con artists” as he continues to push the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, part of what the committee argues is a conspiracy that led directly led to the attack on the Capitol.
A majority of Americans appears to agree with the committee, which has interviewed 1,000 people and reviewed more than 140,000 documents in an 11-month-long investigation it says is still ongoing.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted last week after the committee held its third of seven public hearings scheduled for June found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the incident. In the poll, 58% of Americans said Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the attack — up slightly from late April, before the hearings began, when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52% of Americans thought the former president should be charged.
Cheney previewed Tuesday’s hearing last week, saying the committee will examine “the Trump team’s determination to transmit material false electoral slates from multiple states to officials of the executive and legislative branches of our government” as well as “the pressures put on state legislators … to reverse lawful election results.”
“An honorable man receiving the information and advice that Mr. Trump received from his campaign experts and his staff, a man who loved his country more than himself would have conceded this election,” she told the hearing room. “Indeed, we know that a number of President Trump’s closest aides urged him to do so.”
A second hearing this week is scheduled for Thursday and will focus on the pressure placed on Justice Department officials, members said.
It comes as the Justice Department sent a letter last week telling the committee’s chief investigator it is “critical” members “provide us with copies of the transcripts of all its witness interviews” — which the committee has declined to do. The request suggests there are matters DOJ is investigating beyond the violence on the ground on Jan. 6 it is already investigating, specifically, alternate or fake electors.
The House select committee has argued that Trump was repeatedly told the plot to overturn the election was illegal but continued anyway.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Ali Dukakis contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff made a surprise visit to schoolchildren at the National Museum of African American History and Culture to talk about the meaning of Juneteenth as the nation observed the new federal holiday on Monday.
Children and their families greeted Harris, the first Black woman to serve as the nation’s second-highest executive, with cheers as she entered the room.
“Happy Juneteenth, young leaders,” a smiling Harris told the children.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were the last to learn President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier, freeing them from slavery. The date achieved federal holiday status last June, when President Joe Biden signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.
“Today is a day to celebrate the principle of freedom,” Harris told the children ages 4 to 10, “and think about it in terms of the context of history, knowing that Black people in America were not free for 400 years of slavery, but then at the end of slavery — right? … when the Emancipation Proclamation happened, that America had to really think about defining freedom …”
“I would argue, it is our God-given right to have freedom,” she added. “It is your birthright to have freedom, and then during slavery freedom was taken. And so we’re not going to celebrate being given back what God gave us anyway” as the group voiced agreement, one person saying, “Amen.”
She continued, “let this be a day that is a day to celebrate the principle of freedom, but to speak about it honestly and accurately, both in the context of history, and current application. That’s what I’m thinking about today.”
The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in 2016, when it became “the 19th museum of the Smithsonian Institution,” according to the museum’s website.
After their remarks, the second couple talked with children as they worked on coloring books.
The surprise appearance on Monday follows Harris and Emhoff hosting the first-ever Juneteenth celebration at the vice president’s residence, she tweeted on Sunday.
“I can think of no better way to celebrate Juneteenth than by spending time with the community,” Harris said, sharing a photo of R&B duo sisters Chloe and Halle Bailey, who spoke at the event.
Biden released a statement on Sunday afternoon calling Juneteenth “a day of profound weight and power that reminds us of our extraordinary capacity to heal, hope, and emerge from our most painful moments into a better version of ourselves.”
He added, “This is a day to celebrate, to educate, and to act.”
Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to recognize Juneteenth as a paid state holiday.
(WASHINGTON) — The clock is ticking for Senate negotiators working to reach a final agreement on an anti-gun violence package before the Fourth of July recess.
After agreeing earlier this month on a framework for the deal — including enhanced background checks for those ages 18-21 and funding for mental health and school safety programs — negotiators trying to turn the agreement into legislative text left Washington over the weekend without a clear path forward on two outstanding elements: “red flag” laws and closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by expanding a ban on domestic abusers owning firearms.
Republican Sens. John Cornyn, of Texas, and Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, have been huddled with Democratic colleagues Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, in efforts to turn their broad consensus into an actual piece of legislation that can be considered and taken up for a vote on the Senate floor.
Though tensions ran high at the close of last week, a source close to the negotiations told ABC News on Sunday that discussions were back on track and that they were “moving in the right direction.”
But time is running out for quick action, which many in Congress would prefer.
The Senate is set to depart for a two-week recess at the close of business this week. Pushing a vote on the legislation until after the break threatens to slow momentum for a package already struggling to find a home in the Republican conference.
A senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC that bipartisan negotiators must produce bill text by Tuesday, at the latest, to keep the upper chamber on track for a vote this week.
President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Monday, would not say whether he thought negotiators would have the legislative text finalized by later that day. But he expressed some optimism about the state of the talks.
“I’m confident that … there’s a serious, serious negotiation that’s getting close to becoming fruition,” Biden said. He pointed to the success of some state laws in controlling gun violence but ultimately added that “it’ll be better if we had better regulation of sale of firearms, nationally and nationally mandated.”
Biden won’t get the assault weapons ban he called for in an address to the nation after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month left 19 elementary school students and two teachers dead — days after a separate shooting in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store killed 10. Still, lawmakers working on the package in the Senate hope their proposal, if passed, could make an impact on the high tide of gun violence.
But two outstanding topics have plagued bipartisan negotiators.
The framework, announced on June 12 with the filibuster-proof support of 10 Senate Republicans, included funding to incentivize states to implement “red flag” laws to remove firearms from people who are a danger to themselves and others. Lawmakers have struggled, in recent days, to define what sort of programs would qualify for that funding.
According to Cornyn, the chief Republican working on the deal, negotiators were struggling last week over whether monies made available to states to support such programs should also be available to states with other types of violence prevention, like veterans’ courts, mental health courts and assisted outpatient treatment programs.
Some Republicans have long struggled with “red flag” programs out of concern that those provisions violate the due process rights of those accused of being a threat.
Cornyn told reporters Thursday that he and the other senators were still “grappling with the contours” of the laws but assured, as he has in floor speeches, that states who qualify for funding under the proposed legislation would be held to “the most rigorous due process standards that exist.”
The group has also stumbled over how to draft legislative text aimed at closing the “boyfriend loophole.” Under current law, those convicted of domestic violence against their married partner or against those with whom they have a child are prohibited from purchasing guns. Democrats want to expand that language to include other kinds of dating partners.
But the group working on the Senate bill has had trouble agreeing upon a legal definition of a “boyfriend,” and Cornyn has expressed concerns about how such a change might be implemented.
“We’ve got to come up with a good definition of what that actually means, because what this does is it would add a category to a bar for people being able to purchase a firearm if they fall in that category,” Cornyn said last week. “So it’s got to be clear and it’s got to be something that can actually be applied, because we are talking about pretty serious consequences.”
The difficulty finalizing these outstanding topics emphasizes the pinch that many Republicans are feeling as they weigh supporting the first significant gun reform legislation in nearly 30 years.
Cornyn said, upon announcement of the original framework, that he hoped more than the 10 original GOP senators would ultimately back the finalized legislation. But as Republicans involved have tried to drum up additional support from their conference, they faced yet another warning of the potential political consequences on Friday when Texas Republicans at the state’s party convention booed Cornyn as he tried to defend the package.
“I will not, under any circumstance, support new restrictions for law-abiding gun owners,” Cornyn told the audience. “That will always be my red line. And despite what some of you may have heard, the framework that we are working on is consistent with that red line.”
The anger from the crowd was clear — though crossing the GOP base may not ultimately sway the crucial block of 10 Republicans. Cornyn would not go up for reelection until 2026. None of the other conservatives who signed onto the initial framework will face voters during the 2022 midterm races in November.
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell last week signaled willingness to support new gun legislation if it mirrored the proposals outlined in the group’s framework.
“My view of the framework if it leads to a piece of legislation I intend to support it I think it is progress for the country and I think the bipartisan group has done the best they can to get total support and the background check enhancement for that age group I think is a step in the right direction,” McConnell said Tuesday.
Other Republicans have also said they’re amenable to the broad details. But they’ll need to see text before they can make a determination.
ABC News’ Trish Turner and Rachel Scott and Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report
