(WASHINGTON) — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, was expected to pass a major milestone Monday on her way to expected Senate confirmation later this week.
As anticipated, the Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked along party lines in an 11-11 vote Monday on whether to send Jackson’s nomination to the full Senate, ahead of a possible final confirmation vote possibly on Friday.
The tie vote forced Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to file a discharge motion to bring the nomination before the full Senate in order to get it out of committee. While Democrats are expected to prevail on the procedural move Monday evening — maybe with some Republican support — the move comes with four hours of floor debate, and some other Republicans could try to slow down the process.
While confirmation is nearly certain for Jackson, it’s unclear how many Republicans will cross the aisle to vote for her.
So far, only one, Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins, has said she would vote for Jackson.
Ranking Member Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, announced after the committee kicked off its business Monday morning that he will vote no on Jackson’s nomination, paving the way for the 22-member, evenly-split committee to end in a tie vote.
But there was also an unintended delay forced by a Democratic senator.
“We have a problem,” said Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill, explaining that Sen. Padilla, D-Calif., whose presence is needed for the vote, was delayed when an overnight flight from Los Angeles had to return to the airport for a medical emergency, so the committee is in recess until he returns.
As the committee ticked through opening statements Monday, Republicans continued to raise issues with Jackson’s record, and Democrats defended Jackson from what they recalled as “hurtful” questioning from GOP senators.
“We are going to have our political substantive disagreements, but it was the treatment in some of these questions that triggered a hurt in so many people I know and have encountered,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., reflecting on the hearings. “How qualified do you have to be?” he asked, going on to repeat her qualifications and fact that’s she been confirmed three times on a bipartisan vote before the Senate.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., meanwhile, said in his time that if Republicans had controlled the Senate, Jackson would have never been given hearings. Notably, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell recently refused to say if Biden Supreme Court nominees would be considered if Republicans retake the Senate.
“If we get back the Senate and we are in charge of this body and there is judicial openings, we will talk to our colleagues on the other side,” he said. “But if we are in charge, she would not have been before this committee. You would have had somebody more moderate than this.”
If Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska or Mitt Romney of Utah were to vote to advance Jackson’s nomination out of committee on the full floor vote, it may signal how they will vote later in the week when the Senate formally considers Jackson’s nomination to the high court.
But even without Republican support, Democrats have the power to push her nomination forward. The final vote, while bipartisan, will likely be narrower than what the White House had hoped for.
“What I know is she will get enough votes to get confirmed,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “In the end, I suppose, that’s the only thing that matters. But I wish more Republicans would look at the case here, look at the record and vote to confirm Judge Jackson.”
With a two-week Easter in sight for senators, Democrats are hoping for a final vote before the weekend.
If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
ABC News’ Trish Turner contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Key Senate negotiators have announced that they have struck a deal to move forward on legislation that will provide an additional $10 billion in COVID relief.
Half of the funds will go to development and the purchase of therapeutics. The other half of the funds will be given to HHS for use with slightly broader COVID-related discretion.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — The killings of Ukrainian civilians committed by Russian forces in Ukraine is a war crime, President Joe Biden said Monday — repeating his accusation that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “war criminal” who needs to be held “accountable.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “genocide” on Sunday after hundreds of Ukrainian civilians were found killed in Bucha, a suburb of the capital Kyiv that was retaken by Ukrainian forces. Some of the civilians were buried in mass graves, while others were found dead in the street with their hands tied behind their backs.
The U.S. has stopped short of using the term “genocide” because of its strict legal definition and the heavy implications it carries.
“This guy is brutal and what’s happening with Bucha is outrageous. And everyone’s seeing it,” Biden said.
“We have to continue to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need to continue the fight, and we have to gather all the detail so this can be an actual — have a war crimes trial,” Biden told reporters Monday, but when asked if it were genocide, he said, “No, I think it is a war crime.”
Still, Biden’s call for for a possible war crimes trial raises the pressure on the international community’s response to Russia’s war, which has killed thousands and displaced more than 10 million people.
Biden said he would seek more sanctions against Putin and his government over the atrocities in Bucha, although it’s unclear if more economic pressure will do anything to bring an end to Putin’s campaign, which has shifted away from the Kyiv area to the south and east.
(WASHINGTON) — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, is expected to pass a major milestone Monday on her way to expected Senate confirmation later this week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote Monday on whether to send Jackson’s nomination to the full Senate, setting up a final confirmation vote possibly on Friday.
While confirmation is nearly certain for Jackson, it’s unclear how many Republicans will cross the aisle to vote for her.
So far, only one, Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins, has said she would vote for Jackson — and Collins does not sit on the Judiciary Committee.
Ranking Member Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, announced after the committee kicked off its business Monday morning that he will vote no on Jackson’s nomination, paving the way for the 22-member, evenly-split committee to end in a tie vote.
An 11-11 tie will force Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to file a discharge motion to bring the nomination before the full Senate in order to get it out of committee. That motion comes with four hours of floor debate, where some Republicans are expected to try to slow down the process.
If Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska or Mitt Romney of Utah were to vote to advance Jackson’s nomination out of committee on the full floor vote, it may signal how they will vote later in the week when the Senate formally considers Jackson’s nomination to the high court.
But even without Republican support, Democrats have the power to push her nomination forward. The final vote, while bipartisan, will likely be narrower than what the White House had hoped for.
“What I know is she will get enough votes to get confirmed,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain told ABC News’ This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “In the end, I suppose, that’s the only thing that matters. But I wish more Republicans would look at the case here, look at the record and vote to confirm Judge Jackson.”
With a two-week Easter in sight for senators, Democrats are hoping for a final vote before the weekend.
If confirmed, Jackson would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
(WASHINGTON) — Hunter Biden is apparently spending his father’s presidency living in luxury in Malibu — and so is his taxpayer-funded security detail.
The Secret Service detail protecting the president’s controversial son has been paying more than $30,000 a month to rent out a swanky Malibu, California, mansion for nearly a year, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
The agency responsible for protecting the president and his family — among other ranking government officials — selected the property in order to be located as close as possible to Biden’s own rented mansion where he is paying about $20,000 a month according to property listings, sources told ABC News.
Retired senior Secret Service agent Don Mihalek, now an ABC News contributor, said the arrangement is “the cost of doing business for the Secret Service,” adding that under the federal law, the agency has a mandated protective responsibility for the president, the first family, and anybody else the president designates for protection.
“Typically, wherever a protectee sets up their residence, the Secret Service is forced to find someplace to rent nearby at market value,” Mihalek said, noting that the agency is also renting out properties to protect President Joe Biden’s residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
“This isn’t new,” Mihalek said. “The Service has had to do this in past administrations, and unfortunately, the housing market right now has driven the prices up substantially.”
A White House official referred ABC News to the Secret Service for comment. Asked about the cost of the protection, a representative for the Secret Service said only: “Due to the need to maintain operational security, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on the means, methods, or resources used to conduct our protective operations.”
A representative for Hunter Biden did not respond to requests for comment from ABC News.
Hunter Biden’s California lifestyle is coming into focus just as the federal probe into his tax affairs has intensified, as sources familiar with the matter recently told ABC News.
An increasing number of witnesses have appeared before a grand jury impaneled in Wilmington, Delaware, in recent months, the sources said, and have been asked about payments Hunter Biden received while serving on the board of directors of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, in addition to other questions about how Biden paid off tax obligations in recent years.
“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part,” Hunter Biden told ABC News anchor Amy Robach in October 2019, regarding serving on the board of Burisma and the impact of his foreign business dealings on his father’s political career. “Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it — I know that there was — did nothing wrong at all. However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is … a swamp in — in — in many ways? Yeah.”
The younger Biden, along with other members of the Biden family, began to receive around-the-clock protection from the Secret Service when Joe Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee in June 2020. The family was provided a more robust security detail once the elder Biden won the presidency, which is customary for all immediate members of a president’s family.
In Malibu, Hunter Biden’s digs include a four-bedroom, three-bathroom “resort-style” home with an open floor plan, vaulted high ceilings, chef’s kitchen and French doors, according to a description on its property listing. The mansion also features a “spacious park-like yard” with a pool, a spa, a built-in barbecue bar, and alfresco dining, according to the listing.
The property is located on 0.7 acres atop a hill, and boasts “enchanting” 180-degree panoramic ocean views, the listing says.
Next door is where sources say Biden’s team of Secret Service agents are living and working.
The Spanish-style estate that the Secret Service has rented sits on a 0.7-acre lot above the Malibu coast and also features “gorgeous ocean views,” according to its listing.
With six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a gym, a tasting room, a built-in barbecue, a pool, a spa, and a spiral staircase that leads up to a “castle-like tower to the master retreat with wet bar,” the luxury mansion boasts “resort style living at its finest” and is “a perfect retreat for discerning clientele,” its listing says.
The cost of protecting first families has raised eyebrows in the past.
In the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the Secret Service requested $60 million of additional funding to protect Trump and his family, with about $27 million of that going to protecting them at their private residency at the Trump Tower in New York City, according to internal agency documents obtained by the Washington Post at that time.
Throughout Trump’s presidency, his family business came under fire for bringing in revenue from the Secret Service by charging for space at various Trump properties across the globe that agents used while protecting Trump and his family members.
The total amount that the Secret Service has paid to Trump’s family business to date is difficult to pin down, but according to an analysis by the Washington Post, records that have been released so far show that the Secret Service has spent at least $1.2 million at various Trump properties while protecting the Trump family, from $650 per night for a room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club to $17,000 a month for a cottage at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.
Numerous overseas business trips taken by Trump’s elder sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, also came under scrutiny during Trump’s presidency for costing the Secret Service hundreds of thousands of dollars each time, records show. And the security detail that protected Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner cost taxpayers $3,000 a month for the rental of a studio apartment across from the couple’s Washington, D.C., home throughout Trump’s presidency, sources confirmed to ABC News at the time.
During the Obama presidency, both of President Barack Obama’s daughters lived in the White House and the president himself visited his private residence in Chicago only a handful of times — but his family made regular visits to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and took family trips to Honolulu during Christmas, costing the Secret Service millions of dollars each time.
According to spending records obtained by the right-leaning watchdog group Judicial Watch, the Obama family’s trip to Martha’s Vineyard in August 2016 cost the Secret Service a whopping $2.7 million, including $2.5 million in hotels and $90,000 in rental cars, while the family’s final Christmas trip to Honolulu in late 2016 cost the agency $1.9 million, including $1.8 million in hotels.
First Lady Michelle Obama’s trips to Aspen in 2014, 2015 and 2016 cost the Secret Service more than $319,000 in taxpayer money, including nearly $166,000 incurred from the 2016 trip, records obtained by the group show.
And Joe Biden, as vice president during Obama’s presidency, collected $2,200 a month in payments from the Secret Service by renting out a cottage on his Delaware property for the agents protecting him, according to past media reports and federal spending records.
Of the high cost sometimes associated with protecting presidential family members, Mihalek said, “I think it’s all relative.”
“Hunter’s out in Malibu, which is not a low-cost area,” said Mihalek. “And the Trump kids, too, they didn’t live in low-cost areas.”
Mihalek said that for the Secret Service to do their job effectively, they have to have a command post near the protectee — even if it costs more.
“The Secret Service couldn’t have a command post in the next town over,” he said. “It’d do them no good.”
Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at progressive good-government group Public Citizen, told ABC News that Secret Service Protection is necessary for the president and the president’s family — but that they should recognize that the agency is there for their own protection and help lower the cost to taxpayers by reducing unnecessary travel or by sharing their own properties free of charge.
“Ivanka and Jared should have opened up their house to the Secret Service, just as Hunter Biden should do at his Malibu residence,” Holman said.
“Hunter should recognize the exorbitant cost of his own protection in the exclusive Malibu neighborhood, and cooperate with the Secret Service to bring down the expenses,” said Holman. “A cost of $30,000 a month for the Secret Service to rent a home in Malibu next to Hunter is an unconscionable burden to taxpayers, all for the personal benefit of Hunter Biden. Hunter should realize this and accommodate his security detail in his own home.”
(WASHINGTON) — Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a member of Republican leadership, said he will not vote to support President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, for her historic confirmation to the nation’s highest court, citing disagreements with her judicial philosophy.
“Initially, my sense is that the president certainly had every good intention and every right in the campaign to talk about putting the first Black woman on the court,” Blunt told “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos exclusively on Sunday. “I think it’s time for that to happen. I was hoping that I could be part of that.”
The retiring senator continued, “I think she’s certainly going to be confirmed. I think it’ll be a high point for the country to see her go on the court. But I don’t think she’s the kind of judge that will really do the kind of work that I think needs to be done by the court. And I won’t be supporting her, but I’ll be joining others and understanding the importance of this moment.”
Blunt was considered one of the few Republicans who may cross the aisle to support Jackson’s nomination. While only three GOP senators supported Jackson’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, Blunt was absent for that vote, and said he had a “good discussion” with Jackson when they met on March 16.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Jackson’s nomination Monday, but the full Senate has yet to schedule the final vote. She is expected to be confirmed with at least one Republican vote, as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced Wednesday that she would vote to confirm Jackson.
Stephanopoulos pressed Blunt on his decision to vote against her nomination, asking, “If it’s a high point for the country, why not support her?”
“Well, I think the lifetime appointments have different criteria than other appointments,” Blunt responded, later adding that “she just doesn’t meet the criteria” to secure his vote.
Stephanopoulos then turned to another issue facing the Supreme Court — the controversy currently surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife’s reported involvement in urging former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results.
“How about these calls for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the Jan. 6 investigation cases given the active involvement of his wife Ginni Thomas and the push for an ethics code for Supreme Court justices?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“The idea that you can’t disagree with your wife on a public issue and still be able to function as a judge or as a government figure of any kind, I think is an idea that’s long outlived any idea that it might be reasonable,” Blunt answered.
“You know that he disagrees with her?” Stephanopoulos pressed.
“Judge Thomas has to decide that,” Blunt said. “He’s going to look at the law. He’s going to look at what the law says and what the Constitution says and rule in that regard.”
He added that he is “totally supportive” of the Justice Department’s investigation and prosecution of participants in “any illegal activity” during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Lawmakers on the House Jan. 6 Select Committee are pushing Attorney General Merrick Garland to ramp up the Department of Justice’s investigation of the insurrection. The pressure on the DOJ follows debate over whether former President Donald Trump could face criminal charges after a ruling from a federal judge in California last week who said it was “more likely than not” that Trump committed several federal crimes in an effort to overturn the 2020 election.
When asked whether Trump should be subject to any federal prosecution, Blunt reiterated his support for the department’s investigation, saying, “I think the Justice Department has a job to do. They should do it. And people who were involved in planning or execution of illegal activities on Jan. 6 should be prosecuted.”
Earlier on “This Week,” Stephanopoulos interviewed White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who defended the Biden administration’s record as inflation and gas prices soar across the country.
But, Blunt said, “the biggest political issue in the country today is clearly inflation.”
“All you have to do is go to the gas station or the grocery store or pay your winter heating bill to know that something unacceptable has happened,” he added.
While Biden has taken steps in an effort to bring down high gas prices, such as ordering the release of 1 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve per day over the next six months, the Missouri Republican argued that oil prices were already at “unacceptable levels long before [Vladimir] Putin did anything regarding Ukraine.”
As Russian forces pull out of the capital city of Kyiv, Stephanopoulos asked Blunt what more the United States can do to support Ukraine.
“Well, I think we should be doing everything we can. We should give them what they need as quickly as they needed,” Blunt said, adding, “What the president has done has generally been the right thing, but about two or three weeks slower than it should have been.”
As a member who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Blunt emphasized the role of U.S. intelligence in assessing Russian military operations and debunking a possible false flag operation, which he called “incredibly helpful.”
He also echoed the widespread praise for the leadership of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, adding, “I hope he continues to be safe and brave and his country is rallying behind that willingness to be there and be in the fight.”
(WASHINGTON) — White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain is warning that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “far from over,” despite the claim by Moscow that they are retreating from Kyiv and surrounding areas.
“I think there’s a lot of evidence that Putin is simply taking his troops out of the northern part of the country to redeploy them to the eastern part of the country to relaunch a battle there,” Klain said during an exclusive interview with ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Klain said it’s “for Ukraine to decide” what a post-war country looks like when asked about the possibility that Russia overtakes eastern regions of Ukraine, while Ukraine maintains control of the rest.
“I will tell you, as President Zelenskyy has said, that’s not acceptable to him, and we are going to support him with military aid, with economic aid, with humanitarian aid,” Klain said. “The political future of Ukraine is up for Ukraine to decide.”
“Is Russia losing this war?” Stephanopoulos asked Klain.
“The Ukrainians are winning the war around Kyiv and in the northern part of the country. And that’s tremendous credit to the fighting they’ve done and to the support that the United States that our NATO allies have provided them. We send weapons into Ukraine almost every single day,” Klain responded, dodging the question. “And the Ukrainian military, the Ukrainian volunteers that are fighting this war have shown their bravery, their tenacity, again, backed up by the generosity of the U.S. and our allies.”
While the administration is focused on the crisis overseas, Klain also discussed domestic issues that were at the forefront this week, including inflation, combating rising gas prices and the CDC decision to lift the Title 42 policy at the southern border.
Effects of the war at home
President Joe Biden has blamed Russia for the rise in gas prices at the pump, labeling it the “Putin price hike,” though gas prices were skyrocketing before the holidays last year. However, it’s not just gas prices on the rise; food prices are also up because of inflation, and it’s reflected in Biden’s poll numbers.
“Gas prices are a problem, absolutely, George,” Klain acknowledged. “That’s why the president took the actions he took this week to release a million barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to tell the oil companies they either need to pump oil on the 9,000 permits they have or give them back for others to do that, to increase production here. Those things we think are going to bring down the price of gasoline, relieve some of the pain at the pump. And we also have an agenda to cut taxes for people to bring down the cost of everyday things.”
A new Quinnipiac University poll shows that just 36% approve of the president overall, and only one in three Americans approve of how he’s handling the economy. Republicans are criticizing his economic policies with the midterm election just months away and are poised to exploit it as November gets closer. Stephanopoulos pressed Klain on how Democrats should respond.
“The Republicans have an agenda too. Sen. [Rick] Scott says their agenda is to raise taxes on millions of Americans, to get rid of social security and to do other things that are going to devastate middle class people,” Klain said. “So I think when people compare our agenda to the Republican agenda, that’s gonna be a clear choice for folks.”
When Stephanopoulos inquired about how anxious Klain is about the elections this fall, Klain said the administration has done “a great job,” but there is “work to do.”
“We have done a lot of work to bring the economy back from dead in the water when we got here. Virtually no jobs being created, businesses closed, schools closed,” Klain said, adding that there’s been a “tremendous amount of progress on getting the economy going again in 14 months but a lot of work left to be done.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that 431,000 jobs were added to the economy in March, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.6%.
Austan Goolsbee, Klain’s former colleague in the Obama administration, said the country may be moving toward the idea that the COVID-19 era of the U.S. economy is over with — a sentiment Klain said he “cautiously” agrees with.
“Right now, as we stand here today, our schools are open, our businesses are open, people are coming back to work, people are coming back into the labor force, we had a big jump in labor force participation in March,” he said. “So there’s a lot of encouraging signs, in terms of this economy, coming back to being a robust jobs and business creating economy.”
Immigration issues
Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border is also looming as a big issue for the midterms, and on Friday, the CDC announced it will end the controversial Title 42 policy, which allowed the government to expel migrants at the border during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision is receiving a lot of pushback from Democrats and Republicans. Sen. Joe Manchin called it “frightening,” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said it poses a threat to Arizona, and Sen. Mitt Romney said it’s going to elect Republicans in November.
“How worried are you about a possible surge at the border?” Stephanopoulos asked Klain. “Is there anything the president can do about it?”
“Title 42 isn’t an immigration law, it’s a public health law,” Klain said. “It says you could exclude people who pose a public health risk. The Centers for Disease Control decide how to apply that, and they’ve decided that sometime in late May, the pandemic will be a place where we can no longer exclude people on a public health rationale.”
This week, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that up to 18,000 migrants could be apprehended at the border each day if Title 42 were to be lifted, though the administration will keep the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols, colloquially known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which bars asylum seekers from entering the U.S. while immigration courts review their claims.
“Look, we need to do more work at the border. The president sent an immigration plan to Congress on his first day in office. We’ve asked consistently for more resources. We put in place a new rule that will take effect next month to enable us to process asylum claims more clearly,” Klain said. “We also have to be honest about what’s happening at the border. We have people showing up with asylum claims from places like Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, people fleeing regimes where they are feeling persecution.”
Crime in the US
Biden has also repeatedly been attacked by GOP lawmakers for being “soft on crime.” After at least six people were killed in a mass shooting in Sacramento, California, overnight, Stephanopoulos pressed Klain on how Democrats got “on the wrong side of the crime issue.”
Klain responded that he didn’t think Democrats are “on the wrong side.”
“The president has sent to Congress plans for robust funding of police. Congress passed one of them just last week — two weeks ago, in the omnibus bill and raised our funding for police. We want to make sure we have strong law enforcement to respond to crime,” he said. “We also want to make sure we have in place police reform and community violence intervention that help reduce crime. … We’re working very hard to be at the forefront of efforts to both control crime and have balanced and sensible policing. We think we can do both.”
Federal prosecutions
The New York Times reported that as recently as late last year, Biden “confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted,” citing two people familiar with the president’s comments. The Times reported that “while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.”
But Klain told Stephanolopous, “I’ve never heard the president say that we advocate the prosecution of any person,” and he reiterated Biden’s pledge to let the Department of Justice be independent and free of political influence.
“One reason why Joe Biden got elected was he promised that we take the decision over who got prosecuted and what away from the White House and put in the Justice Department,” he said. “Only Richard Nixon and Donald Trump in the modern era believe that prosecution decisions should be made in the Oval Office, not at the Justice Department.”
A federal investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over payments he received while serving on the board of directors of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, and other questions over how Hunter Biden paid off tax obligations in recent years has intensified, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News last week.
Klain said “neither the president or any of us at the White House” have been in contact with the DOJ regarding its investigation and told Stephanopoulos, “Of course the president is confident his son didn’t break the law.”
“That’s a matter that’s going to be decided by the Justice Department, by the legal process,” he said. “It’s something that no one at the White House has involvement in.”
The Washington Post also reported this week on deals that Hunter Biden had with a Chinese energy company, which paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and the president’s brother.
“Is the president confident his family didn’t cross any ethical lines?” Stephanopoulos asked Klain.
“The president is confident that his family did the right thing. But again, I want to just be really clear. These are actions by Hunter and his brother. They’re private matters. They don’t involve the president, and they certainly are something that no one at the White House is involved in.”
The Supreme Court
In the wake of text messages that revealed Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, asked former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to try and overturn the presidential election results, Democrats are now calling for an ethics code for Supreme Court justices.
Klain would not say if Biden would sign such a bill into law if it reached his desk and refrained from weighing in on whether Justice Thomas should recuse himself from 2020 election-related cases.
“I don’t think that’s for me to say, but, but I know a lot of people have said that. Again, I don’t think this is a place for us in the White House to be involved with the rulings at the Supreme Court. I think that’s for others to decide.”
The Senate is expected to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court this week.
Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt announced this morning on “This Week” that he would vote against her nomination, leaving Maine Sen. Susan Collins as the only Republican so far to voice her support for Judge Jackson. Klain said she “deserves more Republican votes.”
“What I know is she will get enough votes to get confirmed. In the end I suppose that’s the only thing that matters, but I wish more Republicans would look at the case here, look at the record, and vote to confirm Judge Jackson.”
(WASHINGTON) — While many mainstream Republicans look toward making waves in the midterm elections, some are still clinging to the past.
After GOP Rep. Mo Brooks’ recently confessed that former President Donald Trump repeatedly urged Brooks to “rescind” the results of the 2020 presidential campaign, some Republicans are exploring — even publicly vowing – to “decertify” President Joe Biden’s victory, a move with no legal or constitutional basis.
In late March, Brooks told ABC News that Trump requested several times he “remove” Biden from office, under the fraudulent assertion that the 2020 election was somehow tampered with and illegally skewed in Biden’s favor. Brooks, in his own telling of the interaction, said he refused Trump’s requests, writing the move off as impossible.
“We didn’t get into the details [of how it would happen] because it’s legally impossible. And I explained that fairly promptly,” Brooks told ABC News in a phone interview.
Brooks, who is now running for Senate from Alabama, disclosed this conversation to ABC News after Trump yanked his endorsement, in part for not aligning with Trump’s baseless assertions regarding election interference.
Yet, in Georgia, Trump-endorsed Republican Secretary of State candidate Rep. Jody Hice is leaning into his ties with the former president, and was caught on camera earlier this week committing to decertifying Biden’s win if elected after pursuing relevant legal investigations.
“That’s why I’m in the race,” Hice told Lauren Windsor, an activist journalist, who questioned the representative posing undercover as a supporter at the Columbia County GOP meeting. “If we lose fair elections, we’re in trouble. We have to get to the bottom of this, and we’ve got to fix it going forward.”
Hice’s challenge to incumbent Brad Raffensperger, one of many of the former president’s public enemies, showcases a clash of interests seen in Georgia’s tumultuous Senate primary and in GOP races around the country. Trump-backed candidates who pursue his baseless claims of election fraud and push stringent revisions to election laws regardless of feasibility are facing off with Republicans who push back against Trump’s bidding and risk losing favor from their constituency, and, in turn, public office.
Such tension exists within statehouses already. Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, has shot down conversations by members of his own caucus regarding the possibility of decertifying Biden’s victory in Wisconsin.
“I still believe that the Constitution and my oath that I took as an elected official does not allow me to decertify any election whether I want to or not,” Vos said in March. “That’s not going to happen.”
Similar calls for action are cropping up in the Illinois secretary of state race, too, where conservative candidate and former police sergeant Michelle Turney, told the Chicago Sun Times that her first priority, if elected, would be to “decertify the 2020 Election on day one of my term.”
While the promise of rewriting electoral history may be appealing to some voters, it’s near impossible to execute legally, as Raffensperger contended on ABC News Live in January.
“The state election board cannot overturn the will of the people and it cannot overturn the election and it just wants to make sure that every county runs their elections well and I support accountability,” said Raffensperger.
And legal experts agree. After the fact “decertification” is in no way feasible.
“Certification happens ahead of an inauguration. After inauguration, the only legal or constitutional way to remove a president is through impeachment. Period. The end,” said ABC News legal analyst Sarah Isgur.
Kate Shaw, ABC News Supreme Court analyst and Cardozo Law professor, said there’s “no mechanism” in the Constitution that would allow Republicans to deliver on this promise.
“The Constitution contains no mechanism for decertifying an election. Article II and the 12th Amendment, together with the Electoral Count Act, set forth the steps for counting state electoral votes and naming the president,” said Shaw. “That happened in January 2021, and that bell cannot be unrung, whatever transpires in the states afterwards.”
(NEW YORK) — Former GOP vice president candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will run for Alaska’s at-large Congress seat vacated by the late Rep. Don Young, she announced on her Facebook page Friday.
“Today I’m announcing my candidacy for the U.S. House seat representing Alaska,” Palin wrote. “Public service is a calling, and I would be honored to represent the men and women of Alaska in Congress, just as Rep. Young did for 49 years.”
Young died on March 18 at 88 years old after losing consciousness on a flight to Seattle returning home to Alaska. He was the “dean of the House” as the longest-serving representative.
Tiffany Montemayor, public relations manager at the Alaska Division of Elections, confirmed to ABC News that Palin had filed to run on Friday afternoon. The deadline to file was 5 p.m. Friday. The primary will be held June 11 with the special election Aug. 16.
Palin, 58, resigned as governor in 2009, but helped mainstream the populist strain of GOP politics later embraced by former President Donald Trump.
“America is at a tipping point. As I’ve watched the far left destroy the country, I knew I had to step up and join the fight,” Palin wrote. “The people of the great State of Alaska, like others all over the country, are struggling with out-of-control inflation, empty shelves, and gas prices that are among the highest in the world.”
She continued, “We need energy security for this country, and Alaska can help provide that — but only if the federal government gets out of the way and lets the free market do what it does best.”
She was a surprise choice as running mate for the late Sen. John McCain when he ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008.
Palin has stayed in the public eye in the 13 years since she stepped down as governor though she hasn’t run for office since then. She released two books, “Going Rogue” and “America by Heart,” appeared for years as a political commentator on Fox News and starred on the TLC reality series “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” She was also a contestant on Fox’s “The Masked Singer” in 2020.
She was in the news last month when a judge in New York tossed a libel lawsuit she had filed against The New York Times in 2017 saying the newspaper deliberately ruined her burgeoning career as a political commentator and consultant by publishing an erroneous editorial. The judge said she had not proven “actual malice” on behalf of the paper. He allowed the jury to still reach a verdict, but they also ruled in favor of the newspaper.
ABC News’ Ben Siegel and Michelle Stoddart contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Republicans on Capitol Hill appeared frustrated with the weeklong controversy sparked by Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who made unsubstantiated claims in a recent interview that some of his colleagues invited him to sex parties and used cocaine.
“It’s pretty clear to me that Madison must have a far more active social life than any other member of Congress that I’m aware of,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said Friday on Capitol Hill. “What he’s saying can’t possibly be true.”
The 26-year-old freshman Republican lawmaker from North Carolina earlier this month claimed that he had been invited to sex parties by colleagues and had witnessed representatives using cocaine in front of him.
“I look at all these people, a lot of them that I’ve always looked up to through my life, always paid attention to politics, guys that, you know — then all of the sudden you get invited to, like, ‘Oh hey, we’re going to have kind of a sexual get-together at one of our homes. You should come,’ he said. “And I’m like, ‘What? What did you just ask me to come to?’ And then you realize they’re asking you to come to an orgy,” Cawthorn said during a podcast interview with the “Warrior Poet Society.”
He had been asked by the podcast host if his experience in Washington as a freshman lawmaker comported with the dark drama depicted in Netflix’s “House of Cards,” the story of an ambitious lawmaker’s murderous and cutthroat climb to the presidency.
Cawthorn continued on the podcast: “Or the fact that, you know, there’s some of the people that are leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country, and then you watch them do a key bump of cocaine right in front of you. And it’s like, this is wild.”
Cawthorn’s remarks sparked fury among his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill this week, who angrily confronted the issue during a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday. At this meeting, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy pledged to speak to Cawthorn about the racy remarks.
On Wednesday, Cawthorn was hauled into McCarthy’s office to explain himself.
The meeting, which lasted 30 minutes, was attended by Cawthorn, McCarthy, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise and GOP Rep. Mike Johnson, who had been assigned to mentor the freshman lawmaker last year.
McCarthy told reporters following the meeting that Cawthorn “did not tell the truth” and that he had admitted to exaggerating his claims. McCarthy said he told Cawthorn to change his behavior, otherwise there would be consequences.
“This is unacceptable. There’s no evidence to this,” McCarthy said. “That’s not becoming of a congressman. He did not tell the truth.”
“In the interview, he claims he watched people do cocaine. Then when he comes in, he tells me, he says he thinks he saw maybe a staffer in a parking garage from 100 yards away and tells me that he doesn’t know what cocaine is basically,” McCarthy said.
“The Constitution gives you the age when you could serve in Congress. But when you’re in Congress, you should respect the institution and you should focus on the work that you should do,” McCarthy said.
He said he told Cawthorn that he had to “earn his trust” back, or else he could lose his committee assignments or face other punishment.
“He’s got a lot of members very upset,” McCarthy said, adding, “You can’t make statements like that, as a member of Congress; it affects everybody else and the country as a whole.”
A source familiar with details of the meeting with Republican leadership said Cawthorn clarified that multiple individuals were not involved with the sex parties, but that he was invited to a sex party by one colleague. When he was pressed to provide a name, Cawthorn refused and “backpedaled” his claims.
Politico first reported details of the meeting.
During his remarks to reporters, McCarthy pointed to other transgressions the young lawmaker had committed in recent months, including driving with a suspended license, inviting a congressional candidate on the House floor without permission and then lying about it and referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “thug.”
Cawthorn’s office did not return multiple requests for comment to ABC News, nor has Cawthorn provided proof to back up his claims.
Sources familiar with the meeting told ABC News that the Republican leaders asked Cawthorn to issue a public apology and clarify his remarks.
Cawthorn has not done so, but he did send a letter to constituents and even issued a new campaign ad, in which he defiantly said, “I will never bow to the mob.”
“There are many who despise the great work we’re doing to represent western North Carolina, but I promise, I will stay focused on the work that still needs to be done in Washington for my beautiful district,” Cawthorn said.
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, who appeared visibly frustrated with Cawthorn during an interview with ABC News on Friday, called the allegations “irresponsible.”
“If you say something like that, you corroborate that with other people,” Nehls said. “Listen, we all make mistakes in our lives.”
Rep. Don Bacon, a veteran GOP lawmaker from Nebraska, told ABC News that Cawthorn’s recent comments have reflected poorly on Congress as an institution.
“Allegations like that, if they’re not true, hurt the whole institution,” Bacon said. “I think the view of the conference is, if they’re true, name names.”
“Congress has got a low favorable rating, we’ve got to do better than this,” he said.
Both of North Carolina’s Republican senators — Richard Burr and Thom Tillis — said they won’t back Cawthorn in his upcoming primary race.
“On any given day, he’s an embarrassment,” Burr told reporters.
Democrats also pounced on the controversy.
“Not sure why Republicans are acting so shocked by Cawthorn’s alleged revelations about their party,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted. “One of their members is being investigated for sex trafficking a minor and they’ve been pretty OK w/ that. They issued more consequences to members who voted to impeach Trump.”
It’s been a dizzying week for Cawthorn, who is thought to have ambitions for higher office after unexpectedly winning a seat in Congress vacated by former GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, who left to serve as former president Donald Trump’s chief of staff at the White House.
Cawthorn has embraced Trump since taking office — saying he has called him up for advice in the last year.
The former president is clearly still on his side.
On Friday, Trump announced Cawthorn would be a guest at his rally in North Carolina next weekend.
