(NEW YORK) — A coalition of families and survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden, during his visit to Saudi Arabia next month, to hold the kingdom accountable for its role in the terrorist strike that killed almost 3,000 people.
“We appreciate the president’s commitment to do everything he can to support the 9/11 family community, but empathy is not enough,” Terry Strada, the national chair of “9/11 Families United,” said in a statement. “President Biden must do what past presidents have not, which is to demand transparency from Saudi Arabia and accountability for those who supported al Qaeda and the hijackers who murdered our loved ones.”
The White House said Tuesday Biden would travel to Saudi Arabia next month for a summit of Arab leaders. The visit will include a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, as well as with the effective leader of the country, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to White House officials.
Strada was responding to a comment by White House spokesman John Kirby during an interview with CNN earlier in the day.
“What I can tell you is that the president will never shy away of representing the interests of the American people on a national security level wherever he goes,” Kirby said, when asked if he could assure the victims’ families that Biden would address some of their concerns with Mohammed.
“He continues to do everything he can to support the families of the victims of 9/11,” Kirby added. “He knows what a devastating grief they still endure, and he will not shy away from representing them and their concerns.”
Biden has come under intense criticism for agreeing to meet with Mohammed, whom the U.S. has assessed ordered the operation that murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
As a candidate, Biden pledged to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over its human rights abuses.
But the president has also struggled to rein in sky-high inflation. While many ways out of his control, the rapidly rising cost of goods is weighing on Americans’ wallets and proving to be a major political liability for Biden and Democrats heading into this fall’s midterm elections.
Biden is seeking ways to relieve high gas prices, which have in large part been pushed higher by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions on Moscow’s oil and gas sector.
A major oil producer, Saudi Arabia chairs the Gulf Cooperation Council grouping of oil-producing Arab nations.
The White House has welcomed increased oil production with the hope it would drive down gas prices in the U.S. Biden authorized a historic release of oil from the nation’s strategic reserve of petroleum, and his White House welcomed a decision by the OPEC+ oil cartel to boost its production levels.
While Saudi Arabia and the Biden administration have both said energy security will be part of Biden’s discussions during his visit, the White House has sought to avoid the negative optics of an American president flying to Saudi Arabia in a bid for more oil.
“Of course, he will be — they will discuss energy with the Saudi government,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday. “I think what I’m trying to say is to look at this trip as it being only about oil is not — it would be simply wrong to do that.”
The president had even danced around whether he was even going to go to Saudi Arabia at all; “I have no direct plans at the moment,” he said on June 3, after multiple reports said he planned to travel there.
But while Biden once pledged to isolate Saudi Arabia, Jean-Pierre said Tuesday he was “not looking to rupture relationships.”
Asked if Biden would bring up Khashoggi during his meeting with the crown prince, Jean-Pierre would not directly answer.
“Human rights is always part of the conversation in our foreign engagements,” she told reporters on Air Force One, en route to Philadelphia. “So, that will always be the case.”
Biden will also travel to Israel and the West Bank during the trip, which will take place July 13 to 16, according to the White House.
(NEW YORK) — New York’s highest court declined to take up an appeal by former President Donald Trump and two of his adult children, a decision that obligates the Trumps to sit for depositions next month in the ongoing civil investigation into how they valued their real estate holdings.
The New York Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal “upon the ground that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”
Former President Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump have now exhausted their appeals and must sit for depositions beginning July 15, according to a previous stipulation filed in the case.
The New York Attorney General’s Office has been investigating potential discrepancies in how the Trump Organization valued certain assets when seeking loans or when pursuing tax breaks.
Trump has long denied any wrongdoing in the yearslong investigation.
A state appellate court ruled in May that the subpoenas for their testimony were not, as the Trumps argued, part of a politically motivated investigation into how the family valued its real estate holdings.
The New York Court of Appeals had given the Trumps until Monday to submit an appeal, shooting it down one day later — on Donald Trump’s 76th birthday.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has argued her office has found “significant evidence” of fraud in the investigation into how Trump and the Trump Organization valued real estate holdings in the state. The investigation has reviewed whether the Trump Organization used fraudulent or misleading valuations of its holdings in different ways to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage and tax deductions.
Among the real estate holdings being investigated are 40 Wall Street, in Manhattan’s Financial District; Seven Springs, Trump’s estate in Westchester; Trump Park Avenue; and even Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower.
A parallel criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has already led to charges of tax fraud against Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer for the Trump Organization, and the company itself.
They have both pleaded not guilty. A trial is expected to take place in the fall.
(WASHINGTON) — The House on Tuesday approved a Senate bill to provide more security for the families of Supreme Court justices, sending the measure to President Joe Biden’s desk after Democrats and Republicans could not agree over whether to extend the increased protections to the families of court clerks.
The bill — first approved unanimously by the Senate a month ago — was passed by the House nearly a week since an armed man was arrested near Brett Kavanaugh’s home and charged with attempted murder of the Supreme Court justice after allegedly telling authorities he was suicidal and wanted to kill Kavanaugh, police have said.
“By passing this bill as is, we are sending a clear message to the left-wing radicals you cannot intimidate the Supreme Court justices. I hope we all take that message to heart,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on the House floor on Tuesday.
Supreme Court justices are already provided with security; however, the Supreme Court Police Parity Act would expand security to the justices’ families. The legislation had been stalled in the House over proposed amendments by House Democrats to extend protections to the families of Supreme Court employees. as well.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Monday night that no changes to the Senate-passed bill would be tolerated.
“The right bill passed the Senate. We’re not going to pass this House bill if it comes over,” McConnell said.
Sen John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the House was “playing with fire,” adding, “All we’ve tried to do is give the justices the very same protection that’s available to members of Congress.”
The stalemate came as Republicans accused Democrats of delaying taking up the legislation amid new threats to the high court — which has seen renewed protests by advocates ahead of major opinions on polarizing issues including gun rights and abortion access.
Democrats, in turn, said the GOP was ignoring the wider problem.
“Let me tell you why it took us a few weeks rather than just one week to pass this legislation: It’s because Republicans refuse to protect the families of Supreme Court employees who are at risk,” California Rep. Ted Lieu said.
“We understand that there was Republican opposition to that aspect of the bill, and in the interest of protecting the justices’ families, we can no longer delay in passing the only version of the bill they would apparently agree to.” Lieu added.
The legislation gained momentum in the House after 26-year-old Nicholas Roske was charged with attempted murder last week when he showed up armed to the Maryland home of Justice Kavanaugh, according to authorities.
Roske was angry over the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, according to an affidavit from an FBI agent submitted in support of a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court on Wednesday.
Roske was allegedly spotted by two U.S. Marshals wearing black clothes and carrying a backpack getting out of a cab in front of Kavanaugh’s house at approximately 1:05 a.m. Wednesday, according to the affidavit.
A Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light and duct tape were in Roske’s backpack, according to the affidavit.
The suspect then allegedly called the Montgomery County Emergency Communications Center to say he wanted to kill a Supreme Court justice, according to the affidavit. (He agreed to remain in custody until a preliminary hearing currently scheduled for June 22.)
The Department of Homeland Security has already warned that there could be an increase in threats against Supreme Court justices over the leaked draft of the Roe v. Wade decision, which has not yet been formally issued.
A bulletin obtained by ABC News in May said the draft leak “prompted a significant increase in violent threats — many made online via social media and some of which are under investigation — directed toward some U.S. Supreme Court Justices and the Supreme Court building.”
The National Capital Threat Intelligence Consortium identified at least 25 violent threats on social media that were referred to partner agencies for further investigation, the bulletin said.
“Some of these threats discussed burning down or storming the U.S. Supreme Court and murdering Justices and their clerks, members of Congress, and lawful demonstrators,” the bulletin said.
U.S. Marshals bolstered their protective details for the justices and began guarding their homes around the clock in the wake of the leaked draft, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday.
(PHILADELPHIA) — President Joe Biden delivered fired-up remarks on the economy before a friendly, cheering audience of union workers in Philadelphia Tuesday — nodding to inflation, high food and gas prices, and his plans to try to ease the economic pressures American families are facing.
Shouting at times, receiving standing ovations, and delivering plenty of classic “Bidenisms,” the president spoke about the economy to a convention of the AFL-CIO federation of labor unions — and acknowledged the record-high inflation rates his administration is trying to combat.
“Jobs are back, but prices are still too high,” Biden conceded, arguing Republicans are blocking him from carrying out his plan to bring down costs. “COVID is down, but gas prices are up. Our work isn’t done.”
High inflation is a major political liability for Biden, who blamed Republicans for blocking a lot of his ideas to lower prices for Americans.
During his campaign-like speech, he heavily praised organized labor — and delivered a midterm message.
“You’re a gigantic reason why I’m standing here,” Biden told the crowd. “Standing here today as your president. I really mean it.”
‘Jobs are back, but prices are still too high’
While Biden focused his message on the economy, he did not address inflation until well into his speech, and when he did, he reiterated how his personal experience with inflation gave him an understanding of what families are facing.
“Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to stop my plans to bring down costs on ordinary families. That’s why my plan is not finished and why the results aren’t finished either,” Biden argued.
The president pointed to his efforts to bring down prices at the pump in particular by tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to get more oil to market, but noted the entire world is facing high inflation, and that in the United States, “It’s sapping the strength of a lot of families.”
Biden also went into more detail than usual about the food crisis stemming from the war in Ukraine, saying, part of his plan to help bring down food costs included the U.S. working to get Ukrainian grain out of the country and to the global markets.
He acknowledged the complicating factors involved in doing so, particularly because of the differences between Ukraine’s rails and the rest of Europe.
“We’re going to build silos, temporary silos in the borders of Ukraine, including in Poland, so we can transfer it from those cars into those silos into cars in Europe and get it out to the ocean and get it across the world,” Biden pledged, but conceded, “it’s taking time.”
Midterm message and support for Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania, Atlanta
With the midterm elections just a few months away, Biden used his remarks to also deliver a message to voters — trying to draw contrast between his party and Republicans on the economy, despite the dreary headlines his administration has been facing.
“Our work isn’t done but here’s the deal. America still has a choice to make. A choice between a government by the few for the few or a government for all of us. Democracy for all of us, an economy where all of us have a fair shot and a chance to earn our place in the economy,” Biden pitched to the crowd.
The president, who had prided himself on bipartisanship, said he is under no “illusions” when it comes to the Republican party today, hitting Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott’s tax proposal in his remarks.
“The fact is Republicans in Congress are still in the grip of the ‘ultra-MAGA’ agenda. And they still refuse to consider any part of the Trump tax cuts, which delivered a massive windfall to billionaires and others. And they weren’t paid for,” Biden said.
“They still refuse to consider a minimum corporate tax of 15%, minimum tax,” he said. “They seem to think that the problem in America today is the working families aren’t paying enough.”
He also delivered messages of support for two midterm candidates in particular: Pennsylvania Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, Stacey Abrams.
Biden said he held a Zoom call on Monday with Fetterman, who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania and recently suffered a stroke, telling the crowd Fetterman was “looking good” and “can’t wait to get back on the trail” — adding a joke about Fetterman’s size.
“If you’re in a foxhole, you want John with you man,” Biden said. “I know he can’t wait to get back on the trail. He’s looking good. He’s no bigger, stronger voice for working people in this state than John. Certainly no bigger one, for that matter.”
He also called on the union members to support Abrams, who he said was in attendance.
“I gotta ask y’all a favor: Help her in Georgia. Help Stacey Abrams in Georgia,” he said. “There’s three things I learned about her early on. One, she’s loyal. Two, she’s capable. And three, she’s smarter than me. She knows what she’s doing. So folks, please help her out.”
Touts pro-union credentials
Speaking before the union crowd, Biden said “nothing had made me prouder than that” to be called “the most pro-union president in history” by the AFL-CIO’S leadership.
“I promised you I would be, and I commit to you as long as I have this job I will remain that,” Biden said.
The president also called on Congress to pass the PRO Act, which would expand labor protections and the right to organize.
He touted his accomplishments, including the infrastructure bill, the millions of jobs created during his time in office, and how American families are carrying less debt and have more savings.
“I love these guys talking about why these guys left my employment, went to another job,” Biden said. “Because he got paid more! Isn’t that awful, isn’t that a shame that they gotta compete for labor. Better paying jobs, for better jobs for them and their families. It’s been a long time since that’s happened in this country, but it’s happening now.”
He contrasted himself with his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, and the poor state of the economy in 2020.
“I promise you, I’m going to keep fighting for you,” Biden shouted, to loud cheers. “Are you prepared to fight with me?”
(WASHINGTON) — The Jan. 6 committee announced Tuesday morning that its hearing set for Wednesday has been postponed — but conflicting explanations were offered as to why.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told reporters on Capitol Hill following the committee’s announcement that there was no issue with witnesses in moving the hearing but “technical issues.”
“It’s just technical issues. I mean, we were, you know, the staff putting together all the videos, you know, doing 1-2-3, It was overwhelming, so we’re trying to give them a little room,” she said. “It’s not a big deal.”
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe earlier, she said “putting together the video exhibits is an exhausting exercise for our very small video staff … it’s just too much to put it all together.”
But when asked later if Lofgren’s explanation of the hearing postponement is accurate, a committee aide said “no.”
The aide said the hearing has been “postponed to accommodate scheduling demands.”
Not long after the committee issued a statement saying, “The postponement is due to a number of scheduling factors, including production timeline and availability of members and witnesses.”
The hearing’s focus was to be then-President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on the Justice Department to back his false claims of election fraud.
Former acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen had accepted an invitation from the Jan. 6 committee to appear at Wednesday’s hearing, alongside his then-deputy Richard Donoghue and one of DOJ’s former top attorneys Steve Engel, according to a letter obtained by ABC News sent from Rosen’s attorney to the committee.
(WASHINGTON) — If the Supreme Court upends nearly 50 years of abortion rights as expected, all eyes will be on the White House and a liberal president who has vowed to fight to keep abortion access.
But what can he do, really?
In recent weeks, dozens of abortion advocacy groups, lawyers, providers and lawmakers have huddled to pitch ideas that range from from what advocates call creative to the seemingly far-fetched. The White House has met with many of these officials in recent weeks to hear them out, although it remains tight-lipped on where its legal strategy might be headed.
Could the government lease federal buildings and public lands to abortion clinics? Declare a public health emergency, and offer disaster relief money or health care grants to states anticipating an influx of patients?
What about federal travel vouchers for patients seeking health care in abortion-friendly states, or relaxed import rules for abortion pills made overseas? President Joe Biden, some argue, also could say that banning abortion pills by mail — as some states are trying to do — violates rules on interstate commerce.
“We are all thinking creatively about what administrative solutions might exist,” including increasing the availability of abortion pills, said Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity who met with the White House in one of its “listening sessions.”
“But in this specific moment, what I’m looking for from this administration is leadership,” she said.
Complicating much of the issue for the Biden administration are decades-long restrictions on federal spending legislation that prohibits the executive branch from spending money on most abortion services. That prohibition is unlikely to change so long as the Senate remains narrowly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
Still, abortion rights advocates say every idea is on the table. Under Biden’s control, they argue, are powerful institutions, including the Food and Drug Administration, which has approved access to the abortion pill by mail, and Medicaid, the government’s insurance program for low-income families.
That means post-Roe, the United States will likely spend years embroiled in legal battles over abortion, as conservative states bump up against the power of the presidency.
Biden “can’t reverse the Supreme Court with an executive order,” said David Cohen, a professor of law at the Drexel Kline School of Law, who has written in favor of fighting abortion restrictions.
“But there are things that he can do, and ways that he can harness the federal government to increase access, even if some states are trying to limit it,” Cohen said.
Biden hinted as much in an interview last week with ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!
“I think what we’re going to have to do is that there are some executive orders I could employ, we believe. We’re looking at that right now,” Biden said.
Legal experts predict that much of Biden’s strategy will likely focus on the idea of “federal preemption” — the idea rooted in the Constitution that federal law always wins out over state laws.
For example, it’s possible that Biden might argue that states can’t lawfully restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone because the FDA has already approved its use for all Americans, Cohen said.
Under Biden, the FDA also has determined that the drug is safe enough to prescribe through a telehealth appointment and mail to the patient, even as 19 states restrict the drug to being dispensed in-person.
That decision to allow access to the abortion pill, Cohen argues, “is rooted in federal law because the agency only exists and only has the authorization to authorize a person because of federal law.”
The idea of FDA policy outweighing state restrictions is currently being tested in court. GenBioPro, the manufacturer of generic mifepristone, is challenging Mississippi’s restrictions on the drug as being at odds with federal rules, with a decision expected this summer.
Advocacy lawyers also expect that Biden is working on the idea of expanding access to mifepristone, possibly by easing import restrictions on overseas providers. The drug is widely available in states that don’t restrict abortion, although international organizations like Aid Access have been mailing the drug to any U.S. resident even if a state prohibits it and despite objections by the FDA.
Another focus by Biden could be on Medicaid, the largest insurance payer of pregnancy-related services.
While federal money can’t be used for most abortion services, Medicaid — which the federal government jointly operates with states — is required to pay for abortion care in cases of rape, incest and if a physician certifies the pregnancy would put the patient’s life at risk.
Compliance among states with these rules has been uneven historically, and several conservative legislatures are pursuing laws with stricter exceptions. In Oklahoma, for example, the law only allows abortion in cases of rape and incest if it’s reported to the police, and to save the life of a mother “in a medical emergency.”
It’s possible Biden could take steps to enforce Medicaid’s exceptions as federal law, making it easier for patients to get reimbursed, several advocacy groups predict.
John Yoo, a former top legal adviser to the Bush administration, said he thinks the most consequential step Biden could probably take is leveraging his power over Medicaid and Medicare, as well as the federal health care exchanges governed by the Affordable Care Act. For example, Biden could require that insurers cover abortion services, at least in states where it’s legal.
“I don’t think those (steps) could pre-empt state laws that make it criminal to carry out abortion, but would provide federal support once (a person) could get to a state where abortion was legal,” said Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkley.
Still, Yoo said he thinks Congress would have to lift its restrictions on federal spending on abortion — a provision known as the Hyde amendment — to make that happen.
Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups say what matters most is that Biden is as aggressive as possible.
In a letter to the president, more than two dozen Democrats, including Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, called on Biden to invoke his “unique power to marshal the resources of the entire federal government to respond.”
URGE’s Inez McGuire said even symbolic statements by the president can make a difference.
Declaring that abortion access is a human right is an opportunity for the administration “to let young people know (and) communities of color know … that our struggle to fight for abortion access is seen and understood by this administration,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — In late April, after a year and a half of former President Donald Trump and his associates pushing false claims of election fraud, a few hundred attendees gathered at a golf resort in Williamsburg, Virginia, for an “Election Integrity Summit” organized by Trump allies who were at the forefront of his effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Inside a ballroom at the Kingsmill Resort, Cleta Mitchell, a longtime conservative lawyer who played a key role in the former president’s efforts to hold onto power, took the microphone and urged summit attendees to recruit and create election “task forces” in their communities ahead of the upcoming midterms to avoid a repeat of the last presidential election.
“Imagine if we had had local task forces in these counties? What if we had citizens like you in 2020, overseeing this?” Mitchell said at the private summit, which ABC News attended by purchasing a ticket.
“We could have stopped it,” Mitchell told the crowd. “That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing here tonight.”
‘Task forces’ around the country
The Virginia event is one of the latest in a blitz of summits being held in swing states across the country, led by Mitchell and organized by the “Election Integrity Network,” a project of the Conservative Partnership Institute, a right-wing nonprofit organization that is spearheaded by Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who is a senior partner, and Mitchell, who serves as a senior fellow.
The series of summits comes after Trump, who continues to spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, made donations amounting to $1 million from his political action committee’s war chest to CPI — one of his largest donations in the current election cycle. Despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud, many Republican voters say they agree with Trump’s assertions that the election was “stolen” and “rigged” — with 71% of Republicans agreeing with the former president’s claims that he was the rightful winner, according to a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll.
Meadows, amid the Jan. 6 House committee’s ongoing investigation into the Capitol insurrection, has emerged as a key figure who at times acted as a mediator for Trump as he worked to overturn Biden’s win leading up to the Jan. 6 attack. Mitchell made headlines when she was one of the pro-Trump lawyers on the phone call in which the former president demanded of Georgia election officials that they “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s win, which sparked an ongoing investigation.
Now, months out from the 2022 midterms and with an eye on the 2024 presidential election, the group led by Meadows and Mitchell is working to put in place so-called “election integrity task forces” around the country. Their multi-day summits feature recruiting and training sessions for poll watchers and election officers, as well as panels hosted by Mitchell and others speaking on topics ranging from “The Left’s Plans to Corrupt the 2022 Election” to “Voting Systems and Machines” and “Building the Election Integrity Infrastructure.”
So far this year the group has held half a dozen summits in swing states including Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to the group’s website. In June the group will host summits in North Carolina and Wisconsin. Tickets start at $30, and influential conservative groups including Heritage Action and Tea Party Patriots Action have already participated in previous summits.
Meadows himself was announced to appear as the keynote speaker for summits in Georgia and Arizona, and was listed to speak on “What Happened in 2020 and What We Must Do to Protect Future Elections in Arizona,” according to a schedule posted by the group online. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke at a Florida summit hosted by CPI earlier this year, according to social media posts.
Neither Meadows nor Mitchell responded to a request for comment from ABC News. Officials with Trump’s Save America PAC also did not respond to a request for comment.
Inside the summit
The Virginia summit attended by ABC News in late April began with a two-hour “Poll Watcher & Election Officer Training Workshop” led by Clara Belle Wheeler from the conservative group Virginia Fair Elections.
“It takes an army,” Wheeler told the group gathered for the first session of the summit, urging attendees to become poll watchers or election officers ahead of the midterms, and then walking attendees through the process of how to register to volunteer.
Wheeler pointed to the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, won by Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, as a proof of concept heading into 2022.
“We made such an impact in the 2021 election that every major news outlet across the country talked about the army of poll watchers in Virginia,” Wheeler said.
Following the training session, attendees were moved into a ballroom to watch the 42-minute film from Citizens United president and close Trump ally David Bossie called “Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump,” which claims that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg swung the 2020 election through the $419 million he donated to support voter turnout and education efforts. Attendees gave the screening a standing ovation, after which Citizens United’s JT Mastranadi took questions from the crowd.
Gowri Ramachandran, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, a bipartisan public policy institute, warned that the efforts by CPI to recruit poll workers and election officers could be dangerous given the rhetoric used and the emphasis placed on false claims about the last election.
“It’s not healthy to recruit folks to either be poll workers or poll watchers with such an extreme hostile level of suspicion towards both election workers and their fellow citizens and their fellow voters,” Ramachandran told ABC News. “Especially because there is no reason to think that there was something that needed to be stopped in 2020. That’s a lie that the election was rigged. So telling people that becoming a poll worker or poll watcher is a way to stop something that that didn’t even happen in the past is just not a healthy way to bring people into the process.”
Ramachandran said that while it’s good that people are engaged in the process and have an interest in how elections are run, “it’s not good to, without context, without understanding, have a bunch of people who’ve been fed a diet of lies for the last year and a half about elections, have them go out and do this sort of [work] without context.”
Mitchell moderated multiple panels during the Virginia summit, including one titled, “The Left’s Plans to Corrupt the 2022 Election with Our Tax Dollars and How to Protect the Vulnerable Votes from Leftwing Vote Manipulators.”
According to a schedule obtained by ABC News, the Virginia summit also included panels featuring Tea Party Patriots cofounder Jenny Beth Martin and former Trump adviser Mike Roman, who pushed unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud after the 2020 election.
‘Control the local apparatus’
Beyond its own marketing, the summit series has received broad promotion from pro-Trump channels, including extensive promotion on Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon’s popular “War Room” podcast.
Bannon featured multiple guests from the summits, including Mitchell, in the lead-up to the Virginia summit, which he encouraged viewers to attend.
During a “War Room” appearance days before the Virginia event, Mitchell described the program as “arming people to fight back against the radical left,” saying her goal was to “keep them from stealing it ever again.”
“Are these active workshops where they actually understand how to take over and grab hold of and control the local apparatus in their local elections?” Bannon asked Mitchell.
“Absolutely,” Mitchell said. “That’s absolutely what we’re doing.”
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — After nearly two hours on Monday, Chairman Bennie Thompson gaveled out the House Jan. 6 committee’s second hearing this month to publicly unveil the findings of an 11-month-long investigation which found, the committee said, that former President Donald Trump was at the center of a “multistep conspiracy aimed at overturning the presidential election.”
Monday’s hearing used firsthand accounts from Trump’s inner circle — including his daughter, son-in-law, former campaign manager and former attorney general — to focus on how he pushed the “big lie” of a stolen 2020 race to millions of supporters even though almost all of his advisers — except, most notably, Rudy Giuliani — told him that he had lost to Joe Biden.
The committee said Trump went on to fundraise $250 million off of his baseless claim, which committee members cast as key in compelling people to storm the Capitol in the deadly insurrection last year.
“We will tell the story of how Donald Trump lost an election and knew he lost an election and, as a result of his loss, decided to wage an attack on our democracy — an attack on the American people by trying to rob you of your voice in our democracy,” Thompson said at Monday’s hearing. “And in doing so, lit the fuse that led to horrific violence on Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol, sent by Donald Trump to stop the transfer of power.”
In live and taped testimony, both former Trump administration officials and GOP state election officials recounted telling his White House and his campaign that there was no widespread fraud — but to no avail.
“[Trump] betrayed the trust of the American people. He ignored the will of the voters. He lied to his supporters and the country. And he tried to remain in office after the people had voted him out and the courts upheld the will of the people,” Thompson said in his opening statement.
This was the hearing’s central theme: Trump knew his extraordinary efforts to undercut the 2020 election had no merit, but he kept pushing well beyond the limits of normal challenges to the results. Trump, for his part, continues to call the investigation politically motivated and says he did nothing wrong.
Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, outlined on Monday how Trump was urged by some aides not to declare victory on election night and was informed that “many more” Democratic voters would vote by mail, meaning their votes would be coming in more slowly and the results were not yet final — but Trump “rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night, and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani,” Cheney said.
Here are some other key takeaways from the hearing.
Trump’s inner circle repeatedly told him claims were false
Using taped testimony from at least 10 individuals, the committee showed how Trump’s closest advisers repeatedly told their boss in the weeks after the election that there was no evidence of widespread fraud, illustrating — according to the committee’s presentation — how Trump knew the truth but ignored it.
At the top of the hearing, the committee played a video compilation of witnesses describing the scene at the White House on election night in 2020 after Fox News called Arizona for Biden — including interviews with Trump’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien (who had to unexpectedly back out of testifying live on Monday after his wife went into labor), as well as Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Ivanka Trump told the committee in previously taped video that she didn’t have a “firm view” of what her dad should have said the night of the election, while his campaign spokesman Jason Miller told investigators that a “definitely intoxicated” Giuliani was pushing for Trump to declare victory. (Giuliani has repeatedly dismissed claims that he has a drinking problem or that alcohol adversely affects his behavior.)
“Effectively, Mayor Giuliani was saying we won it,” Miller said in taped testimony of what happened on election night, “and essentially that anyone who didn’t agree to that was being weak.”
Asked during his own pre-recorded testimony if he ever shared his view of Giuliani with the president, and what he told Trump, Kushner recalled telling him, “Basically, not the approach I would take if I were you.”
Asked how Trump reacted, Kushner recalled the president saying, “I have confidence in Rudy.”
In other notable testimony, Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann reiterated that the Trump-backed conspiracy about Dominion voting machines in the weeks after the election was not persuasive. “I never saw any evidence whatsoever to sustain those allegations,” he said after Cheney characterized the allegations as “far-flung conspiracies with deceased Venezuelan communists allegedly pulling the strings.”
But Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr offered some of the most striking testimony on Monday, appearing to revel in the chance to tell his side in taped testimony — though publicly he has walked a fine line: broadly supporting the president while calling out his specific election fraud claims as false.
Barr offers his view of Trump’s thinking
According to video excerpts of Barr’s testimony to the committee that were played Monday, he described a meeting with Trump in late November where he told Trump the president’s allegations of election wrongdoing weren’t holding up. Barr spoke bluntly to House investigators, calling Trump’s statements “bogus and silly,” “idiotic,” “disturbing” and “complete nonsense,” among other characterizations in his testimony.
“I said,” Barr recalled, “the Department [of Justice] doesn’t take sides in elections, and the department is not an extension of your legal team. And our role is to investigate fraud, and we’ll look at something if it’s specific, credible and could’ve affected the outcome of the election. And we’re doing that, and they’re just not meritorious. They’re not panning out.” (As Barr noted, he told DOJ attorneys in the days after the 2020 election to probe possible fraud — an unusual move that Biden’s team at the time argued was meant to undercut his victory.)
After his late-November 2020 meeting, Barr said, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows told him that Trump “was becoming more realistic” and Kushner said, ‘We’re working on this.” But Trump did not back down.
The committee then played video of Barr recalling a December meeting with Trump, with Barr recalling that “the president was as mad as I’ve ever seen him, and he was trying to control himself.”
“Trump said, ‘You didn’t have to say this, you must’ve said this because you hate Trump,'” Barr remembered, going on to say he was concerned for Trump’s state of mind.
“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” Barr said he was thinking. “There was never an indication in interest in what the actual facts were.”
Barr also mentioned — and laughed at — the movie “2,000 Mules,” a conspiracy-laden film by conservative activist Dinesh D’Souza that Trump has encouraged supporters to watch.
“I felt that before the election, it was possible to talk sense to the president. And while you sometimes had to engage in, you know, a big wrestling match with him, that it was possible to keep things on track. But I felt that after the election he didn’t seem to be listening,” Barr told the committee. “And I didn’t think it was — you know — that I was inclined not to stay around if he wasn’t listening to advice from me or the Cabinet secretaries.”
Committee establishes ‘Team Normal’ versus Team Rudy
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., helping guide Monday’s hearing for the committee, outlined two competing camps in the Trump team in the days and weeks following the 2020 presidential race.
Lofgren said one side was helmed by Stepien, who was then Trump’s campaign manager, and the other was organized around Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, longtime Trump confidant and one of his personal attorneys.
In his pre-taped testimony, Stepien told the committee that Trump’s growing unhappiness after Election Day “paved the way” for Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell and others to become more influential. Giuliani and Powell took the lead in spreading false claims about fraud and litigating the issue in court.
“We called them my team and Rudy’s team,” Stepien said. “I didn’t mind being categorized as ‘Team Normal’ as reporters started to do at that point in time.”
Stepien added that he didn’t think what was happening after the election was “honest or professional,” so he stepped away. Herschmann, the former Trump White House lawyer, described the arguments being made by the Giuliani camp as “nuts.”
Stepien and Jason Miller, another top campaign adviser, both testified that Giuliani was the one pressuring Trump to claim victory on election night, when the vote tally was nowhere near complete.
Miller claimed Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” when he made that suggestion.
$250 million fundraised off fraudulent claims of fraud
The committee also outlined, according to their investigation, how little of the $250 million raised by Trump for his court battles after the 2020 race actually went to his post-election defense, with Lofgren calling the “big lie” a “big rip-off.”
“The Trump campaign used these false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts. But the Trump campaign didn’t use the money for that,” Lofgren said in her opening statement.
A senior investigative counsel to the committee, Amanda Wick, said in a video played at the end of Monday’s hearing that the committee found the “Official Election Defense Trump” to which Trump repeatedly asked people to contribute money did not, in fact, exist. The committee played excerpts of testimony from two Trump campaign officials appearing to confirm this.
Wick said the campaign sent millions of emails asking supporters to donate, sometimes as many as 25 emails per day.
“As the select committee has demonstrated, the Trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false yet they continued to barrage small-dollar donors with emails,” Wick said.
When asked if it was “fair” to say the fund was another “marketing tactic,” former Trump campaign digital director Gary Colby said “yes.”
Hundreds of millions of dollars went into Save America, Trump’s political action committee formed after the 2020 election. The group has given money to Mark Meadows’s charitable foundation, the American First Policy institute, Trump hotel properties and more, according to the Jan. 6 committee.
Cheney previews next hearing
The panel will publicly reconvene on Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET to hold its third televised hearing this month.
While the committee focused Monday on Trump’s actions on Election Day and immediately after, Cheney said the coming days would pan out to his broader planning for Jan. 6.
That will include Trump’s plan to “corrupt” the Department of Justice,” she said, as well as his conversations with attorney John Eastman “to pressure the vice president, state legislatures, state officials and others to overturn the election.”
Cheney then aired a clip teasing a conversation that Herschmann, the White House lawyer at the time, said he had with Eastman.
“I said to him, ‘Are you out of your f—— mind? I said I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on: orderly transition,” Herschmann said in the video.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — As the House Jan. 6 committee’s latest hearings ramp up, they overlap with a set of primary races on Tuesday featuring a slate of Donald Trump-endorsed candidates who support the same “big lie” about the 2020 election that investigators say fueled last year’s insurrection at the Capitol.
The first primary held during the much-watched investigation into last year’s pro-Trump rioting will feature races for Senate, House and gubernatorial seats in Nevada, South Carolina, North Dakota and Maine. Texas will hold a special election for its 34th Congressional District seat.
Many of the races in Nevada include candidates that support the former president’s evidence-free claims that the 2020 election was stolen, while two House candidates in South Carolina who were critical of Trump’s role in Jan. 6 or supportive of his impeachment afterward are now up for competitive races against targeted, Trump-endorsed opponents.
The leading candidate in the Nevada GOP Senate primary is the state’s former Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a fervent supporter of Trump. In 2020, he chaired Trump’s reelection campaign in the state and supported Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Laxalt hails from a political dynasty. His grandfather Paul Laxalt served as a senator for Nevada and his father, Pete Domenici, was New Mexico’s longest-serving senator.
Some of the issues Laxalt is running on include stronger southern border policies, protecting the Second Amendment and changing how elections are conducted — echoing many other conservatives running at the local level who, like Trump, baselessly claim that there is widespread election fraud that needs to be addressed.
Laxalt has not only secured an endorsement from Trump but from other 2024 presidential hopefuls, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.
But Laxalt still faces some competition in the primary as Sam Brown, a veteran and businessman, has been rising in the polls. In addition, there is frustration with voters in the silver state who believe Laxalt is too close to the Republican establishment.
While serving in Afghanistan as an Army infantry lieutenant, Brown was wounded by a roadside bomb attack and was sent to Texas to recover from his severe burn injuries.
If Brown does pull off a win on Tuesday, it would be a political upset.
Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto does not face any serious challengers in her primary, but it’s the general election that will test the support she has within Nevada as voters grow frustrated with the first-termer over economic challenges in a tourist-driven state hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent fallout, including rising inflation.
Meanwhile, in the primary races for the House, although it’s expected that all three of Nevada’s incumbent Democrats will survive, the general election may give them all cause for worry. Their seats have been rated as toss-ups by the Cook Political Report.
Most in danger is Rep. Dina Titus, who said she got “f—–” by the state legislature on how they drew her district.
As for Nevada’s gubernatorial race, all eyes will be on the GOP primary, where Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo is leading the very crowded field. Lombardo — who has plenty of name recognition around the state’s most populated area, Las Vegas — has received an endorsement from Trump.
Nevada’s governor race later this year could potentially be a referendum on incumbent Democrat Steve Sisolak, who has had a somewhat difficult first term. Sisolak had to navigate the onset of COVID, which caused Nevada’s tourism-based economy to suffer.
Meanwhile, the GOP primary for secretary of state is drawing attention to Jim Marchant, the leading GOP candidate in the race who has falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 election. Marchant’s candidacy is an example of a national trend involving supporters of the “big lie” who are running for offices like secretary of state in order to influence how elections are conducted.
If Marchant wins his primary, he will most likely face off against Cisco Aguilar in November.
On Tuesday in South Carolina, incumbent Republican Reps. Nancy Mace and Tim Rice are the two main objects of Trump’s rage after having denounced him in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack.
They’re now up against Trump-endorsed opponents for races the former president has called “two of the most critical primary elections in the country.”
Mace, the freshman congresswoman who just days into her term condemned Trump’s claims about his election being stolen, is being challenged by cybersecurity analyst and former state Rep. Katie Arrington, whom Trump called a “true Republican.”
“I am trying to communicate to my colleagues in Congress that rhetoric has real consequences.” Mace said on ABC News Live on Jan. 6, 2021.
“And in fact, when I came up for this weekend with my children for my swearing in, I actually put them on the first plane home on Monday morning because I was worried about what might happen today because of the rhetoric we’ve been hearing,” she said then.
Mace, running in the state’s 1st District seat, is endorsed by former Trump ambassador and two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Tuesday’s primary may put Haley — a rumored 2024 presidential hopeful — to the test against Trump.
A third candidate on the ballot, Lynz Piper-Loomis, makes a runoff in this race more possible if no candidate receives 50% of the vote.
In South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, state Rep. Russell Fry has earned the endorsement of Trump against five term Rep. Rice, who has consistently defended his post-Jan. 6 impeachment vote and condemnation of Trump’s role in the insurrection.
Rice’s break with Trump is notable as his district has displayed staunch support for the former president: It voted for Trump by a 19-point margin in 2020.
The special election for Texas’ 34th District seat has been a study in the kinds of races national Democrats and Republicans may deem as winnable — all in a contest to serve just six months in an area carved up by redistricting anyway.
Voters there will head to the polls for a third time this election season to cast a ballot for a short-term representative; this race is separate from the one being decided in November’s general election contest.
The messy electoral timeline was caused by former Rep. Filemon Vela’s decision to resign in March in order to work in the private sector after the Democratic lawmaker already announced he would not seek reelection the year before.
The situation creates a sped-up political calendar for candidates already in the running, while also offering Republicans the opportunity to flex their growing popularity in the heavily Latino area. Meanwhile, national GOP groups appear to be going all-in on the possibility of upending Democrats’ head start ahead of the general election and are pouring money into the race.
National Democrats have largely steered clear of the special election, while Republicans have poured money into the race — just last month spending more than $1 million.
“A Democrat will represent TX-34 in January,” Monica Robinson, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement to the Texas Tribune. “If Republicans spend money on a seat that is out of their reach in November, great.”
