Politics

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate if “illegal conduct” is to blame for surging gas prices hurting Americans’ pocketbooks.

Fuel prices are averaging above $3.40 a gallon, according to the American Automotive Association, which forecasts more than 48 million Americans are likely to hit the road next week to drive to Thanksgiving celebrations.

“The bottom line is this: gasoline prices at the pump remain high, even though oil and gas companies’ costs are declining. The Federal Trade Commission has authority to consider whether illegal conduct is costing families at the pump. I believe you should do so immediately,” Biden wrote in a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan.

High gas prices can pose a big political problem for the president as a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 70% of those surveyed rate the economy negatively, including 38 percent who say it is in “poor” condition. About half of Americans overall and political independents blame Biden for fast-rising inflation.

The administration had previously asked the commission to monitor the gasoline market for any illegal conduct earlier this year, leading to the FTC increasing their oversight on mergers of oil companies that result in fewer options for consumers.

Biden argues the math doesn’t add up when it comes to pricing, noting that while the price of unfinished gasoline (for example, before ethanol has been added) has been down more than 5% in the last month, prices at the pump are up 3%. Usually, the prices for unfinished gas correlates with what is used to fill up car tanks, he said.

“The unexplained large gap between the price of unfinished gasoline and the average price at the pump is well above the pre-pandemic average. Meanwhile, the largest oil and gas companies in America are generating significant profits off higher energy prices,” Biden wrote.

“I do not accept hard working Americans are paying more for gas because of anti-competitive or otherwise potentially illegal conduct. I therefore ask the commission to further examine what is happening with oil and gas markets, and that you bring all the commission’s tools to bear if you uncover any wrongdoing,” he added.

Biden’s call for a probe is not likely to lead to any immediate relief at the pump.

The move prompted swift pushback from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, which argued bad administration policy decisions, coupled with a market shift, have caused spiking prices.

“This is a distraction from the fundamental market shift that is taking place and the ill-advised government decisions that are exacerbating this challenging situation. Demand has returned as the economy comes back and is outpacing supply,” said Frank Macchiarola, API’s senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs.

“Rather than launching investigations on markets that are regulated and closely monitored on a daily basis or pleading with OPEC to increase supply, we should be encouraging the safe and responsible development of American-made oil and natural gas,” he added.

The administration has been pressed in recent weeks about how Biden planned to address the soaring costs of fuel Americans are feeling at the pump, with many particularly wondering if the he planned to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to alleviate some of the price spike.

The administration largely stayed mum on specifics, arguing instead there were a range of options they were considering to address the issue.

“The message to Americans is that we’re not just closely and directly monitoring the situation, which of course we’ve been doing, but we’re looking at every tool in our arsenal,” Psaki told reporters Nov. 12. “The president is quite focused on this as is the economic team.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The question of whether President Joe Biden and other Catholic politicians who publicly support abortion rights should receive Holy Communion is at the center of a controversial draft document the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is expected to vote on Wednesday.

The vote is the culmination of year-long debate between America’s largely conservative bishops and the Vatican about whether punitive measures should be taken against public officials who contradict the church’s teaching on abortion.

Biden, only the nation’s second Catholic president, who has said his “personal” views were a “private matter,” has openly professed his faith throughout his political career — diligently attending Sunday Mass, infusing speeches with scripture and wearing his late son Beau Biden’s rosary beads.

After his meeting last month with Pope Francis before the G-20 summit, and amid criticism from conservative bishops, Biden said that the pope told him that he should continue receiving Communion and said the pope called him a “good Catholic.”

Some bishops, however, see things differently, citing Biden’s vocal public support of abortion rights as a key reason why clarification on who can receive Communion is necessary.

Prominent Catholic politicians, including Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have typically been careful about where they attend Mass so as to avoid controversy.

While Cardinal Wilton Gregory of the Archdiocese of Washington has said that he doesn’t plan to deny Biden Communion, he has publicly questioned whether the president is living up to Catholic Church teachings on controversial issues, including abortion.

“The Catholic Church teaches, and has taught, that life — human life — begins at conception,” Gregory told journalists at the National Press Club in September. “So, the president is not demonstrating Catholic teaching.”

While the document is expected to make no mention Biden or other pro-abortion rights Catholic politicians by name, its intent is to issue a stern rebuke of individuals, especially of public officials, who present themselves for Communion after breaking with church teaching on fundamental issues.

In a leaked draft of the document before the conference, the bishops write “there are some sins, however that do rupture the communion we share with God and the Church.”

“As the Church has consistently taught, a person who receives Holy Communion while in a state of mortal sin not only does not receive the grace of the sacrament, he or she commits the sin of sacrilege by failing to show the reverence due to the Body and Blood of Christ,” the document said.

An official at the bishop’s conference insisted that they are staying true to their mission of defending church teachings, pointing to the conference’s outspoken disagreement with the Trump administration’s policies regarding undocumented migrants.

According to a Pew Research Center survey, many American Catholics are divided about whether Biden should be denied Communion over his support of abortion rights.

A majority of U.S. Catholic adults say Biden should be allowed to receive Communion during Mass, while nearly 30% say Biden should not be allowed to receive Communion.

The divide underscores a growing tension amongst American Catholics about who they see as the true authority on matters of faith and what they should believe.

“The U.S. bishops, and Pope Francis see things in very different ways,” said Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University. “American Catholics for the first time in many decades have to decide if they want to follow Pope Francis or U.S. bishops, which is new, because U.S. bishops are traditionally very Roman, loyal to the pope.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — White House officials insisted Tuesday that President Joe Biden does not consider China’s President Xi Jinping a “friend” after Xi, speaking through an interpreter in a virtual meeting with Biden Monday night, referred to his American counterpart as “my old friend.”

“Thank you,” Biden responded at the time.

Asked what Xi was getting at — and if Xi was trying to undermine the U.S. — White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates didn’t answer directly, but reiterated that Biden doesn’t see Xi as an “old friend.”

“I’m not going to speak for President Xi,” Bates told a reporter on Air Force One as Biden headed to New Hampshire.

“But like you just mentioned,” Bates continued, “you’ve heard explicitly from the president himself, that he has a longstanding relationship with President Xi. They’ve spent a great deal of time together. They are able to have candid discussions, be direct with each other, which helps them be productive. But he does not consider President Xi an old friend.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said the same ahead of the leaders’ meeting when asked how Biden views the relationship.

“He still does not consider him an ‘old friend,’ so that remains consistent,” she said.

“President Xi is somebody he has spent time with, he’s had face-to-face conversations with. And because of that, the president feels that he’s able to have candid discussions with President Xi,” she added.

Biden on Tuesday in New Hampshire called it a “good meeting” with “a lot to follow up on.”

“We set up four groups, and we’re gonna get our folks together on a whole range of issues. I’ll have more to report for you in the next two weeks,” he told reporters.

Biden has often spoken of his long-term relationship with Xi and the time they spent together in person when they were both served as vice presidents.

But this June, Biden made clear he didn’t think of Xi as an “old friend,” saying in response to a question at a news conference in Geneva: “Let’s get something straight. We know each other well; we’re not old friends. It’s just pure business.”

Experts have tried to interpret Xi’s use of the phrase — whether it was genuine goodwill or meant to gain control of the narrative over Biden.

Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization, told Reuters Xi’s use of the phrase is a show of genuine goodwill, while Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, told the news outlet “an ‘old friend’ doesn’t necessarily mean he is still a real friend.”

The two world leaders spoke for about three and a half hours via videoconference on Monday evening, amid continued tensions between Washington and Beijing over trade issues, climate change and human rights and in the wake of China recently upping its military pressure on Taiwan.

In a readout of the call, the Chinese government blamed the Tsai government for increased tensions between the U.S. and China for Taiwan’s attempt to “rely on the United States for independence” with Xi likening independence talk to “playing with fire” — in an apparent warning to both nations.

Xi said that Beijing is patient over reunification with Taiwan but independence is a red line they will take “decisive measures” on.

Biden, asked Tuesday in New Hampshire if the leaders made “progress on Taiwan,” said they had.

“Yes,” Biden answered. “We have made very clear, we support the Taiwan Act, and that’s it. It’s independent, makes its own decisions.”

The fact that he called Taiwan “independent” was certain to upset China and Biden spoke a second time to reporters traveling with him in New Hampshire to clarify his earlier comments.

“We’re not going to change our policy at all,” he said, referring to U.S. policy on Taiwan.

Asked about his remark about “independence,” he replied: “No, no, I said that they have to decide – they, Taiwan, not us,” adding, “And we are not encouraging independence. We’re encouraging that they do exactly what the Taiwan Act requires. That’s what we’re doing. Let them make up their mind. Period.”

Taiwan’s Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement after the Biden-Xi meeting, saying it “insists that China has no say in the fate of Taiwan.”

While the meeting did not establish any specific new guardrails over Taiwan, the White House said the meeting itself was intended to allow the two leaders discussing ways to manage competition between one another and characterized the conversations as “respectful and straightforward and open.”

“The sense of US-China relationship having up and downs is the old model of how to think about the relationship between the US and China. We sort of think of this as a steady state,” a readout from the White House said. “The President has been quite clear that he will engage in that stiff competition.”

Xi, on the call, compared China and the U.S. to two giant ships sailing in the sea that must stabilize to move forward together and prevent a collision, according to a readout of the meeting from the Chinese government.

Psaki said Friday that Biden may have the chance to talk more about the phone call on Thursday when he hosts leaders of Canada and Mexico for a North American summit at the White House.

Monday’s meeting marked the third time the two leaders will have spoken since Biden took office.

ABC News’ Karson Yiu contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The House plans to vote Wednesday on a resolution that both censures Republican Rep. Paul Gosar and removes him from his committee assignments, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to ABC News.

Gosar last week tweeted an edited Japanese anime cartoon showing him stabbing President Joe Biden and killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. He later deleted the tweet.

On Tuesday, sources confirmed to ABC News that Gosar apologized for the tweet behind closed doors during a GOP conference meeting. Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said he had also spoken privately with Gosar about the tweet, but it appears he did not take further action against him.

Gosar said his video was an attempt by his staff to reach a younger audience and was not meant to condone violence. He has not publicly apologized.

“I have never in 40 years seen such a vile, hateful, outrageous, dangerous, and inciting to violence against a colleague, ever,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said to reporters during a press call Tuesday.

“The fact that they would not take some action themselves or make some comments themselves, which I have not seen, is a testament that perhaps they are rationalizing, as they rationalize other items of criminal behavior, this particular action,” Hoyer said of Republicans.

The resolution would boot Gosar from the Oversight and Reform Committee, which he serves on alongside Ocasio-Cortez. It would also remove him from the Committee on Natural Resources.

Late Monday night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters it was up to McCarthy to rein in and reprimand his conference members — but Democrats, outraged over Gosar’s behavior, insisted on a floor vote.

On Tuesday, Pelosi deemed the resolution as an appropriate measure.

“Why go after [Gosar]? Because he made threats, suggestions about harming a member of Congress…We cannot have members joking about murdering each other as well as threatening the president of the United States,” Pelosi said.

A censure resolution requires a simple majority of lawmakers present and voting. If it is approved, Gosar could be forced to stand in the center of the House chamber as the resolution condemning his actions is read aloud.

On Tuesday evening, Gosar tweeted out a meme that says, “God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers.”

Twenty-three members of Congress have been censured for misconduct, according to a 2016 Congressional Research Service Report.

Former Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., was the last member of Congress to be censured — in December 2010 — accused of nearly a dozen ethics violations.

ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Daniel Goldman, the former federal prosecutor who served as counsel to House Democrats in the first impeachment investigation of former President Donald Trump, announced Tuesday he will run for New York attorney general.

His announcement came in a two-minute video in which he cast himself as a public servant with a deep commitment to civil rights and equal justice.

Goldman told ABC News he decided to run because “democracy is under attack” and hoped to use the “broad authority” of the New York Attorney General’s Office to fight back.

“It started with Trump and now continues with Trumpism,” Goldman said. “There is a swath of the country that no longer believes in free and fair elections.”

Goldman joins what is expected to be a crowded and diverse field now that the current occupant, Letitia James, has announced a run for governor. Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout and state Sen. Shelley Mayer have announced their candidacies. State Sen. Mike Gianaris, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz are also said to be considering runs.

If elected, Goldman pledged to use the power of the office to uphold voting rights, reproductive rights and to fight the effects of climate change. While there is not always a legal avenue for the state attorney general in those pursuits, Goldman told ABC News “there is a pulpit and perch of a national relevance” and “vast authority within the attorney general’s office in upholding one standard of law.”

Recent occupants of the office, including the incumbent James and her predecessors Andrew Cuomo and Elliot Spitzer, used it as a springboard. Goldman spoke of no such ambitions.

“I’m doing this because I want to be the people’s lawyer,” he said. His decision to run became firm after Cuomo resigned as governor and James was rumored to be exploring a run for the office.

Goldman said he would work to make voters understand his “lifelong calling” as a champion of civil rights and criminal justice reform

Goldman, 45, is married with five children and lives in Manhattan. He was a history major at Yale and earned a law degree at Stanford before two judicial clerkships and a 10-year stint at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted organized crime and securities fraud. Then there was the 2019 role that made him a familiar face on television: lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment.

“Impeachment is the highest profile and most well-known moment of my career in public service but it demonstrates I’m unafraid, aggressive and will fight for what I believe is right,” Goldman said.

 

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As abortion returns to the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket, majorities of Americans support maintaining Roe v. Wade, oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate and see abortion primarily as a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor, not lawmakers.

Americans — 60-27% — say the high court should uphold Roe in this ABC News/Washington Post poll, including majorities of men and women, young adults and seniors, college graduates and those without degrees and whites and racial and ethnic minorities alike. It’s 62% among Catholics and steady across urban, suburban and rural residents.

See PDF for full results, charts and tables.

A majority supports retaining Roe, the landmark 1973 ruling that established a woman’s right to an abortion, even in the 26 states where, according to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion bans or severe restrictions are anticipated if the ruling was overturned.

Roe v. Wade aside, the survey finds that 58% of Americans oppose state laws that make it harder for abortion clinics to operate vs. 36% who support them. Strong opposition far outstrips strong support, 45% vs. 26%.

The Texas law that empowers private citizens to sue those providing or assisting with abortions is even more unpopular: Two-thirds of Americans say the Supreme Court should reject it, including nearly a third of those who otherwise support additional state restrictions.

On a more personal level, 75% say the decision whether or not a woman can have an abortion should be left to her and her doctor, not regulated by law. It’s a sentiment held by majorities across the political spectrum, including by bare majorities of Republicans and conservatives and half of evangelical white Protestants.

What’s Next For Roe

While Roe v. Wade has faced challenges before, analysts suggest that it faces the strongest possibility in recent years of being overturned, citing the court’s hearing this term of a case challenging abortion restrictions in a Mississippi law.

While prospects for Roe in the high court have waxed and waned, public support for the ruling has been largely steady. Sixty percent support upholding it in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, which is consistent with 62% among registered voters last fall and 59 to 65% in results to a separate question asked from 2005 to 2010.

Support for retaining Roe runs especially high among liberals (87%), Democrats (82%), people with post-graduate degrees (73%), those under 30 and Black Americans (both 71%). It’s also 71% among women under 40 – compared with 54% among men that age. (Among all women, 64% support Roe; among all men, 56%.)

Opposition is more muted, reaching majorities in only a few groups, and mostly by smaller margins than in groups that back the ruling. Preference for Roe to be overturned peaks at 70% among people identifying themselves as strong conservatives, but drops to 38% among those who are somewhat conservative. It’s supported, by contrast, by nearly all strong liberals and 79% of those who are somewhat liberal.

In another leading opposition group, 58% of evangelical white Protestants support overturning Roe, while 30% favor upholding it.

In the 26 states where bans or severe restrictions on abortion are considered likely if Roe were overturned, 54% support upholding it.

State Laws

Like other abortion-related legal issues, views on state restrictions making it harder for abortion clinics to operate are highly partisan. Eighty-three percent of Democrats oppose these laws, with 71% strongly opposed, while Republicans support them by nearly 2-1, 62-32%. Independents fall closer to Democrats, with 61% opposed to such restrictions.

Even less popular than state restrictions in general is the Texas law, with the public saying by 65-29% that it should be rejected by the Supreme Court. This law gets majority backing only from evangelical white Protestants (60%), conservatives (56%) and Republicans (55%). Just 7% of liberals, 8% of Democrats, 16% of moderates and 26% of independents agree.

The Texas law was the subject of an expedited hearing in the Supreme Court earlier this month, with a ruling expected soon to determine whether the state can be sued by those challenging the statute. The court hears the Mississippi case Dec. 1.

Woman/Doctor

The most lopsided result in this survey comes in response to a question that poses the issue outside the legal context, asking if the decision whether or not a woman can have an abortion should be left to the woman and her doctor – preferred by 75% – or regulated by law, selected by 20%.

Among groups, 81% of women say the decision should be left to the woman and her doctor, compared with 69% of men. That reaches 86% among women under 40 as well as a similar 78% of older women. It’s higher still among Black people, 91%, compared with about seven in 10 whites and Hispanics alike.

Support for leaving the decision to the woman and her doctor ranges from 70% to 80% across age groups, encompasses three-quarters of Americans regardless of their education and income levels and crosses other customary attitudinal lines as well; for example, it’s 71 to 76% in rural, suburban and urban areas alike.

As noted, even narrow majorities of Republicans (53%) and conservatives (52%) say the decision should be between a woman and her doctor and evangelical white Protestants divide on the question, 49-47%.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Nov. 7-10, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions in the full sample are 27-26-37%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Md. See details on the survey’s methodology here.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — In the aftermath of the 2020 election, some of Donald Trump’s closest allies embarked on an unprecedented effort to get the Department of Defense to chase down outlandish voter fraud conspiracy theories in hopes of helping Trump retain power, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl writes in his new book.

In Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, scheduled to be released today, Karl reports that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump attorney Sidney Powell tried to enlist a Pentagon official to help overturn the election.

According to the book, Flynn — who had just received an unconditional pardon from President Trump after pleading guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI during the Russia probe — made a frantic phone call to a senior Trump intelligence official named Ezra Cohen (sometimes referred to as Ezra Cohen-Watnick), who previously worked under Flynn at both the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Council.

“Where are you?” Flynn asked the DoD official, who said he was traveling in the Middle East.

“Flynn told him to cut his trip short and get back to the United States immediately because there were big things about to happen,” according to the book. Karl writes that Flynn told Cohen, “We need you,” and told the DoD official that “there was going to be an epic showdown over the election results.”

Flynn, according to the book, urged Cohen that “he needed to get orders signed, that ballots needed to be seized, and that extraordinary measures needed to be taken to stop Democrats from stealing the election.”

“As Flynn ranted about the election fight, [Cohen] felt his old boss sounded manic,” Karl writes in the book. “He didn’t sound like the same guy he had worked for.”

“Sir, the election is over,” Cohen told Flynn, according to the book. “It’s time to move on.”

Flynn, according to Karl, fired back: “You’re a quitter! This is not over! Don’t be a quitter!”

Karl writes that after a heated few minutes, Flynn hung up the phone — and that was the last time the two men talked.

“Betrayal” also reports that Sydney Powell, Flynn’s former lawyer who was then advising President Trump, called Cohen shortly after the Flynn conversation and tried to enlist his help with one the most far-fetched claims about the election, involving then-CIA Director Gina Haspel.

“Gina Haspel has been hurt and taken into custody in Germany,” Powell told Cohen, pushing a false conspiracy theory that had been gaining steam among QAnon followers, according to the book. “You need to launch a special operations mission to get her,” Powell said.

Powell, according to the book, was pushing the outlandish claim that Haspel had been injured while on a secret CIA operation to seize an election-related computer server that belonged to a company named Scytl — none of which was true.

“The server, Powell claimed, contained evidence that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of votes had been switched using rigged voting machines. Powell believed Haspel had embarked on this secret mission to get the server and destroy the evidence — in other words, the CIA director was part of the conspiracy,” Karl writes.

Powell wanted the Defense Department to send a special operations team over to Germany immediately: “They needed to get the server and force Haspel to confess,” Karl writes.

Cohen thought Powell sounded out of her mind, according to the book, and he quickly reported the call to the acting defense secretary.

A CIA spokesperson subsequently debunked the claim, telling news outlets that “I’m happy to tell you that Director Haspel is alive and well and at the office.”

Neither Powell nor Flynn responded to repeated requests for comment.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s political ally Steve Bannon on Monday surrendered to the FBI on charges of criminal contempt of Congress stemming from his refusal to cooperate with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Bannon on Friday was charged with two counts of contempt for failure to comply with a committee subpoena to produce any records and testify about what he knew about the assault.

He was expected to be arraigned on the charges later Monday.

His attorney has claimed in repeated letters to the committee that Bannon’s communications with Trump were privileged.

The indictment sets off what will likely be a contentious legal battle with significant ramifications for the Jan. 6 committee as it seeks to compel other witnesses to testify about the events leading up to the attempted insurrection, including any communications they may have had with Trump.

“Since my first day in office, I have promised Justice Department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland after the department charged Bannon on Friday.

He added the “charges reflect the department’s steadfast commitment to these principles.”

Executive privilege, according to the Cornell Legal Institute, “is the power of the President and other officials in the executive branch to withhold certain forms of confidential communication from the courts and the legislative branch. When executive privilege is invoked in litigation, the court should weigh its applicability by balancing competing interests.”

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has also been in the committee’s crosshairs after he defied the committee’s subpoena last week to testify about what his version of events were on Jan. 6 — citing similar executive privilege claims.

“Mr. Meadows, Mr. Bannon, and others who go down this path won’t prevail in stopping the Select Committee’s effort getting answers for the American people about January 6th, making legislative recommendations to help protect our democracy, and helping ensure nothing like that day ever happens again,” Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a statement.

Meadow’s lawyer, George J. Terwilliger III said he was “surprised and disappointed” that the Biden Justice Department rejected the former chief of staff’s claims of executive privilege, in a Washington Post op-ed over the weekend.

“Under Supreme Court precedent, President Donald Trump also has a voice to be heard on claims of executive privilege arising from his tenure, and he has instructed Meadows to maintain the privilege. My client thus finds himself caught between two rocks (Congress and the Biden administration) and a hard place (instructions from the president he served.),” Terwilliger wrote.

“Moreover, [Meadows] knows from experience how critical it is for senior aides to be able to communicate freely with the president — and how dangerous a precedent he would set for presidents of both parties were he to appear and answer questions without limitation,” he wrote.

Terwilliger also called negotiations with the committee “fruitless” and suggested the parties “take a deep breath and reconsider ending the tradition of accommodation between the executive and Congress.”

He suggested Meadows deliver written answers to questions.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — On the heels of his stirring plea at the just-completed Glasgow Climate Conference for “every nation to do its part” to solve the climate crisis, President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing this week to hold an auction for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico over impassioned objections from environmental organizations.

“It’s hard to imagine a more dangerous, hypocritical action in the aftermath of the climate summit,” said Kristen Monsell, a lawyer for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. “Holding this lease sale will only lead to more harmful oil spills, more toxic climate pollution, and more suffering for communities and wildlife along the Gulf Coast.”

The auction, set for Wednesday, will grant oil companies the opportunity to bid on nearly 80 million acres of lucrative federal waters, which would produce an estimated 1.12 billion barrels of oil and 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50 years.

The winning bidder will have the right to build platform rigs up to 231 miles from shore and drill for oil at underwater depths of up to 11,000 feet. Environmental groups say the distance from shore and depth of drilling increases the likelihood of a repeat of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which caused 4 million barrels of oil to leak into the Gulf.

Brettny Hardy, an attorney with the environmental nonprofit group Earthjustice, said the development of those waters would amount to a “huge climate bomb” that would “compromise our future and move our climate action in the exact wrong direction.”

Biden promised to end new drilling on federal lands during his presidential campaign, and issued an executive order pausing the lease sales during his first week in office, pending a review of their environmental impact.

In June, however, a federal judge ordered the resumption of those lease sales, siding with 13 states that sued the administration for overstepping its authority.

The administration has appealed the judge’s ruling, but agreed to go forward with the leases while the matter works its way through the courts.

A spokesperson for the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is tasked with coordinating the auction, said the administration is just adhering to the court’s orders.

“[The administration] is complying with a U.S. District Court’s injunction regarding [the auction] while the government appeals the decision,” said spokesperson John Filostrat. “The Biden Harris Administration is continuing its comprehensive review of the deficiencies associated with its offshore and onshore oil and gas leasing programs.”

The Interior Department said in August that, while it would adhere to the court’s ruling, it will also “continue to exercise the authority and discretion provided under the law to conduct leasing in a manner that takes into account the program’s many deficiencies.”

But environmental advocates argue that the Biden administration has not exhausted its legal “authority and discretion” — and in fact has several options at its disposal to delay or cancel the bidding.

“The administration has more than sufficient authority to choose not to hold the lease sale and to cancel it,” Monsell said.

The Justice Department could file an emergency injunction to pause the lease pending its appeal, according to Hardy, or make the case in court that the environmental effects of the sale could conflict with other federal laws, like the National Environmental Policy Act.

Monsell and Hardy are leading a coalition of environmental groups in suing the administration to prevent the auction from moving forward, with the goal of winning an injunction before the leases come into effect, which the government said would be on Jan. 1.

In a press release announcing their lawsuit, the environmental groups accused the Biden administration of “folding to the oil industry,” which has promoted the auction as “welcome news for the American worker and our national security.”

“As global energy prices rise, continued Gulf of Mexico leasing can help avert inflationary risks and proactively ensure affordable energy for all walks of life, especially low-income communities,” said Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association, an offshore energy trade group.

Neither the Interior Department nor the White House has responded to allegations that the administration is buckling to pressure from the oil industry.

In Glasgow, Biden promised a return of American leadership on climate change issues, pledging to halve greenhouse emissions by 2050.

“We’ll demonstrate to the world the United States is not only back at the table, but hopefully leading by the power of our example,” he said.

Environmental groups said Biden’s words ring hollow as long as these oil leases move forward.

“This isn’t just hypocritical, it’s outright deceitful,” said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, a nonprofit environmental group. “It truly calls into question whether the Biden administration’s climate agenda is nothing but broken promises.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell did something extraordinary: He decided to disinvite Donald Trump from President Joe Biden’s upcoming inauguration because he was worried Trump could use the occasion to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, according to a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.

Karl’s book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, details how after the Capitol attack, McConnell told aides he wanted the top Congressional leaders to draft a letter telling the then-sitting president that he was not welcome to attend the inauguration.

The events eventually prompted Trump to send off what would be his final tweet before being banned by the social media platform, according to Betrayal, set to be released on Nov. 16.

“McConnell felt he could not give Trump another opportunity to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” Karl writes in the new book. “McConnell wanted to get a letter together from the top four congressional leaders informing Trump that he had been disinvited.”

But not everyone in Republican leadership was on board with McConnell’s plan.

“Kevin McCarthy opposed the idea, arguing it would be an important message of unity to have Trump attend the ceremony as Biden took the oath of office,” according to the book. “But McConnell was determined to disinvite Trump regardless of whether McCarthy would sign the letter.”

McCarthy, Karl writes, would alert the White House about McConnell’s plan to disinvite Trump. And before the letter could be drafted, “Trump sent out a tweet saying he wouldn’t be attending.”

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20,” Trump wrote on Jan. 8.

“Trump apparently wanted people to think it was his decision alone to become the first outgoing president after an election to fail to attend an inauguration since Andrew Johnson skipped the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant in 1869,” Karl writes.

Following an initial suspension following the Capitol attack, Twitter had briefly reinstated Trump’s account on Jan. 7, during which time Trump reverted back to complaining about the election, writing, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

But his tweet about not attending the inauguration would be his last.

Following that tweet, the social media company responded by issuing a “permanent suspension” of Trump’s account, determining that in the context of the Capitol attack, Trump’s tweets violated its glorification of violence policy.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.