(WASHINGTON) — A Washington, D.C., judge on Thursday set a September trial date for a case brought by the D.C. attorney general against former President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Yvonne Williams scheduled the trial to begin on Sept. 26 — a date that will fall a few weeks ahead of the pivotal 2022 midterm elections in November.
The move comes three days after Williams reversed another judge’s earlier decision removing Trump’s family business from the suit.
The D.C. Attorney General’s Office alleges that Trump’s 2017 Presidential Inaugural Committee misused nonprofit funds to pay for event space at the Trump Hotel and other expenditures. The case rests, in part, on the claim of “private inurement” — the question of whether the inaugural committee used its funds for private benefit rather than nonprofit purposes.
A superior court judge dismissed a portion of a lawsuit in November 2020, saying the AG’s office had not met the standard of proof that would allow that part of the suit to proceed. The ruling removed the Trump Organization as a named defendant in the case, yet kept the former president’s Washington hotel as a named defendant, as well as the inaugural committee itself — before Williams reinstated the Trump Organization as a defendant on Monday.
Also during Thursday’s hearing, Trump’s legal team asked the judge to not allow the D.C. attorney general to depose former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg in the inaugural committee case, claiming it would be a “broader fishing expedition.”
Judge Williams ultimately said she would “allow a limited deposition of Mr. Weisselberg.”
(WASHINGTON) — Senators narrowly avoided a government shutdown Thursday evening, passing a short-term funding bill one day before funds were set to lapse.
The bill, which continues funding at current levels, will keep the federal government operating until March 11. Congressional leaders are hopeful that by that time, negotiators will have ironed out an agreement on a yearlong package of funding bills.
Leaders on both sides of the aisle have assured the public for several days that the government would not shut down on Friday, but negotiations came down to the wire as GOP lawmakers looked to use the budget bill as an opportunity to challenge Democrats’ COVID-19 mandates.
Challenges to pandemic mandates are becoming increasingly popular among Republican lawmakers, who are looking to capitalize on growing fatigue over COVID-19 across the country.
But blocking such amendments proved challenging for Democrats, who stalled consideration of the short-term funding bill because several of their members are not currently in Washington. Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Mark Kelly of Arizona are out of town managing family emergencies. And Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico is recovering from a stroke. Ultimately some Republicans — Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mitt Romney of Utah and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma — were also missing from the chamber, evening out the numbers and allowing Democrats to move the vote forward.
If any amendment had been successful, the funding bill would have had to be returned to the House, which is currently on recess and would not have been able to return to pass a modified version of the legislation before government funding expired Friday evening.
Neither of the two COVID-19 mandate amendments ultimately passed, but they did receive support from nearly every Republican in the chamber.
One amendment, offered by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would have revoked federal funds for schools that left mask mandates in place for children. The other, led by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, would have ended the federal vaccine mandate.
Another amendment, which would have required the United States to balance its budget, also failed.
Lawmakers have already passed multiple short-term funding extensions to buy key negotiators in both chambers additional time to agree on a massive bill to keep the government funded through the end of the fiscal year.
Leaders say they’re narrowing in on a deal, but no formal agreement has been announced.
(NEW YORK) — A judge has ruled that former President Donald Trump and his two eldest children must testify in the investigation by the New York state attorney general into the family’s business practices.
The argument that Trump, his eldest son Donald Jr. and his eldest daughter Ivanka put forth to try and quash subpoenas for testimony and evidence “completely misses the mark,” Judge Arthur Engoron of the New York State Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The judge gave the Trumps 21 days to sit for depositions.
The Trumps had argued that it was improper for the attorney general’s office to issue subpoenas for its civil investigation while the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is still conducting its separate criminal probe.
“This argument completely misses the mark. Neither OAG nor the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has subpoenaed the New Trump Respondents to appear before a grand jury,” Judge Engoron’s decision said. “The New Trump Respondents’ argument overlooks the salient fact that they have an absolute right to refuse to answer questions that they claim may incriminate them.”
The judge noted that when Trump’s son Eric sat for a deposition two years ago as part of the same investigation, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 500 times.
“Today, justice prevailed,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James of the decision. “Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump have been ordered by the court to comply with our lawful investigation into Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization’s financial dealings. No one will be permitted to stand in the way of the pursuit of justice, no matter how powerful they are. No one is above the law.”
Trump, in a statement, blasted the probe following the judge’s ruling.
“She is doing everything within their corrupt discretion to interfere with my business relationships, and with the political process,” he said of James. “It is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in history — and remember, I can’t get a fair hearing in New York because of the hatred of me by Judges and the judiciary. It is not possible!”
Alan Futerfas, an attorney for the Trump family, told ABC News that the Trumps intend to appeal the decision.
Trump argued the investigation into his business practices is overtly political and cited statements James made during and after her campaign for attorney general about her intentions to investigate the former president and his family’s real estate firm.
The judge found those statements had no bearing on the legitimacy of the subpoenas.
“Attorney General James, just like respondent Donald J. Trump, was not deprived of her First Amendment rights to free speech when she was a politician running for a public office with investigatory powers,” the decision said.
“The abhorrent statements made by Letitia leave no doubt that this is yet another politically motivated witch-hunt,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in response to the ruling. “The court clearly had its mind made up and had no interest in engaging in impartial discourse on this critically important issue.”
(WASHINGTON) — Republican lawmakers, capitalizing on the growing national pushback on COVID-19 precautions, are amping up their efforts to implement a return to “normalcy,” proposing a flurry of legislative activity aimed at rolling back several Biden administration precautions.
The Biden administration’s pandemic exit strategy has been tested in recent weeks as Democratic governors in multiple states preempted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and rolled back masking requirements. While the CDC said Wednesday it would deliver updated guidance “soon,” Republicans are stepping on the gas and hoping to demonstrate that their party is delivering “normalcy” by rolling back restrictions leading up to midterms the GOP says will serve as a referendum on President Joe Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans are increasingly turning their attention toward slashing government-mandated pandemic precautions. GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has been at the forefront of the charge, giving multiple speeches this month declaring the pandemic “endemic” and noting that many Americans are eager to return to their lives unencumbered by pandemic-related restrictions.
“American families deserve normalcy,” McConnell said during remarks on the Senate floor Monday. “They deserve it now.”
Because of the way these GOP legislative challenges are being brought, several are guaranteed a vote on the Senate floor.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., filed a challenge to existing vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden administration using a procedural tool called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn rules created by federal agencies and only requires 51 votes to pass the Senate. Challenges to federal rules made with this tool must be brought to a vote.
Marshall’s effort would repeal Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care workers, many of whom are required to be vaccinated under current rules for Medicare and Medicaid workers.
It won’t be the first time that Republicans have used this tool to force a vote on vaccine mandates onto the floor. In December, the Senate voted 52-48 to repeal Biden’s vaccine mandate on private business owners with over 100 employees, after Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., led a separate Congressional Review Act effort.
The Supreme Court ultimately overturned that vaccine mandate. And though the Senate-backed bill was never brought up for a vote in the House, the Senate vote demonstrated some bipartisan desire to curb federal pandemic restrictions. Two Democrats joined with Republicans to pass that vaccine mandate repeal, and it’s possible Marshall’s effort, or a separate pandemic restriction challenge spearheaded by Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and John Boozman, R-Ark., using the same procedural tool, could enjoy similar across-the-aisle support.
Thune and Boozman are challenging a rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that requires young children in Head Start programs, which are funded by the federal government, to always wear masks, even during outdoor play.
“Not only is this decision to police schoolyard activities yet another affront to parents’ rights by the Biden administration, even worse is nothing about this nationwide policy is based on science or common sense,” Thune said in a statement.
This challenge comes just days after Pfizer announced that the Food and Drug Administration postponed its review of the Pfizer vaccine for children 5 and under. While COVID-19 has not had as severe an impact on young children as adults, the latest omicron surge hit children harder than previous variants largely because of their unvaccinated status. The CDC still recommends indoor masking for unvaccinated people, including children over 2.
Still, the effort has support from McConnell and a large swath of the Republican conference.
“Parents and kids need a swift end to pandemic disruptions that ignore the incredibly low risk to children,” McConnell said Wednesday.
GOP-led pushback on pandemic restrictions will likely consume Senate floor time as early as Thursday.
Several Republican lawmakers are demanding votes on amendments to a government funding bill that must pass by Friday to prevent a government shutdown. Two of the amendments they’re insisting on are aimed at rolling back pandemic precautions.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s amendment, which seeks to pull federal funding for schools if mask mandates remain in place for children, is expected to be one of the amendments voted on.
“It ought to be a choice of the parents whether a child should be vaccinated, and it shouldn’t be a government bureaucrat forcing kids to be vaccinated,” Cruz told ABC News Wednesday.
A Lee amendment that bans federal funds from being used to implement any remaining federal mask mandates is also expected to receive a vote.
Separately, Republicans are pushing to end the national state of emergency declaration on COVID-19, led by a resolution introduced by Marshall.
The administration renewed the state of emergency declaration for the eighth time late last month. Doing so allows federal funding for pandemic relief to continue.
But Marshall, echoing the sentiments of many of his GOP colleagues, said an end to the declaration could help the nation transition to a world where COVID-19 is a reality of life.
“It’s clear we need a new approach to COVID as we learn to live with it,” Marshall said in a statement. “That new approach starts with putting an end to the COVID national state of emergency.”
(WASHINGTON) — Legislators on Wednesday introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting children from the potentially harmful impacts of social media.
The bill, sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., came as Congress held five hearings on the dangers of social media for children and teens aged 16 or younger in recent months, including one at which a whistleblower who testified against Facebook — now Meta — about internalized documents that showed the tech giant prioritized profits over the mental well-being of children.
While the senators would not comment on the likelihood of the bill passing, they emphasized during a press conference on Wednesday that there is bipartisan support for it in the House and the Senate.
“What we’re doing in this bill is empowering those children and their parents to take back control,” Blumenthal said.
The Kids Online Safety Act of 2022 includes five major elements:
Social media companies would be required to provide privacy options, the ability to disable addictive features and allow users to opt-out of recommendations like pages or other videos to “like.” It would also make the strongest privacy protections the default.
The bill would give parents tools to track time spent in the app, limit purchases and help to address addictive usage.
It would require social media companies to prevent and mitigate harm to minors, including self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation and unlawful products for minors, like alcohol.
Social media companies would be required to use a third party to perform independent reviews to quantify the risk to minors, compliance with the law and whether the company is “taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms.”
Social media companies would be required to give kids’ data to academic and private researchers. The scientists would use that data to do more research on what harms children on social media and how to prevent that harm.
“The social media platforms have proven they are not going to regulate themselves. Because of that, we have put the effort into how do we make certain that this is a safer environment,” Blackburn said Wednesday.
Dr. Dave Anderson, clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute, said the bill marks the sensible intersection of tech and public policy.
“I think politicians are taking what we know from the science and saying, ‘How do we build in these safeguards?'” Anderson said.
He said social media algorithms have evolved to show children only more of what they are interested in rather than a variety of viewpoints and that marks a dangerous change for children with mental health issues.
Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, had no comment on the legislation, but a spokesperson pointed to the company’s announcement in December that it is taking a stricter approach to recommendations for teens, including nudging them toward different topics if they have been dwelling.
A Snap Inc. spokesperson said the company spends a tremendous amount of time and resources to protect teenagers and has tools that allow kids to report concerning behavior and turn off location services, as well as resources for parents.
TikTok updated its policies on Tuesday to “promote safety, security, and well-being on TikTok,” according to a press release written by TikTok Head of Trust and Safety Cormac Keenan.
TikTok and Twitter did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Sky Noir Photography by Bill Dickinson/Getty Images
(RICHMOND, Va.) — Virginia’s newly elected Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a law Wednesday that ends mask mandates in public schools throughout Virginia and lets parents opt out of their children from wearing masks, despite conflicting local mandates, without providing a reason or getting an exemption.
The law prevents school districts from adapting policies using the infection and hospitalization data of a particular area and prevents school boards from enacting policies that Youngkin’s critics say could be safest for their community.
Youngkin, who signed an executive ordering barring mask mandates on the day he was inaugurated in mid-January — but that several school districts challenged in court — rushed to deliver on his campaign promises to end the mandates and affirm what he said are the rights of parents in education.
At his request that it be treated as an emergency, Republican lawmakers quickly passed an amendment to a just-passed measure requiring school board compliance no later than March 1, instead of the bill’s original effective date of July 1, when students would already be out of school.
The law also bars online learning options, preventing schools from enacting hybrid systems, and requires schools be open for in-person learning five days a week.
Youngkin’s signature comes as school board meetings have increasingly become political battlegrounds over COVID mandates and as an increasing number of states controlled by Democrats have let indoor mask mandates expire this month, including California, New York, Delaware and Nevada.
“In the last week, we have seen Democrat-led states…move away from universal mask mandates in schools,” Youngkin said in a statement last week. “I am pleased that there is bipartisan support for doing the same in Virginia. This shows that when we work across the aisle, we put Virginians first. I look forward to signing this bill when it comes to my desk.”
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut and Oregon will stop requiring masks in the next few weeks, leaving it up to individual school districts to decide if students should wear them or not. While Texas, Utah, Florida, and Oklahoma are banning requirements altogether at a state level.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that all children ages 2 and older wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.
(NEW YORK) — Ken Kurson, the former editor of the New York Observer who was pardoned by then-President Donald Trump before he left office, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two state-level misdemeanors for allegedly spying on his former wife’s computer.
Kurson, a friend of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who also helped manage Rudy Giuliani’s unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2008, was arrested in 2020 on federal charges that alleged a “pattern of stalking and harassment against three victims,” including one he blamed for the dissolution of his marriage, according to prosecutors.
He was pardoned by Trump in January 2021 but re-arrested on state charges in August.
On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors — including attempted computer trespass — that accused him of surreptitiously installing spyware on his ex-wife’s computer from his work computer at the Observer in 2015.
“I believe we have a disposition today,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Alona Katz said during an appearance in Manhattan criminal court.
If Kurson leads a “law-abiding life” for a year and performs 100 hours of community service, he can withdraw his plea and have the charges reduced to lesser violations, Katz said.
“It is acceptable to him, your honor,” defense attorney Marc Mukasey told the court.
Authorities learned of Kurson’s alleged stalking in 2018 during a background check he underwent after Trump nominated him for a spot on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
He was pardoned by Trump after his 2020 arrest, but seven months later then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance indicted him on state charges.
“We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York,” Vance said in a statement at the time the charges were announced in August.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has rejected another of former President Donald Trump’s executive privilege claims, deciding that Trump White House visitor logs should be handed over to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — and the effort to overturn the 2020 election — within 15 days.
A letter from Chief White House Counsel Dana Remus to the National Archives obtained by ABC News states, “The President has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records.”
The visitor logs in question, Remus writes, “are entries in visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were processed to enter the White House complex, including on January 6, 2021.”
The letter goes on to explain that the Biden administration routinely discloses visitor logs, as did the Obama administration, therefore “preserving the confidentiality” of the Trump logs “is not necessary to protect long-term institutional interests of the Executive Branch.”
Biden likewise ordered the Archives to hand over previous batches of Trump documents, and in Tuesday’s letter regarding the visitor logs, Remus quotes Biden’s previous justifications: “Congress has a compelling need in service of its legislative functions to understand the circumstances that led to . . . the most serious attack on the operations of the Federal Government since the Civil War. . . . Constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
Trump lost a legal challenge to prevent the release of previous tranches of documents.
(WASHINGTON) — As the midterm primary season approaches, several Republicans running for state or national office are either refusing to disclose their COVID-19 vaccination status or advertising that they haven’t received a shot, even as former President Donald Trump calls on his followers to get the vaccine.
Some experts say that disconnect could expose cracks in a party that continues to grapple with its loyalty to Trump as well as a growing distrust of government, scientists and the media — and may signal a loosening of Trump’s grip on the Republican voting base, according to Sarah Isgur, a former spokesperson for the Justice Department during the Trump administration.
“There’s been an assumption within the political class that these are ‘Trump voters,’ implying that the former president himself can dictate their political support for or against a given candidate,” said Isgur, who is also an ABC News contributor. “But the vaccine issue demonstrates the limits of that idea.”
After denigrating many of the measures promoted by scientists to help curb the spread of COVID-19 during his time in office, Trump has emerged as an unlikely champion of vaccines. His promotion of the shot as “something that works” belies polling that shows unvaccinated adults are more than three times as likely to be Republicans than Democrats.
Trump has at least twice been booed by supporters for promoting the vaccine — once at an August rally in Alabama and again in December when he told an audience that he’d received a booster shot.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” Trump told dissenters who booed the vaccine at the December event.
“If you don’t want to take it, you shouldn’t be forced to take it — no mandates,” said Trump, whose administration oversaw the speedy development of the vaccine. “But take credit, because we saved tens of millions of lives. Take credit. Don’t let them take that away from you.”
Critics of Trump, however, accuse him of paving the way for widespread vaccine hesitancy by undermining scientists in his own administration who advocated for masks and social distancing in the early months of the pandemic.
Now, several Republican candidates running under the Trump banner — including some who have already earned his endorsement — are parroting anti-vax rhetoric in their campaigns. Others are trying to toe the line by refusing to share their vaccination status altogether — a position Trump has characterized as “gutless.”
“Trump empowered this anti-vax monster, and now even he can’t control it,” said former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va.
Former NFL running back Herschel Walker, who earned Trump’s endorsement for U.S. Senate in Georgia, has declined to say whether he has been vaccinated. The early frontrunner in Ohio’s GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Josh Mandel, has aligned himself with Trump but recently implied that he has not been vaccinated. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a longtime Trump ally, has dodged questions about whether he’s received a booster shot.
In Arizona, a gaggle of Trump-backed and Trump-aligned candidates have been more explicit in their opposition to vaccines. Former television anchor Kari Lake, who Trump endorsed in the state’s gubernatorial primary, said recently that she has “enough concern about the vaccine” to not take it.
Justin Olson, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, also said this month that he has not been vaccinated — calling his decision “an issue of rebellion against” the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates. And Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., enthusiastically accepted Trump’s endorsement for reelection, even as he continues to stoke anti-vaccine fears.
A number of Trump-aligned candidates have cast their vaccine status as a matter of privacy. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is also running for U.S. Senate, has mocked reporters who have questioned him about it.
“My health information is my own information,” Brnovich said. “Have you had an STD? I mean, seriously, if we’re going to start asking about people’s health information.”
There’s already evidence that opacity could be a winning strategy. In Virginia’s recent election for lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, a fierce Trump loyalist, refused to disclose her vaccination status, leading her Democratic opponent, Hala Ayala, to try to make it a major campaign issue.
“I encourage everyone to get the vaccine but no one should be forced to disclose their vaccination status,” Sears wrote in a tweet ahead of election day. She then won the race.
Sears’ triumph could be a sign that voters simply don’t care if public servants are vaccinated. But it could also indicate the evolving relationship between Trump and members of his base, many of whom Isgur says are “disaffected and angry” — even if some of that anger is directed toward Trump himself.
“It’s why Trump’s disapproval of a candidate has been so much more effective than his endorsement,” Isgur said. “These voters are on the hunt for enemies, and they are just as willing to turn on Trump as anyone else.”
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Tuesday issued six subpoenas to Trump campaign staffers and Republican operatives in several key battleground states who supported efforts to send “fake electors” to Congress in an effort to challenge the 2020 election results.
The group includes Michael Roman and Michael Brown, who worked on Election Day operations for Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, as well as Mark Finchem, Arizona GOP Party Chair Kelli Ward and former Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox.
Finchem is now running to serve as Arizona’s top election official, while Ward has sued to stop the committee from obtaining her and her husband’s phone records.
The committee also subpoenaed Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who chartered buses to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 and organized a post-election hearing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to raise claims of widespread and unproven voter fraud. He was also involved in Trump’s White House meeting with Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers in December of 2020, as Trump worked to overturn the results in the state and in other presidential battlegrounds.
Mastriano was also a leader of the GOP’s 2020 election audit in Pennsylvania, which was based on a similar review conducted by Republicans in Arizona.
Cox, the leader of the Republican Party in Michigan during the 2020 election, also supported Trump’s efforts to challenge the results in her state. In the aftermath of the election, Trump also gathered a group of Michigan GOP lawmakers at the White House to make his case.
“The Select Committee is seeking information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election,” Jan. 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement. “We’re seeking records and testimony from former campaign officials and other individuals in various states who we believe have relevant information about the planning and implementation of those plans.”
Thompson recently told ABC News that the panel’s planned public hearings this spring would review Trump’s state-level pressure campaign and the unsuccessful lawsuits that sought to challenge election results in key swing states, and will possibly include testimony from state and local election officials.
To date, the committee has collected tens of thousands of pages of records, conducted more than 560 interviews and issued at least 81 subpoenas.
