(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday that will pave the way for Medicaid to pay for abortion services for people having to travel out of state, according to a senior Biden administration official.

The new directive will allow the secretary of health and human services to “invite states to apply for Medicaid waivers, so that states where abortion is legal could provide services to people traveling from a state where abortion may be illegal to seek services in their state,” the official said. Technically, these states would apply through what’s known as a “Medicaid 1115 waiver,” according to the official.

The official noted that when the White House looked into declaring a public health emergency for abortion and what that would allow the federal government to do, this change to Medicaid — an assistance program for low-income patients’ medical expenses — was one of the options. But the White House realized the president could also do it through an executive order instead, which he plans to do Wednesday, the official said.

Biden’s order will also direct the health and human services secretary to make sure “health care providers comply with federal non-discrimination laws so that women receive medically necessary care without delay,” according to the White House. That could include “providing technical assistance for health care providers who may be confused or unsure of their obligations in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs,” or providing other info and guidance to providers about their obligations and consequences of not complying with non-discrimination laws.

The order also will direct the health and human services secretary to improve research and data collection on maternal health outcomes, according to the White House.

Biden is expected to sign the order during the first meeting of a reproductive rights task force that he established in July in the wake of the United States Supreme Court overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade case, which had legalized abortion nationwide nearly 50 years ago. The court’s historic ruling in June declared that there is no federal constitutional right to end a pregnancy, leading some states to ban abortions.

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(WASHINGTON) — A federal grand jury has subpoenaed former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone in its investigation into the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources with direct knowledge of the matter told ABC News.

The sources told ABC News that attorneys for Cipollone — like they did with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — are expected to engage in negotiations around any appearance, while weighing concerns regarding potential claims of executive privilege.

The move to subpoena Cipollone signals an even more dramatic escalation in the Justice Department’s investigation of the Jan. 6 attack than previously known, following appearances by senior members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s staff before the grand jury two weeks ago.

Officials with the Justice Department declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.

A representative for Cipollone could not be reached for comment.

Last month, Cipollone spoke to the House Jan. 6 select committee for a lengthy closed-door interview, portions of which have been shown during two of the committee’s most recent public hearings.

Cipollone spoke to the committee on a number of topics, including how he wanted then-President Donald Trump to do more to quell the riot on the day of the attack, and how Cabinet secretaries contemplated convening a meeting to discuss Trump’s decision-making in the wake of the insurrection.

In videotaped testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, Cipollone made it clear that he wanted Trump to intervene sooner while the attack was underway.

“I was pretty clear there needed to be an immediate and forceful response, statement, public statement, that people need to leave the Capitol now,” Cipollone said.

Committee members also questioned Cipollone regarding discussions among members of Trump’s Cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment to possibly remove Trump from office in advance of President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

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(WASHINGTON) — A government watchdog group said Tuesday that the Pentagon “wiped” text messages from the cell phones of key Trump administration Defense Department officials after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and is now urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch a “cross-agency investigation into the possible destruction of federal records.”

American Oversight, which describes itself as a nonprofit watchdog that uses public records requests to fight corruption, filed several Freedom of Information Act requests within days of Jan. 6, 2021, seeking text messages and other communications among senior Pentagon officials including acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, his chief of staff, Kash Patel, and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy.

In March, the Pentagon filed court documents acknowledging that text messages belonging to those individuals had been deleted — but framed that action as standard operating procedure whenever an employee leaves the department.

“When an employee separates from DOD or Army he or she turns in the government-issued phone, and the phone is wiped,” the Pentagon wrote in response to American Oversight’s FOIA lawsuit. “For custodians no longer with the agency, the text messages were not preserved and therefore could not be searched.”

But in their letter to Garland on Tuesday, American Oversight accused the Pentagon of knowingly erasing records under active FOIA — and framed this deletion as another effort by these agencies to obscure the actions of administration officials.

“In short, DOD has apparently deleted messages from top DOD and Army officials responsive to pending FOIA requests that could have shed light on the actions of top Trump administration officials on the day of the failed insurrection,” American Oversight Executive Director Heather Sawyer wrote.

Sawyer urged Garland to probe not only the Pentagon’s conduct, but also the U.S. Secret Service’s apparent deletion of their agents’ text messages.

“American Oversight accordingly urges you to investigate DOD’s actions in allowing the destruction of records potentially relevant to this significant matter of national attention and historical importance,” the letter said.

Reached for comment, Army spokesperson Col. Cathy Wilkinson told ABC News, “It is our policy not to comment on ongoing litigation.”

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(NEW YORK) — The ability to access abortions in Kansas is not changing.

ABC News projects that voters on Tuesday rejected an amendment to the state constitution that would have specified “Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion.”

It was the first popular vote on abortion rights in nearly 50 years — and the first since the demise of Roe v. Wade. In reversing Roe in June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion should be left to individual states.

A “yes” vote to approve the Kansas amendment would have effectively overridden a 2019 state Supreme Court ruling and would have cleared the way for GOP super-majorities in the Kansas legislature to enact more stringent abortion restrictions.

A “no” vote keeps the status quo, preserving Kansas as what advocates describe as an abortion rights refuge in a region where bans on the procedure have proliferated.

Kansans on Tuesday also voted in primaries for governor, secretary of state, the House and Senate, state attorney general, state treasurer and the state legislature. Polls closed at 9 p.m. ET.

On Friday, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab predicted that roughly 36% of Kansas voters would participate in the primary election — a higher number than past cycles.

Schwab’s office said the constitutional amendment about whether or not to bar abortion access had increased voter interest in the election.

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