Unless the rules change soon, Stephanie Salazar-Rodriguez of Denver expects to spend more than $10,000 on health insurance premiums this year. That’s after losing her job last month — which meant losing her employer’s contribution to her health plan.
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Unless the rules change soon, Stephanie Salazar-Rodriguez of Denver expects to spend more than $10,000 on health insurance premiums this year. That’s after losing her job last month — which meant losing her employer’s contribution to her health plan.
Rachel Woolf/KHN
As President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief package steams through Congress, Democrats have hitched a ride for a top health care priority: strengthening the Affordable Care Act with some of the most significant changes to insurance affordability in more than a decade.
The bill would spend $34 billion to help Americans who buy insurance on the health planmarketplaces created by the ACA through 2022, when the benefits would expire. The Senate sent its relief package, one of the largest in congressional history, back to the House where it could come up as early as Tuesday. where it is expected to pass and then go to Biden for his signature.
Those who have studied the legislation say it would throw a lifeline to lower- and middle-income Americans who have fallen through the cracks of the government’s eligibility requirements for ACA subsidies. Stephanie Salazar-Rodriguez of Denver, for instance, is hopeful the changes the federal bill includes will make a difference. Without those changes, she expects to spend more than $10,000 on premiums this year after losing her primary job — and her health insurance — last month.
Under the current system,if her annual income were $3,000 less per year, ACA subsidies could have reduced her premiums to as little as $3,000 a year. But until and unless the COVID-19 relief bill passes, she’s above the cut-off that makes her eligible for ACA health plan subsidies.
“To me, that’s not affluence,” Salazar-Rodriguez says. “You’re talking about people who are struggling to survive.”
The legislation could also provide relief to others who purchase health insurance on the exchanges: people with lower or middling incomes who currently choose policies with lower premiums but high deductibles. Many with high deductible plans often avoid seeking medical care because they don’t have the cash to cover those costs. Most of the nearly 14 million people enrolled in plans sold on the marketplaces would pay less under the new provisions — with the option to use those savings to buy a different plan with a lower deductible.
The Congressional Budget Office also estimates an additional 1.7 million people would enroll in the exchanges under the proposal, about 1.3 million of whom are currently uninsured.
Republicans, who have repeatedly tried to repeal the ACA, havehammered Democrats over the years with allegations that many of the marketplace plans are not affordable and prevent people from buying insurance coverage. They also have argued that the proposed change in the legislation offers unnecessary help to wealthier Americans while doing nothing to lower the cost of insurance.
Now that Democrats have control of the White House and Congress for the first time since the passage of the ACA, they are moving quickly to make changesthey believe improves the landmark health care program. Citing the pandemic, Biden opened a three-month special enrollment period the federal health exchange, allowing people to buy new plans there through through May 15.
The COVID-19 relief package under consideration also includes proposals to increase the affordability of health care for the unemployed.
Those receiving unemployment benefits, who are typically ineligible for subsidies on the exchange, would be eligible this year. The Senate version of the billwould pick up 100% of the cost of premiums for those on COBRA, the program allowing recently unemployed workers to privately purchase coverage offered by their former job, often at a high cost. The House had included a similar provision but it provided only an 85% subsidy. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House’s COBRA changes would cost nearly $8 billion with about 2.2 million people expected to enroll. The version of the bill the Senate has passedwould cover the entire COBRA premium.
The legislation, which includes a bevy of anti-poverty provisions, offers a more generous funding match to about a dozen states that have not expanded Medicaid (the program that covers low-income Americans) in hopes that they will soon opt to do so.
Pandemic spurs effort to improve ACA
Advocates and public health experts say it is critical to help people afford health insurance since millions lost their jobs and their job-based health insurance in the pandemic and another 59,000 Americans, or so, are contracting COVID-19 every day.
Health insurance “just becomes the thing people can’t afford when they’ve lost their job,” says Katie Keith, an expert on the Affordable Care Act with Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.
About 15 million uninsured people are eligible to buy insurance through the exchanges, most of whom would also be eligible for new or larger subsidies under the proposal, according to KFF. (KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF.)
Under the ACA, subsidies are calculated based on the recipient’s income, age and their area’s average premium costs.
Frederick Isasi, executive director of Families USA, which advocates for health care affordability and supported the passage of the ACA, says that right now more than half of those eligible for coverage cannot afford it. “Health insurance is about financial security and health security,” he adds.
The proposal in the relief bill that was passed by the Senate would ensure that no one who buys a health plan on the exchanges pays more than 8.5% of income for that plan. Currently, subsidies are available only to those making between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level. (For those seeking subsidies in 2021, that income range that qualifies an individual for a subsidy is between $12,760 and $51,040.)
Some marketplace customers near the federal poverty level who now must pay some of the premiums out-of-pocket could qualify for a subsidy that pays the entire cost of a silver, or midlevel, plan.
The change would also benefit Americans who make more than the subsidy cutoff. About 3.4 million uninsured people fall into this category, according to the KFF analysis.
For example, currently, a 60-year-old who makes $50,000 annually pays no more than $410 per month out-of-pocket for a silver plan on the exchanges, with the government chipping in $548 per month.
Meanwhile, a 60-year-old who makes $52,000 annually – just $2,000 more per year — receives no subsidy under the current rules, and isexpected to pay the full premium herself, KFF found, at a cost of about $957 per month for the same plan.
For Salazar-Rodriguez, that cutoff has carried a heavy cost. She was recently laid off from her job at a community health organization that has struggled during the pandemic, and now she pays $913 per month out of her own pocket for insurance.
In a little less than a year, at age 65, she will qualify for Medicare. But for now – and unless and until the COVID-19 relief package passes — her age is a liability. Older, pre-retirement Americans pay some of the highest health insurance premiums in the nation.
Having once worked assisting people enrolling in the health insurance exchanges, Salazar-Rodriguez went straight to the marketplace for coverage when she lost her job. But she was startled to discover how high her premiums would be — and surprised and distressed to see that, because of her income from her other work as a consultant, she is ineligible for a subsidy or Medicaid.
She opted instead for COBRA coverage, which she said was comparable in cost and had more of the benefits she needs than the unsubsidized plans she found on the ACA exchanges in that price range.
Unless something changes soon, sheworries she will have to run up her credit card and find extra work to afford her premiums. The pandemic has made forgoing insurance unthinkable, she says. Many of her loved ones have come down withCOVID-19. Some friends are still suffering symptoms months after falling ill. She lost a brother-in-law in Texas.
“That’s why I am paying that nearly $1,000 a month,” Salazar-Rodriguez says, “because I know one hospitalization could bankrupt me if I didn’t have it, and I can’t take that chance.”
Some changes to subsidy rules might become permanent
Though the subsidy fixes are temporary, lasting two years to address the economic impacts of the pandemic, experts and lawmakers expect the new subsidy criteria would eventually become permanent.
The KFF analysis found that subsidies would gradually phase out for those with higher incomes — for instance, a single 60-year-old making about $160,000 would not receive a subsidy, because no silver plan would cost more than 8.5% of his income.
Republicans oppose the bill’s proposed enhancements to ACA subsidies. Brian Blase, a senior fellow at the Galen Institute, a nonprofit group that researches free-market approaches to health reform, has criticized the proposal in a recent analysis, saying it shifts the burden of paying premiums from private payers to taxpayers without addressing the causes of high premiums.
He argues a family of four headed by a 60-year-old earning almost $240,000 could, under the proposed restructuring of the law, qualify for a nearly $9,000 subsidy.
TheWall Street Journal seized on Blase’s example in a recent op-ed. “These are not the folks hit hard by the pandemic,” the editorial staff wrote.
Many of the changes the relief package proposes date back to the originalpassage of the ACA — President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy that overhauled the nation’s health care system. At the time, those who wrote the law expected Congress would observe how it worked and make adjustments and improvements in it over time. But the law instead became a lightning rod for GOP opposition.
The latest proposal is part of the ACA’s “unfinished business,” says Keith of Georgetown University.
She notes there are other improvements that could be made – remedies for coverage gaps not addressed by this package, such as the so-called family glitch, in which a family’s eligibility for marketplace subsidies is based on the cost of job-based coverage for one individual rather than whether coverage for the family is affordable.
The current bill “is narrow compared to the wish list Democrats have, but it would do so much with premium affordability in this way right now,” Keith says.
Kaiser Health News produces in-depth journalism about health policy issues, and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs of the Kaiser Family Foundation, an endowed nonprofit.
Chansley is charged with violently entering the Capitol, among other felony charges, and prosecutors have urged the court to keep him in jail. Chansley’s attorney, Albert Watkins, did not immediately return a request for comment late Monday.
Federal prosecutors late Monday alleged that the leader of the Oath Keepers encouraged followers to come to Washington, DC, on Jan. 6 armed with non-lethal weapons and later stood outside the Capitol during the insurrection directing them toward a potential entry point.
Just after 2 p.m. on Jan. 6, according to prosecutors in a new court filing, Stewart Rhodes sent a message on the encrypted Signal app to several of his followers saying: “Come to the South Side of the Capitol on steps.” At 2:41 p.m., Rhodes, who is referred to in court filings as Person One, posted a photograph of the Capitol with the caption: “South side of US Capitol. Patriots pounding on doors.”
Monday’s filing is the clearest indication federal prosecutors have yet given that they believe Rhodes played a significant role in real-time actions on the ground on Jan. 6. Prosecutors have already charged several Oath Keepers with conspiracy for their actions at the Capitol and have described the Oath Keepers as a “loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been co-opted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights.”
Rhodes, who started the group in 2009, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Interviewed by Alex Jones for Infowars in late January, Rhodes denied playing any role in the storming of the Capitol. He has not been charged.
Although prosecutors referred to Rhodes by name in charging papers filed against Thomas Caldwell and two others arrested in mid-January, they began referring to him as Person One in subsequent filings. In a Jan. 27 filing, prosecutors wrote: “The Oath Keepers are led by Person One.” Prosecutors also quote public statements by Rhodes in their filings and attribute them to Person One.
The details about Rhodes’ Signal messages on the day of the Capitol attack came as the Department of Justice argued for the continued detention of Caldwell, a 67-year-old retired Navy officer from Virginia. Caldwell, who is not a dues paying member of the Oath Keepers, was with them at the Capitol that day and involved in their planning, including booking hotel rooms, according to the filing.
In the messages, prosecutors said, Rhodes communicated with other Oath Keepers leading up to the day’s events, advising them that the group would have “several well equipped QRFs outside DC,” using an acronym for Quick Reaction Force — heavily armed teams prepared to jump into battle.
Prosecutors have previously alleged that Oath Keepers, including Caldwell, had discussed QRFs and had made plans to use trucks or boats to ferry weapons into the District of Columbia on Jan. 6. Late last month, the government told a federal judge it had a “working understanding” that the Oath Keepers had a QRF stationed outside DC that day.
In group messages cited Monday, Rhodes had advised fellow Oath Keepers to avoid bringing items into the city that could get them arrested, such as guns; he suggested they wear eye protection, helmets, and “good hard gloves” and carry heavy flashlights that ostensibly could be used as bludgeons, according to the filing. Rhodes added that he intended to carry a collapsible baton because they “are a grey area in the law,” noting that “I’m willing to take that risk because I love ‘em.”
A grand jury has so far indicted nine people described as Oath Keepers with crimes related to the Jan. 6 insurrection; on Saturday a New York tattoo artist whom Rhodes last year designated a “lifetime Oath Keeper” was also arrested and charged.
Rhodes has repeatedly said in interviews and on social media that he felt the 2020 election was not legitimate and that Donald Trump should not relinquish the presidency. In their filing Monday, prosecutors showed texts sent by Rhodes expressing frustration that not enough was being done to stop the certification of the Electoral College by Congress.
According to prosecutors, at 1:38 p.m. on Jan 6, shortly after then-President Donald Trump finished his speech and rioters began fighting with the police outside the Capitol, Rhodes wrote to the group chat: “All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They’ve had enough.”
Just a few hours later, around 4 p.m., as rioters began exiting the Capitol, a large group of Oath Keepers “gathered around” Rhodes on the east side of the building and “stood around waiting for at least ten minutes in that location,” the court filing Monday said.
Caldwell was arrested on Jan. 19 and has been detained ever since. He has argued that he never actually entered the Capitol, that he is too physically disabled to have taken an active role in the riots, that he is not in favor of violence, and that he is not a dues-paying Oath Keeper.
The Monday filing by prosecutors responded to those arguments, citing messages sent by Caldwell as evidence that he “plays a leadership role within the Oath Keepers” and was deeply involved in planning and preparation for Jan. 6. The filing also describes him bragging to friends about his role in storming the Capitol.
“I grabbed up my American flag and said let’s take the damn capitol,” reads one text message sent by Caldwell quoted by the Justice Department. “So people started surging forward and climbing the scaffolding outside so I said lets storm the place and hang the traitors.”
Caldwell subsequently sent another text message, prosecutors said: “If we’d had guns I guarantee we would have killed 100 politicians. They ran off and were spirited away through their underground tunnels like the rats they were.”
“It’s not to say that they couldn’t loosen some of the Trump-era rules,” R. Shep Melnick, a politics professor at Boston College and the author of “The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education,” said in an interview. “But if they try to go back to the Obama-era rules, I’m pretty sure that they would lose in court.”
Jennifer Klein, who will lead the re-established White House Gender Policy Council with Julissa Reynoso, the chief of staff to Jill Biden, the first lady, told reporters on Monday that “everybody involved” in a sexual complaint, “accused and accuser,” was entitled to due process.
“The policy of this administration is that every individual, every student, is entitled to a free — a fair education free of sexual violence, and that people — all involved — have access to a fair process,” said Ms. Klein, a former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton when she was the first lady.
Victims’ rights groups hailed the Obama-era rules for reversing longstanding practices on college campuses of sweeping sexual assault claims under the rug, and for extending wide-ranging protections from obstacles that had long stymied reporting of sexual assault. The guidance instituted a broad definition for what qualified as sexual harassment, discouraged cross-examination and required schools to use the lowest evidentiary standard in adjudicating claims.
The guidance, however, was also criticized by school administrators and due-process activists, who said it amounted to an illegal edict that incentivized schools to often err on the side of complainants. Hundreds of federal and state lawsuits have been filed by students accused of sexual misconduct since 2011, when the Obama administration issued its guidance, and dozens of students have won court cases against their colleges for violating their rights under those rules.
Full $1,400 payments are slated to go to those with adjusted gross incomes of up to $75,000 for individuals, $112,500 for heads of household and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.
As with previous stimulus checks, the payments are reduced for those with income above those thresholds.
This time, however, the Senate has called to lower the income levels at which the payments get phased to zero.
Under those terms, the payments will be capped for individuals earning $80,000 in income, heads of household with $120,000 and married couples with $160,000.
Estimates indicate that change could make it so up to 12 million fewer adults may receive the stimulus money.
Another notable change is that dependents of all ages stand to be eligible for the payments. Previous checks have only includes those under 17.
Mexican migration officials on Sunday reportedly shut down a border camp for Central American migrants — sending most of the 800 residents to the US regardless of COVID-19 infection status — as a result of President Biden ending former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Many of the asylum seekers reached nearby Brownsville, Texas, where local officials said Monday there’s a growing number of infected migrants and nothing being done to enforce quarantines.
The newly released migrants were not all counted among the latest COVID-19-positive results but may add to the growing figure.
As of Saturday, 185 of 1,553 migrants tested at the Brownsville central bus station since Jan. 26 had tested positive for the virus, city spokesman Felipe Romero told Fox News.
The camp at Matamoros, Mexico, closed as after the termination of Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy for Central Americans — under which about 71,000 Central American asylum applicants were awaiting rulings in northern Mexico.
Republicans say that Biden has sparked a crisis on the US-Mexico border by sending a message that new migrants will be welcomed into the country — despite the White House saying migrants should wait to come later due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former residents of a migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, receive legal and clerical help in a parking garage in Brownsville, Texas before traveling to meet relatives or sponsors on March 2.AFP via Getty Images
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday it’s not the federal government’s job to test migrants for COVID-19 before they are released. She said that’s the responsibility of state and local governments, and that non-profits have in some cases “reserved hotel blocks” to help house COVID-19-positive people.
“When migrants are placed in alternatives to detention, their COVID-19 testing — our policy is for COVID-19 testing to be done at the state and local level and with the help of NGOs and local governments,” Psaki said.
“And that certainly is something that our policy is to have that be done, concluded before they are even moved to go stay with family members or others they may know well their cases are being adjudicated.”
Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott last week accused Biden of allowing for the “importing” of COVID-19 via the release of migrants. The governor tweeted: “The Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities. The Biden Admin. must IMMEDIATELY end this callous act that exposes Texans & Americans to COVID.”
Advocates of the “Remain in Mexico” policy say it deters asylum-seekers from entering the US despite knowing that their claim of persecution is likely to be denied.Some asylum seekers in the US are allowed work permits as their claims are processed.
Opponents of the policy say that northern Mexico can be just as dangerous as the crime-ridden Central American countries that the applicants are fleeing.
A line of migrants waiting to be processed in Matamoros, Mexico on February 26, 2021.REUTERS/Go Nakamura
Migrants who were once held in border camps in Mexico while they were being processed in the US courts for entry are no longer detained as part of the Biden administration rolling back the policy.
“The president of the United States, Biden, helps the people because it’s necessary, you know,” Mario, a Honduran migrant who spent eight months at a camp with his family and is still awaiting entry to the US, told Fox News.
The White House admitted Monday it isn’t doing enough to discourage people from seeking unlawful entry to the United States.
Psaki acknowledged the failures after being pressed about the administration’s handling of the situation.
“I would say it’s clear we need to work more on getting the message out and being very clear, now is not the time to come,” she said, before reiterating the Biden administration’s claim that “the majority of people who come to the border are turned away.”
“Yes, we have changed the policies of the last administration as it relates to unaccompanied children, but the majority of families, adults, the vast, vast majority are turned away at the border. And that is a message that clearly we need to continue to look for means and ways of getting out, you know, more and more out to the region,” she continued.
Her comments followed the revelation that under Biden, the Department of Homeland Security will convert two immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into Ellis Island-style rapid processing facilities, and has already emptied a facility in Pennsylvania.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement wrote in a court filing last Friday that while families continue to be detained at its locations in Karnes City and Dilley, adults and children are all released within 72 hours.
The Republican National Committee has responded to a cease-and-desist letter from former President Trump that demanded that the RNC and other GOP campaign committees stop using his name and likeness in their fundraising materials.
The RNC told the ex-president’s lawyer that it “has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech.” The RNC’s response was first reported by Politico.
RNC lawyer Justin Riemer, asserted that the party would continue to refer to public figures, and he stated that Mr. Trump had in fact “reaffirmed” with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel just this past weekend that he approves of the RNC’s use of his name to raise money. The RNC continued to use Mr. Trump’s name in its correspondence, including one email on Sunday that urged supporters to “DEFEND President Trump’s America First policies.”
Last week, Politico reported that attorneys for Mr. Trump sent cease-and-desist letters to the RNC, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and National Republican Senatorial Committee for — according to them — using his name in fundraising merchandise and emails. Other “faux PACs” that were also using Mr. Trump’s name also received letters.
The cease-and-desist letter to the RNC asked the committee to “immediately cease and desist the unauthorized use of President Donald J. Trump’s name, image and/or likeness in all fundraising, persuasion and/or issue speech.”
The Trump campaign and RNC joint fundraising committee, Trump Victory, raised $366 million dollars in 2019 and 2020. In his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Mr. Trump encouraged donors to give to his new PAC, Save America, which will have him competing with other GOP groups for money.
“There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts to elect America first Republican conservatives and in turn, make America great again and that’s through Save America PAC and DonaldJTrump.com,” Mr. Trump said. He repeated the fundraising pitch in a statement Monday night and said, “No more money for RINOS (Republican in name only). They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base – they will never lead us to Greatness.”
His move to control the use of his image sets up a competition with the GOP for donations that could result in giving Mr. Trump more power to recast the Republican Party in his image. While in many cases their interests will be aligned, the former president and Republicans could clash during the primaries. The RNC does not take a position in primaries, and the campaign arms of the Senate and House GOP are likely to stand by any GOP incumbents, though their levels of support may vary.
But Mr. Trump has already signaled he’s out for vengeance and looking for people to challenge the Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach him earlier this year. He has already endorsed Max Miller, a former aide who is running to unseat Ohio Congressman Anthony Gonzalez, one of the ten House Republicans who voted for Mr. Trump’s impeachment.
“Get rid of them all,” Mr. Trump said during his CPAC speech, referring to the Republicans who backed impeachment.
Jury selection in the murder trial of former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin was supposed to begin Monday as artists and activists gathered outside the barricaded Hennepin County courthouse to call for justice in the death of another Black man at the hands of police.
Instead, the day began with a confusing debate over whether it was premature to select jurors without resolving the question of whether Chauvin will face an additional charge of third-degree murder.
The defense said it planned to ask the state Supreme Court by Tuesday afternoon to review whether Chauvin, accused of killing Floyd by pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes, could face that charge. Chauvin already faces charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.
Prosecutors with the Minnesota Attorney General’s office scrambled to ask the Minnesota Court of Appeals to halt jury selection while that appeal is underway.
By lunch, potential jurors had been sent home for the day. After a series of brief hearings Monday afternoon, attorneys struck 16 jurors for cause based on their responses to a questionnaire. The day ended without a single juror stepping foot into the courtroom.
With no word Monday afternoon from the appeals court, Hennepin County District Court Judge Peter Cahill said jury selection would begin Tuesday.
“Unless the Court of Appeals tells me otherwise, we’re going to keep going,” Cahill said.
Appeals ruling on additional murder charge disrupts plans
The case against Chauvin has become a jigsaw puzzle, its prospects complicated by a separate appeals court ruling made in February.
The ruling by the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the third-degree murder conviction of ex-Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, who fatally shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond in 2017. The appeals court upheld the conviction even though the incident didn’t involve anyone other than the victim.
That contradicted a reading of the law Cahill relied on last fall to throw out a third-degree murder charge against Chauvin. After the ruling in the Noor case, prosecutors asked Cahill to reinstate that charge. He refused.
Friday, the appeals court said Cahill should not have tossed that charge because the Noor ruling was the precedent.
The Noor case, meanwhile, is set to be heard by the Minnesota Supreme Court in June.
“This is very rare and extremely unfortunate,” said Mary Moriarty, the former Hennepin County chief public defender. “It’s very rare for the parties and the judge frankly not to know the charges are when you are scheduled to start your trial, (but) everyone is doing the best they can.”
Prosecutors ‘want a clean trial’
The city of Minneapolis is in limbo after bracing for the stress of a trial that reopens wounds from last summer’s protests over police brutality, and the violence that followed. Downtown businesses are boarded up. The courthouse has been surrounded by fencing and concrete barriers.
“They’ve spent a million dollars on barricades and National Guard troops, called all the jurors in, and they had to go through security for an hour. It’s really embarrassing,” said Ted Sampsell-Jones, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in neighboring St. Paul.
Despite Cahill’s statement that he’s going forward Tuesday, legal observers say they are prepared for a delay of days or even weeks, depending on how things shake out in the two cases.
“From the Attorney General’s perspective, they don’t want to create any errors in the case,” Moriarty said. “They want a clean trial so there aren’t legitimate issues on appeal.”
The challenge for prosecutors, Moriarty said, is if they move ahead with the trial and Chauvin is convicted of third-degree murder but nothing else. That would raise the stakes of the Supreme Court’s hearing on the Noor case.
If the Supreme Court were to throw out the Noor conviction, Chauvin could appeal his conviction on those grounds.
“I have no crystal ball about what they’re going to do. I really do feel for people who have been so anxiety-ridden and traumatized,” Moriarty said. Especially when it’s so hard to understand the legal back-and-forth, “it’s just awful for the community.”
Delays add to stress for Minneapolis residents
Outside the courthouse, a group of more than 100 protesters demonstrated in front of Hennepin County Government Center for several hours. Artists and activists drenched flowers and mirrors in what appeared to be fake blood. Relatives of Black people killed by police gave speeches full of emotion.
Donna Morris, part of an anti-gun violence organization Mother’s Love, said delaying the inevitable – the trial – “only serves to keep the communities under stress.”
“Not only are we dealing with the trial, we’re dealing with the effects of the trial,” including worries about property being destroyed, Morris said while taking photos outside the courthouse.
George Floyd’s brother, Terrence Floyd, spoke at a news conference in New York Monday and said he hoped to be in Minnesota for hearings later this month.
“It’s kind of surreal right now that we have to basically relive this whole situation all over again,” Floyd said. “I’m going to get through this. I’m going to help my family get through this (and) I’m hoping and praying for the outcome that we all want.
“But you know in reality,” he said, “I’m going to say, if it don’t go that way, I just know and believe in my heart that there’s going to be change, regardless, for us as a nation.”
Follow USA TODAY National Correspondent Tami Abdollah, who is covering the Derek Chauvin trial, at https://twitter.com/latams
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An Arizona federal judge ruled Monday that the self-described “QAnon Shaman” – who garnered widespread recognition after storming the U.S. Capitol shirtless, wearing face paint, a bearskin and horned headdress on Jan. 6 – must remain jailed until his trial.
Nicholas Rodean, 26, of Frederick, Md., was photographed inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 wearing his employee badge for marketing firm back home. (Justice Department)
Judge Royce Lamberth said Jacob Chansley doesn’t fully appreciate the severity of the charges against him and found none of Chansley’s “many attempts to manipulate the evidence and minimize the seriousness of his actions” to be persuasive.
Jacob Chansley, the self-described “QAnon Shaman.” (Alexandria Sheriff’s Office)
He said Chansley’s willingness to resort to violence and refusal to follow police orders during the siege signal that he wouldn’t follow court-ordered conditions of release.
The judge wrote that Chansley carried a spear into the siege, used a bullhorn to encourage other rioters, profanely referred to then-Vice President Mike Pence as a traitor while in the Senate, and wrote a note to the Pence saying, “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”
Albert Ciarpelli (U.S. District Court for District of Columbia) ((U.S. District Court for District of Columbia))
Chansley, who disputed that the note was intended to be threatening, also made a social media post in November in which he promoted hangings for traitors.
“Reading that note in the context of defendant’s earlier promotion of the execution of ‘traitors’ invalidates the notion that defendant breached the Capitol merely to leave peaceful, political commentary on the Senate dais,” Lamberth wrote, adding that Chansey’s actions have demonstrated a “detachment from reality.”
The judge sided with prosecutors who argued that the 6-inch spear mounted atop the flagpole carried by Chansley into the Capitol was a dangerous weapon. His attorney had characterized the spear as an ornament.
Chansley’s attorney also said his client was in the third wave of rioters who went into the Capitol. But the judge said video shows Chansley, who entered through Capitol through a doorway as rioters smashed nearby windows, “quite literally spearheaded” the rush into the building.
He has been jailed since his arrest in the days after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over then-President Donald Trump.
Chansley’s attorney, Al Watkins, said his client didn’t act violently inside the Capitol and disputed that Chansley was any sort of leader in the riot.
Of the 3.4 million farmers in the United States today, only 45,000 are Black, according to the USDA, down from 1 million a century ago. Black farmland ownership peaked in 1910 at 16 to 19 million acres, about 14 percent of total agricultural land, according to the Census of Agriculture. A century later, 90 percent of that land had been lost. White farmers now account for 98 percent of the acres, according to USDA data.
This is not the way Republicans wanted to begin the year.
Missouri’s Roy Blunt on Monday became the fifth Republican senator to announce he will not seek reelection, a retirement wave that portends an ugly campaign season next year and gives Democrats fresh hope in preserving their razor-thin Senate majority.
History suggests Republicans are still well-positioned to reclaim at least one chamber of Congress next year. But officials in both parties agree that the surge of GOP departures will make the Republicans’ challenge more difficult in the Senate.
“Any time you lose an incumbent, it’s bad news,” said Republican strategist Rick Tyler, who briefly worked for failed Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin nearly a decade ago. “Missouri’s not necessarily a safe state for Republicans. Democrats have won there.”
The 71-year-old Blunt’s exit is a reminder of how the nation’s politics have shifted since the rise of Donald Trump. Blunt and his retiring GOP colleagues from Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Alabama represent an old guard who fought for conservative policies but sometimes resisted the deeply personal attacks and uneven governance that dominated the Trump era.
Their departures will leave a void likely to be filled by a new generation of Republicans more willing to embrace Trumpism — or by Democrats.
Several Missouri Republicans are expected to seek the nomination to replace Blunt, but none will be more divisive than former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned in 2018 amid the fallout of a sex scandal and ethics investigation. Missouri’s Republican base has since rallied behind him, believing he was unfairly prosecuted.
Greitens was considering running for the GOP nomination even before Blunt’s announcement. He is expected to announce his candidacy as soon as Tuesday morning.
Two leading Missouri Democrats, former Sen. Claire McCaskill and 2016 Senate candidate Jason Kander, both said they would not run for the open seat.
Ahead of Greitens’ announcement, some Republicans worried that he could jeopardize the Senate seat if he emerges as the party’s nominee.
Steven Law, a key ally of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and CEO of the Senate Leadership Fund, warned that Republicans may be beginning to repeat the mistakes of 2010, when the GOP lost the Senate majority by embracing flawed far-right candidates.
Law cited Greitens’ looming announcement specifically.
“We have an opportunity to win back a majority,” Law said. “But in 2010, that opportunity was lost on the Senate side because of unelectable candidates who got nominated.”
Back in 2010, tea party favorite Christine O’Donnell beat a longtime GOP congressman in the Delaware Senate primary before losing by a landslide in the general election following reports of personal financial difficulties, questionable use of campaign funds and allegations that she had “dabbled into witchcraft.”
Two years later in Indiana, Richard Mourdock defeated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the 2012 GOP primary, but he imploded after a debate in which he said pregnancy resulting from rape “is something that God intended.” In Missouri, Republican nominee Akin lost after he insisted on a local talk show that women’s bodies have ways to avoid pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape.”
In the decade since Akin’s debacle, Missouri’s politics, like the nation’s, have evolved in a way that gives both parties opportunities.
States like Missouri, Ohio and Iowa, recently considered swing states, are trending away from Democrats. At the same time, previous red states like North Carolina and Georgia are trending away from Republicans.
Missouri hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since McCaskill beat Akin in 2012. Trump carried the state last November by 15 percentage points. Trump carried Ohio, where Republican Sen. Rob Portman will not seek reelection next year, by 8 percentage points. The former president won by the same margin in Iowa, where 87-year-old Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is considering retirement.
Democrats are expected to be more competitive in North Carolina, where Trump eked out a victory by just 1 percentage point, and in Wisconsin, should Republican Sen. Ron Johnson follow through with a campaign promise not to seek more than two terms.
Democrats have not lost any incumbents to retirement, but they are defending vulnerable incumbents in Georgia and Arizona, among others.
They have no margin for error. Republicans will claim the Senate majority for the last two years of President Joe Biden’s term if they pick up even one additional seat next November.
The party that occupies the White House traditionally suffers significant losses in the first midterm election of a new president. President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party, for example, lost 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate in 2010.
Democrats are hopeful that Trump will become an unwitting ally in 2022. The former Republican president has vowed to play an active role in the midterms, particularly by supporting pro-Trump candidates in primary elections. That leaves little room for well-established Republicans like Blunt who are popular statewide.
“The challenge for Republicans will be the race to the bottom in the Republican primaries,” said Morgan Jackson, a leading Democratic strategist based in North Carolina. “It’s not about what you say, it’s about how loud and angry you say it. That’s a very different view of the world.”
Jackson said “it’s a safe bet” Republicans will win the House majority, but he’s optimistic that Trump’s meddling in Senate primaries will help limit Democrats’ losses.
“Maybe it won’t be a good cycle, but maybe it won’t be a bad cycle,” he said.
J.B. Poersch, who leads the Democratic-allied Senate Majority PAC, noted that Republicans are focused on the nation’s culture wars, while Democrats are in the process of sending billions of dollars to working-class Americans affected by the pandemic. That contrast will help Democrats, he said.
“There is a working-family economic argument that Democrats can still make in the middle of the country, in places like Missouri and Ohio, and keep them competitive,” he said.
Meanwhile, Blunt predicted political success for Republicans in Missouri and beyond during a Monday news conference. He also reflected upon the 2010 election, when Democrats were punished nationwide after embracing Obama’s fiscal stimulus and health care overhaul.
“I think 2022 will be a great year in the country and I think it will be a fine year in this Senate race,” Blunt told reporters. “The Republican Party will be just fine.”
Full $1,400 payments are slated to go to those with adjusted gross incomes of up to $75,000 for individuals, $112,500 for heads of household and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.
As with previous stimulus checks, the payments are reduced for those with income above those thresholds.
This time, however, the Senate has called to lower the income levels at which the payments get phased to zero.
Under those terms, the payments will be capped for individuals earning $80,000 in income, heads of household with $120,000 and married couples with $160,000.
Estimates indicate that change could make it so up to 12 million fewer adults may receive the stimulus money.
Another notable change is that dependents of all ages stand to be eligible for the payments. Previous checks have only includes those under 17.
Republican senators proposed limits on who can cast absentee ballots after a record number of Georgians voted remotely last year. Over 1.3 million people voted absentee in the presidential election, which is more than a quarter of the state’s total turnout of 5 million.
Democrats said the measure, Senate Bill 241, is based on former Republican President Donald Trump’s “big lie” that he had won the election. Recounts, both by hand and machine, verified that Democrat Joe Biden won Georgia by about 12,000 votes.
“America is at a turning point right now. Our democracy is in peril and our society divided along increasingly partisan lines,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta. “It will not work. Voters see through transparent attempts to cling to power through suppressive and anti-democratic means.”
Republicans said additional safeguards are needed to restore voter confidence and prevent the possibility of voter fraud, but state election officials from their party have said there’s no evidence of widespread fraud. GOP senators didn’t question the results of their own races.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton, said the bill was designed to ease the workload on election officials burdened by so many absentee ballots while also accommodating in-person voters.
“This is not preventing anyone from voting,” Dugan said. “All this is doing is laying the groundwork to release some of the stresses we’ll see in the future as we continue to grow.”
Providing the facts and context that help readers understand the current debate over voting laws is a priority for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For a better understanding of the issues driving Legislative action, click on these links.
Any registered voter has been allowed to cast an absentee ballot without having to give a reason since 2005 under a bill passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly. Georgia is one of 34 states that doesn’t require an excuse to vote from home, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
If the bill becomes law, about 2.8 million of Georgia’s 7.7 million registered voters would remain eligible to vote by absentee ballot, Dugan said.
State Sen. Nikki Merritt, D-Grayson, said efforts to reduce voting access in SB 241 are based on perceptions, ignoring the reality that the presidential election was accurate.
“The purpose of 241 and all of the vote-limiting bills we have before us is to validate a lie. It is to prevent massive voter turnout from happening again, especially in minority communities,” Merritt said. “Don’t find yourselves on the wrong side of history.”
But state Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan, said lawmakers needed to respond to the concerns of their constituents.
“When an election result is not believed, when people believe results have been tampered with, the people can lose faith in their government,” Brass said. “We still need the people of Georgia to believe in the process, and right now they are unconvinced.”
More Republicans than Democrats usually voted absentee in prior election years, but Biden won two-thirds of absentee votes last fall after Trump criticized absentee voting. Then in January runoffs for the U.S. Senate, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock defeated Republican incumbents.
An analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that Black voters would bear the brunt of proposed absentee voting restrictions. About 31% of absentee ballots in November’s election were cast by Black voters, an increase from 23% in 2016. Meanwhile, absentee voting by white voters dropped from 67% to 54% in that period.
Georgia voters embraced absentee voting last year amid the coronavirus pandemic, when doctors and election officials cautioned the public to avoid human contact at the polls. In previous elections, no more than 220,000 people voted absentee in Georgia.
The sweeping legislation also would establish a hotline to the attorney general’s office to report election irregularities, give the General Assembly the power to throw out emergency election polices set by the State Election Board, allow state intervention in low-performing local election boards, and limit voting buses to emergencies.
Supporters and opponents of the bills rallied at the Georgia Capitol as senators cast votes.
Arianne Hampton of Cherokee County brandished a sign that urged legislators to “bring integrity to our elections!”
Hampton said she wants to see all of the Republicans’ bills enacted. She said she has no confidence in Georgia’s election system. She’s especially concerned by the volume of mail-in ballots, saying “the system can’t handle it.”
“The goal is to have a fair election for everyone, no matter what party,” Hampton said.
Nearby, Al Herring of Stone Mountain sat with several dozen opponents of the Republican bills.
Herring wore duct tape over his face-masked mouth and fake chains on his arms to demonstrate his belief that the Republican legislation will suppress minority votes. On the duct tape he wrote the numbers of two of the biggest election bills, House Bill 531 and SB 241.
Herring said his group is standing up for voting rights for everyone.
“Modern voting methods are being opposed,” Herring said. “We’re trying to form a more perfect union. It’s not just one group. It’s all of us.”
Now that major election bills have passed both the Senate and House, the committee process starts over in the other chamber.
The Senate Ethics Committee will take up House Bill 531, which would restrict early voting hours on weekends, limit ballot drop boxes and require more voter ID for absentee voting.
The House Elections Integrity Committee will debate Senate Bill 241, which would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting as well as impose additional ID requirements.
All bills must pass both chambers by the end of this year’s legislative session on March 31 to have a chance of becoming law. Then Gov. Brian Kemp will decide whether to sign or veto them.
Jury selection was delayed for at least a day in the murder case against Derek Chauvin, the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd on a Minneapolis street corner nearly 10 months ago.
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said he wants to hear from the state Court of Appeals about the prosecution’s desire to revive a third-degree murder charge to the counts of second-degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death last May, which was captured on a bystander’s cellphone video and broadcast around the world.
Cahill, who threw out the disputed count last fall, sent the prospective jurors home for the day ahead of bringing them back on Tuesday.
“Unless the Court of Appeals tells me otherwise, we’re going to keep moving,” Cahill said as court adjourned shortly before 3 p.m.
Chauvin, dressed in a navy blue suit and tie and wearing a black mask, looked on intently while attorneys and the judge discussed motions and other matters, occasionally taking notes on a yellow legal pad.
Proceedings resumed at 1:43 p.m. CST Monday for the airing of dozens of motions. After slightly more than an hour, Cahill adjourned the case until 8 a.m., with jury selection coming soon afterward as the appeals process looms large over the case calendar.
Gallery: Derek Chauvin trial: Court adjourned for the day, jury selection expected to begin Tuesday unless appeals court intervenes
In the meantime, prosecutors filed a petition to the state Court of Appeals to stop jury selection until the appeals court rules on whether Cahill has jurisdiction while the third-degree murder charge is pending. If trial proceeds, they argued, Chauvin is in a “Heads I win, tails you lose” scenario because he could take his chances at trial, and if convicted, can appeal with the claim that Cahill lacked jurisdiction when jury selection began.
“There is no need for this kind of uncertainty in any case, let alone a case of this magnitude,” the state wrote in its petition.
“The state is fully ready to go to trial, but the trial must be conducted in accordance with the rules and the law,” Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is leading the prosecution team, said in a statement late Monday morning. “Now that Mr. Chauvin has stated his intention to appeal Friday’s Court of Appeals ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court, as is his right, the District Court does not have jurisdiction to conduct jury selection or hear and rule on other substantive matters in the trial.”
Cahill initially said he would start jury selection with the third-degree murder issue unresolved. Finding an impartial panel is sure to be a meticulous task that could take up to three weeks to accomplish before an anticipated March 29 date for opening statements from the defense and the prosecution.
Chauvin’s defense attorney, Eric Nelson, said he intends to ask the State Supreme Court to overturn a Court of Appeals ruling Friday that directed Cahill to reinstate the third-degree murder charge against the former cop.
But Nelson also said he was ready to begin trial with the charge still pending. He said he expected to petition to the Supreme Court as soon as Tuesday.
“I want to inform the court that we’re prepared to try this case,” he said. “It is not our intent to cause delay. However, I feel I have an ethical obligation to my client to [petition the Supreme Court].”
Prosecutor Matthew Frank contended that proceedings are best to be delayed.
“This court will be seating jurors for a trial about which we don’t know what the exact charges are going to be yet,” Frank said. “What we are asking the court to do is stop the jury selection process at this time.”
Cahill contended that the third-degree murder charge is a narrow issue and questioned whether a jury could continue to be seated before that charge is resolved. Waiting for the Supreme Court to rule, the judge cautioned, could delay the trial by at least 30 days.
“We want it out in the open, we don’t want to wait for a condition that may not get satisfied when a jury is sitting there,” Frank said. “We’re not trying to delay this case, we want to try it right, and we can only try it once.”
During the afternoon’s back and forth over motions, both sides agreed to witness sequestration, or not allowing witnesses to watch the trial before or after they testify. Expert witnesses can watch the testimony of other expert witnesses in order to prepare counterarguments.
The prosecution and defense also agreed that the current list of potential witnesses, totaling anywhere from 350 to 400, will be dramatically reduced to what the judge called “actual witnesses” and shared with each side by March 22, a week before opening statements are scheduled to be made.
Chauvin’s attorney rekindled a push to change the judge’s mind and win permission to reference at trial a 2019 arrest of Floyd in Minneapolis that bore similarities in terms of the drugs that were found in his vehicle and his response to police.
Nelson argued that the earlier arrest shows that Floyd reacted in a nearly identical manner by ingesting illicit drugs when confronted by police and did so on the night he was detained and died.
The judge, while not outright rejecting the notion, said, “I’m not convinced yet to reverse my ruling. … The bottom line is it’s not of relevance to me.” He pointed out that Chauvin was not part of the earlier arrest and there’s been no evidence of what he know about that encounter.
Floyd died after the 46-year-old Black man was pinned under the knee of the white officer for roughly 9 minutes touching off days of violent demonstrations in Minneapolis, neighboring St. Paul and across the country.
On Monday, outside the Hennepin County Government Center, hundreds of protesters mingled on a mild and sunny late-winter morning. Some were selling or giving away flowers. Posters with activist messages were attached to barricades and chain-link fencing that rings the building. Law enforcement personnel and heavy vehicles were obvious in their presence but modest in number.
Three other fired officers implicated in Floyd’s death are scheduled for a single trial in August.
The 18th-floor courtroom has been revamped to allow for social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Big clear plastic dividers separate the judge and court staff from the limited number of other people in the courtroom. Clear dividers also run down the middle of the defense and prosecution tables.
Staff writer Rochelle Olson contributed to this report.
The third — and maybe the last — stimulus payments may indeed start showing up soon. But here’s an early warning: If you don’t get a stimulus check this time around, it could be because you’re never going to get one.
Roughly 6.5 million households that received money in the past now won’t be able to bank on receiving either the full $1,400 payment or even a partial payment when it comes to the latest Economic Impact Payments, according to estimates by the nonprofit, non-partisan Tax Foundation.
The rules relating to who qualifies and who doesn’t based on income changed this round.
Singles earning $80,000 or more won’t get a check. Married couples earning $160,000 or more won’t get a check.
But there’s another option: If a single filer made more than $80,000 in 2020 but ends up making less than that in 2021, the taxpayer could claim an Economic Impact Payment based on their 2021 income when they file a tax return during the tax season next year. The same is true for a married couple who did well in 2020 but might make less than $160,000 in 2021.
The Senate approved the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill Saturday and the House is set to vote Tuesday, paving the way for President Joe Biden to possibly sign the legislation into law this week.
How the IRS calculates the third stimulus
The Internal Revenue Service will use information, including your income, from your 2019 return to calculate the next Economic Impact Payment, if your 2020 tax return isn’t filed and processed by the time the IRS starts issuing the third stimulus payments.
The third stimulus payment is based on such things as whether you’re filing single or married filing a joint return, how many dependents you have, and your adjusted gross income.
The latest goal is to better target the COVID-19 relief cash to households that may need the money the most, including families that have been unable to receive unemployment or other benefits and have experienced a financial hardship during the pandemic.
Under the latest program, additional payments could go to all dependents, not just children 16 and younger. As part of the third stimulus, all dependents — regardless of age — qualify for up to an extra $1,400. As a result, college students age 23 or younger could qualify, or so could elderly parents living with you, according to the measure that passed the Senate on Saturday.
Who is at risk of seeing smaller payouts
The latest program creates a sharp drop-off in the households that will receive payments and in the partial payment amounts, said Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst for the Tax Foundation.
The full $1,400 goes to single people earning up to $75,000. But it phases out quickly after that and is completely phased out for those earning more than $80,000.
A full payment of $2,800 goes to a married couple filing a joint federal income tax return earning up to $150,000. The phaseout begins after that and ends at $160,000.
“This creates an implicit marginal tax at the phaseout range,” Watson said.
Someone might be less willing, for example, to pick up an extra $1,500 or more in income this year if they’re already making $75,000 because they’d lose some decent stimulus cash along the way.
Watson said the latest phaseout range isn’t ideal tax policy.
“It can dissuade people around that income range from earning more income this year when looking ahead to their 2021 tax filing,” Watson said.
What did previous stimulus programs cover?
The first two stimulus programs used a more generous income range.
The past stimulus payments — those for the first and second programs — were gradually reduced for singles with an an adjusted gross income between $75,000 and $100,000 and for married couples who are joint filers with an AGI between $150,000 and $200,000.
The first stimulus checks — which began rolling out in April 2020 — were up to $1,200 for individuals and up to $2,400 for a married couple. An extra $500 was offered for dependents age 16 and younger.
The second stimulus checks — which began rolling out in January — were up to $600 for individuals and up to $1,200 for a married couple. An extra $600 was offered for dependents age 16 and younger.
The money itself for next round of stimulus payments could roll out in a similar fashion to the last two stimulus payments.
Those who will receive direct deposits will see the money the soonest. Paper checks would take a bit longer.
Watson said filers with direct deposit information could expect the payments within about two weeks of the bill becoming law, similar to the timeline with the direct payments after the second stimulus was signed into law by the president on Dec. 27.
“Paper checks and prepaid debit cards may take longer, through April at least,” he predicted.
“The IRS tends to prioritize those with lower AGIs first when sending out those payments.”
And there is the issue that the Internal Revenue Service is smack in the middle of the tax season. But experts say the IRS has had time to prepare for the next round of checks, so that might not be an issue.
Some households could still experience delays in getting that money.
A group of customers of a variety of tax firms, including Jackson Hewitt, H&R Block and TurboTax, faced issues during the first stimulus rollout and again during the second rollout.
Many of those upset customers had taken out refund advances or agreed to have their tax preparation fees taken out of their tax refunds. Temporary bank accounts were set up by tax preparation firms — and later closed — as part of that process. But stimulus money wasn’t getting to those taxpayers quickly because the IRS initially sent money to those temporary accounts.
Watson said the IRS has been working on this ongoing problem related to tax prep software using temporary accounts to advance taxpayer refunds.
“This will need to be coordinated again during this tax season, too, as many filers will opt for this method and the direct payment could get stuck in the temporary account set up by tax prep software,” he said.
“The IRS is aware of and working on this issue, though.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts broke with his colleagues on the court, filing a solo dissent for the first time in his nearly 16 years on the bench.
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Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts broke with his colleagues on the court, filing a solo dissent for the first time in his nearly 16 years on the bench.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET
For the first time in his nearly 16 years on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts has filed a solo dissent. In it, he bluntly accused his colleagues of a “radical expansion” of the court’s jurisdiction.
At issue was a case brought by two college students at Georgia Gwinnett College who were repeatedly blocked from making religious speeches and distributing religious literature on campus. They sued the college, claiming a violation of their First Amendment free speech rights.
The college soon caved, agreeing to abandon the challenged policies and pay the students’ legal fees. But when the students sought to continue their case, on the grounds that they had asked for nominal damages, the lower courts dismissed the case as moot.
The dismissal meant that while the students ultimately got everything they asked for, the case did not stand as a precedent; it was not a marker in the law that would hold other colleges similarly accountable.
Now, however, the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise. In an 8-1 vote, it declared that because the students had also asked for nominal damages of $1, the case was not moot and they could go back to court seeking a formal judicial ruling in their favor.
“Nominal damages are not a consolation prize,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the court majority. “Despite being small, nominal damages are certainly concrete. … a person who is awarded nominal damages receives ‘relief on the merits of his claim.’ “
In his dissent, Roberts noted that there “are just a few problems” with the students’ desire to continue their lawsuit.
“The challenged restrictions no longer exist,” he said. “And [the students] have not alleged actual damages.”
The case, he added, is therefore moot because there is no live pending legal question.
If nominal damages, “no matter how trivial,” can preserve a case as live in the courts after all the significant issues have been disposed of — and when, as here, the award of that nominal amount “does not change [the students’] status or condition” — all that has changed is that the award “represents a judicial determination” that the students were right.
And that, Roberts said, would turn U.S. courts into something the founders specially rejected — a body rendering “advisory opinions.”
“The Court sees no problem with turning judges into advice columnists,” Roberts wrote.
Roberts rejected the basic premise of Thomas’ majority opinion, which rests in large part on 18th-century English common law. Roberts replied that English common law is “in many respects irreconcilable with ‘the role assigned to the judiciary’ ” in the U.S. Constitution.
“A major expansion”
Roberts noted that while English common law was derived from the crown and permitted advisory opinions, the framers of the Constitution “specifically rejected [that premise] by separating the Executive from the Judiciary and limiting the courts to deciding actual cases and controversies.”
“Today’s decision risks a major expansion of the judicial role. Until now, we have said that federal courts can review the legality of policies and actions only as necessary incident to resolving real disputes. Going forward, the Judiciary will be required to perform this function whenever a plaintiff asks for a dollar.”
Thursday’s ruling is “a big deal,” said Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell, who as a federal judge wrote on this subject.
“Now every lawyer worth his salt will add a claim of nominal damages” to every lawsuit, McConnell said.
The purpose will be to force courts to make decisions about cases where the merits have been resolved by the opposing sides voluntarily but the nominal claim for damages remains.
The results of Thursday’s decision are simply unclear, University of Virginia law professor Ann Woolhandler said. The decision is out of keeping with other recent Supreme Court decisions, she observed.
$1 and a dream
What would happen if the defendant just paid the $1?
The court majority seemed to suggest that this might end the case. Whenever a plaintiff asks for only $1, the defendant should be able to end the case by giving the plaintiff $1, without the court needing to pass on the merits of the plaintiff’s claim, Thomas said in his majority opinion.
Roberts called that a “welcome caveat” that could save the federal courts from issuing “reams” of advisory opinions. But, he added, “For over two centuries, the Correspondence of the Justices has stood as a reminder that federal courts cannot give answers simply because someone asks.”
Thursday’s opinion turns that constitutional limitation on its head, he said; it instead encourages litigants to “fight over farthings.”
The mustachioed, press-shy Allen Weisselberg has served as the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer for decades, as well as Trump’s personal bookkeeper. Now he’s a subject of a wide-ranging inquiry from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, The New York Times reported.
Prosecutors are looking into “flipping” Weisselberg into cooperating with an investigation into Trump’s finances, The Washington Post reported. Weisselberg, 73, has served the Trump family since the 1970s and was the only person who’s not a member of Trump’s family to oversee his trust while he was president. Prosecutors are zeroing in on Weisselberg’s two sons, both of whom also have close ties to the Trump Organization, The Post reported.
Given his vast familiarity with the Trump family’s finances and its network of companies, Weisselberg could be the most important source for any investigation into Trump’s finances.
He has also worked with prosecutors before.
Weisselberg knows more about the Trump Organization’s finances than anyone else
Weisselberg got his start with the Trump family in the 1970s as a bookkeeper for Fred Trump.
Over the years, he ascended the ranks of the Trump Organization to become its chief financial officer, and he has held the keys to the family’s financial life as well. (While other reports refer to him as an accountant, Weisselberg does not hold a certified public accountant license, according to New York state records.)
“There’s a misconception about the Trump Organization that it’s this big, massive company with 10,000 employees,” Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and an ex-vice president for the Trump Organization, said in congressional testimony. “It’s not. I mean, the entire company was really run by 12 of us.”
Weisselberg’s name made headlines in 2018 and 2019 as federal prosecutors investigated Cohen’s hush-money payments ahead of the 2016 election to women who accused Trump of having affairs with them.
Michael Cohen.
Craig Ruttle/AP Images
Cohen released a tape in which he mentions Weisselberg while appearing to discuss how to facilitate the payments and what they might mean for the Trump Organization. And while Cohen ultimately pleaded guilty to federal crimes in connection with the scheme, The Wall Street Journal reported Weisselberg received immunity for cooperating with the investigators in the Southern District of New York who prosecuted Cohen.
While the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office likely has all the documents it needs for its investigation, Jeff Robbins, a former federal prosecutor who oversaw money-laundering investigations, said that having someone like Weisselberg guide it through all the evidence could be enormously helpful.
“I’m sure the records have been turned over by the hundreds and thousands,” Robbins told Insider. “However, it sure makes it a lot easier if you have somebody who can walk the prosecutors through the documents and explain the sequence, and who would have had direct conversations with Trump.”
Unlike Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, Trump’s sons who play leading roles in his company, Weisselberg has made few forays into politics. New York state voter-registration records reviewed by Insider show that he’s a registered Republican living in Manhattan’s Upper West Side (his building previously carried Trump branding, but it has since been removed), but he didn’t donate to any of his boss’ presidential campaigns.
Cohen leaves federal court in New York.
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
Weisselberg also donated to former Illinois Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, a Democrat who led the House’s powerful Ways and Means Committee, in 1994. The donation came a month before Rostenkowski was criminally indicted for his role in a corruption scandal that ultimately led to his resignation and a guilty plea on mail-fraud charges.
Weisselberg and his wife have a home in Boynton Beach, Florida, a short drive away from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. They’re involved in a lawsuit with their homeowner-insurance company over damage from 2017’s Hurricane Irma.
Mary Mulligan, an attorney representing Weisselberg at Friedman Kaplan Seiler & Adelman LLP, declined to comment for this story.
His family’s financial ties with the Trump Organization go into legal gray areas
The Trumps have always seemed to have a porous wall between their personal finances and their businesses and foundations. In 2019, Trump paid $2 million to settle a lawsuit the New York Attorney General’s Office brought. It alleged he used resources from the Trump Foundation to boost his political fortunes.
These legal grey areas appear to extend to Weisselberg and his family, putting them under scrutiny from prosecutors.
Trump along with his children Eric, left, Ivanka, and Donald Jr. Allen Weisselberg is second from the right.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
In November 2000, according to Bloomberg News, Trump gave a unit at Trump Parc East, a condominium building at 100 Central Park South, to Weisselberg and his wife, Hilary. Records reviewed by Insider showed it had a sale price of $152,500, an eye-poppingly low price for prime Manhattan real estate.
The couple sold it to their son Jack Weisselberg in 2003 for $148,000, who sold it for $570,000 in 2006, Bloomberg News reported.
Jack Weisselberg works as a finance director at Ladder Capital, according to his LinkedIn page. The firm is one of Trump’s primary real-estate lenders. It loaned him $280 million to finance four of his Manhattan properties, according to records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Barry Weisselberg, another one of Allen Weisselberg’s sons, has even closer and more complicated financial ties with the Trumps. He’s an employee at the Trump Organization and had managed the Wollman ice-skating rink in Central Park, which until recently was run by the company through a contract with New York City.
Wollman Rink on January 14 in Central Park after the city severed several contracts with the Trump Organization.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
He, too, received an apartment at the Trump Parc East building. According to Bloomberg News, Barry and his now-ex-wife Jennifer Weisselberg received it as a wedding gift in the mid-2000s from Trump and paid only utilities, about $400 a month. When the couple moved out, it was rented out for nearly $5,000 a month, and a Trump-owned entity sold it for $2.8 million in 2014, according to Bloomberg.
But while Barry and Jennifer Weisselberg both lived there, Barry listed it as a corporate apartment in his divorce proceedings, Bloomberg News reported. But their tax returns, according to Bloomberg News, didn’t always list the apartment as a corporate perk. The designation may mean that Barry Weisselberg and the Trump Organization itself may have not paid the correct amount of taxes on the apartment, Bloomberg’s Caleb Melby reported.
That apartment — and its tax ramifications — are a subject of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s investigation, according to The Washington Post.
“On the question of where Allen Weisselberg stands in the evidence pyramid, he stands right below Donald Trump himself,” Robbins, now an attorney at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, told Insider. “So it does appear to be an exploration on the part of the DA’s office as to whether or not they can flip Allen Weisselberg by leveraging one of his two sons.”
The Trump Parc East building on May 31, 2016, in New York.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
The investigation into the Weisselbergs grew out of Vance’s investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings with other companies, including Deutsche Bank and Ladder Capital. Jack Weisselberg is also a subject of the probe, though it’s unclear if he had any role in loans Ladder Capitol gave to the Trump Organization, according to Bloomberg News.
The Trump Organization also gave Barry Weisselberg an Upper East Side townhouse while he was in the divorce process in 2018, Bloomberg News reported. It isn’t clear how Weisselberg and the Trump Organization treated it in tax filings.
While Allen Weisselberg seems to have been loyal to the Trump family for years, Robbin said the pressure on his family could flip him.
“The likelihood of him cooperating goes up significantly if, in fact, the prosecutors have criminal charges that can reasonably be brought against his sons,” Robbins said. “For the simple human reason that what father would not do something unpleasant in order to help his sons out of a legal jam?”
Apartments seem to be a common perk for Trump employees. Cohen also had an apartment in one of Trump’s buildings while working for the mogul, and former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks stayed in one “rent-free” during Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to The Times. Matthew Calamari, Trump’s longtime head of security, also has a home in the Trump Parc East building, according to records reviewed by Insider.
Jack Weisselberg and representatives for Ladder Capital didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment. Barry Weisselberg couldn’t be reached for comment. Jennifer Weisselberg didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The chief financial officer testified for federal prosecutors in Manhattan who secured Cohen’s guilty plea. Weisselberg helped the Trump Organization reimburse Cohen the $130,000 hush-money payment he made to Stormy Daniels, the adult-film actress who said she had sex with Trump during Melania Trump’s pregnancy.
Weisselberg’s name didn’t appear in the charging documents against Cohen, and he was never charged for his participation in the scheme.
Cohen arrives for his sentencing in the Manhattan on December 12, 2018.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Cohen hasn’t forgiven Weisselberg. When the news broke that prosecutors were looking into Weisselberg’s family, he spoke out on Twitter.
“Remember that Allen Weisselberg received (federal) immunity from the SDNY to provide information and testify against me for the @StormyDaniels payment. #KarmaBoomerang,” Cohen wrote.
Weisselberg told prosecutors he had little knowledge of the Trump Foundation’s operations and testified he had no knowledge that he was on the Trump Foundation’s board of directors in a deposition transcript reviewed by Insider.
But he did testify that the foundation was used to boost Trump’s campaign in 2016. James’ office used the testimony in its lawsuit against the Trump Foundation, and a judge forced Trump to pay a $2 million fine.
Weisselberg’s vast knowledge of Trump’s finances has made him a target in civil lawsuits as well.
He was a defendant in a 2017 lawsuit from William Weinstein, a New York resident who sought to create a mechanism to ensure that Trump wouldn’t take foreign profits as president through the Trump Organization. It was dismissed in short order, with the judge ruling that Weinstein didn’t have the standing to sue. Trump has steadfastly refused to release financial records, and The New York Times reported Trump had paid far more in foreign taxes over the past two decades than in US taxes.
He’s been less helpful in an ongoing investigation from the New York AG
Weisselberg also testified in a different investigation, which is ongoing, into Trump’s finances from James’ office, sitting for a deposition under subpoena in July and August.
“When examined by OAG, however, Mr. Weisselberg testified that he had no first-hand knowledge of this fact, had not reviewed the relevant documents to confirm that any such understanding was true, could not identify any return on which the forgiveness was treated as income, and instead was relying solely upon his recollection of conversations he had years earlier with the Trump Organization’s accountants concerning the tax treatment of the amount of the debt that was forgiven,” the filing said.
Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Getty Images; Joshua Rashaad McFadden/Getty Images
The Trump Organization refused to furnish the relevant tax documents, attorneys for the attorney general’s office wrote in the filing.
Weisselberg was similarly unhelpful when asked about Seven Springs, a property in upstate New York that Trump has treated as a tax write-off for nature conservation, according to The Washington Post, even though family members have said it’s a personal residence.
The lack of information Weisselberg gave in his testimony led the attorney general’s office to subpoena the Trump Organization for its tax documents, prosecutors wrote.
Fox News contributor Kayleigh McEnany sounds off on ‘The Story’ on president’s absence from press room
Former White House Press Secretary and Fox News contributor Kayleigh McEnany told “The Story” on Monday that she warned the press corps in the final days of the Trump administration that the suddenly rare appearances by Donald Trump would be a primer for how the Biden administration would interact with the media.
MCENANY: I actually warned some of the reporters there in the press corps. In the waning days of the Trump administration, he didn’t do as much press availabilities every day as he walked to [Marine One] or those press conferences.
I said to the correspondents, ‘You’re getting a little taste of what it will be like in the Biden administration.’ I said I wouldn’t expect to see much of him. We haven’t. We’re still waiting on that solo press conference, we’re still waiting for the day, apparently by the end of the month.
Blunt, 71, has been a mainstay in Washington politics and the Republican establishment for more than two decades. First elected to the House in the 1996 GOP wave, Blunt served as House Republican whip before jumping to the Senate.
In announcing his retirement, Blunt joins GOP Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Richard Shelby of Alabama and Richard Burr of North Carolina, all of whom opted against seeking reelection in 2022. Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have yet to reveal their plans.
Blunt voted to acquit Trump in the former president’s most recent impeachment trial in the Senate but occasionally broke with the former president throughout his term. Blunt’s decision, combined with the other four senators not seeking reelection, could suggest a level of discomfort with the direction of the party, especially with Trump looming over the GOP’s future. But his retirement gives Trump’s wing of the party an opportunity to gain significant ground in the Senate.
Missouri is not likely to be a competitive state for Democrats on the Senate map next year — Trump won the state by 15 percentage points last year —though Blunt’s retirement is likely to set off a competitive primary battle to replace him and could give Democrats a chance to expand their 50-50 Senate majority.
The jockeying to replace Blunt is expected to begin in earnest. Just last week, Missouri’s scandal-plagued former Gov. Eric Greitens said he was “evaluating” whether to run for the seat in 2022. Other potential GOP candidates include Rep. Ann Wagner, Rep. Jason Smith, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, state Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, whose father, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, once held the state’s other Senate seat.
Ashcroft indicated in a statement that he is considering making a run for Blunt’s seat, writing: “It is imperative that Republicans take back the Senate in 2022.”
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, vowed that Republicans “will hold this seat” and said the Senate GOP campaign arm “will work tirelessly” to do so.
Blunt narrowly defeated Democrat Jason Kander in 2016, but Trump carried Missouri handily twice. Kander indicated on Monday that he will not run for the seat, saying he wants to stay focused on the veterans group he runs. “Love this work, don’t want a new job,” Kander said.
In a statement on Monday, Sifton said Blunt’s announcement “shows just how high the stakes are for Missouri families next year” and called the race “an opportunity to vote for better leadership.”
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who served for two terms in the Senate but was defeated in her bid for a third by Republican Josh Hawley, said Monday she won’t run for public office again.
On the GOP side, Greitens has already begun laying the groundwork as the pro-Trump, anti-Mitch McConnell candidate in the race. The former president and the Senate minority leader are at odds over the future of the GOP and the best way for the party to win back control of the Senate in 2022, with McConnell promising to back candidates regardless of their support for Trump, and the former president suggesting that McConnell should no longer lead Senate Republicans.
McConnell, for his part, said in a statement that Blunt’s retirement “will be a loss for the Republican conference and the entire Senate.”
“I’m very sorry he’ll be stepping away but am glad the country has two more years to keep benefiting from his talent,” McConnell said.
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