WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said the Supreme Court decision overturning the right to an abortion was an exercise in “raw political power” and signed an executive order on Friday to ease access to services to terminate pregnancies.
Biden, a Democrat, has been under pressure from his own party to take action after the landmark decision last month to overturn Roe v Wade, which upended roughly 50 years of protections for women’s reproductive rights.
The order directs the government’s health department to expand access to “medication abortion” – pills prescribed to end pregnancies – and ensure women have access to emergency medical care, family planning services and contraception. It also mentions protecting doctors, women who travel for abortions and mobile abortion clinics at state borders.
But it offered few specifics and promises to have limited impact in practice, since U.S. states can make laws restricting abortion and access to medication.
“What we’re witnessing wasn’t a constitutional judgment, it was an exercise in raw political power,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “We cannot allow an out of control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican party, to take away freedoms and our personal autonomy.”
The White House is not publicly entertaining the idea of reforming the court itself or expanding the nine-member panel.
Instead, Biden laid out how abortion rights could be codified into law by voters if they elected “two additional pro-choice senators, and a pro-choice House” and urged women to turn out in record numbers to vote. He said he would veto any law passed by Republicans to ban abortion rights nationwide.
Jen Klein, director of the president’s Gender Policy Council at the White House, did not name any specifics when asked what the order would change for women.
1/6
Catalina Leona and Terri Chen, staff at Houston Women’s Reproductive Services, which no longer provides abortion care, watch a livestream of U.S. President Joe Biden delivering remarks before signing an executive order which seeks to safeguard abortion access although is expected to have a limited impact, in Houston, Texas, U.S., July 8, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
“You can’t solve by executive action what the Supreme Court has done,” she said.
‘FIRST STEPS’
Still, progressive lawmakers and abortion rights groups welcomed the directive. Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “important first steps,” and asked the administration to explore every available option to protect abortion rights.
The issue may help drive Democrats to the polls in the November midterm elections, when Republicans have a chance of taking control of Congress.
Protecting abortion rights is a top issue for women Democrats, Reuters polling shows, and more than 70% of Americans think the issue should be left to a woman and her doctor. read more
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said “Democrats are out of touch with the American people” after Biden’s remarks.
In June, Biden proposed that U.S. senators remove a legislative roadblock by temporarily lifting the Senate “filibuster” to restore abortion rights, but the suggestion was shot down by aides to key Democratic senators. read more
Earlier in June, sources told Reuters the White House was unlikely to take the bold steps on abortion access that Democratic lawmakers have called for, such as court reform or offering reproductive services on federal lands. read more
The Supreme Court’s ruling restored states’ ability to ban abortion. As a result, women with unwanted pregnancies face the choice of traveling to another state where the procedure remains legal and available, buying abortion pills online, or having a potentially dangerous illegal abortion.
I visited the arena in April for a Mercury preseason game and was surprised by the muted acknowledgment of Griner in a city where she has given so much. Known as B.G., she helped lead the Mercury to a W.N.B.A. title in 2014 but is as admired there for helping the homeless and championing L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Local sports-radio announcers hardly mentioned her, instead going on and on about the Phoenix Suns’ competing in the N.B.A. playoffs.
At the time, Griner’s Mercury teammates were following the lead of her advisers, who had decided to stay low-key and not raise a ruckus that might draw Putin’s ire. It was clear the players wanted to be more forthright. As they spoke of how much they loved their teammate and followed the advised path, the fierceness and pain in their eyes showed me that they wanted to say more.
The approach flipped a few weeks later when the U.S. State Department declared that Griner had been “wrongfully detained.” The league and its players began to roar — the same as they often do on pressing social issues. Teams paid tribute to Griner by pasting her initials on home courts leaguewide. Over social media, in news conferences and interviews, players demanded that Biden and the White House do whatever was needed to bring her home.
“Free B.G.,” said DeWanna Bonner, of the W.N.B.A.’s Connecticut Sun, speaking to the press. “We are B.G. We love B.G. Free her.”
The N.B.A. joined the chorus. Players wore “We are B.G.” T-shirts to practices held during the N.B.A. finals. James, Curry and many other stars spoke out, demanding her release. Athletes from other sports joined in. After Griner’s guilty plea on Thursday, Megan Rapinoe, the outspoken star of the U.S. women’s soccer team, wore a white jacket with Griner’s initials stitched into her lapel as she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Sickening video released by Philadelphia police shows a group of teens smile and record as they beat an elderly man to death with traffic cones.
The man, identified by local TV station NBC 10 as James Lambert, was taken to the hospital early June 24 but died the following day from his head injuries, police said. (Cops said Lambert was 72 years old, while the local outlet reported he was 73.)
None of the seven involved in the beat down—four boys and three girls—had been arrested as of Friday morning, but police hope the newly released video and a reward of $20,000 for information will generate leads in the investigation.
The video, from security cameras on a street in northern Philadelphia, shows the alleged attackers laughing and recording on their cellphones as they chase the man across a street and strike him with traffic cones.
Police blurred out the victim in the video, but it’s apparent the 72-year-old was trying to get away from the teens just before he was attacked. After a final blow was captured on camera, a young girl appears to cover her mouth in horror as she walks toward the victim. Others soon follow, with one boy leaving the view of the camera while smiling on a scooter.
Separate security cameras captured the group after the attack. In those videos, one boy appears to mock the way Lambert fell during the alleged assault.
Philadelphia police did not immediately respond to a request for additional details about the incident, including how it began and what charges the teens could face if arrested.
Underlying it all is a concern that Biden and his team are not just out of fresh ideas, but increasingly out of time to turn around their flagging poll numbers before the midterms.
David Turner, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association, downplayed concerns in a statement. “These calls are anything but tense,” he said. “Governors and their teams find these calls useful and productive, and good forums to share information on policies with each other.”
But last month, a similar, more tension-filled gathering took place on Capitol Hill in a meeting between senior administration officials and members of the House. There, lawmakers were expecting to receive guidance on matters as concrete as how to counter Republicans who are handing out free gas cards and baby formula to court irate voters in their districts. Instead, they were met with now familiar talking points about the White House’s legislative successes and the resonance of the message Biden carried in 2020.
With the 2022 elections four months away, Democrats both inside and outside of the White House acknowledge there is no silver bullet to slay a host of political problems, including surging inflation, high gas prices, a series of stunning Supreme Court decisions and a sense of voter resignation that the party in power built up their expectations only to let them down. But whereas earlier in the year, there was hope that some of those problems would abate, there is diminishing confidence in that now.
White House aides, from their vantage point, do not appear to be in enough of a hurry. Rather than abruptly changing strategy, Biden’s team has doubled down on what it believes is an effective two-pronged approach: First, to make steady — if at times slow — progress on the challenges it faces, or at least demonstrate to voters the president is fighting an intractable problem; and second, to highlight contrasts with Republicans to paint them as a party beholden to its extremists and doing little to help struggling Americans.
“Everybody always feels like the greatest enemy to any administration or to progress is time. The challenge is that the arc of governing doesn’t always adhere to Twitter time,” said Robert Gibbs, who served as press secretary to former President Barack Obama. “Right now, there’s a balancing act between the administration wanting to make steady progress because there aren’t quick solutions to a lot of these challenges while also conveying a sense of urgency.”
But the calendar, increasingly, is not the president’s friend.
The administration was riding high after a success-filled start when warning signs began to emerge a year ago. It was last summer when the president announced that the nation was declaring its independence from the pandemic. Then, too, some form of Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better social and climate spending plan seemed destined to become law; and early signs of inflation were being dismissed as transitory by the administration and many economists alike.
But 12 months have since disappeared and none of those things have come to be. Democrats acknowledge that some of the challenges facing the White House are largely outside the scope of the president’s powers. But, absent action, they want to see more fight.
Democrats are still waiting for Biden to unveil steps to protect abortion rights, months after it became apparent that Roe v. Wade would be overturned. And even modest victories are coming under fresh scrutiny. Following the July 4 mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., gun-control advocates are agitating for further action. In a letter to Biden on Wednesday, several leading gun-safety groups re-upped their request for the administration to create a separate office headed up by a gun czar — and urged the president to make the announcement this coming Monday at a planned ceremonial signing for the bipartisan gun law.
“We’re asking him to look ahead and to have a blueprint for what more he’s doing to address this crisis,” said Igor Volsky, whose Guns Down America organization signed the letter, along with March For Our Lives, Newtown Action Alliance and others. “If Biden is going to continue saying — as he did on July Fourth — that more needs to be done, he needs to do more … And if he does, he will save lives.”
The White House has repeatedly said such an office is unnecessary because they already have roughly a dozen aides led by top adviser Susan Rice devoted to the issue. And upon receiving the letter, Biden’s senior policy adviser Stef Feldman quickly responded by reiterating their position on the request and noting that the White House has a robust team working on gun violence prevention, according to a person familiar with the exchange.
Despite the increasingly public fretting from corners of the party, White House aides say they see encouraging signs on the political horizon.
That gun safety measure was the first passed in decades. The price of gas, a particular obsession in the West Wing, has dropped over the last week. Some economists believe inflation — a global problem that is worse in much of the developed world — has peaked. And many in Biden’s orbit note an upswing in generic congressional polls in the wake of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe — defying a majority of Americans who believe abortion rights should be protected – and believe the ruling could propel Democratic turnout this fall.
Though historic trends say that voter perceptions for midterm elections are largely made up by this point in the cycle, Martha McKenna, a Democratic admaker who ran the independent expenditure for Senate Democrats in 2018, noted: “Things can change really quickly.” Four years ago, it was the October confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a development that ended up working against Senate Democrats. Republicans lost the House but kept the Senate.
McKenna recalled Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), who had kept the race close against Republican challenger Mike Braun, saying after he lost the race that he “couldn’t win [the election] twice,” a reference to the burst of excitement that Kavanaugh — whom Donnelly opposed — gave to Republican voters in Indiana.
“It’s a good reminder that we don’t necessarily live and die by the White House,” McKenna said. “I am not being a naive cheerleader. But I definitely think things can change.”
Democrats including the White House aren’t counting on more late-breaking events in their favor. And though it has not always come naturally, Biden has ramped up the contrast with Republicans, going on the attack against the GOP by warning what a MAGA-fueled Congress would bring.
“You know how hard it is to get anything done in Congress, imagine what it would mean if Republicans had their way,” Biden said at an event in Cleveland on Wednesday.
The White House believes Republicans in the Senate will emerge as a useful foil. They have hammered Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s economic plan, arguing it would raise taxes on the working and middle class. And they have painted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as an obstructionist for threatening to blow up a bipartisan China competition bill if the Democrats use reconciliation to lower prices on prescription drugs — including insulin — and energy.
“The President is leading based on values that unite an overwhelming majority of the country: working to pass legislation that fights inflation and cuts families biggest costs, taking action to protect Americans’ core freedoms and pushing to restore the protections of Roe, and pressing to save more lives after signing the most consequential gun reform in almost 30 years,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates. “At the same time, congressional Republicans have proposed raising taxes on 75 million middle class families, sunsetting Medicare and Social Security, and a national abortion ban. The Senate Republican leader has even threatened to kill crucial legislation that would boost American competitiveness versus China and create hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs to protect big pharma’s ability to overcharge the American people. We’re on the right side in this debate. ”
But some Democrats fear that Biden remains trapped in a prior age of political decorum and unquestioning fealty to institutions and has been slow to recognize both the existential threat felt by some of his supporters.
And it isn’t just the left that is losing faith in Biden’s theory of the case — let alone whether he has enough time to realize it before the fall. Others from across the political spectrum who have embraced the sharper-elbowed brand of politics that has come to define the landscape view Biden’s reflex approach as insufficient in a “zero-sum” era. And they’ve questioned how disciplined he will be in consistently — and forcefully — making the case against Republicans.
“He’s the last of his kind. He served in the Senate for decades when it worked. He built personal relationships across the aisle when that still happened. He still believes the system works, or at least hopes it can,” said Mike Madrid, a veteran Republican strategist and fierce critic of former President Donald Trump. “But that time has passed.”
Timothy Reynolds grew up playing baseball in Carroll Park, later earned a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University, launched an engineering career and fathered three children.
An avid Orioles and Ravens fan, he lived in Hampden with his wife and daughter. He built a life in Baltimore.
All that was cut short Thursday afternoon when Reynolds, 48, confronted a group of downtown Baltimore squeegee workers with a baseball bat — and one of the youths responded with deadly gunfire, according to Baltimore Police.
In interviews with The Baltimore Sun on Friday morning, his family members expressed shock and despair. What otherwise would be an intensely private grieving process has become unbearably public, their loss the latest talking point in a long-standing political debate about Baltimore’s squeegee workers and the deep-seated social challenges they represent.
In a city plagued by rampant gun violence, the deadly encounter illustrates another trend that experts and officials have pointed to during the pandemic: more minor disputes escalating quickly into shots fired with sometimes fatal results.
“He should have just kept driving,” Carroll Reynolds kept repeating during an interview about his son, shaking his head in disbelief. “He should have kept driving.”
Carroll Reynolds didn’t find out what had happened until several hours after the shooting. He spent Thursday evening watching his grandson play baseball in Howard County, unaware of the devastating news that would later arrive.
A Metro Crime Stoppers Tweet asking for information about the shooting death of Timothy Reynolds after he confronted squeegee workers with a baseball bat. (Handout)
He wondered aloud what could have possibly possessed his son to engage in the seemingly bizarre confrontation that turned deadly.
A Twitter account linked to Timothy Reynolds includes a message about squeegee workers posted in April 2019. The post says a squeegee worker at the intersection of South Charles and East Conway streets — one block over from where the Thursday shooting unfolded — washed his window without permission and stared at him threateningly with his 11-year-old son in the car.
“These kids have no right to be out in traffic,” the post says.
Other tweets on the account are lighthearted, including photos of his kids on family vacations, posts about playing golf with his friends, watching his favorite sports teams and getting new tattoos. He also shared motivational quotes about working hard and retweeted posts about politics, including criticizing former President Donald Trump, calling for stricter gun control measures and bemoaning the economic impacts of pandemic restrictions in 2020.
On Thursday afternoon, police said Timothy Reynolds drove through the intersection of East Conway and Light streets, parked his car and walked back to the group of squeegee workers whilewielding a baseball bat. At the crime scene later that evening, the metal bat lay on the pavement next to a pool of blood.
Reynolds was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
“We’re holding up as best we can,” Carroll Reynolds said. “It’s a cruel business.”
He said the squeegee workers have been a Baltimore staple for decades and was unaware of his son having any strong opinions about them.
“I can sit here and speculate but I have no idea what happened,” he said, his forehead creased into an incredulous frown.
The elder Reynolds worked as a Baltimore Police officer in the 1970s, conducting foot patrols in the Western District.
“It’s a tougher job now than it was then,” he said, referring to the increase in gun violence and other challenges facing city police officers. He spoke with a reporter from the doorway of his Catonsville home.
When “Timmy” was little, the family lived in Pigtown, not far from the downtown intersection where he was killed. He played baseball in nearby Carroll Park, his father recalled. But he was unsure why his son would have been driving around with a baseball bat in the car.
At the Hampden home where Timothy Reynolds lived with his wife and daughter, his mother-in-law said Friday morning that the family was doing their best to process the sudden loss. The fact that their grief has become caught up in a larger political debate about gun violence, policing and poverty in Baltimore makes everything more difficult, she said.
But she wanted people to see her son-in-law the way she knew him: a loving father and husband, a hard worker who put his family first. He left behind three children. The woman asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.
The family said Reynolds worked as an engineer, building a successful career and earning his master’s degree from Johns Hopkins.
His mother-in-law said some relatives were following news about the downtown shooting Friday afternoon before learning that their loved one had been involved.
“The last thing Baltimore needs is more guns,” she said. That was her first thought upon hearing about the incident.
A longtime friend of Reynolds’ also spoke about his devotion to family, his sharp mind, quick wit and “personality big enough to fill a room.” The man identified himself as Trey but asked that his last name be withheld for privacy reasons.
“I don’t want my friend being thought of as this person who goes around beating up kids,” he said. “That just wasn’t him at all. He was just a standup guy. I don’t know how else to say it.”
The two met in high school and had been best friends for over 30 years.
“I’ve never just sat at my desk and cried before today,” the friend said in a phone interview Friday evening.
Their last conversation a couple of weeks ago, which seemed innocuous at the time, included an exchange about squeegee workers, he said. Reynolds had expressed frustration about them acting aggressive and pestering him at downtown intersections. He mentioned an incident from about two years ago when a squeegee worker caused damage to his car, the friend said.
“Now here we are two weeks later, and I find out how he died,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
At the scene Thursday evening, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said the group of squeegee workers fled the area immediately after the shooting. He said detectives were combing through video footage and seeking witness accounts and cellphone video from bystanders.
He also said the shooting was the second incident involving a squeegee worker Thursday at that same busy downtown intersection.
Several hours earlier, officers confiscated an unloaded BB gun from a squeegee worker shortly before 2 p.m. after reports that he had threatened someone with a weapon, according to police. Outreach workers with the city later responded to the intersection in hopes of connecting the youths with services and potential employment opportunities, Harrison said.
“This is a very complex situation where someone took matters into his own hands, whatever you believe about that,” Harrison said Thursday evening.
In a statement late Thursday, Mayor Brandon Scott said his administration will strive to hold accountable anyone who resorts to violence on city streets.
“Regardless of what caused this incident, it is a sad reminder that far too often easily avoidable confrontations escalate into acts of violence,” he said.
Harrison said Friday morning that he directed officers to increase visibility of police at locations where squeegee workers operate.
“We want to make sure we are enforcing the law and making observations, certainly for anyone carrying guns,” he said. “We will make that arrest immediately when we see anyone committing any crimes or damage to vehicles or assault to motorists or any other criminal violations.”
Asked why squeegee workers weren’t being arrested for panhandling, Deputy Solicitor Ebony Thompson said the city is analyzing the law to make sure such enforcement would be constitutional. Guidance will be provided to the mayor, she said.
“You can’t have some panhandlers where it is OK and others where you are enforcing,” she said.
Asked whether the current policies of outreach to squeegee workers are enough given that there was a shooting hours after city staff were engaging with the youths, Harrison alluded to the deep-seated social issues at play.
“What that speaks to is a much, much larger conversation about fixing the core root-cause problem of why they are out there in the very first place,” Harrison said. “If we [can’t] fix that and solve their need to support themselves to take care of their basic needs … that is the real problem.”
Baltimore Sun reporters Sanya Kamidi, Emily Opilo and Alex Mann contributed to this article.
State legislation: As Republican-led states move to restrict abortion, The Post is tracking legislation across the country on 15-week bans, Texas-style bans, trigger laws and abortion pill bans, as well as Democratic-dominated states that are moving to protect abortion rights enshrined in Roe v. Wade.
WASHINGTON — Four Border Patrol agents who were among those responding to Black migrants crossing the southwestern border in Del Rio, Texas, in September are facing disciplinary action for inappropriately using or threatening to use force against them, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced on Friday after an internal investigation.
The aggressive treatment partly stemmed from Border Patrol agents fulfilling a request from the Texas State Police “that directly conflicted with Border Patrol operational objectives,” Chris Magnus, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said at a news conference on Friday.
While a Border Patrol supervisor approved of the order, Mr. Magnus said, more senior officials at the agency were not immediately aware of the directive.
The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection is expected to ask Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone during a closed-door interview on Friday about what he witnessed in the waning days of Donald Trump’s administration when the former President and his allies tried to overturn the election.
The interview is being recorded on video and could be featured at upcoming hearings, including one on Tuesday about how the violent mob came together and the role of extremist groups, as well as another hearing – which hasn’t yet been scheduled – on the 187 minutes of Trump’s inaction as rioters stormed the US Capitol.
Cipollone began his interview with the committee Friday morning and did not answer questions from CNN when entering the room. Cipollone was seen by CNN taking multiple breaks from his interview with his counsel in a separate conference room throughout the day. His appearance Friday is the result of months of negotiations between his lawyers and the January 6 panel about what topics can be discussed. He had previously met with the committee informally in April.
Cipollone was among the handful of people who spent time with Trump as he watched the Capitol riot unfold on television from a dining room off the Oval Office, according to two sources familiar with the panel’s investigation. The committee has heard from other witnesses who said Cipollone, along with other senior Trump advisers, including Ivanka Trump and Dan Scavino, were with the President at various points during this time.
Like others who were present and have testified before the committee, Cipollone could help shed light on Trump’s state of mind as the violence was taking place. Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, for example, testified that she heard a conversation in the dining room at one point about rioters chanting “hang Mike Pence.”
Cipollone’s presence in the dining room – which several witnesses have described to the committee – underscores why the committee is seeking his on-the-record testimony as a key fact witness.
Cipollone’s concerns about executive privilege surrounding the role of the White House counsel could lead to him limiting his cooperation with the committee, according to sources familiar with his thinking.
The committee has sought to piece together a comprehensive account of what Trump was doing on January 6, whom he talked to and how he reacted to the violence in real time. The panel has been leaning heavily on witness testimony to do so because of an hours-long gap in White House records during that time period, CNN previously reported.
Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, a member on the committee, pushed back on the claims of privilege Cipollone could assert saying on CNN earlier this week.
“Well, executive privilege is held by the current President, who has not asserted it when it comes to finding out information about the January 6th plot,” Lofgren said. “The attorney-client privilege could be asserted. But, remember, the presidency is his client, not Mr. Trump as a person.”
But Lofgren affirmed, “I’m sure we will get information that’s of use to him and we will also respect his dedication to these principals that he holds dear.”
Cipollone’s name has repeatedly come up during the committee’s hearings so far as he is viewed as a key witness by the committee.
Cipollone was in a key oval office meeting on January 3, 2021, when Trump was considering replacing Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with DOJ environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark, because Clark, unlike Rosen, was willing to use the powers of federal law enforcement to back his baseless claims of election fraud.
In that meeting, Rosen and Cipollone discredited Clark’s credentials for the job and categorically dismissed a draft letter Clark had written that falsely claimed the Department of Justice had found evidence of election fraud.
Rosen’s deputy Richard Donoghue testified in a committee hearing that Cipollone said of the drafted letter in that meeting, “that letter that this guy wants to send, that letter is a murder-suicide pact. It’s going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter. I don’t ever want to see that letter again.”
The committee has revealed that in its previous, informal conversation with Cipollone, Cipollone told the select committee that “he intervened when he heard Mr. Clark was meeting with the president about legal matters without his knowledge, which was strictly against White House policy.”
Hutchinson testified that Cipollone was against Trump calling on his supporters to march to the Capitol in his speech in the morning of January 6 and was particularly against Trump joining his supporters at the Capitol.
Hutchinson said that Cipollone told her on January 3, “We need to make sure that this doesn’t happen, this would be legally a terrible idea for us. We have serious legal concerns if we go to the Capitol that day.”
When the violence broke out at the Capitol, Cipollone marched into the office of Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, according to Hutchinson, and demanded they talk to Trump about doing something to intervene.
Hutchinson testified that Meadows told Cipollone that the former President did not want to do anything and Cipollone said something to the effect of Mark, ‘something needs to be done, or people are going to die, the blood’s going to be on your f***ing hands.’
Cipollone wanted Trump to say in his January 7, 2021, speech that the rioters should be prosecuted and described as violent, but Hutchinson said those original lines did not make it into the final version of the speech Trump delivered.
Hutchinson added that from what she understood at the time, the reason individuals like Cipollone wanted that language in there was because there was a “large concern of 25th amendment potentially being invoked.”
The committee has played video of testimony from Jared Kushner saying that Cipollone and his team “were always saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to resign. We’re not going to be here if this happens, if that happens.’” But Kushner said, “I kind of took it up to just be whining to be honest with you.”
Prior to Cipollone’s interview being set, the committee had made a public push to get him to testify under oath.
“Our Committee is certain that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Cipollone to testify here,” said GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who serves as vice chairwoman of the committee, at the close the panel’s fourth hearing on June 21.
“We think the American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone personally,” she added. “He should appear before this Committee, and we are working to secure his testimony.”
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Friday.
CNN’s Andrew Millman and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this report.
Continued increases in coronavirus cases fueled by the ultra-contagious BA.5 subvariant as well as a rise in hospitalizations have pushed Los Angeles County even closer to reinstating a universal indoor mask mandate.
“We can’t predict with certainty what the future hospitalization trend will look like. However, it is looking more likely, as cases and admissions have continued to increase, that we’ll enter the high community level designation later this month,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.
Here is what you need to know:
L.A. County’s coronavirus case rate hit its highest point in nearly five months over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
When could L.A. County issue a new mask mandate?
Officials have said a public indoor masking requirement would be reinstated should L.A. County reach the high COVID-19 community level, defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and remain there for two consecutive weeks.
L.A. County has not yet entered that level — the worst on the CDC’s three-tier scale. But it is the closest it has been since exiting from it in early March. The category indicates not only that a region is experiencing significant coronavirus spread but that transmission is starting to exert stress on hospitals.
The CDC updates its community level assessments every Thursday. Assuming L.A. County were to enter the high COVID-19 community level next week, on July 14, and remain there on July 21 and July 28, the soonest a mask mandate could be issued would likely have an effective date of July 29, according to Ferrer.
There’s no guarantee that will happen, though. Projections are based on the possibility of current trends continuing.
The latest maps and charts on the spread of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County, including cases, deaths, closures and restrictions.
How close are we?
To reach the high community level, L.A. County would need to observe at least 10 new weekly coronavirus-positive hospitalizations for every 100,000 residents.
According to CDC data released Thursday, the rate listed for L.A. County was 9.7, a 17% increase from the previous week’s rate of 8.3.
However, from the county’s perspective, the actual figure is lower — 8.4.
That, Ferrer said, is because federal data combines L.A. and Orange counties, as the two fall within the same health service area that the CDC uses to calculate its metrics.
“This approach was not initially problematic, as the L.A. County and the Orange County metrics were relatively similar,” Ferrer said.
But that’s no longer the case. Ferrer said Orange County’s rate of new weekly coronavirus-positive hospitalizations for every 100,000 residents was 13.3 as of Wednesday.
“Given this divergence, which now actually will affect the level assignment and designation, we’re going to use the L.A. County-specific data in determining the hospital metrics that are used to make the designated community level assignments,” she said.
Based on current trends, however, Ferrer estimated the L.A. County rate could surpass the high threshold as soon as next week.
Taking preventative measures is especially important now as BA.4 and especially BA.5 can reinfect even those who recently contracted an earlier Omicron subvariant.
Why is L.A. County considering a mask mandate?
Officials say the potential order is aligned with guidance from the CDC, which recommends indoor masking for counties in the high COVID-19 community level.
About 60% of California’s counties are in that category, including in the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley. Some 16 million Californians live in a county with a high COVID-19 community level, accounting for 41% of the state’s population.
In Southern California, Ventura County is the only county in the high community level.
However, no other California counties have publicly linked the return of universal mask mandates to the CDC framework. And the only region to reissue a face covering order in response to the latest wave, Alameda County, has already rescinded it.
The coronavirus subvariants are not only especially contagious but also capable of reinfecting those who have survived earlier Omicron infection.
Though health officials almost universally recommend indoor masking as an extra layer of protection against coronavirus transmission, some have characterized new mandates at this time as unnecessary, given both epidemiological changes in the virus and the availability of vaccines and treatments.
Ferrer, though, says universal masking doesn’t just help protect the individual.
“While it’s true we have an amazing set of tools that we can all use to protect ourselves — and in fact, some of those tools will protect lots of other people as well — there are many people, particularly in essential work environments, where they would benefit if more people around them were actually using some of the safety precautions that we know work,” she said. “And that’s the case with masking.”
For L.A. County, she added, “equity issues are paramount.”
“Partly, we’re such a large jurisdiction; partly, we’ve witnessed really tragic and unconscionable differences and disproportionality in who’s been the hardest hit, that we want to make sure that where we have a simple and effective tool that can be used … that we make sure that we’re using that tool when the risk level gets high,” she said.
There are reasons for health officials to be particularly cautious about the effects of a pandemic wave in L.A. County.
L.A. County is considered by the CDC as highly vulnerable in a pandemic, according to the agency’s Social Vulnerability Index, based on factors like poverty and crowded housing.
By contrast, its neighboring coastal counties — Ventura and Orange — as well as the five most populous counties in the San Francisco Bay Area — including Alameda County — have moderate levels of vulnerability.
In L.A. County, 14% of residents live below the poverty line; in Ventura County, 9% do.
L.A. County’s median household income of about $71,000 is below the state median of nearly $79,000, while Ventura County’s is higher, at $89,000.
There are two antiviral pills available for eligible patients who have recently tested positive for the coronavirus. And they’re free.
How are hospitals faring?
As of Thursday, 1,021 coronavirus-positive patients were hospitalized in L.A. County. That’s the highest single-day total since late February and a 38% increase from two weeks ago.
While the trendline has not yet taken the ominous, near-vertical shape seen during the worst waves of the pandemic, the daily patient count has more than quadrupled since mid-April.
“The worry, of course, with the increase in hospitalizations is that there may be more individuals at risk for severe illness that are getting infected now, given the highly transmissible new variants,” Ferrer said.
So far, though, this latest surge is not wreaking anywhere close to the same kind of havoc as those that came before. During the initial Omicron spike last fall and winter, coronavirus-positive hospitalizations topped out above 4,800. For last summer’s Delta surge, the peak was nearly 1,800.
During winter 2020, L.A. County’s coronavirus-positive patient count at times exceeded 8,000.
Since the hyper-transmissible Omicron variant appeared in early December, the coronavirus has affected nearly every family and social circle.
A significant number of patients — Ferrer pegged the number at 60% — are not hospitalized specifically for COVID-19 but have tested positive after seeking treatment for other reasons. But each presents a particular strain on resources because of the additional services needed to keep them from spreading the virus.
Hospitalizations are also a lagging indicator of coronavirus spread; as long as coronavirus transmission remains elevated, patient counts are unlikely to tail off significantly. And even as transmission peters out, it can take weeks for that trend to provide relief.
Also yet to be seen are the impacts of the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which are growing increasingly dominant nationwide.
Even though hospitals are not reporting being overwhelmed now, Ferrer said the plan to reinstate a mask mandate should hospitalizations worsen is prudent.
“Waiting until hospitals are overwhelmed is way too late to try to do much about slowing transmission,” Ferrer said. “The time to slow transmission is actually when you start seeing indicators that you’re having more utilization at your hospitals.”
The CDC recommends that everyone age 2 and older wear masks in indoor settings when a county reaches the high COVID-19 community level, which includes both hospitalization and coronavirus case rates.
When those indicators are high, “that’s the time to start getting worried and to start trying to do something to slow down transmission,” Ferrer said.
“We’re not going to be able to completely eliminate transmission of these highly infectious new subvariants, but we can definitely make a better effort to slow transmission down so that the increases at the hospitals don’t end up creating the kind of stress that we saw both during the Omicron winter surge and the previous winter surge,” Ferrer said.
The research program, IRS insiders say, is seen as an annoying necessity within the agency. When the tax collector began the program in 2001, it sent highly trained enforcement agents to examine close to 15,000 taxpayers each year. The depth of the study frustrated the agents, who were not recovering revenue, and members of Congress, who received complaints from constituents about the invasive nature of the program, according to a former top IRS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about sensitive internal discussions.
Paul Crimo said he was in disbelief after learning his nephew was accused of gunning down seven people in this affluent Chicago suburb.
“We’re sorry, we’re just sorry. We’re very sorry,” Paul Crimo told NBC News as he was driving out of the home he shares with the suspect and the accused shooter’s father.
“I couldn’t even believe it, very hard. It’s very hard, it’s very hard, No sleep and my whole life changed.”
The younger Crimo was arrested hours after the deadly attack which left dozens more injured.
Crimo was still under 21 in 2020 when he purchased the AR-15-style weapon allegedly used in Monday’s attack — a purchase he could only make because his father sponsored his Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) application.
Meanwhile, the massacre continues to weigh on first responders.
“For this to happen here, it hurts all of our officers,” the city’s police chief, Louis Jogmen, said.
He recalled how the morning started out celebratory, with him passing out baseball cards to youngsters during the parade.
Days later, a mother of one of those children told Jogmen the casual interaction was lifesaving because it “delayed her and her son from going over” to the eventual line of fire on the parade route.
Highland Park fire Chief Joe Schrage said he believes his team’s training in trauma care was crucial that day in saving lives.
“Because one of the most important things, really, to have a viable trauma victim, especially with a penetrating wound, is to stop the bleeding,” he said.
One firefighter tied about 15 tourniquets, according to the chief.
“So, those people probably did have a much more viable chance right away,” he said. “I do believe that we saved every viable victim that was there that.”
Funeral details for the remaining victims have not been made public.
Katherine Goldstein, 64, who was mourning her mother’s recent death, was looking to get out of the house and have some fun when she decided to attend the holiday parade, her daughter, Cassie Goldstein, said. Irina McCarthy, 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37, were attending the parade with their 2-year-old son, Aiden.
“He kept on saying, ‘shots, shots,’ ” Tom Brooks, a man who helped the toddler, told NBC’s “TODAY” show. “He would say, ‘Mom shot, dad shot.’ And he just kept on saying that.”
Aiden was unharmed in the massacre, according to a fundraiser verified by GoFundMe. He will be cared for by family members.
As of Friday, more than $3 million in donations had poured in for the toddler.
Debra Jones and Maggie Vespa reported from Highland Park, Illinois, while David K. Li and Melissa Chan reported from New York.
I am stunned, outraged, and deeply saddened by the news that my friend Abe Shinzo, former Prime Minister of Japan, was shot and killed while campaigning. This is a tragedy for Japan and for all who knew him. I had the privilege to work closely with Prime Minister Abe. As Vice President, I visited him in Tokyo and welcomed him to Washington. He was a champion of the Alliance between our nations and the friendship between our people. The longest serving Japanese Prime Minister, his vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific will endure. Above all, he cared deeply about the Japanese people and dedicated his life to their service. Even at the moment he was attacked, he was engaged in the work of democracy. While there are many details that we do not yet know, we know that violent attacks are never acceptable and that gun violence always leaves a deep scar on the communities that are affected by it. The United States stands with Japan in this moment of grief. I send my deepest condolences to his family.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden delivered impassioned remarks Friday condemning the “extreme” Supreme Court majority that ended a constitutional right to abortion and pleading with Americans upset by the decision to “vote, vote, vote vote” in November. He signed an executive order to try to protect access to the procedure under mounting pressure from fellow Democrats to be more forceful in response to the ruling.
The actions Biden outlined are intended to mitigate some potential penalties that women seeking abortion may face after the ruling, but his order cannot restore access to abortion in the more than a dozen states where strict limits or total bans have gone into effect. About a dozen more states are set to impose additional restrictions.
Biden acknowledged the limitations facing his office, saying it would require an act of Congress to restore nationwide access to the way it was before the June 24 decision.
“The fastest way to restore Roe is to pass a national law,” Biden said. “The challenge is go out and vote. For God’s sake there is an election in November.!”
Biden’s action formalized instructions to the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to push back on efforts to limit the ability of women to access federally approved abortion medication or to travel across state lines to access clinical abortion services. He was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris, HHS secretary Xavier Becerra and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in the Roosevelt Room as he signed the order.
His executive order also directs agencies to work to educate medical providers and insurers about how and when they are required to share privileged patient information with authorities — an effort to protect women who seek or utilize abortion services. He is also asking the Federal Trade Commission to take steps to protect the privacy of those seeking information about reproductive care online and establish an interagency task force to coordinate federal efforts to safeguard access to abortion.
Biden is also directing his staff to convene volunteer lawyers to provide women and providers with pro bono legal assistance to help them navigate new state restrictions after the Supreme Court ruling.
The order, after the high court’s June 24 ruling that ended the nationwide right to abortion and left it to states to determine whether or how to allow the procedure, comes as Biden has faced criticism from some in his own party for not acting with more urgency to protect women’s access to abortion. The decision in the case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
Since the decision, Biden has stressed that his ability to protect abortion rights by executive action is limited without congressional action, and stressed that Democrats do not have the votes in the current Congress to do so.
“We need two additional pro-choice senators and a pro-choice house to codify Roe,” he said. “Your vote can make that a reality.”
Biden for the first time last week announced his support for changing Senate rules to allow a measure to restore nationwide access to abortion to pass by simple majority, rather than the usual 60-vote threshold required to end a filibuster. However, at least two Democratic lawmakers have made clear they won’t support changing Senate rules.
He predicted that women would turn out in “record numbers” in frustration over the court’s decision, and said he expected “millions and millions of men will be taking up the fight beside them.”
On Friday, he repeated his sharp criticism of the Supreme Court’s reasoning in striking down what had been a half-century constitutional right to abortion.
“Let’s be clear about something from the very start, this was not a decision driven by the Constitution,” Biden said, accusing the court’s majority of “playing fast and loose with the facts.”
He spoke emotionally of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was forced to travel out of state to terminate a pregnancy after being raped, noting that some states have instituted abortion bans that don’t have exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
“A 10-year- old should be forced to give birth to a rapist’s child!” Biden nearly shouted. “I can’t think of anything more extreme.”
Biden added ahead of the November midterm elections that “The choice we face as a nation is between the mainstream or the extreme.”
The tasking to the Justice Department and HHS pushes the agencies to fight in court to protect women, but it conveys no guarantees that the judicial system will take their side against potential prosecution by states that have moved to outlaw abortion.
“President Biden has made clear that the only way to secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe as federal law,” the White House said. “Until then, he has committed to doing everything in his power to defend reproductive rights and protect access to safe and legal abortion.”
NARAL Pro-Choice America president Mini Timmaraju called Biden’s order “an important first step in restoring the rights taken from millions of Americans by the Supreme Court.”
But Lawrence Gostin, who runs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health at Georgetown Law, described Biden’s plans as “underwhelming.”
“There’s nothing that I saw that would affect the lives of ordinary poor women living in red states,” he said.
Gostin encouraged Biden to take a more forceful approach toward ensuring access to medication abortion across the country and said Medicaid should consider covering transportation to other states for the purposes of getting abortions.
Gostin said, “We basically have two Americas.” There’s one where people have access to a full range of healthcare, and “another where citizens don’t have the same rights to the safe and effective treatments as the rest of the country.”
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the AP that the agency was looking at how Medicaid could cover travel for abortions, along with a range of other proposals, but acknowledged that “Medicaid’s coverage of abortion is extremely limited.”
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser condemned Biden’s order, saying, “President Biden has once again caved to the extreme abortion lobby, determined to put the full weight of the federal government behind promoting abortion.”
Biden’s move was the latest scramble to protect the data privacy of those contemplating or seeking abortion, as regulators and lawmakers reckon with the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling.
The decision by the court is expected to make abortion illegal in over a dozen states and severely restricted in others. Privacy experts say that could make women vulnerable because their personal data could be used to surveil pregnancies and shared with police or sold to vigilantes. Online searches, location data, text messages and emails, and even apps that track periods could be used to prosecute people who seek an abortion — or medical care for a miscarriage — as well as those who assist them, experts say.
Privacy advocates are watching for possible new moves by law enforcement agencies in affected states — serving subpoenas, for example, on tech companies such as Google, Apple, Bing, Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp, services like Uber and Lyft, and internet service providers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Comcast. Local prosecutors may go before sympathetic judges to obtain search warrants for users’ data.
Last month four Democratic lawmakers asked the FTC to investigate Apple and Google for allegedly deceiving millions of mobile phone users by enabling the collection and sale of their personal data to third parties.
___
AP writers Marcy Gordon and Hillary Powell contributed to this report.
On Friday, Mr. Evers called the court’s latest decision a blow to fair elections in Wisconsin.
“Politicians should not be able to abuse their power to prevent eligible voters from casting their ballots or cheat by changing the rules just because they didn’t like the outcome of the last election,” he said. “Today’s decision is another in a long line of Wisconsin Republicans’ successes to make it harder for Wisconsinites to exercise their right to vote, to undermine our free, fair and secure elections, and to threaten our democracy.”
Municipal clerks who oversee Wisconsin’s elections used drop boxes for years without controversy before the 2020 election, when about 500 were in place across the state, typically outside public libraries and municipal buildings.
After the election, which President Donald J. Trump lost in Wisconsin to Joseph R. Biden Jr. by about 20,000 votes, Mr. Trump’s campaign and his supporters filed an array of lawsuits seeking to invalidate votes cast in drop boxes because the method of returning ballots was not explicitly permitted under state law — though it was authorized by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
It is not possible to determine precisely how many Wisconsin votes were cast through drop boxes in 2020. About 40 percent of votes cast were absentee, though that figure includes ballots returned in the mail and during in-person early voting. Before the pandemic, in-person early balloting was the predominant method of voting in advance of Election Day in Wisconsin.
In the opinion issued Friday, Justice Bradley compared Wisconsin’s elections to contests rigged by dictators in Syria and North Korea and questioned whether past elections in the state had been legitimate.
“Thousands of votes have been cast via this unlawful method, thereby directly harming the Wisconsin voters,” she wrote. “The illegality of these drop boxes weakens the people’s faith that the election produced an outcome reflective of their will. The Wisconsin voters, and all lawful voters, are injured when the institution charged with administering Wisconsin elections does not follow the law, leaving the results in question.”
José Eduardo dos Santos, the son of a bricklayer, was born in Luanda, the capital, on Aug. 28, 1942. His high grades secured him one of the few spots available to African students at a school attended by children of the Portuguese elite. Amid rising anti-colonial sentiment on the continent, he enlisted in the MPLA’s army at age 20 determined to end four centuries of Portuguese rule.
A Pennsylvania 911 operator faces a rare charge of involuntary manslaughter for failing to send an ambulance to the rural home of a woman who died of internal bleeding a day later, despite a plea from the woman’s daughter that without medical help “she’s going to die.”
A Greene County detective last week filed charges against Leon “Lee” Price, 50, of Waynesburg, in the July 2020 death of Diania Kronk, 54, based on Price’s reluctance to dispatch help without getting more assurance that Kronk would actually go to the hospital.
“I believe she would be alive today if they would have sent an ambulance,” said Kronk’s daughter Kelly Titchenell, 38.
Price, who also was charged with reckless endangerment, official oppression and obstruction, questioned Titchenell repeatedly during the four-minute call about whether Kronk would agree to be taken for treatment.
Price was arraigned June 29 and released on bail. He did not reply to messages left at a home number listed in his name, and officials said a defense lawyer has not contacted district court.
“It has to be very clear throughout the entire state, that when you call it’s not going to be conditioned on somebody on the other end of the phone saying there’s going to be a service provided or not,” said Lawrence E. Bolind Jr., who represents Titchenell in a federal lawsuit filed last month. “What we’re trying to do here is make this never happen to somebody else.”
In the 911 recording, an operator identified by police as Price replied to Titchenell’s description of her mother as needing hospital treatment by asking if she was “willing to go” to the hospital about a half-hour away from where she was living in Sycamore.
“She will be, ’cause I’m on my way there, so she’s going, or she’s going to die,” Titchenell told Price as she drove from her home in Mather.
Price said he would send an ambulance but then added that “we really need to make sure she’s willing to go.”
“She’s going to go, she’s going to go,” Titchenell said. “Cause if not, she’s going to die, there’s nothing else.” She said that Kronk was not thinking clearly and that she was her mother’s closest relation. When Price again asked if Kronk would in fact go, Titchenell replied: “OK, well, can we just try?”
After Titchenell told Price she was about 10 minutes from her mother’s home, Price asked if Titchenell would call 911 back once she made sure Kronk was willing to go in an ambulance.
“I’m sorry,” Titchenell said, and Price replied: “No, don’t be sorry, ma’am. Just call me when you get out there, OK?”
When Titchenell and her three children arrived at the house, she said, Kronk was nude on the front porch and talking incoherently. She got her mother to put on a robe.
“She just kept saying she was OK, she’s fine,” Titchenell said. “She’s the mom, you know — she doesn’t listen to her children.”
Titchenell said she could not call from the home because her mother’s landline could not be located and there was not cell service. She also did not call on her way home, believing that her uncle would soon check on her and that another contact with 911 would be pointless.
“This is unheard of, to me. I mean, they’ll send an ambulance for anything,” Titchenell said. “And here I am telling this guy that my mom’s going to die. It’s, like, her death, and she doesn’t get an ambulance.”
Her brother found the next day that their mother had died.
The prosecutor, Greene County District Attorney Dave Russo, said he is also investigating whether there was any policy or training under which the county’s 911 dispatchers were allowed to refuse services to callers.
“We all deserve equal protections, and we all deserve access to medical services,” Russo said in an interview. “I have a major concern as to the safety of the community in regards to this.”
John Kelly, a Naperville, Illinois, lawyer who is general counsel to the National Emergency Number Association, said criminal charges against dispatchers for failing to send help are very rare but have happened.
In a case Kelly teaches in dispatcher training, a 911 operator in Detroit received a year of probation in 2008 and lost her job after, authorities said, she did not take seriously a boy’s calls to report his mother had collapsed. The 5-year-old boy testified that the dispatcher accused him of playing games and hung up on him, while the dispatcher testified that she could not hear the child.
Titchenell, on behalf of her mother’s estate, sued Price and Greene County in Pittsburgh federal court last month, along with two 911 supervisors. The lawsuit accuses Price of “callous refusal of public emergency medical services.”
Marie Milie Jones, a lawyer for the county and 911 supervisors in the federal case, said her clients plan to vigorously defend the lawsuit and do not believe they are liable for Kronk’s death. She said there are “personnel matters that are ongoing” regarding Price but declined to elaborate.
“It’s unfortunate that this woman had died. Certainly, from a personal standpoint, that’s very difficult,” Jones said. “I’m not going to comment on the details of her circumstances.”
Titchenell told Price that her mother had been drinking heavily for some weeks before she died, and that Titchenell had noticed she was losing weight and was “turning yellow.” She said the autopsy concluded Kronk, who worked in home health care, died of internal bleeding.
She said she thinks about her late mother every day — how the former longtime sub shop manager loved to cook, to help people and to spoil her five grandchildren, how she would pile a mountain of presents under the tree every Christmas.
“She had the biggest heart,” Titchenell said. “If someone didn’t have a place to live, she was going to take them in, give them a bed. That was Mom.”
Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what’s clicking on Foxnews.com.
Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to a drug-smuggling charge on Thursday after months of being held in Russian detention – and now, experts say gaining her release in a potential prison swap could turn out to be a complex process with serious implications.
During her appearance in court, Griner maintained that her “intent” was not to violate Russian law. She could face up to 10 years in prison.
“I’d like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” she said, adding that she will give her testimony at a later date.
A verdict has not been ruled in her case but talks of a prisoner swap for Griner, who the State Department has maintained was wrongfully detained, have been the focus of conversations as her trial continues.
Brittney Griner arriving to a hearing at the Khimki Court, outside Moscow, on Thursday. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Hugh Dugan, an American academic and longtime diplomat who served as the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs under the Trump administration, told Fox News Digital that Griner’s guilty plea further complicates her release as it gives the Russian government more of a bargaining chip.
“This brings her closer to being identified as a sentenced convict with less than 1% chance of acquittal. There would be more wiggle room if she hadn’t gotten to this point, I think, and let the system drag it out and not classify her as such. But this, in my mind, can make her a more valuable resource for Russia, because now they can say we have a legitimate criminal under their law, and we have to be true to our system, etc.,” Dugan explained.
Brittney Griner is a two-time Olympic gold medallist and WNBA champion. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
One of the names being reported as a possibility is Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. after being convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization.
Dugan explained that this scenario would not be considered “proportionate” based on the charges in each respective case.
Alleged Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout walking past temporary cells ahead of a hearing at the Criminal Court in Bangkok on August 20, 2010. (CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images, File)
“When we get to swapping something like this with a hardened terrorist, the proportionality is not the same. And that’s always a big concern in negotiation that we don’t devalue our person to the point where the next day that same country will take another one of our tourists and another American innocently walking around for the sake of leveraging against some major foreign policy asset that we hold of theirs.”
That sentiment was echoed by Tom Schwartz, a distinguished professor of history at Vanderbilt University, who called a prison swap in a high-stakes case like this a “slippery slope.”
“This type of prisoner swap is a slippery slope, opening the opportunity for other kidnappings of Americans in other countries and the attempt by other nations to gain prisoner releases that way,” he told Fox News Digital.
Fox News contributor Dan Hoffman, a former CIA station chief, said on the “Fox News Rundown” podcast that the practice of pursuing a prisoner swap in cases like this is not a new strategy for the Kremlin.
“The United States has historically been induced to make these sorts of Faustian bargains with the Soviets or in this case, the KGB operative in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, attending the Victory Day military parade marking the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II in Moscow, on May 9. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
Following news of Griner’s plea Thursday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov criticized the U.S. government over its portrayal of the WNBA star’s case and the “hype” surrounding her detainment.
“We have a long-standing framework for discussing such issues. The attempts of the American side to stir hype in the public arena, to make noise regarding this topic are very clear, and they don’t help to the practical resolution of issues.”
Schwartz said that the comment made by Ryabkov signals that the Kremlin is well aware of the urgency behind Griner’s release.
“He’s positioning this and making it clear that Russia now recognizes, you might say, the value of Brittney Griner. I think this could be a bargaining position in the sense that by saying that the agitation is going to make it more difficult for her, he ups the pressure on the president to do something quickly to try and get her released since the agitation shows no sign of quieting. In this sense, the opportunities for quiet diplomacy in this particular case seem to have gone by the wayside.”
WNBA basketball superstar Brittney Griner arriving to a hearing at the Khimki Court, outside Moscow, on July 1. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
The Russian Foreign Minister said Wednesday that Griner will have the opportunity to appeal or apply for clemency once a verdict is given, but the real likelihood of that, while not certain, is grim.
“The Russian judicial system might enjoy giving her slightly less and taking some credit for showing some leniency, but I don’t think we’re talking about her being released,” Schwartz said. “Judging Vladimir Putin has proven to be a very mistake-filled passion on the part of Western analysts who thought he wouldn’t invade [Ukraine], thought he wouldn’t do this, and he does these things. So he might surprise us again.”
A resolution, in this case, will likely be a long and challenging process, Rebekah Koffler, a Russian-born former U.S. intelligence officer and expert on Russia and Vladimir Putin, told Fox News Digital.
“Putin’s government likely already sent their demands to Washington, either through official channels or back channels. But typically these cases are super hard to adjudicate because of the two legal systems… The U.S. side doesn’t consider Ms. Griner’s arrest as legitimate, even though a substance that’s illegal was found in her possession. The Russians insist that the arrest is legitimate, and they want the U.S. to acknowledge it. So it will be a battle of semantics in one sense that mirrors the Russia and U.S. confrontation over control of Ukraine.”
Brittney Griner (42) at a WNBA playoff game Sept. 26, 2021, in Everett, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)
Ryabkov’s comments on Thursday only further solidify the battle that has yet to come.
“The tenacity with which U.S. Administration and representatives of relevant [government] structures in Washington call those who have been sentenced by us on serious charges and are awaiting appropriate verdicts, [as] “detained persons” is a reflection of Washington’s unwillingness to perceive the world adequately.”
Paulina Dedaj is a Digital Reporter for Fox News and Fox Business. Follow Paulina Dedaj on Twitter at @PaulinaDedaj. If you’ve got a tip, you can email Paulina at Paulina.Dedaj@fox.com
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
