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2 New York Democrats Ousted from US House in Primary Losses 

In a cluster of contentious Democratic primaries Tuesday, two New York incumbents were ousted from the U.S. House after redistricting shuffled congressional districts in one of the nation’s largest liberal states. 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a 15-term incumbent who chairs a powerful House committee, lost to longtime colleague Rep. Jerry Nadler, while Rep. Mondaire Jones, a first-term progressive who was one of the first openly gay Black members of Congress, was defeated by Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as counsel to House Democrats in the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. 

In other races in the state, the chair of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, Sean Patrick Maloney, survived a primary challenge of his own from a progressive. Democrats held on to a swing district in a special election — at least for a few more months. 

In Florida, an incumbent Republican narrowly defeated a far-right provocateur. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a conservative firebrand, won his primary with the specter of a federal investigation looming over him. 

Some of the highest-profile elections: 

End of an era 

Nadler and Carolyn Maloney each chair powerful committees and had spent 30 years representing Manhattan’s Upper West Side and Upper East Side, respectively. But they ended up in the same race after new redistricting maps merged much of their longtime congressional districts. 

The race for New York’s 12th District, between Maloney, 76, and Nadler, 75, became contentious. The two stopped speaking after deciding to run against each other, Nadler said, and the campaign became barbed, with Maloney questioning his mental acuity. 

Nadler, who was endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has talked up his role overseeing Trump’s impeachments while serving as chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Maloney has touted her own check on the former president while serving as chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee and positioned herself as a feminist champion. 

Challenging them both was 38-year-old lawyer Suraj Patel, who argued it was time for a new face in Congress. 

Crowded field for an open seat 

With Nadler and Maloney running in the district immediately north, a congressional seat covering southern Manhattan, including Wall Street, and Brooklyn, was a rare open contest in one of the most liberal and influential areas of the country. 

Goldman, a Democratic attorney who built his reputation as a federal mob and securities fraud prosecutor but made a national name for himself as House Democrats’ lead counsel in Trump’s first impeachment hearing, won a crowded primary for New York’s 10th District, which attracted a bevy of progressive candidates. Among the contenders was Jones, a congressman from the New York City suburbs, who moved to the area to run and finished third in the primary. 

House Democrats’ campaign chief wins primary 

Sean Patrick Maloney, who became New York’s first openly gay congressman when he was elected a decade ago, survived a primary challenge from state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi in New York’s new 17th District, home to idyllic towns along the historic Hudson River Valley. 

Maloney, who had the backing of former President Bill Clinton, campaigned on Democrats’ recent legislative wins in Congress and warned that the congressional seat could fall to Republicans in November if the Democratic nominee is too liberal. 

Biaggi, a 36-year-old progressive endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is a granddaughter of former Bronx congressman Mario Biaggi. She had sought to portray Maloney as out of touch and part of the establishment. 

State GOP chair defeats controversial candidate 

New York’s Republican Party chair, Nick Langworthy, won a primary in western New York by defeating controversial Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino in New York’s redrawn 23rd District. 

Paladino, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2010, has a long history of inflammatory and offensive remarks, including recent comments that praised Adolf Hitler and circulated conspiracy theories around mass shootings. 

The heated primary came as Langworthy and Paladino sought to replace GOP Rep. Chris Jacobs, who decided not to seek reelection after facing backlash from his own party for voicing support for an assault weapons ban following a racist mass shooting in his hometown of Buffalo in May. 

A win for Republicans, a win for Democrats in special elections 

In addition to the primary races, New Yorkers elected two new House members to fill vacancies for the rest of the year. 

Democrat Pat Ryan won one of the special elections, a battleground race in southern and central New York to replace Democrat Antonio Delgado, who became New York’s lieutenant governor. Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro in what is currently New York’s 19th Congressional District. 

In western New York, Republican Joe Sempolinski defeated Democrat Max Della Pia in a special general election to serve out the rest of the year in what is currently New York’s 23rd District. Sempolinski will replace Republican Rep. Tom Reed, who resigned in May after being accused of sexual misconduct. 

Far-right provocateur loses again 

Florida Republican Rep. Dan Webster defeated Laura Loomer, a far-right provocateur in Florida who’s been banned on some social media networks because of anti-Muslim and other remarks. 

Webster, who has served central Florida districts since 2011, won the unexpectedly tight primary in Florida’s 11th District, which is home to The Villages, the nation’s largest retirement community and a GOP stronghold. 

Loomer unsuccessfully ran for the House in 2020, winning a Republican primary but losing the general election that year to incumbent Democrat Lois Frankel for a Palm Beach-area seat that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. 

On social media, Loomer regularly posted conspiracy theories and misinformation around Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, the first Somali American elected to Congress. Among them was the false claim that Omar and other Democrats were plotting to institute Sharia law in Minnesota. 

Gaetz wins republican primary amid scandal 

Gaetz, a Trump protégé under federal investigation in a sex trafficking case, won a primary contest that was seen as a test of whether he could keep support among moderate Republicans. 

Gaetz has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. He was facing a challenge from Mark Lombardo, a former Marine and executive at FedEx who had blanketed the western Panhandle with attack ads centering around the investigation as he tried to take him on in Florida’s 1st Congressional District. 

Rebekah Jones, a former Department of Health employee who questioned the state’s COVID-19 data, won the Democratic primary for the seat in the heavily Republican district. A state inspector general’s report concluded Jones’ allegations were unfounded, but in her race for Congress, she tapped into national support for fundraising, bringing in more than $500,000. 
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US National Archives: Trump Took 700 Pages of Classified Documents to Florida

Former U.S. President Donald Trump left Washington with more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some containing the government’s top secrets, when his presidency ended last year, the National Archives disclosed Tuesday. 

The disclosure came in a letter dated May 10 from the acting U.S. archivist, Debra Steidel Wall, to one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, as she rejected claims from Trump’s representatives that the former president should be allowed to keep some of the documents by claiming executive privilege from his time in the White House. 

Wall described the growing alarm in the Justice Department’s National Security Division about the “potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported” to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate rather than being turned over the National Archives when his presidency ended, as required by U.S. law.  

Her letter said there were “over 100 documents with classification markings” in the 15 boxes of materials the government retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January, the first of three times this year that the FBI and U.S. archivists have collected boxes of classified materials from Trump’s wintertime residence and private club on the Atlantic coastline. 

Trump and his aides handed over more documents in June, and then FBI agents, acting with a court-approved search warrant, retrieved another two dozen boxes, including 11 boxes of classified files on August 8, as they searched his office, a basement storage area and other rooms at the estate. 

Some of the documents retrieved have been classified as “TS/SCI,” which stands for “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information,” or labeled as “Special Access Programs,” which contain some of the government’s most closely held secrets and are supposed to be viewed only in secure government facilities, not a residence like Mar-a-Lago. Aside from being Trump’s home several months a year, it is a high-end dinner club and hotel for dues-paying members. 

Trump has claimed that he declassified the materials before his term ended on Jan. 20, 2021, and Joe Biden became the U.S. president, but neither Trump nor his aides have produced any documented evidence of such a declassification. 

John Solomon, one of Trump’s allies in the news media and one of the former president’s liaisons to the archives, first disclosed the Wall letter Monday night and the archives then released it on Tuesday. 

The new disclosure came as Trump’s lawyers on Monday asked a federal court to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing documents recovered from his Florida estate until a special master can be appointed to separate out any materials covered by executive privilege and return them to him.  

Federal investigators are probing whether Trump illegally kept the records at Mar-a-Lago, contending in a search warrant it used for the August 8 search that he might have violated three U.S. laws, including the U.S. Espionage Act. 

The New York Times reported Monday that overall, the government has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Trump’s estate, including CIA, National Security Agency and FBI materials, although the content of the material has not been disclosed.  

Trump has criticized the proceedings, and his legal filing called the August 8 FBI search a “shockingly aggressive move.”  

Attorney General Merrick Garland said he had authorized the search, and a federal magistrate approved it after the FBI asserted in an affidavit that it believed a crime could have been committed.  

Trump’s allies have asserted that he had a “standing order” to declassify material taken out of the Oval Office at the White House, but no paperwork has been produced confirming he did so.  

Following the August 8 search, some of the biggest U.S. news organizations asked federal magistrate Bruce Reinhart in Florida to make public the FBI affidavit detailing the probable cause for conducting the search. The Justice Department opposes release of the document for fear it would jeopardize its investigation and divulge the names of cooperating witnesses.  

The magistrate judge said he was considering releasing a redacted version of the affidavit but acknowledged Monday that if key portions of it were blacked out, as requested by government prosecutors, its release would be virtually meaningless. He has ordered prosecutors to present their proposed redactions by Thursday.  

 
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Husband of House Speaker Pelosi Gets 5 Days in Jail, 3 Years of Probation in DUI

The husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pleaded guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in California’s wine country and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation. 

Paul Pelosi already served two days in jail and received conduct credit for two other days, Napa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Solga said. Paul Pelosi will work eight hours in the court’s work program in lieu of the remaining day, Solga said during Paul Pelosi’s sentencing, which he did not attend. 

State law allows for DUI misdemeanor defendants to appear through their attorney unless ordered otherwise by the court. 

As part of his probation, Paul Pelosi will also be required to attend a three-month drinking driver class, and install an ignition interlock device, where the driver has to provide a breath sample before the engine will start. He will also have to pay nearly $7,000 in fines, the judge said. 

Paul Pelosi was arrested following a May 28 crash in Napa County, north of San Francisco, after a DUI test showed he had a blood alcohol content of .082%, just over the legal limit. 

Officers responding to the crash after 10 p.m. near the wine country town of Yountville said they found Pelosi in the driver’s seat of a 2021 Porsche Carrera and the other driver standing outside a sport utility vehicle, according to the complaint. 

California Highway Patrol officers reported that Pelosi was “unsteady on his feet, his speech was slurred, and he had a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage.” 

Pelosi offered to officers his driver’s license along with an “11-99 Foundation” card when asked for identification, the complaint says. The 11-99 Foundation supports CHP employees and their families. 

Prosecutors filed the case as a misdemeanor because of injuries to the 48-year-old driver of the SUV. They have declined to identify the driver, saying the person has requested privacy. 

In an interview with investigators from the district attorney’s office, the driver reported pain in his upper right arm, right shoulder and neck the day after the crash. He said he also had headaches. 

Pelosi was released on $5,000 bail after his arrest. Speaker Pelosi was in Rhode Island to deliver the commencement address at Brown University at the time. Her office has declined to comment. 

 
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Trump Asks Court to Block FBI From Reviewing Documents Seized From Mar-a-lago

Lawyers for former U.S. President Donald Trump have asked a federal court to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing documents recovered from his Florida estate until a special master can be appointed to separate material covered by executive privilege. 

Federal investigators are probing whether Trump illegally kept records after the end of his presidential term.  

The FBI seized 11 sets of classified material from Trump’s estate earlier this month, including some labeled with the nation’s highest level of classification that can only be viewed in designated government facilities. The National Archives also removed boxes from the estate earlier this year that should have been turned over to the agency when Trump left office. 

Trump has criticized the proceedings, and his legal filing called the Aug. 8 2022, FBI search a “shockingly aggressive move.” 

The U.S. Justice Department responded that a federal judge authorized the search after the FBI showed probable cause that a crime had been committed. 

The New York Times reported Monday that the government has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Trump’s estate, including material from the CIA, National Security Agency and FBI. 

Following the August search, Trump’s lawyers asked a federal magistrate to make public the FBI affidavit detailing the probable cause for conducting the search. 

The Justice Department opposed the move, saying it would jeopardize an ongoing criminal investigation, and the magistrate said Monday that while that concern is legitimate, he does not believe the document should remain sealed in its entirety. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Trump Seeks Special Master to Review Mar-a-Lago Documents

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump on Monday asked a federal judge to prevent the FBI from continuing to review documents recovered from his Florida estate earlier this month until a neutral special master can be appointed. 

The attorneys asserted in a court filing, their first since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago, that the sets of documents taken from the residence were “presumptively” covered by executive privilege. 

“This matter has captured the attention of the American public. Merely ‘adequate’ safeguards are not acceptable when the matter at hand involves not only the constitutional rights of President Trump, but also the presumption of executive privilege,” the attorneys wrote. 

Separately Monday, a federal judge acknowledged that redactions to an FBI affidavit spelling out the basis for the search might be so extensive as to make the document “meaningless” if released to the public. But he said he continued to believe it should not remain sealed in its entirety because of the “intense” public interest in the investigation. 

A written order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart largely restates what he said in court last week, when he directed the Justice Department to propose redactions about the information in the affidavit that it wants to remain secret. That submission is due Thursday at noon. 

Justice Department officials have sought to keep the entire document sealed, saying disclosing any portion of it risks compromising an ongoing criminal investigation, revealing information about witnesses and divulging investigative techniques. They have advised the judge that the necessary redactions to the affidavit would be so numerous that they would strip the document of any substantive information and make it effectively meaningless for the public. 

Reinhart acknowledged that possibility in his Monday order, writing, “I cannot say at this point that partial redactions will be so extensive that they will result in a meaningless disclosure, but I may ultimately reach that conclusion after hearing further from the Government.” 

Several news organizations, including The Associated Press, have urged the judge to unseal additional records tied to this month’s search of Mar-a-Lago, when FBI officials said they recovered 11 sets of classified documents, including top secret records, from the Florida estate. 

Of particular interest is the affidavit supporting the search, which presumably contains key details about the Justice Department’s investigation examining whether Trump retained and mishandled classified and sensitive government records. Trump and some of his supporters have also called for the document to be released, hoping it will expose what they contend was government overreach. 

In his written ruling, Reinhart said the Justice Department had a compelling interest in preventing the affidavit from being released in its entirety. But he said he did not believe it should remain fully sealed, and said he was not persuaded by the department’s arguments that the redaction process “imposes an undue burden on its resources.” 

“Particularly given the intense public and historical interest in an unprecedented search of a former President’s residence, the Government has not yet shown that these administrative concerns are sufficient to justify sealing,” he wrote. 

 
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DOJ in Quandary as It Mulls Disclosing Trump Search Document

A federal judge has given the U.S. Justice Department one week to redact an affidavit used to justify the recent search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence before the rest of the document could be made public.

The document is being sought by a group of news outlets following the unprecedented search that was carried out as part of an ongoing federal investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents that he took to Mar-a-Lago.

The court-issued warrant used to search Trump’s residence was unsealed last week, showing that Trump is under investigation for several potential crimes including obstruction of justice and a possible violation of the Espionage Act. The law makes it a crime to obtain and release national defense information that could be used to harm the United States and benefit its enemies.

But prosecutors oppose unsealing the more sensitive affidavit, the legal document they presented to a judge to obtain the search warrant.

Jay Bratt, the head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence and export control section, argued that the document contains so much sensitive information that redacting it would practically render it worthless.

“There would be nothing of substance,” Bratt said during Thursday’s hearing with U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart.

The search of Trump’s residence during which agents removed 11 sets of classified documents he had taken from the White House and failed to turn over to the National Archives has set off an angry backlash from the former president and his allies.

Trump claims he had a “standing order” to declassify all documents removed from the Oval Office, a notion questioned by many national security experts.

The FBI investigation of Trump’s handling of the classified documents is in its early stages, Bratt said in court Thursday.

The sought-after affidavit would almost certainly reveal far more information about the investigation than did the search warrant, said Jordan Strauss, a former Justice Department official now a managing director at Kroll, an investigation and risk consultancy.

“If, for example, there’s a confidential human informant or other source of information, it could reveal that,” Strauss said in an interview. “And while there is no indication that this is the case, if there was a wiretap, if there was an anonymous tip given to the FBI or another law enforcement agency, or if there are other sources or methods in which information is being gathered, like if there were a cooperating individual or a cooperating defendant whose indictment is under seal — all of that could become public if there was no significant redaction.”

An affidavit, typically filed by an FBI agent, outlines the type of crime under investigation, the reason prosecutors believe evidence of that crime can be found at the location, and the source of the government’s information.

In general, an affidavit is released once a defendant is charged with a crime, but not while an investigation is ongoing.

In deciding whether to disclose the affidavit, the government finds itself in a quandary, said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a law professor at Columbia University in New York.

“On one hand, if you really do strain to protect all confidential sources and keep investigations quiet to the extent possible, then you’ll be tossing out this odd series of sentences that will become a Rorschach test for the American public,” Richman said in an interview. “Those looking for a reason to believe that this is a witch hunt, will find some. Those inclined to think the government has reason to go forward with this search will be satisfied.”

“Having a ragtag document floating around might not serve anyone’s purpose and even more will create this really bad precedent of the media thinking that they could always push for release of at least some portion of an affidavit in high-profile cases,” Richman said.

But news outlets say given the historic significance of searching a former president’s home, releasing the affidavit is in the public interest.

“The raid on Mar-a-Lago by the FBI is already one of the most significant law enforcement events in the nation’s history,” Charles Tobin, a lawyer representing the media groups, said during the hearing. 
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Trump Wouldn’t Be First Former World Leader Facing Criminal Charges

Experts say the unsealing of court documents Thursday sharpens the focus on former President Donald Trump as a possible subject of a criminal investigation into his removal and storage of sensitive documents from the White House. As VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, the U.S. has now joined other democratic countries in investigating a former leader.
Camera: Celia Mendoza
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Biden Administration Strengthens Hostage Policy

Hostage negotiations are a delicate test in diplomacy and are handled at the highest levels of the American government. The Biden administration recently clarified its stance on this issue — but does this come in time for the release of several high-profile hostages held overseas? VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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Arizona’s Border Wall Work Delayed After 2 Containers Topple

An effort by Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Yuma, Arizona, suffered a setback when two stacked containers toppled over. 

Claudia Ramos, a correspondent for the digital platform of Univision Noticias in Arizona, posted on her Twitter feed a photo she took Monday morning of the containers on their side. She said they fell on the U.S. side of the border. 

No witnesses have come forward to say what happened Sunday night. 

Ramos said contractors in the area told her that they believed the containers may have been toppled by strong monsoon winds. 

But C.J. Karamargin, a Ducey spokesman, said that he doubted that hypothesis, adding that even though the containers are empty they still weigh thousands of pounds. 

“It’s unlikely this was a weather event,” said Karamargin, suggesting that someone opposed to the wall was to blame. 

The stacked pair of containers were righted by early Monday morning. 

“Clearly we struck a nerve. They don’t like what we are doing, and they don’t want to keep the border open,” the spokesman said. 

Officials with Ducey’s office say they were acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to close the gap. 

Federal officials have not commented on the state’s actions, which come without explicit permission on federal land. State contractors began moving and stacking 18.2-meter-long (60-foot-long), 2.7-meter-tall (9-foot-tall) shipping containers early Friday. Two other 305-meter (1,000-foot) gaps also will be closed off. The containers will be topped with 1.2 meters (4 feet) of razor wire. 

Karamargin said that the Border Patrol informed the governor’s office around midnight that the containers were toppled. 

“Those weren’t secured yet,” he said. “This happened before securing the containers to the ground. They will be bolted later and will be immovable.” 
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Trump Critic Liz Cheney Falls in US Primary, But Murkowski Survives

U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, a fierce Republican critic of Donald Trump who has played a prominent role in the congressional probe of the January 6 assault on the Capitol, lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in Wyoming on Tuesday.   

But Senator Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who has defied the former president, cleared a hurdle in Alaska. She was set to face Trump-endorsed challenger Kelly Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 congressional election, as the two candidates advanced in that state’s nonpartisan primary. 

Cheney’s defeat, by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, marks a significant victory for the former president in his campaign to oust Republicans who backed impeaching him after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol building last year. 

In conceding the race, Cheney said she was not willing “go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election” to win a primary. 

“It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take,” she told supporters. 

With 99% of expected ballots counted in Wyoming, Hageman led the Republican field with 66.3% of the vote, followed by Cheney with 28.9%, according to Edison Research, an election monitoring firm. 

The results were less clear cut in Alaska. 

With 72% of expected ballots tallied, Murkowski narrowly led with 42.7% of the vote, followed by Tshibaka at 41.4% and Democrat Patricia Chesbro at 6.2%, according to Edison. The nonpartisan primary format in that state weeds out all but the top four vote-getters.   

Murkowski, a moderate who is one of the more independent voices in the Senate, has held the seat since 2003. 

Also in Alaska, Edison predicted that no candidate would emerge as a clear winner in the three-way contest to complete the term of Representative Don Young, who died in March. 

That race pits Sarah Palin, a former governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee who has been endorsed by Trump, against fellow Republican Nick Begich III and Democrat Mary Peltola. The winner will be announced on August 31.   

Both Wyoming and Alaska are reliably Republican, making it unlikely that the results will influence whether President Joe Biden’s Democrats lose their razor-thin majorities in Congress. Republicans are expected to retake the House and also have a chance of winning control of the Senate. 

Weeding out Trump critics   

The ousting of Cheney is the latest sign of Trump’s enduring sway over the Republican Party. 

Trump, who has hinted that he will run for president in 2024, made ending Cheney’s congressional career a priority among the 10 House Republicans he targeted for supporting his impeachment in 2021. 

Cheney, the daughter of Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, has used her position on the January 6 committee investigating the circumstances surrounding the Capitol riot to keep attention on Trump’s actions that day and his false claims that he won the 2020 election.   

Republican leaders are expected to dissolve the January 6 investigation if they win control of the House in November. The representatives in the new Congress take their seats in January. 

Hageman, a natural resources lawyer who has embraced Trump’s election lies, criticized Cheney’s concession speech, saying it showed she cared little about the issues facing her state.   

“She’s still focusing on an obsession about President Trump and the citizens of Wyoming, the voters of Wyoming sent a very loud message tonight,” Hageman said on Fox News. 

Cheney, in the House, voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting the Capitol riot, while Murkowski, in the Senate, voted to convict him on that charge. Trump was ultimately acquitted. 

Of the 10 Republicans who supported impeachment, it is possible that only one — Dan Newhouse of Washington – will be in Congress after November’s election. 
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White House Offers Africa a New Start With Equality-Minded Policy

Policy establishes U.S. and African countries as partners 
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Judge: Senator Graham Must Testify in Georgia Election Probe

A federal judge on Monday said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that is investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies broke any laws while trying to overturn his narrow 2020 general election loss in the state.

Attorneys for Graham, a Republican, had argued that his position as a U.S. senator provided him immunity from having to appear before the investigative panel and asked the judge to quash his subpoena. But U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May wrote in an order Monday that immunities related to his role as a senator do not protect him from having to testify. Graham’s subpoena instructs him to appear before the special grand jury on August 23, but he is expected to appeal the judge’s ruling.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis opened the investigation last year, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May at her request. Last month she filed petitions seeking to compel testimony from seven Trump advisers and associates.

Prosecutors have indicated they want to ask Graham about phone calls they say he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks following Trump’s election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Graham had argued that a provision of the Constitution provides absolute protection against a senator being questioned about legislative acts. But the judge found there are “considerable areas of potential grand jury inquiry” that fall outside that provision’s scope. The judge also rejected Graham’s argument that the principle of “sovereign immunity” protects a senator from being summoned by a state prosecutor.

Graham also argued that Willis, a Democrat, had not demonstrated extraordinary circumstances necessary to compel testimony from a high-ranking official. But the judge disagreed, finding that Willis has shown “extraordinary circumstances and a special need” for Graham’s testimony on issues related to alleged attempt to influence or disrupt the election in Georgia.

May, the judge, last month rejected a similar attempt by U.S. Representative Jody Hice, a Republican, to avoid testifying before the special grand jury. Former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani had argued he couldn’t travel to Atlanta to testify because of health issues, but Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, instructed him to appear on Wednesday.

A Graham spokesperson, Kevin Bishop, said Monday the senator had no comment but referred to what Graham said when asked about the probe last week. During a news conference in Columbia, South Carolina, Graham said, “We will take this as far as we need to take it” when asked about his efforts to fight his subpoena.

“I was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and had to vote on certifying an election,” Graham told reporters. “This is ridiculous. This weaponization of the law needs to stop. So I will use the courts. We will go as far as we need to go and do whatever needs to be done to make sure that people like me can do their jobs without fear of some county prosecutor coming after you.”

In calls made shortly after the 2020 general election, Graham “questioned Secretary Raffensperger and his staff about reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” Willis wrote in a petition.

Graham also “made reference to allegations of widespread voter fraud in the November 2020 election in Georgia, consistent with public statements made by known affiliates of the Trump Campaign,” she wrote.

Republican and Democratic state election officials across the country, courts and even Trump’s attorney general found there was no evidence of any voter fraud sufficient to affect the outcome of his 2020 presidential election loss.
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Trump Investigated for Possible Violation of Espionage Act

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating former President Donald Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act and other crimes after the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, earlier this week. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
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Congress OKs Democrats’ Climate, Tax, Health Bill, a Biden Triumph

A divided Congress gave final approval Friday to Democrats’ flagship climate, tax and health care bill, handing President Joe Biden a back-from-the-dead triumph on coveted priorities that the party hopes will bolster its prospects for keeping control of Congress in November’s elections. 

The House used a party-line 220-207 vote to pass the legislation, which is but a shadow of the larger, more ambitious plan to supercharge environment and social programs that Biden and his party envisioned early last year.

Even so, Democrats happily declared victory on top-tier goals like providing Congress’ largest ever investment in curbing carbon emissions, reining in pharmaceutical costs and taxing large companies, a vote they believe will show they can wring accomplishments from a routinely gridlocked Washington that often disillusions voters. 

“Today is a day of celebration, a day we take another giant step in our momentous agenda,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. She said the measure “meets the moment, ensuring that our families thrive and that our planet survives.” 

Republicans solidly opposed the legislation, calling it a cornucopia of wasteful liberal daydreams that would raise taxes and families’ living costs. They did the same Sunday but Senate Democrats banded together and used Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote to power the measure through that 50-50 chamber. 

“Democrats, more than any other majority in history, are addicted to spending other people’s money, regardless of what we as a country can afford,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican. “I can almost see glee in their eyes.” 

Biden’s initial 10-year, $3.5 trillion proposal also envisioned free prekindergarten, paid family and medical leave, expanded Medicare benefits and eased immigration restrictions. That crashed after centrist Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, said it was too costly, using the leverage every Democrat has in the evenly divided Senate. 

Still, the final legislation remained substantive. Its pillar is about $375 billion over 10 years to encourage industry and consumers to shift from carbon-emitting to cleaner forms of energy. That includes $4 billion to cope with the West’s catastrophic drought. 

Spending, tax credits and loans would bolster technology like solar panels, consumer efforts to improve home energy efficiency, emission-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-powered power plants, and air pollution controls for farms, ports and low-income communities. 

Another $64 billion would help 13 million people pay premiums over the next three years for privately bought health insurance. Medicare would gain the power to negotiate its costs for pharmaceuticals, initially in 2026 for only 10 drugs. Medicare beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket prescription costs would be limited to $2,000 starting in 2025, and beginning next year they would pay no more than $35 monthly for insulin, the costly diabetes drug. 

The bill would raise around $740 billion in revenue over the decade, over a third from government savings from lower drug prices. More would flow from higher taxes on some $1 billion corporations, levies on companies that repurchase their own stock and stronger Internal Revenue Service tax collections. About $300 billion would remain to defray budget deficits, a sliver of the period’s projected $16 trillion total. 

Against the backdrop of GOP attacks on the FBI for its court-empowered search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate for sensitive documents, Republicans repeatedly savaged the bill’s boost to the IRS budget. That is aimed at collecting an estimated $120 billion in unpaid taxes over the coming decade, and Republicans have misleadingly claimed that the IRS will hire 87,000 agents to target average families. 

Representative Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican, said Democrats would also “weaponize” the IRS with agents, “many of whom will be trained in the use of deadly force, to go after any American citizen.” Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Thursday on “Fox and Friends” if there would be an IRS “strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small-business person.” 

Few IRS personnel are armed, and Democrats say the bill’s $80 billion, 10-year budget increase would be to replace waves of retirees, not just agents, and modernize equipment. They have said typical families and small businesses would not be targeted, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen directing the IRS this week to not “increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold” that would be audited. 

Republicans say the legislation’s new business taxes will increase prices, worsening the nation’s bout with its worst inflation since 1981. Though Democrats have labeled the measure the Inflation Reduction Act, nonpartisan analysts say it will have a barely perceptible impact on prices. 

The GOP also says the bill would raise taxes on lower- and middle-income families. An analysis by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which didn’t include the bill’s tax breaks for health care and energy, estimated that the corporate tax boosts would marginally affect those taxpayers but indirectly, partly due to lower stock prices and wages. 

The bill caps three months in which Congress has approved legislation on veterans’ benefits, the semiconductor industry, gun checks for young buyers and Ukraine’s invasion by Russia and adding Sweden and Finland to NATO. All passed with bipartisan support, suggesting Republicans also want to display their productive side. 

It’s unclear whether voters will reward Democrats for the legislation after months of painfully high inflation dominating voters’ attention and Biden’s dangerously low popularity with the public and a steady history of midterm elections that batter the party holding the White House. 

The bill had its roots in early 2021, after Congress approved a $1.9 trillion measure over GOP opposition to combat the pandemic-induced economic downturn. Emboldened, the new president and his party reached further. 

They called their $3.5 trillion plan Build Back Better. Besides social and environment initiatives, it proposed rolling back Trump-era tax breaks for the rich and corporations and $555 billion for climate efforts, well above the resources in Friday’s legislation. 

With Manchin opposing those amounts, it was sliced to a roughly $2 trillion measure that Democrats moved through the House in November. He unexpectedly sank that bill too, earning scorn from exasperated fellow Democrats from Capitol Hill and the White House. 

Last-gasp talks between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, seemed fruitless until the two unexpectedly announced agreement last month on the new package. 

Manchin won billions for carbon capture technology for the fossil fuel industries he champions, plus procedures for more oil drilling on federal lands and promises for faster energy project permitting. Centrist Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, also won concessions, eliminating planned higher taxes on hedge fund managers and helping win the drought funds.
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Backers, Opponents of Abortion Rights Recalibrate After Surprising Kansas Referendum

A Republican-leaning state in America’s socially conservative heartland recently shocked both sides of the long-running battle over abortion, calling into question the conventional wisdom about how and where the procedure might be restricted or banned. 

Voters in Kansas cast ballots last week on a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would have eliminated an existing right to abortion. The amendment was expected to pass handily in a state no Democratic presidential contender has won in nearly 60 years and where Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by 15 percentage points in the 2020 election. 

Voters rejected the ballot measure, preserving abortion rights. 

“The consensus was that Republicans in Kansas were going to ban abortion like in many other conservative states,” University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock told VOA. “But we got a big surprise. Kansas voted to uphold abortion protections and the only way to explain it is that the vote exposed a rift. There seems to be a difference between what Republican politicians want and what voters – including some Republican voters – want.” 

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in June, it gave each U.S. state the ability to decide whether to allow or ban abortion. 

Until last week, initial results seemed to follow states’ partisan leanings, with Republican-controlled states moving to outlaw abortions and Democrat-led states preserving and, in some cases, moving to bolster abortion protections.  

For example, just days after the Kansas vote, lawmakers in another conservative breadbasket state, Indiana, became the first in the post-Roe era to pass a law banning most abortions. Before the Supreme Court’s June ruling, several Republican-led state legislatures had passed so-called “trigger laws” that restricted or ended access to the procedure once Roe was overturned. 

“The difference between Kansas and the states like Indiana,” Bullock said, “is that in Indiana politicians in the legislature voted on the proposed laws, while in Kansas, the public got to vote directly. It turns out that distinction makes a big difference.” 

And the Kansas vote was decisive, defeating the anti-abortion-rights amendment 59% to 41%. 

While the result will impact the lives of women and families across the Sunflower State, Bullock believes the shock waves could be far reaching. 

“Politicians and activists from around the country are watching and analyzing what happened in Kansas,” he said, “and you might see both sides employing the lessons they’re learning when the fight comes to their own states.” 

Rift among Republicans 

Ann Mah, a Democratic member of the Kansas State Board of Education, remembers the moment she first thought abortion rights backers could win the amendment battle. 

“You have these Republican politicians who are always moving to the right to appeal to the loudest members of their base so they can win their primary,” she told VOA, “But I was getting the sense some conservative voters were becoming uneasy with the amount these proposed abortion policies were reaching into their private lives.” 

One day as the vote neared, Mah spoke with a neighbor she described as “ultra-conservative.”  

“We don’t agree on hardly anything, me and this person,” she said, “but he came to my house and asked for a ‘Vote No’ yard sign because he didn’t support the amendment. That’s when I knew we had a chance.” 

Not everyone believes what happened in Kansas will carry over to other states, however.

“I’m not from Kansas or Indiana so I can’t speak to what people do in those states,” said Sarah Zagorski, communications director at Louisiana Right to Life, an anti-abortion-rights advocacy organization, “but I can say that one negative result in a state isn’t necessarily indicative of how the country feels about abortion. For pro-life people here in Louisiana, they just won’t be voting for radical abortion extremists and their policies.” 

But former Louisiana state Representative Melissa Flournoy, a Democrat, believes the reality and consequences of the Supreme Court’s abortion decision are only just now registering for many.  

Flournoy pointed to a recent case that made national headlines in which a child victim of rape had to be taken to another state in order to terminate a pregnancy. 

“We’re confronted with this story about a 10-year-old girl who was raped, became pregnant, and was about to be denied an abortion – that’s shocking to most of America,” Flournoy told VOA. “It’s like, ‘Yes, we really are outlawing abortion in all circumstances.’ It’s disorienting, and the implications are coming into focus, even among some voters who consider themselves pro-life.” 

Polling data 

An Ipsos/USA Today poll released Wednesday found 54% of respondents would vote to keep or make abortion legal in their state, with 28% indicating they would vote against abortion-rights measures. 

While it’s more common for legislatures to handle these matters, voters are increasingly clamoring for a direct say. In Republican-controlled South Dakota, for example, the Kansas vote has spawned an effort to pursue a statewide referendum on reestablishing abortion rights in the state. 

Additionally, this November, voters in California, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont will have the opportunity to weigh in on abortion rights via the ballot box, while plans are being finalized to give residents in Colorado and Michigan that same opportunity. 

In fact, according to the Ipsos/USA Today poll, 70% of Americans say they want to vote on abortion via state ballots, including 73% of Democrats, 77% of Republicans and 67% of independents.  

“Opinion on reproductive choice isn’t only based on party lines,” said Cynthia Lash, chair of the Osage County Democratic Central Committee in Kansas, speaking with VOA. “In our state, several nonpartisan groups formed solely to defeat the amendment. They canvassed, they texted voters in all counties regardless of party affiliation, they developed yard signs, they held rallies — they were much more active than traditional campaigns in reaching out to everyone.”  

Osage County is deeply Republican, but even there, 56% of voters opposed the abortion-rights amendment last week.  

“In our small, rural county, only 17% of registered voters are Democrats,” Lash said. “Even in the unlikely case that every Democrat and unaffiliated voter voted against the amendment, that means 31% of Republican voters cast a ballot against the amendment as well. That’s how unpopular it was.” 

Not all anti-abortion activists, however, are convinced a vote against the amendment was a vote against restricting abortions. 

“In Kansas, voters rejected an amendment that allows the legislature to limit or allow abortions as those politicians see fit,” said Laura Knight, president of Pro-Life Mississippi. “Maybe those voters wanted a total ban of abortion. Maybe they felt the amendment wasn’t strong enough. We don’t know.”  

Electoral implications 

Some in the Republican Party worry they are pushing too far in banning abortion, months before midterm elections that will determine control of the U.S. Congress. This past Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina compared the impact of anti-abortion initiatives to the fictional portrayal of an America in which women have no rights in a popular U.S. television series. 

“It will be an issue in November if we’re not moderating ourselves. ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ is not supposed to be a road map,” Mace said.

Others are urging anti-abortion officeholders to stay true to their beliefs. 

“Government officials are elected to vote their conscience, not to check in with the public on everything,” Tara Wicker, who leads Louisiana Black Advocates for Life, told VOA. “Children who are born of rape or incest are still innocent children and we should be protecting them, regardless of how popular that decision is among a subset of voters.” 

Bullock from the University of Georgia sees warning signs for advocates of abortion measures who ignore the will of voters. 

“Both sides have things they can learn from what we’re seeing in states like Indiana and Kansas,” he said, “and for Republicans, the warning is they seem to be pushing beyond what their voters want. It’s a lesson they’ve been confronted with before, but they don’t seem to be learning it.” 

At a time of economic uncertainty in America, the degree to which abortion could determine election outcomes remains to be seen. 

A recent poll in the swing state of Nevada by The Nevada Independent, a news website, and OH Predictive Insights, a market research company, showed abortion laws were the second most powerful issue for respondents – behind only the economy. But the gap between the two remained substantial (40% for the economy and 17% for abortion laws).

“Inflation and the economy as a whole is still front-of-mind for most Americans, but that doesn’t mean the abortion debate can’t impact elections this November,” Bullock said. “This is going to be a big issue for suburban white women, many of whom typically vote Republican. If 50,000 here or 100,000 there change their mind in especially tight districts or states, that’s enough to flip a result or two, and potentially even [determine] control of the [U.S.] Senate.” 
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January 6 Attack Dominates Debate in Wyoming Congressional Race

Some 2,500 kilometers from Washington, D.C., the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol still looms large in the minds of Wyoming voters who will be heading to the polls on August 16 to decide if Republican Liz Cheney should keep her seat in Congress.

Wyoming’s only representative in the U.S. House, two-term Congresswoman Cheney has staked her political career on being one of the few Republicans to openly criticize former President Donald Trump. But she has an uphill fight to win her party’s nomination in a state that delivered Trump his most lopsided win of the 2020 election, with almost 70% of the vote.

The Wyoming Republican Party primary has pitted Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, against the Trump-endorsed candidate, former attorney Harriet Hageman. The least-populated state in the nation, Wyoming has been solidly Republican for decades. But the debate over Trump has forced voters to decide exactly what it means to be a loyal Republican and has turned the primary contest into a test for the former president ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 for inciting the riot at the U.S. Capitol and has served as vice chair of the House select committee to investigate the January 6th attack. She was expelled from the state Republican Party for continuing to call Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election “the Big Lie.”

“Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the ongoing violence against law enforcement, to threaten our constitutional order. There is no way to excuse that behavior,” Cheney said during a January 6th Committee hearing last month. She has also suggested Trump should face federal charges for his actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

“We need a leader like Liz,” Jan Cartwright, a retired health care executive from Cheyenne, told VOA. “I think that it’s important for us to look at what happened with both the Trump presidency and then January 6, and I think that truth has to overcome lies. I believe that that’s what she’s trying to do, is to get to the truth.”

Trump has criticized the work of the January 6th Committee, suggesting it is unfair that the two Republicans investigating his actions also voted to impeach him.

“Liz Cheney hates the voters of the Republican Party, and she has for longer than you would know,” Trump said at a Casper, Wyoming, rally for Hageman in May.

“Wyoming deserves a congresswoman who stands up for you and your values, not one who spends all of her time putting you down and going after your president in the most vicious way possible.”

But some Wyoming voters have been turned off by Trump’s messaging, saying Cheney’s determination is a Wyoming value. Independent voter Don Maloff told VOA he is switching his party registration just so that he can vote for Cheney.

“Cheney is being stepped on by Trump, which is wrong in every which way,” Maloff said, adding that he admires Cheney’s work on the January 6th Committee even though he doesn’t think it will change anyone’s mind.

In their only debate, on July 1, the two candidates focused on Trump, with Cheney suggesting Hageman knew Trump’s election fraud claims were false.

“The election was not stolen. She knows it wasn’t stolen. I think that she can’t say that it wasn’t stolen because she’s completely beholden to Donald Trump,” Cheney said.

But Hageman contended Cheney was ignoring her constituents by focusing on the investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Our republic is not in danger because of President Donald J. Trump. President Trump was an excellent president for the United States of America and especially for the state of Wyoming,” Hageman said in the debate.

Polling in the days leading up to the Tuesday primary has Hageman leading Cheney by a significant margin, an indication that Hageman’s criticism of the January 6th Committee is connecting with many Wyoming voters.

“She cannot like Donald Trump. She can do whatever she wants to try to get him where he can’t run again, the whole January 6 — whatever that whole nonsense is all about — but the voters in Wyoming stand — for the majority — stand solidly behind Trump,” Randy Mulkey, a Cheyenne voter who works for a roofing company, told VOA.

Hageman is running television advertisements suggesting Cheney wants to be re-elected as the state’s sole U.S. House representative because she is comfortable among the Washington elite.

That argument resonates with Kelly Krakow, an insurance salesman from Alban, Wyoming, who is concerned about the state of the economy.

“Cheney’s just stepped over the line on too much stuff,” Krakow said. “And really, she doesn’t live in Wyoming. She hasn’t for a long time. And I don’t think she has the Wyoming values behind her.”

Cheney’s father, meanwhile, is campaigning for his daughter. The former vice president, who also represented Wyoming in Congress in the 1980s, recorded a television ad in which he calls Trump “a coward” who lied to his followers about his 2020 election loss, and praises his daughter for “standing up for the truth.”

Even if she loses her primary, Cheney is expected to continue the January 6th investigation in Congress until the end of her term early next year.
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Four Key Races in Wisconsin, Minnesota Midterm Primaries

Voters in states including Wisconsin and Minnesota picked candidates for the U.S. Congress and other offices in primaries on Tuesday, in another test of former President Donald Trump’s influence in the Republican Party ahead of the November 8 midterms.

Vermont and Connecticut also held nomination contests, while Minnesota held a special election for its vacant 1st Congressional District. The following are four key races:

Wisconsin Republican governor’s primary

In its final stretch, the Republican nomination contest for Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race became another proxy battle between Trump and his estranged former vice president, Mike Pence.

Trump endorsed construction company owner Tim Michels in June, upending a race that until then was led by former state Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who Pence endorsed in July.

On Tuesday, Michels defeated Kleefisch, according to Edison Research. It was the third high-profile race this year in which Pence and Trump backed opposing candidates. In the previous contests, Pence-backed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp won the party nomination for his re-election bid, while Trump-backed Kari Lake, a former news anchor, won the Republican nomination for the Arizona governor’s race.

Pence, who like Trump is considering running for president in 2024, has recently distanced himself from Trump’s repeated falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen.

Wisconsin Democratic US senate primary

In the race to challenge Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, a progressive backed by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, easily won the Democratic nomination after a leading moderate opponent dropped out of the race in late July. The focus now shifts to Barnes’ ability to appeal to moderate voters in the race against Johnson, which could be one of November’s tightest and most consequential Senate races.

Minnesota Republican governor’s primary

Former Minnesota state senator Scott Jensen, who has vowed he will try to ban most abortions in the state, won the Republican Party nomination for the governor’s race.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion remains legal under state law in Minnesota. Jensen recently said he supports abortion rights in cases of rape or incest.

Jensen, a physician who has cast doubt on the seriousness of COVID-19, will now face Democratic Governor Tim Walz in November. Walz is seen as potentially vulnerable.

Minnesota special congressional election

Democrats face an uphill battle to gain the U.S. House of Representatives seat left vacant following the February death of Republican U.S. Representative Jim Hagedorn.

Ahead of Tuesday’s special election, Republican Brad Finstad, a former agriculture official in the Trump administration, was ahead of Democrat Jeff Ettinger 46% to 38%, according to a public opinion poll conducted in the last week of July by Survey USA.

Political observers have said the race could be close after Ettinger, a former CEO at Hormel Foods, spent early on television ads making the case that his business experience set him up as a problem-solver on run-away food prices.
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Trump Cries Foul After FBI Searches His Home

Former President Donald Trump claims he is being politically persecuted after the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday, in what appeared to be part of a long-running investigation of whether he has kept official documents instead of sending them to the National Archives when he left office. White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at the political fallout of the search.
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Trump Facing Major Criminal Investigations as He Considers 2024 Presidential Run

As he strongly hints at another campaign for the White House in 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump is facing major federal and state criminal investigations into his actions in the immediate aftermath of his failed reelection campaign in 2020.  

Monday’s unprecedented FBI raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida was the latest indication that investigators remain focused on the country’s 45th president. Reports say the investigators were seeking classified documents he may have taken with him when he left Washington last year. 

The search was court-authorized and was likely sanctioned at the highest levels of the Justice Department. But details of the search warrant filed by investigators and their justification for it are not yet publicly known, nor is the name of the judge who authorized it. The White House says it was not given advance notice of the raid. 

Under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, the official records of all presidents and vice presidents remain publicly owned, even after they leave office. The statute’s premise is that the papers belong to the American public, not the individuals who served as the country’s leaders. 

About a year after he left office, Trump turned over to the National Archives 15 boxes of documents from his presidency, some of which were said to include classified papers. But investigators who searched Trump’s office and opened a safe at his Florida seaside estate Monday carted away more documents that were not turned over in January. 

Trump belittled the search, much as he has the election-related investigations, as an attempt to keep him from running again in 2024.  

“These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” the former president said in a statement. 

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he said, contending the search was the result of “prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.” 

He claimed such a event “could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before.” 

Trump retains a wide following among a base of Republican voters, although an array of Republican officials, including Mike Pence, Trump’s vice president, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others, have been broadly hinting they could seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. 

Ongoing investigations 

The Justice Department is also investigating Trump’s role in instigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when about 2,000 of his supporters rampaged into the building to block lawmakers from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. At a rally shortly beforehand, Trump urged supporters to walk to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” 

Despite White House aides and then-Attorney General William Barr repeatedly telling Trump there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the vote-counting sufficient to overturn his defeat, Trump demanded publicly and privately that Pence stop certification of the Electoral College vote count favoring Biden.  

But Pence refused to do so on the advice of lawyers who told him the Constitution did not give him that authority. 

Investigators are looking into the role Trump played in carrying out a plan promoted by some of his advisers to name unauthorized slates of electors in states where he lost who would seek to replace the official electors pledged to Biden. 

In the United States, presidents are effectively chosen in separate elections in each of the 50 states, not through the national popular vote. Each state’s number of electoral votes is dependent on its population, with the biggest states holding the most sway. The rioters who stormed the Capitol tried to keep lawmakers from certifying Biden’s eventual 306-232 victory in the Electoral College.  

In a third investigation, a prosecutor in the southern state of Georgia is investigating Trump for possible solicitation of election fraud. 

In a taped January 2, 2021, telephone call, Trump asked Georgia’s top election official to “find” him 11,780 votes — one more than Biden defeated him by — out of 5 million ballots that were cast in the state. 

During the call, Trump said, “I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.” 

 
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FBI, Justice Department Routinely Prosecute Misuse of Classified Documents

Federal officials are saying little so far about Monday’s FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, but Trump and one of his sons have said the move is part of an investigation into Trump’s removal of official documents from the White House.

While such a search of a former U.S. president’s residence would appear to be unprecedented, investigations into the removal or unlawful retention of classified information is not.

Since 2005, the FBI and the Justice Department have launched at least 11 such investigations, some targeting high-profile former U.S. officials, including a former national security adviser and a former CIA director.

Others who have been prosecuted and who have pleaded guilty or were convicted include Defense Department employees, defense contractors and employees or contractors with the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Here’s a list of some notable cases:

April 2005 – Former U.S. national security adviser Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration. Berger admitted to concealing and removing five copies of a classified document from the Archives in September and October 2003.

Berger also admitted to concealing and removing handwritten notes in violation of the Archives’ policy. In September 2005, Berger was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and give up his security clearance for three years.

March 2013 –Retired Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Pierce Bishop was arrested in Hawaii and charged with one count of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense and one count of willfully communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive such information. Court papers alleged Bishop, who was working for a defense contractor, stored 12 documents containing classified information at his residence. The documents further allege Bishop willfully communicated that information to a 27-year-old Chinese woman with whom he had a relationship.

Bishop pleaded guilty in March 2014. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

March 2015 – Retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The plea followed revelations that Petraeus shared some of the materials with his biographer and mistress.

Petraeus was sentenced to two years of probation and a $100,000 fine.

July 2015 – U.S. Navy reservist Bryan Nishimura was sentenced to two years of probation and a $7,500 fine after he pleaded guilty to downloading and storing classified documents from his deployment to Afghanistan in 2007-2008 on his personal devices and media. A search of his home in May 2012 turned up numerous classified materials, both in digital and hard copy formats.

August 2016 – Former National Security Agency contractor Harold Martin was arrested for what federal prosecutors described as a theft of top-secret government information that was “breathtaking in its longevity and scale.”

Martin was indicted in February 2017 on charges of stealing and retaining classified documents and other material, according to a statement from the Justice Department. The department further alleged Martin “stole and retained” highly classified top secret documents covering 20 years, keeping them in his home and in his vehicle.

According to the indictment, the documents stolen and retained by Martin contained NSA planning information and information on intelligence collection targets. Other documents, from U.S. Cyber Command, contained information on U.S. military capabilities, some to be used in specific operations, and documents about gaps in U.S. cyber capabilities.

Martin pleaded guilty to the willful retention of national defense information in March 2019. In July 2019, Martin was sentenced to nine years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

January 2017 – Former defense contractor and sailor Weldon Marshall was arrested for unlawfully retaining classified information, stored on compact discs and computer hard drives that he kept at his home in Texas. The information included classified documents from Marshall’s time with the U.S. Navy and from his time as a defense contractor in Afghanistan.

Marshall pleaded guilty in March 2018. He was sentenced in June 2018 to more than three years in prison followed by a year of supervised release.

January 2018 – Former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee, also known as Zhen Cheng Li, was arrested on charges of unlawful retention of national defense information. Prosecutors alleged that Lee, while staying at hotels in Hawaii and Virginia, was in possession of two, small books that contained handwritten notes that included the true names and phone numbers of assets and covert CIA employees, operational notes from asset meetings, operational meeting locations and locations of covert facilities.

Lee was indicted in May 2018 on two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense, as well as one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.

Lee pleaded guilty and was sentenced in November 2019 to 19 years in prison for conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to China.

May 2018 – Former CIA contractor Reynaldo Regis pleaded guilty to charges of unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, as well as to making false statements to federal law enforcement officers. Prosecutors said during his time at the CIA, Reyes conducted unauthorized searches of classified databases and copied the information into dozens of notebooks, which he then took home.

In November 2018, Reyes was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Regis’ lawyer later told the Associated Press and other news outlets that his client “had no nefarious purpose. It was just a mistake.”

August 2019 – Former National Security Agency (NSA) employee Elizabeth Jo Shirley was arrested in Mexico City on charges of parental kidnapping and was later charged with retaining top secret documents on her electronic devices, both in Mexico and some stored at her home in West Virginia.

Prosecutors additionally alleged that Shirley sought to offer the information to the Russian government.

In July 2020, Shirley pleaded guilty to one count of willful retention of national defense information and to one count of international parental kidnapping. She was sentenced in January 2021 to more than eight years in prison for the willful retention of national defense information. She was also sentenced to three years in prison on the kidnapping charges.

June 2020 — Investigators conducted a search of the Hawaii home of Asia Janay Lavarello, a U.S. Defense Department employee, following her return from a temporary assignment to the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Investigators found numerous classified documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense or foreign relations and said the documents – first seen by guests at a dinner party hosted by Lavarello – had not been transported by secure diplomatic pouch, as required.

Lavarello pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified information in July 2021. She was sentenced in February 2022 to three months in prison and a $5,500 fine.

May 2021 – Kendra Kingsbury, an employee at the FBI’s Kansas City division, was indicted on two counts of having unauthorized possession of documents relating to the national defense. The court documents allege Kingsbury removed sensitive material and classified documents from her workplace over a period of more than 12 years and kept them at her home. One of the documents included information on al-Qaida members in Africa, including a suspected associate of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.
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Lawyer: Giuliani Won’t Testify Tuesday in Georgia Election Probe

Rudy Giuliani will not appear as scheduled Tuesday before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia, his lawyer said. 

A judge last month had ordered Giuliani, a Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, to appear before the special grand jury Tuesday. 

But Giuliani’s attorney, Robert Costello, told The Associated Press on Monday that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, had excused Giuliani for the day. 

Nothing in publicly available court documents indicates that Giuliani is excused from appearing, but McBurney has scheduled a hearing for 12:30 p.m. Tuesday to hear arguments on a court filing from Giuliani seeking to delay his appearance. In a court filing Monday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis asked the judge to deny Giuliani’s request for a delay and to instruct him to appear before the special grand jury as ordered. 

Willis opened an investigation early last year, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May at her request. 

Last month she filed petitions seeking to compel testimony from seven Trump advisers and associates, including Giuliani. Because they don’t live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involves getting a judge in the state where they live to order them to appear. 

New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber on July 13 issued an order directing Giuliani to appear before the special grand jury on August 9 and on any other dates ordered by the court in Atlanta. 

Giuliani’s legal team last week asked Willis’ office to delay his appearance, saying he was unable to travel because of a medical procedure. That request was rejected after Willis’ team found evidence on social media that he had traveled since his medical procedure. 

A Giuliani attorney then clarified to Willis’ team that Giuliani is not cleared for air travel, but Willis still refused to postpone his appearance, the motion says. 

In her Monday court filing, Willis wrote that her team had obtained records indicating that between July 19 and July 21, Giuliani bought multiple airline tickets, including tickets to Rome, Italy, and Zurich, Switzerland, for travel dates between July 22 and July 29. Willis said her team offered to provide alternative transportation — including bus or train fare — if Giuliani wasn’t cleared for air travel. 

Giuliani had also offered to appear virtually, for example by Zoom, his motion says. 

“It is important to note here that Mr. Giuliani is no way seeking to inappropriately delay or obstruct these proceedings or avoid giving evidence or testimony that is not subject to some claim of privilege in this matter,” the motion says, noting that Giuliani had appeared virtually before the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and testified for more than nine hours. 

“Mr. Giuliani is willing to do the same here under conditions that replicate a grand jury proceeding,” the motion says. 

In the petition for Giuliani’s testimony, Willis identified him as both a personal attorney for Trump and a lead attorney for his campaign. 

She wrote that he and others presented a Georgia state Senate subcommittee with a video recording of election workers that Giuliani alleged showed them producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers. 

Within 24 hours of that hearing on Dec. 3, 2020, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video and said that it had found that no voter fraud had taken place at the site. Nevertheless, Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using that debunked video, Willis wrote. 

Evidence shows that Giuliani’s appearance and testimony at the hearing “was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the petition says. 

 
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Trump Says Mar-a-Lago Home in Florida Raided by FBI

Former U.S. President Donald Trump said FBI agents have raided his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.  

“My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents,” Trump said in lengthy statement Monday evening. “After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.”  

The circumstances of the search were not immediately clear, according to media reports. The Justice Department, however, has been actively investigating the discovery of classified information in boxes of records that were taken to Trump’s Florida residence after he left the White House in January 2021. 

Trump, who was in New York City on Monday, did not say why the raid took place. The FBI and Justice Department did not immediately comment on Trump’s statement. 

Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson declined to comment on the search to The Associated Press. Iverson also declined to comment about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland had personally authorized the search, according to media reports. 

A person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, told the AP the search happened earlier Monday.  

Earlier this year, the National Archives and Records Administration said it had found classified material in 15 boxes at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. It then referred the case to the Justice Department. 

The Presidential Records Act of 1978 established that all presidential records are owned by the public and automatically transfer into the custody of the National Archives as soon as a commander-in-chief leaves office. All presidential libraries and museums are part of the National Archives.  

“Presidential records are the property of the United States government and are administered by the National Archives,” Meghan Ryan Guthorn, acting deputy chief operating officer of the agency, told VOA earlier this year. “So, all presidential papers, materials and records in the custody of the National Archives, whether donated, seized or governed by the Presidential Records Act, are owned by the federal government.” 

The former president accused the government of “prosecutorial misconduct,” saying the raid amounts to the “weaponization of the Justice System.” 

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he said. 

Trump said FBI agents even broke into the safe in his home.  

Evan Corcoran, a lawyer representing Trump, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post. 

The developments come as Trump has been preparing for a potential presidential run in 2024, possibly setting himself up for a rematch against President Joe Biden. He accused Democrats of “desperately” not wanting him to run again. 

Top Biden White House officials said they were not given advance notice of the raid, according to media reports. 

The Justice Department has been investigating the removal of official presidential records to Trump’s Florida estate at the conclusion of his presidency. It is not clear if the raid has anything to do with that investigation. 

Trump has previously said he agreed to return certain records to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, calling it “an ordinary and routine process.” 

The Justice Department also has been investigating efforts by allies of Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.  

The department has not announced whether it will seek criminal charges against Trump in that investigation. 

Dora Mekouar contributed to this report. Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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Examining the Debate Over Native American Land Acknowledgments

A civil rights lawsuit filed by a University of Washington computer science professor has called attention to a largely academic debate over land acknowledgments — formal statements that recognize Indigenous custodianship of geographic areas on which institutions stand or events take place.

Evolving out of the work of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, land acknowledgments are becoming increasingly common at U.S. universities and sporting events.

Yale University, for example, developed this statement:

“Yale University acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, and the Quinnipiac and other Algonquian speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now the state of Connecticut. We honor and respect the enduring relationship that exists between these peoples and nations and this land.”

Native American students at Stanford University in Stanford, California, put together a video statement acknowledging the institution’s location on the the ancestral land of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe (below):

In 2020, the University of Washington acknowledged its location on the traditional land and waterways of the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot Nations and encouraged faculty to include land acknowledgments on individual course syllabuses.

But Stuart Reges, a computer science professor at the University’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, opposes land acknowledgements and posted a dissenting statement on his course outline which read, “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.”

He now faces disciplinary action by the university for that statement. In his lawsuit, Reges alleged his First Amendment right to free speech had been violated.

The labor theory he cites was proposed by English philosopher John Locke in 1690, who suggested that by laboring and making the land more productive than it was in its original state of nature, an individual assumes the right to own that land.

“Locke said that in the case of land, if you grew corn on an acre of land, then by mixing your labor with the land, you come to own the land,” Reges told VOA. “So, if you believe in the Locke idea, then it wasn’t Native tribes that made productive use of this land. It was the people who founded the university.”

What is the Locke Theory of Property?

For help in understanding this little-known theory, VOA reached out to Kyle Swan, a professor of philosophy at California State University, Sacramento, who has written about Lockean property rights.

“I think he [Reges] is making some mistakes in the way he applies Locke’s theory,” he said. “Locke was talking about the commons, earth in its original state, when nobody owned anything yet.”

In a later chapter of his “Second Treatise of Government” titled “On Conquest,” Locke said property could only be legitimately acquired when it was not already owned by someone else.

“Why were they making contracts to acquire land from the natives if the natives didn’t already own the land?” Swan asked. “They wouldn’t do that if they believed that the lands were unused, unoccupied and unowned.”

“The second thing is that the person appropriating something from the commons, they have to do that in a way that improves it through their productive activity — gathering berries, hunting, fishing,” Swan said. “And finally, in acquiring the land, they have to leave enough and as good [land] for others.”

Locke also posed a condition in cases of conquest, said Swan, reading directly from Locke’s essay: “The inhabitants of any country, who are descended and derive a title to their estates from those who are subdued and had a government forced upon them against their free consents, retain a right to the possession of their ancestors.”

“In other words,” Swan said, “if what you have is a conquest rather than a legitimate transfer of territorial rights, then Locke says that the original inhabitants retain their claims to it.”

Their different interpretations of Locke notwithstanding, Swan said he believed Reges had the right to exercise free speech.

Ties to current politics

Reges said he believes land acknowledgments support a “particular view” of American history that “has no place in the classroom.”

“You could call it the Howard Zinn view of history — that the United States is evil, and we stole the land, we are guilty, and so forth,” he said.

Zinn was a controversial historian and author of “A Peoples History of the United States,” which re-examined history through the experiences of those normally neglected in textbooks — African and Native Americans, immigrants and the working classes.

Critics condemn Zinn as a Marxist trying to turn Americans against their country. His name often comes up in discussions about critical race theory (CRT).

Reges isn’t alone in his views. In a July 18 article in Newsweek magazine University of Chicago Law School professor M. Todd Henderson called land acknowledgments “ahistorical nonsense,” and like Reges, invokes Locke’s theory of property rights.

“No one has a claim on land except if they put it to productive use and are capable of defending it. … Nearly every plot of land on Earth is inhabited today by groups of people that displaced other people who lived there before,” Henderson said.

Graeme Wood, a writer for the Atlantic and a lecturer at Yale, criticizes land acknowledgments as superficial and showy.

“The acknowledgments never include any actual material redress — the return of land, meaningful corrections of wrongs against Indigenous communities — or sophisticated moral reckoning,” he wrote.

A Native American perspective

Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee), president of the Morning Star Institute and former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, scoffs at these criticisms.

“People who enjoy their privilege are like sea anemones. At the slightest ripple in the water, they withdraw and turn into something that looks like a very carefully protected stone,” she said. “Every time Native peoples began to own something or control something or aspire to — or even just be — in a certain place, there’s always a backlash against any sort of exercise of our treaties, our sovereignty, our inherent rights, our original rights that pre-date everyone else’s here in this hemisphere.”

She pointed out that opponents of land acknowledgments and CRT say they want to save their children from feeling guilt.

“What we’re doing — different people of color — is trying to stop our kids from thinking badly of themselves. That’s what happens if you’re treated badly, if you’re treated like second-class citizens, even though you have treaties, even though you have absolute rights and you’re constantly denied them. Pretty soon, their kids start thinking it’s them, that they are the bad persons.”

“So, yeah,” she added. “We are trying to save our kids.”

 
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US Warns Pacific Isles of ‘Struggle’ Against Coercive Regimes

A top U.S. diplomat warned Pacific Islands of a new struggle against violent power-hungry regimes Sunday, as she visited the Solomon Islands to mark the 80th anniversary of World War II’s Battle of Guadalcanal.

With China’s military carrying out war drills around Taiwan and Russia bombarding Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman hit out at a new crop of world leaders reviving “bankrupt” ideas about the use of force.

Visiting a battlefield memorial in the Solomon Islands, Sherman said “some around the world” had forgotten the cost of war or were ignoring the lessons of the past.

She hit out at “leaders who believe that coercion, pressure, and violence are tools to be used with impunity,” without citing any leader by name.

Sherman is leading a U.S. delegation to the Solomon Islands to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal.

The brutal seven-month land, sea and air fight between Allied and Japanese forces killed tens of thousands of troops — most Japanese — and was a turning point in the war.

Painting the situation today as carrying faint echoes of the fight against Nazism and Imperial Japan in the 1930-40s, the State Department No. 2 urged the region to push back.

“We remember how bankrupt, how empty, such views were then, and remain today,” she said.

“Today we are once again engaged in a different kind of struggle — a struggle that will go on for some time to come.”

Sherman’s trip comes as the United States scrambles to rebuild diplomatic relations in a region where China is growing stronger and democratic alliances have faltered.

Nowhere is America’s waning regional influence more evident than in the Solomon Islands itself.

The government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare recently signed a secretive security pact with Beijing, has moved to curb press freedoms, and suggested delaying elections.

Sherman, again without naming names, told her hosts “It is up to us to decide if we want to continue having societies where people are free to speak their minds.”

It is time, she said, to decide “If we want to have governments that are transparent and accountable to their people.”

As well as warnings, Sherman said Washington wants to increase cooperation with the “absolutely critical” Pacific islands, including by opening embassies in Tonga, Kiribati, and the Solomon Islands.

As part of the charm offensive, U.S. President Joe Biden is also expected to invite Pacific Island leaders to the White House for a September summit.
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Senate Rules Referee Weakens Democrats’ Drug Plan in Economic Bill

The Senate parliamentarian Saturday dealt a blow to Democrats’ plan for curbing drug prices but left the rest of their sprawling economic bill largely intact as party leaders prepared for first votes on a package containing many of President Joe Biden’s top domestic goals. 

Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s nonpartisan rules arbiter, said lawmakers must remove language imposing hefty penalties on drugmakers that boost their prices beyond inflation in the private insurance market. Those were the bill’s chief pricing protections for the roughly 180 million people whose health coverage comes from private insurance, either through work or bought on their own. 

Other major provisions were left intact, including giving Medicare the power to negotiate what it pays for pharmaceuticals for its 64 million elderly recipients, a longtime goal for Democrats. Penalties on manufacturers for exceeding inflation would apply to drugs sold to Medicare, and there is a $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on drug costs and free vaccines for Medicare beneficiaries. 

Her rulings came as Democrats planned to begin Senate votes Saturday on their wide-ranging package addressing climate change, energy, health care costs, taxes and even deficit reduction. Party leaders have said they believe they have the unity they will need to move the legislation through the 50-50 Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote and over solid Republican opposition. 

“This is a major win for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the bill, which both parties are using in their election-year campaigns to assign blame for the worst period of inflation in four decades. “And a sad commentary on the Republican Party, as they actively fight provisions that lower costs for the American family.” 

In response, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Democrats “are misreading the American people’s outrage as a mandate for yet another reckless taxing and spending spree.” He said Democrats “have already robbed American families once through inflation and now their solution is to rob American families yet a second time.” 

Dropping penalties on drugmakers reduces incentives on pharmaceutical companies to restrain what they charge, increasing costs for patients. 

Erasing that language will cut the $288 billion in 10-year savings that the Democrats’ overall drug curbs were estimated to generate — a reduction of perhaps tens of billions of dollars, analysts have said. 

Schumer said MacDonough’s decision about the price cap for private insurance was “one unfortunate ruling.” But he said the surviving drug pricing language represented “a major victory for the American people” and that the overall bill “remains largely intact.” 

The ruling followed a 10-day period that saw Democrats resurrect top components of Biden’s agenda that had seemed dead. In rapid-fire deals with Democrats’ two most unpredictable senators — first conservative Joe Manchin of West Virginia, then Arizona centrist Kyrsten Sinema — Schumer pieced together a broad package that, while a fraction of earlier, larger versions that Manchin derailed, would give the party an achievement against the backdrop of this fall’s congressional elections. 

The parliamentarian also signed off on a fee on excess emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas contributor, from oil and gas drilling. She also let stand environmental grants to minority communities and other initiatives for reducing carbon emissions, said Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Thomas Carper, D-Del. 

She approved a provision requiring union-scale wages to be paid if energy efficiency projects are to qualify for tax credits, and another that would limit electric vehicle tax credits to those cars and trucks assembled in the United States. 

The overall measure faces unanimous Republican opposition. But assuming Democrats fight off a nonstop “vote-a-rama” of amendments — many designed by Republicans to derail the measure — they should be able to muscle the measure through the Senate. 

House passage could come when that chamber returns briefly from recess Friday. 

“What will vote-a-rama be like. It will be like hell,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said Friday of the approaching GOP amendments. He said that in supporting the Democratic bill, Manchin and Sinema “are empowering legislation that will make the average person’s life more difficult” by forcing up energy costs with tax increases and making it harder for companies to hire workers. 

The bill offers spending and tax incentives for moving toward cleaner fuels and supporting coal with assistance for reducing carbon emissions. Expiring subsidies that help millions of people afford private insurance premiums would be extended for three years, and there is $4 billion to help Western states combat drought. 

There would be a new 15% minimum tax on some corporations that earn over $1 billion annually but pay far less than the current 21% corporate tax. There would also be a 1% tax on companies that buy back their own stock, swapped in after Sinema refused to support higher taxes on private equity firm executives and hedge fund managers. The IRS budget would be pumped up to strengthen its tax collections. 

While the bill’s final costs are still being determined, it overall would spend more than $300 billion over 10 years to slow climate change, which analysts say would be the country’s largest investment in that effort, and billions more on health care. It would raise more than $700 billion in taxes and from government drug cost savings, leaving about $300 billion for deficit reduction — a modest bite out of projected 10-year shortfalls of many trillions of dollars. 

Democrats are using special procedures that would let them pass the measure without having to reach the 60-vote majority that legislation often needs in the Senate. 

It is the parliamentarian’s job to decide whether parts of legislation must be dropped for violating those rules, which include a requirement that provisions be chiefly aimed at affecting the federal budget, not imposing new policy. 

 
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Native American News Roundup July 31 – August 6, 2022

Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week:

Supreme Court to Consider ICWA in Biggest American Indian Case in Decades

The newly released U.S. Supreme Court schedule shows that the justices will begin hearing arguments November 9 in Haaland vs. Brackeen, a consolidation of three cases that challenge the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA): Cherokee Nation v. Brackeen, Texas v. Haaland and Brackeen v. Haaland.

Congress passed the ICWA in 1978 to discourage states from placing Native American children in non-Native American homes. Before the ICWA, between 25% and 35% of all American Indian children had been placed in adoptive homes, foster homes or institutions; the vast majority were raised by non-Natives.

The ICWA sets guidelines for how states should handle child welfare cases involving Native American children.

“Before you can place an Indian child in a non-Indian home, you have to first look for another member of the immediate family, then another member of the tribe, then another Indian family before you can place that child in a non-Indian home,” Stephen Pevar, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, told VOA in 2018.

A Texas federal court in 2018 struck down the ICWA as “unconstitutional,” saying the law discriminates against non-Native couples looking to adopt Native children. The case worked its way through several lower courts, and in September 2021, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Native Americans worry that if a conservative majority of justices rule against the ICWA, other federal Indian laws, including tribal sovereignty itself, could be threatened.

Affirmative action cases up first in November argument calendar

A Look at Supreme Chief Justice Neil Gorsuch’s record on tribal sovereignty

This week, Insider looks at the record of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on matters involving U.S. treaty obligations to tribes.

Gorsuch broke from the conservative majority in his June 29 opinion in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, which considered whether the state could prosecute non-Native Americans for crimes against Native victims on tribal land. That case revisited a 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, which determined that a large swath of eastern Oklahoma remained an Indian reservation and that only tribal and federal governments had criminal jurisdiction over crimes committed on reservations.

Insider examines Gorsuch’s career to shed light on how his experience in a Western appellate court informs his opinions today.

“Gorsuch would have seen many Native law cases under various contexts, helping him gain a deep understanding of the historic precedents,” the article states.

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s background primed him to break from the other conservatives on Native law and defend tribal sovereignty

Michigan Next Stop on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s ‘Road to Healing’ Tour

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland will visit Pellston, Michigan, as part of a year-long tour aimed at giving Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and their descendants an opportunity to speak about their experiences in Indian boarding schools. An outgrowth of the 2021 Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the “Road to Healing” tour also gathers permanent oral histories. The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa of Harbor Springs, Michigan, will host the August 13 event with 35 Tribal Nations invited to participate. There will be trauma support available at the site, as there was at the first listening session July 9 in Anadarko, Oklahoma. Haaland and Newland will hold further listening sessions in Arizona and Hawaii later this year.

Road to Healing set for Pellston, Michigan

SUV Driver Plows Through New Mexico Ceremonial Parade

Citizens of the Navajo Nation are expressing shock and sorrow after the driver of an SUV plowed through a parade in downtown Gallup, New Mexico, Thursday evening. Several people were injured, including two police officers. The driver was taken into police custody.

The parade was part of the 100th annual Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial, one of the oldest continuous celebrations of Native American culture and heritage in the U.S. and a major tourist attraction.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez and fellow tribal officials were among those caught in the path of the vehicle but were unharmed.

In a video statement he made at the scene, Nez expressed shock and anger.

“You would see [events like] this on television. You would think it will never happen here. I’m sorry to say it happened here in Gallup, New Mexico,” he said, adding, “This is just evil creeping into our communities.”

SUV plows through 100th annual Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial parade

Archaeologists find ancient ‘ghost footprints’ in Utah

Archaeologists working for the U.S. Air Force at a missile test site in Utah have discovered a set of 88 footprints made 12,000 years ago when the Great Salt Lake Desert was a vast wetland.

Archaeologist Daron Duke explained that thousands of years ago, a group of adults and children walked through shallow water. Wet sand rushed in to fill their footprints, but impressions of their feet remained in a layer of mud beneath the sand.

Today, scientists call these tracks “ghost footprints” because they show up only after it rains and then disappear after the ground dries.

Back in 2016, scientists working a half-mile from the footprints discovered a fire pit, tools and charred tobacco seeds dating back 12,300 years, the earliest documented use of tobacco ever found.

‘Ghost footprints’ left by ancient hunter-gatherers discovered in Utah desert

National Science Foundation Awards Haskell University Major Scientific Grant

Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, was awarded a $20 million grant from the National Science Foundation to support an Indigenous science hub project.

It is the largest NSF grant ever for a Tribal College or University.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland called the award “a tremendous step forward in supporting tribal communities as they address challenges from a rapidly changing climate.”

The project, “Rising Voices, Changing Coasts” will bring together scientists and Indigenous knowledge keepers from various coastal regions to study and develop ways to manage coastal hazards in indigenous communities.

Haskell Indian Nations University Receives $20 Million for Indigenous Science Hub

 
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