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DOJ issues more subpoenas in probe of invalid Trump electors: reports
The Justice Department has issued more subpoenas in a probe tied to a fraudulent elector scheme aimed at rejecting President Biden’s 2020 presidential win, multiple news outlets reported.
The Washington Post, which was first to report the news, said the people who were issued subpoenas included Thomas Lane, who was involved in former President Trump’s campaign in New Mexico and Arizona, and Brad Carver, a Georgia lawyer who allegedly considered himself to be an elector for the former president.
Officials with the FBI confirmed to the Post that court-authorized law enforcement action had been taken by agents in different places. The addresses of those targeted by federal agents were tied to the men, according to public records, though the FBI did not identify those targeted specifically.
A campaign aide for Trump in Michigan, Sean Flynn, also received a subpoena, The New York Times reported, citing people familiar. People familiar told the Post that Georgia Republican Party chair and alleged Trump elector David Shafer also received a subpoena.
The news outlets could not immediately reach Lane, Carver or Flynn for comment. A lawyer for Shafer declined to comment to the Post about the matter.
The development comes as the Justice Department pursues its own investigation related to the Jan. 6 riot while the House select committee investigating the attack continues to its slate of public hearings this month.
In the latest hearing that the House panel held on Tuesday, the select committee showed evidence and testimony that showed the role that the former president and his allies played in a pressure campaign to get officials from battleground states where Biden won to overturn those results by sending slates of so-called alternate electors to the electoral college.
Among the revelations from the hearing was evidence connecting two Republican lawmakers — Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) — to the fake elector scheme.
A spokesperson for Johnson denied the senator’s involvement.
“The senator had no involvement in the creation of an alternate slate of electors and had no foreknowledge that it was going to be delivered to our office. This was a staff to staff exchange. His new Chief of Staff contacted the Vice President’s office,” Alexa Henning, a Johnson spokeswoman, tweeted.
“The Vice President’s office said not to give it to him and we did not. There was no further action taken. End of story,” she added in a follow-up tweet.
The Hill has reached out to the FBI, Justice Department, a lawyer for Shafer and Carver for comment. The Hill was not able to immediately reach Lane or Flynn for comment.
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House fails to pass bill creating active shooter alert system
The House on Wednesday failed to pass a bill that sought to create a communications network that would alert people when an active shooter is in their community.
The legislation, dubbed the Active Shooter Alert Act, was considered under suspension, a process that allows legislation to be passed quickly with two-thirds support. The bill did not reach that threshold, failing in a 259-162 vote despite having bipartisan sponsorship — 16 Republicans helped introduce the legislation.
One Democrat, Rep. Ron Kind (Wis.), voted with 161 Republicans against the bill. Five Republicans and three Democrats did not vote.
The Hill reached out to Kind for a statement on his vote and to Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the sponsor of the legislation, for information on why the vote failed.
The bill called for creating an Active Shooter Alert Communications Network, which would inform community members when active shooters are in their areas. The program, according to the bill’s sponsors, would function similarly to the Amber Alert system.
The vote on the legislation came after the fatal mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas. Ten Black people were fatally shot at a grocery store in Buffalo, and 19 students and two adults were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
The fatal shootings drew widespread attention nationwide and sparked a renewed push for gun safety legislation on Capitol Hill.
The House passed a sweeping firearm package in the wake of the tragedies in addition to a bill that seeks to nationalize red flag laws, which are meant to keep guns away from individuals deemed a threat to themselves and others.
On the Senate side, lawmakers this week released the legislative text for a bipartisan gun safety bill. The chamber advanced the bill in a bipartisan 64-34 vote on Tuesday.
The bill that failed to clear the House on Wednesday called on the attorney general to select an officer at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to serve as national coordinator of the Active Shooter Alert Communications Network.
That DOJ official would have been tasked with urging federal, state, tribal and local government agencies to implement steps to respond to active shooters, including plans for interstate or interjurisdictional travel — such as airports, border crossing areas and checkpoints.
The legislation also required that the Active Shooter Alert coordinator prepare a report on the effectiveness and status of the system in each state, tribe and local government. The first report would be expected no more than 18 months after the bill was enacted, and subsequent ones would be required every two years.
In remarks last week, after the legislation was voted out of committee, Cicilline said that “law enforcement needs and deserves better tools than Twitter to communicate with the community” during active shooter situations.
“Active shooter events have become ubiquitous – so frequent that some of these horrific events barely make headlines. This is not normal, and we cannot let it be normalized. We cannot become numb to these events, and we cannot settle for the status quo,” Cicilline said.
“We have to give law enforcement every tool they need to neutralize these threats and keep our communities safe,” he added.
The Rhode Island Democrat said the legislation “will provide law enforcement with cutting-edge technology to send notifications to our smartphones and let communities know if there is an active shooter in a certain area – so that they know to stay away.”
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White House adviser: Gas tax holiday no 'silver bullet' to lower prices
A top White House adviser on Wednesday said the Biden administration’s proposal to suspend the federal gas tax was not a “silver bullet” but stressed it was a temporary solution along with other measures to help Americans’ wallets.
Gene Sperling, a senior economic adviser to President Biden, told moderator Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the administration supported a gas tax holiday because it could get bipartisan support but added, “We’re not taking ideas off the table.”
“What the American people ask of us is do everything you can,” Sperling said. “There’s no silver bullet, but that doesn’t excuse you from taking all action that you have an ability to take.”
Biden on Wednesday afternoon officially called on Congress to suspend the federal gas tax for 90 days and on states to suspend their own gas taxes. The federal gas tax is 18 cents per gallon, while the state average is 26 cents per gallon.
Four states — Maryland, Georgia, Connecticut and New York — have already suspended their gas taxes amid a 40-year high in inflation and sky-high prices at the pump. Florida is suspending its gas tax for one month in October.
The national average for a gallon of gas is around $5, sparked by myriad factors, including Russia’s war in Ukraine. Biden already announced over the spring the release of 1 million barrels of oil a day from the national stockpile to bolster supply.
A federal gas tax suspension is likely to meet a hurdle in Congress, as concerns have mounted over how much relief Americans will get at the pump and because the gas tax is used to fund infrastructure improvements.
Biden on Wednesday said he understands “a gas tax holiday alone is not going to fix the problem.”
“But it will provide families some immediate relief, just a little bit of breathing room, as we continue working to bring down prices for the long haul,” he said in his speech.
The Biden administration is also asking for oil refineries to produce more gasoline and is meeting with industry executives this week.
Biden will also travel to Saudi Arabia next month in a trip to the Middle East, where he is expected to ask for the major oil producing nation to increase production. The trip has drawn some scrutiny because of the country’s reported human rights violations.
Sperling told “Meet the Press” on Wednesday that Biden is “trying to do what we can to expand oil supply.”
“This is a time of war. We want to stand strong on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. But we want to provide relief at the at the gas pump for Americans. And so we’re looking for things that that fit into that, you know, into that mode,” he said.
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House passes bill to create health agency focused on biomedical innovation
The House passed a bill on Wednesday to create a new health agency centered on expediting biomedical innovation in an effort to find innovative mechanisms to detect and treat a range of diseases including cancer.
The legislation, dubbed the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Health Act, passed in a 336-85 vote, with all “no” votes coming from Republicans. Six Republicans and two Democrats did not vote.
The bill calls for establishing the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health (ARPA-H) within the Department of Health and Human Services.
The goal of the agency, according to the legislation, is to “foster the development of new, breakthrough capabilities, technologies, systems, and platforms to accelerate innovations in health and medicine that are not being met by Federal programs or private entities.”
The bill also says the new agency would work to expand “transformative health technologies,” which lawmakers say would dramatically change the act of detecting, diagnosing, mitigating, preventing, treating and curing significant diseases and medical conditions.
To achieve these goals, the bill would direct the new agency to discover and promote new health science advances and develop new analytical techniques to help with early detection and intervention of diseases.
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) on the House floor said the new agency will help “make the impossible possible.”
“What we need more now is an all-hands-on-deck approach to end these illnesses, and that’s exactly why this legislation was developed,” DeGette said during debate on the legislation.
“[I]t will create a new advanced research agency, ARPA-H, which will bring together some of the world’s greatest minds and give them access to the federal government’s seemingly-unlimited resources to make the impossible possible,” she added.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said the new program will be “game-changing health research,” likening it to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which is the agency within the Defense Department that oversees research and development programs.
“Like DARPA, this entity is gonna be focused on producing research on things that frankly may be too risky for the private sector. It’s gonna move at a faster pace than the current structure,” Upton said.
“There may be a high failure rate, but its successes are gonna have the potential to be absolutely ground-breaking, answering the prayers of millions,” he added.
The Biden administration threw its support behind the bill earlier this week. In a statement of administration policy, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said the bill “will provide a novel pathway to catalyzing transformative health breakthroughs that cannot readily be accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity.”
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CBO releases score of bipartisan gun safety bill showing legislation fully paid for
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday released a cost estimate showing the bipartisan gun safety legislation unveiled the previous day would be fully paid for, the latest boost to the prospects of its passage.
The CBO projected the bill would reduce the deficit over ten years by $154 million, with a congressional aide noting that “the legislation is paid for by delaying the implementation for one year of a Trump-era rule relating to eliminating the anti-kickback statute safe harbor protection for prescription drug rebates.”
The CBO score is likely a relief for lawmakers and another hurdle overcome.
The bill aims to address gaps among those convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse who are still allowed to purchase firearms, offer funding for red flag laws to be administered in states and bolster requirements for background check for those between the ages of 18 and 20, among other provisions.
Fourteen Republican senators voted with all 50 Democrats to advance the legislation, though top House Republican leadership have signaled they will not support it.
Former President Trump also slammed the deal and its top Republican negotiator, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), on Wednesday.
“The deal on ‘Gun Control’ currently being structured and pushed in the Senate by the Radical Left Democrats, with the help of Mitch McConnell, RINO Senator John Cornyn of Texas, and others, will go down in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY. Republicans, be careful what you wish for!!!” Trump wrote on his social platform Truth Social.
Alex Bolton contributed
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Defense & National Security — House panel advances defense spending bill
The House Appropriations Committee held a markup of its defense spending plan, approving a $761 billion bill for fiscal year 2023.
At the same time, the House Armed Services Committee is holding negotiations on the annual military authorization bill.
We’ll share what’s in both bills, plus Ukraine’s latest pleas for more weapons from the West and delays in the Jan. 6 hearings.
This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, I’m Ellen Mitchell. Subscribe here.
Appropriations panel advances $761 billion bill
The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved its $761 billion defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2023, sending the bill to the full chamber for a vote.
- The legislation, which the committee passed by a 32-26 vote, is $33.2 billion over what was enacted for fiscal 2022 and largely in line with President Biden’s budget request.
- While the bill makes up a majority of appropriations for the Department of Defense, it is not the only source of defense spending.
- The bill does not include $15.1 billion in funding for military construction projects, which is included in a separate $314.1 billion appropriations bill that the committee will consider Thursday.
What it includes: Among its provisions, the legislation supports a 4.6 percent pay raise for military personnel and requires contractors to pay a $15 an hour minimum wage.
- Democrats warded off an attempt to strike from the bill a provision that would protect service members’ and civilian personnel’s ability to take leave to obtain an abortion.
- An attempt to strike the provision that would close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was also turned down, but had the support of two Democrats.
- The committee adopted several amendments to the bill, including two from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) to repeal the 2001 and 2002 war authorizations.
Panel votes to up Biden defense budget by $37B
The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted to approve approximately $37 billion more in military spending than President Biden proposed.
- During a markup of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, the committee voted 42-17 to increase topline spending from $802 billion to about $840 billion.
Where the extra will go: The increase, which was opposed by committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), was proposed in an amendment sponsored by Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Elaine Luria (Va.).
- The billions of extra dollars would go toward more aircraft, ships, assistance for Ukraine and to combat the current inflation crisis “to improve servicemember quality of life,” according to a statement put out by Golden after the vote.
Meanwhile: The extra dollars bring the House committee’s version closer to the $857 billion bill the Senate Armed Services Committee passed last week. Both armed services committees have blasted past the Biden administration’s original $813 billion defense topline.
- Biden’s version, which is a 4 percent increase in defense spending for fiscal year 2023 compared to the year prior, has been criticized by Republicans and more moderate leaning Democrats for being unable to counter inflation and current world threats.
Ukraine asks for more weapons amid land pressure
Ukraine is pleading for heavier weapons, more ammunition and fighter jets as Russia has focused its efforts in the country’s eastern Donbas region, a fight taking place amid a brewing debate over whether Ukraine should cede some of the land in an effort for peace.
- Even with the Biden administration’s new commitment of $1 billion in lethal aid that was announced last week, Ukrainian officials say it’s still not enough (by a long shot) to beat back Kremlin forces.
- Ukraine has received far less than what it has asked for to help stave off the Russian offensive — only 10 percent of the weapons it requested from Western nations — according to Ukrainian officials.
A wide gap: Such needed aid may be far from making it to Ukraine. NBC reported last week that President Biden in April asked Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to tone down their rhetoric supporting Ukraine in its war.
- While the Biden administration has maintained that it will not pressure Kyiv to end the war, behind the scenes, U.S. officials are growing worried that Ukraine’s views not to cede any land are untenable, according to the report.
A long war predicted: Biden on Tuesday acknowledged that drawn-out timeline, telling reporters he believes “at some point, this is going to be a bit of a waiting game. … What the Russians can sustain and what Europe is going to be prepared to sustain.”
He said he would discuss the issue with allies next week when he travels to Madrid for the NATO summit.
In the spotlight: Publicly, the U.S. has maintained a strong commitment to Ukraine, with top U.S. leaders defending Washington’s efforts to equip Ukraine so far, brushing off criticisms that Western nations have not done enough.
- U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday made an unannounced trip to Ukraine, where he expressed “the unwavering support of the United States for the people of Ukraine in the midst of the unprovoked and unjust Russian invasion.”
- And Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley was with Austin in Brussels last week to meet with officials from nearly 50 other nations to coordinate the delivery of needed weapons into Ukraine.
Out of sight: But comments have emerged from former U.S. officials suggesting that Ukraine end the slog of their defensive by ceding some territory to Russia in the name of peace.
Those include former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who said earlier this year that “negotiations on peace need to begin” between Moscow and Kyiv and that “ideally, the dividing line should return the status quo ante.”
Jan. 6 committee delays hearing schedule until July
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is pressing pause on its hearings for next week and picking them up again in July.
- Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the committee, told reporters Wednesday that the committee would hold off on the two final hearings it had planned for this month.
- “We’ve taken in some additional information that’s going to require additional work. So rather than present hearings that have not been the quality of the hearings in the past we made a decision to just move into sometime in July,” Thompson said.
Upcoming: Thursday’s hearing will continue as planned.
“There’s been a deluge of new evidence since we got started. And we just need to catch our breath, go through the new evidence, and then incorporate it into the hearings we have planned,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told reporters.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) similarly mentioned a “mountain of new information.”
No date yet: “I don’t think we’ve established a date yet, but we have a mountain of new information that’s come in that we have to go through,” Lofgren told The Hill.
The committee has recently received more information from the National Archives, and Raskin said it has also received information from other various sources — a comment that comes after the committee flashed its web address in the hopes of enticing new witnesses.
ON TAP TOMORROW
- The Center for a New American Security will hold a virtual discussion on “Military Food Insecurity and Financial Stability” at 12 p.m.
- The Atlantic Council will hold a virtual talk on the food insecurity crisis focusing on the link to the war in Ukraine at 3:30 p.m.
- The International Institute for Strategic Studies will hold a discussion on “America’s Defense Trade” at 3:30 p.m.
WHAT WE’RE READING
- Russia launched cyber espionage campaigns against Ukraine allies: Microsoft
- Biden assessing how to help Afghanistan after earthquake
- ‘Nazi hunter’ Eli Rosenbaum to lead DOJ team investigating war crimes in Ukraine
- 39 percent in new poll say they have watched, listened to Jan. 6 hearings
- Tech executives urge government to share cyber threat intel
That’s it for today. Check out The Hill’s Defense and National Security pages for the latest coverage. See you tomorrow!
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Uvalde school police chief placed on administrative leave
The Uvalde school system on Wednesday placed school police chief Pete Arredondo on administrative leave, following controversy over how he handled the police response to a mass shooting last month that left 19 children and two adults dead.
Hal Harrell, the superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, said in a statement the school had originally wanted to wait until an investigation into the incident was completed, but as of Wednesday he was “still without details of the investigations being conducted by various agencies.”
“Because of the lack of clarity that remains and the unknown timing of when I will receive the results of the investigations, I have made the decision to place Chief Arredondo on administrative leave effective on this date,” Harrell wrote.
The news comes a day after a Texas Senate committee heard testimony from Steve McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), who laid much of the blame for the mass shooting last month squarely on Arredondo.
McCraw said police, who were under the command of Arredondo, had enough firepower and equipment to stop the 18-year-old gunman three minutes after he entered Robb Elementary School on May 24 and opened fire at the children and teachers before police entered the classroom more than an hour later.
He also said the door to the classroom was not locked, contradicting claims from Arredondo who said they were waiting for a key to get inside the classroom door.
Multiple agencies are probing the incident and the police failure to stop the shooting, including DPS, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee.
Arredondo testified behind closed doors at another hearing held by the Texas state House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The school police chief has defended his response, telling the Texas Tribune that multiple keys did not work to get inside the classroom where the gunman was firing and that he had called for more tactical gear and firepower.
“The only thing that was important to me at this time was to save as many teachers and children as possible,” he told the outlet.
Still, families of the victims called for Arredondo to be fired in the wake of the tragedy, including Brett Cross, the father of a slain student.
“We were failed by Pete Arredondo. He killed our kids, teachers, parents and city, and by keeping him on your staff, y’all are continuing to fail us,” said Cross to a Nexstar affiliate KXAN.
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Biden officials to expand monkeypox testing amid fears of undercounting
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is expanding monkeypox testing to commercial laboratories amid fears that the country is undercounting monkeypox cases because of insufficient testing.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced that it began shipping moneypox tests this week to five private testing companies: Aegis Science, Labcorp, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and Sonic Healthcare.
The testing through these companies will begin in early July, HHS said.
“These commercial laboratories will dramatically expand testing capacity nationwide and make testing more convenient and accessible for patients and health care providers,” the department said.
Some public health experts have warned that the U.S. risks repeating the mistakes of the early weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, when there was not enough testing to detect how widely the virus was really spreading.
“Now the United States, once again, appears to be responding to a new health threat with an underpowered testing response,” Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University and Jay Varma of Cornell University wrote in a Washington Post op-ed this week.
There is already a network of public health labs across the country able to do monkeypox testing, but experts say that it will be easier for doctors to order tests from commercial laboratories where they have established relationships and can jump through fewer hoops, thereby encouraging more testing.
“All Americans should be concerned about monkeypox cases. Thankfully we have right now the tools to fight and treat cases in America,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “By dramatically expanding the number of testing locations throughout the country, we are making it possible for anyone who needs to be tested to do so.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)reports about 150 monkeypox cases in the U.S. currently, though the actual number could be higher.
Still, experts say there are important differences that mean that monkeypox is not simply a repeat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For one, it spread less easily. The CDC says it spreads through direct contact with rashes, through clothes or bed sheets that have been in contact with the rash, or through “prolonged, face-to-face contact.”
“Monkeypox is rare and does not spread easily between people without close contact,” the CDC says. “The threat of monkeypox to the general U.S. population remains LOW.”
Health officials are encouraging doctors to consider monkeypox testing if they see patients who have rashes that could be from monkeypox.
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House committee votes to up Biden defense budget plan by $37B
The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted to approve approximately $37 billion more in military spending than President Biden proposed.
During a markup of the annual National Defense Authorization Act, the committee voted 42 to 17 to increase top-line spending from $802 billion to about $840 billion.
The increase, which was opposed by committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.), was proposed in an amendment sponsored by Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Elaine Luria (Va.). The billions of extra dollars would go toward more aircraft, ships, assistance for Ukraine, as well as combatting the current inflation crisis “to improve servicemember quality of life,” according to a statement put out by Golden after the vote.
“We need only look to world events in Ukraine, read reports regarding China’s plans and actions in the South China Sea, or simply read the latest headlines about Iranian nuclear ambitions and North Korean missile tests, as well as ongoing terrorist threats, in order to see why this additional funding is necessary to meet the security challenges of our time,” Golden said in the statement.
The extra dollars bring the House committee’s version closer to the $857 billion bill the Senate Armed Services Committee passed last week. Both armed services committees have blasted past the Biden administration’s original $813 billion defense top line.
Biden’s version, which is a 4 percent increase in defense spending for fiscal year 2023 compared to the year prior, has been criticized by Republicans and more moderate leaning Democrats for being unable to counter inflation and current world threats.
Source: TEST FEED1