Tag: 2020 United States presidential election

Biden heads to battleground Wisconsin to talk about the economy a week before GOP debate

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WASHINGTON — In a show of preemptive counter-programming, President Joe Biden on Tuesday travels to Wisconsin to highlight his economic policies in a state critical to his reelection fortunes, just a week before Republicans descend on Milwaukee for the party’s first presidential debate.

His trip comes on the eve of the anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, major economic legislation that he signed into law with great ceremony but that polls show most people know little about it or what it does.

Wisconsin is among the handful of critical states where Biden needs to persuade voters that his policies are having a positive impact on their lives, and he is expected to visit frequently to make his case.

Biden plans to tour Ingeteam, a clean energy manufacturer of onshore wind turbine generators in Milwaukee, to talk up provisions of the law that spends hundreds of millions of dollars to boost domestic manufacturing and clean energy, lower health care costs and crack down on wealthy tax cheats. Ingeteam is set to hire 100 workers using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law money to start producing EV charging stations domestically, according to the White House.

Also timed to Biden’s trip, multinational tech firm Siemens is set to announce that it will start manufacturing solar inverters in Kenosha County using tax incentives from the IRA.

Administration officials say the trip is meant to recognize the effects of the law, which passed Congress on party-line votes.

“The president and his team are excited to bring that message to the American people throughout the week,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday.

Critics of the legislation say provisions of the law could end up increasing inflation. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said during a virtual Peterson Institute for International Economics event in July that while he supported the IRA, the Biden administration’s overall economic agenda is “increasingly dangerous.”

“I am profoundly concerned by the doctrine of manufacturing-centered economic nationalism that is increasingly being put forth as a general principle to guide policy,” Summers said.

Vice President Kamala Harris and top Cabinet officials will be fanning out across the country this week to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act and its provisions. Biden has scheduled an anniversary event at the White House on Wednesday.

The president’s stop in Wisconsin comes shortly before Republicans hold their first presidential primary debate in Milwaukee on Aug. 23. Former President Donald Trump — the leading Republican candidate in polls so far — has yet to say whether he will boycott or hold a competing event.

Charles Franklin, director of Marquette Law School Poll, said the trip could help Biden win support from independents, who make up about 10% of voters in the state.

“What he really needs to do is get independents in the state to like him a bit better,” Franklin said. “Coming and talking about his achievements, about factories that are working with American jobs — all of that is a good reason to come to speak to those folks in the state who are not partisans.”

“Because Democrats are already behind him,” Franklin said, and “Republicans are almost certainly not going to cross over.”

Democratic gains helped decide a critical state Supreme Court race this spring that moved Wisconsin’s highest court under liberal control for the first time in 15 years.

Republicans, though, will compete aggressively in the state, selecting Milwaukee as the site of its 2024 national nominating convention.

The 2020 Democratic convention was supposed to be held in Milwaukee too, but it largely unfolded virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden is one of a string of administration officials making stops across the U.S. this week to promote the legislation’s anniversary.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday spoke in Las Vegas at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall about “the early results of bold federal action through the IRA” and the administration’s climate agenda.

“The IRA is driving economic growth, expanding economic opportunity and bolstering our resilience,” she said.

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Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

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August 15, 2023
Judge in Donald Trump’s hush-money case denies bias claim, won’t step aside

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NEW YORK — The judge in Donald Trump‘s Manhattan hush-money criminal case has rejected the former president’s demand to step aside, denying defense claims that he’s biased against the Republican front-runner because he’s given cash to Democrats and his daughter is a party consultant.

New York Judge Juan Manuel Merchan acknowledged in a ruling late Friday that he made several small donations to Democratic causes during the 2020 campaign, including $15 to Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden, but said he is certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Removing himself from the case “would not be in the public interest,” Merchan wrote. His six-page ruling echoed a state court ethics panel’s recent opinion that endorsed his continued involvement in the Trump case.

The decision on recusal was entirely up to Merchan. He previously rejected a similar request when Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, was on trial last year for tax fraud.

Trump lawyer Susan Necheles declined comment. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case and said in court papers that it wanted Merchan to remain on the case, also declined comment.

Trump’s hush-money trial — one of three pending criminal cases against him — is scheduled to start March 25, overlapping with the presidential primary season as he seeks a return to the White House. A federal judge last month denied Trump’s request to move the case out of Merchan’s state courtroom and into federal court. Trump is appealing the ruling that he failed to meet a high legal bar for changing jurisdiction.

Trump pleaded not guilty in April in Manhattan to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The charges relate to hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sexual encounters. He has denied wrongdoing.

Separately, Trump is also charged in federal court in Florida with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and impeding investigators and in federal court in Washington, D.C., in connection to efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s lawyers wanted Merchan off the case in part because his daughter, Loren, is a political consultant whose firm has worked for some of Trump’s Democratic rivals and because, they contend, he acted inappropriately by involving himself in plea negotiations last year for Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg. Merchan said he previously rejected that argument when asked to exit the Trump Organization case.

Trump’s lawyers also raised concerns about the political donations, asking Merchan to explain three contributions totaling $35 that were made to Democratic causes in his name during the 2020 election cycle. Merchan, in his ruling, said the “donations at issue are self-evident and require no further clarification” and pointed to the ethics panel’s conclusion that such small-dollar contributions wouldn’t require recusal.

“These modest political contributions made more than two years ago cannot reasonably create an impression of bias or favoritism in the case before the judge,” the panel wrote.

Merchan, a state court judge in New York, sought input from the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics after Trump’s April 4 arraignment, as news outlets started reporting on his political contributions and Trump — pointing to the daughter’s work — complained that he’s “a Trump-hating judge” with a family full of “Trump haters.”

The ethics panel, in its May 4 opinion, concluded that a judge in Merchan’s situation “may continue to preside in the matter provided the judge believes he/she can be fair and impartial.”

Trump’s lawyers sought Merchan’s recusal on May 31, arguing in court papers that the hush-money case is “historic and it is important that the People of the State of New York and this nation have confidence that the jurist who presides over it is impartial.”

Matthew Colangelo, a senior counsel to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, countered that Trump’s recusal motion was the latest in a “prolific history of baselessly accusing state and federal judges around the country of bias.”

Merchan’s daughter, Loren, is a political consultant whose firm has worked on campaigns for prominent Democrats including Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Merchan, citing the ethics panel’s finding that his daughter’s work had no bearing on his impartiality, said in his ruling that Trump’s lawyers had “failed to demonstrate that there exists concrete, or even realistic reasons for recusal to be appropriate, much less required on these grounds.”

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Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.

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August 14, 2023
Kentucky candidates trade barbs at Fancy Farm picnic, the state’s premier political event

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FANCY FARM, Ky. — In front of a raucous crowd at Kentucky’s premier political event on Saturday, the Democratic incumbent governor talked about the state’s high-flying economy while his Republican challenger hammered away on social issues.

Both sides stuck largely to scripts written in the early months of their general election showdown as they campaigned at the Fancy Farm picnic, traditionally seen as the jumping-off point for fall elections in Kentucky. This year, however, both Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron have been going at it for weeks, pounding away at many of the same notes they struck Saturday.

Beshear declared Saturday that he’s led Kentucky’s economy on a “historic winning streak” worthy of a second term, while Cameron slammed the incumbent on social issues and said he was out of touch with Kentucky values.

Political speaking is as much a tradition at the picnic as the barbecue. The crowd was divided between Republicans and Democrats, and both sides tried to outdo the other with chants. Candidates up and down the statewide ballot got their turns at the podium, but the focus was on the rivals for governor.

With a statewide television audience watching, Beshear and Cameron drew distinct contrasts in the high-stakes encounter with about three months to go before the election. They endured the summer heat and cascades of boos and taunts from partisans backing their rival — a rite of passage for statewide candidates in Kentucky.

The Kentucky governor’s race is one of the nation’s most closely watched contests and could provide clues heading into 2024 campaigns for the White House and Congress.

Beshear touted his stewardship of the state’s economy, pointing to job creation from record-high economic development and record-low unemployment rates. The incumbent Democrat tried to tamp down partisanship in his pitch for a second term in the GOP-trending Bluegrass State.

“When you’re on a historic winning streak, you don’t fire the coach,” the governor said. “You don’t sub out the quarterback. You keep that team on the field.”

Reprising another of his main campaign themes, Cameron tried linking Beshear to President Joe Biden, who was trounced by Donald Trump in Kentucky in 2020 and remains unpopular in the state. Cameron has focused his strategy on social issues — most notably on legislation aimed at transgender people that the governor vetoed — to fire up conservative voters.

“His record is one of failure, and it flies in the face of true Kentucky values,” Cameron said.

Beshear has vowed not to cede so-called family values issues to his Republican opponent, accusing Cameron and his allies of running a strategy based on dividing Kentuckians.

“Let’s remember we’re told not just to talk about our faith, but to actually live it out,” the governor. “I’m reminded of the Golden Rule, which is that we love our neighbor as our self.”

Beshear — who has presided over a series of disasters, from the COVID-19 pandemic to tornadoes and floods — pointed to his efforts to bring aid to stricken regions to rebuild homes and infrastructure.

Cameron took aim at Beshear’s pandemic policies that he said favored corporations over small businesses.

“He closed down Main Street and bent over backwards for Wall Street,” Cameron said.

Beshear has countered that his pandemic restrictions saved lives.

Cameron continued blasting the governor’s decision to allow the early release of some nonviolent inmates during the early stages of the pandemic. Previously, Cameron has said some went on to commit new crimes. Beshear previously noted governors from both parties took the same action to release low-level, nonviolent inmates near the end of their sentences to help ease the spread of the virus in prisons.

While his challenger chipped away on crime and social issues, Beshear was locked in on the economy. He said the state is again headed toward one of its best years for economic development.

“We can turn these three great years of economic development into 30 years of prosperity,” he said.

The governor also touted massive infrastructure projects moving ahead, including a new Ohio River bridge for northern Kentucky and a highway expansion in the state’s Appalachian region.

“People here know there’s no Democrat or Republican bridges. That a good job isn’t red or blue,” Beshear said. “And the most important thing for a governor is getting the job done.”

Meanwhile, the drumbeat of GOP criticism of Beshear on social issues continued. The governor has come under attack from GOP groups for vetoing legislation aimed at transgender people. Cameron noted Beshear vetoed a bill that barred transgender girls and women from participating in school sports matching their gender identity. The state’s Republican-dominated legislature overrode the veto.

“Governor, I know you guys are obsessed with pronouns these days. But come November, yours are going to be: has and been,” Cameron said.

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August 5, 2023
DeSantis steps up dire warning to GOP about distraction from Biden, amid Trump’s latest indictment

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VINTON, Iowa — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is increasingly urging Republicans to avoid the temptation to refight the 2020 election next year, even as former President Donald Trump remains the dominant favorite for the 2024 GOP nomination on a message of vindicating his defeat.

Though DeSantis recently cast doubt on the false theories about the 2020 election at the heart of Trump’s federal indictment, DeSantis is saying in early-voting states that any focus except on defeating Democratic President Joe Biden would be dire for his party.

“If that is the choice, we are going to win and we are going to win across the country,” DeSantis told reporters Saturday after a campaign stop in northern Iowa. “If the election is a referendum on other things that are not forward-looking, then I’m afraid Republicans will lose.”

DeSantis was on the second of a two-day trip across Iowa, pressing his recent record in Florida of conservative education, abortion and gender policy, and an equally GOP crowd-pleasing agenda for the nation.

He ignited applause at a Saturday morning event in Cedar Falls promoting a balanced budget amendment, term limits for Congress and promising his audience of about 100 that he would declare a national emergency and dispatch the military to the U.S.-Mexico border upon taking office.

His labor to spur the party forward stood in sharp contrast to the Trump campaign’s release of an on-line ad attacking Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who led the investigation that culminated in an indictment charging Trump with four felony counts related to his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss. The charges include conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

Likewise, he boasted at an Alabama Republican Party fundraising dinner Friday that the indictment was a political asset. “Any time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls,” Trump told his audience in Montgomery, Alabama. “One more indictment, and this election is closed out. Nobody has even a chance.”

Still, DeSantis has gone marginally further in recent days in discussing Trump’s defeat, though more typically when talking to the media after campaign events than during events with voters, many of whom remain sympathetic to Trump.

During Saturday morning campaign events, he blasted “weaponization” of federal agencies, a term that resonates with Republicans sympathetic to the belief that the Justice Department has persecuted Trump.

But after a stop to meet voters at a small-town restaurant, DeSantis sidestepped when asked if he would have certified the 2020 Electoral College vote as former Vice President Mike Pence did the day the pro-Trump rioters attacked and breached the Capitol.

DeSantis responded that Vice President Kamala Harris does not have the power to overturn the 2024 results, which Congress made explicit by passing an act after the 2020 election that says a vice president has no role in validating a presidential election results beyond acting as a figurehead who oversees the counting process.

In January 2025, “the electoral votes will be submitted and Kamala Harris will certify. She’s not going to have the opportunity to overrule what the American people say,” he said in a brief press conference. “I don’t think that Kamala Harris has that authority.”

On Friday, DeSantis, who has often pivoted away from questions about whether the 2020 election was legitimate, went a little further when asked about it, suggesting Trump’s false claim that he actually beat Biden was “unsubstantiated.”

But DeSantis minced no words to his audience packed into a meeting room at a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Grinnell.

“The time for excuses for Republicans is over,” he said firmly. “It’s time to get the job done.”

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August 5, 2023
Trump allies who ‘orchestrated’ plan to tamper with voting machines face charges in Michigan

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LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan attorney involved in multiple efforts around the country to overturn the 2020 election in support of former President Donald Trump has been charged in connection with accessing and tampering with voting machines in Michigan, prosecutors announced Thursday.

The charges against Stefanie Lambert come days after Matthew DePerno, a Republican lawyer whom Trump endorsed in an unsuccessful run for Michigan attorney general last year, and former GOP state Rep. Daire Rendon were arraigned in connection with the case.

Lambert, DePerno, and Rendon were named by Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office last year as having “orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators.”

Michigan is one of at least three states where prosecutors say people breached election systems while embracing and spreading Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

Investigators there say five vote tabulators were illegally taken from three counties and brought to a hotel room, according to documents released last year by Nessel’s office. The tabulators were then broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.

Prosecutors said that Thursday’s announcement “ends the charging decisions in this investigation.”

Investigators named nine individuals in connection with the scheme. Those not charged include Cyber Ninjas founder Doug Logan, Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, Ben Cotton, Jeff Lenberg and James Penrose.

Local clerks that turned over the vote tabulators and “experts” who analyzed the equipment “were deceived by some of the charged defendants,” according to a statement from special prosecutor D.J. Hilson.

Hilson convened a grand jury in March to determine whether criminal indictments should be issued, court documents show. The citizen grand jury “carefully listened to the sworn testimony,” and “returned a decision to indict each of the defendants,” Hilson said Thursday.

Lambert, who is listed in court records under the last name Lambert Junttila, appeared before a judge Thursday afternoon and plead not guilty. She is facing four criminal charges, including undue possession of a voting machine and conspiracy, according to court records.

She did not immediately respond to requests for comment left by email and a phone message with her attorney.

On a conservative podcast appearance last week, Lambert said that she had been notified of an indictment and claimed no wrongdoing. She said Hilson was “misrepresenting the law.”

A state judge ruled last month that it is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, to take a machine without a court order or permission directly from the Secretary of State’s office.

Trump, who is now making his third bid for the presidency, was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice on Aug. 1 with conspiracy to defraud the United States among other counts related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Nessel announced last month eight criminal charges each against 16 Republicans who she said submitted false certificates as electors for then-President Trump in Michigan, a state Joe Biden won.

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August 3, 2023
How the Trump fake electors scheme became a ‘corrupt plan,’ according to the indictment

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WASHINGTON — The role that fake slates of electors played in Donald Trump’s desperate effort to cling to power after his defeat in the 2020 election is at the center of a four-count indictment released against the former president Tuesday.

The third criminal case into Trump details, among other charges, what prosecutors say was a massive and monthslong effort to “impair, obstruct, and defeat” the federal process for certifying the results of a presidential election, culminating in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The 45-page indictment states that when Trump could not persuade state officials to illegally swing the election in his favor, he and his Republican allies began recruiting a slate of fake electors in seven battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to sign certificates falsely stating that he, not Democrat Joe Biden, had won their states.

While those certificates were ultimately ignored by lawmakers, federal prosecutors say it was all part of “a corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors’ votes from being counted and certified.”

Here’s a deeper look at how the scheme unfolded, according to the indictment:

FROM ‘LEGAL STRATEGY’ TO ‘CORRUPT PLAN’

The fake electors plan began in Wisconsin, prosecutors allege, with a memorandum from Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who was assisting the Trump campaign at the time with legal challenges.

Cheseboro wrote the memo in mid-November 2020 that advocated for Trump supporters in Wisconsin to meet and cast their votes for him, in case the campaign’s litigation in the state succeeded.

But less than a month later, “in a sharp departure,” a new memo was issued that called for expanding the strategy to other key states, creating slates of “fraudulent electors” for Trump.

The end goal, according to prosecutors, was “to prevent Biden from receiving the 270 electoral votes necessary to secure the presidency on January 6.”

RECRUITING AND RETAINING FAKE ELECTORS

After the plan was expanded to include six states, Trump and attorney John Eastman asked Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, to help the Trump campaign recruit the electors in the targeted states.

The two men, according to prosecutors, “falsely represented” to McDaniel that the electors would only be used if Trump’s lawsuits against the election succeeded. McDaniel agreed to help.

As the Trump electors prepared for a Dec. 14 gathering, when state electors met at respective capitols to certify the electoral results, some had concerns. The fake electors in Pennsylvania told Giuliani and other Trump advisers on a conference call that they had reservations about signing a certificate that would present them as legitimate electors for the state.

Giuliani, according to the indictment, “falsely assured” them that their certificate would only be used if Trump’s litigation succeeded.

But winning in court was never the plan, according to prosecutors.

Chesebro wrote in a Dec. 13 email that the strategy “was not to use the fraudulent electors only in the circumstance that the Defendant’s litigation was successful in one of the targeted states.” Instead, he wrote, “the plan was to falsely present the fraudulent slates as an alternative to the legitimate slates at Congress’s certification proceeding.”

‘CRAZY PLAY’

On the eve of the state certifications, those close to the Trump campaign, including a senior adviser, raised concerns in a group chat about the fake electors plan, prosecutors say. Informed of what was going on, Trump’s deputy campaign manager said the scheme had “morphed into a crazy play.”

A senior adviser to the president, who is not identified, texted, “Certifying illegal votes.” The campaign officials in the chat refused to sign a statement about the plan, because none of them could “stand by it,” the prosecutors allege.

LAST-MINUTE ADDITION

New Mexico, which was not among the key states in the election, was nonetheless tossed into the mix the night before the Dec. 14 gather of electors. Cheseboro, at the request of a Trump campaign staffer, drafted and sent fake certificates to the state for Trump.

The decision came despite there being no pending litigation on Trump’s behalf in New Mexico and the fact that he lost the state by nearly 100,000 votes.

The next day, the Trump campaign filed an election challenge suit in New Mexico, six minutes before the deadline for the electors’ votes, “as a pretext so that there was pending litigation there at the time the fraudulent electors voted,” prosecutors allege.

‘SHAM PROCEEDINGS’

On Dec. 14, 2020, as Democratic electors for Biden in key swing states met at their seat of state government to cast their votes, Republican electors for Trump gathered as well. They signed and submitted false Electoral College certificates declaring Trump the winner of the presidential election in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Those fraudulent certificates were mailed to Congress and the National Archives. Ultimately, only the legitimate election certificates were counted, despite Trump’s effort to create what prosecutors called a “fake controversy.”

JANUARY 6

Trump’s allies in the days before Jan. 6 exerted intense pressure on Vice President Mike Pence, urging to use the fake certificates to justify delaying the certification of the election during the joint session of Congress. One of Trump’s lawyers even suggested that Pence could simply toss out electors and declare Trump the winner.

Time and again, Pence refused, prompting Trump to complain that he was “too honest,” according to the indictment.

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Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

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August 2, 2023
The election-meddling indictment against Trump is sprawling. Here’s a breakdown of the case

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Donald Trump for years has promoted baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. In truth, Trump was the one who tried to steal the election, federal prosecutors said Tuesday in a sprawling indictment that paints the former president as desperate to cling to power he knew had been stripped away by voters.

The Justice Department indictment accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as legal challenges floundered in court.

The felony charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith are built around the words of White House lawyers and others in his inner circle who repeatedly told Trump there was no fraud.

It’s the third time this year the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary has been charged in a criminal case. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump has said he did nothing wrong, and has accused Smith and the Justice Department of trying to harm his 2024 campaign.

Here’s a look at the charges Trump faces and other key issues in the indictment:

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WHAT IS TRUMP CHARGED WITH?

Trump is charged with four counts: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to prevent others from carrying out their constitutional rights.

In the obstruction charge — which carries penalties of up to 20 years in prison — the official proceeding refers to the Jan. 6, 2021 joint session of Congress at which electoral votes were to be counted in order to certify Biden as the official winner. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding also carries a maximum of 20 years in prison

That obstruction charge has been brought against hundreds of the more than 1,000 people charged in the Jan. 6 riot, including members of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups. More than 100 people have been convicted at trial or pleaded guilty to the offense.

Conspiracy to defraud the U.S., which is punishable by up to five years in prison, makes it a crime to conspire with another person else to carry out fraud against the government. The indictment alleges that Trump used “dishonesty, fraud and deceit to impair, obstruct and defeat” the counting and certifying of the election results.

Trump had the right to contest the election — and even falsely claim that he had won, indictment says. The charges, however, stem from what prosecutors say were illegal efforts to subvert the election results and block the peaceful transfer of power.

The indictment alleges a weekslong plot that began with pressure on state lawmakers and election officials to change electoral votes from Biden to Trump, and then evolved into organizing fake slates of pro-Trump electors to be sent to Congress.

Trump and his allies also attempted to use the Justice Department to conduct bogus election-fraud investigations in order to boost his fake electors’ scheme, the indictment says.

As Jan. 6 approached, Trump and his allies pressured Vice President Mike Pence to reject certain electoral votes, and when that failed, the former president directed his supporters to go to the Capitol to obstruct Congress’ certification of the vote, the indictment alleges.

Finally, the indictment says, Trump and his allies tried to exploit his supporters’ attack on the Capitol by redoubling their efforts to spread election lies and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification of Biden’s victory.

“Each of these conspiracies —- which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud — targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment says.

WHAT IS THE ‘CONSPIRACY AGAINST RIGHTS’ CHARGE?

Trump is accused of violating a post-Civil War Reconstruction Era civil rights statute that makes it a crime to conspire to interfere with rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution, in this case: the right to vote and have one’s vote counted. It’s punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The provision was originally part of a set of laws passed in 1870 in response to violence and intimidation by members of the Klu Klux Klan aimed at keeping Black people from the polls.

But it has has been used over the years in a wide-range of election fraud cases, including to prosecute conspiracies to stuff ballot boxes or not count certain votes. The conspiracy doesn’t have to be successful, meaning the fraud doesn’t have to actually affect the election.

The Justice Department won a conviction on the charge earlier this year in the case of Douglass Mackey, a far-right propagandist from Florida who was accused of conspiring with other internet influencers to spread fraudulent messages to supporters of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in an effort to suppress the vote in 2016.

WAS ANYONE ELSE CHARGED?

Trump is the only defendant charged in the indictment, which mentions six unnamed co-conspirators. It’s unclear why they weren’t charged or whether they will be added to the indictment at a later date.

The co-conspirators include an attorney “who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies” that Trump’s 2020 campaign attorneys would not, and an attorney whose “unfounded claims of election fraud” Trump privately acknowledged to others sounded “crazy.” Another co-conspirator is a political consultant who helped submit fake slates of electors for Trump.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The case was filed in Washington’s federal court, where Trump is expected to make his first appearance on Thursday.

For more than two years, judges in that courthouse — which sits within sight of the Capitol — have been hearing the cases of the hundreds of Trump supporters accused of participating in the Jan. 6 riot — many of whom have said they were deluded by the election lies pushed by Trump and his allies.

Trump has signaled that his defense may rest, at least in part, on the idea that he truly believed the election was stolen, saying in a recent social media post: “I have the right to protest an Election that I am fully convinced was Rigged and Stolen, just as the Democrats have done against me in 2016, and many others have done over the ages.”

But prosecutors have amassed a significant amount of evidence showing that Trump was repeatedly told he lost.

Trump ”was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue — often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts and he deliberately disregarded the truth,” the indictment says.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the federal case in Florida stemming from classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Smith said prosecutors will seek “a speedy trial” in the latest case.

Unlike in Florida, where Republicans have made steady inroads in recent years, Trump will likely face a challenging jury pool in overwhelmingly Democratic Washington D.C. Of the roughly 100 people who have gone to trial in the Jan. 6 attack, only two people have been cleared of all charges and those cases were decided by judges, not juries.

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August 1, 2023
Trump’s target letter suggests the sprawling US probe into the 2020 election is zeroing in on him

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WASHINGTON — A target letter sent to Donald Trump suggests that a sprawling Justice Department investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election is zeroing in on him after more than a year of interviews with top aides to the former president and state officials from across the country.

Federal prosecutors have cast a wide net, asking witnesses in recent months about a chaotic White House meeting that included discussion of seizing voting machines and about lawyers’ involvement in plans to block the transfer of power, according to people familiar with the probe. They’ve discussed with witnesses schemes by Trump associates to enlist slates of Republican fake electors in battleground states won by Democrat Joe Biden and interviewed state election officials who faced a pressure campaign over the election results in the days before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

It is unclear how much longer special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation will last, but its gravity was evident Tuesday when Trump disclosed that he had received a letter from the Justice Department advising him that he was a target of the probe. Such letters often precede criminal charges; Trump received one ahead of his indictment last month on charges that he illegally hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

Though it’s not known when charges might come, the scope of the inquiry stands in stark contrast to Smith’s much narrower classified documents investigation. The vast range of witnesses is a reminder of the tumultuous two months between Trump’s election loss and the insurrection at the Capitol, when some lawyers and advisers aided his futile efforts to remain president while many others implored him to move on or were relentlessly badgered to help alter results.

A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment about the target letter or the interviews that prosecutors have conducted.

Even before Smith inherited the election interference probe last November, Justice Department investigators had already interviewed multiple Trump administration officials, including the chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence and former top lawyers at the White House, scrutinized post-election fundraising and seized as potential evidence the cellphones of numerous lawyers and officials.

Since then, Smith’s team has questioned senior administration officials including Pence himself before a grand jury in Washington and has conducted voluntary interviews with a wide array of witnesses inside and outside the federal government. Those include election officials in states where Trump associates waged fruitless challenges to get results overturned in the Republican incumbent’s favor.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was personally lobbied by Trump to “find 11,780 votes” to overtake Biden, has been interviewed by Smith’s team, as has Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, according to their representatives.

Wisconsin’s top elections administrator and election leaders in Milwaukee and Madison have spoken with federal investigators. And former Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who silenced a call from the Trump White House as he was publicly certifying Biden’s narrow victory in the state, has been contacted by Smith’s team, a spokesperson said Tuesday.

One person familiar with Smith’s investigation said prosecutors in recent months have expressed interest in the ordeal of Ruby Freeman, a Georgia election worker who along with her daughter recounted to the House of Representative’s Jan. 6 committee how their lives became upended when Trump and allies latched onto surveillance footage to level since-debunked allegations of voter fraud.

Smith’s team has subpoenaed Raffensperger’s office for any “security video or security footage, or any other video of any kind” from State Farm Arena in Atlanta on Nov. 3, 2020, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Associated Press. That’s the video Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies have claimed showed Fulton County election workers, including Freeman, pulling “suitcases of ballots” from under a table. Georgia officials have repeatedly called those claims false.

A consistent area of interest for investigators has been the role played by Trump-allied lawyers in helping him cling to power, according to people familiar with the investigation who, like others interviewed for the story, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal probe.

John Eastman, a conservative law professor, advanced a dubious legal theory that said Pence could halt the certification of state electoral votes to block Biden’s win. Another lawyer, Sidney Powell, promoted baseless claims of voter fraud and pushed an idea — vigorously opposed by Trump’s lawyers at the White House — that Trump had the authority under an earlier executive order to seize state voting machines.

Charles Burnham, a lawyer for Eastman, said Tuesday that his client had not received a target letter. “We don’t expect one since raising concerns about illegality in the conduct of an election is not now and has never been sanctionable,” he said. A lawyer for Powell declined to comment.

Multiple witnesses have been asked about a heated Dec. 18, 2020 meeting at the White House in which outside advisers, including Powell, raised the voting machines idea, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting, which devolved into a shouting match, featured prominently in the House Jan. 6 investigation, with former White House official Cassidy Hutchinson memorably describing it as “unhinged.”

Giuliani, a Trump lawyer who participated in the meeting and who spearheaded legal challenges to the election results, was asked about that meeting during a voluntary interview with Smith’s team and also detailed to prosecutors Powell’s involvement in failed efforts to overturn the election, according to a person familiar with his account. Giuliani has not received a target letter.

Giuliani’s interview was part of what’s known as a proffer agreement, the person said, in which a person speaks voluntarily with investigators while prosecutors agree not to use those statements in any criminal case they might bring. Prosecutors have worked to negotiate similar arrangements with other witnesses.

As prosecutors dig into efforts by Trump allies to thwart Biden’s victory, they’ve focused on the creation of slates of fake electors from key states captured by Biden who were enlisted by Trump and his allies to sign false certificates stating that Trump had actually won.

Smith’s team has also focused on Trump’s efforts to punish officials from his administration who contradicted his false election fraud claims.

Chris Krebs, who was fired by Trump as director of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency after vouching for the integrity of the 2020 vote, was interviewed by prosecutors a couple of months ago about the perceived retaliation, according to a person familiar with the questioning.

___

Associated Press writers Kate Brumback and Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Mich., and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

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July 19, 2023
Trump says he has been notified he’s a target of the US probe into efforts to overturn 2020 election

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WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has received a letter informing him he is a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, an indication he could soon be charged by U.S. prosecutors.

New federal charges, on top of existing state and federal counts in New York and Florida and a separate election-interference investigation nearing conclusion in Georgia, would add to the list of legal problems for Trump as he pursues the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Trump disclosed the existence of a target letter in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying he received it Sunday night and that he anticipates being indicted. Such a letter often precedes an indictment and is used to advise individuals under investigation that prosecutors have gathered evidence linking them to a crime; Trump, for instance, received one soon before being charged last month in a separate investigation into the illegal retention of classified documents.

A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, whose office is leading the investigation, declined to comment.

Legal experts have said potential charges could include conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding, in this case Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Smith’s team has cast a broad net in its investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to block the transfer of power to Biden in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Trump loyalists stormed the building in a bid to disrupt the certification of state electoral votes in Congress. More than 1,000 people accused of participating in the riot have been charged.

Smith’s probe has centered on a broad range of efforts by Trump and allies to keep him in office, including the use of slates of so-called fake electors in battleground states won by Biden and disputed by Trump.

Prosecutors have questioned multiple Trump administration officials before a grand jury in Washington, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who was repeatedly urged by Trump to shun his constitutional duty and block the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6. They’ve also interviewed other Trump advisers, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as local election officials in states including Michigan and New Mexico who endured a pressure campaign from the then-president about overturning election results.

Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing and did so again in his Tuesday post, writing, “Under the United States Constitution, I have the right to protest an Election that I am fully convinced was Rigged and Stolen. just as the Democrats have done against me in 2016, and many others have done over the ages.”

Trump remains the Republican party’s dominant frontrunner, despite indictments in New York arising from hush money payments during his 2016 campaign and in Florida, which seem to have had little impact on his standing in the crowded GOP field. The indictments also have helped his campaign raise millions of dollars from supporters, though he raised far less after the second than the first, raising questions about whether subsequent charges will have the same impact.

He was to travel to Iowa Tuesday, where he was taping a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

One purpose of a target letter is to advise a potential defendant that he or she has a right to appear before the grand jury. Trump said in his post that he has been given “a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment.” Aides did not immediately respond to questions seeking further information.

Prosecutors in Georgia are conducting a separate investigation into efforts by Trump to reverse his election loss in that state, with the top prosecutor in Fulton County signaling that she expects to announce charging decisions next month.

In his post on Tuesday, Trump wrote that “they have now effectively indicted me three times … with a probably fourth coming from Atlanta” and added in capital letters, “This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total political weaponization of law enforcement.”

Trump was indicted last month on 37 federal felony counts in relation to accusations of illegally retaining hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. He has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial conference in that case was set for Tuesday in Fort Pierce, Fla.

____

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump

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July 18, 2023
Florida woman gets 6 years in prison for attacking officers during the US Capitol attack

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A Florida woman was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for attacking police officers during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Audrey Ann Southard-Rumsey, 54, of Spring Hill, Florida, was sentenced in District of Columbia federal court, according to court records. She was found guilty in January of seven felony charges, including three counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, three counts of civil disorder and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding.

Southard-Rumsey was arrested in June 2021.

A Capitol riot suspect who had guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in his van when he was arrested near former President Barack Obama’s Washington home has been indicted on federal firearms charges.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Mississippi woman who says she was hit by a stray police bullet while lying in bed.

A former California police chief has been convicted of joining the riot at the U.S. Capitol with a hatchet in his backpack and plotting to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

An estimated $750 million jackpot will be at stake Wednesday night in the Powerball drawing. The prize is the sixth highest in the history of the game.

According to court documents, Southard-Rumsey joined with others in objecting to Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump. A mob stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying election results for Biden over Trump, a Republican, authorities have said. Five people died in the violence.

According to the criminal complaint, Southard-Rumsey amplified calls for revolution on social media and worked with others on a declaration calling for the abolition of the Democratic Party and the institution of a new government. On the day of the Capitol attack, Southard-Rumsey uploaded a photograph of herself at the east plaza to Facebook and then broadcasted a live video of herself, the complaint states.

Southard-Rumsey was part of a large group that broke through police barricades, prosecutors said. At one point, she grabbed an officer’s riot shield and then later pushed an officer with a flagpole, causing him to fall and hit his head, officials said. She also joined a group that pushed officers down some stairs, authorities said.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for alleged crimes related to the Capitol breach, according to officials. More than 350 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

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July 14, 2023
Georgia elections official to speak to federal prosecutors probing Trump’s efforts to undo 2020 loss

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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is scheduled to speak to federal prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office

ByKATE BRUMBACK Associated Press

FILE – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announces May, 4, 2023, in Atlanta, that he has set the battleground state’s presidential preference primaries dates for March 12, 2024. The Republicans elections chief rebuffed Democrats’ push to make Georgia an early nominating state. (AP Photo/Bill Barrow, File)

The Associated Press

ATLANTA — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is scheduled to speak to federal prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss.

In a rambling phone call on Jan. 2, 2021, Trump suggested Raffensperger, the top elections official in Georgia, could help “find” the votes necessary to reverse Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow presidential election win in the state. The call came after Trump and his allies spent weeks insisting without evidence that widespread election fraud was the cause of his loss in Georgia and publicly berating Raffensperger for failing to take steps to reverse it.

The secretary of state’s office on Tuesday confirmed that he would speak to special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors Wednesday in Atlanta. The planned interview was first reported by The Washington Post.

Efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his loss in Georgia are also the subject of a separate investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Atlanta. Raffensperger testified before a special grand jury in that case last June. Willis has indicated that she will announce charging decisions later this summer.

Raffensperger previously received a subpoena from Smith’s team for communications “to, from or involving” Trump, his campaign, lawyers and aides. Similar subpoenas were sent to officials in other states and counties that Trump and his allies targeted as they tried to overturn the election.

Smith was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to lead teams investigating the actions by Trump and his allies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, including the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s handling of classified documents. The documents investigation resulted in a 38-count indictment against Trump and his valet Walt Nauta earlier this month. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the 37 counts against him. Nauta’s arraignment was set for Tuesday but has been delayed until next week.

Additionally, a Manhattan grand jury in March indicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential election.

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June 27, 2023
Israel’s Netanyahu appoints new media advisor, journalist who had called Biden ‘unfit,’ report says

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a new media advisor who has tweeted critically against President Joe Biden

ByTIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed a new media advisor who has tweeted critically against President Joe Biden, the daily Haaretz reported.

The appointment comes at a time when U.S.-Israel relations are strained.

Gilad Zwick, a journalist with a conservative Israeli TV station, has in his tweets called Biden “unfit” to rule and said that he was “slowly but surely destroying America.” He also posted tweets suggesting he supported President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 U.S. election was rigged. The tweets were still online Monday.

Both Netanyahu’s office and Zwick did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zwick previously worked for Israel Hayom, a pro-Netanyahu daily.

Zwick’s appointment comes as ties between Israel and its closest ally, the United States, are fraught over a contentious Israeli government plan to overhaul the judiciary and over the government’s ultranationalist character.

Biden has publicly expressed concern over the Netanyahu government’s plan to reshape the legal system, which has sparked mass protests that continue weekly even after the plan was put on hold.

The Biden administration has also voiced unease about Netanyahu’s government, made up of ultranationalists who were once at the fringes of Israeli politics and now hold senior positions dealing with the Palestinians and other sensitive issues.

Amid the tensions, Biden has so far denied Netanyahu a typically customary invitation to the White House after his election win late last year.

Critics accuse Netanyahu of gradually shifting Israel from a bipartisan matter to a wedge issue in U.S. politics. They point to him appearing to openly support Republican candidates as well as his 2015 speech to Congress which was seen as a slight to the Obama administration over its nuclear deal with Iran. Netanyahu says Israel’s bond with the U.S. is unbreakable and downplays any rifts as disagreements between friends.

Last month, Israel’s parliament hosted U.S. House speaker Kevin McCarthy, who became just the second House speaker to address the Knesset, after Republican Newt Gingrich in 1998.

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June 5, 2023
Biden’s 2024 pitch highlights pragmatism over Trump’s pugilism

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden promised voters in 2020 that he knew how to get things done in Washington and could bring stability to the capital. It seemed like a message out of step with the more combative era brought on by Donald Trump.

But Biden prevailed, by more than 7 million votes, and as he seeks a second term, he is again trying to frame the race as a referendum on competence and governance, pointing to the bipartisan debt limit and budget legislation he signed on Saturday as another exemplar of the success of his approach.

The agreement the Democratic president negotiated with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans averted the catastrophe of a U.S. government default — and forestalled another threat until after the 2024 election — while largely protecting the domestic agenda that formed the backbone of what he hopes will form his legacy.

His approach, favoring pragmatism over Trumpian pugilism, will be tested as never before in the coming campaign, with his approval rating even among Democrats low despite the results he has delivered, in large part because of concerns about his age as the oldest person to ever seek the presidency.

“The results speak for themselves,” said Jeff Zients, the 80-year-old Biden’s chief of staff. “This level of support shows that we got a bipartisan deal that, most importantly, protects the president’s priorities. And now we have a runway to execute on the president’s priorities.”

Biden’s allies say his strategy reflects his broader view of the presidency: tuning out the daily chatter and focusing on making a prolonged impact.

“This was quintessential Joe Biden,” said longtime Biden confidant and former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman. “He really understands the institutions, how they function, how they interact, and what their limitations are. It’s the incredible advantage he has from having 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president.”

That perceived advantage — longevity — is also perhaps Biden’s steepest hill as he seeks four more years.

Biden, aides said, devised a strategy shortly after Republicans took the House in November and stuck by it through the talks, despite second-guessing from members of his own party. He pressed the Republicans to define their budget priorities, then hammered them in public for unpopular proposed cuts once they did, to enter the negotiations with the strongest hand possible.

“He believes in the institutions of American governance. He’s approached this with an eye toward making the presidency and the Congress work and the way they were designed to work,” said MIke Donilon, a senior adviser to the president.

As the talks progressed, Biden stepped out of the limelight to allow Republican leaders to claim a win — necessary to sell it to their caucus — and quietly reassured Democrats that they would grow to like the deal the more they learned about it.

The result is an agreement that White House aides say exceeded their projections of what a budget agreement would look like with Republicans in charge of the House. It essentially freezes spending for the next year, rather than the steep cuts proposed by the GOP, and protects Biden’s infrastructure and climate laws and spending on Social Security and Medicare.

From the view of Biden’s team, it’s also far better than the result than the debt limit showdown of 2011, when Biden was a negotiator for then-President Barack Obama and House Republicans forced them to accept stiffer budget cuts that they believe hampered the country’s recovery from the Great Recession.

Biden still has come under fire from some in his own party for agreeing to tougher work requirements for some federal food assistance recipients and speeding up environmental reviews for infrastructure projects.

But the White House sees an upside: The permitting changes will speed up implementation of Biden’s infrastructure and climate laws, and the Biden aides highlight that Congressional Budget Office projections show that carve-outs from work requirements for veterans, people who are homeless and those leaving foster care will actually expand the number of people eligible for federal food assistance.

“While the rest of us are sweating the micro-news cycles and who’s up and who’s down on Twitter, the president is playing the long game,” said Obama spokesman and Democratic strategist Eric Schultz.

“He ran for the presidency pledging to restore functionality to Washington after his predecessor, and it’s hard to argue with his record of doing so,” Schultz added. “He’s proven he can rack up significant Democratic wins while also working in good faith with the other side.”

Biden drew a red line in negotiations that the debt limit had to be extended until after the 2024 presidential election, worried both on substance and style about the potential for another showdown in an even more heated political environment.

His sentiment may be right, but voters are increasingly concerned about his age and its toll, a message relentlessly reinforced by prospective Republican challengers and the conservative media ecosystem.

“Biden has chalked up a series of impressive accomplishments on a bipartisan basis and demonstrated that he can do that without being the center of attention,” said presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky. “That’s what the American voters said they wanted then. But 2024 will have an entirely different context.”

Biden, she said, would need to argue that the stability he’s brought about is at risk by his opponents and hope voters’ memories are long enough.

White House aides say the deal gives them “running room” through the 2024 election to focus on making people feel the impacts of the legislation Biden signed into law, as well as begin to lay out their priorities for what he would do with another term and more Democrats in Congress.

Biden himself on Friday underlined the contrast with the combative character of the Republicans’ race and his adult-in-the room posture. He called on both parties to “join forces as Americans to stop shouting, lower the temperature,” even as he highlighted GOP opposition to his efforts to raise taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations and cut tax breaks.

“Republicans defended every single one of these special interest loopholes,” Biden said, testing out a campaign line he is expected to hone in on in the coming months. “Every single one. But I’m going to be coming back. And with your help, I’m going to win.

Despite Biden’s protestations, and his goal of unburdening himself and future office holders from the potential of future “hostage-taking,” Biden still proved to be incapable of breaking the cycle of the debt ceiling being used as leverage in negotiations. Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer said it made the agreement a “mixed bag,” staving off crisis now, but one that could come back to haunt him and subsequent presidents.

“Republicans just did it again. It happened when he was vice president, it happened when he was president, and it’ll happen again,” he said. “A lot of Republicans always wanted the tactic more than the outcome – he didn’t stop that.”

Zelizer acknowledged that Biden may not have had any other options — a proposal to use the 14th Amendment to pay obligations without Congress’ say-so was untested and had its own pitfalls.

“When you have a threat like that, you have to negotiate,” he acknowledged.

But for Biden’s team, the results are what matter.

“He had his eyes on the prize, which was, ‘How is this deal going to get done? And how does my doing that advance this deal?’” Donilon said. “We need to have our politics come together in moments where it has to do it. And so I think that actually will be a reassuring moment for the country.

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June 4, 2023
Oath Keepers convicted in Jan. 6 Capitol riot get prison in latest extremist sentencings

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WASHINGTON — Two Florida men who stormed the U.S. Capitol with other members of the far-right Oath Keepers group were sentenced Friday to three years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges — the latest in a historic string of sentences in the Jan. 6. 2021 attack.

David Moerschel, 45, a neurophysiologist from Punta Gorda, and Joseph Hackett, a 52-year-old chiropractor from Sarasota, were convicted in January alongside other members of the antigovernment extremist group for their roles in what prosecutors described as a violent plot to stop the transfer power from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

Both men were among the lower-level members charged with seditious conspiracy. Moerschel was sentenced to three years in prison and Hackett got three and a half years.

All told, nine people associated with the Oath Keepers have been tried for seditious conspiracy and six were convicted of the rarely used Civil War-era charge in two separate trials, including the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes. Rhodes was sentenced last week to 18 years in prison — a record for a Jan. 6 defendant. Three defendants were cleared of the sedition charge but found guilty of other Jan. 6 crimes.

Moerschel and Hackett helped amass guns and ammunition to stash in a Virginia hotel for a so-called “quick reaction force” that could be quickly shuttled to Washington, prosecutors said. The weapons were never deployed. Moerschel provided an AR-15 and a Glock semi-automatic handgun and Hackett helped transport weapons, prosecutors said.

On Jan. 6, both men dressed in paramilitary gear and marched into the Capitol with fellow Oath Keepers in a military-style line formation, charging documents stated.

“The security of our country and the safety of democracy should not hinge on the impulses of madmen,” Justice Department prosecutor Troy Edwards said.

Moerschel told the judge he was deeply ashamed of forcing his way into the Capitol and joining the riot that seriously injured police officers and sent staffers running in fear.

“When I was on the stairs, your honor, I felt like God said to me, ‘Get out here.’ And I didn’t,” he said in court, his voice cracking with emotion. “I disobeyed God and I broke laws.”

Moerschel was a neurophysiologist who monitored surgical patients under anesthesia before his arrest, though he’s since been fired and now works in construction and landscaping. A former missionary, he is married with three children.

Hackett similarly said he remembered feeling horrified as stepped foot in the Capitol that day: “I truly am sorry for my part in causing so much misery,” he said.

He originally joined the group after seeing vandalism at a commercial area near his house during the summer of 2020, when protests against police brutality were common, his attorney Angela Halim said. “He did not join this organization because he shared any beliefs of Stewart Rhodes,” she said.

Still, he later attended an “unconventional warfare” training, and in the leadup to Jan. 6 he repeatedly warned other Oath Keepers about “leaks” and the need to secure their communications, and later changed his online screen names, authorities have said.

“Taken together, his messages show he perceived the election as an existential threat,” said prosecutor Alexandra Hughes.

How the chiropractor and father ended up storming the Capitol, though, is “hard to wrap one’s head around,” said U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. The group’s increasingly heated online conversations and false claims of a stolen election “can suck you in like a vortex make and make it very difficult to get out.”

Neither man was a top leader in the group, and both left shortly after Jan. 6. Both sentences were far lower than the 12 years prosecutors sought for Hackett and 10 for Moreschel.

Moreschel was in the Capitol for about 12 minutes, and didn’t do anything violent or scream at police officers, Mehta noted. He also handed his guns over to police.

“Sentencing shouldn’t be vengeful, it shouldn’t be such that it is unduly harsh simply for the sake of being harsh,” said the judge, who also imposed a three-year term of supervised release for both men.

Moerschel’s attorneys had asked for home confinement, arguing that he joined the Oath Keepers chats shortly before the riot and was not a leader.

“He was just in the back following the crowd,” attorney Scott Weinberg told the judge.

Defense attorneys have long said there was never a plan to attack the Capitol and prosecutors’ case was largely built on online messages cherry-picked out of context.

The charges against leaders of the Oath Keepers and another far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, are among the most serious brought in the Justice Department’s sprawling riot investigation. Prosecutors have also won seditious conspiracy convictions in the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and three other group leaders in what prosecutors said was a separate plot to keep Trump in the White House.

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June 3, 2023
Florida man gets prison term for role in attack on Capitol

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A Florida man has been sentenced to four years and two months in federal prison for attacking police officers during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021

WASHINGTON — A Florida man has been sentenced to four years and two months in federal prison for attacking police officers during the insurrection and storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Christian Matthew Manley, 27, of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in the District of Columbia, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in November to assaulting, resisting and impeding law enforcement while using a dangerous weapon.

According to court documents, Manley joined with others in objecting to Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump. A mob stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying election results for Biden over Trump, a Republican, authorities have said. Five people died in the violence.

According to the criminal complaint, Manley was captured on video outside the Capitol wearing a flak jacket and armed with bear spray, a collapsible police baton and handcuffs. Video shows Manley spraying bear spray at U.S. Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers as they defended an entrance from rioters.

Manley threw the empty bear spray container at officers, then sprayed a second cannister at officers before throwing it at them, prosecutors said. A short time later, Manley accepted a metal rod from another rioter and threw it at the officers, investigators said. They added that Manley also wedged his body against a wall in a tunnel and used force to push the security door against officers defending the Capitol.

Since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for alleged crimes related to the Capitol breach, officials said. More than 320 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

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April 26, 2023
Longtime Trump ally Laxalt joins PAC supporting DeSantis

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Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a longtime Donald Trump ally, will help lead a political action committee that’s encouraging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024

ByMICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a longtime Donald Trump ally, will help lead a political action committee encouraging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

Laxalt, who roomed with DeSantis while in naval officer training, will serve as the chairman of the Never Back Down super PAC, the organization confirmed Saturday.

Laxalt chaired Trump’s campaign in Nevada in 2020 and has repeated Trump’s false claims of fraud about that race, won by Democrat Joe Biden. Laxalt was a public face of many of Trump campaign’s lawsuits in the swing state that challenged election rules and results. Trump endorsed Laxalt in the 2022 Senate race won by Catherine Cortez Masto, who was considered to be among the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the midterm elections.

But Laxalt has remained a close friend of DeSantis, who is widely expected to announce a White House campaign soon. Both were Navy judge advocate generals and served in Iraq.

Never Back Down was started by Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general who had a high-ranking role in Trump’s Homeland Security Department. The political group has reported raising $30 million.

One wing of the group has been raising money that could be transferred to DeSantis should he get in the 2024 race. A different wing has begun running pro-DeSantis ads and pushing back aggressively against Trump in what’s increasingly become a bitter campaign.

Trump’s campaign on Friday criticized DeSantis’ management of the state where they both live, saying that “Florida continues to tumble into complete and total delinquency and destruction.” Never Back Down responded on Saturday by offering “financial assistance” for Trump to move to California.

Prominent Republican operative Jeff Roe, who worked on Laxalt’s unsuccessful campaigns in 2018 for governor and last year for Senate, began as an advisor to Never Back Down last month.

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that Laxalt and DeSantis were roommates in naval officer training, not the Naval Justice School.

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April 22, 2023
Fox settlement part of flurry of lawsuits over election lies

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DENVER — Fox News’ nearly $800 million settlement of a voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit marks the first milestone in a larger legal strategy designed to combat the false claims and conspiracy theories about elections that have rippled through the United States for nearly three years.

Several similar lawsuits are teed up against those who have spread election lies, including another against Fox. The plaintiffs range from a different voting technology company to Georgia election workers who were falsely accused of tampering with the vote count in that state. The defendants include close advisers to former President Donald Trump and a conservative group that funded a film last year alleging widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Lawyers involved in the effort describe it as an attempt to strike back against those whose lies about fraud in that election helped inspire the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and continue to circulate in conservative circles.

“Lies like these, that inflict serious harms on our democracy, have been costless,” said Rachel Goodman, a lawyer with the group Protect Democracy who is representing the Georgia election workers along with plaintiffs in other libel claims against election conspiracists. “This litigation creates accountability and makes clear that there are steep costs to recklessly or intentionally spreading fiction for political or personal profit.”

Yet even if the legal challenges keep generating eye-popping settlements or damage awards, it’s not clear they will change behavior or counter the attacks on democratic institutions.

“I personally do not regard a libel suit to be a good mechanism to deal with the disinformation problem,” said Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. “I keep coming back to this fear that we’re trying to put a square peg in a round hole here.”

The lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., from Dominion Voting Systems was one of the first defamation claims filed after Trump and his allies spent weeks falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen. One of the initial conspiracy theories they floated was that the Denver-based voting machine company was part of an international cabal that threw the election to Biden.

Dominion sued Trump adviser and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and others who helped spread the false theory. Dominion also sued the right-leaning news networks that repeatedly featured the theory in their coverage — two insurgent, pro-Trump channels, Newsmax and One America News Network, and the nation’s most-watched cable news network, Fox.

The Fox News case has generated the most attention. That’s because the litigation moved faster than others and also because it unearthed a trove of internal documents that showed Fox’s executives and prominent personalities were privately dismissive of Trump’s election claims but aired them anyway. Star hosts such as Tucker Carlson also expressed disdain for Trump in texts with colleagues.

Shortly after a Delaware jury was empaneled to hear the case Tuesday, Fox and Dominion agreed to settle the lawsuit for $787.5 million, which is more than half the profits Fox reported last year.

There is no requirement in the settlement that Fox admit airing inaccurate information. The network itself made a brief reference to “the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” but made no apologies or other marks of contrition in its statement. That statement also said: “This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”

Some Fox critics were upset that the settlement didn’t include an admission of wrongdoing from the network.

“What’s most frustrating — it’s downright infuriating — about this outcome is how little accountability it demands from Fox News,” tweeted Andy Kroll, a journalist who wrote a book about conservative conspiracy theories surrounding the 2017 killing of a Democratic National Committee staffer, whose parents sued Fox.

Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania’s former top voting official, in an interview hours after the settlement, recalled crying during her deposition in the Dominion-Fox case when she recounted the death threats she received after the 2020 election. She said those threats spiked after Fox aired segments amplifying false accusations of mass fraud.

Boockvar said she was cheered by the settlement, even if it didn’t include an admission of wrongdoing.

“It would ideally be better to have part of the settlement include admissions of their knowingly broadcasting lies,” Boockvar said. “However, the very substantial amount of this settlement and the strong language from the judge last week speak volumes, and I believe it will help deter future flagrant disregard of the truth of this severity.”

In his ruling allowing the lawsuit to go to trial, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations Fox aired about Dominion were true. Dominion CEO John Poulos said that while the settlement did not require an apology from Fox, the company felt the court system forced accountability on the network.

“For us, it was never really about Fox, per se. It was about telling the truth and the media telling the truth,” Poulos told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. “And I think that what was important for us, is for people to be held to account for when they recklessly and knowingly tell lies that have such devastating consequences.”

Justin A. Nelson, Dominion’s lead attorney, said the size of the settlement will matter.

“There’s a long way still to make my client right,” Nelson said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We still have six more suits to go out there. But this was, as I say, just a tremendous victory. And when they’re paying nearly $800 million, three quarters of a billion dollars, that speaks to it.”

Still, Fox has continued to air misleading segments about the 2020 election and the threat to democracy posed by election lies, even as the Dominion case hurtled towards its conclusion. Last month, Carlson aired a segment playing down the severity of the Jan. 6 attack, drawing condemnation even from some Republican senators.

Fox faces more legal peril from a similar defamation claim filed by the voting company Smartmatic, which was briefly conflated with Dominion during the lies spread by Trump’s allies after the 2020 election. Additional lawsuits target other players in the conservative media world: The Georgia election workers filed a claim against Gateway Pundit, a popular right-wing website that has spread numerous conspiracy theories about 2020.

Goodman and Protect Democracy also are representing a Georgia man suing the conservative group True The Vote for including a video image in their film “2000 Mules” that shows the man legally dropping off ballots in 2020. That film falsely alleges widespread fraud by people illegally stuffing drop boxes.

Kirtley, however, noted that some of the other targets may not have the same internal documentation and standards of Fox, which retains a robust stable of reporters and positions itself as a straightforward, objective news organization.

Speaking about some of the other defendants in libel lawsuits, Kirtley said, “They don’t even have the veneer of being a journalistic enterprise.”

She also said she doubted that the lawsuits, even if they resulted in enormous settlements, would convince those who have fallen for Trump’s election lies that the entire narrative is false.

“It’s going to take a lot more than a secret settlement to dissuade their loyal viewers that they’re a credible news source,” Kirtley said of Fox.

___

Associated Press writer Randall Chase in Wilmington, Delaware, contributed to this report.

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April 19, 2023
Biden pushes econ policy as Trump indictment gets attention

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FRIDLEY, Minn. — President Joe Biden ventured to suburban Minneapolis on Monday to talk about factory jobs and contrast his agenda with “the last guy who had this job.” The “last guy,” as Biden calls Donald Trump, was simultaneously touching down in New York to become the first former president to be arrested.

The Biden White House, which has shied away from involvement in the legal spectacle surrounding Trump, hoped to turn the split-screen moment into a chance to showcase the president’s accomplishments and relatively drama-free administration. It represented a rehash of the choice that voters made in 2020 — and might have to make again in 2024 — as both men intend to seek the White House.

Biden offered himself as a veteran policymaker while Trump, ever the showman, aimed to use Tuesday’s arraignment on criminal charges to generate campaign donations and fire up Republican voters.

Biden sought to highlight job growth and investments nationwide while pushing clean energy and manufacturing in the U.S. during his visit to engine maker Cummins Inc. The company announced in conjunction with his visit that it’s investing more than $1 billion in its U.S. engine manufacturing network in Indiana, North Carolina and New York to update facilities so they can produce low- to zero-carbon engines.

Dogged by high inflation, Biden said his policies and spending will position the U.S. for greater prosperity in the future that boosts the middle class.

“The plan is to invest in America, in a literal sense,” Biden said. “Not overseas. In America. Invest in ourselves — and it’s working.”

Trump left his Florida home for New York City, posting on Truth Social that the indictment — tied to payments made during his 2016 campaign — was part of a “Witch Hunt” against him. He later sent out a message that tried to fundraise off his predicament.

Biden’s team saw Monday’s trip to the Cummins facility as a way to sharpen the contrast with Trump. If Trump gobbles up attention, administration officials say, Biden wants his message to be squarely focused on the American middle class.

“Stick to your message that you want to be talking about with discipline,” said Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary. “Whatever else is happening, you just have to keep talking about what it is that you want to talk about.”

The president regularly highlights the CHIPS Act, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, the $1 trillion infrastructure legislation and a roughly $375 billion climate bill — major bills that his administration steered into law before Democrats lost control of the House in last year’s elections to Republicans.

The White House wants to contrast Biden’s record and a proposed budget that includes $2.6 trillion in new spending with Republicans’ plans for spending and economic growth. Republicans have rejected Biden’s budget but have yet to bring forward a counteroffer to the Democrats’ blueprint, which is built around tax increases on the wealthy and a vision statement of sorts for Biden’s yet-to-be-declared 2024 campaign.

Other members of Biden’s administration are traveling to more than 20 states this week to buttress his message. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, for example, went to Connecticut on Monday for a fireside chat at Yale University on the economic agenda. While the president blasted Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for raising the deficit, Yellen panned them for failing to boost growth.

The treasury secretary said Trump’s signature achievement has “not been very successful, even at promoting investment spending and growth.” What the cuts did, instead, is tilt the tax code in favor of those with extreme degrees of wealth, according to Yellen.

“If you take something like the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,” she said, “maybe that had some marginal impact on boosting private investment — not obvious that it did. But it certainly raised the incomes of the wealthy individuals who received those huge tax cuts, and so it made the tax burden a lot less fair.”

First lady Jill Biden was in Colorado to promote Biden’s efforts to promote job training at community colleges and had other stops this week planned in Maine and Vermont. Her plans to visit Michigan later Monday were postponed because of an aircraft issue.

As the president returned to Washington, a large TV on Air Force One ran Trump headlines as Biden stood facing the screen in a conference room with his staff.

___

Boak reported from Washington. AP writers Fatima Hussein and Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.

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April 3, 2023
Biden’s moves on Alaska drilling, TikTok test young voters

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TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Recent moves by President Joe Biden to pressure TikTok over its Chinese ownership and approve oil drilling in an untapped area of Alaska are testing the loyalty of young voters, a group that’s largely been in his corner.

Youth turnout surged in the three elections since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, helping Biden eke out victories in swing states in 2020, pick up a Democratic Senate seat in the 2022 election and stem potential losses in the House.

But the 80-year-old president has never been the favorite candidate of young liberals itching for a new generation of American leadership. As Biden gears up for an expected reelection campaign, a potential TikTok ban and the Alaska drilling could weigh him down.

Meanwhile, his plan to wipe out billions of dollars in student loan debt is in jeopardy at the Supreme Court. The effort, announced shortly before last year’s midterms, was an attempt by Biden to keep a promise he made after defeating progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary campaign in 2020.

The risk for Biden is less that young left-of-center voters will vote Republican and more that they would sit out an uninspiring election altogether.

“I’m a Democrat, but I’m not voting for Biden,” said Mark Buehlmann, a 20-year-old Arizona State University student who said he likely would abstain if Biden is the Democratic nominee, as expected. “He’s maybe capable of doing a good job, but he’s not capable of gathering the troops, rallying the people. Especially the Democratic voter base. I don’t think he’s a strong candidate.”

TikTok allows users, 150 million of whom are in the United States, to post short, creative videos for friends and strangers. Its algorithm has an uncanny ability to figure out what interests its users and serve up videos they’ll enjoy. It’s become a supremely popular — some say addictive — place for young people to find entertainment and community.

Western governments are growing increasingly worried that TikTok’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, might give browsing history or other data about users to China’s government or promote propaganda and disinformation. The U.S. and other nations have banned TikTok from government-owned devices, as have several states.

The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, part of Biden’s Treasury Department, has threatened to ban TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t sell its stake in the app, according to a Wall Street Journal report this month.

Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020, but the move was blocked in court and later rescinded when Biden took office and ordered an in-depth study of the issue.

ByteDance says it’s working to address security concerns and has plans to route traffic through servers owned by Oracle, a Silicon Valley-based tech company.

Biden administration officials insist that political concerns aren’t weighing into the national security review underway, but they’re also not blind to it.

Both political parties have reoriented around staking out tougher economic and security positions on China’s rise, and Biden has come under increasing pressure from GOP lawmakers to take action against TikTok.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo offered hyperbolically, “The politician in me thinks you’re going to literally lose every voter under 35, forever.”

But it’s clear that the Biden White House and his likely reelection campaign are keenly aware of the app’s massive domestic reach and demographic skew toward Democratic-leaning younger voters.

Highlighting Biden’s balancing act, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a progressive New York Democrat popular on the left, held a news conference this past week with TikTok creators who have built popular and profitable channels on the social network “in support of free expression.”

Lawmakers grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew for nearly six hours Thursday over data security and harmful content. They responded skeptically during a tense House committee hearing to his assurances that the app prioritizes user safety and should not be banned due to its Chinese connections.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.

In interviews at Arizona State, one of the largest college campuses in the U.S. and a contributor to Biden’s narrow 10,000-vote win in the swing state, young people described a TikTok ban as somewhere between an annoyance and an inevitability — but not something that would change their views of the president.

“Most people don’t really think about those kinds of things,” Lucas Vittor, a 19-year-old business administration student from Houston, said of a TikTok ban. “I think that they’ll probably just see it as, ‘He’s an oppressive leader, an old dude, he doesn’t know about social media.’”

If TikTok disappears, another app will emerge to capture the attention of young people, Vittor predicted. Other social media platforms, including YouTube and Instagram, have incorporated similar algorithm-driven video features, though some find them clunky compared with TikTok.

“It’s not really Biden’s issue,” said Ginny Xu, a 20-year-old chemical engineering student from Goodyear, Arizona. “It’s more of a bipartisan thing — ‘safety’ from China.”

Losing access to TikTok would be disappointing, Xu said, but it wouldn’t dissuade her from voting for Biden if there’s no better Democratic choice.

Her friend, 20-year-old chemical engineering student Maddie Bruce, agreed.

“I just am not a big Joe Biden fan,” Bruce said. She would prefer to see another Democrat run, but she would still vote for Biden, she said.

Forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent to sell its stake in the U.S. company could provide a convenient middle ground: minimizing the national security threat while avoiding having access to the app cut off for tens of millions of users.

The young have never voted at the same rates as their parents and grandparents, but their participation has ticked up markedly since the start of the Trump presidency.

The 2018 and 2022 midterms brought the highest levels of youth turnout of the past three decades, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, which studies young voters.

And when they do vote, young people vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

Biden won 63% of voters age 18 to 24, compared with 34% for Trump, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the electorate. Republican House candidates did better with young voters in last year’s midterms, but Democrats still had a 14-percentage point advantage, winning voters 24 and younger 54% to 40%.

“If Democrats are looking for their secret weapon, young voters are it,” said Jack Lobel, spokesperson for Voters of Tomorrow, which organizes young voters online and in person. “For Democrats especially, who already have young voters basically on their side, we are the untapped potential that campaigns are looking for.”

A TikTok ban might irritate a lot of young voters, but Biden can point to a strong record of standing up for young people’s interests, Lobel said.

Biden has tried to offer relief from student loan debt and has advocated for abortion rights. He signed a massive climate spending bill along with the most sweeping gun violence bill in decades.

Marisol Ortega, a 21-year-old journalism student from Glendale, Arizona, said many of her peers are looking for someone younger and more exciting, even if they’ll likely hold their nose and vote for him.

“Joe Biden has been a name in American politics for a very, very long time,” Ortega said. “I think people are just kind of ready for something new.”

Still, the Biden administration irked environmentalists and young people by approving the huge Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope.

Young activists have been particularly active in pushing to drastically reduce oil drilling and move away from reliance fossil fuels. Before the president’s decision, a #StopWillow campaign garnered millions of views on TikTok urging Biden to block the project.

“He has delivered a lot for young people, and that’s why our advice to the administration was, ‘This is not the right direction to head on this issue,’” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, a youth organizing group.

___

AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

__

This story was first published on March 25, 2023. It was updated on March 27, 2023, to correct that the 2018 and 2022 midterms, not 2020, brought the highest levels of youth turnout of the past three decades.

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March 25, 2023
Biden’s moves on Alaska drilling, TikTok test young voters

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TEMPE, Ariz. — Recent moves by President Joe Biden to pressure TikTok over its Chinese ownership and approve oil drilling in an untapped area of Alaska are testing the loyalty of young voters, a group that’s largely been in his corner.

Youth turnout surged in the three elections since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, helping Biden eke out victories in swing states in 2020, pick up a Democratic Senate seat in the 2022 election and stem potential losses in the House.

But the 80-year-old president has never been the favorite candidate of young liberals itching for a new generation of American leadership. As Biden gears up for an expected reelection campaign, a potential TikTok ban and the Alaska drilling could weigh him down.

Meanwhile, his plan to wipe out billions of dollars in student loan debt is in jeopardy at the Supreme Court. The effort, announced shortly before last year’s midterms, was an attempt by Biden to keep a promise he made after defeating progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary campaign in 2020.

The risk for Biden is less that young left-of-center voters will vote Republican and more that they would sit out an uninspiring election altogether.

“I’m a Democrat, but I’m not voting for Biden,” said Mark Buehlmann, a 20-year-old Arizona State University student who said he likely would abstain if Biden is the Democratic nominee, as expected. “He’s maybe capable of doing a good job, but he’s not capable of gathering the troops, rallying the people. Especially the Democratic voter base. I don’t think he’s a strong candidate.”

TikTok allows users, 150 million of whom are in the United States, to post short, creative videos for friends and strangers. Its algorithm has an uncanny ability to figure out what interests its users and serve up videos they’ll enjoy. It’s become a supremely popular — some say addictive — place for young people to find entertainment and community.

Western governments are growing increasingly worried that TikTok’s owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, might give browsing history or other data about users to China’s government or promote propaganda and disinformation. The U.S. and other nations have banned TikTok from government-owned devices, as have several states.

The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, part of Biden’s Treasury Department, has threatened to ban TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t sell its stake in the app, according to a Wall Street Journal report this month.

Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020, but the move was blocked in court and later rescinded when Biden took office and ordered an in-depth study of the issue.

ByteDance says it’s working to address security concerns and has plans to route traffic through servers owned by Oracle, a Silicon Valley-based tech company.

Biden administration officials insist that political concerns aren’t weighing into the national security review underway, but they’re also not blind to it.

Both political parties have reoriented around staking out tougher economic and security positions on China’s rise, and Biden has come under increasing pressure from GOP lawmakers to take action against TikTok.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo offered hyperbolically, “The politician in me thinks you’re going to literally lose every voter under 35, forever.”

But it’s clear that the Biden White House and his likely reelection campaign are keenly aware of the app’s massive domestic reach and demographic skew toward Democratic-leaning younger voters.

Highlighting Biden’s balancing act, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a progressive New York Democrat popular on the left, held a news conference this past week with TikTok creators who have built popular and profitable channels on the social network “in support of free expression.”

Lawmakers grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew for nearly six hours Thursday over data security and harmful content. They responded skeptically during a tense House committee hearing to his assurances that the app prioritizes user safety and should not be banned due to its Chinese connections.

“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.

In interviews at Arizona State, one of the largest college campuses in the U.S. and a contributor to Biden’s narrow 10,000-vote win in the swing state, young people described a TikTok ban as somewhere between an annoyance and an inevitability — but not something that would change their views of the president.

“Most people don’t really think about those kinds of things,” Lucas Vittor, a 19-year-old business administration student from Houston, said of a TikTok ban. “I think that they’ll probably just see it as, ‘He’s an oppressive leader, an old dude, he doesn’t know about social media.’”

If TikTok disappears, another app will emerge to capture the attention of young people, Vittor predicted. Other social media platforms, including YouTube and Instagram, have incorporated similar algorithm-driven video features, though some find them clunky compared with TikTok.

“It’s not really Biden’s issue,” said Ginny Xu, a 20-year-old chemical engineering student from Goodyear, Arizona. “It’s more of a bipartisan thing — ‘safety’ from China.”

Losing access to TikTok would be disappointing, Xu said, but it wouldn’t dissuade her from voting for Biden if there’s no better Democratic choice.

Her friend, 20-year-old chemical engineering student Maddie Bruce, agreed.

“I just am not a big Joe Biden fan,” Bruce said. She would prefer to see another Democrat run, but she would still vote for Biden, she said.

Forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent to sell its stake in the U.S. company could provide a convenient middle ground: minimizing the national security threat while avoiding having access to the app cut off for tens of millions of users.

The young have never voted at the same rates as their parents and grandparents, but their participation has ticked up markedly since the start of the Trump presidency.

The 2018 and 2020 midterms brought the highest levels of youth turnout of the past three decades, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, which studies young voters.

And when they do vote, young people vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.

Biden won 63% of voters age 18 to 24, compared with 34% for Trump, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the electorate. Republican House candidates did better with young voters in last year’s midterms, but Democrats still had a 14-percentage point advantage, winning voters 24 and younger 54% to 40%.

“If Democrats are looking for their secret weapon, young voters are it,” said Jack Lobel, spokesperson for Voters of Tomorrow, which organizes young voters online and in person. “For Democrats especially, who already have young voters basically on their side, we are the untapped potential that campaigns are looking for.”

A TikTok ban might irritate a lot of young voters, but Biden can point to a strong record of standing up for young people’s interests, Lobel said.

Biden has tried to offer relief from student loan debt and has advocated for abortion rights. He signed a massive climate spending bill along with the most sweeping gun violence bill in decades.

Marisol Ortega, a 21-year-old journalism student from Glendale, Arizona, said many of her peers are looking for someone younger and more exciting, even if they’ll likely hold their nose and vote for him.

“Joe Biden has been a name in American politics for a very, very long time,” Ortega said. “I think people are just kind of ready for something new.”

Still, the Biden administration irked environmentalists and young people by approving the huge Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope.

Young activists have been particularly active in pushing to drastically reduce oil drilling and move away from reliance fossil fuels. Before the president’s decision, a #StopWillow campaign garnered millions of views on TikTok urging Biden to block the project.

“He has delivered a lot for young people, and that’s why our advice to the administration was, ‘This is not the right direction to head on this issue,’” said Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, president of NextGen America, a youth organizing group.

___

AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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March 25, 2023