(WASHINGTON) — Members of Congress, the Supreme Court and other dignitaries will gather at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday afternoon for a lying-in-state ceremony for former President Jimmy Carter.
Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver one of the eulogies for Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
Carter leaves Carter Presidential Center for final time
Former President Jimmy Carter is leaving the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta for the final time Tuesday morning as Carter Center employees and their families look on.
The former president had been lying in repose at the center since Saturday, allowing the public to come pay their respects.
At a Saturday service at the Carter Presidential Center, Carter’s son Chip Carter thanked his parents for their service and sacrifice.
“The two of them together changed the world,” he said, overcome with emotion.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded the Carter Center after his presidency to improve health around the world and enhance freedom and democracy.
Carter to head to DC for services at Capitol, Washington National Cathedral
Former President Jimmy Carter’s remains will be escorted from the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday for the 39th president’s final trip to the nation’s capital.
His remains will leave the Carter Center at 11:30 a.m. ET.
The first stop in D.C. will be the U.S. Navy Memorial in honor of the former president’s service.
At 4:30 p.m. ET, members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs and other officials will congregate at the U.S. Capitol for a lying in state ceremony. Vice President Kamala Harris, Senator Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson are expected to deliver eulogies and lay wreaths.
Carter’s remains will lie in state at the Capitol from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning, allowing the public to pay respects.
On Thursday morning, former presidents and other dignitaries will attend a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral. President Joe Biden will deliver a eulogy.
On Thursday afternoon, Carter’s body will return to his hometown of Plains, Georgia, for a private service and private interment. Carter will be buried next to his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, who died on Nov. 19, 2023, at the age of 96.
(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s legal blitz to halt his sentencing in his criminal hush money case in New York continued Tuesday morning with his lawyers filing a 502-page lawsuit against Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump’s lawyers asked a New York appeals court to stop the proceedings in the president-elect’s hush money case — including his Jan. 10 sentencing — and to dismiss his conviction outright based on a claim of presidential immunity.
“Justice Merchan’s erroneous decisions threaten the institution of the Presidency and run squarely against established precedent disallowing any criminal process against a President-Elect, as well as prohibiting the use of evidence of a President’s official acts against him in a criminal proceeding,” the filing argued.
Defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove claimed that Trump’s “undisputed absolute immunity” extends to his time as president-elect — an argument that Judge Merchan roundly denied last week.
The lawyers also claimed that the jury’s verdict was “erroneous” because they saw evidence related to official acts.
“President Trump brings this Article 78 proceeding to redress the serious and continuing infringement on his Presidential immunity from criminal process that he holds as the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States of America,” the filing said.
Trump was found guilty in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
The president-elected faces up to four years in prison, but Merchan last week indicated that he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge — effectively a blemish on Trump’s record, without prison, fines or probation — saying that would strike a balance between the duties of president and the sanctity of the jury’s verdict.
(WASHINGTON) — Special Counsel Jack Smith issued his first response Tuesday to an effort by Donald Trump’s co-defendants to have the judge who tossed his classified documents case issue an emergency order blocking Smith’s final report on the investigation.
Lawyers for Trump’s former co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, asked Judge Aileen Cannon — who dismissed the case in July after deeming Smith’s appointment unconstitutional — to issue an order barring Attorney General Merrick Garland from publicly releasing the report by Jan. 10.
In a brief filing, assistant special counsel James Pearce confirmed the office is “working to finalize” a report and Attorney General Garland — who has the final say over what material from the report is made public — has still not determined what to release from the volume that relates to Smith’s classified documents investigation.
The office assured Judge Cannon in their filing that Smith would not release that specific volume of the report anytime before 10 a.m. Friday and that they would submit a fuller response to Nauta and DeOliveira’s emergency motion no later than 7 p.m. Tuesday evening.
The legal maneuver by Trump’s now-former co-defendants came the same day Trump’s personal lawyers sent a letter to Garland demanding he remove Smith from his post and defer the decision about the report’s release to Trump’s incoming attorney general, Pam Bondi.
“No report should be prepared or released, and Smith should be removed, including for even suggesting that course of action given his obvious political motivations and desire to lawlessly undermine the transition,” wrote Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, Trump’s defense attorneys and his picks for top posts within the Department of Justice.
Smith has been winding down his cases against the president-elect, moving to dismiss Trump’s election interference case and dropping their appeal of his classified documents case against Trump, and is expected to submit a final report about his investigations to Garland before stepping down.
(NEW YORK) — The snow and ice that fell during the winter story is not expected to go anywhere for days, as temperatures remain at or below freezing for many and four states may see soon get another storm.
Cold Weather alerts and Freeze alerts issued from New Mexico to Florida. Wind chills are near 20 degrees all the way south to the Gulf Coast and are in the 30s in Florida.
The major winter storm that brought heavy snow and ice from Kansas to New Jersey is gone. Washington, D.C., had 7.1 inches of snow, making it the biggest snowstorm since 2019. And Cincinnati, Ohio, received about 10.6 inches of snow, marking the biggest snowstorm since 2016.
The chilly weather will continue for most of the East through Friday. The cold air in place, will set up perfect conditions for a new winter storm.
A Winter Storm Watch has already been issued for four states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Lousiana, where snow and sleet could create treacherous road conditions.
Ice and snow are expected to begin in Texas and Oklahoma early Thursday morning and will continue all day. Dallas, Texas; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Little Rock, Arkansas, are just a few cities that will see this winter storm Thursday morning into Friday morning.
By Friday, the snow will move into Tennessee, hitting both Memphis and Nashville, with ice possible for northern Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
Even Atlanta, Georgia, could see ice and snow on Friday afternoon and evening.
Snow is also expected to fall in the recently hard hit Ohio Valley on Friday from Louisville to Cincinnati.
By Friday night into Saturday the snow will move into mid-Atlantic and I-95 corridor again. At this point, it is still too early to say how much snow I-95 corridor will get, but a few inches possible, especially from Washing to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(FORT LAUDERDALE, FL) — Two people were found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane after it landed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the airline said in a statement on Tuesday.
The bodies, which have not yet been publicly identified, were discovered Monday evening during a “routine post-flight maintenance inspection” at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, the airline said.
“At this time, the identities of the individuals and the circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” JetBlue said. “This is a heartbreaking situation, and we are committed to working closely with authorities to support their efforts to understand how this occurred.”
The aircraft had flown in from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, operating as flight 1801, JetBlue said. The Airbus A320-232 landed at 11:03 p.m. on Monday, according to Flightradar24, an aircraft tracker.
Airport officials in Fort Lauderdale told ABC there were no impacts to operations due to the incident.
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump, seeking to halt the upcoming sentencing in his criminal hush money case in New York, on Monday filed suit against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan over the judge’s denial of his presidential immunity motions.
The filing came as Judge Merchan denied a request by Trump, filed earlier Monday, that Merchan stay the sentencing, which is scheduled for Friday.
Trump’s lawyers filed the lawsuit — called an Article 78 motion — in New York’s Appellate Division First Department.
Trump’s attorneys argued in the suit that Judge Merchan exceeded his jurisdiction when he denied Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in his ruling last week and ordered Trump to appear for sentencing, either in person or virtually, on Jan. 10 following his May conviction.
Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
In denying Trump’s request to halt the sentencing, Merchan wrote, “This Court has considered Defendant’s arguments in support of his motion and finds that they are for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.”
“Further, this Court finds that the authorities relied upon in the instant motion by the Defendant are for the most part, factually distinguishable from the actual record or legally inapplicable,” Merchan wrote.
In asking Merchan to stay the sentencing, Trump’s attorneys had argued that Merchan “will lack authority to proceed with sentencing” because Trump is still appealing Merchan’s earlier ruling that the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision does not apply to the New York hush money case.
“Forcing a President to continue to defend a criminal case — potentially through trial or, even more dramatically here, through sentencing and judgment — while the appellate courts are still grappling with his claim of immunity would, in fact, force that President ‘to answer for his conduct in court’ before his claim of immunity is finally adjudicated,” defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.
Merchan initially scheduled the sentencing for July 11 before pushing it back in order to weigh if Trump’s conviction was impacted by the Supreme Court’s July ruling prohibiting the prosecution of a president for official acts undertaken while in office. Merchan subsequently ruled that Trump’s conviction related “entirely to unofficial conduct” and “poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office urged Merchan to reject Trump’s request, arguing in a filing on Monday that the court has already “bent over backwards” to allow Trump to raise his claims of presidential immunity.
Bragg rejected Trump’s argument that his pending appeals mean Merchan does not have the authority to go forward.
“The notices of appeal that defendant will file with the Appellate Division do not divest this Court of jurisdiction or otherwise automatically stay proceedings in this Court,” Bragg argued in his filing.
Prosecutors argued that Trump’s lawyers failed to make the “extraordinary showing” needed to justify a stay of the entire case as they requested, arguing that the delay is largely a product of Trump’s own doing.
“The current schedule is entirely a function of defendant’s repeated requests to adjourn a sentencing date that was originally set for July 11, 2024; he should not now be heard to complain of harm from delays he caused,” the filing said.
The district attorney said sentencing Trump on Jan. 10 would not impair the discharge of Trump’s official duties because they are “duties he does not possess before January 20, 2025.”
“The President-elect is, by definition, not yet the President. The President elect therefore does not perform any Article II functions under the Constitution, and there are no Article II functions that would be burdened by ordinary criminal process involving the President elect,” the filing said.
Merchan last week indicated that he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge — effectively a blemish on Trump’s record — saying it struck a balance between the duties of president and the sanctity of the jury’s verdict.
Trump’s attorneys, in their Monday filing, said it did not matter.
“It is of no moment that the Court has suggested an intention to impose a sentence of unconditional discharge. While it is indisputable that the fabricated charges in this meritless case should have never been brought, and at this point could not possibly justify a sentence more onerous than that, no sentence at all is appropriate based on numerous legal errors — including legal errors directly relating to Presidential immunity that President Trump will address in the forthcoming appeals,” the defense said in Monday’s filing.
Trump, who is set to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, has also argued that the sentencing would disrupt his presidential transition and “threatens the functioning of the federal government.”
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The Minneapolis City Council has approved a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice to implement major reforms within the Minneapolis Police Department under the watch of an appointed, independent court monitor.
The decree still needs to go through other levels of approval, including the mayor’s office, before it is filed in federal court, according to Council President Elliott Payne.
“On behalf of the council and the entire city, I’d like to thank our community for standing together united in this and for having patience with us as we have traveled a very, very long and challenging journey,” said Payne. “We are just beginning and we know we have a long way to go.”
The police reform negotiations follow a two-year investigation from the Department of Justice into the Minneapolis Police Department’s patterns and practices.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report following a two-year investigation that found MPD was engaged in a pattern of discriminatory law enforcement practices, used unjustified deadly force in encounters with suspects, engaged in unreasonable use of force in encounters with young suspects and at times failed to give proper medical aid to people they had taken into custody.
The investigation was prompted in part by the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, which sparked racial justice and anti-police brutality protests nationwide. The report found that “the systemic problems in MPD made what happened to [Floyd] possible,” and such problems had continued despite reform efforts.
“We also found that MPD officers routinely disregard the safety of people in their custody. Our review found numerous incidents in which MPD officers responded to a person saying that they could not breathe with a version of, ‘You can breathe, you’re talking right now,'” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In one 2017 case, Garland said an MPD officer shot and killed an unarmed woman who he said had “spooked him” when she approached his squad car.
“The woman had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in a nearby alley,” he said.
MPD officers were also found to stop, search and use force against people who are Black and Native American at disproportionate rates, according to the report.
MPD is already under a consent decree from the state to “make transformational changes to address race-based policing,” following a 2023 agreement between the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the City of Minneapolis.
The human rights agency described the consent decree as “a court-enforceable agreement that identifies specific changes to be made and timelines for those changes to occur.”
In 2022, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights similarly found that the Minneapolis Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act. This led to a state consent decree agreement that is ongoing.
ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.
Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Crime in New York City’s transit system dropped in 2024 for the second year in a row, the head of the New York City Police Department said Monday, while acknowledging that people still do not feel safe after several shocking subway incidents that included the death of a woman who was set on fire.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said she has ordered more officers to patrol the subway trains and platforms following the “terrifying acts of random violence.”
Overall, major crime — including incidents of murder, felony assault, robbery and burglary — decreased 5.4% last year in the transit system compared to 2023 and is 12.7% below pre-pandemic crime levels, according to NYPD data.
Compared to the previous year, 2024 saw drops in robberies (down 16.3%) and burglaries (down 23.5%) in the transit system, according to NYPD data. However, murders on the subway doubled, with 10 in 2024 compared to five in 2023, and shootings and petit larceny also increased year-over-year, according to the data.
Tisch called the overall transit crime drop “significant” but more needs to be done to address the perception of safety in the subway system after the “terrifying acts of random violence we have seen recently.”
“I want to be very clear, the subways will always be a bellwether for the perception of public safety in New York City. Declining crime numbers are significant, but we still must do more, because people don’t feel safe in our subways,” Tisch said during a press briefing on Monday.
The sentiment was echoed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“It is clear, perception always overrides reality, and when you look at some of the horrific incidents that the commissioner talked about in these last few days, the average New Yorker would believe that they’re living in a city that is out of control. That is not the reality,” Adams said. “We know that we are doing a good job in fighting crime, as the numbers will show, but we must deal with the perception that many New Yorkers feel.”
One such horrifying incident included the killing of a 57-year-old woman who was set on fire last month on a subway train in Brooklyn. The victim, Debrina Kawam, was sleeping when she was set ablaze, police said. An undocumented Guatemalan citizen has been charged with first-degree murder.
In another, a man was critically injured last week after an assailant pushed him onto the subway tracks in front of train in Manhattan in a random attack, police said. The suspect in that case was charged with attempted murder.
“Nothing is more horrific than watching a person burned to death on our subway system. We know how individuals feel when they’re shoved to the tracks for no reason at all. We know how it impacts us,” Adams said Monday.
The latest crime data was announced a day after New York City’s congestion pricing plan went into effect. Under the new toll system, the first such program of its kind in the country, drivers will pay $9 to access the center of Manhattan during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s transit system.
Among measures to address subway safety, Tisch said she has directed to move more than 200 officers onto the trains to do “specialty train patrols,” effective this week.
“I have further directed that we deploy more officers onto subway platforms in the 50 highest crime stations in the city,” she added. “It’s all part of the strategy to refocus our subway efforts to places where the crime is occurring.”
She said more initiatives are in the works.
“This month, we will roll out substantial additional improvements to our transit deployments to be even more responsive to the terrifying acts of random violence we have seen recently,” she said. “I will have more to say about that soon.”
Adams also said addressing “severe mental health” issues will be a focus of the governor’s budget to address public transit safety.
“We know we have to tackle that perception, and it starts with dealing with the real issue — mental health,” he said.
Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she plans to launch a $1 billion plan to address mental health care and supportive housing.
“The recent surge in violent crimes in our public transit system cannot continue — and we need to tackle this crisis head-on,” Hochul said in a statement. “Many of these horrific incidents have involved people with serious untreated mental illness, the result of a failure to get treatment to people who are living on the streets and are disconnected from our mental health care system. We have a duty to protect the public from random acts of violence, and the only fair and compassionate thing to do is to get our fellow New Yorkers the help they need.”
The drop in transit crime coincides with an overall 2.9% drop in crime in 2024, including murders and shootings, Tisch said.
The police commissioner attributed increases in felony assaults to repeat offenders. She called it “disheartening” for police officers to be arresting the same people over and over again due to an increase in the number of decline-to-prosecute cases and a decrease in the number of defendants for whom bail is set.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Monday held Rudy Giuliani in contempt of court for failing to turn over personal property and information to two Georgia election workers he was found to have defamed.
Judge Lewis Liman sided with Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who said Giuliani has “not turned over a single dollar” to satisfy the $148 million judgment against the former New York City mayor.
The election workers said Giuliani failed to relinquish “a signed Joe DiMaggio shirt, signed Reggie Jackson picture, signed Yankee Stadium picture, or many of the various household goods or furnishings that he valued at $20,000 and which public photographs show he possessed in his New York Apartment.”
Giuliani was found liable in 2023 for defaming Freeman and Moss by falsely accusing them of tampering with the 2020 presidential vote in Georgia.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The former leader of the Proud Boys — a group prosecutors say was central to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — is asking President-elect Donald Trump for a pardon, according to a letter from his lawyer on Monday.
Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years behind bars for his role in helping rally members of the far-right group to come to Washington in advance of Jan. 6, prosecutors say, with the goal of stopping the peaceful transition of power, that he monitored their movements and egged them on as they attacked the Capitol, and continued to celebrate their actions in the days after the insurrection.
“Henry ‘Enrique’ Tarrio was portrayed throughout the government’s case as a right-wing extremist that promoted a neo-fascist militant organization,” Tarrio’s lawyer, Nayib Hassan writes in a letter obtained by ABC News. “Henry is nothing more than a proud American that believes in true conservative values.”
His lawyer writes that Tarrio is a “young man” with an “aspiring future” and that he wasn’t even in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6.
During his sentencing, prosecutors pointed to a nine-page strategic plan to “storm” government buildings in Washington on Jan. 6 that was found in Tarrio’s possession after the riot, as well as violent rhetoric they say he routinely used in messages with other members of the group about what they would do if Congress moved forward in certifying President Joe Biden’s election win.
Tarrio, his lawyer argues, has been moved from various private and federal prisons and is often remanded to the Special Housing Unit which only allows someone to leave their cell once a day.
“Granting this pardon would allow Henry to reintegrate into a family that is extremely supportive and would further demonstrate commitment to lawful, peaceful and constructive contributions,” according to the letter. “It would also enable him to support his family fully and contribute meaningfully to the community.”
During his sentencing hearing in September 2023, Tarrio apologized profusely for his actions and heaping praise on members of law enforcement who he said have been unfairly mistreated and maligned after the Jan. 6 attack — which he called a “national embarrassment.”
“I will have to live with that shame and disappointment for the rest of my life,” Tarrio said. “We invoked 1776 and the Constitution of the United States and that was so wrong to do. That was a perversion. The events of Jan. 6 is something that should never be celebrated.”
