DOJ reaches agreement in principle to settle lawsuit brought by family of Ashli Babbitt
Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice has reached an agreement in principle to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, a pro-Trump rioter who was shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The details of the proposed settlement were not made clear during a Friday hearing before federal Judge Ana Reyes, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Babbitt’s family members sued the government in January 2024 seeking $30 million for what they allege was her wrongful shooting death by Capitol Police Officer Michael Byrd.
Byrd was cleared of any wrongdoing following an internal investigation into the actions leading up to his shooting of Babbitt as she tried to climb through a broken window that led to the House Speaker’s Lobby, where several lawmakers and their staff were sheltering from rioters.
Babbitt’s attorneys disclosed the agreement in principle was reached during the hearing, which was convened on an emergency basis after one of Babbitt’s prior attorneys sought a preliminary injunction on Friday to ensure he received payment for his work on the case if a settlement was formally announced.
Robert Sticht, the lawyer for Babbitt’s family, said he expected the family to sign the formal settlement agreement within the next three weeks.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his solidarity with Babbitt’s family and called for “justice” for what he has said was her “murder” at Byrd’s hands — in line with his broader vocal support for the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol to overturn his 2020 election loss.
In March, Trump said in an interview with Newsmax he wasn’t aware of the lawsuit brought by Babbitt’s family but promised he would “look into” it.
“I’m a big fan of Ashli Babbitt, OK, and Ashli Babbitt was a really good person who was a big MAGA fan, Trump fan, and she was innocently standing there — they even say trying to sort of hold back the crowd,” Trump said. “And a man did something unthinkable to her when he shot her, and I think it’s a disgrace. I’m going to look into that. I did not know that.”
(WASHINGTON) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly responded to a lawmaker’s question on the definition of habeas corpus during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the Department of Homeland Security budget for the upcoming year on Tuesday.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked Noem, “What is habeas corpus?”
The secretary responded, saying, “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”
“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires, requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason,” she said.
“Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea,” Hassan added. “As a senator from the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans.”
Hassan then asked, “Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?”
“I support habeas corpus,” Noem responded. “I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”
Hassan interrupted Noem, saying, “It has never been done. It has never been done without approval of Congress. Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress.”
Later in the hearing, Noem denied any involvement in a reported reality television show featuring the Department of Homeland Security in which immigrants would compete for U.S. citizenship.
“We have no knowledge of a reality show,” Noem said. “There may have been something submitted to the department, but I did not know anything about this reality show until the reporter reached out.”
Noem then took aim at The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, saying, “That article — in fact, they had to change it later because they lied so bad, and they had us on the record saying I had no knowledge of a reality show. The department didn’t — there may have been something submitted somewhere along the line because there are proposals pitched to the department, but me and my executive team have no knowledge of a reality show and it’s not under consideration.”
“That article was completely inaccurate, completely inaccurate and false, and the fact that they printed it when they knew it was false was a dereliction of their work,” she added.
(NEW YORK) — “We are especially mindful that we are in the middle of a war right now,” former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the front-runner in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary — told a crowd at a Juneteenth lunch event in the Bronx on Thursday.
Some people in the crowd started muttering — the war in the Middle East?
“We’re in the middle of a war — you don’t see it? Day in and day out, when you turn on the TV news and you see a president named Mr. Trump. Have you seen President Trump on TV?”
As some in the crowd booed, Cuomo added, “President Trump has declared war on Democratic states, Democratic cities. He’s declared war on working families, he’s declared war on immigrants, he’s declared war on minorities, and he’s declared war on New York City and New York State.” He later told reporters, “Good news is — we beat [the administration] once before, and we’re going to beat them again.”
In the final days of campaigning for Tuesday’s New York City ranked choice Democratic mayoral primary, which has 11 candidates on the ballot, Cuomo and others fanned out across the city to make their closing arguments, with one shared focus being how they’re framing themselves as the best choice to stand up to the White House.
Curtis Sliwa, who lost to Mayor Eric Adams in 2021, is the only Republican running for mayor.
Voters, meanwhile, told ABC News they’re looking at both national and local issues — particularly affordability — as they decide who to cast votes for.
And scorching high temperatures in New York City could impact turnout on Election Day, as voters brave the heat to trudge to their polling places on Tuesday, with the city’s election board preparing for dehydration, and even potential heat-related power outages.
The New York City Board of Elections said last week in a news release that it is making sure polling sites that don’t have air conditioning will have fans, a “steady supply of water.” The board said it is working with emergency management and utility providers to make sure polling places don’t lose power, too.
A spokesperson for the board told City & State NY that potential heat-induced blackouts might impact vote counting, since then ballots would need to be counted similarly to absentee or affidavit ballots that get scanned later.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, signed legislation over the weekend allowing voters to receive refreshments while in line to vote.
In an email sent to supporters on Tuesday to supporters, Cuomo asked voters to “vote as early as you can to avoid the hottest parts of the day.”
For Cuomo, the election could mark his political comeback. His governorship was derailed after several women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct. He resigned as governor in 2021 but has consistently denied the allegations. One voter in downtown Manhattan told ABC News that she is voting for Cuomo despite misgivings over the allegations, mentioning that he had issued an apology in 2021.
Carmen S., a medical assistant who lives in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, told ABC News in an interview that immigration policy is one of the important issues in the race, becoming emotional speaking about the White House’s immigration policies. She declined to provide her full last name.
“I’m a child of immigrants,” she said. “Not every immigrant is a criminal.”
While she didn’t share who she ranked on her ballot, she praised Cuomo for his record and how he handled his job as governor.
Cuomo’s main opponent in the primary is state assembly member Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist whose progressive economic plans have galvanized many voters.
Mamdani, in an interview with ABC News on Thursday in Astoria, Queens, just hours after he voted early at a polling site in the Museum of the Moving Image, said his closing argument is that he is the one who can take on the “twin crises” facing the city: “Authoritarianism from the outside and an affordability crisis from the inside.”
“And what we need is a mayor who’s able to stand up to both of those and deliver a city that every New Yorker can afford and that every New Yorker understands that they belong to,” Mamdani told ABC News.
And as to why should people around the country care about this race, he said, “This is a referendum on where our party goes; it is a referendum on whether billionaires and corporations can buy yet another election, or if we opt for a new generation of leadership, one that isn’t funded by Trump donors, one that is actually able to stand up and fight for working class New Yorkers.”
That outlook has impressed some voters. Angela Pham, a 38-year-old content designer who lives in Greenwich Village, told ABC News in an interview after voting early that Mamdani “needs to win.”
“We’re supposed to be the most progressive city in America,” she said. “I feel like he’s the only candidate that makes sense for the things that we need to happen.”
Asked how she felt about Cuomo, Pham said, “He needs to get out of politics and retire to a farm.”
Mamdani has faced some pushback over his criticism of Israel, given New York’s large Jewish population. In response, he has emphasized policies to combat antisemitism and said that he wants to focus on city issues.
Cuomo has criticized Mamdani’s comments about Israel and made combatting antisemitism a key campaign focus. One voter in Greenwich Village told ABC News that concerns about antisemitism were a main driver for his decision to vote for Cuomo.
Fellow candidate New York City comptroller Brad Lander, who has “cross-endorsed” Mamdani, has received less momentum in polling but has gotten heightened attention since he was briefly detained last week by federal agents while escorting a defendant out of immigration court.
Lander, speaking with ABC News on Thursday on the Upper East Side near an early voting site at a school, said that the mayoral election in the city has national implications, because the administration has said it hopes to ““liberate” Democratic cities from their elected officials. That’s [a] code word for a federal government takeover, an erosion of democracy, a denial of due process,” Lander said.
“Democracy is on the line right now,” he added.
Officials from the White House and administration have said their actions towards cities such as Los Angeles are meant to restore order amidst protests and unrest.
Juan Peralta, a 31-year-old from Harlem who works in events, told ABC News that the only two candidates on the ballot he’s excited about are Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, pointing to Mamdani’s proposal for free child care.
“Growing up in New York, I did feel like this was a place for families,” Peralta told ABC News. “Now I feel like it’s a place for families of a certain income.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on Republicans to get his tax and spending bill across the finish line.
Several House Republicans arrived White House on Wednesday morning for meetings as the president presses his party to pass the sweeping legislation — a centerpiece of Trump’s second term agenda.
Vice President JD Vance, who cast the tie-breaking vote to get the bill passed in the Senate, was spotted at the White House as well.
An administration official said the White House is hosting multiple meetings on Wednesday with Republicans on the White House complex. The president is expected to engage directly with members throughout the day.
Some of the lawmakers seen entering were GOP eps. Jeff Van Drew, Rob Bresnahan, Dusty Johnson, Dan Newhouse, Mike Lawler and Andrew Garbarino.
Those lawmakers are part of the Main Street Caucus, a group of lawmakers who bill themselves as “pragmatic” conservatives focused on getting things done.
President Trump notably has no public events on his schedule Wednesday.
Trump previously told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce he believed things would be “easier” in the House than the Senate with regards to the megabill, but several changes made by the Senate have angered some Republican hardliners in the House.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, talking to reporters on Capitol Hill, questioned whether the House would be able to pass the megabill on Wednesday — but said Trump was helping on that front.
Asked by ABC News whether he feels like Republicans are short of the votes needed for passage, Scalise acknowledged the bumpy road both in the past and ahead.
“We’ve still had a lot of members that had questions about the changes that the Senate made. That’s to be expected,” Scalise said.
The majority leader added, “When you talk to members, there’s some that still are holding out for something different, but at the end of the day, they know this is probably as good as we’re going to get.”
Scalise said that Republican leadership is meeting with small groups of members who haven’t locked in their support, and the president is also helping on that today as their “best closer.”
“He’s talking to individual members,” Scalise said of President Trump. “Even when the bill was in the Senate, you had some individual members that wanted some changes in the Senate calling the president to help his support for those changes, and some of those changes were implemented. So you know, the President, from day one, has been our best closer, and he’s going to continue to be through today.”
Trump also continued an online pressure campaign, posting to his conservative social media site multiple times on Wednesday.
“Republicans, don’t let the Radical Left Democrats push you around,” Trump wrote this morning. “We’ve got all the cards, and we are going to use them. Last year America was a ‘DEAD’ Nation, with no hope for the future, and now it’s the ‘HOTTEST NATION IN THE WORLD!’ MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
