Gabbard avoids condemning government secrets leaker Snowden in confirmation hearing
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(WASHINGTON) — Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle gave director of national intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard more than a half-dozen chances to withdraw her past support of Edward Snowden, the prolific leaker of government secrets, in her confirmation hearing Thursday, but she didn’t take them.
Gabbard has in the past called the former NSA contractor a “brave” whistleblower who uncovered damning civil liberties violations by the intelligence community. As a lawmaker, she introduced legislation supporting a grant of clemency.
On Thursday, she has repeatedly refused to withdraw that characterization of him. And she repeatedly refused to call him a “traitor.”
“This is where the rubber hits the road,” Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet boomed inside the hearing room. “This is not a moment for social media, this is not a moment to propagate conspiracy theories … this is when you need to answer the questions of people whose votes you’re asking for to be confirmed as the chief intelligence officer of this nation.”
“Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America This is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high,” he continued.
Instead, Gabbard repeated a canned response that his acts were illegal and that she disagreed with his methods.
“Edward Snowden broke the law. I do not agree with or support with all of the information and intelligence that he released, nor the way in which he did it,” she said.
But she added he “released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs.”
Bennet concluded with an impassioned call to vote her down.
“Can’t we do better than …. someone who can’t answer whether Snowden is a traitor five times?” … “I’m questioning her judgment.”
Republican Sen. James Lankford presented her with another opportunity to clarify her position: “Was Edward Snowden a traitor?”
Again, Gabbard equivocated.
She did back off her support of a pardon. In an exchange with GOP Sen. Susan Collins, a key vote on the panel, she said the role of DNI does not have a role in advocating for clemency actions.
“My responsibility would be to ensure the security of our nation’s secrets,” Gabbard said. “And would not take actions to advocate for any actions related to Snowden.”
And moments later, Republican Sen. Todd Young, a potential swing vote in the committee, asked Gabbard, “did [Snowden] betray the trust of the American people?”
“Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said, “and he released this information in a way that he should not have.”
(WASHINGTON) — As Democratic governors prepare to navigate and resist parts of President-elect Donald Trump’s next administration, one told ABC News she is most alarmed by Trump’s tariff plan.
“Tariffs would be devastating to our economy, especially with the amount of trade we do with Canada,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told ABC News.
Trump has threatened to impose a 25% across the board tariff on Mexico and Canada, in addition to a 10% tariff on goods imported from China. These are the U.S.’s top three trading partners. Economists warn this would raise prices on everyday goods and wreak havoc on the economy.
“I’m a governor who’s come in, cut taxes, worked to lower housing costs, grow the economy. If he were to impose tariffs — it would first of all — I think it’s not smart to do — and it would be devastating to consumers,” Healey said, “Think about all the housing we’re trying to build here right now — what will that do to housing costs?”
In an interview with NBC News that aired on Sunday, Trump said he couldn’t guarantee that his tariff plan would not raise prices for American consumers.
Other Democratic governors, who gathered last weekend for the first time since the election for a winter meeting in Beverly Hills, California, said Trump’s tariff proposals were a chief concern among a number of others: threats to entitlements, his immigration proposals, and repeals of climate and reproductive protections. Several high-profile governors told ABC News they’re deep into preparations to use legislative, executive or legal actions to combat Trump’s moves.
At the Beverly Hilton over the weekend, the tight-knit group of Democratic talent — many of whom will be some of the strongest detractors of Trump’s policies and also some of the best-positioned to be at the top of the party’s presidential ticket in 2028 — gathered for private, closed-door meetings with one another, donors and other stakeholders. The group of about 18 governors and governors-elect, hosted by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, focused on how to navigate through Trump’s leadership, according to several who spoke with ABC News, rather than any significant post-election analysis following the Democrats’ losses last month.
The group of governors in Beverly Hills included many of the likely 2028 contenders, including blue state leaders like Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who have been actively on offense against Republican leadership since Nov. 6, and red state ones like Democratic Governors Association Vice Chair and Chair-elect Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
Healey, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were also on the guest list — many of whom have questions looming about their own political futures.
“I would expect that we’ll put up quite a fight to take the House back. And I think that we’ll have an incredible bench in the primary ’28,” New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told ABC News about the plans of many of the governors.
Different tones in taking on Trump
The governors are striking different tones as they prepare for Trump’s presidency.
The strongest, most combative voices of course have been from leaders like Newsom, who initiated a recently convened a special legislative session in California to increase funding for its Department of Justice and other agencies so they’ll be able to quickly file litigation to challenge actions taken by a second Trump administration. Pritzker, too, has made not-so-veiled threats about how he’d approach the administration should it “come for” his people, and recently announced his position as co-chair, along with Jared Polis of Colorado, of a new nonpartisan coalition of governors committed to protecting the “state-level institutions of democracy” ahead of Trump’s presidency.
Other governors encouraged their peers to meet this moment offensively through their agendas.
“Democratic governors should approach this with strength and resolution and an activist agenda. Because this is the place where we can make progress too,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told ABC News.
“You can’t stop some 85% of the things I would like to do in that state, so I think the order of the day is defend where we can in fighting with an advance every day with our own ambitions and unaffected by him, so that shadow doesn’t fall in our state,” said Inslee, who is leaving his seat this winter to make way for incoming Gov. Bob Ferguson.
But a different group of governors are acting much more lukewarm in their approaches, emphasizing their desire to “work” with the Trump administration and some citing past collaborations with the president-elect’s team, like during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beshear said last weekend that Democrats needed to lean into “reason” while Trump is in office and that he’s willing to work with the incoming administration.
“The middle ground, middle of the road, common ground, common sense, is open. It’s open,” Beshear told a group of reporters on Saturday.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, the DGA’s chair, said this weekend that she wasn’t yet anticipating Trump or his agencies’ actions, but “We will always look for ways to work together” with the caveat that she’ll “draw the line” on things “that they push us to do that we think are wrong, illegal, anything like that.”
The varying approaches from governors to Trump’s agenda could be a coordinated strategy as the group wrestles with how best to support each other within a party attempting to rebuild — a complicated task as they also eye each other as potential presidential primary competition.
“We know how to create space to protect people and protect the priorities,” Lujan Grisham told ABC, noting that she and many other governors aren’t officially part of Pritzker and Polis’ new coalition, for example. “We did it on climate. We still do it on climate. We did it on reproductive premiums, we’re gonna have to still do it on reproductive premiums, and we’ll do some test cases in states that allow us to frame and direct these coalitions.”
“We want to be strategic about what it is that we are announcing. And here’s why: We’ve got a president-elect and a team that, before this and every day, said ‘We’re going to punish anyone in our way, and we’re going to particularly punish states,'” she went on. “And the difference in California versus New Mexico — California is definitely on the radar. I don’t minimize what the Trump administration can negatively do to my state, but we’re also very effective at watching and understanding what’s occurring, and then we can deploy our joint efforts pretty damn fast.”
Plans to fight Trump’s tariff, immigration proposals
While governors can mount legal fights against parts of Trump’s plan, the president can use executive power to impose sweeping tariffs.
But for immigration, on the other hand, governors can resist Trump’s proposals in clearer ways.
Border state Gov. Lujan Grisham told ABC News she’d block Trump’s ability to use detention centers, deploy the National Guard or even request data in her state if he attempted mass deportations.
“I take him at his word. He says he’s going to do, try to do mass deportations,” she said, adding that she wouldn’t be a partner in those moves: “There’s a lot that he can’t do by himself.” .”I mean, I’ve made it very clear over a number of years on this issue is that I will not use our National Guard to perform that kind of service,” Kelly told reporters.
“I will not send them to the border. We have had Guard members go to the border, but they have been federalized when they’ve been down there. I don’t see that as the role of the National Guard — they are there to serve Kansas, Kansas issues, so I don’t see that changing… The State Police are mine, and it’s not their job, either. So we will take the same approach as we have with the Guard,” Kelly added.
On immigration, most Democratic governors agree that violent criminals need to be deported, noting that it’s always been the case that local and state law enforcement work with federal authorities on investigating crimes. But where many governors draw the line is on deporting undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in America for a long time, arguing it’s inhumane and damages the economy.
“We don’t know what President Trump’s immigration plan is going to look like at the end of the day. He is a master of saying something, creating a great deal of noise, and then the reality may be different. So I’m going to wait to see exactly what it is he ultimately proposes,” incoming North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein told reporters about his plans to respond to Trump’s immigration moves.
“The people of North Carolina have every right to be safe in their communities, and anybody who commits a violent crime must be held accountable, fully, and that’s whether they’re in this country as American citizens or they’re here as undocumented people, and if they’re here undocumented, they should be deported,” Stein said.
They also question how Trump will execute his plan. Trump could direct the National Guard to help with transport and logistics, but one Democratic governor told ABC News these are precious resources, and they need their National Guard for emergencies like storms, fires and severe flooding.
Trump’s team has discussed in the past how to strip federal resources from Democratic-run cities if they refuse to work with the administration on deporting undocumented immigrants, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Blue state governors say they’re concerned about the Trump administration weaponizing federal funding and “picking winners and losers.” One governor told ABC News their state is focused on locking down every federal dollar the state is entitled to, and securing all of the funding made available through the Biden administration’s infrastructure law and CHIPS and Science Act.
In California, Newsom has also started to “Trump-proof” his budget, which is one of the aims of his move to convene the legislature last week.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is preparing to issue a sweeping series of pardons for defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including commuting the prison sentences of hundreds of his supporters who have been convicted of violent attacks against law enforcement, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
The planned commutations for those who attacked police goes well beyond what many of his allies anticipated he would be prepared to extend to the Jan. 6 defendants — and paves the way for potentially hundreds of supporters, some sentenced to years behind bars for vicious assaults on police — to be released in the coming days.
An incoming senior White House official did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
In addition to the commutations, Trump plans to extend full pardons to his supporters who were not charged with engaging in violence on Jan. 6. Sources tell ABC News that some of Trump’s top advisers have been pushing him for days to issue these sweeping pardons.
Sources also caution that until Trump formally signs the pardon paperwork, it’s possible that the expected language could change or be scaled back.
Sources tell ABC News that hundreds of individuals currently serving prison time for violent offenses they committed on Jan. 6 will be freed as a result — and the commutations will likely extend to two of the most high-profile defendants charged in connection with the attack, Oath Keepers Founder Stewart Rhodes and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.
The two received prison sentences of 18 years and 22 years, respectively, following their convictions for leading members of their respective groups in a seditious conspiracy to thwart the lawful transfer of power.
Trump is expected to further direct the incoming attorney general to move to dismiss all pending indictments against Jan. 6 defendants who have not yet had their cases fully adjudicated, which would shutter roughly 470 ongoing cases, according to recently released numbers by the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Current and former DOJ officials have expressed alarm over the potential that Trump would hand down pardons — or otherwise free — violent offenders, citing the potential risk they could seek to target the prosecutors who oversaw their cases, the judges who sentenced them to periods of incarceration, or witnesses who may have testified against them.
Trump teased the pardons Sunday at his victory rally at Capital One Arena, telling his supporters that they will be “very happy” with his decision.
“Tomorrow, everybody in this very large arena will be very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages,” Trump said “Very happy. I think you’ll be very, very happy. I would say about 99.9% in this beautiful arena.”
A violent mob of pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, fighting with officers, breaking into offices and destroying property.
After the attack on the U.S. Capitol by rioters seeking to overturn the 2020 election, more than 1,580 people were charged criminally in federal court, according to the Department of Justice. Over 1,000 have pleaded guilty.
Trump’s team had drafted a list of potential pardons for Jan. 6 defendants to issue on Day 1, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News on Sunday.
Of the nearly 1,600 individuals have faced charges associated with the Capitol attack, according to figures released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 608 individuals have faced charges for assaulting, resisting or interfering with law enforcement trying to protect the complex that day, the office said. Approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured during the riot, the DOJ has said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said it is evaluating whether to bring charges in roughly 200 cases that have been referred to them by the FBI, about 60 of which involve potential felony charges involving allegations of assault or impeding law enforcement.
Trump said last March that he was “inclined to pardon many” of the rioters.
At least 221 individuals have been found guilty at contested trials in U.S. District Court, the DOJ said. Another 40 individuals have been convicted following an agreed-upon set of facts presented to and accepted by the Court.
President Joe Biden on Monday issued preemptive pardons to potential targets of the incoming Trump administration, including lawmakers who served on the House Jan. 6 Committee.
Trump, in his 2024 campaign, repeatedly vowed “retribution” on his political enemies, specifically singling out lawmakers like Liz Cheney, who investigated the attack on the Capitol. Trump said Cheney and other committee members should be put in jail.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A panel of judges on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling Thursday night, denied an effort to block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his two investigations into Donald Trump.
U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed Trump’s classified documents case, temporarily blocked the report’s release on Tuesday, while the matter was considered by the Eleventh Circuit.
The Eleventh Circuit, in its decision, declined to immediately overturn Judge Cannon’s temporary injunction, instead ruling that the Justice Department can file a separate appeal if they want to release the report earlier than this Sunday, when Cannon’s injunction expires.
The Justice Department subsequently notified Judge Cannon of their intent to appeal her injunction blocking the report’s release, according to a court filing.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a letter to Congress informing them Wednesday that Smith had concluded his investigations, acknowledged that he was, at that time, barred by Judge Cannon from releasing the report outside of the Justice Department, but that he intended to make Volume One of the report, regarding Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, available to the public once he is “permitted to do so” by the courts.
Garland, in the letter, confirmed that he plans to make available Volume Two of the report, pertaining to Trump’s classified documents case, available to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for closed-door review as soon as the Eleventh Circuit permits him to do so.
“Consistent with local court rules and Department policy, and to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, whose criminal cases remain pending, I have determined, at the recommendation of the Special Counsel, that Volume Two should not be made public so long as those defendants’ criminal proceedings are ongoing,” Garland wrote.
“I have determined that once those criminal proceedings have concluded, releasing Volume Two of the Report to you and to the public would also be in the public interest, consistent with law and Department policy,” he wrote.
Garland’s letter was addressed to Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
Trump’s lawyers filed an amicus brief with the Eleventh Circuit late Wednesday, arguing that the release of the report would harm the transition to his presidency.
“The report is nothing less than another attempted political hit job whose sole purpose is to disrupt the presidential transition and undermine President Trump’s exercise of executive power,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the release of the report would be “worse” than the four indictments Smith brought against the former president, by offering a “one-sided” view of the evidence without giving Trump the ability to defend himself.
“The Final Report goes into more detail about the alleged crimes President Trump and others supposedly committed and involves evidence that was never released to the public–indeed, evidence that could not be released, such as those involving official acts,” the filing said.
Trump’s lawyers claimed that Cannon’s decision deeming Smith’s appointment unconstitutional taints the report — which they described as an “extension of the unlawful acts of an unconstitutionally appointed and funded officer” — which should prohibit Garland from releasing it.
“Garland simply functions as a mouthpiece for the unconstitutionally-appointed Smith,” the filing said.
Trump downplayed the significance of the report at a press conference earlier this week.
“It’ll be a fake report, just like it was a fake investigation,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. He later pleaded not guilty to separate charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
Smith has been winding down his cases against the former president since Trump was reelected in November, due to a longstanding Department of Justice policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.