Jimmy Carter’s funeral attractive target ‘for violent extremists to attack’: Security assessment
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(WASHINGTON) — The state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter is an attractive target “for violent extremists to attack,” especially after the vehicle ramming in New Orleans that killed 14 people, though there are no known threats to the funeral, according to a new security assessment obtained by ABC News.
“State funerals are considered no-notice events that significantly reduce planning timelines for potential hostile actors,” the document said. “However, state funerals still present attractive targets due to the large gathering of senior US government officials, foreign dignitaries, and heads of state, as well as the symbolic nature of the venues and media attention expected.”
Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100, will be honored with a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday. President Joe Biden will deliver a eulogy and President-elect Donald Trump is expected to attend.
The memorials for Carter begin on Saturday when he’s transferred from his hometown of Plains, Georgia, to Atlanta. A ceremony will be held at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon.
Carter’s remains will be transferred to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday and he will lie in state at the Capitol from Tuesday to Thursday. After the service at Washington National Cathedral, Carter’s remains will return to Plains.
The assessment also noted other specially designated security events this month, including the certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6 and Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The simultaneous events “may increase the perception of a target-rich environment for a variety of threat actors,” the document said.
“Targets could include the planned special events and ceremonies related to the State Funeral and associated First Amendment-protected activities around these ceremonies,” the assessment said. “While there is no indication that the intersection of these two events will lead to an increased threat picture, the potentially large crowds for both may provide an attractive target to threat actors.”
The document also specifically mentioned the New Year’s attack in New Orleans, noting “the use of vehicle-ramming alone or in conjunction with other tactics has become a recurring tactic employed by violent threat actors in the West.”
The document added that “large crowds gathering in publicly accessible locations to observe or participate in State Funeral events could become targets of opportunity for a vehicle attack.”
Fourteen people were killed and dozens were hurt when a man drove a truck through crowds on Bourbon Street early on New Year’s Day. The suspect, who also died in the attack, posted several videos online “proclaiming his support for ISIS,” and mentioning he joined ISIS before this summer, according to the FBI.
(WASHINGTON) — After the Trump administration offered two million federal employees buyouts on Tuesday, Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and the architect of Trump’s effort to reduce the size of the government — took to his own social media platform to boast and joke about the offer, leaving some federal employees who spoke to ABC News dismayed.
By replying to an email sent out Tuesday, all full-time federal employees — with the exception of military personnel and postal workers — have the option to get eight months’ salary if they agree to leave their jobs.
“The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work,” the email sent to employees said, offering them what it called a “deferred resignation” from their positions.
Commenting on X, Musk laughed at a specific aspect of the offer, writing, “Hit ‘Send,'” accompanied by a screenshot of the letter to employees describing how to submit their resignation via email.
Musk’s attitude as he works to enact sweeping changes across the federal government — potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of career employees who have spent their lives working behind the scenes — is not lost on some workers, who told ABC News that the Trump administration and Musk’s tone have been “cruel” and “demoralizing.”
“It feels like the new administration thinks we are dirt and do nothing for the country,” said one 20-year federal employee who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution. “This is heartbreaking.”
According to a copy of the resignation letter posted by the Office of Personnel Management, federal employees have to acknowledge that the positions they vacate could be eliminated or consolidated, and their response to the buyout email may be used “to assist in federal workforce reorganization efforts.”
While employees are not expected to work during their deferred resignation period, resigning workers need to commit to a “smooth transition” out of their roles.
Bolstered by an executive order that would make it easier to fire career government employees, administration officials said they expect the reduction of the government workforce from the buyout and other executive actions to be “significant.”
Unprecedented in its scope and nature, the buyout appears to be one part of Trump’s sweeping approach to reducing the size of the government — using an approach that mirrors tactics used by Musk in the past. When Musk took over Twitter in November 2022, he similarly sent a company-wide email that gave workers an ultimatum: work harder or leave with severance. Yesterday’s email shared the same subject line — “A fork in the road” — that Musk used in his email.
As federal employees were digesting the terms of the buyout Wednesday, it was unclear exactly who was eligible for it and whether there would really be severance payments, which could be delayed by litigation.
Max Alonzo, national secretary-treasurer for the National Federation of Federal Employees, expressed skepticism about the terms of the resignations.
“Absolutely do not resign. There is nothing that says that the day that you resign, that they can’t just let you go. They don’t have to pay you — there’s nothing that says they have to pay you till September 30,” he said. “This is nothing that has been done before. This is not in our regulations. There’s no regs about it. We’re not even sure if it’s actually legal. This is about trying to cut the federal workforce down, really kind of just breaking down these pillars of democracy.”
Foreign service officers within the State Department received the “fork in the road” email, but so far, State Department officials have been unable to provide their 16,000-person workforce a clear answer on whether they’re eligible to take it, according to an official familiar with the matter. Even if staffers are deemed eligible for the buyouts, there’s concern that — if enough of them take the federal government up on its offer — it will have an impact on national security because of the sudden, drastic downsizing.
“The implications could be really scary,” said the official, who also asked not to be identified. “This could really do some damage.”
The sweeping approach appears to be one of the first monumental steps to reshape the government by Musk, who supported Trump’s election with $250 million in contributions and became one of Trump’s closest advisers.
When Trump first announced his plans to establish the “Department of Government Efficiency” in November, he framed it as an outside group that would advise the White House on how to make government more efficient. Two months later, when Trump actually established DOGE through an executive order, he took a different approach, giving Musk control of what used to be known as the United States Digital Service, a unit within the Executive Office of the President tasked with improving government websites.
In an executive order signed the same day, Trump also tasked the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to work with DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management to “submit a plan to reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition.”
In addition to helming DOGE, Musk has extended his influence in the federal government by having his former employees and DOGE loyalists take on critical roles in other parts of government. Scott Kupor — Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Personnel Management. — thanked the president for the “opportunity to serve” the country by helping Musk, and OMP’s chief of staff Amanda Scales worked for Musk’s AI company as recently as this month.
To run the Office of Management and Budget, Trump tapped Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, who shares Musk’s desire for historic spending cuts and workforce reductions. Vought was a central figure in Trump’s attempt to categorize thousands of civil servants as political appointments, making it easier to fire employees without the protections given to civil servants. As one of his first acts in office, Trump signed an executive order to strip thousands of government workers of their employment protections.
The new hirings and executive orders represent the first steps in Musk’s plan for “mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy,” as he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in November.
“DOGE intends to work with embedded appointees in agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutorily mandated functions,” wrote Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who recently departed DOGE to run for public office.
(NEW YORK) — A man’s masked face caught peering at a camera from the back of a taxi. Monopoly money in a backpack ditched in Central Park. And bullet casings with words scrawled on them.
Those are just a few of the details that the New York Police Department has released to the public in the five days since a masked gunman fatally shot the chief executive of a health insurance company in Manhattan.
The evidence has painted a picture of a “fully masked” suspect who appeared to have planned his movements with precision, but law enforcement is “on the right track,” Mayor Eric Adams told ABC News’ New York station WABC on Sunday.
“As I say, the net is closing and closing,” Adams said. “This was an extremely challenging investigation. A fully masked person. The amount of detective work it took to put the pieces together — we feel we’re getting closer and closer.”
As the manhunt continued for the suspect, whom investigators have not publicly identified, police in New York and elsewhere said they were still looking for evidence in Wednesday’s fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City. The NYPD believes it is making good progress toward identifying the suspect, but has so far not done so, sources told ABC News.
NYPD detectives arrived on Saturday in Georgia. Investigators have said the suspect took a bus to New York, arriving on Nov. 24 from Atlanta, although it was unclear if his travels began in that city. And the FBI is assisting the nationwide manhunt, according to law enforcement sources.
Back in New York on Sunday, members of the New York Police Department’s dive team were again searching underwater in the Central Park. They were seen in the water near the Bethesda Fountain.
The masked gunman shot Thompson at point-blank range at 6:44 a.m. on Dec. 4 outside the New York Hilton Midtown, where Thompson’s company was holding an investors conference. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch described the attack as “brazen” and “targeted.” The suspect is thought to have left the scene of the shooting and taken a bike north into the park.
Adams on Sunday declined to comment on specific evidence, saying only that “every piece is important.” And he spoke generally about the ongoing underwater search.
“Everywhere is important. Everyplace is important,” Adams said, adding a moment later, “It’s dark down there, you know.”
The backpack had been found nearby in Central Park. Police have not yet recovered the distinctive gun used in the shooting.
The suspect took a taxi to the Port Authority bus facility at 178th Street and boarded a bus out of New York City following the shooting, according to police.
NYPD officials released images on Saturday that they said were of the suspected shooter. The man appeared to have been in the back of a taxi, where he could be seen peering through the open slider in the partition between the seats. Another photo appeared to show the man walking by the window of a cab. It was unclear when the photos had been taken.
Investigators believe they secured DNA samples from several pieces of evidence discovered at or near the crime scene, law enforcement sources told ABC News. The DNA samples are currently at the NYC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to be run through databases for a possible match — a process that could take several days, the sources said.
Police were also able to extract a fingerprint off a water bottle the suspect bought at a Starbucks. The print is smudged, so it is unclear whether it will be helpful to the investigation, sources said.
“I don’t want to do anything that’s going to tip him off that we’re on his trail, but we feel really good where we are,” Adams said on Sunday. “Finding the knapsack, getting the cab photos, looking at some of the evidence that we have available to us, we feel really good where we are.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky, Mark Crudele, Bill Hutchinson, Jon Haworth, Ivan Pereira and David Brennan contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Mayor Eric Adams’s criminal defense attorney was at Justice Department headquarters in Washington on Friday to discuss the future of the mayor’s criminal bribery case, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Adams’ attorney Alex Spiro attended the meeting along with federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, including acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon and acting chief of the criminal division Perry Carbone, the sources said.
Spiro was seen by an ABC News reporter departing the Justice Department following his meeting but he declined to comment when asked whether DOJ leadership agreed to drop Adams’ case.
Adams, the first sitting New York City mayor to be indicted, has pleaded not guilty to taking luxury travel benefits in exchange for helping expedite the opening of the Turkish consulate in Manhattan, among other crimes.
Federal prosecutors accused Adams of accepting more than $100,000 in improper benefits over nearly a decade, many of which came in the form of flight upgrades and stays in luxury hotels, none of which were publicly divulged as required.
The indictment also alleged Adams and a staffer knowingly worked with Turkish nationals to send foreign money to straw donors for his mayoral campaign and used that money to rake in over $10 million from New York City’s matching funds program.
Adams has insinuated that the indictment was politically motivated by President Joe Biden, without any evidence.
He has had several meetings with President Donald Trump since the election but has denied that the talk of dropping the charges or a pardon has come up. Adams canceled appearances at two New York City Martin Luther King Jr. Day events at the 11th hour to attend Trump’s inauguration.
Trump has also criticized the investigation into Adams.
