Trump Cabinet picks, appointees targets of bomb threats and swatting, spokesperson says
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(WASHINGTON) — Several of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks and administration appointees were the targets of “violent” threats, Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Thursday.
“These attacks ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting,'” Leavitt said. “In response, law enforcement and other authorities acted quickly to ensure the safety of those who were targeted. President Trump and the entire Transition team are grateful for their swift action.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys have asked the judge overseeing his federal election interference case to further delay the release of a redacted appendix containing evidence amassed by special counsel Jack Smith in his probe of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to a Thursday morning court filing.
The release of the redacted appendix, which was an attachment to the immunity motion unsealed two weeks ago by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that included new details about Trump and his allies’ actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, is currently scheduled for Thursday.
In their motion Thursday, Trump’s attorneys requested that Chutkan delay the release of the appendix until Nov. 14 — after the presidential election — when Trump’s own reply brief appendix is due. The former president is expected to argue that his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6 should be immune from prosecution.
“Here, President Trump requests only that the Court briefly continue its existing stay of the Order, such that the redacted versions of the SC Appendix and President Trump’s forthcoming appendix may be released concurrently,” the filing said. “Although this stay will not eliminate the harms President Trump identified in his prior opposition filings, certain harms will be mitigated. For example, if the Court immediately releases the Special Counsel’s cherry-picked documents, potential jurors will be left with a skewed, one-sided, and inaccurate picture of this case.”
“If the appendices are released simultaneously, at least some press outlets will attempt to report both sides of this case, reducing (although, again, not eliminating) the potential for irreversible prejudice,” the filing said.
The filing includes arguments that could draw direct a rebuke from Judge Chutkan, after she previously warned Trump’s attorneys to not level any further allegations of partisanship at Smith’s team without providing evidence.
Trump’s attorneys also argue that while Chutkan has previously said the election will play no role in her decisions in the case, she should address “the public’s interest in ensuring that this case does not unduly interfere, or appear to interfere, with the ongoing election.”
Smith did not respond to Trump’s request for a delay, the filing says.
Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to remain in power.
Smith subsequently charged Trump in a superseding indictment that was adjusted to respect the Supreme Court’s July ruling that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken as president.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris is set to make her final case for her bid for the presidency on Washington, D.C.’s Ellipse on Tuesday where she is expected to give an optimistic and hopeful message that’s focused on moving forward, according to a senior Harris campaign official.
Standing in front of the White House, Harris will offer a split screen and urge voters to “turn the page” on former President Trump’s era by pledging to put country over party, the senior campaign official said. About 20,000 people are expected to attend the event, according to an approved permit from the National Park Service.
Harris has adamantly said that the speech’s location on the National Mall — the same spot where Trump delivered remarks prior to the Jan.6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol — was to remind Americans of their choice between Harris and Trump and who would go on to the White House.
“I would and do think about that place more in the context of what will be behind me, which is the White House. And I’m doing it there, because I think it is very important for the American people to see and think about who will be occupying that space on Jan. 20,” Harris recently said to CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell.
“The reality of it is that most Americans can visualize the Oval Office. We’ve seen it on television, and this is a real scenario. It’s either going to be Donald Trump or it’s going to be me sitting behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office.”
With a week until Election Day, both Harris and Trump are working to make their final appeals to undecided voters in what is expected to be a close contest.
Harris’ campaign said she plans to paint Trump as someone who is consumed by his grievances and an endless desire for retribution, highlighting his pledge to go after those on his “enemies list” and how it contrasts with Harris’ focus on her “to-do list.” It’s a message she often incorporates into her stump speech.
“He is full of grievances. He is full of dark language that is about retribution and revenge, and so the American people have a choice. It is either going to be that, or it’ll be me there, focused on my to-do list, focused on the American people, and getting through that list of goals and plans to improve the lives of the American people,” Harris said to reporters on Sunday while campaigning in Philadelphia.
Her closing argument will highlight what she claims is a desire for Americans to “turn the page” from Trump by stressing her plans and priorities for the country, namely the economy. The vice president has promised to bring down costs and prioritize the middle class in her “opportunity economy.”
Following her speech on the Ellipse, Harris plans to take this message on the road to while crisscrossing through battleground states in the campaign’s final days. The events will be centered along a get-out-the-vote concert series.
“I’m spending time in all communities to make sure that they hear directly from me, so they can judge for themselves in a way that is unfiltered. And I’m going to continue doing that. I am leaving nothing on the field in this election, leaving nothing on the field,” Harris said in an interview with MSNBC earlier this month.
(WASHINGTON, D.C) — Some gun violence prevention groups said Wednesday that they plan to double down in their fight for stronger firearm-control laws in the wake of former President Donald Trump recapturing the White House and promising to roll back President Joe Biden’s efforts to curb the national plague.
During his victorious campaign, Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, voiced opposition to most of Biden’s executive orders to combat the scourge that the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found to be the leading cause of death in the United States for adolescents under the age of 19 for three straight years.
“The election of Donald Trump is deeply troubling for our safety and freedom from gun violence,” Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement Wednesday. “And that’s why we are doubling down on our work and fighting harder than ever.”
Gun violence was a big issue during the campaign. In an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released in August, gun violence was ranked eighth in importance among voters after the economy, inflation, health care, protecting democracy, crime and safety, immigration and the Supreme Court.
In preliminary national exit polls analyzed by ABC News, voters said they trusted Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, 50% to 48%, in handling the issue of crime and safety.
In his campaign, Trump often railed against what he described as a “surge” in migrant crime, including several high-profile homicides allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. A 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely than migrants to be arrested for violent crimes.
Brown said it won’t be the first pro-gun rights administration that has occupied the White House, adding that Trump’s previous four years in the Oval Office were marked by a “deadly period for Americans.” Among the mass shootings that occurred during Trump’s first term was the 2017 massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival music concert in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and more than 850 people wounded; the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff; and the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that claimed 23 lives and injured nearly two dozen other people.
“So even though we won’t have a friend in the White House, Brady isn’t giving up an inch,” Brown said of her organization named after White House press secretary James “Jim” Brady, who was shot and permanently disabled in the 1981 assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan and later died in 2014 as a result of his wounds.
Brown added, “The movement to prevent gun violence has always been larger than one office, and we’ll continue to work with activists, survivors, community leaders and elected officials in states across the country to fight for progress that makes the whole country safer from gun violence.”
Trump and Vance, who have said they oppose a national ban on assault weapons, were endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
In February, Trump told NRA members at a forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms” during his second term in office.
“During my four years, nothing happened and there was a lot of pressure on me having to do with guns,” Trump said at the time. “We did nothing, we didn’t yield. And once you yield a little bit that’s just the beginning, that’s [when] the avalanche begins.”
In May, Trump spoke at the NRA convention in Dallas and outlined some of the actions he’ll take in his second term.
“In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment — the attacks are fast and furious — starting the minute that Crooked Joe shuffles his way out of the White House,” Trump said in the speech.
Trump also vowed during the speech to fire Steven Dettelbach, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). House Republicans have also said they want to abolish or drastically cut funding for the ATF.
“At noon on Inauguration Day, we will sack the anti-gun fanatic Steve Dettelbach,” Trump told NRA conventioneers. “Have you ever heard of him? He’s a disaster.”
Gun control advocates said they expect Trump to try to water down the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the first major gun safety law enacted in 30 years that Biden signed in June 2022, about a month after a teenage gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The BSCA enhances background checks for gun buyers under 21, closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to prevent people convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing guns, and allocates $750 million to help states implement “red flag laws” to remove firearms from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves and others.
Advocates also expect Trump to abolish the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention established under the Biden administration and overseen by Harris.
Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action released a statement on social media Wednesday, saying her gun violence prevention group also plans to continue to fight for laws that protect Americans from gun violence.
“If this work has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, we always can and will secure victories to protect our communities from gun violence. This obstacle is no different. Today, we are crushed by this result,” Ferrell-Zabala said of Trump’s victory. “Tomorrow, we’re going to continue to organize like our lives depend on it — because they do.”
