(WASHINGTON) — President-Elect Donald Trump teased pardoning some of the Jan. 6 rioters on Day 1 of his administration, 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 Sunday at his rally at Capital One Arena. “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 has 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.
The pardons could come very soon after Trump is sworn in at the Capitol Rotunda. One option that has been discussed is to issue these pardons inside the Capitol.
Trump said last March that he was “inclined to pardon many” of the rioters.
“I can’t say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control,” he said on social media at the time.
Nearly 1,600 individuals have faced charges associated with the Capitol attack, according to figures released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
That includes 608 individuals who 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.
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) — Before a judge halted the takeover in February, President Donald Trump’s administration was planning to fire the overwhelming majority of employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and then fulfill the agency’s legal obligations with a skeleton crew, a top CFPB official testified on Monday.
During a lengthy court hearing on Monday, CFPB’s Chief Operating Officer Adam Martinez gave a full sworn account of the chaos and confusion that has consumed the federal agency that was set up to protect the public from unfair corporate practices ever since the Department of Government Efficiency and Trump administration officials moved to dismantle it.
His testimony provided a window into what is happening internally as DOGE spearheads Trump’s mandate to slash the federal government.
“Absent the temporary restraining order, the majority of the CFPB employees would have been terminated?” a lawyer representing the plaintiffs asked Martinez.
“The majority, yes,” Martinez said, adding the remaining employees would have been fired in later phases of the takeover.
Throughout his six-hour testimony, Martinez described the back-and-forth that played out in recent weeks among acting CFPB Director Russ Vought, DOGE, the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget. Officials toggled between halting and partially reinstating the agency’s work as they hastily slashed it and then scrambled to put pieces back in place to comply with law – in some cases losing key data and services along the way.
“I was having a hard time processing what was happening,” Martinez said, describing the early days of DOGE’s takeover of CFPB.
“So is it fair to say that there’s thought going into it, but only after? It’s like, shoot first and ask questions later?” Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked, after Martinez described how the agency was forced to cancel numerous critical contracts but rescinded some of those terminations soon after. Martinez agreed.
The hearing also shed light on the unique relationship between DOGE representatives and career civil servants, with Martinez frequently calling DOGE representatives the newly installed leaders of the CFPB.
“I don’t understand, why are you using them with leadership to refer to DOGE unless you had been told that DOGE was now your leadership,” asked Judge Jackson.
“They were designated as senior advisers, ma’am,” Martinez said.
“Senior leaders of the CFPB,” Judge Jackson asked.
“Correct,” Martinez said.
Martinez recalled everything from DOGE representatives’ first arrival at CFPB’s office in the first week of February — and the acting director’s email ordering CFPB employees to stop working — to the immediate chaos that ensued, as well as efforts by him and other career officials at CFPB to figure out what has been terminated and how to reinstate critical functions of the agency.
“There were a couple of high-priority issues that would have been devastating had it stopped,” Martinez said at one point.
“I was very, very concerned about the Consumer Response Center going down,” Martinez said, explaining potential backlash that could occur if those systems halted. He said he eventually coordinated a discussion between the head of that unit and DOGE’s representatives to “help them understand why his program was so important.”
On March 2, after much confusion and frustration as to what type of work CFPB was authorized to perform, OMB’s General Counsel Mark Paoletta, who has been representing Vought, eventually sent a letter directing CFPB employees to perform statutorily required duties.
But even after some units were told to return to work, they continued experiencing challenges — including loss of personnel and access to files of those who have left, according to accounts showcased during the hearing.
Jackson acknowledged the extraordinary situation workers at CFPB are facing, and she asked a series of questions to the witness.
“Would you say that sending out an order that says ‘Do no work’ is typical?” Judge Jackson asked.
“No,” Martinez responded.
“Would you say that canceling all the contracts before the analysis as to whether these are duplicative, worthwhile, not worthwhile, is typical?” the judge also asked.
“No,” Martinez again responded.
“Would you say that firing all probationary employees and two-year employees from the get-go is typical?” the judge asked.
“No,” Martinez responded.
“Would you say that trying to implement a brief without notice before the new director is even put in place, is typical?” the judge continued.
“No,” Martinez again replied.
“And would you say putting the rest of the employees on administrative leave with an order to do no work is typical?” the judge asked.
“No,” Martinez responded.
Jackson is considering issuing a preliminary injunction to effectively halt the breakdown of the CFPB, which she temporarily stopped last week. During Monday’s hearing, Martinez was grilled about emails that he had produced wherein he discussed carrying out the mass terminations despite the court’s order.
“You said that, in some ways, the delay was a blessing, because it gave you more time to figure out how to accomplish this wide-scale termination, right?” a lawyer asked.
“Yes,” Martinez said.
“And so you conveyed things like, there really isn’t going to be a CFPB now, right?” the lawyer continued.
“When you’re ripping out a number of people and functions, yes,” Martinez said.
(WASHINGTON) — Pam Bondi has developed a reputation as one of President-elect Donald Trump’s most loyal defenders — a vocal political and legal advocate who represented Trump during his first impeachment, boosted his efforts to sow doubts about his 2020 election loss, and stood by him during his New York criminal trial.
After more than a decade of defending him, Bondi is now the president-elect’s nominee to be the country’s top prosecutor and reform the Department of Justice as his nominee for attorney general.
The role of the country’s top law enforcement officer gives Bondi an opportunity to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to transform the DOJ that has investigated and prosecuted him for the last two years, with Bondi vowing to “clean house” prosecute members of the so-called “deep state.”
“When Republicans take back the White House, and we will be back in there in 18 months or less, you know what’s going to happen? The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted — the bad ones — the investigators will be investigated,” Bondi said on Fox News in 2023.
On Wednesday, Bondi will kick off two days of hearings to secure confirmation as the next attorney general, as lawmakers prepare to question her over her extensive legal, political and lobbying background — and whether her longtime loyalty to Trump will impact her oversight of the nation’s top law enforcement agencies.
If confirmed, Bondi would lead a Department of Justice staffed at the highest levels by Trump’s former defense attorneys and facing a potential morale and resignation crisis by the career prosecutors who carry the bulk of the department’s workload.
“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore,” Trump wrote in his announcement of Bondi for attorney general.
What is Bondi’s law enforcement background?
While Bondi lacks any federal prosecutorial experience, she was a county prosecutor in Florida before serving two terms as Florida’s attorney general between 2011 and 2019 — the state’s first female AG — where she fought in court to challenge Obamacare and uphold Florida’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
In his announcement, Trump touted Bondi’s work combating the trafficking of fentanyl and reducing overdose deaths. Bondi’s office sued multiple drug manufacturers as well as pharmacy chains Walgreens and CVS for their role in the opioid crisis, alleging the companies worked together to increase the supply and demand for the drugs while downplaying the risk of addiction. Her office claimed that efforts to shut down pill mills led to a 52% decline in oxycodone deaths statewide.
Bondi’s time as Florida attorney general was not without controversy, garnering criticism for her attempt to delay the execution of a man convicted of murder because of a conflict with a campaign fundraiser. Both Bondi and Trump also attracted criticism during the 2016 race over a $25,000 contribution that the Trump Foundation made in 2013 to a political group backing Bondi’s reelection campaign.
The contribution came days after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a lawsuit against Trump University, which Bondi’s office considered joining. The office had received at least 22 complaints regarding Trump University and related entities between 2008 and 2011, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed a complaint that the donation was a violation of rules prohibiting nonprofit foundations from making political donations.
One month after the donation, Bondi’s office declined to join New York’s lawsuit, justifying the decision by noting that Florida consumers would still be compensated if Schneiderman won his lawsuit.
Both Trump and Bondi have denied that the donation was related to the lawsuit. The Trump Foundation eventually paid a $2,500 penalty to the IRS for improperly reporting the donation.
Trump University and the Trump Foundation were closed following multiple lawsuits, and a judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million for misusing his foundation.
What has she done in the private sector?
After leaving office in 2019, Bondi joined the lobbying firm Ballard Partners – the same firm that once employed Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles – where she represented major corporate clients like Amazon, General Motors, Uber and the private prison company the GEO Group, among others.
On her Senate questionnaire, Bondi also listed several foreign governments she lobbied on behalf of while at Ballard, including the Dominican Republic, Qatar, Zimbabwe and Kosovo. Senate Democrats have pushed for more information over Bondi’s foreign lobbying work to determine any potential conflicts of interest that might surface should she be confirmed as attorney general.
Beyond her work as a lobbyist, Bondi solidified her reputation as a Trump loyalist by defending him on the floor of the Senate during his first impeachment and helping his efforts to discredit the 2020 election results.
Hired by the Trump administration in November 2019 during his first impeachment, Bondi used her role to raise doubts about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s role with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, alleging it was a conflict of interest with his father’s position in the Obama administration.
Bondi served as an adviser on Trump’s 2020 campaign, helping file a string of unsuccessful lawsuits alleging voter fraud and pushing to delegitimize vote counting in Pennsylvania.
“We do have evidence of cheating,” Bondi told Fox News. “We are still on the ground in Pennsylvania. I am here right now, and we are not going anywhere until they declare that we won Pennsylvania.”
Despite her legal efforts, Trump lost the state and the 2020 election to Biden.
What will Bondi inherit at the Department of Justice?
Trump announced Bondi as his nominee for attorney general almost immediately after former Rep. Matt Gaetz announced he was withdrawing his nomination for the position amid increasing questions about sexual misconduct and other allegations that were later detailed in a report from the House Ethics Committee.
Several career officials who spoke to ABC News following the initial announcement of Gaetz’s nomination, however, said it put on full display Trump’s intentions for the Justice Department after years of battling prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office. Nearly every other major nominee put forward thus far by Trump for a leadership position at DOJ served as his defense attorney in at least one of the criminal cases he faced after leaving the White House.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to use the DOJ to target his political opponents while issuing sweeping pardons for the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The career officials who spoke to ABC News described such actions as nightmare scenarios directly compromising the traditional independence of the Justice Department, which could prompt many career officials to resign.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in recent weeks has repeatedly messaged to DOJ’s career workforce that they should remain and carry out their duties in accordance with the Constitution and longstanding department norms of political independence.
The overt threats by Trump and his allies to clean house of any officials who had significant involvement in the investigations led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, however, have already led some career officials to head to the exits — including some who have reached out to attorneys in recent weeks for potential legal representation should they ultimately be targeted by the incoming administration.
(WASHINGTON) — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Senate Democrats will not provide the votes to pass the House-approved deal to fund the government, heightening the alert for a potential government shutdown at the end of the week.
If a deal isn’t struck to bring over some Democratic support, the government will shut down at the end of the day Friday.
Two days is a long time on Capitol Hill, so there is still plenty of time for a deal to emerge, but Schumer’s statement certainly heats up shutdown fears.
Schumer pointed the finger at Republicans for leaving Democrats out of the funding negotiations.
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path drafting their continuing resolution without any input any input from congressional Democrats,” Schumer said on the floor Wednesday.
Unlike in the House, where Republicans can act unilaterally to pass legislation, the Senate needs Democrats to pass a funding bill.
At least 60 votes are needed for a funding bill to clear key procedural votes, called cloture votes, which means at least seven Democrats would be needed to pass any funding bill through the Senate.
Schumer made clear on Wednesday that right now, Democrats won’t provide those votes.
“Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR,” Schumer said.
For several days, Democrats have been grappling behind the scenes about whether to furnish the requisite votes to pass the funding bill approved by House Republicans Tuesday. On the one hand, many Democrats say this bill gives President Donald Trump and Elon Musk unilateral power to continue slashing the federal government. On the other, some Democrats understand that a decision to vote against the bill could likely force an undesirable government shut down.
After days of closed-door meetings and tight-lipped interaction with the press, Schumer said Democrats will instead advocate for a 30-day clean stopgap bill meant to buy more time for appropriators to complete full-year funding bills.
“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass,” Schumer said.
Just because that’s what Democrats want, doesn’t mean it’s a vote Democrats will get.
They are the minority in the Senate, and they do not have control over what bills are brought to the Senate floor for a vote. There’s nothing that Democrats can do to force a vote in the Senate on a 30-day clean stopgap measure, but they may be able to wheel and deal with Republicans to get a vote on it.
With Schumer saying that Democrats are not ready to proceed, the Democrats hold the cards. If they do not furnish the votes to clear this procedural hurdle and get on to the bill, things could be at a stand still, and a shut down could be on the horizon.
Meanwhile, House Democrats are urging their Senate colleagues to vote no on the funding bill they almost unanimously opposed when it passed through the House on Tuesday evening.
“House Democrats are very clear. We’re asking Senate Democrats to vote ‘no’ on this continuing resolution, which is not clean, and it makes cuts across the board,” said Vice Chair Ted Lieu, flanked by five other members of House leadership at a press conference at the Issues Conference at the Lansdowne Resort. Lieu’s comments came before Schumer pushed for a 30-day clean stopgap bill.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that conversations are “continuing” with Schumer all the way down to rank-and-file Democratic members about keeping the Democratic caucus united against the bill.
“The House Democratic position is crystal clear as evidenced by the strong vote of opposition that we took yesterday on the House floor opposing the Trump-Musk-Johnson reckless Republican spending bill,” Jeffries said.
Late Wednesday, Democratic House leaders called on House Republicans to return from recess to Washington to “immediately” take up a short-term measure that would fund the government through April 11.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
