Politics

“You don’t need to be president to get these tools,” he said.

Biden had a mild bout with the virus that has killed millions of people around the world and disrupted daily life for more than two years.

“God bless you all, and now I get to go back to the Oval Office,” he said as he finished his remarks in the Rose Garden and returned to the West Wing.

Biden tested negative for the virus on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Biden’s tweet included a photo of a rapid COVID-19 test with the line showing a negative result.

“Thanks to Doc for the good care, and to all of you for your support,” the president’s tweet said.

Biden’s symptoms were almost “completely resolved,” O’Connor reported.

“Given these reassuring factors, the president will discontinue his strict isolation measures,” the doctor wrote.

Biden plans to wear a “well-fitting” face mask for five more days anytime he is around others.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge Wednesday declined a request to acquit Donald Trump’s former presidential adviser Steve Bannon on two contempt of Congress charges, but he left open the door to consider possibly dismissing the charges instead.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Marc Short, who was a top staffer to Republican former Vice President Mike Pence, on Monday confirmed he had testified before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“I did receive a subpoena for the federal grand jury and I complied with that subpoena,” Short told CNN. He declined to provide any details on his testimony.

ABC News first reported that Short, who served as Pence’s chief of staff, had testified on Friday afternoon. Both ABC’s cameras and Reuters cameras captured footage of Short leaving the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., alongside his attorney Emmet Flood.

Short is the most high-profile official known to have appeared before the grand jury, which is also probing the effort by former President Donald Trump’s allies to submit slates of fake electors to overturn the 2020 election.

Short’s appearance is a sign the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol and the fake elector plot is heating up.

In the interview with CNN, Short said it was unfair to characterize the pro-Trump mob as simply exercising their First Amendment free speech rights.

“Certainly there were probably some people who foolishly got caught up in the events that were happening on the sixth, but I think it’s unfair to describe the rioters as patriots who were merely expressing their First Amendment rights,” he said.

Short said although the Secret Service wanted to evacuate Pence from the Capitol, where he was preparing to certify the presidential election results, the vice president wanted to stay.

“The vice president didn’t want the image of a 15-car motorcade fleeing the hallmark of democracy for the world to see,” he told CNN.

In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco confirmed the Justice Department had received referrals about slates of alternative fake electors that were sent to the National Archives, and said prosecutors were reviewing them.

Copies of the phony electoral slates submitted to the National Archives by pro-Trump Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were made public in March by the non-profit watchdog group American Oversight, which obtained them through a public records request.

The Office of the Federal Register, part of the National Archives, coordinates some functions of the Electoral College between the states and Congress, including receiving the certificates from the states that identify their electors and receiving the certificates of votes by the electors.

The fake elector plot has featured prominently in multiple hearings of the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rusty Bowers, the Arizona state House Republican speaker, testified in June that Trump and his close aides, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and adviser John Eastman, urged Bowers to reject the election results.

In recent months, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., has started issuing grand jury subpoenas to electors, including some who signed the bogus certificates.

According to one subpoena seen by Reuters that is focused on the phony slate of electors in Georgia, investigators are seeking copies of documents from October 2020 related to “any effort, plan or attempt to serve as an elector in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Mike R. Pence.”

They are also seeking copies of communications between would-be electors and any federal government employees, any employees or agents of Trump, as well as communications with a long list of people including Giuliani and Eastman.

Arizona’s Republican party chair, Kelli Ward, and her husband, Michael Ward, who both signed their names on one of the slates of alternate electors for Trump, have also received subpoenas.

    Alexander Kolodin, an attorney for the Wards, told Reuters earlier this month that the DOJ’s investigation is “based on allegations that our clients engaged in core First Amendment-protected activity, namely petitioning Congress for redress of grievances.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Tim Ahmann in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Two senior U.S. House of Representatives Democrats called on Tuesday for Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to recuse himself from the investigation into Secret Service text messages related to the probe into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

House of Representatives Oversight Chairperson Carolyn Maloney and House Homeland Security Chairperson Bennie Thompson, who also leads the panel probing the Capitol attack, said in a letter they lost confidence in the watchdog after he failed to inform Congress for months that Secret Service messages around Jan. 6, 2021, might have been erased.

“These omissions left Congress in the dark about key developments in this investigation and may have cost investigators precious time to capture relevant evidence,” Maloney and Thompson wrote.

The House Jan. 6 Select Committee subpoenaed the Secret Service earlier this month, seeking text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the Secret Service said data from some phones had been lost during a system migration that was initiated prior to the inspector general’s request.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service had no new comment on the letter, but pointed to previous statements from the agency confirming its continued cooperation with all oversight and investigations related to Jan. 6.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Patricia Zengerle;Editing by Chris Reese and Marguerita Choy)

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(Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump’s actions in its criminal probe of the former president’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, citing sources.

The Justice Department has been interviewing former White House officials, including the former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, who confirmed on Monday that he had testified to a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his defeat.

Prosecutors questioning witnesses before the grand jury have asked about conversations with Trump and his lawyers and others close to him, the Post reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The testimony of Pence’s former Pence chief of staff, Marc Short, the most high-profile official known to have appeared before the grand jury, is a sign the Justice Department’s investigation of the attack on the Capitol and the fake elector plot is heating up.

Justice Department investigators in April also received phone records of important officials such as Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, the Washington Post said.

The Justice Department could not be immediately reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for Trump did not reply to a request for comment from Reuters. Trump has denied wrongdoing.

In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco confirmed the Justice Department had received referrals about slates of alternative fake electors that were sent to the National Archives, and said prosecutors were reviewing them.

The fake elector plot has featured prominently in multiple hearings of the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the attack on the Capitol.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A judge in Georgia on Monday granted a Republican state lawmaker’s request to disqualify the district attorney from probing the lawmaker directly in an investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office were disqualified from investigating Georgia State Senator Burt Jones’ role as one of the “fake electors” who wrongly claimed Trump won the state of Georgia in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Jones had called on the court to disqualify Willis from her role as legal adviser in the case over Willis’ support for an opponent of Jones in a fundraiser.

Jones is running for lieutenant governor. Willis is a supporter of his Democratic opponent, Charlie Bailey, and was a guest speaker at a fundraising event for Bailey earlier this year.

“The court grants Senator Jones’s motion to disqualify the District Attorney and her office – as to Senator Jones only,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled on Monday.

The judge denied a request by the other electors to avoid their own subpoenaed testimony.

Trump has falsely claimed that rampant voter fraud caused his loss in Georgia, a battleground state where President Joe Biden’s victory helped propel him to the White House.

A special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, is undertaking a criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing. It is one of the most serious cases facing Trump, who was recorded in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call pressuring a top state official to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss to Biden in the state. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

On Thursday, the judge had refused to quash subpoenas for 11 “fake electors” identified as targets in the probe in Georgia. He said at the time that the fundraiser reflected poor judgment on the district attorney’s part, adding he would issue a ruling later.

“It’s a ‘What were you thinking?’ moment,” McBurney had said. “The optics are horrific.”

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republicans are warming up to Doug Mastriano.

When he crushed a nine-person field to win the GOP nomination for Pennsylvania governor in May, some in the party warned that Mastriano’s far-right views on everything from abortion to the 2020 presidential election would squander an otherwise attainable seat in a critical battleground state. But now, as the general election season intensifies, the GOP machinery is cranking up to back Mastriano’s campaign and attack his Democratic rival, Josh Shapiro.

Mastriano spoke in Aspen, Colorado, last week at an event with donors sponsored by the Republican Governors Association. At the GOP’s “Rally at the Rock” campaign event in northern Pennsylvania earlier this month, the independently elected state treasurer, Stacy Garrity, introduced Mastriano as “our next governor.” County offices and booths are festooned with his campaign signs and he spoke at this month’s closed-door state party meeting. And on Wednesday, a pair of top party officials are hosting a fundraiser for Mastriano.

In one of America’s most politically divided states, the GOP’s embrace of a candidate who opposes abortion rights with no exceptions, spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection risks alienating moderate party members. But some Republicans say they’re duty bound to get behind their party’s nominee.

“When you play team sports, you learn what being part of a team means,” said Andy Reilly, the state GOP’s national committeeman and co-host of Wednesday’s fundraiser. “Our team voted for him in the primary and, no matter how you slice it, his philosophies are much better to run the state than a career politician like Josh Shapiro.”

November’s election has major implications.

Working with a Republican-controlled Legislature, Mastriano could dramatically scale back access to abortion. And he would be able to appoint Pennsylvania’s secretary of state, giving him tremendous power over elections in a state that is often decisive in presidential campaigns.

Perhaps with that in mind, some Republicans have been tentative about vocally supporting Mastriano.

The Republican Governors Association — typically a source of millions of dollars for GOP campaigns — has done next to nothing to publicly praise Mastriano, as it has other Republican nominees.

But that could change as the fall campaign nears. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, the RGA’s co-chairman, told CNN this month that he would not rule out helping Mastriano and suggested that the group would help if Shapiro appears beatable.

“The job of the RGA is to elect Republican governors, and that’s what we’re going to do in this cycle,” Ducey said.

Mastriano and Shapiro are vying for the right to succeed Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who is constitutionally term-limited after entering office in 2015.

Shapiro, the state’s two-time elected attorney general, unified the party behind his candidacy, running an uncontested primary campaign and rolling up strong fundraising numbers. He also has ties to some prominent Republicans in Philadelphia and its heavily populated suburbs.

His campaign recently rolled out a list of onetime Republican elected officials who are endorsing him, while another group of Republicans have started a group called Republicans for Shapiro to sway votes against Mastriano.

Mastriano dismissed them as “has-beens.”

Still, the party’s traditional donor community around the state is — by many accounts — sitting on their wallets at a time when Mastriano is badly lagging Shapiro in fundraising. That includes prominent Philadelphia-area donors and fundraisers who long have financed Republican campaigns but know Shapiro well and likely reject Mastriano’s socially conservative politics.

“That’s going to make it much tougher for Mastriano to break into that southeastern Pennsylvania kind of money, that group of big-time donors and fundraisers,” said David Urban, a Republican strategist who worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Beyond that, Mastriano as the party’s standard-bearer is causing heartburn, and some party officials declined to speak on the record about him.

The unifying theme is a distaste for Mastriano.

No GOP contender for governor in the U.S. did more to subvert the 2020 presidential election than Mastriano — and no one may be better positioned to subvert the next one if he’s elected governor.

He has rubbed elbows with QAnon conspiracy theorists, Trump’s most prominent election-denying allies and people arrested in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. His active account on Gab — a social media site popular with white supremacists and antisemites where he also spent $5,000 for advertising — prompted a condemnation by the national Republican Jewish Coalition.

He has been one of Pennsylvania’s leading spreaders of Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

His plan to overturn the election results — introduced as a resolution in the Legislature — drew a subpoena from the U.S. House committee investigating the insurrection.

Mastriano later organized bus trips to Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and, afterward, can be seen in photos walking past breached police lines to where he watched pro-Trump demonstrators clash with police on the Capitol steps. That prompted an FBI interview, though he has not been charged with a crime.

Then there’s Mastriano’s embrace of Christian nationalism, which scholars generally define as championing a fusion of American and Christian values, symbols and identity. Christian nationalism, they say, is often accompanied by a belief that God has destined America, like the biblical Israel, for a special role in history, and that it will receive divine blessing or judgment depending on its obedience.

Mastriano has also condemned the GOP establishment, refuses to speak with most mainstream media organizations and backed a ban on abortion, with no exceptions, that turns off some party officials in Pennsylvania.

That — plus Mastriano’s talk of decertifying voting machines, opposing gay marriage and ridiculing climate change as “fake science” — hasn’t escaped Shapiro, whose campaign is running a TV ad calling Mastriano “extreme, and way too risky for Pennsylvania.”

Once a Mastriano primary victory appeared inevitable, Trump endorsed him, despite party leaders fearing that he couldn’t win over enough moderate voters to beat Shapiro in November.

State Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, who once warned that “Democrats will destroy him with swing voters,” had dinner with Mastriano following the primary.

Ward said she told Mastriano that “he has my full support because I want a governor who isn’t going to kowtow to the Biden administration and the Democrats’ anti-fossil fuel policy on energy.”

Mastriano is also getting help from an organization whose political action committees are a conduit for campaign cash from billionaire Jeffrey Yass and spent $13 million fruitlessly backing a primary rival to Mastriano while warning that Mastriano could not win swing voters in a general election.

The organization, the Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, has already commissioned anti-Shapiro billboards and plans to spend millions against Shapiro, its president, Matt Brouillette, said.

Its board has made no decision on whether to endorse Mastriano, he said.

For now, many Republicans are watching Mastriano’s efforts to mend fences with the party, raise money and broaden his appeal to swing voters. He has called up some party officials and donors. Some have given him advice, other say they have yet to.

“I will tell him that he’s got to his message out, and he’s got to raise money to get his message out to counter the false portrayal that Josh Shapiro is putting out,” Reilly said.

Some say they see him focusing more on standard GOP talking points, such as inflation, and moving away from talk of 2020’s election denial and banning abortion.

Charlie Gerow, a conservative activist who lost to Mastriano in the primary, said he will help Mastriano any way he can — and will tell Mastriano to expand his campaign efforts beyond the most conservative voters.

“A lot will depend on his ability to put together a campaign necessary to win in November,” Gerow said. “And I think he recognizes that he’s got to broaden his appeal in order to win in November.”

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Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timelywriter.

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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A conservative-backed initiative to publish voter registration records from across the country online for public consumption can move forward over the objections of New Mexico election regulators, a federal judge has ordered in a preliminary opinion.

Albuquerque-based U.S. District Court Judge James Browning issued an order last Friday preventing New Mexico state prosecutors from pursuing allegations of possible election code violations against the creators of VoteRef.com.

The VoteRef.com website provides searchable access to voter registration records by name and street addresses, often indicating when people voted in past elections.

The online records do not say for which candidates the people voted or how they voted on initatives. Party affiliation is listed for voters in some states but not all.

The Voter Reference Foundation that created the website advocates for voting accountability by making voter information more accessible to the public.

Following the ruling, the foundation said it would post New Mexico voter rolls online starting Tuesday.

The decision doesn’t apply to New Mexico voters enrolled in a confidential address program aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence and stalking.

New Mexico election regulators contend that the effort violates state restrictions on the purchase and dissemination of voter registration records — and is likely to discourage voter participation because people may opt out if they know that some of their voting information is being made public.

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, in March referred the matter the attorney general’s office for possible prosecution of the Voter Reference Foundation, which published New Mexico registration records online at the time after obtaining them through an out-of-state business. State law restricts the use of voter registration information to political campaigning and election- or government-related activities.

The foundation — backed by former GOP Senate candidate Doug Truax of Illinois — took its New Mexico records offline in response and sued the state in federal court, alleging violations of due process and free speech guarantees.

The judge’s order blocks prosecution while the case advances toward trial and said that the Voter Reference Foundation is likely to prevail in its claim as the victim of viewpoint discrimination by election regulators. Browning said New Mexico state law “does not prohibit Voter Reference — or any organization — from posting voter data online.”

The creators of VoteRef.com are “substantially likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Secretary of State’s referral of Voter Reference to the Attorney General for criminal prosecution and her public statements about the referral are an unconstitutional prior restraint on protected speech,” Browning said.

Truax, founder of the Restoration of America organization that funds VoteRef.com, said his group “won’t be intimidated by politicians who, for some reason, don’t want to give the people of their state easy access to election records they pay for.” He is an advocate for limiting voting access largely to in-person voting on Election Day with photo ID requirements and no same-day registration.

VoteRef.com already publishes voter registration information online from at least 28 states and Washington D.C.

Toulouse Oliver spokesman Alex Curtas called the judge’s opinion a “blow to protecting the privacy rights of every New Mexican voter.”

“The fear now is that voters will be less likely to participate in our elections because their voting information — name, residential address, party affiliation, voting history, and year of birth -– will be made easily available online for anyone to obtain and potentially manipulate,” Curtas said.

Some New Mexico neighborhoods this year have been the focus of door-to-door canvassing by volunteers for a group called New Mexico Audit Force that promotes unproven conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

The door knocking — ostensibly to verify individual voter registrations at peoples’ homes — has generated voter intimidation concerns and counterclaims of threats against canvassers.

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A group of Republicans in Congress on Monday proposed legislation to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age to 67 from 65, in a bid to address an airline industry staff shortage.

The proposal, which would require pilots over age 65 to pass a rigorous medical screening every six months, follows complaints of pilot shortages by many regional airlines.

Senator Lindsey Graham said the proposal would help address travel snarls in the United States. Travelers have faced widespread flight delays and cancellations this summer as airlines struggle to cope with rising travel demand with workforces depleted by employee departures during the COVID pandemic.

The Regional Airline Association praised the legislation, saying a pilot shortage has resulted in 500 aircraft “parked and 315 communities losing air service. Raising the mandatory pilot retirement age is part of the solution to a critical issue with rippling effects.”

Airlines for America, an industry group representing major carriers including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, declined to say if it supports raising the pilot retirement age

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), however, said Monday that it opposed any attempts to increase the retirement age for professional airline pilots.

“There is no reason to change the retirement age and doing so would only increase costs for airlines and introduce unnecessary risks to passengers and crew alike,” ALPA President Joe DePete said Monday.

Speaking in a news conference in South Carolina, Graham said 14,000 pilots would be forced to retire over the next four years. “It’s time for America to adjust its age when it comes to allowing qualified people to be in the cockpit,” he said.

Graham noted that in 2007 the United States raised the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 65, and “the sky did not fall.”

Even if the proposal is approved, the union said pilots older than 65 would still not be able to fly in most countries outside the United States because of international rules.

Republican Senators John Thune, Deb Fischer, Chuck Grassley, Cynthia Lummis and Marsha Blackburn are co-sponsors of the proposal, while a group of House Republicans led by Representative Chip Roy proposed parallel legislation.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has not come out in favor of the hike in pilots’ retirement age, and he told Fox News earlier this month that the regulation is in place “for safety reasons. I haven’t seen any piece of information or data that would suggest that the reasoning has changed.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter, Paul Simao and Cynthia Osterman)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Marc Short, who was a top staffer to Republican former Vice President Mike Pence, has testified before a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, ABC News reported on Monday.

Short, who served as Pence’s chief of staff, was captured on video leaving the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon, alongside his attorney, Emmet Flood. Both ABC’s cameras and Reuters cameras captured footage of Short’s exit.

Neither Flood nor Short could be immediately reached for comment.

Short is the most high-profile official known to have appeared before the grand jury, which is also probing the effort by former President Donald Trump’s allies to submit slates of fake electors to overturn the 2020 election. The grand jury convenes on Fridays, according to a copy of a subpoena seen by Reuters that was sent to an elector in Georgia in May of this year.

Short’s appearance is a sign the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol and the fake elector plot is heating up.

In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco confirmed the Justice Department had received referrals about slates of alternative fake electors that were sent to the National Archives, and said prosecutors were reviewing them.

Copies of the phony electoral slates submitted to the National Archives by pro-Trump Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were made public in March by the non-profit watchdog group American Oversight, which obtained them through a public records request.

The Office of the Federal Register, part of the National Archives, coordinates some functions of the Electoral College between the states and Congress, including receiving the certificates from the states that identify their electors and receiving the certificates of votes by the electors.

The fake elector plot has featured prominently in multiple hearings of the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives committee probing the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rusty Bowers, the Arizona state House Republican speaker, testified in June that Trump and his close aides, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and adviser John Eastman, urged Bowers to reject the election results.

In recent months, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., has started issuing grand jury subpoenas to electors, including some who signed the bogus certificates.

According to one subpoena seen by Reuters that is focused on the phony slate of electors in Georgia, investigators are seeking copies of documents from October 2020 related to “any effort, plan or attempt to serve as an elector in favor of Donald J. Trump and/or Mike R. Pence.”

They are also seeking copies of communications between would-be electors and any federal government employees, any employees or agents of Trump, as well as communications with a long list of people including Giuliani and Eastman.

Arizona’s Republican party chair, Kelli Ward, and her husband, Michael Ward, who both signed their names on one of the slates of alternate electors for Trump, have also received subpoenas.

    Alexander Kolodin, an attorney for the Wards, told Reuters earlier this month that the DOJ’s investigation is “based on allegations that our clients engaged in core First Amendment-protected activity, namely petitioning Congress for redress of grievances.”

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)

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