Politics

By Jarrett Renshaw and Costas Pitas

(Reuters) -Former hedge fund executive David McCormick conceded to wellness celebrity Mehmet Oz on Friday in the Republican primary race for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, following a recount and securing another Donald Trump-endorsed candidate in a critical midterm election.

Oz, who will square off against Democrat John Fetterman in the Nov. 8 midterm election to replace retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey, won by a margin of 916 votes, according to Edison Research.

The race is crucial to Republican hopes of regaining control of a Senate now narrowly held by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats.

“I will do my part to try to unite Republicans and Pennsylvanians behind his candidacy, behind his nomination for the Senate,” McCormick said in conceding to Oz.

Oz secured 419,643 votes versus 418,727 for McCormick, according to Edison Research.

Trump has endorsed over 190 candidates in the midterm contests, trying to solidify his status as the Republican Party kingmaker. His picks have not always prevailed.

Trump endorsed Oz in April, after his previous pick in the race dropped out when his estranged wife alleged physical abuse and he lost a battle over custody of his children.

Oz and McCormick both positioned themselves as champions of Trump’s populist “America First” agenda.

“I look forward to campaigning in every corner of the Commonwealth for the next five months to earn the support of every Pennsylvanian,” Oz said on Friday.

Republicans are seeking to regain control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in November. They are well positioned to regain control of the House, which could enable them to stonewall Biden’s legislative agenda.

Democrats have a better chance of keeping their razor-thin Senate majority, but to do so will need to perform well in races including in Pennsylvania.

Fetterman, the state’s current lieutenant governor, said on Friday that he “almost died” from a stroke suffered days before the May 17 primary and which has kept him off the campaign trail, indicating that his condition was graver than initially suggested.

“I’m not quite back to 100% yet, but I’m getting closer every day,” he said.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Washington and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Editing by Eric Beech, David Gregorio and Leslie Adler)

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Today in History

Today is Sunday, June 5, the 156th day of 2022. There are 209 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On June 5, 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded after claiming victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; assassin Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was arrested at the scene.

On this date:

In 1794, Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited Americans from taking part in any military action against a country that was at peace with the United States.

In 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Henderson v. United States, struck down racially segregated railroad dining cars.

In 1967, war erupted in the Middle East as Israel, anticipating a possible attack by its Arab neighbors, launched a series of pre-emptive airfield strikes that destroyed nearly the entire Egyptian air force; Syria, Jordan and Iraq immediately entered the conflict.

In 1975, Egypt reopened the Suez Canal to international shipping, eight years after it was closed because of the 1967 war with Israel.

In 1976, 14 people were killed when the Teton Dam in Idaho burst.

In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported that five homosexuals in Los Angeles had come down with a rare kind of pneumonia; they were the first recognized cases of what later became known as AIDS.

In 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City home. (Smart was found alive by police in a Salt Lake suburb in March 2003. One kidnapper, Brian David Mitchell, is serving a prison sentence; the other, Wanda Barzee, was released in September 2018.)

In 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died in Los Angeles at age 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2006, more than 50 National Guardsmen from Utah became the first unit to work along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of President George W. Bush’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

In 2013, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, many of them sleeping women and children, pleaded guilty to murder at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, to avoid the death penalty; he was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2016, Novak Djokovic (NOH’-vak JOH’-kuh-vich) became the first man in nearly a half-century to win four consecutive major championships and finally earned an elusive French Open title to complete a career Grand Slam, beating Andy Murray 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4.

In 2020, Minneapolis banned chokeholds by police, the first of many changes in police practices to be announced in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death; officers would also now be required to intervene any time they saw unauthorized force by another officer. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league had been wrong for not listening to players fighting for racial equality.

Ten years ago: Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker beat back a recall challenge, winning both the right to finish his term and a voter endorsement of his strategy to curb state spending. Jury selection began in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, in the trial of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant football coach charged with child sexual abuse. (Sandusky was later convicted of 45 counts and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.) Science-fiction author Ray Bradbury, 91, died in Los Angeles.

Five years ago: The White House said President Donald Trump would not assert executive privilege to block fired FBI Director James Comey from testifying on Capitol Hill. Bill Cosby went on trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University’s basketball program, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. (The jury deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial, but Cosby was convicted in a second trial; Pennsylvania’s highest court later tossed out that conviction.)

One year ago: The Justice Department said it would no longer secretly obtain reporters’ records during leak investigations. Favored Essential Quality won the Belmont Stakes in New York over Hot Rod Charlie.

Today’s Birthdays: Actor-singer Bill Hayes is 97. Broadcast journalist Bill Moyers is 88. Former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark is 83. Author Dame Margaret Drabble is 83. Country singer Don Reid (The Statler Brothers) is 77. Rock musician Freddie Stone (AKA Freddie Stewart) (Sly and the Family Stone) is 75. Rock singer Laurie Anderson is 75. Country singer Gail Davies is 74. Author Ken Follett is 73. Financial guru Suze Orman is 71. Rock musician Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden) is 70. Jazz musician Peter Erskine is 68. Jazz musician Kenny G is 66. Rock singer Richard Butler (Psychedelic Furs) is 66. Actor Beth Hall is 64. Actor Jeff Garlin is 60. Actor Karen Sillas is 59. Actor Ron Livingston is 55. Singer Brian McKnight is 53. Rock musician Claus Norreen (Aqua) is 52. Actor Mark Wahlberg is 51. Actor Chad Allen is 48. Rock musician P-Nut (311) is 48. Actor Navi Rawat (ROH’-waht) is 45. Actor Liza Weil is 45. Rock musician Pete Wentz (Fall Out Boy) is 43. Rock musician Seb Lefebvre (Simple Plan) is 41. Actor Chelsey Crisp is 39. Actor Amanda Crew is 36. Electronic musician Harrison Mills (Odesza) is 33. Musician/songwriter/producer DJ Mustard is 32. Actor Sophie Lowe is 32. Actor Hank Greenspan is 12.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro has been indicted on charges that he refused to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but the Justice Department spared two other advisers, including the ex-president’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, from criminal prosecution.

The department’s decision to not prosecute Meadows and Dan Scavino, another adviser to former President Donald Trump, was revealed in a letter sent Friday by a federal prosecutor to a lawyer for the House of Representatives. The move was reported hours after the indictment of Navarro and a subsequent, fiery court appearance in which he vowed to contest the contempt of Congress charges.

The flurry of activity comes just days before the House committee leading the investigation into the riot at the Capitol holds a primetime hearing aimed at presenting the American public with evidence it has collected about how the assault unfolded. The split decisions show how the Justice Department has opted to evaluate on a case-by-case basis contempt referrals it has received from Congress rather than automatically pursue charges against each and every Trump aide who has resisted congressional subpoenas.

The committee’s leaders called the decision to not prosecute Meadows and Scavino “puzzling.” In a statement late Friday, Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said: “We hope the Department provides greater clarity on this matter. … No one is above the law.”

Though the Justice Department has referred multiple Trump aides for potential prosecution for refusal to cooperate, Navarro is only the second to face criminal charges, following the indictment last fall of former White House adviser Steve Bannon.

Navarro, 72, was charged with one contempt count for failing to appear for a deposition before the House committee and a second charge for failing to produce documents the committee requested.

During an initial court appearance, he alleged that the Justice Department had committed “prosecutorial misconduct” and said he was told he could not contact anyone after being approached by an FBI agent at the airport Friday and put in handcuffs. He said he was arrested while trying to board a flight to Nashville, Tennessee for a television appearance.

“Who are these people? This is not America,” Navarro said. “I was a distinguished public servant for four years!”

Each charge carries a minimum sentence of a month in jail and a maximum of a year behind bars.

The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland had been facing pressure to move more quickly to decide whether to prosecute other Trump aides who have similarly defied subpoenas from the House panel.

The New York Times first reported on the decision to not charge Meadows and Scavino. A person familiar with the decision who was not authorized to discuss it publicly confirmed it to The Associated Press on Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, which made the decisions regarding each of the Trump aides, declined to comment Friday.

Meadows, a close Trump adviser seen by House investigators as a vital witness to key events, initially cooperated with the committee, turning over more than 2,000 text messages sent and received in the days leading up to and of the attack. But in December, Meadows informed the committee that he would not sit for a deposition. Scavino was held in contempt in April after declining to cooperate with Congress.

A lawyer for Meadows did not immediately return messages Friday night. Stan Brand, an attorney representing Scavino, said he had not yet received the letter from the U.S. attorney’s office, but he’d heard the news through a third party. “I’m grateful that the Justice Department exercised their discretion to decline prosecution,” Brand said.

The indictment against Navarro alleges that when summoned to appear before the committee for a deposition earlier this year, he refused to do so and instead told the panel that because Trump had invoked executive privilege, “my hands are tied.”

After committee staff told him they believed there were topics he could discuss without raising any executive privilege concerns, Navarro again refused, directing the committee to negotiate directly with lawyers for Trump, according to the indictment. The committee went ahead with its scheduled deposition on March 2, but Navarro did not attend.

The indictment, dated Thursday, came days after Navarro revealed in a court filing that he also had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury this week as part of the Justice Department’s sprawling probe into the insurrection. The subpoena to Navarro, a trade adviser to Trump, was the first known instance of prosecutors seeking testimony from someone who worked in the Trump White House as they investigate the attack.

“This was a preemptive strike by the prosecution against that lawsuit,” Navarro told Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui during his court appearance. “It simply flies in the face of good faith and due process.”

Navarro made the case in his lawsuit Tuesday that the House select committee investigating the attack is unlawful and therefore a subpoena it issued to him in February is unenforceable under law. He sued members of the committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the U.S. attorney in Washington, Matthew M. Graves, whose office is now handling the criminal case against him.

In an interview with The Associated Press this week, Navarro said the goal of his lawsuit is much broader than the subpoenas themselves, part of an effort to have “the Supreme Court address a number of issues that have come with the weaponization of Congress’ investigatory powers” since Trump entered office.

Members of the select committee sought testimony from Navarro about his efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election, including a call trying to persuade state legislators to join their efforts.

The former economics professor was one of the White House staffers who promoted Trump’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud. Trump, in turn, promoted a lengthy report Navarro released in December 2020, which Navarro falsely claimed contained evidence of the alleged misconduct and election fraud “more than sufficient” to swing victory to his former boss.

Despite the opposition from several Trump allies, the Jan. 6 panel, comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans, has managed to interview more than 1,000 witnesses about the insurrection in the past 11 months and is now preparing for a series of public hearings to begin next week. Lawmakers on the panel hope the half-dozen hearings will be a high-profile airing of the causes and consequences of the domestic attack on the U.S. government.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick conceded the Republican primary in Pennsylvania for U.S. Senate to celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, ending his campaign as he acknowledged an ongoing statewide recount wouldn’t give him enough votes to make up the deficit.

After a bitter campaign that blanketed the airwaves with millions of dollars in attack ads, McCormick issued a gracious concession Friday, vowing to help unite the party behind Oz.

“It’s now clear to me with the recount largely complete that we have a nominee,” McCormick said at a campaign party at a Pittsburgh hotel. “And today I called Mehmet Oz to congratulate him on his victory.”

McCormick’s concession cements a general election campaign between Oz, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and Democrat John Fetterman in what is expected to be one of the nation’s premier Senate contests.

Already, the national parties are sponsoring attack ads on TV in a presidential battleground state that is still roiled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election in 2020.

The result could help determine control of the closely divided chamber, and Democrats view it as perhaps their best opportunity to pick up a seat in the race to replace retiring two-term Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.

More than two weeks out from the primary election, Republicans had begun to consider a bitter primary becoming further drawn-out by a recount and lawsuits over mail-in ballots.

“I think it’ll be fine, I think there will be zero problems,” said Pat Poprik, the GOP chair in heavily populated Bucks County, where state party committee members had endorsed McCormick. “Many people I know liked both candidates, thought both were good and had to make a last-minute decision between them.”

In a statement, Oz said he was grateful for McCormick’s pledge of support.

Before the recount, Oz led McCormick by 972 votes out of 1.34 million votes counted in the May 17 primary. The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the race because an automatic recount is underway and the margin between the two candidates is just 0.07 percentage points.

Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, acknowledged earlier Friday in a statement that he nearly died when he suffered a stroke just days before his primary. He said he had ignored warning signs for years and a doctor’s advice to take blood thinners.

Oz, who is best known as the host of daytime TV’s “The Dr. Oz Show,” had to overcome a barrage of attack ads and misgivings among hard-line Trump backers about his conservative credentials on guns, abortion, transgender rights and other core Republican issues.

The 61-year-old Oz leaned on Trump’s endorsement as proof of his conservative bona fides, while Trump attacked Oz’s rivals and maintained that Oz has the best chance of winning in November in the presidential battleground state.

Oz had had little history with the Republican Party — but he had a friendship with Trump going back almost 20 years and, as Trump told him in a 2016 appearance on Oz’s show, “you know my wife’s a big fan of your show.”

Meanwhile, McCormick made Oz’s dual citizenship in Turkey an issue in the race, suggesting that Oz would be a national security risk. If elected, Oz would be the nation’s first Muslim senator.

Born in the United States, Oz served in Turkey’s military and voted in its 2018 election. Oz said he would renounce his Turkish citizenship if he won the November election, and he accused McCormick of making “bigoted” attacks.

Oz and McCormick blanketed the state’s airwaves with political ads for months, spending millions of their own money. Virtually unknown to voters four months ago, McCormick had to introduce himself to voters, and he mined Oz’s long record as a public figure for material in attack ads. He got help from a super PAC supporting him that spent $20 million.

Like McCormick, Oz moved from out of state to run in Pennsylvania.

Oz, a Harvard graduate, New York Times bestselling author and self-styled wellness advocate, lived for the past couple of decades in a mansion in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, above the Hudson River overlooking Manhattan — drawing accusations of being a carpetbagger and political tourist.

The celebrity heart surgeon stressed his connections to Pennsylvania, saying he grew up just over the state border in Delaware, went to medical school in Philadelphia and married a Pennsylvania native.

Before he ran, McCormick was something of a celebrity on Wall Street, running the world’s largest hedge fund, and had strong Republican Party establishment ties going back to his service in former President George W. Bush’s administration. His wife, Dina Powell, was a deputy national security adviser to Trump and had strong party connections as well.

McCormick had long considered running for public office, and moved from his home on Connecticut’s ritzy Gold Coast to a house in Pittsburgh before declaring his candidacy.

He stressed his connections to Pennsylvania: growing up on a farm as a high school wrestling and football star before going to West Point and fighting in the Gulf War. He also spent 10 years in Pittsburgh in business, giving him a stronger claim to Pennsylvania than Oz.

Like Oz, McCormick had worked hard to earn Trump’s endorsement, and he insisted he was the authentic “America First” candidate, invoking Trump’s nickname for his governing philosophy.

However, Trump attacked McCormick repeatedly in the campaign’s final two weeks, leading a rally for Oz where he called McCormick the “candidate of special interests and globalists and the Washington establishment.”

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Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at twitter.com/timelywriter

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics

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“The T stands for transgender,” a teacher explains in a video on a Maine Department of Education website launched during the coronavirus pandemic.

“A transgender person is someone who the doctors made a mistake about when they were born,” the teacher says in the lesson plan targeted at kindergartners. “But some people, when they get a little bit older, realize what the doctors said was not right.”

Republicans later produced an ad accusing Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who is running for reelection against GOP former Gov. Paul LePage, of using state money to create “radical school lessons.” Within hours, the lesson disappeared from the website, and Mills’ spokesperson said the governor was on board with its removal.

While most Democrats support the rights, safety and visibility of LGBTQ adults and children, they’re struggling to counter a barrage of GOP attacks on LGBTQ people, particularly transgender people. With measured responses and occasional capitulation, Democrats like Mills are aiming to avoid getting sucked further into culture wars that serve mostly to galvanize the Republican base.

But as Democrats largely avoid direct confrontations, some LGBTQ people say they feel abandoned.

“Our lives and our existence are being used as political fodder to ramp up the GOP base, and they’re not coming to our defense,” said Deja Alvarez, a transgender woman who finished third in the Democratic primary in a heavily LGBTQ state legislative district in Philadelphia. “They’re not rallying the troops and saying, ‘Hey, we can’t stand for this.’”

Democrats are hardly silent on LGBTQ issues.

As Pride month began this week, President Joe Biden tweeted his support for LGBTQ rights. He recently named Karine Jean-Pierre as the first openly gay White House press secretary and was critical of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis this year after he signed legislation to ban the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.

Even after she distanced herself from the Department of Education video, Mills released a statement this week ticking through LGBTQ-friendly legislation she has signed. She insisted that if she is reelected, Maine “will remain a safe and welcoming place to live for LGBTQ people.”

And in Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers warned that if he loses in November, Republicans will take steps to ban books, especially those with LGBTQ themes.

Evers’ approach is one activists say more Democrats should embrace this election year. They want to see candidates go beyond prepared statements celebrating Pride month and instead place LGBTQ issues more at the center of the campaign while warning of the specific consequences of Republican victories.

“These are the kinds of actions we need people to take,” Alvarez said, “but not just because it’s Pride month.”

The problem may be that even allies are not prepared to speak on the issues, which allowed the framing of LGBTQ people as a threat to catch on, said Fran Hutchins, executive director of the advocacy group Equality Federation.

In this election cycle, Republicans have zeroed in on the discussions banned by the Florida bill dubbed by opponents as “Don’t Say Gay”; the participation of transgender students in competitive sports, even though such conflicts are rare; and gender-affirming care for children.

“The root of why this is happening is a real lack of familiarity with and lack of understanding for trans folks and what it’s like to be transgender,” Hutchins said.

One notable exception has been Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic state senator from Michigan who gave an impassioned speech in response to an invocation from a Republican lawmaker who claimed McMorrow, who is running for reelection, wanted to “groom” and “sexualize” kindergarteners.

The video of McMorrow’s reaction speech and a related Twitter thread were widely celebrated, but there remains a sense — even by McMorrow — that she fell on a sword other Democrats are dodging.

“There is a difference between politics and outright hate,” she said in April, pondering the reaction to her speech. “I think people are frustrated that elected officials haven’t done enough to call that out, that maybe Democrats are afraid of talking about religion and faith openly and honestly and calling hate what it is.”

Labeling education about sexual orientation and gender identity as “grooming” connotes the methods sex offenders use to molest children, and is part of a push by conservatives to speak to parents’ fears by equating such education with pornography and pedophilia.

The teacher in the Maine video, Kailina Mills — no relation to the governor — said in a Facebook post that she has taught transgender and nonbinary preschoolers and that they deserve to be represented in the curriculum, the Portland Press Herald reported.

“Public schools are for everyone and should, therefore, include everyone,” the teacher said.

When the narrative that such issues are inappropriate or dangerous becomes embedded in the minds of voters, pushing back can indeed be politically problematic. But activists said there are larger issues to consider.

“It goes well for candidates when they stand up and say what their real values are and say what they believe about what’s really going on with legislation,” said Liz Seaton, policy director for the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund. “When they speak the truth from values, they will be speaking from their heart, and their constituents will respond.”

Annise Parker, a former Houston mayor who is now CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute, a nonpartisan organization that works on behalf of LGBTQ candidates, agreed that LGBTQ allies running for office have a responsibility to “stand up and speak out when any of those marginalized communities are attacked.”

Political observers and activists noted parallels in today’s rhetoric with that around same-sex marriage in the 1990s and 2000s.

It was only 10 years ago that former President Barack Obama — on the heels of Biden, his vice president — endorsed same-sex marriage. That was 16 years after another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, signed the law that blocked it.

Both presidents were running for reelection and may have been hostages to public opinion, which by Obama’s time had swung the other way. Same-sex marriage soon became legal throughout the United States, and the public now sees the sky didn’t fall as predicted, advocates said.

But now “conservative forces are using the tactics of ‘othering’ us very effectively again … and they are making trans activists look radical when all they’re looking for is the right to exist,” said Jonathan Lovitz, a gay man who ran against Alvarez and other candidates in last month’s Democratic primary in Philadelphia and placed second.

A poll released in April by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that overall, Americans lean slightly toward expanding discussions of sexuality in K-12 classrooms. And some observers say it’s only a matter of time before today’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric stops working in Republicans’ favor.

Lovitz encouraged Democrats to set aside political concerns as LGBTQ people feel increasingly targeted.

“Be a vocal and visible ally even if it costs you endorsements and donations. Stand up for what you believe in; otherwise you’re not an elected official, you’re just a weather vane,” he said. “We don’t need fair-weather friends right now.”

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Follow Jeff McMillan at http://twitter.com/jeffmcmillanpa.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — When Philadelphia’s election board prepared to count ballots last year that were mailed in without the voter’s handwritten date, Republicans threatened impeachment. Now a GOP Senate candidate wants counties to embrace the same approach.

In a last-ditch bid to close a roughly 900-vote gap with Dr. Mehmet Oz, former hedge fund CEO David McCormick is pressing for undated mail-in ballots to be counted. The Senate Republican primary is still too close to call, now more than two weeks after Pennsylvania’s primary election, and the mail-in vote, which has favored McCormick, could help him.

McCormick insists he simply wants every Republican vote to be counted in a contest that will decide the GOP nominee for one of this year’s most closely watched Senate races. But in calling for undated mail-in ballots to be counted, McCormick is putting the GOP in an uncomfortable spot after the party has spent the better part of two years deriding such votes as “illegal” alongside a broader embrace of former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 campaign.

“Now it looks like we could be OK for something if it impacts the race in a way you want it to go,” said Mike Barley, a Republican campaign strategist in Pennsylvania who does not have a candidate in the Senate race.

The national and state party are fighting McCormick in state courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court could resolve the matter any day now. In any case, most Republicans believe McCormick is out of luck and will be unable to make up the votes in a recount, regardless of whether undated ballots are counted.

More registered Democrats vote by mail in Pennsylvania than do registered Republicans, possibly as a result of Trump’s baseless smearing of mail-in voting as rife with fraud.

Until now, Republican Party leaders had been solidly unified behind the idea that ballots without a voter’s handwritten date on the envelope must be thrown out.

The law, they reasoned, is clear on that point — even if that handwritten date on a ballot envelope plays no role in determining whether a voter is eligible or whether a ballot is cast on time.

Then, three days after the May 17 primary election, a federal appeals court ruled in a case stemming from a local judicial election last year that throwing out such ballots violates federal civil rights law.

As he tries to find the votes to overtake the Trump-endorsed Oz, McCormick has argued that “every Republican vote should count,” and, in court, his lawyer, Charles Cooper, told a state judge that the object of Pennsylvania’s election law is to let people vote, “not to play games of gotcha with them.”

McCormick’s pursuit has served up a sort of whiplash for Republicans, who had threatened to impeach Philadelphia election officials last year after they moved to count such ballots and accused state judges of stealing a state Senate seat in 2020 when they ruled that the ballots could be counted in that year’s election.

This time around, however, Republicans aren’t blasting judges or threatening to impeach the county election boards that are counting the ballots.

“Not at this point, because it’s still in litigation,” said Republican state Rep. Seth Grove, who chairs the committee that writes election-related legislation.

In court, the Republican National Committee and the state Republican Party have opposed McCormick. The party, however, is not unified in that effort.

For instance, the Butler County Republican Party, which endorsed McCormick, hasn’t taken a side in the fight, said county GOP chair Al Lindsay.

Counties that already counted the undated ballots, without being forced, include Republican counties, both big and small.

Sam DeMarco, the Republican Party chair in heavily populated Allegheny County, said he’s not aware that Republicans have actually changed their mind about the law.

Rather, he has heard griping from Republicans about McCormick “because they think this is what the Democrats would do.”

In any case, it is probably better to get the fight out of the way in a Republican primary, rather than leave it for the general election, he said.

“I just want to get a definitive ruling and, personally I’m happy it’s happening now, in a primary, rather than in November, where the actual seat would be up for grabs,” DeMarco said.

The winner of the GOP primary will face Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in November.

Barley, the campaign strategist, said the perception that the party has shifted its stance — or that some Republicans have, anyway — sets a dangerous precedent.

“What happens in November if it doesn’t go your way and then you don’t want them counted?” he asked.

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

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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at twitter.com/ap_politics.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Parents of victims killed in recent mass shootings in New York and Texas as well as a fourth grader who survived last week’s attack will speak before a U.S. House panel next week as Congress weighs potential new laws to curb gun violence.

The mother of one of the 10 killed at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, last month as well as the parents of one of 19 students gunned down at an Uvalde, Texas, school will testify at the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s hearing on June 8, the panel said in a statement on Friday.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Richard Cowan; Editing by Katharine Jackson)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro was indicted Friday on contempt charges after defying a subpoena from the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro is former President Donald Trump’s second aide to be charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6, 2021, investigation, His arrest comes months after former White House adviser Steve Bannon.

Navarro, 72, was charged with one contempt count for failing to appear for a deposition before the House committee. The second charge is for failing to produce documents the committee requested. He was taken into federal custody Friday morning and was expected to appear in federal court in Washington later in the afternoon.

The indictment underscores that the Justice Department is continuing to pursue criminal charges against Trump associates who have attempted to impede or stonewall the work of congressional investigators examining the most significant attack on U.S. democracy in decades.

The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland have faced pressure to move more quickly to decide whether to prosecute other Trump aides who have similarly defied subpoenas from the House panel.

The indictment alleges that Navarro, when summoned to appear before the committee for a deposition, refused to do so and instead told the panel that because Trump had invoked executive privilege, “my hands are tied.”

After committee staff told him they believed there were topics he could discuss without raising any executive privilege concerns, Navarro again refused, directing the committee to negotiate directly with lawyers for Trump, according to the indictment. The committee went ahead with its scheduled deposition on March 2, but Navarro did not attend.

The indictment came days after Navarro revealed in a court filing that he also had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury this week as part of the Justice Department’s sprawling probe into the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Navarro, who was a trade adviser to Trump, said he was served the subpoena by the FBI at his Washington, D.C., home last week. The subpoena was the first known instance of prosecutors seeking testimony from someone who worked in the Trump White House as they investigate the attack.

Navarro made the case in his lawsuit Tuesday that the House select committee investigating the attack is unlawful and therefore a subpoena it issued to him in February is unenforceable under law.

He filed the suit against members of the committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the U.S. attorney in Washington, Matthew M. Graves, whose office is now handling the criminal case against him.

In an interview with The Associated Press this week, Navarro said the goal of his lawsuit is much broader than the subpoenas themselves, part of an effort to have “the Supreme Court address a number of issues that have come with the weaponization of Congress’ investigatory powers” since Trump entered office.

Members of the select committee sought testimony from Navarro about his public efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election, including a call trying to persuade state legislators to join their efforts.

The former economics professor was one of the White House staffers who promoted Trump’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud. He released a report in December 2020 that he contended contained evidence of the alleged misconduct.

Navarro has refused to cooperate with the committee, and he and fellow Trump adviser Dan Scavino were found in contempt of Congress in April. Scavino has not been charged by the Justice Department at this point.

Members of the committee made their case at the time that Scavino and Navarro were among just a handful of people who had rebuffed the committee’s requests and subpoenas for information.

The panel has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses about the insurrection and is preparing for a series of hearings to begin next week.

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By James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fed-up Democrats in San Francisco and Los Angeles, liberal-leaning California cities reeling from COVID-era spikes in homicides and gun violence, may punish their own party at the polls next week over its criminal justice policies.

San Francisco’s progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin, is likely to be pushed out of office in a recall vote, while voters in Los Angeles will be choosing a new mayor – with an ex-Republican as a leading candidate.

The results could send a blinking-red warning to Democrats ahead of November’s midterm elections.

In congressional and local races across the United States, Republicans have seized upon calls by progressives to reduce police department budgets and other liberal criminal justice policies to paint almost all Democratic candidates as lenient on crime.

Democrats have struggled to formulate a persuasive rebuttal, even as a new wave of moderates, such as New York Mayor Eric Adams, has urged them to take a more tough-on-crime approach.

In April, the pollster Gallup found concern over crime was at its highest level since 2016, with 53% of Americans saying they worried “a great deal” about it. An ABC/Washington Post poll in May showed Americans trusted the Republican Party over Democrats to handle crime by 12 percentage points.

But focus groups also show Americans increasingly worried about the proliferation of firearms. That is an issue that Democratic consultants said the party’s candidates could hone in on, shoring up their support with suburban and Black voters by explicitly tying lax gun laws to surges in crime.

“It is absolutely something Democrats can and should be using to combat against the increasing narrative of their being soft on crime,” said Angela Kuefler, a strategist who advises Democratic candidates on gun issues.

Kuefler noted there is widespread public support for enhanced background checks of gun purchasers and actions to decrease the flow of illegal guns into cities.

A series of mass shootings – including last week’s at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two teachers dead – has reignited the U.S. debate over policing and guns.

President Joe Biden has tried to balance a push for changes in policing from the more radical wing of his party with voters’ concerns about security. An executive order last week, for instance, established guidelines for the use of deadly force by federal law enforcement officers.

Boudin, on the other hand, embraced a strong progressive agenda in San Francisco – and appears to be paying the price.

COVID CHAOS

Boudin was elected in San Francisco in 2019 after pledging a series of reforms, saying he would not try juveniles as adults, would not push for sentencing enhancements for certain crimes that can add years to prison sentences, and would not seek cash bail for any defendant.

He largely followed through on his promises, which also included diverting low-level offenders away from incarceration to reduce the city’s jail population.

But after the pandemic began, the city saw increases in homicides, gun violence and property crime. Hate crimes against Asian Americans rose. Videos of large-scale “smash and grab” retail theft went viral.

Residents, including some deep-pocketed Republicans, blamed Boudin’s policies and launched a recall petition.

“It is a radical ideology that has upset everyone: left, right, gay, straight, young, old, male or female,” said Richie Greenberg, a local independent activist and spokesperson for the recall effort.

Boudin’s supporters say robberies and other crimes shifted from tourist areas to residential ones as a result of the pandemic, creating the perception of a crime surge. They point to data that shows a more nuanced reality, with assaults and rapes decreasing during the period, even as homicides and shootings increased.

Still, said Lara Bazelon, a law professor at the University of San Francisco and a Boudin defender, “People are feeling less safe regardless of what the stats say.”

Opinion polls show Boudin likely to be recalled on Tuesday. A replacement would be chosen by the city’s mayor, London Breed, a Democrat who has criticized Boudin but has not taken a stance on the recall.

In Los Angeles, Rick Caruso, a billionaire developer and former Republican, is battling U.S. Representative Karen Bass and a host of other liberal candidates in the mayoral election.

Caruso, who has spent more than $30 million of his own money in the campaign, made crime the centerpiece of his candidacy in a city that saw homicides reach a 15-year high in 2021. That forced Bass, a longtime progressive champion in Congress, to move to the center and pledge to put more police on the streets. Caruso and Bass could be headed to a runoff, polls show.

Republicans think crime could be a winning political issue in a number of congressional races, including in the suburbs of Minneapolis, New York City and Portland.

The party has already gone after Democratic Senate candidates in battleground states on crime, with Cheri Beasley in North Carolina an early target.

Republican-funded TV ads have assailed Beasley’s record, saying in one that she “failed to protect” child crime victims. Beasley, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, on Twitter called the ad “misleading” and warned more were to come.

She answered with an ad of her own, touting her efforts as chief justice to keep human traffickers off the streets.

“I’ll never stop fighting to make North Carolina safe,” she says.

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Rosalba O’Brien)

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By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Declaring “Enough, enough!” U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday called on Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other gun control measures to address a string of mass shootings that have struck the United States.

Speaking from the White House, in a speech broadcast live in primetime, Biden asked a country stunned by the recent shootings at a school in Texas, a grocery store in New York and a medical building in Oklahoma, how many more lives it would take to change gun laws in America.

“For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Biden asked.

Biden described visiting Uvalde, Texas, where the school shooting took place. “I couldn’t help but think there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields, here in America.”

The president, a Democrat, called for a number of measures opposed by Republicans in Congress, including banning the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, or, if that were not possible, raising the minimum age to buy those weapons to 21 from 18. He also pressed for repealing the liability shield that protects gun manufacturers from being sued for violence perpetrated by people carrying their guns.

“We can’t fail the American people again,” Biden said, pressing Republicans particularly in the U.S. Senate to allow bills with gun control measures to come up for a vote.

Biden said if Congress did not act, he believed Americans would make the issue central when they vote in November mid-term elections.

The National Rifle Association gun lobby said in a statement that Biden’s proposals would infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. “This isn’t a real solution, it isn’t true leadership, and it isn’t what America needs,” it said.

The United States, which has a higher rate of gun deaths than any other wealthy nation, has been shaken in recent weeks by the mass shootings of 10 Black residents in upstate New York, 19 children and two teachers in Texas, and two doctors, a receptionist and a patient in Oklahoma.

Lawmakers are looking at measures to expand background checks and pass “red flag” laws that would allow law enforcement officials to take guns away from people suffering from mental illness. But any new measures face steep hurdles from Republicans, particularly in the Senate, and moves to ban assault weapons do not have enough support to advance.

The U.S. Constitution’s second amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms. Biden said that amendment was not “absolute” while adding that new measures he supported were not aimed at taking away people’s guns.

“After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland, nothing has been done,” Biden said, ticking off a list of mass shootings over more than two decades. “This time that can’t be true.”

PLEA FROM GRIEVING GRANDMOTHER

Gun safety advocates have pushed Biden to take stronger measures on his own to curb gun violence, but the White House wants Congress to pass legislation that would have more lasting impact than any presidential order.

Biden’s evening address was aimed in part at keeping the issue at the forefront of voters’ minds. The president has made only a handful of evening speeches from the White House during his term, including one on the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and one about the Texas shooting last week.

More than 18,000 people have died from gun violence in the United States so far in 2022, including through homicide and suicide, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research group.

Canada, Australia and Britain all passed stricter gun laws after mass shootings in their countries, banning assault weapons and increasing background checks. America has experienced years of massacres in schools, stores and places of work and worship without any such legislation.

A broad majority of American voters, both Republicans and Democrats, favor stronger gun control laws, but Republicans in Congress and some moderate Democrats have blocked such legislation for years.

Prices of shares in gun manufacturers rose on Thursday. Efforts to advance gun control measures have boosted firearm share prices after other mass shootings as investors anticipated that gun purchases would increase ahead of stricter regulations.

In the aftermath of the Texas shooting, Biden urged the country to take on the powerful pro-gun lobby that backs politicians who oppose such legislation.

The Senate is split, with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, and a law must have 60 votes to overcome a maneuver known as the filibuster, which means any law would need rare bipartisan support.

“The only room in America where you can’t find more than 60% support for universal background checks is on the floor of the U.S. Senate,” said Christian Heyne, vice president for policy at Brady, a gun violence prevention group.

While Biden and Congress explore compromises, the Supreme Court is due to decide a major case that could undermine new efforts to enact gun control measures while making existing ones vulnerable to legal attack.

Biden said he received a handwritten note from a grandmother who had lost her granddaughter in Uvalde that read: “Erase the invisible line that is dividing our nation. Come up with a solution and fix what’s broken and make the changes that are necessary to prevent this from happening again.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Heather Timmons, Mary Milliken, Leslie Adler and Michael Perry)

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