Politics

ATLANTA (AP) — Prosecutors investigating whether Donald Trump committed crimes as he sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia are running into increasing resistance as they seek to call witnesses to testify before a special grand jury.

The latest illustration of that came Wednesday, when lawyers for Republican Gov. Brian Kemp filed a motion to quash a subpoena for his testimony, accusing the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, of pursuing his testimony for “improper political purposes.” Willis rejected that characterization, describing it as dishonest.

Kemp is just one of several witnesses who have pushed back against Willis’ attempt to compel their testimony in a case investigating potential criminal interference in an election. Late Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham formally appealed a judge’s order requiring him to testify before the special grand jury on Aug. 23. And John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who aided Trump’s efforts to undo the 2020 election results, has also pushed back against his subpoena, with a judge in New Mexico on Wednesday rejecting his request and ordering him to travel to Atlanta to testify before the special grand jury.

The witnesses’ reluctance to testify in the case reflects the high stakes of the investigation, which is just one of a long list of serious legal threats that Trump is facing that have intensified in recent weeks. It also demonstrates the power that Trump continues to wield over the Republican Party as he prepares for an expected 2024 presidential campaign.

Willis opened the investigation early last year, prompted by a January 2021 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. During that conversation, Trump suggested the state’s top elections official could “find” the exact number of votes that would be needed to flip the election results in Georgia. Denying wrongdoing, Trump has described the call as “perfect.”

About a month earlier, Trump had called Kemp, asking him to order a special legislative session to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.

Kemp was scheduled to be questioned under oath by Willis’ team on July 25 in a session that was to be recorded and later played for the special grand jury. Asked by The Associated Press later that day to confirm that the governor had appeared for that meeting, Kemp spokesperson Katie Byrd declined to comment, citing “respect for the grand jury process.”

As it turns out, Kemp never met with Willis’ team.

His lawyers wrote in their motion Wednesday that Willis’ team canceled that meeting and issued a subpoena after Kemp’s attorneys asked about the scope of the interview.

Correspondence attached to the motion indicates that communications between Brian McEvoy, a lawyer for the governor, and the district attorney’s office turned sour in mid-June and then fell apart in late July.

In an email calling the investigation “politically motivated,” McEvoy said Kemp would only sit for the interview if Willis’ office agreed not to issue a subpoena for his testimony. He also demanded disclosure of questions and topics beforehand and said neither party could record the interview.

Willis issued a scathing response, accusing McEvoy of being rude to her team and calling his email “offensive and beneath an officer of the court.” She said she had offered the taped interview as a courtesy, but that that offer was now “off the table” and the governor would be subpoenaed.

“There’s an old adage that people take kindness for weakness. You have taken my kindness as weakness and you have continually treated this investigation with disdain,” Willis wrote. “Despite your disdain this investigation continues and will not be derailed by anyone’s antics.”

Kemp’s subpoena called for him to appear before the special grand jury Thursday. Byrd said in an email that he had been excused from appearing pending a ruling on his motion to quash. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, has set an Aug. 25 hearing on the motion.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Wednesday, Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer ruled that Eastman was a material witness and had not proved that traveling to Atlanta would cause an undue hardship for him. Rejecting arguments from Eastman’s lawyer, she said any concerns about attorney-client privilege and his right to assert the Fifth Amendment should be addressed by the judge in Atlanta.

Eastman had told lawmakers during a Dec. 3, 2020, legislative committee hearing at the Georgia Capitol that they had “both the lawful authority and a ‘duty’ to replace” the certified Democratic presidential electors, citing unfounded claims of widespread election fraud in the state, Willis wrote in a court filing.

He also drafted at least two memos to the Trump campaign and others detailing a plan by which then-Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the U.S. Senate, could refuse to count some of the electoral votes won by Biden, Willis wrote.

And in South Carolina on Wednesday, Graham appealed a judge’s Monday order requiring him to testify before the special grand jury. Prosecutors have indicated they’re interested in phone calls he made to Raffensperger and his staff in the weeks following the election.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will consider Graham’s request. Graham’s legal team also asked a federal judge to put his special grand jury appearance on hold during the appeal process.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C. Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M., contributed to this report.

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Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

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More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday announced criminal charges against 20 people for illegally voting in 2020, the first major public move from the Republican’s controversial new election police unit.

The charges mark the opening salvo from the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which from its conception drew widespread criticism from Democrats and voting rights groups who feared the unit would serve as a political tool for the governor.

DeSantis said the people charged were convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense and therefore exempt from a constitutional amendment that restores voting rights to some felons. He said most of those charged were from Broward, Miami-Dade or Palm Beach counties, all Democratic strongholds. He released few details.

The 20 people were among more than 11 million Florida voters who cast ballots in the 2020 election.

“They did not go through any process, they did not get their rights restored, and yet they went ahead and voted anyways,” DeSantis said at a campaign-style event in Fort Lauderdale before cheering supporters. “That is against the law and now they’re gonna pay the price for it.”

DeSantis, an ascendant Republican and potential 2024 presidential candidate, pushed the state legislature to create the election police unit to address voter fraud concerns that have proliferated in the GOP following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that his reelection was stolen.

Voter fraud is rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. An Associated Press investigation of the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where Trump and his allies disputed his loss to Democratic President Joe Biden. DeSantis has previously praised Florida for carrying out a smooth election in 2020.

The Office of Election Crimes and Security was created as part of a voting law package approved by the GOP-controlled Legislature earlier this year. The unit reviews fraud allegations and conducts preliminary investigations, with the law requiring the governor to appoint a group of special officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to pursue alleged violations.

Preexisting state law had allowed the governor to appoint officers to investigate violations of election law but did not require him to do so.

Peter Antonacci, a former Broward County Supervisor of Elections tapped by DeSantis to lead the election police unit, said more voter fraud charges were coming. Antonacci said he is “certain” there were illegal votes cast in a recent Broward County congressional election decided by five votes. He provided no additional details.

“You’ll see more of these actions, and you’ll see more of these actions until the people who are behind it quit promoting it and the people that want to take risks know that there is a downside risk to voting when you’re not eligible to vote,” he said.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, a Democrat running for governor, said DeSantis’ announcement was meant “to intimidate voters and suppress turnout in the most Democratic counties in Florida.”

“Everybody wants elections to be secure, but Ron DeSantis — who has never refuted Donald Trump’s Big Lie— is the last person we can trust with ‘election police,’” she said.

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday said he is leaning toward releasing some of the evidence presented by the U.S. Justice Department to justify its search of Donald Trump’s Florida home last week, in a case pitting news organizations against federal prosecutors.

Despite objections by the Justice Department, U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said he believes “there are portions of the affidavit that could be unsealed,” referring to the sworn statement laying out the evidence for why there was probable cause to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

He ordered the Justice Department to file a redacted version of the affidavit under seal by noon next Thursday, but said prosecutors will be given the opportunity to appeal if they don’t agree with his proposed version.

Reinhart’s order seemed to mark a victory for news outlets, who appeared in federal court in West Palm Beach on Thursday to persuade the judge that the public interest in the affidavit outweighs the benefits of keeping it sealed.

The search marked a significant escalation in one of the many federal and state investigations Trump is facing from his time in office and in private business. The Republican former president has suggested he might run for the White House again in 2024, but has not made any commitment.

The Justice Department opposes the release of the Mar-a-Lago affidavit, even in redacted form.

Jay Bratt, the head of the department’s counterintelligence and export control section, told the judge on Thursday that releasing the affidavit is not in the public interest because it could harm the ongoing probe, which he described as still being in the “early” stages and involving highly sensitive grand jury material.

“There is another public interest at stake and that is the public interest that criminal investigations are able to go forward unimpeded,” he said.

The search, which was approved by Reinhart on Aug. 5, is part of a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally removed documents when he left office in January 2021 after losing the presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.

The Justice Department is investigating violations of three laws, including a provision in the Espionage Act that prohibits the possession of national defense information and another statute that makes it a crime to knowingly destroy, conceal or falsify records with the intent to obstruct an investigation.

Attorneys for several media outlets including The New York Times, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, ABC News and NBC News told Reinhart on Thursday that the public’s right to know and the historic significance of the search outweigh any arguments to keep the records sealed.

“The public could not have a more compelling interest in ensuring maximum transparency over this event,” said Charles Tobin, one of the attorneys arguing for the media companies.

Trump has vocally made statements on social media calling on

the court to unseal the unredacted version.

However, his attorneys have not filed any such requests with the court seeking to unseal the records, which are likely to contain damaging information about Trump.

Christina Bobb, the Trump attorney who signed the warrant materials on the day of the Aug. 8 search, appeared in the courtroom on Thursday to watch the proceedings.

She left without making any statements to reporters.

The former president has repeatedly claimed the search was politically motivated, and his son Eric Trump told Fox News that his father intends to release surveillance tape showing the FBI searching Mar-a-Lago “at the right time.”

Trump has also tried to defend his actions, saying without providing evidence that he had a standing order to declassify the documents in question.

However, none of the three laws cited by the Justice Department in the search warrant require a showing that the documents were in fact classified.

Threats directed at FBI agents have increased since the raid.

In Ohio last week, police shot an armed man dead after he tried to breach an FBI building. A second man in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, has since been charged with making threats against FBI agents.

Bratt said on Thursday that the two agents whose names appeared on a leaked copy of the unredacted warrant have also since received threats.

In addition, he said, the department “is very concerned about the safety of the witnesses in the case.”

Reinhart has also faced a barrage of criticism from Trump’s supporters, who have publicly assailed his decision to approve the search warrant.

Trump’s rhetoric against the FBI has caught on with Republican voters, 54% of whom say federal law enforcement officials behaved irresponsibly in the case, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found this week.

The FBI seized boxes containing 11 sets of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, some of which were labeled “top secret” – the highest level of classification reserved for the most closely held U.S. national security information.

Such documents usually are typically kept in special government facilities because disclosure could cause grave damage to national security.

Reinhart on Thursday also granted a request to unseal procedural records tied to the warrant, including the cover sheet and the government’s motion to seal the warrant. The cover sheet said the Justice Department is investigating the “willful” retention of national defense information, as well as the concealment or removal of government records and the obstruction of a federal investigation.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; additional reporting by Christopher Gallagher; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday he would consider testifying before the House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol if he were to receive an invitation.

Aides to Pence told the panel in June that former President Donald Trump pressured the then-vice president to overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Pence has said he believes Trump was wrong to believe the vice president had the power to reverse the outcome of the election, whose results were being certified by Pence and lawmakers when the Capitol came under attack.

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

One of Pence’s senior aides has testified to the committee, and his top staffer at the time, Marc Short, testified before a federal grand jury investigating the attack. The committee, however, has not publicly extended an invitation to Pence.

Speaking at an event in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Pence said he would give any invitation to testify “due consideration.”

“Any invitation that would be directed to me, I would have to reflect on the unique role I was serving in as vice president,” Pence told people gathered for a “Politics & Eggs” breakfast at New Hampshire’s Saint Anselm College.

A Jan. 6 committee spokesperson did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment. Members of the committee said in June they were considering whether to compel Pence to testify.

Pence said on Wednesday it “would be unprecedented in history for a vice president to be summoned to testify on Capitol Hill.”

The U.S. Senate website shows that Schuyler Colfax voluntarily appeared before a House select committee in January 1873 while vice president to Ulysses S. Grant from 1869-1873.

At least six current and former presidents have also testified before congressional committees, the website shows.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Howard Goller)

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By Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) – A longtime senior executive at former President Donald Trump’s family business is expected to plead guilty on Thursday to conspiring with the company in a 15-year tax fraud.

Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer at the Trump Organization, is expected to enter his plea before Justice Juan Merchan in a New York state court in Manhattan.

He is not expected to cooperate with Manhattan prosecutors, including in a larger probe of Trump himself, though he could be required to testify against the Trump Organization at trial, a person familiar with the matter said.

A grand jury last year indicted Weisselberg, 75, for concealing $1.76 million of “off-the-books” income.

That included rent for a Manhattan apartment, lease payments for two Mercedes-Benz vehicles, and tuition for family members, with Trump himself signing the checks for the tuition.

Weisselberg will likely be sentenced to five months in jail and could be freed after about 100 days, another person familiar with the matter said.

That’s far shorter than the many years in state prison he could face if, rather than pleading guilty, he were convicted at trial of the charges against him, which include grand larceny, scheming to defraud, conspiracy, tax fraud, and falsifying business records.

Weisselberg is expected to plead guilty to all the charges he faces, the second person said.

A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment. A lawyer for Weisselberg and a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization declined comment.

Last Friday, Merchan denied defense motions to dismiss the indictment, rejecting arguments that the defendants had been “selectively prosecuted” and that Weisselberg was targeted because he would not turn on his longtime boss.

Trump’s company manages golf clubs, hotels and other real estate around the world.

The company has pleaded not guilty, and could face fines and other penalties if convicted at trial.

Jury selection begins on Oct. 24, fifteen days before the Nov. 8 midterm election, where Trump’s Republican Party hopes to recapture both houses of Congress from Democrats.

Trump has not been charged, and has yet to say whether he plans another White House run in 2024.

Weisselberg has worked for Trump for about a half-century.

He gave up the CFO job after he and the Trump Organization were indicted in July 2021, but remains on Trump’s payroll as a senior adviser.

The indictment arose from an investigation by former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, but lost steam after Bragg became district attorney in January.

Two prosecutors who had been leading the investigation resigned in February, with one saying felony charges should be brought against Trump, but that Bragg indicated he had doubts.

Trump faces many other legal battles.

Last week, FBI agents searched the former U.S. president’s home for classified and other documents from his time in office.

Two days later, Trump was deposed in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil probe into his business but repeatedly refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment U.S. Constitutional right against self-incrimination.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)

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(Reuters) – Federal prosecutors examining the role of former President Donald Trump and allies in events ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have subpoenaed National Archives documents provided to a House of Representatives committee, the New York Times reported.

The subpoena was issued in May, sought “all materials, in whatever form” that were given to lawmakers and was signed by the prosecutor leading the Justice Department’s inquiry, according to the report.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to an out-of-hours request for comment from Reuters.

The select committee investigating the Capitol assault asked for multiple records from the National Archives including photographs, videos, communications, calendars, schedules, movement logs and visitor records among other files.

Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

The onslaught on the Capitol by Trump supporters led to several deaths, injured more than 140 police officers and delayed certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory over Republican Trump in the November 2020 election.

Trump falsely claims his election defeat was the result of fraud.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; editing by Grant McCool)

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By Maria Alejandra Cardona

ATLANTA (Reuters) -Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s onetime personal lawyer, testified before a special grand jury in Atlanta on Wednesday in a Georgia criminal probe examining attempts by the former U.S. president and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results.

Giuliani, who helped lead Trump’s election challenges, spent more than six hours in the Fulton County courthouse after a judge ordered him to comply with a subpoena. His lawyers, who declined to comment on his testimony, said he would refuse to answer questions that violate attorney-client privilege.

The former New York City mayor, 78, appeared before Georgia state lawmakers in December 2020, echoing Trump’s false conspiracy theories about stolen ballots and urging them not to certify Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory over the Republican Trump.

“It’s a grand jury and grand juries, as I recall, are secret,” Giuliani told CNN on his arrival at the courthouse, when asked to comment on his testimony. “They ask the questions and we’ll see.”

Giuliani left the courthouse through one of the building’s side entrances, local media in Atlanta reported.

“We were ordered to be here, we showed up, we did what we have to do,” said Giuliani’s lawyer, Bill Thomas. “The special grand jury process is a secret process, and we’re gonna respect that process.”

The Fulton County probe began after a January 2021 recorded phone call in which Trump urged the state’s top election official to “find” enough votes to alter the outcome. The former president has asserted falsely that he won Georgia, as well as the 2020 presidential contest.

The special grand jury was convened in May at the request of county District Attorney Fani Willis.

Giuliani, a former crime-fighting U.S. Attorney, was among several Trump advisers and lawyers who received subpoenas from the grand jury last month, including U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

(Writing by Rami Ayyub, editing by Ross Colvin, Howard Goller and Deepa Babington)

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — When the U.S. Supreme Court repealed in June a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, Wisconsin’s 1849 law that bans the procedure except when a mother’s life is at risk became newly relevant.

Republicans in the Legislature blocked an attempt by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to overturn the law. Yet there’s disagreement inside the GOP over how to move forward when they return to the state Capitol in January.

The state’s powerful Republican Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, supports reinforcing the exception for a mother’s life and adding protections for instances involving rape and incest. Others, including GOP state Rep. Barbara Dittrich, say the law should stay as it is, without exceptions for rape and incest.

For decades, Republicans like Vos and Dittrich appealed to conservative voters — and donors — with broad condemnation of abortion. But the Supreme Court’s decision is forcing Republicans from state legislatures to Congress to the campaign trail to articulate more specifically what that opposition means, sometimes creating division over where the party should stand.

Dittrich says consensus among her Republican colleagues on an alternative to the 1849 law would be a “tremendous challenge.”

“We once heard that the Democrats were the big-tent party,” she said in an interview. “Now I would say the Republican Party is more the big-tent party on some of these issues.”

Of course, supporters of abortion rights are now a distinct minority in Republican politics. Just two GOP members of Congress — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — publicly support passing legislation to reinstate the protections of a woman’s right to choose that the Supreme Court struck down in overruling Roe v. Wade. In Colorado, U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea is the rare Republican running this year who backs codifying Roe.

But the debate over even a limited set of circumstances in which abortion could be legal spurred some division within the GOP in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

In Indiana, after a decade of stalled legislation on abortion, empowered Republicans passed the first near-total abortion ban since the Supreme Court ruling. But even that measure drew dissent within the GOP. Exemptions for rape and incest up to 10 weeks prevailed after 50 Republicans joined with all Democrats to include them.

Still, 18 Republicans voted against final passage of the bill, with roughly half saying the bill went too far and the rest saying it was too weak.

In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republicans have spent decades curtailing abortion access and there is ongoing discussion about a near-total ban. But some in the legislature voiced concern about pushing the current six-week ban further and urged deceleration, particularly after seeing voters in Kansas spike a ballot measure that would have allowed the legislature there to ban abortion.

“It’s like you are playing with live ammunition right now,” Republican Rep. Tom Davis told The Associated Press.

The Supreme Court ruling paved the way for severe abortion restrictions or bans in nearly half the states. Nine states currently have laws banning abortion from conception, with three more — Tennessee, Idaho and Texas — set to take effect on Aug. 25. Three states — Georgia, South Carolina and Ohio — have laws banning abortion when fetal cardiac activity is detected, at about six weeks. Florida’s law bans abortion at 15 weeks, and Arizona’s will as of Sep. 24.

Some experts say the inconsistency among Republicans about how to move forward underscores how new the debate is — and how unprepared the party was for it.

“Historically, GOP candidates and policy makers were in a politically convenient spot when it came to being ‘pro-life,’” University of Denver political science professor Joshua Wilson told the AP in an email.

Until Roe was overturned, Republican-controlled states could introduce legislation to dismantle abortion access, knowing that federal courts bound by the law at the time would block the most aggressive regulations. That and the issue’s lower salience among Democratic and moderate voters, Wilson noted, “were linked guardrails against political backlash.”

The rejected ballot measure in Kansas surprised advocates on both sides, not only because it was defeated by a 20-percentage-point margin but also because turnout surged, driven by voters who weren’t participating in the Republican primary. Prioritization of abortion and women’s rights is growing among abortion rights supporters, and Democrats are seeking to capitalize on the shift by campaigning on the issue and pushing for ballot measures in other states.

Polling shows the most extreme anti-abortion laws are at odds with the American public and even most Republicans.

The July AP-NORC poll showed Republicans are largely opposed to abortion “for any reason” and at 15 weeks into a pregnancy. But only 16% of Republicans say abortion generally should be “illegal in all cases.”

Most Republicans said their state should generally allow a pregnant person to obtain a legal abortion if the child would be born with a life-threatening illness (61%), the person became pregnant as the result of rape or incest (77%) or if the person’s health is seriously endangered (85%).

A majority of Republicans, 56%, also said their state should generally allow abortion at six weeks into a pregnancy.

GOP politicians may begin to face pressure to satisfy their base’s most conservative anti-abortion opponents — they want total abortion bans — and the moderate or independent voter, who is more accepting of abortion at early points in the pregnancy and in extenuating circumstances.

That’s led some candidates to pivot from hard-line positions in their primaries to more diffuse rhetoric ahead of their general election in purple states. In Arizona, the Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, who said during the primary that “abortion is the ultimate sin” and abortion pills should be outlawed, punted to the Legislature when asked about the specifics of abortion policy after she won.

When he was running to be Georgia Republicans’ nominee for the U.S. Senate, Herschel Walker was unequivocal in his support for an outright abortion ban with no exceptions. Now that he is the nominee running in a tight general election contest, he’s more circumspect. When asked plainly whether he’d vote for an absolute prohibition in a Republican-controlled Senate, Walker demurred.

“That’s an ‘if,’” Walker said, telling reporters he won’t entertain such a hypothetical scenario “right now.”

Back in Wisconsin, Evers, who is up for reelection this year, has consistently vetoed anti-abortion legislation brought forth in recent years by the Republican legislature. The Republican candidate for governor, Tim Michels, who won the Republican primary last week, said during his campaign that the state’s 1849 law is “an exact mirror” of his position; he doesn’t support exceptions for rape or incest.

The July AP-NORC poll showed 55% of moderate and liberal Republicans said abortion in general should be legal in all or most cases and 39% said abortion should be illegal in most cases. Just 5% said abortion should be illegal in all cases.

But even among conservative Republicans, only 24% say abortion should be illegal in all cases; 60% of conservative Republicans said abortion should be illegal in most cases.

The subject is increasingly the focus of ads for Democratic candidates for the U.S. House and Senate this summer, while it’s tapered off in ads for Republican candidates, according to analysis by the Wesleyan Media Project. Democrats are painting Republicans as extreme on abortion, hoping to see the issue win over voters in the midterm elections.

“If we want to be relevant to the debate, there’s got to be some negotiation. If we draw a hard line, we may be on the outside looking in in legislative chambers and in Congress,” said Republican strategist Jason Roe.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said the overturning of Roe democratizes the process of regulating abortion and it’s up to each state to come to a consensus “where it’s very likely that the true believers on both sides will not get what they want,” she said.

Still, to Dannenfelser, “every single law that’s passed is a gain for the pro-life movement because for almost 50 years, we had nothing,” she said. “It’s more than we had, and so that’s how I look at it.”

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Fingerhut reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Athens, Georgia; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix; and Tom Davies in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of abortion at https://apnews.com/hub/abortion.

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By David Morgan and James Oliphant

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After being soundly rejected by Wyoming Republican voters, U.S. Representative Liz Cheney vowed to spend the next two years trying to stop Donald Trump from returning to the White House – possibly with her own anti-Trump presidential bid.

Cheney moved quickly on Wednesday to convert her campaign for reelection to the House of Representatives into a new political action committee after losing her nominating primary and said she was considering whether to launch a 2024 White House campaign.

Her Tuesday night defeat was a significant victory for the former president in his campaign to oust Republicans who backed his impeachment after a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed attempt to overturn his election defeat.

“I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it,” Cheney said in her concession speech after campaigning on her duty to the U.S. Constitution and opposition to Trump’s repeated falsehoods about a stolen 2020 election.

“Let us resolve that we will stand together – Republicans, Democrats and independents – against those who would destroy our republic,” said Cheney, who serves as vice chair of the House committee on Jan. 6, a position she used throughout her reelection campaign to highlight the dangers to democracy that she says Trump and his supporters pose.

On Wednesday, Cheney told NBC’s Today Show that she would decide “in the coming months” whether to mount a White House run.

Trump ally Christian Ziegler, who is vice chair of the Florida Republican Party, said Wyoming voters sent Cheney a message of “rejection, condemnation, expulsion, retirement” and dismissed any presidential bid by her.

“Cheney has no chance at public office going forward,” he said.

Trump continues to flirt publicly with the idea of running again in 2024 but has not yet formally declared his candidacy. That has left other Republican White House hopefuls, notably Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence, waiting to declare their next moves.

‘MEGAPHONE’ MOVE?

Some Republicans said Cheney would not expect to win the party nomination if she ran, but rather would devote her energies to keeping Trump from victory – a role she could play even without a formal candidacy.

“She knows she won’t beat Trump in a Republican primary. But her candidacy would give her an opportunity — and a megaphone,” said Charlie Sykes, a former Wisconsin conservative radio talk show host and frequent Trump critic. “She would be a constant thorn in his side.”

Analysts said Cheney could find herself barred from any primary debates, as Republican Party officials cut contact with perceived threats to Trump. An independent run could backfire and inadvertently help Trump by drawing independent voters and moderate Republicans away from his Democratic rival.

Brendan Buck, a one-time aide to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, said Cheney and her advisors would have to think long and hard about how best to oppose Trump.

“That doesn’t even necessarily mean she needs to be on the ballot,” Buck said. “She may just be running a campaign from the outside. And that means raising money, being a spokesperson, pulling together different political organizations and factions.”

After her defeat in Wyoming, Cheney filed documents with the Federal Election Commission to convert her campaign into a leadership PAC called “The Great Task,” a phrase President Abraham Lincoln used in his famed Gettysburg Address, during the nation’s 19th Century Civil War.

Cheney is expected to use the organization to educate the public about the threat she believes Trump presents and to mobilize efforts to oppose any presidential campaign by him.

She noted in her concession speech that Lincoln, regarded as one of the greatest American presidents, lost — and admitted to losing — multiple races before winning the presidency.

Her campaign had about $7.5 million in cash on hand at the end of July.

Cheney, who was first elected to Congress in 2016, has won national praise from Trump critics for her prominent role on the Jan. 6 committee.

Despite her principled stand against lies and insurrection, she has been criticized by what many Republicans, in Wyoming and elsewhere, regard as her disloyalty to their party’s charismatic leader.

“A lot of this just emphasizes the fact that so much of our politics is no longer about policy, but about the question of Trump and where you stand in relation to him,” said Matthew Continetti, senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

(Reporting by David Morgan and James Oliphant; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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ELKHART, Ind. (AP) — Former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill is dismissing as “old news” the question of whether allegations that he drunkenly groped four women during a 2018 party could hurt his chances of replacing Republican U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski following her death in a highway crash.

Hill is the most prominent of the dozen candidates who met Wednesday’s deadline to enter the Republican caucus vote. The vote, set for Saturday, will choose who will take Walorski’s place on the November election ballot in northern Indiana’s solidly GOP 2nd Congressional District.

Other candidates for the Republican congressional bid include Rudy Yakym, an executive with Elkhart distribution company Kem Krest, and former Walorski campaign aide who has been endorsed by Walorski’s husband.

Hill, who was the Elkhart County prosecutor before winning the 2016 attorney general election, denied wrongdoing but the state Supreme Court ordered a 30-day suspension of his law license after finding “by clear and convincing evidence that (Hill) committed the criminal act of battery” against three female legislative staffers and a state lawmaker during the party.

The allegations were a key campaign issue when he lost the 2020 Republican attorney general nomination for his reelection to Todd Rokita, who took office in January 2021.

Hill said he didn’t believe the groping allegations would hurt his chances.

“I’m sure someone’s going to bring up all sorts of old business, but that’s old news,” Hill told WISH-TV. “The folks in this district need somebody who’s a fighter, who can take the heat. And if there’s one thing that I’ve proven over the last several years is I can take a licking.”

Hill had been seen as a rising African American star among Republicans and worked to build support among social conservatives, touting himself as an anti-abortion and tough-on-crime crusader. He made appearances on Fox News to discuss topics such as San Francisco’s troubles with homelessness.

Walorski, who was 58, was a passenger in an SUV with two members of her congressional office staff Aug. 3 when it crossed the median of a northern Indiana state highway and collided with an oncoming vehicle, the Elkhart County Sheriff’s Office said. The two staff members and the other driver were also killed.

Walorski was seeking reelection to the seat that she first won in 2012.

The Republican field to replace Walorski also includes former state Rep. Christy Stutzman, the wife of former U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, and state Rep. Curt Nisly, a hardline conservative who lost his reelection campaign in the May Republican primary.

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