Politics

By David Shepardson and Lisa Baertlein

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s emergency board tasked with helping major freight railroads and unions end a contract negotiation stalemate delivered its recommendations on Tuesday, a White House official told Reuters.

“The president is optimistic the report will provide a good framework for successful negotiations between the parties over the next 30 days,” the official said, adding the recommendations were delivered to the White House and the parties.

Talks between major freight railroads, including Union Pacific, Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF and CSX, and unions representing 115,000 workers have dragged out for more than two years.

Biden appointed the three-member board in July to reduce the risk of a potential strike or lockout that could damage the fragile U.S. economy and choke supplies of food and fuel.

Railroads move everything from Amazon.com Inc packages to fuel oil and soybeans. Service shutdowns of any kind could send prices for necessities higher and upend battered U.S. supply chains.

Work stoppages are prohibited for 30 days following the issuance of the presidential emergency board (PEB) report to give the two sides time to reach a voluntary settlement. If employers or unions reject the board’s recommendations, Congress can intervene.

“To avoid a national rail shutdown, it is in the nation’s interest that the parties reach a prompt resolution,” the White House official said.

The unions and railroad groups involved in the talks did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, rail service at major U.S. seaports recently has suffered due to spreading supply-chain snarls and labor and equipment shortages.

“It is in the best interest of all stakeholders for the parties to reach agreements that provide our employees with well-deserved pay increases and prevent rail service disruptions,” Union Pacific said in a statement.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)

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By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cheered by a decisive win for abortion rights in a Kansas vote and eyeing November midterm elections, the White House is launching a push for abortion access that aims to influence men as well as women, sources with direct knowledge told Reuters.

The Biden administration’s three-prong playbook leans on two specific federal statutes to target states that limit abortion, communicates to voters the impact on women, and accentuates how forced pregnancies negatively affect both women and men.

Senior White House officials, advisers and abortion rights advocates have held multiple strategy and engagement calls in recent days, including an Aug. 4 call with nearly 2,000 participants, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings.

Abortion rights advocates have accused U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration in the past of being slow to act around a Supreme Court ruling in June that ended the constitutional right to abortion. Two Biden executive orders and engagement with key stakeholders led by Vice President Kamala Harris have assuaged some concerns, several told Reuters.

The White House is “really going all the way in trying to promote their message on the issue of abortion in the midterms,” said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of Georgetown University’s Institute for National and Global Health Law, who has been working with the White House. “They are hoping this will play well among suburban women and that was Biden’s edge in the presidential election.”

A senior White House official said that the administration thinks the issue could win Democrats’ support from many Republican voters during the midterms.

NEW LITIGATION STRATEGY

The Biden administration plans to lean on two specific federal statutes, which predated the abortion ruling, to fight its legal challenges – the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and FDA preemption under the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act (FDCA), the sources said.

EMTALA requires hospitals that accept Medicare funds to provide medical treatment to people that arrive with an emergency medical condition. That includes providing a woman an abortion if her life is in danger https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/hhs-says-federal-law-preempts-state-abortion-bans-emergency-situations-2022-07-11.

This law is the backbone of the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state of Idaho, but may be hard to enforce, some legal experts say https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/federal-guidance-life-saving-abortions-puts-doctors-bind-2022-07-20.

The FDA preemption argues states cannot ban an approved abortion drug because federal law preempts or overrides state law. More than 30 states have enacted legislation that restricts access to medication.

Mini Timmaraju, president, NARAL Pro-Choice America, who also is working with the White House on the issue, said the litigation strategy is key.

“It’s not just executive orders and policies, it’s (legal)enforcement,” she said.

VOTING, RESEARCH AND MESSAGING

The White House plans to replicate the success in Kansas, said the sources. It is closely tracking similar ballot initiatives in California, Kentucky, Michigan, and Vermont and gubernatorial races like Michigan’s, where abortion has become a central issue, sources said.

In Kansas, a team of the Democratic National Committee made about 30,000 phone calls and sent over 130,000 text messages to help turn out the vote.

The White House is compiling research on the physical and mental harms women face if they’re denied access to abortion, as well as the economic impact that forced pregnancies can have on men, women and families; and plans to communicate that to voters with a consistent messaging plan, sources said.

It will target men in its messaging, asking them to consider how their sisters, nieces, cousins could be affected if abortions were unavailable, and to think about the costs related to supporting an unplanned pregnancy, the sources said.

In 2020, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that women who are forced to have an unwanted baby face medical costs associated with prenatal care, birth, postpartum recovery in addition to costs associated with raising a child that exceed $9,000 a year.

Another message will be aimed at religious Americans, telling them they don’t have to change their faith to support abortion rights, they just need to resist government overreach, they said.

“The idea is to be much more disciplined and consistent in messaging to break through to the everyday American,” said one of the sources.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Aurora Ellis)

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By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With President Joe Biden expected to sign a long-negotiated climate spending bill later on Tuesday, environmental groups are turning their focus to their next fight – halting efforts to fast-track permitting for major infrastructure projects like pipelines and highways.

Green groups hailed last week’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and its $369 billion for climate and energy spending. But amid the celebration, some frontline and indigenous groups said they felt betrayed.

For Senate Democrats to win backing from their final holdout – West Virginia’s Joe Manchin – they offered compromises that would boost fossil-fuel production, including a pledge to work on legislation for speeding up the years-long process for infrastructure permits.

Some low-income communities warned that the effort could open the door to hasty approvals for polluting industries without local objections being heard.

“The permit reform bill will be harmful and damaging to environmental justice communities and will eliminate the tools that we do have available to fight back against projects,” said Dana Johnson, senior director of strategy and federal policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

A RIFT EMERGES

The celebration that followed last week’s passage in Congress of the climate bill left environmental justice campaigners cold.

Anthony Rogers-Wright, the environmental justice director at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, resigned from the board of environmental policy group Evergreen Action, which had helped shape the bill. He said he no longer wanted to be part of an organization “taking a victory lap knowing full well the pain this behavior causes.”

It was an abrupt moment after several years of unity, after national green groups vowed in 2020 to focus on addressing racial injustice in the wake of the George Floyd murder by police. Together, U.S. environmental campaigners and grassroots groups fought the deregulatory policies of former President Donald Trump.

Evergreen Action did not comment on Rogers-Wright’s resignation, but executive director Jamal Raad said the group’s work advocating for environmental justice is “far from over.”

“We will continue to work closely with leaders across the climate movement … to stop the buildout of any new fossil-fuel infrastructure and to prevent the erosion of bedrock environmental laws and community participation in the environmental review process,” Raad said.

Johnson, of the group WE ACT, said the best way to rebuild unity and trust within the environmental movement is for all groups to work together on ensuring that frontline communities are protected through the permit process reform.

Current proposals for the reform include setting a two-year limit on the permitting process for major projects under the National Environmental Policy Act, and addressing anti-infrastructure litigation that can drag on for years.

That targets the two ways local communities most often voice opposition – through filing lawsuits challenging projects, or through registering objections during the public-comment process that is a traditional part of NEPA’s approval process.

Also included in the reform proposals is a promise to fast-track the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which runs through Manchin’s state and had been nearly halted due to protests and legal challenges.

Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, the mayor of Nuiqsut City, on Alaska’s North Slope, said the roughly 500 Iñupiat residents she represents need to be consulted as the government weighs a new oil project nearby that she said could affect the community’s hunting grounds as well as their air and water quality.

“It is very important that we are engaged effectively,” she said. “When we are not at the table, the severity of impacts are amplified.”

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Katy Daigle and Matthew Lewis)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a memoir coming out this fall. “Bibi: My Story” will be published Nov. 22, three weeks after parliamentary elections are to be held in Israel.

“Born a year after the founding of the Jewish state, I have dedicated my life to combat the forces that seek its destruction and make peace with those that do not,” Netanyahu, 72, said in a statement released Tuesday by Threshold Editions, a division of Simon & Schuster that publishes conservative books.

“My story is one of tragedy and triumph, setbacks and successes, lessons learned and loved ones cherished. It is woven with that of Israel, which has proven that faith and resolve can overcome insurmountable odds to forge a brilliant future.”

Other Threshold authors have included former Vice President Dick Cheney and former President Donald Trump, a close ally of Netanyahu’s while he was in the White House. Netanyahu has previously written “A Durable Peace” and “Fighting Terrorism,” among other books.

Before being ousted in elections in 2021, Netanyahu was Israel’s longest-serving leader — and its most polarizing, supported and condemned for his hard-line stance against the Palestinians. He now stands at the center of Israel’s protracted political crisis, where a cluster of parties has refused to sit with him in government because he is on trial for corruption: Israel has held five elections in less than four years.

Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure included heightened settlement building in the occupied West Bank and the presiding over three wars against the Hamas militant group ruling Gaza. He was also a leading opponent of the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and several world powers, including the United States. Iran resumed some of its nuclear activities after Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018.

Netanyahu is the son of a prominent Zionist and educator, Benzion Netanyahu, and brother of Jonathan Netanyahu, who was killed while leading the famed 1976 rescue of hostages on a hijacked plane in Entebbe, Uganda. A longtime leader of the nationalist Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu also served as prime minister from 1996-1999.

According to Threshold, “Bibi” will range from Netanyahu’s early years to “his singular perspective on the geopolitics of the Middle East” and “his negotiations with Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Trump to secure the future of his country.”

Known as a political wizard able to outmaneuver his opponents, Netanyahu has vowed to regain his old job. But he currently faces charges in three separate cases, including allegations that while in office, he accepted gifts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer. He is also accused of trying to orchestrate positive coverage in a major Israeli paper in exchange for promoting legislation that would have hampered the news outlet’s chief rival, a free pro-Netanyahu daily.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing.

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(Reuters) – President Joe Biden will sign legislation on Tuesday that will eliminate electric vehicle tax credits for most models currently getting up to $7,500 effective.

The White House said Biden will sign legislation to approve the $430 billion climate, health and tax bill on Tuesday. The bill restructures the existing $7,5000 new EV tax credit and creates a new $4,000 rebate for used EVs. It also includes tens of billions of dollars in new loan, tax credit and grant programs for automakers to build cleaner vehicles.

Many automakers and dealers have been working with customers to complete binding written contracts ahead of Biden’s signing to make them eligible for credits even if they have not received vehicles.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing Volkswagen, General Motors Co, Toyota Motor and Ford Motor among others, said earlier the law would make 70% of 72 U.S. electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell EVs that currently qualify ineligible upon Biden’s signing.

On Jan. 1, when the bill’s new income and price caps and battery and critical mineral sourcing rules take effect, “none would qualify for the full credit when additional sourcing requirements go into effect,” the group added.

An estimate from the Congressional Budget Office forecasts 11,000 new EVs will receive tax credits in 2023 assuming $7,500 per vehicle.

Audi of America, Kia Corp and Porsche said Friday that buyers of its EVs will lose access to federal tax credits when Biden signs.

Audi said only its Audi plug-in hybrid electric will retain its existing federal credit through the end of 2022.

The bill makes any EVs assembled outside North America ineligible for tax credits, which has brought criticism from the European Union, South Korea and many automakers.

GM and Tesla previously hit the 200,000-vehicle cap and are no longer eligible but will again be eligible starting Jan. 1 under stricter sourcing and income rules.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department on Monday said it opposes unsealing the affidavit that prosecutors used to obtain a federal judge’s approval to search former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, where they seized classified documents.

“If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” prosecutors wrote in their filing.

Trump’s Republican allies in recent days have ramped up their calls for Attorney General Merrick Garland to unseal the document, which would reveal the evidence that prosecutors showed to demonstrate they had probable cause to believe crimes were committed at Trump’s home — the standard they had to meet to secure the search warrant.

On Friday, at the Justice Department’s request, a federal court in south Florida unsealed the search warrant and several accompanying legal documents that showed that FBI agents carted away 11 sets of classified records from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Some of the records seized were labeled as “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 damage national security

The Justice Department on Monday cited this as another reason to keep the affidavit sealed, saying the probe involves “highly classified materials.”

The agency said it would not oppose the release of other sealed documents tied to the raid, such as cover sheets and the government’s motion to seal.

The warrant released on Friday showed that 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.

Trump has since claimed, without evidence, that he had a standing order to declassify all of the materials recovered at his home.

The decision by Garland to unseal the warrant was highly unusual, given the Justice Department’s policy not to comment on pending investigations.

On the same day Garland announced his decision to seek to unseal the warrant, an armed man with right-wing views tried to breach an FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was later shot dead by police following a car chase.

Prosecutors on Monday cited the recent violence and increasing threats against the FBI as another reason not to release the affidavit.

“Information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high-profile nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation,” they wrote.

Also on Monday the Justice Department said a Pennsylvania man was arrested on charges of making threats on the social media service Gab against FBI agents. Adam Bies, 46, was taken into custody on Friday in connection with the social media posts, the DOJ said.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Stephen Coates)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Attorneys for Rudy Giuliani, a former lawyer to Donald Trump, have been told he is a target of a criminal investigation in Georgia into election interference, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing one of Giuliani’s lawyers.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Elections in Wyoming and Alaska on Tuesday could relaunch the political career of a former Republican star and effectively end the career of another — at least for now.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney is the vice chair of a U.S. House committee seeking to expose the truth behind former President Donald Trump’s relentless efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, and his role in fomenting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Cheney’s determination to prevent Trump from ever again serving in the White House has left her fighting to hold on to the House seat she has held for three terms. Trump has made Cheney’s ouster a top priority, endorsing a challenger and traveling to Wyoming to try to seal the deal.

In Alaska, Sarah Palin jumped on a vacancy in the state’s congressional delegation as a potential springboard back into elected office. A victory in Tuesday’s special election to fill the remaining months of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young’s term could send her to Washington as soon as next month.

Palin, a former Alaska governor and the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, has been out of elected office for more than a decade but is betting her insurgent brand of conservativism can make her a hit again in the age of Trumpism.

What to watch:

WYOMING

Cheney’s work as vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee has won her bipartisan praise from those who see Trump as a threat to American democracy. But it has severely threatened her chances of prevailing in the Republican primary in deeply red Wyoming, where Trump notched one of his most lopsided 2020 victories, capturing 70% of the vote compared to Joe Biden’s 27%.

Set to deny Cheney a fourth term as Wyoming’s lone member of the House is Harriet Hageman, a Cheyenne ranching industry attorney who was little known outside the state before winning Trump’s endorsement last year.

Hageman finished in the middle of a five-way, 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary. She’s campaigned aggressively for Cheney’s House seat, appearing at county fairs, parades and rodeos. Making his first public political appearance in Wyoming, Trump drew a crowd of at least 10,000 to a Casper rally supporting Hageman in May.

A defeat for Cheney would cap a swift, once unthinkable political collapse in a state where her name recognition is nearly universal and her family’s political roots run deep. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, held the state’s House seat for 10 years until 1989.

Still, the primary comes after Republicans booted Cheney as the party’s No. 3 House leader and the Wyoming GOP censured her. Security threats have mostly prevented the congresswoman from attending public events and rallies as she campaigns.

Cheney has instead opted for private gatherings and endorsements from well-known, traditional Republicans like Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson. She also released an ad in which her father declares: “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”

Cheney’s best hope is that enough Wyoming Democrats will switch parties to vote for her instead of their own party’s three candidates — none of whom stands a chance in November’s general election. Even Cheney’s close allies say she might be putting principle above success in this race.

That has fueled speculation that Cheney is hoping for something bigger, and she’s refused to rule out a 2024 presidential run.

ALASKA

Palin is on the ballot twice in Alaska: once in a special election to complete Young’s term and another full a full two-year House term starting in January.

Voters approved an elections overhaul in 2020 ending party primaries and instituting ranked voting in general elections. Endorsed by Trump, Palin finished first among 48 candidates to qualify for a special election. They were seeking to replace Young, who died in March at age 88, after 49 years as Alaska’s lone House member.

Palin is now trying to secure the win against the No. 2 and 4 finishers, Republican Nick Begich and Democrat Mary Peltola. The third-place vote-getter pulled out of the race after the special primary.

In a recent address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Palin decried the new voting system, saying, “It is bizarre, it’s convoluted, it’s complicated. And it results in voter suppression.”

Tuesday’s ballot also features a House primary race and one for the U.S. Senate in which Trump’s influence may not prove decisive. Alaskans pick one candidate in each race, with the top four vote-getters advancing to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is seeking reelection to a seat she has held for nearly 20 years. She faces 18 opponents — the most prominent of which is Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who has been endorsed by Trump.

Murkowski, the state’s senior senator, is a Trump critic who voted to convict him at his impeachment trial following the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. The former president has railed against Murkowski, including at a rally with Tshibaka and Palin last month in Anchorage.

The House primary, meanwhile, has 22 candidates, including Palin, Begich and Peltola.

Begich has tried to cast Palin as a quitter because she resigned as governor partway through her term in 2009. Palin has referred to Begich, nephew of former Democratic Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and grandson of former Democratic Rep. Nick Begich, as her “fellow ‘Republican’” in the race. Begich counters that he’s always been a Republican, despite coming from a family of prominent Democrats.

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Associated Press writers Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.

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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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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — They hail from their states’ most prominent Republican families. They have been among the GOP’s sharpest critics of former President Donald Trump. And after the Jan. 6 insurrection, they supported his impeachment.

But for all their similarities, the political fortunes of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming are poised to diverge on Tuesday when they’re each on the ballot in closely watched primary elections.

Cheney faces daunting prospects in her effort to fend off the Trump-backed Harriet Hageman, increasingly looking at a life beyond Capitol Hill that could include a possible presidential campaign. Murkowski, however, is expected to advance from her primary and is already planning to compete in the November general election.

The anticipated outcomes at least partially stem from the nuanced politics of each state. Wyoming is a Republican stronghold, delivering Trump his strongest victory of any state in the 2020 campaign. Alaska, meanwhile, has a history of rewarding candidates with an independent streak.

But Murkowski enjoys an additional advantage in the way elections are being conducted in Alaska this year. Winner-take-all party primaries, like the one Cheney is facing, have been replaced by a voter-approved process in which all candidates are listed together. The four who get the most votes, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election in which ranked voting will be used.

Murkowski benefits from avoiding a Republican primary, “which she would have had a zero percent — I mean zero percent — chance of winning,” said Alaska pollster Ivan Moore.

Murkowski has 18 challengers in her primary, the most prominent being Republican Kelly Tshibaka, whom Trump has endorsed. The Alaska Democratic Party, meanwhile, has endorsed Pat Chesbro, a retired educator.

In an interview, Murkowski insisted she would be among the candidates advancing from the primary and said her success requires, in part, coalition building.

“That’s kind of my strong suit, that’s what I do,” she said.

For his part, Trump has been harsh in his assessment of Murkowski. At a rally in Anchorage last month with Tshibaka and Sarah Palin, whom he’s endorsed for Alaska’s only House seat, he called Murkowski “the worst. I rate her No. 1 bad.”

Trump participated in a telerally for Tshibaka on Thursday while Murkowski mingled with supporters at a campaign office opening in Juneau, which boasted a spread that included moose chili and smoked salmon dip. Murkowski said Trump isn’t a factor in the campaign she’s running.

“He is going to do what he’s going to do,” she said. But she told supporters the campaign will be challenging.

Murkowski was censured by Alaska Republican Party leaders last year over numerous grievances, including the impeachment vote and speaking critically of Trump and her support of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s nomination.

Tuckerman Babcock, a former state Republican Party chair who is running for state Senate, said Murkowski has lost the support of many Alaska Republicans, which he called a “political reality over a record of many years.”

Republicans in Alaska are “almost unanimous in their opposition to Lisa Murkowski,” he said. “Are they divided on other issues? Of course.”

Babcock said the new elections system lets candidates “self-identify” with a party and is not an improvement over the old party primary process.

Chuck Kopp, a Republican former state legislator, is hopeful about the new system. Kopp lost his 2020 Republican primary after being part of a bipartisan state House majority composed largely of Democrats.

“It’s only the fringe that is clinging like a death grip on a failed paradigm, and that paradigm is extreme partisanship at all costs,” he said. “I think Alaska is going to take a leadership role in moving away from that. That’s what I’m hoping for.”

Kopp said that while he has not always supported Murkowski, she has been “fearless when it counts for this country.”

“I think she has shown that personality cults aren’t conservative, conspiracy theories aren’t conservative and treating politics like a religion is not conservative,” Kopp said. He said he thinks Murkowski has more support throughout Alaska than party activists give her credit for.

The Senate seat has been held by a Murkowski since 1981; before Lisa Murkowski, it was her father, Republican Frank Murkowski. He appointed his daughter to succeed him in 2002 after he became governor. Murkowski won the seat in her own right in 2004.

Murkowski has not cracked 50% of the vote in a Senate general election, and needing to build a coalition of support is nothing new to her. She won a write-in campaign in 2010 after losing that year’s Republican primary to tea party favorite Joe Miller.

Murkowski overwhelmingly won her Republican primary against little-known opponents in 2016, the year Trump was elected.

Rosita Worl, an Alaska Native leader, referred to the 2010 primary as “the debacle” and said Alaska Natives rallied around Murkowski and her write-in bid. Worl, who attended Murkowski’s Juneau campaign event, said she is not a Republican herself but sees Murkowski as an Alaskan and said the senator has “always supported our issues.”

State Rep. Zack Fields, a Democrat seeking reelection to an Anchorage legislative seat, said there are yards in his district with signs for him and Murkowski. He said he doesn’t agree with Murkowski on the “majority of votes that she’s cast over her career.”

“But she has shown that she believes in democracy and will work with people to accomplish things that are the right thing for citizens. That actually is at risk right now,” he said.

Fields called the insurrection “horrifying.”

“But what was even frankly more terrifying than that is that so many elected officials and high-ranking so-called leaders would excuse it, justify it and otherwise embolden those who threaten democracy,” he said.

Cheney is the vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot. The insurrection was a big issue during a June debate between Cheney and Republican challengers, including Hageman. Hageman said the committee was “not focused on things that are important to the people of Wyoming.”

Entering the final stretch of her primary campaign, Cheney hasn’t backed down. She released a video on Thursday with a closing message reinforcing her criticism of Trump.

“The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious,” Cheney said. “It preys on those who love their country. It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.”

She added, “This is Donald Trump’s legacy, but it cannot be the future of our nation.”

In the interview, Murkowski said Cheney has shown courage.

“I think she has looked at this and said, this is not about Liz Cheney,” Murkowski said. “This is about … the difference between right and wrong. And she is doing her job under very challenging circumstances. But I think she’s doing it because she believes she has to.”

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By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans stepped up calls on Sunday for the release of an FBI affidavit showing the justification for its seizure of documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home amid reports of heightened threats against federal law enforcement personnel.

A search warrant released last week after the unprecedented search showed that Trump had 11 sets of classified documents at his home, and that the Justice Department had probable cause to conduct the search based on possible Espionage Act violations.

Republicans are calling for the disclosure of more detailed information that persuaded a federal judge to issue the search warrant, which may show sources of information and details about the nature of the documents and other classified information. The unsealing of such affidavits is highly unusual and would require approval from a federal judge.

“I think a releasing the affidavit would help, at least that would confirm that there was justification for this raid,” Republican Senator Mike Rounds told NBC’s “Meet the Press”.

“The Justice Department should “show that this was not just a fishing expedition, that they had due cause to go in and to do this, that they did exhaust all other means,” Rounds said. “And if they can’t do that, then we’ve got a serious problem on our hands.”

Separately on Sunday, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Marco Rubio, asked the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide the seized documents on a classified basis.

A spokesperson for the committee, charged with oversight of the handling of classified information, said the two senators had also requested “an assessment of potential risks to national security” as a result of possible mishandling of the files.

Representative Mike Turner, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN on Sunday that the Biden administration should provide more details on what led to the search.

“Congress is saying, ‘Show us. We want to know what did the FBI tell them? What did they find?’” Turner said.

The Department of Justice did respond to a request for comment on the FBI affidavit.

HEIGHTENED THREATS

The calls from Republicans came amid reports https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mar-a-lago-search-fbi-threat-law-enforcement that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warned of increased threats to law enforcement emanating from social media platforms in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago search.

The FBI said in a statement that it is always concerned about threats to law enforcement and was working with other agencies to assess and respond to such threats, “which are reprehensible and dangerous.”

Republican Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent and prosecutor from Pennsylvania, said he was concerned about the safety of federal law enforcement officers amid such threats, adding “everybody needs to be calling for calm.”

He told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the search of Trump’s home “was an unprecedented action that needs to be supported by unprecedented justification” and the probable-cause affidavit would show whether that standard was reached — even if it was only shown to lawmakers in a classified briefing.

“I’ve encouraged all my colleagues on the left and the right to reserve judgment and not get ahead of yourself because we don’t know what that document contains. It’s going answer a lot of questions.”

DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

Democrats on Sunday did not echo calls for the affidavit’s release.

Instead, Representative Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said he was asking for an assessment of potential damage done to U.S. national security from Trump’s possession of the classified documents, along with an intelligence briefing.

The “Top Secret” and “Sensitive Compartmented Information” documents could cause “extremely grave damage to national security” if disclosed, Schiff told CBS.

“So the fact that they were in an unsecured place that is guarded with nothing more than a padlock, or whatever security they had at a hotel, is deeply alarming,” Schiff said.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NBC that she could not make a judgment as to whether the Justice Department should indict Trump on criminal charges.

“This is going to be up to the Justice Department to make a decision about what happened here, why it happened, and if it rises to the level of a crime,” Klobuchar said.

(The story corrects 10th paragraph to read “did not respond”, adding word “not”.)

(Reporting by David Lawder; Additional reporting by David Shepardson and Michael Martina; Editing by Heather Timmons and Lisa Shumaker)

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