Politics

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An associate of the far-right Three Percenters militia could be sentenced to more than a decade in prison on Monday for joining the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 while armed and threatening to harm his own children if they ratted him out to the FBI.

Guy Reffitt, of Wylie, Texas, was convicted by a jury in March of five felony charges, including bringing a gun onto the Capitol grounds and obstructing an official proceeding. Federal guidelines recommend a prison sentence of 9 to 11.25 years for those crimes, prosecutors say.

Reffitt, who was 49 at the time of his conviction, never entered the Capitol, but video evidence showed him egging on the crowd and leading other rioters up a set of stairs outside the building.

His emotionally charged trial included testimony from his estranged son Jackson, who brought his father to tears as he told the jury about how his father threatened him if he dared to call the FBI.

“He said, ‘If you turn me in, you’re a traitor,’” Jackson Reffitt told jurors. “‘And traitors get shot.’”

Reffitt was the first Capitol rioter to go to trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

To date, federal prosecutors have prevailed and won convictions in all but one of 13 trials tied to the Capitol attack.

Federal prosecutors are asking U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich to sentence Reffitt to 15 years, more than the U.S. sentencing guidelines recommend, citing Reffitt’s crime as being “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion.”

“A member of the Texas Three Percenters militia group,… Reffitt was aware of Congress’s Joint Session on Jan. 6, 2021, to review and certify the Electoral College ballots, and he wanted to stop it,” they wrote in their sentencing memo.

Reffitt’s attorney has sought to portray him as man who felt marginalized and down on his luck after losing his job in 2019.

Depressed and suicidal, his attorney said he turned to political news on social media and became a fervent believer in former President Donald Trump.

His daughter Peyton told the court in a letter she could see how her father’s ego and personality “fell to his knees whenPresident Trump spoke.”

“You could tell he listened to Trump’s words asif he was really truly speaking to him … Constantly feeding polarizing racial thought.”

His attorney F. Clinton Broden said that while his client broke the law, his actions were not as egregious as those of others who entered the Capitol and assaulted police.

He noted that Reffitt will get credit for the 19 months he has already spent behind bars since his arrest, and has asked the judge to impose a sentence of no more than two years.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum)

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(Reuters) – The Republican-controlled West Virginia senate on Friday passed a bill that would be the first to restrict abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled there is no constitutional right to the procedure.

But instead of now going to the governor who has indicated he would sign it, the bill must return to the house, where it passed earlier this week, to reconcile a Senate amendment stripping the possibility of prison time for doctors who perform abortions outside narrow exemptions.

Several senators expressed concern about the state’s ability to attract doctors if they could be hit with prison time for medical decisions they might make. Doctors could still have their licenses to practice revoked if found to violate the ban.

Thirteen other Republican-controlled states previously passed so-called trigger laws intending to enact bans of most abortions after the June 24 decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

West Virginia still had a law on its books from the 1800s that banned abortions except where a pregnant person’s life was at risk, but a state judge earlier this month blocked officials from enforcing it.

In response, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice ordered lawmakers back from recess for an emergency session.

Abortions are legal at West Virginia’s lone abortion clinic up to 20 weeks post-fertilization. The bill would ban abortions except in the case of a serious threat to the life of a pregnant woman or of a fetus that is not medically viable.

It also makes exceptions for rape or incest up to eight weeks of pregnancy for an adult and up to 14 weeks for a minor if the victim can show they have reported the assault to law enforcement.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Nate Raymond and Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lincoln Feast.)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 for the second straight day, in what appears to be a rare case of “rebound” following treatment with an anti-viral drug.

In a letter noting the positive test, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, said Sunday that the president “continues to feel well” and will keep on working from the executive residence while he isolates.

Biden tested positive on Saturday, requiring him to cancel travel and in-person events as he isolates for at least five days in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

After initially testing positive on July 21, Biden, 79, was treated with the anti-viral drug Paxlovid. He tested negative for the virus this past Tuesday and Wednesday, clearing him to leave isolation while wearing a mask indoors.

Research suggests that a minority of those prescribed Paxlovid experience a rebound case of the virus. The fact that a rebound rather than a reinfection possibly occurred is a positive sign for Biden’s health once he’s clear of the disease.

“The fact that the president has cleared his illness and doesn’t have symptoms is a good sign and makes it less likely he will develop long COVID,” said Dr. Albert Ho, an infectious disease specialist at Yale University’s school of public health.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden is feeling well and continuing his isolation measures after testing positive for COVID, his physician said in a memo released by the White House on Sunday.

“Given his rebound positivity which we reported yesterday, we continued daily monitoring. This morning, unsurprisingly, his SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing remained positive,” the physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in the memo.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden is feeling well and continuing his isolation measures after again testing positive for COVID-19, his physician said in a memo released by the White House on Sunday.

Biden tested positive for COVID again on Saturday in what the White House doctor described as a “rebound” case seen in a small percentage of patients who take the antiviral drug Paxlovid.

“Given his rebound positivity which we reported yesterday, we continued daily monitoring. This morning, unsurprisingly, his SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing remained positive,” the physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said in the memo on Sunday.

Biden tested positive for COVID for the first time on July 21 and previously described his experience with the coronavirus as mild, saying he was able to continue working while in isolation and attributed his relative ease with the disease to vaccines and other treatments.

Biden, 79, had initially emerged from COVID isolation on Wednesday when he tested negative.

After testing positive again, the president had to cancel some trips and events to celebrate recent legislative victories and to help boost his slumping poll ratings.

A small but significant percentage of people who take Paxlovid will suffer a relapse or a rebound that occurs days after the five-day treatment course has ended, studies have shown.

“Biden will continue to conduct the business of the American people from the Executive Residence,” his physician said on Sunday.

The White House had sought to underscore Biden’s ability to work through his illness when he first tested positive, releasing videos of him assuring Americans he was doing fine and of his participation in virtual meetings with White House staff.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic Party on Saturday delayed a decision on potentially reordering its primary calendar for the 2024 presidential election until after November’s midterm elections.

The Democratic National Committee’s rules committee had planned to decide during meetings in Washington beginning next week whether to recommend that presidential voting should continue to begin with Iowa and New Hampshire. That’s amid calls by some party leaders and activists that more diverse states, including the current No. 3 and No. 4, Nevada and South Carolina, should move up.

The committee was also mulling adding a fifth early primary contest prior to “Super Tuesday” when a large number of states traditionally vote.

But rules committee co-chairs Jim Roosevelt Jr. and Minyon Moore wrote in a memo to members that “after speaking with many of you over the past several weeks about the last few steps of this process, it has become clear that the best way to move forward with the final stage of this process is to postpone the committee’s decision on the pre-window rule until after the midterm elections.”

The committee will still meet beginning Friday, but now doesn’t plan to make a decision until after Election Day, Nov. 8 — meaning that the primary calendar decision won’t affect key congressional races. Iowa and New Hampshire had argued that possibly losing their positions going first and second could hurt Democrats in the states’ top races, especially since the Republican Party has already said Iowa will continue to lead off its 2024 primaries.

“Following the midterm elections, we will reconvene to update our evaluation of the applicant pool and work towards a final decision to present to the full DNC for a vote, which DNC leadership has assured us they will make happen as soon after the midterm elections as is possible,” Roosevelt and Moore wrote, adding that “we will continue to work with applicants in the coming weeks to hammer out final details.”

Sixteen states and Puerto Rico made presentations before the committee to be first — or at least in the top five, before the rules committee earlier this summer. The party is considering factors like diversity, electoral competitiveness and logistical feasibility in making its decision.

That means scrutinizing states’ racial and ethnic makeup, union membership rates and how big they are in terms of population and geography, can affect possibilities for direct voter engagement and the costs of travel and advertising.

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By Jarrett Renshaw and Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden again tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday and will cancel two planned trips but is experiencing no symptoms and feels “quite well.”

Biden, who tested positive for the disease nine days ago but then tested negative twice earlier this week, “will isolate at the White House until he tests negative” and is cancelling travel in the coming days to Delaware and Michigan, the White House said Saturday.

Biden had planned the Michigan trip to tout Thursday’s passage of legislation to boost the semiconductor chips industry, which the White House announced earlier Saturday.

Biden’s positive test is believed to be “rebound” positivity experienced by some COVID patients, according to White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

Biden tweeted about his positive case, saying it can happen to a “small minority of folks.”

“I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon,” he tweeted.

O’Connor said Biden, who is 79, tested negative for the last four days, and there is no plan to reinitiate treatment given his lack of symptoms.

Biden previously described his experience with COVID as mild, saying he was able to continue working while in isolation and attributed his relative ease with the disease to vaccines and other treatments.

O’Connor had previously said Biden would be tested regularly to watch for a potential “rebound” COVID-19 case, which can be experienced by some patients who have been treated with Paxlovid, the drug the president received.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder, David Shepardson and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 again Saturday, slightly more than three days after he was cleared to exit coronavirus isolation, the White House said, in a rare case of “rebound” following treatment with an anti-viral drug.

White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a letter that Biden “has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and continues to feel quite well.” O’Connor said “there is no reason to reinitiate treatment at this time.”

In accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, Biden will reenter isolation for at least five days. He will isolate at the White House until he tests negative. The agency says most rebound cases remain mild and that severe disease during that period has not been reported.

Word of Biden’s positive test came — he had been negative Friday morning — just two hours after the White House announced a presidential visit to Michigan this coming Tuesday to highlight the passage of a bill to promote domestic high-tech manufacturing. Biden had also been scheduled to visit his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sunday morning, where first lady Jill Biden has been staying while the president was positive. Both trips have been canceled as Biden has returned to isolation.

Biden, 79, was treated with the anti-viral drug Paxlovid, and tested negative for the virus on Tuesday and Wednesday. He was then cleared to leave isolation while wearing a mask indoors. His positive tests puts him among the minority of those prescribed the drug to experience a rebound case of the virus.

White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told reporters on July 25 that data “suggests that between 5 and 8 percent of people have rebound” after Paxlovid treatment.

“Acknowledging the potential for so-called ‘rebound’ COVID positivity observed in a small percentage of patients treated with Paxlovid, the President increased his tested cadence, to protect people around him and to assure early detection of any return of viral replication,” O’Connor wrote in his letter.

O’Connor cited negative tests for Biden from Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning and Friday morning, before Saturday morning’s positive result by antigen testing. “This in fact represents ‘rebound’ positivity,” he wrote.

Both the Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer point out that 1% to 2% of people in Pfizer’s original study on Paxlovid saw their virus levels rebound after 10 days. The rate was about the same among people taking the drug or dummy pills, “so it is unclear at this point that this is related to drug treatment,” according to the FDA.

While Biden was testing negative, he returned to holding in-person indoor events and meetings with staff at the White House and was wearing a mask, in accordance with CDC guidelines. But the president removed his mask indoors when delivering remarks on Thursday and during a meeting with CEOs on the White House complex.

Asked why Biden appeared to be breaching CDC protocols, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “They were socially distanced. They were far enough apart. So we made it safe for them to be together, to be on that stage.”

Regulators are still studying the prevalence and virulence of rebound cases, but the CDC in May warned doctors that it has been reported to occur within two days to eight days after initially testing negative for the virus.

“Limited information currently available from case reports suggests that persons treated with Paxlovid who experience COVID-19 rebound have had mild illness; there are no reports of severe disease,” the agency said at the time.

When Biden was initially released from isolation on Wednesday, O’Connor said the president would “increase his testing cadence” to catch any potential rebound of the virus.

Paxlovid has been proven to significantly reduce severe disease and death among those most vulnerable to COVID-19. U.S. health officials have encouraged those who test positive to consult their doctors or pharmacists to see if they should be prescribed the treatment, despite the rebound risk.

Biden is fully vaccinated, after getting two doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine shortly before taking office, a first booster shot in September and an additional dose March 30.

While patients who have recovered from earlier variants of COVID-19 have tended to have high levels of immunity to future reinfection for 90 days, Jha said that the BA.5 subvariant that infected Biden has proven to be more “immune-evasive.”

“We have seen lots of people get reinfected within 90 days,” he said, adding that officials don’t yet have data on how long those who have recovered from the BA.5 strain have protection from reinfection.

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By Jarrett Renshaw and Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden again tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday and will cancel two planned trips but is experiencing no symptoms and feels “quite well.”

Biden, who tested positive for the disease nine days ago but then tested negative twice earlier this week, “will isolate at the White House until he tests negative” and is cancelling travel in the coming days to Delaware and Michigan, the White House said Saturday.

Biden had planned the Michigan trip to tout Thursday’s passage of legislation to boost the semiconductor chips industry, which the White House announced earlier Saturday.

Biden’s positive test is believed to be “rebound” positivity experienced by some COVID patients, according to White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

Biden tweeted about his positive case, saying it can happen to a “small minority of folks.”

“I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon,” he tweeted.

O’Connor said Biden, who is 79, tested negative for the last four days, and there is no plan to reinitiate treatment given his lack of symptoms.

Biden previously described his experience with COVID as mild, saying he was able to continue working while in isolation and attributed his relative ease with the disease to vaccines and other treatments.

O’Connor had previously said Biden would be tested regularly to watch for a potential “rebound” COVID-19 case, which can be experienced by some patients who have been treated with Paxlovid, the drug the president received.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder, David Shepardson and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Alistair Bell)

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Harry Wait was so determined to show Wisconsin’s election system is vulnerable to fraud that he logged onto the state website, requested an absentee ballot in the state Assembly speaker’s name and had it delivered to himself. Then he ran to a sheriff to tell him that he had committed fraud.

Now Wait faces the possibility of criminal charges in a strange new chapter in a chaotic, seemingly endless fight over election administration in the key battleground state.

The fight began after Joe Biden won the state in 2020, defeating former President Donald Trump by nearly 21,000 votes. Trump has refused to accept the loss, insisting the election was marred by fraud. Multiple reviews and court decisions have upheld Biden’s victory, but Trump’s supporters have spent the months since promoting his baseless claims that Biden somehow stole the election.

Republican state Rep. Tim Ramthun has centered his gubernatorial campaign around decertifying Biden’s win in the state. GOP legislators passed sweeping election law changes earlier this year only to see Democratic Gov. Tony Evers veto the package. The conservative-controlled state Supreme Court in July outlawed absentee ballot drop boxes.

That’s not all. A Republican sheriff last year called for charging elections officials for refusing to send special assistants into nursing homes to help residents vote absentee at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. And under pressure from Trump, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos launched an investigation into voter fraud last summer that has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars but so far turned up nothing.

It hasn’t been nearly enough for the state GOP’s hardliners. Nine Republican legislators, including Vos and state Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, face primary challengers who say the incumbents haven’t done enough to bolster election security.

Enter Harry Wait. He’s the president of the Racine-based group HOT Government, which has alleged fraud in the 2020 election. He told The Associated Press that he visited the state’s election website and ordered what he says were 10 absentee ballots in the names of other people, including Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason, and had them delivered to his own address.

He quickly contacted Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling and told him all about it, saying he had proven the state’s system is vulnerable to fraud.

Wait wasn’t alone. Adrianne Melby, of Burlington, told the AP that she decided to see if she could get an absentee ballot sent to a different address. She had a friend visit the website, order a ballot in Melby’s name and have it sent to the friend’s address. Melby told Schmaling what she had done as well.

Wisconsin law prohibits people from making false statements to obtain an absentee ballot and from impersonating a voter. Penalties can include fines of up to $10,000 and three-and-a-half years in prison. Wait and Melby told the AP that Schmaling promised he wouldn’t arrest them or refer charges.

“I asked him if he was going to arrest me and he said no,” Wait said. “The conversation was fairly short. He was glad that I had opened this up and revealed it.”

Melby, for her part, said that Schmaling told her that neither she nor her friend committed a crime because Melby gave her friend consent to obtain a ballot in her name.

Schmaling is a Republican activist who called for prosecutors to charge five of the state Election Commission’s six members over their decision in March 2020 — when COVID-19 was rampant and before vaccines were available — not to send special voting deputies into Wisconsin nursing homes to help residents vote. No one was ultimately prosecuted and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul called Schmaling’s demands a “disgraceful publicity stunt.”

Schmaling didn’t reply to a message left at his office on Friday. Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson also didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

Vos, whose district includes Racine County, said what Wait did amounts to voter fraud.

“His actions are sad,” Vos said. “If election integrity means anything, it means we all have to follow the law — Republicans and Democrats alike.”

The state Election Commission, made up of three Democrats and three Republicans, held an emergency meeting on Thursday night to address Wait’s and Melby’s activities.

Administrator Meagan Wolfe told commissioners that the website is no more vulnerable to fraud than a traditional mail request for an absentee ballot. She also stressed that the state’s voter registration database would flag anyone who tried to vote using another person’s absentee ballot. The commissioners ultimately voted to discuss referring charges to prosecutors at a future meeting, perhaps as early as next week.

“People who think it’s cute to commit a crime to undermine elections, that needs to be stopped and it needs to be stopped now. And waiting implies there’s something appropriate about it,” Democratic commissioner Ann Jacobs said during the meeting.

The commission also decided to send postcards to about 4,000 voters who requested their absentee ballots for the 2022 election be sent to addresses that aren’t their own, in order to verify their intent. Spokesman Riley Vetterkind said that’s not an indication of fraud, as voters often ask to have ballots sent to vacation homes or other places they stay.

Wait told the AP that he knew what he did was a crime but that he did it “for the good of the republic.” The commission is coming after him because he exposed its inability to protect elections, he said.

Melby said that if what she did was illegal, prosecutors should go after all ballot harvesters in the 2020 election. Pressed for details on who was harvesting ballots, Melby told a reporter to watch “2,000 Mules,” a pro-Trump documentary that falsely alleges widespread voter fraud.

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political scientist Anthony Chergosky said Wait’s and Melby’s actions were “extremely irresponsible.” They showed fraud is possible but not that it occurs on a scale that can affect election results, he said.

They also demonstrated the extent of Trump’s influence on the Republican Party and unending efforts to undo the 2020 election, he said.

“It’s a logical outcome of the rhetoric President Trump and others in his party have engaged in,” Chergosky said. “The practical purpose of this is to sow distrust in the outcome of the 2020 election. The Republican Party is not ready to turn the page on it.”

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