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      House Covid Panel Refers Andrew Cuomo for Potential Prosecution

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      The Republican-led House subcommittee asked the Justice Department to investigate Mr. Cuomo for possible prosecution for “false statements” in his testimony.A House subcommittee has referred former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York to the Justice Department for potential prosecution, accusing him of lying to Congress about his involvement in a state Covid report on nursing home deaths.Mr. Cuomo was accused of engaging in a “conscious, calculated effort” to avoid accountability for his handling of nursing homes where thousands of people died of Covid, according to the referral from the Republican-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.The referral, which was sent Wednesday night to the Justice Department, was signed by the subcommittee chairman, Representative Brad Wenstrup, Republican of Ohio. No other committee member, including the ranking Democrat, Representative Raul Ruiz of California, signed the referral letter, in a potential sign of political partisanship.The referral centers on closed-door testimony Mr. Cuomo gave to the committee, when he asserted that he had not reviewed a State Health Department report that deflected blame for the deaths of people in New York nursing homes in early 2020.The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Cuomo had reviewed the report and had personally written portions of early drafts, according to a review of emails and congressional documents.Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said that the former governor testified that he did not remember having any role in the report, and rejected assertions that Mr. Cuomo had lied.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris Tries to Distance Herself and Move On From Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Remark

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      Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday tried to separate herself from President Biden after he made muddled remarks that appeared to call supporters of former President Donald J. Trump “garbage.”“Let me be clear: I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Ms. Harris told reporters as she prepared to board Air Force Two outside Washington, D.C., although she said Mr. Biden had “clarified his comments.”Ms. Harris has been pressed to distance herself more broadly from Mr. Biden, an unpopular incumbent who is also her boss, putting her in a difficult position. Her campaign has resisted having them appear together on the trail. Mr. Biden is seen as an undisciplined communicator, and his comments on Tuesday undercut a speech Ms. Harris delivered that same night in which she made unity a major theme.Her response on Wednesday — quickly pivoting to her campaign trail schedule and her plans for the economy — made it clear that she and her campaign would like to move on from Mr. Biden’s comments. The Trump campaign has made equally clear its intention to keep the remarks in the news cycle.On Sunday, Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and Trump supporter who spoke at the Trump rally in New York, had made a joke onstage that disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Mr. Biden tried to denounce that racist language in a video call with Hispanic supporters on Tuesday night. But he garbled his words, saying: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”The White House and Mr. Biden later argued that he was describing the racist language as “garbage,” not Trump supporters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump and His Allies Link Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment to 2016 ‘Deplorables’ Remark

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      Donald J. Trump and his allies are trying to recreate a moment that resonated deeply with his supporters in the 2016 campaign: when Hillary Clinton referred to Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”On Tuesday, it was President Biden who provided the ammunition, appearing to call Trump supporters “garbage” while talking to Latino allies by video.“Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Mr. Biden said, adding, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” The White House insisted that what Mr. Biden had said was “his supporter’s demonization,” referring only to the comic who initially insulted Puerto Ricans with an offensive joke at Mr. Trump’s New York rally on Sunday.Mr. Trump’s allies insisted the meaning was clear.Within minutes of the clip of Mr. Biden’s remarks going viral on social media on Tuesday night, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida addressed Mr. Trump’s rally in Allentown, Pa., and informed the crowd of Mr. Biden’s statement.“I have breaking news for you, Mr. President — you may not have heard this,” Mr. Rubio told the audience after Mr. Trump had called him up to the stage and stood next to him. “Just moments ago, Joe Biden stated that our supporters are garbage — are garbage.”Mr. Rubio added, as the crowd booed and Mr. Trump shook his head: “He’s talking about the Border Patrol. He’s talking about nurses. He’s talking about teachers. He’s talking about everyday Americans who love their country and want to dream big again and support you, Mr. President.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden Appears to Insult Trump Supporters as ‘Garbage,’ but Quickly Tries to Clarify

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      President Biden on Tuesday denounced racist language at former President Donald J. Trump’s recent rally but appeared to insult Trump supporters as “garbage,” prompting waves of criticism from Republicans.The White House quickly objected to that interpretation of the president’s remarks, arguing that he was instead describing the racist language as “garbage,” not Trump supporters.The comments came as Mr. Biden was addressing Latino supporters by video. “Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage,’” Mr. Biden said, referring to a riff by Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and Trump supporter who spoke at the rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.Mr. Biden said Puerto Ricans are “good, decent honorable people.” Then he went on: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters — his, his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”The White House released a transcript that showed Mr. Biden was saying “his supporter’s” demonization, meaning that Mr. Hinchcliffe’s demonization was garbage.But Republicans seized on the seeming gaffe, comparing it to a comment by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she referred to Trump supporters as “deplorables.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Partial Breach of Election Machine Passwords in Colorado Poses No Risk, State Says

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      Partial passwords for election machines that were accidentally leaked on the Colorado secretary of state’s website pose no threat to the system’s security, the secretary’s office said in a statement on Tuesday night.The passwords, which were exposed on a hidden tab in a spreadsheet online, were first revealed in a letter by Hope Scheppelman, the vice chair of the Colorado Republican Party. The passwords became visible when a user downloaded a voting systems inventory spreadsheet and clicked “unhide.”According to an affidavit that accompanied Ms. Scheppelman’s letter, the passwords had been exposed since at least August.But while the breach of password data is likely to erode confidence and invite disinformation in Colorado, there are multiple layers of security to protect the integrity of election machines in the state.Election machines are not connected to the internet, and they are required to be kept in secure rooms that require ID badges for entry. They also have “24/7 video camera recording on all election equipment,” according to the secretary of state’s office.Even if a person were to somehow gain access to a machine, the passwords revealed would not be sufficient.“There are two unique passwords for every election equipment component, which are kept in separate places and held by different parties,” Jack Todd, a spokesman for the Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold, said in a statement. “Passwords can only be used with physical in-person access to a voting system.”The statement also said the exposure would not affect how ballots are counted.The department contacted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Department of Homeland Security, whose officials told the office that they would monitor the situation.A representative for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night.Chris Krebs, the former director of the security agency, said the breach of passwords “highlights the critical importance of the various compensating controls in place that protect our nation’s election systems.”“While this is an extremely unfortunate leak that may serve to undermine confidence in some circles and feed into conspiracy theories in others, it nonetheless has negligible if any technical impact on Colorado’s systems,” Mr. Krebs added.The breach of password data resonates in Colorado, a state where Tina Peters, an election official from Mesa County, concocted a brazen and bizarre breach of election machines after the 2020 election.She was recently sentenced to nine years in federal prison for her scheme. More

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      Michelle Obama, Rallying Young Voters Near Atlanta, Warns of ‘Apathy’

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      Michelle Obama, the former first lady and among the Democrats’ most popular surrogates, offered a bracing tutorial in the realities of political power on Tuesday night, beseeching thousands of people near Atlanta to vote and to “stop the spiral of disillusionment and apathy.”“It’s natural to wonder if anyone hears you, if anyone sees you,” Mrs. Obama told her audience, many of them students from Atlanta’s historically Black colleges and universities, at an arena just south of downtown. “It is healthy to push your leaders to be better, even to question the whole system.”But, she added, “It’s our job to show folks that two things can be true at once: that it is possible to be outraged by the slow pace of progress and be committed to your own pursuit of that progress.”Mrs. Obama’s pleas and warnings came as Georgia entered the final days of its early voting period, a stretch in which one participation record after another has fallen. Already, more than 3 million people in the state have cast ballots, according to the secretary of state’s office.With the state among the most contested this election year — Joseph R. Biden Jr. beat Donald J. Trump in Georgia by less than 12,000 votes in 2020 — Georgia voters have faced an onslaught of pressure to pick one side or another.Mrs. Obama, addressing a rally that was formally nonpartisan and unaligned with any campaign, made a different ask: Vote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Trump Sows Doubt on Pennsylvania Voting, Officials Say the System Is Working

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      With about a week to go before Election Day, officials from two Pennsylvania counties announced that they had found large batches of suspicious voter registration forms. While at least some of the documents appeared to be fraudulent, there is no indication that any of them are ballots, though officials clarified that they were continuing to investigate.To hear former President Donald J. Trump’s telling, Pennsylvania’s election system was already melting down.“They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster,” he said at a rally on Tuesday night in Allentown, Pa. “Every vote was written by the same person.” He made similar allegations about York County, building on claims that he made on social media earlier in the day about “Really bad ‘stuff,’” in the two counties. “Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!!”, he insisted.But contrary to Mr. Trump’s incendiary claim that fake ballots had been cast, there were no reports of actual ballots being among the two batches of documents. And on the ground, away from the high-strung channels of social media, law enforcement was already doing its job.Neither a representative for the Trump campaign nor the state G.O.P. immediately responded to requests for comment.Thousands of voter registration forms, as well as some mail-in ballot applications, were submitted in large batches by out-of-state canvassing groups. Some of the paperwork raised suspicions among county election workers, and officials from both counties said any forms that appeared to be fraudulent would be turned over to local prosecutors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More