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      ‘They hate God’: US anti-abortion activists aim to fight back on 51st Roe anniversary

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      Within the subterranean levels of a fancy hotel in downtown Washington, just a few days before the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade, the anti-abortion movement was trying to mount a comeback.Kevin Roberts stood on stage in a cavernous ballroom aglow with neon shades of blue, purple and pink. As president of the Heritage Foundation, Roberts leads one of the main thinktanks behind recent conservative attacks on abortion. And he is not happy with how things are going.“We meet today amid a pro-abortion media narrative of smug triumphalism,” Roberts told hundreds of young abortion foes, who had gathered in the ballroom from across the country to hear him and other anti-abortion leaders speak.“You’ve heard the story. Less than two years after the supreme court overturned Roe, the abortion-industrial complex is celebrating an unprecedented political winning streak. Across the country, pro-life bills have failed. Abortion referenda have passed. Democrat leaders are crowing while too many Republican leaders are cowering from the fight.”Roberts was speaking at the annual National Pro-Life Summit, a one-day organizing camp for high school- and college-aged anti-abortion activists. This year, the summit faced a monumental task: organizers and attendees alike hoped to reinvigorate a movement that, 18 months ago, soared to the height of its power with the overturning of Roe – and then, in the months that followed, has repeatedly crashed-landed back on earth.Since Roe’s demise, seven states have voted on abortion-related ballot referendums. In each case, voters have decisively moved to protect abortion rights, even in ruby-red states like Kentucky, Kansas and Montana.The stakes are even higher in 2024. Not only are roughly a dozen more states gearing up to potentially vote on abortion-related referendums, but the future of the White House is on the line. If abortion hurts Republicans the election – as it’s widely thought to have done in the 2022 midterms – anti-abortion activists may see the GOP brand their movement as ballot-box poison.The National Pro-Life Summit is generally a peek into what the anti-abortion movement is telling itself about itself – and at present, it is not happy with Republicans. For years, the anti-abortion movement has corralled voters for Republicans. On Saturday, they repeatedly condemned the GOP for failing to adequately support their cause.The last Republican president appointed the justices who overturned Roe, while red states have enacted more than a dozen near-total abortion bans since the ruling fell. But many Republicans have begun to back away from the issue. Before the 2022 elections, several quietly downplayed their stances, while dozens of House Republicans have delayed signing onto a bill to nationally ban abortions.“Our friends in the Republican party need to touch some grass,” said Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, the organization behind the summit. “Those who say now that we shouldn’t be talking, that Republican candidates, those seeking for office, should hide from the abortion issue – they continue to be wrong. We won’t win if we put our head in the sand.”Democrats are already attempting to use Roe’s impact on doctors to win votes, as Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has launched a blitz of events and ads timed to the Roe anniversary on Monday. Vice-President Kamala Harris will kick off a tour devoting to spotlighting abortion access, while Biden will assemble a meeting of his reproductive health taskforce.His administration has also announced plans to expand access to contraception under the Affordable Care Act as well as an initiative to spread information about a law that, the administration says, guarantees Americans’ legal rights to emergency abortions, even in states that ban the procedure.A thin lineThe mood on Saturday wasn’t totally dour.Attendees could buy baseball caps that read “I’m just out here saving babies,” sweatshirts that bore an image of a newspaper front page that proclaimed “ROE REVERSED”, as well as red hats adorned with the words “Make America Pro-Life Again” in the unmistakable style of Trump’s Maga hats. Young people excitedly posed for group photos in front of a backdrop that read, “EQUAL RIGHTS FOR THE PREBORN!” An illustrated fetus was curled up in one corner.Yet, in speech after speech, activists told young people that they were the victims of vast forces arrayed against them. They accused abortion rights supporters of spreading misinformation about ballot referendums and said they were simply outspent by the opposition. In Ohio, abortion rights supporters reported receiving about three times as much money as a coalition that opposed abortion rights.“These people love chaos. That is the left. The left is inherently chaotic at its core,” said Will Witt, a conservative influencer who, like Roberts, spoke at the morning address to all attendees.After quoting from the Bible in an effort to demonstrate that God originated order, Witt continued: “This is why the left, this is why these pro-choicers, this is why they hate God. Because God represents order in the world, whereas they love chaos.”The summit speakers were attempting to walk a fine line. At the same time that they were attempting to convince attendees that they were the victims of a world turned against them, they also had to make the case that opposition to abortion is a majority view – and one issue that can get Republicans elected.“Our opinion on this issue, the issue, is not outside of the mainstream, no matter how many times ABC wants to try to tell me it is,” Hawkins told attendees at a workshop dedicated to understanding what went wrong with the abortion referendums. Most millennials and members of Gen Z, she added, “want some sorts of limits on abortion”.Polling on abortion is complex, since respondents’ answers can vary widely depending on how a question is asked or how much context is provided. Most Americans believe that abortion should be restricted after the first trimester of pregnancy, according to polling from Gallup. However, over the last two decades, more and more people have become open to keeping abortion legal later into pregnancy. Republicans in Virginia failed to take control of the state legislature last year after they ran on a promise of banning abortion past 15 weeks of pregnancy.Gallup has also found that, since 2020, more Americans identify as “pro-choice” than “pro-life”. More people have started to call themselves “pro-choice” since the US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022.Hawkins is not in favor of only “some sorts of limits on abortion”.“I want to see no abortions be legal, ever,” she said in an interview. She rejected the notion that abortions performed to save women’s lives qualify as abortions. “When you’re looking at a case where a woman’s life is at risk, where the physician believes that she can no longer safely carry her child in her womb, or she may lose her life – we wouldn’t consider that an abortion unless the abortionist goes in with the intention to killing the child.”Instead, she said, it’s a “maternal-fetal separation”.Hawkins’ point was an effort to contend with a phenomenon that has been particularly damaging for the movement: stories from women who have sued after they said they were denied medically necessary abortions.Every state with an abortion ban has some kind of exception for cases of medical emergencies, but doctors in those states have widely said that the exceptions are so vague as to be unworkable. In a recent study of 54 OB-GYNs in states with post-Roe abortion restrictions, more than 90% said that the law prevented them from adhering to the best clinical standards of care.‘You vote pro-life’Last year, when the National Pro-Life Summit held a straw poll asking attendees about their preferred 2024 president candidate, Ron DeSantis won. This year, with DeSantis a day away from dropping out of the presidential primary, Hawkins cheerfully proclaimed the latest straw poll victor: Donald Trump.As much as their leaders may lock heads with Republicans or Trump – who has suggested that hardline abortion stances hurt Republicans – they are ultimately unlikely to withhold votes from the GOP. Even Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, who was a target of the January 6 riot and who spoke at the summit, indicated that people need to simply get on with it.“That’s why we have primaries. We sort ’em out at every level. But after the primary’s over, you vote pro-life,” Pence said. “You go get behind men and women who are going to stand for the right to life.”A booth for the Heritage Foundation was emblazoned with logos for its “Project 2025”, which includes a playbook for the next conservative president. It recommends that the US government stop funding or promoting abortion in international programs, turbocharge the government’s existing “surveillance” efforts to collect data about abortion, and enforce the 19th-century Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion pills. That would effectively result in the removal of abortion pills from the market, which Hawkins said is a policy goal of hers.“If Donald Trump would be elected again, the people he would appoint to his presidential administration would not be abortion activists,” Hawkins said in an interview. “Hands down, that’s a guarantee. And they’re going to be coming to Washington to protect the people and the people includes the pre-born children.” More

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      Judge hints that Trump’s election interference trial might be delayed

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      The federal judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results indicated on Thursday that the scheduled trial date would not hold as a result of the case being frozen while the former US president appeals to have the charges dismissed.The US district judge Tanya Chutkan last summer scheduled the trial in Washington DC to start on 4 March – allowing Trump and his team seven months to prepare his defense – and has taken pains to ensure that date would not be delayed.But when Trump appealed her decision in December to reject his motion to toss the charges on grounds he could not be prosecuted for actions he took as president related to his duties, the case became automatically frozen while the US court of appeals for the DC circuit considered the matter.In her six-page order prohibiting the special counsel Jack Smith from filing motions pending the appeal, Chutkan affirmed that Trump would get the full seven-month period and that any time that elapsed between December and the end of the appeals process would not count against him.“Contrary to Defendant’s assertion, the court has not and will not set deadlines in this case based on the assumption that he has undertaken preparation when not required to do so,” the judge wrote.The line marked the first time that Chutkan has acknowledged that the March trial date may no longer be viable. While the DC circuit is expected to issue a decision on the immunity appeal expeditiously after oral arguments last week, it could be weeks until a decision is handed down.Trump can also continue his appeal efforts – and continue to have the case stayed – by asking the full appeals court to rehear the case “en banc” should the three-judge panel at oral arguments uphold Chutkan’s ruling. En banc means a hearing before an entire bench of judges. Trump could also ultimately appeal to the US supreme court.The situation reflects the success Trump has had to date with executing his strategy of seeking to delay the case, ideally beyond the 2024 election in the hope that he wins re-election to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.Chutkan’s order was a win for Trump insofar as she affirmed that prosecutors should not be filing motions related to the substance of the case in order to comply with the stay order that has frozen the case, even if she declined to hold them in contempt as Trump had wanted.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump had complained that the filings from prosecutors, submitted to the trial court while they litigated the immunity issue, diverted their attention and created an unfair burden because his lawyers needed to review them to make sure it included things “involved in the appeal”.“While that is not a major burden, it is a cognizable one,” Chutkan wrote of Trump’s complaint. She added that Trump could make further objections to prosecutors’ findings, and he could do so when the appeals process is resolved and “the court sets a new schedule”. More

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      Trump warns of ‘bedlam’ if criminal cases bar him from White House

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      There will be “bedlam” in the US if criminal cases deny Donald Trump a White House return, said the former president who incited the deadly January 6 attack on Congress but who is the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination this year.“I think they feel this is the way they’re going to try and win, and that’s not the way it goes,” Trump told reporters, referring to Joe Biden and Democrats, after a court hearing in Washington DC on Tuesday.“It’ll be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s a very bad precedent. As we said, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box.”Trump claims he is a victim of political persecution.Prosecutors say he committed 91 criminal offenses, regarding federal election subversion (four charges); state election subversion (13, in Georgia); retention of classified information (40, federal) and hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star who claimed an affair (34, in New York).Trump also faces civil trials over his business affairs and a defamation case arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Arising from his incitement of the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021 – an attempt to overturn his defeat by Biden now linked to nine deaths and more than 1,200 arrests – Trump also faces attempts to remove him from the ballot under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, introduced after the civil war to stop insurrectionists running for office.Trump has appealed removal in Maine in that state. An appeal against his removal in Colorado will be argued at the US supreme court.On Tuesday, Trump chose to attend an appeals hearing in his federal election subversion case, listening as his lawyers argued he enjoys immunity for anything done while president.One judge asked if a president would be immune to prosecution if he ordered Seal Team 6, an elite special forces unit, “to assassinate a political rival”.For Trump, D John Sauer, a former Missouri solicitor general, said a president “would have to be impeached and convicted” before being prosecuted for any such action.Trump was impeached (for a second time) for inciting the Capitol attack. Republicans in the Senate ensured he was acquitted.Representing Jack Smith, the special counsel, James Pearce said Trump’s lawyers were proposing “an extraordinarily frightening future”.Speaking to reporters, Trump referred to speeches by Biden around the January 6 anniversary, saying of the charges against him: “When they talk about threat to democracy, that’s your real threat to democracy.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionClaiming he did “nothing wrong, absolutely nothing”, he nonetheless repeated his claim: “If it’s during the time [in office], you have absolute immunity.”A reporter asked: “You just used the word ‘bedlam’. Will you tell your supporters now, ‘No matter what, no violence’?”Trump walked away.Polling shows a criminal conviction may reduce Republican support for Trump. The trial in the federal election subversion case is due to begin on 4 March, in the middle of the GOP primary. As in other cases, Trump’s appeal is widely seen as an attempt to delay proceedings.His prediction of “bedlam” stoked widespread alarm.Maya Wiley, chief executive of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, alluded to Republican endorsements of Trump when she said his “warnings” were “heard by too many as calls to action. Every Republican should come forward and repeat these simple and unequivocal words: ‘Political violence is never acceptable … it has no place in the democracy. None.’ This isn’t a game.”Tim O’Brien of Bloomberg News, a longtime Trump-watcher, recapped remarks in court and added just one word: “Fascism”. More

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      in US Politics

      Capitol rioter falsely accused of being double agent sentenced to probation

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      A man targeted by rightwing conspiracy theories about the US Capitol riot was sentenced on Tuesday to a year of probation for joining the January 6 attack by a mob of fellow Donald Trump supporters.Ray Epps, a former Arizona resident who was driven into hiding by death threats, pleaded guilty in September to a misdemeanor charge. He received no jail time, and there were no restrictions placed on his travel during his probation, but he will have to serve 100 hours of community service.He appeared remotely by video conference and was not in the Washington courtroom when chief judge James Boasberg sentenced him. Prosecutors had recommended a six-month term of imprisonment for Epps.Epps’s sentencing took place in the same building where Trump was attending an appeals court hearing as the Republican former president’s lawyers argued he is immune from prosecution on charges he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost.The Fox News Channel and other rightwing media outlets amplified conspiracy theories that Epps, 62, was an undercover government agent who helped incite the Capitol attack to entrap Trump supporters.Epps filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News last year, saying the network was to blame for spreading baseless claims about him.Epps told the judge that he now knows that he never should have believed the lies about a stolen election that Trump and his allies told and that Fox News broadcast.“I have learned that truth is not always found in the places that I used to trust,” said Epps, who asked for mercy before learning his sentence.The judge noted that many conspiracy theorists still refuse to believe that the Capitol riot was an insurrection carried out by Trump supporters. The judge said he hopes that the threats against Epps and his wife subside so they can move on with their lives.“You were hounded out of your home,” the judge said. “You were hounded out of your town.”Federal prosecutors have backed up Epps’s vehement denials that he was a government plant or FBI operative. They say Epps has never been a government employee or agent beyond serving in the US marines from 1979 to 1983.The ordeal has forced Epps and his wife to sell their property and businesses and flee their home in Queen Creek, Arizona, according to his lawyer.“He enjoys no golf, tennis, travel, or other trappings of retirement. They live in a trailer in the woods, away from their family, friends, and community,” attorney Edward Ungvarsky wrote in a court filing.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe internet-fueled accusations that upended Epps’s life have persisted even after the justice department charged him with participating in the January 6 siege.“Fear of demented extremists has no apparent end in sight so long as those who spread hate and lies about Mr Epps don’t speak loudly and publicly to correct the messaging they delivered,” Epps’s lawyer wrote.Epps pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on restricted grounds, a charge punishable by a maximum of one year behind bars. Prosecutors say Epps encouraged the mob to storm the Capitol, helped other rioters push a large metal-framed sign into a group of officers and participated in “a rugby scrum-like group effort” to push past a line of police officers.A prosecutor, Michael Gordon, said Epps does not deserve to be inundated with death threats but should serve jail time for his conduct on 6 January 2021.“He didn’t start the riot,” Gordon told the judge. “He made it worse.”Epps’s lawyer sought six months of probation without any jail time. Ungvarsky said his client went to Washington on 6 January 2021 to peacefully protest against the certification of the electoral college vote for Joe Biden over Trump. More

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      in Elections

      Harry Dunn, ex-officer who defended Capitol on January 6, to run for Congress

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      Harry Dunn, a former police officer who defended the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, will run for US Congress in Maryland.On Friday, a day ahead of the third anniversary of the deadly riot, Dunn said via X, formerly known as Twitter: “On January 6, I defended our democracy from insurrectionists as a Capitol police officer. After, President Biden honoured me with the Presidential Citizens Medal.“Today, I’m running for Congress, to stop Trump’s Maga extremists and ensure it never happens again.”“Maga” is short for Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, which happened when Donald Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to block certification of his election defeat by Joe Biden.The attack failed. But one police officer, Brian Sicknick, died the next day. Other officers killed themselves.Dunn – a commanding presence at 6ft 7in and 325lbs, once an offensive lineman in college football – was one of a group of officers who acquired a public profile after the riot, testifying before the House January 6 committee, appearing on television and releasing an autobiography, Standing My Ground.He will now run for Congress in Maryland’s third district, a solidly Democratic seat north-east of Washington represented by John Sarbanes, re-elected eight times but not running this year. The primary, which Dunn now joins, will be held on 14 May.In an announcement video, Dunn appeared amid a re-enactment of January 6, a Trump flag seen in the background as actors re-created the Capitol riot.Dunn took aim at Republicans in Congress now ranged behind Trump as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination again.“I swore an oath to protect our constitution, to protect our democracy,” Dunn said. “It’s what allowed me to protect some members of Congress who I knew were bigots, who helped fan the flames that started all of this.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I put country above self. The problem is, a lot of them did not. Some of the same people who stood behind us when we protected them went back on the floor of Congress and stood behind Trump. They voted to acquit him [in his ensuing impeachment trial]. And worst of all, they deny the violence and trauma that led to the death of some of my fellow officers.”Trump now faces 91 criminal charges (17 concerning election subversion), numerous civil trials, and attempts to keep him off the ballot in Colorado and Maine under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, meant to stop insurrectionists running for office. Nonetheless, he leads Republican primary polling by huge margins.“I couldn’t stand by and watch,” Dunn said. “I had another role to play. I used my voice to speak out. And a few weeks ago, I left the force after more than 15 years of service, so that today I can announce I’m running for Congress.“We can’t ever let this happen again, and you’ve heard it from Trump himself: he is hellbent on finishing what he started this day … I believe every one of us has a role to play in this fight. So join me. We’ve got a democracy to protect.” More

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      in Elections

      Trump asks appeals court to throw out 2020 election subversion charges

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      Donald Trump has asked an appeals court in Washington DC to throw out charges that he sought to subvert the 2020 election, in the latest of a series of high-stakes legal maneuvers between the former president’s lawyers and the US department of justice.In a filing late on Saturday lawyers for Trump argued to the DC circuit court of appeals that he is legally cloaked from liability for actions he took while serving as president.The move came a day after the US supreme court declined to expedite a request by the special counsel Jack Smith to consider the question of presidential immunity from prosecution.The latest filing is an incremental advance on the long-running legal duels between Trump and the special counsel, who may not now be able to bring the election interference complaint, one of four separate criminal cases against Trump, before a jury ahead of the next year’s election.If the election interference case is delayed, and Trump wins the election as current polls suggest he could, the former president could simply order all federal charges against him to be dropped.In Saturday’s 55-page brief to the appeals court, Trump’s lawyer D John Sauer argued in essence that under the US constitution one branch of government cannot assert judgement over another.“Under our system of separated powers, the judicial branch cannot sit in judgment over a president’s official acts,” Sauer wrote. “That doctrine is not controversial,” he added.The filing repeats what Trump’s lawyers have consistently said: that he was acting in an official capacity to ensure election integrity, and therefore under immunity because presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for “official acts”.Under the constitution, only the Senate can impeach and convict a president – and that effort failed.In the filing, Sauer argued that executive immunity must exist because no president or former president has previously been charged with a crime.“The unbroken tradition of not exercising the supposed formidable power of criminally prosecuting a president for official acts – despite ample motive and opportunity to do so, over centuries – implies that the power does not exist,” he wrote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also said that Tanya Chutkan, the judge due to hear case against Trump, was mistaken in her interpretation of limited presidential immunity when she wrote that Trump should still be “subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office”.The interplay of legislative, executive and judicial power now lie at the center of the 2024 election. Last week, Colorado’s supreme court ruled that Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot in that state because of his alleged actions to resist certification of the popular vote in 2020.But the implementation of the ruling was delayed until next month when the US supreme court may look at it.On Saturday evening, before heading to Camp David for the holiday break, Joe Biden said he “can’t think of one” reason presidents should receive absolute immunity from prosecution, as the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has claimed. More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden hails Sandra Day O’Connor as ‘American pioneer’ in eulogy

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      Joe Biden hailed Sandra Day O’Connor as an “American pioneer” who embodied principle over politics in his eulogy at the Washington funeral of the US supreme court’s first female justice.The president praised O’Connor for breaking down barriers in the legal and political worlds, transcending political divisions and weighing ordinary people in her decision-making in pointed remarks that contrasted sharply with his words about the current supreme court.“She was especially conscious of the law’s real impact on people’s lives,” he said. “One need not agree with all her decisions in order to recognize that her principles were deeply held and of the highest order and that her desire for civility was genuine.“O’Connor knew that “no person is an island” and that Americans – “rugged individualists, adventurers and entrepreneurs” – were inextricably linked, he said at the service in Washington National Cathedral.“And for America to thrive, Americans must see themselves not as enemies, but as partners in the great work of deciding our collective destiny,” Biden said.Tributes to O’Connor, who died on 1 December aged 93, were also delivered by chief justice John Roberts and O’Connor’s son Jay O’Connor.Sandra Day O’Connor died in Phoenix, Arizona, of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.A centrist on the court who was appointed by Republican president Ronald Reagan in 1981, O’Connor served until her retirement in 2006.She created a critical alliance in 1992 to affirm the central holding in Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide. She also was a crucial vote in 2003 to uphold campus affirmative action policies that were used to increase the number of underrepresented minority students at American colleges.The supreme court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority, overturned the Roe ruling in 2022 and in June struck down race-conscious admissions programs in higher education, effectively prohibiting affirmative action.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden has said the current supreme court has done more to “unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history” but has rejected calls to expand it.Chief justice Roberts called her a “strong, influential and iconic jurist”.Jay O’Connor spoke of his mother as an indefatigable woman with “unearthly energy” who kept working long after she hung up her judicial robes.“We thank you, we love you, we will never, ever forget you.” More

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      in US Politics

      Senator ‘disappointed’ in staffer allegedly filmed having sex in hearing room

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      The US senator Ben Cardin said he is “angry” and “disappointed” in a now-former staffer who allegedly recorded himself having sex in a Capitol Hill hearing room.Speaking to reporters on Monday, the Maryland Democrat declined to elaborate on either the ex-staffer or the episode, video of which was leaked. But Cardin said he considered the entire sequence “a breach of trust”.“It’s a tragic situation, and it’s presented a lot of anger and frustration,” he added. “I’m concerned about our staff, and the way that they feel about this, and the Senate staff.”Cardin also said US Capitol police were investigating the tryst and the footage.The senator would not confirm the ex-staffer’s identity or whether he had been fired. Cardin would only comment that he is “no longer a Senate employee”.After the initial report in the Daily Caller, a rightwing news site, Cardin’s office released a statement saying that one of its staffers – Aidan Maese-Czeropski – was “no longer employed by the US Senate”. Maese-Czeropski later posted a statement on his LinkedIn account which read: “This has been a difficult time for me, as I have been attacked for who I love to pursue a political agenda.“While some of my actions in the past have shown poor [judgment], I love my job and would never disrespect my workplace,” Maese-Czeropski’s statement added, according to CBS. “Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters.”Maese-Czeropski’s LinkedIn statement has since been deleted.The video addressed by Cardin showed two men having sex, apparently after hours, in Hart 216, a room that was empty at the time but has hosted Senate judiciary committee hearings, US supreme court nomination hearings and the 9/11 commission.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar – in whose seat the men in the video were having sex – told Hill journalists that Cardin’s office “is dealing with it” and that she believed the staffer involved had actually been fired.Her fellow Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia jokingly told reporters searching for Cardin on Monday to “leave that beautiful man alone”. Republican US senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, another judiciary committee member, sarcastically asked if the chamber was “locking the doors now”, adding after a positive reply: “We do? Thanks.”Cardin announced in May that he would retire at the end of his third Senate term in early 2025. Before joining the Senate, he had spent 20 years in the US House. More