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Long-awaited bill to end federal ban on marijuana introduced in U.S. Senate

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Long-awaited U.S. Senate cannabis legislation that would end the federal ban on marijuana while encouraging research and taking steps to help minority communities hardest hit by the war on drugs was introduced Thursday.

The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act would leave it to the states to decide whether to legalize the drug. Many, including New Jersey, already have, putting them in conflict with federal law. Those state-legal businesses would be able to obtain checking accounts, credit cards and other financial services now denied to them.

The bill would expunge federal cannabis convictions and encourage states to follow suit; require the Food and Drug Administration to set strong cannabis health, safety and labeling standards; encourage research into the drug; impose a federal excise tax of 5% to 12.5% for smaller businesses and 10% to 25% for larger concerns; and direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to address drugged driving, requiring a standard for cannabis-impaired driving within three years.

“As more states legalize cannabis and work towards reversing the many injustices the failed war on drugs levied against Black, brown, and low-income people, the federal government continues to lag woefully behind,” said U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, one of the bill’s chief sponsors along with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

“With strong restorative justice provisions for communities impacted by the drug war, support for small cannabis businesses, and expungement of federal cannabis offenses, this bill reflects long overdue, common sense drug policy,” Booker said.

Federal law would still prevent using or selling cannabis in states that have not legalized the drug. The Department of Justice would provide grants to help small law enforcement departments hire officers, investigators and community outreach specialists to combat black market sales.

The bill would limit the sale of cannabis to those 21 and older, and fund programs to prevent youth marijuana use. The FDA’s new Center for Cannabis Products would set labeling standards, including potency and servings.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service would offer recommendations about the use of medical marijuana by patients, and work to prevent people from buying large quantities of the drug in states where it is legal in order to sell it elsewhere.

Those harmed by the war on drugs would get access to financing to enter the cannabis business and those who use marijuana wouldn’t face the loss of federal benefits such as housing or student loans. Marijuana testing for federal workers would be limited to those employees in areas such as national security, law enforcement, and commercial transportation.

The FDA and the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau would take over jurisdiction over marijuana from the Drug Enforcement Agency and would regulate it like alcohol and tobacco. Legal marijuana businesses would be able to deduct their expenses like other enterprises.

Federal taxes would be used to help communities and individuals hardest hit by the war on drugs, including grants to community-based organizations to offer job training, legal aid, mentoring and literacy programs. Loans would be made directly to small businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, and to lenders who would make those loans.

And federal research into the medical properties would be increased, including offering grants to develop research facilities and universities, especially minority-serving institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The bill was more than year in the making as Democrats took control of the Senate and Schumer vowed to introduce legislation with the hope it would attract the 60 votes needed for passage in their chamber.

That would require at least 10 Republicans to vote with every Democrat, but many GOP senators now hail from states that have legalized cannabis for medical or personal use.

“The introduction of comprehensive cannabis reform legislation in the Senate, by none less than the majority leader himself, is the strongest sign yet that cannabis prohibition in America is nearing its end,” said Steve Hawkins, chief executive of the U.S. Cannabis Council.

There were some dissenting voices, however.

“Under the guise of social justice, increased entrepreneurship, and other false narratives, this bill will guarantee our next slow motion public health crisis — all while bypassing stringent review/approval processes other psychoactive drugs had to clear,” said former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., a co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

“By commercializing legal marijuana, tobacco companies, liquor companies, financial institutions, and the pharmaceutical industry stand to make billions. Let’s not lose sight of who the real ‘winners’ are here.”

The House twice has passed legislation to end the federal ban on cannabis and help communities and individuals hardest hit by the war on drugs. But until now, the Senate has refused to go along.

“A majority of Americans now support legalizing cannabis, and Congress must act by working to end decades of over-criminalization,” Schumer said. “It is time to end the federal prohibition on cannabis.”

In addition, the Senate never has taken up incremental steps such as the Secure and Fair Enforcement, or SAFE, Banking Act, even forcing it out of unrelated legislation that Democrats have succeeded in adding it to in the House.

Booker has objected to passing SAFE Banking on its own, saying that the monied interests pushing for that bill would lose their interest in also championing restorative justice issues if their priority is enacted.

But Hawkins said that Congress should move now on more incremental cannabis legislation.

“The ambitious and sweeping nature of the bill should not distract Congress from advancing limited yet critical reforms, such as expungement and the SAFE Banking Act, that are immediately within reach,” he said.

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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant.



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Thomas Lane: Ex-Minneapolis police officer sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for violating George Floyd’s civil rights

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Federal prosecutors had asked Judge Paul A. Magnuson to sentence Lane to between 5.25 years to 6.5 years for his role in the fatal restraint of Floyd on a Minneapolis street in May 2020. Earl Gray, Lane’s attorney, asked for a sentence of 2.25 years.

Former officers Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng faced state and federal charges for their actions — or lack thereof — in May 2020 as their colleague Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into the neck and back of Floyd, who was handcuffed and lying on his stomach, for more than nine minutes.

Lane, a rookie officer on his fourth day on the job, held down Floyd’s legs during the arrest, while Kueng restrained his torso and Thao stood nearby and held back a crowd of upset bystanders. In federal court earlier this year, Lane testified that he asked Chauvin twice to reposition Floyd while restraining him but was denied both times.

Lane, Thao and Kueng were each convicted of violating Floyd’s rights during the fatal restraint. Thao and Kueng were also found guilty of an additional federal charge earlier this year for failing to intervene to stop Chauvin. A sentencing date for Thao and Kueng has not been set.

During the hearing on Thursday, Judge Magnuson said that Lane had a “minimal role” in the incident, adding that he is a person of “outstanding character.” The judge also noted he received 145 letters in support of Lane. “It’s not unusual to receive letters. But I have never received so many letters,” he said.

The judge recommended the Bureau of Prisons place Lane in the federal prison in Duluth, Minnesota, to be nearer to his family and friends for visitations.

In addition to the prison sentence, Lane will be required to pay mandatory restitution in an amount to be determined and will be placed on supervised release for two years after serving his prison term.

Lane declined to make a statement to the court.

Floyd’s brother Philonise told the court Thursday about the effect of Lane’s actions.

“Our family was given a death sentence May 25, we will never get George back,” he said. “Officer Lane did not intervene in one way or another,” he added.

The federal sentence comes a month after Lane pleaded guilty in state court to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. As part of a plea deal, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office and defense attorneys jointly recommended to the court a sentence of three years to be served concurrently with his federal sentence in a federal institution, according to Ellison’s office. He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 21 on the state charge, according to the court.
Thou and Kueng also face a state trial that is slated for late October on charges of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. They have pleaded not guilty.
Chauvin was convicted last year of murder and manslaughter in a state trial and was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of violating Floyd’s civil rights in December and was sentenced to 21 years in prison earlier this month. Chauvin’s federal sentence will run concurrently with his state sentence.

Floyd’s family says sentence is ‘slap in the face’

The brother, nephew, and girlfriend of George Floyd reacted with disappointment to the 30-month sentence in a press conference Thursday.

“The fact that this judge had a chance to deliver a maximum amount of time and he chose not to — what did that tell other people around the world? What does that tell people of color?” said Philonise Floyd. “The fact that they went below the (recommended) sentence, that’s terrible, because you give other people, for other crimes, way more time than that.”

Floyd’s nephew, Brandon Williams, called the judge’s decision to impose a minimal sentence “a slap in a face.”

“(Lane) also made the decision to kill my uncle. He knew exactly what he was supposed to do and he chose not to do it. That’s not an accident. That is a choice,” Williams said.

Courteney Ross, Floyd’s girlfriend, said that although she had told Lane she didn’t believe him to be a bad person, he still needed to be held accountable.

“I think he was caught up in a moment where he didn’t do the right thing. He fell to the pressures of a man that he should have no respect for,” she said.

“I hope that in the future, we’re going to start to see that people’s lives need to be valued. And part of that value is holding people accountable,” Ross added.

CNN’s Eric Levenson and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.

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U.S. heat wave: 100 million under alerts from Phoenix to Boston

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More than 100 million people in the Lower 48 states are under heat alerts on Thursday amid relentlessly sweltering temperatures that have soared as high as 115 degrees in recent days.

About 60 million Americans in at least 16 states are set to experience triple-digit highs Thursday; an additional half-dozen states could see the mercury reach the upper 90s.

Excessive-heat warnings or heat advisories cover several regions, including California’s Central Valley; Las Vegas to Phoenix in the Southwest; San Antonio to Birmingham, Ala., in the South; and Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Boston along the East Coast.

In Texas and Oklahoma, where many places are enduring one of their hottest summers on record, highs well above 100 degrees are expected for the foreseeable future. Both states made it to 115 degrees Tuesday, and while temperatures are comparatively lower Thursday, they will still be dangerous for vulnerable groups.

Major cities in the Northeast will experience highs near 95 degrees Thursday and will feel 5 to 10 degrees hotter with suffocating humidity levels. Even more-intense heat is forecast this weekend: Washington could reach 100 for the first time since 2016.

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has declared a heat emergency in the city until Monday.

The U.S. heat wave, which has set at least 60 records, peaked this week as a historic bout of exceptional temperatures killed more than 1,000 people in Europe. Britain set a record-high temperature Tuesday as several stations exceeded 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time ever.

Britain’s freakish heat demolished records. Here’s what happened.

While summertime is bound to be hot, the trend toward increasingly severe and long-duration heat events bears the fingerprint of human-induced climate change.

The nation’s most intense heat Thursday is focused in the Southwest. The National Weather Service warned of a “high risk of heat related illness” in Las Vegas, where highs are forecast to top 110 degrees through Friday.

The Weather Service also warned of “dangerously hot conditions” in Phoenix, where highs are predicted to reach 110 to 115 degrees. The city is also under a pollution advisory because of high levels of noxious ground-level ozone.

Highs could top 120 degrees in Death Valley, Calif., through Saturday.

Heat waves are getting hotter and more frequent. Here’s how to prepare.

Heat in Texas and Oklahoma

The heat in Texas and the Southern Plains has been unforgiving this summer, with San Antonio, Austin and Houston enduring their highest temperatures on record. There’s little sign of relief.

On Tuesday, every one of the Oklahoma Mesonet’s 120 weather stations logged a high temperature at or above 103 degrees for the first time. The Mesonet has been operational since the mid-1990s, meaning the period of record is limited. Regardless, the heat was blistering.

Oklahoma City spiked to 100 degrees Wednesday and has reached the century mark for five straight days. When it hit 110 on Tuesday, it was only the second such instance since 2012. High temperatures there are forecast to remain in the high 90s or low 100s for the next week, at least.

Mangum, Okla., jumped to 115 on Tuesday, as did Wichita Falls, Tex. While sweltering, those temperatures were still shy of the 120-degree reading at Altus in southwest Oklahoma on Aug. 12, 1936. That’s the all-time state record.

About a dozen small wildfires cropped up in Oklahoma’s Red River Valley and north-central Texas, the largest of which is in Somervell County just southwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The Chalk Mountain Fire has torched 6,339 acres since its ignition around 2:30 p.m. Monday. It is only 10 percent contained.

Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Tulsa will remain at or above 100 degrees for at least the next week, while areas farther to the south and east — Houston, Little Rock or Shreveport, La. — will be in the upper 90s. Those subtly lower air temperatures will be offset by greater humidity wafting in from the Gulf of Mexico, contributing toward heat index values in the 105-to-110-degree range.

Much of the zone from Louisiana and Arkansas to Georgia is experiencing one of its 10 hottest summers, and temperatures will remain sweltering there through early next week. Highs are forecast to range from 90 to 100, but oppressive humidity levels will create the feeling of 100 to 110.

Birmingham, Ala., is under a heat advisory Thursday, with temperatures projected to peak around 95 degrees. Western Alabama may see highs in the upper 90s. While daytime highs haven’t been particularly impressive there from a records standpoint, the overnight lows have been.

“We had a low temperature of 79 degrees yesterday [Wednesday] morning,” said Jason Holmes, a meteorologist at the Weather Service office in Birmingham. “Having the nighttime low temperatures like that — it’s hard for your body since you don’t cool down.”

What does extreme heat do to the human body?

Heat in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast

The Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast had been largely spared the heat and humidity this summer, but that is quickly changing.

Temperatures are forecast to reach the 90s from Richmond to Boston on Thursday, with heat index values in the triple digits.

While humidity will ease some on Friday behind a weak cold front, oppressive mugginess returns over the weekend.

Highs in New York will flirt with 90 degrees through Saturday, then spike into the mid- or upper 90s on Sunday. Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia will be in the mid- to upper 90s through Saturday, approaching 100 degrees Sunday. Heat index values could reach 105 to 110.

What’s driving the heat

Instigating the heat is a ridge of high pressure known as a “heat dome,” which is centered over the Southwest but is flexing at times as far east as the Mid-Atlantic.

Beneath these heat domes, the air sinks, clearing out cloud cover while allowing the sun to beat down relentlessly. Atop the heat dome is the jet stream, marking the southern periphery of cooler weather.

The science of heat domes and how drought and climate change make them worse

Over the weekend, the jet stream will take a dip toward the north-central United States and Great Lakes, ushering in cooler air in those areas. However, as that cooler air arrives, strong-to-severe thunderstorms may erupt Saturday.



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Biden: U.S. military opposes Nancy Pelosi visiting Taiwan

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President Biden said the U.S. military does not support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visiting Taiwan this summer.

Stepping off Air Force One late Wednesday, Biden was asked about the possibility of a Pelosi trip, which has not been confirmed by the State Department or her office.

Biden said that “the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now,” but he noted that he was not sure “what the status of it is.”

China’s Foreign Ministry lashed out Tuesday after media reports that Pelosi, as part of a broader tour of Asia in August, was planning to visit the democratic island that is claimed by Beijing.

China says it will take ‘forceful measures’ if Pelosi visits Taiwan

At her weekly news conference Thursday, Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency, said she never discusses her travel plans, as it is a national security issue.

“You never even hear me say if I’m going to London, because it is a security issue,” she told reporters. Earlier this week, her office said it would neither confirm nor deny international travel “in advance due to long-standing security protocols.”

The Financial Times first reported the news of Pelosi’s trip, stating that she would visit Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Pressed by a reporter about Biden’s remarks, Pelosi said: “I think what the president was saying is that maybe the military was afraid our plane would get shot down or something like that by the Chinese. I don’t know exactly. I didn’t see it. I didn’t hear it. You’re telling me, and I’ve heard it anecdotally,” she said.

Pelosi had planned to lead a congressional delegation to Taiwan in April but delayed her trip after contracting the coronavirus. A visit this summer would make her one of the most senior U.S. politicians to travel to Taiwan in recent years and the first House speaker to go there since Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) did so in 1997.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said this week that the trip has not been announced and remains “hypothetical.”

Biden also told reporters that he expects to speak to China’s president, Xi Jinping, “within the next 10 days.” He demurred on whether he would raise the issue of tariffs and trade with the leader of the world’s second-largest economy, amid rising inflation in the United States.

Chinese-U.S. relations remain tense — and Taiwan is a sensitive issue.

“If the United States insists on going ahead, China will have to take firm and forceful measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday. Such a trip would cause “grave harm,” he added, and “seriously impact the political foundations of China-U.S. relations.”

Pelosi, who has been critical of China over its stance on Taiwan, met virtually in January with Taiwan’s vice president, William Lai Ching-te, when he was in the United States. He thanked Pelosi for championing human rights and called her a “true friend” of Taiwan.

Analysis: China has a hand in Sri Lanka’s economic calamity

Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and has pledged to achieve what it calls “reunification,” threatening, if necessary, to use force to take control of the self-ruled island. The United States has for decades walked a fine line, not taking a position on the status of Taiwan’s sovereignty but asserting repeatedly that it opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo.

During his first trip to Asia as president in May, Biden signaled a more confrontational approach toward China and issued a sharp warning against any potential attack on Taiwan.

Asked at the time whether the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if it is attacked by Beijing, Biden said: “Yes, that’s the commitment we made.” His comment represented a departure from the usual U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity on the subject and was swiftly walked back by aides and criticized by Beijing at the time.

Taiwan has lived under military threat from Beijing since Communist forces defeated the Nationalists in the Chinese civil war in 1949, prompting the Nationalists to flee to Taiwan and set up a rival government.

Christian Shepherd and Missy Khamvongsa contributed to this report.

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DHS inspector general tells Secret Service to stop investigating potentially missing texts

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The inspector general wrote that the Secret Service should stop investigating the matter because it could interfere with the inspector general’s own investigation into what happened to the agency’s text messages.

The letter adds to the growing tension between the Secret Service and the DHS inspector general over the potentially missing text messages, which are being sought by the House select committee as part of its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s actions and movements on January 6, 2021.

“To ensure the integrity of our investigation, the USSS must not engage in any further investigative activities regarding the collection and preservation of the evidence referenced above,” DHS deputy inspector general Gladys Ayala wrote in a letter to Secret Service Director James Murray on Wednesday evening. “This includes immediately refraining from interviewing potential witnesses, collecting devices or taking any other action that would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation.”

The inspector general wrote that the Secret Service should explain what interviews had already been conducted related to the text messages, along with the “scope off the questioning, and what, if any, warnings were given to the witness(es).” The inspector general told the Secret Service to respond by Monday.

The new letter comes after the Secret Service was only able to provide a single text message to the inspector general, who had requested a month’s worth of records for 24 Secret Service personnel, according to a letter to the select committee.

CNN has reached out for comment to the Secret Service and the DHS inspector general.

The directive could complicate the Secret Service’s response to a subpoena it received from the House select committee last week, as well as a request from the National Archives this week to the DHS records officer asking the agency to clear up if the text messages were deleted and explain why.

The select committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, wrote in a letter to the Secret Service director that the panel was seeking text messages from January 5-6, 2021.

In a joint statement Wednesday, Thompson and committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney said they “have concerns” about how the Secret Service cell phone data was deleted.

“The procedure for preserving content prior to this purge appears to have been contrary to federal records retention requirements and may represent a possible violation of the Federal Records Act,” they said.

The Secret Service told the committee this week that it was engaged in “extensive efforts” to determine whether any text messages had been lost and if they were recoverable. Those steps included “the pulling of any available metadata to determine what, if any, texts were sent or received on the devices of the identified individuals,” the agency said in a letter, as well as interviewing the 24 individuals “to determine if messages were stored in locations that were not already searched by the Secret Service.”

The inspector general has alleged that the Secret Service erased text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, not long after they had been requested by oversight officials investigating the Secret Service’s response to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a letter that the inspector general sent to the House select committee.

The Secret Service has previously explained that it was up to employees to conduct the necessary preservation of records from their phones. The letter said the service did provide personnel a “step-by-step” guide to preserve mobile phone content, including text messages, prior to the phone migration that began January 27, 2021. It went on to explain that “all Secret Service employees are responsible for appropriately preserving government records that may be created via text messaging.”

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Former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler’s sexist audio rant calls Jan. 6 committee racist

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A Trump administration aide who met with the House Jan. 6 committee this week unleashed a 27-minute inflammatory tirade, calling the lawmakers’ investigation into the Capitol riot racist against White people and using sexist slurs to describe his former colleagues who also testified.

Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, revealed on his Telegram page that he appeared Tuesday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Hours later, Ziegler said without evidence that he was being targeted due to his race and posted a lengthy audio file calling the probe “a Bolshevistic anti-White campaign.”

“If you can’t see that, your eyes are freaking closed,” Ziegler said. The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League noted that Ziegler’s words are “often used as a code for Jews.”

“They see me as a young Christian who they can try to basically scare, right? And so, today was just a lot of saying that I invoke my right to silence,” Ziegler said, while insisting he is “the least-racist person that many of you have ever met, by the way. I have no bigotry.”

Ziegler also lashed out at former White House colleagues Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, an ex-White House communications director, who have both testified before the committee.

He used sexist and offensive slang words to describe them and said they are “just terrible.”

The audio circulated online late Wednesday after it was posted by the Republican Accountability Project, a group previously dedicated to opposing Trump. The House committee plans to hold its eighth public hearing this summer on Thursday.

Griffin has not publicly commented but reshared a post from ADL leader Jonathan Greenblatt on Twitter that called Ziegler’s language offensive.

In the clip, Ziegler said he was speaking from Illinois and had received a subpoena on April 28 but didn’t “throw a tantrum” about it. He said flying in to Washington for the hearing was “a pain” and that he found the whole experience “so one-sided” and lacking a Republican presence. Committee members “loathe my former boss and by extension me,” he added.

He added that he invoked his right to silence “over 100 times” in response to questions from the committee.

Who is Cassidy Hutchinson?

Hutchinson appeared before the committee in late June in an explosive and vivid day of testimony. She testified that Trump knew his supporters were carrying weapons the day of the riot but urged them to go to the Capitol anyway.

She also said she had cleaned up Trump-strewn ketchup off a White House wall and pleaded with Meadows to get off his phone and help quell the Capitol riot, among other claims. Trump has dismissed her testimony as “fake” and “fraudulent.” The former president has also called the committee a “Kangaroo Court.”

Visual: Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony from the Jan. 6 hearing

CNN first reported news of the Ziegler audio clip, prompting a reply from him online: “Total liars! I cherish women,” he said.

Ziegler also posted on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social that the media reports were “hit pieces” and “vicious” — and repeated his misogynistic insults of Hutchinson.

Even a day after Jan. 6, Trump balked at condemning the violence

Trump condemned the Jan. 6 attack in a three-minute speech the evening of Jan. 7 after aides told him that members of his Cabinet were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

However, according to individuals familiar with the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, he struggled to do so.



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Jan. 6 Panel to Sum Up Its Case Against Trump: Dereliction of Duty

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The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol plans to return to prime time on Thursday to deliver what amounts to a closing argument in the case it has made against former President Donald J. Trump, accusing the former commander in chief of dereliction of duty for failing to call off the assault carried out in his name.

To do so, the panel will put two military veterans — Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois — front and center in leading its presentation and questioning.

Ms. Luria, the only Democrat on the panel involved in a competitive re-election race, served in the Navy for more than 20 years and achieved the rank of commander. Mr. Kinzinger is an Air Force veteran who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the witnesses they plan to question in person, Matthew Pottinger, who was deputy national security adviser under Mr. Trump and the highest-ranking White House official to resign on Jan. 6, 2021, is a Marine Corps veteran.

In an interview previewing the hearing, which is scheduled for 8 p.m. on July 21, Ms. Luria said the panel planned to document in great detail how Mr. Trump did nothing for more than three hours while his supporters stormed the Capitol, raising ethical, moral and legal questions around the former president.

“The captain of a ship cannot sit there and watch the ship burned to the waterline and not do anything to stop it,” Ms. Luria said, invoking her experience in the Navy, where she worked on nuclear reactors. “And that’s exactly what he did.”

Ms. Luria said the panel planned to elicit in-person accounts of what went on in the West Wing on Jan. 6 from Mr. Pottinger and Sarah Matthews, a former White House press aide who had resigned in the aftermath of the riot. It also plans to play recorded testimony from Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House counsel, and others to document Mr. Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6.

“We have accounts from people who observed him,” Ms. Luria said. “There was no concern, anger, distress. He wasn’t upset by it.”

The committee plans to demonstrate that Mr. Trump had the power to call off the mob but refused to do so until after 4 p.m. that day — and then only after hundreds of officers had responded to the Capitol to support the overrun Capitol Police force, and had begun to turn the tide against the mob, making it clear that the siege would fail, according to committee aides.

The panel also plans to show outtakes from Mr. Trump’s video remarks of Jan. 7 in which he struggled to condemn the violence and promise a peaceful transfer of power, according to a person familiar with the committee’s plans. The plans to show the outtakes were reported earlier by The Washington Post.

Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, plans to preside over the hearing remotely, after having tested positive for Covid-19 this week.

The panel has already started detailing some of its evidence of Mr. Trump’s inaction. Ms. Matthews has told the committee that a tweet Mr. Trump sent attacking Vice President Mike Pence while the riot was underway was like “pouring gasoline on the fire.”

Mr. Trump had tried unsuccessfully to pressure Mr. Pence, who was inside the Capitol as rioters breached the building chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” to reject Congress’s official count of electoral votes to confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the president-elect.

Both Mr. Pottinger and Ms. Matthews have cited that tweet as contributing to their desire to leave the White House.

“These were people who believed in the work of administration, yet, on this day, when faced with the circumstances, the president’s inaction, and some of the statements he made, they decided they were done, they were going to resign,” Mrs. Luria said. “That is very powerful when you heard from them directly.”

The committee has also said it received testimony from Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who was Mr. Pence’s national security adviser. He told the panel that Ivanka Trump, Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, urged her father at least twice to call off the violence, as did Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary.

The panel has also released text messages from Fox News hosts, including Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and Donald Trump Jr., one of the president’s sons, calling for him to do more to stop the violence that day.

“Anyone who came into contact with him that day and everyone who had access to him, from what they’ve shared with the committee, made some degree of effort to try to get him to do more,” Ms. Luria said.

At each of its hearings this summer, the panel has presented evidence that lawmakers and aides believe could be used to bolster a criminal case against Mr. Trump. The committee has uncovered new details that they believe could provide evidence of a conspiracy to defraud the American people and Mr. Trump’s own donors; revelations about his plan to submit false slates of electors that could lead to charges of filing false documents to the government; and disclosures about his plot to disrupt the electoral count on Capitol Hill that suggest he could be prosecuted for obstructing an official proceeding of Congress.

While there are penalties for members of the military who are found derelict in their duties, Ms. Luria said she was not sure Mr. Trump could be charged with a criminal offense as a result of his inaction.

Even so, she said, Thursday’s hearing was expected to be a capstone in the a series of hearings throughout June and July in which the panel has laid out its initial findings from more than 1,000 interviews.

The panel is expected to continue its investigation, adding to its work in anticipation of the release of a preliminary report on September. The committee could also call more public hearings, members have said.

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Ivana Trump mourned at New York funeral

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Funeral goers gathered at St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church to remember the noted socialite. Former President Trump entered the church through a side entrance, and their children and their partners — Donald Trump Jr. and his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle; Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner; and Eric and Lara Trump — were also in attendance.

Ivana Trump’s three children, as well as Dennis Basso, a fashion designer and longtime friend of Trump, delivered eulogies, a source familiar with the service told CNN.

Former first lady Melania Trump also attended Wednesday’s funeral for her husband’s first wife, a person with knowledge of her schedule told CNN. The person confirmed that Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter from his second marriage to Marla Maples, was present at the New York City service.

Ivana Trump died last week at age 73 due to “blunt impact injuries” to the torso, authorities have said.

Raised in communist Czechoslovakia, Ivana Trump partnered with Donald Trump on some of his most prominent real estate projects. The two divorced in 1992 in the aftermath of his tabloid affair with Maples.

When the couple finally settled, Ivana Trump walked away with $14 million, in addition to other perks like a massive mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. She married and divorced twice more while maintaining a jet-setting, globetrotting lifestyle.

She once cited her “freedom” and “perfect life” as reasons for turning down an offer to serve as the ambassador to her native Czech Republic.

“I was just offered to be the American ambassador to Czech Republic — and Donald told me. He said, ‘Ivana, if you want it, I give it to you,'” Trump told “CBS Sunday Morning” in 2017. “But I like my freedom. I like to do what I want to do, go wherever I want to go, with whomever I want to go. And I can afford my lifestyle.”

“OK, why would I go and say bye-bye to Miami in the winter, bye-bye to Saint-Tropez in the summer and bye-bye to spring and fall in New York?” she continued. “I have a perfect life.”

The former President announced his ex-wife’s death on Truth Social, remembering her in a post as “a wonderful, beautiful, and amazing woman, who led a great and inspirational life.”

“Her pride and joy were her three children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. She was so proud of them, as we were all so proud of her. Rest In Peace, Ivana!” the post read.

Her children, too, paid public tribute, with Ivanka Trump tweeting that her late mother “was brilliant, charming, passionate and wickedly funny,” adding: “She lived life to the fullest — never forgoing an opportunity to laugh and dance. I will miss her forever and will keep her memory alive in our hearts always.”

Eric Trump wrote in part on Instagram that his mother was “a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty, and caring mother and friend.”

Zach Erdem, a New York restaurant owner and longtime friend, told CNN he was glad to have “so many memories” with her. “All she wanted is, like everyone, to live their life peacefully and be themselves,” he said.

Ivana Trump, Erdem added, “was just a peaceful woman.”

This story has been updated with additional developments Wednesday.

CNN’s Gabby Orr and Kate Bennett contributed to this report.

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House committee approves first assault weapons ban bill in decades

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The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday moved a bill banning assault weapons forward but it’s unclear if the legislation has enough support to pass a floor vote. 

Democratic Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas have said they won’t support the bill while Republican Reps. Chris Jacobs, R-N.Y., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., have said they are open to voting for a ban, according to The Hill. House Democrats have a four-vote margin. 

The Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 was advanced in a 25-18 vote but a date for a vote on the House floor has not been set. 

“As we have learned all too well in recent years, assault weapons — especially when combined with high-capacity magazines — are the weapon of choice for mass shootings,” committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said during the bill’s markup. “These military-style weapons are designed to kill the most people in the shortest amount of time. Quite simply, there is no place for them on our streets.”

DAVID HOGG DISRUPTS HOUSE HEARING ON BANNING ASSAULT WEAPONS 

Assault-style rifles hang on display inside a Dallas, Texas gun shop, September 13, 2004.
(REUTERS/Jeff Mitchell  JM)

Ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, argued the bill would take away upstanding gun owners’ rights.

“Democrats know this legislation will not reduce violent crime or reduce the likelihood of mass shootings, but they are obsessed with attacking law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment liberties,” he said. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said, “They’re coming for your guns.” 

GOV. PRITZKER OVERHAULS ILLINOIS GUN RULES AFTER HIGHLAND PARK MASSACRE, CRITICS WARN OF 2ND AMENDMENT BREACH

AR-15 rifles are displayed for sale at the Guntoberfest gun show in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 6, 2017.
(REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo)

The bill would make it a crime to “import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon (SAW) or large capacity ammunition feeding device,” according to the bill’s summary. A few exceptions would be made. 

It would not include any “firearm that is (1) manually operated by bolt, pump, lever, or slide action; (2) permanently inoperable; (3) an antique; or (4) a rifle or shotgun specifically identified by make and model.”

The bill was first introduced in March of last year. 

Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., looks on during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on July 14, 2022, in Washington, DC. 
(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The legislation comes on the heels of the most sweeping gun control bill to pass the Senate in 30 years following a series of mass shootings, including an elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have also been calling for an assault weapons ban. 

“Assault weapons need to be banned,” Biden said last week at the White House while celebrating the signing of the bipartisan gun law. “They were banned. I led the fight in 1994. And then under pressure from the NRA and the gun manufacturers and others, that ban was lifted in 2004. In that 10 years it was law, mass shootings went down.”

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Former President Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban in 1994 that expired in 2004. 

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Texas men Homero Zamorano, Christian Martinez charged in deaths of 53 migrants found in truck

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Two men were indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on charges tied to the failed smuggling operation that disastrously led to the deaths of 53 migrants in San Antonio last month, officials said.

The driver of the truck, Homero Zamorano, and the alleged planner of the operation, Christian Martinez, both Texas natives, could each face life sentence or even the death penalty if convicted of counts of transporting and conspiring to transport migrants illegally resulting in death.

They were also indicted on transporting and conspiring to transport migrants illegally resulting in serious injury.

The dozens of deaths from the inhumane and sweltering conditions inside the packed 18-wheeler was the deadliest migrant smuggling operation crossing the US border from Mexico. 

Both Zamorano, 46, and Martinez, 28, remained in federal custody without bail pending a trial.

Christian Martinez was the alleged planner of the operation, as police discovered calls on Zamorano’s phone with him regarding the operation.

The migrants, many already dead or dying, were discovered in the truck on a remote San Antonio road.

Surveillance video shows the 18-wheeler passing through a Border Patrol checkpoint with the driver matching Zamorano’s description, according to the indictment.

A search of Zamorano’s cellphone revealed calls with Martinez over the smuggling operation, officials said.

Police are at the site where the tractor trailer carrying 53 dead migrants was discovered on June 27, 2022 in San Antonio.
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A woman lights candles during a vigil to honor the migrants who died in the San Antonio cargo truck on July 5, 2022 in El Paso.
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Zamorano was found in a nearby field from where the truck was discovered and arrested last month.

If the men are convicted of the death counts that could lead to life sentences, but the Attorney General’s Office could instead allow prosecutors to seek death penalties.

With Post wires

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