Trump FEC Complaint: Labour Party Helping Harris 'Illegal'

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/trump-campaign-fec-complaint/2024/10/22/id/1185087/

The Trump campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission claiming that the 100 staffers from Britain's Labour Party coming to the United States in support of Kamala Harris' presidential campaign amounts to "illegal foreign campaign" interference.

Trump campaign lawyer Gary Lawkowski filed the complaint Monday after calls were put out to Labour Party staffers to travel to the U.S. to help campaign for the Democrat presidential nominee.

According to a now-deleted LinkedIn post, Sofia Patel, head of operations for the Labour Party, organized a delegation to travel to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to stump for Harris.

Lawkowski called for an "immediate investigation."

"[T]here is reason to believe that foreign nationals are exercising direction and control over elements of the Harris campaign," he wrote to the FEC. "The Washington Post story suggests that Labour Party officials are closely advising the Harris campaign. The similarity in messaging between the Harris campaign and the Labour Party supports a reasonable inference that this advice is influencing campaign messaging and resource allocation."

Lawkowski added, "There is sufficient evidence to support a reason to believe finding that the British Labour Party made, and the Harris campaign accepted, illegal foreign national contributions."

DC Appeals Court Rejects Key Jan 6. Defense Strategy

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/jan-6-appeals-court-couy-griffin/2024/10/22/id/1185054/

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a defense claim by a Jan. 6 defendant to ward off a move that prosecutors have used against more than 1,400 people, Politico reported on Tuesday.

The issue at hand is whether Jan. 6 defendant Couy Griffin could argue that he was unaware of "knowingly" breaching a Secret-Service-protected permitter and the government did not conclusively prove that Griffin was aware of the restrictions in place at the time of riots.

In a 2-1 ruling, Judges Cornelia Pillard and Judith Rogers decided the trespassing law being adjudicated was passed to bolster security for Secret Service protectees. At the time of the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, former Vice President Mike Pence was inside the Capitol, therefore the grounds were under heightened Secret Service restriction.

The court ruled that requiring the Justice Department's prosecutors to prove that trespassers were aware of the Secret Service protectee's location would "impair the Secret Service's ability to protect its charges."

"The government was not required to prove that Griffin was aware that the Vice President's presence was the reason the grounds remained restricted," Pillard wrote, joined by Rogers. "A person trespassing on grounds he knows are restricted, where he knows he lacks permission to be, may be convicted of a federal misdemeanor trespass — even if he does not know that a Secret Service protectee is within."

Griffin had argued that the law was so broad in scope that it could be used to punish anyone who steps into a restricted area simply to shorten the distance between two places.

The judges said the purpose of the law was aimed at "a small subset of trespassing offenses that implicate both the personal security of the most high-profile federal officials — and also, necessarily, the national security of the United States."

The ruling gives the Justice Department's prosecutors some solace following months of rulings that have slowly negated hundreds of cases it had brought against the protestors of Jan. 6.

Yet, the lone dissent issued by Judge Gregory Katsas likely increases the chances that the Supreme Court will eventually take up the issue.

The outlet noted that if the Supreme Court narrows the scope of the federal trespassing law it will send a ripple effect down through the hundreds of misdemeanor convictions of Jan. 6 offenders and hamper the ongoing prosecutions of hundreds more.

Telehealth Spurred Rise in Abortions Nationally

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/medication-abortion-telehealth/2024/10/22/id/1185058/

From April to June, the number of abortions performed in the United States rose 11% compared to the same time period last year, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

According to the quarterly #WeCount report from the Society of Family Planning, there were nearly 98,000 abortions per month on average in the first half of 2024, which is up from the 88,000 per month average in 2023 and the 81,400 average in 2022.

That increase is largely driven by expanded telehealth access to medication abortion, which has allowed patients to skirt state prohibitions on the procedure.

"In this heavily restricted abortion care environment, medication abortion provided via telehealth under shield laws is making a significant contribution to abortion access," Ushma Upadhyay, co-chair of #WeCount and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a release.

"Despite abortion opponents' continued efforts to ban safe, effective abortion care, providers, advocates, and abortion funds all continue to innovate new ways to help people access the abortion care they need," she added.

In-person abortions comprise 80% of all abortions, but such care has become difficult to access when confronted by state-level abortion bans.

The popularity of medication abortions via telehealth under shield laws has skyrocketed in places with restrictions since the Supreme Court reversed the federal abortion protections established by Roe v. Wade in 2022.

According to the report, 20% of abortions by the second quarter of 2024 were medication abortions via telehealth; during the same time period in 2022, medication abortions via telehealth made up 4% of total abortions.

In the second quarter of 2023, there were 24,640 telehealth-enabled abortions. During the same time period this year, there were 60,270 – a 145% increase.

Not counting the abortions performed under shield laws, there was a 26% increase in the number of abortions provided via telehealth.