AG Garland Held in Contempt

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Speaker B
The nation's top prosecutor is used to doing the accusing. We start here.

House Republicans vote to hold the attorney general in contempt of Congress.

Speaker D
This is the strongest rebuke of the Justice Department from House Republicans yet.

Speaker B
Is this an attempt to get tapes of a president's interview, or is it an election year gambit? We'll explain what this all means. G seven leaders head to a summit with one stand.

Speaker E
With Ukraine back on track, the sense of western backing which has wavered.

Speaker B
But with the far right sweeping european politics, a lot of these leaders could soon be out of a job. And a million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool?

Speaker C
This was a ginormous pay package for Elon Musk, $56 billion.

Speaker B
The vote on whether Elon Musk is entitled to a historic payday.

From ABC News, this is start here. Im Brad Milke.

In the wake of January 6, 2021, lots of people were hauled before Congress to explain what actually happened leading up to that fateful day. Some of them said thanks, but no thanks, which traditionally really isnt an option. A congressional subpoena carries, in theory, the same weight as a court order. In fact, theoretically, you can be held criminally responsible for ignoring it. For some witnesses, that's eventually what ended up happening. There's not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up. Just this month, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was ordered to report to prison to serve his sentence for contempt of Congress. But this concept of rebuffing Congress, that's not just limited to Republicans. When Hunter Biden was asked by congressional Republicans to testify behind closed doors on Capitol Hill. He smelled a political stunt where people would start leaking stuff for political gain. He demanded to testify in an open hearing and after being threatened with contempt, finally testified behind closed doors while forgoing the public appearance. Then there's the attorney general of the US, Merrick Garland. I will not be intimidated and the Justice Department will not be intimidated. For months, Congress has been asking him to furnish a videotape. He said no. He said, you got a transcript of the conversation in question. Why do you need the tape? Well, last night, the House of Representatives found this nation's top prosecutor in contempt of Congress. Let's break it all down with ABC senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott.

She's on the Hill right now. Rachel, what was the story behind this?

Speaker D
Yeah, Brad, we're seeing more and more of this. And look, this is the strongest rebuke of the Justice Department from House Republicans.

Speaker B
Yet on this vote. The yeas are 216, the nays are 207. The resolution is adopted.

Speaker D
House Republicans passed a measure almost unanimously to hold Attorney General Mayor Carlin in contempt for failing to comply with the subpoena to turn over the audio of President Biden's interview with special counsel Robert her. Now, you may remember her. He was investigating the president's handling of classified documents. It was after that interview that the special counsel ultimately concluded that Biden should not face any criminal charges. But in his report, he also included this line that said that the president is a well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. Now, of course, we were in an election year. You had Republicans seize on that. Ultimately, the transcript was released, but Republicans said that wasn't enough. They wanted to hear the audio of that interview with the special counsel. And because the Justice Department wouldn't turn it over, ultimately, Republicans said, we're gonna move forward with this vote.

Speaker B
Wait, but for Democrats, I mean, are they thinking, like, I get that. They're probably like, Republicans will use this footage to make President Biden look dumb or something. And that could be true. And yet it also doesn't mean that Congress shouldn't get access to something. Right, like political considerations. So what is the counterargument here?

Speaker D
Look, Brad, the White House has the power to assert executive privilege, and that has denied House Republicans the access that they are looking for to these recordings.

Speaker B
We have to defend the Constitution. We have to defend the authority of Congress can't allow the Department of Justice, an executive branch agency, to hide information from Congress.

Speaker D
And Democrats are also very quick to point out that when they were investigating January 6. They had multiple Republicans that also defied congressional subpoenas.

Speaker B
Get real. When Mister Jordan and Mister Biggs come to this floor and want to talk and get all righteous about subpoenas, you start honoring your subpoenas and we can talk about anyone else's subpoenas.

Speaker D
And many of those very Republicans were the same ones that were pushing forward, trying to have this contempt vote. They are saying there's a lot of irony here and that this is simply all political in an election year.

Speaker B
But what's interesting about all that, Rachel, is we've now seen, so we saw contempt of Congress over some conservatives that said, no, I'm not going to talk about President Trump. I don't care if they subpoena me. Well, some of them have now been convicted of criminal contempt and they were prosecuted by, wait for it, Garland's own Department of justice. Right? So, like, if he gets found in contempt of Congress, could he, I guess, be criminally charge the attorney general?

Speaker D
Brad, if there's one thing to make clear here, it is that it is highly, and I mean highly unlikely that the Justice Department, which Merrick Garland oversees, is actually going to prosecute him, even though, Brad, this feels like this does not happen a lot. This feels like it's very rare. It's actually happened a few times in recent history. Garrett Garland is now the third attorney general in the last decade to be held in contempt of Congress. Eric Holder, a Democrat, was held in contempt in 2012. Bill Barr, Republican, was held in contempt in 2019. And so here you have, again, Merrick Garland. You have some members that are simply just calling this all sort of a rite of passage in an election year.

Speaker B
Merrick Garland called this a disappointing day. He said this disregarded the separation of powers because, remember, DOJ and the White House, they're all part of the same branch of government, which is why ABC News got this memo from the DOJ explaining that for 70 years, the policy has been to not prosecute members of the executive branch for stuff like this. Rachel, last question. This was not even the only contentious vote this week. You also had Republicans trying to push forward a bill that would conceivably alter, like, the legal landscape for somebody like former President Trump going forward. What is this legislation and where does it stand?

Speaker D
Yeah, and this is really interesting, Brad, especially because of the timing. In just a few hours, former President Donald Trump is going to be meeting with congressional Republicans, including House Republicans. And it comes as Speaker Johnson is considering and weighing how to move forward with the bill that's really aimed at showing support for the former president after his conviction. So this is a bill that would allow current or former presidents to move state charges against them into federal court. Why is this important? The charges that we saw brought against Donald Trump in New York were state charges. He tried to get a move to federal court. A judge ended up rejecting that.

What is interesting here, Brad, is that a president cannot pardon based off of state charges.

Speaker C
Right.

Speaker B
I was gonna say the Georgia and the New York cases were called pardon proof because of this.

Speaker D
So by moving a case to federal court, does that then open up a door for Donald Trump, if he's reelected to potentially pardon himself?

Republicans think, yes, they obviously think that these charges against the former president are completely bogus. And so they are trying to carve out an avenue to make this possible. Now, there is already a legal mechanism for this. We've seen Donald Trump try to use this, and it has failed. But the bottom line here, Brad, is that this is likely going nowhere. This is really just a messaging bill. This is Republicans coming up and saying that they're standing behind the former president. After this conviction, there's very little likelihood that this would even get through the Senate. Brad.

Speaker B
All right, really interesting stuff unfolding here. Rachel Scott, thank you so much.

Speaker D
Thanks, Brad.

Speaker B
Next up on start here, another set of sanctions on Russia. But observers say these ones could be different or fly like a g seven. After the break.

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Speaker B
Today is the start of the G seven summit, a meeting of leaders from the seven biggest economies on earth. I'm old enough to remember ten years ago when it used to be the g eight. That's when Russia was kicked out for its aggression toward Ukraine. Well, fast forward to this year's meeting. And President Biden plans to sign a security agreement with Ukraine on the sidelines of these official events in Italy. And while Biden might be nervous, as this is potentially the final g seven of his presidency, depending on this year's elections, he's not the only leader here facing tremendous pressure at home. Let's go to ABC's foreign correspondent Patrick Rievl, who's in Bari, Italy, where the president has landed overnight. Patrick, what is happening there today?

Speaker E
Hi, Brad. Yeah. President Biden has touched down here in southern Italy, the resort town of Bari, which is famous as a place for the rich and famous to go on holiday. Really.

Justin Timberlake got married to Jessica Beale here. Madonna had a birthday party here. But right now it's home to the G seven, the world's largest and richest democracies and essentially the US's key western allies.

And top of the agenda here is Ukraine. President Biden is flying here with a number of things that he's attempting to do to essentially signal ongoing support for Ukraine and to try and really put back on track the sense of western backing which has wavered in the last few months.

Speaker B
We want to demonstrate that the US supports the people of Ukraine, that we stand with them, and that we'll continue to help address their security needs, not just, not just tomorrow, but out into the future.

Speaker E
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is going to be here as well. President Biden will be meeting with him. They will be signing a bilateral security agreement. It's about the US committing to, over the long term, develop Ukraine's military capabilities and in particular its own military production so that it can do things like produce its own weapons, produce its own ammunition. And ukrainian officials said to us, this is the most important agreement the US and Ukraine have ever signed since Ukraine gained independence. They believe it's very important for the long term sustainability of Ukraine being able to defend itself. In addition to this bilateral agreement, the White House is hoping that at this summit it's going to be able to reach an agreement with the other G seven members to provide a $50 billion loan to Ukraine using frozen russian assets. Because after Russia began its full scale invasion, the US and european countries and many other countries froze russian assets, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of russian assets. But for two years there's been this debate over how to use them and whether they could be used somehow to help Ukraine's defense and also pay for reconstruction. And finally, in addition to all of this, as President Biden was flying to Italy, the White House announced that it was, it was expanding its sanctions regime against Russia.

Speaker B
Well, yeah, Patrick, tell me about that, because the Biden administration is always seemingly rolling out new sets of sanctions against Russia. And the question is always, like, how could you possibly punish Russia more than you already have? Like, if you could have, you would have done it then. So, I mean, are these new sanctions against Russia significant at all?

Speaker E
Yeah, I think people's eyes tend to glaze over now when people talk about sanctions against Russia. It's already the most sanctioned country in the world. But actually this set of sanctions is different. The main reason is that it expands the sanctions regime in a way that greatly increases the risk for foreign companies and banks to do business with sanctioned russian entities. It suddenly will become significantly more risky that those doing this will themselves get sanctioned. And that is an attempt to basically tighten up the sanctions regime and to try and make it harder simply for Russia to continue turning its economy into a war economy. And we have already seen that these sanctions have had more of an effect than previous rounds have. The Moscow stock exchange has stopped trading in dollars and euros within an hour of the sanctions being announced. And that just, I think, shows that. I think there is a lot of nervousness within Russia's financial sector about what these new sanctions will mean. I think there will be jitters.

Speaker B
Well, and lastly, Patrick, when I look at the group of leaders that are there, I talked about how President Biden might be nervous because, you know, he's got elections coming up. Well, all the, I mean, are any of these leaders going to be here this time next year? We've seen sort of these right wing parties sweep a lot of votes in Europe just this week. What is going on for these european countries that is making them so nervous right now?

Speaker E
Yeah, it's very interesting times in european politics. I mean, French President Emmanuel Macron has called a snap parliamentary election because of how well the far right did in the european elections. In France, Britain's prime minister, Rishi Sunak is facing election that he is at the moment. Polls show he will struggle to win.

But the person who had a very good european election was Italy's prime minister, Giorgio Maloney, who is hosting this summit here in Italy. Giorgio Maloney, in many ways became the poster girl for the far right in Europe. And the far right is hoping that she is a trailblazer for them. And what we saw in these european elections is that the far right and far right parties essentially did much better than they have ever done before. And I think the strength of the far right at the moment who are running on these nationalist, populist, anti immigrant platforms is feeding off a sense of dissatisfaction that is widespread in Europe right now with inequality, with how the economy is going. And there is a great deal of discontent with establishment politics in many european countries, but particularly we're seeing in France and Germany.

I think one of the questions many people are asking is whether the forces we're seeing surging in Europe are also the ones that are feeding some of the support for former President Trump in the United States. The election that's hanging over this summit here ultimately is the american one, because obviously President Biden is coming here trying to show that the US will be with Ukraine for as long as possible. That's the core message of this summit. But ultimately, he cannot say whether he will be in office by the end of this year and whether that policy will continue or would continue under President Trump.

Speaker B
Yeah. Again, this all kind of points to why these Europeans are nervous in some ways to go along with the US and all this Ukraine stuff is because they're like, we can't afford to take off our constituents any more than you can right now. All right. Patrick Rieville. They are in beautiful Bari, Italy. Thank you for breaking it down.

Speaker E
Thanks, Brett.

Speaker B
A new economic report yesterday showed inflation slowing a bit more. Prices are only 3.3% higher than they were a year ago. But you can still sense the nervousness from Americans about their money. The Federal Reserve has said they'd be comfortable with 2% inflation. Right now it's 3.3. Right. So yesterday, when it came time to decide whether to cut interest rates, the Fed kept them right where they were. We are strongly committed to returning inflation.

Speaker E
To our 2% goal in support of a strong economy that benefits everyone.

Speaker B
And yet, even as Americans pinch pennies and pray to get an affordable loan, today we are set to learn whether Tesla shareholders approve an eye popping compensation package for Elon Musk. And this package has become its own kind of economic litmus test. Let's bring in ABC's Elizabeth Scholze, who covers Econ. ElIzabeth, what's going on here?

Speaker C
Well, really, the big question here, Brad, that Tesla shareholders are going to have to answer is if Elon Musk, the company CEO at the helm of Tesla, was paid too much money. Let's just understand what we're talking about here is this shareholder package that was approved in 2018. This was a ginormous pay package for Elon Musk, $56 billion.

Speaker E
There was a time when electric cars seemed very stupid, and it wasn't that long ago.

Speaker C
This was contingent on Elon Musk being able to take Tesla from, at the time, a somewhat scrappy startup, making electric cars and achieving very ambitious performance targets, taking the stock up to a certain level. And that would mean that Elon Musk can get paid out these tens of billions of dollars. Shareholders approved it back then. Fast forward five years.

Speaker B
A civil trial is underway in Delaware, arguing Musk received too much compensation to run Tesla.

Speaker C
In January of this year, a judge in Delaware basically struck down the package, saying that it shouldn't be in place.

Speaker B
A judge ruled Musk's pay package was a sham, excessive riches dictated by Musk.

Speaker C
To a board that was not independent at the time. The judge said that this was the largest ever observed pay package in public markets. And her argument was that Tesla's board that helped approve this back at the time was full of people who were a little bit too cozy, too close with Elon Musk. And that was a reason why, and part of a lawsuit brought against it, that Elon Musk shouldn't be entitled to that money in the first place. And so today, shareholders are getting asked again to decide if that package was fair and if the package is really still in their best interest. And this vote's going to happen on a live stream later this afternoon.

Speaker B
Brad well, why has this become such a lightning rod among shareholders? ELIZABETH because like we've seen in the last few years, I'm thinking we've seen grocery companies saying inflation has proven profitable for their bottom lines. We've seen these enormous raises for executives even in the leanest of moments. Aren't people around Tesla and on Wall street going to be like, yeah, like this happened. This guy deserves every penny of this?

Speaker C
And you certainly see some shareholders and investors saying that. And when you think about the fact that this was, at the time, contingent on performance targets, people say, look, Elon Musk was able to do it as.

Speaker E
A constitutes majority of my work time.

And I work pretty much every day of the week. It's rare for me to take a Sunday afternoon off.

Speaker C
He was able to take this company, turn it into the most valuable automaker in the world, revolutionize the world of electric vehicles, and take Tesla's share price from about $30, you know, back in 2018 to as high as $400 in 2022. So that unlocked a lot of value for people who are invested in the company. And those people would say, look, Elon Musk did this for us, and he's entitled to get rewarded for that.

On the other hand, you have people who say, this is just so outsized compared to what investors got back, what workers get back. And it is not congruent with the fact that some CEO should be making $56 billion. He is, Brad, the richest man in the world. According to Forbes, his wealth is like $211 billion, in part because of this pay package. And that just exacerbates this enormous wealth inequality that we see when you see a CEO being compensated in that way. And critics would also argue that Tesla has been struggling in more recent years.

Speaker B
14,000 layoffs, a recall of the cybertruck, and a $2,000 price cut on several vehicles trying to combat sluggish sales.

Speaker C
We've seen its share price suffer, especially just this year. It's down about 30% Tesla stock, and it's facing a lot of challenges. There's a lot more competition in the electric vehicle industry. We've seen, especially competition from lower cost chinese automakers. Elon Musk, some investors would argue, has been a little bit distracted. He runs a couple of other businesses, by the way. He bought Twitter, now known as X. He also runs SpaceX. And so investors are looking at. Sure, he accomplished this enormous feat in bringing Tesla from that scrappy startup to the most valuable car maker in the world. But in just more recent years, it has struggled a lot more. So is Elon Musk really entitled to that kind of pay? And, frankly, should he be running the company when it is struggling, as it has been more recently?

Speaker B
But if you're getting into public scraps, though, with Elon Musk, like you just said, he now owns the megaphone, right, like he owns Twitter, or X, like he now calls it. So what has been the response and the public stance on this from Musk and from Tesla?

Speaker C
Right. And not surprisingly, Musk wants to get this pay package, significantly increases his wealth. He's been outspoken against Delaware, against this judge.

Another component, actually, of the vote today, Brad, is if, whether Tesla should be headquartered still in Delaware, if it would be able to move its headquarters to Texas. And Elon Musk wants to see this come through. He's gone so far as to go out on X and retweet posts from the company urging shareholders to vote. There's an interesting component here where a lot of people who are invested in Tesla now are actually retail investors, individual investors, kind of the little guys. Sure. You still have a lot of big companies, big names invested in the stock, but about 40% of its shares are held by those non institutional investors. So they will have a vote and saying, is he entitled to this pay package or not? So what you see, and it's not really surprising when you think about how Elon Musk is outside spoken and likes to try to make his case directly to people on X and isn't afraid of saying controversial things on X. He's urging them to go ahead and get this pay package reapproved.

Speaker B
And that's like the blessing and the curse of having all these retail investors right. Is like, a lot of them follow kind of like the Vibes. And Elon Musk is full of vibes, whatever you think of them. And so now, like, it could all kind of Hinge on how people feel about him as a leader. What happens now then, Elizabeth?

Speaker C
Right. So the hope for Elon Musk is that shareholders will vote in favor of this Pay package and that that would pave the path for it getting reinstated and the judge's ruling being overturned. But no matter how you look at the outcome of this vote, there's really no question that Elon Musk has become the face of this debate over how much executives make. Is that the right way for them to get compensated, especially when you're looking at someone as controversial as out there is Elon Musk, who's also running a lot of other businesses at the same time? Or will shareholders say, you know what, Elon Musk? You have done good things, but it's time to rein it in a little bit.

Speaker B
And you think about, like, how important Tesla is, whether it's to the electric car economy or to the broader auto industry or just the stock market. Like a really big day for a number of reasons here. Elizabeth Jolsey, thank you so much.

Speaker C
Thanks, Brad.

Speaker B
Ok, one more quick break. When we come back, this would flush your sense of privacy down the drain. One last thing is next.

And one last thing.

Heres a personal how long is your average bathroom visit? Quit stalling. Cause if you dont tell me, this place might.

Speaker C
The Yungang grottos are regarded as a.

Speaker D
Treasure trove of ancient chinese sculpture art.

Speaker B
That is a state run chinese tv station encouraging tourists to visit the famed Yungang grottoes in the northeastern part of the country. This ancient buddhist site has these awe inspiring sculptures cut right into the stone, which is why it's been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage site. But recently, tourists started noticing a new addition. Over each bathroom stall was an automated timer.

These photos started appearing on the chinese social media site Weibo. Over some stalls was a green electronic screen that says empty, which is kind of helpful, right? It's awkward to knock on the door when someone's doing their business, or worse, to line up outside a stall when it turns out there's no one there. But when those stalls were occupied, the screen changes to what is basically a stopwatch, an automated timer telling people outside how long you've been in there. When the local paper reached out to officials, they were told, these timers are counting up. It's not like the clock hits zero, the doors open and security hustles you out. Rather, they said, this is all just about convenience, a way to make it clear which stall is likely opening up next. But this raises all kinds of questions about how we view time on the toilet.

Should people feel some sort of pressure to perform in crowded spaces? This is an especially urgent question in recent years, as smartphones have given people more excuses to just absent mindedly remain on the toilet. Some people used to take newspapers with them. Now youve effectively got a tv and an office computer in there with you, some chinese patrons said. Even if no one was there telling them to hurry up, they felt monitored by these timers. Several commenters on Weibo said the historical site should wash their hands of this project entirely. Invest in more toilets, they said, rather than digital displays. And indeed, if facilities are looking to speed up visits by their guests, researchers from Ghent University in Belgium say there is one statistical constant across all the bathrooms they've studied worldwide. The designs that fill up and empty the fastest are unisex bathrooms.

That study says men save 30 to 60 seconds per trip when there are no gender restrictions. They say women can save up to five or six minutes of waiting because, yeah, it's tough to be a woman in the world of public bathrooms. Just your duty to roll with it, I guess. More on all these stories@abcnews.com or the ABC news app. I'm Brad Milke. See you tomorrow.

AG Garland Held in Contempt

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1: Contempt of Congress

2: G7 Summit and International Politics

3: Legislative and Political Strategies

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