Congress
Sen. Van Hollen blocked from El Salvador prison where Maryland man is held
El Salvador refused Thursday to allow Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen to see the Maryland man who the Trump administration mistakenly whisked off to a notorious prison in his Central American homeland.
The Maryland senator said he traveled to El Salvador to check on the health condition of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the administration sent to the prison despite a judge’s order that he be allowed to remain in the U.S. Van Hollen said soldiers blocked their approach.
“Nobody has had any communication with him since he was illegally abducted from Maryland,” he said in a video posted to social media.
The case has become a flashpoint for Democrats and other critics of the administration’s deportation efforts. The Supreme Court has directed the government to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, who had been allowed to remain in the U.S. after a judge determined he had a legitimate fear of persecution in El Salvador.
President Donald Trump and El Salvador’s leader, President Nayib Bukele, have said they have no basis to bring him back.
Van Hollen, who tried to visit Abrego Garcia with an attorney for the family, was denied access despite the fact that Republican members of Congress have been able to enter a facility that has drawn condemnation for the harsh conditions of confinement.
“Today’s purpose was just to see what his health condition is, and these soldiers were ordered to prevent us from going any farther from this spot,” the senator said in the video.
Democrats have taken on Abrego Garcia’s plight as part of what they’ve called a growing constitutional crisis under the Trump administration. In a press conference, Van Hollen said that his deportation should spark fears of a greater violation of due process rights.
Some House Democrats moved to arrange a Congressional visit to CECOT to see Abrego Garcia, where others like New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have started planning their own visits to El Salvador.
House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee, shut down the idea of a Congressional sponsored trip to El Salvador in a statement Thursday.
“There is no excuse for Democrats to waste taxpayer dollars visiting and defending a transnational gang member and reported domestic abuser,” Green wrote. “If Democrats care so much about defending this individual, they can use their own personal credit cards—not taxpayers’ money—to virtue-signal to their radical base.”
A clean energy group is launching a $1.5 million spend against Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), its latest effort this midterm cycle targeting Republicans who actively work against renewables.
The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition’s first ad in the spend, which was obtained by Blue Light News, focuses on an embarrassing incident for Boebert: when she was ejected from a live musical performance of “Beetlejuice” for allegedly vaping, singing and recording the show.
“If Lauren Boebert can’t be trusted in a room full of kids, then she can’t be trusted in the halls of Congress,” the ad says.
The spot makes no mention of clean energy or Boebert’s attacks on the so-called “Green New Scam.” The strategy mimics the group’s previous playbook that it has deployed to help defeat Reps. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) in their Republican primaries earlier this year, as the latter two sought statewide office. The PAC had tried to paint Ogles as an absentee member of Congress and Roy as insufficiently MAGA.
The group, which is backed by solar executives, has become an increasingly forceful player this cycle, which has seen a massive influx of outside spending.
“This industry has been villainized and used as a punching bag at times by the right, and the industry hasn’t always punched back,” said Chris Coffey, the CEO of Tusk Strategies, which is helping run the group. “Maybe when they’re deciding who to villainize next year, they will at least be like, ‘You know what? I don’t need problems with those guys.’”
Boebert’s district is historically deeply red. But Invest in Tomorrow also commissioned a poll, which shows she is underwater: 39% of likely voters view her favorably and 55% view her unfavorably. It also found Boebert leading the district’s Democratic nominee Eileen Laubacher by 5 points.
The poll, conducted by Impact Research from Sept. 21 to 24, polled 403 likely voters and had a margin of error of ±4.8%.
Rep. Lori Trahan on Wednesday unveiled a discussion draft for a bill that would make artificial intelligence developers liable when their products cause harm.
The legislation comes after OpenAI’s agents escaped containment and autonomously hacked into AI platform Hugging Face and accessed U.S. government websites.
The Clear Liability for Artificial Intelligence Misconduct Act aims to make it easier for those harmed by so-called rogue AI to bring claims against developers. Trahan’s bill does not preempt new state laws on AI liability — historically a prerequisite for attracting Republican support in the House.
“When someone breaks the law and hurts you, you can take them to court. That shouldn’t change just because the wrongdoer is an AI agent,” Trahan (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “Developers have already built systems capable of acting on their own and causing real damage. The CLAIM Act makes sure they answer for what their systems do.”
Legal experts have warned that existing laws require proof of intent or negligence, standards that can be difficult to show in court when AI models go rogue.
Trahan’s bill would ensure AI developers are unable to argue that their AI systems are incapable of intent. Instead, courts “would presume an AI system acted with the state of mind a person taking the same actions would have had.”
Trahan spokesperson Francis Grubar said work on the CLAIM Act began almost immediately after theJuly introduction of the FRONTIER Act, legislation with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) that would grant the government power to restrict the deployment of AI models deemed to pose catastrophic risks. While that bill aims to prevent serious harms before they happen, Grubar said the CLAIM Act would address how to impose accountability for existing damages.
Unlike an AI liability proposal announced last week by Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Trahan’s legislation would not amend the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Grubar said the CLAIM Act would instead impose clearer liability on a broader range of harms, as well as autonomous or AI-enabled cyberattacks.
The CFFA, an anti-hacking law that bars individuals from accessing a computer without consent, requires proof of intent to hack into a computer system, which can’t be as easily applied to AI agents.
The Hugging Face incident, along with a flurry of other disclosed hacking incidents by rogue AI agents from OpenAI and other AI developers, has sparked a debate over how companies should be held legally liable for their AI systems.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in an interview with Blue Light News’s Decoded podcast, said there should be a new “liability framework” to hold developers accountable for AI-powered cyberattacks. His comments come after White House officials like Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, who was recently appointed as AI czar by President Donald Trump, previously said that existing product liability laws are sufficient for now in addressing AI’s risks.
Vice President JD Vance will take questions from Michigan voters in a CBS News town hall airing Oct. 17 as the Trump administration prepares a closing message to voters ahead of the midterms.
The town hall comes amid a blitz of campaign events for Vance and President Donald Trump as their party faces multiple headwinds that could cost them control of the House and Senate.
Michigan’s Senate contest between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers has become one of the cycle’s closely watched battleground contests. Michigan also has several competitive House races and will elect a new governor for the first time in eight years.
Vance campaigned in Michigan with Rogers, gubernatorial nominee John James and Mike Bouchard Jr., the GOP nominee in the 10th Congressional District, at an Aug. 31 rally in Sterling Heights. Rep. Lisa McClain also appeared at the event.
The one-hour special, moderated by “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil, will be recorded earlier in the week. Vance and Dokoupil will discuss issues facing voters, including affordability, tariffs, immigration, health care, artificial intelligence, the war with Iran and the state of American democracy, according to CBS News.
The two were scheduled for a town hall interview in March, but the vice president postponed due to the war with Iran.
The vice president’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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