lawyer is testifying in a matter of hush payments in a federal court in west texas behind closed doors, no cameras, no audio recordings. we start there because what happens in this courtroom and this judge decides could ultimately have consequences for every single woman and every single family in america oral arguments took place in a case brought by anti-abortion groups challenges the completely legal, completely safe long-ago approved routine and decades old use of medication for abortion those groups today asked a judge to order a stop to the use of an abortion pill as their case makes its way through the courts it s reported at the hearing the judge, quote, asked government lawyers on wednesday about what he characterized as an accelerated process for approving one of two drugs used in most pregnancy terminations nationwide in response the justice department lawyer said there s tremendous evidence showing this pill as safe, even when a doctor does not administer it it s
already already acting afraid of not just the right but the far right, fringiest part of the anti-right movement. it feels like the intemperature tim dags and extremism is having at least some of its desired effect and that is the point, it is to chill conduct in every way. it s to make those who are corporate leaders afraid to do business in certain states it is meant to chill the conduct of patients that otherwise would want to see their doctors, whether they re trying to terminate a pregnancy. who will go and seek prepatagonia because you might be vulnerable to a miscarriage because you had them before and you fear showing up with a miscarriage, you suddenly become no longer pregnant, the near fear that you had and it meant
add to that and say, look at the optics of this outside of country. bob corker, head of the senate foreign relations committee, saying that this looks like a banana republic, and believe me, that comment gets picked up, translated into 200 different languages. they have to figure out the context of a banana republic, but it is going to reverberate again and again in that international arena and you re right to point out that this will have a chilling effect on those national security officials, formers, and how they are viewed and all of it will reduce or national security. that s absolutely right. betsy woodruff get you in on the next story. increasingly open criticism by the president by top intemperature officials likely has roots in earliest days of trump s presidency. even transitioning to the white house president trump was unsparing in criticism of the u.s. intelligence committee. december, 2016, remember, the
elevator actually dangling. now, look at this photo tweeted out by the ntsb. aviation experts say the white piece of metal that you see the investigator holding appears to be a portion of the elevator s trim tab and it is now being sent to washington, dc, for testing. shepard: what about other evidence? what other evidence have they found there? reporter: even though it was not required, there was a doomed plane. we should say there was a recording device on the doomed plane that resembles that of a black box on commercial airliner but officials say on a commercial honor it is recording thousands of variables during the plight and this was rudimentary and recording dozens of variable measuring things likening intemperature, oil pressure, and velocity.