Warren joins Buttigieg in nixing threat to church tax status

Elizabeth Warren would not seek to revoke the tax-exempt status of churches or other religious entities that decline to perform same-sex marriages if she's elected president, the Massachusetts Democrat's campaign said.

Asked to respond to former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke's assertion last week that religious institutions should face the loss of their tax exemption for opposing same-sex marriage, Warren campaign spokeswoman Saloni Sharma said that "Elizabeth will stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBTQ+ community" to help stamp out "fear of discrimination and violence." But she declined to take aim at the tax status of religious organizations that don't support same-sex marriage.

"Religious institutions in America have long been free to determine their own beliefs and practices, and she does not think we should require them to conduct same-sex marriages in order to maintain their tax-exempt status," Sharma said by email.

Warren is the latest Democratic presidential hopeful to create distance from O'Rourke's suggestion as President Donald Trump joined a conservative outcry against it, accusing him of threatening religious freedom. Trump belittled O'Rourke as a "wacko" during Saturday remarks to the conservative Values Voter Summit, signaling a willingness to use the issue to drive a wedge between voters of faith and the Democratic Party.

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., told CNN on Sunday that "going after the tax exemption of churches, Islamic centers or other religious facilities in this country, I think that's just going to deepen the divisions that we're already experiencing."

O'Rourke offered an unequivocal "yes" on Thursday when CNN asked during a town hall on LGBTQ issues if opposition to same-sex marriage should imperil religious institutions' tax exemption, a longstanding fixture of U.S. tax law. His campaign manager sought to clarify that position on Sunday, stating that O'Rourke would not threaten the tax status of churches that decline to perform same-sex marriages.

A religious entity that "discriminates based on sexual orientation or gender identity when delivering public services" should not be tax exempt, but O'Rourke would not try to revoke the tax status of "a church that declines to marry a same sex couple," campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon tweeted .

However, O'Rourke's initial comment had already sparked loud condemnation from prominent Republicans and other conservatives, some of whom used it to suggest that Democrats would seek to punish religious organizations that don't agree with their support for same-sex marriage.

Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott tweeted on Friday that O'Rourke "is the most honest Democrat running for President — he admits they want to shut down churches if they don't adhere to his beliefs." Mississippi GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith weighed in on Saturday, tweeting that "Democrats' unconstitutional attacks against our religious liberties must be stopped."

Trump, after slamming O'Rourke on Saturday without using his name, told religious conservatives that "I will never allow the IRS to be used as a political weapon." The president also has repeatedly touted his efforts to ease enforcement of a decades-old provision of federal tax law known as the Johnson Amendment that bars tax-exempt organizations such as houses of worship from engaging in political campaigns.

Yet even before O'Rourke made his initial comment about undoing the tax exemption for certain religious institutions, another Democratic presidential rival declined to endorse the idea.

"I'm not saying, because I know this is a long legal battle," New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker told CNN when asked the same question O'Rourke fielded, earlier in the televised town hall.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.

While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.

At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.

In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.

The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.

FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)