Month: December 2020

China has denied the allegations.

The Trump administration is declassifying intelligence, so far unconfirmed, that indicates China offered bounties to non-state actors to attack American soldiers in Afghanistan, according to a senior administration official.

President Donald Trump has been briefed about the uncorroborated intelligence, the official said.

Axios first reported on the intelligence on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Wang Wenbin, on Thursday denied the accusation, calling it a “smear and slander against China” that was “completely nonsense” and “fake news.”

The declassification comes as the Trump administration attempts to maintain pressure on China during the president’s final few weeks in office.

U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien verbally briefed the president about the intelligence, which was also included in a briefing for Trump on Dec. 17, according to the official.

The official said different U.S. government agencies were working to corroborate the initial intelligence.

The administration has taken a strikingly different approach to this uncorroborated intelligence, declassifying it and confirming it was working to confirm it, compared with the White House’s strong pushback when The New York Times reported over the summer that Trump had been briefed on an intelligence assessment that Russia had been doing the same — offering bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

At the time, Trump dismissed the report as a “hoax,” and the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, criticized the Times and downplayed the underlying intelligence as unverified.

Instead of now pushing back, as it did in the case of the report about Russia, the administration is using the intelligence to more publicly go after China, which Trump has portrayed as a greater foe than Russia.

Storms could also cause excessive rainfall from eastern Texas to Arkansas.

There are still two storms moving across the U.S. Thursday morning. The first storm is almost done and is currently bringing some rain to the Northeast and snow north and west of the major cities. Accumulations should remain rather light, but some slick spots will be possible.

A large area of rain extends into the deep south, which could still result in flash flooding across parts of Texas and Arkansas.

Radar is also showing a second storm coming across parts of Texas. Unfortunately, the storm will track across much of the country and will bring widespread impacts across the central and eastern U.S.

The storm will bring severe weather from eastern Texas to western Florida by Thursday night. There is an enhanced risk for parts of Texas and Louisiana, where tornadoes are possible later Thursday. Damaging winds will also be likely anywhere from Houston to Montgomery, Alabama.

Additionally, several rounds of storms could cause excessive rainfall from eastern Texas to Arkansas, and bring a flash flood risk.

Meanwhile, snow and a wintry mix are expected to move from parts of central Texas through the central Plains. This wintry mix could be quite excessive and impact parts of the Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas, and the Kansas City metro areas. This could make driving extremely treacherous and result in power outages.

The severe storms will be moving towards the southeast by Thursday morning. However, a wide swath of a wintry mix will be situated from Kansas to Indiana. All roadways will be slippery and power outages are expected.

Unfortunately, during the day on Thursday, a wintry mix is expected in major cities in the Midwest like Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Meanwhile, the wintry mix will arrive in much of Pennsylvania and New York State on Friday. In all cases, an excessive wintry mix could result in downed trees, power outages and dangerous roadways.

Through Saturday morning, over 6 inches of snow could fall in parts of Texas, 3-6 inches in the extreme Northeast, and a large region of ice could accumulate from Texas to New York.

An official cause of death has yet to be determined.

Samuel Little, the prolific serial killer who was serving three consecutive life sentences, is dead, authorities said Wednesday.

Little died at a hospital shortly before 5 a.m. local time, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement. An official cause of death will be determined by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was 80.

The FBI has deemed Little “the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.”

He was convicted in 2014 of killing three women in the late 1980s, after being linked to the murders through DNA matched to evidence found at the crime scenes.

Subsequently, Little confessed to strangling 93 victims between 1970 and 2005, according to the FBI. The FBI said investigators believed his confessions were credible and had verified 50 as of October 2019.

One of his suspected victims was just identified in October. Patricia Parker, who was a 30-year-old mother from Chattanooga, Tennessee, was found slain and dumped alongside a Georgia freeway nearly 40 years ago. Authorities said they believe Little killed her.

Little’s life of crime spanned decades, according to a 2018 FBI report. He was first arrested in 1956 and displayed a “dark, violent streak” in his crimes, which included shoplifting, fraud, drug charges, solicitation and breaking and entering, the FBI said.

He spent a term in prison prior to his conviction on murder charges in 2014, serving two years in California state prison from 1985 to 1987 for assault with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment.

In 2012, Little was arrested at a Kentucky homeless shelter and extradited to California on a narcotics charge, the FBI said. That’s when police in Los Angeles matched his DNA to three unsolved murders from the late 1980s.

“In all three cases, the women had been beaten and then strangled, their bodies dumped in an alley, a dumpster, and a garage,” the FBI said in its report.

Despite asserting his innocence, Little was convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Since his confession in 2018 to killing 93 women, investigators have been racing to identify as many of his victims as possible and help close the unsolved cases.

While jailed, investigators have interviewed Little and had him draw dozens of pictures of women — almost all women of color — he admitted to killing over nearly 40 years.

“For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims,” Christie Palazzolo, a crime analyst with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, said in a statement when the agency launched its initiative to identify the women. “Even though he is already in prison, the FBI believes it is important to seek justice for each victim — to close every case possible.”

Officer Amy Detweiler said Hill didn’t respond to requests for information.

Investigators released new details Wednesday about last week’s police-involved shooting of Andre Hill in Columbus, Ohio, that revealed the mindset of the officers involved.

Officer Amy Detweiler told investigators that she and her partner, Adam Coy, were working to figure out who Hill was and why he was at the location of a non-emergency 911 call, according to newly released audio from her interview with police investigators following the Dec. 22 incident. Investigators released an “informational summary” of the interview Tuesday.

The call involved a complaint from a neighbor who allegedly saw a man sitting in an SUV for an extended period turning his car on and off, according to the Columbus Department of Public Safety.

Detweiler, a nine-year veteran, said she and her partner arrived separately to the scene and saw Hill near a car and then go into an open garage. Detweiler told investigators that Coy requested that Hill come out of the garage and when he did, things got “weird.”

“He didn’t speak, he wasn’t communicating,” the officer said of Hill. “There was no interaction or much interaction that gave any indication as to who the person was or why they were there,” she said.

Coy shot Hill, 47, as he was coming out of the garage while holding a cell phone in his left hand.

Coy, a 19-year veteran, turned on his body-worn camera only when the shooting began, however, the device’s “look back” function recorded 60 seconds of video before the activation, according to investigators. No audio was recorded by the camera’s “look back” function.

Detweiler said she heard Coy scream Hill had a gun in his other hand. She told investigators she couldn’t recall if her partner gave Hill an order to drop a weapon.

Detweiler said she did not see a weapon on Hill, and no weapon was found.

Coy and Detweiler did not appear to administer any aid to Hill as he lay on the ground, according to the body camera footage, and he died a short time later in the hospital. Coy was fired Monday, and an investigation into the shooting is ongoing.

Detweiler told investigators she did not approach Hill with her gun and had her weapon in a “low ready” position during the incident.

Detweiler also told investigators she didn’t observe any threats from Hill during the incident and only saw that he had his phone held up. However, she said she was concerned about Hill’s presence, because property crime was “not uncommon” in the neighborhood.

“There’s a level of, ‘I can’t see in there, I don’t know who you are, you’re not giving us indicators either and you’re not telling me you live here,'” Detweiler told investigators. “He’s not volunteering why he’s at that residence.”

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther told reporters last week that Hill was not an intruder and was an expected guest of the house’s tenants.

Speaker Pelosi dismissed Josh Hawley’s bid to disrupt the Jan 6. certification.

In a last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, and against the warnings of Senate Republican leaders, Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley announced Wednesday that he plans to object during the Electoral College certification process in Congress on Jan. 6.

Hawley joins some of President Donald Trump’s staunchest Republican allies on Capitol Hill on what could be one of the president’s last attempts to challenge the certification of the presidential election results in January and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden.

Hawley alleges that some states failed to follow their election laws and that Big Tech interfered on behalf of Biden.

He’s the first Republican senator joining a group of House members who also plan to object to the Electoral College results, in what is expected to be a symbolic political stand, delaying the certification of the presidential race results by hours, rather than alter the results.

“I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws. And I cannot vote to certify without pointing out the unprecedented effort of mega corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, to interfere in this election, in support of Joe Biden,” Hawley noted in a statement. “At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act. For these reasons, I will follow the same practice Democrat members of Congress have in years past and object during the certification process on January 6 to raise these critical issues.”

Under federal law, a member of the House or Senate can contest the Electoral College results from any state, separating the House and Senate for up to two hours of debate before a vote on whether to accept a slate of electors.

Majorities in both chambers would need to support the motion to successfully challenge a given slate of electors, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The vote could put other Senate Republicans in a tough position, as Hawley’s move will compel his colleagues in the GOP conference to vote on the record on whether they agree with President Trump’s allegations of widespread election and voter fraud.

Prior to Hawley’s move, Sen. John Thune, the Senate Majority Whip, predicted Senate Republicans could defeat any general effort to challenge the electoral results.

“The thing they’ve got to remember is, it’s just not going anywhere. In the Senate it will going down like a shot dog,” Thune said.

Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the results of the election by alleging widespread fraud have been undercut by state leaders, election officials, courts across the country including the Supreme Court, an agency that led the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to secure the election, and his former chief law enforcement officer. In an interview with The Associated Press prior to resigning, then-Attorney General Bill Barr acknowledged that the Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election.

The House and Senate last debated the certification of electors in 2005, when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, pushed their own challenge over concerns about voting procedures in Ohio that fall. That effort, however, was not aimed at overturning the results of the election, Boxer said at the time. In 2017, then-Vice President Joe Biden, presiding over the joint session of Congress, dismissed a challenge from House Democrats because it lacked Senate support.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also dismissed Hawley’s move, predicting Biden will prevail over any attempt for Trump to remain in office.

“I have no doubt that on next Wednesday, a week from today, that Joe Biden will be confirmed by the acceptance of the vote of the Electoral College as the 46th President of the United States,” she said.

ABC News’ Ben Siegel, Mariam Khan and Kendall Karson contributed to this report.

Wells was also a former Miss Nevada.

Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann Summers on the campy, classic TV show “Gilligan’s Island,” has died from COVID-19, ABC News confirmed. She was 82.

Her representative noted in a statement that the actress, motivational speaker and philanthropist “passed peacefully [Wednesday] morning, in no pain as a result of complications due to Covid.”

TV fans will remember Wells as the wholesome, “girl next door” castaway counterpart to Tina Louise’s Marilyn Monroe-clone movie star Ginger Grant on “Gilligan’s Island,” which ran for three seasons from 1964 to 1967 on CBS.

Louise is now the last surviving cast member from the beloved series. All the other stars — Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Russell Johnson and narrator Charles Maxwell — have previously died.

Wells, a former Miss Nevada, made many stage and screen appearances after her pageant days, but it was her stint on the famously popular sitcom — which saw seven castaways stranded on a deserted island after a three-hour boat tour gone awry — that cemented her pop culture status.

In fact, Wells’ rep noted in a statement, “Dawn’s gingham dress and famous belly button covering shorts worn on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ are currently on display in the lobby of The Hollywood Museum.”

Wells remained close with the character and its legacy. A constant at autograph signings at pop culture conventions, she published a self-help book in 2014 called “What Would Mary Ann Do? A Guide to Life.”

In it, she noted, “It’s not my ego talking, but Mary Ann wasn’t just a silly and sweet ingenue. She was bright, fair-minded and reasonable. Sherwood Schwartz, the show’s producer and creator, was smart enough to put her in short shorts so you wouldn’t think of her as your bossy sister.”

As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to escalate, health experts say it is critical for multiple vaccines to be produced and circulated worldwide in order to eradicate the illness.

Peninsula Research Associates, based in Rolling Hills Estates, California, began operating in September as one of 10 testing sites nationwide to partake in a vaccine trial developed in partnership between pharmaceutical companies Sanofi Pasteur and GlaxoSmithKline.

This study’s vaccine includes adjuvants, which are ingredients that help vaccines work better at boosting the immune system to develop antibodies against COVID-19.

Phase one included a total of 441 volunteers, 73 of whom were located at the California clinic. All trial participants received one vaccination on the first day and a booster shot on day 22 if they were a part of the group receiving two doses. The ratio was an eight-to-two randomization of active to placebo, dependent on participants age.

“There’s numerous different reasons why people want to participate in our trial,” said Jordan Wertheimer, vice president of clinical operations at Peninsula Research Associates. “There’s a lot of patients who had family members test positive for COVID-19, some who passed away. A lot of people also just want to help humanity.”

Early data shows there is a clear differentiation between the two groups of trial participants; two doses are far more effective than one dose, according to Wertheimer.

Right now, Peninsula Research Associates and the other testing sites are awaiting protocols to begin Phase 2B in February 2021. The amount of patients for this phase remains unclear.

In December, a data readout revealed Sanofi Pasteur/GSK had halted the next phase of the study in order to fix the antigen concentration of their vaccine so that a higher rate of antibodies would develop. If the vaccine meets all clinical requirements and is approved by authorities, it could possibly be expected in circulation toward the end of 2021, the companies said in a press release.

“With due time, we’re hopefully going to have multiple vaccines for the physicians, the health departments and the counties all to be able to use,” said Dr. Lawrence Sher, allergist and immunologist at Peninsula Research Associates. “It’s important that we have it all out there and not consider it a race, rather, consider it production of more and more excellent vaccines. We are doing something for the greater good, which is a good feeling.”

To date, the coronavirus has killed about 1.8 million people worldwide, including more than 332,000 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We’re very excited for the opportunity to work on this kind of study,” Wertheimer said. “We just want to do our part to help progress medicine forward. We’re really apt on participating in the next studies and just coming out with a vaccine to help eradicate this.”

Two volunteers involved in Peninsula Research Associates’ trial spoke with ABC News about what motivated them to join the vaccine study. Here are their stories.

The loss of a loved one

Pat Brewster, 84, lost her husband, Bob, due to the effects of COVID-19.

Prior to his coronavirus diagnosis, Bob was living in a hospice facility to receive care for Parkinson’s disease, Brewster said. On April 4, she noticed an abnormal tremor in both of her husband’s hands, which prompted her to call for a caregiver to examine him.

A low-grade fever, among other symptoms, left Bob’s doctor presuming he had a gastrointestinal virus, not COVID-19. But Brewster decided to have paramedics transport her husband to a hospital for further examination. The 88-year-old tested positive for COVID-19 on April 10 and died at the hospital three days later.

Brewster twice tested negative for COVID-19. When she received word by mailing list about a vaccine study happening locally near her Rancho Palos Verdes home in California, she jumped on the opportunity to raise awareness.

“This seemed about the only thing I could do to fight this illness,” she said. “This disease is real. A lot of people don’t think it is, or it won’t affect them. To see people not taking the precautions, I just feel like screaming, you know? It’s not just the people who die, it affects the families, too.”

Brewster joined the Sanofi Pasteur/GSK study in September, which she recalls involved a lot of forms and paperwork. During the first visit, Brewster received a urine test, blood test, nasal swab and one vaccine injection. She said she did not experience any side effects.

“I was given a chart and had to take my temperature every day for the next week or so,” she explained. “I think I went back in after two weeks and did another urine and blood test. I had a telephone conference in November, and now I don’t go back in until January.”

Due to her age, Brewster may be eligible to receive a vaccine that is currently in circulation, from Pfizer or Moderna. If the opportunity arises, the study she’s participating in will reveal whether she received the placebo or the vaccine in order to ensure she receives the best form of protection against COVID-19.

“This year has been a year of heartbreak and deprivation,” Brewster concluded. “We are still in a very dangerous stage of this pandemic. But as we head into the new year, we are armed now with hope, with more knowledge of the virus than we had originally and with the promise of highly effective vaccines. We all have a responsibility to protect ourselves and others, to do whatever we can to fight this vicious and stealthy virus.”

Giving back to the community

Debbie Hays, 59, is no stranger to helping her community for the greater good. But COVID-19 also hits too close to home. Her 79-year-old mother, who lives in an assisted living facility and has dementia, is currently battling the illness.

So when her friend reached out asking to spread the word for volunteers in the Sanofi Pasteur/GSK study, Hays jumped into action and put her own name in the hat.

“I’m one who always gives back to the community but more on the level of neighborhood cleanup or getting groceries for those who need them,” Hays said. “I never thought I’d be a part of a biomedical research study. But then I decided, ‘Hey, why not?’ It’s just nice to be able to give back to humanity in this way.”

“I’m in perfect health, so that’s another reason why I decided I could take one for the team,” she added.

According to the Torrance, California, resident, her experience in the trial thus far has been “very painless and easy.”

Intake involved a blood draw, a urine sample, temperatures taken, a health questionnaire and a vaccine, she said. Hays monitored her temperature and any changes in health on a chart at home for eight days. She then went back to the clinic to be evaluated and receive a second shot, as she was part of the trial group who received a booster vaccine.

“Some patients are on a one-shot program,” she said. “I happened to be on the two shot program. They’re trying to determine if the vaccine is strong enough to be taken care of in one or two doses.”

Hays then repeated the charting process for another eight days. She said she has not experienced any side effects to date.

“The team is really fantastic,” she said. “They explain everything so there are no surprises. They’re appreciative of us participating, and their follow-through is excellent.”

President Trump signed the $900 billion coronavirus relief package on Sunday.

A new round of financial relief has finally been green-lit by the government and should flow to millions of Americans weathering the COVID-19 economic crisis soon.

President Donald Trump on Sunday signed the $900-billion coronavirus relief package, legislation that passed in Congress early last week. Trump delayed signing the bill for days but relented Sunday to avoid a government shutdown and finally allow aid to reach those in need.

A highlight of the new legislation is direct payments of $600 for eligible individuals — similar to the $1,200 payments that went out in the spring through the CARES Act. Here is what to know about who can expect to receive a payment and when.

Who is eligible for the $600 checks?

The new agreement designates a $600 direct payment for every individual who made up to $75,000 last year, a $1,200 payment for couples who made up to $150,000 as well as an additional $600 per dependent child. A family of four under the income threshold can expect to receive $2,400 in direct payments.

The payments are phased out for higher income levels and phase out completely for individuals who made above $87,000 in 2019. You can calculate how much you will likely receive from the COVID-19 relief bill using the guidelines spelled out in the bill here.

While the current bill shells out $600 direct payments, Trump is pushing to bring that amount to $2,000 — a proposal that has support from Democratic lawmakers but has been rejected by GOP leadership.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday is bringing a vote on a stand-alone bill to increase economic impact payments to $2,000 to the House floor. While it’s expected to pass the House, it’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will take up the measure in the Senate.

When can Americans expect to see the checks?

People will begin to see the money roll in pretty quickly, according to a press release from the Internal Revenue Service and Treasury Department.

The first direct deposits could arrive as early as Tuesday night, and they will continue into next week. Paper checks will start to be mailed on Wednesday, the Treasury Department said.

The official payment date is Jan. 4, though.

It took approximately two weeks for direct deposits to roll out to Americans during the first round of stimulus through the CARES Act in March, though the wait was much longer for those who didn’t file taxes last year or opted for another option to receive the relief.

Last Monday — before the president threw a wrench in the process by delaying his signature — Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that Americans who qualify should expect to see money in their accounts as early as this week and pledged a speedy process.

“The good news is this is a very, very fast way of getting money into the economy,” Mnuchin assured in a phone interview with CNBC on Dec. 21. “Let me emphasize: people are going to see this money at the beginning of next week.”

Also prior to Trump’s delay, a Democratic aide briefed on the plans told ABC News that the administration will work to make 130 million direct deposits by New Year’s Day and then work to send out 10 million paper checks to eligible taxpayers each week.

The delay is expected to move that timeline back by approximately a week, though experts also caution there could be other hiccups that could impact when eligible Americans receive the payments.

Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told ABC News that the infrastructure for processing a second wave of payments is largely in place — but this is also the time of year when the Internal Revenue Service is gearing up for the 2021 filing season.

“Rolling out a second payments in combination with the start-up of the filing season — that raises new wrinkles,” Holtzblatt said. “It’s hard to imagine that the IRS (or any organization) could process payments to millions of people and simultaneously start up the new filing season without snafus occurring — either with the payments or in the filing season.”

Holtzblatt added that were it not for the preparation of the filing season as well as the holidays, “starting direct deposits to tax filers within two weeks of enactment — as was done in the spring — would seem plausible.”

He was 41 years old.

Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died of COVID-19 Tuesday, according to Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.

“It is with heavy hearts that Donna and I offer our condolences to Congressman-elect Luke Letlow’s family on his passing after a battle with COVID-19,” Edwards said in a statement Tuesday night. “COVID-19 has taken Congressman-elect Letlow from us far too soon. I am heartbroken that he will not be able to serve our people as a U.S. Representative, but I am even more devastated for his loving family.

Letlow, 41, was recently elected to represent Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District. He was poised to take his seat representing Louisiana in the House of Representatives on Sunday.

Letlow announced on Dec. 18 that he tested positive for coronavirus and that he would begin following all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and would quarantine. By Dec. 21, the congressman-elect said he was undergoing treatment at St. Francis Medical Central in Monroe, Louisiana, for COVID-19.

A representative for Letlow announced on Dec. 23 that the Republican congressman-elect was being transferred from St. Francis to Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport Academic Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, to continue undergoing treatment for COVID-19 as his conditions worsened.

After the transfer, doctors said the congressman-elect was in stable condition in the intensive care unit and “receiving Remdesivir and steroids as part of his regiment therapy,” according to a statement from Dr. G.E. Ghali, Chancellor of LSU Health Shreveport.

A delegation of Louisiana congressional lawmakers, including House Republican Whip Steve Scalise, said they are “devastated” following Letlow’s death.

“He was looking forward to serving the people of Louisiana in Congress, and we were excited to welcome him to our delegation where he was ready to make an even greater impact on our state and our nation,” the delegation said in a statement Tuesday. “More than anything, Luke was a loving husband, father, brother, and son, and his family – like so many others who have been affected by this evil disease – needs our prayers.

Letlow is survived by his wife, Julia, and his two young children.

“Congressman-elect Letlow was a ninth generation Louisianan who fought passionately for his point of view and dedicated his life to public service,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “As the House grieves Congressman-elect Letlow’s passing, our sorrow is compounded by the grief of so many other families who have also suffered lives cut short by this terrible virus.”

Louisiana has had more than 304,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with at least 7,397 deaths, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

ABC News John Parkinson contributed to this report.

Only one other officer was previously punished for the botched raid.

The Louisville Metro Police Department has moved to fire two officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in her apartment earlier this year.

Officer Myles Cosgrove and Detective Joshua Jaynes were both notified of termination Tuesday, according to their lawyers. Both officers will answer the termination notices in a hearing before Police Chief Yvette Gentry, who was named to the role in September, on Thursday. They can also appeal the police chief’s final determination.

“We plan to attend the pre-termination hearing on December 31st, although I expect the result has already been pre-determined,” Thomas Clay, Jaynes’ lawyer, told ABC News in a statement. “I fully expect Mr. Jaynes will be terminated after the ‘hearing’ no matter what the evidence is to the contrary. We will appeal any disciplinary action taken against Mr. Jaynes because I believe the evidence shows he did nothing wrong.”

Jaynes was not present at the shooting, but prepared the search warrant for Taylor’s apartment.

Louisville’s River City Fraternal Order of Police said in a statement, “The FOP is aware that two of our members received pre-termination opportunity to respond notices today, outlining the chief’s current intent to terminate their employment. In the near future both members will have an opportunity to have a hearing before the chief of police and respond to the information contained in the notices. After those hearings, when the chief makes her final determinations, our members have the right to appeal any discipline that may be issued.”

A ballistics analysis determined that Cosgrove fired the shot that killed Taylor, officials said.

“I can confirm that Mr. Cosgrove has received a pre-termination notice. Otherwise, we have no comment,” Cosgrove’s attorney, Jarrod Beck, told ABC News.

Another officer involved in the raid, Brett Hankison, was fired in June. He had been the only officer punished in the wake of the botched raid.

Hankison was also indicted by a grand jury in September on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree in the shooting that killed Taylor, but neither he nor the other two officers involved in the fatal encounter were charged in her death. Hankison was charged for firing bullets into neighboring apartments.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly, who also fired into the apartment, has not been fired by the department. Mattingly was shot in the leg during the raid.

“The Mayor of Louisville has informed the mother of Breonna Taylor that LMPD intends to terminate Officers Cosgrove and Jaynes and that both officers have the right to appeal,” a lawyer for the Taylor family told ABC News.

Jean Porter, deputy director of communications for Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, said in a statement to ABC News, “LMPD Chief Yvette Gentry has initiated disciplinary procedures for officers involved in the Breonna Taylor case, following investigations by LMPD’s Professional Standards Unit. State law KRS67c.326 (1) (f) precludes comments from any persons in Louisville Metro Government about the allegations in these cases.”

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was killed when the officers executed a “no-knock” warrant on the home she shared with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, on March 13. The police were looking for Jamarcus Glover, Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who allegedly was a known drug trafficker. Walker, who said he believed the home was being robbed, opened fire on the officers. They returned fire, striking and killing Taylor.

Walker, who was a licensed gun owner, was initially charged with attempted murder, but that was eventually dropped. He has sued the Louisville Metro Police Department and city of Louisville, claiming he had a right to defend himself according to the state’s stand your ground law. Mattingly filed a countersuit in late October.

The lack of discipline helped to spark months of protests in Kentucky and across the U.S., especially in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May.

Jaynes was placed on administrative reassignment in June over questions about how and why the search warrant was approved, then-acting Police Chief Robert Schroeder said.

ABC News’ Stephanie Wash, Jennifer Leong, Sabina Ghebremedhin and Keturah Gray contributed to this report.