In October 2015, Freedom Caucus co-founder Jim Jordan helped block Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker of the House. Three years later, Jordan unsuccessfully challenged McCarthy for minority leader following the Democratic takeover of the House.

Yet now, when McCarthy needs a Republican attack dog for a tough partisan assignment, his “go-to guy” is Jordan.

McCarthy added Jordan to the House Intelligence Committee in November as that panel became ground zero for the Trump impeachment effort. Jordan became one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken defenders during that ordeal. In addition, Jordan currently serves as the top Republican on both the Judiciary and the Oversight and Reform committees, two powerful posts he got only through McCarthy’s support.

And on Thursday, McCarthy named Jordan as a one of five Republicans on a select committee chaired by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) to help oversee distribution of coronavirus relief funds.

Like McCarthy, Jordan is also a frequent visitor to the Oval Office, or a recipient of presidential phone calls. And Jordan’s own combative style plays heavily into one of Trump’s key attributes — always be on the attack, never defend.

The alliance with McCarthy comes as the Ohio lawmaker’s profile rises in the Trump era, morphing from a Freedom Caucus bomb thrower to a successful fundraiser, mentor to younger lawmakers and presidential pal.

“I believe the select panel is ‘Impeachment Phase 2’ and, if so, send your pit bull for the event,” said Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.), a member of GOP leadership. “I am sure it makes the folks at White House more satisfied.”

McCarthy and GOP leaders strongly opposed the creation of the Clyburn select committee, seeing it as Democrats’ attempts to launch “Impeachment 2.0” against Trump over his handling of the coronavirus crisis. Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who also isn’t afraid of mixing it up with Democrats, will serve as ranking member on the panel.

Some Republicans had urged McCarthy to boycott the panel, arguing it would just validate the Democratic-led effort. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) named some of her own fiercest partisans to the Clyburn panel as well, including Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) — whom Trump has slammed as “Crazy Maxine Waters” — and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), an outspoken advocate for Trump’s impeachment.

But ultimately, GOP leadership decided it was better to have a seat at the table so they could mount a vigorous defense of Trump's response to the pandemic. The select panel is expected to be at the center of congressional oversight action in the coming months.

Jordan has taken a lead role in describing the coronavirus Clyburn panel as a politicized effort to tar Trump heading into the last six months of his reelection campaign. That prompted some Democrats to retort about Jordan’s own history as a member of the Benghazi select committee, which dogged Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — and that McCarthy once indicated had an overtly political purpose.

"We fear this Select Committee is nothing more than the Speaker’s politicization of a crisis in a last-ditch attempt to attack the President after her impeachment sham and other witch hunts failed," Jordan said in a statement. "The Oversight Committee and the other relevant committees are more than equipped to ensure accountability for taxpayers. Instead of relying on them, Speaker Pelosi put Joe Biden’s key House advocate in charge of a powerful new panel that is more like an arm of the DNC than the U.S. Congress.”

To Democrats, Jordan is seen as one of the more zealous Trump apologists who will seemingly explain away any behavior by the president, no matter how outrageous.

"Donald Trump had a no more ferocious partisan defender than Jim Jordan throughout the impeachment proceedings in the House," said Raskin, who also tangled publicly with Jordan recently over the issue of whether members should wear face masks during the coronavirus pandemic. "He's a man of real talent but where does the Constitution fit in, where does the public interest fit in? It's not clear to me."

"You shouldn't make a career out of defending people who abuse their power," Raskin added.

But for many Republicans, Jordan is a battle-tested warrior who knows how to push an aggressive message. He played a starring role in the House’s impeachment battle last year as a temporary member of the Intelligence Committee — a move that was encouraged by Trump, but enabled by McCarthy.

Earlier this year, GOP lawmakers — with McCarthy’s blessing — elected Jordan to serve as ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, hoping to put Trump’s fiercest defender on the front lines of combating Democratic oversight efforts.

Former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), meanwhile, was tapped to be the ranking member on Oversight. When Meadows resigned from Congress to become Trump’s chief of staff in March, Jordan took back the reins on Oversight. And with the coronavirus pandemic keeping lawmakers away from the Capitol, there are no immediate plans to replace Jordan, leaving him as the top Republican on two key panels.

Jordan has earned leadership’s trust and is seen as a team player, a dramatic reversal from how he was seen just a short time ago. The Ohio Republican — first elected to Congress in 2006 — was a thorn in the side of GOP leadership when they were in the majority.

Jordan and Meadows used the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus to go after McCarthy and other party leaders, often wrecking top Republicans’ plans on spending bills or other measures. After Trump was elected, the pair would go over leadership’s head to pitch their plans directly to the president, playing to his most antagonistic instincts on high-profile issues. Jordan and Meadows helped push Trump to engage in the disastrous 2018 government shutdown, for instance, despite heavy opposition from McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

McCarthy’s newfound alliance with Jordan is sure to earn him plaudits with conservatives down the road, support the California Republican may need if the GOP doesn’t win back the House in November.

This is “all about internal Republican politics,” griped one GOP lawmaker. “Appease the hard right at all costs.”

Yet Republicans repeatedly described Jordan's ability to help boost the profile of younger members as one reason he's fostered fierce loyalty among his colleagues. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said Jordan has made a concerted effort to mentor junior lawmakers including himself, as well as Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Kelly Armstrong of New Dakota to become more effective in high profile hearings. Rep. Jamie Comer (R-Ky.) said Jordan allows less senior members to take starring roles in committee hearings that feature issues they care about and know well.

Another huge plus for Jordan is that his growing national profile as a Trump ally has turned him into a fundraising power house. Jordan has $2.6 million cash on hand and has fundraised for dozens of his GOP colleagues.

Multiple lawmakers also credited McCarthy with being willing to set aside his adversarial relationship with Jordan for the good of the Republican Conference.

"It says a lot about McCarthy too that he's secure enough to use the guy who ran against him for speaker. They both get along great now," Comer said. "They're stronger working together than fighting each other.”

Comer recalled Jordan allying with McCarthy a few weeks ago to pass a bipartisan bill updating federal surveillance laws that had been panned by the Freedom Caucus. Comer said Jordan stood up against his longtime allies to help make the case for the bill.

“Jim is an excellent investigator and has an excellent team,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a conservative hard-liner who serves on the Judiciary panel and is the new chief of the Freedom Caucus. “He is dogged in his pursuit for truth, and so I think he’s a perfect choice.”

“Jim is our most talented member, and Jim is our hardest working member. Kevin is our most likable member. Together, they've made a great team,” added Gaetz.

“Both [McCarthy and Jordan] recognize their own strengths and weaknesses and both have realized that they work together as a team,” he said. “I don't think that realization would have occurred in the norms of Washington absent the crucible of impeachment.”

ORLANDO, FLA. – Former Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday that Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) was on his list of potential running mates. “She is one of a group of close to a dozen really qualified and talented women who are, are on the...

In the immediate aftermath of President Donald Trump's impeachment and acquittal, Republicans felt very good about their chances of retaking the House majority that they had lost two years earlier.

Senate Republicans are beginning to sour on Christopher Wray.

They’re not ready to push for the FBI director’s firing as some of President Donald Trump’s most fervent allies have demanded, but they’re looking for speedier action on Trump’s desires to “clean up” the Justice Department.

“I’m not calling on [Trump] to make a change, but I think the FBI needs to show more energy in terms of solving some of these internal problems,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a brief interview. “They need to up their game.”

Graham, a close Trump ally, made his comments before DOJ’s stunning reversal Thursday to drop the criminal case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s then-ambassador to the U.S.

And Flynn’s newfound freedom from legal jeopardy could deliver Wray some breathing room.

The harshest attacks have come from conservative media figures close to Trump, who accused Wray of covering up evidence that would exonerate Flynn. In recent days, the Justice Department released documents including a handwritten note that Flynn’s allies suggested was proof that the government was trying to trick him into lying. Another showed that the FBI initially intended to drop its investigation into Flynn well before the January 2017 interview.

In court documents explaining its decision to drop the case, the Justice Department cited “a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”

But even apart from the Flynn saga, a series of interviews with GOP senators underscored the frustration with the FBI’s broader handling of the Russia investigation and the agency’s responsiveness to their oversight requests.

Still, they also want Wray to stay put for now — with many of them privately saying they want no part of a tough confirmation fight to replace him in an election year. Most importantly, they say, many of the alleged abuses in the Russia investigation occurred well before Wray’s tenure.

“I wouldn’t ask for him to go right now,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has feuded with Justice Department leaders in recent years over access to documents. “I want him to take some action. He’s responsible for it. He’s responsible for getting things changed. [But] I don’t want to say he’s responsible for a lot of the stuff that happened before he was there.”

Grassley suggested that Wray’s job status will depend on whether he takes punitive measures against FBI officials who allegedly behaved improperly.

“I expect very dramatic action that proves that they know something was badly wrong over the last five or six years,” Grassley said. “And around this town, the only thing that you send a signal is one of two things: either somebody gets fired or they get prosecuted.”

Flynn’s case has been a rallying cry for conservatives and allies of the president who believe that the Justice Department was weaponized against Trump and has consistently sought to undermine him and his associates.

And in the days leading up to the decision to drop the case against Flynn, several of Trump’s most vocal boosters in the conservative media world were unrelenting in their criticisms of Wray, arguing that the Flynn revelations reflect a pattern of abuse that the current FBI leadership has failed to address. They also whacked Wray for not turning over the Flynn documents sooner.

Allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised Wray, in a sign he still has some strong backing on the Hill. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Wray is “the right man to clean up what was broken at the FBI.” And Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) called Wray “very capable.”

But other Republicans said they aren’t satisfied with Wray’s progress so far.

“I’m highly concerned about his lack of, really, reform within the FBI and certainly not turning over the type of documents I think he should’ve turned over to Congress a long time ago,” Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said. “So I’m very disappointed in his performance.”

“There are a lot of questions that have to be asked on exactly where in the hierarchy of the FBI the buck stops,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, warned. “So I’ve not formed a formal opinion, but I think there are some questions, based on the answers, that could lead me in that direction.”

Republican senators supported the initial Russia investigations, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, but have since soured on the predicates for those investigations, including the surveillance of former Trump adviser Carter Page whose Russia ties drew scrutiny from the intelligence community.

Some of the president’s closest allies want Wray to hold accountable officials whom they believe treated Trump and his presidential campaign unfairly in 2016.

“I’ll reserve judgment on whether he ought to be fired, but I think he needs to do more to get rid of the people who perpetrated this on the president,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed Wray to lead the agency by a vote of 92 to 5, with all Republicans voting in favor. But many of those same Republicans have grown concerned that Wray is not being transparent with Congress, specifically on how the FBI is implementing reforms in the aftermath of a blistering inspector general report that found widespread abuses of the surveillance courts.

“I think he’s been a little derelict in not being more accommodating to help get to the bottom of what many of us are concerned with,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said. “I think he needs to be more energetic and more responsive. And I think if he’s not, there’s going to be increasing pressure for him to maybe move on down the road. I wouldn’t be calling for it myself. But I think he puts himself in a spot where he’s vulnerable.”

Trump himself is growing increasingly frustrated with Wray, but he has said privately that he does not want to be accused of having a constitutional crisis on his hands, and is letting Attorney General William Barr take the lead on handling Wray, according to a person close to the White House.

Trump has “never liked Wray,” the person said, adding that “keeping his job isn’t in the cards for him.”

In an interview last Friday with conservative commentator Dan Bongino, the president said that what Flynn faced was “a disgrace,” adding: “one way or the other he’s innocent.” Trump did not answer questions about the fate of the FBI director and whether he should be trusted to enact reforms.

Instead, the president praised Barr and said he is looking into the matter.

“I’ll tell you what, you’re going to see what a good job he’s doing,” Trump said. “I don’t get involved, I say Bill, you have to do what’s right. I can get involved in theory — I am the chief law enforcement, but I think it’s better if I don’t.”

The president has rarely voiced his concerns with Wray publicly. But last year, he lashed out at Wray after the FBI director backed up the Justice Department inspector general’s conclusion that the FBI’s Russia probe was appropriately launched. At the time, Senate Republicans raced to defend Wray from the president’s attacks.

Wray’s penchant to sometimes buck the president has rubbed Trump’s allies the wrong way, in particular when it comes to election interference and the origins of the Russia investigation.

“I think his attitude, his very dismissive attitude, when he’s been up before the Judiciary Committee addressing that situation is of deep concern to me,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of that panel. “So I would just say that I have a lot of concerns.”

The FBI seemed to acknowledge the pressure Wray is under earlier this week when an agency spokesman released a rare statement seeking to distance Wray from the Flynn controversy, placing the blame on “prior FBI leadership.”

“Director Wray remains firmly committed to addressing the failures under prior FBI leadership while maintaining the foundational principles of rigor, objectivity, accountability, and ownership in fulfilling the Bureau’s mission to protect the American people and defend the Constitution,” the spokesman said.

House Republicans have gone even further than their counterparts in the Senate. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Wray earlier this week in which he suggested that the FBI director was shielding the agency’s alleged misconduct in the Flynn case.

“Even more concerning, we continue to learn these new details from litigation and investigations — not from you,” Jordan wrote. “It is well past time that you show the leadership necessary to bring the FBI past the abuses of the Obama-Biden era.”

Meridith McGraw contributed to this report.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has finally named GOP members for Majority Whip Jim Clyburn's coronavirus select committee, ending a partisan stalemate over the panel.

McCarthy tapped Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, Jackie Walorski of Indiana and Mark Green of Tennsesse.

McCarthy (R-Calif.) and GOP leaders strongly opposed the creation of the Clyburn select committee, claiming it will be an effort by Democrats to dig up evidence for "Impeachment 2.0" over President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis.

Some Republicans had urged McCarthy to boycott the panel, arguing it would just validate the Democratic-led effort. But ultimately, GOP leadership decided it was better to have a seat at the table where they could mount a vigorous defense of Trump.

“We saw during impeachment they set up a committee that was just designed to spread false information,” Scalise said in an interview. “Our committee is going to be focused on getting the facts out and trying to sharpen the focus on things we should be dealing with, like holding China accountable or overseeing the relief package and helping families and businesses get back to their lives.”

They've also repeatedly attacked Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) choice of Clyburn to head the panel, claiming the veteran South Carolina Democratic lawmaker is too openly political to handle the post, although Democrats reject that assertion as misguided.

"Before we knew the mission of this committee, [Pelosi] nominated who would become the chair. Jim Clyburn, who is probably one of the most political people on the Democratic side, described this pandemic as a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit their vision," McCarthy said.

McCarthy bashed Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who are also on the panel, as well.

“While I have strong misgivings about Speaker Pelosi’s intentions behind the creation of this select committee, I am honored to be named by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy as the lead Republican on the committee, and I’m ready to get to work confronting the challenges we face," Scalise said in a statement.

And McCarthy has created his own "China task force" to look into a number of China-related issues, including the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, will head the effort. Other members include GOP Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Andy Barr (R-Ky.), John Curtis (R-Utah), Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), John Joyce (R-Pa.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Chris Stewart (R-Utah) and Michael Waltz (R-Fla.).

The Republicans, who serve on more than 10 House committees, "will be looking at a wide range of China-related issues, including influence operations targeting the [United States], including our universities, think tanks and media outlets; economic threats to our government and our allies; efforts to gain a technological advantage; and [China's] role in the origin and spread of Covid-19," McCarthy said at his weekly news conference. Legislative recommendations are due by October.

McCarthy said he and Pelosi, a longtime China critic, had discussions about the task force several months ago, but Pelosi pulled out at the last minute.

Melanie Zanona contributed to this story.

Even a global pandemic and economic crisis isn’t enough to break President Trump’s perception of the Democratic House as a den of haters and losers who care more about hurting him than about helping the American public.Asked on Tuesday why he wasn’t permitting members of his coronavirus task force to testify in front of the House, Trump responded that the chamber is a “set-up” that’s full of “Trump haters.” “They,” said Trump, “frankly, want our situation to be unsuccessful, which means death.”It was a remarkable bit of open political retaliation that not only undercut the White House’s official line—that individuals like Dr. Anthony Fauci were too busy fighting the pandemic to spend hours before Congress—but also set up a situation where only the president’s own party would be in charge of hearings into his conduct. Indeed, shortly after Trump spoke, the Republican-run Senate Health panel announced that Fauci would be testifying there next week.“It’s so political. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL), who serves as the House Democratic representative on the not-yet-functional panel to oversee COVID-19 spending. “I can’t remember anyone preventing us from testifying in one house of Congress versus another… To not go to the People’s House is just—it’s stupid, and it’s dangerous.”Congressional oversight has always been an irritant to the occupant of the White House. But rarely has a president so blatantly disregarded it when the context has been so non-partisan and the stakes so high. Even before the emergence of COVID-19, Trump’s defiance of Congress had prompted legal battles that promised to rearrange the long-term balance of federal power. But his insistence on continuing to snub the legislative branch in the midst of a pandemic has sparked an altogether new set of questions and frustrations. “The fact that the president of the United States has directed those responsible for the federal response to avoid appearing before Congress is shocking, irresponsible, and will result in more loss of life,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.). Democrats trying to understand the federal COVID-19 response, he said, are being “limited to what the president says” and what mid-level officials from the administration “tell us on a conference call.”Lawmakers Know They Can’t Keep Track of the $2.2T They Just Spent on Virus ReliefPrivately, Democrats have grumbled that the party should have anticipated this situation. Just a few months ago, the administration staved off subpoena and document requests as part of the impeachment inquiry. With resolution of those matters still in the courts, leadership—the argument goes—should have demanded stronger oversight structures be put in place before trillions of dollars went out the door to prop up an imploded economy. "[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi has left Democrats largely invisible in negotiating COVID-19 legislative responses and sidelined at a moment that cries out for congressional oversight,” said Jeff Hauser, the founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, a public interest group. “An unleashed House could also make sure Trump's systemic errors are well understood and beyond dispute for the 70 percent of Americans who are not willfully indoctrinated by Fox News. Such public education is necessary to make sure the federal government is never again so unprepared for a mass tragedy.”Those criticisms have been amplified as it’s become clearer that the oversight mechanisms in existence have been either undercut, brushed aside, or largely neglected.There was, for example, no creation of a centralized database to show who received so-called Paycheck Protection Program loans that were meant to aid small businesses but also found their way to boutique hotels and publicly traded restaurant chains. A Democratic aide said that the presumption was that the Small Business Administration would release such information under provisions in existing law. But, the aide conceded, “they aren’t.” The congressional panel tasked with tracking the trillions of dollars being lent out by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department was authorized six weeks ago. But it still lacks a chair and the appointed members can’t hire staff—rendering it basically non-functional.Meanwhile, the president has sidelined or sacked independent inspectors general who have surfaced damning information about the administration’s COVID-19 response or were in a position to—while telling Congress he has the power to decide what lawmakers learn about the pandemic response, not a special IG assigned to the task.And, while administration officials involved in the COVID-19 response appeared before lawmakers in the early stages of the pandemic, they have since gone silent. None has testified since March 12, when there were fewer than 1,000 cases of the virus in the U.S. And House Democrats told The Daily Beast that direct engagement with top officials has been inconsistent. On April 15, for example, the administration cold-emailed a handful of Democratic lawmakers informing them they’d been selected to a congressional task force to advise Trump on reopening the economy. After an initial conference call the next day, no follow-up was scheduled until this week, when House members in the group were told there would be a second call with top Trump economic advisers Larry Kudlow and Kevin Hassett on Thursday. In the interim, administration officials instructed lawmakers to contact them with their three “best ideas” on economic responses—“like homework,” recalled an aide. In the absence of traditional lines of oversight and cooperation, there has been improvising. Bharat Ramamurti, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer’s appointee to the new congressional panel, said that he was leaning on friends and associates with expertise in his issue areas. And though he continues to encounter absurdly commonplace hurdles (on Tuesday, his computer ran out of batteries because electricity in his neighborhood was down and he couldn’t venture elsewhere) he held out hope that the commission would soon have a chair and get its report done by May 9.“The other unique thing about the oversight commission is all the members are appointed by the Congress,” Ramamurti told The Daily Beast. “Our committee is the only one immune from tampering by the president, which is why it is really important to get the chair in place as soon as possible.”Meanwhile, outside groups are trying to reverse-engineer oversight by starting from the broadest set of data points and working their way back to the administration. Accountable.US, a nonpartisan oversight group, has filed nearly 200 public records requests and skimmed through hundreds of federal filings to see if publicly traded companies have nabbed PPP loans.This still leaves gaping holes. And on those fronts, Democrats are scrambling to patch things up, with a group of lawmakers introducing legislation mandating disclosure of PPP loans and others calling for subpoenaing witnesses. “They’re going to stonewall as much as they can,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) told The Daily Beast. “We can’t fold. We have to use the tools we have. We may have to issue subpoenas, and try every way we can to get the information we need.”Some Democrats argue that the party’s most effective mechanism for forcing the Trump administration to comply with congressional oversight would be through the purse. But few believe that Pelosi will, or even could, effectively deploy such hardball tactics if the economic situation in the country remains dire. And so, the last hope is that the public pressure will become so overbearing that members of the Trump administration will see it as in their political self-interest to comply. Already, one member—former BARDA program director Dr. Richard Bright—has agreed to testify before a House Democratic committee about a whistleblower complaint he filed detailing systematic missteps and misjudgements the administration made in the early stages of the pandemic. And it would not be unprecedented for the White House to eventually fold on others. In 2013, the Obama White House refused to make available for testimony key figures involved in the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act on grounds that their time fixing the website was too valuable to spend on the Hill. Under threat of subpoena, top technology officer Todd Park eventually agreed to testify in front of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee. Two professors—Mark J. Rozell of George Mason University and Mitchel A. Sollenberger of the University of Michigan at Dearborn—praised the move at the time as a worthy mitigation of tension between the two branches. Reached by The Daily Beast, both said a similar step from Trump would be warranted now. “This is why you have a hierarchical organization,” Sollenberger told The Daily Beast. “They’re there to give voice to organizational needs, respond to Congress when it comes to the organizational issues at hand, the questions Congress has. This is how government works.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

WASHINGTON -- Former President Barack Obama's office called Senate Republicans' investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden's son's activities in Ukraine an effort "to give credence to a Russian disinformation campaign" in a letter Obama's office sent to the National Archives.The letter represents Obama's strongest reaction to date to Republican efforts to investigate unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine and not Russia interfered to help President Donald Trump win the 2016 election.The letter, first reported Tuesday by BuzzFeed News, came in response to a November request from Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa for records of White House meetings "between and among Obama administration officials, Ukrainian government representatives, and Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials."Johnson is chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Grassley leads the Senate Finance Committee. Their request came at the beginning of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry of Trump and was part of their effort to prove the unfounded theory, backed by Russia, Trump and other Trump-allied Republicans, that it was Ukraine and not Russia that interfered in the 2016 election.Obama's March 13 response came on letterhead from the "Office of Barack and Michelle Obama" and was signed by Anita Decker Breckenridge, a former White House deputy chief of staff who is now the records representative to the former president. The letter never mentions Biden by name, but says the Republican senators' request was out of line.Biden's son Hunter held a position on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma while his father was vice president and leading the Obama administration's Ukraine policy.Democrats' effort to impeach and remove Trump from office was based on revelations that he sought to instigate an investigation into the Bidens by threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless its leaders complied with his requests to do so.The Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump in December. The Republican-controlled Senate acquitted him in February."The request for early release of presidential records in order to give credence to a Russian disinformation campaign -- one that has already been thoroughly investigated by a bipartisan congressional committee -- is without precedent," Decker Breckenridge wrote. "This use of the special access process serves no legitimate purpose, and does not outweigh or justify infringing confidentiality interests that all presidents have sought to protect."Still, Decker Breckenridge wrote that "in the interest of undermining the misinformation campaign underlying this request," Obama's office would offer the Senate committees access to the records they sought.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company