Month: October 2022

How a GOP Congress could try to impeach a Biden Cabinet member

Posted on (Updated by Rafael Bernal

Republicans have vowed to use the full power of the House of Representatives if they take control in November, threatening everything from shutting down investigations into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol to impeaching President Biden and his cabinet secretaries.

While Republicans are all but certain to terminate the select committee on the Jan. 6 attack, it's less clear whether they'll risk the political uncertainties of an impeachment trial.

But if they take the plunge, their sights will be on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In a letter to Mayorkas last week, GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) explicitly threatened impeachment over the secretary's "gross dereliction of duty" in managing the U.S.-Mexico border.

That missive followed an April letter led by the Republican Study Committee and signed by 133 House Republicans that avoided explicitly calling for impeachment, but laid out the case for Republicans to raise immigration policy differences to the level of impeachable offenses.

"Your actions have willingly endangered American citizens and undermined the rule of law and our nation's sovereignty. Your failure to secure the border and enforce the laws passed by Congress raises grave questions about your suitability for office," wrote the lawmakers.

The Constitution allows for impeachment of the president and other “civil officers” for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

But it's unclear what is meant by "high crimes and misdemeanors," and impeachment is understood to be an essentially political act – a Senate would need very little substantial cause to convict an official impeached by the House.

"With my political scientist hat on, I'd say what counts as a high crime or misdemeanor is what you can get two thirds of the Senate to vote to convict on. And that in itself, it's not a substantive standard. It's a procedural one," said Josh Chafetz, a professor of law at Georgetown University.

But Chafetz added that's a "very high bar," since it would require significant buy-in from the president's party.

And while technically there are no limits – other than whip counts in both chambers – to what behaviors Congress can interpret as "high crimes and misdemeanors," precedent does set some boundaries.

“The Constitution provides for impeachment in the case of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors — not for political revenge or partisan retribution," said David Rapallo, director of the Federal Legislation Clinic at Georgetown Law.

That reading still leaves space for debate as to what constitutes grounds for conviction under impeachment.

"There's been a debate about whether there must be a statutory code violation of a crime to impeach. The general view is that it doesn't necessarily have to be a criminal act under the statutory code, but rather an abuse of power in some way,” said Rapallo.

The Republican case against Mayorkas lies largely on high migrant apprehension and drug interdiction numbers at the southwest border.

U.S. officials encountered 2,150,639 immigrants entering the country without prior authorization in the first 11 months of fiscal 2022, breaking the record for encounters in a year.

And fentanyl seizures continue to rise, as Mexican drug cartels abandon other drugs for the cheaper-to-produce synthetic opioid.

If the GOP takes control of the House, they will almost certainly bring down the hammer on Mayorkas through congressional oversight, but Republicans seem eager to raise the specter of impeachment.

In their letter, Graham and Cruz accuse Mayorkas of aggravating conditions on the border, in part by attempting to end policies put in place under the Trump administration, namely construction of the border wall; the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as "Remain in Mexico"; and Title 42, a policy to quickly expel foreign nationals under the guise of pandemic protections.

While the Department of Homeland Security halted border wall construction shortly after Biden took office, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials announced a plan to return to construction sites in the Sonoran Desert to resume construction of some segments of the wall.

But Graham and Cruz zeroed in on Mayorkas' attempts to end MPP, which are tangled up in the courts.

"Your expedited and repeated rejection of President Trump's successful Migrant Protection Protocols … demonstrates your willingness to embrace an open-borders agenda that undermines America's safety," they wrote. 

"You have been specifically instructed by the court to implement the protocol in good faith or take new agency action that complied with the law. You have done neither."

While the Biden administration was originally directed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to continue MPP's implementation "in good faith," the case was returned to a lower court after the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration's plans to end the policy.

A lower court lifted the order to continue implementing MPP and DHS has been winding the program down.

"In short, MPP is over for now, although there is confusion surrounding its ending," reads a post on MPP's current state of affairs on the American Immigration Lawyers Association blog.

That distinction could blunt the GOP senators' call for impeachment.

"The traditional story we tell about impeachment in America is that it doesn't apply to just bad policy. It's not about maladministration, but rather, it's about malfeasance or nonfeasance," said Chafetz.

And historical precedent is on cabinet members' side when it comes to impeachment.

The only cabinet member ever impeached was President Grant's secretary of war, William Belknap, who was accused of taking kickbacks from a contractor he appointed to run the trader post in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

While most historians agree the accusations against Belknap were credible, he avoided conviction in his 1876 impeachment trial because he resigned on the same day he was impeached.

Like President Nixon nearly a century later, Belknap chose to resign rather than face almost certain conviction in the Senate, although the House did pass Belknap's articles of impeachment.

“If it were something like Richard Nixon — that era where his own party was telling him what was coming, and it would be better for him to resign than go through that process — he chose to resign, and after that occurred, they didn't go forward,” said Rapallo.

The precedent that being out of office obviates an impeachment conviction was reinforced in 2021, when Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial after leaving office.

Because of that precedent, any official facing probable impeachment conviction is more likely to resign than to become the first executive officer convicted by the Senate.

"​​​​I just don't see any way they would get to 67 [Senate votes] based on what we've seen now," said Chafetz.

"Now, again, if it turns out tomorrow that some member of the cabinet has a freezer full of cash that they got from a foreign government, sure. But of course in that situation, they'd almost certainly resign or be fired," he added.

Conversely, Biden and his cabinet are unlikely to yield in an impeachment trial they can win, even if the proceedings disrupt an official's duties.

"If you're Biden, it's a short term-long term trade off, because maybe the department can get a move on with business, but the Republicans have successfully claimed a scalp and what's to prevent them from going after the next cabinet official?" said Chafetz.

And if Republicans do take the House, their leadership ranks will have their hands full controlling an ideological and outspoken caucus.

While at least two separate articles of impeachment have been filed against Biden by Republican lawmakers in the current Congress, GOP leadership has not invested political capital in those bills.

Any GOP impeachment of Biden risks being seen as a tit-for-tat over the two Democratic impeachments of Trump, and that protection could extend to cabinet secretaries.

“The Constitution doesn't provide for impeaching a cabinet secretary because you think impeaching the president is too much politically,” said Rapallo.

And dragging immigration into a constitutional controversy could backfire for Republicans.

“It's well known that the Republicans were close to agreeing on legislation related to immigration, but changed their minds and haven't been interested in solving the problem since then,” said Rapallo.

“So on one hand, to walk away from the effort to legislate, and then on the other, to go after the cabinet secretary who's charged with implementing the laws is a little rich, I would say.”  

Trump slams McConnell over lack of funding for Masters in Arizona

Posted on (Updated by Chloe Folmar

Former President Trump criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday for supporting funds for GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (Alaska) reelection bid against a fellow Republican rather than directing that money to Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters’s (R) race against a Democrat.

“The Old Broken Crow, Mitchell McConnell, is authorizing $9 Million Dollars to be spent in order to beat a great Republican, Kelly, instead of $9 Million Dollars that could be used for Blake Masters, and other Republicans, that with this money would beat their Democrat opponent,” wrote Trump in a statement, referring to Kelly Tshibaka, who will face off against Murkowski in November.

Trump has endorsed both Masters and Tshibaka and called Murkowski, one of only seven GOP senators who voted to convict him in his second impeachment, “horrendously bad” and “barely” a Republican in his statement.

Murkowski is one of the more moderate Republicans in the Senate, specifically in her support of abortion rights.

A report by the Anchorage Daily News published on Thursday found that the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican PAC with ties to McConnell, funded television, radio and internet ads in Alaska slamming Tshibaka in support of Murkowski.

McConnell has endorsed the incumbent in the race, rejecting the further-right Tshibaka, who is more in line with Trump.

Trump has ramped up his criticism of McConnell in recent months, including drawing vehement pushback for saying in a recent statement that the Kentucky Republican has a "death wish," which critics said amounted to a tacit call for violence.

House GOP promises vengeance on Democrats for doing good stuff while in power

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

House Republican candidates are ostensibly running on issues this fall. Odious chair of the House Republican Conference and Rep. Elise Stefanik insisted as much in a Fox interview this weekend. “Republicans are going to fight on behalf of the American people to help save America, to focus on economic issues, to rein in the spending that’s driving our inflation, to unleash American energy independence to lower the price of gas, energy, home heating bills. So there’s a lot that the average American family is concerned about. Republicans have solutions and legislation ready to move in the first 100 days,” she said.

They don’t, actually. They have a snazzy website and a one-page “Commitment to America” memo, a summary of platitudes like “support our troops,” “exercise peace through strength with our allies to counter increasing global threats,” “recover lost learning from school closures,” and “uphold free speech.” And, of course, “rigorous oversight.” All of which really means tax cuts (and defunding the IRS again, which effectively means more tax cuts) and investigations.

Here’s a 100% guaranteed promise for all investigations, all the time. Here’s Rep. James Comer, who is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee and thus the guy who will get the chair if Republicans take over.

Hunter Biden and the Biden Family have peddled influence across the globe to enrich themselves at the expense of American interests. It’s clear that Joe was involved. The question is: to what extent? We will get that answer for the American people. @MorningsMaria pic.twitter.com/HNgIwRQiZ9

— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) October 10, 2022

Don’t let them do it. Please give $1 now to each of these 12 races where Democrats are fighting to flip GOP seats in the House this year!

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It’s all about vengeance. It’s been all about vengeance since the nation had the temerity to elect a Black man to the White House and that president was able to do big stuff, like lower millions of people’s health insurance costs. The good news is that after 12 years, the Republicans have finally abandoned Obamacare repeal. (Mostly.)

House Republicans who never managed to actually come up with a health care alternative to the Affordable Care Act and whose only real accomplishment when in the majority has been tax cuts for the rich have one skill: holding a grudge and making political hay out of it. Democrats impeached Trump? Republicans will impeach President Joe Biden, whether he actually did anything or not.

And not just Biden—they’ve already filed 14 impeachment resolutions against Biden as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Five of them have come from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, most recently seen riling up a MAGA crowd with fascistic, dangerous rhetoric: “Biden’s 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, your jobs, and your kids in school. Coming from all over the world, they’re also replacing your culture.”

Don’t think because Greene is a dangerous whack-job she doesn’t have sway in the Republican caucus. She was sitting right up front when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unveiled his “commitment” in Pennsylvania last month. “I’m going to be a strong legislator and I’ll be a very involved member of Congress,” she told the Associated Press. “I know how to work inside, and I know how to work outside. And I’m looking forward to doing that.”

The feckless McCarthy has already given in to her, clearly. So if the House does flip to Republicans, he’s going to need her and the other MAGA crowd to hang on to leadership. One Democratic aide put it bluntly and graphically in a Politico interview: “Those members will have his balls in such a vice grip that when they say ‘jump’, he’ll say ‘how high’, and it’ll be too late before he realizes the fall will kill them.”

That assessment was essentially confirmed by Comer. When he was asked recently about whether there was going to be caucus pressure to impeach Biden, he answered, “I’m not under pressure, because that’s gonna be McCarthy’s job.”

Don’t let Marjorie Taylor Greene become the puppet master in charge of the House of Representatives. Help keep the House in Democratic hands.

RELATED STORIES:

After an eruption of even more scandals among Republican Senate candidates, FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich returns to The Downballot this week to discuss the effect these sorts of scandals can have on competitive races; whether Democrats stand a chance to keep the House; and the different ways pollsters create likely voter models.

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McCarthy lied to the police officers who protected him on Jan. 6, trying to absolve Trump

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

Kevin McCarthy, would-be House speaker, lied to two of the police officers who helped save his skin on Jan. 6. He lied to the mother of an officer who died after the attack, telling them last year that the person who commanded Trump’s violent followers to march to the U.S. Capitol had no idea at all what they were doing. He also took credit for Trump’s eventual public statement asking rioters to “go home.” One of the attendees, then-D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, recorded the meeting and has shared that recording with CNN.

McCarthy met with Fanone, U.S. Capitol Officer Harry Dunn, and Gladys Sicknick, the mother of late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, in June 2021. Fanone recorded the meeting because as he told CNN, “was because I didn’t expect Kevin McCarthy to, No. 1, tell the truth; No. 2, recount the conversation accurately; and No. 3, I wanted to show people how indifferent lawmakers are, not just Republican lawmakers, but all lawmakers, to the actual American people that they are representing.” D.C. has single-party consent for recordings—what Fanone did is completely legal.

The three had been pressing McCarthy to meet with him after House Republicans had begun to try to downplay what had happened that day and McCarthy himself had started to bow to Trump’s pressure and back off his pledge to allow Republican participation on the Jan. 6 committee. Fanone writes in a new book just being launched, “The only reason McCarthy had agreed to meet with us was because he’d been getting heat for refusing to see me.”

We can’t let this liar and Trump sycophant anywhere near the speaker’s seat. Your donation to these Democratic House candidates can help hold the House.

“I’m just telling you from my phone call, I don’t know that he did know that,” McCarthy told the three, speaking about his call to Trump and Trump’s knowledge of the attack. Sicknick’s mother pushed back in the meeting, according to the audio. “He already knew what was going on,” she said of Trump. “People were fighting for hours and hours and hours. This doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Fanone also challenged McCarthy about his continued defense of Trump: “While you were on the phone with him, I was getting the shit kicked out of me!” He wrote in his book, “I asked McCarthy why he would take credit for Trump’s pathetic, half-hearted late-afternoon video address to his followers. I said, ‘Trump says to his people, ‘This is what happens when you steal an election. Go home. I love you.’ What the f–k is that? That came from the president of the United States.”

Subsequent revelations in public testimony to the Jan. 6 committee proved just how brazenly McCarthy lied to the officers and Mrs. Sicknick.

Jan 6 committee interviews reveal that Rep. Kevin McCarthy told Donald Trump to call off the rioters but Trump turned him down, saying: ‘Well Kevin, I guess they’re just more upset about the election theft than you are’ pic.twitter.com/NBolF2CCYL

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 22, 2022

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In those hearings, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified about her own telephone conversations with McCarthy that day, conversations which McCarthy now says he doesn’t remember having. “You told me this whole week you aren’t coming up here,” Hutchinson said that McCarthy told her. “Why would you lie to me?” She responded that as far as she knew, there weren’t plans for Trump to go to the Capitol. McCarthy answered, “Well, he just said it on stage, Cassidy. Figure it out. Don’t come up here.”

Months before McCarthy met with the officers, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, McCarthy had no problem blaming Trump for the riot. In audio obtained by The New York Times, McCarthy told fellow Republicans that he wanted Trump to resign as they discussed impeachment. “I’ve had it with this guy,” he told a group of his leadership team. “What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” he told the group. That’s what he was saying before he made a call to Trump, when he told the group that he was going to tell Trump to resign.

That didn’t go as planned, according to more recording the Times obtained. Following that call, McCarthy told Republicans on a conference call: “Let me be very clear to all of you, and I have been very clear to the president: He bears responsibilities for his words and actions. [...] No if, ands or buts.”

“I asked him personally today: Does he hold responsibility for what happened?” McCarthy said. “Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.”

Five months later, McCarthy told the officers who protected him that day and the mother of an officer who died as a result of that attack that Trump had nothing to do with any of it. Kevin McCarthy is a liar. And a bad one. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson about watching what he says in private meetings, given his track record in that whole pre-2016 election scandal: “There's … there's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump… [S]wear to God.” 

Republicans lean into racism, fascism, and glorification of sedition in weekend Nevada rally

Posted on (Updated by Hunter

Donald Trump and Republican candidates held a Nevada rally on Saturday. Thanks to the speakers, there was no attempt to misdirect or moderate the speeches. What was on display was the heart of Republicanism's new fascism. Racism; paranoia; hoax promotion; a focus not on winning elections, but on winning the power to administer and subjugate them. Highlights of the event come via Acyn.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville delivered unabashed racism:

All the quiet parts now with bullhorns https://t.co/2OANm6JFY1

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 9, 2022

A bit of climate denial was thrown in as well, part of the party's now-widespread anger at science and intellectualism in all its forms:

Tuberville: God changes the climate pic.twitter.com/N0uJt7Mi6D

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022

From Jim Marchant, the party's Big Lie-endorsing and sedition-backing secretary of state candidate in Nevada, we got a definition of what taking our country back means, to Republicans. It means controlling the mechanisms of our elections.

Marchant: If get all our Secretaries of State elected around the country like this, we take our country back pic.twitter.com/w7hFyD4Kkq

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022

But what are the secretaries of state supposed to do, once the offices are in Republican control? Apparently their role will consist not only of monitoring elections, but facilitating criminal acts from the party?

Kash Patel says they have to elect Laxalt to defeat the “lies” about “Ukraine impeachment one, Ukraine impeachment two” and January 6th with the truth pic.twitter.com/bXx2F23P0L

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022

Criminal acts such as preparing and delivering forged documents purporting to be legitimate presidential electors based on groups of individual Republicans simply declaring themselves to be so:

McDonald: They can point at us and call us fake electors.. No, we stood up for the rights of Nevadans pic.twitter.com/H7alDwZRQQ

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022

Glorifying the reign of Dear Leader, mainly by fictionalizing it, was on the agenda:

Fox News made them stupid. Fox and Trump got them to stop trusting facts. Then Trump showed the power of repeating lies. https://t.co/W1MZZJPX52

— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) October 9, 2022

After the crowd had been pummeled by delusionists for long enough, it was time for the traitor whose lies led to deaths in the Capitol to bellow his own versions. Donald Trump, a traitor, wants you to remember the good times of unabated pandemic death.

Trump: Think of it, two years ago everything was so good in our country pic.twitter.com/h8kERbKFsA

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022

A proper fascist leader might have dug up the corpse of pandemic casualty Herman Cain and rigged it to applaud when Trump spoke that line, but we can't have everything. Trump left office a seditionist, a crooked traitor who betrayed the country in a dozen slovenly ways, but that was only after incompetently handling a national crisis to the tune of half a million deaths. But this was a crowd of Republicans willing to support such a traitor; while many of them likely had family members who died in large part because this buffoon refused to support even masking, much less other protections, those family members are long forgotten. What is important is that the shit-skulled traitor be properly cheered.

We moved on to, of course, demands that those who were not seditionist traitors be locked up.

We’ve reached the first lock her up chant pic.twitter.com/LbqlWjeCky

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022

While glorifying Trump's own acts to overthrow the government.

Trump: You know the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen? January 6th pic.twitter.com/2rG8xZZeIR

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 9, 2022

A bit of fever dream was added in, as the traitor's mind wandered to his more current problems:

"George H.W. Bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant where they combined them. So they're in a bowling alley slash Chinese restaurant." -- Trump pic.twitter.com/T7sF52ilt2

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) October 9, 2022

But Trump took time out of his own fascist delusions to promote a foreign dictatorship. The Republican Party has fetished murderous Russian kleptocrat Vladimir Putin, even as Putin faces the world exposed as a fraud, a thug whose reign has so decimated his country that his own military has collapsed from the corruption. Ukraine is currently routing Russian armies, threatening to take back Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia for nearly a decade.

Trump, who consistently sought to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty at every turn during his time in office for reasons we can still only speculate on, took a moment to promote new Russian demands that Ukrainians halt their destruction of the army that sought to occupy them.

Putin wants an immediate negotiation because he is losing and wants to stop the Ukrainian offensive before they take back more of the land Russia has illegally seized. Interesting that Trump again advocates the Putin position. And of course says nothing critical about Putin. https://t.co/EQvVqC5OdU

— Max Boot 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@MaxBoot) October 9, 2022

Republicanism is hardening into a fascist movement steadily, and with no significant pushback. In just one event we see assertion of white supremacy, a barrage of false propaganda meant to glorify the movement and deny its failures, the now-omnipresent contempt for book-learning in all its forms, the glorification of violence to assert party dominance, assertions that the nation can be saved only if the party itself administers its elections, and the seeds of likely future violence. The party became a fascist party when it backed the January 6 coup attempt, both on the day itself and for these two long years afterwards as it both obstructed all attempts to investigate Trump's actions during the coup and glorified, to their base, the alleged patriotism of the seditionists themselves.

We are now at the point where the movement believes even state national security secrets do not belong to the state, but belong to Donald Trump personally, by the rules of finders keepers. It is fascist, fascist, fascist. Look at the crowd, in those images. They are proud to be white supremacists, to rally around hoaxes, and to back the attempted overthrow of their own government. They are having so much fun, as they cheer for it all and hold up their pre-made signs.

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Sasse’s expected exit shrinks Senate’s anti-Trump wing

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.) expected retirement from the Senate is the latest sign that is it harder to be a Republican critic of former President Trump in Congress than a loyal ally.

Sasse is one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict former President Trump last year during his impeachment trial over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He’s the third to retire.

The Nebraskan senator not that long ago was also seen as a rising star in his party and a possible presidential candidate. But that possibility seemed more and more faint as Sasse’s opposition to various Trump actions grew.

Republicans who closely follow Congress say Sasse’s retirement reflects growing polarization in Washington, which has only accelerated since Trump won election to the White House in 2016. And they say there’s less of a political future for GOP lawmakers who won’t embrace Trump.  

“Trump has undermined our party. He’s running a cult and he’s a cultist figure and he’s only concerned about himself, and he’s done fundamental damage to our constitutional electoral process, and so when people who are willing to stand up to him leave the Senate, that hurts because senators should be able to stand up to someone like Trump. That’s why you get a six-year term,” said former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who was a respected fiscal conservative and a member of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) leadership team during his Senate career.   

Gregg said the departure of so many senior Republicans who were known for both their close relationships with McConnell and their willingness to be pragmatic to get important bills passed for the good of the country is a troubling sign for both the Senate and the nation.  

“It’s not surprising. The Congress has been taken over by a lot of folks who are dominated by the extremes of their party, both the Democratic and Republican, and getting things done if you’re a thoughtful centrist is very difficult,” he said of Sasse’s retirement. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some frustration there.”  

Gregg predicted the departure of so many seasoned legislators will make it tougher for McConnell — or any leader in Congress — to get things done next year.  

“Complex issues … requires people who are willing to cross the aisle and compromise and are substantive, and when you lose like folks like that and you lose the center of the Senate — and the center of the Senate has always been rational, thoughtful doers, versus shouters — it makes it very hard to legislate on complex and difficult issues,” he said.  

Sasse is a finalist to become the University of Florida’s next president — a position he is expected to take. It would end what had been a noteworthy Senate career.

Sasse often decried knee-jerk partisan polarization within the Senate and earlier this year unveiled an ethics reform package to restore public faith in Washington.  

It included a ban on lawmakers trading stocks and making huge salaries in lobbying jobs after leaving Congress as well as requiring presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns and prohibiting foreign nationals from funding state and local ballot initiatives.  

Trump famously refused to make his tax returns public during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and during his time in the White House.  

“Ben Sasse was one of the people who made the Senate work,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. “And there’s a pattern of a lot people who made the Senate work who are leaving the institution, and that’s not good for the country and not good for our democracy.”

Ayres suspects that Sasse and other retiring Senate Republicans are fed up with what he called “the toxic polarization” that’s made it “difficult to do the things that led them to run for the Senate in the first place.”  

Besides Sasse, Sens. Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Richard Burr (N.C.), who also voted to convict Trump in 2021, are retiring. The other four GOP senators who voted to convict Trump are Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Bill Cassidy (La.).

Lawmakers in both parties are bracing themselves for standoffs over government funding measures and legislation to raise the debt limit if House Republicans, who are generally more allied with Trump, win control of the lower chamber.  

It’s not yet clear who Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts will appoint to replace Sasse, who was reelected to a second term in 2020, but other retiring Republicans may be replaced by Republicans Trump endorsed in the primaries.  

Those Trump-backed candidates, who are either favored to win or have a good chance of being elected, include Rep. Ted Budd (R) in North Carolina, J.D. Vance in Ohio and Eric Schmitt in Missouri. 

Budd has embraced Trump’s claims of election fraud and introduced his Combat Voter Fraud Act, while Vance said in January the election was stolen and Schmitt joined a lawsuit with 17 other state attorneys general to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  

Sasse was an outspoken critic of Trump throughout his Senate career, though he toned down his criticisms in time to win Trump’s endorsement during his 2020 Republican primary.  

But after clinching the Senate GOP nomination for Nebraska, he ripped Trump apart at a telephone town hall a few weeks before the 2020 general election, calling the president’s values “deficient” because of “the way he kisses dictators’ butts” and “mocks evangelicals” and “flirted with white supremacists.”  

When he voted to impeach Trump, he declared the former president had “lied about widespread voter fraud,” spread “conspiracy theories” and fanned those lies when he summoned his supporters to Capitol Hill to “intimidate Vice President Pence” into halting the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.  

Burr and Toomey joined Sasse in voting to convict Trump on the charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection during his second impeachment trial. But several retiring senators who have often been loyal to McConnell were willing to stand up to Trump in significant ways.   

Retiring Sen. Ron Portman (R-Ohio) played a lead role in negotiating last year’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which 18 other Republicans voted for, including retiring Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Burr and McConnell. Trump fiercely opposed the bill, and later said Republicans who voted for it should “be ashamed of themselves” for “helping the Democrats.”   

In October of last year, Blunt, Portman and retiring Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)  joined McConnell in voting for a procedural motion to circumvent a filibuster on legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling and avoid a national default, again despite Trump’s opposition. Trump at the time accused these Republicans of “folding to the Democrats again.”   

James Wallner, a former Senate Republican aide, predicted that McConnell may have to undergo a tough transition next year when many of his loyal allies will be replaced by pro-Trump Republicans unfamiliar with the arcane procedures of the Senate and the nuances and challenges of getting bills passed.  

“Just look at what happened after the 2010 election; it took Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans to get a handle on the” conservatives who were elected in the Tea Party revolution, Wallner said. “There was a lot of turmoil and institutional uncertainty after that election.  

“If you have a large number of members on either side of the aisle come in, the potential for disrupting business as usual in the Senate is a lot greater,” he said.  

New book: During first impeachment, Ted Cruz admitted all 100 senators knew Trump was guilty

Posted on by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Republicans love their phony bugaboos. Whether it’s graduate-level courses being taught in kindergarten, migrant caravans shoving old women out of the way at the A&P to score the last marble rye, or foreign drug cartels handing out fentanyl to trick-or-treaters for Squad-knows-what reason, the GOP is great at distracting you from the hell demons feasting on your viscera all day, every day, like so much Laffy Taffy.

But if there’s a suspected Russian agent in the White House doing things only a Russian agent would do—well, never mind. We’ll just see how it plays out. How about that, patriots?

In yet another tardy tell-all on the bag of moldering mystery dicks that was the Trump administration—this one titled Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump—POLITICO’s Rachael Bade and The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian detail the mental gymnastics congressional Republicans went through during Trump’s first impeachment, all in order to make him seem vaguely not-guilty. Yet according to no less an authority on evil than Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, every single Republican senator actually thought Trump was corrupt to the core. (Or to whatever passes as a Trump “core.” Truth is, all you’re likely to find in there is nougat. Or maybe an old, glitchy CPU from a Furby.)

If you think back to 2,137 hair-on-fire Donald Trump scandals ago, you’ll recall that Trump withheld vital military aid to Ukraine during a shooting war in order to blackmail its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, into announcing an investigation into Joe Biden—who, if you’ll recall from 1,311 hair-on-fire Trump scandals ago, forced Trump to either go on a feral crusade against our democracy or retreat inside his own neck wattle in abject shame. (As you may recall, Trump opted for the former.)

The question at the time was whether Trump had engaged in a quid pro quo to force favors from his Ukrainian counterpart. It was obvious he had, of course, but Republicans weren’t going to give up on their fantasies that easily. After all, they had a country to ruin, and very little time in which to ruin it.

RELATED: Once again, New York Times reporters betray the public interest for the sake of a book deal

According to Bade and Demirjian, Republicans were so unimpressed with Trump’s lawyers—who included legendary law professor and Jeff Epstein pal Alan Dershowitz, who’d argued that Trump could do anything he wanted if he thought it would get him elected—they felt the need, as putative “jurors,” to help out Trump’s defense team.

HuffPost:

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) told Trump’s team afterward to fire Dershowitz on the spot, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned them to switch tactics.

“Out of one hundred senators, you have zero who believe you that there was no quid pro quo. None. There’s not a single one,” Cruz reportedly said at one point, contradicting what Republicans were saying publicly about the charges at the time.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also fumed at Trump’s legal team after they fumbled responding to a senator’s question about calling new witnesses. Trump’s attorneys said that it was simply too late to do so, a line Graham worried would lose Republican votes.

In fact, after that fumble, Graham reportedly opined, “We are FUCKED. We are FUCKED!” as he walked into the GOP cloakroom.

According to the book, even as Republican senators balked at publicly discussing the hearings, telling the media that they needed to remain neutral as “jurors,” Trump’s incompetent legal team forced them to act in private. So then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell twisted arms, ultimately convincing Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander to vote against hearing further witnesses. Particularly at issue was likely testimony from former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who’d claimed in a book of his own that Trump had told him his scheme to withhold military aid from Ukraine was definitely part of a quid pro quo.

So why the reluctance to convict a guy whom they all knew was guilty? Because Republicans weren’t quite done handing out goodies to wealthy donors, stealing Supreme Court seats, or generally terrorizing anyone with a working womb.

“This is not about this president. It’s not about anything he’s been accused of doing,” McConnell reportedly told his charges. “It has always been about Nov. 3, 2020. It’s about flipping the Senate.”

GOP Senate leaders weren’t just involved in fixing the vote, of course. They were also forced to coach the Trump team in the fine art of not looking like overt criminals. 

RELATED: Maggie Haberman: Just another person 'willing to let democracy die on the altar of a book deal'

The book recounts an episode in which McConnell’s top legal counsel, Andrew Ferguson, wrote out an answer to a question Republicans wanted to ask the Trump team during the trial. It was meant to establish a B.S. line of argument that Bolton’s testimony would be moot.

The group gathered around a laptop to weigh in as Ferguson typed. “Assuming for argument’s sake that John Bolton were to testify in the light most favorable to the allegations…isn’t it true that the allegations still would not rise to the level of an impeachable offense? They agreed to ask. “And that therefore…his testimony would add nothing to this case?”

But the senators were worried. Trump’s lawyers had already proven themselves unreliable, even when lobbed the easiest softball questions. “Is Trump’s team going to answer this the right way?” Graham asked.

“I will go down there and tell them to answer it the right way,” Ferguson vowed.

Way to go, “jury”! You saved this monster from himself! Good thing he didn’t go on to incite any insurrections or steal any top secret nuclear documents or anything. Crisis averted! The republic is saved!

When the history of this era is written, Cruz’s quote needs to be italicized, underlined and, ideally, tattooed on every congressional Republican’s forehead. Because it’s the only quote you need to understand the modern GOP.

In fact, their motto might as well be “Yes, we know better—but fuck you anyway, America!” It would be the first honest sentence we’ve heard out of them in years. We’re so close to Nov. 8, and our chance to expand our razor-thin Senate majority. Can you help us keep McConnell, Cruz, Graham, and their ilk in the minority with a donation of just $3 or more to our Senate slate?

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

Jordan is pushing for Mayorkas impeachment based on ridiculous lie that ‘we no longer have a border’

Posted on by Gabe Ortiz

Some of the worst of the worst of House Republicans are endorsing the impeachment of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) secretary should they take the chamber this November, CNN reports.

It needs to be stated first and foremost that these Republicans haven’t laid out any legitimate claims to justify the removal of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, because there are none. Yet Jim Jordan has falsely claimed that he should be impeached by the chamber “because we no longer have a border.” That’s news to all of us. Jordan could possibly chair the committee that would be tasked with impeachment proceedings should the GOP take the House.

CNN reports that while Jordan and fellow extremists say impeachment should go forward, “Kevin McCarthy supposedly hasn’t really taken a side yet.” His allies claim, at least right now, that there’s “little appetite” for the idea. But that’s a ridiculous thought. McCarthy has already gone in with the extremists, and he’s made it clear extremism controls the agenda.

CNN reports that “Democrats argue the talk is politically motivated,” but that’s exactly what it is. While the insurrectionist president was legitimately impeached (twice) for abuse of power, obstruction of Congress, and inciting a deadly insurrection, the CNN report itself plainly states the political nature of the push. Some Republicans “believe they’ll have an easier time convincing McCarthy and their GOP colleagues to go along with impeaching a Biden political appointee versus a President who was elected to his position, a more politically tenable move that still would throw red meat to the base,” the report said.

So, Mayorkas appears to be the likeliest target. While the GOP bill targeting him has just 31 signatures from the 200 plus Republican caucus, it’s the most out of the other impeachment bills they’ve pushed, CNN said. Plus, targeting him falls in line with their sloppy campaign lying about immigrants rather than talking about their extremist anti-abortion agenda. 

Any impeachment in the House requires conviction in the Senate for full removal, but in that chamber, just two senators are supportive of the idea—and it’s two of the ones you’d expect. The Texas Tribune reports that Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham wrote a letter that claimed the number of apprehensions at the border were “grounds for impeachment.”

But if they really believe that (and they don’t), both Cruz and Graham would’ve sent that letter to Chad Wolf, who was the unlawfully appointed acting DHS secretary under the insurrectionist president. On Wolf’s corrupt watch, the anti-asylum Title 42 policy that was pushed by noted white supremacist Stephen Miller and that used the novel coronavirus as an excuse to quickly deport asylum-seekers in violation of their rights led to increased encounters from April 2020 on, American Immigration Council said. 

But we didn’t see either Cruz or Graham calling on Wolf to resign after he was found by a nonpartisan government watchdog to have been illegally installed in office, did we? Nor did we see Cruz or Graham call on Wolf to resign when he presided over a blatantly political event that was later deemed illegal by the Office of Special Counsel. It’s almost like they’re just full of it. Shrugs.

Former aides of then-President Donald Trump say GOP lawmakers sought presidential pardons after the attack on the U.S. Capitol during Day 5 of the Jan. 6 committee hearings. https://t.co/BgG7aQdkrG pic.twitter.com/sC0qto0toY

— The Associated Press (@AP) June 23, 2022

“I believe Mayorkas has committed high crimes and misdemeanors,” House Republican Andy Biggs claimed to CNN. “You might see some (impeachment pushes) on Biden, but certainly Mayorkas, what he has done, has just been unconscionable. I’m pushing hard.” Do you think he’ll push as hard as when he suggested to the insurrectionist president’s chief of staff some ways to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election? Or maybe as hard as when he sought a pardon from the insurrectionist president, according to Jan. 6 testimony. When Republicans scream about lawlessness, it always so much more about their own behavior than anything else.

Trump Celebrates ‘Lightweight’ Never Trumper ‘Liddle’ Ben Sasse’s Resignation From Senate

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Donald Trump celebrated the news that “lightweight” Nebraska Republican Ben Sasse is set to resign from the Senate.

Reports surfaced Thursday that Sasse, an outspoken “Never Trumper,” was set to resign from his seat by the end of the year and would be accepting a job as the president of the University of Florida.

Sasse shared an article that listed him as a “finalist” for the position with the college.

He wrote that he is “delighted to be in conversation with the leadership of this special community about how we might together build a vision for UF to be the nation’s most dynamic, bold, future-oriented university.”

The university named him the sole finalist, citing his “intellectual curiosity” and his abilities as a “gifted public servant.”

RELATED: Ben Sasse Joins List Of Anti-Trump Republicans Censured By Their Own Party

Trump Happy to Hear Ben Sasse Will Resign

Former President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social media platform to celebrate the “great news” that Senator Ben Sasse was poised to resign.

As one would expect, he added amusing nicknames and insults to his celebratory posting.

“Great news for the United States Senate, and our Country itself,” Trump wrote. “Liddle’ Ben Sasse, the lightweight Senator from the great State of Nebraska, will be resigning.”

He went on to state that he is looking forward to working with a real Republican, which, in his mind, is somebody not so weak as to cave to Democrat impeachment circus trials.

“We have enough weak and ineffective RINOs in our midst,” Trump said. “I look forward to working with the terrific Republican Party of Nebraska to get a REAL Senator to represent the incredible People of that State, not another Fake RINO!”

RELATED: Here Are the 6 Republicans Who Voted That Trump’s Impeachment Trial Is Constitutional

Voted to Impeach

Trump’s ire, as it often does, comes from the fact that Sasse was one of just seven Republican senators to vote to convict the former President after the House of Representatives impeached him for his alleged role in the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

Sasse argued that by telling protesters to peacefully make their voices heard, Trump had “disregarded his oath of office.”

Explaining his vote to impeach, the Nebraska Republican claimed Trump’s words in denying the election results “had consequences” and brought the country “dangerously close to a bloody constitutional crisis.”

But Sasse had walked far down the Never Trumper path by that point already.

Prior to the Capitol riot, in October of 2020, audio leaked of Sasse absolutely excoriating then-President Trump for allegedly selling out America’s allies and ‘flirting’ with white supremacists.

“The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor,” he said when a constituent asked why he criticizes Trump so much.

“The ways I criticize President Obama for that kind of spending, I’ve criticized President Trump for as well,” Sasse added before listing off several reasons why he deserves scorn.

“He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists,” he said.

The comments were nearly indiscernible from even the most rabidly anti-Trump Democrats.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, will now be tasked with naming a temporary replacement for the Senate seat left behind when Ben Sasse resigns.

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Morning Digest: Oregon Republicans threatens suit to overturn election results because of attack ad

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar. Click here to subscribe.

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Leading Off

● OR-06: Here's something you don't see often—or ever: Republican Mike Erickson released an internal poll showing him leading his Democratic opponent, Andrea Salinas, the very same day that he filed a lawsuit demanding Salinas take down an attack ad by citing a law that he recently threatened to use to overturn the election should he lose.

To pick apart this strange turn of events, we'll start with Erickson's survey from Cygnal, which shows him beating Salinas 44-39 in Oregon's brand new 6th District, a seat Joe Biden would have taken 55-42. The last polls we saw out of this district, which is based in the Salem area and Portland's southwestern suburbs, were both from mid-August: The GOP firm Clout Research gave Erickson an even larger 43-34 advantage, while a GBAO internal for Salinas had her up 48-45.

Despite these optimistic numbers for Republicans, however, both the Congressional Leadership Fund and the NRCC have so far avoided spending here, even though their opponents at the DCCC and House Majority PAC have together dropped over $1.4 million. Given the district's lean, it's exceedingly unlikely that the GOP's two biggest House groups have steered clear of this race because they feel supremely confident, especially since a conservative organization called Take Back Oregon PAC just launched a $300,000 TV buy this week.

Salinas' side has run several commercials focusing both on allegations that Erickson paid for a girlfriend to have an abortion in 2000—years before Herschel Walker did the same—as well as stories around his 2016 arrest. The latter is the focus of his new lawsuit and a cease and desist notice he recently sent to Salinas. In that letter, Erickson threatened to invoke a state law that the Oregon Capitol Chronicle writes "prohibits knowingly making false statements about a candidate, political committee or ballot measure."

Reporter Julia Shumway explains, "If a judge determines that a candidate made a false statement that cost their opponent an election, the law states that the candidate will be removed as a nominee or elected official." But she adds, "Over several decades, Oregon courts have interpreted that law to exclude opinions or statements that could reasonably be interpreted as true." It's also not clear whether this law has ever been successfully employed to reverse the results of an election, and Erickson's attorney, Jill Gibson, cited no such examples in her letter.

In his newly filed lawsuit, Erickson didn't actually present any demands regarding overturning the upcoming election but instead asked a state court to order Salinas to stop airing the ads in question and "to retract the false statements by airing correction advertisements with the same frequency and broadcast location as the false advertisements." He is also seeking $800,000 in monetary damages, which he claims would cover the cost of "commercials to correct the false statements."

The complaint insists that Salinas' ads are "false" because Erickson "has never been charged with illegal possession of drug." To that end, Gibson's letter cited a recent story from The Oregonian in which Hood River County District Attorney Carrie Rasmussen said that the court documents that those allegations came from were incorrect.

Instead, Erickson's attorney from that case, Tara Lawrence, insisted that she'd made a "mistake" by filing a plea agreement stating that the Rasmussen's office had "agreed to dismiss felony possession of controlled substance upon tender of guilty plea." An attorney for Salinas, however, cited that very statement in support of the ad's truthfulness in a letter and argued that "a charge is a charge, whether or not the DA files it."

Before Erickson filed his lawsuit, Salinas' campaign shrugged off his threats, saying in a statement, "Mike Erickson's threats to overturn the election if he doesn't win should raise major concerns for Oregonians who cherish democracy."

The Downballot

● After an eruption of even more scandals among Republican Senate candidates, FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich returns to The Downballot this week to discuss the effect these sorts of scandals can have on competitive races; whether Democrats stand a chance to keep the House; and the different ways pollsters create likely voter models.

Co-host David Beard and guest host Joe Sudbay also discuss Dr. Oz, puppy killer; the GOP's hypocrisy regarding Herschel Walker's ever-growing list of scandals; Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s desperate attempts to avoid testifying in an abortion case; and Brazil's presidential runoff, where former President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva remains the favorite despite far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro's better-than-expected first-round showing.

Please subscribe to The Downballot on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find a transcript for this week's episode right here.

3Q Fundraising

  • CO-Sen: Joe O'Dea (R): $2 million raised, additional $1 million self-funded
  • GA-Sen: Herschel Walker (R): $12 million raised, $7 million cash-on-hand
  • OH-Sen: Tim Ryan (D): $17.2 million raised
  • PA-Sen: John Fetterman (D): $22 million raised
  • WI-Sen: Mandela Barnes (D): $20 million raised
  • GA-Gov: Brian Kemp (R-inc): $29 million raised, $15.4 million cash-on-hand
  • OH-Gov: Mike DeWine (R-inc): $1.5 million raised (in September), $12.5 cash-on-hand; Nan Whaley (D): $1.2 million raised (in September), $3.9 million cash-on-hand
  • CA-22: Rudy Salas (D): $1.2 million raised
  • CO-08: Yadira Caraveo (D): $1.5 million raised, $550,000 cash-on-hand
  • FL-15: Alan Cohn (D): $400,000 raised
  • IA-02: Ashley Hinson (R-inc): $1.25 million raised, $1.7 million cash-on-hand
  • IL-17: Eric Sorensen (D): $1.5 million raised
  • MT-01: Monica Tranel (D): $1.1 million raised
  • NH-02: Annie Kuster (D-inc): $1 million raised, $2.6 million cash-on-hand
  • NM-02: Gabe Vasquez (D): $1.55 million raised
  • NY-18: Pat Ryan (D-inc): $2.25 million raised, $600,000 cash-on-hand; Colin Schmitt (R): $500,000 raised, $500,000 cash-on-hand
  • PA-17: Chris Deluzio (D): $1.4 million raised
  • VA-02: Jen Kiggans (R): $1 million raised
  • VA-07: Abigail Spanberger (D-inc): $2.2 million raised

Senate

● CO-Sen: Ron Hanks, a far-right state representative who lost the June Republican primary to Joe O'Dea 54-46, announced this week that he was endorsing Libertarian Brian Peotter as "the only conservative on the ballot." Hanks made it clear exactly what he thought of his former intra-party rival in his statement, declaring, "There is only a fake Republican, a pay-to-play opportunist with no conservative values or agenda. He merits no support, and he's not likely to get much." Hanks added, "Let the COGOP know we will have a party with conservative principles, not squishy candidates with a power fetish."

● GA-Sen: While Republican Herschel Walker has spent days insisting that he did he not pay for his then-girlfriend to have an abortion in 2009 and that he also doesn't know who his accuser could be, the Daily Beast reported Wednesday night that the woman in question had a child with Walker a few years after her abortion. The woman, whose identity the publication has withheld, said of Walker's denials, "Sure, I was stunned, but I guess it also doesn't shock me, that maybe there are just so many of us that he truly doesn't remember." She continued, "But then again, if he really forgot about it, that says something, too."

The next day, Walker held a press conference where he again denied that he even knew who this woman was. However, the Daily Beast further reported that back in June, when the site first broke the news that Walker was father to three previously undisclosed children, the candidate himself had confirmed she was the mother of one of them.

Just before these latest developments, Walker released an ad against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock that played footage of a Democratic commercial focused on reports that the Republican had threatened to kill his ex-wife. "As everyone knows, I had a real battle with mental health—even wrote a book about it," Walker declared. CNN's Andrew Kaczynski quickly noted that this spot, which was aired "presumably in response to Daily Beast story," mentioned Walker's 2008 memoir, which was published the year before the candidate allegedly paid for the abortion.

● NC-Sen: NBC reports that Senate Majority PAC has booked an additional $4 million to help Democrat Cheri Beasley, a move that will bring its total spending here to $10.5 million. The reservation comes at a time when Republican outside groups have been deploying considerably more money here than Democrats: While Politico reported Tuesday that Beasley has outspent Republican Ted Budd by $9 million in advertising, data from OpenSecrets shows that Budd's super PAC allies have outpaced Beasley’s supporters $34.9 million to $7.8 million.

● NE-Sen: Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse announced on Thursday that he would resign to become president of the University of Florida, which has named the Republican as the sole finalist for the post. Multiple media outlets report that Sasse's departure will occur before the end of the year, which would allow Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who will leave office in early 2023, to appoint a successor. The Nebraska Examiner says that a special election would take place for the final two years of Sasse's term in 2024, when fellow GOP Sen. Deb Fischer will also be up.

Sasse held the post of president of Midland University in Nebraska when he entered the 2014 primary to succeed Sen. Mike Johanns, a fellow Republican who unexpectedly decided to retire after one term. Sasse had the backing of the deep-pocketed Club for Growth but still looked like the underdog for most of his campaign against former state Treasurer Shane Osborn, a retired Navy pilot who was detained by China in 2001 after his plane collided with a Chinese fighter.

Osborn's bid, however, began to fall apart weeks before the primary after the media reported that he'd distributed a bogus Navy memo to defend his decision to land in China. Sasse soon pulled ahead in the polls, while his allies took action late in the campaign to stop a third contender, wealthy banking executive Sid Dinsdale, from sneaking through. Ultimately, Sasse beat Dinsdale by a convincing 49-22 margin, and he easily won the general election in this red state.

The new senator became a media favorite in D.C., especially after he emerged as a loud Donald Trump critic during the 2016 campaign, saying at one point that "if the Republican Party becomes the party of David Duke, Donald Trump, I'm out." Sasse, though, was anything but out after Trump took the White House, and while he still vocally trashed him at times, the senator nevertheless loyally voted the administration's way.

There was talk in 2020 that Sasse could be on the receiving end of a Trump-inspired primary challenge, but no one serious emerged even before Trump himself endorsed the incumbent. Sasse had no trouble winning a second term, though he went on to become one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump the next year following his second impeachment. The Nebraskan, though, still voted the party line on all other major issues.

● UT-Sen: Put Utah First, a group funded by Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, has dropped another $900,000 to aid conservative independent Evan McMullin, which takes its total investment here to $2.65 million.

● Polls:

  • AZ-Sen: SSRS for CNN: Mark Kelly (D-inc): 51, Blake Masters (R): 45
  • IA-Sen: Cygnal (R) for Iowans for Tax Relief: Chuck Grassley (R-inc): 54, Mike Franken (D): 40 (July: 52-43 Grassley)
  • NV-Sen: SSRS for CNN: Adam Laxalt (R): 48, Catherine Cortez Masto (D-inc): 46

Governors

● OR-Gov: Republican Christine Drazan has debuted a commercial accusing Democrat Tina Kotek of blocking an investigation into sexual abuse allegations, but The Oregonian's Jamie Goldberg writes, "Even by the traditionally loosened standards for political ads, that assertion is untrue, according to independent investigations and news reports."

Drazan's commercial declares that as speaker of the state House, Kotek "blocked an investigation into repeated sexual abuse because she was worried about how it would make her look." The complaints in question were about Republican Jeff Kruse—a member of the state Senate, not the state House. Unsurpirsingly, the speaker noted after the allegations became public that she had no influence over members of the upper chamber and said she did not have knowledge of the complaints against Kruse.

Goldberg writes, "No subsequent news reporting has showed Kotek covered up sexual abuse, although she did provide privacy to some victims who spoke up after 2018 to allege harassment by House members." The speaker was one of several lawmakers who initially refused to comply when the state Labor Bureau issued subpoenas after legislative attorneys argued the requests documents could reveal the identity of Kruse's accusers, but Goldberg says that a court order ultimately led Kotek and others to comply.

● Polls:

  • AZ-Gov: SSRS for CNN: Katie Hobbs (D): 49, Kari Lake (R): 46
  • IA-Gov: Cygnal (R) for Iowans for Tax Relief: Kim Reynolds (R-inc): 59, Deidre DeJear (D): 38 (July: 56-41 Reynolds)
  • MN-Gov: SurveyUSA for KSTP: Tim Walz (D-inc): 50, Scott Jensen (R): 40 (Sept.: 51-33 Walz)
  • NV-Gov: SSRS for CNN: Joe Lombardo (R): 48, Steve Sisolak (D-inc): 46

House

● FL-13: Progress Pinellas has dropped another $2.2 million to support Democrat Eric Lynn, which takes its total investment here to $6.7 million. The Tampa Bay Times reported in April that the group is funded by hedge fund manager Justin Ishbia, a Lynn cousin who usually contributes to Republicans.

● MI-07: The Congressional Leadership Fund is running a new ad attacking Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin over recent reports that she’s been leasing a condo from a donor named Jerry Hollister, who serves as director of government relations for a medical manufacturing company called Niowave. CLF cites a Detroit News story noting that Slotkin had signed a 2020 letter supporting a Department of Energy program that awarded a total of $28 million to Niowave in 2019 and 2021, which the narrator suggests is "shady."

Slotkin's campaign responded to the initial stories by noting that she never mentioned Niowave in that missive, and that the Republican she defeated in 2018, Rep. Mike Bishop, had previously signed a similar letter. Her team declared the congresswoman had "never done anything in Congress that inappropriately benefits his company" and that she was "paying market rate rent to a landlord, just like thousands of mid-Michiganders."

● MN-02: The Minnesota Reformer's Deena Winter reported Wednesday that, while Republican Tyler Kistner spent his unsuccessful 2020 campaign suggesting that he'd been in combat, Marine records show that was never the case. Winter notes that Kistner, who is again the GOP nominee, would have received a combat action ribbon had he seen battle, which he's acknowledged he doesn't have.

Two years ago, Kistner was facing off against several fellow Republicans, including Air Force veteran Erika Cashin, ahead of the GOP party convention, where Minnesota nominations are often decided. Kistner said at the time he couldn't turn over documents about his service, but he declared in the lead up to the gathering that he'd put the enemy "six feet under" and had "been on the wrong end of a loaded weapon." The candidate also referenced the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and said, "I've been in such conflicts."

Cashin said in response at the time, "Tyler Kistner has said he is 'the most decorated military member in this race,' and has made multiple statements needing clarification." She also challenged him to release his records, arguing, "Tyler can put these questions to rest by simply releasing his DD 214 and proving what he has said is true." Kistner, though, won the party endorsement without publicizing those documents, and Cashin and his other foes dropped out afterwards rather than go on to the primary. Kistner ultimately lost the general election to Democratic Rep. Angie Craig 48-46.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, which is backing Kistner's second bid to unseat Craig, had been airing an ad saying he'd been in "four combat deployments." The progressive group VoteVets, though, asked stations to take down these spots because Kistner had actually served in Japan and Korea, which are not combat zones. CLF, for its part, claims it distributed an "incorrect version of the ad and fixed it ourselves on the same day."

A Kistner consultant named Billy Grant insisted his client had never lied during the 2020 race. Grant told Winter that the "six feet under" line referred to an operation where a "partner force effectively killed more than eight violent extremist organizations in the North African region," where Kistner helped coordinate the evacuation of seven injured soldiers. Grant also argues that Kistner had been telling the truth about being on the "wrong end of a loaded weapon" because he'd gotten into an argument with an allied commander who had pulled a gun on him before the matter was resolved.

● NY-11, NY-19: Siena College is out with a pair of surveys for Spectrum News giving each party the lead in a New York House contest.

Over in the 11th District, which includes all of Staten Island and a portion of Brooklyn, freshman Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis enjoys a 49-43 edge in her rematch against Democrat Max Rose. The sample also finds Republican Lee Zeldin with a small 46-42 advantage against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in a constituency Trump would have taken 53-46.

In the Hudson Valley-based 19th, meanwhile, Siena has Democrat Josh Riley beating Republican Marc Molinaro 46-41. The school also finds Zeldin ahead 46-45 in this swingy turf, which would have backed Biden 51-47.

Attorneys General & Secretaries of State

● AZ-SoS, NV-SoS: SSRS, polling for CNN, finds election deniers with small leads in a pair of secretary of state races taking place in crucial swing states. Mark Finchem posts a 49-45 edge over Democrat Adrian Fontes in Arizona, while fellow Republican Jim Marchant enjoys a similar 46-43 edge against Cisco Aguilar in Nevada. Last week, the progressive group End Citizens United released internals from GSG showing Fontes ahead 46-44. Fontes is also getting some new outside support, as CNN reports that the Democratic organization iVote will spend $5 million to aid him.

● IA-AG: The Republican firm Cygnal's new survey for the conservative Iowans for Tax Relief shows Republican Brenna Bird outpacing longtime Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller 46-43. Back in July, Cygnal found Miller, who is seeking a historic 11th term, ahead by a narrow 45-44 margin.

● IN-SoS: IndyPolitics.com recently published a story in which two women charged that Diego Morales, who is the Republican nominee for secretary of state, sexually harassed and groped them. One said the incident took place in 2007, while the other said her encounter with Morales took place a few years later. Morales soon put out a statement saying, "The claims being made against me are false and I unequivocally deny all of them." He faces Democrat Destiny Wells in November.

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