Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, mocked conspiracy theories about who was responsible for the attack on the Capitol.
“This is not an Agatha Christie novel, we know exactly whodunnit,” he told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle in an interview on Friday.
Raskin referred to unfounded right-wing conspiracy theories that antifa was responsible for the attack, saying the proponents of such theories should “bring the evidence forward” if they have any, but the bipartisan committee found no evidence of antifa being involved.
“It’s just impossible to think of any of this happening without Donald Trump being the central instigator of the whole thing,” he said.
The four charges the committee referred to the DOJ against Trump are obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make false statements and inciting or providing aid and comfort to those participating in an insurrection.
The committee has also released dozens of transcripts from its interviews with key witnesses, including Trump campaign attorney John Eastman, former Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Pat Cipollone.
Raskin said the committee believes it has “comprehensive and overwhelming documentary proof” of all the charges it referred against Trump.
“We were, if anything, very conservative and very cautious in the charges that we advanced,” he said.
He said the committee hopes and trusts that the DOJ and special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the department’s investigation, will do their job to hold “kingpins” involved responsible.
“There needs to be a serious reckoning of individual accountability for the people that set all of these events into motion,” Raskin said.
He also noted that Trump was the one who got the Capitol rioters to protest on Jan. 6. He said the groups were originally going to protest on Jan. 21, one day after President Biden was inaugurated, but Trump pushed for the day that Congress was set to read the votes of the Electoral College.
“He was the one that galvanized the extreme right in the country to focus on the peaceful transfer of power as the target of their wrath and violence,” Raskin said.
He said he believes Republicans who voted to acquit Trump during his second impeachment trial over his involvement in the insurrection are having “quitter’s remorse” as Trump has been “exposed to the world as the person who orchestrated all of these events to try to topple our constitutional order.”
“They’re very afraid that if they don’t nominate him, he will take 30 or 40 percent of the party with him,” Raskin said, referring to Trump’s candidacy for president in 2024. “And that could be the end of the GOP.”
Stephanie McCrummen/WaPo has one of the most remarkable political stories you’ll read this year. Here’s a tale about not giving up on red states or those you assume aren’t persuadable:
In rural Georgia, an unlikely rebel against Trumpism
Why didn’t the Republican red wave materialize in the midterms? The life of Cody Johnson offers one answer.
“I don’t want extremists in office,” he said, walking back to his truck. “And I have some small glimmer of hope that maybe things aren’t as screwed up as I think they are.”
And just in time for the holidays!
Biden keeps demonstrating that many months of media coverage portraying him and his WH as inept and flailing were just wrong he is governing successfully https://t.co/pGj6BMQjxh
Putin’s Useful Idiots: Right Wingers Lose It Over Zelensky Visit
The anti-Ukraine right can’t stand America standing as the arsenal of democracy.
The question of why the Trumpian populist right is so consumed with hatred for Ukraine—a hatred that clearly goes beyond concerns about U.S. spending, a very small portion of our military budget, or about the nonexistent involvement of American troops—doesn’t have a simple answer. Partly, it’s simply partisanship: If the libs are for it, we’re against it, and the more offensively the better. (And if the pre-Trump Republican establishment is also for it, then we’re even more against it.) Partly, it’s the belief that Ukrainian democracy is a Biden/Obama/Hillary Clinton/”Deep State” project, all the more suspect because it’s related to Trump’s first impeachment. Partly, it’s the “national conservative” distaste for liberalism—not only in its American progressive iteration, but in the more fundamental sense that includes conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: the outlook based on individual freedom and personal autonomy, equality before the law, limited government, and an international order rooted in those values. Many NatCons are far more sympathetic to Russia’s crusade against secular liberalism than to Ukraine’s desire for integration into liberal, secular Europe.
Whatever the reason, the anti-Ukraine animus on the right is quite real and widespread.
Remember, Zelenskyy is an actor. Instead of a suit and tie for his White House visit, he's wearing an army fatigue colored sweater and cargo pants. The costume just hits better when you're in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar shakedown of American taxpayers.
Looks like Twitter needs this explained: “Zelensky has continued to wear the green uniform as a commander-in-chief in solidarity with his soldiers who are risking their lives on the frontline. It is not intended to disrespect any audience or institution” https://t.co/M2vIrJt7o6
The powerful evidence for a possible criminal case that the bipartisan January 6, 2021, congressional committee presented against former President Donald Trump on Monday underscores the biggest uncertainty looming over the approaching 2024 presidential campaign.
Many factors that will shape the 2024 contest, of course, remain impossible to know almost two years before the voting. But it is possible with greater confidence to identify the questions whose eventual answers will exert the most impact on the result.
During the Iraq War in 2002, Donald Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, coined a famous phrase to describe exactly that kind of situation. Rumsfeld puckishly described a circumstance in which we do not know the answer to a question, but we do know that the answer will matter to the outcome, as a “known unknown.”
How the GOP received Zelensky: ~Don Jr.: “Zelensky is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.” ~86 of 213 GOP House members showed up for his speech ~Gaetz and Boebert blew off Capitol Police+refused to go through security for speech https://t.co/LuNFMFTKpo via @TPM
Why did a House committee release Trump’s tax returns? Because it could.
Yeah, it’s a short piece but it’s a good question. They were entitled to the tax returns, and they are entitled to use it for legislative purposes. But why release it to the public?
Is it all politics or is there a greater good? By the way, I’m fine with it, I just like the question.
If you’re really worried about an mRNA vaccine versus the virus, you should stop right now The virus has much more mRNA, uses it harmfully, and puts it all over your organs
The Incredible 37-Page Guide for Staffing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema
Aides to the Arizona senator were expected to get her groceries, fix her internet, and learn her very specific preferences for airline seats, according to an internal memo.
The 37-page memo is intended as a guide for aides who set the schedule for and personally staff Sinema during her workdays in Washington and Arizona. And while the document is mostly just revealing of Sinema’s exceptionally strong preferences about things like air travel—preferably not on Southwest Airlines, never book her a seat near a bathroom, and absolutely never a middle seat—Sinema’s standards appear to go right up to the line of what Senate ethics rules allow, if not over.
One section of the staffer guide explains that the senator’s executive assistant must contact Sinema at the beginning of the work week in Washington to “ask if she needs groceries,” and copy both the scheduler and chief of staff on the message to “make sure this is accomplished.” It specifies Sinema will reimburse the assistant through CashApp. The memo also dictates that if the internet in Sinema’s private apartment fails, the executive assistant “should call Verizon to schedule a repair” and ensure a staffer is present to let a technician inside the property.
The Senate ethics handbook states that “staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting Senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities for themselves or on behalf of others.”
Yeah, I get it. You don’t like her. I don’t, either. But, no question that she’s useful. See WJBF:
Schumer breaks Title 42 spending bill logjam with Sinema’s help
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Thursday morning that he’s reached an agreement with colleagues on amendments to the 4,155-page omnibus so the Senate can pass the bill later in the day and give the House a chance to act Friday. And it looks like his savior may be independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), who on Thursday introduced an amendment to increase border funding and resources for border communities and extend the Title 42 health policy that expedites the deportation of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. Sinema’s amendment could give political cover to centrist Democrats to vote against a proposal sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to cut funding for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s office unless the Biden administration reinstates the Trump-era Title 42 policy.
Fresh new Arizona numbers! In a three way race Kyrsten Sinema would get just 13% to 41% for Kari Lake and 40% for Ruben Gallego: https://t.co/EcgAAkZ90J
Speaking of which, you know what media — including the evening news — is doing a terrible job on? Explaining what Title 42 actually is. Well, here’s a rare piece that does, from CBS:
What is Title 42, the COVID border policy used to expel migrants?
What exactly is Title 42, and how has it been used by the current and previous U.S. administrations to expel migrants? Here are the facts.
What is Title 42, and how did it start?
On March, 20, 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 public health emergency, Trump previewed a measure to curb "mass uncontrolled cross-border movement," a move that would ultimately go further in restricting migration than any of his administration's previous hardline border policies.
That day, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield invoked a World War II-era public health law to authorize U.S. border officials to expel migrants. The law, found in Title 42 of the U.S. code, grants the government the "power to prohibit, in whole or in part, the introduction of persons and property" to stop a contagious disease from spreading in the U.S.
So, if it is rescinded, does that mean there’s no COVID public health emergency (or that the argument against Title 42 is to say so)? Or that maneuvering around immigration law is bad because immigration law is the better way to deal with border issues?
In an unrelated matter, the final Jan 6 report is out. See Brandi Buchman’s summary from last night. Here are some samples:
Cmte: “The most senior DOJ officials at the end of President Trump’s term stopped him from co-opting America’s leading law enforcement agency for his own corrupt purposes.”
My Reflections on the Release of the January 6 Committee Report on Trump’s Attempted Election Subversion and the Expected Passage This Week of Electoral Count Act Reform: Gratitude, Awe, and Partial Relief
The report is careful, lawyerly, and fact-based, and the picture it paints is damning of those, beginning with the former President, who were willing to manipulate legal theories and engage in baldfaced lies about voter fraud in an attempt to steal a presidential election. Even though most of the information in the first 5 chapters of the report was familiar to someone who has been following this closely, the set of narratives makes an unmistakeable record for history of unprecedented treachery and sedition. This is true whether or not criminal charges are brought and convictions obtained. There are strong reasons to prosecute the former President, and as I argued in the New York Times, the risk of not prosecuting Trump is greater than the risk of prosecuting him.
There was some new information to me, such as the fact that former professor John Eastman, who advanced wrong and dangerous theories about the Vice President’s powers to throw out electoral college votes, changed his views when politically expedient:
Eighteen Senate Republicans rebuked former President Trump this week by voting to clarify that the vice president does not have the power to overturn a presidential election as Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to do on Jan. 6, 2021.
And several other Republicans, who didn't vote for the spending package, which included the electoral count reforms, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), previously expressed support for changes to the law to make it tougher to object to the Electoral College's vote.
GOP senators ignored Trump’s argument posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, that the 1887 Electoral Count Act should be left the way it is “in case of Fraud.”
Republican senators across the political spectrum said they want to slam the door on the notion that Pence had the authority to throw out a state’s slate of electors, which could open the door for future vice presidents to attempt to interfere with the Electoral College’s vote.
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“The Electoral Count Act, that statute needed to be fixed and clarified,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said, referring to the 1887 law that Trump tried to exploit by arguing its ambiguity gave Pence an opening to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
“A couple years ago there were a lot of questions raised about it. There wasn’t any question in my mind about what it said but since there are [questions], I think it’s important to nail that down,” he added.
Thune and other Senate Republicans have called on Trump to drop his unceasing efforts to contest the results of the last presidential election, something they see as futile, divisive and harmful with independent voters.
“We’re one election past 2020 and he still seems to be obsessed with that election. Obviously, I don’t think that’s good for him. It’s certainly not good for anybody else, which is why most of us have decided to move on,” Thune said.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges and helped lead the negotiations to reform the Electoral Count Act, said Trump “certainly wouldn’t want [Vice President] Kamala Harris to pick the next president, right?”
Trump in a post on Truth Social Tuesday argued it is “probably better to leave” the Electoral Count Act “the way it is so that it can be adjusted in case of fraud.”
And he also lashed out at Republican critics who argue that Pence never had the authority to halt the certification of Biden’s victory.
“What I don’t like are the lies and ‘disinformation’ put out by the Democrats and RINOs. They said the vice president has ‘absolutely no choice,’ it was carved in ‘steel,’ but if he has no choice, why are they changing the law saying he has no choice?” Trump posted.
Romney countered Trump by pointing out that argument would give Democrats, who now control the White House, the right to block a Republican from becoming president.
“Let’s do something which he’s not fond of doing, which is taking that to the next logical conclusion. On that basis, that means that Kamala Harris would be able to choose the next president. Does he really think that’s the right way to go?” he said.
The legislation states the vice president has solely a ministerial role in presiding over the joint session of Congress when lawmakers certify the results of the Electoral College.
And it raises the threshold to lodge an objection to a slate of electors to one-fifth of the House and one-fifth of the Senate — limiting the ability of one or a few disgruntled lawmakers from drawing the chambers into extended debate over the results.
It would also provide for expedited judicial review of legal challenges to slates of electors, putting the matter before a three-judge panel, and allow direct appeal to the Supreme Court.
Trump urged Senate Republicans to vote against the omnibus package, which included the Electoral Count Act reforms, in a scathing video posted on his Truth Social social media platform.
“Every single Republican should vote 'no' on the ludicrous, unacceptable $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill. It’s a disaster for our country and it also happens to be a disaster for the Republican Party, because they could stop it,” he said.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate Republican leadership team, applauded raising the threshold to raising an objection during a joint congressional session to a state’s electors.
“The idea that one senator or one House member can create a process and some confusion when it comes to counting the electoral votes doesn’t make much sense,” he said. “Raising that threshold so that it just can’t be one off in each makes sense to me and it’s long overdue.”
Cornyn argued there was never any real doubt that Pence didn’t have the authority to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“We all knew that and we still know that, but I think this maybe restores a little bit of confidence and stability to the process and eliminate some of the uncertainty we saw on Jan. 6,” he said.
The reforms to the Electoral Count Act are paired with the Presidential Transition Improvement Act, which is intended to ensure an orderly transfer of power after a presidential election — a reform aimed at Trump’s refusal to acknowledge Biden as the victor of the 2020 election.
Trump’s appointed administrator of the General Services Administration initially refused to sign a letter allowing Biden’s transition team to receive millions of dollars to begin the transfer of power.
The legislation would allow eligible candidates to receive transition resources during the limited time period during which the outcome of an election is in dispute and remove the General Services Administration’s administrator from having to determine the winner before releasing funds.
If neither candidate concedes a race five days after an election, then both could access federal transition money.
Trump lashed out at Democratic and Republican critics after Paul submitted an op-ed to the Louisville Courier-Journal expressing support for the reforms.
Trump linked to Paul’s essay in which the senator argued that “recent elections uncovered defects in Congress’s interaction with the Electoral College” and that federal law “currently leaves ambiguous the role of the vice president.”
Paul said the “political theater” of objecting to the Electoral College’s vote “went too far and culminated in a mob disrupting the joint session of Congress” on Jan. 6.
One Republican senator familiar with the negotiations on the Electoral Count Act reforms said GOP lawmakers knew Trump was opposed to the changes but ignored him.
“He’s against it, but we’ve consistently voted for things he’s against,” said the lawmaker, who noted that Trump opposed the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, bipartisan legislation to address gun violence, a compromise to raise the debt limit, and postal reform.
Trump blasted the bipartisan gun bill as something that would “go down in history as the first step in the movement to TAKE YOUR GUNS AWAY.”
But the GOP senator said Trump’s criticisms and threats are becoming background noise to many Republican senators who routinely ignore him.
“We’re going to do what we think is best and not be intimidated,” the lawmaker said.
Not all GOP senators, however, think the Electoral Count Act needs to be reformed.
A few of Trump’s strongest allies and lawmakers, who are trying to appeal to his populist base of support, argued the law has worked fine for more than 100 years.
“I’m against fiddling with that law. It’s been on the books now for a century and a half, it has governed all of the presidential elections in that timespan and I think it’s worked fine,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “It looks like the first time Republicans use its provisions, the Democrat majority immediately changes it.”
Thirty-one House Democrats and then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) objected in January 2005 to then-President George W. Bush’s victory in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election. And House Democrats objected to Trump’s victory in the 2016 election but failed to win any Senate support for the objection.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol released its highly anticipated final report Thursday night, capping off the panel’s year-and-a-half-long probe.
The final document includes eight chapters, an executive summary and a list of 11 legislative recommendations, all of which are part of the committee’s responsibility of investigating the events surrounding Jan. 6 and putting forward suggestions to prevent a similar event from happening in the future.
“This report will provide greater detail about the multistep effort devised and driven by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the committee, wrote in a foreword in the report.
“Building on the information presented in our hearings earlier this year, we will present new findings about Trump’s pressure campaign on officials from the local level all the way up to his Vice President, orchestrated and designed solely to throw out the will of the voters and keep him in office past the end of his elected term,” he added.
The report was initially set to publish on Wednesday, but the committee punted the release to Thursday. The panel did not give a reason for the delay, but the announcement came a few hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an address to a joint meeting of Congress.
The body of work largely details arguments and evidence the committee laid out during its series of public hearings this year. But for the first time, the panel outlined its full slate of legislative recommendations, including one that seeks to bar Trump from holding office in the future under the 14th Amendment.
The panel argued that Trump should not be allowed to serve in government office because the constitutional amendment prohibits people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding such posts. The committee pointed to Trump’s impeachment by the House on incitement of insurrection, cited the 57 senators who voted to convict him and referenced its criminal referral to the Justice Department on a similar charge.
The committee also recommended increased subpoena enforcement for Congress and more aggressive oversight of the Capitol Police, among other suggestions.
The release of the final report marks the final act of the committee’s sprawling investigation, which has been ongoing since the panel was created in the summer of 2021.
The group held 11 public presentations, interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and poured over thousands of documents during the past 18 months to understand the events before, on and after Jan. 6.
As a precursor to the publication of the report, the panel made its final public presentation on Monday, during which members voted on criminal referrals to the Justice Department that target Trump.
The panel recommended that the agency investigate Trump for inciting, assisting or aiding and comforting an insurrection; obstructing an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to make a false statement.
The referrals, while symbolic, do not have any legal heft because the Justice Department is not required to investigate recommendations from congressional committees.
But they nonetheless marked a significant moment in the committee’s quest to make its case to the American people that Trump was at the heart of a conspiracy to keep himself in the White House.
“In the Committee’s hearings, we presented evidence of what ultimately became a multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 Presidential election,” the report reads. “That evidence has led to an overriding and straight forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed.”
“None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him,” the report added.
Ahead of the release of the final report, the committee published the transcripts of a number of witness testimonies — including two conversations the panel had with Cassidy Hutchinson.
During those discussions, the former aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows detailed an effort by what she referred to as “Trump World” to lessen the effect of her testimony and hold back information from investigators.
The referrals and release of the report and transcripts come at a particularly tenuous moment for Trump, whose third bid for the White House is struggling to pick up steam amid poor polls and mockery over a new business venture involving digital trading cards.
House Democrats voted Thursday to make Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.) the top Democrat on the powerful Oversight and Reform Committee in the next Congress, a pivotal role in the defense of President Biden as Republicans prepare to take control of the lower chamber next year.
Raskin, a six-year House veteran, defeated Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) in the closed-door, secret-ballot vote on Capitol Hill, where the full caucus gathered to finalize their committee roster heading into the 118th Congress.
A third member of the committee, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), had also been a part of the race to replace the current Oversight chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who lost an August primary to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). Lynch dropped out of the contest after he placed third in last week’s vote of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, an influential panel that helps to guide the party’s committee assignments, leaving Raskin and Connolly to face off before the full caucus on Thursday.
Connolly was the more senior of the two on the Oversight panel — a relevant distinction in a party that’s traditionally favored seniority when choosing top committee spots.
Yet the preference given to committee veterans has eroded gradually in recent years. And Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, has built a sturdy national profile in his short time on Capitol Hill, leading the House’s second impeachment of former President Trump after last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, and later joining the select committee investigating the riot.
Raskin had argued that his legal background made him the best candidate for the position. Connolly had countered that his long experience in the Oversight trenches made him the better fit.
The Oversight panel, with subpoena authority and a broad mandate to probe federal affairs, is among the most powerful panels in Congress. And with Republicans set to take control of the House next year, the position of ranking member will assume even greater importance.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is in line to lead the Oversight panel next year, is already promising a host of investigations into topics as varied — and controversial — as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the origins of the coronavirus and the international business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is ending her long leadership tenure with a historic flourish, wrapping up two decades at the top of the party with a string of major victories — political, legislative and diplomatic — that are putting a remarkable cap on a landmark era.
This week alone, House Democrats have released the tax records of former President Trump following a years-long legal battle.
They wrapped up their marathon investigation into last year’s Capitol attack, complete with criminal referrals for Trump.
And they’re poised to pass a massive, $1.7 trillion federal spending bill packed full of Democratic priorities, including legislation designed to ensure the peaceful transfer of power between presidents — a push that came in direct response to the rampage of Jan. 6, 2021.
Those were just the expected developments.
Congress on Wednesday also played host to a history-making address by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, after his surprise visit to Washington — a stunning demonstration designed to shore up U.S. support for Kyiv amid Russia’s long-running invasion.
Any one of those items, on its own, would have been a significant triumph in a brief lame-duck session following midterm elections that will put Republicans in charge of the lower chamber next year.
The combination is something else entirely, constituting an extraordinary — and highly consequential — string of wins for Pelosi and the Democrats just weeks before she steps out of power after 20 years and passes the torch to a younger generation of party leaders.
“The 117th Congress has been one of the most consequential in recent history,” she wrote to fellow Democrats this week, taking a victory lap. She added that the lame-duck agenda has them leaving on “a strong note.”
Zelensky’s visit, in particular, carried outsize significance.
The Ukrainian president has, since the Russian invasion began in February, emerged as the global symbol of democratic defiance in the face of the violent authoritarianism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
And having him on hand in the Capitol — itself the target of an anti-democratic mob last year — gave a big boost to the warnings from Democrats that America’s election systems and other democratic institutions are under attack, not least from Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
Pelosi, who had staged a surprise trip to Ukraine earlier in the year, found a special importance in Zelensky’s visit, noting that her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was a House member in 1941 when Winston Churchill addressed Congress to urge America’s support in the fight against the tyrannical forces of Nazi Germany.
“Eighty-one years later this week, it is particularly poignant for me to be present when another heroic leader addresses the Congress in a time of war – and with Democracy itself on the line,” Pelosi said in announcing Zelensky’s visit this week.
Zelensky’s presence also gave a boost to the Biden administration’s efforts to provide Ukraine with assistance — military, economic and humanitarian — in the face of opposition from conservatives on Capitol Hill who want to cut off the spigot of U.S. aid when Republicans take over the House next year.
Hours before Zelensky’s speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a conservative firebrand, said U.S. taxpayers are being “raped” by lawmakers who provide billions of dollars in foreign aid.
“Of course the shadow president has to come to Congress and explain why he needs billions of American’s taxpayer dollars for the 51st state, Ukraine,” she tweeted, referring to Zelensky. “This is absurd. Put America First!!!”
Democrats, joined by many Republicans, have countered with promises to continue providing Kyiv with the support it needs to win the conflict. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday that it’s meaningless to praise the Ukrainians' courage without backing those words with funding.
“Some of you asked me, ‘Well, how much would we do?’ And my response has been, ‘As much as we need to do.’ That's my limit,” Hoyer told reporters. “This is a fight for freedom — [a] fight for a world order of law and justice.”
The issue of Ukraine aid could prove to be a headache for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who’s vying to become Speaker next year and needs the support of conservatives — including those opposed to more Kyiv funding — to achieve that goal.
Despite the hurdles, Pelosi said she’s confident that Congress will come together to support Kyiv next year, even with a GOP-controlled House.
“I think there's very strong bipartisan support respecting the courage of the people of Ukraine to fight for their democracy,” she told reporters earlier in the month.
Pelosi, of course, had solidified her place in the country’s history books long before this Congress — when Democrats adopted massive bills to fund infrastructure, battle COVID-19 and tackle climate change — and the lame-duck session, when that list of policy wins is growing longer still.
As a back-bencher in 1991, Pelosi had visited Tiananmen Square, launching her image as a pro-democracy activist, both in Congress and on the world stage. And her profile rose again in 2002, with her firm opposition to the Iraq War.
Years later, in 2007, she became the first female Speaker in U.S. history, a feat she repeated again in 2019. She was Speaker during the Great Recession; ushered in the Dodd-Frank law designed to curb the worst abuses of Wall Street; and battled Trump head-on, launching two impeachments of the 45th president and creating the special committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
That panel reached the end of its investigation this week, issuing a summary of its findings on Monday that included recommendations that the Justice Department further investigate Trump for four separate federal crimes, including inciting an insurrection. The final report is expected to be released on Thursday.
“Our Founders made clear that, in the United States of America, no one is above the law,” Pelosi said in response. “This bedrock principle remains unequivocally true, and justice must be done.”
Perhaps recognizing that her leadership days were numbered, Pelosi also went out of her way this year to boost her legacy by visiting some particularly volatile spots around the globe. That list included Ukraine, amid the war with Russia; Taiwan, in the face of retaliatory threats from China; and most recently Armenia, where she took clear sides in a long-standing conflict with Azerbaijan.
Yet in Pelosi’s own view, her legacy will be defined by a law she helped to enact long before Russia invaded Ukraine or Trump entered the political stage: The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, is how she wants to be remembered.
“Nothing in any of the years that I was there compares to the Affordable Care Act, expanding health care to tens of millions more Americans,” she told reporters last week. “That for me was the highlight.”
Many of Mitt Romney’s fellow senators assume his willingness to break from his party — and Donald Trump — means he's planning for only one term. They may be surprised.
The Utahn was the first senator in history to vote to remove a president of the same party from office, in Trump's first impeachment trial. Then he cut a series of bipartisan deals that upset the right. The blue-state governor turned GOP presidential nominee turned Senate elder statesman also doesn’t need the job, thanks to personal wealth that frees him to look beyond the Senate’s permanent reelection cycle.
But there's no more prominent GOP Trump foil these days than Romney. And with the former president weakened, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, no fan of Trump himself, is among the top Republicans exhorting Romney to seek another six-year term in 2024.
He’s considering it.
Whether he could win is “frankly, not a question in my mind," Romney said in an interview. "I've faced long odds: Getting the nomination in 2012 was a long shot, becoming a Republican governor in one of the most liberal states in America, Massachusetts. ... So I'm convinced that if I run, I win. But that's a decision I’ll make."
Romney's ultimate decision on reelection will say far more about the state of the Republican Party than any other safe red seat. He's one of a handful of influential Senate centrists weighing how effective they might be if they come back for another term, a group that includes Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), as well as newly independent Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.
Unlike the other three, however, Romney’s biggest threat is more likely to come in a primary than in the general election. With the state attorney general among the conservatives eyeing a challenge, Utah's voters are near evenly split over whether Romney should run again — yet a Romney reelection is important to McConnell to demonstrate the party's appeal goes beyond Trump, even as the former president's critics vanish from the congressional GOP.
And McConnell is willing to put money behind it.
McConnell already demonstrated he’s willing to defend an anti-Trump Republican against an intraparty challenge, spending millions of dollars this year through his aligned super PAC to reelect Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). McConnell said in an interview that he’s “absolutely” willing to do the same for Romney, and is pushing his colleague for another bid.
“He’s been a really important part of our conference. People respect his intelligence, his assessment of the era we find ourselves in. And I think his running for reelection would be very important,” McConnell said. “It’s important for the Republican Party and the country that he runs again.”
The first-term senator said that he’s beginning to do everything necessary to set up another run, such as “making sure I have the right people,“ fundraising and talking to voters. “But I haven't made a decision, finally. And probably won't do that anytime in the immediate future.”
Incoming National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) also backed another Romney run and is planning to meet with him soon to discuss his plans. Still, should he run, Romney can’t expect unified backing from the Senate Republican conference.
Romney stayed neutral during his colleague Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) reelection campaign, as his friend Evan McMullin ran against Lee as an independent. Lee is expected to remain similarly neutral in a primary if Romney runs again, according to a person familiar with his plans.
“That’s the nature of Utah politics,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) of the state’s strange dynamics. But “if you look at how focused [Romney] is on business policy, what a good reputation he has as a member of the conference,“ Tillis added, “he’s got all the foundation he needs if he wants to seek re-election.”
Since his election in 2018, Romney’s put an indelible stamp on the Senate. He voted to convict Trump in both impeachment trials, becoming the only Senate Republican to support abuse of power charges against Trump in the former president's first trial over Ukraine aid. He’s worked with Democrats frequently, yet just as easily takes a hard conservative line on issues like the debt ceiling. And Romney's self-deprecating sense of humor stands out in the stuffy chamber.
But in another respect, Romney's just like any politician: He wants to win. And though Utah is a red state, it’s a Trump-skeptical one. That makes Romney’s path to reelection easier than some other Trump critics who bowed out of electoral politics rather than face voters again.
Even so, he may face opposition from his own party if he runs, with Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes the most prominent possibility.
Yet Murkowski points Romney down the path to running and winning as an anti-Trump Republican, for reasons beyond her backing from McConnell. Trump supported Murkowski's conservative challenger Kelly Tshibaka, but the incumbent stuck to the center amid her state’s new ranked-choice voting system and won by 7 points.
“I hope by the time Mitt really gets into full swing on the campaign, we’re not talking about the influence of Donald Trump,” said Murkowski, who is encouraging Romney to run again.
Beyond the electoral math, there’s another factor for Romney to consider: Just what can the Senate do during the next two years of divided government? He's a key player in the Senate’s centrist negotiating groups that have helped craft new laws on infrastructure, gun safety and marriage equality — and he wants to continue that style of work as long as he’s a senator.
“I’m really pleasantly surprised that this was not a lot of sitting around and wringing hands. We got a lot of legislation of significant nature through,” Romney said in the interview.
His negotiating partner and friend Sinema raved over Romney as he makes up his mind: “I do like Mitt Romney so much. He’s great. He’s wonderful to work with.” The two have not only written laws together, but also spoofed "Ted Lasso" for Halloween.
Next year, the Senate will be narrowly divided with Democrats in charge, which may empower senators like Romney and Sinema to keep working together on issues like the minimum wage or immigration. But that doesn't mean they'll get the sort of traction they did with Democratic majorities in Congress that generally facilitated centrists' work, while usually just a minority of Senate Republicans voted for any bipartisan deals.
Now House Republicans are taking over, a potential roadblock to bipartisan legislation hatched by centrists that passes the Senate but divides Republicans. Romney said he needs to “see how that feels” in the coming months as he considers whether to test his brand of politics one more time.
“It's like, what should I do in the time I have left? You know, I'm 75,” Romney said. “ I've spent 25 years now in public service. and so what comes next? What do I want to accomplish? And, what can be accomplished?”
Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday temporarily halted the Biden administration’s planned lifting of the anti-asylum Title 42 order, granting a so-called emergency appeal from a slate of Republican attorneys general. “So-called emergency appeal,” because the appeals court panel that had last week denied the GOP request noted that the group of 19 attorneys general had waited too long to file their request.
The Biden administration had planned to lift the debunked public health order that’s used the pandemic as an excuse to quickly deport asylum-seekers in violation of their rights Tuesday evening, following a lower court order. Roberts instructed the administration to respond by this evening, indicating more action could be imminent. Legal expert Mark Joseph Stern noted that Roberts’ administrative stay “does not hint at the eventual outcome.”
Republicans have simultaneously claimed that the Biden administration has an “open borders” policy while insisting that the Title 42 policy—which was implemented against the advice of public health experts by noted white supremacist Stephen Miller and Mike Pence at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020—must stay in place indefinitely. They have also insisted this public health order remain as they’ve consistently challenged other pandemic-related orders by the administration.
“The Biden administration, for its part, has insisted it is prepared to lift Title 42, saying the restoration of regular immigration procedures, such expedited deportations, will allow the U.S. to gradually reduce migrant arrivals and the high rate of repeat crossings recorded during the pandemic,” CBS News reported.
That last part is crucial: Title 42 in fact led to an increase in apprehensions, because desperate people blocked from their asylum rights and expelled have had no choice but to try again. It’s a failed policy, and its lifting would put our country back on the side of respecting U.S. and international asylum law. In a statement, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that as required by Roberts’ order, “the Title 42 public health order will remain in effect at this time and individuals who attempt to enter the United States unlawfully will continue to be expelled to Mexico.”
“While this stage of the litigation proceeds, we will continue our preparations to manage the border in a safe, orderly, and humane way when the Title 42 public health order lifts,” Mayorkas continued. “We urge Congress to use this time to provide the funds we have requested for border security and management and advance the comprehensive immigration measures President Biden proposed on his first day in office.”
House Republicans set to take power in the next Congress have indicated they’re serious about leading on immigration policy … by pushing a harebrained idea to impeach Mayorkas. Over what crimes? They haven’t figured that part out yet.
Vice President Kamala Harris similarly noted the need for lawmakers to lead on comprehensive immigration measures, and she called out for Republicans for failing to come to the table. They obsess on the issue of immigration only when it’s election season (my words, not hers). For example, a proposed framework that would have passed permanent relief for young immigrants in exchange for harsh border measures recently failed, derailed by Republicans’ “border first” excuses even though there was border stuff in there.
"I think that there is so much that needs to happen to address the issue," the vice president told NPR. "And sadly, what we have seen in particular, I am sad to say, from Republicans in Congress is an unwillingness to engage in any meaningful reform that could actually fix a lot of what we are witnessing.”
For their failure to cooperate with the investigation of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Jan. 6 committee on Monday officially requested that the House Ethics Committee assess whether four Republican lawmakers violated congressional ethics rules.
Those referred to the House Ethics Committee are House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
The decision is unlikely to gain serious traction given the current dynamics in Congress: The House will be Republican-controlled next year and the House Ethics Committee itself is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Additionally, Investigations by the ethics committee into members of Congress are rare and often move slowly, given the required steps to conduct such a probe. Daily Kos interviewed David Laufman, former investigative counsel to the House Ethics Committee, last October to unpack the process.
All five lawmakers were subpoenaed earlier this year and refused cooperation while simultaneously criticizing the probe publicly as a political witch hunt. Both Biggs and Jordan echoed those sentiments on Monday after the committee announced its referrals.
Biggs, who is running for speaker of the House against McCarthy, called the decision by the Jan. 6 probe its “final political stunt” on Twitter Monday and said it was “inappropriate” to utilize the House Ethics Committee to reach a “pre-determined” conclusion.
Biggs was an early advocate of Trump’s Big Lie and messaged then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Nov. 6, calling on Meadows to appoint alternate electors for Trump. Trump, Biggs urged, should not concede his defeat.
In the executive summary of the select committee’s final report published on Monday, investigators on the panel urged the House Ethics Committee to act.
“If left unpunished, such behavior undermines Congress’s longstanding power to investigate in support of its lawmaking authority and suggests that members of Congress may disregard legal obligations that apply to ordinary citizens,” the summary states.
McCarthy was of interest to the probe because of his direct engagement with Trump on Jan. 6.
He spoke to Trump by phone during the siege, as well as Trump White House insiders like Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Washington Republican, told the committee McCarthy relayed his conversation with Trump to her directly.
She said:
“And he said [to President Trump], “You have got to get on TV. You’ve got to get on Twitter. You’ve got to call these people off.” You know what the President said to him? This is as it’s happening. He said, “Well Kevin, these aren’t my people. You know, these are Antifa. And Kevin responded and said, “No, they’re your people. They literally just came through my office windows and my staff are running for cover. I mean they’re running for their lives. You need to call them off.” And the President’s response to Kevin to me was chilling. He said, “Well Kevin, I guess they’re just more upset about the election theft than you are.”
McCarthy’s remarks were corroborated by Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former acting White House chief of staff.
The House minority leader told reporters at CBS and Fox on Jan. 6 that he spoke to Trump and urged the outgoing president to issue a statement calling for peace. In talks with Republican leadership in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, McCarthy discussed Trump’s resignation and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office for being unfit. When Trump was impeached by the House for incitement of insurrection, McCarthy voted against impeachment but said “the president bears responsibility” for the attack.
“He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding,” McCarthy said in January 2021.
According to the committee, McCarthy told Republican members he believed Trump was responsible for the attack, and when he spoke to Trump, Trump agreed he was culpable—at least in part.
“I asked him personally today, does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened. And he need[s] to acknowledge that,” McCarthy said.
As for Rep. Jordan, the committee noted in its executive summary on Monday: “Representative Jordan was a significant player in President Trump’s efforts. He participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudolph Giuliani, and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud.”
Jordan was a participant on a conference call with Trump on Jan. 2 in which delay strategies were discussed. That same day, Jordan and Trump spoke by phone for an hour.
A day before the insurrection, Jordan was in contact with Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. Jordan offered advice to Meadows about how then-Vice President Mike Pence could intervene in the joint session on Jan. 6. Pence did not have that authority and Jordan showed himself to be a less-than-capable reader of the Constitution.
Jordan also spoke to Trump on Jan. 6 at least twice. His public accounting of that day has been littered with inconsistencies.
Evidence collected by the committee indicates Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, called Jordan at least five times on the evening of the 6th. Jordan picked up at least two of those calls. Giuliani told the committee he reached out to Jordan because he was one of several lawmakers he called, pleading with them to keep up the spirit and object to the electoral slates once the joint session finally resumed.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson also testified that Jordan was among those members of Congress who discussed presidential pardons after the attack. But, she added, he never asked for one directly.
Rep. Scott Perry, who has been on the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 radar for quite some time, was a key proponent of Trump’s Big Lie after the 2020 election. Both he and Jordan were involved in conversations about the objection strategy but it was Perry who arguably had the more influential role. Perry introduced Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows to Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department lawyer at the time who believed that the election had been “stolen.”
Perry pushed for Trump to speak at the Capitol on Jan. 6, the committee says, and he was among those lawmakers who asked for a pardon once the attack was over.
The lawmakers’ refusal to cooperate with the investigation was “flagrant,” the committee wrote it in the executive summary of its final report.
“The Rules of the House of Representatives make clear that their willful noncompliance violates multiple standards of conduct and subjects them to discipline. Willful noncompliance with compulsory congressional committee subpoenas by House Members violates the spirit and letter of House Rule XXIII, Clause 1, which requires House Members to conduct themselves “at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House,” the report states.
House Ethics Committee rules dictate that its members can go on a fact-gathering mission when assessing whether a lawmaker violated ethics rules and the body can use subpoenas to compel documents. While this avenue wasn’t particularly successful with McCarthy, Jordan, or Biggs, one particular notable difference here is that members cannot claim privileges like the Speech and Debate clause to avoid scrutiny.
But the ethics committee would also require a vote to start a probe. If just one Republican currently sitting on the panel breaks ranks, the next step would be the formation of an investigative subcommittee. From that point, a full investigation would be conducted and House Ethics would issue what is known as a “statement of alleged violation.”
If there's enough clear and convincing evidence and its proven that a member violated ethics rules or the law, liability could be established. Then its about due process. So, let's say a violation IS established. In that case, accountability could translate in a few ways...
With enough information, liability could potentially be established and from there, accountability would come by way of a “letter of reproval” of that member or a formal reprimand. A letter of reproval does not require a full House vote, but a reprimand does.
Only 11 members of Congress have been reprimanded since the process first began in the 1960s.
