The latest Michigan Republican to express interest in the state’s open Senate race is former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who ran a chaotic 2022 campaign for governor even before he was ejected from the ballot over fraudulent signatures. But Craig, who went on to wage a hopeless write-in campaign last year, remains characteristically undeterred, telling The Detroit News he’s giving a Senate effort a “real critical look” but has no timeline to make up his mind. Several more disastrous Republican candidates from last cycle are also eyeing Senate runs in other states, though unlike Craig, they were at least able to make the ballot before losing.
Craig, who also made news for his heavy spending, got some more unwelcome headlines in April of 2022 when Rep. Jack Bergman announced he was switching his endorsement to self-funding businessman Perry Johnson; Bergman complained that his first choice ignored "campaigning in Northern Michigan and the [Upper Peninsula] in favor of a self proclaimed Detroit-centric approach.” Still, polls showed Craig well ahead in the primary as he sought to become the Wolverine State’s first Black governor.
Everything changed in May, though, when election authorities disqualified Craig, Johnson, and three other contenders from the ballot after they fell victim to a huge fraudulent signature scandal and failed to turn in enough valid petitions. Both Craig and Johnson both unsuccessfully sued to get reinstated, but only the former chief decided to forge ahead with a write-in campaign to win the GOP nod.
Craig blustered, “I'm going to win,” but he became an afterthought even before far-right radio commentator Tudor Dixon emerged as the new frontrunner. Craig’s write-in effort ended up taking all of 2% of the vote, though he was far from willing to back Dixon after she secured the nomination that once looked his for the taking. He instead endorsed U.S. Taxpayers Party contender Donna Brandenburg, who had also been ejected from the Republican primary, saying that Dixon’s extreme opposition to abortion rights went too far even for him. Whitmer soon won 54-44, with Brandenburg in fourth with just 0.4%.
Craig’s newest campaign flirtations come at a time when no major Republicans have stepped up to run for the Senate seat held by retiring Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow. The only notable declared contender is state Board of Education member Nikki Snyder, who also failed to make the primary ballot in 2020 when she tried to challenge Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin. (Dixon herself didn’t shut the door on a Senate bid right after Stabenow announced her departure in January, but we’ve heard little from her over the following three months.) Slotkin continues to have the Democratic side to herself, though actor Hill Harper reportedly plans to run and state Board of Education President Pamela Pugh is publicly considering herself.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) slammed Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) over the House Judiciary Committee’s planned hearing in New York City next week, telling the GOP chairman he is “not welcome” in Goldman's district, where the event is taking place.
“Instead of focusing on improving the lives of the American people, Jim Jordan has decided to come to my district at the behest of Donald Trump to continue to weaponize Congress to obstruct an ongoing, non-federal criminal prosecution,” Goldman said in a statement. “If Jordan truly cared about public safety, he’d be having a field hearing in Nashville, Tennessee or Louisville, Kentucky, where the most recent of the daily mass shootings have killed more innocent Americans.”
Three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a Nashville school late last month, and at least four people were fatally shot at a bank in Louisville on Monday.
“Chairman Jordan is not welcome in my district for this political stunt that is simply a further waste of taxpayer money to support Donald Trump’s legal defense,” Goldman added.
Goldman represents New York’s 10th Congressional District, which includes the Javits Federal Building — the location of the Judiciary Committee’s planned hearing.
The Republican-led panel announced earlier on Monday that it will hold a hearing in Manhattan on April 17 focused on crime in the city. The event is titled “Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan.”
In the hearing advisory, House Judiciary Committee Republicans — led by Jordan — zeroed in on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who has been the target of GOP ire after a grand jury he empaneled indicted former President Trump. Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts for his alleged involvement in orchestrating hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.
Republicans have accused Bragg of being soft on crime while conducting a politically-motivated prosecution of the former president. Bragg, however, has said his office is enforcing the law.
Next week’s hearing, according to the committee, “will examine how Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents.”
Goldman served as lead counsel during Trump’s first impeachment, after which he became a frequent guest on cable news to discuss the legal proceedings surrounding Trump. He also served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.
Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on Monday joined Democrats in their call for the Biden administration to ignore a Texas judge’s ruling on the abortion medication known as mifepristone, blasting the court decision as "unconstitutional."
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled late Friday that the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of mifepristone was unlawful, a decision that effectively banned the sale of the drug. But the issue became a legal quagmire when the Texas ruling was followed within hours by a conflicting court decision out of Washington state that ordered the FDA to maintain the drug’s availability.
On CNN Monday, Mace said she agrees with Democrats who say that Biden should ignore the Texas decision: "It's not up to us to decide as legislators … whether or not this is the right drug to use or not, No. 1, so I agree with ignoring it at this point."
Asked by Fox News Digital why she believes the FDA should brush off the Texas ban, Mace said the decision was unlawful because the judge based his decision on an invalid law.
"I disagree with the ruling," she said. "The judge used a law from 1873, which the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional in 1983. And so the entire basis for the ruling, I would argue, was unconstitutional in that regard."
She took it a step further in a separate interview with Fox News Digital and accused her fellow Republicans of being "on the wrong side of history" on abortion rights, clarifying that she is pro-life.
Mace declined to say whether she was worried about whether ignoring the Texas judge would set a dangerous legal precedent. But she did say these sorts of decisions are being made, pointing to Missouri officials in a county who passed an ordinance to break its ties with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) after claiming the body was unconstitutional.
"Look at Camden County in Missouri, I mean, they're ignoring the ATF, saying that they're unconstitutional," Mace said. "Both sides are fighting things that they believe are unconstitutional."
"Both sides fight things that they believe are unconstitutional," she added. "If it's OK for one side, it should be OK for both sides. And I think that's what we're missing here in this argument."
"The other thing that we're missing, too, is that [Republicans] are not on the right side of history, if we're going to take the extreme position on this issue, because the vast majority of Americans are not with us on that. They’re just not," the moderate GOP lawmaker said.
On Monday, the Biden administration stepped up its fight against the Texas ruling by filing a request for a stay on the order that’s backed by the FDA and Health & Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Several Democrats spoke in favor of that decision. For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., both called on the Biden administration to ignore the abortion pill decision, which prompted criticism from Republican lawmakers over the left’s disregard for the judiciary.
"The left is continuing its assault on the rule of law," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Fox News Digital. "Whether it’s packing the Supreme Court, indicting the former president on flimsy charges or urging the administration to ignore a federal judge’s ruling, the left has made it clear they have contempt for the rule of law and care only about power."
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, compared the Democrats leading the demand to the southern Democrats of the last century who were resisting the civil rights movement.
"Like Southern Democrats against civil rights in the 1950s, progressive Democrats today are demanding that a federal agency ignore a legal ruling they don’t like," the Texas conservative wrote on Twitter.
Monday House Democrats continue their two-week "district work period." House Republicans continue their two-week "sleep ‘til noon then take a nap" period.
Losing Wisconsin state Supreme Court candidate Dan Kelly prepares to spend the week in his mancave sobbing into his MyPillow because he got landslided by a girl.
Tuesday The 45thpresident of the United States remains indicted on 34 counts of financial fraud, and today those indictments will sue to get moved to a different defendant because being attached to Donald Trump is hurting their credibility.
The white board that chews up and spits out corporate shills in House committee hearings appears on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, along with its trusty assistant Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA).
Continued...
Wednesday Kevin McCarthy suffers a brief pang of conscience. It quickly passes and his office staff cancels the 911 call.
All week: Ukrainian farmers continue to harvest their spring bumper crop.
After a bombshell report concludes that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose lavish trips to posh resorts via yachts and private jets he received from a Hitler-infatuated Republican billionaire, the MAGA cult begs the Hitler-infatuated Republican billionaire to be Trump’s vice führ...er, vice president, I think. [Re-checks notes] Nope, my bad. It’s vice führer.
Thursday Oh poo. Another day, another day JFK Jr. doesn’t show up anywhere disguised as anybody.
America's Republican governors issue a joint statement of apology to their base voters and Fox News after they realize they've gone a full day without signing a piece of anti-woman, anti-Black, or anti-LGBTQ legislation into law.
Friday The University of Michigan announces the consumer sentiment index for April. Analysts are puzzled as America’s mood swings from rebarbative to effulgent.
The spring fiddlehead forecast is released and, once again, experts are torn between "boiled" and "pickled."
Saddle up and let’s get this foolishness over with by suppertime.
And now, our feature presentation...
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Cheers and Jeers for Monday, April 10, 2023
Note: Two roads diverged in the wood. I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. My road had waffles at the end of it.
Number of times Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reported the ultra-luxury vacations and private jet travel provided to him by Republican billionaire mega-donor Harlan Crow over decades: 0
Number of times Tesla has cut prices since January: 5
Rank of the Louvre, British Museum, and Metropolitan Museum of Art among the world's most-visited art museums: #1, #2, #3
Percent chance that Kanye West's private Christian Donda Academy had "doors locked from the outside, lunches were always sushi, no forks or other utensils were allowed, no cleaning services or school nurses were employed, and medications on campus either were unsecured or had expired," according to plaintiffs in a lawsuit against him: 100%
Number of seconds after which this message will self-destruct: 5
CHEERS to jobs, jobs, jobs! (Or as Fox News describes it, since it's good news: "Nothing, nothing, nothing to see here!") If nothing else (and there's plenty else), President Biden has lorded over one hell of an employment comeback since taking office 27 months ago. The latest jobs report was so good (+236,000) that it was released by the Labor Department via confetti cannon on Friday. Bill McBride at Calculated Risk remains my go-to blog for number crunching, and he writes:
Overall, this was a solid employment report.
The headline jobs number in the March employment report was close to expectations, however employment for the previous two months was revised down by 17,000, combined. The participation rate and employment population ratio increased, and the unemployment rate decreased to 3.5%. […]
Damn. Whoever that Trump guy is, he really sucked.
[L]eisure and hospitality has now added back about 96% all of the jobs lost in March and April 2020. Construction employment decreased 9 thousand and is now 280 thousand above the pre-pandemic level. Manufacturing lost 1 thousand jobs and is now 198 thousand above the pre-pandemic level.
One guy who won’t be getting his dream job: Wisconsin state Supreme Court candidate Dan Kelly. He got beat by a girl, and now he’ll be mooching and taking from you and me when he marches down to the unemployment office and demands his free money. Pffft. Republicans are so predictable.
CHEERS to the return of the Jedi. Obi-Wan Kenobi said it plain to Darth Vader a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away: "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine," a sentiment Princess Leia echoed when she told Grand Moff Tarkin, "The tighter you squeeze, the more the rebellion will slip through your fingers." So leave it to Tennessee Republicans to ignore their warnings and expel two young Black representatives (one of whom, Justin Jones, went to Bowdoin College here in Maine) from the state House for the crime of raising their voices in the chamber to call for action against school shootings. Not only are the pair becoming household names across the country for showing up the MAGA cult as the fascist hive of scum and villainy it is, their political careers appear to be only momentarily derailed:
At least 29 members of Nashville’s 40-seat Metro Council said they plan to reappoint expelled former Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and send him back to the Tennessee House of Representatives. That would give him more than the simple majority he would need to reclaim his seat. […]
“I spoke to Reps Jones, Pearson, and Johnson to thank them for their leadership and courage in the face of a blatant disregard of our nation’s democratic values. Our country needs to take action on gun violence—to do that we need more voices like theirs speaking out.”
—President Biden, Friday
"Most of us said, 'See you when you get reappointed,'" House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, said of his conversations with Jones and Pearson after the vote. In Shelby County, at least one of 13 county commissioners has vowed to reappoint Justin Pearson to his house seat.
Here's hoping they return to the House floor with force powers. The world would love to see their GOP colleagues get collectively pantsed.
CHEERS to a civil end to a most uncivil war. Big anniversary yesterday—in fact, it oughtta be a federal holiday. On April 9, 1865, following his final late-night cocaine orgy, Robert E. Lee called it quits and surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the southern traitors’ War for the Preservation of Owning Humans for Forced Labor.
Give the racist a purple nurple, Ulysses.
Several years ago a demographic historian concluded that the death toll of the war was much higher than originally thought—750,000 versus the original 620,000. Sadly, another number has also been extended far beyond its original estimate: the number of years it's taking too many white people in the South to admit they lost and put away that damn confederate battle flag. Hell, even slave owner and avowed racist treason-monger Lee had at least enough self-awareness to concern himself with post-war optics:
"When Robert E. Lee surrendered he asked all of his followers to furl this flag. Stow it away, he said. Put it in your attics," Clyburn continued. "He refused to be buried in his Confederate uniform. His family refused to allow anyone dressed in the confederate uniform to attend his funeral. "Why? Because Robert E. Lee said he considered this emblem to be a symbol of treason.”
He also didn’t want any statues of him put up, a request that fell on deaf ears as groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy erected hundreds of them (of Lee and other CSA icons, including a fresh batch in the 1960s to remind the civil rights movement to remember “their place”) as a way of living in denial of their treason. I’ll give the ‘em credit for one thing: they sure picked the right theme song. "Look away, DixieLand." Mission accomplished.
JEERS to non-refundable tickets. On April 10, 1912, the unsinkable RMS Titanic set off for New York from Southampton, England. That cruise, of course, turned out to be a disaster. The caviar was much too salty.
CHEERS to an accurate assessment. Funny thing about having a presidential administration that's staffed up and down the chain with smart, competent, sober-eyed professionals: when they issue a report on something, you can count on it to be truthful and accurate. Exhibit A: its report on our military withdrawal from Afghanistan, something that should've happened a lot earlier than it did. The place was always a quagmire rife with corruption, "victory" could never be defined (let alone achieved), and we knew darn well from Russia's catastrophic withdrawal that it was never going to end well for us either. And so it didn't. Bush II and Obama—and even Biden, a bit—deserve to take some lumps, but #45 is rightfully getting the Adderall-sniffing lion's share of the blame for setting the withdrawal in motion:
Since the U.S. withdrawal, Biden has blamed the February 2020 agreement Trump reached with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, saying it boxed the U.S. into leaving the country. The agreement has been blamed by analysts for undercutting the U.S.-backed government, which collapsed the following year.
Pete Buttigieg serving in Afghanistan.
Under the U.S.-Taliban Doha agreement, roughly 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released as a condition for what were supposed to be separate future peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban. [John] Kirby noted that release and other examples of what he said was a “general sense of degradation and neglect” inherited by Biden. […]
The U.S. was to remove all forces by May 1, 2021. Biden pushed a full withdrawal to September but declined to delay further, saying it would prolong a war that had long needed to end.
And now, $2 trillion and over 200,000 dead people later, everything in Afghanistan is back to the way it was on September 10, 2001. The End.
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), one of the last remaining Democratic holdouts to oppose same-sex marriage, announced Monday that he now supports gay nuptials. "After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation," Johnson said in a statement.
"This position doesn't require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom."
By my count, that's 54 senators in favor of gay marriage, with Democrats Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Pryor (AR) and Mary Landrieu (LA) still acting like they don’t support it when of course they do. Pretty soon the closet's gonna be filled with nobody but straight people in denial. And I promise to support their right to get married.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the wind beneath the New Deal's wings. She was born on April 10, 1880 in Boston, but her ancestral roots were in Maine, where she spent much of her downtime and was laid to rest (in Newcastle) in 1965. Her strict parents wanted her to be a teacher and live at home, but Frances Perkins had other plans. Bearing witness to how badly the employed and unemployed were treated, she made it her life's mission to do something about it. Her smarts and tenacity led her to the position where, with the full backing of her boss, she stitched together the American social safety net we have today:
When, in February, 1933, President-elect Roosevelt asked Frances Perkins to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of Labor, she outlined for him a set of policy priorities she would pursue: a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; unemployment compensation; worker’s compensation; abolition of child labor; direct federal aid to the states for unemployment relief; Social Security; a revitalized federal employment service; and universal health insurance.
FDR signs Social Security into law, with Frances Perkins looking on behind him.
She made it clear to Roosevelt that his agreement with these priorities was a condition of her joining his cabinet. Roosevelt said he endorsed them all, and Frances Perkins became the first woman in the nation to serve in a Presidential cabinet. […]
Within a month of Roosevelt’s inauguration, Congress enacted legislation establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps, which Roosevelt asked Perkins to implement. … Before Roosevelt presented his final One Hundred Days legislation to the Congress, the National Industrial Recovery Act, Perkins convinced him to allocate $3.3 billion for public works from the moneys appropriated. Serving as a member of the Special Board for Public Works, Perkins helped to ensure that money was spent on socially useful projects: schools, roads, highway, housing projects and post offices. Public works construction employed a many as 1.5 – 2 million people in 1934.
FDR's dynamic duo: Frances Perkins and Eleanor.
In1934, Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins to head a Committee on Economic Security, where she forged the blueprint of legislation finally enacted as the Social Security Act. Signed into law by the President on August 14, 1935, the Act included a system of old age pensions, unemployment compensation, workers’ compensation and aid to the needy and disabled. … In 1938, Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act, also crafted with the support of Perkins, establishing a minimum wage and maximum work hours and banning child labor. [...]
In1944, a piece portraying Frances Perkins in Collier’s magazine described her accomplishments over the previous twelve years as “not so much the Roosevelt New Deal, as … the Perkins New Deal.”
Today the Labor Department HQ in Washington is called the Frances Perkins Building. And in a sign of just how popular and durable her Social Security idea has become, President Joe Biden got safety net-hating Republicans to pledge, openly and publicly on national TV during his 2023 State of the Union address, not to touch it during budget negotiations. So this morning we say Happy Birthday #143 to Frances Perkins, the champion of workers' rights and retirees whose policies gave body to the Democratic party's soul. And many blessings on your camels.
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are youcheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
"This is beyond party or partisanship. This degree of algae in the kiddie pool is shocking—almost cartoonish. Bill in Portland Maine must be impeached."
Senate Republicans, including members of leadership and even Trump allies, say former President Trump should stay out of the 2024 Senate primaries, hoping to avoid a repeat of last year’s disappointing midterm elections.
They view Trump as becoming more of a political liability in next year’s Senate races as his legal problems mount.
The Manhattan district attorney charged the former president Tuesday with 34 felony counts related to payments to two women, and he could face additional charges from federal prosecutors and Georgia's Fulton County district attorney.
GOP lawmakers and strategists fear Trump will mire GOP candidates in debates over his pet issues such as election fraud and defunding the Department of Justice instead of issues that more voters care about, such as the economy, inflation and health care.
And they worry that Trump’s endorsements again will be more driven by how he perceives candidates’ loyalty to him and his agenda than on their electability in November.
Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who has stood in for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) while he recuperates from a concussion, said it would be better if Trump stays out of the way.
“Sure seems like that would be helpful based on our lack of success in 2022,” he said.
Even Trump’s strongest allies would like to see next year’s Senate races play out without Trump’s thumb on the scale.
“If I were him, I’d focus on his own election, but I doubt if he’ll take that advice,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
Trump announced his presidential campaign in November.
He had a mixed record supporting gubernatorial, Senate and House candidates last year.
He had a losing record in the six states where his super PAC spent money on behalf of Republican candidates gubernatorial and Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
He compiled a 1-6 record in those states, where only Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), whom Trump endorsed in the primary, won.
And the candidates Trump endorsed in the five most competitive House races lost.
Many Senate Republicans think Trump hurt Republicans’ chances in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania by endorsing candidates whom Republicans in Washington did not view as the candidates with the best chances of winning the general election.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges, said the consensus in the Senate Republican conference is that Trump would do more harm than good if he tries to play kingmaker in next year’s primaries.
“I hope he stays out because him getting involved last time led to us losing key Senate races we could have won,” he said. “I think it’s viewed [that way] by almost every single member of the caucus, if not all of them, but I think few will say it because they don’t want to get the wrath of Donald Trump.”
Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former Senate leadership aide, said Trump didn’t have a good record picking winners in last year’s toughest races.
“Trump has a very poor track record of backing top-tier candidates that can get elected to the Senate. It’s no wonder that Senate Republicans want Trump to stay away from the primaries as much as possible because he’s been radioactive in the general elections.”
Some Senate Republicans thought Trump dragged down candidates in the general election by making it tougher for them to appeal to moderate and swing voters.
Retired Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who twice won election statewide in Pennsylvania, blamed Trump for the loss of his seat.
“President Trump had to insert himself and that changed the nature of the race and that created just too much of an obstacle,” Toomey told CNN in November, explaining why he thought celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, whom Trump backed in the primary, lost to now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
Toomey was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that he lost the 2020 presidential election because of widespread fraud became a litmus test in some Senate Republican primaries and came back to haunt those candidates who embraced those claims in the general election.
In New Hampshire, where at the start of the 2022 election cycle Republicans thought they had a good chance of knocking off vulnerable Sen. Maggie Hassan (D), Republican candidate Don Bolduc won the primary after embracing Trump’s election fraud claims. That turned out to be a liability in the general election, and Bolduc tried to back away from that stance after winning the primary, telling Fox News in September that he concluded after doing research on the matter that the election was not stolen. He wound up losing to Hassan by 9 points.
Mark Weaver, a Republican strategist based in Ohio, where Republicans are hoping to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) next year, said Trump’s endorsement is a liability for GOP candidates in a general election.
“In the general election, a Trump endorsement is always going to hurt because he will always be a red cape to the Democratic bull, and I don’t see independents growing any fonder of Donald Trump,” he said, referring to the energizing effect Trump has on Democratic voters.
Some Republican strategists outside the Beltway, however, see Trump as an asset for Republican candidates in battleground states such as Ohio.
Mehek Cooke, a Republican strategist and attorney based in Columbus, Ohio, said Trump’s endorsement is “a very net positive” in a general election.
“I think there’s a lot of support for President Trump in the state of Ohio,” she said. “If the Senate Republicans in Washington really want to win against Sherrod Brown, they’re going to come together and work with Trump or any other candidate, rather than continuing the division we see in our country."
Trump carried Ohio in 2016 and 2020 with 51 percent and 53 percent of the vote, respectively.
Now, Trump is dividing Republicans over another controversy: his call to defund the Department of Justice and FBI in response to federal investigations of his role in the incitement of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
A Senate Republican aide told The Hill that idea won’t get any significant traction in the Senate GOP conference, while House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says Congress should use its power of the purse to push back on federal investigations of Trump.
Jordan on Thursday subpoenaed Mark Pomerantz, who formerly worked in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, citing Congress’s interest “in preventing politically motivated prosecutions of current and former presidents by elected state and local prosecutors.”
Bonjean, the GOP strategist and former leadership aide, said that Trump shifts the debate in Senate races away from the topics that GOP leaders want to emphasize: inflation, gas prices, crime, the border and federal spending.
“When Trump injects himself into these primaries, then our candidates have to talk about Jan. 6, Stormy Daniels, stolen elections and those are not matters that Main Street voters really want to hear about,” he said.
“They want to know how you’re going to solve their problems and if you’re actually relatable as a politician, as an elected official, and those issues aren’t very relatable to general election voters,” he added.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took to Twitter Sunday afternoon to double down on her belief that the Biden administration should "simply ignore" a federal court's injunction on a popular abortion pill. She also defended her push to impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
In a series of tweets, Ocasio-Cortez said the ruling was "judicial overreach" as it forces the executive branch to limit the availability of the abortion pill mifepristone. She also said judges who "repeatedly break the law" should face impeachment, without specifically naming Thomas.
"If we do not impeach when lifetime appointees repeatedly break the law in stunning shows of corruption, if we do not reign in [the] systematic abuse of judicial overreach, and if all we rely on is for those abusing power to police themselves, we have no one else to blame," AOC said on Twitter. "It must stop."
The New York Democrat said the branches of government differ in function and that Biden’s executive authority allows him to dictate how the ruling should be enforced – or not.
She also likened the current situation to the Trump administration’s inaction on restoring the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy after a court ordered him to do so.
"GOP are losing their mind over this, but there’s precedent - including their own. Courts ordered Trump to fully restore DACA. They ignored it w/ Republican support," she wrote.
The Democratic lawmaker added: "GOP operate in complete contempt for the law until they’re in a position to shred Constitutional & human rights."
In another tweet, she added: "It’s called agency non-acquiescence. The courts are now going rogue with rulings that no longer even pretend to respect precedent, jurisprudence, or limits to overreach. They are long overdue for a check & balance. Not doing so paves a dangerous road of worsening abuse of power."
AOC’s comments echoed those she shared during an interview Sunday with CNN’s Dana Bash, where she said there was an "extraordinary amount of precedent for this."
"It has happened before, the idea of consistency and governance until there is a higher court ruling," she told Bash, adding that it's "not an unprecedented thing to happen."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas Matthew J. Kacsmaryk directed the Food and Drug Administration to halt the approval of mifepristone while a lawsuit challenging its safety and approval made its way through court.
The ruling and subsequent suspension will take effect in seven days if a higher court, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, does not issue a stay.
During the weekend interview, the New York lawmaker said she did not think Judge Kacsmaryk or any of the courts have the authority to dictate the actions of the FDA.
"I think one of the things that we need to examine is the grounds of that ruling. But I do not believe that the courts have the authority over the FDA that they just asserted, and I do believe that it creates a crisis," Ocasio-Cortez said.
Separately, Ocasio-Cortez is also pushing to impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who she accused of "repeatedly breaking the law" after an investigation found he shared a yearslong friendship with Harlan Crow, a billionaire donor and real estate developer.
ProPublica found Thomas took several trips and received lavish gifts from Crow without disclosing them. Thomas subsequently admitted to receiving the "personal hospitality" but defended such behavior as "not reportable."
On Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez said Thomas' position on the court was an "emergency" and said he should be impeached.
The "Squad" member doubled down on her claim during Friday’s interview, after the host asked her to respond to Thomas’ statement defending his actions.
"He stated the reason and the rationale for this exemption was personal hospitality from an old friend. He said himself, in his statement, a friend of 25 years. Justice Thomas has been on the court for 30 years. What he is admitting in his statement, in an attempt to defend himself, is he began this relationship with a billionaire and received these sorts of gifts after he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States," Ocasio-Cortez said.
She added: "I think that in and of itself indicates a very serious problem."
The New Yorker also called for Chief Justice John Roberts to come forward and explain whether he was aware and if he allowed the "corruption" to continue.
Ocasio-Cortez said the house was not in session this week, so she would use the time to strategize, but said she may ultimately be the one to introduce impeachment articles against Thomas.
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York reiterated on Sunday her call for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas following revelations that he didn't disclose several luxury trips subsidized by a Republican megadonor.
Three members of "The Squad" have renewed calls for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be impeached following a bombshell report on his relationship with a major Republican donor, however their Democratic colleagues have so far called for lesser measures.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) — all members of the progressive “Squad” — have called for Thomas to be impeached following revelations that he received lavish gifts and trips from a Republican billionaire donor over the course of his career on the court.
The ProPublica report that exposed the alleged gifts sparked outrage from Democrats, but the trio of progressive House Democrats have so far been alone in calls for his impeachment.
“This is beyond party or partisanship,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter last week. “This degree of corruption is shocking — almost cartoonish. Thomas must be impeached.”
“I've said it before and I'll say it again: Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached,” Omar said on Twitter on the same day.
Tlaib noted public confidence in the court was at “an all time low” and blasted Thomas for accepting" luxury trips from a billionaire mega-donor while doing the bidding of right-wing extremists from the bench.”
“Thomas must be impeached and SCOTUS needs a binding code of ethics,” Tlaib said on Twitter.
Thomas has defended his actions, saying he was advised early in his tenure on the court that he did not have to report trips from "close personal friends."
"I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines,” Thomas added.
While those House progressives have called for Thomas to be impeached, other Democrats have backed a probe into Thomas and efforts to create an enforceable code of conduct.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top lawmaker on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said his panel would act on the allegations laid out in the report.
“The highest court in the land shouldn’t have the lowest ethical standards,” Durbin said in a statement last week. “Today’s report demonstrates, yet again, that Supreme Court Justices must be held to an enforceable code of conduct… the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.”
A group of 16 congressional Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), sent a letter to Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts urging him to launch an investigation into the claims against Thomas.
“We believe that it is your duty as Chief Justice ‘to safeguard public faith in the judiciary,’ and that fulfilling that duty requires swift, thorough, independent and transparent investigation into these allegations,” the letter reads.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued there is a crime wave within the Republican Party, citing former President Donald Trump’s indictment and controversy over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
"I admit it is very difficult to see a path in the Republican Party that refuses to hold itself accountable, and in fact, breaches the law itself," Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said on CNN.
"The crime wave is within the Republican Party. It is within all…. what we are seeing, we have seen, we are seeing, breaking of the law by conservative members of the court. We are seeing a former president of the United States just indicted in recent days, I mean, we need to hold our systems accountable," she said.
Trump was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in a Manhattan court. The indictment comes as prosecutors looked into hush-money payments that the former president allegedly made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
"I believe that we should pursue the course and if it is Republicans that decide to protect those who are breaking the law, then they're the ones who then are responsible for that decision, but we should not be complicit," Ocasio-Cortez continued.
Ocasio-Cortez made no mention of the Biden family’s alleged corruption, including Hunter Biden’s notorious laptop that reportedly contains information about the Biden family’s business dealings with foreign nations.
Days earlier, Ocasio-Cortez joined Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon in advocating to ignore a court order that would block the distribution of mifepristone, a drug used to medically induce abortions.
"Sen. Ron Wyden has already issued statements, for example advising what we should do in situations like this, which I concur, which is that I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling…. The courts have the legitimacy and they rely on the legitimacy of their rulings," AOC continued. "What they are currently doing is engaged in an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts."
A report released last week accusing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of improperly receiving lavish gifts from a wealthy friend is nothing more than a political hit job, one expert claimed.
"This is just grasping at straws by the left that is desperate to tear down Justice Thomas because he now has a working originalist majority on the court," said Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy and The Joseph C. and Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
"This is politics. Plain and simple."
Severino's comments to Fox News Digital came in response to a ProPublica report on Thursday accusing Thomas of improperly receiving lavish vacations from Republican mega donor Harlan Crow.
The ProPublica report accuses Thomas of taking trips across the world on Crow's yacht and private jet without disclosing them and Crow acknowledged extending "hospitality" to Thomas but insisted he never asked for it and that the two families have been friends for decades.
The ProPublica report claimed that trips taken by Thomas "have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court," which Severino flatly rejected.
"There is no 'there' there because the justices have received gifts of hospitality from friends forever," Severino said. "And many of the justices have taken far more trips than Justice Thomas on somebody else's dime, including Justice Breyer, who we know has taken at least 233 trips when he was on the bench."
Severino explained that justices are permitted to accept invites to properties of friends for dinner or vacations without paying for it or disclosing it.
"There's nothing to see here because there's been no allegation whatsoever that accepting travel to a friend's property somehow influenced Justice Thomas's decision-making," Severino said. "That's absurd. If you know anything about Justice Thomas, it's that he's not influenced by outside pressures one whit. He's guided by the law and the Constitution. Period."
Severino accused liberals of giving a "pass" to perceived bias on the left, pointing out that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiated a same-sex wedding before the Obergefell decision that federally recognized gay marriage.
"Did that perhaps indicate bias where she should have recused herself?" Severino asked. "The media was fairly silent about that and that sort of thing is much closer to the heart of impropriety in judging."
Justices are not required to disclose invitations and travel that are considered "personal hospitality" and the Supreme Court is not subject to an ethics code.
The Washington Post reportedthat the Judicial Conference, the policymaking body of the court, decided last month that judges must report travel by private jet, which Severino says is further proof Thomas was abiding by the rules.
"It actually further reinforces the fact that he'd been acting within the rules and according to the practice that has been understood for decades. Hospitality includes when somebody picks you up to take you to their house or to their property. That's what hospitality is. It just happened to be a friend that has made it in the world that's been quite successful, doesn't change the fact that he's a friend."
Constitutional law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital that until recently, "even lower court judges were not required to report such trips under a personal hospitality exception."
"Justice Thomas would not have been required to report the trips under the prior rule," Turley said. "Once again, the Democrats and the media appear to be engaging in the same hair-triggered responses to any story related to Thomas. This includes the clearly absurd call for an impeachment by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."
In terms of the ProPublica implication that Thomas’s relationship with Crow somehow affected his rulings from the bench, Severino said, "Nobody with a straight face can say Justice Thomas has been influenced by anybody except by the Constitution and his best reading of it."
Many liberals on social media referred to the ProPublica report as a "bombshell" and some called for a resignation.
At the same time, conservatives on Twitter echoed Severino’s conclusion that there is no "there there" with the report.
"Laughably stupid," author Dinesh D’Souza wrote. "He vacations with a rich friend, who also pays for dinner! Is this the best they’ve got? Clarence Thomas’ real offense is being black and conservative."
"I read the latest high tech lynching of Clarence Thomas for going on vacation with his rich friend," conservative communications director Greg Price tweeted. "I also read the disclosure laws for judges linked in the story that says they don't have to report gifts from personal friends. ProPublica mysteriously left that out of their story."
The ProPublica article cited multiple experts who blasted Thomas’ actions, including a retired judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton who called the justice’s actions "incomprehensible."
Other experts, including legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers at NYU School of Law, adopted a tone more similar to Severino’s.
"Justice Thomas could plausibly claim, and I think has claimed (as have others) that so long as an invitation itself came from a ‘person,’ not a corporation or business entity, it was ‘personal hospitality’ and he did not need to report it," Gillers told the Washington Post.
"Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years," Thomas said in a statement. "As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them.
"Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines."
Thomas acknowledged that the guidelines were changed last month and it is his "intent to follow this guidance in the future."
Turley told Fox News Digital that Thomas was "right to release a public statement."
"Justices have long been guests of private hosts," Turley said. "They are allowed to have friends and accept their hospitality. There is no evidence that Crow had business before the court. Nevertheless, expensive gifts or benefits should be disclosed, in my view, in the interests of court integrity."
"I have also long argued for a code of ethics that applies to the court. The question is where to draw the line so that judges are not constantly forced to treat every friend like a lobbyist or influence seeker."
