Marjorie Taylor Greene introduces articles of impeachment against FBI Director Christopher Wray

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Tuesday introduced articles of impeachment against FBI Director Christopher Wray. 

In the articles of impeachment, obtained by Fox News Digital, Greene claims that, under Wray’s watch, he has facilitated "the development of a Federal police force to intimidate, harass, and entrap American citizens that are deemed enemies of the Biden regime." 

Greene highlighted instances of what she regarded as abuse of the bureau’s authority. These instances included, among others, the FBI’s "unprecedented raid" on the home of former President Donald Trump on Aug. 8, 2022, and the bureau’s creation of a "terrorist threat tag" following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier that summer.

After the FBI raid, Greene filed articles of impeachment against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

TRUMP SAYS THERE ‘MUST BE A HEAVY PRICE TO PAY’ FOR COMEY, DEMOCRATS AFTER RELEASE OF DURHAM REPORT

President Trump nominated Wray in 2017 after firing then-director James Comey. Wray was sworn into the FBI on Aug. 2, 2017. 

Greene's introduction of articles of impeachment comes after Special Counsel John Durham released his final report on the FBI's investigation of alleged collusion between Russia and Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign. 

Durham's report concluded that the FBI and DOJ jumped too hastily into the investigation and relied too much on raw and unconfirmed intelligence. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to the FBI and the DOJ for comment, but has not yet heard back.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene moves to impeach FBI director, US attorney for DC

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said on Tuesday that she will move to introduce articles of impeachment against FBI Director Christopher Wray and Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Greene alleged in a release that Wray has turned the FBI into President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland's "personal police force." She said the FBI has "intimidated, harassed, and entrapped" U.S. citizens who have been "deemed enemies of the Biden regime."

She cited several examples of FBI actions in the past few years during Wray's tenure that she believes demonstrates overreach and improper conduct by the agency.

Greene referenced the plot that multiple men had in 2020 to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), pointing to the couple who were acquitted after defense attorneys argued that the FBI entrapped them and convinced them to engage in the conspiracy.

Multiple other men, including the suspected ringleaders of the plot, were found guilty for their actions.

Greene also noted the search that the FBI conducted on former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago property for classified and sensitive documents that were taken there. She argued that Trump did not break any laws with his actions, but Biden did not have any authority to possess the documents that were found in multiple locations, including his personal home.

"It is unacceptable for the Director of the FBI or any civil officer to exercise his power in a way that targets one political class while doing favors for the other," Greene said.

Her articles of impeachment accuse Wray of refusing to ensure that the laws Congress passes, and the president signs, are "faithfully executed" and has failed to uphold his oath.

During a hearing of the House Oversight Committee on crime in Washington, D.C., earlier on Tuesday, Greene said Graves had chosen not to prosecute 67 percent of people arrested by D.C. police officers but continues to pursue cases and sentences against Jan. 6 defendants. She said the decision to not prosecute the former is “absolutely criminal.” 

“The time for weaponizing the Department of Justice needs to come to an end. And because you refuse to prosecute real criminals that are violating all the crimes here in Washington, D.C., and you want to talk about D.C. residents — they are victims of your abuse of power,” she said. “And because of that, I am introducing articles of impeachment on you, Mr. Graves.” 

Graves has defended his office’s conduct, telling The Washington Post that he is prosecuting most violent felonies. He said less serious cases were not being pursued for various reasons, including body-camera footage from officers subjecting arrests to additional scrutiny. 

Greene mentioned an example of Matthew Perna, a Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 and died by suicide last year while awaiting sentencing. Perna entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 and stayed inside for about 20 minutes, during which he took video of the crowd there. 

Perna’s family said he died from a “broken heart” and partially blamed the government prosecution for leading to his death. 

Greene said Perna “peacefully” entered the Capitol, did not assault anyone or damage any property and cooperated with the FBI. She said Graves issued a request to delay Perna’s sentencing to allow more time to request a longer sentence for him, despite him not hurting anyone. 

“And this is what you’ve done repeatedly, over and over, for those who pled or were convicted on Jan. 6,” she said. 

Greene has pushed back on the treatment of Jan. 6 defendants in the past two years. She has on multiple occasions called for the release of all security footage taken during the attack and alleged that the defendants awaiting trial were being “mistreated” following a March visit to the D.C. jail where they were being held.

Graves has overseen the prosecution of many of the defendants facing charges over their conduct during the riot.

Greene last summer filed articles of impeachment against Garland over the FBI's search of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago property for classified and sensitive documents.

-- Updated 5:49 p.m.

Mayorkas impeachment pressure builds inside the House GOP

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing fresh pressure from within his ranks -- including from key allies and top lieutenants -- to launch impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, multiple sources tell CNN, putting the speaker in a bind as he tries to show they're taking aggressive action on the border without alienating the party's moderate, so-called majority makers.
Posted in Uncategorized

House GOP Whip Emmer calls for Mayorkas impeachment

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) called for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, becoming the highest-ranking GOP leader to do so.

“This, to me, is the greatest malfeasance, and malfeasance is — it’s not a failure to act — it’s an intentional failure to act. Mayorkas should be impeached,” Emmer told Breitbart News in an interview on Friday. “I think we should be talking seriously about that regardless of what this feckless Senate might want to do.”

He is not the only GOP leader escalating their rhetoric against Mayorkas. In an interview with The Hill last week, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) stopped short of calling for impeachment, but he signaled that Republicans are preparing to take action against Mayorkas.

“You're seeing a lot of a lot of questions being raised about the competence of Secretary Mayorkas and there's been legislation filed and that's going through the committee process right now,” Scalise said. “The committee has also been doing work on looking into holding Secretary Mayorkas accountable, and that process is going to play out — and it's far from over.”

In a statement responding to Emmer’s support for impeachment, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson called on Congress to pass immigration reform legislation.

“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people,” the DHS statement said. “The Department will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border, protect the nation from terrorism, improve our cybersecurity, all while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system. Instead of pointing fingers and pursuing a baseless impeachment, Congress should work with the Department and pass legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in over 40 years.”

Emmer’s call to impeach Mayorkas comes just after House Republicans passed a border crackdown bill, and as Title 42, the pandemic-era policy that allowed for the rapid expulsion of migrants, expired.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has repeatedly said House Republicans will not impeach Biden administration officials for political purposes and will first conduct an investigation.

Multiple committees have been investigating Mayorkas’s management of the U.S.-Mexico border since the GOP took control of the House. 

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who would oversee impeachment proceedings, has repeatedly said the U.S. does not have “operational control” of the U.S.-Mexico border — referring to a legal argument that would likely form the basis of a House GOP impeachment push. Jordan has asserted that is intentional on the part of Mayorkas, also playing into a case for impeachment.

“I know that we’re going to have members — much like other constitutional disagreements we’ve had, there’s probably going to be a member who says … who’s a stickler about high crimes and misdemeanors,” Emmer told Breitbart News. “I believe if you look at the actual law and the precedent that’s been set — and forget about the phony impeachment stuff that the Democrats have been doing for political stunts — this one’s a real, real issue. You can see the pictures live every day. You have an administration and an idiot that’s in charge of the border.”

Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Pat Fallon (R-Texas) have filed impeachment articles against Mayorkas, and 57 other House Republicans have cosponsored one of both of those resolutions.

Updated at 3:08 p.m.

Mayorkas on GOP impeachment efforts: ‘I am focused on the work in front of us’ 

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas during an interview on Sunday waved off concerns about a potential impeachment, emphasizing that he is "focused on the work in front of us."

"I am focused on the work in front of us meeting the challenge, not only with respect to the southern border, but meeting the challenge of ... the cyber threat from cyber criminals and adverse foreign nations states," Mayorkas told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union."

"I am focused on the increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events," he added. "I am focused on the adverse actions of the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Iran, Russia. I am focused on the work of the Department of Homeland Security. I will continue to focus on that work throughout my tenure."

Mayorkas is facing numerous calls for his impeachment by House Republicans over his handling of the U.S. border. The House Homeland Security Committee grilled Mayorkas last month, focusing on a 2006 law that requires a standard of perfection at the border.

Title 42 - a pandemic era policy that allowed for the rapid expulsion of asylum-seekers - expired last week, prompting concerns that a surge of migrants would result at the border. Instead, Mayorkas said on Sunday that authorities seen a 50 percent drop in encounters at the border in the days since the rule expired.

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: More fallout from the CNN debacle

Patricia Murphy/Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Real show at CNN town hall was the audience, not the stage

The early reviews of the event weren’t pretty. Even CNN’s own media critic, Oliver Darcy said it was “hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.”

But I disagree. America was served by seeing, live on television, the ongoing devotion of Trump’s biggest supporters, no matter what he says, what he’s done, or what he continues to lie about.

Tara Palmeri/Puck with GOP political consultant Matthew Bartlett:

What was your takeaway from the whole debate?

There were plenty of people in that room that were ardent supporters of President Trump, and no matter what he said, they were ready to jump out of their seats and applaud. But there were also people that sat there quietly disgusted or bewildered. In a TV setting, you hear the applause, but you don’t see the disgust. So Trump did not have the entire room on his side, make no mistake, even if it certainly came across that way on TV.

When I turned on my phone after the event, the text messages came flying in. You saw the coverage afterwards. People thought it was more of a rally than a town hall—maybe at one point even a debate between Kaitlan Collins and Donald Trump. But in that room, I remember walking out and people in the front row were like, He’s talking some crazy stuff, and I think a lot of these lawsuits are adding up. There was heavy skepticism. He kind of lost the audience at some point when he was rambling about January 6th and the back and forth around the tweets. And then there were some people that were like, This is vintage Trump. I’m so happy to see him stick it to CNN right in their face. So it was a mix.

Unfortunately, I think that when people hear applause on TV, they just assume that the entire room was on his side, but that just wasn’t the case. I saw Joe Scarborough today make some comments about the room; there were people in that room that were like Joe Scarborough—that are ardent Republicans who really have broken away from the party because of Trump. So that was present. You just may not have heard it.

This comment is a straw man; it conflates the real need to cover Trump--something every serious news organization has to do-- with the format CNN used, which proved disastrous. https://t.co/fzritd6nFe

— Jeff Greenfield (@greenfield64) May 12, 2023

Oliver Darcy/CNN:

  • The town hall drove the news cycle on Thursday. "Last night provided a clearer view of where Trump stands on the key issues that America is grappling with right now," Kaitlan Collins said on Thursday night.
  • Several Republican senators pushed back against Trump's remarks. (CNN)
  • And E. Jean Carroll threatened to sue Trump again after the disparaging remarks he made about her. (NYT)
  • The town hall drew 3.3 million viewers, "making CNN the most-watched cable news network of the evening," Sara Fischer reports. (Axios)
  • "But network executives faced a tsunami of criticism for giving the Republican candidate a platform to spread lies," Stephen Battaglio reports. (LAT)
  • "Inside CNN, the mood was dark": Paul Farhi and Jeremy Barr report on the internal anger over the event, with one network staffer telling the duo, "I’ve been a CNN journalist for many years. I’ve always been so proud to say that. I’ve never, ever been ashamed of CNN until tonight." (WaPo)
  • "The ordeal also further damaged the CNN CEO’s standing among rank-and-file at the network," Max Tani reports. (Semafor)
  • Politico Playbook: "ABOUT LAST NIGHT — To call it a s**tshow would be generous." (POLITICO)
  • Matt Drudge's take: "CNN OUTFOXES FOX!" (DRUDGE)
  • "Well, that was a disaster, a politically historic one," Peggy Noonan writes. "It situated Donald Trump as the central figure of the 2024 presidential cycle ... It will have an impact on the campaign’s trajectory. When it was over I thought, of CNN: Once again they’ve made Trump real." (WSJ)

Jay Rosen /MSNBC on the CNN debacle:

New York Times:

Vulnerable Republicans Caught in the Middle in Debt Limit Fight

House G.O.P. lawmakers in competitive seats who could be crucial to averting a catastrophic default are being fawned over by Democrats one minute and pummeled the next.

The shout-out — and Mr. Lawler’s decision to attend the event in the first place — underscored the unusual dance playing out just weeks before the nation is at risk of defaulting on its obligations for the first time, with the economy hanging in the balance. White House officials simultaneously are hoping to rally a bloc of moderate Republicans to vote with Democrats to raise the limit — while also gaining a political advantage for the 2024 election by painting them as extremists.

That messaging has infuriated some Biden-district Republicans.

Everything infuriates Republicans. You can’t base your life on avoiding it.

The impeachment process, in its own way, is as constitutionally and democratically legitimate as the election itself.

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) May 12, 2023

Steve Benen/NBC:

To see debt ceiling crises as normal is to miss modern history

It’s imperative that observers stop seeing the Republicans’ debt ceiling crises as normal and start seeing them as scandalous.

To be sure, I can think of a great many instances in which I’ve made a comment on the air that I wish I’d worded better, and my point is not to slam the host or the guest, who might’ve used different phrasing if given a second chance at it. But the broader point is worth understanding in more detail.

First, when Kernen rejected the idea that the debt ceiling was addressed “cleanly” three times under Trump, I suppose there might be some debate over the meaning of the word “clean.” In 2017, 2018, and 2019, Congress approved debt ceiling increases by simply attaching the increases to other bills — a standard move lawmakers have employed for generations.

By most measures, I think this process can fairly be described as “clean”: There were no threats, no hostage tactics, and no demands for ransoms. Congress didn’t add any conditions to the process. Lawmakers did seek or receive any rewards or concessions. The debt limit wasn’t raised by way of stand-alone bills, but there also weren’t any hints of crises — because there were no demands or meaningful strings attached.

Shawn McCreesh/New York magazine:

When Fox News Turns On Its Own

Tucker Carlson’s allies can’t believe this is happening to them.

A fog of war has descended over Fox News and the star it nurtured, then spit out. He’s hunkered down with his producer Justin Wells, who was dismissed the same day as Carlson, April 24. Last week, the pair persuaded two more Fox colleagues to come help them do … whatever it is they are now doing.

Meanwhile, back on the 20th floor of Fox’s midtown headquarters, the many young people who worked for Carlson and Wells must now fend for themselves. “There are lots of tears and fears on the team right now,” says one. “We feel like we’re out there by ourselves, just trying to survive really.” No one at Fox has explained to them why their bosses were actually pushed.

Lacking information, they’ve all become a bit paranoid. Who’s pulling the strings here? Who has been un-redacting Carlson’s creepy text messages for the Daily Beast and the New York Times? How does Fox’s nemesis, the left-wing watchdog Media Matters for America, keep obtaining hot-mic clips from their show? Could it all be part of some plan hatched from within Fox to smear Carlson and kick him while he’s down?

Despite the melting down about tonight, this is a GOP train wreck. Trump is not picking up a single new general election voter. And every voter who came out in 18, 20 & 22 to stop him now remembers why. Strong night for Trump's GOP primary. Terrible night for his general.

— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) May 11, 2023

Amanda Carpenter/The Bulwark:

CNN’s Trump Town Hall: All Spectacle, No Sunlight

It’s 2016 all over again.
CNN gifted a twice-impeached former president who incited a riot at the U.S. Capitol a primetime media event. Moderator Kaitlan Collins did an impressive job, but the horror is in the set-up. The event’s audience was stacked with Republican primary voters already inclined to support him, as evidenced by the fact that they repeatedly clapped, laughed, and cheered for him while he reaffirmed his most outrageous lies. None of this was urgent, even from a political perspective. The first primary is seven months away.

Susan Rinkunas/Jezebel:

Ohio Is Spending $20 Million to Thwart a Statewide Vote on Abortion

Protesters flooded the Statehouse rotunda as Republicans moved to make it harder for an abortion rights ballot measure to pass in November.

Abortion rights supporters in Ohio need to collect 413,000 signatures by July 5 to put their measure codifying abortion access in the state constitution on the November ballot. (The initiative would also enshrine the right to make decisions about contraception, fertility treatment, and miscarriage care.) But on Wednesday, Republicans passed a resolution to hold an August special election on whether to make it harder to amend the state constitution.

What Will Joe Biden Do If Hunter Is Indicted?

By Charles Lipson for RealClearWire

What will President Biden do if his son is indicted by the federal prosecutor in Delaware? That’s one of three questions looming over U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ fateful choice.

The second is whether the indictment will go after a larger, coordinated family scheme of influence peddling or confine itself to smaller, tightly-confined issues like lying to get a gun permit and not registering as a foreign lobbyist.

The third is whether Attorney General Merrick Garland will approve Weiss’ proposed charges. Significant political calculations follow from those decisions.

It’s easy enough to answer what Garland will do. He has little choice but to approve any charges Weiss proposes after the government’s multi-year investigation. Anything else would look shady, a far cry from the neutral, apolitical justice Garland’s department is charged with dispensing. Burying the charges, after Garland’s refusal to appoint a special counsel, would embroil his department in its nastiest controversy since John Mitchell befouled it under President Nixon.

Assuming the federal attorney proposes felony charges and Garland approves them, Joe Biden faces the toughest choice of his political life.

The president’s dilemma is why it’s so interesting to follow recent speculation by Miranda Devine, a reporter and columnist for the New York Post. She’s the most informed journalist on the Hunter Biden story. Her paper broke the news about the emails on Hunter’s laptop, three weeks before the 2020 election, and Devine has done the best follow-up reporting.

To bury that story before the election took the combined, Herculean efforts of the legacy media, social media giants, and former CIA officials. Their success helped elect Biden. But the “little story that could” just keeps chugging along, mostly because the corruption is so extensive, so rich for investigation. Criminal charges now seem likely, not that the mainstream media has shown much interest.

Now, Devine is speculating that Biden is setting the stage to pardon Hunter, framing it as the actions of a loving father who backs his troubled child. “My son has done nothing wrong,” Biden told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle in a rare one-on-one interview. “I trust him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.”

Whether such sentiments presage a pardon, as Devine thinks, is still a guess. We can say something more concrete, though, as Biden weighs such a move. Four consequences stand out:

  • A presidential pardon would set off a political firestorm.
  • The White House will try its best to prevent any public revelation of the family’s business dealings. That means the president and his advisors want to prevent a trial, get Hunter to take a plea, and convince the judge to seal the evidence. Another option is to go trial, knowing it won’t be held until after the election.
  • If Biden pardons his son this year, he’s signaling he won’t run for reelection. He wouldn’t put that albatross around his own neck if he intended to face the voters.
  • If Biden does run and pardons his son after November 2024, the political impact depends on who wins the White House and Capitol Hill. The calculations are more complicated than one might expect.

Let’s consider each in turn.

First, a pardon would set off the biggest political firestorm since Watergate. It would look worse than self-dealing, bad as that is. It would look like the president is covering up his family’s corruption, not only to get Hunter off the hook but to prevent the disclosure of damning evidence in court.

That evidence is likely to touch many more Biden family members than Hunter, and perhaps the president himself. The more Biden family members who are implicated, the more the whole operation looks like a concerted operation to monetize Joe’s political position. It also might threaten to shred Joe’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about any family business interests or influence peddling. The wider the sleaze, the harder it is to sell that story.

The chairman of the House committee investigating these issues has said Hunter’s corruption was merely one part of the family business. And that business was selling influence. Rep. James Comer has publicly said that his House Oversight Committee has already collected evidence that nine Biden family members are involved in sketchy business deals, including substantial payments from foreign firms.

Some of those firms are closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party. Comer added that his committee is investigating the possible involvement of at least three more family members, as well as Joe Biden’s own role. His conclusion: “The entire Biden family” is entrapped in the financial enrichment scheme. So far, however, Comer hasn’t named names or provided the evidence. He says he will provide much more at a major press conference Wednesday.

Comer’s principle suggestion is that the Biden family’s influence-peddling scheme is much broader, and their criminal actions more serious, than isolated schemes perpetrated by the president’s conniving second son. He adds that his evidence points to Joe Biden’s direct involvement, including possible payments for official actions.

That is what he told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, although he hasn’t yet provided the evidence for that incendiary allegation. Comer is also attacking the FBI for desultory investigation – which ignored much of the malfeasance – and calling out the mainstream media for its concerted silence.

Related: Hunter Biden’s Stripper Baby Mama Drama Isn’t Making Joe Biden’s Life Any Easier

The Internal Revenue Service might be implicated, too, since a lot of payments – and a lot of Hunter’s income – went through what Comer calls the family’s “web of LLCs.” A senior supervisory agent at the IRS is seeking whistleblower protection to tell Congress about “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed” in investigating Hunter’s taxes.

If political pressure really was applied to the IRS over Hunter’s taxes, or if senior agents acted improperly to curry favor, those would obviously be very serious matters, legally and politically. Comer and the House Republicans in the committee’s majority want that testimony under oath and are seeking responses from the IRS and DOJ.

Anticipating an indictment soon, Comer has urged the Justice Department to hold off until his committee presents more evidence to the public this week. “When you have the opportunity to see the evidence that the House Oversight Committee will produce with respect to the web of [Biden family] LLCs, with respect to the number of adversarial countries that this family influence peddled in, and this is not just about the president’s son. This is about the entire Biden family, including the President of the United States.”

However wide-ranging the indictment is, Hunter will do everything he can to strike a plea deal and seal all the evidence to prevent its disclosure at trial. That would clearly be the preference inside the White House. But it’s not in the public interest.

If the DOJ tries to seal the evidence, it would be joining in a cover-up. The Department must require that Hunter attest to all incriminating evidence and that it all be made public as part of any plea deal. The judge himself should demand it. That requirement might kill Hunter’s willingness to take the deal. Rather than reveal the evidence now, the White House would prefer kick it down the road, to a trial date after the November 2024 election.

Whether a trial happens or not, a pardon for Hunter would be politically fatal for the president, and he and his advisers must know it. That leads to a clear conclusion. If Joe pardons Hunter this year, running for reelection becomes unrealistic. Such a self-inflicted wound would be a far more powerful signal of his intentions than a speech declaring his candidacy. There’s no way Joe would eviscerate his political prospects like that if he intended to face the voters again.

Of course, Biden could delay any pardon until after November 2024. That would still invite a high-profile congressional investigation and perhaps impeachment, but the political maneuvering would depend on the election outcome. If Biden loses and the current Republican House moves quickly to impeach, Senate Democrats would be in a bind. It takes overwhelming evidence to convince senators to humiliate a president from their own party. The only thing that would do it is overwhelming fear of their constituents at the ballot box.

Related: Things Get Awkward When Karine Jean-Pierre Gets Asked About Hunter Biden’s Baby With a Stripper

The situation is entirely different if Biden wins and the Republicans take both the House and Senate. The problem, in three words, is President Kamala Harris. Although the new House would have no trouble collecting votes for impeachment, they might hesitate before passing the ultimate decision to their Republican colleagues in the Senate. Do they really want to elevate Harris into the Oval Office?

None of these prospects is a happy one. Each one adds to the misery of a country beset by lawlessness on the streets, chaos at the southern border, stagnant real income, and a looming debt crisis. We need to know whether the Biden family – not just Hunter – was engaged in a series of corrupt schemes to peddle the influence of a high-ranking government official.

We need to know all the family members involved and their business partners. We need to know what they were paid for doing and who paid them. What we don’t need is a weak, narrowly-drawn indictment, an official cover-up of the evidence, and, worst of all, a self-serving presidential pardon.

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

The post What Will Joe Biden Do If Hunter Is Indicted? appeared first on The Political Insider.

‘Red flags’ were raised over Clarence Thomas disclosures going back to 2011

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been thumbing his nose at his colleagues, the Senate, and the nation since at least 2011. Back then, watchdogs discovered he had not disclosed household income from his wife, Ginni Thomas—at least five years’ worth of income from her partisan political work the Heritage Foundation and the Tea Party astroturf group she founded. Thomas belatedly filed 20 years’ worth of amended disclosure forms, and then did not change his nondisclosing ways.

There aren’t many ethics rules Supreme Court justices have to observe, but there is a federal law they are bound by: the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. That law applies to the chief justice of the Supreme Court and all the associate justices, along with most other high-level government officials and employees and, in some cases, the spouses and dependent children of those officials, too. Thomas has not abided by that law and has not done so for years.

In 2012, U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf “raised red flags” over the review conducted under the auspices of the Judicial Conference of the United States, Bloomberg News reports based on newly disclosed information. Wolf “repeatedly expressed concern” that the committee assigned to investigate Thomas didn’t disclose its findings and actions to leaders of the conference, the federal judiciary’s policymaking body. The committee independently determined that Thomas had not “willfully” failed to comply, and that his omission of 20 years’ worth of household income in the hundreds of thousands of dollars was a “routine” matter.

Wolf raised enough hell about having been kept in the dark on the matter that the conference did adopt a small change: The committee that looks into disclosure problems has to report to the full conference about them. What the Judicial Conference—comprising the Supreme Court chief, the chiefs of all the judicial circuits, and a district judge from each regional circuit—decides to do with the information is up to them.

Since well before 2011, Thomas has been in the pocket of Texas billionaire Harlan Crow and failed to disclose everything from that relationship including expensive gifts, luxurious travel, profitable real estate deals, and private school tuition for the nephew he was raising as a son. Thomas kept on not disclosing, which is all the evidence needed to surmise that what the Judicial Conference headed up by Chief Justice John Roberts decided to do about it was nothing.

That’s not to say Thomas and pals learned nothing from the experience. His friend Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society founder and dark money maven who has reshaped the federal judiciary, learned that it was better to leave Ginni’s name off of payments for her extreme partisan work. “No mention of Ginni, of course,” Leo instructed when he was arranging for her payment through a third party. If her name isn’t on any of the paperwork, then what would her husband have to disclose?

It’s not just financial disclosures, by the way, where Thomas has failed in any semblance of ethical behavior. He never recused himself from any of the cases before the court that involved Ginni’s political activities. He has recused in other cases involving his son and his employers, so it’s not a matter of Thomas misunderstanding what’s supposed to be done. Thomas is holding himself above those requirements.

He’ll continue to do so as long as Roberts—along with the rest of the court—looks the other way. That’s exactly what Roberts intends to do. He made that clear via his refusal to even talk to Congress about ethics in the court. Because he can get away with it, Thomas will remain defiant, continue to decide cases he shouldn’t be active on, and will probably continue to enjoy the largesse Crow has on offer.

He won’t resign, and as long as the House is in Republican control (and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell draws breath in the Senate) Thomas can’t be impeached, even while he’s a textbook case for impeachment.

Thomas and the whole court are declaring themselves above the law. The only recourse Democrats have in this situation is political. They’ve got to keep Thomas’ corruption—enabled by Republicans—in focus. Democrats must keep having hearings about court reform, they must keep investigating those gifts, and they must keep talking about how every extreme, unpopular partisan decision is brought to you by Republicans.

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Dimitri of WarTranslated has been doing the essential work of translating hours of Russian and Ukrainian video and audio during the invasion of Ukraine. He joins Markos and Kerry from London to talk about how he began this work by sifting through various sources. He is one of the only people translating information for English-speaking audiences. Dimitri’s followed the war since the beginning and has watched the evolution of the language and dispatches as the war has progressed.

Clarence Thomas’s problems multiply at Supreme Court

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is facing a fresh round of scrutiny after the third blockbuster report in less than a month links him financially to GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

ProPublica reported Thursday that Crow, a Dallas-based real estate developer, paid thousands of dollars in tuition to a private boarding school for Thomas’s great-nephew, whom Thomas has said he raised “as a son.”

Federal ethics laws require the justices to report gifts given to a “dependent child,” but that term is defined to only include the justices’ children or stepchildren. Thomas’s allies have insisted the payment doesn’t violate the disclosure law since it was for Thomas’s sister’s grandson.

But the revelation has only added to the increasing pressure from Democrats for the justices to adopt a binding code of ethics.

“Today’s report continues a steady stream of revelations calling Justices’ ethics standards and practices into question. I hope that the Chief Justice understands that something must be done—the reputation and credibility of the Court is at stake,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement.

When asked during a SiriusXM interview about impeaching Thomas, however, Durbin said “no.” He noted that only one justice, Samuel Chase, had been impeached previously, and Chase was acquitted in the Senate in 1805.

“I don't think an impeachment is in the works, particularly with the House in a political situation that it’s in today,” Durbin said on “The Briefing with Steve Scully.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a Judiciary Committee member, argued the matter should be referred to the Department of Justice.

“There’s a potential criminal violation in the misreporting or failure to report certain benefits, gifts and financial transactions. There’s just a drip, drip, drip of additional information that is gravely undermining the Court, but also creating the need for a full factual investigation,” Blumenthal said.

“If [the Justice Department] fails to do so, Congress definitely has a role,” he added.

Thomas did not return a request for comment through a court spokesperson.

Later on Thursday, The Washington Post reported that Leonard Leo, a conservative judicial activist who played a key role in the Supreme Court’s rightward shift, directed tens of thousands of dollars be paid to Thomas’s wife, Ginni, roughly a decade ago.

Leo requested that she not be named in the paperwork, according to the Post. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist herself, has long insisted that she doesn't talk about the court’s business with her husband.

Judiciary Committee Democrats have been hamstrung on taking action regarding the court, including on a potential subpoena for Chief Justice John Roberts. He declined an invitation from Durbin to appear at a Tuesday hearing on Supreme Court ethics, noting that it is “exceedingly rare” for a chief justice to give testimony. 

That could change if Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has been absent for months due to shingles, returns and once again gives Democrats an 11-10 majority on the panel — though even then subpoenaing the chief justice of the Supreme Court would be an extraordinary step.

Thursday’s ProPublica report was the latest financial transaction involving Thomas and Crow to come to light. The investigative outlet last month reported Thomas had accepted luxury trips from Crow, including flying on his private jet, without disclosing the travels. 

ProPublica also reported Crow had purchased real estate from Thomas’s mother that Thomas had an interest in.

“The definition of insanity is seeing the same Supreme Court justice violate ethics rules over and over again and expecting him to actually hold himself accountable,” Sarah Lipton-Lubet, president of Take Back the Court Action Fund, said in a statement. “How many more examples of Thomas flouting disclosure rules do our elected leaders need to see before they intervene? Thomas needs to answer for his misconduct. It’s time to subpoena him.”

Republicans, on the other hand, indicated little willingness to wade into the waters related to the justice who has served on the court for 32 years. They say this is an issue for the Supreme Court to deal with and not something that requires congressional oversight. Interfering, they argue, would go against the separation of powers.

“The Supreme Court … writes its own rules and if there is any policing of those rules to be done, I think it ought to be done by them,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters. “I assume the members of the Court, who I have a high level of confidence in, will make the right decisions for the justices on the Court and for the people who work at the Supreme Court in the same way as we make the rules for all members of Congress.”

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who recently indicated that he was dismayed by reports of the ethical issues for Thomas, said the Court needs to make ethics changes.

“These revelations with regards to a number of justices, both those appointed by Republicans and by Democrats, suggest that the Court itself needs to evaluate what their disclosure rules are and ethics rules are and methods for enforcing those,” Romney said. “I presume that the chief justice will undertake that.”

Republicans have further portrayed the Thomas scrutiny as a double standard, taking aim at the ethics of the high court’s liberal justices.

They note that liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepted an award in 2010 from the Woman's National Democratic Club. 

They have also pointed to liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor not recusing herself when the court considered taking up two cases involving book publisher Penguin Random House, despite disclosing payments from the conglomerate for her books. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who also received payments from the publisher for his book, similarly did not recuse.

Vermont launches impeachment investigations into Franklin County prosecutor, sheriff

The Vermont speaker of the House announced Thursday that she has initiated the first step in an investigatory process that could lead to the impeachment of a county prosecutor, accused of harassing and discriminating against employees, and a sheriff, facing an assault charge and a financial investigation.

A resolution was expected to be introduced in the Vermont House to create a bipartisan committee to investigate the allegations against Franklin County State's Attorney John Lavoie and Franklin County Sheriff John Grismore.

"The people of Franklin County deserve justice and elected officials who they can trust to uphold the rule of the law and to represent their community with integrity," House Speaker Jill Krowinski said at a Statehouse press conference. Despite calls from Franklin County residents for Lavoie and Grismore to resign, they have refused to do so, she said.

VERMONT LEGISLATURE URGED TO IMPEACH PROSECUTOR OVER HARASSMENT, DISCRIMINATION CLAIMS

"It is clear that the only constitutional remedy for a county official who has committed a crime, gross misconduct or maladministration of office is impeachment," said Rep. Michael McCarthy, a Democrat from Franklin County.

Grismore was elected sheriff even though he was fired from a job as a captain in the Franklin County sheriff’s department last August after video surfaced of him kicking a shackled prisoner. In October he pleaded not guilty to a simple assault charge. Just before he became sheriff in February, the state police said that they were investigating the finances of the sheriff's department and Grismore.

VERMONT SHERIFF TAKES OFFICE WHILE FACING TWO INVESTIGATIONS

In Lavoie's case, Vermont prosecutors announced earlier this week that they have asked that the Legislature to consider impeachment proceedings against Lavoie after an investigation found that he harassed and discriminated against employees.

An independent investigation found credible evidence that Lavoie mistreated employees through repeated discriminatory comments and actions including derogatory references to national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and body composition, the Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs’ said. The investigation also substantiated at least two instances of unwanted physical contact, not of a sexual nature, the department said.

Phone messages were left for both Grismore and Lavoie.

Lavoie acknowledged to reporters on Tuesday some inappropriate humor but denied any unwanted physical contact or racist comments. He said he apologized to staff and others and doesn’t think his actions warrant him stepping down. Grismore has defended his actions as proper when dealing with the prisoner.