Month: July 2023

Mark Levin Expertly Eviscerates Florida Judge for Aiding in ‘Election Interference’ Against Trump

Posted on by Kathleen J. Anderson

If you are looking for a Master Class in judicial malfeasance, look no further than conservative firebrand Mark Levin. Mr. Levin has been steadily covering the concerted effort from the Biden administration to take down its biggest competitor, former President Donald Trump.

Recently Mr. Levin scolded Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon for allowing the left to continue interfering with the upcoming presidential election and destroying any chance of a fair race. Judge Cannon split the difference between what the prosecution wanted and what the Trump defense requested, placing the start date for the classified documents trial right before the Republican National Convention.

As usual, Mark is correct in his takedown of the milquetoast Judge and rightly places ownership of laying out a red carpet for the prosecution to destroy a former president and remove any possible hope for a fair presidential election squarely on her shoulders. Say goodbye to the America you knew and hello to the beginning of the end.

Shame on you!

After news broke that Judge Aileen Cannon had ordered the classified document case against President Trump will begin on May 20, 2024, Mr. Levin said on his show:

“Judge Cannon, in Florida, you let the country down. This trial should have been moved to after the election. You just gave your imprimatur and the imprimatur of the federal judiciary to the interference in this election.”

Judge Cannon’s ruling doesn’t just put the court start date before the presidential election; it also places it weeks before the 2024 Republican National Convention. It’s important to note that the former President is the current Republican frontrunner and is also believed to be pulling ahead of the incumbent and the puppet master behind the scenes of his persecution, President Joe Biden.

In this particular act of theater, the former President is charged with illegally retaining classified documents and obstructing the government’s ability to retrieve them. It seems laughable when you consider the current President stashing classified documents from when he was a Senator in his garage. 

Alas, they aren’t joking.

Originally the prosecution had requested a trial start date in December of this year, to which Judge Cannon wrote:

“The Government’s proposed schedule is atypically accelerated and inconsistent with ensuring a fair trial.”

But scheduling the trial to begin shortly before the presumptive Republican nominee for President hits the general election campaign trail won’t lead to any unfairness? Judge Cannon is either woefully incompetent or too focused on endearing herself to a media that earlier blasted her for being a Trump stooge – either option doesn’t bode well for democracy.

RELATED: Pelosi Has A Case Of The Sads: Claims Kevin McCarthy Plan To Expunge Trump Impeachments Is ‘Playing Politics’

An impossible task

Some people had different opinions than Mark regarding the Judge’s decision. U.S. Attorney Harry Litman supported her decision by writing:

“The 5/20/24 trial date that Cannon just set is about as extended as it could be without seeming ridiculous.”

I occasionally dabble in ridiculousness, so let’s look at how ridiculous this entire situation has become. The truth of the matter is that not only will the former President have to wrestle with this trial while running for the highest office in all the land, he also has on his busy legal calendar:

  • criminal charges in Manhattan 
  • civil lawsuits
  • Two criminal investigations over alleged efforts to overthrow the 2020 election

RELATED: Trump Smokes GOP Field – Defeats Biden In New Harvard-Harris Poll

Mr. Levin broke it down even better with the following:

“Trump will have to defend himself against bogus criminal charges in Manhattan, bogus civil charges in Albany, bogus criminal charges in the “documents” case, bogus criminal charges in the Jan. 6 matter, and most likely the shoe will soon drop in Atlanta. All the while, he is running for re-election as President. It is extremely difficult to fight all these prosecutors, and fight for your freedom, and run for President at the same time. And these prosecutors know it.”

So let’s call all of this what it is; it’s not ridiculous; it’s terrifying. 

Winners and Losers

The call to have the “documents” trial start May 2024, according to Georgia State law professor Anthony Kreis, is:

“…the worst possible outcome for the Republican Party. Great for Trump though. This basically allows Trump to snag the nomination before the most easily damning case comes to trial.”

Mr. Kreis’ analysis assumes that the former President won’t easily “snag” the nomination regardless; however, the date isn’t just the worst possible outcome for the Republican Party, it’s the worst possible outcome for America. While for most Republicans, the endless legal attacks against Mr. Trump have turned into the “same ole same ole,” and for Democrats, it’s a nonstop ticker tape parade for Biden administration stooges – the people who will care are Independents.

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Presidential campaign consultant Dave Carney backs this assertion, stating that the trial before the election will:

“…impact Independent voters in the fall.”

RELATED: WATCH: Somebody Mentions The Clinton Body Count And Anthony Weiner Loses His Mind

Earlier this month on Sean Hannity’s show Mark Levin laid out how the left-wing establishment is orchestrating a takeover:

“This is a disgusting, disgusting mark on American history for the future to come by these bandits in the White House, by the Democrat Party that don’t play fair anymore. They don’t want to just win elections. They want to take control of this country. They want one-party rule.”

With the help of the leftwing corporate media, the left believes they will be able to manipulate and lie their way into another four years thanks to the malleable minds of the Independents. 

It can happen to you

I spent 20 years in the United States military. Like many who wore the uniform or worked in federal service, I had to take copious amounts of classified document handling training.

The military,  at least back in my day, seemed to take mishandling of classified information very seriously; God help you if some shmuck accidentally sent you an email without the correct classification markings. An act done by someone else could land your entire workstation covered in investigative tape and your security clearance in suspension.

So, believe me when I tell you I take the mishandling of classified documents seriously. What I find abhorrent is the faux outrage by left-wing media and the liberal establishment over what the former President did or didn’t do.

As Mark Levin described earlier about the current President:

“This is a guy that’s got documents from the time he was in the U.S. Senate, for God’s sake, in his garage.”

Will President Trump serve jail time? Hard to say if you ask me, but the fact that “the book” is being thrown at him when perennially failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the current President isn’t even having “the book” cracked in their direction shows how far our country has fallen.

I’ll leave you with this bit of wisdom from Mr. Levin:

“The Biden regime, the Democrat Party and their prosecutors, and the Democrat Party media understand that this next election may well be the make-or-break election of our time, for our country.”

If the government can weaponize the justice system against a former President and its chief executive’s political opponent, they can do it to you, too. And this next election will show if, as Americans, we will say no to the dissolution of our republic or consent to our downfall.

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Pelosi Has A Case Of The Sads: Claims Kevin McCarthy Plan To Expunge Trump Impeachments Is ‘Playing Politics’

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Nancy Pelosi really, really doesn’t think House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to expunge Donald Trump’s impeachments is a good idea.

Speaking with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” Pelosi repeatedly criticized the plan and even resorted to personal insults, referring to McCarthy as a Trump puppet and denouncing GOP hearings on government censorship as a “clown show.”

Reports claim that McCarthy told Trump that he would have the House vote on expunging the Democrat-led impeachments. There is no vote currently scheduled and the reports indicate he is simply trying to gauge support for the idea.

When asked about the idea, the Republican House Speaker said it would have to “go through committee like anything else.”

RELATED: Pelosi Threatens Trump: ‘One Way or Another’ We Will Remove Him

Pelosi Doesn’t Want McCarthy To Expunge Trump Impeachment

In the eyes of the public, those impeachments are already expunged. An honest person can’t say that impeaching Trump for asking Ukraine to investigate corruption was a worthy and bipartisan endeavor.

Nor can anybody who understands what actually happened on January 6th think that these clowns in Congress were putting forth a serious effort in impeaching Trump over his speech.

McCarthy’s efforts, while symbolic and a definite slap in the face to Democrats, seem unnecessary. Trump was acquitted twice, incidentally, proving those impeachments to be little more than a perpetual witch hunt.

That said, Pelosi is clearly upset by the idea, meaning it’s probably a good thing for the country.

“Kevin is, you know, playing politics. It is not even clear if he constitutionally can expunge those things,” she told Bash. “If he wants to put his members on the spot, his members in difficult races on the spot, that is a decision he has to make. But this is not responsible.”

“Go ahead, you’ll be sorry” is usually the last resort for somebody who is trying to use reverse psychology to stop something.

Pelosi wasn’t finished, however, and was clearly riled up.

“This is about being afraid. As I have said before, Donald Trump is the puppeteer. And what does he do all the time but shine the light on the strings?” she said. “These people look pathetic.”

RELATED: ‘The View’ Audience Cheers As Joy Behar Compares Trump To Mussolini – Says He Could Be ‘Hung Upside Down’

Pelosi: Efforts To Stop Censorship Are A ‘Clown Show’

Oof. Just watch that video again. You can even put it on mute and tell that Pelosi seems a little worried. The eyebrows almost sailed clear off her grill.

It’s almost as if McCarthy’s plan to expunge Trump’s impeachments would negate the only thing she ever accomplished as House Speaker from 2016 to 2021.

And by “accomplished,” we mean for the Democrat party, not for America. Both of Trump’s impeachments were designed to protect Joe Biden, nothing more.

Pelosi also took umbrage with House hearings on censorship. Censorship that interfered in the 2020 presidential election which, according to Democrats’ own comments, is a threat to democracy, an insurrection.

But because the censorship again protected President Biden, Pelosi isn’t a big fan of trying to expose it.

“What a ridiculous clown show, again, on the part of the Republicans, she said while misidentifying Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Back in 2020, Pelosi seemed to think her impeachment dreams would last forever.

“This president is impeached for life, regardless of any gamesmanship on the part of Mitch McConnell,” she bragged. “He will be impeached forever.”

We’ll just have to see about that, Nancy!

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UFO whistleblower to go before House panel

Posted on (Updated by Mychael Schnell

The House this week will be flooded with talk about UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), as a House panel gets set to hold a hearing on the increased sightings of such objects.

Frustrated lawmakers are demanding more information on UFOs and UAPs, which grew as a topic of discussion after an Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency claimed that the government is holding back information about UFOs. That individual, David Grusch, is among the witnesses slated to testify.

Also this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will face some of his staunchest Republican critics when he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee, a hearing that could further fuel calls for his ouster.

The House is also scheduled to vote on the first two of 12 appropriations bills, as lawmakers race to approve government funding ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline. And the chamber this week could also vote on a resolution to censure Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), after Democrats threatened to force a vote on penalizing the indicted congressman.

On the Senate side, lawmakers will continue consideration of the annual defense bill as the end-of-September deadline inches closer; the House already passed its own version of the measure and is expected to conference its legislation with the eventual Senate measure to come to a compromise bill.

In the background of legislative and investigative work this week, Congress will be bracing for another potential indictment of former President Trump — this time pertaining to his efforts to remain in power following the 2020 election, including the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump revealed last week that he was informed he is a target in the probe, which is often a sign of an incoming indictment.

House panel to hold hearing on UAPs

The House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs is scheduled to hold a hearing on UAPs this week, as more and more lawmakers seek information on sightings of the phenomena.

The hearing — titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency” — is set for Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Lawmakers will hear from three witnesses: Grusch, the whistleblower who has accused the government of withholding information related to UFOs, Ryan Graves, the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, and Rt. Commander David Fravor, the former commanding officer of the Navy’s Black Aces Squadron.

In an interview with NewsNation last month, Grusch — the former national reconnaissance officer representative for the Pentagon’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force — claimed that the U.S. government has for decades recovered nonhuman craft with nonhuman species inside. NewsNation confirmed Frusch’s credentials but did not view or verify evidence that he said he gave to Congress and the Pentagon’s inspector general.

NewsNation and The Hill are both owned by Nexstar Media Group.

The panel said Wednesday’s hearing “will explore firsthand accounts of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and assess the federal government’s transparency and accountability regarding UAPs’ possible threats to U.S. national security.”

“This hearing will also highlight legislative efforts to bring transparency to UAPs and require the federal government to provide the American people with information about potential risks to public safety and national security,” the panel added in a statement.

Mayorkas to testify before House Judiciary Committee

Mayorkas is likely to find himself in the hot seat Wednesday when he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee as part of a hearing that will offer some of his most ardent opponents an opportunity to question — and criticize — the secretary regarding his handling of the situation at the southern border.

The hearing — set for 10 a.m. — is being billed as an oversight hearing that “will examine the agency's operational failures, the unprecedented border crisis, and the abandonment of immigration enforcement under Secretary Mayorkas.”

The presentation, however, comes as some House Republicans — including ones on the Judiciary Committee — are pushing to impeach the secretary.

The House Homeland Security Committee officially launched an investigation into Mayorkas last month, a probe that would serve as the basis for an impeachment inquiry. But the push to impeach Mayorkas has the House GOP conference divided, with some conservatives behind the effort while other moderates are opposed.

This week’s hearing, however, will put the spotlight on Mayorkas, and could ramp up calls for his impeachment — even as border crossings continue to decrease.

Asked about the threat of impeachment last week, Mayorkas told Politico in an interview, “I am incredibly proud of my record in federal service, and I love serving our country.”

“I have a very good understanding of who I am and what I am trying to do for our country in leading 260,000 people in the Department of Homeland Security,” he later added. “False accusations do not dent that one bit.”

House kicks off appropriations process on floor

The House is scheduled to kick off the appropriations process on the floor this week, bringing two of 12 bills before the entire chamber for a vote.

Lawmakers are set to vote on a bill pertaining to funding for military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and another for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Food and Drug Administration.

More from The Hill

The votes come as Congress stares down a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown; this week is the last opportunity to chip away at the appropriations process before lawmakers leave for the long August recess.

But a number of battles are on the horizon as lawmakers look to pass all 12 appropriations bills ahead of the looming September deadline.

House conservatives, for starters, have voiced concerns about leadership using rescissions to hit target levels. Rescissions, which some conservatives have labeled a “budgetary gimmick,” essentially claw back spending that Congress has already appropriated for future programs, which allows lawmakers to claim they are funding the government at one level when it is actually at another.

Then, there is the House-Senate clash that is poised to play out. The House is marking up appropriations bill at fiscal 2022 levels — an effort to appease conservatives — while the Senate is moving forward at levels agreed to in President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) debt limit deal, putting the two chambers on a collision course.

The Senate is also planning to add $13.7 billion in additional emergency funding, which has already sparked opposition from Republicans in the House. 

House could vote on resolution to censure Santos

The House this week could vote on a resolution to censure Santos, which a handful of Republicans have already said they would support.

Three House Democrats — Reps. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), Robert Garcia (Calif.) and Dan Goldman (N.Y.) — introduced a privileged resolution last week that would censure Santos, citing a number of lies he has told pertaining to his educational background and employment history.

Because the resolution is privileged, the trio of Democrats can force a vote on the measure — once they call it up for a vote, leadership has to take action within two legislative days.

Torres, who is spearheading the effort, said last week that there was “no final decision yet on a vote” when asked when he would call up the resolution but said, “The likely timeline is before the August recess,” which begins Friday.

In the meantime, however, some House Republicans have said they would support the censure resolution if it comes to the floor, which appears to be enough for the measure to be adopted, assuming all Democrats vote “yes.” The resolution only requires a majority vote for approval.

“I called for his resignation, I don’t think he should be a member of Congress and I would vote to censure him,” Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said last week. Other Republicans in the New York delegation have echoed that stance.

Santos, for his part, is brushing aside the censure effort, writing in a statement last week, “Democrats on the other side of the aisle have completely lost focus on the work they should be doing.”

Senate continues NDAA consideration

The Senate this week will continue consideration of the annual defense bill, formally called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The chamber is scheduled to vote on two amendments Tuesday — one led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and the other spearheaded by Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). Both are set at 60-vote thresholds.

The Senate is working to approve its version of the NDAA after the House passed its own legislation earlier in the month. The House measure was loaded up with a handful of GOP-sponsored amendments on hot-button issues such as abortion and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which tanked Democratic support.

The Senate version of the bill is expected to be far less partisan, given the fact that it will need 60 votes to pass. The two chambers, however, are then expected to hash out their differences ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline.

Capitol Hill braces for third Trump indictment

Capitol Hill is bracing for a third indictment targeting Trump — but this time around, it will hit close to home for lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Trump revealed last week that he was informed he is a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into his efforts to stay in power following the 2020 presidential election, which includes the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

The receipt of a so-called “target letter” is often a sign that a formal indictment is coming. Trump last week declined to meet with the grand jury looking into the situation.

Trump’s announcement last week fueled GOP claims that federal law enforcement is “weaponized” against Republicans, while Democrats, particularly ones who sat on the Jan. 6 select committee, said they were not surprised at the news.

Those dynamics will likely continue this week if Trump is formally charged by the Justice Department.

Also this week, Hunter Biden is scheduled to make his initial court appearance after entering a plea agreement with federal prosecutors last month. He agreed to plead guilty to two counts of willful failure to pay income tax, and to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement on a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm — an agreement that has sparked howls among Republicans, who have called it a sweetheart deal.

Hunter Biden is due at the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Del., on Wednesday at 10 a.m.

House, Senate divides over funding grow as time left for spending bills shrinks

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

Lawmakers are sprinting to finish as much work as possible on a dozen appropriations bills before a long August recess begins at the end of the week.

But major divides between the House and Senate on spending levels — as well as pressure from conservatives on Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — forecast messy spending battles when lawmakers return.

Most spending bills have advanced in the House and Senate appropriations committees. But House conservatives are pushing for even lower spending levels than what were approved in some of those bills in committee, numbers that were already lower than those agreed to in a debt ceiling deal between McCarthy and President Biden.

Senate appropriators, meanwhile, are not only approving bills at levels more in line with the spending caps in the debt ceiling deal, but also proposing additional emergency spending.

House leaders expect to bring the first two appropriations bills to the floor this week: one that includes the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction, and another that includes agriculture, rural development and the Food and Drug Administration.

And McCarthy reiterated his commitment to not put an omnibus spending bill on the House floor — a key demand of House conservatives.

“I will not put an omnibus on the floor of the House,” he said. “We should do our work. We should do our job.”

But the funding gulf between the House and Senate is only getting wider.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced Thursday that she and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the top Republican on the panel, reached a deal to add $13.7 billion in additional emergency funding on top of their appropriations bills. The deal included $8 billion for defense programs and $5.7 billion for nondefense programs.

“Many of us have been clear since the debt limit agreement was first unveiled that we believed it would woefully underfund our national defense, our homeland security, certain security accounts and the bill before us at a very dangerous time,” Collins said at the time.

The announcement has already prompted pushback from Republicans in the lower chamber, where Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) called further spending “a non-starter in the House.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who serves on the Appropriations panel, also came out against the move, calling it “just plain wrong” and saying it would take Congress “off the promising path that we have started on to get our fiscal house back in order.”

Meanwhile in the House, conservatives are continuing to put pressure on GOP leaders to lower spending, and disputes remain about overall top-line spending numbers.

"Oh, there are going to be changes” to the spending bills already approved by the Appropriations committee, House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said.

While conservatives have already succeeded in getting leaders to agree to approve overall spending levels below the caps laid out in the debt limit bill, disputes remain about whether recissions of previously approved spending count toward meeting target fiscal 2022 levels.

"This is a math discussion. And so you know, members are gonna have to get comfortable with a certain number on all sides of our conference,” Donalds said.

Donalds was among the group of 21 conservatives that sent a letter earlier this month pledging not to back appropriations bills “effectively in line” with the budget caps agreed to by McCarthy and Biden as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act debt limit deal, while calling for a top line at fiscal 2022 levels.

The group also voiced opposition to the use of “reallocated rescissions to increase discretionary spending above that top-line,” decrying what some have called a “budgetary gimmick” to include recissions in getting to fiscal 2022 levels. 

But that marks a tough task for GOP appropriators, who have already proposed clawing back billions of dollars of funding previously allocated for Democratic priorities and repurposing them for areas like border and national security.  While they approve of spending increases in some areas — like defense, and to account for higher costs due to inflation — that would necessitate deeper cuts in other areas that Democrats will surely not support.

“You have to work to get the 218,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), a subcommittee chairman on the House Appropriations Committee and chairman of the moderate Republican Governance Group caucus. 

“You're not gonna get everything you want. But they are getting numbers-wise and policy-wise many of the things that are good for them,” Joyce said of the hard-line conservative members. 

And he advocated for passing bills that may not be perfect, but can have a major impact on administration policy.

More from The Hill

“It's important to pass appropriations bills that dictate the policies and procedures and how the money is going to be spent and where it's going to be spent,” Joyce said, adding that it's “certainly an understanding we haven't reached yet.”

Discussions have continued between the hard-line conservatives, GOP leadership and other factions of the conference over the holdups surrounding the spending bills, like overall top-line spending levels and recissions. But a source familiar with the discussions said that many of the issues being raised by members of the Freedom Caucus and their allies are also supported by members in other ideological areas of the conference.

But even as conservatives think they are making progress, the clock is ticking. The House is scheduled to be in session for just three weeks after the August recess and before the Sept. 30 funding deadline.

“I think this week, there's been some productive movement to put more downward pressure on spending,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). “So, I'm more worried about the timetable right now.”

McCarthy said Thursday that he expects the House to pass all of its 12 appropriations bills by Sept. 30.

At the same time, Senate appropriators are hurrying to pass out of committee their four remaining funding bills by next week, after the upper chamber fell slightly behind their counterparts in the House at the start of the process earlier this year. 

Each of the eight funding bills passed out of the committee so far have fetched overwhelming bipartisan support. But there is tricky legislation on the horizon as negotiators prepare to consider what some regard as their toughest bills next week, including measures to fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.   

“This was never going to be easy,” Murray said Thursday, but she added she thinks appropriators are “all eager to finish strong.”

Negotiators anticipate bicameral negotiations to pick up in the weeks ahead, but fears are rising over whether both sides will be able to strike the deal to keep the government funded beyond the shutdown deadline in September. 

“We're gonna have a government shutdown because we're gonna fight between the House and Senate about appropriations. Maybe, I sure hope not. We keep coming right up close,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said this week.

“We are going to scare the hell out of you,” he said. “We're really good at that.”

Mychal Schnell contributed.

GOP, McCarthy on collision course over expunging Trump’s impeachments

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

House Republicans increasingly find themselves on a collision course over efforts to expunge the impeachments of former President Trump, a battle that pits hard-line conservatives — who are pressing for a vote — against moderates already warning GOP leaders they'll reject it.

The promised opposition from centrist Republicans all but ensures the resolutions would fail if they hit the floor. And it puts Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a no-win situation.

If he doesn't stage the vote, he risks the ire of Trump and his allies. If he does, the measures would be shot down, validating Trump's impeachments just as his legal troubles are piling up. 

The issue is just the latest in a long string of debates challenging McCarthy’s ability to keep his conference united while Trump — the GOP’s presidential front-runner who’s also facing two criminal indictments — hovers in the background. 

The expungement concept is hardly new. A group of House Republicans — including Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) — introduced legislation last month designed to erase Trump’s impeachments from the historical record. 

But the debate reached new heights last week when Politico reported that McCarthy — after suggesting publicly that Trump is not the strongest contender for the GOP presidential nomination — raced to make amends, in part by promising to vote on expungement before the end of September.

McCarthy has denied he ever made such a promise. But the denial only magnified the issue in the public eye — and amplified the conservative calls for the Speaker to bring the measure for a vote. 

“It should definitely come to the floor and be expunged,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a member of the Freedom Caucus and vocal Trump ally.

“I’m hoping to see it get done before August recess,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a lead sponsor of one of the resolutions, told reporters, later adding that “these are impeachments that should’ve never happened, and so we would like to expunge them.”

The expungement push is anathema to many moderate Republicans, particularly those facing tough reelections in competitive districts, who are treading carefully not to link themselves too closely with Trump.

Some of those lawmakers are already vowing to vote against the measure if it hits the floor — all but guaranteeing its failure given the Republicans’ narrow House majority — and some of them are proactively reaching out to GOP leaders to warn them against staging such a vote. 

“I have every expectation I'll vote against expungement, and I have every expectation that I will work to bring others with me,” said one moderate Republican who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, noting “I think my views represent a fair number of principled conservatives.”

“We can't change history. I mean, that impeachment vote happened. And I just don't think we should be engaged in the kind of cancel culture that tries to whitewash history.”

The lawmaker added: “I’ve communicated that with leadership.”

A majority-Democrat House impeached Trump twice during his four-year reign in the White House.

The first instance, in late 2019, stemmed from Trump’s threat to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless that country’s leaders launched a corruption investigation into Trump’s chief political rival, Joe Biden. The second, in early 2021, targeted Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was conducted by Trump supporters trying to overturn his election defeat.

The votes made Trump just the third U.S. president to be impeached and the first to have it happen twice. His Republican allies have long accused Democrats of abusing their authority for the sole purpose of damaging a political foe.

Expunging an impeachment has never been attempted. And opponents of the move in both parties are quick to point out that it has no practical significance because the impeachments happened and can’t be reversed.

More from The Hill

“There's no procedure for expunging an impeachment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment. “It's completely meaningless.” 

Others pointed out that Trump has already been exonerated by the Senate, which failed to convict him after both impeachments, making any new process pointless. 

“They’re silly,” centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in a text message. “When do we expunge a not guilty verdict?”

The pushback hasn’t discouraged Trump’s allies from pressing ahead for expungement, if only as a symbolic show of solidarity with the embattled former president.

McCarthy, who relied on Trump’s backing to win the Speaker’s gavel this year, threw his support behind expungement in late June, telling reporters the first punishment “was not based on true facts,” and the second was “on the basis of no due process.”

“I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it because it never should have gone through,” he said.

After fading from prominence for about a month, the conversation over expungement cropped back up following Politico's report, which came days after the former president said he received a “target letter” from the Justice Department informing him he is the subject of their investigation into his efforts to remain in power following the 2020 election — which includes the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The receipt of a target letter is often a sign that charges will soon be filed, which would mark Trump’s third indictment in recent months — and his second on the federal level. That prospect has only amped up Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill and could fuel efforts to expunge the two rebukes he received while in office.

“Every time you pile something on Trump, his numbers go up,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). “I'm surprised the Democrats aren't just wanting to ignore him.” 

The discourse over expungement, however, is dividing House Republicans at a precarious moment for McCarthy as Congress stares down a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown.

The appropriations process is already causing controversy within the House GOP conference, as hard-line conservatives — many of them close Trump allies — push leadership to enact aggressive cuts, which includes setting spending at levels lower than the agreement McCarthy struck with President Biden in May.

Trump has thus far stayed out of that debate, as he’d done earlier in the year during the debt-ceiling battle. But he remains a wildcard in the weeks leading up to the shutdown deadline, especially if his legal problems worsen and the pressure on his congressional allies to provide some form of exoneration — even if symbolic — grows more pronounced. 

Democrats, meanwhile, are not sympathetic. 

“The Republicans face a serious political problem,” Raskin said, “because they have wrapped their party around the fortunes and the ambitions of Donald Trump.”

Emily Brooks contributed.

Durbin tests positive for COVID-19 for third time in past year 

Posted on (Updated by Lauren Sforza

Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Sunday that he tested positive for COVID-19, marking the third time he has contracted the virus in the past year.

The diagnosis means Durbin will miss votes in the Senate this week before Congress is expected to break for the month of August.

“Unfortunately, I tested positive for COVID-19 today,” he tweeted. “I'm disappointed to have to miss critical work on the Senate's NDAA this week in Washington. Consistent with (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines, I'll quarantine at home and follow the advice of my doctor while I work remotely.”

The Senate is slated this week to consider the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the House earlier this month along largely partisan lines. The legislation was met with sharp criticism from Democrats after GOP-sponsored amendments about abortion, transgender rights and diversity and inclusion initiatives were attached to the bill.

The Democrat-led Senate is likely going to reject the GOP-backed amendments to the bill, which was typically passed with bipartisan support in previous years.

Durbin also tested positive for the virus at the end of July 2022 and in March of this year. In recent months, COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths have remained low compared to the peak of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While individuals can have immunity once contracting the virus, reinfections can be considered to occur as soon as 90 days after the first positive test.

Ken Paxton is suddenly worried about ‘impartiality’ in his Texas impeachment trial

Posted on (Updated by Hunter

Suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton remains indicted on account of crimes, but his more urgent problem is his recent impeachment at the hands of his fellow Republicans. The state Legislature voted to impeach Paxton after his history of crookedness in the attorney general's office became impossible for even Texas Republicans to ignore. Paxton will now face an impeachment trial in the state Senate.

Paxton, however, remains an enormous whining baby and is still trying to stack the deck in his own favor with a new demand that not all of the Senate be allowed to vote in his trial. Paxton's lawyers are now asking Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to bar three Democratic state senators from the trial because those lawmakers have said very mean things about him and are therefore not impartial.

A basic principle of due process is that the accused is entitled to an unbiased jury. Like numerous courts around the country, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held for almost a century that potential jurors with a bias or prejudice against the accused are disqualified from serving on his jury as a matter of law. Jurors José Menendez, Roland Gutierrez, and Nathan Johnson have such a bias and have proclaimed it loudly, time and again. Gutierrez, for example, has said that the evidence against the Attorney General “could not be refuted.” But that is the purpose of a defense—to attempt to refute the prosecution’s evidence—and the function of a trial—to determine whether that evidence has proven charges beyond a reasonable doubt. No one who has publicly declared the charges against a defendant irrefutable can even play at impartiality, let alone serve in an impartial manner. And Menendez and Johnson are no better.

Blah blah, whine whine, blah blah blah.

Now, all of this is very interesting or whatever but Paxton's entire letter goes to great lengths to dodge the core point of the matter: Ken Paxton ain't facing the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He may have forgotten, but right now he's facing an impeachment trial run by the Texas Senate, not a criminal trial in a criminal courtroom, and all this whining about how dare state senators have opinions about the evidence in his trial is nothing but a gigantic bullshit fountain premised on pretending that the two things are the same.

Did Paxton's lawyers write this up for Paxton's eventual upcoming criminal trial, but accidentally stick it in the wrong envelope? Since when did Republicans give a shit about enforcing "impartiality" in an impeachment trial?

Yeah, that's what we all remember most about Donald Trump's two separate impeachment trials—all of the Republicans refusing to render early judgment about Trump’s guilt because of the impartiality of the process. We can't even count all the Republicans who recused themselves from the proceedings due to their inability to be impartial except oh wait—we can, it was zero. Zero Republicans.

What's really going on here is that Ken Paxton is a uniquely gutless sack of corruption still looking to game the system however he can, and removing three Democratic senators from the voting pool would mean that the 21 votes for Paxton's removal from office would have to come from just 27 eligible senators instead of 31. That's a much tougher hurdle, even if a good chunk of Texas Republicans are finally sick enough of Paxton's crookedness to want to be rid of him.

As for evidence of how shallow Paxton’s alleged desire for fairness is, one of Paxton's activist buddies has filed a lawsuit demanding that Paxton's wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, be allowed to vote in the impeachment trial. That’s because the state Senate passed rules requiring her recusal due to her being married to the man being impeached for, among other things, arranging a cushy new job for a woman he had an affair with.

Oh no, three Democratic senators have expressed their belief that the evidence shows Ken Paxton to be a crooked sack of crookedness. However will the impeachment trial go on when such injustice is at play?

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