Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) is forcing a House vote on impeaching President Biden over his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration policy, making a surprise privileged motion Tuesday evening that will require House floor action on the matter this week.
Walking off the House floor Tuesday, Boebert said that while House GOP leadership was aware she would make the privileged motion, the date of further action was still being scheduled.
A notice from House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) on Tuesday indicated that Democrats will make a motion to table the resolution when it comes up for a vote on the floor, a procedural move that would block the resolution from coming to the floor for a vote.
Boebert’s impeachment resolution, which she introduced earlier this month, includes two impeachment articles: one for abuse of power, and another for dereliction of duty.
In the first impeachment article, Boebert charges that Biden “knowingly presided over an executive branch that has continuously, overtly, and consistently violated Federal immigration law by pursuing an aggressive, open-borders agenda,” saying the U.S. allowed a high number of migrants released into the country “without the intention or ability to ensure that they appear in immigration court to face asylum or deportation proceedings.”
In the second impeachment article, Boebert’s resolution points to deportation cases being at historic lows, and deaths caused by fentanyl.
In response to Boebert’s move, the White House accused House Republicans of staging “political stunts.”
“Instead of working with President Biden on solutions to the issues that matter most to the American people, like creating jobs, lowering costs and strengthening health care, extreme House Republicans are staging baseless political stunts that do nothing to help real people and only serve to get themselves attention,” Ian Sams, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, said in a statement.
Boebert did not predict whether her impeachment articles would pass or not.
“We'll see. I mean, I hope that Republicans and Democrats alike can recognize the invasion that's taking place at our southern border, and that the laws of our nation are not being faithfully executed, and that we have an opportunity to bring a check and a balance to the invasion that's going on,” Boebert said.
Boebert's ideological ally, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), is aiming to force a vote of her own this week on a motion to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) of his handling of investigations into former President Trump.
Republicans have also been calling attention to the focus on the business dealings of President Biden’s family members after his son, Hunter Biden, agreed to a plea deal involving federal tax and gun charges Tuesday.
Asked why she was forcing the impeachment articles now, Boebert said: “It's been time. It's past time.”
Most House Republicans hungry for retribution over the U.S.-Mexico border have focused on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rather than Biden. Last week, the House GOP launched an investigation that could serve as the basis of an eventual Mayorkas impeachment.
He got President Biden to negotiate. And then he got a deal. Now, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is in the final phase of his debt ceiling saga: whipping up enough support for the bill in the House GOP conference to secure his political future.
Basic political wisdom dictates that McCarthy needs a majority of House Republicans to support the bill in order to maintain his political power, and McCarthy has repeatedly said that he will meet that standard. He knows he’ll need Democratic help to pass the measure, but the more GOP members that vote with him, the better for the Speaker.
“If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his ascent to the Speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on Newsmax on Tuesday, referring to a move to oust McCarthy from the Speakership.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks to reporters at the Capitol following a meeting at the White House with Congressional leaders and Vice President Harris to discuss the debit ceiling on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. (Greg Nash)
As of Tuesday evening, more than two dozen members of the slim, four-seat GOP majority in the House said they will vote against the bill, meaning McCarthy will need to rely on Democratic members supporting the Biden-blessed deal to pass the bill.
If more Democrats than Republicans vote for the bill, McCarthy could be in hot water.
“I am predicting it'll have more Democrat votes than Republican votes,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) said Tuesday. “Democrats are truly being told to suppress their enthusiasm, to not talk about it publicly.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that Republicans committed to deliver at least two-thirds of their conference — around 150 GOP members — in favor of the bill. He said Democrats would provide the vote needed to pass the bill, but vowed to hold McCarthy to that number.
McCarthy did not answer a question Tuesday on whether he could deliver 150 GOP votes for the bill, but said that he expects the bill to pass.
Some members are already starting to threaten McCarthy’s grasp on the Speaker's gavel, officially ending the honeymoon that lasted for months after the four-day, 15-ballot saga to elect McCarthy as Speaker in January.
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) became the first GOP member to publicly call for ousting McCarthy by making a motion to vacate the chair over the debt deal Tuesday. While it takes just one member to force a vote on ousting the Speaker — a threshold McCarthy agreed to lower from five during his drawn-out Speaker election in January — Bishop did not explicitly commit to making that motion.
And Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) confirmed an NBC News report that in a House Freedom Caucus call Monday night, he asked whether they were considering calling a motion to vacate due to spending levels in the debt bill being higher than fiscal 2022 levels.
"[Rep.] Scott Perry [R-Pa.], the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, told me it's premature,” Buck said on MSNBC on Tuesday.
Republican leaders called members back to Washington for votes and a conference meeting Tuesday evening, allowing leadership to whip support for the bill in person.
“We're kicking way beyond our weight. We barely control half of a third of the government,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) said in a House GOP press call Monday evening.
In a two-and-half hour House GOP conference meeting stretching into Tuesday night, opponents of the bill aired grievances, while leaders and their allies argued in favor of the bill. Members left the meeting saying their minds had not been changed.
But the meeting also aimed to lessen any retaliation against leadership by those angry with the bill.
“It's a foregone conclusion it's gonna pass. They're gonna have Democrat support to pass it,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.). “And so, we just talked about the after-effects. I don't think McCarthy wants another uprising like this.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who was a swing vote on a procedural hurdle to advance the bill in the House Rules Committee, announced his support for the bill in the meeting. It is the first legislation that he can vote for that has a chance to make it into law that cuts spending, he said.
“The engineer and the problem-solver in me wanted to vote for the bill, and the politician did not,” Massie said. “I'm going against my political instincts in voting for it.”
The deal that McCarthy struck with Biden claws back some spending, increases work requirements on public assistance programs and does not include tax increases — meeting all of the Speaker’s stated red lines for a deal.
But it has significantly fewer cuts and policy reforms less than the “Limit, Save, Grow” legislation the House GOP passed in April. Some members accuse GOP leadership of overstating how much money the bill saves, pointing out loopholes that can undermine or nullify some of the GOP’s stated wins.
Members of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus are pushing GOP members to vote against the bill — warning that their conservative credentials are on the line.
“If every Republican voted the way that they campaigned, they would vote against tomorrow’s bad deal,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said in a press conference Tuesday.
Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, will oppose the bill and include a “key vote” against it on its scorecard — a metric of conservatism that holds weight with many Republican members of Congress, campaign donors and voters. The conservative advocacy organization FreedomWorks also called a “key vote” against the bill Tuesday.
Some members are showing that they can be swayed. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told reporters that while the bill is a “shit sandwich,” she is interested in what “sides” leaders can provide to make the metaphorical meal more appetizing — such as a balanced budget amendment or rescinding more IRS funding. “Dessert,” Greene said, would be impeaching Biden or Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
McCarthy brushed off conservative criticism of the bill Tuesday.
“I’m not sure what in the bill people are concerned about. It is the largest savings of $2.1 trillion we’ve ever had,” McCarthy told reporters, citing what Republicans say are preliminary Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates of how much the deal could reduce the deficit.
Critics of that figure say that appropriations targets past 2025 are not enforceable.
McCarthy also told CNN that he is not worried about his Speakership, saying that he is “still standing” and that reporters are “underestimating” him.
Some of the opposition to the bill is coming outside of the House Freedom Caucus.
First-term Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) — who flew back from visiting his wife and newborn in the hospital in order to vote for McCarthy for Speaker in January — said Tuesday that he will vote no on the bill. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), a senior member on the House Ways and Means Committee, also tweeted he plans to oppose the bill.
To some Republicans, the opposition to the deal is puzzling.
“We don't control all those levers of power. So we can't throw a Hail Mary pass on every play, which is what some that are our conference may want to do,” Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) said Monday, saying the bill “is like a 60-yard pass, maybe completed pass.”
Republicans and Democrats battled during a tense hearing Thursday over three FBI agents who Republicans say were retaliated against for blowing the whistle on bias at the agency— and who Democrats argue the GOP is using to legitimize the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
GOP lawmakers accused the FBI of retaliating against “truth tellers” by revoking their security clearances because they espoused conservative views and took their concerns to Republicans on the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
“Politics is driving the federal agencies,” said Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of both the Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee, alleging that the government targets citizens who are not politically correct.
“What’s just as frightening is if you’re one of the good employees who come forward to talk about the targeting, you become the target,” he added.
Democrats countered by arguing that the GOP, in the words of Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.), was using the hearing as “a vehicle to legitimize the events of Jan. 6 and the people who perpetrated it.”
They questioned the FBI agents’ credibility and whether they should be considered whistleblowers, sparred with Republicans over access to documents and materials, and accused the panel of being a tool for former President Trump.
“This select committee is a clearing house for testing conspiracy theories for Donald Trump to use in his 2024 presidential campaign,” said Del. Stacey Plaskett (V.I.), the panel’s ranking Democrat.
“You all have employment grievances. That doesn’t make you whistleblowers,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said.
The hearing, which took place just days after special counsel John Durham released a report that offered stark criticism for the FBI’s opening of an investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign ties to Russia, underscored GOP suspicions of the federal intelligence and law enforcement organizations.
Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) at one point referenced the piercing evil eye from J. R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" series to describe the FBI.
“The Eye of Sauron has turned inward, and it is operating with a white-hot intensity that seeks to destroy everything in its path,” she said.
The hearing accompanied the Thursday release of an interim staff report from the panel’s Republicans that detailed what it says are abuses by the FBI, as described by what Republicans say are dozens of whistleblowers.
Allegations both in the report and in the hearing range from the agents being directed to scribble down license plate numbers in a parking lot outside a school board meeting to being pressured to open cases on people who traveled to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, but did not enter the Capitol.
Democrats had already preemptively countered the GOP’s “weaponization” investigation, writing in a 300-page report in March that some of the GOP witnesses were connected to committee Republicans through people with deep ties to former President Trump. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) reiterated and established at the hearing that two of the witnesses had received donations from Kash Patel, a former top Department of Defense official who is a surrogate for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Jordan brushed off the financial connection between witnesses and Trump allies in a press conference Thursday.
“They’ve got a family. How are they supposed to pay their family?” he asked.
The FBI in a statement asserted that it does not retaliate against protected whistleblowers.
“The FBI’s mission is to uphold the Constitution and protect the American people. The FBI has not and will not retaliate against individuals who make protected whistleblower disclosures,” the agency said in a statement to The Hill in response to the subcommittee hearing.
Thursday’s hearing also came just one day after the FBI sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that went into more detail about the reasons why the agency revoked the security clearances from three agents, including two of those who testified at the subcommittee hearing Thursday.
According to a copy of the FBI letter obtained by The Hill, agent Brett Gloss, who did not testify at the hearing and has not been charged with a crime, was in a restricted area of the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, amounting to criminal trespass and “questionable judgment” that indicated he may not properly safeguard classified or sensitive information.
Agent Marcus Allen, one of the witnesses at Thursday’s hearing, had his security clearance revoked after the agency found he “espoused alternative theories to coworkers” about Jan. 6 “in apparent attempts to hinder investigative activity,” including sharing a theory that federal law enforcement had infiltrated the crowd.
“It appears I was retaliated against because I forwarded information to my superiors that questioned the official narrative of January 6th,” Allen said in the Thursday hearing. He also said the FBI’s assertion that his supervisor “admonished” him was inaccurate.
The FBI also found that one case related to Jan. 6 was closed after Allen said he did not find any relevant information about a subject — but that case was later reopened after another FBI employee found relevant information that was publicly available. That person assaulted a Capitol Police officer on Jan. 6, the agency said.
At one point in the hearing, Democrats stumbled in an attempt to push back on the witnesses’ credibility when Sánchez asked Allen to address a Twitter account with the name “Marcus Allen” that had retweeted a tweet asserting that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) staged the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Allen responded that it was not his Twitter account — and that he did not agree with the message, condemning the violence at the Capitol on that day.
The FBI said agent Stephen Friend had his security clearance revoked after he acknowledged that he “publicly released sensitive FBI information on his personal social media accounts without authorization,” participated in unapproved media interviews, and secretly recorded a meeting with FBI management.
Friend testified to the committee that after raising concerns to his superiors with how the FBI was handling investigations into Jan. 6 subjects, the FBI suspended him without pay.
Friend testified that he was assigned to attend a school board meeting and took down the information from attendees’ license plates in the parking lot. He also said that after he was suspended from the FBI, his investigations of child sexual exploitation material were handed off to local law enforcement rather than to another federal agent.
A third witness, Garrett O’Boyle, who had his security clearance suspended but not yet fully revoked, was suspended without pay after he raised concerns with his chain of command and then made disclosures to Congress. He had just made a move across the country for the job, and he choked up as he described the FBI holding his family’s belongings — including his children’s clothing — for six weeks before they could access them.
Jordan said that O’Boyle was the first whistleblower to tell the committee about the process the FBI was using to assess threats against school board members, which he said have resulted in zero prosecutions.
“When citizens in this country get to the point where they can call the most powerful law-enforcement agency in the world on their neighbor just because they disagree with them, that is chilling to the First Amendment rights of the people who are getting the FBI called on them,” O’Boyle said in the hearing.
The House Freedom Caucus is calling for “no further discussion” on legislation to raise the debt ceiling until the Senate passes the bill House Republicans approved last month that would pair an increase in the borrowing limit with steep spending cuts.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called the bill “dead on arrival.”
The hard-liner conservative caucus said it adopted its official position on Thursday as debt limit negotiations continued behind closed doors between representatives for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the White House.
“The U.S. House of Representatives has done its job in passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act to provide a mechanism to raise the debt ceiling. This legislation is the official position of the House Freedom Caucus and, by its passage with 217 votes, the entire House Republican Conference,” the caucus wrote.
“The House Freedom Caucus calls on Speaker McCarthy and Senate Republicans to use every leverage and tool at their disposal to ensure the Limit, Save, Grow Act is signed into law. There should be no further discussion until the Senate passes the legislation,” the caucus added.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) addresses reporters during a press conference on March 10 with members of the House Freedom Caucus to discuss the debt limit. (Annabelle Gordon)
While Republicans were united behind their debt limit bill, which was intended to bring President Biden to the negotiating table, the Freedom Caucus position could indicate unity behind McCarthy’s strategy is starting to break — posing complications for the negotiations.
However, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) softened the position in an interview with CBS.
"We're not saying you can't continue to talk, but until they're willing to tell us what they're willing to do, it's hard to come to an agreement,” Perry said.
“We should probably compromise on something — but there's nothing to compromise with. They haven't asked anything,” he added.
Shortly before the House GOP bill passed, some conservative Republicans — including members of the Freedom Caucus — warned they would not support any legislation that was weaker than the one on the floor last month, which would put McCarthy in a difficult spot if he strikes a compromise and needs to rally support among the GOP conference for the compromise legislation.
Debt limit negotiations kicked into high gear this week after McCarthy and the White House cut out congressional Democrats and Senate Republicans from the talks and selected emissaries to hash out details behind the scenes. The development, which McCarthy hailed as a positive step, came about two weeks out from June 1, the day Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the U.S. could run out of cash to pay its bills.
On Thursday, McCarthy struck an optimistic tone, telling reporters, “I see the path that we can come to an agreement.” He noted, however, that the two sides “haven’t agreed to anything yet.”
House Republicans passed their debt limit proposal — titled the Limit, Save, Grow Act — in a 217-215 vote last month. The legislation would lift the borrowing limit by $1.5 trillion or through March 2024, whichever comes first, and it would implement $4.8 trillion in spending cuts.
The legislation calls for capping federal funding at fiscal 2022 levels, limiting spending growth to 1 percent every year over the next decade, beefing up work requirements for some social programs and clawing back unused COVID-19 funds.
House Republicans have since called on the Senate to take up the measure, but Schumer has called it “dead on arrival.” President Biden also issued a veto threat should it land on his desk. Democrats had initially pushed for a “clean” debt ceiling increase — meaning no conditions are associated with the hike — and said they would discuss federal spending as part of the annual appropriations process.
But the two sides have since come together at the negotiating table and are now racing to come to a consensus and walk the U.S. off the edge of the fiscal cliff.
One sticking point that rose to the forefront this week is work requirements. McCarthy told reporters work requirements for public assistance programs are a red line in negotiations, while Biden said he would not agree to “anything of any consequence” when it comes to the subject.
“I’m not going to accept any work requirements that’s going to impact on the medical health needs of people; I’m not going to accept any work requirements that go much beyond what is already — I voted years ago for the work requirements that exist. But it’s possible there could be a few others, but not anything of any consequence,” he said.
The bill House Republicans passed last month implements stricter work requirements for specific recipients of Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — which was previously known as food stamps — and other federal benefit programs.
House Republicans say the long-awaited report from special counsel John Durham bolsters their arguments that federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been “weaponized” against political enemies — a theme that has been a major defining belief of their new majority.
“The long-awaited Durham Report confirmed what the American people already know; that individuals at the highest levels of government attempted to overthrow democracy when they illegally weaponized the federal government against Donald J. Trump,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a statement.
The report found that federal authorities did not have sufficient information to open their “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Durham did not recommend any charges to the FBI in his report but said that the agency was “seriously deficient” in how it handled some aspects of the investigation, including relying on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) quoted from the report in a press conference Tuesday, raising alarm about its assertion that “the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law” and that it identified an FBI agent who knowingly made misrepresentations to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
“Where’s the accountability for this? Who’s going to be held accountable? These are the questions we’re going to continue to ask,” Scalise said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) invited Durham to speak to his panel’s select subcommittee on government weaponization — created at the request of the right flank ahead of the tumultuous election of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — at the end of the month.
Many House GOP members, including those serving on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, said that they had not yet read the more than 300-page report released Monday, when many were focused on the debt ceiling negotiations.
Yet several Republicans said that the report essentially confirmed their own biases.
“We all already believed or knew what was in there,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). “It's like, ‘Yeah, see? We told you so.’”
McCarthy told The Hill that Republicans already knew about the things that were “so appalling.”
“They took the entire country through this, impeachment, everything else, when we knew the FBI never should have done this from the very beginning,” McCarthy said.
Democrats, for their part, criticized the report for not offering enough new information.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that the report amounted to “a political rehashing of what the Justice Department Inspector General already made public in 2019.”
“Mr. Durham has, one last time, over promised and under delivered,” Nadler said before referencing special counsel Robert Mueller, who released a report in 2019 on his investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
“Nothing in this report changes the outcome of the Mueller investigation, which resulted in multiple convictions, found more than one hundred contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government, and substantial reason to believe that Donald Trump had committed obstruction of justice,” Nadler said.
The report from Durham is likely to affect how House Republicans legislate, and may also play a role in the GOP presidential primary.
“The report confirms that FBI personnel repeatedly disregarded critical protections established to protect the American people from unlawful surveillance,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “Such actions should never have occurred, and it is essential that Congress codifies clear guardrails that prevent future FBI abuses and restores the public’s trust in our law enforcement institutions.”
The FBI is getting ahead of calls for change, releasing a five-page letter responding to Durham that details recent reforms.
“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time,” the FBI said in a statement. “Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.”
One area likely to be affected by the politics of the Durham report is Congress’s reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless surveillance of foreigners outside the United States, even as they communicate with U.S. citizens within the U.S. — thus allowing intelligence agencies to pick up citizen communications without a warrant.
“I can assure you, 702 — that is not going to get rubber-stamped,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. “We’ve got to have a serious reboot or elimination of what we're seeing through FISA 702.”
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, also said that the Durham report will probably affect FISA reauthorization.
In a Twitter thread, Crenshaw said there “must be consequences” based on the findings of the report.
“This report demonstrates how unelected, subversive actors within the highest levels of our government sought to destroy a duly-elected president they hated. They weaponized a lie – knowing the media would breathlessly regurgitate that lie – in order to take Donald Trump out of the White House,” Crenshaw said.
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.
The historic arraignment of former President Trump on Tuesday sparked an immediate — and highly caustic — dispute across Congress and the country, exacerbating tensions between Trump's GOP allies and his Democratic critics just as House Republicans have added a probe into the Manhattan District Attorney to their long list of investigative priorities.
Those hostilities were evident in the demonstrations outside the Manhattan courthouse where Trump appeared to face 34 felony charges related to hush payments to an adult film actress in 2016.
They emerged further on cable news, where lawmakers in both camps jousted over the nature and propriety of the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, against the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race.
And they were glaring on social media, where Republicans howled about political interference in elections, Democrats demanded equal treatment under the law and both sides sought to get an upper hand in the public relations battle heading into next year’s presidential contest.
The debate — in many ways an extension of the dispute over Trump that followed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — did not lack for melodrama.
Trump’s fiercest defenders compared the former president to Jesus and fat-shamed Bragg, while Republicans in general accused Democrats of using Trump’s arrest as a way to cling to power.
“Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today. Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus — Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told Right Side Broadcasting host Brian Glenn in New York on Tuesday.
Greene was drowned out by protesters when making brief comments outside the Manhattan courthouse before Trump’s arrest. Embattled Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) also made a brief appearance outside the courthouse.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who served as physician to the president during the Trump and Obama administrations, referred to Bragg as “FAT ALVIN” on Twitter, urging him to “go ahead and celebrate with another jelly donut, but get ready to answer some serious questions from Congress!” In a subsequent statement, Jackson called Bragg a “spineless weasel.”
“Today is a historic low for our nation,” he tweeted.
Even some of Trump’s harshest GOP critics defended him against Bragg’s indictment.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said in a statement that while he finds Trump “unfit for office,” he thought Bragg’s case “sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public’s faith in our justice system.”
Democrats largely stopped short of celebrating Trump’s arrest, urging protesters to be peaceful and defending the judicial branch from congressional interference. But they wasted no time condemning Republicans for attacks on Bragg.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) also appeared outside the courthouse ahead of Trump's arrest, saying Bragg "simply followed the facts where they led" and criticizing Greene for rallying outside.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene needs to take her ass back to Washington and do something about gun violence, do something about affordable housing, do something about childhood poverty, do something about climate change,” Bowman said in a video reposted to his Twitter account.
He added, “Do your freaking job Marjorie Taylor Greene, you don’t need to be in New York City talking that nonsense.”
"Instead of reflecting on the importance of holding leaders accountable to our American democracy, prominent Republicans have instead called Mr. Trump the victim, castigated the New York District Attorney, denigrated the justice system, and fomented national unrest,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.).
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also weighed in, suggesting Republicans are abusing their authority by going after Bragg.
“I believe that Mr. Trump will have a fair trial that follows the facts and the law. There’s no place in our justice system for any outside influence or intimidation in the legal process. As the trial proceeds, protest is an American right but all protests must be peaceful,” Schumer said.
Other Democrats were more strident, accusing Republicans of “bullying” law enforcers to protect a political ally.
“In a desperate attempt to protect Mr. Trump, the most extreme House Republicans are already trying to bully the law enforcement officers involved,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. “I do not know how this case will be decided, but I do know that DA Bragg will not be deterred or intimidated by the political stunts Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy throw at him."
Some were pithier in their reactions. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) posted a photo of Trump on Twitter with the caption “Karma.”
The White House has declined to comment on Trump’s indictment and arrest.
Following Trump’s announcement last month that he expected to be arrested in the hush money probe, McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House Speaker, promised that Republicans would investigate Bragg. Jordan (R-Ohio), the Judiciary chairman, soon led two other committee chairs with a request for Bragg to testify to Congress about the case.
“Members of Congress simply should not be commenting or interfering in the legal process and we should let it play out,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said on MSNBC just before Trump’s arraignment.
McCarthy reiterated his commitment to investigating Bragg after Trump’s court appearance on Tuesday, accusing him of trying to interfere in the “democratic process” and pushing back on Bragg’s suggestions that Congress does not have the authority to investigate the indictment.
“Bragg’s weaponization of the federal justice process will be held accountable by Congress,” McCarthy tweeted, noting that Bragg’s office admitted that approximately $5,000 spent on the investigation came from federal funds.
The heightened partisan tensions come at a volatile time in Washington, just as leaders in both parties are set to launch into a high-stakes battle over the size and scope of the federal government with enormous implications for the economy. A failure to raise the debt ceiling could lead to a government default; an impasse over government funding could lead to a shutdown; and there’s been no sign, even before Trump’s arrest, that the sides were ready to ease their demands for the sake of a deal.
The question of Trump’s fate will not let up on members of Congress any time soon. Trump’s next in-person court appearance was set for Dec. 4 — about two months before the official start of the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, which kicks off with the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 5.
Next year’s election loomed large over Tuesday’s arraignment, with some of Trump’s GOP allies rejecting the notion that his indictment will influence his 2024 bid.
“President Trump continues to skyrocket in the polls, and just like with the Russia hoax and both sham impeachments, President Trump will defeat this latest witch-hunt, defeat Joe Biden, and will be sworn in as President of the United States of America in January 2025,” House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) said in a statement.
Greene and other GOP members of Congress are set to join Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence on Tuesday evening, where the former president is scheduled to deliver remarks after he did not speak to reporters during his roughly two hours at the Manhattan courthouse.
After a rocky start to their new majority, House Republicans have gotten in a groove, notching wins that squeeze Democrats and President Biden. But as they approach 100 days in power, with debt ceiling negotiations and major legislation on the horizon, the challenge will be to keep the conference in harmony.
The drawn-out election of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in January had observers wondering whether the caucus could get agreement on major issues with a five-seat majority. Pushback from moderates led to a scramble to get enough votes to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and forced a delay on a border and immigration bill that had been expected to have an early floor vote.
In the last several weeks, though, the House GOP notched some victories in sending legislation to Biden and dividing Democrats.
Biden reversed his position to back a disapproval of D.C. crime legislation — blindsiding House Democrats. The president is also expected to issue his first veto over a House GOP-led measure to nullify a federal rule over considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards in investments.
In committee probes, House Oversight Committee Republicans received long-sought access to the Treasury Department suspicious activity reports concerning businesses connected to Biden’s family members. And Border Patrol chief Raúl Ortiz said at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that the U.S. does not have “operational control” of the southern border, breaking with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and boosting House GOP arguments that could build a foundation for impeachment of the secretary.
“We've had some big wins,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). “And it's all rooted in fighting for the families who are struggling and following through on our promises. We ran on a very specific agenda. We talked about addressing inflation and lowering energy costs and confronting crime in communities, and securing the border, and having a parent's Bill of Rights.”
“Our conference is very unified right now,” Scalise added.
Speaker race connected caucus
Members say that as messy as the Speaker race was at the time, it helped to build relationships across factions of the conference.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a McCarthy ally who was deeply involved in negotiations during that saga, told The Hill that he did not know hardline Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) very well beforehand. But now, he has a “tremendous amount of respect” for him.
“It was a healthy exercise of talking to each other and getting to know each other and build more trust,” Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said of the Speaker election. “The trust we built there is going to continue to pay dividends for us this year.”
Still, high-profile controversies have overshadowed some of the House GOP’s successes.
McCarthy gave Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to Capitol security footage from Jan. 6, 2021, and Carlson’s use of it to portray the riot as “mostly peaceful chaos” sparked bipartisan outrage. The Speaker has declined to support removing Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from office over his admitted lies and questions about his finances until investigations into him are complete, breaking with a number of Santos’s House GOP colleagues in New York.
And major legislative issues coming up could test the House GOP’s harmony.
“We've got some really, really challenging things ahead, whether it's [the Federal Aviation Administration funding] bill, the farm bill, FISA authorization – we obviously have the budget and debt ceiling things that are on the horizon,” Graves said. “But I'm confident that we've got a good foundation and we can continue working through these issues with some of these members.”
Budget, debt limit loom large
House Republicans gathered Sunday to start strategizing about what comes next at their annual issues conference in Orlando, Fla., which runs through Tuesday.
One of the top items is certain to be debt limit negotiations. Biden has called on the House GOP to release their budget before engaging in negotiations, but McCarthy has said the White House’s delay in releasing a budgetcreated a domino effect.
The House Freedom Caucus, though, recently released a blueprint for budget cuts as a condition for considering a vote to raise the debt ceiling. While it is likelier to be more aggressive than the House GOP Budget Committee’s eventual plan, the hardline group indicated it is open to negotiation
“One of the big keys is to have that open channel of communication and have all voices heard and for that to be sincere, not just window dressing, but for it to be real,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus. “I know I don't always get my way, but I gotta have a say. And I think if everybody feels like they're given a fair shake, and you know, this is the best thing that we can get under the circumstances, that goes a long way to bringing people on board.”
Those open channels of communication – which include regular meetings with McCarthy and the heads of the caucuses – marks a change from previous GOP Speakers, Perry said.
Energy bill brings a test
Later this month, Republicans will bring a vote on their first major legislative package that McCarthy designated as H.R. 1: The Lower Energy Costs Act, a sweeping bill led by Scalise aimed at boosting energy production and streamlining the permitting process.
Republicans see boosting energy production as widely popular in the GOP, and one that touches on a number of other priorities. Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said it will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate, but could mark a starting point in negotiations on potential permitting reform.
“Energy has been at the heart of a lot of the conversations families have been having about the high cost of everything, from inflation to things at the grocery store,” Scalise said.
But even though the issue is popular, the package will test party unity, with members saying there is still work to be done to usher it across the finish line in a slim majority.
“As with most big bills, you're threading a needle. You've got issues all over the place on the right on the left, that you've got to deal with,” Graves said. “So there are still ongoing conversations with a number of folks, making sure that we're striking that right balance.”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson whipped up a firestorm Tuesday on Capitol Hill, sparking bipartisan backlash and igniting tensions with Capitol Police by downplaying the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on his prime-time program as “mostly peaceful chaos.”
His show divided Republicans, with a number of GOP senators ripping his portrayal of the incursion at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, who rarely offers opinions on political issues, said the Monday night show was filled with “offensive and misleading conclusions about the Jan. 6 attack.”
“The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments,” Manger wrote in a memo to lawmakers.
“Those of you who contributed to the effort to allow this country’s legislative process to continue know firsthand what actually happened.”
The segment was the first of two installments planned for this week relying on security footage granted to Carlson by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Carlson was expected to air more clips from the footage during his show on Tuesday evening.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a scathing rebuke of Carlson and Fox on Tuesday, holding up a copy of the memo and saying he wanted to associate himself “with the opinion of the chief of the Capitol police about what happened on Jan. 6.”
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) holds up a letter from U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger during a media availability following the weekly policy luncheon on Tuesday, March 7, 2023. McConnell supports Manger’s view against the released video footage to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson of the Jan.6 attack on the Capitol. (Greg Nash)
“It was a mistake, in my view, [for] Fox News to depict this in a way completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official in the Capitol” described, McConnell said.
It’s an unusual position for the host of one of Fox’s most-watched programs, who, while often a magnet for the ire of the left, seldom gets such direct criticism from those on the right.
Carlson, who has previously criticized McCarthy on his show, suggested at the start of the year that the new House Speaker release all Jan. 6 security footage in order to win support from detractors threatening to block his path to the gavel. McCarthy later gave Carlson exclusive first access to the footage, but has denied that release came as a result of negotiations for the Speakership.
Though McCarthy and other Republicans said last week that footage released for broadcast would be subject to a Capitol Police security review, and Carlson said as much on his show, Capitol Police said it saw just one of the several clips that Carlson aired on Monday: An interior door that Carlson said was blurred as a result of security concerns.
“We repeatedly requested that any clips be shown to us first for a security review,” Capitol Police told The Hill on Monday. “So far we have only been given the ability to preview a single clip out of the multiple clips that aired.”
A senior GOP aide with knowledge of the process of releasing the footage said the Capitol Police provided a list of what would be considered security sensitive, and only one clip that Carlson wanted to air met that standard, which Capitol Police then cleared.
The same camera angle was released without any blur on the door during the 2021 impeachment of former President Trump.
“We worked with the Capitol Police to identify any security-sensitive footage and made sure it wasn’t released,” McCarthy spokesman Mark Bednar said in a statement.
A representative for Fox News declined to comment on Tuesday.
A number of lawmakers offered pointed and direct criticism of Carlson’s first use of the footage.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), meanwhile, told multiple news outlets said that Carlson’s show on the Jan. 6 footage was “bullshit.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told CNN: “To somehow put that in the same category as a permitted peaceful protest is just a lie.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer is among the Republicans that have criticized Tucker Carlson airing Jan. 6 footage. (Greg Nash)
Carlson at the same time won plaudits from other Republicans who have similarly criticized and downplayed the attack.
“When will judges begin applying justice equally? Doesn’t look like “thousands of armed insurrectionists” to me,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in a tweet after thanking McCarthy and Carlson for showing the footage.
“I've seen enough. Release all J6 political prisoners now,” Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) said in a tweet as Carlson’s show aired.
Trump also weighed in on the footage, praising Carlson and McCarthy over its publication and calling the tapes the Fox host played for his audience “irrefutable.”
Carlson aired the footage after being granted access to the trove of security tapes by McCarthy, prompting outrage from Democrats and pundits who raised concerns that the tapes could threaten Capitol security procedures and amplify conspiracy theories.
Former President Trump speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md. (Greg Nash)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the Senate floor on Tuesday called Carlson’s show “one of the most shameful hours we’ve seen on cable television,” saying he was “furious” with both Carlson and McCarthy. He called on Fox News and its owner Rupert Murdoch to tell Carlson to not run more footage on Tuesday evening.
“Speaker McCarthy has played a treacherous, treacherous game in catering to the far right,” Schumer said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who was one of the members on the Jan. 6 committee, is among those who have raised security concerns over the release of the footage, noting it could be used to map the Capitol and the evacuation path of lawmakers.
He called Carlson’s show and conspiracies about Jan. 6 pushed through his documentary a “central part of the GOP agenda and playbook as they try to get Donald Trump elected to the White House again.”
“They didn't even apparently honor their agreement with the Capitol Police to provide the clips in advance. So there can be some attempt to contextualize whatever silly potshots they're taking,” he told The Hill.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (Annabelle Gordon)
“The absurd part is they act like their fragmented and disoriented potshots from Capitol security footage are the only documentary record of what happened. There are thousands and thousands of hours that have already been published – not just security footage – but also [by] media that were present and insurrectionists themselves. The whole world was watching and everyone knows exactly what happened. They are involved in a fraudulent enterprise here,” he added.
Among the unfounded theories Carlson floated in his Monday program were suggestions that federal agents helped incite the violence, though he stopped short of providing evidence to prove it. He also cast doubt on the circumstances surrounding the death of Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick.
It was something Manger deemed “the most disturbing accusation from last night” in asserting his death “had nothing to do with heroic actions on Jan. 6.”
“The department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day,” the chief said.
The top-rated host last year produced and published a multi-part documentary series dubbed “Patriot Purge,” which purported to tell an alternative story of the attack and features at least one subject who suggests the event may have been a “false flag” operation.
The publication of the tapes also comes as Carlson specifically and Fox more generally are taking intense heat from critics over revelations the company’s top executives and talent embraced and discussed Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election on air but privately cast doubt on them.
“They believed the election they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted,” Carlson said Monday of the people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. “They were right. In retrospect, it is clear the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy, given the facts that have since emerged about that election,” he said. “No honest person can deny it. Yet the beneficiaries of that election continue to lie about what is now obvious.”
Manger dismissed those conclusions in his Tuesday letter.
“TV commentary will not record the truth of our history books,” he wrote in his letter. “The Justice system will. Truth and justice are on our side.”
U.S. Capitol Police say they saw just one of the many clips from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired on Monday night, after he was granted access by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
“We repeatedly requested that any clips be shown to us first for a security review,” Capitol Police told The Hill on Monday. “So far we have only been given the ability to preview a single clip out of the multiple clips that aired.”
The limited consultation comes after McCarthy said Capitol Police would be consulted before the video aired to address security concerns.
“We work with the Capitol Police as well, so we’ll make sure security is taken care of,” McCarthy told reporters last week.
Carlson said on his show that his team checked with Capitol Police before airing the footage, and that their reservations were “minor” and “reasonable.”
His show blurred the details of an interior door in the Capitol due to those concerns.
The same camera angle of the door was previously released during the impeachment trial of former President Trump in 2021, without any blurring of the door, picturing senators and staff evacuating.
The disagreement over whether Capitol Police were meaningfully consulted comes as Carlson says he will release more of the roughly 44,000 hours of unseen footage he now has access to.
A senior GOP aide with knowledge of the process of releasing the footage said that there was coordination with Capitol Police.
The Capitol Police gave a list of what would be considered security sensitive, the aide said.
When Carlson’s team picked out the clips to air, only one of those – the clip with the door – was considered to be security sensitive based on that list, and then given to the Capitol Police to review.
The Capitol Police then cleared that clip, with the details of the door being blurred.
“We worked with the Capitol Police to identify any security-sensitive footage and made sure it wasn’t released,” McCarthy spokesman Mark Bednar said in a statement.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, also said last week that the footage given to Carlson to air would be cleared for security purposes.
“It’s basically controlled access to be able to view tapes. Can’t record, can’t take anything with you. Then they will request any particular clips that — that they may need, and then we’ll make sure that there’s nothing sensitive, nothing classified — you know, escape routes,” Loudermilk said.
A representative for Fox News did not immediately return a request for comment.
“This action clearly does not coincide with promises of safety and security and endangers everyone who visits and works in the Capitol complex,” Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), top Democrat on the House Committee on Administration, which oversees Capitol Police, said in a statement to The Hill.
During his primetime show on Monday, Carlson aired the first portion of never-before-seen angles of footage from the attack by Trump supporters, downplaying the violence that broke out during the incident describing the scene at one point as “mostly peaceful chaos.”
“‘Deadly insurrection.’ Everything about that phrase is a lie,” Carlson said during his show Monday night. “Very little about Jan. 6 was organized or violent. Surveillance video from inside the Capitol shows mostly peaceful chaos.”
The agreement to consult Capitol Police over the footage comes after Democrats and several who worked on the Jan. 6 panel raised the alarm over the security fallout that could result from sharing the footage.
"When the Select Committee obtained access to U.S. Capitol Police video footage, it was treated with great sensitivity given concerns about the security of lawmakers, staff, and the Capitol complex,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who served as head of the Jan. 6 panel, said at the time.
“Access was limited to members and a small handful of investigators and senior staff, and the public use of any footage was coordinated in advance with Capitol Police. It’s hard to overstate the potential security risks if this material were to be used irresponsibly.”
