Donald Trump, senior members of his administration, and his congressional Republican allies are struggling to contain the political fallout from the leaked war plan chat scandal.
In multiple media appearances on friendly right-wing media outlets, they offered multiple excuses to spin what happened and promoted an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory for how Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic was able to get access to the chat.
Appearing on Newsmax Tuesday, Trump inaccurately referred to the text chain as a “call” and professed ignorance as to how the leak occurred.
“What it was, we believe, is somebody that was on the line with permission, somebody that worked with Mike Waltz at a lower level, had Goldberg's number or call through the app, and somehow this guy ended up on the call,” he told host Greg Kelly.
“I can only go by what I’ve been told—I wasn’t involved in it,” Trump added.
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance tried to dismiss the scandal altogether, claiming on social media it was “very clear Goldberg oversold what he had.”
Fox News devoted the opening segment of all three of its prime-time shows on Tuesday night—“Hannity,” “The Ingraham Angle,” and “Jesse Watters Primetime”—to hosting Republican officials to spin the story.
Speaking to Laura Ingraham, national security adviser Mike Waltz, who invited The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief to the chat, saw a sinister motive behind Goldberg’s reporting.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” he said, “but of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the president, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys, and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the president of the United States, and he’s the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contacts and then gets sucked into this group.”
Trump has attacked Goldberg over many years for reporting that Trump called deceased military veterans “suckers” and “losers,” but Trump’s own former chief of staff John Kelly from his first administration verified that story.
Waltz also claimed to Ingraham that he has enlisted multibillionaire Trump financier Elon Musk to investigate the leak.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, led on by host Jesse Watters, echoed Waltz’s conspiracy theory that Goldberg had done something "mischievous" to end up in the secret text chain to which he was invited by Waltz.
She also compared Democratic anger about the leak to the Russia “hoax”—which was not a hoax and led to Trump’s first impeachment.
“The Democrats, there’s nothing that they’re better at than spinning a sensationalist story out of a basic set of facts,” Leavitt said.
Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Trump ally, led off the opening segment of “Hannity” by praising chat participants for speaking “just like they do to the American people.” Mullin then argued that Democrats were raising the issue to distract from “disastrous decisions that the Democrat (sic) Party is having.”
The Trump administration’s argument—that Goldberg or some other outside actor had done something devious to access the chat—wasn’t far off from pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who argued on his Infowars site that the leak to Goldberg was a “CIA Vault 7 style operation.” Vault 7 was a leak of classified CIA documents to the WikiLeaks site in 2018.
The full-throated defense and attempt to spread disinformation surrounding the story across multiple outlets raises doubts about the administration’s claim that the leak was not a big deal. In fact, the high-level spin raises more questions about the chat and what the administration may be hiding as it refuses to be more forthcoming about what occurred.
A major national security scandal is still unfolding after top-level Trump administration officials accidentally invited a journalist to a private text chat being used to plan a military strike in Yemen.
As President Donald Trump and his ever-loyal Republican Party try to minimize the incident, it has fallen on congressional Democrats to probe what happened and to protect the public from the administration’s operational failures.
Republicans have long used congressional investigations to effectively attack their political opponents over foreign policy controversies. In 2015, after the attack on two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, and subsequent rush to assign blame on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told Fox News exactly how the GOP playbook worked.
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee,” McCarthy bragged. “What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
Here are 10 things that Democratic lawmakers can do in the days and weeks and months ahead, including borrowing some tactics from the scandal playbook that Republicans have used against Democrats in the past.
1. Keep it simple and explain the scandal to a busy public
The technology and issues involved in the leak are somewhat complex and involve issues like the Signal messaging app and U.S. policy in the Middle East. But that doesn’t mean Democrats’ rhetoric about the incident can’t be simple.
For instance, when Republicans raked the Biden administration over the coals for withdrawing from Afghanistan or the Obama administration for the Benghazi attack, they did not get into the weeds about policy—and those attacks frequently resonated as a result.
Most Americans use messaging apps. They wouldn’t want their secrets exposed to the world. It’s even worse when thousands of lives are on the line. That’s what the Trump administration did, and that’s how Democrats can make a big issue understandable.
2. Oppose Trump’s nominees—all of them
Just two months into Trump’s new presidency, Senate Democrats have already been burned by their appetite for bipartisanship. Despite Trump’s open disdain for the rule of law, his embrace of misogyny and bigotry, and his disinterest in basic facts, the party has voted to confirm several of his Cabinet nominees—only to later express regret for doing so.
Even as the leak details were becoming public, members of the Senate Democratic caucus voted for Trump nominees Christopher Landau (to the State Department) and John Phelan. Phelan, who will become secretary of the Navy, is a major Trump donor with no military experience. Voting for him after the text leak is a particularly odd choice for Democrats.
After then-President Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, Republicans blocked him from promoting military officers. Democrats can do the same to Trump now.
3. Be aggressive when talking about a national security crisis
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a “bipartisan investigation” of the text chat. While it would seem right to call for national unity on an issue of this magnitude, Schumer’s rhetoric is as out of step with reality as his recent vote in favor of Trump’s cruel budget priorities.
As the controversy over the Benghazi attacks raged, Republican voters viewed the scandal as important as Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair, according to opinion polls. Despite the tragedy of the attacks, Republican leaders constantly distorted the magnitude of the incident. Former Vice President Dick Cheney said it was “one of [the] worst incidents I can recall in my career.” Cheney, of course, was vice president on Sept. 11.
Democrats can discuss the possibility that foreign intelligence and other bad actors may have had access to the chat or possibly other, undisclosed chats. That isn’t hyperbole. The Trump administration already did it once.
A good example of this: Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia noted that this kind of thing occurs when a leader like Trump picks his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from the ranks of Fox News talking heads.
Ossoff: This is what happens when you have Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials. [image or embed]
4. Hold the media accountable for ignoring or downplaying the story
As the initial shock of the leak wears off, the mainstream media is likely to return to form by minimizing the severity of the incident. In fact, major media outlets like The New York Times, which amplified multiple stories about Hillary Clinton’s email server in 2016, are already downplaying it.
Democrats can highlight this problem while stressing the importance of the incident. By noting that a breach of this caliber may risk American lives, Democrats can ask the press to question key officials like Hegseth, Trump, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (who has ahistory of propagandizing for hostile foreign governments).
5. Demand answers about the scandal and fallout from government agencies
Members of Congress have the power to request information and documentation from government agencies. Republicans bombarded the Biden administration with such requests after the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Not only can the defense and intelligence agencies be the subject of such requests, but Democrats can ask other unaffiliated agencies and even projects like Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to disclose how they are communicating, if any secret backchannels are in use, and to ask what is being discussed and why it is outside of public review.
Congress has the constitutional mandate of oversight, and that comes into play here. Already, Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida has issued a demand for officials involved in the “Hegseth Disaster Signal Chat” to retain records in anticipation of possible litigation and a Congressional investigation.
6. Demand hearings, and follow up with more hearings
It is already unlikely that congressional Republicans will open hearings into the leak, as leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson are already trying to turn the page on the embarrassing debacle.
But Democrats shouldn’t accept just one investigation. House Republicans launched five committee investigations into the Benghazi attack and also set up a House Select Committee on the issue. There was a Senate investigation as well.
The playbook is wide open, with multiple aspects of this incident to be sorted out across a host of committees, and as new information and witnesses surface, the scope of which committees can best handle an investigation could expand.
7. Use the media to push concerns about the scandal
In addition to pushing journalists and news organizations to cover the story, Democrats can use multiple media appearances to forward their narrative surrounding the leak. Republicans have made considerable hay out of any number of Democratic actions, from the Afghanistan withdrawal, to Benghazi, to President Obama’s decision to wear a tan suit, and particularly former President Bill Clinton’s infidelity while in office.
Mainstream news networks book members of Congress and other political leaders for appearances constantly. Even if the main topic is completely unrelated, Democrats can note how one area of Trump administration incompetence or malfeasance echoes the chat leak controversy.
8. Amplify veterans’ concerns about the national security breach
To attack the Biden administration over the Afghanistan withdrawal, Republicans solicited testimony from veterans who witnessed some of the tactical mistakes made. Military security is directly in the crosshairs of the chat leak, and Democrats should take note.
Veteran advocacy groups like VoteVets are already pushing for answers about the incident, and Democrats would do well to take up their cause. Similarly, there are multiple Democratic officeholders who are veterans and have already spoken out about the problems involved in the leak. There can never be too many voices like this, which attract public and media attention.
“This isn’t about party—it’s about country.” - Rep. Pat Ryan
Democratic Veterans are demanding answers after Trump’s SecDef mishandled sensitive military info.
American lives are at risk. We need accountability. We need a hearing. [image or embed]
9. Send criminal referrals related to the leak and possible cover-up
In the course of investigating the leak, there is an extremely high possibility that someone involved will lie or mislead.
Stymied by their failure to turn Biden’s son Hunter into a liability, Republicans referred him and his uncle James Biden to the Department of Justice on the claim that they lied to Congress (a crime). While this did not result in charges, it generated coverage and renewed interest in the story.
If people lie about the leak—and figures like Hegseth have already lied to reporters about it—this is another avenue Democrats can travel down.
10. Never be satisfied with the administration’s spin, and keep pushing for more answers
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Questions about the chat leak will inevitably lead to more questions. Based on the track record of Trump and his underlings, this group chat from hell surely isn’t the only backchannel of communication that exists in the administration.
Democrats can ask about and investigate this phenomenon and all the other subsequent questions it raises. Were other agencies involved? Were key GOP figures like Elon Musk and Mike Johnson connected? Are there ongoing text chats about national security with conservative media figures like Sean Hannity who are known to have Trump’s ear? Did Trump or anyone under him use this information and sharing of information for personal financial gain?
Trump has shown absolutely zero interest in moral or ethical boundaries, even when the lives of Americans are on the line. These questions aren’t out of bounds, but well within his existing and well-known pattern of behavior.
In an ideal world the Republicans would come clean about what they’ve done, heads would roll, and the American public would be educated about what is being done in their name. But that world does not exist, so Democrats should mirror what Republicans have done in the past to fan the flames of scandal and further their agenda—and use those tactics to protect America from Team Trump’s incompetence.
Federal judges are receiving death threats and have expressed serious concerns about their safety, following attacks on the judiciary by President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, conservative activists, and right-wing media.
The climate is so hostile, even right-wing judges are being targeted.
For instance, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s sister received an emailed threat that a pipe bomb had been placed in her mailbox. The email turned out to be a hoax. The threat came after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration, who was attempting to withhold payments from the U.S. Agency for International Development for work that had already been completed.
Federal judges are receiving pizza deliveries at their homes as part of an intimidation campaign, to let the judges know that their private home addresses are known. A bulletin from the U.S. Marshals Service noted, “We assess that these incidents are related to high-profile cases that have received extensive media coverage and public interest.”
Judge John C. Coughenour, who ruled against Trump’s attempt to abolish birthright citizenship, told The New York Times he had been targeted for a “swatting” attack—a false police report of a crime at his residence that led to a police response. Coughenour also said he received a mailbox bomb threat, which was a hoax.
The Trump administration is on a losing streak in multiple federal courts, as judges again and again say the actions of Trump, the Department of Government Efficiency, and figures like GOP financier Elon Musk are breaking the law or overstepping their legal authority. An analysis by the Washington Post determined that since Trump was sworn in for his second term, he has lost a case every four days.
Trump has gone on the attack instead of accepting his losses like other leaders.
“If a President doesn’t have the right to throw murderers, and other criminals, out of our Country because a Radical Left Lunatic Judge wants to assume the role of President, then our Country is in very big trouble, and destined to fail!” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts
Trump has also promoted conservative influencers who have targeted judges ruling against the administration.
He isn’t alone. House Republicans have begun the process to impeach judges for insufficient devotion to Trump, while Musk has said it is “necessary” to remove those officials. Conservative media like Fox News has amplified the crusade, with attacks on the judiciary in service of Trump.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who leads the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc and has been a reliable pro-Trump vote, nonetheless expressed concerns about the right’s actions (without directly naming Trump).
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” he wrote in a statement.
Trump’s team has been ignoring rulings and defying orders at a pace that the courts are struggling to keep up with, and now those judges are in the conservative movement’s crosshairs.
In all likelihood, the situation will continue to escalate.
The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, created by Donald Trump, is now interviewing federal workers at multiple agencies as part of the group’s stated plans to cut government spending.
The Washington Post reports that representatives from DOGE have spoken to employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS, the Treasury Department, and at the Department of Homeland Security.
Musk was named as the cochair of DOGE along with failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The advisory committee has no legal authority within the U.S. government and despite its name is not an actual department, as that is a status that can only be conferred via a congressional vote. DOGE can merely make recommendations to the government, like any other group of citizens.
Musk was awarded with the DOGE leadership position by Trump after he donated at least $250 million to political groups designed to win the election for the Republican nominee.
“Send Him Back”
During the presidential campaign, Musk said a commission like DOGE would be able to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. But in a recent podcast interview with disgraced political strategist Mark Penn, Musk already began to tamp down expectations.
“I think if we try for $2 trillion, we’ve got a good shot at getting $1 [trillion],” Musk said.
Recent political activity by Musk is perhaps an early warning sign of how DOGE will operate once Trump is in office.
In December, Musk used his account on social media site X to agitate against a bipartisan spending agreement in Congress. Musk spread numerous falsehoods about the bill, leading to Republican leaders pulling the legislation. Failure to pass the bill could have led to a government shutdown and triggered billions in lost productivity as has been the case in previous shutdowns. Ultimately a new bill passed, without funds for programs like pediatric cancer research.
Despite these disruptive actions, another Republican leader has adopted a DOGE-style program. Recently elected New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced that she would create a “Commission on Government Efficiency.” COGE will operate outside of the state government and purportedly offer up recommendations to cut spending.
Musk has said that government spending must be curbed, even if middle income people experience “hardship” when services are curtailed. At the same time, Republicans are pursuing legislation that would include continued tax cuts for billionaires like Musk (he is the richest person in the world).
DOGE interfering in federal work is part of the strategy to get a pro-Musk agenda in play, even if it means disruption and problems for everyone else.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has disclosed that he had a private phone call with Donald Trump just hours before Trump petitioned the court to block his criminal sentence in his hush money case. The call raises new questions about the independence of the court and the court’s role in putting Trump above the law.
Alito claims that the call between him and Trump was about recommending one of his former law clerks for a job in the upcoming administration.
“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position,” Alito told ABC News.
But after the two conservative leaders spoke, Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency request with the court to prevent New York from handing down a criminal sentence for him on Friday. Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records when he tried to cover up payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump was trying to cover up details of his affair with Daniels, preventing them from being disclosed to the public while he was running for president in 2016.
Stormy Daniels
“We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed,” Alito told ABC. He also told the outlet that he and Trump did not discuss current or possible Supreme Court cases.
But there is no independent confirmation of what was said in the phone call, nor has a recording been provided and the discussion has raised concerns about the court and corruption.
“No person, no matter who they are, should engage in out-of-court communication with a judge or justice who’s considering that person’s case,” Gabe Roth, executive director of the group Fix the Court, said in a statement. Roth also described the Trump-Alito call as an “unmistakable breach of protocol.”
Trump and Alito are ideologically aligned on conservative issues. Alito was part of the 6-3 majority on the court that overturned the federal right to an abortion in the landmark case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Trump appointed three of the justices who voted along with Alito—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Trump has also praised the court for their decision despite the devastating effect it has had on millions of Americans.
In his personal life, an upside-down U.S. flag (a sign of distress) was flown over Alito’s house while President Joe Biden was in office, echoing other anti-Biden conservatives. The Alito family also hung an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at their beach house, a symbol used by conservative “Stop the Seal” election conspiracy theorists.
Trump has a history of exerting corrupt political influence in private phone calls.
His first impeachment came about because Trump tried to pressure Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to implicate Trump’s political rivals (especially President Joe Biden) in corruption allegations. Similarly, after he lost the 2020 election to Biden, Trump used a phone call as part of his pressure campaign to get Georgia election officials to throw out votes for Biden so he would win the race.
The Trump-Alito call comes just a few months after the conservative majority on the Supreme Court (including Alito) voted to put Trump above the law with a presidential immunity ruling, blocking him from being charged with criminal actions undertaken while he was in office.
The public has continued to express a lack of confidence in the conservative-led court. In an aggregate of opinion polls on the matter, the court only has the approval of 40% of the public while 50.3% disapprove of the body.
As Trump heads into the presidency with the court on his side, those trends are unlikely to improve.
Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy described the insurrectionists who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as “political dissidents” during a rant about federal law enforcement on Friday.
Campos-Duffy, who is perhaps best known for appearing on MTV’s “The Real World” in the 1990s, made her claim during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
“We have an FBI, a DOD, and a Homeland Security that has given us zero confidence. They've said nothing with a border open and terrorists flowing over the borders. They've been directing agents to go after political dissidents from J6, from January 6, instead of going after terrorists,” Duffy said while commenting on the New Orleans attackerwho was reported to be inspired by ISIS.
Campos-Duffy’s sympathetic description of the insurrections echoes that of Donald Trump, who has floated the idea of pardoning them and has referred to the armed attack as a “day of love.”
In reality, the attackers violently forced their way into the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from fulfilling one of its longest-running and most important functions: certifying the presidential election results.
At least seven people died as a result of the Jan. 6 attack, a direct contradiction to the casual language that Campos-Duffy used to describe the rioters. More than 1,200 people have been arrested and charged in connection with the insurrection, with some charges including sedition against the United States. In fact, Trump was also charged—and even impeached—for his role in inciting the attack.
Campos-Duffy’s underlying argument that the U.S. government fails to go after terrorists is also faulty. Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. military executed a drone strike in 2022 that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, who, alongside Osama bin Laden, led the terrorist group Al Qaeda and assisted in the planning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The drone strike was a continuation of policy from Trump’s predecessor President Barack Obama, who ordered the operation that successfully killed bin Laden in 2011.
Looks like the latest Fox News rant was just that—a rant.
Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s pick for chief of staff, issued a memo Sunday to Trump’s Cabinet nominees ordering them to stop making social media posts without approval ahead of the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings.
“All intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel,”the memo said, according to the New York Post.
Wiles also noted, “I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself.”
The missive comes after the spectacular flame out of former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general and the ongoing controversies of several other nominees, including Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, and Tulsi Gabbard.
Gaetz’s nomination was withdrawn after the resurfacing of sordid allegations of illicit drug use and sexual behavior, including sending money to multiple women via PayPal and Venmo. Gaetz’s activity on social media was a key part of the controversy, as the House Ethics Committee's report notes.
“From 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use,” the report states.
Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has been accused of financial mismanagement, sexual assault, and public drunkenness. In response to reporting on these allegations, Hegseth has taken to social media to complain about “anti-Christian bigotry” in the media, the “lying press”, and the “Left Wing hack group” ProPublica.
Anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has also made strange social media posts. He recently posted a meme on X characterizing the medical industry as “financially dependent on you being sick,” as well as a video of himself with CGI-generated electric eyes and a link to his merchandise site.
An anonymous source with the Trump transition team claimed that the order to stop social media posts is not related to the recent online infighting between Trump megadonor Elon Musk and anti-immigration MAGA supporters. But the timing of the edict, coming directly from Trump’s right-hand woman, is extremely convenient.
Musk recently went on a posting frenzy, calling MAGA fans “upside-down and backwards” in their understanding of immigration issues, while telling one person to “take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face.”
The controversy generated international headlines, and Trump was dragged into commenting on the discussion—a less-than-ideal situation as he prepares for his inauguration.
Trump of all people telling others to be more mindful about social media posts is an ironic development. Trump made a name for himself as a political figure largely due to constantly posting inflammatory messages online. Most notoriously, he called on his supporters to protest the results of the 2020 election after losing to President Joe Biden.
“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” he wrote.
House Republicans on Tuesday released a report recommending that former Rep. Liz Cheney face criminal charges for her role in the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee.
The interim report comes from the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who previously compared the 2019 impeachment of Donald Trump to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The report alleges that the Jan. 6 committee was a “political weapon” against Trump and accuses Cheney of witness tampering. Loudermilk’s allegation revolves around the actions of former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified before the committee. Hutchinson said in her testimony that Trump was unconcerned that his supporters were carrying weapons on Jan. 6 and that he wanted to go to the Capitol on the day of the attack.
In the report, texts were revealed between Hutchinson and former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin purportedly discussing a change of lawyers after her Trump-connected lawyer Stefan Passantino was accused of telling Hutchinson to omit damaging details about Trump’s behavior. The Loudermilk report alleges that through her relationship with Griffin, which she used as an intermediary, and her direct contact with Hutchinson, Cheney crossed a legal line.
Trump praised the report on his Truth Social account writing, “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee.” He added, “Thank you to Congressman Barry Loudermilk on a job well done.”
Rep. Barry Loudermilk,
“Chairman Loudermilk’s ‘Interim Report’ intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did,” Cheney said in a statement.
The Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack released a report in December 2022 recommending several criminal charges against Trump for his actions. Trump was charged with election subversion, but special counsel Jack Smith dropped the case after Trump won the election.
The report comes less than two months after Cheney endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president and campaigned alongside her, citing the threat Trump represents to democracy. Recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Joe Biden should consider a preemptive pardon of officials like Cheney involved in the Jan. 6 committee after Trump called for them to be jailed.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy criticized the Loudermilk report in a social media post, noting that with the nomination of Kash Patel to lead the FBI, Republicans are pursuing legal retribution against Trump detractors.
“Who will stand in the way of Cheney and others being put in jail? Not DOJ. Kash Patel was chosen to lead the FBI BECAUSE he wants to prosecute Trump's opponents,” Murphy wrote.
Patel is a longtime Trump fan who has previously said the legal system should be used to attack the press for reporting on Trump scandals.
At the same time the House report was released, Trump filed suit against pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for releasing a poll showing him losing to Harris in Iowa. On multiple fronts, Trump is targeting people who dare to say anything negative about him.
As the pearl-clutching continues over President Joe Biden’s Sunday pardon of his son Hunter, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Monday that he hopes to work with Donald Trump’s incoming Department of Justice to initiate new investigations into the Biden family and Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Appearing on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Comer was asked how Biden’s decision to pardon his son would affect his future plans.
“I look forward to talking to Attorney General Bondi about this,” the Kentucky Republican said, referencing Trump attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, who still has to be confirmed by the Senate.
Without evidence, Comer went on to allege that the Biden White House is continuing to obstruct investigations into the Biden family. Comer accused Biden, as he has multiple times over the years, of engaging in a “money laundering scheme” with “the money from our adversaries from around the world.”
Since Republicans took control of the House after the 2022 midterm elections, Comer has focused much of the Oversight Committee’s time and resources on investigating Biden and his family. That effort even involved committee member Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene displaying photos of Hunter Biden’s genitals during a committee hearing.
Before he was ousted in October 2023, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy signed off on an impeachment inquiry into the president. But ultimately, the Comer-led effort sputtered and failed in August, with no articles of impeachment filed despite years of innuendo and threatening rhetoric.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee noted in a fact sheet that despite the rhetoric about obstruction from Comer and other Republicans, the committee had received over 14,000 pages of bank records pertaining to the Biden family.
“Not a single transaction shows any wrongdoing by the President,” Democrats noted.
At the same time, reporting alongside the Comer probe showed that Comer himself engaged in ethically dubious financial transactions that echoed his accusations against the Bidens.
And yet, Comer told Newsmax host Rob Schmitt that Sunday’s pardon of Hunter Biden was “the biggest public corruption scandal ever.”
Despite the chairman’s complaints about Biden’s son, Republicans were not as disturbed by Trump appointing his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner to senior government roles–even when they couldn’t pass a standard security clearance.
The party also turned a blind eye to the massive influx of foreign dollars that was spent at Trump’s hotels and other properties while he was empowered to make decisions affecting those governments as president.
According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), more than $13.6 million found its way into Trump’s hands just via this pathway.
But Comer isn’t calling on Bondi and Trump’s Department of Justice to address those concerns. Not yet, anyway—if ever.
Donald Trump proposed on Saturday that current FBI Director Christopher Wray be replaced by pro-Trump loyalist and conspiracy theorist Kash Patel. Wray was appointed by Trump in 2017 and is slated to serve a 10-year term which would end in 2027. Replacing him ahead of time would require Wray to voluntarily retire or for Trump to fire him once he becomes president.
Some Republicans have already expressed skepticism about replacing Wray. South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said on ABC’s “This Week” that he had not heard complaints about Wray’s leadership of the law enforcement agency.
“The message, and one that I feel very strongly about, is that there is a constitutional separation. The Founding Fathers did that for a reason,” Rounds told the network.
Even though Wray was originally Trump’s pick, Trump has frequently complained that the FBI director has followed the law and authorized investigations into criminal behavior by Trump, his team, and pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Patel is a Trump devotee who previously worked as a DOJ prosecutor, exaggerating his role by claiming to be the “lead prosecutor” on the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Patel was actually a junior staffer on the team. He went on to work as an aide for former Rep. Devin Nunes, who now heads Trump Media & Technology Group.
In his role with Nunes, Patel fed Trump backchannel information on Ukraine that contributed to Trump’s plot to push that nation to help him smear his political opponents. Trump’s first impeachment was over his misuse of office in this effort. Trump rewarded Patel with jobs in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and in the Pentagon.
During this time, Patel authored a memo arguing that it was disloyal for then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper to oppose a request by Trump to deploy military troops against American citizens protesting police violence against Black people.
After Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Patel pushed lies about the election being stolen and argued that reporters debunking Trump’s election lies should be targeted by the government.
“Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we’re going to come after you,” Patel said in an interview last year with Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser.
Patel has authored three children’s books that are pro-Trump fan fiction.
“The Plot Against the King” is described by the publisher as a “fantastical retelling of Hillary’s horrible plot against Trump” and features a character named “Kash the Distinguished Discoverer” defending King Donald Trump.
The second book, “The Plot Against the King: 2,000 Mules,” is a fictionalized version of pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked lies about the 2020 election being stolen. The blurb details a “terrible scheme to elect Sleepy Joe instead of King Donald on Choosing Day.”
In “The Plot Against the King 3: The Return of the King,” the story is about the “Journey of the MAGA King as he returns to take down Comma-la-la-la and reclaim his throne.”
These books are authored by the person who Trump wants to lead the premier law enforcement agency in the United States, responsible for the safety and security of hundreds of millions of people.
