If former President Trump is indicted this week, the White House is expected to employ a simple strategy: Get out of the way.
As a Trump indictment over the alleged Stormy Daniels hush-money scheme looms from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the White House has publicly been mum.
Privately, aides and allies said that was an intentional strategy to let the news speak for itself while pointing to the importance of accountability and rule of law.
“The White House doesn’t have to do much here,” said one Biden ally who is close to the president’s team. “They need to acknowledge that it’s a serious legal matter and then leave it up to the courts.”
Allies to President Biden say they are aware that Trump’s team will inevitably turn the indictment into a political issue, suggesting that Bragg, a Democrat with connections to the president, is conducting another "witch hunt.”
Indeed, Trump and his supporters have already been doing so, and their effort went into hyperdrive on Saturday when the former president claimed to his followers on Truth Social that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Trump took to the social media platform again and accused Biden of having “stuffed” the district attorney’s office that is probing the case with officials from Department of Justice.
“Biden wants to pretend he has nothing to do with the Manhattan D.A.’s Assault on Democracy when, in fact, he has ‘stuffed’ the D.A.’s Office with Department of Injustice people, including one top DOJ operative from D.C,” Trump wrote on the site without mentioning to whom he was referring.
He also took aim at Bragg, who he said is “taking his orders from D.C.”
Democrats say Biden should not feel compelled to “get in the mud,” as one major Democratic donor put it.
The president can create a contrast with Trump by keeping his head down as the news around the indictment ensues.
“It’s the right thing to do, the opposite of what Trump would have done, and presents the split screen of Trump’s crimes with Biden delivering for the American people,” said Democratic strategist Josh Schwerin. “There is nothing Trump wants more than to have more reason to falsely claim that his legal troubles are a political attack rather than the rule of law.”
At the White House briefing on Monday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refrained from speaking about Trump’s case, citing “an ongoing investigation.
“We do not comment on any ongoing investigations from here,” Jean-Pierre said. “We’ve been very consistent on that.”
Ultimately, Democrats and Biden’s team hope the get-out-of-way strategy will accomplish another goal: It will divide Republicans ahead of a pivotal GOP primary race, in which Trump faces competition from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run for the White House, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who is already in the race.
Former Vice President Mike Pence and others are also expected to join the GOP primary.
“Republicans are going to be split — some will defend Trump, others will seek his base without embracing him,” said Basil Smikle, the former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party who serves as the director of the Public Policy Program at Hunter College. “Both present a good foil for Democrats and Biden.”
So far, Republicans have walked a fine line on the possible impeachment.
On Monday, DeSantis held a press conference where he attacked Bragg, calling him a “Soros-funded prosecutor” while accusing him of “weaponizing” the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
But at the same time, the governor, who did not mention Trump by name, slapped the former president when he said he doesn’t “know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair.”
“I can’t speak to that,” DeSantis added pointedly.
Democrats expect that tone to continue from the Florida governor — and other Republican rivals — as the presidential race heats up.
In that scenario, they say, Biden comes out on top.
“It makes the GOP nomination battle more contentious, which is good for Biden,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon.
In addition, Bannon argued Trump’s potential indictment and trial could galvanize Republicans behind Trump, “who is a lesser threat to Biden than a candidate like DeSantis.”
While allies expect Biden to largely take a do-nothing approach on the potential indictment, allies cautioned that the strategy could change if protests turn violent, as they did during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“They’re not going to talk about it unless they have to talk about it,” the ally said.
President Biden on Wednesday traveled to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to mark 20 years since the creation of the sprawling agency, as its leader, Alejandro Mayorkas, faces a barrage of criticism from Republican lawmakers.
Biden extolled the value of DHS, an agency that has faced its share of controversy since it was formed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to combat terrorism and potential threats against the United States.
The agency has grown significantly in the 20 years since its creation. It now houses more than a dozen government agencies, and its purview includes matters related to immigration, cybersecurity, election integrity and disaster response. The department as a whole has roughly 260,000 employees, Biden noted.
“In the 20 years since DHS began, the world has become more interconnected, more complicated than ever, and new threats are emerging with the incredible advances in technology,” Biden said in prepared remarks. “Some are frightening ... many are reassuring. And yet because of you, America is safer and stronger and is better prepared to meet whatever threat we face.”
But, the agency’s work securing the southern border has been in the spotlight and the target of intense scrutiny during the past two administrations.
The focus on the influx of migrants at the southern border has made it tough for other work of the department to get attention, argued Stewart Verdery, a former assistant secretary at DHS under President George W. Bush.
“Twenty years ago at its creation, DHS was supposed to tackle several equally important missions at all once — aviation security, securing international travel and disaster preparedness. Of course the southern border was part of the equation, but it wasn’t the whole equation,” he said. “But the political focus on migrant flows in this hemisphere by both the right and the left has almost made it impossible for the other missions to get any real attention, especially from the Congress.”
During the Trump administration, DHS was frequently at the center of criticism because of its immigration enforcement responsibilities. Former President Trump largely used the agency to implement his crackdown on the flow of immigrants into the country, and some Democrats during the last administration called for defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is housed within DHS.
Trump also publicly clashed with cybersecurity experts who said the 2020 election had been secure as the former president sowed doubt about the results.
Biden said on Wednesday that the work of DHS is now “even more important” than it has been in its 20 years, rattling off its work, notably including “protecting our air, our land, our maritime borders.”
The department was at the center of a firestorm over an order under Trump to separate migrant families who illegally crossed the border, and the government’s inability to reunite hundreds of those families in a timely manner has lingered into the Biden administration.
The department's secretary, Mayorkas, has been closely scrutinized by Republicans who have complained that he has not done enough to secure the southern border and reduce the flow of migrants. Some Republicans have called for Mayorkas’s impeachment over his handling of the border.
But Biden came to do the defense of Mayorkas, who he nominated, calling him a “true patriot” who “decided his career to protecting and serving the American people, while upholding our nation’s laws and standing up for American values.”
The ceremony on Wednesday also included remarks from Mayorkas, as well as recorded messages from former President George W. Bush and Tom Ridge, the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which was created under Bush's tenure.
“The people who work at DHS come to work every morning knowing their most important job is to protect their fellow citizens," Bush said in a pre-recorded message. "You’ve worked tirelessly and effectively to do just that. I thank you for your service to our country and for the sacrifices you have made in the pursuit of keeping your neighbors safe.”
Three key figures connected to former President Trump are at the intersection of two accelerating Justice Department probes seen as the most viable pathways for a prosecution of the former president.
Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing what began as two entirely separate cases: the mishandling of classified records at Mar-a-Lago and the effort to influence the 2020 election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Several Trump World figures straddle both events, providing prosecutors with what experts say is a potent opportunity to advance both investigations.
Alex Cannon, Christina Bobb and Kash Patel played different roles in the two sagas, but each has been sought by the Justice Department in the documents dispute and has also been called in by the special House committee, now disbanded, that investigated the Jan. 6 riot.
Cannon, a longtime Trump Organization employee, was pulled into campaign efforts to assess allegations of voter fraud and then served as a liaison for Trump with the National Archives as officials there pushed for the recovery of presidential records.
Bobb, a lawyer for Trump’s 2024 campaign, aided in the Trump 2020 campaign’s post-election lawsuits. She later shifted to doing legal work for Trump that culminated in her signing a statement asserting classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago had been returned.
Patel was chief of staff to the secretary of Defense as the Pentagon was grappling with Jan. 6. Trump also named Patel as one of his representatives to the National Archives upon leaving office, and he was later one of Trump’s chief surrogates in pushing claims that the former president declassified the records discovered in his Florida home.
It’s unclear whether any of the trio faces significant legal exposure, but their unique positions could be valuable for Smith, who is racing forward with both cases. In recent weeks, Smith has subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, while securing another batch of materials from Mar-a-Lago.
“Typically, you don't have two separate investigations and two separate sets of possible crimes to work with as you're negotiating. Smith does have that here,” said Norm Eisen, a counsel for Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment who has penned analyses of both cases.
“For him, it's like a two-for-one sale. If he cuts a cooperation deal with some of these individuals, he can advance multiple cases at the same time,” Eisen added.
Patel was granted immunity by a judge and compelled to answer questions in the Mar-a-Lago case after being previously subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury and repeatedly pleading the Fifth. Bobb has also spoken with prosecutors in relation to the case and testified before a grand jury. And the Justice Department is seeking to speak to Cannon about his dealings with the National Archives, The New York Times reported.
“I think that is a potential fruitful avenue for the Justice Department in these cases,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney under President Obama. “Their overlap in the two cases is very interesting, because you could use criminal exposure in one case to flip them in the other case.”
Attorneys for Cannon and Bobb did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, while a spokesperson for Patel declined to comment. The Trump campaign also did not respond to request for comment.
To be clear, other figures also may have insight into the two probes, including Meadows and former deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin. Former White House attorney Eric Herschmann is also reported to have warned Trump about holding records at Mar-a-Lago.
Still, the trove of transcripts released by the House Jan. 6 committee offers a window into three figures who, despite diverging paths, became central in the Mar-a-Lago probe.
Bobb and Patel, who now serves on the board of Trump’s social media enterprise, remain deeply enmeshed with the former president.
Cannon was most recently employed by Michael Best, a law firm that in December severed its ties with several Trump-connected attorneys, including Stefan Passantino, who represented former aides before the Jan. 6 panel. The firm also allowed contracts with Cannon and former Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark to lapse, Bloomberg News reported.
The firm did not respond to a request for comment.
Cannon, who was initially hired to work on contracts for the Trump Organization, expressed hesitation during interviews with the Jan. 6 panel about being pulled into working on fraud issues for the campaign as the pandemic brought hotel operations to a trickle.
“I believe that the only reason I was asked to do this is because others didn't want to. I have no particular experience with election law or anything. I do vendor contracts,” he told the committee.
When asked if he found that work undesirable, he responded, “I'm sitting here right now. Yes, it's undesirable.”
The conversations show Cannon was tasked with evaluating a number of claims from “crazy people,” as he once described it, as well as other claims that dead people may have voted — something he was unable to verify given limitations in voter databases.
He ultimately relayed those concerns to Pence, recounting to the committee in what would become a brief appearance in a hearing that “I was not personally finding anything sufficient to alter the results of the election.”
It was a stance that caught the eye of former Trump adviser Peter Navarro.
“Mr. Navarro accused me of being an agent of the deep state working … against the president. And I never took another phone call from Mr. Navarro,” Cannon said.
Bobb, in contrast, made clear in her interview that she believed there was suspicious activity on Election Day that merited review.
Once a reporter for the far-right One America News, Bobb had come to the network after working as an attorney, including during stints with the Marine Corps. She would later get a master of laws degree from Georgetown University, joining the Trump administration at the Department of Homeland Security after graduation.
While working as a One America News employee, she volunteered her time to the Trump campaign immediately after the election. The arrangement was approved by the network, though the campaign required her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
“There was plenty of evidence to be concerned about fraud,” she said, even if the legal team wasn’t prepared to launch a case on the first day following the election.
“I volunteered and I wanted to look into it because I was concerned about the integrity of my vote, of the country. I think that's why we all got involved. So I don't want you to take my statement and say, Christina Bobb said that in the beginning the legal team knew there was no fraud. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there was plenty of reason to believe there could be fraud.”
Bobb was present in the “war room” at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 6 and was listening in to Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — a discussion she told the panel was “unremarkable.”
The Jan. 6 committee transcripts indicate Cannon and Bobb had no interaction throughout the litigation process, with Bobb saying they did not connect until after President Biden was sworn in. Bobb told investigators she didn’t speak with Cannon until later, adding nothing more when investigators asked if it was on an unrelated matter.
Bobb’s role with Trump on the Mar-a-Lago documents picked up where Cannon left off.
In February 2022, Cannon declined Trump’s request to sign a statement indicating all classified material at Mar-a-Lago had been returned because he wasn’t sure the statement was true, according to reporting from The Washington Post.
Bobb would join the team later, agreeing to sign a declaration given to the Justice Department in June attesting that all sensitive government documents had been returned — with the stipulation that her attestation was “based upon the information that has been provided to me.”
“The contrast between the two as lawyers speaks volumes,” said Josh Stanton, an attorney with Perry Guha who contributed to a model prosecution memo for the Mar-a-Lago case.
“Alex Cannon refus[es] to sign a certification that everything had been turned over where he wasn't able to do himself the diligent work to actually independently verify that, whereas Christina Bobb is in a position where she's told to sign the certification, and is told that that's correct, then just goes ahead and signs it anyway,” he said.
“Whether or not you could actually make out, say, criminal charges against Christina Bobb for signing that certification … it certainly puts her ethically, as a lawyer, in really hot water,” he added.
Patel, who spoke to the Jan. 6 committee after being subpoenaed, began his deposition with an opening statement expressing frustration that the panel did not think he would be cooperative with its investigation.
Patel later answered questions during a lengthy interview after noting privilege concerns, but investigators at times seemed baffled by details the former high-ranking Defense Department official could not remember. Patel struggled to recall specifics about some conversations with Trump and demurred when asked about reported plans near the end of the Trump presidency to install him as head of the CIA.
“I know you guys try to think this is improbable, but I was in one of those positions for a two-year period of time, approximately, where I had many conversations with the president impacting things that I would only read about or watch in movies,” he said.
“So, after a certain period of time, they tend to stack up and you just do the mission,” Patel added.
Patel largely sidestepped questions on whether Trump should have done more to stop the chaos on Jan. 6, but spoke at length about the process for securing assistance from the National Guard and Trump’s approval for the use of as many as 20,000 troops that day.
The committee panned Trump’s inaction as dereliction of duty, and Stanton said Patel’s comments could forecast a response should Trump or others face culpability for Jan. 6.
“Some of the most powerful testimony in the hearings themselves was the sort of hours Trump seemed not to act. And so I think he's previewing what they're going to say, which is, ‘Oh, no, I actually did authorize 10,000 or 20,000 National Guard members to be able to respond,’” he said.
In the Mar-a-Lago probe, Patel repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment rights during his first appearance before a grand jury.
“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Patel told Breitbart News in May.
“The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” Patel said. “I was there with President Trump when he said ‘We are declassifying this information.'”
Trump’s attorneys have not directly backed that claim, though it would not be a bulletproof defense should he face Espionage Act charges, as the law deals with those who mishandle “national defense information.”
The special counsel appears to be ratcheting up the probes in recent weeks, even seeking to pierce the attorney-client privilege of Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s attorneys in the document dispute, arguing his legal advice may have been given in furtherance of a crime.
It’s a move observers say should give warning to other attorneys involved in the probe.
“Any lawyer associated with Donald Trump is at great risk,” Eisen said. “I mean, he's like a neutron bomb for the legal profession.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a new interview that he will not be pushed out of his position amid efforts from some House Republicans to impeach him.
"They will not force me out," he told CNN's Chris Wallace on Sunday's episode of "Who's Talking to Chris Wallace."
Many House Republicans have repeatedly called to impeach Mayorkas, arguing that the secretary does not have "operational control" of the border despite repeated claims the border is secure.
Two articles of impeachment have now been levied against Mayorkas this year, alleging that Mayorkas lied to Congress about having control of the border and that he has failed in his duties to control the border.
The GOP's impeachment case against him is dependent on a 2006 law that states operational control of the border is defined as the prevention "of all unlawful entries." Critics have argued that this definition of operational control was commonly seen as impossible to meet.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called on Mayorkas to resign in November, saying that a House investigation will determine if an impeachment inquiry is warranted. The Department of Homeland Security has previously said that Mayorkas has no plans to resign.
Mayorkas said that he takes calls for his impeachment "seriously" and that he intends to appear before Congress when he is called to.
"I take them seriously," he said. "It is the leadership of the House that provided those remarks. I don't dismiss it by any measure, but what I do is I focus on my work."
He also added that he does not think he has done anything wrong.
"I think it is a disagreement over policy," he said. "And I think it is used for political purposes to continue a negative dialogue about a migration challenge that is not unique to the United States, to continue that dialogue to uplift it for political reasons."
The impeachment of cabinet members has been exceedingly rare throughout U.S. history.
Former President Grant’s secretary of war, William Belknap, was the only Cabinet member to be impeached in history. He resigned in 1876 before he would have been likely convicted for taking kickbacks for appointing a contractor to run a trading post in Oklahoma.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met at the White House on Friday and reflected on how their nations were tested in their respective battles to preserve democracy, with the U.S. president declaring that democracy ultimately “prevailed” over the far-right mobs that stormed their governments’ halls of power in an attempt to overturn election victories.
Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump in a fraught 2020 race, securing victory with thin margins in several battleground states. In Brazil’s recent election, its tightest since its return to democracy over three decades ago, Lula, the leftist leader of the Workers' Party, squeaked out a win against right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who earned the nickname “Trump of the Tropics” and was an outspoken admirer of the former U.S. president.
Both Trump and Bolsonaro sowed doubts about the vote, without presenting evidence, but their claims nevertheless resonated with their most die-hard supporters. In the U.S. Capitol, Trump supporters staged the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection seeking to prevent Biden's win from being certified. Last month, thousands of rioters stormed the Brazilian capital aiming to oust the newly-inaugurated Lula.
“Both our nations’ strong democracies have been tested of late ... very much tested,” Biden said at the start of their Oval Office meeting. “But both in the United States and Brazil, democracy prevailed.”
Lula said that he was moving to restore Brazil on the world stage after Bolsonaro's term.
“Brazil marginalized itself for four years,” Lula said. “His world started and ended with fake news.”
Biden joked that Lula’s complaint “sounds familiar,” an apparent knock on Trump.
Both Biden and Lula sought to spotlight that Brazil’s democracy remains resilient and that relations between the Americas’ two biggest democracies are back on track.
The leaders also discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, insecurity in Haiti, migration and climate change, including efforts to stem deforestation of the Amazon, according to the White House.
During his 2020 run for the White House, Biden proposed working with global partners to create a $20 billion fund that would encourage Brazil to change its approach to the Amazon, and there was speculation that the U.S. administration would use the visit to announce a major contribution. But following the meeting, the leaders said in joint statement that the Biden administration only “announced its intent to work with Congress to provide funds for programs to protect and conserve the Brazilian Amazon, including initial support for the Amazon Fund.”
The Amazon Fund is the most important international cooperation effort to preserve the rainforest, raising donations for efforts to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation and promote sustainability.
The fund has mostly been financed by Norway, and has received a total $1.29 billion. In 2019, Bolsonaro dissolved the steering committee that selects sustainable projects to finance. He argued the rainforest is a domestic affair. In response, Germany and Norway froze their donations. After Lula took office, Germany’s government announced a fresh donation.
Climate was a prominent topic in two recent phone calls between the leaders since Lula's October victory, according to the White House.
After their meeting Friday, reporters asked Lula whether the U.S. would join the initiative. Lula responded that he believes so and that its participation is necessary.
“I didn’t specifically discuss an Amazon Fund. I discussed the need for rich countries to assume the responsibility of financing all the countries that have forests,” he said, specifically noting Brazil then listing its South American neighbors.
But Lula’s biggest objective going into the visit was securing ringing support for the legitimacy of his presidency as unease continues at home. It remains unclear how the animus Bolsonaro generated will be channeled going forward, and some opposition lawmakers allied with the former president are already calling for Lula’s impeachment. Lula sacked the army’s commander, with the defense minister citing “a fracture in the level of trust” in the force’s top levels.
“You have the environment and other stuff, but Lula sitting down with Biden is an exercise in coup-proofing Brazil’s democracy,” said Oliver Stuenkel, an international relations professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university and think tank. “There is still genuine concern in the Brazilian government about the armed forces, and the biggest partner in containing the armed forces is the United States.”
Bolsonaro, who is facing several investigations in Brazil, traveled to Florida during the final days of his presidency and has remained there since. He applied late last month for a six-month tourist visa to extend his U.S. stay. A group of Democratic lawmakers urged Biden to expel the former president on the grounds that the U.S. shouldn’t provide safe harbor to would-be authoritarians.
The White House and State Department have declined to comment on Bolsonaro’s visa status, citing privacy concerns.
Analysts have noted that Bolsonaro’s absence from Brazil is a welcome change for Lula, and he told CNN earlier Friday that he didn't plan to discuss the former president with Biden.
Lula also met with several lawmakers, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and union officials before his meeting with Biden.
“It is enormously important for the future of this planet that we stop the deforestation of the Amazon," Sanders said after his meeting. "Bolsonaro encouraged that in a terrible way. Lula has turned that around, but Brazil is going to need help globally. The issue of the Amazon is not just a Brazilian issue. It’s a global issue.”
Ukraine marked a divergence between the Lula and Biden. Lula previously said the country was as much to blame for the war as Russia, though he more recently clarified that he thought Russia was wrong to invade.
Lula has declined to provide Ukraine with munitions, and he told reporters Friday night that he had proposed to Biden the creation of a group of nations to negotiate peace.
“I am convinced that we need to find a way out to put an end to this war,” he said. "The first thing is ending the war, then negotiating what will happen."
Asked about Lula's proposal, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said it is up to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to determine “if and when negotiations are appropriate, and certainly under what circumstances.”
GOP lawmakers banded together to file an additional resolution that would impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, filing a second bill to do so less than a month into the new Congress.
The resolution filed Wednesday comes after its sponsor, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), promised a resolution with “even more justification” than a first resolution filed immediately after the Speaker’s race concluded.
Biggs called Mayorkas “chief architect of the migration and drug invasion at our southern border” in a press release announcing the move and argued the uptick in migration is a result of a “willful and intentional” violation of Mayorkas’s oath of office.
But Biggs’s efforts clash with those in the party who say impeachment should follow a thorough inquiry, a promise House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made in November when he said the GOP would “investigate every order, every action” to determine whether to begin an inquiry.
“We made the argument that impeachment was rushed — the second impeachment — and I think that’s not who we are as a party,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) previously told The Hill in reference to the second impeachment of former President Trump.
He said it’s the committees of jurisdiction that should be leading the inquiry.
“We need to have hearings on this and we need to gather evidence and facts and, look, do I think the guy has done a terrible job? Yes,“ McCaul said. “Do I think he’s been derelict in his responsibilities? Yes. But we need to get all this together, and do it in a methodical way.”
Biggs's resolution is largely based on the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which requires the Homeland Security secretary “take all actions the Secretary determines necessary and appropriate to achieve and maintain operational control” of the border.
But the law, true to its name, primarily deals with fencing. It says the the secretary should weigh operational control for the border in regards to both surveillance and “physical infrastructure enhancements.”
Only one Cabinet member has been impeached in history — former President Grant’s secretary of war, William Belknap, who was accused of taking kickbacks from a contractor he appointed to run the trader post in Fort Sill, Okla. Belknap resigned before facing an almost-certain Senate conviction, a fate that’s unlikely to play out with Mayorkas given the Democratic majority in the upper chamber.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) didn’t immediately respond to request for comment, but the agency has previously noted Mayorkas has no plans to resign.
“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people. The Department will continue our work to enforce our laws and secure our border, while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” DHS said after the introduction of the first resolution.
“Members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else; they should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which they have not updated in over 40 years.”
Norm Eisen, a former Obama White House ethics lawyer, said Wednesday it's “more likely than not” a special counsel will be assigned to investigate classified documents found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s residence.
During an appearance on “CNN Newsroom,” host Abby Phillip asked Eisen, a legal analyst for the network, if the Justice Department would deploy a special counsel in Pence's case, as it has for former President Trump and President Biden.
“Abby, there’s no question the pressure is on Attorney General Merrick Garland to treat the Pence case as he treated the Biden and the Trump cases," Eisen told Phillip.
“But it's not assured that we're going to have a special counsel because, as the attorney general said yesterday, what DOJ does is try to look at every case on the facts and on the law,” Eisen added. “We need to know more details about Pence. It's more likely than not that we are going to get a third special counsel to look at the Pence situation.”
Eisen was also a co-counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during then-President Trump’s first impeachment trial.
His remarks come a day after officials confirmed that classified documents were found at Pence’s Indiana residence, with his attorney, Greg Jacob, writing in a letter that Pence’s team notified the National Archives the week prior about the discovery of a small number of documents at the former vice president's residence.
Pence’s attorney added in his letter to the Archives that his client was “unaware of the existence of sensitive or classified documents at his personal residence.”
In a Truth Social post, Trump said that his former vice president is “an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!”
“Politically, this makes it difficult if not impossible for the GOP to criticize Biden, w/out damaging Pence; the situations look very similar,” tweeted Joyce White Vance, a law professor and legal analyst on MSNBC.
The White House blasted Republicans on Tuesday, accusing them of hypocrisy with how they’ve handled the separate controversies surrounding classified documents found at President Biden’s garage and office and former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
In a call with reporters, White House aides accused the GOP of engaging in “political theater” by attacking Biden while giving a free pass to Trump.
“The president and his team have been fully cooperating, acting responsibly and ensuring that this is handled properly,” said Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel's Office. “You’ve seen something far different emerging among elected Republicans. What are they doing? They’ve decided that it’s time for more political stunts and theater.“
The call was set up after a difficult week for the White House that found Democrats struggling at times to explain why documents had been taken to Biden’s garage and office, and why the public hadn’t been told about them until Jan. 10 — when the news first broke about the discovery.
The White House first discovered that classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president had been taken to the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 2 — before the midterm elections and after Biden and other Democrats had blasted Trump over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago found earlier in the year.
The White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives of the discovery days later and the Archives then notified the Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week appointed a special counsel to look into the issue after Garland had previously appointed a special counsel to look into the Trump classified documents matter.
On Tuesday, days after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) asked if the White House had a visitor log for Biden’s Wilmington, Del., residence, Biden’s team sought to go on offense by accusing the GOP overreaching on the issue.
Comer, in an interview with CNN, also called Biden’s residence a “crime scene” after the classified documents were discovered at Biden’s home.
Sams and others say the GOP fury over the found Biden documents stands in sharp contrast to the more blasé reaction many Republicans had to the discovery of classified documents at Trump’s home.
Democrats also have argued the two situations are very different because of the level of cooperation Biden has sought to maintain in alerting the Archives to the discovery. Trump, in contrast, largely stiff-armed the Archives, they say.
In addition, the documents at Mar-a-Lago were in a Florida estate where hundreds of guests come and go for social occasions.
“They’re faking outrage even though they defended the former president’s actions,” Sams told reporters on Tuesday.
White House aides and allies pointed to the irony of Comer’s remarks in August when he brushed off Trump’s possession of classified materials.
“What I’ve seen that the National Archives was concerned about Trump having in his possession didn’t amount to a hill of beans,” Comer told Newsmax at the time.
In November, Comer also told CNN that a House investigation into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents would “not be a priority.”
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who served as the chief investigator in the first impeachment of Trump, told The Hill it’s “just the latest example of House Republicans abusing their oversight authority and demanding things they have argued against in the past.
“The American people are tired of Republican hypocrisy and Chairman Comer is not off to a good start, he said.
Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist and the director of the public policy program at Hunter College, said Republicans like Comer were “willing to shield Trump from any public of governmental scrutiny while he was president but are hypocritically intent upon using all available congressional power at their disposal to unpack Biden’s life, shame him and discredit Democrats.”
In many ways, White House officials and their allies are happy to have this fight with Republicans, allies say because they are taking the bet that Trump’s baggage on this issue is worse than their own and has the potential of backfiring.
White House allies say Republicans will have a tough time explaining why Trump held on to the documents and then resisted the FBI. Biden, on the other hand has fully cooperated with the Department of Justice and the appointed special counsel.
“It’s ludicrous,” one Democratic strategist close to the White House said of the GOP.
“Do they really want to go there?" said one Democratic strategist close to the White House. "Didn't their guy have many more documents at his home? Didn't he try and stop people from taking them back?”
Republicans have used the controversy to blunt Biden’s trajectory weeks ahead of his expected announcement for reelection. They’ve sought to use the episode to paint Biden as corrupt.
“The Biden are just a Delaware version of the Sopranos,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on Twitter.
Republican strategist Doug Heye said it’s fair game.
“Congress tends not to deeply investigate a White House of the same party,” Heye said. “That was true of Democrats last Congress and of Republicans under Trump.“
And he predicted that the controversy wouldn’t backfire on the GOP.
“This cuts at Biden’s argument that he and his team of pros won’t make the mistakes Trump and his Addams Family team made — on something Biden specifically criticized. And when Democrats say, but Trump was worse, well, okay but now you’re talking degrees and if you’re explaining you’re losing.”
Former President Trump responded Monday to the breaking news that the Justice Department is reviewing classified documents from President Biden’s tenure as vice president that were found last fall in a private office Biden had previously used.
“When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified,” Trump said on his Truth Social account, sharing an article on the document discovery from CBS News.
The Obama-Biden era documents were found by the president’s attorneys while clearing out an office he used when he served as an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, according to Biden’s special counsel Richard Sauber.
Biden’s legal team notified the National Archives, which took possession of the materials, Sauber said. The documents are now reportedly being looked at by the U.S. attorney general for Chicago, with cooperation from the White House.
Trump was referring to the FBI’s execution of a search warrant last summer at his Mar-a-Lago residence, where investigators found more than a hundred classified documents kept past his time in the White House.
Trump is now under investigation for his handling of the classified materials.
“We were told for months that this was treasonous… grounds for impeachment... & meriting the death penalty, yet I have a feeling nothing will happen!?” wrote Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter, retweeting the CBS article.
Notably, Biden’s team notified the Archives and turned over the documents upon discovery, while Trump apparently kept classified materials even after requests from the Archives to return them.
The Presidential Records Act requires that presidential and vice presidential records be turned over to the National Archives at the end of a given administration for preservation and to protect classified material.
A growing number of Republican lawmakers are criticizing President Biden for freeing a Russian arms dealer to secure WNBA star Brittney Griner’s release, and for failing to free former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan in the deal.
The administration had also sought the release of Whelan, who was arrested in Russia in 2018 on spying charges that he vehemently denies, but Biden on Thursday said Moscow is “treating Paul’s case different than Brittney’s.”
Republicans quickly issued statements expressing relief at Griner's release while condemning the president for snubbing Whelan. Many of the GOP lawmakers also expressed worry the deal would incentivize Moscow to imprison Americans in the future for leverage.
"The Biden administration has allowed Viktor Bout, a dangerous arms dealer who was convicted of conspiring to kill American law enforcement, to walk free,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, said in a statement.
“This move to appease Vladimir Putin will only encourage further hostage taking by Russian security forces. While I welcome the release of Brittney Griner, I cannot help but think about Paul Whelan — as he has apparently been abandoned by the Biden administration,” Rogers added.
Biden said on Thursday his administration will "never give up” on securing Whelan's release.
Bout was serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, kill U.S. employees, transfer and use of anti-aircraft missiles and support of a designated terrorist organization.
He has been accused of running massive arms shipments to sanctioned regimes in African and Middle Eastern countries, earning him the nicknames “Merchant of Death” and “Sanctions Buster.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who introduced impeachment articles against Biden last year, said the swap marks another reason to push for his removal from office.
“Biden just returned the ‘Merchant of Death,’ an international arms dealer convicted of conspiring to kill Americans, to Putin and left former Marine Paul Whelan, who has been unjustly detained for over four years, to rot in a Russian prison,” wrote Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House.
“Biden's now aiding both sides of the war,” Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), who will succeed Banks in the role, wrote in a retweet of Banks’s post.
Whelan himself spoke with CNN on Thursday from Russia, saying he was happy that Griner was released but adding he felt "greatly disappointed" that more had not been done to secure his freedom.
“My prayers are with Brittney Griner and her family as they heal from this,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) wrote on Twitter. "I hope Brittney continues to use her platform to keep the pressure to bring former Marine Paul Whelan home. Leaving Paul in Russia to Putin's whim would be a disgraceful abdication of Biden's leadership.”
Scott's home-state colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), tweeted, “It is a bitter pill to swallow that Mr. Whelan remains in custody while we release the ‘Merchant of Death’ Viktor Bout back to Russia.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed relief at Griner’s release while criticizing the continued detainment of Whelan and Marc Fogel, an American teacher detained in Russia for allegedly possessing 17 grams of medical marijuana in violation of Russian law.
“Unfortunately, the Biden Administration’s handling of this situation leaves behind other Americans, like veteran Marine Paul Whalen and teacher Marc Fogel,” Rubio wrote.
“What’s more, Putin and others have seen how detaining high-profile Americans on relatively minor charges can both distract American officials and cause them to release truly bad individuals who belong behind bars.”