Category: Don Bacon

McCarthy unites fractious GOP with impeachment talk

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) flirtation with impeaching President Biden is pleasing the right wing of his conference while not scaring moderates, keeping his fractious conference together while setting up the real possibility of a third presidential impeachment in less than five years.

The increased talk of impeachment comes as the GOP dives further into investigations of Hunter Biden, who on Wednesday saw his plea agreement get placed on hold after a federal judge questioned the scope of the deal.  

The drive also has heavy political implications, with attacks on Biden and his family being fertile ground ahead of the 2024 election, especially with the economy rebounding in a way that could help the White House.

But going too far poses the risk of turning off swing-district voters and endangering moderates in McCarthy’s conference. Those members back investigating Biden, but they might not support an impeachment vote. 

McCarthy’s efforts so far have threaded this needle as he insists that he will never pursue impeachment for “political purposes.”

“The Speaker has said that there may be an impeachment inquiry. That is not impeachment,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who represents a district Biden won in 2020. “That is Congress continuing its responsibilities to look into the issues that have been raised.”

“Are they producing enough facts and evidence that warrant taking it to the next step? I don't think it's there at the moment. But these committees are doing their job,” Lawler said.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), another swing district Republican, said an impeachment inquiry effort poses an electoral risk “if it looks like it's rushed and we're not doing due process and due diligence.”

“But if we're very thorough about it. … I think the voters will feel differently,” Bacon said.

In a closed-door conference meeting Wednesday, McCarthy put no timeline on starting an impeachment probe and urged members not to overstate the evidence obtained so far, according to several GOP members.

Conservatives who have been pushing for the impeachment of Biden administration officials generally offered support for McCarthy’s approach as they try to pull the Speaker to the right on a host of other policy and spending matters.

“I don’t think there’s any question that him speaking to that has caused a paradigm shift,” said Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said of McCarthy floating an impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy and other Republicans point to numerous issues they see stemming from information compiled from IRS whistleblowers who allege prosecutors slow-walked the Hunter Biden tax crime investigation, and from financial records they obtained that show President Biden falsely denied his family made money from China.

“Let's just say there's a whole hell of a lot of smoke, and our job is to present the fire,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), adding he would support an impeachment inquiry against Biden.

Not all conservatives are pleased, though. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) sees impeachment talk as a distraction from the right flank’s push to get McCarthy to agree to lower spending levels in appropriations bills.

“This is impeachment theater,” Buck said on CNN Wednesday. “I don’t think it’s responsible for us to talk about impeachment. When you start raising the 'I' word, it starts sending a message to the public, and it sets expectations.”

Republicans have not proven President Biden was part of any of Hunter Biden’s business activities, interfered in his criminal case, or directly financially benefited from his son’s foreign business dealings. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has repeatedly said the president “was never in business with his son.

And Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, tweeted on Monday night that McCarthy was focusing on impeachment inquiry “instead of focusing on the real issues Americans want us to address like continuing to lower inflation or create jobs.”

McCarthy suggested a potential impeachment inquiry could not center directly on those issues, but instead on the Biden administration’s cooperation with the House GOP probes.

“If the departments in government, just like Richard Nixon used, deny us the ability to get the information we’re asking, that would rise to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said on Tuesday.

Republicans also argue the weight of a formal impeachment inquiry would give the House more power to get the information it seeks from its various investigations.

“If we don't have access to the information, then you do have to escalate the oversight of the House,” Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), another Biden-district Republican, echoed after a GOP conference meeting on Wednesday.

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said that when he was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee setting up impeachment of former President Donald Trump four years ago, his theory that an impeachment inquiry would give more weight to enforcing subpoenas did not pan out.

“We thought that it puts the weight of the House behind the request, not just the weight of a committee,” Nadler said. “It didn’t work.”

Democrats are scoffing at the GOP impeachment effort. Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison suggested McCarthy’s interest in impeaching Biden was a way for him to do the “bidding” of Trump — though McCarthy told reporters Tuesday he had not talked to the former president about a potential impeachment inquiry.

“I don't think that they've been prevented from getting information that they want. I think the biggest problem they have is all of the information that they've gotten does not support their overreaching and unsubstantiated conclusions and allegations,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.). “He is using that as an excuse to start an impeachment inquiry without any evidence of wrongdoing.”

And while the House GOP conference is largely lining up behind McCarthy as he floats impeachment for now, there is potential for frustrations to flare if members resist efforts to move forward on an actual inquiry in the future.

“At this point, I don't know how there can’t be support for it. Any Republican that can't move forward on impeachment with all the information and overwhelming evidence that we have — I really don't know why they're here, to be honest with you,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). 

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

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More from The Hill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Democrats, meanwhile, are not sympathetic. 

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

Emily Brooks contributed.

McCarthy feels the heat as frustrated conservatives grow more aggressive

Posted on (Updated by Mike Lillis

Six months into the new Congress, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is increasingly bending to the demands of the conservative fringe of his GOP conference, a dynamic highlighted this week by his surprise threat to impeach U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The Speaker has, to an extent, been successful in disarming his conservative detractors through the first half of the year, winning their support in January’s race for the gavel and sidelining them more recently in adopting must-pass legislation to raise the debt ceiling.

But frustrated conservatives are getting more aggressive, threatening to tank federal funding bills and risk a government shutdown while pushing harder to force the impeachment votes GOP leaders have sought to avoid. 

The dynamics reflect the bald political reality of governing with a tiny and restive House majority, one in which the conservative distrust of the Speaker runs deep and GOP leaders have little room for defections when their legislative priorities come to the floor. 

The result has been that McCarthy is compelled, more and more, to act on the demands of the small but pugnacious group of conservative firebrands who have threatened his Speakership from the first days of January and are vowing to exert their leverage to obtain their legislative objectives.

“I am maybe not on his Christmas card list,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), former head of the far-right Freedom Caucus, of his antagonistic relationship with the Speaker.

McCarthy has gradually responded to the conservative demands simply by conceding to them. 

In recent weeks, the Speaker has catered to his right flank by targeting next year’s spending at levels below those outlined in the bipartisan debt limit deal. He’s endorsed a resolution to censure Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) after an initial vote splintered the GOP. He’s swallowed a vote to impeach President Biden — even if only to punt the issue to committee.

He’s championed resolutions to expunge the two impeachments of former President Trump. And most recently, he’s adopted a harder line on the ouster of cabinet officials, like Garland.

“If the allegations from the IRS whistleblowers are proven true through House Republican investigations, we will begin an impeachment inquiry on Biden's Attorney General, Merrick Garland,” McCarthy tweeted Tuesday. 

That position is a major shift for the Speaker, who has been cold to the idea of rushing into impeachments this year, warning against politicizing the process and arguing for the conclusion of congressional investigations before launching any impeachment proceedings. But impatient conservatives have other ideas. 

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) last week forced the vote on Biden’s impeachment and is threatening to bring it to the floor again if the committees of jurisdiction don’t act quickly enough for her liking. 

“I would hope that it would be this year — and very soon,” Boebert said as Congress left Washington last week for a long July Fourth recess.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has introduced impeachment articles targeting at least four administration officials, including Biden and Garland, and is warning she’ll use special procedures to fast-track those bills to the floor. 

And Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said this week Garland might be just the start.

“It’s hard to keep up with it all,” Roy told WMAL radio on Monday. 

“We gotta look into [Alejandro] Mayorkas,” he continued, referring to the Homeland Security secretary. “We gotta look into Biden himself. We gotta look into Hunter Biden. … The American people deserve an administration that is not above the law and lawless.”

Even more pressing than impeachment has been the internal GOP battle over deficit spending. McCarthy, as one of the many concessions to his conservative critics in January, vowed a push to cut next year’s spending back to last year’s levels — a reduction of roughly $120 billion below the spending caps agreed upon in the debt ceiling deal.

McCarthy, backed by Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger (R-Texas), is vowing to make good on that promise, targeting 2024 spending at 2022 levels. But the conservatives are skeptical, accusing the Speaker of using budget “gimmicks,” known as rescissions, to claim savings that won’t materialize. 

“One place I’m pretty firmly planted is, we had an agreement on fiscal year 2022 discretionary spending levels as a fundamental component of the Speaker’s contest and the agreement that resolved that. I believe that needs to be honored,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.). 

“I don’t know how, precisely, we’ll get it resolved.” 

Opposition from only a handful of conservatives would be enough to block the Republicans’ appropriations bills, raising the likelihood McCarthy will have to slash 2024 spending even further — at least in the initial round of House bills — and heightening the odds of a government shutdown later in the year, when Senate Democrats inevitably will oppose those cuts. 

In the eyes of Democrats, McCarthy has become captive to a small conservative fringe for the sake of retaining his grip on power. 

“The Speaker is catering to an extreme element in his caucus, and I don’t even think the majority of his caucus agrees with that position,” Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), head of the New Democrat Coalition, told reporters last week. 

Democrats are not the only critics. The conservatives’ threat to oppose their party’s spending bills is also frustrating more moderate Republicans and leadership allies, who say the hard-liners are ignoring the political reality of a divided government. 

“When it’s all said and done, you're gonna end up with the debt ceiling agreement,” said centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). “Because the Senate’s not gonna go more conservative, and we’re not gonna let them spend more.”

Complicating McCarthy’s balancing act has been the candidacy of Trump, who remains the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination despite a long trail of legal and ethical troubles, including recent indictments over his handling of classified documents. 

In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday morning, McCarthy, who has not endorsed a 2024 candidate, raised the question of whether Trump is the strongest Republican contender to challenge Biden next year. The remarks reportedly sparked an outcry, forcing McCarthy to shift gears and hail the former president’s recent poll ratings. 

“Just look at the numbers this morning,” McCarthy told Breitbart News several hours later. “Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016.”

Mychael Schnell contributed.

House Republican says Trump should not have kept classified documents

Posted on (Updated by Julia Mueller

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) on Sunday said former President Trump should not have kept classified documents at his Florida residence after his term in the White House ended, despite the former president's claims that he had a right to keep them.

"We don't have a right to take top-secret information to our home. I've dealt with top secrets since I was 22 years old, in the military for 30 years now, and now in Congress. You don't show our attack plans on Iran to people who are not cleared, or pick documents that talk about our nuclear technology or where our intelligence resources are located throughout the world," Bacon said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"And that's what happened there. And when the government asks for them back, you give them back. And if you deny having them, but then you have them, those are crimes."

The Nebraska lawmaker was responding to a clip of Trump during the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s conference over the weekend when he incorrectly stated that a president “has the absolute right to take" documents, and "has the absolute right to keep them or he can give them back to [National Archives and Records Administration] if he wants and talks to them like we were doing and he can do that if he wants.” 

Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges after a federal indictment alleged that he kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home after his time in office and that he resisted the government's efforts to recover them.

Asked on Sunday why many in the Republican Party have rallied around Trump over the materials, Bacon suggested that they are looking at the Trump case in the context of the classified documents found in the keeping of Trump's former vice president Mike Pence and President Biden, "but the situations are different," he said. Most notably, both Pence and Biden returned the documents when requested by the government.

The DOJ concluded its investigation into Pence over the materials and will not bring charges. Special counsel Robert Hur is probing the Biden documents, which were found by the president's attorneys.

Bacon on Sunday also suggested some Republicans may "see or perceive ... inconsistencies" in the context of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was investigated over her use of a private email server while in office. The FBI declined to charge her in the matter.

"But two wrongs don't make a right. You can't have hundreds of top secret information and be showing our attack plans on Iran to non-cleared people. I think, again, our party does best when we stand on the rule of law, the truth of the principles that made our party strong. And if we walk away from that, we'll be weakened in the short run, for sure," Bacon said.