UFO whistleblower to go before House panel

Posted on July 24, 2023 (Updated July 24, 2023) by Mychael Schnell

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

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

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

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

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

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

House panel to hold hearing on UAPs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mayorkas to testify before House Judiciary Committee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

House kicks off appropriations process on floor

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

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

More from The Hill

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

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

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

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

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

House could vote on resolution to censure Santos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Senate continues NDAA consideration

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

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

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

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

Capitol Hill braces for third Trump indictment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on July 24, 2023 (Updated July 24, 2023) 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.

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

Posted on July 24, 2023 (Updated July 24, 2023) by Emily Brooks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More from The Hill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mychal Schnell contributed.

Pelosi: McCarthy is ‘playing politics’ with support of expunging Trump’s impeachments

Posted on July 23, 2023 (Updated July 23, 2023) by Miranda Nazzaro

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday she believes Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is "playing politics" with his support of expunging former President Trump's two impeachments.

"We had no choice, [Trump] must be impeached," Pelosi told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." "Kevin is, you know, playing politics. It's not even clear if he constitutionally can expunge."

McCarthy told reporters last month he supports erasing Trump's impeachments because one was "not based on true facts," and the other was "on the basis of no due process."

"Well, [Trump] was impeached because we had no choice," Pelosi said Sunday. "He had undermined our national security, jeopardized our well being of our country."

Pelosi also called the idea of expunging the impeachments "not responsible."

"This is about being afraid," Pelosi said. "As I've said before, Donald Trump is the puppeteer. And what does he do all the time to shine light on the strings? These people look pathetic."

During her time as Speaker, House Democrats impeached Trump twice — once in 2019 for his abuse of power when he threatened to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv investigated his political rivals, and again in 2021 for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Republicans in the Senate acquitted Trump in both instances.

Frustrated lawmakers demand answers on UFOs

Posted on July 23, 2023 (Updated July 23, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Senior lawmakers are increasingly demanding that military and other government officials provide them with information about intelligence on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).

The demands reflect frustrations on the part of some lawmakers that they are being kept in the dark about what’s known about UFOs and UAPs.

The lawmakers do not necessarily believe the government is hiding signs of extraterrestrial life from the public and congressional oversight. But they are frustrated they are not learning more about unknown objects flying in restricted U.S. air space.

“My primary interest in this topic is if there are … object[s] operating over restricted air space, it’s not ours and we don’t know whose it is, that’s a problem that we need to get to the bottom of,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“If there’s an explanation for it that’s being kept from Congress, then we need to force the issue. We’re not getting answers,” Rubio told The Hill.

The Senate has adopted an amendment to an annual defense bill that would require the federal government to collect and disclose all records related to UFOs and UAPs unless a special review board determines they must be kept classified.

The amendment was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, and is backed by Rubio and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the Armed Services subcommittee on emerging threats, as well as Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.), a former Marine intelligence officer, and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).

Rubio, the top-ranking Republican on the intelligence committee, has more access to classified information than the vast majority of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He said he suspects there are records related to unidentified aerial phenomena that are being kept secret from congressional oversight.

“Right now, what I know is reliable people tell us that and we’ve seen objects operating over restricted military and national security airspace. They claim it’s not ours. They claim they don’t know whose it is. That’s like the definition of a national security threat,” he said.

“Either there’s an answer that exists and is not being provided, or there is no answer. Beyond that, I don’t want to speculate anything,” he added.

Rubio said he was familiar with the claims of David Grusch, a career intelligence officer who worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He claims the federal government has retrieved “non-human origin technical vehicles” that have landed or crashed on Earth.

“We have a number of people including that gentleman who have come forward both publicly and privately to make claims,” Rubio said.

“One of two things are true. Either A, they’re telling the truth or some version of the truth or B, we have a bunch of people with high clearances and really important jobs in our government are nuts. Both are a problem. And I’m not accusing these people of being nuts. That said, that’s something we’ll look at and continue to look at seriously,” he said.

Interest in the subject is also reflected by this week’s House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday on UAPs and UFOs.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who is chairing the hearing, says lawmakers will hear testimony from Grusch, as well as former Navy Cmdr. David Fravor and former Navy pilot Ryan Graves.

Burchett claimed on a podcast this month that the federal government has known about UFOs for decades and “they can fly underwater and don’t show a heat trail,” appearing to defy the laws of physics.

Congressional sources familiar with efforts to gain more information from the Defense Department and intelligence agencies say UAPs and UFOs are being detected more frequently because of improvements in military sensor technology.

The Department of Defense released three Navy videos in 2020 that show objects flying in extraordinary ways and capturing confused and awe-struck comments of Naval aviators who witnessed the phenomena.

Grusch, who describes himself as a whistleblower, says senior intelligence officers have told him they participated in a secret UAP task force, though he says he has not personally witnessed nonhuman intelligence. He says he was retaliated against when he tried to gain more information about the program.

Rubio said “we don’t know” if such a program exists and what evidence it might have collected.

“Without speculating or adding to intrigue about this whole topic, there’s no doubt that in this field, generally, there’s more than what we know,” he said. “We’re trying to get to a process where at least some people in Congress do know.”

Asked why he suspects there’s more for Congress to know about UAPs, Rubio said “there’s pieces of puzzles that don’t fit.”

“Most certainly there are elements of things, whether historic or current, that potentially Congress has not been kept fully informed of — and that would be a problem,” he said. “There’s really no function of the executive that shouldn’t require congressional oversight at some level.”

The language in the Senate defense bill would require the National Archives and Records Administration to create a collection of records related to UAPs across government agencies that would be declassified for public use.

“UAPs generate a lot of curiosity for many Americans, and with that curiosity sometimes comes misinformation,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

Most lawmakers are extremely reluctant to say they suspect aliens from other solar systems are visiting Earth because there isn’t any undisputable evidence of such visits in the public domain.

Also, the nearest star to planet Earth is 40,000 billion kilometers away, making it seem impossible that any alien craft could travel the distance necessary to span solar systems. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is so far away that it would take the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which travels at 17.3 km per second, 73,000 years to reach it, according to NASA.

It’s also hard to fathom that a foreign adversary such as China possesses such advanced technology that it can fly aerial vehicles in ways that appear to defy the laws of physics, as U.S. military personnel have observed of UFOs or UAPs.

Rounds said he has seen “no evidence personally” that extraterrestrial craft are visiting the planet but said, “I know that there’s a lot of people that have questions about it.”

“It’s just like with JFK and the [1963] assassination. We set up separate archive for that or central collection place for all that data, which I think gave the American people a sense of security that there was a location where it was being held. This is following that same approach,” he said.

The White House announced late last month that the National Archives had concluded its review of documents related to the assassination of former President Kennedy and that 99 percent of the relevant records had been made publicly available.

Asked about whether he personally believes military personnel and sensors are encountering extraterrestrial visitors, Rounds said: “I don’t think you can discount the possibility just simply because of the size of the universe.”

“I don’t think anybody should say that they know for certain either way,” he said. “If we simply refuse to acknowledge there’s even a remote possibility, then we’re probably not being honest.”

“Some of the items we simply can’t explain,” he said of the Naval videos of UAPs.

Republicans release FBI form with unverified Biden-Burisma allegations

Posted on July 20, 2023 (Updated July 20, 2023) by Emily Brooks

Republicans Thursday released a copy of an unverified tip to the FBI alleging a scheme to bribe President Biden — a tip that has not been corroborated but is nonetheless fueling GOP investigations into the Biden family.

The information, memorialized in an FD-1023 form documenting interactions with a confidential informant, was released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Oversight Republicans who threatened to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress amid efforts to review and obtain the document.

The tip revolves around an allegation long pushed by former President Donald Trump involving then-Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden and a Ukrainian prosecutor.

While carrying out Obama administration policy that had been coordinated with European allies, then-Vice President Biden argued that Ukrainian prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was corrupt and threatened to withhold $1 billion in funding to Ukraine unless Shokin was fired.

Others in the international community likewise pushed for Shokin’s dismissal.

Hunter Biden at that time was on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which was the subject of an investigation under the prosecutor's office.

There has never been hard evidence that now-President Biden called for Shokin’s ouster in order to help his son. Some reports have said that the investigation was, in fact, dormant by the time Biden called for Shokin’s ouster. But Trump’s insistence that Ukraine investigate the matter or risk the loss of U.S. aid led to his first impeachment in 2019.

The FD-1023 form released Thursday details secondhand allegations that Burisma’s CEO and founder Mykola Zlochevsky thought having Hunter Biden on the board could help insulate the company from its problems with the prosecutor, that Zlochevsky sent millions of dollars to President Biden as well as Hunter Biden and that two recordings about the matter exist that involve President Biden.

Those key details in the form are not verified or corroborated.

It all comes from a confidential FBI source — previously described by both Republicans and Democrats briefed on the matter as credible — who had spoken to Zlochevsky and other Burisma executives over a few occasions. The source could not give an opinion on the veracity of Zlochevsky’s statements about Hunter Biden.

Democrats have also released information collected during the first impeachment effort that included a conversation purported to be with Zlochevsky that contradicts the information relayed in the FD-1023 form.

The White House has vigorously denied any wrongdoing stemming from the matter.

“It is remarkable that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years and that they themselves have cautioned to take ‘with a grain of salt’ because they could be ‘made up,’” Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, said in a statement.

“These claims have reportedly been scrutinized by the Trump Justice Department, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, and a full impeachment trial of the former President that centered on these very issues, and over and over again, they have been found to lack credibility,” Sams continued.

“It’s clear that congressional Republicans are dead set on playing shameless, dishonest politics and refuse to let truth get in the way. It is well past time for news organizations to hold them to basic levels of factual accountability for their repeated and increasingly desperate efforts to mislead both the public and the press.”

The FBI also admonished the lawmakers for sharing the letter.

“We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,” the FBI said in a statement.

“Today’s release of the 1023 — at a minimum — unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”

In a June letter obtained by The Hill, the FBI warned Comer and the Oversight Committee about releasing the file publicly as they chose to do Thursday.

“Consistent with our agreement, Committee Members were provided an admonishment prior to reviewing the document that the information contained within the subpoenaed FD-1023 could not be disseminated outside of the House sensitive compartmented information facility. The Committee and its Members were specifically told that ‘wider distribution could pose a risk of physical harm to FBI sources or others,’" the FBI wrote in the letter to Comer.

“We are concerned that Members disregarded the Committee’s agreement that information from the document should not be further disclosed.”

But House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said that the form backs up his committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings.

“In the FBI’s record, the Burisma executive claims that he didn’t pay the ‘big guy’ directly but that he used several bank accounts to conceal the money. That sounds an awful lot like how the Bidens conduct business: using multiple bank accounts to hide the source and total amount of the money,” Comer said in a statement.

The FBI’s confidential human source — identified as "CHS" in the document — reported that during a meeting at Burisma’s offices in late 2015 or early 2016, Burisma Chief Financial Officer Vadim Porjarskii said that Hunter Biden was hired to be on the board in order to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

Porjarskii provided no further or specific details about what that meant.

About two months later, the FBI source attended another meeting in Vienna, Austria, in 2016 with Burisma executives to talk about acquiring a U.S.-based oil and gas company.

“CHS told Zlochevsky that due to Shokin’s investigation into Burisma, which was made public at the time, it would have a substantial negative impact on Burisma’s prospective [initial public offering (IPO)] in the United States. Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, Hunter will take care of all those issues through his dad,’” the form said. “CHS did not ask any further questions about what that specifically meant.”

McCarthy denies he promised Trump vote on expunging impeachments

Posted on July 20, 2023 (Updated July 20, 2023) by Mychael Schnell

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday denied making a promise to former President Trump that the House would vote to expunge his impeachments, shooting down a report that said the GOP leader pledged the vote as a way to temper tensions with the former president.

“There’s no deal,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday, “but I’ve been very clear from long before when I voted against impeachments, that they did it for purely political purposes.”

“I support expungement, but there’s no deal out there,” he added.

His comments contradict a Thursday morning report from Politico Playbook that McCarthy assured Trump that the House would vote to erase his impeachments, citing a source close to Trump and familiar with the conversation.

In the report, the vow was characterized as part of the Speaker's effort to reconcile with Trump in the wake of an interview late last month that landed him in hot water with the former president; McCarthy had said he was unsure if Trump was the “strongest” person to beat President Biden in 2024.

McCarthy launched a cleanup effort within the same day as the initial comment, telling the conservative Breitbart News in a subsequent interview that Trump is “Biden’s strongest political opponent,” sending out a fundraising blast with the same message and, according to The New York Times, calling the former president for a conversation that two sources characterized as an apology.

According to Politico, though, Trump wanted an endorsement from McCarthy following the squabble, which the Speaker was not willing to offer, as he seeks to stay neutral in the primary. Instead, a source told the outlet, McCarthy promised that the House would vote to expunge his impeachments.

McCarthy later communicated, through aides, that he would hold the vote before August recess — which is set to begin next Friday — according to Politico, but he recently told the former president's team that the vote will happen by the end of September, the outlet noted.

Either of those deadlines, however, would be difficult for McCarthy to meet. The House from now through September is working on spending bills for the annual appropriations process, with a Sept. 30 deadline looming. The process is already the source of disagreements within the GOP conference.

Even if McCarthy were to bring the expungement resolutions to the floor for a vote, it is unlikely that they would garner enough support to pass. The vote would push purple-district Republicans into a tough spot politically, and likely turn off others who are unsure if expungement is constitutionally possible.

A number of GOP lawmakers Thursday signaled hesitance to expunge the impeachments, with one House Republican — who said their views “represent a fair number of principled conservatives” — saying they would likely oppose any effort to erase the punishments.

“I have every expectation I’ll vote against expungement, and I have every expectation that I will work to bring others with me,” the lawmaker said, noting that they communicated that position with leadership.

More from The Hill

McCarthy voiced support for expunging both of Trump’s impeachments last month, telling reporters that one of the rebukes “was not based on true facts” and the other was “on the basis of no due process.” He said it was “appropriate” to expunge them “because it never should have gone through.”

The House — led by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in late 2019, in response to his threat to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless leaders in Kyiv launched an investigation into Joe Biden, his political opponent. No Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the punishment.

Then, in early 2021, the House impeached Trump for a second time following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, penalizing him for “incitement of insurrection.” That time around, 10 Republicans voted to impeach. Just two — Reps. Dan Newhouse (Wash.) and David Valadao (Calif.) — are still in Congress.

In both cases, Republicans in the Senate acquitted Trump.

Immediately after the Capitol riot, McCarthy took to the House floor and declared that Trump bore “responsibility” for the violence.

But when it became apparent that the Republican Party was remaining loyal to Trump, he reversed his stance, meeting with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida a few weeks later. He later claimed that Trump did not “provoke” the attack.

The renewed discourse over the expulsion resolutions came the same week that Trump disclosed that he was informed that he is a target in the Justice Department’s investigation into his efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election, including the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He said he received a “target letter” Sunday night, which is often a sign that someone could soon be charged.

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are leading the effort to expunge Trump’s impeachments; Greene sponsored the resolution relating to the first impeachment, relating to Ukraine, and Stefanik is taking the lead on the second, pertaining to Jan. 6.

This story was updated at 6:18 p.m.

Kevin McCarthy made another stupid promise that’s coming back to bite him

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Laura Clawson

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is bad at this. The frantic bargaining he did to squeak into the speakership after 15 rounds of voting set the stage for how he would perform in the role he wanted so badly, and the answer is … badly. This is a man so weak that anytime anyone gets mad at him, he offers up a major concession that will just cause him more problems down the road. And he’s done it again.

Politico reports that after McCarthy dared to suggest Donald Trump might not be the strongest Republican presidential candidate, not only did McCarthy grovel publicly for Trump’s forgiveness, he made another of his foolish promises. McCarthy promised Trump a House vote on expunging his two impeachments, and Trump plans to hold him to it, reminding him of the promise every time the two men talk.

Trump is already angry that McCarthy has refused to endorse him so far. Add to that his anger at McCarthy’s late-June comment—“[t]he question is, is he the strongest to win the election; I don’t know that answer”—and McCarthy is on thin ice. If he doesn’t give Trump that impeachment expungement vote before August recess, as he reportedly promised, all bets are off.

Trump apparently thinks having his two impeachments expunged would in some way counterbalance the dozens of criminal charges he faces, with more expected soon. This is about as ridiculous a thing as Trump has ever thought, which is saying something.

But there are significant dangers to holding such a vote—dangers like losing the vote. “I’m for Trump,” an unnamed “senior GOP member” told Politico. “The problem is: If you have an expungement, and it goes to the floor and fails—which it probably will—then the media will treat it like it’s a third impeachment, and it will show disunity among Republican ranks. It’s a huge strategic risk.”

Republicans have a mere five-seat majority in the House, and two current Republican members voted to impeach Trump the second time. There are a total of 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for President Joe Biden. While the pattern is for those people to complain loudly to the media about what a terrible position they’re being put into by being forced to take votes on unpopular things like impeaching Biden, they usually fall right in line when it’s time to vote. But it wouldn’t take many of them to sink the vote.

Additionally, Politico reports, “there’s the clutch of constitutionally minded conservatives—who, we are told, have privately voiced skepticism that the House has the constitutional authority to erase a president’s impeachments.” Again, however many of these people actually exist, most of them will fall in line. But with such a small majority, it doesn’t take many defections to turn the vote Trump is demanding into yet another disaster for him.

McCarthy, meanwhile, has once again put his pathetic failure of leadership on display. If he holds the vote, he puts many of his most vulnerable members in a difficult position and risks embarrassing himself and Trump if the vote fails. If he doesn’t hold the vote, Trump is going to put him on blast or extract another equally or more damaging promise from him.

Five takeaways from Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower hearing

Posted on July 20, 2023 (Updated July 20, 2023) by Rebecca Beitsch

Republicans and Democrats sparred over the significance of the tax crimes investigation into Hunter Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday that featured two IRS whistleblowers, with the GOP arguing the president's son was spared from true justice while Democrats argued he was thoroughly investigated by a team formed under the former president and led by a Trump-appointed attorney.

IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler and his supervisor, Gary Shapley, who investigated Biden, expressed frustration over how U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss and other prosecutors handled the investigation, alleging authorities slow-walked the case and showed preferential treatment to the president’s son.

The House Ways and Means Committee had previously interviewed the two whistleblowers privately and released transcripts just days after prosecutors reached an agreement for Biden to plead guilty to two charges of willful failure to pay taxes.

The nearly six-hour hearing relayed little information not already covered in the nearly 400 pages of testimony from the two men, with the whistleblowers saying they could not answer questions outside the scope of that testimony.

But the hearing was revelatory about how both sides of the aisle could use that testimony.

Here are five takeaways from the hearing.

Democrats say testimony shows common disagreements

Democrats largely sought to cast the whistleblowers' complaints as common disagreements between investigative staff and prosecutors, who often have reservations about scoring convictions on evidence discovered by staff.

Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the testimony showed a “traditional tug-of-war” between investigators and prosecutors, using as an example the recent indictment of former President Trump on charges of mishandling classified documents, where prosecutors focused on a small number of alleged crimes even though investigators said they found more violations.

Shapley, though, pushed back on that assertion, saying that assistant U.S. attorneys and attorneys in the Department of Justice (DOJ) tax division had agreed with a number of recommended charges, but not all were ultimately pursued.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) similarly argued that investigators and attorneys often view a case differently.

“I never met an agent who didn't want to charge every possible case. But what I noticed in five hours of testimony today is that neither one of you has ever mentioned a portion of the case that may not be so strong, or may be suspect or may have a defense,” Goldman said, referencing his work as a prosecutor.

“And that's because that's what the prosecutor has to think about before charging a case.”

Ziegler testified that Weiss offered a rationale for not pursuing charges for some tax years, worried that testimony about Biden’s personal life at that time could sour the changes of conviction.

Democrats also argued that, contrary to the whistleblowers’ assertion, it sounded like Biden’s tax history was subject to a rigorous review by investigators and prosecutors.

More on the hearing from The Hill

“It sounds like Hunter Biden's taxes were subject to a great deal of scrutiny and rigorous review by a large team of expert investigators who had experience working complex cases. … The time, personnel and all the resources devoted to this investigation make it abundantly clear that this investigation was taken seriously by both the IRS and DOJ,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

“While our witnesses here today may disagree with the U.S. attorney's decisions, it is undeniable that Hunter Biden was subject to a thorough and rigorous investigation.”

Jordan accuses Weiss of changing his story

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

Republicans' recent interest in impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland centers on a key detail from Shapley’s testimony: Weiss, he said, sought and was denied special counsel status as he attempted to bring charges outside Delaware, with U.S. attorneys in other jurisdictions allegedly being opposed to him bringing charges on their turf.

Weiss has said he never asked for special counsel status — and says he was assured he would be granted special attorney status through another statute if he wished to file charges outside his district.

Weiss has outlined in both a June 7 letter and a July 10 letter that he has “never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.”

But House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who also sits on the Oversight Committee, mischaracterized the letters, arguing that Weiss “change[d] his story.”

“What happened in between those two events?” Jordan said of the letters. “Your testimony went public. He goes, ‘Oh, my goodness, I gotta change my story, because now the truth is coming out.’”

Weiss’s second letter includes more detail about his dealings with DOJ leaders, saying he was assured he would be granted special attorney status if needed well in advance of the meeting where Shapley asserts he said otherwise.

“When you look at the letters he actually sent, he didn't change his tune at all. He said the exact same thing every time, and he even expanded the answer to be perfectly clear," Raskin said.

Whether Weiss had interest in either of the two statuses is largely of interest to Republicans as a way to forward a potential impeachment inquiry into Garland, as he assured lawmakers that Weiss had “full authority … to bring cases in other districts if he needs to do that.”

Shapley undercuts Garland impeachment effort

Shapley also undercut another key factor fueling the GOP’s interest in impeaching Garland, saying he has no evidence that Garland intentionally misled Congress about Weiss’s authority.

“Let me be clear, although these facts contradict the attorney general's testimony and raise serious questions for you to investigate, I have never claimed evidence that Attorney General Garland knowingly lied to Congress,” Shapley said Wednesday.

“This for others to investigate and determine whether those letters contain knowingly false statements. ... I don't claim to be privy to United States Attorney Weiss’s or Attorney General Garland’s communications.”

Democrats suggested that the whistleblowers may have been confused over two statuses prosecutors can attain — appointment as a special counsel, versus the special attorney status Weiss was assured he could receive if desired.

Ziegler in his testimony asserted he still believes a more independent status is needed by those handling the investigation.

“I still think that a special counsel is necessary for this investigation,” he said.

Greene overshadows hearing with ‘parental discretion advised’ moment

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the hearing came when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) brought sexually explicit — but censored — posters of Hunter Biden in to make her point.

“Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home that parental discretion is advised,” Greene said.

Greene’s questioning included her holding up small posters featuring graphic sexual photos from the laptop hard drive that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden, censored with black boxes.

The faces of others involved in the sexual acts were censored with black boxes, but Biden’s face is visible in the photos.

Her focus on the explicit and salacious history of Biden, who has been public about his struggles with addiction, stands in contrast to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer's (R-Ky.) past indications that the focus of the committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings would not focus on his personal actions.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Greene's move to show "pornographic images" marked "a new low" for the committee.

"Frankly, I don't care who you are in this country, no one deserves that. It is abuse. It is abusive," she said.

Democrats argue GOP distracts from injustice for Black and brown individuals

Several Black lawmakers directly challenged Republican claims that the Biden plea deal shows a two-tiered system of justice, saying the argument minimizes the experiences of Black and brown Americans disproportionately impacted by the justice system.

“I'd like to address the way my Republican colleagues are attempting to co-opt the phrase ‘two-tiered justice system’ to make it sound like Trump and his cronies are somehow the victims here,” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said.

“The reality is that the term two-tiered system of justice is meant to refer to the very real system that exists in the United States, and which affects Black and brown folks, not powerful former presidents and their political allies.”

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) listed off a number of statistics on disparities in the criminal justice system, including within IRS, asserting that Black taxpayers are audited at least three times more often than other taxpayers.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) also said Republicans were using the term improperly.

“Republicans and Trump complain about a two-tiered justice system, co-opting the language of the decades-long civil rights movement for Black lives and Black freedom, a movement that they actually are actively looking to eliminate. There is a two-tiered justice system, but it's not about Democrats vs. Republican,” he said, before listing off a number of recent and historical examples, including those killed by police.

“It's Black, brown and poor people versus everyone else. And I won't accept when Republican politicians look to appropriate the language of the movement for Black lives and civil rights, to fit a political agenda to defend Donald Trump.”

McCarthy defends Trump: ‘I don’t see how he could be found criminally responsible’

Posted on July 19, 2023 (Updated July 19, 2023) by Mike Lillis

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is defending former President Trump for his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, saying Trump had encouraged a peaceful protest that day — but did nothing to merit the criminal charges the Justice Department (DOJ) is said to be weighing.

“I don’t see how he could be found criminally responsible,” McCarthy told reporters Wednesday in the Capitol. “What criminal activity did he do? He told people to be peaceful.”

The Speaker’s comments came a day after Trump revealed he is a target of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the Capitol rampage, which was conducted by supporters of the former president who were attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The so-called target letter is typically an indication that a formal indictment is forthcoming.

McCarthy’s defense of Trump marks a contrast to remarks he made shortly after the Capitol attack, when he took to the House floor to declare that Trump “bears responsibility” for the actions of the “mob rioters.”

McCarthy said he spoke to Trump Tuesday after the former president placed a call to him, and that the conversation “wasn’t anything different than the time before.” He noted that they “talk on a regular basis” but also suggested Trump was frustrated with the arrival of the target letter.

“Wouldn’t you feel frustrated?” McCarthy said.

McCarthy disputed reports that the call was a “strategy session” designed to unite Republicans behind a response to potential indictments, instead accusing the Biden administration of conducting such sessions for the purpose of targeting the president’s political adversaries.

“I think the strategy sessions happen in the Democrats’ Department of Justice, where they go after anybody who’s running against the president,” McCarthy said. “It seems as though — and if you go up in the polls you’re more likely to get indicted.”

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), one of Trump’s fiercest supporters on Capitol Hill, also said she spoke to the former president Tuesday following news of the target letter, before tearing into the development as “yet another example of the illegal weaponization of the Department of Justice to go after Joe Biden’s top political opponent.”

The comments came on the same day that House Republicans staged a high-profile hearing with a pair of IRS whistleblowers who accused DOJ prosecutors of slow-walking an investigation into Hunter Biden. Both McCarthy and Stefanik said the real criminal conspiracy lies there, not with anything Trump did surrounding Jan. 6.

“I would move to an impeachment inquiry if I found that the attorney general has not only lied to the Congress and the Senate, but to America,” McCarthy said, referring to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

McCarthy’s full-throated defense sets up a stark contrast with his GOP counterpart in the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who declined to comment on the Trump news when asked about it at a press conference Wednesday, citing the former president’s reelection campaign.

“I’ve said every week out here that I’m not going to comment on the various candidates for the presidency,” McConnell told reporters. “How I felt about that I expressed at the time, but I’m not going to start getting into sort of critiquing the various candidates for president.”

After the Senate concluded its impeachment trial into Trump following the Jan. 6 riot, McConnell tore into the former president in remarks on the floor, declaring, “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” he added.

Since then, McConnell has remained relatively silent when it comes to matters involving Trump, picking and choosing when to weigh in on politically charged matters linked to the former president.