Category: House

How a GOP Congress could try to impeach a Biden Cabinet member

Posted on (Updated by Rafael Bernal

Republicans have vowed to use the full power of the House of Representatives if they take control in November, threatening everything from shutting down investigations into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol to impeaching President Biden and his cabinet secretaries.

While Republicans are all but certain to terminate the select committee on the Jan. 6 attack, it's less clear whether they'll risk the political uncertainties of an impeachment trial.

But if they take the plunge, their sights will be on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In a letter to Mayorkas last week, GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) explicitly threatened impeachment over the secretary's "gross dereliction of duty" in managing the U.S.-Mexico border.

That missive followed an April letter led by the Republican Study Committee and signed by 133 House Republicans that avoided explicitly calling for impeachment, but laid out the case for Republicans to raise immigration policy differences to the level of impeachable offenses.

"Your actions have willingly endangered American citizens and undermined the rule of law and our nation's sovereignty. Your failure to secure the border and enforce the laws passed by Congress raises grave questions about your suitability for office," wrote the lawmakers.

The Constitution allows for impeachment of the president and other “civil officers” for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

But it's unclear what is meant by "high crimes and misdemeanors," and impeachment is understood to be an essentially political act – a Senate would need very little substantial cause to convict an official impeached by the House.

"With my political scientist hat on, I'd say what counts as a high crime or misdemeanor is what you can get two thirds of the Senate to vote to convict on. And that in itself, it's not a substantive standard. It's a procedural one," said Josh Chafetz, a professor of law at Georgetown University.

But Chafetz added that's a "very high bar," since it would require significant buy-in from the president's party.

And while technically there are no limits – other than whip counts in both chambers – to what behaviors Congress can interpret as "high crimes and misdemeanors," precedent does set some boundaries.

“The Constitution provides for impeachment in the case of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors — not for political revenge or partisan retribution," said David Rapallo, director of the Federal Legislation Clinic at Georgetown Law.

That reading still leaves space for debate as to what constitutes grounds for conviction under impeachment.

"There's been a debate about whether there must be a statutory code violation of a crime to impeach. The general view is that it doesn't necessarily have to be a criminal act under the statutory code, but rather an abuse of power in some way,” said Rapallo.

The Republican case against Mayorkas lies largely on high migrant apprehension and drug interdiction numbers at the southwest border.

U.S. officials encountered 2,150,639 immigrants entering the country without prior authorization in the first 11 months of fiscal 2022, breaking the record for encounters in a year.

And fentanyl seizures continue to rise, as Mexican drug cartels abandon other drugs for the cheaper-to-produce synthetic opioid.

If the GOP takes control of the House, they will almost certainly bring down the hammer on Mayorkas through congressional oversight, but Republicans seem eager to raise the specter of impeachment.

In their letter, Graham and Cruz accuse Mayorkas of aggravating conditions on the border, in part by attempting to end policies put in place under the Trump administration, namely construction of the border wall; the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as "Remain in Mexico"; and Title 42, a policy to quickly expel foreign nationals under the guise of pandemic protections.

While the Department of Homeland Security halted border wall construction shortly after Biden took office, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials announced a plan to return to construction sites in the Sonoran Desert to resume construction of some segments of the wall.

But Graham and Cruz zeroed in on Mayorkas' attempts to end MPP, which are tangled up in the courts.

"Your expedited and repeated rejection of President Trump's successful Migrant Protection Protocols … demonstrates your willingness to embrace an open-borders agenda that undermines America's safety," they wrote. 

"You have been specifically instructed by the court to implement the protocol in good faith or take new agency action that complied with the law. You have done neither."

While the Biden administration was originally directed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to continue MPP's implementation "in good faith," the case was returned to a lower court after the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration's plans to end the policy.

A lower court lifted the order to continue implementing MPP and DHS has been winding the program down.

"In short, MPP is over for now, although there is confusion surrounding its ending," reads a post on MPP's current state of affairs on the American Immigration Lawyers Association blog.

That distinction could blunt the GOP senators' call for impeachment.

"The traditional story we tell about impeachment in America is that it doesn't apply to just bad policy. It's not about maladministration, but rather, it's about malfeasance or nonfeasance," said Chafetz.

And historical precedent is on cabinet members' side when it comes to impeachment.

The only cabinet member ever impeached was 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, Oklahoma.

While most historians agree the accusations against Belknap were credible, he avoided conviction in his 1876 impeachment trial because he resigned on the same day he was impeached.

Like President Nixon nearly a century later, Belknap chose to resign rather than face almost certain conviction in the Senate, although the House did pass Belknap's articles of impeachment.

“If it were something like Richard Nixon — that era where his own party was telling him what was coming, and it would be better for him to resign than go through that process — he chose to resign, and after that occurred, they didn't go forward,” said Rapallo.

The precedent that being out of office obviates an impeachment conviction was reinforced in 2021, when Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial after leaving office.

Because of that precedent, any official facing probable impeachment conviction is more likely to resign than to become the first executive officer convicted by the Senate.

"​​​​I just don't see any way they would get to 67 [Senate votes] based on what we've seen now," said Chafetz.

"Now, again, if it turns out tomorrow that some member of the cabinet has a freezer full of cash that they got from a foreign government, sure. But of course in that situation, they'd almost certainly resign or be fired," he added.

Conversely, Biden and his cabinet are unlikely to yield in an impeachment trial they can win, even if the proceedings disrupt an official's duties.

"If you're Biden, it's a short term-long term trade off, because maybe the department can get a move on with business, but the Republicans have successfully claimed a scalp and what's to prevent them from going after the next cabinet official?" said Chafetz.

And if Republicans do take the House, their leadership ranks will have their hands full controlling an ideological and outspoken caucus.

While at least two separate articles of impeachment have been filed against Biden by Republican lawmakers in the current Congress, GOP leadership has not invested political capital in those bills.

Any GOP impeachment of Biden risks being seen as a tit-for-tat over the two Democratic impeachments of Trump, and that protection could extend to cabinet secretaries.

“The Constitution doesn't provide for impeaching a cabinet secretary because you think impeaching the president is too much politically,” said Rapallo.

And dragging immigration into a constitutional controversy could backfire for Republicans.

“It's well known that the Republicans were close to agreeing on legislation related to immigration, but changed their minds and haven't been interested in solving the problem since then,” said Rapallo.

“So on one hand, to walk away from the effort to legislate, and then on the other, to go after the cabinet secretary who's charged with implementing the laws is a little rich, I would say.”  

House GOP promises vengeance on Democrats for doing good stuff while in power

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

House Republican candidates are ostensibly running on issues this fall. Odious chair of the House Republican Conference and Rep. Elise Stefanik insisted as much in a Fox interview this weekend. “Republicans are going to fight on behalf of the American people to help save America, to focus on economic issues, to rein in the spending that’s driving our inflation, to unleash American energy independence to lower the price of gas, energy, home heating bills. So there’s a lot that the average American family is concerned about. Republicans have solutions and legislation ready to move in the first 100 days,” she said.

They don’t, actually. They have a snazzy website and a one-page “Commitment to America” memo, a summary of platitudes like “support our troops,” “exercise peace through strength with our allies to counter increasing global threats,” “recover lost learning from school closures,” and “uphold free speech.” And, of course, “rigorous oversight.” All of which really means tax cuts (and defunding the IRS again, which effectively means more tax cuts) and investigations.

Here’s a 100% guaranteed promise for all investigations, all the time. Here’s Rep. James Comer, who is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee and thus the guy who will get the chair if Republicans take over.

Hunter Biden and the Biden Family have peddled influence across the globe to enrich themselves at the expense of American interests. It’s clear that Joe was involved. The question is: to what extent? We will get that answer for the American people. @MorningsMaria pic.twitter.com/HNgIwRQiZ9

— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) October 10, 2022

Don’t let them do it. Please give $1 now to each of these 12 races where Democrats are fighting to flip GOP seats in the House this year!

Campaign Action

It’s all about vengeance. It’s been all about vengeance since the nation had the temerity to elect a Black man to the White House and that president was able to do big stuff, like lower millions of people’s health insurance costs. The good news is that after 12 years, the Republicans have finally abandoned Obamacare repeal. (Mostly.)

House Republicans who never managed to actually come up with a health care alternative to the Affordable Care Act and whose only real accomplishment when in the majority has been tax cuts for the rich have one skill: holding a grudge and making political hay out of it. Democrats impeached Trump? Republicans will impeach President Joe Biden, whether he actually did anything or not.

And not just Biden—they’ve already filed 14 impeachment resolutions against Biden as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Five of them have come from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, most recently seen riling up a MAGA crowd with fascistic, dangerous rhetoric: “Biden’s 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, your jobs, and your kids in school. Coming from all over the world, they’re also replacing your culture.”

Don’t think because Greene is a dangerous whack-job she doesn’t have sway in the Republican caucus. She was sitting right up front when House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unveiled his “commitment” in Pennsylvania last month. “I’m going to be a strong legislator and I’ll be a very involved member of Congress,” she told the Associated Press. “I know how to work inside, and I know how to work outside. And I’m looking forward to doing that.”

The feckless McCarthy has already given in to her, clearly. So if the House does flip to Republicans, he’s going to need her and the other MAGA crowd to hang on to leadership. One Democratic aide put it bluntly and graphically in a Politico interview: “Those members will have his balls in such a vice grip that when they say ‘jump’, he’ll say ‘how high’, and it’ll be too late before he realizes the fall will kill them.”

That assessment was essentially confirmed by Comer. When he was asked recently about whether there was going to be caucus pressure to impeach Biden, he answered, “I’m not under pressure, because that’s gonna be McCarthy’s job.”

Don’t let Marjorie Taylor Greene become the puppet master in charge of the House of Representatives. Help keep the House in Democratic hands.

RELATED STORIES:

After an eruption of even more scandals among Republican Senate candidates, FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich returns to The Downballot this week to discuss the effect these sorts of scandals can have on competitive races; whether Democrats stand a chance to keep the House; and the different ways pollsters create likely voter models.

Embedded Content

McCarthy lied to the police officers who protected him on Jan. 6, trying to absolve Trump

Posted on (Updated by Joan McCarter

Kevin McCarthy, would-be House speaker, lied to two of the police officers who helped save his skin on Jan. 6. He lied to the mother of an officer who died after the attack, telling them last year that the person who commanded Trump’s violent followers to march to the U.S. Capitol had no idea at all what they were doing. He also took credit for Trump’s eventual public statement asking rioters to “go home.” One of the attendees, then-D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, recorded the meeting and has shared that recording with CNN.

McCarthy met with Fanone, U.S. Capitol Officer Harry Dunn, and Gladys Sicknick, the mother of late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, in June 2021. Fanone recorded the meeting because as he told CNN, “was because I didn’t expect Kevin McCarthy to, No. 1, tell the truth; No. 2, recount the conversation accurately; and No. 3, I wanted to show people how indifferent lawmakers are, not just Republican lawmakers, but all lawmakers, to the actual American people that they are representing.” D.C. has single-party consent for recordings—what Fanone did is completely legal.

The three had been pressing McCarthy to meet with him after House Republicans had begun to try to downplay what had happened that day and McCarthy himself had started to bow to Trump’s pressure and back off his pledge to allow Republican participation on the Jan. 6 committee. Fanone writes in a new book just being launched, “The only reason McCarthy had agreed to meet with us was because he’d been getting heat for refusing to see me.”

We can’t let this liar and Trump sycophant anywhere near the speaker’s seat. Your donation to these Democratic House candidates can help hold the House.

“I’m just telling you from my phone call, I don’t know that he did know that,” McCarthy told the three, speaking about his call to Trump and Trump’s knowledge of the attack. Sicknick’s mother pushed back in the meeting, according to the audio. “He already knew what was going on,” she said of Trump. “People were fighting for hours and hours and hours. This doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Fanone also challenged McCarthy about his continued defense of Trump: “While you were on the phone with him, I was getting the shit kicked out of me!” He wrote in his book, “I asked McCarthy why he would take credit for Trump’s pathetic, half-hearted late-afternoon video address to his followers. I said, ‘Trump says to his people, ‘This is what happens when you steal an election. Go home. I love you.’ What the f–k is that? That came from the president of the United States.”

Subsequent revelations in public testimony to the Jan. 6 committee proved just how brazenly McCarthy lied to the officers and Mrs. Sicknick.

Jan 6 committee interviews reveal that Rep. Kevin McCarthy told Donald Trump to call off the rioters but Trump turned him down, saying: ‘Well Kevin, I guess they’re just more upset about the election theft than you are’ pic.twitter.com/NBolF2CCYL

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 22, 2022

Campaign Action

In those hearings, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified about her own telephone conversations with McCarthy that day, conversations which McCarthy now says he doesn’t remember having. “You told me this whole week you aren’t coming up here,” Hutchinson said that McCarthy told her. “Why would you lie to me?” She responded that as far as she knew, there weren’t plans for Trump to go to the Capitol. McCarthy answered, “Well, he just said it on stage, Cassidy. Figure it out. Don’t come up here.”

Months before McCarthy met with the officers, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, McCarthy had no problem blaming Trump for the riot. In audio obtained by The New York Times, McCarthy told fellow Republicans that he wanted Trump to resign as they discussed impeachment. “I’ve had it with this guy,” he told a group of his leadership team. “What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” he told the group. That’s what he was saying before he made a call to Trump, when he told the group that he was going to tell Trump to resign.

That didn’t go as planned, according to more recording the Times obtained. Following that call, McCarthy told Republicans on a conference call: “Let me be very clear to all of you, and I have been very clear to the president: He bears responsibilities for his words and actions. [...] No if, ands or buts.”

“I asked him personally today: Does he hold responsibility for what happened?” McCarthy said. “Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.”

Five months later, McCarthy told the officers who protected him that day and the mother of an officer who died as a result of that attack that Trump had nothing to do with any of it. Kevin McCarthy is a liar. And a bad one. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson about watching what he says in private meetings, given his track record in that whole pre-2016 election scandal: “There's … there's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump… [S]wear to God.” 

We have to save the world from Kevin McCarthy. No, really

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Since Jan. 20, 2021, House Republicans have been plotting what they would do after the 2022 midterms, with historical precedent favoring them to retake the House. Their fever dreams are full of impeaching President Joe Biden and anyone and everyone in the cabinet for anything or everything, bogus investigations, and even defunding the FBI.

That’s all ridiculous and time-consuming and really detrimental to the nation, because while they’re doing all that, stuff that needs to be done is being ignored. But a few things they could do—and are already plotting—are downright dangerous. Like potentially refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Biden unilaterally surrenders to them.

That’s the thing that’s got “GOP leaders, congressional aides and business groups” in a lather, according to Axios, fearing the “nightmare scenario” of a Speaker Kevin McCarthy who has absolutely no control over his caucus of conspiracy theorists. One former GOP House member told Axios that former Republican Speaker John Boehner “was convinced of the necessity [of raising the debt limit] and was willing to twist arms. I just don’t know about a Speaker McCarthy.”

Everything is too important to let Kevin McCarthy get anywhere near making decisions about. Help us keep the House out of his hands, to save the world.

Campaign Action

Part of the problem is that McCarthy is weak; he’s just not up to standing against the dangerous extremists in the GOP caucus. The other problem is that he’s pretty damned dim. It is entirely possible that McCarthy has absolutely no grasp of how things like global financial systems work, and what happens when the biggest player steps out and refuses to pay its debts. Maybe he thinks the catastrophic outcomes have been overstated.

Maybe he thinks it’s just Democratic propaganda, even when it’s explained in very simple, short words. Here’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spelling it out when Republicans were making threats in November 2021:

“In a matter of days, millions of Americans could be strapped for cash. We could see indefinite delays in critical payments. Nearly 50 million seniors could stop receiving Social Security checks for a time. Troops could go unpaid. Millions of families who rely on the monthly child tax credit could see delays. America, in short, would default on its obligations.”

As of now, the next time we bump up against that ceiling looks to be about a year from now, in the fall of 2023. The man who decided back in 2011 that taking the debt ceiling hostage was a good idea is playing coy now, having unleashed that monster on the world. Asked about it by Axios, whether it “will indeed be among the first orders of business he’d raise with a Speaker McCarthy, McConnell smirked.”

The thing about McConnell, though, even then, was that it’s a hostage you can take, one “that’s worth ransoming,” but not one to actually shoot. That’s a distinction that the new order of Republicans, in the thrall of Trump, won’t necessarily make. Or understand. Or care about. But McConnell unleashed this on the nation, and here we are. Even though team McConnell is frantically trying to revise the history.

Rohit Kumar, McConnell’s former deputy chief of staff during the 2011 debt limit fight and now PwC’s national tax services co-leader, countered: “Thinking that you can credibly threaten the full faith and credit of the federal government in exchange for some collateral demand is just wish casting.”

Collateral damage was precisely what McConnell was going for, up to a point. Now that he’s unleashed this thing, he doesn’t have the power to rein it back in. He can talk to McCarthy all he wants about not actually shooting the hostage, but that doesn’t mean it’ll take. Particularly when McConnell’s on the losing side of the GOP civil war, with you-know-who poised to be running for the White House again and agitating against him.

All of which means Democrats have to hold the House. For all sorts of very good reasons, Democrats need to keep the House and Senate both.

It sucks that we have to be the ones to save Kevin McCarthy and the world from Kevin McCarthy, but that’s the way it is.

We have an even shot at keeping our House majority, but only if enough Democrats turn out to vote. Click to start writing Postcards to Democratic-leaning voters in targeted House districts today.

RELATED STORIES

This week on The Downballot we check in on Pennsylvania, where Republican Doug Mastriano has called for "40 days of fasting and prayer" to save his ailing campaign for governor; dig into ad spending numbers that show Democrats airing far more spots because they aren't relying on super PACs; and recap the dispiriting results of Italy's general election, which saw the far-right win for the first time since Mussolini.
Embedded Content

Lawmakers furious at Democratic leaders after stock trading ban stalls

Posted on (Updated by Tobias Burns

Anger is boiling over at House Democratic leadership for failing to deliver on a bill to ban members of Congress from trading stocks — a key priority for voters on both sides of the aisle — ahead of the midterm elections.  

Democratic leaders unveiled draft legislation to tackle the issue Tuesday, just days before Congress was set to leave for an extended recess. That left lawmakers little time to review the bill or offer changes, such as closing loopholes that critics say make the bill toothless, dooming its chances of a floor vote. 

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) on Friday issued a scathing statement, accusing Democratic leaders of slow-walking her own stock trading proposal — introduced two years ago with bipartisan backing — and ultimately offering a more complicated bill that was designed to fail. 

“This moment marks a failure of House leadership — and it’s yet another example of why I believe that the Democratic Party needs new leaders in the halls of Capitol Hill, as I have long made known,” Spanberger said in her statement.  

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Friday that the bill didn’t come to the floor because it didn’t have the votes to pass.  

The delay is a momentous setback for the stock trading reform effort, which drew a rare confluence of support from an overwhelming majority of Republican and Democratic voters.  

Public scrutiny of lawmakers’ trades intensified when Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) unloaded much of his portfolio after attending a private briefing on the devastating impacts of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic. Pelosi, whose husband is a prolific trader, also drew backlash when she said she wouldn’t support a ban on stock trading in Congress, a position she later reversed. 

“Passing a stock trading bill before the midterms would have been a good faith sign to the voters that Congress takes its responsibility to the public interest seriously,” said Danielle Caputo, an ethics lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center. “And so obviously, that's disappointing.” 

The Combatting Financial Conflicts of Interests in Government Act, spearheaded by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) at the request of Pelosi, aims to prevent insider trading among members of Congress, federal government officials and Supreme Court justices. 

The bill is meant to stop insider trading by making officials put any stocks they own into what’s called a blind trust, whereby the stocks are handed over to a third party that manages them without their owner’s knowledge. 

But critics of the bill say that it contains a loophole that allows officials to get out of this requirement. 

“The problem is that the bill allows people to create a trust that they can claim is blind and diversified, and yet it doesn’t actually have to meet the criteria that are currently in the law for it to officially be a blind trust,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, an advocate with The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit watchdog organization.  

Congressional ethics committees, notorious for failing to hold lawmakers accountable for violating existing ethics rules, would sign off on the blind trusts under the proposal.  

“It’s basically a fake blind trust,” he said. “We don’t have that much trust in what the ethics committee is going to do because they’re notoriously weak in doing anything that’s particularly restrictive or robust around what happens internally.” 

Critics of Democratic leaders’ approach say that the stock trading bill should have stuck to the legislative branch, and that including ethics reforms to the judiciary and federal government only complicated its chances of passage. Those changes could have come in future bills, they said. 

Lawmakers complained this week that the Lofgren bill was not crafted with input from many rank-and-file lawmakers, particularly Republicans.  

“This is a complex issue requiring thought, debate, amendment and a full airing in committee to build as much bipartisan agreement as possible rather than the normal cram-down from the top that permeates literally everything we do,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who partnered with Spanberger on a stock trading bill, said in a statement Wednesday. 

House Judiciary Committee member Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said in an interview that he suspects that many members of his committee haven’t had time to properly review the legislation. 

“I would suppose there are many members who have not actually read the legislation. And it’s certainly an important enough issue that we need to take adequate time to deliberate on it. We know that stock trading by members of Congress and by judges — Article III judges — is unacceptable,” he said, referring to judges who are nominated by the president and can only be removed from office with impeachment proceedings. 

A recent analysis by The New York Times found that one-fifth of U.S. lawmakers traded financial assets in industries that relate to their work on government committees in recent years.  

A 2012 law called the STOCK Act forbids members of Congress from using insider information when buying and selling stocks, but watchdogs say violations of the law are common. 

“We keep seeing STOCK Act violations,” POGO’s Hedtler-Gaudette said. “We see them time and time again. And they’re not even assessing penalties on the people who are violating the STOCK Act.” 

The proposed stock trading ban in the House is one of several bills now being debated in the Senate from lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). 

Upon hearing the news of the stalled bill Friday, Hawley tweeted, "Pathetic. This should be a slam dunk."

"Congress AND their spouses from owning stock. But no. Pelosi & Company won’t give up the $$$$," he continued.

The proposals from Hawley and Ossoff allow for stocks to be put into blind trusts, while the bipartisan measure from Warren and Daines is more strict and requires that stocks be sold off outright. 

Supporters are still hopeful that lawmakers can finish a stock trading bill in a lame duck session after the election. But they note that there will be less pressure on lawmakers to appease voters, and Congress will already have its hands full with a slew of legislative priorities, including a government spending bill. 

The Hill has reached out to Pelosi's office for additional comment.

Updated 4:02 p.m.

Morning Digest: Senate GOP has a big ad spending edge, but Democrats get more ‘bang for their buck’

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Cara Zelaya, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

Embedded Content

Leading Off

● Senate: NBC reports that Republicans have outspent Democrats $106 million to $93 million over the last three weeks across the nine Senate battlegrounds, but, because so many GOP candidates are relying on super PACs to make up for their underwhelming fundraising, they aren't getting as much "bang for their buck" as their rivals. That's because, as we've written before, FCC regulations give candidates—but not outside groups—discounted rates on TV and radio.

Perhaps no race better demonstrates this in action than the Arizona Senate race. The GOP firm OH Predictive Insights relays that during the week of Sept. 19, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and his allies outspent Republican Blake Masters' side 52-48 in advertising. Anyone just looking at raw dollar amounts would conclude that the two parties aired about the same number of ads during this period, but that's not the case at all. In reality, Kelly's side had a 4-1 advantage in ​​gross ratings points, which measure how many times, on average, members of an ad's target audience have seen it.

Republicans can blame Masters, whom NBC says has spent all of $9,000 on ads during most of September, for much of the imbalance. The Senate Leadership Fund last week canceled all its planned ad time in Arizona while arguing that other super PACs would step in, and this data shows why Masters badly needs this prediction to finally come true.

Outside groups, though, can still air more ads than well-funded candidates if they're willing and able to spend massive amounts the way the GOP is in Ohio. Cleveland.com's Andrew Tobias reports that Republicans are airing 20% more commercials than their Democratic foes in the Buckeye State after spending or reserving almost three times as much. Democrat Tim Ryan, writes Tobias, is responsible for 83% of the ads coming from his side compared to just 8% for Vance, but the Senate Leadership Fund has committed $28 million here to bail out its underwhelming nominee.

Senate

● NC-Sen: Both Democrat Cheri Beasley and her allies at Senate Majority PAC are airing new commercials charging that when Republican Ted Budd's farm company, AgriBioTech, went bankrupt in 2000, it chose to repay itself rather than pay back the small farmers and creditors it owed millions to. "The Budds took $10 million and left over 1,000 farmers holding the bag," Beasley's narrator argues, while SMP declares, "One grower said, 'we were the little guy,' 'we got screwed.'"

The story was first reported last year by the Washington Post's Michael Kranish, who wrote that "a trustee for farmers and other creditors alleged that his [Budd's] father, Richard Budd, improperly transferred millions of dollars in assets to his family, including Ted Budd." The candidate was not an official at ABT, though the story identifies him as a "significant shareholder." The trustee, which named him as a defendant in their civil case, also accused Budd of having "acted in concert" with his father "in connection with the fraudulent transfers."

The matter was ultimately settled in 2005, with Kranish saying that the "Budd entities" agreed to pay "less than half of the amount initially earmarked for the farmers and other creditors" without admitting to any wrongdoing. The settlement left some bad feelings, though, with one Wyoming farmer telling the Post, "We got screwed and there was not a freaking thing we could do about it. There was no way to fight multimillionaires."

Richard Budd, who became chief executive of ABT after it bought his family's seed company, defended the candidate to Kranish, arguing, "Your attempts to tie my son to this business are dishonest and offensive. I wish my personal efforts to save ABT had been successful, but they were not." Ted Budd's campaign also denied any wrongdoing, saying the trustee's claims were "untrue allegations that are typical in that sort of litigation."

Budd and his allies at the Senate Leadership Fund, meanwhile, are each running commercials arguing that Beasley wants 87,000 more IRS agents, which continues to be a popular line of attack in GOP ads across the country. As we've written before, the agency reportedly will use the funds provided by the Inflation Reduction Act to replace many of the nearly 50,000 of its employees who could retire over the next five years. Many of the thousands of newly created IRS jobs beyond those positions would be in customer service and information technology.

And while the SLF has run ad after ad accusing Democrats of hating the police, its own commercial features menacing footage of what NBC says is "police raids and special agents at a gun range." Those videos accompany the narrator's prediction that "Beasley's gonna knock on your door with an army of new IRS agents" and that she "backs the liberal scheme to spend billions auditing the middle class, sending the IRS beast to collect her taxes on working families."

However, even Trump-appointed IRS Director Charles Rettig has stated that the agency would not crack down on those making less than $400,000, explaining that the beefed up enforcement of tax evasion would only target corporations and the richest 1-2% of households.

● PA-Sen: John Fetterman is airing another commercial pushing back on Republican Mehmet Oz and his allies' ads hitting the Democrat's work as head of the state Board of Pardons, which has been the GOP's favorite line of attack in the general election.

"Here's the truth: John gave a second chance to those who deserved it―nonviolent offenders, marijuana users," Montgomery County Sheriff Sean Kilkenny tells the audience, continuing, "He voted with law enforcement experts nearly 90% of the time. He reunited families and protected our freedom―and he saved taxpayer money." Kilkenny adds, "Dr. Oz doesn't know a thing about crime. He only knows how to help himself."

The GOP, though, is trying to push a very different line. Some of the party's favorite targets have been Lee and Dennis Horton, brothers who spent 27 years in prison after being convicted of second degree murder. The two in 1993 gave a ride to a friend named Robert Leaf who had just killed someone in a robbery, though they have always maintained that they didn't know Leaf had just committed murder. Gov. Tom Wolf last year commuted the Hortons' life sentences after Fetterman and prison officials championed their case, and the two went on to take jobs on Fetterman's Senate campaign.

Oz's campaign, though, has been happy to try to turn them into a liability for their boss, saying, "If John Fetterman cared about Pennsylvania's crime problem, he'd prove it by firing the convicted murderers he employs on his campaign." Fetterman, for his part, told the New York Times that if Republicans "destroy" his political career for advocating for people like the Hortons, "then so be it."

● Polls:

AZ-Sen: Suffolk University for the Arizona Republic: Mark Kelly (D-inc): 49, Blake Masters (R): 42, Marc Victor (L): 2

NC-Sen: GSG (D) for Cheri Beasley: Cheri Beasley (D): 46, Ted Budd (R): 46 (May: 45-45 tie)

OH-Sen: Siena College for Spectrum News: Tim Ryan (D): 46, J.D. Vance (R): 43

PA-Sen: InsiderAdvantage (R) for WTXF-TV: John Fetterman (D): 45, Mehmet Oz (R): 42

PA-Sen: Marist College: Fetterman (D): 51, Oz (R): 41

Governors

● PA-Gov: Campaign finance reports covering the period of June 7 to Sept. 19 are out, and they show that Democrat Josh Shapiro's $25.4 million haul utterly dwarfed the $3.2 million that Republican Doug Mastriano took in. Shapiro goes into the final weeks with a $10.9 million to $2.6 million cash-on-hand edge over Mastriano, who still has not so much as reserved any TV time and who recently lamented he's "[r]eally not finding a lot of support from the national-level Republican organizations."

P.S. Politico's Holly Otterbein flags that Mastriano received a $500 donation from Andrew Torba, the founder of the white supremist social network Gab. That's still far less than the $5,000 that Mastriano paid Gab in April for "campaign consulting," though.

● Polls:

AZ-Gov: Suffolk University for the Arizona Republic: Katie Hobbs (D-inc): 46, Kari Lake (R): 45

CT-Gov: Western New England University for CTInsider and WFSB: Ned Lamont (D-inc): 55, Bob Stefanowski (R): 40

ME-Gov: University of New Hampshire: Janet Mills (D-inc): 53, Paul LePage (R): 39, Sam Hunkler (I): 1

OH-Gov: Siena College for Spectrum News: Mike DeWine (R-inc): 55, Nan Whaley (D): 32

PA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage (R) for WTXF-TV: Josh Shapiro (D): 52, Doug Mastriano (R): 37

PA-Gov: Marist College: Shapiro (D): 53, Mastriano (R): 40

Quinnipiac University last week gave Lamont a similar 57-40 lead in its home state.

Early September numbers from the progressive Maine People's Resource Center showed Mills up 49-38 in a race that hasn't gotten much attention from pollsters.

House

● MT-01: Democrat Monica Tranel has publicized an internal from Impact Research that shows her trailing Republican Ryan Zinke only 45-43 in this newly-created seat in the western part of the state. This is the first poll we've seen from this 52-45 Trump constituency.

● House: The Washington Post reports that top allies of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy were involved in a serious effort to deny the GOP nod to several House candidates they feared would either threaten his power or prove to be weak general election candidates, a drive the paper says they concealed during the primaries by sending cash "from top GOP donors through organizations that do not disclose their donors or have limited public records."

Their most prominent target was North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who was a massive pain even before the far-right freshman claimed that an unidentified colleague had invited him to an "orgy" and that he'd witnessed prominent conservatives doing "a key bump of cocaine." Cawthorn lost renomination to state Sen. Chuck Edwards after a group called Results for N.C. spent $1.7 million against the incumbent, and the Post writes that two McCarthy allies were part of its effort.

The paper adds that the minority leader's people were involved in the successful drives to block Anthony Sabatini in Florida's 7th District and Carl Paladino in New York's 23rd, who were each attacked by a newly-established group called American Liberty Action PAC. Both men blamed McCarthy for what happened, and the Post writes that his allies were indeed working to stop them: "They would have been legislative terrorists whose goal was fame," explained one unnamed source.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, which is close to the GOP leadership, also openly got involved in several more primaries, though it got decidedly mixed results for the $7 million it spent. CLF's ads helped secure general election berths for California Reps. Young Kim and David Valadao; Mississippi Rep. Michael Guest; and Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei. CLF also managed to advance Morgan Luttrell through the primary for Texas' open 8th District over a candidate backed by the troublesome Freedom Caucus, while it spent $40,000 on get out the vote calls for Florida Rep. Daniel Webster.

The super PAC, though, failed to get its preferred nominees across the finish line elsewhere. In Arizona's 4th, restaurateur Kelly Cooper overcame $1.5 million in CLF spending meant to ensure that establishment favorite Tanya Wheeless was Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton's rival instead. Democrats have since launched commercials faulting Cooper for, among other things, having "compared federal law enforcement agents to Nazis and the Gestapo."

CLF also fell short in its efforts to block Karoline Leavitt in New Hampshire's 1st and Brandon Williams in New York's 22nd, while another organization it funded couldn't prevent Joe Kent from beating out Washington Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler in the top-two primary.

But CLF's worst failure is arguably in North Carolina's 1st District where its $600,000 offensive wasn't enough to stop Sandy Smith. Democrats have spent the general election running commercials focusing on the abuse allegations that surfaced against her during the May primary, including a new spot highlighting how her daughter and two former husbands have accused her of domestic violence.

Obituaries

● Mark Souder: Indiana Republican Mark Souder, who was elected to the House during the 1994 red wave but resigned in 2010 after revealing an affair with a staffer, died Monday at the age of 72. Souder, who was perhaps best known for his advocacy of abstinence education, was an ardent conservative, though he defied his party leaders in two notable occasions early in his career: Souder was part of the failed 1997 revolt against Newt Gingrich, and he voted against two of the four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton the next year.

Souder got his start as an aide to then-Rep. Dan Coats, and in 1994 he decisively won a six-way primary to reclaim the Fort Wayne-based 4th District that Coats had once represented. Souder’s opponent was Democratic incumbent Jill Long Thompson, who pulled off a big upset in the 1989 special to replace Coats after he was appointed to replace Vice President Dan Quayle in the Senate. However, while Thompson had convincingly won her next two terms, the terrible climate for her party powered Souder to a 55-45 win in this historically Republican area.

Souder quickly became entrenched in his new seat, which was renumbered the 3rd District in the 2002 round of redistricting: The congressman only failed to win by double digits once when he turned back Democrat Tom Hayhurst 54-46 during the 2006 blue wave. However, Souder became a tea party target in 2010 after supporting the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program and later the Obama administration’s Cash for Clunkers program.

Souder ended up turning back self-funding auto dealer Bob Thomas by an unimpressive 48-34 margin, but he had very little time to enjoy his win. Just weeks later, the married congressman announced, “I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff,” and that he’d be resigning over the scandal. Souder, whose marriage survived the ordeal, never ran for office again, though he became a regular columnist for the Indiana tip-sheet Howey Politics and wrote extensively about Fort Wayne’s local TV and baseball history.

Ad Roundup

Dollar amounts reflect the reported size of ad buys and may be larger.

Five Republicans poised to increase their power if the GOP takes the House

Posted on (Updated by Emily Brooks

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report incorrectly listed Rep. James Comer's home state.

Top Republicans on House panels, confident about the GOP’s chances of taking control of the chamber next year, have for months been planning what they’ll do with committee gavels.

Committee chairs influence hearing focus, investigations and subpoenas, in addition to legislative priorities. Lawmakers’ personal style can play a large role in a committee’s work.

The House Republican Conference’s Steering Committee will formally select most committee chairs. But while the leaders of some committees are up in the air, most current ranking members are poised to be chairs next year. 

Here are ranking members on five powerful committees likely to increase their power in a GOP majority.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member on House Oversight and Reform Committee

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) addresses the audience gathered at the Fancy Farm Picnic in Fancy Farm, Ky.

With many top GOP priorities unlikely to overcome a Senate filibuster or a presidential veto in the next two years, a major focus for a GOP-led House next year will be challenging the Biden administration through oversight and investigations.

Comer plans to focus the committee’s investigations into three main areas next year: the origins of the coronavirus, policies at the U.S.-Mexico border and the overseas activities of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Comer, along with House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), released emails between chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci and other top public health officials discussing the possibility of the virus originating in a lab.

He says the committee's staff has a copy of Hunter Biden's infamous laptop hard drive, which he says would allow him to look into his suspicions that some of the president’s decisions may have been impacted by his son’s business dealings — allegations President Biden has repeatedly denied.

But while his panel leads those probes, Comer says he does not want to overuse subpoena power.

“I want to hope that when my time is done as Chairman of the Oversight Committee, they will say, ‘He was fair, we didn’t try to do anything overtly political,’” Comer told The Hill in an interview earlier this year.

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), ranking member on House Appropriations Committee

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington as she emerges from a closed-door session with fellow Republicans.

Granger is in line to become chair of the Appropriations panel, raising her status as a powerful negotiator for government funding deals.

The committee has broad jurisdiction over funding the government and is composed of 12 subcommittees, each of which have authority over different parts of the government.

In several letters sent last week, Granger showed a willingness to challenge administrative agencies on their authority in light of a Supreme Court ruling this year that conservatives saw as a key victory in their quest to reign in regulatory powers.

“The Constitution clearly states that Congress, not the administration, has the power and responsibility to legislate. Unfortunately, the administration continues to overstep its authority,” Granger said in a statement. 

Granger, who has been in the House for nearly 25 years and is the most senior Republican woman in the chamber, has held the committee’s ranking member post for two cycles. Before that, she led the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which is responsible for a large chunk of federal funding.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), ranking member on House Energy and Commerce Committee

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) smiles during a news conference at the Republican congressional retreat in Philadelphia.

Rodgers would be the first woman to lead the House Energy and Commerce panel. And she already has plans for the committee’s top priorities.

“Very big picture, it’s to protect Americans and to unleash innovation and technology in the United States of America,” Rodgers told Punchbowl News last month when asked about priorities for the panel in a GOP House majority.

The congresswoman has three areas of focus: unleashing American energy, holding big tech accountable and probes into health care, particularly ones zeroing in on the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the energy front, Rodgers emphasized the importance of bringing down carbon emissions and decreasing dependence on China. She said TikTok was among the “worst actors” in tech and raised concerns regarding data collected and stored in China and kids on social media.

And on the third prong, health care, Rodgers wants to dive into the U.S.’s coronavirus response, explore how to prepare for future pandemics, and bring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under congressional authorization.

She also vowed to bring Fauci before the committee, even though he will be gone from government at that point.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member on House Armed Services Committee

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers talks as a character witness during former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard ethics trial in Opelika, Ala.

One area Rogers has his eyes on if he leads the Armed Services panel next year is the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the Iran Nuclear Deal, which then-President Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018.

As part of the agreement, struck under former President Obama in 2015, Iran said it would disassemble parts of its nuclear program and allow more widespread inspections of its facilities. In return, Tehran was freed of billions of dollars' worth of sanctions.

Rogers, who previously served as ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, has promised to block any attempts at bringing back the deal.

“Let me make this clear, this deal with Iran will be dead on arrival in a Republican controlled Congress and Congress will strengthen sanctions against Iran,” Rogers wrote in a statement in response to reports of the Biden administration working to bring the deal back to life.

The Armed Services panel will also likely focus on last year’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan if Republicans take control of the lower chamber. Thirteen U.S. service members died in a suicide attack outside the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021, amid the U.S.’s evacuation.

In a statement commemorating the one-year anniversary of the fatal attack, Rogers vowed to continue pushing for answers regarding the failures that led to the 13 deaths.

“We still lack answers from the Biden Administration on why military advice was ignored, why the withdrawal was based on a date and not the reality on the ground, and why no one has been held accountable for the security failures that led to the bombing one year ago,” Rogers said.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), ranking member on House Judiciary Committee 

Rep. Jim Jordan, U.S. Representative for Ohio's 4th Congressional District, speaks at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio.

Jordan, a founding former chairman of the confrontational conservative House Freedom Caucus, went from being a challenger to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to lead the House Republican Conference a few years ago to a steadfast supporter of McCarthy for Speaker next year if Republicans win the House.

With the subpoena power that comes with the Judiciary panel's gavel, Jordan — an ally of Trump — could have a leading role in House GOP investigatory actions.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI are top targets for Jordan, who has said that 14 whistleblowers from within the FBI have come to his committee alleging various politically motivated bias against conservatives.

“We’re going to look into this weaponization of the DOJ against the American people,” Jordan said last week at House Republicans’ event in Pennsylvania rolling out a “Commitment to America” policy and messaging platform. 

Some of that will have to do with DOJ investigations into Trump. Jordan, Comer and McCarthy earlier this month requested a hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray on the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and recovery of classified documents and asked them to preserve communications and documents relating to the raid, an indication that the committee may utilize its subpoena power in the future. 

The Judiciary panel would also have jurisdiction over any impeachment efforts. Many right-wing Republicans have pushed for impeaching Biden, and McCarthy has opened the door to impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. 

Bonus: Open races for top slots

Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) speaks during a legislative summit featuring Nebraska's elected Congressional and House officials, in Ashland, Neb.

With Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) retiring from Congress at the end of the year, the top GOP slot on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee is up for grabs next year. Three members are seeking the position: Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who is next in line on the committee; Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), the third-ranking Republican on the panel; and Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the current ranking member on the House Budget Committee who announced a bid for Ways and Means chair when he opted out of running for Senate in this cycle.

The Homeland Security Committee gavel is also an open race, with ranking member John Katko (R-N.Y.) leaving Congress at the end of the year. Third-ranking Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) is interested in the slot, as are two members who previously sat on the committee: Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.). With the GOP’s heavy focus on migration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, the panel would have plenty of high-profile activity under a GOP majority.

--Updated at 10:40 a.m.

Riggleman at center of new Jan. 6 controversy

Posted on (Updated by Mychael Schnell

Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), who previously worked as an adviser to the Jan. 6 select committee, is at the center of a new controversy engulfing the panel after he dropped a bombshell revelation while promoting his forthcoming book. 

In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” teasing his book, Riggleman said someone at the White House placed a late-afternoon call to a Capitol rioter while the attack was still underway.

"You get a real 'aha!' moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter's phone while it's happening," he told Bill Whitaker of “60 Minutes.”

Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) speaks during House debates regarding articles of impeachment against former President Trump following Trump's actions leading up to and during the Capitol riot.

The revelation about the committee's largely-private investigation drew swift pushback from committee members, who are downplaying Riggleman’s knowledge of the panel's operation and brushing away the significance of the call.

It was an unwelcome distraction just days ahead of what may be the committee’s final public hearing on Wednesday, when panel members will seek to wrap up their case against former President Trump and his allies weeks before the midterm elections.

“I don't know what Mr. Riggleman is doing, really,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, told CNN during an interview Sunday when asked if he is a credible source when it comes to Jan. 6, 2021.

“I only saw him a few times when he was on the staff, and he did leave. He said he was going off to help Afghanistan refugees. So, you know, he does not know what happened after April, and a lot has happened in our investigation,” she said.

The California Democrat noted that all matters Riggleman brought up before his departure were looked into but “in some cases didn’t really [pan] out.”

“I will say this, that everything that he was able to relay prior to his departure has been followed up on and in some cases didn't really [pan] out, or there might have been a decision that suggested that there was a connection between one number or one email and a person that turned out not to pan out,” Lofgren said. “So, we follow up on everything.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who also sits on the Jan. 6 panel, tried to trivialize Riggleman’s claims about the call during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. 

“Well, that's one of thousands of details that obviously the committee is aware of,” Raskin said of the reported White House rioter call.

“I can't say anything specific about that particular call, but we are aware of it. And we are aware of lots of contacts between the people in the White House and different people that were involved obviously in the coup attempt and the insurrection. And that's really what all of our hearings have been about,” he said after being pressed on the matter.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has been a leading figure among the Jan. 6 House committee investigating the Capitol riot.

CNN has since identified the rioter as Anton Lunyk, a 26-year-old Trump supporter. The Brooklyn native pleaded guilty to a charge associated with the Capitol riot and was sentenced to 12 months of probation. The call reportedly came after he and two friends left the Capitol. 

But the individual who placed the call from the White House, shortly after Trump told his supporters to go home at 4:17 p.m., remains unknown. Call logs show the publicly available number for the White House without the relevant extension.

Riggleman’s publishing company has pegged the book — “The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigations into January 6th” — as “an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation” and teases knowledge of the almost eight-hour period at the White House where they “supposedly had no phone calls.”

But the panel sees matters differently.

“In his role on the Select Committee staff, Mr. Riggleman had limited knowledge of the committee’s investigation. He departed from the staff in April prior to our hearings and much of our most important investigative work,” select committee spokesperson Tim Mulvey told multiple outlets in a statement.

“The committee has run down all the leads and digested and analyzed all the information that arose from his work. We will be presenting additional evidence to the public in our next hearing this coming Wednesday, and a thorough report will be published by the end of the year,” Mulvey added.

Riggleman’s book tour isn’t the first time the ex-adviser has alarmed his former employer. A TV hit shortly after he left the committee spurred an email to staff that his appearance was “in direct contravention to his employment agreement.” 

“His specific discussion about the content of subpoenaed records, our contracts, contractors and methodologies, and your hard work is unnerving,” the panel’s staff director wrote, according to The Washington Post.

"You get a real 'aha!' moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter's phone while it's happening."

- Denver Riggleman to CBS’s “60 Minutes”

Riggleman appeared to nod to that dynamic in his book.

“I continually called for us to push the envelope and use the toughest approach possible. This ruffled some feathers on the committee,” he wrote.

At another point he questioned the panel’s strategy of dealing with the media.

“The committee had other fears too: leaks. We were obsessed with them, and the fear of leaks led the committee to compartmentalize the various teams of investigators… I wondered sometimes if there was an overabundance of caution — whether in the desire to thwart the press, we deprived the overall investigation of coordinated information. Was that a necessary trade-off?” he asked.

On his book tour, Riggleman has also weighed in on some ongoing matters before the committee, including Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

His comments come just days after the committee was able to secure an interview with Ginni Thomas after months of negotiations. 

Riggleman said it was an “open secret” that her views had gotten more extreme.

Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has agreed to be interviewed by the Jan. 6 House panel.

“What really shook me was the fact that if Clarence agreed with or was even aware of his wife's efforts, all three branches of government would be tied to the Stop the Steal movement,” Riggleman wrote in his book.

"For me in intelligence, there['s] always the possible and the probable," Riggleman said. "Is it possible that Clarence Thomas had no idea of the activities of Ginni Thomas over decades as a Republican activist? Possible. Had no idea about what was going on during the election and Biden and Trump and her connections to the administration? Possible. Is it probable? I just can't even get my arms [around] that being probable," he added in the "60 Minutes" interview.

Asked on Sunday if he sees the reported call between the White House and a rioter as significant to the panel’s probe, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan. 6 select committee, told CNN's “State of the Union” that relevant information will be presented before the public at Wednesday’s hearing.

“I can't comment on the particulars. I can say that each of the issues that Mr. Riggleman raised during the period he was with the committee, which ended quite some time ago, we looked into,” Schiff said.

“So, we have looked into all of these issues. Some of the information we have found on various issues, we will be presenting it to the public for the first time in the hearing coming up. It will be the usual mix of information in the public domain and new information woven together to tell the story about one key thematic element of Donald Trump's effort to overturn the election,” he added.

Judy Kurtz contributed.

Mace says there is ‘pressure on the Republicans’ to impeach Biden if they win House

Posted on (Updated by Zach Schonfeld

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) on Sunday said Republicans will face pressure to impeach President Biden if they take the House majority in the midterms.

“I believe there's a lot of pressure on Republicans to have that vote, to put that legislation forward, and to have that vote,” Mace said of an impeachment vote when asked by NBC “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd. 

“I think that is something that some folks are considering,” she continued.

Mace declined to say how she would vote on a potential Biden impeachment, but noted that she did not vote to impeach former President Trump in 2021 because “due process was stripped away.”

“I will not vote for impeachment of any president if I feel that due process has been stripped away for anyone, and I typically vote constitutionally regardless of who's in power,” she told Todd.

“I want to do the right thing for the long term because this isn't just about today, tomorrow, this year's election. This is about the future of democracy. This is about protecting our Constitution.”

Others in Mace’s conference have already taken the first step toward impeaching the president.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) introduced articles of impeachment against Biden the day after his inauguration, accusing him of abuse of power in relation to the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden, in Ukraine.

House Republican leadership last week released an outline of their agenda if they take the House majority, dubbed “Commitment to America.”

The agenda proposes conducting “rigorous oversight to rein in government abuse of power and corruption,” referencing the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, although it does not detail specifics as to how Republicans would do so.

When pressed on Republicans’ potential plans to impeach Biden, Mace on Sunday said she would prefer to keep the focus on reducing inflation and improving the economy, rather than “chasing that rabbit down the hole.”

“I do believe it's divisive, which is why I push back on it personally when I hear folks saying they're going to file articles of impeachment in the House,” she said. “I push back against those comments because we need to be working together.”

Cheney: ‘Any interaction’ Trump has with Jan. 6 committee will be under oath, subject to perjury penalties

Posted on (Updated by Julia Shapero

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) emphasized on Saturday that “any interaction” former President Trump has with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will be “under oath and subject to penalties of perjury.”

Cheney, who serves as the vice chair of the committee, has remained tight-lipped about many aspects of the panel’s investigation into the Jan. 6 riot, as have her fellow committee members.

In a Saturday interview with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith, Cheney declined to specifically say whether the panel would like to hear from the former president, instead noting that if it does he will be required to tell the truth.

Cheney, a prominent Trump critic, did not otherwise hold back in speaking against the former president, however, calling him “fundamentally destructive” for the Republican Party. The congresswoman pointed to responses from her fellow members of the GOP to presidential records being recovered from the former president's Mar-a-Lago home as the latest example.

“You look at how many senior Republicans are going through contortions to try to defend the fact that the former president had stored in a desk drawer apparently, in an unsecure storage room, in a resort … documents that had the highest classification markings,” Cheney told Smith at the Tribune’s annual festival.

Despite her views on the former president, Cheney told Smith she does not regret voting against Trump’s first impeachment based on the evidence. She also noted that those proceedings have informed her current work on the Jan. 6 Committee.

“They would have had more Republican votes if they had enforced their subpoenas, and that is certainly a lesson that we have taken into [the] Jan. 6 Select Committee’s work,” Cheney said.

The Jan. 6 Committee has taken a strong stance on enforcing its subpoenas, referring several Trump allies for criminal contempt of Congress.

Cheney said she would "do everything I can" to ensure Trump is not the Republican nominee for president in 2024.

"And if he is the nominee," she added, "I won’t be a Republican.”