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.”

GOP to put IRS Hunter Biden whistleblowers at center stage

Posted on July 18, 2023 (Updated July 18, 2023) by Emily Brooks

House Republicans will put their claims of unequal justice for Republicans and Democrats at center stage Wednesday, bringing IRS whistleblowers before the public to blast the government’s investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden.

The hearing will serve in part as a way for Republicans to give former President Trump political cover as he faces a likely third indictment over Jan. 6, while also fueling a potential impeachment inquiry against Attorney General Merrick Garland.

IRS investigator Gary Shapley and an unnamed IRS special agent told the House Ways and Means Committee in May that they were displeased with the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax matters, accusing prosecutors of slow-walking the investigation and allowing the statute of limitations to run out. Hunter Biden in June reached a deal to plead guilty to tax crimes for 2017 and 2018.

In one point of drama, the identity of the unnamed IRS agent will be revealed at Wednesday’s hearing.

Republicans hope the credibility of the two whistleblowers will rub off on broader investigations of the Biden family’s business dealings. The House Oversight Committee claims it has uncovered financial documents showing that foreign companies funneled more than $10 million to Biden family members and associates, traveling through a web of shell companies.

“This is the A-team with the IRS. These two guys have stellar records,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.

The hearing could also help Republicans distract from Trump’s numerous legal problems after the former president said Tuesday that he expected an imminent indictment in relation to the Justice Department’s probe into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

The hearing fits in with a broader GOP theme that the federal government is “weaponized” against Biden’s political opponents.

“If you notice recently, President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for reelection. So what do they do now? Weaponize government to go after their number one opponent,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday.

McCarthy complained that in Hunter Biden’s case, prosecutors waited until after the statute of limitations was up for some tax years, then brought charges on others. He also referenced Shapley’s complaint that Hunter Biden’s lawyers were alerted to investigators’ interest in a storage unit.

The White House in a statement criticized the attacks on Biden.

“Instead of wasting time on politically-motivated attacks on a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney, the rule of law, and the independence of our justice system, House Republicans should join President Biden to focus on the issues most important to the American people like continuing to lower inflation, create jobs, and strengthen health care," said Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight & investigations.

The whistleblower testimony has prompted Republican accusations of corruption at the highest levels and led McCarthy to float a potential impeachment inquiry into Garland.

A key detail for Republicans in Shapley’s testimony is whether David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware overseeing the Hunter Biden case, had authority to bring charges in other districts.

Shapley alleges that U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves “did not support the investigation,” pushing Weiss to request special counsel status in order to be able to bring charges outside of his usual Delaware jurisdiction. According to Shapley, Weiss was denied that status.

Weiss and Garland have both denied this. Each said the Delaware prosecutor was assured he could seek special attorney status if desired, governed under a different statute that likewise would have allowed Weiss to bring charges in any venue. Graves has also said he did not oppose Weiss bringing charges in Washington.

Some lawmakers have argued Shapley’s testimony shows unfamiliarity with the statutes governing prosecutorial power.

“If you want to put the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney’s word up against a disgruntled agent — who clearly doesn't even understand the difference between a special counsel and a specially designated attorney under Section 515 — you’re playing with fire,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who before being elected to Congress served as a counselor in Trump’s first impeachment.

But McCarthy said the differing accounts could be fodder for an impeachment inquiry, as Garland told Congress that Weiss had “full authority to make those referrals you're talking about or to bring cases in other districts if he needs to do that.”

Democrats have also dismissed some of Shapley’s complaints, characterizing them as common differences of opinion between investigators and prosecutors.

Shapley’s testimony points to numerous instances where prosecutors expressed hesitation about taking any action that might influence the 2020 election. They appeared to be wary of repeating past actions that spurred criticism, notably former FBI Director James Comey’s statement about the Hillary Clinton investigation just days before the 2016 election.

The Oversight hearing also demonstrates how Republican interest in Hunter Biden and the business dealings of Biden’s family has pushed them into multiple different directions — from tracking funds flowing to Biden family members; to alleged interference in the criminal case against Hunter Biden; to an unverified allegation that an executive of Ukrainian energy company Burisma (of which Hunter Biden was a board member) offered a bribe to President Biden.

“There's really two investigations going on now. There's the investigation of the Biden crime, and there's investigation of a government cover-up,” Comer said.

While Comer said that the Ways and Means Committee and the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Federal Government will also investigate any potential cover-up, he said that the Oversight panel is still focused on “following the money.”

Still, Oversight Republicans have gotten pulled into the cover-up allegations.

On Tuesday, Comer said in a statement that committee staff conducted an interview with a former FBI supervisory special agent who confirmed some aspects of the IRS whistleblowers’ testimony — specifically, that the Secret Service and the Biden transition team were alerted to plans for the IRS to show up and seek an in-person interview with Hunter Biden that ultimately never happened.

Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said in a statement that Comer had “cherry-picked and distorted statements of a witness to advance Republicans’ false narrative about political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation.”

He’s also dismissed the GOP for fixating on investigations that Trump-appointed officials chose not to advance, pointing to Comer basing much of his investigation on a confidential tip about President Biden accepting a bribe that the FBI was not able to corroborate.

“There was an assessment opened up, and they decided not to move from the assessment level to either a preliminary investigation or to a full investigation,” Raskin said last week.

“They closed it down.”

This story was updated at 6:54 p.m.

GOP senators rattled by radical conservative populism

Posted on July 17, 2023 (Updated July 18, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Republican senators say they’re worried that conservative populism, though always a part of the GOP, is beginning to take over the party, becoming more radical and threatening to cause them significant political problems heading into the 2024 election.

GOP senators are saying they’re being increasingly confronted by constituents who buy into discredited conspiracy theories such as the claim that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election or that federal agents incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Growing distrust with government institutions, from the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice to the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health, make it more difficult for Republican lawmakers to govern.

Republican senators believe their party has a good chance to take back control of the White House and Senate, given President Biden’s low approval ratings and the favorable map of Senate seats up for reelection, but they regularly face political headaches caused by populist members of their party who say the rest of the GOP is out of step with mainstream America.

“We should be concerned about this as Republicans. I’m having more ‘rational Republicans’ coming up to me and saying, ‘I just don’t know how long I can stay in this party,’” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “Now our party is becoming known as a group of kind of extremist, populist over-the-top [people] where no one is taking us seriously anymore.

FILE - Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asks a question during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)

“You have people who felt some allegiance to the party that are now really questioning, ‘Why am I [in the party?]” she added. “I think it’s going to get even more interesting as we move closer to the elections and we start going through some of these primary debates.

“Is it going to be a situation of who can be more outlandish than the other?” she asked.

Some Senate Republicans worry the populist winds are downgrading their chances of picking up seats in 2024.

“There are an astonishing number of people in my state who believe the election was stolen,” said one Republican senator who requested anonymity to talk about the growing popularity of conservative conspiracy theories at home.

As an example, some Republicans point to Arizona, where Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), an independent who left the Democratic Party last year, is up for reelection.

Sinema is likely to face a challenge from the left in the likely Democratic nominee Rep. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) as well as a GOP nominee. If that nominee is former TV anchor Kari Lake, who has embraced conspiracy theories about elections and lost a gubernatorial race last year, many in the GOP think they’re in trouble.

One senior Senate Republican strategist, assessing the race, lamented that “the Republican Party in Arizona is a mess.”

Republican senators say they are alarmed at how many Republicans, including those with higher levels of education and income, buy the unsubstantiated claims that the last presidential election was stolen.

A second Republican senator who spoke with The Hill said the growing strength of radical populism “makes it a lot more difficult to govern, it makes it difficult to talk to constituents.”

“There are people who surprise me — I’m surprised they have those views. It’s amazing to me the number of people, the kind of people who think the election was stolen,” the lawmaker said. “I don’t want to use this word but it’s not just a ‘red-neck’ thing. It’s people in business, the president of a bank, a doctor.”

The lawmaker, who requested anonymity to discuss the political challenge posted by surging conservative populism, accused some fellow Republicans of trying to exploit voter discontent to gain local or national prominence.

“In my state there are a lot of folks who see Washington as disconnected, they see their way of life threatened. There’s something that generates discontent that elected officials take advantage of,” the senator said.

Tuberville’s controversies

Some of the biggest populist-linked headaches recently have come from Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R), a staunch ally of former President Trump who is now holding up more than 260 nonpolitical military promotions to protest the Defense Department’s abortion policy.

Tuberville caused an uproar early last week by defending the idea of letting white nationalists serve in the military and disputing the idea that white nationalism is an inherently racist ideology.

Tuberville later reversed himself after Senate Republican colleagues ranging from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) forcefully denounced white supremacy and white nationalism.

GOP senators also have to regularly distance themselves from the radical proposals of populist conservatives in the House, such as House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who earlier this year proposed cutting Department of Justice and FBI funding in response to federal investigations of Trump.

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Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) pushed back on calls to defund the Justice Department, telling reporters: “Are we going to get rid of the Justice Department? No. I think defunding is a really bad idea.”

Thune later explained to The Hill: “There are seasons, swings back and forth in politics and we’re in one now where the dominant political thinking is more populist with respect to national security, foreign policy, some domestic issues.”

But he said “that stuff comes and goes and it’s built around personalities,” alluding to the broadly held view that Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016 and his lasting influence over the party has put his brand of populism at the forefront.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an advisor to the Senate Republican leadership, said bread-and-butter conservative economic ideas still resonated with voters, but he acknowledged “the cable news shows” continue to keep attention on themes that Trump likes to emphasize, such as election fraud and the “deep-state” control of the federal government.

“So there are some people paying attention to that but most people are trying to just get on with their lives,” he said. “There’s a lot of distrust of Washington, and who can blame people.”

“It concerns me that people lose faith in their institutions, but this has been a long story throughout our history. It’s nothing new although it’s troubling,” he said.

Waving off impeachment

Senate Republicans tried to wave off their House colleagues from advancing articles of impeachment authored by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) against President Biden and rolled their eyes at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) attempt to expunge Trump’s impeachment record.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) warned, “I fear that snap impeachments will become the norm, and they mustn't.”

Asked about efforts to erase Trump’s impeachment record, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) quoted the popular show “Succession”: “Logan Roy made a good point. These are not serious people.”

Romney, who was the GOP nominee for president in 2012 before Trump took over the party four years later, last year called Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) “morons” for speaking at a white nationalist event in Florida.

Asked this week about Tuberville’s defense of white nationalism and how it reflected on the GOP, Romney said: “Our party has lots of problems, add that to the list.”

The party of Reagan has transformed into the party of Trump, and to the dismay of some veteran Republican lawmakers, it doesn’t look like it’s going back to what it was anytime soon.

One ascendent young conservative leader, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who supported objecting to certifying Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021, thinks the Republican Party’s embrace of populism is more than a passing fad.

He says the new era of politics is more than a battle between Trump allies and Trump haters, or even between Republicans and Democrats.

Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference two years ago, he declared: “We have been governed by a political consensus forged by a political class that has lost touch with what binds us together as Americans. And it has lost sight of the basic requirements of liberty.”

“The great divide of our time is not between Trump supporters and Trump opponents, or between suburban voters and rural ones, or between Red America and Blue America,” he said. “No, the great divide of our time is between the political agenda of the leadership elite and the great and broad middle of our society. And to answer the discontent of our time, we must end that divide.”

DOJ, Hunter Biden team fight back on GOP probes

Posted on July 6, 2023 (Updated July 6, 2023) by Rebecca Beitsch

Justice Department officials and Hunter Biden’s attorneys are ramping up their pushback against Republican claims the president’s son received preferential treatment during the investigation into his failure to pay taxes.

Republicans released a transcript from an IRS whistleblower who questioned the integrity of the Biden tax probe just days after his attorney announced they reached an agreement with DOJ officials in Delaware that would mean no jail time but require Biden to plead guilty in relation to two tax crimes.

The deal — which has yet to be approved by a judge — and the investigation are already the subject of a three-committee probe after IRS investigator Gary Shapley alleged the criminal investigation was slow-walked by the DOJ.

But the GOP focus on Biden is now generating a firmer response, particularly since Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested the episode could be grounds for impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland.

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Hunter Biden’s lawyer blasts IRS whistleblowers in scathing letter to GOP committee chair

One of Biden’s attorneys late last week penned a blistering letter accusing House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) of violating provisions that protect the confidentiality of tax information in his rush to release Shapley's testimony.

“Since taking the majority in 2023, various leaders of the House and its committees have discarded the established protocols of Congress, rules of conduct, and even the law in what can only be called an obsession with attacking the Biden family,” Biden attorney Abbe Lowell wrote in a 10-page letter.

“The timing of the agents’ leaks and your subsequent decision to release their statements do not seem innocent — they came shortly after there was a public filing indicating the disposition of the five-year investigation of Mr. Biden. To any objective eye your actions were intended to improperly undermine the judicial proceedings that have been scheduled in the case. Your release of this selective set of false allegations was an attempt to score a headline in a news cycle — full facts be damned,” the letter continued.

Lowell complains the agents who spoke to the panel — Shapley and another unidentified person — had an “axe to grind” and assumed they knew better than prosecutors managing the five-year investigation.

Shapley asserts in his testimony that U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss asked for a special counsel to charge Biden in the District of Columbia, where more egregious tax conduct occurred, but was denied. Shapley also said D.C. District Attorney Matthew Graves opposed bringing charges in the District of Columbia.

But Weiss has strongly rejected any claims his office did not zealously pursue the case, pushing back on the whistleblower’s claims. Weiss, a Trump appointee who was one of the few U.S. attorneys asked to stay on after President Biden took office, told lawmakers in June he had complete authority over how to handle the investigation.

Weiss late Friday said in a letter to Congress that he could have asked for special counsel status if he wished to bring charges in Washington, and he was assured that option was available.

“In my June 7 letter I stated, ‘I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when and whether to file charges.’ ... I stand by what I wrote and wish to expand on what this means,” Weiss said.

“As the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, my charging authority is geographically limited to my home district. If venue for a case lies elsewhere, common Departmental practice is to contact the United States Attorney’s Office for the district in question and determine whether it wants to partner on the case,” he added.

“If not, I may request Special Attorney status from the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515. Here, I have been assured that, if necessary after the above process, I would be granted § 515 Authority in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.”

Weiss has agreed to meet with the committee to discuss the investigation further “at the appropriate time.”

Graves has denied stymying the Hunter Biden investigation, while Garland has said Weiss had full control to make any decisions he deemed necessary in the case.

The contradiction between the whistleblower and Weiss about where to charge Biden, and whether a special counsel and charging in D.C. was denied, is at the core of the House Speaker’s interest in an impeachment inquiry targeting Garland.

McCarthy said Garland’s assertion before Congress and the public that Weiss had full control over the investigation could be grounds for impeachment if it’s determined that Shapley’s testimony is true.

“He didn't get charged for some of the highest prosecution. They want to have a special counsel. And now we're seeing that the DOJ, the attorney general, declined that, even though he's saying something different,” McCarthy said on Fox News last week. “None of it smells right, and none of it is right.”

Republicans have ramped up their investigations since the plea deal.

Smith, along with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), requested interviews with more than a dozen figures involved in the investigation to determine whether there was “equal enforcement of the law.”

The panel wishes to speak with numerous FBI, IRS and DOJ employees.

“It’s little surprise that Hunter Biden’s attorneys are attempting to chill our investigation and discredit the whistleblowers who say they have already faced retaliation from the IRS and the Department of Justice despite statutory protections established by law. These whistleblowers bravely came forward with allegations about misconduct and preferential treatment for Hunter Biden — and now face attacks even from an army of lawyers he hired,” Smith said in response to the letter from Lowell.

“Worse, this letter misleads the public about the lawful actions taken by the Ways and Means Committee, which took the appropriate legal steps to share this information with [the] rest of Congress. It doesn’t even address concerns that counsel for Mr. Biden was regularly tipped off about potential warrants and raids in pursuit of evidence that implicated him, as well as his father. We will continue to go where the facts take us — and we will not abandon our investigation just because Mr. Biden’s lawyers don’t like it,” Smith added.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Wednesday spearheaded a letter signed by the three House chairmen asking for the Office of Special Counsel to review any potential retaliation against Shapley and the other whistleblower since they came forward.

Shapley on Monday also submitted an affidavit saying he was not the source of leaks to the media about the Biden investigation, a possibility Lowell raises in his letter.

Biden last month struck a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to tax crimes and enter into a pretrial diversion program relating to unlawful possession of a weapon. The charges come after a five-year investigation into him.

Weiss said in a statement at the time the investigation was “ongoing.”

Garland has said he remained uninvolved in Weiss’s investigation, arguing the U.S. attorney’s independence was key to ensure a proper investigation was led by the facts.

He also defended the integrity of the Justice Department more broadly, pushing back on GOP claims of political bias.

“Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department … by claiming we do not treat like cases alike. This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy and essential to the safety of the American people,” Garland said in a recent press conference. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

McCarthy’s latest challenge: Prevent shutdown while avoiding GOP revolt

Posted on July 5, 2023 (Updated July 5, 2023) by Mike Lillis

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is fresh from a successful effort to raise the debt ceiling but now faces what might be an even tougher challenge: preventing a government shutdown without sparking an all-out revolt within his own Republican conference.

House GOP leaders return to Washington next week after a long Independence Day recess with one major item on the summer docket: moving 12 appropriations bills to the Senate and putting pressure on upper-chamber Democrats to swallow some Republican priorities.

Yet the GOP conference is sharply divided in its approach to 2024 spending, pitting centrists and leadership allies — who concede the need for a bipartisan compromise on government funding — against conservative hard-liners demanding deep cuts, back to 2022 levels, in defiance of the deal McCarthy cut with President Biden earlier in the month.

The dynamics set the stage for a punishing July for McCarthy and GOP leaders, who are racing to win over the conservative holdouts and move the spending bills with just a razor-thin majority that allows scant room for defections.

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Complicating their effort, the conservative hard-liners — who felt burned by McCarthy’s handling of the debt ceiling package — say they’ve taken a lesson from that fight and are now vowing to use their considerable leverage, as well as hardball tactics, to force the Speaker to hold a tougher line in the spending debate. If the government shuts down in the process, they say that’s a price they’re willing to pay.

The factors have combined to highlight the tenuous grip McCarthy has on his conference, heighten the threat to his Speakership and increase the odds of a government shutdown later in the year.

To say McCarthy’s task is difficult, said Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), is “the understatement of possibly the decade.”

"But difficult is not impossible,” he quickly added. “We're more united than perhaps the mainstream media would give us credit for.”

Central to the fight is a promise McCarthy made to his conservative detractors in January, as a condition of winning their support for his Speakership, to fight to cut next year’s spending back to last year’s levels. McCarthy, backed by top GOP appropriators, says they’re ready to make good on that vow. But the conservatives are skeptical, accusing the Speaker of using budget gimmicks, known as rescissions, to disguise higher levels of spending — a strategy the conservatives say they’ll oppose.

McCarthy huddled with members of the far-right Freedom Caucus just before the recess in an effort to persuade the hard-liners that he shares their deficit-cutting goals. But no agreements were made, and conservatives left the meeting unconvinced of McCarthy’s commitment to the steep cuts they’re demanding — clear evidence that GOP leaders still lack the votes to pass their bills.

“People are still searching for how we resolve that, and how we form unity around a single idea with respect to how the appropriations are getting resolved,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), a frequent McCarthy critic.

“We had an agreement on fiscal year 2022 discretionary spending levels,” he added. “I’m not persuaded by the notion that starting there and then buying those up with rescissions amounts to the performance of that objective.”

Still, McCarthy and his allies remain optimistic that they can move the 12 spending bills, not only through committee but also on the floor, in time to avoid a short-term spending patch in September, known as a continuing resolution, or CR.

“[We’re] making sure that we stay on schedule to get the bills done, don't put ourselves into a situation where we take too much time and are unable to do a negotiation,” Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a close McCarthy ally, told reporters just before the break. “That doesn't play into our hands very well and it ends up pushing you into [a] CR path, where I don't think we really want to be.”

While the House is marking up spending bills below the levels agreed to in the debt limit bill — an attempt to appease conservatives — the Senate kicked off the appropriations process using the numbers from the original agreement, putting the two chambers on a collision course and further raising the chances of a government shutdown.

At least one moderate House Republican, however, predicts that the Senate will prevail in the chamber vs. chamber battle, which would deal a blow to conservatives and likely spark a right-wing headache for McCarthy.

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

Upping the pressure another notch, the debt limit deal struck by Biden and McCarthy included a provision that incentivizes Congress to pass all 12 appropriations bills by threatening to cut government spending by 1 percent across the board if the measures are not approved by Jan. 1, 2024.

So far, the House Appropriations Committee has cleared half of the partisan bills, with hopes of approving the remaining six bills in the coming weeks.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who serves on the appropriations panel, told The Hill before the recess that the “best outcome” would be if the GOP-led House is able to get all 12 bills across the floor. But he also said “leadership needs to see, can they produce these bills.”

“Can they get them across the floor?” he said. “If they do — and again, that will have to be without Democratic support, just like it was for the debt ceiling — they were in a position to sit down and have a genuine negotiation.”

A failure of House Republicans to pass their partisan appropriations bills as a starting point in the coming negotiations with the Senate would diminish the GOP’s leverage in that battle.

Republican leaders have credited House passage of their previous partisan plan to raise the debt ceiling, along with proposals to slash trillions of dollars in government spending, as key in getting Democrats to swallow some of those cuts.

The final bipartisan plan was much more modest than the proposal initially passed by Republicans in late April. However, GOP leaders say party unity was critical in strengthening McCarthy’s hand at the negotiating table with Biden.

To achieve the same unity in the spending debate, however, the Speaker must toe a difficult line in the weeks ahead as he works to secure more pull in the future talks with Democrats. Leaving town late last month, GOP leaders said the internal discussions would continue through the break. And lawmakers of all stripes said there is one goal in mind: "We're gonna do whatever we can to make sure that we cut as much as we can and maintain 218 [votes]," said Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.).

That’s a tall order, given the current divisions and the closing window before government funding expires Oct. 1. But even many conservatives predict they will ultimately prevail.

“The devil's in the details, of course,” Higgins said. “[But] we are united in purpose, and I envision us getting to 218.”

GOP’s ‘dereliction of duty’ impeachment argument gets skeptical reviews

Posted on July 2, 2023 (Updated July 3, 2023) by Rebecca Beitsch

Republicans eager to impeach a Biden administration official have rallied around a new phrase to justify the rarely used move, accusing President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of “dereliction of duty.”

The term, borrowed from the military, allows a court martial to punish service members who fail to obey orders or carry out their duties.

But experts say the GOP’s basis for removing either man from office is an odd fit for impeachment, which requires demonstrating high crimes or misdemeanors.

“It sounds quasi-official — it has a sort of military ring to it. But it's not as though high crimes and misdemeanors and dereliction of duty go together. … It's not traditionally one of the impeachment concepts that you would find in the panoply of presidential mistakes,” said Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in national security law and democratic governance.

“They're looking for a phrase that will kind of draw people in because it sounds semi-official, but will not actually require them to say something true and correct, like, ‘The President has actually done such and such,’” she added.

The impeachment resolution for Biden introduced by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) accuses Biden of dereliction of duty and abuses of power in connection with how he has handled the border.

“Since his first day in office, President Biden has trampled on the Constitution through his dereliction of duty under Article 2, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Instead of enforcing our immigration laws, he has lawlessly ignored them,” Boebert said on the House floor this month before Republicans voted to refer the measure to committee.

Each of the four impeachment resolutions targeting Mayorkas similarly accuses him of violating his oath of office by failing to enforce immigration laws.

The House Homeland Security Committee, which has been tasked with an investigation that would be used as the basis for any impeachment effort undertaken by House Judiciary, likewise kicked off its five-step plan with a phase dedicated to reviewing dereliction of duty.

“The blatant disregard for the Constitution of the United States, which states that the United States Congress passes the laws and the executive branch executes those laws, is just scratching the surface to the harm Secretary Mayorkas’s dereliction of duty has done to our country,” said Mark Green (R-Tenn.), the committee's chairman, in a press conference earlier this month kicking off the formal investigation.

“Mayorkas’s dereliction of duty has placed the safety of Americans’ second to his own personal agenda," Green added.

For Democrats, the GOP complaints over how the administration is applying — or failing to apply — the laws passed by Congress show the underlying dispute is a policy matter and therefore insufficient grounds for impeachment.

“Dereliction of duty is something that they have created out of whole cloth,” said Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who served as a lead counsel to Democrats in the first impeachment of former President Trump before being elected to Congress.

“It has never been a grounds for impeachment. It is not a high crime and misdemeanor, and it is essentially arguing that they don't like the way that President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have been handling their jobs, which, unfortunately for them, is the consequence of elections,” Goldman said.

Impeachment proceedings have been used four times for a president and once for a cabinet secretary.

There are different interpretations of what constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor, and Finkelstein said while impeachment can be used for “bad acts that are not criminal, very often the impeachment charges could also be charged as crimes.”

“President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas haven't violated the law. And I suspect that members of the GOP and Congress know that full well, and so they don't want to use any term that suggests that there may be a legal violation here. And so they're using this sort of made-up term that has a quasi-military frame to sound vaguely official, but it's really nothing that corresponds to what we would understand from the history of impeachment as a high crime and misdemeanor as the framers would have conceived,” she said.

The dereliction of duty argument has taken a greater focus in recent weeks amid waning numbers of people arriving at the border. Earlier this year, many in the GOP argued that Mayorkas failed to follow a law that requires perfection at the border to achieve “operational control.”

Republicans have become more focused on arguing that Biden officials have violated immigration laws, particularly those dealing with detaining and releasing migrants that arrive at the border.

They also see a wave of fentanyl deaths as a failure to secure the border, though the vast majority of fentanyl that enters the U.S. is believed to come through ports of entry.

The Department of Homeland Security has argued Mayorkas has acted within his authority because the U.S. simply doesn't have the capacity to detain every person that seeks to enter the country, while parole laws allow DHS to permit some migrants to enter the U.S. while they await a determination in immigration court as to securing a more permanent legal status. The department has repeatedly encouraged Congress to take action to update immigration laws.

The White House, meanwhile, dismissed Boebert’s resolution as “staging baseless political stunts.”

“What you would need in order to move forward with impeachment is some finding that they have violated the law,” Goldman said.

“So the notion that he’s violated his oath of office is just simply saying that he in their view is not following the law, but what it amounts to without any evidence — and they have none — is just a disagreement about how we're dealing with the influx of migrants into this country who are largely escaping completely devastated governments [and] catastrophic situations,” he said, adding that the Biden administration has tried to deal with that “in a humane way.”

When asked about the legal underpinnings of dereliction of duty by The Hill, Green pointed to the statutes governing the military and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

“The United States is not secure. His job is to secure the United States. He's failed. That's a dereliction of his duty,” Green said, noting the oath he took when entering West Point.

“Mayorkas’s oath is the same, right? It's not to the geography of America. It's not to the flag. It’s to the Constitution, the idea of America and to the way the Constitution orchestrates how the government is to work.”

The roots in the Uniform Code of Military Justice could be problematic for making a case.

“Neither Biden nor Mayorkas are subject to the UCMJ because they’re both civilians,” Finkelstein said. “Dereliction of duty as a military term does not apply to the Secretary of Homeland Security, nor does it apply to the president.”

Impatience, however, is growing among some in the Republican Party.

Lawmakers have introduced 11 impeachment resolutions for various Biden administration officials in the past two months.

“I would hope that it would be this year — and very soon,” Boebert told reporters last week.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who served as an impeachment manager for Trump’s first impeachment, dismissed the efforts as another example of Republicans “dragging down the institution of Congress.”

“I am concerned that as they always do, they use a process that is properly applied as a precedent to abuse the process. But this is all about ingratiating yourself among MAGA members and Trump followers and it's disgraceful,” he said.

“It’s consuming the time of Congress to keep going through these right-wing exercises designed to gain Trump's favor.”

GOP hit list: Biden officials targeted by Republicans for impeachment

Posted on July 1, 2023 (Updated July 1, 2023) by Alex Gangitano

House Republicans are grappling over whether to move forward with impeaching President Biden and a host of his top officials, putting a spotlight on how the conference has turned to impeachment as a tool to target administration officials.

Republicans disagree over how hard to push for impeachment because some are worried the efforts could backfire after the party heavily criticized Democrats for their House impeachments of former President Trump.

Here’s a look at who House Republicans are targeting for impeachment, and why they are doing so.

President Biden

President Joe Biden speaks during an event about high speed internet infrastructure, in the East Room of the White House, Monday, June 26, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden speaks during a Monday event about high-speed internet infrastructure, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

It’s far from clear that most Republicans want to move forward with impeachment proceedings against Biden.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) introduced a procedural measure to force a floor vote on her impeachment articles, which led to internal sparring and a days-long clash between GOP leaders and the congresswoman. The House voted to punt the resolution to committees and avoid making lawmakers vote on it on the floor.

The resolution, which many Republicans deemed as premature, accused Biden of “a complete and total invasion at the southern border.” The resolution includes two articles related to Biden’s handling of matters along the U.S.-Mexico border — one for dereliction of duty and one for abuse of power.

During the last Congress, GOP lawmakers in the minority introduced several impeachment resolutions against Biden, targeting him on immigration, the COVID pandemic and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Boebert’s move was an escalation that threatened to put vulnerable moderates in the caucus in a tough spot if they had to vote on it.

There are other voices in the GOP calling for Biden’s impeachment.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told Fox News this week that congressional Republicans “absolutely should” look into impeachment. Her comments followed an IRS whistleblower’s claims about tax crime investigations into the president’s son Hunter Biden.

But Boebert’s push has been dismissed by some in her party as frivolous.

“I’ve got a pretty high bar for impeachment,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) said last week. “I fear that snap impeachments will become the norm, and they mustn’t.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland

Attorney General Merrick Garland during a Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee answers a question during a hearing to discuss the President’s FY 2024 budget for the Department of Justice on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. (Greg Nash)

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) brought up impeaching Garland this week, tying it to the Department of Justice’s handling of the investigations into Hunter Biden.

McCarthy said an impeachment inquiry could be warranted over alleged political bias and DOJ “weaponization.” The push has been fueled by an IRS whistleblower’s claims, denied by Garland, that there was political interference in tax crime investigations into Hunter Biden.

“Someone has lied here,” McCarthy said Wednesday on Fox News. “If we find that Garland has lied to Congress, we will start an impeachment inquiry.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed articles of impeachment against Garland last summer over the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for classified and sensitive documents.

“If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ,” McCarthy said in a tweet.

McCarthy’s focus on Garland is a change in how he has handled calls from Republicans to impeach other members of the Biden administration. He has vowed any impeachment proceedings would not be political.

The White House has bashed the idea of a Garland impeachment inquiry, saying it is an effort to distract from the economy and other topics top of mind for Americans.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a news conference on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, ahead of the lifting of Title 42. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas speaks at a March 10 news conference ahead of the lifting of Title 42. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Republicans, led by Greene and fellow Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Pat Fallon (Texas), have targeted Mayorkas with articles of impeachment over the flow of migrants at the southern border.

House Republicans have held multiple hearings focused on what they describe as Mayorkas’s “dereliction of duty,” and mishandling of border policy, pointing to surges of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border that set records in 2022.

“I just think that more and more people are starting to come around to the necessity to impeach the guy,” Biggs said.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) recently announced the panel would kick off a formal investigation of Mayorkas as a necessary step ahead of an impeachment inquiry.

The focus on Mayorkas has drawn criticism from Democrats who believe Republicans are resorting to impeachment over what amounts to a disagreement over immigration policy.

Homeland Security also has pushed back on GOP arguments over the border while largely blaming Congress for the problems.

The push to impeach Mayorkas has also been complicated by a drop in apprehensions at the southern border in the weeks after the Biden administration ended Title 42, which had been in place since 2020 and allowed for the rapid expulsion of migrants.

FBI Director Christopher Wray

FBI Director Christopher Wray gives an opening statement during an April 27 hearing to discuss President Biden's fiscal 2023 budget request for the FBI. (Greg Nash)

Greene in May said she would target Wray and introduce articles of impeachment against him.

The congresswoman argued that Way turned the FBI into Biden and Garland’s “personal police force” and that the FBI has “intimidated, harassed, and entrapped” U.S. citizens who have been “deemed enemies of the Biden regime.”

While citing some FBI actions that she argued show the agency overreached, Greene referred to the plot that multiple men had in 2020 plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). She noted that two of the men were acquitted after defense attorneys argued that the FBI entrapped them and convinced them to engage in the conspiracy.

She also mentioned that the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for classified and sensitive documents, arguing that the former president didn’t break any laws. Trump has been indicted by a Miami jury over his handling of the records.

Wray is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on July 12.

The hearing comes after the Republican-led House Oversight Committee threatened to hold Wray in contempt over his initial refusal to turn over a document detailing an unverified tip that GOP lawmakers claim shows then-Vice President Biden’s involvement in a bribery scheme. The panel later backed off its contempt threat.

The FBI and Justice Department as a whole have become common targets for conservatives, who have repeatedly claimed federal law enforcement is biased against Republicans and has been weaponized. Those claims have been supercharged by the federal indictment of Trump on charges over his retention of classified government documents after he left office.

White House picks fight with Greene over funding

Posted on June 27, 2023 (Updated June 28, 2023) by Mychael Schnell

The White House is picking a fight with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after her hometown newspaper in Floyd County touted federal public safety grants the area was set to receive through the American Rescue Plan.

Greene, along with every other House Republican, voted against the American Rescue Plan in March 2021.

The White House took a shot at Greene over that vote after the Rome News-Tribune in Greene’s district ran an article on the front page Tuesday that highlighted a more than $1 million federal public safety grant the Floyd County Commission is set to accept.

“President Biden is proud of the resources he’s provided to stand up for the rule of law, crack down on gun crimes, and keep cops on the beat in Floyd County – and across the country,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said in a statement first provided to The Hill.

“Unlike Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who voted against this funding, as well as to defund federal law enforcement and fire thousands of Border Patrol agents, President Biden is committed to ensuring law enforcement has the resources they need to keep Northwest Georgians safe,” she added.

The money is appropriated through the Public Safety and Community Violence Reduction grant program, which is funded by the American Rescue Plan and meant to address violent gun crime and community violence that increased as a result of COVID-19.

Greene on Wednesday called the White House’s comment “ignorant” and railed against Biden’s handling of the situation at the border.

“Since taking office, Joe Biden’s blatant violation of our border laws has caused a flood of over 5,000,000 illegal aliens into our country, allowed 85,000 trafficked children to go missing, and murdered hundreds of Americans each day with Mexican cartel-smuggled Chinese-made fentanyl. Our district doesn’t face a crime epidemic, but we are feeling the real effects of Biden’s border crisis. My constituents are dying due to the drugs he allows into our country,” Greene said in a statement to The Hill.

“The flippant comment from the White House would be laughable if it wasn’t so ignorant of what Northwest Georgia faces due to border invasion created by Joe Biden,” she added.

Tuesday is not the first time that the White House has gone after Greene, a firebrand Republican congresswoman who has emerged as one of Biden’s top critics on Capitol Hill.

Greene has introduced impeachment articles against Biden. Last week, she voted with Republicans to refer a resolution to impeach Biden over the situation at the southern border to two congressional committees.

In March, during the House Democratic retreat in Baltimore, Biden mocked Greene while delivering remarks to lawmakers, asking the crowd of the Georgia Republican “isn’t she amazing?”

And last month, White House spokesperson Ian Sams circulated a memo that criticized House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Greene for their “bizarre focus” on Biden and his family members.

More generally, the White House has accused House Republicans of opposing funding for law enforcement with their votes against the American Rescue Plan and of cutting funding for border security when they supported the debt limit plan the conference approved in April.

Last August, the White House wrote on Twitter, “Every single Republican in Congress voted against funding for law enforcement in President Biden’s American Rescue Plan.” And last month, the White House circulated a memo arguing Republicans were gutting border security with their debt limit bill.

The accusation that Republicans are defunding the police through their vote against the American Rescue Plan, however, has been contested. The Washington Post’s fact checker awarded the claim three pinocchios in 2021.

Alex Gangitano and Brett Samuels contributed. Updated on June 28 at 12:16 p.m.

Supreme Court Deals Major Blow To Texas, Louisiana In Deportation Lawsuit

Posted on June 26, 2023 by The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley (The Center Square)

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to Texas and Louisiana Friday in a lawsuit over a Biden administration policy that’s helped effectively end most deportations of foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally.

Rather than rule on the merits of the case, in United States v. Texas, the court ruled 8-1 that the states didn’t have standing, or a legal right, to challenge the policy.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the sole dissent, arguing the justices ignored “a major precedent.”

He wrote:

“The Court holds Texas lacks standing to challenge a federal policy that inflicts substantial harm on the State and its residents by releasing illegal aliens with criminal convictions for serious crimes.

In order to reach this conclusion, the Court brushes aside a major precedent that directly controls the standing question, refuses to apply our established test for standing, disregards factual findings made by the District Court after a trial, and holds that the only limit on the power of a President to disobey a law like the important provision at issue is Congress’s power to employ the weapons of inter-branch warfare – withholding funds, impeachment and removal, etc. I would not blaze this unfortunate trail. I would simply apply settled law, which leads ineluctably to the conclusion that Texas has standing.”

Last June, a federal judge in Texas, U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, ruled in favor of Texas and Louisiana, arguing they would incur costs due to the federal government’s failure to comply with federal immigration law and deportation policies. The judge ruled the states had standing to sue because of these costs. He also vacated the deportation policy, arguing it was unlawful.

The Biden administration appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which again handed a victory to the states by declining to stay the lower court’s ruling. The Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted cert. Last fall, the court heard oral arguments and on Friday ruled the states lacked Article III standing.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a different opinion saying the states didn’t have standing for a different reason than the one Kavanaugh gave. He was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett also wrote her own concurring opinion and was joined by Gorsuch.

At issue is a final memorandum, “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law,” issued by Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, drastically altering deportation policies, including limiting issuing detainer requests for dangerous criminal aliens.

In Mayorkas’ final September 2021 memorandum, he also challenged federal law established by Congress that illegal entry is a crime in itself and a deportable offense. The policy states: “The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them. We will use our discretion and focus our enforcement resources in a more targeted way. Justice and our country’s well-being require it.”

Many news organizations reported the Supreme Court ruling would allow the administration to prioritize deporting violent criminals. But under the current administration, deportations immediately dropped by two-thirds in the first fiscal year of the administration, according to CBP data. In fiscal 2021, deportations also dropped to the lowest level since fiscal 1996 despite record-high illegal entries.

Mayorkas’ policy also followed President Joe Biden’s directive, who after taking office ordered a “pause” on deportations.

Last July, 19 attorneys general filed an amicus brief expressing support for Texas’ and Louisiana’s lawsuit, arguing Mayorkas violated federal law and DHS’s actions negatively impacted their states and jeopardized the safety and welfare of Americans.

The AGs argued, and still maintain, “The Amici States and their citizens continue to suffer significant costs from illegal immigration – including billions of dollars in new expenses relating to law enforcement, education, and healthcare programs – as a direct result of Defendants’ failures to enforce immigration law. Those harms are exacerbated by DHS’ increasingly brazen disrespect for the requirements of our nation’s immigration laws and the Administrative Procedure Act.

“The border is in crisis,” they argued. “This DHS Administration is lawless. And the States continue to suffer escalating irreparable harm as the border crisis continually intensifies to successive, ever-more unprecedented levels of illegal crossings.”

Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.

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McCarthy, Senate Republicans Shrinking Away From Biden Impeachment Efforts, House Sidelines Vote

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Rusty Weiss

This may come as a surprise, but it’s glaringly apparent that Republican leadership does not have the stomach to pursue the impeachment of President Joe Biden.

MAGA Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leveraged a procedural tool earlier this week to force a vote on an impeachment resolution. The resolution alleges Biden violated his oath by failing to enforce immigration laws and secure the southern border.

In a strictly party-line vote, 219-208, the House voted Thursday to send the matter to a pair of congressional committees – the House Homeland Security and Judiciary – for possible consideration.

Sounds good, right?

Except, as the Associated Press points out, those committees “are under no obligation to do anything.”

They describe the effort as having “pushed off” the impeachment resolution, while Reuters reports that the House has “sidelined” the measure.

U.S. House sidelines far-right Republican impeachment vote on Biden https://t.co/bwVM0FeIRF

— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) June 22, 2023

Shrinking Violets: Republicans Retreating From Biden Impeachment

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been trying to tamp down impeachment efforts from firebrand GOP lawmakers Boebert and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Greene (R-GA) has announced plans for similar impeachment initiatives against Biden, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, the attorney prosecuting January 6 participants.

McCarthy, meanwhile, urged Republicans to oppose Boebert’s resolution, saying, “I don’t think it’s the right thing to do” and citing a need for investigation and following the traditional process.

Rep Boebert explains that Republican leadership is not supporting her resolution to impeach Joe Biden right now.

CALL: 202-225-3121 or https://t.co/EItwnhbD8z pic.twitter.com/mcyswtXCtx

— Grace Chong “I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” said McCarthy. “If anyone ever rises to that occasion, you have to, but I think the country wants to heal and … start to see the system that actually works.” (@gc22gc) June 21, 2023

McCarthy is being true to form, so long as you listen very carefully to what he says. Just a couple of weeks before the midterm elections he wasn’t a fan of impeaching President Biden.

“I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” said McCarthy. “If anyone ever rises to that occasion, you have to, but I think the country wants to heal and … start to see the system that actually works.”

Perhaps he doesn’t recall that Democrats didn’t give a rip about whether or not former President Donald Trump “rose to the occasion of impeachment,” going after him twice for requesting an investigation of corruption in Ukraine and for telling people to protest peacefully at the Capitol.

Considering recent news, Trump’s ask for an investigation was perfectly legitimate.

Perhaps Greene should have been directing her recent remarks about Boebert to the Speaker instead.

NEW in @PunchbowlNews AM — MCCARTHY on investigations if House Rs take the majority.

TOP LINE: @GOPLeader is quite bearish on impeachment.

Check out what he told us pic.twitter.com/jboHv9NPoX

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 19, 2022

Senate Republicans Too

A new Axios report indicates Senate Republicans are also a bit squeamish about pursuing President Biden’s impeachment. Several top GOP senators – members of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s leadership team – are quoted as being in opposition.

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) – “I don’t know what they’re basing the president’s impeachment on … I can’t imagine going down that road.”
John Thune (R-SD) – “I’d rather focus on the policy agenda, the vision for the future, and go on and win elections.”
Steve Daines (R-MT) – Hasn’t “seen evidence that would rise to an impeachable offense.”

Top GOP senators bristle at House impeachment efforts via @axios https://t.co/khacJym6zK

— Chris (@Chris_1791) June 22, 2023

Senator Daines – You haven’t seen any evidence?! Perhaps a visit to the optometrist is in order.

The border crisis, Afghanistan withdrawal, the criminal pursuit of political opponents, colluding with school boards to treat parents like terrorists, corruption and bribery, an obvious lack of mental acuity? Do any of these things ring a bell?

Every single Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee voted this morning to hide the IRS whistleblower testimony and keep it secret.

Now we know why: it is devastating proof that the Biden family is a criminal organization and DOJ is a corrupt Democrat protection racket. pic.twitter.com/pzniJCIFak

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 22, 2023

What is the point of the Republican party right now? Can anybody explain what they’re doing?

Perhaps these Republican squishes should listen to the words of Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) who pointed out that it was the Democrats who opened Pandora’s Box when it comes to impeachment.

“Whether it’s justified or not, the Democrats weaponized impeachment. They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him,” Cruz said.

It’s time the GOP exercised its own power. Their colleagues on the other side of the aisle didn’t hesitate to take down Trump’s presidency. They won’t hesitate to do the same if a Republican wins the White House in 2024.

Grow a spine.

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