Category: joe biden

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

Posted on 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.

RELATED: GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy Pre-Surrenders, Saying GOP Won’t Impeach Biden

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.

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.

RELATED: MAGA Fight Consumes House Floor as Marjorie Taylor Greene Goes After Lauren Boebert, Calls Her a ‘Little B****’

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.”

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?

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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The post McCarthy, Senate Republicans Shrinking Away From Biden Impeachment Efforts, House Sidelines Vote appeared first on The Political Insider.

The Memo: Boebert’s ‘frankly stupid’ impeachment push leads to GOP groans, Dem glee

Posted on (Updated by Niall Stanage

A quixotic push by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to impeach President Biden was placed on the back burner Thursday. But even some Republican insiders fear the damage might already have been done.

Boebert, one of the fiercest among the GOP’s right-wing firebrands, surprised many of her colleagues by introducing an impeachment resolution earlier this week. The move caused disarray in the House Republican conference, and the furor was only defused with a deal to send the resolution for consideration by committees.

The move, passed in a 219-208 vote Thursday, places no obligation on the committees to do anything to advance Boebert’s proposal. But she is insistent that, if it becomes clear the gambit is solely about delay, she will bring up her resolution “every day for the rest of my time here in Congress.”

Meanwhile, more moderate Republicans are wincing at what they consider an unforced political error that will give Democrats ammunition to attack the GOP as extreme and out of touch.

Republican strategist Dan Judy described the move as “frankly stupid,” adding, “the party needs to be focused on the problems facing Americans rather than this sideshow.”

Most polls, to be sure, show American voters' main concerns are the economy and inflation, as well as a host of other matters barely related to the effort to impeach the president.

But that doesn’t mean there will be an end to impeachment efforts, given that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) has her own efforts to impeach not only Biden, but Attorney General Merrick Garland, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Matthew Graves, the U.S. district attorney for the District of Columbia.

Adding to this week’s spectacle, Boebert and Greene got into a heated verbal exchange on the House floor Wednesday. Several observers contended Greene called Boebert a “little bitch.” Greene also reportedly accused Boebert of copying her on impeachment. 

Boebert, for her part, has shot back that she doesn’t want to get involved in “middle school” antics.

Democrats are agog at disputes like that one — but also convinced that the politics of the matter will play to their advantage.

Democratic strategist Mark Longabaugh declared himself amazed at “the degree to which the Republicans will figure out a way to self-destruct.”

He argued the specific danger was that performative efforts such as a push to impeach Biden would turn off independent and moderate voters. 

While he acknowledged such voters have become fewer as the United States has become more polarized, he contended that they "still are a decisive part of winning any general election. And it’s very, very clear that those moderate, swing voters are just not interested in all these Republican shenanigans.”

Some Republicans shoot back that Democrats twice impeached then-President Trump — and they note that, separate from those moves, some Democratic members made solo runs aimed at the same goal.

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) tried at least three times to impeach Trump, for example. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) introduced five articles of impeachment against Trump in November 2017, before the 45th president had even rung up a full year in office.

But Democrats note that such measures died swiftly, and further contend that the MAGA wing of the GOP has a firmer grip on today’s Republican Party than the progressive left has on congressional Democrats.

They point not only to Boebert’s impeachment effort but to the mini-uprising that stalled normal business in the House recently, after hard-right members including Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) balked at issues including the compromises Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had made on spending in order to win a debt ceiling deal with Biden.

There is still the possibility that ultraconservative unhappiness over those compromises could result in a government shutdown closer to the end of the year.

“It’s not just the impeachment, but this whole pattern of things,” said Democratic strategist Robert Shrum. 

He included allegations of “Deep State” malfeasance, as well as attacks even on some judges and investigators appointed by former Trump, as evidence of this pattern.

Shrum added that any government shutdown would be “catastrophic for the Republican Party.”

Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.), speaking in the House on Thursday, accused Republicans involved in bringing the impeachment resolution to the floor of “dishonoring this House and dishonoring themselves.”

According to The Associated Press, McGovern added that the House had "become a place where extreme, outlandish and nutty issues get debated passionately, and important ones not at all.”

Even some Republicans who are uneasy with Boebert’s actions argue that the political impact should not be exaggerated. They contend the episode might fade from voters’ minds fast enough.

But it’s notable that the effort was seen as causing severe discomfort for the 18 House Republicans who represent districts won by Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

And Boebert’s push also gives more fuel to the president’s argument about the supposed extremism of “ultra-MAGA Republicans” — a label that was effective during last year’s midterms.

Still, there seems no chance of Boebert backing down. 

“Last Congress, I watched my impeachment articles collect dust in Pelosi’s office,” she tweeted Thursday afternoon. “This Congress, action had to be taken!”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Republicans rage over Hunter Biden — with some notable exceptions

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

Republican lawmakers are venting their frustration over what they say is an overly lenient plea agreement between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors, further escalating GOP tensions with the Justice Department.   

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday led the backlash from Republican lawmakers.   

“It continues to show the two-tier system in America,” McCarthy told reporters, echoing the arguments Republicans deployed after the Justice Department earlier this month unsealed a 37-count indictment against former President Trump.  

“If you are the president’s leading political opponent, the DOJ tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time. But if you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal,” McCarthy said.   

Biden agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanors for failing to pay income taxes in 2017 and 2018. He also agreed to enter a pretrial diversion program for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user or addicted to a controlled substance.   

The plea deal, however, divided Republican leaders, just as Trump’s indictment drew mixed responses from GOP lawmakers last week.   

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to comment about Biden’s legal problems as he walked to the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon.   

His opening remarks on the floor made no mention of the president’s son and focused instead on what he called “the Biden administration’s radical nominees” and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing.   

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) also held back from lashing out at the Justice Department, pointing out that the U.S. attorney who cut the deal was a Trump appointee.   

“The justice system, I guess, has got to work its way out. He’s going to plead to a couple tax evasion charges and a gun charge. I don’t know that this is necessarily the end of the road for him, probably not. At least the preliminary stage of it is done,” Thune told reporters.  

Asked about Republican criticisms of a two-tiered system and a sweetheart deal, Thune said: “I don’t know what else they got on him, but I do think the American people have to be convinced that the justice system treats everybody equally under the law.”  

“This was a — my understanding is at least — Trump-appointed U.S. attorney. So we’ll see where it goes from here,” he added.   

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wasn’t in the mood Tuesday to delve into the political wrangling over Hunter Biden’s plea deal.  

“I don’t have any reaction, ask me about something else,” she said. 

On the other side of the Capitol, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) echoed McCarthy’s claim of a “two-tiered system of justice.”   

“Hunter Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist when growing evidence uncovered by the House Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery,” he said.    

Republican lawmakers for months have pushed allegations based on anonymous sources that Biden received preferential treatment from the Internal Revenue Service and was involved in a bribery scheme with a Ukrainian energy company.   

But those thinly sourced claims were left unaddressed by a document outlining the plea agreement that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, filed with the U.S. district court in Wilmington, Del.  

Comer vowed to continue his investigation, pledging: “We will not rest until the full extent of President Biden’s involvement in the family’s schemes are revealed.”  

The Republican National Committee on Tuesday tweeted out a video clip of one of Hunter Biden’s attorneys telling MSNBC he didn’t remember prosecutors ever asking about Biden’s infamous laptop.   

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has highlighted unverified allegations by an anonymous foreign national that the Bidens were involved in a bribery scheme, pointed out that Weiss, the U.S. attorney, said his investigation of Hunter Biden is ongoing.   

Asked if he expected additional charges, Grassley said: “All I know is what Weiss said, the case is still open.”   

“Today’s plea deal cannot be the final word given the significant body of evidence that the FBI and Justice Department has at its disposal. It certainly won’t be for me,” he said in a statement released earlier Tuesday.  

He said he and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent material, including bank records, to the U.S. attorney, and it "doesn’t look to me like Weiss gave much credit to it with this very weak result that was announced today.”  

Johnson, who has worked closely with Grassley, said “it stinks to high heaven.”  

“The fact that they have now an IRS whistleblower coming forward and saying that the entire IRS investigatory team almost in unprecedented fashion was pulled off the case [and it] sounds like there’s allegations that they on purpose they allowed the statute of limitations to expire on more serious charges — there’s so many things that I would want investigated in terms of Hunter Biden,” he said.

Other Republican senators joined in the attacks on the Justice Department.   

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) called the plea deal “a slap on the wrist.”   

“This doesn’t show equal justice. It’s a mockery of our legal system by a family that has no respect for our laws,” he said.  

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who has endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, called it “nothing more than a wrist slap from his dad’s DOJ.”  

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) called the deal “troubling.”   

Lee retweeted criticisms of the agreement circulated by Brett Tolman, the executive director of Right On Crime, a conservative advocacy group, who said pretrial diversion programs normally exclude offenses involving the brandishing a firearm.  

Many Senate and House Republicans lashed out against Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith last week after the Justice Department charged Trump with violations of the Espionage Act and conspiring to obstruct justice.  

They also argued the lack of charges against President Biden, who kept classified documents from his service in the Senate and vice president in the Obama administration, showed the federal prosecution of Trump was motivated by politics.   

“So Hunter Biden gets a special plea deal, slap on the wrist — probably won’t do a day of time — while DOJ charges Trump as a spy and tries to put him in prison forever. Two standards of ‘justice,’” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tweeted in response to the deal.   

One Senate Republican aide said Hunter Biden appeared to get a fairly lenient deal from the Justice Department but pointed out he cooperated with prosecutors, in contrast to Trump.

“Of course, Hunter got off easy, but he cooperated, unlike Trump,” the aide said, noting the special counsel’s indictment against the former president alleges Trump deliberately misled his lawyer about cooperating with a grand jury subpoena.   

Democrats on Tuesday argued the charges against Biden, coming just a week after the prosecutors unsealed the indictment of Trump, shows the Justice Department is applying the law fairly.   

“Neither Hunter Biden nor Donald Trump are above the law. They’re both held responsible and are going to go through the process. Joe Biden’s son just did, just completed it,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). 

Emily Brooks and Al Weaver contributed.

The RussiaGate Scandal Is Far From Over

Posted on by RealClearWire

By J. Peder Zane for RealClearWire

Special Counsel John Durham may have issued his final report last month, but the Russiagate scandal is far from over. This is not because there is no more to learn about the years-long effort by the Democratic Party, the FBI, CIA, and major news outlets to advance the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump teamed with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election.

Rather it’s because Russiagate never ended. Unlike political scandals of the past – from the XYZ Affair to Watergate and Iran-Contra – it is not a discrete set of events with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, it has become a form of governing in which the entrenched forces of the Washington bureaucracy punish their enemies, protect their friends and interfere in elections with impunity.

A continuous thread connects the schemes to deny the results of the 2016 election, to cover up the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes during the 2020 election, and the ongoing effort to tar President Biden’s opponents as extremists or racists.

Ironically, all of this is especially dangerous because it is out in the open. The profound misdeeds are not hidden in the dark web; they are part of the public record. And yet, none of the major malefactors – including Joe Biden, former President Obama, Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James B. Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan, among others – have been held to account. Rather, they are lionized, and in some cases employed, by leading media organizations.

The breadth of these machinations is so extensive that I would need a book, rather than a column, to detail it. But here is a brief recap that can serve as a reminder of key events of this dark period of our history.

On July 28, 2016, then CIA Director John Brennan informed President Obama about intelligence reports indicating Hillary Clinton’s campaign “plan” to tie Donald Trump to Russia in order to distract the public from the growing controversy over her use of a private email server while Secretary of State. Notes in the margin – “JC,” “Susan,” and “Denis” – almost certainly refer to then FBI Director James Comey, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough.

On July 31, Comey’s FBI launched a counterintelligence probe into whether the Trump campaign was conspiring with Russia to damage Clinton through the release of her emails.

On Jan. 3, 2017, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer warned the president-elect not to challenge the intelligence community’s claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

On Jan. 5, 2017, in his finals days in office, Obama held an Oval Office meeting with Brennan, Comey, Rice, Vice President Biden, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and others to strategize responses to alleged Russian election interference and Trump’s victory.

On Jan. 6, Comey briefed President-elect Trump about the Steele dossier – a series of absurd and salacious memos paid for and disseminated by the Clinton campaign that sought to tarnish Trump’s character while tying him and his campaign associates to the Kremlin.

On Jan. 10, CNN used a leak it received about Comey’s briefing to broadcast the dossier’s smears, fueling a partisan feeding frenzy that led to the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Trump/Russia ties. Buzzfeed News published the entire dossier the same day.

On Jan. 28, after assuring Trump privately that he wasn’t under investigation, Comey wrote a memo recounting that he’d boasted to the new president, “I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves.” He then went to his car and typed up his version of the conversations. When Trump fired him on May 9, Comey immediately leaked the memos, in violation of FBI rules, to a sympathetic college professor in hopes, he conceded later, of prompting the appointment of a special prosecutor. On May 17, Robert S. Mueller III, a longtime Comey friend and ally, was appointed special counsel to investigate potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Related: Durham Report on the FBI is So Damning That Chuck Todd is Calling For a Church Committee to Investigate

On April 18, 2018, the New York Times and Washington Post shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for their “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.” This work, much of which was based on leaks from anonymous government sources, was filled with “false and misleading claims” which, my RealClearInvestigations colleague Aaron Maté reported, the newspapers have still refused to correct.

On March 22, 2019, Mueller submitted a report on his investigation which “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Mueller, however, claimed that the source of these falsehoods was beyond his mandate, so he did not look into the role Clinton, Comey, Brennan, Obama, and other high-ranking Democrats played in ginning up charges of treason against a duly elected U.S. president.

On May 13, it was reported that Attorney General William Barr had appointed John Durham to examine the origins of the Russia probe. Barr upgraded Durham to a Special Counsel role on Dec. 1, 2020. Durham’s final report, issued last month, detailed the Clinton campaign’s central role in the Russiagate conspiracy while concluding that “the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election” because it relied on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.” Durham’s investigation also undermined the other pillar of the Russia hoax, endorsing earlier findings that there was no conclusive evidence that the Russians had hacked DNC servers. Like the Trump/Russia collusion theory, this claim also originated from associates of the Clinton campaign.

On Sept. 24, the Mueller report a bust, House Democrats began proceedings to make Trump just the third president in history to be impeached based on the claim that he sought foreign influence in America’s elections by holding up aid to Ukraine for a short period to pressure the country into looking into its potential connection to the Russiagate hoax and the Biden family’s work in Ukraine. The aid package was later delivered, and no investigation was undertaken. Nevertheless, the House approved two articles of impeachment on December 18, 2019, along party lines – all Republicans and three Democrats opposed the measure – and sent them to the GOP-controlled Senate, which acquitted Trump on Feb. 5, 2020, on another party-line vote (only Republican Mitt Romney crossed party lines to convict Trump on a single charge).

On Oct. 14, 2020, the New York Post reported “that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.” The article, based on email from a laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop, suggested an influence-peddling scheme while flatly contradicting Joe Biden’s claim that he never discussed his son’s foreign business dealings.

On Oct. 17, Biden campaign official and future Secretary of State Antony Blinken discusses the laptop with former acting CIA Director Mike Morell.

On Oct. 19, Politico reported that a letter signed by Morell and 51 other former intelligence officials – including Brennan and Clapper – claimed that allegations in the Post article had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Echoing the false Russiagate claims, the letter continued, “For the Russians at this point, with Trump down in the polls, there is incentive for Moscow to pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win.” Major news outlets and social media companies relied on this letter to downplay and suppress the revelations. The FBI, which had taken possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop in December 2019, refused to comment on its authenticity.

On Oct. 22, Joe Biden invoked the letter in his final debate with Trump to dismiss the laptop as “a Russian plant.” On November 3, Biden became president through razor-thin margins in key swing states.

On March 30, 2022, the Washington Post reported that it had authenticated thousands of emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop. CBS News subsequently verified almost all the contents of the laptop.

Related: Hawley Demands Prosecution of Democrats, Hillary Clinton After Durham Report Reveals FBI Used False Intelligence to Launch Trump-Russia Probe

On May 15, 2023, the New York Post reported that the Internal Revenue Service removed “the entire investigative team” in its years-long tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden at the behest of President Biden’s Department of Justice. This purge came after several whistleblowers stepped forward claiming the probe was being slow-walked. The move also came after a series of revelations showed how the Biden family used a series of shell companies to funnel millions of dollars from foreign sources to at least nine family members – including Joe Biden’s young grandchildren. As Andrew C. McCarthy recently noted in the National Review, it is still not clear what the Bidens provided in exchange for this money, other than access to Joe.

On June 4, former FBI Director Comey, noting the long string of cases being brought against Trump by Democratic officials, told MSNBC that “it’s a crazy world that Donald Trump has dragged this country into, but he could be wearing an ankle brace while accepting the nomination at the Republican convention.”

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

The post The RussiaGate Scandal Is Far From Over appeared first on The Political Insider.

McConnell, McCarthy finally jell with debt limit fight 

Posted on (Updated by Alexander Bolton

The relationship between Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) jelled this month as they worked together on a debt ceiling deal.

McConnell played an instrumental role as adviser to McCarthy and President Biden during months of stalemate, when the president refused to negotiate directly with the Speaker. 

The veteran Kentucky deal-maker helped break the impasse when he called Biden directly after a May 9 meeting of the top four congressional leaders and informed the president bluntly that he needed to cut a deal with McCarthy, according to a person familiar with the conversation. 

“There was a lot of back-channel communication, and I think what Speaker McCarthy asked for and what he got was the support from the Republicans over here, which produced some leverage. Every time Biden said he wasn’t going to negotiate or it was going to be clean debt ceiling or nothing, the fact that [Senate Republicans] also said ‘no debt ceiling’ strengthened his hand,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to McConnell’s leadership team.  

McCarthy also won plaudits from McConnell and other GOP senators by winning passage in April of a GOP plan to raise the debt ceiling and cut $4.8 trillion from the deficit.

“I was very pleasantly surprised because we saw the Speaker’s election, and it wasn’t exactly a well-oiled machine,” said Cornyn, referring to the 15 votes McCarthy needed to win election as House Speaker.

McCarthy’s struggles prompted worries in the Senate that he would have a tough time passing legislation. Those doubts were a major factor in the decision by some GOP senators to support the $1.7 trillion omnibus package McConnell negotiated with Biden and congressional Democrats at the end of 2022. Senators feared McCarthy wouldn’t be able to move spending bills if they got punted into this year. 

The lack of trust was so severe that McCarthy met with Senate Republicans in the Senate’s famed Mansfield Room on Dec. 21 to plead with them to have faith in his ability to lead.  

“He talked about how we need to work better together than we have in the past,” then-Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) told reporters after the meeting. 

McConnell played a major role in unifying the Senate GOP conference behind McCarthy as their lead negotiator on the debt limit, despite those doubts.

After Biden invited McCarthy, McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) to the White House for a meeting that made little progress, McConnell called the president to deliver a blunt message.   

He told Biden he needed to “shrink the room” and had to work with McCarthy directly, according to an Associated Press report that was confirmed by a person familiar with the conversation. He made it clear he would not intervene to hash out a last-minute deal like he did in 2011.  

Cornyn said House passage of the GOP debt-limit plan caught Biden off guard.

“Because he was able to keep his troops together, I think that stunned Biden folks because they thought [House Republicans] were going to collapse and be unsuccessful,” he said. 

Senate Republicans and GOP aides believe the rapport that McCarthy and McConnell developed will pay dividends going forward as they tackle other tough issues, like avoiding a government shutdown and providing more military and economic aid for Ukraine.   

Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who advised McConnell’s political campaigns, said the teamwork developed during the debt limit fight was “quite important and shows the strategic awareness of both men.” 

“The role he played was an adviser to both Biden and McCarthy and the advice was very simple, and he had been giving it publicly: These two guys are going to have to cut a deal,” Jennings said.  

“McConnell was the clear-eyed person here. ... I think this was a great moment for Republican Party unity,” he added.  

McConnell for years was the top Republican in Washington, but now he is ceding more of the spotlight to McCarthy, who had little leverage when he was in the House minority.

The two split publicly over last year’s omnibus spending package, which McConnell backed as a win for the Defense Department. McCarthy opposed it and even asked Senate Republicans to block it to give the incoming House GOP majority a chance to renegotiate the spending levels.  

Aides said they met regularly throughout 2021 and 2022, but McConnell and McCarthy rarely appeared together in public. 

Each leader has a very different relationship with former President Donald Trump.  

McConnell excoriated Trump on the Senate floor after his 2021 impeachment trial for fanning unsubstantiated claims that Biden won the 2020 presidential election because of widespread fraud.  

He said the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was spurred by “the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole” that Trump “kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”  

McCarthy, by contrast, joined a majority of the House Republican conference in voting on Jan. 6 to sustain objections to the certification of the 2020 election.  

They also split over a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package Biden signed into law in November 2021. 

McConnell hailed the law as a major win for his home state, which is set to receive more than $2.2 billion for its transportation needs, while McCarthy whipped his House GOP colleagues to oppose it.  

And while McConnell voted for a bipartisan bill to address gun violence after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and a bipartisan bill to invest tens of billions of dollars in the domestic semi-conductor manufacturing industry, McCarthy voted against both of them.  

McCarthy panned the Chips and Science Act as a “$280 billion blank check” to the semiconductor industry.  

Those votes fueled concerns among Senate Republicans about McCarthy’s willingness to stand up to conservatives in his conference.  

Asked about those doubts, Jennings observed: “The House Republicans are a diverse and rowdy bunch.” 

“Were there questions about how they would all end up jelling and working together? Sure. That’s natural,” he said. “I think there was some basic wondering. … I don’t think it’s fair to couch it as, ‘Oh everybody thought McCarthy was weak or whatever.’ I think that’s what the punditry was."  

Poll: Voters Nearly Split on Wanting Congress to Impeach President Biden

Posted on by The Center Square

According to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, voters remain statistically tied in their support for or opposition to Congress impeaching President Joe Biden.

The poll of nearly 1,000 likely voters found that 42% surveyed said they favored Congress holding impeachment proceeding against Biden; 45% said the opposite. The poll has a 3% +/- margin of error.

RELATED: Joe Biden ‘Will Be Impeached’ Over Report Allegedly Linking Him to ‘Criminal Scheme,’ Says MTG

A strong majority of Republicans, 70%, said Congress should hold impeachment hearings; 71% of Democrats said Congress shouldn’t. Among independents, 39% said Congress should begin impeachment proceedings; 40% said they shouldn’t.

The poll asked three key questions. It first asked, “How likely is it that, since becoming president, Joe Biden has committed high crimes and misdemeanors that would justify Congress impeaching him?” It next asked, “Should Congress begin impeachment proceedings against President Biden?” Finally, it asked, “Regardless of whether or not you think President Biden should be impeached, how likely is it that Congress actually will pursue impeachment proceedings against President Biden?”

The majority of all polled, 53%, said it was “at least somewhat likely” that since taking office the president has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors that would justify Congress impeaching him.” Among them, 38% said it was “very likely” that he had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors;” 28% said it was “not at all likely.”

Over one-third of Democrats and 48% of independents said it was “at least somewhat likely.”

More men than women, 58% to 48%, said it was likely that the president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors; men were also more likely to support Congress holding impeachment proceedings.

RELATED: GOP Leader McCarthy Again Gets Squishy When Asked About Impeaching Biden

Despite this, 66% said it was “at least not very likely;” 29% said it was “not at all likely” that Congress would do anything.

The findings were published as a recent report found that “the FBI had no verifiable evidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election when it launched a federal investigation.”

The findings were also published after attorneys for an IRS whistleblower informed members of Congress “that their client, who claims to have information suggesting the Biden administration could be mishandling the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has been removed from the probe into the president’s son,” ABC News reported.

According to a recent Reuters-Ipsos survey conducted May 9-15, if a rematch were held today, Biden would receive 38% of the vote, Trump would receive 36%. According to a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, Trump would defeat Biden by seven percentage points.

RELATED: Biden Administration’s New Mortgage Policy: Unjust and Dangerous

The Rasmussen Reports poll results were released on the same day U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, announced she planned to file articles of impeachment against Biden. Her main reason for doing so, she said, was because the president has “deliberately compromised our national security by refusing to enforce immigration laws and secure our border” by allowing “approximately six million illegals from over 170 countries to invade our country.”

White House spokesman Ian Sams said Greene’s announcement was a “shameless sideshow political stunt.”

The Rasmussen poll was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC, which surveyed 996 likely registered voters nationwide by phone and online on May 11 and 14-15.

Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.

The post Poll: Voters Nearly Split on Wanting Congress to Impeach President Biden appeared first on The Political Insider.

Greene plans to file articles of impeachment against Biden

Posted on (Updated by Jared Gans

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced plans to file articles of impeachment against President Biden on Thursday, alleging he has violated his oath of office in not securing the country’s borders and protecting national security. 

Greene said at a press conference this will be the “first set” of articles she introduces against Biden, whom she said has purposefully failed to fulfill his responsibilities of the presidency.

“It is with the highest amount of solemnity that I announce my intention to introduce articles of impeachment today on the head of this America-last executive branch, that has been working since Jan. 20, 2021, to systematically destroy this country, the president of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden,” Greene said.

Greene made a similar announcement two days ago regarding her plans to introduce articles of impeachment against FBI Director Christopher Wray and Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Greene said she has also introduced articles of impeachment against Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

The White House called Greene's plan a "stunt," noting Biden is focused on "preventing House Republicans’ default that would crash the economy."

“Is there a bigger example of a shameless sideshow political stunt than a trolling impeachment attack by one of the most extreme MAGA members in Congress over ‘national security’ while she actively demands to defund the FBI and even said she ‘would’ve been armed’ and ‘would have won’ the January 6 insurrection, if only she’d been in charge of it?" said Ian Sams, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations.

Greene initially introduced articles of impeachment against Biden on the first day of his presidency. She also filed articles against Garland in August following the search of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago property for the classified and sensitive documents taken there. Neither advanced in the House.

The Georgia Republican and ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Biden has refused to enforced immigration laws and secure the border, "deliberately" compromising U.S. national security. She said he has allowed migrants to "invade" the country while depriving border control agents of the resources and policies they need to perform their duties.

Greene said Biden has allowed fentanyl to "flood" into the country and kill Americans every day.

She also slammed the administration over its plan to direct Customs and Border Protection to release migrants into the U.S. without a set court date or way to track them. Under the plan, migrants need to check in with an app until they are given a court date to appear.

Greene said it amounts to "catch-and-release," allowing the migrants to be released instead of being held in custody until their court date.

"His policies, directives and statements surrounding the southern border have violated our laws and destroyed our country," she said. "Biden has blatantly violated his constitutional duty, and he is a direct threat to our national security."

Article II of the Constitution states that the president and other U.S. officials can be removed from office through impeachment and conviction on "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

Greene said she wants to take time to gather cosponsors on her impeachment resolutions. She avoided directly answering a question on what exact charges she would file against Biden.

She said she discussed her plans to file the impeachment articles with other members of Republican leadership and said they did not ask her not to move forward.

She said she is introducing the articles because a majority the "base" of Republican voters and other Americans outside it agree with impeaching these officials, describing it as "the right thing to do."

"There's never any consequences for anyone in the federal government when regular American citizens face consequences all the time, and I'm introducing these articles because this is what people are demanding," Greene said.

Mayorkas has faced intense criticism from many Republicans over the situation at the southern border, which experienced a record number of migrant crossings in recent months. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) called for Mayorkas's impeachment last week.

Greene alleges Wray and Garland have turned the FBI and Justice Department into Biden's "personal police force" to prosecute the administration's political opponents. She claimed that those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection were mostly peaceful, but Garland has still pursued them. A bipartisan Senate report found last year that seven people died related to the attack on the Capitol that day.

Greene said Wray prioritizes his own party above performing his job, wrongly identifying the Republican Wray as a Democrat. He has been director of the FBI since August 2017 and was nominated by former President Trump.

She said she is filing impeachment articles against Graves, the U.S. attorney, over his prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants, which she said have continued while he has declined to prosecute 67 percent of people arrested by Washington, D.C., police last year.

"That affects people in our nation's capital, just regular innocent people that live and work here. I think as our conference learns more and more on this, they'll understand it," she said.

Greene said employees are fired from their jobs if they are corrupt or are not adequately serving their employers. She said all five officials are corrupt and unfit to hold office, so they must be impeached.

Updated at 12:04 p.m.

Biden-Harris campaign manager releases ‘road to victory’ plan

Posted on (Updated by Alex Gangitano

The Biden-Harris 2024 reelection campaign outlined its road to victory Thursday, a plan that includes expanding the map, building on its 2020 and 2022 coalition and breaking through the media environment.

The road to victory also includes focusing on issues Americans care about and running as a united front, according to a memo obtained by The Hill. The memo, entitled “The Road to Victory in 2024” was sent by campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez to interested parties Thursday.

In its effort to expand the map, the campaign will invest early in ad buys in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. To try to build on the 2020 and 2022 coalition, the campaign plans to focus on suburban voters “particularly motivated by Republican attacks on reproductive rights,” Rodriguez said. Additionally, they will focus on Black, Latino, Asian American, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander voters.

To try to break through the media environment, which Rodriguez describes is fragmented, they will “use innovative strategies to break through and connect with voters where they are” by “leveraging people’s personal networks, through amplifying core messages online, and having personal conversations offline,” she said.

And in order ensure it focuses on the American people, Rodriguez said the campaign will work to highlight lived experiences. To attempt to display a united front, the campaign will leverage already-established Democratic party infrastructure.

“Democrats are most successful when we run together. Working collaboratively with candidates and state parties, we’ll build a diverse campaign that’s focused on a unified message, tailored to the communities we need to register, persuade and turn out to vote,” she said.

Rodriguez also argued that the Biden-Harris campaign entered the 2024 reelection campaign “in a markedly strong position,” pointing to the better-than-expected 2022 midterm results for Democrats.

“In 2022, Democrats won elections in spite of a turnout environment that was more Republican than in 2020. This shows that, under the Biden administration, we have gained support from Republican and independent swing voters who had not previously voted for Democrats,” she said.

Additionally, she noted that Democrats have been successful in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, special elections in Pennsylvania and the mayoral race in Jacksonville, Fla.

President Biden launched his 2024 reelection campaign April 25 through a video message. Rodriguez started her role as campaign manager this week. She previously was senior adviser to Biden and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.

‘Stop, stop’: GOP bashes Biden for taking off during debt showdown

Posted on (Updated by Alex Gangitano

Republicans are blasting President Biden for leaving Washington for Asia on Wednesday without significant progress on debt limit negotiations, as the country inches toward a deadline on defaulting that could prove catastrophic on the financial system.

Biden will be in Japan for this weekend’s Group of Seven (G-7) summit but has canceled the latter portion of his trip, which included stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia, to be back in the nation’s capital and resume talks with congressional leaders. 

Even with the shortened trip, lawmakers criticized Biden for taking off at all.

“Here we are on the brink of a Biden default. And I think we saw the helicopters going across here, and I said I think he’s leaving now to go to Japan. I’m like stop, stop,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said during an outdoor press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday.

She criticized the president for priding himself on being a good negotiator yet not negotiating with Republicans between the beginning of February until last week, when he brought leaders to the table again.

“Mr. President, cancel your trip to Japan. Stay at the table,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D). “Good grief, Mr. President, when is enough, enough? Shame on anyone, on anyone, who refuses to act. Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy and this entire team have been responsible, reasonable and sensible. Time is short, Mr. President. Let’s get this done.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has gone toe-to-toe with Biden on some key policy issues, said the president “should not leave, and he should worry about the debt limit here at home.”

After his meeting with Biden and other congressional leaders Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was asked if Biden should even be attending the G-7 and responded that the president can make his own decisions about his time. 

The White House maintains Biden can be president anywhere, a line they often use when he heads out of Washington.

But on the day of Biden's departure, McCarthy slightly changed his tune, saying, “I think he can” conduct international business while dealing with the debt ceiling before suggesting that the president should not have taken the trip.

“I think America wants an American president focused on American problems,” the California Republican said.

Biden delivered last-minute, unexpected remarks just before take off where he tried to assure the nation that leaders could come to an agreement before the country could default on its debt on June. 1 He referred to his shortened trip, indicating that would return Sunday after the G-7. His absence disrupted another international event — a planned Quad Leaders' summit in Sydney was canceled once Biden determined he would not attend.

When questioned about Biden’s indication that he can return to Washington on Sunday, have a press conference and finish the deal, McCarthy poked at the president for not engaging in talks between Feb. 1 and last week.

“It’s doable, but this is for a guy who didn’t want to meet with us for 97 days, and leaves the country and says he wants to come back Sunday to have a press conference? I really want a president that’s engaged and working through it,” the Speaker said.

The White House brushed off Republican criticism over Biden leaving Washington at all, highlighting the significance of the G-7.

“One of the responsibilities that an American president has is our leadership on the global stage, which is incredibly important and critical,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on the way to Japan, by way of Alaska, on Wednesday. “There are critical issues, yes, domestically, but also internationally that the president has to take on.”

McCarthy at the White House on Tuesday outlined that Biden had “changed the scope” of who is involved in talks, appointing White House officials, including his Office of Management and Budget director, to work directly with members of the Speaker’s team as they try to reach an agreement.

Biden on Wednesday said that group met last night and will meet again Wednesday as well as in the days following. Biden added he will be in “constant contact” with his team while at the G-7 and in touch with the Speaker.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan defended the decision to cancel the second leg of the trip when questioned about the White House previously insisting that Biden can do the job of president anywhere — right before they announced the trip would be cut short.

“As we were getting prepared to take off on this trip, he … made the determination that in the balance of his time, he needed to be back in Washington for the closing days before the deadline to ensure the United States does not go over a cliff,” Sullivan said.

“The president is confident that we can avoid default, but the reason he’s going back is to make sure that happens. So what he will tell [allies] is he is going home to do what a president does,” Sullivan said, adding that Biden will express confidence to allies that he can strike a deal.

Vice President Harris is set to provide an update to reporters on preventing default Thursday, alongside the director of the National Economic Council Director, Lael Brainard, indicating that she is also stepping in while the president is away.

That’s still not enough for lawmakers.

“[Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen] said the U.S. could default as early as June 1, which is 16 days away. With this as a backdrop, President Biden is planning to hop on a plane to Japan tomorrow,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Tuesday. “He can't fly halfway around the globe just as negotiations are gaining momentum.” 

Meanwhile, some Democrats defended the president’s decision to leave town.

"I don't think he's the one sitting in the room doing the negotiations. I think he's the one, hopefully, leading the people in the room negotiating, but he can do that via Zoom or via telephone call,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said. “Look, there's a lot of shit going on in the world he needs to be tending to, too.”

Similarly, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said Biden’s trip to the G-7 is a high priority.

“President Biden has a G-7 meeting, which is an effort to establish global security. It's a very high priority,” he said. “I hope that Speaker McCarthy doesn't try to use that [against him]."