President Donald Trump called the charges against him unprecedented election interference in a speech Tuesday night from his Mar-a-Lago home, just hours after pleading not guilty to nearly three dozen felony charges during his arraignment in New York City.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” Trump told his supporters at his Florida residence. “The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
Trump faces 34 charges related to allegations that he paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels through a lawyer seven years ago and covered it up as a legal expense before being elected president. Trump offered his “not guilty” plea during his arraignment before Judge Juan Merchan in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Trump began his speech by pointing to the string of investigations and impediments that Democrats and federal law enforcement threw at him, drawing a comparison between the unfounded accusations like the debunked Russian dossier and the current legal prosecution.
“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign, remember that?” Trump said. “They attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations. Russia, Russia Russia. Ukraine… Impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two. The illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago right here.”
Trump was impeached twice by the then Democrat-controlled U.S. House during his presidency, but was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate both times.
Trump also pointed to media reports that showed federal law enforcement working with social media companies to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, which Trump said “exposes the Biden family as criminals” and would have swayed the election in his favor.
“And we remember the 51 intelligence agents who said Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation,” Trump said, pointing to an open letter signed by those agents making that assertion. “Russian disinformation, remember that? And that was all confirmed strongly by the FBI, when they all knew that it wasn’t Russian disinformation.”
The indictment was unsealed after Tuesday’s arraignment. It alleges Trump falsified business records related to the hush money scheme and can be read in full here.
Trump blasted New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Letisha James, attorney general for New York, both of whom promised to go after Trump while on the campaign trail.
“We have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris and now receives money from the Biden-Harris campaign, and a lot of it,” Trump said.
Trump’s speech hit political notes as well. He attacked President Joe Biden on the Afghanistan withdrawal, the border, the loss of energy independence, rising crime, and more.
Trump surrendered to New York Police before the arraignment after a grand jury voted to indict him last week, the first time a current or former president has been charged with a crime. Trump is also the 2024 Republican frontrunner for president.
During his speech, Trump also blasted the the investigation into his possession of classified documents from his time at president, arguing that he had the power as president to declassify them. He said Biden had classified documents as well from his time in the Obama administration but did not have the power to declassify as vice president.
Federal agents patrolling the U.S.-Canadian border in Vermont, upstate New York and New Hampshire continue to apprehend record numbers of foreign nationals illegally entering the U.S. from Canada.
Last month, Border Patrol agents reported 816 apprehensions and 371 gotaways, according to preliminary data obtained by a Border Patrol agent on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The data only represents Border Patrol data and excludes Office of Field Operations data, meaning the numbers are likely higher. Agents also reported 19 people they identified who illegally entered the U.S. but turned back to Canada.
These are the highest numbers ever recorded in Swanton Sector history.
The sector encompasses 24,000 square miles, which in addition to all of Vermont’s border, includes six upstate New York counties and three New Hampshire counties. It spans 295 miles of international boundary with the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, of which 203 miles is on land. The remaining 92 miles of border fall primarily along the St. Lawrence River. The sector is the first international land boundary east of the Great Lakes.
This sector has consistently led northern border sectors in reported apprehensions and gotaways. Last month, Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said, “In just over 5 months, we have apprehended more individuals than the last three (3) Fiscal Years combined. The current rate of illicit cross-border activity is unprecedented for Swanton Sector.”
He also said over a 12-day-period in March, agents “encountered 28 children under the age of 14, the youngest only five months old.”
“Illegal entry along the northern border is dangerous” he added, saying illegally bringing in the “vulnerable population” of children “is reprehensible.”
Garcia also described how concerned citizens help Border Patrol agents save the lives of foreign nationals disoriented by subfreezing temperatures. In one incident that occurred last month, for example, Champlain Station agents responded to residents’ calls about a woman wandering in the snow. Agents searched the area in question and found a female Mexican citizen who’d illegally crossed the border into the U.S. from Canada that morning when it was 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
The woman was observed shuffling shoeless through snowy fields and ditches near the outskirts of Champlain, New York, using a tree branch for support. One of her feet was bare, swollen and bloodied. She also appeared to be disoriented and incoherent. Border Patrol agents radioed Emergency Medical Services and team-carried her to a warm patrol vehicle.
“Temperature extremes and the associated hazards have done practically nothing to deter cross-border human traffic in our area,” Raymond Bresnahan, acting patrol agent in charge of the Champlain Station, said in a statement of the incident. “Stations in Swanton Sector – Champlain in particular – have responded to historic levels of illicit border crossings that have trended upwards since October 2021.”
Due to the severity of her frostbite injuries, the Mexican woman was transported to Champlain Valley Physician’s Hospital in Plattsburgh, New York, and later transferred to the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington at taxpayer expense.
In another instance, Border Patrol agents have helped U.S. attorneys prosecute human smugglers. Last month, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont announced the sentencing of a New Jersey man to 14 months in prison for “conspiring to transport foreign nationals in furtherance of their illegal entry into the United States.” He was also required to serve three years of supervised release after he completes his prison term.
The sentencing was announced March 23 after Jose Alvarez, 31, of Trenton, New Jersey, pleaded guilty. He’d been arrested last September near East Berkshire, Vermont, after he picked up four Guatemalan citizens who entered the U.S. illegally. Three of the Guatemalans said they each expected to pay $2,000 to $3,000 to Alvarez or his associates as a fee to be smuggled into the U.S.
“Alvarez admitted to soliciting others to engage in the transportation of foreign nationals and to coordinating payment and pick up logistics with other members of the conspiracy,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
U.S. Attorney Nikolas P. Kerest credited Border Patrol agents “for their investigation and apprehension of Alvarez and their continued efforts to prevent the exploitation of foreign nationals by human-smuggling organizations.”
Last month, Garcia said encounter data showed a “persistent upward trend despite average temperatures below freezing and greater snowfall than January. Dauntless in the face of all obstacles, our Border Patrol agents stand against the breach of our 295-mi. of border.”
In January, Swanton Sector agents apprehended more people than they did in “12 preceding years of January totals combined,” he said. “Prior to January, Swanton Sector experienced an uninterrupted 7-month streak of sustained encounter increases – part of an upward trend dating back to the beginning of FY22.”
While the number of apprehensions pale in comparison to southern border apprehensions, they represent a 743% increase from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2022, and an 846% increase from Oct. 1, 2022, to Jan. 31, 2023, comparative to those timeframes last year.
Once official March data is released, they’re expected to surpass these records.
The presumption of innocence is a fundamental tenet of the justice system in the United States. At least, it was.
The phrase “innocent until proven guilty” is something every American has heard uttered throughout their lifetime. It is a legal principle that puts the burden of proof on the prosecution to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
As with many fundamental norms in the justice system, Democrats eschew such basic rights when it comes to their political opponents.
Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in responding to the indictment against Donald Trump, ripped that mask off and suggested the former President must now “prove innocence.”
“The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence. Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”
Read that again – Trump now has a “right to a trial to prove innocence.” That’s not how that works, you ignorant buffoon.
The Grand Jury has acted upon the facts and the law.
No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence.
Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.
Author Alex Berenson was torn between being impressed that an elderly woman is seemingly writing her own tweets and full-blown panic that the same woman, a lawmaker, “has no idea how the law works.”
Should we be worried the former Speaker of the House has no idea how the law works? Innocent until proven guilty, it’s a thing.
Or just happy she is tweeting for herself despite her advanced age? (No staffer would have made this mistake…) https://t.co/Q7mUKrEfwy
The political pundit known as the ‘Redheaded Libertarian’ spat fire at Pelosi in a smoking hot tweet.
“This is the most anti-American vomit that has ever exited your commie mouth,” she said.
I mean … maybe? Pelosi has a long and storied history with vomiting anti-American, pro-commie gibberish so, there’s that.
“Granted right”
“Prove your innocence”
This is the most anti-American vomit that has ever exited your commie mouth.
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) March 31, 2023
Pelosi’s Tweet Gets a Fact Check
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s tweet about Trump needing to “prove innocence” in regard to the indictment was slapped with a Community Notes disclaimer by Twitter.
“Ms. Pelosi mistakenly says that Trump can prove his innocence at trial,” the added context reads. “Law in the US assumes the innocence of a defendant and the prosecution must prove guilt for a conviction.”
Twitter commentators know that basic fact. One of the most powerful Democrat lawmakers in the land? Not so much.
But where did anyone get the idea that Pelosi was “mistaken”?
This isn’t the first time prominent Democrats have struggled with the basic concept of the presumption of innocence.
Senator Cory Booker (D-Sparta), during the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, suggested he be replaced “whether he’s innocent or guilty” of fabricated sexual assault allegations.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-Golden Corral) at around the same time said Kavanaugh is “not entitled to those (due process and the presumption of innocence).”
Representative Eric Swalwell (D-Fang Fang) claimed that when the former President’s White House opted not to play the impeachment game by refusing to send documents and witnesses to mount a defense against the televised circus, this was an admission of guilt.
“We can only conclude that you’re guilty,” Swalwell stated.
“In America, innocent men do not hide and conceal evidence,” he added. “They are forthcoming and they want to cooperate and the president is acting like a very guilty person right now.”
Sounds like Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell has decided to come out against the 5th Amendment.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution enshrines the concept that someone is “innocent until proven guilty.”
The clause regarding self-incrimination was designed to prevent the accused from being forced to testify against themselves, leaving the burden of proving that a person has committed a crime to the government.
And Democrats across the board want to reverse that.
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It’s almost an understatement to say that Republican candidates campaigned hawkishly on border control in the runup to the 2022 midterms: As they decried the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs from Mexico, many vowed to impeach the man they largely blamed for the mess, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Republicans have continued hammering Mayorkas since taking control of the House.Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who called the flooding of more than 5million illegal immigrants across the southern border since President Biden took office an“intentional” policy, has made several visits to the U.S.-Mexico border with other Republicans,and the House has held multiple hearings on immigration.
But as winter has turned to spring, the GOP has taken little action to remove Mayorkas. Republicans Andy Biggs of Arizona and Pat Fallon of Texas have each filed bills, but the House Judiciary Committee, from which any impeachment move must come, has not taken up either resolution.
Conservative groups focused on the southern border told RealClearInvestigations that impeachment did not come up during recent meetings in Washington.
“I just came from the Hill and a bunch of meetings with staffers and they’re reporting the same thing; one said the conference is split, with a lot of GOP ‘George W. Bush types’ who love the cheap labor for American industry and agriculture,” said Todd Bensman of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies and author of “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”
Bensman calls it an “old story,” but cheap labor is only part of it. Republicans aren’t united on this issue because some fear that following through on impeachment talk will alienate the moderate swing voters that the GOP needs to remain in control of the House.
Even Republicans who have publicly attacked Mayorkas are now reticent about discussing impeachment. RCI reached out to 16 GOP House members for comment. Neither Biggs nor Fallon responded. Virginia Rep. Bob Good, a member of the Freedom Caucus who is co-sponsor of both resolutions, declined to comment on the record. Other outspoken administration critics such as Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Tom McClintock of California, and Matt Gaetz of Florida did not respond.
Only two of the 16 Republican House members agreed to speak on the record.
“I have repeatedly called for his impeachment and am confident that Chairman Jordan will hold true to his word of impeaching Mayorkas for overseeing an unprecedented surge of illegal activity at our southern border,” Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona said.
Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said Biden administration officials have lied about what they have done at the border but was more circumspect on impeachment, suggesting a wait-and-see attitude may be behind the aggressive rhetoric.
“I’m not on the Judiciary Committee and it would have to come from there,” he said. “My hope is that at least some information will come from hearings because some members legitimately have some questions.”
Perry and others said they would like to see the Judiciary Committee make the case for impeachment, a process Jordan appears to be favoring. For the moment, however, the only concrete step Republicans have taken is a symbolic gesture by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas to try to cut Mayorkas’ salary from the DHS budget.
The bills filed by Reps. Biggs and Fallon contend that Mayorkas’s conduct meets the constitutional threshold for impeachment, “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Fallon’s bill, H. Res. 8, alleges that the secretary has violated the oath all cabinet members take to “faithfully uphold” the laws of the United States by failing to enforce:
The Secure the Fence Act of 2006 that requires the DHS secretary to “maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”
The Immigration and Nationality Act that requires the DHS secretary to “detain inadmissible aliens arriving in the United States or aliens who are present in the United States without inspection until processed.” Instead, it claims, Mayorkas’ “catch and release” approach has allowed more than “1,000,000 illegal aliens” into the country.
While referencing those two laws, the Biggs resolution, H. Res. 582, also accuses Mayorkas of violating the Public Health Services Act by failing to protect U.S. citizens from “risk and exposure to and contracting Covid-19 by refusing to take necessary steps to prevent contagious illegal aliens from entering the United States.”
In sum, the Biggs resolution concludes Mayorkas should be impeached because “his actions have subverted the will of Congress and the core tenets of the Constitution.”
RCI reached out repeatedly to a dozen Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee seeking comment on a possible impeachment of Mayorkas and their reaction. None of them responded.
Mayorkas has stated repeatedly he has no intention of resigning, a suggestion Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas made again Tuesday when Mayorkas appeared at a Senate committee hearing. “If you had any integrity you would resign,” Cruz said.
The volley came after the two got into a verbal spat over how truthful the administration has been about the border. Cruz cited comments by White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that people are “not walking across the border” along with photographs of people doing just that. “You claim you care, Mr. Secretary –– that is a lie,” Cruz said.
Cruz again accused Mayorkas of dissembling after the DHS chief would not answer a question about whether Jean-Pierre lied. Mayorkas called Cruz’s accusation “revolting.”
Nevertheless, the department is bracing for a possible impeachment and taking steps for Mayorkas’ defense. A government contract was signed with the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton to provide legal assistance to the secretary; that contract would kick in only if the Judiciary Committee moved an impeachment motion to the House floor.
Debevoise & Plimpton did not respond to a request for comment about the arrangement. Biden administration officials familiar with it said it was necessary because the impeachment of a cabinet secretary is so rare none of its legal staff has any relevant experience.
The terms of the contract were not disclosed, although officials pointed to examples in the past where House Republicans hired outside legal counsel to assist it on legislation that proved legally fraught.
A DHS spokesperson said the contract was necessary to “ensure the Department’s vital mission is not interrupted by the unprecedented, unjustified and partisan impeachment efforts of some members of Congress, who have already taken steps to initiate proceedings.”
History shows the House can move swiftly on impeachment if members choose to. The Democratic majority, along with a handful of Republicans, voted to impeach departing President Trump just one week after the post-election riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Defenders of the government’s current border policies say that the conservatives’ argument is flawed. The Biden administration’s approach is basically a relaxation of the Trump administration’s more stringent strategy. As such, they amount to policy differences between the two major political parties and fall far short of any “crimes and misdemeanors” that would justify impeachment.
But, as RCI has previously reported, President Biden’s policies have marked a sharp break from his predecessor’s, since Biden’s first day in office, when he signed seven executive orders on immigration that, among other things, suspended deportations.
“It inaccurately and incorrectly asserts that we are confusing the requirements of theImmigration and Naturalization Act with the Trump administration policies,” he said. “Ouranalysis is based not on disagreeing with the policies implemented by Mayorkas, but with hisviolation of federal immigration law.”
“I think we have laid out in our paper what we think the basis is for impeachment,” von Spakovsky told RCI. They include the claims that Mayorkas:
“deliberately defied and contravened the laws he is charged with faithfullyexecuting.”
“repeatedly abused the authority of his office, including by, among other conduct,enticing a flood of aliens to cross the U.S. southern border with his policies andStatements.”
“betrayed the trust of the people by lying to Congress and withholdinginformation and misleading the public in an effort to hide and suppress the nature andconsequence of his abominable policies.”
Von Spakovsky added that “the misguided priorities of Mayorkas have resulted in a huge backlog in the adjudication system that unfairly hurts the many thousands of U.S. citizens and lawful applicants whose immigration matters are delayed many months.”
Although von Spakovsky and others argue impeachment is warranted “consistent with U.S. history and constitutional traditions,” it would also be a highly unusual move. Only one cabinet member has ever been impeached, President Ulysses S. Grant’s War Secretary William Belknap in 1876, but he resigned the same day the House voted unanimously against him.
Attorney General Harry Daugherty in 1922 and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon in 1932 also faced possible impeachment proceedings by the House, but the former resigned in 1924 and the latter left the cabinet and became U.S. ambassador to England.
Impeachment supporters also point to the dangers the Biden administration’s porous border have created. In addition to the humanitarian issues of hundreds of thousands of people migrating through Mexico to the U.S., and the money they have paid to Mexican cartels tofacilitate their passage, the southern border has become the main conduit for deadly illicitfentanyl.
Scott Perry said his constituents would like to see the Republicans do more than simply talk about the border crisis, though he noted that Mayorkas is the agent who carries out policies set by President Biden.
“It’s chaos down there with the fentanyl and the cartels making millions of dollars,” he said.
“Most of our constituents are distraught about that and want it fixed, and many would like accountability for how it occurred. Ultimately, the president is responsible so why not impeachhim?”
But as to what might actually happen with Mayorkas, Perry acknowledged he wasn’t sure.
“My sense is that with the Judicial Committee holding hearings we are working toward those kind of things,” he said. “That will go to the fact-finding we need to have to convince some of our skeptical members.”
Three key figures connected to former President Trump are at the intersection of two accelerating Justice Department probes seen as the most viable pathways for a prosecution of the former president.
Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing what began as two entirely separate cases: the mishandling of classified records at Mar-a-Lago and the effort to influence the 2020 election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Several Trump World figures straddle both events, providing prosecutors with what experts say is a potent opportunity to advance both investigations.
Alex Cannon, Christina Bobb and Kash Patel played different roles in the two sagas, but each has been sought by the Justice Department in the documents dispute and has also been called in by the special House committee, now disbanded, that investigated the Jan. 6 riot.
Cannon, a longtime Trump Organization employee, was pulled into campaign efforts to assess allegations of voter fraud and then served as a liaison for Trump with the National Archives as officials there pushed for the recovery of presidential records.
Bobb, a lawyer for Trump’s 2024 campaign, aided in the Trump 2020 campaign’s post-election lawsuits. She later shifted to doing legal work for Trump that culminated in her signing a statement asserting classified records stored at Mar-a-Lago had been returned.
Patel was chief of staff to the secretary of Defense as the Pentagon was grappling with Jan. 6. Trump also named Patel as one of his representatives to the National Archives upon leaving office, and he was later one of Trump’s chief surrogates in pushing claims that the former president declassified the records discovered in his Florida home.
It’s unclear whether any of the trio faces significant legal exposure, but their unique positions could be valuable for Smith, who is racing forward with both cases. In recent weeks, Smith has subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, while securing another batch of materials from Mar-a-Lago.
“Typically, you don't have two separate investigations and two separate sets of possible crimes to work with as you're negotiating. Smith does have that here,” said Norm Eisen, a counsel for Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment who has penned analyses of both cases.
“For him, it's like a two-for-one sale. If he cuts a cooperation deal with some of these individuals, he can advance multiple cases at the same time,” Eisen added.
Patel was granted immunity by a judge and compelled to answer questions in the Mar-a-Lago case after being previously subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury and repeatedly pleading the Fifth. Bobb has also spoken with prosecutors in relation to the case and testified before a grand jury. And the Justice Department is seeking to speak to Cannon about his dealings with the National Archives, The New York Times reported.
“I think that is a potential fruitful avenue for the Justice Department in these cases,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney under President Obama. “Their overlap in the two cases is very interesting, because you could use criminal exposure in one case to flip them in the other case.”
Attorneys for Cannon and Bobb did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story, while a spokesperson for Patel declined to comment. The Trump campaign also did not respond to request for comment.
To be clear, other figures also may have insight into the two probes, including Meadows and former deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin. Former White House attorney Eric Herschmann is also reported to have warned Trump about holding records at Mar-a-Lago.
Still, the trove of transcripts released by the House Jan. 6 committee offers a window into three figures who, despite diverging paths, became central in the Mar-a-Lago probe.
Bobb and Patel, who now serves on the board of Trump’s social media enterprise, remain deeply enmeshed with the former president.
Cannon was most recently employed by Michael Best, a law firm that in December severed its ties with several Trump-connected attorneys, including Stefan Passantino, who represented former aides before the Jan. 6 panel. The firm also allowed contracts with Cannon and former Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark to lapse, Bloomberg News reported.
The firm did not respond to a request for comment.
Cannon, who was initially hired to work on contracts for the Trump Organization, expressed hesitation during interviews with the Jan. 6 panel about being pulled into working on fraud issues for the campaign as the pandemic brought hotel operations to a trickle.
“I believe that the only reason I was asked to do this is because others didn't want to. I have no particular experience with election law or anything. I do vendor contracts,” he told the committee.
When asked if he found that work undesirable, he responded, “I'm sitting here right now. Yes, it's undesirable.”
The conversations show Cannon was tasked with evaluating a number of claims from “crazy people,” as he once described it, as well as other claims that dead people may have voted — something he was unable to verify given limitations in voter databases.
He ultimately relayed those concerns to Pence, recounting to the committee in what would become a brief appearance in a hearing that “I was not personally finding anything sufficient to alter the results of the election.”
It was a stance that caught the eye of former Trump adviser Peter Navarro.
“Mr. Navarro accused me of being an agent of the deep state working … against the president. And I never took another phone call from Mr. Navarro,” Cannon said.
Bobb, in contrast, made clear in her interview that she believed there was suspicious activity on Election Day that merited review.
Once a reporter for the far-right One America News, Bobb had come to the network after working as an attorney, including during stints with the Marine Corps. She would later get a master of laws degree from Georgetown University, joining the Trump administration at the Department of Homeland Security after graduation.
While working as a One America News employee, she volunteered her time to the Trump campaign immediately after the election. The arrangement was approved by the network, though the campaign required her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
“There was plenty of evidence to be concerned about fraud,” she said, even if the legal team wasn’t prepared to launch a case on the first day following the election.
“I volunteered and I wanted to look into it because I was concerned about the integrity of my vote, of the country. I think that's why we all got involved. So I don't want you to take my statement and say, Christina Bobb said that in the beginning the legal team knew there was no fraud. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there was plenty of reason to believe there could be fraud.”
Bobb was present in the “war room” at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 6 and was listening in to Trump’s call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — a discussion she told the panel was “unremarkable.”
The Jan. 6 committee transcripts indicate Cannon and Bobb had no interaction throughout the litigation process, with Bobb saying they did not connect until after President Biden was sworn in. Bobb told investigators she didn’t speak with Cannon until later, adding nothing more when investigators asked if it was on an unrelated matter.
Bobb’s role with Trump on the Mar-a-Lago documents picked up where Cannon left off.
In February 2022, Cannon declined Trump’s request to sign a statement indicating all classified material at Mar-a-Lago had been returned because he wasn’t sure the statement was true, according to reporting from The Washington Post.
Bobb would join the team later, agreeing to sign a declaration given to the Justice Department in June attesting that all sensitive government documents had been returned — with the stipulation that her attestation was “based upon the information that has been provided to me.”
“The contrast between the two as lawyers speaks volumes,” said Josh Stanton, an attorney with Perry Guha who contributed to a model prosecution memo for the Mar-a-Lago case.
“Alex Cannon refus[es] to sign a certification that everything had been turned over where he wasn't able to do himself the diligent work to actually independently verify that, whereas Christina Bobb is in a position where she's told to sign the certification, and is told that that's correct, then just goes ahead and signs it anyway,” he said.
“Whether or not you could actually make out, say, criminal charges against Christina Bobb for signing that certification … it certainly puts her ethically, as a lawyer, in really hot water,” he added.
Patel, who spoke to the Jan. 6 committee after being subpoenaed, began his deposition with an opening statement expressing frustration that the panel did not think he would be cooperative with its investigation.
Patel later answered questions during a lengthy interview after noting privilege concerns, but investigators at times seemed baffled by details the former high-ranking Defense Department official could not remember. Patel struggled to recall specifics about some conversations with Trump and demurred when asked about reported plans near the end of the Trump presidency to install him as head of the CIA.
“I know you guys try to think this is improbable, but I was in one of those positions for a two-year period of time, approximately, where I had many conversations with the president impacting things that I would only read about or watch in movies,” he said.
“So, after a certain period of time, they tend to stack up and you just do the mission,” Patel added.
Patel largely sidestepped questions on whether Trump should have done more to stop the chaos on Jan. 6, but spoke at length about the process for securing assistance from the National Guard and Trump’s approval for the use of as many as 20,000 troops that day.
The committee panned Trump’s inaction as dereliction of duty, and Stanton said Patel’s comments could forecast a response should Trump or others face culpability for Jan. 6.
“Some of the most powerful testimony in the hearings themselves was the sort of hours Trump seemed not to act. And so I think he's previewing what they're going to say, which is, ‘Oh, no, I actually did authorize 10,000 or 20,000 National Guard members to be able to respond,’” he said.
In the Mar-a-Lago probe, Patel repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment rights during his first appearance before a grand jury.
“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Patel told Breitbart News in May.
“The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” Patel said. “I was there with President Trump when he said ‘We are declassifying this information.'”
Trump’s attorneys have not directly backed that claim, though it would not be a bulletproof defense should he face Espionage Act charges, as the law deals with those who mishandle “national defense information.”
The special counsel appears to be ratcheting up the probes in recent weeks, even seeking to pierce the attorney-client privilege of Evan Corcoran, one of Trump’s attorneys in the document dispute, arguing his legal advice may have been given in furtherance of a crime.
It’s a move observers say should give warning to other attorneys involved in the probe.
“Any lawyer associated with Donald Trump is at great risk,” Eisen said. “I mean, he's like a neutron bomb for the legal profession.”
A budding GOP impeachment case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is relying on a 2006 law that says operational control of the border means the prevention “of all unlawful entries” to the United States — a standard seen as impossible to meet.
The Secure Fence Act of 2006 was passed during a failed Bush-era effort to move a comprehensive immigration reform bill. In the fallout, House Republicans rushed to show they were taking action on border security, requiring the installation of intermittent fencing along the southern border.
Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Gregory Payan/AP Images for NFL)
But a provision of the law defining operational control is now at the center of the new House GOP majority’s effort to impeach Mayorkas, who is accused of lying to Congress when he’s said the border is secure.
“Secretary Mayorkas does not think that the border is open. He thinks that he has operational control, although the Secure Fence Act of 2006 clearly defines what operational control of a border is, and that means that no contraband or individual can come into the country illegally,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, a conservative Republican from Arizona and one of two members who have formally introduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“And yet, under his watch, Secretary Mayorkas has allowed in approximately 5 million illegal aliens coming through, and that doesn’t include got-aways,” added Biggs.
Republicans argue that Mayorkas has been ineffective in managing what they see as a crisis, as record numbers of migrants attempt to cross the southern border. It’s a failure they contend is a violation of his oath of office.
“He has taken an oath, a constitutional oath, to obey the laws of the United States and protect us,” said Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), who this year filed the first articles of impeachment against Mayorkas.
Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas (AP Photo/Jess Rapfogel)
“In 2006, the Secure Fence Act was passed which requires the Department of Homeland Security Secretary to maintain the operational control of the southern border. He has clearly not done that,” Fallon said.
Democrats and other critics of the GOP case argue that the differences between Republicans and Mayorkas are largely policy issues that don’t rise to the level of impeachment.
“Impeachment covers treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. It's not typically envisioned as covering policy disputes, or disagreements on policy, which seems like what these are,” said Dave Rapallo, a Georgetown Law professor who also worked with Democrats on the impeachment of former President Trump.
He and others argue that the 2006 law lays out an impossible standard — but includes clear language that gives the secretary the discretion to determine how to meet it.
“Congress has delegated to the secretary of Homeland Security the decision to determine what is 'necessary and appropriate.' And that's what the department is doing. There may be a difference of opinion about whether that happens with walls or other mechanisms to prevent unlawful entry,” Rapallo said. “But if the standard is that not one migrant can get into the United States, that’s a standard no secretary of Homeland Security would ever meet.”
Doris Meissner, who ran the Immigration and Naturalization Service under former President Clinton and how heads the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, said the standard "isn't something that we ask of any other law enforcement regime."
Previous Homeland Security secretaries, Democrats and Republicans, have not been removed over the standard highlighted by Biggs and Fallon.
“The assumption with having law enforcement at all, is that there are laws and there will be a degree to which laws are broken, and law enforcement, and law enforcement systems, and structures are in place to keep them to a minimum and to create accountability if they do happen," said Meissner.
Biggs himself acknowledged the standard that no one or thing can enter the country illegally for the DHS secretary to not be impeached is a high one. But he argues Mayorkas still deserves to be impeached because of how he has handled border security.
“While that particular statute requires perfection, which we all recognize is an impossible task, the American public still trusts him to do his very best to secure operational control of the border. He necessarily has the ‘public trust,’ and as a Cabinet secretary, he is a public man,” he wrote in an op-ed shortly after introducing his resolution.
“The case against Alejandro Mayorkas … does not necessarily turn on whether Mayorkas has actually committed a statutorily defined black-letter crime. It is whether he has committed a ‘high crime’ as that term is understood under the U.S. Constitution.”
The fencing bill was passed after two competing comprehensive immigration reform bills moved through the House and Senate in 2005.
The House version, led by former Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), was a security-focused immigration crackdown; the Senate version led by former Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) paired border security and guest worker provisions with a broad legalization program for undocumented immigrants.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Jan. 29, 2008 (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
To no one's surprise, the House and Senate were unable to find a middle ground in conference, and the two bills failed in the lead-up to the 2006 midterm elections.
“There really was a strong feeling, in the Senate in particular, that people had to go home with something to show for immigration, in order to be running their campaigns, and having some kind of a message to take back to their constituents,” said Meissner.
“So they passed this act quite hurriedly in October of 2006, right on the cusp of the elections. It just had this sort of sweeping mandate, which really hadn't been tested or vetted with the executive branch,” she added.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), one of the co-sponsors of the 2006 border bill, described the legislation as tasking the Homeland Security secretary to determine where to put fencing.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
“It was our intention to put a fence not everywhere but where it made sense to put the fence on the border, you know, [in] more populated areas to have the infrastructure in place to stop illegal crossings,” he said, noting along with specific mileage of fencing, “we gave discretion to the secretary to use his or her judgment as to where to put it.”
McCaul, a stern Mayorkas critic who has directly admonished the secretary in hearings, has likewise criticized members of his party for rushing a process he said should be handled by committees of jurisdiction who can investigate and build a strong case for impeachment.
“You can make the case to the American people without having to do it overnight. We criticized the Democrats for impeaching Trump in one day. ... We shouldn't make that same mistake,” he told The Hill.
Mayorkas and his department are now gearing up for a fight.
The department initially declined to assign specific staff to deal with impeachment, but on Friday confirmed it had hired an outside law firm to aid in any eventual impeachment hearings.
It’s also shifted tone in its public statements on impeachment developments, attacking the credibility of the resolutions directly.
“Instead of pointing fingers and trying to score political points, the Members of Congress recklessly and baselessly pursuing impeachment should work on legislative solutions for our broken immigration system,” DHS said last week when Biggs’s resolution was introduced.
Republicans have rolled out other arguments for impeachment, including one that mirrors a recent lawsuit from a number of GOP-led states challenging a program that allows 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela to be “paroled” into the country each month, while quickly expelling to Mexico an equal number of migrants from those countries who show up at the border.
The resolution deems the current use of parole an abuse, calling it a way to "'legally’ admit aliens.”
Biggs and other Republicans are also basing their impeachment case on a broader claim — dismissed as a conspiracy theory by Democrats — that the Biden administration is intentionally loosening border controls.
“First of all, when we look at that intentionality, this is done intentionally,” Biggs told reporters last week. “This is not negligence, it is not by accident. It is not incompetence, and how do we know that? Well, just like we look at a culpable mental state, like intentionality or knowledge, we look at a totality of circumstances."
Biggs said the evidence of intention is in Mayorkas ending a series of Trump-era border policies, a move that many Republicans believe is the direct cause of increased migration in the Western Hemisphere, presumably knowing his policies would result in increased border crossings.
But whether Republican leadership decides to forward any impeachment resolution, the process could face a substantial roadblock in the Democratic-controlled upper chamber.
“A majority of the House could just decide to impeach the secretary based on whatever it puts in its resolution,” Rapallo said. “But that's highly unlikely to go anywhere in the Senate.”
Republicans and Democrats kicked off the first major immigration policy meetings of the new Congress at odds, with little agreement on even the most basic facts on the issue.
The parties have now faced off on the legislative stage twice, in hearings convened by the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Accountability committees. They’ve accomplished little more than to highlight the growing partisan split, despite a plea to “find a solution" from the El Paso Border Patrol sector chief.
The Judiciary Committee, led by GOP firebrand Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), hosted the more combative hearing, focusing on an alleged correlation between immigration and fentanyl trafficking and accusing the Biden administration of purposely dismantling border security.
"Make no mistake, the Biden administration is carrying out its plan," said Jordan in his opening remarks last week.
"We all heard [Homeland Security] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas, who sat in front of this committee and said, 'we are executing our plan on the border.' And we all heard President Biden say, 'we're trying to make it easier for people to get here.' Well, they're certainly succeeding in that," added Jordan.
Tuesday’s Oversight hearing led by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), which featured two Border Patrol sector chiefs as witnesses, was comparatively phlegmatic, though Democrats still voiced their anger at the GOP's handling of the subject matter.
"The extreme MAGA forces in the Republican Party have chosen to abandon the pro-immigration stance of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and instead spread fear about a 'foreign invasion,' paranoia about the racist and antisemitic 'Great Replacement' mythology, and disinformation about fentanyl — the vast majority of which is brought into our country by American smugglers working for the international drug cartels and traveling through lawful ports of entry," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.
"I ardently hope today’s hearing will become a chance to search for bipartisan agreement rather than another missed opportunity. … Turning this into more bad political theater will just extend the long pattern of failure on this question."
But Raskin's hopes for bipartisanship were quickly quashed.
Following Comer and Raskin's opening remarks, Comer took the microphone to complain about a White House memo released early Tuesday that said, "House Republicans are more interested in staging political stunts than on rolling up their sleeves to work with President Biden and Democrats in Congress," and a tweet from the Oversight Democrats wishing, "Good morning and good luck to everyone except @GOPoversight members who are using today's hearing to amplify white nationalist conspiracy theories instead of a comprehensive solution to protect our borders and strengthen our immigration system."
"I mean, really? I don't even know what to say about that," said Comer, before reminding Democrats that House rules prohibit personal attacks between members.
For the next five hours, Oversight members essentially replicated the bifurcated proceedings of a week prior at the Judiciary Committee.
At the heart of the rift, apparent in both hearings, is a disagreement over whether the fentanyl crisis, legal immigration, asylum and border security should be treated as separate issues, or whether a border crackdown would resolve them all.
But the witnesses were a key distinction between the two hearings.
Comer invited two active duty border security professionals, Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Agent Gloria Chavez and Tucson Sector Chief Agent John Modlin, both of whom fielded questions from Republicans and Democrats alike on a variety of border-related issues.
“If I wanted to have a big political hearing that was full of red meat, we would have victims’ families that lost their lives to fentanyl. We would have people that have been human trafficked. But we’re not. We just asked four Border Patrol bosses," Comer told attendants at a National Press Club event last month.
Jordan took the "red meat" approach, calling on Brandon Dunn, a father whose son died from a fentanyl overdose and the founder of Forever 15 Project, an organization to raise awareness of the dangers of the drug.
The Ohio Republican also called on Cochise County, Ariz., Sheriff Mark Dannels and Dale Lynn Carruthers, county judge of Terrell County, Texas (though Carruthers was unable to attend because of weather conditions).
Advocates were heavily critical of Jordan's choice of Dannels and Carruthers as witnesses, pointing to Dannels's frequent appearances on right-wing media and alleged connections to immigration restrictionist groups.
Heidi Beirich, an expert in American and European right-wing groups and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said both Dannels and Carruthers had embraced the rhetoric of an "invasion" at the southern border.
"The fact that Daniels and Carruthers have engaged in this racist rhetoric about immigrants and their ties to hate and other extremist groups disqualify them from any productive discussions on things related to immigration," said Beirich.
Scores of Democrats called out the GOP's "invasion" rhetoric as going too far, though most Republicans avoided the word, and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) defended its use.
"The definition of an invasion is an incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity,” he said, repeating claims that enough fentanyl has entered the U.S. to “kill every American five times.”
"I would consider that to be the direct definition of the word invasion,” Hunt said.
But Democrats largely countered that point with Customs and Border Protection data that shows more than 90 percent of fentanyl enters the United States through legal ports of entry.
"This hearing isn't about border security or solving our opioid crisis. It isn't even facts. What it's about is painting immigrants as villains in order for my colleagues to further their anti-immigrant agenda," said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.).
"Republicans are trying to rewrite history to hide their extremist agenda from the American people," he added. "This extreme wing is trying to say that immigrants are trafficking fentanyl across an unchecked border but we know that that's not true. Why? Because it happens at the ports of entry by U.S. citizens, not mainly by asylum seekers."
The partisan split on immigration policy prescriptions is nothing new.
"This is just exactly the kind of finger-pointing rather than serious efforts of problem solving, and political theater rather than problem solving that we're likely to see because the Congress has abdicated its role for decades now, where immigration – and updating immigration laws and capabilities – are concerned," said Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service who now leads the Migration Policy Institute's U.S. Immigration Policy Program.
But the rift has grown in scope and in political impact.
"The worldview seems so dichotomous. How in the world do we bridge a gap?" said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who shortly after the Judiciary hearing led a group calling for the impeachment of Mayorkas.
Democrats are convinced the GOP's hard line is just political grandstanding.
"It's the presidential election starting now. Immigration is the issue. It's an effective one that continues to be used over and over. It will be ugly," said Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.).
Despite the distance between the two parties, the Border Patrol officers at Tuesday’s hearing, who largely relayed a landscape of officers under-resourced compared with smugglers and cartels, pleaded for some kind of legislative action.
"I think we really just need to embrace change, good change, so that we reform our immigration law and have that balance between immigration and border security and get serious about that. We need to find a solution," said Chavez, the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector chief.
U.S. Border Patrol chiefs will testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on Tuesday after they were first blocked by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from doing so.
Last month, Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, sent a letter to Mayorkas stating the committee would be investigating the “Biden Administration’s creation of and failure to resolve the worst border crisis in American history. … The American people deserve answers about [DHS’] role in undermining Customs and Border Protection agents’ efforts to secure the southern border.”
Four Border Patrol agents overseeing southern border sectors were called to testify: Chiefs Jason Owens, Gregory Bovino, Gloria Chavez, and Acting Chief Patricia McGurk-Daniel. Initially, two were cleared to testify by Mayorkas and two weren’t.
Comer then threatened to use the “compulsory process” to require them to testify. By Jan. 31, Mayorkas agreed to all four testifying and Comer sent another letter to him saying, “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially sought to prevent Congress from hearing invaluable testimony from Chief Patrol Agents, believing that DHS’s internal protocols superseded Congressional oversight prerogatives. I am pleased that the DHS is no longer taking such a position, and will make available as witnesses” all four agents.
Comer last week told reporters at the National Press Club that the committee requested they testify about “the worst offenses with respect to illegal border crossings are occurring, just to come before the committee. … We need to hear from people on the front lines” to ask their advice and how Congress can help them do their jobs.
Comer’s initial Jan. 19 letter to Mayorkas requested documents and copies of internal communications from DHS including data on border crossers released by DHS into the U.S. and DHS’ plan to terminate the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), otherwise known as “Remain in Mexico,” over which Texas sued. A federal court halted the administration’s plan to terminate it although Texas maintains the administration isn’t following the court order.
The letter also requires Mayorkas to provide information about “the effect of historic numbers of illegal border crossings on retention rates, staffing, recruitment and morale among” Border Patrol agents. The National Border Patrol Council, the union representing them, has argued that under this administration more agents are retiring and recruitment and morale is at an all-time historic low.
Comer also requested all documents and information about an ICE memorandum Mayorkas issued in September 2021, which drastically altered enforcement policies. Texas and Louisiana sued to stop it, supported by 19 states that filed a brief with the Supreme Court.
“President [Joe] Biden’s radical open borders agenda has ignited the worst border crisis in American history,” Comer said in a statement last month when he announced the hearing. “The Biden Administration’s deliberate actions are fueling human smuggling, stimulating drug cartel operations, enabling deadly drugs such as fentanyl to flow into American communities, and encouraging illegal immigrants to flout U.S. immigration laws. … Republicans will hold the Biden Administration accountable for this ongoing humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis that has turned every town into a border town.”
In early January, Biden said on his first day in office he sent to Congress a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would extend amnesty to a wide range of people illegally in the U.S. He also announced DHS’ new mobile app that allows foreign nationals to file asylum claims remotely from anywhere in the world as well as expanding the parole process and creating a new visa process. Multiple states also sued over the parole and visas policies, which they argue are illegal.
The hearing comes after Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz testified in a case brought by Florida that Biden policies led to increased illegal crossings and one of his emails revealed the administration’s plan to release people en masse into the U.S. once Title 42 was lifted.
Since Biden’s been in office, over 5 million people from over 150 countries have illegally entered the U.S. while Mayorkas has consistently maintained the southern border is closed. A record 3.3 million people were apprehended or reported evading capture by law enforcement in fiscal 2022, according to Border Patrol data obtained by The Center Square, including nearly 1.8 million in Texas alone.
Several House Republicans have called for Mayorkas’ impeachment; two Republicans from Texas and Arizona each filed separate articles of impeachment. Mayorkas says he isn’t resigning and has blamed the previous administration for the problems he says he’s inherited.
The NBPC disagrees, tweeting on Monday: “Two years ago we ceased to have any semblance of a functioning border. It’s just an out-of-control free-for-all … a disaster zone of massive human misery, death and lawlessness. How much longer can this country continue to absorb millions of illegal aliens?
“Everyday thousands more illegal aliens enter our country by crashing our border between ports of entry. Has Biden thought about how many millions he’s going to shuttle in? Is he even aware enough to realize that many of these people can’t be ID’d and no way to check records?”
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.
The House Intelligence Committee will get a facelift this Congress following the booting of its former chairman and the retirement of a prior ranking member — a drastic makeover that’s prompting internal hopes that the panel can move beyond the partisan battles that have practically defined it in recent years.
The committee launched the last Congress with Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) at the helm, two national — and highly polarizing — figures whose epic battles, waged predominantly over issues related to former President Trump, came to symbolize the panel’s shift from a rare bastion of bipartisan cooperation to an arena of partisan warfare.
This year, there may be a turnaround.
Nunes retired from Congress last January to lead the Trump Media & Technology Group, the former president’s social media company. And this week, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) blocked Schiff from sitting on the panel, accusing the former chairman of lying to the public about Trump’s ties to Russia.
Schiff’s eviction drew howls from Democrats, who denied the charges and rushed to his defense. But amid the protests, even some Democrats acknowledged that both Schiff and Nunes had become so radioactive in the eyes of the opposing party that it became a drag on the work of the committee.
With that in mind, committee members of both parties are hoping the roster reshuffling will turn a page on that combative era and return the panel to its historic image as a largely collaborative body.
"We're hoping it'll be a reset, and we can get past all the infighting … and just focus on national security,” said a source familiar with the committee dynamics.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who was first seated on the panel in the last Congress, echoed that message, saying the new chairman, Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), is making improved relations a priority as he takes the gavel.
"That's the goal,” Gallagher said. “I think we've got really good, thoughtful members. We've got the right leadership in Turner. And we're trying to get back to that more bipartisan approach.”
In denying committee seats to Schiff, along with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), McCarthy claimed their exit would help move the panel in a less partisan direction — something the two Democrats and their allies deny.
“I think what McCarthy is doing is actually quite the opposite,” Schiff said.
“He's politicizing the committee. No Speaker has ever sought to interfere with who the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee should be. Certainly, [Former] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi had many differences with Devin Nunes, but she has a reverence for the work of the committee and Kevin McCarthy evidently doesn't.”
Members of both parties pointed to Nunes’s departure, at the start of last year, as the beginning of improved relations on the panel.
“We entered a new chapter after Nunes left. It really changed with Turner, a ton. And so I suppose maybe from their side they think that something is going to change on our side without Schiff and Swalwell. Perhaps? But I really thought everything changed for the better once Nunes was gone. We were very collegial,” said one Democratic source familiar with the panel’s innerworkings.
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), an eight-year veteran of the Intel Committee, cautioned against pinning the panel’s problems on any one person.
“I don't want to say, ‘Yeah, the committee is going to work beautifully now because those two are gone,’” he said of Schiff and Swalwell, “because that would be unfair, and it wouldn't be accurate. So I don't want to indicate that the committee didn't work, or was more political, only because of them.”
Still, Stewart also said it was “fair” to say Nunes contributed to the panel’s combative environment — a dynamic he blamed on the charged atmosphere of the Trump years, which also featured Schiff playing lead manager of Trump’s first impeachment.
“Devin was associated with those very contentious times just like Adam Schiff was associated with those very contentious times. I don't think it was necessarily Devin, I think it was the two leaders who had to navigate through those tough times,” he said.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), another member, agreed that the impeachment era soured the committee’s dynamic, though he contributed the deterioration largely to the Republicans’ defense of Trump.
“Whatever my own view is, obviously, the committee became enormously polarized, which is pretty unusual. When we moved on [after] Ukraine, it already started to repair itself. You know, Devin Nunes moved on,” Himes said. “Mike Turner, in my opinion, has always been a fair actor.”
Turner declined to talk this week.
The full roster of the committee remains unclear. While Republicans have named their members — including new additions that include Reps. Dan Crenshaw (Texas), Michael Waltz (Fla.) and French Hill (Ark.) — Democrats are waiting for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) to make his accompanying selections.
“A lot will depend on that,” said Gallagher. “But I hope that Leader Jeffries looks at who we've appointed … and responds in-kind with, not just bomb-throwers, but solutions-oriented types.”
McCarthy’s refusal to seat Schiff has created a vacuum at the top of the Democrats’ roster — a void that virtually every committee Democrat is hoping to fill.
Pelosi (D-Calif.), had she remained the leader of the party, was set to appoint Himes to the position, according to several Democrats familiar with her plans. But others are also expressing interest, including Rep. André Carson (D-Ind.).
Jeffries, however, has given no indication either who he’ll pick or when he’ll announce it.
As the committee comes together, members say they’re not expecting to avoid partisan fights altogether. Gallagher pointed out that the panel will have to tackle a number of prickly topics this Congress — including the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — which are sure to lead to partisan clashes.
But those are issues-based differences, he emphasized, not collisions of personality. And Gallagher said he’s established a good rapport with some of the newer Democrats on the panel, including Reps. Jason Crow (Colo.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), who has co-sponsored legislation with Gallagher to ban TikTok in the United States.
"Those younger members and I have a really good working relationship,” Gallagher said. “We just hope to build on that."
Tensions are rising in the GOP House over how to tackle a topic many back enthusiastically: impeaching Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Republicans are largely unified in opposition to the secretary, but while some want to go full bore right away, others see fast-track impeachment as a mistake, warning that it's important to build their case before the public.
“We made the argument that impeachment was rushed — the second impeachment — and I think that's not who we are as a party,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a former prosecutor, in reference to the second impeachment of former President Trump.
McCaul said it's the committees of jurisdiction that should be leading the inquiry.
“We need to have hearings on this and we need to gather evidence and facts and, look, do I think the guy has done a terrible job? Yes,“ McCaul said. “Do I think he's been derelict in his responsibilities? Yes. But we need to get all this together, and do it in a methodical way.”
In some corners, Republicans are lining up at the chance to impeach Mayorkas.
After Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against the secretary this week, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) quickly pledged his own resolution while suggesting he was the one who had actually taken the impeachment action first.
“I was the first Member of Congress to introduce impeachment articles against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2021,” Biggs wrote on Twitter. “I will reintroduce these articles with even more justification very soon.”
Balancing the different interests will be another challenge for Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has signaled he supports a deliberate approach.
“House Republicans will investigate every order, every action. And every failure will determine whether we can begin impeachment inquiry,” he said in November, during a trip to the border.
Twenty lawmakers have signed on to Fallon’s resolution. While he said he doesn't want to preclude any investigation, Fallon wants to prompt his colleagues to start them immediately.
“I think it's of vital import to get the ball rolling immediately. Because this is an emergency. This is break glass. This is something that we can't just sit around any longer and say, ‘Well, we'll do it in a month, we'll take it up in four months.’ Let's take it up right now,” he told The Hill.
Building a case for Mayorkas’s impeachment may not be as easy as some of his critics think.
For example, Fallon argues that Mayorkas lied to Congress in two different appearances, when saying both that the Biden administration has maintained operational control of the border and that the border is secure.
Both points are largely a matter of opinion; impeachment statutes are typically reserved for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“Impeachment is a very serious topic, and it's one where the facts need to lead you to the results, not have a predetermined decision,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales (R), who represents the Texas district with the longest shared border with Mexico.
Homeland Security officials, so far, have not assigned staff to deal with potential impeachment inquiries.
“Secretary Mayorkas is proud to advance the noble mission of this Department, support its extraordinary workforce, and serve the American people. The Department will continue our work to enforce our laws and secure our border, while building a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system," said Marsha Espinosa, a spokesperson for DHS.
“Members of Congress can do better than point the finger at someone else; they should come to the table and work on solutions for our broken system and outdated laws, which they have not updated in over 40 years,” she added.
Ultimately, Republicans who support impeachment and those who oppose it will have to make their case to McCarthy and his leadership team, who will weigh the costs and benefits of spending political capital on a historic measure with scant chances in the Senate.
Impeaching Mayorkas in the House would require a majority vote. In the Senate, a two-thirds majority would be necessary to win a conviction — a high bar.
Only one Cabinet member has been impeached in history — former President Grant’s secretary of war, William Belknap, who was accused of taking kickbacks from a contractor he appointed to run the trader post in Fort Sill, Okla. Belknap resigned before facing an almost-certain Senate conviction, a fate that's unlikely to play out with Mayorkas.
Other Republicans who spoke with The Hill stressed the need to go through the proper oversight channels, rather than leap into impeachment.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.), whose panel would be among those with jurisdiction over Mayorkas’s impeachment, was animated when he spoke about the opportunity to remove the DHS chief, pushing their own coming investigation.
“We're going to hold him accountable. That's what we're going to do. We're going to have hearings and dig into what I would say is dereliction of duty,” he said.
“All I can speak about is what we're going to do in the committee and that is a five-phased approach of tackling the fight.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the GOP needed to handle the matter in “the appropriate way.”
“I've been very public about my belief that he has violated his oath, that he has undermined our ability to defend our country,” he said.
“But I'm on the House Judiciary Committee in the majority now and so I'm going to talk to [Chair] Jim [Jordan] (R-Ohio) and talk to people on that committee to make sure that we're going through this and looking at it in the appropriate way.”
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who was initially by McCarthy’s side for the November border trip as he stressed an eventual inquiry, has signed onto Fallon’s resolution as a co-sponsor, saying he believes Cabinet secretaries can be impeached over their policies.
“People argue about this legally, you can impeach a president because you just don't like his policies. In theory that could be considered a high crime or misdemeanor according to the current legal analysis,” he said.
“I just decided I agree with Fallon. That's basically as simple as I can put it.”
(@EricMMatheny) 
