Spartz won’t support McCarthy in denying Omar seat on Foreign Affairs committee

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

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) said she will not support Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (Calif.) effort to deny Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, making matters more difficult for the GOP leader as he looks to follow through on his pledge to not seat the congresswoman on the panel.

Spartz also said she opposes McCarthy’s vow to block Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the House Intelligence Committee.

But while McCarthy has the power to unilaterally block Schiff and Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee, unseating Omar would take a vote of the full House, where Republicans hold only a narrow majority.

Spartz pointed to the Democratic-led moves in 2021 to strip Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) of their panel assignments — which she voted against — as a reason for her resistance.

“Two wrongs do not make a right,” Spartz wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] took unprecedented actions last Congress to remove Reps. Greene and Gosar from their committees without proper due process. Speaker McCarthy is taking unprecedented actions this Congress to deny some committee assignments to the Minority without proper due process again.”

“As I spoke against it on the House floor two years ago, I will not support this charade again,” she added. “Speaker McCarthy needs to stop ‘bread and circuses’ in Congress and start governing for a change.”

McCarthy has pledged to keep Schiff and Swalwell off the Intelligence Committee and Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee after Democrats kicked Greene and Gosar off their panels.

The Intelligence panel is a select committee, which means the Speaker assigns members in consultation with the minority leader. That authority also gives him the ability to unilaterally deny members seats on the committee. Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on the other hand, are chosen by each party and then ratified by the full House.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) has also expressed a coolness to denying Omar the committee seat after voting against booting Greene and Gosar from their panels in 2021.

“I'm going to treat everybody equally,” Mace told CNN. “I want to be consistent on it.”

That GOP opposition to not seating Omar on the Foreign Affairs Committee could present a math problem for McCarthy as he looks to make good on his vow in the narrowly split chamber.

Republicans can afford to lose only two more of their members, in addition to Spartz and Mace, and still deny Omar a seat on the committee. That number, however, could fall to three if Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) — who is recovering from injuries after falling 25 feet off a ladder — misses the vote. The Florida Republican wrote on Twitter on Monday that he will be “sidelined in Sarasota for several weeks.”

In 2021, 11 Republicans, seven of whom are still in Congress, voted with Democrats to boot Greene from her committees. Former Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) were the only two Republicans who voted to oust Gosar from panels.

It is unclear when the House will vote to ratify committee assignments. The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is scheduled to meet this week and complete committee assignments. Omar is expected to be put on the Foreign Affairs Committee, according to several sources familiar with the Democrats’ plans.

After that, the slates will go to the floor for approval.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) officially tapped Schiff and Swalwell for the Intelligence Committee in a letter this weekend to McCarthy, setting the foundation for a showdown over panel assignments for the pair.

McCarthy's frustrations with the trio stem from different areas.

Omar, a Somali refugee, has criticized the Israeli government and its supporters in the past, leading some to accuse her of antisemitism. The congresswoman was forced to apologize in 2019 after indicating that wealthy Jews were buying congressional support for Israel.

Republicans have accused Schiff of lying to the public while leading investigations into former President Trump, and McCarthy has pointed to Swalwell’s association with a suspected Chinese spy who helped fundraise for his 2014 reelection campaign. After the FBI told Swalwell about their concerns, he put an end to his ties with the Chinese national, who left for Beijing.

Both Schiff and Swalwell played prominent roles in Trump's impeachments.

“I’m doing exactly what we’re supposed to do,” McCarthy told reporters earlier this month, doubling down on his vows to deny the lawmakers assignments.

Democrats itch for fight with GOP on expelling lawmakers from committees

Posted on January 24, 2023 (Updated January 24, 2023) by Mike Lillis

House Democrats are itching for a fight with the new GOP majority over who should qualify for committee assignments, tapping Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.) to sit on the Intelligence Committee in the face of Republican vows to keep them off of the powerful panel.

A similar collision is likely to play out in a separate arena over Rep. Ilhan Omar, the third-term Minnesota lawmaker who is expected to be named by Democrats this week to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, despite GOP promises to boot her from the panel.

The Democrats’ moves — and the imminent clashes they’re certain to spark — indicate party leaders are confident the public battle over what constitutes disqualifying behavior will play to their political advantage, particularly after Republicans granted a pair of committee seats to Rep. George Santos, the embattled New York freshman who is under fire over lies about his background and questions about his finances.

In nominating Schiff and Swalwell to the Intelligence Committee, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) made sure to name-check Santos, emphasizing his new committee posts and hammering GOP leaders for elevating a “serial fraudster” to the panels.

“The apparent double standard risks undermining the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that is so desperately needed in Congress,” Jeffries wrote in a Jan. 21 letter to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

The debate arrives as the controversy surrounding Santos has shifted from one focused on resume fabrications to more serious questions about his campaign finances — allegations that have led some Republicans to call for Santos to resign from Congress altogether. Dismissing those concerns, party leaders last week nominated Santos for two committee assignments, on the House Small Business panel and the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

McCarthy himself has defended Santos, saying he was fairly elected by Long Island voters who now deserve his representation in Washington. He’s deferring questions of potential misconduct to the House Ethics Committee.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, unlike most other panels, has special rules empowering the Speaker to assign every member. The selections are to be made in consultation with the minority leader, but the final roster requires the endorsement of the Speaker alone, granting McCarthy the unilateral authority to block Jeffries’s recommendations.

Traditionally, that biennial process has been a routine rubber stamp, and the minority party’s picks have been seated without controversy.

But those dynamics have shifted since 2021, when Democrats staged successful votes to strip two Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — of their committee assignments.

That feud was exacerbated when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) vetoed two of then-Minority Leader McCarthy’s picks for the select panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — a move that prompted McCarthy to boycott the probe altogether.

Since then, McCarthy has vowed to keep Schiff and Swalwell from returning to the Intelligence panel — a pledge he amplified on Capitol Hill this month, when he accused the pair of politicizing the committee.

“I’m doing exactly what we’re supposed to do,” McCarthy said.

The accusations Republicans are leveling against Schiff and Swalwell are unique to each lawmaker.

Schiff, as former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had led the investigations into former President Trump’s ties to Russia, and he was the lead manager in Trump’s first impeachment, which centered around charges that Trump had leveraged U.S. military aid to pressure Ukrainian leaders to investigate his political rivals. Republicans have accused Schiff of lying to the public during the course of those probes.

In Swalwell’s case, Republicans are pointing to his association with a suspected Chinese spy who had helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign — an episode first revealed publicly in 2020. After the FBI informed Swalwell of their concern, he cut ties with the Chinese national, who fled to Beijing. But that’s done nothing to temper the attacks from Republicans accusing Swalwell of being a national security risk.

“If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy told reporters this month.

Fact-checkers have repeatedly found the GOP accusations to be false. And Democrats maintain that McCarthy’s threats are just another of the many concessions he had to make to the conservative detractors who fought to deny him the gavel earlier in the month.

“This is Kevin McCarthy once again catering to the most right-wing elements of his conference and doing the will of the former president as well,” Schiff said Monday in an interview with MSNBC. “It’s just a further destruction of our norms and, I think, deterioration of our democracy.”

Jeffries, in his letter to McCarthy, sought to distinguish between each party’s standards when it comes to committee evictions, noting that both Greene and Gosar were removed by a vote of the full House after revelations that they had promoted violence against Democrats. Both votes, Jeffries emphasized, had some Republican support.

“This action was taken by both Democrats and Republicans given the seriousness of the conduct involved, particularly in the aftermath of a violent insurrection and attack on the Capitol,” Jeffries wrote. “It does not serve as precedent or justification for the removal of Representatives Schiff and Swalwell, given that they have never exhibited violent thoughts or behavior.”

In nominating the California Democrats, Jeffries went out of his way to force McCarthy’s hand.

Under Intelligence Committee rules, rank-and-file members are limited to four cycles — a cap Swalwell has hit — meaning that Jeffries could have simply replaced Swalwell with a less controversial Democrat. Instead, he waived the term limit in order to force McCarthy to take the aggressive step of intervening to block Swalwell from the panel. Schiff, as ranking member, is exempt from the cap.

It’s unclear when McCarthy will announce the expected decision to block the pair. The Speaker was in Florida on Monday for an annual gathering of GOP leaders. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Separately, the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee is scheduled to meet this week to finalize the party’s committee rosters, including the expected move to put Omar, one of three Muslim lawmakers in Congress, on the Foreign Affairs panel, according to several sources familiar with the Democrats’ plans.

The Minnesota Democrat, a Somali refugee, has been highly critical of the Israeli government and its supporters, particularly on issues related to human rights in Palestine, leading to charges of antisemitism. In one 2019 episode, Omar was forced to apologize after suggesting wealthy Jews are buying congressional support for Israel.

Unlike the Intelligence panel, the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee are chosen by each party and ratified by the full House, meaning McCarthy cannot unilaterally block Omar from taking her seat. Instead, GOP leaders are expected to remove her from the panel on the House floor, as was the case with Greene and Gosar.

Democrats express alarm over Biden classified docs: ‘I’m very concerned’

Posted on January 23, 2023 (Updated January 24, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Democrats are expressing alarm over President Biden’s classified documents controversy, with some criticizing the president as diminished in stature and his staff as irresponsible.

“I’m very concerned,” said Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.), one of several incumbent Democrats who face potentially difficult reelection races next year in reliably GOP states in presidential elections.

“We have to get to the bottom of it to find out what the hell happened, why it happened,” he said.

“This is about national security,” Tester added, saying investigators need to find out if “it put our national security at risk.”

Biden’s January has been submerged in revelation after revelation of classified documents found at his former office and home. Most recently, 11 more documents were found during a search at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home on Friday.

The drip-drip-drip nature of the findings has left Democrats and Republicans alike wondering whether there will be more documents found and has left the White House looking off-balance at times.

Biden emerged from the 2022 midterms in a stronger position after Democrats gained a seat in the Senate and held down their losses in the House. Democrats still see Biden as their most likely standard-bearer, and lawmakers in his party have been quick to contrast his handling of classified documents with former President Trump — who is dealing with his own controversy.

At the same time, there’s little doubt the issue has raised some questions for Biden and the White House just as his team prepared to move forward with an expected presidential announcement later this year.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who like Tester is up for reelection next year in a state that Trump won easily in 2020, blasted the lax handling of secret information as “unbelievable” and “totally irresponsible.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Sept. 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)

Biden’s attempt to dismiss the building scandal last week by asserting “there’s no there there” also drew a barb from Manchin.

He told CNN on Monday “that’s just not a good statement,” adding “we just don’t know” what secrets may have been compromised.

Criticism from Manchin is hardly unheard of, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who represents a safer state for Democrats, was also somewhat critical on Sunday. He said the controversy “diminishes” Biden and noted the president rightly felt “embarrassed by the situation.”

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) on November 15, 2022. (Greg Nash)

Durbin on Monday said of the White House: “They were not careful in handling classified documents.”

“When I think of how we deal with them in the Capitol in comparison, whoever was responsible for it didn’t follow the basic rules,” Durbin said of the handling of classified documents.

Durbin said he never took a classified document out of his office, “let alone out of the building.”

Yet Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stopped short of speculating whether Biden committed a potential crime, telling reporters: “I wouldn’t go that far.”

House Republicans are saber-rattling over the issue, signaling they intend to use their newly won oversight powers to look into the Biden documents story in a more aggressive way than they looked into Trump’s controversy.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the new chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has requested that the Secret Service hand over all the information it has on visitors to Biden’s Delaware home in the time since he served as vice president.

The request — made to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Monday — came after Comer demanded that visitor logs for the residence be turned over. The White House said last week that such records do not exist.

Later on Monday, White House counsel Stuart Delery wrote to Comer that the administration does not have possession of the documents the National Archives and Department of Justice have taken as part of the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified materials.

Delery pledged to “accommodate legitimate oversight interests” in response to Comer’s request.

One GOP strategist said Republicans will go after Biden aggressively given the Trump controversy.

“The House is going to have a field day with investigations because of the fact that the Biden administration has been so outspoken criticizing Trump for the exact thing,” said Brian Darling, a former Senate aide.

Darling said the House could vote on articles of impeachment if the special prosecutor or House investigators find Biden broken the law or jeopardized national security.

“It’s possible. It depends on how the hearings go in the House. I think it’s quite possible that there will be discussion about impeachment because Democrats seemed so open to the idea of impeachment against President Trump and we’ve seen a lot of the payback from many of the things that happened when Democrats controlled the House, like kicking members off committees,” he said.

Durbin told reporters he expects House Republicans to go overboard in trying to tear down Biden, just as they did when they tried to blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the death of four Americans at a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Biden’s possession of classified documents now effectively “completely neutralizes” Democratic attacks against Trump for holding sensitive material in Florida.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) on Tuesday, November 29, 2022. (Greg Nash)

“I’m not sure I understand all the laws that pertain to classified documents. I know the procedures that apply, but it seems to me the Justice Department is going to have to sort all that out and I think right now it’s still an evolving situation,” he said.

Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), a senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said the careful handling of classified documents should always be a top priority and declared: “All of the circumstances are going to be examined …. So there’s a message that nobody is above the law.”

“The rule that I follow scrupulously is you don’t take documents out of the room,” he said. “Obviously there’s a lot of information coming out and I want to wait and see what the facts are.

But Wyden also gave Biden some political cover by drawing a distinction with Trump.

“One point that I don’t believe is in contention is President Biden has voluntarily cooperated and the former president did not,” he said.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who faces a competitive re-election in a Republican-leaning state, urged the administration to be as transparent as possible.

“There’s nothing that’s betrayal of national interest, there’s nothing he’s trying to hide but they need to come out with all of it,” he said. “He’s got to deal with it and get it over with.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) expressed frustration that the media attention surrounding the classified documents scandal threatens to eclipse the congressional agenda.

“It’s being looked at to the nth degree,” he said. “I’m concerned that I think we’re wasting an awful lot of effort on something that has a special prosecutor look[ing] into it and at the end of the day it looks like all you’re going to find is some sloppiness. We have real problems to work on,” he said.

Jeffries submits Schiff, Swalwell for Intel panel, forcing fight with McCarthy

Posted on January 23, 2023 (Updated January 23, 2023) by Mike Lillis

The head of House Democrats has submitted Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to sit on the powerful Intelligence Committee, setting up a battle with Republican leaders who are vowing to keep them off the panel.

Separately, Democrats this week are also expected to seat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to a source familiar with the Democrats’ plans, which will likely prompt GOP leaders to hold a floor vote to remove her.

In a letter sent Saturday to Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Schiff, the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel, and Swalwell are both “eminently qualified” to continue their service on the committee. Jeffries requested that McCarthy seat them there.

“Together, these Members have over two decades of distinguished leadership providing oversight of our nation’s Intelligence Community, in addition to their prosecutorial work in law enforcement prior to serving in Congress,” Jeffries wrote.

The developments were first reported Monday by Punchbowl News.

Unlike most committees, however, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has special rules empowering the Speaker to assign the panel’s members, in consultation with the minority leader. That means McCarthy can also decline to seat members without relying on a full House vote.

Historically, that process has proceeded without controversy and the minority party’s recommendations have been seated. But Republicans have been up in arms since 2021, when Democrats staged successful votes to remove two Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — from their committee assignments. And McCarthy has vowed since then to keep Schiff and Swalwell from returning to the Intelligence panel — a pledge he amplified on Capitol Hill last week.

“What I am doing with the Intel Committee [is] bringing it back to the jurisdiction it’s supposed to do. Forward-looking to keep this country safe, keep the politics out of it,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol.

“So yes, I’m doing exactly what we’re supposed to do,” he added.

Schiff, as former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had led the investigations into former President Trump’s ties to Russia, and Republicans have accused him of lying to the public during the course of those probes.

In Swalwell’s case, Republicans have highlighted his ties to a suspected Chinese spy who had helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign, which were first revealed in 2020. After the FBI informed Swalwell of their concern, he cut ties with the Chinese national and has said McCarthy’s decision to remove him from the Intelligence Committee is “purely vengeance.”

Schiff also served as a lead House manager for Trump's first impeachment trial, while Swalwell served as a manager for the second.

Fact-checkers have repeatedly found the GOP accusations to be false. And Democrats maintain that McCarthy’s threats are merely another promise to the conservative detractors who fought to deny him the Speaker's gavel earlier in the month.

Jeffries, in his letter, sought to carve out a distinction between the scenarios, noting that both Greene and Gosar were removed after revelations that they had promoted violent actions against Democrats, and both votes received some Republican support.

He also pointed out that McCarthy and the Republicans recently gave two committee posts to Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who is under fire for a series of résumé fabrications and questionable campaign finance activities. Jeffries called him a “serial fraudster.”

“The apparent double standard risks undermining the spirit of bipartisan cooperation that is so desperately needed in Congress,” Jeffries wrote.

Under Intelligence Committee rules, rank-and-file members are limited to four cycles — a cap Swalwell has hit — meaning that Jeffries waived that limit in order to force McCarthy to make good on his promise not to seat him. Schiff, as ranking member, is exempt from the cap.

The Minnesota Democrat, a Somali refugee, has been highly critical of the Israeli government and its supporters, particularly on issues related to Palestinian rights, leading to charges of antisemitism. In one 2019 episode, Omar was forced to apologize after suggesting wealthy Jews are buying congressional support for Israel.

Unlike the Intelligence panel, McCarthy cannot block members of the Foreign Affairs Committee unilaterally. GOP leaders are expected to stage a vote to remove her from the panel, as was the case for Greene and Gosar.

Six takeaways from House committee assignments so far

Posted on January 19, 2023 (Updated January 19, 2023) by Julia Shapero

As members of the House continue to receive committee assignments for the new Congress, Republicans are shaking up several panels with their newly obtained majority.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has doubled down on promises to block certain Democrats from top panels, while several Republicans who played key roles in his long, drawn-out fight for Speaker have found their way onto prominent committees.

More committee assignments remain to be handed out, but here are the six main takeaways so far:

Greene, Gosar back on committees

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., joined at left by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) were placed back on committees on Tuesday, after having their committee assignments stripped in 2021.

Both Greene and Gosar were selected to sit on the Oversight and Accountability Committee, while Greene was also chosen to serve on the Homeland Security Committee and Gosar was picked to sit on the Natural Resources Committee.

Greene, who had reportedly lobbied for the spot on the Oversight committee, was a key supporter of McCarthy throughout his bid for Speaker. She was stripped of her committee assignments in February 2021, just one month after joining Congress, for espousing conspiracy theories and encouraging violence against Democratic officials on social media.

Gosar was censured and removed from his committees in November 2021, after he posted an anime-style video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and engaging in a sword fight with President Biden.

McCarthy sparks fresh anger with vow to keep Omar off Foreign Affairs

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks to reporters during a break in a House Democratic caucus meeting and leadership election on Wednesday, November 30, 2022 for the 118th session of Congress.

McCarthy has recently doubled down on his previous vows to keep Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) off the Foreign Affairs Committee, sparking fresh anger among Democrats and Muslim advocacy groups.

Omar, one of three Muslim members of Congress, has been critical of the Israeli government and its supporters, leading to accusations of antisemitism.

“Last year, I promised that when I became Speaker, I would remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee based on her repeated anti-semitic and anti-American remarks,” McCarthy said in a tweet in November. “I'm keeping that promise.”

McCarthy reportedly told the GOP conference last week that he still plans to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Robert McCaw, the government affairs department director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the decision to reinstate Greene and Gosar while threatening to remove Omar “absolute insanity and hypocrisy” in a statement on Wednesday.

“Racism and Islamophobia would be the only explanation for this hypocritical double-standard,” McCaw said.

While McCarthy has promised to block Omar’s appointment, he cannot do so alone. In order to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, House Republicans would have to bring the matter to a vote on the House floor.

Schiff, Swalwell future on Intel panel still in peril

In this May 28, 2019 file photo, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., left, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., speak with members of the media on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Reps. Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) futures on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence also remain in peril, as McCarthy has similarly promised to boot both California Democrats from the powerful panel.

McCarthy has cited accusations that Schiff, the former chair of the Intelligence Committee, lied to the public about the extent of former President Trump’s ties to Russia during his 2016 campaign and exaggerated the central assertion of Trump’s first impeachment.

The first impeachment, which Schiff led, accused Trump of pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate his political rivals by threatening to withhold aid.

In Swalwell’s case, McCarthy has pointed to his ties to an alleged Chinese spy who helped fundraise for the congressman in 2014. However, Swalwell reportedly cut ties with the individual after the FBI informed him of her identity.

Swalwell was also an impeachment manager for Trump’s second impeachment over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Schiff’s and Swalwell’s positions on the Intelligence Committee are in a particularly precarious state, given that McCarthy can unilaterally reject their appointments without bringing a resolution to the House floor for a vote.

Santos gets committee assignments

Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., departs after attending a House GOP conference meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), the embattled first-term lawmaker who has admitted to lying about his background on the campaign trail, was seated on the Small Business Committee and Science, Space and Technology Committee on Tuesday.

McCarthy had confirmed last week that Santos would be seated on committees, even as several members of the Republican conference called for his resignation.

“I try to stick by the Constitution. The voters elected him to serve. If there is a concern, and he has to go through the Ethics [Committee], let him move through that,” McCarthy told reporters.

Santos is facing investigations on multiple fronts, as his claims about his background continue to unravel. The Nassau County district attorney and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York have both launched probes into the New York Republican, while Brazilian authorities reopened a fraud case against Santos from 2008.

Complaints have also been filed with the House Ethics Committee and Federal Election Commission over allegations that Santos falsified his financial disclosures and violated campaign finance laws.

McCarthy detractors get seats on Financial Services, Appropriations panels

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) addresses reporters after a closed-door House Republican conference meeting on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Several Republican members who opposed McCarthy’s bid for Speaker, drawing out the fight over a historic four days and 15 ballots, received seats on top House panels last week.

Of the 20 members of the anti-McCarthy group, Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) were both appointed to the Financial Services Committee, while Reps. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) and Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) found their way on to the Appropriations Committee. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) also maintained his spot on the Financial Services Committee.

While GOP leadership has said that no members were promised committee assignments as part of its negotiations during the Speaker fight, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) noted last week that they did agree to ensure that “committees are represented by a whole swath of our membership.”

This has largely translated into providing hard-line conservatives with more spots on prominent committees.

Foxx gets waiver to lead Education panel

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing examining the policies and priorities of the Department of Labor on Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) was selected to chair the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, after receiving a waiver from GOP leadership.

House GOP rules only permit members to serve as the head of a committee for three consecutive terms. As Foxx is beginning her fourth term as the top Republican on the education panel, she required a waiver to serve as chair.

House Oversight GOP to feature Border Patrol agents in February hearing

Posted on January 19, 2023 (Updated January 19, 2023) by Emily Brooks

Republicans will turn their focus to the U.S.-Mexico border with a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing featuring four Border Patrol agents next month.

Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced the hearing on Thursday, to take place sometime during the week of Feb. 6. Border Patrol agents Jason Owens, Gregory Bovino, Gloria Chavez and Patricia McGurk-Daniel were invited to testify.

“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,” Comer charged in a statement. “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.”

Comer separately sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday requesting documents and communications detailing accounting of illegal border crossings, border security plans, changes in certain migration policies, interior enforcement actions and several other matters.

The hearing is the second that the high-profile panel has scheduled. A hearing on waste, fraud and abuse in COVID-19 relief programs is set for Feb. 1.

A focus on the border, which Comer has long said will be a top priority for his committee, comes as several House Republicans are renewing their calls to impeach Mayorkas over his handling of the border. Any impeachment actions would be pursued by the House Judiciary Committee rather than the Oversight panel.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has called on Mayorkas to resign, but has stopped short of supporting impeachment.

“We can investigate, and then that investigation could lead to an impeachment inquiry. I don't predetermine because I'll never use impeachment for political purposes,” McCarthy told reporters on Monday.

Senate stares down immigration fight

Posted on January 19, 2023 (Updated January 19, 2023) by Al Weaver

A bipartisan group of senators attempting to craft an immigration compromise have an arduous task ahead of them: finding a deal that can attract the support of Democrats, moderate Republicans and the hard-line conservatives who have newfound power and influence in the House.

Ten senators last week visited multiple spots along the border for an up-close look at the issues consuming the immigration system. President Biden also traveled to El Paso, Texas, the epicenter of what members on both sides of the aisle describe as a crisis.

Despite that agreement, lawmakers must navigate the tricky contours of the politics of immigration — an issue that’s famously difficult to get agreement on while also serving as a key talking point in recent presidential elections.

That’s not deterring talks among those in the Senate, however.

"This is going to take months to potentially get to something that we could get the support in the House. We can't simply, because it’s politically difficult, say we can't touch it this Congress," Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of those that made the border trip, told The Hill.

Tillis and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who was also among those at the border last week, made a last-minute attempt last year to win support for a narrow proposal that would have allocated tens of billions of dollars to border security and processing asylum requests while also handing "Dreamers" — those brought to the U.S. as children without authorization — a long-awaited path to citizenship.

But that push — which consisted of a framework and not a bill — was too little, too late.

Tillis and Sinema’s attempt at bipartisan compromise may have been the last chance for the foreseeable future for Congress to take action, despite both parties in Congress and the White House acknowledging the problem.

Any deal that could emerge from the Senate — meaning with the support of at least nine Senate Republicans — would likely earn resistance from far-right members of the GOP-controlled House.

“It's harder because the politics have gotten even harder for Republicans to get to ‘yes,’” said Alex Conant, who served as press secretary for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during the “Gang of Eight” immigration fight in 2013. “You look at the political fallout for those involved in the 2013 deal, and how a lot of Republicans have been able to use immigration to win nominations since then, it's an issue that Republicans are very wary of getting on the wrong side of.”

Since the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform package failed, the politics of the topic has only hardened on the right and the voices have gotten louder. Adding to the troubles is that members are heading into a presidential election cycle and are hesitant to deliver any wins for Biden, especially on a topic that matters this much to the base.

Many House Republicans made immigration a central issue and some are already talking about impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed articles of impeachment against the secretary last week.

And on Wednesday, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) sent a letter pressing Mayorkas for answers about border issues, writing that “administration cannot continue its erosion of the southern border and its mass-parole of migrants into our country.”

“It’s been a steep hill — steep and tall — for 40 years. That’s why nothing’s gotten done. So this is just a different dynamic,” said Tillis, who blamed the “talking heads” in part for scuttling his efforts with Sinema last year. “I don’t think it’s fair to blame this Congress. This Congress could be the first one since leisure suits were popular to do something on immigration.”

Tillis, who has become a key player in bipartisan negotiations on myriad topics in the past two years, said he is expected to discuss a path to passage of immigration reform with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Freedom Caucus members.

Some political observers believe the impetus for a deal could be simple: The situation at the border now is worse than it was a decade ago as monthly encounters with migrants are near record highs.

One Senate GOP aide added that the road to a bipartisan, bicameral deal is “difficult but not impossible.”

“Details will really matter, though,” the aide said. “At the very least, it’s good to finally see a substantive bipartisan acknowledgement that there’s actually a problem at the border.”

Legislation that passes muster with both chambers, however, would need to overcome another complicating factor in the House: McCarthy, as part of the deals he struck to become Speaker, empowered a far-right contingent of his party and handed them an easier procedural avenue to oust him, just as they did former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2015 — two years after Boehner refused to bring the “Gang of Eight” bill to the floor for a vote.

“I don't think it's this,” one conservative Senate aide told The Hill about McCarthy’s lack of willingness to complicate his standing as Speaker over a Senate-negotiated immigration bill.

“What [former President Trump] showed was you can run on a pretty hard-line immigration stance and win on it,” the aide continued. “I don't think they get there without something Democrats can't stomach.”

For now, all eyes are on the Senate to see how it proceeds, though it all comes down to what McCarthy and House conservatives could accept.

“Now we have a gavel,” Tillis said. “And when you have a gavel, you have to govern.”

White House charges GOP with hypocrisy on Trump, Biden

Posted on January 17, 2023 (Updated January 17, 2023) by Amie Parnes

The White House blasted Republicans on Tuesday, accusing them of hypocrisy with how they’ve handled the separate controversies surrounding classified documents found at President Biden’s garage and office and former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

In a call with reporters, White House aides accused the GOP of engaging in “political theater” by attacking Biden while giving a free pass to Trump.

“The president and his team have been fully cooperating, acting responsibly and ensuring that this is handled properly,” said Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel's Office. “You’ve seen something far different emerging among elected Republicans. What are they doing? They’ve decided that it’s time for more political stunts and theater.“

The call was set up after a difficult week for the White House that found Democrats struggling at times to explain why documents had been taken to Biden’s garage and office, and why the public hadn’t been told about them until Jan. 10 — when the news first broke about the discovery.

The White House first discovered that classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president had been taken to the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 2 — before the midterm elections and after Biden and other Democrats had blasted Trump over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago found earlier in the year.

The White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives of the discovery days later and the Archives then notified the Department of Justice. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week appointed a special counsel to look into the issue after Garland had previously appointed a special counsel to look into the Trump classified documents matter.

On Tuesday, days after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) asked if the White House had a visitor log for Biden’s Wilmington, Del., residence, Biden’s team sought to go on offense by accusing the GOP overreaching on the issue.

Comer, in an interview with CNN, also called Biden’s residence a “crime scene” after the classified documents were discovered at Biden’s home.

Sams and others say the GOP fury over the found Biden documents stands in sharp contrast to the more blasé reaction many Republicans had to the discovery of classified documents at Trump’s home.

Democrats also have argued the two situations are very different because of the level of cooperation Biden has sought to maintain in alerting the Archives to the discovery. Trump, in contrast, largely stiff-armed the Archives, they say.

In addition, the documents at Mar-a-Lago were in a Florida estate where hundreds of guests come and go for social occasions.

“They’re faking outrage even though they defended the former president’s actions,” Sams told reporters on Tuesday.

White House aides and allies pointed to the irony of Comer’s remarks in August when he brushed off Trump’s possession of classified materials.

“What I’ve seen that the National Archives was concerned about Trump having in his possession didn’t amount to a hill of beans,” Comer told Newsmax at the time.

In November, Comer also told CNN that a House investigation into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents would “not be a priority.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who served as the chief investigator in the first impeachment of Trump, told The Hill it’s “just the latest example of House Republicans abusing their oversight authority and demanding things they have argued against in the past.

“The American people are tired of Republican hypocrisy and Chairman Comer is not off to a good start, he said.

Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist and the director of the public policy program at Hunter College, said Republicans like Comer were “willing to shield Trump from any public of governmental scrutiny while he was president but are hypocritically intent upon using all available congressional power at their disposal to unpack Biden’s life, shame him and discredit Democrats.”

In many ways, White House officials and their allies are happy to have this fight with Republicans, allies say because they are taking the bet that Trump’s baggage on this issue is worse than their own and has the potential of backfiring.

White House allies say Republicans will have a tough time explaining why Trump held on to the documents and then resisted the FBI. Biden, on the other hand has fully cooperated with the Department of Justice and the appointed special counsel.

“It’s ludicrous,” one Democratic strategist close to the White House said of the GOP.

“Do they really want to go there?" said one Democratic strategist close to the White House. "Didn't their guy have many more documents at his home? Didn't he try and stop people from taking them back?”

Republicans have used the controversy to blunt Biden’s trajectory weeks ahead of his expected announcement for reelection. They’ve sought to use the episode to paint Biden as corrupt.

“The Biden are just a Delaware version of the Sopranos,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on Twitter.

Republican strategist Doug Heye said it’s fair game.

“Congress tends not to deeply investigate a White House of the same party,” Heye said. “That was true of Democrats last Congress and of Republicans under Trump.“

And he predicted that the controversy wouldn’t backfire on the GOP.

“This cuts at Biden’s argument that he and his team of pros won’t make the mistakes Trump and his Addams Family team made — on something Biden specifically criticized. And when Democrats say, but Trump was worse, well, okay but now you’re talking degrees and if you’re explaining you’re losing.”

GOP divided in rush to impeach Mayorkas

Posted on January 13, 2023 (Updated January 13, 2023) by Rebecca Beitsch

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.”

McCarthy amplifies vow to keep Schiff, Swalwell off Intel Committee

Posted on January 12, 2023 (Updated January 12, 2023) by Mike Lillis

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday amplified his pledge to keep a pair of high-profile Democrats — Reps. Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (Calif.) — from joining the powerful House Intelligence Committee in the new Congress.

Both Schiff and Swalwell played an outsized role in the impeachments of former President Trump, becoming toxic figures among Republicans in the process.

McCarthy has vowed for months to remove them from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, known as HPSCI, in the wake of the Democrats’ move to strip two Republicans — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (Ga.) and Paul Gosar (Ariz.) — of their committee assignments in the last Congress.

On Thursday, McCarthy said he’s not backing down.

“What I am doing with the Intel Committee [is] bringing it back to the jurisdiction it's supposed to do. Forward-looking to keep this country safe, keep the politics out of it,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol.

“So yes, I'm doing exactly what we're supposed to do," he added.

The reasons Republicans are targeting Schiff and Swalwell are unique to each lawmaker.

For Schiff, the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, McCarthy has focused on his role in the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, accusing Schiff of lying to the public about the depth of that affiliation.

He’s also accused Schiff, who was the lead manager in Trump’s first impeachment, of exaggerating the central assertion of that case, which charged Trump with leveraging U.S. military aid to pressure Ukrainian leaders to investigate his political adversaries.

“He put America — for four years — through an impeachment that he knew was a lie,” McCarthy said Thursday.

In Swalwell’s case, Republicans have highlighted his ties to a suspected Chinese spy who had helped fundraise for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign — an episode that became public only in 2020, when Axios reported it.

“If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn't have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said.

Swalwell, who had cut ties with the Chinese national when informed of her identity by the FBI, said this week that McCarthy’s decision to remove him from HPSCI was “purely vengeance” for Swalwell’s role as a manager in Trump’s second impeachment, which followed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I did what I hope every one of my colleagues would do, which was to help the FBI get this person out of the country,” Swalwell said Wednesday in an interview with MSNBC's Chris Hayes. “This is only about vengeance, and there's no substantive reason to remove us.”

Separately, McCarthy is also vowing to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of three Muslim lawmakers in Congress, from her spot on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Omar has been highly critical of the Israeli government and its supporters, particularly on issues related to Palestinian rights, leading to charges of antisemitism. In one 2019 episode, Omar was forced to apologize after suggesting wealthy Jews are buying congressional support for Israel.

McCarthy did not mention Omar on Thursday, but told the GOP conference earlier in the week that he would follow through on his pledge to block all three Democrats — Omar, Schiff and Swalwell — from their top committees, according to lawmakers in the meeting.

“Speaker McCarthy confirms that Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar are getting kicked off the Intel and Foreign Affairs Committees,” Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican, tweeted on Tuesday after the closed-door gathering.

“Promises made. Promises kept!” he added.

The process for removing a lawmaker from a standing committee like Foreign Affairs is different than for kicking representatives off the HPSCI, which is a select committee.

McCarthy, as House Speaker, has the power to reject Schiff and Swalwell unilaterally. By contrast, Republicans would have to bring a resolution removing Omar to the House floor, as Democrats did with Greene and Gosar in 2021.

As the parties clash over the legitimacy of stripping committees from the three targeted Democrats, it’s unclear if McCarthy will even be confronted with that option in the case of Schiff and Swalwell. That’s because Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), the new Democratic leader, has not yet indicated whether he will seat those two on the Intelligence panel in the new Congress.

HPSCI has term limits on its members, and Swalwell is at the end of the four-cycle cap, leading to questions of whether Jeffries would supply a waiver to try to keep him aboard. Schiff, as the top Democrat on the panel, is exempt from those limits.

Jeffries has begun the process of naming Democrats to the various committees, including the Ethics panel, which revealed its roster on Tuesday. But he has not revealed the Democrats he’s putting forward for the Intelligence panel.

Jeffries’s office did not respond on Thursday to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, other members of the Intelligence Committee are itching to get seated — and secure their security clearances — so they can get to work in the new Congress.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), who is seeking to replace Schiff as Intel’s top Democrat if Schiff falls off the committee, said Thursday that members of the panel are eager to regain access to their classified briefings, not least because of the recent news that President Biden was found to be in private possession of confidential documents.

“It's a sensitive moment not to have, you know — you can't get briefed on whatever the Biden classified documents are, [and] from a party standpoint, you don't have a very clear spokesman on the issue,” Himes said. “So I'm hoping it's soon."