House Republicans are bracing for fights over spending as GOP leadership aims to bring the first two of 12 appropriations bills to the floor this week, despite vocal criticism from the party’s right flank over not cutting enough spending.
Democrats are not expected to give the GOP any help with passing the funding bills, leaving Republicans to pass them with just a slim majority — creating the very real possibility that the GOP will be short on votes.
How the GOP deals with the first two bills ahead of a long August recess will set the tone for expected spending showdowns ahead of a Sept. 30 government funding deadline, and potentially bigger spending showdowns with the Senate this fall.
Hard-line conservatives have long pressed Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to further slash spending in the House bills, aiming to take the most extreme position ahead of expected funding negotiations with the Senate this fall.
A group of 21 House Republicans, made up of mostly members of the House Freedom Caucus and their allies, wrote in a letter to the Speaker earlier this month that they plan to vote against spending bills they think contain insufficient overall cuts.
The two measures scheduled for House consideration this week are the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and military construction bill, along with the agriculture, rural development and Food and Drug Administration bill. The first actually boosts funding for the VA, in an effort to combat Democratic talking points that claimed Republicans would slash benefits for veterans.
A main disagreement between the right flank and GOP, referenced in the letter earlier this month, is over “reallocated rescissions to increase discretionary spending above that top-line,” decrying what some have called a “budgetary gimmick” to include clawbacks of previously approved spending in getting to fiscal 2022 levels.
The House Freedom Caucus is set to hold a press conference with the president of advocacy group FreedomWorks on Tuesday morning about the appropriations bills.
“Democrats intentionally funded a bloated federal bureaucracy, and if we don’t reset discretionary spending now, Republicans are effectively accepting and enshrining absurd COVID levels,” FreedomWorks said in a post urging the public to demand lower spending levels.
Some conservatives have expressed confidence that the Appropriations Committee-approved bills will see changes before final passage — and it is a possibility through either the House Rules Committee or amendments.
Those in the right flank are also prioritizing policy changes through the power of the purse.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) summarized the position of hard-line conservatives in a tweet Monday: “To consider funding federal government: 1) Return Federal Bureaucracy to Pre-COVID, 2) End Border Invasion & fed attack on Texas, 3) End FBI Weaponization, 4) End Racist DEI Govt Policies, 5) Make Europe Handle Ukraine, 6) End War on Reliable Energy.”
The 10 bills passed out of the House Appropriations Committee so far did so along partisan lines, with Democrats angry that House Republicans moved to write the 12 appropriations bills with an overall top-line target that was lower than the spending caps that McCarthy negotiated with President Biden in the debt limit increase bill in June.
The White House on Monday said that Biden would veto either bill if it came to his desk, taking issue not only with the additional spending cuts and recissions, but with culture war provisions concerning abortion, diversity and inclusion initiatives and gender-affirming care.
Pressure from hard-line conservatives poses challenges for Republican appropriators and moderates. The challenge, they note, is making sure that final funding bills can eventually pass the House and get signed into law.
“You’re not gonna get everything you want. But they are getting numbers-wise and policy-wise many of the things that are good for them,” Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), a subcommittee chairman on the House Appropriations Committee and chairman of the more moderate Republican Governance Group caucus, recently told The Hill.
“It’s important to pass appropriations bills that dictate the policies and procedures and how the money is going to be spent and where it’s going to be spent,” Joyce said, adding that it’s “certainly an understanding we haven’t reached yet.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) offered an apology Saturday “for the appearance” of disrespecting children who died in the Uvalde shooting, after footage of the congresswoman discarding a tribute pin for one of the victims prompted a wave of harsh criticism.
“If anyone thinks that I was disrespecting a child who tragically lost their lives at the hands of an evil, evil person, I want to apologize for the appearance of that. But that’s not at all what it was," she said.
In a video that circulated late last week, an activist appears to hand Boebert a pamphlet and a pin. The pin honored one of the 19 children who died in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Another activist is heard saying to Boebert, who is well known as an advocate for gun rights and an opponent of gun control, that “we hope you take action on gun violence prevention.”
Boebert does not appear to respond to the two activists but can be seen in the video discarding the items in a nearby trash can as she continues walking.
In the new video, Boebert accused the activist of being aggressive with her previously.
"I simply did not want to receive anything from this aggressive man who has been harassing me and my office,” Boebert says in the video. She also said she was wearing AirPods and told the person that she was "occupied."
She said her pastor inspired her to film the response video.
“Last week, there was a video of me throwing an item away that I had received randomly from somebody in the hallway. I was walking and had AirPods in, tried to tell the man that I was occupied, and he continued, and as he was handing me what turned out to be a memorial pin, I recognized him as a man who came at me very aggressively just a few weeks prior during a press conference,” Boebert said.
Boebert, one of the most vocal pro-gun members of Congress, immediately came under fire when the video first aired last week. Local news reported on the backlash from families of the victims and from political activists.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee are poking holes in GOP arguments that President Biden is corrupt, claims that are founded on unverified allegations from an FBI form released in controversial fashion last week.
The uncorroborated allegations of Biden corruption and bribery are related to his son Hunter's business relationship with Ukrainian energy company Burisma and were part of an FBI form released by by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) last week.
The form documents information that a confidential human source relayed to an FBI agent, but does not assess that information.
While the GOP sees the document as key to its investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings, Democrats view the release as a stunning move that jeopardizes the FBI’s ability to work with confidential sources while offering no proof of any wrongdoing.
The FBI last week admonished Comer and Grassley for releasing the form.
“Chairman Comer’s and Senator Grassley’s decision to publicly release the form is in brazen disregard of the safety of FBI human sources and the integrity of its investigations,” House Oversight Committee Democratic staff wrote to Democratic lawmakers in a memo obtained by The Hill.
“Contrary to Republican messaging, the form provides no new or additional support for their corruption allegations against the President or Hunter Biden. Instead, its release merely seeks to breathe new life into years-old conspiracy theories, initially peddled by Rudy Giuliani, that have been thoroughly debunked.”
Republicans pushed back on the Democratic memo.
“The Democrats’ latest memo is another piece of garbage that should be thrown in the trash. Senator Grassley acquired the unclassified FD-1023 form through legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers,” a GOP Oversight Committee spokesperson said in a statement. “The record is based on a trusted confidential human source’s conversations with a Burisma executive, and it has nothing to do with Rudy Guiliani.”
The tipster, dubbed CHS as short for confidential human source, relayed conversations he had with Mykola Zlochevsky, the CEO of Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Zlochevsky thought that having Hunter Biden on the board could help insulate the company from its problems with being investigated by Ukrainian authorities.
The crux of the unproven bribery allegation has been pushed by allies of former President Trump for years: that then-Vice President Biden's threat to withhold funding to Ukraine unless Prosecutor Viktor Shokin was removed was intended to benefit Burisma, which was paying his son.
But Democrats point to numerous facts and comments — including from the FBI source, from congressional Republicans and from a man who was involved in pushing these theories — that severely undercut that theory.
Some reports say that the investigation into Burisma was, in fact, dormant by the time Biden called for Shokin’s ouster. Shokin was also criticized for failure to prosecute corruption, and his ouster was supported by numerous U.S. officials as well as other European allies far beyond Biden.
The Democratic memo also quoted numerous Republicans — including Grassley — casting doubt on the veracity of the claims in the memo.
“Last month, Senator Johnson, who led Senate Republicans’ 2020 investigation into the allegations involving Burisma, conceded the issues with the Form FD-1023: ‘That’s what this person says, but again, take that with a grain of salt. This could be coming from a very corrupt oligarch who could be making this stuff up,’” the Democratic memo said, citing a June podcast.
“Senator Grassley also tacitly questioned the truthfulness of the allegations in the Form FD-1023 when he admitted he was ‘not interested’ in whether the accusations in the form ‘are accurate or not,’” the memo continued, pointing to a Fox News interview in June.
Grassley has argued that his interest in the FBI form rests more with whether the FBI and Department of Justice adequately investigated the tip rather than in the bribery allegations themselves.
“What did the Justice Department and FBI do with the detailed information in the document? And why have they tried to conceal it from Congress and the American people for so long?” Grassley said in a statement alongside the memo’s release last week.
But Democrats push back on that reasoning.
“Under U.S. Attorney Brady, the DOJ and FBI thoroughly investigated the allegations as part of an eight-month formal assessment, which included interviewing Mr. Giuliani and the CHS, and reviewing suspicious activity reports (SARs) from banks,” the memo said. “The FBI also confirmed to Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Raskin during the June 5, 2023, briefing that Mr. Brady’s assessment was closed in August 2020 because his team found insufficient evidence to warrant escalating the probe from an assessment to a preliminary or full investigation.”
A GOP committee spokesperson, though, pointed to public comments from Attorney General Bill Barr refuting a previous claim from Raskin that an investigation into the claims had ended. Barr told the conservative website The Federalist in June that “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”
The memo also notes that the FBI source could verify the veracity of Zlochevsky’s claims, explaining that “it is extremely common for businessmen in post-Soviet countries to brag or show off” and to make “bribe” payments to government officials.
Democrats focus heavily on a recent letter to Comer from Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian who was later convicted of making illegal campaign contributions to Trump, and whom Guiliani relied on to dig up dirt about the Bidens in Ukraine ahead of the 2020 election. Parnas urged Comer to abandon efforts to uncover wrongdoing by the Biden family in Ukraine.
“Never, during any of my communications with Ukrainian officials or connections to Burisma, did any of them confirm or provide concrete facts linking the Bidens to illegal activities. In fact, they asked me multiple times why our team was so concerned with this idea,” Parnas wrote in the letter to Comer last week. “The truth is that everyone [involved in this effort to discredit the Bidens] knew that these allegations against the Bidens were false. There has never been any actual evidence, only conspiracy theories spread by people who knew exactly what they were doing.”
The memo also points to information collected during the first impeachment effort, including a conversation purported to be with Zlochevsky that contradicts the FD-1023 claims of communications with President Biden.
“No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement,” Zlochevsky says in the exchange, which appears to be with Vitaly Pruss, whom the letter describes as “another long-time associate of Mr. [Rudy] Giuliani, who was a close friend of Mr. Zlochevsky.”
Democrats also take the Republicans to task for sharing information the FBI expressly asked them not to release publicly.
Raskin (D-Md.) says the publicly released form does not include all the same redactions as the version first shared with lawmakers, disclosing names of individuals in Ukraine as well as some specific locations referenced during the conversation.
“Chairman Comer and Senator Grassley chose to expose those additional details despite repeated cautioning from the FBI about the critical need to protect the safety of its human sources and its ability to conduct investigations effectively,” Raskin wrote.
Indeed, a June 9 letter obtained by The Hill shows the FBI warned Comer about GOP members’ handling of the record just the day after offering a briefing to the full committee.
“The Committee and its Members were specifically told that ‘wider distribution could pose a risk of physical harm to FBI sources or others.’ The full text of this admonishment is included below for your reference. We are concerned that Members disregarded the Committee’s agreement that information from the document should not be further disclosed. Several Committee Members publicized specific details regarding their recollection of confidential source reporting purportedly referenced in the document,” the bureau wrote in the letter.
But Republicans defend the release of the FBI form and refuted claims of it endangering a source.
“Before publicly releasing the document, redactions were made to protect the identity of the confidential human source. The FD-1023 is also unclassified and is not marked law enforcement sensitive,” a GOP Oversight Committee spokesperson said, pointing to statements from Democrats and information shared with the press that linked the document to Ukraine before it became public. “Those early public statements, based on apparent FBI or DOJ leaks, exposed the source well before the document became public.”
Despite the Democratic pushback, Republicans signal that the FBI form will fuel its investigations; Comer said in a statement last week that the form backs up his committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings.
“That sounds an awful lot like how the Bidens conduct business: using multiple bank accounts to hide the source and total amount of the money,” Comer said.
A GOP Oversight Committee spokesperson also defended release of the FBI form by linking it to another aspect of the committee’s probe into the Biden family business dealings.
When asked about the FBI form, IRS whistleblowers who looked into Hunter Biden said they had never heard of it. The GOP spokesperson said the form was “was kept from them” even though the whistleblowers had “potentially had corroborating evidence”
Former President Trump on Monday criticized Senate Republican leaders for not being as critical of President Biden as House Republicans have been.
GOP House members have made a concerted effort to paint Biden and the Department of Justice as corrupt, using the DOJ prosecution of Hunter Biden for ammunition. They argue Hunter Biden received too lenient a sentence, among other things.
There have been staunch critics of both Bidens in the Senate GOP, as well, but the Senate GOP's leadership tends to be much more muted than the House on the issue.
“Joe Biden is the most corrupt President in the history of the United States, which is being undeniably proven in the House of Representatives every single day,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday.
“But with all of these horrible revelations and facts, why hasn’t Republican ‘leadership’ in the Senate spoken up and rebuked Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats, Fascists, and Marxists for their criminal acts against our Country, some of them against me. How long does America have to wait for the Senate to ACT?” Trump added.
The House GOP tends to be more pro-Trump than the Senate GOP.
While the House is led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is considering an effort to expunge Trump's impeachments, the Senate is led by a Trump critic — Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Kentucky Republican has been staunchly critical of Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and he has become a frequent target of the former president.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who is a member of McConnell's leadership team, has endorsed Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for president.
Despite the relatively muted response, Trump has some strong allies in the Senate GOP.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last week joined House Oversight Committee Republicans in releasing a copy of an unverified tip to the FBI alleging a scheme to bribe President Biden.
The release brought stern criticism from the FBI, which admonished Grassley and the other lawmakers over the release.
“We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,” the FBI said in a statement.
The Biden administration has adamantly denied allegations of wrongdoing.
“It is remarkable that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years and that they themselves have cautioned to take ‘with a grain of salt’ because they could be ‘made up,’” said Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, in a statement after the release of the document.
“These claims have reportedly been scrutinized by the Trump Justice Department, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, and a full impeachment trial of the former President that centered on these very issues, and over and over again, they have been found to lack credibility,” Sams added.
The House this week will be flooded with talk about UFOs and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), as a House panel gets set to hold a hearing on the increased sightings of such objects.
Frustrated lawmakers are demanding more information on UFOs and UAPs, which grew as a topic of discussion after an Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency claimed that the government is holding back information about UFOs. That individual, David Grusch, is among the witnesses slated to testify.
Also this week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will face some of his staunchest Republican critics when he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee, a hearing that could further fuel calls for his ouster.
The House is also scheduled to vote on the first two of 12 appropriations bills, as lawmakers race to approve government funding ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline. And the chamber this week could also vote on a resolution to censure Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), after Democrats threatened to force a vote on penalizing the indicted congressman.
On the Senate side, lawmakers will continue consideration of the annual defense bill as the end-of-September deadline inches closer; the House already passed its own version of the measure and is expected to conference its legislation with the eventual Senate measure to come to a compromise bill.
In the background of legislative and investigative work this week, Congress will be bracing for another potential indictment of former President Trump — this time pertaining to his efforts to remain in power following the 2020 election, including the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump revealed last week that he was informed he is a target in the probe, which is often a sign of an incoming indictment.
House panel to hold hearing on UAPs
The House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs is scheduled to hold a hearing on UAPs this week, as more and more lawmakers seek information on sightings of the phenomena.
The hearing — titled “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency” — is set for Wednesday at 10 a.m.
Lawmakers will hear from three witnesses: Grusch, the whistleblower who has accused the government of withholding information related to UFOs, Ryan Graves, the executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace, and Rt. Commander David Fravor, the former commanding officer of the Navy’s Black Aces Squadron.
In an interview with NewsNation last month, Grusch — the former national reconnaissance officer representative for the Pentagon’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force — claimed that the U.S. government has for decades recovered nonhuman craft with nonhuman species inside. NewsNation confirmed Frusch’s credentials but did not view or verify evidence that he said he gave to Congress and the Pentagon’s inspector general.
NewsNation and The Hill are both owned by Nexstar Media Group.
The panel said Wednesday’s hearing “will explore firsthand accounts of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and assess the federal government’s transparency and accountability regarding UAPs’ possible threats to U.S. national security.”
“This hearing will also highlight legislative efforts to bring transparency to UAPs and require the federal government to provide the American people with information about potential risks to public safety and national security,” the panel added in a statement.
Mayorkas to testify before House Judiciary Committee
Mayorkas is likely to find himself in the hot seat Wednesday when he testifies before the House Judiciary Committee as part of a hearing that will offer some of his most ardent opponents an opportunity to question — and criticize — the secretary regarding his handling of the situation at the southern border.
The hearing — set for 10 a.m. — is being billed as an oversight hearing that “will examine the agency's operational failures, the unprecedented border crisis, and the abandonment of immigration enforcement under Secretary Mayorkas.”
The presentation, however, comes as some House Republicans — including ones on the Judiciary Committee — are pushing to impeach the secretary.
The House Homeland Security Committee officially launched an investigation into Mayorkas last month, a probe that would serve as the basis for an impeachment inquiry. But the push to impeach Mayorkas has the House GOP conference divided, with some conservatives behind the effort while other moderates are opposed.
This week’s hearing, however, will put the spotlight on Mayorkas, and could ramp up calls for his impeachment — even as border crossings continue to decrease.
Asked about the threat of impeachment last week, Mayorkas told Politico in an interview, “I am incredibly proud of my record in federal service, and I love serving our country.”
“I have a very good understanding of who I am and what I am trying to do for our country in leading 260,000 people in the Department of Homeland Security,” he later added. “False accusations do not dent that one bit.”
House kicks off appropriations process on floor
The House is scheduled to kick off the appropriations process on the floor this week, bringing two of 12 bills before the entire chamber for a vote.
Lawmakers are set to vote on a bill pertaining to funding for military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and another for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Food and Drug Administration.
The votes come as Congress stares down a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown; this week is the last opportunity to chip away at the appropriations process before lawmakers leave for the long August recess.
But a number of battles are on the horizon as lawmakers look to pass all 12 appropriations bills ahead of the looming September deadline.
House conservatives, for starters, have voiced concerns about leadership using rescissions to hit target levels. Rescissions, which some conservatives have labeled a “budgetary gimmick,” essentially claw back spending that Congress has already appropriated for future programs, which allows lawmakers to claim they are funding the government at one level when it is actually at another.
Then, there is the House-Senate clash that is poised to play out. The House is marking up appropriations bill at fiscal 2022 levels — an effort to appease conservatives — while the Senate is moving forward at levels agreed to in President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) debt limit deal, putting the two chambers on a collision course.
The Senate is also planning to add $13.7 billion in additional emergency funding, which has already sparked opposition from Republicans in the House.
House could vote on resolution to censure Santos
The House this week could vote on a resolution to censure Santos, which a handful of Republicans have already said they would support.
Three House Democrats — Reps. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), Robert Garcia (Calif.) and Dan Goldman (N.Y.) — introduced a privileged resolution last week that would censure Santos, citing a number of lies he has told pertaining to his educational background and employment history.
Because the resolution is privileged, the trio of Democrats can force a vote on the measure — once they call it up for a vote, leadership has to take action within two legislative days.
Torres, who is spearheading the effort, said last week that there was “no final decision yet on a vote” when asked when he would call up the resolution but said, “The likely timeline is before the August recess,” which begins Friday.
In the meantime, however, some House Republicans have said they would support the censure resolution if it comes to the floor, which appears to be enough for the measure to be adopted, assuming all Democrats vote “yes.” The resolution only requires a majority vote for approval.
“I called for his resignation, I don’t think he should be a member of Congress and I would vote to censure him,” Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said last week. Other Republicans in the New York delegation have echoed that stance.
Santos, for his part, is brushing aside the censure effort, writing in a statement last week, “Democrats on the other side of the aisle have completely lost focus on the work they should be doing.”
Senate continues NDAA consideration
The Senate this week will continue consideration of the annual defense bill, formally called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The chamber is scheduled to vote on two amendments Tuesday — one led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and the other spearheaded by Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). Both are set at 60-vote thresholds.
The Senate is working to approve its version of the NDAA after the House passed its own legislation earlier in the month. The House measure was loaded up with a handful of GOP-sponsored amendments on hot-button issues such as abortion and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which tanked Democratic support.
The Senate version of the bill is expected to be far less partisan, given the fact that it will need 60 votes to pass. The two chambers, however, are then expected to hash out their differences ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline.
Capitol Hill braces for third Trump indictment
Capitol Hill is bracing for a third indictment targeting Trump — but this time around, it will hit close to home for lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Trump revealed last week that he was informed he is a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into his efforts to stay in power following the 2020 presidential election, which includes the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The receipt of a so-called “target letter” is often a sign that a formal indictment is coming. Trump last week declined to meet with the grand jury looking into the situation.
Trump’s announcement last week fueled GOP claims that federal law enforcement is “weaponized” against Republicans, while Democrats, particularly ones who sat on the Jan. 6 select committee, said they were not surprised at the news.
Those dynamics will likely continue this week if Trump is formally charged by the Justice Department.
Also this week, Hunter Biden is scheduled to make his initial court appearance after entering a plea agreement with federal prosecutors last month. He agreed to plead guilty to two counts of willful failure to pay income tax, and to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement on a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm — an agreement that has sparked howls among Republicans, who have called it a sweetheart deal.
Hunter Biden is due at the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Del., on Wednesday at 10 a.m.
House Republicans increasingly find themselves on a collision course over efforts to expunge the impeachments of former President Trump, a battle that pits hard-line conservatives — who are pressing for a vote — against moderates already warning GOP leaders they'll reject it.
The promised opposition from centrist Republicans all but ensures the resolutions would fail if they hit the floor. And it puts Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a no-win situation.
If he doesn't stage the vote, he risks the ire of Trump and his allies. If he does, the measures would be shot down, validating Trump's impeachments just as his legal troubles are piling up.
The issue is just the latest in a long string of debates challenging McCarthy’s ability to keep his conference united while Trump — the GOP’s presidential front-runner who’s also facing two criminal indictments — hovers in the background.
The expungement concept is hardly new. A group of House Republicans — including Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) — introduced legislation last month designed to erase Trump’s impeachments from the historical record.
But the debate reached new heights last week when Politico reported that McCarthy — after suggesting publicly that Trump is not the strongest contender for the GOP presidential nomination — raced to make amends, in part by promising to vote on expungement before the end of September.
McCarthy has denied he ever made such a promise. But the denial only magnified the issue in the public eye — and amplified the conservative calls for the Speaker to bring the measure for a vote.
“It should definitely come to the floor and be expunged,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a member of the Freedom Caucus and vocal Trump ally.
“I’m hoping to see it get done before August recess,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a lead sponsor of one of the resolutions, told reporters, later adding that “these are impeachments that should’ve never happened, and so we would like to expunge them.”
The expungement push is anathema to many moderate Republicans, particularly those facing tough reelections in competitive districts, who are treading carefully not to link themselves too closely with Trump.
Some of those lawmakers are already vowing to vote against the measure if it hits the floor — all but guaranteeing its failure given the Republicans’ narrow House majority — and some of them are proactively reaching out to GOP leaders to warn them against staging such a vote.
“I have every expectation I'll vote against expungement, and I have every expectation that I will work to bring others with me,” said one moderate Republican who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, noting “I think my views represent a fair number of principled conservatives.”
“We can't change history. I mean, that impeachment vote happened. And I just don't think we should be engaged in the kind of cancel culture that tries to whitewash history.”
The lawmaker added: “I’ve communicated that with leadership.”
A majority-Democrat House impeached Trump twice during his four-year reign in the White House.
The first instance, in late 2019, stemmed from Trump’s threat to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless that country’s leaders launched a corruption investigation into Trump’s chief political rival, Joe Biden. The second, in early 2021, targeted Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was conducted by Trump supporters trying to overturn his election defeat.
The votes made Trump just the third U.S. president to be impeached and the first to have it happen twice. His Republican allies have long accused Democrats of abusing their authority for the sole purpose of damaging a political foe.
Expunging an impeachment has never been attempted. And opponents of the move in both parties are quick to point out that it has no practical significance because the impeachments happened and can’t be reversed.
“There's no procedure for expunging an impeachment,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment. “It's completely meaningless.”
Others pointed out that Trump has already been exonerated by the Senate, which failed to convict him after both impeachments, making any new process pointless.
“They’re silly,” centrist Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in a text message. “When do we expunge a not guilty verdict?”
The pushback hasn’t discouraged Trump’s allies from pressing ahead for expungement, if only as a symbolic show of solidarity with the embattled former president.
McCarthy, who relied on Trump’s backing to win the Speaker’s gavel this year, threw his support behind expungement in late June, telling reporters the first punishment “was not based on true facts,” and the second was “on the basis of no due process.”
“I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it because it never should have gone through,” he said.
After fading from prominence for about a month, the conversation over expungement cropped back up following Politico's report, which came days after the former president said he received a “target letter” from the Justice Department informing him he is the subject of their investigation into his efforts to remain in power following the 2020 election — which includes the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The receipt of a target letter is often a sign that charges will soon be filed, which would mark Trump’s third indictment in recent months — and his second on the federal level. That prospect has only amped up Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill and could fuel efforts to expunge the two rebukes he received while in office.
“Every time you pile something on Trump, his numbers go up,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). “I'm surprised the Democrats aren't just wanting to ignore him.”
The discourse over expungement, however, is dividing House Republicans at a precarious moment for McCarthy as Congress stares down a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government or risk a shutdown.
The appropriations process is already causing controversy within the House GOP conference, as hard-line conservatives — many of them close Trump allies — push leadership to enact aggressive cuts, which includes setting spending at levels lower than the agreement McCarthy struck with President Biden in May.
Trump has thus far stayed out of that debate, as he’d done earlier in the year during the debt-ceiling battle. But he remains a wildcard in the weeks leading up to the shutdown deadline, especially if his legal problems worsen and the pressure on his congressional allies to provide some form of exoneration — even if symbolic — grows more pronounced.
Democrats, meanwhile, are not sympathetic.
“The Republicans face a serious political problem,” Raskin said, “because they have wrapped their party around the fortunes and the ambitions of Donald Trump.”
Lawmakers are sprinting to finish as much work as possible on a dozen appropriations bills before a long August recess begins at the end of the week.
But major divides between the House and Senate on spending levels — as well as pressure from conservatives on Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — forecast messy spending battles when lawmakers return.
Most spending bills have advanced in the House and Senate appropriations committees. But House conservatives are pushing for even lower spending levels than what were approved in some of those bills in committee, numbers that were already lower than those agreed to in a debt ceiling deal between McCarthy and President Biden.
Senate appropriators, meanwhile, are not only approving bills at levels more in line with the spending caps in the debt ceiling deal, but also proposing additional emergency spending.
House leaders expect to bring the first two appropriations bills to the floor this week: one that includes the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction, and another that includes agriculture, rural development and the Food and Drug Administration.
And McCarthy reiterated his commitment to not put an omnibus spending bill on the House floor — a key demand of House conservatives.
“I will not put an omnibus on the floor of the House,” he said. “We should do our work. We should do our job.”
But the funding gulf between the House and Senate is only getting wider.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced Thursday that she and Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the top Republican on the panel, reached a deal to add $13.7 billion in additional emergency funding on top of their appropriations bills. The deal included $8 billion for defense programs and $5.7 billion for nondefense programs.
“Many of us have been clear since the debt limit agreement was first unveiled that we believed it would woefully underfund our national defense, our homeland security, certain security accounts and the bill before us at a very dangerous time,” Collins said at the time.
The announcement has already prompted pushback from Republicans in the lower chamber, where Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) called further spending “a non-starter in the House.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who serves on the Appropriations panel, also came out against the move, calling it “just plain wrong” and saying it would take Congress “off the promising path that we have started on to get our fiscal house back in order.”
Meanwhile in the House, conservatives are continuing to put pressure on GOP leaders to lower spending, and disputes remain about overall top-line spending numbers.
"Oh, there are going to be changes” to the spending bills already approved by the Appropriations committee, House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) said.
While conservatives have already succeeded in getting leaders to agree to approve overall spending levels below the caps laid out in the debt limit bill, disputes remain about whether recissions of previously approved spending count toward meeting target fiscal 2022 levels.
"This is a math discussion. And so you know, members are gonna have to get comfortable with a certain number on all sides of our conference,” Donalds said.
Donalds was among the group of 21 conservatives that sent a letter earlier this month pledging not to back appropriations bills “effectively in line” with the budget caps agreed to by McCarthy and Biden as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act debt limit deal, while calling for a top line at fiscal 2022 levels.
The group also voiced opposition to the use of “reallocated rescissions to increase discretionary spending above that top-line,” decrying what some have called a “budgetary gimmick” to include recissions in getting to fiscal 2022 levels.
But that marks a tough task for GOP appropriators, who have already proposed clawing back billions of dollars of funding previously allocated for Democratic priorities and repurposing them for areas like border and national security. While they approve of spending increases in some areas — like defense, and to account for higher costs due to inflation — that would necessitate deeper cuts in other areas that Democrats will surely not support.
“You have to work to get the 218,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), a subcommittee chairman on the House Appropriations Committee and chairman of the moderate Republican Governance Group caucus.
“You're not gonna get everything you want. But they are getting numbers-wise and policy-wise many of the things that are good for them,” Joyce said of the hard-line conservative members.
And he advocated for passing bills that may not be perfect, but can have a major impact on administration policy.
“It's important to pass appropriations bills that dictate the policies and procedures and how the money is going to be spent and where it's going to be spent,” Joyce said, adding that it's “certainly an understanding we haven't reached yet.”
Discussions have continued between the hard-line conservatives, GOP leadership and other factions of the conference over the holdups surrounding the spending bills, like overall top-line spending levels and recissions. But a source familiar with the discussions said that many of the issues being raised by members of the Freedom Caucus and their allies are also supported by members in other ideological areas of the conference.
But even as conservatives think they are making progress, the clock is ticking. The House is scheduled to be in session for just three weeks after the August recess and before the Sept. 30 funding deadline.
“I think this week, there's been some productive movement to put more downward pressure on spending,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). “So, I'm more worried about the timetable right now.”
McCarthy said Thursday that he expects the House to pass all of its 12 appropriations bills by Sept. 30.
At the same time, Senate appropriators are hurrying to pass out of committee their four remaining funding bills by next week, after the upper chamber fell slightly behind their counterparts in the House at the start of the process earlier this year.
Each of the eight funding bills passed out of the committee so far have fetched overwhelming bipartisan support. But there is tricky legislation on the horizon as negotiators prepare to consider what some regard as their toughest bills next week, including measures to fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services.
“This was never going to be easy,” Murray said Thursday, but she added she thinks appropriators are “all eager to finish strong.”
Negotiators anticipate bicameral negotiations to pick up in the weeks ahead, but fears are rising over whether both sides will be able to strike the deal to keep the government funded beyond the shutdown deadline in September.
“We're gonna have a government shutdown because we're gonna fight between the House and Senate about appropriations. Maybe, I sure hope not. We keep coming right up close,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said this week.
“We are going to scare the hell out of you,” he said. “We're really good at that.”
Senior lawmakers are increasingly demanding that military and other government officials provide them with information about intelligence on unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).
The demands reflect frustrations on the part of some lawmakers that they are being kept in the dark about what’s known about UFOs and UAPs.
The lawmakers do not necessarily believe the government is hiding signs of extraterrestrial life from the public and congressional oversight. But they are frustrated they are not learning more about unknown objects flying in restricted U.S. air space.
“My primary interest in this topic is if there are … object[s] operating over restricted air space, it’s not ours and we don’t know whose it is, that’s a problem that we need to get to the bottom of,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“If there’s an explanation for it that’s being kept from Congress, then we need to force the issue. We’re not getting answers,” Rubio told The Hill.
The Senate has adopted an amendment to an annual defense bill that would require the federal government to collect and disclose all records related to UFOs and UAPs unless a special review board determines they must be kept classified.
The amendment was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, and is backed by Rubio and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the Armed Services subcommittee on emerging threats, as well as Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.), a former Marine intelligence officer, and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).
Rubio, the top-ranking Republican on the intelligence committee, has more access to classified information than the vast majority of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He said he suspects there are records related to unidentified aerial phenomena that are being kept secret from congressional oversight.
“Right now, what I know is reliable people tell us that and we’ve seen objects operating over restricted military and national security airspace. They claim it’s not ours. They claim they don’t know whose it is. That’s like the definition of a national security threat,” he said.
“Either there’s an answer that exists and is not being provided, or there is no answer. Beyond that, I don’t want to speculate anything,” he added.
Rubio said he was familiar with the claims of David Grusch, a career intelligence officer who worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He claims the federal government has retrieved “non-human origin technical vehicles” that have landed or crashed on Earth.
“We have a number of people including that gentleman who have come forward both publicly and privately to make claims,” Rubio said.
“One of two things are true. Either A, they’re telling the truth or some version of the truth or B, we have a bunch of people with high clearances and really important jobs in our government are nuts. Both are a problem. And I’m not accusing these people of being nuts. That said, that’s something we’ll look at and continue to look at seriously,” he said.
Interest in the subject is also reflected by this week’s House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday on UAPs and UFOs.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who is chairing the hearing, says lawmakers will hear testimony from Grusch, as well as former Navy Cmdr. David Fravor and former Navy pilot Ryan Graves.
Burchett claimed on a podcast this month that the federal government has known about UFOs for decades and “they can fly underwater and don’t show a heat trail,” appearing to defy the laws of physics.
Congressional sources familiar with efforts to gain more information from the Defense Department and intelligence agencies say UAPs and UFOs are being detected more frequently because of improvements in military sensor technology.
The Department of Defense released three Navy videos in 2020 that show objects flying in extraordinary ways and capturing confused and awe-struck comments of Naval aviators who witnessed the phenomena.
Grusch, who describes himself as a whistleblower, says senior intelligence officers have told him they participated in a secret UAP task force, though he says he has not personally witnessed nonhuman intelligence. He says he was retaliated against when he tried to gain more information about the program.
Rubio said “we don’t know” if such a program exists and what evidence it might have collected.
“Without speculating or adding to intrigue about this whole topic, there’s no doubt that in this field, generally, there’s more than what we know,” he said. “We’re trying to get to a process where at least some people in Congress do know.”
Asked why he suspects there’s more for Congress to know about UAPs, Rubio said “there’s pieces of puzzles that don’t fit.”
“Most certainly there are elements of things, whether historic or current, that potentially Congress has not been kept fully informed of — and that would be a problem,” he said. “There’s really no function of the executive that shouldn’t require congressional oversight at some level.”
The language in the Senate defense bill would require the National Archives and Records Administration to create a collection of records related to UAPs across government agencies that would be declassified for public use.
“UAPs generate a lot of curiosity for many Americans, and with that curiosity sometimes comes misinformation,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.
Most lawmakers are extremely reluctant to say they suspect aliens from other solar systems are visiting Earth because there isn’t any undisputable evidence of such visits in the public domain.
Also, the nearest star to planet Earth is 40,000 billion kilometers away, making it seem impossible that any alien craft could travel the distance necessary to span solar systems. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is so far away that it would take the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which travels at 17.3 km per second, 73,000 years to reach it, according to NASA.
It’s also hard to fathom that a foreign adversary such as China possesses such advanced technology that it can fly aerial vehicles in ways that appear to defy the laws of physics, as U.S. military personnel have observed of UFOs or UAPs.
Rounds said he has seen “no evidence personally” that extraterrestrial craft are visiting the planet but said, “I know that there’s a lot of people that have questions about it.”
“It’s just like with JFK and the [1963] assassination. We set up separate archive for that or central collection place for all that data, which I think gave the American people a sense of security that there was a location where it was being held. This is following that same approach,” he said.
The White House announced late last month that the National Archives had concluded its review of documents related to the assassination of former President Kennedy and that 99 percent of the relevant records had been made publicly available.
Asked about whether he personally believes military personnel and sensors are encountering extraterrestrial visitors, Rounds said: “I don’t think you can discount the possibility just simply because of the size of the universe.”
“I don’t think anybody should say that they know for certain either way,” he said. “If we simply refuse to acknowledge there’s even a remote possibility, then we’re probably not being honest.”
“Some of the items we simply can’t explain,” he said of the Naval videos of UAPs.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) warned on Friday that a government shutdown appears likely, as Congress faces down a September deadline to pass its annual spending bills.
“We are going to scare the hell out of you,” Coons said at the Aspen Security Forum, alongside Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and James Risch (R-Idaho). “We're really good at that.”
“On the debt ceiling, on default, we came right up to the end,” he continued. “We're gonna have a government shutdown because we're gonna fight between the House and Senate about appropriations. Maybe, I sure hope not. We keep coming right up close.”
Lawmakers have until the end of September to pass the 12 annual appropriations bills to fund the government, but with the August recess approaching, they are staring down a tight deadline.
However, Coons suggested that bipartisan efforts, like those between himself and his Republican colleagues on Friday’s panel, will ultimately get the job done.
“In the end, it is exactly these kind of gentlemen with whom I am able to work and where we are able to continue to deliver sustained, strong, forward-leaning initiatives around strengthening our country, our defense, our military, our manufacturing and our system,” he said.
“It’s really only because of the personal relationship that are at the core of the Senate that we’re still able to work,” he added.
Republicans Thursday released a copy of an unverified tip to the FBI alleging a scheme to bribe President Biden — a tip that has not been corroborated but is nonetheless fueling GOP investigations into the Biden family.
The information, memorialized in an FD-1023 form documenting interactions with a confidential informant, was released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and House Oversight Republicans who threatened to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress amid efforts to review and obtain the document.
The tip revolves around an allegation long pushed by former President Donald Trump involving then-Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden and a Ukrainian prosecutor.
While carrying out Obama administration policy that had been coordinated with European allies, then-Vice President Biden argued that Ukrainian prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was corrupt and threatened to withhold $1 billion in funding to Ukraine unless Shokin was fired.
Others in the international community likewise pushed for Shokin’s dismissal.
Hunter Biden at that time was on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which was the subject of an investigation under the prosecutor's office.
There has never been hard evidence that now-President Biden called for Shokin’s ouster in order to help his son. Some reports have said that the investigation was, in fact, dormant by the time Biden called for Shokin’s ouster. But Trump’s insistence that Ukraine investigate the matter or risk the loss of U.S. aid led to his first impeachment in 2019.
The FD-1023 form released Thursday details secondhand allegations that Burisma’s CEO and founder Mykola Zlochevsky thought having Hunter Biden on the board could help insulate the company from its problems with the prosecutor, that Zlochevsky sent millions of dollars to President Biden as well as Hunter Biden and that two recordings about the matter exist that involve President Biden.
Those key details in the form are not verified or corroborated.
It all comes from a confidential FBI source — previously described by both Republicans and Democrats briefed on the matter as credible — who had spoken to Zlochevsky and other Burisma executives over a few occasions. The source could not give an opinion on the veracity of Zlochevsky’s statements about Hunter Biden.
Democrats have also released information collected during the first impeachment effort that included a conversation purported to be with Zlochevsky that contradicts the information relayed in the FD-1023 form.
The White House has vigorously denied any wrongdoing stemming from the matter.
“It is remarkable that congressional Republicans, in their eagerness to go after President Biden regardless of the truth, continue to push claims that have been debunked for years and that they themselves have cautioned to take ‘with a grain of salt’ because they could be ‘made up,’” Ian Sams, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, said in a statement.
“These claims have reportedly been scrutinized by the Trump Justice Department, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, and a full impeachment trial of the former President that centered on these very issues, and over and over again, they have been found to lack credibility,” Sams continued.
“It’s clear that congressional Republicans are dead set on playing shameless, dishonest politics and refuse to let truth get in the way. It is well past time for news organizations to hold them to basic levels of factual accountability for their repeated and increasingly desperate efforts to mislead both the public and the press.”
The FBI also admonished the lawmakers for sharing the letter.
“We have repeatedly explained to Congress, in correspondence and in briefings, how critical it is to keep this source information confidential,” the FBI said in a statement.
“Today’s release of the 1023 — at a minimum — unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”
In a June letter obtained by The Hill, the FBI warned Comer and the Oversight Committee about releasing the file publicly as they chose to do Thursday.
“Consistent with our agreement, Committee Members were provided an admonishment prior to reviewing the document that the information contained within the subpoenaed FD-1023 could not be disseminated outside of the House sensitive compartmented information facility. The Committee and its Members were specifically told that ‘wider distribution could pose a risk of physical harm to FBI sources or others,’" the FBI wrote in the letter to Comer.
“We are concerned that Members disregarded the Committee’s agreement that information from the document should not be further disclosed.”
But House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said that the form backs up his committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings.
“In the FBI’s record, the Burisma executive claims that he didn’t pay the ‘big guy’ directly but that he used several bank accounts to conceal the money. That sounds an awful lot like how the Bidens conduct business: using multiple bank accounts to hide the source and total amount of the money,” Comer said in a statement.
The FBI’s confidential human source — identified as "CHS" in the document — reported that during a meeting at Burisma’s offices in late 2015 or early 2016, Burisma Chief Financial Officer Vadim Porjarskii said that Hunter Biden was hired to be on the board in order to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
Porjarskii provided no further or specific details about what that meant.
About two months later, the FBI source attended another meeting in Vienna, Austria, in 2016 with Burisma executives to talk about acquiring a U.S.-based oil and gas company.
“CHS told Zlochevsky that due to Shokin’s investigation into Burisma, which was made public at the time, it would have a substantial negative impact on Burisma’s prospective [initial public offering (IPO)] in the United States. Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, Hunter will take care of all those issues through his dad,’” the form said. “CHS did not ask any further questions about what that specifically meant.”
When the FBI source questioned why Zlochevsky would pay $20 to $30 million to buy a U.S. company rather than just form a new U.S.-based entity, Zlochevsky responded that it would be hard to raise capital given the prosecutor’s investigation — and laughed when CHS suggested just paying $50,000 for a lawyer to deal with the matter in Ukraine in part because it included the number “5.”
“It cost $5 [million] to pay one Biden, and $5 [million] to another Biden,” the FBI source recalled Zlochevsky saying, noting it was unclear whether those payments were already made.
When the FBI source suggested hiring some normal U.S. oil and gas advisors because the Bidens had no experience in that sector, Zlochevsky said that Hunter Biden needed to be on the board “so everything will be okay,” adding that both Hunter and Joe Biden said that he should retain Hunter Biden and that it was too late to change his decision.
“CHS understood this to mean that Zlochevsky had already paid the Bidens, presumably to ‘deal with Shokin,’” the form said.
Later, in a 2016 or 2017 phone call, Zlochevsky complained that he was “pushed to pay” the Bidens, the FBI source said. Zlochevsky said he had recordings that somehow served as evidence that Zlochevsky was coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure that the prosecutor Shokin was fired — with a total of 17 recordings, two of which involved President Biden.
"Zlochevsky responded that he did not send any funds directly to the 'Big Guy,'" which CHS understood was a reference to Joe Biden. Zlochevsky additionally said it would take 10 years to find all the bank records of illicit payments to President Biden.
The FBI source explained it is common for businessmen in Russia and Ukraine to brag and show off, and also to make “bribe” payments to various government officials.
Democrats and Republicans have been at odds over the significance of the document.
Reporting indicates the FBI was never able to corroborate the information relayed by the informant, something Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said stopped it from being escalated up the investigative chain.
“This FBI document released by Republicans records the unverified, secondhand, years-old allegations relayed by a confidential human source who stated he could not provide ‘further opinion as to the veracity’ of these allegations. Even Senator Johnson recognized these allegation may have been fabricated out of thin air,” Raskin said in a statement on Thursday.
“Releasing this document in isolation from explanatory context is another transparently desperate attempt by Committee Republicans to revive the aging and debunked Giuliani-framed conspiracy theories and to distract from their continuing failure to produce any actual evidence of wrongdoing by the President—even at the cost of endangering the safety of FBI sources,” Raskin said.
Raskin noted that information collected during the first impeachment effort included a conversation purported to be with Zlochevsky that contradicts the FD-1023 claims of communications with President Biden.
“No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement,” Zlochevsky says in the exchange, which appears to be with Vitaly Pruss, whom the letter describes as “another long-time associate of Mr. [Rudy] Giuliani, who was a close friend of Mr. Zlochevsky.”
However, the conversation was turned over to Giuliani by Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian who was later convicted of making illegal campaign contributions to former President Trump.
Zlochevsky also answered “no” when asked if then-Vice President Biden or his staff “assisted you or your company in any way with business deals or meetings with world leaders or any other assistance.”
Parnas also wrote in a letter to Comer earlier this week, urging him to abandon efforts to uncover wrongdoing by the Biden family in Ukraine, calling the matter “nothing more than a wild goose chase” that has been “debunked again and again.”