McCarthy denies he promised Trump vote on expunging impeachments

Posted on July 20, 2023 (Updated July 20, 2023) by Mychael Schnell

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday denied making a promise to former President Trump that the House would vote to expunge his impeachments, shooting down a report that said the GOP leader pledged the vote as a way to temper tensions with the former president.

“There’s no deal,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday, “but I’ve been very clear from long before when I voted against impeachments, that they did it for purely political purposes.”

“I support expungement, but there’s no deal out there,” he added.

His comments contradict a Thursday morning report from Politico Playbook that McCarthy assured Trump that the House would vote to erase his impeachments, citing a source close to Trump and familiar with the conversation.

In the report, the vow was characterized as part of the Speaker's effort to reconcile with Trump in the wake of an interview late last month that landed him in hot water with the former president; McCarthy had said he was unsure if Trump was the “strongest” person to beat President Biden in 2024.

McCarthy launched a cleanup effort within the same day as the initial comment, telling the conservative Breitbart News in a subsequent interview that Trump is “Biden’s strongest political opponent,” sending out a fundraising blast with the same message and, according to The New York Times, calling the former president for a conversation that two sources characterized as an apology.

According to Politico, though, Trump wanted an endorsement from McCarthy following the squabble, which the Speaker was not willing to offer, as he seeks to stay neutral in the primary. Instead, a source told the outlet, McCarthy promised that the House would vote to expunge his impeachments.

McCarthy later communicated, through aides, that he would hold the vote before August recess — which is set to begin next Friday — according to Politico, but he recently told the former president's team that the vote will happen by the end of September, the outlet noted.

Either of those deadlines, however, would be difficult for McCarthy to meet. The House from now through September is working on spending bills for the annual appropriations process, with a Sept. 30 deadline looming. The process is already the source of disagreements within the GOP conference.

Even if McCarthy were to bring the expungement resolutions to the floor for a vote, it is unlikely that they would garner enough support to pass. The vote would push purple-district Republicans into a tough spot politically, and likely turn off others who are unsure if expungement is constitutionally possible.

A number of GOP lawmakers Thursday signaled hesitance to expunge the impeachments, with one House Republican — who said their views “represent a fair number of principled conservatives” — saying they would likely oppose any effort to erase the punishments.

“I have every expectation I’ll vote against expungement, and I have every expectation that I will work to bring others with me,” the lawmaker said, noting that they communicated that position with leadership.

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McCarthy voiced support for expunging both of Trump’s impeachments last month, telling reporters that one of the rebukes “was not based on true facts” and the other was “on the basis of no due process.” He said it was “appropriate” to expunge them “because it never should have gone through.”

The House — led by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in late 2019, in response to his threat to withhold U.S. military aid to Ukraine unless leaders in Kyiv launched an investigation into Joe Biden, his political opponent. No Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the punishment.

Then, in early 2021, the House impeached Trump for a second time following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, penalizing him for “incitement of insurrection.” That time around, 10 Republicans voted to impeach. Just two — Reps. Dan Newhouse (Wash.) and David Valadao (Calif.) — are still in Congress.

In both cases, Republicans in the Senate acquitted Trump.

Immediately after the Capitol riot, McCarthy took to the House floor and declared that Trump bore “responsibility” for the violence.

But when it became apparent that the Republican Party was remaining loyal to Trump, he reversed his stance, meeting with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida a few weeks later. He later claimed that Trump did not “provoke” the attack.

The renewed discourse over the expulsion resolutions came the same week that Trump disclosed that he was informed that he is a target in the Justice Department’s investigation into his efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election, including the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He said he received a “target letter” Sunday night, which is often a sign that someone could soon be charged.

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are leading the effort to expunge Trump’s impeachments; Greene sponsored the resolution relating to the first impeachment, relating to Ukraine, and Stefanik is taking the lead on the second, pertaining to Jan. 6.

This story was updated at 6:18 p.m.

Senate Judiciary panel advances Supreme Court ethics reform bill

Posted on July 20, 2023 (Updated July 20, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines after a more-than-three-hour markup Thursday to advance a Supreme Court ethics reform bill in the wake of media reports that conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito accepted tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts and perks from wealthy Republican donors.

The committee voted 11 to 10 to approve the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act, which would require justices to adopt a code of conduct and create a transparent process for members of the public to submit ethics complaints against members of the court.

Every Democratic member of the committee voted for the reforms while every Republican voted no.

The bill would also require the Supreme Court to adopt disclosure rules for gifts, travel and income received by justices and law clerks that are as rigorous as Senate and House disclosure rules.

It would establish a panel of chief judges from the lower courts to investigate and make recommendations in response to complaints and require greater disclosure of funding behind amicus curiae briefs to the court.

Senate Republicans filed 61 amendments to the legislation to drag out the Judiciary Committee’s markup for several hours. The panel ended up voting on fewer than a dozen of them.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the ranking member of the panel, accused Democrats of trying to “destroy” the court in retaliation for recent landmark decisions by the court’s conservative majority to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, to reject the affirmative action policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina and invalidate President Biden’s student loan relief program.

“What you’re trying to do is not improve the court, you’re trying to destroy it as it exists,” he told his Democratic colleagues on the panel.

“You have to look at this in terms of what’s been going on for a couple years,” he said, pointing to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) warning to conservative Supreme Court justices in a rally held outside the court in March of 2020 that they would “pay the price” for ruling in favor of abortion restrictions.

Schumer later clarified that he never intended to suggest anything other than political and public opinion consequences for the Supreme Court if it restricted abortion rights.

Graham also accused Democrats of wanting to expand the Supreme Court to dilute the influence of conservative justices.

“You have done just about everything there is to do to delegitimize this court,” he said. “Members of the Democratic leadership went to the steps of the Supreme Court and literally threatened people.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) rejected that accusation.

“Some have suggested that Democrats are pursuing Supreme Court ethics reform to target the court’s current right-wing majority. Far from it. The reforms we are proposing would apply in equal force to all justices,” he said.

Durbin noted that he first urged Chief Justice John Roberts 11 years ago, when the composition of the court was much different, to adopt a binding code of conduct.

“Unfortunately, he did not accept my suggestion. Since then as more and more stories have emerged of justices’ ethical lapses, the American people’s confidence in the Supreme Court has dropped to an all-time low,” Durbin said.

ProPublica reported in April that Thomas accepted gifts of private plane travel and luxury vacations from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow over two decades without disclosing them publicly.

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The outlet also reported that Thomas didn’t disclose that one of Crow’s companies bought a property in Savannah, Ga., where Thomas’s mother lives and in which the justice owned a third interest.

Another ProPublica report revealed that Crow paid for the private school tuition for Thomas’s teenage grandnephew, whom Thomas said he was raising “as a son.”

ProPublica reported last month that Alito accepted a vacation at a luxury fishing lodge in Alaska in 2008 paid for by conservative donors and didn’t disclose it publicly.

Alito traveled to the lodge aboard a private jet owned by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer and six years later ruled in a case, Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital, that resulted in Singer’s hedge fund recouping a $2.4 billion payout.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a member of the panel, argued Thursday that Thomas’s wife, Ginni, a conservative activist, accepted payments from groups with business before the court that were not properly disclosed.

“How is it that you can have a Supreme Court justice who does not recuse himself when his wife is involved in the very issue that is before him?” she said. “Those kinds of examples really raise the question of why the Supreme Court shouldn’t have a code of ethics.”

More recently, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor came under criticism after The Associated Press reported that the her staff pushed colleges and a library to purchase copies of her book when she was scheduled to speak at their sponsored events.

Democrats voted along party lines to defeat Republican amendments to the bill, including one sponsored by Graham to empower the Supreme Court’s police force to investigate threats to justices and another by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to allow judges to carry guns for self-protection without restriction by state and local laws.

Durbin argued that the Department of Justice and FBI already has the job of investigating threats against justices and voiced concerns that expanding the mission of the Supreme Court’s relatively small police force would overtax it and require additional resources.

Durbin and other Democrats argued that Cornyn’s gun proposal wasn’t relevant to Supreme Court ethics reform. Cornyn argued that arming justices would protect them from potential attackers motivated by criticism of their decisions and ideology.

Democrats also defeated an amendment sponsored by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to delay the implementation of the Supreme Court ethics reform bill until Congress learns who leaked a draft of the court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion.

Durbin said Blackburn’s proposal wouldn’t do anything to address the “crisis of confidence” in the court.

The committee adopted an amendment sponsored by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to condemn denigrating rhetoric used against Thomas or any justice. Republicans who supported the amendment cited several examples of Democratic officials using such rhetoric to criticize Thomas.

—Updated at 4:50 p.m.

Five takeaways from Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower hearing

Posted on July 20, 2023 (Updated July 20, 2023) by Rebecca Beitsch

Republicans and Democrats sparred over the significance of the tax crimes investigation into Hunter Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday that featured two IRS whistleblowers, with the GOP arguing the president's son was spared from true justice while Democrats argued he was thoroughly investigated by a team formed under the former president and led by a Trump-appointed attorney.

IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler and his supervisor, Gary Shapley, who investigated Biden, expressed frustration over how U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss and other prosecutors handled the investigation, alleging authorities slow-walked the case and showed preferential treatment to the president’s son.

The House Ways and Means Committee had previously interviewed the two whistleblowers privately and released transcripts just days after prosecutors reached an agreement for Biden to plead guilty to two charges of willful failure to pay taxes.

The nearly six-hour hearing relayed little information not already covered in the nearly 400 pages of testimony from the two men, with the whistleblowers saying they could not answer questions outside the scope of that testimony.

But the hearing was revelatory about how both sides of the aisle could use that testimony.

Here are five takeaways from the hearing.

Democrats say testimony shows common disagreements

Democrats largely sought to cast the whistleblowers' complaints as common disagreements between investigative staff and prosecutors, who often have reservations about scoring convictions on evidence discovered by staff.

Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the testimony showed a “traditional tug-of-war” between investigators and prosecutors, using as an example the recent indictment of former President Trump on charges of mishandling classified documents, where prosecutors focused on a small number of alleged crimes even though investigators said they found more violations.

Shapley, though, pushed back on that assertion, saying that assistant U.S. attorneys and attorneys in the Department of Justice (DOJ) tax division had agreed with a number of recommended charges, but not all were ultimately pursued.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) similarly argued that investigators and attorneys often view a case differently.

“I never met an agent who didn't want to charge every possible case. But what I noticed in five hours of testimony today is that neither one of you has ever mentioned a portion of the case that may not be so strong, or may be suspect or may have a defense,” Goldman said, referencing his work as a prosecutor.

“And that's because that's what the prosecutor has to think about before charging a case.”

Ziegler testified that Weiss offered a rationale for not pursuing charges for some tax years, worried that testimony about Biden’s personal life at that time could sour the changes of conviction.

Democrats also argued that, contrary to the whistleblowers’ assertion, it sounded like Biden’s tax history was subject to a rigorous review by investigators and prosecutors.

More on the hearing from The Hill

“It sounds like Hunter Biden's taxes were subject to a great deal of scrutiny and rigorous review by a large team of expert investigators who had experience working complex cases. … The time, personnel and all the resources devoted to this investigation make it abundantly clear that this investigation was taken seriously by both the IRS and DOJ,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

“While our witnesses here today may disagree with the U.S. attorney's decisions, it is undeniable that Hunter Biden was subject to a thorough and rigorous investigation.”

Jordan accuses Weiss of changing his story

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

Republicans' recent interest in impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland centers on a key detail from Shapley’s testimony: Weiss, he said, sought and was denied special counsel status as he attempted to bring charges outside Delaware, with U.S. attorneys in other jurisdictions allegedly being opposed to him bringing charges on their turf.

Weiss has said he never asked for special counsel status — and says he was assured he would be granted special attorney status through another statute if he wished to file charges outside his district.

Weiss has outlined in both a June 7 letter and a July 10 letter that he has “never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.”

But House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who also sits on the Oversight Committee, mischaracterized the letters, arguing that Weiss “change[d] his story.”

“What happened in between those two events?” Jordan said of the letters. “Your testimony went public. He goes, ‘Oh, my goodness, I gotta change my story, because now the truth is coming out.’”

Weiss’s second letter includes more detail about his dealings with DOJ leaders, saying he was assured he would be granted special attorney status if needed well in advance of the meeting where Shapley asserts he said otherwise.

“When you look at the letters he actually sent, he didn't change his tune at all. He said the exact same thing every time, and he even expanded the answer to be perfectly clear," Raskin said.

Whether Weiss had interest in either of the two statuses is largely of interest to Republicans as a way to forward a potential impeachment inquiry into Garland, as he assured lawmakers that Weiss had “full authority … to bring cases in other districts if he needs to do that.”

Shapley undercuts Garland impeachment effort

Shapley also undercut another key factor fueling the GOP’s interest in impeaching Garland, saying he has no evidence that Garland intentionally misled Congress about Weiss’s authority.

“Let me be clear, although these facts contradict the attorney general's testimony and raise serious questions for you to investigate, I have never claimed evidence that Attorney General Garland knowingly lied to Congress,” Shapley said Wednesday.

“This for others to investigate and determine whether those letters contain knowingly false statements. ... I don't claim to be privy to United States Attorney Weiss’s or Attorney General Garland’s communications.”

Democrats suggested that the whistleblowers may have been confused over two statuses prosecutors can attain — appointment as a special counsel, versus the special attorney status Weiss was assured he could receive if desired.

Ziegler in his testimony asserted he still believes a more independent status is needed by those handling the investigation.

“I still think that a special counsel is necessary for this investigation,” he said.

Greene overshadows hearing with ‘parental discretion advised’ moment

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the hearing came when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) brought sexually explicit — but censored — posters of Hunter Biden in to make her point.

“Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home that parental discretion is advised,” Greene said.

Greene’s questioning included her holding up small posters featuring graphic sexual photos from the laptop hard drive that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden, censored with black boxes.

The faces of others involved in the sexual acts were censored with black boxes, but Biden’s face is visible in the photos.

Her focus on the explicit and salacious history of Biden, who has been public about his struggles with addiction, stands in contrast to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer's (R-Ky.) past indications that the focus of the committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s business dealings would not focus on his personal actions.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Greene's move to show "pornographic images" marked "a new low" for the committee.

"Frankly, I don't care who you are in this country, no one deserves that. It is abuse. It is abusive," she said.

Democrats argue GOP distracts from injustice for Black and brown individuals

Several Black lawmakers directly challenged Republican claims that the Biden plea deal shows a two-tiered system of justice, saying the argument minimizes the experiences of Black and brown Americans disproportionately impacted by the justice system.

“I'd like to address the way my Republican colleagues are attempting to co-opt the phrase ‘two-tiered justice system’ to make it sound like Trump and his cronies are somehow the victims here,” Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said.

“The reality is that the term two-tiered system of justice is meant to refer to the very real system that exists in the United States, and which affects Black and brown folks, not powerful former presidents and their political allies.”

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) listed off a number of statistics on disparities in the criminal justice system, including within IRS, asserting that Black taxpayers are audited at least three times more often than other taxpayers.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) also said Republicans were using the term improperly.

“Republicans and Trump complain about a two-tiered justice system, co-opting the language of the decades-long civil rights movement for Black lives and Black freedom, a movement that they actually are actively looking to eliminate. There is a two-tiered justice system, but it's not about Democrats vs. Republican,” he said, before listing off a number of recent and historical examples, including those killed by police.

“It's Black, brown and poor people versus everyone else. And I won't accept when Republican politicians look to appropriate the language of the movement for Black lives and civil rights, to fit a political agenda to defend Donald Trump.”

McCarthy defends Trump: ‘I don’t see how he could be found criminally responsible’

Posted on July 19, 2023 (Updated July 19, 2023) by Mike Lillis

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is defending former President Trump for his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, saying Trump had encouraged a peaceful protest that day — but did nothing to merit the criminal charges the Justice Department (DOJ) is said to be weighing.

“I don’t see how he could be found criminally responsible,” McCarthy told reporters Wednesday in the Capitol. “What criminal activity did he do? He told people to be peaceful.”

The Speaker’s comments came a day after Trump revealed he is a target of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the Capitol rampage, which was conducted by supporters of the former president who were attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The so-called target letter is typically an indication that a formal indictment is forthcoming.

McCarthy’s defense of Trump marks a contrast to remarks he made shortly after the Capitol attack, when he took to the House floor to declare that Trump “bears responsibility” for the actions of the “mob rioters.”

McCarthy said he spoke to Trump Tuesday after the former president placed a call to him, and that the conversation “wasn’t anything different than the time before.” He noted that they “talk on a regular basis” but also suggested Trump was frustrated with the arrival of the target letter.

“Wouldn’t you feel frustrated?” McCarthy said.

McCarthy disputed reports that the call was a “strategy session” designed to unite Republicans behind a response to potential indictments, instead accusing the Biden administration of conducting such sessions for the purpose of targeting the president’s political adversaries.

“I think the strategy sessions happen in the Democrats’ Department of Justice, where they go after anybody who’s running against the president,” McCarthy said. “It seems as though — and if you go up in the polls you’re more likely to get indicted.”

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), one of Trump’s fiercest supporters on Capitol Hill, also said she spoke to the former president Tuesday following news of the target letter, before tearing into the development as “yet another example of the illegal weaponization of the Department of Justice to go after Joe Biden’s top political opponent.”

The comments came on the same day that House Republicans staged a high-profile hearing with a pair of IRS whistleblowers who accused DOJ prosecutors of slow-walking an investigation into Hunter Biden. Both McCarthy and Stefanik said the real criminal conspiracy lies there, not with anything Trump did surrounding Jan. 6.

“I would move to an impeachment inquiry if I found that the attorney general has not only lied to the Congress and the Senate, but to America,” McCarthy said, referring to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

McCarthy’s full-throated defense sets up a stark contrast with his GOP counterpart in the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who declined to comment on the Trump news when asked about it at a press conference Wednesday, citing the former president’s reelection campaign.

“I’ve said every week out here that I’m not going to comment on the various candidates for the presidency,” McConnell told reporters. “How I felt about that I expressed at the time, but I’m not going to start getting into sort of critiquing the various candidates for president.”

After the Senate concluded its impeachment trial into Trump following the Jan. 6 riot, McConnell tore into the former president in remarks on the floor, declaring, “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”

“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” he added.

Since then, McConnell has remained relatively silent when it comes to matters involving Trump, picking and choosing when to weigh in on politically charged matters linked to the former president.

McConnell declines to say whether Trump should be charged criminally for Jan. 6

Posted on July 19, 2023 (Updated July 19, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who condemned former President Trump two years ago for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, declined Wednesday to say whether Trump should now be criminally charged for those actions

McConnell, asked about a possible indictment of Trump, stated that he does not plan to “critique” GOP candidates for president.

“I’ve said every week out here that I’m not going to comment on the various candidates for the presidency. How I felt about that I expressed at the time, but I’m not going to start getting into sort of critiquing the various candidates for president,” McConnell told reporters when asked whether it would be legitimate for the Justice Department to charge Trump in connection with efforts to stop Congress’s certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Minority Leader Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) addresses reporters after the weekly policy luncheon on Wednesday, July 19, 2023. (Greg Nash)

Trump announced Tuesday that special counsel Jack Smith had informed him in a letter that he is the target of a grand jury investigation related to Jan. 6.

The target letter cites three statutes that Trump may be charged under, including the deprivation of rights, conspiracy to commit an offense against or defraud the United States and tampering with a witness, according to news outlets.

McConnell excoriated Trump on the Senate floor in February 2021 at the conclusion of his second impeachment trial for provoking a mob of supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol and overrun its security to stop the certification of the 2020 election.

“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” McConnell said.

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More than 1,060 people have been charged by federal prosecutors because of their actions that day, and more than 600 people have pleaded guilty, according to a database compiled by National Public Radio.

More than 80 people have been convicted on all charges, while only two people have been acquitted on all charges.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said Tuesday that being “practically and morally responsible” didn’t necessarily warrant criminal charges and that prosecutors would have to hew closely to the law and facts of the case.

“Practically and morally is something very different than legally, and I think that’s what the Justice Department has to look at. They’ve got to look at the law, the facts as they’ve interviewed people, and then make a determination about whether laws were broken,” he said.

GOP senators hold back on defending Trump as he faces new indictment

Posted on July 19, 2023 (Updated July 19, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

The revelation that former President Trump faces a possible grand jury indictment connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and his efforts to hold on to power has landed like a bombshell on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers saw firsthand the violence unleashed that day.

Some GOP lawmakers rushed to Trump’s defense, but many Republicans in the Senate held back from defending the former president, who has been accused of stoking the Jan. 6 mob and who waited before calling on protesters to disperse.

The expected indictment separately poses a tough political problem for many Republicans critical of Trump, who remains wildly popular with the party’s base.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who hasn’t spoken to Trump since December 2020, stayed quiet about the news of yet another indictment against his onetime ally, who is now leading the Republican presidential primary field by 30 points in national polls.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) addresses reporters after the weekly policy luncheon on Wednesday, July 19, 2023. (Greg Nash)

His top deputies, Senate Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), reacted with caution.

Asked whether it would be “legitimate” for special counsel Jack Smith to charge Trump for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Thune said it would depend on the facts and evidence presented.

“That’s going to depend on whether or not laws were broken," he said. "So clearly, I don’t know what they’re looking at. But I’m sure we’ll know in due time.”

Cornyn dodged the politically charged topic altogether, arguing the Justice Department has the authority to investigate whether Trump broke the laws in trying to stop the certification of the 2020 election.

“I think that’s entirely within the purview of the Department of Justice and has nothing to do with the United States Senate,” he said.

Asked if Smith is a “credible prosecutor,” he said, “I have no knowledge of anything approaching that.”

Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who called the indictment of Trump last month for violating the Espionage Act “political” and “rotten,” was the only senior member of the Republican leadership to accuse the Justice Department of acting on political motives.

“It looks like the president is targeting his most popular opponent. Isn't that interesting? Sounds political to me,” he said.

Asked if he saw any qualitative difference between the 37 felony counts federal prosecutors brought against Trump last month for refusing to turn over classified documents he kept improperly at Mar-a-Lago and new charges related to Jan. 6, Barrasso saw both indictments as political attacks.

More from The Hill

“The administration is siccing its dogs on the former president of the United States and their most formidable opponent,” he said.

Senate Republican Conference Vice Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) only said, “It’s a never-ending story, that’s my comment.”

The generally muted response from Senate Republican leaders posed a stark contrast with House Republican leaders, who rushed to Trump’s defense.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested the Justice Department is bringing new charges against Trump because he is leading the Republican presidential field by double digits and pulled ahead of President Biden in a recent poll.

“Recently, President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for reelection. So what do they do now? Weaponize government to go after their No. 1 opponent,” McCarthy said Tuesday.

“This is not equal justice. They treat people differently and they go after their adversaries,” he said.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks to reporters during a media availability in Statuary Hall of the Capitol on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.

McCarthy’s comments reveal how his views of Trump’s culpability for the attack on the Capitol have evolved since January 2021, when he told GOP colleagues that Trump “bears responsibility for his words and actions — no if, ands or buts.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) accused the Justice Department of waging a politically motivated prosecution to distract from a whistleblower’s claims that senior administration officials interfered with an Internal Revenue Service investigation of Hunter Biden.

“Now you see the Biden administration going after President Trump once again, and it begs that question, ‘Is there a double standard? Is justice being administered equally?’” Scalise asked at a press conference.

Other Trump allies in the House joined the attack against the administration.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) claimed Biden’s Justice Department did little to prosecute Black Lives Matter protesters who breached a federal courthouse in 2020 or to prosecute threats against conservative Supreme Court justices.

“But if you’re President Trump and do nothing wrong? PROSECUTE. Americans are tired of the double standard!” he tweeted.

Another Trump ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), attacked Smith on Twitter as a “lousy attorney” and pointed to the Supreme Court overturning his conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).

“He only targets Republicans because he’s a weak little bitch for the Democrats,” she tweeted.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asks a question during a hearing on Wednesday, June 21, 2023 to discuss the report from Special Counsel John Durham about the “Crossfire Hurricane” probe into allegations of contacts between Russia and former President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Senate Republicans, many of whom have made clear they don’t want to see Trump as the party’s nominee for president in 2024, however, broke with their House GOP colleagues over the claim that the Justice Department is operating a “two-tier” system and holding Trump to a special standard.

“I think you’ve got to go where the facts lead you and determine whether or not laws are broken. But there shouldn’t be two systems of justice; everybody should be held accountable and there ought to be equal justice under the law,” Thune told reporters.

“Clearly in these circumstances, it’s a politically charged environment. I think it puts an even higher burden of proof on the Justice Department given the perceptions that people have about that but this has got to be driven by the law and the facts,” he said.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) addresses reporters after the weekly policy luncheon on Wednesday, July 19, 2023.

McConnell excoriated Trump on the Senate floor at the end of his 2021 impeachment trial for inciting the mob that stormed the Capitol hallways and ransacked the Senate parliamentarian’s office.

“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” he declared, referring to the violence and chaos that resulted in injuries to more than 100 Capitol police officers.

One officer, Brian Sicknick, died of natural causes while defending the Capitol.

Thune said just because the Senate Republicans’ top leader called Trump “practically and morally” responsible, that did not necessarily warrant criminal charges.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges — including on the charge of inciting the Jan. 6 riot — warned his House GOP colleagues about relentlessly attacking the Justice Department.

He voiced concern about "the diminution of institutions in which we rely as a society."

"A democracy works when we have confidence in the justice system, in the legal system, in our prosecutors and so forth. If we constantly attack and diminish them, that weakens the democracy," he said.

GOP to put IRS Hunter Biden whistleblowers at center stage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They closed it down.”

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

Parnas dismisses Oversight GOP bribery investigation as ‘a wild goose chase’

Posted on July 18, 2023 (Updated July 18, 2023) by Rebecca Beitsch

Lev Parnas, once a right-hand man to Rudy Giuliani, asked the GOP’s top congressional investigator 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.”

Parnas’s Tuesday letter to House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), obtained by The Hill, notes that Parnas and Giuliani's repeated efforts to dig up dirt on President Biden or his son Hunter yielded nothing and confused Ukrainian prosecutors.

It also recaps the efforts taken by the Trump team that resulted in the launching of the first impeachment inquiry into former President Trump. Democrats alleged he withheld aid from Ukraine in an effort to pressure officials there to provide incriminating evidence on the Bidens.

“Throughout all these months of work, the extensive campaigns and networking done by Trump allies and Giuliani associates, including the enormously thorough interviews and assignments that I undertook, there has never been any evidence that Hunter or Joe Biden committed any crimes related to Ukrainian politics,” he said.

He said Giuliani and all others involved in the matter “knew that these allegations against the Bidens were false.”

“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.”

Comer dismissed the contents of Parnas’s letter.

“Now there's somebody that Giuliani was running around with and says we should drop investigations because Giuliani and him already looked into it. I mean, I don't think that that's credible,” he said.

“We're starting to see money from Ukraine coming in on some of these bank statements that we're going to release later,” he added, a reference to his investigation into Biden family finances.

Comer has based much of his investigation on an unverified tip to the FBI from a source who heard secondhand allegations Biden accepted a bribe. The bureau was unable to corroborate the tip.

Parnas has also previously provided a transcript of a conversation he says was with Mykola Zlochevsky, the reported source of the information, denying any improper conduct by President Biden or his son Hunter, who was serving on the board of energy company Burisma, which Zlochevsky owns. That information was turned over during the impeachment inquiry.

Parnas was convicted in court of making illegal campaign contributions to Trump.

His letter comes as Comer is under increasing pressure to advance his inquiry into President Biden, who he has alleged accepted a bribe.

Even some in the GOP have criticized his investigation, with former Trump advisor Steve Bannon saying last month Comer needed to “be prepared,” adding, “You are not serious. It’s all performative.”

Comer acknowledged Monday the difficulties of explaining the financial crimes he has alleged.

“Two things I've learned: People don't know what a shell company is, and they don't know what an LLC is. They don't know what money laundering is. We're going to try to explain in a more simple form ‘this is what they did,’” he told reporters.

Those in Trump’s orbit have alleged President Biden sought to withhold aid from Ukraine because its top prosecutor was threatening to investigate his son. Biden, joined by the international community, actually sought to pressure Ukraine to remove the man, Viktor Shokin, over corruption charges.

Parnas’s letter spends ample time breaking down the investigative efforts of Giuliani, which included trying to get Shokin’s replacement, Yuriy Lutsenko, to retain him for $200,000.

It details the repeated dead ends they hit, and the numerous efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials.

“Giuliani’s message to the [then-Ukrainian] president [Petro Poroshenko], who was running for reelection, was that Trump would support him and help him win if he made an official announcement of an investigation against Joe Biden,” Parnas writes.

Parnas ends with a plea to Comer to halt his investigation.

“There is no evidence of Joe or Hunter Biden interfering with Ukrainian politics, and there never has been,” Parnas writes.

“With all due respect, Chairman Comer, the narrative you are seeking for this investigation has been proven false many times over, by a wide array of respected sources. There is simply no merit to investigating this matter any further. I hope my letter has provided you with additional clarity on this point.”

GOP debates impeaching Merrick Garland after McCarthy surprise

Posted on July 18, 2023 (Updated July 18, 2023) by Rebecca Beitsch

House Republicans are debating whether to focus impeachment efforts on Attorney General Merrick Garland after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) suggested an inquiry against him, taking some members by surprise after much of the GOP impeachment furor had been directed at other Biden officials.

In a year where the GOP has been most steadily focused on possible impeachments of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or President Biden, McCarthy often has been the voice urging the conference to move patiently and deliberately.

But he has shown more vigor when eyeing Garland, an official leading an agency often derided by the GOP but a figure less frequently cited by the party’s members who are most keen on impeachment.

McCarthy first elevated the topic with a tweet late last month touting testimony of an IRS whistleblower who has alleged mismanagement of the investigation into Hunter Biden, saying it could serve as “a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry.”

But the conference — though eager to investigate — hasn’t rushed to back the idea, with some questioning whether there is a legal basis for impeaching Garland and others saying different Cabinet secretaries should be reviewed first.

“I don't know of a chargeable crime,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told The Hill.

Issa said it’s up to the president to remove those who aren’t following orders or properly carrying out their jobs, with Congress only stepping in if a president fails to remove those who have committed crimes.

“It’s very, very popular with people in the hinterlands,” Issa said when asked about members of the Freedom Caucus and others who have backed the rarely used move of impeaching a Cabinet official.

“But the reality is that if someone is faithfully executing the desires and the orders of the president of the United States, then they're within the bounds of what Cabinet officers do," he added. "If they're not faithfully executing the request of the president, then we don't have to impeach him because they serve at the pleasure of the president.”

Some of the Republicans who have authored the more than a dozen impeachment resolutions filed this Congress were surprised the officials those documents had targeted haven’t taken center stage.

“I was one of the original co-sponsors of the Secretary Blinken impeachment,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) said. “We ought to take that up first for the incredibly, horribly done withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

McCarthy doubled down on action against Garland last week in a Fox News op-ed.

“When a prosecutor shields his boss’s son from investigators, it smells like a cover-up. Garland’s DOJ did not aggressively follow the money. Why? Are they afraid where that trail ends?” he said.

“Clearly, someone is not telling the truth, and Congress has a duty to get answers,” McCarthy continued.

The Justice Department said Garland by design stayed out of the Biden investigation, leaving the inquiry in the hands of David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware who initiated it during the Trump administration.

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Among other things, the whistleblower contends Weiss was blocked from getting authority to bring charges outside of Delaware. Every Justice Department official involved in the matter — including Weiss and Garland — has said otherwise, noting the prosecutor was assured he would receive special attorney status if he wished to file charges elsewhere.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that serves as the clearinghouse for such inquiries, backed the idea, offering stronger support for impeaching Garland than some of the other secretaries floated as targets for his committee.

“I think he sees the facts now,” Jordan said of McCarthy. “So it's quickly [becoming] who are you going to believe? … I'm with the speaker on we need to get to the facts. And if it warrants moving forward with an inquiry we got to do that.”

“That'll be a decision that in the end will be made by the entire conference,” he added.

Until McCarthy’s comments, Mayorkas seemed like the likeliest target of any potential House GOP impeachment of a member of Biden’s Cabinet. Conservative members have been pushing to impeach him for nearly two years over policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, and McCarthy himself had said Mayorkas should resign or face an investigation that could lead to impeachment.

But asked on Fox Business last week about impeaching Mayorkas, McCarthy pointed to a border bill passed by the House GOP and noted the House Homeland Security Committee is investigating the issue, along with taking the lead on investigating Biden following a resolution from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) seeking to boot the president over his handling of the border.

The competing interests will be a struggle for McCarthy and Jordan.

“I think the chairman of Judiciary has a cat-herding issue that he's got to deal with, probably,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), who serves on the panel and the House Homeland Security Committee, which plans to forward its oversight report on Mayorkas for use by Judiciary.

“I will say that I have a less fully formed case in my head in all its particulars about Merrick Garland than I do about the others,” Bishop added.

Some members told The Hill that McCarthy’s embrace of a potential impeachment inquiry against Garland, coming over a two-week Independence Day recess, caught them by surprise when they returned to Washington last week.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the highest-ranking member of leadership to say Mayorkas should be impeached if he does not step down, said he has not carefully studied the issues with Garland — but he welcomed investigation of a Department of Justice that “appears to” have “a double standard for how it approaches cases.”

House Republicans held a conference meeting Thursday morning in which Jordan and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) gave updates on their investigatory efforts into the Biden family, the Justice Department and beyond. Lawmakers said McCarthy urged Republicans to follow the evidence.

Some lawmakers are welcoming the probe into Garland even as it threatens to put other potential impeachment probes on the back burner.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), who sponsored the first resolution to be introduced this Congress to impeach Mayorkas, expressed support for a Garland impeachment.

“I think you can do both,” he said, adding later, “We need to have a vote on the House floor with Mayorkas because the border in and of itself is just a — isn't even a catastrophe. It's cataclysmic.”

Other members likewise said they weren’t concerned about the GOP balancing its many budding impeachment investigations.

“I wouldn’t mind if we had a new one every day,” Boebert said.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), however, urged a cautious approach.

“It’s a pretty serious issue. We’re doing a lot now with different Biden investigations. So I think if the committee believes there is a case with any of the executives that rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors then we will do that, but I don't think that is something that we should take lightly,” she said.

Democrats dismissed the idea that there is any case to be made against Garland.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said although Republicans have claimed Garland may have lied to Congress, they’ve yet to offer anything to prove it.

“The Republicans need to recall that the constitutional standard for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors not doing stuff that Donald Trump disagrees with,” he said.

“Donald Trump's U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania and [Trump Attorney General] William Barr found that there were no grounds for pursuing an investigation into allegations of corruption against Joe Biden,” he added.

“That would be a very strange reason to impeach Merrick Garland.”

GOP senators rattled by radical conservative populism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuberville’s controversies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waving off impeachment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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