Scary moment for McConnell raises questions for GOP

Posted on July 26, 2023 (Updated July 27, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is helped by Senators and staff after McConnell unexpectedly pauses while speaking to reporters after the weekly policy luncheon on Wednesday, July 26, 2023. (Greg Nash)

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) froze in front of television cameras for about 20 seconds Wednesday as he battled a bout of lightheadedness that forced him to walk away briefly from a press conference.

The scary moment, which prompted members of his leadership team to suggest that he take a rest, raises new questions about the 81-year-old Republican leader’s future.

“Are you good, Mitch?” asked Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairwoman Joni Ernst (Iowa), putting her hand on the back of his arm.

Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.), who is a doctor, ushered McConnell away from the podium after the leader was unable to get more than a couple of sentences into his opening statement.

“Let’s go back to your office,” Barrasso suggested. “Do you want to say anything else to the press? Let’s go back.”

Barrasso later revealed that he walked “down the hall” with McConnell toward his office after they both walked away from the podium and that the leader didn’t say anything to him to indicate distress.

An aide to McConnell later said, “He felt lightheaded and stepped away for a moment.” The aide pointed out that McConnell “was sharp” in answering reporters’ questions after he returned to the event.

McConnell’s term runs through the end of 2026, and he previously said that he expects to stay on as leader.

Senate Republican Conference Vice Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) told reporters after the troubling moment in front of the cameras that McConnell should stay in his leadership role.

“And hopefully he gets a good rest over the [August] break,” she said.

McConnell freezes at briefing, concerning colleagues

Posted on July 26, 2023 (Updated July 26, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) froze for almost 20 seconds while delivering his opening statement at a leadership press conference Wednesday afternoon, prompting murmurs of concern among his colleagues and the assembled press corps.

McConnell told reporters the Senate was on a path to complete work on the annual defense authorization bill and praised what he called “good bipartisan cooperation” before freezing midsentence and staring straight ahead without uttering another word.

The awkward and potentially scary moment prompted a couple members of his leadership team to reach out to see if he was OK.

“Are you good, Mitch?” asked Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairwoman Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), putting her hand on the back of his arm.

“Are you okay, Mitch?” asked Senate Republican Conference Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a doctor, who put his hand on McConnell’s right forearm. “Anything else you want to say?

“Let’s go back to your office,” said Barrasso. “Do you want to say anything else to the press? Let’s go back.”

Trump rips ‘weak, ineffective’ Cornyn, Romney

Posted on July 26, 2023 (Updated July 26, 2023) by Tara Suter

Former President Trump said Wednesday on Truth Social that GOP Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Mitt Romney (Utah) will not win their next elections.

Cornyn and Romney have criticized Trump and his actions on various issues, including his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent debt ceiling negotiations.

Romney, one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment, recently encouraged fellow Republicans donating to 2024 GOP presidential campaigns to pressure candidates who are not proving competitive to get out of the race so Trump doesn’t have to run against a larger field, which could give him an advantage in getting the party nomination.

“Who is a worse Senator, John 'The Stiff' Cornyn of Texas, or Mitt 'The Loser' Romney of Massachusetts (Utah?)?” Trump asked on Truth Social. “They are both weak, ineffective, and very bad for the Republican Party, and our Nation. With even modestly skilled opposition, they’ll lose their next Election. Who could ever forget Mitt proudly marching, with full mask, down a once proud Washington, D.C. street with BLM and Rioters? Likewise there’s Cornyn, always quick to surrender to the Dems, giving them anything they want?”

Trump last year strongly criticized Cornyn for negotiating bipartisan gun safety legislation, calling him a “RINO” — Republican in name only — and said he and other Republicans were helping facilitate the taking away of Americans' guns.

Cornyn said in May he will support someone other than Trump in 2024.

“We need to come up with an alternative,” he said on a call with Texas reporters. “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by and what’s the most important thing to me is we have a candidate who can actually win.”

Senate Republicans see Biden impeachment as fraught with risk

Posted on July 26, 2023 (Updated July 26, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Senate Republicans see impeaching President Biden ahead of the 2024 election as a risky political strategy that could turn off moderate voters and are hoping to wave their House GOP colleagues off from marching down that road.

GOP senators say the party is better off focused on how to improve Americans’ lives in the future instead of fighting messy battles to settle past political scores.

“Staying focused on the future and not the past is in my view the best way to change the direction of the country and that’s to win an election,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) told reporters Tuesday.

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairwoman Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Tuesday she would prefer to focus on national security policy, which the Senate is debating this week as it wraps up work on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“I’m really focused on NDAA right now. I really want to see it get done and I want a bipartisan deal between the House and the Senate. I think that’s what we’re focused on,” Ernst told reporters. “We need to get our [appropriations] bills done, too. So, that’s what we’re going to focus on in the Senate.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday strongly signaled to reporters that the House could move forward with an impeachment inquiry.

“How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday. “What an impeachment inquiry does, it gives us the apex of the power of Congress for Republicans and Democrats to gather the information that they need.”

However, McCarthy later said no decision had been made, raising doubts about whether he’d move forward with the step.

“I wasn’t announcing it,” he said. “I simply say … that the actions that I'm seeing by this administration, with holding the agencies from being able to work with us — that would rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry. We … still have a number of investigations going forward.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) declined to comment on McCarthy's impeachment push when asked about it on his way to the Senate floor.

Senate Republicans have generally kept their distance from the House Republican-led investigations into the Biden family’s business dealings and earlier this summer dismissed what they saw as a hastily filed motion by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to impeach Biden for lacking evidence and due process.

“I know people are angry. I’m angry at the Biden administration for their policies at the border and a whole host of other things, but I think we also need to look at what’s achievable,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said last month in response to Boebert’s impeachment resolution.

“And with a Democratic majority in the Senate, I don’t think that’s achievable,” he warned.

Cornyn on Tuesday remarked that the House standards for impeaching a president have dropped in recent years.

House Democrats impeached former President Trump in December of 2019 and then again in January of 2021.

He told reporters that impeaching presidents is getting to be "a habit around here," and that's not a good thing.

“Unfortunately, what goes around, comes around,” he said.

Remembering when it backfired

Senate Republicans remember the last time a Republican-controlled House impeached a Democratic president in the fall of 1998, it backfired on their party in that year’s midterm election.

Democrats picked up five House seats that year, marking the first time in 64 years the president’s party didn’t lose any seats in Congress during a midterm election.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges during two separate Senate trials, said it’s not unusual for lawmakers to launch baseless attacks against a major party’s nominee for president, as happened to him in 2012.

Romney said Biden should open up about his family’s business dealings to reassure the public.

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“There are all sorts of accusations and allegations. I had something of that nature launched against me when I was running for president. I found the best way to respond was full disclosure and transparency. My guess is that’s the way to make it go away,” he said. “I’ll expect to see that from the Biden team.

Romney reminded his House colleagues that the “bar” for impeachment is “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“That hasn’t been alleged at this stage, but we’ll see what develops. I certainly hope that that’s not going to confront us again,” he said.

Cornyn warned Tuesday that further lowering the bar for impeachment will set a precedent for future Congresses.

“Once a precedent is established around here, you can pretty well guarantee people will cite that as justification or lower the bar further. I don’t think it’s a healthy thing,” he said.

Even so, Cornyn acknowledged that House investigators have uncovered some troubling evidence shedding light on Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

“I’m very disturbed by some of the revelations in the House about the Biden family business,” he said.

Not eager for battle

GOP senators are not eager to get drawn into a protracted battle with Democrats over an impeachment trial that may wind up dividing their conference if House investigators fail to come up with compelling evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, the standard set by the Constitution.

Investigations by the House Oversight, Judiciary and Ways and Means Committees into Hunter Biden’s business dealings and whether he received favorable treatment from the Department of Justice have failed to gain much public traction, or even support from Senate Republicans on the other side of the Capitol.

Trump on Monday vented his frustration with Senate Republicans for not showing much interest in pursuing Biden.

“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 demanded in a post to his social media site, Truth Social.

National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines (Mont.) told reporters Tuesday that it’s the job of the House, not the Senate, to investigate Biden.

“It will be up to the House to determine what the facts lead them to vote on in the future. That’s their job,” he said.

Some Republican senators, however, argued Tuesday that House Republicans are justified in moving forward with an impeachment inquiry.

“Considering what the House Oversight Committee is unearthing — we can’t help that the FBI didn’t do their job for five years — now they’re finding all this information out. They’re still digging and appropriately so,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who asserted that House investigators have found “pretty strong evidence of serious crimes.”

“Whether we like it or not, we may have to deal with it,” he said. “I think the Speaker is doing what he needs to do and what’s appropriate to do, quite honestly.”

Asked about his Senate Republican colleagues’ reluctance to wade into another impeachment fight, Cramer said: “I’m not eager to get on an airplane every Monday morning.”

“We don’t do this for our own convenience, we do this because we pledge an oath and we have a president who clearly has over the years been running a really awful family crime syndicate,” he said. “We’ve got to look into it.”

He said when Democrats controlled the House during the Trump administration, “We impeached the president twice with no evidence in the kangaroo court.”

Manchin and Tuberville unveil bill making sweeping changes to college sports

Posted on July 25, 2023 (Updated July 26, 2023) by Sarah Fortinsky

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) unveiled legislation Tuesday that would establish a national standard for the handling of college athletes' name, image and likeness (NIL), two years after the Supreme Court decided the NCAA’s rules restricting certain student-athlete compensation were illegal.

The “Protecting Athletes, Schools and Sports Act” would require that collectives and boosters be affiliated with a college or school, prohibit inducements and give the NCAA the authority to prohibit certain NIL agreements, including those that would “involve alcohol, drugs, or conflict with existing school and conference licenses.”

The NCAA would also have oversight over NIL activities and the authority to investigate them. The legislation also empowers the Federal Trade Commission, allowing the NCAA to report violations to the FTC.

It would also make changes to the transfer portal by requiring athletes to complete the first three years of academic eligibility before being allowed to transfer without penalty, with a few exceptions, according to a press release.

The legislation would require four-year schools and colleges to offer health insurance to athletes who are uninsured for eight years after they graduate. Institutions whose athletics departments generate a certain revenue threshold would be required to pay out-of-pocket expenses. If the institution makes more than $20 million in athletics revenue, it would be required to pay expenses for two years; if it makes more than $50 million, it would be required to pay four years.

Manchin, a former West Virginia University football player, and Tuberville, the former head football coach at Auburn University, said the legislation is a result of a years-long collaborative process during which time they heard from a wide range of stakeholders.

“As a former college athlete, I know how important sports are to gaining valuable life skills and opening doors of opportunity. However, in recent years, we have faced a rapidly evolving NIL landscape without guidelines to navigate it, which jeopardizes the health of the players and the educational mission of colleges and universities,” Manchin wrote in the press release.

“Our bipartisan legislation strikes a balance between protecting the rights of student-athletes and maintaining the integrity of college sports. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to consider this commonsense legislation as a way to level the playing field in college athletics,” he added.

“Student athletes should be able to take advantage of NIL promotional activities without impacting their ability to play collegiate sports,” Tuberville wrote in the release. “But we need to ensure the integrity of our higher education system, remain focused on education, and keep the playing field level. Our legislation with Senator Manchin will set basic rules nationwide, protect our student-athletes, and keep NIL activities from ending college sports as we know it.”

The pair of senators included statements praising the legislation from NCAA President Charlie Baker, the Big 12 Conference, the Southeastern Conference and from presidents of universities to which they were connected.

Last week, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) also introduced draft legislation to tackle college athletics. It is similar to Manchin and Tuberville’s bill, but it also establishes a third-party entity to serve as the hub, rulemaker, investigator and enforcer of best practices and rules relating to student-athletes’ rights.

Grassley faces criticism over release of FBI document

Posted on July 25, 2023 (Updated July 26, 2023) by Al Weaver

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is in the political spotlight as Democrats and critics attack him for releasing a lightly-redacted document detailing unfounded allegations of Biden family corruption and bribery and conservatives praise his move in the name of transparency.

The eight-term senator has had a storied career, particularly on investigative matters, where he has long been considered a champion of whistleblower protections.

But critics say his decision late last week to release the tip to the FBI, memorialized in an FD-1023 form, put a chink in that armor. The FBI admonished Grassley and other senators for releasing the form, saying it “risks the safety” of the confidential source, who claims the Bidens “pushed” a Ukrainian oligarch to pay them $10 million.

“I would never have advised him to do that,” said Kris Kolesnik, who spent 19 years as Grassley's senior counselor and director of investigations but has come out as a critic against his work in recent years.

“This is like a new guy,” Kolesnik continued, noting that Grassley, 89, spearheaded the oversight efforts against the Reagan administration. “We left him quite an oversight legacy, and he's put all that in jeopardy. Between back then and now, it's like night and day.”

According to the form released by Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), the FBI’s informant — known as a CHS, or confidential human source — met in 2016 with Mykola Zlochevsky, the CEO of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, who claimed that he made a pair of $5 million payments to the Bidens. He did not specify who was on the receiving end of those alleged bribes.

The form relays information on the conversation to an FBI agent but does not assess the veracity of the tip.

The informant also claimed that Zlochevsky has 17 audiotapes, including two with then-Vice President Biden and the remaining 15 with Hunter Biden, though a number of Republicans have questioned whether they even exist.

There has not been any evidence linking President Biden to the payments or Hunter Biden’s foreign work, and the White House has strongly denied any improper action.

Grassley said on Thursday that the move was made for the sake of transparency and that Americans “can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats.” His office added that it was obtained via legal avenues and downplayed claims by the FBI that the safety of the CHS could be at risk.

But that has in no way calmed the waters as Democrats increase their attacks over what they view as unsubstantiated claims that were already dismissed in full by the Trump administration.

Democratic staff on the House Oversight Committee wrote in a memo to House Democrats on Monday that Grassley and Comer’s actions were “in brazen disregard” of the safety of FBI sources and “the integrity of its investigations.”

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“Contrary to Republican messaging, the form provides no new or additional support for their corruption allegations against the President or Hunter Biden,” the memo says. “Instead, its release merely seeks to breathe new life into years-old conspiracy theories, initially peddled by Rudy Giuliani, that have been thoroughly debunked.”

Grassley’s work pertaining to whistleblower protections has long legs that extend well into that universe today. Empower Oversight, an organization of lawyers that includes a number of former Grassley investigatory staffers, has become a key group on this front as it helps whistleblowers navigate the treacherous waters to legally report information to Congress lawfully.

However, his recent work has come under the microscope as it has become increasingly politicized.

“He is transgressing all of the oversight principles we learned back in the day, the No. 1 principle of which is ‘Stay the hell away from politics,’” Kolesnik said. “And he’s broken that repeatedly.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the senator took issue with Kolesnik’s claims and said that Grassley “calls the shots on his investigation” and that “anyone who’s ever worked for” him would know this.

“He maintains an impeccable reputation for shining a light on facts that the bureaucracy would prefer to keep hidden,” said Taylor Foy, a Grassley spokesman. “Grassley’s Biden investigation stems from government employees who are concerned that politics has infected the nation’s premier law enforcement agencies. Ignoring these claims would be a failure of Sen. Grassley’s constitutional oversight responsibility.”

“Shying away from legitimate oversight because of fear of the political implications, as Mr. Kolesnik suggests, is exactly the type of cowardice that results in a runaway, unaccountable bureaucracy,” Foy continued. “That’s no legacy anyone who values oversight should pursue, and Mr. Kolesnik should know better.”

Supporters of the longtime Iowa senator also maintain that he did nothing nefarious by releasing the document. They say that his track record should speak for itself and that if he is harping on a subject, there’s a good reason.

“People willing to analyze his oversight history know that when he says something, you should pay attention because he's not one to shoot from the hip,” said Michael Zona, a former Grassley staffer and a GOP strategist, adding that the senator “usually knows a lot more than what he says.”

“Pay attention to what he's saying or doing because he's probably ahead of the curve,” Zona added.

Politically, Grassley is under little pressure to deviate from his current investigatory course. He won his eighth term last fall by a 12-point margin over Democrat Mike Franken.

Republicans in his home state believe that his legacy is secure no matter what comes of the current push into the finances and actions of the Biden family. They also say that news of the document did not make much of a dent with Iowans in recent days as their focus is on the ongoing special legislative session on abortion in Des Moines and the parade of 2024 Republican presidential candidates to all corners of the state.

"To me, I read this and I'm like, ‘This is classic Chuck Grassley,’” said Craig Robinson, a longtime Iowa-based GOP political strategist. “This is what he does. I don't view any of this as him being hyper partisan in any way. This is on message for who he's been as a United States senator for decades.”

Billionaire Leon Black’s $158M payment to Jeffrey Epstein sparks Senate investigation

Posted on July 25, 2023 (Updated July 25, 2023) by Tara Suter

The Senate Finance Committee announced Tuesday that it is conducting an investigation into billionaire and Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black’s financial ties with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The investigation’s findings allegedly include a “transaction Epstein devised to help Black avoid more than $1 billion in federal taxes raises.” The probe originally began as “part of a broader review of the means by which the ultra-wealthy avoid or evade federal taxes,” according to a statement from the panel.

“The committee’s investigation began in June 2022 and was prompted by inconsistencies in a report by the law firm Dechert LLP that Apollo’s board of directors commissioned to examine Black’s ties to Epstein,” the statement read. “The Dechert report found Black paid Epstein, who was neither a licensed tax attorney nor a certified public accountant, a total of $158 million in several installments between 2012 and 2017.”

According to the committee, Black, the former chairman and CEO of Apollo, has "refused to answer questions or provide any documents that could demonstrate how Epstein’s compensation for tax and estate planning services was determined or justified."

"Unfortunately, the inadequate responses you have provided the Committee only raise more questions than answers, and fail to address a number of tax issues my staff has uncovered over the course of this investigation," committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a letter to Black. "This includes understanding the amount by which you were overpaid income from assets placed in a trust while devising a scheme to ensure that those assets, worth billions of dollars, would remain outside your taxable estate. Additionally, you have refused to answer questions or provide documents related to payments you made to Epstein or substantiate how such payments were calculated or were compensation for services.

A woman filed a lawsuit in November accusing Black of raping her and accusing Epstein of having helped facilitate the attack. Black’s legal team denied the allegations at the time, and he stepped down from his positions at Apollo after they became public.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 in July 2019 on charges of abusing and trafficking minors but died by suicide in prison before trial. He was 66 at the time of his death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.

Trump anxiety among GOP senators grows as indictments appear to help him

Posted on July 25, 2023 (Updated July 25, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Republican senators who don’t want to see former President Trump as their party's nominee are feeling increasingly anxious that special counsel Jack Smith is actually helping Trump's presidential campaign through his dogged pursuit of the former president.

They fear that another round of federal charges against Trump will only further boost his fundraising and poll numbers, solidifying his possession as the dominant front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary field.

And they worry that Smith’s effect on the Republican presidential primary is being magnified by prominent House Republicans and conservative media personalities who have rallied behind Trump, effectively blotting out the rest of the GOP presidential field.

“They wish he would go away,” said a Republican senator, who requested anonymity to comment on private conversation, of fellow GOP senators’ concerns that Smith is helping propel Trump to victory.

“They wish they would both go away,” the senator added, referring to Smith and Trump.

The senator said constituents are calling on colleagues to “stand by Trump,” essentially turning the GOP presidential primary into a referendum on the former president and his battles with the Biden Justice Department.

The senator said Smith is “absolutely” the best thing going for Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump had a 15-point lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in national polls March 30, when news of the former president’s first indictment in New York on 34 felony counts related to a hush money scheme became public.

Since then, his lead over DeSantis, his closest rival, has grown to 33 points, according to an average of recent national polls.

A second Republican senator said the Department of Justice will further boost Trump if it brings new charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and stop Congress from certifying President Biden’s victory Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump already faces 37 counts in a federal indictment related to the classified documents found at his Florida residence.

“The things that one would have thought were disqualifying can be enhancing, can be improving your standing,” said the GOP senator, who also requested anonymity to comment on how Trump’s legal battles are energizing Republican voters to embrace his campaign.

“I should explain to my constituents who complain that the Democrats are out to ambush Trump: ‘No, they want him to be Republican nominee because he is the one who would lose,’” the senator added.

The senator said a new federal indictment against Trump “creates increased enthusiasm among his supporters and probably brings other voters along who see this as a rotten system.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who hasn’t yet endorsed any presidential candidate, said Trump is getting “stronger” because of the two indictments and the potential for additional charges from the Justice Department and the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney.

“I think he’s getting stronger,” he said, adding, “The primary gets less and less [competitive].”

Paul speculated that the Biden administration and its allies may be focusing prosecutorial firepower on Trump to boost him in the primary, because Democratic strategists believe Biden has a good chance of beating him again in a general election.

UFO whistleblower to go before House panel

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

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.

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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, Senate divides over funding grow as time left for spending bills shrinks

Posted on July 24, 2023 (Updated July 24, 2023) by Emily Brooks

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.

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“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.”

Mychal Schnell contributed.

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