Former President Trump slammed the House Republicans who voted with Democrats to block the resolution that would have censured Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Trump said in a Truth Social post Friday that any Republican who opposed the censure resolution should face a primary challenge for the GOP nomination in their next election.
“Any Republican voting against his CENSURE, or worse, should immediately be primaried. There are plenty of great candidates out there,” he said.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced the resolution last month and brought it to the floor as a privileged resolution Tuesday, requiring the House to take action on it. But Democrats were able to successfully pass a motion to table the resolution, with 20 Republicans joining them and effectively stopping it from proceeding.
"Anna Paulina Luna is a STAR," Trump wrote Friday, adding, "She never gives up, especially in holding total lowlifes like Adam 'Shifty' Schiff responsible for their lies, deceit, deception, and actually putting our Country at great risk..."
Schiff has received widespread criticism from many in the GOP over his role as one of the leaders of the first impeachment inquiry against Trump. Schiff was serving as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time.
He also led Democratic accusations that the 2016 Trump campaign colluded with Russia.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) blocked Schiff from serving on the Intelligence Committee in January, accusing him of lying about Trump’s ties to Russia.
The censure resolution included a nonbinding clause stating that if the House Ethics Committee found that Schiff “lied, made misrepresentations, and abused sensitive information,” he should be fined $16 million. Luna said the amount is half of the cost of the investigation into the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the 20 who voted against the resolution, said he opposed the effort because of the fine, arguing it violates the Constitution.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the current chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was also one of the GOP “no” votes.
Luna is planning to try to bring the censure resolution up again, with the potential $16 million fine removed from the text, Axios reported. At least a couple of the Republicans who voted against the resolution could switch their votes to be in favor without the fine included.
Schiff said after the resolution was tabled that he was “flattered” by the censure attempt, saying it is only an effort to distract from Trump’s ongoing legal challenges.
He tweeted Wednesday that Luna told him that she is filing another censure resolution next week that will pass.
“They aren't giving up. But I’ve got news: neither am I,” he said.
House Republicans say the long-awaited report from special counsel John Durham bolsters their arguments that federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been “weaponized” against political enemies — a theme that has been a major defining belief of their new majority.
“The long-awaited Durham Report confirmed what the American people already know; that individuals at the highest levels of government attempted to overthrow democracy when they illegally weaponized the federal government against Donald J. Trump,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a statement.
The report found that federal authorities did not have sufficient information to open their “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Durham did not recommend any charges to the FBI in his report but said that the agency was “seriously deficient” in how it handled some aspects of the investigation, including relying on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) quoted from the report in a press conference Tuesday, raising alarm about its assertion that “the FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law” and that it identified an FBI agent who knowingly made misrepresentations to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
“Where’s the accountability for this? Who’s going to be held accountable? These are the questions we’re going to continue to ask,” Scalise said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) invited Durham to speak to his panel’s select subcommittee on government weaponization — created at the request of the right flank ahead of the tumultuous election of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — at the end of the month.
Many House GOP members, including those serving on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees, said that they had not yet read the more than 300-page report released Monday, when many were focused on the debt ceiling negotiations.
Yet several Republicans said that the report essentially confirmed their own biases.
“We all already believed or knew what was in there,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). “It's like, ‘Yeah, see? We told you so.’”
McCarthy told The Hill that Republicans already knew about the things that were “so appalling.”
“They took the entire country through this, impeachment, everything else, when we knew the FBI never should have done this from the very beginning,” McCarthy said.
Democrats, for their part, criticized the report for not offering enough new information.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that the report amounted to “a political rehashing of what the Justice Department Inspector General already made public in 2019.”
“Mr. Durham has, one last time, over promised and under delivered,” Nadler said before referencing special counsel Robert Mueller, who released a report in 2019 on his investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
“Nothing in this report changes the outcome of the Mueller investigation, which resulted in multiple convictions, found more than one hundred contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government, and substantial reason to believe that Donald Trump had committed obstruction of justice,” Nadler said.
The report from Durham is likely to affect how House Republicans legislate, and may also play a role in the GOP presidential primary.
“The report confirms that FBI personnel repeatedly disregarded critical protections established to protect the American people from unlawful surveillance,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “Such actions should never have occurred, and it is essential that Congress codifies clear guardrails that prevent future FBI abuses and restores the public’s trust in our law enforcement institutions.”
The FBI is getting ahead of calls for change, releasing a five-page letter responding to Durham that details recent reforms.
“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time,” the FBI said in a statement. “Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.”
One area likely to be affected by the politics of the Durham report is Congress’s reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless surveillance of foreigners outside the United States, even as they communicate with U.S. citizens within the U.S. — thus allowing intelligence agencies to pick up citizen communications without a warrant.
“I can assure you, 702 — that is not going to get rubber-stamped,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the House Judiciary Committee. “We’ve got to have a serious reboot or elimination of what we're seeing through FISA 702.”
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, also said that the Durham report will probably affect FISA reauthorization.
In a Twitter thread, Crenshaw said there “must be consequences” based on the findings of the report.
“This report demonstrates how unelected, subversive actors within the highest levels of our government sought to destroy a duly-elected president they hated. They weaponized a lie – knowing the media would breathlessly regurgitate that lie – in order to take Donald Trump out of the White House,” Crenshaw said.
Representative Thomas Massie, the libertarian Republican from Kentucky, is calling on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to be disbarred and removed from office following the indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, low-level felonies in New York State but which carry a potential for a 4-year prison sentence each.
Bragg’s dogged pursuit of Trump comes as he’s made a career of allowing criminals guilty of far more egregious crimes to roam the streets of Manhattan.
Massie, it appears, has seen enough.
“Alvin Bragg should be disbarred and removed from office,” he tweeted. “This is an egregious abuse of the legal system for political purposes and threatens the fabric of our judicial system.”
Alvin Bragg should be disbarred and removed from office. This is an egregious abuse of the legal system for political purposes and threatens the fabric of our judicial system.
Massie doesn’t provide any specific details on why Alvin Bragg should be disbarred and removed from office, though he has defined the charges against Trump as “completely bogus.”
“Supposedly, Trump’s been indicted for failing to properly report hush payments as campaign expenditures,” Massie said.
“That’s completely bogus. In fact, they would have indicted him sooner for a crime of using campaign funds for personal benefit had he reported it as a campaign expenditure!”
Supposedly, Trump’s been indicted for failing to properly report hush payments as campaign expenditures.
That’s completely bogus.
In fact, they would have indicted him sooner for a crime of using campaign funds for personal benefit had he reported it as a campaign expenditure!
It’s not the first time critics have suggested Bragg be disbarred for his actions.
Conservative radio host Mark Levin stated the Manhattan DA “should be disbarred” in part because of the “way he campaigned” and added, “This is crap that a pre-law student shouldn’t even put in front of a damn judge.”
“Donald Trump is a historic figure or they wouldn’t be doing this,” Levin added. “There wouldn’t have been a January 6 committee. There wouldn’t have been a Mueller criminal investigation. There wouldn’t have been two phony impeachments.”
Mark Levin finally SNAPS
Rips up Trump Indictment LIVE On Air and calls for Alvin Bragg to be DISBARRED. “This is CRAP a pre-law student would not put in front of a Judge.”pic.twitter.com/pl0sVp6eEy
Massie Hammers Squad Member After They Throw Temper Tantrum
Representative Massie made headlines last week when he decided to attempt civilized debate with ‘Squad’ member Jamaal Bowman, who instead insisted on screaming about gun control.
“They’re cowards! They’re all cowards!” Bowman screeched. “They won’t do anything to save the lives of our children at all. Cowards!”
Massie happened upon the scene and interjected with facts, pointing to the effectiveness of armed security or teachers in our schools.
“You know, there’s never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry,” Massie pointed out.
He wanted to discuss solutions to school shootings, but when I offered a solution he began shouting. When he asked for data, I gave him data, but then he just shouted more. Bring facts. There’s never been a school shooting in the hundreds of schools that allow staff to carry. https://t.co/jInj4GHBDL
Bowman showed up at protests outside the courthouse where Trump was set to appear for his arraignment and couldn’t turn off the crazy.
This guy (a registered Democratic Socialist) has only one trick: shouting at other members of Congress in front of cameras. He hates when you try to talk to him though. pic.twitter.com/0rGSAwDnow
Massie also finds a way to be a thorn in the side of ‘Ukraine First’ Republicans, last year demanding a halt to all taxpayer funds being funneled to the country until “a thorough audit of the $60 billion that Joe Biden and Congress have already sent there” had been conducted.
We should immediately stop payments to Ukraine and begin a thorough audit of the $60 billion that Joe Biden and Congress have already sent there.
The GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, on which Massie sits, has announced they will investigate Bragg’s potential use of federal funds.
An effort to oust House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney from her leadership position failed Wednesday after a majority of Republicans voted to keep her as the third-ranking House Republican.
The vote to potentially remove Cheney was done by secret ballot.
In the end, 61 Republicans in the House voted to remove Cheney and 145 GOP members voted to keep her.
One Republican voted present.
JUST IN: Liz Cheney has managed to cling on to her leadership job, sources tell me. vote was 145-61
House just voted in a secret ballot to keep her. Comes after tense, four hour meeting where dozens of members spoke their mind.
Backlash Against Liz Cheney Came After Impeaching Trump
The vote followed a defense of Cheney from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy.
The vote was held over Cheney’s vote to join Democrats in impeaching President Donald Trump for a second time. Nine other Republicans also voted to impeach.
Cheney told the House Republican Conference, “I won’t apologize for the vote.”
Republican Congressmen Matt Rosendale and Andy Biggs passed around a petition to remove Cheney from her post as House GOP chair.
After the vote, Rosendale said, “The Conference has spoken, and it’s time for Republicans to unify to take back the majority. I will do my part to achieve that goal.”
Liz Cheney is facing calls to resign from her House GOP leadership post after she said she will vote to impeach Trump https://t.co/YyYFUn7JfU
Cheney Endorsed Primary Opponent Of Staunch Conservative Rep. Thomas Massie
Pro-Trump Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, who went to Wyoming to rally against her, claimed Cheney had worked against former President Trump’s ‘America First’ because Cheney was part of the “forever war machine.”
Gaetz, along with Biggs and Congressman Thomas Massie, opposed Cheney’s efforts to shove into the National Defense Authorization Act an amendment that would precent Trump from bringing the troops home from Afghanistan.
Cheney had also supported Massie’s GOP primary opponent, which angered many House conservatives.
Since Cheney announced that she would vote to impeach Trump, a recent poll found that her political support has collapsed by more than double digits back home.
By keeping Liz Cheney in leadership, the GOP establishment has declared war on the GOP grassroots.
It’s time to do some house cleaning — just like we did in 2010.
Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) traded jabs with each other on Monday in what could be illustrative the battle for the heart and soul of the GOP and its opposing wings.
Cheney has been in the hot seat, most recently for her vote to impeach Donald Trump, who Democrats accuse of being responsible for the violent protests at the Capitol building on Jan. 6.
As a result, Trump supporting Rep. Matt Gaetz announced on Monday that he would be traveling to Wyoming to “inspire” Wyoming voters to remove Cheney from her seat in Congress.
Cheney’s office shot back saying, “Rep. Gaetz can leave his beauty bag at home. In Wyoming the men don’t wear make up.”
Gaetz has reportedly been looking to defeat Cheney ever since she backed a primary challenge against popular Republican and Gaetz ally Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Back in July, Cheney’s PAC had donated money, the maximum amount to fellow Republican Thomas Massie’s primary opponent, Todd McMurtry.
“In an interview with Breitbart News on Monday, Gaetz described Cheney’s attacks on Massie and himself as representing “her vindictive style” of politics.
“In the wake of the Biden presidency, the Republican party establishment is trying to wrangle the conservative movement back under their control. They want the GOP to look and sound like Liz Cheney.
“I have a competing vision for Republicanism and I intend to showcase it by going after the America Last politicians in both parties,” Gaetz said.
Besides the back and forth with Gaetz, Cheney has plenty of trouble on Capitol Hill.
More than half of the House Republican Conference has signed on to support a resolution calling for the removal of Cheney as the House GOP Chair in light of her “yes” vote on impeachment.
More than half of the House Republican Conference has committed to vote to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as the chair of the House GOP Conference. https://t.co/EAskP5dP5C
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy also told Breitbart News that he “has concerns” about Cheney’s impeachment vote:
“Look, I support her, but I also have concerns. She took a position as a number three member in conference.
She never told me ahead of time. One thing about leadership: if we’re going to work together on that as a whole conference, we should understand. We know that this is going to become a difficulty.
She can have a difference of opinion, but the one thing if we’re going to lead within the conference, we should work together on that as a whole conference because we’re representative of that conference. So I support her, but I do think she has a lot of questions she has to answer to the conference.”
In addition to her troubles in Washington, Liz Cheney is in some trouble at home. She has already garnered a primary opponent for 2022. Wyoming State Senator Anthony Bouchard plans to challenge Cheney for her Congressional seat.
Wyoming State Sen. Anthony Bouchard files primary challenge to House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney. https://t.co/7mM632abmG
She has also been censured at home. On Jan 17, the Carbon County Wyoming Republican Central Committee announced it had voted to censure Cheney for her impeachment vote.
A Change.org petition has already collected almost 50,000 signatures calling for Cheney to be recalled.
Matt Gaetz and Liz Cheney represent two very different visions for the Republican Party going forward.
Matt Gaetz has long been a Trump supporter and on board with Trump’s America First agenda.
Liz Cheney is still a backer of the Bush era, especially on foreign policy. She is in agreement with her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney who says, “I was right about Iraq.”
While new faces like Gaetz and others staunchly oppose getting involved in needless conflicts, Cheney and the Democrats recently blocked Trump’s attempt to remove troops from Afghanistan where troops have been stagnating for twenty years.
The GOP will have to make a decision on which way to go.
As the House voted to impeach President Donald Trump on Wednesday, much praise was given to Congresswoman Liz Cheney for being one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach.
Cheney is the #3 Republican in the House, which added weight to her stance.
But it was her father Dick Cheney and his legacy – a legacy she clearly plans to continue – that is arguably the most impeachable offense in American history.
House officially has the votes to impeach Trump for the second time. 10 Republicans vote yes:
John Katko (NY) Liz Cheney (WY) Adam Kinzinger (IL) Fred Upton (MI) Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA) Dan Newhouse (WA) Peter Meijer (MI) Tom Rice (SC) Anthony Gonzalez (OH) David Valadao (CA) pic.twitter.com/shL72IO5sT
President Trump: Iraq War Was The ‘Worst Single Mistake Ever Made’
President Trump has been at war with the Bush faction of the GOP since he announced his campaign for President in 2015.
Trump was right when he called President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s war in Iraq the “worst single mistake” in U.S. history.
“The worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country: going into the Middle East, by President Bush,” Trump told The Hill in 2018.
Trump added, “Obama may have gotten (U.S. soldiers) out wrong, but going in is, to me, the biggest single mistake made in the history of our country.”
Why was it such a colossal mistake? President Trump had an answer for that too.
—@realDonaldTrump: “The worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country: going into the Middle East, by President Bush.”https://t.co/Bi1S6E3aCG
Cheney Unapologetic About Iraq War, Bush Foreign Policy
“Because we spent $7 trillion in the Middle East,” Trump said. “Now if you wanna fix a window some place they say, ‘oh gee, let’s not do it.’ Seven trillion, and millions of lives — you know, ‘cause I like to count both sides. Millions of lives,” Trump explained.
“To me, it’s the worst single mistake made in the history of our country,” Trump reiterated.
This is a charge President Trump would repeat throughout both presidential campaigns and during his time in the White House.
Oh: and the only small pockets of opposition to the partnership between pro-war Dems and Liz Cheney to fund Endless War came from anti-war factions on the right and left – could call them "populists". Here's @mattgaetz working with @RoKhanna to denounce this militarism: pic.twitter.com/J1zMjHie4i
But Trump’s radical break with the Establishment’s foreign policy isn’t limited to Iraq.
Just weeks ago, Cheney and the Democrats worked hand-in-hand to block President Trump from removing troops from Afghanistan, where we have been mired for 20 years.
In October of 2019, Democrats (and many Republicans) voted overwhelmingly to condemn President Trump’s effort to withdraw troops from Barack Obama’s war in Syria.
Remember when Democrats at least pretended to be anti-war, when Bush was President?
But despite all the establishment praise being given to Cheney and a handful of anti-Trump Republicans this week, it is the “America First” foreign policy of Donald Trump that has completely flipped the script on this front in the GOP.
Republican members of Congress like Rand Paul, Matt Gaetz, Thomas Massie, and many others are staunchly opposed to needlessly starting another war like Iraq, and Trump’s position on this issue has largely helped solidify this sentiment among Republican voters.
Liz Cheney Deserves To Be Removed More Than President Trump
Congresswoman Cheney will continue to pursue a foreign policy agenda like her father’s – one that puts America and our soldiers last.
She will find a more willing partner in a President Biden than she did with President Trump.
If there was an administration that deserved impeachment, it was Bush-Cheney for the disastrous foreign policy they foisted upon America – one that was continued by Barack Obama.
We are still dealing with the repercussions of Obama (and Hillary Clinton’s) disasters in Libya and Syria.
The Republican Party and Congress would do well to remove those who would take us back to the disastrous foreign policy of the past, and continue to build upon the Trump path to peace.
