The government’s first hearing took aim at DOJ and the FBI
The House Select Committee’s Jan. 6 Hearing: A Step Back and Look at Biden’s WIMP after the 9/11 Instability
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol holds its ninth public hearing Thursday, potentially the final one ahead of the release of its report.
The blockbuster Jan. 6 hearings from this past summer each focused on a particular topic as part of the overall effort to overturn the 2020 election results. Thursday’s hearing, instead, will “take a step back” and look at the push to undo President Biden’s win from a broader context.
The hearing could present new testimony that hasn’t been previously shared across a range of topics related to the probe into the deadly siege. That could also include materials recently obtained by the panel from the Secret Service about its role, as well as revisiting former President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on key officials.
The committee may not be able to share the testimony from the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, who appeared in public last month.
Thompson said last week that the panel was going to hold a hearing and give its final report on December 21st. The report could be released two days later on December 21st because the panel will follow its public meeting on Monday.
Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wy., has served as the unofficial lead prosecutor for much of the hearings, laying out in the first hearing in June what the panel would demonstrate: “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”
After the weeks of the hearings in June and July, there was some indication that Trump’s position as the leader of his party was damaged. The search of his Florida residence by the Justice Department in August was a turning point in his argument that federal investigations were politically motivated.
“There’s a lot of new information we’ve received since our hearings that is helpful to our investigation and we look forward to sharing what’s appropriate,” he said.
During the previous hearings, Thompson or Cheney often opened or closed the presentations, with a particular committee member leading the topic discussion. This time, each panel member will play an equal role, Thompson and others have said.
The Secret Service of the January 6 Insurrection: Identifying Trump’s Core Player, Meadows’s Chief of Staff, and an Updated Subpoena of the Secret Service
This summer, the panel dug into the role of the Secret Service in the Jan. 6 attack, while also learning new details about the agency’s deleted text messages surrounding the period of the siege. The panel subpoenad the Secret Service after discovering the Homeland Security watchdog knew about the missing texts.
The hearing can cover new evidence relating to former Vice President Mike Pence, according to a member of the panel. He faced pressure from Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Ever since Donald Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” he’s remained the center of America’s political universe. But at least one former congressman believes the continued fixation on the 45th president is now a distraction. Trumpism has grown larger than Trump himself, so he is only one part of the story.
On Friday, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol formally subpoenaed Trump, which seems to be the minimum amount of red meat the Democratic base demanded from the panel. The revelation of the subpoena, which was leaked to NBC News during the panel’s final hearing earlier this month, overshadows the story of the digital machinations that fueled the attack and are poised to remake America.
The select committee devoted most of their time and resources to looking backwards. He fears they missed something, as well as still to come. Today’s problems are being solved with yesterday’s technology. We’re in an information warfare battlespace, according to Riggleman. “They’ve already changed their tactics. The deplatforming didn’t work. They just go to other platforms.”
Riggleman, a conservative who left the Republican Party after he was primaried out of office in 2020 for officiating a same-sex wedding, had asked the committee for a budget of $3.2 million for his digital sleuthing, but he says he was allocated just a fraction of that.
Still, he was granted a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into not just the January 6 attack. He also believes he identified the insurrection’s central player: Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Riggleman handed the special committee 2,319 text messages Meadows sent or received from the election through Biden’s inauguration, which he says reveals how deeply conspiracies have now “metastasized” in today’s Republican Party.
After voting ends Tuesday, there will be several investigations by the Department of Justice and the House of Representatives.
CNN’s justice team thinks that the DOJ investigations into former President Donald Trump that were quiet up to the election could burst into life. a special counsel could be appointed to oversee certain matters in an attempt to seperate them from the Biden administration
If investigators at the Department of Justice want to indict Trump before he officially launches a presidential campaign, they’ll have to act fast. He could announce his candidacy a week after Election Day on November 14, sources told CNN, although that date could change.
Trump wants to claim credit for GOP wins, assuming they occur on Election Day, and take control of the primary field before other Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can get there.
Hunter and Joe Biden in the House: Democrats vs. the Bidens: Rep. James Comer, a Republican Adviser to the House Oversight Committee
The heart of Comer’s investigation will be digging into more than 100 suspicious activity reports that Republicans claim banks have filed related to the president’s son Hunter Biden’s financial activities. Comer has said, “We would love to talk to people in the Biden family, specifically Hunter and Joe Biden.”
The House January 6 committee will be shut down, and the public inquisition Republicans have been pursuing for years against President Joe Biden’s son will go into public overdrive.
Hunter Biden is only the beginning of a planned onslaught of investigations. Next in order is the president’s immigration policy, and multiple Republicans have already called for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be impeached.
It is false to equate GOP efforts to investigate Hunter Biden with the January 6 committee trying to document the insurrection and Trump trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Hunter Biden is the son of Hunter Biden. GOP Rep. James Comer, who is in line to chair the House Oversight Committee, said that “in the 118th Congress, this committee will evaluate the status of Joe Biden’s relationship with his family’s foreign partners and whether he is a President who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence.”
Republicans have repeatedly promised to investigate President Biden and his administration, Democrats, the Biden family and GOP claims of partisan efforts if they won control of Congress in last year’s midterm elections.
The Republicans won a small majority in the House but pledged to investigate Democrats. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly stated that he will take on oversight of the Bidens and other federal agencies.
Zanona, Raju and Grayer write: “Most bills will be primarily messaging endeavors, unlikely to overcome the president’s veto or the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, though they would have to pass legislation to fund the government and raise the national borrowing limit to raise a debt default – an endeavor that is already alarming Democrats.”
Whatever House Republicans do will feel like a sideshow if the Department of Justice does take the unprecedented plunge of indicting Trump for either his involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election or his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Report of the Subpanel on Senate Judgment Committee Report on the Investigation of a House-Dependent Panel into a Charged Fraud Against Donald Trump
The panel was looking at a day later next week to release its report and hold a hearing, but now that it’s happening earlier than anticipated it can hold that presentation earlier.
“We looked at the schedule, and it appears we can complete our work a little bit before that. So why not get it to the public as quick as we can?” The Chairman of the Committee told reporters from the Capitol steps.
The committee’s subpanel of lawyers made the referrals, as well as a larger list of recommendations. The sub panel was created in October to deal with criminal referrals.
CNN reported that the panel had weighed criminal referrals for a lot of Trump allies, including his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff MarkMeadows, and former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark.
Already, in a March court filing, the committee said Trump illegally obstructed an official proceeding — Congress’ counting of the Electoral College votes. The committee added that Trump “engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
Five to six other categories of referrals, including ethics referrals to the House Ethics Committee, bar discipline referrals and campaign finance referrals could be issued by the panel, Chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters.
Five House Republicans have been subpoenaed by the January 6 panel: GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
On the Referrals to the Senate Ethics Committee on the 2020 Presidential Election – A Report by R. C. Thompson, J. M. Helson, T. J. Osei, D. E. Thompson
Thompson has also said any attorney who was found to be connected to the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election could be disciplined for their actions.
The committee’s discussions should include a review of the ethics of the court’s officer if he disrespects them. “But as a person who would consider a lawyer to have the highest possible ethical standards, I would have real issue with them not respecting those standards.”
The final report could be over 1000 pages in length, Thompson has previously told NPR. By year end, the committee also plans to share transcripts from the more than 1,000 witnesses it interviewed.
The letter from the committee to the Justice Department will be used as the basis for the referrals. Referrals don’t make the Justice Department act nor have any legal weight.
The meeting on Monday was to finish the investigation into what led to the attack at the U.S. Capitol two years ago.
It has been decided by the panel whether it is better for members of Congress to be referred to other parts of the federal government or to police their own. There could be referrals to the House Ethics Committee.
A person familiar with the matter says the panel is likely to recommend at least three criminal charges against former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department.
The impact House referrals could have remains unclear because the Department of Justice special counsel investigation is already examining Trump in its extensive probe into January 6.
There is a case that Trump committed criminal offenses related to his efforts to overturn the election.
Someone tried to try and pressure state officials to find votes that weren’t there. This is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol. If that’s not criminal, then I don’t know what is,” he added.
It’s a pretty good match if you look at Donald Trump’s acts and the statute.
“I think the president has violated multiple criminal laws. You have to be prosecuted if you break the law, and I think you have to be treated like any other American who does that.
Reply to the Special Counsel to the President on the Oversteps of the White House in the Oversight of the Speaker’s Correspondence
The oversight requests were given to two leading Republicans by a top White House lawyer and would have to be renewed once the GOP took control of the House.
The White House has been working over the past several months to assemble a team of lawyers and other advisers to handle an expected onslaught of oversight requests. Thursday’s letter is the first indication of the team’s approach – one that vows cooperation but nonetheless pushes back on what the White House views as oversteps.
Jordan and Comer have threatened the use of subpoenas to obtain documents and information from the administration. The White House said that Biden would remain on other priorities as Republicans investigate him.
After the new Congress begins, the Republicans will need to resubmit their requests, because they do not have the authority to do so, according to the letter from the Special Counsel to the President.
The House and Congress have not delegated authority to individual members who are not committee chairmen according to a letter written by a White House oversight lawyer.
“Should the Committee issue similar or other requests in the 118th Congress, we will review and respond to them in good faith, consistent with the needs and obligations of both branches. We expect the new Congress will undertake its oversight responsibilities in the same spirit of good faith,” Sauber wrote.
House Oversight Chair James Comer warned of a “coordinated cover-up by Big Tech, the Swamp, and mainstream news” to suppress a story that could hurt Biden.
We will work in good faith to provide appropriate information to congress, but Americans have made clear that they want their leaders to work together on their top priorities like lowering costs. That’s what the president will focus on, and we hope House Republicans join him,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for White House Counsel’s Office, said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, political stunts like subpoena threats from the minority suggest House Republicans might be spending more time thinking about how to get booked on ‘Hannity’ than on preparing to work together to help the American people,” Sams said, referring to the Fox News program.
The chamber can now look forward to getting back to business after a days long stalemate ended with the speaker being selected and members being sworn in.
Every new Congress must pass a new set of House rules, and doing so will be the top of the 118th Congress’ to-do list when the House reconvenes Monday.
Kevin McCarthy talked about his plans for power in an exclusive interview with CNN prior to the mid-term elections. Those plans include tackling inflation, rising crime and border security, and he left the door open to launching eventual impeachment proceedings, which some of his members have already begun to call for.
Policy issues like funding the government, which will test ability of Republicans and Democrats to work together, are some of the must-pass issues.
The Sessions on House and Senate Judiciary Committee Investigations of the U.S. Supreme Court Action on the 2021 Afghanistan Rejection
The investigations are a waste of time according to the White House. Such reports are not conclusive and do not necessarily indicate wrongdoing.
The panel said the hearing on Thursday would look at the attacks on civil liberties in the US. Witnesses included Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., for Republicans and the House Oversight Committee ranking member, Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin.
The southern border. After winning the majority, Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas telling him and other department officials to be prepared to testify.
The Afghanistan withdrawal. The dramatic attempt by Afghans to flee the country after Biden made the decision to remove US troops in 2021 was followed by scenes of many people clinging to the planes as they tried to escape. Republicans have signaled that they are eyeing potential probes into the events.
Jim Jordan, a key architect of the House Freedom Caucus, and the first 16 years that Congress had a chance to learn from his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy
Covid-19 origins. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top Republican on the Energy and Commerce panel, has said that “how the pandemic started, that’s probably the most important public health question that needs to be answered.” Two studies released last year both concluded that a seafood market in Wuhan, China, was most likely the epicenter for the virus.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan is going to hold a hearing on border security. The Ohio Republican’s change from leadership antagonist to ally positions him as a key player in Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s agenda.
When Jordan arrived on Capitol Hill in 2007, he zeroed in on his quest to shrink the federal government as a member of the House Budget Committee. In one of his early floor speeches he stressed he was new to Washington, but said, “I’ve already learned the game is called spend at every opportunity.”
His zeal to rein in federal spending helped him get elected in 2010 to be chair of the Republican Study Committee, a large group of fiscal conservatives. He made it clear in that post that he was checking out his party.
“I like to tell folks we’re the conservative conscience for Republicans here in the nation’s Capitol. And our job is to make Republicans act like Republicans,” Jordan said in an interview on C-SPAN in 2010.
He wasn’t afraid to confront his own leaders. The GOP lawmaker helped found the House Freedom Caucus in 2015. The battles between the group and the speaker contributed to him stepping down later that year.
The speaker of the house labeled Jordan a political terrorist, and said in an interview with CBS in 2021, “I just never seen a guy who spent more time tearing things apart, never putting anything together.”
After 15 ballots and more than four days, McCarthy was elected speaker on Jan. 7. He gave Jordan a huge platform to build his career as a key architect of GOP probes of the Biden administration.
Jordan stated, “I think Kevin McCarthy is the right person to lead us.” I really do. I wouldn’t be standing there giving a speech. I went in with Kevin. We arrived 16 years ago. We haven’t always agreed on everything. I like his fight. I like his determination.
Jordan argued that Trump was being treated unfairly in the Senate trial. “Democrats have never got over the fact that this new guy has never been in this town, never been in politics, this new guy came in here and is shaking this place up and that drives them crazy.”
Mulvaney says Jordan has credibility with the far right in the Republican Party, with conservative media outlets and now he’s also enjoying more support from the center of the party. Keeping his investigations focused is one problem that may come up for Jordan. He said that some lawmakers might be less interested in getting the truth than in getting on TV.
It is never certain when the light will shine on you, but you have to be prepared and I think Jim was. Jim did a good job on the impeachment. Mulvaney told NPR that he spoke to him regularly and that he was always on the ball.
“I would look at Jim more as an investigator and somebody who’s interested in transparency and accountability, than I would describe him as a legislator. Jim would not be very happy with the Financial Services Committee. I don’t think he’d be happy on appropriations. But the man is made to run the Judiciary Committee.”
Texas Republican Chip Roy, a member of that panel, says Jordan’s the best person to lead that new effort. Jim Jordan has the ability to bring a light to the weaponization of government against the people of the US and he is well prepared to do so. He’ll do a great job of it,” Roy told NPR recently.
Some House Republicans are already pressing for Jordan to move to impeach President Biden. For his part, the new Judiciary chair says that’s up to the speaker and the GOP conference.
For instances when there are high crimes and misdemeanors, Mulvaney says there should be preserved the impeachment. If the Republicans try to impeach Biden, I hope they return to that standard. It damn well better be for a really, really good reason.”
California Democrat Ted Lieu sits on the Judiciary Committee and told NPR recently about the panel’s new chairman, “I believe he has very extreme views. I also believe that he believes in those views, which is why I respect that. I don’t believe Kevin McCarthy believes in the things he says.
Lawmakers have learned that being on the right committee can make them famous and that is going to be a challenge, there’s no question.
House Republicans are Launching Their First Investigations into Democrats: James Comer’s Talk at the Joint House Judiciary Committee on the “Biden Border Crisis”
In an interview on his way to vote, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer said that he and his counterpart on the House Judiciary panel, Rep. Jim Jordan, are spending a lot of time together.
We work together and have breakfast together, no problems there,” the Kentucky congressman told NPR. “He is familiar with what we are doing.” We know what he’s doing. Our staffs are close, our committee rooms are next door to each other. So we work together really well.”
The Judiciary Committee’s first meeting will cover what Republicans have dubbed “The Biden Border Crisis,” part of the GOP’s look into concerns surrounding immigration and security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The first hearing of the Oversight panel will look at the spending on the relief bills, something he claims didn’t receive enough scrutiny when Democrats were in charge.
“There have been reports of lots of waste, fraud and abuse with respect to the stimulus funds, PPE, loan fund, unemployment funds and all of that,” Comer said. “So we’re just going to roll our sleeves up and get started there.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/01/1152558713/house-republicans-are-launching-their-first-investigations-into-democrats
A Subcommittee on Investigating the Bias Between the Departments of Justice, the FBI, and Other Government-Independent Aggregates
“The Democratic position is that legislative oversight is the critical instrument for making sure that we’re actually implementing our public laws and programs. And that’s what we should be doing,” said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
McCarthy stated that Congress has a responsibility to watch the Justice Department. “That also means the individuals investigating.” We have the constitutional power to do that, and we will.”
The subcommittee is expected to probe claims that the Department of Justice, FBI and other federal agencies are biased against conservatives. Republicans have voiced a long list of concerns, alleging the department mishandled allegations against former President Donald Trump, abused its surveillance powers and retaliated against parents who spoke out at school board meetings.
“We’ll issue the subpoenas and try to get the information, documents that we need,” Jordan recently told reporters. “And if they give us the runaround, they give us the runaround. … I guess I’m expecting that.
For example, both Comer and Raskin agreed that there could be legislative fixes to avoid concerns in the future of mishandled classified documents by occupants of the White House, given the recent discoveries tied to former President Trump during his time in office and President Biden as vice president in the Obama administration.
“I believe that we all agree that there needs to be reform, as well as the other people who have said this, too,” she said. We’re going to speak with the National Archives to figure out how bad the problem is.
What Will the Arkansas Governor Tell Us About Biden’s State of the Union? The Case Against a Supersymmetric Left-Right Correspondence
Oversight is not about scandal mongering and sticking it to the other guys. Public oversight is about making sure the government is working for the people,” he said.
It’s part of a larger fight that the public will see, and is expected to result in a long series of probes and hearings.
But after a wild week in Washington, it’s fair to ask who is on each side of the line the Arkansas governor drew in her Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
The GOP used the national television audience to recommit to the hardline “Make America Great Again” base strategy pushed by Trump, whom Sanders served as press secretary in the White House. But her strategy did not come in isolation. Liberal policies on social, economic, and foreign policy are seen as crazy by many conservatives. And Democrats have had their own issues with extremists in recent years, including left-wingers who once called for “defunding the police” – a position that turned into a huge political liability for their party in successive elections.
The scene that encapsulated the collapse of civility in the GOP’s politics, when the speaker was unable to keep order as Biden spoke, boded ill for the future. Even if McCarthy could somehow reach a deal with Biden that would include spending cuts and lifting the government’s borrowing limit, he would still be able to sell the members on a clash that threatens to pitch the US.
Biden, LaLota, and the New York House of Representatives: How the House Oversight Hearing about George Santos can expose a New York City rip-off
The New York congressman who lied about his education and job history is a distraction to the new House majority. Nick LaLota, a New York Republican, told CNN that he can’t speak about what the Republicans should be doing when he talks about GeorgeSantos.
But Wednesday’s House Oversight hearing showed how politicized the investigations have already become, and raised questions about the underlying question at issue: claims that the FBI forced Twitter to temporarily block users from sharing a New York Post story in 2020 regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop.
While such showdowns allow party leaders to fire up vital base voters and cook up a general stench of scandal that, even if unproven, could harm the Biden administration, they risk highlighting the GOP’s most extreme, media-hungry personalities and alienating moderate voters.
The beholder sees political normality in an eye. Biden surrendered to a “wagging mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is” and the country is in the grip of a left-wing cultural purge, according to Sanders.
But while Sanders may be adopting a shrewd approach for a rising star in a party that often rewards far-right candidates in primaries, it would seem to fly in the face of lessons of the midterm elections, when voters in swing states rejected far-right extremism.
Some Republicans may feel a bit cheated since McCarthy did not state that Social Security and Medicare would be on the table in debt ceiling talks. McCarthy said on Fox that the State of the Union address was one of the most partisan he had ever heard.
But the president again positioned himself as the bulwark between more moderate Americans and the excess of what he has called “ultra MAGA” Republicans – a tactic he used especially successfully in the midterms.
This is why Biden’s strategy goaded McCarthy’s most radical followers into acting out on Tuesday night after saying Americans didn’t want to see fighting in Congress.
McCarthy did not speak to the reporters about his opinion on the performance of Greene or his political relationship with him. The man had hoped to avoid a public spectacle of extremism with millions watching on TV, but his hopes of keeping his job are dependent on radicals such as the one who lives by the word “wilder”. McCarthy did not repudiateSantos because of the narrow grip on power he had thanks to a minuscule majority.
Although she provided Democrats with an image they like to highlight, Greene said that she was not sorry for her poor manners during Biden’s speech. She said she was “pissed off” and “I don’t clap for liars.” Nancy Pelosi told CNN on Tuesday night that Americans could choose between chaos and stability.
Not every Republican is tolerating the party’s incivility. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney went where McCarthy has failed to go, telling Santos he had no place in the House. LaLota, meanwhile, in his interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, stressed how the New York Republican had become a distraction from the party’s priorities.
“We want to talk about putting our economy back on the right track, securing our border, hold the administration accountable – these are the things that Republicans campaigned on, these are the things that Republicans want to govern on,” LaLota said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/gop-extreme-reaction-biden-analysis/index.html
The First Hearing on Twitter: The Biden Administration and the Trump-McGray Sensitive Investigation During the Second Impeachment Trial
Former senior officials from Twitter admitted that the social media network made a mistake in suppressing the story – on the grounds that they were worried it was based on the same kind of foreign misinformation that had tainted the 2016 election. But they repeatedly testified that they had received no orders from the FBI to do so, undermining claims by top Republicans that the bureau tried to censor a story that could hurt Biden in the election.
A new House panel investigating the “weaponization of the federal government” held its first hearing on Thursday, as part of the Republican majority’s push to ramp up scrutiny of the Biden administration.
The Republicans and the Democrats fought for control of the House Judiciary Committee during the long meeting. Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who leads the committee and the new subcommittee laid out his party’s plans.
The panel’s ranking Democrat, Del. Stacey Plaskett, said the panel’s Republicans are fueling dangerous rhetoric for law enforcement through its efforts. During the second impeachment trial of President Trump, Plaskett served as a House manager.
She said that she was concerned that the use of the subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories and advance an extreme agenda could undermine Americans’ faith in our democracy.
The latest effort is the subcommittee hearing. Negotiating with now-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, hardline conservatives pushed for the panel’s formation.
A Washington Post-ABC News survey found that 56 percent of Americans thought the subcommittee was an attempt to score political points.
