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January 4, 2024
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THE TOP
Happy Thursday morning.
EAGLE PASS, Texas — We detected a shift while here at the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday that might help inform how January and February will unfold on Capitol Hill.
House Republicans seem to be itching to have a fight over border security as part of the government funding debate heading into the Jan. 19 and Feb. 2 shutdown deadlines. Back in Washington, Senate negotiators and the Biden administration are still working under the assumption that their border-security framework — if a deal is reached — will be paired with aid for Ukraine and Israel.
But that no longer seems guaranteed.
Top House GOP lawmakers — committee chairs and the party’s most seasoned lawmakers — say they want to push the Democratic-run Senate and the Biden administration to insert restrictive border policies into any government funding bills. Members of the House Freedom Caucus have taken to saying that Republicans should shut the federal government down unless the border is secured.
This also comes as House GOP leaders prepare to begin impeachment hearings on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas starting next week, with the ongoing migrant crisis as the top issue, as we scooped in the AM edition Wednesday.
The danger here is that House Republicans are not in sync with the Senate and the Biden administration when it comes to how the government should secure the border.
Take House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), whose committee has jurisdiction over immigration policy.
Jordan said Wednesday that Republicans should “look to any bill” that’s moving to insert language aimed at stemming the flow of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Jordan and Speaker Mike Johnson both said President Joe Biden should immediately move to declare a national emergency and reinstate Trump-era policies he ended in 2021.
“The best way is for [Biden to declare an emergency at the border],” Jordan said. “The second best way is H.R. 2. The third best way,” Jordan said, is to insert into every single funding bill that the federal government “cannot use American tax dollars to process or release into the country any new migrant.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) told us here that “there’s no doubt” that the government funding debate is the time to have a showdown over border security.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), a 20-year veteran of Congress who is retiring at the end of this year, said the border debate “has to be” part of the government funding discussion because “there’s no other vehicle that’s going to move.”
The challenge here for House Republicans is multifaceted.
No. 1: Republicans have been making the case for months that the border is a national security issue and should therefore be addressed as part of Biden’s massive supplemental funding request for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
But tying border security and immigration policy changes directly to the government-funding fight could leave these three U.S. allies empty-handed — especially since these proposed policy changes are intended to win over the requisite number of Republicans to back the foreign-aid package.
No. 2: Johnson asserts that it would be irresponsible for House Republicans to accept anything less than H.R. 2, the restrictive border-and-immigration bill that House Republicans passed last May. No House Democrats voted for that bill, and it’s gone nowhere in the Democratic-run Senate.
It was very interesting to hear Johnson on Wednesday talk about H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which has no prayer of becoming law. Johnson laid out a very detailed case of why Republicans cannot compromise on any part of the bill:
Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have publicly suggested that by continuing to push for H.R. 2, House Republicans are effectively trying to cut off Ukraine aid. Many Republicans won’t vote for Ukraine aid anyway, even if it was paired with H.R. 2.
At this point, it’s difficult to see it any other way. Grouping border policy changes with the broader funding fight is a sure way to cut off Ukraine aid. And it’s an even surer way to kill any chance of Congress addressing the border crisis. This, of course, can only be done by getting 60 votes in the Senate.
Funding latest: Meanwhile, top figures at the White House and on Capitol Hill are trying to work out how to fund federal agencies beyond Jan. 19. One idea under consideration is to maintain current funding levels through the end of this fiscal year, with no sequestration, according to multiple sources. This would essentially function as a year-long CR, but would be treated as if it’s a new appropriation. Remember, Democrats in both chambers and Senate Republicans have been warning against an approach that simply keeps spending flat.
— Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio, Mica Soellner and John Bresnahan
News: GOP investigators poised to interview Biden family associates
The House GOP committees conducting the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden are closing in on interviewing two associates of the president’s brother and son in the next two weeks.
Republican investigators are scheduled to depose Georges Berges, Hunter Biden’s art dealer, next week.
House Republicans also are in the advanced stages of planning a trip to Mississippi to hear from Joseph Langston, a debarred ex-lawyer who did business with James Biden. Republicans are currently in communication with Langston’s attorney to nail down a date.
The closed-door interviews show how the impeachment inquiry is progressing in the new year. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) are looking to hear from those close to Hunter Biden and James Biden, even as they haven’t been able to depose the president’s son nor brother directly.
Hunter Biden’s testimony looks unlikely anytime soon, while Republicans continue to quietly work behind the scenes to set up a James Biden interview.
Here’s what to know about Langston and Berges.
Joseph Langston: Langston notably represented infamous trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs when Scruggs was charged — and convicted — of bribing a Mississippi judge. According to ProPublica, Langston also later pleaded guilty in another Scruggs-related bribery scandal.
Langston later became business partners with James Biden. And when Langston was appealing his own charges, his law firm wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to James and Sara Biden’s company, according to Comer.
“The Committee is interested in the nature and purpose of these payments, which totaled $187,000 while Joe Biden was serving as Vice President,” Comer and Jordan wrote to Langston on Nov. 9.
Georges Berges: In recent years, Hunter Biden has tried his hand as an artist in a career shift. Berges owns a gallery in New York City where he shows a number of Hunter Biden’s pieces.
Republicans have long sought to talk to Berges. Investigators want to probe whether any of the buyers of Hunter Biden’s art sought to curry favor with Joe Biden as a result.
Comer and Jordan sent a subpoena to Berges on Nov. 9 to appear for a transcribed interview.
House Republicans are probing whether any of Joe Biden’s actions as vice president were improperly influenced by the financial dealings of his family members. To date, the investigation has found no conclusive evidence of impeachable offenses.
— Max Cohen
PRESENTED BY NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS
Unfair pension obligations affect the cost borne by American postal ratepayers. Let’s stop the raid.
Trade groups warn CFPB against moving too fast on fee reform
Heavyweight financial lobbying groups fired a warning shot at a top consumer watchdog on Wednesday, vowing to fight yet-to-be-released proposals that could restrict banks’ fee practices.
Read the full letter here, signed by the American Bankers Association, America’s Credit Unions and Independent Community Bankers of America.
The trade groups warned Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra that the agency may be running afoul of administrative law if it intends to issue a serious rulemaking without formally considering the impact on small businesses.
“These steps promote the issuance of rules that minimize the costs and burdens on small businesses and promote access to credit,” the groups wrote.
Let’s take a step back: The trade groups are hitting the CFPB over a pretty technical (but not insignificant) step of the rulemaking process — a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act review.
They’re also complaining about proposals that may or may not be issued this year. A recent rulemaking agenda update from the CFPB suggested the agency is considering some kind of fee-related proposal in 2024. But it’s still unusual for trade groups to sound off on potential regulations that haven’t actually been proposed yet.
And many banks — especially the largest national institutions — have reformed or abandoned such fee practices in the last few years. But smaller institutions still rely on fees for a significant portion of their profits. This letter is a good indicator that those types of firms intend to fight any reforms from the Biden administration in this space.
Slow burn: This fight has been simmering between the Biden administration and the financial sector since 2022 when the White House first took aim at what it calls “junk fees.” Much of that attention has focused on the surprise fees that appear at checkout for live entertainment or hotel stays.
But the high fees that banks charge customers for having “non-sufficient funds” or over-drawing their accounts have been criticized by Chopra and other financial regulators.
The financial sector letter argues that any proposed regulations on overdraft fees would hit smaller banks and credit unions especially hard, even if they’re not directly subject to some of the new regulations. They argue they’d face market pressure to conform either way.
On the Hill, Republicans haven’t been shy about their objections to the Biden administration’s actions at the CFPB. Senate Banking Committee Republicans have pushed back on the effort to go after overdraft and credit card late fees in particular.
This is just a teaser of the industry opposition to come. Expect more fireworks around any CFPB push to reshape bank fees later this year.
— Laura Weiss and Brendan Pedersen
JOB MOVES
Athina Lawson is now Speaker Mike Johnson’s press secretary. Lawson was previously deputy communications director for the House Appropriations Committee.
Mark Bednar, who was former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s head of communications for five years, will now be the VP of communications for the America Exploration and Production Council.
— Jake Sherman
THE MONEY GAME
News: Tim Sheehy, who’s seeking the GOP Senate nomination in Montana, is appearing at a fundraiser hosted by a former top aide to former Speaker Paul Ryan.
Later Thursday, Sheehy will take part in a meet and greet event hosted by Wylie and AshLee Galt. AshLee Galt served as Ryan’s top spokesperson when he was speaker and also worked for Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). Her husband, Wylie, is the former speaker of the Montana House.
Check out the invite here.
— Max Cohen
PRESENTED BY NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS
Now is the time for action President Biden! Let’s stop the raid.
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