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Trump rocks the boat on TikTok and Ukraine

Where does the Biden impeachment inquiry go from here?

What we’re watching

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Trump rocks the boat on TikTok and Ukraine

Happy Monday morning.

The House and Senate are in today. President Joe Biden is going to New Hampshire, part of a busy travel week for the president as his reelection campaign gears up. House Republicans are heading to their annual retreat at the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Wednesday.

Congress averted a partial government shutdown after the Senate passed the $460 billion-plus FY2024 appropriations minibus package on Friday night. Biden signed it Saturday.

Now comes the really hard part — passing the second tranche of spending bills before the March 22 shutdown deadline. This next group of bills includes Defense, Labor-HHS and Homeland Security, among others. Homeland has proven to be a particularly big problem, with some lawmakers and aides suggesting that a short-term patch may be necessary.

Hill leaders, appropriators and the White House will be working this week to avert a shutdown. And to show how long this process has dragged on, Biden is unveiling his FY2025 budget proposal today.

But this morning, we’re going to focus on two issues — TikTok and Ukraine. Like a lot of things in Washington right now, former President Donald Trump has forced his way into the middle of both of these topics.

TikTok: The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed a bipartisan bill Thursday that would force the sale of TikTok by ByteDance, the company that owns it, or face a ban in the United States. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise wants it on the floor Wednesday. And Biden said he will sign it if it reaches his desk.

But then Trump — who pushed repeatedly for a TikTok ban or sale to a U.S. company as president — waded in. Trump said on Truth Social “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business” — referring to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Two things to note:

1) Trump met recently with Jeff Yass, a hedge fund manager and huge GOP donor with a stake in TikTok worth more than $30 billion. Trump’s comments on TikTok came shortly after that.

Yass is a big financial backer of the conservative group Club for Growth, which was anti-Trump before recently turning pro-Trump. Yass has given $10 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund — the House GOP-aligned super PAC — this cycle, as well as another $250,000 to a joint leadership fund for Speaker Mike Johnson.

2) Politico reported this weekend that Kellyanne Conway, the former top Trump aide, “is being paid by the conservative Club for Growth to advocate for TikTok.” Conway — who isn’t registered as a TikTok lobbyist — called some members about Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi’s (D-Ill.) TikTok bill before Thursday’s markup, sources close to the issue said.

All this Trump-related activity has caused a big headache inside the House GOP leadership. Johnson, Scalise and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik — a possible Trump VP pick — are all solidly behind the TikTok bill. Stefanik is a cosponsor. But if Trump is against it, can House Republicans move forward with it?

There have been some efforts by the GOP leadership to have Trump allies — especially in the national security realm — lobby Trump on the bill, which is slated to be voted on Wednesday.

Officially, House Republican leadership isn’t yet whipping the TikTok bill. The legislation is coming to the floor under suspension of the rules, which will require a two-thirds majority for passage.

Democrats have been concerned about a companion data transfer bill by Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the chair and ranking member on Energy and Commerce. That legislation is expected to be brought up next week.

Yet even if the House passes the TikTok bill, there’s no guarantee about its fate in the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer isn’t committing to putting it on the floor just yet.

“I am talking with my chairs and caucus about the legislation,” Schumer said in a statement. “I will listen to their views on the bill and determine the best path.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) has said TikTok is a national security threat. However, Warner told us there are constitutional concerns about naming a single company in legislation. And at the committee’s annual worldwide threats hearing later today, Warner plans to name TikTok as an example of China’s “substantial investment power” to dominate key industries like social media.

Ukraine: On Friday, Johnson told us he had made no assurances to anyone that he’d put a Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan funding bill on the floor. Johnson also said he’d actively work against any and all discharge petitions to bring a bill to a vote.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) has been pushing a bipartisan Ukraine discharge petition to restart U.S. aid to Ukraine. The petition is eligible to get signatures. But Fitzpatrick hasn’t “turned on” the resolution yet, meaning no one can sign onto it. Johnson and Fitzpatrick met on Thursday.

We also want to note the reports in CNN and the New York Times about the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have ordered the use of a tactical nuclear weapon if Russian territory was seized by Ukrainian forces during their devastating counteroffensive in October 2022.

Biden commented on the issue at the time, and there was extensive planning by the National Security Council on how the United States should respond.

Top congressional officials were also brought into these discussions, according to Hill sources, another sign of how seriously this threat was being taken by Biden and senior White House officials.

— John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman and Andrew Desiderio

NEW EVENT! Join Punchbowl News managing editor Heather Caygle for an interview with Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) on Thursday, April 18, at 9 a.m. ET. They’ll discuss the news of the day and how 5G supports America’s global competitiveness. Afterward, Meredith Attwell Baker, president and CEO of CTIA, will join Heather for a fireside chat. This is the first event in a two-part series, “5G and America’s Competitiveness,” presented by CTIA. RSVP now!

Where does the Biden impeachment inquiry go from here?

No matter which way you look at it, it’s been a tough couple of weeks for the House Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

But GOP investigators are hoping the hearing Tuesday with Special Counsel Robert Hur will refocus the narrative on Biden’s shortcomings, even as the probe has failed to find conclusive evidence of impeachable offenses.

Hur, who led the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents, will testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Hur’s report recommended against charging Biden but painted a damaging picture of the president as elderly and forgetful.

Hur also stated that “President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” This included documents related to Afghanistan, as well as Biden’s own notebooks with entries “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”

Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairs of the House Oversight and Judiciary panels, are gearing up for a fight with the Justice Department over gaining access to the transcripts of Biden’s interviews with Hur.

In response to a GOP subpoena, DOJ turned over some correspondence between the administration and Hur’s team, along with some documentation of a 2015 call between Biden and the Ukrainian prime minister. But crucially, this document production didn’t include anything from the Biden-Hur interview. Republicans are considering their next steps in this probe.

In conversations with both Comer and Jordan, the two chairs brought up Hur unprompted when we asked what the path forward was on the impeachment inquiry.

“We still haven’t gotten the transcripts or the video from the Hur report,” Comer told us Friday. “So as quickly as we get those in, [we] will be trying to finish up.”

Back to the impeachment inquiry: While the Hur report is consequential, it’s not central to the original intent of the House GOP inquiry into Biden. That probe seeks to find out whether then-Vice President Biden was improperly influenced by his family member’s business dealings.

One oft-used GOP line — that Biden fired a Ukrainian prosecutor for being tough on a company connected to his son Hunter Biden — took a major hit recently. And the much-hyped private interviews of Joe Biden’s brother James Biden and Hunter Biden failed to deliver any smoking gun revelation.

Comer is currently trying to haul Hunter Biden in for a public hearing with other witnesses, two of whom have felony indictments for fraud. But it’s unlikely, at this point, that the House will hold a floor vote on impeaching Biden.

So what does accountability look like? Criminal referrals for those in the Biden family orbit, according to Comer. We followed up with the chair about whether this could include the president himself.

“We’ll see,” Comer said. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Oversight Democrat, panned this strategy.

“Criminal referrals generally relate to crimes, and we haven’t identified any except for the ones committed by their star witnesses,” Raskin said.

— Max Cohen

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What we’re watching

Monday: The Senate Intelligence Committee has an open hearing on worldwide threats. The House Rules Committee will meet to prepare several measures for floor consideration.

Tuesday: House Intelligence will hold a hearing on global threats with DNI Avril Haines, CIA Director Bill Burns, NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh, FBI Director Chris Wray and DIA Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.

The House Judiciary Committee will hear from Special Counsel Robert Hur about his investigation into President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents.

OMB Director Shalanda Young will testify in front of the Senate Budget Committee on the president’s proposed FY2025 budget.

Thursday: HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra will testify in front of the Senate Finance on the HHS FY2025 budget proposal.

— Jake Sherman

DOWNTOWN DOWNLOAD

​Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland, has hired ​David Gencarelli to lobby Congress for Ukraine aid.

​Bright MLS Holdings, Inc., the real estate listing service company, has hired ArentFox Schiff to lobby on “[f]ederal policy regarding regulation of multiple listing services in the residential housing marketplace.” Former Rep. Phil English (R-Pa.) will lobby for the account.

— Jake Sherman

THE CAMPAIGN

Carl Boyanton, who is challenging Rep. Mike Ezell (R-Miss.), continues to have some of the most creative ads of the 2024 campaign. The theme of his spots is that Ezell is a “busy bee” in D.C. and has forgotten about Mississippi.

— Jake Sherman

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