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April 11, 2023
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PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Tuesday morning.
Breaking News: The Biden administration has started giving the congressional “Gang of Eight” access to the classified documents that were recovered from the homes of former President Donald Trump, President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, according to sources familiar with the matter.
This is a major victory for Congress and, more broadly, a validation of lawmakers’ role as overseers of the U.S. intelligence community.
It’s the direct result of a pressure campaign from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s chair and vice chair, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who relentlessly hammered the Biden administration over its months-long refusal to share the documents with the committee.
The Biden administration began producing the documents last week, we’re told. The Gang of Eight includes Warner and Rubio, their House Intelligence Committee counterparts, and the Democratic and Republican leader in each chamber. The members of this group — and some designated staffers — have access to the most sensitive intelligence material.
A spokesperson for the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to comment. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment.
As we first reported in December, the Justice Department blocked Congress’ access to the documents after a special counsel was appointed for the Trump investigation.
Jack Smith, that special counsel, is investigating Trump for potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice. A different special counsel, Robert Hur, is looking into Biden’s retention of classified documents in multiple spaces, including the garage of his Delaware home.
The Justice Department argued that sharing the documents with lawmakers could compromise the integrity of the ongoing criminal investigation. After Hur was appointed for the Biden probe, the Justice Department made the same argument to Congress to restrict access to those materials as well.
Congressional leaders in both parties flat-out rejected what they considered the Biden administration’s stonewalling. This gave Warner and Rubio significant leverage to press their case with the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — both publicly and privately. Every member of the Intelligence Committee backed those efforts, too.
The committee was negotiating privately for months with the Justice Department over what lawmakers saw as the administration’s untenable position with regard to the documents. Warner had previously said “all things will be on the table” to secure DOJ’s cooperation. Attorney General Merrick Garland in recent congressional testimony said the two sides were making “progress.”
Warner and Rubio have argued that their intelligence oversight duties have no impact on the criminal investigations the Justice Department is spearheading.
The duo had previously requested that Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines lead an assessment of potential damage to U.S. national security stemming from the mishandling of the documents. The senators also demanded to know what, if anything, was being done to safeguard intelligence-gathering sources and methods and mitigate the impacts of the documents’ potential disclosure.
There is a precedent for congressional oversight of special counsel investigations. During Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Intelligence Committee received regular updates so that it could produce its own report on the matter and scrutinize the intelligence community’s conclusions.
In a sworn affidavit, Justice Department prosecutors said the documents retrieved at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence during an FBI search last summer included both human-sourced and signals intelligence.
The Intelligence Committee likely has already had access to the documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago, especially at the Gang of Eight level — a point Warner and Rubio often underscored as they made their case to the Justice Department.
— Andrew Desiderio
INVESTIGATION NATION
House Dems calling Jordan’s bluff on NYC hearing
News: Democrats plan to participate in the next week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on violence in New York City, according to sources familiar with the planning.
Committee Democrats have skipped previous field hearings, such as a recent trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, decrying them as political stunts by Republicans without merit.
But this hearing will be in Manhattan — the home of Rep. Jerry Nadler, the panel’s ranking member — and Democrats are planning a forceful response. Democrats are likely to hold a news conference before the hearing with top city officials, sources told us.
Judiciary Democrats are expected to attack the GOP’s unwillingness to act on gun control, arguing that much of urban violent crime is firearms-related.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) hasn’t announced who he is inviting to testify at the April 17 hearing.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams and Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) are likely to play some role in the Democratic response. Adams, of course, staked his successful mayoral campaign on clamping down on crime. The hearing is in Goldman’s district, but the freshman Democrat doesn’t sit on the Judiciary Committee. Goldman released a statement Monday saying Jordan wasn’t welcome “in my district for this political stunt.”
This the latest escalation by the GOP-run panel in its unprecedented clash with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who indicted former President Donald Trump on 34 felony charges last week. Judiciary Committee Republicans deny that the hearing is retaliation for the Trump indictment.
However, Jordan has subpoenaed one of Bragg’s former prosecutors while repeatedly seeking testimony from the district attorney and others in his office.
Jordan and other Republicans have heavily criticized Bragg’s decision to pursue the Trump case, noting that the Justice Department looked into the matter and didn’t charge the former president over the same allegations regarding a 2016 hush-money payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels.
Instead, Jordan is billing it as a hearing to examine Bragg’s “pro-crime, anti-victim policies” and tie them to an uptick of violent crime across New York City. GOP sources tell us that they’re considering whether they will invite Adams and Bragg to testify.
That’s a tricky political calculus. If Republicans do invite the mayor and DA, the two sides will engage in front of TV cameras — which is perhaps what they both want.
Jordan, though, will have to consider the prospect that city officials could score serious points against the GOP in a very public way. If they don’t extend an invite, it will look like they’re holding a hearing without inviting two key figures in the drama.
Bragg responded Monday to the hearing, suggesting Jordan travel instead to Columbus, Ohio, which has a higher murder rate than New York.
The hearing is scheduled to take place at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on Monday at 9 a.m.
– Max Cohen, Jake Sherman and Mica Soellner
THE LEAK LATEST
Congress gears up to probe damaging Pentagon leaks
News: Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are planning to ask the Biden administration for “all-member” briefings on a series of stunning intelligence leaks detailing how the United States government spies on adversaries and allies alike.
The leak of these Pentagon documents, which includes highly classified information about the war in Ukraine, began surfacing online weeks ago. But the scope of the leak is only now becoming fully realized, roiling both the intelligence community and Capitol Hill.
Several oversight bodies are demanding information about the disclosures and what’s being done to mitigate them. The Justice Department has already opened a criminal probe as Biden administration officials struggle to find the source of the leak while also completing damage assessments.
Yet the hugely embarrassing revelations from the leaks keep making headlines in Washington and across the globe. The Washington Post reported on Monday that Egypt — a key U.S. ally in the Middle East — planned to supply Russia with rockets to use against Ukrainian forces. And the AP disclosed that Russian intelligence officials “had convinced the oil-rich United Arab Emirates ‘to work together against US and UK intelligence agencies,’” according to a leaked document.
On the Senate side, the Armed Services and Intelligence panels have asked for briefings and are expected to receive updates beginning this week, according to multiple sources. Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) is “tracking this issue closely,” said a panel spokesperson.
“The Department of Defense and other agencies have launched investigations, and the Senate Armed Service Committee expects to be fully briefed on the Pentagon’s investigation as it proceeds,” the spokesperson added. “Chairman Reed remains focused on supporting and sustaining the international effort to aid Ukraine in its fight to repel Russia’s illegal invasion.”
The implications here are massive. The disclosure of this type of information could compromise sensitive sources and methods for intelligence gathering, a phrase you hear often when government officials discuss the process for declassifying certain information.
Here’s a joint statement from House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut
It’s a nightmare scenario for U.S. intelligence agencies, which could have to alter — or pull back entirely — some of their operations worldwide as a result. The leaked documents reportedly show, for example, how deeply the United States has infiltrated Russian government entities and could put human sources in grave danger.
“Any breach of classified material is serious, especially when sources and methods are identified,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said. “I urge the administration to investigate and move swiftly to identify the leaker and take appropriate action. The administration must also brief Congress on the security implications of this leak.”
To give you a sense of how scary this is for the White House, John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said “we truly don’t” know if the leak has been contained or if there will be more disclosures. Kirby added that President Joe Biden was first briefed on it late last week.
The Coverage:
| → | NYT: “Amid Furor, Seoul Downplays Leaked Pentagon Documents,” by Choe Sang-Hun in Seoul |
| → | WaPo: “U.S. doubts Ukraine counteroffensive will yield big gains, leaked document says,” by Alex Horton, John Hudson, Isabelle Khurshudyan in Kyiv and Samuel Oakford |
— Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan
PUNCHBOWL NEWS NEWS
We have a new member of our team!
Robert O’Shaughnessy has joined Punchbowl News as an editorial web producer.
There are a few things that we need to say about Robert. No. 1: He is from the great state of Connecticut. No. 2: He went to GW. We have a founder who is very interested in those two dynamics.
Robert joins us from Federal News Network, where he was the digital editor. We’re thrilled to welcome him to the team!
PRESENTED BY BAYER
VIDEO: Missed our event? Check out Punchbowl News’ conversation with Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Bayer’s Yesmean Wahdan, MD on women’s access to care.
DOWNTOWN DOWNLOAD
Porterfield, Fettig & Sears will announce the National Brain Tumor Society as a new client this week. It’s a break from the firm’s primary focus on financial services and commerce.
The cause is a personal passion for Jeremy Rabinovitz, a senior executive vice president at PFS who previously served as chief of staff for Democratic members including former Reps. Walter Capps (Calif.) and Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.). Rabinovitz’s daughter Rachel was diagnosed with brain cancer in early 2021. “Rachel’s Racers” helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars with the NBTS before Rachel passed away in December 2021.
PFS’ lobbying for the cancer charity will center around “finding cures and treatments for brain tumors and improving quality of life for patients,” according to a disclosure to be filed later this week.
– Brendan Pedersen
… AND THERE’S MORE
| → | Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) has donors gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for his eighth annual Palm Springs retreat. |
| → | One of our favorite pastimes: Looking at former members who still have a ton in the bank. Former Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) — the father of Joe Kennedy III — has just over $1 million in the bank. The campaign took in $53,497 from investments with Goldman Sachs. |
| → | House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) raised more than $960,000 for his campaign committees in the first quarter of 2023. Steil’s campaign committee has over $2.2 million cash on hand. Steil raised $825,000 for his own campaign, $125,000 for the Steil Victory Fund and $40,000 into his leadership fund, which he uses to help elect conservative candidates in Wisconsin and elsewhere. |
| → | Former Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.), who lost his primary after voting to impeach Donald Trump, donated $500 from his reelection account to the Forward Party. The Forward Party is a centrist group run by Andrew Yang. |
– Jake Sherman and Mica Soellner
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