The Archive

JUDICIARY WATCH

Jim Jordan vs. NYC

We’re on the ground in New York today where the House Judiciary Committee is holding a field hearing on what Republicans claim is a rampant crime wave in the Big Apple. But the real issue here is former President Donald Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury following a long probe by DA Alvin Bragg.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is trying to portray Bragg and Democrats as being soft on crime.

The numbers show a more nuanced story than what House Republicans are asserting. Violent crimes, such as murders and shootings, have been dropping in New York City every month this year, according to the NYPD. Overall crime is about the same as last year.

Bragg has described the panel’s hearing as a “political stunt” and has defended New York City as the “safest big city in America.”

NYC Mayor Eric Adams and Rep. Jerry Nadler (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee — whose district includes Manhattan — will hold a press conference early this morning. There’s bound to be lots of Jordan bashing and comparisons to the crime rates in GOP members’ districts.

The flashpoint remains the clash between Jordan and Bragg over the district attorney’s investigations — and recent indictment — of Trump. Bragg is also suing Jordan, a vocal Trump ally, over what he says are the Ohio Republican’s improper attempt to interfere with the ongoing criminal probe into Trump.

Neither Bragg nor Adams are scheduled to attend the hearing. Instead, Republicans have invited several witnesses to testify about their personal experiences being targets of violent crime in the city. Robert Holden, a Democratic member of the New York City Council, is also scheduled to testify and will blame Bragg and Adams for rising crime.

Judiciary Democrats will also be in Manhattan after skipping the committee’s last field hearing on the southern border.

Special guests include House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.). Goldman represents the district in which the hearing will be held. Republicans argued that Stefanik, another staunch Trump defender, should attend since the hearing is in her home state.

We’ll keep you covered on all the political turmoil happening in the Big Apple.

Oppo watch: Liberal outside group Facts First USA compiled a fact sheet taking aim at two of the GOP witnesses. The document features social media postings where the witnesses traffic in conspiracy theories, such as speculating whether the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was staged.

— Mica Soellner and Max Cohen

THE SENATE

Senate schedule packed as McConnell returns

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was back in the Capitol on Friday for the first time since early March — and later today, he’ll return to a Senate that has a lot on its plate.

We expect McConnell to dive right back into his normal routine, beginning with floor remarks later this evening when the Senate convenes following a two-week recess. McConnell will also be back to running the GOP leadership stakeout on Tuesday.

It’ll be an important week for the GOP leader to quash speculation about his future. The 81-year-old McConnell has routinely said he’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so we expect McConnell to do everything he can to show that a fall at a D.C. hotel last month — and the resulting concussion and rib fracture — won’t deter him.

With that in mind, it’ll be an absolutely packed week for the Senate on a number of fronts. Top of mind for senators will be the effort by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to temporarily replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on the Judiciary Committee while she remains at home recovering from shingles.

In many ways, this is uncharted territory for the Senate. They aren’t moving to fill a vacancy created by a death or a resignation. Democrats are essentially asking Republicans to allow them to advance President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees to the Senate floor. Feinstein’s extended absence has prevented as many as 14 pending nominees from getting a committee vote.

Schumer will have to offer an updated organizing resolution that names a new Democratic senator to the Judiciary Committee. Of course, it takes consent from all 100 senators to fast-track such a change. If not, Schumer will need to secure 60 votes to pass it.

Schumer told us this over the weekend: “I spoke with Sen. Feinstein and she hopes to be back soon.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has signaled he isn’t interested in helping Democrats fill the vacancy. Remember: Just one senator can drag this thing out.

Schumer looks to squeeze Republicans: The majority leader said he plans to put forward a resolution this week condemning former President Donald Trump’s calls to “defund” federal law enforcement in the wake of his indictment. The goal here, of course, is to force GOP senators into a politically difficult vote.

Classified briefing on doc leaks: All senators will attend a classified briefing on Wednesday at 3 p.m. to hear from senior administration officials about the massive leak of top-secret Pentagon documents. Jack Teixeira, a National Guardsman in Massachusetts, has been charged with the unauthorized disclosure. Lawmakers from both parties have demanded information on the scope of the leak and what’s being done to mitigate the risks to national security.

Julie Su’s uphill battle: Biden’s pick for Labor secretary will appear before the HELP Committee for her confirmation hearing on Thursday, and it’s not looking promising for the White House. Su won’t get a single Republican vote, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has publicly expressed doubt about her for the role. Manchin, though, hasn’t taken a formal position yet.

Clarence Thomas and SCOTUS ethics: Democrats are previewing an aggressive effort to crack down on Supreme Court ethics violations. According to ProPublica, Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted lavish gifts from billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow and even sold a property to Crow — none of which he disclosed.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a hearing on the issue in the coming days, according to Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). The panel’s Democrats have already called on Chief Justice John Roberts to investigate Thomas. In a recent letter to Roberts, the Democratic senators said that “if the Court does not resolve this issue on its own, the Committee will consider legislation to resolve it.”

— Andrew Desiderio

BANKING BULLETIN

Senators leap into the fight over banks’ late fees

The banking industry’s war on a Biden administration proposal to limit late fees is heating up as Congress returns this week. Senators on both sides of the aisle are stepping into the fray.

Some news: Last week, Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee sent a letter to Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, criticizing the proposal. Read the full letter here.

We wrote about the administration’s push to limit banks’ use of fees back in February. The proposal to cap most banks’ late fees at $8 could cut those industry profits from $12 billion to $3 billion a year, according to the CFPB.

The letter accuses the CFPB of pursuing “an unfair initiative targeting standard fees charged by credit providers that included reasonable payment incentive mechanisms.”

Signed by nine GOP senators on the Banking Committee, Republicans are echoing a core industry argument: Late fees are common practice that generate income from customers who don’t pay off their debt on time, while other costs, like higher APRs, can affect everyone.

But Republicans aren’t operating unopposed here.

More news: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is circulating a letter that asks for data from the top credit-card issuing banks, including how much it costs the firms to collect late fees. (The CFPB proposal would let banks charge higher fees if they can prove they’re in line with collection costs.)

The letters will be sent to JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Capital One, PNC, USAA, US Bancorp, American Express and Discover. Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Warren said, “An army of lobbyists for credit card companies is fighting against having to justify unreasonable late fees because it would save American consumers up to $9 billion a year.”

Speaking of lobbyists: All this is happening as industry groups including the American Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute and Consumer Bankers Association step up their efforts to oppose the rule.

The trade groups are publishing multi-part blog posts and commissioning polls to gauge and generate support for late fees. A not-yet-released Morning Consult survey commissioned by the ABA, for instance, found that 55% of consumers would oppose the CFPB’s proposal “if it resulted in higher interest rates for those who pay their bills on time.”

That outcome isn’t a given, to be clear. Many large banks have limited their use of pricey overdraft fees in the last few years after policymaker scrutiny. We haven’t seen much evidence that banks have had to crank up costs of other services as a result.

But credit card late fees represent a bigger pool of money than overdrafts. The financial stakes are higher for the sector in this fight, and the long-term effects of a regulatory crackdown can be tough to predict.

We still don’t expect this lobbying blitz to stop the CFPB from finalizing this proposal in some form later this year. The Biden administration firmly believes its broader push against “junk fees” — its term for extraneous charges from airlines, hotels, internet providers and more — is a winning issue.

– Brendan Pedersen

The week ahead in investigations

Congress is back and the oversight action is heating up.

Alvin Bragg: One date we had marked on our calendar — April 20 — likely won’t be as consequential. That was the day Mark Pomerantz, the former special prosecutor in the NYC investigation of Donald Trump, was supposed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. But Chair Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) subpoena is caught up in a court challenge, with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg suing in an effort to invalidate the move.

The deadline for Matthew Colangelo, a senior counsel for the New York County District Attorney’s Office and a former DOJ official, to produce documents to the Judiciary Committee is still April 21.

Afghanistan: Expect to hear more about the classified after-action reports the Biden administration circulated to relevant committees earlier this month. As the reports were released during recess, many members haven’t had a chance to view them in a secure location.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is holding a hearing Wednesday on the Afghanistan withdrawal. Comer is bringing the inspectors general from the Defense Department, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development to testify, as well as the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

— Max Cohen

MOMENTS

9:30 a.m.: President Joe Biden will get his daily intelligence briefing.

6 p.m.: Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and other House Republicans will hold a news conference marking their 100 days in the majority. The event will be on the upper west terrace of the Capitol.

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