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THE TOP
Happy Friday morning.
Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday night that he’s been indicted on federal criminal charges in the classified documents scandal. The New York Times reports the charges include willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Trump is scheduled to appear in a Miami federal court on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.
Trump is the first former president to be indicted on federal criminal charges. He’s also facing 34 felony charges in New York City related to an alleged 2016 hush money payment to former porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all counts in that case.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins did an interview with Trump lawyer Jim Trusty Thursday night. Trusty called the charges “ludicrous” and “a kind of crazy stretch.” Trump’s campaign also released several statements, including a lengthy attack on special counsel Jack Smith. Another focus for Trump’s defense team is Jay Bratt, a federal prosecutor, over his interaction with the lawyer for Trump’s valet.
In addition to the criminal cases, Trump is the subject of two ongoing investigations in Washington and Georgia related to efforts to subvert the 2020 election and the subsequent Jan. 6 insurrection.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) were among a wave of Republicans releasing statements defending Trump, bashing the Justice Department or calling for President Joe Biden’s impeachment. Senate GOP leaders, on the other hand, were largely silent.
We’ll have much more on Capitol Hill’s reaction to this blockbuster news.
On Congress and governing: We wanted to take a moment this morning to put the current strife among House Republicans into a wider context.
Even after Speaker Kevin McCarthy resolves the current House stalemate, he has a lot more work to do.
Conventional wisdom holds that the debt-limit fight was the apex of high-stakes legislating for the 118th Congress. But that’s not exactly right.
Congress has a host of major legislative deadlines looming on Sept. 30, creating a big policy cliff that will require focus from Hill leaders and flexibility from the rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties — if that’s possible.
Check out what’s on the must-do list, in no particular order.
No. 1: The Federal Aviation Administration’s reauthorization. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 was a rare and hard-fought five-year extension of aviation policy. This year, there will be fights on everything from the modernization of the FAA, to certifying new aircrafts, to one of our favorite issues to cover — the push to relax the flight perimeter for Washington Reagan National Airport. The DCA fight pits Delta Air Lines against United Airlines and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Delta is in favor of relaxing the perimeter, while United and the MWAA are staunchly opposed.
There are also programs such as Essential Air Service, which provides funding for airports in small communities, and this is always a point of some contention.
No. 2: The farm bill. Where do we even start here? Despite its relatively modest name, passage of a five-year farm bill is one of the most consequential pieces of legislation Congress considers. It sets government policy on everything from SNAP to crops to broadband in rural areas to biofuels.
This bill used to be carried by a rare union of urban-area Democrats and farm-state Republicans, although that alliance has frayed in recent years. But this legislation is full of controversial provisions and will take a whole lot of work and a whole lot of compromise to get through the chamber.
No. 3: The Coast Guard. Yes, the Coast Guard’s programs need to be reauthorized. The last time Congress did this was in 2018 when it passed the Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act. This covers everything from Arctic programs to tidal and current measurement functions.
No. 4: Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act. How timely is this? The nation’s pandemic policy is up for renewal at the end of September. BARDA, which we all became familiar with during Covid-19, the CDC and the strategic national stockpile are all dealt with in this legislation.
This will be an opportunity for conservatives looking to limit some activities of the CDC and other federal health authorities. Others will look to expand pandemic preparedness in the wake of Covid.
No. 5: Government funding. Last but certainly not least, the federal government runs out of money on Sept. 30, which is 113 days from now. There will be fights over spending levels for FY2024 despite passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which set budget caps for the next two years. House GOP conservatives want to go below the caps that McCarthy agreed to with Democrats. McCarthy seems open to that, although that will never fly with the Democrats. There will be policy fights over the FBI, DOJ, IRS and the border.
— Jake Sherman
Reminder: Next week on Thursday, June 15 at 9 a.m. ET, join us as Punchbowl News Managing Editor Heather Caygle interviews Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) about healthcare innovation and the future of cancer research following the Inflation Reduction Act. RSVP here to join us in person or on the livestream.
PUNCHBOWL NEWS x U.S. SOCCER FOUNDATION
NEW: Join us on Tuesday, June 13 when our Congressional Reporter Max Cohen will provide sideline reporting during the Congressional Soccer Match at 7:30 p.m ET at Audi Field. This event is presented by the U.S. Soccer Foundation. For more information and tickets, please visit here.
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ETHICS REPORT
News: House Ethics Committee quietly restarts Gaetz probe
The House Ethics Committee has restarted an investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the latest legal problem for the controversial Florida Republican, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The secretive panel hasn’t decided yet whether to move ahead with a special investigative subcommittee. That would require a vote by the Ethics Committee members and would be publicly disclosed.
But committee investigators have begun looking into the allegations surrounding the fourth-term lawmaker, we’re told.
The Justice Department told Gaetz’s lawyers earlier this year that he wouldn’t be charged in a federal sex trafficking investigation involving underage girls. Gaetz long denied any wrongdoing, including when his friend and political ally Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty as part of the federal probe. Greenberg was later sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The Ethics Committee announced in April 2021 that it had begun a preliminary probe into Gaetz. Here’s former Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), who were chair and ranking member of the Ethics Committee at that time:
“The Committee is aware of public allegations that Representative Matt Gaetz may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”
But the Ethics Committee later disclosed that it had deferred its investigation at the request of the Justice Department. The panel also noted it wasn’t finished with Gaetz either.
Which leads to the current situation. Since DOJ didn’t charge Gaetz and is no longer scrutinizing him, the Ethics Committee is free to conduct its own investigation.
Gaetz’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on Thursday night.
The Florida Republican has been at the center of an ongoing standoff with Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the GOP leadership in the wake of the debt-limit crisis.
Gaetz, 41, was also one of the most vocal opponents to McCarthy’s ascension to the speaker’s chair during January’s grueling 15-vote floor drama.
— John Bresnahan and Jake Shernan
THE SENATE
Not just the House as Senate GOP sniping post-debt-limit fight, too
House Republicans aren’t the only ones feuding with each other after last week’s debt-limit vote.
There’s bad blood among GOP senators, too. Some Republican senators are openly deriding GOP colleagues over their posture toward the debt-limit agreement reached between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden.
Just 17 out of 49 Senate Republicans voted for the bill, and many withheld their “no” votes until seeing that the bill had already cleared the 60-vote threshold. This “vote no, hope yes” caucus is growing within the Senate GOP, and many aren’t taking kindly to it.
“I worry that this experience in this last week tells me that what plagues the House has come over to the Senate. It seems that some Republicans don’t want a Republican speaker; they want a Republican king,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who strongly backed the debt-limit bill. “I just see way too much of, ‘I had to vote no because I’m going to go on Sean Hannity later and it’s easier to explain.’”
Cramer believes the debt-limit agreement was the best Republicans could have hoped for when Democrats control the Senate and White House. He sees GOP detractors as employing “a lack of seriousness or gross opportunism” for empowering McCarthy to negotiate with Biden but then turning on the speaker.
“Too many members have decided that what’s best for me is what’s more important than what’s best for the country, or for that matter, the party.”
To be sure, many of the Senate Republicans who opposed the debt-limit bill did so because they believe the defense spending cap of $886 billion is too low.
“I did not support the bill on the debt ceiling for this very reason — I am very, very concerned about the cap on defense, and just not for Ukraine,” said Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.).
The Senate’s conservative hardliners, whose ranks have only grown following the last few elections, are the same senators who previously argued that GOP leaders spent the first two years of Biden’s presidency enabling Democratic victories on issues such as infrastructure and microchip funding.
And to many of them, the debt-limit bill was another example of their leadership getting it wrong.
“That was a pretty firm rebuke, particularly when… you had our own leadership very vigorously, vocally in favor of the debt ceiling bill, and whipping it hard. And yet they only got, was it 17 of us? I mean, that’s not a good number,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told us. “Leadership will have to speak to their ability to whip votes. But on this particular issue, obviously you had deep unease over the contours of the deal.”
Senate Minority Whip John Thune said he doesn’t think the debt-limit vote was indicative of a broader problem within the GOP conference. And Thune rebuffed suggestions that the result was a poor reflection on Republican leadership, noting that they weren’t at the negotiating table and simply had to pass what the White House and House Republicans agreed to.
“Debt-limit votes are probably not the best indicators of unity within our conference. I think our conference on the issues of spending and debt and taxes and regulations, everything else, is very united,” Thune told us, noting that even under Republican presidents, it’s difficult to achieve GOP unity on raising the debt limit.
But it will take broad bipartisan cooperation to meet the myriad legislative deadlines we detailed above. And with the Senate GOP conference shifting decidedly rightward in the Trump era, this will become increasingly difficult.
“Hopefully people will understand that if we want to be a governing majority, we’ve got to produce results,” Thune said. “And that means, when push comes to shove, delivering the votes that are necessary to get solutions in place.”
— Andrew Desiderio
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THE BUREAU
FBI HQ faces new threat from McCarthy
The FBI was in the headlines this week when Director Christopher Wray narrowly avoided facing contempt of Congress proceedings. But there’s trouble brewing on another, more consequential front for the bureau: Funding for its new headquarters.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy sent the clearest message yet that he disapproved of both the price tag and the vision for a proposed new FBI HQ that Maryland and Virginia are vying to host.
“Why does it have to be based here?” McCarthy told reporters this week, instead suggesting the resources would be better spent in FBI field offices. “I think it would actually be better across the country. I think it will help solve more crime,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy also took a shot at the massive cost of the project, claiming that adjusted for inflation, the amount set aside for the new FBI headquarters would eclipse what it cost to build the Pentagon.
“They’re requesting billions of dollars. I don’t think the FBI should be designed like a Pentagon,” McCarthy stated.
These are significant comments as the House looks ahead to the appropriations process later. For months, right-wing lawmakers have threatened to ax funding for the FBI HQ due to displeasure with the bureau’s leadership and a perceived political bias against conservatives.
McCarthy’s comments are the strongest sign yet that this sentiment is shared by leadership. And with the House currently ground to a halt due to angst from far-right members, McCarthy may be even more inclined to cede to demands like this from his conservative flank.
One group who is incensed by McCarthy’s comments? The Maryland and Virginia delegations.
As we’ve documented extensively, the two mid-Atlantic states are locked in a battle over who will host the new headquarters and benefit from federal funding and new jobs. But lawmakers from both states were united in scoffing at McCarthy’s opposition to a deal.
“This thing has been 15 years in the making and so it’s pretty late for somebody to come in and try to derail it,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told us. “I do follow some of the anti-FBI animus on the other side, but we want to have a functioning, effective agency and making them stay in a substandard space is not the way to accomplish anybody’s goal.”
A common thread among the DMV lawmakers was a focus on the decrepit FBI HQ in D.C. The status quo of the falling-apart Hoover Building can’t continue, lawmakers repeatedly said to us.
“I hope that the sort of MAGA right-wing attacks on the FBI don’t translate into denying the men and the women of the FBI a new headquarters to help their mission,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
— Max Cohen
PUNCHBOWL NEWS EVENTS
Missed our pop-up conversation with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on national security and foreign relations Thursday? Click below to watch the full video.
AND THERE’S MORE…
The New Democrat Coalition is backing Rep. Lou Correa’s (D-Calif.) bid to be the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee. The slot has opened following former Rep. David Cicilline’s (D-R.I.) retirement. We reported earlier this week on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ endorsement of Correa’s candidacy.
Three Democratic campaign groups are releasing a memo arguing House Democrats have emerged from the debt-limit situation in a stronger position to reclaim the House. Here’s a crucial line: “Frontline Democrats running for reelection next year will now be able to say that they voted for the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act that will cut $2.1 trillion in spending over the next six years.”
— Max Cohen
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MOMENTS
10 a.m.: The Bidens will leave the White House for Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, N.C.
1:10 p.m.: The Bidens will tour Nash Community College in Rocky Mount, N.C.
1:30 p.m.: The Bidens will “discuss how career-connected learning and workforce training programs are preparing students for good-paying jobs in North Carolina.”
2:40 p.m.: The Bidens will leave for Fort Liberty, where they will meet with service members and their families.
8:05 p.m.: The Bidens will leave North Carolina for Joint Base Andrews. They’ll arrive at the White House at around 9:45 p.m.
Editorial photos provided by Getty Images.
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