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August 10, 2023
Presented by AARP
48 million family caregivers give everything to help older loved ones. They give time and energy, too often giving up their jobs and paying over $7,000 a year out of pocket. With a new Congress, it’s time to act on the Credit for Caring tax credit.
PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Thursday morning.
Tucked inside a memo released by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on Wednesday is one of the clearest signs yet that a potential House GOP impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is coming this fall.
“President Biden’s Family is the Vehicle to Receive Bribery Payments,” Oversight Republicans asserted on the third page of the memo, which detailed “over $20 million” in payments from foreign oligarchs to shell companies controlled by Hunter Biden and his business associates.
It’s a stunning claim for Comer to make, and it isn’t backed up by evidence of any bribe given to Joe Biden — at least none seen so far. Yet the repeated allegations by Comer against Biden show the direction House Republicans are moving in on an impeachment inquiry.
Up to this point, Republicans haven’t tied any official actions by Biden as vice president to the money received by Hunter Biden, other family members or their business associates. The Republicans’ basic thrust is that there has to be corruption or something illegal going on because it all seems so sordid.
Here’s Comer to us on July 25 when pressed on whether the president was corrupt:
Comer now asserts that it isn’t necessary to find a payment directly to Biden, even though the June 2020 FBI internal document that Comer subpoenaed alleges a $5 million payment to the then vice president by an official with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Hunter Biden was on the board of that company. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) publicly released the FBI document last month.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who called for a Biden impeachment inquiry and then backed off — tweeted this Wednesday:
McCarthy is lumping together several issues here — the money paid to Hunter Biden and his associates; Hunter Biden’s stalled plea agreement for two federal tax violations plus a gun charge; and the criminal indictments of former President Donald Trump.
We’ll note that Trump called for Biden’s impeachment and said he’d back primary challengers to those House GOP lawmakers who don’t vote for it, which makes McCarthy’s statement somewhat more problematic.
The White House and Democrats are very aware of the new argument by Oversight Republicans. They accuse Comer of “now explicitly moving the goalposts” in his Biden investigation. Their take — which goes partially unsaid — is that as bad as this looks for the Bidens, nothing that’s been uncovered is illegal, improper or impeachment-worthy.
Here’s Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations:
Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), top Democrat on Oversight panel, said “Republicans have repeatedly twisted and mischaracterized the evidence in a transparent and increasingly embarrassing attempt to justify their baseless calls for an impeachment inquiry and distract from former President Trump’s dozens of outstanding felony criminal charges in three different cases.”
Biden was asked by Fox News’ Peter Doocy about Devon Archer’s testimony to the Oversight Committee that the then vice president took part in numerous phone calls with Hunter Biden’s clients during a Wednesday appearance in New Mexico. A testy Biden called it a “lousy question” and then denied the “talking business” part of the inquiry.
“I never talked business with anybody,” Biden said. “And I knew you’d have a lousy question.”
Doocy pushed back, asking Biden “What makes it a lousy question?”
“Because it’s not true,” Biden responded.
Comer later went on Newsmax to bash Sams, the White House spokesperson — “He’s not the most flattering person I’ve ever seen” — and the Bidens.
“Joe Biden was the brand,” Comer said, adding that Hunter Biden and his business associates “didn’t do anything like a normal business.”
“They peddled Joe Biden’s butt to our adversaries around the world and took millions and millions of dollars,” Comer insisted. “The American people see corruption here and they want something done about it.”
— John Bresnahan and Max Cohen
FUNDING FIGHT
White House readies new Ukraine, disaster relief funding request
The White House is expected to formally ask Congress later today to provide new funding for Ukraine and disaster-relief programs, setting up yet another appropriations fight on the Hill come September.
As we scooped in Wednesday’s PM edition, the White House will seek supplemental funding totaling $12 billion for disaster relief and $13 billion for defense-related priorities — principally, the war in Ukraine. That puts the price tag for this package above $25 billion, with the exact figure still fluctuating ahead of the official release.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have already publicly committed to backing votes on a supplemental funding package that includes both foreign and domestic emergency spending. This would allow lawmakers to skirt the budget caps that were agreed to as part of the recent debt-limit deal.
Schumer and McConnell made that pledge after Senate GOP defense hawks raised concerns that President Joe Biden’s budget-caps deal with Speaker Kevin McCarthy significantly underfunded the Pentagon, at least in their view. So getting this through the Senate shouldn’t be an issue, although the upper chamber has little floor time to spare this fall.
But it’s far from certain that the House will approve Biden’s forthcoming request. McCarthy has said he won’t support going above the agreed-upon spending caps for defense, and his conference is filled with Ukraine skeptics. Last month, 70 House Republicans voted to cut off aid for Ukraine.
Given the likelihood that Congress will need to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded past Sept. 30, the supplemental funding bill could hitch a ride on any short-term spending bill. This would allow both chambers to more efficiently process the legislation, and it could mitigate some of the political risks McCarthy faces in putting the supplemental on the floor as a standalone.
Already, some lawmakers are publicizing their demands for the supplemental. Vermont’s congressional delegation, for example, is calling on Biden to include robust funding to help their state recover from a recent spate of historic flooding. A broader group of New England senators issued a similar plea on Wednesday.
— Andrew Desiderio
WYOMING WATCH
Inside McCarthy’s Jackson Hole retreat
Speaker Kevin McCarthy is hosting more than 300 major donors at his annual retreat next week in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and we have all the details.
This retreat — Aug. 14-16 — will be the most widely attended one that McCarthy has hosted. He first held this event in 2019.
Here are the details:
McCarthy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik will give a legislative update. Rep. John James (R-Mich.) will moderate.
McCarthy will give a political update with NRCC Chair Richard Hudson and Congressional Leadership Fund President Dan Conston.
Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), Julia Letlow (R-La.) and Max Miller (R-Ohio) will give a briefing on artificial intelligence.
Stephen Moore, Lanhee Chen and Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) will host a panel on the state of the economy.
Also expected to be in attendance: House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas). RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and California Republican Party Chair Jessica Patterson will also be at the retreat.
— Jake Sherman
INVESTIGATION NATION
McCaul escalates Afghanistan subpoena fight with State
News: House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) is demanding the State Department make two top officials available for transcribed interviews to explain why State hasn’t complied with a subpoena from his panel.
Last month, McCaul subpoenaed a tranche of documents that State Department officials used to develop its after-action review of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. But according to McCaul, State has produced “only a meager 73 pages of significantly duplicative materials.”
In a new letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, McCaul is requesting interviews with Naz Durakoğlu, assistant secretary for State’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs, and Richard Visek, acting legal adviser for State’s Office of the Legal Adviser, by Aug. 21.
“The Department’s anemic subpoena response suggests that it is either deliberately obstructing the Committee’s oversight, or that its document retention, location, and production procedures are astoundingly deficient,” McCaul wrote. “Neither is acceptable.”
State Department spokesperson Matt Miller strongly pushed back on McCaul’s claims, saying McCaul “has conveniently left out the thousands of pages of documents related to Afghanistan we have already turned over” and State’s commitment to provide additional information on a rolling basis.
“The State Department continues to seek a productive partnership with the committee — a task made harder by the Chairman’s tendency to threaten first and seek evidence second,” Miller said. “We will continue to work through his multiple requests, but the constant shifting of his demands only lessens our ability to deliver the information he claims to desire.”
McCaul also spelled out a number of specific documents, cited in the after-action review, that he’s requesting access to by Aug. 16. In the letter, McCaul expressed deep frustration with what he described as consistent roadblocks set by State officials to his queries for the documents.
McCaul and Blinken have clashed a number of times this Congress over the Texas Republican’s investigation of the pullout from Afghanistan two years ago. In the spring, McCaul almost held Blinken in contempt of Congress for a failure to hand over a dissent cable written by Kabul embassy officials.
The Foreign Affairs investigation is seen as one of the more credible probes into the Biden administration this Congress. Few consider the way the United States ended its long presence in Afghanistan — marred by the suicide bombing that killed 13 American servicemembers — a success.
Interestingly, McCaul isn’t threatening to hold Blinken in contempt over this latest documents dispute. The Texas Republican had hinted at this step when speaking to us before recess.
— Max Cohen
PRESENTED BY FUEL CELL & HYDROGEN ENERGY ASSOCIATION
America needs clean, domestic hydrogen to reach our goals.
Additionality would put an unnecessary and inequitable burden on producers.
THE MONEY GAME
While Senate Democrats are facing a brutal map in 2024, one positive for the party is that their vulnerable incumbents have distinct brands. One prime example of this is Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who sent out a recent fundraising email with the subject line: “I love being a farmer.”
Tester notes in the fundraising appeal that because he’ll be working on his farm all month, he has a lot less time to raise money than his opponents. This isn’t something you hear from a lot of senators running in the most competitive race of their lives. But that’s Tester.
Check out the email below, featuring some pea harvest details.
— Max Cohen
PRESENTED BY FUEL CELL & HYDROGEN ENERGY ASSOCIATION
Don’t let additionality set back clean hydrogen. Learn more.
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Presented by AARP
48 million family caregivers give everything to help older loved ones. They give time and energy, too often giving up their jobs and paying over $7,000 a year out of pocket. With a new Congress, it’s time to act on the Credit for Caring tax credit.