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August 4, 2023
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PRESENTED BY
THE TOP
Happy Friday morning.
Former President Donald Trump — fresh off his arraignment in a D.C. federal court for trying to overturn the 2020 election — will be in Alabama today. Trump is headlining the Alabama Republican Party’s summer dinner in Montgomery. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and nearly the entire GOP congressional delegation will be there. Republican Sen. Katie Britt will miss the event due to a health issue, but her husband and parents will attend, according to a party spokesperson.
Trump won Alabama by huge margins in both 2016 and 2020, so it isn’t surprising that Republicans there want to be seen with the former president no matter what charges he faces.
Yet looking nationally, there seems to be very little fallout inside the party for Trump from this latest criminal case, despite the seriousness of the charges. Those Republicans who were with Trump before this latest indictment are still with him, while those who broke with the former president are more convinced than ever that it was the right move.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy — whose angry call with Trump during the Jan. 6 insurrection is mentioned in the indictment — both defended the former president and lashed out at President Joe Biden during a press conference in Clovis, Calif., Wednesday.
McCarthy referred repeatedly during his 25-minute press conference to the Hunter Biden criminal case, as well as the testimony this week by Devon Archer, the younger Biden’s former business partner, before the House Oversight Committee.
“It just seems to me that if you’re part of ‘Biden Inc.,’ you gotta pay to play,” McCarthy said when asked about the Trump arraignment, which he didn’t follow. “And now you’ve got a federal government that lets you off on it, and everybody else gets treated differently.”
McCarthy also echoed Trump’s assertion that the Justice Department is attempting to criminalize his First Amendment rights to complain about the election outcome.
We’re not sure about that argument — we were in the Capitol on Jan. 6 — but McCarthy’s comments give us an opportunity to update everyone on the status of the various Biden administration-related probes by House Republicans.
The Biden family investigation: House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has insisted his probe is squarely focused on Biden and not the president’s family. But if Biden is impeached by House Republicans, this will be where it starts.
The GOP charge, which is yet to be proven, is that Biden is involved in his family’s foreign business dealings, compromising national security.
The panel notched a major success this week when Archer testified that the then-vice president spoke multiple times with his son’s business partners. This showed that the link between Biden and his son’s ventures is closer than the president had indicated.
But there have been a number of swings and misses to date. Republicans have strongly touted an unverified FBI tip sheet that alleged the Burisma CEO paid millions of dollars in bribes to Hunter and Joe Biden. So far, there’s no evidence backing this up, and Archer told the committee this week he knew nothing about this allegation.
Archer also said Biden never discussed business matters while on the phone with his son, merely making small talk instead.
Comer has struggled to corral some of the more controversial members of his committee. A recent example came during an otherwise productive hearing featuring two IRS whistleblowers who claimed Justice Department officials interfered in their probe of Hunter Biden. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), however, grabbed headlines when she displayed nude pictures of Hunter engaging in sex acts, which isn’t where the leadership wanted to go.
Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has also played a role by taking the lead on the testimony of the IRS special agents who investigated Hunter Biden’s taxes.
Yet a key claim made by the two whistleblowers has been undercut by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney investigating Hunter.
Alejandro Mayorkas impeachment: What once seemed the House Republican Conference’s clearest route to an impeachment has been pushed to the back burner as the Biden impeachment inquiry looms.
Led by House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the GOP has slammed the DHS secretary repeatedly for allegedly failing to enforce border laws.
But Green’s multi-step process to compile a report into Mayorkas’ perceived failings has slowed this summer. Initially, Green said he wanted to complete his investigation by the end of the summer. Now, the report is set to wrap up around October.
As the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border has improved somewhat recently, the GOP attacks on Mayorkas have lost some of their luster. And with the acknowledgment that the House will likely only have the appetite for a single impeachment this Congress, Mayorkas may avoid being the fall guy.
Jordan’s subpoena-fest: As chair of both the Judiciary Committee and the Weaponization of the Federal Government subcommittee, Jordan has sent a flurry of subpoenas to a wide variety of actors — by far the most of any other chair this Congress.
Jordan has taken aim at FBI Director Christopher Wray, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, FTC Chair Lina Khan and many others.
Yet it’s Jordan’s probes of Attorney General Merrick Garland and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg that have had the greatest impact on this Congress.
Jordan — among Trump’s most vocal defenders in Congress — has sought to portray Garland’s DOJ as a political tool of the Biden administration.
— Max Cohen and John Bresnahan
TRUMP CASE
House Dems call for Trump trials on TV
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and nearly three dozen other House Democrats are calling on top judiciary branch officials to allow the federal criminal trials of former President Donald Trump to be publicly broadcast, arguing that it’s in the nation’s best interests to do so.
In a letter to Judge Roslynn Mauskopf, who serves as secretary to the Judicial Conference — the policymaking arm of the federal courts — the Democratic lawmakers called on the group of senior federal judges to “explicitly authorize the broadcasting of court proceedings in the cases of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump.”
More from the House Democratic letter:
We can’t see Chief Justice John Roberts — presiding member of the Judicial Conference — and the other top federal judges granting this request, but it’s certainly an important issue.
While state courts have largely allowed trials to be broadcast, it’s prohibited in federal courts. There have been some pilot programs for federal courts to broadcast civil cases, but the Judicial Conference formally decided to end those efforts.
— John Bresnahan
THE HOUSE 2024
Swing-district Rs seek more influence in narrow majority
Vulnerable House Republicans have been forced to take controversial votes on everything from abortion to diversity initiatives to immigration during this Congress. And Democrats are gleefully writing the related campaign ads they hope will win them back the House.
Yet one usually steady lifeline for swing-district lawmakers — bipartisan wins they can tout back home — hasn’t materialized eight months into the GOP majority.
“There’s a lot of opportunities for bipartisanship,” Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), one of 18 Republicans who holds a district won by President Joe Biden, insisted.
But in reality, the outsized influence of the House Freedom Caucus, combined with a five-seat GOP majority, makes it difficult for anything bipartisan to get done.
“For 11 years I have worked in a bipartisan way on bipartisan bills on important issues,” Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), who chairs the New Democrat Coalition, told us.
“Now, I find it very difficult because if I try to approach them on a bill that I know we’ve worked on together for years, we get to committee and someone wants to throw a [controversial] amendment on there,” Kuster added.
Take the normally bipartisan annual defense authorization package. Only a handful of House Democrats backed the NDAA last month after it was loaded up with a slew of controversial conservative amendments — several backed by swing-district Republicans.
And annual appropriations bills — including normally low-key measures such as military construction or congressional funding — haven’t won any Democratic support after Republicans included culture war-related provisions.
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.), who defeated a far-right candidate to flip her Grand Rapids-area seat, agreed with Kuster. She also said GOP leaders essentially giving the hard right the reins will only help Democrats take back the House next year.
“Republicans are not giving us an option to be bipartisan,” Scholten told us. “People recognize that. They see it and it makes them want to reject that type of extremism, even more than they did in 2022.”
We’ve reported before that HFC members are largely unbothered by the political problems their vulnerable colleagues are in. They’ve also been clear that working with Democrats isn’t an option.
Republican hardliners have repeatedly forced Speaker Kevin McCarthy to tack right, demanding GOP leaders pass the most conservative version of bills they can before sending them to the Democratic-controlled Senate.
“You get the best deal when you come in strong,” HFC Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) told us.
However, even members who represent safe Republican seats are now starting to speak out on the obstinate approach conservatives have deployed for the past seven months.
Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) blamed HFC members for “taking advantage” of the slim majority at the detriment of the rest of the GOP conference.
“They are acting selfish and short-sighted and only care about pushing their own agenda in the media instead of working with us to govern,” Scott told us.
House GOP moderates are starting to find their voices as well. At least a little.
Several Biden-district Republicans refused to vote for the Agriculture funding bill late last month due to a provision further restricting states’ abortion policies. GOP leaders had to punt the floor vote to September, and it’s unclear how they’ll resolve the impasse.
The unified resistance among moderates — if they stick to it — puts McCarthy in an even more difficult position. So far, vulnerable Republicans have stuck with the party, taking some potentially politically damaging votes demanded by hardliners.
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) said there’s a chance for swing-district Republicans to exert more leverage going forward.
“The majority is only five seats, so really every faction has the same amount of power, it’s just a matter of strategy and tactics we choose to deploy as a result of that,” the California Republican told us. “At some point, we need to ease up some of our positions to get to solutions.”
— Mica Soellner
PRESENTED BY WELLS FARGO
PUNCHBOWL NEWS X NABJ
Punchbowl News teamed up with the Political Task Force to sponsor a happy hour at the National Association of Black Journalists 2023 conference in Birmingham, Ala. Our Special Projects Editor Elvina Nawaguna gave short remarks highlighting Punchbowl News’ focus on building and growing a newsroom with diversity in mind.
We’d like to extend a special thank you to Tia Mitchell, chair of the task force and Washington correspondent for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, for inviting us to participate and support NABJ’s political journalists.
— Jessica Floyd
…AND THERE’S MORE
News: A bipartisan group of House lawmakers are calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to mount an “aggressive” diplomatic approach with China to combat the spread of fentanyl.
In a letter to Blinken, a group of 37 House members urged the nation’s top diplomat to “commit all due diplomatic pressure to ensure that the PRC meaningfully polices its precursor chemical producers and cuts off the flow of fentanyl into the United States.”
The effort is being led by Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), along with Reps. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), David Trone (D-Md.), Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.).
The bipartisan group is also requesting Blinken provide information on what progress he achieved during his trip to China this year on “export control restrictions.”
West Virginia Senate update: Starting today, LIV Golf’s latest tournament is coming to Gov. Jim Justice’s Greenbrier resort. Justice, who’s running for Senate in the Mountaineer State, has courted the Saudi-backed venture and has called the kingdom a key ally of the United States.
Democrats will be looking to slam Justice’s involvement in his business empire and ties to Saudi Arabia if he advances out of the primary to potentially face Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
— Max Cohen
PRESENTED BY WELLS FARGO
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Presented by Apollo Global Management
One size rarely fits all. That’s why Apollo provides custom capital solutions designed to help companies achieve their ambitious business goals. Think Credit New