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The Hill's Morning Report — House gets to work after Speaker election

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After finally clinching the gavel Saturday morning, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Monday begins his first official workday as Speaker witPh the likely adoption of the chamber’s rules.

Parts of the package — which must pass to allow the House to operate — include the concessions McCarthy made to the 20 conservative holdouts whose objections prolonged the election of a Speaker for days. The House rules are center stage because McCarthy’s compromises include changes to the procedure for introducing amendments, a vote on the floor on proposed term limits for House members and a change to lower the bar for motions to oust a sitting Speaker (The Hill). 

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that she backs the rules package — with reservations.

“I support it,” Mace said. “But what I don’t support is a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private, in secret. … And so I am on the fence right now about the rules package vote tomorrow for that reason.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Sunday predicted the House on Monday will adopt the package while defending the contentious and days long process to elect a Speaker and swear in lawmakers by Saturday. Jordan was one of 200 Republicans who backed McCarthy throughout, although he was briefly nominated for the position himself (Politico and The Hill).

“Sometimes democracy is messy, but I would argue that’s exactly how the Founders intended it,” Jordan said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Whether it’s one vote or 15 votes, Kevin McCarthy is still Speaker of the House.”

Beyond the rules package, this week will put into focus the Republican agenda for the next congressional term, with an expected emphasis on federal spending — especially in tandem with pressure later this year to raise the nation’s borrowing limits — and the U.S. focus on China (The Wall Street Journal). But achieving those goals may prove difficult with a slim majority and a vocal group of often-dissenting conservatives in their own conference, not to mention a Democrat-controlled Senate and White House.

As The New York Times reports, the new dynamic in Congress amid divided government is more likely a prescription for gridlock than progress amid roots of the dysfunction that run deep. Even with single-party control of both chambers, it took lawmakers until the eleventh hour to pass a sweeping government funding bill last month. 

The Hill’s Mychael Schnell tees up House plans for its first week of legislative business.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: What’s in Kevin McCarthy’s deal with conservatives.

▪ Vox: McCarthy’s Speaker chaos could make Democrats more powerful.

▪ The New York Times: House Republicans are preparing a broad inquiry into the FBI and security and intelligence agencies, planning a vote this week on a resolution to create a special Judiciary subcommittee tasked to examine “weaponization of the federal government.”

Another commitment McCarthy made to his holdouts was to consider deep spending cuts, including the possibility of slashing defense spending.

“We got a $32 trillion debt, everything has to be on the table,” Jordan said on Sunday. “When you’ve got numbers like that … frankly, we better look at the money we send to Ukraine as well.”

As some Republican lawmakers pledge to curb additional spending to aid Ukraine and probe what’s been authorized by Congress, Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova on Sunday defended U.S. investments in military and humanitarian assistance to her country (The Hill).

“Every U.S. dollar that is given to us, we’re putting it to a good use,” Markarova told CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday. “We’re using it as an investment into our joint fight for democracy.”

Related Articles

▪ The Atlantic: Speaker in name only.

▪ Politico: Inside the House GOP’s Speakership crisis.

▪ The Washington Post: Closest of friends, Mark Meadows and Jordan split over McCarthy.

▪ The Hill’s Memo: Republicans stumble out of the starting blocks.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ ADMINISTRATION

President Biden today is in Mexico City with key members of his Cabinet to meet with other North American leaders about shared issues including energy, border security, migration, drug trafficking and trade.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will host Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for talks through Wednesday during the trio’s first summit since late 2021 (Reuters). The United States and Canada are embroiled in a dispute with Mexico over its push to grant market control to cash-strapped state energy companies, which the U.S. and Canada say violates the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal.

Biden on Sunday stopped in El Paso, Texas, for the first border tour he’s taken since his inauguration (The New York Times and The Hill). Preparing a campaign announcement and State of the Union address within weeks, the president and his team are under pressure from all sides to counter a narrative that his administration’s progressive policies at the U.S. southern border created a “crisis” complicated by lenient enforcement. The administration is also girding for House Republicans’ promised oversight this year amid GOP calls to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The surge in migration is “not unique to the southern border of the United States, nor the border of Mexico,” Mayorkas told reporters on Sunday while traveling with the president. “It’s something that is gripping the entire hemisphere.”

Biden’s announcement last week restricting options for immigrants from three countries points to a shift to the center on immigration politics (The Washington Post).

▪ El Paso Times: Biden toured the border in El Paso.

▪ Bloomberg News: Migrants strain city resources in El Paso.

▪ The Los Angeles Times: A humanitarian crisis looms in Mexico as thousands of people from some of the world’s most oppressive countries are marooned in Mexico under restrictions affecting asylum-seekers. 

▪ The Hill: Biden confronts his border problem.

▪ The Hill: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Sunday in El Paso handed the president a letter blasting the administration’s immigration policies as “two years too late.”

▪ Bloomberg News: U.S. rejects oil offers in first attempt to replenish strategic stockpiles.

➤ POLITICS

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who last year tapped his state’s resources to ship migrants from Texas to Massachusetts aboard private planes to protest Democratic policies, is the early frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton offers a reminder that leaders in past presidential contests drawn from early polls failed to go the distance. Republican Party examples: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Minnesota Gov. Scott Walker, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the late Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.

DeSantis, who boasts of conservative achievements in governance, on Friday gained media attention by appointing decidedly conservative members to a trustee board at a progressive liberal arts honors college in his state’s university system.

The DeSantis administration recently asked all state public colleges and universities to provide data about resources they use related to diversity, equity, inclusion and critical race theory. Christopher Rufo, a Republican activist, is one of DeSantis’s six appointments to the board at New College of Florida in Sarasota.

In 2020, Rufo caught former President Trump’s eye with an appearance on Fox News in which he declared that critical race theory had “pervaded every institution in the federal government,” The Washington Post reported. Rufo tweeted on Wednesday: “Gov. DeSantis is going to lay siege to university ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ programs.” Critical race theory is a decades-old academic discipline that investigates systemic racism in the United States, which Rufo and other conservatives insist does not exist; they say racism is the act of individuals alone.

As the 2024 presidential race begins to dominate the political landscape for both parties, The Hill reports that Biden and his team are readying details of his reelection campaign ahead of an announcement. One feature to watch: the 80-year-old president’s reliance on a familiar brain trust, writes The Hill’s Amie Parnes.

Ahead of 2024, Republicans are grappling with the challenge of recruiting candidates who can perform better with voters, including independents, than the crop who competed in November, reports The Hill’s Max Greenwood. “If we’re going to win back the Senate and keep the House, we have to have good candidates,” said GOP strategist Alex Conant. “In 2022, that just wasn’t the case.”

The challenge won’t be much different for Democrats in Senate races in 2024, reports The Hill’s Julia Manchester. Michigan will have an open Senate seat following the retirement announcement last week by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D). The jockeying among Democrats who are said to be eyeing that race is intense. But more broadly, the conversation quickly turned to the tough landscape for Democrats who want to hold their narrow majority beyond the next presidential election. The party will seek to defend Senate seats in red states Montana, West Virginia and Nevada and there could be other states where incumbents face headwinds (The Hill).

The Hill: In Kentucky’s gubernatorial contest, Democrats are bracing for challenges.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Thousands of radical supporters of Brazil’s former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, on Sunday stormed and vandalized the country’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential office building in Brasilia. The scenes of rioters smashing windows and roaming the halls of the Planalto Palace brought comparisons to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Trump, who, like Bolsonaro’s supporters on Sunday, claimed the election had been stolen from their candidate.

The attack occurred just a week after the inauguration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro in a close runoff election in October. Lula condemned the “abominable” acts in Brasilia and said all those involved would be investigated and punished “with all the strength of the law.” 

“These vandals, who we could call fanatical Nazis, fanatical Stalinists … fanatical fascists, did what has never been done in the history of this country,” Lula, who was on an official trip to Sao Paulo state, said Sunday. “All these people who did this will be found and they will be punished.”

He announced a federal security intervention in Brasilia lasting until Jan. 31 after capital security forces initially were overwhelmed by the invaders (The Washington Post and Reuters). Late Sunday evening, authorities announced they had cleared all government offices, making about 300 arrests in the process, and Brazil’s Supreme Court removed the governor of Brasilia from office for 90 days due to flaws in security in the capital (The Wall Street Journal and Reuters).

▪ The Washington Post: How Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — then his silence — stoked the assault in Brazil.

▪ Bloomberg News: Brazilian capital reels after anti-Lula rioters storm Congress.

While Ukraine’s military commanders have long said they do not lack soldiers for the war, they have welcomed to their ranks thousands of volunteers, including foreign citizens, The New York Times reports. Chechens, Crimean Tatars and people from the former Soviet republics, all with deep historical grievances against Moscow, are eagerly taking up arms for Kyiv.

The Washington Post: Moscow’s war in Ukraine brought harsh tactics against LGBTQ+ Russians at home.

🌛 Could the next big space race be about control of the moon? Move over Russia, writes The Hill’s Amy Thompson, because China may be the next space superpower and its ambitions could clash with NASA. Both entities want to explore deep space, especially the moon, and both are bound by the outer space treaty, but NASA Administrator Bill Nelson warns that the U.S. space agency should keep an eye on the Chinese.  

▪ Reuters: China reopens borders in final farewell to zero-COVID.

▪ The Washington Post: Iran hangs two more people in brutal campaign against protesters.

▪ Bloomberg News: Sweden signals that all of Turkey’s demands for NATO entry cannot be met.

OPINION

■ Time is not on Ukraine’s side, by Condoleezza Rice and Robert M. Gates, contributors, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3IuEdxm 

■ We need to talk about McCarthy, by Margaret Carlson, contributor, Washington Monthly. https://bit.ly/3Ctz4BV

WHERE AND WHEN

👉 The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

The House will meet at 5 p.m.

The Senate will convene Tuesday at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session. 

The president is in Mexico City on Monday for a two-day North American Leaders’ Summit.

Vice President Harris at 3:45 p.m. will ceremonially swear in Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley as U.S. ambassador to Brazil.

Attorney General Merrick Garland ​​on Monday and Tuesday will be in Mexico City with the president for the North American Leadership Summit to discuss security cooperation, including efforts to combat drug trafficking.

First lady Jill Biden is in Mexico City with the president for the North American Leaders’ Summit on Monday and Tuesday. She will speak about gender equality and girls’ empowerment this morning and join a flag football event with local students in Mexico City at midday. She will join the president at 4:15 p.m. for the official summit welcome ceremony. The first lady at 5 p.m. will join the first lady of Mexico, Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, a writer and journalist, for a lecture event. The first lady will join President Biden at an official dinner among the leaders and spouses of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Mexico City to participate in the North American Leaders’ Summit on Monday and Tuesday.

Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry is in Mexico City to participate in the North American Leaders’ Summit on Monday and Tuesday.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff is in Los Angeles where he will join Education Secretary Miguel Cardona at 10:30 a.m. PT for a tour of Roybal Film and Television Production Magnet. They will host a roundtable with students and the Los Angeles Unified School District’s advisory board members, including actors George Clooney, Mindy Kaling and Don Cheadle to learn more about teacher support programs and their career and technical programs. 

ELSEWHERE

➤ JUSTICE & COURTS

💡 In the spotlight: All eyes are on the Department of Justice’s next moves in the wake of the investigative work of the House select committee on Jan. 6, which wrapped in December. Under scrutiny by department prosecutors are the panel’s lengthy report, criminal referrals that include Trump for his role in the mob attack on the Capitol, and release of witness interviews and evidence, reports The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch.

The attorney general and special counsel Jack Smith will decide on the potential federal prosecution of planners and instigators and not just perpetrators of the attack. Garland has said his team is examining “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election.”

Former House Jan. 6 committee members made clear last year they hoped Trump and other close associates will be held to account for their actions seeking to block the certification of the Electoral College tally.

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors are expected to open the government’s case against Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the extremist Proud Boys group, and four of its members. The trial, estimated to last more than a month, includes the rarely used charge of seditious conspiracy, an offense punishable by up to 20 years in prison (The Wall Street Journal).

Speaker McCarthy has suggested that Republicans, who in November gained a narrow House majority in this Congress, might opt to launch a probe into the work of the Jan. 6 panel, which Trump, a declared presidential candidate in 2024, continues to criticize as partisan.

Despite being a subject of the Justice Department’s investigation into allegations that he played a role in the Capitol insurrection, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) on Sunday told ABC News that he would not recuse himself from serving on any potential GOP-led committee that may seek to investigate the former House investigators.

“So, should everybody in Congress that disagrees with somebody be barred from doing the oversight and investigative powers that Congress has? That’s our charge,” Perry said when asked about a potential conflict of interest. “And again, that’s appropriate for every single member, regardless of what accusations are made. I get accused of things every single day, as does every member that serves in the public eye,” he added (The Hill).

Biden administration prosecutors last year seized Perry’s cell phone in connection with Jan. 6-related events and obtained email exchanges between Perry and former Trump attorney John Eastman, among others. 

Perry introduced Trump to former Justice Department environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump considered appointing as acting attorney general in late 2021 before leaving office in the interest of trying to substantiate his repeated assertions of 2020 election fraud, which were false.

⚖️ High court: The Supreme Court on Monday begins to hear 2023’s first oral arguments, weighing seven cases in the next two weeks that could impact attorney-client privilege, labor laws and foreign nations’ legal immunity. Biden administration policies challenged before the high court, including student loan debt forgiveness and the future of the Trump-era migrant expulsion policy known as Title 42, will be at the forefront later this term (The Hill).  

➤ STATE WATCH

Europe’s success in staving off an impending energy crisis this winter has yielded less than desirable outcomes across the Atlantic, where New Englanders are contending with the ripple effects of a global gas crunch, writes the Hill’s Sharon Udasin. 

Residents of the six-state cohort have thus far enjoyed a relatively mild winter without the rolling blackouts that experts anticipated this fall. But skyrocketing energy prices — among the highest in the country — are taking a toll on a region accustomed to cranking up the heat. New England had to contend with fierce competition from the European Union over liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies after Russia began curtailing pipeline gas to the bloc amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. With an uncertain winter on the horizon, Europe became a high stakes bidder in the global race to stockpile LNG.

“Natural gas prices have not been this high in New England since 2008 — before the fracking revolution, mortgage crisis and Great Recession caused energy prices to crash,” Tanya Bodell, an energy adviser and partner at consulting firm StoneTurn, told The Hill. 

▪ The Washington Post: Germany built LNG terminals in months. Wind turbines still take years. 

▪ Bloomberg News: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s energy gambit fizzles as warm winter saves Europe.

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH

The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant has swiftly become the most prevalent COVID-19 mutation responsible for infections in the U.S. in just a matter of weeks, outpacing the timelines of previous subvariants, writes The Hill’s Joseph Choi. This mutation, accounting for 72 percent of COVID-19 cases as of Friday, is responsible for a majority of confirmed cases in the Northeast and is growing in frequency across other regions of the country. Due to its recent ascent, data on XBB.1.5 is limited, but health officials have disclosed some key insights into the strain as well as what information is yet to be determined.

Some are now talking about myalgia as a “top” COVID-19 symptom that can appear as an early indicator of symptoms (Express), but scientists and physicians have been talking about COVID-19 triggering musculoskeletal pain since the beginning of the pandemic, even though they noted that it was less frequently discussed publicly (NIH). 

The Washington Post: New variant XBB.1.5 is “most transmissible” yet, could fuel COVID-19 wave. 

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability can be found at Vaccines.gov.

The Food and Drug Administration as of Jan. 1 added sesame to a list of nine major food allergens under provisions of a 2021 law. Food manufacturers must identify sesame as an allergen on labels and work to prevent cross-contact in production facilities. According to a 2019 study, about 1.1 million people in the United States have a sesame allergy (VeryWell).

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,096,504. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 2,731 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally … Today is National Clean Your Desk Day. We mention this because half the Morning Report newsletter team tackled this project over the New Year’s weekend and feels smugly virtuous about the decluttered result.

Stay Engaged

We want to hear from you! Email: Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch. Follow us on Twitter (@asimendinger and @kristinakarisch) and suggest this newsletter to friends!

Could the next great space race involve China?

Most people would agree that the space race ended in 1969 when U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the lunar surface, but more than 50 years later, the moon is still the focal point as humanity gears up for what could be a new space race. 

And China could be at the center of it, warns NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

“It is a fact: we’re in a space race,” Nelson, a former Democratic senator from Florida, told Politico in an interview published Jan. 1. “And it is true that we better watch out that they don’t get to a place on the moon under the guise of scientific research. And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, ‘Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory.'”

Space agencies around the world have their sights set on the moon. That’s because the lunar surface could be rich with resources that may aid in deep space exploration and provide a wealth of scientific data to better understand planetary evolution. 

Nelson warns that China could use the scientific appeal of the moon to advance its position in space and potentially claim it as its own, like it is doing on Earth with the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.  

Both NASA and China have major lunar ambitions, which involve reaching the resource-rich lunar south pole. NASA took its first steps toward that goal in 2022, with the launch of its massive moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). The launch was part of a larger program called Artemis, which will return astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a presence in lunar orbit. When those astronauts land, they will explore the moon’s south pole and work to establish a lunar base.  

China also has plans to send its own crews to the moon before the end of the decade. Like NASA, China has its sights set on the lunar south pole. 

Currently, space is governed by the Outer Space Treaty, which was created in 1967. The treaty says that space will be used for peaceful purposes and that no one country can claim space as its own, and that there will be no weapons of mass destruction. 

“Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” the treaty reads.

But according to Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist, any one country could back out of the treaty by providing a year’s notice or they could just violate it. But so far, no one nation has done that.

“Having a strong civil space program signals to adversaries not to try to [get out of the treaty] because they may lose the resulting arms race in space,” Metzger said. 

According to Metzger, the treaty also says that all countries must agree to not damage other nations’ hardware, including historic sites, like the ones from the Apollo program. But this aspect of the treaty could potentially lead to excessively large safety zones around such sites, which could effectively parcel the moon, meaning countries could be blocked from certain areas for fear of damaging other’s hardware. 

But others are concerned about China’s rapidly developing lunar programs for other reasons.

Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts, for example, warned that China could cause some mischief on the moon by blocking communications or meddling in other ways. 

Chinese officials, however, say that these concerns are unfounded and that the country only has peaceful plans for space. 

“Outer space is not a wrestling ground,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Politico in a statement. “The exploration and peaceful uses of outer space is humanity’s common endeavor and should benefit all. China always advocates the peaceful use of outer space, opposes the weaponization of and arms race in outer space, and works actively toward building a community with a shared future for mankind in the space domain.”

Yang Yuguang, a senior space industry observer in Beijing and vice-chair of the International Astronautical Federation’s space transportation committee, agrees. 

“We carry out spaceflight to develop high technology and improve economic growth and people’s living standards,” Yuguang told Chinese state media outlet China Daily. “We don’t take part in a space race with any other countries because competition in this regard is meaningless.”

It’s going to be challenging for any one nation to send humans to the moon and develop the hardware necessary to do that plus create a lunar base. To that end, some would argue that the U.S. and China should work together to some extent. 

Victoria Samson, Washington director of the Secure World Foundation, which works to preserve the peaceful use of outer space, says that there are limited landing sites and resources that would be advantageous to crew landings, and that countries should have some level of cooperation in the event of crew emergencies on the lunar surface.

In September, Nelson addressed the issue of Chinese cooperation at the International Astronautical Congress meeting in Paris, saying that any cooperation with China is up to Beijing.

“There has to be an openness there, and that has not been forthcoming,” he said at the time.

But Nelson noted that China and NASA actually have cooperated over issues such as the orbits of Mars spacecraft but added that there is a lack of needed transparency on the Chinese side.

Nelson said that’s what needs to change in order to help foster more cooperation.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats brace for challenging Kentucky governor's race

Democrats are bracing for a challenging gubernatorial election in Kentucky as Gov. Andy Beshear (D) vies for a second term in a state that went overwhelmingly for former President Trump in 2020.

The red state Democrat enjoys a high level of support in Kentucky and has won praise from some Republicans over his handling of natural disasters, but members of his party know that winning another term in the governor’s mansion will be no simple task. Beshear faces GOP criticism over his handling of issues like the COVID-19 pandemic, while the state continues to trend redder. 

“We’re not under any delusion that this will be an easy [race],” said Louisville-based Democratic strategist David Contarino, who serves as chairman of Kentucky Family Values, a super PAC that’s been involved in the last three gubernatorial races.

“I think the principal headwind is simply the polarized nature of American politics, and there are just a lot of folks in Kentucky in particular, but in a lot of places, that are hardcore Republicans. And while they might even appreciate some of the work that Gov. Beshear has done, the party loyalty can sometimes overcome even affection for somebody of the other party,” he noted.

The son of a former two-term governor, Beshear won his first election in 2019 against then-Gov. Matt Bevin (R) by less than half a percentage point. Bevin’s time in office was most notably marked by confrontations with teachers, including over the state’s pension system which suffers from underfunding. The former governor also rankled Democrats and Republicans alike, drawing ire for firing several staffers working for one of his Cabinet members and for pardoning felons, some of whom had been convicted of serious crimes.

Kentucky has undergone a lot of change over the last three years, experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, a rise in opioid deaths, and what Beshear lauded during his Thursday State of the Commonwealth address as “the best two-year period for economic growth in state history” between 2021 and 2022. The state has also grappled with a serious teacher shortage, the tornadoes in western Kentucky in 2021 and serious flooding in eastern Kentucky last year, and outbreaks of violence within juvenile detention centers.

A number of GOP candidates are now vying to take on Beshear, including state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, former Trump U.N. Ambassador Kelly Craft, State Auditor Mike Harmon, Somerset Mayor Alan Keck and retired attorney Eric Deters.

There was speculation ahead of the Friday filing deadline that Bevin would file for reelection, especially given that he had scheduled to hold a news conference in the Kentucky state Capitol more than an hour before all candidates needed to file paperwork. But the 15-minute press conference offered no signs that the former governor would be running and was widely heralded as a troll to the press while offering some relief to Republicans anxious about another Bevin election bid.

“The hard part is gonna be – for anybody – is the state has trended so hard to the red side of the aisle,” said Jimmy Cauley, who served as campaign manager and later chief of staff for former Gov. Steve Beshear (D), noting the GOP supermajority in the state House.

“I think Andy, between the economic development stuff, the jobs and just the way he’s handled natural disasters and COVID – I mean for any other D in the state, it might be, you know, unthinkable,” Cauley noted. “But I think he’s put it not only within reach, but possible.”

But Republicans believe the momentum to win back the governor’s mansion is on their side.

Sean Southard, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky, noted that Republicans made further inroads in their supermajority in the Kentucky General Assembly. This past November, Republicans gained five more seats in the state House, establishing an 80-seat majority in a 100-seat chamber. And in the state Senate, Republicans also gained one extra seat, putting them at a 31-seat majority from the 38-seat chamber.

Voter registration in Kentucky has also shifted in Republicans’ favor, with registered Republicans surpassing registered Democrats for the first time last year. Southard said Republicans are “optimistic” heading into the gubernatorial election.

“The Republican party is alive and well in Kentucky,” Southard said, noting the GOP sees the crowded Republican primary “as a sign of energy within the Republican Party.”

Kentucky-based GOP strategist Scott Jennings singled out Cameron, Quarles and Craft as candidates having the most competitive shot at the governor’s mansion. Cameron, known for his breakout speech in 2020 at the Republican National Convention, has frequently gone head-to-head with Beshear over issues like COVID-19 pandemic emergency powers.

Meanwhile, Quarles has served in the state House and has been elected twice to statewide office as Kentucky’s commissioner of agriculture. Craft, a former U.N. ambassador and former U.S. ambassador to Canada under the Trump administration, is married to coal magnate Joe Craft, and became the first GOP candidate to air TV ads for the upcoming race in the state. 

A source close to the Cameron campaign believes that confrontations with the governor over issues like Beshear’s handling of the pandemic have “elevated him in the minds of many Republican voters,” suggesting that it’s proven how Cameron has advocated for voters and differentiates himself from the rest of the pack.

Kristin Davison, an advisor for Craft’s campaign, believes that the former U.N. ambassador has a relatable story to Kentuckians and can uniquely connect with voters. 

Still, Republicans know they have their work cut out for them in the race.

For one, Beshear will be entering the race as an incumbent with a financial edge. He raised more than $646,000 in the last quarter in 2022 and ended the quarter with roughly $4.7 million cash on hand, according to the latest state campaign filing.

At the same time, the latest state campaign filings show that Craft had raised over $547,000 in the last quarter of 2022, while Cameron had raised close to $260,000 during that same period and Quarles raised roughly $54,000.  

The natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic have also lent hours of TV coverage to Beshear, making voters more intimately familiar with the governor. But Jennings said that coverage has “obscured his partisanship.”

“Beshear is a standard issue liberal Democrat. He has governed like a Democrat. He vetoes bills that Democrats want him to veto. He doesn’t work with Republicans. He’s pretty partisan,” Jennings said. “But he has benefited from his entire term being dominated by these emergency situations: COVID, tornadoes, flooding, and that has dominated the coverage of him.”

Comparatively, Beshear’s campaign believes they’re already making the case to voters that the governor can set aside politics and work across the aisle. His campaign manager, Eric Hyers, pointed to the governor appearing alongside Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on Wednesday during President Biden’s visit in the state to discuss investments for the Brent Spence Bridge.

As for Republicans’ recently expanded supermajorities in the Kentucky General Assembly, Hyers said that people will be making a different kind of calculation when they consider the governor’s mansion.

“How the voters think about who they want their governor to be is a different process than who they send to Washington or who they send to Frankfort,” Hyers said. “People are going to have a choice between steady, compassionate, common sense, pragmatic leadership that has at least led to a great economy, high surplus, low unemployment and someone that people could count on in times of crisis, or not. And that is why he has such high approval ratings in a state like this.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Immigration, attorney-client privilege: The next 7 cases before the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court will return on Monday to hear its first oral arguments of 2023, considering cases that could impact attorney-client privilege, labor laws and foreign nations’ legal immunity.

The justices will hear seven cases in the two-week sitting, though none involve major Biden administration policies — student loan debt relief and Title 42 will get their days in court later this term. 

Here are the cases slated for oral argument this month:

In re Grand Jury

The court will kick off the year on Monday with a case whose background is shrouded in mystery.

The case arose when a tax law firm declined to produce certain documents demanded by a grand jury subpoena issued during a criminal tax investigation into the firm’s unnamed client.

Justices will consider whether the firm can withhold so-called dual purpose communications, meaning those intertwined with legal and non-legal advice, after lower appellate courts split on whether legal advice must be the “primary” or a “significant” purpose for attorney-client privilege to apply.

The firm, supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some attorney groups, argues the more stringent threshold creates an unpredictable test for tax firms and in-house legal counsels that regularly intertwine legal and business guidance, effectively eroding the privilege.

The federal government contends that following their argument would sweepingly shield documents about accounting and business development without a compelling justification.

Ohio Adjutant General’s Department v. Federal Labor Relations Authority

Later on Monday, justices will consider if a 1978 law regulating the labor practices of federal agencies extends to Ohio National Guard technicians.

The National Guard is organized by individual states, but the federal government can also activate it for a particular mission, setting up a legal battle when Ohio’s National Guard in 2016 attempted to end a collective bargaining agreement with its civilian technicians.

The technicians union in a complaint with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which Congress created to oversee labor relations for executive agency employees, alleged the Guard didn’t negotiate in good faith.

The FLRA sided with the union, but the Ohio National Guard argues the technicians are not federal executive agency employees, so the FLRA never had authority.

Glacier Northwest Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters

In late 2017, ready-mix concrete company Glacier Northwest filed a lawsuit in Washington state against its employees’ union, seeking damages for concrete purportedly destroyed because the workers went on strike after the fleet was already loaded.

The justices on Tuesday are set to consider whether federal labor laws prevent the lawsuit at all before the National Labor Relations Board determines if the union engaged in protected activity.

Glacier Northwest, describing the union’s timing as “sabotage,” argues the circumstances meet an exception for cases to move forward outlined in the court’s 1959 San Diego Building Trades v. Garmon decision.

Teamsters argues the exception doesn’t apply and that the strike was protected activity.

Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Centro de Periodismo Investigativo Inc.

The justices will hear arguments on Wednesday about whether a financial oversight board Congress established to manage Puerto Rico’s debt crisis has immunity from a public records lawsuit.

States receive sovereign immunity from certain lawsuits, but the group seeking the records argues that the rule doesn’t apply because Puerto Rico is a territory.

Even if it did, the group contends the law establishing the board clearly states the entity does not enjoy immunity in federal courts.

The board contests that position, arguing the statute does not provide clear and unmistakable language revoking its sovereign immunity.

Santos-Zacaria v. Garland

Justices will hear their first immigration case of the calendar year on Jan. 17, when they will dive into a requirement that migrants exhaust “all administrative remedies available” before appealing their immigration decisions in the courts.

The case involves Leon Santos-Zacaria, who said she fled Guatemala after being raped and receiving death threats because she is transgender.

Santos-Zacaria elevated her immigration ruling to a federal appeals court, but the court held that she had failed the exhaustion requirement by not filing a motion asking the Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider their earlier decision.

Santos-Zacaria argues she did not need to file the motion to satisfy the requirement and that the requirement regardless does not bar the court’s jurisdiction. The federal government disputes her interpretation.

Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States

The justices on Jan. 17 are set to hear a challenge to the indictment of Halkbank, a bank almost entirely owned by Turkey’s government, alleging it circumvented U.S. sanctions on Iranian funds.

The bank denies the allegations, but rather than considering their merits, it instead urged justices to deem the indictment unlawful based on historical factors and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which in 1976 established when a sovereign nation is immune from a U.S. lawsuit.

The federal government argues the law does not apply to criminal cases, and even if it did, the case would fall under an exception allowing suits arising from a foreign government’s commercial activity.

Perez v. Sturgis Public Schools

The court’s final case this month, set for Jan. 18, arose after deaf student Miguel Luna Perez and his parents settled with Sturgis Public Schools in 2018 over Perez’s claims that he was denied a qualified sign language interpreter for 12 years.

They settled those claims under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), but the Supreme Court will consider the validity of Perez’s subsequent lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  

A lower appeals court ruled that since Perez settled the earlier claim, he didn’t exhaust the process, so federal law bars him from bringing a similar case under the ADA.

The school district asked the justices to uphold that decision, but Perez contends that the settlement qualifies as exhaustion.

Perez further argues that exhausting the IDEA was never required to begin with, because his new lawsuit seeks a remedy the earlier claim couldn’t provide.

The school district argued the remedy sought doesn’t change the requirement.

Source: TEST FEED1

DeSantis is GOP's early front-runner. That could be a problem

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the early front-runner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, but lawmakers and strategists warn this can sometimes be the “death knell” for a candidate, pointing to other early presidential front-runners who flamed out despite high expectations. 

Experts say there are a variety of lessons for DeSantis to learn from those early front-runners who failed to live up to potential, such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who was too cautious and suffered from a perceived lack of energy in 2016, or former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) who got bogged down in a mudslinging match in Iowa.

Some pundits are warning DeSantis could peak too soon, as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker did before the 2016 Republican presidential primary.  

Or they warn he could make the mistake of waiting until the Florida primary to fully deploy his effort and resources, as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani did in 2008 GOP primary — at which point Giuliani fell too far behind his rivals to catch up.  

“People flame out. It’s too early to know who’s actually going to be in contention, but he’s certainly had a successful election and he’s a strong candidate from a big, important state, so you can’t discount him,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said of DeSantis, who won reelection in November with 59 percent of the vote.  

Many Republicans see DeSantis as their best shot to win the 2024 presidential election, but Cornyn quipped that being early the front-runner means “you’re the main spear-catcher” as rivals train their hostile fire at the leader of the pack.  

Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said being the front-runner was “the death knell to people like Jeb Bush.” 

He said he thinks the political circumstances surrounding DeSantis are different compared to Bush but added: “Right now in this political environment, nothing would surprise me.”

David Paleologos, the director of the political research center at Suffolk University, who conducted a poll last month showing that 61 percent of GOP and GOP-leaning voters prefer DeSantis over former President Trump, said the Florida governor faces an array of potential pitfalls if he runs for president.  

“The second-tier candidates have an incentive to make their No. 1 target DeSantis because they know the alt-Trump candidate in the Republican primary is the better and stronger choice in the general election,” he said. 

He said early presidential front-runners in past elections have made the mistake of sitting on their lead in the polls and not competing aggressively enough in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — likening it to a football team that plays a “prevent defense” in the final minutes of the game to protect its lead against big plays but winds up giving its opponent too soft a cushion.

“What happens is the candidates take a defensive posture. It’s like if you’re leading in a football game, your strategy is vastly different than if you’re trailing,” he said, adding that the team that’s playing from behind will be more aggressive, creative and scrappy.

“Pollsters for people who are the front-runners are advising accordingly, saying you don’t need to engage, you don’t need to respond, you don’t need to give any oxygen to the second-tier candidate,” he said, warning that over time that strategy can let an opponent build up too much momentum.  

Strategists say DeSantis could learn from various early front-runners who flamed out early in the past.  

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, 2015-2016 

Bush announced in July of 2015 that he had raised more than $114 million for his campaign and an affiliated super PAC, far more than any of his Republican presidential rivals. 

An NBC-Wall Street Journal poll from the summer of 2015 showed him at the front of the pack with 22 percent support among GOP primary voters, followed by Walker at 17 percent and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 14 percent.  

Trump had the backing of a meager 1 percent of Republican primary voters polled — tying him at the time with Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.).

Bush, however, went on to win only 2.8 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, 11 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and 7.8 percent of the vote in the South Carolina primary.  

One of the low points of the campaign came in New Hampshire, where he implored a sleepy audience to “please clap.” Another came when Trump mocked him at a debate for steadily losing public support and getting positioned farther and farther away from the center of the debate stage.

“I just think he was cautious. I think he was being overly defensive and cautious,” Paleologos said of Bush. “His skillset and the age of his advisers was much more seasoned and discounted the potential for someone else to come in and steal the nomination away.” 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, 2015 

Doug Schoen, a political consultant who advised former President Clinton and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential campaign, warned in an op-ed for The Hill last month that DeSantis needs to be wary of the peril of peaking too soon.  

Schoen wrote that DeSantis needs to worry about a “worsening affordability crisis” in Florida driven by rising property insurance and energy costs and — like Walker was in 2016 — is untested on the national stage.  

Walker led the Republican pack of presidential hopefuls in Iowa in January of 2015, according to a Des Moines Register-Bloomberg Politics poll. 

A Monmouth University poll in July of 2015 showed him still leading the field in Iowa with 22 percent support. Trump was running in second place with 13 percent support in the same poll. 

But Walker would wind up dropping out of the race only a few months later after he failed to show any charisma or pizzazz in two debates and got tagged with a reputation of being boring.  

Walker also wound up committing a few painful gaffes, such as when he refused to talk about his views of evolution during a trip to London or say whether he thought then-President Obama was a Christian.  

O’Connell recalled, “Scott walked into a big round of donors and they were like, ‘This man just not have the right temperament.’” 

He said big donors “are looking for chops and also looking for personality.”  

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 2007-2008 

A Gallup poll in February of 2007 showed Giuliani leading the Republican field with 40 percent support among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, easily outdistancing then-Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), who had the support of 24 percent of Republican voters.  

Giuliani was still the national front-runner in November of 2007, but he adopted an unorthodox and ultimately unsuccessful strategy of keeping his powder dry until the Florida primary, where he hoped to rack up enough delegates to leap ahead of his rivals.  

The former New York politician was worried his abortion stance would be a liability with conservative voters and made only modest efforts to perform well in those early states.

By the time Florida held its primary on Jan. 29, 2008, Giuliani was no longer seen as the front-runner or even all that competitive. He finished in a distant third place with 14.7 percent of the vote — well behind McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.  

“When you look at who actually wins, six out of the last seven presidents were people who ‘couldn’t win,’” said Republican strategist Chip Saltsman.  

“We always have these inevitable conversations about inevitable front-runners a year or two years out, it’s just what we do. When you look at it, very few people who are ahead at the very beginning of the race actually run the tables.” 

Saltsman, who managed Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 2008 Republican presidential campaign, said Giuliani didn’t go all-out in the early states because “he was pro-choice and didn’t think he could get through Iowa and South Carolina being the pro-choice candidate.” 

He said the Giuliani staff “were spending all their time in Florida in September, October, November and December and we were slugging it out in the frozen tundra of Iowa.”  

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, 2003-2004 

Probably the most memorable meltdown of a presidential front-runner was the implosion of Dean’s campaign in the 2004 Iowa caucuses, encapsulated by the infamous “Dean scream” after he finished in a disappointing third place.  

Dean was dominating the Democratic field only a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses with 23 percent support among registered voters nationwide, according to a CBS News poll conducted in mid-December 2003.  

He was well ahead of Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), who tied for second place with 10 percent support. Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt and Sens. John Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.) trailed in the singled digits with 6 percent, 4 percent and 2 percent, respectively.  

Dean still had a comfortable lead in early January 2004, two weeks before the Iowa contest, with 24 percent support among registered Democrats nationwide, while Clark had 20 percent support and Kerry had 11 percent support. 

But Dean got bogged down in a nasty negative ad war with Gephardt, whom he viewed as his toughest competitor in Iowa, and both candidates wound up annihilating each other, creating a pathway for Kerry to win the caucuses and Edwards to finish in second.  

“They were really going all on TV against each other and we just came right up the middle and had so much momentum and Edwards followed in our wake,” said Democratic strategist Tad Devine, who was a senior adviser to Kerry’s campaign.  

“By the time we got to caucus night, Dean and Gephardt were gone,” he said. “Gephardt got out of the race and Dean gave a speech that essentially ended his candidacy.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Five Senate Democrats who could retire ahead of 2024

All eyes are turning to a handful of Senate Democrats in key battleground states to see whether they’ll decide to run again in 2024 after Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) announced her retirement this week.

Stabenow’s decision could be the first in a wave of potential retirements that would create GOP pickup opportunities in a tough electoral map for Democrats.

Even though they grew their Senate majority last November, Democrats will have to defend more than twice as many seats as Republicans in 2024, including in competitive states like Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Here are five Senate Democrats to watch as they mull over possible reelection prospects:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)

A centrist Democrat who got his start in the Senate in 2010 after serving as the secretary of state and governor of West Virginia, Manchin is a bit of an anomaly in his state as its only statewide elected Democrat. 

Manchin’s tenure has been marked by rankling both Republicans and Democrats at times. He angered members of his party after he initially killed off Democrats’ prospects for passing Build Back Better legislation in December 2021 and for his defense of keeping the filibuster in place — a rule that requires most legislation in the Senate to be passed with at least 60 votes. 

After winning a special election in 2010 to serve the rest of the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s (D) term, Manchin won his first full term in 2012 against Republican John Raese by 24 points. He won again in 2018 by a much closer margin of 3 points against state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R). 

Rep. Alex Mooney (R), who won reelection after beating former Rep. David McKinley (R) in a heated member-on-member primary last year, has already announced he’s running in the state’s GOP Senate primary. Gov. Jim Justice (R) and Morrisey are both mulling Senate bids, too. The centrist Democrat is likely to face pressure from members of his party to run again in 2024, considering he won reelection in a state that went overwhelmingly for former President Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)

Tester is likewise the only statewide elected Democrat in Montana, and his seat is also being viewed as a critical GOP pickup opportunity. But ousting the Montana Democrat will be no small feat for Republicans should Tester run again, given he’s a three-term incumbent. 

The chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, Tester has won his last three races by single digits, including in 2018 against Rep. Matt Rosendale (R), who could run again for the seat. 

It’s possible Rep.-elect Ryan Zinke (R), who won back a seat in the House in November, could jump in too. And given that Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) is the chairman of the Senate GOP campaign arm for the 2024 cycle, he’s likely to turn the heat up on flipping Tester’s seat.

Though Tester hasn’t said whether he’ll run yet, he projected confidence during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last month that he would win if he chose to run for a fourth time. 

“If I decide to run in this thing, and it’ll be a discussion that I have with my family over the holidays because it is a big undertaking, I feel good about my chances,” he said at the time.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.)

Casey’s announcement on Thursday that he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer has left many wondering what the news might mean for him past 2024. In a statement, he said that he had “an excellent prognosis” and had noted that he was “confident that my recommended course of treatment will allow me to continue my service in the 118th Congress with minimal disruption.”

The son of former Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr. (D) and a three-term incumbent, Casey won two out of three of his races by double digits, including in 2018 when he beat Republican Lou Barletta by 13 points. After Republicans lost the Pennsylvania Senate race in November in a match-up between now-Sen. John Fetterman (D) and GOP candidate Mehmet Oz, members of the party will be looking for an opportunity to regain a seat in the Keystone State.

Former hedge fund executive David McCormick, who narrowly lost the GOP primary to Oz last year, is reportedly considering another Senate run in 2024, according to Bloomberg News. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)

Trump won the Badger State in 2016 by less than a percentage point. President Biden won it in 2020 against Trump by a nearly identical margin. It’s a state whose senators, Baldwin and Ron Johnson (R), are considered polar opposites on issues ranging from Trump’s impeachment to gun policy. But for many voters, it’s simply a continual reminder of Wisconsin’s reputation as a swing state.

The 2024 Senate race is expected to be no less competitive as Baldwin decides whether to run for a third term. Baldwin, the first openly gay senator in the U.S. who is known for her work on the Affordable Care Act, has won her last two races by wider-than-expected margins for a swing state — close to 6 points in 2012 and by more than 10 points in 2018.

Johnson’s recent reelection win in November against Democrat Mandela Barnes is likely to offer some momentum for the party given the senator was considered the most vulnerable GOP candidate in the chamber up for reelection. Still, Democrats may read the tea leaves of the race differently and interpret Johnson’s 1-point win as a sign that they could stand to see another Democratic win through in two years.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)

A former lieutenant governor and governor of Virginia, in addition to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 vice presidential running mate, the two-term incumbent Kaine has been a mainstay in Virginia and national politics for years. 

Though Republicans flipped fewer House seats in Virginia than they had hoped during the November midterms, there are signs that Democrats shouldn’t get too comfortable about Kaine’s seat: Republicans won back the state House of Delegates in 2021, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) flipped the governor’s mansion red for the first time in over decade after he beat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D).

Plus, a survey from the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington released last September suggested Kaine and Youngkin would be tied in a hypothetical match-up in 2024, with the governor receiving 39 percent and Kaine receiving 41 percent. The margin of error for the survey was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. 

While Youngkin hasn’t announced a run for the Senate and has been more widely floated as a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, the polling suggests that candidate quality on the Republican side could put the Senate seat within reach. 

Source: TEST FEED1

End of Jan. 6 panel opens new chapter for Department of Justice

The close of the Jan. 6 committee marks a new chapter in the review of the deadly Capitol riot, with the fact-finding mission of the panel — and their plea for accountability — now resting largely with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The select committee’s investigation, which effectively ended with the culmination of the last Congress, has left a trove of leads for the Justice Department to explore.

Its report highlighted investigative loose ends, while the panel left thousands of exhibits of raw evidence posted publicly. 

It also finished with a direct ask of the Justice Department: to weigh criminal referrals against former President Trump and the attorney who encouraged Vice President Mike Pence to buck his ceremonial duty to certify the 2020 election results.

The Justice Department now faces pressure to carry the torch, even as its own probes, at least in the public sphere, have largely been directed at those who stormed the Capitol and not those who incited them.

“Our [role] was to look at the facts and circumstances. We did, and some of the facts and circumstances were very troubling. But obviously it’s beyond the scope of our committee,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chaired the Jan. 6 select committee and has publicly predicted DOJ charges. 

“So we’ve shared a number of depositions and other materials that they’ve requested, and I hope they take that material and use it in the furtherance of their charge.”

Any eventual high-level prosecution related to the Jan. 6 attack now rests with special counsel Jack Smith, whose mandate Attorney General Merrick Garland said includes “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election.”

The committee has made clear they hope that probe will directly target Trump and other close associates, nodding to the roles of Trump attorney Rudy Guiliani, chief of staff Mark Meadows and others. 

“Ours is not a system of justice where foot soldiers go to jail and the masterminds and ring leaders get a free pass,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the panel, said when announcing its criminal referrals.

The panel has given federal prosecutors transcripts the DOJ has been seeking since the summer, along with the release of unfiltered evidence, including emails, text exchanges and even voicemails.

Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who served on special counsel teams investigating Enron and Trump’s ties to Russia through the Mueller investigation, said Smith’s team is sure to be evaluating the tranche with a prosecutorial eye.

“Obviously, they’re reading everything,” Weissmann said.

“You have all sorts of people looking at it for different purposes. You have to do triage in terms of who are witnesses that are potential trial witnesses, who are people who you might be able to charge for false statements or obstruction or other crimes and see if they would flip. And so I think that literally is what they’re doing right now, and also looking at it very much with a defense eye.”

Mary McCord, who served as the acting assistant attorney general for national security under the Obama administration, stressed that prosecutors will be evaluating the evidence with a different standard than in the committee.

“The committee didn’t have the standards of the rules of evidence to apply. It didn’t have the same constitutional requirements of providing defendants — because it didn’t even have defendants — of providing defendants with all exculpatory and inculpatory material. It didn’t have any cross-examination, and the prosecutors will have to think about where there are vulnerabilities for purposes of cross-examination and attacking the strength of the government’s evidence,” she said.

“They can’t rely on hearsay. If they’re going to bring a case, they have to have evidence that will actually be admissible at trial.” 

Sandeep Prasanna, an attorney in private practice who previously served as an investigative counsel to the select committee, said the panel realized that criminal charges wouldn’t be appropriate for all they uncovered.

“At the end of the day, the task that was in front of the committee was just so different in nature than the task for DOJ. The report is intended to be a definitive account of the lead up and the attack itself. Congress, unfortunately, is not a prosecuting body. But we can tell a full story using the facts that we were able to uncover in a way that I think DOJ can’t. In many ways, they’re complementary institutions,” he said.

“There was a lot of conduct in the lead up to Jan. 6 that contributed to the effort to overturn the election and contributed to the precursors to the attack that may not necessarily rise to the level of crimes but are still incredibly relevant and central to telling the story.”

While courtroom standards could sideline some of the committee’s most captivating testimony, the evidence also provides a roadmap for prosecutors who may wish to shore up various lines of inquiry.    

“The department does have some tools that the committee didn’t have. You know, even for people who invoke the Fifth Amendment repeatedly in front of the committee, the department has some other choices,” McCord said, noting they are better able to compel testimony.

“They can also decide they will immunize somebody if they think that what they are refusing to talk about is important enough that they would be willing to forego using it against that person in order to obtain that information. And so those are some tools that the committee didn’t really have.”

In some corners there is a hope that the DOJ will be more aggressive in this next chapter of its investigation after lagging, at least publicly, behind the committee.

Weissmann said the DOJ has done an impressive job of addressing the “foot soldiers” Raskin referenced, including winning a guilty verdict in difficult-to-secure seditious conspiracy charges against some members of the far-right Oath Keepers. 

“But in terms of going up the chain, we haven’t seen any evidence whatsoever. That’s extremely unusual for an investigation into group conduct,” he said.

“There was a delay. I’m not in the camp of, ‘Oh, DOJ was always all over this and pursuing it with alacrity.’ I don’t think that was the case. … But I do think at this point, just looking at where we are now with the appointment of Jack Smith, I think that is somebody who I know for a fact and based on all information is somebody who is going to pursue this really aggressively.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), another member of the committee, stressed that the panel doesn’t see the DOJ as the only stopgap for providing accountability following the termination of the panel.

The committee has called on bar associations to review the conduct of various attorneys involved in the scheme to prevent the transfer of power.

But she acknowledged the Justice Department does hold a key role.

“We can just provide facts, which we’ve done, and suggestions. So now it’s up to DOJ,” Lofgren said.

“I think they should feel a passion to see that justice is done.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Abbott hands Biden letter blasting border visit as 'two years too late'

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Sunday handed President Biden a letter in which he criticized the president’s visit to the southern border town of El Paso.

The governor was greeting Biden on the tarmac when he handed him the letter, which began with Abbott writing: “Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late.”

“Moreover, your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry Texas property owners who lives have been destroyed by your border policies,” the letter read.

Abbott claimed in the letter that downtown El Paso had been “sanitized of the migrant camps” that he said had overrun the city in an attempt by the administration to “shield” Biden from “the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis.”

“This chaos is the direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted,” Abbott wrote.

The governor, who has consistently criticized the Biden administration for the migration crisis, accused the president again in the letter for emboldening drug cartels that are bringing fentanyl across the border, an issue consistently brought up by Republicans when criticizing border policies.

Abbott lays out five policy areas he wants Biden to address that include complying with the statues mandating that “various categories of aliens ‘shall’ be detained” to stop “unlawfully paroling aliens en masse,” and to fully enforce Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allows for migrants to be quickly expelled at the border without asylum processing.

Abbott also suggested taking steps to prosecute illegal entry between ports and allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to remove immigrants in the country illegally, immediately resuming construction of the border wall in Texas, and designate Mexican drug cartels “as foreign terrorist organizations.”

“When you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso, you have a job to do,” Abbott wrote before listing the criteria.

Abbott in the letter also praised former President Trump’s border policies that he said resulted in “historically low levels of illegal immigration.”

The Texas Republican has himself been criticized by Democrats for sending buses of migrants from Texas to various Democratic cities, including a bus of more than 100 migrants sent to Washington, D.C., on a frigid Christmas Eve. 

Earlier on Sunday, Abbott criticized the administration over not communicating with local officials about the president’s trip to the border until the night before. Sunday is Biden’s first trip to the southern border since taking office.

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace blasts Matt Gaetz as a ‘fraud’ for fundraising off McCarthy Speaker votes

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) called fellow Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) a “fraud” for fundraising off of his efforts to block Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from winning the position last week.

“Matt Gaetz is a fraud. Every time he voted against Kevin McCarthy last week he sent out a fundraising email,” Mace said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan. “What you saw last week was a constitutional process diminished by those kinds of political actions.”

Gaetz was part of a group of up to 20 holdouts who barred McCarthy from becoming Speaker for 14 rounds of voting. Gaetz was among what ultimately became six lawmakers who voted “present” in a 15th round of voting early Saturday that allowed McCarthy to capture the post after making a host of concessions to far-right lawmakers.

“I have no regrets about casting my vote on the House floor against Kevin McCarthy for Speaker!” one Gaetz fundraising email read.

The Hill has reached out to Gaetz’s office for comment.

Mace offered sharp criticism of Gaetz and other Republicans who were demanding concessions from McCarthy. She said she had “significant heartburn” over the deal-making that she said was not done transparently.

“We don’t know what they got or didn’t get,” Mace said. “We haven’t seen it. We don’t have any idea what promises were made.”

“I don’t support that kind of behavior.”

The House is set to vote on a rules package Monday, which it needs to adopt before any further business in the chamber can be conducted. The House came to a standstill all of last week during the Speakership vote, which also delayed the swearing-in of all its members.

Mace said she was considering holding back her support of the rules package because of the “backroom” style deals that were cut by McCarthy and opposing Republicans.

“I am on the fence right now about the rules package vote tomorrow for that reason,” Mace said.

Source: TEST FEED1