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Transportation watchdog to audit Buttigieg's use of government jets

The Transportation Department’s internal watchdog announced on Monday that it will be auditing Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) jets.

Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General said it will be auditing Buttigieg “to determine whether the Office of the Secretary complied with Federal regulations, policies, and procedures regarding executive travel on DOT aircraft.” The audit comes in response to Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) request for one in December, after a Fox News Digital report found that Buttigieg had taken at least 18 flights on the FAA jets.

The watchdog will review all Buttigieg’s official flights starting from Jan. 31, 2017, and said it will start the audit “shortly.”

“Senator Marco Rubio requested that we determine whether the Secretary’s use of Government aircraft for domestic and international travel complied with all applicable Federal regulations and DOT policies and procedures,” the announcement reads. “Accordingly, we will conduct an audit to determine whether the Office of the Secretary complied with Federal regulations, policies, and procedures regarding executive travel on DOT aircraft.”

The Hill reached out to Rubio’s office for comment.

Federal travel regulations limit employee travel on government vehicles and state that “[b]ecause the taxpayers should pay no more than necessary for your transportation, generally you may travel on Government aircraft only when a Government aircraft is the most cost-effective mode of travel.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to Buttigieg last month demanding answers on the secretary’s travel, including asking for an itemized list of all non-commercial flights he took, all expenses paid for by Transportation Department related to the flights and reasons the flight was warranted.

The Washington Post reported that the cost of Buttigieg’s 18 flights over seven total trips, including accommodations for staff, was $41,905.20. The Post also reported that in a response to Grassley, the Transportation Department said 119 out of Buttigieg’s 138 flights he took since being sworn in were on commercial airlines. A spokesperson for the department confirmed these details to The Hill.

“We welcome this independent audit moving forward in order to put some of the false, outlandish, and cynical claims about the Secretary’s mode of travel to rest. The fact remains that he flies commercially the vast majority of the time,” the spokesperson said.

“The exceptions have been when the Department’s career ethics officials, who have served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, determined that the use of a 9-seat FAA plane would be either more cost effective or should be approved for exceptional scheduling or security reasons,” the statement continued.

Buttigieg also responded to news of the audit on Twitter, saying that he is “glad” the flights will be reviewed.

“Glad this will be reviewed independently so misleading narratives can be put to rest. Bottom line: I mostly fly on commercial flights, in economy class. And when I do use our agency’s aircraft, it’s usually a situation where doing so saves taxpayer money,” he tweeted.

Source: TEST FEED1

White House: No government consensus on COVID lab leak theory

The White House on Monday downplayed and would not confirm a report that the Department of Energy determined a lab leak was the most likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying there is no government consensus yet about what caused the outbreak.

“The intelligence community and the rest of the government is still looking at this,” John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson, said at a press briefing.

“There’s not been a definitive conclusion, so it’s difficult for me to say, nor should I feel like I should have to defend press reporting about a possible preliminary indication here,” he continued. “What the president wants is facts. He wants the whole government designed to go get those facts. And, that’s what we’re doing, and we’re just not there yet.”

Reports circulated Sunday that the Energy Department had concluded based on new intelligence that a lab leak in China was the most likely cause of the pandemic, a shift from the previous position that it was not clear how the COVID-19 virus began to spread. The Energy Department study reportedly offered the conclusion with “low confidence” and the intelligence information that changed it conclusion is unknown.

But Kirby and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday would not weigh in on those reports or confirm them, instead insisting that the wider government was still looking into how the pandemic started.

“The president made trying to find the origins of Covid a priority when he came into office, and he’s got a whole government effort designed to do that,” Kirby said. “There is not a consensus in the U.S. government about how Covid started. There is not an intelligence community consensus.”

The U.S. intelligence community is split on the conclusion that the deadly virus leaked from a Chinese lab. Four other federal agencies believe that it likely jumped to humans from an animal host outside a lab. Those findings are also reportedly made with low confidence.

U.S. government officials have been pressing to learn more about how COVID-19 originated since the pandemic first began in early 2020, with Republicans in particular suggesting it may have jumped from a lab in Wuhan, China.

Wuhan, which is located about 500 miles west of Shanghai, is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products.  

Chinese authorities in 2021 refused to cooperate with a World Health Organization effort to study the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a lab. Government officials have been critical of China’s lack of cooperation in determining the origins of the virus, arguing Beijing has not been forthcoming since the pandemic began.

COVID-19 has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide, according to data from the World Health Organization, including roughly 1.1 million people in the United States.

Source: TEST FEED1

Top congressional leaders to receive briefing on classified documents

Congressional leaders and top Intelligence committee members will receive a briefing on Tuesday about the classified documents found at the homes of President Biden, former President Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, two sources familiar with the planned meeting told The Hill.

The group of lawmakers, also known as the “Gang of 8,” will learn more about what was included in the various batches of documents. The discovery of the documents raised questions about the handling of classified papers within the executive branch. 

The briefing comes after months of sparring between the Justice Department and congressional leaders, including top Intelligence panel members who have been clamoring for access to those documents. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) had made clear his dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s lack of cooperation on the topic. 

Warner, along with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the committee, in January warned the administration that “all things will be on the table” in order to view the documents in question. A week later, they called for “immediate compliance” from administration officials. 

The two senators dismissed the Department of Justice’s argument that the documents couldn’t be shared with lawmakers because of its ongoing probe into whether classified information was mishandled. Special counsels were appointed to examine the handling of documents by Biden and Trump. 

Hundreds of classified documents, including some marked “top secret,” were found during the FBI’s raid of the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home in August. Months later, reports emerged that classified papers were found at Biden’s Delaware home and at an old office. He has maintained that he did not know they were there. 

More than a dozen classified papers were found at Pence’s home in Indiana. A special counsel has not been appointed to examine his situation. 

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McClellan becomes 'ancestors' wildest dreams' with historic Virginia win

Virginia Rep.-elect Jennifer McClellan (D) is poised to make history when she is sworn into Congress, becoming the first Black woman to represent the commonwealth on Capitol Hill. 

The nature of her historic win wasn’t lost on her. McClellan told The Hill that during her campaigning, she was “very aware” of what a win would mean not just for her, but also for Black women across the nation. 

“It still blows my mind that there are firsts in 2023 but it is a tremendous honor and a tremendous responsibility,” McClellan, 50, said. “It’s an honor knowing that I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams and I stand on their shoulders. To be the first Black woman from Virginia, the birthplace of both American democracy and American slavery and massive resistance, is poetic justice.” 

McClellan’s political rise has been a gradual one, serving in Virginia’s House of Delegates and state Senate. In 2021, she came in a distant third place in the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, losing to former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). 

But nearly two years later, McClellan is looking to hit the ground running in Congress with an eye on expanding voting rights and improving education. 

“She’s going to be one of the younger people in the delegation and she’s in a relatively safe seat,” said veteran Virginia political analyst Bob Holsworth. “I expect her to move up in Congress because people are going to love her work ethic and they’re going to love working with her.” 

Throughout her time in the state legislature, McClellan has focused on progressive policies, from expanding abortion access to ensuring that Virginia became the first state in the south to pass a comprehensive voting rights act.  

Now, she wants the federal government to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

In 2013, the landmark Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court ruling gutted protections from discrimination guaranteed by the law. As a result, strict voter enforcement laws arose, including voter ID laws, which had previously been barred and which disproportionately impact Black Americans. 

Voting rights, McClellan told The Hill, are “sacred” in her family. 

Both her parents grew up during the Civil Rights Movement, and voting wasn’t easy to do. 

“My dad paid poll taxes to vote, and his dad paid poll taxes. My great grandfather had to take a literacy test and find three white men to vouch for him to be able to vote,” McClellan said. 

The right to vote, she added, is how Americans are able to participate in the government — and how the government upholds its promise to be by and for the people. 

“I learned very early as a delegate in the Virginia House of Delegates, everybody’s political views are shaped by their life and what they know,” McClellan said. “As more people who lived during Jim Crow are dying, we’re losing those stories and we’re in a battle right now over whether they’ll be taught in our schools. So being a voice to bring those stories and those perspectives to the halls of Congress is really important to me.” 

McClellan has also homed in on energy and environment related issues, notably brokering a compromise between environmentalists and Dominion Energy. 

“While she’s clearly what I would consider a center-left Democrat, she also has the capacity to work across the aisle at times because of her personality,” Holsworth said. 

While Virginia’s fourth congressional district is considered a safe seat for Democrats, McClellan shattered expectations in her campaign to replace McEachin, defeating her opponent by 50 points. 

“That was a statement of how fired up people are no matter what the stakes are,” said Gianni Snidle, communications director for the Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus. “Truly it seems they want to make their voices on Democratic values.” 

But McClellan also said her win is helping close an “imagination gap” that doesn’t see Black women in political seats. 

“I think recognizing what I faced in that race put an imagination gap because people had never seen — and I think [Georgia gubernatorial candidate] Stacey Abrams saw this — people have never seen a Black woman in the role,” she said. “They couldn’t imagine that and yet, all across the country, there are Black women who are doing amazing things and are just as qualified or just as capable as other candidates who have succeeded. And I think we just need to stretch our imagination a little bit and support them.” 

Democratic strategist Atima Omara said that some of this perception is starting to change as a result of the 2016 election and voters’ desire to see a more reflective democracy. 

“I feel like the attitude of the culture has shifted, certainly in the last six years, as I think people really started thinking about what does representation look like with the 2016 election and how can we make our democracy more reflective of that,” said Omara, who ran for a seat in the Virginia General Assembly in 2014. 

But the imagination gap still persists, Omara said, in part because of a “deep bias” about what Black women should be doing. Omara points to the praise Abrams received for her organizing, but the admonishment that followed her when she expressed interest in potentially being part of President Biden’s cabinet. 

“People admire a Black woman when she does the labor, when she does the work in service,” explained Omara. “But when she dares to step out and say, I am qualified to lead this organization, this company, to represent you in Congress … folks start to question your ability because how dare you put yourself forward, you are supposed to be in service, not leading.” 

Now, Omara said she expects to see McClellan use her time in Congress to further the legacy of the late Rep. Don McEachin, who was an advocate for environmental justice, among other things. 

But McClellan has also led on advocating for abortion access during her time in the legislature and on the campaign trail. 

Earlier this month, Republicans in the House of Delegates defeated an effort led by McClellan to allow Virginia voters to decide whether abortion access should be enshrined in the commonwealth’s constitution. While the effort was rejected, it will likely leave a mark going into November’s elections. 

“It is something the Democrats are going to run on in all of the suburban competitive districts this year,” Holsworth said. 

McClellan told The Hill that she plans to continue this effort in Congress. 

“I was very instrumental in expanding access to health care and reproductive health care here in Virginia,” McClellan said. “Passing the first bill in the south to remove barriers to access to abortion, and that’s something that we need to do at the federal level now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe.” 

McClellan said even with her historical win, there remains a responsibility to ensure she is not the last Black woman to make history — in her state, or across the country. 

“I think the first step is to support the Black women that are leading at the state level, at the local level, in the party, who are building a bench and are building the experience needed to run at higher levels. And then when they step forward to run, pay homage to that experience and work.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Texas Republican doubles down on attack on Judy Chu

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) is doubling down on his attack on Rep. Judy Chu’s (D-Calf.) heritage despite receiving bipartisan pushback, arguing that it is not “xenophobic” to question the congresswoman’s loyalty to her country.

In a tweet on Sunday, Gooden pointed to Chu’s vote against a resolution creating a select committee to investigate China, and he cited reporting from The Daily Caller that said Chu —  the first Chinese American congresswoman — had been appointed to an honorary position in an organization with ties to the Communist Party of China.

“Democrat @RepJudyChu: Voted AGAINST committee to investigate China. Named ‘Honorary Chairwoman’ of CCP front group. It’s not ‘xenophobic’ to question where her loyalty lies,” Gooden wrote on Twitter.

The Hill reached out to Chu for comment. She defended herself against Gooden’s previous remarks, calling his comments “absolutely outrageous” and “racist.”

The political firestorm began last week, when Gooden suggested that Chu should not receive access to sensitive classified materials because she defended Dominic Ng, who President Biden appointed to lead U.S. trade interests in Asia. Ng has been accused of having ties to the Chinese Communist Party, prompting a group of House GOP lawmakers to ask the FBI to investigate the appointee.

“I question her either loyalty or competence,” Gooden said of Chu during an interview on Fox News. “If she doesn’t realize what’s going on then she’s totally out of touch with one of her core constituencies.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle condemned the remarks.

“Let me say we should not question anybody’s loyalty to the United States. I think that is out of bounds. It’s beyond the pale,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), the chairman of the China select committee, told CBS’s “Face The Nation” on Sunday.

“Absolutely, we shouldn’t question anybody’s loyalty,” he added.

During that same interview, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), the top Democrat on the panel, called Gooden’s comments “offensive.”

In a separate statement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the Texas Republican’s “slanderous accusations” against Chu was “dangerous, unconscionable and xenophobic.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Republicans retool crime message for 2024

Republicans up and down the ballot are working to retool their message on crime going into 2024 after the party found only limited success with the issue in the midterms.

Earlier this week, likely presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) traveled to the Democratic enclaves of New York and Chicago ahead of his expected presidential campaign launch with stops at police unions. Further south and down the ballot, the Republican State Leadership Committee rolled out a wave of digital ads in Virginia hitting Democrats over opposing legislation that would charge drug dealers with homicide. And former President Trump, who’s running for another White House bid in 2024, has repeatedly hammered President Biden on the issue.

The efforts come as the party looks to regain ground following the GOP’s disappointing midterm elections last year.  

While the GOP generally underperformed in 2022, Republicans point to New York where the party made inroads focusing on crime as a top issue. Republicans in the Empire State picked up three House seats, including the one held by then-Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney (N.Y.). And despite ultimately losing to Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), then-GOP gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin performed better than expected against the governor. 

“Lee Zeldin ran a one-issue campaign on the issue of crime,” said one House Republican strategist. “Every day he was at a metro stop or a corner store where somebody got shot or mugged.”

“That’s just a great case study in how effective the message can be,” the strategist added. 

And Democrats say they too are keenly aware of the potency of the issue going into the next election. 

“Democrats have learned that they need to take that issue very seriously and I hope, get ahead of it,” said Jon Reinish, a New York-based Democratic strategist. 

Corey Grable, an Independent who is running for president of New York City’s Police Benevolent Association, told HillTV that policies promoted by the left flank of the Democratic Party, including calls to defund the police, have put the party on the wrong side of the issue. 

“As far as the Democrats, I think that unfortunately, they’ve gotten out on the wrong side of the issue,” Grable said. “The reality is many of the policies that have been created have actually had this unintended consequence of actually hurting people that they were aiming to protect.” 

And Republicans have used crime to tie the majority of Democratic candidates to the left-leaning flank. 

“It’s the clearest and easiest way for Republicans to tag Democrats to the fringe of the party,” said the House Republican strategist. 

But Democrats have employed a tougher-on-crime message in recent years while also acknowledging police brutality. 

In his State of the Union address earlier this month, President Biden expressed support for police officers but noted the death of Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man who died in police custody last month. 

Incumbent Democratic mayors, including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is running for reelection and is against defunding the police, also find themselves under pressure on the issue. A WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times/Telemundo Chicago/NBC5 survey released earlier this month found that 44 percent of Chicago voters named crime and public safety as their “most important issue,” followed by criminal justice reform at 13 percent. 

Lightfoot has accused some of her opponents of being supportive of defunding law enforcement on the debate stage and in ads. 

Meanwhile, Republicans are also using crime and the situation at the southern border as a means to talk about the ongoing opioid crisis in the country. 

“Crime is the starting point, but once we dig into what issues the issues of crime [are], this is one where we believe that this is a top issue that’s going to matter to voters this cycle,” said one Republican operative. 

And polling shows that voters are concerned about the ongoing crisis. 

An Axios-Ipsos survey released on Thursday found that 26 percent of voters, a plurality in the findings, said that they view opioids as the greatest threat to public health in the U.S. Thirty-seven percent of Republican voters said the same. 

Biden and Democrats have incorporated the opioid crisis into more of their rhetoric, with Biden addressing the issue at the State of the Union. 

“Having the president offering his own solutions which do have broad, bipartisan appeal about the opioid crisis I think was a major step in the right direction,” Reinish said. “Democrats have got to take the bull by the horns.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Paul calls for declassifying documents showing that COVID came from Chinese lab 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, says the Biden administration should declassify classified documents showing that scientists at the Department of Energy believe COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.  

“Classified documents leaked (they should be declassified!) showing scientists at DOE believe COVID leaked from Wuhan Lab,” Paul tweeted on Monday, circulating a Wall Street Journal story published over the weekend reporting the Energy Department has concluded the COVID pandemic likely came from a lab leak.  

The Journal reported the Energy Department concluded the pandemic arouse from a mishap at a Chinese lab based on new intelligence. It matches the FBI’s conclusion from a 2021 analysis that the pandemic originated from a lab leak.  The Energy Department study reportedly offered the conclusion with low confidence.

The U.S. intelligence community is split on the conclusion that the deadly virus leaked from a Chinese lab. Four other federal agencies believe that it likely jumped to humans from an animal host outside a lab. Those findings are also reportedly made with low confidence.

The Central Intelligence Agency hasn’t made a judgment on whether the virus sprung from a lab or naturally from another animal host.

Paul is not the only U.S. senator pushing to see the intelligence and make it public.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said on Sunday that he will introduce legislation to declassify intelligence findings about the likely origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more than 1 million deaths in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  

“The American people deserve the full truth about #COVID origins. No more whitewash. I will again introduce legislation to make the U.S. government’s intelligence reports on COVID more open to the public,” Hawley tweeted.  

The Journal reported that the Department of Energy and the FBI concluded that the pandemic started from a lab leak for different reasons. The Central Intelligence Agency hasn’t make a judgment on whether the virus sprung from a lab or naturally from another animal host.  

Wuhan, which is located about 500 miles west of Shanghai, is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products.  

Chinese authorities in 2021 refused to cooperate with a World Health Organization effort to study the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a lab.  

Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of China’s National Health Commission, has dismissed the possibility that COVID originated in a Chinese lab.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Supreme Court to review constitutionality of funding consumer protection bureau

The Supreme Court will review the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding mechanism.

Lower courts have split on the issue of whether the CFPB’s funding through annual transfers by the Federal Reserve violates the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause, which establishes Congress’s power of the purse.

In a brief, unsigned order on Monday, the court announced it will take up the case, indicating at least four justices agreed to do so.

The CFPB was created after the 2008 financial crisis to enforce consumer financial laws, and a coalition of 16 Republican attorneys general want the justices to affirm a lower court decision deeming the funding scheme from the Federal Reserve unconstitutional.

The Biden administration says that lower court decision calls into question virtually every action the CFPB has taken since it was created.

The administration is backed by Democratic attorneys general in 21 states and Washington, D.C., who want to reverse the ruling and deem the CFPB’s funding a valid use of Congress’s appropriations power.

“The CFPB’s critical work administering and enforcing consumer financial protection laws will be frustrated,” the Biden administration wrote in its brief. “And because the decision below vacates a past agency action based on the purported Appropriations Clause violation, the decision threatens the validity of all past CFPB actions as well.”

Two associations of companies regulated by the CFPB’s payday lending rule, which limits the amount of times and ways a payday lender can attempt to collect on a loan, sued over the rule in 2018 on multiple grounds.

A three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last October vacated the rule, because it deemed the agency’s funding mechanism unconstitutional and found a nexus between it and the payday lending rule.

“For the most part, the Plaintiffs’ claims miss their mark,” the court ruled. “But one arrow has found its target: Congress’s decision to abdicate its appropriations power under the Constitution, i.e., to cede its power of the purse to the Bureau, violates the Constitution’s structural separation of powers.”

That decision disagreed with a separate case from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and multiple federal trial courts.

Splits between circuit courts are a top reason the Supreme Court agrees to take up cases, and its review of the CFPB decision will bring renewed attention to the future of the agency, which Republicans have targeted.

“The Supreme Court’s actions today support what the industry has been saying for months, that there is confusion in the marketplace that must be addressed,” Leah Dempsey, lobbyist for ACA International, a trade group that represents debt collectors, said in a statement.

“This baseless lawsuit is the crown jewel in a long-running, highly organized effort by greedy industries and right-wing politicians in their pocket to take out the CFPB because it works so well to protect consumers from abuse,” Liz Zelnick, director of economic security and corporate power at watchdog group Accountable.US, said in a statement.

–Updated at 10:51 a.m.

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Slotkin announces Senate campaign in Michigan

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) on Monday announced she’s running to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate.

“Today, I’m announcing my run to be Michigan’s next U.S. Senator. We need a new generation of leaders that thinks differently, works harder, and never forgets that we are *public servants,*” Slotkin wrote on Twitter alongside a campaign video.

The Michigan seat opened up after Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said last month that she wouldn’t run for reelection, and has been eyed as a key pickup opportunity as both parties jostle for control of the upper chamber in the 2024 election.

Slotkin’s three-minute campaign video highlights her work with the Central Intelligence Agency as a Middle East analyst and her bipartisan White House experience “under two presidents: one Republican, and one Democrat.”

“We all know America is going through something right now. We seem to be living crisis to crisis, but there are certain things that should be really simple,” Slotkin said.

Slotkin, who was reelected to a third term in the U.S. House back in November’s midterm elections, is the first high-profile candidate to step into the race for the seat being vacated by Stabenow’s retirement.

This story was updated at 9:03 a.m.

Source: TEST FEED1