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Medicare Part B premiums to decrease for the first time in over a decade

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced that Medicare Part B premiums will decrease in 2023, marking the first time this cost has been lowered in more than a decade.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that Medicare Part B premiums would be lowered by three percent, or $5.20, going from $170.10 a month to $164.90. The program’s annual deductible will also fall by $7, from $233 to $226.

The last time Medicare Part B premiums fell was in 2012 when they went from $115.40 to $99.90 a month, a decrease of 13.4 percent.

In 2022, Medicare Part B premiums rose by 14.5 percent, one of the largest annual increases ever seen in the program’s history. A major factor in this increase was the inclusion of Aduhelm, the first Alzheimer’s medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 20 years.

The drug was highly scrutinized due to questions regarding its efficacy in treating Alzheimer’s disease as well as its sky-high price. Aduhelm initially cost $56,000 before its manufacturer Biogen announced it was halving the price to $28,200.

News of this decrease does not come as a complete surprise, as Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra had said in May that the premiums in 2023 would be adjusted in light of a report that found the cost of including Aduhelm in Medicare had been overestimated. This report was ordered following Biogen’s decision to decrease the cost of Aduhelm.

Becerra said at the time that he had hoped to lower premiums during 2022, but found that there were “legal and operational hurdles” preventing this. With this announced decrease, the 2023 Medicare Part B premium will be 11 percent higher than the $148.50 monthly fee that was set in 2021.

CMS cited the “lower-than-projected spending on both Aduhelm and other Part B items” as reason for the “much larger reserves” in the Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund that allowed for the lowered premium.

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Court hands partial win to Trump in rape accuser’s defamation suit

A federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday handed Donald Trump a partial victory in a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s, with the court ruling that presidents are covered by a federal law that gives broad legal immunity to government employees.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said a lower court erred when it ruled that Trump’s accuser, E. Jean Carroll, could sue Trump personally for the allegedly defamatory statements he made about her during his presidency.

The Tuesday ruling was not the final word in the case, however.

The Second Circuit panel asked the top local court in Washington to weigh in on another key issue bearing on Trump’s potential immunity: whether Trump was acting “outside the scope” of his presidency when he allegedly defamed Carroll by casting doubt on her credibility and demeaning her personal appearance.

Developing  

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The Hill's Morning Report — Clashes and crashes: Senate, Jan. 6 panel, outer space

The Senate’s task of keeping the government funded beginning with a test vote tonight has transformed a centrist’s policy battle into a nail-biting skirmish involving — what else? — partisan one upmanship.

Senators on both sides of the aisle expect the government to keep the lights on after Friday and most likely into mid-December. The question is whose ox is gored along the way.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his leadership team on Monday urged GOP colleagues to vote against language that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants to add to a stopgap spending bill before the Friday deadline as repayment to his West Virginia Democratic Senate colleague Joe Manchin, who made it possible in August for Democrats’ sprawling Inflation Reduction Act to become law. 

McConnell’s active opposition is an ominous sign since Manchin doesn’t have enough backers in his own party for his favored reforms, which he says would help the energy industry expedite federal construction permits. Without 10-20 Republican votes, which he did not appear to have on Monday, Manchin’s efforts will fall short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Schumer, who engineered the legislative gamble, could end up with an embarrassing and time-consuming setback (The Hill).

“It would appear the senior senator from West Virginia traded his vote on a massive liberal boondoggle in exchange for nothing,” McConnell said last week while encouraging Manchin to throw his support to an alternative bill sponsored by West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito.

If Manchin’s permitting measure fails during a test vote along with the underlying government funding resolution, both chambers in Congress are jammed against a funding deadline just weeks ahead of the midterm elections. Schumer would need the cooperation of all 99 Senate colleagues to regroup with a fallback option — a vote on a stripped-down spending alternative, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports.

▪ Politico: McConnell works to box out Manchin.

▪ The Hill: Here are five things to know about Congress’ spending showdown. 

▪ The Hill: Eighteen state attorneys general, all Republicans, on Monday called on the Senate to oppose Manchin’s permitting reform bill.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Here are five House Republicans poised to expand their sway on key committees if their party is in the majority next year. 

▪ Politico: Lawmakers are expected to deliver fresh military and economic assistance for Ukraine, perhaps $12 billion, as part of a continuing resolution.

▪ Defense News: A bipartisan group of 10 senators on Monday said they want to include the Pentagon’s request for a critical munitions acquisition fund in the National Defense Authorization Act. The Senate is likely to vote in October on the fiscal 2023 measure, with a conference committee expected between the House and Senate after the Nov. 8 elections. 

LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS & INVESTIGATIONS

As the Jan. 6 House select committee approaches the last stages of hearings and evidence collection, investigators face an enormous challenge, write The Hill’s Mike Lillis and Rebecca Beitsch. The committee must synthesize a massive amount of evidence and testimony, packaging it into a clear and concise narrative that will prove persuasive with voters — and help Democrats in the midterms.

“There’s such a huge avalanche of information that it becomes difficult towards the end to decide what we’re going to use in a particular context,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told The Hill.

The committee is set to hold what will likely be one of its last hearings at 1 p.m. on Wednesday. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that while the committee is not disclosing what the hearing’s focus will be, “I think it’ll be potentially more sweeping than some of the other hearings.” 

“It will tell the story about a key element of Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the election,” Schiff added. “And the public will certainly learn things it hasn’t seen before, but it will also understand information it already has in a different context by seeing how it relates to other elements of this plot.”

As the committee prepares to write its final report, two key voices are missing: former President Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom haven’t given interviews to the panel.

And there’s another complicating factor, write The Hill’s Mychael Schnell and Rebecca Beitsch, former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), who worked as an adviser to the Jan. 6 select committee until April and is releasing an unauthorized book about his experience today. 

Riggleman said someone at the White House placed a late-afternoon call to a Capitol rioter while the attack was still underway.

“You get a real ‘aha!’ moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter’s phone while it’s happening,” he said.

Committee members swiftly pushed back after Riggleman’s unsanctioned interview and are downplaying his knowledge of the panel’s operation and the significance of the call.

“I don’t know what Mr. Riggleman is doing, really,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), told CNN during a Sunday interview. “I only saw him a few times when he was on the staff, and he did leave. So, you know, he does not know what happened after April, and a lot has happened in our investigation.”

▪ CNN: The Jan. 6 committee returns with another public hearing this week. Here’s what you need to know.

▪ The Hill: Riggleman: “After I criticized Trump, my mom texted me, `I’m sorry you were ever elected.’”

▪ USA Today: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.): Jan. 6 committee received approximately 800,000 pages from the Secret Service.

▪ The Washington Post: Jan. 6 committee hearing will use clips from a documentary about former Trump adviser Roger Stone.

Investigators last week subpoenaed Wisconsin’s House Speaker Robin Vos (R) to testify about a July phone call with Trumpafter state courts blocked the use of some absentee ballot dropboxes. Vos on Monday filed an emergency lawsuit to block the subpoena (The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and CNN).

Cheney, the Jan. 6 committee vice chairwoman, says she will no longer be a Republican if Trump wins the 2024 presidential nomination. Her Saturday remarks are fueling rumors of an independent presidential run, writes The Hill’s Julia Manchester. While the outgoing congresswoman lost her primary to her Trump-backed opponent in August, her break with the party’s MAGA wing has made her the leader of the GOP’s anti-Trump movement.

Abortion access is a key topic in governor’s races across the country, Politico reports, after this summer’s overturning of Roe v. Wade placed the issue firmly back in states’ hands. Democrats are capitalizing on the moment, spending big to remind voters of the stakes in November, while Republicans are trying their best to change the topic.

▪ Politico: Pollsters fear they’re blowing it again in 2022.

▪ Politico: GOP readies political heartburn for an FBI it won’t defund.

A new Marist poll in Pennsylvania released this morning found that Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D), competing for a Senate seat against Republican Mehmet Oz, has a 10-point lead, 51-41, among registered voters statewide, which narrows to 7 points (51-44) among those who say they definitely plan to vote. Fetterman’s backers (70 percent) are more likely than Oz’s backers (58 percent) to express a strong commitment to their candidate, according to the poll.

In the Pennsylvania governor’s race, Democrat Josh Shapiro leads Republican Doug Mastriano by double-digits among registered voters. Shapiro also has a strong advantage among those who say they definitely plan to vote. The Marist survey conducted Sept. 19-22 has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ STATE WATCH

🌀 Hurricane Ian this morning is a Category 3 storm that lashed Cuba’s western tip, led to the evacuation of 50,000 island residents under authorities’ orders, and is heading toward Florida’s west coast, where it could become a Category 4 storm by early Wednesday, according to forecasts (NBC News and Bloomberg). 

“Significant wind and storm surge impacts occurring over western Cuba,” the National Hurricane Center reported at 5 a.m. ET.

Tampa and St. Petersburg appeared as of Monday to be among the most likely Florida targets for possible high winds, rain and storm surge — possibly the first direct hit by a major hurricane in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties since 1921. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday urged some residents near the Gulf Coast to voluntarily move inland or evacuate, saying, “Safety is paramount. There is going to be damage.”

Politico: DeSantis faces the true test of any Florida governor.

Biden over the weekend approved an emergency declaration across the Sunshine State, allowing for preemptive federal resources and coordination of disaster relief efforts among local, state and federal authorities, The Hill’s Brett Samuels reports. The president was scheduled to travel to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando this week but postponed his events because of the storm.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Monday declared a public health emergency in Florida ahead of the hurricane, which gives the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services beneficiaries and their health care providers and suppliers greater flexibility to meet emergency response and health needs. “We stand ready to provide additional public health and medical support,” he added. The department says it pre-positioned two 15-person Health and Medical Task Force teams from its National Disaster Medical System to assist in Florida.

NBC News: For Biden, Florida becomes the elephant in the campaign room.

➤ ADMINISTRATION

💵 The Inflation Reduction Act’s new 15 percent corporate minimum tax would affect only 78 companies across the country, according to new research from the University of North Carolina Tax Center. The tax, which targets companies that earn $1 billion or more annually, goes into effect in January. Researchers predict it would hit e-commerce giant Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway, billionaire Warren Buffett’s holding company, the hardest (CNBC).

✈️ President Biden on Monday said he wants airlines, cellular companies, banks and other consumer-facing businesses to lower high prices and what he called burdensome fees on “middle-class families,” adding a warning for petroleum and gas companies. “My message is simple,” he said during a White House event with members of his Cabinet. “Bring down the prices you’re charging at the pump. Do it now. Not a month from now. Do it now.” The president credited Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for pressuring commercial airlines to disclose fees added to ticket prices at the outset that wind up increasing the costs of travel, such as baggage, seat selection, cancellation and rebooking fees. “They cancel on you and you have to pay a fee to rebook. C’mon man,” Biden said. “No really. It’s simply not fair. It’s not fair” (CNBC).

🥩 The administration on Monday proposed new regulations to strengthen competition rules in poultry and livestock markets aimed at protecting farmers and ranchers in dealing with the companies that process their products. Long-simmering grievances over the domination of meat and poultry markets by a few giant companies have exploded into the broader political debate as rising meat prices played an outsize role in surging inflation this past year (Reuters).

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides told The Hill’s Laura Kelly that his main mission in the region is to “keep the waters calm.” Another view is that Nides is tasked with protecting the president’s policies and the Democratic Party’s relationship with Israel. “I got one North Star, keep this a democratic, Jewish state. Anything that falls within that category I’m in, I’m in,” Nides said during an interview.

OPINION

■ Manchin’s permitting bill has a poison pill, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board, https://on.wsj.com/3rbjNQ6 

■ Where are all our post-COVID-19 patients? by Daniela Lamas, guest essayist, The New York Times, https://nyti.ms/3LJomdQ

WHERE AND WHEN

The House meets at noon on Wednesday.

The Senate convenes at 3 p.m. to resume consideration of a motion to proceed to the legislative vehicle for a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government into December.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10:30 a.m. Biden will speak at 1:15 p.m. during a Rose Garden event focused on healthcare costs and Medicare and Social Security.  

Vice President Harris today is in Tokyo where she will meet with South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo at 10:30 a.m. JST. (The vice president plans to travel on Thursday to the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea, according to the White House.) Harris will meet at 11:30 a.m. JST with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The vice president at 2 p.m. JST will lead the U.S. delegation at the state funeral for former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was murdered in July during a campaign speech. She will tour the Zojoji Temple at 3:50 p.m. JST and meet with U.S. Embassy staff and families in the evening at The Okura Tokyo. Later, the vice president will lead the U.S. delegation in a receiving line at the Akasaka Palace following the funeral for Abe.  

Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets at 10 a.m. with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at the State Department. They will hold a joint press conference at 11:15 a.m. The secretary meets at 1 p.m. with Tajikistan Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin.

First lady Jill Biden at 4:30 p.m. will welcome to the White House a group of National Student Poets selected this year as part of an annual program. The young poets chosen this year are from New York City, Milwaukee, Charleston, S.C., Santa Fe, N.M., and Bellevue, Wash. 

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at noon accompanied byFederal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell.

🖥 Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://thehill.com/hilltv, on YouTube and on Facebook at 10:30 a.m. ET. Also, check out the “Rising” podcast here.

ELSEWHERE

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

New York City has confirmed four deaths linked to cases of Legionnaires’ disease, a severe form of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria. The city’s health department reported eight cases total at an Upper West Side nursing home, but has not yet confirmed the source of the infection. Legionella bacteria spread primarily through mist and contaminated water; the disease is not transmissible from person to person (West Side Rag and The New York Times).

▪ The Atlantic: Long COVID-19 has forced a reckoning for one of medicine’s most neglected diseases, chronic fatigue syndrome

▪ The Washington Post: Five things about COVID-19 we still don’t understand at our peril.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,056,789. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 348, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Russian citizenship to fugitive Edward Snowden on Monday. Snowden, 39, the former U.S. intelligence contractor who disclosed mass surveillance techniques to news organizations and is wanted in the United States on espionage charges, has been living in Russia for nine years and said two years ago that he sought citizenship as a practical step to give his family more freedom to cross borders (The New York Times).

Meanwhile, Kremlin officials said Monday that Russia had not decided whether to seal its borders to stop draft-eligible citizens from fleeing. Putin last week gave the order to call up more than 300,000 reservists in an escalation of the war with Ukraine. Flights out of the country have been selling out and cars clog border checkpoints as Russians seek to avoid the draft (Reuters).

▪ The New York Times: Putin expected to annex parts of Ukraine soon as referendums end.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Two Russian military recruitment centers were attacked Monday as fighting-age Russian men seek to flee the country rather than be called up to fight in Ukraine.

➤ HOUSING

Remote work drove more than 60 percent of the pandemic housing and rent price surge, according to researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and University of California, San Diego. They found that the shift will likely drive future cost increases and inflation if remote work becomes more permanent, as anticipated (Bloomberg).

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Rents drop for first time in two years after climbing to records. 

▪ The New York Times: Whatever happened to the starter home?

▪ The Wall Street Journal: The U.S. is running short on land for housing.

THE CLOSER

And finally … Kaboom! NASA’s experimental mission to travel 7 million miles from Earth to smash into an unsuspecting asteroid was pronounced a success Monday night.

On time and on target, the space agency’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft slammed into asteroid Dimorphos at more than 14,000 miles per hour with the aim of nudging or pulverizing the target.

While the asteroid posed no threat to Earth, the mission was a test of technology that could protect the planet from an oncoming space rock in the future (The New York Times, The Hill and Space.com). Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle. Though the impact was immediately obvious — Dart’s radio signal abruptly ceased — it will take days or even weeks to determine how much the asteroid’s path was changed.

Stay Engaged

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Five Republicans poised to increase their power if the GOP takes the House

Top Republicans on House panels, confident about the GOP’s chances of taking control of the chamber next year, have for months been planning what they’ll do with committee gavels.

Committee chairs influence hearing focus, investigations and subpoenas, in addition to legislative priorities. Lawmakers’ personal style can play a large role in a committee’s work.

The House Republican Conference’s Steering Committee will formally select most committee chairs. But while the leaders of some committees are up in the air, most current ranking members are poised to be chairs next year. 

Here are ranking members on five powerful committees likely to increase their power in a GOP majority.

Rep. James Comer (R-Tenn.), ranking member on House Oversight and Reform Committee

With many top GOP priorities unlikely to overcome a Senate filibuster or a presidential veto in the next two years, a major focus for a GOP-led House next year will be challenging the Biden administration through oversight and investigations.

Comer plans to focus the committee’s investigations into three main areas next year: the origins of the coronavirus, policies at the U.S.-Mexico border and the overseas activities of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Comer, along with House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), released emails between chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci and other top public health officials discussing the possibility of the virus originating in a lab.

He says the committee’s staff has a copy of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop hard drive, which he says would allow him to look into his suspicions that some of the president’s decisions may have been impacted by his son’s business dealings — allegations President Biden has repeatedly denied.

But while his panel leads those probes, Comer says he does not want to overuse subpoena power.

“I want to hope that when my time is done as Chairman of the Oversight Committee, they will say, ‘He was fair, we didn’t try to do anything overtly political,’” Comer told The Hill in an interview earlier this year.

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), ranking member on House Appropriations Committee

Granger is in line to become chair of the Appropriations panel, raising her status as a powerful negotiator for government funding deals.

The committee has broad jurisdiction over funding the government and is composed of 12 subcommittees, each of which have authority over different parts of the government.

In several letters sent last week, Granger showed a willingness to challenge administrative agencies on their authority in light of a Supreme Court ruling this year that conservatives saw as a key victory in their quest to reign in regulatory powers.

“The Constitution clearly states that Congress, not the administration, has the power and responsibility to legislate. Unfortunately, the administration continues to overstep its authority,” Granger said in a statement. 

Granger, who has been in the House for nearly 25 years and is the most senior Republican woman in the chamber, has held the committee’s ranking member post for two cycles. Before that, she led the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which is responsible for a large chunk of federal funding.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), ranking member on House Energy and Commerce Committee

Rodgers would be the first woman to lead the House Energy and Commerce panel. And she already has plans for the committee’s top priorities.

“Very big picture, it’s to protect Americans and to unleash innovation and technology in the United States of America,” Rodgers told Punchbowl News last month when asked about priorities for the panel in a GOP House majority.

The congresswoman has three areas of focus: unleashing American energy, holding big tech accountable and probes into health care, particularly ones zeroing in on the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the energy front, Rodgers emphasized the importance of bringing down carbon emissions and decreasing dependence on China. She said TikTok was among the “worst actors” in tech and raised concerns regarding data collected and stored in China and kids on social media.

And on the third prong, health care, Rodgers wants to dive into the U.S.’s coronavirus response, explore how to prepare for future pandemics, and bring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under congressional authorization.

She also vowed to bring Fauci before the committee, even though he will be gone from government at that point.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member on House Armed Services Committee

One area Rogers has his eyes on if he leads the Armed Services panel next year is the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the Iran Nuclear Deal, which then-President Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018.

As part of the agreement, struck under former President Obama in 2015, Iran said it would disassemble parts of its nuclear program and allow more widespread inspections of its facilities. In return, Tehran was freed of billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions.

Rogers, who previously served as ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, has promised to block any attempts at bringing back the deal.

“Let me make this clear, this deal with Iran will be dead on arrival in a Republican controlled Congress and Congress will strengthen sanctions against Iran,” Rogers wrote in a statement in response to reports of the Biden administration working to bring the deal back to life.

The Armed Services panel will also likely focus on last year’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan if Republicans take control of the lower chamber. Thirteen U.S. service members died in a suicide attack outside the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021, amid the U.S.’s evacuation.

In a statement commemorating the one-year anniversary of the fatal attack, Rogers vowed to continue pushing for answers regarding the failures that led to the 13 deaths.

“We still lack answers from the Biden Administration on why military advice was ignored, why the withdrawal was based on a date and not the reality on the ground, and why no one has been held accountable for the security failures that led to the bombing one year ago,” Rogers said.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), ranking member on House Judiciary Committee 

Jordan, a founding former chairman of the confrontational conservative House Freedom Caucus, went from being a challenger to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to lead the House Republican Conference a few years ago to a steadfast supporter of McCarthy for Speaker next year if Republicans win the House.

With the subpoena power that comes with the Judiciary panel’s gavel, Jordan — an ally of Trump — could have a leading role in House GOP investigatory actions.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI are top targets for Jordan, who has said that 14 whistleblowers from within the FBI have come to his committee alleging various politically motivated bias against conservatives.

“We’re going to look into this weaponization of the DOJ against the American people,” Jordan said last week at House Republicans’ event in Pennsylvania rolling out a “Commitment to America” policy and messaging platform. 

Some of that will have to do with DOJ investigations into Trump. Jordan, Comer and McCarthy earlier this month requested a hearing with Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray on the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and recovery of classified documents and asked them to preserve communications and documents relating to the raid, an indication that the committee may utilize its subpoena power in the future. 

The Judiciary panel would also have jurisdiction over any impeachment efforts. Many right-wing Republicans have pushed for impeaching Biden, and McCarthy has opened the door to impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. 

Bonus: Open races for top slots

With Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) retiring from Congress at the end of the year, the top GOP slot on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee is up for grabs next year. Three members are seeking the position: Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who is next in line on the committee; Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), the third-ranking Republican on the panel; and Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the current ranking member on the House Budget Committee who announced a bid for Ways and Means chair when he opted out of running for Senate in this cycle.

The Homeland Security Committee gavel is also an open race, with ranking member John Katko (R-N.Y.) leaving Congress at the end of the year. Third-ranking Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) is interested in the slot, as are two members who previously sat on the committee: Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) and Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.). With the GOP’s heavy focus on migration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, the panel would have plenty of high-profile activity under a GOP majority.

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Manchin faces make-or-break vote on permitting reform

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) faces a make-or-break moment for his top policy priority when the Senate holds a key procedural vote Tuesday on his permitting reform bill, which Republican leaders are working hard to defeat.    

The Senate will vote at 5:30 p.m. on a motion to proceed to a House-passed “shell” bill that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) hopes to use as a legislative vehicle to pass a government funding bill with Manchin’s permitting reform legislation attached.   

Schumer promised to attach Manchin’s permitting reform measure to must-pass legislation before the end of September as part of a deal to get Manchin to support a budget reconciliation package that tackled climate change and the high cost of prescription drugs.   

But Manchin’s side of the arrangement could fall apart because Republicans — still angry about his deal with Schumer — don’t want to give him a political win.    

The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has made permitting reform and rebuilding bipartisan relations two of his top priorities in the 50-50 Senate.  

The defeat of his bill, which would include approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline — a project estimated to support 3,700 construction jobs in West Virginia — would serve as a major rebuke from Republicans and an embarrassment for Manchin, who has called for bipartisan comity throughout 2021 and this year.

Manchin admitted on Monday that Republican opposition caught him by surprise.    

He said he expected progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to oppose his permitting reform proposal, but not backlash from GOP colleagues.     

“I never did think I’d have Bernie and some of the extreme far left,” he told Fox News host Neil Cavuto. “What I didn’t expect is that Mitch McConnell and my Republican friends would be sacking up with Bernie or trying to get the same outcome by not passing permitting reform.”    

Senate GOP leaders, including McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader, are treating the procedural vote as a test vote on Manchin’s permitting bill and are urging fellow Republicans to oppose it in favor of rival legislation from his West Virginia colleague, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R).  

“There’s a concerted effort in the Republican conference to stay united in our support for Capito’s legislation and to stay united in our opposition to Manchin,” said a GOP aide.     

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) is leading the whip effort, but the top three Senate Republican leaders — including him, McConnell and Senate GOP Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.) — are on the same page.    

Barrasso, who is also the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, says that in some ways Manchin’s bill is a step backwards in terms of the authority it hands to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Federal Reserve.    

Sanders circulated a “Dear Colleague” letter Friday urging his colleagues to oppose Manchin’s bill, even if it’s attached to a must-pass spending bill to keep the government open past Friday, the end of the fiscal year.    

Sanders warned Manchin’s bill “would fast-track the approval of potentially dozens, if not hundreds, of some of the largest and dirties fossil fuel projects in America each and every year.”    

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has also warned he will vote against Manchin’s bill because it approves the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which includes a 100-mile span of pipeline through Virginia, and shift jurisdiction over legal challenges to the project from the 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals to the D.C. Circuit.    

But most of the opposition to the bill is coming from Republicans, and if McConnell and his leadership team are opposed, Manchin will have a tough time getting the dozen or so GOP votes he needs.    

Ironically, if Republicans defeat Manchin’s bill, they will hand a political victory to Senate and House progressives, including Sanders, who are strongly opposed to Manchin’s reforms, which they argue would be a huge give-away to the fossil fuel industry.  

Republicans are still furious with Manchin, whom they think double-crossed them by voting for a corporate tax hike and hundreds of billions in new spending on climate programs after it appeared he had walked away from negotiations with Schumer in July.    

Manchin on Monday argued that the Inflation Reform Act he voted for last month didn’t raise taxes but instead implemented a tax floor to stop corporations from exploiting loopholes to pay less in taxes, percentagewise, than many regular Americans.    

“That’s the only thing we did in taxes,” he said on Fox News. “We’re just trying to get corporations that paid nothing to pay at least 15 percent.”    

He shook his head over his sudden fall from grace among Senate Republican colleagues.    

“You can be a hero one day and a villain the next,” he said, alluding to the praise he received from Republicans after sinking President Biden’s Build Back Better framework in December.   

He chalked up the GOP opposition to his permitting reform bill to politics more than anything.  
“[If] politics get in the way, I’m sorry,” he said.  

Republicans have long called for permitting reform to speed the development of fossil-fuel extracting energy projects around the country.    

But they say Manchin’s bill doesn’t go far enough, and they don’t want to hand him a political victory after he shocked them by cutting a deal in July to pass Biden’s tax, climate and prescription drug agenda.    

Capito’s Simplify Timelines and Assure Regulatory Transparency (START) Act is more comprehensive than Manchin’s bill. 

It would codify the Trump administration’s National Environmental Policy Act regulations, codify Trump’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule’s definition of waters subject to federal protection, expedite the permitting and review processes setting a framework for timely approvals of energy projects, limiting permitting review schedules to two years and limiting the page length of environmental documents.  

Instead, Republicans are lining up to vote against Manchin’s bill, and if they defeat it, they will hand a victory to environmental justice group and House progressives, who have lobbied with limited success to persuade Schumer to split permitting reform off from the short-term government funding bill.    

Karen Orenstein, the director of the Climate and Environmental Justice Program at Friends of the Earth, said Republicans would hand progressives a victory by sinking what she called Manchin’s “dirty deal.”  

“It is a win in so far as we are standing up to an attempt to sacrifice the lives and livelihoods of BIPOC and low-income communities in the name of lining the pockets of fossil fuel corporations,” she said if the Senate blocks Manchin’s bill, which she believes would disproportionately impact minority communities.   

She said if the bill fails to advance, “it sends a very strong political message.”  

The stakes are high for Manchin, who is up for re-election in 2024 in a state that former President Trump carried with huge margins in 2016 and 2020.    

“If the permitting reform goes through, the pipeline will be completed in a more timely manner … and it will help Manchin in terms of his ability to build coalitions,” said Marybeth Beller, a professor of political science at Marshall University in Huntington, W. Va.    

Beller said if the bill becomes law, “it certainly does” help Manchin’s re-election chances because it would help alleviate the anger many Republicans in West Virginia feel over his support for the Inflation Reduction Act this summer.     

“If he gets the pipeline permitting bill in, that is going to favor industry and favor Republican Party preferences, so I think there would be less opposition” among Republican leaning voters to Manchin in 2024,” she said.  

She pointed out that Manchin is still “so very, very popular” in his home state, but warned that “of course” it would be an embarrassment if he can’t Republicans to support his permitting reform bill.    

“For Sen. Manchin, getting the permitting bill through is an obvious point of policy preference. I don’t think he foresaw Republicans not supporting it. I think his concentration has been more on getting the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to be for it, and this Republican backlash has been very strong and is not something he prepared very well for,” she said.   

Manchin suffered another setback Monday when a coalition of 18 Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to Schumer and McConnell urging them to oppose Manchin’s permitting reform bill.    

They warned the bill would empower FERC to steamroll over their state’s sovereignty over building transmission facilities.    

“This would create the scenario where FERC would have the authority to determine the national interest and require companies to build what it orders and where,” they wrote. “This is a massive expansion of FERC’s authority which currently only allows FERC to order public utilities to physically connect their existing transmission lines.”    

If Republicans block the motion to proceed to the House shell bill on Tuesday, then Schumer will have to come up with Plan B to pass a short-term funding resolution before government funding expires at 12 a.m. Saturday.    

The Democratic leader could then opt to bring to the floor a continuing resolution that doesn’t include Manchin’s permitting reform bill.    

Manchin on Monday said he was feeling good ahead of the vote and had done everything he could to advance his issue.    

He warned that this week’s votes could be the last chance to pass permitting reform in years.   

“I don’t see it ever coming back again, people just aren’t going to be there at all,” he said, pointing out that Democrats are only willing to pass permitting reform now because of the deal he struck with Schumer in July.

Source: TEST FEED1

US ambassador walks a post-Trump tightrope in Israel

TEL AVIV – U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides said his main mission in the region is to “keep the waters calm.” 

Another view is that Nides is tasked with preventing any major waves for President Biden’s relationship with Israel, following the Trump administration’s ripping up of decades-old conventional policies.

The ambassador, dressed casually in a white T-shirt and blue khakis, sat for an interview with The Hill in Tel Aviv. Nides, who is Jewish, wore a red string around his wrist, a marker of the Jewish practice of Kabbalah. He described himself as “not ideological” in terms of who he’ll visit with and see.

“I do a lot of stuff here … I see people, I work all week … because I’m not ideological, I’ll go anywhere. I’ll go to Bnei Brak,” Nides said, referring to an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem. “I’ll go to Nazareth,” he added, referring to an Arab-Christian city. “I did an Arab business tech conference yesterday.”

The conversation covered a wide range of issues, from the Israeli government’s reticent stance on the Russia-Ukraine war given Jerusalem’s strategic relationship with Moscow; threats from Iran and its proxies; U.S. relations with the Palestinians; and points of tension between Israel and the Biden administration. 

“I got one North Star, keep this a democratic, Jewish state. Anything that falls within that category I’m in, I’m in,” Nides said.

Tom Nides, U.S. ambassador to Israel, in Tel Aviv on September 18, 2022. (Laura Kelly)

Nides arrived in Israel in November 2021, after Biden had already established that he would not seek to dramatically reverse most of former President Trump’s policies.

Biden committed to keeping the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, did not launch a new peace effort with the Palestinians and acknowledged the success of the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords — the normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. 

The president further sought to steady the relationship that had soured between former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama — closely consulting with Israel over the administration’s plans to rejoin the nuclear deal with Iran. Biden is also credited with helping to achieve a relatively quick cease-fire during an outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in May 2021.

Domestic turmoil in both countries during 2021 — multiple elections in Israel that ousted Netanyahu and the crisis surrounding the U.S. pullout of Afghanistan — largely put the U.S. and Israel relationship on auto-pilot.

Decades of tending the field by Israel and the U.S. has created a relatively stable status quo in the region. But the threat landscape against Israel and U.S. interests are both urgent and existential – from conflict with the Palestinians to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“The West Bank gives me an enormous amount of anxiety,” Nides said, referring to what Israeli security officials and regional watchers are warning is a quickly approaching explosion of conflict between Palestinians and Israel. 

“I probably spend more time on Palestinian-related issues. I would say 60 percent of my time is spent on Palestinian [issues].”

While Biden withheld launching a new peace process, the president resumed aid to the Palestinians that was cut by Trump and announced in July $100 million to the east Jerusalem Hospital network, which largely treats Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

Nides said the point is to help the Palestinian people live a better life. He believes this will in turn strengthen Israel by reducing the threat of violence against Israelis. 

“The Palestinians know we’re their closest friend — closest friend with money, right? … And I think they believe we want to help them … They would like, obviously, a roadmap to peace, but, you know, I wake up every day trying to figure out how we can make their life a little better,” he said. 

“The Palestinians know we’re their closest friend. … They would like, obviously, a roadmap to peace, but, you know, I wake up every day trying to figure out how we can make their life a little better.”

— Tom Nides, U.S. ambassador to Israel

“You have to be an incrementalist in this business … but that’s what we try to do.”

The West Bank feels like a tinderbox amid deep resentment in the largely lawless cities of Jenin and Nablus with the Palestinian Authority and its 17-year leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is 87. It is further enflamed by increased counterterrorism operations in these territories by Israel. 

“First and foremost security of the state of Israel is utmost in our minds, but also, we don’t want innocent people killed,” Nides said. “We don’t want the cycle to get out of control, which we’ve seen over and over again. We’re trying to stop the cycle before it gets out of control.”

Nides’s focus on the Palestinians is the source of the few cracks in the U.S.-Israel relationship.

While the administration has not pushed back on Israel’s demands to keep the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem closed, even though it acted as a de-facto embassy to the Palestinians, Nides said that the 70-member staff operating from that building, but under the title “Office of Palestinian Affairs,” are in essence the consulate.

“We still want to open it. Secretary Blinken has talked to [Israeli Prime Minister Yair] Lapid multiple times. We want to keep pushing them,” he said, adding “it’s totally operating. But you know, symbolism matters, and we want to open it.”

Another point of tension is Israel’s opposition to the Biden administration’s withholding of support for Israel labeling six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. “They’ve been unhappy with us, that we haven’t come out aggressively in support of the actions they took,” Nides said.

U.S. pushback on Israel to exercise “accountability” in the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist for Al Jazeera, is another sore point.

Abu Akleh was shot and killed in May while covering an Israeli security raid in Jenin. An Israeli investigation concluded that she was likely killed by unintentional gunfire from the Israeli Defense Forces.

Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides helps package food for needy Israeli-Jewish families ahead of the celebration of Rosh Hashana, the New Year, during an event with the organization Leket Israel on September 20, 2022. (Courtesy)

State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel set off a brief firestorm on Sept. 6 when he said that Israel should “closely review its policies and practices on rules of engagement,” triggering intense pushback from Lapid, alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who all said Israel alone dictates its security policies.  

Nides said he sticks by Patel’s statements and has reinforced that message in his conversations with Israeli leaders. 

“We can’t tell Israel what to do, they are a sovereign country, but to say, ‘you should look at your rules of engagement,’ we stand by that position,” he said, adding that it’s the same standard the U.S. holds. 

While the ousting of Netanyahu as prime minister in 2021 allowed for a bit of a refresh in the relationship between Israel and the Democratic Party, the new coalition government includes many figures that had earlier served with Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party.

On Iran, Nides said it is clear Israel opposes the administration’s pursuit to revive the nuclear deal with Iran, but reinforced that the U.S. is not going to prevent Israel from taking unilateral action to address its security threats. 

“We’re not here to tell the Israelis what to do and we’ll continue to support Israel and the actions that they believe they need to take,” he said.

Lapid previewed as much during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. 

“We have capabilities and we are not afraid to use them. We will do whatever it takes: Iran will not get a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Lapid, who comes from Israel’s center-left political wing, has received support from Biden and the administration for his endorsement of a two-state solution with the Palestinians and positioning himself as rhetorically tough against Russia, despite the Israeli government rebuking requests to aid Ukraine with military equipment. 

“We’ve said that we’ve been — pleased is maybe the wrong word — but we’ve been fine with Israel’s complicated relationship [with Russia],” Nides said.

“Lapid has been pretty strong about this verbally, about the importance of Ukraine and its independence. It’s a little complicated for Israel obviously, but we push them every day.” 

Still, Nides said he is visited by the Ukrainian ambassador to Israel every Friday in his office, emphasizing Ukraine’s imperative to bring every country fully on board to its resistance campaign against Russia. 

“I mean literally every Friday. He’s a very nice guy, he’s trying really hard, but this is people’s lives. I know I’m sounding like this weeny liberal, but a lot of this other crap,” he said, referring to the geopolitics of the region, “is interesting, but this is people’s lives. This is not like some simple game of chess here, that Putin wants to take more land and reconstitute the USSR – how many people have died?” 

Israel is going to elections in November, its fifth vote in four years. Lapid’s turn as premier was only the result of an agreement with Bennett, that he could have a chance to serve when their coalition inevitably fell apart — which it did in July. 

Despite the uncertainty of the next elections, Nides said the most important thing in his ability to do his job is that the Israeli government, and other regional governments, understand that Biden is fully behind the “unbreakable bond between Israel in the United States.” 

“I couldn’t get anything done if anyone didn’t believe that we supported that unbreakable bond. OK? Everyone gets that.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Jan. 6 panel scrambles to crunch ‘avalanche’ of evidence

In the last legs of their sprawling probe, investigators on the Jan. 6 committee are facing an enormous challenge: How to crunch a massive amount of evidence surrounding last year’s Capitol attack into a narrative that resonates with large segments of the voting public.

The House select committee has spent the last 15 months digging through tens of thousands of documents, interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses and staging eight public hearings aimed at convincing both Congress and the country that former President Trump had used the powers of the office to orchestrate nothing less than an attempted coup.

As they head into Wednesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill — what could be the last investigative forum before the committee dissolves — the panel’s lawmakers are quick to acknowledge the difficulty in wrapping up their work in a manner that’s compelling, convincing and easy to digest. 

“There’s such a huge avalanche of information that it becomes difficult towards the end to decide what we’re going to use in a particular context,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). 

Created in June of last year, the bipartisan select committee was given broad powers to tackle the mammoth task of uncovering the causes and actors behind the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. In the months since, investigators have presented a damning account of a volatile president who refused to accept his election defeat; summoned supporters to Washington in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying the results; and sat silently while a violent mob stormed into the Capitol in a failed attempt to do just that.

The select committee will disband at the end of the year. And with the House expected to flip to GOP control in November’s midterms, Congress’s formal investigation into Trump’s role in the rampage is certain to end. Before then, the panel is racing to craft a final report, likely to be issued following the elections, and may issue a preliminary report that could arrive before November. The sheer volume of evidence is affecting the timeline. 

“It is a huge amount of information. We’re working hard to put it together,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), another member of the select committee, said Sunday night in an appearance on CNN, where she acknowledged the limitations of the public outreach campaign.   

“Hearings have some constraints,” she said. “You can’t deliver that much information in a two-hour period.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Wednesday’s hearing would not be as focused on one prong of Trump’s plan as prior hearings have been.

“I think it’ll be potentially more sweeping than some of the other hearings. But it too will be … very thematic. It will tell the story about a key element of Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the election. And the public will certainly learn things it hasn’t seen before, but it will also understand information it already has in a different context by seeing how it relates to other elements of this plot,” Schiff said Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The Jan. 6 panel is working to tie up its marathon probe just as Democrats are increasingly fighting to make the midterm elections a referendum on Trump’s false claims of a “stolen” election and the threat to democracy Trump’s critics say he poses. Recent public surveys show that the issue has resonance, but doesn’t poll nearly as high as inflation and other economic measures. 

Lofgren said one strategy for reaching a more diverse audience has been to schedule Wednesday’s hearing midday, instead of in the evening when it would compete with more popular programs. 

“It’s true, it’s not in prime-time. I would note, however, that in the past Fox News does play our hearings if the hearing is in the daytime,” she said. “That’s a factor in reaching an audience that is not watching CNN.”

Complicating the panel’s task, investigators are seeking to make their case without having spoken to two eyewitnesses at the center of the Jan. 6 attack: Trump, who had encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol, and Mike Pence, the former vice president whose unwillingness to help overturn Trump’s defeat made him a top target of the mob. 

Lofgren said Sunday that Pence, after initially expressing some interest in testifying, has since “walked it back.” The committee has subpoena power — and has used it repeatedly in the course of the investigation — but there’s simply no time left to pursue that avenue when it comes to Trump and Pence, Lofgren added. 

“That litigation could not be concluded during the life of this Congress,” Lofgren told CNN. “So while we’d like to hear from both of them, I’m not expecting that we necessarily will.”

Another wild card for the committee is former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), who served as an adviser to the panel up until April.

Riggleman has a new book, and his promotional tour has rolled out just days before the panel’s scheduled hearing, disclosing that his team uncovered a phone call between the White House and a man later arrested after entering the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

Members have dismissed the value of that detail, noting that they uncovered more evidence in the many months following Riggleman’s departure.

“He does not know what happened after April, and a lot has happened in our investigation. I will say this, that everything that he was able to relay or to discern prior to his departure has been followed up on and in some cases didn’t really [pan] out,” Lofgren said.

Yet another factor complicating the panel’s effort to bring the investigation to its inevitable end is the simple fact that the committee has continued to receive new information, and even new witness testimony, more than a year after the probe was launched. 

Indeed, investigators are expecting this month to sit down with Virginia Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to learn more about her efforts to keep Trump in office even after his defeat. As part of that campaign, Virginia Thomas had communicated directly with Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, and John Eastman, a conservative law professor who devised the legal rationale behind Trump’s bid to stay in power.  

Lofgren declined to say when Thomas would testify, but said it would happen “quite soon.” 

“We want to make clear. … we’re interviewing her because of her own activities,” Lofgren said. “It’s not because of whose wife she is.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Riggleman at center of new Jan. 6 controversy

Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), who previously worked as an adviser to the Jan. 6 select committee, is at the center of a new controversy engulfing the panel after he dropped a bombshell revelation while promoting his forthcoming book. 

In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” teasing his book, Riggleman said someone at the White House placed a late-afternoon call to a Capitol rioter while the attack was still underway.

“You get a real ‘aha!’ moment when you see that the White House switchboard had connected to a rioter’s phone while it’s happening,” he told Bill Whitaker of “60 Minutes.”

The revelation about the committee’s largely-private investigation drew swift pushback from committee members, who are downplaying Riggleman’s knowledge of the panel’s operation and brushing away the significance of the call.

It was an unwelcome distraction just days ahead of what may be the committee’s final public hearing on Wednesday, when panel members will seek to wrap up their case against former President Trump and his allies weeks before the midterm elections.

“I don’t know what Mr. Riggleman is doing, really,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan. 6 committee, told CNN during an interview Sunday when asked if he is a credible source when it comes to Jan. 6, 2021.

“I only saw him a few times when he was on the staff, and he did leave. He said he was going off to help Afghanistan refugees. So, you know, he does not know what happened after April, and a lot has happened in our investigation,” she said.

The California Democrat noted that all matters Riggleman brought up before his departure were looked into but “in some cases didn’t really [pan] out.”

“I will say this, that everything that he was able to relay prior to his departure has been followed up on and in some cases didn’t really [pan] out, or there might have been a decision that suggested that there was a connection between one number or one email and a person that turned out not to pan out,” Lofgren said. “So, we follow up on everything.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who also sits on the Jan. 6 panel, tried to trivialize Riggleman’s claims about the call during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. 

“Well, that’s one of thousands of details that obviously the committee is aware of,” Raskin said of the reported White House rioter call.

“I can’t say anything specific about that particular call, but we are aware of it. And we are aware of lots of contacts between the people in the White House and different people that were involved obviously in the coup attempt and the insurrection. And that’s really what all of our hearings have been about,” he said after being pressed on the matter.

CNN has since identified the rioter as Anton Lunyk, a 26-year-old Trump supporter. The Brooklyn native pleaded guilty to a charge associated with the Capitol riot and was sentenced to 12 months of probation. The call reportedly came after he and two friends left the Capitol. 

But the individual who placed the call from the White House, shortly after Trump told his supporters to go home at 4:17 p.m., remains unknown. Call logs show the publicly available number for the White House without the relevant extension.

Riggleman’s publishing company has pegged the book — “The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigations into January 6th” — as “an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation” and teases knowledge of the almost eight-hour period at the White House where they “supposedly had no phone calls.”

But the panel sees matters differently.

“In his role on the Select Committee staff, Mr. Riggleman had limited knowledge of the committee’s investigation. He departed from the staff in April prior to our hearings and much of our most important investigative work,” select committee spokesperson Tim Mulvey told multiple outlets in a statement.

“The committee has run down all the leads and digested and analyzed all the information that arose from his work. We will be presenting additional evidence to the public in our next hearing this coming Wednesday, and a thorough report will be published by the end of the year,” Mulvey added.

Riggleman’s book tour isn’t the first time the ex-adviser has alarmed his former employer. A TV hit shortly after he left the committee spurred an email to staff that his appearance was “in direct contravention to his employment agreement.” 

“His specific discussion about the content of subpoenaed records, our contracts, contractors and methodologies, and your hard work is unnerving,” the panel’s staff director wrote, according to The Washington Post.

Riggleman appeared to nod to that dynamic in his book.

“I continually called for us to push the envelope and use the toughest approach possible. This ruffled some feathers on the committee,” he wrote.

At another point he questioned the panel’s strategy of dealing with the media.

“The committee had other fears too: leaks. We were obsessed with them, and the fear of leaks led the committee to compartmentalize the various teams of investigators… I wondered sometimes if there was an overabundance of caution — whether in the desire to thwart the press, we deprived the overall investigation of coordinated information. Was that a necessary trade-off?” he asked.

On his book tour, Riggleman has also weighed in on some ongoing matters before the committee, including Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

His comments come just days after the committee was able to secure an interview with Ginni Thomas after months of negotiations. 

Riggleman said it was an “open secret” that her views had gotten more extreme.

“What really shook me was the fact that if Clarence agreed with or was even aware of his wife’s efforts, all three branches of government would be tied to the Stop the Steal movement,” Riggleman wrote in his book.

“For me in intelligence, there[‘s] always the possible and the probable,” Riggleman said. “Is it possible that Clarence Thomas had no idea of the activities of Ginni Thomas over decades as a Republican activist? Possible. Had no idea about what was going on during the election and Biden and Trump and her connections to the administration? Possible. Is it probable? I just can’t even get my arms [around] that being probable,” he added in the “60 Minutes” interview.

Asked on Sunday if he sees the reported call between the White House and a rioter as significant to the panel’s probe, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the Jan. 6 select committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that relevant information will be presented before the public at Wednesday’s hearing.

“I can’t comment on the particulars. I can say that each of the issues that Mr. Riggleman raised during the period he was with the committee, which ended quite some time ago, we looked into,” Schiff said.

“So, we have looked into all of these issues. Some of the information we have found on various issues, we will be presenting it to the public for the first time in the hearing coming up. It will be the usual mix of information in the public domain and new information woven together to tell the story about one key thematic element of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election,” he added.

Judy Kurtz contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Schumer delivers on permitting reform promise to Manchin

The Senate Appropriations Committee late Monday night released the text of a 237-page bill to fund the government until mid-December that includes Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) controversial permitting reform bill, making good on a deal Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) struck with Manchin this summer.  

The continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government beyond Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, would last until Dec. 16, if it’s approved by the Senate and House and signed by President Biden.  

But the inclusion of Manchin’s permitting reform measure creates a potential stumbling block as Senate Republican leaders are urging their GOP colleagues to vote against it and instead support a more comprehensive permitting reform bill sponsored by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).  

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) praised the bill for keeping “vital services running for the American people through Dec. 16” and providing “critical support for Ukraine.”  

But the most senior Senate Democrat expressed disappointment that Manchin’s permitting reform proposal was included.  

“This is a controversial matter that should be debated on its own merits,” he said in a statement.  

The Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday on a House “shell” bill that, if advanced, would serve as the legislative vehicle for the combined government funding resolution and permitting reform bill.  

Senate sources say Manchin will have a tough time getting the dozen or so Republicans he needs to vote for the procedural motion. Two members of the Democratic caucus, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.), have said they won’t vote for Manchin’s bill.  

Business groups, however, seem open to Manchin’s proposal, which the West Virginia senator defended on Monday as moving “the needle” on permitting reform in the right direction. 

Manchin, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, warned in a Fox News interview Monday that his bill would probably be Congress’s best opportunity to pass permitting reform for the foreseeable future.  

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday endorsed both proposals. The prominent business group praised Manchin’s bill as “thoughtful legislation that makes material improvements to the permitting process that can pass Congress right now” though it acknowledged the legislation “isn’t perfect.”  

For example, the CR includes Manchin’s proposal to expand the federal government’s power to increase the permitting of transmission lines found by the secretary of Energy to be in the national interest.  

The continuing resolution also includes $11.54 billion in military assistance for Ukraine to continue fighting off Russia’s invasion of its territory and an additional $4.5 billion to maintain the operations of Ukraine’s government.  

The defense money includes $3 billion for training, equipment, weapons, logistical support and supplies for Ukraine’s national security forces, $1.5 billion to replenish U.S. stocks of equipment provided to Ukraine, $2.8 billion to the Department of Defense for other military and intelligence support and $3.7 billion worth of defense articles from U.S. arsenals.  

Additionally, the legislation includes another section to reauthorize the Food and Drug Administration’s drug user fee program and its medical device user fee program through 2027. 

Source: TEST FEED1

NASA strikes asteroid with spacecraft in historic planetary defense mission

NASA on Monday successfully struck a tiny asteroid more than 7 million miles from Earth with a 1,000-pound spacecraft, completing the world’s first planetary defense mission.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos at roughly 7:14 p.m. Eastern at a speed of more than 14,000 miles per hour.

It’s the first time humanity has ever purposefully struck an object in space. NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory officials who have been working on the DART mission for years erupted into applause as soon as the spacecraft collided with Dimorphos.

DART first launched into space last November, so the mission’s success completes a 10-month flight toward Dimorphos.

Dimorphos is part of the binary asteroid system Didymos, which means twin in Greek. In its system, Dimorphos orbits the larger asteroid Didymos.

While neither Dimorphos nor Didymos posed a threat to Earth, the DART mission serves as a key test toward deflecting a future asteroid or space object that could threaten the planet.

NASA is holding a press conference at 8 p.m. to discuss DART’s impact with Dimorphos and the analysis of the event with ground telescopes.

Source: TEST FEED1