Democratic chair of Senate intelligence panel seeks briefing on Biden documents – as it happened

House Republicans geared up to launch investigations and tried to make the most of reports that classified documents dating to his time as vice-president were found in an office used by Joe Biden. But unlike with the government secrets the FBI found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, it didn’t take a search warrant for Biden to turn over the material – he had it done so immediately, which Democrats are citing to defend the president.

Here’s what else went on today:

• The Democratic Senate intelligence chair requested a briefing on both Biden’s classified documents, and the government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.

• House Democrat Katie Porter announced a run for the California Senate seat up for election in 2024, but its current occupant, Dianne Feinstein, gave no indication she’d be stepping down. Meanwhile, Porter’s recently defeated Republican opponent announced plans to run for her seat again.

• The House GOP made clear it wants spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, which will be necessary later this year.

• George Santos may be an admitted fabulist, but a top House Republican had little to say about whether the party would discipline him for his lies. Also today, two Democrats hand-delivered an ethics complaint to his office.

• A Texas House Republican filed impeachment articles against homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It remains to be seen if the chamber’s leadership will go through with trying to remove him over his handling of the southern border.

Katie Porter only narrowly won re-election to her southern California House district last year, and after she today announced plans to run for Senate in 2024, her former opponent declared a new campaign to take her seat.

Republican Scott Baugh, who lost with 48.4% of the vote to Democrat Porter’s 51.6% in the 2022 election, said he would run again next year:

Porter represents California’s 47th district centered on Orange county, a former Republican stronghold that has become more liberal in recent elections. The Cook Political Report’s partisan voting index rates it D+3, indicating a slight tilt towards the Democrats.

The Trump Organization’s former finance chief has been sentenced to five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes and cooperating with prosecutors in their successful case against Donald Trump’s business:

After testimony that helped convict Donald Trump’s company of tax fraud, its longtime senior executive Allen Weisselberg has been given five months in jail for accepting $1.7m in job perks without paying tax.

Weisselberg, 75, was promised that sentence in August when he agreed to plead guilty to 15 tax crimes and testify against the Trump Organization, where he has worked since the mid-1980s and, until his arrest, had served as chief financial officer.

He was handcuffed and taken into custody moments after the sentence was announced.

Weisselberg will likely be locked up at Rikers Island in New York and eligible for release after slightly more than three months.

As part of the plea agreement, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan also ordered Weisselberg to pay nearly $2m in taxes, penalties and interest, which he has paid as of 3 January. The judge also sentenced Weisselberg to five years of probation after his release.

Part of the reason last week’s speakership fight was so high-profile was because it was exceptionally well covered, and much of that was thanks to C-Span.

The non-profit organization funded by cable companies is dedicated to broadcasting government affairs, including Congress’s activities. Usually, what it’s allowed to put onscreen is restricted, but as the Washington Post reported last week, it had special permission to roam across the chamber during the standoff for speaker, allowing the public to see the haggling, boredom and emotion that took place on the House floor as Kevin McCarthy lost vote after vote, until finally triumphing on the 15th ballot.

Matt Gaetz, a conservative Republican who was one of the ringleaders of the group that delayed McCarthy’s election, was apparently a fan of C-Span’s work. CNN reports that he has filed an amendment to the House rules package to allow C-Span to continue broadcasting freely in the chamber:

Now that the dust has settled, it’s worth asking whether last week’s protracted House speaker election a good or bad thing for Republicans.

The days-long, 15-ballot process that resulted in Kevin McCarthy’s victory early Saturday morning was indeed unprecedented – the last time a speakership election took so long was before the Civil War. And many in the GOP felt like the conservative holdouts who delayed McCarthy’s election for days did more harm to the party’s standing than good. Politico reports that Republican donor Thomas Peterffy sent text messages to some of the holdouts, threatening to cut them off if they didn’t make a deal:

That said, a CBS News/YouGov poll released before McCarthy’s election indicates many Republicans may have felt the battle was worth fighting. The data found 64% approved of the way the speakership election was handled, while 36% disapproved.

The hallway outside George Santos’s office is the scene of an entrenched stakeout by reporters, as Insider found out when they went down there:

Needless to say, most lawmakers do not get this kind of attention.

George Santos just can’t catch a break. But perhaps that’s to be expected for someone who brazenly lied in their campaign for Congress.

The New York Republican has been hounded by reporters in the halls of Congress ever since he first arrived in the Capitol last Tuesday, and has had a complaint filed against him at the Federal Election Commission. Today, two Democratic congressman made a big show of giving him another complaint, this one being filed with the House ethic committee:

Meanwhile Pete Aguilar, the Democratic caucus chair in the House, said Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy is only allowing Santos to stick around because he’s worried about losing his majority:

Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, has requested a briefing on the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s former office, as well as the government secrets the FBI discovered last year at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

“Our system of classification exists in order to protect our most important national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened both at Mar-a-Lago and at the Biden office as part of our constitutional oversight obligations,” Warner said in a statement.

“From what we know so far, the latter is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is certainly different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the government. But again, that’s why we need to be briefed.”

In a new interview, Mike Pence commented on classified files being found in a private office used by Biden.

Speaking with radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Pence called the discovery of classified files from Biden’s tenure as vice president versus the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property a “double standard”.

“It’s just incredibly frustrating to me,” said Pence during his interview today.

“But the original sin here was the massive overreach.”

Read the full article from the Hill here.

Republican representative Pat Fallon of Texas has filed articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

Fallon announced the filing in a Twitter post, linking to a Fox News article.

Here is more context behind Fallon’s filing, from the Hill:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed the paperwork for the resolution on Jan. 3, the first day of the 118th Congress, though with delays in securing a House Speaker, the document was officially filed late Monday.

The resolution claims Mayorkas “engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties,” complaining that he has failed to maintain operational control over the border.

The resolution comes amid a busy week in the Biden administration. President Biden visited the border over the weekend for the first time since taking office, pledging to deliver more resources to the officers who patrol the region.

And Mayorkas is in Mexico this week, meeting with officials there on a variety of issues, including the shared migration agreement rolled out by the Biden administration last week.

Read the full article here.

Senate tunnels were briefly closed following a mix-up where a small group breached a locked door on the Senate side of US Capitol complex.

According to the United States Capitol police, the group was accompanied by a staffer and were screened following the confusion.

Police also noted that the incident was not a threat, but the group using the wrong doors.

From Politico reporter K Tully-McManus:

The White House provided more details into a meeting that Biden had with Canada prime minister Justin Trudeau.

According to a read out, the two world leaders discussed several global issues including the war in Ukraine, Haiti, and Brazil.

Biden also told Trudeau that he looks forward to an upcoming visit to Canada in March.

From CBS News corespondent Ed O’Keefe:

House Republicans are gearing up to launch investigations and trying to make the most of reports that classified documents dating to his time as vice-president were found in an office used by Joe Biden. But unlike with the government secrets the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago, it didn’t take a search warrant for Biden to turn over the material – he ordered it done so immediately, which Democrats are citing to defend the president.

Here’s what else is going on today:

• Democratic House lawmaker Katie Porter announced a run for California’s Senate seat up for election in 2024, but its current occupant, Dianne Feinstein, gave no indication she’d be stepping down.

• The House GOP made clear it wants spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, which will be necessary later this year.

• George Santos may be an admitted fabulist, but a top House Republican had little to say about whether the party would discipline him for his lies.

Joe Biden is traveling in Mexico, where he just concluded a meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

He did not answer questions shouted by members of the White House press corps in attendance, including one about the classified documents.

CNN reports that an attorney for Joe Biden found 10 documents related to Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom in a personal office, dating from his time as vice-president.

The attorney clearing out an office Biden once used in Washington DC found briefing materials and intelligence memos from 2013 through 2016, when Biden served under Barack Obama, according to CNN, which cited a source familiar with the matter. The documents were mixed in with family materials, some of which related to the funeral of his son Beau Biden, who died in 2015.

Upon realizing the papers were classified, the attorney immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration. Biden’s team eventually turned over several boxes “in an abundance of caution, even though many of the boxes contained personal materials, the source said,” according to CNN’s report.

California senator Dianne Feinstein is unfazed by Katie Porter’s announcement that she’d run for her Senate seat in 2024.

The 89-year-old is the oldest sitting senator, and has in recent months been the subject of reports questioning her fitness to serve. Feinstein was blase when the San Francisco Chronicle asked for her thoughts on the challenge from the 49-year-old Porter: