US Politics

Serial liar George Santos is the politician Americans deserveMoira DoneganThe congressman’s many lies are the product of a political system that incentivizes dishonesty and punishes sincerity It’s hard to keep track of what, exactly, the newly elected Republican congressman George Santos has said about his own life. His story changes and contradicts itself; his lies seem indiscriminate, and largely ad hoc. He says he worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, which he didn’t. He said he graduated from Baruch College – he didn’t do that, either. Some of his fabrications are so trivial and specific that it’s impossible to ascribe a nefarious motive to them.What could Santos possibly have to gain, for instance, by claiming, as he apparently did to a local Republican party leader, to have been a college volleyball champion? Others are transparently self-serving, his attempts to cover them up so brazen as to be frankly hilarious. On the campaign trail, running in the heavily Jewish third district of New York, on suburban Long Island, Santos claimed that he was “a member of the Jewish community”, and descended from Ukrainian refugees. When this turned out to be untrue, he later tried to claim that he merely meant that he was “Jew-ish”. It was like a line from Seinfeld; punning, implausible, shameless. At times like this, it’s hard to take Santos’s dishonesty seriously. It seems less like an affront to the dignity of the democratic process and more like some kind of durational satire, a piece of performance art.More Republicans call for George Santos to resign over fictional résuméRead moreBut if you take his fictional biography as a whole, it’s clear that Santos was appealing to particular American longings. He was quite savvily inventing a character who would assuage the anxieties and comfort the vanities of the affluent, Republican-leaning voters in his district. On the campaign trail, Santos presented himself as the embodiment of 20th century-style American upward mobility. He claimed to be the son of Brazilian immigrants, who grew up in “abject poverty” and attended public schools before ascending to become a blue-chip financial trader and wealthy philanthropist. It’s a dream that no doubt many still want to believe in. But it should have been a red flag. Anyone who assesses America with clear eyes knows that Goldman Sachs traders don’t come, as Santos says he did, from basement apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens. They come from Dalton, Choate and Exeter.He professed the identities that have been most easily demonized in the Republican imagination: he was supposed to be Jewish, a member of the group targeted by conspiratorial QAnon theories; he was supposed to be gay, a member of the group increasingly smeared on the right as pedophiles; he was supposed to be a Latino immigrant, a member of the group associated with dark fantasies in the white mind about demographic change and crime. But at the same time, he was a Republican, a defender of these bigotries; his membership in the very groups his party worked against seemed to absolve his voters of complicity even as they indulged their bias. The identities were not meant to be investments in the pluralism of our country, but moral shields, flimsy cover behind which attacks on those very groups could be launched.And of course, there were the remarkable historical coincidences, the tendency of Santos to claim his own life intersected with moments of crisis for the American conscience. He said that his grandparents – the supposedly Jewish ones – had been Holocaust survivors. He said that his mom had died in 9/11. He said that he had lost four employees at the Pulse massacre, the event where a gunman opened fire at an Orlando gay club. It seems that he used this proximity to tragedy to some effect in his fundraising; among the several investigations into Santos, there is now one related to campaign expenditures, and the curious way that money seemed to disappear from his account in amounts just beneath the federal reporting threshold where a receipt would be required. Santos, in this telling, had an uncanny, Forrest Gump-like biographical connection to these momentous historical moments, his own life changing at just the same moments that challenged the identity of the nation. It’s not hard to see why this fiction appealed to Santos, and why it appealed to his voters. It made him into an avatar of America itself.Expect the Republican House to be just like the speaker debacle: pure chaosRead moreMaybe he is. Because with his boldness and deception, his shamelessness and alleged comfort with financial malfeasance, Santos, with all his lies, seems to reveal an uncomfortable truth about American politics, emphasizing what the politics writer John Ganz called “the reign of crime”. Politicians, after all, lie all the time, and the Republican party in particular seems to have rapidly mainstreamed the use of fabulism, fraud and cheap scams that manipulate and extort the government, the public and the ruling elite. Are Santos’s lies, after all, any more far-fetched than Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him via a vast, undetected conspiracy? Are his lies about where he worked and went to school any more nefarious than the claim that Covid vaccines kill people, or that drag queens are scheming to molest children at public libraries? Perhaps Santos’s real sin is not in lying, but in telling the wrong lies. He didn’t regurgitate the same fabrications as the rest of his fellow Republicans – the ones about marginalized others. Instead, he merely lied about himself. And crucially, he lied about the one thing that seems to really matter to Republican leadership: he claimed to be a member of the monied elite, when he wasn’t.Santos’s fellow New York Republicans are trying to distance themselves from the congressman, calling on him to resign in the hopes that it will help their own re-election chances. “He needs help,” said Jennifer DeSena, a local Republican official from Long Island. “This is not a normal person.” And indeed it’s hard not to suspect that there might be something wrong with the man, aside from the moral turpitude – a delusional tendency or break with reality that precipitated all these fictions. But it would be a mistake to think that George Santos’s pathologies are his alone. His lies are the product of a political system that incentivizes dishonesty, punishes sincerity and is rife with opportunities for petty crooks. In that sense, Santos is the politician that we deserve.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
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AnalysisHow will Biden handle a hostile Republican House and what does it mean for 2024?Lauren Gambino in Washington As Republicans threaten to ensnare the president in investigations and legislative brinkmanship, Biden is touting bipartisanshipAfter a bruising fight over the House speakership, newly empowered Republicans officially set to work this week on what they say is a mandate to hold Joe Biden and his administration to account.Republicans launch investigations into Biden’s handling of classified papersRead moreSeveral of the president’s chief antagonists took control of powerful committees, eager to use their subpoena power to frustrate and undermine the president, his administration and his family.Republicans approved the formation of a subcommittee on the “weaponization of the federal government”, to serve as a main vehicle for scrutinizing the administration. They launched an investigation of the Afghanistan withdrawal and commissioned a panel to look into the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. At least one Republican filed articles of impeachment against Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, over his handling of migration at the southern border.On Friday, ​the House judiciary committee​, led by Jim Jordan of Ohio, a fierce ally of Donald Trump, ​​opened an investigation of Biden’s handling of classified documents​,​ vowing an aggressive inquiry into a matter Republicans hope will damage the president as he prepares ​​a likely re-election bid.​After a chaotic start marked by infighting and discord, Republicans appeared to have unified around a common target: Biden.In his first remarks as speaker, Kevin McCarthy said Republicans would “be a check and provide some balance on Biden’s policies”, using the “power of the purse” and the “power of the subpoena”.Yet even as ​Biden’s political foes threaten to ensnare him in a web of politically charged investigations and high-stakes legislative brinkmanship, the president himself has embraced a less confrontational approach, focused on promoting his achievements and touting bipartisanship.“Now the House has elected a new speaker,” Biden said, “and I called and congratulated him and I’m ready to work with him or any Republican in Congress to make progress for the American people.”​On Friday, the White House said Biden accepted McCarthy’s “kind invitation” ​to deliver a State of the Union address​ on 7​ February.Whether such shows of comity lead to bipartisan cooperation, political conflict or both will prove a critical test for Biden in a divided government over the next two years.Far-right Republicans who won concessions from McCarthy in exchange for their support for speaker have raised the specter of government shutdowns or even a debt-default as a means of forcing spending cuts, and vowed to examine the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Some have called for the president to be impeached.Americans should brace for a “period of ugly conflict” in Washington that echoes early clashes between Bill Clinton and the Republican speaker Newt Gingrich, whose party stormed to victory in the 1994 midterms, said Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.Gingrich’s conservative majority ushered in an era of political gridlock that culminated in a 21-day shutdown. But, Riley said, Clinton presented himself as the “voice of reason”, demonstrating a willingness to compromise but not capitulate. He easily won re-election in 1996.Barack Obama also played on themes of Republican intransigence to win re-election in 2012, after Democrats lost the House in 2010.Riley, who has examined how presidents navigate divided government, said a hostile Republican House could prove an effective foil for Biden should he seek a second term.“This will be a burden to Biden in the short-run – he’s yoked by the constitution to a dysfunctional governing partner – but it will benefit him in 2024,” he said. “Most of the country will not rally to the incendiaries.”Biden sought to offer a contrast last week, visiting a dilapidated bridge in Kentucky to tout a $1.2tn infrastructure bill signed into law with Republican support, even as McCarthy suffered rounds of humiliating defeats in his quest to be speaker. Biden was joined by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and other Republicans.The president then traveled to the US-Mexico border, as Republicans blame his immigration policies for the record number of migrants crossing into the country. This week, Biden wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed that urged Congress to work together to hold big tech accountable.“There will be many policy issues we disagree on in the new Congress,” he wrote, “but bipartisan proposals to protect our privacy and our children; to prevent discrimination, sexual exploitation, and cyberstalking; and to tackle anticompetitive conduct shouldn’t separate us.”Biden has emphasized his willingness to work with the Republican House but he has also drawn red lines. A slate of tax-related proposals, he said, would make inflation worse.“I’m ready to work with Republicans but not on this kind of stuff,” Biden said on Thursday, promising a veto.The White House also shot down any suggestion it would circumvent Congress to avoid a debt-default.“Attempts to exploit the debt ceiling as leverage will not work,” the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters. “There will be no hostage-taking.”‘Always a double standard’The discovery of classified documents at Biden’s home in Delaware and an office in Washington has already pushed his relationship with hostile House Republicans into further jeopardy. On Thursday, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter. Biden said he was “cooperating fully and completely”.Republicans seized on the revelations, accusing Biden of hypocrisy for his criticism of Trump after FBI agents retrieved classified materials from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.Trump to ramp up efforts to secure 2024 Republican nomination after slow startRead more“There’s always a double standard,” tweeted Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, asking: “Where’s the raid of Biden’s garage?”Though such attacks ignore the significant legal differences between the two cases, they have nevertheless energized Republicans determined to puncture Biden’s stretch of good fortune after a historically strong midterm performance by Democrats.In November, Democrats expanded their Senate majority and blunted losses in the House, despite Biden’s low approval ratings and widespread economic angst. Emboldened by the elections, Biden said he saw no reason to change his approach.He has argued that support for his agenda, including a hard-won health and climate law passed despite unified Republican opposition, would only grow as the policies take effect over the next two years.“We’ve made some real progress,” Biden said before a cabinet meeting last week. “But now we need to focus on implementing the big laws we actually passed so that the American people can feel the benefits of what we’ve done.”Still, a divided Congress leaves little opportunity for progress on campaign promises Democrats were not able to enact when they controlled both chambers. Progressives are calling on Biden to use executive actions to prove his commitment to issues he ran on in 2020 and to make the case for 2024.Progressive lawmakers have called on the president to take action on issues including climate, abortion, workers’ rights and marijuana reform.“In the last Congress there were definitely moments when President Biden was holding back on executive action to leave lots of room and space for Congress to act,” said Mary Small, national advocacy director of Indivisible, a progressive grassroots organization.“None of that should be happening now.”TopicsJoe BidenHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

Trump’s political fate may have been decided – by a Georgia grand juryPanel that considered whether ex-president committed crimes in trying to overturn 2020 election defeat could recommend prosecution Even as Donald Trump prepares to dial up his campaign to take back the White House, the former US president’s political and personal fate may already have been decided by the secret workings of a grand jury in Georgia.The 23-member panel, convened to consider whether Trump and others committed crimes in trying to overturn his defeat in Georgia when it appeared the state might decide the outcome of the entire 2020 presidential election, was dissolved on Monday after submitting its conclusions and asking that they be made public.Two years on from the Capitol riot: the toxic legacy of Trump’s big lieRead moreIf the grand jury’s report recommends prosecution, a county district attorney in Atlanta, Fani Willis, will face the most consequential decision of her career – whether, for the first time in American history, to charge a former president with a criminal offence.That could result in Trump sitting behind bars in Georgia when he expects to be out on the campaign trail. Provided he is not already serving time as the result of a federal investigation into his attempts to pressure election officials in several other states to rig the vote and his part in the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol.A judge has scheduled a hearing later this month to consider arguments over whether the grand jury’s report should be made public while Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, scrutinises its findings.In November, the day before Trump announced he was again running for the White House, the Brookings Institution in Washington published a report that concluded he is “at substantial risk of prosecution” in Georgia including for improperly influencing government officials, forgery and criminal solicitation. The report said Trump may even be vulnerable to charges under anti-racketeering laws written to combat the mafia.Norman Eisen, the lead author of the Brookings report and former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, said he thinks charges against Trump are “highly likely”.“The evidence is powerful and the law is very favourable to the prosecutors in Georgia,” he said. “I believe the [special grand jury] report very likely calls for the prosecution of Trump and his co-conspirators.”Eisen said that the federal case is not as far along but that the congressional committee investigating the events of January 6 laid out a “powerful case” for charges against Trump.He said that the prosecution of a former president would be “momentous”.“But, of course, so was Trump’s decision to lead an attempted coup. That was momentous in a very negative way. This is momentous as a defence of the rule of law and American democracy,” said Eisen.Georgia prosecutors have warned at least 18 other people that they are targets of the investigation and could be charged, including Trump’s close ally and lawyer, the former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani who has, among other things, been accused of spreading conspiracy theories in testimony to the Georgia legislature.Willis launched her investigation into “a multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results” just weeks after the former president left office. The investigation initially focused on a tape recording of Trump pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to conjure nearly 12,000 votes out of thin air in order to overturn Joe Biden’s win.Willis expanded the investigation as more evidence emerged of Trump and his allies attempting to manipulate the results, including the appointment of a sham slate of 16 electors to replace the state’s legitimate members of the electoral college. The fake electors included the chair of the Georgia Republican party, David Shafer, and Republican members of the state legislature who have been warned that they are at risk of prosecution.The Fulton county district attorney has told state officials that her office is investigating an array of crimes against Trump and others, including criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, intentional interference with the performance of election duties, conspiracy and racketeering. Convictions potentially carry significant prison sentences.Fulton superior court approved the appointment of the special grand jury last year at Willis’s request. She reflected on the consequence of investigating a former president as the jurors began their work.“I don’t want you to think I’m naive or I don’t get the gravity of the situation,” Willis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I get the gravity of it … But it’s just like every other case. You just have to do your due diligence.”Special grand juries are rare in Georgia. Unlike the regular kind, they cannot indict. But they can sit for much longer and have wider powers to subpoena. Willis recognised that if she was to build a case against such a divisive political figure as Trump, and convince a jury in a criminal trial, the evidence would have to be rock solid, and that would take time and depth.Willis used the grand jury’s powers to good effect. She called a parade of witness, including many of Trump’s closest allies and lawyers. Some fought their subpoenas including Senator Lindsey Graham who went all the way to the US supreme court in a failed attempt to avoid giving evidence.The star witness was Raffensperger, a Republican who voted for Trump and oversaw his state’s elections. When the numbers stacked up against the president in Georgia, Trump knew where to turn.Raffensperger spoke to the special grand jury for several hours in June. Georgia’s secretary of state has not commented publicly about his testimony but in his book, Integrity Counts, Raffensperger recounts receiving a call from Trump as he sat in his kitchen with his wife, Tricia, on 2 January 2021. He put the president on speakerphone.Raffensperger had an idea what to expect. Trump had already “tweeted insults and threats at me and Georgia governor Brian Kemp”. For an hour, the president tried to persuade Raffensperger to overturn the vote.“So, we’ve spent a lot of time on this and if we could just go over some of the numbers, I think it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia,” Trump said on the call.Raffensperger said he was tempted to interrupt and disagree but did not out of respect.Trump went on: “I just want to find 11,780 votes … because we won the state.”Raffensperger told the president he “could not do that because the data did not support it”.Trump tried to claim that the vote had been rigged by alleging that ballot boxes were stuffed and other irregularities. Then the president said: “All of this stuff is very dangerous stuff when you talk about no criminality. I think it’s very dangerous for you to say that.”Raffensperger saw that for what it was.“I felt then – and still believe today – that this was a threat,” he wrote. “Others obviously thought so, too, because some of Trump’s more radical followers have responded as if it was their duty to carry out this threat.”Raffensperger said he and his wife were subject to death threats.Willis had more than the witness’s word for it. Raffensperger recorded the call, providing powerful and indisputable evidence.The Fulton county district attorney brought a parade of other witnesses before the grand jury including the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and Graham, who placed calls to Raffensperger to suggest he should throw out some absentee ballots.Giuliani is likely to have been asked about false testimony he gave to Georgia legislators the month after the presidential election, including claims that voting machines were rigged and that thousands of teenagers below the voting age had cast ballots. A New York court suspended his licence to practice law last year over his “demonstrably false and misleading statements regarding the Georgia presidential election results”.Willis has also gathered evidence about attempts to pressure a Fulton county poll worker and her daughter to wrongly say they committed election fraud by ballot stuffing, the sudden resignation of a US attorney in Atlanta under pressure from Trump officials to more aggressively investigate alleged election fraud, and of an IT services company hired by one of Trump’s lawyers that illegally copied confidential voter data from voting machines.Those who have worked with Willis say she is unlikely to shy from prosecuting Trump if she deems it appropriate. She is known to be a fan of anti-racketeering laws, having used them to prosecute public school teachers who were part of a cheating scandal.If Willis decides to press ahead with the case, she will need to convene a regular grand jury which has the authority to hand down indictments.Trump has dismissed the threat to his freedom with his usual bluster. He described his conversation with Raffensperger as “perfect” and the hearings as a “witch-hunt”. He has called Willis’s investigation a “political prosecution” and “racist”, presumably because she is Black.TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS politicsUS elections 2020featuresReuse this content More

Treasury secretary: US to reach debt ceiling on ThursdayJanet Yellen told Congress that ‘extraordinary measures’ would be taken to avoid default until legislation is passed to raise ceiling Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, has notified Congress that the US is projected to reach its debt limit on Thursday, 19 January, and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default.In a letter to House and Senate leaders on Friday, Yellen said her actions will buy time until Congress can pass legislation that will either raise the nation’s $31.4tn borrowing authority or suspend it again for a period of time.US prices drop for first time since May 2020 as inflation rate falls to 6.5%Read moreShe urged lawmakers to act quickly to raise the debt ceiling to “protect the full faith and credit of the United States”.“Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the US economy, the livelihoods of all Americans and global financial stability,” she said.Republicans now in control of the House have threatened to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand spending cuts from Democrats and the Biden administration. This has raised concerns in Washington and on Wall Street about a bruising fight over the debt ceiling this year that could be at least as disruptive as the protracted battle of 2011, which prompted the brief downgrade of the US credit rating and years of forced domestic and military spending cuts.The Washington Post reported late on Friday that House Republicans had prepared an emergency plan for breaching the debt limit. The proposal, which was in the preliminary stages of being drafted, would direct the treasury department to prioritize certain payments if the US hits the debt ceiling, according to the newspaper.The White House said on Friday after Yellen’s letter that it will not negotiate over raising the debt ceiling.“This should be done without conditions,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “There’s going to be no negotiation over it.”The new House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, told reporters in his first press conference that he had a “very good conversation” with Biden about the coming debt ceiling debate. “We don’t want to put any fiscal problems to our economy and we won’t, but fiscal problems would be continuing to do business as usual,” he said.“We’ve got to change the way we are spending money.”The proposal from House Republicans reported by the Washington Post would call on the Biden administration to make only the most critical federal payments if the treasury department comes up against the statutory limit on what it can legally borrow. The plan will call on the department to keep making interest payments on the debt, the newspaper reported, citing sources.House Republicans’ payment prioritization plan may also stipulate that the treasury department should continue making payments on social security, Medicare and veterans benefits, as well as funding the military, the newspaper added.Yellen said that while the treasury can’t estimate how long the extraordinary measures will allow the US to continue to pay the government’s obligations, “it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.”The treasury department first used extraordinary measures in 1985 and at least 16 times since, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog. Those measures include divesting some payments, such as contributions to federal employees’ retirement plans, in order to provide some headroom to make other payments that are deemed essential.Past forecasts suggest a default could instantly bury the country in a deep recession, right at a moment of slowing global growth as the US and much of the world face high inflation because of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The financial markets could crash and several million workers could be laid off, and the aftershocks would be felt for years.Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told reporters Friday: “This is not the time for panic, but it’s certainly a time for policymakers to begin negotiations in earnest.”“Most policymakers agree that we have a major fiscal challenge as a country, our debt is unsustainable,” he said. “There’s no reason why we couldn’t agree on measures to improve our fiscal outcome, and also ensure that we are paying all of our bills in full and on time.”TopicsJanet YellenUS economyUS CongressUS politicsEconomicsnewsReuse this content More

Republicans launch investigations into Biden’s handling of classified papersHouse judiciary committee makes announcement after special counsel appointed to look into the case Republicans on the House judiciary committee on Friday announced an investigation into the discovery of classified documents at Joe Biden’s Delaware home and former office in Washington DC.The GOP representatives, newly in control of committees after their party took the House last November, made their move a day after the attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the matter.In a letter to Garland, the judiciary committee chair, Jim Jordan of Ohio, said: “We are conducting oversight of the justice department’s actions with respect to former vice-president Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington DC private office and in the garage of his residence in Wilmington.Classified documents: how do the Trump and Biden cases differ?Read more“On 12 January 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate these matters. The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry.”The letter noted that the documents were discovered just before the midterm elections, and accused the justice department of departing “from how it acted in similar circumstances”, namely the inquiry into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.A special counsel, Jack Smith, has been investigating Trump since November – an announcement made after the midterm elections.The Republican congressmen demanded Garland turn over an array of documents related to the Biden investigation by 27 January.The judiciary committee investigation was the second announced by House Republicans since the documents’ discovery was reported this week.The first is being pursued by the new oversight committee chair, James Comer, a Kentuckian who is playing a major role in the Republicans’ campaign of investigations against the Biden White House.Earlier on Friday, Comer sent the White House a demand for information about whether Hunter Biden, the president’s son who is a magnet for Republican investigations and accusations, had access to the garage at the Delaware residence.An oversight committee tweet said: “We have doc[ument]s revealing this address appeared on Hunter’s driver’s license as recently as 2018, the same time he was cutting deals with foreign adversaries. Time for answers.”Even before Biden took office, Republicans tried to find evidence of corruption in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and of his father’s involvement. Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine were at issue in Trump’s attempts to procure dirt on Joe Biden, a scheme which led to the first of Trump’s two impeachments.Such efforts to ensnare Joe Biden via his son have achieved mixed results at best but this week’s revelations about classified documents in the elder Biden’s possession have produced new lines of attack.Speaking to CBS, Jordan said: “Right now there are tons of questions. A lot of those I think will be answered in the intelligence committee and the oversight committee. But we’ll be looking at the justice department component.”A third committee joined the hunt on Friday, with a letter to defense officials from Mike Rogers, the chair of the House armed services committee.The proliferating investigations have provided a new headache for Democrats in Congress.The party has been on a roll, doing much better in the November midterms than expected, before the gifts of Republican disarray in the House and a surprisingly quiet presidential campaign from Trump.Asked on CNN on Friday if he believed Biden broke the law by retaining classified documents, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said: “It’s much too early to tell.“I think President Biden has handled this correctly. He’s fully cooperated with the prosecutors … it’s a total contrast to President Trump, who stonewalled for a whole year.”Schumer called for patience.“We should let it play out, we don’t have to push [the special counsels] in any direction or try to influence them,” he said. “Let [them] do their job.”Schumer said he supported the appointment of Robert Hur in the Biden case.TopicsJoe BidenRepublicansUS politicsMerrick GarlandHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

Republicans on the House judiciary committee have announced their own investigation of the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and former office, sending a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding details of the inquiry.“We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C. private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware residence. On January 12, 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel to investigate these matters. The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the Committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry,” the committee’s chair Jim Jordan along with congressman Mike Johnson said in a letter.The letter notes that the documents were first discovered just before the midterm elections in November, and accuses the justice department of departing “from how it acted in similar circumstances,” notable the inquiry into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The committee members demand Garland turn over an array of documents related to the Biden investigation by 27 January.The investigation is the second to be announced by the House GOP since reports of the documents’ discovery first emerged this week. The other is being pursued by James Comer of the oversight committee, who is playing a major role in the Republicans’ campaign of investigations against the White House.Donald Trump’s organization was fined $1.6m by a judge after being convicted of tax fraud charges, but the Manhattan district attorney hinted that’s not the end of his investigation into the former president’s businesses. Meanwhile in Washington, House Republicans demanded more information about the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and former office, while the top Senate Democrat said special counsel Robert Hur should be allowed to look into the matter without interference.Here’s what happened today:
Biden doesn’t trust his Secret Service detail, according to a new book about his presidency.
Treasury secretary Janet Yellen warned the US government will soon hit its debt limit, and could run out of money by June.
Special counsel Jack Smith wants to talk to two people hired by Trump’s attorneys to look for any secret materials in his possession.
Congress will convene for the annual State of the Union address on 7 February.
Who is George Santos really? Two Daily Beast reporters try to get to the bottom of the fabulist congressman’s saga in an interview with the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast.
Last week, the much-talked-about George Santos of New York was sworn into the House. The Democrats and even some Republicans think he should have resigned after he admitted to lying about a lot of things during his campaign.So who is the real George Santos? How likely is it that he’ll see out his full term in office? And does his success tell us more about the state of US politics than it does an individual’s misgivings? Jonathan Freedland and Will Bredderman of the Daily Beast discuss the man behind the lies on the Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast:Politics Weekly AmericaCan George Santos outrun his lies? Politics Weekly AmericaSorry your browser does not support audio – but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp300:00:0000:29:31Attorney general Merrick Garland has asked Robert Hur to handle the investigation into Biden’s classified documents, putting a justice department veteran whose most recent government service was as a Donald Trump-appointed US attorney in a role that could upend his presidency.Semafor reports that Democrats remember his work as US attorney for Maryland fondly. “He handled himself with real professionalism when he was U.S. attorney in Maryland,” the state’s Democratic senator Ben Cardin said, while Jamie Raskin, a House Democrat from the state and noted Trump foe, said Hur had a “good reputation.”Rod Rosenstein, who was deputy attorney general under Trump, said Hur was his “point person” for dealing with one of the men the former president liked least: Robert Mueller, the special counsel who led the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.The House armed services committee is also requesting details about the classified documents found in Joe Biden’s possession.The committee’s Republican chair Mike Rogers earlier this week wrote to two defense officials requesting details on what the documents contained, and how they had been handled.You can read the letter below:Read the full letter here ⬇️https://t.co/Y98CJppa8M pic.twitter.com/7Yz5uCZqdV— Armed Services GOP (@HASCRepublicans) January 12, 2023
Needless to say, this is turning into a headache for Democrats in Congress.The party has been on a roll lately, doing much better in the November midterms than expected and then being gifted with Republican disarray in the House and a surprisingly quiet presidential campaign from Donald Trump.Now, they’re back to playing defense after Joe Biden was found to be doing something similar to what has gotten Trump into so much trouble: possessing classified documents. There are substantial differences to the two cases, but party leaders nonetheless are being called upon to answer for their president.“It’s much too early to tell,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer today replied on CNN, when asked if he believes Biden broke the law. “I think president Biden has handled this correctly. He’s fully cooperated with the prosecutors … it’s total contrast to president Trump, who stonewalled for a whole year.”With special prosecutors looking into both men’s cases, Schumer called for patience. “We should let it play out, we don’t have to push them in any direction or try to influence them,” he said. “Let the special prosecutors do their job,” Schumer said, adding that he supports the appointment of Robert Hur to that role in the Biden case.You can watch the full interview here:Republicans on the House judiciary committee have announced their own investigation of the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s home and former office, sending a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, demanding details of the inquiry.“We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C. private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware residence. On January 12, 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel to investigate these matters. The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the Committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry,” the committee’s chair Jim Jordan along with congressman Mike Johnson said in a letter.The letter notes that the documents were first discovered just before the midterm elections in November, and accuses the justice department of departing “from how it acted in similar circumstances,” notable the inquiry into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. The committee members demand Garland turn over an array of documents related to the Biden investigation by 27 January.The investigation is the second to be announced by the House GOP since reports of the documents’ discovery first emerged this week. The other is being pursued by James Comer of the oversight committee, who is playing a major role in the Republicans’ campaign of investigations against the White House.Joe Biden will make the annual State of the Union speech on 7 February, after the president accepted a formal invitation from House speaker Kevin McCarthy:It is my solemn obligation to invite the president to speak before a Joint Session of Congress on February 7th so that he may fulfill his duty under the Constitution to report on the state of the union. pic.twitter.com/YBmzLxs3Iz— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) January 13, 2023
In a statement confirming his attendance, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre struck a bipartisan tone. “The President is grateful for and accepts Speaker McCarthy’s prompt invitation to address the peoples’ representatives in Congress,” she said. “He looks forward to speaking with Republicans, Democrats, and the country about how we can work together to continue building an economy that works from the bottom up and the middle out, keep boosting our competitiveness in the world, keep the American people safe, and bring the country together.”Looping back to Donald Trump’s legal troubles, here’s a little more about the situation in New York and beyond.The Trump Organization’s sentencing doesn’t end Trump’s battle with Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who said the sentencing “closes this important chapter of our ongoing investigation into the former president and his businesses. We now move on to the next chapter,” the Associated Press writes.Bragg, in office for little more than a year, inherited the Trump Organization case and the investigation into the former president from his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr.At the same time, New York attorney general Letitia James is suing Trump and the Trump Organization, alleging they misled banks and others about the value of its many assets, including golf courses and skyscrapers – a practice she dubbed the “art of the steal” – a parody of Trump’s long-ago bestselling ghostwritten book about getting rich The Art of the Deal.James, a Democrat, is asking a court to ban Trump and his three eldest children from running any New York-based company and is seeking to fine them at least $250 million. A judge has set an October trial date and appointed a monitor for the company while the case is pending.Trump faces several other legal challenges as he ramps up his presidential campaign.A special grand jury in Atlanta has investigated whether Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Last month, the House January 6 committee voted to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Trump’s role in sparking the violent insurrection at the US Capitol. The FBI is also investigating Trump’s storage of classified documents.During last year’s Trump Org trial, assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors that Trump himself had a role in the fraud scheme, showing them a lease that the Republican signed himself for now-convicted finance chief Allen Weisselberg’s perk apartment that was kept off the tax books.“Mr Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” Steinglass argued.Joe Biden this weekend will become the first sitting US president to speak at a Sunday service at Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was a pastor.Biden is expected to address the ongoing struggle to protect voting rights in the US, despite his failure a year ago to persuade Congress to pass key related legislation, to the exasperation of activists and organizers, especially in Georgia and the south.At the White House press briefing ongoing now, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, now senior adviser for public engagement at the White House, talked of the importance of the president’s visit this Sunday, ahead of Martin Luther King Day, the federal holiday that marks the birthday of the assassinated icon.She said that there was “more work to do” to protect democracy and acknowledged that the Biden administration’s two pieces of voting rights legislation have not made it through Congress.She noted that Biden has been invited to the church by Georgia’s recently re-elected Democratic senator Raphael Warnock, who is a pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist church. The church was also regularly attended by the late congressman and lifelong civil rights activist John Lewis.Biden will meet members of King’s family and leaders of the civil rights movement in Atlanta during his visit on Sunday and Monday.Lance Bottoms joined White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who pointed out that she and the former mayor are examples of “Black women who have broken barriers” on the shoulders of the civil rights movement.Donald Trump’s organization was fined $1.6m by a judge after being convicted of tax fraud charges, but the Manhattan district attorney hinted that’s not the end of his investigation into the former president’s businesses. Meanwhile in Washington, the Treasury secretary warned the US government will hit its legal borrowing limit on Thursday and could default in the summer, unless Congress acts to increase it. Republicans controlling the House have said they won’t cooperate unless government spending is cut, ensuring this is going to turn into a big fight at some point.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Joe Biden doesn’t trust his Secret Service detail, according to a new book about his presidency.
The top House Republican government watchdog is trying to link his investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings with the inquiry into classified documents found at the president’s properties.
Special counsel Jack Smith wants to talk to two people hired by Trump’s attorneys to look for any secret materials in his possession.
The US government will hit the legal limit on how much debt it can carry on 19 January, but it should have enough money to operate until at least early June, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said Friday.“I am writing to inform you that beginning on Thursday, January 19, 2023, the outstanding debt of the United States is projected to reach the statutory limit. Once the limit is reached, Treasury will need to start taking certain extraordinary measures to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations,” the secretary wrote in a letter to Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy.“While Treasury is not currently able to provide an estimate of how long extraordinary measures will enable us to continue to pay the government’s obligations, it is unlikely that cash and extraordinary measures will be exhausted before early June.”Republicans in the House have signaled they won’t agree to increase the debt ceiling unless the Biden administration and its Democratic allies in Congress agree to reduce spending, though it remains unclear what areas of the budget the GOP wants to cut. Raising the borrowing limit is one of the few pieces of leverage House Republicans have over the Democrats, but the strategy is not without risks. A failure to increase the ceiling could lead to the United States defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history, likely with serious consequences for the economy.The Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee is attempting to make two alleged scandals into one: the investigation of classified materials found at Joe Biden’s properties, and their inquiry into his son Hunter Biden’s business activities.The committee’s chair James Comer has sent the White House a new demand for information about whether Hunter had access to the garage at Joe Biden’s Delaware residence where it was revealed yesterday some classified material was found:🚨 @RepJamesComer presses the White House about classified docs stashed at Biden’s Wilmington home.We have docs revealing this address appeared on Hunter’s driver’s license as recently as 2018, the same time he was cutting deals with foreign adversaries.Time for answers. pic.twitter.com/663qG3REm4— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) January 13, 2023
Even before Biden took office, Republicans have been trying to find evidence of corruption in Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and of his father’s involvement. They have had mixed results in doing that, but this week’s revelations that classified materials were found at Biden’s residence and an office he once used in Washington DC have given them new material to attack his administration. Yesterday, the justice department appointed a special counsel to look into the matter.The trial of members of the Proud Boys militia group over their involvement in the January 6 insurrection is continuing in Washington DC, today with testimony from a Capitol police officer.Thomas Loyd’s testimony contains fresh reminders of the violence that day, as Politico reports:Radio transmissions show Capiotl Police leaders pleading with officers to get off the inaugural stage scaffolding, worried it was going to collapse. “If they’re going to lock the capitol down, we can’t be up here when they breach,” someone yells.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 13, 2023
“They’re coming and we can’t stop them from breaching,” someone else says on the radio, as police were overwhelmed near the lower west terrace. There were repeated concerns about lack of “hard gear” for officers to defend themselves.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 13, 2023
Joe Biden doesn’t trust his Secret Service detail, fearing that some of them remain loyal to Donald Trump, Vox reports, citing a new book about his presidency.“The Fight of His Life” by Chris Whipple chronicles the past two years of Biden’s presidency from a positive perspective, according to Vox, and in particular shows the degree to which he loathes his predecessor. Biden, for instance, believes the White House’s Resolute desk was “tainted” by Trump’s use and unsuccessfully asked to swap it out for one used by Democratic icon Franklin D Roosevelt.When it comes to the Secret Service, he minds what he says around them, believing that agents harbor sympathies for the former president. He also thinks they lied about an incident where his dog Major bit an agent. Reached by Vox, the White House wouldn’t comment directly on the book’s content. More

There are mounting calls from both politicians and voters to force the newly elected apparent fabulist U.S. Rep. George Santos from Congress following revelations he fabricated his background and other details of his life.

But New York’s 3rd Congressional District voters, who elected Santos as their representative in November 2022, cannot directly force him out of office until the next election, in November 2024.

It appears that Santos, who beat Democrat Robert Zimmerman during the 2022 midterm election, has woven a web of lies about his personal and professional background, some of them touching on on major historical and tragic events. Santos falsely claimed, for example, to have Jewish ancestry and said that his maternal grandparents fled to Brazil during the Holocaust. He also said that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks seemingly “claimed” the life of his mother – who actually died in 2016.

Santos said he graduated from Baruch College in the top 1% of his class and from NYU’s Stern School of Business – but he never attended either institution, nor did he graduate from college.

He also lied about his work experience, falsely claiming Citigroup and Goldman Sachs as former employers.

Santos has since admitted to embellishing parts of his résumé and said that he has not worked for CitiGroup or Goldman Sachs – and does not have a college degree.

Although a local weekly newspaper raised questions about his background in September, the story did not gain traction until The New York Times published its own story in December 2022. If the voters had known about these lies before the election, Santos might have lost.

As a scholar of constitutional law and public policy, I think it is important to understand that voters have limited options at this point. Forty states provide for the recall of state and local elected officials. But there is no federal recall law that could lead to the removal of someone like Santos from Congress.

George Santos and other members of Congress are sworn into office on Jan. 7, 2023.
Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

There are few federal options to remove Santos

The Nassau County Republican Committee and other local offices in Santos’ Long Island district are calling for him to step down. Several Republican House members have joined the chorus.

Santos, meanwhile, has said that he will not resign.

“I was elected by 142,000 people. Until those same 142,000 people tell me they don’t want me, we’ll find out in two years,” Santos recently said.

He may be right.

The Constitution says that members of Congress can be impeached and removed for treason, bribery or other offenses. The Constitution does not specify grounds for expulsion – or actually removing someone from office – leaving that to each chamber of Congress to determine.

The Constitution also says nothing about recall elections.

The Supreme Court has also never specifically addressed the legality of a federal recall, but two other rulings suggest that such a law would be unconstitutional. The court first determined in 1969 that Congress may not refuse to seat a duly elected member who meets the constitutional qualifications for office. And it also ruled in 1995 that states may not impose term limits on members of Congress, because that would add an additional qualification for membership beyond the citizenship, age and residency requirements mentioned in the Constitution.

Even if a federal law authorizing the recall of members of Congress were adopted and survived a legal challenge, the legislative and legal processes would consume virtually all of Santos’ two-year term. So recalling Santos is not a promising option, even if it were legal.

Critics might also try to get the House to expel Santos. But expulsion is exceedingly rare. The House has expelled only five members in its entire history, most for joining the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Ethics concerns are at play, though

Santos would not be committing any crime simply by telling lies. Maybe he did other things that violated the law – state, federal and Brazilian authorities are currently investigating whether he used campaign funds for personal expenses, and whether he committed fraud in Brazil by using someone else’s checkbook to pay his bills.

But Santos will not automatically lose his office even if he is convicted of any crime. The House does not require members to forfeit their office in those circumstances – or even if they go to prison.

Santos’ case, however, does raise ethics concerns that members of Congress can address. Two House Democrats from New York have filed ethics complaints against Santos with the House Ethics Committee regarding incomplete financial disclosure forms.

This bipartisan committee investigates alleged law violations by Congress members and makes recommendations to the full House. Ethics Committee recommendations are not legally binding. The House itself must consider them, though. In any event, this process probably would extend far into or beyond Santos’ term.

Santos might also resign if the Ethics Committee recommended his expulsion. That has happened on several occasions. In 1986, Sen. Harrison Williams resigned when facing an Ethics Committee’s recommendations that he be expelled because of corruption. In 1995, Sen. Robert Packwood left his post for the same reason.

Rep. Mario Biaggi of New York also stepped down before an expulsion vote in 1988.

Voters in Garden City, New York, vote in October 2020.
Chris Ware/Newsday via Getty Images

No clear exit ahead

In short, Santos would be able to serve most or all of his term even if the House did ultimately vote to expel him. But there are additional complications. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote to expel a member of Congress. Such a supermajority is unlikely, especially in a House with a narrow majority in which every vote counts and when Republicans might be hard-pressed to win a special election to fill Santos’ vacancy.

Voters who are appalled by George Santos’ apparent lies have little direct leverage to force him out of office quickly. Their first and best opportunity will come in 2024 if Santos decides to seek another term. Voters could defeat him in the Republican primary, where he surely would face opposition. And if he somehow survived the primary, he would still have to face a Democrat in the general election. More

Attorney General Merrick Garland has now appointed two veteran prosecutors as special counsels to oversee investigations into how President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump handled classified documents after leaving office – Biden after he ended his terms as vice president in 2017, and Trump after leaving the Oval Office in 2021.

Robert Hur, a former federal prosecutor in Maryland, will investigate whether Biden or any of his staff or associates mishandled classified information. Jack Smith, a longtime top investigator in the Department of Justice, is overseeing two criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump.

Garland’s goal, in both cases, is to shield the probes from the appearance of partisanship.

But in immediate and repeated attacks, Trump, and some of his allies, alleged political bias anyway. For instance, in one highly charged social media post, the former president argued that he won’t “get a fair shake” from Smith.

Biden, for his part, has said he is “cooperating fully and completely” with the Justice Department’s inquiries.

Fairness and justice, though, are what Garland appointed Smith and Hur to deliver. In his announcement that Smith would take charge of the Department of Justice investigations into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s handling of classified government documents, Garland described Smith as someone who “has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor.”

When appointing Hur, Garland emphasized his “department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters and to making decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”

In his own statement, Smith, who most recently investigated and prosecuted war crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, promised to “independently … move the investigations forward … to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”

From my perspective as a political scientist who studies presidential systems, I believe that while special counsels are intended to be independent, in practice they are aren’t entirely. Here’s why.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, examining Trump’s actions.
AP Photo/Peter Dejong, Pool

Special Counsel Robert Hur, examining Biden’s actions.
AP Photo/Steve Ruark

Independent and special counsels

Ensuring impartiality in the Department of Justice can be difficult, as the attorney general is appointed by – and answerable to – a partisan president. This gives presidents the power to try to compel attorneys general, who head the department, to pursue a political agenda. President Richard Nixon did this during the investigation of the Watergate break-in, which threatened to implicate him in criminal acts.

On the evening of Oct. 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox, whom Richardson had appointed to lead the Watergate investigation. Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and resigned. Finally, Nixon ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork, the next most senior official at the Department of Justice, to fire Cox. Bork complied.

This shocking series of events, often referred to as the Saturday Night Massacre, demonstrated how presidents could exercise political power over criminal investigations.

As a result of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed the Ethics in Government Act of 1978. This allowed for investigations into misconduct that could operate outside of presidential control.

After passage of this legislation, if the attorney general received “specific information” alleging that the president, vice president or other high-ranking executive branch officials had committed a serious federal offense, the attorney general would ask a special three-judge panel to appoint an independent counsel, who would investigate.

The Ethics in Government Act also disqualified Department of Justice employees, including the attorney general, from participating in any investigation or prosecution that could “result in a personal, financial, or political conflict of interest, or the appearance thereof.”

In the decades since the law’s passage, independent counsels investigated Republicans and Democrats alike. In 1999, Congress let the Ethics in Government Act expire. That year, then-Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the appointment of special counsels, who could investigate certain sensitive matters, similar to the way independent counsels operated.

Robert Mueller, who was appointed in 2017 by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, was a special counsel. Some Republicans accused him of bias, despite his long career serving under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

In 2020, John Durham – another veteran of the Department of Justice – was appointed as special counsel to investigate the origins of the investigation that triggered Mueller’s appointment. Michael Sussmann, a former Democratic Party lawyer and target of that probe, accused Durham of political prosecution. Sussmann was later acquitted.

Politicizing the process

Although special counsels were meant to resemble independent counsels, there are notable differences.

For instance, while special counsels operate independently of the attorney general, both their appointment and the scope of their investigations are determined by the attorney general. In contrast, the appointment of independent counsels and the scope of their investigations were determined by a three-judge panel, which in turn was appointed by the chief justice of the United States.

Also, since Congress authorized independent counsels, presidential influence was limited by law. In contrast, since Department of Justice regulations authorize special counsels, a president could try to compel the attorney general to change departmental interpretation of these regulations – or even just revoke them entirely – to influence or end a special counsel investigation.

For example, at one point, Trump wanted to fire Mueller. After his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the Russia probe, did not “end the phony Russia Witch Hunt,” Trump fired him.

Seemingly supportive of this, William Barr, who had served as attorney general under President George W. Bush, sent an unsolicited memo to the Department of Justice defending Trump by arguing that presidents have “complete authority to start or stop a law enforcement proceeding.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump then chose Barr to replace Sessions as attorney general.

In my own research, I have found that abuses of power are more common in situations in which the president and the attorney general are political allies.

For instance, after Mueller finished his report in 2019, Barr released a summary of its “principal conclusions.” Later, Barr’s summary was criticized for “not fully captur[ing] the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work.

In 2020, a Republican-appointed judge ruled that Barr “failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report” and questioned whether Barr had “made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse … in favor of President Trump.”

To be or not to be free of partisanship

The independence of the Department of Justice rests, in part, on who occupies the offices of president and attorney general.

Trump, for example, saw himself as “the chief law enforcement officer of the country” and thought it was appropriate to “be totally involved.”

Meanwhile, Biden has a long history of supporting the independence of Department of Justice investigations, dating as far back as his 1987-1995 tenure as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Barr once argued that the attorney general’s role is to advance “all colorable arguments that can [be] mustered … when the president determines an action is within his authority – even if that conclusion is debatable.”

In contrast, Garland – a former U.S. circuit judge – insists that “political or other improper considerations must play no role in any investigative or prosecutorial decisions.”

Given that Trump and Biden may end up facing off in 2024, it makes sense that Garland would want to appoint special counsels in order to avoid directly overseeing investigations into his boss and into a political opponent of his boss.

Still, Smith and Hur will not be entirely independent of Garland, just as Garland is not entirely independent of Biden.

This is an updated version of an article originally published Dec. 14, 2022. More