Gaetz, Matt

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      How Trump Is Complicating McCarthy’s Attempts to Avoid a Shutdown

      by

      The former president has been publicly pushing a shutdown, but his views are shaped by his own handling of the 2018 shutdown.When a group of House Republicans thwarted Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s attempt at averting a government shutdown, he fumed that he was being stymied by lawmakers who wanted to “burn the whole place down.”But he spared any public ire for the most powerful member of his party who has been encouraging a shutdown: former President Donald J. Trump.“I’d shut down the government if they can’t make an appropriate deal, absolutely,” Mr. Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”On his social media website, Truth Social, Mr. Trump went further, suggesting on Sunday that Republicans should dig in because President Biden, in Mr. Trump’s view, will take the blame.“The Republicans lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be blamed for the Budget Shutdown,” he wrote. “Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden!”Mr. Trump’s view of how shutdowns work was shaped by his own experience as president, when the longest government shutdown in history took place from December 2018 to January 2019. He incurred the public blame for it, as he publicly embraced the idea of a shutdown while holding contentious talks about a budget agreement with two Democratic leaders, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and the House speaker at the time, Nancy Pelosi of California.“I’ll be the one to shut it down,” Mr. Trump told the leaders in a contentious Oval Office meeting in December 2018 shortly before the shutdown. “I will take the mantle. And I will shut it down for border security.”There is no reason to believe that Mr. Biden would be granted outsize blame, if any at all, for a shutdown that a group of Republican holdouts in Congress are encouraging. Mr. McCarthy has privately noted what Mr. Trump said publicly at the time in 2018, according to a person with knowledge of Mr. McCarthy’s comments.In an earlier post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump suggested he believed the shutdown could “defund” the federal investigations he’s facing, although people have told him that such a belief was not likely to become reality, according to a person briefed on the conversation.Mr. Trump’s eagerness to push for chaos has only gone so far, however: The former president has not been calling lawmakers to try to push a shutdown.Yet Mr. McCarthy, whom Mr. Trump supported at the last minute when he ran for speaker, is facing an existential threat to his leadership, with his Republican critics looking to force him from his role amid the calamity of a likely shutdown.Aides to Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump declined to comment.People close to both men maintain that the looming government shutdown was not a strain on their relationship, nor was it a sign of a bigger rift. Nonetheless, a person close to Mr. Trump acknowledged that his support for a shutdown was providing encouragement to Mr. McCarthy’s adversaries.Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a leading supporter of a shutdown, said in an interview that one of Mr. Trump’s posts on social media endorsing a shutdown may have had an influence on some members of Congress.“I think there might have been a few people on the fence who were persuaded by that statement,” Mr. Gaetz said. “I view that as consequential.”Yet Mr. Trump is not being faulted, at least overtly, for his stance. In Congress, some Republicans dismissed the notion that Mr. Trump could do something to push Mr. Gaetz and his allies in the other direction, away from a shutdown.“I think it certainly helps with some of these folks when they hear from the former president, like during the speaker negotiations or the debt ceiling,” said Representative Mike Lawler of New York, a Republican member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. But he said it was Mr. Gaetz who was “creating a crisis.”A person close to Mr. Trump maintained that the former president did not view the situation in terms of helping Mr. McCarthy, nor did he view the speaker as being especially imperiled. Mr. Trump “doesn’t think Kevin needs rescuing,” the person said. In Mr. Trump’s view, the person said, a government shutdown isn’t a terrible thing so long as it’s not consequential.And there has been another issue at play: Mr. Trump’s bid for the White House.The person close to Mr. Trump insisted the former president had not been frustrated with Mr. McCarthy over his lack of an endorsement in the Republican presidential primary. Yet others who have spoken with Mr. Trump throughout the year said he had raised Mr. McCarthy’s lack of a formal endorsement several times.Mr. McCarthy has all but endorsed Mr. Trump in recent weeks — taking public shots at his chief rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and talking up Mr. Trump — but he has delayed making it official.Earlier this year, Mr. McCarthy’s reasoning, according to three people with direct knowledge of his thinking, was that he was eventually going to endorse Mr. Trump but needed to hold off for fund-raising purposes. He has said that major donors who are essential to funding House Republican campaigns would cut off funds if he endorsed Mr. Trump and that he needed to raise as much money as possible from donors who do not like the former president before making the decision official, the people with knowledge of his thinking said.Another person in contact with Mr. McCarthy, while not disputing that he expressed those sentiments about fund-raising, said that he was one of the most prolific fund-raisers in the Republican Party, and that he expected to raise money regardless of Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump has also had an eye on expunging his impeachments. He asked Mr. McCarthy and his allies what they’re going to do to clear his impeachments — though it remains unclear whether they have any power to do so. Despite the lack of formal support, Mr. McCarthy has made sure to tend to the relationship with Mr. Trump since he said in a television interview earlier this year that he was uncertain the former president was the strongest nominee in the general election. That comment enraged Mr. Trump, who told his aides he wanted it fixed.More recently, Mr. McCarthy has struck a different note, saying: “President Trump is beating Biden right now in the polls. He’s stronger than he has ever been in this process.” More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Tensions Flare on House Floor as Rogers Confronts Gaetz

      by

      Even by the heated standards of the tensions that flared among House Republicans during their four-day push to elect a speaker, what happened on the House floor around 11 p.m. on Friday stood out.Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, had declined yet again to vote for Representative Kevin McCarthy of California on a 14th ballot, helping sink McCarthy’s chances at speaker that round.With Republican lawmakers growing irritable after days of fruitless voting, a heated argument broke out between several of them. But Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, a McCarthy ally who is in line to become the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, took it to another level when he stepped toward Mr. Gaetz and had to be restrained.The dramatic moment was captured on C-SPAN’s video cameras, which, lacking the typical restraints placed upon them in a House with a speaker, were free to show whatever moments from the floor its operators deemed newsworthy.Mr. Gaetz had emerged as the most outspoken critic of Mr. McCarthy, lambasting him in increasingly vitriolic and personal terms. He had mocked how Mr. McCarthy has “sold shares of himself” for power and called the Californian the “Lebron James of special interest fund-raising.”At the same time, Mr. Gaetz had reportedly sought a subcommittee chairmanship in the House Armed Services Committee.An Associated Press photographer captured the chaotic moment when Representative Richard Hudson, Republican of North Carolina, pulled Mr. Rogers back from confronting Mr. Gaetz.Neither Mr. Gaetz nor a spokeswoman for Mr. Rogers immediately responded to requests for comment.Mr. McCarthy would be elected speaker on the 15th ballot.Mr. McCarthy downplayed the heated conversations that took place after the 14th ballot. “Oh nothing,” he told reporters who asked what happened. “I mean, we ended up with a tie, and he was able to get the others to be able to go present.” More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Many Republicans Against McCarthy Sought to Overturn 2020 Election

      by

      WASHINGTON — They helped lead the efforts to keep former President Donald J. Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election. They refused to certify that President Biden was the rightful winner. They spread lies that helped ignite a mob of Trump supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On Friday, the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack, many of the same hard-right lawmakers who served as top lieutenants to Mr. Trump during the buildup to the assault spent the day blocking the bid of Representative Kevin McCarthy of California to be speaker and extracting major concessions from him. While some had received subpoenas in the Jan. 6 investigations and were later referred to the House Ethics Committee, their power showed they were far from outcasts and had paid little price for their actions. Among the ringleaders in both the effort to block Mr. McCarthy and the push to overturn the 2020 election were Representative Scott Perry, the leader of the far-right Freedom Caucus, and Representatives Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona. (On Friday, Mr. Gosar and Mr. Perry swung behind Mr. McCarthy after he caved to their demands to dilute the power of the post he is seeking and to give their faction more sway in the House.)Other hard-right holdouts who for days have refused to vote for Mr. McCarthy were Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Andy Harris of Maryland. All three met with Mr. Trump or White House officials as they discussed how to fight the election results, according to evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.(Mr. Harris flipped his vote to support Mr. McCarthy on Friday afternoon, but Ms. Boebert and Mr. Gaetz remained against him.) Democrats made sure to single out the group.“This January 6th anniversary should serve as a wake-up call to the G.O.P. to reject M.A.G.A. radicalism — which keeps leading to G.O.P. failures,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, wrote on Twitter. “But the pandemonium wrought by House Republicans this week is one more example of how M.A.G.A. radicalism is making it impossible for them to govern.” No one in the hard-right group attended what was billed as a bipartisan ceremony on Capitol Hill to mark the anniversary. Only one Republican of any stripe turned up: Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a former F.B.I. agent who is the co-chairman of the centrist Problem Solvers Caucus. The ceremony opened with a moment of silence for House members on the steps of the Capitol to honor the Capitol Police officers who died in the year after the attack.“We stand here with our democracy intact because of those officers,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top Democrat in the House, as tears welled up in some House members’ eyes. Witnesses who testified before the House investigative committee, including police officers who defended the Capitol, were honored at the White House, including Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, and Harry Dunn, Caroline Edwards, Aquilino Gonell, and Eugene Goodman of the U.S. Capitol Police. Mr. Perry, who was one of the main architects behind a plan to install Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, as the acting attorney general after he appeared sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s false allegations of widespread voter fraud, said Friday that he fought Mr. McCarthy’s nomination for speaker until he could extract concessions from him to give the House Freedom Caucus and rank-and-file Republicans more influence over leadership. “This place is broken,” Mr. Perry said. “We weren’t going to move from that position until the change is made.” Mr. Biggs, who was still holding out against Mr. McCarthy on Friday afternoon, was involved in a range of organizational efforts in 2020, including meetings aimed at attracting protesters to Washington on Jan. 6, according to the House Jan. 6 committee. Mr. Gosar, who voted against Mr. McCarthy on multiple ballots but changed his vote to support him on Friday, spread numerous lies about the 2020 election and spoke at “Stop the Steal” rallies arranged by Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer. The House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack has referred Mr. Perry and Mr. Biggs to the Ethics Committee for refusing to comply with its subpoenas. Not every Republican involved in blocking Mr. McCarthy’s ascension was among those who voted against certifying Mr. Biden’s victory.Representative Chip Roy of Texas started out as an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Trump’s claims of a stolen election but gradually grew alarmed about the push to invalidate the results and ultimately opposed Mr. Trump’s bid to get Congress to overturn them on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Roy, an initial holdout against Mr. McCarthy, led negotiations to try to bring about a deal that would make Mr. McCarthy the speaker in exchange for changes to House rules.“We believe that there ought to be fundamental changes about and limits on spending after the massive bloated omnibus spending bill in December,” Mr. Roy said, referring to the $1.7 trillion government funding package passed by Congress last month. “And so we’ve talked about those. We’ve put a lot of those things in place.” More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Does It Matter That Investigators Are Closing In on Trump?

      by

      Gail Collins: Bret, which do you think is more of a threat to Trump’s political future, the classified document drama at Mar-a-Lago or the legal challenge to his businesses in New York?Bret Stephens: Gail, I suspect the most serious threats to Trump’s future, political or otherwise, are Big Macs and KFC buckets. Otherwise, I fear the various efforts to put the 45th president out of business or in prison make it considerably more likely that he’ll wind up in the White House as the 47th president. How about you?Gail: Sigh. You’re probably right but I’m still sorta hoping New York’s attorney general can hit him in the pocketbook. He’s super vulnerable when it comes to his shady finances — I’m even surprised he can find lawyers who have confidence they’ll keep being paid.Bret: No doubt the Trump Organization was run with the kind of fierce moral and financial rectitude you’d expect if Elizabeth Holmes had been put in charge of Enron. But the essential currency of Trumpism is drama, and what the New York and U.S. attorneys general have done is inject a whole lot more of it into Trump’s accounts.Gail: I don’t think the news that Letitia James accused him of fudging his financial statements will upset the base — they’ve always known this is a guy who responded to the World Trade Center terror attack by bragging that his tower was now the highest building in Lower Manhattan.Bret: A graceless building, by the way, far surpassed by the Chrysler Building, for those who care about architectural rivalries.Gail: Maybe I need to stop obsessing about this and take a look at the rest of the public world. Anything got your attention in particular?Bret: Am I allowed a rant?Gail: Bret, rants are … what we do.Bret: The investigation of Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, which looks like it’s about to fall apart, is an F.B.I. disgrace for the ages. It should force heads to roll. And Congress needs to appoint a Church-style committee or commission to reform the bureau. After the Ted Stevens fiasco, James Comey’s disastrous interventions with Hillary Clinton’s emails, and the bureau misrepresenting facts to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as part of its investigation of Trump and Russia, something dramatic has to change to save the F.B.I. from continuing to lose public trust.Gail: Are you upset by the investigation or the fact that the investigation is failing?Bret: I’m upset by a longstanding pattern of incompetence tinged by what feels like political bias. I don’t like Gaetz’s politics or persona any more than you do. But what we seem to have here is a high-profile politician being convicted in the court of public opinion of some of the most heinous behavior imaginable — trafficking a minor for sex — until the Justice Department realizes two years late that its case has fallen apart. We have a presumption of innocence in this country because we tend to err the most when we assume the worst about the people we like the least.Gail: Nothing nobler than ranting about a basic moral principle on behalf of a deeply unattractive victim.Bret: He’s the yang to Lauren Boebert’s yin. But no American deserves to be smeared this way.Gail: While we’re on the general subject of crime let’s talk bail reform. Specifically, New York’s new system, under which a judge basically lets out arrestees not accused of violent felonies. New info suggests this may be increasing crime. But I’m sticking with my support for the concept. Suspects who haven’t yet been tried shouldn’t get different treatment based on their ability to come up with bail.Your turn …Bret: New York’s bail reform laws are egregious because we’re now the only state that forbids judges from considering the potential danger of a given suspect. It leads to crazy outcomes, like the guy who tried to stab Representative Lee Zeldin at a campaign stop in July and was released hours later.Another problem is that too many cities effectively decriminalized misdemeanors like shoplifting and have given up prosecuting a lot of felonies, which tends to encourage an anything-goes mentality among the criminally minded. We really need a new approach to crime, of the kind that Joe Biden and Bill Clinton pushed back in the early 1990s, when the Democrats finally determined to be a law-and-order party again.Gail: Biden’s generally held to a middle course that doesn’t drive anybody totally crazy. That’s why he got elected, after all. How would you say he’s doing these days?Bret: I’m giving him full marks on supporting Ukraine. And I know Democrats have this whole “Dark Brandon” thing given Biden’s legislative victories, along with the chance that Democrats might hold the Senate thanks to bad Republican candidates. But I still don’t see things going well. Food prices keep going up-up-up and we’re heading for a bad-bad-bad recession.You?Gail: Going for Not At All Bad. Otherwise known as N.A.A.B.Bret: I’m approaching the point of T.O.T.W.I. T.: The Only Thing Worse Is Trump.Gail: You’re way off.Biden may not have mobilized Congress the way we hoped, but he’s gotten quite a bit done — from funding the ever-popular infrastructure programs to reducing health care costs for the working and middle classes to finally, finally giving the Internal Revenue Service some funds to do its work more efficiently.But he lost you after infrastructure, right?Bret: He’s governed so much further to the left than I would have liked. Change of subject: What governor’s races are you following?Gail: It’s always a lot harder to focus on other states’ governors than the senators but I gotta admit this year I’m hooked on …Well, let’s start with one we’re going to disagree about. I’m guessing there’s no way you could be rooting for Beto O’Rourke in Texas, right?Bret: Ah, no, except as a performance artist. When are Texas Democrats going to nominate a centrist who stands a modest chance of winning a statewide race?What about the New York race? I don’t suppose you could have warm feelings for Lee Zeldin, could you?Gail: Well, to get Zeldin as their gubernatorial nominee, New York Republicans passed up a bid by Rudy’s son Andrew Giuliani, so I’d definitely put Zeldin in the Could Be Worse category.Bret: Hochul’s main achievement to date has been to get taxpayers to put up $850 million for a new Bills stadium in Buffalo. That makes her perfect for Albany, which I don’t mean as a compliment.Gail: Yeah, her Buffalo obsession is pretty irritating. But about Texas — Abbott is one of those Make Everything Worse Republicans, who most recently made the headlines by shipping busloads of migrants to northern cities. A move that did nothing to solve anything, but did help expose what a jerk he is.Really, nothing Beto has ever done is that awful.Bret: That’s because Beto has never done anything.One Democrat I am excited about is Maryland’s Wes Moore, whom I know slightly and impresses me greatly. His book, “The Other Wes Moore,” will soon be required reading the way Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” used to be. And, just to be clear, that’s me saying that Moore could one day be president.Who else?Gail: Your bipartisanship is making me feel guilty. But about the governors — one other guy who fills me with rancor is my ongoing obsession, Ron DeSantis of Florida, who’s terrible in all the ways Abbott is terrible but much worse since he’s already a serious presidential candidate.Bret: And an effective governor who knows how to drive liberals crazy and whose state is attracting thousands of exiles from New York, California and other poorly governed, highly taxed blue states.Gail: Sorry but having empty space to develop and few social services to support doesn’t make you effective, just well positioned.But go on ….Bret: Speaking of DeSantis, how do you think he’d fare in a theoretical matchup against California’s Gavin Newsom?Gail: Oh boy, that’s pretty theoretical. DeSantis worries me because his policies are terrible — cruel and terrible. But he’s an obsessive campaigner with a smart pitch.Have to admit I don’t have much of a feel for Newsom — in general it’s hard to be a national candidate if you’re running as a Democrat from a state that’s very liberal. Liberal for good and historic reasons, but hard to sell to folks in Kansas or North Carolina.Here’s another Republican governor I’ve been mulling — what about Brian Kemp in Georgia?Bret: I’m generally not a fan of Southern Republicans. But Kemp did stand his ground against three election deniers: David Perdue in 2022, Donald Trump in 2020 and Stacey Abrams in 2018.Gail: Kemp is one of those Republicans — like Mike Pence and Liz Cheney — who I admire for their principled stands while realizing I would never vote for them. His abortion position, for instance, is appalling. So he goes in my Honorable But Wrong list.We’re cruising toward the final stage of the Senate campaigns, too, Bret. Let me leave you with the thought that Arizona is looking great for my side and Ohio maybe conceivably possible.Bret: And who’da thunk I’d be rooting for Democrats in both races?Gail: Wow. To be continued.Bret: In the meantime, Gail, I recommend reading Richard Sandomir’s beautiful obituary for two Jewish sisters who survived the Holocaust and passed away a few weeks ago in Alabama, 11 days apart. It’s a nice reminder of how much we all have to live for — and to wish all of our readers, Jewish or otherwise, a good and sweet new year.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Rebekah Jones Will Face Matt Gaetz in Florida in November

      by

      Representative Matt Gaetz, the far-right Republican who easily won his primary on Tuesday in Florida’s First Congressional District, will face a Democratic challenger in November who made national headlines early in the coronavirus pandemic.Rebekah D. Jones, a former data manager for the Florida Department of Health, defeated Peggy Schiller in the Democratic primary, according to The Associated Press, after a confusing legal back-and-forth over whether Ms. Jones was eligible to appear on the ballot.Just a day before the primary, a Florida appeals court ruled that Ms. Jones could remain on the ballot. That reversed the decision of a lower court judge who had said that she was ineligible because state law requires a candidate running in a partisan primary to sign an oath declaring membership in that party for at least the previous year.During a daylong trial this month, lawyers for Ms. Schiller had showed that Ms. Jones switched her party registration from Democrat to unaffiliated for two months in 2021, while she was briefly living in Maryland after clashing with the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida over coronavirus statistics.That clash put a spotlight on Ms. Jones in 2020, when she claimed that she had been fired from her government job for refusing to suppress virus data from the public. In what became a monthslong saga, Ms. Jones filed a whistle-blower complaint, turned into a vocal critic of Mr. DeSantis and was eventually criminally charged with accessing a state computer and downloading a file without authorization.The criminal case against Ms. Jones is pending. In May, an inspector general for the Department of Health found that three allegations that Ms. Jones had made against several health officials were “unsubstantiated.”Ms. Jones returned to Florida from Maryland in July last year. She filed to run for Congress against Mr. Gaetz in his heavily Republican district in the Panhandle.A three-judge panel from the state First District Court of Appeal ruled on Monday that the candidate oath signed by Ms. Jones could not be enforced because the law “provides no express authority to disqualify a party candidate if she was not in fact a registered party member during the 365-day window.”In the ruling, Judge Rachel E. Nordby, who was appointed by Mr. DeSantis, acknowledged that the decision “could invite bad actors to qualify for the ballot using false party affiliation statements to inject chaos into a party’s primary.”The ruling allowed any votes cast for Ms. Jones to count, and preliminary results showed she defeated Ms. Schiller. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Panel Provides New Evidence That G.O.P. Members of Congress Sought Pardons

      by

      At least half a dozen Republican members of Congress sought pre-emptive pardons from President Donald J. Trump as he fought to remain in office after his defeat in the 2020 election, witnesses have told the House Jan. 6 committee, the panel disclosed on Thursday.Mr. Trump “had hinted at a blanket pardon for the Jan. 6 thing for anybody,” Mr. Trump’s former head of presidential personnel, Johnny McEntee, testified.Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, appeared to ask for a broad pardon, not limited to his role in Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse the outcome of the election. Mr. Gaetz even invoked the pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon as he did so, Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer for Mr. Trump, testified.“He mentioned Nixon, and I said, ‘Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad,’” Mr. Herschmann recounted.Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama sent an email seeking a pre-emptive pardon for all 147 members of Congress who objected to the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College win.A former adviser to Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified that Mr. Gaetz, Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona all expressed interest in pardons.She also testified that Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio “talked about” pardons but did not directly ask for one, and that she heard of newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia also expressing interest to the White House Counsel’s Office.Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida arriving at the Capitol in May.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesTaken together, the former White House aides portrayed members of Congress concerned about potential exposure to prosecution in the wake of their support for Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power. And the accounts provided an extraordinary, under-penalty-of-perjury portrait of efforts to use a president’s broad clemency powers for nakedly political purposes.In a statement, Mr. Perry denied seeking a pardon. “I stand by my statement that I never sought a presidential pardon for myself or other members of Congress,” he said. “At no time did I speak with Miss Hutchinson, a White House scheduler, nor any White House staff about a pardon for myself or any other member of Congress — this never happened.”Ms. Greene posted a clip of Ms. Hutchinson on Twitter and added: “Saying ‘I heard’ means you don’t know. Spreading gossip and lies is exactly what the January 6th Witch Hunt Committee is all about.” Mr. Gohmert also denied making such a request, and condemned the committee for how it has comported itself. Mr. Biggs similarly said that Ms. Hutchinson was “mistaken,” and that her testimony was edited “deceptively.”Mr. Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Brooks confirmed seeking a pardon, but said it was because he believed the Justice Department would be “abused” by the Biden administration. He released the letter he sent the White House, in which he said he was putting the request in writing at the instruction of Mr. Trump.The fact that it had evidence that pardons were under discussion was previewed by the committee at an earlier hearing. And the panel previously revealed that a key figure in Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the election, the conservative lawyer John Eastman, had emailed another Trump lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, after the Capitol riot, asking to be “on the pardon list, if that is still in the works.”Mr. Eastman appeared before the committee and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination repeatedly.It is unclear whether Mr. Gaetz’s reported request for a blanket pardon was driven by concerns about his attempts to overturn the election or other potential criminality. At the time Mr. Gaetz made the request, he had just come under Justice Department investigation for sex-trafficking a minor. He has not been charged.The question of who was getting pardons, and for what, was a source of enormous consternation in the final days of the Trump White House. The House select committee is using the information about the pardons to describe a broader effort to protect people who carried out Mr. Trump’s desires.In his final weeks, Mr. Trump randomly offered pardons to former aides who were jarred because they were not sure what he thought they had done that was criminal, two former officials have said. Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 6Making a case against Trump. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      McCarthy Feared G.O.P. Lawmakers Put ‘People in Jeopardy’ After Jan. 6

      by

      New audio recordings reveal Kevin McCarthy worried that comments by his far-right colleagues could incite violence. He said he would try to rein in the lawmakers, but has instead defended them.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, feared in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack that several far-right members of Congress would incite violence against other lawmakers, identifying several by name as security risks in private conversations with party leaders.Mr. McCarthy talked to other congressional Republicans about wanting to rein in multiple hard-liners who were deeply involved in Donald J. Trump’s efforts to contest the 2020 election and undermine the peaceful transfer of power, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times.But Mr. McCarthy did not follow through on the sterner steps that some Republicans encouraged him to take, opting instead to seek a political accommodation with the most extreme members of the G.O.P. in the interests of advancing his own career.Mr. McCarthy’s remarks represent one of the starkest acknowledgments from a Republican leader that the party’s rank-and-file lawmakers played a role in stoking violence on Jan. 6, 2021 — and posed a threat in the days after the Capitol attack. Audio recordings of the comments were obtained in reporting for a forthcoming book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.”In the phone call with other Republican leaders on Jan. 10, Mr. McCarthy referred chiefly to two representatives, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Mo Brooks of Alabama, as endangering the security of other lawmakers and the Capitol complex. But he and his allies discussed several other representatives who made comments they saw as offensive or dangerous, including Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Barry Moore of Alabama.The country was “too crazy,” Mr. McCarthy said, for members to be talking and tweeting recklessly at such a volatile moment.McCarthy Expresses Concern About Republican Lawmakers’ RhetoricOn a Jan. 10, 2021, conference call with House G.O.P. leaders, Representative Kevin McCarthy expresses concern that Republican lawmakers’ rhetoric could lead to someone getting hurt.Mr. Brooks and Mr. Gaetz were the prime offenders in the eyes of G.O.P. leaders. Mr. Brooks addressed the Jan. 6 rally on the National Mall, which preceded the Capitol riot, using incendiary language. After Jan. 6, Mr. Gaetz went on television to attack multiple Republicans who had criticized Mr. Trump, including Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a member of the leadership team.Those comments by Mr. Gaetz alarmed Mr. McCarthy and his colleagues in leadership — particularly the reference to Ms. Cheney, who was already the target of threats and public abuse from Mr. Trump’s faction in the party because of her criticism of the defeated president.Mr. McCarthy considered remarks made by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida a threat to the security of other lawmakers and the Capitol complex.Audra Melton for The New York Times“He’s putting people in jeopardy,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Gaetz. “And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.”Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, suggested that Mr. Gaetz might be crossing a legal boundary.“It’s potentially illegal what he’s doing,” Mr. Scalise said.McCarthy on Comments by GaetzRepresentative Kevin McCarthy and Representative Steve Scalise, along with a number of aides, discuss Representative Matt Gaetz criticizing other Republicans by name in the days after the Jan. 6 attack.On Tuesday night, Mr. Gaetz responded with a blistering statement, castigating the two House Republican leaders as “weak men.”“While I was protecting President Trump from impeachment, they were protecting Liz Cheney from criticism,” he said.Mr. McCarthy, referring to Mr. Brooks, said the Trump loyalist had behaved even worse on Jan. 6 than Mr. Trump, who told the crowd assembled on the National Mall to “fight like hell” before his supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the electoral vote count. Mr. Brooks told the rally that it was “the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”“You think the president deserves to be impeached for his comments?” Mr. McCarthy asked rhetorically. “That’s almost something that goes further than what the president said.”Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama gave a fiery speech at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot.Jacquelyn Martin/Associated PressSpeaking about rank-and-file lawmakers to his fellow leaders, Mr. McCarthy was sharply critical and suggested he was going to tell them to stop their inflammatory conduct.“Our members have got to start paying attention to what they say, too, and you can’t put up with that,” he said, adding an expletive.McCarthy Says He ‘Can’t Put Up With’ Inflammatory TalkKevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise discuss incendiary comments made by multiple G.O.P. lawmakers on a Jan. 10, 2021, conference call with other Republican congressional leaders and their aides.Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Scalise did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Brooks on Tuesday dismissed the Republican leader’s criticism and noted that a lawsuit brought against him by a Democratic member of Congress for his Jan. 6 speech had been dismissed in court.“Kevin McCarthy spoke before knowing the facts,” Mr. Brooks said, adding that he did not recall Mr. McCarthy ever speaking with him directly about his speech.During the Jan. 10, 2021, phone call, Mr. McCarthy was speaking with a small group of Republican leaders, including Mr. Scalise, Ms. Cheney and Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, as well as a number of aides.It was on this G.O.P. leadership call that Mr. McCarthy told his colleagues he would call Mr. Trump and tell him, “it would be my recommendation you should resign.”The House minority leader has in recent days lied about and tried to downplay his comments: Last week, after The Times reported the remarks, Mr. McCarthy called the report “totally false and wrong.” After Mr. McCarthy’s denial, a source who had confidentially shared a recording of the call with the book’s authors agreed to let The Times publish parts of the audio. In the days since that recording has been made public, the Republican leader has repeated his denial and emphasized that he never actually carried out his plan to urge Mr. Trump to quit.Mr. McCarthy’s comments casting other Republican lawmakers as a menace within Congress illustrate the difference between how he spoke about his own party right after Jan. 6, in what he imagined to be strict confidence, and the way he has interacted with those lawmakers in the 15 months since then.On the Jan. 10 call, Mr. McCarthy said he planned to speak with Mr. Gaetz and ask him not to attack other lawmakers by name. The following day, in a larger meeting for all House Republicans, Mr. McCarthy pleaded with lawmakers not to “incite” but rather to “respect one another.”McCarthy Calls for Party UnityKevin McCarthy tells Republican lawmakers during a meeting of the G.O.P. conference on Jan. 11, 2021, that they should not attack each other over their views on the 2020 election.But in his determination to become speaker of the House after the 2022 elections, Mr. McCarthy has spent much of the last year forging a closer political partnership with the far right, showing little public concern that his most extreme colleagues could instigate bloodshed with their overheated or hateful rhetoric.In recent months Mr. McCarthy has opposed punishing Republican members of Congress who have been accused of inciting violence, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and, most recently, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, who posted an animated video on social media that depicted him killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the left-wing Democrat.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Trump allies’ involvement. More