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The Trump G.O.P.’s Plot Against Liz Cheney — and Our Democracy
I met a girl who sang the bluesAnd I asked her for some happy newsBut she just smiled and turned away— “American Pie” More
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Democrats propose quick reaction force in $2.1bn Capitol security bill
House Democrats plan on Wednesday to unveil a $2.1bn supplemental bill to enhance security at the Capitol that will propose creating a quick reaction force to guard against future threats in the wake of the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter.The proposed bill will also include the construction of a retractable fencing system around the Capitol, the sources said.Rose DeLauro, chair of the House appropriations committee, is expected to unveil the proposal to House Democrats on a caucus call on Wednesday, amid growing calls urging the adoption of recommendations made by a taskforce in the wake of the 6 January insurrection in which a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol.No lawmakers were injured during the attack, but several, such as Senator Mitt Romney and former vice-president Mike Pence had only a narrow escape from attackers looking for them. Meanwhile, nearly 140 officers suffered injuries and one, Brian Sicknick, later died after being assaulted.The proposed bill largely tracks recommendations made by retired Army Lt Gen Russel Honoré, who was appointed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to examine security shortcomings, as well as critical flaws identified by the US Capitol police inspector general, the sources said.In the report released to House Democratic leaders last month, Honoré made a series of recommendations, including hiring more than 800 US Capitol police officers, the construction of mobile fencing around the Capitol, and an overhaul of the US Capitol police board.“We are trying to take into consideration understanding what happened, how do we account for that and what we need to do to prevent this from happening again,” DeLauro said of the taskforce recommendations after its release last month.The proposed bill, which could be brought to the House floor as early as next week, will also include a provision to reimburse the national guard deployed around the Capitol. The national guard and other security measures post-6 January is costing nearly $2m a week.Its prospects are still uncertain on Capitol Hill, with House Democrats largely going ahead with the security review alone and Republicans yet to indicate what measures, if any, they are willing to embrace.Lawmakers in both parties largely agree on the need for enhanced security but some – Republicans in particular – have been agitating to scale back the barriers encircling the area and troops patrolling the grounds despite lingering threats.“While there may be some worthy recommendations forthcoming, Gen Honoré’s notorious partisan bias calls into question the rationality of appointing him to lead this important security review,” Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, said of the taskforce in March.“It also raises the unacceptable possibility that the speaker desired a certain result: turning the Capitol into a fortress.”The issue has exposed the divide between members of Congress who want the Capitol to return to a sense of normalcy, and the concerns of US Capitol police and a raft of law enforcement agencies tasked with their protection. More
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Sin redes sociales y con baja aprobación, Trump sigue mandando en el Partido Republicano
La difamación de Liz Cheney y un extraño recuento de votos en Arizona mostraron el daño de su asalto a la base de la democracia: la integridad electoral.Suspendido de Facebook, aislado en Mar-a-Lago y objeto de burlas por su nueva red social no profesional, Donald Trump estuvo gran parte de la semana pasada fuera de la vista del público. Sin embargo, tanto la capitulación del Partido Republicano ante el expresidente como el daño a la política estadounidense que provocó con su mentira de que le robaron las elecciones fueron más evidentes que nunca.En Washington, los republicanos le retiraron su puesto de liderazgo en la Cámara Baja a la representante Liz Cheney como castigo por considerar que las falsas aseveraciones de fraude electoral hechas por Trump eran una amenaza a la democracia. Los legisladores de Florida y Texas adelantaron nuevas medidas radicales para restringir las votaciones, lo cual respalda la narrativa ficticia de Trump y sus aliados de que el sistema electoral fue manipulado en su contra. Y en Arizona, el Partido Republicano estatal dio inicio a una extraña revisión de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre al buscar rastros de bambú en las boletas electorales del año pasado.Estos agitados melodramas ponen de relieve hasta qué grado, seis meses después de las elecciones, Estados Unidos sigue enfrentando las consecuencias del ataque sin precedentes —por parte de un candidato a la presidencia que estaba perdiendo— al principio fundamental de la democracia estadounidense: la legitimidad de las elecciones.También ofrecen sólidas evidencias de que el expresidente no solo ha logrado sofocar cualquier oposición dentro de su partido, sino que también ha convencido a la mayor parte de esa agrupación política para que haga una enorme apuesta: que la manera más segura de volver a lograr el poder es adoptando su estilo pugilístico, el divisionismo racial y las inaceptables teorías conspirativas, en vez de atraer a los electores suburbanos indecisos que le quitaron la Casa Blanca al partido y que quizás estén buscando políticas de fondo para la pandemia, la economía, la atención médica y otros temas.La lealtad al expresidente continúa a pesar de que haya azuzado a sus partidarios antes del asalto del 6 de enero al Capitolio y sus seguidores ignoran, redefinen o, en algunos casos, aprueban de manera tácita el letal ataque al Congreso.“Nos hemos alejado demasiado de cualquier interpretación sensata”, dijo Barbara Comstock, una veterana funcionaria del partido a quien le arrebataron su escaño suburbano de Virginia cuando los electores castigaron a Trump en las elecciones intermedias de 2018. “Es una verdadera enfermedad la que está atacando al partido en todos los niveles. Ahora simplemente vamos a decir que lo blanco es negro”.No obstante, mientras los republicanos se refugian en la fantasía de unas elecciones robadas, los demócratas están concentrados en el trabajo cotidiano de gobernar un país que sigue teniendo dificultades para salir de una mortífera pandemia.Los estrategas de ambos partidos afirman que es probable que la dinámica discordante —dos partidos que funcionan en realidades diferentes— defina la política del país en los años venideros.Al mismo tiempo, el presidente Joe Biden enfrenta un reto más general: qué hacer con respecto al amplio segmento de la población que duda de su legitimidad y un Partido Republicano que busca el apoyo de ese segmento al promover proyectos de ley que restrinjan las votaciones y tal vez debiliten más la confianza en las elecciones futuras.En una encuesta de CNN publicada la semana pasada, se descubrió que casi una tercera parte de los estadounidenses, incluyendo el 70 por ciento de los republicanos, decían que Biden no había ganado de manera legítima los votos para obtener la presidencia.Se espera que la representante Liz Cheney, la tercera republicana de alto rango en la Cámara, sea destituida de su cargo después de expresarse en contra de Trump.Stefani Reynolds para The New York TimesLos colaboradores de la Casa Blanca afirman que Biden cree que la mejor manera de recuperar la confianza en el proceso democrático es demostrar que el gobierno puede otorgarles beneficios tangibles a los electores (ya sean vacunas o cheques de estímulo económico).Dan Sena, un estratega demócrata que supervisó las acciones del Comité de Campaña del Congreso Demócrata para ganar la Cámara durante las últimas elecciones de mitad de periodo, dijo que el enfoque republicano en cuestiones culturales, como la prohibición de los atletas transgénero, era beneficioso para su partido. Muchos demócratas solo enfrentarán ataques dispersos en su agenda mientras continúan oponiéndose a la retórica polarizadora de Trump, que ayudó a que su partido se impusiera en distritos suburbanos en 2018 y 2020.“Preferiría tener un historial de estar del lado de los estadounidenses en la recuperación”, dijo Sena. “¿Qué historia quiere escuchar el público estadounidense: lo que han hecho los demócratas para que el país vuelva a reactivarse o Donald Trump y su guerra cultural?”.Durante su campaña, Biden predijo que los republicanos tendrían una “revelación” cuando ya se hubiera ido Trump y que volverían a ser el partido que él conoció durante las décadas que estuvo en el Senado. Cuando la semana pasada le preguntaron sobre los republicanos, Biden se quejó de que ya no los entendía y parecía un poco desconcertado por la “minirrevolución” dentro de sus filas.“Creo que los republicanos están más lejos de lo que pensé de determinar quiénes son y qué representan en este momento”, comentó.Sin embargo, durante gran parte de la semana pasada, los republicanos mostraron de manera muy elocuente qué es exactamente lo que representan: el trumpismo. Muchos de ellos han adoptado su estrategia de inducir las quejas de los blancos con enunciados racistas, y las legislaturas controladas por republicanos en todo el país están promoviendo restricciones que limiten el acceso al voto de tal forma que los electores de color se vean afectados de una manera desproporcionada.También existen consideraciones electorales donde hay mucho en juego. Con su estilo tan polarizador, Trump incitó tanto a sus bases como a sus detractores y presionó a ambos partidos a registrar la participación de los votantes en las elecciones de 2020. El total que obtuvo de 74 millones de votos fue el segundo más alto de toda la historia, solo detrás del total de 81 millones de votos para Biden, y Trump ha demostrado su capacidad para poner a sus partidarios políticos en contra de cualquier republicano que lo contradiga.Eso ha hecho que los republicanos sientan que deben mostrar una lealtad inquebrantable al expresidente con el fin de conservar los electores que ganó.“Solo les diría esto a mis colegas republicanos: ¿podemos seguir adelante sin el presidente Trump? La respuesta es no”, comentó esta semana en una entrevista de Fox News el senador por Carolina del Sur, Lindsey Graham. “Estoy convencido de que no podemos crecer sin él”.En algunas formas, el expresidente está más debilitado que nunca. Tras haber sido derrotado en las urnas, pasa su tiempo jugando golf y recibiendo visitas en su desarrollo turístico de Florida. Le hace falta la tribuna de la presidencia, lo han bloqueado de Twitter y no logró recuperar el acceso a su cuenta de Facebook la semana pasada. Dejó el cargo con un índice de aprobación de menos del 40 por ciento, el menor porcentaje al final de un primer periodo de cualquier presidente desde Jimmy Carter.Sin embargo, su dominio se ve reflejado desde el Congreso hasta las legislaturas estatales. Los legisladores locales y federales que han presionado para que su partido acepte los resultados de las elecciones, y por tanto la derrota de Trump, han enfrentado una condena constante y disputas de sus escaños por parte de miembros de su propio partido en las elecciones primarias. Parece que esas amenazas están teniendo impacto: el pequeño número de funcionarios republicanos que han criticado a Trump en el pasado, incluyendo diez que votaron a favor de su enjuiciamiento político en febrero, guardaron silencio, se rehusaron a dar entrevistas y le brindaron poco respaldo público a Cheney.La representante Elise Stefanik, quien probablemente la sustituya, se promovió públicamente para ese puesto y, en entrevistas con partidarios de extrema derecha del expresidente, mostró la buena fe que le tiene a Trump al darle credibilidad a sus infundadas aseveraciones de fraude electoral.El Partido Republicano llevó a cabo una revisión quijotesca de los resultados de las elecciones de noviembre, en Arizona.Foto de consorcio de Matt YorkEl enfoque en las elecciones ha desplazado casi cualquier discusión sobre política u ortodoxia partidaria. Heritage Action, una organización que califica a los legisladores según sus registros de votación conservadores, le otorgó a Cheney una calificación del 82 por ciento. Stefanik, quien tiene un historial de votación más moderado pero es una defensora mucho más vocal del expresidente, obtuvo un 52 por ciento.Stefanik y muchos otros líderes republicanos están apostando a que el camino para mantener los logros electorales de la era Trump radica en avivar su base con las políticas populistas que son fundamentales para la marca del presidente, incluso si repelen a los votantes indecisos.Después de varios meses en que los medios de comunicación conservadores han dicho mentiras sobre las elecciones, una buena parte de los republicanos han llegado a aceptarlas como verdaderas.Sarah Longwell, una estratega republicana que durante años ha estado conduciendo grupos de debate de los partidarios de Trump, mencionó que desde las elecciones había descubierto una mayor apertura a lo que ella llama “una curiosidad por QAnon”, que es la disposición a considerar teorías conspirativas sobre el robo de las elecciones y un Estado profundo. “Muchos de estos electores de las bases están viviendo en una negación de la verdad en la que no creen en nada y piensan que todo podría ser mentira”, comentó Longwell, quien impugnó a Trump.Algunos estrategas republicanos están preocupados por la posibilidad de que el partido esté perdiendo oportunidades para atacar a Biden, quien ha propuesto los planes de gastos e impuestos más radicales en generaciones.“Los republicanos deben volver a los temas que realmente les interesan a los votantes, rociar algunos comentarios sobre la guerra cultural aquí y allá, pero no dejarse llevar”, dijo Scott Reed, un estratega republicano veterano que ayudó a aplastar a los populistas de derecha en elecciones pasadas. “Pero algunos están haciendo una industria basada en dejarse llevar”.Aunque aferrarse a Trump podría ayudar a que el partido aumente la participación de sus bases, los republicanos como Comstock sostienen que esa estrategia dañará al partido con una población esencial que incluye a los electores jóvenes, los de color, a las mujeres y a los residentes de los suburbios. Ya están surgiendo luchas interpartidistas en las elecciones primarias emergentes debido a que los candidatos se acusan unos a otros de deslealtad al expresidente. Muchos líderes del partido temen que eso dé como resultado que salgan victoriosos los candidatos de extrema derecha y que al final pierdan las elecciones generales en los estados conservadores donde los republicanos deberían dominar, como Misuri y Ohio.“No queremos llegar a declarar a Trump ganador de una minoría menguante”, afirmó Comstock. “El futuro del partido no será un hombre de 70 años hablándole al espejo en Mar-a-Lago y todos estos aduladores haciendo maromas para obtener su aprobación”.Sin embargo, quienes se han opuesto a Trump —y pagado el precio— afirman que hay pocos incentivos políticos para ir contra la corriente. Criticar a Trump, e incluso defender a quienes lo hacen, puede hacer que los funcionarios electos se queden en una especie de tierra de nadie política, que sean considerados traidores a los electores republicanos, pero también demasiado conservadores en otros temas como para ser aceptados por los demócratas y los independientes.“Parece que se está volviendo cada vez más difícil que la gente salga a hacer campaña y defienda a alguien como Liz Cheney o Mitt Romney”, afirmó esta semana durante una presentación en un panel de la Universidad de Harvard el exsenador Jeff Flake, quien respaldó a Biden y obtuvo el repudio del Partido Republicano de Arizona. “Es posible que cerca del 70 por ciento de los republicanos realmente crean que les robaron las elecciones y eso es incapacitante. En verdad lo es”.Lisa Lerer es una periodista que vive en Washington, donde cubre campañas electorales, votaciones y poder político. Antes de unirse al Times, cubrió la política nacional estadounidense y la campaña presidencial de 2016 para The Associated Press. @llerer More
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Republican says party leader dismissed his warnings of Capitol violence
The Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said on Monday he warned the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, about potential violence at the US Capitol on 6 January, but McCarthy dismissed his concerns.“A few days before Jan 6 , our GOP members had a conference call,” Kinzinger said on Twitter. “I told Kevin that his words and our party’s actions would lead to violence on January 6th. Kevin dismissively responded with ‘OK Adam, operator next question.’ And we got violence.”Five people died amid and after scenes of chaos at the Capitol, as supporters told by Donald Trump to “fight like hell” in his attempt to overturn his election defeat broke into the building, in some cases allegedly looking for lawmakers to kill.On Monday, Kinzinger also said he had considered trying to force a vote of no-confidence in McCarthy after the insurrection.“I don’t consider him to be speaking on behalf of the Republican party any more,” Kinzinger told Bloomberg News, adding: “I actually thought the person that should have their leadership challenged was Kevin McCarthy after 6 January because that’s why this all happened.”Kinzinger said he abandoned such plans to keep the focus on the impeachment vote against Trump which followed the insurrection. Ten House Republicans voted with Democrats to impeach Trump for inciting the riot but only seven Republican senators followed, too few to return a guilty verdict.Liz is the one playing defense, for what? Telling the truth and not ransacking the Capitol on 6 January?McCarthy did not immediately comment.Kinzinger has been outspoken in his criticism of Trump and others peddling the “big lie” that there was widespread fraud in the presidential election.But like most of his party McCarthy has sided with a former president whose grip on the party seems set to strengthen this week with the ejection from leadership of Liz Cheney, a Wyoming conservative who has also spoken against him.Kinzinger has been one of Cheney’s few Republican defenders in Congress. Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: “Liz is the one playing defense, for what? What’s she playing defense for? Telling the truth and not ransacking the Capitol on 6 January?“If you think about it from the forest, it’s ludicrous that she’s having to defend herself. That’s insane, but that’s where we are.”Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, Kinzinger said his party was “going to get rid of Liz Cheney because they’d much rather pretend that the conspiracy is either real or not confront it than to actually confront it and maybe have to take the temporary licks to save this party and the long-term [future] of this country”.McCarthy told Fox Business he was endorsing the New York representative Elise Stefanik to replace Cheney in “a position in leadership. As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as a messenger going forward.”Trump weighed in on Monday, issuing a statement in which he said: “The House GOP has a massive opportunity to upgrade this week from warmonger Liz Cheney to gifted communicator Elise Stefanik.”The “warmonger” jibe was in part aimed at Cheney’s father, the former vice-president Dick Cheney, one of the architects of the Iraq war.“We need someone in leadership who has experience flipping districts from blue to red as we approach the important 2022 midterms,” Trump added, “and that’s Elise! She knows how to win, which is what we need!”Trump formally endorsed Stefanik last week. In congressional votes to recognize electoral college results, held in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Stefanik objected to results from Pennsylvania. She did not object to results from Arizona, as many other Republicans did.Before the votes, she indicated plans to object to results in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. No senator supported challenges to results from those states, however, so none were mounted.Cheney is set to be replaced in a closed vote on Wednesday. On Sunday, Kinzinger also compared the trajectory of his party to the sinking of the Titanic, saying leaders were not acting responsibly.“We’re like in the middle of this slow sink,” he said. “We have a band playing on the deck, telling everybody it’s fine, and meanwhile as I’ve said, Donald Trump is running around trying to find women’s clothing to get on the first lifeboat.“I think there’s a few of us saying, ‘Guys, this is not good, not just for the future of the party, but this is not good for the future of this country.’”On Monday a new report warned that many lawmakers are receiving threats and worry for their safety after the Capitol was so easily breached by extremist Trump supporters.The Capitol police force was hobbled by inadequateintelligence gathering ahead of time, according to the inspector general, Michael Bolton.The House is holding hearings this week on what went wrong duringthe insurrection, as lawmakers contemplate overhauling congressional security.The Capitol police said that there has been a 107% increase in threatsagainst members of Congress this year compared to 2020 and “providedthe unique threat environment we currently live in, the department isconfident the number of cases will continue to increase”. 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McCarthy Officially Backs Stefanik to Replace Cheney in House Leadership
“We need to be united,” said the Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who worked behind the scenes for days on behalf of Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, on Sunday officially endorsed Representative Elise Stefanik in her bid to oust the No. 3 House Republican, Representative Liz Cheney, who has hemorrhaged support over her repudiation of former President Donald J. Trump’s lies about election fraud.“Yes, I do,” Mr. McCarthy told the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo when she asked whether he supported Ms. Stefanik’s push to become the Republican conference chairwoman.“We need to be united, and that starts with leadership,” Mr. McCarthy said. “That’s why we will have a vote next week.”The endorsement from Mr. McCarthy — who had been working behind the scenes on Ms. Stefanik’s behalf for days — came after Mr. Trump and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, endorsed Ms. Stefanik.The move made clear that fealty to Mr. Trump and willingness to embrace his false claims of election fraud have become the ultimate litmus tests among Republicans for holding a leadership position in the House. Ms. Cheney, who represents Wyoming and was once considered a future speaker, has a more conservative voting record than Ms. Stefanik. But Ms. Stefanik, a fourth-term congresswoman from New York, has joined in Mr. Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, made the case against Ms. Cheney on “Fox News Sunday.”“Right now it’s clear that she doesn’t represent the views of the majority of our conference,” Mr. Banks, who has co-sponsored legislation with Ms. Cheney opposing troop reductions in Afghanistan, told the show’s host, Chris Wallace.Mr. Banks — who like Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Scalise joined in objections to certifying Mr. Biden’s victory — added that his split from Ms. Cheney came after she criticized a memo he had written outlining a strategy for winning working-class voters.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, helped Representative Liz Cheney turn back a challenge to her leadership post in February.Joshua Roberts/Reuters“Liz Cheney is the only Republican leader who attacked the memo about making the Republican Party the party of the working class,” he said.Some House Republicans tried to oust Ms. Cheney from her leadership post in February after she voted to impeach Mr. Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Ms. Cheney easily turned back that challenge — winning a 145-to-61 caucus vote — after Mr. McCarthy delivered an impassioned speech in her defense.But now it is other Republicans who are rallying to her side.Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial, argued that the party needed to adopt a bigger-tent philosophy in which both supporters and critics of Mr. Trump were welcome.“You look at polls, there’s a whole group of folks that agree with Liz Cheney, and so for us to win in 2022 and 2024, we need everybody,” Mr. Cassidy said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, pointed out that Mr. McCarthy had said Mr. Trump bore responsibility for the Capitol riot — only to later insist that others stop talking about it.“It is incredible,” Mr. Kinzinger said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Liz Cheney is saying exactly what Kevin McCarthy said the day of the insurrection. She has just consistently been saying it.”“For me, I’m a conservative,” he added. “I’m going to fight for the soul of this party. But every member, not just leadership, every congressman, every state representative, every member of the party that pulls a ballot in the primary has to decide, are we going to exist on lies or exist on the truth?” More
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Republicans gear up to oust Liz Cheney as punishment for criticizing Trump
Infighting within the Republican party is set to come to a head this week, goaded on by the ghostly figure of former president Donald Trump in his Mar-a-Lago hideout in Florida.House Republicans are gearing up to oust Liz Cheney on Wednesday from her position as the party’s number three leader in the chamber.Her removal would come as punishment for her public criticism of Trump with regard to his role in inciting the 6 January Capitol insurrection and his “big lie” that last year’s presidential election was stolen from him.Cheney was one of 10 Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching Trump for “incitement of insurrection”.Leading Republicans took to the political talk show circuit on Sunday to express support or opposition to the congresswoman from Wyoming. Critically, Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader who has in the past stood up for Cheney, made their break-up official when he told Fox News that he was endorsing Cheney’s rival Elise Stefanik for the number three post.“What we’re talking about is a position in leadership. As conference chair, you have one of the most critical jobs as a messenger going forward,” McCarthy told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.Jim Banks, an Indiana congressman who chairs the largest Republican caucus in the House, attempted to justify the action against Cheney on grounds of “party discipline”.“Republicans are almost completely unified by a single mission to oppose the radical, dangerous [Joe] Biden agenda – any other leader who is not focused on that needs to be replaced,” he said.Pressed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Banks was unable to hold up appearances for long. Asked whether he still questioned whether Biden won the presidential election “fair and square”, Banks said that he stood by his decision on 6 January to object to certifying the electoral college votes in several states.“I have serious concerns about how the election was conducted, that’s why I objected on January 6 – I’ll never apologise for that,” he said.Stefanik, a representative from New York who is now frontrunner to take over from Cheney, has a paradoxically much more moderate voting record than the woman she would replace. Significantly, Stefanik has been preferred because she has gone along with Trump’s lies about the “stolen” election, despite officials calling it the most secure in US history.As Cheney’s fate comes to a head, the fall-out from Trump’s false claim that the vote count was rigged against him continues to destabilise the Republican party. Several states, including Texas, Georgia and Florida, have moved aggressively to restrict access to the ballot box in ways that will especially impact communities of color, under the same discredited theory of “voter integrity”.In Arizona, Republican party leaders have brought in an audit firm called Cyber Ninjas, which has no expertise in election monitoring, to examine how the presidential vote was conducted in Maricopa county.Part of the exercise involves checking to see whether 40,000 ballots cast for Biden contain traces of bamboo – according to a conspiracy theory that would indicate they were smuggled in from Asia.As Trump’s enduring grip over his supporters roils the party, rare individuals still publicly defend Cheney. Bill Cassidy, US senator from Louisiana, told NBC News’ Meet the Press that “there’s a whole group of folks that agree with Liz Cheney … for us to win in 2022 and 2024, we need everybody. We need those who feel as Liz.” More
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Democrats renew effort to get Donald Trump’s financial records
A powerful Democrat-led House committee is pushing a federal judge to order Donald Trump to comply with a subpoena for his financial records, arguing he no longer has a viable claim to withhold materials now that he is out of office, according to a source familiar with the matter.The move from the House oversight committee, led by the chair Carolyn Maloney, marks the latest salvo from Democrats in their years-long pursuit to secure Trump’s tax records and related documents, in a case testing the scope and limits of Congress’s oversight authority.If successful, the committee would be a step closer to obtaining Trump’s tax records and potentially making them public, the source said.“While the committee’s need for the subpoenaed information has not changed, one key fact has: plaintiff Donald J Trump is no longer the president,” Douglas Letter, the general counsel for congressional Democrats, wrote in a motion filed last week in the US district court for the District of Columbia.“Because he is no longer the incumbent, the constitutional separation-of-powers principles that were the foundation of the supreme court’s recent decision are significantly diminished,” Letter wrote.Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York obtained the former president’s tax records in March, just hours after the supreme court denied his last-ditch attempt to keep them concealed. But, as they are part of a law enforcement investigation, they have not so far been released.The thousands of documents turned over by Trump’s accounting firm Mazars USA include tax returns from January 2011 to August 2019, as well as financial statements, engagement letters and communications related to financial disclosures, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said.But in a separate decision, the supreme court ruled last summer that Congress could not see many of the same records, saying instead the case should be returned to lower courts on account of “significant separation of powers concerns” surrounding the issue.The committee, though, now believes that with Trump out of office, the separation of powers concerns that arose when he was subpoenaed by Congress as a sitting president no longer apply, the source said.If the committee is ultimately successful, it could pave the way for Trump’s tax returns to one day become public, since Congress is not restricted by grand jury secrecy rules that bar the Manhattan district attorney’s office from releasing the documents except as evidence at a trial.A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.House Democrats and Trump have been locked in a bitterly contested dispute since April 2019, when the committee first issued a subpoena to Mazars USA demanding 10 years’ worth of Trump’s financial records under the leadership of the late Representative Elijah Cummings.Maloney reissued the subpoena to Mazars USA earlier this year, after the initial subpoena expired with the new Congress.“For more than 22 months, the committee has been denied key information needed to inform legislative action to address the once-in-a-generation ethics crisis created by former President Trump’s unprecedented conflicts of interests,” Maloney said at the time, in a memo obtained by the Guardian.“The committee’s need for this information – in order to verify key facts and tailor legislative reforms to be as effective as possible – remains just as compelling now as it was when the committee first issued its subpoena.” More
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Liz Cheney Refuses to Lie, So Elise Stefanik Steps Up
Even by the standards of the Republican Party’s descent into Trumpian nihilism, the latest bloodletting within the ranks of its congressional leadership is gripping — the car crash next to the dumpster fire that you can’t look away from.House Republicans are on track next week to oust Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming as conference chairwoman, the third-highest position in the conference. Ms. Cheney is being purged for her stubborn refusal to accept — much less peddle — the dangerous, crackpot lie that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. In today’s G.O.P., fealty to the defeated president’s false allegation of electoral fraud is the ultimate litmus test.Ms. Cheney has not simply failed this test, repeatedly — she brandishes her defiance like a weapon.On Monday, Mr. Trump issued a proclamation: “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” Ms. Cheney fired back on Twitter (from which the former president is still banned): “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”“The Republican Party is at a turning point,” she warned in a May 5 opinion piece in The Washington Post, “and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution.”Clearly, such apostasy cannot stand.But with a House leadership dominated by white men, and a party plagued by a longstanding gender gap, Republican lawmakers recognize the potential risk of replacing their top-ranking woman with another white guy. Such bad optics. So it is that Republican House leaders have been whipping votes to install another woman in the job, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York.Unlike Ms. Cheney, Ms. Stefanik is happy — make that eager — to go along with Mr. Trump’s pernicious election-fraud fiction. Just this week, she sat down for interviews with Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s onetime political guru, and Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump aide, to praise the former president and suggest that there are many, many questions that still need to be answered about the outcome. Among other Trumpist talking points, she accused judicial officers in Pennsylvania of “unconstitutional overreach,” and she endorsed the sketchy election audit that Republicans are conducting in Arizona.Ms. Stefanik is assumed to have more than enough votes lined up to replace Ms. Cheney. Her ascension is considered close to a done deal.Here’s where things really get awkward. Aside from her Trump bootlicking, Ms. Stefanik is a terrible pick to help lead House Republicans, with both an ideology and a political style ill-suited to the conservative zeitgeist. At least they were until recently. In aiming to swap out Ms. Cheney with Ms. Stefanik, Republican leaders are revealing — again — just how hollow their party has become and how far it has fallen.With her establishment pedigree and her neocon foreign policy views, Ms. Cheney may not be a perfect fit for today’s Republican Party, but she is a rock-ribbed conservative who has for years fought fiercely in the party trenches. Like her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, she is tough and aggressive, and she delights in lobbing partisan bombs at Democrats. She is pro-torture and anti-abortion. In other words, she has long been the kind of Republican that Democrats love to hate.Ms. Stefanik, on the other hand … Most of America had never heard of the New York lawmaker before her emergence as a passionate Trump defender during his first impeachment. Her toadiness has only grown since, earning ever more love from Mr. Trump. On Wednesday, he endorsed her for conference chairwoman.But before all that, Ms. Stefanik was seen as an exemplar of the kinder, gentler future of the Republican Party. Elected in 2014 at age 30, the polished, media-savvy Harvard alumna was a fresh, friendly, moderate face that many hoped would help the G.O.P. shed its image as a bunch of angry old white guys. Pro-business and uninterested in culture warring, she fit in well with the party’s establishment wing. Her first political job was in the Bush 43 White House. In 2017, she was elected co-chair of the Tuesday Group (since renamed the Republican Governance Group), a caucus of moderate, centrist House Republicans.Ms. Stefanik’s voting record reflects this brand. She has a measly 44 percent lifetime score from the American Conservative Union — compared to Ms. Cheney’s 78 percent — and a 56 percent from the conservative Heritage Action, versus Ms. Cheney’s 82 percent. Ms. Stefanik’s ratings from conservative groups like FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth are even lower (37 percent and 35 percent), and both organizations have come out against her joining leadership. During Mr. Trump’s presidency, Ms. Stefanik voted with him 77.7 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight, but Ms. Cheney did 92.9 percent of the time.One of Ms. Stefanik’s top priorities has been to improve her party’s image with women and, more specifically, to get more Republican women elected. Her PAC is credited with having contributed to the victories of several women in this year’s freshman House class. Her efforts, which can run up against the G.O.P.’s professed disdain for identity politics, have occasionally put off some party brethren.Ms. Stefanik is, in short, the kind of Republican that conservatives generally love to hate.Despite the seal of approval from Mr. Trump and some congressional leaders, not everyone is thrilled by the idea of Ms. Stefanik’s likely promotion. Some of her male colleagues have grumped that they were not even considered for the post because of their gender. The conference vice chair, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, has reportedly been griping about the “coronation.”Trickier still, some hard-core MAGA loyalists suspect Ms. Stefanik of being a pretender — a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” as one far-right site put it — and are raising a stink about her voting record and political background. Lou Dobbs, the deep-MAGA former TV host, declared her a RINO — that is, a Republican in name only. Her more creative critics at the website Revolver coined a fresh term for her: TINO — Trumpist in name only. They also dubbed her “another neocon establishment twit.”So much for Republican unity.To be fair, having sold their soul to Mr. Trump, Republican lawmakers cannot allow Ms. Cheney to remain in leadership. Unlike most of her colleagues, she refuses to let the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol fade from memory, pretend it was no big deal or falsely claim that it was perpetrated by lefty extremists. Every word out of her mouth is an indictment not merely of Mr. Trump but also of her fellow lawmakers’ degeneracy and opportunism.Ms. Stefanik, by contrast, is scrambling to reassure MAGA voters that she is worthy of their support. In addition to doubling down on election-fraud nonsense, she has been test-driving a more populist, own-the-libs persona, whining about “cancel culture” and “Trump derangement syndrome” and the anti-conservative bias of Big Tech.In other words, Ms. Stefanik is forsaking the ideology and the political brand that brought her to Congress as she grovels before the gold-plated altar of Trumpism. All this to impress the followers of a defeated president who would just as soon see the Republican Party burned to ash.In that sense, she may be a perfect leader for her House colleagues after all.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
