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      House speaker Kevin McCarthy announces impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden

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      The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, on Tuesday announced that Republicans would open an impeachment investigation into Joe Biden over unproven allegations of corruption in his family’s business dealings.The announcement by McCarthy kicks off what are expected to be weeks of Republican-led hearings intended to convince Americans that the president profited from the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden and other family members, but it is unclear if the GOP has the evidence to substantiate the long-running claims, or even the votes for impeachment.The campaign comes as McCarthy tries to hang on to his position as leader of Congress’s lower chamber, despite a mere four-seat Republican majority and rising discontent among its most extreme conservative lawmakers, who are upset over a deal McCarthy reached with Biden to raise the debt ceiling while cutting some government spending, and have demanded recompense in the form of an impeachment inquiry.“House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” McCarthy announced as lawmakers in Congress’s lower chamber resumed work following a month-long recess in August.“I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. This logical next step will give our committees the full power to gather all the facts and answers for the American public. That’s exactly what we want to know – the answers. I believe the president would want to answer these questions and allegations as well,” McCarthy said.While impeachment can be the first step to removing a president from office, that appears unlikely to happen. If the House impeaches Biden, the matter would then go to the Senate, which would have to support his conviction with a two-thirds majority – a high bar to clear in a chamber currently controlled by Democrats. The White House spokesman Ian Sams called McCarthy’s announcement “extreme politics at its worst”.“House Republicans have been investigating the President for 9 months, and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing[.] His own GOP members have said so[.] He vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, now he flip flopped because he doesn’t have support,” Sams wrote on Twitter.The impeachment inquiry will be handled by the oversight, judiciary and ways and means committees, all of which are controlled by McCarthy allies and since the start of the year have spent much of their time trying to make corruption allegations against the president stick.In a sign of the paucity of the results of their efforts, reports indicate McCarthy does not yet have enough votes in support of impeaching Biden. Earlier this month, the speaker told Breitbart News, “If we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the People’s House and not through a declaration by one person,” but backtracked on Tuesday, making no mention of holding a vote to start the investigation.The corruption allegations against the president have generally focused on his son Hunter, who has been under federal investigation since 2018. In July, the collapse of a plea agreement he reached with prosecutors to resolve charges related to failing to pay his income taxes for two years and lying about using drugs when buying a gun. Last week, prosecutors said Hunter Biden could be indicted on the gun charge by the end of the month.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRepublicans insist that Joe Biden illicitly profited from his son’s business dealings overseas, but have yet to turn up proof. In July, Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer spoke behind closed doors to the House oversight committee, and said the younger Biden would sometimes put his father on speakerphone during meetings.But the former vice-president “never once spoke about any business dealings”, Archer said, adding that he felt Hunter was trying to create an “illusion of access” to his father as he pursued deals in Ukraine.
      This article was amended on 12 September 2023 to correct the number of seats that make up the Republican majority in the US House. More

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      Trump files for judge in federal election interference trial to be taken off case – live

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      From 53m agoIn a court filing on Monday, former president Donald Trump moved to recuse federal judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the 2020 election subversion case, citing her previous comments about his culpability.“Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,” the motion for recusal reads. “Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying.”The filing includes a reference to a statement Chutkan made during cases in 2022 before the special counsel issued findings:
      This was nothing less than an attempt to violently overthrow the government, the legally, lawfully, peacefully elected government by individuals who were mad that their guy lost. I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats they were wearing and the garb. And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man – not to the constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country; and not to the principles of democracy. It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
      “Fairness and impartiality are the central tenets of our criminal justice system,” Trump’s legal team wrote in the filing. “Both a defendant and the public are entitled to a full hearing, on all relevant issues, by a Court that has not prejudged the guilt of the defendant, and whose neutrality cannot be reasonably questioned.”Though the filing only surfaced Monday, conservative calls for Chutkan to step down have been mounting in recent weeks. Republican congressman and Trump-loyalist Matt Gaetz filed a resolution to condemn and censure the federal judge for her comments in recent weeks.Just last night, Mark Levin, a conservative pundit and Fox News show host, took aim at Judge Chutkan on his program.Making the case that she is “unqualified” to preside over the case against Trump, Levin cited an investigation on Real Clear Politics, a right-leaning website largely funded by pro-Trump conservatives, that outlines many of the arguments used by the former president’s legal team to call for Chutkan’s recusal.But for all the crying-foul coming from conservatives, it will be difficult for the Trump legal team to succeed in getting her off the case. As New York University professor of law Stephen Gillers told Real Clear Politics: “Almost never will a judge be recused for opinions she forms as a judge – in hearing cases and motions. Judges are expected to form opinions based on these ‘intrajudicial’ sources. It’s what judges do.”Ultimately, Chutkan will be the one to rule on whether she is too biased to preside over the case. If she denies the recusal, Trump’s lawyers could petition an appeals court, but it’s still a long shot.This also isn’t the first time Trump has tried to get a new judge. He previously failed to get a new judge to preside over his New York State court case and also attempted to get the case moved to federal court.Trump has challenged the judge or jurisdiction in three of his four criminal cases this year, CBS News reports, excluding only Aileen Cannon – presiding over the 40 felony counts charged for “willful retention of national security information” – who he appointed.In a court filing on Monday, former president Donald Trump moved to recuse federal judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the 2020 election subversion case, citing her previous comments about his culpability.“Judge Chutkan has, in connection with other cases, suggested that President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,” the motion for recusal reads. “Such statements, made before this case began and without due process, are inherently disqualifying.”The filing includes a reference to a statement Chutkan made during cases in 2022 before the special counsel issued findings:
      This was nothing less than an attempt to violently overthrow the government, the legally, lawfully, peacefully elected government by individuals who were mad that their guy lost. I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats they were wearing and the garb. And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man – not to the constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country; and not to the principles of democracy. It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”
      “Fairness and impartiality are the central tenets of our criminal justice system,” Trump’s legal team wrote in the filing. “Both a defendant and the public are entitled to a full hearing, on all relevant issues, by a Court that has not prejudged the guilt of the defendant, and whose neutrality cannot be reasonably questioned.”President Biden marked the anniversary of 9/11 by speaking to service members, first responders, and their families in Anchorage, Alaska.Standing before an enormous American flag the president recounted memories of that tragic day while championing the acts of patriotism and courage performed in response.“Those terrorists could never touch the soul of America,” the President said resolutely. “Heroes, like all of you,” he added, “never faltered to defend our nation, our people an dour values in times of trial”.He used the speech to tell the gathered troops that his administration is working to ensure broader support for service members when they return home. Outlining the ways in which the US has fought terrorist foes over the last two decades, and noting that Osama Bin Laden was sent “to the gates of hell,” Biden turned toward the battles the country is still fighting – the deep-seated divisions that continue to threaten its future.To drive home the point, the President ended with an anecdote about his late friend, Senator John McCain.“John and I were friends. Like a lot of us we had differences,” he said, adding that the two, “disagreed like hell,” on the Senate floor but would always find time to lunch afterward.On their last meeting, Biden shared, McCain pulled him close, said he loved him, and asked Biden to perform his eulogy.“He put duty to country first,” Biden said. “Above party, above politics, above his own person.” The president invoked the American people, including the military members in attendance, to reflect on that during this day of remembrance.“We must never lose that sense of national unity,” he said. “Let that be the common cause of our time.”Five American prisoners being detained in Iran could soon be freed, thanks to a new deal the countries reached today. In exchange for the 5 US citizens, 5 Iranians held in the US will be released and the US will allow the transfer of $6bn in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar without sanctions, the Associated Press reports.Congress was notified of the deal today, after it was signed off by the Biden Administration late last week. AP reports that significant sum cleared for use by Iran was a key aspect to the deal, encouraging foreign banks to perform the transfer intended to be used to purchase humanitarian supplies. The cnetral bank of Qatar will hold the funds, which will be controlled by Qatar’s government, to ensure its use is dedicated to aid, including medicine and food for the people of Iran.The American prisoners have also been transferred out of Iranian jails and are now in house arrest.The deal is the result of more than two years of negotiations between the two countries, according to the The New York Times, which reported on the tentative agreement in August.“This is just the beginning of a process that I hope and expect will lead to their return home to the United States,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters at the time. “There’s more work to be done to actually bring them home. My belief is that this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare.”The Biden administration is close to approving the shipment of longer-range missiles packed with cluster bombs to Ukraine, Reuters is reporting, citing four US officials.The US is considering shipping either or both Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that can fly up to 190 miles (306 km), or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles with a 45-mile range packed with cluster bombs, the report says.If approved, either option would be available for rapid shipment to Kyiv, giving Ukraine the ability to cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory.The decision to send ATACMS or GMLRS, or both, is not final and could still fall through, according to the sources.The US has approved a series of Covid-19 booster vaccines amid rising cases of coronavirus around the country, the Food and Drug Administration said.The FDA said it had approved Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which can be administered even to people who never previously received a Covid-19 vaccination.As with earlier vaccinations, the new round of shots are cleared for adults and children as young as age 6 months.Starting at age five, most people can get a single dose even if they have never had a prior Covid-19 shot, per the FDA. Younger children might need additional doses depending on their history of Covid-19 infections and vaccinations.Hospitalizations from Covid-19 have crept up in recent weeks, although the rise is lower than the same time last year. In the week ending 26 August just over 17,400 people were hospitalized from Covid-19, NBC reported, up 16% from the week before.In August, two hospitals in New York state re-introduced mandatory masking after an increase in Covid-19 cases, while the Lionsgate film studio reinstated a mask mandate for half its employees in its flagship Los Angeles offices.That same month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that it had discovered a new Covid-19 variant and warned high-risk individuals to resume wearing masks.The variant, BA 2.86, was detected during monitoring of wastewater, the CDC said. It said it was too soon to tell if BA 2.86 could lead to more severe illness than other variants, but reported “reassuring” results of early research which showed that existing antibodies work against the BA 2.86 variant.Donald Trump urged supporters they need to “fight like hell” or risk losing their country during a speech at a South Dakota rally in which the former president used language resonant of the run-up to the January 6 US Capitol attack, according to a CNN report. “I don’t think there’s ever been a darkness around our nation like there is now,” Trump said on Friday, as he accused Democrats of allowing an “invasion” of migrants over the southern border and of trying to restart Covid “hysteria”, the report says.
      The Republican front-runner’s stark speech raised the prospect of a second presidency that would be even more extreme and challenging to the rule of law than his first. His view that the Oval Office confers unfettered powers suggests Trump would indulge in similar conduct as that for which he is awaiting trial, including intimidating local officials in an alleged bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.
      Here are some images from the news wires of how the US has been marking the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, which took the lives of nearly 3,000 people.Several people were arrested after entering the office of Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, during a protest for HIV/Aids funding on Monday.The US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), a widely bipartisan program, has since been reauthorized three times, and Joe Biden earlier this year indicated that he would work with Congress to extend it a fourth.But the program’s latest extension has been caught up in a partisan fight over abortion and is under threat amid Congress’s negotiations over a government shutdown.Some Republicans are opposing Pepfar’s reauthorization, arguing that current restrictions do not sufficiently prevent the funds from being used to support abortions, according to an August report by the Federation of American Scientists.New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith, who chairs the House foreign affairs subcommittee, in a letter to colleagues in June:
      Any multi-year PEPFAR reauthorizing legislation must ensure that Biden’s hijacking of PEPFAR to promote abortion be halted.
      The program was first established in 2003 by President George W Bush to prevent and treat HIV/Aids in developing countries worldwide, and it is overseen by the US Department of State.About 20 million people depend on the program globally, according to a White House statement in January.Smith was a co-sponsor of the 2018 bill extending Pepfar for five years but is now seeking to block its renewal after Biden in 2021 lifted Trump-era restrictions that barred Pepfar and other global programs receiving US funding from performing or promoting abortions.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the green light to updated Covid-19 vaccine shots from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, but it is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that recommends who should get the shot, according to a Washington Post report. The CDC is leaning toward a broad recommendation that covers almost all ages, mirroring the FDA approach, the paper writes, citing federal officials.
      But it is possible that some on the agency’s panel of outside experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, will push for a targeted recommendation focused on those at greatest risk — older Americans or people with weakened immune systems or other illnesses.
      Experts interviewed by the paper said they would get the coronavirus shot as soon as possible amid a late-summer uptick in Covid cases across the USUpdated Covid-19 vaccinations could begin later this week, and the US hopes to ramp up protection against the latest coronavirus strains amid steadily increasing cases.The newest shots target an omicron variant named XBB.1.5, replacing combination vaccines that mixed protection against the original coronavirus strain and even older omicron variants.“Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s center for biologics evaluation and research.
      The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.
      There has been a late-summer uptick in Covid cases across the US.Experts are closely watching two new variants, EG.5, now the dominant strain, and BA.2.86, which has attracted attention from scientists because of its high number of mutations.Experts have said that the US is not facing a threat like it did in 2020 and 2021. “We’re in a different place,” Mandy Cohen, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC News last month.
      I think we’re the most prepared that we’ve ever been.
      Updated Covid-19 vaccine shots made by Pfizer and Moderna are expected to be available in the coming days, according to Moderna. A third shot, by the vaccine maker Novavax, is still under review by the FDA, according to the company.Advisers from the US centers for disease and protection (CDC) are due to meet on Tuesday to recommend who should receive the shot. An endorsement by the CDC’s director should clear the way for millions of doses to be shipped nationwide within days.As part of the FDA’s update, the original Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines are no longer authorized for use in the US.The US health regulator on Monday authorized updated Covid-19 vaccines that closely match the Omicron variants that are circulating, starting the process to deploy the shots this month, Reuters reports.The Food and Drug Administration authorized the shots, which target the XBB.1.5 subvariant, from manufacturers Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech SE, and US pharma company Moderna.More details to follow.A trial began Monday over a sweeping Texas voting law that sparked a 38-day walkout by Democrats in 2021 and were among the strictest changes passed by Republicans nationwide following former US president Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election, the Associated Press reports.The AP further notes:
      The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of voting rights groups after Republican governor Greg Abbott signed the changes into law. The trial in San Antonio federal court could last weeks and it is unclear when US district judge Xavier Rodriguez might rule. Potentially at stake are voting rules Texas will use for the 2024 elections, although any decision is likely to be appealed.
      The challenge, from the American Civil Liberties Union, (ACLU) the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and others, has not stopped the measures from taking effect, including a ban on 24-hour polling places and drive-thru voting.
      Many changes targeted Harris county, which includes Houston and is where a slate of Republican candidates are challenging their defeats last year.
      During the hurried rollout of the law last year, more than 23,000 mail ballots in Texas were rejected during the March 2022 primary elections as voters struggled to navigate the new rules. By November’s general election, the rejection rate fell significantly, but was still higher than what experts consider normal.
      In August, Rodriguez separately struck down a requirement that mail voters provide the same identification number they used when they registered to vote.”
      Joe Biden is up in the air literally and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s future as House Speaker is likewise, but metaphorically. It’s been a busy day in Vietnam for the US president post-G20, but he’s now on his way back to the US and is due to address the public during a stopover in Alaska en route to Washington, DC.Here’s where things stand:
      Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff, appealed a judge’s ruling last Friday denying his bid to transfer his Georgia 2020 election interference case from state to federal court.
      Jury deliberations for the impeachment trial of the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, could start late Thursday or Friday, according to the presiding officer Dan Patrick.
      Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House, reportedly doesn’t have the votes to move forward with an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden being clamored for by the right wing of his House caucus.
      Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican congressman, said that there was a “perfect storm” brewing in the House over government spending and on impeachment of the president that could pose a threat to Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. More on this by Politico.
      Joe Biden will address the nation late on Monday afternoon on the 22nd anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. On Monday morning, US vice president Kamala Harris attended the annual memorial ceremony in New York at the spot where the al-Qaeda hijackers destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
      In the months before the supreme court handed down Citizens United, the 2010 ruling which unleashed a flood of dark money into American politics, the wife of a conservative justice worked with a prominent rightwing activist and a mega-donor closely linked to her husband to form a group to exploit the decision.So said a blockbuster report from Politico, detailing moves by Ginni Thomas – wife of Justice Clarence Thomas – and Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society chief who has worked to stock the court with rightwingers, leading to a series of epochal decisions, including the removal of the federal right to abortion.Half a million dollars in seed money, Politico said, came from Harlan Crow, the Nazi memorabilia-collecting billionaire whose extensive and mostly undeclared gifts to Clarence Thomas have fueled a spiraling supreme court ethics scandal.Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and champion of ethics reform, said the report laid out “the creepy intermingling of dark billionaire money, phoney front groups, far-right extremists and the United States supreme court”.Politico noted that the ruling in Citizens United was widely expected after justices “took the unusual step of asking for re-arguments based on a sweeping question – whether they should overrule prior decisions approving laws that limited spending on political campaigns”.Noting that conservative groups moved to capitalise faster than others, the site quoted an anonymous source as saying Ginni Thomas “really wanted to build an organisation and be a movement leader. Leonard was going to be the conduit of that.”The justice department has dropped its five-year-old criminal case against Bijan Rafiekian, a one-time business partner of the former national security adviser Michael Flynn who had been charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey during the 2016 US presidential election.Rafiekian, who also goes by the name Bijan Kian, was indicted in 2018 on charges including failing to register as a foreign agent. Prosecutors had accused Rafiekian of illegally lobbying to have the cleric Fethullah Gülen extradited from the US to Turkey.The move wraps up a long-running tangent of the Mueller-era Russia investigation that originally had been used as leverage to pressure Flynn, CNN reported. Prosecutors had planned on calling Flynn to testify against Rafiekian at his trial to solidify their evidence of a connection between Flynn’s lobbying group and the government of Turkey.In 2019, a jury convicted Rafiekian on charges of conspiracy and acting as a foreign agent. But the judge who presided over the trial later set aside the verdicts, citing insufficient evidence. The case then went into appeals, hanging in the criminal justice system for years.In a court filing on Monday, the justice department said it sought to dismiss the charges against Rafiekian. Prosecutors wrote:
      After carefully considering the Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in this case and the principles of federal prosecution, the United States believes it is not in the public interest to pursue the case against defendant Bijan Rafiekian further.
      After defending the integrity of US elections from an onslaught of threats over the last several years, secretaries of state across the US are now turning to a new high-stakes question: is Donald Trump eligible to run for president?Several secretaries are already working with attorneys general in their states and studying whether Trump is disqualified under a provision of the 14th amendment that bars anyone from holding public office if they have previously taken an oath to the United States and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”.That language clearly disqualifies Trump from running in 2024, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, two prominent conservative scholars, concluded in a lengthy forthcoming law review article. They write in the article:
      If the public record is accurate, the case is not even close. He is no longer eligible to the office of Presidency, or any other state or federal office covered by the Constitution. All who are committed to the Constitution should take note and say so.
      A flurry of challenges to Trump’s candidacy are expected – one was filed in Colorado on Wednesday – but the legal issues at play are largely untested. Never before has the provision been used to try to disqualify a presidential candidate from office and the issue is likely to quickly come to a head as soon as officials make their official certifications about who can appear on primary ballots.Secretaries are studying who has the authority to remove Trump from the ballot and what process needs to occur before they do so. They also recognize that the issue is likely to be ultimately settled by the courts, including the US supreme court.Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat in her second term as Michigan’s secretary of state, said she had spoken with another secretary of state about the 14th amendment issue “nearly every day”.
      The north star for me is always: ‘What is the law? What does the constitution require?’ To keep politics and partisan considerations out of it. And simply just look at this from a sense of ‘what does the 14th amendment say?’ We’re in unprecedented, uncharted territory.
      Read my colleague Sam Levin’s full report. More

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      Protesters arrested for occupying Kevin McCarthy’s office over Aids funding

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      Several people were arrested after entering the office of Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, during a protest for HIV/Aids funding on Monday.The US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), a widely bipartisan program, has since been reauthorized three times, and Joe Biden earlier this year indicated that he would work with Congress to extend it a fourth.But the program’s latest extension has been caught up in a partisan fight over abortion and is under threat amid Congress’s negotiations over a government shutdown. Some Republicans are opposing Pepfar’s reauthorization, arguing that current restrictions do not sufficiently prevent the funds from being used to support abortions, according to an August report by the Federation of American Scientists.“Any multi-year PEPFAR reauthorizing legislation must ensure that Biden’s hijacking of PEPFAR to promote abortion be halted,” wrote New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith, who chairs the House foreign affairs subcommittee, in a letter to colleagues in June.At McCarthy’s Washington DC office, Capitol police handcuffed six activists and escorted them away, according to Politico reporter Alice Ollstein, who shared videos from the scene at the Rayburn House office building, which is connected to the US Capitol.Demonstrators were seen sitting and chanting in McCarthy’s office, demanding the Republican leader reauthorize key provisions of Pepfar, which are set to expire at the end of the month unless an agreement is reached.The program was first established in 2003 by President George W Bush to prevent and treat HIV/Aids in developing countries worldwide, and it is overseen by the US Department of State.About 20 million people depend on the program globally, according to a White House statement in January.Smith was a co-sponsor of the 2018 bill extending Pepfar for five years but is now seeking to block its renewal after Biden in 2021 lifted Trump-era restrictions that barred Pepfar and other global programs receiving US funding from performing or promoting abortions.While Pepfar can continue operating without congressional reauthorization, advocates say a failure to do so would signal diminishing US support for HIV/Aids prevention.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Pass Pepfar now, McCarthy,” protesters chanted in the speaker’s office on Monday morning.The demonstrators were members of NYC-based HIV/Aids nonprofits Health Gap (Global Access Project) and Housing Works, according to social media posts by the two advocacy groups.The House returns to Capitol Hill from its summer recess on Tuesday as it races to reach a deal to keep federal agencies and programs afloat through December. The Senate returned last week. More

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      Kevin McCarthy faces battle with hard-right Republicans as shutdown looms

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      Kevin McCarthy will return from his August recess on Tuesday facing the latest in a long series of conundrums for the Republican House leader: should he force a government shutdown, leaving hundreds of thousands of government workers without a paycheck, or burn more bridges with the hard-right flank of his conference, risking his speakership in the process?With just 12 legislative days left before the end of the fiscal year, the Republican-controlled House must quickly pass some kind of spending package to keep the federal government open after 30 September. If the chamber does not approve a spending bill, the government will shut down for the first time in nearly five years, furloughing federal employees and stalling many crucial programs.McCarthy has indicated his preference to pass a continuing resolution, which would keep the government funded at its current levels for a short period of time as lawmakers continue to negotiate over a longer-term deal. But members of the hard-right House freedom caucus, who are still furious over the deal that McCarthy and President Joe Biden struck to suspend the debt ceiling earlier this year, insist they will not back a continuing resolution unless the speaker agrees to several significant policy concessions, such as increased border security and an impeachment inquiry into Biden.Given House Republicans’ narrow majority and a new rule allowing any single member of the chamber to force a vote on removing the speaker, McCarthy’s handling of this fraught situation could determine whether he loses his gavel after just eight months in power.The trouble for McCarthy started in the spring, after the House passed the compromise debt ceiling bill, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Seventy-one members of the House Republican conference opposed the legislation over concerns that it did not go far enough to reduce government spending, and they sharply criticized McCarthy for agreeing to the inadequate deal.Gordon Gray, vice-president for economic policy at the center-right thinktank American Action Forum, said he had been bracing for a potential shutdown ever since the debt ceiling showdown concluded.“Since the debt limit grenade was diffused, there’s a big chunk of House Republicans who just want to break something,” Gray said. “That’s just how some of these folks define governing. It’s how their constituents define success.”Now House Republicans have reneged on the debt ceiling deal, instead choosing to advance appropriations bills with spending levels below those agreed to in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Democrats warn that the proposed cuts could deal a devastating financial blow to early education programs, climate initiatives and housing assistance.“The deal in the Fiscal Responsibility Act was roughly a freeze. It could be worse, but a freeze effectively is a cut in purchasing power because costs go up every year,” said David Reich, senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “So what was agreed to was a reasonably tight level, and now come the House Republicans marking up their bills.”House Republicans’ strategy in the spending talks has been met with exasperation in the Senate, which returned from its recess on Tuesday. Before the upper chamber adjourned at the end of July, the Senate appropriations committee advanced all 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2024 with bipartisan support. The Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has implored the House to take a similar approach to the budget process.“Both parties, in both chambers, will have to work together if we are to avoid a shutdown,” Schumer said on Wednesday in a floor speech. “When the House returns next week, I implore – I implore – my Republican colleagues in the House to recognize that time is short to keep the government open, and the only way to avoid a shutdown is through bipartisanship.”Even the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, offered a mild rebuke of his colleagues in the House when asked about the spending fight last week.“Speaker McCarthy agreed to certain spending levels in the debt limit deal he reached with President Biden earlier this year,” McConnell said. “The House then turned around and passed spending levels that were below that level. Without saying an opinion about that, that’s not going to be replicated in the Senate.”McConnell indicated that the most likely outcome at this point would be the approval of a short-term continuing resolution to buy more time in the budget talks. But members of the House freedom caucus, who abhor the idea of extending funding at levels previously approved by a Democratic Congress, have already outlined a litany of demands in exchange for their support on a continuing resolution.In a statement released late last month, the caucus said its members would only back a continuing resolution if it included a Republican proposal on border security and addressed “the unprecedented weaponization of the justice department and FBI”, an implicit reference to the four criminal cases against Donald Trump. The caucus also demanded an end to the so-called “woke” policies at the department of defense, which has faced rightwing criticism for providing funding to servicemembers and their family members who need to travel to access abortion care.Hard-right Republicans have now added another item to their list of demands: the launch of an impeachment inquiry against Biden.“I’ve already decided I will not vote to fund the government unless we have passed an impeachment inquiry on Joe Biden,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia, said last week.Another hard-right House member, Matt Gaetz of Florida, has warned that McCarthy’s failure to act on impeaching Biden could cost him his speakership.“I worked very hard in January to develop a toolkit for House Republicans to use in a productive and positive way. I don’t believe we’ve used those tools as effectively as we should have,” Gaetz said on Tuesday. “We’ve got to seize the initiative. That means forcing votes on impeachment. And if Speaker McCarthy stands in our way, he may not have the job long.”But the possibility of an impeachment inquiry has failed to gain widespread favor among Senate Republicans, several of whom have acknowledged that Greene and her allies have presented no valid evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors on Biden’s part.With the likelihood of a shutdown increasing by the day, the White House has attacked hard-right Republicans’ demands as a political stunt that could reap devastating consequences for millions of Americans.“Lives are at stake across a wide range of urgent, bipartisan priorities for the American people,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, said on Thursday. “Like Senate Republicans, Speaker McCarthy should keep his word about government funding. And he should do so in a way that acts on these pressing issues – including fentanyl, national security and disaster response – rather than break his promise and cave to the most extreme members of his conference agitating for a baseless impeachment stunt and shutdown.”Past shutdowns prove the widespread upheaval caused by lapses in government funding. During the last partial shutdown, which ended in January 2019, roughly 800,000 federal workers went without a paycheck. The Trump administration tried to keep national parks open with limited staff, resulting in damage to the grounds. Loan programs overseen by the Small Business Administration and federally funded research projects were also halted or delayed.“It’s very disruptive. Federal agencies spend a whole lot of time trying to figure out what they’re allowed to do and not allowed to do,” Reich said. “It’s a total waste of effort and energy.”Even though history shows the fallout of government shutdowns, Gray still anticipates a lapse in funding – if not in October then later this year.“I could envision a brief [continuing resolution] – like two weeks – with some disaster supplemental funding in it,” Gray said. “My expectation is that we’ll still have a shutdown this fall.” More

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      Trump’s Resilience Leaves Major Republican Donors in Despair

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      The party’s big donors have made clear their distaste for the former president. Now, as he barrels toward the nomination, they are reacting with a mix of hand-wringing, calls to arms and fatalism.On Labor Day, Eric Levine, a New York lawyer and Republican fund-raiser, sent an email to roughly 1,500 donors, politicians and friends.“I refuse to accept the proposition that Donald Trump is the ‘inevitable’ Republican nominee for President,” he wrote. “His nomination would be a disaster for our party and our country.”Many of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors share that view, and the growing sense of urgency about the state of the G.O.P. presidential primary race. Mr. Trump’s grip on the party’s voters is as powerful as ever, with polls in Iowa and New Hampshire last month putting him at least 25 percentage points above his nearest rivals.That has left major Republican donors — whose desires have increasingly diverged from those of conservative voters — grappling with the reality that the tens of millions of dollars they have spent to try to stop the former president, fearing he poses a mortal threat to their party and the country, may already be a sunk cost.Interviews with more than a dozen Republican donors and their allies revealed hand-wringing, magical thinking, calls to arms and, for some, fatalism. Several of them did not want to be identified by name out of a fear of political repercussions or a desire to stay in the good graces of any eventual Republican nominee, including Mr. Trump.“If things don’t change quickly, people are going to despair,” Mr. Levine said in an interview. He is among the optimists who believe Mr. Trump’s support is not as robust as the polls suggest and who see a quickly closing window to rally behind another candidate. In Mr. Levine’s 2,500-word Labor Day missive, he urged his readers to pick Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Other schools of thought exist. Some donors have backed Mr. Trump’s rivals despite believing that he is unbeatable in the primaries. These donors are banking, in part, on the chance that Mr. Trump will eventually drop out of the race because of his legal troubles, a health scare or some other personal or political calculation.Fred Zeidman, a Texas businessman who is an enthusiastic backer of Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, said he had given her a blunt assessment of her prospects last month.“You’re at 2 percent, and he’s at 53 percent,” he recalled telling her, in only a slight exaggeration of Mr. Trump’s polling advantage. “He ain’t going to erode that much. Something needs to happen to him for you to overtake him.”Privately, many donors said that the primary contest so far — especially the first Republican debate last month, in which Mr. Trump did not take part — had felt like a dress rehearsal for a play that would never happen. One donor’s political adviser called it “the kids’ table.”One Texas-based Republican fund-raiser, who has not committed to a candidate and insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations, said he regularly told major donors that like it or not, Mr. Trump would be the nominee.“Intellectually, their heads explode,” the fund-raiser said. He said many donors were “backing off” rather than supporting a candidate, reflecting a fundamental belief that nobody can defeat Mr. Trump.Many donors have said that the primary contest so far — especially the first Republican debate last month, in which Mr. Trump did not take part — has felt like a dress rehearsal for a play that will never happen.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesLarge-dollar Republican donors, even those who enthusiastically or reluctantly backed Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020, have made no secret of their wish to move on in 2024.Some big donors have stuck with Mr. Trump, though not nearly as many as in past cycles, at least not so far — a super PAC backing Mr. Trump has reported just 25 contributions of $100,000 or more. They include $2 million from the casino magnate Phil Ruffin and $1 million from the former real estate developer Charles Kushner, the father of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Mr. Trump pardoned the elder Mr. Kushner on his way out of office.Major donors, particularly those in the tier just below the billionaire power players, have seen their influence wane in recent elections, a trend inextricably bound up in Mr. Trump’s continued hold on Republican voters. The explosive growth of small-dollar contributions — a phenomenon that, on the Republican side, has overwhelmingly favored Mr. Trump — reflects a widening disconnect between voters’ sympathies and the interests of big donors.The conservative commentator Bill Kristol, who has become a pariah in his party over his longstanding opposition to Mr. Trump, said he told donors and their advisers at the beginning of the year that if they were serious about defeating Mr. Trump, they had to spend money in a concerted effort to persuade Republican voters that he should not be the nominee.The hope was that, by Labor Day, Mr. Trump’s poll numbers would be in the 30s, Mr. Kristol explained. Instead, he said, “they’ve done nothing, and Trump is at 50 percent.”Mr. Kristol said he was not sure if donors had a kind of “learned helplessness,” or if they were just wary of offending Mr. Trump and his supporters. “I think, ultimately, they tell themselves they could live with him,” he said.“We know what a world would look like if real conservative elites really decided they wanted to get rid of Donald Trump,” Mr. Kristol said. “And that’s not the world we are living in.”If there was any hope among big donors that the various investigations into Mr. Trump would undermine his popular support, such dreams have faded. Each successive indictment — four since late March — has brought waves of financial contributions and new energy to his poll numbers.Some donors expressed incredulity that Mr. Trump would be able to run for president while fighting off the charges. He faces a busy calendar of trials next year that is likely to grow only more complex.“I don’t see how he’s going to deal with these huge legal problems,” said the Long Island-based metals magnate Andy Sabin, who is backing Mr. Scott. “I don’t really care about his numbers. I think he’s got enough other stuff going on. All of these trials start — who knows? We are in uncharted territory.”Mr. Sabin conceded that Mr. Trump had a “very solid base,” adding that he would “almost have to murder somebody” for people to turn on him. “People think he’s God.”Many major donors, even those who believe Mr. Trump committed crimes and who think his actions surrounding Jan. 6, 2021, were abhorrent, said they believed the indictments were politically motivated. Some also suggested that the indictments had temporarily inflated his poll numbers, by keeping him in the news and fueling voter outrage on his behalf.“I fundamentally believe Trump’s numbers are artificial,” said Jay Zeidman, a Texas-based health care investor and major fund-raiser for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida (and the son of Fred Zeidman). “I’m not saying they are making them up — I don’t think there’s real strength behind those numbers.”He continued: “I think you have to be patient, and let the gravity of the situation he’s in take hold. This election is not about vindicating one man. This is not a referendum on Trump.”Mr. Zeidman, like others, said he believed Mr. Trump would lose the presidential race and drag down Republican candidates for Senate and the House. “I believe that Republican primary voters need to understand the opportunity they have to win a very winnable presidential election.”Dan Eberhart, a private equity and energy executive who is also backing Mr. DeSantis, said that he expected Mr. Trump’s legal troubles to weigh him down, and that he believed most voters were looking for a second choice.“By the time Super Tuesday comes around, Trump is going to have been beaten in Iowa, and the dam is going to burst,” he predicted. “Once someone else is viable, I think you’re going to see him quickly melt.”Then, Mr. Eberhart said, donors who have not committed to a candidate will come out of the woodwork: “They are actively holding their breath, wanting a solution to Trump but not knowing what it is.”As some donors have cast about for a late entrant to the race who could challenge Mr. Trump, the name that comes up most often is Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.Mr. Levine addressed the Youngkin question in his essay, saying: “Waiting for someone else to get into the race is not an option.” (Mr. Youngkin has not ruled out a run and has said he is focused on Virginia’s state legislative elections this fall; with each passing day, the logistical barriers to entry grow higher.)Bill Bean, an Indiana-based real-estate executive and backer of former Vice President Mike Pence, said the field would narrow until there was a “clear alternative” to Mr. Trump.Mr. Bean backed Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020, and supported the policy decisions he made as president. “But I would like to see us move forward,” he said. “I want to look at the future in a positive way. I hear that a lot more than maybe the poll numbers show.”Ruth Igielnik More

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      Pelosi, Defying Predictions, Says She Will Seek Re-election in 2024

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      Since she stepped down from leadership last year, many observers expected Representative Nancy Pelosi of California to head toward retirement. But she has kept people guessing about her future.Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who served for decades as the Democratic Party’s House leader and was the first woman to become speaker, announced on Friday that she would seek re-election in 2024, ending months of speculation about her political future.“In light of the values of San Francisco, which we’ve always been proud to promote, I’ve made the decision to seek re-election,” Ms. Pelosi said on Friday at an event in her hometown focused on organized labor.Since she stepped down from leadership last year after Democrats lost the House majority, many observers expected that Ms. Pelosi, who at 83 is the seventh-oldest member of the chamber, was headed for retirement. Some had been surprised to see her stay in Congress at all, a rare move for a former speaker, and speculated that she would not finish her term.But colleagues said she has relished her lower profile as a rank-and-file member with emeritus status. In that new role, Ms. Pelosi offers advice on an as-needed basis to her party’s new leadership team, often sits in the back rows of the House floor gabbing with her closest friends and focuses her attention on San Francisco while quietly remaining a fund-raising powerhouse for Democrats.“I’m emancipated now!” an ebullient Ms. Pelosi said in a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times.Even after Ms. Pelosi made clear she would stay on after giving up her leadership post, some Democrats assumed that she would leave Congress early, potentially clearing the way for her daughter Christine Pelosi, a party activist and a Democratic National Committee executive committee member, to run for her seat.Ms. Pelosi’s decision to carry on with her 36-year career in the House comes at a moment of renewed scrutiny on the advanced age and health status of the country’s leading public servants — including President Biden, 80, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, 81, the longtime Republican leader — and questions about whether they have overstayed their time in power. Ms. Pelosi managed to somewhat insulate herself from those critiques when she decided last year to step down from leadership, essentially giving herself a demotion.Senator Dianne Feinstein, another California Democrat who at 90 is the oldest member of Congress, plans to retire after her term ends next year. But she is facing calls to step down sooner amid a precipitous health decline that has raised questions about her ability to do her job. Ms. Pelosi recently attributed those calls to sexism.A major factor in Ms. Pelosi’s decision to not only finish her term but to seek another, according to people close to her, was the health of her husband, Paul Pelosi, who was brutally beaten with a hammer at the couple’s home in San Francisco last year by an assailant who later said he had been targeting the speaker. With Mr. Pelosi on a solid path to recovery, allies said, Ms. Pelosi did not feel it was necessary to step away from a job she loved.“Nancy Pelosi has always been untraditional,” said Stacy Kerr, who for a decade served as a senior aide to Ms. Pelosi. “She’s done things her own way her whole career, driven by the needs of her district and the country. We shouldn’t expect that she won’t continue to be a trailblazer now.”Still, Ms. Pelosi, famous for keeping her own counsel, had not shared her plans with anyone. People close to her said on Friday that she had ultimately decided to run again because she also viewed it as an urgent priority to re-elect Mr. Biden and help Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, become the next House speaker.Ms. Pelosi is still her party’s most prolific fund-raiser in Congress, a political skill that could be determinative in helping Democrats win back the House majority next year.The National Republican Congressional Committee quickly tried to frame her decision to stay on as a sign of Mr. Jeffries’s weakness.“The babysitter agreed to stay late!” the group’s press secretary, Will Reinert, said in a statement, noting that House Democrats still relied on Ms. Pelosi as the main engine of their fund-raising machine.In an online post, Ms. Pelosi characterized her decision to run again as one driven by local and global concerns.“Now, more than ever, our city needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery,” Ms. Pelosi said in announcing her plans. “Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for all.” More

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      Nancy Pelosi announces 2024 House re-election bid

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      Former House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will be seeking re-election in 2024. The 83-year-old Democrat representing California’s 11th district announced the news on Wednesday among volunteers and labor allies in San Francisco.Pelosi went on to tweet about her plans, saying: “Now more than ever our city needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery. Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for ALL. That is why I am running for reelection – and respectfully ask for your vote.”Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco since 1987, served as House speaker twice. Her first tenure as House speaker was from 2007 to 2011, during which she made history by becoming the first female speaker. Pelosi went on to lead the House of Representatives again from 2019 to the beginning of this year.Last November, Pelosi announced that she was stepping down as the leader of the Democratic party after Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives with a narrow 222-212 majority with one vacancy.Her announcement on Wednesday comes amid several politically delicate moments on Capitol Hill, particularly as Democrats prepare to take back control of the House of Representatives. Moreover, it comes as House Republicans entertain the idea of an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden amid a federal investigation into the business dealings of his son Hunter.It also comes as growing questions surround the mental competency of older Capitol Hill leaders including the 80-year-old president, 81-year-old Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and 90-year-old California senator Dianne Feinstein.According to a source close to Pelosi who is familiar with her re-election decision, Pelosi believes that democracy hangs in the balance in the upcoming election as she prepares to help re-elect Biden and appoint House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries as the next House speaker, the Associated Press reported.Throughout Pelosi’s leadership, she helped lead the Democratic party through a series of legislative victories including the passage of the Affordable Care Act under then-president Barack Obama in 2010, as well as legislation surrounding gun violence prevention measures, minimum wage increases.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPelosi has also played a key role in international politics, including becoming the first highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, as well as securing the votes needed to defeat Republicans’ efforts to disapprove of Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. More

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      Fani Willis Sharply Rebukes House Republican Investigating Her

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      The prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, accused Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio of trying to obstruct her prosecution of the racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies.The district attorney leading a criminal case against Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia accused Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio of trying to obstruct her prosecution of the case in a sharply worded letter she sent on Thursday.Soon after the district attorney, Fani T. Willis, a Democrat, announced last month that she was bringing a racketeering case against Mr. Trump and 18 other defendants for their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, Mr. Jordan, a Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that he was going to investigate Ms. Willis over whether her prosecution of Mr. Trump was politically motivated.In her letter, Ms. Willis accused Mr. Jordan of trying “to obstruct a Georgia criminal proceeding and to advance outrageous partisan misrepresentations,” and of not understanding how the state’s racketeering law works.“Your attempt to invoke congressional authority to intrude upon and interfere with an active criminal case in Georgia is flagrantly at odds with the Constitution,” she added. “The defendants in this case have been charged under state law with committing state crimes. There is absolutely no support for Congress purporting to second guess or somehow supervise an ongoing Georgia criminal investigation and prosecution.”The letter came as the defendants and the prosecution continued sparring in legal filings over where and when the trial would take place. In a new filing, Mark Meadows, a defendant, who served as the White House chief of staff under Mr. Trump, was seeking a stay of the proceedings in state court until a judge ruled on his motion to move his case to federal court.The Georgia case is one of four criminal indictments that have been brought against Mr. Trump this year; Mr. Jordan’s investigation of Ms. Willis is the latest example of House Republicans using their power in Congress to try to derail efforts to prosecute the former president.When he announced his inquiry last month, Mr. Jordan, a close Trump ally, said it would look for any evidence of communication between Ms. Willis and the Biden administration and examine her office’s use of federal grant money.While Mr. Jordan expressed concerns that former federal officials were being unfairly targeted in a state prosecution, some of the issues he raised had little to do with the underlying facts of the investigation. For example, in a letter to Ms. Willis, he said her new campaign website had included a reference to a New York Times article that mentioned the Trump investigation.Ms. Willis’s response is the latest sign that she will not take attacks on her office and the investigation quietly — a striking difference in style from that of Jack Smith, the more reserved and laconic special prosecutor handling the two federal criminal cases against Mr. Trump.She has a track record as a pugnacious, law-and-order prosecutor, and is pursuing racketeering cases not only against the former president and his allies, but a number of high-profile Atlanta rappers accused of operating a criminal gang.In a heated email exchange in July over the terms of Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, providing testimony in her investigation, Ms. Willis called the governor’s lawyer, Brian McEvoy, “wrong and confused” and “rude,” after Mr. McEvoy expressed frustration over mixed signals he said he had received from her office, and asserted that there had been “leaks” associated with her investigation.“You have taken my kindness as weakness,” she wrote, adding: “Despite your disdain this investigation continues and will not be derailed by anyone’s antics.”On Thursday, scores of Trump supporters gathered near the State Capitol for a news conference and rally, demanding that the state legislature call a special session to defund Ms. Willis’s office. The effort, led by Colton Moore, a freshman state senator, has little support among Mr. Moore’s fellow lawmakers and is almost certain to fail.Mr. Moore, who has drawn attention and praise in recent weeks from news outlets supportive of Mr. Trump, said that Ms. Willis was engaged in “politicization” of the justice system. His constituents, he said, “don’t want their tax dollars funding this type of corrupt government power.”In her letter to Mr. Jordan, Ms. Willis invited him to purchase a book about racketeering statutes written by one her fellow prosecutors on the Trump case, John Floyd, titled “RICO State by State.”“As a non-member of the bar,” she wrote, “you can purchase a copy for two hundred forty-nine dollars.” More