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      Democrats plan defense as Republicans ramp up investigations into president and Hunter Biden – as it happened

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

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      in Elections

      Why Eli Crane Defied Kevin McCarthy

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      The freshman Republican from Arizona was the only newcomer to hold out against Speaker Kevin McCarthy until the very end.WASHINGTON — Representative Eli Crane, Republican of Arizona, was still weeks away from being sworn in to Congress for the first time when Donald J. Trump, the former president, called to try to persuade him to support Kevin McCarthy for speaker.Mr. Trump had endorsed Mr. Crane during his campaign, helping him emerge victorious in a crowded Republican primary. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee aligned with Mr. McCarthy, had donated to his campaign. The pressure to fall in line, Mr. Crane said, was immense.“That’s always a tough situation, when you have a lot of respect and admiration for somebody, and the commitments that you’ve made to your voters,” Mr. Crane recalled in an interview in his new office this week, just days after he voted against Mr. McCarthy 14 times in a row.Mr. Crane, 43, a former member of the Navy SEALs and a contender on “Shark Tank,” last week was the sole newly elected congressman to vote against Mr. McCarthy until the bitter, drawn-out end — typically a perilous position for a freshman who harbors any ambition to serve on a powerful committee or play a role in legislating.But Mr. Crane said his constituents viewed Mr. McCarthy as part of the establishment they had sent him to Washington to upend — and he was not about to disappoint them as his first official act on Capitol Hill.On the December call with Mr. Trump, Mr. Crane said he had told the former president, “Sir, I’m sorry, we love you out in Arizona, but I’ve been listening to my voters.”Over five days in which Mr. McCarthy suffered defeat after humiliating defeat, Mr. Crane said he had heard a lot of “What’s it going to take” from the speaker’s allies as they tried to pull together the necessary votes to win the race. He did not want a particular committee. There was no change in the rules that he was after. He said he was not seeking notoriety. He was simply there to vote against Mr. McCarthy.“I did not want to come up here and be a representative who heard what my voters said and came up here and caved to the pressure,” Mr. Crane said. “I didn’t want anything, other than to do what I was sent here to do.”Before entering politics, Mr. Crane served five wartime deployments and 13 years in the military.Samuel Corum/Sipa, via Associated PressHis rigid anti-McCarthy stance caught many Republicans by surprise. Mr. Crane had never made voting against Mr. McCarthy a campaign promise, as some far-right candidates in other districts had done. He was not even the most far-right candidate in his primary.In fact, Mr. Crane had been quiet about his position on the speaker’s race until he signed on to a Dec. 8 letter demanding concessions from the incoming speaker. Some McCarthy allies assumed he was under the sway of a fellow lawmaker from Arizona, Representative Andy Biggs, who was mounting a protest bid for speaker against Mr. McCarthy.A Divided CongressAfter a dayslong spectacle over the House speakership, the 118th Congress is underway, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats holding the Senate.Abortion: As part of an anti-abortion rights effort, House Republicans pushed through a bill that could subject doctors who perform abortions to criminal penalties.I.R.S. Funds: Republicans in the House voted to cut funding for the Internal Revenue Service, as conservative lawmakers try to kneecap President Biden’s $80 billion overhaul of the agency.A Wide-Ranging Inquiry: The House approved the creation of a powerful new committee to scrutinize what Republicans say is the “weaponization” of government against conservatives.But Mr. Crane said his unshakable opposition was more reflective of his military background, which taught him to tough things out.“I’ve been through a ton of very difficult situations, and I’m very grateful for those,” he said.Still, it was a stunning way to enter Congress, where Mr. Crane was still getting lost in the hallways while also being one of a handful of holdouts who stood between Mr. McCarthy and the speakership..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“Half the time, I’m trying to find where the bathroom is and where the gym is,” he said of his first days in Washington. “We finally found the gym.”It’s all a new world for Mr. Crane, who flipped his seat in November, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Tom O’Halleran, in a mostly rural district in northeastern Arizona whose lines had been redrawn to include more Republicans.During his campaign, Mr. Crane said he supported decertifying the 2020 election, a stance that did not appear to hurt him in the newly conservative district. He was by no means the furthest to the right in his primary; another candidate was Ron Watkins, a prominent conspiracy theorist suspected of being behind the QAnon conspiracy theory.Before entering politics, Mr. Crane served five wartime deployments and 13 years in the military. He then started Bottle Breacher, a company featured on the reality show “Shark Tank,” whose signature product was a .50-caliber bullet fashioned into a bottle opener and marketed as a gift for men and groomsmen. He became a brand ambassador for Sig Sauer, the firearms manufacturer.With tattooed arms and dark, slick-backed hair, Mr. Crane stands out in the sea of suits that is the Republican Conference, where he is now bent on disrupting the status quo simply for disruption’s sake.“He’s a new breed of MAGA,” said Stephen K. Bannon, the former adviser to Mr. Trump, who is close with Mr. Crane. “Smart, tough, lethal.”Late last Friday night after the 14th vote, the remaining holdouts were Mr. Biggs, Representatives Bob Good of Virginia and Matt Rosendale of Montana, and Mr. Crane. Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida, two of the most vocal opponents in the final days, had finally relented and switched their votes to “present” on the second-to-last ballot.“Everybody was pressuring,” Mr. Crane said. As the group of defectors shrank from 20 to four, he said, “the pressure just kept escalating.”Mr. Crane was something of a wild card because he had said little, at all, throughout the process. And he was the sole freshman in the group.“The consensus between the group was: ‘We came this far together. If we go out, we’re going out together,’” he said. “When the suggestion was made to put this thing to bed when we knew we could not win, I wanted to make sure I did not leave those that had stood to the end.”At one point, he said, after the 13th failed vote, things became personal and heated. Mr. McCarthy, unable to spare a single supporter, had called a pair of Republican lawmakers back to Washington for the late-night vote, and a lawmaker approached Mr. Crane on the House floor to berate him for his intransigence.“No matter how this shakes out, make sure you go apologize to Wesley Hunt and all the other guys you’re screwing over this weekend who can’t be there for their families,” Mr. Crane said a colleague had told him.Mr. Hunt had left Washington to be with his wife, who had gone into labor earlier in the week and delivered their son prematurely, and returned to the hospital with postpartum complications.“I was very upset with him for saying that to me,” Mr. Crane said of the colleague, whom he did not know at the time and would not name. “I let him know that.”Mr. Crane said he has expressed interest in serving on the Natural Resources, Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committees, but is fully prepared to be punished for his vote.“I expect it,” Mr. Crane said, even though Mr. McCarthy assured some defectors last week that there would be no retribution against members who had voted against him. “We’ll see what happens. I might wind up in the broom closet.” More

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      Bills to regulate toxic ‘forever chemicals’ died in Congress – with Republican help

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      Bills to regulate toxic ‘forever chemicals’ died in Congress – with Republican help Lobbying industry flexed muscle to ensure bills that aimed to set stricter standards on PFAS compounds went nowhere All legislation aimed at regulating toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” died in the Democratic-controlled US Congress last session as companies flexed their lobbying muscle and bills did not gain enough Republican support to overcome a Senate filibuster.The failure comes after public health advocates and Democratic lawmakers expressed optimism at the legislative session’s outset that bills that would protect the public from dangerous exposure to the chemicals could gain sufficient bipartisan support.Among proposals that failed were bans on PFAS in food packaging, textiles and cosmetics, and measures that would have set stricter cleanup standards.Republican-controlled House pushes for new abortion restrictionsRead more“[The chemicals] industry is basically battening down the hatches, digging their trenches for defense, and shooting their salvos to stop anything that would significantly control PFAS,” said Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group.PFAS are a class of about 12,000 compounds used to make products resist water, stains and heat. They are known as “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and they have been linked to cancer, high cholesterol, liver disease, kidney disease, fetal complications and other serious health problems.The Environmental Protection Agency this year found that virtually no level of exposure to two types of PFAS compounds in drinking water is safe, and public health advocates say the entire chemical class is toxic and dangerous. Because of their health risks, no chemical in recent years has drawn as much regulatory and legislative attention at the state and federal level. But the chemical industry records billions of dollars in PFAS sales annually, and has deployed lobbyists to protect its revenues.Of more than 50 bills that focused on PFAS introduced by Congress last session, only two minor proposals that in effect provide subsidies to industry became law, and only three made it out of committee. Several provisions included in the National Defense Authorization Act that order the military to take steps to clean up widespread PFAS contamination on its bases also became law.The failure of the PFAS Action Act amid heavy lobbying is emblematic of the difficulty in passing meaningful legislation. The bill was perhaps the most feared by the industry because it would have imposed tighter air and water pollution limits on PFAS while making the chemicals’ producers and users financially responsible for cleanup. Industry “pulled out the stops to kill it”, Olson said.The bill passed the House with bipartisan support in 2021, but stalled in the Senate’s environment and public works committee. The Republican senator Shelley Moore Capito, the committee’s ranking GOP member, had in 2019 introduced a bill that included many of the same provisions.“I’m proud to lead this bipartisan legislation,” Capito said at the time, adding that it would allow the EPA to hold PFAS polluters accountable.However, she did not support the legislation this session.“We’ve heard from local stakeholders and studied the real-life impacts of this complex issue, which is why, as we continue to work to address PFAS contamination across the country, the uncertainty and unintended consequences of any policy proposal must be taken into account,” Capito said.At least 43 companies or industry organizations lobbied on the PFAS Action Act, federal records show. Lobbying records that include the bill submitted by the American Chemistry Council trade group, which represents chemical makers, total about $17m, though the portion of that which was spent on the act is not publicly available.Meanwhile, Capito has received about $180,000 from the chemical industry since 2017, and represents a state with a DuPont factory that is responsible for extensive PFAS contamination. DuPont lobbying records from the last session that include the PFAS Action Act total about $2.5m, though it is not clear what portion of that was spent on the bill.The EPA this year used its authority to administratively enact pieces of the PFAS Action Act, but the proposed bill went further than what the agency implemented, and the rules could be dismantled by a Republican administration.Other bills were less intensively lobbied by industry because they had little chance of gaining enough Republican Senate support, despite taking what public health advocates say are very basic steps to protect the public from dangerous exposures to the chemicals.Among those were the No PFAS in Cosmetics Act and Keep Food Packaging Safe From PFAS Act. Both were introduced in the House by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. The food package bill did not make it through committee but Dingell attempted to include the provisions in the government funding bill.It was ultimately cut from the final spending bill. A spokesperson told the Guardian Dingell was “disappointed” the legislation was not included, but said she planned to reintroduce it next session. With the Republicans in control of the House, it is unlikely to move.Though the cosmetics legislation met a similar fate, Dingell noted that a provision in the spending bill directs the Department of Health and Human Services to analyze whether PFAS can be used safely in cosmetics.The failures come as a growing number of states, including California and New York, have banned the use of PFAS in cosmetics, textiles and food packaging. Meanwhile, a new Maine ban on all PFAS in products except those that qualify as “unavoidable” uses goes into effect in 2030.The lack of Republican support for basic measures at the federal level can be explained by industry’s philosophy that giving public health advocates an inch on PFAS restrictions will lead to them taking a mile, Olson said.“There is concern from industry folks that any admission that there’s a problem with PFAS could come back to haunt them – why is it OK in one thing but bad in another?” Olson said.TopicsPFASUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      G.O.P. Leaders Stand by Santos as New York Republicans Call on Him to Resign

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      Republican congressional leaders badly need the newly elected representative’s vote, but local officials and lawmakers are eager to distance themselves from his scandal.WASHINGTON — New York Republicans are ready to rid themselves of Representative George Santos, the newly elected congressman from Long Island who has admitted to fabricating parts of his résumé and is under multiple local and federal investigations into his yearslong pattern of political deception.House Republican leaders, not so much.Amid mounting calls for his resignation from Republican members of Congress from New York and state party officials, Mr. Santos still has the backing of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republican leaders.In a news conference at the Capitol on Thursday, Mr. McCarthy made it clear that he had no intention of barring Mr. Santos from congressional committees or otherwise penalizing him for winning election under false pretenses.“The voters of his district have elected him,” Mr. McCarthy said. “He is seated. He is part of the Republican conference.”Mr. McCarthy downplayed the likelihood that allowing Mr. Santos to serve might put national security at risk, even though members of Congress routinely receive classified briefings from top military and other government officials.“I don’t see any way that he’s going to have top secret” information, Mr. McCarthy said Thursday at his first news conference since winning the speaker’s gavel, adding, “He’s got a long way to go to earn trust.”He added that Mr. Santos would face the House Ethics Committee, which considers allegations of misconduct by members.“If anything is found to be wrong, he will be held accountable exactly as anybody else in this body would be,” Mr. McCarthy said.The disconnect between the reaction from Nassau County Republicans and those in Washington reflects the differing political realities for both groups. In Congress, Republicans, who hold a paper-thin majority in the House, do not feel directly culpable for Mr. Santos’s misdeeds and have much more on the line if they lose his seat. Mr. McCarthy can’t spare a single vote in the House — least of all one who was a reliable supporter during the 15 rounds it took for him to secure the speakership.In the 2020 presidential election, President Biden won Mr. Santos’s district by 8.2 points. If he were to resign from Congress, prompting a special election for the seat, there is no guarantee that Republicans would be able to win it again.More on the George Santos ControversyBehind the Investigation: The Times journalists Michael Gold and Grace Ashford discuss how he was elected to Congress and how they discovered that he was a fraud.Going to Washington: Despite being under scrutiny for lies about his background, George Santos brings his saga to Capitol Hill, where he will face significant pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.Facing Inquiries: Federal and local prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Santos committed crimes involving his finances or made misleading statements, while authorities in Brazil said they would revive a 2008 fraud case against him.Embellished Résumés: While other politicians have also misled the public about their past, few have done so in as wide-ranging a manner as Mr. Santos.The New York Republicans who have repudiated Mr. Santos, by contrast, fear suffering by association with a man whose scandals threaten to tarnish what was a resurgent year for the party throughout the state. Five of the six representatives who have called on Mr. Santos to step down won seats in competitive districts where they are expected to face fierce challenges from Democrats in 2024.Other local Republicans have suggested that newly installed leaders in Washington are more concerned with their own short-term survival than the potential long-term consequences of backing Mr. Santos.“We have to think about our brand as a party,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive. “Are we a party that’s behind people of good character and integrity who are transparent? Or are we a party that, for cynical reasons, we are going to allow this to continue?”With Mr. McCarthy consumed by his own political future last week as he struggled for five days to secure the votes he needed to become speaker, the confounding issue of what was to be done with Mr. Santos was left up in the air.Speaker Kevin McCarthy can’t afford to lose a seat in the House, where his party holds a sliver of a majority.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBut now that the speakership has been settled, Republicans are split on how to punish a member who is under active investigation by federal and local prosecutors into potential criminal activity during his two congressional campaigns, as well as fraud charges from Brazilian law enforcement officials.Representatives Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams, all newly elected from New York, have called for Mr. Santos’s resignation on Wednesday. Of those, only Mr. Langworthy, who serves as the state party chair, is in a safely Republican district. The Nassau County G.O.P. chairman, Joseph G. Cairo Jr., has also called for Mr. Santos to step down.On Thursday, two more Republican freshmen from New York, Representatives Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro, said that they, too, believed Mr. Santos should resign.Mr. Lawler said in a statement that his fellow newcomer had “lost the confidence and support of his party, his constituents and his colleagues,” adding that Mr. Santos could not fulfill his duties as a member of Congress.At the news conference on Wednesday where a host of local Republican elected officials demanded Mr. Santos’s resignation, Mr. Cairo said he had not spoken with Mr. McCarthy.But, he added, he hoped that House Republican leaders “would support us.”Instead, they have taken a hands-off stance. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 4 Republican who endorsed Mr. Santos during his campaign, notably sided with her fellow party leaders rather than her state’s congressional delegation, defending her new colleague.“It will play itself out,” Ms. Stefanik told CNN. “He’s a duly elected member of Congress. There have been members of Congress on the Democrat side who have faced investigations before.”Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and majority leader, brushed off questions about Mr. Santos, declaring it a matter that would be settled “internally.”Mr. Santos may be benefiting from the fact that his district is not further to the right. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill speculated privately that leaders might have made a different political calculation if Mr. Santos represented a district that former President Donald J. Trump had won by double digits in the presidential race.Mr. D’Esposito on Thursday tried to play down any tension within the fractured conference.“We are unified,” Mr. D’Esposito said. He and other local officials, he said, had felt that “we need to make our position known based on the fact that we have constituents that we represent there who are personally offended by the lies that George Santos has told or made.” But he said he had faith that Mr. McCarthy would make sure Mr. Santos was properly held “accountable.”Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the Nassau County G.O.P. chair, called for Mr. Santos’s resignation. The New York Republicans who have repudiated Mr. Santos fear being tarnished by his scandal.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesWhat may unify them is a political gene for self-protection.“They may be bailing on Santos faster because it’s a better topic for them than why the vetters didn’t vet him,” said Stu Loeser, a former press secretary to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, referring to party operatives’ failure to dig into any of Mr. Santos’s claims that turned out to be brazenly fabricated, choosing instead to blindly back his candidacy.At the news conference in New York, Mr. Cairo was quick to dub Mr. Santos an outsider, saying he was not representative of Long Island Republicans because he initially came from neighboring Queens. (His district does encompass part of Queens.)“I think George Santos is an exception to the rule,” Mr. Cairo said, adding that he hoped Nassau County voters would make judgments in future elections based on the issues and not “one individual who, unfortunately, was not truthful and ran on Long Island.”Mr. Santos, for now, is defying calls to resign and portraying himself as a partisan warrior. In an interview on the podcast “Bannon’s War Room” with Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida on Thursday, Mr. Santos said he was in Washington to “serve the people” and that he planned to continue doing so.“I was elected by 142,000 people,” Mr. Santos said. He said we would “find out in two years” if those voters didn’t want him.Mr. Santos also said confidently that he had outperformed the politicians calling for his resignation, saying “I beat them by double their margins in the victory.”Though he did outperform Mr. Lawler significantly, he fell far short of Mr. Langworthy’s 30-point win. Mr. LaLota won his race with a double-digit margin. Mr. Santos won his race by 7.6 points.Mr. Santos, who initially appeared out of his depth when he arrived in Washington last week, sitting alone in the House chamber and dodging the media as he got lost in the basement corridors of the Capitol complex, has quickly learned his way around Congress.By the end of the week, he was sitting on the House floor next to the center of the action, alongside Mr. Gaetz and at another point laughing with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia.On Thursday, he portrayed himself as a fighter.“I just pray for all of you,” he said, “when they come for you, that you have the strength I have.”Michael Gold More

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      House’s Republican majority gets to work with two abortion measures – as it happened

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      The first days of a new Congress are typically when the party in charge lays out its priority, and today, it’s the turn of abortion foes.The two measures the Republican-led House will consider don’t amount to the sort of draconian laws some abortion foes would like to see passed, and supporters of the procedure fear. They are not, for instance, the nationwide abortion ban Republican senator Lindsey Graham proposed last year.Rather, they target more niche aspects and consequences of the procedure. One is a resolution condemning attacks on churches, groups and facilities that work against abortion. The other is the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is intended to protect the rights of babies born after surviving an attempted abortion. Abortion rights advocate argue their rights are already secured by a 2002 law, and just last November, voters in Montana rejected a similar measure that was on their ballots.Democrats are telling their members to vote against both measures.Republicans in the House are set to pass two measures concerning abortion later this afternoon, one a resolution condemning violence against opponents of the procedure, the other a bill meant to protect the life of babies who survive abortions. Democrats oppose both. Meanwhile, GOP officials in New York have called on George Santos to resign from Congress after he admitted to lying about his qualifications, but he says he’s not going anywhere.Here’s what else happened today:
      Domestic flights resumed across the United States after all departures were briefly halted this morning by a systems failure at the Federal Aviation Administration.
      The top Republican investigator in the House demanded documents from the Treasury related to Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family. He also wants testimony from three former Twitter executives involved in the platform’s temporary banning of the New York Post after it reported on the discovery of Biden’s laptop.
      Republicans tried their best to get voters riled up over gas cookstoves.
      Joe Biden’s aides found more classified documents at a location he once used, though further details are scarce.
      Virginia’s Republican governor is unlikely to be able to ban abortion after 15 weeks, after Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in a special election.
      Another batch of classified documents has turned up at a location used by Joe Biden that is separate from the Washington DC office where the first cache was discovered in November, NBC News reports.The president has faced scrutiny ever since reports emerged this week that approximately 10 papers bearing government classification markings and dating to his time as vice-president were found at an office once used by Biden. According to NBC, the latest cache was found by aides to the president, though details of the documents’ content and how many were found were not available. NBC reports the documents were discovered after the president ordered a search for any other classified documents that may have been taken from the White House when he departed in January 2017 at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency.At 4 pm, the House is scheduled to vote on a GOP-proposed resolution and bill concerning abortion.But first, the Democrats will try to attach an amendment to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which is meant to protect babies who survive the procedure. The proposed amendment would “prohibit government restrictions on abortion care,” according to Democratic whip Katherine Clark’s office. “This would include any limits to providers’ ability to prescribe certain drugs, offer abortion counseling services via telemedicine, or provide emergency abortion services when a delay would risk the health of the mother.” Republicans are certain to vote this proposal down.The chamber will then consider both the born-alive act and the resolution condemning violence against anti-abortion groups. Clark’s office is encouraging Democrats to vote against both, saying the resolution does not contain “any acknowledgment of violent attacks on providers or facilities that offer abortion care,” and the born alive bill “unnecessarily restates current law requiring a doctor to provide the same standard of medical care for an infant born during an abortion procedure as they would for any other infant.”Republicans have the numbers to pass both, but at this stage, the effort is more about signaling priorities to GOP voters than changing the law. When the born-alive act arrives in the Senate, it is unlikely to be considered by its Democratic leadership.The calls for George Santos to resign have spread from county level Republicans to the state party, Politico reports:INBOX: NY state GOP backs call for Rep. George Santos’ resignation pic.twitter.com/fIr0uSzDJX— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 11, 2023
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked at her daily briefing about the classified documents discovered at an office formerly used by Joe Biden, and she said… not much.The Guardian’s David Smith was in the White House briefing room to experience the illuminating exchange up close:Jean-Pierre on Biden’s classified documents: “He was surprised to find any records were there. He doesn’t know what’s in them… As he said, his team is cooperating fully with the review… We are committed to doing the right thing.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Jean-Pierre: “This is under review by the Department of Justice. I’m not going to go beyond what the president shared yesterday.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Reporters are wont to press, and press they did, at which point it grew a little heated:Ed O’Keefe of CBS News notes that Biden acknowledged that he would make mistakes and ask for help fixing them. Jean-Pierre replies: “We don’t need to have this kind of confrontation. Ask your question… You don’t need to be contentious here with me, Ed.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Asked if Biden is looking into whether there might be more classified documents elsewhere, Jean-Pierre replies: “I’m just not going to speak to this. I’m going to let the process continue.”— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 11, 2023
      Joe Biden has joined Donald Trump in the club of current or former American presidents who may be in trouble over classified documents. But as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, the two men are not facing identical peril:Donald Trump’s retention of documents marked classified at his Mar-a-Lago resort has aggravating factors that might support his criminal prosecution unlike the discovery of some documents also marked classified stored at Joe Biden’s former institute from his time as vice-president, legal experts said.The US justice department has clear criteria for prosecuting people who intentionally mishandle highly sensitive government documents, and the facts of the Trump documents case appear to satisfy more elements than in the Biden documents case.Broadly, the Department of Justice has typically pursued prosecutions when cases have involved a combination of four factors: wilful mishandling of classified information, vast quantities of classified information to support an inference of misconduct, disloyalty to the United States and obstruction.The criminal investigation into Trump touches on at least two of those elements – obstruction, where a person conceals documents with an intent to impede a government agency, and the volume of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago – unlike the Biden case, which appears to touch on none.In the case of the classified documents, it’s more serious for Trump than BidenRead moreWhile they may have momentum in the US House, anti-abortion groups continue to lose ground at the state level, with a special election in Virginia bringing the latest setback for their movement.Last night, Democrat Aaron Rouse claimed victory in the race for a vacant seat in Virginia’s state Senate, which, if confirmed, would expand the party’s margins in the chamber. It would also mean Republican governor Glenn Youngkin would not have the votes he needs to pass a proposed ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which he unveiled last month.Abortion rights have faired well at ballot boxes ever since the supreme court last year overturned Roe v Wade. In the November midterms, voters rejected new limits on abortion or expanded access in every state where it was on the ballot.Earlier this morning in the Capitol, George Santos kept it to the point with a quick “I will not,” when asked if he would resign.He was a bit more loquacious on Twitter this afternoon: I was elected to serve the people of #NY03 not the party & politicians, I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living.I will NOT resign!— George Santos (@Santos4Congress) January 11, 2023
      Ahead of the introduction of two anti-abortion measures in the newly Republican-controlled House, one House Republican said her party was “tone deaf” on the issue.Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, told NBC on Tuesday: “We have been tone deaf on this issue since the time that Roe was overturned.”Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which protected abortion rights, was overturned by the ruling in Dobbs v Jackson which the conservative-dominated supreme court handed down last June.Extensive evidence, including Republicans’ disappointing performance in the midterm elections in November, suggests the ruling was drastically out of step with public support for abortion rights, which runs around 60%.“We buried our heads in the sand,” Mace said. “We didn’t have any policy alternatives. We were not compassionate to both sides of the aisle on this argument.”Mace also told NBC her party was “paying lip service to the pro-life movement” and said anti-abortion measures introduced in this Congress were “never going to pass the Senate. It’s never going to get to the president’s desk to be signed into law.“If you want to make a difference and reduce the number of abortions with a Democrat-controlled Senate, the No1 issue we should be working on is access to birth control.”Some pertinent lunchtime reading from our columnist Jill Filipovic, as House Republicans seek to advance their agenda in the chamber they newly control…The Republican party didn’t exactly start 2023 hot out of the gate.Despite a new House majority, the Republican members of Congress spent their first few days in office in an embarrassing protracted squabble over the speakership. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who has spent the last few years assisting members of the extremist conspiracy-mongering Trumpian Republican radicals in their rise to power, found himself predictably on the receiving end of the extremist conspiracy-mongers, who wanted one of their own in charge as well as a series of rule changes. After largely capitulating to his party’s lunatic fringe, McCarthy squeaked through on the 15th vote.Now, he holds the gavel, but it’s clear he doesn’t hold his party’s confidence, and that he’s not a leader in any meaningful sense of the word. If he can’t even get his troops lined up to vote for him, how is he going to get his clearly out-of-control party in line to support even tougher votes?Which raises the question of what the party can reasonably accomplish in the House this term.Read on…Expect the Republican House to be just like the speaker debacle: pure chaosRead moreSome good news for Joe Biden – according to polling by the Economist and YouGov, his approval rating is net positive, his best such rating since July 2021:Biden’s net job approval is now positive in @TheEconomist’s polling with @YouGovAmerica: https://t.co/IVjBfI5OAY- This includes a +2 reading (47% approve to 45% disapprove) in this week’s poll- 45% approve of his handling of the economy- Biden’s best numbers since July 2021 pic.twitter.com/5ASvKye83h— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) January 11, 2023
      More from the Economist and YouGov, under the title “Weekly Insight”:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Two years on from the mob attack at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, a new poll from the Economist and YouGov finds that most Americans still disapprove of the insurrectionists who stormed the building. The poll finds that 64% of adults disapprove of “the Trump supporters taking over the Capitol building” on January 6, including 52% who say they “strongly” disapprove. Meanwhile 20% of adults – mostly respondents who also said they voted for Mr Trump in 2020 – say they approve. By 45% to 37%, a plurality of adults believe Mr Trump urged his supporters to engage in violence that day.So that’s reassuring. Ish.Republicans in the House are set to pass two measures concerning abortion this afternoon, one a resolution condemning violence against opponents of the procedure, the other a bill meant to protect the life of babies who survive abortions. Democrats oppose both. Meanwhile, GOP officials in New York have called on George Santos to resign from Congress after he admitted to lying about his qualifications, but he says he’s not going anywhere.Here’s what else has happened today thus far:
      Domestic flights are resuming across the United States after all departures were briefly halted this morning by a systems failure at the Federal Aviation Administration.
      The top Republican investigator in the House is demanding documents from the Treasury related to Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family. He also wants testimony from three former Twitter executives involved in the platform’s temporary banning of the New York Post after it reported on the discovery of Biden’s laptop.
      Republicans are trying their best to get voters riled up over gas cookstoves.
      Here’s newly elected congressman Anthony D’Esposito becoming the first Republican lawmaker to call for George Santos’s resignation:Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) becomes the first GOP member of Congress to call on Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to resign from the House. pic.twitter.com/VArdpuwLor— The Recount (@therecount) January 11, 2023
      Like Santos, D’Esposito is a Republican who represents a Democratic-leaning suburban New York City district.Here’s Joseph Cairo, chair of the Republican party in New York’s Nassau county, calling for George Santos’ resignation:Nassau County Republican Chair Joseph Cairo calls for Rep. George Santos’ (R-NY) “immediate” resignation:“He’s not welcome here at Republican headquarters … He’s disgraced the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our Congress people.” pic.twitter.com/fgK4t1lzC0— The Recount (@therecount) January 11, 2023
      Santos’s congressional district includes part of the county in suburban New York City, and his victory in last November’s midterm election flipped it from Democratic to Republican representation.ABC News caught up with Santos at the Capitol, who said he has no plans to step down:🚨Rep. George Santos tells @rachelvscott and me he will NOT resign pic.twitter.com/vBMvotq3Y0— Lalee Ibssa (@LaleeIbssa) January 11, 2023
      There’s no shortage of business on the House’s agenda, but several Republicans are doing all they can to make the gas cookstove kerfuffle last.Consider this, from Missouri’s Mark Alford: pic.twitter.com/ePzSGT9woQ— Mark Alford 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@markalfordkc) January 11, 2023
      Texas’s Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, is promoting a website…:If gas stoves were really a health hazard, would “doctor” Jill Biden be using one?? I think not.https://t.co/2DQMkP2ZIy pic.twitter.com/QSH3A72Ifj— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) January 11, 2023
      … and employing the all-caps approach:187 MILLION Americans have gas stoves in their homes, and it will cost a FORTUNE to replace them. There’s no “science” behind this. It’s just another excuse Biden is trying to use to put MORE GOVERNMENT in your lives. HANDS OFF OUR STOVES!!https://t.co/2DQMkP2ZIy pic.twitter.com/xPxM5KwbKa— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) January 11, 2023 More

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      George Santos says he won’t resign as fellow Republicans call on him to quit

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      George Santos says he won’t resign as fellow Republicans call on him to quitChair of Nassau county committee says Santos ran ‘a campaign of deceit, lies and fabrication’ to win third district The Republican George Santos said on Wednesday he would not resign from Congress less than a week after being sworn in, despite calls to do so from the chairman of his district committee and a fellow New York representative, amid continuing scrutiny of Santos’s mostly made-up résumé and growing calls for campaign finance investigations.In Santos’s district, reactions to brazen lies remain mixed: ‘I might let him slide’Read moreIn a tweet, Santos said: “I was elected to serve the people of the New York third district not the party and politicians, I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living.“I will NOT resign!”He was responding to remarks to reporters by Joseph Cairo, chair of the Nassau county Republican committee, who said Santos ran “a campaign of deceit, lies and fabrication” to win the third district last year.At the same time, a first sitting Republican congressman, Anthony D’Esposito, also of New York, called on Santos to quit.Santos has faced a barrage of negative coverage.He has admitted to “embellishing” his résumé, including lying about his college record – he did not attend Baruch and New York University – and saying a “poor choice of words” created the impression he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.He has claimed a tragic link to the Pulse nightclub shooting and said the attacks on New York on 11 September 2001 “claimed my mother’s life”. His mother died in 2016.He has claimed to have Jewish roots and to be descended from Holocaust survivors.He is under investigation in New York and in Brazil, in the latter case over the use of a stolen chequebook.His Democratic predecessor in the third district has called him a “conman”.Cairo said Santos “deceived the voters of the third congressional district, he deceived the members of the Nassau county Republican committee, elected officials, his colleagues, candidates, his opponents and even some of the media.“His lies were not mere fibs. He disgraced the House of Representatives. In particular, his fabrications went too far. Many groups were hurt. Specifically, those families that were touched by the horrors of the Holocaust. I feel for them.“He has no place in the Nassau county Republican committee, nor should he serve in public service nor as an elected official. He is not welcome here at Republican headquarters for meetings or at any of our events. As I said, he’s disgraced the House of Representatives, and we do not consider him one of our congresspeople.“Today, on behalf of the Nassau county Republican committee. I am calling for his immediate resignation.”In his own statement, to Politico, D’Esposito said Santos’s “many hurtful lies and mistruths … have irreparably broken the trust of the residents he is sworn to serve. For his betrayal of the public’s trust, I call on [him] to resign”.Santos was sworn into Congress last weekend, almost a week late after backing Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, through 15 votes for speaker.Casting one vote, Santos appeared to flash a “white power” sign. He has previously claimed to be partly Black. He also told the New York Post he was “Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish’.”Another newly elected New York Republican, Nick LaLota, has called for an investigation. On Tuesday, two New York Democrats who hand-delivered a request for an ethics investigation of Santos, Daniel Goldman and Ritchie Torres, said they had heard from Republicans who supported such a step.But Republican leaders have not acted.On Tuesday, Politico reported that Republicans were discussing what to do. Santos told the site he expected to be given committee assignments. On Wednesday, asked if Santos would sit on top committees, McCarthy said: “No.”Seizing on Cairo’s remarks, Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted that McCarthy’s “spine found a new home in Nassau county”.Harrison added: “It is shameful that a New York county party chair has to protect and defend the honor of the House of Representatives against the lies of Santos while McCarthy is too scared to even utter his name.”In Washington on Tuesday, Goldman and Torres delivered to Santos their demand for an investigation by the House ethics committee.Goldman, like Santos elected last November, said: “Santos, we have a complaint for you.”Santos said: “Sure.”In their complaint, Goldman and Torres cited “extensive public reporting – as well as Santos’s own admissions … that Mr Santos misled voters in his district about his ethnicity, his religion, his education, and his employment and professional history, among other things”.They requested an investigation of Santos for “failing to file timely, accurate and complete financial disclosure reports as required by law”.Santos’s campaign finances are the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-partisan watchdog.George Santos scandal: Democratic predecessor calls him a ‘conman’Read moreThe CLC complaint questions the source of Santos’s personal wealth and the propriety of loans to his own campaign.Torres and Goldman called Santos’s financial reports for a failed run in 2020 and his win in 2022 “sparse and perplexing”, adding: “At a minimum it is apparent he did not file timely disclosure reports for his most recent campaign.”They wrote: “If Mr Santos’s 2020 and 2022 financial disclosures are to be believed, his salary increased from $55,000 in 2020 to $750,000 in 2021 and 2022, of which he gave a whopping $705,000 to his campaign.“The committee should investigate the veracity of these claims and whether Mr Santos has engaged in fraudulent activity.”Santos told reporters that though Goldman and Torres were “free to do whatever they want to do”, he was not concerned, as he had “done nothing unethical”.Asked if he had done anything wrong, he said: “I have not.”Torres and Goldman also said Santos had “failed to uphold the integrity expected of members of the House of Representatives”.TopicsGeorge SantosRepublicansDemocratsNew YorkUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS political financingnewsReuse this content More

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      Expect the Republican House to be just like the speaker debacle: pure chaos

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      Expect the Republican House to be just like the speaker debacle: pure chaosJill FilipovicLegislatively, the Republican party seems primed to play the role of hostage-taker rather than lawmaker The Republican party didn’t exactly start 2023 hot out of the gate.Despite a new House majority, the Republican members of Congress spent their first few days in office in an embarrassing protracted squabble over the speakership. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who has spent the last few years assisting members of the extremist conspiracy-mongering Trumpian Republican radicals in their rise to power, found himself predictably on the receiving end of the extremist conspiracy-mongers, who wanted one of their own in charge as well as a series of rule changes. After largely capitulating to his party’s lunatic fringe, McCarthy squeaked through on the 15th vote.Now, he holds the gavel, but it’s clear he doesn’t hold his party’s confidence, and that he’s not a leader in any meaningful sense of the word. If he can’t even get his troops lined up to vote for him, how is he going to get his clearly out-of-control party in line to support even tougher votes?Which raises the question of what the party can reasonably accomplish in the House this term.The fact that its most ridiculous members successfully managed to hold the speaker vote hostage to their demands does not bode well for the next two years. This first-few-days drama, which played out before any new members were actually sworn in, likely only taught the radicals the simple lesson that they are at their most powerful when they sow chaos, refuse to compromise and aim not just to shut down the workings of government but to entirely burn to the ground longstanding processes, norms and institutions. This is not a group that was prone to collaboration to begin with, and now their destructive impulses have only been magnified.So what will this fringe demand the party address? Probably a laundry list of Fox News grievances, starting with Hunter Biden’s laptop; descending further into conspiracy central with investigations into or impeachment proceedings of the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas (the theory: he didn’t do enough to secure the US-Mexico border, ostensibly for some nefarious reason), and careening into full-scale crazy with inquiries into Anthony Fauci and the Covid-19 response (the theory: Covid originated in a lab, American public health officials helped cover it up, and the Biden administration’s response to a pandemic that killed more than a million Americans – a response that included zero mandatory lockdowns and limited school closures – was a vast overreach, ostensibly, again, for some nefarious reason).These investigations will, handily, give the House Republicans a ready-made excuse for why they aren’t actually getting anything done on behalf of the American people.Trump call to ‘play tough’ on debt ceiling stokes fears of chaotic CongressRead moreThe Republican party legislative agenda is likely equal parts anarchic and reactionary. McCarthy says he wants to focus on the border, crime and inflation; this is the Republican party, so I imagine that abortion will be on that list too, despite a huge voter backlash to the Republican party’s anti-abortion politics in the midterms. How much his fractured party will actually get done is a different question, especially if the far right demands a kind of ideological purity that is often incompatible with lawmaking, and holds up legislation because of it.The far-right Republican fringe has made clear that they are uninterested in compromise; many of them also do not strike one as the sharpest tools in the shed, taken in as they are by clear fabrications from Jewish space lasers to election fraud. They thrive on drama and attention, and have learned – as every petulant child does – that throwing a tantrum is a great way to get the adults’ attention. That is not a recipe for the boring nitty-gritty of penning and passing legislation. It is, however, a recipe for a series of loud and public fights, some participants in which may be carrying loaded guns in a chamber that just removed its metal detectors.It is hard to imagine that these deranged cats will be anything but impossible to herd.Which would frankly be just as well. The Republican party vision for the country remains unclear – the party infamously did not release a platform in the last presidential election, instead simply pledging fealty to the mercurial whims of Donald Trump – but when they do get into the meat of legislating, their ideas go from simplistic-bonkers to evil.For example: the far right wants to dismantle the IRS and get rid of income-based taxation. They are clear that they would allow the country to default on our national debt, which would be nothing short of disastrous.Or take immigration: McCarthy says that the border needs to be “secure” before he will allow a bill to address an overburdened immigration system that people on both sides of the aisle agree isn’t working. But the Republican party will simply never agree that the border is appropriately “secure” under a Democratic president, and members have made quite clear that they are willing to abuse and refuse entry to desperate people legitimately seeking asylum. This is, after all, the party of family separation at the border; is there a line they won’t cross when it comes to cruelty toward immigrants?Legislatively, the Republican party seems primed to play the role of hostage-taker rather than lawmaker. Joe Biden is still the president, and he’s not going to sign a radical abortion ban or wildly cruel anti-immigrant provision. And so the next two years will likely be a carnival of deranged and politicized investigations, congressional showboating and financial crises caused by obstinate know-nothings.In other words, the rest of 2023 is going to look a lot like the first few days of the Republican majority in the House: an abject disaster.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness
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      Democratic chair of Senate intelligence panel seeks briefing on Biden documents – as it happened

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      Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, has requested a briefing on the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s former office, as well as the government secrets the FBI discovered last year at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.“Our system of classification exists in order to protect our most important national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened both at Mar-a-Lago and at the Biden office as part of our constitutional oversight obligations,” Warner said in a statement. “From what we know so far, the latter is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is certainly different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the government. But again, that’s why we need to be briefed.”House Republicans geared up to launch investigations and tried to make the most of reports that classified documents dating to his time as vice-president were found in an office used by Joe Biden. But unlike with the government secrets the FBI found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, it didn’t take a search warrant for Biden to turn over the material – he had it done so immediately, which Democrats are citing to defend the president.Here’s what else went on today:
      The Democratic Senate intelligence chair requested a briefing on both Biden’s classified documents, and the government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago.
      House Democrat Katie Porter announced a run for the California Senate seat up for election in 2024, but its current occupant, Dianne Feinstein, gave no indication she’d be stepping down. Meanwhile, Porter’s recently defeated Republican opponent announced plans to run for her seat again.
      The House GOP made clear it wants spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, which will be necessary later this year.
      George Santos may be an admitted fabulist, but a top House Republican had little to say about whether the party would discipline him for his lies. Also today, two Democrats hand-delivered an ethics complaint to his office.
      A Texas House Republican filed impeachment articles against homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. It remains to be seen if the chamber’s leadership will go through with trying to remove him over his handling of the southern border.
      Katie Porter only narrowly won re-election to her southern California House district last year, and after she today announced plans to run for Senate in 2024, her former opponent declared a new campaign to take her seat.Republican Scott Baugh, who lost with 48.4% of the vote to Democrat Porter’s 51.6% in the 2022 election, said he would run again next year:Voters are rightfully upset with the dysfunction in Washington and deserve better. I am ready to go to work to restore thoughtful, conservative representation to our part of Orange County. That’s why I’m running for #CA47 in 2024.— Scott Baugh (@ScottBaughCA47) January 10, 2023
      Porter represents California’s 47th district centered on Orange county, a former Republican stronghold that has become more liberal in recent elections. The Cook Political Report’s partisan voting index rates it D+3, indicating a slight tilt towards the Democrats.The Trump Organization’s former finance chief has been sentenced to five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax crimes and cooperating with prosecutors in their successful case against Donald Trump’s business:After testimony that helped convict Donald Trump’s company of tax fraud, its longtime senior executive Allen Weisselberg has been given five months in jail for accepting $1.7m in job perks without paying tax.Weisselberg, 75, was promised that sentence in August when he agreed to plead guilty to 15 tax crimes and testify against the Trump Organization, where he has worked since the mid-1980s and, until his arrest, had served as chief financial officer.He was handcuffed and taken into custody moments after the sentence was announced.Weisselberg will likely be locked up at Rikers Island in New York and eligible for release after slightly more than three months.As part of the plea agreement, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan also ordered Weisselberg to pay nearly $2m in taxes, penalties and interest, which he has paid as of 3 January. The judge also sentenced Weisselberg to five years of probation after his release.Allen Weisselberg: ex-Trump finance chief given five months for tax fraudRead morePart of the reason last week’s speakership fight was so high-profile was because it was exceptionally well covered, and much of that was thanks to C-Span.The non-profit organization funded by cable companies is dedicated to broadcasting government affairs, including Congress’s activities. Usually, what it’s allowed to put onscreen is restricted, but as the Washington Post reported last week, it had special permission to roam across the chamber during the standoff for speaker, allowing the public to see the haggling, boredom and emotion that took place on the House floor as Kevin McCarthy lost vote after vote, until finally triumphing on the 15th ballot.Matt Gaetz, a conservative Republican who was one of the ringleaders of the group that delayed McCarthy’s election, was apparently a fan of C-Span’s work. CNN reports that he has filed an amendment to the House rules package to allow C-Span to continue broadcasting freely in the chamber:.⁦@RepMattGaetz⁩ amendment to the House Rules package would allow CSPAN cameras to film the House floor at all times — as we saw last week pic.twitter.com/EVC7tmdP2o— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 10, 2023
      Now that the dust has settled, it’s worth asking whether last week’s protracted House speaker election a good or bad thing for Republicans.The days-long, 15-ballot process that resulted in Kevin McCarthy’s victory early Saturday morning was indeed unprecedented – the last time a speakership election took so long was before the Civil War. And many in the GOP felt like the conservative holdouts who delayed McCarthy’s election for days did more harm to the party’s standing than good. Politico reports that Republican donor Thomas Peterffy sent text messages to some of the holdouts, threatening to cut them off if they didn’t make a deal:At least two Republicans among McCarthy’s 20 holdouts got direct threats from GOP donor Thomas Peterffy last week, per GOP sources I spoke with.Here is a screenshot shared with me… pic.twitter.com/H3pOPT888W— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) January 10, 2023
      That said, a CBS News/YouGov poll released before McCarthy’s election indicates many Republicans may have felt the battle was worth fighting. The data found 64% approved of the way the speakership election was handled, while 36% disapproved.The hallway outside George Santos’s office is the scene of an entrenched stakeout by reporters, as Insider found out when they went down there:made a pilgrimage to the Santos Stakeout pic.twitter.com/HYfF6kzmf3— bryan metzger (@metzgov) January 10, 2023
      Needless to say, most lawmakers do not get this kind of attention.George Santos just can’t catch a break. But perhaps that’s to be expected for someone who brazenly lied in their campaign for Congress.The New York Republican has been hounded by reporters in the halls of Congress ever since he first arrived in the Capitol last Tuesday, and has had a complaint filed against him at the Federal Election Commission. Today, two Democratic congressman made a big show of giving him another complaint, this one being filed with the House ethic committee:.@RepDanGoldman and @RepRitchie filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee about @Santos4Congress, and then hand delivered it to his office. Santos was in his office when this happened, in the back by the windows. pic.twitter.com/r3264Ht0XS— Kyle Stewart (@KyleAlexStewart) January 10, 2023
      Meanwhile Pete Aguilar, the Democratic caucus chair in the House, said Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy is only allowing Santos to stick around because he’s worried about losing his majority:”Kevin McCarthy owns George Santos.”— House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar says “the only reason” Rep. George Santos (R-NY) was sworn into Congress was because McCarthy needs his vote pic.twitter.com/Y9T0uTkg7l— The Recount (@therecount) January 10, 2023
      Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, has requested a briefing on the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s former office, as well as the government secrets the FBI discovered last year at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.“Our system of classification exists in order to protect our most important national security secrets, and we expect to be briefed on what happened both at Mar-a-Lago and at the Biden office as part of our constitutional oversight obligations,” Warner said in a statement. “From what we know so far, the latter is about finding documents with markings, and turning them over, which is certainly different from a months-long effort to retain material actively being sought by the government. But again, that’s why we need to be briefed.”In a new interview, Mike Pence commented on classified files being found in a private office used by Biden.Speaking with radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Pence called the discovery of classified files from Biden’s tenure as vice president versus the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property a “double standard”.“It’s just incredibly frustrating to me,” said Pence during his interview today.“But the original sin here was the massive overreach.”Read the full article from the Hill here.Republican representative Pat Fallon of Texas has filed articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.Fallon announced the filing in a Twitter post, linking to a Fox News article.I have officially filed Articles of Impeachment on Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.👇👇👇https://t.co/I4EBmCB5pI— Rep. Pat Fallon (@RepPatFallon) January 10, 2023
      Here is more context behind Fallon’s filing, from the Hill:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) filed the paperwork for the resolution on Jan. 3, the first day of the 118th Congress, though with delays in securing a House Speaker, the document was officially filed late Monday.
      The resolution claims Mayorkas “engaged in a pattern of conduct that is incompatible with his duties,” complaining that he has failed to maintain operational control over the border.
      The resolution comes amid a busy week in the Biden administration. President Biden visited the border over the weekend for the first time since taking office, pledging to deliver more resources to the officers who patrol the region.
      And Mayorkas is in Mexico this week, meeting with officials there on a variety of issues, including the shared migration agreement rolled out by the Biden administration last week.Read the full article here.Senate tunnels were briefly closed following a mix-up where a small group breached a locked door on the Senate side of US Capitol complex.According to the United States Capitol police, the group was accompanied by a staffer and were screened following the confusion.Police also noted that the incident was not a threat, but the group using the wrong doors.From Politico reporter K Tully-McManus:Senate tunnels were briefly closed this afternoon after a small group breached a door on the Senate side of the Capitol complex.Tunnels are back open. They were closed for a VERY short time (*just* long enough to disrupt some folks lunch plans.)— K Tully-McManus (@ktullymcmanus) January 10, 2023
      The White House provided more details into a meeting that Biden had with Canada prime minister Justin Trudeau.According to a read out, the two world leaders discussed several global issues including the war in Ukraine, Haiti, and Brazil.Biden also told Trudeau that he looks forward to an upcoming visit to Canada in March.From CBS News corespondent Ed O’Keefe:INBOX: The White House readout of @POTUS Biden’s meeting with @JustinTrudeau says they discussed the situations in Ukraine, Haiti and Brazil and among other things the president, “also stated he looks forward to traveling to Canada in March of this year.”— Ed O’Keefe (@edokeefe) January 10, 2023
      House Republicans are gearing up to launch investigations and trying to make the most of reports that classified documents dating to his time as vice-president were found in an office used by Joe Biden. But unlike with the government secrets the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago, it didn’t take a search warrant for Biden to turn over the material – he ordered it done so immediately, which Democrats are citing to defend the president.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Democratic House lawmaker Katie Porter announced a run for California’s Senate seat up for election in 2024, but its current occupant, Dianne Feinstein, gave no indication she’d be stepping down.
      The House GOP made clear it wants spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, which will be necessary later this year.
      George Santos may be an admitted fabulist, but a top House Republican had little to say about whether the party would discipline him for his lies.
      Joe Biden is traveling in Mexico, where he just concluded a meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.He did not answer questions shouted by members of the White House press corps in attendance, including one about the classified documents.CNN reports that an attorney for Joe Biden found 10 documents related to Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom in a personal office, dating from his time as vice-president.The attorney clearing out an office Biden once used in Washington DC found briefing materials and intelligence memos from 2013 through 2016, when Biden served under Barack Obama, according to CNN, which cited a source familiar with the matter. The documents were mixed in with family materials, some of which related to the funeral of his son Beau Biden, who died in 2015.Upon realizing the papers were classified, the attorney immediately contacted the National Archives and Records Administration. Biden’s team eventually turned over several boxes “in an abundance of caution, even though many of the boxes contained personal materials, the source said,” according to CNN’s report.California senator Dianne Feinstein is unfazed by Katie Porter’s announcement that she’d run for her Senate seat in 2024.The 89-year-old is the oldest sitting senator, and has in recent months been the subject of reports questioning her fitness to serve. Feinstein was blase when the San Francisco Chronicle asked for her thoughts on the challenge from the 49-year-old Porter:NEW: Feinstein tells @sfchronicle “Everyone is of course welcome to throw their hat in the ring … Right now I’m focused on ensuring California has all the resources it needs to cope with the devastating storms slamming the state.” https://t.co/tgTkfLPFxo— Sara Libby (@SaraLibby) January 10, 2023 More