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    Justice department declines to pursue Merrick Garland contempt charges

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    The US Department of Justice on Friday told the Republican House of Representatives speaker, Mike Johnson, that it would decline to pursue criminal contempt of Congress charges against the attorney general, Merrick Garland, according to a letter seen by Reuters.The Republican-controlled House had voted on Wednesday to hold Garland, in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of Joe Biden’s interview with the special counsel investigating his retention of classified documents after he was Barack Obama’s vice-president.It was Republicans’ latest and strongest rebuke of the justice department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign.The 216-207 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans coalescing behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members.It was immediately predicted that the justice department would not pursue a prosecution.“This contempt resolution will do very little, other than smear the reputation of Merrick Garland, who will remain a good and decent public servant no matter what Republicans say about him today,” Jerry Nadler, a New York congressman and the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said during floor debate.Garland has defended the justice department, saying officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about the special counsel, Robert Hur, and the classified-documents investigation, including a transcript of Biden’s interview with him.Hur did not recommend charges against Biden, but when he issued his report in early 2024 described the president as an elderly man with a poor memory, creating a storm in Washington.The role of the justice department in American political life has become a huge issue in the 2024 election with Republicans making unfounded statements that it has been “weaponized” by Biden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn fact, the department has successfully prosecuted Biden’s own son, Hunter Biden, on gun charges and it is the Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who has made repeated threats to come after his political enemies should he win November’s presidential election.Before Garland, the last attorney general held in contempt was Republican Bill Barr in 2019. That was when the Democratically controlled House voted to issue a referral against Barr after he refused to turn over documents related to a special counsel investigation into Trump.Years before that under Barack Obama, the then attorney general Eric Holder was held in contempt related to the gun-running operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. In each of those instances, the justice department took no action against the attorney general. More

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      US House votes to hold Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress

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      The House voted on Wednesday to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview in his classified-documents case, Republicans’ latest and strongest rebuke of the justice department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign.The 216-207 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans coalescing behind the contempt effort despite reservations among some of the party’s more centrist members.“We have to defend the constitution. We have to defend the authority of Congress,” the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said at a press conference before the vote. “We can’t allow the Department of Justice and executive branch to hide information from Congress.”Garland is now the third attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress. Yet it is unlikely that the justice department – which Garland oversees – will prosecute him. The White House’s decision to exert executive privilege over the audio recording, shielding it from Congress, would make it exceedingly difficult to make a criminal case against Garland.The White House and congressional Democrats have slammed Republicans’ motives for pursuing contempt and dismissed their efforts to obtain the audio as purely political. They also pointed out that Jim Jordan, the GOP chair of the House judiciary committee, defied his own congressional subpoena last session.“This contempt resolution will do very little, other than smear the reputation of Merrick Garland, who will remain a good and decent public servant no matter what Republicans say about him today,” Jerry Nadler, a New York representative and the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said during floor debate.Garland has defended the justice department, saying officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about the special counsel Robert Hur’s classified-documents investigation, including a transcript of Biden’s interview with him.“There have been a series of unprecedented and frankly unfounded attacks on the justice department,” Garland said in a press conference last month. “This request, this effort to use contempt as a method of obtaining our sensitive law-enforcement files, is just the most recent.”Republicans were incensed when Hur declined to prosecute Biden over his handling of classified documents and quickly opened an investigation. GOP lawmakers – led by Jordan and Representative James Comer – sent a subpoena for audio of Hur’s interviews with Biden during the spring. But the justice department only turned over some of the records, leaving out audio of the interview with the president.On the last day to comply with the Republicans’ subpoena for the audio, the White House blocked the release by invoking executive privilege. It said that Republicans in Congress only wanted the recordings “to chop them up” and use them for political purposes.Executive privilege gives presidents the right to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of decision-making, though it can be challenged in court.Administrations of both political parties have long held the position that officials who assert a president’s claim of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, a justice department official told Republicans last month.An assistant attorney general, Carlos Felipe Uriarte, cited a committee’s decision in 2008 to back down from a contempt effort after then President George W Bush asserted executive privilege to keep Congress from getting records involving Vice-President Dick Cheney.Before Garland, the last attorney general held in contempt was Bill Barr in 2019. That was when the Democratic-controlled House voted to issue a referral against Barr after he refused to turn over documents related to a special counsel investigation into Trump.Years before that, the then attorney general, Eric Holder, was held in contempt related to the gun-running operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. In each of those instances, the justice department took no action against the attorney general.The special counsel in Biden’s case, Hur, spent a year investigating the president’s improper retention of classified documents, from his time as a senator and as vice-president. The result was a 345-page report that questioned Biden’s mental competence but recommended no criminal charges for the 81-year-old. Hur said he found insufficient evidence to successfully prosecute a case in court.In March, Hur stood by his no-prosecution assessment in testimony before the judiciary committee, where he was grilled for more than four hours by Democratic and Republican lawmakers.His defense did not satisfy Republicans, who insist that there was a politically motivated double standard at the justice department, which is prosecuting former President Donald Trump over his retention of classified documents at his Florida club after he left the White House.But there are major differences between the two investigations. Biden’s team returned the documents after they were discovered, and the president cooperated with the investigation by voluntarily sitting for an interview and consenting to searches of his homes.Trump, by contrast, is accused of enlisting the help of aides and lawyers to conceal the documents from the government and of seeking to have potentially incriminating evidence destroyed. More

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      Joe Biden’s exquisite Trump verdict dilemma

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      Hello! Welcome back to our new US elections newsletter.I’m David Smith, Washington bureau chief, filling in for Adam Gabbatt this week.The fall from grace of Donald Trump, from commander-in-chief to convicted criminal, is still reverberating in Washington and beyond.Last week’s trial verdict drove yet another wedge between Republicans and Democrats. The former were fast and furious in denouncing it. The latter are less sure about how to proceed. And no one knows what impact it might have on the presidential election.First, some of the happenings in US politics.Here’s what you need to know …1. Biden’s border crackdownJoe Biden signed an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross outside of lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded. The move is a dramatic reversal for a president and a party that spent years embracing the ideal of the US as a nation of immigrants.2. Garland stands his groundThe US attorney general, Merrick Garland, defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated”. Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused Republican congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.3. Biden heads to France for D-day anniversaryJoe Biden is due to land in Paris, France, today ahead of the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings. France rescinded its decision to invite Russian representatives because of the Ukraine war. John Kirby, a spokesperson for the White House national security council, said: “Russia led by Vladimir Putin is literally trying to undermine the rules-based order that the Soviet Union actually had a role in world war two in helping create.”Joe Biden’s exquisite dilemmaView image in fullscreenIn the final line of the 1972 film The Candidate, Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, having just won election to the US Senate, turns to his political consultant and asks: “What do we do now?”That is the question for Joe Biden and Democrats after the euphoria of seeing Donald Trump become the first former US president convicted of a crime.Elections can be won or lost by defining a candidate with a single memorable framing: soft-on-crime Michael Dukakis, wealthy Mitt Romney, elitist Hillary Clinton. Last week’s conviction of Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York is a permanent stain and would, in past times, have made such branding easy.But in the Maga “mirror world”, where January 6 rioters are perceived as “hostages” and Biden as the true threat to democracy, Democrats are proceeding with care. Trump has an unrivalled ability to turn his opponent’s own power against them. Think of it like tennis. The harder you whack the ball at Trump, the harder it tends to come back at you over the net.As the trial unfolded in New York, Biden, a devout institutionalist, took the reasonable view that less was more: the head of state ought to remain above the fray. And pragmatically, he was aware any perceived interventions would feed the baseless rightwing media narrative that he had loaded the legal system against his rival.But for his campaign team in Delaware, it became increasingly difficult to watch Biden’s speeches and their carefully crafted emails disappearing into the ether. Just as in the 2016 campaign, Trump was sucking up all political oxygen.On Tuesday of last week, the frustration came to a boil and they started to fight back, holding a press conference outside the court. The Biden campaign communications director, Michael Tyler, told reporters: “We’re not here today because of what’s going on over there. We’re here today because you all are here.”The campaign deployed Robert De Niro, a Hollywood actor famed for playing gangsters, to castigate Trump as the biggest mob boss of all. He also veered off script by becoming embroiled in a verbal brawl with Trump supporters.The episode prompted characteristic Democratic hand-wringing over whether De Niro, 80, was the right messenger with the right message, and Republican cries of hypocrisy. Jason Miller, Trump’s senior campaign adviser, said: “After months of saying politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and made a campaign event out of a lower Manhattan trial day for President Trump.”A day later Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, launched a Black voters initiative at Philadelphia’s Girard College, a majority Black boarding school. Wednesdays had typically been a safe bet to wrestle back the news cycle because it was the trial’s day off. But on that particular Wednesday the jury was deliberating its verdict.TJ Ducklo, a senior adviser for communications for the Biden-Harris campaign, peevishly posted on X: “The President just spoke to approx 1,000 mostly black voters in Philly about the massive stakes in this election. @MSNBC @CNN & others did not show it. Instead, more coverage about a trial that impacts one person: Trump. Then they’ll ask, why isn’t your message getting out?”Such complaints can themselves be counterproductive. Worthy as the Biden event was, would any news organisation worth its salt really not devote full coverage to the first conviction of a former president – and potential future president – in American history?A day after the verdict, the president had a brief, deliberate riff on the trial. “The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” he said. “And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”Biden then spoke about a Middle East peace plan. But as he walked away, reporters shouted questions about the Trump verdict. Biden said nothing but turned and beamed.That evening, the Biden-Harris campaign went further with a press release headlined 34 Lowlights from Convicted Felon Donald Trump’s Press Conference Speech, mocking Trump’s chaotic performance at Trump Tower earlier in the day. And at a campaign event on Monday, Biden referred to Trump as a “convicted felon”.But how long and how hard to press this case is a dilemma. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 10% of Republicans and 25% of independents say they are less likely to vote for Trump because of the verdict.Former Alabama senator Doug Jones told the Politico website: “I don’t think Democrats need to be shy about weighing in. I don’t think there’s anything to lose and a lot to gain, because I am convinced there’s a swath of people out there who are going to be very, very troubled by this at this point and haven’t really completely followed it, wondered about it – but now all of a sudden, this is a gamechanger.”Others, however, point to opinion polls suggesting that Trump’s criminal conviction will not shift many voters and could even backfire. The Trump campaign claims it raised $53m online in the 24 hours after the verdict. Republicans are keeping the topic alive at every opportunity, crying “sham” and “show trial” and vowing retribution.The more cautious Democrats also believe time and effort would be better spent promoting Biden’s record and drawing a contrast with Trump on policy: abortion rights, the economy, climate, racial justice, foreign affairs and defending democracy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVoters in crucial battleground states, the theory goes, are more exercised by the price of eggs or gas than the findings of a jury in Manhattan.Democrats have long been accused of pulling their punches, lacking the killer instinct that is part of Republicans’ DNA. In this case, Biden has to thread the needle with exquisite precision, offering a message that reminds independent voters why they should reject his opponent – while not firing up the Trump base or giving moderate Republicans a reason to return to the fold.Lock him up? It’s complicated.Lie of the weekView image in fullscreen“I didn’t say ‘Lock her up,’” the man who repeatedly both said and encouraged a frequent chant of “lock her up” claimed after he was convicted of 34 felonies.Former president Donald Trump told Fox News in an interview after his conviction in the New York hush-money trial that it was just his supporters who said “lock her up,” referring to Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.“The people would all say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up,’” Trump claimed. “Then we won. And I say – and I said pretty openly, I said, ‘All right, come on, just relax, let’s go, we’ve got to make our country great.’”He said he “could have done it” – locked her up – but decided it was for the good of the country to move ahead and that locking her up “would have been a terrible thing”.Trump very much said to lock up Clinton, or some version of the idea, at various times on the 2016 campaign trail. His supporters chanted it at rallies for years, with his encouragement. – Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterWho had the worst week?View image in fullscreenThe Washington Post, the newspaper of Watergate and “Democracy dies in darkness” fame, is in some disarray. Publisher Will Lewis ousted Sally Buzbee, the newspaper’s executive editor, and hastily announced a restructuring plan.At a contentious staff meeting on Monday, Lewis reportedly told staff: “We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it any more.”Matt Murray, a former Wall Street Journal editor, has been named to temporarily replace Buzbee. After the elections in November, Robert Winnett, a longtime editor at the Telegraph in Britain, will take over the core reporting functions at the Post. Lewis is facing scrutiny over his commitment to gender and racial diversity.Like most media organisations, the Post boomed during Donald Trump’s presidency but has lost readers since. Its website had 101 million unique visitors a month in 2020, and had dropped to 50m at the end of 2023. The Post lost a reported $77m last year. A Politico website headline described the latest shake-up as “the Rupert Murdoch-ization of the Washington Post” – not a great sign five months before an impossibly high stakes election.Elsewhere in US politicsView image in fullscreenThe 2020 election reckoning continuesWisconsin’s attorney general, Josh Kaul, filed felony charges on Tuesday against three men who played a key role in the effort to appoint fake electors in the state as part of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. Kenneth Chesebro, Jim Troupis and Michael Roman were each charged with one felony count of forgery, according to court documents.Further strains on Biden-Bibi relationsJoe Biden has said that there is “every reason” to draw the conclusion that Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation. Biden made the remarks about the Israeli prime minister in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday morning, drawing a sharp response from the Israeli government, which accused the US president of straying from diplomatic norms.Hunter on trialView image in fullscreenFederal prosecutors painted Joe Biden’s son Hunter as a drug addict whose dark habits ensnared loved ones and who knew what he was doing when he lied on federal forms to buy a gun in 2018 when he said he was not in the throes of addiction. The judge also reportedly declined requests from the defendant to prohibit jurors from being shown messages, videos and photos that show him with drugs or discussing them around the time that he bought the gun in question, including one image depicting him undressed from the chest up. More

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      Merrick Garland hits back at Trump and Republicans: ‘I will not be intimidated’

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      US attorney general Merrick Garland has defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated.”Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused GOP congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.“I will not be intimidated,” Garland told lawmakers. “And the justice department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”Garland’s fiery speech pushed back hard on the claim that the prosecution of Donald Trump – in the hush-money case that last week resulted in the president being convicted of 34 felony charges – was “somehow controlled by the justice department”.He described Republican attacks on the justice department under his watch as “unprecedented and unfounded”, vowing not to allow them to influence his decision-making.Garland also upbraided Trump for claiming the FBI had been “authorized to shoot him” dead when they raided his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to retrieve classified documents in 2022.“This is dangerous,” Garland told the committee. “It raises the threats of violence against prosecutors and career agents. The allegation is false.”Garland, 71, is currently overseeing special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump, and a prosecution of Joe Biden’s son Hunter. He was summoned to testify amid Republican assertions that the justice department had been “weaponised” against the former president, a claim Trump has stoked.His appearance came as he faces the likelihood of being held in contempt of congress for declining to hand over audio recordings of an interview between another special prosecutor, Robert Hur. Hur was appointed by Garland to investigate Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, an offence similar to some of those for which Trump is being investigated.Hur concluded that Biden had committed no crime but raised questions about Biden’s age and allegedly poor memory.Referring to Republican threats to hold him in contempt, Garland said: “I view contempt as a serious matter. But I will not jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations.”A full transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur was made public. But the White House rejected Republican demands for the audio to be released, arguing that it served no useful purpose other than to enable the president’s opponents to splice the recording to make him appear confused, perhaps by emphasizing his stammer.Garland said releasing the audio could have the effect of deterring future witnesses from cooperating in justice department investigations if they thought their words might be made public.In his opening statement, he said the Republicans were “seeking contempt as a means of obtaining – for no legitimate purpose – sensitive law enforcement information that could harm the integrity of future investigations”.“This effort is only the most recent in a long line of attacks on the justice department’s work,” he added.The committee chairman, Jim Jordan – a rightwinger Republican from Ohio – set the tone for the hearing, saying: “Justice is no longer blind in America. Today it’s driven by politics. Example number one is President Trump.”Matt Gaetz, another hard-right Republican from Florida, accused Garland of dispatching a former justice department official, Matthew Colangelo, to Manhattan, where he now serves as assistant district attorney and helped prepare the case against Trump.Garland replied: “That is false. I did not dispatch Colangelo.” More

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      ‘Texas, we’ll see you in court’: migrant law sparks outcry and opposition

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      As a group of Texas and Hispanic Democrats demanded the US attorney general block what they called “the most extreme anti-immigrant state bill in the United States”, signed by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on Monday, the president of Mexico and the American Civil Liberties Union also vowed to fight the law.“Texas, we’ll see you in court,” the ACLU said.In a court filing in Austin, Texas, plaintiffs represented by the ACLU – El Paso county, Texas, and two immigrant rights groups, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways – sued Steven McCraw, director of the state department of public safety, and Bill Hicks, district attorney for the 34th district.On social media, the ACLU said it aimed “to block Texas from enforcing the most extreme anti-immigrant law in the nation”, which it also said was unconstitutional.The law will allow Texas law enforcement agencies to arrest migrants deemed to have entered the US illegally and empower judges to order deportations. It is set to go into effect next year.On Monday, congressional Democrats led by Joaquin Castro, from San Antonio, and including 11 other Texas representatives, Nanette Diaz Barragán of California (chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus) and eight other Hispanic representatives, published a letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland.“This legislation authorises state law enforcement officers to arrest and detain people and state judges to order mass deportations,” the letter read.“This bill is set to be the most extreme anti-immigrant state bill in the United States,” the letter said. “It is clearly pre-empted by federal law and when it goes into effect will likely result in racial profiling, significant due process violations, and unlawful arrests of citizens, lawful permanent residents, and others.”The next day, the president of Mexico, Andres Manuel López Obrador, said his government was preparing to challenge the law, which he called “inhumane”.“The foreign ministry is already working on the process to challenge this law,” he said, adding that Abbott “wants to win popularity with these measures, but he’s not going to win anything, but he’ll lose favor, because in Texas there are so many Mexicans and migrants”.On social media, Castro linked passage of the law to extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric deployed on the campaign trail by Donald Trump, the 91-times criminally charged former president who dominates Republican primary polling.Castro said: “Forty-eight hours after Trump accused immigrants of ‘poisoning the blood of our country’, Governor Abbott is signing a dangerous new law targeting immigrants and everyone who looks like them.”Trump made the comments at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, then complained of an “invasion” in Nevada on Sunday. Observers, opponents and historians were quick to point out the authoritarian roots of such rhetoric, which Trump has used before. Many made direct comparisons to Adolf Hitler, who used similar language about Jews in his autobiography and manifesto, Mein Kampf.On Monday night, a New York Republican congresswoman, Nicole Malliotakis, attempted to defend Trump on television.“When he said ‘they are poisoning’, I think he was talking about the Democratic policies,” Malliotakis claimed. “I think he was talking about the open border policy.“You know what’s actually poisoning America is the amount of fentanyl that’s coming over the open border. And so this is a serious issue, and I think that’s what he’s talking about.”Her host, Abby Phillip of CNN, said Trump “was saying that the immigrants who are coming in … they’re poisoning the blood of the nation”.Malliotakis insisted: “He never said ‘immigrants are poisoning,’ though … He didn’t say the word ‘immigrants’.”In Congress, immigration has once again become a political football, Senate Republicans holding up aid to Ukraine in search of concessions from Democrats.Abbott is among Republican governors who have forcibly transferred migrants to Democratic-run states. In Brownsville, Texas, on Monday, he signed the new bill and said: “[Joe] Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself.”In their letter to Garland, the Democrats led by Castro urged the attorney general to “assert your authority over federal immigration and foreign policy and pursue legal action, as appropriate, to stop this unconstitutional and dangerous legislation from going into effect”. More

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      Merrick Garland faces down Republican attacks over Hunter Biden inquiry

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      Merrick Garland faced down the latest Republican attacks on the justice department’s handling of Hunter Biden and other issues on Wednesday, vowing to “not be intimidated”.The House judiciary inquiry came just a week before the Joe Biden impeachment hearing, which will also focus on the scope of Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and alleged corruption. Both are part of the Republican party’s ongoing attempt to erode trust in federal institutions such as the Department of Justice and its FBI arm, claiming they are partisan actors.“Our job is to pursue justice, without fear or favor. Our job is not to do what is politically convenient,” Garland said in his opening statement. “Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress or from anyone else about who or what to criminally investigate. As the president himself has said, and I reaffirmed today, I am not the president’s lawyer. I will add I am not Congress’s prosecutor.”The committee’s chairman, Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, launched into those queries in his opening statement, criticizing the attorney general’s decision to appoint David Weiss as a special counsel to handle the investigation into the president’s son. Weiss is the federal prosecutor in Delaware who was appointed by Donald Trump and kept in his job even after Joe Biden took the White House and swapped out most other US attorneys nationwide.Despite that, Jordan thinks Weiss is undermining the investigation into Hunter Biden, which has centered on claims he failed to pay income taxes and lied about using drugs while buying a gun. Biden was indicted on the latter charge last week.“He could have selected anyone,” Jordan said of Garland. “He could have picked anyone inside government, outside government. He could have picked former attorney generals, former special counsels, but he picks the one guy … he knows will protect Joe Biden. He picks David Weiss.”Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, took a more colorful approach, criticizing Biden’s public loyalty to his son.“Has anyone at the department told President Biden to knock it off with Hunter? I mean, you guys are charging Hunter Biden on some crimes, investigating him on others, you’ve got the president bringing Hunter Biden around to state dinners. Has anyone told him to knock it off?” Gaetz asked.The judiciary committee’s highest-ranking Democrat, Jerry Nadler of New York, also asked Garland what would happen if the FBI was defunded, which has become a surprising rallying cry for extreme rightwing Republicans such as representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, as well as the presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who claim the law enforcement agency has become politicized.Defunding the FBI “would leave the United States naked to the malign influence of the Chinese Communist party, to the attacks by Iranians on American citizens and attempts to assassinate former officials, to the Russian aggression, to North Korean cyber-attacks, to violent crime in the United States, which the FBI helps to fight against, to all kinds of espionage, to domestic violent extremists who have attacked our churches, our synagogues or mosques and who have killed individuals out of racial hatred,” Garland said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I just, I cannot imagine the consequences of defunding the FBI, but they would be catastrophic.”Amid the back and forth, the White House put out a statement, calling the hearing a “circus” that wasted Garland’s time promoting conspiracy theories rather than dealing with more pressing business, like funding the government ahead of a shutdown on 30 September.“Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown,” the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, Ian Sams, said of the hearing, which the judiciary committee regularly holds with the attorney general.“They cannot even pass a military funding bill because extreme House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts like slashing thousands of preschool slots nationwide and thousands of law enforcement jobs including border agents, so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family,” Sams said. More

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      White House says Republicans turned Garland hearing into ‘circus’ – as it happened

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      From 2h agoThe Biden administration is out with a statement condemning House Republicans for their conduct during attorney general Merrick Garland’s ongoing hearing before the judiciary committee, saying they wasted him promoting conspiracy theories rather than dealing with more pressing business, like funding the government.“Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown,” White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams said of the hearing, which the judiciary committee regularly holds with the attorney general.Sams continued:
      They cannot even pass a military funding bill because extreme House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts like slashing thousands of preschool slots nationwide and thousands of law enforcement jobs including border agents, so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family. Don’t be fooled: they want to distract from the reality that their own chaos and inability to govern is going to shut down the government in a matter of days, hurting our economy and national security and jeopardizing everything from troop pay to fighting fentanyl. These sideshows won’t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country.
      In his ongoing appearance before the House judiciary committee, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, defended the independence and integrity of the justice department from Republican attacks, saying “I am not the president’s lawyer”, and refusing to discuss the ongoing prosecution of the president’s son Hunter Biden. GOP lawmakers who control the committee nonetheless peppered him with questions, including one who wondered if Garland should tell Joe Biden to “knock it off” when it comes to seeing his son. The White House dismissed the hearing as a “circus” that was “full of lies”.Here’s what else happened today:
      Garland warned that defunding the FBI, as some far-right Republicans want to do, would undercut US national security.
      Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman has no time for those who criticize his choice of dress on the chamber floor while simultaneously failing to fund the US government.
      Cassidy Hutchinson, who gave gripping testimony to the January 6 committee, says in a new book she was groped on the day of the attack by Rudy Giuliani.
      There may be some movement in negotiations among House Republicans to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.
      Speaking of knocking it off, the Biden administration would reportedly like its ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel to stop insulting Chinese president Xi Jinping.
      Legend has it that in his days as a Democratic political operative, Rahm Emanuel sent a dead fish to a pollster who was late getting him data, and stabbed a knife into a table while reciting the names of those he felt had betrayed Bill Clinton after his 1992 presidential election victory.So the story NBC News just published about Emanuel, a former mayor of Chicago who is now the US ambassador to Japan, does not come as much of a surprise:
      President Joe Biden’s aides have asked that Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, stop posting messages on social media taunting Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to three administration officials.
      Officials at the National Security Council told Emanuel’s staff in recent days that his comments risk undermining the administration’s efforts to mend deeply strained relations with China, including with a possible meeting this fall between Biden and Xi, according to the officials.
      Over the past two weeks Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, has criticized Xi directly and sarcastically speculated about the Chinese leader’s treatment of his top aides, using the hashtag “#MysteryInBeijingBuilding.”
      Emanuel’s tweets are “not in keeping with the message coming out of this building,” a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.
      NBC talked to a supporter of the ambassador, who made him sound like some kind of football star:
      A spokesperson for Emanuel disputed NBC News’ report, calling it “absolutely not true.”
      “Ambassador Emanuel is serving with distinction as an uncommonly effective representative of the United States in Japan. Every day his inventiveness, passion and relentlessness are on full display,” Kurt Campbell, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, said in an interview.
      He continued, “This guy is a superstar and when you put Rahm on the field you get the full Rahm.”
      Campbell did not comment when asked whether Emanuel will continue posting about China’s leadership.
      On a more serious note, Emanuel faced trouble getting confirmed by the Senate to his ambassador post from those angry with how he handled the police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald during his time as mayor.For a sense of the type of “misinformation” the White House was condemning, take a look at these comments from Republican congresswoman Victoria Spartz.The Indiana lawmaker downplayed the January 6 attack on the Capitol, describing it instead as an event attended by people “with strollers and the kids” that happened because Americans are “sick and tired of this government not serving them” – even though it occurred while Donald Trump was in office.Here’s video her remarks at the just-concluded hearing:The Biden administration is out with a statement condemning House Republicans for their conduct during attorney general Merrick Garland’s ongoing hearing before the judiciary committee, saying they wasted him promoting conspiracy theories rather than dealing with more pressing business, like funding the government.“Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown,” White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams said of the hearing, which the judiciary committee regularly holds with the attorney general.Sams continued:
      They cannot even pass a military funding bill because extreme House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts like slashing thousands of preschool slots nationwide and thousands of law enforcement jobs including border agents, so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family. Don’t be fooled: they want to distract from the reality that their own chaos and inability to govern is going to shut down the government in a matter of days, hurting our economy and national security and jeopardizing everything from troop pay to fighting fentanyl. These sideshows won’t spare House Republicans from bearing responsibility for inflicting serious damage on the country.
      The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, announced the chamber would vote on the promotions of three top military leaders that have been held by up Republican senator Tommy Tuberville over the Pentagon’s abortion policy.Tuberville, who represents Alabama, began earlier this year blocking defense department promotions in protest of a new policy that will help service members travel to seek an abortion, if they are based somewhere where the procedure is banned. About 300 senior leaders currently have their promotions on hold because of the senator’s blockade, which has been criticized by military leaders and veterans groups.In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer said the chamber would vote on promotions for the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, commandant of Marine corps and army chief of staff:There are some new developments in the House, where a revolt by rightwing Republicans has stopped consideration of a measure to fund the government as an end-of-the-month shutdown deadline nears.Politico reports that House speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled “progress” has been made in the negotiations, and also that the chamber may have to work over the weekend:Attorneys for Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, two co-defendants that have been charged in the Georgia election interference case alongside Donald Trump, will be allowed to interview members of the special grand jury, The Hill reports.On Wednesday, the Fulton county superior judge Scott McAfee wrote in a court filing reviewed by the Hill:
      “Defense counsel here are entitled, and would be expected, to conduct a thorough investigation in the zealous representation of their clients …
      Setting aside scenarios involving harassment of some kind, the desire to simply talk to the grand jurors is not ‘illegal,’” he added.
      McAfee added that although there are rules to secrecy surrounding grand jury deliberations: “The court has not found nor been provided with any authority that suggests defense counsel are totally forbidden from contact.”Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has hit back at Republicans criticizing his relaxed clothing choices in the Senate.The Democrat, who is known for routinely wearing oversized hoodies, sweaters and shorts, tweeted on Wednesday:
      “If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.”
      Senate Republicans have penned a letter to the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, in which they have asked him to retract the chamber’s new relaxed dress code.Forty-six Republicans sent Schumer the letter following Schumer’s announcement on Sunday that relaxes the chamber’s dress code.
      “For more than 230 years, the United States Senate has served the American people with honor and dignity. As members of this esteemed body, we understand the seriousness our positions require,” the letter said.
      “Allowing casual clothing on the Senate floor disrespects the institution we serve and the American families we represent. We the undersigned members of the United States Senate write to express our supreme disappointment and resolute disapproval of your recent decision to abandon the Senate’s longstanding dress code for members, and urge you to immediately reverse this misguided action,” it continued.
      Aside from Alabama’s Katie Britt, Indiana’s Mike Braun and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, every Republican senator signed the letter.Ex-president Donald Trump and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows joked about Covid-19 on a plane ride following the first debate with Joe Biden, a new book reveals.The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:Donald Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows joked about the then US president having Covid on Air Force One after the first debate with Joe Biden in 2020 – an event at which Trump was not tested but three days before which, Meadows later confessed, Trump had indeed tested positive.On the flight, on 29 September 2020, Trump speculated about his health, saying he thought his voice had sounded “a little bit off” at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota. But he also said he did not want the media to “accuse me of something ridiculous, like having Covid”.Meadows “laughed and promised him that we would handle it if it happened”.“We” referred to Meadows and Cassidy Hutchinson, the chief of staff’s closest aide who has now written a memoir, Enough. The book, which describes Hutchinson’s journey from Trump loyalist to key witness in the January 6 inquiry, will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.For the full story, click here:In an ongoing appearance before the House judiciary committee, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, defended the independence and integrity of the justice department from Republican attacks, saying “I am not the president’s lawyer”, and refusing to discuss the ongoing prosecution of the president’s son Hunter Biden. GOP lawmakers who control the committee are nonetheless peppering him with questions, including one who wondered if Garland should tell Joe Biden to “knock it off” when it comes to seeing his son.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Garland warned that defunding the FBI, as some far-right Republicans want to do, would undercut US national security.
      Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman has no time for those who criticize his choice of dress on the Senate floor while simultaneously failing to fund the US government.
      Cassidy Hutchinson, who gave gripping testimony to the January 6 committee, says in a new book she was groped on the day of the attack by Rudy Giuliani.
      In a new book, one of the most-remembered witnesses to testify before the January 6 committee says that she was groped on the day of the insurrection by Rudy Giuliani, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump aide turned crucial January 6 witness, says in a new book she was groped by Rudy Giuliani, who was “like a wolf closing in on its prey”, on the day of the attack on the Capitol.Describing meeting with Giuliani backstage at Donald Trump’s speech near the White House before his supporters marched on Congress in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Hutchinson says the former New York mayor turned Trump lawyer put his hand “under my blazer, then my skirt”.“I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh,” she writes. “He tilts his chin up. The whites of his eyes look jaundiced. My eyes dart to [Trump adviser] John Eastman, who flashes a leering grin.“I fight against the tension in my muscles and recoil from Rudy’s grip … filled with rage, I storm through the tent, on yet another quest for Mark.”Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff, was Hutchinson’s White House boss. Hutchinson’s memoir, Enough, describes the now 27-year-old’s journey from Trump supporter to disenchantment, and her role as a key witness for the House January 6 committee. It will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.The House is lurching towards both a government shutdown and an impeachment of Joe Biden that faces uncertain chances of success. But however those two issues are resolved, the Guardian’s David Smith reports they will take a toll on American democracy:If it’s Thursday, it must be impeachment. If it’s Saturday, it must be government shutdown. Next week, Republicans in Congress seem determined to prove that US democracy is broken.The party plans to hold the first hearing on its impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden over his family’s business dealings on 28 September. Meanwhile the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is barreling towards a deadline of 30 September to keep federal agencies running.The double header indicates how both impeachments and government shutdowns – once seen as rare, dangerous and to be avoided at all costs – have become political weapons deployed with increasing abandon.“In the past few years we’ve seen the routinisation of the unusual,” said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington. “It’s terrible for the country. It’s hard enough for a great nation to conduct its affairs without this sort of shortsighted nonsense getting in its way. Government as we know it is grinding to a halt.”Only three presidents have been impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and none were convicted: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in both 2019 and 2021. Now, House Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry against Biden with no discernible evidence of an impeachable offence.As you can see in this video clip, it’s currently John Fetterman’s turn to preside over the Senate and, thanks to the new dress code, he’s doing so in his signature garb:As the government heads toward a shutdown thanks to infighting among House Republicans, the Democratic senator John Fetterman has made a proposition.If “those jagoffs in the House”, by which he most likely means the GOP, pass a resolution to fund the government, he’ll wear a suit on the Senate floor, the senator says on X:The Pennsylvania lawmaker is known for reporting to the Capitol in shorts and a hoodie, and a newly relaxed dress code in the chamber will allow him to cast votes without the coat and tie typically worn by male senators.Among the more colorful interlocutors on the House judiciary committee is Matt Gaetz, a far-right Republican who has lately been calling for defunding the FBI.He got into it with Merrick Garland over Hunter Biden’s interactions with his father. Though he may be a rightwing fixation and facing his own legal trouble, Joe Biden is often seen with his son at the White House or at events, and Gaetz wanted to know more about that.“Has anyone at the department told president Biden to knock it off with Hunter? I mean, you guys are charging Hunter Biden on some crimes, investigating him on others, you’ve got the president bringing Hunter Biden around to state dinners. Has anyone told him to knock it off?” Gaetz asked.“No one that I know of has spoken to the White House about the Hunter Biden case, of course not,” Garland replied, with barely concealed annoyance.Merrick Garland has warned that if the government shuts down at the end of the month, as it seems on course to do, the justice department’s ability to fight crime and work with law enforcement nationwide would be curtailed.“I haven’t done a complete calculation on the effects of a shutdown and the difference between which employees are indispensable under the statute and which ones not,” Garland said. “It will certainly disrupt all of our normal programs, including our grant programs to state and local law enforcement and to our ability to conduct our normal efforts with respect to the entire scope of our activities, including helping state and locals fight violent crime.”The federal government’s fiscal year ends on 30 September, but infighting among House Republicans has prevented Congress from reauthorizing spending beyond that date, or even agreeing on a short-term measure to keep the government funded while they negotiate a larger agreement.Much of the questioning the attorney general, Merrick Garland, is facing today centers on Hunter Biden, the president’s son whose foreign business entanglements and actions while struggling with drug addiction have been a fixation for Republicans eager to prove the president is corrupt. His case is long and complicated, so here is the Guardian’s Mary Yang with a look at the major events:Federal prosecutors indicted Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over illegally possessing a firearm in Delaware on Thursday. The indictment comes a month after the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the US attorney David Weiss, a Trump nominee, to oversee the investigation as special counsel.Hunter Biden has been at the center of a years-long investigation into his tax affairs that was set to close with a guilty plea. But that plea deal fell apart at a Delaware courthouse after the Trump-appointed judge said she could not agree to the deal, which ensured Biden would avoid jail time in a separate case of illegally possessing a gun while using drugs.Amid the controversy, the president has repeatedly said he supports his son and Hunter has been seen regularly at family events. Asked if President Biden would pardon his son in the event of any conviction, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters: “No.”But the younger Biden has been embroiled in a list of unrelated controversies for years, including his overseas dealings and struggles with addiction, which ex-President Trump and his allies have regularly sought to use as fodder for attacks.Here’s a comprehensive timeline of the moments that have propelled Hunter Biden into the limelight. More

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      Merrick Garland appoints special counsel in Hunter Biden investigation

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      The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, sent shockwaves through American politics on Friday when he announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son, ahead of the 2024 election.Garland named David Weiss, the US attorney in Delaware who has been investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings, as special counsel.In remarks to reporters in Washington, Garland said Weiss told him on Tuesday that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a special counsel, and he asked to be appointed.“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel.”It was a momentous move from the usually cautious attorney general. Special counsel investigations of Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner to face Joe Biden in next year’s election, are ongoing, having produced multiple criminal charges and the prospect of trials in an election year.Special counsels are appointed in cases in which the attorney general believes the justice department faces a conflict of interest. Special counsels report to the attorney general but operate with independence.In the investigations of Trump, the special counsel Jack Smith has overseen indictments regarding the former president’s retention of classified information and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Another special counsel, Robert Hur, is investigating the retention of classified information by Biden after he left the vice-presidency in 2017. It was widely reported on Friday that negotiations are active about terms for a Biden interview.Hunter Biden, 53, is the president’s surviving son, after the former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden died in 2015, aged 46. Hunter Biden has been a lobbyist, lawyer, banker, consultant and artist. He has admitted to struggling with substance addiction.He is accused of failing to pay taxes on more than $1.5m in income in 2017 and 2018. He is also charged with unlawfully owning a firearm while addicted to and using a controlled substance.Last month, after a federal judge in Delaware said she needed more time to review a proposed deal to avoid the felony gun charge, Biden pleaded not guilty to the tax charges. The collapse of the plea deal was unexpected.On Friday, Weiss, who was appointed US attorney by Trump, said in a court filing plea deal negotiations were at an impasse and a trial was in order.Republicans in Congress are pursuing their own investigations of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, including in Ukraine and China, as part of a longstanding effort to generate political headaches for his father. They have so far turned up little of substance.In New Mexico on Thursday, Joe Biden generated headlines when he reacted testily to a Fox News reporter who asked about his son’s business dealings and whether Hunter ever put his powerful father on speakerphone when dealing with clients.“I never talked business with anybody,” the president said. “I knew you’d have a lousy question … because it’s not true.”Republicans have long claimed Weiss was being blocked from becoming a special counsel in the matter of Hunter Biden, a claim Weiss and the US justice department denied. On Friday, with Weiss appointed as a special counsel, Republicans still reacted with public displays of anger.In a statement, Republicans on the House oversight committee, which has been piloting congressional investigations of Hunter Biden and pushing for impeachment proceedings against his father, claimed the appointment of Weiss was “part of the DoJ’s efforts to attempt a Biden family cover-up in light of our committee’s mounting evidence of President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals”.A Democrat on the committee, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, said such a reaction to getting what Republicans wanted showed the oversight chair, James Comer of Kentucky, had “no credibility” on the matter.But Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, also had complaints.“This action by Biden’s DoJ cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption,” McCarthy said. “If Weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn’t get approved, how can he be trusted as a special counsel?”Aaron Fritschner, a staffer for the Virginia Democratic congressman Don Beyer, noted the theatricality of such Republican anger: “Half of the House Republican conference wrote to Merrick Garland last year asking him to appoint a special counsel in the Hunter Biden case. Now that he’s done it they are acting mad.”Liz Harrington, a Trump spokesperson, said: “Crooked Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the entire Biden crime family have been protected by the justice department for decades even though there is overwhelming evidence and credible testimony detailing their wrongdoing of lying to the American people and selling out the country to foreign enemies … for financial gain.”Trump leads Republican primary polling by vast margins despite facing 78 criminal charges regarding hush-money payments to a porn star, retention of classified records and attempted election subversion. Further charges relating to election subversion are expected in Georgia next week.Polling shows both Biden and Trump to be historically unpopular with the voting public.Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      With Trump in trouble, Republicans step up assault on DoJ and FBI

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      When Merrick Garland was nominated to the US supreme court by Barack Obama, Republicans refused to grant him a hearing. Now that Garland is the top law enforcement official in America, the party seems ready to give him one after all – an impeachment hearing.Republicans on Capitol Hill are moving up a gear in a wide-ranging assault on the justice department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that would have been unthinkable before the rise of Donald Trump. The party that for half a century claimed the mantle of law and order has, critics say, become a cult of personality intent on discrediting and dismantling institutions that get in Trump’s way.“I often think, what would Richard Nixon say?” observed Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He was the original ‘law and order’ president, with that slogan. What would he think now the party is going after the primary institutions of law and order, at least at the federal level? The law and order party has become the paranoid party.”The trend, apparent for years, has become palpable since Republicans gained narrow control of the House of Representatives in January. Within a month they had set up a panel, chaired by Trump loyalist Jim Jordan, to investigate “the Weaponization of the Federal Government” and examine what they allege is the politicisation of the justice department and FBI against conservatives.Their frustrations intensified last month when Trump became the first former president to face federal criminal charges, over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Far from condemning a potential law-breaker in their own ranks, nearly all Trump’s rivals for the presidential nomination in 2024 accused the FBI of political bias, with some even calling for its abolition and vowing to pardon him if elected.Many Republicans then spoke of a “two-tiered” justice system when Joe Biden’s son Hunter struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors over tax evasion and gun possession charges that will keep him out of prison. A former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee has alleged political interference in the investigation and accused Garland of failing to tell Congress the truth, a claim Garland denies.Some Republicans, especially on the far right, are now demanding Garland’s impeachment, a sanction that no cabinet official has suffered since 1876. Kevin McCarthy, the House speaker, told the conservative Fox News network recently: “Someone has lied here. If we find that Garland has lied to Congress, we will start an impeachment inquiry.”Meanwhile, Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, is discovering that his status as a Trump appointee offers no immunity against the Republican onslaught.In May congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a leading Trump ally, introduced articles of impeachment against him, claiming that “the FBI has intimidated, harassed, and entrapped American citizens that have been deemed enemies of the Biden regime” and that he “has turned the FBI into Joe Biden and Merrick Garland’s personal police force” with “Soviet-style tactics”.Last month the House oversight committee was poised to hold Wray in contempt until he agreed to let all its members review a 2020 document containing bribery allegations against Biden – allegations that Democrats say were examined and dismissed by the justice department during Trump’s presidency.Wray is now due to testify at a House judiciary committee hearing, chaired by Jordan, on Wednesday, with topics likely to include Trump’s indictment, Hunter’s plea deal and the special counsel John Durham’s criticism of the FBI’s Russia investigation.Greene has also introduced impeachment articles against Biden and other members of the cabinet and indicated that she intends to force floor votes on her resolutions. This would doubtless create a spectacle for conservative TV channels and satisfy a desire among the “Make America great again” (Maga) base to avenge Trump after years of hearings in which he was the accused.However, any impeachments would be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate and could backfire among the electorate at large, with many voters sensing a desperate attempt to distract from policy debates.Sabato commented: “It would excite their activists, but most Americans would be repulsed and shake their heads and say, these people need to get their house in order, then we’ll consider voting for them. I’m sure Biden, in a way, hopes he is impeached, and the others too.“It’s a waste of time: there’s no chance of the conviction in the Senate. They just sticking the knife in their own chest. They’re committing suicide. It’s fine, go right ahead, have a good time!”Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project watchdog, agreed. He said: “The party of Maga is following the leader, Donald Trump, who is currently in serious legal troubles across the country. The party seems willing to try to deflect from those legal problems by running interference vis-a-vis investigations that they’re doing in Congress. What they’re doing is playing 30% of their base without realising you need another 20% to win elections.”Some establishment Republicans are aware of such dangers and reluctant to abandon the party’s law-and-order credentials, not least because they see crime as a major talking point in next year’s elections. It is a particularly awkward issue for 18 Republican members of the House from districts that Biden won in the 2020, all of whom have good reason to avoid voting with extremists such as Greene. The internal struggle threatens a political headache for McCarthy.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “There are definitely people in the Republican party and in Congress who would like to proceed to impeach the head of the justice department, Garland, to go after the head of the FBI and to even go after Joe Biden.“But there are cooler heads who appreciate that the kind of paranoia-infected Trump contagion is wrong and could be a real setback for the 2024 election.“Independent voters, who tend to swing US elections that have become so close, don’t buy into the Trump line. You don’t see support for this unhinged view that the justice department and the FBI are somehow corrupt. There’s not support for that except in the fringe of the Republican party. The question, though, is does the fringe of the Republican party have enough leverage, particularly in the House of Representatives, to force impeachment votes and other measures?”The acrimony threatens to dominate the rest of the year in an already unproductive Congress. Republicans might take aim at law enforcement budgets and have already withheld more funding for a new FBI headquarters.Their stance represents a stunning reversal for a party with a long tradition of pitching itself as pro-police and tough-on-crime, from Nixon speaking of cities “enveloped in smoke and flame” to Ronald Reagan’s embrace of mass incarceration. It has its roots in the years of political attacks by Trump against an alleged “deep state” that is out to get him – and, by extension, his supporters.His rancour towards the FBI began in earnest when the bureau scrutinised alleged ties between his 2016 election campaign and Russia while deciding not to prosecute him opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for using a private email server when she was secretary of state. Then FBI director James Comey rebuked Clinton, calling her handling of classified information careless, but said there was no clear evidence she or her aides intentionally broke laws.Trump’s relentless broadsides via campaign rallies and social media had an effect: a Reuters/Ipsos poll in February 2018 found that three out of four Republicans thought the FBI and justice department were actively seeking to undermine Trump through politically motivated investigations.The sowing of distrust reached full bloom with a baseless conspiracy theory that the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol was a hoax orchestrated by the bureau. Seen through this prism, each FBI investigation of those involved and each justice department prosecution of them is a violation, not an affirmation, of law enforcement.Kurt Bardella, who was a spokesperson and senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee from 2009 to 2013, said: “It’s really something to watch the political party that spent the 2022 midterms hollering about being pro-law enforcement and anti-defund the police when now they’re using all of their resources and their very narrow House majority to do exactly that: tear down law enforcement and defund the police.”Bardella, now a Democratic strategist, added: “It seems like Republicans love the idea of law enforcement except when it comes to white-collar crime and when it comes to people of their own. It’s interesting that they want two sets of justice systems: one that looks the other way and condones the multitude of crimes that their leader, Donald Trump, has been accused of and another justice system for just about everybody else.” More