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      Republican George Santos faces campaign finance complaint

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      Republican George Santos faces campaign finance complaintControversial newly elected congressman who appears to have made up most of his résumé is subject of FEC complaint The newly sworn-in Republican congressman George Santos, whose campaign résumé has been shown to be largely made-up, is the subject of a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission.In Santos’s district, reactions to brazen lies remain mixed: ‘I might let him slide’Read moreThe complaint concerning the New York representative was filed with the FEC on Monday by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a non-partisan watchdog group.Santos won his seat, which covers parts of Long Island and Queens, in November.He has since been the subject of relentless scrutiny, exposing claims about his education, business career and family background, including claims to be descended from Holocaust survivors and that his mother’s death was a result of the 9/11 attacks.Santos has admitted “embellishing” his CV. He is under investigation by authorities in New York and in Brazil, in the latter case over alleged use of a stolen chequebook.His Democratic predecessor in the New York seat has called him a “conman” and members of Congress have called for action against him.But Republican leaders have taken no action and after last week’s five-day standoff over Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker, Santos – who cast one vote for McCarthy while appearing to make a white supremacist sign – is now a member of the US House of Representatives.In a statement on Monday, the CLC alleged that Santos and his 2022 campaign committee, Devolder-Santos for Congress, “violated federal campaign finance laws by engaging in a straw donor scheme to knowingly and willfully conceal the true sources of $705,000 that Santos purported to loan to his campaign”.The group also said Santos “deliberately report[ed] false disbursement figures on FEC disclosure reports, among many other reporting violations; and illegally us[ed] campaign funds to pay for personal expenses, including rent on a house that Santos lived in during the campaign”.The complaint notes multiple campaign expenditures, widely reported, of $199.99, one cent below the $200 FEC threshold for the provision of receipts.It also notes that Santos has struggled to explain the source of his wealth, and says it is “likely” that after losing an initial run for Congress in 2020, he “and other unknown persons worked out a scheme to surreptitiously – and illegally – funnel money into his 2022 campaign.“The concealed true source behind $705,000 in contributions to Santos’s campaign could be a corporation or foreign national – both of which are categorically barred from contributing to federal candidates – or one or more individuals, who would be precluded from contributing such a large amount, far in excess of [official] contribution limits.”Citing reporting by outlets including the New York Times, the CLC complaint says: “Particularly in light of Santos’s mountain of lies about his life and qualifications for office, the [FEC] should thoroughly investigate what appear to be equally brazen lies about how his campaign raised and spent money.”Santos did not comment, CBS News reporting that he declined several requests.Adav Noti, senior CLC vice-president and legal director, told the same network: “Voters deserve the truth. They have a right to know who is spending to influence their vote and their government and they have a right to know how the candidates competing for their vote are spending those funds.“George Santos has lied to voters about a lot of things, but while lying about your background might not be illegal, deceiving voters about your campaign’s funding and spending is a serious violation of federal law.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS political financingnewsReuse this content More

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      Ex-secretary of state George Shultz was besotted by Theranos fraudster Holmes, book says

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      Ex-secretary of state George Shultz was besotted by Theranos fraudster Holmes, book saysHe was either ‘corrupt’, ‘in love’ or had ‘completely lost’ his mental edge, says grandson who blew whistle on Holmes’s scheme Former US secretary of state George Shultz’s support for Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulent blood testing company, Theranos, which devastated his family and caused a bitter feud with his grandson, receives fresh scrutiny in a biography published on Tuesday.Year of the tech grifter: will Silicon Valley ever learn from its mistakes? Read moreShultz was Ronald Reagan’s top diplomat at the end of the cold war. Before that, he was secretary of the treasury and secretary of labor under Richard Nixon. He is now the subject of In the Nation’s Service, written by Philip Taubman, a former New York Times reporter.Shultz joined the Theranos board of directors in 2011.Taubman recounts how Shultz – then in his 90s and with no biomedical expertise – was impressed by Holmes’s startup and its promise to revolutionise blood testing. He helped the young entrepreneur form a board of directors and raise money from heavyweight investors including Rupert Murdoch.“Shultz repeatedly told friends that Holmes was brilliant,” Taubman writes. “Over time, his associates grew alarmed, fearing that his enthusiasm was colored by personal affection for Holmes. He talked by phone with her almost every day and invited her to join Shultz family Christmas dinners. She encouraged his attention by leaning in close to him when they were seated together on sofas.”Dismissing scepticism regarding Holmes’s claim to have come up with a quick and easy blood test that would dramatically simplify healthcare, Shultz encouraged his grandson, Tyler Shultz, to work a summer internship at Theranos and become a full-time employee.But Tyler Shultz came to suspect that Holmes was overselling her technology and took his concerns to the Wall Street Journal. Suspecting the younger Shultz was the whistleblower, Holmes set her lawyers on him and put him under surveillance. Alarmed, Tyler Shultz went to his grandfather for help.Taubman writes: “Instead of hugging his grandson and disowning Holmes, Shultz equivocated. He tried unsuccessfully to mediate between Tyler and Holmes.”When that effort failed, Shultz refused to cut ties with the businesswoman. He told Tyler: “I’m over 90 years old. I’ve seen a lot in my time, I’ve been right almost every time and I know I’m right about this.”Tyler felt betrayed. In a 2020 podcast, Thicker Than Water, he imagined three reasons why his grandfather sided with Holmes.“One is that you were corrupt and have invested so much money in Theranos that you were willing to make ethical compromises in order to see return on your investment. The second is that you are in love with Elizabeth.“So no matter how many times she lies to you, no matter how many patients she injures and no matter how badly she harms your family, you will put her above everything else. The last possibility is that you have completely lost your mental edge and despite an abundance of data showing that she was a criminal, you somehow are incapable of connecting these very, very big dots.”Taubman also suggests motives: financial gain, as Shultz’s holdings in Theranos stock soared before Holmes fell to disgrace, peaking at $50m; or personal loyalty to Holmes, just as Shultz showed to Richard Nixon during the Watergate crisis and Reagan during the Iran-contra affair.The author writes: “Shultz’s performance left his family broken. Saddened friends and associates attributed the conduct to his advanced age.”In 2018, Holmes was indicted on charges involving defrauding investors and deceiving patients and doctors. Last year, she was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, made a symbol of Silicon Valley ambition that veered into deceit.Shultz sought to heal the rift with his grandson, stating that he had “made me proud” and shown “great moral character”. Tyler Shultz said his grandfather never apologised but their relationship “started to heal”. Taubman notes that the Holmes issue “remained unfinished business” when Shultz died in 2021, at the age of 100.The biography was written over 10 years and draws on exclusive access to Shultz’s papers. It explores his involvement in the summits between Reagan and the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that ended the cold war, the Iran-contra affair and Internal Revenue Service investigations into Nixon’s “enemies”.TopicsBooksTheranosUS politicsRepublicansUS crimenewsReuse this content More

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      House Republicans move to defang ethics office investigating its members

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      House Republicans move to defang ethics office investigating its membersIncoming majority also created new special subcommittee to investigate justice department and intelligence agencies House Republicans moved to pre-emptively kill any investigations against its members as it curtailed the power of an independent ethics office just as it was weighing whether to open inquiries into lawmakers who defied subpoenas issued by the House January 6 select committee last year.Fears over lax security in Republican-controlled House two years after Capitol attackRead moreThe incoming Republican majority also paved the way for a new special subcommittee with a wide mandate to investigate the US justice department and intelligence agencies, which could include reviewing the criminal probes into Donald Trump and a Republican congressman caught up in the Capitol attack inquiry.The measures took effect as House Republicans narrowly passed the new rules package that included the changes for the next Congress, 220-213, setting the stage for politically charged fights with the Biden administration over access to classified materials and details of criminal investigations.Seeking to protect itself, the rules package first undercut the ability of the office of congressional ethics (OCE) to function, with changes that struck at its principal vulnerabilities to defang its investigative powers for at least the next two years, according to sources familiar with its operation.The changes to the OCE are twofold: reintroducing term limits for members of the bipartisan board, which would force out three of four Democratic-appointed members, and restricting its ability to hire professional staff in the first 30 days of the new congressional session.The issue with the changes, the Guardian previously reported, is that the OCE requires board approval to open new investigations, while new hires are typically approved by the board. The term limits would mean Democrats need to find new board members, which can take months – far longer than the 30 day hiring period.In essence, the changes mean that by the time the OCE has a board, it may have run out of time to hire staff, leaving it with one counsel to do possible investigations into the new House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers who defied January 6 select committee subpoenas.There would also only be that one counsel to investigate Republican congressman George Santos, who lied about his past during his election campaign; the OCE has the power to retrospectively examine violations of federal election law that arise during congressional election campaigns.Once an OCE investigation is complete, the body can refer the matter to the full House ethics committee, which conducts its own inquiry. Crucially, however, even if the ethics committee dismisses a case, it is required to release the full OCE report, creating a deterrent for lawmakers.Meanwhile, as House Republicans moved to shield themselves from potential ethics investigations, they expanded their own investigative ability through the adoption of the rules package that allows for the creation of the special subcommittee to probe the justice department and intelligence agencies.The text of the resolution creating the subcommittee – scheduled for a vote on Tuesday – on “the weaponization of the federal government” authorizes it to investigate any part of the federal government, including “ongoing criminal investigations”, which Republicans have indicated could extend to probes against Trump.The subcommittee will have subpoena power and receive materials provided to the House intelligence committee, meaning if the intelligence community were to ever give a briefing on the classified documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the panel would obtain that, too.And while the subcommittee will have its own chairman, it remains part of the House judiciary committee led by Jim Jordan, who maintains the ability to issue subpoenas on behalf of the panel and ultimately inherit all of its materials whenever it is dissolved, according to the resolution text.Whether Jordan and the special subcommittee will ever receive materials from the justice department about active criminal investigations in practice remains unclear.The department has long refused to provide to Congress confidential grand jury material, information that could compromise criminal investigations, and deliberative communications such as internal prosecution memos because of the risk of political interference in charging decisions.As the department explained in a letter to the House rules committee chair John Linder in 2000, its position has also been upheld by the supreme court in Nixon v United States (1974) that recognized making such materials public could have an improper “chilling effect”.Particularly with respect to cases involving Trump, current and former officials said the current justice department would likely adopt the same position as the Linder letter, which concluded: “The Department’s longstanding policy is to decline to provide congressional committees with access to open law enforcement files.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      Kevin McCarthy faces rocky first day as House speaker – live

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      The House will convene at 5 pm eastern time to vote on a rules package, typically a customary but crucial step for operating the chamber, but which today will serve as yet another barometer of how dysfunctional the new Republican majority will be over the coming two years.The package governs how the House will conduct its business, and would cement many of the procedural giveaways Kevin McCarthy made to win the support of rightwing insurgents who blocked his election for days last week. However, those concessions could spark a revolt among moderates and others unhappy with the deal the speaker made, again raising the possibility of another bout of standoff and legislative paralysis.Much of the debate centers on how the House will handle the massive spending bills Congress must periodically pass to keep the government running. The New York Times has a good rundown of the roots of this intraparty dispute:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The new House Republican majority is proposing to make institutional changes of its own as part of a rules package Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with hard-right rebels in exchange for their support for his job. The handful of Republicans who are forcing the changes, which are scheduled to be considered on Monday, pointed to the rushed approval in December of a roughly $1.7 trillion spending bill to fund the entire government as an example of back-room legislating at its worst.
      “What this rules package is designed to do is to stop what we saw happen literally 15 days ago, where the Democrats passed a $1.7 trillion monstrosity of a bill that spent the American taxpayers’ money in all kinds of crazy ways,” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said Sunday on Fox News. He said Republicans would require 72 hours to allow lawmakers to pore over any bill.
      Part of the fight over the speakership was about the way Congress works, in particular the unwieldy “omnibus” spending bills that appear to materialize out of nowhere and with only minutes to spare.
      But restoring any semblance of order and structure to the consideration of spending bills and other measures will prove to be extremely difficult with conservative Republicans in charge of the House and Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House. The new dynamic is more likely a prescription for shutdown and gridlock. The roots of dysfunction run deep.Congressman Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri who objected to the certification of the results of the 2020 election, has won the chairmanship of the House ways and means committee.In a statement about his win, Smith pledged as chair to support the Republican plan to slash funding to the IRS or Internal Revenue Service – billions were allocated to the agency last year to go after tax cheats.“Our first step is defunding the $80bn pay increase Democrats gave the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents to target working families. But we are not stopping there,” Smith said in a statement.Doing so would reduce revenues by almost $186bn over 10 years and add more than $114bn to the deficit, according to an evaluation from the Congressional Budget Office.Rep. Jason Smith’s stmt on winning Ways and Means gavel: “It is deeply humbling and an honor to be selected by my colleagues to serve as the next Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.” pic.twitter.com/lpciH9TkbZ— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) January 9, 2023
      Nancy Mace, one of the moderate Republicans who had voiced hesitation over the rules package, will vote for it, NBC News reports:MACE will be a YES tonight on rules package but she wanted to make people aware of the flaws in the process W @KyleAlexStewart— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) January 9, 2023
      In a Sunday interview with CBS News, Mace objected to the way the package had been negotiated:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I like the rules package. It is the most open, fair and fiscally conservative package we’ve had in 30 years. I support it, but what I don’t support is a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private, in secret, to get a vote or vote present. I don’t support that … And so I am on the fence right now about the rules package vote tomorrow for that reason.Another aspect of the deal Kevin McCarthy cut with conservative Republicans that made him House speaker was a pledge to allow a single lawmaker to call for a vote to oust him from office.Under the previous Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi, a motion to vacate could only be made if a majority of a party agreed to it. While lowering the threshold got McCarthy the votes he needed to win the chamber’s leadership, it also raised fears that any lawmaker who disagrees with his policies and tactics would create a crisis by seeking to remove him.CNN surveyed two Republican representatives today about how they think the rule will be used. Here’s what they had to say:Rep. David Joyce on one member being able to force a vote to oust speaker: “So it concerns Kevin more than it concerns me.” Says it should only be used in extreme circumstances and not as a recourse on “everyday policies.”But does the GOP agree on that?”Probably not” pic.twitter.com/gXL7sp7kxM— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 9, 2023
      The House GOP may eventually win cuts to government spending, but first they’re going to try to pass a bill that will add more than $114bn to the budget deficit.The Congressional Budget Office has released its evaluation of the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, which would strip the Internal Revenue Service of $71bn in funding that was allocated last year in order to crack down on tax cheats. If the funding were withdrawn, revenues would decrease by almost $186bn in the 10 years from 2023, adding to the deficit by more than $114bn.The proposal is up for a vote today, assuming the House Republicans pass their proposed rules package.It took four days and 15 ballots for Republicans to resolve their differences and elect Kevin McCarthy speaker of the House. But he can’t get much done unless the chamber agrees on its rules, and with some GOP lawmakers pledging to oppose the package up for a vote this afternoon, pressure groups have stepped in to make clear there will be consequences if it turns into a standoff.Hours before McCarthy formally was elected, Texas’s Tony Gonzales said he would oppose the rules package, reportedly over McCarthy’s willingness to cut spending to the defense department:I am a NO on the house rules package. Welcome to the 118th Congress.— Tony Gonzales (@TonyGonzales4TX) January 7, 2023
      That’s prompted conservative group FreedomWorks to make this threat:If Tony’s a ‘NO’ on the House Rules Package he should not be welcomed into the 119th Congress. #ampFW #HouseofRepresentatives https://t.co/X2tGxa3FqO— FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) January 9, 2023
      As with the speaker vote, the package will need 218 votes to pass, and all 212 Democrats are likely to oppose it. That means the GOP can only lose six votes – and they’re already down one.The White House has accused Republicans of wanting to “defund the military” as the new House majority makes clear that across-the-board spending cuts will be a major part of their agenda in the upcoming Congress.Here’s what White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates is telling the media, according to USA Today:The White House slams possible defense cuts that Republicans’ speaker deal could produce. “This push to defund our military in the name of politics is senseless and out of line with our national security needs,” @AndrewJBates46 says. “There is bipartisan opposition ..”— Joey Garrison (@joeygarrison) January 9, 2023
      It’s almost certain that Republicans will use the House’s powers of investigation to go after Hunter Biden, in a bid to cast his father’s presidency as corrupt. And while there are indeed unanswered questions Hunter Biden’s foreign business entanglements, the Guardian’s David Smith reports that the strategy is not without risks for the GOP:When Borat – alias British actor Sacha Baron Cohen – told risque jokes about Donald Trump and antisemitism at last month’s Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, Joe Biden was not the only one laughing in a red velvet-lined balcony.Sitting behind the US president was Hunter Biden wearing black tie and broad smile that mirrored those of his father.The image captured the intimacy between the men but also the sometimes awkward status of Hunter as both private citizen and privileged son of a president. It is a dichotomy likely to come under a harsh public glare this year as congressional Republicans set about making Hunter a household name and staple of the news cycle.‘It’s going to be dirty’: Republicans gear up for attack on Hunter BidenRead moreEven some Republicans regard the idea of the GOP-controlled House impeaching homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s muddled and increasingly harsh handling of the US-Mexico border as ridiculous.Outgoing Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson (who will be succeeded by one of Donald Trump’s old press secretaries, Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she’s sworn in tomorrow, becoming the first female governor of the state), shot down any suggestion, on Fox Business this morning, that impeaching Mayorkas is a good plan.As Axios reminds us, new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last November threatened to launch an “impeachment inquiry” into Mayorkas over his handling of border policy – if he does not resign.Mayorkas has dismissed the idea of him quitting, of course.Hutchinson told Fox that “impeachment proceedings should not be based upon policy…it should be based on wrongdoing.“And so whenever there’s failed policy, let’s investigate and have hearings on that and try to change that policy. That, to me, should be the approach of the Republican Congress,” he added.US president Joe Biden visited the border yesterday for the first time as president, spending a few hours in El Paso, Texas, which has been the scene of some misery of late with an increase in irregular crossings of the border and migrants having nowhere to stay, amid freezing temperatures.Biden did not meet with any asylum seekers during his visit.Biden’s ‘carrot and stick’ approach to deter migrants met with angerRead moreWhite House chief of staff Ron Klain has rung alarm bells via Twitter on what Republicans in the House might try to do as they try to force deep national spending cuts.Here’s Klain after Florida Republican representative Michael Waltz went on Fox.They are going to try to cut Social Security and Medicare. It could not be clearer. https://t.co/h1cXaa6iwa— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) January 9, 2023
      Earlier, Waltz told Fox: “We have to get spending under control.”But amid discussions about defense spending cuts, he added that that was not his primary target and he was not going to press for cuts “on the backs of our troops.”He added: “We can work on reprioritizing defense spending but that’s nibbling around the margins. If you really want to talk about spending, it’s the entitlements program – that’s 70% of the entire budget … if you want to talk about big reforms, I look forward to hearing that from those folks who are pushing towards a balanced budget.”Social security is the federal US social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability and survivor benefits, while Medicare is chiefly the government health insurance program for those 65 and older.The Washington Post warned in a piece at the weekend that: House Republicans are set to steer the country toward a series of fiscal showdowns as they look to force the White House to agree to massive spending cuts, threatening a return to the political brinkmanship that once nearly crippled the economy and almost plunged the US government into default.In a Guardian interview before he retired, Kentucky Democrat John Yarmuth told our Chris Stein last month that the Republican party is now so extreme it could cause the world’s largest economy to default on its debt for the first time ever in its quest to extract concessions from the Biden administration.Republicans could cause US to default on its debt, top Democrat warnsRead moreIt’s a lively day in Washington, even though Joe Biden is on trip to Mexico City, where he’ll meet with the leaders of Mexico and Canada for talks.On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, it’s new House speaker McCarthy’s first day of business with the gavel in his grasp after his epic struggle to get the votes to put him in that position as last Friday turned over into the early minutes of Saturday.Here’s where things stand:
      US president Joe Biden, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador have issued a joint statement condemning yesterday’s attack on Brazil’s congress and presidential palace by supporters of Jair Bolsonaro.
      The special grand jury in Georgia has concluded its examination of Donald Trump’s alleged election meddling in the state, where he made efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. There are further stages to go through before prosecutor Fani Willis decides whether to indict Trump on criminal charges.
      House Republican leadership apparently does not want a repeat of last week’s dysfunction in the chamber, when it took 15 rounds of voting over four days to elect a speaker. They’re now racing to make sure moderate GOP lawmakers lend their vote on a crucial package of rules for governing the House.
      The House will convene at 5pm eastern time to vote on the rules package, typically a customary but crucial step for operating the chamber, with votes due after that.
      Should the rule package pass, the new Republican House majority will be able to get down to business, and their first priority will be undoing part of one of Joe Biden’s biggest legislative achievements.They’ve scheduled an initial vote later today on the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, which would rescind almost all of the new funding to the Internal Revenue Service tax authority provided by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The IRS has been underfunded for years, and the money was intended to help the agency modernize and better crack down on tax cheats. The GOP opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, and tried to stoke outrage by telling voters the money would be used to hire tens of thousands or armed IRS agents – which mostly turned out not to be true.Whether or not this passes, expect more legislation of this sort aimed at undoing the legacy of Biden’s two years of united government.Election meddling has consequences, and for proof of that, look no further than the now-concluded special grand jury investigation into what Donald Trump and his allies were up to in Georgia in the wake of the 2020 election.It’s unclear if Trump himself could face charges based on what the jurors determine, but they’ve already informed several of his allies they are targets of its investigation. These include Rudy Giuliani, one of his most prominent attorneys, as well as Georgia Republican party chair David Shafer and state senator Brandon Beach. It’s far from the only investigation into Trump, or his campaign to stop Joe Biden from taking office. The justice department is investigating that as well as the violent insurrection on January 6, and both cases have been handed to special prosecutor Jack Smith. Smith is also expected to decided whether to bring charges against Trump and others over the government secrets discovered at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.There are reasons to believe the special grand jury investigation in Georgia is the most immediate threat Trump is facing. Here’s more from the Guardian’s Chris McGreal as to why that might be:Of all the legal threats Trump is facing, is this the one that could take him down?Read more More

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      House adopts new rules Democrats decry as a ‘ransom note to America’

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      House adopts new rules Democrats decry as a ‘ransom note to America’Partisan lines divided the vote on rules, with no Democrats voting for them and only one Republican voting against The Republican-led US House of Representatives on Monday adopted a package of internal rules that give rightwing hardliners more leverage over the chamber’s newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy.Lawmakers voted 220-213 for the legislation, with only one Republican voting against. All 212 Democrats voted against the rules package, saying it was full of concessions to the right wing of the Republican party. After chaotic week, McCarthy faces new battle as House votes on rules packageRead moreThe rules package, which will govern House operations over the next two years, represented an early test of McCarthy’s ability to keep his caucus together, after he suffered the humiliation of 14 failed ballots last week at the hands of 20 hardliners before finally being elected speaker on Saturday.The legislation includes key concessions that hardliners sought and McCarthy agreed to in his quest for the speaker’s gavel. The changes include allowing a single lawmaker to call for his removal at any time. Other changes would place new restrictions on federal spending, potentially limiting McCarthy’s ability to negotiate government funding packages with President Joe Biden, whose fellow Democrats control the Senate.Democrats denounced the legislation as a rules package for “Maga extremists” that would favor wealthy corporations over workers, undermine congressional ethics standards and lead to further restrictions on abortion services. “These rules are not a serious attempt at governing. They’re essentially a ransom note to America from the extreme right,” Representative Jim McGovern said.McCarthy was hard at work on Capitol Hill on Monday prior to the House going into session trying to head off any such revolt and ensure a smooth passage for the rules package later in the day. He can only afford to lose a handful votes from his party in the House to avoid defeat on any measure.A clutch of establishment Republicans had indicated on Sunday they might withhold their support for the new rules package unless more details of McCarthy’s concessions made to the right are revealed, such as promising chairmanships of powerful committees that longer-established and more moderate members have been eyeing.Pressure groups on Monday stepped in to make clear there will be consequences if the first vote of McCarthy’s speakership turns into a standoff.On Friday, hours before McCarthy formally was elected to the speakership, Texas’s Tony Gonzales said he would oppose the rules package, reportedly over McCarthy’s willingness to cut spending to the defense department.That prompted the conservative group FreedomWorks on Monday to signal that Gonzales should be frozen out if he rebels.If Tony’s a ‘NO’ on the House Rules Package he should not be welcomed into the 119th Congress. #ampFW #HouseofRepresentatives https://t.co/X2tGxa3FqO— FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) January 9, 2023
      The South Carolina moderate Republican Nancy Mace on Monday said she was “on the fence”.Speaking to CBS News on Sunday, Mace said of the fringe members who almost sank McCarthy’s speakership bid last week: “My question really is today: what backroom deals did they try to cut, and did they get those?”She added: “We don’t know what they got, we haven’t seen it. We don’t have any idea what … gentleman’s handshakes were made. And it does give me a little bit of heartburn because that’s not what we ran on.”The package itself was published on Friday evening, and includes a measure to allow a single member to force a “motion to vacate” the speakership, already weakening McCarthy’s position, and a key demand of the holdout conservatives.It also includes reinstating a provision to allow lawmakers to propose amendments to appropriations bills, adds a 72-hour window for members to read bills before they vote, and a commitment to vote on legislation on term limits for members of Congress.TopicsKevin McCarthyHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      After chaotic week, McCarthy faces new battle as House votes on rules package

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      After chaotic week, McCarthy faces new battle as House votes on rules packageSome Republicans indicate they may withhold support unless details of concessions made to hard-right lawmakers are unveiled After five days of chaos and 15 rounds of floor votes, newly elected Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is set to face an instant challenge on Monday as the House votes on a new rules package.A handful of establishment Republicans indicated on Sunday they may withhold their support for the rules unless more details of concessions made to ultraconservative lawmakers during a week of torrid negotiations are unveiled.McCarthy ascended to the speakership late on Friday after winning over support from holdout members of the hard-right freedom caucus who had leveraged their power due to the slim margin of control Republicans hold in the House.But full details of those negotiations have not been made public, leading to speculation that McCarthy has guaranteed the group positions on key committees and thrust them further into power.Speaking to CBS News on Sunday congresswoman Nancy Mace, a more moderate Republican from South Carolina, said while she supported the package itself, she had not decided on whether to vote for it on Monday.“My question really is today: what backroom deals did they try to cut, and did they get those?” Mace said, with reference to the holdout lawmakers.She added: “We don’t know what they got, we haven’t seen it. We don’t have any idea what… gentleman’s handshakes were made. And it does give me a little bit of heartburn because that’s not what we ran on.”The package itself was published on Friday evening, and includes a measure to allow a single member to force a “motion to vacate” the speakership, already weakening McCarthy’s position, and a key demand of the holdout conservatives. It also includes reinstating a provision to allow lawmakers to propose amendments to appropriations bills, adds a 72-hour window for members to read bills before they vote, and a commitment to vote on legislation on term limits for members of Congress.But anonymous briefings have indicated that the holdout Republicans also attempted to negotiate more leverage over key committees, including approvals over a third of positions on the powerful rules committee, which is responsible for what proposed legislation reaches the floor of the House.On Sunday, Republican congressman Tony Gonzales of Texas told CBS he would vote against the rules, citing disagreements with potential spending cuts to the defense department, which he described as a “horrible idea”.Gonzales said he was not urging other members to also vote against the rules, but cautioned that last week’s tumult within the party, was “only the beginning”.“Republicans are much different than Democrats,” Gonzales said. “We’re not just going to line up and jump off the cliff. All of us represent our districts and we’re gonna fight for that.”One of the central figures in negotiations between the ultra-conservatives and McCarthy was Texas congressman Chip Roy who acknowledged on Sunday that negotiations included adding more freedom caucus members to influential committees but did not provide further details.Speaking to CNN Roy said: “It’s not about petty personal desires. I don’t want to be on the Rules committee. I don’t want to leave my family on Sunday night and miss my kids, to come up here (Washington DC). But I might do it if that’s what my colleagues decide.”The divisions highlight the dilemmas posed by such a slim Republican majority in the House. But speaking on Sunday, Jim Jordan, a freedom caucus member and the expected new chair of the House judiciary committee, predicted the rules package would pass on Monday and defended the chaos of last week.“Sometimes democracy is messy, but I would argue that’s how the founders intended it,” Jordan told Fox News. “They wanted real debate, real input from all people and then you get a decision, whether it’s one vote or 15 votes, Kevin McCarthy is still speaker of the House.”The House judiciary committee, under Jordan’s leadership, is expected to launch a highly charged investigation into the US justice department over purported allegations of political bias, partly in relation to its ongoing inquiry of the January 6 insurrection.But a number of Republican lawmakers have been implicated in the investigation themselves, leaving open questions around conflicts of interest.On Sunday, the House freedom caucus chair Scott Perry, one of those under investigation, argued he could still serve on a committee undertaking oversight of federal investigators.“Should everybody in Congress that disagrees with somebody be barred from doing the oversight and investigative powers that Congress has?” Perry told ABC News, adding: “I get accused of all kinds of things every single day, as does every member that serves in the public eye.”TopicsKevin McCarthyHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘It’s going to be dirty’: Republicans gear up for attack on Hunter Biden

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      ‘It’s going to be dirty’: Republicans gear up for attack on Hunter Biden House Republicans are determined to make the president’s supposedly errant son a staple of the news cycleWhen Borat – alias British actor Sacha Baron Cohen – told risque jokes about Donald Trump and antisemitism at last month’s Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, Joe Biden was not the only one laughing in a red velvet-lined balcony.Sitting behind the US president was Hunter Biden wearing black tie and broad smile that mirrored those of his father.The image captured the intimacy between the men but also the sometimes awkward status of Hunter as both private citizen and privileged son of a president. It is a dichotomy likely to come under a harsh public glare this year as congressional Republicans set about making Hunter a household name and staple of the news cycle.Is Hunter Biden’s art project painting the president into an ethical corner?Read more“The right wing is licking its chops at the chance to go after him,” said Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama. “The level of venom is going to be over the top and really, really dirty. The Republicans’ rhetoric might get so heated that it detracts from some of the actual behaviour.”Republicans have been waiting a long time for this moment. After regaining control of the House of Representatives in last November’s midterm elections, they used their first press conference to promise to investigate the Biden administration and, in particular, the president’s allegedly errant son.Hunter has long faced questions about whether he traded on his father’s political career for profit, including efforts to strike deals in China and reported references in his emails to the “big guy”.Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2014, around the time that Joe Biden, then vice-president, was helping conduct Barack Obama’s foreign policy with Ukraine. Hunter earned more than $50,000 a month over a five-year period.Senate Republicans claim that his appointment may have posed a conflict of interest. Last year more than 30 of them called for a prosecutor to be given special counsel authority to carry out an investigation into alleged “tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations”. But they have have not produced evidence that it influenced US policy or that Joe Biden engaged in wrongdoing.House Republicans and their staff have been studying messages and financial transactions found on a now notorious laptop that belonged to Hunter. Having gained the majority, they now have the power to issue congressional subpoenas to foreign entities that did business with him.Richard Painter, who was chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration, believes that Joe Biden should have recused himself from matters relating to Ukraine. “The Ukrainian gas company wanted to curry favour with Joe Biden so they put his son on the board,” he said.“It’s pretty clear what’s going on there but the missing link the Republicans are looking for – but I don’t think they’re going to find – is any kind of a quid pro quo, Joe Biden for the Ukrainian gas company. Still, it would have been better if Joe Biden had said: ‘Look, my son is going to be on this board, maybe the secretary of state or somebody else could handle Ukraine,’ and he’d step aside.”Hunter’s taxes and foreign business work are already under federal investigation with a grand jury in Delaware hearing testimony in recent months. There are no indications that this involves the president, who insists that he has never spoken to Hunter about his foreign business arrangements.Republicans are pulling at another strand. Ethics experts have accused Hunter of cashing in on his father’s name as he pursues a career as an artist. He is represented by the Georges Bergès Gallery in New York, which reportedly struck an agreement with the White House to set the prices of the art and not reveal who bid on or bought it.Bergès said in an Instagram post in November that Republicans on the House oversight committee had written to him with “certain requests” and subsequently got into a Twitter debate with Painter about money and influence in art. Bergès wrote: “If you’re going to scrutinize a profession then scrutinize all of them and every position that children of Congress take in DC and elsewhere.”My Son Hunter: the rightwing Hunter Biden movie is for fringe lunaticsRead morePainter said in an interview: “I don’t think there’s anything corrupt about the White House or anything corrupt about President Biden. But keeping the identities of the art buyers secret was a bad idea. It leads to suspicion that people are passing money under the table. It’s hard to keep who buys the art secret in the close-knit world of Hunter Biden’s friends or Hunter Biden himself so the secrecy was a bad idea.”Fox News and other rightwing media may relish an opportunity to demonise the president’s son ahead of an election in 2024. But Republicans are in danger of overreach. Trump’s attempt to get Ukraine to examine Hunter’s business dealings led to his first impeachment. His efforts to weaponise Hunter’s troubles in the 2020 presidential election fizzled.David Brock, a veteran political operative and president of Facts First USA, a new group set up to combat the congressional investigations, said: “What we’re going to see in the hearings is a recycling and a rehash of old discredited stories and conspiracy theories. They’re doing it for political reasons. [Congressman] Jim Jordan is on the record saying that the investigations are all about 2024 and electing Donald Trump again. That’s his own words, not mine.”Hunter’s 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things, generated sympathy in some quarters for a man who 50 years ago last month survived a car crash that killed his mother and sister and who has been honest about his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse. Brock believes that a fresh Republican onslaught will backfire.Trump ramped up attacks on me to distract my father, Hunter Biden saysRead more“Going after someone who has an addiction and has had mental health issues is sadistic politics and I don’t think it will work with the American people,” he added. “There are so many people who have family members who’ve suffered in one way or another and will identify with Hunter; they won’t identify with the attackers. The Hunter-hating narrative has been out there for three years. It hasn’t really gained any traction outside of the far right and I don’t think it will.”Republicans could also lose credibility by focusing on Hunter and other retreads of the past instead of advancing a plan for domestic issues such as inflation, jobs and taxes.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist who served as a senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee from 2009 to 2013, said: “For all the talk about Republicans saying they want to return to regular order, they want to have better stewardship over taxpayer dollars, they want to act more responsibly with legislative power, well, OK, but how does investigating Hunter Biden do anything to help the American people?”TopicsHunter BidenJoe BidenRepublicansUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘One more embarrassment’: McCarthy debacle wearily received in California home town

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      ‘One more embarrassment’: McCarthy debacle wearily received in California home townBakersfield, in California’s unfashionable Central Valley, has been thrown back into focus by the sorry saga in Congress Kevin McCarthy’s home town – the hardscrabble city of Bakersfield, in California’s Central Valley – has experienced plenty of bruised feelings over the past week, but not necessarily because people have felt the pain of their congressman’s tortured path to the House speakership.Many have bristled at being under a national spotlight during what even Fox News has described as a political clown show. Local Republicans appeared increasingly defensive as McCarthy fell short in vote after vote – before finally prevailing in the early hours of Saturday morning. Democrats, meanwhile, expressed growing concern that McCarthy had been taken captive by his party’s far-right wing and, especially, by apologists for the violent insurrection at the US Capitol two years ago.None of it reflected well on a distinctly unfashionable city known for its hot, dusty climate and polluted skies, its big agricultural businesses and the hundreds of oil wells dotting the surrounding hills. “I only wish they would have stopped saying Mac [McCarthy] was from Bakersfield,” a local insurance salesman, Mark Pearse, wrote in a letter to the local newspaper. “We do not need any more negative publicity.”Reached by phone, Pearse elaborated: “We’re already in the top ten of a lot of negative things. Pedestrians getting run over. Our police and sheriff’s department shooting and killing people. This is just one more embarrassment.”Certainly, nobody has been out in the streets cheering on the local celebrity. McCarthy’s district office, which sits in a business park next to a cluster of medical offices, resembled a suburban fortress with blacked out windows, a door kept locked at all times, and a sign under the door bell saying the only way to be invited in was to call by phone. Staff referred all questions – even questions about a protest on the anniversary of the January 6 uprising taking place directly outside – to McCarthy’s Washington office.More forthcoming was Cathy Abernathy, a seasoned Republican consultant who gave McCarthy his first taste of rejection back in 1987 when she turned him down for an internship with the district’s previous congressman, Bill Thomas. (She later hired him anyway and eventually groomed him to succeed Thomas in 2007.)Sitting in front of a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Abraham Lincoln on Friday, with Fox News reporting the 13th of the 15 vote counts on the television, Abernathy dismissed the week’s drama as an uncommonly visible version of business as usual on Capitol Hill and said the characterizations of McCarthy as weak or politically tone-deaf were grossly unfair.“This is the way things get done in Washington,” she insisted. “It takes hours and hours to achieve anything … It’s unfortunate that a group of 20 members have given such a negative impression of him. He’s a happy-go-lucky, friendly guy. It’s too bad some people mistake that for brainless.”Democrats, meanwhile, took advantage of the January 6 anniversary to stage a series of small protests in and around Bakersfield and tell whoever was willing to listen that McCarthy was one of 147 Republican House members who voted against the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president in 2021, quickly forgave Donald Trump for his role in stirring up the Capitol riot, and has sought to build his power base accordingly ever since.“All of this stems from his decision to kiss Trump’s ring,” said Mari Goodman, one of the protesters outside McCarthy’s district office.“We’re here to remember the people who were hurt and the damage caused,” said Laura Hardman, one of a cluster of January 6 protesters at a busy traffic intersection in Tehachapi, a farm town in McCarthy’s district 40 miles from Bakersfield. “The leaders are still not accountable.”Hardman said she took no pleasure in seeing McCarthy struggling to win over House members who were among the biggest apologists for the insurrection. “As one of his constituents, I find it embarrassing,” she said. “I voted for him in 2006, and he worked with us on some issues. But the longer he’s stayed in Washington, the further he’s drifted from his district.”Such sentiments are a distinct minority view in a part of California that prides itself on bucking the West Coast liberal stereotype. Many of the resentments and frustrations with establishment politics that fueled the rise of Donald Trump seven years ago can be felt in the Central Valley, where farmers and business entrepreneurs often complain that the progressive politicians who run California do not give them the respect they deserve.That complaint extended, last week, to parts of the media. Abernathy, the Republican consultant, said she’d picked up a distinctly condescending tone from reporters and TV producers. One expressed surprise that a man in McCarthy’s position had not gone to an Ivy League university. (He graduated from the Bakersfield branch of California State University.) Another, searching for a way to distinguish Bakersfield from Los Angeles, its giant neighbor 100 miles to the south, offered: “You people have grit.”If some people in Bakersfield felt the country was making fun of them and their most prominent native son, though, others were more than willing to go along for the ride. As Mark Pearse, the insurance salesman, asked after a healthy dose of McCarthy-bashing on the phone: “Haven’t you heard me laughing?”TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More