Login
The Department of Justice announced the indictment of U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and his wife, Imelda, on charges of accepting bribes. Cuellar, the representative for Texas 28th Congressional District, has been in office since 2005. The indictments come more than two years after agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation served a search warrant on Cuellar’s Laredo home.
The post Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar, Wife Indicted for Bribery appeared first on Breitbart.
For Rep. Chip Roy, it’s a frustrating conversation that happens all too often with fellow lawmakers on his side of the aisle.
“‘Chip, we have a razor-thin majority. We just have to win the White House; we just have to win the Senate,’” the Texas Republican recalled in a speech Tuesday.
When he hears colleagues concerned about the narrow 217-212 House Republican majority, he notes the Democrats’ narrow Senate majority—51 senators in the Democratic caucus compared with 49 Republicans.
“Well, when do they ever look across there and say Chuck Schumer has a razor-thin majority?” Roy said of the Senate Democratic leader from New York. “When do they ever look and say, ‘You’re actually in charge of the House of Representatives, which James Madison told you in [Federalist Paper 58] actually has the power of the purse. Do something with it. Stop making excuses.’”
That prompted applause from the audience at The Heritage Foundation at an event, “Defunding the Left.” (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)
Roy had earlier quoted Madison—father of the Constitution and later the fourth president of the United States—who wrote in Federalist 58:
The House of Representatives can not only refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the support of government. … This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any Constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.
Though the GOP mostly prevented nondefense spending hikes, and kept the political focus on border security, he said irresponsible spending is a bipartisan problem that “infests the entire swamp” in both parties.
“The fundamental problem is not just the weakening of the dollar and the strength of our financial system. It’s actually the radical Left funding the tyranny, funding the government that’s at war with your way of life.”
He noted the Republican-controlled House approved $62 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid rising crime and fentanyl deaths in the U.S. resulting from the border crisis.
The House majority also went along with $200 million to fund a new FBI headquarters and overall about $40 billion for the Justice Department, despite concerns about politicized lawfare. He noted $824 billion went to the Defense Department with no demands to scrap its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that are hurting armed forces recruitment.
The House majority allowed $80 billion for the Department of Education; $9 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency; and $117 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, while requiring no accountability for mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic by departmental subordinate agencies, such as National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While his GOP colleagues often talk about the need to win the next election, Roy said, conservative control of both houses of Congress and the White House are not guaranteed to reverse the trend.
“Literally, on Day One, they are going to say, ‘Chip, we can’t do all you want to do because we don’t have 60 in the Senate. You’ve got to be reasonable.’” Roy predicted. “I promise you that’s coming. So, we have to win majorities. But we have to plan now for driving a steamroller over the weak-kneed individuals in Congress that will use 60 [as a premise] not to fight for you.”
In the Senate, 60 votes are required to end filibusters.
Roy noted there were some positive accomplishments, however. Since winning the majority, House Republicans have for the most part “kept the ball on our side of the field,” he said.
Nondefense spending was largely held flat, while increased defense spending in 2023 was initially paid for by taking money out of the Internal Revenue Service and unspent COVID-19 funding.
That occurred after then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., put caps in place, even though the caps were discarded in January. Further, Roy noted that House Republicans didn’t let Democrats redirect the border debate to one of amnesty for illegal immigrants.
“Amnesty was off the table. All we talked about this last year was border security. We didn’t achieve it, but we didn’t allow the Democrats to start moving the ball down the field and have a debate about amnesty,” Roy said. “It matters where you set the goal post and how you set your mission.”
The Texas lawmaker criticized the recent $95 billion foreign aid package that passed without the support of most Republicans. He said that too often, members of Congress “default to fear” on defense spending.
“I want the strongest military that we can possibly produce. I want it to be sparingly used,” Roy said, adding:
I don’t want to use it often, but if we do, I want it to destroy everything in its path. But we just default to fear, and we use the national security-defense complex to run over everything else.
“People literally come into [House Republicans’] meetings and say, ‘We just can’t risk defense.’ Well, if that’s what you do, you’re never going to change the town,” he continued, “because they are always going to use defense as the leverage to say, ‘We’re not going to cut [the Justice Department]; we’re not going to cut education; we’re not going to make reforms.”
The post Texas Lawmaker Reminds GOP of Madison’s Words About Power of the Purse appeared first on The Daily Signal.
It’s no secret that Congress is highly unpopular with the American people. For years, it consistently has ranked near the bottom of U.S. institutions. This month’s Gallup/Newsweek poll put its disapproval at 80%.
But how about its leaders?
Veteran pollster and TV host Scott Rasmussen, president of RMG Research, surveyed 2,000 registered voters last week to see how Congress’ four party leaders stack up.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the longest-serving party leader in the chamber’s history, fares the worst with a 58% unfavorable rating. His counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., comes in at 43%.
On the House side, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., the newest of the four congressional leaders, has a 31% unfavorable rating compared to 26% for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
More than 1 in 5 voters (22%) say they never heard of Johnson, while nearly one-third (31%) say they haven’t heard of Jeffries.
All four congressional leaders have a higher unfavorable rating than favorable.
Rasmussen also asked voters about President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, neither of whom received positive marks. Disapproval was higher for Biden, at 57%, compared to Harris, who has a 53% unfavorable rating.
Biden’s numbers have hovered around the same mark for months, although they are slightly better today than a few months ago, according to Rasmussen’s tracker.
The president ended last year with a 61% disapproval rate. Harris’ approval, meanwhile, cracked 40% for the first time in nearly a year.
Among the congressional leaders, Johnson’s favorable rating is 29% compared to 31% unfavorable. Jeffries is viewed favorably by 24% of voters compared to 26% unfavorable.
Schumer has a 32% favorable rating and 43% unfavorable rating. McConnell, who tops the charts with a 58% unfavorable rating, is viewed favorably by 23%.
RMG Research’s survey of 2,000 registered voters was conducted April 22 to 25 as Congress was considering a $95 billion foreign aid package. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
The post Can You Guess the Most Unpopular Leader in Congress? appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Republican establishment doesn’t know it yet, but last weekend was a watershed moment for their party.
On April 20, House Republican leadership facilitated passage of a foreign-aid package that sends roughly $60 billion to Ukraine, $26 billion to Israel and Gaza, $8 billion to Taiwan, and exactly zero dollars to the southern border. The bill has since passed the Democrat-led Senate and was signed by President Joe Biden.
The vote will be remembered for the choice Republican leadership made to brazenly reject its own voters in favor of the “uniparty” in Washington, D.C.
In a move that can only be described as “McConnell-esque,” House Republican leadership teamed up with Democrats to overrule the position of their own conference, their voters, and the will of the American people.
Democrats on the House Rules Committee made an unprecedented move by crossing the party line and overruling Republican opposition in committee, signaling an end to the typically Democrat versus Republican battle and the beginning of the conservative versus “uniparty” war.
The disconnect between “the Swamp” and small-town America could not be more profound. How can a political party be so tone-deaf to the plight of the everyday Americans suffering under inflation, crime, and societal rot?
How can a Republican-led House prioritize the borders of another country over our own border, even as American citizens are killed by illegal immigrants?
How can so-called fiscally responsible Republicans sign off on what is now $174 billion in direct Ukraine aid with a national debt of $34 trillion—more than $250,000 for every American household?
And how can House Speaker Mike Johnson, who had pledged repeatedly that no foreign-aid legislation would advance without first securing the border, so quickly be steamrolled by the Establishment?
In their desire to send billions of dollars to a conflict that our commander-in-chief has still, to this day, offered no plan for winning, the GOP’s leadership not only spurned their party’s own supporters but overlooked an opportunity to appeal to independent Americans frustrated by both political parties.
According to recent polling that The Heritage Foundation conducted with RMG Research, an overwhelming three out of four swing voters opposed sending any additional aid to Ukraine without also allocating funds for our own border. A majority (56%) of swing voters in key battleground states thought that the $113 billion the United States had already committed to Ukraine was too much.
The entire Heritage enterprise fought for over a year and a half on this issue. Heritage Action for America engaged our millions of grassroots members to voice their concerns to their representatives. Scholars at The Heritage Foundation presented a national security alternative package that included limited military aid to Ukraine but made border security the central focus. In an unprecedented move, we even issued a “key vote” on our legislative scorecard against Speaker Johnson’s convoluted rule, which was a gimmick that lowered the threshold to a simple majority (not a supermajority under suspension) and provided political cover for members to vote against individual pieces without jeopardizing the package.
Powerful interests were aligned against us, however, and we lost on the day. Though we lost this battle, all signs indicate that we are winning the war for the soul of the GOP. A majority of Republicans (112) voted against Ukraine aid on April 20. Younger and newer members are particularly fed up with leadership’s conciliatory approach and manipulative tactics that have led us to this point. The average age of the Senate Republicans who voted “nay” is 59, while the average age of those who voted “yea” is 66. The average “nay” vote has been in office since just 2016, while the average “yea” vote has been in Washington since 2010. The same dynamic was true with the recent $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill.
This generational shift can be ignored by the “uniparty,” but it’s not going away. Newer, younger representatives want a choice, not an echo; and increasingly, they’re adopting a populist form of conservatism that champions “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” above all else.
In other words, they want a GOP that puts America first, something a government in any healthy republic would do. They want a GOP that acknowledges the reality that America is a nation in decline but is not yet too late to save.
As Ronald Reagan said in his 1980 address accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, “For those who have abandoned hope, we’ll restore hope and we’ll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again!”
And that brings us to the importance of this year’s election.
In 2016, despite staunch opposition from the GOP leadership, Donald Trump rejected the Washington consensus and initiated a generational realignment in American politics. If the conservative movement leans into the politics and policies President Donald Trump made successful, the American people will again have the opportunity this fall to accelerate a new consensus in Washington, D.C. This is why I remain optimistic about the future of our great nation.
The GOP establishment’s actions this past week portend the end of the GOP establishment, not its survival. Conservatives will win the soul of the GOP, and with it, the hearts of the American people.
Reprinted with permission from The Epoch Times.
The post GOP Establishment’s Days Are Numbered appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The House passed a four-bill $95 billion foreign aid package over the weekend that includes $60 billion in additional aid for Ukraine. The bill could cost House Speaker Mike Johnson his job.
The aid package passed in a 311-112 vote with the unanimous support of Democrats and 101 Republicans voting in favor of the bill.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., threatened to introduce a motion to remove Johnson, R-La., from his position as speaker if he brought the funding for Ukraine to the House floor for a vote.
“I think she’s looking at the totality of what’s come across the floor over the past few months, and she is expressing extreme disappointment with that,” Ryan Walker, executive vice president of Heritage Action for America, says of Greene. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation, of which Heritage Action is the grassroots arm.)
Greene left Washington at the end of last week without introducing the motion to vacate the speaker but said during an interview Sunday on Fox News that she still planned to try to oust Johnson.
“Mike Johnson’s speakership is over,” Greene said on “Sunday Morning Futures,” adding, “He needs to do the right thing—to resign and allow us to move forward in a controlled process. If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated.”
Less than one year after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the role, Capitol Hill is bracing for the potential of another speakership battle when Congress returns to Washington next week.
Walker joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain the reason for the sharp divide in Congress over the foreign aid package and the likelihood Johnson will face removal as speaker. Walker also explains where Congress is getting the money to send to Ukraine.
Listen to the podcast below:
The post Why Speaker Johnson’s Job Is on the Line After House Votes $60 Billion for Ukraine appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said he has "never seen a bigger flip-flop in politics" than he has with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
The post Exclusive — Jim Banks on Mike Johnson: I’ve ‘Never Seen a Bigger Flip-Flop in Politics’ appeared first on Breitbart.
The House of Representatives debates bills to fund the war in Ukraine as well as military aid to Israel and Taiwan that House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democrats are looking to pass on Saturday, April 20.
The post Watch Live: House Debates Foreign Wars Funding Bills appeared first on Breitbart.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) celebrated Democrats seizing the House by unprecedentedly relying on the opposition party to force President Joe Biden's priority of Ukraine border defense funds toward a full House vote on Saturday.
The post Speaker Mike Johnson Celebrates Democrats Seizing House: ‘We’re Happy’ appeared first on Breitbart.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Thursday on Newsmax TV's "The Record" that his bill for foreign aid was necessary because there is a "Biblical admonition to stand with Israel."
The post Speaker Johnson: Believers Have a ‘Biblical Admonition to Stand with Israel’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Former Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) said Monday on CNN's "OutFront" that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had "backbone" for advancing foreign aid funding in separate bills, which did not include border security funding as many in his caucus preferred.
The post Buck: Speaker Johnson Has ‘Backbone,’ He Is on the Right Side of History appeared first on Breitbart.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Wednesday on CNN's "The Lead" that he had to work with Democrats because he has the smallest margin in U.S. history in the House of Representatives.
The post Speaker Johnson: One-Vote Margin Means I Have to Work with a ‘Couple of Democrats’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Rep. Ralph Norman reintroduced a bill Wednesday aimed at stopping a form of federal spending known as earmarks.
“I’ve always said that earmarks are evil,” Norman, R-N.C. told The Daily Signal. “They are sneaky in the way that they get tacked onto big, important spending packages to be automatically passed by the ‘uniparty’ with the hope that no one looks into the details.”
Lawmakers use earmarks, often referred to as “pork,” to receive funding for projects in their districts. Earmarks are often inserted into large spending bills where they are likely to largely go unnoticed. A congressional earmark dedicates federal funds for a specific purpose, such as the construction of a bridge, the restoration of a city landmark, or a local program.
“Basically, an earmark is taxpayer funding for a personalized pet project for a particular district or special interest group,” Norman said.
The six-page bill he reintroduced Wednesday prohibits Congress from considering legislation that contains earmarks, thus banning the practice.
Norman introduced the bill, known as the Earmark Elimination Act, twice before, and most recently in February 2021.
Five Republican lawmakers are currently co-sponsoring the bill, including Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Matt Rosendale of Montana, Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, Tom McClintock of California, and Andy Ogles of Tennessee.
Earmarks have long been debated and were even temporarily banned in Congress from 2011 to 2021. Among the most notorious congressional earmark schemes was in 2005 when two lawmakers from Alaska earmarked $223 million to build a bridge from Ketchikan to the island of Gravina, which at the time had a population of about 50 people. The project was nicknamed the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
“Attaching earmarks to large spending packages doesn’t allow for public discussion,” Norman criticized. “Congress, with the power of the purse, should be primarily looking out for the people’s tax dollars and getting federal spending down as soon as possible.”
Bloomberg Government reports that among the federal government’s 2024 spending bills, Republican and Democrat lawmakers inserted 8,099 earmarks accounting for $14.6 billion.
“To me, this is the most wasteful, abusive way to use hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” Norman said.
The post EXCLUSIVE: Congressman Calls on House to Pass Bill Banning Earmarks appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., announced on social media Tuesday that he’s co-sponsoring a motion to vacate the chair against House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
In doing so, Massie joined the motion to vacate push against Johnson launched by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in March. Massie is the first other Republican to back Greene in the effort.
“I just told Mike Johnson in conference that I’m co-sponsoring the Motion to Vacate that was introduced by [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene],” Massie wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “He should pre-announce his resignation (as Boehner did), so we can pick a new Speaker without ever being without a GOP Speaker.” That’s a reference to another former House speaker, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio.
I just told Mike Johnson in conference that I’m cosponsoring the Motion to Vacate that was introduced by @RepMTG.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 16, 2024
He should pre-announce his resignation (as Boehner did), so we can pick a new Speaker without ever being without a GOP Speaker.
Johnson, according to NBC’s Jake Sherman, said that he’s not resigning.
“I am not resigning. And it is in my view an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said.
.@SpeakerJohnson responds: "I am not resigning. And it is in my view an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs." https://t.co/XAwQWDanh5
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) April 16, 2024
Johnson—who became the speaker after the ouster of his predecessor as speaker, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., by a motion to vacate in October—has been facing increasing pressure from conservatives in the House. In particular, Johnson has been criticized for working with Democrats on a bill to fund the Ukraine war effort.
Johnson continues to receive the support of former President Donald Trump. Trump said on Friday that Johnson is doing a “very good job” when the two appeared together at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Friday.
“I stand with the speaker,” Trump said.
Johnson was elected House speaker in October with 220 Republicans supporting him. Johnson’s election came after McCarthy was removed as speaker after eight Republicans and all Democrats voted against him.
Since Johnson became speaker, McCarthy and Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., resigned and left Congress. Former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., was expelled in a House vote, and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., will resign effective on Friday. After Gallagher leaves office, there will be 217 Republicans and 213 Democrats, a razor-thin Republican majority.
The post Johnson Vows Not to Resign, as Second GOP Lawmaker Announces Support for Ouster appeared first on The Daily Signal.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) signed articles of impeachment against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday.
The post House to Send Articles of Impeachment for Mayorkas to Senate appeared first on Breitbart.
Standing next to former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced legislation to require proof of citizenship to vote.
Non-U.S. citizens are already banned from voting in federal elections now. However, the National Voter Registration Act—better known as the Motor Voter Law—doesn’t allow states to check because the federal forms already contain a check box.
Johnson said that polling showed 78% of Americans supported requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote. He suggested he would put the bill straight to the full House for a vote, bypassing the committee process.
“When we put this bill on the floor, you’re going to see a recorded vote by Republicans and Democrats. You’ll see that Republicans stand for election integrity,” Johnson said. “We’ll be able to ask this very important question of the Democrats. They are going to have to go on record. Do you believe that Americans and Americans alone should be the ones who vote in American elections? We are about to find out.”
Since Biden took office, more than 7.2 million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border.
During his opening remarks, Trump addressed both issues.
“We have a border that’s open. We have a lot of problems in our country. We have an election problem and that’s really what we’re here to talk about today,” Trump said. “I would like to demand that our border be closed because we have millions of people coming into our country, millions and millions of people at levels that nobody is reporting, nobody is going to talk about.”
Johnson said the legislation will require states to remove noncitizens from their existing voter rolls, with help by allowing states access to databases from the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.
My book “The Myth of Voter Suppression” details how several watchdog groups found voter registration rolls filled with ineligible foreign citizens, dead people, and people who have long moved out of a state despite the National Voter Registration requirement to update voting lists.
Johnson referred to the border crisis resulting from dozens of executive actions from President Joe Biden. He says he constantly gets questions about why it’s happening.
“Why would they do this? It’s chaos. Why the violence?” Johnson said, before answering his own question. “Because they want to turn these people into voters. Right now the administration is encouraging illegals to go to their local welfare office to sign up for benefits. Guess what? When you go to a welfare office, they also ask you if you would like to register to vote. Many people, we think, are going to do that.”
Weeks after coming into office in 2021, Biden signed an executive order directing every federal agency, including social service offices, to boost voter registration.
Earlier this week, the House advanced legislation that would require a citizenship question on the census form and that officials no longer count noncitizens of jurisdictions when drawing up congressional maps.
The post Speaker Johnson to Put Democrats on Record With Vote on Proof of Citizenship to Vote appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Wednesday on MSNBC's "All In" that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Republicans in control of the House have "greatly diminished" the reputation United States in the world by how they are dealing with Ukraine aid.
The post Pelosi: House GOP ‘Greatly Diminished’ Our Reputation in the World appeared first on Breitbart.
The U.S. House of Representatives has implemented a strict ban on the use of Microsoft's AI-based chatbot, Copilot, by congressional staff members, citing potential security risks.
The post House Bans Use of Microsoft AI Copilot Due to Security Concerns appeared first on Breitbart.
John and I found the protracted humiliation of Kevin McCarthy in connection with his election to be Speaker of the House a clown show. By contrast, Steve Hayward looked mostly on the bright side in “In re: Speaker McCarthy — dissents and concurrences.”
It is at least worth noting that the GOP majority is dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority to a number asymptotically approaching zero.
It empowered Matt Gaetz to trigger the chain of events leading to McCarthy’s ouster from the Speaker’s chair. I decried that development in “Gaetz of Eden.” Has anyone asked Gaetz what good he did in sacking McCarthy?
McCarthy was deposed this past October. It seems like ancient history. McCarthy subsequently resigned his House seat effective December 31.
I have here in my hand a list of names. According to the list, among the Republicans getting out of Dodge with McCarthy are Reps. Bill Johnson (effective January 21), Ken Buck (effective yesterday), Mike Gallagher (effective April 19), and George Santos, whose departure was involuntary.
“Normally they’re trying to talk people out of [retiring],” one House Republican told Axios. “Now we’re at a point where we’re trying to talk them out of leaving early.” It may or may not be a portent of trouble for Speaker Johnson and it may or may not be a portent of the coming Democratic majority, but it’s not good.
In his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee earlier this week, the glorious Mr. Tony Bobulinski torched Reps. Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin:
We keep hearing from certain corners that our “democracy is at risk” and that “democracy is on the ballot in 2024,” yet the same people preaching this mantra, who know better, continue to lie directly to the American people without hesitation or remorse. Representatives Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin, both lawyers, and Mr. Goldman a former prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, will continue to lie today in this hearing and then go straight to the media to tell more lies.
Mr. B., long may you run.
Professor Jonathan Turley takes it from there in the (highly recommended) Fox News column that he has now posted at his personal site: “The Dripping Away of the Democratic Party: Sir Thomas More and the Biden Corruption Scandal.” In the introduction to the column posted on his site, Professor Turley writes (links omitted): “Various members misrepresented my earlier testimony during the hearing on the basis for the impeachment inquiry. Members like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) stated that I joined other witnesses in saying that there was nothing that could remotely be impeachable in these allegations. That is demonstrably untrue. My testimony stated the opposite.”
What about Goldman? You can’t leave him out:
Rep. Dan Goldman, D., N.Y., captured the problem for Democrats in even addressing any of the mounting evidence contradicting the president. Yet, Goldman has long shown a willingness to rush in where angels fear to tread.
In previous attacks, Goldman repeatedly hit the Bidens with friendly fire when eliciting damaging answers from witnesses. Goldman has a habit of raising the worst evidence that his colleagues have avoided. In one hearing, he stumbled badly in raising the WhatsApp message where Hunter told a Chinese businessman that his father was sitting next to him and would not be pleased unless he sent him money. On another occasion, he prompted an IRS whistleblower to note that an email Goldman read into the record was actually a direct contradiction of the denials of the president.
In the latest misstep, Goldman pressed former Biden partner Tony Bobulinski on a proposal shared with Hunter and others to reserve 10% for “the Big Guy.” In other emails, Bobulinski was told to use such codes to avoid mentioning Joe Biden’s name. He was expressly identified as “the Big Guy.” Video
Goldman snapped at Bobulinski, “Did anyone ever respond to that email?”
Bobulinski responded “Yes, they did numerous times. Hunter himself did.”
Goldman blurted out “you’re right” before angrily reclaiming his time to cut him off.
The video below excerpts Bobulinski’s anticipation of the Raskin/Goldman defense of the Biden family business.
House Oversight Committee hearing goes off the rails when Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski calls out Reps. Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman for lying on behalf of the Biden Crime Family. pic.twitter.com/Xny4VTbhVc
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 20, 2024
In 2001, 2005 and 2017, some Democrat House members objected to the certification of electoral votes for the winning Republican presidential candidate. Those objections, while “denialist,” were only symbolic. But Democrat leaders in the House are now suggesting that if they control that body following November’s election–as they well might–they may refuse to allow a victorious Donald Trump to take office.
The Atlantic did the original reporting, behind a paywall. This is from the Election Law Blog:
Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him. …
In interviews, senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility. But during oral arguments, liberal and conservative justices alike seemed inclined to dodge the question of his eligibility altogether and throw the decision to Congress.
“That would be a colossal disaster,” Representative Adam Schiff of California told me. “We already had one horrendous January 6. We don’t need another.” …
The choice that Democrats would face if Trump won without a definitive ruling on his eligibility was almost too fraught for Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland to contemplate. He told me he didn’t know how he’d vote in that scenario. As we spoke about what might happen, he recalled the brutality of January 6. “There was blood all over the Capitol in the hypothetical you posit,” Raskin, who served on the January 6 committee with Schiff, told me….
The Democrats have become so insane on the subject of Donald Trump that it is hard to know which of their mutterings to take seriously. But if Trump wins the election and a Democrat-controlled House refuses to certify his election on the ground that he is an “insurrectionist” under the 14th Amendment, we will be past the point of a constitutional crisis. If that happens, the only realistic path forward will be disunion, possibly accompanied by civil war, but preferably not.
This is one reason why the Supreme Court should put the 14th Amendment theory out of its misery, once and for all. It is obvious that the drafters of that amendment meant the just-concluded Civil War, in which 600,000 Americans lost their lives, when they referred to “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. In contrast, the January 6 protest was not one of the 50 most destructive riots of the last few years, and the only person killed was Ashli Babbitt. Not a single participant in the protest was arrested in possession of a firearm. Some insurrection!
In the interest of preserving the Republic, the Supreme Court should rule definitively that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not apply to Donald Trump.
We are apparently meant to take last week’s indictment of long-time FBI confidential human source Alexander Smirnov as a repudiation of what we have learned about the Biden family business. Smirnov’s indictment was sought by Biden-friendly United States Attorney David Weiss. It is linked in the related Department of Justice press release.
Kim Strassel observes in her weekly Wall Street Journal column: “If th[e allegations are] true, it ought to be massive story that the FBI for 13 years relied on a man who prosecutors now worry has troubling and ‘extensive’ ties to Russian intelligence. Instead, the media in its desire to embarrass Republicans is working to absolve the FBI, with the New York Times explaining the bureau never did ‘think much’ of the Smirnov claims and concluded in 2020 that they ‘did not merit continued investigation.’”
This particular episode of the Biden saga reminds me of the phonetically linked Yakov Smirnoff. Smirnoff is the immigrant comedian who wielded his catchphrase to great effect: What a country! Smirnoff’s catchphrase might qualify as the motto of the entire saga of the Biden family business. Looking around for a photo of Yakov Smirnoff I discovered that Jonathan Turley also drew on Smirnoff’s work in his New York Post column on the indictment.
Peter Schweizer first outlined the Biden family saga based entirely on publicly available documents in Profiles in Corruption (2020). In one of the interviews about the book, Peter observed: “We’re not talking about a congressman who’s trying to get a road paving for his nephew from the federal highway funds…We’re talking about globalized graft and corruption involving actors around the world who don’t particularly have the interests of the United States at heart.”
Yesterday Andrew McCarthy elaborated on “David Weiss’s Very Peculiar Smirnov Indictment in the Biden Case.” He commented: “[N]one of the most critical evidence of Biden-family influence-peddling comes from Smirnov or Russians.”
I sat down intending to demonstrate the irrelevance of the Smirnov indictment in light of the evidence accumulated to date, but Andy has done my job for me this morning in today’s NRO column “The Smirnov Indictment Does Not Vindicate the Bidens.” Subhead: “There is already extensive evidence, having nothing to do with Smirnov, of corrupt Biden-family influence-peddling.” If you can’t see the corruption, you’re not paying attention or you’re not looking. It’s in plain view. Miranda Devine also makes this point in her accessible New York Post column “Despite media spin, there’s still overwhelming evidence Joe Biden knew of family’s business dealings.”
I’m sorry McCarthy’s columns are posted behind NRO’s paywall. I wish some public-spirited benefactor would make a deal with NR’s publisher to extract McCarthy from NRO’s paywall prison. He brings his long experience as a federal prosecutor to bear and is the best columnist out there on matters at the intersection of law and politics.
The Wall Street Journal has posted Mark Kelly’s accessible video below in connection with the appearance of James Biden for deposition by the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees behind closed doors this week (Fox News story here). The caption on the video reads: “The latest revelations in the House Oversight Committee investigation into Biden family business dealings surrounds two checks that landed in Joe Biden’s personal bank account, one for $40,000, the other for $200,000.” As I say, if you can’t see it you’re not looking.
Vaunce News 