Rep. George Santos (R-NY), expelled from office late last year, was such a disaster that other members had to step in and pick up the load of helping those in his district, Politico revealed in an interview.
One of the key roles of members of Congress is helping constituents navigate problems they're having with the government. Issues with a passport? Call your member of Congress. Problems with getting someone at Social Security to talk to you? Call a congressional office.
In an interview with Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) about his first year in Congress, Politico uncovered the revelation that Santos never hired staff to handle those seeking help in his district. While Santos had several communications staffers, D’Esposito said that his own office, and others in the area, had to step in to help Santos' constituents.
"A lot of the Santos stuff was self-inflicted. We really did attempt to just go about our business and conduct the work of the people who sent me to D.C. to deal with the things that mattered to them," said D’Esposito.
When asked about the constituent services burden, D'Esposito explained: "It was really our staffs, those of us on Long Island, who dealt with the extra workload, whether it was people who did not want to communicate with Santos or elected officials who felt that they weren’t getting the answers that they needed."
He explained that he wanted to be out and about in his district more while back home, but the Santos problem prevented that.
"Instead of hearing about issues that we should be working on in the House, very often we were hearing about Santos and the situation that he was dealing with, especially me who had the district close to Santos and coming from the same county," he said.
House Republicans, who will have a tiny two-vote margin in less than three weeks, are still on their winter break despite two impending budget crises that could lead to government shutdowns as soon as January 19. Speaker Mike Johnson allowed the House to go into recess on December 14, ignoring urging from the White House and the Senate for aid packages for Ukraine and Israel. Members are not expected to return until next week.
But dozens of House Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, are headed to Texas Wednesday, betting their focus on the southern border will help them win the November elections. They're kicking off the year by trying to do something Congress hasn't done in almost 150 years: impeach a presidential cabinet secretary.
Republicans have been gunning for the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, since President Joe Biden nominated him three years ago. Born in Havana to Cuban Jewish parents, including a mother whose family fled the Holocaust, Mayorkas is the first Latino, the first immigrant, and the first Cuban American to lead DHS. He was confirmed despite tremendous pushback by Senate Republicans in a 56-43 vote on February 2, 2021, after U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) took the rare step of putting a hold on his nomination.
Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) announced Tuesday the House will begin impeachment proceedings against Secretary Mayorkas next week, Punchbowl News was first to report, calling it "a major escalation in Green’s nearly year-long probe into Mayorkas."
“Our investigation made clear that this crisis finds its foundation in Secretary Mayorkas’ decision-making and refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress, and that his failure to fulfill his oath of office demands accountability,” Green told Punchbowl News in a statement. “The bipartisan House vote in November to refer articles of impeachment to my Committee only served to highlight the importance of our taking up the impeachment process – which is what we will begin doing next Wednesday.”
Punchbowl News reports "the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border has arguably been House Republicans’ biggest rallying cry heading into a critical election year. The issue is widely seen as a huge political problem for Democrats and Biden. The president’s poll numbers on this issue are terrible."
The White House is pushing back against Republicans' framing of the issue at the southern border.
“Actions speak louder than words,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement, Politico reports. “House Republicans’ anti-border security record is defined by attempting to cut Customs and Border Protection personnel, opposing President Biden’s record-breaking border security funding, and refusing to take up the President’s supplemental funding request.”
“After voting in 2023 to eliminate over 2,000 Border Patrol agents and erode our capacity to seize fentanyl earlier in 2023, House Republicans left Washington in mid-December even as President Biden and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate remained to forge ahead on a bipartisan agreement,” Bates added.
White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt on social media added, "President Biden has requested $13.6 billion for border enforcement & migration management, increasing the Border Patrol by 1,300, judge teams by 375 and asylum officers by 1600 to expedite the screening process, and critical drug detection technology."
House Republicans will be at the border Wednesday, "calling for solutions" to the "border crisis," as Texas CBS affiliate KENS5 reports.
They're also pushing for the Senate to pass HR2, legislation American Immigration Council policy director Aaron Reichlin-Melnick calls "hardline."
"Mandates the indefinite detention of toddlers," "Makes it a federal crime to violate a visa, even unknowingly," "Empowers DHS to waive every single other law on the books to build, maintain, and operate border infrastructure," and "Ends 99.9% of asylum," he says.
Meanwhile, several far-right Republicans got an early start in Texas, meeting up with a Fox News reporter, telling him, “shut the border down, or we’ll shut the government down. We control the money.”
Wednesday morning Secretary Mayorkas responded to news the House is moving to impeach him.
To hear it from conservative columnist George Will in The Washington Post, there's already an authoritarian in the White House.
Will argued President Joe Biden is already using tactics many fear Trump will bring with him if he wins the presidential election. He lists actions he said were unconstitutional — student loan forgiveness and the vaccine mandate among them.
But he took particular aim at a Biden appointment that he said turned the Vacancies Act upside down.
The trouble began when the president "nominated Ann Carlson last March to be administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration," wrote Will, a Republican who is frequently critical of his own party.
The nomination was pulled two months later as Biden didn't have the votes in the Senate to get her confirmed.
"But less than five weeks after that, he named Carlson acting administrator ... the Supreme Court has held that the act prohibits 'any person who has been nominated to fill any vacant office from performing that office’s duties in an acting capacity.'"
This move, said Will, is "Trumpian" in its "indifference" to the law as it doesn't make sense that someone would be disqualified from serving in an acting role when they are nominated for a position, but could do so when they have been withdrawn.
He went on, "Joe Biden is, like Trump, an authoritarian recidivist mostly stymied by courts."
Indeed, Will argued, Biden is arguably more effective than Trump at circumventing Congress to get his way, since when Trump tried to flout Congressional approval to build his border wall, he barely managed to accomplish anything.
Ultimately, Carlson had to step down in December when the 210-day limit of the Vacancies Act appointment ran out, said Will — but "contentment about this small victory for constitutional propriety should, however, be tempered by chagrin that such propriety, and legality ... have become contested concepts."
Former President Donald Trump's supporters are out of their depth when they attack the decisions disqualifying the former president from the primary ballot in Colorado and Maine, University of Baltimore law professor Kim Wehle argued in an article for The Bulwark.
The disqualification stems from Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, also known as the Insurrection Clause.
"Critics of the two rulings cite due process and the lack of a criminal jury verdict — but as I noted yesterday, as a legal matter, these critiques are deeply flawed. In the Colorado case, Trump actually got due process via a multi-day evidentiary hearing — even though the protection of due process only dubiously applies to presidential runs in the first place," wrote Wehle. "The critiques of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows are even more intense than the criticism of the Colorado ruling, since the secretary of state isn’t a court — but they are legally way off, as well," because she followed the process directly laid out in Maine law, and it is reviewable by state courts.
Bellows, continued Wehle, "executed her obligation to ensure that the state’s requirements for getting on the ballot are satisfied. If a 'teenager' tried to run, she notes, she’d go through the identical process, presumably without the cries of outrage that Trump evokes from people across the political spectrum. President Joe Bidenwon’t be on the New Hampshire primary ballot either, over a dispute within the Democratic party regarding whether New Hampshire’s or South Carolina’s primary will lead this year. No abounding indignation on that one. Crickets."
Moreover, she noted, Trump's legal team doesn't even dispute the factual finding of January 6 being an "insurrection" the participation in which would be covered by the Fourteenth Amendment.
But despite all this, said Wehle, Bellows — like many officials around the country who haven't fallen in line behind MAGA — is receiving mounting threats and harassment.
"A terrible foretaste of the lawlessness we might see in the months ahead, as Donald Trump’s supporters act in service of his lies and ambition," she concluded.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden as his 2024 campaign gets underway will visit a historic church in South Carolina where Black churchgoers were murdered by a white supremacist in 2015, to give a speech about the dangers of political violence and to make the case for his reelection this November.
“The choice for the American people in November 2024 will be about protecting our democracy and every American’s fundamental freedoms,” Biden-Harris Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
The visit to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston on Monday marks Biden’s fourth visit to South Carolina and sets the reelection campaign into full swing.
Also, Vice President Kamala Harris will speak on Saturday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at the 7th Episcopal District AME Church Women’s Missionary Society retreat.
The Biden-Harris campaign will also focus on the push for reproductive rights, with Harris set to visit Wisconsin on Jan. 22, the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Quentin Fulks, the Biden-Harris 2024 principal deputy campaign manager, told reporters during the Tuesday call. The site of the Harris visit was not specified.
“You can expect the entirety of our campaign to be out in full force later this month on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making crystal clear … to every American that the freedom for women to make their own health care decisions is on the ballot this November,” Fulks said.
Prior to the visit to South Carolina, the president will also visit Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to make the case to voters to unite to save democracy.
The visit will mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, where a violent mob of pro-Trump supporters tried to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
“We are running a campaign like the fate of our democracy depends on it,” Chavez Rodriguez said.
Fulks said that the threat that Trump poses “to American democracy has grown even more dangerous than it was when President Biden ran last time.”
Fulks said that the campaign is going to scale up its operation and expand its state program, especially in battleground states, and will engage with voters early, to earn those voters of color.
“Voters of color are the ones who have the most at stake in this election, and we need to make sure that every singe one of them understand the choice in front of them,” Fulks said.
The Gallup Poll in late December found Biden’s job approval rating at 39%, which is lower than that of the past seven presidents at the same point in their first terms in office.
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com. Follow West Virginia Watch on Facebook and Twitter.
President Joe Biden will observe the third anniversary of the January 6 attacks on the U.S Capitol with a political speech near the historic Revolutionary War site in Valley Forge where he will make the case that his top Republican rival Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy, the reelection campaign said on Wednesday.
The stop near the war encampment in Pennsylvania will be followed by a campaign visit on Monday to Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.
Former President Donald Trump's presidential immunity argument against special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution for January 6 is not just meritless, argued former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti on MSNBC Tuesday — it's also dangerous.
By the logic Trump has laid out, Mariotti told anchor Ari Melber, if Trump was elected to a second term, he could order the military to lock up Joe Biden, and then fabricate a way to excuse himself from any criminal investigation of his actions.
"When it comes to post-presidential immunity, it doesn't exist, period," said Melber, himself an attorney, as he reviewed Smith's newest filings against Trump's claims. "The Constitution specifically imagines a criminal president, and it does say you have to impeach him in office. It's complicated. If the DOJ was trying to try their own boss, that's complex for a four- or eight-year problem. I'm reading from [Smith's filing]: 'The Constitution explicitly provides for an impeached and convicted president's criminal prosecution for the same conduct.'"
In other words, Melber added, Smith is pointing out that "you could be a strict textualist and you would still land on saying the Constitution literally writes out post-presidential prosecution."
"Absolutely," agreed Mariotti. "And you can see how measured Smith is being."
"Look at the alternative," Mariotti continued. "What Trump is trying to argue for is a get out of jail card as his right. It would essentially allow a president, as long as you could have some plausible connection to your official duties to say, hey, I'm going to order the military to go imprison my opponent."
"It's the sort of thing that you'd see in a horror movie, not the sort of thing you would actually want the President of the United States to do," Mariotti added.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House would instate an authoritarian rule comparable to fascist leaders of 1930s Europe, an Ivy League academic and Forbes columnist argued Tuesday.
“There will be camps,” wrote Columbia University lecturer Tom Watson. “We will be Spain under Franco. Or worse.”
Watson, in Tuesday’s edition of his newsletter The Liberal, describes a bleak future for the U.S. under a Trump administration he fears would dismantle checks and balances to the detriment of those who do not identify as white and male.
“Ethnic and religious minorities will suffer. Millions will be targeted because of sexual orientation. Immigrants will suffer,” Watson writes.
“Criminal gangs will run the Federal government and even deep blue states will be hard-pressed to resist the pull of authoritarian rule.”
But the silver lining of Watson’s looming storm cloud is a mix of optimism and odds: “I think we will win.”
Watson argues that President Joe Biden’s position is much stronger than conservatives, critics, and the media would have Americans believe.
“Biden’s strengths are the kind that win elections,” Watson writes. “And you know who agrees? State parties in swing and blue states.”
Watson challenges the “Dems in disarray” critique — arguing the liberal party is well-funded, well-organized and activated — and urges readers to remember Democrats' strong swing-state showing in the 2022 midterm elections.
“Democrats’ statewide margins were greater than the 2020 presidential margins in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — all recent battleground states,” Watson writes.
“That showing led the party to pick up a Senate seat, four state legislative chambers and two governorships, and helped keep the House of Representatives close, making it far more likely Republicans lose it in 2024.”
But Watson warns of real challenges in the months to follow, including voter suppression, bigotry, the “clickiness” of Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the slow pace of the criminal court system.
“The thunderstorm is coming,” Watson concludes. “Consider these hard truths without turning away."
Embattled Trump administration adviser Peter Navarro floated a new conspiracy in a column for the conservative Washington Times, published on Tuesday: that Democrats are plotting to overthrow President Joe Biden at the convention at the last minute — by an alliance led by former First Lady Michelle Obama "as the figurehead" and her husband pulling the strings in a de facto third term.
Navarro, who previously advised former President Donald Trump on trade issues, was convicted last year of contempt of Congress, for his blanket refusal to provide testimony to the House January 6 Select Committee.
"Mr. Biden will not step aside before the end of the Democratic primary season. Instead, without real opposition, Mr. Biden will be poised to accept his coronation at the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago," wrote Navarro. "Democratic strategists now plotting the Biden coup see this uncontested primary season as an essential element of a winning November strategy. As Richard Nixon once advised, run to the right to win the Republican nomination but run back to the middle to win the general election."
According to Navarro's theory, Democratic advisers will first appeal to Biden to step aside, and if not, "key leaders within his party and the legacy media will take Mr. Biden down and thereby clear the path for a fresh ticket." That ticket, he believes, is Michelle Obama and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), with Barack Obama pulling the strings from the shadows.
There is no evidence Newsom or the Obamas have any plans to push aside Biden, and Michelle Obama has frequently said she hates getting into politics.
"Middle America, where the median voter lives, is sick to death over the takeover of this country by radical Democratic progressives destroying everything from our economy, society and political system to, most dangerously, our borders and national security," Navarro fumed in the opinion piece. "For a Republican win, Democratic strategists must not be allowed to obscure the hot, steaming policy excrement of a 'woke' policy agenda inside a fancy moderate Michelle Obama wrapping."
Come one insurrectionist, come all... for a rootin'-tootin' time to play "Stop the Steal" the board game.
On the three-year anniversary of Jan. 6, a game titled "Storm the Capitol" will debut to give competitors a chance to prevent President-Elect Joe Biden from a peaceful transfer of power, first reported by Newsweek.
For a price point of $64.99, buyers can "relive one of the funniest days in American history" and replay the infamous events where five people lost their lives.
Players can either pretend to be Patriots or suit up in riot gear as Capitol Police.
"Storm the Capitol is the world’s first board game based around the events of January 6, 2021," reads the description on the game's website. "Take control of one of 6 Patriots as you battle through the Capitol, collecting ballots, taking hostages, and fighting the police."
"Or play as the Capitol Police and use every means at your disposal to prevent the Patriots from getting to the roof with enough ballots to Stop the Steal."
Invented by the makers of TrueAnon, a political podcast hosted by Brace Belden and Liz Franczak and produced by Yung Chomsky, it is intended for four to seven players at once who should be adult age with the line: "Definitely 18 years and up."
According to Newsweek, the show notched the ninth-ranked podcast on Patreon.
"This game is for every single person in America, on every single side of every single political issue," Belden said, according to the outlet.
The strategy if you're going to be a Patriot is to breach the Capitol Building and roam room to room while being dealt various "event" cards.
The outlet suggests the aim is to collect 100 ballots and make it to the final room, where former President Donald Trump is waiting in a chopper and together they flip the results or "or ratify the real results of the 2020 election" to gain the ultimate victory, Newsweek reported.
A campaign adviser for former President Donald Trump was charged Tuesday with violating federal public disclosure laws regarding foreign agents, according to court records and reports.
GOP lobbyist Barry Bennett stands accused in Washington D.C.'s federal court of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to the court filing.
"[Bennett] did knowingly and willfully falsify, conceal, and cover up by a trick, scheme, and device material facts in a matter within the jurisdiction of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit," writes U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves.
In August, several reports claimed that the Department of Justice was investigating Bennett's connections to a group called Yemen Crisis Watch in 2017, which was set up to embarrass the country's rivals.
The reports said he received $250,000 from the Embassy of Qatar, but did not, register the group under foreign lobbying laws.
The charges are linked to Avenue Strategies Global LLC, a lobbying firm Bennett, who was an unpaid adviser, opened with Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after the 2016 election, according to a Politico report.
"The firm’s international wing, Avenue Strategies Global, represented a host of big-spending clients over the years, including Citgo, Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko, and the governments of Qatar and Zimbabwe," Politico wrote in a 2021 story about the freezing of Bennett's assets.
Avenue Strategies closed down shortly after President Joe Biden's inauguration, according to the report.
Kyle Cheney, the Politico reporter who first spotted the filing, said Tuesday the format of the filing suggested a plea deal was pending. He noted it was not a complaint.
Former President Donald Trump claims he will make a "heavy play" for states typically won by Democrats if he wins the Republican presidential primary.
Trump told Breitbart News that he would target states like New York even though it could be a waste of resources.
"One of the other things I'm going to do — and I may be foolish in doing it — is I'm going to make a heavy play for New York, heavy play for New Jersey, heavy play for Virginia, heavy play for New Mexico, and a heavy play for a state that hasn't been won in years, Minnesota," the former president insisted.
"I left New York 8 years ago," he reportedly said. "We had already suffered from De Blasio a little bit. But it hadn't been long enough. He was a horrible mayor. He was the worst mayor in the history of New York."
"We were suffering from De Blasio a little bit but it was eight years ago when I left, and when I left it was the hottest thing. Now, you look at it and what they've done to that beautiful place is just horrible. So, I think I have a chance there. I will spend time that I would normally not be working on New York and New Jersey and other places."
In New York's 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden defeated Trump, receiving 23% more votes.
With less than two weeks to go before the 2024 primary season kicks off, presidential candidates are scrambling to consolidate their support in key states.
Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump maintain strong leads in their respective races, while their challengers trail behind by double digits, indicating a 2020 rematch is likely, polls show.
Here’s a look at how candidates are polling in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — four states that hold primaries or caucuses in January or February.
