Tag: GOP House

Who Will Betray Trump?

Donald Trump knows there are potential traitors in his midst. His presidency could depend on keeping them at bay.

From the moment Francis Rooney expressed alarm to his House colleagues that Donald Trump might have abused presidential power in his dealings with Ukraine—and more dramatically, that an impeachment inquiry could be warranted—the Florida Republican was a marked man.

He made for a most unusual suspect. A silver-haired business tycoon, former ambassador and card-carrying member of the GOP establishment, Rooney had reliably played the role of good soldier for the party since easily winning his Naples-area congressional seat in 2016. He had kept his head down. He had dutifully gone about his business as a policymaker and a politician. He had, like so many of his fellow Republicans, muffled his trepidation over the president’s behavior, recognizing that to cross Trump was to commence the extinction of his own political career.

Venting privately about the president has become a hallowed pastime in Republican-controlled Washington, a sort of ritualistic release for those lawmakers tasked with routinely defending the indefensible, and Rooney had long indulged without consequence. Certainly, his friends noticed, the Florida congressman had grown more animated in private over the past year—railing against the improprieties detailed in the Mueller report, decrying the Trump family’s brazen attempts to enrich themselves off the presidency, wondering aloud what the president needed to do before voters would turn on him. Still, there was no real risk. To the extent GOP leaders heard echoes of Rooney’s discontent, they dismissed it as just another member blowing off steam.

View the complete November 8 article by Tim Alberta on the Politico website here.

Jordan: Republicans to subpoena whistleblower to testify in public hearing

The Hill logoRepublicans intend to subpoena the government whistleblower to testify in the House’s impeachment investigation into President Trump‘s dealings with Ukraine, according to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

The effort is not likely to bear fruit, as Democrats have rejected the idea of outing the anonymous figure, citing safety concerns, and they have veto power over any GOP subpoena requests for witness testimony.

But Trump and his Republican allies in the Capitol have made the whistleblower a central part of their defense, casting doubts about the figure’s political motivations even as they readily acknowledge they don’t know the person’s identity.

View the complete November 7 article by Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

Republican House members planning all-out attack on whistleblower and more ‘stunts’ during public impeachment hearings: report

AlterNet logoAccording to a report from the Daily Beast, Republican House members who failed in their attempt to derail the private impeachment hearings are gearing up their attack machine for the public hearings on Donald Trump after the House voted to proceed last week.

Now that Republicans have had their “process” complaints about secrecy taken away with the move to open hearings, they are planning an all-out assault to disrupt the hearings in any way they can.

“According to GOP lawmakers and aides, the party’s game plan includes calling for witnesses who could bolster their narrative and hammering away at the anonymous whistleblower whose account launched the inquiry in the first place,” the Beast reports. “They’re also holding out the possibility of more tactics to disrupt impeachment—like last week’s stunt to shut down the inquiry’s secure hearing room. Lawmakers are also likely to release a report when the probe is concluded to counter the report the Democratic majority will release to form the basis for impeachment.”

View the complete November 3 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Watch House Republicans criticize Democrats for the impeachment inquiry vote that they demanded

Washington Post logoJust over an hour after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) formally launched the impeachment inquiry of President Trump last month, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) responded.

“I realize 2016 did not turn out the way Speaker Pelosi wanted it to happen. But she cannot change the laws of this Congress,” McCarthy said. “She cannot unilaterally decide for an impeachment inquiry.”

McCarthy’s argument and that of numerous House Republicans over the weeks that followed was simple: Pelosi could not declare that the House had begun an impeachment inquiry without first voting to authorize it.

View the complete October 31 article by JM Rieger on The Washington Post website here.

New report reveals a Devin Nunes staffer is plotting to expose the whistleblower’s identity

AlterNet logoIn an effort to expose the still-secret identity of the whistleblower who sparked the Ukraine scandal that has ballooned into a full-fledged impeachment inquiry, a staffer for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has been plotting within the House Intelligence Committee to guarantee the release of the individual’s name, according to a new report in the Daily Beast.

Despite the fact that witness testimony, public evidence, and President Donald Trump’s own admissions have all largely confirmed that allegations made by the whistleblower, thus rendering the original complaint irrelevant, conservatives have been obsessed with the person’s identity. They’ve claimed that the whistleblower had an anti-Trump agenda or was working with Democrats to bring the president down. But even if the right-wing claims about the whistleblower had merit, they wouldn’t change the truth of what Trump has done that is appropriately leading to his impeachment.

For people like Nunes and his allies, though, it’s less important that an offensive strategy in the impeachment make sense than it is for it to create perceived enemies. And they see the whistleblower as a prime target for demonization.

View the complete October 29  article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Now House Republicans Hate The Rules They Made

Congressional Republicans don’t want to debate President Donald Trump’s attempt to extort political prosecutions of Americans from Ukraine — and given the damning facts emerging every day, their reluctance is understandable, if not honorable. But whining about the process of the impeachment inquiry is only bringing them and their party into deeper disrepute.

Consider the ill-advised and possibly illegal invasion of a secure room in the Capitol on Oct. 23, when a gang of House Republicans led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), delayed the closed testimony of Pentagon official Laura Cooper. Brandishing cellphones and carrying on like the drunken frat boys they once were, Gaetz and his cronies then held a pizza party — and, after a few hours, departed. The hearing went on without them.

By busting into the Secure Compartmented Information Facility, the Gaetz gang jeopardized national security far more brazenly and purposefully than Hillary Clinton’s errant emails ever did. Those politicians know that cellphones and other electronic devices are barred from any Secure Compartmented Information Facility in Washington, and they also know why: to prevent foreign theft of U.S. secrets. At least one member apparently realized that the phones shouldn’t be there and tried to collect them, but it was too late

View the complete October 24 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.

Republicans are wrong on process, too

Washington Post logoTHERE IS an old Washington saying that if you’re arguing about process, you’re losing. A follow-on maxim might be: If you are wrong on process, too, you must really be in trouble.

That would apply to the 30 or so Republicans who stormed a Wednesday House Intelligence Committee hearing in a secure Capitol facility, objecting that Democrats have, so far, conducted impeachment proceedings behind closed doors.

The stunt disrupted the testimony of Pentagon official Laura Cooper and temporarily distracted Washington from the evidence of President Trump’s misconduct. The latter seemed to be the point, but Ms. Cooper simply testified a few hours later.

View the complete October 24 editorial by The Washington Post Editorial Board on their website here.

National security expert appalled by Matt Gaetz cell phone stunt: ‘I cannot emphasize enough how serious this is’

AlterNet logoA national security expert and former congressional staffer broke down the seriousness of a breach by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and other Republican lawmakers into a secure area beneath the Capitol.

A group of GOP congress members carrying prohibited cell phones stormed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility in the Capitol basement, where Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official with jurisdiction over Ukraine policy, was scheduled to testify as part of the House impeachment inquiry.

“Aside from disrupting the testimony of a DoD official shedding light on the President’s attempts to extort a sham investigation into the child of his most feared political rival by withholding military aid that Congress gave to resist a Russian invasion,” tweeted Mieke Eoyang, vice president of the Third Way think tank’s national security program, “storming the SCIF without respecting the security protocols that require people to leave their electronic devices *outside* the space, is actually compromising our national security.”

View the complete October 23 article by Travis Gettys from Ray Story on the AlterNet website here.

The Rooms Where Congress Keeps Its Secrets

House Republicans in a performance meant to impress their “audience of one” (President Trump) abused House rules and put national security at risk with their stunt rushing a closed hearing being held in a SCIF facility complete with their electronic devices. That behavior (what would our Republican friends have done if that had happened when they held the majority (during the closed Benghazi hearings?) put our country’s national security at risk.  Why?  Here’s an article from The Atlantic  that talks about how Congress uses these room:

They’re called SCIFs, and they’re designed to let members see sensitive information beyond the reach of prying eyes.

They are tucked all across the Capitol complex, unassuming, behind doors numbered just like any other room. They are rarely mentioned in public, and what is viewed inside is spoken of even less.

But unlike many offices, these rooms host entourages of sharply uniformed military or intelligence officials throughout the day. And every now and then, glassy-eyed members of Congress emerge, shaking their heads, looking as if they’ve just seen a ghost.

They’re the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (acronymed SCIFs and pronounced “skiffs”) that serve as secure rooms where those with top-secret clearance can view some of the country’s most classified information.

But what is most remarkable about the rooms, members say, is just how unremarkable they seem. Unlike the dimly lit intelligence offices of pop culture, adorned with flashing space-age computer screens, a congressional SCIF more resembles any ordinary room in the Capitol complex, with a wooden boardroom table and pastel painted walls.

View the complete May 28, 2015, article by Daniel Newhauser and The National Journal on The Atlantic website here.

House Democrats sharpen counterattacks to Republican impeachment process complaints

Democrats say this part of the inquiry needs to be conducted behind closed doors but public portions coming

House Democrats in recent days have sharpened their counterattacks to Republican assertions that they’re running an illegitimate and nontransparent impeachment process.

The rebukes represent a shift in messaging strategy as Democrats had largely been trying to avoid engaging in a back-and-forth about process, arguing the GOP was manufacturing concerns to avoid having to defend President Donald Trump on the substance of the impeachment inquiry.

But now Democrats are also offering specific rebuttals to Republican complaints about depositions being conducted behind closed doors and the minority not being granted subpoena authority and other process rights.

View the complete October 17 article by Lindsey McPherson and Katherine Tully-McManus on The Roll Call website here.