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Post by Webster on Oct 21, 2024 15:15:54 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Liz Cheney squabbled by text with Mike Johnson over election certification - reportKamala Harris will be joined on the campaign trail today by Liz Cheney, a Republican former congresswoman who lost her primary because of her opposition to Donald Trump. Earlier this month, Cheney, who was the top Republican on the January 6 committee, expressed doubts that Republican House speaker and Trump ally Mike Johnson would certify Harris’s election win. “I do not have faith that Mike Johnson will fulfill his constitutional obligations,” she said on NBC. Axios reported yesterday that Johnson reached out to Cheney by text message to object to her comments. “We had a little debate in conversation, on text message, back and forth and agreed to disagree,” the speaker told Axios, adding that he told Cheney “how disappointed I was in that, to make things personal, because I’ve not done that.” He continued: You know the idea that President Trump is somehow a danger to the Republic, and that any of us who support him are a danger or would not fulfill our constitutional obligations, all these things that have been said are it’s just nonsense. She knows, she knows me. She used to know me well and knows that I’m a constitutional conservative, and I take all matters at this level very seriously, and I will fulfill my constitutional oath. And to say otherwise is just dishonest.In her own statement to Axios, Cheney said: “Mike knows this is a conscious choice between right and wrong and can’t honestly rationalize supporting Trump on this.”
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Post by Webster on Oct 24, 2024 15:30:01 GMT -5
(The Guardian) In addition to attempting to impeach Joe Biden, House Republicans have fixated on his legally troubled son Hunter Biden, looking for evidence of corruption by the president. They have not turned up much, despite issuing a flurry of subpoenas to Biden administration officials that have led to lengthy and complex litigation. Yesterday, one of the last outstanding matters came before a federal judge who became so frustrated with the squabble she invoked her dog. The hearing led to an agreement that will likely delay the release of any new information the Republicans are seeking until next year – at which point, there will be a new Congress, and Biden will no longer be in the White House. Politico was at the hearing, and explains more: A highly unusual ultimatum from a frustrated judge caused House Republican investigators to postpone their demand for testimony from two Justice Department tax attorneys in a probe of Hunter Biden’s finances. “I’m willing to bet everything I own, plus my dog Scout, that these two line attorneys are going to have zero information to confirm your suspicion,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes told a lawyer representing the House GOP on Wednesday.
Reyes threatened to order Attorney General Merrick Garland and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to show up next week in her Washington courtroom for legal arguments on the dispute. “Don’t test me on this … I’m not bluffing,” said Reyes, an appointee of President Joe Biden who is often seen around the federal courthouse with her golden retriever.
The fight emerged from House Republicans’ long-running search for evidence that the White House exerted political pressure on officials who investigated the younger Biden’s failure to pay income taxes. As part of that inquiry, the House Judiciary Committee tried to obtain testimony from two Justice Department tax lawyers who worked on the case.
When the Justice Department resisted the House GOP’s subpoenas to the two lawyers, the fight ended up before Reyes, who has been refereeing the dispute for months with increasing exasperation.
During a two-hour hearing on Wednesday, she pressed lawyers for both sides to punt the dispute until next year. If they refused, she said, she would summon their bosses into court.
After a brief recess, the House’s top lawyer, Matthew Berry, and veteran Justice Department lawyer Elizabeth Shapiro told the judge they had agreed to shelve the matter until early next year. By that point, a new Congress and a new president will have been sworn in — developments likely to diminish both sides’ appetite for a fight linked to an all-but-defunct effort to impeach Joe Biden.
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Post by Webster on Nov 12, 2024 17:37:22 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The House is scheduled to vote today on a bill targeting non-profit organizations deemed to be supporting “terrorism”. Civil rights advocates have raised alarm that bill, which was first introduced in response to nationwide protests on college campuses against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, could be used against pro-Palestinian groups as well as those that environmental groups, reproductive rights groups and other human rights organizations during the upcoming Trump administration. The language in the bill would give the Treasury Department broad authority to determine which organizations are “terrorist-supporting” without requiring evidence, and allow the agency to revoke tax-exempt status from those non-profits. Republicans drafted the policy as part of a popular measure to prevent the IRS from issuing fines and tax penalties to Americans held hostage by terrorist groups. The measure, which is being fast-tracked in the House, would need a two-thirds majority in the Senate to pass. “This bill requires no oversight. No due-process. No justification. In Trump’s hands, it would be a weapon of mass destruction against dissent,” said Andrew O’Neill, legislative director of the group Indivisible. “The vote today requires a two-thirds threshold to pass, so Democrats really do have agency here. The question is whether they’ll use it to stand up against authoritarian overreach, or if they’ll sit back and hand Trump more power.” “Passing this bill would hand the incoming Trump administration a dangerous new tool it could use to stifle free speech, target political opponents, and punish disfavored groups,” said Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU. “The freedom to dissent without fear of government retribution is a vital part of any well-functioning democracy, which is why Congress must block HR 9495 before it’s too late.”
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