Category: US House

House committee asks federal agency for Trump hotel records

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The House Transportation committee on Tuesday wrote to the Biden administration to request financial records for the D.C. Trump International Hotel.

Why it matters: The General Services Administration(GSA) had refused the panel’s first request in 2019 for details of the leased government-owned building’s revenue, profits, losses and expenses, and it continued to do so throughout former President Trump’s presidency.

  • “Those records, if made public, would reveal the inner workings of a hotel that became an icon of Trump’s era — a place where the sitting president’s company could be paid by foreign governments, Republican allies and companies with business before the Trump administration,” per the Washington Post, which first reported the news. Continue reading.

House Republicans’ claim about ‘known or suspected terrorists’ at the border

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As midterm elections were approaching in 2018, President Donald Trump and members of his administration falsely claimed that thousands of “known or suspected” terrorists were being caught at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The real number ranges from around three to a dozen per year, according to news reports, official statistics and a whistleblower complaint from a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security.

McCarthy and Katko, the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, traveled to El Paso this week and apparently got updated statistics from U.S. border officials, covering the period from October to the present. We were skeptical at first, but the claim seems grounded in fact. Let’s take a look. Continue reading.

Texas Three Percenters member charged in Jan. 6 riot set up security company to circumvent gun laws, obtain high-grade weapons, U.S. alleges

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A man charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has been jailed pending trial after allegedly recruiting members to the Texas Three Percenters by telling them he had created a new security business to circumvent gun laws and obtain high-grade weapons and ammunition available to law enforcement.

Guy Reffitt, 48, of Wylie, Tex., pleaded not guilty Tuesday to three charges of obstructing an official proceeding, trespassing and witness tampering after prosecutors say he was hit by police rubber bullets and chemical spray while allegedly rushing the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Prosecutors also say he threatened his teenage children not to turn him in after he returned from Washington.

U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the District of Columbia set the next hearing for April 19. Continue reading.

Phillips Writes to Biden Administration Demanding Immediate Improvements to Liberian Refugee Citizenship Program as the House Takes Up Immigration Reform

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Due to significant implementation problems, only 91 Liberian DED recipients newly eligible for citizenship had applications approved in FY 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the House of Representatives takes up immigration reform this week, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03) sent a letter to the heads of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) urging the Biden Administration to improve the program that provides a pathway to citizenship for Liberian refugees living in America on the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) program.

The Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness (LRIF) Act was signed into law in 2019, the culmination of a years-long effort by Minnesota’s Liberian community, Phillips, and a core group of bipartisan lawmakers. Though more than 2,300 applied in FY 2020, only 91 Liberian DED recipients had their LRIF applications successfully completed due to ongoing delays at USCIS and challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“For decades, Liberian refugees have worked, owned homes, raised families, and paid taxes legally in Minnesota through the DED program with no opportunity to become citizens,” said Rep. Phillips. “Our extraordinary Liberian community, along with Republicans and Democrats in Congress, worked so hard to finally secure a pathway. We thought the hardest part of the journey was behind us, but it appears that unacceptable hurdles remain. Congress and the Biden Administration must come together to ensure that every eligible applicant for the LRIF program receives fair treatment and full transparency.”

Continue reading “Phillips Writes to Biden Administration Demanding Immediate Improvements to Liberian Refugee Citizenship Program as the House Takes Up Immigration Reform”

House set to pass Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, with renewed hope for Senate action

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GOP opposition to gun, LGBTQ provisions remains

The House will vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act this week, after standoffs over LGBTQ issues and gun rights prevented an update of the law for years.

Authorization for the law, which provides funding for federal prosecution of domestic violence as well as state and local grant programs, lapsed in 2019. The legislation has support from a handful of Republicans heading into Thursday’s debate, but it has also attracted GOP opposition over provisions that lower the threshold to bar someone from buying a gun based on certain misdemeanors.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said the chamber will likely pass the legislation Thursday and blamed Mitch McConnell for stymieing the process in the last Congress when he was Senate majority leader. Continue reading.

A number of Republican lawmakers are saying no to COVID-19 vaccines

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Republicans are at odds over the wisdom and efficacy of taking the COVID-19 vaccine, undermining national efforts to defeat the coronavirus and reinforcing the views of GOP base voters already reluctant to participate in the ramped-up inoculation program.

Although the top GOP leaders, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), were quickly vaccinated in December — and encouraged the public to follow suit — a number of high-profile rank-and-file members say they intend to ignore the advice. 

Some of those holdouts say they’re concerned the vaccine poses a greater health threat than COVID-19 itself. Others have indicated they don’t want to jump ahead of constituents in line for vaccines of their own. And still others note that, because they contracted COVID-19 over the past year, they have the antibodies to fight the disease in the future, precluding the need to be inoculated.  Continue reading.

Pelosi on infrastructure: ‘Hopefully we will have bipartisanship’

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“Building roads and bridges and water supply systems and the rest has always been bipartisan … except when [Republicans] opposed it with the Democratic president,” the speaker said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday signaled hopefulness that Republicans would get on board with major infrastructure and jobs legislation but was unsure whether her GOP colleagues would accept or obstruct President Joe Biden’s agenda.

Following an almost party-line passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package last week, Democrats are staring down the odds of winning Republican support on a host of administration priorities, including infrastructure and immigration. The fact that the American Rescue Plan passed without Republican support underscores the tricky legislative hurdles Democrats will have to navigate with slim majorities in both chambers.

“Building roads and bridges and water supply systems and the rest has always been bipartisan, always been bipartisan — except when [Republicans] opposed it with the Democratic president as they did with President Obama, and we had to shrink the package,” Pelosi told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” when asked whether she’d be able to keep Democrats united behind a package and garner Republican support. Continue reading.

Judge blasts QAnon Shaman for ‘blatantly’ lying after he gets busted by video from the Capitol riot

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During a recent interview with CBS News’60 Minutes, “QAnon shaman” Jacob Chansley claimed that the doors to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were left open for the mob to enter. Now, a federal judge says Chansley “blatantly lied” in the interview after the court released two videos debunking his claim, Law&Crime reports.

“Not only is defendant unable to offer evidence substantiating his claim that he was waved into the Capitol, but evidence submitted by the government proves this claim false. A video submitted by the government captures rioters breaking through the windows of the Capitol building,” Senior Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in a 32-page opinion on March 8. “At the same moment that rioters smash the glass and crawl through the windows, the video pans over to show a large group of rioters walking through an adjacent doorway into the Capitol building. Included in that group is defendant, who is easily identifiable by his horned headdress.”

“The government’s video shows that defendant blatantly lied during his interview with 60 Minutes+ when he said that police officers waved him into the building,” Lamberth added. “Further, this video confirms that defendant did not, as defense counsel claims, enter the building” contemporaneously with the exiting by Capitol Police.” […] Nor did he enter, as defense counsel represents, in the ‘third wave’ of the breach. To the contrary, he quite literally spearheaded it.” Continue reading.

Momentum of Capitol riot inquiries stalls amid partisan flare-ups

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Momentum is stalling amid congressional efforts to swiftly investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, threatened by logistical delays and deepening partisan disagreement about the scope of an independent inquiry advocated by Democrats.

After initial House and Senate hearings that scrutinized law enforcement and intelligence failures leading up to the insurrection, the pace of such public sessions has slowed to a halt, as lawmakers struggle to determine their next investigative steps. Meanwhile, a fight between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her Republican counterparts over the scope of a Sept. 11-style commission has intensified this week after she announced her plan for how it should be structured.

Now, a looming congressional recess is expected to delay resolution on both fronts until mid-April at the soonest — a pause that threatens to undermine the momentum and spirit of cooperation Democrats and Republicans had exhibited immediately after the riot. Continue reading.

Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol

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Two Proud Boys accused of leading a mob to Congress followed a bloody path to get there. Law enforcement did little to stop them.

A protester was burning an American flag outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video.

But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys.

Two years later, in Portland, Ore., something similar occurred. A Proud Boy named Ethan Nordean was caught on video pushing his way through a crowd of counterprotesters, punching one of them, then slamming him to the ground, unconscious. Once again, the police charged only the other man in the skirmish, accusing him of swinging a baton at Mr. Nordean. Continue reading.