Tag: Congress

Congress and contempt: What you need to know

The House on Tuesday is poised to pass a resolution authorizing House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) to go to court to enforce congressional subpoenas for Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn.

Democratic lawmakers have largely portrayed the vote as one that will hold Barr in civil contempt. But the resolution does not mention contempt, and it differs from past contempt resolutions that sought federal prosecution of officials who failed to comply with congressional subpoenas.

As lawmakers vote on the resolution, here is what you need to know.

View the complete June 11 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

Amash defends call for Trump’s impeachment, says Congress ‘has a duty to keep the president in check’

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Rep. Justin Amash, the sole congressional Republican to call for President Trump’s impeachment, said Tuesday that the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III left him with no other option.

Defending his stance, Amash (Mich.) told supporters and opponents at his first town hall since his tweets angered Trump and other Republicans that Congress “has a duty to keep the president in check.”

“I’d do it whether it was a Republican president or a Democratic president. It doesn’t matter. You elected me to represent all of you,” Amash told hundreds of people crowded into an auditorium at Grand Rapids Christian High School.

View the complete May 28 article by David Weigel and John Wagner on The Washington Post website here.

The Memo: Trump’s new immigration plan finds few friends

President Trump unveiled a new immigration plan on Thursday in the White House Rose Garden, only to be met by outrage from liberals and ambivalence from conservatives.

The reaction underscored how troublesome the politics of immigration is for the administration, especially when it departs from the simpler — if polarizing — path of the president’s calls to build a border wall.

The new proposal urges a shift from an immigration system based primarily around family relationships to one based around education and job skills. It was largely the brainchild of Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

View the complete May 16 article by Niall Stanage on The Hill website here.

10 Far-Reaching Congressional Ethics Reforms to Strengthen U.S. Democracy

Overview

Congress must get its house in order by passing bold reforms to help ensure it is working for the people—not for wealthy special interests.

Introduction and Summary

American democracy is at a crossroads, with most Americans believing that political corruption in Washington, D.C., is widespread, that members of Congress are in the pockets of wealthy special interests, and that the federal policymaking process does not represent the views of the people. Trust in government is near an all-time low,1 and Americans are demanding anti-corruption reforms that will make government more accountable to everyday people instead of to corporate lobbyists and the most well connected. A recent Center for American Progress report, “Bold Democracy Reforms That Build on H.R. 1,” examined a range of structural solutions that are needed to curb Washington’s culture of corruption and help ensure fair, democratic elections.2 In this report, the authors narrow their focus to a subset of those solutions designed to make members of Congress more responsive to the people who elect them. Continue reading “10 Far-Reaching Congressional Ethics Reforms to Strengthen U.S. Democracy”

3 things about Congress buried in the Mueller report

Chris Christie warned Trump firing Comey would erode his GOP support on Capitol Hill

From President Donald Trump’s signals to his former fixer about his upcoming — and false — congressional testimony to questions about whether senior administration officials committed perjury, Congress is repeatedly at the center of key parts of the Mueller report.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team, after poring over reams of documents and conducting hours upon hours of interviews, did not find that Trump tried to withhold information from congressional investigators. What’s more, the report repeatedly describes the president and top aides as concerned with the committees that were investigating them and collaborating on how to approach dealing with those panels. Continue reading “3 things about Congress buried in the Mueller report”

GOP moves to rein in president’s emergency powers

Republicans are digging in for a long fight over reining in the president’s emergency powers, setting up a potential clash with both the White House and Democrats.

President Trump on Friday vetoed Congress’s attempt to block his national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. With neither chamber expected to have the votes to override his veto, the president is poised to win round one of his fight with lawmakers.

But Republicans are already setting their sights on making it easier to terminate future emergency declarations — setting up an intriguing round two.

View the complete March 18 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Trump sees dangerous cracks in Hill GOP support

Cracks are showing between President Donald Trump’s base and GOP officials, who are rattled by his Syria exit and the ensuing resignation of his Defense Secretary, James Mattis. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A series of recent events is alienating congressional allies Trump would need in an impeachment fight.

President Donald Trump faces a dangerous erosion of support among rank-and-file Republicans thanks to a series of jarring recent moves that have alienated even some close GOP allies.

From his defense of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince over the murder of a dissident journalist to his abrupt decision to pull American troops out of Syria to his demand for a government shutdown, Trump has been angering friendly lawmakers, leading some who typically kept their disagreements to themselves to speak up.

The trend could prove perilous for the president after Democrats assume control of the House in January. Should the House vote to impeach Trump, he will have to rely on an increasingly exasperated Senate GOP conference to prevent him from being thrown out of office.

View the complete December 21 article by Eliana Johnson and Burgess Everett on the Politico website here.

Congress will have to ‘start impeachment’ process after Cohen filings, former Nixon counsel says

Federal prosecutors filed new court papers on Dec. 7 that revealed a previously unreported contact from a Russian to Trump’s inner circle during the campaign. (Melissa Macaya , Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

John Dean, a White House counsel under President Richard M. Nixon convicted for his role in the Watergate scandal, said Friday that allegations against President Trump detailed in new court filings give Congress “little choice” other than to begin impeachment proceedings.

Dean’s comments, made during CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” segment, follow the release of a legal memo from federal prosecutors in New York regarding Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Prosecutors wrote Cohen had implicated Trump in the arrangement of hush-money payments to women during the 2016 election.

“I don’t know that this will forever disappear into some dark hole of unprosecutable presidents,” Dean said. “I think it will resurface in the Congress. I think what this totality of today’s filings show that the House is going to have little choice, the way this is going, other than to start impeachment proceedings.”

View the complete December 8 article by Michael Brice-Saddler on The Washington Post website here.

Debate over term limits for Supreme Court gains new life

A bruising battle over the court’s latest appointee and a recent health scare involving the oldest justice has renewed interest in the age-old debate over whether there should be term limits for the Supreme Court.

It’s an idea that’s been floated before, but senators on both sides of the aisle now say it’s one that’s worth discussing in public.

“I would sure love to have the debate,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), 67, told The Hill last week. “I don’t know exactly how I would come down, but it’s certainly worth talking about.”

View the complete December 6 article by Lydia Wheeler on The Hill website here.

Trump’s new NAFTA faces uphill battle in Congress

President Trump’s signing of a new trade pact with Canada and Mexico on Friday set the stage for a major fight next year with Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Democrats mulling presidential runs in 2020, as well as labor and environmental groups, were already gearing up for a showdown with Trump over trade, and the revised North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will give them an opening for a new line of attack.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Friday called for a major rewrite of the deal signed in Argentina at the Group of 20 summit.

“As it stands, this agreement has not earned the support of America’s working families,” he said in a statement. “Without major improvements, this supposed overhaul will prove to be nothing more than a rebranded corporate handout.”

View the complete December 1 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.