Tag: U.S. House

Congress Wants To Know Whether Matthew Whitaker Talked To The White House About The Special Counsel’s Response to A BuzzFeed News Report

Credit: Jamie Squire, Getty Images

The House Judiciary Committee chair will ask the acting attorney general at an upcoming hearing about the report that President Trump directed his lawyer to lie to Congress.

The chair of the House Judiciary Committee will ask the acting head of the Justice Department about his communications with the White House in the wake of BuzzFeed News’ report that President Trump directed his personal lawyer to lie to Congress.

Committee chair Jerry Nadler has told acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker that he will be asked about whether he discussed the report, or the decision by the office of special counsel Robert Mueller to issue a statement disputing it, at a hearing on Feb. 8.

“If so, with whom?” Nadler told Whitaker he plans to ask, in a letter dated Tuesday. “What was discussed?”

View the complete January 22 article by Emma Loop on the BuzzFeed website here.

Trump’s petty response to Pelosi is why this shutdown may never end

Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi
Credit: Reuters; Getty Images

The state of government shutdown negotiations is now just two adults treating each other like children. What shiny toy can they take away next as punishment?

A day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that President Trump delay delivering the State of the Union address in front of Congress due to security concerns while the government is shut down, he seemed to retaliate.

Just hours before Pelosi and other members of Congress were to board a military jet to visit troops in Afghanistan, Trump told her she couldn’t go.

View the complete January 17 article by Colby Itkowitz on The Washington Post website here.

House Democrats’ latest gambit for ending shutdown involves bills Republicans negotiated

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-MD Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call

Plan is to bring up spending bills next week that both chambers agreed to in conference last year

House Democrats plan to ramp up the pressure on Republicans to reopen the government by holding votes next week on spending bills the GOP helped negotiate.

The plan is to hold a vote on a package of six fiscal 2019 appropriations bills that were agreed to by House and Senate negotiators last year but never brought to the floor.

The package also includes language to pay federal employees who have been working without pay or who have been furloughed during the partial government shutdown.

View the complete January 17 article by Lindsey McPherson on The Roll Call website here.

Dems zero in on Trump and Russia

Democrats vowed to introduce tough oversight of President Trump if they won back the House majority, and they are signaling a new aggressiveness to meet their promises.

Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney, is slated to testify before Congress publicly next month, an event that promises high drama as lawmakers question him on Trump’s dealings in Russia and his involvement in a scheme to pay off women alleging affairs with him during the 2016 campaign.

Meanwhile, dueling reports have given Democrats momentum in further probing Trump’s actions and his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

View the complete January 14 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

House will vote this week on two stopgap funding bills to end shutdown

Credit: Susan Walsh, AP Photo.

The House this week will vote on two stopgap spending bills to reopen all closed government agencies, Democrats announced Monday.

The Democrats have introduced two continuing resolutions with varying lengths. One, which would reopen the government through Feb. 1, will be voted under suspension of the rules on Tuesday, the fast-track procedural move that requires two-thirds support for passage.

The other would open government through Feb. 28 and will be brought to the floor under a rule on Thursday.

Cohen to testify publicly before Congress

President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen has agreed to voluntarily testify before the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee next month, the Democratic chairman of the panel announced Thursday.

“I thank Michael Cohen for agreeing to testify before the Oversight Committee voluntarily,” Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement.

“I want to make clear that we have no interest in inappropriately interfering with any ongoing criminal investigations, and to that end, we are in the process of consulting with Special Counsel Mueller’s office. The Committee will announce additional information in the coming weeks.”

View the complete January 10 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

House votes to reopen Treasury Dept., IRS

The Democratic-led House approved a bill Wednesday to reopen the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service and Small Business Administration, among other federal agencies.

The chamber voted 240-188 to advance the measure, with eight Republicans bucking party lines to back the bill, which is the first of four bills expected to be brought to the floor by Democrats.

The Republicans who voted to advance the measure Wednesday included Reps. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Will Hurd (Texas), Fred Upton (Mich.), John Katko (N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Greg Walden (Ore.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Herrera Beutler (Wash.).

View the complete January 9 article by Juliegrade Brufke on The Hill website here.

House Democrats unveil first major legislative package of voting, campaign finance and ethics overhauls

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., plan to bring a bill to the floor in the coming weeks to overhaul voting and campaign finance laws. Democrats are introducing it as H.R. 1 to signal that it’s their top priority. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call

Committees will soon begin marking up aspects of the package ahead of floor vote on H.R. 1

Automatic voter registration, independent redistricting commissions, super PAC restrictions, forced release of presidential tax returns — these are just a handful of the provisions in a massive government overhaul package House Democrats will formally unveil Friday, according to a summary of the legislation obtained by Roll Call.

The package is being introduced as H.R. 1 to show that it’s the top priority of the new Democratic majority. Committees with jurisdiction over the measures will hold markups on the legislation before the package is brought to the floor sometime later this month or early in February.

H.R. 1 features a hodgepodge of policies Democrats have long promoted as solutions for protecting voters’ rights and expanding access to the polls, reducing the role of so-called dark money in politics, and strengthening federal ethics laws.

View the complete January 4 article by Lindsey McPherson on The Roll Call website here.

House Democrats pass government funding bills, Pelosi jokes she’d give Trump $1 for a wall

Speaker Pelosi, D-CA., pictured greeting Senate Minority Leader Schumer, D-NY, during opening day proceedings of the 116th Congress Jan. 3, said Democrats will not agree to a border wall but joked she’d give President Donald Trump $1 for it. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call

More seriously, Pelosi reiterates Democrats will not agree to wall as Republicans predict long shutdown

The new House Democratic majority passed two government funding bills Thursday to open shuttered federal agencies that President Donald Trump has said he will not sign, as Republicans predicted the partial government shutdown will be a long one.

Before the votes Speaker Nancy Pelosi reiterated that Democrats will not agree to a border wall but joked that she’d give Trump $1 for it.

“A dollar?” the California Democrat said when asked if there was any situation in which she’d even accept $1 for the wall. “A dollar. One dollar, yeah, one dollar.”

View the complete January 3 article by Lindsey McPherson on The Roll Call website here.

Nancy Pelosi says Trump is not immune from indictment. Some legal experts agree.

Now that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is leading the House for her third term, she faces a tricky political landscape and a big agenda. (Video: Jenny Starrs /Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Hours before the 116th Congress began, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made clear she’s prepared to respect, even defend, the rule of law.

In an interview broadcast Thursday morning on the “Today” show, Pelosi was asked whether she believed special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should honor decades-old Justice Department guidance, which suggests a president should not be indicted while in office.

“I think that that is an open discussion in terms of the law,” said Pelosi, who became House speaker later in the day. She is now the highest-ranking government official to openly state what many experts have discussed for months.

View the complete January 3 article by Deanna Paul on The Washington Post website here.