Tag: U.S. Senate

McConnell, Graham leave room for Barr to withhold parts of Mueller report

Other congressional leaders, Trump call on attorney general to release full report to public

While Democratic lawmakers and many of their Republican colleagues called on Attorney General William P. Barr to publicly release the full Mueller report, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham left room for Barr to keep parts of it under wraps at the Justice Department.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III delivered the final report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion between Russia and the Donald Trump campaign to Barr on Friday.

“The Attorney General has said he intends to provide as much information as possible. As I have said previously, I sincerely hope he will do so as soon as he can, and with as much openness and transparency as possible,” McConnell said in a statement.

View the complete March 22 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.

Senate GOP poised to go ‘nuclear’ on Trump picks

Senate Republicans are set to hit the gas on confirming hundreds of President Trump’s nominees by muscling through a rules change that would dramatically cut down on the amount of time required to confirm district court and executive nominations.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who supports the change, hasn’t tipped his hand on when the proposal will come to the Senate floor. But members of his leadership team say it will be taken up after lawmakers return to Washington next week.

“I think we have 51 Republicans who would rather do it with 60 [votes], most of us,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of leadership who helped spearhead the proposal along with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “We cannot continue to let this current situation be the way we do business.”

View the complete March 20 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Furious GOP Senator retaliating against Trump White House for refusal to turn over ’embarrassing’ Russia documents: report

According to a report at Politico, Sen, Chuck Grassley (R-IUA) is conducting a war with President Donald Trump’s White House over their refusal to turn over information related to Russia.

The report states that Grassley “is accusing the Trump administration of stonewalling him over a request for documents related to the Russia investigation,” so he is holding up the nomination of a key Trump appointee.

According to Politico, “The Iowa Republican’s demand for Justice Department documents on its probe of possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow has left William Evanina’s nomination to head the National Counterintelligence and Security Center in limbo for the past year, frustrating the nation’s top intelligence leaders and even some fellow Senate Republicans.”According to Politico, “The Iowa Republican’s demand for Justice Department documents on its probe of possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow has left William Evanina’s nomination to head the National Counterintelligence and Security Center in limbo for the past year, frustrating the nation’s top intelligence leaders and even some fellow Senate Republicans.”

View the complete March 17 article by Tom Boggioni of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump tried to make the GOP border emergency fight about him. He lost anyway.

President Trump tried to marshal his most potent weapon — himself — to stave off what eventually became an embarrassing rejection from his own party over his declared national emergency on the border.

In numerous calls with Republican senators in recent days, the president spoke of the battle almost exclusively in personal terms — telling them they would be voting against him while brushing aside constitutional concerns over his attempt to reroute billions of federal dollars for a border wall. He argued that a vote against the emergency would be seen by GOP supporters as being against border security and the wall and would hurt their own political fortunes, according to a person with direct knowledge of some of the calls.

The president, along with his aides, continued to hammer that message leading up to Thursday’s Senate vote on the issue. Trump tweeted the day before that Republican senators were “overthinking” it, stressing that it was only about supporting border security. And White House aides made it clear to undecided Republicans that Trump was noticing those who chose to oppose him — particularly if they were up for reelection in 2020.

View the complete March 14 article by Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

Senate rejects border declaration in major rebuke of Trump

The Senate voted on Thursday to nix President Trump’s national emergency declaration to construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall, setting up the first veto battle with his White House.

Senators voted 59-41 to pass the resolution of disapproval blocking Trump’s declaration. Underscoring the broad base of concern over Trump’s actions within the Republican caucus, 12 GOP senators broke rank and voted with all the Democrats.

The measure passed the House last month, 245-182.

View the complete March 14 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Senate GOP confirms Kavanaugh’s replacement, Trump’s 36th pick for powerful appeals courts

Senate Republicans on Wednesday confirmed the 36th circuit court judge under President Trump — a rapid clip of confirmations that may slow in the coming months simply because the GOP will have filled all the existing vacancies on the powerful federal appeals courts.

The confirmation of Neomi Rao to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on a 53-to-46 vote, as well as Paul Matey earlier this week to the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit, now means 1 out of every 5 appeals court judge will have been nominated by Trump.

Now, just nine vacancies remain in the circuit courts, which handles the vast majority of cases that never reach the Supreme Court, and Trump has nominated candidates for six of them. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could muscle through confirmations by midyear, leaving few openings if a Democrat wins the White House in 2020.

View the complete March 13 article by Seung Min Kim on The Washington Post website here.

Medicare-for-all v. Medicare-for-less: Trump’s proposed cuts put health care at center of 2020 race

A new proposal by President Trump to slash Medicare spending puts Republicans in a political bind ahead of the 2020 election as Democrats are pitching an expansion of the popular health-care program for all Americans.

Trump’s 10-year budget unveiled Monday calls for more than $845 billion in reductions for Medicare, aiming to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal program that gives insurance to older Americans. It’s part of a broader proposed belt-tightening effort after deficits soared during the president’s first two years in office in part due to massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

The move immediately tees up a potential messaging battle between Democratic proposals for Medicare-for-all — castigated by Republicans as a socialist boondoggle — and a kind of Medicare-for-less approach focused on cutting back on spending, from the GOP.

View the complete March 12 article by Toluse Olorunnip and Sean Sullivan on The Washington Post website here.

McConnell works to freeze support for Dem campaign finance effort

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pulling out all the stops to make sure not a single Republican senator backs the campaign finance and ethics reform bill that House Democrats are set to pass on Friday.

McConnell, a longtime opponent of campaign finance reform who battled the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over the issue, made clear in December that the House proposal would never see floor time in the Senate.

He’s continued to pummel the legislation, sending a stern warning to any GOP colleague who may be thinking about supporting it.

View the complete March 8 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Trump set for tumultuous ride with Congress

President Trump is entering a tumultuous stretch in his roller coaster relationship with Congress, setting up some of his biggest battles to date.

Trump faces a multipronged fight with a newly empowered Democratic House majority intent on investigating his administration, all while Senate Republicans show signs of division on measures that could lead to embarrassing legislative defeats for the White House.

The Senate is poised to force Trump into the first two vetoes of his presidency, first on a measure overturning his emergency declaration to build a wall on the Mexican border and then on another resolution ending U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen.

View the complete March 8 article by Jordain Carney on The Hill website here.

Senators unveil new plan to counter Vladimir Putin’s energy influence in Eastern Europe

Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson leading bipartisan effort to improve energy infrastructure

Bipartisan lawmakers are unveiling Thursday the latest Capitol Hill effort to counter Vladimir Putin’s energy activities in Eastern Europe.

This time, a contingent of senators led by Democratic Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is introducing a bill that would authorize as much as $1 billion in financing for the next few years for energy sector projects in Europe.

That includes natural gas and electricity infrastructure. It is in an effort to counter Russia’s role as a dominant provider of energy in Eastern Europe.

View the complete March 7 article by Niels Lesniewski on The Roll Call website here.