Tag: Impeachment

Republican Peter Meijer, who supported Trump’s impeachment, enters Michigan’s US Senate race

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LANSING, Mich. — Peter Meijer, a Republican who served one term in Congress before being ousted by voters following a vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump, announced Monday that he will run for an open U.S. Senate seat in Michigan.

Meijer joins a field of more than a dozen candidates vying for a seat that’s been held by Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow for more than two decades. Stabenow shocked many in the state in January by announcing her retirement, creating a wide open race in the battleground state.

“My wife and I prayed hard about this race and how we can best serve our state and our nation. We considered every aspect of the campaign, and are confident we have the best chance of taking back this seat for the Republicans and fighting hard for a conservative future,” Meijer said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“We are in dark and uncertain times, but we have made it through worse. The challenges are great, but so is our country. If we are to see another great American century, we need leaders who aren’t afraid to be bold, will do the work, and can’t be bought.”

Meijer is an heir to a Midwestern grocery store empire. His name recognition and fundraising ability instantly make him a top candidate in one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races. He joins former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers and former Detroit Police Chief James Craig in the Republican field, while the Democratic field has been led by U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin and includes actor Hill Harper.

Slotkin announced her intentions in February, but the Republican field had remained relatively empty until Rogers announced a campaign in September and Craig did so in October. Slotkin had nearly $4 million more in the bank than any other Senate candidate through September, according to campaign finance numbers released earlier this month.

Meijer, who is from Grand Rapids, is a former Army reserve officer who served in Iraq. He was seen as part of the next generation of Republican leaders when he was elected to the U.S. House in 2020 at only 32 year old. But a vote to impeach Trump just two weeks into Meijer’s first-term made him an immediate target of Trump loyalists.

Meijer was among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 following the deadly mob siege of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He would go on to lose reelection to a Trump-backed primary opponent in 2022 despite having a significant fundraising advantage.

Questions still linger about whether a moderate candidate who voted to impeach Trump can survive a Republican primary. Trump won Michigan in 2016, and his endorsed candidates have overwhelmingly won primaries before losing by wide margins in general elections.

If Meijer could get past the GOP primary, he likely would present a formidable challenge to the Democratic nominee. His surname is one of the most recognizable in the state, and his reputation as a moderate Republican could help in a state that’s trended Democratic in recent years.

Republicans have taken just one of Michigan’s last 15 Senate, races but the margin of victory for Democrats has shrunk every election since Democratic Sen. Carl Levin won reelection in 2008 by a 29% margin. Democratic Sen. Gary Peters won reelection over GOP challenger John James by less than 2% in 2020, the closest race in more than two decades.

Aided in part by turmoil in the GOP, Democrats won decisive victories in 2022, taking control of both chambers of the state legislature for the first time in decades and maintaining control of the governor’s office. The party also won nearly every competitive U.S. House race in Michigan last year.

Defending the Michigan seat could prove crucial for Democrats in their effort to maintain the Senate, where the party holds a 51-49 majority and also faces tough headwinds as they defend seats in Republican-leaning states from West Virginia to Montana and Ohio.

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November 6, 2023
Speaker Johnson led House passage of Israel aid. But the hard part comes next in confronting Biden

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WASHINGTON — As new Speaker Mike Johnson grabbed hold of the House gavel, he made a plea for Americans to “give me a chance” before making up their minds about the newcomer’s ability to lead the far-right House Republican majority that elected him to power.

What Johnson has shown in his first big test as the House passed a nearly $14.5 billion military aid package to Israel is that the easy-going social conservative is more than eager to lift up the priorities of his right flank rather than reach toward the political center in the name of compromise.

By seeking to force the Israel-Hamas war package to be paid for with government spending cuts, something rarely required in emergencies of war or natural disasters, Johnson turned what’s normally an overwhelming bipartisan issue, support for Israel, into one that bitterly split Democrats from Republicans. President Joe Biden threatened a veto.

It’s a stark example of what may come — or not. The looming government shutdown deadline, Biden’s nearly $106 billion request for aid to Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and U.S. border security policy and the presidential impeachment inquiry are all demanding attention from the untested new leader.

“That’s his very first opening move?” asked an incredulous Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a close Biden ally, echoing the sentiment of many Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“Congress is all about what caucus and which members are driving you and setting your priorities,” he said. “And part of the challenge the House seems to be having is the House Republican caucus has deep divisions between their Main Street and their MAGA Republicans.”

Johnson, of Louisiana, is trying to accomplish the seemingly impossible — uniting a fractured House Republican majority where the past GOP leaders before him have very publicly and dramatically fallen short.

The new speaker, who is closely aligned with Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 election, has positioned himself as someone who can unite the GOP’s flanks. A low-key, lower-rung leader, he surprisingly rose to the top spot after more tested or fiery contenders — Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer — were brushed aside to replace the ousted former speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif..

In Johnson, House Republicans ultimately found the leader it now seems they always wanted since taking control in January — a Trump defender who challenged the 2020 election results, voted against certifying the election for Biden and reflects the deeply conservative and growing Christian nationalist wing of the GOP.

“A lot of these people don’t know me,” Johnson told Fox News host Sean Hannity in the first of multiple interviews on the cable show. “Give me a chance. Let me have a chance to lead here, and you will see what I’m really about.”

While Johnson found quick political success in his first week on the job with House passage of the Israel aid package, he is keenly aware it is a short-lived victory. The package, with its plan to pay for the aid with cuts to the IRS, would actually end up costing the government billions in lost revenue from tax dodgers, according to budget scorekeepers. and is headed toward a dismal defeat. The Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has already rejected it.

The speaker took the risk, ceding to the far-right’s demands to reduce the size of government, and calculating that doing so will position House Republicans with the strongest hand as they fight Biden and the Senate.

Jordan, a firebrand former rival allied with Johnson, said the new speaker is doing a “good job.”

But the chairman of the Democratic caucus, Rep. Pete Aguilar, said Johnson took a flat out “wrong” move.

Democrats argue that Johnson could have launched his speakership on a consensus note and won a full vote of support on the Israel aid package, with hundreds of Democrats and Republicans coming together to support the top U.S. ally in the Middle East. But instead he chose a divisive, starkly partisan path.

“We’re learning a lot about the new speaker,” Aguilar of California said at a press conference at the Capitol.

“These are the things that Speaker Johnson has to advocate to appease the most extreme members,” he said. “They are his base. They are who gave him the gavel.”

After so much turmoil in the House this year, there is little time left for Republicans in the majority to accomplish the big goals they promised voters they would set out to do.

The year-end calendar is pressing down on Johnson in disadvantageous ways, starting with this month’s deadline to fund the government by Nov. 17 or risk another federal shutdown. A lapse in government funding is what McCarthy successfully avoided in a compromise with Democrats, but it resulted in Republicans kicking him out of the speaker’s office.

Johnson also has signaled the Biden impeachment inquiry may soon come to actual impeachment proceedings. “I do believe that very soon, we are coming to a point of decision,” he told reporters.

Johnson has promised he would turn next to Ukraine as Congress tries to broker a compromise package that would provide money to help Kyiv fight Russia as part of a broader deal to beef up security at the U.S. Mexico border as well.

During the Hannity interview Johnson signaled a break from the GOP’s rising non-interventionist wing, and vowed the Congress would not “abandon” Ukraine.

“We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine,” he said about the Russian president.

But Johnson said the U.S. has stewardship over “the precious treasure of the American people.” And he said House Republicans want to know the administration’s strategy: “What is the endgame in Ukraine?”

It’s a high-stakes trial for the new speaker, who met with Biden his first day on the job in what he first said was a very good meeting, before questioning the president’s “age and acumen” later on Fox.

The White House and its allies have allowed little of a honeymoon for the new speaker. In the administration’s stark veto message it said the Israel package’s “new and damaging precedent would have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead.”

Still, the White House has begun reaching out to allies over the border security demands Johnson is making in return for the aid to Ukraine.

A former House Republican, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, said Washington is underestimating Johnson.

“You’ll see consistency, consistency out of Mike,” said Mullin. “Mike will not be a guy that’s going to get rattled, he’s not going to get excited.”

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November 3, 2023
Joe Biden’s impeachment is looking more likely

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It is “very likely” that President Biden has committed impeachable offenses, according to Speaker Mike Johnson, who was elected to the office on Wednesday after three weeks of Republican turmoil.

In September, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden. It focused on whether the president was ever influenced by the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden, potentially setting the stage for an impeachment trial. McCarthy said the president faced “allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption,” warranting further investigation.

Biden has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and White House spokesperson Ian Sams said: “House Republicans have been investigating the president for nine months, and they’ve turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. His own GOP members have said so.”

Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity, in his first broadcast interview since becoming speaker, Johnson said that the evidence suggested impeachable offenses had been committed, but he added that he will follow due process.

Johnson said: “The reason we shifted to the impeachment inquiry stage on the president himself was because if, in fact, all the evidence leads to where we believe it will, that’s very likely impeachable offenses.

“That’s listed as a cause for impeachment in the constitution; bribery and other crimes and misdemeanours. Bribery’s listed there, and it looks and smells a lot like that. We’re going to follow the truth wherever it leads. We’re going to engage in due process because, again, we’re the rule of law party,” he said.

“I know people are getting anxious and they’re getting restless and they just want somebody to be impeached, but we don’t do that like the other team. We have to base it on the evidence,” added Johnson.

Newsweek has approached the White House press office for comment via email.

Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican representative who introduced the motion to vacate that saw McCarthy become the first speaker in U.S. history to be removed from office, had described the impeachment inquiry as a “failure theater.”

Speaking to Politico, he said: “I don’t believe that the impeachment effort under Kevin McCarthy was intended to convict Joe Biden as much as it was to save Kevin McCarthy.”

However, Gaetz added that he had greater confidence about the impeachment process under Johnson. He said that the new speaker will “approach this like a lawyer” rather than “a desperate person trying to cling to power.”

Joe Biden holds a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House on October 25, 2023 in Washington, DC. It is “very likely” the president has committed impeachable offences, according to Speaker Mike Johnson, who took office this week.
Drew Angerer/GETTY

On October 20, Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer shared an image of a $200,000 check sent to Joe Biden by his brother James Biden in 2018.

Comer said that James Biden had received “shady” loans totaling $600,000 from a hospital firm. They were based on claims that his family name could help secure a “large investment from the Middle East.”

However, on X, formerly Twitter, Sams posted that the money was clearly marked as a loan repayment.

The White House oversight and investigations spokesperson wrote: “Jamie Comer is pretty desperate to try to distract from Republicans’ speaker mess.

“It’s a loan repayment from when President Biden loaned his brother money. When he was out of office in 2018, no less. It’s right there on the check!” Sams added.

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October 28, 2023
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice advises Republican leader against impeachment

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MADISON, Wis. — There should be no effort to impeach a liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court justice based on what is known now, a former justice advised the Republican legislative leader who asked him to review the issue.

Some Republicans had raised the prospect of impeaching newly elected Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she did not recuse from a redistricting lawsuit seeking to toss GOP-drawn legislative district boundary maps. On Friday, she declined to recuse herself, and the court voted 4-3 along partisan lines to hear the redistricting challenge.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had asked three former justices to review the possibility of impeachment. One of those three, David Prosser, sent Vos an email on Friday, seemingly just before Protasiewicz declined to recuse, advising against moving forward with impeachment.

Prosser turned the email over to the liberal watchdog group American Oversight as part of an open records request.

“To sum up my views, there should be no effort to impeach Justice Protasiewicz on anything we know now,” Prosser wrote to Vos. “Impeachment is so serious, severe, and rare that it should not be considered unless the subject has committed a crime, or the subject has committed indisputable ‘corrupt conduct’ while ‘in office.’”

Vos on Monday made his first comments about Protasiewicz since she declined to recuse from the case and Vos got the email from Prosser. In his statement, Vos did not mention impeachment. He did not return text messages Monday or early Tuesday seeking further comment.

Vos raised the threat of impeachment because he argued that Protasiewicz had prejudged the redistricting case when during her campaign she called the current maps “rigged” and “unfair.” Vos also said that her acceptance of nearly $10 million from the Wisconsin Democratic Party would unduly influence her ruling.

Protasiewicz on Friday rejected those arguments, noting that other justices have accepted campaign cash and not recused from cases. She also noted that she never promised or pledged to rule on the redistricting lawsuit in any way.

Other justices, both conservative and liberal, have spoken out in the past on issues that could come before the court, although not always during their run for office like Protasiewicz did. Current justices have also accepted campaign cash from political parties and others with an interest in court cases and haven’t recused themselves. But none of them have faced threats of impeachment.

In his email to Vos, Prosser said he did not think Protasiewicz had met the standard for impeachment, which is reserved for “corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors.”

She has not committed a crime or corrupt conduct, Prosser said.

“In my view, ‘corrupt conduct’ is not a term that is open to a mere political grievance,” Prosser wrote. “If that were the case, legislative bodies could be trading questionable impeachments with considerable frequency.”

Prosser cautioned that using impeachment to delay or affect the outcome of any single case “will be viewed as unreasonable partisan politics.”

Prosser, a former Republican Assembly speaker, was the only one of the former justices who came forward to say they were on the panel created by Vos. But the records he turned over to American Oversight show that he was also apparently working with former Chief Justice Patience Roggensack on looking at impeachment.

The group has filed a lawsuit alleging that the panel Vos created is breaking the state open meetings law.

“Justice Prosser’s opinion letter demonstrates why Speaker Vos’ secret panel needs to operate in public,” said Heather Sawyer, American Oversight’s executive director, in a statement. “We still don’t know everyone involved or what other work has been done, and will keep pressing to ensure that the people of Wisconsin have full transparency and accountability regarding the Speaker’s impeachment plans.”

Vos announced the formation of the impeachment review panel on Sept. 13. Vos refused to say who he asked and Prosser also would not tell a judge when asked during a court hearing on the American Oversight lawsuit last month.

Text messages from Roggensack to Prosser on Sept. 14 show her asking if Prosser is free for a meeting. Prosser also released a voicemail from Roggensack left that same day referring to the text and asking to speak with him on “a matter that I thought we were going to look at together.”

Prosser, during that Sept. 29 hearing, denied the claim made by American Oversight that the panel was a governmental body subject to the state’s open meetings law.

In a voicemail he released from Roggensack from Oct. 2, Roggensack says she wants to talk with him about why “we, whatever we are, are not a governmental body.”

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October 10, 2023
Impeachments and forced removals from office emerge as partisan weapons in the states

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WASHINGTON — Republicans in Wisconsin are threatening to impeach a recently elected state Supreme Court justice and raised the possibility of doing the same to the state’s election director.

A Georgia Republican called for impeaching the Fulton County prosecutor who brought racketeering charges against former President Donald Trump. Republicans in the Pennsylvania House have already impeached the top prosecutor in Philadelphia.

None of the targets met the bar traditionally set for impeachment — credible allegations of committing a crime while in office. Their offense: staking out positions legislative Republicans didn’t like.

As Republicans in Congress begin their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, the process is calling attention to the increasing use of impeachment in the states as a partisan political weapon rather than as a step of last resort for officeholders believed to have committed a serious offense.

It’s not just impeachment. Over the past two years, Republicans also have sought to pry Democrats and nonpartisan executives from office through recalls, legislative maneuvers and forced removals, even when no allegations of wrongdoing have surfaced.

To some, the moves appear anti-democratic — actions that could have major implications if they become routine and supplant the ballot box as the final arbiter of an election.

“If voters cannot go to the voting booth and cast their ballot without the fear of an election being vacated and their vote being rendered null and void, what’s the point of having elections in the first place?” said Melissa Agard, a Democrat who is the Senate minority leader in Wisconsin. “This is the fundamental promise of our nation.”

The political power moves have most recently been on display in her state and generated national attention. Republican legislative leaders there have threatened to impeach a liberal Supreme Court justice, Janet Protasiewicz, who won her seat by more than 10 percentage points this year in an election that flipped the Wisconsin court to liberal control for the first time in 15 years.

Republicans want her to withdraw from redistricting cases involving the state’s heavily gerrymandered political map, which has given the GOP outsize control of the Legislature in a state where Democrats have won most statewide executive offices. They cite her campaign statements and fundraising. even though other justices have acted similarly in the past without sanction.

“Since the founding of our state in 1848, no state Legislature has even introduced articles of impeachment in order to nullify a vote by the people of Wisconsin to gain partisan advantage,” the state’s Democratic Party chair, Ben Wikler, said last month. “It’s a thought that for most of our state’s history has been unthinkable.”

On Friday, the state’s Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the gerrymandered maps on a partisan 4-3 vote, with the new justice declining to step aside, thereby increasing the chances of an impeachment.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has been the most outspoken in threatening impeachment, but has stopped just short of promising to take that action.

“Never once will you find me saying that if she didn’t recuse, we’re going to impeach. I never said that,” Vos said. “What I did say is that is wrong if she doesn’t. She needs to recuse herself if you predetermine an outcome.”

In Pennsylvania, Republicans already voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner over his progressive criminal justice policies when they controlled the state House in 2022, before it flipped to Democratic control. The impeachment trial is indefinitely stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate while Pennsylvania’s highest court considers legal challenges.

A panel of lower-court judges split on the legality of impeaching Krasner, who was reelected overwhelmingly in 2021, but issued a lead opinion casting doubt on the charges. It said they failed to meet the constitutional requirement that reserves impeachment for “misbehavior in office.” The state Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in the case for late November.

After Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought charges against Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, some state legislative and congressional Republicans called for the Legislature to impeach her. The idea was rejected quickly by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who referred to the threats as “political theater.”

A Republican lawmaker, state Sen. Colton Moore, was suspended from the GOP Senate Caucus because of his stance and public comments against his fellow Republicans who had followed Kemp’s lead. Their statement said Moore’s persistent attacks against them for not agreeing to the impeachment was “causing unnecessary tension and hostility.”

The recent impeachment and trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton stands in contrast. Paxton, a Republican, had been indicted on securities fraud charges and was the subject of an FBI investigation when he was impeached last spring by the state House of Representatives, which is controlled by his fellow Republicans. The articles of impeachment included bribery and abuse of public trust. He was acquitted last month by the GOP-controlled Senate, where his wife serves.

Republicans have tried other ways in recent years to remove Democrats or nonpartisans from office even in the absence of any allegation of wrongdoing.

In Florida, two Democratic prosecutors have filed lawsuits challenging their removal by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying his actions were political and without merit. DeSantis has criticized them for being too lenient and addressed his actions during the the second Republican presidential debate.

“When I had two progressive prosecutors that weren’t following the law in Florida, I removed them from their posts, and the people of Florida are safer as a result of it,” he said, adding that if elected president he would have the Justice Department bring civil cases against other progressive prosecutors.

North Carolina Republicans recently passed legislation that, among other things, could allow them to replace the executive director of the state election board, a position the board hires. They’re upset with her over a legal settlement as voting began in 2020 that eased some rules for mailed ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic beyond what state law permitted.

Their supermajority status will allow them to override a veto by the state’s Democratic governor, who called the legislation a “serious threat to our democracy.”

In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom handily defeated a 2021 recall attempt staged by Republicans, who have not won a statewide office in years and based their campaign on the governor’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. No actual wrongdoing was alleged, and Newsom breezed to reelection the following year.

Michigan State University law school professor Brian Kalt described the failed recall as “just another example of polarization and the weaponization of constitutional law to solve political disputes.”

Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said impeachment and recall are intended for cases where there seems to be a clear abuse of power.

“It’s important to have these powers because sometimes you don’t want to wait for a bad actor’s term to end before they’re removed from power,” he said. “But I think what we’ve seen is a greater willingness to play political hardball and that these devices that are meant to stop abuse could potentially be themselves abused.”

___

Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press writer Brooke Schultz in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

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October 8, 2023
These 8 Republicans stood apart to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker

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WASHINGTON — Rep. Kevin McCarthy had support from 208 members of his conference to remain as House speaker. But it took only eight dissenters in his party to boot him from the job.

A handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to make history as McCarthy became the first speaker in U.S. history to be voted out of the position by his colleagues.

Most of the eight have never been members of the McCarthy fan club. They chafed at the deal McCarthy made with President Joe Biden to avoid a federal default. They voted against the bill Congress passed Saturday to keep the federal government operating at current funding levels through mid-November.

Most are also fiscal hardliners who opposed McCarthy’s candidacy for speaker early on. But, McCarthy, soon after announcing he would not seek to run again for the speaker’s job, countered that he did not view the eight as conservatives.

“They don’t get to say they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic,” McCarthy said. “That’s not the party I belong to. The party of Reagan was if you believed in your principles, that you could govern in a conservative way. They are not conservative and they do not have the right to have the title.”

While each has their reasons, the eight lawmakers generally voiced frustration with how McCarthy has moved priority legislation through the chamber, namely spending bills. Some have also described him as untrustworthy and failing to living up to various agreements he made to become speaker back in January, something he hotly disputed Tuesday when he announced he would not seek the post again.

A look at the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy from office, against the overwhelming wishes of their colleagues.

Biggs is serving his fourth term in the House representing a strongly Republican-leaning district in Arizona. He is a former chairman of the hardline House Freedom Caucus. He threw his hat into the ring in the race to become speaker back in January, but won only 10 votes in the first of 15 rounds of voting.

Biggs serves on two of the committees leading up the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden and has long called for his impeachment. He also has been a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and describes him as the leader of the Republican Party.

Biggs complained Tuesday that lawmakers were promised the House would pass 12 annual funding bills in a timely manner, but that wasn’t accomplished before the end of the fiscal year, requiring a stopgap spending bill to avoid a shutdown. He said the annual spending bills are critical to cutting spending and getting rid of duplicative programs.

“Why didn’t we get this stuff done?” he asked at one point in Tuesday’s debate.

“Yes, I think it’s time to make a change,” Biggs said.

Buck is serving his fifth term representing a Colorado district that includes much of the eastern part of the state and some Denver suburbs. He’s got a penchant for being a wildcard as a fiscal conservative, but also someone willing to push back against party leaders when he feels like it.

Most recently, Buck has spoken out against McCarthy’s launch of an impeachment inquiry into Biden, saying that House Republicans itching for impeachment are relying on flimsy evidence.

He also has pointed to concerns about the process for approving spending and complained about stopgap spending bills like the one McCarthy came up with Saturday to keep the government running.

“We are $33 trillion in debt and on track to hit $50 trillion by 2030,” he tweeted after the vote. “We cannot continue to fund the government by continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills. That’s why I voted to oust @SpeakerMcCarthy. We must change course to sensible budgeting and save our country.”

Burchett is serving his third term representing a district in east Tennessee. Burchett served 16 years in Tennessee’s legislature as well as eight years as a mayor before entering Congress.

He said while explaining his vote to oust McCarthy that the House took off the whole month of August despite knowing they needed to get the spending bills done before the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

“At some point, we’ve just got to say enough is enough, folks,” he said in a Twitter video. “I hate losing Kevin as a friend, but I worry about losing our country.”

Crane represents an Arizona district. He is also a former Navy SEAL who served in the military for 13 years. In November, he defeated a Democratic incumbent, Tom O’Halleran, who had held the seat since 2017. He was the lone Republican freshman back in January to come out against McCarthy’s bid to become speaker.

“Each time our majority has had the chance to fight for bold, lasting change for the American people, leadership folded and passed measures with more Democrat support than Republican,” Crane tweeted Tuesday.

Gaetz is serving his fourth term representing a Florida district. He is a close Trump ally who filed the motion to vacate the chair, the procedure used to oust McCarthy, and he led the debate on the House floor for those seeking to pass the motion.

He was also a holdout in January when McCarthy ran to become speaker. The defining moment during that showdown came when Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican ally of McCarthy, angrily confronted Gaetz on the House floor before being pulled back by a colleague.

Gaetz could face political repercussions for his actions, as many Republican lawmakers blame him for this week’s chaos and view him as looking out for himself rather than for the good of the party.

“Look, you all know Matt Gaetz. You know it was personal. It had nothing to do about spending,” McCarthy said. “It all was about getting attention from you. I mean we were getting e-mail fundraisers as he’s doing it.”

Gaetz said McCarthy didn’t follow through on many of the commitments he made to win the speaker’s job, and that’s what drove him.

“Kevin McCarthy is a feature of the swamp. He has risen to power by collecting special interest money and redistributing that money in exchange for favors,” Gaetz said. “We are breaking the fever now, and we should elect a speaker who’s better.”

Good of Virginia won office in 2020 after GOP voters ousted the Republican incumbent, Denver Riggleman, who had angered social conservatives by officiating a gay marriage.

Good said Tuesday that back in January he helped persuade a handful of colleagues to switch their votes to present so that McCarthy could become speaker.

But Good has been harshly critical of the deal to avoid a default and voiced alarm as Republicans prepared to ensure a partial government shutdown did not occur last weekend.

He said that if you’re not willing to endure any kind of shutdown to get the changes you seek, “it’s a recipe to lose, it’s a recipe for surrender.”

“We need a speaker who will fight for something, anything, besides just staying or becoming speaker,” Good said on the House floor Tuesday.

Mace is serving her second term representing a South Carolina district. She graduated from The Citadel, where she was the first female to graduate from its Corps of Cadets. She served as a state representative before coming to Congress.

Mace tweeted her vote to oust McCarthy wasn’t about ideology. “This is about trust and keeping your word. This is about making Congress do its job,” she said.

McCarthy said he called Mace’s chief of staff on Monday saying he didn’t understand how he had not kept his word. He noted that he had helped get Mace elected to Congress.

Rosendale is serving his second term in the House representing a Montana district. He’s a hardliner on fiscal issues who also has voted against U.S. support for Ukraine in repelling Russia’s invasion, citing what he said are more pressing security needs along the southern U.S. border.

“Our country is facing $33 trillion of debt. Our border is facing an unprecedented invasion. And instead of being energy dominant, we are now energy reliant. The House of Representatives and the American people deserve a leader who can challenge the status quo and put an end to this ruin,” Rosendale said following Tuesday’s vote.

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October 3, 2023
9/28: CBS Evening News

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9/28: CBS Evening News – CBS News

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House GOP holds first Biden impeachment proceeding; A look back at one of the most iconic photos in hip-hop history

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September 28, 2023
9/28: Prime Time with John Dickerson

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John Dickerson reports on the first hearing in the Biden impeachment inquiry, the looming government shutdown, and why chronic school absences are on the rise.

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September 28, 2023
House GOP holds first Biden impeachment proceeding

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House GOP holds first Biden impeachment proceeding – CBS News

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House Republicans on Thursday held their first impeachment proceeding, seeking to tie President Biden to his son Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings. Nikole Killion has details.

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September 28, 2023
Takeaways from President Biden’s first impeachment hearing by House Oversight panel | CNN Politics

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CNN
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House Republicans kicked off their first impeachment inquiry hearing Thursday laying out the allegations they will pursue against President Joe Biden, though their expert witnesses acknowledged Republicans don’t yet have the evidence to prove the accusation they’re leveling.

Thursday’s hearing in the House Oversight Committee didn’t include witnesses who could speak directly to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealing at the center of the inquiry, but the hearing offered Republicans the chance to show some of the evidence they’ve uncovered to date.

None of that evidence has shown Joe Biden received any financial benefit from his son’s business dealings, but Republicans said at Thursday’s hearing what they’ve found so far has given them the justification to launch their impeachment inquiry.

Democrats responded by accusing Republicans of doing Donald Trump’s bidding and raising his and his family’s various foreign dealings themselves, as well as Trump’s attempts to get Ukraine to investigate in 2019 the same allegations now being raised in the impeachment inquiry.

Here’s takeaways from Thursday’s first impeachment inquiry hearing:

While Republicans leveled accusations of corruption against Joe Biden over his son’s business dealings, the GOP expert witnesses who testified Thursday were not ready to go that far.

Forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, one of the GOP witnesses, undercut Republicans’ main narrative by saying there wasn’t enough evidence yet for him to conclude that there was “corruption” by the Bidens.

“I am not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud or wrongdoing,” Dubinsky said. “More information needs to be gathered before I can make such an assessment.”

He said there was a “smokescreen” surrounding Hunter Biden’s finances, including complex overseas shell companies, which he said raise questions for a fraud expert about possible “illicit” activities.

Conservative law professor Jonathan Turley also said that the House does not yet have evidence to support articles of impeachment against Joe Biden, but argued that House Republicans were justified in opening an impeachment inquiry.

“I want to emphasize what it is that we’re here today for. This is a question of an impeachment inquiry. It is not a vote on articles of impeachment,” Turley said. “In fact, I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. That is something that an inquiry has to establish. But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden.”

Turley said that Biden’s false statements about his knowledge of Hunter Biden’s business endeavors, as well as the unproven allegations that Biden may have benefited from his son’s business deals, were reason for the House to move forward with the impeachment inquiry. (CNN has previously reported that Joe Biden’s unequivocal denials of any business-related contact with his son have been undercut over time, including by evidence uncovered by House Republicans.)

Turley, a George Washington University Law School professor, has repeatedly backed up Republican arguments on key legal matters in recent years, including his opposition to Trump’s first and second impeachments.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, pushed Turley further on his comments, asking whether he would vote “no” today on impeachment.

“On this evidence, certainly,” Turley said. “At the moment, these are allegations. There is some credible evidence there that is the basis of the allegations.”

House Republicans opened their first impeachment hearing Thursday with a series of lofty claims against the president, as they try to connect him to his son’s “corrupt” business dealings overseas.

House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer claimed the GOP probes have “uncovered a mountain of evidence revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain,” even though he hasn’t put forward any concrete evidence backing up that massive allegation.

Two other Republican committee chairs further pressed their case, including by citing some of the newly released Internal Revenue Service documents, which two IRS whistleblowers claim show how the Justice Department intervened in the Hunter Biden criminal probe to protect the Biden family. However, many of their examples of alleged wrongdoing occurred during the Trump administration before Joe Biden took office.

Ahead of the hearing, the Republican chairs released a formal framework laying out the scope of their probe, saying it “will span the time of Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency to the present, including his time out of office.”

The document outlines specific lines of inquiry, including whether Biden engaged in “corruption, bribery, and influence peddling” – none of which Republicans have proved yet.

The memo included four questions the Republicans are seeking to answer related to whether Biden took any action related to payments his family received or if the president obstructed the investigations into Hunter Biden.

At the close of the hearing Thursday, Comer announced that he was issuing subpoenas for the bank records of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and brother, James Biden.

The subpoenas will be for Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records, a source familiar with the subpoenas confirmed.

The subpoenas are not a surprise, as Comer has been signaling his intention to issue the subpoenas for the personal bank records. They show where Republicans will head next in their investigation as they continue to seek evidence to substantiate their unproven allegations about the president.

Some inside the GOP expressed frustration to CNN in real time with how the House GOP’s first impeachment inquiry hearing is playing out, as the Republican witnesses directly undercut the GOP’s own narrative and admit there is no evidence that Biden has committed impeachable offenses.

“You want witnesses that make your case. Picking witnesses that refute House Republicans arguments for impeachment is mind blowing,” one senior GOP aide told CNN. “This is an unmitigated disaster.”

One GOP lawmaker also expressed some disappointment with their performance thus far, telling CNN: “I wish we had more outbursts.”

The bar for Thursday’s hearing was set low: Republicans admitted they would not reveal any new evidence, but were hoping to at least make the public case for why their impeachment inquiry is warranted, especially as some of their own members remain skeptical of the push.

But some Republicans are not even paying attention, as Congress is on the brink of a shutdown – a point Democrats hammered during the hearing.

“I haven’t watched or listened to a moment of it,” said another GOP lawmaker. There’s a shutdown looming.”

Democrats repeatedly pointed out that the Republican allegations about foreign payments were tied to money that went mostly Hunter Biden – but not the to the president.

“The majority sits completely empty handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing, no smoking gun, no gun, no smoke,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Oversight committee.

Raskin’s staff brought in the 12,000 pages of bank records the committee has received so far, as Raskin said, “not a single page shows a dime going to President Joe Biden.”

Raskin also had a laptop open displaying a countdown clock for when the government shuts down in a little more than two days – another point Democrats used to bash Republicans for focusing on impeachment and failing to pass bills to fund the government. The Democrats passed the laptop around to each lawmaker as they had their five minutes to question the witnesses.

Their arguments also previewed how Democrats intend to play defense for the White House as Republicans move forward on their impeachment inquiry.

The Democrats needled Republicans for not holding a vote on an impeachment inquiry – one Democrat asked Turley whether he would recommend a vote, which Turley said he would.

House Democrats’ 2019 impeachment of Trump was sparked by Trump’s attempts to push Ukraine to investigate allegations involving Biden and his son’s position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company – some of the same allegations now being probed by the House GOP.

That led Democrats Thursday to push for testimony from Rudy Giuliani, who as Trump’s personal lawyer sought to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine in 2019.

Twice, the Democrats forced the Oversight Committee to vote on Democratic motions to subpoena Giuliani, votes that served as stunts to try to hammer home their argument that Giuliani tried and failed to corroborate the same allegations at the heart of the Biden impeachment inquiry.

“I ask the question: Where in the world is Rudy Giuliani?” said Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, one of the Democrats who forced the procedural vote. “That’s how we got here, ladies and gentlemen. And this committee is afraid to bring him before us and put him on the record. Shame! And the question was raised. What does this have to do with it? It has everything to do with it.”

In addition to Giuliani, Raskin sought testimony from Lev Parnas, an associate of Giuliani’s who was indicted in 2019. Parnas subsequently cooperated with the Democratic impeachment inquiry, including providing a statement from a top official at Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company, stating, “No one from Burisma had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him.”

Several Democrats also raised Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who worked in the White House, receiving $2 billion from Saudi Arabia through a company he formed after leaving the White House.

The Democrats charged that Kushner’s actions were far worse than Hunter Biden’s, because Kushner worked in government, while Biden’s son did not.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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September 28, 2023
House Republicans are set to make their case for Biden impeachment inquiry at first hearing

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WASHINGTON — Republicans have insisted for months that they have the grounds to launch impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden. On Thursday, they will begin formally making their case to the public and their skeptical colleagues in the Senate.

The chairmen of Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means will hold the opening hearing of their impeachment inquiry by reviewing the constitutional and legal questions surrounding their investigation of Biden and what they say are links to his son Hunter’s overseas businesses.

“Based on the evidence, Congress has a duty to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s corruption,” Rep. James Comer, the Oversight chairman, said in a statement this week.

Comer added that the committee plans to “present evidence uncovered to date and hear from legal and financial experts about crimes the Bidens may have committed as they brought in millions at the expense of U.S. interests.”

It’s a high-stakes opening act for Republicans as they begin a process that can lead to the ultimate penalty for a president, punishment for what the Constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” This is all while they face a resistance in the Senate from Republicans who are worried about the political ramifications of another impeachment — and who say Biden’s conviction and removal from office is a near impossibility.

But House Republicans say they are only investigating and have made no final decision on impeaching the president.

The hearing Thursday will not feature witnesses with information about the Bidens or Hunter Biden’s business work. Instead, it will be a soft launch of sorts with testimony from outside experts in tax law, criminal investigations and constitutional legal theory.

Democrats, who decry the investigation as a political ploy aimed at hurting Biden and helping Donald Trump as he runs again for president, said they plan to bring Michael Gerhardt, a law professor who has appeared as expert on two previous impeachment efforts.

In the run-up to the hearing, Republicans were touting a tranche of new documents and bank records that detail wire transfers from a Chinese businessman to Hunter Biden in 2019. Hunter Biden had listed his father’s address on the wire transfer form, which Republicans said provided a clear link to the president.

Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said the address on the wire transfer, which he says was a loan, was listed to the president’s Delaware home only because it was the address on Hunter Biden’s driver’s license and “his only permanent address at the time.”

“Once again Rep. Comer peddles lies to support a premise — some wrongdoing by Hunter Biden or his family — that evaporates in thin air the moment facts come out,” Lowell said in a statement.

Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden for years, since his father was vice president. And while there has been questions raised about the ethics around the family’s international business, none of the evidence so far has proven that the president, in his current or previous office, abused his role, accepted bribes or both.

House Republicans are also looking into the Justice Department investigation in Hunter Biden’s taxes and gun use that began in 2018. Two IRS whistleblowers came forward to Congress in the spring with claims that department officials thwarted their efforts to fully investigate Hunter Biden and his business dealings and the agents faced retaliation when they pushed back.

The claims have since been disputed by IRS and FBI agents who worked on the case.

The central focus of the testimonies have been surrounding an Oct. 7, 2022 meeting that agents from both the IRS and FBI had with David Weiss, U.S. attorney for Delaware, who has been charged with investigating Hunter Biden.

Gary Shapley, a veteran IRS agent who had been assigned to case, testified to Ways and Means committee in May that Weiss said during that meeting that he was not the “deciding person whether charges are filed” against Hunter Biden.

Two FBI agents who were in attendance told lawmakers this month that they have no recollection of Weiss saying that.

But Republicans have pointed to a failed plea deal over the summer as proof that Hunter Biden received preferential treatment because of who his father was.

Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo, the chair of the Ways & Means committee, said that their investigation has shown that “Biden family were afforded special treatment that no other American would receive were they not the son of the President of the United States.”

The impeachment inquiry hearing is taking place as the federal government is days away from what is likely to be a damaging government shutdown that would halt paychecks for millions of federal workers and the military.

Democrats say they plan to use the impending fiscal disaster to question Republicans’ priorities.

“Three days before they’re set to shut down the United States government, Republicans launch a baseless impeachment drive against President Biden,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on Oversight, said Wednesday. “No one can figure out the logic of either course of action.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the impeachment inquiry this month after he yielded to mounting pressure from his right flank to take action against Biden or risk being ousted from his leadership job.

On Tuesday, McCarthy said the latest bank records showing payments from Chinese individuals to Hunter showed that the president lied during his presidential campaign that no one in his family took money from China.

“President Biden had lied to Americans again,” McCarthy told reporters this week.

The hearing Thursday is expected to be the first of many as House Republicans explore how this inquiry will end and whether or not they have the full support of the conference to bring and pass charges against Biden on the House floor. Regardless, any articles of impeachment would then be sent to the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim 51-49 majority.

“It really comes to how do you prioritize your time?” Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican member of leadership, told The Hill recently. “I don’t know of anybody who believes (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer will take it up and actually have a trial and convict a sitting president.”

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September 27, 2023
Texas AG Ken Paxton attacks rivals, doesn’t rule out US Senate run in first remarks since acquittal

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AUSTIN, Texas — AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attacked his Republican rivals and displayed an openness to challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in 2026 while speaking out Wednesday for the first time since his acquittal on corruption charges at his impeachment trial.

He did not discuss accusations that he misused his office to protect a political donor, which were the backbone of Paxton becoming just the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to be impeached. Paxton did not testify during the two-week impeachment trial and is still under FBI investigation.

Instead, Paxton used pre-recorded interviews with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and a Texas conservative activist to lay into Republicans who drove his impeachment and to assert that his career is far from over.

“It became political completely and I didn’t know how it was going to turn out on the political side,” Paxton told Carlson.

Paxton was acquitted by the Texas Senate on Saturday on 16 articles of impeachment. Most of the charges surrounded his relationship with an Austin real estate developer named Nate Paul, who was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks in order to secure more than $170 million in loans. Paul has pleaded not guilty and did not appear at the impeachment trial.

Only two Republicans voted to convict Paxton on any of the impeachment articles, well short of the nine that would have needed to join Senate Democrats in order to remove Paxton from office. The 31 members of the Texas Senate include Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who was required to attend the trial but was barred from voting.

Paxton, who was scheduled Thursday to continue a media blitz with conservative hosts, picked up where his defense team left off in the trial and called his impeachment a political plot orchestrated by Republican rivals.

He also criticized Cornyn, who in recent years has been one of Texas’ few top Republicans to publicly express concerns with Paxton’s legal troubles.

Asked by Carlson why he doesn’t challenge Cornyn, who is up for reelection in 2026, Paxton said, “Hey look, everything is on the table for me.”

Spokespersons for Cornyn did not immediately return an email seeking comment late Wednesday.

The outcome of the trial far from ended Paxton’s troubles. He still faces trial on felony securities fraud charges, remains under a separate FBI investigation and is in jeopardy of losing his ability to practice law in Texas because of his baseless attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

___

Find AP’s full coverage of the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at: https://apnews.com/hub/ken-paxton

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September 20, 2023
Biden Taunts House Republicans With 3 Mocking Words On Impeachment Effort

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If President Joe Biden is bothered by the impeachment inquiry ordered by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), he’s not letting it show.

The president was asked what he thought about the effort as he arrived back at the White House from a weekend in Delaware on Sunday.

He smiled, then simply offered three words: “Lots of luck!”

McCarthy opened the inquiry last week, claiming GOP lawmakers have “uncovered serious and credible allegations” against Biden.

But if that evidence exists, it hasn’t been made public ― and even some Republican lawmakers are skeptical.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a staunch conservative and member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, said last week that impeachment proceedings should begin only when there’s evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.

“That doesn’t exist right now,” he said on MSNBC.

The White House slammed McCarthy.

“He vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, now he flip-flopped because he doesn’t have support,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said last week. “This is extreme politics at its worst.”

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September 17, 2023
Ken Paxton, Texas’s MAGA Attorney General, Acquitted in Impeachment Trial

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Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General and staunch Donald Trump ally, was found not guilty by the Texas Senate on 16 impeachment charges Saturday, bringing to a close a tense trial that exposed a growing rift within the Texas GOP.

The ultimate vote on bribery and abuse of office charges wasn’t close: the most Republican votes any article solicited in favor of conviction was two. Not a single article got a majority vote. (A two-thirds margin was required to convict.) The near-unanimous GOP support for Paxton contrasted sharply with May’s vote in the Texas House, when 70% of Republicans voted in favor of impeachment.

Royce West, a Democrat from Dallas, told The Texas Tribune that there was more Republican support for impeachment than implied by the final tally, but that several GOP senators changed their votes after it became clear that the articles didn’t have two-thirds support.

The impeachment articles centered around accusations that Paxton abused his office to help a Texas real estate investor and Paxton campaign donor who was facing many legal issues of his own.

Paxton didn’t hold back after the vote. “The sham impeachment coordinated by the Biden Administration with liberal House Speaker Dade Phelan and his kangaroo court has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, disrupted the work of the Office of Attorney General, and left a dark and permanent stain on the Texas House,” he said in a statement. “The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt.”

Paxton, who has been a legal thorn in the president’s side on issues like abortion, immigration, and transgender rights, addressed the Joe Biden administration directly: “Buckle up, because your lawless policies will not go unchallenged,” he said. The attorney general will immediately return to office, ending a four-month suspension triggered by the May House vote.

Texas Lieutenant General Dan Patrick, a formerly staunch Paxton ally, was forced to preside impartially over the trial. But immediately after the vote ended, he excoriated his colleagues and called for a “full audit” of the case. “Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on this impeachment,” he argued. Phelan, the House Speaker, quickly shot back. Patrick was “confessing his bias and placing his contempt for the people’s House on full display,” Phelan said.

The trial quickly de-escalated a growing inter-party war between the Texas GOP’s more moderate old guard and hard-right faction. Saturday’s vote was undoubtedly a victory for the latter. “Ken Paxton was the flashpoint, and clearly the conservative wing of the party won,” Nick Maddux, a Republican consultant and Paxton’s chief political adviser, told The New York Times.

Before and during the trial, Texas’s MAGA Republicans put significant pressure on the party to rally behind Paxton. That included threats to primary sitting Senators who indicated support for impeachment.

Paxton quickly received congratulations from the former president on Saturday. In a Truth Social post, Trump, who faces scores of legal issues – including 91 criminal charges – called the impeachment trial an instance of “political persecution.” “We should choose our elected officials by VOTING, not by weaponizing government,” he wrote.

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September 17, 2023
Texas AG Ken Paxton was acquitted at his impeachment trial. He still faces legal troubles

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DALLAS — For years, the powers and protections that come with being Texas’ top lawyer have helped Ken Paxton fend off ethics complaints, criminal charges and an FBI investigation.

With the Texas Senate’s Saturday vote to acquit Paxton of corruption charges at his impeachment trial the Republican has once again demonstrated his rare political resilience. And he retains the shield of the attorney general’s office in legal battles still to come.

After being cleared, Paxton, 60, thanked his lawyers for “exposing the absurdity” of the “false allegations” against him, and he promised to resume doing legal battle with the administration of President Joe Biden.

“The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt,” he said in a statement. “Now that this shameful process is over, my work to defend our constitutional rights will resume.”

Back in office, Paxton nonetheless still faces serious risk on three fronts: an ongoing federal investigation into the same allegations that led to his impeachment; a disciplinary proceeding over his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election; and felony securities fraud charges dating to 2015. Here’s what to know about each:

THE FEDERAL INVESTIGATION Paxton came under FBI investigation in 2020 when eight of his top deputies reported him for allegedly breaking the law to help a wealthy donor, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

The former deputies’ accusations that Paxton abused his power to help Paul were at the core of Paxton’s impeachment. Lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives say it was the still-open question of funding a $3.3 million settlement in a lawsuit brought by four of the deputies that sparked the impeachment investigation.

Several of Paxton’s former deputies took the witness stand against him. They recounted going to the FBI and testified that the attorney general tried to help Paul fend off a separate FBI investigation

They also testified that Paul employed a woman with whom Paxton had an extramarital affair. Another former employee, Drew Wicker, said Paxton’s second-in-command later discouraged him from speaking with the FBI.

Paul was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks. He has pleaded not guilty and was not called to testify at the impeachment trial.

The federal investigation of Paxton has dragged on for years and was shifted in February from a prosecutor in Texas to ones in Washington, D.C. In August, federal prosecutors began using a grand jury in San Antonio to examine Paxton and Paul’s dealings, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around grand jury proceedings.

One said the grand jury heard from Wicker, Paxton’s former personal aide. At the impeachment trial, Wicker testified that he once heard a contractor tell Paxton he would need to check with “Nate” about the cost of renovations to the attorney general’s Austin home.

Paxton has consistently denied wrongdoing. One of his defense attorneys, Dan Cogdell, acknowledged in August that authorities were still interviewing witnesses but said the “case will go nowhere at the end of the day.”

THE SECURITIES FRAUD CASE

In 2015, Paxton was indicted on charges of defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup by not disclosing he was being paid by the company, called Servergy, to recruit them. He faces five to 99 years in prison if convicted and has pleaded not guilty.

The indictments were handed up just months after Paxton was sworn in as attorney general. He won a second and third terms despite them.

Paxton’s trial has been delayed by legal debate over whether it should be heard in the Dallas area or Houston, changes in which judge would handle it, and a protracted battle over how much the special prosecutors should get paid.

Weeks after the Republican-led Texas House voted to impeach Paxton, the state’s high criminal court ruled his trial would proceed in Houston. The judge overseeing it said in August that she would set a trial date after the impeachment trial.

Cogdell said that month that if Paxton were removed from office it would open the possibility of him making a plea agreement in the case.

THE DISCIPLINARY HEARING

Also on hold during Paxton’s impeachment trial was an ethics case brought by the state bar.

In 2020, Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to, effectively, overturn then-President Donald Trump’s electoral defeat by Joe Biden based on bogus claims of fraud. The high court threw out the request.

Afterward, the State Bar of Texas received a series of complaints alleging that Paxton and a deputy had committed professional misconduct with the suit. The bar didn’t initially take up the complaints but later launched an investigation.

Last year, the bar sued seeking unspecified discipline for Paxton and his second-in-command, alleging they were “dishonest” with the Supreme Court.

Paxton dismissed the bar’s suits as “meritless” political attacks. The attorney general’s office has argued that because it is an executive branch agency and the bar is part of the judicial branch, the cases run afoul of separation of powers under the state constitution.

A judge overseeing the bar’s case against the deputy, Brent Webster, accepted this argument. But he was reversed on appeal in July. That month, another court scheduled arguments in the disciplinary case against Paxton only to delay them when it became clear they would fall in the middle of his impeachment trial.

The attorney general’s office continued to defend Paxton in the case even after he was suspended from office. If he’s found to have violated ethics rules, Paxton faces the prospect of disbarment, suspension or lesser punishments. ___

Find AP’s full coverage of the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at: https://apnews.com/hub/ken-paxton

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September 17, 2023
Why some of Biden’s problems may be overblown at this time | CNN Politics

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CNN
—

President Joe Biden had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. He’s under an impeachment inquiry, his son was indicted in Delaware, inflation seems to be tilting back up, the United Auto Workers went on strike after Biden said they wouldn’t, and the chattering class is talking about him not running for reelection.

Some of these factors explain why my colleague Zach Wolf wrote that “Biden’s two worst weaknesses were exposed” this past week, and it’s also why I’ve written about the president’s difficulties heading into next year.

But while Biden clearly has problems – no president with an approval rating hovering around 40% is in good shape – some of his issues appear to be overblown at this time. Here are three reasons why:

A Washington Post op-ed by columnist David Ignatius that called on Biden not to run for reelection got a lot of play this past week.

Putting aside whether Biden should or shouldn’t run, the fact is that he is running. A lot of people will point to polls (like those from CNN) showing that a majority of Democrats don’t think the party should renominate him.

But these surveys only tell you so much. They’re matching Biden against himself and not anyone else. When asked in the CNN poll to name a preferred alternative to Biden, only a little more than 10% wanted someone else and could name a specific person.

When matched up against the announced Democratic opposition (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson), Biden is crushing it. He’s over 70%, on average, in recent polling.

Moreover, Biden’s job approval rating with Democrats hovers around 80%. That is well above the level at which past incumbents have faced strong primary challenges. Those challenges (such as when Ted Kennedy challenged incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980) came at a time when the president had an approval rating in the 50s or 60s among his own party members.

It is worth analyzing whether the fact that a lot of Democrats don’t think Biden should be renominated masks a larger problem he could face in a general election.

But Biden’s pulling in more than 90% of Democrats in Fox News and Quinnipiac University general election polling released this past week. In both polls, his share slightly exceeded former President Donald Trump’s among Republicans (though within the margin of error).

The fact is Biden’s got problems, but worrying about renomination is not one of them.

From a political point of view, Biden’s connections to his son Hunter have caused the president nothing but heartache. Most voters think Biden did something inappropriate related to his son’s business dealings.

So, it might naturally follow that House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president’s ties to his son’s foreign business deals would be harmful to his political future.

About 40% of voters, on average, think Joe Biden did something illegal. Most voters don’t.

Some Republicans are no doubt hoping that Biden’s own troubles will make their likely nominee (Trump), who is under four indictments, look less bad by comparison. A majority of voters, however, think that Trump committed a crime.

The public doesn’t see the Biden and Trump cases the same way.

A Wall Street Journal poll from the end of August found that a majority of Americans (52%) did not want Biden to be impeached.

Republicans will have to prove their case in the court of public opinion.

It’s conceivable that Republicans will overshoot the mark like they have in the past. The impeachment inquiry into Bill Clinton in 1998 preceded one of the best performances by a president’s party in a midterm election. Clinton’s Democratic Party picked up seats in the House, which has happened three times for the president’s party in midterms over the last century.

To see how impeachment could turn things upside down for the GOP this cycle, consider independent voters. While the vast majority of independents disapprove of the job Biden is doing as president (64%) in our latest CNN poll, only 39% think he did something illegal.

An election about a potentially unpopular impeachment would be better for Biden than one about an issue that really hurts him (such as voters seeing him as too old).

Stop me if you heard this one before: Biden is the president heading into an election, voters are unhappy with the state of the economy, and his party does much better in the elections than a lot of people thought.

That’s what happened in the 2022 midterms.

The inflation rate is lower now than it was then, but it’s on the uptick. Voters, both now and then, overwhelmingly disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy. They even say the economy matters more than any other issue, like they did in 2022.

What none of this data takes into account is that Americans almost always call the economy the top issue, according to Gallup.

Believe it or not, fewer Americans say the economy is the top problem facing the country now (31%) than they have in either the median (40%) or average (45%) presidential election since 1988.

If you think about recent presidential elections in which the economy was the big issue (1992, 2008 and 2012), the state of the economy dominated the headlines.

But as mentioned above, right now, there are a lot of other things going on in the country, as was also the case during the 2022 midterms.

It’s not as if the economy is helping Biden. I’m just not sure it’s hurting him.

After all, there’s a reason why Democrats have consistently outperformed the 2020 presidential baseline in special elections this year.

If things were really that bad for Biden and the Democrats, they’d most likely be losing elections all over the country. That simply isn’t happening at this point.

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September 17, 2023
Timeline leading to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s acquittal in his impeachment trial

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AUSTIN, Texas — A timeline of events that led to the acquittal of three-term Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton during his impeachment trial in the state Senate. The trial started Sept. 5 and ended Sept. 16. The overwhelming impeachment vote in May by the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives suspended 60-year-old Paxton from office.

The acquittal allows him to resume his duties as attorney general.

2015

Paxton takes office as attorney general after more than a decade in the Texas Legislature. He is indicted on felony securities charges by a grand jury in his hometown near Dallas, accused of duping investors in a tech startup. He pleads not guilty to two felony counts, but there has still been no trial. Paxton opens a legal defense fund and accepts $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by his office for Medicaid fraud. An Arizona retiree donates $50,000 to the fund, and Paxton later hires the donor’s son for a high-ranking job that ends with his firing after the man showed child pornography in a meeting.

2020

Several of Paxton’s top aides tell the FBI about concerns that the attorney general was misusing the powers of his office to help wealthy donor and Austin real estate developer Nate Paul with a troubled real estate empire. The FBI opens an investigation and searches Paul’s home. Paxton and his attorneys have denied wrongdoing. Paxton, who is married to a state senator and has gained a national profile as a crusader for conservative Christian legal causes, tells staff members that he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul. In a deposition, Paul says he hired the woman at Paxton’s recommendation. The eight aides who reported Paxton to the FBI are fired or quit, and four later sue under Texas’ whistleblower law.

FEBRUARY 2023

Paxton agrees to settle the whistleblower lawsuit for $3.3 million of taxpayers’ money, which requires legislative approval. Justice Department officials in Washington take over the corruption investigation, removing the case from federal prosecutors in Texas.

MAY 23, 2023

Members of a Republican-led House Committee on General Investigating reveal a corruption investigation into Paxton has been going on quietly for months.

MAY 24, 2023

The committee’s investigation accuses Paxton of committing multiple crimes in office, including felonies. The accusations cover myriad accusations related to his dealings with Paul, including alleged attempts to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and improperly issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul, and firing, harassing and interfering with staff who reported what was going on. The bribery charges stem from Paul allegedly employing the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help, and Paul allegedly paying for expensive renovations to one of Paxton’s homes. Paxton broadly denies any wrongdoing. The committee ended Wednesday’s hearing without acting on the findings and without saying whether a recommendation to impeach or censure Paxton was possible.

MAY 25, 2023

The committee recommends in a unanimous vote that the state’s top lawyer be impeached on 20 articles including bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust.

MAY 26, 2023

The House committee says it was Paxton’s own request for state funds to settle the whistleblower lawsuit that brought about the impeachment recommendation. The $3.3 million payout must be approved by the House and Republican Speaker Dade Phelan says taxpayers should not have to foot the bill. Paxton calls on his supporters to protest when the full House of Representatives takes up impeachment proceedings against him. He decries the proceedings as “political theater” that will “inflict lasting damage on the Texas House,” adding to his earlier claims that it’s an effort to disenfranchise the voters who returned him to office in November.

MAY 27, 2023

The 149-member Texas House of Representatives votes to impeach Paxton. In Texas, an impeached official is automatically suspended from office pending a trial in the Senate.

JUNE 21, 2023 Texas’ Republican-controlled Senate resolves to try Paxton on 16 of the 20 impeachment charges starting Sept. 5. The Senate declined to take up three articles of impeachment dealing with the securities fraud charges against Paxton and a fourth related to his ethics filings. The 31 senators include many of Paxton’s ideological allies and his wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, who is allowed to attend the trial but cannot participate or vote. Two other senators who attend have played a role in the allegations against Paxton. The Senate is composed of 12 Democrats and 19 Republicans. A two-thirds majority — or 21 senators — is required for conviction.

SEPT. 5, 2023

Paxton’s impeachment trial begins in the Texas Senate.

SEPT. 15, 2023

After closing arguments from House impeachment managers and Paxton’s defense attorneys, Texas senators begin deliberating on 16 articles of impeachment and whether to remove him from office.

SEPT. 16, 2023

The Senate finishes deliberating and votes to acquit Paxton on 16 of 20 articles of impeachment. The other four charges were dismissed. The acquittal clears Paxton to return to office after a three-month suspension.

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September 16, 2023
GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is acquitted of 16 impeachment charges following years of corruption allegations

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GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is acquitted of 16 impeachment charges following years of corruption allegations

ByThe Associated Press

September 16, 2023, 1:51 PM

AUSTIN, Texas — GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is acquitted of 16 impeachment charges following years of corruption allegations.

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September 16, 2023
Republican Texas AG Ken Paxton is acquitted of all 16 corruption charges at impeachment trial

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted Saturday of all charges at a historic impeachment trial that divided Republicans over whether to remove a powerful defender of former President Donald Trump after years of scandal and criminal charges.

The verdict reaffirmed Paxton’s durability in America’s biggest red state and is a broader victory for Texas’ hard right after an extraordinary trial that put on display fractures within the GOP nationally heading into the 2024 elections. In the end, Paxton was fully cleared by Senate Republicans, who serve alongside his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.

Angela Paxton was not allowed to vote. But she attended all two weeks of the trial, including the reading of the verdict, when all but two of her fellow 18 Republican senators consistently voted to acquit her husband on 16 impeachment articles that accused him of misconduct, bribery and corruption. Ken Paxton, who was absent for most of the proceedings, did not attend the verdict.

It clears the way for Paxton to reclaim his role as Texas’ top lawyer, more than three months after his stunning impeachment in the Texas House forced him to temporarily step aside.

The outcome far from ends Paxton’s troubles. He still faces trial on felony securities fraud charges, remains under a separate FBI investigation and is in jeopardy of losing his ability to practice law in Texas because of his baseless attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

The jury of 30 senators spent about eight hours deliberating behind closed doors before emerging for the historic vote. A two-thirds majority is required to convict Paxton on any of the charges that accuse Paxton of bribery, corruption and unfitness for office.

The trial has plunged Texas Republicans into unfamiliar waters as they confronted whether Paxton should be removed over allegations that he abused his office to protect a political donor who was under FBI investigation.

For nearly a decade, Paxton has elevated his national profile by rushing his office into polarizing courtroom battles across the U.S., winning acclaim from Donald Trump and the GOP’s hard right.

The case centered on accusations that Paxton misused his office to help one of his donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, who was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks. Paul has pleaded not guilty.

Eight of Paxton’s former deputies reported him to the FBI in 2020, setting off a federal investigation that will continue regardless of the verdict. Federal prosecutors investigating Paxton took testimony in August before a grand jury in San Antonio , according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around the proceeding.

One of the impeachment articles centered on an alleged extramarital affair Paxton had with Laura Olson, who worked for Paul. It allegeed that Paul’s hiring of Olson amounted to a bribe.

Paxton faces an array of legal troubles beyond the impeachment. Besides the federal investigation for the same allegations that gave rise to his impeachment, he also faces a bar disciplinary proceeding over his effort to overturn the 2020 election and has yet to stand trial on state securities fraud charges dating to 2015. He pleaded not guilty in the state case, but his lawyers have said removal from office might open the door to a plea agreement.

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September 16, 2023
Deliberations in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial head into a second day

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AUSTIN, Texas — Deliberations in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ‘s impeachment trial were set to resume Saturday after a jury of mostly Republican senators met for about eight hours without emerging for a historic vote on whether to convict one of their party’s most powerful figures on corruption charges.

The ongoing talks behind closed doors fed a rare lack of assurance about how a vote might go in the Texas Capitol, where a dominant Republican majority typically means that outcomes are seldom in doubt.

The trial has plunged Texas Republicans into unfamiliar waters as they confront whether Paxton should be removed over allegations that he abused his office to protect a political donor who was under FBI investigation. If a verdict is not announced by Sunday night, senators may be sequestered in the Capitol until they reach one.

The suspense has pushed pushed Paxton, whose three terms in office have been marred by scandal and criminal charges, closer to a defining test of his political durability after an extraordinary impeachment that was driven by his fellow Republicans and has widened party fractures in America’s biggest red state. For nearly a decade, Paxton has elevated his national profile by rushing his office into polarizing courtroom battles across the U.S., winning acclaim from Donald Trump and the GOP’s hard right.

Making one final appeal to convict Texas’ top lawyer, impeachment mangers used their closing arguments Friday to cast him as a crook who needed to go.

“If we don’t keep public officials from abusing the powers of their office, then frankly no one can,” Republican state Rep. Andrew Murr, who helped lead the impeachment in the Texas House, said in his closing arguments.

If convicted, Paxton would become Texas’ first statewide official convicted on impeachment charges in more than 100 years. A verdict could arrive later Friday.

In an angry and defiant rebuttal, Paxton lawyer Tony Buzbee unleashed attacks on a wide-ranging cast of figures both inside and outside the Texas Capitol, mocking a Texas Ranger who warned Paxton he was risking indictment and another accuser who cried on the witness stand.

Leaning into divisions among Republicans, Buzbee portrayed the impeachment as a plot orchestrated by an old guard of GOP rivals. He singled out George P. Bush, the nephew of former President George W. Bush who challenged Paxton in the 2022 Republican primary, punctuating a blistering closing argument that questioned the integrity of FBI agents and railed against Texas’ most famous political dynasty.

“I would suggest to you this is a political witch hunt,” Buzbee said. “I would suggest to you that this trial has displayed, for the country to see, a partisan fight within the Republican Party.”

Paxton returned for closing arguments after not attending most of the two-week trial. Sitting across the room was his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who was required to be present for the whole trial but was barred from participating in deliberations or voting on her husband’s political fate.

The case centers on accusations that Paxton misused his office to help one of his donors, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, who was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks. Paul has pleaded not guilty.

Eight of Paxton’s former deputies reported him to the FBI in 2020, setting off a federal investigation that will continue regardless of the verdict. Federal prosecutors investigating Paxton took testimony in August before a grand jury in San Antonio , according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of secrecy rules around the proceeding.

One said the grand jury heard from Drew Wicker, Paxton’s former personal aide. At the impeachment trial, Wicker testified that he once heard a contractor tell Paxton he would need to check with “Nate” about the cost of renovations to the attorney general’s Austin home.

During closing arguments, the defense told senators there was either no evidence for the charges or that there wasn’t enough to rise beyond a reasonable doubt. The House impeachment managers, by contrast, walked through specific documents and played clips of testimony by the deputies who reported Paxton to the FBI.

One of the impeachment articles centers on an alleged extramarital affair Paxton had with Laura Olson, who worked for Paul. It alleges that Paul’s hiring of Olson amounted to a bribe. She was called to the witness stand but ultimately never testified. Another article alleges the developer also bribed Paxton by paying for his home renovations.

The verdict will be decided by 30 of the 31 state senators, most of them Republicans. Convicting Paxton on any of the 16 articles of impeachment requires a two-thirds majority, meaning if all 12 Democrats vote to convict, they would need nine Republicans to join them.

Paxton faces an array of legal troubles beyond the impeachment. Besides the federal investigation for the same allegations that gave rise to his impeachment, he also faces a bar disciplinary proceeding over his effort to overturn the 2020 election and has yet to stand trial on state securities fraud charges dating to 2015.

He pleaded not guilty in the state case, but his lawyers have said removal from office might open the door to a plea agreement.

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Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas and Jim Vertuno in Austin contributed to this report.

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Find AP’s full coverage of the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at: https://apnews.com/hub/ken-paxton

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September 15, 2023

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