by tyler | Oct 2, 2023 | CNN, politics
GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida did not move forward on Monday with his effort to oust Kevin McCarthy from his speakership, saying the California Republican owes him answers and depending on his response there “may be other votes coming – today or this week.”
Gaetz, a frequent critic of McCarthy, has been pushing to oust the speaker by using the congressional mechanism to vacate the chair, which allows any one member the ability to call for a new speaker election, though GOP leadership has a few options to stop or stall such an effort.
Conservatives have threatened to oust McCarthy over relying on Democratic votes, as he did Saturday to advance legislation staving off a government shutdown. Gaetz also cited the possibility of the House holding votes on sending aid to Ukraine as another reason to oust McCarthy.
“Members of the Republican Party might vote differently on a motion to vacate if they heard what the speaker had to share with us about his secret side deal with Joe Biden on Ukraine. I’ll be listening,” he said in closing. “Stay tuned.”
In Sunday remarks responding to the thwarted government shutdown, President Joe Biden called on McCarthy and other Republican leaders to follow through on a commitment to hold a standalone vote on funding for Ukraine as it attempts to fight off Russia’s invasion.
“I hope my friends on the other side keep their word about support for Ukraine. They said they’re going to support Ukraine in a separate vote,” Biden said. “We cannot, under any circumstance, allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted.”
When a reporter asked whether Biden on Sunday would trust McCarthy when the “next deal comes around,” Biden responded, “We just made one about Ukraine. So, we’ll find out.”
McCarthy denied he had made any side deals on promising to put Ukraine funding on the floor, adding that all he did was tell Democrats that if there was a technical issue with the legislation to continue government funding that dealt with transferring existing funds, it could be fixed.
“There is no side deal, so I don’t know who is bringing that up,” McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol. “There is no side deal on Ukraine.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly would not specify any details beyond what Biden said publicly over the weekend.
“There’s obviously bipartisan support to continue the funding to Ukraine,” she said when asked whether Biden was referring to any specific agreement from McCarthy to take up new Ukraine funding.
Earlier on Monday, McCarthy refused to rule out cutting a deal with Democrats in order to survive Gaetz’s push.
“I think this is about the institution. I think it’s too important,” he told CNN. The speaker added that he has not yet spoken with Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries about how Democrats would handle the motion to vacate.
Following his floor remarks, Gaetz said on the steps of the Capitol that “I’m going to be doing it this week” when asked by reporters about when he would bring a motion to vacate to the floor.
Gaetz told CNN he spoke to former President Donald Trump about ousting McCarthy but wouldn’t disclose any details about the conversation, saying he would “keep that between the two of us.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
by tyler | Oct 2, 2023 | CNN, politics
Former President Donald Trump showed up at a Manhattan courtroom for the opening day of the New York civil case against him and his namesake company attacking the judge in the case and the New York attorney general at every possible moment.
Trump’s appearance turned the courthouse into an extension of the campaign trail, where he has railed against the four criminal indictments against him, and now, a civil case where Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last week that Trump and his co-defendants were liable for fraud.
Inside the courtroom, Trump’s attorneys also sparred with the judge as opening statements began, a sign that they’re likely to take a combative approach with a trial that the judge expects to last into December.
Here’s what to know from the first day of Trump’s trial:
Trump’s arrival at the downtown Manhattan courthouse Monday morning turned the event into a spectacle of his own making. Even though he did not have to appear, the former president used the opportunity to bolster his presidential campaign.
The New York attorney general’s case is civil, not criminal, but it threatens his business in New York, and Trump’s appearance underscored that he views it as urgently as the other cases against him brought in other state and federal courts.
In front of the cameras and on his social media site, Trump attacked New York Attorney General Letitia James for bringing the case against him. He attacked the judge for the ruling last week. And he sought to tie them to special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal indictments, even though they are unconnected.
“This has to do with election interference, plain and simple,” Trump said before walking into the courtroom. “They’re trying to damage me, so I don’t do as well as I’m doing in the election.”
When he left the courtroom on a lunch break, Trump returned to the cameras in the hallway – twice – to rail against what he had heard. Trump attacked the judge as an “operative” and said he should be disbarred for ruling against him.
Asked why he showed up in person Monday, Trump returned to a familiar refrain: “Because I want to watch this witch hunt myself.”
The attorney general’s office made clear Monday that it plans to go for the jugular.
Kevin Wallace, an attorney for the AG, urged the judge in his opening statement to bar Trump – who rose to fame and power over 50 years with a real estate empire – from doing business in New York.
Wallace alleged that Trump and his co-defendants conspired to commit persistent and repeated fraud and that Trump’s financial statements convinced banks to take on hidden risk “to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“While it may be one thing to exaggerate for Forbes magazine … you cannot do it while conducting business in the state of New York,” Wallace said.
The opening statement underscored the risk the case poses to Trump and the Trump Organization, the former president’s business in New York, where Trump built up his name and image before he launched the political campaign that led him to the White House in 2016.
James brought the $250 million lawsuit last September, alleging that Trump and his co-defendants committed fraud in inflating assets on financial statements to get better terms on commercial real estate loans and insurance policies.
Last week, Engoron ruled that Trump and his co-defendants were liable for “persistent and repeated” fraud. Trump and his companies could be forced to pay hefty sums in damages for the profits they’ve allegedly garnered through their fraudulent business practices.
In the trial that began Monday, Engoron will consider just how much the Trumps and their businesses will have to pay, and whether they could be banned from engaging in commercial real estate transactions in New York or borrowing from New York banks.
The attorney’s general office is seeking in the trial to prove six additional claims, including falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements and insurance fraud.
With the former president looking on, Trump’s lawyers argued Monday that the attorney general’s case was flawed, saying that the differences in valuations were just part of the commercial real estate business.
Trump attorney Christopher Kise argued there was no intent to defraud and “no victims” in the case.
Kise pointed to documents from Deutsche Bank showing the bank valued Trump’s net worth $2 billion less than Trump did – but still underwrote the loan for Trump.
“They were eager,” he said.
“This is what happens every day in this city,” he added.
Trump attorney Alina Habba also spoke during opening arguments, attacking the judge’s finding in last week’s ruling that valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million (the judge said Monday that his ruling did not specifically value Mar-a-Lago at $18 million, but was citing Palm Beach tax records).
Mar-a-Lago would be sold for at least $1 billion, Habba claimed.
“The value is what someone is willing to pay. The Trump properties are Mona Lisa properties,” she added. “That is not fraud, that is real estate.”
After Habba finished her opening statement – which attacked James for campaigning that she would “get Trump” – Engoron pushed back against the Trump attorney.
The judge noted that the defense team already had tried to dismiss the case claiming by claiming James brought it as a “witch hunt” against Trump. He had already denied the motion, Engoron said, and his ruling had been affirmed by a New York appellate court.
“So Ms. James’ motivations are no longer at issue in this case, are they?” Engoron said.
The judge also sparred with Habba over a discussion about an accounting disclaimer for Mazars, Trump’s former accounting firm. The disclaimer essentially said, “We’re relying on the Trump Organization,” Engoron said. “That’s how I read it.”
“No, your honor,” Habba responded, arguing that the Trump Organization relied on Mazars and “they’re the accountants.”
Trump watched intently during the back and forth between Habba and Engoron.
Later, Kise argued that the problem with the judge issuing summary judgment is that “you haven’t heard the evidence.
“You owe it to the defendants to listen to the evidence,” Kise said. “We have to at least give these witnesses the opportunity to take the stand.”
Kise and Engoron debated whether a valuations expert’s testimony at trial would be considered evidence.
“I intend to be very patient and liberal in listening to things,” Engoron said to Kise
The exchanges underscored how the upcoming trial is going to be contested – especially when the judge, and not a jury, will decide the outcome.
Trial is going to last a long time – and will get in the financial weeds
Kicking off the trial Monday morning, Engoron confirmed that he expects the trial to last more than two months – until December 22, the Friday before Christmas.
The trial is also going to get into the financial weeds, as the New York attorney general’s office and Trump’s lawyers debate financial statements, accounting practices and valuations of property.
Wallace’s opening statement for the attorney general referenced statements of financial condition and played clips of depositions with Trump’s children, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., while addressing “GAAP,” the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
The first witness the attorney general called Monday was Donald Bender, Trump’s long-time accountant at Mazars USA. Bender has since retired from the firm and Mazars no longer prepares Trump’s taxes. The firm resigned and said Trump’s financial statements should no longer be relied upon.
While Trump and his children are expected to be called as witnesses in the trial – appearances that are sure to provide some fireworks – much of the trial is going to focus on the nitty gritty of accounting that’s at the heart of the attorney general’s case that now threatens Trump’s business.
by tyler | Oct 2, 2023 | CNN, politics
Following a showdown on Capitol Hill over government funding, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appears likely to be heading toward a significant leadership test.
The California Republican faces tough vote math, major challenges and the potential threat of a conservative revolt against his speakership.
House Republicans control only a narrow majority, a dynamic that has left McCarthy with little room to maneuver and has given hardline conservatives outsized influence to exert pressure over the speaker.
To win over critics and secure the speaker’s gavel in January, McCarthy and his allies made a series of concessions to conservatives. One major concession was to restore the ability of any one member to offer what’s known as a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair – a move that can trigger a House floor vote to oust the speaker.
Firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, has so far been the most vocal in floating the possibility of using a motion to vacate against McCarthy. He’s threatened to take steps toward ousting McCarthy from his position as soon as this week. Here’s what that means:
In practical terms, a motion to vacate the chair takes the form of a resolution to remove the speaker by declaring the speakership to be vacant. It is a rarely used procedural tool – and no House speaker has ever been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them. But threats over its use can be a powerful way to apply pressure to a speaker.
Any member can file a House resolution to remove the speaker. According to House precedent, a resolution to remove the speaker would be considered privileged, a designation that gives it priority over other issues. But simply filing the resolution does not force a vote on its own, though it would be sure to ignite a political firestorm and a debate over the speaker’s future.
To force a vote, a member would need to come to the House floor and announce their intent to offer the resolution to remove the speaker. Doing that would then require the speaker to put the resolution on the legislative schedule within two legislative days – setting up a showdown on the floor over the issue.
If a member introduces a resolution, but does not announce it from the floor, that would not force a vote or have any immediate impact – making it more of a symbolic threat or warning shot to the speaker.
A vote on the resolution to remove the speaker would require a majority vote to succeed and oust the speaker from their leadership post.
A vote on a resolution to remove the speaker could still be preempted, however, even once it is on track to come to the floor for consideration.
For example, when the resolution is called up on the floor, a motion to table – or kill – the resolution could be offered and would be voted on first. That vote would also only require a simple majority to succeed – and if it did succeed then there would not be a vote directly on the resolution to remove the speaker because the resolution would instead be tabled.
According to the reference guide “House Practice: A Guide to the Rules, Precedents and Procedures of the House,” the speaker is required to submit a confidential list to the Clerk of people “in the order in which each shall act as Speaker pro tempore in the case of a vacancy.”
Should McCarthy suddenly find himself out of his job as speaker, the Clerk will then pull out that list, and the number one name on that list becomes the interim speaker. His or her first order of business: The election of a new speaker – and once again, the House will have to vote as many times as it takes to get someone to 218 votes, or a majority of those present and voting for a speaker.
The last time a high-profile showdown played out on Capitol Hill over a motion to vacate was in 2015 when then-GOP Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina filed a resolution to declare the office of speaker vacant while John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, was serving as speaker. It was not brought to a floor vote, however.
Not long after the resolution was filed, Boehner downplayed its significance, calling it “no big deal.” But a few months later, he announced that he had decided to resign, saying that he had planned to step down at the end of the year but that turmoil within his caucus prompted him to resign earlier than planned.
Another notable incident took place in 1910, when then-House Speaker Joseph Cannon, an Illinois Republican, held onto the speakership after a resolution to remove the speaker came to a vote on the House floor and failed – 155 to 192.
While a push to oust the speaker may loom as a major political threat, there are a number of factors that would make it challenging for such an effort to ultimately succeed in removing the speaker.
“It’s probably harder to remove a speaker using a privileged resolution than people think,” said Matthew Green, a professor of politics at Catholic University in Washington, DC, and author of the book “The Speaker of the House: A Study of Leadership.”
“It requires a pivotal bloc of members of the majority willing to withstand criticism and peer pressure from their partisan colleagues for introducing the resolution, bipartisan agreement that the incumbent speaker should be ousted, and a majority willing to select someone else to replace the speaker.”
“It remains a potent threat as long as people believe it is a viable tool to remove a speaker. If it is actually brought to the floor and fails, it will lose its potency,” Green said.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
by tyler | Sep 28, 2023 | CNN, politics
The US Senate has passed a resolution formalizing business attire as the proper dress code for the floor of the chamber by unanimous consent.
This comes after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer chose to stop enforcing the unwritten requirement, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman’s casual dress became a flashpoint in the Capitol.
The bipartisan bill from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney requires that members abide by a real dress code – rather than an unwritten custom – when on the Senate floor, that includes a coat, tie, and slacks for men. The resolution doesn’t specify what is deemed as business attire for women on the Senate floor.
“Though we’ve never had an official dress code, the events over the past week have made us all feel as though formalizing one is the right path forward,” Schumer said. “I deeply appreciate Senator Fetterman working with me to come to an agreement that we all find acceptable, and of course I appreciate Sen. Manchin and Sen. Romney’s leadership on this issue.”
Before the measure passed, Fetterman told CNN’s Manu Raju that he would wear business attire when presiding over the Senate floor.
Following the vote, Fetterman’s office released a brief statement that included a viral meme photograph of the actor Kevin James.
In 2017, then-House Speaker Paul Ryan relaxed rules on attire after dozens of congresswomen objected to a prohibition on displaying bare arms. In 2019, the attire for women in the Senate was relaxed after then-Senate Rules Committee chair Amy Klobuchar pushed for a change so women could wear sleeveless dresses.
This story has been updated with additional information.
by tyler | Sep 28, 2023 | CNN, politics
Donald Trump, his adult children, and his closest business advisers could be called to testify during the civil fraud trial expected to begin next week in New York.
The former president is listed on the witness lists submitted by the New York attorney general and Trump’s legal team.
Placing someone on a potential witness list does not mean that person will be called to testify. Attorneys for both sides need to be inclusive on their witness lists of any potential person they might want to call, or the judge could exclude the testimony.
Trump previously sat for a deposition in the case and said he had little “if any” role in preparing the financial statements that a New York judge ruled earlier this week were fraudulent.
Also on both lists are Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who are both defendants in the case, and numerous current and former Trump Organization employees, including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg. Most of the witnesses have also testified in videotaped depositions.
In civil cases, defendants can be called to testify and if they refuse, the jury, or in this case Judge Arthur Engoron, can use that against them in weighing the evidence.
The New York attorney general’s office identified 28 witnesses they could call in the case, including Michael Cohen and Ivanka Trump. Ivanka Trump was initially a defendant in the case, but a New York appeals court struck her from the lawsuit saying the claims brought against her were too old.
Trump’s attorneys identified 127 possible witnesses that they would call, including some of the lenders behind the loans at issue in the lawsuit.
The case is scheduled to start Monday. Engoron will decide how much money the Trumps would pay the state after finding the former president and his business engaged in a persistent fraud by using inflated financial statements for nearly a decade.
The state is also seeking to prove the Trumps engaged in insurance fraud and falsified business records. Engoron has set aside nearly three months for the trial.
An appeals court ruling is expected as soon as Thursday that could potentially impact the trial start date.
by tyler | Sep 28, 2023 | CNN, politics
A normally low-profile watchdog agency charged with investigating US national security programs has fractured into a bitter public dispute over proposed reforms to a controversial law that allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners but also sweeps up the communications of American citizens.
The law, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is set to expire at the end of the year and Congress is set to vote on whether to reauthorize it. The five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board on Thursday issued a roughly 300-page report proposing a series of new limits on how federal authorities can use the program. But the board split along partisan lines, with three Democrats voting to release the document and two Republicans issuing their own proposed reforms in annex to the report.
Both sides agree that the program is vital to national security and should be renewed. But debate has flared over what reforms should be put in place to improve protections for Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.
The report is nonbinding – the responsibility to renew or modify the program ultimately lies with Congress – but the panel is a powerful voice on the issue.
“It is, in essence, two reports: A three-member report and a two-member report,” a senior administration official told reporters on Wednesday. “The fact that there’s such division … makes it hard for the hill to know what exactly to do with two competing reports.”
The law as it stands is designed to allow the US intelligence community to collect the communications records of foreign persons based overseas, but it also allows the FBI to search the data it collects for Americans’ information in what critics have called a “backdoor” search.
Democrats on the panel have proposed that intelligence and law enforcement officials should have to receive approval from a federal intelligence court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, any time they want to query the 702 database for information on US citizens. To receive approval, the queries must be “reasonably likely” to turn up foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime. The panel’s Democratic chairwoman, Sharon Bradford Franklin, wants queries to have to meet an even stronger “probable cause” standard to be approved, according to the report.
But the panel’s Republicans, Beth Williams and Richard DiZinno, blasted that proposal as “unmoored from any legal justification,” arguing that it will “make it substantially more difficult to detect and thwart hostile foreign action, including acts of terror, against the United States” without providing any meaningful additional protection to the privacy of American citizens.
The Biden administration has also pushed back against such a requirement, in some ways placing the administration closer to the panel’s Republicans than its Democrats.
The senior administration official called the proposed requirement “the worst of all worlds,” warning that it could cause dangerous delays in national security investigations. The executive branch would possess the information lawfully, have searched it lawfully and would know that its search had returned meaningful results – but wouldn’t be able to review the content of the search results without the FISC’s approval.
The US, the official said, would be “sitting on what we know to be responsive national security information.”
Biden administration officials since last year have been publicly and privately lobbying Congress on the importance of Section 702 and pushing for as few changes as possible.
Twice since the law was initially passed in 2008, privacy and civil liberties advocates have fought for reforms, only to see Congress pass a clean reauthorization in the face of fierce insistence from multiple administrations that it is an irreplaceable tool that allows them to preempt terrorism plots, quickly assist the victims of ransomware attacks and more.
But since the last reauthorization in 2018, the politics surrounding the authority have been scrambled. Section 702 has become the bugbear of conservative Republicans after the revelations that a different section of the same law was inappropriately used to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page. A series of other public revelations about compliance issues within the FBI – as well as the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort – has contributed to an intense Republican distrust of the US intelligence community that the former president has stoked for years in public remarks.
The two Republican members of the panel emphasize in their annex to the overall report that “the evidence clearly shows that what has most worried Americans for decades about government surveillance programs – the improper collection of U.S. person data – is not occurring under the Section 702 program.”
But they nevertheless recommend that Congress should be able to review queries of the database that involve public officials, political candidates, and members of the press “on a regular basis.”
“The best branch to safeguard against political misuse is a political branch accountable to the people – not a court with limited resources, appropriately focused only on legal issues, and operating largely out of the public eye,” the Republicans’ annex reads.
They also recommend stiffer requirements for requests to “unmask” US persons whose names appear blacked out in 702 queries – a practice that Republicans say was weaponized against Trump campaign officials – and the creation of a new criminal statute to penalize those who leak 702 information about Americans.
Key aides and lawmakers who broadly support retaining the authority – particularly national security-minded lawmakers on the House and Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees – have been discussing for months what reforms might be palatable to powerful critics of the law while still preserving the FBI’s ability to do its job.
But at this early stage, there is little consensus around what those reforms might be, according to both House and Senate aides working on the issue. It’s possible that the overall package might have to include reforms beyond just the narrow authority in question to cover a host of other surveillance and classification-related concerns.
