Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde (R-GA-09) is championing two budget amendments this week, with both aimed at preventing congressional funding for the Department of Justice, or any state or local government, from being used to prosecute a declared candidate for president, particularly former President Donald Trump. Clyde, who is reportedly willing to allow a government shutdown to force spending cuts from Democrats, is expected to submit the amendments as part of the annual budget process.
The two amendments championed by Clyde, which were originally written by The Article III Project, would specifically forbid federal funding for the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Trump, and would prevent federal dollars from funding local prosecutions in Georgia and New York.
“It’s wrong,” Clyde told WRIC-8 earlier this month, adding “the only way to fix that is to defund it.” Clyde condemned Democrats for, in his view, “[u]sing the tremendous power of the federal government against a political opponent,” which he considered clear “election interference.”
Clyde, a member of the Freedom Caucus, told the outlet he expects Trump to be exonerated in the various cases against him, but stressed that “[t]he penalty is the process,” noting the cases will remove Trump from the campaign trail for extended periods.
Mike Davis, the founder and president of the Article III Project, celebrated Clyde’s decision in a post on X, formerly Twitter. According to Davis, the amendments will “end the Democrats’ unprecedented law-fare and election interference” by forcing prosecutors to “pause these prosecutions until after the 2024 election.”
Cheers to @Rep_Clyde, the all-star House conservative from Georgia.
Congressman Andrew Clyde is championing @Article3Project’s 2 proposed appropriation riders.
To end the Democrats’ unprecedented law-fare and election interference.
Democrats waited 30 months—in the middle of… pic.twitter.com/7SgW6zdgOw
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) September 18, 2023
In a statement to The Georgia Star News, Davis added that “Democrats must pause these prosecutions until the American people have made their choice in the 2024 election,” and urged House Republicans to reign in the prosecutors.
“Republicans must be willing to pull any levers within their power to make this happen, even shutting down the government. If you hold the power of the purse but never use it, what’s the point of holding the House?” Davis told The Star News, “[t]he American people—not Democrat prosecutors, judges, and juries in crime-ridden Democrat-run hellholes like New York City, D.C., and Atlanta—get to decide the presidential election.”
Though unrelated to his efforts to defund the cases against the former president, Clyde recently suggested a shutdown of the federal government would be a positive thing.
According to German-owned Politico, when asked about the possibility of leveraging a government shutdown to force Democrats and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-23) to embrace steeper spending cuts, Clyde told the outlet, “[w]e’ll see how negotiations go” and suggested “folks in leadership are taking us seriously.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Georgia Star News and a reporter for the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
