Taxpayers to Pay $3 Million for Mayorkas Impeachment Defense

Alejandro Mayorkas

The Department of Homeland Security so far has spent $3 million of taxpayer money to defend embattled Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas against impeachment by the House of Representatives, according to documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

The DHS contract with a law firm was to cover the cost of a failed attempt to stave off a House impeachment, as well as to defend President Joe Biden’s homeland security secretary in a possible Senate trial.

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Senate Republicans to Block Border Deal, Putting Ukraine in Limbo

Crowd of immigrants

Senate Republicans will block a procedural motion this week to start debating a bipartisan border security deal following intense opposition to the legislation from the House GOP and former President Donald Trump. 

The bill includes more than $60 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, and the move leaves funding for the war-torn nation in limbo, according to The Hill. 

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House GOP Sets Date for Markup of Mayorkas Impeachment Articles

Alejandro Mayorkas

The House Homeland Security Committee will begin marking up impeachment articles against Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.

The markup process will focus on Mayorkas’ alleged “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the committee announced Wednesday in a statement shared with the DCNF. The committee’s push to impeach Biden’s DHS secretary involves his handling of the southern border, which has been the center of record illegal immigration under his watch.

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House GOP Probes Biden Administration’s Opening of Public Lands to Potential Foreign Ownership

Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee have launched an investigation of the Biden Administration’s proposal to open public lands to private ownership, which includes the possibility of foreigners buying such land.

According to Fox News, the effort is being led by Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), who informed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the investigation’s launch. The proposed rule change from the SEC would allow for a new type of public company, referred to as Natural Asset Companies (NACs), to trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

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House GOP’s Majority to Shrink Further After Ohio Representative Announces Resignation

Bill Johnson

The Republican majority in the House of Representatives will decline to just two seats after the departure of Republican Rep. Bill Johnson of Ohio, whose resignation was announced on Tuesday.

House Republicans’ four-seat majority declined by two members over the month of December following the expulsion of George Santos and the resignation of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the chamber. Johnson’s departure, which he announced in November, will bring the number of Republicans in the chamber to 219, which is just one member more than the 218 seats in a full House that a party needs for a majority.

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House GOP Leadership Pulls Both FISA Bills Following Backlash

House Republican leadership pulled two bills reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from the floor, as Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., faced backlash for allowing two bills to be introduced on the surveillance law.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a member of the House Rules Committee, confirmed to the Washington Examiner late Monday evening that neither of the bills reforming Section 702 would come to the floor for a vote this week. 

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Analysis: Democratic Retirements Could Help the House GOP Grow Its Majority in 2024

House Republicans appear to be in a better position to capitalize off of a wave of congressional retirements, as there are more Democratic-held open seats in swing districts that pose an opportunity for the GOP to flip in 2024.

There are currently 31 House members who are not seeking another term in the lower chamber, including 20 Democrats and 11 Republicans — nearly all of whom hold seats that are considered safe for the GOP. Four Democratic-held open seats in battleground districts in Michigan, Virginia and California are most likely to flip red, while several other seats are also up for grabs by the GOP in 2024, according to political analysts and electoral rankings.

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Commentary: House GOP Needs to Take the Road Show Home

The House Judiciary Committee held a raucous hearing in the Big Apple on Monday to discuss New York City’s rising crime problem. Republicans sought to highlight the poor performance of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is refusing to prosecute various crimes as he instead pursues a criminal case against Donald Trump, and leaving a tide of victims in his wake.

It’s fine, and perhaps politically shrewd, for the GOP to shine a light on crime-enabling local prosecutors jeopardizing the safety of their cities in exchange for partisan witch-hunts. But for the next hearing, congressional Republicans need only walk a few blocks from their House offices to the office of Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

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House GOP Subpoenas Banks Seeking Biden Family Financial Records

The House Oversight Committee has issued subpoenas to multiple banks seeking financial records relating to the Biden family amid its investigation into the first family’s business dealings.

The committee has ordered that Bank of America, Cathay Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and HSBC USA N.A. provide them with the relevant information, Fox News confirmed. They also issued a subpoena to Hunter Biden associated Mervyn Yan.

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As House GOP Secures First Cooperation in Biden Probe, Pressure Grows for Damage Assessment

As House Republicans secure the first government cooperation for their probe of President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, pressure is building in national security circles to conduct a damage assessment that could determine if the storage of national secrets at insecure locations aided foreign powers.

On Thursday, two prominent figures — a new member of the House Intelligence Committee and the FBI’s former intelligence chief — became the latest to add their voices to calls for a national security assessment of the five tranches of documents found at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home and his old think tank office in Washington D.C. since November.

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House GOP Working on Bill to Ban TikTok Across Federal Government

The House Republican Conference is currently working on legislation that may ban the use of TikTok by federal government employees, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

“We’re working on something right now,” said a Republican aide familiar with the matter. The proposal is said to be proceeding through the Judiciary Committee, which is set to be led by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio in the next Congress when the GOP gains a majority.

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House GOP Set to Investigate PayPal for Its Plan to Fine Users for ‘Misinformation’

House Republicans are likely to launch an investigation of PayPal for a now-retracted policy that would fine users up to $2,500 for spreading “misinformation” or posting content that it deemed “objectionable,” per a letter sent to PayPal Tuesday.

The letter demanded that PayPal send House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee and Financial Services Committee written answers to 15 questions about the circumstances surrounding the “Acceptable Use Policy,” which was published by PayPal on Oct. 8. The questions demand PayPal to name those who drafted the policy, who had the authority to approve it, and whether PayPal had coordinated with the Biden administration regarding it.

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House GOP: FBI Retaliating Against Whistleblowers and Conservative Agents

On Thursday, three Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives claimed that the FBI has been actively retaliating against agents who are suspected of being whistleblowers, as well as those who hold conservative beliefs.

As The Daily Caller reports, a letter was sent to Jennifer Moore, Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s Human Resource Branch, detailing these allegations. The letter was signed by three members of the House Judiciary Committee: Congressmen Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), and Mike Johnson (R-La.).

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Dozens of House GOP Reps Urge Pelosi to Drop Masking Rules Following Revised CDC Guidance

Nearly three dozen House GOP representatives this week urged Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to formally drop the House’s strict mask mandate, citing recently updated masking guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the Friday letter, issued from the office of Ohio Rep. Bob Gibbs, 34 Republicans “urge[d] [Pelosi] to immediately return to normal voting procedures and end mandatory mask requirements in the House of Representatives.”

“CDC guidance states fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting except where required by governmental or workplace mandate,” the letter declares. “It is time to update our own workplace regulations. Every member of Congress has had the opportunity to be vaccinated, and you have indicated about 75 percent have taken advantage of this opportunity.”

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Commentary: Asking the Wrong Question About Liz Cheney

To the delight of actual conservatives everywhere, it appears that U.S. Representaative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will soon finally be out of the GOP leadership, rectifying a huge mistake made less than three months ago by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House GOP leadership when they steadfastly supported her against a groundswell of calls from voters for her removal.

At that time, McCarthy passionately defended her presence in leadership ahead of a secret ballot vote, with many describing his contribution as decisive in turning the tide toward keeping Cheney as House GOP conference chairman. That McCarthy would be forced to reverse himself just a few months later shows that his judgment as a leader is fatally flawed.

The question conservatives should be asking now is not why we need to oust Liz Cheney but how she ever got into leadership in the first place?

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Over 100 House Republicans Support Removing Liz Cheney from Leadership Role

Over half of all Republican members of the House of Representatives are prepared to support an effort to remove Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as Chair of the House GOP Conference, according to Breitbart.

It has been reported that approximately 115 House Republicans are committed to voting in favor of a “no confidence” motion on Cheney’s leadership, which could allow for Cheney to be removed and replaced. The position is the third highest-ranking role in House GOP leadership, only behind the House Minority Whip and House Minority Leader.

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Candidate Kendall Qualls Outraises Incumbent Dean Phillips, Again

Republican candidate for MN’s 3rd Congressional District Kendall Qualls has outraised incumbent Dean Phillips (DFL-MN-03) once again. According to the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) July pre-primary reports released last Thursday, Qualls accumulated significantly more campaign contributions and cash-on-hand than Phillips.

In total, Qualls raised over $106,000 more than Phillips, and has about $68,000 more cash-on-hand. Representative Phillips’s $250,000 debt from his previous campaign was also listed on the report.

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House Speaker Glen Casada on Claims He Attempted to Rig and Predetermine Ethics Opinion: ‘Most Maddening Allegation Made to Date’

  House Speaker Glen Casada (R-Franklin) came out swinging against claims that he tried to “rig and predetermine” the outcome of his request for an advisory opinion by the House Ethics Committee, calling it the “most maddening allegation made to date.” The charge was made by House Ethics Committee member Mike Carter (R-Ooltewah) in a three-page statement dated May 17, addressed to Republican Caucus for the House of Representatives, State of Tennessee. “Based on the facts that I now know,” Carter then called for the resignation of Speaker Casada. According to the news report, Carter first provided his statement to Times Free Press prior to sending it to the GOP Caucus. [pdf-embedder url=”https://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Carter-Statement-re-Casada_.pdf”]   Carter’s release of his statement was the first step in what has developed into an unusually public back and forth between him and Casada. In Carter’s original statement, he described the events surrounding an advisory opinion presented for his approval and signature, which included being presented with a statement of facts in the 9th floor Legislative Legal Services Offices of the Cordell Hull Building. While Carter didn’t name who was in the room, referring to them only as “those present,” television news reports trying to cover…

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Trump Ally McCarthy to Lead House Republicans

Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy easily won an internal party election Wednesday to take over the shrunken House GOP caucus, handing the seven-term Californian a familiar role of building the party back to a majority as well as protecting President Donald Trump’s agenda. With current speaker Paul Ryan retiring and the House majority gone, the race for minority leader was McCarthy’s to lose. But rarely has a leader of a party that suffered a major defeat — Democrats wiped out Republicans in GOP-held suburban districts from New York to McCarthy’s own backyard — been so handily rewarded. After pushing past a longshot challenge from Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, McCarthy will be tested by Republicans on and off Capitol Hill who remain angry and divided after their midterm losses and split over how best to move forward. “We’ll be back,” McCarthy promised, claiming a unified front for the Republican leadership team. He won by 159-43 among House Republicans. McCarthy, who has been majority leader under Ryan, acknowledged Republicans “took a beating” in the suburbs in last week’s national elections, especially as the ranks of GOP female lawmakers plummeted from 23 to 13. The GOP…

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Commentary: Jim Jordan – Wartime Leader for the House GOP

Jim Jordan

  Democrats have made it clear that once they take over the House in January 2019 that their “Resistance” will ramp-up to an all-out war on President Trump and the conservative agenda that won him the presidency in 2016 and grew the Republican Senate majority in 2018. House Republicans are faced with a problem all too many of them never really thought about going into the 2018 election: Who should lead us in the war Democrats have declared on President Trump and traditional America? Should it be the current House leadership whose failures and broken promises cost us the majority, who stymied President Trump’s agenda and, in many cases, stood silent or even joined in when President Trump was attacked? Or should it be someone who kept their promises, fought for the conservative agenda and traditional values and defended President Trump when he was attacked? From our perspective if the House Republican Conference wants to fight their way back to the majority, then a wartime leader is needed, and that wartime leader is Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio. For many conservatives the fact that Jordan is not a member of the failed Paul Ryan – Kevin McCarthy leadership team may…

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