Evening Report — Speakership under threat as House works on foreign aid

©  Greg Nash / The Hill

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declared, “I’m not resigning” amidst a call from some of his GOP colleagues to oust him.

 

“It is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said at a news conference after his caucus met in private.

 

“It is not helpful to the cause, it is not helpful to the country, it does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda which is in the best interest of the American people here — a secure border, sound governance — and it’s not helpful to the unity that we have in the body.”

 

Johnson has put forth a plan for a foreign aid package that would include voting on three separate bills to send assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. A fourth measure would address other national security priorities.

The plan doesn’t include funding for border security provisions that Republican House members, including Johnson, have been fighting for, though. That’s creating backlash among more conservative members, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.), who’ve called for a vote on Johnson’s future as speaker.

“There are people riding him like a horse here,” Massie said. “They don’t care when the horse collapses — I do, because it’s gonna throw our conference into turmoil.”

 

Greene introduced a resolution last month to oust Johnson over ongoing discussions regarding Ukraine aid. Massie is the first Republican to support Greene’s motion.

 

Some hardline conservatives have not said how they would vote if a motion-to-vacate came to the floor, but a large number of Republicans were quick to criticize the ouster push, comparing it to last fall’s lengthy gambit to remove then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from the post. 

• Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) said the motion was “dead wrong.”
• Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) he “can’t support” the motion, citing a lack of viable successor.
• Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) said ousting Johnson is “not in our interest to do it.
• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said ousting Johnson is the “last thing this country needs.”

 

More from The Hill here.

Welcome to Evening Report! I’m Liz Crisp, catching you up from the afternoon and what’s coming tomorrow. Not on the list? Subscribe here.

• Smartmatic, the voting systems provider that became the target of 2020 election conspiracy theories, has settled its defamation suit against conservative media outlet One America News.

• Murders are down about 20 percent in more than 200 cities across the country, according to a new analysis.
• The money race between President Biden and former President Trump is heating up.

Judge Juan Merchan predicts that opening statements in former President Trump’s New York criminal trial could begin as early as Monday, after major progress was made toward seating jurors on Tuesday.

The judge made the projection after swearing in the first six jurors in the historic trial. Trump has been accused of falsifying business documents to cover up a “hush money” payment during the 2016 campaign to an adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump.

Trump’s lawyers have spent most of Tuesday using prospective jurors’ social media posts to attempt to exclude them from the jury pool.

One prospective juror was excused for a social media post that celebrated Trump’s legal loss over a travel ban he enacted as president. 

“Good news!!  Trump lost his court battle on his unlawful travel ban!!!” the juror wrote. “Get him out, and lock him up.”

Trump began the morning defiant, addressing reporters as he entered the courtroom. 

“I was paying a lawyer and marked it down ‘legal expense,’” Trump said. “An accountant I didn’t know marked it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was. And you get indicted over that?”

But Merchan’s patience for Trump was running thin as jurors were being vetted. He accused Trump of making gestures and audible comments while he was about 12 feet away from the pool of potential jurors.

“I wont tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear,” Merchan said, raising his voice.

 

Check out the live updates from The Hill.

The House has delivered two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, setting up a battle in the Senate over whether to hold a full trial.

 

Formal proceedings will likely begin Wednesday, with many Democrats aiming to quickly dismiss the issue. 

 

A motion to dismiss would need only a simple majority to pass, but Republicans are pressing for a full trial.

 

“I intend to give these charges my full and undivided attention,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said. “Of course, that would require that senators actually get the opportunity to hold a trial. And that is exactly what history and precedent dictate.”

 

Opponents of the impeachment effort have argued that Mayorkas’s opponents are in a policy dispute with the Homeland Security leader, but they haven’t produced a case meeting “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

 

“Impeachment should never be used to settle a policy disagreement. Talk about awful precedence — this would set an awful precedent for Congress,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said on the Senate floor.

 

“Every time there’s a policy disagreement in the House, they send it over here to tie the Senate in knots to do an impeachment trial? That’s absurd. That’s an abuse of the process,” he said.

Supreme Court justices appeared to signal skepticism Tuesday over whether the federal obstruction law can be used against people who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Joseph Fischer, a former police officer accused of participating in the riot, is challenging the obstruction of an official proceeding charge he faces.  

The law carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. 

Fischer’s attorney, Jeffrey Green, argued that law was created to more narrowly address acts that affect the “integrity or availability of evidence” — not acts that get in the way of an official proceeding without affecting any evidence or outcome. 

The Department of Justice countered, suggesting that Congress meant for the statute to serve as a “classic catchall” for acts beyond the destruction of records, documents or other objects. 

More than 350 of the Capitol rioters have been faced with charges related to obstructing Congress’s official count of Electoral College votes. (The Hill)

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says that it will likely “take longer than expected” before the central bank to gain the confidence to begin cutting interest rates.

“More recent data show solid growth and continued strength in the labor market but also a lack of further progress so far this year on returning to our 2 percent inflation goal,” Powell said Tuesday during remarks at the Washington Forum on the Canadian Economy. (The Hill)

“Biden’s facing a defining moment on US innovation policy,” writes Joseph P. Allen, executive director of the Bayh-Dole Coalition.

 

“The new ‘Axil of Evil’ is bigger, better armed and power-hungry,” writes Merrill Matthews, resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation in Dallas.

89 days until the Republican National Convention. 

124 days until the Democratic National Convention.  

202 days until the 2024 general election.

Wednesday: Former President Trump‘s hush money trial continues in New York.