TODAY IN CONGRESS (C-SPAN TV SCHEDULE) & More:
First, thanks for all who helped to get yesterday’s post on the Rec. List. Very much appreciate the recognition. Although I never am able to predict which posts will be popular, and I thought yesterday’s was a sure loser. But what do I know!
I am posting the daily C-Span TV schedule, when I can, for those here who may be interested in tuning in to see what Congress is up to. Also, I have provided the results of the previous day’s votes on some significant Bills/Resolutions, when Congress was in session the previous day. Lastly, I have provided an update on the status of numerous Congressional Subpoenas and other Committee action.
Here’s today’s schedule with the events I think may be the most interesting in bold. You can watch C-Span HERE. NOTE: Sometimes C-Span posts additional Congressional events not on my list, later in the day.
House:
10:00 am — House Morning Session (General Speeches)
12:00 pm — House Session (The House will debate and vote on a resolution authorizing the Judiciary Committee to pursue court action on subpoenas issued for former and current Trump administration officials.)
Senate:
10:00 am — Senate Session (Following Leader remarks, the Senate will continue to work on judicial and executive nominations.)
10:00 am — Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Border Security (The acting Homeland Security Secretary, Kevin McAleenan, testifies on border security before the Senate Judiciary Committee.)
2:30 pm — Secretary of State Pompeo Testifies at International Narcotics Control Hearing (Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) convene a hearing on how the U.S. can better aid international narcotics control efforts. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be one of the witnesses testifying.)
Yesterday’s Votes:
House:
1. House Resolution 542 (H.R. 542) Vote On Passage of the “Supporting Research and Development for First Responders Act” (This bill directs the Department of Homeland Security to designate the National Urban Security Technology Laboratory, previously known as the Environmental Measurements Laboratory. The laboratory shall (1) conduct tests, evaluations, and assessments of current and emerging technologies for emergency response providers, including cybersecurity of such technologies that can connect to the Internet; (2) conduct research and development on radiological and nuclear response and recovery; and (3) act as a technical advisor to emergency response providers.)
Democrats- 216 Yes 0 No 0 Present 18 Not Voting
Republicans- 179 Yes 3 No 0 Present 16 Not Voting
Totals- 395 Yes 3 No 0 Present 34 Not Voting
PASSED
Voting Details HERE.
2. House Resolution 2539 (H.R. 2539) Vote On Passage of the “Strengthening Local Transportation Security Capabilities Act of 2019” (To require the Secretary of Homeland Security to prioritize the assignment of certain officers and intelligence analysts from the Transportation Security Administration and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis of the Department of Homeland Security to locations with participating State, local, and regional fusion centers in jurisdictions with a high-risk surface transportation asset in order to enhance the security of such assets, including by improving timely sharing of classified information regarding terrorist and other threats, and for other purposes.)
Democrats- 217 Yes 0 No 0 Present 17 Not Voting
Republicans- 167 Yes 13 No 0 Present 18 Not Voting
Totals- 384 Yes 13 No 0 Present 35 Not Voting
PASSED
Voting Details HERE.
3. House Resolution 2590 (H.R. 2590) Vote On Passage of the “DHS Overseas Personnel Enhancement Act of 2019” (To require a Department of Homeland Security overseas personnel enhancement plan, and for other purposes.)
Democrats- 215 Yes 0 No 0 Present 19 Not Voting
Republicans- 179 Yes 2 No 0 Present 17 Not Voting
Totals- 394 Yes 2 No 0 Present 36 Not Voting
PASSED
Voting Details HERE.
Senate: No significant votes in the Senate, just more nomination confirmations.
Comments:
Today’s Events –
House — All eyes will be on the House Floor today where they will vote on enforcement of House Judiciary Committee subpoenas against AG Barr and Former White House Counsel Don McGahn. To correct the record, these votes will NOT be to hold either Barr or McGahn in Contempt of Congress as originally forecasted. They will be votes on giving the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee the authority to go to Court to enforce these subpoenas. There is of course a lot more to it than that, but because I don’t want to write about the same thing twice in one post, please see all the details below under the “SUBPOENA WARS” header.
Senate — While you are waiting for the House Session to begin at noon, you may want to tune into the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Border Security. Watching Democrats grill Trump’s latest Homeland Security Head over immigration is bound to be entertaining.
Yesterday’s Votes:
House — I posted the voting results on three (3) Bills above, not because they represent highly significant legislation, although some of you might consider these Bills important. But because of what the voting tallies on each of them represent. They are all Bills that originated from Democrats and which passed with nearly 100% Republican support (there were of course a few “no” votes from certain Republicans who probably would vote against making it a Federal crime to steal candy from babies if it was a “D” Bill). You can’t get much more Bipartisan than that. The point is that when Republicans controlled the House, they never gave Democrats any input on such Bills to ensure nearly 100% Democrat support for passage. So when you hear the media claim that both sides are to blame for a lack of Bipartisanship in D.C., remember these Bills. “Both-side-er-rism” is a myth.
Senate — Sorry to sound like a broken record, but it was only another day of confirming crappy Trump nominees.
SUBPOENA WARS — Before I get started, I would like you all to know that much of today’s information on the Subpoena Wars is from last night’s terrific Rachel Maddow Show. Like many of you I find that Rachel’s Show is one of the few media sources that provides well researched information that is thoroughly fact-checked. So I trust in Rachel!
House Judiciary Committee Barr Subpoena — Well, in the face of what was an inevitable Contempt Citation vote in the House, AG William Barr has agreed to partially release some of the supporting documents from the Mueller Report to members of the House Judiciary Committee and their staff. In fact they have already begun letting House staff review some of the documents. As I, and Rachel, understand the “deal” House members and staff are being allowed to go over to DoJ offices and review all the FBI 302 reports which were produced during the course of the Mueller investigation (these FBI 302 reports are detailed notes taken by an FBI agent who was in the room during the voluntary interviews of all the witnesses conducted by Mueller’s team). House members will not be allowed to take copies of these 302 reports with them, but they may be able to take notes (I’m not certain about the notes).
As a result of this sudden spirit of cooperation on Barr’s part, the House leadership has agreed to postpone today’s vote to hold Barr in Contempt of Congress. However, as posted above, the Full House will vote on a resolution to give Judiciary Committee Chairman Nadler the authority to go to Court to enforce the Barr document subpoena. That will allow Nadler to do two things as I, and Rachel, understand it. One (1) is it will allow Nadler to go to Court to actually force Barr into handing over to Congress the redacted portions of the Mueller Report and the FBI 302 reports currently being reviewed by members of the Committee. Something he will certainly do if Barr stops cooperating and draws a line-in-the-sand. The Second, and probably more important thing today’s vote will do is it will allow Nadler to go to Court to directly argue for the release to Congress of all of the “Grand Jury 6e” material both redacted in the Mueller Report and in the transcripts of Mueller Grand Jury witness testimony (Rule 6(e)(2), Fed.R.Crim.P., prohibits "an attorney for the government" from disclosing matters occurring before a grand jury, except as otherwise provided in the rules. However, a Federal Judge can order the release to Congress of such Grand Jury material and they have historically done so on numerous occasions in the past.) Although this provides Nadler with somewhat of an end-around Barr, Barr could still decide to have DoJ argue against the release in Court. But the difference is that since transcripts of Grand Jury testimony are Court documents they can be provided directly by the Court, so the Court’s do not need Barr’s capitulation to release them. These are the facts as to what is going on with the Barr subpoena as I currently understand them.
House Judiciary Committee McGahn Subpoena — So like the Barr subpoena discussed above, today there will be a Full House vote on a resolution to give Judiciary Committee Chairman Nadler the authority to go to Court to enforce the McGahn subpoena to testify and produce documents. Although McGahn has not publicly given any hint that he will comply with his subpoena in any way, the House leadership is also putting on hold a vote to hold McGahn in Contempt of Congress. Since I have not heard any public statements for why the House is not voting on a McGahn contempt citation today, I can only speculate that there maybe some behind-the-scenes tacit agreement where McGahn has said he will cooperate if ordered to do so by a Court. We will have to wait and see.
House Judiciary Committee Mueller Testimony — The Committee is still in negotiations with Mueller’s team about his testimony. However, the committee did hear testimony yesterday from former U.S. attorneys and legal experts, including John Dean, a Trump critic and former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon who served a year in prison in connection with the Watergate scandal. I hope is that this is setting the stage for Mueller’s testimony, but it at least probably helped to increase public and congressional support for a formal Impeachment Inquiry, which is inevitable at some point in my view.
House Judiciary Committee Hicks and Donaldson Subpoenas — No Change. The House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena both Hope Hicks (President Trump’s former long time personal adviser) and Anne Donaldson (Don McGahn’s former Chief of Staff) a few weeks ago. According to Politico, the subpoenas call on both women to produce requested documents by June 4. Then they are scheduled to testify with Hicks on June 19 and Donaldson on June 24. They have both been told by the White House to not respond and so far they have not. They missed the documentary deadline of June 4, so now my guess is the Committee is waiting to see if they are “no shows on June 24 before taking further action to enforce these subpoenas.
House Intelligence Committee Subpoena — House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) postponed a meeting to take “enforcement action” against the Justice Department after it agreed to turn over documents related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Schiff said that the department has agreed to turn over 12 categories of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence materials. So while we wait to see what the Committee will do after it reviews the documents from Barrorrow the Committee will hold a Hearing on the Counterintelligence aspects of the Trump/Russia investigation which should be both interesting and scary.
House Financial Services Committee and House Intelligence Committee Deutsche Bank and Capital One Subpoenas (Trump’s Banking Records) — No change. A federal judge ruled from the bench and rejected President Trump's effort to block congressional subpoenas seeking his financial records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One. But the Trump Organization has filed an Appeal. The appeals court said Friday it will speedily consider President Donald Trump’s challenge to congressional subpoenas seeking financial records from two banks with which he did business. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued a brief order setting a schedule for written arguments to be submitted by July 18, with oral arguments to soon follow.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Subpoena (Financial Records) — No change. A three-judge panel on the appeals court will hear oral arguments on July 12 to determine whether the accounting firm Mazars can hand over Trump's financial records to House Democrats. The court also set a series of deadlines spanning June and July for parties to submit filings arguing their positions in the case.
House Oversight and Reform Committee Subpoena — No Change. House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said Friday his panel will vote next week on holding Attorney General Bill Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt after the pair of top Trump administration officials failed to cooperate with a probe into adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. So we are waiting to see if Cummings follows through with a Committee vote. The deadline to comply was last Thursday.
House Ways & Means Committee Subpoena (Trump’s Tax Returns) — No change. We are waiting for the Committee to enforce its subpoena against Mnuchin and the IRS, and get this dispute into Court. Although I have no idea what the hold up is, especially since this is a slam-dunk case. We are also waiting for Governor Cuomo to sign the Bill allowing NYS to provide NYS tax returns of Federal or State government officials to House Committee Chairman (McNeal) upon his request (including Trump’s NYS returns). But, Chairman McNeal announced last week that he will not request Trump’s State Tax Returns.
More — And now MORE! Do you remember Mueller’s Mystery Case? Well as Rachel reported in her show last night, its still going. She reported that a Judge Hearing a case brought by a News organization to disclose the name of the mystery foreign company and release other information about this case has ruled that the company’s identity must remain under seal because the case is still ongoing. God, my curiosity is killing me.
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